Life Hard
by Soulburnt
Summary: When you're trying to be better after decades of evil, a little encouragement can make all the difference. When Spike gets a nudge out of the crypt and toward Africa a few months early, it changes everything for the Scoobies, for Sunnydale, and for the world. Twice.
1. Early Warning

Disclaimer: These characters and the Buffyverse do not belong to me; this is just me bringing my own (sub)text.

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Summary: It's a hard life when no one sees that you're capable of change or bothers to offer encouragement when you do. Spike has tried several times to be a better man, and in this story, he gets a small amount of help toward that goal. Of course, if someone ever did help Spike, those someones would be female. The story is in two parts, with an 'Intermission' chapter between the two, because if life can be better for Spike, you know he wants life to be better for the people he loves, too.

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[Author's Note: AU character disappears immediately after dropping exposition in this chapter.]

* * *

 **Early Warning**

Sunnydale

May 2001

Someone knocked on the door.

Spike closed his eyes, holding the bottle against his cheek, and slumped further into the battered easy chair, telling himself not to be ridiculous. It must be the bourbon. No one ever knocked. He didn't even bother locking up anymore. Didn't have to repair the door so often that way.

The knock came again, louder, more insistent.

He looked over his shoulder, over the back of the chair. "Sod off," he whispered. No one he knew would knock. There was no one he cared to see, whether he knew them or not. Not anymore. Not now that she was dead.

Giles had borne her body away, while Xander carried Anya and the witches led Dawn toward the hospital. He'd lain in the dirt and rubble, too far gone in grief to move out of the sun. "Spike!" Dawn's voice was shrill with panic, and it got him to his feet, putting most of his weight on his right leg, which was only broken in one place. The left shattered in the fall. Promised, he'd thought disjointedly, and he dodged into shadows until he caught up with them.

He had sat with Dawn while the doctors in Casualty took care of her cuts. Unable to control himself, he'd growled at the two nurses who wanted to see to him. Only the Bit's hand on his had restrained him. One good wallop from the chip would probably have finished him off. Tara had pressed two bags of blood into his hand when the doctors were away, her soft eyes insistent. It was easier to drink than to ask where she got it or to argue with her. Then they took the Nibblet home, and he hadn't seen her since. He'd managed to get back to his crypt, where he'd spent hours not thinking.

Giles had come for a brief visit, warning him not to tell anyone, not until the next Slayer was called, until the Council could determine if one was still needed here. No one came to see him after that. He heard nothing of funeral plans, of Dawn's father, of Glory's fled minions. This was all right with him, as he was too tired to make himself go on. He just wanted to be still and numb.

Spike turned back to the bottle, sloshing the last few fingers around. The liquor wasn't working. He hadn't forgotten any of it. Maybe a fight would do the trick, a moment of violence to block the pain. Whoever was at his door wasn't breathing, had no heartbeat, so they would do nicely. He stirred for the first time in hours, standing up in a more or less fluid motion. His bones had knit whole again. It had been three nights. He pulled together the remnants of Big Bad and put on the mask.

The demon at the door knocked once more, a resigned sound this time. "It's open," he said, choosing his words carefully. The door immediately swung inward. A short young woman stood in the doorway, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.

He never once thought it was her.

"Selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, are we?" The stranger gave a soft, shaky laugh, and took a step into the crypt. "That's far enough," Spike warned, moving out of the shadows, showing her the crossbow, the wooden bolt aimed at her heart.

"Spike?" she asked. "You're real-really here."

"Yeah," he said, sardonically, "I am. Why are you?" He didn't know her, a relief. All he had to be was a demon. Maim and kill. Reborn to it.

After a moment of staring at him, she gave her head a slight shake. "I'm Sally," she said in an oddly soft tone. "I'm, uh, here to deliver a message."

"Like that, is it?" He pointed at her with his chin. "Take off the shirt."

"What?" Her voice was sharper now.

"The flannel shirt," he clarified. "You're wearing two; I don't think it will compromise your maidenly modesty beyond repair." She stood still, as if his words were a freezing spell. Spike lifted the crossbow a bit higher.

"Okay," she said warily, undoing a button of the loose shirt.

"Slowly."

"Ohh," she said in a tone of realization, then smiled. "I don't have any weapons."

"I'll be the judge of that."

She gave him an unreadable look, then stripped the shirt from her shoulders and wadded it into a ball. Twisting around, she tossed it out the open door of the crypt.

The grim set of his mouth eased as she turned to throw the shirt and he saw her in profile. He hadn't heard her breathing, and now he figured she was a young vampire, expendable, not too bright, but… nice rack. Even in a loose tank top, it was obvious why someone had chosen to sire her. Not worth fighting, then, but she might serve as another type of distraction. Why not? He'd done Harmony, after all. Meaningless, but certainly not unpleasant.

"There," she said, spreading her arms wide. "See? Nothing."

"Oh, I see," Spike drawled. He gestured with the crossbow. "Hands against the wall," he said in his best cop voice.

She let her head fall back in frustration. "Honey, we're wasting time. This isn't necessary."

"Time's not your enemy, or mine, is it? Go on," he said, pointing toward her right with the weapon.

Her jaw shifted to a stubborn angle, but she complied, bracing herself against the wall. Spike put the crossbow down and walked silently toward her, his eyes raking over her body. She jerked a bit when he put his hands on her waist. This close, he was sure she was a vampire, and he breathed in, processing her scent. She smelled clean, feminine, and his lids lowered as he contemplated the top of her head, the neat auburn ponytail. He could mount her in a matter of seconds, or he could kill her in less than one. He could take her as his minion. How odd to have possibilities.

Instead, he played the chosen role of cop, frisking her. He leaned his chest against her back, curving his hips against her derriere, and slid his hands along her bare arms. Her muscles tensed, and she turned her head slightly, as if about to say something. Spike spanned her neck with his fingers, sliding his thumbs to the pressure points that would, eventually, put even a vampire down. "Ah, ah. Shh," he murmured against her ear. "Got to do a thorough job here. You might be dangerous." Less unhappy than he had been for days, Spike grinned as he traced the curve of her skull, making sure nothing was hidden in her hair. The Big Bad might just have to start patting down every female visitor to his crypt.

He ran his palms across her shoulders, then along her ribs, checking for weapons. A soft click came to him as she clenched her teeth, and Spike grinned again as he slid his hands over her hips to find a lump in the front of her jeans. He dipped his fingers into the right front pocket and pulled out a key ring, dropped it into his own pocket, and ran his hand across the front of her trousers again, making sure he hadn't missed anything. Spike continued his search, and as he stood back up, he pulled her body roughly against his so he would know if she even twitched, surprised when she didn't turn in his arms. As a rule, vampire girls were easy.

Spike retrieved the keychain from his own pocket and examined it. There was only one key on it, for a Ford, and the Lucite-covered label identified it as fitting a hired car. He raised his eyebrows, then slid the key back into her pocket. Keeping his right hand on her waist, he leaned forward so that he could brace his left arm next to hers. "You're clean," he affirmed, sliding his hand upward over her ribs again. "So, do you want to deliver this message on your back or on your knees? On your back, I suppose. Hard to talk with your mouth –"

She spun away from him faster than he could react, so she was standing in the doorway again, staring at him with clear anger and something less readable. Disappointment?

"Who sent you?" he asked, suddenly tired of the whole thing. Took too much energy to be the Big Bad. "Teeth? Trot on back and tell him he has nice taste in messenger girls. Otherwise, I have–"

"For the past three weeks, I've dreamt of you, dreams so powerful that I've traveled clear across the country," she interrupted in a flat, furious voice, and he realized for the first time that she had a Southern accent, "took my first airplane ride, drove up from Los Angeles, and scoured every cemetery in this burg to find you. Yeah, I have a message for you, and, no, it isn't from some pissant little vampire from 'round this place. Now, pipe down and listen."

His eyes narrowed as he reassessed her. She didn't know who Teeth was, apparently hadn't been affected by his slow, lingering search, and so she wasn't a young, disposable vampire, after all. He gave her an insolent grin, covering his confusion, and swaggered back to his chair to pick up his nearly empty bottle of bourbon. It was also closer to the crossbow. "I like 'em feisty. Say what you came to say."

She took a breath and a couple of steps further into his crypt, pushing the door shut behind her. "I'm here to give you information you need. That's all. To speak truth… to say things you need to hear now. That's all I know." She took another breath. "You've had a foot in two worlds for a long time, being a demon, but fighting alongside Buffy and–"

He interrupted her, biting off his words. "Don't say that name."

"It's hard to find a balance like that, straddling two worlds. You need to choose."

"No choice, really. Demon, aren't I?" He took a swig.

"Are you?" she asked, peering at him as if to see inside. She shrugged. "You're one of a kind, then. You have a choice to make. I'm here to help you make it a little faster. You should go now and get your soul back."

He stared at her, his lips silently mouthing the word 'soul.' Then he shook his head, lifting his upper lip in disgust. He strode past her and wrenched the door open

"Angelus!" he roared. "This your idea of a joke?" He breathed in, reading the air. No grandsire. The only thing out of the ordinary he found was his visitor's discarded shirt. She'd tossed it next to a wooden stake, so old it had weathered gray. He started to pick it up, but stopped. She had knocked, after all. Hell, he didn't walk unarmed through this boneyard himself.

She'd moved a step further into the crypt, as if afraid to be too close to him after his greeting. "Angel has nothing to do with this."

Spike pivoted on his heel. "No, as I tortured him last time we met, I don't suppose he does." He sneered down at her. "You've delivered your message. Bugger off."

She didn't move. "Don't you want to know why?"

"No," he said adamantly. "It doesn't matter why, as the whole thing is bloody impossible." He stalked past her into the tomb, the liquor swishing in the bottom of his bottle.

"The why matters." She shrugged. "You already know how to do it."

He turned back to her, opened his mouth to deny it, then grew still. Why on earth had the thought of that cave-bound demon in Africa come to him, as if it had been in the back of his mind all along? "That's just a legend," he lied, wanting to argue.

"So are vampires." She started to put out a hand, stopped herself. "Leave tonight. You have a lot to do before you come back to Sunnydale."

He half-raised the bottle, not sure if he was going to drink from it or bash her head with it. "No." Her eyes were on his face, beseeching, and he found he couldn't be as rude as he wanted. Bloody women. "I've already got a conscience," he said, gesturing at his temple. "Maybe it's bioelectrical instead of metaphysical, but works just the same." Not that she would have any idea what he was on about.

She took another step closer. "The chip in your head was designed to be used for a short time in a lab, until the subject was… terminated, exterminated. It was never meant for real world conditions, and certainly never meant to last this long. It's already begun to degrade. You can't rely on it. How are you going to keep Dawn safe without the chip? You don't even trust yourself to touch her now."

He tensed and grew infinitely more dangerous. "How do you know so much about the chip?" It was her knowledge of Dawn that he wanted explained, though. Who and what was she? Doc, he thought suddenly. Where had Doc's body gotten to?

"I told you; I've dreamed of you for days. I don't know why, or who sent the dreams," she admitted, shrugging, "but I know you. I know you're a good man. You shouldn't be." He could hear bemusement in her tone. "You promised to keep Dawn safe, and you will. Even without the chip, you'll never hurt Dawn directly. Somehow, you managed to love her. But how is she going to look at you when you get hungry and eat one of her friends, Janice, maybe? You don't love Janice. She's just prey." She took another step closer, and now she was standing directly in front of him. "And you've been hungry a long time."

He met her eyes for a bare second, then turned away. How could she know these things? Knowing them, why would she even bother to be here? There was something in her expression that pained him, something in her eyes that he didn't want to see. "I'll rely on me, then."

She shook her head and made a sidestep so she could keep facing him. "You've been hungry a long time," she repeated in a deliberate voice. "You can't rely on self-control. If she knew your chip was malfunctioning, she would stake you before letting you around your Nibblet."

"Yeah, well," Spike said bitterly. He sat the bottle on the vault.

"She's coming back."

"Who?" His tone was sharp. No one was supposed to know she was gone.

"Buffy. She–"

His fist shot out faster than could be seen, and he did not spare her because she was female. Spike's visitor went down onto the floor of the crypt. "I told you," he rasped. "Don't say that name."

She stared up at him, both hands cradling her cheek, her eyes enormous and full of an expression that he could read. "What?" he asked, looking away from her, hiding the sudden shame on his own face. "You've never been hit before?"

"Not by you." It was in her voice, too.

He clenched his teeth together, then put out a hand to help her up. She ignored it, and was on her feet and in his face, again more quickly than he could anticipate. Some veneer of politeness had been stripped away.

"Do you want to see that on her face? Betrayal? You're a demon, but it's still going to be agony when you see her eyes full of pain, pain that you put there, that shattered trust. She'll forgive you for it, but you'll never forgive yourself. Never.

"She's coming back soon, and she's going to need your help, and right now, soulless, you aren't equipped to help anyone. When things get rough for you, you'll abandon her, be just the next link in the chain that started with her father. She already believes men leave, and you will, too. Not to get away from her, to get away from yourself. The only thing you can do is hurt her."

He moved away a step and covered his ears for a moment to block the words. The backs of his knees hit the seat of the chair, and he fell into it with none of his usual grace. There was no Big Bad façade left, nothing but a miserable demon that had a brief memory of what it was like to be treated as a man. "Shut your gob. Just… shut up."

"Why aren't you dead, Spike? She killed the Master, for Pete's sake. She could have staked you a dozen times over." The woman knelt down in front of him, sitting back on her heels, her hands on the arms of the chair. It should have been a subservient position. "Why didn't you kill her, for that matter? You could have, more than once, even with the chip, no matter the cost to you. You've killed Slayers before."

"Because I love her!" His words were fierce and angry.

She sat up on her knees and put her hands on his shoulders, her head so close that he had to look at her. "Yes, you do. How can that be possible without a soul? Yet, it is. There's a bond between the two of you. She knew it, too, even if she couldn't admit it. When she comes back, she will love you."

He glared at her, tears suddenly standing in his eyes. "She could never love me. I failed her."

"You didn't fail Buffy. You failed, that's all. She knows your heart. You tried."

"She could never love me."

Her hands on his shoulders grew gentle, and she moved closer. "I'm here to speak truth, Spike. She will love you. When people have loved, have been loved, they can be loved again. They can love again," she said, "and love… well, it can conquer anything. You were able to love again." She smiled and leaned her forehead against his, a gesture of affection between vampires, and as he looked into her green eyes, he believed it along with her. Then her next words cut into him more deeply than any sword.

"You loved your mother, and your mother loved you, William, in just the way families are supposed to. She stood there, loving and trusting you, and let you kill her."

Spike jerked, but she was incredibly strong, holding him there without apparent effort. He shook his head, his forehead still touching hers, and closed his eyes.

"You killed her with love in your heart. That shouldn't have been possible. But it was. You wanted to save her from consumption, to give her eternal health. You have such strength of character, William," she said, cupping the back of his neck and changing the name, "Spike, that you love without a soul. Imagine what you'll do with one.

"Your mother wasn't as strong. Don't blame her; there's no other vampire quite like you. What she said, those hurtful things, they weren't true. The demon that occupied her body rifled through her mind, found all her loving memories, and hated them. If you didn't still love her, its words wouldn't have been so abhorrent to you, wouldn't have hurt so much. If your love for each other hadn't been pure, they wouldn't have been so obscene." Her voice grew warmer, full of that impossible thing. "Would they, Spike?" He met her gaze by degrees, replaying the last moments of his mother's unlife over again.

"There. The truth; you know it is. Think of what Angelus would have done in the same situation, if he'd turned his mother. He would have gloried in the perversity." Her voice hardened. "No matter what Drusilla told you over the years, trying to make you believe you were fixated on your mother the way she fixated on her sire, you never wanted that." She let go then, releasing him from her embrace, and stood.

He gazed up at her, tears on his face, confused by her abrupt withdrawal. He thought he knew what it was, the painful thing in her expression, her touch, the thing he had flinched away from… but it made no sense.

"Leave tonight, while it's easy." Her voice was brisk now. "You've got a long way to go and a lot to accomplish, then you need to get over it. When you're done, get back here to Sunnydale and help her friends, watch over Dawn. She'll be safe until then." She played her trump card. "This is how you can keep your promise." The stranger smiled a little and took a couple steps away, apparently done.

Spike stood, staring at her. She knew about the promise. The things she knew about his past… maybe she knew the future. Maybe. "When?"

She understood the question. "Not long. Months. She'll be here before the year turns."

He stared at her. "How can you be sure I'll be… strong enough? Worthy?" His voice was thin.

Her mouth curved, and he could hear the pride in her voice, pride just for him. The Southern accent had slipped back into her words. "Because you told me these things in my dreams, after you'd already done it. You would have come to the same conclusion, honey, done it yourself even if I'd never visited. You're going to take all that anger and confusion you have inside and use it to win back your soul. I was sent just to speed up the process, I think." She smiled at him. "I'm a trigger, a kinder trigger."

He stared at her in confusion. "What trigger?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter, not if you go tonight. I'm not compelling you. It's your decision. You're going to earn your soul. It won't be a curse. It'll be a trophy."

At the word 'curse,' his eyes narrowed, and he straightened up. "Maybe I'll swing by L.A. on my way back and compare souls with Angelus." His voice had regained a measure of cockiness, and he moved into her space.

"People hate what they can't understand, Spike. That's why Angelus always hated you. You were able to do things as a vampire that he couldn't, and you're doing it again." The blond man looked down at her, taken aback. "But it's Angel, now. He's been your family for a long time. If you give it a chance, you might even get to be friends."

"Not bloody likely," he snorted.

"'Stranger things,' as they say." She gave him a small smile, which faded. "Um, good luck," she said, lifting her shoulders awkwardly and turning away from him. She was almost through the open door when his voice stopped her.

"Go with me." God, just to have _someone_ who believed in him….

She turned. Her lips parted, but she didn't speak. After several long seconds, she answered, her voice hoarse. "Oh, honey. I can't. I have someone I have to take care of, too." She looked down, struggling with some emotion, and he could smell her tears before she lifted her face. They smelled like blood, as if he needed any further evidence she was a vampire. Biting her lip, she nodded at him and left.

He stood by the chair, not moving, gazing out the open door into the darkness. There was no doubt. Whoever she was, she cared for him. She didn't even know him, and she cared about him – or, rather, she seemed to know everything about him, and still cared, still believed in him. Spike strode to the door and out of the crypt, looking around. The shirt and her stake were no longer on the ground. He heard a mediocre engine start up two streets over. Could be a Ford rental. Could be anything. She was gone… if she'd ever been there.

He went inside, absently pulling the door closed behind him. Her scent barely lingered, and he looked around the crypt, beginning to think that he had actually gone mad with grief, dreamed the whole thing to make himself believe that he might get to see Buffy again. Bourbon, he thought. I haven't slept. Maybe if I drink enough of it tonight, I can pass out. He walked over to the vault to get the unpromising dregs.

A long, white envelope lay next to the bottle, and he glanced over his shoulder at the door for a brief, startled second. Leaving the envelope on the stone tablet, he turned it with his fingertips until he could read what was written on it. _So you don't have to do anything on the way that you'll regret later._ He lifted the envelope and stared inside at the thick stack of hundred dollar bills.

Traveling money.

It had been real. He crushed the envelope in his hand, thinking of the other things she had said, about his chip, about Dawn. This was how he could keep his promise to his lady. Spike thought hard for a moment, trying to remember his visitor's name, sure that she had introduced herself. He gave up, shrugging, and strode out of the crypt, leaving the unfinished bottle sitting atop the vault, and didn't look back.

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Next Chapter: Spike returns to Sunnydale... and Dawn.


	2. Homecoming

**Homecoming**

Sunnydale

Late July 2001

Odd to be lurking outside the Summers' home without having his fingers curled around a cigarette. Spike hadn't thought of nicotine in a while; his last cigarette had been smoked while walking toward the mouth of a cave in Africa. He didn't crave them. Just something to do with his hands, really.

Spike looked up at the dark window of Buffy's bedroom. He didn't sigh, but closed his eyes a moment against the ache. It wasn't that late; at the very least, he would knock on the front door and see who lived there. A lot might have changed in two months.

There was a flickering glow through the large living room window. Someone was watching television. He glanced around at the front yard, looked at the curtains, testing the air. Everything seemed to be the same. Squaring his shoulders, he put a booted foot on the lowest step leading to the porch. Spike hesitated there a moment, thinking of the night Joyce found out about Buffy's calling, of how effortlessly he and the Slayer had worked together, even as enemies. A smile touched his lips, until he remembered that they were now all three dead.

He closed his eyes again, longer this time. There was one Summers lady left. Time to see about her. He stepped up and knocked on the door, an impatient rap, and heard the television turn off and the sound of a woman walking to the door. Not Dawn, then; she still moved like a child, direct and coltish.

Tara's eyes, half-closed with sleepiness, appeared in the window. They widened when she saw him, and she fumbled with the lock to open the door. "Spike!" she cried and pulled him halfway into the house and into what would have been a bone-crushing embrace for anything human. "Oh, God, Spike! It's s-so good to see you."

He gave her a defensive little hug, then gripped her shoulders and moved her back, pasting a smile on his face. It slipped as he looked into her eyes, full of genuine happiness at finding him on the doorstep. He hid behind a glib remark. "What, you're ready to switch teams, then?" He gave her a fair semblance of a flirty look as he let go of her shoulders.

She grinned at him, then ducked her head, shaking it in the negative. "Wh-where h-have…" She took a breath and redirected. "When did you get back?"

"Uh, just now." He waved his hand, a vague gesture. "I, uh, had to get away for a while," he cleared his throat, and his voice became more forceful, "but I'm back to stay. Worried about the Bit." He shot a glance toward the upstairs, where her scent was strongest. "She all right, then?"

Tara grimaced and shrugged. "All right, but not good. She went to bed about an hour ago." She stepped back so he could come inside, and he did, looking around. There was a laptop computer on the dining room table, but not much else had changed. "Willow and I have been staying here," Tara went on, walking to the couch and reclaiming her spot, "looking out for her. Dawn's father c-couldn't take her this summer."

"Or wouldn't. Chuffer," Spike added caustically, slouching in the wingback chair to her left.

Tara shrugged uncomfortably. "There are some things you should probably –"

He interrupted, sitting up straighter in the chair. "Has anyone, anything bothered her?"

Tara shook her head vigorously, her light brown hair swinging. "No. W-we've been patrolling, Xander and Anya, Giles, Willow and me, most nights. That's where they're at now. Nothing exotic. Mostly vampires this summer."

He nodded, relaxing marginally. "Good, then. I, uh, got myself together, started thinking that I'd better get back to good old Sunnyhell, look out for Dawn." Spike's face tightened as he drew breath to speak and Buffy's lingering scent reached him from some hidden place. "Least I can do."

"Spike?"

He looked up at the sound of his name. Dawn was at the top of the stairs, almost squatting to look through the railing. He glanced at Tara for permission, then moved across the room and up the stairs. He thought Dawn's skin was too pale for an active girl at the end of summer, and her eyes seemed too large in her face. Spike didn't hesitate, but lifted her from the step and into a hug. This was the first thing that felt right since… he couldn't remember when things had last felt right.

It was the first time he'd ever trusted himself to embrace her.

Dawn was crying. "I thought you were dead, too," she said, a break in her voice.

"Oh, no, love. No." He closed his eyes against the pain he heard in her words. "Well, yeah, hovis, that's me, but… I just couldn't stay, is all. It was, uh, wrong of me not to say goodbye to you, but I wasn't thinking too clearly then." He rubbed her back, felt awkward, and settled for patting her shoulderblade roughly. "But I'm back now. Had to, didn't I? Couldn't stay away from the Nibblet." He tried to pull away to see her face.

Dawn clung to him tightly. "You should have taken me with you."

"I, uh, wasn't much use to anyone right after…" Spike trailed off and patted her back once more. He was lousy at this.

"Don't ever leave again," Dawn ordered, finally leaning away to glare at him. She hit his chest suddenly, her small fist nothing, but somehow it hurt him more than half of what he'd been through during the trials. God, her eyes, bringing to mind the look they had shared before he'd been tossed over the side of the tower like so much rubbish.

"I won't," he promised. "'M'here as long as you need me." After a moment, she nodded grudgingly.

Tara watched from the foot of the stairs, her face serene but her eyes full of pain. Spike had just gotten more healthy grief and rage from the girl than she and Willow had in weeks. No matter what Xander might say, the vampire loved Dawn, and not in the creepy way he'd loved Buffy, either.

"You have to stay here," Dawn announced, gripping his arms. "I need you here. I want you to move in, too."

Startled, he let go of her. "No," he said, too harsh. "I… I just couldn't, pet." He looked down, away from the plea in her eyes, and was touched by the sight of the innocent little satin bows on her white slippers. "Figured I'd move back into my old crypt." He gave her a ghost of his cocky smile. "Give you someplace to sneak off to."

She smiled, too, the idea appealing to her. "Oh! I've got something for you." She turned to go up the rest of the stairs, but stopped on the landing and turned to him. "Don't go anywhere," Dawn said, her voice stern.

Spike nodded, then turned his head to meet Tara's eyes. She was watching him shrewdly, a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

"She's missed you," Tara informed him.

"Well, I missed her, too," he admitted. "A little."

Tara fought the smile. "How have you been?" she asked, and the humor faded.

He shrugged. "Better." She was feeling comfortable with him again, he could tell from the smoothness of her words, so he let a trace of nastiness slip into his voice. "Still safely chipped," he added, pointing to his head.

Dawn bounded back down the stairs. "Here you go," she said breathlessly, shoving a wad of black leather at his hands.

He took his coat automatically, feeling the familiar heft of it with a little pang. He couldn't deny the hard truth, that he had taken it from the still-warm corpse of a young woman whose neck he had snapped. But it had been an honorable fight, and the coat was an old friend, a traveling companion, and he had missed it on the way to Africa.

He let it fall to its full length, listening to the creak of leather. The coat was saturated with Dawn's scent. He looked up at the girl. Whatever was on his face made her shrug uncomfortably. "We went looking for you. I took it from your crypt. Just for safekeeping," she added hastily.

"Thank you."

"Um, you can wear it if you go help patrol," she said, shrugging again.

"Right." He took the easy escape. "You should, um, get some sleep. I'll be here tomorrow night, all right? Don't you worry. Go on now, off to bed."

Dawn grabbed him in a quick hug. She let go just as quickly and ran up the stairs, her long brown hair fanning out behind her. Spike looked after her for a moment, then went slowly down the steps to where Tara stood, his coat in his hands.

"She's slept under it, like a blanket, all summer." Tara, watching his face, changed the topic right away. "I-I think they were going to p-patrol in the cemetery where you had your crypt," she told him, stepping back a bit so that his path to the door was clear.

He nodded, appreciating her compassion. It had always been there, not that he'd bothered to notice. "Thanks." He met her eyes, nodded again, and opened the door.

"Spike?"

He turned at the sound of her voice, his brows lifted.

"Thank you. I r-remember what you did, how nice you were to me." She lifted her healed hands reflexively, her mouth tightening at those memories. "It's good to have you back."

He only stared at her, emotion too close to the surface to allow words. He had stood uncertainly on the threshold of this house too many times for a welcome to be taken lightly. For an odd, swimming moment, he pictured Joyce standing where Tara stood, then Buffy in her place. He crumpled the coat in his strong fingers, clenching them over the leather, searching for something real among the many ghosts in his mind. Spike let his gaze drop from Tara's. "Tomorrow, then," he said with a final nod.

He wasn't looking for the Scoobies. After the intense emotions at the Summers' house, all he really wanted to do was spend a while recovering in his Crypt of Solitude. There was bourbon there, if he remembered right. There might also be a fight waiting for him. It really was prime housing for his demographic. He wouldn't mind a spot of violence with a squatter.

His mind circled the short visit at the Summers' house as he walked to the cemetery, worrying at it like a dog with a cornered rat. Tara had been glad to see him; he should have asked how she was recovering from Glory's attack. The gratitude and warmth generated by the first thought did not balance the guilt from the second. Spike's hands were shaking slightly, and he pulled on his coat without conscious decision. And Dawn… he couldn't think about Dawn just yet, the way she fit so perfectly in his embrace, tucked against his heart. God, just a hug, a simple hug… He had held it together, though. That he would even be allowed in their house, with all that he had done… their generosity staggered him; they were too stupid to be allowed to live.

Realizing where he was, his gaze went like a laser sight to the square, white shape across the intersection, nestled carefully in some landscaping. The idiots had rebuilt the damn thing again. With a snarl of hate, he sped toward it, lashing out with an axe kick, then a side kick. Once the right post of the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign was split, he wrenched it in two, part of the planks still attached, and began demolishing the rest of it, grunting like a tennis player on each downstroke. When there was nothing left, he broke the post over his thigh. He stared at the fifteen-inch splinter that remained in his hand. Screw Sunnydale, the town that killed his Slayer.

Spike let his head fall back, exhaling the rest of the air in his lungs in a long stream. It was too much. Almost five weeks now, and it was easier, but still too much. He needed to be alone, in case he couldn't control the tears or the laughter or the force of memories that sometimes left him almost catatonic.

He had done it, gotten his soul. He had gone for Dawn, for the memory of Buffy, but he had fought for himself. By the end, the reason he wouldn't quit was his innate defiance, the desire to rub the cave demon's nose in his victory. The trials had been brutal, but living with a soul was infinitely worse. The last clear memory he had was of meeting Dawn's eyes before Doc shoved him from the platform, then the overwhelming pain of seeing Buffy's body in the morning sun, of being unable to crawl to hers in the wreck of his own. Nothing after that seemed real, not the trip across the Atlantic, the African nights of riding swaying railcars over narrow-gauge tracks, nothing except for a sense of urgency. He had a vague memory, like a fever dream, of the red-headed vampire or whatever she had been, telling him he needed to get back to take care of Dawn. There were other things from her visit, too, the sharp pain associated with memories of his mother, but the burden of his soul overlaid so much these days.

Spike put the stake-sized splinter into a coat pocket and began walking. He had imagined that getting his soul back would be like Ebenezer Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning, giddy with the possibilities for doing good. It had never occurred to him how miserable a soul would make him. Mostly he had thought of it as a better, permanent chip, or the source of wholesome things like love for one's fellow man. He had been dead so long that he'd forgotten it wasn't like that at all. It was pain.

Pain, and so much hate. Where before he couldn't be arsed, now he hated the world for being such a cruel place. He hated himself, of course, for all he had done, for letting Buffy get killed. He hated Dru and Angelus and Darla for what they had made him into. He hated Buffy for dying.

On that thought, he stopped, finding himself almost through the graveyard, his feet having found their automatic path toward home, or what passed for home. His crypt was less than thirty yards away, and he listened as he tested the air, grateful for the opportunity to focus on something else. He wanted to do anything except think about her.

The first thing he heard was the sound of running feet, several people, two small and light, five heavier. He slid into the shadows to observe, lurking just like old times. Two vampires, strangers, ran into his field of vision, closely followed by Xander and Giles. He could hear Anya and probably Willow coming along further behind. Movement to his left caught his attention, and he saw a figure draw back into the darkness. It was a trap. A satisfied smile curved his mouth. Wonder who'd be springing the trap?

He let the two vampires run past him, listened as one pair of feet veered off in a flanking motion and to Giles' and Xander's labored breathing as they passed. Three more vampires slunk out of the shadow of the trees as soon as Anya and Willow ran by. The Scoobies weren't slow on the uptake, he'd give them that. When the vampires who had served as bait turned, the humans started to close ranks, facing outward from a small circle as the trap collapsed on them.

Stakes appeared in their hands as they watched the demons close in. _Xander._ Willow, gasping from the run, sent instructions silently to her friend's mind. _Take the one with the sword. Giles, the one on your–_ She stopped, blinking, as the vampire with the sword turned to dust, his body falling one way, his head another.

Spike stood behind it, the sword now in his hand, his coat billowing around his thighs, perfectly aware of the figure he cut. Then he was across the ground faster than the fledgling vampires could grasp, the sword singing through the air and a neck once more.

Willow met Giles' eyes, but his stunned expression was already changing to one of warning. They seamlessly became a team, Giles hurtling forward to throw his heavier frame against the charging demon while Willow circled it, looking for an opportunity to drive her stake into its back. To their left, Xander and Anya were using the same tactic. It had worked well for them throughout the summer.

The remaining vampire was retreating, his hands held up to placate the dangerous, advancing demon. "Who – who are you?" it asked, eyes wide beneath the arched browbones.

"You don't know?" Spike asked, violence shining within him, blinding him to the roiling emotions. It felt grand. "Legendary dark warrior, I am." He nodded in agreement with himself, smiling. "Come on, then." He snapped the sword over his knee and threw the two halves to the ground. He held his fists up loosely, ready for a righteous brawl. "Come on!"

The young vampire put up its own fists, then turned and fled.

"You cowardly bastard," Spike breathed in surprise. With a snarl, he set off in pursuit through the trees, pausing just long enough to flank Anya and dust the vampire that was menacing Xander. He was faster and closing on the cowed demon when he heard heavy footsteps intercepting their path. Xander or Giles, he thought, and heard a short, sharp cry just ahead and a sigh in the air as matter disintegrated. No fight, then. He slowed, coming upon a short figure in a dark knit cap. It turned, raising the stake in its hand once more. He dropped his, fingers suddenly numb.

"Spike!" Buffy's face lit with delight. Spike caught her has she hurled herself at him, her arms going around his neck, to keep them both from toppling over.

He never for a microsecond thought it was her. It was the robot he had commissioned; he knew from the unexpectedly heavy tread, the scent… the welcoming reaction. Nevertheless, it hurt to see that face, felt like someone had tightened his heart half a turn with a spanner.

"Get off," he said roughly, peeling the robot's arms from around him.

"You are back!" it said, beaming, not at all put out that he had thrust it away. "I know I should stake you, you evil creature, but I am too happy to see you." It came forward again, eying his body, its primary program kicking in. "I could never resist–"

"Yeah," Spike said heavily, closing his eyes, appalled at what he had done in creating it. "Look," he added, having a thought, "there's more vampires that way." He pointed to the far end of the cemetery, away from his crypt. "Why don't you go kill them?"

"I will. That's what I do. I'm the vampire Slayer." The robot gave him another sunny smile, then raised her stake in a way that wasn't threatening at all. "Don't try to run away from me. You know I'll find you and make you pay for your wicked ways."

"Yeah, that you will." He closed his eyes again, listening to the robot stride away, the sound replaced by that of approaching Scoobies.

"Spike?"

He didn't look up when Willow said his name. "Why is that thing… I thought it was destroyed, fighting Glory."

"No, no," Willow said. "It was easy to fix. We had to; we needed it to fight."

"The Council…" Giles began, then trailed off. "No other Slayer has been called. It seems the line lies with Faith, now."

Because Buffy was dead, the imitation was needed. Spike nodded. "Okay. I get that, but you can't – It isn't…" He finally lifted his head and looked at Willow. "You fixed it; you can get rid of all the… programming, then. You have to."

"Yeah. I-I can do that." Willow's brows were drawn together, and she was looking at him intently.

"You know, it was obscene even before Buffy died," Xander drawled, also staring at him.

Spike let his head fall back, and opened his mouth to speak, but Giles cut in. "Yes, well, be that as it may, now that Spike has returned, I agree that we would all be, be uncomfortable if that part of its… er, functioning remained active." He met Willow's affirmative nod, spared a warning glance at Xander, then examined Spike closely. "You… the chip is working, yes?"

Spike turned his head to look fully at Giles, gave him a tight smile, and nodded once.

"Where have you been?"

"Duckin' and divin,'" he said with a grin, then let it fade. "Crawled inside a bottle for a while." Spike carelessly offered the answer he had prepared, one they would accept, even expect. He couldn't bare his soul to these people.

"We thought you staked yourself," Anya said. She lifted her shoulders. "I'm glad you didn't," she added with learned politeness.

Startled, he stared at her, then looked around at the rest. "You thought I…" What Dawn had said suddenly took on new meaning.

Willow shrugged, too. "You did try before, when Drusilla left you."

"That had nothing to do with Drusilla," he corrected her, his voice very even. "The chip… I felt useless – Anyone here think I'm useless, after what just happened?" Spike gestured back toward where the vampires had laid their trap. "I'm bloody well not going to…" He threw his hands up, angry. "Why do I bother?" He started to walk off.

"Dawn cried over your worthless hide, Spike," Xander said, getting in his way. He looked the vampire up and down. "You went missing, we went looking. We found a half-empty bottle in your crypt, a bolt from a crossbow lying on the floor, dust all over… What were we supposed to think?" Spike's mouth tightened, but he didn't answer. Xander didn't back away from his glare. "You selfish prick. You just… left. Didn't you care that Dawn needs all the support she can get?"

"I've already been to see her, already apologized," Spike said, holding his coat away from his chest as proof. He might take flak from Dawn, but not from this lad. "Tara told me where I could find you. Came to help," he lied. "Saved you and the rest of your little Scooby gang, didn't I? Like I told Dawn, I'm here to stay. Get used to it." He took a step forward, getting in Xander's personal space in return. "I can't hurt you. You know it. But if you're gonna try and hurt me, don't do it by tossing guilt in my face."

"I can think of a few other, more entertaining –" Xander began, his eyes narrowing.

"Xander, that's enough," Giles said. He sounded tired. "Go home, you and Anya. That'll do for patrol tonight, I dare say. Willow, we'll go collect the Buffybot." He moved forward, close enough to put himself between the other two men if he had to. He looked at the vampire, the glare from a nearby streetlight on his glasses obscuring his eyes. "Your crypt is empty. Dawn goes there sometimes, so we've made sure it's remained… unoccupied."

Spike waited. When he had first moved in, having just learned he could hit demons, Giles had visited and made him an offer to join the Scoobies. A second invitation wasn't forthcoming. "If you need me," he said, sighing, "you can find me there."

Giles nodded, his expression wary, and he turned away. With a dismissive flick of his eyes, Xander did, too, putting an arm around Anya. As Willow followed in Giles' wake, Spike put a hand out to her. She flinched away, and he snatched his hand back, palm showing.

"What?" Her voice was nervous.

"I…" His voice trailed away. Too many times he had threatened her or hurt her, too many for them to ever be friends. Spike nodded in the direction the robot had gone. "That thing… I should never have…" He gave up, just met her eyes for a second. "Thanks, Red."

She looked surprised. "You're, uh, welcome."

He stalked off, the familiar coat comforting as it flapped around his legs, because he knew it gave a jaunty, unconcerned image to whomever cared to watch. Of his many mistakes, the one he had never expected to have to face was the robot. The Scoobies alone would have been more than enough for this night. He leaned back and showed his face to the dark sky, lifting his hands in a plaintive gesture. How much more could he be expected to take? Spike lowered his arms, his shoulders slumping. If that was part of staying in Sunnydale and protecting Dawn, he could take it. He had promised to take care of her until the end of the world.

Funny how the world never ended the way you expected it to.

⸹

Tara closed the door to Dawn's bedroom quietly and went back down the stairs. Willow looked up from her laptop, surrounded by the cables that snaked from the computer to the shut-down robot on the couch next to her. "Is she asleep?"

"Yes." Tara sat down on the coffee table. "How's it going?"

"Nearly done deleting the Spike fixation."

"Dawn was glad to see him. You should have seen them together, Wil. It was… sweet." At Willow's skeptical look, she added defensively, "A-and you would have been proud of her. She really let Spike have it for taking off like that."

"He was surprised that we thought he had, you know, staked himself." She moved the computer off her lap and set it on the couch, joining Tara on the coffee table. "And he was shaking after he saw the Buffybot."

"Is this going to affect our plan? His coming back, I mean." Tara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"No. I don't see why it should."

"Did he say where he's been?"

"No." She frowned. "He said he's been inside a bottle."

"Oh." Tara frowned, too. "He seemed awfully thin. I don't think he's been eating."

"Drinking, you mean?"

She acknowledged Willow's correction with a little smile. "I didn't even think about him being evil, about letting him in the house. He just knocked on the door, and I was so glad to see him."

"I know what you mean," Willow agreed fervently. "He showed up at the right time for us. I swear, he must have killed two of those vampires in two seconds. It was like… like he's a better fighter, or faster, or something."

"Well, he was always strong."

"I don't think he's been on a two-month drunk. I think he's been grieving. For Spike, I bet that means beating up a lot of demons."

Tara nodded absently, staring at the Buffybot. "Do you think he really loved her? Buffy, I mean, not…" she trailed off, gesturing at the silent machine.

"Oh, no," Willow said firmly. "If he did, he would never have had Warren whip up a substitute. That's too creepy to be love. Obsession gets my vote."

Tara, looking at the Buffybot, couldn't disagree, but added, "Spike does care about Dawn, though. He is capable of caring."

Willow looked at the robot speculatively. "Maybe." She looked toward Tara, her voice quieter. "You know, I'd never looked at the Spike-centric files before, because – yeesh. But it's funny. There were lots of files for oral sex."

Tara gave her a look. "Honey, guys are kind of famous for liking that."

"No! I mean – Well, those, too, but… not just giving. He wanted it to be Buffy, right? Receiving."

Tara half-grinned. "Really?" They both looked over at the Buffybot. "That's… surprisingly generous."

"Well, vampires are sort of orally fixated." Willow shook her head. "Too much with the mental image."

"And on that note, are you done?" Tara asked, waving a hand at the laptop. "Ready for bed?"

"Tara!" The taller woman gave her a wicked smile, and Willow was a tiny bit shocked. "I can't believe that made you…you know."

"Horny?" Tara guessed. "Huh-uh. You're what makes me… you know."

Willow's face lit with surprise and happiness. "I am?"

Tara stood up. "Of course." She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling, toward their bedroom. "C'mon, sweetie. Bedtime."

⸹

"Spike?"

He frowned and opened his eyes at the soft sound of his name. Dawn was looming over him, her hair partly obscuring the light. He leapt from the lid of the tomb where he had been sleeping, dreamlessly for a change, and pulled in a gasp of air.

"Aah!" He put his hand over his heart. "Jeez," he said, recovering from the shock, "lurk much?"

She grinned at his words and let her purse drop from her shoulder onto the tomb, next to the folded coat he'd been using for a pillow. "Sorry. I guess I am scarier than you are." The grin faded, and she shrugged. "It's a long time until dark. I just wanted to make sure you really did come back. In case I, you know, dreamed it."

"Yeah," he said. "Really did come back." He looked around the crypt, which looked even shabbier and emptier in the dim light. The only thing of his that was gone was the television, some demon or human having stolen it, but there hadn't been much to begin with. "Uh, pull up the chair."

Dawn's mouth quirked at his sardonic politeness. "Thanks." She sauntered over and sat down.

"Do your Wicca watchers know where you are?"

She nodded. "You're supposed to walk me back when it's dark enough. Willow didn't want to let me come alone, but Tara talked her into it."

"Well, all right, then. Wouldn't want them to turn me into a frog or anything." Forgetting again that he hadn't smoked in weeks, he patted his pockets in a futile search for cigarettes, finding only a wad of money and the hard lump of his lighter in his jeans.

"I'd kiss you." She glanced away at his sharp look, shrugging. "To turn you back, I mean."

Spike studied her face as it reddened, concerned for a moment by the thought that crossed his mind. Then he dismissed the idea as ridiculous. "Thanks in advance, then, Princess Nibblet. What time is it, anyway?"

"Almost six in the afternoon."

"Do I come and wake you up at six in the morning?" He gave her a severe look.

"I thought you'd be glad to see me." Dawn's voice was sulky.

"I am. You know I am," he said, meaning it. "I'm just tired from traveling, and you gave me a start."

"Where've you been?"

"Afr – "

"Africa?" Her voice was loud and full of obnoxiously happy disbelief.

"Afraid it's none of your business," he covered. Obviously, he needed to pay more attention to this conversation. Spike hoisted himself onto the lid of the tomb and left his hands clenched on the edge.

She sat up straighter. "Yes, it is my business."

His eyes narrowed. "How do you figure?"

"Well, w-we're friends. That makes it my business."

Spike bit his lip, looking down at his boots, at the floor. "That would do it, I reckon." He cleared his throat. "I can't tell you, though."

"I'm not a baby, Spike. I'm not too young to hear –"

"I can't tell you," he repeated, his voice louder, "not I won't tell you. Not a story inappropriate for baby sister, just a… private story. It-It's too soon to tell, Nibblet. You get that, don't you?" He finally looked up.

"Yeah, I get it." She tucked her hair behind her ears. "But you will tell me, when you can." Her voice was firm.

He was quiet for a while. When he looked up, his expression was serious. "Yeah. Reckon if anyone has a right to know, it's you."

"Okay," Dawn said, somber in her own right. "You have to talk about these things, you know. You can't keep everything bottled up."

His lip curled. "Spoken like someone who's heard that a few times. Everyone psychoanalyzing you, then?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes, and he got more comfortable as she went on, sitting cross-legged on top of the tomb. Dawn told him about the nightmare of finishing the last weeks of school as if nothing had happened, their unfounded fears that various entities would still be after the Key, how difficult it had been to contact Hank Summers, of the lies Tara and Dawn had told, backed up with the Buffybot. Interspersed were offhand comments about more typical teenaged trauma, some gimboid at school who called her a freak, how her friend Janice thought that her mom was paying too much attention to Dawn out of pity, about dying of embarrassment when Anya picked her up from the movie theater and treated her like a kid. Spike listened to her, engaged, and it was a relief to immerse himself in someone else's life. Some of her problems were real and intractable, but the rest… She was still able to live in a world that he feared he would never fit into.

"Nah, Platelet," he encouraged her, even though she had been talking for an hour and a half. "You've taken on a Ghora demon. I've seen you in action. No such thing as a sophomore slump for you."

"Maybe," she said, then pressed her lips together. She'd joined him on the lid of the tomb, her legs crossed beneath her, too, and they sat facing each other. "But I won't be able to afford to dress really cool. That won't help matters."

He lowered his brows. "Money getting to be a problem?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. No one ever tells me anything." Dawn dropped her eyes. "But Willow and Tara said they would take me to Los Angeles to shop for back-to-school, and now they say we can't afford it."

"What, you think they're blowing you off?"

Dawn shook her head reluctantly. "No, I-I don't think so. I think we really can't afford it."

"Your father, does he pay what's-it, child support?"

She shook her head again. "I don't know. I think he's supposed to," her voice was tentative, "but I don't know if he does. Buffy would have known. She was so bitter about the divorce, she wanted to know everything. I was kind of too young."

Spike stared at her, trying to think of how a man could abandon two such daughters, even if he couldn't stay faithful to their mum. A man who could walk away from his family was a man who shouldn't be allowed to live, who should be – Spike grimaced, clamping down on the emotions welling up, the fury and disgust, forcing his hands to unclench.

"Spike?" Dawn asked uncertainly. "Are you okay?"

"What? Uh, just thinking." Keep it together, he warned himself. Revenge on a deadbeat dad wouldn't even have occurred to you a couple months ago. He leaned away from her, his back balanced precariously over the side of the tomb as he dug in the pocket of his jeans. Frowning, he looked at the wad of cash in his fingers and sat back upright.

"Wow, Spike." Dawn looked from his hands into his eyes. "Are those all hundred dollar bills?"

"Mostly."

"Did you steal it?" Her eyes were alive with eagerness.

"No," he said, firm. "Quiet a moment, Bit." He counted carefully, better with American money now that he'd been forced to use it, another brilliant thing for which to thank the Initiative. "Just over twelve thousand. Huh."

"What, huh?"

"I didn't even use half," he said absently. In fact, he was sure that he had actually lost a good chunk of it somewhere. Probably in the cave.

"Half? You mean you had, what, twenty thousand dollars?" She looked shocked. "Spike, you can't walk around with that kind of money. It isn't safe." She saw his eyebrows go up. "Oh. I guess you can."

"Here," he said, peeling off ten of the hundred dollar bills. "Present from your Uncle Spike. Belated birthday, if you like. I'm wadded up, and that means you get to wear the latest in Sunnydale fashions." He held out the money, but Dawn only stared at it, didn't take it. "What?"

"Where did you get it?"

He blinked. "All right, I did steal it." This was fast becoming complicated.

"No, no, you didn't. You already said."

"Right, I didn't. Whatever makes you… Look, just take it."

"Not till you tell me where it came from." Her voice was steely.

"Uhh," he breathed. "Big Sis was right. You are a brat." He folded the small stack of bills with the larger and started to put it back in his pocket. "Fine."

Dawn quickly put her hand over his. "Wait. I-I'll take it. I just… you didn't… no one was hurt?"

"It's not filthier than any other lucre, not blood money. It was a gift. Someone gave it to me." He met her eyes levelly.

She looked away, shaking her head. "Don't tell, then. Whatever. But don't lie."

His lips parted. "I'm telling the truth."

She studied his wounded expression. "Spike," she said skeptically, "who do you know with that kind of money?"

"No one," he agreed, his eyes distant.

Dawn firmed her mouth. She slid his gift from his slack hands and held it up between them. "I trust you." She put the bills carefully in her purse. "Thank you." He didn't answer, so she touched his hand again. "Spike?"

Animation crept back over him. "Sorry. Uh, zoned out there for a mo. Might be a bit off for a while, you know, preoccupied now and then. Just, uh, ignore me." He erupted from the top of the tomb, moving away from her, putting the rest of the money away roughly. He thought he would have weeks to prepare himself, but they were already stumbling over his unexplained absence. And this was Dawn. Facing the door, he rubbed his jaw, the back of his neck. "Guess it's dark enough for the telling. Seems I can't…."

"What?" Dawn asked, her eyes darting to the window. Twilight had fallen.

"She knocked," he mused, his voice uncertain as he stared at the door. "Yeah, she knocked. No one knocks, you know."

"On your door?" Dawn pulled the strap of her purse onto her shoulder and slid her legs off the tomb, standing stiffly. She glanced past him at the door, concern beginning to show in her expression.

"You want to know where I been, right, Bit?" He turned to her. "Listen, then." Spike closed the distance between them with unsettling speed. He put his hands gently on her shoulders and bent toward her. "You can't tell anyone else. Not ever. I couldn't – You just can't tell, is all. It's private."

"I won't."

His eyes were blazing with emotion, and he knew he was scaring her. "I kept your secret, Dawn. Glory tortured me for hours. Would have died before telling. This is the same."

Her eyes widened, and he could hear her swallow. "I won't tell."

He held Dawn's gaze a moment longer, searching her face, then nodded. Spike's voice was shaky, and he said it all quickly. "Few days after your sister… after Buffy died, I had a dream, or vision, or somethin'. She knocked on the door, told me that my chip was going to fail, that I wouldn't be able to protect… that I would hurt... Not you, hurt people around you, which would hurt you. Told me… other things, things she couldn't have known. So I had to do something, because I can't hurt you, not ever. I went outside, and the money was there when I came back, so I left right away and went and got… got it back." He let go of her and walked past her further into the crypt, bracing his hands on the tomb, his head falling forward. "My soul. So, when the chip stops working, I won't hurt…."

Dawn had turned to watch him, her mouth slightly open. "Your… you've got a soul?"

He didn't reply, just nodded, afraid to look at her.

"Oh, Spike," she breathed, and stepped forward to touch his arm. For me, she thought. He didn't move, kept staring at the stone lid. Dawn examined his face, then slipped under his arm and hugged him, her face against his chest. After a very long time, his arms folded around her briefly, then he took her hands and moved her away. With an effort, he lifted his face and met Dawn's eyes.

"Don't tell anyone. I couldn't bear it."

She nodded. "I won't. But you'll have to tell sometime. You know that. This is big."

He nodded in turn. "When I have to." This hadn't been so bad, but it was Dawn, after all. "So, now you know why I took off."

She squeezed his hands. "You had to. I understand. Did she…?" She lowered her head, her hair falling over her face. "You dreamed about Buffy?"

"Every night," he admitted. "You, too, on the tower."

"I mean… the vision. Did she tell you anything about me? For me?"

"Oh," he said, realizing. There was only one 'she.' "No. No, love. It wasn't Buffy. Someone else, a stranger. But she knew everythin' about me, and still… wanted to help."

Dawn looked disappointed. "Oh. I thought…" Awe crept over her face. "Was it your guardian angel?"

He snorted. "Uh, don't think we vampires get guardian angels. No halo, no wings. Red hair, flannel shirt, big pair of," he quickly revised his description, "uh, green eyes. Vampire, actually."

"So she was real?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't know. I… hit her. If she'd been human, it would have killed me. And her. I don't remember her face or her scent, but I've lived for bloody ever, so I must have seen her somewhere once and… dreamed her, made her part of…."

Dawn's eyes were narrowed with thought. "But after you had the dream, you had twenty thousand dollars?"

His eyes tracked over to the tomb next to them. "Yeah, in an envelope, right there next to a bottle of bourbon. Traveling money. Stuff written on it. So I wouldn't have to do anything I'd regret later."

Dawn followed his gaze. "To keep you from hurting anyone after your chip fails, you got a visit from a mysterious stranger who comes, tells you to get your soul, leaves money for traveling, and wasn't human."

"Yeah, but a guardian angel for the likes of me? 'S'not the way those things work."

She dropped his hands and rubbed her arms. "I'm getting chill bumps." She turned and walked toward the door, her brows drawn together. She turned back, pacing a bit. "So, she told you where to go – Where did you have to go?"

"East Africa. I already knew. Been everywhere," he said, sounding tired. "There was a legend 'bout a demon bound to a cave there, an' facin' trials, an' the demon being powerful enough to give you what you want if you lived through the trials."

"Lived through?" Dawn asked, subdued.

He looked away. "Yeah."

"Wh-what kind of trials?"

"Dawn, you don't want–"

"I want to know."

"Bugs, fire, he called forth other demons for me to fight, rot like that," Spike said dismissively, shielding her from the horror.

"How long were you there?"

He shrugged. "In the cave? Dunno. A week, maybe."

"You fought for a week?" Her voice was a little higher than usual.

"Maybe not a week," he hedged.

"Spike, you could have been killed." There was fear in her voice, and she took a step toward him.

"Well, it was quite the prize I was fighting for, wasn't it? Not like knocking over pins and winning a bloody Kewpie doll."

Dawn grabbed him around the middle, her eyes shut tight. "You did all that for me?"

This time he was able to return her embrace. "I went for you, Nibblet. I… kept on going because of you and because I promised her I'd look out for you, but, in the end, it had to be what I wanted. I did it for me.

"Ang – Someone told me once that, when you're a vampire, nothing belongs to you, but you can take anything. He was wrong. I don't like it when people take things from me." Spike sighed, patted Dawn on the back, and moved away from her. "My soul belongs to me," he said with dignity. Felt odd, that. She was looking at him now, something sad in her eyes. Spike put his fingers under her chin. "Might have done it for myself, love, but right after… I'll not lie to you. It was bad, lot of weight on me, what I've done, my… crimes… but I came back here. For you." He glanced away and busily shook out his coat before he pulled it on, pushing away the suicidal thoughts that still lingered. "Ready to go?"

Dawn looked out the window, surprised at how much time had passed. She was quiet as they walked, thinking, and they were more than halfway to Revello Drive before she spoke again. "If you knew how to get your soul, why didn't you do it years ago?"

Spike looked around wildly. "Shut it, will you?" He moved closer to her. "I don't want this broadcast on Radio Free Sunnydale."

"Sorry," she mumbled. "But why not before?"

"Didn't care before, did I?" He ran his left hand across the back of his neck. "Didn't even think about going through the trials for that particular prize." He sighed. "It's easy, being a vampire. You don't give a f – you just don't care, so you can do anything. Then I got the chip, and every time I did something 'wrong,' I got zapped. It sort of reminded me about right and wrong. Then I was around your sister all the time, and I… fell for her." He looked down at Dawn, who was staring straight ahead. "She was good, Nibblet. Made me remember that I used to be a good man." He stopped and rolled his eyes. "Not like Buffy. I mean, I was no warrior." He started walking again. "But it wasn't enough, the chip. I loved her, but there was a whole boatload of, well, lust, and... I was still just a vampire."

"Yeah, a vampire who wanted to play checkers," Dawn said dryly, rolling her eyes.

"Wh – checkers?" he asked, confused.

"Tara told me you wanted the Buffybot for playing checkers."

"Was… that after she had her brain sucked out?"

"Sadly, no." Dawn glanced over at him and hid a grin at how uncomfortable he looked. "I know why you had it built, Spike. I'm not an idiot." She had asked the Buffybot about what Spike was like as a lover, but had actually covered her ears, her face flaming, and asked it to stop speaking after less than a minute of its cheerful, detailed description.

"Oh, God," he groaned, stopping again. "I don't want to see the bloody–"

"It's okay," she said soothingly. "Willow's already been working on it, so it doesn't… think it's your girlfriend anymore."

His eyes closed, and he shook his head. "Shame, another brilliant facet to having one's soul."

"Don't worry about it. The robot has been a lifesaver, literally. From what Giles said, you guys couldn't have defeated Glory without it." She shrugged. "Maybe it was part of some grand plan of the universe."

"Oh, right," he said sarcastically. They began walking again, and he shot her a cautious glance. "Only had it made because I knew I didn't have a chance with–"

"Don't," she interrupted him, "please. Uh, you were telling me why you… went where you did and when."

"Yeah," he said, frowning, and counted off on his fingers. "Um, baby steps toward getting it: chip, Buffy, and you, I guess, Bit."

She looked over at him and nodded. "Because you were afraid you'd hurt me."

"No," he said slowly. "Because I cared whether or not I hurt you. Not supposed to be possible."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Spike, get real. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Everything you do is because you care about someone – Drusilla, Buffy. You said yourself that you're love's bitch."

"I'm not! And watch your mouth, young lady," he added absently.

"Direct quote," she said, calling him on it. She shrugged. "I heard Willow and Buffy talking after you came through Sunnydale Buffy's senior year."

"I meant… love. That vampire, the angel-woman, or whatever, said it shouldn't be possible, and she's right." Dawn looked puzzled, and he tried again. "I loved Dru, right? And I loved Buffy. But there was always… well, I wanted something from them, right? You, though, and Joyce, too…" He trailed off, realization in his voice. "I'd do anything for you, without the expectation of something in…."

Dawn looked at him oddly for a second, then her expression softened. "Well, we're friends, right? We've got a lot in common."

He gave her a tentative smile. "Yeah, two more-than-human, kick-ass warriors for the good, disguised as mild-mannered… friends."

"Watch your mouth," she returned smartly and smiled back at him. Then something occurred to her. "Spike, why do you say 'ass' sometimes and 'arse' other times?"

"Do I?" he asked, startled, obviously replaying his words. Then he shrugged. "Dunno. 'Kick ass' is like a phrase, an American phrase. Maybe that's why I say it that way." He looked worried a moment. "Maybe I'm starting to lose my accent. I'll have to work on that."

"You gotta work on your disguise, too, because… mild-mannered? Huh-uh. You could start acting like Angel, be all broody and grumpy all the time."

"Me, act like the poof? Gives me the screamin' abdabs." He saw her puzzlement. "Not a chance."

"Good. You're way more fun than Angel ever was." Dawn got a wicked look on her face. "I want to be there to see his face when he finds out he's not the only one with – Ooof!"

"No one," he ground out, gripping both her shoulders. "You tell no one. Remember."

"All right! Jeez!" Dawn said, pulling away from him irritably, with an utter lack of fear. "I promised. But you'll have to tell eventually. It's just, he always thought he was so special."

"Didn't like him much, huh?" They began walking again.

"I liked Riley better. At least with him, Buffy didn't cry all the time."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Your sister has lousy taste in men."

"Because she didn't like you?" Dawn asked dryly.

"Well, yeah," he replied, a touch of the old arrogance in his voice.

"Riley was all right."

"Captain Cardboard? Please." He gave her a sidelong look. "I could tell you stories."

"So, tell."

He shook his head. "Not worth it." Spike pointed at his temple. "When the chip stops juicing me, I won't even bother to kill him. Thrash him, maybe." The corners of his mouth lifted. "Give the hall monitor a giant wedgie."

Dawn gave him a narrow look. "You have a soul now. You can't kill him, or anyone, with or without the chip. No humans."

"Yeah? Humans kill each other all the time."

She paused to consider that. "Well, you still can't kill humans. You're one of the good guys."

"Not an option, anyway," he said, waving a dismissive hand, "not with the chip still working."

"Angel doesn't kill humans," Dawn said, not about to drop the subject.

"Ang – bloody Angel," Spike muttered. "Think he doesn't kill humans?" He gave Dawn a considering look, then let it go. "Had half a mind to go by Los Angeles and let him know how a real man gets his soul back. Cursed by gypsies," he scoffed. He pointed a finger at the girl. "Him, I can kill. Or thrash. Whichever."

"Well, you can't do it now. He's in Tibet or somewhere."

"Tibet? Why's he in Tibet?"

She shrugged. "He retired to some monastery after he found out about…"

Spike shook his head. "A monastery in Tib… he goes prancing off to the other side of the world to grieve? Bollocks! Always tossing out the big, dramatic gestures, the ponce."

"I think it's sort of romantic."

"Rom – you're insane."

"He's not the only one who went to the other side of the world." She stared at him pointedly, then her confidence wavered. Spike looked murderous. "What have you got against Angel, anyway?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Oh, just a small thing," he said sarcastically, "my death. He drove Drusilla insane, then made her a monster, and then she killed me. Direct cause and effect." He wasn't about to tell her anything about the times Angelus had favored him with his personal attention.

"That was, like, a hundred and fifty years ago," Dawn said with the practicality of youth. "You're a pretty formidable vampire. I think you got over it."

"Not even a hundred and thirty," he corrected.

"I think it's because of Buffy."

"Sure, why not? That's another good reason. Wanker ended it for her, too."

"What do you mean by that?"

He stopped and closed his eyes. "Think, Bit. She loved him enough to… her first time, she gave that to him, right? Then he becomes possibly the most evil creature in the world. Breaks her heart. She didn't do anything wrong, but it's her fault. Tends to make a girl cautious. Then he's back to being her 'true love,' but she has to kill him anyway. Smashes her heart. Then, the great poof comes back from the dead, again. Now he's forbidden. She still loves him, but can't have him. Bet Broodypants just loved the whole hopeless yearning thing. Then, for the coup de grace, he leaves her." Spike opened his eyes and gave Dawn a level look, his voice sour. "Just like your dad. Reinforces that lesson. Freezes her heart.

"So, what did she learn from Angelus? Don't let a man into your heart, because they're evil, they'll hurt you, and they'll abandon you. And it's all your fault." He gave her a tight smile. "My most significant relationship was with an insane woman, and even I found the thought of trying to conquer Mount Buffy daunting." The smile faded, and he sighed. "Not that she ever would have given me a go, even without all the damage Angel inflicted."

"It wasn't Angel's fault, either," Dawn said quietly.

"Leaving was," Spike corrected her. "We both know Slayers don't have a retirement full of sipping tea and tending the petunias ahead of them. I killed two Slayers myself, and the oldest was barely in her twenties." He sighed again. "What Buffy saw it as, was that she wasn't even worth two more years of Angel's time.

"Yeah, maybe I am love's bitch, Bit, but I'm a realist. What was Angel waiting on, some future where Buffy wasn't called to fight evil? Where he wouldn't be toasted by a stray beam of sunshine?" He futilely checked his pockets for cigarettes again. "If it was me, I'd have taken a few years of celibacy to have been at Buffy's side, and I'm a pretty randy fellow. And she wouldn't have suffered for it either, I'd have made sure of that. Might not have been able to get a leg over, but there are lots of ways to get around –"

"Spike," Dawn warned, her face reddening, "you had a point?"

"Oh. Sorry."

"'S'okay. You've never talked to me like I was just a kid." She shrugged. "It's one of the things I like about you."

He half-smiled. "Anyway, my point about Angelus, the oik." His brow furrowed as he tried to find the words. "He didn't go into her heart and fill it up so it had to expand to make room. He went in and folded it very small around the memory of what they had early on, and there he stayed, even after he left Sunnydale. Put up 'no trespassing' signs. Didn't think about what was best for her, just what was best for him, 'cause he couldn't trust himself, 'cause he feared for his precious soul. He didn't leave much room in her heart for the college boy, or for anyone else." He corrected himself. "Her friends, her family, yeah, but that's all."

"So, what do you think Angel should have done?"

"What I did, after she knew I loved her. Stayed around because she needed me and kept it in my trousers."

Dawn bit her lip, trying not to smile and resolving not to mention the Buffybot. "I'm not saying you're wrong, but the difference is, it wasn't you she wanted around."

"Like some mates of mine used to say, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. Works both ways, I guess," he added quietly, thinking of how he had come to possess something he needed.

She nodded, the prospect of who those mates were sailing over her fifteen-year-old frame of reference. "Why is it that I get so mad when other people try to talk to me about Buffy, but I don't get mad at you?"

"I'm not trying to help you grieve, maybe." He shrugged. "Don't reckon you need any help."

"No. Don't need help with that." She put her hand in his cool one as they turned onto Revello Drive. "Sometimes I pretend that Mom's just away on a buying trip for the gallery, that she's somewhere and she'll come back with souvenirs for me and stories about the obnoxious guy who sat next to her on the plane. But I can't pretend that Buffy's… just away. Maybe because I saw it."

He squeezed her hand. "I know, Platelet."

"Will you go with me to her grave tomorrow night, anyway? I-I'd like to take flowers."

He felt nervousness radiating off her. "Haven't you been?"

"No, not since the first… I just… couldn't."

"'Course I will." They crossed the last street before her block. "We can go by Joyce's, too."

"Thanks."

"No worries." He squeezed her fingers. "I lost my dad when I was a tad older than you. Had to leave univ – um, move back home to take care of me mum. I'm sorry you had to go through this."

"You mean it's easier if you're older when someone dies?"

"It's never easy," he admitted, his eyes distant. "Just hate it that so much of your childhood was nibbled away. Don't be in a big hurry to be grown up, Bit. That part lasts a long time.

"You're not a grown up," she pointed out.

His jaw moved out to a dangerous angle. "If you mean I don't act all anal like run-of-the-mill human adults, you're right. I served my time as one of those before I died."

"I know what you mean, though. I get so mad when I have to think about things like money. Someone should be worrying about stuff like that for me."

"Someone is. You're lucky to have Willow and Tara."

"I know I am." She swung their hands a little as they turned to walk toward the porch. "Speaking of, are you coming in? They probably want to talk to you."

"To me or at me?"

She snorted. "And I thought I was the only one who wondered about that." She dropped his hand self-consciously as they came to the door. "Thanks. You're a good listener."

He snorted, too. "I'm a good talker. You're the good listener." He lowered his lashes. "Thank you," he said emphatically.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, Bit?"

"What exactly is a Kewpie doll, and why do people always talk about winning one?"

"Dawn?" Willow asked as she opened the door, her voice anxious.

"Hi, it's us." She smiled at Willow, taking her hand. "See? Just like I promised, a visit and a safe walk home after sunset."

"Yes, you're very trustworthy," the red-haired woman agreed. Her eyes strayed to Spike, clearly indicating that he didn't fall into the same category.

Giles came up behind Willow, his sharp eyes assessing as always. "Oh, good. You're back. Spike, we're about to go patrol in the cemetery near campus. Y-you're welcome to join us."

Spike's eyes darted to Dawn, who gave him a small nod of encouragement. "Uh, all right." He trailed after her into the cheerful light of the Summers' home, closing the door on the darkness behind him.

* * *

Next Chapter: Connecting, where the Scoobies discuss the fault for Buffy's death.


	3. Connecting

**Connecting**

August 2001

"Dawn to Space Station Spike, come in Spike."

"Huh? Oh. Sorry."

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, please. That's, like, the third time you've faded out. I don't even have to cheat to beat you."

Spike rallied a bit. "As if you could. 'Sides, I haven't taught you even a tenth of what I know about cheatin' at cards." He stared at the poker chips in the middle of the coffee table. "'Course, most of the card games I know are out of fashion just now. Take Faro. Hard to cheat at that, 'cause the odds favor the house so heavily."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "You're in to me for almost eight dollars, and we're playing for nickels."

He watched his own mannerisms on her face and love for her was so heavy in his heart that he was afraid it would physically burst. Most nights he could limit himself to one or two hugs, but he was already up to four tonight, and Dawn was at least as perceptive as he was and smarter to boot. Hugs were something he hadn't even known how much he missed. She'd know he was vulnerable, and he'd end up giving her a pedicure again or something equally as whipped. So he took a breath and made his voice smooth as the bourbon he favored. "You have two jacks and three hearts in your hand. I'm cheating, too, Bit."

"You're cheating at poker so I'll win?" she asked, frowning as she slumped back against the couch. "What kind of insane-o logic is that?"

"Build your confidence."

"Build my… You're trying to give me money," she accused, tossing her hand onto the table.

"Wiccas wouldn't take it directly," he confirmed, sweeping her cards up and beginning to shuffle absently.

Dawn stared at him with a mix of exasperation and fondness. "So you teach me to cheat at cards and then out-cheat me so you can give me money I win by gambling. Way to build my moral character, soul man."

Spike shot her a warning look, but he let it slide. They were alone in the Summers' house. It was Friday night, and Willow and Tara had gone to an outdoor concert, leaving him to "Bit-sit," a term that Dawn liked marginally better than baby-sit. "You need pin money; can't get it to you any other way. Don't have any questionable photos to blackmail them with," he shrugged, "more's the pity." A slightly glazed look stole over his face.

Dawn rolled her eyes, then made herself more comfortable on the sofa. "You're worse than Xander. You've got to get a girlfriend, Spike." Her words startled him out of whatever soft-core reverie he'd been enjoying, and his eyes snapped to her, disconcerted and laser-like in their intensity. She watched his face, fascinated by the play of emotion passing over it. Good thing he can cheat, she thought, because he doesn't have a face for poker. "I'm sorry," she said, even as his expression settled into the familiar lines of sorrow.

He shrugged again and was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry, too, Dawn." He put the cards on the table, straightening the deck precisely with his restless hands. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"'S'my fault. You know it." He had looked at the calendar hanging in the Summers' kitchen when he came in the back door, matching it up to his own running count of days. That's all it had taken, really. Eighty-seven days. Almost three months since she died now, and the world went on its merry way, as if her loss shouldn't have stopped everything.

"What is?"

"I let you down. Let her down." He concentrated on squaring the already perfectly stacked deck of cards. "I promised her that I would protect you," he said, his words coming slowly, dredged up from a deep, bitter place. "I failed her, I failed you, let you get hurt." He took a couple of shallow breaths. "'S'far as I know, I was the youngest vampire to defeat a Slayer, and certainly the youngest to kill two Slayers. I was proud of that." His face was haunted, his voice full of self-loathing. "Been meaning to ask Rupes if I've got the all-time record now: three Slayers."

"Three?" Dawn blurted. "What do you mean, three? You didn't kill Buffy." She remembered his words on the tower suddenly, that he'd made a promise to a lady. She had thought of Joyce, but it had been made to Buffy, hadn't it?

He met her eyes, and she wished he hadn't. "Couldn't hurt her directly, could I?" he asked, touching two fingers to his temple. "But I could make sure she was in harm's way. It's my fault she's gone."

Dawn stared back at him as he said the words that belonged to her. She shook her head, almost impatiently. "No." How could he be so egotistical? Buffy hadn't died because of him; Buffy had died because of her. "No, Spike, you-"

The front door opened and Willow came in, laughing and looking back at Tara. "The best was the one that hissed at Toto, you know, when the balloon was going up? That had to be the cattiest cat in the history of the movies." She turned her smile on Dawn. "Hey, Dawnie. Where's Spike?"

He had gone, with eerie silence and speed. "Uh," she said, feeling stupid in the face of this sudden influx of happy emotion, wondering if she needed to cover for him.

"Red, Tara," Spike said, coming through the dining room, pulling on his coat.

"Oh, hey, Spike," Tara greeted him amiably. "Did you two have a good time tonight?"

"Nibblet nearly cleaned me out," he muttered. "See you tomorrow on patrol." He was out the door, brushing between them.

"Cleaned him out?" Willow asked, her brows drawing together.

Dawn looked down at the coffee table. There was a ten-dollar bill lying next to the deck of cards, so she picked it up and waved it sarcastically. "Eight bucks, but I guess he didn't have change. Was it a good concert?"

Willow looked at the money as if it was a personal insult. She sighed and took the chair Spike had vacated. "It was okay, but it got chilly and kind of clammy after the sun went down." She wasn't sidetracked from the ten. "I think he let you win, Dawnie. He tried to give us money a couple of weeks ago."

"You should have taken it," Dawn said flatly.

"I know Spike is your friend," Willow said gently, "but that money was probably stolen."

Sometimes Dawn hated being a teenager. Her emotions were right on the surface all the time, waiting to boil up. Spike was the same, but a badass vampire, even a chipped one, could carry it off a lot better than she could. Knowing her anger would come off as petulance, she forced it down, forced her eyes not to roll. "Look, if it takes a village to raise a kid, then he's part of my village. You should let him help. He didn't steal it. I know exactly where he got that money."

"Where did he get it, then?" Tara asked curiously, settling down next to her on the couch.

"He sold his car," she said, having rehearsed the lie to explain the money he'd given to her for school clothes.

Willow's face tightened as a memory of being forced into the big, black DeSoto came to her. She remembered holding an unconscious Xander in her arms during the ride to the factory, not knowing if her friend was going to die. "Well, the car was probably stolen," she said softly.

Dawn shoved herself off the couch, jostling Tara. "I'm going to bed," she announced, disgusted with the world in general, even Spike. How dare he, she thought, stomping up the stairs. It's my fault, mine, not his. Angry tears stood in her eyes as she stared in the bathroom mirror, watching a normal-looking human girl brush her teeth. I'm the monster who killed Buffy. Me. Don't they know anything?

⸹

"Did she say why we had to meet?" Anya tucked a finger into the beltloop of Xander's jeans. She had suggested that they walk to Revello Drive for a Scooby meeting because she read in _Cosmo_ that you should exercise with your man. The other kind of exercise.

"Nope. But Dawn said it was important, wanted everyone to meet at her house at nine-thirty, so Spike could come."

"But if it was something to do with her Keyness, she would have said, don't you think?"

Xander squeezed her with the hand he had at her waist. "Don't worry, An. If it was super-serious, she would have told Giles already." He looked around at the sound of an approaching car. "Speaking of…" He waved as a jaunty red sports car zipped past. "Looks like everyone's coming."

"You know," Anya said with what she hoped was the right degree of casualness, "if this is a relaxed gathering, it might be a good time to make our announcement."

Xander squeezed her again. "We'll see," he said. Then he lifted his head. "Hey there, Spike."

The paleness of the vampire's hair and face became visible in the gloom, followed by the black-on-black outline of his clothes. He nodded at the couple gravely and fell in step with them. "So," he said, taking in a deep breath, "either of you know what this all about?"

"Haven't a buggering, bleeding, sodding clue," Xander replied in a jovially bad British accent.

Spike gave him a long-suffering glare. "Jolly good, then," he said with equally exaggerated Englishness.

"I think it has something to do with Dawn's Keyness," Anya supplied brightly.

"That's what I'm afraid of, too," Spike admitted.

"Has she said anything to you?" Xander asked. Anya gave him a fond look. She thought that her secret fiancé was behaving in a very mature manner around Spike these days. Without Buffy as a bone of contention between them, the two were civil and sometimes forgot they disliked each other.

"Not a word." The vampire held the door for them, and they went inside.

Instead of gathering in the living room, Dawn had set out beverages for her guests in the dining room. Giles had already settled at the head of the table with a steaming cup of water, suffering through the process of dipping a teabag into it. His views on American tea brewing techniques were well-established. Tara and Willow were standing close to each other by the window, talking in low voices.

"Oh, good," Dawn said, coming forward. "You're here. Come on in, have a seat. No, Spike, you sit here by me." She looked nervously around at the adults and swallowed, suddenly unsure. "Okay, everybody, sit down. Who wants a drink? I've got sodas and coffee." She put a mug of thick liquid in front of Spike without asking. After bustling around for a minute, she realized that she was the only one still standing. Swallowing again, Dawn took a deep breath and turned off the electric lights, leaving the room lit only by candles on the windowsill and sideboard.

She took her seat between Willow and Spike, then reached for their hands, warm and cool. Like water faucets, her mind supplied at random.

"Are we having a séance?" Xander asked.

"No," Dawn said firmly. "I just need some support, that's all." Both of the hands holding hers gave a quick squeeze, and she felt tears threaten. Every time she thought she was going to sink under the weight of losing her family, this family buoyed her up. "Now, I want you to listen to what I'm about to say, because I called this meeting and it's my house and because, well, it's important."

She looked around at all the faces, expectant or worried or friendly. "I love you all very much," she said. "You've all gone through so much, and I know you're making sacrifices to take care of me. You're, like, the only family I've got, and that's a really good thing. But, honestly, you don't know how to communicate."

"Oh! I've often thought the same." Anya beamed at her. "Xander, for example, has something-"

"We talk all the time," Willow interrupted, sounding wounded.

"Dawn, you can tell us anything, you know that," Tara added, her brow furrowing.

"Wait!" Dawn said sharply, cutting off the protests. "You don't talk enough, not about the important things." She looked down at the table for a second, and Giles took the opportunity to cut in.

"Dawn, is there something-"

"I have the floor," she said, overriding him. "I'm sorry, but I need to say this, so don't interrupt." Willow squeezed her hand again. Dawn took another deep breath. "Buffy died. My sister, your friend. She was like your daughter, Giles, I know. And she's gone. And we don't talk about it." From her left, she heard Spike start to breathe, a sure sign that he was stressed. "You've all been so good to me," her voice broke a little, "and I really, really appreciate it. But if we don't have this discussion, I'm afraid you'll just drift away, because it's easier not to talk about it.

"What I asked you here for… It's easier to talk in the dark, so I put out candles." She didn't know how to word it, so she plowed on. "I thought maybe if it wasn't so bright, you could all say what you thought. I need to talk about," Dawn paused for a second, her face twisting, "whose fault it is that Buffy died."

There was a long silence as everyone stopped looking at Dawn and started looking at the table. Spike had a death grip on her left hand, and she heard him take in a deeper breath, getting ready to speak, when Willow let go of her other hand.

"It's my fault," Willow said firmly, framing her face with her hands. "Buffy told me I was her big gun, but I was too scared, too weak." She let her hands fall into her lap and looked around at the surprised faces. "I couldn't even break her fall. I was the only one who'd managed to hurt Glory, and I should have been looking for ways to finish her. No," Willow said, interrupting herself, "what I should have done was look for ways to teleport you back to us, Dawn, but I didn't. I was selfish," she went on, darting a look at the woman to her right, "and all I did was research ways to get Tara's mind back." Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Tara put an arm across her shoulders.

"No, Wil, it's not your fault," Xander protested.

"No, it's m-mine," Tara said. "I should never have been out alone where Glory could get to me in the f-first place. I-if I hadn't told-"

"Oh, please," Xander interrupted with disgust. "Your fault? Tara, you weren't able to defend yourself any more than the rest of us could." He gestured across the table. "Glory even took Spike when she felt like it." He clasped his hands in front of him, tapping them against the polished wood, looking miserable. "I feel like it's my fault she's gone. I saved her the first time she died, you know? That's my role, save-y guy, right-place-at-the-right-time guy. Makes up for all the… Then those stiff-upper-crustys from the Watchers' Council came, asking me what martial arts I'd learned, how I trained to help Buffy." He threw his hands wide. "I never trained! Maybe if I had, I would have been in the right place this time."

"It isn't your fault, Xander," Anya said soothingly, covering one of his hands with her own. "You did everything you could."

"There must be something else I could have done," he replied, but he laced his fingers through hers.

Spike was looking around at the humans, dumbfounded. "The ex-demon's right, you know," he said, his voice tired. "You all did what you could, and it should have been enough. Buffy beat that skanky hell-bitch. Giles found or translated all the information, Anya came up with a big chunk of the plan. Xander, you got a good hit in with Glory, anyway. And Red, you saved Tara, and then the two of you played ninepins with the human shield. I'm the one what snatched defeat from the jaws of victory." He tried to pull his hand away from Dawn, but she wouldn't let go. Lifting his shoulders, he gave up and stared fixedly at the table.

"All I had to do was keep that Doc character from getting to Dawn, and I couldn't do it. Promised her I'd protect the Bit. If I'd managed that, Buffy would never have even have been on that tower." He forced himself to meet Rupert's gaze. "I've killed countless demons and two Slayers, and I couldn't defeat one ancient, little imp."

Xander's voice was kind. "I put sword through him. We thought he was dead. No one expected him to be there, planned for that. He was fast, Spike, unbelievably fast, and you were up there on that narrow-"

"Shut your gob, Harris." Spike didn't look away from Giles. He steeled himself. "Makes three Slayers now, Rupes. Is that-"

"Shut up, all of you," Dawn said, low and fierce. "This is what I thought, that you all blame yourselves, and none of you is at fault. It was me. It was always me." Willow turned toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She ignored it and went on in a steely voice. "I'm the reason Buffy is dead. You know it's true; y-you've all thought it. If I'd never been put here, she'd still be alive. You know I'm not really her sister, not really human." She glanced at Spike. "Buffy cut me more slack than she ever did – " She stopped, not having the courage to say more, because she couldn't admit that she didn't really know for sure if she had a soul… or if she was no better than Angelus. "At least you could help her. All I could do was get her killed." Dawn shrugged. "I could blame the monks that made me, but they're all dead. I'm still alive, and Buffy isn't."

"You are all," Giles said, standing up, "such terribly self-centered young children." His voice was raw. "Yes, I've blamed you, Dawn, but if you hadn't been sent to us, then Glory would have gotten to you elsewhere, and Buffy, along with the rest of the world, would be in a hell dimension… or dead, if we were very lucky." He looked down at Spike's bleached hair. "I've blamed you, too. William the Bloody," he said, shaking his head, "in love with the one Slayer who would never love you because she knew from bitter experience why she shouldn't. You were up there on the platform; you're an incredible killing machine, but you couldn't stop him from cutting Dawn.

"I didn't see him after Buffy shoved him off the tower. I watched to see who fell, you know, dreading it. The demon, Doc… he lay there, but when I looked for him again in the spot where he'd fallen, he was gone. I don't know if he made it out of our dimension, but I daresay he survived. He was more powerful than you, Spike. That's all. But you should know that when she… when Buffy asked you to protect Dawn, it wasn't Glory or some random variable such as the demon Doc she had in mind." Giles looked around the table, then deliberately took his glasses off. "I've blamed all of you, to some extent, one way or another. But if we must apportion blame… it's mine.

"I tried to get Buffy to agree to kill you, Dawn," he admitted. Giles was nothing if not brave, and he met her shocked eyes. "If we m-murdered you while you were in human form, before your blood could be spilled, no more Key, no more problem. The world is saved. She wouldn't hear of it, but I… pressed her. I tried to get her to do something that I couldn't bring myself to do, was too weak to do, because… I also love you." He began polishing his glasses. "So, I blame myself far more than I've blamed any of you."

He sat back down in his chair, his own eyes fixed on the table. "I don't know if anyone told you, Dawn, but Buffy shut down after you were taken. Catatonia, like a waking coma. She'd already been through so much this year, losing Joyce, Riley's departure, losing her own sense of identity as a normal college student and," he almost smiled, a fond expression in his eyes, "an irresistible force. Buffy was a Slayer, the best Slayer, I think, but they're not long for this earth." He studied his spectacles, turning them in his hands. "When we went on retreat, she received a message from the First Slayer that… 'death was her gift.' One for her to give, not receive. She gave that gift to us, to save us." He put his glasses back on and looked at Dawn without meeting her eyes. "Just before we set out for the tower, she told me that she didn't know how to live in a world where the choices were letting you die or letting the world end. So she was, I believe, ready to leave it."

Spike heard the Watcher's words, transformed them into those he'd given the Slayer not so long ago: 'Sooner or later, you're gonna want it.' He let his tears fall, not caring anymore. These people weren't his friends, but they felt responsible, too. They had all loved Buffy. That counted for something.

Willow looked around at the circle of faces, all stricken, Dawn's most of all. She took the girl's hand again.

"She was very special," Anya said, and it seemed abrupt in the charged silence. "I don't think it's my fault she died. I blame Glory. It was an act of god, I guess, even though she wasn't much of a god. Buffy sacrificed herself to save us. The whole world, too."

Giles did smile, a little. "Yes," he agreed. "And, from what she told Dawn before she… threw herself into the rift… she knew what she was doing. It wasn't a formal prophecy that was written down, like the one about the Master, but looking back, I can see a pattern that lead her to that tower."

"She shouldn't have died," Willow said stubbornly.

"No, she shouldn't have," Giles agreed. "But that was her job."

"That's what she said, that it was her work," Dawn chimed in. Her voice was thick with unshed tears. "She told me that we had to be strong for each other." The girl lifted her hand to take Willow's from her shoulder and clasp it again. "I was afraid that when you looked at me, you saw the reason she's gone. That's what I see. But I don't want you guys to see that when you look in the mirror." Dawn pressed her lips together and squeezed the fingers in her left hand. "You, either, Spike." She looked at the other people at the table. "I blame myself. M-maybe we all do, blame ourselves, I mean. But I don't blame any of you. You all did everything you could. I love you all, you know that, don't you?" I sound like Buffy, she thought, and it put a shaky smile on her face.

"Oh, Dawnie," Willow said, letting go of her hand so she could give her a proper hug. "We love you, too."

Tara reached across Willow and cupped Dawn's cheek. "Buffy loved you so much, sweetie. We all love you."

There was a murmur of assent from around the table. Dawn tugged her fingers from Spike's so she could use both hands to wipe her face. "That's what I wanted to say, why I got you to-" The sound of the doorbell interrupted her. "That'll be the pizza," she explained. "Can't have a Scooby meeting without food, and it's too late for doughnuts."

"I'll get it," Spike said, rising from the table with more speed than usual, disquieted by the warm emotions. He came back to the silent table laden with boxes a minute later.

"Hey, Captain Peroxide is paying," Xander observed. "Enjoy it while it lasts, people."

Spike narrowed his eyes. "I'll win it all back next time we play billiards at the Bronze."

Xander made another humorous comment, and Giles had a dry comeback. Willow flipped the light switch, but it only lightened the intimate mood, didn't break it. The pizza boxes were opened, and the spicy smell spilled through the dining room, drawing the humans and non-humans alike to eat. The meeting broke into a companionable meal. Tara excused herself and went to the kitchen, returning with beers for the adults. She didn't know about the rest of them, but she needed something stronger than soda just now.

Two hours later everyone was still sitting around the table, mostly laughing, sometimes serious. No one wanted to leave; this was the first time they had felt like a whole since before Joyce died. It was Spike's first time to be included, and Dawn watched in delight as he would relax enough to contribute a witty, but not cutting, remark to the conversation, then tense as he realized anew where he was. He surprised her by asking Giles if he could use the training room in the back of the Magic Box to teach her self-defense. After a moment of surprise, the Watcher agreed, and Dawn grinned happily.

"I'm full as a tick," Tara said, licking a bit of sauce from her fingers. She grinned at Willow, evoking some private joke.

Dawn looked around the table, feeling pleasantly dazed with caffeine and happiness. Everyone she loved was here. She didn't want it to end. "Hey," she said, interrupting a bicker starting between Anya and Xander, "I know. When I went to camp – well, I never really went to camp, but, you know – at the end of the week, we had to play 'one true thing' and say what we'd learned about our fellow campers, so we'd feel all close and everything. And, like, word association, but a whole sentence or paragraph. Like," she looked up at the ceiling for a moment, "if I say 'holidays,' each of you tells something that happened on a holiday. So… I still have a Valentine's Day card upstairs in my dresser that I was going to give to Jared Kinsey, but I chickened out." She turned to her right. "Okay, you, Willow."

"Um… every Christmas I sneak over to Xander's to watch the Charlie Brown special." She gave him a sudden smile. "Only now we're all grown up, and I don't have to do the sneaky."

Tara thought a minute. "My mother's favorite holiday was Easter. I'd go to a sunrise service with her, and i-it was always in a cemetery. Sounds creepy, but it was really nice. Weird to think of a cemetery in the daylight, huh? It was the only time she went to church services all year. Afterwards, she'd make hot cross buns for Easter dinner."

"My bestest memory of the Fourth of July is when my Uncle Rory combined extreme amounts of alcohol with illegal fireworks and burned his eyebrows off." Xander gave a self-conscious grin. "And he's my favorite relative. How pathetic is that?"

"On Guy Fawkes Day once I granted a jilted fiancée a wish to burn down her philandering man's furniture store. There was lots of wicker inside, very fussy and oddly appropriate."

"My reminiscence is very British, too. When I was eleven I found that two of those little pointy paper hats one gets in crackers, when placed just so beneath your shirt, can appall one's grandmother into leaving early on Christmas Day." Giles grinned a little sheepishly.

"Was that your grandmother who was a Watcher?" Willow asked, her eyes dancing.

"Oh, good Lord, no. My mother's mother. Grandmother Giles would have roared." He turned toward Spike expectantly.

"I, um, never miss the Great Pumpkin. 'S the only good thing about Halloween."

Dawn felt more than a little pleasure in realizing she had power over the conversation as all heads turned to her. "Okay: bathrooms. In the girl's bathroom on the second floor in junior high last year, Janice and I scooped up a dead cockroach and dumped it in the toilet. We tried to flush it, like, six times, and it never would go down. We were giggling like crazy and ended up being late for class."

"I hate going to a public bathroom if someone else is in another stall." Willow tilted the bottle of beer she was nursing on its edge. "My first week in the dorm, I ran into someone who apparently had the same hangup. I was in one stall, she was in another, and we spent almost fifteen minutes sitting there, not peeing."

"Who won?" Xander asked, grinning.

"Well, duh," Willow said, her eyes sparkling with laughter. "She finally stomped out of the bathroom, and I had it all to myself. I never did find out who it was."

"I got my big toe stuck in the bathtub drain when I was nine," Tara said. "It was awful! My mom had to use a screwdriver to take the cap off the drain before I could get it loose."

"Remember Larry?" Xander asked Willow. "Well, like Dawn, I have a memorable story about Larry and something that wouldn't flush in the boy's bathroom in junior high, and I'll leave it at that."

"Maybe something's wrong with the plumbing there," Dawn mused.

"I once lost an entire cheese in an outhouse, when I was very young," Anya said, smiling brightly. "I wanted to see if a wheel of cheese was as big as the hole. It wasn't."

Giles took a sip of beer. "I've never lost a cheese, but I did lose my virginity in a girl's bathroom at a movie theatre." He lifted the bottle to his mouth, then stopped and smirked a bit at the bemused expressions on his companions' faces, Dawn with both hands clamped over her mouth below gleefully shocked eyes. "What? I've nothing more to say."

"First time I ever had a shower was in a hotel in Geneva in 1926 or thereabouts." Spike's eyelids half-closed at the memory. "All that clean, hot water… closest thing I've had to a religious experience since I been dead. Never liked baths, sitting in dirty water. Showers are the best invention ever."

"Next to spicy buffalo wings," Xander corrected, his eyes crinkling.

"Yeah, there is that," Spike agreed, an answering smile touching the corners of his mouth.

"Um, fruit. Or, or vegetable," Dawn hedged. "I once made Buffy gag, you know, like barf, but not bring anything up? with an orange-slices and pepperoni on rye bread with tartar sauce." A chorus of 'eewws' went up from the humans at the table, but Spike raised an eyebrow. Dawn was only using stories from the past few months, memories that she was sure were real.

"I once stuffed two really big navel oranges into my shirt and chased Xander around the back yard until he cried," Willow said. She saw Anya's face and added quickly, "We were, like, seven years old."

"I was thinking six," Xander said.

"You don't like large, round breasts?" Anya asked, rethinking her planned cosmetic surgery as a strategy to fight aging.

"Not on little-girl Willow," Xander said, shuddering. "Those things were as big as her head."

"The m-most satisfying way to get rid of anger is to take a really big, grossly overripe cucumber and just smash it on the floor," Tara said. "I did that when I was a teenager, not long after my Mom died. I-it made a huge mess, but the sound and the impact – took my anger right away."

"And we're surprised she's into birds?" Spike asked, sotto voce, giving Giles a look. His fellow Brit gave him a very tiny grin in return.

"Well, Willow stole my fruit story," Xander said, gesturing at his best friend. "Um, okay, one of the effects of a Sunnydale education is that I used to like Jell-O with fruit in it, but I can't eat it anymore, not after fun cafeteria memories of poison and snakes." He frowned a bit. "Are we gonna do mystery meat next? 'Cause I've got stories." He pointed a preemptory finger across the table at Spike. "Don't go there, Dead-Boy."

"I grew the biggest, tastiest turnips in the village, back when I was a human."

"You know, An," Xander said, "we should have a garden someday."

"I would like that," Anya agreed, smiling at him. "I could have one of those wide-brimmed hats and a straw basket. I'd look beneficent."

"I once attended a party where a live human being, a woman, impersonated a platter and was covered in bite-sized pieces of fruit. She was, er, naked underneath, so you can imagine how quickly the appetizer went."

Tara looked at Giles in awe. "I would give anything to have lived in the sixties," she said.

"Erm, no, that was actually in the eighties," Giles said, rubbing his forehead. How old did they think he was, anyway? "Such… excess takes both drugs and money. The hippies only had drugs, I'm afraid."

Spike looked a bit panicky as expectant looks came his way. "Um, not so much with the flora here," he mumbled, "top of the food chain and all." Frowning, he dredged up a memory. "My family, uh, human family always had oranges at Christmas. The smell of oranges says Christmas to me much more than roasted goose or pine needles, rot like that."

Dawn smiled faintly at his dismissal of Christmas, but sobered as the expectant looks came to her. "Riley Finn," she said firmly. "The only time we were ever alone is when he took me out to get ice cream while we were waiting for Mom once at the hospital. He just did it to let Buffy have some time to corner the doctors without having me in tow. I remember him trying so hard to think of things to talk to me about. You could tell he didn't have much experience with kids."

Willow gave a lost little smile. "When Riley was first trying to get Buffy to notice him, I gave him tips, because he said he'd never met a girl like her before. Oz had just left," she flashed an apologetic look at Tara, "and I was all, relationships: bad, but I helped him anyway. I told him Buffy liked cheese, and he just ran with that like a big, dumb puppy. Buffy thought for a while he had a weird thing about cheese."

Tara looked at the table. "Um, I always got the feeling that I… that my relationship with Willow made him uncomfortable." Her voice rose at the end, making it sound like a question.

Xander nodded at her. "No, you're not wrong. He had a problem with things that weren't standard issue. But he liked you personally, Tara." He gave her a brief smile, but she didn't return it.

"I guess the thing I remember most about Riley is that he shoved Willow to the floor." Tara's voice was soft as always, but there was no stutter or warmth. "I remember thinking that Buffy would have dismantled anyone else who hurt her best friend Willow… but he got a free pass." Tara shrugged and sent an apologetic look around the table. "I wasn't too sorry that he left."

Xander stared at Willow a moment, a small frown on his face. "The thing I remember about Riley the most is," his voice slowed, "when we were moving Buffy back home when your Mom got sick, Dawn… He told me that he loved Buffy, but that she didn't love him." Xander shrugged. "I think he was right. He was a good guy and a hell of a soldier and he was my friend, and… Buffy didn't love him, not like…."

There were a few seconds of silence as everyone absorbed this. "Riley Finn," Anya said briskly, before anyone could comment, "never said anything to me directly after he found out I was an ex-demon."

"No!" Xander protested, turning to her. "He must have!"

Anya shook her head at her dumbfounded boyfriend. "Not standard issue, I suppose."

"I was jealous of Riley," Giles said, and that made everyone turn to him. "N-not because of Buffy," he clarified quickly. "Because he and the Initiative were able to put the fear of God, so to speak, in demons during their short time in Sunnydale. As Slayer and Watcher, we never did that."

"Sure you did," Spike said.

"No, we never did," Giles corrected. "A Slayer they could understand, but they didn't understand what the Initiative did, the cold science behind their methods." He took a pull from his bottle of Guinness. "It's natural, really, to fear what you can't understand."

"Well, on our way here, Dru and I met an awful lot of Sunnydale ex-pats who'd left because a Slayer had come to town, a Slayer who had killed the Master. It was impossible to find a decent minion 'round here." Spike tilted the neck of his own bottle at Rupert. "You had more of an impact than you knew." Giles looked like he was about to disagree, but he shrugged and let it go. "Pfft," Spike continued dismissively. "The Initiative. They captured a master vampire, but they couldn't hold me. Did the soldier boys ever stop an Ascension? Not hardly."

He fell silent, looking at the bottle in his hands. Dawn stared at him, waiting, then gently prodded. "Spike? Riley Finn, one true thing."

"One true thing," Spike murmured. He pursed his lips for a second, then looked around at the faces of all the humans. "Right, then. If you ever see the Great Hall Monitor again and he hasn't just walked in from a sunlit street, check him with your crosses and your holy water. I know your little Scooby gang keeps those handy."

"Why? You think you're gonna be able to turn Riley Finn into the undead?" Xander's voice was sardonic.

"Wha-?" Spike's upper lip rose in disgust. "Me? Even starved as I was before I threw myself on your dubious mercies, I wouldn't have touched a drop of his wholesome, cornfed blood." He touched his stomach as if unsettled. "What, Buffy didn't tell you?"

"Tell us what, exactly?" Giles asked, his hand going to his spectacles in preparation for removal, if necessary.

Spike suddenly looked down, his expression a mixture of shame and misery. "Uh, 's'why he left, innit? And he said Buffy didn't love him enough? Right bastard. She loved him. You should have seen her face…" He looked up at the people around the table a moment, then firmed his mouth. "Buffy found out he was getting suck-jobs," he cast a quick glance at Dawn, "er, I mean, he was paying vampires to drink his blood. Just a little from his neck or his arm."

Willow and Giles looked at each other with dawning comprehension, remembering Buffy's irrational desire to take out a vampire brothel. She'd burned down the house when she found the nest abandoned.

"Oh," Willow breathed. "Clarity." Giles' face went suddenly quite hard.

"Eewww," Tara and Dawn said simultaneously. "Why would Riley do that?" Tara asked.

Spike shrugged, still looking at the table. "Feels good, dunnit? Designed that way, so prey stays still after the fangs go in."

"It feels… good?" Tara asked Spike hesitantly.

"Sexual," Spike clarified.

"Eewww," Dawn repeated.

"But he only did it once," Xander said. "I mean, after Dracula came to town, he probably wondered what all the fuss was about." He didn't have to have Spike spell it out for him. He'd figured it out before Riley left, understanding it perfectly. After all, he'd had a brief thing with Faith for much the same reason.

"At least five times. I saw him myself on two different occasions," Spike replied gravely. "I could smell the mark of five separate vampires on him. Playing with fire, that. We're all the jealous type."

"Five…? Why would he do that," Xander asked, thunderstruck, his laying his hands, palms up, on the table, "when he had a girlfriend like Buffy?"

"You're asking the wrong bloke," Spike said in a low voice.

"With her being the Slayer, that's like a-a slap in the face on top of a slap in the face." Xander shook his head, suddenly wondering if he'd ever known Riley at all.

"Buffy wasn't standard issue, either," Anya said, "so maybe he got tired of being the only one normal. I mean, being a buffet for vampires isn't normal."

Spike lifted his head, his patience clearly thin. "The thing that's important is, it's a dangerous game he was playing. Come across a particularly peckish vamp, one that doesn't play by the rules..." He met Rupert's cold eyes, then turned to look at the Wiccas. "Anyway, just make sure he's human before you invite him in."

Tara's eyes were fearful. "He's already been invited in. M-maybe we should do a disinvite spell."

Spike shook his head. "Not as a demon, he hasn't been. Look, s'far as I know, the insipid git will be human for his whole, bland life. I'm just sayin', be careful."

"He implied that… had Buffy convinced…" Giles' face had hardened into a Ripper-like aspect. "Love had nothing to do with it. She was a Slayer; she would have sensed their influence on him, that manipulative cu-" He clamped down on what he'd been about to say, not quite meeting Dawn's wide eyes. "It's just… I get very angry when I think that he added to her burdens. Buffy had enough to carry without his… insecurities adding to them."

"He never was comfortable that Buffy was stronger than him," Willow said, almost to herself.

With a faraway look in his eye, Spike smiled. "Sexiest thing about her," he murmured. Dawn elbowed him in the ribs.

"Well, there's 'why would Riley do that?'" Xander mused, "Then there's, 'why would vampires do that?' Seems kinda wussy to me."

"Not every vampire is mighty Hercules, are they? And, anyway, it's a hard life for female vamps." Spike emptied his bottle. "So to speak."

"I thought all vampires r-rose hungry, knowing how to feed." Tara tucked a few tendrils of hair behind her ear.

Spike suppressed his impatience with Tara; she was one of the better humans. He saw that Giles was watching him keenly, too, the cold part of himself hidden again and the Watcher to the fore. "No," he said emphatically, "not all vampires are created equal. I mean, you wouldn't just breed with any random human, would you? Dru had to get Darla and Angelus' permission to sire me. The Master watched Darla for a long time before turning her. In our bloodline, at least, we're choosy and try to pick…" he considered and discarded a lot of Anne Rice words, "potential vampires with at least a modicum of sense. Lot of what you see in Sunnydale are vamps made thoughtlessly, just for chaos by demons who don't stay to bring them along. No sense of who they are. I mean, how often do you see a sire waiting at gravesite for the newbie to rise?"

"So, it's nurture, not nature?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," Spike replied sarcastically, "Angelus and Darla were so nurturing."

"I thought Drusilla made you?" Giles asked.

Harried now, Spike turned on him. "Look, this isn't the bloody easiest thing to just talk about, Watcher! It's… personal." He took a deep breath and continued in a calmer tone. "Our line, the Order of Aurelius – the Master, to Darla, to Angelus, to Dru, to me, and that's it. Very selective. We're the only ones the Master left made. Darla, Angelus, and Dru were traveling together, and they had a reason for letting her make me, and if I hadn't worked out or if the Master hadn't given me his approval," he threw his hands apart, "poof. They got another hunter, a warrior, but my role was to be a companion to Dru, a minder, because Angelus had grown bored with his broken toy." He turned the bottle in his hands. "Poor Dru. Anyway, with vampires, you get to pick your family and weed out those you don't want. Four of us in four hundred years, no one at all in the past century. I wasn't to let Dru make any more officially, and I took care of any that she made anyway. Darla was alone in Sunnydale, so she hadn't turned anyone. Angelus, the most promiscuous of us, may still have one or two progeny left out there, but they weren't sanctioned. He made another in the forties, but I 'spect he's dust."

"In the 1940s?" Giles asked, taken aback.

Spike scowled. "Yeah, he was all soul-having, but there were some pretty particular circumstances. For the greater good and all." He pulled another bottle toward him and twisted the cap off. "Ask him about it sometime, you two are such good mates." He smirked.

"Did you ever… sire another vampire?" Dawn's voice was tentative, but her eyes were fixed on his.

"I have," Spike said, and the look he gave her banished everyone else from the room. He'd been around a handful of humans since he'd died, but the topic had arisen every time: will you turn me? Sometimes it was asked in fear, other times with hope. "I've sired four vampires in my entire existence, Bit, and I dusted all four of them before long."

"Killed them twice," Xander commented. "Way to go with the love, there, Chips Ahoy."

Spike spared him a glance, then turned back to Dawn. "I did all of them the first decade after I was turned, three of them on Angelus' orders." He dropped his eyes and drained half the bottle. "Not one of them was meant to be of our bloodline." Dawn's eyes were huge with the unasked question, and he went on in a weary tone. "I don't sire, Nibblet, not anyone, not anymore. That's done."

Willow tilted her head. "You offered to turn me, Spike. You gave me the choice."

He met her eyes, and his gaze suddenly included her in his pared-down world. "I did. You were the first human I met in years that I didn't utterly loathe. You have… potential." He gave her an unconsciously sensual smile. "I woulda done it, then. Remember, I was trying to adjust to not having Dru. I was lonesome, and alone – had just freed myself from being an Initiative lab rat, 'cause no one knew to come to my rescue. Didn't know about the chip." He shrugged, breaking the contact. "And, would have royally pissed off the Slayer, turning her best friend. Probably would have staked you soon after, three weeks or so of mayhem and fun, then – poof. But, never again. I couldn't, not now." And he met Dawn's eyes again, asked and answered.

"Why didn't you do that?"

"Do what, love?"

"Well," she said, fidgeting with a rejected pizza crust, "you can't harm anyone because of the chip. But if they were willing, the chip wouldn't fire, and you could feed off them. Why didn't you do what those girl vampires did to Riley? I-I'm sure there'd be women who'd want you… to do that to them, I mean. That way you'd have blood, human blood, and money, too."

Spike's mouth dropped open, but no words came out. There was a flash of disbelief and hurt in his eyes. Oddly, it was Xander who came to his rescue.

"Dawnie, I think you just asked him why he didn't become a prostitute."

Her eyes got very big and her mouth formed a perfect 'O.' "Omigod," she breathed. "I am so sorry. I didn't think." She lowered her lashes for a moment, then reached tentatively to hug him, as if afraid he wouldn't accept her embrace.

Which was nonsense. Spike smoothed her hair down. "'S'alright, Platelet. You know now." He met Xander's gaze over her head and nodded his thanks. The dark-haired man half-shrugged and gave him a wry smile.

Tara stood from the table and had gone and returned in a flash with the battered deck of cards. "I think it's time to play something different," she said firmly. "Apparently, Dawn is getting to be quite the cardsharp."

Xander pointed at her. "You're not getting my money, I can tell you that now."

"Sh-should we be playing for money?" Giles asked, unsure, darting his own eyes at Dawn.

"That's the only way to keep card games interesting," Anya informed him.

As Tara dealt the cards, Rupert leaned toward Spike. "Would you mind terribly if we continued this discussion of why vampires choose to sire at a later date? It's fascinating, a-as an academic subject, of course."

Spike shrugged. "Always the Watcher. No, I don't mind, just you an' me."

One o'clock came and went, and it was almost two a.m. before the gathering broke up. Dawn, Tara, and Willow walked their guests to the door.

"I'll do a quick sweep through a couple of the boneyards," Spike assured the tired humans.

"Would you really have turned Willow?" Tara stood close to Spike and spoke in a low voice.

"Yeah," he said slowly, tilting his head and staring down into her large eyes. "Back then."

"Stay away from my girlfriend," Tara said, only half-kidding.

"Girlfriends," Spike mused, touching his tongue to his teeth for a second. "Maybe ole Drac has the right idea, havin' brides about. You two get tired of the same-old, want to give immortality a shot, the pair of you, yeah, I'd-"

At first Tara's eyes had gone very wide, but now she was grinning as she gave him a little shove on the shoulder. "Flirt." Then she gave him a quick hug and a shy smile.

"Tasty Tara," he murmured, and she shoved at him again, making him grin.

"Anya, Xander, don't forget that we have that double date next Friday," Willow called anxiously. Xander gave her a deliberate nod.

"School begins in a couple of weeks, doesn't it?" Giles asked Dawn.

"Yeah," she affirmed glumly, getting a hug from him as he left. "No more fun late nights after that." Their eyes met, then Dawn closed hers and gave him an extra squeeze to let him know he was forgiven.

Spike was the last, and she stepped outside with him, letting him cradle her in his arms for a long moment. "You should have told," she whispered.

"Yeah, prob'ly," he agreed in a low voice.

"Hmm… wasn't I just saying that we never talk about the important stuff?"

"So, Nibblet," he said slowly as they separated and stood slightly apart on the porch. "All this because of what I said the other night?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I was so mad at you for trying to take what was mine."

"The blame," he said, wanting to be clear.

She nodded. "If it was my fault, then I didn't have to be mad at her for leaving me." Dawn bit her lip. That was more than she'd wanted to say.

Spike understood though. "If you'd gone, she wouldn't have been long after you. If anything happened to you, it would have killed her." He grimaced. "Sorry. Not much with the comfort."

"I'll take honesty over comfort any day," Dawn said, rolling her eyes. "Oh! I almost forgot. Don't let Willow or Tara see you driving your car. I told them you sold it. They thought you'd been stealing money."

He gave her a half-grin. "No car. Check. Good one, Platelet." He went down the steps, then turned to face her once more as something occurred to him. "I mean, lying is wrong. Shouldn't fib."

"Oh, please. See? Told you I'm badder than you."

"In the house, helpless prey." He waited until she went inside and heard the deadbolt slide into place before he left. Then he put on a burst of speed so he could shadow Anya and Xander to their apartment. He felt unaccountably cheerful. They didn't blame him. And the women had all hugged him, even Willow, who had the most reason to hate him. But it was the slap on the back from Harris that meant the most, somehow. That, and Rupert quoting in a low voice as his eyes rested on Dawn before he looked around at the table of pizza-eating Scoobies, 'We band of buggered.'

Spike watched Xander and Anya safely to their door and waited until a light came on in their apartment. 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers/For he to-day that sheds his blood with me/Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile/This day shall gentle his condition.' He turned away, the words shining in his head, and headed to the cemetery near the UC-Sunnydale campus. They had all shed blood, been battered and bruised by that awful night, hadn't they?

A Slayer with family and friends, he remembered grousing to Dru all those years ago. Made her so strong for such a young Slayer. He'd dusted the Anointed One moments later, clearing their claim to the town, wanting to explore that challenge. Now the Slayer was gone (… not entirely my fault…), but the family and friends remained. A vampire with fam—

No, wouldn't do to start thinking like that. Buffy's family and friends couldn't make him stronger, because they couldn't be his. Well, Dawn was, there was no getting around that. Buffy had entrusted her to him, after all. But not the rest. Never happen. Stupid soul, gettin' all hopeful. No place for him in the Scooby gang.

Nonetheless, Spike lightly leapt onto a tombstone and played hopscotch across the stone backs of the grave markers, springing from one to the next, all the way across the empty cemetery.

* * *

Next Chapter: September, where Spike deals with someone's crush.


	4. September

**September**

September 2001

"I'm cold," Dawn said quietly.

Spike pulled his attention away from the television set and stood from the couch to take off his coat. Dawn helped him drape it over her, then leaned against his shoulder when he sat back down. She slid her arm around his waist, and in turn he curled his arm around her. Dawn pulled her legs under the coat, and their eyes went back to the television.

Spike knew he wasn't helping to her keep warm, but it was the thirteenth of September, and the comfort of another's touch seemed to be more important than it had two days ago. He rubbed her shoulder, absently brushing her long hair to one side.

"How many people caught it on camera, do you think?" There was a new view of an airplane plowing into a skyscraper.

He shrugged. "New York City. Lots of tourists, lots of camcorders."

They fell silent again, listening to the lack of news. Dawn had gone back to school that morning, and Spike was babysitting while Willow and Tara stayed after class for a candlelight vigil at UC-Sunnydale. Everyday life was beginning to creep back in, but it was an uneasy fit. Dawn lifted the remote from Spike's knee and changed to a different news network.

"I'm glad they're not here to see this," Dawn said in a small voice. He didn't reply, just kept rubbing her back. What could he say? Nothing could make him glad that Buffy and Joyce were gone.

"They had souls," she said eventually. "How could they have that much hate?"

He knew she meant the hijackers of the four airplanes. "Dunno, Bit," he murmured. It was true; even as a demon, he hadn't understood why evil worked to bring about hell on earth, hadn't understood that unwavering focus on destruction. "Someone told me once that you hate what you can't understand."

"But they think some of the hijackers lived in America for a while," Dawn said. "Didn't they see that we're good people?"

Spike slowly rubbed her back and tried to think of the best words. "You're the haves in a have-not world. I was around for the twilight of our empire, when we British were the most admired and hated people on the globe. When you're so powerful, and you don't use that power equitably, for the good of all, people blame you for what's wrong in the world." Dawn started to say something, but Spike overrode her, wanting to get the thought out. "Those terrorists see you saying one thing, doing another, and wonder why Allah doesn't smite you. They get to thinking, if Allah won't act, it must be because he's waiting for them to prove their faithfulness by doing it themselves."

"That's crazy."

"It's senseless," he agreed, "and I'm greatly oversimplifying."

"I hate the people who did this."

"Hate's what started this."

"Be angry, Spike! Jeez! You don't even care, do you? I mean, you're not American."

He raised his eyebrows, surprised by this. "Yeah, I care. New York's one of my favorite cities. Lived there for a while in the forties and seventies. And DC is a lovely town, not that it has anything to do with it. Anyone with compassion or empathy has to be shocked by this, whether they're British or a bushman – or Saudi."

Dawn sounded grouchy. "Stop being all reasonable."

His eyebrows went up again. "Don't recall I've ever been called reasonable."

She lifted her head from his shoulder. "I just want to get the gang together and go beat the crap out of the people who did this. We slay demons; we can take them."

"Yeah, I'm always up for a righteous brawl. But this isn't our purview, Nibblet. I believe you're the one who told me I can't go around killing humans."

"Yeah, well, you have my permission now." She scowled at the smile on his face and laid her head against his shoulder again. Dawn picked up the remote control and surfed until she found an episode of an innocuous eighties sitcom about hapless parents and their wisecracking kids. "I can't watch any more news," she explained.

He didn't reply, just slouched down further on the cushions, getting comfortable. Sunset was getting near, and Tara had said to expect them back sometime around eleven o'clock. Just a few more hours of big brothering, a quick patrol, and he planned to go back to his crypt and crash. He hadn't slept since Tuesday, staying at the Summers house while Dawn was out of school. The hot showers were nice, but living with a herd of emotional humans was almost as draining as traveling with Darla and Angelus.

The show the Bit had found was no doubt comforting to her in its bland familiarity, but it didn't capture his interest. Dawn was as toasty as a bedwarmer full of coals, and, with the warmth and sleepiness, he found himself drifting. As always, his thoughts turned to Buffy, and he relived those last, companionable hours before her death; felt again the way his insides liquefied and his throat knotted with fear as he met Dawn's eyes, not because he was about to be thrown from the high tower, but because he was leaving her alone and Buffy had counted on him to protect her. Then the sight of the Slayer's body on the ground in the morning sunlight, unapproachable as always.

This time he saved Dawn by doing a fearless flying side kick, knocking Doc right off the platform. He went off, too, but snatched out with the uncanny reflexes of a demon and grabbed the edge. Two fingernails peeled back with bright, wet pain, but he crawled onto the ledge and freed Dawn. Glory defeated, Buffy dashed up the haphazard stairs and pulled Dawn into a fierce hug. She gave him a quick hug, too, and he smiled, grateful, as he watched the sisters embrace again. Buffy turned to include him in their circle, her arm going around his waist, the wind whipping as the three of them stood high above her friends, and she gave him a soft kiss. She deepened it, touching his lower lip with her tongue before pulling reluctantly away.

He opened his eyes to find Dawn staring gravely at his mouth, too close. Spike's heart sank as he realized the kiss had not been just a part of his dream. He had hoped to dodge this, even as he'd seen her infatuation building. "Was I turned into a frog, then?"

A reluctant grin crept across her mouth and she shook her head, her long brown hair falling over her face. For a moment, he thought his prepared line would do the trick, that Dawn would scoot away and things would go back to normal. Instead, Dawn moved toward him. Spike moved back an equal distance.

Dawn's expression shuttered, but there was a certain stubbornness in her eyes. She bit her lip and plunged in. "I know you love me, Spike."

"I do." He met her gaze. "'Course I do. I –"

Dawn shook her hair back from her face. "I love you. So there's nothing wrong –"

"There's plenty wrong," he interrupted. "I'm here to protect you, Dawn, even from me. Even from yourself."

"I want us to shag."

He winced. "Language, Bit."

"I want you to be my first lover."

He didn't know what showed on his face, but the impulse to flee the house, plunge his head into a tub of water, and scour his ears until it was physically impossible to hear these words almost overwhelmed him. But his voice was calm, reasonable, even. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do." Dawn was adamant. "We love each other. You'll be gentle, so it won't hurt me; you can't get me pregnant; you're aseptic, so you can't infect me with anything, and…" her eyes dropped, "I want you to do the things the Buffybot told me you're good at."

"The 'Bot?" he echoed, stunned. "The bloody 'Bot told you–" He made himself stop, refused to think about anything in the robot's explicitly programmed response files. He forced himself to be calm once again, searching for words. Dawn had thought about this, obviously, and he could see where it made sense to her. Bloody hell, it made sense to him, if it came to that. They did love each other, and he'd do a far better job of initiating her than some pimply teenager. She was lovely and warm and sweet, and he could make her his forever. His soul shuddered in distaste, and he snatched at that emotion gratefully. Thank God he had the soul. Stupid demon. "You deserve better than a demon."

Her eyebrow rose. "You are better than a demon."

"I'm not good enough for you–"

"It was good enough for Buffy, her first time."

He bit down on his quick retort on how well that had turned out. "You don't want 'good enough,' Dawnie, you–"

"I know what I want!" she cried, her voice becoming shrill. Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, reining herself in, and he was impressed that she mastered herself so quickly. "You'd never hurt me, and it's just," she gestured vaguely toward the television, "anything could happen at any time. You could be dead tomorrow, or I could."

"I am dead," Spike said forcefully. Dawn pushed away from him, but he held her, not willing to have this conversation through her slammed-shut and locked-tight bedroom door. She scowled at him, but he ignored it. "I'm dead, I'm cold, I'm so too-old for you that it's laughable. You think of me as safe, Dawn. I'm not. Do you know how hard I have to try just to not bruise you each time I touch you?" He gripped her arms tighter and let his demon out, let it claim his features. He held her eyes with his yellow gaze. "If it weren't for this, I'd be moldering in a grave. I am a monster, and you know I'd die before I let a monster lay a finger on you." Loosening his grip, he brought his human features to the surface. "Even me."

"Let go of me!"

"No!"

"I'll get Xander, then. He loves me, too."

Spike's eyes were suddenly quite black. "Then I'll get an industrial-sized bottle of painkillers and slowly kill him over the course of weeks," he informed her in a pleasant voice.

"I'll pick some random guy, then, someone you don't know. I might get pregnant, or get gonorrhea, and it'll be your fault!"

"There's nowhere I can't find you, you try to sneak off."

"Let go! I'll… I'll scream!"

"Yeah?" he challenged her. "Like your neighbors have never heard screams from this house before." He twisted then and lifted her, meaning to frighten her with his strength and speed, settling her on the far end of the couch and kneeling in front of her, his coat tangling around her legs. "You and I are going to talk and get this sorted right now." Dawn glared at him and folded her arms, turning her head pointedly away. Spike sighed. "You realize, of course, that I can wait forever. Literally."

Patience wasn't one of his virtues, and Dawn was almost as stubborn as he was, but after five minutes and a quashed attempt to dash for her room, she finally broke. "I'm a monster, too. I thought we…."

"Hang about! You're no monster," he protested, surprised.

"Ball of glowing green energy, remember?"

"No, I don't, actually. All I remember is you, Bit, made with your mom's DNA, from your sister's blood. You can't deny it; you're a genetic Summers." She still wasn't looking at him, but he thought she was listening. Spike splayed his fingers over his chest. "I am a monster, so I recognize other monsters. You're no monster, Nibblet. You are a lovely girl, nearly a lovely young woman. You deserve much, much better than a dead night thing."

Dawn's face crumpled, but she pulled herself together. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "Who else is ever going to love," she said, wiping tears from her eyes, "me?"

"If you've loved and been loved before, you'll have love again," he said easily. "Your mum and your big sis loved you. Willow and Tara love you so much that they're lying to social services just to keep you, aren't they?"

"But I w-want someone just for me!" she said, openly crying now.

"Oh, I understand about that," he said with a rueful smile. "But the loneliness you're feeling is a part of being human, Dawn. It's one of the things grownups bear."

"I don't want to be a grownup; I just…."

"You want; you don't want," he broke in, impatient with her youth. "You know what I want for you, Dawnie?" He took her hand in his cool one. "I want you to have a nice, safe, PG-rated high school life with dances and boys carrying your books. I want you to find someone who suits you so perfectly, it's like he's the other half of you. I want your first time to be on your wedding night to that man that you'll love forever. Not a first, but an only."

"That's a fairy tale," she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"And that's what I want for you," he agreed, his voice soft now. "You deserve the fairy tale, because it's been too much of a horror story up until now."

She tightened her mouth, trying not to sob, but the grief was too much. She let him take her in his arms and hold her, and there was nothing sexual in the way she clung to him as she cried. These were bawling, ugly, wracking sobs that started in her center and shook her with pain as they made their way out. She grieved for the tragedy, for the loss and the pain of thousands, but mostly she grieved for herself, mourned her mother and sister and her own abrupt origins.

Spike held her until her tears were spent. At some point, he'd begun rocking her. Now he stopped and pushed her hair back from her face. "I don't know how you do it, Bit," he admitted. "But you do. You just keep on going." He got up from his knees in front of her and sat down beside her on the couch. This would be as good a time as any. "Now, I need you to listen.

"What you just suggested, it's dangerous. You are fifteen, and I'm an adult. If I were just a human, it would be enough to send me to prison. But I'm not human, and that makes it extremely dangerous. 'M no nonce, but if Xander even suspected that you had entertained such a notion, he'd happily crank up the Wagner and ride a wooden lance through my chest. You know he would, Dawn. And I can't fight back, can't defend myself against soddin' Xander Harris."

She stared at him, her reddened eyes widening. "But he can't! You have a…"

"He'd do it even if he knew. I'm not the only one who wants to protect you, Nibblet." He sighed. "You know I'm always straight with you, right? What you offered, what you asked for… it's very flattering, gets a man right where he lives. Gets him hard. There are plenty of grown men with souls who'd take you up on that offer. Do you think Willow or Tara would believe I wouldn't?" She didn't answer, but her fine brows drew together. "I promised to stay with you, Bit, but those two could keep me away. They're powerful enough to do it, no matter what you or I might want. And if someone like Glory came around, if something happened to you because they kept me from protecting you… I'd likely kill them, chip or not, witches or not." He took one of her hands in his again and frowned. "You understand, then? Your desire isn't wrong, Dawn, but it's the wrong time, and I'm the wrong person, for a lot of reasons."

She stared at their clasped hands. "I understand. I don't like it, but I understand." She sighed. "Why did those monks have to make me so young?"

"Easy. To bring out the Slayer's protective instincts."

The corners of her mouth curled down. "I hate being too young." She gave him a sidelong look. "Will you wait for me?"

"I will always be here for you, Dawn, as long as you can stand having me around." He raised his eyebrows and gave her a faint smile. "Longer, probably. But I think you'll change your mind about me, the older you get."

"No, I won't," Dawn disagreed, shaking her head so vigorously that her hair swung. "If I can't change your mind, I'll just have a Spikebot made for me." His head jerked back, and she looked up at him, all slyness and 'who's bad now,' the corners of her mouth lifting in a satisfied smile. It wasn't often the blond man was left speechless.

But he wasn't. "Don't bother. Just get a vibrator. Easier on batteries." It was his turn to smirk as her mouth fell open and her eyes widened incredulously.

"Omigod. I cannot believe you said that."

"There's some advice you won't get from the other adults in your life: masturbate. Often. Bit of the old hand-shandy will keep you out of worse mischief." He reclaimed the far corner of the couch, spreading his arms across the back with restored confidence. "What, you're blushing? The girl who just asked me for the Buffybot blue plate special can't handle the 'M' word?"

By now she was trying not to smile with shock and delight. Dawn wadded up his coat and threw it at him. "You're terrible!"

"My point exactly," he agreed. "And don't you ever forget it."

* * *

Next Chapter: Welcome Back, where Spike and Dawn come to terms with Buffy's return.


	5. Welcome Back

**Welcome Back**

October 2001

Looking at the DeSoto, Spike wondered if it would be possible to pack the motorcycle into the back seat and just drive, get the hell out of the Hellmouth. He wasn't sure he was up for this, that his heart could bear it. The thought was fleeting, and he pushed the bike into the undergrowth next to the car and absently scattered another handful of coprodorum nettles he'd nicked from the Magic Box around his makeshift garage. The smell of the strong herb put off most demons; its magical properties put off humans.

Beyond hope, new memories of Buffy.

She was on the stairs again, coming down toward him, looking deceptively delicate. Her eyes had been fragile before, desperate; now they were a thousand years old and unreadable. And her hands. Oh God, her hands.

If the stupid children had just let him know, he could have spared her that.

Choking down a sob, he turned on his heel and began to walk. So full of energy right now, the crypt couldn't contain it. Heel to toe, always silent, whether over concrete or turf or gravel, a different kind of Black Death in the night. He killed as he walked, not brushing the dust from his clothes after he walked through it, not wiping slime from his hands or knife as he stepped over bodies. No humans out this late, not in Sunnydale, and just as well for them. Wouldn't have noticed the chip firing if he killed a human. Too much pain already. Violence was his only solace.

She was here….

Really her, the smell of her blood his proof.

Her hands.

She had to claw her way out of a grave.

Like him.

Stupid children!

They didn't tell him.

Betrayal.

Not his family and friends, never his.

 _She's coming back._

She was back.

She had let him touch her.

Her hands, oh God, her hands.

Buffy.

His only light, the sunshine he loved, yet as deadly to him.

Shut up, poet.

 _She will love you._

He stopped cold, looking around. His breathing was ragged, so he made himself stop that, too. Stupid reflex. He was two-thirds of the way across the empty parking lot of a grocery store in a less-affluent section of Sunnydale. Where had he been? Spike could smell the tang of salt, so he must have been to the docks. That's right; he'd gathered the broken pieces of the 'Bot, weighted them further, and given them a right heave-ho. No more substitutes, never again. Glancing down at the length of his form, he sussed out four different species of demon and the scent of too many young vampires to separate. For a moment, Spike imagined his emotions must have been a magnet for any evil awake in Sunnydale, then he remembered the demon biker gang had just blown the town. No wonder so many creatures were prowling through the ruins.

Buffy had to walk through that.

Hell of a job they'd done, keeping her town in shape.

And her sister had been out in this, alone.

 _Spike… are_ you _okay?_

Dawn! Oh, God, his Bit, what was she going through? He'd been so lost inside himself that he hadn't even thought of her. With a muttered oath, Spike pivoted and made toward the Summers' house with supernatural speed. He was across the lawn and outside her window before it hit him all over again.

Buffy was alive, inside.

He started shaking.

Dawn had apparently been waiting for him, because the window slid up the moment his feet touched the shingles. He forced himself to meet her gaze, and it was like catching onto a rope after hours lost at sea. Despite the hysteria lurking in her eyes, being with her made everything bearable. Spike inhaled deeply, drawing her scent inside himself, and felt his tension ease.

She grabbed him in a fierce embrace, burying her head against his shoulder, half-pulling him through the window. He waited until his hips were on the sill, then twisted his legs through, and stood so he could wrap his arms around her.

"Let it go," he soothed, feeling her abdomen hitch. "'S'alright, Bit, I'm here. Shh." After a few minutes, he pushed his duster aside and settled into her desk chair, pulling her onto his lap.

Dawn took this as a cue to wipe her eyes. Spike produced a handkerchief in silence. He'd started carrying one again after feeling like a right wanker when he hadn't had one to offer the first night they'd visited Joyce's grave together. Somewhere on the journey to wearing only comfortable cotton and silk and leather, he'd shed the handkerchief along with the wool.

Giving him a watery smile, Dawn whispered, "She's back."

"She's back," he agreed.

"Is she… do you think she's…" Her voice trailed off.

"It's her," he affirmed. "Blood moving through her, voice, scent…" oh, God, the hot scent of her, "is right."

"Anya said… they said she had been in hell. Spike, why would Buffy be in hell? We thought she was in heaven. She's good, she sacrificed-"

"Sounds like they thought she was stuck in Glory's dimension when the portal closed," Spike said, his gut clenching with renewed guilt. Over the summer, he and Dawn had comforted each other with tales of what Joyce and Buffy were up to in heaven. Dawn had come up with an entire mall instead of streets paved with gold, with Buffy's favorite shop being Celestial Shoes and Joyce running the Archangel Art Gallery. But, while he had no doubt where Mrs. Summers was, apparently Red had been right.

"I remember when Angel came back from hell," Dawn said, her voice broken. "He was so scary, like an animal. Buffy had to keep him chained up." She looked up at him. "But Buffy's not like that."

"I 'spect Buffy, not being meant for a hell dimension the way Angelus is, wasn't tormented the same way." He sighed. "Being here isn't gonna be easy for her for a long while, Bit. We'll need to be gentle with her, give her time."

"They didn't tell me," Dawn said, her voice bitter.

"Me, either."

"How could they do that?"

"Thought you were too young," he said, shrugging. "Maybe they weren't sure they could do it, didn't want to get your hopes up."

"Why didn't they tell you?"

"Don't think they told Giles, either," he said, shrugging again and avoiding the question. "Rupes would never have left if he knew his Slayer would be back."

"The whole thing seems kind of sneaky."

Spike met her eyes, but didn't say anything. He firmed his mouth, then touched her hair, still shiny to his enhanced vision in the dark room. "How were things here tonight?"

"Quiet," Dawn said. "Something fell over and smashed in Tara and Willow's room. I heard them get up to check and see if it woke up Buffy, but that's all. She's asleep. I checked, too."

He heard the thread of loneliness in her voice. "She'll probably sleep a lot for a while, like your mum did after she came back from the hospital. Let her rest. She'll be ready to let you cuddle her tomorrow night."

"Maybe." Dawn rolled the collar of his t-shirt between her fidgety fingers. "Xander said she's already had to fight demons, that she's the reason those nasties on the motorcycles left."

He smoothed her hair again. "It's part of who she is, Nibblet." He shrugged. "May be a reason why this was the night she came back, because it's the first night she was really needed. There were too many of 'em for us to take on, though we would have found a way to roust them tomorrow. But the town would have been theirs tonight…" he sighed. "Not all that fond of Sunnydale, but I don't want you livin' somewhere that looks like a war zone."

She watched him fold her hand into his, then lay it in his palm, matching up their fingers as if comparing the size of her slender hand against his larger one. "Why did you leave? I mean, so suddenly. We never even got to bandage her hands."

He looked up swiftly. "Did…?"

"She washed up, but no bandages. They've already healed a lot." Dawn slid her fingers between his, and he curled their hands into a fist. "Why'd you leave?"

"I was angry," he said simply. "They were crowding her-"

"Yeah!" Dawn's voice was also angry and a little loud. "I made 'em back off, too."

He grinned. "I heard you. Good job, Sweet Bit."

"And?"

"And I… wasn't part of it. Felt like I didn't belong. Or, I belonged on the outside."

"Because they didn't tell you what they were doing?" At his shrug, Dawn squeezed his fingers. "Just because she's back doesn't mean you get to stop coming around," she warned. "You said it yourself, that it's going to take her a while to… get back to normal. We still need you to help take care of everything."

"I'm here for you, 's'long as you need me."

"How about, like, forever? 'Cause you need me, too, you know?"

"Can't argue with you there."

Dawn pulled her hand free and gave him a quick hug. "I love you, Spike."

He squeezed back. "I love you, too. Always."

"Ribs," she said, half serious and half sarcastic.

"Here," he said, releasing her and helping her up from his lap. "Time for you to get some sleep yourself. She'll need you tomorrow."

"Are you going back to your crypt?"

He nodded down at her. "Bit knackered myself. Lot happened tonight." Spike turned to the window. She never asked him to tuck her in, though he had wanted to once or twice. Too old for that, he supposed. "'Night, Bit."

"'Night." Dawn shut and locked the window behind him, and a small, approving smile touched his mouth. He leapt down to the lawn, then paused, looking back at the house.

Before he had formed the conscious thought, he was again outside a window, this time looking into Buffy's room. She was asleep, he could tell from her breathing. His shadow fell on the pillow next to her, and Spike moved until the darkness of his form touched her golden head. With those too-knowing eyes closed and her face soft in the innocence of sleep, she looked like an – well, no, not an angel. His grandsire had soured that word for him.

Buffy was alive, had let him touch her hands, had accepted his help. This was enough. If she never so much as glanced at him again, this would be enough. He waited outside the window until his demon began to writhe with worry over the approaching sunrise, but she never moved. His palm flattened against the glass a final time, then he dropped to the lawn and went to find the nearest sewer access.

He slept for a few hours because his brain just shut down. Worry crept in when he woke. Spike was sure he would go back to see Dawn tonight and the entire thing would turn out to be a dream, a nightmare. Or, he was just insane, wanting so much for her to be alive that he'd become a complete nutter. Unable to stay away, he had dodged the sunlight and gone to see, just to check. He'd been unnerved to find that there was no one at the Summers' house. Had he imagined her return? If he went to the Magic Box, he'd have to see the Scoobies, so he came back to his own place, thinking Dawn might look for him here. Since then, he'd been pacing the chamber below the crypt, thoughts coming in a constant, maddening stream. Minutes crept by; his footfalls ticked off the seconds with a ceaseless rhythm.

Must have imagined it, dreamed it.

Too much to hope for.

He slammed his fist into the rough rock, bloodying his knuckles and drawing a laugh that scared him. I certainly sound crazy, he thought. Then he heard something real in the crypt above, not the Bit; she'd bellow out his name. Maybe something he could grab onto, maybe a chance for a fight.

Spike was all the way off the ladder before he allowed himself to accept that it was Buffy. She had come to him. When she turned at the sound of his voice, he saw that she was like Dawn now. She had no fear of him; it was clear in the endless depths of her eyes. When had she ever looked at him without wariness mixed with her other emotions?

Last night, he thought, sheathing his knife and making some inane comment. The fear had been gone last night. After what she'd been through, a single demon held no fear for her. She hadn't said much, so quiet now, his Slayer. It struck him suddenly that she wasn't here to talk. She might listen, though, so he forced his own body into stillness and settled so that he could meet those difficult eyes.

"I do remember what I said. The promise. To protect her. If I'd have done that, even if I didn't make it, you wouldn't have had to jump. But I want you to know that I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again. I do some'n' different, faster, more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night, I save you."

The sound of his voice faded, and still she didn't speak. There was no accusation or anger in her eyes. She doesn't blame me, he realized. Something in him shifted, slid back into place, and he gave her a small, helpless smile.

"You were taking care of Dawn last night?"

"Uh, yeah. Bit-sitting, while the witches were away. Double-date with Xan…" Spike's words trailed off, and his jaw tightened. Some double-date, what with the spellcasting. How long had they been planning this resurrection? Probably begun before he'd returned to Sunnydale. "Um, when the demons got to your neighborhood, I commandeered one of their motorbikes to take her to the Magic Box; 's'more defensible than your Mum's house."

Buffy nodded, absorbing all of this. She was still staring up at him, so he slid off the crypt and onto the floor, kneeling in front of her so that she wouldn't get a crick in her neck. Spike held his hands out to her.

"Let me see them, then."

Buffy put her warm fingers against his, and he stared at her knuckles, the tips of her fingers, close to a state of grace. Finally, another helpless smile took his mouth. "They look better, almost healed."

She nodded again, then pulled her hands back, holding them loosely between her knees. She didn't seem to find any discomfort just staring into his eyes, and Spike could happily gaze at her for a good chunk of eternity. After several minutes, he gave his head a small shake.

"Uh, Dawn found you last night? Took you home?"

She nodded. "Do you do that a lot? Babysit, I mean?"

He smiled faintly, genuinely amused somewhere among the wonder. "Yeah, but don't call it that in front of her. Not as much as you had me babysitting before… when Glory was being such a pest." God, she was beautiful. He wanted to reach out and touch her cheek, reassure himself that she was real, so instead he moved to sit next to her. Spike oriented his body toward Buffy, bending his neck and shoulders as if trying to make a protective cocoon for her.

"I did promise. Can't protect her if I'm not around, now can I? Would do anything to take care of her, keep my word." 'I love her,' he started to say, but the words wouldn't come. If he said that, he would end up declaring his love for her again, too. Buffy didn't need that right now.

"Thank you."

"Now that may be a first," Spike said, trying to lighten the mood. "A Slayer thanking a vampire."

"Your eyes are blue," she said abruptly, surprise coloring her quiet voice.

"Are they? I scarcely remember."

"I-I always thought they were dark."

He shrugged. "Probably look that way at night, with the pupils dilated. That's when we mostly see each other."

"Or you had your game face on."

He grimaced. "That, too. Won't be seeing that much in the future, I expect."

"Because of the chip."

"Even without the chip, Buffy." He sighed and looked down at his own hands. "I don't have any desire to harm you, or Dawn. I'll do anything in my power to keep the both you safe from now on."

She didn't nod or agree, only met his gaze with her fathomless eyes. "I should go."

Spike didn't look away. "Yeah," he agreed, "getting on towards sunrise." Pain, he realized, standing automatically when his lady rose, walking her to the door. Her eyes are full of pain. "Buffy?" Words failed him when she turned back, so he finished lamely, "You're always welcome here. Any time you want, just… stop by."

She nodded again, his silent Slayer, and walked away. Spike watched from the doorway until she was lost among the tombstones.

* * *

Next Chapter: Scenes from Sunnydale, where having a soul can move relationships from utterly hopeless to merely improbable.


	6. Scenes from Sunnydale

**Scenes from Sunnydale**

October 2001

Heaven.

Spike tried the word again, thinking of the peace and safety she'd spoken of, everything Buffy didn't have in this world.

He lifted the bottle automatically to his lips. The skin on his hands was swollen and cracking from burns. He'd stayed in the alley too long after she left, his coat over his head, until he heard Red, Tara, and the whelp leave the Magic Box. If he'd seen Willow, he wouldn't have been able to keep from snapping her neck, even if the punishment from the chip killed him. Spike had crossed the floor of the shop at supernatural speed, headed to the door to the basement and thus to his crypt, where there was liquor. He doubted Anya would have known he was in the Magic Box, if not for the smell of burnt flesh.

Buffy had been in heaven.

 _You're beneath me._

Truer words.

No chance, then, because she was a child of heaven, and he was… not.

Funny, he'd never thought much about that part of having a soul. Before, he knew he'd have eternity, and after a long, long while, he'd slip up and be dust. Then there would be hell. Not much to look forward to, so why dwell on it? Buffy was back, after all. He had now.

But with a soul… no, just to be near her was heaven.

Maybe with his soul, he could be near her forever.

He thought of Angel and his atoning. Catholic, that, the poncy Irishman. Church of England, himself. Good deeds were for the glory of God, not for oneself, and heaven only possible through grace, through mercy.

He didn't have a chance, either way. Papist or C of E, not a chance. Couldn't fool his Victorian self into believing a more exotic religion, not at this late date. There might be grace for killers, but not for demons.

No, just be grateful to be near her right now, her and Dawn and even the damned Scoobies, once he could look at them without wanting to rip their arms off. What he'd done was done, no mercy for it. Now was good. She was talking to him, seeing him. Treating him like a man. He closed his eyes to better see hers, the new depths of Buffy's eyes. Despite the pain in them, now was very, very good.

⸹

"Giles is back."

"Well, that's nice, I guess. For you."

She nodded from the doorway. Spike had been waiting for her, pacing the floor of the crypt. He wished he could have sat nonchalantly in the chair so he could look over his shoulder in feigned surprise. "Oh, Buffy, wasn't expecting you." But, no, she'd opened the door while he was in mid-stride, his eyes had found hers, and his body froze even as his heart melted. He used to be so good at staging these things.

"Uh, come on in. Sun's not that good for you, either."

She came inside and sat diffidently, as if she wasn't sure the couch was real. He sat next to her, realizing that they had not broken eye contact once, their gazes truly locked.

"Spike, if I ask you something…" Her voice trailed away, and he watched her disappear from her own eyes.

"Buffy?" He imagined that was how he looked when his soul overtook his thoughts.

She came back with a snap and a slightly annoyed jerk of her head. "Uh, sorry. What I mean is, we're not friends." What she read on his face, he didn't know, but she might as well have spat on him. His expression was enough to penetrate the haze that hung about her, and she put a hand on his forearm. "I- I didn't mean it like that. We were mortal enemies, remember, then we were allies… I guess I don't know what we are, but you've always been honest with me. So…" she stared at her hand for a second, then removed it from his arm, "if I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?"

"Of course I will." He felt the heat from her slender fingers fading from his forearm with a pain that was almost physical.

"What did I do," she asked, anguish in her eyes despite the continued flatness of her tone, "that was so bad?"

"Do?" he echoed, at a loss for her meaning.

She stood up and turned away, agitated, pacing now with more energy than he'd seen from her since she returned. "I was in heaven! That's permanent, right? Nobody gets to come back from heaven! It was just Willow; she's a powerful witch, but–" She stopped and licked her dry lips, her hands at the small of her back where she so often kept a stake. "It couldn't have been just her and Tara." Buffy's voice was a whisper now. "It must have been me, something that I did. People don't come back from heaven," she said, turning to meet his eyes again with her own tear-filled ones, "but they do get cast out of it."

He was on his feet and to her before he was aware of the intent, his hands taking hers, rubbing his thumbs across her healed knuckles. "No, Buffy. You're good, pure. I can feel it in you. You've never done anything–"

"I have," she said, making the admission in a dead voice. "I – Sometimes I hate Mom for dying, for leaving me. I've hated my Dad for lots of things. And I've… with Glory, I thought about Dawn dying, thought about how much easier it would be for me, horrible, selfish thoughts, the same as wishing her dead, as killing her myself. I can't love anymore, not enough. I don't feel–"

Spike was behind her suddenly, trapping her arms as he splayed the fingers of one hand across her abdomen, the other over her mouth, stopping her words. It was a classic vampire move, and he held her with supernatural strength, but his voice was gentle in her ear.

"You did nothing. Everyone has those bad thoughts, Buffy. Even as long as I've been undead, I remember that." He slid his hand from her mouth and pulled her into a gentler embrace, curving his body around her back, wanting to become a haven for her. "Thoughts aren't deeds, love."

"Deeds?" she echoed, her voice wispy. Buffy's eyes closed, and she shook her head in negation. "Oh, I've got deeds. I kill almost every night. I slept with Parker, but I didn't love him." She broke away from him effortlessly, gesturing at him. "Even you, Spike. I spent half of last year punching you for no good reason." She drew her arms in around her stomach, a parody of the embrace she had just left. "I-I sent Angel to hell," her voice broke, "and I knew he had a soul."

Spike approached warily, the way a tiger might close on a tigress. "What? You could have allowed hell on earth?" He shook his head. "No. You're the Slayer. That was Angelus; trust me, he deserved to go. You don't kill, Buffy, you save. Every night, you save this world. Especially that night."

She nodded now. "Yes. Every night, every single night. I'll never be done." She wiped a hand across her eyes. "I had been tired for so long, and I thought I was done. And now I'm back." She looked up into Spike's eyes, not realizing how he had stalked past her defenses, not uncomfortable with his closeness. "If it wasn't something I did… They're never gonna let me go."

He didn't know exactly who 'they' were, but he thought he knew what she needed, so he pulled her into his arms. Buffy let him hold her for a long moment, but when she pulled away, her cheeks were dry.

"I better get back," she said quietly. She left him standing almost where he had been when she came in. Spike listened as she made her way across the cemetery. When he was sure she was out of earshot, he allowed himself a short, harsh laugh, and ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn't saved her, and she wouldn't let him comfort her. What good was he?

I can listen, he reminded himself, and Spike resumed his pacing. She confides in me. I can be here for her, shut my gob and listen. She comes to me, after all. That's something. But he hated to see the Slayer like this, defeated, empty. I'll challenge her a little next time, he thought, help her remember exactly what she is.

⸹

His Slayer was not a drinker, obviously. He lurked behind the big tree in the yard (if he had the authority, he'd cut it down to improve sightlines and reduce the places for enemies to, well, lurk) and saw her give the Watcher a wan smile as she went into her house. Smiling a bit himself, he began the trip back to his crypt.

All night he'd been smiling, even when she was being a pain in the backside during the poker game. Buffy was so much more alive than she had been, so much closer to herself.

Closer to him.

An extra bounce crept into Spike's stride for a few yards, until he purposefully smoothed out his walk, gliding through the night like a proper predator. She came to him, really talked to him. He didn't have to pursue her or say anything outrageous to capture her attention. He had always told her the truth, but now it didn't seem to sting her. It had been a good night, except….

Buffy had called him 'neutered.' He had to admit, that stung. If she only knew; the chip was the least of his leashes now. Somewhere deep inside, his hibernating sex drive had stirred a bit, sneered at her word choice, and muttered something about her being nicer before he'd favor her with hour-long orgasms and then fallen back asleep. Neutered. The word rankled. He would have told her about his soul right then, if they hadn't been in a taproom full of demons.

Spike wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Oh, physically, he knew well enough what he looked like: dangerous and gorgeous, in that order, according to Harmony. The bleached hair worked well with the harsh planes of his face; one reason why he'd kept the look so long. Enough women had sung praises for his mouth for him to know it was a good feature. Unlike most vampires, he wasn't above working out a bit, liking his body better muscular than soft and Williamy. Even Buffy had noticed the color of his eyes. She knew damn well he was good-looking, even as he knew damn well she'd never admit it.

But what did she see? Surely not her mortal enemy any longer. Sometimes she saw a man, not often, but enough to give him hope. Even if she just saw a friend, that would be enough. But the old wariness that showed in her gaze was creeping back, and he could see her gauging stake-angles. What was he to her? Just a mad dog with a muzzle? A Doberman on a shock collar? A great white with its teeth pulled, fascinating to swim with until the next set grew in?

Buffy let herself rely on the chip to keep her family and friends safe, and he knew from the Nibblet that she worried about the day it stopped working. He wondered if it was because she thought he would kill again, or if it was because she dreaded having to kill him. What she never seemed to realize was how dangerous it was for him. Humans could inflict a lot of damage even if they didn't know how to kill his kind. All he could do was run away. Oh, he'd never hesitated to retreat if the odds that he calculated so carefully shifted; that was prudence. But even as William, he hadn't run from a justified fight – though he'd suffered inglorious defeat both times. Now, one good bar fight with a group of idiot college boys could leave him unconscious behind the Bronze, prey for the first rays of sunlight.

'Neutered.' Spike scoffed. Was he grateful that the chip had put a muzzle on him? Hell, no. He'd never needed it, had he? He was more than the chip, had always been more than the chip. She should remember who had her back when the whole Acathla affair went down. If she'd given him any encouragement, he might have gone to get his soul then.

Spike's steady gait faltered. Honestly, that was selfish. Unfair of him. Buffy had to send her first love to hell; his welfare rightly was the least of her worries. But… Drusilla said he was already in love with her, that he struck the deal for the Slayer's sake, not for hers. If Buffy's response to him had been more positive, if she had seen that the odd liaison had more to do with saving the world – the world that had her in it – than saving Dru, what might he have done? If he had put down his unconscious sire and helped her kill Angelus, or even killed the old man for her despite how weak he'd been, barely free of the wheelchair, would she have really looked at him, seen what he could be? Or even after the chip, if Buffy – hell, if any of the Scoobies – had given him a bit of encouragement… His soul took him to task for that, too. Old Rupes had approached him, hadn't he? Probably would have sponsored his membership in the Scooby gang.

Never mind; didn't happen. But he had a soul now, and he should tell her about it. Except for her one bitchy 'neutered' comment, he rather thought she already sensed it, because it was different between them now. She confided in him, came to him just to spend time, didn't mind being seen in public with him. Buffy knows things are different, he thought, his step rather bouncy again. She just doesn't quite know why.

⸹

The Burba weed swung by Spike's side as he wound his way through the tunnels that ran beneath Sunnydale. He had no compunction about stealing from the Magic Box – well, maybe a twinge about taking from Rupert, but not from Anya, one of the Resurrection Four. If his soul was kicking up a bit of a fuss about the ethics of just how he spiced his daily blood, he was well set to ignore it. The tunnels, sometimes dangerous, were deserted this Halloween afternoon, and it was a good thing. His mind was on Buffy.

Nothing new there, of course. She was a bit snappish; retail tended to do that to anyone. However, her reaction to his invitation to engage in a bit of rough and tumble had surprised him. He hadn't meant anything by it, for a change. His quick mind was always two steps ahead of hers, putting a dirty spin on the most innocent of words. Buffy had been the one, though, to turn his invitation to patrol into something more intimate.

Spike raised his eyebrows in bemusement as he took a left branch in the familiar tunnels. She seemed better now that Giles was back. Maybe this was just more of her reappearing as she healed. Lord knew he'd had a long dry spell himself; desire seemed to have drained out of him along with half of his blood onto the floor of the cave in Africa. Better put on some speed, he thought, dismissing their encounter, if I want to see all of Linus' hunt for the Great Pumpkin.

⸹

"Are you gonna fuss at me, too?"

He was waiting for her, slouched against the windowsill just inside her bedroom, one foot on the floor, the other flat against the wall, his thumbs tucked into his belt. Dawn couldn't see his face, which was so unfair. She turned on a lamp to make them even.

"Let's see," Spike said, his tone measured as he began to tick off points on his fingers. "Lying to your sis, out by yourself, no one knew your whereabouts, up to petty crimes and misdemeanors, and," his voice was suddenly very loud, "snogging the undead? No, Dawn, why should I fuss?"

She threw herself on the bed and sent him a scathing, resentful look. "Go away."

"Not gonna be that easy." He had found her lying on the ground, weeping softly amid the dust, holding a bolt from his fallen crossbow. Spike sighed and moved to sit on the bed, but didn't touch her. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to stake him. Couldn't have been easy for you to do." He took a breath. "Dawn… are you trying to find a vampire for, like we talked about… for your first?"

"No! Gross! I'd seen him around, that's all. He was cute."

"But, Nibblet… didn't you know?"

"No." Her voice was sullen. "Maybe. I'm around you all the time, maybe cold seems normal." She could see his stricken look out of the corner of her eye, feel the guilt coming off him in waves. Part of her crowed with satisfaction, but a larger part felt bad for blaming him that she'd been in danger. "I didn't know," she relented. "I liked him. He was nice," she added, her voice soft.

"No," and his voice was implacable, "he was not nice. Said he wanted to turn you?" At her shrug, he went on. "And he might have. Most likely, though, he would have just drained you, and you'd be dead." He did touch her then, his fingertips on her cheek, brushing back hair. "And then where would I be?"

"You'd have Buffy, and everything would be easier, and everyone would be much happier." Dawn grabbed a pillow and plopped her face into it, so that nothing showed except her angry eyes.

He sputtered, which under other circumstances might have been funny. "I do not 'have' Buffy, and nothing would be easier, and no one would be happy. Where do you come up with this?"

She glared at him while staring straight ahead, and some part of Spike admired this. "I'm… inconvenient. And nobody. Even Justin… I thought he liked me for me, you know, but that wasn't it." Dawn rolled over, her mood changing, and met his eyes. "It was because I was the Slayer's sister."

"What I heard him say was that there was something about special about you," he paused and stroked a strand of hair from her face, "and then the git jumped to the illogical conclusion that it must be because of that."

"Illogical? Hello? Vampire! Of course it's about the sister thing. We have the same blood. That's probably the only reason you–" She stopped suddenly, knowing that she'd gone too far.

He went very still, then in an instant he was gone from the bed, as far away as he could get from her without leaving the room, and his voice, when it came, was so cold. "You think I'm an animal, then? Like," the word was filled with scorn, "Justin? That I don't love you for who you are? That I'm staying around so I can get your blood? Or any of the other tasty little things you've offered?"

"No! No, Spike, I didn't mean it, I–"

"Words hurt, girl," and she knew it was true, because his tone flayed her like a whip. "They hurt inside, where it doesn't heal, and they can't be taken back." He was close again, with that sudden, eerie speed. "Words never leave you." There were tears in her eyes now, and his voice changed again, became the aural equivalent of the cocoa her mother had served to comfort her and him both. "The fledge was a stupid git and better off dusted, but he wasn't so dim that he couldn't see you are special, Nibblet. He just didn't know why.

"Got the blood of two Slayers on my hands… at least that many. They come and go; been hundreds, thousands of them. Not so special." He touched her face again, wiping away a tear. "But there's only ever been one Dawn. 'S'all there'll ever be."

Her voice was thick with tears. "Everyone's like that, stupid. What makes me so special?"

"You're the first person ever who wasn't afraid of me," he said, after only a second of thought. "Your mum was almost the first, but, then, she did start off by going upside my head with a fire axe. But you? Fearless."

"'Cause I'm a m-monster, too."

He made an impatient noise. "Back to that, are we? You were comfortable with me – and me with you – long before we knew about the Key business. 'S'not what made you brave."

"She won't even look at me," Dawn said abruptly. "I don't know why, maybe because I didn't help bring her back, like I didn't want her, maybe because…."

Spike held his arms open. "C'mere, Bit." She came to him, and he rested his cheek against her head. She was growing so fast; only a while ago he could rest his chin on her head. Took after Joyce, this one. He sighed, remembering the good old days when he'd been rather taller than average. Stupid vitamins. "Isn't because you weren't one of Willow's acolytes. Buffy… it's more complicated than… she's just having a rough time adjusting to being here, love. Hard for her, innit?"

"You'd think she'd be happy!" Dawn's tears spilled over again. "Even if she was tired of being the adult, being with me can't be worse than…"

He knew immediately when the pieces tumbled into place, and Spike fell in love with his Bit all over again. She could be his own blood, his sister ( _child_ , came a whisper), with her nimble mind and touch of bloodthirst and the way she embraced her rage. Dawn owned his heart, and there was nothing he wouldn't do for her. So when she looked into his eyes for confirmation, he let her see everything. He was a bad liar, in any case. Sad, that, for a demon.

Dawn's eyes were huge. "Heaven?" she managed, a whisper. He didn't nod, but he didn't need to. Then, quick, quick like him. "Oh, God. They brought her back from there." Her knees gave way.

She wasn't heavy, but Spike thought it would be safer to settle her on the bed. He could bruise her so easily. They sat knee-to-knee in silence while Dawn processed the revelation. When she finally looked up at him, he said what he had to, for Buffy's sake. "Don't cop that you know, all right? It'd make her uncomfortable, more uncomfortable. And she doesn't want them to know."

"Why the hell not?" Yup, definitely in touch with her anger. "They should know what they've done!"

"It'd make her unhappy, Bit."

"Yeah," Dawn said bitterly. "Wouldn't want her to be unhappy."

He knelt down in front of her, if not out of courtesy, always willing to be the errant knight. Spike carefully cupped her face, then wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. "'Spect that's why some of why she avoids you, love. You let her be. You're good, no blood on your hands. You remind her of… of where she was." He gave her a grin that was supposed to be carefree and cheeky but just looked ghastly. "Easier for her to be around something hellish, like me. No bad memories of good places."

"You're totally not evil, Spike." She rolled her eyes and dismissed this impatiently. "So, we were right. Celestial Shoes and Archangel Art Gallery," she squealed with glee.

He shrugged. "Dunno, Nibblet. She talked more about how she felt than what she did." Spike knew his Bit so well, knew her jealousies, so he plowed on. "It was only the one time that she talked to me about it, just a couple of minutes, really. She had a bad taste in her mouth from," he sighed, running a hand through his curling hair, "thanking the Scoobies for bringing her back. Tryin' to make them feel good."

"Shit."

"Language," he warned absently.

"Did you tell her your secret?"

"No." He shrugged. "Hasn't really been a good opportunity. Been trying to just be there for her, give her space."

"Is that why you haven't been around much? Because of Willow and the rest?"

He smiled at his smart girl. The demon in him wanted her in its stupid, brutal way, wanted to turn her right at this moment so she would belong to him forever. Spike quashed the urge and brushed her hair away from her cheek again. "Yeah. Might be worth a migraine to knock their heads together." He sighed. "Wouldn't be fun if they didn't know why, though, and I promised Buffy I wouldn't tell."

"So… it isn't me you're mad at?"

"Nice try." He smirked back at her. "Yeah, I'm plenty mad." He took her shoulders in a hard grip. "You'd gotten yourself turned, Nibblet… I don't know if your Keyness would be any use to a vampire or not, but you'd still be dangerous, just because we love you so much." Her eyes widened as she listened. "You said Justin was nice, but you still had to dust him. It'd be me, Dawnie, or maybe Giles, but Buffy wouldn't be able to bring herself to stake you, you are turned. I'd have to do it. Break my heart," and his voice broke, too, "but I'd do it."

She shook her head in denial. "Nuh-uh. I'd be a good vamp, like you."

"I'm not good, Bit. Soul just gives me time to brake before I do something wrong."

"You were good before you got it, Spike. I could be good, too."

He stared at her, nonplussed. It was what he'd been thinking last week. How was it that she saw him so clearly when her sister could not? Not about you, his soul reminded him. "No." His words were deliberate. "I also have a chip that prevents me from hurting humans, plus two years of learning to curb my impulses so my head doesn't implode. Plus, over a hundred of knocking about as a demon, knowing what works in this world. New vamp wouldn't have that sort of control, not even you. All you'd know would be bloodlust."

"I'm, like, thousands of years old."

"Or fifteen. Or barely one."

"You could take me under your wing," she suggested.

"And why would I take in someone else's get?" he sneered. "You let yourself be sired by some other vampire, we'd be through."

"You wouldn't stake me," Dawn said confidently, and Spike realized she was still thinking about being sired. "We could go to Africa together, and I could get my soul, too."

"You couldn't do it. You wouldn't even want a soul, and you wouldn't want me. You would be dead, Dawn, and there would be a demon living in your body." He realized his fingers had sunk into the soft flesh of her shoulders, and he let go, sighing. "Listen, love, no, I wouldn't be your mentor." He looked at the floor. "You keep playing with vampires, I will stake you, I have to. Staked me own mum, after all."

"You…" Dawn looked at him with growing horror. "What?"

"She had consumption," he said wearily, letting go of his North London accent, "what you know as tuberculosis. I thought it would be the same for her as for me, that her real self would remain, thought I could save her from a lingering death, give her freedom. Turning her was practically the first thing I did after Dru made me." He met the girl's gaze again. "She wasn't the same person, Dawnie. There was nothing left of my mother inside that… thing. It… well, imagine Rupert putting the moves on you or your sister. What she said was so _wrong_ on so many levels… I still loved my mother, so I had to stake it. I killed my mother," he said, and Dawn had only once heard the same level of self-loathing in his voice, "instead of saving her. The best I could do for her was get rid of it. Couldn't stand seeing it wearing her body, using her voice…."

"I'm sorry," Dawn said after a moment, putting her hand on his arm.

"I, too, am sorry," Spike agreed. She watched, fascinated, as he drew the Big Bad about him again. "Pro'ly for the best. If she'd been alive, Angelus would have soon paid her a visit." He took her fingers from his arm and kissed them. "Right, then. Get your jimjams. Time for you to get some sleep."

Dawn went to her bureau for pajamas, then turned to look at the monster who rested on her bed instead of lurking beneath it. "Spike?"

"Yeah?" His voice sounded tired.

"How come you're more… human than other vampires?"

"Dunno." Spike definitely sounded weary now. "Not anything I did, Nibblet. Nothing special about me. Not a good thing, either, from my point of view."

"There must be some reason," she insisted. "I mean, you must have thought about it."

He sighed. "Not gonna let go of it, are you, pigeon?"

Dawn gave him a crooked smile. "Do I ever?"

"Right." He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "What I know: has nothing to do with bloodline, 'cause, well, Angelus, say no more. Has nothing to do with Dru, 'cause other vamps she sired were pretty typical. What I think… First, I felt pretty much like the same person when I rose from the grave, just… freer. Dru was sent to find someone to mind her, who could take care of her because Darla was tired of the time they had to spend on her. So, she found someone who," he bit his lip a moment, trying to put it in words, "wouldn't lose all their finer emotions when the blood change occurred – she can see into people, yeah? Got the sight. Knew I'd still be capable of love. Nothing else special about me, just… I figure most vamps who keep a strong impression of who they were before they were turned get dusted very early. Not so much that they're any more or less useless than any fledge, but that they're just more irritating to their sires."

"Were you?"

"Yeah. Not Dru, but I irritated Darla and Angelus plenty."

"Did they threaten to stake you?"

"Usually they were more with the breaking of bones, but yeah," his voice grew mocking, "especially Angelus, all the time with the threat of a stake."

"Broken bones?" Dawn whispered.

"Don't fret, Nibblet. Ancient history." He got back on topic, not wanting her quick mind anywhere near that part of his past. "Second, you figure human-like vamps make the wrong moves, make mistakes because of their emotions. Now, me," he said, sprawling across the edge of her bed so that he seemed to take up half her room, "being unpredictable has worked well for me. Doesn't work so well for others."

"No wonder you hate Angel so much."

Spike sighed; she was like a bloodhound with a scent. "I don't hate him because of anything he ever did to me. I hate him because of what he did to Dru, and now because of what he did to Buffy."

"But he did stuff to hurt you, too."

Spike stood up, his patience clearly at an end. "Yeah, and I got strong and smart and skillful right quick because of it. There's nothing Angelus could ever do to me physically or even mentally that really bothered me, not in the long run. But emotionally… he got to me by hurting Dru."

Dawn's face screwed up with distaste. "He tortured her to make you do what he wanted?"

"No," Spike said softly, "he made her so that she likes the pain. He… did things to hurt her that I couldn't bring myself to do." He looked at the floor. "Dru was never mine the way she belonged to him. And Dru was all I ever wanted."

"Until Buffy." Dawn studied his bowed head. "And, like you said, he hurt her, too."

"Sorry, Bit. Not a pretty bedtime story." He gave her a shrewd look. "And how come you're interrogating me when I came in here to give you grief?"

"I know, I know," she grumbled. "It's just, you never talk about yourself."

"It's been said that I never shut up."

Dawn grinned. "True, but you talk about everything except your past."

"Not much to tell."

"Oh, yeah, right." Dawn rolled her eyes once more, then paused, hugging her pajamas to her chest. "Spike, what does polysexual mean?"

He blinked, then his eyebrows went up. "And what blue does this come sailing out of?"

She shrugged. "Giles used it when he was scolding me about this evening. He said vampires are 'promiscuous and polysexual.'"

"Means open to anything and everyone, sexually speaking. What Giles meant specifically, I imagine, is that young Justin was a wanker who wasn't strong enough to protect his get, and that a newly-turned female vampire is easy sexual prey for all varieties of demon."

"Oh." For the first time that night, a horrified look came over her face.

"Too right, 'oh.' Danger doesn't stop just because you get yourself dead." He hesitated. "Dunno if the Watcher said anything, what with your crush being a vampire, but," he lowered his voice, as if what he was saying embarrassed him, "vampires you don't know are after one thing. Teenaged boys you don't know are also after one thing. Just another variety of penetration, innit?" His mouth twisted. "You're better than that, love, deserve better than that. Enough, now. Go get ready for nighty-night. I'll see you tomorrow at the Magic Box. 'Spect a brutal self-defense lesson after this." He turned to leave.

"Good night, Spike. I love you."

Spike paused halfway out the window. "Good night yourself." He left, but his final words lingered. "Love you, too, Bit." As he went, he stopped for a moment in front of Buffy's window. She was still and quiet. "Good night to you, love," he murmured and, with a flash of platinum on black, was gone.

Buffy waited a few heartbeats after his shadow passed before she opened her eyes. A vampire had been in her sister's bedroom, she thought in bemusement, and all she had felt was gratitude. She'd heard the low rumble of Spike's voice and Dawn's lighter replies. Whatever he'd said to her sister would, she was sure, only reinforce what Giles had said. When had she concluded that the safest place for Dawn was right next to the Slayer of Slayers? When she realized, she supposed, that he would never hurt her. Thank God for the Initiative and the chip. He might teach her sister things that were morally questionable, but that was somehow secondary to safety in Sunnydale. Buffy sighed, rolled over, and hoped her sleep would be dreamless tonight.

⸹

November 2001

Buffy paused, mid-jab, as Spike tore through the door into the training room. She and Giles watched him doff the ever-present blanket, and a cloud of smoke rolled off his shoulders.

"Mornin.'"

"Mmm, I love the smell of singed vampire in the morning."

"Spike, I daresay you do know that there is a tunnel entrance to the shop," Giles commented. He had a towel over his shoulders and a light sheen of sweat on his face.

"Daresay I do."

Giles refrained from rolling his eyes. "Well, as you're here, make yourself useful and hold the bag for Buffy. Anya needs me to rubber-stamp some idea of hers out in the store."

"Watcher's in a good mood," Spike said, skinning off his coat and watching Rupert disappear into the shop.

"I think it's Anya," Buffy said, but didn't elaborate further. Spike put his shoulder against the bag, and she resumed a fast pattern of jabs and cross punches. After a few moments, she noticed the expression on his face. "What?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "This is all well and good," Spike said, shrugging, "but it'll take you for bloody ever to work up a sweat. Me, either, for that matter." He grinned a little at his humor. "You wanna, whatcha call it, spar?"

"Spar?" Buffy gave him a measured look. "Chip, Spike. That's hardly fair."

 _Never stopped you before_ , but he managed to not say this. "Give it a go, and if it doesn't work, no big. Mind the nose, though."

Buffy shrugged, and they moved out into the center of the room. She rolled her neck side-to-side, then fell into an easy stance. Spike didn't bother, just went at her as fast as he could. Buffy moved out of the way and tried to sweep his feet from under him, but he leapt lightly over her leg and came down beside her. He dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

"Spike!"

"What if those had been fangs, love?"

Her expression was suddenly a great deal more serious, and she came at him with a new fierceness. Spike didn't get close to her neck again, but neither did Buffy land a blow. They danced around each other, weaving a tight-knit tapestry of near misses. After a few minutes, the frustrated look left the Slayer's face, replaced by a grin that matched Spike's own.

Giles came to the door to watch the nearly silent battle, one blond pursuing, the other dodging. The expression on his face changed, too, as he watched Buffy face an actual challenge to her skills. She couldn't get the vampire, but he couldn't escape her, and the two of them touched almost every square foot of floor as well as most of the furniture in the pursuit. The Watcher considered their tactics for a minute, then went back into the shop. He returned with a rolled-up newspaper and tossed it to Buffy.

Armed with a non-lethal 'stake,' the Slayer gave her prey a wicked grin. "I'm in the zone now, Spike."

"Catch me if you can," he smirked, and perched for a moment on the side of the punching bag. As she approached, he kicked off, sending the heavy bag swinging toward her, and the chase was on again.

Giles watched for almost twenty minutes, impressed with the pair of them. He didn't know how much was play and how much was serious, but they were so well matched that he almost wished Spike was able to go on the offense. The end came when Buffy feinted, then quickly struck to Spike's weaker right side, touching him with the newspaper. It wouldn't have been through the heart, so Spike spun her by the arm and lunged for her neck. Buffy threw him over her shoulder, pivoted, and landed astride him, newspaper over the sweet spot on his chest.

"I win!" she crowed, blowing loose strands of hair from her face.

"Dunno about that, love," Spike said in a voice heavy with admiration and desire. "Feel like a winner myself." He touched his hands to her hips for a second, grinning at her with open sexual appreciation. In the doorway, Giles shifted uneasily.

"You're a pig, Spike."

He covered the hand holding the ersatz stake with his own. "Been too long since you told me, pet. I'd nearly forgotten." Their eyes met for just a moment, and Spike saw his Slayer, saw all of her, and she wasn't unhappy.

Then she rose in a fluid movement. "Looks like you got off easy today, Giles." Buffy held out a hand to Spike, and he took it as if she were offering a priceless gift.

"Er, yes," her Watcher agreed. "Good form, both of you."

"She's telegraphing with her left," Spike said, now back on his feet.

"Yes, still dropping your shoulder, I'm afraid."

"What did Spike do wrong?" Buffy asked, pouting a bit. The vampire swayed toward her, eyes fixed on her lower lip. _Gonna get it_.

"Er, as he can't expect to connect, I can't really judge his form," Giles admitted. "I did notice you weren't using kicks as much as I've seen you use on patrol."

Spike shook his head slightly and focused on the Watcher. "Um, easier to pull punches.

"Hey, I've got an idea." Buffy took the towel that still hung over Giles' shoulder and patted her brow. "Chinese for lunch. I'm hungry."

"Good," Giles said, a severe look on his face. "I won't be satisfied till you've added another five to ten pounds." When Buffy made a face of her own, he added adamantly, "You're not at fighting weight, and you know it."

When he glanced at Spike for support, the blond man looked surprised, then nodded. "Uh, yeah. Don't think you could put me in a wheelchair right now." He gave her a slow grin, thinking of her curvier high school form.

Her eyes narrowed. "I could just stake you."

Spike tilted his head, challenging her. "Yeah? I'm operating at fifty percent by definition. Defense only. You're running at about… what do you reckon, Watcher? Sixty-five, seventy percent?"

"Seventy…? You're out of your mind." She turned and walked away, heading to the retail floor, Spike at her heels as always. Giles shook his head, amused. Every Slayer should have an annoying, neutered vampire to spar with.

⸹

Spike decided that he loved spells, as they so often led to having Buffy's lips on his. Wasn't real – she'd sang that, even – but it sure felt nice. Plus, her big secret was out. Once her little pals had a chance to adjust to the idea that they didn't, after all, know what was best, he would drop his own news about the soul. Get Dawn off his back, anyway. Humming – early Clash, not the god-awful show tune crap that the demon had visited on them – he did a quick sweep of the Sunny Rest, then decided to drop by a couple of the demon bars. The grapevine was the quickest way to spread the news of the end of spontaneous combustion by musical to the non-human community.

"Willy," he said, over-sincere, "so nice to see you. Business slow tonight, yeah?"

Willy, looking glummer than usual, smeared the bar with a damp rag. "Mostly tourists. No one local wants to be caught out of their den when they feel a song coming on," he replied.

"No worries," Spike assured him, sliding a ten across to him. "Slayer and I sent the song-and-dance demon back to the Andrew Lloyd Webber hell that spawned it."

"Really?" Willy brightened a bit and brought out a bottle of watered-down liquor.

"Just now," Spike affirmed. He stared at Willy until the bartender sighed and switched bottles, bringing out a better beverage. Spike tossed off the shot of bourbon and waited while the bartender poured him another one. "Not hard, once we tracked him down." He studied the warm, amber liquid for a moment, a frown touching his face. He didn't believe Dawn had used the talisman, but he wasn't sure if he believed Xander had summoned the demon, either. The boy wasn't much for magic, not after all the women in Sunnydale, including Drusilla, had decided they had to have him years ago. Then Spike smirked. Magic spells worked out a lot better for him than for Xander.

"Spike?"

He turned, unperturbed, recognizing the voice. "Clem. Good to see you. Round of cards tonight?" He finished the bourbon.

"No." The loose-skinned demon shook his head so vigorously that his ears flapped. "I'm heading home. But you said you wanted to know if anyone was looking for a guy named Doc."

Spike glared at Willy until the barkeep left, muttering under his breath. He shifted his attention back to Clem. "Yeah, I did. Who's asking?"

"Some out-of-towners, two of them. I don't know what they are, but they look somewhat like Snekgwar. Major league, all the way. That's why I left the table. They're playing in the back."

"Any idea what they're doing in Sunnydale?"

"No. I overheard one of them asking about this Doc while I was gathering my winnings." Something mewled and squirmed a bit from inside his shirt.

"Just two of them?"

"And the three Fyarl accompanying them."

"Ah." He slid off the barstool. "Thanks, Clem." He pointed a finger at him. "Won't forget this."

Clem saw the direction he was heading. "You're going back there?" At Spike's raised eyebrow, he shook his head again. "Oh, I know you can handle yourself. I didn't mean that. The stakes are pretty high, that's all. Siamese."

The blond made a face. Cash wasn't a problem, but the closest feral colony of cats was twelve blocks away, and those wouldn't pass muster in a Siamese-only pot, anyway. He glanced around the underpopulated bar, then grimaced when he recognized someone who might be an answer. "Thanks for the heads-up, Clem."

"Your funeral," he replied, shrugging as he watched his poker buddy advance on a demon at the end of the bar.

"Vinnie," he said, clapping an unfriendly hand on the vampire's neck. "You still working for Teeth?"

The thin, balding vampire tensed. "Yeah," he said warily. News of the Halloween massacre had spread to all corners of Sunnydale. Of course, those fledges had not only been dense enough to be out on All Hallow's Eve, but stupid enough to mess with the Slayer's family. Beyond the fact that the current Slayer was indestructible, everyone knew her family was under the Aurelian's protection. Even here in a bar, on a slow night, Spike wasn't anywhere near predictable. By himself, Vinnie wasn't going to chance a fight.

"And is Teeth holding the pot for the game back there?"

"Yeah."

"Good!" Spike felt the muscles relax slightly beneath his fingers. "In that case, I need five Siamese." He tossed the money he had in his pockets on the bar.

"Siamese?" Vinnie shook his head. "That much might buy you three Siamese at a pet store, but Teeth don't deal with cash. Two Siamese for every one he lends you, or a seven domestic shorthair to one Siamese exchange rate."

"I want in on that game," Spike said pleasantly, tightening his grasp, "now. So, why don't you come vouch for me, and we'll settle up later?" He snagged his cash from the counter and pocketed it.

"I can't do that," Vinnie began, then stopped, all the air he'd taken in to speak leaving his lungs in a rush as the blond vampire struck Vinnie's chest with the flat of his hand.

"Now, what kind of attitude is that for a businessman?" Spike asked, pressing his palm another millimeter into the vampire's ribs. "I think you can, I think you can. You just have to be that little engine that could, put your mind to it, is all."

"All… all right."

"See? I knew you had it in you." Spike stepped away, and his voice dropped into a less-obviously dangerous tone. "Let's go."

"Fuckin' Aurelians," Vinnie murmured, tugging his wide collar back into place. The next second he was bent backward across the bar, his unbuttoned polyester jacket puddling on either side of him and a stake pressed into his chest. The low chatter of voices from the other patrons stopped suddenly.

"What did you say?" Spike asked, engaging the pleasant voice again. He tilted his head lazily to the side, pressing the stake against the other vampire's chest just a bit more.

"Fuckin' Aurelians," Vinnie repeated defiantly, glaring into the blue eyes just inches from his own.

Spike regarded him coolly, then grinned and tucked the stake back into a coat pocket. "Yeah, often thought so myself. C'mon, then." Shoving Vinnie in front of him, he took him by the collar. "Now, you're gonna tell the nice strangers in there that Teeth will vouch for me. The reason you're going to do that is because I'd be happy to kill you. Once we get in that room, you might think you can set them on me. You can try; I'd be happy to kill them, too. Been a while since I fought a Fyarl. Killed five of them in open battle a hundred-and-twenty odd years ago." He put his mouth unnecessarily close to Vinnie's ear. "I was four, younger than you. Now, I can kill every mother's son and spawn in this bar… or you can earn some kittens for your boss." He let go of the shirt. "Up to you, really."

He wasn't prepared for the vampire's answer. "Why am I not working for you?" When Spike didn't reply, Vinnie half-turned to him. "I've been here since the Master. You killed the Anointed One, and then you just left. When you came back, you're the only one to ever escape those creepy soldiers. Why aren't you watching out for us?"

"Us?"

"Vampires! We ended up working for Mayor Wilkins, and now I'm enforcing for a loan shark. I hate it!" Vinnie looked away, ashamed at his display of emotion. "This isn't how it should be. I'd rather work for you."

Spike could smell submission and desire rolling off the younger demon. He blinked once, then leaned in closer, trying to make it believable. "Listen up. The Master had plans for Sunnydale that he waited decades to hatch. I'm in his direct line of descent, and I have plans, too. Right now, I'm not at the point of accepting minions. My advice?" He leaned away from the other man. "Leave this town; go to New Orleans, New York, somewhere. Come back in seventy years or so. Barring that, don't ever cross me, or the Slayer or her minions. They belong to me."

"People say you killed two Slayers."

"What do you think?"

Still turned partially away, Vinnie nodded. "I believe them." He gestured with his head. "Let's go."

Spike followed, too aware of the eyes watching them to let any expression cross his face. This Big Bad stuff was exhausting. He brushed past Vinnie when he opened the door. "Gentlemen! I understand there's finally an interesting game on the Hellmouth." He looked around the table at the two strangers (who did look somewhat like Snekgwar demons; something about the whiskers) and three local faces.

"Who are you?" grunted the Fyarl who stepped in front of him.

"Got a lot of names," he replied in the same language, "but I'm not telling you, _grasnargh_." Spike looked up at the Fyarl as the form of address sank in. He'd spoken to it as if it were a child. It was rather on the short side, for a Fyarl. Giles had been taller. He moved past it to stand behind an empty chair.

"This is a high stakes game," one of the strangers said, speaking English. He was the shorter of the two.

"Just what I like to hear," he replied easily.

On cue, Vinnie stepped forward. "Teeth will make good for him."

Spike watched the three Sunnydale demons exchange surprised looks, but the two strangers continued their assessment of him. "So, gentlemen, may I join you?"

"What do we call you?" the shorter stranger asked.

"William the Bloody," he replied, pulling out the chair. Behind him, he heard Vinnie leave the room.

"He's Spike," one of the local players corrected dismissively.

"Yeah," Spike agreed, leaning forward and pinning him with a fierce gaze, "I go by that." The local demon shifted, uneasy. Spike smiled his best riverboat gambler smile. "Hardcase, English, Doctor, T-Bone. The Cherokee call me 'That Which Kills.' I go by a lot of names. William the Bloody will do just fine tonight." He stared at the local player until he dropped all six eyes, watching the strangers' reaction to the name 'Doctor' with his peripheral vision. "And what shall I call you?" he asked, letting his gaze settle on the out-of-towners.

"K!aa of the S!path," said the taller one, speaking for the first time. He regarded Spike levelly. "And this is Bl!ik."

Spike nodded, already glancing around the table to see who was in. "Nice to meet you. Shall we play?"

"I heard Doc of Sunnydale was a little old human," K!aa observed.

Spike smirked. "Must be the white hair."

Four hours later, Spike left the table twenty Siamese – no, forty, at loan shark rates – poorer, but happy nonetheless. He'd made a deal with the S!path demons to hold Suvolte eggs for them in a few weeks. With any luck, Doc would hear that someone was using his name for business. Nothing else had turned up the little demon. Suvolte demons were South American and nasty business, but their eggs took years to hatch. The storage itself shouldn't be a problem. The coolness of the caves beneath his crypt would act as a refrigerator, making it too cold for them to mature no matter how old they were, and it just might flush out Doc. Swaggering a bit, Spike headed back to his crypt as he relived the past few hours. Yeah, it had been a good night.

He loved magic spells.

⸹

Buffy rolled over, staring at the ceiling above her bed. She couldn't get to sleep, not that this upset her very much. She dreaded sleep these days. The dreams about being buried alive were too vivid. But it wasn't dread that was keeping her awake.

When Dawn had come looking for her in the alley, she'd broken away from Spike. It had been hard to pull away from him, not just because it was time to face her friends with the truth in the open. There it is, guys: I was in heaven. Dawn, apparently, had guessed on her own, having got the brains in the family. Tara had hugged Buffy and rubbed her arm, while her two oldest friends had stood awkwardly next to her, not able to do much more than mumble apologies. Even Anya had managed to touch her, patting her back. Giles had simply freaked; there was no other word for it. He'd kept looking between her and Willow, his mind obviously racing.

Somewhere in the crowded confusion, Spike left, and she had wished that the vampire was still there. Who would ever have guessed that she would find his company restful? He was loud and talked constantly and never took anything seriously, including her. It wasn't a word she would use, but Giles once called him caustic. It fit.

They had been engaged, once upon a time. Funny how she never thought about that. Magically speaking, Willow had picked up the two of them like toys and placed them in a dollhouse where there were no barriers between them. Barbies could happily play house with monster action figures. The marriage spell had apparently put her in some sort of fifties mindset. She had been content to smooch him and plan the ceremony and dream of their wedding night. It must have been the same way for Spike, because she had nothing to regret beyond kisses after the spell ended.

As soon as the magic dispersed, she had overreacted, making sure everyone knew how icky the whole experience had been. It hadn't been icky, though. Once she stopped picking on him, he stopped picking on her, and they got on just fine. They bickered, but they were really good at bickering. Spike had even helped Giles voluntarily. And the kisses had been nice, too.

Better than nice. Who was she trying to hide from, anyway? In the privacy of her own mind, couldn't she admit that their kisses were hot? When they were engaged, he had concentrated on her mouth as if it was the most important thing, ever. And when they weren't smooching, his words kept them connected. Spike compared the texture of her tongue to a strawberry before caressing it with his, told her how beautiful her lower lip was before nibbling on it. He had made love to her mouth fully and leisurely and deliberately, unlike anyone else ever had, and it hadn't been icky at all.

Their kisses tonight in the alley hadn't been like that. They had met hard, in desperation. When they were engaged, Buffy had felt a tingle of sexual anticipation. Tonight she had a galvanic reaction. Hourlong smoochfests with Angel hadn't left her as needy as the couple of minutes in Spike's arms before Dawn interrupted.

He smelled good, tasted good, which had surprised her during the first magic spell because he was a smoker. He was just the right height for someone as petite as her to feel comfortable yet still protected by his masculinity, old-fashioned as that was. There were times with Riley and even Angel when she had felt like she was with her father, as if they should be giving her piggyback rides, as if she wasn't an adult. And Spike was strong, such a warrior that not only did she feel safe when he had her back on patrol, she also trusted him to take care of her family. He could always make her laugh, and he was always honest with her. If she knocked him down ( _and you do_ , her mind whispered, making her shift uneasily), Spike got right back up in her face. He was the absolute best sparring partner ever, even better than Faith. Her being a single 'mom' to Dawn wasn't even an issue. He made her hot, made her feel alive, made it possible to think about nothing at all for blissful moments. And he had already said he loved her.

Spike was totally unacceptable.

Buffy remembered so many little things from her friends. Can I be blind, too? Evil Dead. It's funnier if it's true. It's wrong. And what she'd said herself. There's blame now? Spike is a monster. Creepy. Miserable, sick vampire. Can't love without a soul. How gross is that? I feel dirty.

Even her Mom had been troubled by Spike's crush on her, and Joyce had _liked_ Spike.

What had she told him once? That he wasn't even a loser, he was a shell of a loser. Not because he wanted to do something bad, like bring hell to earth. It was Angel who had tried that and failed, but she hadn't called him a loser, hadn't found him icky. No, Spike was a loser because he loved Drusilla so much that he wanted her back, even though she was a skanky ho-bag. Buffy's mouth compressed a bit in the dark. What did that make her, running to catch Riley after he'd opened his veins for vamps, had paid to do so?

She closed her eyes tightly. Spike had always seen right through her, right through everyone. He'd told her and Angel that they'd never be friends, and they weren't. Their reunion, full of awkward silences and intense eye contact, had proven that. Spike knew that Willow was in a bad way over Oz when she had everyone else fooled. And the worst, the absolute worst, was when he had the Gem of Amara and knew exactly how Parker had played her. Oh, no doubt he could read other people's feelings. He just didn't have any of his own.

She was not going to think of the stunned look on his face, like someone who had just won the lottery and couldn't believe their luck, when she pulled away from him tonight. Spike was… wrong, just wrong. He might be sexy, but not to her. His face wasn't beautiful; that was the wrong adjective for a man, anyway. She didn't feel safe with him; he was her mortal enemy. He absolutely did not make her so hot that she considered having sex with him in the same dirty alley outside the Bronze where he'd introduced himself by promising to kill her.

She followed him into that alley tonight. Even after she heard his song, forced through unwilling lips, telling of his continued love – no, lust for her. He knew that she wasn't coming to thank him for saving her, because he knew she hadn't wanted to be saved. There was nothing for her to sing about, and damn that smooth demon for ever coming to Sunnydale. He had ruined Spike for her, because now she knew that Spike was just like everyone else. He wanted something from her.

Yesterday Spike had been a haven, a place where she could simply _be_. Today, he was just another part of the messy world that she'd been pulled back into. Part of her railed against this loss, against no longer having someone she could be at peace with, but another part –

Buffy clenched her fists. Her hands were going to stay right on top of the covers. It would be wrong to touch herself, because she would think of Spike if she did, think of his slow, sexy grin, that clever tongue against hers, his deep voice touching her insides with subsonic frequencies, the intriguing amount of hardness she'd felt while wriggling on his lap her freshman year and pressed against her just a few hours ago. She didn't even want to think of the way his hand always seemed to be at her elbow to steady her, an impersonal touch except that it was there when she needed it, nothing more… but it spoke of the fact that his attention was always on her, that he had her back, that he loved her.

No. That was too hard, too much to deal with.

Spike. Cannot. Love. Buffy gritted her teeth. He's an evil, soulless vampire, and he literally cannot love. By definition, he cannot love. He is just… wrong.

It would be wrong to want him.

I would be wrong.

I would be wrong, like Faith.

I'm not going to think about this anymore.

Buffy lay there another two hours, her hands gripping the covers, before she finally fell asleep.

⸹

Giles opened the door to Spike's crypt cautiously, not wanting to hurt the vampire with the sunlight he was letting in. "Spike?" There was no answer, so he stepped inside and closed the door. Enough light came through the windows that he didn't need the torch he had in his pocket. The batteries were low, anyway.

"Spike?" he tried again. "Are you there?"

A wide slab of stone that he felt sure he couldn't budge without a sturdy crowbar scraped to one side, and Spike ascended from the cave below, giving it another casual shove. The vampire was wearing only jeans, but he pulled a t-shirt over his torso once he got to the main part of the crypt. "Wotcher, Watcher. Seeing how the other half unlives?"

"Ah, yes." Giles shook his head slightly. "The riposte. Wouldn't be a Spike greeting without it. Sorry to wake you."

"Didn't. No worries." Spike slowed as he walked past, the predatory move probably instinctive and unintentional, then ambled at a normal speed to his refrigerator. "Drop by to watch _Passions_ with me, then, for old time's sake?" He waved a quart jar of blood toward Giles. "Care to try the new all-protein diet? Sorry that I don't have anything else."

"No, thank you. No to both, in fact." He shifted uneasily and put his hands in his pockets. "You said we could have a conversation about why vampires choose to sire. It was some time ago, but…" The human shrugged.

"Interview with a vampire, huh? 'S'true, then. I really wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition," Spike said, amused. "Why not? Got nothing better on tap. Have a seat, Rupes." He took a less comfortable but more psychologically commanding perch on top of the central tomb, the jar held loosely between his hands.

"You're in a cheery mood, I must say." Giles took a small cassette recorder from his jacket pocket as he gingerly sat in the armchair. "Do you mind if I record our talk?"

It was Spike's turn to shrug. "No. May not answer your every question, though."

"Oh, that's quite all right. This is such a rare opportunity, to hear directly what a vampire has to say, anything will be useful."

"Harshing on the field experience of the Council, are we?"

"'Harshing?'" Giles echoed, then added hastily, "Never mind." He finished putting in a fresh tape and gave Spike a narrow look. "Do be honest."

"'Remember, it's for posterity,'" the vampire finished, obviously quoting.

"I see Dawn had you watch _The Princess Bride_ innumerable times, too," Giles sighed as he sat down in the armchair.

The vampire rolled his eyes. "Coulda been worse. There are Olsen twins vids in that house." He narrowed his eyes. "Unlike some Robin Hoods, at least Elwes can speak with an English accent." When the Watcher smiled, Spike pounced. "I see you've been watching telly with the whelp, too."

Rupert's smile became a bit fixed and it faded as he turned on the recorder. "Ten November 2001, interview of the vampire William the Bloody, also known as Spike, in Sunnydale, California, United States, conducted by Rupert Giles, Council of Watchers–"

"CoW," Spike sniggered, amused all over again by the acronym.

"Better than WC," Giles replied, and the vampire roared with laughter. Out of perversity, he let the tape roll, catching every last chuckle the demon had at the Council's expense… for posterity.

CoW Transcript of INTERVIEW/William the Bloody (see also: Spike)/10 Nov 2001/Conducted by Giles, Rupert/Topic: Vampiric Siring (see also: Turning)

Rupert Giles: "Spike, as he prefers to be called, is from the Order of Aurelius, a particularly…vicious line of vampires. His sire was Drusilla, who was sired by Angelus, who was sired by Darla, who was sired by the Master of their–"

William the Bloody: "Guh! Those begats always bored me – back when I read the Bible, I mean. Skip 'em, Rupes. No one cares."

RG: "As our topic is siring, I believe it is pertinent."

WtB: "Have at, then. Leastways, maybe your people will finally get through their heads that Dru is my sire, not Angelus."

RG: "At the time of this taping, Spike is one hundred and…?

WtB: "Hundred-and-twenty-one."

RG: "And at the time of your death?"

WtB: "Twenty-seven. No, wait, I'd just turned twenty-eight."

RG: "He is known, of course, as the Slayer of Slayers, having killed two in the twentieth century."

WtB: "Also known as the 'Scourge of Europe,' but that was mostly by proxy, 'cause of Darla and Angelus."

RG: "And Drusilla."

WtB: "Dru, not so much with the scourge."

RG: "Despite his colorful Californian phrasing, Spike was a native of London…?"

WtB: "True."

RG: "Who were you before Drusilla killed you?"

WtB: "There's one of those questions 'm not gonna answer."

RG: "Why not? Are you protecting a family name?"

WtB: "Cut it, Watcher."

[Transcriber: Sounds of recorder being turned off.]

Spike took a large swig from the jar, buying time. "I'm not protecting any distant rellies, Giles. Family name died out with me, dinnit? I'm not the person that I was anymore, and he's better left buried, his name included."

"Will you tell me your name? Is William, at least, your real name?" Giles blew out an impatient breath. "We've fought together, side by side. I'd at least like to be able to call you something other than a-a dog's name."

Spike sighed. "Not a word to the Council?" When Rupert nodded, he sighed again. "No one else hears this, either. Gentleman to gentleman, Giles. It is William. And… Colinvaux." He felt odd as the rusty word passed his lips, partly because, if it wasn't a lie, it was an evasion. He didn't think there was much chance of Rupert tracking him down under that name, anyway. After his father died, the title went to his uncle and died out in the Great War; his own name had been simply Mr. Withorn-Allgood.

The Watcher's eyebrows studiously remained unraised at Spike's characterization of the two of them as gentlemen. "Hardly a North London name."

"So?"

Giles shook his head at the blond man's combative manner and turned his attention back to his notepad and the list of questions written on it in his tiny, precise cursive. "Let's continue, then."

[Transcriber: Interview resumes.]

RG: "Spike has declined to give his human name, so we will continue with some statistical data. As of 1997, there were six of the Order of Aurelius extant, most gathered on the Hellmouth. Those were, chronologically, the Master, Darla, Angelus, Drusilla, Penn, and Spike. At the time of this recording, only two exist, Drusilla and Spike."

WtB: "What, fail your maths, Rupe? Angel makes three."

RG: "Angelus makes three. Angel is in his souled state and likely to stay that way."

WtB: [Snorts.] Don't be an idiot, man. You, of all humans, should know Angelus is alive and well beneath all that hair gel."

RG: "Now that he knows the… vulnerability of the curse, he is unlikely to risk–"

WtB: "Right, Rupes. You just keep telling yourself that."

RG: "Spike, if you know something, I suggest you tell me."

WtB: "Ooh, dangerous. [Laughter.] You want to know anything about the poof's current activities, interview him. Let's do your chronology, Watcher. Put it in the archives."

[Transcriber: Eleven seconds of silence.]

RG: "According to you, Aurelian vampires are very selective about who they sire, or at least who they let survive after the siring."

WtB: "Yeah."

RG: "How is that different from other vampire lines?"

WtB: "Dunno that there are other lines anymore – the industrial age has killed off most of the old houses. All you meet anymore, even in Eastern Europe, are 'illegitimate' vamps who don't know their lineage. Aurelians always have a reason for siring, and they claim their get – except Angelus, who was rather free with his fangs when he was loose in Sunnydale. We also do it because we need minions or cannon fodder or whatnot. If they don't die in our service, we get rid of them ourselves. Choosing a new family member is a whole 'nother proposition. Lots of thought goes into it, risk, even, if the potential addition is protected. Other vampires? Truthfully, I'm always shocked at how many of the newly risen we dust every patrol. Seems indiscriminate to me. I'd like to say it has something to do with the loneliness inherent in our supernatural state, but, then, you never see a sire waiting for his get to rise 'round here, do you? I reckon most vamps sire just because they can. Contributing to overall chaos, or impulse control issues, kind of like whats-his-face, Eurotwit with the floppy hair, Hugh Grant and Divine Brown."

RG: "Interesting, er, analogy. To the Order of Aurelius, then. How old was the Master at the time of his demise?"

WtB: "Don't rightly know. As a vampire, he was five hundred if he was a day. Couldn't go to human face anymore, 'least I never saw him that way."

RG: "Do you know who sired him?"

WtB: "Haven't a buggering clue. All I know for certain is that he was a scholar of sorts before he was turned. German. Only met him twice, and he barely talked directly to me or Dru. Too high in the instep to notice youngsters like us."

RG: "The Master was slain by the current Slayer, Miss Buffy Summers, in May 1997. The next oldest Aurelian would be the vampiress Darla."

WtB: "Also known as… a right bitch."

RG: "Thank you for that… Darla was a British subject who lived in the colony of Virginia and was turned by the Master in the mid-1600s–"

WtB: "It was 1609, and I ought to know, because she lorded it over the rest of us about seeing Shakespeare at the Globe. William, I mean, as well as his plays."

RG: "Why did the Master turn her?"

WtB: "Shouldn't you lot be wondering why the Master was in North America in the early 1600s? Just how long do you think he was looking for this Hellmouth?"

RG: "Well, as you've agreed to answer questions about siring, I had supposed that I would stick to that topic."

WtB: "Oh. Right, then. You want to know why old Bat-nose chose Darla. She was a prostitute, very successful – still quite expert at her chosen trade in the late 1800s, I might add – who was turned as she lay on her deathbed, expiring of a 'social disease.' Don't know her real name; Darla was a pet name the Master gave her. As to why he turned her… not like he confided in me, but my guess is that he wanted to give her a chance to screw polite society in a more permanent manner than she accomplished in life."

RG: "So you're saying that she deserved to be turned?"

WtB: "No one deserves to be turned, Watcher."

[Transcriber: Ten seconds of silence.]

WtB: "What I'm saying is, her darkness attracted him. She wasn't a hooker with a heart of gold. Darla was a cold-hearted businesswoman, an unethical one at that. Some men disappeared in her whorehouse; quite a few of her girls disappeared, too. The Master once boasted that she refused a priest on her deathbed, if that tells you anything. Did she deserve to become undead for those things? No. No, not even her. What does it take to turn a woman into a whore, into someone who uses other whores? Dunno. She never said."

[Transcriber: Nineteen seconds of silence.]

RG: "Did you know any other vampires that the Master sired?"

WtB: "Yeah, Luke, one you missed in your roll call for the class of 1997. 'Course, might as well have counted him as one with the Master."

RG: "Sorry?"

WtB: "The Master got him to submit long time ago – was basically subservient to his will. Did whatever old Batface wanted him to – more, only wanted to do what old Batface wanted. Big enforcer type, he'd been with the Master longer than Darla, even stayed here with him when he was trapped by that earthquake. Buffy killed him at the Bronze not long after she got to Sunnydale, according to Angelus. 'S'far as I know, Luke sired all the rest of the Master's minions. Vamps don't sire so much as they get older."

RG: "Why not?"

WtB: "'Cause you know just how long the little darlings might be around."

RG: "Just Luke and Darla, then?"  
WtB: "No, you're forgetting the Anointed One, Rupes."

RG: "The Master himself turned the child?"

WtB: "Uh-huh. Apparently some minions snatched him as he was dying somewhere and brought him to the old bastard long enough to exchange blood."

RG: "He has been slain, too?"

WtB: "Dust in the wind."

RG: "I assume he was killed by the physically stronger adult vampires after the plan to resurrect the Master failed."

WtB: "Then you assume wrongly."

RG: "And I would be wrong because…?"

WtB: "Dusted the Annoying One myself, right before St. Vigeous in '97."

RG: "Oh?"

WtB: "Dour little thing. Nearly had the ritual schtick up his ass as far as the Master did."

RG: [Coughing.]

WtB: "Wasn't that funny, mate. Here, want a sip?"

RG: [Coughing ends.] Good lord, no. So, there were three vampires sired directly by the Master here in Sunnydale in 1997?"

WtB: "'S'far as I know."

RG: "And all three were slain that year. Darla was killed by Angel, Luke was killed by Buffy, and you killed the Anointed One?"

WtB: "Right... insofar as Angel can do anything effectively."

RG: "Meaning?"

WtB: "Again, ask him yourself."

RG: "Do you know of any existing vampires sired by Luke or by the Anointed One?"

WtB: "Dunno that the Annoying One ever sired anyone. Short little fangs probably wouldn't have gone through the chocolate on an éclair, much less tough human skin. Luke was a true believer devoted to the Master – unbelievably lethal combination, considering the size of that bodyguard. Very protective of the Master. Bat-nose was the only one he wanted to penetrate, in any form or fashion. Didn't sire, except that the Master needed minions. I dusted all of his get after Dru and I got to town."

RG: "Yes. Well, then. Let's continue on to the next generation then. Angelus.

WtB: "Still with the poofters."

RG: "Angelus was sired by Darla in 1753–"

WtB: "Which means he is fast approaching the big 2-5-0."

RG: "Er, yes. Do you know his human name?"

WtB: "Liam Gallagher."

RG: "No compunction about revealing his name?"

WtB: "Not a drop."

RG: "How old was he when he was turned?"

WtB: "Twenty-seven."

RG: "Do you know why Darla chose him?"

WtB: "Matter of fact, I do. Heard it enough times. She spotted him brawling in a tavern – his natural habitat, I gathered – and thought him all 'magnificent.'"

RG: "So she was impressed with his fighting skills?"

WtB: "By his ability to cause utter chaos, would be my guess. He was a wastrel, not to put too fine a point on it. That old, no job, not married, spreading his seed amongst the dimmer of the local fillies, couple of brats on the wrong side of the sheets, deadbeat dad, spent his time getting drunk and into fights with a group of equally shiftless friends, and never did an honest day's work. Quite a résumé he had when he went sniffing after Darla down an alleyway – no wonder she couldn't resist him."

[Transcriber: Ten seconds of silence.]

RG: "Spike, I did ask you to be honest. Your… antipathy toward the man–"

WtB: "My 'antipathy' has nothing to do with it. You can ask Peaches yourself. His 'antipathy' to work, said that to me himself on more than one occasion. He had an 'antipathy' to his family, especially his father. Went back and slaughtered them all, first thing. In fact, he must have had an 'antipathy' to his whole village. And he never had any 'antipathy' to booze. Where do you think I learned it from?"

RG: "Do stop using that word."

WtB: "Why? Developing an 'antipathy' to it?"

RG: [Sighing.] Did Darla sire any other vampires?

WtB: "Not for family, not from the time I knew her through about 1900. Dunno, after that. While Dru and I were with them, we hired human servants, because it was easier to travel as a family than with a pack of minions."

RG: "How did you pose as family?"

WtB: "Dru and Angelus are both dark-haired. They let on they were siblings. Darla and I were their spouses."

RG: "You had funds to hire human servants?"

WtB: "Money was never an issue. Darla had been going through men's pockets for hundreds of years, hadn't she? Always had the folding. Needed it for the way she dressed… It was funny, really. She went from being a whore to dressing like the upper-class women who looked down on her kind. Believe me, for someone so short, she could certainly turn her nose up at you."

RG: "Did you kill the servants? When you were ready to move on?"

WtB: "Why draw attention like that? Anyway, Darla and Angelus would joke about liking the taste of purebreds, thoroughbreds. Servants weren't hardly on the menu, were they? No, they liked an easy kill, or, if Angelus was leading the hunt, something sadistic, like crashing a wedding and taking the bride and groom, snatching a mother with a new infant. Make one of 'em think to sacrifice their self for the other."

[Transcriber: Eleven seconds of silence.]

WtB: "Polish 'em much more, Rupert, and they'll separate into individual molecules."

RG: "So… Darla and Angelus liked to cull from the upper classes. Did you and Drusilla have a preference?"

WtB: "Your Council knows what Dru likes. Children."

RG: "And you?"

[Transcriber: Fourteen seconds of silence.]

RG: "Another question you won't answer?"

WtB: "Younger rather than older. Not little kids, though. No challenge in that. Happily enough for me, Watcher, just the type that tends to be out at night, drinking or doing drugs or just lettin' off steam."

RG: "So, young adults. Humans in their prime."

WtB: "Yeah, I guess. Younger than you, anyway, Watcher. Sorry."

RG: "Devastated, I'm sure. Back to our topic, then. So, Angelus didn't sire very much."

WtB: "Not while he had Darla to keep him in check, but he let half of Sunnydale suck his veins when he lost his soul. We're still dustin' his get."

RG: "Wait… you mean Darla was the dominant one in the relationship?"

WtB: "Yeah. Where've you been?"

RG: "Darla was very small, though, whereas Angel is… not."

WtB: "Yeah, small and blond. Ever thought about that, Watcher? But size has less to do with it than age. Darla was old and strong, in the direct line of our patriarch. Plus she was turned by a vamp who was old. Made her powerful from the very beginning."

RG: "So… the older the sire, the stronger the offspring?"

WtB: "Not always a geometric progression, but, yeah, in general, the older your sire, the stronger your demon."

RG: "You are stronger than your sire."

WtB: "My sire is Drusilla, mate. Hardly typical. She's just twenty years older than me, anyway. And I am… quite strong for one of our breed."

RG: "You say that Darla was the head of your clan, but Council records, as far back as they go, show that there are no female heads of–"

WtB: "Darla was the head of our happy little family, not the Order of Aurelius. She could smack Angelus across the room – and did. Funny, too, the way he'd crawl back for forgiveness. He was more sire-whipped than I ever was."

RG: "So, Darla wouldn't have been a candidate to replace the Master?"

WtB: "No. Direct line of ascent would have been Luke. He would have decorated the walls with Darla's guts the same day, like any good heir would do to the spare. But even if Darla had been oldest, Luke could have wiped the floor with her. Female vampires just don't often live to head their Orders. They start off with a physical disadvantage in strength, slight but there. Not being a chauvinist pig, just stating a fact. Why do you think most females get turned, Rupert?"

RG: "Because they're easier victims, weaker."

WtB: "Ahh, you're prob'ly right. I was gonna say because some ugly vamp stops to swallow halfway through, thinks to himself, 'huh, nice tits, sure like to have that around the caves this winter.' But, yeah, you're right. Most vamps go for the easiest kill."

RG: "But not you?"

WtB: "Slayer of Slayers here, Watcher."

[Transcriber: Eleven seconds of silence.]

RG: "Um, you said Angel – I mean, soulless Angelus was, er, prolific during the Acathla period, siring a great many vampires?"

WtB: "Yeah, had to, di'n' he? I killed the Annoying One and was the Master until the Slayer put me in a wheelchair, so all the local vamps answered to me. After seeing him sniff around the Slayer's, uh, ankles all those months, they weren't about to listen to him. He had to make new minions, ones loyal to him."

RG: "You were the Master?"

WtB: "Arguably, I am the Head of the Order of Aurelius right now. Ought to make you bow or, oh, I don't have a ring, kiss something though."

RG: "Not happening. At any rate, as the older vampire, shouldn't Angel be the Master?"

WtB: [Laughing.] "What, the Master of the Order of Aurelius all soulful? The original demon would have a right… Wait –" [More laughter.]

RG: "What's so terribly funny, Spike?"

WtB: [Continued laughter.] "Guess Peaches and I will have to have it out for control of the family someday."

RG: [Sighing.] "Are there any of Angelus' recent, er, crop left?"

WtB: "None that matter. He's old, but he didn't stay around to bring them along. I keep being surprised that any have survived, what with the Initiative and the Slayer patrolling the Hellmouth."

RG: "That leads us to Drusilla, then. Why did Angelus chose her?"

[Transcriber: Twenty-four seconds of silence.]

WtB: "Switch the bloody thing off."

[Transcriber: Sounds of the recorder being turned off.]

Spike made a rueful face. "Sorry, Watcher. I can't do it." He ran a hand through his short, blond curls. "Not that I usually can resist an opportunity to further blacken Angelus' name, but… what he did to Dru… I just can't. Not in detail."

Taken aback, Giles stared at the pale face, taking in the bleak expression and distant eyes. Spike looked both older and younger than usual. "All right, then." His voice was gentle. "Just tell me what you can, and we'll move on to you, wrap it up." The vampire nodded without meeting his eyes.

[Interview resumes.]

RG: "Spike has agreed to continue, narrating Drusilla's history in general terms."

[Transcriber: Ten seconds of silence.]

WtB: "Right. This is an example of how we decide who will be a family member and then make it so, regardless. To get to her, Angelus had to kill her whole family, assorted acquaintances, and a flock of nuns besides. He told Darla that her abilities would be an asset, but I think he fixated on her for another reason. What drew Angelus to her was her… purity, for lack of a better word. Drusilla was second oldest in a family of sisters. Remember, the typical age of menarche used to be about eighteen – it's plummeted in the past hundred years – and she was barely a woman when he spotted her. Her family was Catholic, and she had… visions. Pre-cognitive dreams, prophetic visions. She was going to become a nun, because she worried that the visions might not be coming from God. Thought she'd be safe in the Church. She wasn't. Angelus pursued her for months, breached the convent and massacred the nuns, and turned her the very day she took her Holy Orders."

[Transcriber: Fourteen seconds of silence.]

WtB: "Angelus'… process left her insane. A nineteen-year-old insane seer, an immortal insane seer. [Clears throat.] Right bastard considered Dru his greatest accomplishment. 'S'why he kept her around, a reminder to him of how 'great' he was. Also for the visions: dead useful. And for… the sex."

[Transcriber: Twelve seconds of silence.]

RG: "When did this occur?"

WtB: "Eighteen-sixty."

RG: "Did Drusilla sire anyone other than you?"

WtB: "Dru tried to sire humans and other things all the time. We… cleaned up after her. Aurelians put a lot of thought into who they sire, who they want around. Dru didn't. I, uh…."

RG: "Yes?"

WtB: "I brought a doll to her not long after I joined the family. Gave her something to… fuss over. Play with, punish, mother – in the Medea vein, or like that bint Carrie's mum, from the Stephen King movie. She didn't try to sire so much after that."

RG: "Her last known whereabouts were last year here in Sunnydale. Any idea where she is now?"

WtB: "No. We're quits, me an' Dru."

RG: "Well, let's move on, shall we? Do you know why Drusilla chose you to sire?"

WtB: [Sighs.] Yeah, rightly enough, though you have to remember that this is first-hand from a crazy woman. The grands were tired of looking after her, especially Darla. This was twenty years after Dru was turned. She was a master vampire herself because of the way she could use the mesmer, but she couldn't be left on her own. They told Dru to find someone just for herself, trusting that her visions would lead her to the right candidate. I gather they meant a caretaker; she blathered on about the finest knight in all the land. Found me, instead."

RG: "The year was…?"

WtB: "Eighteen-eighty."

RG: "Will you tell me your background?"

WtB: "No."

RG: "No, I didn't think so. Wide-boy from the start, I'm sure. You were turned in London, then?"

WtB: "Yeah, late at night, outside a livery. What kind of tosser woulda been there, huh? But there I was. Dru may be crazy, but she was still smarter than Darla. Was gonna make sure she got one for the long haul. I've seen head grooms could learn a thing or two about choosing cattle from the way she sized me up, head to – well, I don't think she looked as far as my toes. If Darla had one complaint about her 'Darling Boy' Angelus, it was about the size of his–"

RG: [Loudly.] "Moving on."

WtB: [Laughter.] "What? He's not inadequate, Rupes. Just that Darla, after years of accomodatin' any comers–"

RG: "Moving on."

WtB: "So, Drusilla had me half in thrall, checked out my package and signed off on it, pulled some stuff out of my head so she could offer me just what I wanted, and let me have it good."

RG: "What did she offer you?"

WtB: "Same thing she was after, really. Someone to lo – Someone."

RG: "She had you under her control? In thrall?"

WtB: "Under mesmer? Not entirely. I almost left. Dru doesn't overpower her victims, just makes them want what she offers. What they think she offers."

RG: "I remember."

WtB: "Yeah. Sorry 'bout that."

RG: "Sounds like you were her victim, too."

WtB: "No, Watcher. She was the victim. Of us all, Dru was the most innocent. She was the victim."

[Transcriber: Twelve seconds of silence.]

WtB: "So, I ripped my way out of my grave, Dru was waiting for me, and I never looked back."

RG: "You were given a funeral, then?"

WtB: "Pauper's grave. Dunno if Dru had me consigned there, or if no one identified my body."

RG: "Did you return to your family after you became a vampire?"

WtB: "Didn't say I had any family."

RG: "Of course not. So, Drusilla was waiting for you. Did she train you?"

WtB: "No, as she's mad as a March hare. Not for her ability to hypnotize people, she wouldn't have survived as long. For that matter, I don't know how many times I stopped her from strolling out at midday or going to play with the pretty fire like some moth. Angelus and Darla taught me what I needed to know to survive."

RG: "What methods did they use?"

WtB: "Distance education. What do you mean, what methods? You're a product of British education, Rupert. Canings, sarcasm, the usual upperclassman bullying."

RG: "Did they harm you?"

WtB: "No, they were very concerned about my self-esteem. Yeah, they hurt me, but you can't really harm a vampire, not unless it's in some permanent, dusty way. And I'm still here."

RG: "You didn't say, but I suppose that Angelus visited torture on Drusilla even after she was turned. Was it the same for you?"

[Transcriber: Thirteen seconds of silence.]

RG: [Sighing.] "Very well. So, how many have you sired?"

WtB: "Three. Dusted them all, too."

RG: "I believe you said you had sired four, in our earlier conversation."

WtB: "Right. Three on Angelus' orders. I turned one person on my own. Didn't go well. Dusted that one, too, and now I don't sire at all."

RG: "Will you tell me in what way it didn't go well?"

[Transcriber: Twelve seconds of silence.]

RG: "Right, then. Did you consider siring either of the Slayers you murdered?"

WtB: "Hang about! I've never murdered a Slayer. Every time I've fought a Slayer, it's been on a level playing field. Hand-to-hand combat, Watcher. Or, not even that. The first one had a sword; all I had were fists and fangs. The best you lot can throw at us demons. And I won. Two of those times, I won."

RG: "You've fought more than two Slayers?"

WtB: "Well, yeah. Six in all."

RG: "What were their names? Dates? You're still here, so obviously they didn't–"

WtB: "Ease off, there, Rupes. You're not a young man anymore. Don't rightly know their names. Fought one before the War to End All in Canada, another in Chicago in the twenties, one in Jakarta in the early fifties, and your Slayer, of course."

RG: "But you couldn't kill them."

WtB: "Yeah, actually, I could have. But the one in Chicago had been injured pretty badly a couple of days before I got to her. Where was the challenge? Put some welly to it, and she'd be down. She ended up dying the next day of internal bleeding, from the smell of it. And the one in Jakarta was barely fifteen, had just been called. Again, where's the challenge?"

[Transcriber: Ten seconds of silence.]

WtB: "'Lo? Watcher?"

RG: "Er, you let them go?"

WtB: "Well, yeah. You know me, Rupes."

RG: [Indistinct. Transcriber's guess: "Perhaps I do, at that."]

WtB: "The little one I fought in China, during the Boxer Rebellion, well, I was young. It really was kill or be killed. After that, after slaying a Slayer, I was a master vampire. Young to come into it that way, but there you are. And I drained her, Rupes. What was yours is part of me, now. I was stronger. No challenge against humans anymore. Even tried mobs. Fought vampires, other demons, but I wanted a worthy opponent."

[Transcriber: Twenty-two seconds of silence.]

RG: "Any other, er, effects from feeding off a Slayer?"

WtB: [Laughter.] "None that you want to hear about. [Pause.] What are you getting' at, Rupes?"

RG: "Nothing. [Pause.] There were no, er, worthy Slayers until Nikki Wood?"

WtB: "Not that I could get to. Slayers come and go, don't they, Watcher? Called and killed. Happened too fast for me to get to her, most times. Those were still the days before speedy international transit. But I hung about in New York, watched Nikki for a couple of years before I made contact. Her Watcher, what's-his-name, Crawford, Crowder, did a good job with her. She was worth fighting."

RG: "We are not running a farm league for you to cherry-pick your opponents, you… pillock."

WtB: "Wondered where you had the stake concealed, Rupert."

[Transcriber: Twenty seconds of silence.]

WtB: "Which will it be, Giles?"

RG: "Spike, you complete shit. Don't think I won't, someday."

WtB: "Sing me a new one."

RG: "Did you or did you not consider siring a Slayer?"

WtB: "No, I did not. First, might well be the stupidest thing I could do, if the Slayer's demon is more powerful than a vampire's demon. Unleash immortal Death on my own kind."

RG: "Slayers do not have demons."

WtB: "Keep telling yourself that, Rupes. Like recognizes like."

RG: "The Chosen One stands against the forces of darkness–"

WtB: "Demon, angel, the spirit of Christmas Past – there's a power in them, Watcher."

[Transcriber: Twelve seconds of silence.]

RG: "Second?"

WtB: "What? Oh, not siring Slayers. Uh, yeah. Second… worried the conflict of going from Chosen to kill vampires to actually being a vampire would be too much, mentally. Don't want any more insane vampires out there. And, third, I do not sire anymore."

RG: "Reports say that you didn't feed from Nikki."

WtB: "No."

RG: "Why?"

WtB: "Ask nicely."

RG: "Fuck you, Spike. Oh, don't even–"

WtB: "Oh, put it away, Rupert. It's a burden, I tell you, bein' this good-lookin.' She was a warrior, an equal, all right? She wasn't… food. She had… class, style… honor. I like to think she'd have paused for a couple of seconds after the battle, had she won."

RG: "You think yourself the equal of a Slayer?"

WtB: "No, I am better than Slayers, and you lot know it. Tell me, just how cozy was the Council with the Initiative? Was it a coincidence that they shoved a behavior modification chip in William the Bloody's head?"

RG: "You're insane."

WtB: "No, Rupes, I know what insane looks like. Yeah, get a good grip on your stake. You don't need it, you know you don't. You could take me with your bare hands. It'd take you a while, but… I stood toe-to-toe with Nikki Wood and took her down. Hell, I've been dancing with your Slayer for years now. But all you have to do is get me to throw one punch in self-defense… then while I'm holding the soddin' pieces of my head together, you can do me at will."

RG: "I'm not going to do you, Spike."

[Transcriber: Forty-four seconds of silence.]

RG: "Have you been watching Buffy all this time, waiting for her to meet your… standards?"

WtB: "No. Was gonna kill her off when I first came to town, just to clear Sunnydale of any problems while Dru recuperated. Didn't work out."

RG: "Does Buffy meet your standards?"

WtB: "We're done. Turn it off. I'm not speaking to you or anyone about Buf – the Slayer."

[Interview ends.]

Giles released the button on the tape recorder. Spike heard the little motor whir a second longer, then go still. The two men regarded each other warily. "I suppose I should thank you," the Watcher managed.

"Oh, my pleasure," the blond man replied, sarcasm dripping from each word. "Don't know why we didn't do this before."

"William." Giles was not looking at him. "I'm not holding a stake on you. Gentleman to gentleman, do you still have the chip?"

Spike gave him a surprised look. "Well, yeah. Doubt it's biodegradable, Watcher."

"When was the last time it went off?"

He thought about it. "Knights who say Key? No, it was Harris. When you lot couldn't keep straight that Ben was Glory, I smacked him at the hospital."

"It's been that long?" Giles' gaze was piercing.

"Modified my soddin' behavior, hasn't it?"

The Watcher put away the tape recorder and his notepad, then turned to face the vampire. He took a moment before he spoke, examining the other man's face. "When you came to Sunnydale the autumn after the she killed the Master, I was afraid of you, Spike. Not for myself, but for my Slayer. I didn't know that Dru was ill, just that the Slayer of Slayers had come to town, and Buffy wasn't ready for you.

"The two of you have fought… do you know how many of her battles she's reenacted for me, Spike? Very, very few, but all that she had with you. Every detail. She loves to fight with you."

A slow grin eased onto the vampire's face. "Mutual." It sounded as though he was quoting.

"And you love her." He watched the grin fade. "I've seen you slide into the lives of all three Summers women. Joyce liked you, far more than she ever cared for Angel. I think it's fair to say that you're Dawn's best friend. But whatever… dynamic exists between you and Buffy, violence is at the core of it."

"That's not true."

"Vampire, Slayer. Remember?" Giles touched his hand to his forehead for a moment, fighting a headache. "But more than that… it truly isn't your fault, William. You just don't know how else to interact with people. You're trying, I can see that. I nearly laughed when everyone was so shocked that you chained Buffy to a wall to show her how much you loved her. What else could you do? You are what they made you to be. I saw… in that house on Crawford Street, I saw how Angelus treated you and Drusilla. He touched you like… he owned you."

There were a few seconds of silence as Spike looked at Rupert's miserable face. "Are you asking me if," his voice grew mocking, "Angelus molested me?" He snorted. "Oh, please. What was it you told the Bit? Vampires are 'promiscuous and polysexual?' 'S'been a hundred years, but the sex was bloody brilliant, less violent than you probably think, Rupes. Ask Angel; he'll tell you the same. Or maybe not; don't think the poof's quite as secure in his sexual preferences as I am.

"But I guarantee that there's one thing he'll never tell you: that he owned me. He _never_ broke me. Angelus didn't have to break me or even touch me to control me; he had something much more effective."

"Drusilla."

"Yeah, Dru." With a frightening speed, Spike was off the tomb and across to his little kitchen. "He did break her, so many pieces that she can't be put back together again." The blond man studied the empty jar in his hands, then placed it carefully on top of the refrigerator. "Angelus couldn't beat or cut or bleed my… independence out of me. If he could have, I have no doubt he would have dusted me. In his own twisted way, he was proud that I never bent, even when he hated me for it.

"But he got a leash around my neck, for all of that." Spike sent Rupert a look across the room, his gaze ablaze with a clear fire quite unlike his yellow vampire's eyes. "He wanted me to do something, he reached for Dru. And she loved his attention. Never realized that Daddy wasn't focused on her. He'd have a flame or a knife, Dru would be beneath him, beggin' for it, and he'd give me that smile… And I'd give in, whatever he wanted, to keep him from inflicting the pain she wanted."

He whirled suddenly, and Giles flinched as the empty jar smashed against the stone tomb behind him. "Don't think I let them damage me, Rupes, to the point that I would ever hurt my girls. Yeah, my girls," he added viciously, as if Giles had contradicted him. "Buffy, Dawn, Joyce when she was around. I would die for them. In fact, I wish I had, up on that tower. Been easier." He stalked toward the Watcher. "Sure, I tied Buffy up. Was trying to get her to listen to me, not that she did, the stubborn, beautiful bitch. And, yeah, I love to fight with her. 'S'what we were made to do, and we do it so well together. Fred and Ginger, her and me.

"But if you're afraid that I'll repeat patterns of abuse – oh, don't give me that look; I watch Oprah, same as everyone – you needn't worry. I've…" He gave Giles a sharp look and forced himself into a marginally less tense state. "I'd cut off my hands, pull my own fangs before I'd hurt either of them."

The Watcher took a breath, considered the man now standing in front of him, and asked the inevitable question. "When your chip stops working, will you try to turn her?"

Disbelief spread over Spike's face, and he turned to the window to hide his hurt. "Haven't you listened to a word I've said, man? I would have killed her that night at your school, Rupert, not for Joyce swingin' her axe. Wouldn't have touched her blood and wouldn't have looked back. When she found us after Harm and I kidnapped that Initiative doctor, I was so frustrated, I would have drained her to get my strength back and left her for dead, if the chip really had been gone. Every other time, Watcher, every single other time we've fought, we were… dancing." His voice had softened, and Giles stared at the back of his head. The blond tilted it to one side, as if remembering something, then he began speaking again.

"When I had the Gem of Amara, I could have done it so easily, Rupert. But I saw her in the sunlight, and she was… She was in pain over some stupid git not worthy of her to wipe her shoes on, and I couldn't do it. Kill her, I mean. Yeah, I love her, you know I do. That means that I don't want her here forever. She'll be going back to heaven someday, Rupert. You really think I'd keep her from that? From her mum? Her eyes are so… dead, so much of the time now. You think I'd want them to be like that for eternity?"

"No. No, I don't think that." Giles' voice was hushed, too. "Spike, I want you to tell me, where did you go this summer?"

The vampire in front of the window took on a different quality of stillness. "Told you. Crawled into a bottle."

"I'm leaving in four days. Going back to England to stay."

The stillness left. "Oh? You're abandoning her, too?" Spike tossed his hands into the air and turned to glare at the Watcher. "Brilliant. Leave her, like every other man in her life. She's not been buggered nearly enough."

"I'm not abandoning her. I went to England so I could do research on the Key, quietly, so the Council doesn't have to know it's Dawn. I'm going to continue that."

"And in what way is that not abandoning her, Rupert? Especially now, after you know where–"

"She won't stand on her own two feet, Spike. You know how strong she is; I suspect that's what you love about her most. But that strength is… damped down, now. Did you know that she never spoke to Dawn about what happened on Halloween? Good lord, man, Buffy's the expert on why vampires are bad boyfriends, and she never spoke to her sister. Just left it to me."

"She never spoke to Dawn?"

Giles sighed. "No. I can't be her parent; it isn't what she needs. I don't mind helping financially. In fact, I'm trying to get the Council to pay her a salary, so she can continue her education instead of working to put Dawn through school. She's very bright, you know."

"I know."

"But she's relying on me to take care of anything that might… engage her emotions. She's afraid to get angry, I think, especially with her friends."

"Know I am. When she told me 'bout where she'd been… Willow especially, could wring her neck. Still wonder how much of that was worry about Buffy bein' in a hell dimension and how much was wondering if she was strong enough to pull it off."

"Another worry of mine, I'm afraid. But Tara's a good influence on her."

"Tara's a peach, but Red's gonna lose her, she's not careful."

Giles gave him a sharp look, then shook his head. "In any case, do you see why I need to go? Not only does Buffy need to find her inner strengths again, but we have to know if there's going to be crazed hellgods after Dawn every two or three years, or if Glory was it."

Spike nodded grudgingly. "Yeah, I get it. I've been trying to track down Doc myself, the only other one that knows what Dawn is." He shook his head when Giles raised his eyebrows in query. "Nothing yet."

"It's vitally important that Dawn be kept safe." Giles sighed. "I want the girl to have a normal life. I want both of them to have a normal life, if it comes to it, but Buffy has a different destiny." He stepped closer to Spike. "So, since I won't be here, I have to ask, is she safe?

"Nothing left for me if anything happens to my girls, Rupert." He met the other man's gaze fully. "I will give my life to save theirs."

They stared at each for a long moment, then Giles nodded. "Yes. I meant, is she safe from you? I've seen you become something better, Spike. Not just try, but become." He looked away, uncomfortable with the quick play of emotion that crossed the vampire's face. "When Buffy entrusted you with Dawn and her mother, I was mortified, but she was right, wasn't she? For every step backwards – the whole thing with Drusilla, the Buffybot – you've taken two forward.

"When Glory had you, what you went through… I wouldn't have believed it possible for you to do the honorable thing. Neither did Buffy, but she was willing to give you the smallest benefit of a doubt. I know you love Dawn. I even believe you love Buffy. I know you do more than just tolerate the rest of us." He cocked his head to one side. "I'm just not sure why. Do you want to hear my theory?"

Spike's eyes narrowed, and he ambled a few feet away, trying to appear casual. "Sure, Watcher. Regale me."

"I think you were so despondent after Buffy barred you from the Summers' house, you had yourself cursed with a soul. And I think you spent the time away this summer grieving."

Spike looked quickly down, shaking his head a bit. "'S'that what you think?" He forced a chuckle. "The 'Bot's not the work of a souled man, Rupert. Timeline doesn't work. Your theory doesn't fly." Spike stuffed his hands into his back pockets, didn't look up.

"Building a robot of that complexity takes time. I think you commissioned it before that." When the blond man continued to stare at the floor, he pressed on, sensing that he would never get another maddening conversation with the blond around to this point again. "Spike, I'm leaving. If there is anything you can tell me that will make me feel more comfortable about doing so, please, man, at least give me that."

"And, in this theory of yours, why would a monster like me get a soul?"

Giles gave him a wintry smile. "You, a vampire without a soul, had no chance of winning Buffy's love. Angel, a vampire with a soul, won Buffy's love. Simple arithmetic."

"Ah, but we've already established that you fail at maths." Spike turned and kicked at shards of glass with the toe of his boot. "No, Rupert. I grew to love Dawn and Joyce and Buffy, too, without benefit of a soul. I told Dru to sod off without a soul. I stood up to Glory without a soul, went on the lam with you lot without a soul. I even went to fight Glory that night expecting to die to save the world – again, I might add – with nary a soul in sight. Even that Doc fellow mentioned it, wondered why I cared without a soul.

"Dunno, really," he said, before Rupert could ask. "I've always been able to care. Doesn't embarrass my demon at all."

"Love's bitch," Giles said.

"Yeah, that one's gonna haunt me for bloody ever, innit?" Spike gave the Watcher a fleeting smile, no real humor in it. "'Course, doesn't mean I don't have my soul now."

The words were so casual that it took a moment for them to sink in. Gooseflesh broke out over Rupert's arms and the fine hairs at the back of his neck stirred. He squinted a bit at Spike, who was still kicking the broken pieces of the jar toward the stone tomb, hands jammed into his pockets and his hair sticking up in unruly curls. He looked about eleven and, except for the sharply defined muscles of his arms, harmless. "Tell me," the Watcher whispered.

Spike shrugged. "Few days after Buffy… I had a dream, or somethin'. Told me that the chip was gonna fail, that it wasn't meant to last in real world conditions. Told me that I might not hurt Dawn or you Scoobies directly, but I'd end up hurting someone you lot cared about. Made me think about what that betrayal would look like on the Nibblet's face. Don't remember all of it, and it's not too clear anyhow, but it scared me enough to do something about it."

He raised his head, and Giles saw that his eyes were wet. Spike had never been ashamed of his tears, and the Watcher found that his own eyes were bleared. He took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes surreptitiously. "Who did it?"

"Did what?"

"The curse. It wasn't Willow, she would have told me, but I thought she was the only–"

Spike let out an impatient breath. "When will you get it through your head that Angel is not the bloody standard?" He gave one final shard a particularly vicious kick. "My soul belongs to me, Watcher. It's not a curse, no more than your own is." He turned away again, placing his hands just so on top of the crypt, and hunched his shoulders. "Heard a legend long time ago 'bout a powerful demon in Africa who was bound to a cave. You go through a series of trials for him, he's able to give you the prize of your choice. Better than a carnival. Defeat a bunch of challenges; pick your prize."

"You… fought for your soul?" Giles' voice was sharp.

"Yeah, Watcher, I did," Spike affirmed, turning to glare at him with eyes once again full of clear, fiery light. "Not a curse. Mine, reclaimed." He looked away, obviously angry.

"That's…" Giles was at a loss for words. "Unprecedented." He put his spectacles back on and took a step toward Spike. "My God, Spike – William. You…"

"Yeah. Me." The vampire seemed to deflate a little. "Makes you feel more comfortable about abandoning your Slayer, I hope."

Giles was too stunned for the barb to sink in. He stepped closer and peered at the pale face before him. "You… for unselfish reasons, you…" He stood up straight suddenly. "This sets everything I've ever known, ever been told on its ear. If you can–"

In a blur of motion, Spike grabbed the Watcher by the arms and spun him, thumping him sharply against the cold stone. His face contorted with pain for a moment, then he grimaced and met Rupert's wide eyes. "No, it does not. Again, when will you people realize that other vampires are NOT me? I am a demon, Rupert, and I am still perfectly capable of evil. The soul… it just gives me consequences. A better frame of reference, so I… get it. Same as yours, really. And you're not to tell anyone. Just like the name." He let go of the unresisting man and stomped away. "Don't go thinking that you shouldn't slay vampires. You should; trust me, I've lived with them. Kill 'em all. Even a vampire as harmless as, well, Harmony, is still capable of evil." He rolled his eyes. "Bad example; she's not very capable, but do you get what I'm saying?"

Giles raised his chin. "You're saying that you're the exception that proves the rule."

Spike waved a careless hand at him. "Yeah, that'll do. Don't go questioning the mission."

The Watcher had regained some of his equanimity. "You know that I can check to determine the existence of a soul."

With a long-suffering air, Spike turned to look at him. "Brew up double the batch, then, and check to see if Dawn has a soul. She's been worried about it."

"She has a soul. It's one of the first things I checked for after we found out she was the Key."

Spike's jaw dropped. "Well, you coulda told her! She's been frettin' about it, Rupert."

"I-I never knew how to bring it up. That I'd checked, I mean."

"Yeah, can't win with a teenaged hormone bomb, can you?" Then he smiled. "The monks did it right."

"I've wondered if her soul, like her blood, is part of Buffy's." When the blond man stared at him after his words sank in, Giles gave his head a tiny shake. He hadn't meant to share his worry, to confide his thoughts on a subtle change in Buffy's personality over the past couple of years. But another part of him felt as though he had laid down a heavy burden. Confiding in Spike was too disturbing, so he quickly switched topics. "Tell me how you did it, Spike. It's… this is just incredible."

"What, incredible? It was your own theory, Watcher."

"I thought you'd used the curse that Jenny recovered, not… And you faced trials to earn it?"

The vampire drew in a deep breath and spoke in a flat tone, as if reciting. "Had the dream, left immediately for Africa. Couldn't stand to be here, not then. Know the Atlantic ports better, so I drove across country, caught a cargo ship to the Mediterranean, rode the rails to Uganda, found the cave. Demon was lurkin' inside." He took another breath. "Faced the trials. Won. Came back."

"What kind of trials?" Giles asked, turning his head to the side.

"Fights to the death, for the most part. Played to my strengths, really." He grimaced. "Except for the bugs."

"How long?" The Watcher's voice was soft.

"A week or so." The answer came with a shrug. "Thought it would take longer, you know? Finished up the last battle and there he was, making me a real boy." He gave Rupert a twisted smile, and the familiar words surprised a laugh out of the Watcher.

Then the Watcher laughed again, a happy, full sound that echoed oddly in the crypt. "You could have chosen anything for succeeding in the trials, couldn't you, William?" His eyes were warm.

Spike's however, were wary. "You mean, could I have asked to have the chip out? Yeah, could have."

"Yes, you could," Giles echoed, still smiling. "My god, man, you've given me more hope than I've had in… months. Since Joyce died, I suppose." He put his hands on his hips and beamed. "This is a very good thing."

"Glad you think so," Spike mumbled, still feeling out of sorts.

"Oh, it is," the Watcher enthused. He let out a breath and considered the other man. "You don't know… I feel like I can finally share this burden. Infinitely lighter."

"Burden?"

"This knowledge about the Key, Buffy's death… Did you know that Buffy hasn't been mentioned in any other prophecies since the one about the Master? I know I should be relieved, but I find myself disturbed. I'm flying blind, with a Slayer of her caliber. It's like she's shielded from the ancient oracles, and the Powers That Be can't see her. And she keeps escaping death… The only people who know all that I do about the situation here on the Hellmouth are children, Spike. Even you, as old as you are, weren't a likely confidante. But with a soul…."

"What? You think we're gonna start havin' brandy and cigars of an evening?"

"Well," Giles said, putting his hands in his pockets and spoiling the lines of his jacket, "bourbon and cigarettes are more your speed."

A small, unwilling grin touched Spike's mouth, quickly banished. "What is it you want from me, Watcher?"

"I should say 'nothing,' but I won't lie to you." He gave the other man a sharp, assessing look. "A dependable ally, William. I need that, actually. You might be surprised what I've gathered from studying you. Watcher, after all."

"Yeah? What's that?"

Giles gave him a predatory smile that any vampire would envy. "You're far more educated than you want anyone to know. You're quick, intellectually, not a genius like Willow, but able to make connections. I've lost track of the number of languages I think you know. You're a hell of a researcher – don't think I'm going to let you off research duty next time."

Spike turned away, hiding his expression. "How do you figure?"

"You found the Gem of Amara, William. Need I say more? All the pieces of the Judge – I doubt Drusilla did that. And the du Lac cure for Dru, mustn't forget that. I saw the remnants of your library at the factory. Latin, Greek, Aramaic, obscure demon languages." He gave the satisfied grin once again. "Reciting the St. Crispin's Day speech was another giveaway. And sometimes, William, you forget your North London accent. Cambridge? Or Oxford, perhaps?"

Spike deflected this. "Can't take credit for the Judge or much of the du Lac translation. Had a smart bloke around, name of Dalton. The Judge crisped him right away."

"You said yourself that the Aurelians preferred to hunt among the upper classes."

The vampire's gaze sharpened. "I was never prey, Rupert."

"You're a puzzle, William," Giles said, "one I'm determined to solve."

"Oh, Rupes, you make a bloke feel so special."

Giles just smiled. "Bat those eyelashes all you like. You're working for me, now."

"Yeah? How do you figure?"

"You'll take care of Buffy and Dawn no matter what. Won't you?"

Spike looked away. The Watcher had his number, all right.

"Do they know?"

"Told the Bit. Her? Now, she's a quick one. Had it sussed out where Buffy had been, too. That's all, though. 'M'only tellin' you 'cause you were so close to guessin.'"

Giles frowned. "Don't you think Buffy should know? It-it might make her happier."

"So sorry you were snatched from heaven. But I have a soul now!" The vampire snorted derisively. "There'll be a good time to tell her, Watcher. Haven't seen it yet." He jammed his hands in his pockets. "Doesn't matter, day-to-day. She knows I love her, her and the Bit. Knows I'll take care of them."

The Watcher had grown very still. "You… there's no happiness clause, is there, because this isn't a curse."

Dawn would have said that Spike went into full-on Big Bad mode. He smirked at the Watcher. "Soul's not going anywhere, no matter how big a happy." He shook it off, shrugging. "Just as well, innit? Otherwise they'd put the bloomin' onion back on the menu at the Bronze and poof! Soul'd be gone." Giles' mouth worked at the ridiculous example. "What? I have a much lower threshold for happiness than Peaches."

The Watcher was back to the fore, though, and he peered at Spike closely. "Will you pursue a relationship with Buffy?"

"We have a relationship," the vampire said impatiently. "I'm part of her support circle, or something." He paced away, pivoting on his heel to meet Giles' probing gaze when he was in the kitchen area again. "She's been claimed by heaven, Rupert. An angel. And I'm…" Spike's expression faded from wonder to anguish. "I will always be a vampire. I have a soul, yeah, but I also have a demon. 'M'not going to heaven when I slip up and let myself get dusted. I don't deserve her love.

"Doesn't keep me from wanting it." He shrugged. "When it comes to the Summers women, I'm not strong. Whatever they want, I'll give it to 'em. I'm already at Dawn's feet, so when she wants a pedicure…" Spike shook his head. "Only if it's what Buffy wants, Rupert. I won't push her. Bugger." He grimaced. "Can't even bring myself to mention the soul to her, now. I see too damned clearly what I am. But if she makes a move toward me…" He thought of the kisses behind the Bronze. "Sorry, Watcher. Whatever your Slayer wants from me, I'll give it to her. Whatever my lady wants. I cannot do otherwise."

Giles stared at him for a long time, amazed at how open this creature was to love, wondering what tortures he'd survived at the hands of Darla and Angelus, wondering what tortures he'd allowed Drusilla to inflict. As much as he loved Buffy, what would he allow her to do to him? A chill went over him. In the space of a quarter of an hour, he'd gone from worrying about this vampire killing Buffy to worrying about what a vacant reincarnation of Buffy might do to this defenseless vampire. He gave himself a mental shake; Buffy hadn't raised a hand against Spike since she'd learned that he withstood torture to save Dawn. A lot of her earlier bullying behavior was Riley's influence, he was sure. It had nothing to do with Dawn's appearance, with Dawn having a soul. Even with half a soul – and there was no proof that he was right about that – Buffy wouldn't hurt anyone undeserving and wouldn't let herself get hurt. With his quick mouth, Spike was hardly defenseless, in any case. Besides, after the first vampire, Buffy wasn't likely to want to be involved with a second one.

"Do try to restrain yourself, anyway," he said dryly, finally breaking the silence. "You're hardly prospective son-in-law material."

A small, sad smile touched Spike's mouth. "Never was, Dad."

"Oh," Giles said, surprised at what he had just given away. He shrugged, not embarrassed by it. His own love for Buffy was hardly the most surprising thing to be revealed this afternoon in Spike's crypt. "Never mind. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do." The blond man looked out the window. "You busy, uh, packing?"

Giles closed his eyes and let out an oddly delicate snort. "Time for me to be going, I take it?"

Spike shook his head. "I'm knackered, Rupert. Bloody wrung out. Think I'll go back downstairs and kip before goin' out on patrol."

Giles nodded his understanding and walked toward the door. He paused, gave Spike a considering look, and detoured until he was standing in front of the vampire. He held out his hand.

Spike stared at it for a long time. Then he took it. When he looked into the Watcher's face, the eyes behind the glasses were as warm as his hand. The two men shook, and Rupert left the crypt, a small, satisfied smile still playing about his lips.

⸹

"Spike?" Dawn rolled over and looked at the silhouette in her window.

He raised his eyebrows, impressed that she had sensed him, and waited for her to undo the lock. "'Lo, Bit. How are things here?"

Dawn's jaw clenched in anger, but her eyelashes, spiky and clumped together by tears, told another story. "Tara left, Buffy's not back, and Willow's sitting on the bathroom floor and won't leave."

Ducking through the window, he asked, "Tara's gone? As in moved out?" At her nod, he grimaced. "Red shoulda seen that comin.' Over the magic?"

"Yeah. This was one spell too many."

He leaned against the wall and drew her into a hug. "Figured it was her caused it. What was she trying to do?"

Dawn's voice was loud, as if she hoped that Willow overheard. "Control everybody, like we're her puppets. She said she was trying to make Buffy forget about where she'd been, but Tara said Willow broke her promise and couldn't even go a week without using magic to fix everybody to her liking."

She bowed her head and put it on his shoulder. "And Giles is leaving. Again." Dawn sniffled. "Why does everyone leave, Spike?"

"Life's full of comings and goings." He rubbed her back. "Just the way it is. Someday soon it'll be you who's going."

"Me?" The idea obviously startled her.

"Yeah, you, Miss Taller-than-her-sister. University for you soon, yeah? You don't have to go to UC-Sunnydale, not like Buffy." He shrugged. "I recall Joyce tried to get her to go away to college, too, but it all went pear-shaped with that other Slayer."

"Faith," Dawn said in disgust, and rolled her eyes. "You and Buffy okay?"

"What, those vampires?" At her nod, he shrugged. "No problem. Remembering all over again hit her hard, though."

"Where is she?"

"I tracked her to the Bronze, didn't go in. Went by the Magic Box, then came here. Wanted to make sure you lot were okay."

"Okay's a word," Dawn said, shrugging.

"Listen, I'm gonna go check on Big Sis, all right? Tell her you're safe." He dropped a quick kiss on her temple and was halfway out the window when he paused. "Nibblet? People leave, but they come back, too, don't they? I came back quick as I could. Giles will be back. Tara's taking classes, so you know she isn't going to go too far."

"Buffy came back," Dawn said, something painful in her voice.

"She still not talking with you?" When the girl shook her head, he grimaced. "I'll talk to her about that, then. Get some sleep."

"Not until the wicked witch gets out of the bathroom. I'm not going to sleep without brushing my teeth."

"Go roust her out, then. I know you're mad, Bit, but be nice to her, if you can. 'S'not fun when they leave you, even if it's your own stupid fault."

"Hey, Spike?" Dawn's voice was soft.

"What?"

"Nice suit."

"Smartass." And he was gone.

⸹

Buffy stared off into middle distance and absently patted Willow's back. They were on the couch in the living room, Willow's head against her shoulder. Her best friend was crying, huge, painful-sounding sobs, and Tara was gone. Dawn had come halfway down the stairs, rolled her eyes at Willow's misery, then flounced back to her bedroom. And Spike, after kissing her into mindless bliss in full view of anyone at the Bronze who might want to look, had disengaged and sent her packing. Back to this. Gee, thanks, Spike.

She'd done it again. They were at the Bronze, and he was turning from her, leaving, and she chased him down. God, what was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just let him go? Why did a huge wave of panic rise up inside her whenever she realized he wasn't nearby? He wasn't her haven anymore, he was… It was too mixed-up to think about.

"Oh, God, Buffy, what have I done?" Willow managed, hugging herself. "What have I done?"

"It'll be all right," Buffy reassured her automatically. Very distantly, she wondered if Willow had grieved like this over ripping her best friend out of heaven. If she hadn't… Karma, wasn't it? Cosmic payback – you play God, you lose your girlfriend. And just as distantly, she hated herself for thinking that.

⸹

Someone had seen the Slayer being thoroughly snogged beneath the staircase at the Bronze, someone who recognized what, exactly, was kissing her. An ironic little smile played over the elegant features to see the self-righteous chit again embracing what she was called to slay. The demon that had caused such delicious chaos in Sunnydale by provoking heartfelt song might not have killed her, but after seeing this, he was almost glad that plan had failed. It was always more gratifying when wounds were self-inflicted. While he had learned not to dawdle at the scene of his crimes, maybe he would stay around Sunnydale for just a little while longer.

⸹

[Author's Note: This is the first real deviation from season six canon. Spike uses an alternate method to see if the behavior modification chip is really out of order.]

"And don't come back."

"No worries," Spike mumbled, holding his head and trying to make it look as if he was clutching his jaw where the bouncer had hit him. He stumbled away from the dance club. He'd chosen one near campus, where he never went anymore. Then he picked a second fight with another bouncer at another club, just to be sure. Long walk home, but it would give him time to think.

Well, this is bollixed up good and proper. What does it mean that I can hit Buffy, but not any other human? The robot geek, Warren, said the chip was working the way it was supposed to. I wasn't very nice to him and his little playmates. Shouldn't have been so snarky to them. Just that basement reminded me so much of Harris. Thank God he's out of –

Oh, shut up. Stupid soul.

Spike ducked down an alley and stopped to take a deep breath. This was no good. He never spared anyone else the truth. Why should he get off easy? The chip let him hit demons, but not humans. The chip let him hit Buffy, but not humans. What had Willow done to her?

He remembered what he had casually said to Rupert about Slayers having a demon. He hadn't really meant a demon, but the Slayerness inside of them. He could always sense it, the same way they could sense the demon inside an animated corpse. Though he'd never got the full story after Adam was defeated, hadn't there been something about the spirit of the First Slayer trying to kill Buffy and the Scoobies? Sounded like a demonic spirit to him.

What if Willow had tapped too much of that Slayer spirit? Or, what if Buffy's soul had been too weak when she returned to balance the normal amount of Slayerness? Or, maybe I should feel my hair to see if it's sticking up, because what if I'm turning into an enormous, brooding git?

He sighed. Not a bad thing, this. Maybe a lagniappe that came with his soul, because when she hit him outside the museum, it had been bad for a moment. How dare she raise her fist to him? Spike couldn't remember the last time he'd been that angry. She had just hauled off and hit him, as if the last time he had his hands on her, her lips hadn't been moving hotly against his. Payback for her treating him like a punching bag last year, warning that she shouldn't get in that habit again, and just a touch of fury for her blowing hot and cold now. Knowing it would hurt, he let her have it, good as he got.

No consequences.

Spike shivered, an odd thing for one of his unnatural state, and he left the alley, heading for his crypt at nearly top speed, needing shelter despite the fact that it wasn't even ten o'clock. Funny, Rupert had been worried about his chip not working on Buffy, and now that it didn't, the only thing he wanted to do…

What did he want?

He wanted her fire. Spike closed the door of his crypt behind him and leaned his back against it, pulling in shallow gasps of air as memories assaulted him. Fighting her, fighting alongside her, sparring with her, their movements complementary and precise. Going at her with every drop of skill, every last bit of strength, because that's what it took to stay apace, because they were perfectly matched, equals….

I'm her equal again.

His eyes widened at the realization. That was it, wasn't it? He wanted her to know. Once Buffy knew the chip didn't work on her, she would freak. Spike could practically see her face. And he knew his girl, knew what would come next. His body practically hummed in anticipation of the fight. And he would get her down, fangs by her neck, and then whisper the news that he had a soul, that it was okay, that she could trust him. Or maybe she would have a stake poised over his heart when he told her. Didn't matter, really, who had the good day. All that mattered was the dance, that connection that he'd never had with anyone else.

He made himself stop breathing. Don't go, his soul warned him, not now. Too keyed up.

Two years, his demon howled, two long, empty years. The frustrated cry drowned out everything else.

A grin of anticipation curled Spike's lips. Oh, Buffy. You know you wanna dance.

⸹

She looked at the puddle of clothes on the bathroom floor: socks, white blouse, leather skirt… recaptured undies. I'll burn them, she decided.

I like that skirt, though.

They couldn't even tell. How could Dawn and Willow not know? Isn't it written all over me?

I spent the night having incredible, so-not-like-me sex with the evil undead. And does anyone want cereal?

Definitely burning the clothes. Except for the skirt.

Buffy turned the water on, got the shower to just the temperature she liked, then made it a little hotter. She stepped into the spray and began to scrub her skin until it shone pink.

He can hit me.

Knowing was almost a relief.

Something was wrong with her, after all. This… person who was numbly going through her days, it wasn't her. She was partly her, but mostly something else.

Thank God.

Because it wasn't her that had been so aroused by fighting Spike that she came when he pinned her painfully against the broken spindles of a staircase. Fighting him had always been… like fighting no one else, but, honestly, how twisted was that?

That hadn't been her who had pushed him against a wall and climbed his body like a cat. Not her hands that unzipped him, not her hands that guided the hard length of him inside her. Not her body waiting so impatiently for him to fill her emptiness.

Not her eyes that watched the wonder and love on his face and sent back only cold anger.

Not her fingers that had held with bruising strength. Not her teeth biting too hard. Not her nails clawing away skin.

Not her ears hearing his laughter, as if her rage meant nothing to him.

Not her arms reaching for him, again and again through the night.

Not her hips bucking back against his.

Not her voice screaming his name.

Not her neck that never once felt fangs against it.

Not her lips softening against his as the night went on.

Not her fingers curling in his hair.

Not her eyes meeting his as he surged into her.

Not her mouth kissing the line of his jaw as she brokenly whispered his name.

Not her ears, hearing a vampire compare their night to killing other Slayers.

Not her heart, breaking a little at the proof of his evil.

Not her voice, telling him that he was merely convenient.

Not her memory of the pain her words had put on his face.

Not her.

Never her.

Buffy scrubbed harder. Her skin was red and raw. She didn't understand how she could still feel dirty.

⸹

The fingers of Dawn's free hand crushed Spike's as the doctor pulled her bones back into place. She didn't yell, but her teeth were clenched so tightly that Spike's jaw hurt in sympathy. Or maybe it was just that he was holding onto his temper so ruthlessly.

Buffy was two examination rooms away, sitting with Willow, who was also getting checked out. He could feel her. He had always been able to feel her, but now he was tuned to her like she was a set channel on his radio. Strange, though, how he couldn't read her as well anymore.

Spike lifted his left hand and wiped a tear from Dawn's cheek. Her eyes flickered to his, but she didn't smile. She was almost as pale as he was, the buzzing fluorescent hospital lights leeching any color that remained after the shocking incident.

A hit-and-run driver, they had told the admissions clerk when they brought her into Casualty. Yeah, that was close enough, only the driver was Red, and she had the wheel canted at a ninety-degree angle, ensuring that she'd be coming round to hit them again. Spike studied Dawn's face, letting the sweetness of her unlined cheek and the fire in her blue eyes soothe him. It wasn't enough to keep him from thinking about the witch just two rooms away, and his face hardened as the doctor left and Willow's scent came to him before the door closed.

She had looked sad and pathetic after the demon was gone, coming down off whatever high she'd been on. He'd smelled a male scent, Rack's, he supposed, all over her, the musky scent of a heterosexual union clinging oddly to Willow, proof of how far things had gone wrong for a young woman who had known only two lovers. She had her demons on the inside, too, and Spike understood that. So he sent Buffy to her, and the Slayer had taken her admirably in hand.

But now he just wanted to… well, at the very least, he wanted to terrorize her for three hours, let her feel like his Bit had in that waiting room, then break her arm in exactly the same place. His own internal demon was willing to accept that as a starting point for knocking ten bells out of her, and was lovingly going over some of the tortures Angelus had favored. A grim little smile touched his face.

"You all right?" Dawn asked, frowning at him. She grimaced as the nurse lifted her arm so he could begin wrapping it.

"No." The nurse gave him an uneasy glance, so he took a breath and tried again. "Never want you to be hurt, so, no, I'm not all right. Don't like to see you in pain."

She squeezed his fingers again, her left hand resting in his right. "I want to go home."

"Not long now, Nibblet. The worst is over."

She scoffed, and he sent her a warning look. Quick as always, she grumbled, "Bet I'll have to have weeks of painful physical therapy."

The nurse gave her a professional, reassuring smile. "No, Miss Summers. It was a clean break. You'll be right as rain in no time." When the girl's face crumpled, he gave Spike a confused, what'd-I-do? look.

Spike let go of Dawn's hand and slid his arm around her waist. "Shh, 's'alright, love." He met the nurse's puzzled eyes. "Her, uh, uncle just left for England a few days ago. He always says that 'right as rain' thing." The nurse nodded, and Spike watched the man's dark hands moving around Dawn's arm, like magical gestures over a potion, a sharp contrast to the white gauze.

Buffy was coming closer. He could feel it, like sound waves from an approaching train. The power in the connection they had forged overwhelmed him for a moment, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, Buffy and Willow were standing in the doorway, and Dawn was glaring at the stricken redhead. With a 'hmph!' of disapproval, the girl turned and put her head against his shoulder. Spike's mouth tightened at the expression of pain and loss that crossed Willow's face before she turned away. Buffy met his eyes briefly, then followed her best friend back to the waiting room. He looked down and found Dawn peeping out from the hollow of his embrace, her glare now focused on her sister's retreating back.

"Looks like Willow's going to be okay," he told her, trying to shade the words with several layers of meaning. "May take her a while to get over this, though. Emotionally."

"She doesn't have anything broken."

"Don't be too sure," he said, low and private.

"You know how much I hate it when you're all reasonable," Dawn complained, but she relaxed a little. She felt the muscles in his face move in a smile against the top of her head. Dawn closed her eyes, grateful that he was there.

She dropped off to sleep before the cast was finished. Buffy came back into the room, again meeting Spike's eyes fleetingly. "Xander is in the waiting room with Willow. I called him so we wouldn't have to walk home."

Spike nodded very slightly, so that he wouldn't disturb Dawn. "How you holding up?"

"Oh, you know," Buffy said, giving her head a little shake. "Willow, Dawn, everything that's happened in the last couple of days… not overwhelmed at all."

He held out his free hand, and she stared at it for a moment, watching her own hand slip into his. His cool fingers gave hers a quick squeeze, much as Dawn had done with his earlier.

"All done here," the nurse said, turning Dawn's arm a bit and looking at the cast critically. "The doctor left a prescription for painkillers, enough for five days, but if she can do without them, she doesn't have to take them. They'll make her really sleepy. You can get it filled tonight in the hospital pharmacy on the third floor." He gave Buffy and Spike another of his professional smiles. "She's a brave girl. I'll go get a wheelchair for her."

"No need," Spike said, gathering the sleeping girl into his arms as he stood from the examination table.

The nurse assessed his steady grip, then nodded. Because he'd worked in Sunnydale long enough to see odd things, he added, "Be careful out there. Take her straight home."

Buffy went out before him, making sure Dawn's long legs didn't bump against the doorframe. The hall was wide, and she fell into step beside man carrying her sister. "Thanks," she said.

"No worries, love," he replied, giving her a sidelong look that fed something in her, made her feel warmer. "If you need to talk, Buffy – we need to talk, I know, but I mean about this – I'll be on my best behavior. Promise."

She gave him a watery smile and nodded, a wave of relief making her knees weak. She could still depend on him when things got impossible; that hadn't changed. Trusting him in a crisis felt natural; it was dealing with him – and everything – on a day-to-day basis that felt off.

"How is she?" Xander asked, standing up as they walked into the waiting room.

"Tired out," Spike replied.

"I can imagine." The dark-haired man sent Willow, who was still sitting bonelessly in one of the uncomfortable chairs, an unreadable glance.

"Um, Dawn's still on Dad's insurance, so I can, uh, just go get this filled here," Buffy said, waving the prescription in the air and not really looking at any of them. "You park in the usual lot, Xan?" How pathetic is my life, that I have a regular parking space at the hospital, Buffy thought. At Xander's nod, she walked off to the elevator bank.

"Let's get her on out to the car," Xander said. He leaned over and took Willow's elbow, helping her to her feet. Spike followed them, slower so that the electric doors would open all the way and Dawn's feet would clear the entrance.

Xander opened the rear passenger door for Spike, but before he could fold himself inside with his burden, Willow put a hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry," she said, and her voice, full of pain, was sincere.

"'S'not me you should apologize to," he said shortly, then closed his eyes, grimacing. Stupid soul. "Look, Red, don't be sorry. Be smart, like you used to be. You're hurtin' people. Magic always has consequences. They're not all magical consequences." He lifted Dawn a little higher in his arms, his proof of this. Willow nodded and bit her lip. Spike turned away, smoothly maneuvering his armful of Nibblet into the car. He knew he should wake her up and put her in a seatbelt, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of her.

Buffy came out with a bag from the pharmacy and got in next to Spike, pulling Dawn's legs across her lap. Xander drove the quiet group to Revello Drive, and she thanked him for coming out so late. Willow, trying desperately to be helpful, held the doors open while Spike carried Dawn up to her bedroom. It took a surprisingly short time before the three females were on one side of the door and the two men were on the other.

"Want a ride to the graveyard?" Xander asked, yawning.

"No. Feel like walkin' tonight. But thanks anyway."

"No problem. See you later." Xander paused after just a few steps. "She's out of control, isn't she?"

Spike rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah," he answered shortly.

"This was pretty bad. She knows that."

"You've known her the longest, Harris. Can she stop herself?"

"Yeah," he said immediately. Then, a little less sure, "Yeah. It's Willow, right?"

"Yeah. Some time, some work, and she'll be all right." It was what people with souls said. He raised his hand in farewell and set off into the night.

⸹

January 2002

Thank goodness it was winter, and the days were short. Spike paced nervously across the mostly-empty parking lot of the Sunnydale mall, crowds of Christmas shoppers now only a dim memory. He had bollixed things up royally, kicking invisible Buffy out like that. She had come to him only once since then, telling him to stay away from Dawn without ever meeting his eyes. The visit from the social worker hadn't gone well, she said, and she was afraid that she was going to lose custody of her sister.

But, this, what he was about to do… might take care of a bunch of birds with one stone. Spike smirked a little at his pun, then nervousness took hold again and his face set into a grim mask. Yeah, might.

Bloody hell, he thought, as he went through the double set of doors, and the first notes of mall music tinkled into his ears. He hadn't been here since late September, when Dawn had been seriously needy one night and his resistance had been at a low ebb. He'd gotten her a CD, actually spent money so she could listen to Avrile Lavigne, a punk poser so rank that she admitted to not knowing the Sex Pistols, the soddin' Canadian.

Spike took an unnecessary breath to clear his head. He missed the Bit, was all. They hadn't been apart for more than a couple of days since he'd returned from Africa, and now he hadn't seen her in over a week.

But this could change everything. Squaring his shoulders, he turned into the storefront he'd been looking for, ready for snotty once-overs of his bad, leather-clad self. Hell, they'd probably bring in an extra brace of security cameras, just for him.

So he was surprised when a thin Goth girl looked up from behind the counter with an unalarmed manner. Her hair and her skirt were short and dark, and she was wearing too much makeup. "May I help you?" She popped her gum.

Spike blinked, then checked her nametag. "Uh, yeah, Mindy." It was a brightly lit, upscale jewelry store, not one of the nationwide chains, and it had a good reputation. "'M looking for a ring, emerald, single stone, size five, don't care so much about the metal. So, what can you show me?"

"Emeralds are over here," she said, not bothering to give him a gimlet eye and make him feel like the shoplifter he so often was. He followed on the other side of the counter. There were fewer than twenty rings to choose from, and half of the emeralds were obviously lab-created. He felt Mindy examine him as he quickly dismissed all but three of the choices.

"You buying for your girlfriend?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said slowly, then gave her a devastating grin. "Unless I chicken out. Makes me nervous, I tell you."

"Oh. An engagement ring. You're from England, aren't you?"

"Don't miss much, do you, love? Let me see these two and the one a row up and to your left."

She unlocked the case and brought out the rings, studying him some more as he examined at the rings, holding them up to the atrocious fluorescent light. When he was alive, he would have had a jeweler bring a selection to him at home or his offices, where he could evaluate the stones in sunlight. Both the obsequious jewelers and the sunlight were a thing of the past. This would have to do.

One ring was, well, emerald cut, and he couldn't feature a stone that would snag on jackets and sweaters while she was drawing back, readying a punch. He dismissed that one, pushing it back toward Mindy. The next ring he could easily visualize Buffy wearing, but the prong-set emerald was just too small, unimpressive. He wanted one she would be proud to wear.

The last ring might do. The oval, domed emerald was flanked on either side by two triangular diamonds, all of the stones set flush against the lightly etched 14k gold band. The smooth profile made it serviceable, something that she could even wear on patrol, and the diamonds made it posh. Spike tilted his head critically. The emerald wasn't as dark as he would like, but set close against the gold, it looked all right.

"What do you think, Mindy?" He looked up to find her eyes already on him. "Does it look like an engagement ring to you?"

"Well, if you want to be traditional, we have a wide selection of diamond solitaires," the clerk offered, "but you aren't traditional, are you?"

He chuckled. "No, 'm'not, at that."

She apparently wasn't a smiler, as the glum, dissatisfied look never left her face, but her eyes were assessing. "I'll bet you're not. I think this would be exactly the kind of ring for you to give. Something out of the ordinary."

"Uh-huh." He was less certain now. Maybe Buffy would prefer a plain diamond. He wanted to give her an emerald, though. He had so much to tell her; explaining the meaning of an emerald wouldn't add much to the opus. Plus, while he'd given Dru diamonds and rubies and other gems, he'd never given her emeralds. "What about you, Mindy? Would you like it?"

"You want me to give you the company line? You spend this much money, I'm supposed to say she'll be delighted." Mindy rolled her eyes. "But, yeah, I'd like it, if a guy offered it to me. It's unusual, and it's natural emerald, way more precious than a diamond. Says you're serious."

Spike pursed his lips, considering a moment more. "All right. Good, then. I'll take it. Size five, is it?"

Mindy shook her head. "No, this is a size seven. We can get a size five in for you in two days from our main store in Beverly Hills."

"Two days? Yeah, all right."

"I'll need to charge your credit card to make the order," Mindy said apologetically.

"'M payin' cash," Spike said. "That all right?"

Mindy gave him another assessing look. "Sure. Cash is good." She processed the order and printed out a receipt. Before she slid it across the counter, she wrote the time and date to pick it up, along with her name, which she circled. "Be sure to stop by then. Just look for me."

"I'll do that, love." The clerk liked his punk getup and wanted to flirt, he could tell, but he was about to pledge his undying love to another woman. Spike lingered a moment more, anyway. "Like working here, do you?"

Mindy rolled her eyes. "Not hardly. But, hey, not a bad job for Sunnydale. Better than flippin' burgers, anyway." She finally smiled at him. "Of course, all I do is send really hot men away to get engaged to other women."

He basked in her open appreciation for a moment, giving her a smirky little grin. "Got a generous return policy, do you?"

She leaned over the counter. "Satisfaction guaranteed… or your money back." Her eyes dropped to his mouth. "That first part isn't store policy." She popped her gum again.

Spike chuckled. "I'll look forward to seeing you in a couple of days, Mindy."

"What's your name?"

"Spike," he answered, turning to go with a wink, swaggering a little as he left the store. His little shopping expedition hadn't gone as expected, thank goodness.

⸹

Buffy smelled like grease, and she looked almost as flattened as her hair. Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, she considered making a face, but was too exhausted. Honest work, she thought. I'm doing honest work, making my own way.

She had received her paycheck that night. It was less than two hundred dollars, which made her heart hurt even more. You'd think she might get a bonus for killing the old-lady monster and keeping them in employees, but, no. Thank goodness the Doublemeat paid their employees weekly, but for so much work, it was so little money. Buffy had planned to take Dawn to the mall for jeans over the weekend, but that was out. Maybe she could get Dawn to go to the thrift shop, if they went early enough, before any of her friends would see her. If she didn't get some new jeans soon, she'd be wearing floods.

" _I can get you money."_ Buffy closed her eyes, as if to shut out the memory of Spike's offer, and picked up her uniform to take to the laundry. She would never accept anything from him. It would be tainted, unlike the money Giles had given her. What was left of that check was hoarded for paying the utilities and the bill for home insurance that was coming next month. And her next paycheck would be bigger, since she'd taken two extra shifts this week.

But the job was numbing. Just seeing the building when she walked to work made her brain shut down. Even sex with Spike behind the Doublemeat last night hadn't been enough to touch her, which, boy, meant she was all-over Novocain.

Spike, she thought wearily as she went down the basement steps. She needed to stop seeing Spike. She needed to stop _feeling_ Spike. That was the oddest of all, how she could feel him so strongly, how they seemed to have some sort of bizarre connection between them since they… since that night, almost like telepathy. It wasn't the right word, but it was close. Now, she not only knew where he was, she knew his mood, his next movement. And he knew hers. She'd never felt this close to anyone, been so comfortable with anyone. And if she had to be close to anybody, Buffy thought resentfully, it should have been Angel. They had barely been able to talk, the one time they'd met after her return. She'd felt like Angel, the love of her life, was a stranger.

Not thinking of that. At least she didn't find Spike lounging about in her house, chatting with Dawn, when she came home anymore. That would be too much to deal with. Her conscience pricked at her a little. They had a flawless visit with the social worker who replaced Doris Kroger, but she hadn't told Spike because she didn't want him around. Dawn was enough to deal with. Most nights, Dawn was too much to deal with. Either she whined about never seeing her sister, which made Buffy feel guilty, or she was understanding, which made Buffy feel even more guilty. Spike, on top of that, would be too much, that's all.

Even carefully compartmentalized and kept away from her real world, he was getting to be too much. No matter how she tried to keep things on a minimal, skin-contact only basis, he tried to make it about love. She could feel it, even if she didn't let him say the words anymore. At least she wasn't the only one who couldn't stay away, Buffy thought with vicious satisfaction. Spike had kicked her out of his crypt when she was invisible, but she had as much power to make him feel as he had to make her feel. She had been back to his crypt, but he had sought her first.

She put her uniform in the mini-basket and turned on the washing machine, then went to sit on the stairs. If she sat down anywhere else, she'd fall asleep. He was taking patrol for her tonight. Spike had been waiting outside the back door for her as she left the Doublemeat, all muscled, aroused masculinity. He'd taken one look at her and backed off, becoming solicitous and touching only her arm. After escorting her home, he'd given her another warning that they were going to have a talk, then turned away toward the west side cemeteries. She so did not want to talk to him; he'd probably just tell her that he loved her again, which was both ridiculous and painful.

Buffy looked at her hands. Her fingernails needed cutting. She hadn't had a real manicure in weeks, since before Tara and Willow broke up. At least she could look forward to one for the wedding, although she had no idea what color of polish would go with the bridesmaid dresses Anya chose. Spike had twice asked her on a real date, had wanted to take her to Jake's, easily the nicest restaurant in town. As if they'd let her sit at one of their tables with hands like these. As if she'd let herself be seen in public with him.

I need to stop this, Buffy thought, letting her head drop into her hands. I shouldn't let him touch me ever, ever again. But being with him was the only easy thing that remained. Even patrolling held no satisfaction unless he was with her, silent and watchful. They moved together so well when they fought, almost as perfectly as when they… fucked.

Tears leaked out of her eyes, and Buffy watched as a couple of them plopped onto the tread between her bare feet. I need to cut my toenails, too, she though distantly. I need a manicure and a pedicure and to stop seeing Spike.

⸹

Dizzy.

Where was he?

He couldn't get to his feet just yet, but at least sunrise was still an hour away. He could tell that, even in the stuffy darkness, wherever he was. Same place he'd been an hour ago, when he first tried to waken.

Spike thought that he was going to stay conscious this time.

She had gone into the police station, anyway.

He'd taken everything onto himself, and still Buffy had gone. She would rather be in prison than in the world with him.

He'd felt her come back out, heard her quick footsteps coming toward him… then going on by, past the alley. She didn't come back to him. Didn't come back for him. That was when he blacked out.

Spike forced one of his eyes open. The other didn't seem to want to cooperate. A thin, jagged line of light was above him. It was odd-looking, perforated.

He placed it suddenly, and his chest hitched once with a bitter laugh that died before it really got started. A zipper. He was in a body bag. Apparently, the Sunnydale police were competent enough to find a dead body in the alleyway outside the police station. He wouldn't have bet money on it, though. The morgue, then. Spike lifted his arms, waited a moment for the dizziness the motion caused to pass, then pulled on either side of the plastic. He still had all his clothes, though he could feel that his flask was gone, as well as the thumb ring he wore because Buffy liked it when he rubbed….

Buffy.

Didn't come back for him.

Left in an alley for dead.

Again.

His arms gave way, and he lay there, looking with one uncovered eye at the ceiling and the edge of a buzzing fluorescent light, unable to think of why he should bother leaving the morgue.

⸹

Willow typed the last three digits of the password for the coroner's office into the computer and waited for the menu to pop up. She found Katrina's file and quickly downloaded it. Buffy might be curious to see what the official verdict was. Out of habit, she checked the other recent reports to see if any of them were likely candidates to rise from the dead. One was a John Doe, always a good bet. She began to frown as she read the preliminary report. Multiple contusions to the facial area; broken brow, nose, cheek, and jaw bones… yeah, obviously natural causes. Willow rolled her eyes and took a sip of water, careful to put the bottle down far from the keyboard. Her frown deepened as she saw the section that listed distinguishing marks. Scar across the left eyebrow, scar on the left side of the throat. She scrolled back up. Blond, blue eyes, 69 inches, one hundred and sixty pounds. Huh. From the description, it could be Spike. She mentally filed it away until the final autopsy report was in and exited from her illicit connection.

⸹

"Spike?" Dawn peered around the edge of the door of his crypt.

"Nibblet?" His voice was fuzzy and surprised, as if he had been asleep.

Dawn closed her eyes, feeling more relief than she could put into words. "I came straight from school, so I can only stay a little while. Buffy always calls to make sure I'm there. But I couldn't go another day without seeing you." She closed the door and dumped her bookbag against it. "This is the first day I haven't had a ton of homework. Willow says it's a school initiative to keep kids inside. If you have four hours of homework, you won't be out of the house where vampires can get you."

"Well, that's good." Spike was up and out of the chair in front of the television, his back to her, as he walked slowly toward the stone tomb. "So, your teachers keeping you covered up?"

"Oh, yeah." Dawn perched on the edge of the chair he'd abandoned. "Especially history. And math. Pretty much every subject."

"That right?" Spike turned to regard her from the shadows. "You're up to it, Bit. Good for you to use those brains of yours to think of something besides tragic boy bands." He darted a glance at her. "How's the arm?"

"Better. Cast comes off in a few days. They might give me an inflatable cast to use." She rolled her eyes. "So, where've you been?"

"About."

"I know you're not supposed to come to the house, but I haven't even seen you at the Magic Box. Anyway, the new social worker, Mrs. Torres, isn't such a troll as that Mrs. Kroger."

"New social worker?" Spike asked sharply, turning his head to look at her. Then he looked away, but not quickly enough.

"Omigod, Spike," Dawn said, getting to her feet and coming to him. He took a couple steps back, then gave in to the inevitable and looked her full in the face. "What happened to you?" When he shrugged, Dawn took it for embarrassment. "Something get you last night on patrol?" She touched his face gently, then put her fingers under his jaw so she could turn his head to see the right eye better. "Well? What happened?"

"Don't want to talk about it." He pulled away from her touch.

She gave him a searching look. "Okay, Mr. Grumpy." Then she grinned. "It was a girl demon, wasn't it? That's why you don't want to talk about it." Spike met Dawn's eyes again, and the expression on his face was such a painful mixture of sharpness, misery, and annoyance that she backed off. "Sorry. Good thing you heal so quick, huh? Come on, Macho Man. You don't have to hide your not-so-pretty face now. Come and sit with me."

"All right," he said, closing his eyes as he followed her. He needed her sweetness so badly right now. And she needed him. She was the reason he'd unzipped the body bag, dragged himself from the morgue.

Her voice rolled over him like warm surf, accompanied every so often by a quick touch on his arm. Dawn chattered on about Janice's dorky new shearling boots and a clueless substitute teacher she'd had in English class and how cute Viggo Mortensen was and why did everyone moon over Orlando Bloom instead.

"Well, Legolas is blond, isn't he?" Spike said wisely, pointing at his own hair. Then he gave her a completely sappy look. "God, I've missed you, Nibblet."

"Pathetic," Dawn said automatically. Then she gave him a wry look. "I've missed you, too." She scooted over and gave him a matter-of-fact hug. "This hasn't been fun, has it? All because of stupid Willow."

"No," he agreed. "Not fun." He dropped a kiss on her head. "I've missed you so much."

"You said that," she informed him with supreme tolerance. Then she pulled away. "Oh, I almost forgot why I stopped by. Official invitation to Buffy's birthday party next week. It isn't a surprise, so don't worry about saying anything to her. She'll be twenty-one, so I get to make fun of her for being old."

He stood up suddenly and walked to the refrigerator. "Does she know you're inviting me?"

"Sure, I guess." Dawn shrugged. "Why wouldn't I?"

He gave in to his curiosity. "Did anything… odd happen last Tuesday?"

Dawn's face darkened. "Oh, yeah. Depresso Buffy woke me up and told me she'd rather spend twenty to life in prison than stay with me."

Spike's lips parted. "Oh, no, Bit. That's not–"

She folded her arms and interrupted. "Maybe it's all wrapped up in doing the right thing, but she wouldn't have all these awful," Dawn's voice became cutting, "responsibilities, like taking care of her sister, if she was rooming with crazy Faith in the pen." She glared at Spike. "Don't even try to defend her."

He lifted his shoulders. "Fine, then. What persuaded her not to turn herself in? God knows I couldn't do it."

"She overhead the dead girl's name. Katrina something, Warren Mears' ex-girlfriend. It made her realize she hadn't killed anyone. You remember Warren, he built–"

"The Buffybot, yeah." He frowned, thinking of the demons. Not local, so they had to have been summoned. "So the girl was already dead. Explains why the corpse seemed so–"

"Yeesh, dial back on the details," Dawn said, lifting her hands, as if about to cover her ears. "The dork squad called some sort of demon that makes time go wonky, and made Buffy think she killed Katrina. They had her fooled, too. No one can say that my sister isn't blond… er, sorry." She gave him an apologetic look.

"Fooled me, too. The demons were pretty effective." He tilted his head. "I know where Warren lives, from the 'Bot an' all. We put together a raid–"

Shaking her head, Dawn interrupted. "She went after them earlier. They used an invisibility gun on her right after that night Willow went nuts and my arm got broke. They moved out, and it was, you know, hard to take them seriously. I mean, invisibility rays?"

"Serious now, I guess," Spike said, still trying to absorb that Buffy had just let Warren and his fellow spods play her.

Dawn stared at the back of the television. "He killed his ex-girlfriend, Spike. He went from making fake girls to killing them." She looked up at him with her clear, blue eyes. "I know we sometimes don't get the monster and people die, but it wasn't a monster that killed that girl Katrina."

"Don't be too sure about that." Spike walked back to her and pulled her in close enough so they could lean on one another. It was what he needed, too. "Always remember, Nibblet, a creature doesn't have to have fangs to hurt you."

She put her chin on his shoulder, her eyes mostly closed. "I know. It's just… I know Ben died that night I was on the tower, and some of the Knights of Byzantium probably died in the fight against you guys. But we don't really know how to fight humans. There are so many evil things out there trying to get us, it seems wrong for humans to hurt each other."

"Yeah, it does," he agreed softly. "So, did the police arrest Warren and his nerds?"

Dawn's eyes performed yet another roll. "No, the police think it was a suicide. Willow checked the coroner's report. She had a broken neck, and they think it happened when she jumped in the river."

Spike grimaced. "Shouldn't have done that. It would have been awful for her parents if a body were never found. All I could think about was Buffy, though. I knew she hadn't done anything wrong. I just thought it was an accident, the body being there."

"For her, it was an excuse," Dawn said blackly.

"No, Bit. She's just going through a hard time–"

"Don't make me kick you. I promised myself I'd kick the next person that says that." Dawn stood up and paced away, crossing her arms, an awkward gesture with the cast. She turned back to him, her hair fanning out. "When will she stop going through it and get through it, already? She came back in October, and I know she was in heaven, but come on! I've tried to get her to go to the doctor and get on Prozac or something, but she won't go because she doesn't have insurance. She took this slave-wage job at Doublemeat Palace, and now she's too tired to look for a better one. Honestly, Spike, she needs a social worker worse than I do."

He didn't respond for a long time. "I don't know what she needs, Dawn."

"Not me, apparently," she huffed.

"Me, either."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Mighthavemadeoutwithyoursistercoupleoftimes," he mumbled.

"What!" she shrieked.

He winced at the piercing sound. "After the whole song-and-dance thing, when you came looking for her outside the Bronze? We were snogging. That was just the aftereffects of the spell, but there've been a couple of times since." He almost prayed, hoping she wouldn't ask for any details.

"Omigod," Dawn said, grinning in delight. Then her eyes narrowed. "Snogging is just British for kissing, right?"

"Yeah." He would smile at her, if it didn't make his battered face hurt.

"Spike, you still haven't told her, have you?" When he didn't meet her eyes, she punched him lightly on the arm. "You mean to tell me you've been making with the snugglebunnies with my sister, and she still thinks you're all evil and soulless? Spike, how could you be such an idiot?"

"'S'hard to think when I'm around her," he said defensively. "'S'not like my blood is rushing to my head."

"Gross," Dawn declared, still glaring at him. "Come on, Spike. You're going to have to tell everybody."

"Told Giles," he muttered.

"Well, that's a start. Why'd you tell him?"

"Wanted to reassure him before he left, make him feel like Buffy was a little safer." Close enough to the truth.

"And he believed you?" Dawn asked the question matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, actually, he did." Then he slapped his forehead, not the brightest thing he could have done. He swayed a little, closing his eyes. Dizziness was still a problem.

Dawn's arm wrapped around his waist. "Spike? Come over here, sit down." She guided him to the armchair. "You looked like you were about to pass out. Did you get a concussion?"

"'M okay now." He took a deep, if unnecessary, breath to steady himself. "I'd forgotten something, is all, from the soul-having conversation with Giles." He pulled her down beside him, onto the arm of the chair. "Here, you'll want to sit, too. When he first found out about you being the Key, Rupes did some sort of spell to check you out. I know you've been wondering about it. You have a soul. Apparently the monks did everything just right."

Dawn stared down at him, a slight frown between her eyes. Then she sagged, a puppet with cut strings, and began to cry.

"Oh, hey," he said, concerned, and pulled her from the armrest into his lap. "Shh, Nibblet, don't cry. It's a good thing, right?" He stroked her back, trying to comfort her, but the fear had been weighing on the girl for months. When her sobs finally slowed, he found that his own face was wet. He needed her, too. Being away from her for so long had been painful.

Dawn sniffled, rubbing her eyes. She looked up at him, then wiped his battered face gently with her wet hands. "We're both pathetic."

"Speak for yourself."

"Thank you," she said, her voice quiet. He knew she meant for telling her.

"Sorry I didn't have a chance to tell you earlier."

"It's just good to know, you know?"

He nodded. "Remember what Glory said. She knew the Key couldn't be me, because the shape had to be something pure." He gave her a superior look. "So, not only did I always know you had good in you, I also had verification."

"So if I wasn't pure…" Dawn gave him a thoughtful look. "What if all I had to do to defeat Glory was lose my virginity? Not be pure?"

He froze, his eyes narrow. "She wasn't a bloody unicorn, Platelet."

"Made you make that face."

"What face? I don't have a 'face.'"

"The 'Dawn never gets to have sex because I'll kill every boy she looks at' face."

"Oh. That face."

"I'm so doomed."

"So, I'll be hearing no more 'I'm a monster' nonsense?"

"No, I guess not. 'I'm an ancient, mystical substance' just doesn't have the same sort of oomph, though."

"Never cared much for 'Scourge of Europe,' myself. Sounds more like namby-pamby plague than good old blood-and-gore violence."

"You're William the Bloody, too, aren't you?" At his nod, she went on. "Your real name's William, right?"

"Yeah."

"Can I call you Will?"

"Not if you want me to answer. The name's Spike, Nibblet."

"All right," she grumbled. "But I might come up with a nickname for you, if you keep calling me Nibblet and Bit and Snackpack."

"Don't call anyone else those things, you know. Only special people." His eyes widened. "Oh. I nearly forgot something else. Here, get off me, Alice." He held her sound arm so she wouldn't have to use the broken one getting up.

"Alice?"

"In Wonderland? She kept getting bigger and smaller and bigger again throughout the book. What do they teach you in school these days?" He started for the opening into the lower level of the crypt.

"You didn't read _Alice in Wonderland_ in school, either. It was after your time, or something."

He gave her one of those grins that, even with his battered face, made her remember why she'd had a crush on him when she was just a kid. "Stay here and be good, and I might have something for you." He was back from the downstairs before Dawn had a chance to see if there was anything fit for a human in the fridge. "Here you go," he said, holding out a small, flat box. "Since I missed your birthday this summer."

She took it awkwardly in one hand, then walked to the stone tomb to lay in on the surface. Dawn gave him an assessing glance. "Are the box and what's inside from the same place?"

"The jewelry store? Yeah."

She gave the box a longing look, then pushed it toward him. "I-I can't take it," she said regretfully.

"Why not?"

"It's too expensive."

"Bit, you don't even know what's inside. It's not inappropriate, I promise. And you know it wasn't stolen."

"Okay." She pulled the box back toward her and opened it.

"Easily persuaded, weren't you?" he asked, but he was grinning despite the dizziness from climbing the ladder. Spike had purchased it when he went to pick up the ring. Mindy had been really helpful. No use in living as long as he had if you didn't learn a thing or two about women, and he knew his Bit would have to have a trinket if Buffy got something.

"Oh, it's a charm bracelet!" She took the shiny gold chain from the box and held it up. There were already three charms on it, a little lightning bolt, a sun, and one that said 'Best Friends.' "I love it." She came around the tomb and gave him a hug. "Will you put it on for me?"

He fastened it on her wrist below the cast. "Glad you like it." He was still grinning.

"I get the 'Best Friends,'" she said, "but what are the other two?"

"The sun is you," he said, "Dawn, right? Here comes the sun. And, you know," he lowered his lashes, "you did bring light back into my life. Unlife. Whatever. The monks really did put a lot of thought into you, even your name."

Her eyes filled with new tears. "Oh, Spike." She gave him an awkward, one-armed hug. "You're a big sap, you know that?"

"'M a sensitive new man," he corrected her. "The other charm is me." He shrugged. "Closest I could get to a spike." He frowned. "'Course, if I had found one, it prob'ly would have looked like a stake."

She lifted the lightening bolt onto the pad of one finger. "No, it suits you. Quick and unpredictable, like lightning." Dawn looked up at him. "I really like it."

"There's room for more charms," he pointed out, "things that you can add yourself, that have meaning, or get as gifts."

"So, all I'm going to get from you in the future are charms?" She scoffed. "You are such a guy."

"Keep up with that attitude, and I'm not likely to get you anything," he shot back.

"Can I show Buffy?"

"Don't see why not. It's a birthday present, innit? Just a little late, that's all."

"She'll know that I've been here instead of – Ohmigosh! What time is it?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Uh, it's an hour and a quarter until sunset, by me. And since you've got a new social worker, what of it? Maybe I can meet this new bird, get off on a better–."

Dawn cut him off with a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I've gotta run." She scooped up the jeweler's box and stuffed it in her bookbag while she stood at the door. "If I don't see you before, I'll see you at Buffy's party, right?"

"Right." Spike didn't have the heart to deny her, or himself. He waved as she ran out the door, then plopped back down in the armchair without turning on the telly. His quick mind was finally ready to attack the current situation.

After waking up in the morgue, he hadn't been able to leave the hospital until sunset, drinking the blood that had been withdrawn from the other bodies to make room for embalming fluid while he waited. He had no idea what condition he would have been in if he had to rely on pig's blood, because even after the feast, it had been hard to stay upright. Getting into the sewer mains took him almost three hours, mostly in the descent. The double vision was bad. Even there, in the dark avenues beneath Sunnydale, he had to rest so often that he didn't get back to his crypt until after the following sunset. Making his way up the ladder to the refrigerator for whatever blood was left, he checked the air for Buffy's scent, but it was stale. She hadn't been by to check on him in the two days he'd been gone. Numb, he drank all his store of blood, pulled the slab of stone over the hatch to his bedroom, and had slept for almost two days. He was glad Dawn hadn't come by earlier, catching him there instead sitting upstairs for the first time. She had wondered if he had a concussion, and he guessed she was correct.

Buffy's birthday. Spike leaned over the edge of the chair and felt around beneath it. Sure enough, there was a half-full bottle of bourbon still there. He opened it up and took a long pull. He didn't know how he felt about seeing her again. He had absolute belief in the Slayer; it was why he could dispose of the body without thought, to keep her from taking the blame for a crime he knew had never happened. But she was in a kind of trouble he couldn't get her out of.

 _You're dead inside… You can't feel anything real._

Didn't have to have a degree in psychology to figure out she wasn't talking about him.

 _She needs a social worker worse than I do._

Didn't have a degree in social work, either.

He sighed, at a loss for what to do next. He couldn't lie to himself; it hurt plenty, not that she had laid into him – he'd told her to, hadn't he? – but that she hadn't come back to him, even to check on him. He also couldn't lie to himself that he felt any differently about her. Buffy was still the one. If his soul was anchored, it was to where she lived in his heart. She was his lodestone.

Spike took another drink and stuffed the bottle between the armrest and the worn cushion so he could slouch more comfortably. Dawn's visit had tired him out, and trying to think of what he could do to help Buffy exhausted him further. His eyelids drooped. She needed help. If Giles were still around, he could get her to a doctor, maybe have some physician on retainer to the Council provide antidepressants. But without Giles….

Buffy knelt in front of him, between his chair and the television. Tears were running down her cheeks as she stared at the wreck of his face. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Dreaming, Spike thought groggily, trying to hold his head up. Buffy never apologizes.

The small figure in front of him undid one button of her blouse and moved the collar aside, exposing her neck. Chin quivering, she whispered one word, "Please." Then she tilted her head away, making herself vulnerable.

Not dreaming, he realized, because he never had this dream anymore.

"Buffy? What are you about?"

"Please, Spike." She closed her eyes, her head still turned away. "I don't want to… I don't want to, anymore."

"Love, if I wanted to do that–"

"I want you to do it." Her gaze connected with his. "You said… you were waiting." She closed her eyes tightly, squeezing more tears onto her cheeks. "One good day."

With a roar, he moved over her, quicker than she could open her eyes. Instead of feeling his fangs in her neck, she found herself sitting on his lap, fierce blue eyes glaring at her from bare inches away and his hard arms wrapped around her like steel bands. Buffy had an odd sideslip memory of being his fiancée, of sitting in almost the same position.

"Today is not a good day," he growled, watching fear flare for a moment in her eyes. Then he carefully touched his nose to hers. "But we're going to find another good day, kitten. I promise you: there will be more good days. This won't last forever."

"No." She struggled; she was stronger than he was, she knew she was – why couldn't she get away from him?

"Buffy," Spike said, grimacing as her elbow glanced against his ribs. He gave her a little shake. " Buffy!" She looked at him, suddenly all of her in her stormy green eyes. She sees me, he thought, relieved. "Tell me about Faith, love."

Buffy's lips parted. How did he know? How did he always know? Her face screwed up, and she choked on a sob.

He pulled her close to his chest. "No, pet. Let it out. Let it out."

She did, sobbing until the front of his shirt was wet. Words came with difficulty at first, then faster, telling him about Faith, how killing the assistant mayor had been a mistake, but she didn't care, how the dark-haired Slayer then allied herself with Mayor Wilkins, as if she had nothing left to lose. She hesitated, and then told him about the plot to steal Angel's soul away, how hard it had been to see him acting, wondering if he was acting, because he seemed to have an effortless connection with the other Slayer. Buffy swallowed the tears that threatened again and finished the story, how she had been willing to sacrifice Faith, how the Slayer had been in a coma because of her. Even after she woke up, Angel had been there for the other Slayer in a way that he'd never been there for her. She felt his fingers tighten as she mentioned that Faith had held her mother hostage, and she quickly wrapped up, not going into the part of the story where Faith had been wearing her body.

Spike's fingers brushed her bare neck, tracing the lower line of the scar Angel's teeth had left. He knew that mark, even with the top half obscured by Vlad's fang marks, having seen it on Dru for over a hundred years. He had always wondered how Buffy came to bear it. Angelus would have crowed to the rafters if he'd managed to bite a Slayer. Figured that it would be a selfless act of hers, a sacrifice.

"So," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on the scar, "when you thought you had accidentally killed a human, you were afraid you were on the same path."

Her mouth tightened for a minute, then she shrugged. "Any time Faith is involved, my inner Scully goes right out the window." Buffy was looking at her hand, which held a wad of his damp shirt. She should really let go, but she didn't want to.

"Saw the Bit today," he said, watching her eyes dart to his face, then quickly move away. He considered mentioning that the Slayer was second in line for crying in his arms today, but Buffy didn't need to worry any more than she already did. "She thinks you'd rather be in prison than with her." His heart sank when she just stared at his shirt and didn't contradict him.

"I deserve to be there," she said, her voice so low that even he could barely hear the words.

"No, you don't." He put his fingers beneath her jaw and lifted her head. He could see her face, but she didn't raise her eyes. "Buffy, just like I never once thought you responsible for killing an innocent human, I don't believe for a minute that you deserve to be punished. For anything."

"I do."

"No," he said forcefully, keeping his hand gentle, even if his voice wasn't, "you don't." Spike tilted his head. "When was the last time you cried, love? Really cried?"

"What?" She looked up, surprised by the question. He held her gaze, and she knew he saw her eyes flicker to his bruised skin. "Um, I don't know." Buffy shrugged. She couldn't tell him that she'd talked to Tara.

"Since you've been back?"

"Maybe that first night."

"But you cried tonight."

"Because," she swallowed, "because I–"

"Because you're getting better," Spike said firmly. She stared at him, bewildered. "Not so numb, now. Not so far away from everyone. You're feeling better enough to do things, to feel, but there are still all of these negative things in the mix. Sort of a dangerous time for you." He watched her eyes dart again to his face. He moved his hand and pushed her hair away from her forehead. "Buffy, I want you to do something for – for Dawn. I know it'll cost money, but I want you to go to the clinic on Second Street and see the doctor. Tell her about losing your mum, about feeling so low, see if she won't prescribe antidepressants for you. The doctor is free, and the drugs will be worth the money."

"I don't want to–"

"Do you want to go on feeling this way?" he overrode her.

She dropped her head again. "No," she whispered.

"Right, then. Do you work tomorrow morning?"

"No, I've got the 3-11 shift."

"Then go tomorrow morning, all right? Otherwise I'll nag you, and you know how annoying I can be."

"I'll try."

"Dawn says she has a new social worker." Her eyes flew to his, full of guilt, confirming what he'd suspected. He covered his pain, knowing that she wouldn't understand how deeply her attempt to keep him out of her life hurt. "Says she's nice."

Buffy's eyes went back to his shirt. "Yes. She's a lot nicer."

"Well, that's good." He drew in an excessive breath, not knowing what else to do. "Figure we should patrol, yeah?"

Buffy met his questioning gaze frankly. "I don't want to. Right now, I… just want to be here."

Here, in his crypt, in his arms, on his lap. Every bit of remaining pain left him as hope blossomed once again, and he couldn't keep the smile out of his eyes.

"Maybe… later," she added. "Spike?" Buffy licked her lips, unsure of how to ask. "Before… when I asked… why not?"

He searched her eyes. She was so fragile. What would it do to her to know she had beaten a souled being? Why should she believe him if he told her yet again that it was because he loved her? He studied her face, beautiful even when tearstained, so happy to see _her_ looking back from behind those lovely hazel green eyes. "'Cause I care about you, don't I?" he finally managed. She continued her calm regard, so he thought it was safe to go on. "Always will, Buffy. You can count on me to be here, no matter what."

A tiny smile touched her mouth. "No, I can't get rid of you." Her voice was wry.

"Do you want to?"

She took a sharp little breath and let go of his shirt, raising her hand to touch, very gently, his injured eye. "No." Buffy's eyes took on a shadow of the lost quality for a moment. "I don't really know what I want, but I don't want you to leave."

⸹

"Hey, Spike," Willow said, looking up from her laptop.

"Red," he greeted her solemnly as he glanced around the dimly lit Magic Box. "Was looking for Buffy. We were supposed to meet up for patrol, but I haven't seen her yet."

"Spike, what happened to your face?"

He rolled his eyes, which he could do now without vertigo. "Should see the other guy."

"Was it a human?" she asked with quick concern. When he gave her a sharp look, she added, "Well, I figure you would have been able to defend yourself against anything else."

"Pfft," he said, waving his hand in dismissal. "Slayer been here? There's a wet-behind-the-ears yearling, female, that's been making like a baby daddy. She took up in the Oldham mausoleum. Made seven or eight vamps, now. Thought the Slayer might like a bit more workout than we usually see."

Willow blinked a little at Spike's use of urban slang. "Uh, no. She was only supposed to work until seven, but maybe they asked her to stay later. She usually does, if they ask. Extra money."

"I'll swing by, then." He turned to go.

"Oh!" Willow's exclamation stopped him. "I wanted to remind you. Buffy's birthday."

"Nibblet already told me," he said.

"You could, you know, bring someone." Willow shrugged at his surprised expression. He couldn't go on mooning over Buffy forever.

He gave her a knowing smirk. "Are you bringing someone?"

She shook her head emphatically. "Nope. Tara's gonna be there."

"Thought so," he said, opening the door. The bell above his head jangled. "How's the cold turkey going?"

"Good. I'm living magic-free these days."

"She's worth it, you know."

"I know. Tara's…" Willow's voice trailed off. "I could have lost her forever." She wagged her head a little. "I don't have her back or anything, yet, but at least I have a chance now."

"Hope's all that keeps us going." He nodded at her and was gone.

Willow turned back to her computer, absently rolling her finger over the trackball to stop the screen saver. She quickly hacked into the coroner's office to check on that John Doe. It was a pretty big coincidence that Spike had an awful-looking black eye and a John Doe matching his general description had facial contusions. She sighed as she scanned the files. No John Doe. It wasn't the first time files disappeared from the record. A sour look on her face, she logged out, still thinking about the vampire. Willow uncapped her bottle of water and took a drink, grimacing again. It was warm.

What was it Angel had said? Once Spike started something, he never stopped until everything in his path was dead? Well, Buffy had been dead, and he still hadn't stopped. She was fond of Spike, despite the things he had done in the past. There was something about the blond vampire that was just likeable. She hated to see him beat his head against a wall. Even Xander had eventually given up on Buffy. Surely, Spike would, too.

When the bell of the door rang again a couple of minutes later, Willow looked up, preparing to go into retail mode. She blinked a little when she saw Amy. "Uh, hello," she said cautiously.

Amy jumped, not having seen Willow until she spoke. "Oh. Hi." She recovered quickly, taking a couple of steps closer and asking waspishly, "How's the cold turkey going?"

Willow surveyed the other witch, her stringy hair, her too-bright eyes. "Good," she replied, grateful that her voice sounded strong, thinking of how different the question sounded coming from Amy instead of Spike. At least she was healthy and recovering, which seemed to be more than her once-pet could say.

"Well, good for you," Amy said, glancing around. She stepped down into the main floor of the Magic Box, then stopped. "Rack has been asking about you."

Shame and nausea roiled through Willow at the evoked memories of the dark sorcerer. Then, more insidious, the ever-present desire to taste his power again wormed through her. _Tara_ , she told that part of herself firmly. "Tell him not to bother. I'm over that." She let her eyes sweep over the other woman. "I wish you were, too, Amy." Her voice was gentle.

"Over Rack?" Amy's eyes were malicious for a moment. "I am, for the most part, believe it or not. I've met someone else, someone better."

"Who?" Willow's curiosity was immediate.

"Thought you were over that," Amy responded with a great deal of satisfaction.

"I-I am," she said quickly, hating how her voice betrayed her. "I was just, you know, wondering."

"Oh, you don't know him. He doesn't have to sell, not like Rack," Amy said, "so I doubt he'd ever bother with you." She took the steps up to the entrance and turned back a final time. "Good to see you looking so… conventional."

Willow stared at the door a long time after Amy left, wondering why she really came to the Magic Box, wondering whether she really had a new supplier. More likely, she decided, it was like Harmony and her made-up boyfriends. Willow frowned a little. Once, of course, Harmony actually did have a boyfriend. The thought of Amy drawing magicks from someone more powerful than Rack made her jealous and antsy. She picked up her water and took a sip, then counted backwards slowly from thirty. When Willow was finished, the need to unleash her own power had died down to a small ember.

⸹

Tara walked across the cemetery grounds, feeling furtive even though it was two in the afternoon. She'd never been here alone, though, much less come to visit Spike. She had thought a long time before she decided to see him, making absolutely sure she felt it was the right thing to do. Tara even initially considered whether it would be safe, before accepting that Spike would never hurt her, not on purpose. Well, only when he had a good reason.

That memory gave her the courage to knock on the door. As she waited, she looked around at the bare trees and the peaceful lawns. His crypt was almost like a cottage on the outside, with the lead glass windows and ivy. She started to knock again when the door opened, and she found herself face-to-face with the shiny blade of a short sword.

"Tara," Spike said, surprised, and lowered the weapon. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice urgent.

"Nothing," she reassured him quickly. "I j-just came to talk to you, is all."

The interior of the tomb was dark, and she saw him move warily, sizing her up. Then he bowed a bit from the waist. "A pleasure. Please, come in." Ducking her head, even though the door was plenty tall, Tara walked inside and stood there uncertainly. "Uh, have a seat," he said, retreating further into the gloom and waving a hand at an armchair that had seen better days. Spike was dressed in his customary black jeans and t-shirt, and his pale arms and face were all she could really see of him. "Can I offer you some coffee?"

This got her to smile. "You have coffee?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Easiest gear, er, stimulant I can get my hands on."

"I am totally addicted to caffeine," she confided. "I wish I wasn't, that I could say I only drink things that are good for me, but I couldn't make it through morning classes – I couldn't make it _to_ morning classes without a diet coke." Tara sat gingerly on the chair.

Standing beside the central vault, Spike picked up an empty bourbon bottle. "Wish I could say I only drink what's good for me, too." She saw a flash of white teeth, his quick grin in the dim light. "At least you're a vagitarian."

"Oh, I'm not a vegetarian."

"Vagitarian," he said precisely and waited for it.

The pun sank in, and Tara ducked her head again, blushing, a reluctant snort of laughter making its way out of her. Thinking of the Buffybot, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind before she could overanalyze it. "I guess that's something we have in common." He laughed, surprised by her boldness, and Tara realized that she'd never heard him laugh the whole time she had known him. It was a warm, rich, throaty chuckle. He was happy, she thought, because of Buffy, which brought her around to her reason for visiting. "I'll take that coffee, black, no s-sugar," she said, thinking that it would be a good idea to have something to occupy her hands.

Not until he brought a steaming mug to her, his head bowed over it, did she realize that he had been deliberately avoiding the light every minute she'd been there. She thanked him as she took the coffee, then said in a gentle voice, "Let me see."

Spike's jaw moved out to a mutinous angle, but he lifted his face and met her eyes frankly. "Nothing to worry about, Glinda."

Tara's fingers tightened on the cup as she quickly added up how many days it had been since the body of Warren's girlfriend had been found. She remembered all the times his hands had been burned by sunlight as he dashed about town in defiance of supernatural law. Minutes, she thought numbly, it took minutes for his knuckles to heal. She averted her eyes, not wanting him to see her horror or her pity.

"Buffy talked to me the other day, about you… and her," she told him, still using the quiet tone.

"She did?" he asked. She had the feeling he couldn't have been more surprised if she'd told him she was going to marry the 'Bot.

"I gather that something went too far," her eyes flicked to his face, "and she really needed someone to talk to."

"How'd that go, then?" he asked carefully.

"She thinks that she came back wrong. The r-resurrection spell, I mean." Tara stared into the coffee cup, remembering all of her misgivings.

"There are always consequences," he said, half to himself. "But she didn't," he said more forcefully, "come back wrong, I mean. It's her, her blood, her scent, the way she… my sense of her. It's her, Tara."

"She meant on the inside."

"She's depressed, isn't she? Pulled out of heaven an' all. She isn't right on the inside, but she will be. She–"

"What she has with you," Tara said cautiously, "isn't making her happy."

"Yeah, it does," he disagreed softly. "More than she realizes."

"She said," Tara took a breath, "that she doesn't like who she is… when she's with you."

He took this in, breathing unconsciously. "You think she likes who she is when she's with her sister, the person she died for? She resents us, all of us. Don't tell the Bit I said that," he added.

"Buffy has kept her… relationship with you a secret. That isn't easy on her."

"Done it yourself, have you?"

She looked at him a moment, surprised anew by how perceptive he was. "Yes, I have. It's… corrosive."

"Did you do it because you were ashamed of the person you were sleeping with, or because everyone else wouldn't have accepted it easily?"

She glanced down, not wanting to tell him that Buffy probably felt both ways. "She had a free pass to have one relationship with a vampire. People died because of it."

He lifted his face to the ceiling and shook his head. "I am not, have never been Angelus." His jaw tensed for a second. "Tara," he asked, his tone even, "why exactly are you here?"

"Spike, I want you to consider…" She hesitated, then started again. "You're a n-nicer person than you're supposed to be. I'm going to ask you to think about leaving Sunnydale, because it would be b-better for her if you did."

He stared at her anxious face. "You think it would be better." Spike walked away from her, to the far end of the tomb, then turned to face her. "Buffy ever told you about her father?" When Tara shook her head, he nodded grimly. "Didn't think so. She doesn't like to talk about him. He left her mother, then he abandoned his daughters a little bit at a time.

"First man Buffy ever loved, he left her. That was Angel. Told her he wanted her to have a normal life. He knew she was the Slayer, that she could never have a normal life, that she might not live another year. But he left her, went on his immortal way. And you were here for Soldier Boy, so you know how that turned out.

"There is no force on the planet that can make me leave my girls." He said each word precisely. "No, Tara. I'm not the problem."

"You aren't part of the s-solution, either, Spike."

"You think I'm being selfish?"

Tara closed her eyes. "Willow never believed it, but I know what you feel for Buffy is love." She felt his focus on her as a physical thing and opened her eyes. "You love Dawn; even Xander w-won't argue that. This isn't about you. It's Buffy. She's hurting and not healthy right now–"

"She wasn't healthy before we started seeing each other, either," Spike said. "But she's feeling again, Tara. 'S'not anything I did; just time, is all. She's got tears again, and anger, and all she had for months was numb." He canted his head at an arrogant angle. "Except for when we were together."

Shaking her head, her brown hair swinging, Tara was determined to say her piece. "Spike, isn't it better to feel numbness than self-hatred? Buffy is a nice person; I've known it from the first time I met her. Really met her, I mean." She ignored his confused look and plowed on. "It's not like her to use someone, and… she's using you, Spike."

His voice was gentle, but still precise. "She needs me, I'm here for her to use, a tool," he grimaced at the unintended pun, "a weapon at her hand. She can use me as a crutch, as a stepping stone, as a not-so-warm body–"

"As a p-punching bag?"

He stared at Tara, impressed with her courage. "Yeah," Spike agreed softly, "as a punching bag." His eyes narrowed. "I never touched her that night."

The witch nodded, absorbing this. "It would have been easier on her if you did."

"No." He shook his head. "Can't be easy for her, can it? Slayer, after all. Know of one other person exiled from heaven. Look what it did to Lucifer. Buffy, now? Made of stronger stuff than him." Spike blew an impatient stream of air from his nostrils, looking up at the ceiling. "Don't you see, she's on the other side now. If she had to break through me to get to there, I'm not fussed, Tara. She talked to you; she's talked to me, too, the first real talk we've had since she came back, practically."

"She talked to you?" Tara asked, obviously surprised. "Since…?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "It didn't end in a row, either." He threw her an arch look. "Or in bed. She talked, I listened; I talked, then I talked again a little louder, and then she listened." He walked closer to her, stopping at the near end of the tomb. "She went to see a doctor, who prescribed an antidepressant for Buffy. Zoloft."

Tara sat up a little straighter, and her eyes grew wide. "She did?"

He nodded, a slow smile beginning at the left corner of his mouth. "Yeah, she did." Spike shrugged. "I lived with an insane woman for decades, remember. Dru'd get depressed, sometimes for months. She was at her most dangerous when she started to come out of it. Buffy's coming out of it."

"So she's confiding in you and me," she said slowly, "and is taking medicine."

"Yeah, we can get her talking to her sister and the other Scoobies, we'll be home free."

"Spike," Tara said, looking down into her coffee, "what are you going to do if Buffy gets better and starts seeing some nice human guy she meets at the dry cleaners?"

If she'd taken the sword and driven it through his throat, she couldn't have hurt him more. "You don't think I'm the one for her, then?" Before she could answer, he swiped his hand through the air. "Let me worry about the long haul. But I can promise you that I'll never hurt them, Tara. Even if the Slayer gets married to some manky human and has the picket fence and minivan, I'll still be lurking about, protecting her and flashing him the v's." There was a pleading look on his face. "I have to be here for her, don't I? It's as much for me as it is for her and the Nibblet."

"Like a sacred duty or something?" Tara asked, smiling a little.

"Sacred, yeah," he said, so quietly that she barely heard him. "Duty, no."

"Spike, did you ever think," Tara bit her lip, "that you might deserve better?" Like throwing a bone to a starving dog, she thought, just the smallest kindness always overwhelms him. He never fails to get to me with that expression. She glanced down at her empty cup, then stood. "Uh, thanks. For the coffee, I mean." Tara waited for a moment, and by the time she looked up, the vampire had mastered himself. "I hope you're n-not sorry you let me come in. I know I feel better, now that we've talked."

"Anything I can do to make a beautiful lady feel better," he said, moving closer to take the cup she held out, a gleam in his eye turning it into something suggestive, deflecting the deeper emotions.

She did something then that he always kept in his heart later, as proof that, no matter how long you lived, you could never really predict what a person would do. Tara took a step closer and stretched to place a soft kiss on his mouth. It wasn't seductive, but it wasn't sisterly, either. When she pulled away, she was looking at his black eye, and she touched his brow lightly. She gave him a half-smile, not her usual apologetic one, murmured her farewells, and left him standing in his crypt, pleasantly stunned.

He watched the door close, then took a deep breath, trying to sense the remnants of whatever spell she had used to make him feel so whole, of a sudden. There were none. She had an inner magic, something natural that she wasn't even aware of, and he felt blessed that she had shared it with him.

⸹

Spike absently cleared corpodorum nettles from the trunk of the DeSoto. He hadn't driven it since Dawn told the Wiccas he'd sold it, but he had to have some way of transporting the eggs. He didn't feature carrying them on his motorbike like some sort of delivery boy. The S!path demons were going to meet him here in the parking lot of the furniture store down the street from Willy's. Then he'd take them into the bar and be loud and obvious about doing business as the Doctor.

By now, he was convinced that the little imp had escaped into Glory's dimension. Surely, Doc would have turned up by now if he were still in the area. But he wasn't as well-liked in the demon community as he had once been, though he was more feared. People just didn't tell him things the way they would have two years ago. Still, if Doc was around Sunnydale, he was living as a human. That much Spike was sure of. After this business, he wasn't sure what else he could do to flush him out. When it came to Dawn, though, he was willing to take any opportunity that arose.

That had been a nasty business at Buffy's birthday party, the unveiling of Dawn's wish and her light fingers. Most of the party had been good, though, especially making Buffy feel like belle of the ball with him acting the jealous prat over the boy Richard. While things had been much better between them since she'd had a good cry in his arms – and part of him nearly glowed when he thought that some of those tears had been for him – things were still tense between her and her sister. Knowing Dawn as well as he did, especially with Anya around, he was shocked that the girl had been silly enough to make a wish in front of a stranger.

That vengeance demon… She had known him, had called him William before turning away in embarrassment. He couldn't place her, except, well, she looked a lot like….

Headlights from a pickup truck splashed across the chrome on the DeSoto. K!aa raised a hand in greeting from the cab, and Spike settled a smirk on his lips. Time to do business.

⸹

February 2002

Buffy walked through the cemetery to Spike's crypt, her head held high, full of relief. It was over, then. This was a door, and she was going to walk right through it, leave the whole mess behind her. In a way, even if he had a perfect life (and wife), she was glad Riley had come back to Sunnydale. Her friends had treated him so oddly, though, either overly friendly or very cold. She'd even seen Willow check him out with a mirror, as if he might be a vampire. Xander had been just this side of rude, his arm possessively around Anya.

The door was open, so she went in. Spike was there, she knew. She could feel him. The inside of the crypt still smelled like smoke. Buffy wrinkled her nose a little. She heard movement downstairs, so she went to the ladder and started down. His back was to her as he pushed at the remnants of an egg sac with the toe of a boot. Looking around the cave made her wrinkle her nose again. There wasn't anything that wasn't damaged.

Spike's shoulders lifted a bit, then he turned to look at her, his face expressionless. "So, come for a little cold comfort? Bed's a bit blown up, but, then, that never was our–"

"No. I'm not here for… and I'm not gonna bust your chops about your stupid evil scheme. That's just you. I should've remembered–"

"Evil scheme." He smiled at her, and Buffy found herself preferring the frozen mask of a moment before. He walked toward her, any pretense at humanity gone, a cold predator. "You're here to judge my evil scheme." He got in her face, his jaw tight with anger. "I am using the name 'Doctor,' Buffy. I was holding those eggs for two S!path demons, who are quite dead. I went looking for them when the eggs started hatching, and I realized those weren't Suvolte demons. I've lived in South America, and while I never saw their eggs, there's no way Suvoltes, reptilian types, can grow up from those spider-shaped things – or hatch out at a constant fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit down here. Now, Grimslaw demons, yeah, coulda been those. Look those up, Slayer. Good bedtime reading.

"Funny about those eggs, though. They were awfully roomy for those fast little hellbugs. Nature usually packs creatures rather tightly inside a shell. Funny about the timing, all of them opening up while Soldier Boy was here. Funny, too, about the blokes who brought them to Sunnydale. I found their bodies, their hands still tied behind them. They were shot in the head and the hips, right through their hearts and brains, execution style. Very professional. Military precision, one could say. Made me glad I left when I did."

She returned his glare. "This is so not about Riley. Those demons were smuggling dangerous eggs–"

"No," he agreed in a soft, deadly voice. "This isn't about that wanker Riley." He turned away from her abruptly. "It's about you. Always is, isn't it?"

Buffy stared at his tense back, puzzled. There had been scorn on his face, and his working-class accent was gone, replaced by something cold and precise. "Okay, then, it's about me." Her voice softened. "You were right about me getting better. Seeing Riley again made me realize just how low–"

"Don't." The word cut through the air like a bullwhip.

"I have to." Buffy swallowed, knowing she could feel the relief again if she could just get the words out. "I'm using you. I can't love you. I'm just being weak and selfish–"

"If you're here to tell me it's over," Spike said, turning to face her again, "you're right." His eyes were blazing. "We're over. I knew it from the look on your face the moment Soldier Boy barged into my home without a by-your-leave. You're ashamed of me." He was close to her again, sudden and alarming. "Me. The one who didn't cheat, who didn't leave, the one who stayed by your side to fight the Big Bad." Gone again, almost across the room this time, his fists clenched.

"You know what else is over? My career as 'the Doctor.'" He kicked out savagely at the bed, knocking the scorched mattress all the way off. "I might have had the bastard, Buffy! Someone was asking after this little," he whipped around and kicked a broken egg halfway up the cave wall, "deal. And, from the description, that someone was Doc."

Buffy shook her head in exasperation. "What are you talking about? Who's Doc?"

He grew still and looked at her incredulously. After a full ten seconds, he asked softly, "You don't know who Doc is?"

"No," Buffy replied, her voice a bit sarcastic, "unless it's you."

"Doc," he said, again with that cutting precision, "is the demon you pushed off the tower last May. You remember him now?" Spike stalked toward her, the clear, fierce light burning in his eyes. "He's the one who cut Dawn, who took a knife and sliced your sister's veins. Cut into the Bit's flesh. He's the one who made it necessary for you to take your little swan dive." He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. "He's the only one, besides us, who knows what Dawn is… and what her blood can do when it's shed. And you never even bothered to learn his name!?" His voice was just shy of a roar. He pulled her, unresisting, up onto her toes. "The leftover Knights of Byzantium are gone. Glory's remaining minions are dead. The crazy people are still crazy, but not under a hellgod's control. The only one who poses a threat to my Nibblet – your sister – is Doc, and I've been trying to find him for months. Months, Buffy. Trying to get rid of him like I couldn't before, when he–"

Spike stopped abruptly and looked down at his hands. He let go of her and stalked a few paces away. He met her stunned, tear-filled eyes, but the hard look on his face didn't change. They stared at each other through a long silence.

"I didn't know." Her voice was barely a whisper. She'd finally done something he couldn't forgive.

"There is a great deal that you don't know."

She flinched at his tone, his lord-of-the-manor diction. She looked away from him and flinched again. His home… she had destroyed his home, when he had just been trying to protect Dawn. "Spike, I–"

"Get out."

"What?"

His head fell back. "What part of 'get out' don't you understand?"

Buffy only stood there, even more stunned by this. He doesn't want me anymore?

No, a small, cold part of her affirmed, he doesn't want you anymore. It didn't matter that she was here to tell him that she didn't want him anymore. Somehow, the ground was no longer solid beneath her feet, and Buffy swayed. Giles was gone. Tara was gone.

Dad was gone.

Angel was gone.

Mom was gone.

Spike was going.

"Oh, God."

Something in her lost look touched him, despite himself. His lip curled, and his voice was little better than a snarl, but he managed to grit it out. "This is how it's going to be: Dawn gets to see me whenever she wants. Don't even think about keeping me away from her. I'm the one who protects her, remember?" He bit down on his next words, a threat. He, after all, could tell the Nibblet things that were perfectly true that would change forever how she looked at her sister. Nothing more than that.

"You and I, though… You want it to be over. No problem there. There never was a you and I, was there?"

"No." Buffy's voice was reed-thin.

"Should be easy for you, then." The North London punk was back, but spoke just as coldly as the patrician. "But you listen up: I'm not leavin' Sunnydale. You can see me, or not. I'll patrol, I'll fight 'longside you, what the hell, I'll even do research. But you stay out of my business if you can't be arsed to learn it. If I can shovel out this mess, you can find me here. If I have to move, I'll let you know where I am. You need muscle, you need information," his voice moved back toward normal as he saw her slump with relief as this sunk in, "you need someone to listen, I'll be here. When you need me, I'll be here. 'S'all you ever wanted from me, anyhow, innit? Someone convenient?"

Two splotches of color bloomed on her cheeks. Buffy nodded jerkily. She had to clear her throat before she could manage a quiet, "Okay."

Great, he thought, giving her what she thinks she deserves. He felt himself wanting to unbend, wanting to be across the room holding her. He realized with amazement that it was his soul that kept him rooted to the spot, spooling out dignity.

Stupid fuckin' soul.

Buffy turned to the ladder and began to climb it without any of her usual grace. "Goodbye," she said in the same quiet voice, "William."

He stood there, skewered by that name as neatly as if she had used a stake. Spike closed his eyes.

 _Tell me you love me._

Spike lifted his hands to his temples and squeezed sharply, grimacing. They had done it, had made love tonight. He was going to tell her about the soul afterwards, because they had made love, really made love, and he wanted her to understand that he did love her, that he was capable of it even by her must-have-a-soul standard. But the stupid words wouldn't come, the unaccustomed silence just stretching out, not uncomfortable, as he had struggled to find the right words….

Then her tin soldier had shown up, and everything had gone pear-shaped.

⸹

March 2002

"Mindy."

The sales clerk jumped a bit, startled by the man who had suddenly appeared on the other side of the counter.

"Spike," she said, not quite smiling. "I didn't expect to see you again."

He held out his hand, palm up. "Didn't work out," he said, offering her the blue velvet box.

Mindy took it gingerly. "It's…"

"Scorched, yeah. But the ring inside is fine."

"So she said no."

"Never asked. We had a row," he saw her blank expression, "a fight to end all fights. Told her to sod off, basically. Told her I didn't want what she wasn't offering, which was a bloody lie. Shouldn't have said what I did, but can't take it back."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said, but she didn't sound sorry. "You sure you don't want to hang onto it? It's a beautiful ring. You guys might make up."

"Don't think so. An old boyfriend of hers came to town and all these issues came up. Don't think I'm gonna be the one for her, either. I'd like to be, but–"

"Do you have your receipt?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," he said, patting various pockets until he found it.

"I can't give you cash – we don't have that kind of money on hand – but I can give you a gift certificate or issue you a check."

He pulled out a Visa gift card. "See if you can't put it on this, love. Supposed to be refillable."

Mindy was more competent behind the computerized cash register than he would have expected. "So, did her little sister like the charm bracelet?"

"Yeah, she loved it. Been wearin' it every time I've seen her since."

"I told you she would like it."

"Yeah, worked like a, well, charm."

Mindy almost smiled, then handed him the card. "I am sorry it didn't work out with your girlfriend, Spike."

He shrugged, a little embarrassed at her sincerity. "Thanks."

"So, what are you doing this Saturday?"

"Uh, actually, I have a wedding to go to." He was surprised, he had to admit. He thought she had just flirted with him in a professional capacity. There wasn't any real spark between them. In a way, this made things easier.

"Oh. Too bad. I thought you might want to go clubbing with me Saturday night."

"I might, at that. It's an afternoon wedding."

Mindy looked confused. "How are you going to manage that?"

"Manage what?"

"Afternoon… sunlight. You being a vampire and all."

Spike blinked. "You, uh…"

The girl shrugged. "Sunnydale native. My mom's half Gromlichheit."

"Uh-huh." Well, that explained why her face was so immobile. "Mindy, love, 's'probably not a good idea. You've been very nice. I wouldn't want to hurt you."

"Oh, I've asked about you," she said matter-of-factly. "You don't feed off people anymore, can't fight humans. I'm three-quarters human, so I figure I'm safe." Her eyes wandered across his shoulders, down his torso. "Never made out with a vampire before."

He closed his eyes very slowly. "Not what I meant, love. You've been straight with me. I don't want you to get treated like rebound girl."

"Listen," Mindy said, the dissatisfied look over-edging the glum look for dominance on her face, "I've signed a marriage contract with the son of the woman who owns this store. He's part Gromlichheit, too. In a few months, I'll be stuck in a twelve-room cottage in Beverly Hills, where the big highlight of my day will be deciding between a pedicure and tennis. Not rebound girl, here. I'm sow-wild-oats girl."

Incisive as always, Spike said, "So don't marry him."

"What, are you nuts? I'll never have to worry again that someone's going to find out that I'm part demon. And, if they do, I'll have enough money that it won't matter. So, Saturday. What about it?" She leaned across the counter and snapped her gum. Or, Spike thought, trying to remember if Gromlichheits had air sacs in their mouths, possibly her gums.

"Yeah, all right," he said. "Want to go to a wedding first?"

Mindy managed a slow grin.

⸹

Sighing, Buffy took off the green dress. Despite everything, she smiled a little at the memory of making Spike laugh when she called it radioactive. It had been too long since she'd heard that sound. She held up the bridesmaid dress, considering whether to hang it up. Dry cleaners, she supposed, dropping it on the floor of her closet, then to Goodwill. It would be nice to give clothes to the store, since she and Dawn were buying so much there.

She could hear her sister in her room, changing into more comfortable clothes. After a minute, there was the sound of loud pop music, quickly stilled when Dawn plugged in her earphones. The creak of bedsprings told Buffy where the teenager would be recuperating for the next few hours. Willow, in her capacity as best man, was still out looking for Xander. Tara was with her, though. That was a good thing. Wil was supposed to call around seven. If they hadn't located him by dark, she would go look, too, but right now she was going to veg.

Buffy pulled on some cozy fleece sweats, glanced out at the rain, and sighed again, hoping it would stop before she set off on patrol. She headed downstairs, plopped onto the couch, and began to run absently through the channels. Nothing was on, not on a Saturday evening. The Slayer found a music channel that was actually showing music videos and tossed the remote to the opposite side of the couch.

He said he wouldn't take his date back to his crypt.

She closed her eyes, a small part of her glad that she had blown up Spike's bedroom. Not that the upstairs wasn't perfectly serviceable; that stone tomb was probably just what a vampire groupie would get off on.

She had.

Buffy fell over on her stomach on the couch, wishing she had Mr. Gordo to cuddle but too drained to go upstairs and get him. Okay, she admonished herself, examine the facts. The fact was, Spike had looked absolutely delicious, exactly like seven hours of lust-crazed heaven. The fact was, she had let him go. The fact was, he had no problem finding a date to bring to Anya's wedding, however unconventional her dress. The fact was, she had to attend alone. The fact was, he was now free to take anyone he pleased to heaven for seven lust-crazed hours. The fact was, that was another heaven she wasn't going to get into, the blissful, decadent, avenue-of-escape paradise his body provided.

Buffy hated the facts.

 _You glow_.

He still loved her. Somehow.

She knew what he'd said about lovers trying to be only friends, but that had been about her and Angel. Spike still loved her, and she… cared about him. She didn't want to not see him; it had been so good to talk to him, to see him smile. Seeing Spike had been the best part of her day.

I can do this, Buffy thought. I'm the Slayer, and I can be strong enough to be his friend, just his friend. Like Xander or something. No sex, never again. Then I can talk to him again, maybe get him to laugh. He's been so good at getting me to smile, I can return the favor.

But no sex.

Because if there's no sex, I won't hurt him.

All right, then, she thought, sitting up. I'll just go to his crypt and tell….

He said he wasn't going to take the skank back to his crypt, but that didn't mean he wouldn't. And if she saw him giving another woman what belonged to her… God help him. Buffy swallowed, scared by the sudden surge of violent anger. She curled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins.

The fact is, he isn't mine. The fact is, I broke it off. The fact is, there never was an us. The fact is, I don't have the right.

The fact is, even soulless vampires aren't indestructible.

Buffy hated these facts even more.

She didn't have to tell him that he was safe from her; he'd figure that out from the no sex-having. No visiting him in his crypt, no violent impulses. No impulses of any kind. Impulses, bad.

So she sat on the sofa, her eyes on the television, her imagination far away and filled with battle, blood, and ecstasy.

⸹

"Well?"

He looked over his shoulder at Dawn's non-greeting. "Come on in; you're letting the cold out. Well, what?"

"You've been avoiding me," she said, a gleam in her eye. "Who was she?"

"Nice lady from the very nice jewelry store where I got that for you," he shot back, indicating the bracelet at her wrist.

"Nice?" Dawn snorted. "Spike, she was a total skank! Did you even notice what she was wearing?" The girl bounded into the crypt and plopped down on the arm of his chair. Her hair swung over his face, and he batted it away irritably.

"We went clubbin' after the blessed event," he said, "or non-event, I've heard. And what's it to you, anyway?"

"Uh, hello, making out with my sister?" Then Dawn saw his face. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh. No more making anything with Big Sis." Not wanting to talk about it, he changed the topic. "Why are you in such a good mood?"

She grinned, then stood up and spun around, hugging herself. "I think Tara and Willow are getting back together. They've been 'talking,'" her voice giving a 'woo-hoo' inflection to the word.

"Well, good for them. Willow back in your good graces, too?"

"Yeah, I guess. All that trouble she had with magic hurt her as much as it did me." Dawn pursed her full lips and held out her healed arm. "Well, not as much, but." She put her back toward the tomb, then braced herself with her arms and hopped onto it, settling into a comfortable position with her legs crossed. "So, what about you and Buffy? You two looked like you were getting along pretty well at the wedding… when you and the skank didn't have your tongues–"

"The skank's name is Mindy, and she helped me pick out that bracelet you like so well, I'll have you know." He sighed and gave her a withering look. "As to me and your sister… Private stuff, Bit."

"You never told her, did you?"

Let's see. Buffy had asked him to tell her that he loved her, then made love with him on the very tomb her sister was perched on right now. He was going to tell Buffy that his love was real, that if it took a soul to make it real for her, well, he had one of those. Then Soldier Boy came. "No."

"Jeez, Spike!" Dawn sizzled him with her glare. "Honestly, if I'd known you were going to take this long to tell, I never would have promised to keep it a secret. What are you waiting on, your one-year anniversary?"

Startled, he counted up the months. "Good a time as any," he finally said, sneering just for the effect before changing the subject. "So, how are you and Buffy getting along?"

Dawn, predictably, rolled her eyes. "Okay, I guess. She went with me to all the places I shoplifted–"

"All?" he drawled.

"Most," she conceded, "so that's out of the way, except for the therapy I'll have to have until I'm thirty because of how mortifying it was."

"Gonna complain about her not paying enough attention to you now?"

"She's so in trouble for not having me in her insane asylum life, though."

"The Slayer all recovered from that?"

"Huh," Dawn scoffed. "You missed all the excitement with that one. After you left, Buffy trapped us all in the basement and let the waxy demon-thing–"

"Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik."

"Yeah, whatever, Randy. Anyway, it was about to eat us, but Buffy snapped out of it long enough to kill it. Willow made an extra heapin' helpin' of potion, and she's been fine since then."

"Anything else I've missed?"

"No. Well, Anya's back. The Magic Box is open again."

"How's she doing?"

Dawn frowned. "I don't know. I didn't talk to her for very long. She's mad, which is normal, I guess. That was a really shitty thing Xander did to her."

"Language."

"Well, it was."

"Yeah, I agree."

"Were you married, Spike? You know, before?"

"Oh, no, Bit." He gave her a humorless smile.

"I don't know if I want to get married," Dawn mused. ""I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm straight and everything – oh, come on," she said, seeing the wary look on Spike's face, "two of my primary caregivers are lesbians; I have to think about these things. But I don't know. If I get married, I'm not having a wedding. In my experience, both the buildup and the actual event are pretty awful."

"The Xander-Anya affair is hardly typical," he said. "You'd do better, having a good deal more common sense than either of them."

She sat up straight and preened. "Thank you very much!"

"You're quite welcome, my lady."

She hopped off the tomb and gave him a hug. "I've gotta run. No more skank?" she asked, her eyes narrowed.

"Is that why you came by?"

"Yes. Well?"

"No, I won't be seeing Mindy any more."

"Good. I still haven't given up on hearing "Wind Beneath My Wings" at your wedding." Dawn was out of his reach before her meaning sunk in, and then she was gone, the sounds of her giggles echoing in the dingy crypt.

⸹

April 2002

Tara looked around the busy club, wondering how she was ever going to spot Willow. They should have arranged to meet somewhere else before coming to the Bronze. A pair of arms slid around her waist suddenly, and she smiled before she realized the body attached to the arms was too tall and not at all soft.

"Tasty Tara."

She shivered a little at the words murmured in her ear. "Spike?"

"None other. What brings a fine lady like yourself here tonight?"

"I'm supposed to meet Willow, but I don't know how I'm going to find her." A giggling trio of girls brushed by them, and Tara put her hands over Spike's to steady herself.

"Quite a crush tonight, yeah?"

"What are you doing here?"

She felt him shrug. "Actually, I caught wind of Red. Thought I would say hullo." The truth was, he was lonely. Finding Tara was like hitting the jackpot.

"Where is she? Do you see her?"

"I'll get her for you." He snuggled closer and put his chin on her shoulder. She felt him smile against her cheek.

 _Red. 'M over here at the bottom of the stairs with your lady._

 _Spike?_

 _Dunno how tempted I am to try to steal her away, Red. Better hurry._

 _As if! You're not her type._

"Spike? Uh, you aren't getting her for me."

"Sure I am, Glinda. She'll be here quicker than you can imagine."

"Wh – oh." Tara's eyes narrowed, and she turned toward his cool jaw. "What are you telling her?"

"Won't hurt to remind her she's got reason to be jealous over a gorgeous woman like you," he replied.

 _Red? Givin' up that easy?_

 _Spike, don't mess with me._

 _C'mon, Red. All in good fun. Not like she's gonna give me a bash, anyway, but a fella can't help but think how well she'd cradle a narrow set of hips…_

He shut off the mindlink and laughed out loud, raising one hand as he saw Willow's bright hair through the crowd. "Told you I'd get her here." Once he was sure the witch had seen him with his arms around her girl, he let go and straightened up, grinning. His demon was well pleased at getting a bit of petty revenge on her.

Willow was caught between her joy at seeing one blond and her annoyance with the other one. She chose the most important one. "Tara," she breathed, holding out her hands. They greeted each other with a light kiss.

Not completely back in Glinda's good graces, Spike thought, but Bit was right. He watched them, an easy smile still on his face.

"What are you doing here, Spike?" Willow asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Me? 'M just a placeholder." He shrugged. "Patrolling. Caught your scent, actually. Thought I'd say hi to a lovely redhead."

"Oh." She'd seen the seductive expression dozens of times, but couldn't help liking that it was for her; it always made her feel desirable.

The vampire moved forward and put an arm around each girl, smirking a little. "Much as I'd like to stay here in this ruck with you, I know when I'm the gooseberry." He gave them both a squeeze. "Have fun, ladies, and do everything I would." He bent toward Willow and brushed her cheek with a quick kiss.

 _Don't worry, Red. You know you're my favorite witch. If there's anyone I'd try to convert, it'd be you._ With a last cocky grin, he left them.

"I don't think there is anything we could do that he hasn't done, not if you go by the 'Bot's programming," Tara said dryly. Then her brows drew together. "Willow, are you blushing?"

"Oh," the redhead said faintly, the x-rated image Spike had sent to her still burning in her mind, "it's just hot in here." She looked down at the wad of bills in her hand. "Uh, Spike said drinks are on him and have a good time."

"Well, that was nice of him." Tara touched Willow's arm. "C'mon, Wil, let's find a table."

⸹

It was progress of a sort, Spike supposed, listening as Buffy's footsteps faded. He'd gone from being too incompetent to successfully have eggs sit on his floor for a day to being a technological whiz who could wirelessly monitor hidden cameras. A man for all seasons, he thought mirthlessly, that's me. Warren's little gang of geeks was the obvious answer she was looking for. Maybe because they were human, they didn't trip her Slayer senses. Look for the demon first, was her policy.

He sighed, his anger fading. Maybe she had just wanted to see him, had used Xander's questionable deductive ability as an excuse to drop by. For what purpose, though? That was a question neither soul nor demon could answer.

Spike grabbed his coat and hit the grounds of the cemetery at full speed, his motions refueling his fury, wanting to catch up to the Slayer. It wasn't any good, anymore, being in his ruined crypt. He was running on instinct, and that wasn't his best mode of operation, not with her. It was time to just tell her, stop worrying about her feelings. God knew she didn't worry about his.

She was nowhere to be seen, and his supernatural senses couldn't detect her. Spike's eyes narrowed. Of course. Xander had been waiting in his car, waiting to hear the juicy details of how she beat the information out of him. The anger ebbed again, and he almost moaned with the injustice of it all.

He put a hand out to lean against a tree, then lay himself against the rough bark, his arms above his head, his forehead against the dark wood. Why was he running after her? No answer. Soul and demon were quiet.

Take her and go, take both of them, like he'd wanted to when Glory had learned Dawn's identity. It was a good plan, just snatch the Summers girls and get them the hell away from Sunnydale, with the added bonus of getting Buffy away from her so-called friends. A real friend wants what's best for you, he thought savagely, and I'm best for her. Dawn thought so. Even Giles hadn't offered more than token threats, and he'd never believe anyone was good enough for Buffy. We're right together, he thought wistfully, thinking of the sparring they had done, long since gone by the wayside, the fighting, the shagging. Their bodies knew.

He hated L.A., with its shine and desperation, but there wasn't a place on earth he hated more than the Hellmouth. Everything turned to dust here; nothing could flourish. If there were enough destruction left inside him, he'd cheerfully rip the place apart, plank by plank. He wished he'd never come here.

Wouldn't have been here at all, if not for Dru, his soul reminded him dourly. He could feel it, offering a dozen memories of his black Princess, like appetizers on a silver platter: Dru with her mad eyes glittering as she considered the Judge, a wheelchair-level view of Dru with her clothing askew after Angelus came back, Dru with her teeth in a little girl's neck, hardly bigger than one of her dolls. No good memories there, not tonight.

I need a drink, he thought. He could go to Willy's or the Bronze or any of the other human and demon bars in town, but there wasn't enough liquor at any of them to make the conflicting voices in his head shut up. A spot of violence wasn't going to do it, not when the only person he wanted to fight with was also the one person he wanted to forget. He thought longingly of the blessed quiet in his mind when he was Randy Giles, and the only thing he had to worry about was a lame name and why crazy vampires thought he had stolen their boss' pet kittens.

Yeah. Magic, he thought, get Red to do another spell like that. Not bloody likely, his demon replied, I still have a claim on getting my fingers around her arrogant neck. Don't ask your friend to do magic – there are always consequences, his soul reminded him. The demon sniffed at this. Huh. Let Red take them on herself, like last time, when she lost Tara.

Forget the witch, came a cool, strong voice that was always there, the voice that crossed lines and blurred boundaries and made connections, the part of him that was unpredictable and had kept him alive against all odds. Anya's back in town. The Magic Box is open again. Don't need Willow.

Yeah, he thought, there are a few likely ingredients in the store. He pushed away from the tree trunk, absently wiping his wet eyes. Work a tranquility spell, take the consequences on myself if I can get a few hours of peace, hear myself think. Spike took a breath and pointed himself in the direction of the Magic Box.

⸹

[Author's Note: The song Spike quotes is from the Ramones' 'Happy Family.']

"I cannot believe you slept with Anya!"

Spike jumped, the bourbon in the glass he held sloshing over the rim. He barely looked around at Dawn, who stood seething in his doorway. "Xander spreading the pain again, is he?"

"Xander has nothing to do with it," Dawn proclaimed, stomping over to stand beside him. "He pretty much gave up any claim to Anya when he left her at the altar in front of everyone. But you, soul man," she said scathingly, "how can you sleep with someone you don't love?"

 _Ask your sister_. He bit back the words.

'Cause I know you don't love Anya."

"No, Nibblet. Sometimes liquor has more to do with it than love."

"That's a sorry excuse."

"Why are you in such a righteous snit about it, anyway? Not like there was any chance of Anya taking the whelp back."

"Because you hurt Buffy."

He swirled the amber fluid in the glass and stared at it moodily. "Not like there was any chance of her taking me back, either."

"You never really wanted her, anyway," Dawn accused.

He sighed. "And how do you figure this?"

Dawn took a close look at him. His face was almost expressionless, unreadable, not at all like it normally was. He looked… defeated, which was so wrong. Spike was the very definition of roll-with-the-punches. Her anger subsided, which also irritated her. It was fun to be mad at Spike, because he loved her even when she was in a towering rage. She could be more articulate with him in a fight than with anyone else.

"Spike, I love you," she said, sighing and sinking down onto the floor next to where he slouched in the armchair, "but you're an idiot. If you really wanted Buffy, you'd tell her about the soul. It matters to her; you know it does. How could it not, after what happened with Angel?"

He turned his head to regard her and answered after a moment. "Why can't she see it's there?"

Dawn's mouth drew a little with impatience. "Because you've always had good in you, even before the soul." When he continued to stare at her, waiting, she examined what she just said, and her eyes widened.

"If there's more good in me because of the soul," Spike said, his voice bleak, "then it's just a matter of degree, not substance. She doesn't want me, Bit. Good or evil, it's me, innit? And she doesn't want me."

"So you're sulking and sleeping with other women and setting a bad example for me and sabotaging any chance you might have because she can't love you unconditionally?" Dawn rolled her eyes. "Pathetic much? Live in the real world. This is Buffy we're talking about. You know, the 'vampire slayer?'" Her eyes raked him. "And you're a 'vampire,'" she added, doing a pretty good Dr. Evil impression. "Are we making the connection now? You have to throw her a frickin' bone, or a rope to grab onto, or build her a bridge to cross, or some metaphor. A soul seems to be the thing."

"Analogy."

Dawn blinked, then growled at him. Spike fought to keep a straight face, knowing exactly where she'd learned to snarl like that. "You right bastard."

More of him coming through, too much this time. "Lang–"

"Shut up. Buffy's spent half the day moping around and the other half sneaking off to cry, and you're not even taking this seriously."

He met her eyes, finally. "I'm sorry, Nibblet."

"Don't apologize to me."

"Yeah, I do need to apologize to you." Spike bit his lip at her surprise. "You've been thinking that we're gonna be together, a happy family, me, mom, and daddy." She could tell he was quoting something. "You've always known I love your sister."

"I was the first one who knew," she said quickly, still proud of it.

"I had a nightmare and figured it out first," he corrected, then sighed. "It would be good, you an' me an' Buffy an' the proverbial picket fence. But I shouldn't have let you get your hopes up. Never gonna work."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Her friends hate me," he said flatly. "Especially now, after what Xander saw. Her friends have influence over her, is all."

"Yeah, they influenced her right out of heaven." Her tone was spiteful.

He grimaced. "Be that as it may, they're a part of her life. She needs them. They make her stronger. You, too. Willow went off the deep end and wound up breaking your arm, didn't she? And you still love her." Dawn made a mouth, but didn't deny he was right. "When they're always telling her I'm the wrong guy, not much chance for me."

"This is the place where I point out that they don't know you have a soul, either."

"Won't make a difference with Xander, and you know it. How many times have I heard him cut down 'Captain Forehead' despite the fact that he's all soul-having?"

"You can win them over," Dawn said stubbornly.

"Yeah, with my charming personality." He was distantly amused when she didn't argue with that statement.

"You should apologize."

"The list of people I need to apologize to over last night is a pretty long one. Anya, actually, is at the top of the list."

A worried look settled on Dawn's face. "Is she feeling pretty low?"

"Slept with me, didn't she?" His face relaxed a little when she punched his knee, but he didn't smile. "She's a vengeance demon again, Bit. Thought you should know." He would have been hard pressed to keep his soul hidden from her most days, but they had both been… distracted. It had been a long time since he'd been with a human, and he had concentrated more on not bruising her than on a good, old-fashioned table-ender. He hadn't realized he was with a fellow demon until it was over.

Dawn's eyes widened. "Oh! She was trying to get me to make a wish on Xander." She shook her head vigorously when he swiveled his head to stare directly at her. "Which I know not to do, thank you very much."

"Good. Last thing the whelp needs is eels for ears or somethin.'"

"But you'll apologize to Buffy?"

"Oh, bloody hell. Yeah, I'll belly-crawl. For you."

"Tonight?"

He hesitated. "Tomorrow."

"And you'll tell her?"

He closed his eyes. "Yeah. I'll tell her. 'S'about time, anyway."

"If you don't, I'll make your life miserable," she warned.

"I believe it." He stood up. "C'mere, give us a hug, and then get the hell out."

"You're kicking me out?" Dawn asked, getting gracefully to her feet.

"Yeah. Got stuff to do." He leered at her. "Evil stuff."

"Sure you do." She embraced him, then drew away. "Don't know why I'm doing this; you need your ass kicked more than you need a hug."

"Language."

"You cussed just then," she pointed out, turning to go. She paused by the door and glanced back at him, focusing somewhere around his shins. "You know, you were looking into each other's eyes. It looked more romantic than drunk. It had better be a good apology if Buffy's gonna believe it."

" _You_ saw?" His eyes widened in horror.

Dawn shrugged. "Not really. I mean, your coat covered all the ooshy parts. Which," she gave him a frank look, "tacky. Even I know you should have the decency to take off your stupid coat."

Spike closed his eyes. "I'm going to go boil myself like a soddin' lobster now. I feel so… dirty."

"Language," Dawn shot over her shoulder and was gone.

Spike stared at the door. When had his Bit started getting in the last word?

⸹

May 2002

"Buffy?" Spike called.

No answer. He could feel her upstairs, though. Maybe she hadn't heard him over the running water. Mindful of what Dawn had said about taking off a coat, he removed his and absently laid it on the banister as he went upstairs. Gotta do this, he admonished himself, gotta tell her.

"Buffy?" Still no answer. He paused outside the bathroom, then, worried about her, he pushed open the door. Not like she had anything he hadn't seen already, from every angle. "Buffy?"

She knew he was there, of course. She looked around at him, moving her whole body instead of just her head, then closed her eyes, as if praying for patience. "Why are you here, Spike?"

"You're hurt."

Buffy shrugged, then winced as her shoulders settled. "I'll be fine. I'll be better, if you leave."

"I'm sorry."

"Get out."

He closed his eyes. "I need to talk to you."

"I really don't."

"This isn't just about you, as much as you might like it to be."

"Hey, you talked. I listened. Now leave."

"I really am sorry." He closed his eyes. "Not that it matters, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't do it to hurt you."

"Why?"

He grimaced. "We… drank together. Both of us–"

"No. Why are you sorry?"

Studying her, Spike answered carefully. "Because I… care about you."

"Then you might want to try the not sleeping with my friends."

"You're right," he agreed softly. "It wasn't what I intended, what either of us… I found out the Magic Box was open, went there looking for a spell–"

"You were going to use a spell on me?!" She threw her arms up, then made a soft sound of pain. "Why not? I always seem to end up kissing you after magic spells."

"Again, not about you. I wanted something for me, anything to make this feeling stop." Spike shook his head and let his hand fall away from his chest. "You should have let Xander kill me."

Buffy turned away. Then she carefully bent over to turn off the water. "I couldn't." Her voice was tiny.

"Why?"

"You know why."

"No. I honestly don't."

She stared into the water, distantly wishing she had bubble bath to put in it. "I… care about you." Then she closed her eyes and made herself turn back to him. "But I don't love you, Spike. I can't trust you. So, understand," she met his gaze fully, "I can never love you."

 _You do trust me. You did love me, I know you did. I could feel it._ He willed her to hear his thoughts, but her eyes remained hard. "If I had a soul, Buffy," he managed, feeling his toes hanging over the edge of an abyss as he said the words, "would you trust me then? Could you love me?"

Her mouth thinned. "A soul?" Like Angel. She laughed, a bitter sound. "No. Even if you had a soul, I could never love you, Spike."

He pitched into the abyss. Spike had her by the upper arms in a rush, his face by hers, a snarl on his lips. "Slayer..."

She gave a small, involuntary hiss of pain, hating herself for showing any weakness. Whatever strength he was using to hold onto his male pride gave way in the face of the sound. He let go of her and stumbled back, holding the doorway to keep himself upright. Spike's face, always so easy to read, was full of pain, his eyes wounded. He stared at her for a moment, and she saw something inside him snuff out, a spark extinguished.

She felt it die.

He turned away from her, and she heard him go down the stairs, the sound of the front door being wrenched open, and then… nothing. I killed it, Buffy thought, sinking down onto the floor of the bathroom. Her bathrobe fell open and slid down her arms, but she was too numb to fix it. He doesn't love me anymore. I killed his love. She gave a short, hysterical laugh, then made herself stop. Oh, God. I drove another one away.

She stared at the opposite wall for some amount of time, not sure if she was crying, and when she looked around, it was because Xander was standing there, holding out Spike's coat, an accusing look on his face.

"This is what you call not seeing Spike anymore?" he spat. Then he looked at her face, and his eyes widened. Xander's gaze drifted down her body, and motion came back to her. She pulled her robe closer. "What did he do? Did he hurt you, Buffy?"

"He didn't," she said, dimly aware of what he was thinking. She had an odd sideslip in time, back to when Xander had tried to rape her when he was possessed by hyena spirits. No surprise that would be the first thing he thought of. "He tried…" Buffy's voice trailed away. _To tell me he loves me. Again._

"Son of a bitch." Xander spun on his heel, not hearing what Buffy was trying to tell him.

"Don't," she said sharply, too tired to try to explain. "Just… don't. It doesn't matter. Not anymore."

"Buffy!" Willow's excited voice came from downstairs.

She looked up at Xander and pulled herself up from the floor. It was easier now, her Slayer's body having had a few minutes of rest and healing.

"What happened to you guys?" Willow asked, looking between the two of them.

"Nothing," Buffy said, then she took in Xander's battered face for the first time, and she was grateful. "So." Something to do that didn't involve emotion. She tightened the robe once more. "What's up?"

⸹

Something was wrong.

Spike shut off the television, mid- _Passions_. He didn't know what it was, but something felt wrong. He absently rubbed his chest, then realized that it was aching, right above his heart. Restless, he wandered over to the window. It was bright outside, even with the shade of the tall trees near his crypt. There was nothing wrong here, or outside in the beautiful daylight. Something was wrong….

Buffy and Dawn.

Spike turned to go down to the tunnels, then hesitated, closing his eyes. She didn't want him, was well on her way to getting over loving him. And he didn't want to see her. It hurt too much.

Doesn't matter, came the strong voice of the inner anarchist that wasn't the demon or the soul, but just him, cutting through the doubt and hesitation. Not psychic, not like Dru, but I am a supernatural being. If it's a Summers, it's mine. And something is wrong.

Spike glanced around the crypt, searching for his coat, then froze. A self-mocking smile settled on his lips. Right. No coat. He shrugged and headed for the ladder. Maybe the comforter wasn't too badly burned. Didn't matter. He'd made it to Revello Drive during the daytime before.

Half an hour later, the dull ache in his chest had eased, but he felt more and more anxious. Taking a breath, he pushed aside the grate over an access tunnel half a block down from Joyce's – Buffy's house. The smell came to him right away, rich and coppery. His mouth watered, an unnoticed instinctual response. Slayer blood. Oh God.

He pelted flat out, a burst of vampire speed taking him across the sunny street into the welcome shadow of the trees in the front yard in less than two seconds. The smell was strongest in the back yard, but he was already smoldering, couldn't go around. The front door wasn't locked, so he started through the house, heading for the back door. Spike was already in the kitchen when he realized he couldn't feel Buffy.

But he could feel Dawn, and the smell of blood was even stronger in the house. Dropping the blanket, he spun on his heel and took the stairs four at a time.

"Dawn!" Not in her room. Not in the bathroom. The smell was coming from Joyce's old room. Not Dawn's blood, he realized belatedly.

He pushed the door a little, enough to see Dawn huddled against the wall, staring at something he couldn't see, the bed blocking his view. "Nibblet?" She didn't look as if she were in danger. Shock, maybe.

"I didn't want to just leave her here," Dawn said, not looking at him, her voice too calm.

His blood didn't circulate in a human way, but he felt himself go cold anyway, as if all his capillaries had constricted. "Who, sweetheart?" And he stepped into the room and recognized the scent.

Tara's blood.

He took another step and saw her. Like Dawn, he stared for a long time. Not sprawled, but lying neatly, sticky blood pooled around her. Tara had been so vital, so full of love, so attuned to other people, it was wrong, somehow, for her not to be looking back at him.

It was wrong that Tara could be dead.

On the thought, he turned to his girl and dropped down beside her. Gently, he took her hand. "What happened, love?"

"I-I came home." Dawn's focus on Tara's body didn't waver. "No one was here. Someone's always here, you know, in case I'm 'acting out' or I go missing." She swallowed. "I thought they might be asleep, because they were obviously up all night." Her voice faded to a whisper. "So I knocked, I did. But when no one answered, I came in. If I'd just stayed at the door, I never would have seen her."

Spike looked over his shoulder at Tara, the spill of her blond hair so vulnerable, the ends darkened by blood. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them, they were focused on the window. The smell of cordite was in the room, faint but there.

"She's been shot," he said, his voice gentle because of his Bit. "See there, the window? That's where the bullet came in." From the back yard. Spike put his fingers under her chin and slowly turned her face toward his. "Love? Any idea what happened here?"

Her eyes slowly tracked from Tara to him. Dawn's face screwed up. "No. No no no no no." And she fell forward against him, shock giving way to sobs.

Spike caught her and hugged her too tightly. He made himself loosen his grip. "Shh, Dawnie. 'M here. I got you." Good thing about being a vampire, you can cry without breathing, without making a noise. The first time he'd thought that was when Angelus was establishing his alpha wolf credentials with Dru. The last time he'd thought that was when he was in a wheelchair and Angelus was back to reestablish those credentials.

He gave his head a little shake, clearing the thoughts. Had to get the Bit out of here, where Tara wasn't anymore. Lifting her, Spike furrowed his brow, then stepped around the body (no, Tara, not a body, never just that) to look outside, dreading what he might find. He saw nothing, not even a patch of trampled earth. Whatever had happened was long since over.

Dawn, crying against his collarbone, hadn't noticed the detour, and he carried her carefully downstairs. Another thing to be grateful for: vampire strength. No need to put down his Bit until she was ready. The portable phone was missing, so he headed to the phone in the kitchen, moving sideways through doorframes as gracefully as a dancer, and dialed 9-1-1 one-handed.

"Yes, we need an, uh, ambulance at 1630 Revello Drive. There's been a shooting."

"What's your name, sir?"

"Spike," he snapped impatiently.

"Sir, is this in reference to the earlier call?"

"Earlier call?"

"Yes, a call came in just, less than two hours ago."

"Oh… uh, no, but I think this must have happened at the same – What was the call?"

"Sir, please remain calm. Do you need an ambulance?"

"Yes. I don't know. There's a bod – a woman who lives here, Tara Maclay, has been shot."

"Are you with her now?"

"No. She's," he hesitated, glancing down at Dawn. Her sobs had subsided, and despite her slack face, he knew she was listening. "She's dead. We just got home. I think she must have been dead for about those two hours." Spike shifted Dawn a little higher and caught the phone between his shoulder and ear. "Please, what was the earlier call you got?"

"I'm sending an ambulance now. The earlier call," he heard the sounds of typing, "was also for a young woman who had been shot."

The ache in his chest. "Oh, God. Who was it? What was her name?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't have a record of any name. Are you sure that your injured party is dead?"

He took a breath. "Yes."

"We usually ask you to remain on the telephone, but in this case I'm going to give you the number for the hospital. You can ask about the status of the person from the other call. They'll be able to help you." He shifted Dawn again and awkwardly jotted the telephone number with his right hand.

"Got it. Er, thank you."

"I've contacted the police, and they'll send out a team, too. They should arrive within the hour."

He hung up, then stared at the telephone. What next? What was important? Focus, you nit, focus. The important thing is right here in your arms. "Dawn?" She didn't answer, but he had decades of experience dealing with women in altered states. "Dawn, love, listen to my voice, yeah? Need you here with me, now. Talk to me, baby."

"Yes?"

"Good girl. The woman who answered the 9-1-1 call said that she had another one from here. Someone else was shot. I don't think they knew about Tara. It must have been a stray bullet, so high up an' all." He spun and settled her on the counter, pulling her down until their foreheads touched. "Listen, I know a lot about death, right? Tara didn't suffer, Bit. It was very, very quick. You saw how peaceful her face looked, didn't you? She's gone on, she's up there with your mum. Her mum, too. Heaven's a real place, and they're up there, safe. You know that, don't you?"

Fresh tears spilled out of her eyes, but she nodded, her nose bumping against his. "I know."

"'Course you do. Now, look, love, I'm going to call the hospital to find out what happened. And I'm scared, okay? I want you to hold my hand. Don't let go. But don't you fret. Your sister… if she… I would know it if she wasn't alive, all right? You can be scared with me, but your sister is alive." He waited until she nodded again, then helped her sit upright. His left hand caught in hers, he stretched out for the telephone and awkwardly made the call.

"Hullo. Um, someone was brought to the hospital after a 9-1-1 call, and I'm trying to find out who it was."

"That would be emergency, then. What's the patient's name?"  
He gritted his teeth. "It was a woman, a female, so it's one of three names." Alphabetically, he thought. "Jenkins. Anya Jenkins."

"There is no patient by that name."

"Right. Rosenberg. Willow Rosenberg."

"No patient by that name."

Spike took a breath. "Summers, then. Buffy Summers."

Suns formed, supernovaed, and collapsed into black holes before the disinterested voice finally said, "Buffy Summers was admitted two hours ago into the emergency room."

"What happened to her? How is she?"

"I can only give information to immediate family, sir."

He scowled. "I'm her bloody husband, and I'm here with her sister. Now," he choked back a string of blistering words, "please, tell me if she's all right?"

"Mrs. Summers was taken to surgery soon after being admitted, but she's been discharged." The voice now had a bit of color to it, sounding confused.

"Discharged?"

"Yes. That does seem odd." He could hear the sound of a keyboard clicking once more. "Yes, discharged. She isn't in any of the recovery bays."

"Thank you," he said numbly and hung up the phone.

"Discharged?" Dawn asked, sounding shaky.

"Yeah. Means she didn't need medical attention." He lifted his shoulders helplessly. "That's a good thing, huh, Bit?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh. Sl-slayer h-h-healing."

He realized that she didn't just sound shaky, she was actually shaking. He could feel it through their linked hands. Shock, you idiot, he thought again. "C'mon, sweet one. Let's go sit on the couch, yeah?" Spike scooped her up again and went through the dining room, bending for the second it took to grab the scorched comforter he'd been using as a sunscreen. They settled on one end of the couch, and he tucked the blanket around her, wishing he had body heat for no other reason than to give it to her.

The house was eerily quiet, and both of them were thinking of the young woman dead upstairs. "We should go back up," Dawn said in a thin voice. "She shouldn't be alone."

"She isn't up there, sweetheart. Where she is, she isn't alone." He placed a hand on her cheek, bringing her attention back to him. If they could focus on each other, they wouldn't have to think about the horror of their situation. "You aren't alone, either. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."

"What do we do now?"

"We wait. We don't move her, because it's a crime scene, right?"

"I left my bookbag up there."

"That's okay, love. It won't keep them from doing their job." He smoothed her hair away from her face. Her eyes were vacant. She's seen too much, he thought. I'd give anything to keep her from having to face all this. "So, you came home from school and went up to her room." When she didn't answer, he prompted, "That right?"

"Yeah. I went upstairs."

"Had you been there very long?"

"I-I don't know. I touched her, and she was cold. Then I just…" Her eyes closed. "She felt like Mom did, that night at the morgue. Not like you. It's different, somehow. I should have called someone. Like you did. But I couldn't leave her. I just sat…."

"Shh, 's'okay. Things like this, you can't prepare for them." He pulled her against him, pressing his lips against the part in her hair. "And you did call someone."

"No," she corrected him. He could feel her head moving as she shook it. "I didn't."

"Yeah, you did. You called me." Dawn was still, waiting. "Started feeling really antsy, knew something was wrong, knew I had to get here to you." Spike didn't tell her about the pain in his chest. Despite his warm feelings toward Tara, he was surprised that he would feel an injury inflicted on her. It made him wonder where the Slayer had been hurt, since the hospital wouldn't have discharged her with a chest wound. "Knew something was wrong here, with you or with Buffy. So I grabbed somethin' to duck under and hurried over."

"How did you know?"

"Just knew." He gave a lopsided smile. "Reckon it's because you've got a sizeable chunk of my heart." When she didn't respond, he went on. "Keep it in a shoebox, do you?"

Dawn snorted and gave a very short, hiccupping laugh. She started to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the porch. "Who is it?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Ambulance people." He had heard the heavy vehicle pull in next to the curb. "Stay here."

He was at the door before the EMTs could ring the bell. "Thanks for coming," he said awkwardly. "Um, this way," he gestured, leading them up the stairs. Spike waited as they examined Tara, and answered their questions as best he could. When they finished determining that there was nothing for them to do, he blocked the door.

"You the same guys who came here earlier?" The taller of the two nodded, so he went on. "Listen, there's a little girl downstairs. She found the – she found Tara's body when she came home from school. No one knew; everyone went to the hospital with Buffy, I guess. She was alone with Tara for maybe half an hour before I got here. I'm afraid she's in shock. Take a look at her, all right?" He wasn't about to move until they agreed, but since he couldn't make them do what he wanted, he went for implacable instead of threatening.

"Sure, buddy."

Spike blinked. That was easy. "Er, thanks." He moved out of the way.

One of the EMTs went back to the truck while the taller one checked over Dawn. Spike stared out at the lengthening shadows, wondering about the name 'rescue unit' stenciled on the side of the ambulance. Such an optimistic, American thing to call a meat wagon.

The EMT inside finished looking at Dawn's pupils and feeling her pulse. He put his equipment away and came to talk to Spike at the same time the other EMT returned from speaking on the ambulance's radio.

"She probably was in shock, but you did exactly right, warming her up, keeping her talking."

"I spoke with dispatch. A police unit will be here, but there's some trouble with a bus out near the city limits."

"Any injuries?" the taller EMT asked.

"No, only the police are responding." He looked back to Spike. "I'm sorry, but they will have to investigate. Please don't disturb the body. You might destroy evidence the police –"

"Right," Spike said, cutting him off. He had no respect for the ability of the Sunnydale police force. Although they could apparently find bodies, if left in the open very near their headquarters, the extent of investigation seemed to be finding either the stamp that said 'animal attack' or the one that said 'natural causes.' The latter had been on his file when he went rummaging for his lighter, flask, and other possessions in the morgue. "We'll wait downstairs."

The tall EMT who had examined Dawn tilted his head toward her. "You'll want to get her some food, or at least something to drink. Something warm."

"The coroner's office will be here after the police are done. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks." And with identical solemn nods, they were gone. Spike watched the ambulance drive away, then took a deep breath. "You heard?" he asked Dawn, who was sitting up.

"Yeah. Our crisis isn't a priority."

"'Fraid not." He took a sharp breath. "Hey, um, your Mum always made the best cocoa. She teach you how to make it?"

A smile flitted across her face. "I'm not twelve, Spike. I heard what the medic guy said." She stood up, clutching the smoky blanket around her. "I don't even know if we have any milk."

"Let's go find out," he suggested, falling in step with her as they went to the kitchen.

"No marshmallows, though."

"I like marshmallows."

"No marshmallows," she said, but it was too much effort to explain about the mean older sister and the monkey brains.

There was milk, and Dawn managed to down half a cup of cocoa. When darkness fell, it found them sitting together on the couch again, talking quietly. The police still hadn't arrived.

"Tara's never going to have hot chocolate again."

"No, she'll have better. Ambrosia or some such."

"Do you think she's here? Listening to us?"

"I don't reckon she needs to be. She knows we'll take care of each other." He shifted a little, slouching further into the cushions. Dawn was half-lying on his lap, her legs curled up beneath his blanket. "Kind of nice, innit? Most people have to wonder where their loved ones go. We know from your sister that there really is a heaven, and we know that's where Tara went."

"Yeah, if they'd let Buffy in…"

"Be nice," he warned, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. He couldn't place it, though, and he felt himself slipping back into their odd stasis.

"I don't understand," Dawn said after a minute or so. "How can something like this happen to someone who's so good?"

"My Mum used to say that some people are so good that God misses them, and he takes them home early."

"Your Mom said that?" She felt him nod. "What was she like?"

"She was a lovely woman," Spike said, his voice gentle. "She was… handsome, I guess. Father had a painting done of her when they were first married, and she was really pretty. But her beauty came from the inside, dinnit? Like Tara. She was popular because she always made people feel better about themselves." It occurred to him that his mother would be appalled to be the subject of so much poor grammar. "Was hard on her when she became ill and couldn't get out into society as much."

"It was hard on Mom, too, after the divorce. She had a whole network of friends back in L.A., but when my Dad left, it just fell apart. They didn't have anything in common anymore." Dawn gave a cynical little sniff. "Not that I was there, not really."

"Nibblet, I only knew Joyce a short time, and I feel very lucky. You only had her a little while, too, but she's in you, part of you. That's quite something."

"I'm glad you're here. You always know the right things to say to make me feel better."

Something inside him unclenched, and Spike closed his eyes. "I'm glad I could be here for you." They heard the sound of a car.

"Finally," Dawn said, but neither of them got up. Dawn was waiting for the doorbell, and Spike already knew it wasn't the police.

"Willow!" Buffy called, bursting through the door. "Dawn!" She turned on the lights, causing the pair on the couch to wince. Turning at the sound, her eyes went to Spike first, and she froze. Then she saw her sister. "Dawnie," she said, going down on her knees to hug her sister. Buffy closed her eyes in relief. When she opened them, it was to Spike's face, his eyes full of compassion. _Thank you_ , she mouthed over Dawn's shoulder. Her sister hadn't been alone. He nodded just once.

"Oh, Buffy, Tara's upstairs. She's–"

"I know. Willow was with her when it happened. She told us." Buffy saw Spike frown, but it wasn't the right time to explain why Tara's body had been left unattended.

"The, uh, police are coming," Spike began, but Dawn interrupted.

"The emergency dispatcher said they took you to the hospital. What happened?" Dawn pulled away from her sister a few inches. "Oh, Buffy, your shirt!"

"I'm okay, Dawnie, I'm just fine. See?" she said, attempting a smile. "Right here, fine."

"What happened?" Dawn's voice had an edge of hysteria to it. "I came home and found Tara and she was dead, Buffy. What happened?"

"Warren," Xander answered bitterly, stepping inside and closing the door. He walked through the French doors into the living room, coming to an abrupt halt when he saw Spike. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The other three were speechless for a moment. Predictably, Dawn recovered first. "He's been here with me all afternoon, Xander. I would have been alone, otherwise."

Buffy got to her feet, giving the two on the couch a warning look. "Now's not the time, Xander." The doorbell rang.

"That'll be the police," Dawn said. "Finally."

"Let them in." Her arms were crossed, and she sounded tired, the usual note of command lacking in her voice.

Xander didn't stop glaring at Spike until the doorbell rang a second time. He finally turned back to the door.

"She's upstairs in Mom's room," Dawn said in a small voice, as if answering Xander had taken all her strength.

Buffy nodded. She met Spike's eyes again, just for a second, but he nodded, too. He had no intention of leaving Dawn, anyway. They stayed out of the way on the couch while Sunnydale's finest trooped upstairs, following Buffy and Xander. After a while, one of the police officers came and dragged a chair from the dining room so he could sit in front of them. He pulled out a notepad.

"So, you're Spike? The one that made the call?"

"Yeah." He shifted a little, unconsciously trying to put himself between Dawn and the policeman.

"I'm Officer Cabrera. What's your full name?"

"Spike Williams." He'd always thought it was a shame that Spike Jonze was taken.

"What's your relationship with the deceased?"

"I'm a friend of the family. I got to know Tara through Buffy and Dawn."

"And you placed the second call to nine-one-one?"

"Yeah." His voice slowed into sarcasm as he answered the question a second time.

The officer pasted an I-just-love-kids smile on his face and turned to the girl at his side. "And you must be Dawn."

She would have glared at him if she weren't so tired. "Dawn Summers, that's me."

"And you live here?"

"Yes."

"You discovered the body?"

"Uh-uh." She shivered, and Spike's arm tightened around her. Xander came down the stairs, and the two men exchanged a cold look. They both listened to Dawn's story.

"Did you touch Miss Maclay?"

"I touched her arm. It was…" Dawn trailed off.

Cabrera shifted his attention to Spike. "And when did you arrive?"

"I came by, it must have been close to four." He inclined his head toward Dawn. "The Summers girls lost their mother last year, and we all pitch in to take care of Dawn after school while her sister is at work. I found Dawn upstairs with Tara. Neither of us knew that anyone else had been shot."

"Did you disturb the body?"

Spike saw a sneer cross Xander's face from where he stood behind the police officer, but he ignored him. "No. I… knew Tara was dead, that I couldn't do anything for her. My priority was to get Dawn downstairs, take care of her." He met Cabrera's eyes deliberately. "I called for an ambulance, and the EMTs came. They checked Dawn here for shock." He stopped talking and idly wondered how high he could count before this all sank in for the policeman.

The man's eyes widened, and he looked at Dawn again, getting it. "All right, then. Just two more questions. Do either of you know why anyone would attempt to murder either Buffy Summers or Tara Maclay?"

"No." Spike tucked Dawn closer to his side when she only managed to shake her head, her eyes filling up with tears again.

"All right. Are either of you acquainted with a Warren Mears?"

Dawn shook her head again, and Spike once again chose his words carefully. "I've met him a couple of times. He's really good with computers, electronics, but a little creepy." He leaned toward the officer, his voice becoming confidential. "His ex-girlfriend died a few weeks back. It was supposed to be suicide, but I wonder about that. She was from Dutton, I think, but she died here in Sunnydale."

Cabrera was another one who should never play poker. His eyes widened at this news, and he scribbled furiously on the notepad. "Do you know her name?" he asked without looking up.

"Uh…"

"Katrina something," Dawn supplied. Her fingers were on Spike's leg beneath the comforter, and she gave him a deliberate squeeze. He sat back against the couch.

"Thank you. That'll be all for now," Cabrera said, then added, "I'm sorry for your loss." He dragged the chair across the floor again, making Dawn wince. Her mother would have hated to see her hardwood floors mistreated. Then she closed her eyes, her brows furrowing over the stupidity of worrying about the floors when both Mom and Tara were dead.

As soon as the policeman was in the dining room, Xander started forward, but was interrupted by a fresh batch of officials in dark clothing. These had a stretcher with them, and Xander led the men from the coroner's office back up the stairs. He came down shortly, followed by Buffy. She went directly to the couch, holding her arms out for her sister.

"Xander," Buffy said, heading him off, "will you go see if Willow left a message?" He was ready to protest, but then took a good look at her face, remembering what she'd been through today. Once he left for the kitchen, she turned to Spike and quickly caught him up. "Willow was there when Tara died. She came downstairs just as the ambulance came for me. Xander told her that Warren shot me, and we left for the hospital. Willow went off alone. She came into the operating room, pumped on some kind of high-level magic, and plucked the bullet right out. Healed me, just like that. Now she's after Warren."

"Not to heal him, huh?" He was frowning in concentration, taking it all in and working out the implications. He looked at her ruined shirt, not surprised to see she had been injured where he felt the ache that afternoon.

Buffy shook her head and almost smiled at how easy it was, at the kind of shorthand they had for the important things. She turned away as Xander came back. He looked shaken.

"There was one message, from Anya. Willow came by the Magic Box. Anya's okay, just upset. Said something about not being able to move quickly. Seems Willow sucked the magical knowledge out of a bunch of the forbidden texts. That's when her hair and eyes turned black."

The Slayer stared at him, dumbfounded. Her gaze was drawn to the top of the stairs as the men from the coroner's office brought Tara down on their stretcher. Buffy pulled Dawn close to her, not wanting her to see this. It was almost too much for her, too much like when their mother died.

Xander signed a form on a clipboard and exchanged a few words with the last of the officials. He closed the door behind them. "So, that's it."

"We need to find Willow."

"First," said Xander, "we need to get rid of… this."

Buffy and Dawn looked up at him, then to where Spike still sat on the couch. "Xander, now is not the time."

"Yes. It is exactly the time."

Spike stood up, trying not to be impatient. He knew the boy's brand of pain, after all, seeing the woman you loved but didn't have with another man. "If I could take it back, I would," he began.

"Oh, no. You don't get to apologize," Xander said, moving closer to him. "Not for this."

Buffy's eyes rounded as she remembered. "Xander, it's not–"

"See, you've had your hands on one too many of the women that I love." He grabbed Spike's neck. "I don't have time right now to kill your sorry ass, but I definitely have time to toss it into the street."

"Stop it!" Dawn shrieked, piercing her sister's eardrums.

Buffy winced. "Xander," she said, her voice like ice. "Let go."

Xander didn't, but he didn't make any other moves. "Not this time."

"Yes. This time."

"Buffy…"

"Let him go."

Xander let go of his neck, and Spike glared at both of them.

"Spike, I need you to find Willow, bring her back here before she finds Warren."

He stared at her for a long moment. "No," he said deliberately.

"What?"

"I said 'no.' In the first place, she's human." He waved at Xander. "I can't even stop him. I'm not about to put myself in Willow's way, not if she's all juiced up. And, in the second place, I am not so inclined. Let her find him."

He was using that lord-of-the-manor voice again. Buffy glanced down at Dawn, still in her arms. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate with him again. "We can't let her find Warren," she said, very slowly.

"What? You think the police will? That bunch of incompetents?"

"Spike." Emphatic.

"No." Equally emphatic.

"If she finds him, she won't be the same."

"You think she'll be the same after this? At least this way she won't feel the victim. I won't go after her, Buffy."

Xander snorted. "Then, what use are you?" A cold smile played across his face.

"None," Buffy said, her voice hard now.

Xander reached for him, but Spike was too fast, shifting to the dining room where he could see both Summers sisters. "Sorry to be inconvenient," he sneered at Buffy. Then his eyes dropped to Dawn's distressed face. "I'll be by to check on you tomorrow."

"Not a chance," Xander said.

Spike didn't bother answering, just looked Xander up and down once and scoffed. Then he was gone, the slamming of the back door punctuating his exit.

"We still need to find Willow," Buffy said wearily.

"Yeah," Xander said, still glaring toward the kitchen. "She's seriously off the wagon. Warren's a dead man if she finds him."

Buffy grimaced. She so did not want Dawn to hear those words. Spike had known that.

"Good," Dawn said.

Buffy closed her eyes. "Dawn, don't say that–"

"Why not? I'd do it myself, if I could."

"Because you don't really feel that way–"

"I do. And you should, too. He killed Tara, he killed his ex-girlfriend, and he nearly killed you. He needs to pay."

Xander looked down at the forgotten papers from the coroner crumpled in his hand. "Out of the mouths of babes."

Good lord, Buffy thought. Am I the only one left who's sane?

⸹

[Author's Note: This section has graphic violence – Spike enduring the usual pain and suffering and causing some himself.]

Spike stared at the glass of bourbon in his hand. There were enough demons in the bar who could read auras that he was alone at his table, no one within ten feet of him on either side. To some, he smelled like death. Most of the patrons, though, simply could read human faces well enough to know not to speak to him tonight, even without his reputation.

Tara was dead. He honestly needed to grieve for her, for her sweetness and compassion lost to them, but his head was in too much of a jumble. The liquor wasn't helping, so he tossed back the last of the amber liquid and walked more or less straight out of the bar, not one he frequented often. A youngish, red-haired vampire didn't get out of his way quickly enough, so he grabbed it by the collar.

"What self-respecting vampire would turn a ginger?" he complained, as if he hadn't contemplated the very same thing once upon a time. "Who is going to be afraid of you? Opie the vampire," he scoffed.

"Pull his heart out and show it to 'im, Spike!" a Thanoss demon cried raucously.

"Like this?" Spike replied coolly, his fist in and out of the younger vamp's chest so quickly that the dust had almost settled before surprise registered on the disintegrating face. The Thanoss laughed, raising his glass. The laughter stopped when he realized that Spike was standing right in front of him, dusting the heart from his palms. He was smiling, and the bar became very quiet.

"Showing them their heart? That's no challenge." Spike tilted his head, regarding the demon. They were about the same height, but the Thanoss was twice again as wide, with four powerful legs. "Pulling out a spine and showing it to them before they die, now that," he said, the smile widening, "isn't something just anyone can do." He moved with speed and precision and power, and a pain-filled roar echoed through the bar. Spike held up the Thanoss, his right hand beneath one arm. Then he raised his left hand, the creature's gore-stained spine dangling from it. "But I can." He shoved the sharp base of the spine through the Thanoss' throat, pinning it to the wall as he finished killing it. He heard the murmur of voices resume as the door closed behind him; another insane tale added to the legend that was Spike. Demons didn't start fights with him anymore; even groups of them wouldn't mess with him, not if they were from Sunnydale.

The violence meant nothing. It wasn't satisfying. He hesitated outside the door, then turned into the alley that ran beside it. Maybe a lot of it would be. Might be vampires down this way. Too many thoughts in his head tonight, and violence could usually clear them out.

Tara, sweet, tasty Tara, was dead, so much light gone with her. Willow, who had been on a tightrope since the night she broke Dawn's arm, had toppled off and was going to kill someone. His soul was strangely silent on the subject, as it would cheer him on if he killed someone who harmed Dawn or Buffy. His code of justice had apparently been altered by the experiences of a dozen decades as a vampire. Xander, with whom he had enjoyed a curiously cordial friendship since last summer, was going to try to kill him in the near future for sleeping with Anya. As he couldn't fight back, the whelp would probably succeed. Dawn had been subjected to yet another traumatic death, the third in her short life. And Buffy – the Slayer had gently breathed life back into his hopes, meeting his eyes with Dawn held, protected, between them, then popped them like bubble wrap. Again.

This meant that, unless Dawn could talk sense into the Slayer, he was going to have to use his H-bomb to stay in his Bit's life. Spike had no doubt he could deploy the threat – I'll tell Dawn that you beat me and left me senseless in an alley – but he honestly didn't know if he could carry through on it. The Nibblet had lost so many people; telling her would cost her another one. He knew he could present it so she would never realize why he was doing it, or at least wouldn't question it for years. But he didn't know if he could bring himself to destroy her love for her sister. He was pretty sure that would be an evil thing, but his soul, having lost Buffy, wasn't going to quibble over the methods that would keep Dawn in his life. He would do anything for his Nibblet. She was the only thing in his life that was his, not because he had taken, but because it had been given.

"Say, you aren't that guy who plays dominos, are you?"

Spike froze, his face becoming expressionless. "No," he replied, turning to face the owner of that voice.

"Good," Doc said, giving him that quick, rabbity little smile. His eyes were quite black. "Because I've been looking for you."

⸹

Clem wasn't sure how this had all happened. He'd been at Willy's and found that the demon his friend Spike wanted had been there earlier. Then he'd been waiting in Spike's crypt for the vampire to return so he could tell him, and suddenly he was babysitting the Slayer's little sister, as if he could have refused. Now, the little sister had persuaded him to find a really bad place in a really bad part of town. And he wasn't at all sure that Spike would have taken her there, no matter what she said. But he was easy prey for females, even tight-skinned human ones, and this one was a lot nicer than the Slayer. Plus, he never would have gotten to know Sophie so well if Dawn hadn't trapped them at the Slayer's birthday party. Clem sent the girl a sidelong glance as they walked along the dark streets. She looked anxious. Maybe he could talk her into going to see that movie, after all. A guy had to try.

⸹

No doubt, Spike thought, whatever else Doc was, he was the fastest demon he'd ever fought. He was able to dodge most of the little imp's blows, but he had yet to land one. Worse, he'd never found out what kind of demon Doc was, so he had no guaranteed strategy for killing him. Spike ran up the wall to his left to avoid the lashing tongue, pivoted on his palm, ignoring the scrape the brick gave him, and dropped directly where Doc should be. He miscalculated and took a second blow in the kidney.

Spike sent a blind backfist over his shoulder, heartened when he felt it graze the little imp's temple. Spinning, he backed away and watched as Doc gave him a 'not bad' look. Recap, then, Spike thought desperately. Swords through the chest and falls from high places, out. Without daring to think about it, in case there was some sort of telepathy going on, he took his ever-present stake from its new place in his leather jacket and hurled it at Doc.

Wood through the throat apparently didn't work, either. Pity. He'd been aiming for the eyes. Doc removed it, not bleeding, and gave one of those nictitating membrane double-blinks. "Impressive. Not as impressive as this, though." He got Spike to dodge left to avoid his tongue, then he cut behind him with blinding speed. Doc caught him around the neck and pushed the stake through the skin between Spike's shoulderblades. The vampire froze.

"Well, this is certainly familiar." Doc gave a small smile. "And growing more so."

Spike's habitual breathing ceased as he saw what the little demon meant. The two of them were in the deepest shadow of the alley, which opened onto Wilkins Street. Walking by on the opposite side of Wilkins were Dawn and… Clem?

"How nice to have her so near at hand," Doc said. "Hmm. So many possibilities for her, for the power in her blood. The Slayer ruined my plan to help bring Glorificus back into her own, but she wasn't smart enough to find a better champion to defend her sister. And you even went out and got a soul. Noble gesture, but useless, in the end."

In the darkness, staring after his Nibblet's retreating back, with the one being in the world who posed the greatest threat to her holding a stake two inches from his heart, Spike smiled. This was familiar, all right, and his eyes burned with a clear light as Dawn left his sight.

One hundred and forty-seven days to relive that pivotal moment. Then it had been a knife at his back, not wood, but they had also been on a catwalk and now they were on solid ground. He had been here, had played this so many different ways. He was in the zone. Spike remembered Buffy using the phrase. It was a good one, perfectly describing this state where he suddenly had all the time necessary, where his body was going to do exactly what he needed it to do. Spike let his own demon out to play.

His arms were free, Doc's first mistake. He whipped around with his left elbow, aiming it at the imp's head. The stake scraped across his skin, hit his shoulderblade, and snagged on the leather of the jacket, clattering to the ground. Doc's quick reflexes betrayed him, and he let go of Spike's neck to dodge away. The move would have worked, except the vampire had already used his right hand to reach down and grab Doc's tail, anchoring him in place. The vampire's elbow hit him directly across the side of his face, shattering the cheekbone. Spike spun back the opposite way to face him.

Relying on his most instinctive weapon, the imp whipped his tongue straight toward Spike's eyes. But Spike had gone through the play-by-play for this move, too. He lunged forward to meet it and sank his sharp fangs into the tongue, pinning it, careful not to draw any fluid into his own body. Then Spike grabbed the slimy organ and wrapped some of the length around the back of his biceps, like coiling a rope. When he had a firm grip, he pulled his fangs away and returned to his human face.

He looked at Doc with a great deal of satisfaction. The little demon was trapped, tears of pain standing in his eyes as Spike's fist crushed his tongue. His best weapons, his speed and tail and tongue, were neutralized, and his hands scrabbled uselessly against the vampire's unyielding grip. Spike pulled the tail across the short distance between them, hindering his ability to kick out.

"You asked me once why I cared," Spike said, even as he inwardly rolled his eyes. Too much of the Big Bad left in him, apparently, to dispense with the pre-death exposition. "I was too much a wanker to admit it then, but I can now. Because I love her." His eyes burned with the cold, clear fire for a moment, then became yellow once more. "And no one touches what I love."

The blond head flashed forward, and he sank his fangs into Doc's neck, then ripped backward. He spat out shreds of flesh, lay his head back, and roared his joy into the night. Twice more he drove sharp teeth into the imp's neck, until Doc's hands stopped trying to free his tongue and dropped away from his arm, going instead to protect his throat. Then the vampire simply ripped the demon's head from his neck.

"Dunno that's enough to kill you," he said, his words slurred by bloodlust and a mouthful of razor-sharp fangs. "Dunno exactly how to kill you, point of fact. But I'm gonna have fun figuring it out." He grinned again and felt a shudder go through the demon's body. "Let's start with the basics, shall we? If it has eyes, go for the eyes. If it has a head, behead it. Oops, got ahead of myself." He laughed at the unintentional pun. "Chopping it to messes, always a good plan. And, of course, bowing to the laws of physics, we have fire." He considered Doc's head as it dangled from the tongue. "This might take a while."

Almost an hour later, Spike staggered out of the alley, his clothes reeking of gore and smoke. There wasn't an inch of Doc that hadn't been separated and burned, because he was determined that they would never see that particular villain again… not unless you looked really, really hard in a stray corner. And squinted. Two crumpled cardboard boxes were tucked under his arm, one containing the remainder of the demon's heart, the other the largest chunk of brain Spike could find.

He was exhausted, used up inside and out, but his emotions were blissfully quiet. Spike wondered idly if Willow had found the bastard who killed Tara yet, if she was experiencing this same feeling of peace at neutralizing a threat. Probably won't be this way for her, he mused. My Bit is still alive. Tara isn't. He wondered if he would have joined her if the chip wasn't a factor, wondered why his soul wasn't lecturing him on right and wrong and killing humans, then let it go, too tired for complex thoughts. He probably should track down Clem and ask him why the hell he had Dawn out on the nighttime streets of Sunnydale, but he could sense that she was with Buffy right now, blocks from where he was.

In his pocket was a driver's license, of all things, that he'd found in Doc's wallet. He was going to burn the place matching the address to the ground. Then he was going to load the two cardboard boxes in his DeSoto and drive to a chemical plant in Dutton that made acid, then take whatever was left to the ocean. Toss 'em in, head back to the crypt, he thought blearily. Sleep. Then I'll tell Dawn the good news, maybe ask Buffy real nice if she'll pass the word on to Giles. Doc is dead.

⸹

He woke with a start. First things: East was to his left, and sunrise was in an hour. Why was he awake?

 _Spike_.

 _Red?_

 _Come outside_.

He dropped his legs off the side of the stone tomb and stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. _Did you get him?_ he asked groggily. He was nominally wearing clean clothes, the stinking remainder of the ruined ones in the cavern below.

 _Yes_. Satisfaction was curled around the word, but dissatisfaction hovered on the edges.

 _Doesn't bring her back, I know_ , he sent, opening the crypt door, _but it does keep the wanker from ever hurtin' anyone again. I'm so sorry about Tara_. He walked out a few steps and turned, looking up at the roof of the crypt, sensing that it was exactly like when they had patrolled last summer. _She was a right proper good lady_.

 _You understand_.

 _Vengeance? Yeah, I understand_.

 _You've killed tonight._

 _Yeah_ , he agreed, his own satisfaction evident. _Been tracking down Doc for months. Finally got him last night. Won't be a threat to Dawn anymore. One less way for the world to end, huh?_ He took another step back and saw her. _Not Red, then_. He blinked up at the black-haired witch sleepily. _They're worried about you using magic_. The night air had reached dew point, and even he felt the clammy chill on his bare chest.

She stared down at him for a long time. _You were always nice to her_.

Spike stopped trying to put his arm in his shirt and took another step back, a puzzled expression on his face. "No," he said aloud, knowing that, for Willow, there was only one 'her.' "Think it was the other way around, Wil. She was always nice to me."

 _No_. She sent him images of him holding out burned hands, talking calmly to a terrified, mind-injured Tara; harmlessly flirting with her; even the time he had hit her to prove she wasn't a demon.

"Don't know I'd call that nice."

 _You always treated her like she was a part of the gang, because you know what it's like to be the outsider, don't you?_ He felt her probe his mind. _So lonely. You've always been so lonely_.

[ _slash_ ]

 _Ow!_ Willow's eyes widened. _Where did you learn to do that?_ Then she grinned down at him. _Angelus. Of course. Wouldn't want him in my mind, either_.

"Why are you here, Willow? What is it you need?" His voice had lost the sleepy, vulnerable quality.

 _To give you something_.

"And that would be?"

 _Rest. Peace. You're in so much pain over Buffy. But first, I wanted to give you your due_.

"My due?" He quirked a grin up at her. "As in giving the devil?"

Willow regarded him gravely. _You're a warrior, like Buffy. You're no Slayer, but you're unpredictable. That's why I came, to make sure you don't try to stop me_.

"Stop you? I don't want to stop you. 'Sides, you said you'd already got him."

She gave him a beatific smile, then rose into the air as gracefully as a feather on a puff of wind. He heard a terrible groaning noise to his left. The largest tree next to his crypt pulled back, as if the wood were muscle, and then slammed into his crypt.

Spike leapt away as chunks of stone scattered through the air. "Are you off your nut? What are you doing?!" he shouted up at her. Before he could do much more than take in that the whole structure was smashed flat, he heard the groaning begin again. He turned as a second tree descended on him.

The vampire roared in agony as dozens of twigs and thicker branches impaled his limbs and torso, sharp wood tips driving through him and into the ground beneath, pinning him like a butterfly in a shadow box. He closed his eyes against the certainty of death. After a long moment, when the pain didn't fade, he opened his eyes. Willow was standing next to him, regarding him fondly.

 _Oh, Spike. Even I can see what she saw in you. Nice abs._

"Yeah? You should see 'em when there's not a tree stuck through 'em," he snarled. "Why are you doing this?" He moved his left arm, trying to lift it from the ground, and one of the free branches lunged like a cobra uncoiling, hovering over his heart.

 _She hurt you so much. And you hurt her. But the pain will be over soon. At least you have the consolation of knowing it would never have worked. Not like me and… It won't be long_.

"Red, you're hurting me right now." He struggled, and the branch whipped down like a wasp's stinger and touched the pale skin over his heart. Spike gritted his teeth.

 _Goodbye, Spike_.

"Willow!" His bellow echoed through the graveyard, but he was the only one to hear.

⸹

The sun was up now. The only reason he wasn't dust was the thick layer of spring leaves that covered most of him. There had been an earthquake earlier, and Spike was kicking himself for being so stupid. Mid-spring in Sunnydale… time for an apocalypse. He would never have pegged Willow for the Big Bad, though.

He took a breath, then another, preparing himself to lunge forward. Better to go out quickly with the wood of a living tree through his heart than to burn up a little at a time. His bare left foot and forearm were already charred. Spike thought of Drusilla, of Dawn, of Buffy, and didn't let a single regret pass through his heart. He wondered where he would go, a being that housed both a demon and a soul. _Hell_ , he thought with resignation. _No use for it._

Before he could make the final, fatal move, he heard the same groaning as before. _Oh, fuck_ , he thought, bracing himself to be rent into pieces as the tree jerked back into its normal position and the limbs spread out again. Instead, he screamed in agony as the branches pulled cleanly up and out of his body, leaving him on the ground, punctured and bleeding.

And exposed.

Spike screamed again, smoke rising from his body, and somehow found his feet. Half-running, half-crawling, he scrambled for the nearest shelter available: the trunk of the same tree that had nearly killed him.

He slumped in its shadow for long minutes, barely conscious, his wounds oozing and the bright, constant pain from the burns on his body the only true thing in the world. After a while, he raised his head. His crypt was nothing more than rubble, nothing left, no shelter from the killing sun. Spike squinted at the piles of stone. Armchair might have survived, damned ugly thing. Nothing would ever kill it.

Think. Had to be options.

No sewer access nearby, not unless he cared to shift through the ruins until he found the slate slab into the lower level… all the while in direct sunlight. Right now, he really missed his leather coat.

He could wait here until someone came to rescue him. Even through his pain, he snorted. No one had ever ridden to his rescue, except for Dru, and she wasn't a likely hero at this time of day. He thought of the night that the seven hobbits of highly ineffective hellgods had captured him and taken him to Glory. The only reason Buffy had come for him was to kill him before he could talk.

Right, then. He could run for it.

He so did not want to run for it. Flitting from shadow to shadow, getting more charred each time, the increasing pain slowing him down until he simply combusted completely. Nonetheless, the cool part of his brain was busy mapping likely trees and mausoleums en route to the street and the nearest manhole cover.

Waiting would only make it worse, give the sun the opportunity to get higher and stronger. Holding the tree, Spike hauled himself upright, the unhealed muscles in his pierced thighs and calves hot with agony. He focused on a cedar about a hundred years… yards away. Might be able to use vampire speed twice, three times at most, so he should try to get as close as possible to the edge of the cemetery. He took a breath and let it all out, not wanting to waste any energy on a scream. Then he pelted into the pale morning sunlight.

In all, it took about twenty minutes before he dropped blindly into an access tunnel, landing badly on his right side and breaking his clavicle against the metal ladder. Spike rolled over a few times, wanting to get away from the circle of light. He closed his eyes in the blessed dark, lying limply on the broken tile on his stomach. Burned across his torso, back, arms, and feet and still bleeding sluggishly from over fifty wounds, Spike passed out.

He woke a couple of hours later, around ten in the morning, he judged. Not moving, he took a shallow breath, trying to find if anything in particular had brought him around. He didn't smell or hear anything, which was a relief. Not much fight left in him, not right now. Forcing himself up onto his knees, Spike slid into his demon face, looking around at the tunnel, getting his bearings. Mayor Wilkins had done a good job of laying out an underground grid for the demons of the town to get around, but even his engineers hadn't been able to build straight tunnels. Sunnydale was honeycombed with caves and, well, sometimes things on the Hellmouth just plain moved. He was sure that if he could find a way to go north for a half a mile, he would hit the main tunnel that ran beneath downtown.

Half a mile.

Spike narrowed his eyes. On your feet, he ordered himself. Not like it's half a mile in sunlight, is it? Bracing himself against the curved wall, he pulled his battered body upright and staggered forward.

He walked very slowly and, after an hour, made it to a tunnel that led straight and slightly downward for a long way. There were no side avenues to it. There were a few express tunnels like this, all leading to various evil places, but once there, Spike knew he could get back to the surface. Had to, didn't he? World hadn't ended. He had no doubt that Buffy had saved the day once again, somehow. His beautiful, badass Slayer. That meant that there would be a service for Tara. Had to pay his respects, had to be there for his Bit.

Spike went on, almost giving a prayer of thanks when the tunnel began to lead back up again, despite the harder slog. It was close to noon, and he found that he was clutching his stomach. Hungry. Well, yeah, he thought. Been in game face for hours now. No wonder I'm thinking about feeding. He needed blood. No way for the burns and the wounds to heal, otherwise.

Two hours later, Spike saw the first ladder to the surface. He stared at it woodenly, then gritted his teeth and willed his arms and legs to get him to the top of it. It took him ten minutes to climb twenty feet. His eyes shut almost to slits against the afternoon sunlight, he looked out of the grate to see where he was.

Somewhere along the way, the tunnel he was in had passed beneath the main avenue that ran under downtown Sunnydale. He was beyond that, near some big construction project. Then he saw a logo he recognized on a dump truck. It was the same one Xander had on his hard hat. Spike almost chuckled. Sure enough, the express tunnel had led to an evil locus. Harris was working on rebuilding the consolidated high school, which the town fathers, in their great wisdom, were erecting in the same place. Right above the Hellmouth.

He grasped the round sides of the ladder and let himself slide down, wincing as his muscles moved against his broken collarbone. The whelp said the basement and subbasement were finished, and he had no doubt this tunnel led right into one or the other. Then he could find a nice, quiet boiler room or something, sleep until sunset, and make his way to the Summers' house, let Dawn fuss over him. It would make her feel better, give her something real to do as the Scoobies prepared for yet another funeral. Make him feel better, too. But first, he had to have some rest. Good plan, he thought numbly as he passed out of the tunnel and into the basement of the new Sunnydale High School.

⸹

Dawn stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, not sure which way to go. The kitchen held no real appeal, as she wasn't sure if she'd ever be hungry again, but neither did the living room, where Buffy sat talking to Xander. The police had just left, taking down their yellow crime scene tape. It was almost four o'clock now, the day somehow having passed. Anya had teleported between Xander and Willow on Kingman's Bluff, the Magic Box, and the cemetery, keeping everyone informed of developments. Xander had taken Willow to the hospital for a sedative, and Anya had called for an ambulance for Giles. She and Buffy had walked to the hospital, her sister's earlier euphoria fading. Dawn had wanted desperately to ask about what Xander had said. She didn't believe it, she really didn't, but… Spike and Buffy didn't have anything resembling a normal relationship. She'd ask him about it when he came to see her tonight.

What she really wanted to do was go to the couch and tuck herself against Buffy and get a hug, but she couldn't do it while Xander was there, not when she was so mad at him. The two of them were talking about the machinery of death: how Xander's conversation with Tara's family had gone, when her services would be, how to pay for everything. Earlier they had been talking about Willow. She had swung between sobs and near-hysterical babbling, Xander said, before the drugs took effect. Neither of them knew what would happen to her next.

Dawn had just decided to go sit beside Buffy – it was her house, after all – when the doorbell rang. She opened it to find Giles standing there, swaying slightly. He looked worse than he had that morning. When he met her eyes, she knew.

"What is it?" Dawn swallowed, and it hurt, her throat was so dry. Something was wrong with Spike. "What's happened?"

He stepped inside, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Dawn… I went to sit with Willow, waiting for her to wake up. We have a great deal to discuss. When she came to, she wasn't very aware, but I swear to you that it was the first thing on her mind, after Tara."

"What?" Dawn realized dimly that Buffy and Xander had joined them by the open door.

"It seems Willow visited Spike this morning, as she did the two of you, to make sure he didn't interrupt her plans." Giles glanced at Buffy for a second, then turned his intense gaze back to Dawn. "It seems she… she used one of the living trees outside his crypt to pin him to the ground… not long before sunrise."

Buffy paled, the muscles in her face going slack. Then she took a breath and pelted out the door, running flat out at full Slayer speed.

"He's not dead," Dawn said firmly, shaking her head even as she tried to back away from him. "I don't care what you say. I'd know it if he was dead. Just like he knew I was alone with Tara yesterday."

"He's very resourceful," Giles agreed, his hands insistent and warm on her shoulders, "but you must be prepared for the worst."

"No," she said stubbornly. "I don't care what Willow did, he isn't dead."

"He always has been dead," Xander said.

Dawn glared at him. "You… just shut up, Xander."

Xander looked like he had a lot to say, but he didn't. It wasn't the right time. "Look, if Willow is awake, I need to be there."

"A very good idea," Giles agreed, giving him a grateful look. "I'll stay here with Dawn until Buffy returns."

Dawn continued to give Xander a mean look until the door closed behind him. Then she turned back to the Watcher. "Oh, Giles, I'm so sorry." She traded positions with him, putting her arm around his waist. "Come on, you need to sit down."

"Thank you." He waited until she settled next to him, then took her hand. "I thought of calling, but I was honestly so appalled that I didn't trust myself to stay in the same room with Willow." Giles sighed. "I don't know if he told you or not, Dawn, but Spike told me–"

"About his soul, yeah," Dawn said. There was a grave look on her face, but she seemed serene. "He told me you knew. And he told me you checked to see if I had a soul, too. I'm not mad or anything. I'm glad to know."

"Good," he said, with a smile that quickly faded. "That was an extraordinary thing he did," the Watcher said. "Do you know if he ever told Buffy?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I would tell her myself, but he made me promise, just like he didn't tell Glory anything about me."

"I, too, gave my word." He looked down. "When Buffy left… We had a few minutes to talk last night, and she said she and Spike… that she had…"

"Been boinking Spike on the sly?" Dawn rolled her eyes automatically. "Buffy, Queen of Denial."

"So it wasn't an open relationship," Giles said, mostly to himself. "I doubt she knows, then, about the soul." He gave her a sharp look. "And, as close as you are, Spike never confided anything about their… about the change in their… friendship to you?"

Dawn snorted a little. "He said they were 'making out,' but they haven't been seeing each other that way for a while. Weeks, I mean." She shrugged. "Spike brought a date to Xander and Anya's non-wedding, so it was before that." She tilted her head, giving it a little shake. "Why do you want to know about all this?"

The Watcher closed his eyes. "Dawn, I know you don't want to hear this, but from what Willow described, there isn't much chance that Spike could have escaped."

"Buffy and I fought off a bunch of, like, dirt zombies that Willow sent after us. If we could, he could, too."

"But, you see," Giles tried again, "he was pinned, stuck outside in sunlight."

She shook her head emphatically. "If he was dead, Giles, I would know. He's alive." Then she gave him a twisted smile. "Well, you know. But I'm positive. It's like we have a… link, or something."

The Watcher's posture suddenly became rigid. "Did he… taste your blood?"

Dawn rolled her eyes again. "Eww, gross, no." Then she furrowed her brows. "But I have some of his blood in me, sort of." She waited until Giles took his glasses off and began to polish them before continuing. Despite everything, it was neat to be able to get him off-balance. "When Glory had me up on the platform, that little demon, Doc, stabbed Spike in the back with the same knife he used to cut me. He didn't bother wiping it off or anything. I remember thinking that was kind of nasty, you know, unhygienic. He seemed like a fussy little man, and I thought he would wipe Spike's blood off before using the knife on me. Weird what your mind thinks up when you're stressed out, huh?"

"I… apologize, Dawn." Giles put his glasses back on. "I can't tell you that your sense of Spike's… well-being is correct, or how it works, but of all people, you know how powerful blood magic is. If you say you would know, I believe you."

"Thank you," she said simply. "It's a nice change of pace."

"And I'm not asking about Buffy and Spike's, er, relationship out of disapproval or prurient interest. I only wanted to know how best to handle Buffy, help her grieve, if…" Giles took a quick breath. "I wasn't inclined to tell her about the soul if he was dead – er, gone."

She nodded. "But he isn't gone."

"Can you feel him, sense him?"

Dawn shook her head. "Only if he's nearby."

Giles had his researcher's face on, then stopped with his mouth half-open. "My dear, I'm being terribly insensitive." He opened his arms. "If you would allow – and be very careful." The girl smiled slightly and moved in to give him a hug, mindful of the ribs that were broken when he battled Willow. "I'm sorry about your ordeal. I-it isn't something Tara would have wanted you to see."

"I still can't believe it," Dawn said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "It doesn't seem real."

"She was a fine young woman," he said, his eyesight blurring. It had been very, very long twenty-four hours. "We shall all miss her terribly."

⸹

Buffy sat on one stone corner of the ruined crypt and waited for Spike to come home.

Her hands were still scratched from scrabbling through the rubble, making sure he wasn't trapped beneath the rock, her mind flashing on the litter of heavy organ pipes he was once pinned beneath. She had managed to unearth the opening to the lower level. It was mostly empty down there, except for a large pile of charred fabric and wood shoved and swept into the center of the chamber. Spike may have been taking the debris out one load at a time, but it was hard to tell.

Her back was to the tall trees beside the crypt. She didn't want to see them. For a long time she had knelt by the man-shaped series of punctures in the earth, looking for evidence of dust. Hours had passed since sunrise, time enough for the spring breezes to blow away any… anything. Buffy looked at the splintered armchair, unaware of the tears on her cheeks. She vaguely remembered smashing it, raging among the ruins, furious that it was there and whole.

She couldn't sense him, but she would know if he was dead.

She wanted to believe this, but there was too much doubt in her heart. Yes, she had always sensed his presence when he was nearby; now he brushed the edges of her awareness in a way no other being did. But since she didn't love him, would she really feel if he was gone? Because she hadn't had a clue when her mother–

Spike couldn't be gone. For someone dead, he was the most vital person she'd ever met, full of life, full of fun.

Had been.

She couldn't remember the last time she had heard his laugh, his low chuckle. She'd taken that from him, taken everything.

He simply couldn't be… He wasn't gone. He was trapped somewhere by the daylight ( _"Stay. I'm stuck here. Sun's up."_ ), but then he would be free to come home. She would stay here until dark, and he would stroll across the grounds, between the Wagner and the Anderson tombstones, his focus tight on her. And she would… she would hug him. That would be okay. Anybody would give a hug to a… coworker they had been worried about.

Buffy stared at a block of the shattered crypt and waited as darkness began to fall.

⸹

Xander came back to Revello Drive around nine o'clock, after Willow went back into a drug-induced sleep, and found them asleep on the couch, Giles' head on Dawn's shoulder. He didn't like the couch anymore. Every time he looked at it, he thought of Joyce. He didn't understand how Buffy stood living in the house. His own apartment was full of Anya's ghost.

Stiffly, he lowered himself into the wingback chair. He was a mass of bruises where Willow had tossed him around like a hacky sack. The skin of his chest pulled a bit against the stitches where she had slashed him. He was tired and heartsick. Tara was dead. Anya was lost to him, the best thing that had ever happened to him. Willow was going back to England with the Watcher, she said, explaining about the offer from the Coven who had loaned Giles the magic. She had been eager to go, and he could certainly understand why she would want to turn her back on the ugliness that was Sunnydale. And Buffy… Even after they brought her back, Buffy had been gone for a while, and he hadn't even noticed. The Scooby gang had fractured, and he couldn't see any way to put it back together again.

Xander stared at the littlest Summers, not so little any more, taller than her sister. Her lips were parted, but those big blue eyes were shut. Even she had turned away, allying herself with a vampire, of all things. He closed his eyes against tears, and didn't open them. Hell, he'd even lost Spike, who had been something of a buddy during that strange period when Buffy was gone, a fellow male in a group of strong women. No, he wasn't going to think of that… thing. Didn't matter anymore, anyway, not from what Willow had said. He was gone, like so much else.

Anya popped into the physical plane just to the right of the stairs in the Summers house. It was always a good place to aim for, because the chances of teleporting right on top of someone were slim. No one ever stood there for very long.

She was nervous about being here because of sleeping with Spike, but she didn't see or sense the Slayer. Anya walked silently into the living room, where Xander, Dawn, and Giles were asleep. She looked carefully at her almost-husband, then went closer, examining his face. Even in his sleep, he looked tired, although he had lost some of the weight he'd gained before the wedding. Stress eating, she supposed. Hard to believe that he had saved the world, although there was a part of her that always believed he could do anything, the part that had loved him.

Anya hadn't wanted vengeance on him since seeing him outside the Magic Box the night she and Spike had comfort sex. She had doubted that he ever loved her until she saw his face, unable to look at her directly, his self-loathing projected onto the vampire. No wish could have hurt him more than her 'infidelity.'

Not that he didn't deserve to be hurt.

She put out a hand to his face, wanting to touch the growth of beard on his jaw. Anya froze as she sensed someone behind her, and she quickly pulled her traitorous hand away from her ex-fiancé and turned. Buffy was standing at the French doors with Spike's floppy-eared demon friend behind her. Clem, Anya remembered, from the party. Her eyes met the Slayer's for an uncomfortable moment.

"Guys," Buffy said, her face working as if speaking were difficult. She repeated herself, making her raspy voice louder, and the sleeping humans stirred.

When Xander opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Anya turning away from him. He sat up in the chair, stretching out his arm for her, but she was already out of reach. Realizing he was in the Summers' living room, he blinked owlishly. "Buffy," he said, and cleared his throat. He nodded at the demon. "Clem."

"Hey." Clem raised a hand in greeting.

"Giles, this is Clem. Clem, Rupert Giles, my Watcher." Glancing over at the couch where Giles and Dawn were pulling themselves upright, Buffy gave the demon next to her a small smile and went to get chairs from the dining room for them. She carried them back, one heavy chair under each arm, corded muscle standing out. Watching her, Dawn thought of the policeman who dragged his chair. Had that only been yesterday?

"Did you find him?" Dawn asked, rubbing grit from the corner of her eye.

Buffy's lips thinned, and she shook her head. "I was waiting for him at his crypt when Clem came by. It… his crypt is smashed flat. Destroyed."

"Willow said that she trapped him outside the crypt," Giles said.

The Slayer gave a quick nod. "Since we're all here, except…" Willow's name remained unspoken. "Clem and I met up, and I thought you guys would want to hear this, too. Especially you, Dawn." She shot her sister a quick look, then dropped her eyes, covering by taking a seat.

Clem glanced around at the expectant humans before self-consciously sitting down in the chair next to Buffy. "It's a real shame. That was a primo crypt. I wouldn't have minded living there myself." He shrugged. "Probably wouldn't have worked out, though. Sophie has a mold allergy."

"Clem," Buffy said, her voice gentle despite her obvious impatience. "Please tell them what you told me."

"Oh. Okay." He rubbed behind his ear. "Well, since the Slayer died and Spike came back," he began, not noticing Buffy's puzzled look, "he's been looking for the little old guy who hurt Dawn, goes by the name of Doc. Couple of months ago, I overheard some strangers at Willy's looking for Doc. They wanted him to hold some merchandise for them. Businessmen, you know. So I told Spike, like he'd asked me to if I heard anything, and he convinced them his name was Doctor and got in on the deal. He was hoping that by pretending to be Doc, he could draw him out of hiding. Well, it took a while, but it worked. Last couple of days, Doc had been asking after Spike. That's why I was at his crypt last night, wanting to tell him.

"It worked out okay, anyway. Spike was drinking at a demon bar downtown, not far from where we were," he said to Dawn, "and, boy, was he in a bad mood! I heard from a couple of guys who were at the bar that he actually pulled the spine out of a Thanoss demon and showed it to him before he died."

"His spine?" Xander asked.

"A Thanoss demon?" Giles asked.

"Yeah. Big guys, aren't they? Anyway, Doc was in the bar and he followed Spike out and confronted him in the alley."

"What happened?" Dawn asked, her brows drawing together.

"Well, you know," Clem said, ready to brag about his badass buddy, "Spike. He took care of him. Was real careful, too, making sure he was burned and scattered. I understand he wasn't easy to kill."

"So Spike took care of Doc?" Giles asked slowly.

"Oh, yeah," Clem said. "People leaving the bar had to backtrack instead of going down that alley. I heard he took three hours doing it, he was so thorough."

"He tortured him?" Xander asked.

"Oh, no. Spike wouldn't do that." Clem frowned. "Well, he might do that, but he was disposing of the body so the demon couldn't come back."

"Makes sense," Xander said. "I put a sword through his chest, and that didn't kill him."

Dawn hugged herself. "So he's gone."

"Oh, yeah," Clem said again, more emphatically. "I can't imagine any way that any kind of demon could come back, not from what I've heard. Spike wouldn't do a half-assed job of it, not where you're concerned." He gave Dawn an encouraging smile, which she returned weakly.

"Then it's over," Giles said, closing his eyes as if a burden had been lifted. He turned to the girl at his side. "While I was in England, Dawn, I spent a great deal of my time researching…" he glanced at Clem, "Glory and her plans. There was almost no information on her, and even less on the… object she sought. I don't expect that we'll see her ilk again." The Watcher gave Dawn a meaningful look, then turned to Buffy. She slumped a little, he thought in relief.

The Slayer turned to Clem. "Thank you for coming by so late," she said. "I really appreciate it."

He heard the dismissal in her words. "Anytime, Slayer. Happy to help." He stood up. "I'll tell Spike you're looking for him." He waved at the tired humans sitting around him. "See you all later."

Dawn pulled herself up and gave him a careful hug. "Thanks, Clem."

"Aw," he said, embarrassed and pleased. "No problem." He clasped her to him, then stepped away. "Good night."

Buffy put her hands on her thighs, looking down at the floor until she heard the door close behind Clem. "So, there's some good news." She sighed. "I really don't want to do this, not now, not with Tara…" She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "But we need to talk about Spike."

"About time," Xander said.

"I need to talk about Spike," Buffy corrected.

"Buffy?" Anya said from her perch on the hearth. Her voice was diffident. "I'm sorry about… had known you were seeing him, I would never have… you know."

"I-it's okay. We weren't together," Buffy said, pulling a smile from somewhere. Her gaze flitted to Anya, then away. "That's the trouble, isn't it? You didn't know. No one did." Her eyes went to Giles. "Buffy's been keeping secrets again. Just like when Angel came back."

"Only in this case," he said stoutly, "the demon in question hadn't tortured me and can be depended upon not to vacillate between good and evil."

"Dependably evil, that's our Spike," Xander said in a voice bright with venom.

Buffy closed her eyes and took a breath. "After I sang… where I'd been, after the singing and dancing demon left, I followed Spike out of the Bronze. I-it started with a song, and there was… kissing." She shut her eyes more tightly. "Then there was more kissing after Willow's memory spell."

"I don't want to hear this," Xander said, starting to stand up.

"Too bad," Buffy said, her voice stern, cutting her eyes to him and pinning him back. "I have to say it." She sighed again and pushed her hair back from either side of her face. "I couldn't be around you guys, because I was so angry, and I couldn't tell, you know, where I'd been. I-it even hurt to be around you, Giles, and Dawn. Spike… he sang that he was my willing slave. He didn't… I didn't think he needed anything from me. It was… I didn't have to think about where I've been, about you leaving, Giles. It was… an escape."

"He gives good escape," Anya agreed in a matter-of-fact tone.

Giles closed his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Anya. Buffy, why did you keep it a secret?"

The Slayer looked up at the ceiling. "Well, vampire, right? He's evil, and I'm the Slayer." Buffy abruptly stood up, going to stand by the French doors. "But that's not why. We never… it never went any further until," she straightened, as if assuming a burden, "until we found out that his chip didn't work on me."

"His chip doesn't work!" This time Xander did stand up.

"It works," Buffy said quickly, "just not on me. Or demons." At the look on her face, Xander sank back down. He started to say something more, but simply leaned forward and rested his wrists on his knees, waiting for her to finish. "I hit him, he hit me back, I hit him again… and we just went from there. I don't know why it doesn't work on me, and that's why I never told anyone," Buffy said simply.

"While you were gone, Spike confided in me that he didn't believe the chip would keep working indefinitely," Giles said. "My guess is that, since you're more than human, it first stopped seeing you as human." He frowned. "Or, perhaps it's Spike himself who sees you as something more than human since you came back." He gave her a helpless shrug. "I really don't know how the circuitry works."

"I told Tara," Buffy admitted, returning to her chair, "and she checked to see if something had gone wrong with Willow's resurrection spell." She made a face. "I really wish that it had. Tara said it was like I had cellular sunburn or something, that's all."

"Did he hurt you, Buffy?" Xander asked, his voice quiet.

She studied the floor again. "Yes, but I hurt him, too. That was… part of it. The other reason I didn't tell you guys."

"I've seen a lot of girls get caught up in an abusive relationship when they're young, Buffy," Anya said hesitantly. "It doesn't say anything about you."

"I was the abusive one," Buffy said in a quiet voice. "Mostly. Not Spike."

"Oh." Anya scooted a little further along the hearth, away from her.

"Oh, Buffy." Giles voice was sorrowful.

"That's why I ended it, because I didn't like who I was when I was with him." She swallowed. "It's been okay between us, sort of, since then. Except he still wants… and I don't. I never want that again." She closed her eyes.

"Is that what happened the other night?" Xander asked. "In the bathroom?"

"Xander," Buffy said in a tired voice, not looking around at him, "nothing happened. I got hurt fighting a vampire on patrol, hurt my back. Spike came by to talk – he always wants to talk – and I got upset. Then he left. That's all."

"So he didn't try to rape you?" Dawn said in a scathing voice, glaring at Xander.

"No." Buffy looked at her sister for the first time. "He wouldn't. Plus, I'm the Slayer, Dawn. Never gonna happen." Her eyes flicked to Xander for just a second.

For his part, Xander was looking more thunderstruck as this all sank in. "So… he could have bitten you any time since…?"

"November?" Buffy shrugged. She took a deep breath. "I asked him to. I-I tried to force him… to make him mad enough." Her eyes went back to the floorboards.

Giles stretched a hand across the area where the coffee table used to be and took her hand. "If you're telling us now, Buffy, you must be better."

She took a breath. "I'm taking Zoloft, an antidepressant. Spike made me go to the clinic, see a doctor. You remember at my birthday party… Spike's face?"

Dawn sucked in a shocked breath, and Giles glanced over at her, his brows drawn together. Xander had a sick look on his own face.

"He got in my way when I was trying to turn myself in to the police that night that I found Katrina's body, Warren's girlfriend," she explained for Giles' benefit.

"Buffy…" Dawn sounded stunned. "He had those bruises for weeks. And dizzy spells…."

She squinched her eyes tightly shut. "I was in denial for a while after that. When I finally went back to see him, I asked him to," Buffy made herself say the words, so inimical to her nature, "bite me. That's when he made me go see the doctor." She wiped at her eyes. "He got me to tell him about Faith, how I was so afraid I was turning into her." Her voice broke. "He forgave me. I don't–" Buffy leaned forward from the waist, putting her forehead on her hand, still tightly gripping that of her Watcher. He was about to move forward to embrace her when she sat up, heedless of the tears on her face.

"And now I don't know if I'm every going to see him again." She looked at Dawn, agonized, tears streaming from her eyes. "Tara's gone, and Spike… I can't feel him. I can't sense him, but I don't think I have the right to anymore."

Dawn stood up and stared down at her sister. Xander hunched his shoulders, ready for an outburst. Instead, Dawn knelt down beside Buffy and put her arms around the weeping woman. "Shh, Buffy. I can't sense him either, but I would know it if he was dead."

Anya stood up and walked hesitantly toward the sisters. She put her hand on Buffy's shoulder. "He really did forgive you, you know. If he wanted vengeance, I would have felt it." After a second, Buffy let go of Dawn a little to put her hand over Anya's. The demon blinked a little, surprised. She had been sure Buffy would hate her after seeing her with Spike.

Xander watched a tiny smile curve Anya's lips and felt more like the outsider than he had since high school. He took a breath, stood up, and shouldered the burden. "Yeah, Buf. Don't worry about Spike. Like I've said before, he's the cockroach of vampires. He'll outlive us all and a nuclear holocaust, too." She looked over Dawn's head and met his eyes. "Besides, now I have to apologize to him. You know he's not gonna miss that."

A surprised giggle escaped her, and Buffy let go of Anya's hand and covered her mouth, aghast at the inappropriateness of laughter in this house of mourning. Giles gave her hand a final squeeze and stood up.

"That was well done of you," he told Xander in a low voice. The younger man looked at him, taken aback at the praise. Giles felt his heart hurt a little bit more. He wished he could have been at the wedding, had a chance to speak to the boy that afternoon. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Xander really did have a good heart, but, coming from that family, no idea of how to approach emotion with any finesse.

"Buffy," Dawn was saying, "no more secrets, okay? They just make everybody hurt when they come out."

"No more secrets," Buffy agreed.

Her sister looked up at Giles. "Like, Giles checked to see if I had a soul back when you guys first found out I was the Key. I wish he'd told me, because I've worried about that myself."

Buffy also looked up at her Watcher. "You didn't think Dawn had a soul?" Her tone was incredulous, and something inside Dawn thawed at Buffy's steadfast belief in her.

He shrugged. "I didn't know what to think, at the time."

"It's okay, Buffy. I'm so relieved to know, I'm, like, not mad at all about what he did. So, he was worried for nothing."

"I get it, really I do," her sister said, wiping her eyes again. "No more secrets."

Anya was beginning to feel uncomfortable about the discussion of souls. Xander had never asked her whether she had a soul, and it seemed to mean so much to these humans. "Well, I should get going."

"Can I give you a lift?" Xander asked, trying to hide the hope in his eyes.

She started to say that she was just going to teleport, then she reconsidered. "All right," Anya agreed, "if you don't mind dropping me at the Magic Box."

"No, that's fine. I'm on my way back to the hospital, stay with Willow. Her parents will be leaving soon," he added, checking his watch. He stopped in front of Buffy and held out his arms. She hesitated only a second before standing up for a hug. He closed his eyes in relief. Maybe not everything was gone, after all.

⸹

July 2002

Dawn looked out her window at the green leaves tossing in a breeze. Sunlight glistened off the glossy top halves, hurting her eyes. I should be out there, she thought, rollerblading or just laying out in the sun, getting a tan. Buffy and Xander were outside, trying not to singe their eyebrows off while starting up the grill. Xander was going to barbeque chicken for dinner, and she could hear the two of them laughing about something.

A tear rolled down her face and splotched the windowsill. Nine weeks now, over two months, and no Spike. Dawn had made excuses for his absence at Tara's services, particularly in view of Willow's stricken expression. She and Giles had left for England immediately afterwards. Buffy and Clem had searched the sewer network near the shattered crypt for the next two weeks without finding him. After three weeks, her sister broached the possibility that he might really be dead, and Dawn had snapped that it was more likely that she had driven him out of town, like all her other boyfriends. Now she was sorry that she'd said it, but she had no idea how to apologize. After the first month, Anya tried a locator spell, but the entire map burst into flames. Dawn lost it a little, insisting that it meant nothing, that even when Spike did die, he wasn't going to go _there_.

When the eighth week had passed, though… that was when her faith had wavered. He had gone around the world to Africa and made it back to her in less time. Just because she didn't feel like he was gone, didn't mean he was still in Sunnydale. No one else wanted him around very much, after all. Two more tears joined the first as she stared out the window, her calm expression unaltered.

He promised he would stay as long as she needed him. What if he thought that killing Doc was it, was the last thing she needed him to do for her? Buffy was so much better now, his doing as well, the antidepressants helping her through the days of recovery. Spike had eliminated the last threat to the Key and helped restore her to a more-or-less functional family. What more, after all, could a creature of the night do for a human girl?

Be here for the everyday things. Be here for me.

Dawn's mouth opened in a silent sob, more tears pouring down her cheeks. Oh, Spike, please, she thought, touching the smudged pane where she had so often seen his face as he checked in on her. I still need you. Please, come home to me. I need you.

* * *

Next Chapter: Scenes from the Hellmouth, where Buffy learns the weapon she needs against the First Evil is the last one she wants to use.


	7. Scenes from the Hellmouth

**Scenes from the Hellmouth**

Sunnydale

September 2002

"Nibblet," Spike mumbled, standing up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Buffy asked, her voice sharp.

"Bit needs me." He swayed on unsteady legs, glancing around the dark room and trying again to understand where he was.

"Right, Spike. She needed you," Buffy agreed, "but you weren't there for her, remember? You thought you killed Doc, so you went back to your crypt. You never even touched him. He tricked you, and while you were asleep, he killed Dawn and drained every last drop of her blood."

"No," he whispered, sinking back down into as small a crouch as he could, his hands over his ears. He could still hear the accusing voice in his mind, though.

"She died because of you. It's your fault. You said you were going to protect her, but you were sleeping when she died. Some protector you were. She might as well have died on that tower a year ago." Buffy crouched down next to him. She sounded almost bored. "Dawn did need you, Spike, but not anymore. She's dead. Can't you remember that?"

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry, so sorry." He put out a hand to her.

"Don't touch me," she said, standing to stride a few paces away. "Never touch me again. It's your fault she died. You failed her."

"No, no, God no, Dawn," he said, the last word a moan of pain.

"I'm leaving," Buffy said, disgust in her voice.

After a long time, Spike lifted his head. It was always dark down here, no sun and no problem for his monster's eyes. Sometimes he knew where he was (under the school, can't believe those idiots built it over the… over something, not after the first…), but mostly he was inside himself.

Too often, he saw people who were long gone or who couldn't be here, his mother, his father, people he had killed, Drusilla, Harmony, Angelus, even Darla, once. But there couldn't be vampires, could there? Buffy wouldn't let vampires live in her town anymore; she told him so every time she came. Only him, because she couldn't bring herself to stake him. She told him he had to stay here because he wasn't safe around people. This was his prison. The chip had failed, and his soul was forfeit when he let Dawn die.

The worst thing was that he could still feel Dawn, almost hear her calling for him. It was like the afternoon Tara died (had that been his fault, too?), when he had known something was wrong, that his girl needed him. Maybe he should go to Revello Drive. Maybe then he could believe she was really gone. Only he was so weak; he hadn't fed in so long.

"My Spike?"

He raised his head. "Dru?" he asked, his voice hoarse. He had no idea how long it had been since Buffy left him.

"Look at what a mess you are!" she scolded. "Let yourself go, all rawboned and shaggy like a winter pony. You've been up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire, but it's time to wake now. You need to eat." Drusilla swanned into his line of sight, almost dancing. "Are you hungry, my Spike?"

"Hungry," he repeated. The word had no meaning.

"You want it," she said with certainty, "all hot and red and flowing. Just like when we hunted during Rio Carnival, with the sounds of the drums, the drums." She swayed side to side, her head cocked as she listened to the memory of the music. Then she stopped and gave him a sly, sidelong look. "Can you smell it, Spike?"

He could, he realized, catching the scent of rich, coppery blood.

"Mummy's got a treat for you," Dru sang, and she moved away. Instead of turning to keep her in sight, Spike closed his eyes and focused on that lovely scent, lifting his head toward it the way he used to sniff the air on bake day, when Cook always made a cinnamon bun just for Master William.

Spike's eyes widened when he opened them. Two tall, burly figures in rough robes were supporting an unconscious human between them. The man's captors had X's sewn over the empty sockets where their eyes had been. His body tensed for a fight, but his eyes were riveted on the slow trickle of blood coming from the human's temple.

"All for you, Spike," Dru said, clapping her hands in delight. "Mummy's going to make you all well, just like you made me all well." She was behind him now. "Go on, eat," she urged, as the robed figures hauled the injured man within inches of him.

"He looks so real," he whispered, and realized he had gone to demon face without intending to, his mouth watering. The unconscious man was older than he would have chosen for himself, but as starved as he was, the blood smelled nearly as good as a Slayer's. Spike raised the back of his hand to his mouth, afraid drool might drip off his fangs.

"Of course he's real, silly, silly Spike," Drusilla chided. "Real and yummy. Nothing but the finest for my black knight."

Even slowed by weeks of deprivation, his strike at the man's neck was too fast for human sight to follow. He pulled the blood into his body, feeling the heat like an explosion in his torso. The wonderful warmth filled him, spread strength from his abdomen into his limbs, and he rose up on his knees to push the two wardens away. Mine, he thought, unaware that he had snarled, and fed ravenously.

Then he pulled free, wiping his hand across his lips even as his human features came into dominance. Open-mouthed, he took several ragged breaths. No doubt that was real, more potent than any drug. He'd fed off a human. The chip hadn't fired. Spike fell to his side, trying to wrap his mind around those two disparate thoughts.

"Your turn, Spike. Share now. Mustn't be greedy," Drusilla said, her words a hiss near his ear. "Give him a little drink."

He turned his head to look up at her, shocked. "Dru… you know I don't sire."

"We need minions. Do it for me?" she wheedled, her luscious lips making a little pout.

Spike stared up at her mouth, her dark hair falling until it was almost a curtain around him. The blood he'd consumed slid into his groin, and he reached for her. "Maybe you can convince me…."

The dark-haired beauty flashed away. "Naughty Spike. No puddings for you if you don't finish your dinner."

"You want him turned so much," Spike said, irritated, "you do it."

Drusilla looked disdainfully down at the slumped human. "Don't want to. Don't like him. He's all full of worms and dandelion fluff."

Spike gave her a sharp look. Even for Dru, that was an odd combination. "Anyway, you got minions, I guess," he said, gesturing at the two mute shapes against the far wall. "Poke their eyes out, did you, poodle?" She'd done it before, had been fascinated by it after briefly losing her own sight in Paris so long ago.

"None of your pet names," she growled. "I'm very cross with you." She clapped her hands together twice. "Take him away," Dru ordered imperiously, and the two robed minions came forward to drag the man out of the room.

"Let him go, Dru." Spike looked up at her. "Put him outside for the night watch to find. You know it attracts attention if people go missing."

She gave him a serious look. "Why should you care if he lives or dies? He's dross, human. You're a splendid dark creature. I made you that way, to tear and slash." She raked her fingers through the air in example, then the sly look slid back onto her face. "Think you should care because you've got a soul? Lost it, went away, all gone." She washed her hands in front of her. "Only Daddy has a soul now." Dru looked at him avidly, as if waiting for his reaction.

"What's with you tonight?" he asked, really puzzled now. The thought of Angelus having a soul inevitably put her in a weepy mood.

Dru's chin went into the air and anger glittered in her wide eyes. She waved a hand at him and a bright shard of pain knifed into his brain. Crying out, Spike's hands flew to his head, cradling his temples with his palms, hoping that might keep his mind from flying apart. The chip still worked, apparently.

Some unknown time later, he woke up. Taking a couple of shallow breaths, he tried to get a lucid grasp of what was going on. First, physically, he felt better than he had in some time, if light-headed. He ran his hand down his arm. The punctures from the tree Willow had sicced on him had finally healed. He tried the wounds on his torso. They were gone, too, not even scar tissue left, but his ribs seemed oddly prominent. I really had human blood, right from the tap, he thought. It's the only thing could have done it.

Spike sat up cautiously, checking the long room he was in with his peripheral vision first, then turning his head to scan each corner. He was alone, but where? Absently running his fingers across his legs, feeling the whole flesh under each hole the limbs of the tree had made in his jeans, he let his awareness drift out as far as he could, checking for the presence of any human or demon.

The high school, he remembered. I hit an express tunnel to the Hellmouth. How long have I been here?

"Spike?" Buffy's voice was tentative. She was standing at the door far back from him, as if ready to run.

"Buf – Slayer," he corrected himself.

"How are you today?"

"Better, I think." He pulled himself to his feet. It was easier to stand now. "What's been going on?"

"You… got loose the other night. Killed a man, a human."

He stared at her, then began to shake his head. "No. No, I–"

"You're not well, Spike," she said, a miserable look twisting her face. "If my friends knew you were alive and killing again… But I can't make myself do what I should…" Buffy raised her hand high enough for him to see the stake she held.

"Buffy," he said firmly, "if I were killing again, I'd do it myself."

"Spike, you've fed from a human."

"Well, yeah, but I never killed any–"

"You're not well, Spike. You don't remember things right. Think. What's the last thing you remember, other than this room?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Being ventilated by your best friend, escaping, hiding from the sunlight in the tunnels, ending up here."

"Do you remember," she hesitated, cutting her eyes away to avoid the look on his face, "about Dawn?"

Everything crashed down on him again, driving him to his knees. Dawn, as drained and pale as if from a vampire, as dead as if he'd done it himself. The image of her, cold and still and betrayed, filled his mind. Had he seen her like that, or was it a nightmare? Didn't matter. His fault. No escape. He heard her plaintive cries in his mind. _I need you, Spike. Where are you? Why did you leave me?_ Oh, Nibblet, 'm sorry. So sorry. Spike crumpled to his side, drawing up in a fetal position, keening in the darkness.

Buffy watched from the doorway, a clinical look on her face. She needed him strong, needed him to be a killer, but the human blood had made him strong in the wrong ways. His love for the girl was the key to controlling him. Buffy frowned a little. That word, 'key'… she couldn't chase it down in his mind, couldn't persuade or torture its meaning out of him. There were a few locked places in his head that she simply couldn't get to.

Yet.

⸹

Dawn was looking at gold earrings in the display case when a hand touched her arm. She jumped, feeling guilty. She supposed she was going to feel that way for a long time whenever she was in the mall.

"Excuse me," the dark-haired clerk asked, "but did a man named Spike give you that bracelet?"

Dawn touched her wrist. "Yes. He did."

"He got it here."

Dawn nodded. "I really like it." She studied the woman's face and clothes, finding her marginally less skanky up close. "You're Mindy, right?"

She lifted her nametag from the waistband of her short black skirt. "That's me."

"I'm Dawn. I saw you at the wedding." They shook hands. "So, have you worked here long?"

The girl nodded. "This is my last week, though. I'm getting married at the end of the month."

"Oh, uh, congratulations."

"Thanks." Mindy didn't look very happy, and she didn't look friendly, either, though she was acting that way. She tilted her head, studying Dawn. "I had a good time that afternoon, at your friend's wedding. Afterwards, too. Spike is the best kisser. I haven't seen him for a while."

"Me, neither," Dawn admitted.

"I never did get to see as much of him as I would have liked."

Dawn giggled a little at the forlorn look on the clerk's face. "Oh, I know what you mean. I had, like, this huge crush on him when I was a lot younger."

"Well, he really thinks the world of you," Mindy said. "He spent more time picking out that bracelet than he did your sister's ring."

"Her ring?" Dawn echoed.

Mindy nodded. "I woman would have to be crazy to turn down a ring like that. Then he brought it back, in a burned box, no less…" She trailed off and waited expectantly for the story.

"Yeah, that's my sister," Dawn mumbled, covering, "crazy." Burned box… It would have happened around the time Riley was in town and burned the lower level of Spike's crypt. "Do you still have the ring? I never saw it."

Mindy nodded and led her over to one of the interior display cabinets. "There, the second one from the right."

"The emerald with two diamonds?" At Mindy's nod, Dawn bent closer. It was gorgeous – posh, Spike would have said – but tasteful, and she could picture Buffy wearing it. She looked up at the clerk. "Trust Spike to pick something unusual."

"Do you want to try it on?"

"Oh, can I?" she squealed. Dawn almost jumped up and down, but remembered in time that she was outgrowing that.

Mindy went around the counter and unlocked the cabinet. "It's really good quality. He knows his gems."

Dawn nodded distractedly. She had just seen the price sticker. That was a lot of numbers. "I can't believe how much this is," she said, deciding that she wasn't going to try it on after all.

"Emeralds are the most expensive stones," Mindy said.

"I thought diamonds were."

"Diamonds aren't even all that rare," the clerk said, studying Dawn again. Her expression never changed. "The supply is very tightly controlled, though, so that the price stays high."

"Is that legal?"

Mindy shrugged. "No one cares. It's not as if diamonds are a necessity like food. OPEC does the same thing with oil, anyway."

Dawn pushed the ring back across to Mindy, who locked it up. She had a feeling that the clerk had wanted her to see the price on it, but didn't know why. It just made her feel sad, and she thought of the afternoon that he apologized to her for not being able to forge the three of them into a family. "Thanks for showing me."

"No problem." Mindy clipped the key back onto her nametag. "So, how did you and your sister get mixed up with a vampire?"

Her jaw dropped. "You know?" she whispered, glancing around to see if anyone had overheard.

"Hard to be that close to a guy and not know."

"I managed to do it once," Dawn said dryly, then added, "not Spike, some other guy."

"I figured you and your sister must be pretty special for a vampire to care that much for you. They mostly don't have the higher emotions."

Dawn shook her head. "Not so much us. Spike's special that way." _Love's bitch_.

"You miss him?"

"I do." She met Mindy's eyes.

"That's the bad thing when people break up. Friends tend to have to take one side or the other. I guess sisters don't have much choice."

"No, blood's thicker than whatever," Dawn agreed. It was way too complicated to explain. "Well, I'm supposed to be shopping for back-to-school clothes." Buffy had allowed her forty dollars, and she also had two hundred saved from what Spike had given her.

Mindy was looking glumly at a couple who had wandered in to look at wedding bands. "Look, when you see Spike, tell him I said hi and to look me up if he's ever in Beverly Hills."

"I will," Dawn promised, hoping she would get a chance to keep it. While Mindy was talking to the other customers, she fled the store.

⸹

"Slayer?" The sound of his hoarse voice was shocking in the silence, and Spike cringed a little. Even as he did it, he took an uncertain step toward the door where Buffy stood. "What's wrong?" Her face had the familiar pinched quality from the time she'd started the useless job at the Double Meat, and her eyes were glittering.

She took a hitching breath. "I'm tired, Spike. So tired."

Another halting step. "How can I help? Let me – I can help."

After a long moment, she met his eyes. "You can help."

"What do you need me to do?" Please, don't let it be anything beyond me, he thought. I'm so weak right now.

"Kill me. That's what you do to Slayers, isn't it? Kill them. I need you to kill me, Spike."

He shook his head and retreated to his original spot by the wall, covered his ears for a fleeting moment with his restless hands. Unsure of what to do with them, he crossed his arms and tucked his fingers in his armpits, and refused to look at her.

"Please, Spike. I-I want to go," she said in a soft voice, the smell of her tears in the dank room, "back."

"No." It was small, a mutter, but it seemed there was something he could deny her.

"I know you'd make it quick."

"No!" His body protested as he stood with a straight spine and squared shoulders for the first time in so long, roaring his dissent into her suddenly expressionless face.

"You owe me! You let Dawn die, and that means there's nothing for me here, nothing for me to live for. Come on, Spike," she spat, "you know you want to. That's what you do, isn't it? You kill Slayers. You kill everything. Everything you touch ends up dead, and God knows you've touched me." There was disgust on her face now, and he wondered which of his treasured memories were her hated ones. "Just finish it," she said, weary again, letting her hands fall limply at her sides.

"No." He said the word precisely.

The Slayer was silent for a time, then she turned away. "I don't know if I can come back here."

"Bu…" Spike watched the door close behind her, unable to say her name. His weak and battered body ached, but it was nothing beside the pain of knowing that the Slayer was hurting. Spike slumped against the wall, then crumpled to the dirty concrete floor, his knees giving way. Covering his face, he sobbed into his hands. When she looked at him, she only saw a monster. And he was a monster; he knew that. But even before he had a soul, he'd been just a little more human than other vampires, a tiny bit less demonic. He knew he had, even if no one else ever saw it – except Angelus. There were things he'd done, if not good things, things that exasperated his grandsire enough to punish him. He could prove her wrong, prove that he'd never been as vicious as all that, if he could only remember, but all he could see was Angelus' grim disappointment and the flash of his fists. Exhausted, Spike's brain simply shut down, and he fell into a restless sleep. After a while, he dreamed.

⸹

[Author's note: This section has graphic violence and fairly explicit sex, as vampires use and consume humans.]

Paris, 1886

"Those two, then."

The rest of the family followed Angelus' gaze, which rested on a boy of ten or so and his mother. The boy had stopped at the intersection below the balcony of their current home in Paris to watch a street performer's monkey. The four of them were dressed to go out for the evening, and they leisurely stood above the avenues watching people stroll by, like lions viewing the savannah from a cliff.

Spike knew why Angelus had chosen the pair to be their prey tonight. The mother had been impatient as she stood near the boy, not as captivated by the monkey's antics as her son. Angelus had dismissed them at first, his eyes roving over the many couples and groups passing below, but his gaze kept settling on the child. He was a beautiful boy, dark of hair and eye, and just before Angelus decided, he had turned to say something to his mother. The woman had laughed in surprise and pride, then wrapped him in a hug that he tried to duck. She regarded him with delight, her loving smile transforming her face from fair enough to beautiful. She had the look of a mother who would do anything to protect her son, and that had put a smile on the dark-haired vampire's lips. Doomed by love, Spike thought. Poor sods.

Angelus turned to leave the balcony, Darla on his arm. Drusilla slyly moved up on his other side to ask a question and place an innocent hand on his sleeve, wanting to be escorted, too. Spike gave the mother and son a final look, then began to follow, pulling down the cuff of his shirt so that the itchy wool coat could no longer scratch his wrists. Darla loved the guise of rich and respectable, so Angelus loved it, too, wool coats and all. And Dru was always up for a new dress. But he had spent his life in formal, uncomfortable clothes like these. It didn't seem fair to have to wear them even after being dead.

They would stroll out onto the wide streets, two young, wealthy couples of leisure, when he was so tired of a measured gait. He wanted to walk with long, vulgar strides, rolling his hips, feel like the predator he was instead of a horse mincing on shortened bearing reins. They were going to sip; Spike wanted to quaff. They were going on a surgical strike of a hunt; Spike wanted a brawl. But it didn't matter what he wanted. He was the youngest, only six, younger in vampire years than the doomed boy outside was in human years.

He watched Drusilla, who had indeed attached herself to Angelus' arm. He wanted her, too, but on his own terms. He was trying something new, and it was failing miserably. He had not sought Dru out intimately since they had moved to Paris two months ago. He performed as expected within the large bed the family was sharing in their new home, but had not touched her otherwise. She hadn't noticed. She hadn't sought him out, either. He'd avoided being caught alone by either of the two older vampires, though, so there was at least one good thing about sodding France.

Angelus leaned over and murmured something wicked to Drusilla, who squealed with delight. Spike put an automatic smile on his face as he held Darla's cape for her, waiting until she deigned to let him drape it over her shoulders. Dru was an idiot if she thought she was the cause of her 'Daddy's' good mood. More likely, he was considering how much he could coerce the young mother to do once he had her son by the neck, or vice versa.

Angelus lifted Dru's little paw from his arm and turned to help their matriarch tie her cape. The smile faded from Dru's porcelain face, petulance and hatred flashing in her eyes for a moment. She feared both senior vampires equally, wanted attention from them equally, but did not love Darla. She'll never understand why his attention has moved on, Spike thought with a flicker of sadness. Or maybe she did, and that's ultimately what kept her insane, knowing that she could never be fixed enough for Angelus to want to break her again.

"Here, love," he murmured, more softness in his tone than he'd allowed for weeks. He held her cape out, too.

She stared at it for a moment, then gave him a smile full of discovery. "You're a matador!"

Spike blinked, then realized that the cape was red. "I am your matador," he agreed, recovering quickly and fastening the frogs at her neck, "and you are strong and beautiful as an enraged bull," lifting her hands and fashioning her index fingers into little horns at her temples, "who will defeat me utterly." She giggled, and he backed away from her as she ran in little circles, trying to poke his chest with her horns. He almost laughed himself, it was so good to have her back as a playmate on any level.

"Stop being ridiculous," Darla said, her voice sharp. "You're making us late for our supper date."

They stopped immediately, and Spike went to hold the door, snaking out a hand to snag his own overcoat as he passed. He had no fear they would miss their dinner companions. He just hoped that most of the blood would end up inside his family instead of on the carpets. It was his job to clean up anything that might upset the human servants.

He tucked Dru's hand into the crook of his elbow and covered it with his own, playing the attentive lover even as he became more distant. He wished he didn't have to try these little experiments. There was something fundamentally wrong with him, he knew, obvious in these attempts. He hadn't needed the bloodlink with Angelus to know it, the older demon prowling through his mind like a patronizing buyer at a disappointing auction. Why couldn't he just accept things? He knew his role in the family: he was the youngest and had the most to learn. He was nurtured and indulged, not in the way humans understood it, but nonetheless. His job was to watch the masters and learn, which he did. He had no doubt that he could fend for himself with only his fangs for, well, forever.

What Angelus and Darla had to teach him, however, went beyond hunting expertise. They awed him; there was nothing so heinous that it exceeded their grasp. But he never understood why they did it nor had the desire to revel in the depravity. He liked open battle with the odds at least close to even, just to keep things interesting. He was, he supposed, too impatient. If Angelus had bored him enough, he would bring up the lack of glory in toying with prey, ensuring a quick, painful end to that boredom. And when the day burned brightly outside, he would admit the ultimate, shameful truth to himself: it mattered to him that there was no honor in it. He wondered sometimes about Dru calling him the bravest knight in all the land. Maybe she'd jinxed him.

The dark-haired boy was escorting his mother about fifty yards ahead of them, and they – as he had known they would be – were strolling along with no particular haste. He and Dru nodded automatically at whomever Darla inclined her head toward, her magnificent hat bobbing. Spike didn't know why she would nod at one passing person and ignore the next, and he had no interest in knowing. There was no interest in this sort of hunt for him, either. They had done it this way so often that he was accomplished at it, but it was a dull way to earn one's daily bread.

Since he had been beaten several times in the past for saying this aloud, he learned to keep his opinions to himself, his thoughts hidden from his grandsire unless utterly bored. He was, in fact, punished severely for any lapse, from not using a technique that the older vampires had demonstrated to not keeping the fires lit. The thing he'd been sired for, caring for Dru, he did flawlessly. But, then, caring for people was the one thing that had come naturally to him as a human. As for the rest… It had been almost five months since Angelus had broken any of his bones or Darla had carved him so badly he couldn't appear in public. Spike couldn't bring himself to bother to misbehave. He was beginning to think that he had fallen into a melancholy.

The crowds were thinning out now, and the mother and son were only thirty feet away. Angelus bent his head to murmur something to Darla, and Spike saw the mother turn to look at the stylish couples behind her, a slight crease on her brow. He checked the surrounding buildings automatically, looking for shadows, for footholds or spars to cling to, for gatherings of people who might become angry mobs. Oh, for a good angry mob…!

He sighed, and when Drusilla looked up at him curiously, he gave her a small smile and patted her hand. Dru was a godsend – well, not that, but she was the brightest thing in this new life. Before he died, he had toed the line, been polite through gritted teeth, been good mostly because he was good and sometimes because he was expected to be. All of his boyhood dreams of travel and adventure were put away after his father died, making him the very young man of the house. He had been dull, because that's what men of his breeding were, and the only vibrant thing left in that life had been turning his overlarge vocabulary into verse. But at least then he knew he would be a proper English gentleman, die, and go to heaven. Now he would be good at being the youngest in his family, and things would just go on being dull forever, because he would never again sire anyone, so there would be no one new to take his place as the youngest.

He squeezed Dru's fingers, feeling guilty. She had rescued him from extreme monotony; he was ungrateful to think of this as tedium. The woman and boy were only fifteen feet ahead now, and whatever residual sense of imminent danger humans have had triggered. They were walking more purposefully, and their blood would be moving faster through their bodies, little hearts pumping, pumping. Spike thought of the hot taste sliding over his tongue, and a genuine smile lit his face. Beside him, Dru gave a small, puppyish growl. Their prey walked faster.

Not that he would get that warm, spicy tang when he fed tonight; the only time he tasted that flavor was when he hunted alone. No, by the time his fangs sank into the woman's neck (he was sure Darla would keep the veal for herself and Angelus), her blood would be cold with dread, acrid. It was, he supposed, like wines. People always said that there were some vintages that were acquired tastes, but he didn't know from experience. His human family had been teetotalers.

Angelus and Darla had acquired a taste for blood heavy and chilled with fear, with much of it spilled, poured on the bed or the floor like libation to some barbaric god. Spike would immobilize their victims, or the victim's loved ones as they were forced to be voyeurs in some dark tableau. He would slice off fingers or ears, or hold eyelids open, or whatever he was told, really. But he never watched with the rapt, ecstatic attention that Dru displayed. No doubt, she was Angelus' child.

Just over a year ago, in Copenhagen, he had seen a woman go mad before his eyes, watched her sanity fray like threads from a linen cloth, unable to choose which of her twin infants would get to live. Neither had, of course. Darla had indulgently called him over afterwards and let him feed briefly on the woman's wrist, her cool fingers in his hair. He had thanked her, smiled, and gotten away as quickly as possible. It hadn't occurred to him that vampires could vomit, but he had never, alive or dead, tasted anything as foul as that woman's blood.

Barely ten feet, and now their prey made the first evasive move. The mother turned her son abruptly down an alleyway that led toward the river, veering off like rabbits that hoped the shadow of the pursuing owl would glide straight past them. No such luck. Angelus turned his head slightly, and Spike took his cue, slipping away from Drusilla's side and taking to the rooftops. There he would observe, ready to perform a flanking movement if necessary. It wouldn't be, though. They would only need him if they misjudged and drained too much blood from one or both meals. Then he would carry the swooning human back to the lair for the supper show.

He watched from his vantage point as the three vampires closed the distance. The woman was out front now, towing her son by the arm, the rapid click of her high heels like the sound of a tightly wound watch. She darted out into the next street, and Spike saw a third human move from the shadows to take her by the arm. The three moved into the glow of a streetlamp, and Spike recognized the uniform of a policeman. After making sure the man's scent could reach his family, he studied the gendarme as the mother spoke in indistinct but rapid bursts, gesturing back down the alleyway. The man cocked his head to one side and walked into the darkness.

The mother and son backed away, moving from the alley and further up the street until they were at a bridge. No other humans were about. Spike loped across two more rooftops to stay close to them, but they stopped, turning to watch the mouth of the alley. They didn't have to wait long. The body of the policeman flew out of the darkness, across an impossibly far distance, and crashed into the brick pillar of the bridge to the left of the small family. Spike's mouth curved; looked like Darla's handiwork to him. The mother and son cried out in fear, and the woman went immediately to the fallen man, her skirts puddling on the street. Even from this height, Spike knew there was no help she could give the gendarme now.

His own family emerged from the shadows, their demon faces showing in the light of the streetlamps, in no hurry to finish the hunt. He heard the boy gasp, and Spike went down the side of the building, a squat warehouse, staying high enough to see, but close enough to the ground to cut off escape if the prey should run. He hoped they would. He could see them clearly in the light from the lamps on the bridge. The mother looked up from the body at her feet to her son's face, then she turned to see what had him staring.

"Ma…" the boy whispered. "What's wrong with their faces?" Not French then, but his English didn't place him as a countryman, either.

Spike her heard inhale sharply. "Ahsagayna," she breathed slowly. His brow furrowed at the syllables. It wasn't any language he knew. She turned to her son, taking his arms in her hands, and gave him an urgent shake. "Run back to the hotel and get help."

This made him tear his eyes away from the approaching demons. "No! I can't leave you," he protested.

"Robert Horace! Mind me!" She ran her hands down his arms, a caress at odds with her harsh words. "You're faster than me. Don't come back without help."

"Ma, they might hurt you, too." The boy's voice was miserable, and something inside Spike twisted, memories of another son who couldn't save his mother.

"As long as you're safe, nothing can hurt me," she reassured the boy, letting go of his arms. "Run as fast as your name," she added, pushing on his chest. Spike's brow furrowed again, trying to recall any Robert Horaces known for speed. When her son hesitated, her face contorted with fear and grief for a moment, then returned to a stern parental mask. "Gayhah!" she ordered sharply, and the boy turned and ran. He was fast, and he was over the bridge before Spike could flank him. Settling on his haunches by the warehouse, Spike waited for instructions. He wasn't worried about the boy; his scent trail was vivid with fear, and there was no doubt in Spike's mind that he would be back. You didn't just abandon your mum.

The mother was staring at the approaching trio, now halfway from the alley to where she knelt by the bridge, coming with no haste. She tugged at something on the policeman's body, and Spike saw her withdraw his sword from its scabbard. She stood, turning to face the predators, and he heard fabric rend as the weapon caught in her skirts. The woman took a couple of steps forward, facing the threat, holding the sword like a club in her right hand. A grim smile touched his face. Wonderful. There was no way Angelus would leave the sword when he took the mama bear. Looked like a lot of cleaning in his immediate future.

"Ye'll hurt yourself with that," Angelus told her, amusement in his voice. "Shall I show ye how to wield a sword?" He moved his hand slightly from his side, and Dru obediently stopped, letting the older vampires close on the woman. The human didn't reply, only lifted the sword a bit higher. Angelus smiled. "Ye're a feisty one, aren't ye?"

Darla laughed indulgently. She and her mate were less than six feet from the mother now. "Do you really think you can save your little boy?"

Spike rose to his feet, taking this as his signal to pursue the son, but he didn't turn away quickly enough. What he saw next paralyzed him.

The woman shifted suddenly, moving to her left, her sliced skirts allowing her freedom of movement. At the same time, she tossed the sword into her left hand. With the switch, she looked like a swordsman instead of a desperate mother. She's left-handed like me, Spike realized, full of admiration for her stealth.

Wasting no time now that she had revealed herself, she took a single step forward, the sword flashing in front of her, high and flat. The sharp tip took Angelus at the throat, slicing through perhaps a third of his neck, cutting tendons and ligaments and arteries. Their former prey went with her momentum, letting her body spin until she was facing the bridge. Spike heard a sharp slap as her right hand came down on her left forearm, bracing it as she shoved the sword backwards, right into Darla's gut. The dark-haired woman jerked sharply upwards, carving his great-grandsire from hip to ribcage. With a vicious twist, their erstwhile prey pulled the blade from Darla.

She turned again to face the injured predators, moving back toward the bridge, sword at the ready. The whole thing had taken a handful of seconds, and they stood frozen, Angelus holding both hands at his neck, Darla with her arms curved around her abdomen. Dru stood several yards behind them, oblivious, looking up at the night sky.

Then a delighted smile took Spike's mouth. Now this was great fun! Darla and Angelus looked so stunned, so ridiculous as they protected their injuries. A woman, a mere human, had just bettered his all-powerful sires. Couldn't be the Slayer; she was in Russia, Angelus had said, and this woman was too old, anyway, didn't know how to kill vampires. But… they weren't impervious. If this human could hurt them, they were vulnerable. Things weren't set in stone.

Things might change.

A rising sound, like a teakettle just coming to boil, hit his ears, shaking him from this pleasurable realization. Dru had noticed, it seemed. It hit him a second later, the unpleasant smell of vampire lifeblood, and he recoiled. Then he looked past the three closest figures to where Dru stood, screeching, beginning to wave her arms in short up-and-down bursts as she panicked. Overwhelmed, she flew to her sire's left side, fluttering around but afraid to touch him.

Her piteous moaning and hovering set Angelus on edge. He backhanded her, and Dru went flying, landing a good ten yards away in an ungainly heap, her dress smeared with his blood. He lifted a shaking finger and pointed it at the woman, drawing in air with a ghastly sucking noise, but his vocal cords were too damaged for speech. Spike grinned again. How many times had he wished he could make the great poof shut it?

Darla finally looked up from staring in disbelief at her stomach, the ruins of her gown. Her high brow ridges stood out starkly from beneath the ridiculous hat in the gaslight, and Spike saw her face twist with hatred. She took a step forward. "You bitch!" she cried, her voice gaining volume so that the last word was a howl of rage. She advanced one more step, then crumpled to her knees, her eyes going once again to her own body. Spike nearly laughed at the sheer poetic justice of Darla being gutted. She did love to use a blade, often enough on his own flesh. And was that a bit of intestine bulging out of her dress?

The human backed away again, on the bridge now, not taking her eyes off the three demons in front of her. She changed her stance, the sword now pointed low in a classic Fool's Guard, and continued to back away. At the highest point of the bridge, she began to turn, readying herself to run. That's when a pair of cool, strong hands fell on her shoulders.

"Hullo, love."

She squeaked, the first noise she'd made since ordering her son away. Spike gloried in it. He had wrung a cry of alarm from this warrior who had so calmly incapacitated the strongest members of his family. Imprisoned in the iron cage of his arms, she squirmed, trying to turn on him. Sliding his left hand down to her wrist, he took control of the sword. As she struggled, he realized the woman had no unusual strength to draw on, and his admiration for her went up another notch.

He hesitated no more than two seconds, considering his options, then lowered his face and sank his fangs into her neck. The blood was hot and vivid with her agitation. Spike wanted to drain her, to utterly defeat her, but he had already decided. Forcing his will on the demon, he drank slowly, something he had never before done on his own. It was wonderful, like sinking into a hot bath or nursing a steaming cup of cocoa on a cold day. Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, he savored the rich taste. He pulled her back against him as she relaxed into the proper role of prey once more, docile and drugged by his feeding. He was performing for his watching family once again, but they hadn't called for this scene. He slid the pad of his thumb just past the hilt of the sword, slitting his skin.

Spike opened his eyes, mischief in their yellow depths, then lifted his hands to her neck. He carefully positioned them so it looked as if he were preparing to snap it, holding his cut against her parted lips. Swallow, he willed her silently, and gave himself over to the joy of her tangy blood on his tongue as he waited. Dru had moved close to Angelus where he had fallen onto the street, her shocked eyes locked on her sire.

He felt the woman's throat move, swallowing his blood in turn, and suddenly the bloodlink opened, just as he'd been told it would. He had acquired his first thrall. _Throw me off you_ , he commanded her, and she did. Gathering himself, he sprang away from her, his fangs leaving her neck, and did a credible job of looking as if she had tossed him against the railing of the bridge. He launched himself into a flip as he hit, rolling over the side, and hung there above the water of the Seine, a wicked grin on his face.

 _Run_ , he ordered silently, and he was taken aback when he didn't hear her comply. Pulling himself up just enough to peer over the rail, he saw that the woman was staring at Dru, who stood a mere foot from her. Dru's eyes were wide and dark and focused on the young mother. As he watched, the sword fell from her hand and clattered on the bricks.

 _Fight it!_ He snarled the command into her mind. _Run!_ The woman tried to obey, to escape the mesmer, but her jerky movements sent her stumbling awkwardly away from the approaching vampiress. She fell backwards, and Dru was on her in a flash.

Spike was enraged, almost roaring, wanting to go over the railing and tear Dru's throat out, to stand between his sire and the thrall he had just marked. Mine! How dare she! I'll kill her!

Shocked by the thought of hurting Dru, he felt himself go cold, battle-ready. Because it was a war. If he played this wrong now, they would unmake him, and not quickly.

 _Don't look at her eyes_ , he commanded his thrall, putting his will on her. The human moaned with effort, but Dru's hold was too strong, and she could not do as ordered. Instead, she raised her left hand to Dru's face, and for a moment it wanted to become a welcoming caress. But Spike was in her blood as well as her mind, and her fingers stiffened, slightly curved. The woman stabbed at Dru's face, her sharp-tipped fingers pushing against his sire's large eyes.

Dru shrieked in agony, flinging herself off the human's supine body, her hands over her face. Spike's heart lurched. Dru!

 _On your feet!_ Spike ordered, and the woman rose awkwardly, leaving her hat lying on the bricks. Her hair had tumbled loose from the pins, too, and she stood trembling as Spike came over the railing to land on the bridge. He hesitated a moment, turning away from his thrall even as he gave her a final command. She did as he bade, dark hair flapping like a bird's wings, running hard, the sound of her high heels fading as he knelt by Dru. All three, he thought, stunned. He tried to move aside Dru's slender hands, to see the damage. One human took down the strongest members of my family. My human, he thought, smirking, and then he saw the damage the woman had done to his black goddess.

He spun away from the sight, kicking the sword into the railings with savage fury. "Stay here, princess. I'll be right back," he told her. Spike ran with unnatural speed to the busier streets, absently adopting his human face, already angling toward oncoming hoof beats. His wounded family needed blood and transportation. He swarmed up the side of a hack, snapping the driver's neck with his left hand and taking up the reins with his right.

It took him less than three minutes to maneuver the horses to the bridge, coming up behind Darla and Angelus. He looked down at the tiny blond woman, then gave her a cheeky grin and lifted his hand, as if tugging a forelock. "Need a hire, mum?" The horses pranced nervously at the smell of her blood.

The matriarch gave him an exasperated look from where she slumped on the street. Spike leaped down and picked up her slight weight in his arms. He had almost reached the door of the taxi when it opened and a well-dressed man looked out at them. "Where have you taken us, driver? This isn't Rue…" His voice trailed away as he saw the blood-soaked woman, saw that she wasn't a woman, and he shrank away from them.

Spike tossed Darla into the carriage through the open door. It began to sway on its springs. The broken-spirited horses pawed nervously at the muffled screams and the fresh smell of blood, but they didn't bolt. Trusting that Darla would be able to handle herself in the confined quarters, Spike went around to help Angelus to his feet. Still unable to talk, the senior vampire met his eyes for a moment and tried to nod. Spike grinned at the grisly attempt, liking the old man very much just now, and propelled him by the elbow toward the taxi. Darla opened the nearest carriage door, blood coating her fangs, and Spike saw the remnants of another pair of fashionable couples who had been out for an evening's entertainment in Paris.

Good; plenty to feed his family. Leaving Angelus to climb into the hack on his own, he spun away to get Dru. She was wailing steadily, her hands over her eyes once again. Spike lifted her into his arms. "Shh, 's'alright, love," he reassured her. "Got tasty morsels for you to eat, heal you right up." He stood on the step of the carriage and hefted her into it, briefly meeting Darla's eyes. The blond woman nodded and took Dru's hand, guiding her toward the sounds of a dying man.

Spike chucked the driver inside, then went back to the bridge again, this time to retrieve the sword and the gendarme. The policeman hadn't been dead very long; his blood would still be potable. He sat the corpse on the edge of the carriage floor, and it quickly disappeared into the shadows within. The doors closed, and the curtains were pulled. Thankful that they were only a short distance from home, Spike drove over the bridge, then down another alley, taking them back to the house by the quickest route he knew.

Even carrying both females and some of the human bodies, he got them all through the front door in under a minute. He took the hack around to the stables, not bothering to unhitch. He'd need the carriage to haul away the remains of the other meals soon enough. Doffing the overcoat, he checked himself for bloodstains and decided he'd do. Spike sprinted down the streets toward the east, slowing a couple of blocks away when he heard the murmur of voices.

Three prostitutes stood just outside the pool of light from a streetlamp. Spike walked toward them, letting his eyes linger on lovely, warm human flesh. One of the three stepped toward him, and he turned on the charm, purchasing the services of all three and persuading them in broken French to come home with him. He flashed a large role of banknotes, slid his arm around the waist of one woman, and began asking them about their unusual French practices as they walked, laughing with them as he stumbled over unfamiliar words. He heard/felt the human male who followed them, no doubt their panderer watching out for his financial interests. Spike got the ladies through the back door into Angelus' waiting arms, then went into the shadows for the flesh peddler.

Delivery made, he set off again, heading west this time to find two more prostitutes. He didn't bother with an act this time, was business-like and explained exactly what he wanted in fluent French. The night was passing. No one followed this time, and after he delivered the two women to their fate, he gathered up the husks of humans left in the foyer. After depositing them in the hack, he took a moment to have a drink. He didn't bother with a glass, just poured whisky directly from the bottle down his throat. The cab driver, his four passengers, five prostitutes, and the pimp. Oh, and the policeman. That much blood should get his little family back to the point where they could hunt on their own again.

From the sounds coming from the bedroom, the feast had moved upstairs. Spike stopped to pick up something from the floor before going up. Darla and Angelus were sprawled on the bed atop their prey, with nothing but bandages on their bodies. Dru was sitting on the floor, wearing a white nightrail, her fangs milking the neck of one of the prostitutes. The woman's expression was glazed with lust as his sire's hand moved under her skirt. Darla had tied a silk scarf over Dru's ruined eyes, but nonetheless Spike saw her focus on him as he stood in the doorway watching. Three other prostitutes were still alive, bound and gagged in the corner, weakened already by blood loss. With food in the pantry, it was time to turn his attention to other matters.

He moved to the wardrobe and found a change of clothes. "I'll be back," he announced to the room in general, stuffing the garments into a small valise. Then he half-inched a mostly-dry bar of soap and slid it into the bag. Neither Dru nor Darla bothered to disengage from their feeding, but Angelus looked up. Spike raised the sword he'd taken from the foyer in salute, and the dark-haired man nodded.

"Ye've done well," Angelus told him in a horrible, wheezy voice. "Mind you keep it up." The man beneath him, the pimp, Spike thought, made a small noise of protest. It was hard to tell if it was because of the interruption or because of the pain. A cold smile touched Angelus' mouth, then he lowered his head to make a fresh incision.

Not sorry to leave, Spike locked all the doors and posted a note for the human servants, telling them they'd be paid for not showing up for work for the next week. He went back to the bridge and found the hat. Inhaling her scent, he began the task of tracking down his thrall. The vampire fed on the way, taking first a kitchen maid sent out early to get the best produce at the market, then a young man sobering up from a night's revelry. He didn't kill them; there would be enough people missing from Paris this week, but their combined blood was enough to slake his hunger.

The trail ended at a three-story building near the docks, a respectable but modest hotel. _Come to the window_ , he ordered, sharp like an awl in case she was sleeping. When no one appeared in any of the windows on the front side, he went around back. The dark-haired woman was already waiting, leaning against the glass, a hand covering the mark he'd left on her neck. He felt as if he could climb the bloodlink, the connection almost a shining rope between them. He was glad he'd never linked to Drusilla, been this close to her insanity. Angelus had been bad enough.

 _Wait there_ , he sent. _I'm coming up_.

 _No_ , came into his mind, small and sharp as kitten claws.

 _Are you defying me?_ His mental image was a swath of silk sliding off the sword in his hand.

An image of her son, curled into a ball and asleep, came to him through the mental link, then a vision of her standing between him and the boy's bed. _I'll kill you._

 _You can't kill me._ This time his words were almost kind.

 _No._ Then, weaker: _I would try._

 _Yes, I believe you would, love._ He smiled at the thought and met her gaze as she looked down on him.

The distance and the darkness were nothing to a demon's vision. There were tears on her face, and Spike closed his eyes. He thought again of the way mother and son had tried to protect each other. Bloody women, he thought to himself, trying to come up with a plan to assuage her. _Send him away for the day_ , he commanded. _Send him safely away from me. But… you stay._

Her mind worked more in images than in words, and he saw her match faces to his command, finding ways to obey. _Yes_ , she acquiesced, and he understood even though she wasn't thinking in English or French or any of the other languages he knew.

 _I will send for you when I'm ready._

 _Yes._ Eager this time, then shamed. A closed door in her mind, negation. He saw own his upturned face in the gaslight, as she was seeing him, the beautiful human face of her master. Bemused by this image, he lingered in her mind long enough to feel fear creep in. She thought it again, and this time he got the word itself and not just the syllables: _asgina_. As he turned away, he wondered what it meant.

"I need rooms," he stated, tossing his valise on the floor in front of the hotel registration desk with disgust. "Stupid wife has been harping at me for hours," he muttered in French.

The middle-aged man behind the counter considered him, taking in his rumpled but clearly expensive clothes. "What has happened?"

"She found out about her sister," he said ruefully, meeting the clerk's eyes.

"Oh-ho," the man chuckled. He turned the registration ledger to face Spike and slid it toward him across the counter. Spike signed in, flashed his money once more, and asked for a northern exposure so he could get some sleep. He ordered a bath with only hot water and breakfast to be delivered at ten in the morning. He followed the clerk upstairs, tipped him, and accepted the key. It wasn't large or fancy, but the suite was clean, warm, and dark. Closing and locking the door behind him, he drew the drapes, shed his coat and cravat, kicked off his shoes, and threw himself on the bed. Letting his awareness touch on his thrall just one floor above him, he sprawled out, taking up the entire mattress, luxuriating in being alone. Tired and well fed, he fell asleep in moments.

Just before ten, a knock at the door announced the arrival of the bathtub and the first buckets of hot water. His breakfast order came shortly before the last of the water was poured. Sending the maids off with instructions to leave the tub until night, he left the door unlocked and stood facing it. _Ready?_

 _Yes._ His thrall's reply came back to him very small and uncertain. The bloodlink had been rushed; he might have to renew it. The thought of his fangs sliding into her flesh again took him halfway to hard. Mine.

 _Room 202._ He pushed his will toward her. _Come to me._

It took no time. She opened the door and came in, stopping just inside the threshold. She wore a prim white nightgown, and her dark hair was caught in a simple braid that trailed down her back. He could feel her embarrassment and her relief that no one had seen her so exposed. "Close and lock the door, love," he told her, not sorry to be using spoken words. She did so, turning back to stare at his bare feet. "Have a name, do you?"

Her lips moved soundlessly, and she cleared her throat before trying again. "Becca. Rebecca."

"Rebecca," he repeated, wrapping his deep voice around each syllable and smiling as he saw her arms break out in gooseflesh. "You can call me Spike. That knife you're holding won't kill me, you know. Can't hardly hurt me with it." She bit her lip and nodded, even as her fingers clenched around the haft. "Look at me, Becca." There was no will laid into his words, and he kept still, not wanting to frighten her more than necessary.

She took a breath and met his eyes. Not yet thirty, he judged, dark in all her aspect: hair, eyes, skin. Pretty, truly lovely when she smiled, he remembered. "Where are you from?"

"America." In her mind, he saw a ship, and it was sailing tomorrow. First to England, then back to America. Calmer, she studied him. "What are you?"

"Ah-sah-ghee-na," he replied, smiling as he carefully pronounced the word. Her face paled. "What's that mean, love?"

"Devil," she whispered.

"Me?" He waved a dismissive hand. "My family now… _asgina_. But you took care of them."

"Are they…?"

Spike shook his head. "No, love. We're very hard to kill. But you hurt them, no doubt."

Then, in his mind, the bold thing: _How do I kill you?_ She didn't mean him, particularly. Just devils.

He answered in images, showing her a wooden stake, sunlight, beheading. He showed her an image of herself slicing through Angelus' neck, only this time doing it proper, how he would explode to dust. A happy smile settled on his face at the imagined event.

"So, you see, that knife won't do you any good. Just annoy me." He held his hand out to her, and she laid it in his palm, her fingers shaking. Without looking, he threw it over his shoulder with casual strength, hearing it embed up to the hilt in the plaster wall. "Now… what are you?"

Puzzled, she tried to answer. "A woman?" _Mother_ , he heard in her mind. _Ayvwi. Human._

 _Just a human, hmm? You're not thinking in English._ A demon language?

 _Tsalagi._

 _Beautiful word. Means…?_

 _Cherokee._ Then, darker: _Red man. Indian. Your words._

He smiled at her, delighted with every defiant thing about her, and left her mind. "Do you know why I brought you here?"

"…no." Her eyes dropped to the floor, and he smelled renewed fear.

"So I could do this," he answered, dropping onto his knees in front of her, his hands loose on his thighs. He looked up into her startled face with his eyes clear and blue. "So I could worship you."

"Worship?" She shook her head with mounting horror and took a step back. "Me? No."

"Stay where you are, girl." He snapped the command at her in a hard voice, at odds with his position at her feet.

She stopped so abruptly that she swayed and looked down at him in dismay. "Why are you doing this?"

He ignored her emotions, her panicky eyes. Can you command your goddess to be still? "Because you have delivered me."

"From what?"

"From them. _Asgina_. My family."

"I didn't… you said they weren't dead."

"No," he agreed, with a grin. "But if you could hurt them, well… that opens up whole new worlds, dunnit?"

Rebecca stared down at him with an unreadable expression, and he felt some unnamed but strong emotion roil through her. She looked confused for a moment, then licked her lips. "May I go, please?"

Mine, his demon insisted. "No," Spike said, his voice hard again. "Not just yet," he added, softer. He held out a hand. "Come to me." She did, putting her hand in his. He turned her palm up, examining the skin. It wasn't rough, but it wasn't soft, either. He took her other hand as well. "Where did you learn to use a sword?"

"My father." He slid back into her mind, fascinated by the images that flickered past: a tall, beardless old man in buckskins, then in a clean but tattered Confederate soldier's uniform, a curious little girl sneaking his sword from its scabbard. Her father's slow voice, rough with love and bitterness: _Might as well learn to use it; never know when you'll need to fight the damn U.S. Army. Fighting left-handed is a strength, child, most won't expect that._ More images now: a grave, the sword going into a small chest of treasured possessions, brought out again and placed in her son's small hands, teaching him his grandfather's moves.

"Your father was right about that; cack-handed fighter can always get an extra lick or two in. Did you split your skirts on purpose?" Spike asked, not surprised when she nodded her head. "You're a natural fighter, Becca."

"All that remain are," she agreed. He understood; the growing cowboys and Indians mythos had spread even to the unconcerned demon population.

"Have you ever heard of the Slayer?" he asked, and was oddly disappointed at her blank look. _I thought you might be the Slayer._

 _What is the Slayer?_

 _A girl, a human. She kills vampires, until we kill her. Then another Slayer is called._

 _Vampires?_

 _I'm one_. He stayed in her mind as he changed to demon, curious to see what he looked like. Rather intimidating, he thought with some satisfaction, even as he moved back to human and gripped her hands harder to keep her from pulling away. She was trembling again.

 _Vampire_ – images of big cats in her mind, faintly, _tlvdatsi/cougar – shapeshifters, scary stories told when the bottle is passed around at night._

How to explain vampire… Spike looked into her dark eyes, then gave her his own images. William the human, beautiful Dru in the alley, his death. Tearing through a coffin, digging his way through the heavy earth, coming out of an anonymous pauper's grave to find his black goddess waiting for him. He showed her blood, the taste of it, the joy of it. The surety of purpose in his mind.

He felt her recoil. _You like it._

 _I exult in it._

The trickle of fear in her mind was overlaid with confusion. His own upturned face in her mind, that odd emotion that even she didn't recognize. _Worship… because I delivered you… from something you exult in?_

His expression changed, became playful as he nodded. Rebecca swallowed. He knew suddenly what she was feeling, was unsettled that she didn't know, but it gave him the strength to show her the rest.

Darla, a cold little smirk always on her face. Angelus, outstripping even his inhuman sire. Spike gave her what they had done to Drusilla, the long planning and blasphemy and brutality, hearing the gasp this provoked with grim satisfaction. Her knees buckled with the shock, so he let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her hips, laying his head against her stomach.

He let her see their method of hunting, hesitated, then showed her a very small number of memories of how they punished him for any rebellion. Flayed flesh, broken bones, Angelus' more cunning torment. She was his thrall, but the rage and hatred that bloomed in her mind on his behalf was gratifying nonetheless. Spike smiled, and replayed his favorite hunts, quick and precise, showing her the difference that had caused him so much grief with his family. Bragging a bit, he relived the time he had fought five Fyarl demons. He shared the fierce joy that infused him: against all odds, he had victory. Then he opened up the numb acceptance that had claimed him for months, how isolated he was from even his sire, the center of his existence.

She was breathing hard, he realized, so he pulled away from her mind. He'd never considered a bloodlink with a human, hadn't realized how completely his thoughts could drown hers. He'd only chosen it so he could give her silent orders. She couldn't close him out the way he could keep Angelus at bay.

 _So… what do you think?_ Not that it really mattered, but he was curious.

The tawny back of a cougar in a tree, springing suddenly to land on the neck of a deer. Claws dug in, fangs ripped, and it was over. That was her image of him, he realized. Then a well-fed housecat, reaching out a paw to bat at a tiny, terrified mouse, beads of blood on its nose from wounds it had already sustained. A large human hand swooped down and grabbed up the cat, dumping it unceremoniously out into a rainy night. She was thinking of Darla, and he chuckled. He loved being in her mind.

 _You're different from them._

 _So I've been told. Not a proper vampire._

 _…good thing._

 _Quite improper, in fact._ Spike sat back on his heels, releasing her from his embrace. He looked up into her face. It wasn't love, he knew, no matter what it looked like in her eyes. He was her master, and she was not freely his. But it would do. His hands went to her hips, and he used his thumbs to slowly ease up her nightgown.

 _No…!_ A door slamming, the closed room again.

 _What's behind the door, love?_ The locked door in her mind could have hidden anything, but he knew it was a bedroom door. She didn't even recognize her own desire, after all.

Helplessly, she swung it open so he could see. A tall, white man watching her, always watching. Years passing. The small chest with her father's sword inside loaded onto the back of a wagon, her village and everyone she knew receding. Looking backwards until there was nothing familiar to see. A grand church, a white minister, overwhelmed with the yards of her fancy white wedding dress, too many new things, new places. A dark bedroom with pain, the same dark bedroom again without the pain, just something that couldn't be avoided. But it was all right now, despite and because of horrible, massive pain fading, fading… her baby in her arms, and she stood at a window, leaning against the frame because she was so weak. A whitetail deer looking up at her, then turning, almost disappearing into the trees behind it, there/not there, running so fast. White faces, some familiar now, then the minister again, a coffin. No more husband, not resented, not anymore, because of her son. The bedroom door closed, locked, relief that she didn't have to go inside again.

No wonder, Spike thought grimly. How can a man mess up something so natural? Bloody hell, he had no doubt that if William had ever managed to get a wife, he would have kept her happily pregnant and happy between pregnancies, after a short, awkward time of figuring things out. He'd rucked the nightgown up to Rebecca's thighs now. _Let me deliver you._ She shook her head back and forth, soundlessly denying him.

Her body was ready for him, but she wasn't. So he cheated.

Rebecca's hands gripped his shoulders as he gave her the fine feeling of his own arousal. Her head fell back, and he had a brief moment of regret that he couldn't see her eyes any longer. Spike sent an image of what he was going to do and how he felt when Dru went down on him. The woman moaned, shifted restlessly under his hands. Grinning, he lifted the hem of her nightdress higher and moved his face to the juncture of her legs.

 _Oh…!_

It made things a bit awkward, but Spike couldn't stop smiling.

 _Sin._ She could breathe again.

 _Worship_ , he corrected her, and led her to his bed and lowered her onto it. Spike never wanted anything he didn't, by his reckoning, earn. He released her from his will and waited.

 _Don't make me decide this._ He didn't like pleading from her, and Rebecca swallowed when she saw his frown, her breathe still ragged, then simply held out her hand to him.

 _My warrior, my brave girl._ He took it, kissed her palm, and then knelt before her again.

He knew he was good at this because of Darla. It had taken him too long to figure it out, he supposed, but he finally realized that she wasn't teaching him anything when she kept him on his knees for an hour at a time before dismissing him. She would sigh as if in disappointment, then call Angelus to her. Darla never betrayed her preferences in even the smallest way – avarice was always in her eyes – but he wasn't blind. For all of Angelus' finesse and patience with torture, he preferred to rut in bed. By now, Spike knew perfectly well how good a lover he was. He was the only one in the family who could bring Dru to climax without inflicting pain. Not even Darla, the professional, could do that.

Curious to know what she was feeling, he touched Rebecca's mind again. Pleasure was running just before panic, because the unfamiliar feelings were so strong. He was touched to find that she trusted him, with the exception of a walled-off area where she placed her son. Squeezing her fingers where he still held her hand, he slid his other hand along her thigh so fingers could join mouth and tongue. She cried out in mingled surprise and delight.

He rubbed his face against the fabric of her nightgown and felt her tense. _Shh, Becca,' s'alright_ , he reassured her. _Just breathe for a minute._ Spike stripped off his shirt, loosened his trousers, but left them on. Knowing better than to loom over her, he moved up on the bed beside her, pulling her close. Sit up, he urged, and she moved to prop up on an elbow, looking down at him. _What was the deer?_

 _True name. Mustn't tell. Magic. Power._ Her face, open with wonder, shuttered suddenly.

 _Becca, I already have power, everything I need to hurt you, if I want._

She shook her head. _Not mine to tell._

 _Is it your son's Cherokee name?_

She bit her lip.

 _Then tell me yours. My name was William._

Vivid in his mind: a small hawk sitting on a stump on the edge of a foggy field in early morning. It stretched its wings, small, powerful muscles moving beneath the speckled breast, and took to the air. My name. _Tlanuwa_ … the syllables came too fast for him to catch. _Kestrel Taking Flight._

 _Your son… Robert's name is, what, Running Deer?_

Rebecca went very still, then nodded slowly. _Awi Adisi, then. Close enough._

 _So you told him to run fast as a deer._ Another slow nod. She was uncomfortable, and Spike realized it had less to do with the magical power of names than it did with her son's safety. She had been a mother long before she became his thrall.

He lifted his head to trace her jaw with his cool lips. _You're sailing tomorrow for home?_

 _Yes. First London, then Charleston. We came here with Robert's grandparents and uncle._ He saw their faces flit through her mind.

 _Good. Never, under any circumstances, leave America again._ He let Rebecca see Angelus and Darla in both human and demon aspects. Spike pulled her atop him, and she moved to brace herself, straddling him, her hands on the bed by his shoulders. She flinched and tried to move away from his erection, but he grasped her hips firmly.

 _Settle down._ An order, but no force of will behind it. _Trust me._

A mind-picture of her stomach swollen with a bastard child. The sorrow in her heart for that child's lifetime of pain and shame nearly unmanned him. He'd never in life or death considered what it must be like for someone born out of wedlock.

 _No, love. I have no life to give._

 _…all right._

 _Not quite the level of enthusiasm for which I was hoping._

Shrug.

 _Let me see you with your hair down, Becca._

Her eyes never leaving his, as if she found strength there, she sat up, settling carefully against his unyielding hardness. Part of her nightgown and his trousers separated them, nothing more. She pulled her plait across her shoulder and undid it, then combed the long length with her fingers.

 _Beautiful._

Shrug. _You're beautiful._

He smiled and slid his hands under the nightgown, moving them along her warm flesh from hip to breast. Rebecca's eyelids fluttered, then closed.

 _Feel good?_

 _…yes… what next?_

 _No hurry. But… I think you want to move against me._

His patience surprised him, but he let her set the pace, only taking the initiative enough to push his breeches down to his knees. Her unaccustomed heat enfolded him and brought him, quick and quivering, and also her, that endearing mix of surprise and pleasure. After that, Spike took control, and it was late afternoon before he left her body.

Their minds still touched, though. Rebecca kept sending him oddly erotic images, such as a stallion covering a mare, as he fed her bits of the cold breakfast. He wanted to make sure she built her strength back up, as he had fed from her twice during the day. She opened the locked door for him again, showing him that it had changed. The dark bedroom was now the hotel room and bright with filtered sunlight, he was the only one inside, and he was beautiful.

 _Can't make me blush._

 _Aquadanvdo. My heart._

 _Becca, no. That's the blood talking._

 _Unega tlvdatsi._

 _White cougar? Nice name for a pet cat._

 _Utani, then._

 _Utani?_

 _Too large._

He tickled her until she squealed, laughing, and he grinned himself. _You're lovely when you smile._

 _Asiule ehu. Lover._ Wistful now.

 _Go on, then, give me a real name._

A long pause. _Adahihi._

 _A-dah-hee-hee. What's it mean?_

 _That which kills._ The image of the cougar springing once more from the tree. _Thing that kills._

 _I think I like Utani better._ "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up." He pulled on his trousers and led her to the tub. The undiluted hot water poured that morning was tepid now. He helped her braid her hair, then held it out of the water as she sank into the bath. When she had finished, he held a towel open for her. Together they floated the nightgown over her head, and there was nothing else to do but regard each other in silence.

 _I need you to do something for me._

 _Of course. I owe you a life debt, doubly so._

He showed her what he required and watched the smile fade. Then she nodded. _I shall do so._

 _Leave them under the bed._ He imposed his will, then. _Do not think of me in this room until your ship has docked in London._

 _…why?_

Why let her live at all, he realized. After a moment, he replied, "A whim. You are mine, and this is how I can keep you. Never doubt for a moment that I would take the last drop of your blood if you stayed."

 _I do doubt._

 _Adahihi_ , he insisted, and flooded her mind with his victims, wanting her to fear him. _Back to your room. Go!_ Rebecca looked away from this harshness, then picked up the sword he'd left by the door and was gone without a backward glance, silent on her bare feet. Spike closed the bloodlink, easy to do with the human. It had taken days, the longest of his existence, to reliably keep Angelus out of his mind. Even worse, his amused grandsire had left his own mind open. He had kept sliding back into those murky depths, like an unruly tongue prodding an aching tooth, Angelus slyly insisting that he liked it there.

He stayed in the suite another day, watching the strong-backed maids empty the tub, waiting as the sun set and rose and prepared to set again. Another hot bath was poured, and he scrubbed himself with the bar of soap he'd taken from the lair, so no trace of his thrall's scent remained. He put on his clean clothes. The dirty laundry went into the valise, which he intended to drop into the river. Then he went to the third floor to the rooms Rebecca and her son had vacated, took what she left for him under the bed, and went out into the night to return to his family.

Existence with the older vampires went on much the same after they healed, with one difference: he had confidence that things would change. Eventually, they did. Angelus was visited with a curse for killing yet another girl. A grieving Darla, after coasting too long on her lover's coattails, wavered in her cruelty. Through luck and innate skill, Spike had the blood of a Slayer on his hands, and in Daddy's absence, it was enough to lure Dru to his side. Just the two of them and decades of play. Few ripples in the smooth joy of their unlife, one coming in Alexandria, in early 1919, when he jerked awake one afternoon, coughing and gasping, as if he could have contracted the influenza. _Adahihi_. Then a slender, dusty thread in his mind snapped and the coughing stopped. An ocean away, his thrall had died. Shrugging, Spike rolled over to take Dru, still sleeping peacefully, in his arms.

And on the floor of the subbasement of the new Sunnydale High School, a much older Spike curled into a tighter ball as he drifted out of REM sleep. He almost woke, then shifted his shoulder and sighed. Beneath his pale lids, his eyes began a slow tracking as he sank back into blessed unconsciousness, oblivious to the Drusilla-shaped being that stood over him. It didn't turn, just held out a warding hand to the two blind servants who were dragging a barely-alive human across the floor toward the supine vampire. It stared down at Spike thoughtfully, waiting to learn what further memories might surface. The enduring quality of mercy did not discourage the being or intrigue it; the only implication was that it would take more time to possess the vampire.

They all yielded in the end.

⸹

"Xander!" Buffy pounded on the door of his on-site trailer, stopping herself when she realized she was leaving little indentations in the metal.

He opened the door, frowning. "Buffy?" The look on her face made him take her elbow and pull her inside. He moved his hardhat off a chair so she could sit down. "Oh, God, Buf, what happened now? You look like you've seen a ghost."

She looked up at him, hope flooding her eyes, then receding. "No, I couldn't be that lucky."

"What is it? More zombies?" He had pulled her and Dawn and a couple of other kids up through the hole in the girl's bathroom a few hours ago. Xander sat down opposite her, their knees almost touching in the small trailer.

"No. I-I don't think so."

"Here, let me get you some water."

She nodded numbly, and watched him go to the small refrigerator to his right. He was so kind now, as if he finally fit in his own skin. He'd been that way since the second time they'd slept together. The first time had been about too many beers and simple math: Xander has sex with Buffy equals Anya has sex with Spike. She hadn't minded, even though the get-evenness of it had been more Xander's need than hers. The second time had also been about too many beers, but also a lot about the love, friendship, and history they shared. Buffy shouldn't have been surprised at how good it had been, because Anya had given her plenty of information over the years about, in the vengeance demon's words, what a Viking he was in the sack, but they were gentle with each other to the point of careful. After that second night, they talked for a long time, actually talked, and agreed that there wouldn't be a third time.

When Xander put the bottle of water in her hand, she looked up at him. "My first instinct was to not tell anyone," Buffy said. "But I promised: no more secrets."

"Not tell about what?"

"I-I think I must have been in shock, a little," she paused to take a drink, because her mouth was so dry, "and I wasn't sure if you'd believe me. I don't even know if I believe it myself."

"I probably will believe you, Buffy," he said wryly, "if you ever tell me."

"I saw Spike. In the basement. Sub-basement, whatever."

"Spike?" Xander stared at her and went very still. "Zombie Spike?"

Buffy shook her head. "No. But… weird Spike. He acted like he didn't really know me. His hair was grown out, just bleached on the tips, and he… smelled. Bad."

Xander's brows went up. "Mr. Bay Rum smelled?"

"Bay Rum?" Buffy repeated blankly.

"Yeah, some time-honored manly scent that survived from the distant, misty past of the British Empire – remember, he crashed in my parents' basement for a while? The man can hog a bathroom."

She tilted her head. "Oh. I always wondered why he smelled so good. I never could place the scent."

Xander closed his eyes, reaching for patience. "Yes, he smells delightful, not eau de evil dead at all."

"Oh. Sorry." Buffy took another sip of water and a large breath. "He-he didn't help me fight, just told me to duck once."

"That is weird. Used to be all, let me get this door and this hulking vampire for you, madam."

She nodded. "He acted…" she shrugged, unable to find another word, "crazy."

"Well," Xander said, standing up and reaching for his hard hat, "sounds like he needs help. Let's go find him."

Buffy looked up at him, relief and gratitude showing openly on her face. "Thank you. I don't think I can face him again, not alone."

An hour and a half of fruitless searching later, Buffy hoisted Xander out of the hole in the floor of the girls' bathroom. "Thanks, anyway," she mumbled.

"I don't think you're crazy, Buf. I believe that you saw him." He smiled at her grateful look. "One of the things I've learned over the years is don't doubt the Slayer. It takes time, but I can be taught."

Buffy brushed at her slacks. "It's funny. I still can't sense him, but I didn't sense him at all when I was down there earlier, either."

"So, the big question," Xander said, holding the door for her, "do we tell Dawn and listen to her 'I told you so's,' or do we wait until we have the actual corpse so she doesn't get her hopes up." At the warning look she shot him, he shrugged. "What? Just because I've forgiven him doesn't mean I'm not going to give him grief for being an evil vampire."

She looked at him a moment longer, wondering when he had become so mature, then shook her head. "No, I don't think we should tell her just yet. I mean, he doesn't seem to be himself."

"Maybe that's why Anya's locator spell didn't work," he mused.

"Or maybe because he's on the Hellmouth," Buffy said grimly.

Xander met her gaze. "Why would he hide out here, of all places? I mean, they pay me to hang out here every day," he shrugged, "but you sure won't find me here after work. Unless it's double overtime. In which case, again, getting paid."

"I don't know," Buffy replied, a frown touching her face. She looked up at her friend. "Do you think we should call Giles?"

Xander bit his lip. "Not with Willow still with him. She doesn't know that Spike hasn't been around, remember. She said she figured he was just too angry with her to want to see her at Tara's funeral. So, no, I don't think it would make her feel any better to know that she was the last person to see him acting not-crazy."

"Is it okay if I poke around, try to find him?"

"It's okay by me. That part of the job is done, so for insurance purposes, it's not technically part of the site. Might not make the nighttime security guard happy."

Buffy almost smiled. "We've been avoiding Sunnydale High School security guards for years. I think I can manage. Oh!" she said, remembering, "I'm on staff here now. I don't have to be avoid-y Buffy." Then she looked rueful as she realized what she'd said.

They emerged from a side door into the sunlight. "I'll look for him, too, Buf, often as I can."

"Thanks." He was busy, she knew. He had taken three calls on his radio during their search in the basement. Buffy touched his arm and turned to leave. She had walked aimlessly after Xander helped her out of the basement that morning, only coming back because she couldn't bear the thought of telling Dawn that afternoon. She hadn't technically kept secrets, after all, not if Xander shared it. Now she didn't have to tell Dawn, and she was mostly relieved. Her feelings for Spike were… complicated, all of them tinged with guilt. Buffy walked with purpose, swinging her arms, feeling obscurely lighter. She had to get home so Dawn could tell her about the rest of her first day at school.

⸹

Spike glanced furtively around. He was out of his cell. It was wrong, wrong. He might hurt somebody. But….

She had touched him. Buffy had touched him. She'd said never never never, but then she had. It was more games, always games, asking him about Dawn, pretending to talk to Dawn.

But how had she made Dawn answer? Dawn was dead, in heaven, and cell phones didn't have that kind of range.

He snorted a little at the humor, then covered his mouth, crouching and looking around wildly. No one was there, so he walked down the passageway, keeping close to the walls. It was the wrong way to move, he knew, there should be swagger and sneering, but he didn't have that in him anymore.

But maybe he had his soul.

She might be wrong about him forfeiting it. He felt them both just that morning, soul radiant with happiness and demon leaping with joy to have her look right at him. The other part of him, not soul or demon, had been clinical, noting that she looked tired and her hair wasn't perfect and that she smelled a little like DoubleMeat.

She was off. Like Dru. But, somehow, she seemed more real this way than her usual, perfect self.

And she had touched him.

She hadn't touched him after, not when all the other people had crowded into his cell. And she had looked perfect again, keeping company with so many Big Bads.

Spike lifted his head toward a light. He frowned. How far had he walked? He'd never noticed a gaping hole in the roof before. Squinting a bit, he tried to remember the last time he'd seen such bright light. Taking another quick peek around, he leapt lightly to the floor above. He was strong, after all. Dru kept bringing him humans for dinner. Even Buffy encouraged him to feed off them, to get his strength up. His mind shied away from that.

He was in a bathroom. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed, a sound he hated. He looked around at the empty mirrors, the stalls. There were no urinals. His soul gave him a little twinge for being in a girls' restroom.

His soul.

He started breathing, the sound loud in the small room. Spike's eyes darted around, settling on the stalls, not sure anymore if it was his breathing he heard or someone else's. He bolted for the door and ran.

Night. Coulda been currant bun and a crisped vamp, for all he'd heeded. He was running with superhuman speed along the streets of Sunnydale. Spike came to an abrupt stop, not breathing, not moving, melting into the shadow of a building without thought. He was somewhere on Sixth Street, not too far from the butcher shop. He carefully drew in air, analyzing it. The smell of a city that had baked in the sun all day, rain a couple of days ago, leaves beginning to dry and wither, a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant, random humans, a dead pigeon somewhere to his left, himself. Real smells. Then he took a careful look at his surroundings, noting the empty box in the gutter that had once contained McNuggets, a wad of chewing gum petrified onto the brick next to him, the flicker of the streetlight to his right as bugs flew around it lazily. He considered his surroundings for a long time. Spike was pretty sure that he couldn't imagine these things, these little details.

He stood up straighter, a light in his blue eyes. Someone was playing him. Not everything he'd seen could be real. He wasn't crazy – he knew crazy, had lived with it for more than a century. That meant… he wasn't sure what it all meant. But he wasn't gonna figure it out standing here.

"Spike?"

He jumped, cringing away from the voice. How had he not known someone was approaching?

"Spike, buddy, is that you?" Clem stared at him, as unsure as the vampire was himself. "Where have you been? The Slayer and her people have been sick with worry. We've been looking for you."

"You found me." His voice was full of dread. He hadn't been away from the school an hour. He could feel time passing out here.

"I guess I did," Clem said, sounding happy. It faded as he looked critically at the vampire. "You don't look so good, if you don't mind me saying."

"Feel all right."

"I've never seen you…" Sensitive of other people's feelings as always, the demon tried again. "I mean, I didn't know you weren't a natural blond."

Spike's hand went to his hair. It was longer than it had been for years and felt greasy, clumped into curls. He stared at Clem wordlessly.

"Where have you been? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but… well, we worried."

"A bad place."

"Uh-huh. I can see that."

"Clem…" Spike hesitated. He had no right to ask. "I need a favor. Would you let me use your place to get cleaned up?"

"Well, sure! I don't mind. I've got low water pressure, though," he apologized. "But since your crypt is pretty much a write-off, I can certainly understand why you need–"

"Maybe more than one favor," Spike said slowly. He put his hand into his jeans pocket. It felt strange, as though he had forgotten the purpose of pockets for a long time. His lighter was there, and he ran his thumb over it, eyelids falling shut in a sort of gratitude. He was fond of his lighter; like his leather coat, it had been his traveling companion for a long time. Then he pulled out a fold of cash and held it toward Clem. "I'll need a few things, clean clothes, shears, peroxide bleach. I'm wadded up," he added, "so no worries about me mooching off you."

"Okay," Clem agreed, and added amiably, "Target is still open."

"Then," he took a deep, steadying breath, "will you take me to her grave?"

The demon's honest face sagged a little, his eyes full of compassion. "Sure. I went to the funeral. It was a nice service."

"Thank you," Spike said. The words were stark, but sincere.

October 2002

Tara Maclay.

Spike stared at the headstone, tears blurring the name. Sweet, kind Tara. He thought of her body and her blood in the stillness of Joyce's house, and he leaned against the cold stone and wept for a long time.

When he stood up, he felt hollow, but somehow easier in his mind. He had slept for almost two days on Clem's couch, exhausted. The demon had been a little creeped out, he said, by how much Spike resembled a corpse. Spike refrained from pointing out that was, in fact, exactly the case. He felt stronger for getting the sleep, but Clem was wise to bring him here first, before going to Dawn. Wouldn't be right, not to give Tara her due. He turned back to his friend, who had waited patiently a few gravesites away, wiping his blue eyes without shame.

"Thanks," he managed. He cleared his throat.

"No problem," Clem said. "Feel better?"

He nodded and swiped a hand across his face one last time. "I'm ready now. Lead on."

"Where?"

"To her."

Clem looked puzzled but agreeable. "Okay. I haven't seen her for a while myself." As they walked through the cemetery, he became more anxious. "Look, Spike, she's a great girl, but she's still the Slayer, you know? Would you mind going to see her by yourself?"

"Buffy?" he asked, startled. "I thought we were…" Dawn would be next to Joyce, and he knew well enough where that was. He took a good look at Clem's unhappy face and decided he could go to her grave alone. "No,'s'okay. I can go by myself." He'd see Buffy first. In some ways, that would be harder. He'd never seen Dawn in the basement, never hallucinated that, but sometimes Buffy hadn't been Buffy. He just needed to figure out which times.

Clem all but sighed with relief. "You're a real pal."

"No," Spike corrected him, "you are. You've really been there for me, and I won't forget it. Thanks. I mean it."

He couldn't blush, but he certainly gave that impression. "Aw. What are friends for?"

"Listen, you gonna be all right, walking home by yourself?"

Clem gave the vampire a slightly patronizing look. "Spike, old buddy, I've been walking these mean streets since long before you ever came to town."

"Right. Well, guess I'll shove off, then."

"See you later, Spike. Say hi to the Slayer for me."

It was a long time before he started walking himself. The DeSoto and the bike were to the east, if no one had found them. He could just pick one and get the hell out of Sunnydale. Spike closed his eyes and turned toward Revello Drive instead. Might as well get it over with. She'd know he was out of the basement by now, anyway.

⸹

"I'll get it!" Buffy called up the stairs, heading to answer the sound of the doorbell. Her hands were busy at the nape of her neck, clipping a wide barrette into her hair. She opened the door, half-expecting Xander, who was getting more nervous the closer the time came for Willow's return. For several seconds, she just stared. "Spike." Her voice wasn't much more than a whisper.

He looked better than he had in the dim light of the basement. His hair was back to no-nonsense short and blond. His body was lean, too lean, like a jungle cat whose prey had grown scarce. He didn't smell like Bay Rum but he was clean, and the long-sleeved blue shirt he wore seemed wrong, too, somehow. Not in that it was too tight; all his clothes seemed to barely contain him. Sometimes whole rooms could barely contain him, she thought inanely. He'd once confessed to her that he was a lousy hand at laundry, and she'd tried to explain about hot water and clothes dryers until the ridiculousness of her 'homemaking for the undead' lecture struck her. The shirt he wore now wasn't cotton, she realized, and frowned a bit. Why was he wearing that shirt? He didn't like synthetic fibers.

Spike stood on the threshold, his fists clenched so he wouldn't touch her, feasting on her with his eyes. This was not-perfect Buffy, only she didn't seem as tired as she had the other time he'd seen her. She was wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt so old that it was thin and worn in places, the kitten printed on the front faded. Her little feet were laced into trainers. She was on her way out to patrol, he decided.

When he continued to stand there, Buffy put her hand on his arm and pulled him inside. Then she closed the door, her hand resting against the wood a second too long, as if gathering strength. When she turned, she found he hadn't moved, and she had to look up at him, not unhappy to be this close. "You're always welcome here, Spike. Okay?"

"Uh," he said, still staring as though he hadn't seen anything so beautiful in an age, "thanks. Buffy."

Self-conscious, she touched her hand to her ponytail. "You look better than you did when I saw you a few days ago." At his blank look, she added, "Remember? There were zombies, and you told me to duck?"

"You found the talisman?" His voice was lucid, almost normal.

"Xander did. We couldn't have done it without you." She smiled a little, just to have him in her house. He didn't hate her. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Spike?"

Buffy watched his chest rise and fall as he turned from where they still stood in front of the door to stare up at Dawn, who was frozen halfway down the stairs. The look on his face was… she had seen something similar before, Buffy realized, that first awful night back, when he stared up at her, when he had held her ruined hands so gently.

"Ohmigod, Spike!" Dawn cried, launching herself down the last steps and into his arms.

He caught her, still looking thunderstruck, feeling the solid weight of her in his arms. She had grown more; how could she grow taller if she was dead? No, she was warm, alive, he could feel her heartbeat. "Dawn," he whispered, not Nibblet or Snacksize or Bit. "Dawn." He wrapped his arms around her, a helpless smile on his face. He didn't care if this was real or not.

"Air," Dawn managed. She looked over at Buffy, who was also smiling despite the tears standing in her eyes. "You two hug way too hard."

Spike pulled away a little, his eyes roaming over her face as if trying to memorize every expression, every line. "You're all right?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"I am now," she said. "Where have you been?"

He looked over at Buffy, as if surprised that Dawn didn't know. When she also looked at him expectantly, the happiness faded from his face. "'M not really sure, Bit." Of course Dawn didn't know, because she wasn't dead and his soul wasn't forfeit and Buffy had never been his jailer and… There was a lost look on his face for a moment, then he gave his head a small shake. "But you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Dawn said, sending her sister a worried look. Then she looked back at Spike, the weeks of absence coming back to her. "I missed you, you stupid vampire." She smacked his shoulder before hugging him again. When she pulled away, her eyes were wet. "I'm not going to stop needing you, Spike, no matter who you kill. It doesn't work that way. We're friends, and I was worried about you. I needed you, and you weren't there. You have to promise–"

He wrenched away from her, horrorstricken. "No, don't do this," he whispered, covering his ears with his hands. "You can't… No, I didn't – I can't bear it." Then he turned and was out the door.

The sisters stared out the open door, then Dawn gave Buffy a shove. "Go after him," she ordered, her brows drawn together.

Buffy ran. She tore after the vampire, trying to make sense of what happened, but there was no sense to it. Dawn had started to give him a little grief about disappearing, but Lord knew that was mild for a Dawn tantrum. She realized something then and came to an abrupt halt.

She could feel him. Buffy's mouth curved in a smile even as she fought for breath. She hadn't had him in view or earshot; she had been following her sense of him. Oh, Spike, she thought in relief. You're really back.

Walking now, she followed her inner awareness of him, so different from her "slaydar" identification of other vampires. She would find him and bring him back to Dawn, and they would take care of him, make him well because Dawn loved him and because she… owed him that much. Even crazy, he would never hurt her or Dawn. And if he was crazy, it wasn't her fault. She hadn't hurt him, not this time, and she wouldn't. This time there would be no sex, no pain. She would take care of him and be gentle, and then she would deserve that look of adoration in his eyes.

Buffy stopped, staring at the building. Spike was inside; she knew it. But why had he gone to a church? Oh, yeah, she reminded herself. Crazy. With a shrug, she followed him inside.

⸹

"Buffy?" Dawn said, unsure. Her sister turned her head a little, but otherwise didn't move from where she was hunkered on the back steps, staring into the darkness. Dawn had waited in the living room for almost three hours, until thirst had driven her to the kitchen for a glass of water. That's when she saw her sister sitting on the edge of the porch and gone out to her. Tentatively, Dawn sat down next to her and spread part of the blanket she had over Buffy's shoulders. "Did you find him?" she asked quietly.

Buffy nodded. "He was in a church."

"A church?" Dawn asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"He… hurt himself on a cross. I got him away from it, and he… ran from me, gone, like he just disappeared."

Dawn examined her sister's still face, as if there was too much going on behind her eyes for any of it to make its way to the surface. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." She turned to look at his Nibblet. "He said… he said he got his soul back, somehow. I think… it's made him crazy."

"Finally!" Then Dawn frowned. "Well, a little off, maybe, but not crazy."

Buffy shook her head. "You didn't see him." She took a long breath. "He got his soul back for me. Why would he…" Her voice faded.

"Sorry to have to tell you, Miss Thang," Dawn said dryly, "but he didn't get it for you." Then she shook her head, just a little. "Well, not just for you."

Buffy turned to her, her mouth open. "I don't think I can deal with the cryptic tonight," she managed. "Spill."

Her sister shrugged. "When you were gone last summer, Spike got a vision from his guardian angel that his chip was going to fail, and he would end up biting Janice, or something. I mean, he would never hurt us, but strangers? A stranger to him might not be a stranger to us. Anyway, he went to Africa to face a series of trials from a really powerful demon and fought for, like, a solid week and won his soul. Then he came back to watch out for me and help patrol and keep down the monster population. When you came back, I nagged him and nagged him to tell you, but he always said you had too much on your mind already. So, anyway, he's got his soul, and it isn't a curse, either, like Angel's." The last word dripped with disdain.

Buffy blinked.

"He swore me to secrecy, Buffy, or I would have told you, really, but he said it was like him keeping the secret of me being the Key when Glory tortured him." Dawn grinned. "You know this means you don't have to feel bad about sleeping with the evil dead, because – not evil." Her smile faltered in the face of Buffy's blank expression. "I mean, that's good, right? No more secrets, because his soul is as good as anybody's – no, better, since he had to fight for it. And if you're not keeping secrets, no one can get hurt."

Buffy's face screwed up and she covered her mouth with both hands.

"Oh, hey," Dawn said, putting her arm around her sister. "What's wrong?" She held the Slayer as she wept, eventually giving up on asking why Buffy was crying. Instead, she simply patted her sister's back and waited for the tears to subside.

After a long time, Buffy sat up, sniffling, her eyes red. "How can he forgive me?" she rasped. "How can any of you forgive me?"

"For what?"

She stared at Dawn, taken aback by the simple, honest question. "For what I did to him."

"Buffy, from what you've told me, he was desperate to keep you from turning yourself in–"

"Not that. Not just that," she amended. "He would tell me he loved me, and I told him he couldn't, that he wasn't capable of love, that he was evil, just a thing…" _An evil, soulless thing_. She leaned over, her arms around her middle as if her stomach were aching. "I did all those things to someone with a soul."

"You did all those things to Spike," Dawn corrected, her voice cold now. "Did you ever notice his soul, Buffy, all those nights you were out patrolling together, or whatever? No. You know why? Because, soul or not, he's just Spike. He's. Not. Angel. He loves you with a soul; he loved you without his soul. I know that's how he loves me." Dawn stood up, leaving the blanket with her sister. "Did you ever once doubt that he loved me, Buffy? When Glory was around? All those times you left me in the care of an 'evil' vampire?

"What you did to Spike, whatever you did to each other… He's still a vampire, Buffy. If he ever thought there was any wrong in it, he's forgiven you. That means I forgive you, too, because I love you both. But I can't make you forgive yourself. You're going to have to do that on your own." Dawn turned away and went to the back door, where she paused. "Finding him and helping him get back to normal would be a good start. He's… not right, Buffy, and he's homeless, thanks to Willow, and I don't think he believes he can find help here." Dawn didn't look back, but she could feel Buffy's eyes on her. "Bring him home, Buffy. That would be a start."

⸹

Willow stared at Spike across the dining room table. She and Dawn were still a little shaky from the gnarl venom, but ambulatory. It was more than she could say about the vampire, who was nearly as catatonic as Buffy had been when Glory took the Key. She spared a glance at Dawn, who sat holding Spike's left hand on the other side of the table, and at Buffy and Xander, who sat to either side of her.

"I'm sorry to ask you to do this now, Wil. I know you're tired, but… if he goes back down into the school basement, I can't always find him." Buffy's voice was quiet.

"The halls down there," Xander said, making an unhappy face, "move."

"It's okay. I mean, I owe him, not just for finding me tonight, either." Willow looked at the blond man. "Spike? I'm going to talk to you like we did when we went on patrol last summer, okay?" No response. "Okay." She turned to Buffy. "Well, here goes nothing."

"Wil?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell him… tell him I'm not keeping secrets anymore. I-it might help, you know… maybe he can open up more if he knows he won't be…" She trailed off, unsure of how to say what she meant. She just wanted Spike to know he wasn't the only one helping her bear her burdens.

Willow gave her best friend an understanding look. "I will." Bracing herself, she touched Spike's mind.

[…]

"Huh. That's odd."

"What's odd?" Buffy was chewing on the corner of her thumbnail.

"He used to have these defenses. Like a mental image of a palace guard, sweeping down a long-handled axe. I mean, if he wanted to, he could keep me out."

"He could do that?" Dawn asked, impressed.

"Yeah. He learned that so he could keep," Willow glanced at Buffy, who was too overwrought already to have Angel dragged into the conversation, "uh, other vampires out. But the defenses… it's not that he isn't using them, they're just not there. Someone's been in his mind and just… stripped them away."

Xander frowned. "Is he alone in there now?"

Willow turned back to stare warily at the vampire. "Let's find out."

 _Spike._

No response.

 _Spike._

[ _red?_ ]

 _There you are. Hey._

 _Did you get him?_

A pained look crossed Willow's face, and Xander touched her arm.

"He wanted to know if I got Warren," she said sadly. "Not up on current events, we know that much."

 _Yeah, I got him._

 _I'm sorry about Tara._

 _Me, too. I miss her._

[ _miss_ ]

 _Who do you miss, Spike?_

 _My Bit._

[ _dawn_ ]

 _She's right here, Spike. She's fine._

[ _dead_ ]

"He thinks…" Willow's eyes went to Dawn, her fine brows drawn together. "Someone has him convinced that you're dead, that Doc killed you. That it was his fault."

"Oh. No, Spike, I'm right here." She squeezed his hand.

"That would be enough to drive him crazy," Xander said grimly. "You remember the way he was after Buffy died… Sorry, Buf."

"I-it's okay. You can say it."

"Spike, you…" Xander's voice trailed off. "Willow, tell him that he killed Doc, that there were witnesses and everything. Clem told us."

Willow took a breath and went back to the place in her mind that was touching his. She sent reassurance and truth, but met only resistance. Sighing, she tried another tack.

 _Who told you Dawn was dead?_

[ _slayer_ ]

 _Buffy? Buffy hasn't seen you all summer, Spike. You were gone, and she missed you. She told us, everybody, that you two had been, uh, involved. But she hasn't seen you for months. No one has, not even Dawn. And she's just fine. Why would Buffy tell you something like that?_

[ _did_ ]

And he let her see.

Willow went pale, and Xander put his arm around her. After a moment, she drew in a shaky breath. "I… he was burned, oh God, he hurt so bad from the burns, the sun was worse than the wounds where the tree…" She put her face in her hands, trying to get past the guilt, to make sense of what had just been dumped into her mind. She swallowed. "Okay, that was me. My fault. When Xander got through to me, the tree went back to its usual position, Spike was hurt, burned, but managed to get to the sewers." She drew another shaky breath. "He got in one tunnel that led directly to the Hellmouth, so he went into the basement of the school, somewhere he would be safe, away from the sun, long enough to heal." She turned to Buffy. "That's when you came to him."

"Me?"

"Something wearing your face. In his memories, it looks just like you, Buffy. You're the one who told him he had to stay there, that it was his punishment for letting Dawn die, that the pain chip didn't work anymore, that… his soul had been taken from him?" She looked around at the Scoobies. "Did we know that Spike had a soul?"

"He got it when he was gone that summer Buffy died," Xander said, a little impatiently.

"No one told me!"

"We just found out," Buffy said quickly, "except for Dawn. He told her months ago."

"I made him tell," Dawn said, shrugging.

"How…? I thought I was the only one…" Willow's eyes went back to the vampire for a few seconds, then widening. "It wasn't the curse… Oh my God. I can't believe he survived all that. Why would he go through…?"

"For us," Dawn said frankly. "He has a guardian angel or something that told him the chip was going to fail. That's why he needed his soul back. So he wouldn't hurt us."

Willow tilted her head and looked at Spike, then smiled. "Hey, his guardian angel is a redhead like me!" Then she crossed her arms over her chest. "Only with bigger boobs." Her eyes widened again. "You felt up your guardian angel?"

"Figures," Xander said sardonically.

"Can we get back to the part where someone who looked like me was lying to Spike and driving him crazy?" Buffy asked.

"Oh. Sorry." Willow thought a second, getting the narrative thread together. "Not just you, Buffy. Lots of people, talking at him night and day. Mayor Wilkins? I didn't know Spike even knew the mayor. Glory… Adam, Drusilla, Angel, the Master, his mother – aw, she's really sweet – his father," her face darkened, "Warren. Others that I don't recognize. A Chinese girl in this cute Mandarin outfit, a tall black girl rockin' a 'fro. His victims, maybe, because of the old-fashioned clothes they're wearing. But mostly you, Buffy. And Drusilla."

"What do all those people have in common?" Xander wondered aloud. "I mean, a lot of the ones we know are evil, but Buffy isn't."

"His parents, either, from what little he's told me about them," Dawn said.

"Oh," Willow said. "Why do these guys seem familiar? They're wearing burlap-y robes, X's over their eyes."

Buffy frowned. "I've fought them. It's been a long time, but I've had a couple of dreams recently about them chasing girls." She pressed her hands to her temples, thinking hard. "Oh! Oh, I know. They're Harbingers or, or Bringers, Bringers of the First Evil. They…" Her face went hard. "The Bringers conjured the First Evil, who got inside Angel's head and tried to drive him to commit suicide. It was that Christmas that we had snow."

"I remember that," Dawn said, a sudden smile on her face. "A white Christmas. That was really nice."

Buffy stood up, pacing a little. "It kept appearing to Angel as his victims, making him relive the things he'd done. Why would it appear to Spike as me, as people he loved?"

"Not as everyone he loves," Dawn protested. "I mean, if this First Evil wanted to make him crazy because I was dead, wouldn't it appear as me, all bloody and everything?"

"Or, hey, if anyone here really wants to torture Spike, it would be me," Xander added. Then the humor died from his face. "They're all dead."

"What?" Willow asked.

"Buffy died, but she came back. Every one of those other people you saw in his mind, Willow… they're all dead." He watched her count through them in her mind.

"You're right," she breathed. "It must have power over the dead. It didn't appear as anyone who hasn't died."

"It didn't appear to Angel as me, and I had died then, too," Buffy protested. Then she frowned. "I don't think I did. He-he never mentioned it."

"Yeah, but you were only dead for a minute or two, then." Xander shrugged. "Maybe that wasn't long enough to count."

Willow was frowning. "But why not Tara?"

Xander patted her hand. "Because, dead or alive, she wouldn't be mean to anyone, not even Spike." On Willow's other side, Buffy looked down at the floor.

"Okay, but why?" Dawn said. She was looking at Spike's immobile features, rubbing her thumb across his hand. "Why does the First Evil want to drive him crazy? Suicide, like Angel? I can help check the books." She glanced around at the Scoobies. "Do we have any books?"

Willow shrugged. "Whatever we have will be at the Magic Box."

"Anya's not there all the time," Xander said quietly. No one said aloud that she was away granting vengeance wishes.

"I'll call Giles, let him know what's going on. I haven't had a Slayer dream since I, you know, came back. I didn't recognize it. As to why they're after Spike… Maybe it's the same reason it tried to get Angel," Buffy said, shrugging. "A vampire with a soul who allies himself with the Slayer? I don't know. It claimed to have been the one who brought Angel back from hell, said it was going to kill him because he didn't kill me."

"Do you think it can only show dead people to dead people? Or are we all going to be _Sixth Sens_ ing?"

Buffy shrugged again. "I don't know. I saw it as sort of a ghosty thing in that cavern under the Christmas tree lot… which will be the first place I check tomorrow. I do know if I find the Bringers, I can put a stop to it."

"Oh!" Willow sat up a little straighter. "The Bringers! I almost forgot. They brought people into the basement, humans for Spike to feed from." There was a sudden silence.

"Did he?" Buffy asked in a dead voice.

"I never killed anyone," Spike said, making them all jump.

"Well, hi there." Willow smiled at him encouragingly.

"Did you feed, Spike?"

He turned his eyes to Buffy, shame open on his face. "I did."

"They kept him there for weeks before the Bringers brought the first one," Willow said, focused on the vampire, saying what he wouldn't. "He was starving."

"I didn't kill anyone." He looked down at the table. "Although I doubt those blokes left any of them alive… after."

"Drusilla… The First Evil put on Drusilla's face and tried to get him to turn them into vampires."

"Every time," he agreed.

"Did you?"

He looked up at her again, his eyes fierce. "I don't sire, Buffy. You know that."

"No, Spike," Willow corrected him gently. "She doesn't. She wasn't here when you told us that, remember?"

"Oh." He turned his eyes back to the table. His Slayer had been dead then, like Dawn. He closed his eyes, confused, then squeezed his Bit's hand.

"So…" Xander gestured across the table to Spike. "Here's Spike, with a lean and hungry look, pumped up on steroids for vampires, and crazy. Wonder what the First Evil might do with him."

"A weapon," Buffy said.

"I'm my own man," Spike said, his voice rough. He glanced sideways at Dawn. "'S'long as you two…" He stopped, took a breath, and looked up to include Willow and Xander. "As long as my humans are okay, no one can touch me."

"Your humans?" Xander asked, sounding like he was about to laugh.

Willow was studying the vampire. "He doesn't have a word for us, Xan. Friends? Family? Who here hasn't tried to kill him?" Dawn raised her hand, looking superior. "Yeah, just you, Miss Goody-two-shoes. But he still cares about us. Giles, too."

"I've tried to kill you all, too."

"Except me," Dawn said, smirking now.

"And Tara." Spike shot a look across the table. "I would have killed for her. But I knew that belonged to you."

Willow's breath suddenly came short and hard as Spike showed her a particularly gruesome tableau of Angelus' making. "Oh. I think you might have done a better job than I did."

"I had my own work." He blinked, and his eyes went to where his hand still rested in Dawn's. "You can get out of my mind now."

 _Can you make me leave?_

[ _no_ ]

He had tried, in fact, but his defenses were utterly gone. Willow nodded, caressed his tired mind with a last comforting thought, and pulled away. She swayed a little, and Buffy's arm went around her.

"Sorry," Willow said, giving her a reassuring smile. "It's just jet lag, fear of facing my friends, fear that I'd gone off the wagon, gnarl, and spending time in Spike's mind," she looked across the table at him, "no offense."

"None taken. Not too happy to be in here myself."

"It's just all taken a toll. I'd like to go to bed now."

"You sure you want to stay here? It won't be too hard on you?" Buffy asked, her eyes sympathetic. "I've got my old room ready for you." Dawn looked at her sister in surprise.

"I don't mind," Willow said, missing the Summers girls' silent exchange. "It's easier than being at my parents. They pry, but they only want the right answers, not the honest ones." She took a deep breath and stood up. "Spike? If you like, tomorrow we'll try a few exercises to help you build your mental defenses back up."

"Thanks. I'd like that." He watched Willow until she went up the stairs, then looked at Dawn. "I should go, too."

"Go where?" she asked, a challenge gleaming in her eye.

"Uh," he said, at a loss.

"Not back to the Hellmouth, soul man. You can stay here," she said, "in the basement, where there's no sun. The cot you sometimes used last summer is still there."

"Dawn," Buffy said warningly, "we haven't talked about this."

"We didn't talk about Willow staying here, either," Dawn shot back.

Spike, his jaw set, pulled his hand free of hers. "I'll find somewhere. I've dossed it before. 'M not a child, Bit. I can take care of myself." He stood to leave.

"Obviously, you can't," she said fiercely, getting to her feet, too.

"You can come back to my place," Xander said, also rising. "Just till you find a place and get less, you know, crazy."

Buffy closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see Dawn glaring at her. Why had she said that? Hadn't that been her own plan, to help Spike, at least before she found out about the soul?

Spike was staring at Xander, poleaxed. "Um, I can't. But thanks."

"Why not?" Xander shrugged. "It's better than Buffy's basement – or my parents' basement, for that matter. I've got an extra room. It's small, the realtor called it 'cozy,' there's no windows, so it's just right for the unexpected guest vampire. And I have a bathroom," he added pointedly, "which you should feel free to hog."

The other man looked down, biting his lip. "I can't. Haven't done right by you."

Xander looked down, too, his mind flashing for a moment on the surveillance feed. "No, you didn't. But it's mutual. Let it go." He shrugged. "Bygones, or something."

Spike glanced up at him, and their eyes met briefly. "Are you saying you want to bury the hatchet?"

Xander smiled a little at the line he'd been handed. "And not even in your skull. I love a good straight man." Then he closed his eyes and shook his head, pointing a finger at Spike. "Don't."

"I love a good straight man, too," the vampire said anyway, arching an eyebrow, although his voice alone made the mild reply sound dirty.

"Death, taxes, and your smart mouth," Xander said, "the great constants. Come on, Captain Peroxide. The working man's got to get some sleep." He looked at Buffy. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

"Good night." She glanced over at Spike, who nodded at her.

Dawn gave him and Xander a quick hug, spared a nasty look for Buffy, and flounced up the stairs as the two men left. Buffy stood where they left her by the dining room table, listening as Spike offered to help Xander with the rent. Whatever else he was, Spike was an ally. He was under attack, and her first reaction was to deny him safe haven. She thought of her mother, who would certainly have let Spike stay in her house, and sighed. What was wrong with her?

I'm afraid, she realized. Before he'd snapped back to awareness, when it seemed he would remain in her care, she'd thought of him sitting upstairs in the tub, quiet and pliant under her hands as she bathed him. Her fantasy started with her taking care of him, but it took a quick turn down other avenues. But she was never going to touch him that way again. It was the only way to be safe.

Outside, Xander was backing out of the driveway. He'd reminded Spike twice to buckle up, then let it go. Spike seemed to be struggling with something and finally managed to get it out three blocks from the apartment.

"You know, Xander, we could not, and say we did." He let out a lot of the air in his lungs. "'Preciate the invite, really, but–"

"It's okay, Spike, it really is," Xander said, cutting left. "I sort of owe you."

"For what?"

The dark-haired man paused for a moment. "For always assuming the worst about you."

"Playing the percentages."

"Maybe the game changed." He turned into the parking lot. "Lord knows I haven't always made the best decisions."

"You're twenty-one, right?"

"Twenty-two."

"If you're referring to the wedding, you're only mistake was the timing. Twenty-two's too young to get leg-shackled, my opinion."

"Tell Anya that was my only mistake."

"I've my own mistakes with Anya to worry about."

There wasn't any way to reply to that, so the two men walked in silence to the door of Xander's apartment, where he formally invited the vampire inside.

⸹

"He's gone," Xander said without preamble.

Buffy, her eyes half-shut, held the phone between her ear and shoulder and shook a box of cereal to see if there was enough left for Dawn's breakfast as she tried to process Xander's words. "Who?"

"Spike," Xander said, impatience lacing his tone. "He neatly made his bed, if he slept in it at all, and skedaddled. One guess as to where."

"You sure you didn't just dust him?" Buffy asked.

"Really not funny," Xander said reprovingly. "I'm trying here, Buf."

"I know," she said. "I'll look for him while I'm at work."

"I'd look myself, but I'm not on site today. Is Willow up yet?"

"No, she'll probably sleep for a while."

"Can't blame her. Call me if you need me."

"I will. Thanks, Xander."

They said their goodbyes and Buffy hung up the phone, frowning as she mentally calculated the time in London. Some counselor she was; she needed guidance so much herself. If she called right now, she'd have just enough time to talk to Giles before she absolutely had to get ready. He wasn't at his flat or available at the Council of Watchers number she had for him, so she left her work number with the receptionist and dashed up the stairs to get her shower.

⸹

Spike quietly closed the door to Dawn's bedroom. It felt odd to be leaving this way instead of exiting through the window. "How are you holding up?" he asked, his voice soft, as he turned to face Willow behind him.

"Hard to sneak up on a vampire, huh?" She shrugged. "I don't know. I feel… helpless, I guess."

He nodded. "Dawn really liked her. You'd taken a shine to Cassie, too, I could tell."

"How is Dawnie?"

He shrugged. "Unhappy, rightfully so." He cut his eyes towards Willow's room and raised his brows. She nodded, and they went inside, Willow closing the door behind them. "Well, it's all about her at this age, innit? Everyone around her dies, she says." He shrugged. "Can't say it isn't true."

Willow did the math, then sank down on the bed. "Wow. Those are some pretty high numbers, especially for someone whose true age is, like, two."

Spike shrugged again. "She used to say that everyone left."

"We come back, though," Willow said, a little defensively.

"Reckon that's why she changed her refrain," he said fondly.

"You want to work on those mental defenses, I suppose."

"If you're not too tired."

Willow gave him a puzzled look. "Here," she said, indicating the bed, "sit down." When he'd settled on the other end of the bed, she considered him. "Spike, why are you being so polite?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong with that?"

"No, but it's just… not you."

"Honestly, Red? I'm not sure who I am anymore."

"How long have you felt like that?"

He gave her a sharp look. "'S'true, I haven't exactly felt myself since I gave up on Buffy, but even then I knew who I was. I guess it's since I got off the Hellmouth. I can't keep from going back there, like some sort of soddin' homing pigeon." He gave her an apologetic look. "So much for politeness."

"No, that makes it feel more normal," Willow told him.

"So, yeah, I'm more'n ready to put up some mental fences."

"Okay, so let's do this." They looked at each other. "Try another image instead of the guard with the axe." Their gazes met for a long moment, then Willow pulled away. "Spike, you dropped your damned DeSoto on me. I hate that car!"

"Wasn't my car – which is a classic, for your information. Xander made me watch this Evil Dead movie the other night, _Army of Darkness_ , and this car fell from the sky. I dropped that on you. Brilliant movie, by the way. Guy who played Ash looks like Xander's older brother or some such."

"Well, dropping a car didn't work," Willow said sulkily. "Start with something smaller, like a flyswatter."

He left fifteen minutes later, encouraged, though not exactly sure if he was getting stronger or if Willow had just gotten sleepy. Buffy was waiting for him downstairs on the couch. She waved him over, and he moved to sit stiffly on the opposite end.

"Good work tonight," Buffy said. She looked and sounded tired, and he ached to just hold her.

"For what it was worth," he replied.

A cynical smile touched her mouth, but it was too much effort to hold it. "I think it's always worth it. Trying, I mean." She took a breath and watched him brace for it. "It's nothing bad, Spike. I just wanted to ask you to try very hard not to go back to the school basement." Buffy looked at the floor. "Sometimes we can't find you. Xander says the passageways down there move, that they never match the blueprints. So, I might not be able to find you when I need you." He nodded, as if he had never heard this before. It was odd to have to repeat anything to Spike. Normally, he was so quick.

"I… It's not like I want to be there, Buffy," he said, desperation touching his tone. "It's like I wake up and find myself there. I…" He took a deep breath and tried again. "I'm not sure of myself, even, can't trust that what I see and hear is real."

"I'm real," she said, trying so hard. "You can always tell it's me, right? The not-so-pleasant Buffy."

"No," he said sadly, "you're the pleasant one." He put his hand toward her, palm up, and after a moment, she stretched out and took it. "I'm so afraid I'm going to fail you again."

"You've never–" She stopped abruptly and bit her lip. She could be honest with Spike. "I'm afraid of hurting you," she admitted. "I've done it too much." The Slayer looked away. "So, we're both afraid."

"I feared neither man nor beast for over a hundred years," he said, his voice so deep that she could swear she felt it vibrate in her chest, "and now, with you and Dawn, there's not a moment's passing that I don't fear." He took two shallow breaths. "Human life is short."

"Spike," Buffy managed with difficulty, "I'd like to cry now. For Cassie, I mean. If you just hold me, and I promise that I won't hurt you, would that be okay?"

He stared at her, his brows drawn together. He wanted to lie and tell her that she'd never hurt him; he wished she would lie and tell him the same. Instead, he held out his other hand. "It would be an honor, my lady."

⸹

She was being watched. It didn't take a Slayer to sense it. Buffy peered at a familiar-looking door in the basement of the school, a stake in her right hand and a plastic shopping bag in her left. The doors down here were almost as tricky as the halls, but maybe this was….

There he was, his hands pressed flat against the far wall, his forehead resting between them. He wasn't the one who had been watching her. Spike's head was tilted, as if he was listening to someone. Which, Buffy supposed, he was. She hadn't been able to find him yesterday or the day before, and the First Evil wasn't one to waste time.

"Spike?" Her voice sounded hard and impatient, but she couldn't seem to help herself. She hated seeing Spike – Spike! – unfocused and helpless like this.

He looked at thin air for a moment before turning to her. "Slayer?" he asked, uncertain.

"I've been looking for you." Fear flitted across his face, and the expression made her that much angrier.

"Why?"

"Because this place is going to kill you. You're living in an apartment with Xander, remember?"

"Xander?" His expression cleared a bit. "But not in his parents' basement?"

"Right," she agreed. Taking a breath, she tucked the stake into her back pocket and walked over to him. "Remember working with Willow to build your mental defenses?" Buffy had listened to them a couple of times, hearing enough to get an idea.

"Yeah," he said, caution in his voice.

He doesn't know I'm the real McCoy, she thought, more tired than sympathetic. "Well, I thought this might help." She opened the plastic bag and drew out his black leather coat.

He hissed and turned away from her, throwing another fearful look to his right. Buffy looked at the spot and deliberately moved into it. "Spike, look at me." He did after a moment, reluctance slowing his movement. "I thought you could use this as an image, too, as if it's armor. You can wear it like body armor." Buffy held it out. "It's just your coat, exactly the way it was when you left it at my house." She dropped her gaze. "I kept it all summer for when you came back. You're back now, so here." She took another step toward him, still holding it toward him.

His eyes never leaving her face, Spike stretched out. When his fingers touched solid leather, his eyes closed. "You're real."

"I'm real," she agreed. "Come away from here," she made herself say the words, "come home. Dawn misses you, and this place," she looked around, her Slayer senses tripping where her eyes touched shadows, "it's not good for you."

"No," he agreed, his own eyes searching the dark corners. They were yellow, she realized, though all his other features were human. "It isn't."

"It's dark outside. We can walk over to Xander's together." She took a few steps toward the door. "Are you coming?" He nodded and fell in step, the coat crumpled in his hands, letting her lead him out of the basement.

⸹

November 2002

Buffy swung her arms a little. So much had been going on lately, first with Anya (so that's a grimslaw demon; Spike was right, and that means Riley must have… not going to think about that just yet), then with that stupid letterman jacket at school, that it was a relief to be outside for a simple patrol. Spike and Xander both had offered to come with her, but she wanted to be alone. She smiled a little at the thought of the two of them, roommates again. Xander was happier than he had been in months. Part of it was knowing Anya was back to human, but part of it was having Willow back and even a dead person to come home to. He just wasn't meant to be solitary. And Spike….

Spike hadn't been back to the school basement for almost two weeks, and Willow said his mind was getting stronger. He still couldn't keep her out if she was determined, but she didn't think that anything could get inside his head without him knowing about it. And since he was doing better, that meant Dawn was happier – which meant everyone was happier.

The one fly in her ointment (what is ointment, exactly, and why do flies like it so much? she wondered. Stupid expression, anyway) was Giles, who had been distracted and unhelpful when he finally returned her call. The only time his voice had sharpened and she was sure she had his attention was when she mentioned First Evil and the Bringers. She snorted. They sounded like some lame sixties folk band.

Buffy turned into the newer section of the cemetery and began looking for a recent grave that had a likely candidate. He'd only been a year older than her when he died. Ah, there it was. Webster. She hunkered down to wait. Other than Giles-missage, things were going okay. She rapped her knuckles on the stake absently, knocking wood. The school counselor job was a godsend (do I have a guardian angel? If Spike does, I definitely should). Although she wasn't bringing in any more money, the hours and the work itself were so much better that most days she was almost her own self again (God, I almost had sex with a student! RJ and that damned letter jacket could have gotten me fired). She even had enough energy to be strong for Willow when the redhead had an especially rough day. It was nice to be there for someone, especially after spending so many months trying not to need the very same thing (thank God for the Zoloft).

Dawn was still exhausting but easier to live with. A lot of that was due to Spike, who was so good at taking the wind out of Dawn's teenaged sails, helping her be more patient. She insisted that they have family meals, now that Buffy had regular person hours, and she shanghaied her pet vampire into helping her really learn to cook. Buffy, Willow, and Xander had choked down a couple of meals through the sheer power of love (and fear of a Dawn tantrum), but most nights the two of them did a surprisingly good job – though Spike covered up the taste of everything with Tabasco, habanero peppers, and Burba weed. They were weaning him off his 'steroids for vampires' diet, mixing expired units of human blood from the hospital with pig's blood. And wasn't that yummy to watch?

Dawn had the right idea, though. Some things got shared at the dinner table that would have otherwise have escaped Buffy's notice, like Xander mentioning that the number of houses up for sale in town had skyrocketed. When she told her sister that, intending it as praise, Dawn said the important things shared at the dinner table weren't the important things. Remembering this, Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Come on," she muttered, staring down at the freshly turned earth impatiently. She was going to have arthritis by the time she was thirty from sitting on cold, damp graveyard dirt waiting for tardy vampires (if I'm lucky enough to live that long). For a moment, she regretted turning down Spike's offer to join her. Having him to talk to would certainly make the time pass more quickly.

Not that they talked much anymore. She had thought back, after Dawn pointed it out, to the way he was just before she died, before he got his soul, and the way he had been after she came back. There wasn't much difference. He remained irritating, independent, snarky, dirty-minded, and contrary… and noble and selfless and caring. But since his disappearance over the summer, he was very different. He wasn't exactly clingy, but he was always hovering nearby. He was too quiet, Buffy thought, where before you couldn't get him to shut up, not even when they were –

Don't go there, she warned herself sternly. But the remembered murmur of his voice coiled around her, whispering endearments in a dozen languages, keeping up a running commentary on how she made him feel and what his hands were going to do next. She had once asked him to talk dirty to her, and he only looked at her, puzzled, and said he wouldn't know how. His voice, she had decided, was the sexiest thing about him, at the top of a very long list. When they had been together, nothing he suggested to her in that low rumble had seemed wrong or bizarre, but once she was away from him and could think clearly… If Angel and Riley (not going to count Parker) had shone a flashlight into a room of erotic pleasure, Spike had flooded it with stadium lights, revealing everything. It was too much for her, and sometimes it had been easier to retreat to something familiar, something that was satisfying and gave her the power: the sounds of a vampire in pain.

Since she was never going to hurt him again, the sexual exploration that had gone hand-in-hand with it was over, too. When she left his crypt and could no longer see herself in his eyes, magnificent and fearless and beautiful, she had felt shamed and cheapened and dirty. Even now, she didn't like to think of some of the things he had done to her and most of the things she had done to him. Unfortunately, that meant it wasn't safe to think of the other times, when the things they did together were loving.

She could admit that, now, especially about their first night. Despite the violent beginning, they had made love for hours, neither of them willing to risk saying a word that might break the spell. Buffy could swear she had brought him as many times as he had brought her; they were both insatiable that night, exhaustion instead of repletion finally putting a halt to their lovemaking. If only they could have put the boundary there… but she didn't know, and it never occurred to Spike. He considered them equals in every way.

Buffy sighed and poked the grave with her stake. If she had a watch, she would have checked it. Maybe Willow was wrong about this one. The Sunnydale coroner's reports all tended to read pretty much the same. An animal attack could be a lot of other things besides vampires – fanged demons, various werecreatures, even, well, wild animals, though that was doubtful.

In a way, it would be easier if Spike was being timid just with her, but he was quiet and polite to everyone, even Dawn, which was a shame. The only thing he'd balked at where her sister was concerned was learning how to French-braid her hair, declaring that was one thing that could irreparably damage his masculinity. Apparently, even this helpful version of Spike had his limits. But it was worrisome. What had the First Evil done to him to cause more of a change than getting back his soul? Maybe that was it. Maybe because this was something that had been done to him, instead of something he'd –

Finally. Buffy stood up, brushing the seat of her slacks. The new vampire's hands broke the surface of the grave, and she stood back, waiting for him to pull himself out. She felt like having a workout tonight.

Twenty seconds later, she sighed. Not much workout. He'd thrown a couple of kicks at her, pretty but not effective. The vamp had looked a little familiar, but it was hard to tell through the fangs, ridges, and stupidly evil expression. He hadn't even said anything, just snarled.

Someone was applauding.

Buffy whirled around, her stake held at the ready, and watched as Angel walked out of the trees.

"Perfect. As always." He smiled at her, stopping several feet away.

"Skulky. As always," she replied, lowering her stake and giving him a brief smile. "So. What's up?"

"Does something have to be up?"

"If you're here, yes."

He made an apologetic face. "Actually, I did have a reason for coming here. Not apocalyptic, though. Personal. I've been hearing some rumors." He shrugged. "Thought I'd, you know, ask you directly."

Buffy's heart sank. "Rumors?"

Angel walked past her, past the headstone, then turned to stare down into the disturbed earth above the grave, his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I left so you could have a chance at a normal life. Not much chance, maybe, but a chance." He sighed. "So this worries me. I've been hearing disturbing things about you and…" he looked up at her, his brown eyes wary, "Spike."

⸹

Xander rubbed his eyes and then stretched his arms over his head. It was after nine, but he'd finally finished the schedule for the next two weeks. That covered the Thanksgiving holidays, and he'd managed to make the maximum number of construction workers happy. Fortunately, enough guys wanted holiday overtime to make up for the ones that wanted family time. The company was supposed to be finished with the high school by the end of the year, and he was pretty sure he could get them out before Christmas, something that made him feel proud and competent. Xander gathered up his hard hat and briefcase and, locking the trailer behind him, went to post the schedule.

He was pressing in the last thumbtack, the previous schedule held between his teeth, when he got a faint whiff of marijuana smoke. One eyebrow cocked, he looked around, taking the paper from his mouth and shoving it in his pocket. Must be school kids, he thought, wincing as he realized how old and stuffy he sounded in his own mind. Maybe he was getting old; he hadn't toked since he started hanging out with the Slayer, not since….

"Hey, man. Long time, no see."

Xander froze. He knew that voice.

"What, no hug for your old bud?"

"Jesse?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. In the non-corporeal flesh."

He turned around. "Well, as I live and breathe… and you, not so much."

"Yeah." Jesse laughed a little. "Still can't believe you staked me, dude."

"Can't take credit for it," Xander said sincerely. He'd gone over that and over it again, alone in his boyhood bedroom. "I was just holding the stake; apparently going all fangy makes you lose your balance a lot easier."

"You saying you couldn't have done it?"

"No, man. I couldn't." _Not then._

"Right," Jesse said, nodding. He ducked his head and took a couple of steps away before looking back up. "So, you're hanging with that Slayer chick and geeky little Willow nowadays. Gettin' any trim?"

Xander gave him a mirthless smile. "A gentleman never tells."

Jesse considered him for a few moments. "Heard you're rooming with William the Bloody."

"Can't deny it, much as I'd like to."

"Word on our side is that he's… really good."

"You know, while you were off being dead," Xander said, "I kinda worked through the whole 'gay guys freak me out' thing with Larry – remember him?" His face went hard. "Nice guy, underneath it all. He was gay, came out and stopped projecting, and he died fighting against your side. Yeah, your side. I know what this is." Xander shook his head. "What I don't understand is how you got to Spike – who is, I can admit without any fear that it'll make me queer, quite the handsome man. I mean, as psychological warfare goes, this stuff is, well, lame." He melodramatically looked around. "Not too worried, unless – got any of those Bringer guys around? No?" Xander scoffed. "Blow." He walked away, and Jesse kept pace, his eyes narrow.

"Dude, I haven't even started. Wanna talk about the life you've got – oh, sorry, that's the Slayer's life you've got."

"There's the windup, and the pitch!" Xander fished his keys from his pocket, letting a couple of the sharp ends poke through his fingers, just in case there were Bringers. Keys in a fist worked better than brass knuckles. "Aww, he misses, and it's strike two for the Big Bad." He shook his head. "I'm barely a legal adult, and all I have is a high school diploma. Yet here I am, supervising guys three times my age on a multi-million dollar project. That's my day job. In the evenings, me and my friends save the world. Seems pretty much like a life to me. And, oh, I actually have one of those, too. Jesse lasted, what, two days as a vampire? I've been fighting evil for… God, has it really been almost seven years?" Xander shook his head in bemusement.

Jesse smiled. "Better than I expected. But I gotta tell you, dude, you've got one great, big, gaping hole in your armor. It's sorta… Anya-shaped. Or should I say Anyanka? Not too many men have hurt a woman so much that she'd prefer to be a demon, but you… abandoning her in front of all the people she knew, human and non-human alike… That spells loser with a capital 'L.'"

Xander glanced over at the effigy of his dead friend. "All right, I'll give you that one. Base hit."

"Double, at least. Did you know she still cries about it at night?"

"Going for the steal," Xander said. He had reached his car by now. "Oh, too bad, game called on account of boredom." Opening the door, he tossed his briefcase and hardhat in the passenger seat and got in. Driving off, he could see Jesse smirking at him in the rear view mirror.

Five blocks later, the adrenalin drained away, and he pulled to the shoulder, shaking. That had been bad, really bad. Even a year ago, he couldn't have handled it. One thing was for sure: he didn't want to go back to his empty apartment. Spike was out for a poker night with Clem, who had nagged the vampire for almost two solid weeks to play. He'd go to Buffy's; she'd want to know about this, anyway.

⸹

"It's true," Buffy admitted in a small voice. Angel gave her a swift, hurt look before focusing on the grave again. "I'm not going to lie," she said, stronger.

"I almost wish you would."

"Not that it matters, but how'd you hear?"

"Cordy and Willow stay in touch."

Buffy nodded. "How is Cordelia?"

"She's… Cordy is… She's a different person than the one you knew in high school, Buffy. She's strong and compassionate, and I don't know how I could keep going with my own mission without her. She's… special."

The Slayer clenched her teeth against a sharp stab of jealousy. "It's kind of odd, actually. I could say the same thing about Spike. E-except the high school part."

"That's just it, Buffy. I've known Spike a lot longer than you have. I've known him since he was born into this life. I know _him_." Angel lifted one broad shoulder. "He revels in it."

"Like you did."

"Like I _did_. All vampires aren't the same. You know that."

"I do," she said quietly, "if anyone does. He has a soul." She took a defiant breath. "Spike went halfway around the world and fought to win his soul." She realized then that she was proud of him. "He earned it."

The dark-haired man looked up at her, surprise on his face, and her heart leapt a little at how handsome he was, even in this moment. "His soul… are you saying he has a soul?" At her nod, he pressed, "Are you sure?" He looked away, trying to take it in, then gave her a sharp look. "Spike could be lying, just to… you know, trick you into–"

"I slept with him without knowing he had a soul, Angel." Her voice was calm, but her cheeks went red.

"Oh," he said. Then he looked away. "Oh." Angel's mouth twisted with bitterness. "Well, that's Spike. What can I say? He is good in bed." He looked up at her still face, and whatever else he was going to say died away. "Why?" There was pain in his eyes.

She threw her hands up. "Oh, let's see. He was there with me every day fighting by my side, telling me he loved me, and he never left. He looked out for me, my sister, and even my friends – and he didn't even particularly like them. Little things like that."

Angel closed his eyes. "No curse with his soul, then? He doesn't have a Sword of Damocles hanging over his soul every time you–"

"No."

The vampire shook his head, upset, his eyes closed again. "I should have come back to Sunnydale after Willow brought you back. I knew when we met that you weren't yourself. If I'd been here to take care of you, this never would have–"

"I'm not yours to take care of. Not anymore."

"I'm your friend, Buffy." He looked up at her and paced away a couple of yards.

 _You'll never be friends._ "And you want to save me? From what? A man who loves me whether or not he has a soul?" She put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, but Angel had his back to her and didn't see. God, she hadn't meant to say that.

"Spike isn't a man." He turned back to her and continued, his voice hard. "Neither am I. That's why I left, so you could find–"

"I don't need a man," the Slayer snapped, not about to let it go. She'd never get the courage to bring it up again. "Tell me, Angel. Why can he love me without a soul when you can't?"

He waved a dismissive hand. "Spike's always been weird."

Hurt passed across Buffy's face, and then she went still. "Weird?" she echoed, her voice strangled.

"Ever since Drusilla dragged him home," he went on, still pacing. "I wish I'd staked him then." Angel turned back to her, a cold smile on his lips. "But Dru would have sulked if I took away her pretty new toy." Then he got a better look at her face. At the Slayer's face. He chuckled. "I thought I was doing a pretty good job. What gave it away?"

"You said Spike was weird. Angel always blames himself." She crossed her arms.

"I don't really mind you knowing. It'll be more fun playing Angelus," the First Evil said maliciously, "won't it, Buf?"

"Fun's a word. So is pathetic."

"Oh, I don't know. I had you going for a while, stammering around, trying not to hurt Angel's feelings by comparing your one night of true love," his laughing voice cut into her, "to all the fucking you did with Spike. 'Cause the fucking was better, wasn't it, Buf?"

"I have to say, you do Angelus much better," she said. It was eerily like Angelus, actually, the familiar pain of something wearing Angel's face while shredding her emotions. "Of course, I wouldn't expect you to be able to be good at imitating a loving, kind person. An asshole like Angelus is right about your level."

The First ignored her, Angelus' grin gleaming in the pale light. "He's so good at it. I remember. Where do you think Spike learned it all? On the street, from the kids at school?" He widened his eyes in mock consternation. "No, he learned it all from me, at my knee… or on his knees. And he wasn't a quick study, either. Had to learn his lessons repeatedly, from me, Darla, and Drusilla, from the edge of a knife, from the bite of a whip. By the end, though, he was sooo good at it. Real aptitude." He gave her a shark's grin. "Not like you."

"You think I'm going to banter with you? Tell you something like, it's obvious the student has surpassed the teacher?' Buffy shook her head. "Is there a purpose to this?" She gestured at the empty grave. "'Cause I've done what I came to do."

"No purpose. It's just fun to hurt you." Angel leaned over the broken ground. "You know, Buf, none of us – hell, all of us – never brought the pain to Spike the way you did."

"I'm leaving," and she turned away.

"But it's okay, because my boy likes the pain." His happy voice got louder. "Good thing, too, since I have so much more to give him."

She stopped and pivoted on her heel. "Stay away from him."

"Why should you care? You don't love him. No one treats someone they love the way you treat him."

"You know, I'm _really_ going to enjoy sending you back to hell." The Slayer turned away again.

"Hell is a place I made for your kind, little girl," the First said. "I made fear, too, and I don't fear your useless threats."

"Uh-huh." She kept walking, didn't bother turning around. "If I'm no threat, why are you even bothering to… bother me?"

"Because it's just so much fun," Angel said, and then the voice changed, "pet."

Buffy closed her eyes. _No_.

"'M used to seeing you walk away from me, love. Never gets any easier, though," Spike said, resignation shading his words.

She stopped and turned around, hating herself for being weak, for opening herself up to more pain. "Don't," she whispered.

He was only ten yards away and naked, light from the moon and the streetlamps illuminating pale, perfect skin. Buffy let out a tiny breath at the forbidden sight. As she watched, a small, red, round bite mark appeared on his collarbone.

"Why can't you love me, Buffy?" Four lines of blood drawn by invisible fingernails striped his chest. "I've changed. 'M a good man." His love for her was open, filling his eyes, even as his head rocked back and a drop of blood welled on his swollen lower lip. She knew the texture and taste so well. "What else can I do for you, love? Set me a task; I will do it." Bruises blossomed on his torso. "Give me a quest; I will fulfill it." Tears spilled down his cheeks without shame. "Because I don't know what else to do. You've got to tell me," Spike pleaded, one eye blackened now and swelling shut. "I have nothing to give you. You've burned and crushed and taken everything I owned. You spurn my words. My deeds mean nothing. You won't have my soul." He doubled over, was driven to his knees by unseen blows. "I forgive you," he gasped as his hands were drawn above his head by invisible bonds, "because I love you, Buffy." His body rocked forward, away from a lash across his back. "Nothing will ever make me stop loving you," he managed, even as his head fell forward onto his bleeding chest.

Then Spike raised his head and looked into her wet, horrified eyes. He leaned away from her, so that light fell across his abused body and showcased his jutting erection. He grinned at her, tongue lolling over his teeth for a second. "Not even you."

"Bastard," she whispered.

"Ain't I a stinker?"

Buffy's lips parted in disbelief, the spell broken. "Bugs Bunny? You're referencing Bugs Bunny?" She shook her head, anger driving away all other emotions, and stalked off.

The First used Angelus' voice to call after her, "Be seeing you, lover." She had to walk a long distance before the sound of his laughter faded.

⸹

Not bothering with the door, Buffy leapt through the shattered window into her living room. "Dawn?" she yelled, her voice cracking.

"In here," Xander called from the kitchen.

The Slayer was there in no seconds flat, looking wildly around for her sister. Every light in the room was on. She pulled Dawn halfway off the stool she was sitting on and into a hug. "What happened here?"

"We see dead people," Xander said in a stage whisper.

"You, too?"

"I saw Mom," Dawn said in a real whisper, looking up at Buffy with a face swollen from crying.

"What happened to the house? Was it Bringers?"

"No," Dawn said, sniffling a little. "It was like a storm inside the house, or like those ghost movies. I think it was really Mom, Buffy, and the First Evil was trying to keep her from coming to me."

"What's the first thing she said to you, Dawn?"

"'Bad things are coming,' something like that," her sister replied in a miserable voice.

"Not 'oh, Dawnie, look at how big you are,' or 'I love you?'"

Fresh tears tracked down Dawn's cheeks. "I want it to have really been her," she said, her voice breaking, "so much."

"I know," Buffy said, her own eyes wet. It was a relief to cry. She hugged Dawn hard and rubbed her back. "I know."

"Who was it for you?" Xander asked, his brown eyes sympathetic, so unlike the other pair that had been on her this night.

"Angel," Buffy said, her mouth constricting for a moment, "and Angelus." She couldn't tell him about Spike.

"I'm sorry," he said simply.

"Who was it for you?"

"Jesse."

Buffy put her hand out for his. She still felt guilt over that one, her first failure in Sunnydale. Xander didn't have many friends left. How often had she heard him wish for another guy to offset the estrogen factor in the Scooby gang? He had been missing Jesse for years.

Xander's cell phone rang, and he gave her fingers a squeeze before letting go to answer it. "Willow?" he asked, relief flooding his face. "Yeah, us, too… I've been calling your cell… No, everyone's okay. Buffy's house is wrecked, though… Just stay there, and I'll come get you." He folded the phone. "Wil's okay, but really upset. She was studying on campus and thought she fell asleep."

"Who was it for her?" Buffy dreaded the answer.

"Cassie."

Dawn's face crumpled again, and she hid her face against Buffy's shoulder. The Slayer closed her eyes in relief, though. "Not Tara."

"Why can it use Mom but not Tara to do these things?" Dawn asked in a muffled voice. "Mom was a good person, too. It isn't fair."

"Tara was a good person," Xander said, "but she was also a powerful white witch. That probably has something to do with it." He leaned down and kissed both girls on the cheek. "I'll be back as quick as I can. Phone's on if you need me." He met Buffy's gaze. "I've left a dozen messages at the apartment for Spike to call here."

Her eyes rounded. "Oh, no."

Xander's face was grim, but he forced reassurance into his voice. "He made it through months of this stuff. He's probably immune by now." He shrugged awkwardly. "I'd better get a move on."

"Be careful," Buffy said, watching him leave through the back door, already fishing in his pockets for car keys. She looked down at her sister's head. "Well, this is the point where I'm supposed to make us hot chocolate, isn't it?"

Dawn made a face. "That's only for Spike. I would like some tea, though."

"Boil water," Buffy said. "I can do that." She had just filled the teakettle when Dawn's cell phone rang.

"'Lo?" She looked up at her sister. "It's Spike." Dawn listened for no more than five seconds, said, "Okay," then took the phone from her ear. "He said he's fine, and he's on his way."

The kettle hadn't whistled when the back door opened and Spike came in. Buffy was closer, and there was no hesitation or awkwardness as he swept her into his arms on his way to similarly capture Dawn. His eyes were black with anger in a way that Buffy hadn't seen in almost a year.

"I should have been here," he said roughly. "'M sorry, Bit." He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Buffy." He turned and touched his forehead reverently to hers, closing his eyes.

The three of them stood in silence for almost a minute, drawing comfort from each other, until the teakettle began to hiss. Spike plopped Dawn one-armed onto the counter, keeping his other arm around Buffy, took the kettle from the burner, turned off the stovetop, and completed his circling movement by coming back around to put his hand on his Nibblet's shoulder. Buffy raised her eyebrows at this innate ability to arrange women to his liking.

"Did you run all the way here?" Dawn asked, curious.

"I flew, pet. Vampire, yeah?" He didn't smile when he said this, looking up at her. Pointing toward the rest of the house with his chin, he asked, "What happened here? Bringers?"

"It got all _Poltergeist_ -y for a while," Dawn said. Buffy almost smiled at how she was trying to be nonchalant about it in front of the vampire.

"Who'd it use to try to play you?" he asked, studying her.

Dawn gave him a wobbly smile, and the toughness vanished. "M-mom," she managed, and slumped forward into his embrace.

"Convincing, innit?" he said, stroking her hair. "But not a chance it was really your mum. She would have been right put out about the state of her house, wouldn't she?" Buffy did smile a little and turned away to pour the hot water over the herbal tea bags in cups she'd already set out. She listened to his voice as he soothed her sister, getting out a packet of instant cocoa mix and fixing it for him.

"Here we go," she said, and Dawn sat back up, wiping her face with her hand before accepting her cup of tea.

Spike's eyes went to the Slayer. "What about you?"

She avoided the question. "It specifically threatened you."

He made an impatient gesture. "Never saw anything. I was with three other demons," he said. "This thing doesn't like to work a room. It's strictly one-on-one."

Her eyes widened. "Is that why you…?"

"Why I've been underfoot so much? Yeah," he admitted. "Even when you know it isn't real, still isn't fun."

"No," she agreed. "It isn't."

"Why do all this?" Dawn asked, indicating the three of them. "I mean, the Big Bad is usually after something, right? Me, for instance," she made a face, "or – or world domination, or, like Willow, revenge. What does it want?"

"What worries me more is that it was powerful enough to appear to all of us at the same time, this far away from the Hellmouth," Buffy said, frowning.

"Does it feed off fear?" Dawn asked.

Her sister shook her head. "No, not that I ever heard. Okay, what do we know about it? It isn't a single entity, because it's like an emotion, or propensity, or something that is inside every sentient thing."

"But it's acting like a single entity," Spike said, a matching frown on his face. "It's no longer content to act through others. It wants… agency, is that the word?"

"It told me tonight that it was just having fun," Buffy said quietly.

"Evil," Dawn pointed out, gesturing with her mug.

The corners of Buffy's mouth lifted for a moment. "We know it can't possess people. We know it can't appear as living people, or at least only as people who have been dead," touching her own chest. "We know these apparitions aren't corporeal, because they can't touch us. It plays on our fears and weaknesses."

"It can possess people," Spike disagreed. "I think that's exactly what the Bringers are, hollowed-out vessels that it inhabits."

"So, where does it find people to possess?" Dawn wondered.

"Oh, there are always people willing to give up their souls to the right demon," Anya said, suddenly standing next to Buffy.

Dawn jerked, spilling her tea. "Jeez, Anya! Scare a person."

"Sorry," Anya said, smiling uncertainly. "The door was open – most of the front of the house was open."

"Did it come after you, pet?" Spike asked, noticing how shaky she was. When she nodded, he held open his arms. Buffy felt her second jealous pang of the evening.

Anya let Spike hug her for a few seconds, then pulled away. "I thought D'Hoffryn had sent him after me."

"Who?" Dawn asked.

"W.C. Fields."

"Who?" Dawn asked again, as Spike struggled to maintain a sympathetic expression.

"W.C. Fields," Anya repeated, "the famous vaudeville and early motion picture comedian. I called vengeance down on him on behalf of his wife."

"Let me guess," Spike said evenly. "The nose?"

"Oh, no, that was a combination of excessive alcohol consumption and advanced rosacea," Anya said. "I doomed him to work with animals, small children, and Mae West. He despised her."

Buffy gave her head a small shake, as if finally able to look away from a train wreck. "Well, I'm glad you're safe," she said, forcing a smile. "Would you like some tea?"

"Yes," Anya said, adding a belated, "Thank you."

"Let's go take a closer look at the damage," Spike suggested to the Slayer after Anya's tea had cooled. "Red and the whelp will be back soon; we might as well use what time we have." He waited for her to go first through the door, then moved up beside her in the wider dining room. They stopped at the French doors.

"I don't know how I'm going to afford to get this fixed," she said after a moment of stunned silence.

Spike took a breath and pursed his lips. He tried again. "Let me help, Buffy. I've got folding – uh, I mean, I have money."

"All right," she agreed, her voice small.

He looked over at her, surprised, and their eyes met for a long moment. Spike broke contact first, bending over to pick up a twisted piece of a curtain rod. "It was me, wasn't it?"

She nodded, turning her head. He always knew whatever it was she was trying to hide. "It began as Angel, but all it wanted to talk about was you. I guessed that it wasn't him, then it did a pretty good Angelus imitation. I started to walk away, and…" She shook her head, then let it fall back on her shoulders and stared at the ceiling.

"Was always the worst for me, when it played at being you," he said, a growl in his voice.

"You were my victim," Buffy said, her eyes closed, her head still back.

"Not much good at being a victim," he mused.

"No," she agreed, taking in a deep breath before looking at him, "you aren't." The things that 'Angelus' said had preyed on her thoughts on the way home from the cemetery and had only been driven away when she saw the damage to her home. "What did Angel – Angelus, I mean – what did he do to you?"

He looked at her, shrugging. "Nothing. The First wore his face a couple of times on the Hellmouth, but gave that up when it didn't faze me." Seeing that she was dissatisfied, he shook his head. "I don't understand."

Buffy looked away. "When Drusilla first turned you, I mean."

Spike shrugged. "He came on as real friendly at first. Owe him a lot, 's'matter of fact. Took me under his wing the way Dru couldn't, taught me how to do more than just survive. Tried to give me a taste for his brand of mayhem. Then he got in my head and figured out how to yank my chain. After that, he knew all he ever had to know about me to keep me in line." He shrugged again.

"Drusilla?" she asked.

His face was serious as he studied her. "Still love Dru. 'Spect I always will, like you'll always love Angel." To his credit, he said this without much bitterness. "But not like I did then. M'Victorian, yeah? Wanted to protect her, make a home for the little woman, shower her with presents. Dru was always happy to play house with me, but 'Daddy' was first in her heart. So I wanted what she wanted, and she wanted what he wanted, with the end result being that I did what he wanted." A grim smile touched his lips. "Then the wanker got cursed with a soul, and life got a lot better." He made a self-depreciating face. "Hundred years, me and Dru, and – well, you know exactly what happened when Angelus blew back into town." Spike touched her elbow. "That answer your question, love?"

Buffy turned back to him and opened her mouth, but the low beams of Xander's car flashed across the living room. Looking relieved, she said, "They're back." She rolled her eyes. "Obvious girl, that's me."

Spike's brows were drawn together. Tonight's encounter had upset her, plainly. "We can talk later, if you like."

"All right." He watched her walk away, going to the porch to greet Willow. The Slayer's arms, so deceptively slender, went around the young red-haired woman with the tearstained face. Looking at Willow, it was hard to believe that she was capable of the most powerful off-the-cuff magic that he'd seen in his long life. Behind them, the somber look on his young face making him look older, was a human who was in no way extraordinary… except in the fact that he had fought vampires and worse for years and was still alive.

Dawn came up beside Spike and tucked herself under his arm, just a lovely teenaged girl who happened to contain energy that could reshape and destroy worlds. Anya followed, stopping close to him without touching him, seeking comfort, a human who had voluntarily given up being a demon and was under a death sentence for it.

I work with heroes, Spike thought, hugging Dawn closer. No, I am part of a family of heroes. The black sheep, maybe, but part of the family now.

They all stayed at the Summers house that night, Willow and Buffy in the Slayer's old room so Willow didn't have to sleep where Tara died, Xander and Anya in the master bedroom, and Spike on the floor at the foot of Dawn's bed like a guard dog. The next day, it became clear from the number of moving vans and loaded U-Hauls that they weren't the only ones who had received a visit from the First Evil. Sunnydale, always haunted, was in the process of becoming a ghost town.

⸹

[Author's Note: This section is close to sexually explicit (YMMV), as Buffy and Spike get to do things in bed that aren't harmful.]

Despite the fact that enrollment at Sunnydale High School was down, Buffy's job became more demanding. More students were anxious or getting in fights or exhibiting odd behaviors than ever. She came home to the smell of sawdust and paint as Xander and Spike made the front of the house secure again, feeling exposed and stressed through the whole process. If patrols hadn't become easier, she would have been completely exhausted, but the vampires and other creatures that preyed on humans were also moving on, following the herd.

Nevertheless, it was over a week later before she had a chance to talk alone with Spike. She hadn't sought it, but Dawn was spending the night at Janice's. As much as she disapproved of her sister's friend, Janice's family was moving away from Sunnydale, and she couldn't deny them one last sleepover. Buffy got home two hours after school let out and went directly to change out of her responsible clothes into comfy sweats and a t-shirt.

"It's me," she called, sensing Spike at the foot of the stairs. "Just got in. I told Dawn she could sleep over at Janice's one last time."

Before he could respond, the phone rang, and he answered it as a matter of course. Buffy, hesitating long enough to make sure it wasn't an emergency or otherwise for her, went to the bathroom to wash her face. The low rumble of his voice died away, and she felt him come up the stairs and wait for her to finish, standing at the bathroom door.

"Red," he said, gesturing down toward the phone. "She's at her parents' for dinner tonight. Got Xander roped into going along for moral support."

"So, so glad it's not me," she said, grimacing. Sheila Rosenberg had never been her favorite person, even before the whole MOO thing.

"Tired, love?" he asked, concern touching his eyes.

She crushed the towel between her hands and nodded. "Got stuck late doing paperwork. Lots of fights at school, a couple of kids who have lost family members recently – under mysterious Sunnydale circumstances – a lot of other students upset that their friends are leaving, and Principal Wood… he's always watching me."

"Watching you? As in Council of?"

"I don't know." She grimaced. "He doesn't zing the old Slayer senses, but it unnerves me."

"You're right totty, gorgeous, I mean," he said, a small smile of apology on his face. "Maybe that's why he looks."

She rolled her eyes, looking in the mirror at her tired face. "Not that kind of watching, either," she said. "I don't know; maybe it's some authority thing he does."

"Authority sucks," he said, sounding as though he was quoting some song lyric.

Buffy hung the towel over the bar and moved past him. "So, what do you want to do for dinner tonight?"

"Fridge raid?" Spike suggested.

"Not hungry, either?" she asked, giving him a wan smile.

"Come here," he said, matter-of-fact, holding out his hand. She put her palm against his, and he led her into her room. Mom's room, she thought, feeling a moment of bad-daughter guilt for having a boy in her mother's bedroom. "Have a seat," he directed, and Buffy sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress. He scooted behind her, up on his knees, and put his strong fingers into the tense muscles on either side of her neck.

"Oooh," she moaned, then hissed in pain. The massaging fingers eased up, started again. "Ohhh," Buffy moaned again, no pain this time.

He chuckled, low and warm. "Not sure I've gotten that particular sound out of you before," he teased.

"Shut up and just keep doing… oooooh."

"Now, that I've heard."

She didn't have to answer, though, because she could still hear the humor and warmth in his voice. "No, don't shut up," she said abruptly. "Talk to me. I want to hear your voice."

"Dunno what to talk about," he said, fingers moving to her shoulders now. Then, of course, he found things to say: how the key to giving a good massage was having strong fingers; that the best massage he'd ever had was in Thailand and the woman never touched anything above his ankles; a restaurant in New York where eating Thai food was a pissing contest between regulars who competed to see who could eat the hottest, spiciest dish without drinking; a competition held every ten years between vampires in Mexico City as to who could rack up the most kills in a single hour; the Slayer from Norway who had stopped the competition, partly by virtue of being almost as pale as the undead in comparison to their prey; how Buffy had looked golden to him the first time he'd ever seen her, the prototypical California girl. He smiled a little at how it always circled back around to her. His hands were kneading along her lower spine now.

"Don't stop," she protested.

"Can't go any farther," he said wryly.

"What if I lay down?"

"Then you'll fall asleep."

She twisted her head to look at him. "What if I lay down and you keep talking? Then I won't fall asleep. And keep massaging," she added quickly.

"Greedy poppet," he said fondly. She lay on her stomach and closed her eyes, focusing more on the sound of his voice than the actual content and the insistent prodding of his fingers on her stiff body. Oddly, the more relaxed her muscles got, the sharper her mind became. After another ten minutes, she asked him to stop. Spike carefully lay down next to her, their eyes on the same level, a respectful foot or so of air between them. His eyes were full of contentment, as if giving to her filled him. "Buffy?" He hesitated. "About the house repairs… Why is it that you'll take money from me now, when you wouldn't before?"

"You're part of the family now," she replied, and watched him consider this. He looked older, she realized, so glad that he had looked the same before Willow went on her rampage. She would hate to think that knowing her had aged him, an unchanging vampire, but it appeared to be the months he'd spent on the Hellmouth, vulnerable before the First Evil. "Are you sorry you met me?" The question was out before she could reconsider.

He stared at her for a long time, thinking it over. "No," he said eventually, giving her an honest answer. "Wouldn't be where I am now, would I? Make no mistake, Buffy, lying here like this is more than I ever dared hope. Just to be your support, your… friend. No, I'm never sorry I met you." He began to breathe, and Buffy tensed again, despite the lingering effects of the massage. "Are you sorry you met me?"

"Sometimes," she admitted. "You don't make things easy, you know? Nothing black-and-white. But it isn't so much you as it is you being all tied in with growing up and finding out the world isn't a simple place."

"How can I make things easier?"

She smiled. He would do anything for her, wouldn't he? "Be evil, all evil. Then I wouldn't have to face the fact that I'm not all good."

"You are." His eyes caressed her because he wouldn't let his hands move across the small space.

She shook her head. "You, of all people, know I'm not."

"Yeah, you are. I can sense the good in you, strong and… You're my muse, Buffy. Not inspiring poetry or some such, but inspiring me to be good, be like you."

"I don't know how you can say that, after what I've done to you." When his gaze dropped from hers, she asked in a small voice, "What is it you're thinking of?"

He sighed. "You didn't come back for me. The alley, I mean."

Buffy closed her eyes. "I couldn't face what I'd done. I-I just blocked it out for a while."

"What do you think of? When you don't meet my eyes."

"Pick a night," she said, sighing and opening her eyes again.

"Buffy? Would it be all right if I held your hand? Just to be sure?" She understood; he didn't want to go through this discussion only to find that that it wasn't even her. Their fingers touched, then twined together in the space between their bodies. "What we did… there's nothing that's wrong between two people who love each other," he began, but instead closed his own eyes. "S'pose I should say between two consenting adults."

"When I was with you, i-it was okay," she blurted, needing to get it out while her courage lasted. "It was later, when I was alone, that it wasn't… okay. It was just too much for me, Spike, but I couldn't back down, not in front of you."

His eyes stayed shut, and his brows drew together over them. "I didn't realize. How could I not know?" His voice rose a little on the question, and his eyes opened, examining her face.

"You may have been a little distracted," she admitted, a smile curving one corner of her mouth.

"Yeah, a bit," he agreed, rich laughter in his voice. "You're beautiful when you smile, you know that?"

She ignored the compliment. "You know the worst thing you ever said to me?"

"God, the possibilities…"

"The first night, when we wrecked that building, you said… it was better than killing a Slayer."

He let his head fall onto the pillow. "Bloke comes his brains out all night, Buffy, he doesn't have many left to put together a coherent sentence." Spike pulled a rueful face. "Long time ago I told you the best night of my life was the fight with my first Slayer in China. I was trying to tell you that I had a new best night."

She nodded, absorbing this, feeling something raw inside her heal, and shifted from her stomach to her side, facing him. "What's the worst thing I ever said to you?"

His open face grew wary. "Let's not–"

She squeezed his fingers. "Let's. Tell me."

"Down the hall, in the bathroom. Told me you wouldn't love me even if I had a soul."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know you had one, Spike."

He lifted the shoulder that wasn't against the bed. "Had to face the truth sometime." He gave her a small smile. "But it felt like you did, once or twice."

Buffy's wide eyes were serious. "I still don't feel things like I should, Spike. Emotions, I mean. I… don't get that 'in love' feeling anymore. I… I don't know what that says about me." She bit her lip. "I can't put into words how I feel about you. Sometimes… I think I did, but it's like… trying to grab a sunbeam. If I could love, I think… I would love you." Unshed tears filled her eyes. "You deserve better than that."

He shook his head. "No, love. Don't apologize. You deserve better. Can't help what you feel, or what you don't. One thing I've never done is apologize for loving you. I just do, is all. Plenty of demons think that's wrong." He caressed her knuckles with his thumb. "Someday you'll feel all the emotions again, then… Who knows? We've both seen stranger things, yeah? And I got time."

She laughed a little. "How is it that you have so much faith in me?"

Everything was in his eyes, on his face. "I can't not believe in you." He closed his mouth against whatever else he'd been about to say, and lowered his lashes. When he looked back up at her, the level of emotion was manageable.

"Spike?" Buffy shifted her head on the pillow. They hadn't turned on the lights, and the sun was gone from this side of the house. She could still see him, but it was dark enough to say the difficult things. "That night the First Evil visited everyone, it told me that I'd hurt you more than Dru and Angel – Angelus and Darla ever had."

He did another of the one-shouldered shrugs. "True, for what that's worth."

"Angel implied…" She sighed and just blurted it out. "Do you like the pain, Spike?"

He considered her for a long moment before dropping his eyes. "You don't make it easy for me, either, askin' the hard questions. Don't like to think of myself like that, but," he gave her a bleak smile, "never really had a choice in the matter. Probably always be a bit bent, yeah?

"Don't need it," he added hastily, "the pain, I mean. But, honestly, I never thought about it much. Physical pain has been part of my existence all along, and I have a high threshold for it. Wouldn't have made it this far, otherwise. Don't have a problem inflictin' pain in a fight, but I'd mostly rather take it than deal it in bed. Always proud I didn't have to hurt Dru to bring her off. Contrary bugger, me." Spike's face was suddenly serious. "Did you really have to ask?"

Buffy looked away. "No. I know you prefer… no pain." There had been at least one moment, hadn't there, in every night they spent together?

"Did you know, you weren't the only one experiencing something different?" His gaze was earnest, tender. "Some of the time, especially that first night… Hundred and twenty years, and I didn't know it could be like that. Sweet. Gentle. Equal."

"Gentle?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Latter part of the night. Lovemaking," he clarified, his eyes dark. "Only with you, Buffy."

Her gaze sharpened. "Never…?"

He sighed. "There's no one else I ever felt that close to. Just you. It was so close, I could almost touch it… like you, maybe." He shrugged. "I loved Dru, and Dru loved me, but Angelus broke her practically before I was born. She doesn't have that in her." His jaw tensed for a moment. "She likes the pain."

"What's it like for vampires?"

"Don't have a frame of reference, love. I was sort of straitlaced before Dru found me, religious family, temperance, all that. Not a lot of outlets in the Victorian era for sex. Didn't keep a mistress. Was just getting around to looking for a missus."

His velvety voice was a little slurred, she realized, the way it only got when he was tired. "Then Dru got you," she prompted.

His gaze narrowed, seeing something in his memories. "Then it was like going from a drought to trying to drink from a fire hose. No complaints, me. Dru kept me to herself for 'most three weeks before she introduced me to the family. Angelus was my best friend for a while, and those are some hunting stories I'll never tell you. Even Darla eventually took an interest in me. There've been other vampires, demons over the years, a human once or twice. Most all of it meaningless." He shrugged. "What's all this about?"

"What Angel – the First said."

He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling, but he never let go of her hand. "If you want to know if Angelus and I ever had sex, Buffy, the answer is yes. 'Course we have. Vampires, yeah? Pretty straightforward, love, no undue torture involved. And it was never a big part of our… relationship. Neither of us is particularly turned that way. Not a great example, but sort of like straight guys in prison, a situational thing. Not like Angelus would have been taken with me the way Dru was, turned me because he had to have me.

"Won't lie to you; it felt good. We're always ready to go, and it was something to pass the time until our ladies got back. If Angelus wanted to… make a point, he had better ways to hurt me." No need to burden her with tales from the early years. He wanted to keep this conversation short. He didn't mention Angelus' long relationship with James and Elizabeth, and he knew intuitively that he should not tell her that souled Angel had stayed with them on and off for two years before Darla drove him away for good. "Only man I've ever shared a bed with, and not a lot there to recommend others."

"Oh." She stared at his profile, finally deciding that she was going to believe he was telling the truth about the lack of torture. "I guess I knew that you had. It seems odd to me. You're both so…." She had been about to say 'masculine,' then realized how stereotyped her thinking was.

"After Dru took me back to the family, the four of us shared a bed. I was hers, and Angelus belonged to Darla, and that's primarily how it was, thank God. Darla," he said, giving an exaggerated shudder, "was one cold bitch. I'd rather sleep with Angelus than her."

She laughed at this, because he meant for her to laugh. "Not me," she said emphatically.

He turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "Should I be keeping an eye out for you and Red, then?"

"What? Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "I just meant… not Angel."

"'M good with that." He sighed. "So the First told you that you hurt me more than they had, and you've been worried they tied me down and tortured me?" When Buffy dropped her eyes, he let go of her hand and touched her cheek, rolling over to face her. He had absolutely been tied down and tortured, but since that part was just physical and he was never going to share that with her anyway, it was easy to lie about. "If what it meant was that I love you like I've never loved anyone, Buffy, it's true. That gives you more power to hurt me, right?"

She took a breath. "But what it said was more about… physical rather than emotional."

"Buffy," he asked, his voice suddenly urgent as something occurred to him, "has anyone ever hurt you sexually?"

Startled, she met his eyes and felt his hand relax against her cheek as her response answered his question. If she'd said yes, it would have been the same as signing a death warrant for someone, she realized, chip or no chip. She didn't want to know to what lengths he would go in order to avenge a sexual assault. "No. My first Watcher, the one in Los Angeles, creeped me out a little, but nothing happened or anything. It's just, I… I don't have the world's best track record," she confessed. "The first two guys I chose turned out to be one-night stands, for very different reasons. My one long-term relationship was…"

"Vanilla," he supplied.

"I was going to say routine." She shot him a warning look. "And my fourth…."

"Too much," he finished, sorrow in his voice. His hand was stroking her hair now. "No one's ever really hurt me that way, either, pet. Wouldn't be so open to sex, otherwise." He quirked a smile. "Vampire, of course. Very open."

"You always think of us as equals," she said, "but we're not. I don't have a lot of confidence. Not that way."

"Equals? Is that what you…? I was desperate to keep you coming back, love. I had an idea of what Soldier Boy hadn't given you. Wanted to give you… what you weren't missing, I guess. Variety."

"No, there was something missing with Riley. The variety thing, too, but… Sometimes, with you, I found what was missing."

That something flared to life between them, that connection, electricity coiling around nerve endings. Buffy was suddenly aware of her own body, the vulnerability of her stomach, the press of her breasts against the cotton of her t-shirt. As she stared into his eyes, her peripheral vision caught the flare of his nostrils, which meant he would know the desire she was feeling, even if they had no bond vibrating between them.

The moment stretched out but did not change. Neither of them smiled or tried to lighten the mood, just maintained eye contact, Spike's hand a light touch on her hair. The blue of his eyes darkened, and Buffy wondered if her own eyes changed color that way. She could ask him, because he would have noticed, only not just now, because now she had to….

His mouth was heaven, and she would know, Buffy thought as their lips met. Not soft, not hot, not wet, but… velvety and drugging and sweet. Spike's eyes were still open, looking into hers with a serious expression, searching for an answer to a question she could never understand. So she touched her tongue to his, closing those eyes. He made a small sound of desire.

I did this, she thought, covering his hand with hers, so that blond tendrils of her hair were caught between them. I made this man, this warrior moan with need. That had always meant so much to her, because no one else had ever made her feel so desirable, so desired. For the first time, she understood it as not just power, but responsibility.

Buffy pulled away, enough to say his name. He looked at her, lips slightly parted, eyes dark, and she felt her own need ratchet up a notch. "I've missed you."

"'M here now." She felt his breath, neither warm nor cool, touch her face. "Prob'ly shouldn't be."

"We… care about each other. Is that enough?"

"'M not strong, Buffy. Whatever my lady wants."

"Willow won't be home for hours. We can… it can be good, I promise. No… hurting."

Spike's eyelids drifted shut. "Hours," he agreed, his mouth seeking hers again, drawing the tip of her tongue against his, then slowly and thoroughly reacquainting himself with her lower lip. It was her turn to moan, and she moved her hand from his and placed it on his waist, partly to brace herself, partly just to be touching him. He tensed and pulled reluctantly away from her. There was something in his eyes that she hadn't seen before. "Lovemaking."

She considered his word, both statement and challenge. Did he think she didn't want that, too? Then Buffy realized what it was in his eyes, a sternness. "Yes," she breathed, in relief and anticipation. He wouldn't hurt her, and he wasn't going to let her hurt him again. She knew it was something that he would adhere to, not because he wanted to deny her but because she needed him to set boundaries. Before, he'd never said no, and she would never back down. But she hadn't hurt him since, so surely it would be okay….

Buffy moved into the kiss with renewed ardor, the hand on his waist tugging at his t-shirt until the hem pulled free and she could wiggle her fingers beneath. She inadvertently hit a ticklish spot, and he jerked toward her. Their knees touched, and Buffy slid her thigh over his, then down, caressing his leg with hers.

Spike's hand moved from her hair and down her back, his fingers coaxing an opposite reaction to the earlier relaxation during the massage. She pressed her body against his, settling her leg around his waist. "Hours," he reminded her, pulling away from her mouth just long enough to say the word.

"Now," she said, moving her lips along his jaw, pressing kisses against the slight scratchiness, "and again, for hours."

A chuckle escaped him, low and arrogant and pleased. "As my lady wishes." He rolled onto his back, and she came with him, straddling him. Buffy froze, her eyes closed, and swallowed hard as her heat pressed against the steel of a truly impressive erection, even for him. The layers of clothes between them were nothing, and she moved against him, grinding her pelvis into his until she cried out.

Spike held her as she collapsed onto him, breathing hard. "Love to watch you," he murmured, raising one knee so that his thigh pressed between her legs. His hands went to her hips, encouraging her to move against him again. "You ride so well, the way you move. Put your fanny there, love, right up against me. You're a natural horsewoman, Buffy, born to mount up, the long muscles in your thighs, your sweet bum made for my English saddle." She wasn't sure whether she understood less of the equestrian lingo or the British slang, but as long as it was his voice saying the words, she didn't care.

"Does that make you my stallion?" she asked, trying for a purring tone, and immediately felt silly. He was so much better at this than she was. Buffy felt his body respond to her words, though, so maybe it hadn't been too lame.

"Play the stallion for you as long as you want, love," Spike replied, pressing her hips down onto himself. He was moving his leg, rocking her against his thigh. "Can go for days, weeks, because it's you." Buffy braced herself against his forearms and sat up, moving against him deliberately. His eyelids drifted closed. "My cavalier can soldier on for months with nothing else for sustenance, love… or at least," he paused and took a hitching breath as she used her knees to lift up, then writhe against him, "I'd like to try."

"I'm going to burn this belt someday," she complained, giving up on it for the time being and pressing her palms against his – she tried the word cautiously in her own mind – cock. Buffy scratched her fingernails lightly against the denim.

"More," Spike gasped.

She grasped him as best she could through the jeans, fitting her hands around the shape of him, rubbing until she brought him to swift climax. Only then did he stop moving his thigh against her, and only for a few seconds. Spike skimmed his left hand from her hip across her leg, following the seam of her sweatpants. Buffy cried out as his fingers slid along the fabric.

She swallowed, breathing hard. "The two of us," she managed, "are pathetic."

"Everyone should be lucky enough to be this pathetic," he replied, his eyes open again and full of adoration.

"Would you take off my shirt and kiss me and give me five or six more orgasms," Buffy asked, "please?"

He grinned, touching the tip of his tongue to his teeth. "And how many do you want once I take off your trousers?"

"Six more," she replied pertly.

"And how many once I take off my trousers?"

"Too complicated," she complained, squeezing the hard length of him. "Lots. How's that?"

"Good," he grunted, closing his eyes again. "You're a dab hand at this, love. Bring me off again, Buffy," he asked, his voice a low rumble. "Like that…" His chest rose and fell with unnecessary urgency.

Buffy watched his face, her own breath coming hard again as he groaned and bucked beneath her hands. He was beautiful, she decided, and it wasn't a silly way to describe a man. Not this man.

He pulled himself up and threaded his fingers into her hair, drawing her down to him in a soft kiss. He held there, as if halfway through a sit-up, trapping one of her hands between them. His hand slid around her neck and down her body, underneath her shirt. She gasped at the feel of his hard fingers skimming her navel, and he hesitated, pulling his hand back against the fabric, so that his fingers hovered over her breast but didn't touch it.

Spike's lips were soft on hers, his body hard everywhere else, and she brought her free hand up to press his palm against her breast, her nipple against his cool skin. Buffy rubbed her hand against her shirt, feeling the outline of his fingers beneath, caressing him as he caressed her. She pulled away from their kiss to gasp for breath and remembered that she had two hands.

He watched as she fumbled with the zipper of his jeans, managing to get it down enough to wiggle her fingers inside. There he was, heavy, hard, and still surging against her touch. "God, Buffy, what you do to me," he growled, eyelids half-closed. Both of his hands were under her shirt now, and he lightly circled his palms over her nipples even as he lay back to give her freer access. "Everything you do pleases me. That," his voice was little more than a moan for a second, "gives me pleasure; this gives me pleasure." He cupped her breasts, brushing his thumbs across the peaks, and she moaned, too. "That sound you make, almost like a purr. Makes me wish we were lions. I'd take you at night on the savannah under a sky ablaze with stars, and the sound of our roaring would send our prey to ground for miles around. Then I'd lick you, groom you with my tongue, and you'd purr for me."

"Better not be any other lionesses in our pride," she said, her fingertips slowly circling along the length of him.

"Mated pair," he replied. "Jus' you an' me. Oh, love, yeah, there… You're amazing, how you always know just where –" He came again, his groan actually sounding like a low roar, and Buffy smiled at the memory of more full-throated roars. He was exactly like a big cat, a lion, a white tiger. She felt him jerk against her fingertips, the way he couldn't quite keep his hands from clenching her flesh. She came herself, just from watching him.

"Look at you," he murmured, squeezing her nipples just to feel her shudder again, "how beautiful."

"I was just thinking," she breathed, "the same thing about you."

He gave her a dubious look. "You're off your nut."

"Just what you like in women," Buffy replied smartly.

He grinned. "And I thought I was the one gettin' too big for my britches." In one swift, efficient motion, he had pulled her shirt over her head, and now the fabric was puddled around her wrists, trapping her. "I may just have to chastise you for it," he warned, "long and hard."

Buffy laughed at the mock-threat, and he rolled them over. She giggled as they bounced a little on the bed, and it turned into a moan as he lifted her arms above her head and fastened his mouth to her right breast. Impatiently, she finished doffing her shirt and brought her arms down around him, running her fingers through his hair. He glanced up, and she caught a flash of wicked blue eyes before he focused his attention on the feast before him.

Spike drew one knee up and planted it right between her thighs, his mouth busy attending to her nipple. In just a few seconds, she was writhing against his leg, coming and crying out his name. He looked up at her, all arrogant male, a smile of satisfaction on his lips, then glanced at her left breast and gave a melodramatic gasp. "Oh, look, another one!" She rolled her eyes, but he just gave her a sly look. "Think it feels left out? Neglected? Aw, poor kitten."

"It needs to be chastised, too," she agreed, and let her arms fall to her sides, surrendering to the inevitable. This is what it should have been like all along, she thought. Who knew sex could be this much fun?

It was okay to just let him pleasure her, because she'd already pleasured him. He was the only lover she'd ever had who made her feel competent, which was ironic, considering that he had taken the lead in almost everything. She couldn't tell Spike, but she thought of something she had learned from Riley. He had known more about guns than anyone else she'd ever met, and he told her that when gun collectors bought a rifle or pistol, they never fired it. Like driving a new car off the dealer's lot, actually shooting the gun would make it lose value.

Angel had treated her like that, put her in a glass case. She was precious to him, valuable, and up on a high pedestal. Of course, the one time he did take her down… best not to take the analogy too far. Riley was not a gun collector, and didn't keep her in a glass case at all. She had been a utility weapon, fieldstripped, reassembled, and maintained according to the manual every time. (Not going to count Parker; it's a wonder he didn't manage to shoot himself.)

Spike, though, would have no more use for a gun he couldn't shoot than for a sword with a dull edge. He did have her up on a pedestal, she knew that, he collected Slayers, after all, but he didn't want her to stay frozen there, never once denied her the ability to be, to do. He loved to see her work, watch her in action. Though they worked side-by-side every day, he still saw her special. Spike reveled in her strength, her sexuality, and wasn't scared by her passion, didn't think it unladylike. They were equals, after all.

She had never thought of it that way before. Oh, she knew he thought of himself as a predator, and she automatically rejected the thought of being one, too. It would have been arrogance for any other vampire to think himself her equal, but he was the Slayer of Slayers. Maybe what equals meant was that he recognized her as another – better – warrior at the peak of her game, and that he didn't want any restrictions placed on her ability. She was exceptional, even for a Slayer, and it didn't intimidate him at all. Because he was….

He was….

He was doing that thing with his tongue, his cheeks hollowed as he suckled her breast, his hands were at her hips, lifting her against him, and then Buffy couldn't think anymore.

"Is it," he asked fifteen minutes later, "time to lose the pants?"

"What?" she asked, dazed, then remembered that she had teased him that she wanted a lot of orgasms before she got her britches off, then a lot more afterwards. "No. I mean, yes, but yours have to go, too."

He raised one eyebrow coolly, the effect spoiled by his rumbled hair and the rise and fall of his chest, half-bared where she'd pushed his shirt up. "You quite sure? Because I think I could find another five or six hiding right about… here."

"Oooh," Buffy groaned, pressing herself against his fingers. "Yes, I'm sure. If I have to wait another minute to feel you inside me, I'm gonna explode, and not in–"

"Buffy!" Willow's voice came from the living room.

"The good way," Buffy finished, letting her head fall back on the pillow.

"Buf?" Xander, too.

She heard the slight click of Spike's teeth coming together. "I'll go," he growled, then called loudly "Just a mo!" He grimaced and leaned in for one last kiss, full of promise. "Tell me again why I haven't killed your friends already?"

"Don't ask me," she grumbled.

"You've been having a kip," he told her, which confused her for a moment, long enough for him to smooth his hair and start to walk away. No, Buffy thought in protest, not napping. I've been having incredible sex, well, foreplay with you. No more secrets.

Spike stopped at the door to scoop up her shirt from the floor and toss it to her. "Shame," he said, tucking in his own shirt with a wince. "Pity to waste such a stonker." He gave her a quick grin, raising his eyebrows. "Shoulda gone straight to the shaggin' huh? Never assume you have hours in Sunnydale."

"Spike?" She just stared at him, not sure what to say.

He looked back at her, her hair spilling over her shoulders, her breasts bare, and the smile on his face gentled. "Later, yeah?" The expression on her face and their past two hours together gave him courage. "I love you, Buffy."

Spike left before she would have to say anything. He stopped at the top of the stairs, holding his temples. His head was fair to splitting, as if the chip had gone off. But it couldn't be that; he hadn't done anything to trigger it. So between the pain and the interrupted lovemaking ( _that's the word, too, we really were making love; never thought we would ever have that again_ ), he arrived in the living room with less than a good mood.

He watched Willow come back from the kitchen, then his gaze went to the fireplace, where Xander was holding a lad he recognized. It was one of the three humans who had given Buffy such a hard time last year, who had….

"Friend of Warren?" he asked in a silky voice. Spike turned back to Willow. "For me? Generous of you, Red." Then his eyes roamed over the getup the boy was wearing. Flummoxed for a moment, he sneered. "Spend a wad for the coat?" he asked dismissively. "I took mine off the dead body of someone brave enough to fight me."

"Y-you don't–" the boy began.

"Shut your gob," he ordered, then lifted his eyes to Xander. "What's the story with the spod?"

"We stopped to pick up lamb chops for Wil's parents, and this," Xander shook the shorter man, "was at the butcher's buying ten pints of pig's blood."

Spike raised his eyebrows, his focus going back onto the lad's scared face. "Ten pints?" He lifted his upper lip. "Interesting amount, innit, Red?" he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her into a loose embrace, his head close to hers in conspiracy. "Slayer's upstairs napping. She was knackered after school today. Dawn's spending one last night with Janice," he whispered. Spike cast a look at the boy and gave him an evil grin, saying loudly, "Yeah, I like that." He turned back to Willow. "How you holdin' up?"

"I don't want to kill him," she said firmly, "if I don't think about it too hard."

He searched her eyes, then nodded. "Where's the other one?" He glanced over at where Xander was giving the boy a little shake.

"Haven't been able to get it out of him."

"Hey, guys," Buffy said from the landing, "what's up?"

"We have company," Spike answered loudly, pulling Willow closer and giving Buffy a broad wink.

"I wouldn't exactly call him a guest," Xander drawled, hauling his captive to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

"Andrew." Buffy smiled a little as she shouldered this new burden. "Back in Sunnydale." She came down a couple more steps. "Aren't you even competent enough to not come back to the scene of your crimes?"

Spike gave Willow a last squeeze in support, dropping a kiss on her head. He drew a hissing breath as another lance of pain gouged into his head. He let go of her, swaying slightly, and looked away from her concerned face to the prisoner.

What he saw gave him a nasty shock. Behind Xander and Andrew stood… himself. The apparition wore the long black coat, and he lifted the lapels away from his body, then let go to wave a dismissive gesture at the boy who was dressed so similarly. Then it looked directly at Spike. "How you feelin,' mate?"

His gaze flat, Spike turned his focus to Andrew. "You've brought death into this house, boy. You reek of the Hellmouth, of spilled blood." His voice was deep and cold, and Spike got so close to him that their noses were practically touching. "If you think you can come to this town like you own it, done up like a dog's dinner," his eyes flicked contemptuously down at Andrew's outfit, "you've dropped a bollock." He could see his own self moving around to his right, see Xander to his left, and feel Willow and Buffy, strongest of all, behind him. "Now, tell us what you're doing here, save us the trouble of sorting you out, and I won't kill you."

Andrew's chin firmed as he looked up at the vampire. "You can't hurt me," he said. "That chip in your head won't let you. So… booger off." He pushed at Spike's chest with his free hands.

Spike swayed a little, then grinned, catching his tongue between his teeth. "It's bugger off, you knob." He shook his head before the amusement on his face simply vanished. "Can't fool me into thinking you grew a set, jessie boy." He turned and stared directly at where his doppelganger stood, looking entertained, its arms folded. "I know where your courage is coming from." Andrew swallowed, his chin suddenly weak again.

"How'd you know what Spike's chip does?" Buffy asked in a hard voice. Spike took a step back from the boy and let her have at, not taking his eyes from the First Evil.

"Warren figured it out."

"No, the great Warren did not figure it out," Willow said contemptuously. "If he had, he would have modified the signal so he could control Spike."

They all turned to stare at her, and she shrugged self-consciously. "It's what I would have done."

By the time Spike looked back, the First Evil had disappeared. He watched Andrew closely, instead. The young man started to say something to Willow, his eyes darting around, then he closed his mouth.

"Where's Jonathan?" Buffy descended the final step. "Did he come back with you?" When Andrew remained silent, she walked around to his right, opposite of where Xander held his arm and neck. "Why do you need eight quarts of pig's blood?"

Andrew swallowed, but there was a mutinous gleam in his eye. "I don't have to tell you nothing."

"Backup's gone, huh, boy?" Spike said, moving to stand behind Buffy. He tilted his head, feigning curiosity. "Who'd it come to you lookin' like?" He leaned over the Slayer's shoulder. "Me, was it?"

Andrew's gaze flickered to him, then away, telling Spike all he needed to know. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Buffy turned her head and looked up at him. "You saw…?" He met her eyes and nodded. She turned back to Andrew, and Spike could sense her amusement. "All right. So, you've summoned some demons in your day." She walked around him, past Xander, and came back to stand between Andrew and Willow. "But you have no idea what you're dealing with now."

"Neither do you," her prisoner shot back. "You're just a little girl."

Buffy gave him a gentle smile. "I do know. It's called the First Evil, and it called me that once already. About four years ago. I'm still here. I'm the Slayer, though, a chosen warrior with supernatural abilities. You, on the other hand…" she began the slow circling again, "I don't think you'll last too long."

"So, what do you want to do with him, Buf?" Xander asked. "We should probably keep him in protective custody, huh? For his own safety?"

She nodded. "It's for his own good, after all."

Andrew panicked. "You can't hold me against my will. I know my rights."

"You're a bad guy, Andrew. You don't have any rights," Willow said, sounding bored. "Remember when you were in the police station? That didn't protect you from me. You want to stay alive a few days longer, you're better off here."

"I think he wants to go back to the Hellmouth," Xander said, giving the shorter man a sharp look. "He'd scamper right to it, if I let him go."

"Well," Buffy said, "since you can't hold onto his collar all night…" She turned to Spike. "Would you go down to the basement for me? There's some rope down there. Oh, and Spike? Since Andrew thinks you can't hurt humans–" She timed it perfectly, throwing a punch at his jaw before he knew what she was about, leaving just enough time for him to block and return an automatic jab at her stomach. She stepped into it, just a little.

"Oh, bloody hell! Buffy!" He had his hand placed over hers, helping her clutch her solar plexus, his brows drawn together in concern. "Don't have to demonstrate a damned thing for this spackhead."

Xander and Willow, after their initial shock over the violence, looked at their newly scared prisoner before exchanging satisfied glances. "Yeah, Buffy," Xander drawled. "Think how funny the look on his face would be if our friendly neighborhood vampire just unexpectedly tore into him."

Spike wasn't the only one who heard the boy swallow. Still angry, he led Buffy into the kitchen, turning away from her to grip the edge of the kitchen sink. "Don't like to hurt you, Slayer."

Her eyes widened. He hadn't called her that in a long time. "I'm sorry. I didn't want him to think he had anything over you."

"Big girl's blouse like that? Please. Even with the chip, he doesn't."

She sighed and purposely changed the topic. "Ten pints of blood."

"More than enough to equal drainin' a human."

She nodded. He would know. "Sacrifice, then?"

"Seems a reasonable conclusion."

"The First appeared to him as you."

"Think so. That's what I saw, leastways. Not a clue as to why."

"Spike, I said I was sorry."

He sighed, looking down at the edge of the sink. He'd left fingermarks dimpled into the stainless steel, and he forced himself to let go. Turning to face Buffy, he closed his eyes. "Not how I pictured this afternoon turning out. Sometimes I wonder if everything I do has to end in violence, in pain, blood. Sometimes, I can't tell if I've changed even a little bit."

"I can."

Spike opened his eyes. She looked as serene and sure as any Renaissance painting of the Madonna. He cleared his throat. "Ta," he managed.

Buffy gave him a smile that was only slightly forced. "Go get the rope." He quirked an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes and went back to the living room, hearing his chuckle diminish as he went down the basement stairs.

He's back, she thought, and although she didn't smile, her heart was lighter. Teasing me, being sexy, and always looking for the fun in things… he's back. Buffy knew that she wouldn't be able to see that so clearly if she was whole herself, but it was still nice to recognize in someone she cared about.

⸹

By the next evening, Spike knew something was seriously wrong with his chip. It wasn't just the chip; there was something else involved, but the ache inside his skull was overwhelming, and he couldn't think, couldn't figure it out. Bit had come back from Janice's early the next morning, down at the mouth over her friend leaving. He got her to sit with him on the couch to watch cartoons, but had to leave her after just a few minutes because of the pain in his head. He took a handful of Percocets from a forgotten bottle with Joyce's name on it, not really expecting much relief. There were precious few substances he hadn't tried in the pre-soul days in order to curb the chip's effect.

Anya came by a couple of hours later, having received Xander's message. The two of them were going to play good cop/bad cop with their captive, and the ex-demon seemed almost too happy at the prospect. Spike gave her a quick hug after he opened the door, because no one else would and he knew what it was like to be on the outside. The raging headache came back, stronger than it had been.

He was sitting quietly at the counter in the kitchen now, nursing a mugful of tepid blood. Xander came in and gave him a curious look on his way to the refrigerator. "You look like something the cat threw up, grandpa."

"Keep that up, and I won't leave you anything in my will, sonny."

"You feeling okay?" Xander asked, drinking some orange juice directly from the carton.

"Headache," Spike replied shortly.

The dark-haired man frowned at him. "Must be bad."

"How'd you figure?"

Xander shrugged. "That stuff about your will? Lame comeback."

"Yeah, not my best."

"So, the headache?"

"Yeah. Bad."

"Is it the chip?"

Spike looked up. "Yeah, it is," he answered slowly.

Xander shrugged again. "Giles said you figured it was gonna stop working someday." He took another swig from the carton and put it back in the fridge. A frown settled on his face, and he took a couple of steps closer. Spike was surprised when he put an awkward hand on his shoulder. "Go downstairs and get a nap or something. You look beat."

"Feel it." He managed a smile and covered Xander's warm hand briefly with his own. "Don't go a bundle on being up in the daytime, anyway." He stood, swaying a little. It was as good a time as any, since they weren't sniping at each other. "'S'been nice the last coupla weeks, Harris, bein' mates." Spike started to say something else, then his eyes rolled back in his head and a thin rill of blood trickled from one nostril. He would have fallen from the stool and collapsed onto the floor if Xander hadn't been there to catch him.

"Buffy!" Xander's voice was faint with surprise. He knelt down a bit further and got Spike into a fireman's hold, grunting as he stood back up. The vampire was, no pun intended, dead weight, fifty or sixty pounds heavier than any of the Scooby girls Xander was wont to pick up in a hug. He headed for the upstairs, where the Slayer was, panicking a little. "Buffy!" His voice was stronger this time.

"What?" the Slayer answered, sounding annoyed.

"It's Spike. He passed out or something." They met on the landing, Buffy's eyes focused on the unconscious man. "It's the chip."

"Get him to my room," she said, dashing back upstairs.

Dawn and Willow crowded around the bed, and the four of them took turns placing damp washcloths on his forehead and waving smelling salts, Vaporub, and the vampire's unfinished cup of blood beneath his nose. Twenty minutes passed before they were able to rouse the blond man. He stared up at their faces, blinking owlishly. Willow bit her lip as he looked at her. There was a red blossom of blood on the white of his right eye.

"Oh, Auntie Em, I had the strangest dream," Spike mumbled. "You were there, and you…" He tried to sit up.

Buffy pushed him back. "Xander said the chip…?"

Spike nodded. "Yeah. Just since this morning. No, yesterday." His eyes widened suddenly. "Since–" His mouth snapped shut, and it was obvious that he was going over the chain of events that led to him being here, harmless, in Buffy's bed. "'S'not just violence anymore," he said, his voice hoarse.

"Something other than violence is triggering your chip?" Willow asked.

He nodded slowly. "Cuddled on the couch with Nibblet this morning, gave Anya a hug, called Xander my mate," he winced a bit, as if even naming it hurt, "yesterday when I kissed your hair, Red."

"Your chip is firing when you're affectionate?" Dawn asked. "That's crazy."

"I wouldn't say affectionate," Xander explained to no one in particular, "friendly, maybe."

Buffy was watching Spike closely. "When did it start?"

"When Andrew came into the house," he said, pinpointing it. "Before that, I was fine." He gave her a rueful, private look.

"And you saw the First Evil with him." She held his gaze, and he nodded.

"Reckon it–" Spike stilled. "Someone's in the house," he said in a low, deliberate voice, and then they all heard a crash and Anya screaming.

"Anya!" Xander was already barreling toward the hallway.

Buffy's hand was still on Spike's chest, and she pressed down lightly. "Stay here." She turned to her sister. "Dawn, in the closet. No arguments." Then she was out the door, following Xander and Willow. Buffy slew her first Bringer in the hallway, a more difficult battle than it should have been, but the vessels were full of the First's will. There seemed to be dozens of them, and she struck out at one, then another, replacements always ready to wade in behind. She took a knife from one as he toppled to the floor, taking a microsecond to wonder how they could fight so well without eyes.

Then, shockingly, it was over. The Bringers were just… gone, no longer there, not even the bodies. "Xander! Wil! Anya!" Buffy called, heading toward Willow's bedroom, her old room.

"In here," Xander replied, his tone reassuring her. "Retrieval op," he said in a quieter tone as she came into the room. His arms were around Anya, and Andrew was clinging to his shoulder. "They were after Andrew."

"They just gave up," Willow said with satisfaction, putting down a baseball bat, "and ran like bunnies."

"They're creepy, but I don't know if they're as bad as bunnies," Anya said.

"Buffy!" Dawn's voice was full of panic, rising on the second syllable.

She was beside her sister as fast as Slayer speed could get her there, reaching for Dawn's shaking hands as she stood at the door to Buffy's room. "They hit him over the head. I tried to get to him, but those guys in the burlap bags kept the closet door closed. They took him," she said, crying now. "They took Spike."

She looked into her room, at the covers pulled nearly off the bed, at the splash of blood on the wall from the overturned cup. Then she briefly touched Dawn's face, trying to comfort her, but her own eyes were empty. "Xander, Anya," she said, leading her sister into the hallway, "I don't care what you have to do to him, get him to talk." It was the voice of the Slayer, and it carried. They could hear Andrew's strangled whimper. "Willow, protect Dawn. I don't care what magicks you need to do it." She turned and went down the stairs, the Scoobies trailing behind, already getting over the shock and ready to do whatever was necessary.

Buffy went to the weapons chest Xander had made for her, quickly and efficiently moving aside most pieces until she found one at the bottom. She wasn't sure how it had remained in her possession; she supposed that Giles had taken care of it. She would look at it, a thing of cold beauty, every so often and feel the pain all over again. Now she withdrew the finest weapon in her arsenal, a sword as slender and strong as she was herself. It came to her through Kendra, who still showed up in her dreams. She had used it to send one souled vampire to hell. Now she hoped that it would be enough to rescue another one.

She took a breath and stood up gracefully. Her friends and her sister, the people who loved her, that she knew she loved, regarded her in silence. Buffy reached deep and gave them a smile meant to be reassuring. "See you in a little while." The Slayer walked out into the twilight.

⸹

Headlights splashed across her, across the bench, but Buffy couldn't bring herself to look up. A few minutes later, she realized that Xander was holding her as she sobbed.

"What happened?" he asked quietly. He had volunteered to come out to find her after the third slow hour had passed. He had been ready to march into the school alone, axe in hand. Xander hadn't expected to find the Slayer sitting outside the school on a bench, weeping.

"Nothing," she managed, her voice full of anguish. "I kept coming back to the same stupid r-room! I walked through miles of halls in the school basement, and it n-never let me get any closer." She clutched the sleeves of his jacket. "I can f-feel him, Xander! He's there, but I can't get to him."

"Shh, Buf," Xander said, patting her back awkwardly, at a loss for what else to do. "I know you love him. We'll get him back. We always do. Remember when Giles–"

But she had focused on only one thing. "That's just it, Xander. I don't love him. I should. I want to. But I just… don't feel it." She drew a shaky breath. "If I loved him, maybe then I could break through, get to him."

He patted her again. "Buffy, you certainly… act like you love him."

"No," she said miserably. "It's only, I'm frustrated, Xander." Buffy wiped at her eyes. "It's like I had some window of opportunity that's closed. Everyone I love has already come in, and I closed the window, and now I can see Spike on the outside, but the window is… is never…"

"Oh, hey," he said, soothing her with his concern. "It doesn't work like that, Buffy. You've been through a lot, is all. It'll be okay, I promise." He thought of all the times she would grip his arm, or Willow's, or her sister's, the desperation in her tone as she said she loved them. Xander shied away from anything that pointed out a weakness in Buffy; it was just wrong. He changed the topic. "Spike's strong. Maybe he'll escape, and if he doesn't, he'll survive until you can rescue his undead ass. You will, you know. You're the Slayer."

"He'll… he'll be okay? You promise?" Buffy said, sniffling. She knew Xander's logic was rickety, but she had to have something to stand on right now.

"Sure, Buf. He survived Glory, right, a hellgod? And he managed to escape her on his own." She nodded, taking a breath and wiping her face. Encouraged, Xander went on. "And, from what I've heard of the trials he faced to get his soul, fighting for a whole week or something… he's pretty tough."

"He survived me."

Xander stiffened and let out a breath. "Yeah. He did."

"Okay. I-I'm ready. To go home and face the wrath of Dawn, I mean."

"Yeah, the Slayer ain't scared of nothing."

"Nothing except my freakishly tall baby sister." She stood up, still holding his hand. "They were probably expecting me, right? The Bringers or the First, whoever is keeping the basement a maze, they'll relax their guard tomorrow. I can rescue him then. The daylight will help."

"Sure, Buf. And I'll remind Dawn of all the worse scrapes he's been in, too."

She turned and hugged him, surprising the dark-haired man. "I love you, Xander," she said fiercely.

He curled an arm around her, loving her, hating that she wasn't invincible. "I love you, too, Buffy. It's going to be all right. You'll see."

⸹

January 2003

Spike hung against the chains, taking his rest where he could get it. It was easier to be a captive on the Hellmouth when the bonds were on your body instead of in your mind. The First Evil still came to him in guises – he assumed because it didn't have a face of its own – but most of the time it didn't bother to pretend that it was the person whose face it wore.

In a way he would never be able to explain adequately, he felt better when the First Evil and its beast, the Turok-Han, were with him, despite the pain. At least when they were tormenting him, he knew that the people he cared about were marginally safer. It made him braver, made the helplessness easier to bear. He had no idea of the passage of time, of how long it had been since they ritually spilled his blood; on the Hellmouth; even his most basic ability to sense the coming morning was stripped away.

As was, he admitted, most everything else. His pride and dignity were gone, along with a good chunk of his sanity. The torture that involved dunking him came to mind – the First had planted in his brain that it was holy water, and it never occurred to him how unlikely that was.

His courage and bravado were gone as well. Twice the First Evil had swarmed him, tried to… not possess him, but… merge with him, was the only term that came to mind. He couldn't imagine a worse fate, and the thought that it might try again was unmanning. He'd always been himself, whether he was a bad poet dithering around London or the Big Bad draining human blood across the globe. The near-loss of his sense of self… he would rather really be dunked in holy water, while a dragon breathed fire on any parts that didn't stay submerged, while watching Buffy demean herself before what's-his-face, the smug bastard who'd treated her like a one-night-stand her first month at university. Well, no, didn't want Buffy involved. Just the holy water and the dragon.

Both times, the First Evil had pulled away, surprised that it hadn't worked and disappointed that it hadn't at least reduced him to a pile of ash. He wasn't strong enough, but there was another. He remembered it had gone on about that after the second attempt. Alarmed, he'd thought of Angel, but the First, still in his mind, had laughed. The prophecies about souled vampires weren't to be trusted, it had said, and then it had taken one more thing from him.

The government chip in his head now belonged to the First Evil. It still fired off, but not when he had the impulse to violence. The First had chosen something much more sinister. "You've done everything for this transient human emotion called love," it said, wearing his father's face. It went on as Dru. "You fled into my arms to escape thwarted love." Buffy walked around him. Oddly, it seemed most at home in her image. "You allied with your enemy for love, regained your soul for love." She shook back her hair. "Nothing can kill your love. I think it's only right that love will be what kills you."

"You told me again, William, even though I'd warned you not to. You said, 'I love you, Buffy.' You never learn. That was the trigger. From now on, every loving impulse you have will fire the chip. And since you can't stop loving…" It stood from his side and became himself. "Poetic, innit?" Then it laughed at its humor and went away, black coat fluttering into the darkness.

The First was right. It was the only thing he'd never managed to give up. He could exist without a heartbeat, without a family, without violence, without hope. He had never, ever managed to not love, plunging in completely, floundering in waters too deep for any creature, giving his heart even when he knew the feeling would not be returned. The chip would fire, and fire again, and he would keep on loving his humans until something critical failed.

One August night, when Buffy was gone, he and Dawn had been walking back from a visit to Joyce's grave, going slowly and looking up at the stars. She had wondered aloud what it would have been like if her mother had survived the aneurysm, if Joyce's body had lived and her mind hadn't. The thought had haunted Spike, because even then the chip worried him. He made Dawn promise to see that he was staked if he ever went into a coma. So, now, one way or another, the chip would be the death of him.

Everything had been taken from him, really, except for two certainties. Spike held fast to them, the only things that kept his mind even remotely anchored during the endless hours of pain. The important one was that Buffy was alive, and she would come for him. No matter what the First took from him, he would know if she died, the connection born of their passion stronger than any bloodlink. The other was that First Evil couldn't consume him, not the way it wanted. That meant when Slayer came for him, there would still be something of him left for her to rescue.

⸹

[Author's Note: No Eve, no Chloe, because once you're at the Summers' residence, you're onto the First Evil's tricks.]

"Giles, you're sure you can't stay just a little longer?"

"No, Buffy," he said impatiently. "It really is a matter of life and death. Spike is a warrior, after all, and these potential slayers who are being hunted… they're just girls."

"I know, Giles." She hesitated, biting her lip. They were alone in her bedroom, which she was sharing with Dawn now that Giles had brought three of the girls for her to protect. "But I need you to be right here with me for just a couple of minutes, not in St. Petersburg or China."

He took a breath and forced a smile. "Right, then. You have my full attention."

"This doesn't have to do with Spike, Giles. Or, or the threat to the potential slayers, either. It's about me."

"I can't deny that it's a relief to focus on something other than these unceasing attacks." He sat down gingerly on the edge of her mattress and waited.

"There are some things I've been wondering about. You remember you told Dawn that you checked to see if she had a soul?" Buffy looked down. "Giles, where did the monks get her soul from?"

"If you're wondering whether she has part of yours," he said, his voice quiet, "I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind, too. I-I could gather some supplies, check to see… ask Willow if she would help."

"I-if it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble, really."

"Would Dawn have to know?"

"No. No, she wouldn't." He studied her. "Are you sure you want to know?"

His Slayer didn't look at him, but she nodded. "I'm sure. Even before I died, I was worried that I couldn't feel things the same way I once had. If it's because Dawn needed a part of me… I could live with that."

"You do realize that you were very much the same until Joyce died?"

She shook her head. "No. No, I never loved Riley, not the way–"

"He wasn't all that loveable, to be frank," Giles interrupted. "It's possible that Dawn has part of your soul and had part of Joyce's, and when she died… Or, or perhaps you couldn't recover from grief and, well, death without an entire soul." He saw her face and backtracked. "Of course, all of this is supposition."

"Right."

"How are you with your new houseguests?" He rubbed his brow, changing the subject. "I hate to bring them here, but, honestly, you're the only one who has a chance of keeping them safe, despite being near the Hellmouth." Rupert sighed. "The Council usually would never let a Slayer meet the young women who might replace her. It's… cruel, and I'm sorry, Buffy."

To his surprise, Buffy gave him a genuine, if subdued smile. "I'm not worried about being replaced. Didn't happen with two Slayers. I sort of figure I'm Slayer-for-life, now." It was badly put, but she knew he would know what she meant.

She watched him have some inner debate, then he looked up. "I'm of the same mind. You're the most effective Slayer that ever has been, and you'll soon break the record for living the longest past your calling. I… I don't think you were meant to survive the Master, Buffy. There should be any number of prophecies about a Slayer of your caliber, but there hasn't been any that I could turn up, not since the one about him," a pained look crossed his face, "killing you. The prophecy came true, yet you survived."

"What does that mean?"

He sighed and deflected her. "It's the same with Spike. Every interpretation of prophecy dealing with a vampire with a soul leans toward Angel, not Spike. There are two vampires with souls, but only one has attracted the attention, the weight of destiny." He grimaced, unhappy with himself. "There are two Slayers, but no prophecies about the one who can best fight the forces of darkness. What I think that means…" he hesitated, then gave her an unexpected grin. "I think that means that you can do whatever you damned well please."

"You trust me to do that?"

"I do."

They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Buffy half-smiled. "I guess my couple of minutes is up."

"It's amazing how much you can say of importance in such a short time." He reached out and took her hands. "Let me add one more: I love you, Buffy."

She squeezed his fingers. "I love you, too, Giles. I really do." She sighed and stood up. "So, what do you need to do the soul-check thing? Will you be able to do it before you leave?"

"It's very simple, barely more than an aural reading. I'll go find Willow, see if she has the materials I need and if she's willing to help. Then I just need you to talk quietly to Dawn for a few minutes. You'll know before I leave tonight."

Only a couple of hours, really, full of trying to awkwardly get to know some girls she would never have spoken to if someone wasn't trying to kill them, full of ignoring the whines of Andrew, her other 'guest,' full of staring into the refrigerator and willing more food to magically appear. Then she caught Giles' eye and went to her sister, pulling her into the dining room. She asked how Dawn was holding up, and the transparent gratitude on the teen's face cut into her like a knife. Buffy pulled her sister close, and they talked quietly about Giles, Spike, the new girls, and some more about Spike. Giles finally interrupted them to say goodbye, Xander standing behind him, waiting to take him to the airport. I talked to my sister longer than I had to, Buffy thought, pleased with herself.

Very quiet, almost in her ear, Giles murmured. "Each of you has the same, Buffy." Then, louder, "Please, take good care of yourself and your charges."

Her eyes were bright. "I will," she promised, but her mind was on Dawn, her blood and her soul. Buffy smiled, blinking back the tears. If Dawn shared her soul, that was okay. For someone created by monks two years ago, she was remarkably normal, if a little lonely. It occurred to Buffy that Dawn loved Spike. Therefore, she did, too. It was a comfort to know that.

⸹

The house was quiet, only an occasional sniffle from Andrew breaking the suburban silence. Xander and Anya were gone back to their respective apartments, and the young girls were too uneasy to chatter very much the first night in their new surroundings. In Buffy's room, Dawn looked over at her sister, her pale hair the only thing she could really see in the gloom.

"Buffy?"

"Yes?" She didn't sound impatient, for a change.

Dawn rolled over and propped her head on her hand. "I talked to Giles before he left. He gave me an envelope with a check in it. It's from the funds he could access from the Council accounts, to help pay for the potential slayers' upkeep. I put it on top of the refrigerator." She paused a moment, staring at her sister's profile. "He told me something that I'm supposed to tell you and Willow, Xander, Anya, and Spike, too, when we get him back. Everyone who knows about me being the Key."

That got Buffy's attention. "What is it?" She rolled onto her side, too.

"Giles got some friends of his from the Coven, the one that helped Willow, to do a spell on all of us – him, too. He said it was a variation on the forgetting spell Willow kept casting last year. I-it won't make us forget things, but we literally can't tell anyone else about me being the Key. Like if I tried to tell Janice – if she was still here – I'd get distracted and lose my train of thought and never get around to telling her."

"When?"

"After he went back to England, after you came back."

"Oh." Buffy frowned a little. "I guess that's pretty neat."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Imagine if he had been able to cast that spell when Glory had Spike."

"Oh," Buffy said again, her voice full of understanding now. "That means you're safe. No one else knows, and we can't tell anyone else, period. No accidents."

"And no torture." Dawn smiled sadly. "Though he didn't need the spell."

Buffy reached for her sister and took her in a hug. It was getting easier to offer comfort to other people. She held her sister for a few minutes, easing them both back onto the pillows. She was surprised when Dawn pulled away from her with a dry face.

"I'm really worried about him, Buffy."

"I know." The Slayer's voice was quiet. "He's on my mind all the time. I look every night, during every break, every spare moment."

"I know you do." Dawn closed her eyes. "I'm so afraid of what they're doing to him. Is it wrong to wish he would just die? So he could be at peace?"

"No." She stroked her sister's shiny hair. "It's not wrong to wish that he was at peace. But listen, Dawnie. Spike doesn't give up, ever. You know that. Don't you give up on him."

"I won't if you won't."

She heard the underlying meaning and sighed. "I wish I could be the right woman for him, I really do, Dawn. But I can't. It's not in me anymore." She hesitated. "The Slayer in me has become too strong, I guess. I… I don't think I'm ever going to fall in love again."

"Do you think you'll stop loving people altogether?" Dawn's voice was small.

"No. Oh, no, Dawnie. I still love you and my friends and Mom and Tara, even though they're gone. It's just… I never loved Riley, either, not the way I loved Angel."

"Spike said that Angel didn't fill up your heart," her sister said slowly, "that he folded it down small around the memory of the time you had together."

The Slayer considered this, then gave a soft snort of laughter. "Spike always gets right to the most painful point, doesn't he?"

"Goes for the jugular," Dawn quipped.

"That's fair, I guess, about Angel. But this… this emptiness, it's something different, okay? I'd like to just leave it at that, because… it isn't an easy thing to admit." There was no way she would tell Dawn about her soul.

"All right," she agreed quietly. "I love you, too, though, even if you are a big poophead."

"And I love you, even if you're a big pain in the butt."

"Night, Buffy."

"Goodnight, pain in the b – ow!"

⸹

"Buffy?"

The Slayer put down the canvas tote that served as her briefcase and looked up at Willow. "Yeah?"

"Would you go with me to Tara's grave?"

Buffy frowned, wondering what brought this on. She'd just gotten in from work, hadn't started doing anything about dinner. It was a good time. "Sure, Wil. Let me grab a jacket. It'll be dark before we get back." She popped her head into the living room, where Dawn had already sat down to talk with the bored potential slayers, showing them her homework. "Dawnie, Wil and I are going to visit Tara. We'll be back in about an hour, okay?"

As they turned the corner of her block, Buffy felt a tiny resistance in the air. Raising an eyebrow, she looked at Willow. "Did you feel that?"

Her friend nodded, looking a little scared. "Uh, Anya and I put up wards to keep aggressors out of your neighborhood."

"That's good, Willow," Buffy said encouragingly.

The witch gave her a nervous little smile. "You said to do whatever I had to do to keep Dawn safe."

"I'm glad you did. I'll be sure to thank Anya, too."

They walked in silence, except for a noting a couple more businesses had closed. By unspoken agreement, they went by Joyce's grave first, and Buffy put a couple of the stones she had helped Willow collect on her mother's headstone, as she had no flowers. It was only a short walk to Tara's resting place from there. The Slayer stepped forward and arranged her remaining rocks on one corner of the marker, then walked away a few yards, giving Willow her privacy.

The redhead joined her a few minutes later, her lashes wet and clumped from unshed tears. She slipped her cold hand into Buffy's, and they began to walk back to Revello. "My parents are leaving Sunnydale," Willow said, with no buildup.

Buffy turned to examine her friend's face. "It's probably not a bad thing," she said slowly.

Willow nodded. "I know. It's hard, though." The wind caught her hair, and she lifted her free hand to tuck the wayward strands behind her ear.

"Where are they going?"

"Mom got a faculty position in Arizona. Dad's going to take a year off to do a major revision for the next edition of his book."

"Sounds like a good move for them."

"I didn't even know she was looking for another job. They've always been distant, but not – It's like I don't matter to them anymore, since I'm not at Harvard or Oxford, having the academic career so they can brag to their colleagues. 'Oh, yes, our daughter is on the Dean's List at Berkeley.' 'Oh, our daughter got that fellowship.' Sometimes I help save the world, and they don't want to know it. I almost ended the world, and they're never going to acknowledge that, either. They don't believe it, don't believe me, and it's never going to matter to them."

Buffy knew all of this, she'd always known, but Willow had never said it aloud. She guessed Tara had heard this, though, and she squeezed her friend's hand.

"I feel bad, complaining about my parents, when Xander's are so much worse, but it's my pain." She studied her feet as they moved out of the cemetery and onto the sidewalk. "I don't think I'll ever forgive them for not coming to Tara's funeral, but I still love them. It's hard for me to imagine them not being there. They're leaving Sunnydale, but it feels like they're leaving me."

"I still miss my house in L.A.," Buffy said, not knowing if it would help. "A lot of my dreams – just regular dreams, not Slayer dreams – are set there. One of the hardest things when my parents divorced was leaving that house. It was like being… rootless."

Willow gave her a grateful look. "Yes, that's exactly it. Where do I fit anymore? If Tara was still here, I wouldn't feel lost. I'd know where I fit."

Buffy squeezed her hand again. "I think I've felt that way since my Mom died." She frowned a little. "Everything's seemed off kilter since last summer, too. You came back, but Spike… he wasn't himself until just before…" The Slayer trailed off.

This time Willow squeezed her hand. "I don't know what I would do without you and Xander and Dawnie."

Buffy gave her a smile. "Same here."

"This is the end, isn't it?" Willow lifted a hand to tame her hair again. "Even after we beat the First Evil, things aren't going to be the same again. Sunnydale won't be the same."

"No. I don't know." Buffy lifted a helpless hand. "It's the same in so many ways – we know who and what the bad guy is; we just don't know where they are, so we can't attack. At least we're not on the run this time, not like we were with Glory."

Willow nodded. "Yeah, if we could just find those Bringers, break their chant, we could end this." She looked at an empty storefront across the street. "The only thing is, this time we're not the only ones who've noticed that something bad is happening. It feels weird. I'd kind of gotten used to fighting evil at night and just going to the mall or to get a latte during the day, enjoying the way the world we save just goes on."

"This time we're not saving it," Buffy said sadly.

"We will. We'll save it," Willow reassured her.

"But they know there's something in the shadows now, something they can't deny or explain away. The town's… lost its innocence."

"I guess we all do."

⸹

Buffy grabbed her jacket and climbed out the window. Instead of going down to the yard, she shimmied her way up the shingles onto the roof, going slowly because of her aching body. She stopped short of the top, having learned from Spike as he sat vigil in the same place not to make a silhouette. The only way she had been able to spot him, either in his stalker or guardian roles, was by the white splotch of his hair.

It had seemed so easy before. Yes, there were Bringers, and they weren't just fueling the manifestation of First Evil, they were killing young girls. But now… this new creature. It was a vampire, her senses screamed this to her, and she was the vampire Slayer, but….

She couldn't defeat it. It was too strong; it was too fast. Even when she had just been called, she hadn't had this much trouble fighting any creature. The best vampire she'd ever fought (Spike, her mind supplied, because hadn't she killed every other vampire, even Angel?) hadn't been that strong or fast or invulnerable. Her thoughts flashed again on Spike when he had the Gem of Amara. She had felt a tremendous thrill of fear, realizing that she wasn't safe from him in the daylight hours, that staking him didn't work, but nothing like what she felt in the face of this new vampire. Spike had always been human, understandable. This thing was inhuman.

Buffy put her head in her hands and wept. She couldn't do this in the house, not where all those girls could hear, much less her friends. They shouldn't have to bear the burden of her despair. They were downstairs, talking in low voices, trying to keep the fear at bay. All of them were relying on her to keep them safe, and she couldn't. She was out, tapped.

In the past, when things got impossible, she had someone to turn to. She replayed the confrontation with the super-vampire again, only now there was another blond in the battle, reading her movements, complementing her strategy. And they beat it. In her imagination, she even let Spike kill it, ripping its foul head from its neck with his bare hands. Then he looked at her with absolute faith and trust, vampire dust settling around them.

No wonder the Bringers had stolen him from her.

I need a weapon, an ally, she thought desperately. I can't do this alone.

The Slayer sat on her roof, looking out into the darkness until the night air dried her wet cheeks. She was alone; it was the nature of being the Chosen One. Then she frowned. That wasn't necessarily true – there were two Slayers, after all. Of course, she might as well be alone, for all that the existence of another Slayer mattered. She was still the one who had to face that creature.

 _So you're just, what? Gonna let this 'whoever' play you till it figures out what kills you?_

Buffy firmed her chin and took a breath. She wiped her eyes. No, she wasn't going to let anyone play her. She'd learned that lesson last year, to her sorrow. Buffy Summers was the Slayer who made them throw away the manual, who had family and friends, who made her own choices. She inched her way down the shingles, feeling the rough surface snag at the fabric of her slacks. It was time for a rematch, but on her own terms.

⸹

February 2003

Spike opened his eyes and saw Xander sleeping in a chair next to him. He was in the basement of Joyce's house. He must have made some noise, because Xander stirred. When he saw Spike looking at him, he called loudly up the stairs. "Buffy! He's awake!" The dark-haired man disappeared from view for a moment and came back with a pint of human blood.

"The good stuff, huh?" Spike was surprised at how raspy his voice was. Buffy had come for him; it hadn't been a dream. He knew this, because Xander had never been dead.

"A vintage year, 2003," Xander said, cutting the bag and pressing a drinking straw into it so the blond man wouldn't have to go to game face to drink.

"Thanks, whelp," he said, then winced. "Oh, bloody hell. I forgot."

"'Whelp' is a term of affection?" At Spike's narrowed regard, he grinned. "Does this mean I'm, like, your favorite? 'Cause you're always calling me names – whelp, boy…"

"Harris," Spike said carefully, "'boy' is what Angelus always called me."

"Not affection, then. Right." But Xander was still grinning.

Buffy bounded down the stairs, but slowed as she came near the cot where he lay. She crossed her arms, and they regarded each other in silence. "You look awful," she said finally.

He gave a rusty laugh. "Yeah, what's new there?" Then he met her eyes. "Thank you, lo – Slay – Buffy," he finished, his jaw clenched. "'S'not the gratitude causing it. Believe me, I'm feeling plenty of gratitude."

"You're welcome," she said, frowning.

"His pet names for us trigger it," Xander explained.

"The First did this?" Buffy's voice was cold, and Spike got the impression that her folded arms were no longer held that way to keep an embrace at bay.

He nodded, taking a sip from the unit of blood to buy time. Then he sighed, owning up. "It reset the chip to fire, not when I hurt humans, but when…" he tried for a smirk, "I get the warm fuzzies. Since I can't stop – Love's bitch, yeah? Told me that love would be the death of me."

"No," Buffy declared, her voice still cold, "it won't. I won't let it." Then she sighed, too, letting her arms fall to her sides. "Dawn really wants to come down to see you."

Spike bit his lip and looked away. When he looked back, angry tears stood in his eyes. "Tell her to come down while I'm asleep." He struggled to sit up, and when he'd managed it, he drank down half the pint. "Won't be long, I guess. I need sleep. Gotta heal."

Buffy nodded, her eyes flickering over his visible injuries, his too-thin frame, and tightly re-crossed her arms. "What can you tell me?"

Spike braced himself with one arm and studied the floor by Xander's feet. "Right. The Bringers took me to the Hellmouth and carved sigils, symbols of some sort into my chest. The blood fell on this round thing set in the floor–"

"Seal of Danthalzar," Xander supplied. At Spike's surprise, he shrugged. "Andrew finally talked."

An extremely pleased predator looked up at him. "Way to go, Anya."

Xander gave him a proud smile. "That's my girl. She scared him worse than Willow ever did."

"Could we get back to the part where they bled you?" Buffy asked impatiently.

"Uh, right. My blood spilled, the melodramatically named Seal of Danthalzar opened, and this slimy git crawled out. I take it you've met?"

"Buffy slayed it."

"It took me a while," she said, her gaze moving away from the blond man.

"You slew it, love?" Spike's eyes were warm for a moment before he closed them. He took a steadying breath. "Good. It was a true demon, a true vamp, not like us half-human hybrids."

"Turok-Han," Xander said.

"You're a regular font, Harris."

"You've called me worse. Whelp, for example. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Basil Exposition, dialing it down."

Spike took his hand away from his head and waved it dismissively. "No matter.

"Was it the only one that came out?" Buffy asked. When Spike nodded, she visibly relaxed.

"We had to make quite a production of it before we could get the damn thing to die," Xander explained, unable to relinquish his role.

Spike hesitated. "Dunno if I'm right, lo – Buffy, but it came in response to a blood sacrifice, yeah? Blood of an old vampire like me is unusually powerful; the demon it summoned should be unusually powerful." He shrugged. "If the First calls any using human blood, they shouldn't be as strong."

Xander pointed a finger at him. "That means you don't get to get captured any more."

"Deal." Spike looked up at Buffy. "Didn't want to die?"

She shook her head. "It sort of laughed at my usual methods."

The blond man was frowning. "Dru – the First as Dru, I mean, was going on about my mars bar," he touched his scarred eyebrow, "wanting to redecorate my face in a permanent manner, wounds that wouldn't heal. Never occurred to me before, but didn't the sword the Chinese bird used come to you? That was a powerful weapon, might be useful."

Buffy was startled by the idea. "I've never seen it," she said slowly. "Maybe the enchantment was only good the one time."

"Oh. Didn't think of that." He looked up at Xander, who had never heard the story and was at a loss. "Oh, sorry, mate. Bugger!" He sighed, forced his eyes open, and started again. "First Slayer I fought got me above the eye with the tip of her sword. Never healed up, not in the proper vampire way. Reckoned it might be some enchanted legacy weapon passed from Slayer to Slayer." His eyes went back to Buffy. "Just a thought."

"I'll ask Giles, though. Anything else?"

Spike dropped his eyes to Xander's boots and took a breath, but he didn't say anything. Buffy watched him begin to breathe and braced herself. "Yeah, one thing. We were right; the First wants to be on the physical plane. It tried to… infiltrate… merge with me. Didn't make dust of me, so it tried again. That was bad," he said softly. "Said I wasn't strong enough, but that there was another. Not Angel," he added quickly. "Figure if it ever does find its one true love, that merger will tie it to the corporeal world. Might be able to kill it, kind of like Ben and Glory." He lifted his eyes to Buffy's expressionless face. "Also figure that it's going to be very, very strong."

She nodded. "Of course."

Spike raised his eyes to the ceiling. "What's the gen? The boy's still up there, plus you've got a houseful of females. Nib – your sister having a slumber party?"

Together, Xander and Buffy brought the blond man up to speed on what had been happening with the potential slayers and the Council of Watchers. He pondered the news as the three of them listened to a herd of teenaged girls tromp from the kitchen to the living room.

"So," Spike said at length. "The First wants to put an end to the line of vampire slayers, and it's brought at least one full-on vampire into this world. That's easy enough to suss out, but what does it have to do with it wanting to be corporeal?"

"I don't know," Buffy said with a sigh. "Maybe it would feel safer coming into a world without Slayers." She looked tired, and the two men exchanged glances.

"Go upstairs and get some rest, Buf," Xander said. "You've got your quota of rescues in for the evening."

She looked up at the ceiling above their heads and gave a wry smile. "No rest up there. The slayers-in-training are never gonna get to sleep tonight. They're too awed that there's an actual vampire in the basement."

"Really?" Spike sounded pleased, the arrogant ghost of the Big Bad settling around him.

"Yeah. One of them forced me to try to call Giles at some ungodly hour to make sure it was okay with him, but I never could get him. So I lied and told her he said welcome back."

"Grrr, I say," he said, his accent very precise and British.

Xander snorted. "We should let him meet the flock. No worries about his chip going off around them."

Buffy headed toward the stairs. "There are twelve units of blood in that ice chest, Spike. I want half of them to be inside you by tomorrow." She didn't look back at him, simply started up the steps. He was grateful for that.

"Buffy?" She hesitated, but didn't turn around. "Send Dawn down."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. It'll hurt like hell, but it'll be worth it."

She smiled a little at the echo from a previous conversation. "All right." The Slayer left.

Xander clapped Spike awkwardly on the shoulder. "I'll head on over to my place. See you tomorrow."

The blond man nodded, distracted as he tried to brace himself for the Bit's visit. Buffy and Xander had done a good job of keeping emotional things at bay, but neither he nor Dawn would be able to do it. Let the chip fire off a few times, he'd be that much more ready for a kip.

⸹

"Hey, it's the Dawnster," Xander said, coming out onto the front porch, his car keys in his hand. He was surprised that the teen's visit to the basement was already over. "You sure you should be out here?"

Dawn wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "Hi, Xan."

He hesitated, then hunkered down next to her on the steps. "Spike?" When she nodded, he said, "Couldn't visit for long, huh? Don't worry. He'll be better tomorrow."

"No, he won't." The teenager stared into the darkness. "Maybe the wounds and bruises will be better tomorrow–"

"Sure they will," Xander broke in, his voice hearty. "This is nothing compared to how he looked after Glory got through with him." That was a lie, but Dawn didn't have to know. Glory had only had him for a few hours; Spike had been a prisoner-of-war for weeks, and he looked it.

"It won't matter," Dawn said, still shaking her head. "He could barely look at me, Xander, and I couldn't hug him or just hold his hand. I won't say that pain is nothing to Spike, but nothing could be worse for him than this. He can't stop caring about people; even dying and becoming a vampire couldn't do that. How could anything be this cruel?"

"Evil."

"First Evil," she agreed sadly, wiping her fingers across her cheek again. "Xander, we've got to get that chip out of him."

"Never thought I'd say it, but I agree. Unfortunately, neurosurgeons who can remove it are sort of scarce."

"Can we ask Willow? Can she magic it out?"

Xander shook his head. "I don't want to ask her–"

"I can't." Willow stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I saw Dawn go outside and… I don't think any of us should be alone outside at night. Not now." The redhead settled herself on Dawn's other side. "If I had Tara with me to ground me, I would try, but it's such delicate work. Alone I'd be trampling around his brain like the proverbial bull in the china shop." She rubbed Dawn's back. "I'm sorry."

Dawn tried to smile, but the result was so miserable, she settled for nodding. "Too bad the Initiative isn't still around. We could kidnap a doctor."

Willow did smile, remembering. "Spike actually did do that."

"Before he had a soul," Xander pointed out.

"He took care of me before he had a soul."

Willow looked at Dawn, at the stubborn angle of her jaw. "I know, sweetie."

"When he stayed with me right after he got chipped, he ragged on me about my clothes, my jobs, my girlfriend being a demon," Xander said, his voice slow with discovery, "but he never said a thing about my parents, the fights, the…" His words trailed off. The other two knew well enough what his home life had been like.

"You guys couldn't even tell a difference," Dawn said. "Soul or not. We can't lose him, not this way."

"When Giles gets back, we'll get him to ask the coven," Willow said, but her tone was unhappy. She didn't have faith that the circle of white witches would use their power to help a vampire. Spike was too hard to explain.

 _He won't last that long._

Buffy closed her eyes from her perch atop the house, murmurs of goodbyes floating up to her as her sister and friends said their farewells for the night. How could you stop Spike from loving? She hadn't been able to beat it out of him; the First Evil hadn't been able to brainwash it out of him. He would love, and he would hurt, and he would die.

There was only one option.

⸹

"Dunno, lo – Buffy. The pain pills left from when your mum was ill didn't even touch it. I've tried everything from heroin to tequila to willow bark tea – bitter stuff, that – when I first got the chip and was self-medicating. I don't know that the Initiative would have anything in their infirmary. Not intended to keep a demon's pain at bay, anyway."

"Can we just go look?" she asked, not trying to hide the impatience in her voice. "Even if you have to spend the next couple of days in a stupor, it might be enough to hold you until Giles gets back." Willow had done nothing more that morning than tell him breakfast was ready, a mug of warm blood in her hand as she waited for him at the basement door. He smiled up at her and promptly collapsed halfway along the stairs, remaining unconscious for three hours. Buffy was truly scared.

"Why not?" He rose from the cot with a slight wince. His pale skin was almost healed, but bones always took longer. He wasn't in good shape, wasn't up for a trip to the caves or anything else. "Not like I'm of any use around here."

She nodded, her arms crossed firmly. Under no circumstance was she going to touch him. The message from the Initiative had been short and precise. She had to have him there by nineteen hundred hours, or the team of doctors wouldn't have enough time to do the surgery before the helicopters left. They couldn't start the journey until darkness fell, and he couldn't move fast. Buffy hated to lie to him, but she knew he would never knowingly allow himself to be at the mercy of the Initiative.

As they moved through the darkness like two shadows themselves, not talking and making no noise, she went over again her own precise words given over the phone. _This is Buffy Summers, the Slayer, with a message for Riley Finn. The man you call Hostile Seventeen is having trouble with the behavior modification chip. I want a medical team at the old Initiative headquarters in Sunnydale by tomorrow night. The doctors will extract the chip, and I expect Hostile Seventeen to recover. I trust that I don't need to explain what will happen if I'm unhappy in any way with the results of this message._

They were no more than ten feet into the caves when Spike turned to her, his nostrils flaring and his jaw clenched. "Buffy, what have you done?"

She didn't try to deny the soldiers were there. "They put it in; they're going to take it out."

He shook his head. "No. No, Slayer. I can't – Ever been a lab rat, Summers?" Agitated, he turned away from her. "'Been captured too damn many times since I met you. You think I'm going to just turn myself over to them, put myself in their power? Turned out so well the last time! No, not even–"

"Spike." Her voice rang with power in the confines of the cave. She continued in a calmer tone. "You aren't going to be alone. I'll be with you the whole time. The Initiative doesn't get to have you." She looked away from his tense back, not knowing how much she could say without triggering his chip. "You call me your Slayer. Well, you're my vampire. Mine." Her hazel eyes widened at the vehemence in her own voice. "If the doctors so much as look at you cross-eyed… well, let's just say they are aware that there could be seriously public consequences if I'm not happy."

"Just what's gonna make you happy?"

She stared at him, taking in the tenseness of his neck, hurt that he had to ask. "The chip comes out, and you are your own man again. I want you to be free."

His chest rose and fell, and he turned to her before he quite finished mastering his fear. "All right, then, Slayer." This time, she noticed, the name wasn't triggering the chip. "Lead on."

It was a nightmarish journey through a battlefield that had never been cleaned up, and they didn't come through without having to fight for the same ground yet again. When it was over, and Buffy stood beneath a glare of military lights and laser sights, she was almost ready to cry. She didn't, though. She bore the final insult Riley sent at Spike and bent to help the vampire to his feet.

"Same docs as before," he murmured, "the ones who put it in. Didn't even know I remembered their scents, till just now."

Her eyes marked them, a short, thin man and a taller woman already wearing surgical masks. None of the soldiers or members of the medical team moved to assist them, so Buffy supported Spike and helped him to the metal operating table. The Slayer looked around, then hooked a stool with her foot, pulled it toward her, and perched at his side. She took the patient's hand in hers and glared defiantly at the two surgeons.

"Let's get started, then," the female doctor said, turning to a tray of surgical instruments.

"No anesthetic?" Buffy asked.

The woman met her cold gaze. "No. We'll strap the subject to the table." Something in the Slayer's eyes made her look away. "Even humans aren't put to sleep for many neural procedures."

"No worries, love," Spike said, squeezing her hand. "Pain can't be worse, can it?"

Buffy's flat gaze raked the two doctors, then she leaned forward, meeting Spike's blue eyes instead. "My vampire," she said, smiling at him.

"My Slay–" he began to reply, then his chest lifted from the table and his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. The answering smile faded from his lips as he slumped back onto the metal surface, unconscious.

Buffy swallowed once and refused to blink as she stared at the stark planes of his face, bleached even further of color beneath the harsh overhead lights. She cleaned the trickle of blood that slid from his ear with the edge of her sleeve. Then she sat back on the stool and regarded the surgeons. "You may proceed."

The operation didn't take as long as she thought it would, and the chip didn't look the way she had imagined, either. Buffy had expected a green microchip like the ones inside a computer; the device removed from Spike's brain was a small, cream-colored oval of porcelain with tiny wires crisscrossing the surface. As the woman surgeon dropped it from her tweezers into a small steel pan, the male doctor looked at the Slayer.

"We did bring another one." It was the only time he spoke to her.

"No." Buffy's tone was implacable.

He nodded and picked up a square of gauze, and the surgeons began backing out of the vampire's head. By the time they were stitching the small flap of scalp into place, Buffy felt almost calm again. It was over.

"Is there, uh, anything I should do? While he recuperates, I mean?"

The female surgeon stepped away from the table and took off her gloves. She let out a breath, then turned to the young woman and shrugged. "I only came in to do the surgery last time. As I understand, it took thirteen days before he regained consciousness when the chip was implanted. I don't believe it will take that long in this case."

"Two weeks?" Buffy managed numbly.

The woman nodded. "They would have terminated the subject if he hadn't resumed normal activity after fourteen days."

Another brush with death, Buffy thought. The male doctor was stripping off his gloves now, and the support personnel were rolling away the carts of bloody instruments and turning off the bright lights. Fed up, Buffy let go of Spike's hand and snatched the remaining tray from between the two doctors. She saw there were two chips swimming in identical metal pans of some antiseptic solution. One was a perfect cream color; the other had small, scorched-looking brown areas around the wires. The Slayer looked up at the doctors, her lips lifted in an unconscious snarl.

"Those are government property," the female doctor warned.

"Anything in Sunnydale is mine," Buffy corrected her. She tilted her head, picked up the steel pan with the unused chip, and crushed it in her small hand. "Thank you for your time. I believe you have a helicopter to catch."

The doctor didn't flinch, and the cool eyes became clinical, assessing. "What are you?"

"I'm the Slayer," Buffy said. "I fight against the forces of darkness. In the future, make sure you aren't among them."

She'd touched a nerve, it seemed, and the doctor removed her mask, revealing handsome, forty-something features. "That," she said, her eyes flicking to Spike's still form, "is a dark thing."

Buffy's eyes blazed. "That is a man. He likes blooming onions and my Mom's hot cocoa with little marshmallows in it. He sings punk rock music badly even though he has a good voice, and he quotes Shakespeare and loves my baby sister like she was his own. He is the kind of fighter I've never seen outside of another Slayer, and he always has my back, and he never gives up. His name is William, and he is not a thing." She took a step forward, and the doctor backed up, her hip bumping against a cart, sending a few surgical tools scattering across the floor. "I suggest you consider that humanity comes in all sorts of packages before you decide to play god next time." The Slayer took one more step forward, her head lowering slightly, her weight centered. "Killing hellgods is also in my job description."

The other surgeon placed a hand on the woman's arm, pulling her away from Buffy. When the general moved into her view, and she regarded him coolly. "Tell Riley this is a start," she said, "and to stay out of Sunnydale." Then she was alone with Spike's still body in the dim light, the sounds of the Initiative response team fading in the distance.

Two weeks. She looked down at his unmoving form. They didn't have two weeks. Buffy didn't even know how she was going to get him back to her house. She couldn't leave him here, not unprotected with demons still lurking in the caves. She could carry him, but that would seriously hamper her ability to fight. Bending from the waist, she snatched a scalpel from the floor where it had fallen. Only one thing to do, really.

She angled Spike's head back and stood close to the table. Buffy nicked her wrist with the sharp blade, wincing, pulling it up about an inch toward her elbow, making a clean slice. She slid the fingers of her other hand between his lips, his teeth, prying his jaw open, then placed the bleeding wound against his mouth. Not knowing whether it would help, she massaged alongside his Adam's apple, hoping to trigger his swallow reflex.

After almost a full minute, she felt movement beneath her fingers, felt his throat move. Then his brows drew together and his tongue slid along her wrist. Buffy grabbed the edge of the table to support herself, surprised at how much she wanted this, waiting for his face to change. Instead, he lifted a hand blindly toward her, finding her shoulder, and pulled her face down to his.

Swallowing a final time, he murmured, "Buffy, love," and moved her wrist aside to find her mouth. Both hands were in her hair now, moving restlessly as he kissed her. She tasted her own blood, sharp and metallic, before losing herself for a moment in the movement of his lips against hers.

"Mm – no," she managed, pulling away. "You need this, Spike. Take more." She brought her wrist to his mouth again, only to find the cut had closed, a thin scab already formed over it.

"The chip?" he asked, lucid now. His eyes were still closed.

"Here." She pushed the tiny bundle of porcelain and wire into his left hand.

"It's really out?"

"It's really out."

"You stayed with me."

"Right here, the whole time, holding your hand."

He nodded and opened his eyes. It was a moment before he was able to focus on her face, then he smiled. "Thank you, love." He let out a sigh; the word had been a test.

She blinked away tears. "I don't know how to go on without you."

"You don't have to." His fingers rubbed soothingly at the nape of her neck.

"So," she said, desperate to change the topic, "what are you going to do with the chip?"

He held it up in the dim light and regarded it. "'S'too ugly for jewelry."

"I don't know. I've seen you wear some pretty ugly jewelry."

Spike smiled, his fingers tightening on the back of her neck in an odd little hug, but his eyes never left the chip. He held it between his thumb and index finger, considering it with an unreadable expression. Then he squeezed, grinding the ceramic into powder, tangling the delicate wires. There was a tiny electronic pop! that even their enhanced hearing could barely detect, then a whiff of ozone only the vampire caught.

Buffy looked down at him. He looked too thin and worn, but there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there since before she broke it off with him. She wanted to kiss him, but wasn't sure she had the right. Instead, she slid her arm around him for support as they both stood up. "Come on," she said, "let's go home."

⸹

Buffy paused halfway down the basement stairs. For the past two days, Spike had slept, waking only to drink and to hold her or Dawn. She didn't know which was more therapeutic for him. Even Xander and Willow had been there for him, Xander's hand on his shoulder as he covered it with his own, Willow's hands in his as they spoke silently inside each other's minds. The witch had assured her that he was alone in there, fragile but recovering.

Now he was sprawled on the cot, taking up more than his fair share of space, filling the room even in his sleep. She had offered to open her veins for him again, and he had adamantly refused, telling her she wasn't food. It still shook her that his demon hadn't emerged to bite into her wrist as he lay on the operating table. Somehow, it made him seem more distant to her, that she couldn't even rely on his demon to behave in a typical fashion. But, then, it never had.

"Hullo, love."

She smiled. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Felt you come down the stairs, but you stopped. That's what woke me." He gripped the edge of the cot and pulled himself into a sitting position. She could tell by the ease in his movements that he was doing better.

"Dawn will be home from school in about an hour."

"How come you aren't at work?" he asked, frowning.

"Took a mental health day," she said, a faint smile touching her face as she made her way into the basement to sit down beside him.

"Don't mean to add to your burdens," he said, looking away.

"You haven't," she assured him. "There are lots of other things. New potential slayers coming in, Bringers popping up all over town, et cetera, et cetera."

He nodded and covered her hand with his. "Reckon I have time to shower before the Bit gets in? Feelin' a bit grotty."

"Yeah. This time of day, there might actually be some hot water." At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated. "Many females, one hot water heater."

"Ah."

"I, uh, got you some soap and stuff, so you don't have to smell like vanilla or something feminine."

"Well, since you went to all the trouble, least I can do is use it. Would you…?" He held out a hand and waited until she stood up and gripped his arm before getting to his feet. "Thanks."

"How close are you to being well?" she asked as they walked to the stairs, her arm around his waist. He didn't bother pretending he could do it alone, trusting her with his weight. It surprised her for a moment, then made her feel warm, knowing that he accepted everything about her, her strength included. Riley never liked her to help.

"Vertigo is gone. Skin's all healed up, but my bones are still iffy, 'specially the ribs. Still too weak to wrestle a kitten." He shrugged. "Few more days and lots of blood, I'll be of some use to you."

She shot him an irritated look over that, but let it go. "Hospital and butcher's blood?"

"Yeah," he agreed heavily, waiting while she opened the door into the kitchen for him. "And, no, before you ask."

"Why not?"

"Don't want to take from you, love. If I can, I'd like to give."

"You've given me everything I've ever asked for."

He stared into her eyes, feeling déjà vu in the moment, unable to place the echo. "You've given me things I never thought to ask for."

Buffy bit her lip. "If you're the answer, I don't know what the question is anymore. I did at one time, or thought I did."

He forced a smile and placed a kiss on her hair. "No hurry. 'M not going anywhere." They left the kitchen for the dining room.

"I'm not, either," Buffy said. "So, we'll just figure things out as we go."

"That usually works out well," Spike replied, amusement in his voice.

"The blond leading the blond," she said wryly, moving closer to his side as he raised his foot for the first step on the staircase. Then he paused, and she followed his gaze to the small crowd of girls draped across the sofa and on the floor of the living room.

"Guys, this is Spike," Buffy said.

After a moment, there was a chorus of subdued greetings from the girls. He suppressed a smirk and let his gaze drift to the television. "Watching _Passions_?" At the tentative nods, he went on. "Haven't watched for a while. You'll have to catch me up on what's been going on."

"I'm going to help Spike upstairs to shower," Buffy said. "He's been through an ordeal and still isn't feeling a hundred percent." She started moving, feeling their wide eyes following them. Once they reached the landing and were out of view, the girls broke into excited, worried whispers.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I was never that green," she stated flatly.

"Not that I recall," Spike agreed, distracted by the low voices debating whether Buffy should stake him already or not.

"Can you manage?" she asked matter-of-factly as they stood by the tub. At his nod, she went to the sink and brought out soap and shampoo scented with Bay Rum. Spike looked at them in wonder when she placed them in his hand. When his eyes met hers, they were bright with tears.

Buffy shrugged, uncomfortable. "I-I never knew what your scent was, just that I liked it. Xander knew, from the time you stayed in his parents' basement."

"Thanks to both of you, then," he said simply. "Very thoughtful, and much appreciated."

"Um, I left a razor on the sink," she said, feeling awkward, "and I'll leave some clean clothes for you by the door. Towels are over there." Buffy turned to leave, then paused, not looking at him. "You sure you don't need me to stay?"

"I'm pretty sure I'd like you to stay," Spike said, "but I think I can manage without you." She could hear the humor in his voice. "Pity. It'd scandalize the little birds downstairs."

"We've never showered together," Buffy said wistfully.

"'Bout the only thing we haven't tried," he agreed. Then he sighed. "There'll be time, love." He watched her nod and bite her lip as she left, and he lowered himself to the edge of the tub, letting the air out of his lungs in a hiss of pain. This was all so strange, to be living openly in her house, a welcome guest. A smile touched the corners of his mouth as he sensed the boy tied up in Willow's bedroom. He was probably the only truly welcome guest here.

Cleaning up took longer than usual, but he felt better than he had in ages. Spike put on the clean jeans and t-shirt Buffy had left for him, then did up his boots and drew his belt on. He had to notch it tighter than usual, and he grimaced, resolving to choke down whatever blood there was in the house. He had shaved in the shower, so he returned the razor to the sink and hung up his towel to dry. Smiling a little, he left his Bay Rum soap and shampoo where they were on the edge of the tub. It was a small way of marking territory.

He managed the stairs without too much trouble, nodding to the girls in the living room politely, and headed to the kitchen. He microwaved two quarts of blood and began methodically pouring mug after mug down his throat, grimaced at the viscous liquid. It was human, but it was old and full of anticoagulants and preservatives. Still, he could feel the warmth inside his chest, feel it change from food to life and spread throughout his body, moving magically from his digestive tract into his arteries and veins. He grimaced again and loosened his belt to its usual notch. Sighing, he rinsed the mug and disposed of the empty plastic bags. Then he tilted his head, listening. Buffy was still upstairs. The potential slayers were huddled together in the living room. He could feel fear seeping from them, beckoning his demon.

Spike considered the circumstances for a moment before coming to a decision. He rummaged in the cabinets for a packet of hot chocolate mix, as always feeling a pang that Joyce wasn't there to share a cuppa, and used the same mug that held the blood to heat up some water. When the microwave beeped, he mixed in the powder and strolled into the living room, stuffing every remnant of the Big Bad out of sight.

"Mind if I join you?"

One of the girls, a redhead, shook her head wordlessly and slid off the couch, making room for him. He sat down in his usual manner, knees a mile apart, cradling the mug against his chest. Two of them, the redhead and a dark-haired girl whose sour look marred her polished beauty, stared at him. The other two looked anywhere but at him.

"'Call me Spike," he said, the oldest part of himself appalled at their lack of manners.

"Um," the redhead said, "I'm Vi."

He smiled at her, laying on the charm. "Nice to meet you, Vi, even under these circumstances."

"Rona," the girl on the other end of the couch said, not smiling. He nodded gravely at her.

"M-Molly," the youngest-looking girl said.

"You're a Brit, yeah?" he asked. She nodded, overwhelmed. Spike turned expectantly to the sour-faced girl.

"Kennedy." It was practically a challenge. She sneered a little. "Nice cup of blood?" The other three girls froze, staring at him.

He'd anticipated her fear, but not the hatred beneath it. "No," he replied mildly, "hot chocolate. From a mix, though. Not as good as what the Slayer's Mum used to make for me. Joyce was a fine lady. Would have welcomed you into her house, too, just as she did me." That shut the bint's gob.

"You're really a vampire?" Rona asked from her corner of the couch.

"Yeah." He took a sip of hot chocolate, letting them deal with that. "And you lot are potential slayers?"

"Man," Rona said in disgust, shaking her head while the others just nodded. "I never asked for this."

"I never asked to be turned, either." Spike flashed her a grin. "Life sucks, dunnit?"

"H-how long have you been…?" Vi's voice trailed away.

"Hundred and twenty-three years," he said, after a moment's thought. He'd lost a lot of time over the past months.

"Wow," Molly said.

"What kind of vampire turns into a pet?" Kennedy asked. "For that matter, what kind of Slayer lets a vampire live?"

"Kennedy," Vi said reprovingly, her manners finally kicking in.

"Never," Spike said levelly, "let me hear you say a word against the Slayer, the one who's keeping you safe by letting you stay in her house." He stared her down. "The Slayer an' me… we have a lot of history. You can be rude to me if you can take as good as you give, if you want to risk the consequences of me bein' rude back, but never," his voice was like a whip, "say anything against her."

"How many people have you killed?" Kennedy asked harshly, not backing down.

He raised an eyebrow. "A lot," he admitted, "so I know a lot about people, how best to hunt them, how to read them. You, I judge," he stared at her over the edge of the mug, "were brought up with too much money and too little thought. Mummy and Dad too busy to pay attention to you, yeah? So all you have is a thick layer of attitude to cover up all that empty nothingness underneath." The girl flushed and didn't reply. Spike put his cup down on the floor. "Excuse me," he said, forcing his tone to be mild, polite. "Bit's home." He was waiting by the door for her, his heart full of anticipation, wanting to put the ugliness in the living room behind him. She didn't let him down.

"Spike!" Dawn squealed, delighted, and threw herself into his arms. "Oh! Sorry!" she added when he grunted softly. "But you're on your feet, out of the basement." She hugged him more carefully, and he couldn't have kept a smile off his face if the world depended on it. Laughing, he let out weeks of pent-up affection, scooping her up in his arms and whirling her in an impromptu waltz around the foyer and dining room.

"Let me down," Dawn laughed, even as she put her arms tightly around his neck. "You'll hurt yourself."

They came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, both of them looking up to find Buffy regarding them from the landing with folded arms, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Nibblet's home," Spike announced.

"I see that," she agreed.

"Say it again," Dawn urged.

He danced around with her again. "Nibblet, Sweet Bit, Platelet, Snackpack," he sang, then put her back on the floor, "light of my unlife."

"Oh, Spike," she said, flinging her arms around him again, laughing. "I love you." Dawn gave him another squeeze. "Missed you."

"Missed you, too," he murmured against her hair. "Can't do without you, Bit."

She pulled away from him and looked at him critically. "You look better."

"I scrub up well."

"Can you hit humans now?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.

"Just waiting till Harris comes by," he replied, giving her a wicked grin.

Buffy sent them a disapproving look. "What kind of homework do you have, Dawn?" She came down the steps to stand beside Spike.

"There's the Nazi-mom," her sister grumbled. She turned back to the doorway where she'd left her bookbag and belatedly acknowledged the potential slayers with a wave. "Just history." Dawn's face was serious when she turned back to face them. "Mr. Holloway didn't turn up at school today and didn't call in."

"I'll check his address and go by there, see if he's left town or if something else happened," Buffy said, sounding weary. The social sciences teacher had taught at Sunnydale when she was there, too, but neither of the sisters had him for a class. Still, she knew his face.

Spike stroked her back. "Want me to go with?"

She leaned into his hand automatically, letting her head fall back, her warm hair falling over his fingers in a caress. "Wouldn't say no to some company." Then she caught Dawn grinning slyly at her. "Go ahead, Miss Smartypants. Get your history done."

"What era is it?" Spike asked.

"World War I," Dawn replied, a hopeful look on her face.

"Dimly recall it, yeah," he said. "C'mon, Bit. Won't take long, I'd wager."

Buffy watched the pair of them go into the dining room, letting herself smile. It faded when she turned to face the four girls in the living room. They had been watching avidly; she'd felt their eyes.

"So," she said, strolling in to sit where Spike had been. She absently picked up his cup. "I guess you have questions, huh?"

"Is he really a hundred and twenty-three?" Molly asked.

"If that's what he says."

"He doesn't look… I mean…"

"No," Buffy agreed wryly, "he doesn't look it. Vampires stay pretty much the same as they are when they're turned. It wasn't long after his twenty-eighth birthday. After several centuries, though, they begin to lose their human face."

"What's his deal?" Rona asked. "I mean, being here with your family?"

"Yeah," Molly piped up, "I wondered 'bout that, too. M' Watcher never said there was good vampires."

The Slayer's voice was like ice. "There are no good vampires. Anytime you sense or see a vampire, assume it will try to kill you. Let me say it again, so you know I mean it: all vampires are evil."

"Now, having said that," she went on, her voice softer, "there is no other vampire like Spike. He's… singular. There are two vampires in the world with souls. One was cursed by gypsies because he killed a girl from their tribe. His name is Angel, and he feels so guilty for what he did as a soulless vampire that he's trying to atone. He lives in L.A., and I don't see him very often. The other is Spike, who faced trials, mortal combat, for an entire week to win his soul."

Buffy looked down at the lukewarm cocoa. "A demon who wanted his soul back," she said for emphasis, her voice soft. "He could have asked for anything when he won, to walk in daylight, to be invincible," she decided to leave off any mention of the chip, as it wasn't a factor any longer, "but he wanted his soul back." She looked at the four faces in turn, but stared hard into Kennedy's eyes when she went on. "Spike has always had honor. He fought alongside me a couple of years ago against a hellgod, and he was the only one strong enough to protect my Mom and my sister when I couldn't be with them. Three times he helped me save the world as nothing more than a vampire, and helped other times, besides. Even so, there were a lot of… trust issues. Getting his soul was his way of showing we could trust him, of saying he really was part of my family, that he wasn't going anywhere."

"So, he's, like, Dawn's bodyguard?" Rona asked.

Buffy smiled and shook her head. "I think it's more like they're best friends," she said. Then her face grew serious. "There is no one more loyal than Spike. When he counts you as one of his humans, it pretty much guarantees he'll give his life to keep you safe. No one," she said, her voice catching a little, "loves the way he does. But don't let that fool you." She looked at each one of the potential slayers again. "He isn't harmless. He's a better warrior than any one of you will ever be. I'm not saying that to challenge you or make you feel inferior; it's just a fact. He's had a long time to get this good, and none of us are going to live to be a hundred and twenty." She hesitated for a moment, then went on, wanting them to hear it from her instead of the First Evil. "Before he got his soul, he killed two Slayers. The first was when he was just twenty; the second was one of the best-trained Slayers this century, and he waited years until he felt she was up to his standard. Two Slayers before he was a hundred, in one-on-one combat. Even without a soul, he had honor. Just as contrast, the last two Slayers killed by vampires were either under mesmer or thrall." Buffy firmed her lips, thinking of Kendra and of her own drowning. "Spike doesn't use either."

"Are you saying he's better than you?" Kennedy said coolly.

When Buffy hesitated, an equally cool voice from behind her answered. "No. The Slayer is the better warrior." Spike looked down and met her hazel eyes, smiling slightly. "We're well-matched, me an' her," he said, his deep voice just for Buffy and enveloping her like dark molasses, "but she's better." After a moment, he shook his head to the side, breaking their gaze, and looked at the girls. "So, you're safer here than anywhere. 'S'why Mr. Giles brought you here. Anything gets to you, has to come through the Slayer. Anything gets to Buffy has to come through me." He slid into his demon face without warning, his human beauty replaced with ridges and ferocious fangs. Vi actually squealed, then looked embarrassed.

Dawn came up beside him and tucked her arm around his waist. "Eww," she said, looking up into his yellow eyes. She rolled hers.

Spike sighed and resumed his human features. "'S'hard, I tell you, trying to be the Big Bad around here, with even Sweet Bit not afraid of me. Unless," he said, giving her a sidelong look, "I turn into," his voice became melodramatic, "the tickle monster!"

"No, Spike," she said, pushing at him, keeping him at arm's length, "don't." He had a longer reach, though, and she squealed, running away through the dining room, the vampire at her heels.

Buffy listened to the mock growls and giggles coming from the kitchen and rolled her eyes. "You've got to overlook them," she said. "Spike's been… away for a while. They missed each other."

Rona gave her an assessing look. "If Dawn and the vam – Spike are best friends, what is he to you?"

"He's my second-in-command," Buffy said flatly, "and as necessary to me as my right hand." She picked up the cup once again and stood up. "I'll go get started on dinner."

Dawn was sitting on a stool at the island in the middle of the kitchen, and Spike was slouching against the counter. "Quite a performance," Buffy said dryly.

"Yeah," Dawn agreed, shooting Spike a revolted look. "Tickle monster?"

"What? 'S'the best I could come up with, short notice an' all. Been a bit under the weather, you know."

Dawn scoffed, but Buffy was staring at the two of them fondly. She hadn't had to say anything overt; they had just known what was needed to announce to the new arrivals what their family dynamic was. "Well," she said, clearing her throat, "that was the easy part. Now we just have to figure out a way to explain Andrew and why we're keeping him tied to a chair upstairs."

⸹

Xander picked up Willow at the university library after work and drove her home, staying for dinner. He had spoken to Buffy earlier and ran by the butcher shop first for more blood for Spike.

"Thanks, Whelp."

"Anytime, Evil Dead." Xander gave the blond man a lopsided smile. "Good to see you're back to your usual charming self." The two men gave each other a quick, one-armed embrace. It wasn't as awkward as Xander had feared, but he still shot Buffy a you-so-owe-me look afterwards. He'd gotten her call for favors toward the end of the day, asking him to help put the potential slayers at ease around the vampire, but her suggestion of "hug him or something" was pretty far down on the list of things he wanted to do. Now he was looking at Spike expectantly.

"What?" Same old Spike, obnoxious as always.

"Evil Dead? Not gonna quote _Army of Darkness_?" Xander sighed. "'Good, bad… I'm the man with the…' blood," he said, shoving the paper bag into the blond man's arms.

Spike stilled the clinking jars and gave him a lazy grin. "First thing that came to mind was, 'yo, she-bitch, let's go,' but hell if I'm gonna say that around that Kennedy bint," he confided in a low voice.

Xander snorted with laughter, quickly covering his mouth. "Let's get this to the kitchen," he said loudly, then continued in a whisper, "Yeah, I don't think my charm was quite high-toned enough for her, either. So," he said at normal volume, "what's for dinner?"

He had passed the word on to Willow as well, and when she had a moment, she came to where Spike sat alone at the dinner table. Leaning over, she said softly, "Buffy said we're supposed to show the girls that you aren't scary."

"I am scary," he said defensively.

She rolled her eyes. "You know, Spike. Not evil."

His eyes widened. "Oh, so that's why I was graced with the manly hug by the whelp." Spike grinned at her. "So, you're supposed to be affectionate to me?"

"That's the plan."

"Do I get to be affectionate back?" he asked, pulling her onto his knee and nuzzling her jaw.

She struggled good-naturedly for a moment, then went still, pivoting on his thigh to look at him. "This is what you always did with Tara."

He looked into her serious face. "Um, Red, I promise I never tried–"

"No," she said, waving away his explanation, "just flirting, I mean. You always flirted with her. Why'd you do that?"

Shrugging, he looked away. "Of all the love interests you Scoobies have had, she was the best of the lot. She – " He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then pulled her closer, his arms loose around her waist. "What did you see when you looked at her, Red?"

Willow closed her eyes against the pain. "A nymph. A goddess. True beauty."

"Yeah," he agreed softly. "She had beauty, inside and out. 'S'not what she saw, though. Dunno how she did it, being told she was a demon and worthless by that gormless family of hers all her life. She figured out that she was worthwhile and good, but I don't think she ever saw how beautiful. S'why I flirted. Wanted her to know there were people who could take one look at her and see how sexy, how beautiful she was." He shrugged again.

Willow took a couple of steadying breaths. "I miss her so much."

"'Course you do."

"Sometimes I don't know how… I've just made such a mess of things without her."

"Doesn't help much, I know, but let the memory of her be your guide."

"Yeah, WWTD?"

"You won't go far wrong, that way." He touched her mind, wanting to give her comfort and reassurance.

"Glinda the good witch, floating away in a bubble," Willow said softly, having plucked the image from his thoughts. Her eyes glistened.

"Pay no attention to the thoughts behind the curtain," he grumbled. "Dru an' me saw _The Wizard of Oz_ a dozen times or more when it came out in '39. Good movie, the American psyche in a nutshell. Dru had a thing about finding a munchkin to sire for years after that."

"That's just warped," Dawn declared, dropping into the chair next to Spike.

"That's my Dru," Spike agreed.

"Whatcha talkin' 'bout?"

"Your complete lack of grammar," Spike shot back, his brows drawn together.

"Tara," Willow said.

Dawn, typically, ignored the first reply and put her hand over Willow's. "I miss her, too."

Watching from the kitchen, Buffy smiled. She started to join them, but the doorbell rang, so she made a mid-course correction and went to the front door instead. "Giles!" She started to reach for her Watcher, a big grin on her face, but he propelled a tiny Asian girl through the door ahead of him, his eyes nervously scanning the growing shadows behind him.

"Buffy," he said, shutting the door behind him and taking her up on her offered hug. "It's good to see you." He straightened up and nodded at the new arrival. "This is Chao-Ahn."

The Slayer nodded at the short girl. "Hey. Welcome to Sunnydale. I'm Buffy."

"Hull-o Buff-ee," the girl said, than rattled off a few sentences of Chinese. The two females regarded each other, their faces falling into almost identical expressions of discomfort.

"She would speak Cantonese," Giles said, a forced smile on his tired face, "when even my Mandarin is marginal at best. Nonetheless, she's safe."

"And the girl in St. Petersburg?" Buffy asked.

Giles just shook his head, grimacing. He started to say more, but was interrupted by the arrival of almost everyone in the house. He looked around at the potential slayers and the Scoobies, belatedly realizing he was the only thing they all had in common. The Watcher began greeting them, beginning with Molly. He put her in charge of Chao-Ahn, because she had a more obvious motherly streak than his other young charges. Willow hung back to the last, still diffident after her dark period last summer, so he gave her an extra-hearty hug.

"So good to see you, my dear. How have you been?"

"Okay. Frightened a lot of the time." She gave him another squeeze before letting go. "It's good to see you, Dumbledore."

The Watcher smiled down at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm being made fun of, therefore I must be home."

Xander passed him, headed toward the door, folding a cell phone. "I just called An to tell her you're here." He gestured toward the door. "I'm going to go pick her up."

Even as Giles smiled at the thought of the ex-demon who had stayed with him through the long night they had spent trying to pull Willow back from the edge, his brows drew together in worry. Xander understood, though, lifting the axe in his other hand high enough for him to see. Rupert nodded in approval. Sunnydale was even less safe than usual. He met Buffy's eyes again briefly, a wry, bittersweet exchange, before collapsing into a chair at the dining room table.

"Dinner's almost ready," Dawn said, bringing in a stack of paper plates and disposable cups. "Spaghetti," she said, making a face. They had economical pasta for dinner more often than she liked.

"Oi! Bit! Where's the colander?"

Startled, Rupert looked toward the kitchen, then up at the girl, mouthing the vampire's name soundlessly. Dawn grinned and nodded vigorously, stepping quickly out of the way as the Watcher hastened past her.

"William?"

"Rupert." Spike's head was almost inside the storage space underneath the island. He came up empty-handed, looking intently at the wall cabinets. The Watcher would have believed his nonchalance if he hadn't seen the blond man's fleeting unsure expression, hadn't seen his lips firm.

"Good Lord, man. You're back with us." He enfolded his countryman in the same sort of hug he'd given Xander, and, after a second, it was returned.

"I could say the same," Spike said gruffly, pulling away.

"How…?"

He shrugged. "Buffy rescued me, yeah?"

"Of course she did," Giles agreed, giving his head a tiny shake. There was a story there, but it would have to wait. "So…" he continued awkwardly, "what have you been up to?"

"Duckin' and divin,'" Spike smirked.

"Colander," Dawn said from behind him, holding up the wire sieve.

"Been to China, have you?" Spike asked, changing the subject as he lifted the pot of spaghetti.

"And Russia, but only the China trip was successful."

"Stand back, Nibblet," Spike warned, as steam billowed up from the draining pasta. "Overheard the greetings, Watcher. Sorry I can't help; was only ever in the Wu- or Mandarin-speaking provinces."

"You speak Chinese?" Dawn asked.

"Picked up a few words. Been everywhere, you know; been to every continent," Spike said. "Didn't do much more than step onto Antarctica, though, then shove off." He gave a self-mocking smile. "'Bout the last place a vampire wants to find himself. No prey to speak of."

"There are penguins," Dawn said reasonably. "Some of them are pretty big."

"Would _you_ eat penguin?" he asked, looking revolted.

Giles smiled, not at all offended by his dismissal. He knew exactly how much it took to get the vampire to open up. Besides, he'd noted the pleased look on Spike's face as he pulled away from him. After so many weeks of losses, having him back felt like an unexpected gift. Despite what he had told Buffy, he'd never thought to see the vampire again.

After dinner, Willow, looking almost panicky and working quickly, magicked her laptop to transcribe the English conversation into Cantonese. Chao-Ahn's smile took away a lot of her unease, but Kennedy's look of intense admiration gave Willow an altogether different case of nerves. There were fourteen of them gathered in the dining room, as Anya and Xander had brought Andrew downstairs and let him eat in the corner, after making sure it was all right with Willow. It was becoming clear that the boy was harmless. Anya wasn't, though, as she and Willow began arguing over the merits of teleporting.

Giles took a breath and looked at Buffy for the go-ahead. At her nod, he got everyone's attention and started on general things: reiterating that the Slayer was in charge, that her friends were experienced demon fighters and should be heeded, that they would set up a training regimen for the girls to hone their latent abilities. There was a quickly suppressed interruption by Andrew, who opined that boys should be called to be Slayers, too. Sighing, Giles continued, explaining that the remnants of the Council were coordinated enough now that others would check on potential slayers, sending them to Sunnydale if it seemed safe enough, and he was back to stay. Buffy couldn't blame the girls for looking relieved; she felt the same way.

Then it was her turn, catching Giles up on what had happened in his absence. The potential slayers joined in, excitedly telling Giles about the Turok-Han. She let Spike tell his side of it, which he did with the minimum number of words. Not wanting to expose him in front of so many strangers, Buffy simply said that the chip had malfunctioned after his rescue, and she blackmailed the Initiative into removing it. Her answers to the girls' questions about the background of the Initiative were short, and they quickly got the message that it wasn't something she wanted to discuss. She finished up by going over what they knew about the Bringers and the First Evil.

In the silence that followed, Andrew spoke up again. "The First Evil is powerful and… evil. There's no use fighting against it. It's like the dark side of the Force, seductive and able to get in your mind and make you believe what–"

"Shut up, Andrew," Xander said tiredly. He turned to the new girls. "I'd just like to point out that he collaborated with the First, so you can pretty much ignore anything he has to say."

"Yeah, Andrew," Willow said, glaring at him and making him shrink against the chair. "We don't just give up. We're… well, Buffy's a hero, and we help her. What if we hadn't bothered to fight Glory? The whole world would be covered with hellbeasts now."

"They did stop an Ascension," Anya added. "I'd never heard of that happening before."

"Thwarted my evil plans," Spike said, throwing Buffy a fond look. She smirked back at him.

"You stopped an Ascension?" Kennedy asked, looking at Buffy with something close to respect. Like Kendra, she had been identified as a potential slayer early, and it was obvious she had absorbed the usual prejudices along with her lessons.

"Yeah, that was fun," Xander said sarcastically. "Happened to fall during our high school graduation."

"That was right after my brother Tucker," Andrew began, his voice falling to almost a whisper in the face of universal glares, "unleashed hellhounds on the prom."

Xander went on to tell the tale of Mayor Wilkins, and Giles joined in, wanting to reassure the youngsters that they had always conquered whatever force of evil they had faced. The Scoobies regaled them with stories of trolls and demons and the dark truth behind fairy tales. By the time Giles finished telling, rather shamefaced, his experience as a Fyarl demon, the potential slayers were looking far more impressed and excited than scared.

"Oh!" Spike said from where he stood, leaning over the back of Dawn's chair. "That about the silver letter opener reminds me, Watcher." He touched his scarred eyebrow. "The sword that gave me this… we wondered if it was a legacy weapon passed along from Slayer to Slayer. It would be dead useful for Buffy if she has to face another übervamp."

Giles grimaced. "It's almost unbelievable to me how many things I just accepted about the Council's methods. That weapon," he said to Buffy, "was mounted in a glass case on the wall of the London headquarters. I doubt it had been used since the Boxer Rebellion, and of course now it's gone. Never occurred to me to ask why–"

Chao-Ahn suddenly scooted away from the table, her eyes leaving the laptop and going to Spike. She began speaking rapidly, backing away until she was behind Molly and Rona, her eyes wide as she pointed a shaking finger at the vampire. Dawn, glaring at her, half-turned in her chair and put her arms defensively across Spike's chest. It took a while to get the Chinese girl calm enough to sit down in front of the computer again so they could explain why a vampire was at the table with them. Buffy grimaced a little during the part about Glory's tower, hating to admit that being the Slayer had been the death of her even once, but by the time she finished, Chao-Ahn was calm enough to ask to see the demon's face. Sighing, Spike obliged her.

Andrew was looking at him worshipfully. "It's just like on _Stargate SG-1_ ," he breathed, "where Teal'c joined Colonel O'Neill's team rather than–"

"Andrew!" Xander said, obviously at the end of his patience. The boy quieted down once more.

Buffy was staring at the table. "One thing I want to make clear: in this fight, the best way to stay alive is to have friends around you. Everyone has to fight to the best of their ability, and it will surprise you sometimes just how well you can fight when your friends are depending on you. None of you is alone anymore. That makes us unbelievably strong, all right?" She looked at the newcomers. "Giles started as my Watcher when I came to Sunnydale, but he's much more than that now. Willow and Xander have been with me just as long. I trusted Spike enough to work with him even back when he was evil – which he's not anymore. Anya has an incredible working knowledge of the demon world. Dawn and I are lucky to have them for family. They've all killed more vampires than most Watchers ever see in a lifetime, plus faced a host of other nasties.

"The hardest thing for me has been that the world isn't black and white. Not all demons are evil; not all humans are good. Fortunately, in this situation, the bad guy is pretty much pure evil. Our humanity is what sets us apart, all of us," she reiterated, looking pointedly at Spike. "The First likes to mess with your mind, since it doesn't have a physical form. Just remember that it might appear to you as either me or Spike, or anyone you knew who is dead now. That's as close as it can get to an imitation of humanity. Easy to thwart it, though, if you're unsure – just try to touch it. The Bringers, the Turok-Han… well, you've seen them die. They're on the physical plane, and we can take care of them, too.

"This isn't hopeless, not in the least. I've faced down the First Evil before. We can do this. Now, let's clear away the supper dishes."

"Nice speech," Willow said quietly a few minutes later, sounding impressed as she passed Buffy in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room.

The Slayer rolled her eyes. "Thanks, I guess." She caught Giles' look, and the two of them went to the basement and sat on Spike's cot for a more frank, detailed discussion of what had been going on. They both agreed that their best bet for breaking the Bringers' chant was to keep a close eye on the high school and the Hellmouth.

"Speaking of which," Buffy said, hauling her tired body upright, "Spike and I are going to go to the house of one of Dawn's teachers. She said he didn't show up today. No explanation."

"Is he up for a patrol?" Giles asked, frowning. Buffy had been quite upset when she told about the extent of the vampire's injuries. "For that matter, are you? You look tired, my dear."

"You do, too." Impulsively, Buffy leaned over and hugged him. "I'm sorry, Giles. About the Council, I mean. This can't be easy for you."

"No," he agreed, turning his glasses over in his hands. "I feel like I'm on the high wire without a safety net now."

"I feel just the opposite," she said, giving him a lopsided grin. "I feel like my safety net is back."

He cupped her cheek, a gentle smile on his face. "You're a remarkable girl – woman, I should say." Groaning a little, he stood up as well, much more stiffly. "Xander has offered to let me 'crash at his pad,'" he explained. "If he's ready to go, I certainly am. I feel like I've been on a plane for months."

Upstairs, they found that Dawn had manipulated everyone to her liking. For once, Buffy was glad to see it. Her sister had popped in _The Princess Bride_ DVD for the umpteenth time, and all the potential slayers were all in the living room, but they weren't watching it. Dawn had commandeered one end of the couch for herself and her pet vampire, who was painting the fingernails on Vi's left hand without saying a word. Buffy saw that Andrew was sending longing glances at the couch from where he was tied to the chair, but Xander, Willow, and Anya were still sitting with him at the dining room table. The younger Summers saw her and gave her a satisfied smile, waving one hand carefully as the polish on her own nails dried.

Without looking up, Spike started on Vi's right hand. "If you're here to rescue me, Slayer, b'lieve I might be more grateful than I was last time."

"Sorry, Dawnie, Vi," Buffy said sardonically. "I need to steal your manicurist."

"Are you going on patrol?" Dawn asked. At her sister's nod, she added softly, "Be careful."

"We will." Her promise was absently given. She was busy watching her former lover rather skillfully apply pink paint to Vi's thumbnail. Why had she never let him take care of her like that? She'd known, hadn't she? He had taken care of Drusilla for decades.

"There," Spike said, capping the bottle. He lifted Vi's small hands and blew gently on the wet nails. The girl stared at her fingers, then at him, her mouth hanging open. Buffy thought sourly that she had just had her sexual awakening. "Mind, don't smudge 'em."

"N-no," Vi stammered, the face beneath her ridiculous knit hat turning scarlet.

"Keep 'em in line, Bit," he told her, rising from the couch like a cat stretching.

"You be careful, too."

"As you wish," Spike said softly, making Dawn smile.

The pair of blonds passed the magical barrier around Revello and walked along in silence for a while. Buffy opened her mouth a couple of times to say something, but didn't.

Spike gave her a curious look. "What is it, love?"

"Tonight was nice," she said softly. "I mean, other than all those girls and Andrew. It's just… you've always been just mine. Tonight was the first time all of my peeps were together." She grimaced, not sure if her meaning was clear. "It just felt… whole."

He got it. "'Cept for your Mum and Tara," he agreed and, after a pause, continued. "Been a long time coming."

"Yes, it was." She looked at her feet. "I'm sorry."

"No need, love." He shot her a swift smile. "'S'not like I was an acceptable houseguest most of the time." The companionable silence fell again as they continued to Mr. Holloway's house.

"This is it," Buffy said, checking the address she had scribbled on a scrap of paper. "Nice neighborhood." She looked at the dark house. "Getting anything?"

He squinted at the windows and tested the air. "No sound, no unusual smells." There were none of the more subtle vibes that remained after a violent conflict, either.

"Let's see if there's a car in the garage."

"Or a minivan," Spike said sardonically.

"Yeah. No minivans in our futures, huh?" Buffy agreed.

"Thank God."

"I don't know," Buffy said slowly. "I've given up on the whole 'normal girl' thing, but sometimes I still kind of wish I could have it." She shrugged, watching Spike push between the bushes that grew close to the garage to peer inside a window. "You know, house in the burbs and 2.5 kids. I used to want a lot more, a glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle. Live in Europe, marry Christian Slater…" When he looked around at her, one eyebrow quirked, she made a face. "I-it's a daydream from a long time ago."

"No minivans, cars, or vehicles of any kind." He gestured to the back yard. "Do a walk-through, but I think it's safe to say they got the hell out of Dodge."

"What about you, Spike? What did you want, you know, out of life? Back when you had one, I mean."

He raised another eyebrow at her choice of words. "Dunno, love. It's been a while." Love, he could have said, health and long life for his family. Didn't matter now.

"Nice deck," Buffy said, impressed, as the back yard came into view.

Spike pulled her back against his chest and made a sweeping gesture toward the house. "Whatever you want, kitten, any of the empty houses on the Hellmouth. One house in the burbs for my lady comin' right up. 'Course," he continued in a lower voice, "doubt you'd want 2.5 of the kind of kiddies I can sire."

The smile he'd coaxed was already fading as she turned her head to look up at him. "Something you said back when you were, you know, crazier than you are now," this earned her a smile of her own, "about not siring. What did you mean by that?"

"Uh… that I don't sire vampires?" he ventured, feeling that it was plain.

"You don't?"

"No." He shook his head, bemused at the dumbstruck expression on her face.

Buffy turned in his embrace and grasped the lapels of his coat. "You didn't sire Ford?" At his blank look, she elaborated. "You know, that old friend of mine who conspired with you to–"

"Yeah, I remember," he interrupted, glowering. "No, it was Dru that turned him."

"You don't sire at all? But you threatened to turn Willow."

"I did." Spike lost himself for a moment in her eyes, drowning in the fact that they were focused on him, that she was interested in him, in his views, his history. This had been a long time in coming, too. He gave his head a small shake. "Gave her the choice. If she'd wanted, I would have turned Willow that night in your dorm room. Would have been the first time in over a hundred years. Prob'ly would have staked her within the week, too." He pushed back a strand of her hair that had escaped from her ponytail. "Part of it is simple fear, the same kind that keeps kids from bad families from wantin' kids of their own. Don't want to do things to my get that were done to me. But the main thing is, you turn someone, you destroy all they are. You like someone enough to want them around, then you end up with… something else that looks like them. But it isn't. It's never them." He let his eyes wander across her face. Beloved, his heart offered, and he bared it to her.

"You know I'm a demon, love, capable of… Not long after Dru turned me, I went back home. My mother was dying of consumption. Thought I had found the cure – immortality, strength, joy of the night, yeah?" The corners of his mouth turned up, but it never reached his eyes. "After… I killed her, what moved and sounded like her was… an abomination to me. Had to stake her. Never cared much for siring new vampires after that." His eyes slipped away, deflecting her. "Can't say Dru was sorry to lose the mother-in-law."

He would have liked to move away from her searching gaze, but Buffy's strong little fingers were clenched around the leather of his coat. "You've always been like this," she said, her voice distant, thinking to what lengths she would have gone to in order to save her own mother, "from the very beginning."

"Like what?"

"I knew." She let go of his lapels and moved away from him, one hand over her mouth. "I always knew, and I used it, but I never really… saw. Let myself see." Buffy turned back to him. "I knew you'd let us escape as a trade for Drusilla at that vampire club. I knew you would keep your word when… during the whole Acathla thing, to get her back. Just like I knew I could trust you to take care of Mom and Dawn." There were tears in her eyes. "And I kept telling myself it was because of the chip."

He could tell she was upset, but was clueless as to why. "No, Buffy, I would have eventually killed one of the Scoobies to get you to come after me."

Impatient, she waved this away. "Spike, you wouldn't even kill me when you had the Gem of Amara and I was having an emotional meltdown."

"Yes, I would!" He backed down in the face of her disbelief. "Well, no, not after you made the deal with me, Angelus for Dru."

"I just wish I could have seen it," she said, deflating a little. "It wasn't that Angel was different from other vampires; he wasn't a vampire any longer. You were the one who was different from other vampires."

He took a step closer. She saw him; she understood. "And you were different from other Slayers," he said, his voice low, "so… full of life." Spike's hand was at her waist, but he didn't pull her closer.

She always regretted what she did next, backing away from the moment. "Come on, bedroom eyes," Buffy said wryly. "Let's finish this patrol. No way am I going back with grass stains all over my clothes to explain."

⸹

The first of the dreams came that night. She was standing on the edge of a field, wearing cutoff jeans and a checked shirt knotted beneath her breasts, her hair in pigtails. Farmgirl Buffy, she thought, that's me. In her hand was a scythe, sometimes clean, sometimes shining red with blood. Vampires stood before her in neat rows, and she mowed through them with the scythe, slice, slice. They didn't fight back. Why should they? It was no use to fight against her, after all. She was best Slayer in recorded history, after all, maybe the best Slayer ever. Some she recognized: two strokes with her weapon to fell the Master, only one whistling slice to take down both Gorch brothers. Most were anonymous, falling to dust under her blade.

After a while, she came to the end of a row and stopped, one hand on her aching back. She was on a rise and beyond were thousands of rows of vampires waiting for her. Buffy's heart sank, but this was her work, here in the killing fields. She wiped her brow and lifted her scythe again. For a wavering moment, it was an axe in her hand, then a stake.

"Hullo, cutie."

The voice was unmistakable, and she tensed as she turned, afraid that she was going to have to kill him, too. Spike, however, was smiling at her from atop a tractor, wearing boots and blue jeans and nothing else. He held a piece of straw between his teeth, that talented tongue making it dance from one corner of his mouth to the other as his appreciative gaze lingered on her bare midriff. "Need some help?"

"In the end, I'm always by myself."

"We could play it a bit differently." He tilted his head. "Neither of us has ever been much for rules. Just because it's always been so doesn't mean it always has to be."

She looked out over the rolling hills, row after row of vampires waiting for her. None of them was her destiny, but she would kill herself a little at a time going after each of them. Buffy turned back to face Spike. "If you go in, you won't come out," she warned.

He gave her another arrogant smile. "Always play for keeps, love."

"All right," she agreed quietly. When had she started crying?

Buffy watched him turn the tractor into the field, coming straight toward her now, and she was blinded by the headlights. She shaded her eyes, hearing vampires going to dust. All she could see was the brightness bearing down on her and, just above it, that small, self-satisfied smirk that she wanted to smack right off his face. This had to be wrong; it was her work he was doing. That's why she was hurting, why she was so angry, so–

"Buffy!"

"Wha?"

Dawn was shaking her. "Buffy? You were dreaming. You okay?"

"Dream–?"

"Yeah," Dawn said, sounding groggy. Her tone became accusing. "You kicked me."

"Sorry." She put a hand to her temple. "Nightmare." But it hadn't been just a nightmare.

"Well," her sister grumped, "go back to sleep."

Against her expectations, she did. The dreaming was relentless. This time Buffy found herself on stage under bright lights. The rapt audience was entirely vampires, and they watched as she methodically packed stakes in a box. She wasn't nervous, didn't have stage fright, she realized as she stood and placed the box in a long line of identical boxes. There was a ripple of movement from the watching demons as someone stepped on stage, an approving murmur, and Buffy had to fight to stay in character as she felt Spike approach. The audience wasn't going to see this coming.

He played to the crowd, pretending to sneak up on her, and then they fell into a beautifully choreographed fight that wrung gasps and applause from those watching. They ranged from one wing to the other, from the edge of the stage to deep toward the back. Spike's golden eyes were sparkling as they performed their pas de deux, their own unique dance. As they had rehearsed, he brought her down at center stage, between two of the carefully arranged boxes. With his body lying atop hers, fitted to her as if he was made for that sole purpose, she put her thumb on the button of a remote control in her hand.

"My darling, my vampire," she said, giving the melodramatic line her all.

"My Slayer," he returned, his eyes dancing and a snarl in his voice just for their viewers. He lunged for her neck.

She pressed down on the red button, setting off the chip inside his heart. He exploded in a circle of white light, spreading out over her body, driving the neatly stacked boxes of stakes into the unsuspecting audience. As the sigh of dust falling into the chairs subsided, tumultuous applause blasted her from the wings. Giles stepped out, leading a chorus of "Brava!" She saw the smiling faces of her friends and the potential slayers, then she began to crawl around, looking for the trapdoor. She let the remote control (axe) fall from her hand. Where was the trapdoor that Spike had to fall through for it to be a special effect? Then she realized her fingers were covered in grit, in dust. There had been no trapdoor.

"Spike?" She was frantic now, ripping at the well-trodden boards. "Spike!"

"Buffy!"

She sat up, her t-shirt clinging to the cold sweat on her body. "I'm awake."

"Whaz wrong?" Dawn was more awake this time. "'Nother bad dream?"

"Yes," Buffy whispered, clutching her sister's arm like a lifeline.

"No more spaghetti for dinner. And, oww," Dawn said, prying Buffy's fingers off her. She tossed the covers off and stumbled away to the bathroom.

Buffy pulled the covers over her head and curled into a tight ball. Slayer dreams, she thought. Oh, God, those were Slayer dreams.

⸹

March 2003

[Author's Note: The world at large kept on going while Spike was getting his sanity back. Joe Strummer, co-founder of The Clash, died just before Christmas in 2002.]

"Hey." Xander stepped out onto the back porch and lifted his shoulders against the chill in the air. "I thought you might be over here."

"'S a good place to think," Spike said simply. He'd spent a lot of time alone on Joyce's stoop, the only place she'd allow him to smoke.

"And drink." Xander's tone was pointed.

Spike raised the bottle of bourbon. "Not drifting back into my evil ways," he said sarcastically. "Got some bad news. Just learned an old mate died back in December. My version of a wake."

"Oh." Xander made an awkward movement of his head and hunkered down next to where Spike sat on the top step. "Sorry. Somebody Buffy killed?"

The vampire shook his head in a mixture of disbelief and numb acceptance. "No, Harris. Don't have any mates in the demon world anymore – well, 'cept for Clem." He took a drink that lowered the level in the bottle by a finger.

"Who was it?"

Spike hesitated. "John Mellor," he said, even though he figured the whelp wouldn't know the stage name Joe Strummer, either. "Human, actually."

"Sorry," Xander said again. "Someone you knew here?" All he could see in the darkness was the blond head shake in negation.

"London," was the short answer. "Caught up with him a time or two in New York."

"Was he English, too?" Xander asked. Spike, usually so loquacious, just nodded. He stifled a sigh; he never knew what to say in these situations. It was odd enough to think that the vampire had gotten to know humans in ways other than as food before the chip. Spike had always been different, though.

"You ever seen an end of an era, Harris?" Another drink. "'S'hard to see, sometimes, but this… so many of the old crew goin' these days. Wendy O. couple, three years ago, Joey last year, DeeDee this summer. Heard about that one late, too. End of an era, mate."

"When Michael Jordan retired," Xander said, after a moment's thought. "Charles Barkley, and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, yeah, but when Michael retired… That was the end of an era. Yeah, I know what you mean."

Spike nodded. "Felt the same way when George Best left football."

Xander nodded, although he hadn't a clue who George Best was, either. "Good thing is, there's always up-and-coming people who might be the start of a new era. Kobe Bryant, this kid LeBron James who'll probably be drafted out of high school… There's always the future to look forward to." He gave a wry smile. "As long as we can keep the apocalypses at bay."

"Yeah." Spike laughed a little, a rusty sound. "All down to us, huh? Rage Against the Machine's worth saving, maybe."

"You want to come in?" Xander asked, standing up.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Okay. Don't stay out here long." He clapped the unusually solemn man's shoulder, then went back inside.

"Who were you talking to?" Willow asked. She was rinsing out a cup in the kitchen sink.

"Spike." Xander ran a hand over his hair, shaking his head in bemusement. "We just had, like, a guy talk about sports."

⸹

April 2003

Dawn frowned at the sight before her as she walked onto the back porch. Buffy was huddled on the top step, her arms folded over her chest as if she was cold. Beyond her in the yard, Spike was playing catch-me-if-you-can with the slayers in training, basically making them giggle like the schoolgirls they were as he avoided their best efforts to stake him with Pixie Stix. It had been a difficult few weeks for Buffy, granted, especially with the faux date with Principal Wood turning into a fiasco when Spike showed up to fetch Buffy so they could save Xander from his latest demon girlfriend. Dawn still shook with anger over the thought of the cross-lined shed the principal had lured Spike into. If she'd been there, she would have killed Wood herself.

Next to the Adirondack chair, Amanda lunged at Spike, who leapt lightly over the chair to scoop the dark-haired girl up into a spin that left her too dizzy to stand on her own. The blond man plopped her down and, with a few words of advice, was off to the next potential slayer. Amanda stood back up immediately, unlikely aggression in every angular line of her body. I'll never look that intimidating, Dawn thought sadly. Didn't really matter, though. She was the only one Spike gave private self-defense lessons to – there were some benefits to being the Nibblet. She sat down next to Buffy. "Hey, you."

"Hey, yourself." The Slayer's voice was distant.

Dawn stifled a sigh. Buffy was so remote nowadays. It was almost like the months just after she'd returned from the grave. Dawn blamed Wood for that, too. He'd come crawling back with his mother's bag of Slayer goodies that should have been Buffy's to begin with. As far as she could tell, nothing good had come from knowing that Slayers were made by forcibly merging a young girl with the essence of a demon. Buffy hadn't been sleeping well even before then; now it was almost as if she was afraid to fall asleep. Her sister had never confided in her, but she wasn't talking to Spike or Giles, either, and Willow had left for L.A. to help Angel Investigations with something that Dawn thought was a left little too vague for comfort. Whatever was on Buffy's mind was destined to be a great big mystery.

"He's having fun, isn't he?" the Slayer said abruptly, smiling fondly at Spike.

"Yeah." Dawn snorted. "Turn the game into kissing tag, and I guarantee you they'll catch him."

She felt her sister tense, could almost see her turn green before Buffy relaxed. "Crush city, huh?"

"Uh-huh. Guess who I think would run the fastest?" Dawn asked, pointing at Andrew, who made a feint toward the game of tag. Anya collared him and got him back on task, helping her and Xander whittle stakes. Once the truth had come out about Jonathan, Andrew had stopped holding himself apart from his housemates. He was even useful sometimes.

"Nah," the Slayer said, "the potentials run faster. Any one of them would win."

"Except Kennedy," Dawn said wryly. "Speaking of, have you and Willow thought about what you're going to do about the so-appropriately named Amy-the-Rat?"

Buffy shrugged, a smile softening the lines of her face as Spike snuck up on Rona. "Not much we can do. She's left town, anyway."

"Did Anya give back your sense of vengeance, too?" the teenager grumbled. "Principal Wood getting off with a warning, Amy bringing the specter of Warren back and not getting bitch-slapped for it… Just because there's a global threat to the Slayer line doesn't mean people should be allowed to get away with everything."

"Why so grouchy, Oscar?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Your fault," Dawn said pointedly, "as it so often is. You're being secret-keeping Buffy – no, don't give me that look, you know you are."

"I know," Buffy said, looking down and clutching herself even more tightly.

"Something bad is coming," Dawn said, her voice full of certainty. The Slayer nodded, but didn't elaborate. Her sister sighed. "Fine. No more vision quests for you, is all I'm saying." She studied Buffy, who was again watching Spike, a tiny smile flickering on her lips at the antics of the potential slayers. "You know, all you have to do is say 'patrol,' and you can have him to yourself."

"He isn't mine to have," Buffy snapped. She put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, Dawn. It's just–" She smoothed her hair back and laced her fingers behind her neck. "Can I ask you something?"

"What?" Dawn sounded guarded.

"How did you feel about me after the tower, when I was gone? I mean, how did you get along, knowing…."

"Knowing that you'd given your life for mine?" Dawn finished, looking at her feet. She shrugged and made a mouth. "I-I don't know, Buffy. Other than the grief and the missing you… I never knew you loved me that much. I mean, I know you loved me, you're my sister, but…" She looked over at her sister. "I didn't want to go live with Dad – not that he offered – because I wanted to stay here, where I might make a difference, too. I wanted to live, like you told us to, but I wanted my life to have an impact." Her brows drew together, because she could tell that Buffy was really listening. "Once someone does something like that for you, it's like a law that you have to do the best you can with the time you have left. It's a pretty special gift." She leaned over and put her head on her sister's shoulder.

"Thanks." Buffy sniffled as she put her arm around the teenager's shoulders. "I love you. I loved you even when I was in… when I was gone. I will always love you, you know that, don't you?"

"And I'll always love you."

"Promise?"

"No matter what," Dawn agreed lightly, giving her a squeeze.

Buffy took her sister's hand, and the two Summers ladies sat on the porch watching the slayers-in-training chase a vampire around their backyard, laughter ringing in the empty neighborhood. None of them ever caught Spike.

⸹

Xander's eyes skimmed over Spike's bare chest, the towel over his shoulder. "Uh, if you're going up to take a shower, you'll have to wait a couple of hours."

"Why?" Spike challenged him. "No one's in there right now."

"I just replaced the showerhead." He held up a box of tools as proof. "Gotta give the silicone time to seal."

"Oh. Broke, did it?"

"Nah, just leaking." Xander hesitated. "Do you like living here with this bunch of pink Power Rangers?"

"God, no." One of the most feared vampires of modern times shuddered.

A smirk touched Xander's lips. "Then you can owe me. I put in a massaging showerhead. Detachable, on a flexible hose. Let me tell you, Anya wouldn't live anywhere without one." When Spike looked blank, the dark-haired man leaned closer and elaborated. "Gets rid of certain, shall we say, tensions? The girls might shower for longer, but I guarantee they'll be easier to live with."

The blue eyes widened, then Spike began to chuckle. "Who would have thought it, whelp? You're satisfyin' more women than I am."

⸹

"What?" Spike rumbled. He had noticed the boy edging closer to his television-watching spot on the end of the couch for the past fifteen minutes.

Andrew sat abruptly on the adjacent cushion and looked at his clasped hands. "Nothing. Anything good on?" he asked quickly, as if he was changing the subject.

"West Ham's on in twenty."

"Oh. That's… good? Sure. Can I watch?"

Spike grunted and made himself not roll his eyes. After a minute, the boy started kicking his feet against the couch and bouncing them up, fidgety as any toddler. "Andrew." The boy grew still. With a sigh, Spike thumbed the 'off' button on the remote. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, I was, uh, wondering… You changed, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I s'pose."

"Do you think anyone can change? People, I mean? Not just superhero vampires?"

"'M no 'superhero,' and, yeah, I think people can change." He lifted an eyebrow. "I think you can change, within limits, that's what you're really askin.'"

"Limits? What limits?"

"Changing doesn't mean all of a sudden you have to be a superhero, have bullets bounce off you or something. Changing means putting other peoples' needs before your own. You won't ever be the bravest man in the world, but it doesn't mean you can't be one of any number of brave men."

Andrew wrinkled his forehead. "Like part of a tribe?"

"Yeah. Like we got here."

He met Spike's gaze, seeming both pleased and relieved by the answer. "Oh. That would be okay." Andrew continued to gaze at the vampire. "You know, you have the darkest blue eyes."

"That's what the Slayer tells me," Spike said firmly. It wasn't true, but he didn't want Andrew to have any illusions. The boy could take a grain of sand and build a skyscraper from it. He thumbed the television back on and turned away from the disappointed lad. "West Ham match will be on soon. You'll like it."

"If you like it, I'll like it." He began kicking his feet again.

Spike sighed. He didn't have the stones to scare away children these days.

⸹

"Um, William? Do you have a moment?"

Spike looked up at Giles and nodded. He moved Dawn carefully from his shoulder and lowered the sleeping girl the rest of the way onto the couch. Following the Watcher into the kitchen and down the basement steps, he wondered what was coming. "Er, have a seat," he offered, and Giles sat gingerly on the corner of the cot he'd indicated. He dropped down on the opposite side, slouching against the wall. "So."

"I wanted to say I was sorry about Wood," Giles said, turning toward the blond man even as his eyes focused elsewhere. "The clues were all there; I should have seen that coming."

"You've had other things on your mind," he replied, shrugging.

Rupert let his head fall back. "True."

"Things bad back in Blighty?"

"Bad, yes." He looked down at his empty hands. "A lot of good people are gone – a lot of people I found to be… obstructionist, too, but I find I tend to overlook their faults now that they're no longer there." He shook his head. "Expertise that was once just a phone call away…."

"When the Council would accept your phone calls."

Rupert smiled. "Again, true." Then his smile faded. "Back to Wood. I thought it was exquisite revenge, really." At Spike's raised eyebrow, he continued. "Every time he shaves, looks in the mirror, he'll see your mark."

"Oh. Never thought about that." The vampire sounded bemused. "I was just furious, is all. Wanted to make the point that he wasn't anything more than food to me, whereas his mum…."

"A worthy opponent, yes. I wanted you to know that I've spoken with him, told him much the same thing."

"Free country, Rupes. You can talk to whomever you want." After a second, the penny dropped. "Oh. Erm, thanks."

"I don't know that it did any good," he admitted. "I thought since he was reared by Nikki's Watcher, maybe if a Watcher talked to him… He says he's willing to help in the fight against the First Evil any way he can." Rupert shot him an intense look. "Just… watch your back."

"I can do that."

"Good man." He took a small, white cardboard box from the pocket of his sweater. "For you," he said, handing it to Spike.

"Thank you," he said automatically, quirking an eyebrow. "What's the occasion?"

"Your birthday," Rupert said, sounding extremely satisfied with himself. "It's sometime this month, isn't it?"

Spike's eyes narrowed. "April the twentieth," he admitted.

"Wretched microfilm of birth records. Or was it admission records?" he mused. It had been a while. He'd researched William Withorn-Allgood before Willow's breakdown. "At any rate, either the documents were splotched or the film was scratched. All I could get for sure was April… Sir Colinvaux."

The blond man flexed his jaw. "The title was never mine. Went to my uncle, next male in the line over twenty-five, way it was entailed." He gave Giles a fleeting glance. "Impressive, I have to say. Didn't think you'd find anything. You're quite the researcher."

"Go on," Giles urged, "open it."

Spike opened the box and pulled out the black ceramic mug inside. He turned it over in his left hand and looked at the crest.

"I actually thought you would have been a Cambridge man," Rupert said, "but Oxford is a good school, too." He grinned at Spike's narrow look. "Couldn't track down which college, though."

"Christ Church," he admitted. "Never finished."

"Classics? Languages?"

"History." Spike stared at the cup in his hand. "Wanted to be the one who found Troy."

"Ah. So the languages were secondary?"

"Why bother, Watcher?" He shook his head. "I mean, it hardly signifies. Not now."

"I told you that you were a mystery I planned to solve," Rupert replied, unfazed. "And you're still here, still matter."

"This… it's from my boyhood, Rupes. Might as well be a relic from a dead civilization." An odd, soft look touched his eyes as he gazed at the crest. "Had to leave University when my father died, take over his affairs. Gave up any thoughts of archaeology. Had to. I hated being a man of numbers, of… But my mother needed me, was bedridden for a long while. Couldn't very well yomp off to explore dusty old ruins." Spike suddenly squared his jaw. "Became one myself, instead. Dying wasn't so bad, all things considered." He put the mug back in the box. "Thanks ever so, Watcher. Didn't quite feel ancient enough today."

"It's meant to be a practical gift, William. The black won't show bloodstains – or coffee stains. I do hope you'll use it."

"You know the best thing about being a vampire, Rupert?" When the other man just shook his head, Spike looked down at his boots. "It's the rage. Being able to get mad. I had so much anger. Kept everything bottled up inside. Dru turned me, I could just let it go. Didn't matter if anyone's feelings got hurt. Evil, right?"

"I didn't dig into your past to… to use it against you, Spike. All I found were things I would think you would be proud of."

He lifted the box. "'S'not me anymore, Rupes. This wasn't even me the night I died."

Giles set his teeth for a moment, then said in a very precise voice. "And I'm not Ripper anymore, but I was, once. That informs all that I do, how I think now, my understanding of things." He sighed. "If you're trying to tell me that I can't know who you are from reels of microfilm, you're right. But what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't have bothered finding those records if I hadn't got to know you these last few years."

Spike looked into the other man's eyes, warm behind his glasses. "Watcher," he began, exasperated. Then, unexpectedly, he chuckled. "I hid all this from Dru and my other kin for years. Guess it shows you can't hide yourself from true friends." He looked away after this admission, in the manner of men, staring into middle distance. "The scally came with the fangs; the Oxford swot wasn't a bad sort, but… I don't care much for who I was after I left university. I… got old too soon, settled into a job, a role I hated. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Mum, it's just… I was a gentleman, Rupert, but I wasn't a man. Jack-the-lad suits me better."

"Bad memories, in other words."

"Yeah. Some of 'em." Spike looked squarely at his fellow Brit. "I wrote poetry."

"Like Byron, Shelley?"

"Ye gods, no. Bad poetry, Rupes. Lurve poems."

"I'm so sorry."

Spike laughed, surprising Giles into joining him. "Not as sorry as the poor sods who had to listen to it," he said, a certain irony in his voice. He opened the box back up and removed the mug. "Thanks, really."

"Well, happy birthday." The Watcher was back suddenly. "Now that you're obligated, I want to pick your brain."

"Slim pickings."

"Be that as it may, has Buffy confided in you recently?"

Spike's fingers clenched around the handle of the cup. "No," he said shortly.

"When was the last time you really talked?"

The vampire let his head fall back and sent a stream of air through his nostrils. "Last time we spoke beyond a fare-thee-well would have been the night you came back. Really talked? Maybe before the First sent the blind mice after me."

Rupert nodded. "She won't talk to me, either."

"Bit's mad at her. Says she's keeping secrets again."

"I think her most recent encounter with the First Slayer was difficult."

"'S'more than that."

"I know." Giles sighed and thought on it for a moment, then let it go. "The training is going well, though."

"Glad you think so; frustrates the hell out me." When the Watcher raised an eyebrow, Spike elaborated. "They're just girls, Rupes. Sometimes I see a flash of skill, of instinct… but I don't trust a one of them to handle more than a single fledge. Bit would do better, or even Willow without the magic."

"It'll come with experience."

The vampire made an impatient sound. "They're never going to become the slayer, Rupert. You know I'll make sure that opportunity never comes."

"And I'll do all in my power to prevent that, too. But the training gives them at least a fighting chance, Spike. That's what it's for. They're still targets. They have to be at least as equipped as Dawn or Xander." He gave the blond man a sly look. "And the girls enjoy the training so much."

"Sod off."

"You know you enjoy it, too," Rupert said, standing up with a soft groan, "wanker."

"Chuffer."

"Yob."

"Berk."

"I cannot believe," Giles said with a good deal of dignity, "that I've stooped to exchanging insults with my elders. Willy."

"Ooh, low blow."

"'Specially for those of us who are soon to be one hundred and fifty-one."

"'M well-preserved. And it's just one-twenty-three… Dad."

"All right, Randy. That's enough out of you." Giles headed for the stairs, hiding his smile.

⸹

May 2003

[Author's Note: Buffy, Faith, Kendra, and other Slayers who were Chosen get the capitalization to honor the burden they've borne. The potentials who get bumped up will be small-s slayers.]

"Gather 'round, my lovelies," Spike said loudly, projecting his voice so it reached all corners of the back yard. "Gotta talk some sense into you." It had been a bad patrol, with a group of Bringers shadowing them. Spike and Buffy had split to either side, taking out all but one of the minions. A newcomer, Caridad, had saved Kennedy's life by stumbling into that Bringer's back, knocking him into the short sword Kennedy was carrying. After the encounter, the girls had lost their confidence, and when Spike held the lone vampire they were able to find, not a single potential slayer had stepped forward to stake it. Disgusted, he let go of its arms and shoved it toward them. Rona finally moved in, rolling her eyes at the others, but it took her two jabs to do the job.

"Right, then," he said, once they had settled around him, a fortunate few in the Adirondack chairs, the rest on the ground. Buffy stood off by herself, watching him intently. It was all she ever did these days. "Not happy with you lot. You were stalked, and you let it unnerve you. Got to tell you a story, make you think a bit clearer. When I was six, still evil, I was hunting with my family in Paris. The four of us, me and my sire, my grandsire and his sire, after two humans, a mother about thirty and her son, maybe ten.

"Now, you've all seen how fast I move. Some of you think I'm too rough, hit too hard, hold too tight – this despite the fact that I feel like I'm treating you lot like delicate, day-old kittens. You're all young and in fair physical condition, and I don't think there's a one of you here tonight who feels up to facing a lone vampire," he looked at all the girls, but few met his eye, "much less four." He clapped his hands together, making some of them jump. "So, there we were, dressed like fashionable Parisians, following them at our leisure, predators stalking prey.

"Humans have more senses than the usual five, too, and the mother veered off down an alley with her son, trying to get away from us. She found a policeman at the other end of the alley. Ang– my grandsire had sent me up to the rooftops in case they needed to be flanked, so I could see everything that happened. Our prey went to wait for the policeman to escort them, and the gendarme went into the alley. Not long after, his body came flying out."

Spike looked at their upturned faces, knowing he had their full attention. "The mother knelt down by the body, trying to see if she could help, and here comes the rest of my family. They've got their demon faces on, because it's game time. The mother sent her son running for help. She didn't really expect help; she just wanted to get him away from us, because that's what mums do." He moved at speed and took the sword from Kennedy, holding it wrong. The dark-haired girl's expression became even more sullen. "She put herself between three vampires and her child, and when they got close enough," he changed his stance and tossed the sword to his left hand, "she nearly beheaded my grandsire," Spike imitated the movement, swinging high and spinning around, "and gutted his sire." He pushed the sword backwards and made a very visceral upwards cut.

When he turned back to the group, he was smiling. "I saw it all. Not to put too fine a point on it, I wasn't overly fond of either of them and rather enjoyed the show. Then I came down from the roof and disarmed the human. She wasn't a Slayer. She wasn't strong or fast or young. I thought she was just a mother protecting her child. But," Spike waited until they were all looking at him, "now I think she must have been a potential. Like you lot."

"In six years, I'd never seen a whole mob of humans hurt my family like that. A couple more inches, she would have beheaded granddad right away. If she'd known what to do, had a stake, she could have killed the Scourge of Europe. They were lying at her feet, incapacitated, bleeding. One little woman, doing what generations of Watchers had failed to do."

Buffy broke into the silence. "What about Drusilla?"

Spike turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "Nearly scratched Dru's eyes out." He shrugged. "Not as dramatic."

"What about you?" Her arms were folded across her chest.

He stifled a sigh. It was always a mistake to bring up his past with her. "I let her go."

"You let her go?"

Spike turned to see Giles leaning against the side of the house. "Yeah, Watcher. I let her go." He gave the human a wicked grin. "Watchin' her carve up my elders like that, felt I owed her. Was the happiest I'd felt in a long time." He focused on the potential slayers again. "Back to my point, this wasn't a Slayer. This was a woman who was just like you… except, she had no training." He looked at Kennedy. "She had no guidance, no information," his eyes went to Vi, "no backup." Spike met Rona's guarded gaze. "All she had was… potential.

"Now, off to bed." He clapped his hands once more, and the girls got up and began moving toward the house. "Giles," he said gravely as the Watcher approached.

"True story?" When Spike nodded, he asked, "How could you just let her go? I would think Angelus and Darla would be mad for her blood."

The blond man considered him for a moment. He couldn't feel the Slayer any longer; she must have gone in with the girls. "I fooled them into thinking she'd thrown me over a bridge." At the Watcher's skeptical look, Spike said, "I know I'm a bad liar, Rupert, but I can pull one off every once in a while. You know vampires are almost physically unable to admit to their abilities, speed, or whatnot, always playing it close to the vest. Even at six, I was capable of a lot more than I let on to them."

"Considering your family, probably a good strategy," Giles said dryly.

"Kept me alive, so to speak."

The Watcher regarded him shrewdly. "What are you capable of, Spike? Shapeshifting? Mesmer? Flight? Drawing shadow?"

Spike gave him a look of mock horror. "I would never stoop so low as to use such foul abilities. Hardly be fair if I did."

"Doesn't mean you don't have them."

The vampire touched the side of his nose and smirked, then walked away, the leather fluttering around him seeming darker than usual, his bright hair somehow not catching the light to the usual degree. Rupert smiled after him. He was cheeky, maddening, and able to give the potential slayers just the right kind of encouragement. What were the odds, Giles wondered, that he could get the Council to hire a vampire as a Watcher?

⸹

Xander gave Faith a polite smile, his third of the night, then made a beeline for Spike, the smile on his face turning into a fixed grimace. "Hail, fellow testosterone refugee."

Spike looked up from the couch, where he was determinedly trying to watch a football match amid the stragglers after the group meeting. "What?"

"You know, I just don't get the whole charming Englishman thing," Xander said dryly.

"Well, with you, I don't try."

"Just for that, no good night kiss."

Spike chuckled and thumbed the power button on the remote. "Wasn't Man U, anyway."

"Can we get out of here? I really don't want to be around psycho-slayer."

"Story?"

"Let's take a walk." Xander rummaged in the weapons chest for his favorite axe. "I wanted to ask you something anyway."

"So," the blond man said after they turned onto the sidewalk, "you and Faith. What's the gen?" He figured it had something to do with Faith holding Joyce hostage, something he was struggling to put aside himself.

Xander shook his head. "You know the expression, 'take someone's virginity'… Faith took mine, capital T."

Spike turned to stare at him. "You lost it to a Slayer?"

He shook his head again. "To Faith. Didn't get much in return."

"Ouch. No wonder you're so high-strung around her."

"Worst thing was, I thought it meant something." They walked in silence for a while, watching the shadows, both of them considering the wisdom of a sexual relationship with a Slayer.

"You, uh, wanted to ask something?"

"Yeah. It's about my parents." Xander stared ahead. "Lots of people have left Sunnydale, and I'm trying to get them to join the exodus."

Spike gestured vaguely at the town. "Yeah, not a good place to be right now. Tell me again why we're stayin'?"

"Well, we're the heroes."

"Yeah, I keep forgettin.' Anyway, your parents?"

"I, um, got them a place in Elmwood."

Spike absorbed this, letting the financial burden Xander had assumed go without comment. "Over an hour away."

"Figured that was about far enough." He took a breath. "The thing is, they won't go. I can't exactly say, the First Evil is claiming this town because it's on the Hellmouth, and there's gonna be a really big rumble because it was our Hellmouth first."

"Not your normal conversation, no."

"So, I wanted to ask," he laughed a little, "if you would mind terrorizing my family?" At the blond man's raised eyebrow, he elaborated. "Your invite's still good. Just go in and… scare the hell out of them. Or scare them out of hell. Whatever."

"You want me to suit up and chase your family out of town."

"Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I want you to do."

Spike bit back on his next words. _Why do you even care?_ He cared about his family, didn't he, evil and all? Or, rather, his old family. He was proud to be included in the Slayer's family now. "Yeah, all right." They both slowed when they saw a dark shape move in the shadows but relaxed when they saw it was a coyote. Spike growled at it for good measure, and it slunk away, tail tucked between its legs. "When do you want me to do it?"

"Nothing wrong with tonight. From what Willow and Faith learned from that potential in the hospital, the First has found its body. Speaking from prior experience, things are going to move fast from now on."

"Reckon you're right. Springtime in Sunnyhell; nothing like the merry month of May for an apocalypse. Let's go, then, whelp."

"Using pet names again, sweetheart?"

"I am a demon, you know. Means I can't hardly resist you."

"Slut."

"Tease."

"Love's bitch."

"Bloody hell."

⸹

"Faith? Can we talk?"

"Sure, B." Following her, Faith was surprised when Buffy didn't stop by her bed, but opened the window and climbed onto the roof. The dark-haired Slayer followed. They sat on the shingles in silence for a couple of minutes. "Peaceful up here."

"Yeah. Look, I want to tell you about the First Slayer–"

"The First Slayer? Not the First Evil?"

"Right. Listen…" Buffy went on to tell Faith what she had seen in her vision, the origin of the Slayer line, and the Turok-Han who were massing beneath the Hellmouth. When the other woman didn't say anything, she asked, "Have you been having any dreams, Faith? Slayer dreams?"

She shook her head. "No. Gettin' out of prison and this thing with Angel have kept me pretty preoccupied." Then she frowned. "Well, there's something. Like a recurring what's-it, motif. Not a prophecy or anything, but… I've seen this… axe a few times."

"Is it red?"

"Yeah, sometimes," she replied slowly. "Yeah, it is, B. Think that's what preacher-man has that belongs to us?"

"Maybe. Or it could be another potential."

Faith shook her head. "She'd be dead."

"I think so, too. But can we take the chance?"

"Are you suggesting that we go on the offense?"

"Wanna go find the bad guy?"

Faith's dark eyes sparkled.

⸹

She wasn't going back. That's all there was to it.

Buffy kicked out at a mailbox, knocking it from the post, across the street, and forty feet into someone's back yard. She stood still, her leg still extended, breathing hard.

God, that was ugly.

She understood, she did. Girls had died. Molly died, one of her first charges. Virginia and Carla died. Caleb had nearly killed Xander, might have cost him an eye. She closed her own eyes, remembering Spike's desperate leap, hearing him snarl again, "Hands off the whelp!" Spike had pulled her out, and she had lashed out at him, wanting to stay and keep fighting, drawing blood from his cheek. He was her loyal second, and she had hit him. Again. No wonder he left with Andrew to check on that old Catholic mission.

She couldn't go back. They didn't understand. This was hard. It had always been hard; now it was harder because the responsibility fell on her. Those deaths were on her. Xander's injuries were on her. Spike… past and future, that was on her. She couldn't stand under the weight of her burdens, but she had to. Every day, she had to.

Who else was going to stand against the First? Faith? She would try, but she hadn't even been able to stop Kakistos, the only demon of consequence she'd ever faced. Sure, Faith had changed, but she had been out of commission for years.

No, this was her work, and she was doing a lousy job. Her house was divided on itself. Buffy wiped her cheeks, shaking her head at the phrase, fitting though it was. High school history would pick now to rear its ugly head. The potentials were scared and rebellious; her friends were shaken. Anya, terrified for Xander, had been particularly harsh. Giles and Dawn were steadfast, but they couldn't make their voices heard over Kennedy's, and Willow's loyalties were torn. When she couldn't take any more, she'd just left.

Buffy walked aimlessly, wishing she could find a vampire, even a Turok-Han to fight. She needed a good fight, a spot of violence—

She needed Spike.

Didn't matter. Wasn't going to get him. Her dreams were clear about that.

The biggest burden of all.

⸹

"Hey, Spike." Willow's voice was hesitant.

"Red," he replied in measured tones. "Join me?"

She sat down next to him on the back porch and looked up at the stars. Since the electricity was gone, there was no light pollution. Willow spotted three constellations right away – Cassiopeia, the Big Pineapple, and Moose Getting a Sponge Bath. A lost little smile flitted across her face. The night was clear and mild, but there would be no games of vampire tag. Everyone was huddled inside, the trauma of the bomb and the fear of tomorrow's battle weighing upon them.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Yeah," he said heavily, putting out his cigarette. Willow couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him smoke.

"Will you talk to me, anyway? In private?" She held out her hands.

Spike sighed and took her warm fingers. _You lot put her outside of your wards, Willow, into danger. Yeah, she's the Slayer, but she was all alone._

 _She's the one who left, Spike. How could we stop her?_

 _Maybe by not making her feel as though she couldn't stay?_ Spike pulled his hands away, balling them into fists. _'M mad at Anya, but I can understand – she was sick with worry over Harris. But I'm furious with your bint, Willow. I'll help her in the battle tomorrow, but after that… wouldn't cross the street to spit on her if she were on fire. All she wants is to be in charge, not knowing how hard that is, and she rammed through her opinions until – Either she leaves, or I do. Won't stay in the same house with her another night._

Willow looked stricken. She could see no forgiveness in his mind. _She's not so bad, Spike. Really._

He shook his head, and when he looked back at her, there was a look of disgust on his face. It was, Willow thought, one of his few expressions that didn't have a sidecar of come-shag-me – angry, amused, worried, sorrowful all looked pretty hot on Spike. But disgust was just disgust. _She's toxic, Wil. She's too stupid to know she's stupid._

 _I love her._

 _Do you? Why? She that good in bed?_ His jaw clenched, and he shook his head. _Sorry. That was… sorry. It's just… How can you be with that, Red? After Tara?_

She saw what he meant by Tara: class, kindness, beauty, goodness, and quality. Tara was his definition of a lady, in rarified company along with his own mother and Joyce Summers. Willow sobbed once and clamped her hand over her mouth. Spike muttered something foul and took her in an awkward embrace.

 _'M so sorry. Never know when to shut my gob._

 _Where am I ever going to find someone like her? I'M NEVER GOING TO FIND SOMEONE LIKE HER._

 _Shh, pet. I didn't mean –_ He held her for a while, rubbing her back the same way he would do for Dawn.

Willow wiped at her eyes. _Do you think I'm a slut for sleeping with Kennedy so soon after…?_

 _Got no right to throw stones, pet. I slept with Anya less than a month after Buffy broke it off with me, yeah?_

 _I know Kennedy's not anything like Tara, but she's so pretty and she wanted me, she pursued me, geeky little Willow –_

 _I wanted you, too, once. You were smart then, knew that wasn't a good idea._

 _You never wanted me. I was just a Buffy-substitute._

Spike pulled away, one eyebrow raised. _Oh, is that what you think?_ He showed her a well-worn fantasy set in an abandoned factory that began with her saying, "There will be no having of any kind," and finished with him seducing her into lots of having of various kinds.

She stared at him, her mouth dropped open. Spike pushed her jaw up, grinning wickedly. _You really meant it, all those times I thought you were just flirting?_ Her mental voice was faint.

 _Yeah. Dunno how you see yourself, Red, but I don't think it's quite how everyone else sees you. Something you and Glinda had in common._ He looked down at his scuffed boots before meeting her eyes. _You don't have to sleep with her just because she's a lesbian and the last person you loved happened to be a woman. You loved Dog-boy, too, with the common theme being, you loved them. Some people, it doesn't matter about the outside package, just the love part._

 _I do love her. It's not the same as what I had with Tara – or with Oz, for that matter. But I do love her. There's more to her than you know._

He closed his eyes and shook his head. _After tomorrow, we all need to take a vacation. We've bloody well earned one. We defeat the Turok-Han tomorrow, spend a while apart… Maybe by the time people start coming back to Sunnydale, I'll be able to look at her without wanting to choke her._ Even Spike's posture was grudging. _Only reason I'd tolerate the window-licker is you, and I might have to stay drunk off my face to do it._

"Spike?" They both looked up to see Xander, who had opened the door just enough to poke his head out. "Can I borrow your lighter? Can't find any matches for the candles," he added, by way of explanation.

"Sure. Bring it back." Spike fished in a coat pocket and tossed the lighter to the other man. Xander caught it neatly and nodded his thanks.

When the door closed, Willow turned back to Spike. _Do you think we'll be okay tomorrow?_

 _'Course we will._ He shrugged. _Better plan than you lot usually have._ He put a big hand on her shoulder. _You'll do fine, Red. Those potentials, they're trained up, and once you juice them, they'll be fine, knock those vamps on their arses. Even Kennedy._

 _What about you?_ Willow had held the amulet in her hand earlier, but hadn't felt anything. It was cold and dead, rather like its bearer.

Spike shrugged again. _Whether the amulet does anything or not, it's a fight, yeah? My kind of party._

 _I wanted to tell you, you know, in case anything… I think of you as my friend, Spike. I love you. I would love you for being so good to Tara, even without what you do for Dawn and Buffy._ He looked away, his jaw flexing, but Willow was in his mind and felt how her words had overcome him. Love's bitch, she thought sadly, and slid her hand into his.

 _Love you, too, Red._

They sat on the porch for a few more minutes, watching the stars, then went inside the dim, quiet house.

⸹

"All aboard," Spike said quietly, handing Dawn into the school bus. Principal Wood was already in the driver's seat. Spike pulled the blanket down and gave Principal Wood an even look, nodding his head in greeting. The tall man's mouth thinned for a moment, but he nodded in return.

"Here, sit with me," Dawn said, pulling the vampire down next to her. She longed to throw herself into his arms, but she didn't want Spike to know how scared she was, so she pulled him closer by the pendant hung around his neck. "This is the ugliest necklace."

"'M doomed to wear ugly jewelry," Spike sighed.

"So, you don't know exactly what it's supposed to do?"

"Nope." He didn't particularly care what it was supposed to do, or if it did anything, just that Buffy had chosen him to wear it. She'd called him a champion. He still felt somewhat dazed by that, by the trust she put in him.

"Angel didn't know, either?"

"Nope."

"He never was too bright."

"Can't disagree." He put his forehead against hers. "You all right?"

"No. Not really."

"You'll be fine. Never were scared of me, were you?"

"Yeah, well you aren't as scary as those übervamps."

He looked offended. "I kill those f – um, chuffers, I'll have you know."

She rolled her eyes. "It means the same thing, Spike. I'm not a child."

"Yeah, well, it's not written on bathroom walls in this country. Means I can get away with it."

Dawn made a mouth. "Okay, how's this: you're not as scary, but more dangerous."

"All right, then."

"Keep her safe, okay?" Dawn asked quietly, watching her sister walk past. The usual pinched expression was on Buffy's face, and her eyes looked enormous.

"Always." He closed his own eyes, feeling Buffy moving away from him, headed for the back of the bus. They had slept in each other's arms the last few nights, taking what comfort they could. Last night she had wanted him physically, had kissed him, but he'd seen her face when Angel showed up. The difference in the way she looked at the other vampire… Now he knew what love looked like on her. It wasn't that Spike thought she would be thinking of the other man; all he wanted was what she could honestly give him. Her friendship was enough for now. She seemed to understand, didn't get angry, but with the Slayer, you never knew. He'd probably regret it, but he was determined that, when they did make love again, it was going to be for the right reasons. That's the kind of thing champions did, right?

"Do you ever get scared, Spike?"

"Sure I do. 'Specially about you and big sis." He slouched against her shoulder.

"For yourself, I mean?"

He was silent for a moment, staring at the back of the seat in front of them. The bus lurched into gear, and he turned to give her a solemn look. "Yeah. The Initiative. Being held in a cell there. That was scary. The unknown, you know? I didn't know what they wanted from me." He pulled the blanket over his head against the changeable sunlight coming through the bus windows.

Dawn shook her head. "I'm scared all the time. You and Buffy, you're different. You're heroes."

"Me?" He scoffed.

"My hero," she said simply.

A smile lit his eyes. "That I can do." He picked up her hand and laced his cool fingers through hers. "Love you, Sweet Bit."

"Love you, too, Spike."

⸹

 _"I love you."_

 _"'Course you do. But thanks for sayin' it."_

Buffy held her weeping sister, rocking back and forth in the school bus seat. She was pretty sure she was sitting where Spike had sat just hours before. Giles had taken the wheel of the bus, and they were on their way to the hospital in Dutton. Behind them was a crater that used to be Sunnydale.

"Shh… I'm here, Dawnie. I'm here." Her hushed words didn't make any impression on the girl. Why would they? She'd just lost one of the two people she loved best, and eight others.

Buffy lifted her head, her own eyes dry, and her gaze roamed around the other riders. Kennedy was watching Willow, who was holding Xander. His big shoulders shook, and he almost engulfed the redhead as he clung to her. Andrew was sitting awkwardly beside Kennedy, not sure what to do. He had been the one to tell Xander about Anya.

Faith had her arms wrapped around Robin, her expression remote. She met Buffy's eyes and gave her a nod. Buffy nodded back, not sure what the gesture meant. The new slayers were clustered together, looking shellshocked. Buffy couldn't imagine what it must be like for them – the euphoria of suddenly being superheroes, the horror of the battle they had just endured.

She looked straight ahead and met Giles' red-rimmed eyes in the wide rear view mirror. He gave her a death's-head smile, meant to reassure, before returning his attention to the road. Buffy supposed her automatic smile in return looked just as ghastly. She bent her head back to Dawn, not wanting to see anyone else's grief. Dawn's was enough.

 _"…thanks for sayin' it."_

He hadn't believed her. Why should he? She didn't believe it herself. But he had tried to reassure her, had sent her on her way so he could die in her place… as she had known he would. Night after night, the Slayer dreams had been clear on that point. Buffy clenched her jaw. She wasn't going to cry. If she had learned anything when she sent Angel to hell, it was that.

Murderers don't get to mourn.

* * *

Next Chapter: Scenes from Los Angeles, where a ghost cannot wait to be reunited with family... though he may already be with family.


	8. Scenes from Los Angeles

**Scenes from Los Angeles**

Los Angeles

October 2003

Apparently, the old adage was true. Evil never sleeps.

Spike didn't, anyway, roaming the halls of Wolfram and Hart during the night. Neither did a lot of the attorneys, putting in their expected extra hours. Many law firms saw the same behavior from their junior briefs, but here it wasn't ambition. Here it was fear. Sometimes Spike could almost believe that fear was the overwhelming sensation in the building. It wasn't, of course. The evil always felt stronger. Just because he was a ghost didn't mean he couldn't feel it. He had lost two of his human senses, but none of the supernatural ones.

Spike hadn't lost the ability to feel emotion, either. Unfortunately.

Hate, for instance. He hated being tied to the amulet, kept in this building, existing in this city. The City of Angels. He snorted at the name. As if he didn't already have enough reason to hate the place. Spike had been to every major city in the world, but none had put him on edge the same way. The sense of wrongness was a constant itch on the back of his neck. Normally, he loved the feeling that a fight was imminent, but there was no glory to be won in this town. Not that he would be winning any more battles, not in this condition.

So, yeah, emotion, not just hatred. He had plenty of resentment to spare, too, and grief. He'd admit to fear. Depression was constantly trying to move in. Boredom wouldn't budge, though. Did boredom count as an emotion?

When Angel was sleeping – in the nighttime! What kind of vampire was Peaches these days? – and when Fred was gone, he had too much time to think. No one to annoy, no one to talk to. It was apparently impossible to annoy Lorne, and he spent most of his time talking into a mobile, anyway. Spike liked Charlie okay, too, but the tall man was too happy for him to want to be around for very long. Wesley, the ex-Watcher, didn't want to speak to him. He supposed he could talk to the Wolfram and Hart regulars, but he was quits as a bad guy himself and didn't want to consort with them. During the day, when the remnants of Angel Investigations were busy, he hated the juvenile depths to which he sometimes sank just to get attention. But it was still better than being alone.

Spike concentrated hard and pushed the elevator button. He waited until the bell dinged and the doors opened before walking in, conceding as little as possible to his ghostly state. He focused again and pushed the button for the highest floor. Might as well start from the top and wend his way down.

Being a spirit was the worst possible fate Spike could imagine. The powerlessness was too much like his last years as a human. Not being able to take matters into his own hands… It reminded him, too, of the weeks spent in the wheelchair, waiting to heal; of the nebulous state he'd been in after escaping the Initiative, unable to leave Sunnydale for hope of getting the soddin' chip removed. He'd been lonesome those times, too. He sighed, then straightened his shoulders as he stepped onto the thirty-first floor. Damned if he was going to brood.

Of course, he was damned. Spike no longer believed he was in hell, though it had taken a while. He'd imagined being shackled to Wolfram and Hart with Angel as CEO was a hell personally designed for him. Now he didn't even believe he was going to generic hell, not since Pavayne was locked in the basement. After all, what good would eternity in standard, run-of-the-mill hell be for the likes of him? He'd already been tortured by the best here on earth. Besides, he was a champion, after all, one of the good guys.

The word 'purgatory' did cross his mind occasionally.

Where could he go, possessing both a demon and a soul, full of both good and evil? Nowhere. Or here, more truly neutered than the designers of the Initiative chip could have ever dreamed.

Purgatory, though… He was turning into a Catholic to rival the poof. On the thought, Spike's eyes went to the ceiling. There were actually thirty-two floors in the building, but only one elevator went to the penthouse. Angel was staying away from him as much as possible. He knew why; he knew exactly what guilt looked like on his grandsire: the back of his broad, Irish neck, walking away. Guilt – and Darla – had driven him from the family over a hundred years ago, after all.

There were some benefits to being a ghost, he had to admit, as he popped back into semi-existence in the penthouse, standing in front of a huge, necrotempered window. He felt kind of like Anya, teleporting and all. A tiny smile touched his mouth at the thought of the blunt ex-demon, then faded.

Apparently the remnants of the Scoobies and slayers had traveled to Los Angeles after… well, after. Anya hadn't been among them. Spike had questioned Angel closely, but his grandsire hadn't known who Buffy's friends were anymore, not enough to be able to say who was missing. Angel had let them stay at the Hyperion during the period Angel Investigations had been moving out. Fred had been more helpful, assuring him of the safety of his Slayer and his Bit, of Willow and Xander and Giles, but the only one of his potential slayers he could say for certain had died was Amanda. He'd seen it happen. Fred, who was friendly with Willow, had offered to get in touch with the witch for him, but he'd made her promise to keep her silence. They didn't need to know about the latest kink in his long story. Wasn't like he'd really survived, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't disappear any given second. No need to put Dawn through that again; she'd lost enough people in her short life.

But he missed his family, his humans.

No. Not going there.

Anyway, he knew Anya was gone, along with Sunnydale. Spike looked out through the fancy windows over the only place on earth he hated worse than the Hellmouth he'd destroyed. Los Angeles was a rotten, bloated place; the sense of desperation he always felt rippling off the residents was nearly crippling. It was worse than the ever-present sense of danger. Dunno, maybe this was hell. He wouldn't be too sorry when the long-predicted big earthquake finally dropped the city into the ocean. Except for the Whiskey; that was all right. And maybe some of the people.

At one time, he wanted Sunnydale destroyed, too; looked like he'd gotten that wish. Closing a Hellmouth… he would like to have spoken with Giles, just to have some sense of what that meant. It was big, he knew that. Not big enough to warrant heaven, though, or any kind of reward.

Angel was jumping through the hoops for a reward these days, not just for atonement. It meant he had hope. Spike almost felt sorry for his grandsire; hope was a cruel mistress. He'd rather be love's bitch any day. _Shanshu_. He mouthed the word. Who the hell wanted to be human, anyway?

Just to needle him, Spike had asked the old man to send the amulet to Giles, but Angel refused, saying he would keep it close by and safe because it had already caused enough damage. Spike couldn't argue with that; the destruction of a Hellmouth and the entire town above it was pretty impressive. He hadn't raised a fuss; it would be all right to be around Rupes, but he really didn't want to be useless around the rest of his family. It would be the end of him if some Big Bad hurt any of them while he was unable to defend them.

The other part of his reluctance was Buffy. He wasn't sure how long it would be before he could think of the Slayer with any level of equanimity. Of course, the longer Angel held onto the amulet, the harder it would be to send it away – 'Hey, I've held this amulet and your vampire for a while without telling you. No, I'm not evil again.' Spike snorted at little at the look he imagined Giles would get on his face. Might even scare his grandsire.

Not that Peaches wasn't feeling extra emotion lately, too. Angel was pissed off as well as being super-broody. Not only had Spike done him one better by winning a soul, he had died to save the world. Angel wasn't talking to him, but the younger man didn't need words to know that his grandsire was wondering if he would have gotten his Shanshu if the amulet had been around his thick neck instead. Spike scoffed. What made him think he wouldn't be stuck in quasi-reality as a ghost? Oh, that's right. Angel was special.

He walked through the quiet apartment in a straight line to Angel's bedside. The furnishings were sparse; he had the sense that most of them came with the penthouse. His souled-up grandsire would certainly never have chosen such a comfortable bed – although Angelus would have, but he wouldn't have been in it alone. Spike stared down at the still man, thinking of the satisfaction on his face when he imprisoned Pavayne. Was it because he'd avenged a member of his family? Spike had no clue. He barely knew Angel, really. Angelus he knew all too well, but this person… A few months as they traveled through the East, headed for the Boxer Rebellion, and a few hours of torturing him over the Gem of Amara – that was it. The face was familiar, but the careworn look on it, even in sleep, was new. No, not new. Recalling that look from decades before, Spike realized the only time he'd felt any true connection to his grandsire was in India, after his soul was cursed back into him.

Startled, he moved back a step, away from the sleeping form. While he and Angelus had made a grudging peace over the years, he'd never again taken anything at surface value after the older vampire made clear who Drusilla really belonged to. It was odd to realize that he'd lived beside Angelus for years, even been inside his mind, but it was this stranger, the newly-made Angel that he'd felt close to, once.

And he wasn't going to remember that.

Smothering a curse, Spike turned on his heel and dropped back to the thirty-first floor. He snarled, then roared his frustration into the climate-controlled air. The offices here were empty; he imagined that several executives had been forced to leave when Angel came on board. His boots made soft thuds against the carpeted floor of the hallway, and he slammed open the stairwell door without even thinking about it. Anger had always been his ally, had always made him stronger.

Spike was on the twenty-seventh floor by the time he slowed down. No way was he going to outrun the memories; he'd never been able to do that even when he was nominally among the living. He lifted a hand to Roger, the stockier of the two human night watchmen who patrolled above the fifteenth floor. There were several other kinds of non-human guards.

Roger waved back. He didn't even blink anymore when he saw the leather-clad blond emerge from solid walls. "Evening, Mr. Spike."

"Just Spike, Roger," he said wearily.

"Making your rounds, too?"

"Got nothing better to do." He tossed a look over his shoulder. "Nothing going on upstairs. Skive off, go get yourself a cuppa."

Roger shook his head, and Spike felt that special Wolfram and Hart fear again. "No, I better see for myself."

"Right. Later, then." Roger was all right, and Spike hoped he hadn't had to sign one of the law firm's ironclad contracts in order to get a lousy rent-a-cop job.

He was down to the twelfth floor before he saw anyone else. Karalyn Reyes, attorney-at-law, was locking her office door as Spike turned the corner. She recovered quickly from her surprise and gave him a lovely smile. He had noticed her working late several times; she would be hard to ignore, even if she hadn't make a point of always greeting him. She was a looker, smart and sophisticated from her shiny brown hair to her Gucci pumps. A line from an old Robert Palmer song came to his mind: 'she's so fine/there's no tellin' where the money went.' Reyes' polished femininity left him cold, though, and not because he was undead. He was certain that she, unlike Roger, had signed a Wolfram and Hart contract, probably with her own ambitious blood. He couldn't put his finger on it what it was about her that put him on alert, just that there was a certain speculative greediness in her expression when she first saw him that reminded him of Darla.

"Why, good evening. Or should I say good morning?" she asked, sighing a little as she bent to scoop up her briefcase.

No, despite the fact that Reyes was always kind to him, she was firmly in the category of 'bad guy.' That was enough to stifle his impulse to offer to carry her briefcase. "Working late again, I see," he responded grudgingly as she fell into step beside him. If she followed him past the first bank of lifts, he was going to go through a wall.

"Well, you know Wolfram and Hart. Slave drivers."

"Literally." Reyes lifted an elegant eyebrow but made no comment. She did stop in front of the elevators, and Spike relaxed a little as he stalked away.

"Spike?"

He tensed at the sound, but turned back, lifting his own eyebrow.

Her glossy lips parted and a pretty expression of hesitation crossed her face. He supposed such a pause was very effective when given to impressionable jurors before she sullied herself by mentioning a client's exposed dirty secrets. "Spike… being like this must be difficult for you. I know we don't really know each other, but… if you ever need someone to talk to…"

Spike kept his silence, merely nodding before he turned away. It didn't matter what her angle was, as he wasn't about to take her up on her offer. If he wanted to talk, he would go to Fred. On the thought, he found himself in her office, his nose a few inches from her Dixie Chicks poster. Bugger. He only liked it when he teleported on purpose. Remember your Pauli exclusion principle, he scolded himself. He'd known the quantum physics behind ghosts since 1927, even though he hadn't put it together until recently.

Still, there was a certain sense of peace to be found in Fred's office. He looked through the window into the lab, which was dark and empty. Spike sat cross-legged amid the gubbins atop her desk, wishing he could sleep. If he could manage it anywhere, it would be here in her office. Fred was a bit of all right. Of all of Angel's people, she was the only one who was exactly what she seemed. Well, Lorne was exactly what he seemed, too, but Spike was wary of the Pylean's psychic abilities. It just went against his nature to accept Lorne's visions of destiny; the very idea of not being in control of his fate made him want to rip someone's head off. Spike sighed nostalgically, wishing that were possible.

Charlie was a nice guy, too, a smart guy, but he was too young and too street to have that Ivy League legal education. That had never been explained to Spike's satisfaction. Wesley, who was brilliant and brittle, had once been a Watcher, a strike against him by Spike's reckoning. He could see where the corporate library was old Percy's seductress, though. Even Giles would be tempted. He didn't know why Fred and Lorne were here. There were too many missing parts to the stories for his comfort, like why the cheerleader was in a coma. Especially vague was how Angel had ended up as CEO of Evil, Ltd. No one talked, not like – He clenched his jaw a little, or at least had the sensation that he did. It wasn't as if he actually had a jaw.

Then Spike sighed. He wasn't going to get away from his own ghosts tonight, no more than he could leave the building. His ghosts were simple and straightforward, at least.

He missed his family. Dawn's face came to mind, and he quickly shunted it away. Too much pain.

His family talked. Constantly. Someone was always talking, usually Xander or Sweet Bit. If there was a missing part to the story, all it took was a confused look, a raised eyebrow, and someone would fill in the gap: this happened while Giles was in London, that happened while you were held prisoner on the Hellmouth. And the stories were human, not epic or Machiavellian: Rupes was always embarrassed that he had a thing with Buffy's Mum under the influence of magical candy; Willow was afraid of frogs but not newts; Anya had dated nearly every type of sentient demon; Buffy just happened to have rocket launchers on a high shelf in her basement, left over from when she had destroyed The Judge.

God, he would love to have seen that! His girl with a big-arse rocket launcher over her shoulder and that take-no-prisoners look in her eye. His smile faded.

The Slayer had said she loved him.

There it was. He always circled back to this, the thing that paralyzed him more than being non-corporeal.

She didn't. He knew what love looked like on her face, and that look wasn't there when she said those words to him. If she had looked at him the way she looked at Angel, he would have moved heaven and earth to get his body back and find his way to her door.

She only said it because she had known all along what was going to happen. He'd held her when she dreamed it, after all, night after night. Buffy would never tell him why she came awake, his name on her lips and tears on her face.

That's what she should have told him.

Funny, in a way. He'd been sure he wasn't going to survive the night Dawn bled on Glory's tower, but he really hadn't thought he was going to die on the Hellmouth. He had stepped up, though, had been willing to do what was necessary, to finish the sacrifice begun by the First Evil. It had been his choice to stay, his job to finish. But if she had told him about her Slayer dreams, he could have said a better farewell to his Bit, and he sure as hell would have taken the Slayer up on her offer of sex the night before. Or, he would have figured out a way to get the job done and still escape with his skin intact, would have –

Spike closed his eyes. He was angry with Buffy; what of it? What would he have done in her place? Tell her, sorry, you're going to die tomorrow?

Yeah, he would have told her. And then he would have figured out a way to screw the prophetic dreams. That was about the only thing he had a natural talent for, coming out of left field at whatever the Powers That Be had planned, plowing it down and stomping out the dog end of a cigarette on it.

God, what he wouldn't give for a cigarette.

But that wasn't the reason for his anger, was it? It was that the last thing she said was a lie. If there was one constant in their odd relationship, it was honesty. Oh, each of them lied to themselves, but they didn't lie to each other. If only she'd said, 'my vampire.' Those words would have told him exactly what he needed to hear, shorthand for their history, for the link between them, the strong emotions.

Buffy might love Angel, but he wasn't her vampire.

Spike sighed with non-existent breath. This was hell, after all, a state of existence where he couldn't get his violence on. Because right now, he really needed to kill something. All he could do was sit here on the desk of a sweet woman he'd liked at first because she reminded him so much of Willow and try to not think about the Slayer. Since he couldn't stop thinking and couldn't do anything else, he might as well go with the older, less painful memories.

He couldn't figure Angel. He'd seen nothing of the soul man in Sunnydale. Even before the ritual to heal Dru, when she had tortured him, their captive had acted much more like Angelus. Here, though… it was like seeing a reflection of himself, his human self. Angel read depressing books of philosophy, signed papers all day instead of going out to bust heads together, sat and stewed in his own juices. He didn't even draw anymore. He was totally different from Angelus, and wasn't that confusing? Because Spike with a soul wasn't all that different from Spike without one, except for his reasons for killing things. If this was Liam-with-a-soul, he really had no idea why Buffy had fallen in love with the oik. He was boring.

And he was, unfortunately, in control of Spike. If he could figure out why his grandsire kept the amulet, maybe he could press the right buttons to make him let it go. Despite Angel's vindictiveness towards Pavayne, Spike couldn't accept it was over him. He didn't believe Peaches actually hated him, but it was obvious that the very sight of bleached hair pained him. He and Angelus… well, they hadn't been friends, but they were family. With the curse, though… they'd been companionable during the travels to China, almost friendly. He'd been a bit sorry when Darla banished Angel. Spike's thoughts went again to that afternoon in India, when Dru and great-grandmum had been away. He and Angelus had talked, just talked, the only time they'd done so, one intimate moment in twenty years. Any other time the older demon spoke to him, it was to instruct or entrap or threaten or brag or demean. Of course, now he knew it was probably due to his grandsire being all soul-having. Just like he was here.

No, there was a difference between newly-made Angel and this version. A hundred years of solitude might explain it, or the fear/desire for Angelus to regain control. It couldn't be the precious Shanshu; Spike might have his soul, too, but he was hardly a candidate for the prophecy, being a ghost. Surely Angel wouldn't hold a grudge over having to sacrifice him to cure Dru, or that one little afternoon of torture, not after the myriad beatings Spike had shrugged off. For a moment, Spike considered that it was due to jealousy, that Peaches was envious of his soul and his ability to fit in with the Scoobies, into Buffy's life, then he dismissed it. The other thing that came to mind was that his grandsire had figured out a new way to torture him, because the old man knew he hated to be ignored. He dismissed that, too, because Angel obviously didn't enjoy ignoring him. What the great poof really acted like was someone with major depression. Maybe it was because the cheerleader was in a coma. It was like Angel was grieving, as if he had cared for her more than the ordinary, something else no one talked about.

They didn't talk, and they were lonely, rattling around in this great building, no different from him. Spike knew he was abrasive, but he had no trouble making friends when he put his mind to it. He and Fred were well on their way, and there were tenuous connections with Charlie and Lorne. He doubted it was possible for Watcher Boy to unbend enough to be friendly. In fact, Wesley made him uneasy. There was a strain about him, as if he had to try too hard to make it through each day. He'd seen Dru act the same way before some of her more self-destructive episodes.

But it was Angel that puzzled him. They were family, had an innate understanding of each other, but the big vampire had rebuffed every overture. Well, both of them. Silence might be a habit with Peaches, but it hadn't always been. They'd had one meaningful conversation, at least. He had a feeling that his grandsire needed to talk even more than he did. And he was desperate to connect to other people, to anyone, even Angel.

They had been intimate once, after all.

⸹

India

December 1899

"There you are, sleepyhead. And here I was thinkin' you'd be sleepin' the day away."

Spike stretched, his arms over his head, but didn't bother to move otherwise. "It's this heat," he answered, still not quite awake, his voice slow. He turned his head and looked through the mosquito netting. A short slant of sunlight fell on the bare wooden floor from the open balcony, but they had pushed the hotel bed well away from any danger. "Where have our ladies gotten themselves to?" He couldn't feel them in the front room of their chamber.

"They're meetin' whatever the Hindus call a modiste in one of the parlors on the first floor. Darla's been wantin' a sari since we came across the litter with the Brahmin women." Angel shrugged a little. "Pretty fabric." Blood had ruined the silk.

"Mm." Something occurred to him, and he lifted his head a couple of inches from the pillow and peered at the other man. "How's the arm?"

Angel held out his forearm. "Nearly healed." If one looked closely, a thin white line could still be seen where a dagger had dragged across his skin.

"Mm," Spike said again. Then he grinned, remembering the night out the two of them had enjoyed. "God, that was fun."

The dark-haired man raised an eyebrow. "Fun," he echoed. "Eight humans armed with blades–"

"Against the two of us," he replied, defensive. "Hardly fair odds."

"I got cut–"

"Which is already healed. Besides, you got the blood back. I haven't seen you feed so heartily in an age."

"Killed more than we could eat–"

"No one's gonna miss 'em, and you know it. They were highwaymen, Angelus."

"We had to drag their bodies hundreds of yards to hide them."

Spike ran out of counter-arguments. "Sorry. I know how you hate anything that resembles work."

Angel surprised him by smiling. "No, you're right, boy. It was fun." He reached out and ruffled the pale brown hair, already tousled from sleep.

The blue eyes were alert now. "I believe," he said slowly, "the travel has been good for you."

Angel made a show of rearranging a pillow, not wanting it to be obvious that he was looking away from the younger man's sharp gaze. "Nice change of pace." He glared at Spike. "At least we're on the road by our choice."

"You're never gonna forget that coal mine, are you?"

"Never." Having regained the upper edge in the conversation, he relaxed. "But this has been a good trip."

"Hope the rebellion isn't over before we get there."

"Darla has a pretty good sense of these things. There'll be plenty of unrest to go 'round."

They fell into an easy silence. Spike stared up at the canopy of the bed, the mosquito netting that hung from it surrounding the large mattress and making a tent around them. Soft light came through the thin fabric, stippling their bodies with shadows. The heat and the sun were so different from London that Spike could hardly fathom it. He had liked India even before they got to the country, the part of him that would always be an Englishman vaguely fond and protective of the exotic culture. "Food's good here," he said, after a while. "I like the spices."

Angel looked over at him and smiled – two genuine smiles from him in an hour, breaking the record. "You eat as much as a human," he complained good-naturedly. He leaned over and poked Spike's hard abdomen. "Pretty soon you'll have a paunch, and I won't be responsible for what Dru'll do to you then, boy. See? Already more comfortable than this pillow." On the words, he shifted his body sideways and rested his head on Spike's stomach, his favorite resting place.

"Tickles." Spike brushed the dark hair from his ribs, leaving his hand on his grandsire's brow. "You need a haircut."

"So do you."

"I like it long. Keeps it from curling. 'Sides, Chinamen wear their hair in queues. I'll fit right in."

"Sure an' you'll fit in, pale and towering above the Chinese."

"Hey, I get to tower, for a change?"

Angel snorted. "Only in China. Otherwise, it's my job."

"If Darla complains, I'll let her cut it. Otherwise, I'll keep it clubbed back. Deal?"

"Deal."

The comfortable silence fell again as they lazed in the still, warm air of the bedroom. After a while, Angel took a breath, but let it go without saying anything. When he did it once again, Spike said, "Go on, Angelus. What's on your mind?" He hoped the answer would be, 'nothing.' The older vampire was in a rare good mood. These days he was mostly quiet and snappish. It was nothing like the rages he would fall into before Romania, at least.

"You laid it on pretty thick last night, about our exploits, I mean. To Darla."

"About your exploits?" Spike asked, just to clarify.

Angel nodded. "Why?" He felt the fingers on his brow tense infinitesimally for a second.

"Got your knob polished, dinnit?"

"Spike."

The younger man didn't answer right away. No matter what he said, it was the end of Peaches' good mood. "'M not blind, Angelus. She's watching you as closely as you watched me when I was a fledge."

"Still a fledge, boy."

Since Angel couldn't see him, Spike rolled his eyes, but he let it go. "Figured if her highness thought you'd indulged in a bit of mayhem outside, wouldn't be as much mayhem inside our happy home."

"You didn't mention they were criminals." He felt the rise and fall of Spike's chest beneath his head. The boy still breathed when he was stressed, as if he never forgot he was once human. Angel didn't call him on it, though.

"No need to," he said, shrugging. "My kind of hunt, yeah? I've no quarrel with how you handled yourself, and 'm not her creature. Not gonna tattle."

"Thanks," Angel said eventually. It felt as strange for him to say it as it was for the other man to hear it. Even the idea of an alliance, a united front with William against his sire was too bizarre to contemplate.

The heat worked its magic again. The silence became complete as Spike's breathing trailed away. His fingers began to move, though, slowly smoothing Angel's hair. It was a hopeless task, but the older vampire appreciated the soothing, automatic movement. After a while, he felt the odd tension as Spike ranged out with his extra senses, and Angel wondered what he was searching for.

"Angelus?"

"What, boy?" The words sounded harsher than he intended.

"Darla – while she's away, I wanted to ask…" He hesitated, then plunged on. "The Rom, you know, when you left us for a while, Darla nearly took off three of Dru's fingers when she asked… You're different. Do you really have a soul again?"

Angel sighed, feeling the muscles of Spike's abdomen tighten as he prepared to dart out of harm's way. "I do," he said simply. He felt the younger man slowly relax. The hand began smoothing his hair again, not an unthinking, affectionate gesture now, but a strategy to placate a senior pack member, a reminder that not all of his victims were dead.

"What's it like?"

This time, Angel started to lash out with his words, the easiest way to protect himself. But because of the wrongs he'd done him, he turned his head to look at Spike instead. "It's a curse, boy, well an' truly," he answered. "It paralyzes me. Everything that comes natural, feels wrong. Every minute of every day, I know that I'm wrong, evil. And I'm an aberration. I don't fit anywhere. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

"Yeah, I have a vague memory of it." The breathing began once more. "Know you won't hardly credit it, but I'm better at being a demon than I was at being human. Things are easier. Didn't really belong in that world. I know I'd hate to go back to it." His expression was earnest. "I'll never be the demon you are – I just don't think that way, not patient enough or something. But I'm dead useful, you know I am. 'M good in a fight, an' I take care of Dru, don't let her hurt herself, an' I–"

Angel lifted a hand, and Spike fell silent, wary, but all he did was cup the chiseled face, turning toward the younger demon. "You don't want to be the demon I am. Was." He sighed and let his hand fall. "The things you couldn't bring yourself to do, the failures I punished you for… those are the very things that burn the most inside me now." He lifted his head and propped up on his elbow, studying Spike carefully. The boy really wasn't Darla's creature, and he was a bad liar in any case. There was no guile in his eyes, just curiosity. "Remember what guilt feels like?"

"Yeah, I know what guilt feels like."

Angel's eyes sharpened at the present tense, but he let it go. "That's all I have. No joy in the hunt. Even feedin's empty, unless it's…."

"From a wicked human," Spike finished. "So, you're livin' in their world again, in a way."

"What do you mean?"

He closed his eyes a moment, frowning, then rolled over so he could prop up on an elbow, too. Their heads were close, but he made his voice very quiet anyway. "'S'wrong for a human to kill another human. It's not wrong for us to kill humans, though. Have to eat, yeah? So, you only dine on wicked humans who kill their fellow man. Justice. You're thinkin' like a human, 'cause of the soul."

"I have to eat," Angel agreed, "but I don't have to kill to do it. Or torture. Or rape. Or terrorize. Or any of the host of things I did." His voice became small. "That I still want to do."

"The soul that's makin' you miserable, makin' you feel guilty… 'S'not like the soul was there, not like it was responsible. So, it shouldn't feel guilty for what you did when you didn't have the soul," Spike said reasonably.

"Part of the curse, I expect," Angel sighed. "Doesn't matter that I didn't make a choice to be bad, just that I was bad."

"Well, that's just it. We're vampires. We're supposed to be evil. If the Rom shoved a soul inside of… of that tiger we saw last week, why should it feel guilt over eatin' a villager or three? That's its nature. 'S'not good or bad."

"I don't know the why of it," Angel said, beginning to be exasperated. He rubbed his chest unconsciously. "I just know the guilt. It burns at me. It's all I feel."

"I'm sorry."

"For what? You didn't do anything. Don't apologize, boy."

"No, I mean I'm sorry you," he shrugged, "feel bad."

Angel stared at him, the soulless, evil vampire who felt sorry for him. "You have to be the most contrary, most maddening–" He snaked a big hand out and wrapped it around the back of Spike's neck, shook him lightly, and pulled him close so their foreheads touched. "Never change." He gave the boy a light kiss.

He grinned, pleased, lowering his eyes. It was almost a shy gesture. "No, sir." Angel let go of him, and, emboldened by the rare praise, he asked. "Will you?"

"Will I what?"

"Change again, I mean. Will the soul go away after a bit?"

Angel smiled with absolutely no humor in his eyes. "No. I expect it's with me till I go to dust."

"'S'not so bad. I mean, you're easier to live with."

"Don't try me, boy," Angel growled, but without malice.

"Are you going to stay?" This time the words were stark and free of the gutter accent he cultivated. The dark-haired man looked directly at him, startled, and Spike backpedaled. "I mean, Dru missed you while you were gone… after."

"I missed you lot, too," Angel said eventually. "I don't fit anywhere, but you're all the family I have. I had to come back, try to…" Spike continued to give him that level look, waiting. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'll stay if I can. Might not be up to me, entirely."

Spike nodded. It was as close as the old man had ever come to admitting that Darla wore the britches. "You can't live as a human, Angelus, soul or not."

"No." Angel stared at one of the pillows, then said softly, "I don't know if I can live as a demon, either."

"You can hunt with me," Spike said stoutly. "Tell the duchess I need instruction. That way you can feed, and I can go after more dangerous prey. Works for us both."

He met the earnest gaze of the youngest Aurelian. The boy's offer of protection was touching and woefully short of any true understanding. The need for blood was the least of the reasons his soul ate at him. What he should do was upbraid Spike for stupidity – if your sire shows weakness, the proper thing to do was exploit it. Lord knew he would have, if Darla ever wavered.

Caught somewhere between laughing at receiving sympathy from a demon and crying over the gulf between them, Angel could only shake his head. "Good idea," he grunted.

"Or–"

"Or what? Out with it, boy."

"Or if you go, we can go with you, instead of staying, I mean."

This was dangerous talk, and part of Angel was appalled at the idea of crossing Darla openly. But he had been so alone after he fled the family, so solitary. The offer was tempting, to live with Dru and Spike, who were just odd enough to abide his own strangeness. Darla would call down vengeance on them, though, of a magnitude the boy couldn't comprehend. "She'd never abide it, so put it out of your head," he said gruffly, "but thanks." He kissed Spike again, deeper, hoping the boy could tell from the gentleness how touched he was by the offer. Impulsively, he stroked the angular jaw, his artist's eye roaming over the sculpted features. "This is good light. Stay where you are," he ordered and left the bed, padding naked across the warm floor to where he'd left his sketchpad.

Spike made himself a bit more comfortable before his grandsire returned. Like the other members of the family, he was used to holding a pose. It never took long, but staying still was a minor torture for him under any circumstances.

Angel brushed aside the mosquito netting and sat cross-legged on the bed, the paper on his knee. "You moved," he complained, and Spike shifted guiltily, sitting up a little higher. After studying his subject for a moment, he began drawing the first bold lines. "Never see you like this," he said as he worked. "In the daylight, I mean. I forget your eyes are blue." He angled the pencil, shading a brow. "Dark like the sea around Spain."

"Darla always says your eyes are brown," Spike said, trying not to move his lips, "such a dull word. They're the color of good, strong tea. Clear brown, like whiskey, maybe."

"You're better than a mirror." Angel's tone was sarcastic, and the younger vampire shut up. Watching his subject trying to be still, he felt a twinge of shame for being so harsh. There was no harm in the boy – none that doesn't come from me, he thought bitterly.

When Drusilla had first brought William home to him, he had pulled the boy into the light by a window, already itching to sketch him, the bone structure such a sharp contrast to the soft mouth and wide eyes. It was a way of possessing him, and the demon inside Angel was voracious. Light loved the stark planes of Spike's face, the fall of his hair, and he had captured him with charcoal and pencil countless times. When he thought about it, the demon's craving for beauty was an odd thing. It was the beauty and purity of Drusilla's soul that had drawn him down on her; it was William's pretty innocence that had stayed Angelus' hand that first day.

He still had innocence, or at least that's how Angel thought of it. The demon blood that had boiled through Liam and scoured away every soft emotion seemed to have left behind a lot of them in William. Most of the time, Angel just shrugged it off, blaming it on Dru, either for having the savvy to pick the "one knight in all the land" who was capable of retaining enough humanity to care for her, or for being insane and therefore incapable of siring someone properly. Angel wondered about it more now that he had his soul, even feeling resentment toward the younger demon. If he had been like Spike, his heart wouldn't be so black, and he wouldn't have to suffer quite so much.

His artist's eye on the boy, he couldn't help but think that he'd managed to hang onto principles, too, somehow. Oh, like all vampires, he was an opportunistic killer; he often ate without thought. But when he did think, it was… atypical. Spike rarely used his exceptional looks to lure prey – at first, he hardly seemed to be aware of the impact his physical form had on humans. He flatly refused to hone a natural bent for mesmer and had no patience with torture. If Angel had a pound for every time Spike had ruined his focus during a torture session with an 'Aren't you done yet?' – well, he could buy a railroad. Expressing rage was never a problem for Will, but he had none of the colder emotions. The boy even scorned to hunt the weak, saying that he found no challenge in it, that he'd never become a better fighter feeding off plump housemaids. The older vampire always suspected that it was rather an issue of honor for the younger man. Angelus had watched him closely, choosing prey for him, and he did what was expected of him on family hunts. Still… how could a vampire have principles?

Angel turned the paper to get the long line of arm and torso. Always the contrasts – the face of an angel, the body of a street brawler. He smiled a little, remembering the first time James and Elizabeth had visited after Dru found her consort. The other vampire couple had been taken with the boy, James especially. Even after the lessons learned in the family bed, Angel could tell that Spike was shocked that they expected him to casually couple with them. He had shown up before dawn one morning, sullen and withdrawn, his lower lip still split and swollen. In a cold fury, Angelus sought out James, whose own handsome face was considerably more battered, and explained with hard fists and hissed words that the boy was no minion, but a family member, an Aurelian and not to be trifled with. It was the first time he clearly remembered feeling pride in Spike, realizing his two-year-old fledge could hold his own with a vampire who was well on his way to one hundred. Not that he told him so.

Angel wondered what Spike felt about him. Hatred and fear were bound to be part of it, going back to the first brutal years when Angelus had tried to break the boy. His mouth tightened a little at those memories. He preferred to remember later years, especially after Spike had rescued them in Paris. The boy had been different since then, seemed to find his confidence and a joy in being a vampire that he had been missing since Angelus established the mindlink. The two of them got on fine after that, except for the natural squabbles to establish dominance that left them both bruised and bleeding. Spike would go along with Angelus' more artistic kills as long as he could get away with a good brawl every few months. Angelus was fiercely proud of their family, his wicked sire, his talented child, his unbreakable boy.

With the benefit of his soul, Angel suspected that none of what Angelus had visited on William had changed him, that the boy was exactly the same vampire he had been the moment he clawed his way through the soil. He just kept his residual humanity better hidden. As much as that enraged Angelus, he was also proud that his line, his blood was strong enough to withstand even him. And, of course, Angelus had the ultimate power over the boy, because Drusilla belonged to him.

"Spike?"

"Yes, sir?"

He smiled at the automatic politeness. It wasn't respect, but it looked close enough to it to keep him out of trouble. "You care about Drusilla, don't you?"

There could be no better artist's model, suddenly. Spike went very still, his eyes grown wary. "You know I do." He'd been punished for the weakness of love before.

"You may not believe it, but I do, too." Angel stared at the sketchpad, but his hands were still. "I know I can count on you to take care of her if I'm not around." He looked up meaningfully. The expression on Spike's face made him take an involuntary breath. Their gazes met in one of those rare moments of perfect understanding: they both knew Darla had little patience with the younger woman, they both knew Angelus was to blame for Drusilla's vulnerable state, and they both knew Spike would go to any lengths to keep her safe from Darla, and now Angel would want him to. He had just been given leave to defend to the death the woman he loved.

"Don't move," Angel whispered, swiftly turning to a fresh page. His pencil began to fly over the paper, trying to capture the moment, his eyes hardly leaving Spike's face. No matter how beautiful the human features, such love and grace should not exist on a demon's visage. His own demon was awestruck by the sight, in the same way the beauty and precision of a ballet had once brought it to tears.

"They're coming up the stairs."

"Stay still. Let me get the beginnings, anyway." He heard the door to the front room open.

Spike tried to comply, but his gaze drifted to the door. "Hullo, pet," he said, as Drusilla came in, Darla at her heels.

"How do I look, Spike?" She spun around, showing off the rich colors of her sari.

"Like a present in pretty wrapping paper."

"Are you going to unwrap your present, my Spike?"

"Hold still, boy."

"Drusilla," Darla said impatiently, "it took us a quarter of an hour to get into these."

"Bet I could you get out of it in a lot less time," Spike said wickedly.

"We'll be wearing these out to dinner," Darla said implacably, giving the younger woman a hard look.

Contrite, Drusilla nodded. "Yes, grandmummy."

Sighing, Angel closed his sketchpad. As he pushed aside the netting, he met Spike's eyes one last time and gave him a solemn wink. "Let's have a look at the two of you, then," he said, getting up.

Spike watched him lay the Irish charm on Dru and jolly Darla out of her impending bad mood, surprised at irritation he felt when he sensed the women's return. He was getting as bad as Dru, wanting Daddy's attention. "Hope me an' Angelus get to wear more than a _dhoti_ ," he said in a sardonic, top-lofty tone that he knew for a fact got on Darla's nerves. She gave him a look, but also raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. "That nappy-like garment Hindu men wear, goes around and up between the legs."

"Don't be vulgar," Darla said, shaking her head.

"But I'm so good at it."

⸹

"Spike?"

He opened his eyes to find Fred staring at him anxiously. "Yeah?"

Her face lit with a wide smile. "Good morning! Were you asleep?" Her mobile face frowned. "I thought you didn't sleep. You looked like you were. Sleeping, I mean."

Spike looked at the Starbucks cup in her hand. "That isn't decaf, is it?"

Fred moved it to her side with a guilty look. "But do you? Sleep, I mean."

He stood up, his legs disappearing into her desk. Spike closed his eyes. "Bugger." He stepped out of the furniture. "And, no, I don't sleep. I was just traipsing down memory lane."

"Well," she said, her voice a Texas drawl, "it sure did look like sleepin.'"

"Here, I'll clear out and let you work. Gotta go see Peaches, anyway." He turned back to her. "You got lunch plans?" That would be about enough time for the caffeine to work its way out of her system.

"No. Want to go to the cafeteria with me?"

"'Course I do, pet. See you then." Spike concentrated on his awareness of Angel's presence and teleported partway into the door of his closet. He looked at the neat rows of dark clothes and rolled his eyes. "Halfway in the poof's closet. Nothing symbolic here," he muttered, moving free of the door. His grandsire was where he had left him, still abed. "Oi! Peaches! Wakey, wakey."

Angel opened his eyes, apparently not surprised to see Spike there. "What is it, boy?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and an Irish brogue.

Spike stilled, knowing in a flash that Angel's dreams had been the same as his memories. The dark-haired man knew it, too, and they stared at each other for a long moment, the one time they had been intimate now a barrier between them. Angel looked away first, then threw off the sheet and stalked toward the bathroom. Nonplussed, Spike stared after him. Black silk boxers? Dear lord, he thought, unconsciously using a Gilesism, the man's become an even greater poof. He heard the hiss of the shower and rolled his eyes. He'd wait. All he had was time.

Angel stayed under the warm spray for ten minutes, hoping it would drive some of the cobwebs from his mind. Yesterday he'd gone to see Cordelia, to sit by her bedside. She was already thinner, having lost most of the baby weight. She would have been thrilled, but it only worried Angel. She was beginning to waste away. Part of him still lived in a time before intravenous feeding, when people in comas simply starved. His heart ached for her to open her eyes and tell him exactly where he'd gone wrong, how he'd ended up here. She had been his moral compass for a long time, and he hadn't even noticed.

After he'd made the deal with Wolfram and Hart and gotten Cordy settled into the private hospital, he'd gone to check on the other two people he loved best, Connor first, saving Sunnydale for the last so he could take that damn amulet to Buffy. He'd caught the Slayer in mid-fight, always a beautiful thing to behold. They had bantered and flirted and acted like two warriors who couldn't possibly lose. Less than twenty-four hours later, Sunnydale was gone, and she had come to visit him in L.A. The masks came off, and they sat together in the back seat of the only surviving Sunnydale Unified School District bus. Neither of them cried, but he told her about Cordelia, and she told him about Spike.

He'd already known, of course, not the same way he'd know if anything happened to Drusilla, but still clear and sharp. He'd gotten Spike to ingest his blood all those many years ago, then taken some from the fledge and unearthed all the secrets inside the boy. A mindlink was never truly broken, not until death severed it. The shock had driven him to his knees in his room at the Hyperion. When the pain of the loss receded, he found that he was breathing, the harsh sound somehow a fitting tribute to a demon who'd never forgotten what it was to be human.

Angel squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, drops of water flying away from him. He backed out of the spray, still no closer to figuring out how his dreams could have been shared by someone who not only didn't sleep and had no blood to carry a link, but technically didn't exist. And why dream about that, anyway? If anything, Cordelia or Connor should have been on his mind.

At the thought of his son, he moved back into the shower, not wanting to know where the water ended and the tears began. Connor was doing so well, but he would never have believed it was possible to miss him more than when the child had been taken to Quor'Toth. It had been the right decision; he knew it was, but it didn't make his heart hurt any less. A few minutes later, under the spray of water that still ran hot, he reached out blindly for shampoo. Only the best water heaters at Wolfram and Hart, he thought disjointedly.

On the exterior, Angel was calm as he walked into the living room to where Spike was waiting, looking out over the smoggy city. "Still here?" he asked, tugging his shirtsleeve down until it showed beneath the leather jacket. He'd known he was there, of course. Even as a spirit, Spike produced a strong aura.

"We have to talk, Angel." Spike turned from the window and eyed the severe figure. "Haven't made any colors darker than black yet?" Then he grimaced. "Sorry. Didn't mean it. Sort of comes automatically 'round you."

"We don't have anything to talk about." It was odd to see that fire flare up in blue eyes that weren't real, what he'd always thought of as the light of battle. He should have seen it coming, but he'd dismissed Spike as any kind of threat since the week after the amulet arrived in the mail. "Oof!" Angel found himself sitting on the couch, the sensation of very strong hands on his shoulders, and Spike's angry eyes inches from his own.

"Yeah, actually, we do." He let go and paced away. "Figure if any two creatures on this planet have anything to talk about, it has to be us." Spike stopped and looked down at him. "Angel… this isn't just the infamous brooding you're doing, man. 'S'not healthy. Something's eatin' at you. Tell me."

Angel stared up at him wordlessly. He shouldn't be surprised by this, either; the boy always had more than his fair share of insight. _Tell me._ He had a momentary, crazy urge to do just that, to spill his dirty secrets about this place, to confide his hopes and worries about his son, to put his head in his hands and weep for Cordelia in the presence of someone who wouldn't condemn him. A century of solitude wouldn't let him. "Why do you even care?" he managed finally, and winced on the inside. He'd heard the same thing, at one time or another, from Faith.

The question seemed to take Spike aback. "Dunno. Just do, is all." He looked away, his lips pressing into a momentary thin line. "We're family, Angel," the blond man admitted. "We've never really been close, but we are family." Spike sat down cautiously on the couch. "I'm worried about you."

Turning his head, Angel examined the other man. Instead of sitting in his usual sprawl, legs thrown apart, Spike was almost huddled in the corner, his arms wrapped around himself, as if he feared he would fly apart. Angel thought of the agony he'd seen on the expressive face as Spike reassembled from the amulet into quasi-reality. Being burned from the inside out had stamped its mark on him, and something in Angel cried out against that. Was it just bravado when it went all the way to the bone? Nothing was supposed to faze him. Angel didn't want to see him changed by anything, not if Angelus hadn't been able to bend him. It was almost scary to see Spike show that much reaction, because the boy had always been stoic, had a high threshold for pain. He'd scream if he had to, then spit in your eye.

"You're some kind of a ghost, and you're worried about me?" Angel tried to divert him.

"I am." There was a good deal of gravitas about him, despite the defensive posture, despite the non-existence.

He hated Spike then, sudden and fierce. He might be non-corporeal, but nothing broke him: not torture, not death, not even a soul. He'd never crept through the gutter, living off rats, never gone half-crazy from decades-long solitude. What did he know? "Well, it's not about you," Angel said, anger burning in his throat. He stood up and strode toward the elevator. "Float off and bother someone else. I've got work to do."

"'Kinnell, Angel, you miserable git!" Spike shot from the couch, furious. Then he seemed to deflate, shaking his head. "Can't say I didn't give it a bash."

Angel heard the elevator approaching, so he turned back to the blond man, wanting to get rid of him for a good long while. "What's that phrase you use? You're gettin' on my tits, Spike. Sod off." He'd timed it perfectly, and the elevator doors opened. Before he could make his dramatic exit, though, the brat one-upped him.

"Fuck off, yourself," Spike spat, flashing the v's. Then he walked directly through the window and disappeared into the morning light.

Angel couldn't help the automatic, visceral fear that knotted in his gut at the thought of Spike falling thirty-two floors, burning the whole way. Then he kicked himself for being stupid. He stepped into the elevator and turned his back on the ugly scene he'd made. At least now maybe the boy would get it through that thick head of his that he just wanted to be left alone.

⸹

November 2003

Spike walked stiffly into Angel's office, bruises not yet healed (reveling in them, though, brilliant to have flesh to bruise again), straight to the elevator that went to the penthouse. He expected it to be shut down, but after a moment, the doors slid obediently open. Spike took an unnecessary breath and pressed the up button. The Angel Investigations regulars had given him the hairy eyeball, but who else was going to face Angel after this whole Shanshu prophecy fiasco?

"Angel?" Spike stepped into the dark living room. He hadn't been here in a while. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

"Go away, Spike." Angel sounded bone-weary.

"Not a chance, Peaches." He followed the voice to the bedroom, where he found his grandsire sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his ruined shirt in his hands. Spike stood in the doorway for a moment, regarding him, but the dark-haired man didn't look up. "Do you want me to check you over?"

"No. I'm good. Or I will be, once you go away." He still had injuries on the outside, but they would heal. The inside was another matter.

"'M not going anywhere, so give it a rest." Spike shrugged off his coat and tossed it on the dresser, then sat down on the other corner of the mattress.

"What do you want now?"

"Not here to make you submit, either."

Angel stiffened. "I wouldn't."

"I know that," Spike said patiently. "'S'why 'm not gonna bother." He made a dismissive gesture. "You know me, Angel. Not my thing. When I was the Master of Sunnydale, either the minions went along, or I killed them. The whole vampire dominance scene never did appeal to me."

"Then why are you here?"

"Did you hear me, Peaches? Either the minions went along, or I killed them."

Angel sighed, too tired from the defeat and the fight and the long trip to care very much. "Then you'll have to hear her bitch about it."

Nonplussed, Spike studied the bowed head, the slumped shoulders. He tried another tack, his voice softening. "You're no minion, Liam. You're family."

Angel looked over at him, finally, surprise touching him though the numbness. "We just spent the last few hours trying to kill each other… Will. Or have you forgotten?"

Spike touched his jaw gingerly. "Haven't forgotten." He sighed and looked away. "Wanted to apologize."

"What?" The boy had never, not once, done what was expected of him.

Grimacing, Spike fell back onto the soft bed, looking up at the ceiling. "You can't imagine how good it felt to be real again, to be corporeal. Better than feeding, better than sex. God," he groaned suddenly, "I've got to apologize to Harm."

Wincing a little, Angel twisted to look at him. "Harmony tried to kill you, too."

"No, she didn't. Was fallout from that spell to make us both look like wankers. Had nothing to do with her." He put his forearm over his eyes. "Got to apologize because I used her and, uh, didn't give her my best. Not what she was expectin', I mean."

"So, no more stealing my secretary for nooners?" Angel asked acidly. It occurred to him that Spike was weary, too, by the way his words slurred.

"No. Administrative assistant, by the way. Keep up with the times, old man." He moved his arm and met Angel's eyes, unable to resist. "I am gonna steal Fred tomorrow at lunch, though." He waited the two seconds it took for the sense of Angel's fury to reach him. "We're takin' the Viper to some taco stand she likes." Spike closed his eyes, a look of ecstasy sliding over his face. "'S'been months since I had spicy food. Money was tight back in Sunnydale, at the end. Many mouths to feed, so it was rice, pasta, and these horrible fluorescent pink hot dogs most of the time. And even the pasta was undercooked, because the electric–"

"What do you mean, money was tight? You have money."

Spike shrugged. "Left all the stashes alone. Figured Dru would need them. Used what I had in Sunnydale finding the Gem of Amara, then I wasn't exactly in a position to get more money – or leave Sunnydale. Did come into some more folding, but it ran out at the end."

Angel wanted to say something along the lines of, you should have come to me. But why would the boy ever come to him? "So now you need money to wine and dine the ladies."

He opened his eyes again. "Fred's a human, Angel. I'm not about to start anything with her."

Angel grunted, not wanting the blond man to know he'd gotten to him. "You were going to apologize?"

"Yeah." Spike sat back up. "I hate being played. So do you. I acted like a complete berk, let whoever it is here at Wolfram and Hart run their little scam." He shook his head. "Sometimes I look at you, all I can think of is me in a wheelchair and you takin' Dru upstairs. That's what I'm sorry for. You're not Angelus. I know that, or I should."

"I am Angelus," he disagreed, "for all intents and purposes." Angel crumpled the shirt between his fingers. "Still want to make _you_ submit."

"Never happen." Spike's voice was hard again.

"I know." He looked up at the ceiling, turning his neck slightly from side to side, trying to ease the ache. "I can't help it – Scourge of Europe, you know, that kind of thing." Angel took two deep breaths. "You betrayed me in Sunnydale. Angelus, I mean. Making the deal with the Slayer. And I hate that you… that you ever touched Buffy."

Spike was quiet for a long time, staring at his boots. "I love Buffy." He let the words hang there for a moment. "You don't know her anymore, Liam. I remember what she was like back then, full of sass and happier than she realized. She's lost her mum since. She's met beings that were stronger, that she shouldn't have had to fight, shouldn't have been able to fight, but she did – kicked their arses, too. And she's died and been pulled back from heaven because the children missed her."

Angel stared at him, aghast. "She… she was in heaven?"

"Yeah – where else would she go? In heaven and happy for the first time since… since she had to send you to hell, I s'pose." At least the great poof was thinking about something other than his own misery. "Before she died, the Slayer tried to do what you told her, tried to find someone human and have a normal life." His jaw tightened suddenly, and he found he could not look at the other man, for fear he would hit him. "God damn you for ever saying that. You should have stayed."

"What kind of life could she have with me?" Angel said bitterly. "No good to her during the day or the night."

"You think she's stupid because she hasn't read Hegel, because she's blond? She knew damn well you'd been alone for a hundred years, and you knew damn well Slayers don't live long. No matter what sort of noble line you gave her, what she heard was that you weren't going to hang around and wank off by yourself for two or three years 'til she got killed, that she wasn't worth it."

"That's not true," Angel protested. "I just wanted her to have a chance–"

"It wasn't yours to give! She lost any chance when she was Chosen!" Spike gritted his teeth and started again in a calmer voice. "'Ve been pickin' up the pieces for the past two years, Angel, and some of them cut me. So, yeah, I'm bitter." He turned to his grandsire, putting one knee on the mattress, keeping his boot off the comforter. "There's always going to be woman trouble between us. But the fact is, we both love Buffy and want her to be happy. Just like we both care about Dru."

Angel shook his head. "It's more than that." He reluctantly met the blue eyes. "Every time I look at you, I see…" His voice trailed away. "I see the things I've done to you, what I made of you. Dru was my masterpiece, but you were… You think I'm not proud that you've killed two Slayers in single combat? That I don't feel guilty about it?" He turned away, hiding the anguish. "I was supposed to get my own Slayer. The First Evil delivered me from hell to kill her, after Buffy had to close Acathla. I was insane from the torture when I came back, but even then, I couldn't bring myself to hurt her. She was the only good thing in my life, ever, and look what I did to her." He swallowed, blinking away the tears. "I was supposed to kill her, and when I didn't, the First Evil got in my head, made me see my victims." His voice was ragged. "You were one of them, Will. Never really thought of you like that until the First Evil showed me. You were…."

Spike realized his mouth was hanging open. "Liam," he said, his voice rough with emotion. But, for him, words were never as good as actions. He moved closer and pulled Angel into a loose embrace, the dark head against his shoulder. Amazingly, the older vampire didn't resist. "First Evil trapped me on the Hellmouth for months. Didn't know that, did you? Got in my head, made me think I'd let my Bit – let Dawn get killed. Made me crazy, got to see all sorts of fun people from my past. Guess you know the drill. Showed me you a couple of times, Angelus, I mean, but that's all. Couldn't use your face to yank my chain. 'M not your victim, yeah?

"We're vampires. 'S'what we do, hurt things. You taught me how to fight and survive, mate. I'll always owe you for that." Not needing breath, vampires cried silently, but Spike could smell the coppery tears, feel the cool dampness on his shirt. He rubbed the broad back, perfectly aware the tears had almost nothing to do with him. "The rest of it, your… methods… Can't change the past. Sometimes I'll think of something that makes me want to knock ten bells out of you." Spike smiled a little. "Can't change that, either. We're not just vampires anymore, though. Both have souls, yeah?"

"No idea how happy it made me to hear that," Angel managed, his voice dry even if his face wasn't. He had seldom found anyone with the capacity for forgiveness.

Spike chuckled. "I can imagine." He sighed, then. "Always seem to be trailin' you, followin' in your footsteps. Dru, my Slayer, the soul. Doesn't make me happy either, sloppy seconds."

"Could have done without the visual, boy."

He bit down on ten different and equally insulting things that came to mind. "Doesn't signify. Listen, Peaches. I sorta liked you, just a bit, after you got your soul, when we were traveling to China."

"The dream," Angel said heavily.

"Yeah. That. Dunno why–"

"Or how."

"Or how," Spike agreed. "But I figure it has to mean something."

Angel took a breath, but instead of speaking, he lifted his head and pulled Spike toward him, touching their foreheads together in the old gesture of affection. He closed his eyes again. "Why did you come here? Really? 'Cause you still haven't apologized."

"Yeah, I did. S'the same reason I came up here before I got the body." He pulled away from the other man, meeting his eyes. "Only now, you can't get rid of me. Something's eatin' at you. You're depressed, you're withdrawn, and you're not talking to anyone." Spike put his hands on either side of his grandsire's face. "But you're gonna talk to me."

Angel covered the cool hands with his own, but shook his head. "I can't tell you the half of it." He wouldn't tell him about Connor, of course, and he couldn't tell Spike about the jealousy that wracked him every time he thought of the younger vampire and the things that he was taking from him – a mission, Buffy, the Shanshu.

"Then tell me the other half," Spike said reasonably.

He shook his head again. "I – It's not that easy." Angel pulled back from the comfort, picking his shirt up again. He turned his face away, winced a little.

The blond man let out an impatient breath, then shifted again on the bed. His strong fingers dug into the muscles along Angel's neck, making his grandsire tense up before he realized it wasn't an attack. "Sure it is. Just speakin,' runnin' your mouth. You could go on for hours, as I recall." He smiled with satisfaction as the muscles beneath his fingers began to relax. "Now, I reckon I'm the head of the Order of Aurelius – again – having decisively kicked your arse and spared your life, so attend me and tell me your problems, mate. An' I can feel that. Tell your demon to put a sock in it. 'S your soul I want to hear from.

"Where'd you learn to give a massage like this?" Angel asked, playing for time.

"Innate demon knowledge of human anatomy plus strong fingers," Spike said shortly. "Talk." His voice was softer as he added, "Tell me about the cheerleader."

Angel was silent. The boy never did get the killer instinct, not to his high standard, but Spike did not give up. He had been after him for weeks to talk. Worn down by exhaustion and sadness, Angel finally gave in.

"There was a god, Jasmine… It used Cordelia as a way into this world."

"Gods. Spare me," Spike said, rolling his eyes. "Ruthless, cared nothing for the humans it had to stomp on, am I right?"

"Yes… and no. Jasmine acted as though she loved humans, but Cordy would have been able to see her for what she was." He went on, telling about the last crazy months. Angel didn't tell Spike who Jasmine's father was, and he didn't ask, probably assuming Jasmine herself engendered the pregnancy. He talked for over an hour, and it was a relief to tell someone about being Angelus again, to tell someone how much it hurt when Cordelia turned from him, that it was worse to realize that it had never been Cordelia. By the time his voice trailed away, his head was resting against Spike's torso, still a perfect pillow, strong fingers smoothing his brow. It felt… right.

"So, this Jasmine was gainin' power from her worshippers, and you were able to kill her once they saw her for what she was?"

"Yeah, she's dead now," he replied evasively.

"And that's why Watcher Boy is stretched so tight, over the murder of the lady brief?"

"You think he's stretched tight?"

"Reminds me of Dru, mate. Keep wonderin' when he's gonna snap."

Angel pondered this, unable to dismiss it out of hand. Spike had always been able to read people. It was one of the things that had kept him alive those first, brutal years of unlife. "I'll talk to him." Lilah and Wesley. It still gave him the creeps.

"Best thing for both of you." Spike sighed, feeling the night wearing on. "Reckon I should go."

Angel sat up and turned to look at him. "Where are you going to go?"

"Oh." He recovered and gave him a rakish grin. "Hadn't thought that far ahead. I'll doss somewhere."

"Stay." God, he hated to make himself vulnerable, but if he let the boy go now, he was afraid he'd never come back. As much as he resented him, even sometimes hated him, he wasn't willing to cut that last link with family.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "What will people think?" His tone was silky, but full of humor.

"Well, as long as it isn't Angelus who goes down to the office tomorrow morning, they won't think anything of it."

He raised the other eyebrow. "Good as I am, I don't think I'm quite the one to give you that moment of perfect happiness, mate."

Angel rolled his eyes. "As if. I'm trying to do you a favor, Spike." He shrugged, uncomfortable, thinking of what the blond ghost had said about his money and position of power.

"Well, 's'not like I'm wadded up," he agreed. "Stupid amulet sent me back with my clothes, could have at least reincarnated what I had in my coat. My lighter, anyway." He pushed himself to the edge of the bed and stood up. "Couch seemed pretty comfy, even when I was a spirit."

"You could stay here," Angel said, not looking at him. "Family bed."

Spike stared, his brows drawn together at this unexpected offer. "Nah, better not," he said after a beat. "Don't trust myself, not with the new body an' all. Vampire, yeah? Feedin' and fightin' and fuckin.' But, thanks."

"You're welcome." Angel watched Spike grab his coat and leave the room, listened to him settle onto the sofa. He scooted off the bed and undid his trousers, leaving them where they fell on the floor, then climbed back in, burrowing beneath the covers. It shouldn't feel so comforting, the steady sense of Spike's presence in the other room, not after they had fought for hours. But he was asleep in seconds, resting better than he had in months.

Sleep was more elusive for the blond vampire. He lay on the couch, his head resting on his folded coat, thinking about the practical aspects of being corporeal. Spike had let his body be in charge most of the day, from the first sip of blood to the glorious fight with his grandsire. Now it was time to use the old noodle, never his strongest suit. He had to figure out a way to get money, find a place to stay during the daylight hours. With Sunnydale destroyed, everything he owned was gone. Angel was probably going to offer him a job, but damned if he'd work for Wolfram and Hart. Gambling, he supposed. Dru had once told him that he'd been born a few decades too late, that he was meant to be a riverboat gambler. He smiled at the thought. She'd also variously told him he was meant to be a knight, a troubadour, a lion tamer, and a firefighter, that last a great occupation for a vampire. At least he would find higher stakes games in Los Angeles. If he never saw another kitten on the table, he'd be happy. He'd get Angel to stake him (and won't he love that offer), and he could pay him back right away with—

Buffy.

Kitten poker, Clem, liquor, that adorable 'gaah' sound, and she'd offered to stake him.

He was on the same physical plane as his Slayer again.

Spike sat up and went for the lift in one smooth motion, too agitated to stay still. Looked like he'd be walking the halls of Wolfram and Hart one final night.

In his bedroom, Angel woke up, sensing Spike's departure. He moved at speed and got to the living room just as the elevator reached his office. He debated going after him, but all he had on was a pair of boxers. By the time he was dressed, Spike would probably be out of the building. Then he spied the dark mound of the leather coat, folded and left at one end of the couch. Angel closed his eyes in relief. It was Spike's only possession. The boy wouldn't leave that behind.

Spike went to the nearest stairwell and started down. When he got to the basement, he went back up to the thirty-first floor, going as hard as he could. On foot, he could outrun horses, outlast horses. Once, he hadn't been able to outrun a cheetah in Africa, but his fangs had been more dangerous than the cat's. Someday he was going to go into the ocean and find a shark to challenge. Next time he was in Australia, maybe, or South Africa. He stood beneath the roof access, stretching his arms, rolling out his neck. Spike went to demon, then shook it off. Everything in working order.

No excuses.

He began the familiar walk through the corridors, calmer now. He'd make the call to Giles tomorrow. Spike smiled suddenly, realizing that the thought of speaking to the Watcher filled him with happy anticipation rather than nervousness. He could do for his family now, protect them. Embrace them. For a moment, he had an unexpected empathy for the First Evil, who had gambled so much for a chance at corporeality. He laughed aloud, feeling more alive than he had anytime in the past eighteen hours.

"You all right, Mr. Spike?" Roger asked, coming around the corner and letting his hand fall from his nightstick as he saw who was laughing.

"'M good, Roger, real good." He walked up to the security guard and took his brown hand, shaking it.

"Mr. Spike!"

"Just Spike, Roger. Just Spike." He gave the man a hug and a backslap. "Yeah, got all my parts back."

"Well, that is real good, Mr. – uh, Spike." The smile on his face was genuine.

"Here, mind if I walk with you?"

"No. So, does this mean you're going to be leaving us?"

The question surprised Spike. "Dunno. Just happened a little while ago. Haven't even been in touch with my family yet. Why do you ask?"

Roger shrugged, uncomfortable. "You're not exactly the Wolfram and Hart type."

"Well, thanks. Neither are you."

"Good benefits," Roger said, shrugging again, turning away to check a door.

"Didn't have to sign a contract, did you?"

"No. Punch a clock."

"Best way to go."

"So, where's your family at?"

Spike slowed. "Dunno. We, uh, all lived in Sunnydale." Where were they? Still together? Scattered? Before, it hadn't mattered, had been easier to not know, since he couldn't be with them, anyway.

"Oh." Roger's eyes widened, and Spike could see the cogs turning. "Is that how you, uh…?"

"Yeah." He said shortly, nodding. "Um, one of 'em was from Bath, in the UK, and my ladies' were originally from here in L.A. Their deadbeat dad lives in Spain, but I don't think they'll be with him. The rest were Sunnydale natives. 'M not sure where they're at now."

Roger raised a bushy eyebrow. "Your 'ladies?'"

"Yeah, my ex and her baby sis. We were still close, 'specially me an' the little girl." His lips curved. Sweet Bit would smack the back of his head for calling her a little girl.

"Got any real family?" Roger asked. "I got three sisters. You can have one or two of those, cheap."

He chuckled. "No, thanks." They walked down the next stairwell before he answered. "Guess Angel's my only real blood kin, that'll speak to me, anyway. But the folks from Sunnydale… they're _mine_. My real family, where I belong. Least, I hope I still belong."

"The big guy is your family?" Roger asked, and Spike could hear the surprise in his voice.

"Yeah." He smiled faintly. "'S complicated."

"Well, I hear Angel is a vampire, and if you're blood kin…"

It was Spike's turn to be surprised. He'd never been quite sure how much Roger and the other hourly employees knew. Plenty, he supposed. Regular people were a lot smarter than evil gave them credit for being. "He's my grandsire," he admitted and flashed his game face for a second.

Roger didn't flinch. "Word is, the CEO has a soul."

"We both do."

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"Means you don't have to worry about me wantin' to neck with you," Spike said, grinning, "but beyond that, I'm still tryin' to figure it out."

Roger stopped walking. "Is he a good guy?"

Spike stopped, too, and looked at the other man. "He's trying, Roger. He tries harder than anyone I've ever seen." It was true, he realized, taken aback by the thought.

"Are you a good guy?"

"Yeah," he said, unthinkingly. Then he laid it on thick; in for a penny, in for a pound. "Died savin' the world from ultimate evil. How do you think I got to be a ghost?"

Roger gave him a narrow look, then grinned. "Yeah, right," he said. "Well, this is fifteen. I've gotta check in. See you later."

"See you, Roger," Spike said, quite satisfied with the conversation. He clapped the guard on the back again, just because he could, and they parted ways. By start of business in a few hours, it would surely be a decent hour to call Giles, whichever side of the pond he was on. The Watcher would know where everyone else was, could pass the word. He was content.

"Spike?"

He turned at the sound. It was the twelfth floor; must be – "Ms. Reyes." The other person he always seemed to encounter on his nightly bimble.

She was standing in the doorway to her office, an empty water bottle in her hand. Her shoes were off, and she walked down the hallway toward him in silent stocking feet. "I heard…" Karalyn hesitated before laying her hand on his chest. "It's true," she said, looking up at him, her white teeth showing in a small smile.

A hundred and twenty-three and I'm not immune to this, Spike thought with dismay. Reyes lowered her lashes and watched her hand trace up his t-shirt over his throat to his jaw, her body moving even closer. Her fingers were incredibly warm, and he swallowed out of reflex.

"Hard to believe someone so beautiful is real," she murmured, her dark eyes meeting his. "Sculptures, maybe," she paused a moment, seeming to expect a reaction, "but flesh…" she stroked his cheek, "and blood…."

His blood was headed in the usual direction. Spike clenched his jaw and took her by the arms, not sure if he was going to pin her against the wall or push her away. "Don't think I know you hardly well enough for such liberties," he managed, settling for simply holding her at arm's length. He wasn't gentle, and the water bottle fell from her fingers.

"You know me well enough to know I won't try to rip out your throat," she said, taking a breath that all but popped the top buttons on the white silk shirt she wore.

Spike let go of her and gave her a wary look. She was very well informed. He wondered if Harmony believed there was no such thing as bad publicity. "I don't do humans, Reyes." Crude, but there it was.

She smiled. "It's Kara," she said, and shot a sidelong look at her open office door. "I could do you, then." Her gaze dropped to the front of his jeans, and her smiled broadened. She met his eyes frankly.

"Why?"

The lawyer lifted one shoulder and took the opportunity to move a step closer. He was amazed all over again. Her every action was so smooth, he could hardly see the calculation. "Maybe because I'm a patron of the arts. I love beautiful, well-made, sculpted…" she paused, again giving him a chance to say something, "objects. Maybe I've always had a yen for a vampire, and you're one of two safe ones in the entire world." Another half-step. "Maybe because I was always nice to you while you were a ghost, so… you owe me something nice in return. Maybe because I know a real champion when I see him." Close, her breasts now brushing his chest, her head tilted so far back that her hair slid from her shoulders to hang straight down her back. "Or maybe because we're two lonely people. Two very…" her hot hand crept back up to touch his bicep, "attractive, unattached, lonely people."

She'd used the wrong word. Oh, he had attachments. "No, thank you," he said, stepping away. "You'll have to find some other way to get your kink out." Spike walked past her, focusing hard on not breathing, because it would sure as hell be shaky if he did. He went into the stairwell and started back up to the penthouse, six floors up before Reyes could cover the distance in the hallway to the fire door.

Since he'd fallen in love with Buffy, he'd slept with, what, three other women? Harmony, Drusilla, and Anya back in Sunnydale and Harm again today. Hell, he didn't even trust himself in the same bed with Peaches tonight. What did that make him? God, he was the proverbial dog with two dicks. He hadn't even thought about Buffy, just reveled in his newfound physicality and grabbed poor Harmony for a quickie. By the time he was back on the couch in Angel's living room, the need to breathe had passed. Spike had an idea of what he was going to do in the morning to fix things. Some advice he'd once given Nibblet about the benefits of masturbation came to mind, and he sighed, wishing he would have thought of it earlier.

⸹

"Wakey, wakey," Angel said, managing to keep the sarcasm in his voice to a minimum. He opened the blinds, letting the sunlight fall over the sleeping form of the other Aurelian. Spike flinched, throwing his hands over his face.

"Ha bloody ha," he said sourly, lowering his arms as he remembered the fancy windows.

"I won't ask if you slept well," Angel said, pushing Spike's bare feet off the couch and taking a seat. "Where'd you go last night?"

"Did a walk-through," he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "Old times' sake."

The dark-haired man nodded and held out something. "Here you go. Harmony checked. They're not making any darker colors."

Spike took the offered bundle and unfolded stiff new black jeans and two black t-shirts. Startled, he met Angel's amused eyes. "Harm got these for me?"

He shook his head. "Fred asked her to arrange for it, since she knew your sizes."

"Oh. Nice of Fred." Spike thought about a shower, an idea his body enthusiastically seconded. "Mind if I clean up?"

"Go ahead. I'm done."

"Always loved showers, ever since the first one I had."

"First time I had a shower was in Memphis. Still remember it," Angel mused.

"Geneva for me," Spike said. "Hate baths."

Angel raised a brow. "You didn't always." He had watched Will in a tub with Drusilla on more than one occasion.

"Well, that was before there were alternatives." He stood up, stretching. Then he stretched again, just because it felt so good. Spike spotted the telephone and turned abruptly to his grandsire. "Say, what's Fred's number?"

"Here? Just dial 6254."

"Thanks."

Angel watched him make the call and listened to the one-sided conversation with interest. When the blond man hung up, he asked curiously, "Flowers for Harmony?"

"Yeah." Shrug.

"She tried to kill – Never mind."

"Took advantage of her, didn't I?"

Angel shook his head. In his mind, Harmony was just a vampire, but Spike obviously thought of her as a person, when he thought of her. "Gonna send me flowers?"

"When did I ever take advantage of you?"

"Caught me at a weak moment last night." Angel studied his fingernails.

"For your own good," Spike said, frowning. "You needed to open up to someone, Peaches."

"Goes both ways."

"Guess it does," Spike said, sitting back down. "Right, then. I'm assuming you have a contact number for Rupert."

Even though he knew it was inevitable, Angel felt his jaw tighten. "I do."

"Will you call him for me? Just don't want him to hear my voice first, cause a heart attack or something. That'd be a pisser, huh?"

"Sure."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He stood from the couch and went to the window. "Go get cleaned up, then we'll call."

Spike was behind him, touching his shoulder. "What's wrong?" When his grandsire didn't reply, his voice grew stern. "Went through this last night. Talk."

"What will you do now?" It was tangential, but it would do.

The younger vampire shrugged. "Poker. Figured I'd fleece the local population." He smiled, delivering his line. "I was going to ask you to stake me."

Angel, frowning, didn't follow up on the opening. "You can work here."

He shook his head. "Not gonna work for Wolfram and Hart."

"Too good to work here?"

"Yeah. You are, too, point of fact." He touched the tense shoulder again. "It's evil here, Angel. I know you can feel it."

"I'm making a difference."

Spike started to argue, but he heard the stubborn edge in his grandsire's voice. "Whatever. Be back out in a few."

Angel watched him as he headed toward the bathroom, fighting the urge to go after him and have it out again. There was nothing here to tempt Spike to stay, not the way there had been things to lure the others in Angel Investigations. He was going to lose his other –

Not my son, he thought viciously, clenching his jaw. If he sometimes thought of Spike as his child, he shouldn't. The fledge was long gone; Spike had been a master vampire since he was twenty, could have been one earlier if he'd applied himself and learned to control the mesmer. If he took a parent's pride in the boy's achievements, it didn't matter. It was in the past. And if he was proud of the good in him now, it still didn't make him a substitute for Connor.

Most of the feelings he had for Spike weren't fatherly, anyway – resentment, jealousy, possessiveness. Angel walked to the window and looked out over the city. The boy kept saying they were family, and it wouldn't occur to him to define it beyond that. They fought like brothers yesterday, Spike had played the parent last night, holding him with such understanding, and the possibility of becoming physically involved again had been there, too. For the blond man, 'family' nicely encapsulated all of that. Watching traffic inch its way along L.A.'s clogged streets below, Angel sighed. Being the older vampire with a soul was confusing enough around Spike, even without the issues of the Shanshu prophecy and the desire for a certain Slayer.

Buffy would be in town within three days, he had no doubt. She was in Italy now, working for the restructured Council of Watchers. The difference in the warrior she had been when he gave her the amulet and the quiet woman in the back of the Sunnydale bus was dramatic. Losing Spike had taken the life out of her; there was no other way to describe it. Once she learned he was back, she would fly in, welcome her lover back into her arms, and take him to Europe with her. And Angel would say he was happy for her, for them, and then he would be alone.

Not alone, he told himself sternly. There was Wesley, his best friend, and Fred and Gunn meant more to him than any humans ever had. And there was Cordelia. As long as she was alive, there was hope.

But he had never let them be family.

"All done. Borrowed some of your hair gel. Now I feel all poncey, wanting a manicure and to get manscaped," Spike drawled, walking into the living room, dark leather billowing about him.

Angel turned from the window. "You look good," he said. He could be polite, at least.

Clearly surprised, Spike faltered. "Uh, you do, too," he said, gesturing at Angel's suit. "All _GQ_." He pretended to shoot his cuffs, as if he was wearing anything more than a t-shirt. "Let's unleash two damned handsome Aurelians on your evil law firm."

"Time to go to work, I guess." They met at the elevator, Angel watching Spike's expressive face tighten into dislike. He tensed, ready to protect himself, his emotions.

"That Eve bint's in your office," Spike said, inclining his head.

"Yeah," Angel agreed, relaxing, letting his senses drift downward. It isn't always about you, he reminded himself. The car arrived, and they stepped inside. "She's here to find out how badly we tore into each other so she can report to the Senior Partners."

"Stupid bloody twig." A certain glint appeared in Spike's eyes. Three seconds before the elevator came to its soft landing, he turned to the dark-haired man. "Angel?"

"Wha–?" Spike's hand was on his neck, pulling his head down, and the boy kissed him just as the doors slid open. He got it right away. Forcing himself not to smile, Angel gave as good as he got, cupping the cool jaw.

"Bit of rough for me," Spike murmured, infusing his deep voice with satisfied desire, "but last night… Better than you've had in years, yeah?" He pressed his forehead to his grandsire's and tipped him a wink. Turning away, he strode out of the elevator. "Eve," he said serenely. "You're here at crack of sparrow's fart."

Angel filed away the shocked look on Eve's face for future enjoyment, then watched Spike swagger through his office, coat flapping like a bird lazily stretching its wings. He was pretty sure the blond had insulted him, always the deflecting gesture, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The two of them against an enemy, nothing more than that insane little display, but it felt good, natural. They were family; blood was thicker than all else, even when warped by vampirism.

He let his eyes soften and linger on Spike until he was out the door, continuing to play the scene. One thing was sure: it was livelier with the boy around, even if his impulsive ideas backfired often as not. Angel's expression hardened and he turned to glare at Eve. "Why are you in my office? Again?"

She recovered from her surprise and got up from the arm of the chair to come toward him. She tried to move in a slink, but it always struck Angel as a little girl trying to be provocative, dressed up in big sister's clothes. He still hadn't entirely forgiven Lorne for the fact that he'd slept with her. It's a wonder he hadn't broken half her bones, and that was all the proof he needed that she wasn't human.

"Good morning. Sleep well?" Eve purred.

"Better than I have in weeks," he replied, echoing Spike's comment, his implication about their own coupling obvious.

Her eyes narrowed. "So," she said, picking up the nameplate from his desk, then putting it back down a couple of inches out of place, "the other ensouled vampire is corporeal again, and the world goes on. And you welcome him with open arms."

"Gosh, Eve. Do you have a point? Oh, never mind." Angel gave her a false smile. "I forgot for a moment your existence is pointless."

Unfazed, Eve shot him a crafty look. "Figured out yet what you're going to do with him?"

Angel ignored the innuendo in her voice. "He's a master vampire. He'll do what he wants. You'd do well to remember that," he added.

She leaned against his desk. "That race you two made to the desert yesterday… I can't help but wonder," She gave him a sly smile, "who ended up on top?"

He leaned across the desk. "We've both been on top, one time or another." He gave her the non-answer as well as a shot of pure, unadulterated lust through his own rudimentary ability with the mesmer. He'd been inside her; it was easy to do. Angel waited as she swallowed hard, her cheeks flushing, and straightened up. He let his eyes flick over her, dismissing her. "Get out, Eve. Not interested in anything you're offering."

She stumbled a little on her high heels as she stomped out of his office, shooting a glare at him over her shoulder.

"They're gorgeous, Spike," Harmony said, smiling at him over an enormous spray of yellow and white roses.

"Not as gorgeous as you," Spike replied smoothly. Fred had done her usual intuitively wonderful work. "White to match your fair skin," he reached out to stroke her hair where it fell over her shoulder, "and a yellow almost beautiful enough to match your hair."

"Oh, blondie bear," she said, leaning over the desk to hug him.

"Wanted to apologize, pet," he said, trying to gauge the embrace, not wanting her to read too much into it. He pulled away a bit. "Wasn't well done of me. Got my body back, took one look at you," he grinned and shook his head, continuing in a lower voice, "you know that made me hard. But you're not a quickie, Harm. You deserved better than that."

"So you're not mad at me for trying to kill you?"

He scoffed. "Wasn't your fault. 'Sides, haven't had a girlfriend in a century who hasn't tried to kill me, one time or another. And you did get me these clean clothes." From the corner of his eye, he watched Eve stalk out of Angel's office. "Think nothing of it."

She looked between him and the flower arrangement. "The other girls in the office are going to be so jealous," she said, her voice full of satisfaction. Harmony gave him an assessing look, as if she would like him to perch on the other end of her desk as an object of envy. "You could come over after work, you know. I promise I won't try to tear your throat out this time, or nothing."

"Harmony."

"Yes, bossy – um, boss?" She jumped, looking a little guilty, and turned to face Angel.

"I'm not paying you to make dates. Go get me some blood – and make it warm this time."

"Mind gettin' me a cuppa, too, Harm?"

"Of course not, silly," she said, giving him a fond smile.

The two men watched her walk away. "You're making a mistake," Angel said. "She'll be fitting your for a tuxedo and sending out invitations."

"I can manage her," Spike replied. "Not doin' a roger and dodge 'er this time." He smirked, giving the big vampire a sly look. "Saw Eve march out of your office, reekin' of arousal. What'd you do to her?"

Angel shook his head, looking through the papers Harmony had left out for him without expression. "Nothing. Must have seen something she liked." When Spike chuckled, he gave in, grinning. He met the other Aurelian's laughing eyes, his own dancing. For one of the few times in the past hundred years, his demon and his soul were at peace, happy to be with the boy. "Did you see her face?"

"Whose face?" Fred asked. She walked up to Harmony's desk, Gunn right behind her with an identical Starbucks cup in his hand.

The contented moment was lost, and Angel was surprised at the flash of resentment he felt. "Eve's," Angel said reluctantly, and he began to look a little worried.

"Eve? What has she done now?" Wesley said, arriving from the other direction. Recalling Spike's words, Angel took a good look at him. Behind his glasses, there were new lines framing his eyes, and his unshaven jaw was tight.

"Her? Nothing. 'S'what was done to her," Spike said, satisfaction in his voice.

"What did you do to her?" Fred said, beginning to grin.

"Nothing," Angel mumbled.

"She was waitin' in Angel's office this morning, wantin' to see which of us killed the other," Spike said, warming up to the tale, "so she could dash off and report to these nebulous Senior Partners you've got."

"She was just mad that we're both still here," Angel said, desperately looking for Harmony, for any interruption.

"I knew she was in the office, so when the elevator doors opened, I planted a big one on Angel here." Spike sniggered. "Shoulda seen her face."

"She thought we'd be fighting, you see," Angel said, forcing a smile.

"Stared deep into his lovely browns, told him it was good for me… Stupid cow nearly had one of her own." Spike was in his element, and Angel gave his colleagues a pained smile.

"You stayed in the penthouse last night?" Wesley asked, his quick mind putting together the details.

"Well, yeah," Spike said.

"It's not like he had anywhere else to stay," Angel said quickly. "It was the right thing to do. I mean, anyone would have, right? He's homeless."

Spike gave him a surprised look. "You're babbling, mate." He turned to their audience and met every eye. "I slept on Angel's couch, people."

"Here you go, blondie bear," Harmony said, handing him her own mug, a white one with a pink and gold unicorn on it. "Here, boss." She shoved Angel's cup toward him. "You let Spikey stay here last night? That was sweet of you." She latched onto her ex's arm.

Gunn was grinning hugely, his eyes dancing as he looked at Angel. "Let me get this straight – so to speak: he kissed you?"

"In front of Eve?" Fred squealed, delighted.

"Spike kissed Angel?" Harmony asked, her voice carrying. There was a dip in the noise level on the floor, and Angel slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them, Harmony was staring between the two other vampires, her lips parted. "That is so hot." She absently stroked Spike's biceps.

"Er, yes," Wesley said, his light voice pained and precise. "Be that as it may…"

"Just playin' mind games with Angel's liaison, love," Spike said, patting Harmony's hand.

"Exactly," Angel said, pointing an adamant finger.

"Oh," Harmony sounded disappointed, and Spike patted her hand again. She propped her chin on his shoulder, her heated gaze on Angel. "Because, you know, boy-boy-girl."

"Or Charlize Theron," he said gravely. "I remember." Then he shot Angel a mock look of reproval. "Peaches, where are your manners?"

"Uh, thanks, Harmony." His voice was faint. "That's nice of you to, um, think of me…."

Charles was laughing silently, holding his cup of coffee in front of his face. Fred nudged him in the ribs, then took a couple of steps so she could give Angel a hug. "Poor Angel," she said. "We're not making fun of you, honest to Pete. It's just that the thought of you and Spike… it's just too funny, that's all." Angel caught Spike's eye, promising dire and painful consequences if he said another word, and the blond man gave him a private grin.

Gunn put his hand on Spike's shoulder, still laughing. "Less than twenty-four hours on the physical plane, and you've queered Wolfram and Hart."

Looking up at the taller man, he caught the gleam of a fellow prankster in his eyes. "Not even hit my stride yet, Charlie."

"Oh, you're all here," Lorne said, out of breath and holding his side, which was clad in a silk turquoise suit today. He looked around at everyone. "And all right." He shook his head. "I just heard through the grapevine that Angel and Spike were engaged in some sort of vampire mating ritual that had destroyed two floors. I came right down. Thought you could use my help."

Angel put his elbows on Harmony's desk and his head in his hands, moaning a little. Fred, her arm still around his waist, gave him a reassuring squeeze even as she sent another reproving look at Gunn, who had to cough violently to cover his laughter.

Meanwhile, Spike had thrown his head back and was laughing aloud. "Vampires don't have rituals," he managed. "Just the mating."

"Lorne?" Harmony asked abruptly. "Can you get me in touch with Charlize Theron?"

Angel raised his head and met Wesley's eyes. "You see?" he asked. "The boy just causes trouble. He's like a… a chaos magnet."

Spike puckered up and blew him a kiss. "Aw, Peaches, don't be like that." He put his tongue against his teeth for a second and continued in that maddening tone of voice that made everything he said sound sexual. "You know you like havin' me near to hand."

"Shut up, Spike."

"At your back."

"Shut up, Spike."

"By your–"

"Shut up, Spike!" He glared at Harmony until she let go of the other blond. "Enough. We've got work to do." He glared at everyone until most of the smiles died away.

"Yes," Wesley said, sounding just as relieved as Angel looked.

"Right, then," Spike agreed. "Like calling Giles. Good time for it, yeah?"

"Rupert Giles?" Wesley echoed.

"Wait just a minute," Harmony said, her hands on her hips. "He's like, Buffy's Wesley or something. You're trying to get in touch with _her_ ," she accused. "After what we shared yesterday?"

"What? A hunk of flesh from my throat?" Spike shot back. "They're my family, Harm. Rupes, the Summers ladies – they got a right to know I'm back."

Harmony glared at him, but didn't say anything. She stomped to her chair, pulled the thin stack of papers from beneath Angel's elbow, and shoved them in his inbox.

"Whoa, Harmonica," Lorne said, stepping in to smooth things over. "These are beautiful flowers."

She sent another poisonous glare at Spike. "Thank you, Lorne."

"Let's go in the office," Fred suggested, giving the blond woman a nervous look.

"Oh, God, yes," Angel agreed. He turned to go through his door only to find Spike was trying to go in at the same time.

The younger vampire waved him on. "After you… sweetheart."

Lightning fast, Angel's hand shot out and smacked the back of the blond head. Spike's lips curled in a sneer as Angel went by him. Then, just as fast, he smacked Angel on the ass. The big vampire paused, listening to Gunn choke back renewed laughter, then simply walked on. He knew from long experience that the best course of action was to let it go, bide his time, and make the brat pay some other way.

He sat down at his desk, moved his nameplate back where it belonged, then ran through the morning meeting in record time. Wesley hadn't learned anything new, although he had pored over all extant references to the Shanshu through the night. Angel thanked him and sternly sent him away with instructions to go home to sleep, not just back to his desk to nap. Fred apologetically asked for additional funds for the research department, sending Spike a fond look as she obliquely mentioned her quarterly budget was depleted. Angel authorized a transfer from domestic surveillance. Lorne reported that he had just made the firm three million in representation fees on a film about a rap star reincarnated as a poodle, so the CEO changed his mind and gave Fred funds from the entertainment division instead. Gunn caught him up on a couple of cases close to trial, and they were done. Angel cleared everyone except Spike out of his office.

The blond man had sat apart from the Angel Investigation regulars through the meeting, his knees close together and his arms wrapped around himself. The sight put Angel on edge; the boy was supposed to be full of piss and vinegar, not nerves. If he had to be this way, why couldn't it have hit half an hour ago, before the firm grapevine had them both picking out tuxedos? "Ready?" he asked.

"As I'll ever be," Spike replied. He stood up, and it was as if a mantle had fallen around him. He strode over to Angel's desk, straight and strong as a sapling, his blue eyes aglow with battle light and his head at an arrogant cant.

Angel blinked. "All right." He pulled his Rolodex close to him, took out his personal cell phone, a holdover from Angel Investigations, and began punching in the number. The boy started to pace.

"Hi, Rupert. It's Angel. Is it a good time?"

Spike only heard an indistinct murmur, so he moved closer, around the desk.

"I'm in full possession of my soul," his grandsire said patiently. "Listen, I've got some news. It isn't bad news," he looked at Spike, "I don't think, anyway, but you may want to sit down."

"Good news? From you?" Spike grinned helplessly as he heard the Watcher's dry tone.

"Um, surprising news, anyway." Angel looked up. Spike was hovering over him now, but he backed off at his grandsire's frown. "Remember that amulet I brought to Buffy the night before–"

"I'm hardly likely to forget it." Listening to Giles' acerbic tone, Spike's brows drew together. Angel wasn't the Watcher's favorite person – torture tends to make humans wary of a person – but he had never known him to be so cold toward the big vampire. Rupert was better than most at keeping Angel separate from Angelus.

"The thing is, someone – I don't know who – sent it back to me. It came in the mail."

"Yes. That is surprising," Giles agreed, engaged despite himself. "I-I suppose it could have been charmed to return to a particular place at a particular time. Otherwise, I don't see how it could have been recovered from the sinkhole."

"The amulet is just the beginning, Rupert. The real news is–"

"Tell him this is like when Willow called him about Buffy when he was in England. That way he'll know what to expect."

"Angel…."

Rupert's voice sounded faint, even with the phone to his ear. "Spike came back with the amulet," Angel said flatly.

"That sounded like Spike." Then it seemed to sink in. "Spike… came back?"

"Yeah. He's here in my office. Soul and everything," he added, even though it cost him.

"May I…" Giles cleared his voice. "May I speak to him?"

Angel handed the phone over wordlessly. Spike took it, nervousness making his fingers numb, almost dropping it. His grandsire stood up and clapped him on the shoulder, then walked to the couch, giving him a bit of privacy.

"'Lo, Watcher."

"Spike. Oh dear. Is it really you?"

"Yeah. In the flesh." He laughed a shaky laugh. "'M back."

"When? How?"

"Dunno, Rupes. Last thing I remember is channeling light, destroying Turok-Han and everything else, burning up from the inside – good fun, that – then I was here in Angel's office. Got some missing time. Saw some of the news footage; looks like I closed the Hellmouth. Sorry about dismantling Sunnydale, too." He was grinning now.

Angel turned away, not willing to see him that happy when he felt so isolated himself. Should have left the office, he thought, sighing.

"Sorry – Good lord, man, the town was empty. How are you?"

"All right, I guess, or I will be now." He gave another shaky laugh.

"Are you in pain?"

"No. Feel great, actually. Strong, ready to kick ass. Just point me in the right direction."

"And you've got your soul, too? Not that it ever made so much difference."

"More than you think, Rupes. And, yeah, no different than I was the moment I died. Even came back with clothes, Doc Martens, leather coat, and all."

"Do you know where you were, since then?"

"Not a clue. Figure the Slayer's our only ex-pat, if that's what you're gettin' at. More likely to have gone in the other direction."

"Nonsense," Rupert said firmly. "But you're here, now. This is just incredible."

"I don't even know where you lot are, just that you're not in Sunnydale."

"Oh, I'm, uh, in London. Head of the Council, or what's left of it."

"Well, all right, Rupert," he said warmly. "Congratulations." A pause. "My Bit? My – the Slayer?"

"Buffy's working for the Council in Italy, bringing along the new Slayers there. Many Slayers have traditionally been Catholic, and since Rome attracts a wide variety of demons, I wanted to have them – You don't give a good goddamn about that. Sorry. Dawn's enrolled in a very good private school in Rome. Complains about the uniform."

"You've just given me a mental picture to make me cry with happiness, Rupes," Spike said, thinking of Dawn, safe and whole somewhere in Rome in a schoolgirl uniform. He did put his hand over his eyes. "Just knowin' they're safe…" He cleared his throat. "And the rest?"

"Willow and Kennedy are in South America, contacting new Slayers there. Xander's in Africa, doing the same."

"How's his eye?"

"Two surgeries so far, one more scheduled. The doctor's think he'll be able to wear a contact lens. Willow's offered to fix what's left after the doctor's have done what they can."

"I heard about Anya,"

"Yes. Terrible loss. Such a lovely girl."

"More than that, Rupert. She was blunt and had an evil streak in her as wide as M-5."

"Like I said, lovely girl."

"Who else? Angel didn't know the rest, couldn't tell me…"

"Amanda. Chao-Ahn, one of our first. Kelly, Caridad, Lisa, Marguerite. Shannon, the girl Caleb put in the hospital. I barely met her. We had a close call with Rona, but she's tough. She spent a couple of days in the hospital in Dutton. Robin Wood, too, he pulled through, but I don't suppose you care all that much."

"Eight? That's all?" He had feared it was much worse.

"Yes, thanks to you." Nine including you, he thought.

"No, not me, Rupes. Willow and that fancy axe."

"You, too, William. You helped train them, after all."

Angel gritted his teeth, hearing the Watcher use Spike's given name. Inside him, Angelus surged with possessiveness.

"What about the boy?" He watched Angel's head snap up at the word and rolled his eyes.

"Andrew? He's here with me in London." Giles sighed. "Can't leave him unsupervised."

Spike snorted and wiped his eyes again. "No, that would never do. Aw, Rupert. Amanda and Chao-Ahn, too. And that Cari had a wicked right hook, would have made a hell of a slayer in time."

Who were these people? Angel closed his eyes, feeling the other vampire's grief as a physical sensation.

Giles sounded nasal. "We saved a goodly number of them, though." He cleared his throat. "I've been trying to just keep moving forward, to just go on. There were a tremendous number of potentials we never identified – nor did the Bringers, for that matter. Lots of work to keep the Council busy for the next few years."

Here it comes, Angel though, hunching his shoulders for the expected job offer.

"And I'm rattling on again. I've missed talking to you, William."

"Missed you, too, Watcher."

"Well, obviously, something must be done about that, something involving an airplane. No," he said, thinking aloud, "sunlight makes it too risky for you to fly."

"Never flown before. I'd chance it, though," Spike said wryly, "but my passport was in my DeSoto."

"Passp – I'll have to arrange for papers. Do you have – Listen to me, I'm all–"

"Atwitter?"

"I am most certainly not atwitter. Discombobulated, perhaps. What's your number there? Let me call Rome. Dawn should be home from school, and Buffy ought to be there, too. I know you'll want to hear their voices."

"God, yes." He looked over at Angel. "What's the number?" Angel came back to the desk and wrote down the cell phone number. He got an extra legal pad from his desk, as well. Spike waited until Giles had a pencil at the ready, then read it off.

"Good, then. I'll call and break the news. Just sit tight by the phone; I'm sure you'll be hearing from them in just a few minutes. I'll ring back in a half hour or so. By then, I should have made travel arrangements. Since you can't come to us…"

"Don't have to go to all that trouble, Watcher," Spike said gruffly.

"I do, in fact," Giles said simply, and Spike turned away from Angel, covering his eyes with his free hand. "It isn't every day that one has a friend restored."

"Twice for you," the blond managed.

"Yes." Giles laughed. "I sometimes think I'm the luckiest man in the world."

"No, think that's me," Spike said. "We'll thumb-wrestle for the title."

"Deal." The mention of thumb-wrestling made them both think of Tara, and Giles paused for a moment. "I-I find that I don't want to say goodbye. I'm afraid it won't have been real."

Spike reached for something that would leave them both some dignity. "Tell you what. Pick up another mug for me at the airport. Something not real wouldn't need a mug, yeah?"

Giles found his English reserve. "I'll do that. Talk to you very soon, then."

After they said their goodbyes, Spike folded the phone and laid it on the desk, then turned to his grandsire. "Thanks, mate," he said, smiling despite the tears still on his face.

Feeling very much like a father again, Angel wiped the tears away, the odd sensation complete when Spike ducked his head away like a five-year old. "I didn't know you were such good friends with Giles."

He shrugged. "Fellow countrymen and all," Spike said defensively. "'Sides, you've got a Watcher of your own. Nothing wrong with it." He firmed his jaw and surprised Angel by taking him in a fierce hug. "Thanks," he said again.

Angel didn't quite smile, but he patted his back. "You're welcome." The phone rang, and Spike let go. They both stared at it until it rang again. That'll be Buffy, Angel thought.

Spike bit his lower lip, then answered. "Hullo?"

"Spike!?"

He pulled the phone away from his ear, wincing. "Nibblet!"

Surprised, Angel moved away again, watching as Spike sank onto the floor, leaning his back against the side of the desk, his knees drawn up. The smile was a permanent fixture on his face. Apparently, it wasn't just Buffy who had mourned the blond man. Doodling on the legal pad on his lap, he frowned a little. Spike was as enmeshed in the human world as he was, it seemed.

"Omigod, Spike, it's really you?"

"Really really," he said, sounding as though he was quoting something. "Oh, hey, don't cry, love. 'S good news, yeah?"

"The best," Dawn managed. "You don't know how good. I'm sitting here shaking. Oh, God, I've missed you."

Spike was crying again, but these tears he didn't bother trying to hide. "Me, too, Dawnie."

"This is stupid," she said. "I-I can't even talk."

"Take your time, love."

"What Giles said…"

"It's true." He went over the tale, still leaving out the weeks he'd been incorporeal. "And here I am."

"It was awful, when you were dead."

"Bad, like when Buffy was gone?"

"Worse. I didn't have you to lean on." He could hear her sob again.

"Oh, hey. Shh, 's'all right, love. 'M here now."

"I still need you. I always will. You don't get to–"

"Wasn't expectin' to die, Nibblet. You know that."

"I know. It's just… I love you, Spike." Her voice wobbled.

"I love you, too, Lil' Bit."

She laughed. "No one else gets to call me that."

"Prob'ly not me, either. Didn't grow again, did you?"

Angel went to the couch, listening to the vampire he had seen rip heads off of various things with his bare hands talk gently, with obvious love, to the teenager. It had never occurred to him that Dawn was grieving for the dead vampire during the time she'd stayed at the Hyperion. The girl had been quiet, but she'd never spoken very much to him, anyway – he barely remembered her from the Sunnydale days. She sure would speak to Spike, though. The blond man was listening to her, a happy smile on his face, in no apparent hurry to talk to Buffy. He didn't know this Spike at all.

"I did, actually. I'm gonna wear heels and look you right in the eye, buster, and let you know just what I think of all this dying to save the world crap."

"Really let me have it, huh?"

"Yeah, you know I'm way badder than you."

"Always, love."

"I lost the bracelet you gave me," Dawn said suddenly. "I was afraid it would be damaged in the fight, or it would break and I'd lose it, so I left it at the house that morning." She sniffled again. "Aunt Arlene had pictures of Mom and pictures of us when we were babies, but I didn't have anything of you. Giles checked to see if the Council had any photos, but those were destroyed when the headquarters blew up. Even those stupid videos that Andrew shot would have been something, but to have something that you gave to me…."

"Don't worry about the bracelet, Bit."

"I did, though. You, and 'best friends,' and the sun. Something real I could touch, proof that you'd been real, that I had you, once. I-it made it worse, somehow." She took a breath. "I shouldn't complain. Willow doesn't have a picture of Tara, either."

"Poor Red." He took a breath. "What about Harris?"

"Always carried a picture of him and Anya in his wallet."

"That's good. Hang on a mo.'" Spike put his hand over the phone. "Angel, did you ever meet Willow's honey?"

"Dark-haired girl? Yeah, I met her."

"No, the first one. The real thing." When Angel shook his head, Spike sighed. "Sorry, petal," he said, uncovering the phone. "Peaches has a real talent with a pencil. Thought he might be able to sketch Glinda, but he never met her."

Glinda? Angel thought, confused, even as the unexpected compliment warmed him.

"No worries," Spike was saying. "We'll track down that wretched family of hers. I'll terrorize them, love, while you snatch the photos from the wall."

"Bet they burned her pictures, the bastards."

"Yeah, bloody – Hey, language."

"I was waiting for that. You're the only one who cares if I curse."

"What was that?" Even Angel had heard the loud series of thumps from the Eternal City.

"Knocked over some shoeboxes. I'm trying to pack. Giles is pulling some strings so I can fly out to see you, like, now."

"You're flying alone?" he asked, alarmed.

"Yeah. Buffy – oh, shit, Spike."

"Lang – what's wrong with Buffy?"

"Nothing," Dawn said quickly. "She's out of town. I just finished texting her while we were talking. Giles couldn't get in touch with her."

"You sent her a text message that I was alive?" Spike said, appalled. "What? 'Spike R OK N LA?'"

There was a good deal of anger in her voice. "So what? She should have been here for this, not out of town with her new boyfriend. Her new, new boyfriend, I mean, since she sure has a bunch of old ones."

"Boyfriend?"

"Yeah," Dawn said bitterly. "She's been… It's been like when she first came back, only manic Buffy instead of depresso Buffy. Just as distant, though. Trust me, I have no problem flying alone, since I've been living alone. Seems that way, anyhow."

"Bit…" Spike struggled for a moment. "People grieve in different ways."

"Yeah, Buffy grieves by sleeping her way through half of the men in Rome."

Spike let his head fall back against Angel's desk, his eyes tightly closed. Angel stared, his mouth open in surprise. Buffy?

"Ooh. I'm sorry," Dawn said, realizing that it wasn't just her best friend she was talking to. "I didn't mean to – It's not really that bad. A-and it's not like she's found anyone she really cares about."

"'S'okay, Nibblet," Spike said, his voice tired. "So, when are you arriving?"

"I don't know yet. Giles is supposed to send Armando – that's the Roman Watcher – around to take me to the airport."

"Armando?" Spike said each syllable slowly. "I hate him already."

"Oh, he's okay. He's, like, seventy, and so uptight he makes Giles look like, I don't know, someone fun. You, for instance."

"So you might be here tonight?"

"If I could manage the Key thing, I'd be there now. Oh, hey, maybe Willow will teleport us. She's hard to get in touch with, though. Oh! You know who she ran into in Ecuador? Riley." Her voice made the word sound like a social disease.

"The great hall monitor, huh?"

"Still married to Miss Perfect," Dawn said corrosively. "Willow said they've both gained weight."

Spike chuckled at the malicious satisfaction in her voice. "Can't wait to see you, love."

"Hang on a second," Dawn said. "I just got a message from Giles. He says… Oh. 'Get off the bloody phone.' That would be your phone, I guess. Oh, wait. One from Buffy. 'On my way. See you there.'"

Clearing his throat, Spike asked, "Rupes learned how to text?"

"No, I bet Andrew really sent it."

He smiled. "Well, I'll say bye for now, let you pack."

"You know what next week is, don't you?"

"No. What?"

"You're such a Brit. It's Thanksgiving." Dawn took a breath. "Thanksgiving."

"Yeah? Turkey and bear day?" He grinned when she growled at him. "I know, love. I've a lot to be thankful for."

"Spike?" There was some hesitation in her voice. "This is real, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Still the light of my unlife, Sweet Bit, now that I've got one again."

"I love you. See you soon."

"Bye, Dawnie."

"Bye, Spike."

He closed the phone and stared at it, his forearms propped on his knees, then looked over at Angel. "I love her," he said, his voice hoarse, hardly more than a whisper. "Would do just about anything for her, an' the soul would let me. Bit was never afraid of me, not from the first minute. She's like – I know it sounds stupid, but she's like my best friend and my sister and my daughter in one."

"No," Angel said, his own voice hoarse. "Doesn't sound stupid at all."

Spike's quick mind caught the undercurrent and his eyes sharpened, but before he could say anything, the phone rang again. It was Giles with their schedule. He and Dawn would take separate flights to New York, but they would have an overnight layover before taking the same flight to Los Angeles the next morning.

"I talked to Buffy, Spike. She's in some seaside village that doesn't even have a municipal airport, so she'll be a day behind us."

"Sounds good."

"She was very happy. She cried, and you know she doesn't cry easily." Giles voice was gentle.

Listening, Angel was taken aback. He'd never known Buffy to keep a stiff upper lip, but, then, he really didn't know her anymore, did he? He watched Spike stretch over half the desk instead of simply pulling the paper toward him, still writing. Angel shook his head.

Fred came in, made an 'oops!' face when she realized Spike was on the phone, and came to sit down on the arm of the couch. "Hey!" she said, her voice soft. "You're drawing again."

Angel looked down at the legal pad on his knee to see Spike's face. His fingers had automatically sketched the boy, head tilted back, eyes closed, a blissful smile on his face. It was the expression he had worn while listening to Buffy's little sister, and there were a few lines suggesting a cell phone, the curve of fingers. "Uh, guess so," he said gruffly. "He was happy when he was talking on the phone."

"To Buffy?" Fred asked, her eyes sympathetic.

He shook his head. "Her little sister."

"Spike's 'Nibblet,'" Fred said, nodding, looking up to send another fond look at the blond vampire. "He talks about her all the time."

"Figured he'd talk about Buffy all the time," Angel said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Sometimes we don't talk about the ones we love the most," Fred said, giving him a sympathetic smile, and he knew she was referring to Cordelia.

Angel lifted his hand, and Fred slid her warm fingers into it. "No," he agreed, "we don't." He looked up at her. "Thanks."

"For what?" she said, a second away from an 'aw, shucks.'

"Reminding me that I have people who care, too," he admitted.

She gave him a shrewd look. "Sure, Spike is fun and interesting and there's something about him that's just lovable and–"

"Fred," Angel winced.

"But you're our vampire with a soul, Angel. Nothing's ever gonna change that." She smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back and let go, ripping the top sheet from the legal pad. Fred made a noise of protest and took the sketch before he could crumple it up. "It's terrible, Fred," Angel said. "The shape of his nose is wrong. Plus, it's on lined paper, and it's yellow, like he has jaundice."

"I don't mind," she said. "I'm just glad you're drawing again."

⸹

Vernazza, Italy

Buffy packed the last of her toiletries and zipped the cheerful red case. Her reflection caught her attention, and she stared at herself in the mirror for a moment, unable to place whatever it was that lit her eyes. Biting her lip, she ran her fingers beneath her eyes, wiping away the mascara smudge, and headed out of the tiny bathroom. Girard had not moved, was still propped against the door of the hotel room, his arms crossed.

"How does a friend 'come back from the dead?' How did this friend die?" he asked, his tone skeptical.

 _He died saving your worthless ass, along with the rest of the world._ She had a brief, vivid image of a Turok-Han ripping out Girard's throat, roaring with dissatisfaction, and tossing away his body to move on to another human. It wasn't the first time she'd wondered if Spike's sacrifice was worth the cost. Buffy shook her head and threw the red case into the open suitcase on the bed. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I see him again."

"Oh-ho, it is a him," Girard said, uncrossing his arms to gesture. "This is what I thought, that you are leaving me to fly to see another man. Some rich American."

"He's British," she corrected, shaking her head again as she closed the suitcase. Girard was a lot easier to take on a dance floor, with his mouth shut. Spike, a rich American. Right. Buffy thought of the paltry amounts the Scoobies had paid him for his services as he moldered in Sunnydale all those months, looking for some way to get rid of the chip. "He's not rich. He gives all his money away." Clothes for Dawn, a new front for her mother's house, food for hungry potential slayers.

"But he was your lover," he accused.

She placed her luggage on the floor and faced him. "Yes, Girard, he was my lover," she agreed with a sigh. How else could she explain Spike, her second-in-command, her insanely loyal friend, her dark half? "More than that, he's the only…" Buffy trailed off. Why was she even bothering? Girard was less than nothing compared to Spike.

The dark-haired man moved in front of her, his voice cajoling. "He was your lover. I _am_ your lover."

Buffy looked up at the ceiling, as if she could find some measure of patience there. She hadn't actually slept with Girard yet, thank God. New rule, she promised herself: no sleeping with anyone until after the third date. Girard was big, like Riley, like Angel, because there was no way she could ever again be with someone built like a dancer, like a matador. Or someone with blue eyes. Or someone who adored her. Of the dozens of men she had gone out with, she had slept with three and had broken it off with each after accidentally calling them by his name, opening her eyes and finding that it wasn't him beneath her. "Girard," she said finally, picking up her suitcase, "get out of my way. Please." She added the polite word because that's what people were supposed to do.

"No." He advanced on her one step, staring down at her. "We just got here. I think you should stay until tomorrow morning, at least."

"The sooner I leave, the sooner I'll get to Los Angeles to see my friend. Now, move."

He smacked her across the cheek with his open palm. Buffy's head went to the side, and she brought her hand up to her face without turning back to him. "You came here with me; you're my woman, at least for this trip. You think you're fooling me? You're a slut, easy like all American girls. I know you don't love me, but you don't love him, either. All you want is a strong man to–"

That was as far as he got before finding himself on the floor, Buffy's knee pressed against his throat. It wasn't Girard's fault for finding a sore spot, but it certainly was his fault for hitting her. She found herself speaking in English, didn't care at this point if that was rude. "Go on, then. Show me how strong a man you are." He struggled against her, pushing on her leg. She gave him ten seconds. "Can't get up? The man I'm leaving you for can make me move. He hits harder than you, too, but he doesn't hit me." Not anymore, she amended to herself. "He's a gentleman, and he loves me and my family, and he makes love to me for hours, and he believes in me, and," she was crying now, watching Girard's face turn a dark purple, "the only time I know who I am is when I'm with him. If he's really back, maybe my life doesn't have to be an endless round of assholes like you." With that, she stood up, hefted her suitcase, and stepped over him to walk out the door.

⸹

Los Angeles

"Oi, Harm?" Spike said, pressing the intercom button.

"Yes?" Her voice was cool.

"Would you bring a phone book in here, there's a love?"

"I don't work for you."

Angel opened the door and stuck his head out. "Bring the man the phone book, Harmony."

She gave him a murderous glare. "All right," she hissed into her headset.

Angel closed the door and took his seat. "What do you need a phone book for?"

"Maybe nothing," Spike said vaguely. He was currently scrolling through websites on the laptop on Angel's desk, his coat discarded and his hair rumpled. He had been fielding calls from Giles, Dawn, Willow, and Xander all morning – everyone except Buffy, in fact. Now he was onto something related.

Angel had dragged a second chair around for Spike and reclaimed his own seat. He was now sitting with his feet on the desk, obscurely content, a real sketchpad of heavy paper on his lap, his pencil occasionally moving across it. Somewhere during the morning, he'd let go of his resentment, and he was enjoying the work that was being done in his office for a change. He'd almost forgotten what Spike was like when he sank his teeth into a problem, and he was glad he'd sent Wesley home. Wouldn't do for him to see a researcher even more indefatigable than he was; he'd steal the boy for his department.

"Bollocks." Spike pushed away from the desk with a sigh.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"I seem to remember being put through the wringer about having money and power by a certain annoying ghost," Angel said, watching his pencil shade the stubble on Wesley's lean jaw. "You might tell me what you're trying to do, so I can use some of that money and power to help." He looked up and met Spike's assessing eyes squarely. "Family, Will."

The blond man shrugged and pushed the laptop around so Angel could see. "This is Tara McClay, one of the finest ladies I've ever met." Angel squinted at a pixilated black-and-white photograph of an unremarkable-looking woman with light hair and a wide smile. "Died a year ago, buried in Sunnydale. She was Red's honey, and all the pictures she had of her were in the Summers' house." He sighed. "This is a picture from her hometown paper announcing that she won a scholarship to UC-Sunnydale, but it's rubbish, all grainy. Thought I'd finally found something to give to Willow, but..." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

Angel hid a smile. William had worn glasses, and he suspected that Spike still needed them for close work, not that he'd ever admit it. "Hand me the phone." Raising a brow, Spike shoved the corporate phone across the slick surface of the desk and watched his grandsire press a button. "This is Angel. I need someone to retrieve a picture from the morgue of a newspaper upstate. What's your email? I'll send the link." He painstakingly typed the email address. "No, tomorrow's soon enough. Thanks." He hung up the phone and sat back, nonchalant although he was mightily pleased that he could help.

"Just like that," Spike said sardonically.

"Just like that," Angel agreed, "once you found the photo."

"She was prettier than this," he said, staring at the picture again. "Beauty inside as well as outside that you could see and also feel, touching the heart as well as the eye."

"Is that from a poem?" Angel asked.

"Uh, no," Spike said. "As I said it, definitely not. Just… that was Tara."

"Here," Harmony said, coming through the door and chucking a thick phone book onto the desk before turning on her heel.

Glad to have a reason to drop any conversation about poetry, Spike took the phone book and flipped to the yellow pages. After a moment, he gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Find what you were looking for?" Angel winced a little as Spike ripped out a page.

"Yeah. I, uh, gotta ask a favor, mate." He grimaced a little. "I need to borrow a hundred – no, there was the sun and the lightning and the friends – two hundred, make it three hundred dollars. And I need to borrow the Viper. Oh, never mind, I already said I was takin' that. Me an' Fred are goin' for tacos."

"Why do you suddenly need money?"

"'S'not like I 'suddenly' need money. Haven't had needs, have I? Haven't been corporeal for much more than a day."

"Yeah, and you're already asking for money," Angel grumbled, but he was reaching inside his jacket for his wallet.

"You know I'm good for it," Spike said.

"I know you are." He would rather give the money than loan it, but he knew the boy wouldn't simply take it. Spike was a stickler about paying back loans. It was one of those points of honor he never did lose.

He was a stickler about getting money owed him, too. "Did you ever get that ten pounds from Dracula?"

Spike snorted. "Eleven pounds, and, no, I didn't. An' he was in Sunnydale a couple of years ago, too. Avoided me like the plague."

"He was in Sunnydale? Any problem?"

"Not really, but he did 'overbite' your mark on the Slayer's neck."

"He bit Buffy!"

"Yeah, sorry to say." Spike curled his lip in disgust. "I wasn't in the picture then. All that stood between her and Drac was Soldier Boy."

"Some defense," Angel snorted. Then he asked, because he had to. "So, I guess you covered his mark with your own?"

Spike gave him a sharp look. "No. Never bit B – the Slayer. She's not food." Before Angel could reply, he added, "And you didn't, either. I know why you fed. She was just saving your life."

Mollified, Angel looked down at his still pencil, then darted Spike another look. "Never?"

"She never asked," he said shortly, but he had never been a good liar.

Angel's gaze sharpened, but he let it go. It was enough that his demon was also mollified, receding now that it knew the boy hadn't tasted what was marked as his. "So, um, what do you need the princely sum of three hundred dollars for?"

"Same sort of thing as Tara's picture. Gave Sweet Bit a charm bracelet for her birthday, and it–"

"It's at the bottom of Sunnydale Crater. I heard." Angel put the sketchpad on the corner of the desk and sat up in his chair. "What makes you think you'll find a duplicate?"

"Store in Beverly Hills had a franchise in Sunnydale," he said. "Know the owner's daughter-in-law."

"Of course you do," Angel sighed. "How is it that you never know the sons-in-law?"

He leaned back in the chair and gave Angel a cocky look, trailing a hand across his chest. "Don't ask sons-in-law to be my date to Xander's almost-wedding." Spike sat back up and began tucking the page torn from the phone book into his pocket. "Part Gromlichheit, wasn't married at the time, never slept with her," he said, answering all the questions. "Fred's here to take me to lunch."

Angel could hear her, too, chatting with Harmony at the reception desk. "Well, have fun."

"Wanna come with?" Spike asked, standing up.

He looked up, smiling tiredly. "Can't. I have a lunch meeting with someone evil."

"Angel, you know what I said. You're too good for this place."

"I made my bed, Spike."

"Well, I can wreck your bed, you need me to," he declared. Then he ducked his head, realizing what he'd said.

Angel laughed. After all the boy had done that morning, now he got embarrassed. "Charming offer," he said, leering. "Might take you up on that."

"Piss off," Spike mumbled, grabbing up his coat and beating a hasty retreat to the office door, the sound of Angel's laughter following him.

By late afternoon, Spike had gone very quiet. His friend Mindy had been thrilled to see that he'd survived Sunnydale and had given him a good price on the bracelet. He'd even added another charm, a little infinity symbol. Even after paying Fred back for the flowers, half the money Angel had loaned him was still in his pocket. Fred had been wonderful company, and he'd thanked her with every ounce of charm he possessed for sending the flowers to Harmony, meaning it for all the rest she'd done for him. It all lead up to a very pleasant kiss on the cheek. The taco stand had been just as good as she said. There was even a little blotch of grease on the leather of the driver's seat, just to annoy Angel. In all, a good second day of life.

Buffy hadn't called.

He'd spoken to Giles again, Dawn whenever she wasn't on an airplane, Xander and Willow, even Andrew. Angel had finally sighed and told him to take the cell phone up to the penthouse so he could get some work done. Spike had rattled around the empty rooms for a couple of hours before going back down to the office. Angel was still at his desk, doing a fairly good job of ignoring him, which he hated.

His mind kept dwelling on what Dawn had said, the words 'boyfriend' and 'Buffy' decidedly 'un-mixy' things in his worldview. He imagined some dark, impossibly good-looking Italian, able to get even darker by going out in the sun, hair all glossy, with lots of white teeth. Spike hated the imaginary git with a passion. Bit had said that Buffy hadn't found anyone she cared about, but maybe this one would be that magic man. Maybe that's why she hadn't called.

Spike abruptly sat up from where he was sprawled on the couch, grabbing his coat. "Don't wait up," he muttered, watching Angel's eyebrows lift out of the corner of his vision. He was operating on instinct now, never the wisest thing, but at this point, he didn't much care. He didn't have far to go.

"Harm?"

"I'm not talking to you."

"Buffy has a boyfriend, love."

She looked at him carefully. "Not you?"

"Not me."

"Oh."

"I see you kept the flowers."

"Only to make the other girls jealous."

"You know that attorney on the twelfth floor? Something Reyes?"

"Yeah. She's human. So?"

"Met her in the hall last night. She thought she could catch my eye." He leaned across her desk. "Lots of women here are jealous of you, Harm," he purred.

She preened a little, then gave him a mistrustful look. "Did she?" When he looked blank, she added. "Catch your eye, I mean."

He clenched his jaw, floundering to find the usual, effortless come-hither. "No, Harm, she didn't. Look, what I'm gettin' at, is you and I… We never – I never got the chance to give you what you deserve."

"Is that a threat?" Harm rolled back from the desk a few inches, her fingers on a button beneath the edge. "Because we don't tolerate workplace violence at Wolfram and Hart. At least, not unless it's Angel who–"

She'd always been a bit dim. "No, Harmony," he said very carefully. "I'm trying to say, I'd like to take you up on the invite to your apartment so I can give you an obscene number of orgasms this evening." Thank you, Anya, he thought.

"Oh." Her finger fell away from the button and a slow smile curved her full lips. "Okay." She pointed a finger at him. "But don't think this means you're my boyfriend again or anything."

Perfect. "I love your nails. What's the name of that color?"

"Pretty-in-pink," she replied.

"And you certainly are," Spike said, dropping his gaze to her low-cut blouse. "Pretty in nothing, too."

Harmony took off her headset and went to Angel's door. "I'm leaving early," she caroled. "Here," she told Spike, shoving the floral arrangement at him. "Since they're from you, you carry them." He might have turned tail and fled to the penthouse right then if he knew that would involve carting the huge pot of flowers through two stops on Los Angeles' underground.

He gave Harmony his very best for the next several hours, feeling detached through a fairly obscene number of orgasms himself. The detachment helped, though, because Harmony was as enthusiastic about sex as he usually was. When she finally collapsed on top of him, with one final, "Oooh, blondie bear," he figured it was time. She fell asleep twice during his 'you deserve better than a bastard like me' speech. Spike smiled down at her as he dressed, then went to one knee by the bed. "You really are a great girl, you know that?" he murmured fondly, dropping a kiss on her nose.

Leaving Harmony's apartment, he wandered through her neighborhood, checking things out. She lived near nightclubs and bars, a section of town designed for young people. Spike saw over a hundred meals he could have, walking around oblivious to any danger, and no vampires. He wondered whose protection the area was under, figured he'd ask Angel tomorrow. Then he saw a sign in the window of a yuppie tavern that arrested him: Poker Tournament Tonight. An evil smile touched his face.

⸹

"Shove over," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed to take off his boots.

"Spike?" Angel said groggily. "It's four in the morning."

"What of it? Shove over, mate."

Angel propped up on both elbows to stare at him. "What?"

"Family bed, you said. Don't feel like sleepin' alone tonight."

Angel inhaled. "You haven't been."

"How is it that you can be twice as sarcastic when you're asleep as other people are when they're awake?" He got the second boot off and, with that, he slid beneath the covers, rolled onto his stomach, put an arm across Angel's chest, and proceeded to fall asleep.

With a sigh, Angel plopped back onto the pillow and covered Spike's hand with his own. No one would ever believe this is platonic, he thought, then fell back asleep himself, the demon coiled inside of him almost purring with satisfaction to be sharing a den with family again and plotting how best to bring the young one to heel.

Angel woke when his searching hand found an empty place. Considering how long he'd been alone, it was insane for him to think it was wrong to find no one beside him. It was early morning, and there were enough residual human traits left in vampires that it was probably for the best that the boy was gone.

"Mornin,'" Spike said from the foot of the bed. He was showered and dressed and had created a makeshift tray from an enormous legal dictionary from Angel's office. "Warm blood, the newspaper, the whole domestic thing. Would have carried your slippers to you, but couldn't find any."

"You would have chewed them up," Angel grumbled, sitting up and taking care to fold covers over his midsection.

"Grr. Bad dog," Spike said automatically, and they looked away from each other, Dru's ghost hovering between them.

"No, what I mean is, thank you, and what did I do to deserve breakfast in bed?" Angel said, clearly trying his best.

Spike sat down next to him and put the book on his lap. "Took me in, were there for me."

"Not so much," Angel admitted.

"Don't have it in you right now, mate," Spike said, shrugging. "Like you told Eve yesterday, sometimes you're on top, sometimes you're not." The wicked look faded quickly. "But you treated me like family. 'S'as much as I could ask."

Angel shook his head, looking down into the dark depths of the blood. "Spike, you don't know how hard I've been trying not to treat you like family." He braced himself to meet the disgust and hatred in the younger vampire's eyes.

Spike, however, scoffed. "Sure, I do. I drove Angelus to distraction for almost twenty years, refusing to submit, until I wore even that demon down into something resembling forbearance. Then we don't see each other for a hundred years, and when I show up, Angelus rears his ugly head and starts thinking about ownin' me again. What else would he do? Except we're not just vampires anymore, and all those urges are confusing the hell out of your soul. You can't trick or seduce or torture or beat me into submission – not that you ever could. And we know each other too well to just be mates." He shrugged, his voice soft, his blue eyes accepting. "You try harder than anyone I've ever seen, Angel."

"Uh." Stunned, this was all the older vampire could manage to say.

"Like I said before, it there are any two creatures on earth who can talk to each other…"

"It's more than that." Angel gripped the mug and looked at the man who was already dressed and ready to go out of his life. "Angelus may want you, but my soul has this need to..." He shook his head. "It sounds stupid," he said, adding to himself that it would sound especially stupid to someone who didn't know about Connor, "but you don't know how nice it is to have a family member I don't have to feel guilty for caring about."

"You feel guilty for lovin' people?" He was genuinely surprised.

"My soul doesn't give me much slack," Angel said. "Doesn't matter that you and Darla and Dru didn't make a choice to be bad–"

"Just that we were bad," Spike finished, quoting from their shared memory. He looked down at his hands, biting his lip, thinking of how he'd never thought to hide his decades of love for Dru from the Scoobies. "I didn't understand how much of a curse it was – I mean now; obviously, I didn't have a clue then."

Angel took a couple of atypical breaths, and Spike turned to him, waiting. The chance to say this probably would never come again, not unless it was used to lash out at the boy. "I resented you even then, when I first had my soul." At Spike's puzzled look, his grandsire dropped his gaze to the blood again. "If I had been like you were… 'weak,' I called you, my soul wouldn't have had so many crimes to bleed over."

"My heart's as black as yours," he protested.

Angel actually laughed. "Remember that woman in Vienna who took us both home to get revenge on her cheatin' husband?" A little of the Irish brogue crept back into his voice. "And while she was dismissin' the servants and changin,' her husband came back, and we gagged him and tied him up in a corner so he could watch?" When the blond nodded warily, he continued, his voice now bitter. "While I was finishin' up with her and with the husband, you wandered off through the house and found a music box to take back to Drusilla. Your 'black' heart was never in it."

"I'm a vampire," Spike said, emphasizing the word. "Not gonna compare crimes. We're both monsters."

"I made you into a monster."

The blond man closed his eyes, grimacing. "I am sorry I said that, Liam." His voice carried no trace of the borrowed accent.

Angel shrugged. "Doesn't make it less true." He took another breath. "So, I'm trying very hard," he gave him a nod of acknowledgement, "to not be resentful in other ways. I want you to be happy." One final breath. "You and Buffy."

Spike stared at the bedroom wall. "Slayer hasn't even called to talk to me, Angel."

"Losing you took the life out of her, William. She may not be able to talk to you on the phone, but she's coming for you."

He shook his head. "She'll come, but… She doesn't love me, Angel."

"Nonsense," Angel said with authority. "She'd never sleep with someone she doesn't–" He stopped abruptly as he remembered what he'd overheard Dawn say to the boy.

"The Buffy Summers you knew would never do that," Spike agreed. "She… We didn't–" He closed his eyes. "But thanks for sayin' it."

Angel could tell he was quoting, but he so seldom got pop culture references that he just let it go. "You're welcome. Believe me, it isn't easy to give my blessin,' as it were. I'm a possessive kind of guy."

"She hasn't been yours for a long time," Spike pointed out, biting down on the long list of reasons why.

"I will always think of her as mine," Angel said, and since Spike was still looking away, he added, "both of you." He reached toward Spike, paused, and let his hand drop.

Spike had closed his eyes and missed this, thinking again of how Buffy had looked at Angel that last night in Sunnydale. "Told you wrong. Part of Buffy will always be yours."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah? Me, too." And with that, Spike did the same odd thing he'd done the previous morning, drawing a protective layer of attitude around himself. "Blood's gonna congeal, you don't drink it soon." He leaned back so he could wiggle his fingers into the pocket of his jeans. "Here you go, by the way." He tossed a small fan of bills onto the dictionary in Angel's lap.

"Couldn't find the bracelet?"

"Found it, all right. Just repayin' you. Four hundred dollars; added a little for interest."

"Repay – where did you get four hundred dollars?"

"Uh, actually have 'bout eighteen thousand." Spike shrugged. "Poker tournament, some bar near where Harmony lives." He turned to look directly at his grandsire. "Say, you know why there are no nasties in Harm's neighborhood?"

Angel stared at him, dumbstruck, not listening to the question. "You turned a three hundred dollar stake into eighteen thousand dollars?"

"Actually about a hundred dollars."

"Did you, uh, have any trouble?"

Spike smiled. "You mean, did I cheat? Nah. Tells are easy with humans – I can hear heartbeats race, smell sweat, check the blood flow to hands." He stood up, energy nearly crackling off him. "Reckon I'll hie myself off to LAX, then. 'M borrowin' a limo with the fancy windows from the motor pool, pick up Rupes and Sweet Bit. I'll bring 'em by here." Spike leaned down and touched his forehead casually to his grandsire's, then swaggered from the bedroom, leaving Angel to his breakfast.

The big vampire watched him go, feeling guilty about what he had done after Spike left with Harmony the previous afternoon, but not guilty enough to undo it. He drank down the blood the boy had warmed for him, showered and dressed, then went downstairs to see Harmony, carrying the legal dictionary with him.

"I've got a meeting out of the office all day," he told her casually, looking through the sheaf of faxes she handed him.

Her blond hair hung straight today, and she wore minimal makeup. She looked half-asleep, in fact. It took her a moment before she looked up, her brow furrowed. "No, you don't. You've got two meetings here this afternoon, and–"

"No. Those have all been canceled."

Frowning, she hit a few keys, looked at the monitor, then up at him. "Oh. Well, I'll just go get your blood."

"I've had it," he said before she could get up.

She stared up at him for a couple of beats. "You're getting a new personal assistant because I slept with Spike, aren't you? You don't have to, Angel, honest! It was break-up sex, that's all it was, I swear. I'm not about to come between this love/hate thing you two have–"

"Harmony!" He forced his voice down a score or so decibels, cursing vampire paranoia. "No one is replacing you. I just had an early breakfast, that's all."

"Really?" she asked, tears in her eyes.

"Really." He dropped the papers on the corner of her desk. "And we don't have a love/hate thing," he added. Looking more awake, Harmony examined him speculatively. "No," he said emphatically, nixing whatever idea had put that lustful gleam in her eye.

Angel strode off to the elevator and took it down to one of the subbasements. He went down a long corridor, then put his eye to a scanner beside the thick, steel door at the end, listening to the click of a solenoid as the biosecurity measure recognized him and the door opened.

Inside was the heart of Wolfram and Hart surveillance. As he walked in, one of the uniformed men stood up and came to greet him. "Angel." It was a relief that the firm's employees had largely stopped using 'Mr. Angel.'

"Hakim." He nodded in greeting, checking around the room, unconsciously deciding who to kill first if he needed to fight his way out. "Is it ready?"

Hakim nodded, his dark eyes alive with curiosity, but he simply said, "This way." Angel followed him down a hallway to an unmarked room, following the new head of security inside. "Here's the setup," he began, again endearing himself, however slightly, to Angel, who hated preamble. "This small computer screen has all the camera links – the limo, the airport, the hotel rooms and lobby. Click on one folder," Hakim said, demonstrating by clicking on an icon that said LIMO8, "and you can switch between camera angles that show up on this monitor." Angel looked at it, seeing first an empty seat, then another image that showed Spike and, surprisingly, Charles Gunn sitting on either end of a long bench seat. As he watched, Spike raised an eyebrow and said something that made the taller man grin reluctantly. "Put on the earphones, and you'll be able to hear what's being said in each location."

Angel gave him a look acrid enough to blister paint from walls. "You've given me your word that there's no tape. I'm holding you personally responsible for there being no recording, not on tape, not digitally, not magically."

Hakim didn't flinch, but Angel had other senses, knew he didn't have to elaborate. "No recording."

"Leave." He waited until the door closed and he heard the sound of Hakim's slowing heartbeat fade before he sank down in the chair. Angel still felt guilty, but he figured watching was going to hurt him more than being watched would hurt anyone else. He hung the earphones around his neck, able to hear their conversation without overwhelming his sensitive ears, and settled in to watch the Spike and Scooby Reunion Show.

⸹

"Rupes is nothing like Wesley," Spike said emphatically. "More fun, for one, dry, very British sense of humor. But, by and large, I think all Watchers are cut from the same cloth. Tweed, prob'ly. Thick, itchy wool."

"Wesley can be fun," Gunn said loyally. "Not so much lately, but English can sure cut loose in a fight." He shook out the crease in his trousers, stared at his knee as if he was displeased. "Seen it more with Cordy and Angel, though." He looked over at Spike. "You know. Because of Fred."

The blond's eyebrows went up. "No, I didn't know. You and Fred, huh?" He smiled wickedly.

Gunn's answering grin was short, becoming sad. "Yeah. Past tense. She's something."

"And Watcher Boy likes her?"

"Yeah. Be a good match for each other. They're both brilliant."

Now the eyebrows drew together. "Like you're not?"

"Well, I'm no genius." He looked troubled for a moment, then turned his hazel eyes to Spike, leaning over the expanse of seat a little. "You know I'm not really a lawyer, right?"

"Figured you were too young to have gone through law school, yeah."

"Part of my package with Wolfram and Hart," Charles said, sitting back up and looking out the window at traffic. "I got the knowledge and the credentials and the savvy… even the golf game. Man, I love it. It's like the lifestyle you see on TV is suddenly yours." He looked at the blond man, whose only possession of any value was the battered leather coat. Nothing about Spike spoke of ever having money, so he went on. "Here I am, knowing what to say, how to play it, never being uncomfortable in any situation… It's what every kid who grew up poor, who grew up on the street wants. To fit in, to be seen as a person, not a potential mugger. Not a skin color."

Spike nodded, thinking it was what everyone wanted, when it came down to it: to be seen. "Yeah, I know about wantin' to fit in," he agreed.

"You?" Gunn said, laughter in his voice.

"When I was human," Spike agreed again, touching his shockingly blond hair with a wry smile. He wanted to go back to what Charlie was saying, though. "So, you feel like it was a fair trade? Save the world from Jasmine, become a brief?"

"Do I feel like the world owes me something for fighting vampires, keeping the city safe since before I could shave? Yeah," Gunn said emphatically. Then he wrinkled his nose. "Then again, do I really want to have Wolfram and Hart to thank for this? No." Charles shrugged. "Makes me wonder how I might have turned out if me and Alonna woulda been raised in the suburbs, if I could have got the lawyer thing on my own."

"Sure you could," Spike said, not having to think about it. "You're smarter than the law-school types I avoid like the plague back in the building." He studied the other man's profile. "Alonna… that your sister, Charlie?"

"Yeah." He took a breath against the pain, still sharp after all this time. "Had to stake her."

Spike nodded in sympathy. "Had to stake me Mum," he said, covering his emotions. "Pisser, innit?"

"She offered to turn me," Charles said, feeling an unexpected kinship to the blond vampire. "That way, we'd never lose each other."

"I turned my mother," Spike said starkly. "Thought I'd found a cure for consumption for her. 'Course, after I 'cured' her, it wasn't her." He shook his head a little.

"Tuberculosis?" At the vampire's nod, Charles considered that, wondering whether Angel had been tempted to turn Cordy to bring her out of her coma. Then he shivered. She would be a scary vamp.

Back at Wolfram and Hart, Angel gripped the armrests of the chair very hard. Spike – William, rather, had been truthful when he said his parents were dead, but neither he nor Dru had ever said anything about visiting Spike's family before coming home. If he had known what William had tried to do, he would have killed him immediately. There was only one family allowed.

"Did you have, uh, consumption?" Charles asked, thinking of how Darla had been dying of syphilis in her human form.

"No," Spike said slowly, "but I would have probably ended up with it. I nearly died of pneumonia when I was fifteen. Weak lungs, yeah?" He had nothing but fever dreams of that whole episode: already sick but joining the other boys in his dorm on a biccie raid to the house kitchen, getting locked out and banging on the heavy door, of shivering so badly in the cold night air he could hardly walk, of hunkering down in the hay with the horses in the stable, the swaying of the carriage that took him home to London after he was discovered the next morning, weeks of darkness in his childhood bedroom because light was thought to be bad for sick people. It had been his first time away to school, but after that, it was back to private tutors. He hadn't thought of that in decades.

Angel's fingers eased up on the armrests. This, he knew about. Angelus, smelling shame, had examined the disjointed memories and come away with a couple of interesting facts that were useful to him. The boy William, feverish and innocent, hadn't been able to read the faces of the older schoolboys the way Angelus could. The demon hadn't been at all surprised to find that the two oldest orchestrated the midnight trip for cookies into a circle jerk in the kitchen, their avid eyes scanning the skinny lower bodies of the younger boys, revealed by the hoisted nightshirts. William, while just as gangly as the others, quickly drew their attention. His surface memories, hazy and surreal from the fever, were of being locked out, but there were deeper ones of being on view, of being called names. Shifting through the images, Angelus was amused by the way the greedy eyes turned slightly fearful at the size of his boy's package, by William's dull shame that he couldn't bring himself off and get it over with. The oldest boy had covered his lust with derision, calling Will 'mule-meat' and shoving him out into the cold night, telling him to go to the barn where he belonged. Angelus had used the cruel nickname exactly once, when they were alone in the family bed and he calculated that it would have the most effect on his fledge.

"Man, I've always been healthy as a horse," Charles said. "Had bronchitis for a couple of weeks once. That wasn't fun."

"Took me almost five months to recover from pneumonia," Spike said. "No real medicine to speak of back then."

"When was back then?"

He furrowed his brow. "Uh… eighteen-sixty-seven? I think."

The hazel eyes widened. "Damn. I mean, that was right after the Civil War."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Ask Peaches sometime what he was up to while your colonies were rebelling, Charlie."

"Why do you call him Peaches?" Charles asked abruptly, a gleam in his eye.

"Tell you some other time," Spike said, peering out of the window. "We're here." His fingers were already curled around the handle. Then he turned back to Gunn, a little anxious. "You're sure the windows are necrotempered, Charlie?"

"I'm sure. LAX, Miami, and JFK in New York. Big egress points." His brows drew together. "Spike… are you breathing?"

"What?" He was peering out, as if he might already see her. "Oh. Yeah." He gave Charles a sheepish look. "Forget sometimes." He didn't stop, though, not through the throng at the doors or even when they were waiting in the large lobby.

"Plane just got to the gate five minutes ago," Charles informed him, checking his Treo.

Spike nodded absently, scanning the crowds. Then he stilled. "Here she comes," he said, a helpless grin settling on his face.

"I don't see her," Charles said, searching for the brown-haired girl from his vantage point, a full head above most of the crowd.

"Can't see her yet," Spike agreed. "I feel her, though." Half a minute later, she came into view, weaving through the crowd, her head turning from left to right as she sought him. "Oi! Bit!"

For someone who didn't have to use his lungs, Charles thought, Spike could sure bellow. Even over the crowd, Dawn heard him. She turned, her eyes focusing on his white-blond head like a laser sight. Waving frantically, she almost mowed down a businesswoman in a grey suit in her haste to make it to the escalator. "She looks –" Gunn stopped speaking, realizing he was alone, and he watched in awe as the master vampire blurred from one floor to another, the humans he passed unaware of his presence. Then Charles was smiling, watching the reunion. He headed up the escalator at a more dignified pace.

Dawn was laughing and crying at the same time, holding Spike hard enough to make him feel it, raining damp kisses on his cheek and neck. Spike's arms were trembling with the effort of not crushing her to him with every ounce of strength. Eyes tightly closed, he kissed her brow. Then he opened his eyes, laughing, lifting her up and spinning her around. Even the most jaded road warriors were smiling a little as they passed the happy pair, carry-ons rolling efficiently in their wake.

"You're here," Dawn whispered, flinging her arms around his neck as he set her down. "You're really here."

"So are you," he said, pulling back so he could see her. "Look at you, love, light of my life. You're as tall as Dru."

"Smooth, soul man," she said, giggling, "compare me to your insane ex."

"All my exes are insane."

She arched a brow, and Spike fell in love with her all over again. "Are they insane because they became your girlfriends, or insane because they're no longer your girlfriends?"

"Bit of both," he said. And then everything else faded except the need to feel her in his arms, where he could keep her safe and happy forever.

Dawn apparently felt the same way. "Everything's okay now," she whispered against his shoulder. "The world makes sense again."

Spike breathed in her scent, drowning in it. "Know what you mean, love. This is where 'm s'posed to be, right here with you."

"Air," she said, pulling away slightly. She wiped tears from her face, then from his cheek. "I can't bear if you… do this again, Spike. I – my heart died with you."

"Oh, love, no. Plenty of people in your heart, who love you. And I'm not plannin' on going anywhere," he said, his own heart breaking a little. Once he would have promised to stay with her.

Once she would have asked. "Let's not be apart if we don't have to, okay?"

"Dunno what's gonna happen next, Sweet Bit," he admitted, putting his forehead against hers.

"I'll be eighteen next year," she said vehemently, "and then I'll live wherever I damn well please." She wiped her eyes carefully, trying to repair the light coat of mascara she wore. "And that will be with you."

He couldn't help smiling. "And God help anyone who gets in your way, yeah?"

"You better believe it." Dawn's thin arms were around his waist, and she squeezed him hard. "If I've learned anything from you, it's that you never let go of the people you love." She met his eyes and was surprised by the almost comical look of surprise on his face.

"You learned something from me?"

"Sure, lots of things." Her eyes twinkled. "Let's see… keep your promises, that's another one. Do the right thing, even when it's hard. Don't curse – or at least tell other people not to curse." Her voice softened. "How to cheat at poker. How to break and enter. How to–"

Spike laughed and hauled her into a rib-bruising embrace. "I bloody well missed you, Nibblet."

"And I missed you." She pulled back and glared at him. "Don't make me miss you again."

"As you wish," he replied, bemused when new tears fell at the hoary _Princess Bride_ reference. He would have thought by now it would just make her roll her eyes.

"You two want me to get a mop?" Charles asked, standing behind Dawn. They turned, two pairs of slightly bloodshot blue eyes staring up at him. They look like family, he thought.

"Yeah, might need one," Spike said, wearing the stupid permanent grin once more. "Charlie, you've met my Lil' Bit, haven't you?"

"In the summer," he said, holding out a hand. He didn't think he would have recognized this vibrant young woman, though. She didn't jibe with his memory of the sad, silent girl who watched everything with huge eyes during the time she stayed in the Hyperion.

Dawn took a steadying breath and shook his hand. "Mr. Gunn, isn't it?"

"Gunn to friends," he corrected, then nodded at Spike. "He's the only one who gets away with Charlie."

"Means he likes you," Dawn said, sliding both arms back around her best friend. "He has pet names for everyone he likes."

"Here now," Spike said with mock sternness, belying the tone by pulling her closer. "Don't be givin' away my secrets."

"He has no secrets," Dawn told Gunn. "He's an open book."

This actually seemed to irk him. "'M no such thing!"

"Well," she hedged, "maybe just to me."

"All right, then," Spike agreed fondly.

"I thought you were flying in with Mr. Giles," Gunn said, looking around.

"I left the plane in sort of a hurry. I guess he couldn't keep up," Dawn said without a trace of guilt.

"He's coming," Spike said, indicating the area behind Dawn with his chin. Then he looked at her sharply. "Xander? Xander's here, too?"

Dawn grinned. "Uh-huh. Surprise! He caught up with us in New York. We all had the same flight here. And Willow is gonna teleport in this afternoon." She turned to Spike, her voice quieter. "Buffy will be here tomorrow."

"We're gettin' the band back together," Spike said glibly. Glad he didn't have to think very much about this, Spike inclined his head to the hall behind her. "There's Giles and the whelp." They started walking forward to meet the dark-haired man with the eye patch and the taller, slightly out-of-breath gentleman behind him. Giles was managing both his carry-on and Dawn's.

Xander got to Spike first, and they embraced each other with grins and hearty backslapping. "Bleach boy!"

"Whelp," he replied fondly, and it was as easy as that, as if they hadn't been apart. "Look at you! Got that lean and hungry look yourself."

"Can't get used to African food," Xander said. "Too many vegetables and grains, not enough preservatives. My goal is to scarf down two bags each of Doritos and Cheetos before the sun sets." He waved at the blond man. "You look exactly the same."

"Mysterious and muscular?" Spike had a wicked grin on his face.

"Sorry, not a chance," Xander replied good-naturedly. "Willow never did gay me up."

"Gunn, you remember Xander, don't you?" Dawn asked, giving Spike the chance to turn to Giles.

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, identical grins on their faces, before the Watcher held out his arms to the vampire. "William, I can't tell you how good it is to see you." And then he literally couldn't, words choking in his throat. Rupert squeezed his eyes tightly together. When he opened them and looked into the blond man's face, he saw some sort of tension drain away from the chiseled features. He felt more relaxed himself.

Already mindful of his strength from hugging Dawn, Spike held the human carefully. "Rupes," he said, then took a breath. He took the carry-on luggage from the floor by the Watcher and said deliberately, "Here, let me help you carry this."

Giles remembered, his bright eyes crinkling behind the glasses. He couldn't get anything out for a few more seconds, then managed, "Nice to have someone to help with the burden." Then, taking a breath of his own, he shifted his gaze to Charles, holding out his hand. "Good to see you, Mr. Gunn."

"Just Gunn, and good to see you, too," he said. "Well, let's go get your bags. Shall we?" He headed to the down escalator.

"Man, that is a nice suit," Xander told him. He had seen Gunn going through the lobby with a basketball once during the summer. They ended up shooting hoops for a couple of hours together. It was the single good memory Xander had of his stay at the Hyperion.

Charles ducked his head. "Uh, thanks. Gotta dress the part when you work at a law firm."

"Are you likin' it?" Xander asked, curious.

Gunn looked down at him. He was dressed in shades of tan, weathered twill trousers and a slightly darker, often-washed t-shirt. Xander looked like a capable man used to doing anything with his hands, up to and including building a house. His own hands were freshly manicured just yesterday morning. "Not as comfortable as what you're wearing," he said, avoiding the real question. He gestured up the escalator at Spike, who was holding Rupert's bag in one hand, his other arm around Dawn. Something about Xander's eye patch made him seem akin to Spike, both of them reminding Gunn of privateers. "Get you a canvas duster, you two would be photo negatives of each other."

Harris met Spike's eyes and smiled a little. "No, that's okay. I think I can do without the coat."

"Good call," Spike agreed.

Charles looked puzzled for a few seconds, then shrugged. Rupert leaned down from an upper tread and said in a low voice. "He took the coat from the second Slayer he killed."

"Oh." But it was Giles he stared at afterwards. He wasn't used to anyone filling in the back-story. Then his brow furrowed. "Spike's killed two Slayers?" he asked, his voice sharp.

Xander gave him a quelling look as several strangers turned to stare at them. "Yes," he said, low. "It took a long time to convince me he wasn't trying to make it three. But that's not his way. He likes open combat."

Gunn fell quiet, trying to mesh what he knew of Spike with the fact that he had outfought two Slayers, who would have been stronger than him by definition. Sure, Spike had to be a good fighter to have survived so long, but a great warrior? Charles wondered about the fight between the two souled vampires day before yesterday. Both had returned from the desert pretty battered, but he knew Angel wouldn't really hurt Spike. The big guy was fond of the blond man, anyone could see that, despite the way he tried to hide it. There was affection on both sides, he supposed.

They collected the baggage from the carousel, then headed for the doors. Dawn waited with Spike inside while Gunn called the limo driver. She turned to him suddenly, her eyes wide. "Spike… I didn't even think. There were skylights in there."

"Yeah, still not healthy for me." He indicated Charles with a tilt of his head. "He found out this airport has necrotempered windows, a special coating that keeps my kind safe. The limousine has it, too."

"A limousine! Do you mind me being a little excited? I've never ridden in a limo before."

"Bit, I'm an eyelash away from doing cartwheels and handsprings myself. Go on," he said expansively, "be excited. You have my permission."

"Yeah, like you're the boss of me," Dawn scoffed, poking him unerringly in a ticklish spot on his ribs before laying her head on his shoulder.

"Well, since you're the boss of me, seems only fair that I be the boss of you."

"Okay, but only because you've been gone."

"Go on, love," he said, guiding her toward the door, "hop in. Once you're inside, I'll be right behind you." Grinning, Dawn went to the open door of the Wolfram and Hart limo and let Giles hand her in. Once the way was clear, Spike dashed across the short expanse of sunlight and dove into the cool darkness of the car's interior. Rupert clambered in behind him, sandwiching an uncomplaining Spike between him and Dawn. Gunn and Xander sat in the opposite seat, facing them.

Dawn looked disappointed as she looked around the limousine. "Oh. I was expecting, like, a hot tub or something."

"Boring corporate ride. There is a flip-down television," Charles said, pointing to the ceiling, and the teenager pulled it down, almost immediately pushing it back up.

"Um, our hotel won't let us check in until three o'clock. Where are we going?" Giles asked.

"Oh. Wolfram and Hart," Spike said. "Thought you'd like to see Angel an' Fred an' everyone." He felt Giles stiffen and turned to him.

"I will not set foot in that place," he said, his face hard, "nor will I allow Dawn to go inside."

Spike was at a loss. "I don't have anywhere else to take you," he said slowly. "Been dossin' it on Angel's couch." He wasn't about to mention either of the beds he'd been in last night.

Gunn snorted, thinking of the rumors that had flown around the building the day before, then quickly covered his mouth, pretending to cough. "Uh, you could go to my place, if you don't mind steppin' over a few socks on the floor." Dawn rolled her eyes at the typical male. "Or, hey, what about the Hyperion?"

Rupert nodded stiffly. "That would be all right, I suppose."

Dawn shivered a little. "I don't like that place."

Gunn frowned; he missed the Hyperion. "Well, this time it won't be about unhappy memories. Spike is back, right?" Next to him, Xander's visible eye grew shadowed, but he didn't say anything. Spike leaned across the open space and put a hand briefly on his knee. Many people would never come back.

In the Wolfram and Hart surveillance center, Angel smothered a curse. He rose from the chair and went down the hallway. "Hakim!" The uniformed man was there with gratifying haste. "I need to see the feed from the Hyperion." Even though the human's face showed only puzzled blankness, Angel could hear his heart rate soaring. "Don't bother denying that the hotel was under surveillance," he growled. "Just get the feed up on that computer."

"Yes, sir." The human walked stiffly back down the hallway, Angel on his heels. It took several minutes for Hakim and two technicians to reactivate all the cameras and microphones in the Hyperion. The bugging was even more extensive than Angel suspected. Well, he thought bitterly, no matter where they go inside the hotel, I've got them covered.

Bemused, Gunn looked at the key to the front door of the Hyperion on his key ring. Odd how he'd never taken it off. He unlocked the door and palmed up the panel of light switches in the lobby. The Sunnydale survivors shuffled inside, none of them happy to be here, not like he was. He held the door for Spike as the vampire dashed from the limo into the safety of the building.

Looking up at the tall ceiling of the lobby, Spike raised his eyebrows. "Never been here," he commented. "Not sure if I like it better than the old office building." He could sense why Dawn had said she didn't like the place, and he pulled her against him, his arms wrapped over her shoulders.

"We had some good times here," Gunn said defensively, watching Giles put a hand on Xander's shoulder. He sighed a little, wishing that the Angel Investigations team still supported each other like that. Once Cordy was gone, everyone seemed to drift apart. Then he corrected himself severely. She wasn't gone. "Well," he forced his voice to sound cheerful, "I've got to get back to the office. If they can come, do you want me to bring Angel, Fred, and Wesley here for lunch? Say one o'clock?" He paused on the highest step of the lobby.

"And Lorne, too?" Dawn asked. "I-if he's still with you, I mean."

Gunn smiled at her, safe in Spike's embrace. "Yeah, I bet he'd like that."

"Thanks for comin' along, Charlie," Spike said, smiling up at him. "'Preciated the company."

"It's cool," he said, ducking his head. "See y'all soon."

They watched the tall man return to the limo and listened to it drive away before anyone spoke. "Never expected to be back here," Xander said, his hands jammed into his pockets.

Dawn squirmed a bit in Spike's grasp. "I know what you mean." Her voice was unhappy.

"It's only for a short time," Giles said, looking for the brighter side as always.

Spike was frowning. "There's some serious leftover vibes floatin' about the place, but there's also a sense of peace." He shrugged. Dawn pulled against him, so he let go of her shoulders but reclaimed her hand. "You could show me about the place."

She pulled her hand away. "In a minute. First, bathroom," she said, shouldering her purse and heading down a hallway.

"Yeah, me too." Xander was right behind him.

"Uh, we'll meet back here, shall we?"

Spike watched his humans scatter. Bathroom break he understood, but he wondered if their unease was based on anything that had happened while they were here last summer. It might also be the dregs of mystical activity in the hotel, strong enough for even humans to feel. He let his extra senses extend, floor by floor, until he was sure there was no current danger. Well, he thought, that took care of fifteen seconds. Spike breathed in deeply, finding nothing more frightening than a family of mice who had moved in. The stale scents of the Angel Investigations regulars were there, as well the barest trace of something so powerful it had almost no smell. Jasmine, he supposed.

Spike tilted his head. There were baby smells here, older but not that old. The hotel was an easy record to read: there was a huge chunk in the layers of scent in which almost nothing had changed, then A.I. had moved in. Maybe some client had been forced to shelter here with their family, infant included. That must have been a trip for the old man, he thought with black humor. Then he caught something that wiped the small smile from his face: the signature of an Aurelian that he did not know.

He slipped into his demon face to read it better. Giles had just found a bathroom and shut the door. He had time. Spike went up the stairs, not quite at speed, but faster than a human. The unknown Aurelian had interacted with Angel's team; the scent was particularly strong in what were surely Cordelia's chambers. Probably not a captive, then. An Aurelian that Angel trusted with his humans? Hurt and disbelieving, he paused outside his grandsire's rooms. Forcing himself not to kick the door open, he went inside.

The scent was negligible here. Whoever Angel had sired hadn't shared a family bed with him. In fact, the predominant odor in the room was the old man's own. He had lived in solitude here, too, in the midst of his humans. Spike closed his eyes, forcing calm down the throat of his unhappy demon, and resumed his human features as well. If Angel hadn't mentioned his get, it must be because the newcomer was dust. Whoever the Aurelian had been, his scent was that of a fledge – a powerful fledge, but in their line, that was standard. But no matter how strong, a fledge was prone to stupid mistakes. A grim smile curved his mouth as he remembered Angelus' sick little pun, 'mis-stakes.'

Spike thought of another thing Angelus would always do, and he began walking the perimeter of the room, breathing in, searching now for the smell of old paper. He paused beside a boring picture that was surely hung on the wall by the original hotel owner and knelt on the floor, his strong fingers pulling away carpet to explore the third board out from the wall. Pay dirt.

He pulled the board up to reveal the usual cache of banknotes, jewels, and gold, but ignored them in favor of the sheath of sketches. Spike didn't blame Angel for leaving these here; he didn't particularly want anything he valued in the Wolfram and Hart building, either. If Angel had turned someone, he would have sketched them, so he pulled the leather portfolio from its hiding place and opened it.

In the Wolfram and Hart surveillance room, Angel came to the edge of his seat, kicking himself for being stupid and not changing his habits for two hundred years. He'd tracked Spike through the hotel, wondering what he was looking for. It wasn't that he was afraid the boy would take anything; he wouldn't do that, not to family. But there were sketches of Connor in there, as a baby and after he returned from Quor'Toth. He clicked amongst the three cameras in his room (a part of him angry about this violation of his privacy), but none of them showed Spike's face. After all this time, Angel couldn't remember which drawing was first, but it had apparently arrested the boy's attention, because he didn't look any further. Surely it wasn't one of Buffy; she hadn't been on his mind much those last few months. He hoped it was Drusilla. But if it was the one he feared, the one he'd drawn from his imagination… Darla holding their baby, that look of maternal love on her face….

Kneeling on the dusty floor of Angel's old room, Spike touched the top sketch with shaking fingers, complicated emotions vying for dominance on his expressive face. He had never seen it before, but Angel had used all his talent to capture his subject. It was beautiful, one of the old man's best, a work of art.

"Spike!" Dawn's voice pulled him from his reverie. He took a steadying breath and just kept on breathing as he put the portfolio back and covered it with the floorboard and carpet. He left the room, shutting the door behind him, and went at speed back to the lobby.

Watching, Angel relaxed marginally. Spike had only looked at the top sketch, whatever it was. If it hadn't been of Connor, maybe the situation was salvageable.

"Here I am, Bit. Just poking about, making sure everything's safe."

"Come on behind the registration desk. That's where all the comfortable chairs are hidden." She was already there, swiveling back and forth in an office chair. He went to her and sat at her feet, resting his head on her knee.

Dawn looked down at his closed eyes even as she put her hand on his temple, stroking the skin there. No way was she going to touch his hair; he had it slicked back in that no-nonsense fashion and it was probably stiff. "You okay?"

"Little overwhelmed, I reckon."

"You're breathing." She felt his cheek move as he smiled against her knee. "Come on, out with it."

"Feel bad for the old man, is all."

"The old man?"

"Angel."

"You call him the old man?"

"Not to his face. Well, not often." He propped his chin on her leg and looked up at her.

Dawn's heart made a funny little leap; if he was anything, he was her big brother, but that didn't mean she was blind. "And you feel bad for him why, you gorgeous man, you?"

"Hey," he said, brightening. "You said Man U."

She rolled her eyes, safely back on platonic ground. "Spare me the football love; I get enough of that. Living in Europe now." She put a finger on his nose for a moment. "Why do you feel bad for him?"

"He's all alone," Spike said, shrugging. He crossed his arms and laid them across her knees so he could prop his chin more comfortably. "Even here, he didn't have… I don't know," he finished lamely, shrugging again. Vampires were akin to pack animals, in their need to know where they stood in the pecking order, but also in their need for physical contact. He had no problem transferring this to his humans, putting Rupert at the top on account of being the only mature one amongst them all, keeping in mind that he could easily freak out the heterosexual males, and, except with Buffy, remembering he had to treat them delicately. There was no proof his nose could find that Angel had done the same. "They don't talk," he finally said, meeting Dawn's eyes. "Imagine if we, the lot of us, didn't talk, didn't tell each other what was going on."

"You mean like those months after Buffy came back?" Dawn asked in bitchy voice.

"Yeah, but all the time. That's what the folks from Angel Investigations are like. They're nice enough people, but–"

"Secret-keeping?"

"Probably," Spike agreed, thinking of the unknown relative whose scent pervaded this hotel. Then he shook it off, sitting up on his knees and pulling the office chair closer so he could embrace his Bit once again. "'S'good to be together again."

"I can't tell you how good it is," Dawn agreed, touching her forehead to his, her long hair falling around them, making Spike smile. She got it, the physical contact; she always had. They sat that way until Xander came into the lobby and called out, unable to see them over the tall registration counter.

Giles joined them in a few minutes, watching with well-concealed amusement as the other three played bumper cars with office chairs in the lobby, Spike getting the most hits in with his quickness. Xander, being the heaviest, was the ultimate winner, knocking the blond man's chair over. Dawn pulled her feet up into her chair as the two engaged in a good-natured wrestling match on the dusty floor.

"All right, children," Rupert said, taking off his glasses and peering at the lenses. He took out a handkerchief and began cleaning the dust off them.

"Ooh, time for a story from Uncle Giles," Xander said, putting on a creaky old-man's voice. "When I was your age, we had to chisel the wheels for our office chairs from pebbles we took off the beach of Pangaea."

Giles gave him a severe look. "You're fired." Unrepentant, Xander threw himself into a chair, grinning, and sent it rolling back a good four yards.

"So, Rupes, how come you were so opposed to going to Wolfram and Hart?" Spike stayed on the floor and leaned against Dawn's chair, pulling one of her feet onto his knee so she couldn't roll away. He began massaging her calf, looking up expectantly at the Watcher.

"I always had a… dim awareness of its existence," he began, putting away the handkerchief and taking a seat on the tall stool just behind the counter, "but once I got back to London, I pulled what records still exist. Wolf, Ram, and Hart are extremely powerful and clever overdemons that exist in another dimension, but spread their poison through as many as they can. Wolfram and Hart is the seat of their power here, how they control demons on this plane, how they influence events on earth in the hopes of eventually being able to manifest physically in our dimension."

"They would be the nebulous Senior Partners I'm always hearin' about, then."

"Why do they always want our dimension?" Xander asked, scooting his chair closer. "Stupid foreign demons should just go back where they came from," he added in an irony-laced voice.

Rupert gave his head a little twist. "I daresay they've befouled and used up all the resources in their home dimension, made it a wasteland, along with many others."

"If they're so mighty," Dawn said, "why haven't they just come here and done as they please?"

"Our dimension has powerful wards places on it," Giles said, "or so I gather from those who understand these things."

"The coven?" Dawn asked.

He nodded. "Also, we've been blessed with champions, not the least of which is the line of Slayers, and others who arise at need." He nodded at Spike.

"The thankfully continuing adventures of Captain Peroxide," Xander intoned, grinning again. For his dignity's sake, Spike tried not to smile back.

"Basically, the Wolfram and Hart building is a thin spot, a dimensional Mouth, if you will, though not a naturally occurring one. That the head of the Council of Watchers would set foot in there and risk being enthralled in some way to do the will of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart… not even Quentin Travers would have been so arrogant."

"What about stupid?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

Giles, as usual, ignored the editorial comment. "Nor would I allow Dawn to go into that building."

The three men looked at her, and she could all but hear swords unsheathing, axes whooshing through the air. She rolled her eyes. "Hello? Safe right here with people who save the earth on a regular basis."

Spike stood abruptly. "Look, I've been there long enough to know there are branch offices all over the globe, including in Rome." He clenched his fists.

Giles shook his head. "I have no reason to believe Dawn and Buffy have attracted undue attention from Wolfram and Hart." He hesitated. "It's quite possible that there are magical protections on the line of Slayers. While Slayers die in combat, the First Evil was the only instance on record where there was an attack on their actual existence." He frowned, thinking about the odds against it, and continued half to himself. "I still haven't found a good explanation of how that attack was even possible, what power the First Evil was drawing upon. It certainly couldn't have been just a chant." He shook his head.

The blond man had relaxed marginally, and he took a seat between Dawn and Xander. "Doesn't matter. Buffy broke its power by defeating the preacher man, and then we defeated its army. What I want to know is what you've been up to since." The Scoobies began, haltingly at first, telling him about the nightmarish escape on the school bus, Buffy clinging to the roof. Xander made Spike laugh by telling about the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign that teetered into the crater – "My bleedin' trademark, yeah?" Giles took up the thread, narrating the stop at the hospital in Dutton, then the longer trip to the Hyperion. Dawn, who had been quiet, looked around at the dimly lit hotel with distaste.

"Meanwhile, as used up as we all felt, all over the world, potential slayers had woken to their gift," Giles said. "It was a bit easier for me, I think, than the rest – I simply threw myself into my work. There was an emergency Council meeting, where I was voted, well, unanimously to head things up, then I worked with Willow and the coven to pinpoint new slayers. After that, it was just a matter of finding Watchers to send out to them."

"So," Spike said slowly, turning to Xander, "you're a Watcher, and so are Red and Bu – the Slayer?"

"Kennedy, too," Xander said. He shot a look of devilry at Giles. "And so is Andrew."

Rupert rubbed the bridge of his nose. "In training, as is Kennedy. Whereas you three can be relied upon to understand what it's like for Slayers, Kennedy is simply too young… and Andrew is, well, lacking."

"Lackwit," Spike muttered, causing Xander to grin. "Why not Dawn?" he asked.

Giles smiled at the teenager. "When she turns eighteen, as head of the Council, I will gladly hire her." He took off his spectacles and considered them. "As her friend, however, I do hope she decides on university."

Dawn smiled at Rupert, pleased, then turned to her best friend. "What do you want me to do?" When Giles and Xander looked between her and the vampire, surprised, her voice became steely. "Because as soon as I turn eighteen, I'm moving in with Spike."

"University," he said firmly. "Bein' a Watcher's not the only thing you're capable of." He held his hand out for hers. "You can be anything you set your mind to."

"What about Buffy?" Xander said with equal parts loyalty and stubbornness.

"She's got her own life." Dawn's blue eyes darkened, and there was a note of finality in her tone.

"Not that I approve or anything," Xander pressed on, "but Buffy might want to move in with Spike, too." He held his hands out, palms up. "I'm just sayin.'" An uncomfortable silence fell, during which Xander was the only one who looked at his fellow Scoobies. His voice was softer when he finally went on. "After we… after she came back, before things got… And there's the month or so after Willow came back and before the First reprogrammed your chip… You've made her happy, Spike, the happiest she's been since coming back. That's all I mean."

His gaze remained on the floor. "Don't think I'm the one, Harris. Ocean's full of better fish than me." Spike forced a smile, while Angel, observing, frowned. "But, thanks. 'Specially, you know, for not threatening to stake me at the thought."

"You haven't even seen her yet," Xander said, speaking solely for the vampire's benefit. "Don't give up."

"We'll see," Spike said, noncommittal. "So, tell me about your globetrotting."

Xander nodded, accepting the change of topic, and began relating his story with a big dose of self-depreciating humor about his mobile Watcher's office, a Land Rover he'd dubbed Big Bertha, and lamenting the fact that, in the western part of Africa, French was more often the universal language than English. He made a point of telling an amusing monkey story, "for Anya," he said. Almost twenty girls across eight different countries were under his protection, and Spike winced a little at how thinly the Council was spread. Xander had code-named the villages and towns using character names from _The Andy Griffith Show_ , because they were all so much like small-town Mayberrys, with neighbors interested in each other's lives. A white man visiting young girls wasn't a welcome occurrence, and Spike imagined the whelp's likable nature and steel core was more of an asset to the Council than they realized.

The thing Xander enjoyed best was building a public hall in every village that didn't have a space adequate for a slayer to train, getting to use his construction experience and giving something back to the town that supported the girls, too. He was just telling them how his full name was coming back to haunt him, as he was often called al-Xander, when his cell phone rang. Spike, used to the ultra-slim hardware preferred by well-paid attorneys, thought it looked awfully clunky until he realized it must be a satellite phone.

"It's Willow," Xander said, sitting up in anticipation. "She's beaming down." Almost before the words were past his lips, the witch materialized next to him. They hugged each other, then Willow turned to the vampire, who rose from his seat to embrace her.

"Spike!" the redhead squealed, bouncing a little. Then, in his mind, _This is, like, the best thing ever!_

 _Dunno about that, love._

She pulled back a little and grabbed his face. "Look at you!" Willow placed a somewhat damp smooch on his cheek.

"Look at you," he replied. "Sao Paolo agrees with you."

Willow threw her arms around him again, bouncing on the balls of her feet once more, happiness all over her face. "Being alive suits you."

 _Uh, Red… Pare por favor isso._

Willow gave him another squeeze. _You speak Portuguese?_

 _Yeah. Me an' Dru lived in Brazil a few times._ "Red, love…" he said out loud.

"Oh, I've missed that. No one else calls me Red." Willow wrapped her arms around his slim waist and put her head against his chest, rocking them both side to side.

 _Love, as much as I enjoy having an armful of warm, wriggly woman, I really wish you'd stop._

 _Why?_

"Rude, much?" Dawn interrupted. "Speak out loud in public, guys."

He sighed and put one large hand on her bum, pulling her closer. _Haven't had a body in a while, and yours next to mine feels a bit too nice._

 _Oh!_ Then Willow turned her head to grin up at him wickedly and grabbed his bottom with both hands. Spike threw his head back and laughed long and hard, moving his own fingers lightly to Willow's waist.

"She didn't grab my ass," Xander complained to no one in particular. "How come Bleach Boy gets special treatment?"

"Duh," Willow said, peeking over Spike's shoulder at her best friend, her eyes sparkling, "he's been dead." With a final, mischievous squeeze, she put her hands at his waist, too.

"Still dead," Spike managed, "but bouncy Willow welcomes sure do make me feel alive."

"Eww."

"Hey, Dawnie," Willow said, slipping free of Spike's arms to embrace the younger woman.

"Hey, Wil. Good to see you. Do I get groped, too?"

Laughing, Willow obliged. "Gee, wish I'd known to do this back in high school. I would have been much more popular."

Giles hopped off the stool and strode across the short space with alacrity. "Queuing up for my turn," he said, making them all laugh. Willow did have half a mind to feel him up, but when he looked down at her and said, "Wonderful to see you, my dear," she just melted and couldn't do anything except hug him.

Turning back to Spike, Willow grinned and held out her arms. "Second go-round for you, fella."

He obliged, pulling her close. Then he hooked his chair with one foot and sat back down, bringing Willow with him onto his lap. Spike circled her waist loosely with his arms and looked up expectantly. "You may resume the welcoming." Willow smacked the back of his head, taking the leer off his face. "Ow," he complained, but they were both grinning. "Xander here was just tellin' me about his job in Africa. What are you up to down in Sao Paolo?"

Giles covered his mouth and coughed, a small noise that sounded remarkably like, "Rio!"

Willow glanced at the Watcher, hunching her shoulders guiltily. She launched into an animated tale of how she and Kennedy had made initial contact with almost all the new slayers in South America, but now they only had responsibility for seventeen girls, all in Brazil. Spike, his eyes a trifle glazed, lifted her off his lap and let her have the chair, returning to the safety of his former position at Dawn's feet.

Blushing a little, the redhead continued, her gestures soon returning to the same energetic level. Unlike Xander, most of the slayers under her care were in urban areas. Meeting Spike's eyes briefly, she added that she and Kennedy were a good team – Ken could teach the girls the moves, she taught them about the spiritual and practical aspects of life with superpowers.

Before she got much further, the front door of the Hyperion opened and Fred walked in. Smiling, Willow and Dawn dashed forward to greet her. Spike wasn't at all surprised that the three liked each other.

"Hey!" Fred said, delight thickening her Texas twang. "Look at you all!" She hugged Willow and Dawn, then turned back to the door. "I brought lunch."

"Tacos?" Spike asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he, Giles, and Xander joined the ladies at the foot of the stairs.

"I bet there're tacos in there somewhere." Fred gestured behind her, where a white caterer's van could be seen at the curb. She leaned toward the blond man and gave him a conspirator's wink. "If there aren't any, we'll just sneak off."

"Xander here needs two bags of Cheetos and two bags of Fritos," Spike said gravely, just to see what she would do.

"Doritos, not Fritos," Xander corrected before Fred could dash off to the corner market, holding out his hand to her, "and I was just kidding."

Fred brightened visibly. "Oh. Good, 'cause I think this is just a little fancier than chips." Two of the catering staff walked past with a folding table, and she gave Giles an apologetic smile. "Fancy, one of the perks of working at Wolfram and Hart."

He was gentler than he had been with Gunn, shaking her hand and asking politely, "Is the food from the law firm?"

She shook her head, dark hair swinging. "Oh, no. Gunn called his friend Anne at the shelter. There's this catering business that employs her kids, and he likes to send business their way."

Satisfied, Giles nodded. "And how do you like your new job?"

"Oh, it's fun, I guess. Definitely interesting. And really busy." Her friendly smile faltered. "Too busy sometimes. We – Angel Investigations people, I mean – don't see each other as much as we used to." The wattage of her smile increased. "That's one reason I'm lookin' forward to lunch today – not that I'm not glad to see you guys, too."

"Muffin!" Lorne strode in, folding his cell phone and holding his arms out to Dawn.

"Hey, Lorne," she said, hugging him. "Good to see you. Nice suit."

"Isn't it?" he agreed, holding out one leg of his lemon-yellow trousers. "Can you believe Spike? The comeback of the decade! Isn't it just delicious that you got him back?" He breezed through a round of handshaking, ending up with his arm over Willow's shoulders, beaming down at her. "Wesley and Gunn will be here as soon as they locate Angelcakes." Dawn coughed a little, covering her laughter. She thought Lorne's names for Angel were hilarious.

Fred, also grinning, gave her a conspiratorial look. "Being around Lorne always makes me hungry, because he uses so many food words when he talks. 'Course, everything makes me hungry."

The caterers had finished setting up the tables and setting out the food before the final Wolfram and Hart company car arrived. Of necessity, Angel dashed inside the Hyperion first, carefully holding a tall paper bag against his torso. He was unhappy to be here, with too many memories and too many interlopers, but he had to get to his cache. He resented that he felt uncomfortable in his old home, not the least because he didn't want to witness any of this reunion in person. Willow and even Xander welcomed him more warmly than Giles or Dawn, and he stepped back by the door as Wesley gravely greeted everyone.

"Sure I can't lure you back into the fold?" Rupert asked, gripping Wesley's hand. "We could use someone of your caliber."

"No. My place is here," the younger Watcher said.

Giles nodded, understanding. Though he had asked several times, young Wyndam-Pryce's experience had not been conducive to a second round. In his opinion, the boy's father should be flogged for forcing his appointment through the Council when he was so raw, and that wasn't the only reason he'd enjoy seeing him flogged. Rupert had a brief Ripper moment where he wished the old man had been at Council headquarters when they were bombed.

Spike, watching his grandsire standing apart from everyone, sighed impatiently. He wanted to ask about the mystery Aurelian, but now was not the time. Instead, he went up the steps and threw an arm over Angel's shoulder. "That would be our lunch?" he asked, nodding at the bag and guiding his grandsire forward.

Angel gave him a wary look. "Uh, yeah." He wasn't the only one looking askance at Spike's friendliness, either, as he noted raised eyebrows from Dawn and Xander's dropped jaw.

"Why so grim?" Spike asked. "I mean, more so than usual?"

The big vampire shrugged. "It's your party." He took another breath to continue, and Connor's scent hit him, freezing him. He closed his eyes involuntarily, missing his son so much. Then they snapped open to find Spike staring at him, waiting. The boy hadn't been looking at random, he realized. He had smelled an unknown member of the family and had tried to track down an image to go with the scent. Spike was frowning at him, concern in the blue eyes, and he wondered what had shown on his face.

"Later, then," Spike gave his grandsire's shoulder a rough squeeze, remembering what Angel had said about being ashamed of loving his family. Maybe that was part of what was preying on him, grief for a lost Aurelian that the others would only have seen as an evil vampire, unable to share his pain because of it.

The pair started again to the table, where Angel automatically began taking the thermos bottles of blood from the paper bag as he did some quick calculations of the danger. At least two, Spike and Drusilla, maybe one or two others who would both recognize and understand the meaning of Connor's scent. The memory spell hadn't changed his son's odor or appearance; he knew this from the trip he'd taken to Connor's new home. The risks of that hadn't even occurred to him. The new life he'd bought for his son at the cost of his own heart was in jeopardy because of Wolfram and Hart's carelessness.

Or their care to include a clause favorable to them, like they did with every contract. He closed his eyes, wondering how he was possibly going to make it through this lunch.

Gunn, oblivious to Angel's distress, walked up to Spike and tapped his shoulder with a manila envelope. "Harmony said to be sure to give this to you."

"We're all here," Lorne said loudly. "Let's sit down and enjoy, shall we?"

Spike opened the clasp. He stared at the contents for a long moment, his gaze softening. "Thanks, Charlie. 'Preciate it."

"Harmony?" Willow asked, her fine brows drawn together.

"Head of the table, oh-blond-and-resurrected one," Lorne called, gesturing to Spike, who gave Willow a neutral look and took the easy out.

"Speech!" Xander called.

Spike scoffed. "Not hardly."

"Oh, come on," Dawn prodded him.

He sighed, tapping the edge of the envelope on the table and wondering how much of a show of resistance he should give before letting her have her way. Too much energy, he decided. "Right, then." He looked around the table, set off to the side of the dim lobby, at the sea of friendly faces. "A toast."

Spike took his time pouring blood into a wineglass, trying to think of what to say. He focused on one of the small vases of fresh flowers for a moment, then looked up and said simply, "Dunno that I deserve to be here when there are others who are not, but I am grateful. We fought the good fight – we still do. Every day, we try," he said, his eyes lingering on Angel, who was looking at his plate, "and it isn't always the easiest. I've wanted to scoop up my Sweet Bit and those I love countless times and just run, get away from battles and rituals and Hellmouths. But I didn't, nor did any of us. And here I am, part of the happy few once more," Spike caught Giles' little smirk, "and bloody glad of it." He raised his glass. "This, then, to family, to friends old and new, and to those who are not with us." There was a murmur of assent from around the table and a more subdued atmosphere as Spike sat down.

Willow looked past Lorne and caught Spike's eye. "I heard Gunn say the name 'Harmony.' He didn't mean Harmony Kendall, did he?"

"You know Harmonica?" Lorne asked

"Harmony is here?" Dawn asked, across the table from the Pylean.

"Sure is, muffin. She's Angel's personal assistant."

Xander choked on the water he was drinking. "Harmony works at Wolfram and Hart?" He looked at Angel, incredulous.

"Well, I have to say that makes me feel less anxious about the efficiency of evil," Willow said waspishly.

"How did Harmony end up working for Dead Boy?"

"Don't call me that."

"Lost a bet," Spike muttered.

"I chose her, actually," Wesley admitted. "She was already working there in the secretarial pool."

"Doesn't make me feel better," Dawn said indignantly. "She kidnapped me once."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Everyone kidnaps you, Dawnie. Harmony couldn't have been the worst."

"It was bad – i-it was my first time being kidnapped. And not everybody kidnaps me – Spike gets captured more often than I do."

"Do not!"

Dawn gave him a look. "Glory, the Initiative, the First Evil – twice."

He opened his mouth, but couldn't deny much of it. His murderous expression changed to a sly one, and he looked at Rupert. "Well, I'm a valuable hostage. Besides which, Watcher here gets coshed over the head way more often than anyone gets kidnapped."

"True," Giles said blandly, taking a sip of water. "Usually only in this country, though."

Fred, whose big eyes had darted around the table, following the conversation, turned back to Dawn. "Harmony kidnapped you?"

She blushed and said in a pained voice, "I was only fourteen, and it wasn't just Harmony. There were four of them. And Buffy rescued me right away."

Rupert took another sip of water. "If there's any pattern at all, it belongs to Xander."

Willow grinned. "Demon magnet!"

"He's developed a magnet that attracts demons?" Lorne turned to him. "May I borrow it?"

Xander put his face in his hands. "I profoundly hope that my love life changes now that I'm not living on a Hellmouth."

Gunn was grinning, too. "You mean demons get all hot and bothered for Xander here?"

Dawn nodded. "Everyone he's ever dated has been a demon."

Willow tilted her head. "Beautiful, girl-shaped demons. I could almost get jealous, except – demons."

"Wait a minute, strawberry shortcake. Nothing wrong with beautiful demons," Lorne said.

"Oh! Oh, I mean, evil. Evil demons. Beautiful, evil demons."

"Yeah," Xander agreed wearily. "With the exception of Anya, evil."

"Well, she was evil part of the time you were together," Giles pointed out.

Grinning, Willow recited, "Bug lady, Inca mummy girl, Maya…"

"Oh, and Faith, too," Dawn piped up. "She's not evil anymore, though."

Xander whipped his head around. "How did you – I didn't date Faith, exactly."

"I know everything. I'll be writing an exposé someday," Dawn said, "so be nice to me."

"Is there anyone you haven't dated?" Fred asked, examining Xander to see if there was something about him she had missed.

Dawn, Spike, and Willow immediately raised their hands, then the redhead silently lowered hers. As she did, Angel put his hand in the air. Giles looked around as he found that people were staring at him. He hastily swallowed and patted his mouth with a napkin. "Oh." He, too, put his hand up. "But, then, I'm neither evil nor a demon."

"But you are beautiful," Willow told him.

"Thank you, my dear, for your uncommon sentiments."

"Every woman you've dated has turned out to be a demon?" Charles raised his brows.

"Literally," Xander sighed.

"Man, and I though I had a bad–" Gunn stopped himself abruptly, looking at Fred. "I've been very lucky."

"Just a minute. Faith isn't a demon," Angel objected, still frowning about Dawn's earlier comment. "She's a Slayer."

"You'll never guess how they made the First Slayer," Willow intoned, her voice dark.

"Yup, Slayers are demonic," Dawn agreed. "Trust me; with my sister, I'm an expert on this. Demon, ev – Ow!" She glared at Spike. "Don't kick me."

"Didn't you date Cordelia in high school, Xander?" Fred asked.

"Evil," he said. There was a silence around the table. "What?" he asked defensively. "She was evil in high school, then got less evil."

"When Cordelia had to take an aspect of a demon so she could keep her visions," Willow explained, her voice rapidly trailing away, "it, uh, made the pattern… complete." She heaved a sigh. "So, how is Cordelia? Any change?"

All eyes turned to Angel. He was staring at the table again. "No change," he said, shaking his head.

"Angel," Willow said, her voice gentle, "if you'll take me, or tell me which hospital she's in, I'd like to go see her." She fiddled with her napkin. "I don't know that I can do anything, but even if I can't, we sort of got to be friends. I want to see her."

He stared at the table some more, then cleared his throat. "After lunch?"

"Sure." Willow twisted her napkin, thinking how far she had come from being the president of the 'We Hate Cordelia Chase Club.'

Gunn tried to maneuver the conversation back to a lighter topic. "Spike told me a couple weeks ago that your parents moved to another town before the catastrophe in Sunnydale," he said to Xander. "Elmwood, wasn't it?"

Xander looked between Charles and Spike. "Couple of weeks… how…?"

Spike pursed his lips and looked down at his half-empty glass, feeling all eyes settle on him. He turned to Dawn, addressing her alone. "Was gonna tell you, but I haven't had the chance. Just got my body back a coupla days ago, but Angel got the amulet in the mail a little while ago. Been a ghost, Nibblet, haunting Wolfram and Hart."

"Not really a ghost," Fred cut in, and Spike flashed her a grateful look. "He generated heat, energy, a-and he couldn't travel very far from the amulet." She laughed nervously. "I blew most of my budget on tryin' to bring him back to a corporeal–"

"You didn't tell me?!"

Spike winced at Dawn's tone. "No, love. No use to anyone as a bloody ghost, couldn't–"

"How long?"

"Dunno, exactly. A few weeks, I think. I–"

"You just let me go on thinking you were dead? What kind–"

"I was worse than dead!" he roared, hating himself as Dawn sat back, blinking, tears spilling over her cheeks. "I was on the border, nearly pulled out of this dimension altogether," he said, his voice softer, "and I wasn't about to make you mourn my worthless hide twice."

Dawn glared at him. "You think that it wouldn't have been worth having you in my life for even another minute?"

Tears stood in his eyes now. "Never want to see you hurt, Bit."

"If Spike's spirit was tied to the amulet," Giles said casually, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "you could have sent the amulet to me, Angel." He turned to look at the dark-haired vampire, and what burned in his eyes wasn't casual at all.

"Yeah," Willow said, her voice becoming belligerent. "Hello? Powerful witch here. I could have–"

"Well, I was already working on getting him back to a solid state," Fred said, a little heat in her own voice. "I found a way, too, only there was this other–"

"My decision." Spike broke in before she could mention Pavayne, his voice brooking no argument. "I asked Angel to not let you lot know or send the bloody thing." The crew from Angel Investigations stared at him after he told the lie. "He brought it to Sunnydale, after all. He deserved to have me hangin' 'round like the proverbial albatross." Angel's clear brown eyes darkened; he'd had the same thought, that Spike was sent to him as a punishment. The blond vampire went on. "Fred's been," he smiled at her, "sweetheart of my rodeo, tryin' so hard to help me out, an' her not even knowin' me that well. She did found a way, too, just circumstances didn't work out.

"Wasn't comin' back to you until I could do this," Spike said to Dawn, taking her hand. His voice slowed. "When I had the chip, love, I lived in fear of the nerd squad. Humans, yeah? If they had broken in the house, done anything to you or Buffy, nothing I could have done to defend you. As a ghost, I was even more useless."

"Do you think," Dawn said, gripping his hand tightly, not caring that they were in public, "that you're just my bodyguard? I love you."

The blond man clenched his teeth, closing his eyes. After a moment, he answered. "What I am, is the thing that stands between you and the nasties in the world. Same for your sis, same for all the Scoobies." He opened his eyes, desperate for her to understand. "I would do that even if you didn't love me. 'S my role, pet. If I don't have that, what use am I? What good did–" She didn't get it; he could see the frustration in her blue eyes. They were simpatico so much of the time, he didn't know how to deal with an area where they didn't mesh, so he changed tack. "I barely had a toe in this dimension, love. You can ask Fred; I'd disappear for hours, days at a time. Right or wrong… wasn't going to burden you with that sort of uncertainty."

"It would have been worth it," Dawn said fiercely, stubbornly, "even for one more minute."

"'M not strong enough to see you worry like that," Spike said, touching her cheek. "You're way badder than me." The teenager covered her mouth, caught between a laugh and a sob, and he took her in his arms, hiding both their faces from the rest. "'M here now, Nibblet. I'm not going anywhere."

Willow looked away from them, giving Fred a sidelong glance. "So you finally managed to make him real?"

"No," Gunn answered for her. "We couldn't get enough energy for a second attempt. Another anonymous package showed up in the mail, addressed to Spike. Harmony opened it for him, and it happened. He didn't even know." Charles smiled a bit. "He found out by walking into a door."

They all ate in silence for a while. After a few minutes, Giles patted his mouth. "I've been thinking that it seems awfully odd that we were fighting two powerful, take-over-the-world types at the same time, both in Sunnydale and Los Angeles. It takes an enormous amount of energy to breach the natural protections placed on our dimension."

Wesley spoke up. "I've done some research on this as well. Neither event was sudden, I believe, nor were they long-term. The groundwork for Jasmine's appearance was laid in the last couple of years, having to do with Cordelia." He gave a bitter smile. "Even the Wolfram and Hart records are incomplete, however. There's very little on the First Evil. Angel," he nodded his head at the big vampire, "told me about its initial appearance in Sunnydale, brought into quasi-being by a chant, and how it claimed to have returned him from hell. The firm keeps sort of a… seismic record of demonic energies that shake the metaphysical plane, and there was nothing that occurred from that time, which was only a minor ripple, to well over a year later. There was a large… quake, if you will, and the tremors never really died away. It was centered near the Sunnydale Hellmouth."

Giles shook his head, frowning. "We were dealing with the Initiative then and demons a la carte, as it were, but that was human stupidity behind the eventual product of that, a being named Adam. I can't think of anything that…" Rupert's words trailed away, and he studiously avoided looking at Dawn. He looked at Wesley instead, and it was obvious that it pained him to ask. "Would you be willing to give me a printout of those records? I can match them up to my Watcher's Diaries from that time." He added, rather grudgingly, "I'll share what I find, of course."

Wesley considered the older man. "I know you don't approve of my working at Wolfram and Hart, but I have access to a lot of resources that can be used to, as Spike put it, fight the good fight."

"I don't approve of any of you being within a mile of that building," Giles said. "Frankly, you're all better than that. It is a stronghold of evil in this world…" He closed his eyes for a moment. "Wesley, I'm not sitting here as part of the Council, the old Council especially. I think you've done far better independent work in Los Angeles, and it makes me hopeful that our methods for training Watchers aren't irreparably broken. What I'm trying to say is, I heartily approve of what you and the others at Angel Investigations do in this city. Buffy referred to you as a second front, and you would have been needed if," he glanced at Spike, then took a breath to continue, "if the Hellmouth hadn't been closed. What worries me is the place that you are operating from now. Just, please," he looked from Wesley to the other humans, then to Lorne and Angel, "beware. I know you think of this… strategy as akin to the Trojan horse, but it's very hard to effect change from the inside. Sometimes when you find yourself in the belly of the beast, it's because you've been swallowed."

"We can hold our own," Angel said quietly.

Giles clenched his jaw but didn't say anything else. Willow broke in, trying to make things less tense. "It isn't like we're trying to set ourselves up as all pure and good, or anything. Hey," she said, touching her chest, "tried to destroy the world."

"And I used to be granddad's heir apparent," Spike added, gesturing at Angel, who shot him an annoyed look.

"Right," Willow agreed, oblivious. "We just don't want you to have to… feel remorse." She looked at her plate. "Because – not fun."

Spike reached past Lorne to touch her elbow before glancing around the table. "Bein' the guest of honor an' all," he said brightly, "I'd like to change the topic." He leaned over and pulled the envelope from beneath his chair. "For you, love." He handed it to Willow, who took it, her eyes wide with surprise. "Something my Nibblet said, so you can't really credit it to me, and Angel helped, too."

Willow opened the clasp and saw blank, white paper, so she turned it around to look at the other side. Her lips parted and she swallowed hard. "Tara," she whispered, touching the picture delicately with her fingertips. Willow's eyes swam with tears.

"Aw, Spike," Dawn said, giving him a look that made him feel he could defeat every demon in the world. "That was…" She bit her lip, her own eyes over-bright. "All of us lost just about everything in the Sunnydale Crater," Dawn said, looking down the table to explain. "Worst was not having pictures, mementos," she slid her fingers into Spike's hand, "of those we love. Willow didn't have even one picture of Tara."

"Oh, she's gorgeous," Lorne said, leaning close to Willow to see better, his reddish-brown hair mingling with her brighter strands. He took the opportunity to slide his arm around her waist, seeking to give her comfort.

"Yes," she whispered, "my baby was gorgeous."

Dawn left her chair to come around the table and look over Willow's shoulder. "Oh," she breathed softly.

Willow touched the photo again, then passed it to Fred to see. She turned in her chair and gave Dawn a hug. "Thank you, Dawnie."

"You're welcome," the teenager replied. "I didn't know he was going to do that. All he asked was whether Angel could sketch her."

The witch stood up, walked down the table to Angel, and hugged him, too. "Thank you," she said simply.

"You're, uh, welcome," he said, touched. He was pretty sure the last time he'd been this close to her, Angelus had been in charge. He smiled after her as she walked away. What he saw next, though, made his eyes flash yellow.

Spike pushed back from the table as Willow came toward him, unable to keep a self-satisfied look off his face. He held his arms out, but Willow plopped down in his lap, put her arms around his neck, and pulled his forehead against hers.

 _Thank you. You don't know how… I've seen this picture; I know where you found it, but I could never… I didn't take it any further than that, because I didn't know how Kennedy would react if I made, like, this huge effort to get hold of a picture of Tara. She's… young, is all._

 _You're young yourself, Red. Loving Glinda is part of what makes you 'you,' innit? Lovin' Dru is partly what made me who I am today – not necessarily anything to brag about, but still true. If Kennedy can't accept that, maybe… Maybe I'm talkin' out of me arse. Dunno, really, what's up with you these days. But I do know you deserve to have a picture of your sweetie._

 _Yes, I do._ Her words were fierce and vivid in his mind. _Whatever you need from me, Spike, if I can ever do anything for you –_

 _Don't keep sittin' all warm in my lap and makin' offers like that. More than one way to turn a girl, you know._

 _Oh, I know all kinds of ways to turn a girl. Every which way but loose._

 _We should compare notes someday, then. I'd prefer giving you a personal, hands-on demonstration._

Willow sat up and loosened her hold, pink-cheeked and guilty-looking, and Spike smiled at her. "Go get your picture, love, before one of these oiks spots it with the gravy." Xander had Tara's photograph now, smiling down at it fondly. Spike looked around the table, realizing his grandsire was gone. "'Scuse me, Lorne. Be right back." He didn't bother using any extra senses to find Angel; he knew exactly where he would be.

Angelus was battering against his control, wanting to get his hands around the boy's neck. Angel figured it was a good time to leave the table, while Spike was obviously distracted, his arms and mind full of cute redhead. He murmured an excuse to Wesley and left, going down the hall and upstairs using the staff staircase. A mindlink. How had the devious pup talked her into letting him taste her blood? At least she wasn't under thrall.

Angel was in his old bedroom in less than twenty seconds, pulling away the carpet, and opening the portfolio to the top sketch. He stilled, and inside him, Angelus did, too, transfixed by the beauty. It wasn't his son.

Or, it was, in the odd, demonic way. He remembered when his own mindlink to Spike had snapped, when his boy had burned and died. The pain of it had driven him to his knees, and he had crawled here, wanting to see his grandchild, to touch him one final time.

Sitting back on his heels, Angel lifted the sketch. He had drawn the first lines in haste in a bedroom in India, capturing with his soul a demon without one, who nonetheless wore an expression of such love… Over the years, he had left behind most of what he had drawn, but Angel kept four or five pictures of each family member. This was his favorite portrait of Spike, calling to mind the singular moment when the boy hadn't hidden himself, when he hadn't hurt the boy. He was so lost in the image, in the memory, that he wasn't surprised when he heard the low voice from the doorway.

"You kept a drawing of me."

"This one." Angel kept staring at the page, preferring to see the representation instead of the reality.

"It's, uh, a good one. One of your best," Spike shrugged a little, "that I've seen. Despite your subject." He looked down, his thumbs tucked into his belt. "Why'd you keep a picture of me?"

Angel didn't answer. "You were talking to Willow."

"Yeah, she–" That admission was as much as he got out. Angel let go of the portfolio and lunged for him. For a moment, Spike's worried eyes went to the fluttering sheets of paper, some old and yellowed, as they rained onto the floor.

It was long enough for Angel to grab him and slam him against the door. A second later, he planted a big fist across the sculpted jaw, part of him numb with the return to an action done countless times before the curse.

"Bloody hell! What was–"

"A mindlink! How did you get her blood, Spike?" Angel drew back his fist again, still holding the collar of the black t-shirt. "Was it before or after you got your precious soul?"

Spike caught the fist, his lips curling back. They stared at each other, tense, not breathing. He knew this dance, had begun to hope he'd never have to go through the steps again. "Wasn't me. Wicca's powerful, yeah? She got into my mind. Easy for her to do, 'cause it had already been opened up like a can of… peaches." He threw Angel off him. They were both just inside the door now, glaring at each other.

Angel lifted a finger. "Don't give me that. I know you can keep her out of your mind."

"First time was in battle," Spike said coldly. "Worked to our advantage. After that, yeah, until the First Evil drove me mad, I could keep her out." He moved forward, his scuffed boots stepping on the scattered sketches. "Can again, but maybe I don't want to. She's my friend, Angel. She doesn't poke around in the corners when she's in here," his voice was raw as he pointed at his temple, "doesn't rip thoughts out of my head and use them against me."

The dark-haired man looked away, his jaw working. What he had done to the boy was close to being unethical even among vampires, sharing blood without Spike understanding about the mindlink, the permanent bond. "Just… get out of here."

Snarling, Spike came at him, grabbed him and slammed him into the wall, knocking the picture onto the floor. "You want me to just leave, so you can brood in peace?" He got in Angel's face, their noses practically touching. "When have I ever made it easy on you?" Shaking his grandsire, thumping him against the wall again, he asked, "Who is he? The other Aurelian?"

Angel used the wall for leverage and shoved Spike away, sending him into the armchair. The blond man twisted and grabbed at the back of the chair, trying to find his balance, teetering on one foot. Angel came at him in demon face, trampling his drawings beneath his feet. He snaked out a powerful arm and caught Spike around the throat, pulling him back. For one wild moment, the older vampire was on the brink of sinking his fangs into the boy's neck, of reestablishing his own bloodlink. No one, not in two hundred and fifty years, had ever made him lose control the way Spike did. Not even Connor.

"None of your business," he growled, and shoved the blond man away, out of the reach of temptation, over the chair. He wasn't expecting Spike to take him along. They landed badly, and Angel went down first, breaking Spike's fall.

Scrambling for position, he shoved his grandsire onto his belly and put a knee in his back. "It is if you're siring again," he snarled. Knowing he couldn't keep him pinned for long, Spike lunged away, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the old man to get up.

"I didn't sire him," Angel said, surprised, putting his elbows beneath him, human features now dominant. Not that way. He stared at the floor, unable to come up with any believable lie. Spike thought Connor was a vampire. Of course. What else would he think? If it smelled like an Aurelian….

Spike stopped breathing, then huffed all his air out in an exasperated sigh. He was prone to it, too. He wanted Peaches to get up, start in on him again, because it was easier. Instead, he took a couple of steps closer, and when Angel finally looked up, he was waiting with an outstretched hand. His grandsire didn't take it, though. He put a hand on the armchair and got to his feet on his own.

Angel looked at Spike, who was expressionless. He knew that meant the boy was unsure. "The only time I ever sired anyone was on that submarine."

Spike nodded, canting his head as if he was at a poker table. "Claimed one of Angelus' get from Sunnydale, then?"

His eyes narrowing at the casual tone, he looked at the younger vampire. "No. Those were minions, if that."

One sardonic eyebrow rose. "Well, I know it wasn't me. Wasn't Dru, either – she would have said something when she came…" Then his eyes widened. "Darla's?"

Angel looked down, but nodded. "Darla's." The boy had always been so quick; it was better to let him answer the questions to his own satisfaction. He'd never guess the truth, anyway.

"She sent him to you?"

"She's gone." Angel let out most of his breath. "For good."

"And you took him in," Spike said slowly.

Angel watched him pace away, still thinking. Instead of walking back, he knelt and began picking up the loose papers. Afraid of what Spike might find, the dark-haired man joined him on the floor. "I took him in," he agreed.

"How did your humans feel about taking in a soulless vamp?" he asked, studying Angel's averted face.

He gathered up the sketches quickly. There didn't seem to be much damage, just some crumpled corners. "There was good in him, Spike."

The blond man picked up a page and considered it, then held it out. It was Cordelia, when her hair was still long. "But not enough good."

"I gave him his chance," Angel said carefully. He had all the papers stuffed haphazardly into the portfolio again, except for three. He couldn't reach them without being obvious about it.

"You had to take him out?" Spike asked, just to get the facts of the story straight. He looked at another drawing, then handed it over.

Angel glanced down into Doyle's face, at the gentle smile he'd caught. "I took him out of this world," he agreed heavily.

Spike was staring at a picture, his expression unreadable and unnerving. "Why'd you take him in at all, here at the hotel?" He handed over that picture, too, his eyes on Angel's face.

It was Buffy, her eyes closed in sleep. Angel's mouth firmed at the intimate sight, one with which they had both been graced. "He was family." His eyes went to the last piece of paper.

Spike picked it up, turned it over. There was a flicker of emotion as he glanced at it, immediately gone, and he passed it across the distance between them. "I understand."

Angel didn't know whether to be relieved or not. It was the sketch of Spike from the bedroom in India. He smoothed it out and tucked it into the portfolio, beneath the drawing of Doyle, then began straightening the other pages.

"If you come across an extra of Dru," Spike said, standing up, "I wouldn't mind having one." He looked away, some unhappy emotion in his eyes. "Crypt fire in Sunnydale year before last. Lost most of my stuff then."

Angel snuck a glance at him and cleared his throat. "I'll look to see what I have." He put the portfolio back into the cubbyhole and covered it.

Spike waited until his grandsire stood up. "You could have told me it wasn't just the cheerleader on your mind, you know." He stared into the hallway as he said it.

"No," Angel said, brushing past him, "I couldn't."

Spike lengthened his stride, catching up. "After Buffy came back, the Scoobies spent a long time not talking to each other. Things got bad…" He closed his mouth, cutting to the end of that story. "Tara was murdered, and Buffy almost was. Red, Willow Rosenberg, for pity's sake, almost destroyed the planet. A lot of the reason is that none of us talked about things, including the human spods who caused us so much grief." He double-timed it again, because his grandsire was in one hell of a hurry to get away from him. "Not just sayin' that keepin' secrets is bad for you – which it is – but that it can be dangerous, the world we live in." He watched Angel's back retreating. Always the great constant: Angel leaving. "Piss off, then," he muttered.

Angel heard the boy's frustrated curse, but didn't turn around. It didn't matter. Spike would be leaving soon, after all. It was for the best. The boy would be safer away from him. He was much better at being alone than he was being with family.

When lunch was over, and Fred, Lorne, Gunn, and Wesley went back to work. Fred paused in the doorway and asked Angel in a low voice if everything was all right, much as Dawn was doing to Spike across the lobby. Everyone had heard their raised voices. Both vampires gave an evasive answer.

Giles and Xander chose to go with Willow to see Cordelia, which both surprised and disgruntled Angel. Gunn called for a third company car to take Spike and Dawn to her hotel. She thought they would have to wait in the lobby, but Spike charmed the woman at reception into letting Dawn check in early. Her room had double beds, since she would be sharing with her sister once Buffy arrived, and Spike lounged on one, television remote control in hand, while Dawn unpacked. When she was finished, Spike scooted up to the headboard and she curled against his chest, sighing contentedly.

"I never thought I'd have this again," she said.

He was slouched down far enough that they could see each other. "Have what, pet?"

"You. This feeling. Safe, like everything's all right." She smiled a little. "Mom used to make me feel this way."

"Your mum used to make me feel that way, too," he said gravely. "Here, hand me my coat, love. Got something for you."

"Ooh, presents," she said, and handed it over, leaving most of the leather draped over her legs. She stroked it while he rooted through the pockets. "Did you know this was my blanket those weeks you were gone to Africa?"

"Tara told me. 'Bout broke my heart. Still sorry that I didn't tell you I was leavin,' but – evil."

"You always come back." She leaned away to give him more room. "You know, I'm never going to believe you're really gone for good, not after this."

"'Spect 've used up all my nine lives," Spike said. "There it is. Too many bloody pockets in this thing." He pulled out the blue velvet box and handed it to her with a flourish.

Dawn started to smile, anticipation already in her eyes. She opened the box to confirm her suspicions, then hugged him tight. "How'd you find this? It looks the same as the old bracelet."

"Saw Mindy. She's at the parent store in Beverly Hills."

"What did you have to do to get it?" Dawn said, arching an eyebrow.

"Pay her money," he said, affronted. "Honestly, Bit."

"Where'd you get money?"

"Borrowed from Angel, played poker, an' now I'm wadded up."

"Any kittens in the kitty?"

"Hopefully never again."

"Oh, there's a new one," she said, holding a golden charm on her finger. "Lazy eight?" she guessed.

"It's the symbol for infinity."

"I thought that was an ankh."

"No, that's eternity," he said patiently, "which would have also worked, but they didn't have one of those."

"What's the difference?"

"Eternity means always, infinity means existence beyond always." His eyes crinkled as he shrugged. "Somethin' like that."

"Put it on for me?" she asked, lifting it from the box.

He clasped the bracelet around the wrist she held up. "You still mad at me?"

She stared at the little sun on her wrist. "I don't know. I kind of understand… but it's been hard since you've been gone."

"Dawn, I can be selfish, you know I can. Maybe I was thinkin' of myself." His mouth compressed, and he looked down. "Dunno if I belong in your life, vampire like me. I tend to… complicate things." He met her eyes. "If I coulda been a ghostie at your side in an otherwise normal life, I would've been happy to do that." He frowned, realizing the contradiction. "You know what I mean. But we don't get a normal life. If I had to stand by, not able to do anything, and see some demon or human hurt you…" Spike looked away, touching his chest. "Destroy me on the inside. Wouldn't be anything left." He met her eyes again and touched her face, tracing her soft cheek. "That's how the First Evil got me the mornin' after Red smashed my crypt, made me think I'd let you be…."

She covered his hand with his, then lowered her lashes, not quite looking at him. "I lost my virginity." His fingers flexed beneath hers, and she thought she saw his eyes flash yellow, but then he was stroking her cheek again, sorrow in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Bit."

"Why?" she demanded.

"You told me on the phone yesterday you weren't seein' anyone. Figure that means…" His words trailed off.

"No fairy tale."

"Were you careful? Used a johnny?" When she nodded, he sighed. "Good-lookin' Italian bloke? Nice Catholic schoolboy?"

"It doesn't matter." Dawn shrugged, not caring if that's what he thought. The truth was more painful. A week after she had flown with Buffy to be with Giles in London, she'd gone to a pub just because she could, just to be away from her grief-stricken, silent sister. Buffy barely spoke to her, and when she did, it was in a falsely bright tone with a smile that never reached her eyes. There had been several boys near her own age at the pub, watching a soccer match. Her eyes kept going back to one of them, a heavy-set boy with brown hair and acne scars and crooked teeth, nothing like the slick boy-band look she was programmed to like. But he had a deep voice and a North London accent, and when he eventually got his nerve up to talk to the girl who kept checking him out, he called her 'love' on a breath tinted with cigarette smoke. One of his friends had an apartment, and she let him do it twice, even though it hurt, because afterwards he had held her in the dark, smelling of smoke and beer, and talked to her in that wonderful voice. She had never told Buffy.

"It wasn't – did…" Spike was at a loss, wanting to ask, but not wanting any details.

"It wasn't awful," Dawn said. "Not something I'm thinking about doing again anytime soon, though. I-I sort of understand better about you and Anya though, about just needing someone…" She watched his eyes close, and even then she could read the emotions so easily: self-loathing, regret, worry, sorrow, guilt.

In London, the offices the Council had rented in an anonymous corporate low-rise had been littered with boxes of rescued books and records. Poking around, Dawn had found one book on the sexual behavior of vampires, and, from what she could glean from the puritanical text that jibed with her own experience, she understood a little better what family must mean to Spike. Vampire families were rare enough, but where they existed, they shared a communal bed. She was Spike's family. The sexual impulse would always be there, though he would never act on it with her. He had never once made her feel uncomfortable, not even when she propositioned him after 9/11, and suddenly she didn't want him to feel bad about her first time not being perfect. Dawn knew just how to do it.

"Spike? Do you…You aren't… I mean, do you still…?"

His eyes opened. "Do I still love you? What kind of question is that?" He put his arms around her and buried his nose in her shoulder. "Always, Dawn. Nothing can ever change that."

"I love you, too." She smiled against his ear. This was what she had wanted, to be held, safe and loved. "You're not disappointed in me?"

"Nibblet, I've killed people for fun. I'm not about to be disappointed in you, ever." He sighed, pulling away enough to meet her eyes. "Are you disappointed in me?"

"No." Dawn shook her head. "I understand why you didn't want to be with us until you got your body again." She shrugged. "I can be selfish, too, though." She scooted down to get more comfortable, and he leaned against the headboard. "When did you come back – you know, when did Angel get the amulet?"

"Fred told me that it was a fortnight after you and Bu – the Slayer went to London with Giles."

Damage was already done by then, she thought. Then it struck her. "But, Spike… that was months ago. It's November."

He shrugged. "Doesn't seem like that long to me. Wasn't always here, yeah? 'S'like being on the Hellmouth again, didn't have a sense of time."

"Spike… where did you go when you weren't in this dimension?"

Gazing into her troubled face, he wished he were a better liar. "Didn't see your mum there, love."

She closed her eyes. "That's so not fair. You've got a soul."

"Soul doesn't automatically mean good, but it wasn't just my demon. Part of it was a, dunno what to call him, a master ghost who lived in the Wolfram and Hart building and fed other ghosts to hell in order to keep himself out of there."

"He couldn't send you there, though." Her voice was full of satisfaction.

"Not once I was wise to his tricks." He grimaced. "He tried to hurt Fred, so we had to re-corporealize him instead to take him down. Angel's got him locked in a dungeon. Otherwise, I would have had the digits to dial your number a few weeks ago."

She took a deep breath and hugged him. "You're here now." Impulsively, she asked, "Can I see your vampire face?"

"What?!"

"Humor me. With all the slayers, Rome is like, so dead. I haven't seen a vampire in months."

Sighing, he obliged her, because he wasn't capable of doing otherwise. Deep inside, his demon danced gleefully, loving this girl. "Happy now?"

She considered him and put her finger between his brow ridges. "I think your nose is cuter this way."

"I can still eat you, you know." He shook it off. "Right, then. Tell me 'bout Rome, Platelet."

Dawn bit her lip, then gave him a measured look. "Do you like Rome?"

"Was there last with Dru for a while in the sixties. Or was it the fifties? Post-war, anyway. Putti would set Dru off sometimes – gargoyles did the same in Paris, oddly enough."

"And again I ask, do you like Rome?"

"If you mean, could I live there, yeah, I could."

Dawn smiled a little, then began to tell him how Giles had ticked off many Council members by giving Buffy what was considered a plum assignment. They moved there in August, so Dawn didn't have long to acclimate before starting at her school, which catered to the children of English-speakers who worked in the Eternal City. There were thirteen slayers in Italy, already identified. Buffy trained with the closest ones in Rome, then traveled through Italy for one week each month, touching base with the rest of the girls. Armando handled the bureaucracy, and the old Watcher had an extensive network in place.

Spike held up a hand. "And I ask again, tell me about Rome, Bit." He smirked at her. "What's it like for you?"

For a moment, the teenager closed her eyes against a rising tide of love and gratitude. She felt invisible so often, just Buffy's little sister now. "I want to come home to the States," she said simply. "I don't mind spending a year abroad, and I know it's improving me as a person in ways I don't even know," here she rolled her eyes, "but I miss just understanding the culture down to my bones, what things are like."

"Are the other students nice?"

"It's mostly girls. The school used to be all girls, I think, and boys are still scarce."

"Good."

"Too late now."

His hand tightened on her waist. "Rot. Never too late. Look at the Slayer's example. She nearly sent the world to hell, her first time. You're already ahead of the curve."

Dawn sniggered, then smacked his chest. "That's my sister you're talking about, mister."

⸹

"Harmony," Angel barked, "get Eve in here. Now."

"You're back?" Harmony still hadn't woken up completely.

"Now." He slammed the door behind him and began pacing the length of his office. It took almost fifteen minutes for Eve to saunter in. She gave him a cool look, but Angel could recognize bravado on a master vampire, and he wasn't fooled.

"What's the default, Eve?" he asked softly.

"What?" This caught her completely flat-footed.

"The default. If Wolfram and Hart doesn't fulfill its end of the bargain that got me here," he gestured around at the room, "what's the default? Welshing on a mystical bargain." He shook his head. "Payback would be a bitch."

She shook her head slowly. "We kept up our end of the bargain. The memory spell is working–"

"Right." He stalked close to her. "Memory spell works fine. Connor can look the same; that's no problem. He favors Darla, not me. No one is going to recognize him, after all." He leaned in very close to her, having the satisfaction of seeing her draw back slightly. "But he smells the same."

"Smells?"

Dim, stupid human. "His scent is the same." When Eve continued to look blank, he snarled, "He still smells like me." Her eyes widened. Finally.

"Oh." She drew the syllable out for a long moment, obviously playing for time. "I am sure that it's just something that they forgot. Not every species has such a keen sense of smell as vampires. It probably didn't occur to–"

"My employees don't make excuses, Eve. They get things fixed."

"I'm not your employee."

He gave her a predatory smile. "From where I'm sitting, you belong to me. The bargain was for Connor to get a happy life, with no loopholes, not that memories be modified. That just a method they used to complete the deal. Are we understanding each other? Because, if we don't, I can get in touch with the Furies, no problem. I know them pretty well by now, and I know they'd be interested in having leverage over the oath-breaking Senior Partners."

True fear flashed across her eyes, and she stood stiffly, backing away from him. "I… I'll get right on it. Have his scent match that of his new family."

"You do that." He watched her leave and sank down on the arm of the couch, feeling shaky. Inside him, the demon raged against the loss of his get's identifying scent. Angel's soul, however, heaved a sigh of relief. The thought of Spike, so perceptive, ever meeting a young human who smelled like an Aurelian was enough to turn his insides to liquid.

Back in the basement of Wolfram and Hart, Angel slid back into the chair in front of the monitor and hung the earphones around his neck. He clicked on the limo icon, but the Sunnydale survivors were quiet after the visit to Cordy's bedside. He moved the cursor over the hotel rooms and found a good camera angle for Dawn and Spike, surprised to find them sprawled together on a bed. What else should he expect? It was obvious they were his family – even Xander had accepted him.

"There are always worse experiences. Look at me – death by foreplay," Spike said.

She leaned away from him. "You never… not until Drusilla?"

He shrugged. "Wasn't married. My family didn't even drink alcohol; wasn't about to sin with a mistress."

"I never knew that."

Spike shrugged again. "Now you do. Poster child for abstinence, me."

Dawn snorted. "Huh! You're like a vampire sex god."

It was Spike's turn to snort, but he looked pleased nonetheless. "Return with us now to the continuing adventures of Dawn Summers, American abroad…" He raised a meaningful eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah. So, the girls are actually nice enough, but their families all have, like, pots of money. Cheyenne, a girl from Oklahoma, is okay. Her mom's an artist on some kind of fellowship, in Rome for a year. There's one nice guy from Virginia named, can you believe it, Woodrow."

"Woody?"

"'Drow.' Kinda like 'Xander.' But they live a long way from me, so I only see them at school. Mostly I hang out with people who live in our apartment building."

"Names, ages, identifying marks?"

"Not there."

"Won't apologize, Sweet Bit. I'll be vettin' the geezers in your nursing home when you're ninety."

"Promise?" The look they shared was both honest and sad. "Sorry. Forget it. Um, there's Gianno and Roberta, another pair of siblings who live on our floor. They're nice, but they don't speak that much English. There's Carlotta, she lives above us, she's about thirty. She looks out for me, makes sure I get a home cooked meal at least once a week."

"You can cook. 'Ve eaten it."

"The spaghetti we used to make in no way resembles home cooked Italian food," she said. "I think she feels sorry for me because Buffy's gone so much."

"Traveling?"

"And partying." Dawn pressed her full lips together. "She used to call when she wasn't going to be home until the next day. Now she doesn't bother." The girl shrugged. "It's not like she's always out with some guy, but she's found a crowd of beautiful people to hang with. If they have kids at home, they've got nannies, too, so families are invisible. I'm not part of her life."

"Have you talked to her?" Spike stroked her hair, soothing her.

"Can anyone talk to Buffy when she doesn't want to talk?"

He dropped his eyes, a sardonic expression settling on his mouth. "Guess not. Not easily."

"I figure she'll only listen to someone who can kick her ass. You're pretty much it; ergo, she hasn't talked to anyone since Sunnydale. Now that you're back, you can kick her ass."

"Language," he said sternly. "Not about to hurt your sis, Nibblet."

"No, but you could. I overheard her tell Giles the only thing that saved her from you is that the Initiative doctor you kidnapped lied about taking out the chip. I mean, you just got your skull sewn up and you take down a Slayer?"

He shifted, uncomfortable. "Doesn't signify, Bit."

"It does to her. I mean, she's first among Slayers, and she's defeated everyone and everything except you." Dawn held up a warning finger. "Don't even mention that – I know you just let her whale on you; she told us all about that after Xander pulled Willow back from the edge. I'm just saying, she'll listen to you because you're the Slayer of Slayers, and Buffy's killed everything else. She even sent Angel to hell. She–" Dawn's eyes widened, and she sat up abruptly, her long hair flaring out past Spike's knees before swirling across her shoulder. "She knew. The dreams. She knew."

He put out his hand. His quick, bright girl. "She never told me what she was dreaming about." He didn't consider lying.

Dawn didn't take his hand. Two bright blotches of red appeared on her cheeks. "She knew, and she never told you. She never told anyone."

"Prophetic dreams aren't usually clear, Nibblet."

The teen shook her head. "No. She asked me how I felt after she gave her life for mine. She knew you were going to–"

"It was my decision to wear the amulet–"

"Because she asked you to–"

"And my decision to stay, end it good an' proper."

Dawn smacked his outstretched hand away from her. "She… she made me promise that I'd always love her, when she knew all along what was going to happen. Sh-she finally managed to take you down, burned you up all the way, not just like when you captured Ang–"

He had pulled his hand back, his brows drawing together as if she had really hurt him. "Love, no one knew exactly what was going to happen. In any case–"

"No, she knew, she had Slayer dreams, she–"

"She's not the only Summers who's going to listen to me," Spike said forcefully, taking her by the shoulders. "Bit, light of my unlife, I know a lot of that anger is for me. I deserve it. But I would do it over again, just the same, knowing everything." Dawn shook her head, glaring at him mutinously. "I would, Dawn. I can't not act. 'M a unique thing, soul and demon strength. Meant I could do, so I did. I had to.

"Told you how many times I just wanted to grab you and your sister, stuff you two in the DeSoto, and get the hell out of town. But I didn't. We didn't. Now you're not going to be stuck in soddin' Sunnyhell for your whole life. Down to me. Even if I hadn't been here to see it, 's'worth it to me." He let go and ran a hand through his hair, releasing some of the trapped curls. "I didn't do it for her, Sweet Bit." Spike looked away. "Got my soul back, but I never knew if it really made a difference. I mean, except for Rupes, the Scoobies couldn't even tell. When I was dying, though," he saw her face and backtracked, "when I was on the Hellmouth that last day, I felt it. It… it made a difference." Spike's voice softened, and he met her eyes fully. "I'd do it again."

"Because you're, like, a champion," Dawn said, her voice full of bitterness.

"Just a word, love. Because I made a difference. Never did that when I was alive, never did when I was dead. Lived twenty-eight years, unlived for a hundred and twenty-three, and that was the first time I made a difference."

Her voice was full of tears. "You made a difference to me."

Spike scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck, tears standing in his eyes. "Here you are, not even eighteen, and you've already made a difference. Got me beat by a mile, Nibblet. 'Cause when everything else has gone wrong, I can always tell myself, well, my–" his voice broke, "my Sweet Bit loves me."

Dawn launched herself across the bed at him, holding him, crying even harder. "That's what I lost, what I missed, because," she rubbed her face on his shirt, "because I'm so afraid that one day, I'll just disappear, turn into a burst of energy and disappear, and no one will even know I existed, will even care." Spike wiped her hair off her wet cheeks. "But I always thought, well, Spike would remember. He'd miss me. And then… and then you weren't there anymore." She breathed through her mouth for a moment. "I wasn't sure I still existed, not without you."

He didn't have words, just kissed her flushed cheek and forehead with his cool lips and held her as she cried, his own tears falling on her hair. Eventually, Dawn's sobbing eased off, and Spike reached in his jeans pocket for a handkerchief. Smiling through her tears at the familiar sight of the white square of fabric, Dawn took it. She scooted off his chest and wiped her face.

"When I say I miss you, s-stupid vampire," she said, giving his ribs a prod, "I really mean it." She tried again to smile. "You're the only person I know who carries a handkerchief."

"Other people would carry them, if they had girls who could turn on the waterworks the way you can."

"Look who's talking, Niagara Falls."

"Not ashamed of tears. 'Course, I don't get all blotchy when I cry."

She smacked at his knee, then scooted off the end of the bed. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom and blow my nose." She looked up at the sound of someone knocking on the door and detoured to answer it, pushing her long hair behind her shoulders. Willow and Xander stood there. "Hey," Dawn said thickly. "Come on in. I was just having a good cry."

"We were both havin' a good cry," Spike corrected. He'd scooted to the end of the bed, too. "Hey, Red, whelp. Where's the Watcher?"

"Next door." Xander looked down at Willow. "You think he knows that we have proper names?"

She ignored him in favor of putting an arm around Dawn. "You okay?"

The teenager nodded. "I'm just going to the bathroom."

"I'll go with you."

Xander stepped inside and closed the door, watching the two young women go into the bathroom, overhearing Dawn's inquiry about Cordelia. He looked at Spike and gestured at the other room, wanting to think of something else besides his first girlfriend. "Why do they always go in pairs?"

Spike shook his head. "Don't even go there. Don't have the energy to thrash you for inappropriate musings about my Nibblet, bathrooms, and girl-on-girl action."

Xander looked queasy. "Eww. So, so not going there. I feel like turning myself into the police now."

"Yeah, nonce." He fell back on the bed. "One thing I missed about having a body was being able to sleep. Feel like I could hibernate for a month." This day had provided too many emotions, and it wasn't over.

"I know what you mean. I've been traveling since day before yesterday, when I got lucky and caught Ngwale, a bush pilot I know, just before he took off with the mail." Xander sat down on the edge of the other bed, and then stretched out on it. He made a small moan of contentment, then frowned and sat back up as he remembered something. "Wake up, there, Dead Man Walking. I've got something for you."

Spike opened one eye. "Is it something I'll actually want?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Right." He sat up, facing Xander, knees apart, and braced his hands on his thighs.

"You remember when I borrowed your lighter for the candles after the Sunnydale electric company abandoned ship?"

"No."

"Figures. It's okay, though, old man. I understand. Get up in years, the memory starts to go. But I did borrow it, and you should be glad I did." Xander reached into the front pocket of his trousers and fished out a silver object. He tossed it across the short distance. "Merry Christmas. Who says Santa Claus doesn't exist?"

Spike caught the lighter in his left hand and stared at it, expressionless, for half a minute. Then he looked up, his eyes bright with tears once more. "It's just a thing, I know, but… 'm just a thing, too. Had it longer than I've had the coat." He stood up, looked down into Xander's smiling eyes for a moment, and then embraced him. "Thanks, whelp. Means a lot."

The dark-haired man patted his back. "And Harris comes through again." When Spike pulled away, he asked, "There a story behind it? Is it like the coat?"

Sitting back down on the other bed, Spike gave him a narrow look. There was no slyness in his brown eye, just open curiosity. "No. Got it from a woman, a human." He smiled a little at the memory. "Late thirties, when I first took up smoking."

"You've kept it that long?" He had carried it like a talisman himself the past few months, taking it out just to see something familiar when being on foreign soil got to be too much. Xander found it comforting that the lighter had been all over the world already in the company of one of his friends.

"Left it lying about here and there, but I always got it back." While looting the Initiative's underground facilities after the final battle, he'd not only found weapons, he'd also found his personal effects. The money had been nice, but it was the lighter he'd stared at longest before lifting it from the filing cabinet. He'd given it up as lost for good.

"Pretty cool." Then his eyebrows drew together as he did the math. "You've been smoking longer than my grandfather has been alive."

"Once again, thanks, whelp." Spike scowled at him.

"No problem." Xander smiled. "One of the many services I provide." He closed his eyes and raised a hand. "Don't go there."

Spike's voice was silky. "Tell me about these other… services, you broad-shouldered man, you."

"You think I have broad shoulders?"

The vampire flapped a hand in his direction, his voice normal again. "One of your best features, you know that."

"Thanks." Xander leaned across the space between the beds, his hands clasped between his knees, his uncovered eye twinkling. 'So, tell me more about me."

Spike gave him another narrow-eyed look. "Liked it better when I made you so nervous your voice got higher." He smirked. "Funny, that."

"My voice doesn't get higher when I get nervous – does it?"

Giles knocked on the door, saving him from having to answer. Spike opened the door to let him in, but the Watcher stayed in the hallway. "Er, Spike," he said, "could I have just a moment? I have something for you."

Rupert led him across the hall into his room. His suitcase was open on the second bed, and he took a manila envelope, a twin of the one Spike had given to Willow, from an outside pocket and handed it to the blond man. A smile lurked at the corner of his mouth.

Spike examined Giles' face warily, then opened the envelope. Inside were a British passport, a green card, a California driver's license, a CoW corporate credit card, and various other bits of identification, including a Barnes and Noble discount card. The part of him that had been falsifying IDs for years was impressed; it was a good mix of what a law officer would expect to find in someone's wallet, someone legitimate. But the larger part was staring at the name on the documents, feeling warm.

"William Randall Giles?" His voice was deep and precise as he read it aloud.

Inside Wolfram and Hart, Angel snarled at this claim laid on what was his. He was gripping the edge of the desk, and a chunk of veneer and particleboard snapped off in his hand. How much was going to be taken from him today?

Rupert turned away a little. "I-I didn't know if you wanted to use your real name, or if you have a preferred alias. Fortunately, the shop where the Council does its, er, documents wasn't located at headquarters – near Oxford, actually. Came in very handy when I was rescuing the potentials, and later when I took Buffy and Dawn to England with me. These are just temporary; the picture isn't very good, a capture from where we tapped into the law firm's video surveillance. Didn't quite get the color of your hair, I don't think. We'll do a better job–"

"I'm proud to carry these."

Giles stopped babbling and looked up at the stark words, which conveyed so much more than was on the surface. He beamed at the other man, then cleared his throat. "Er, I, um, couldn't find another mug. Thought these would be more useful." He clapped Spike awkwardly on the shoulder. "Well, let's go back across, shall we?" Then he was enfolded in a strong pair of arms, quickly withdrawn. Rupert smiled, but Spike had already averted his eyes.

Spike tucked the identification into his coat as they went, closing his eyes a moment in the hallway against the happiness. Neither man said anything as they returned to Dawn's room, where she and Willow were finally out of the bathroom. The teenager nestled between Giles and Spike, and Willow curled up against Xander on the other bed. Spike asked how Rupert was doing in London, and he began telling about the process of finding new Slayers, as well as reactivating retirees and recruiting new Watchers. He gave great credit to the coven in Devon, as well as Willow, for performing locator spells. Apparently, there had been around two thousand latent slayers who survived the Bringers' attack. Hearing this, Spike understood why Xander and Willow had so many charges.

All of the financial officers for the Council had died, and lots of funds were tied up in Swiss accounts that Rupert couldn't access. The Council was solvent as far as operating costs went, but didn't have enough for capital projects, such as replenishing the library (this caused Willow and Xander to exchange knowing grins). He praised Willow and the late Jenny Calendar for scanning so many of the Council's books in his early years in Sunnydale. When he had been fired, the Council took back their collection to the headquarters library, and now those books were ash, their contents otherwise lost.

"The big thing on the horizon," Rupert said, rubbing his brow, "is Cleveland."

"The other Hellmouth?" Dawn said, wrinkling her nose and looking up at him from her resting place of Spike's shoulder.

"Well, there are others. There's a closer one, in fact, a small one in Mexico."

"A small Hellmouth? Shouldn't it be more like, Hell nostril? Or the pore of Hell?"

"Oh, Xander, I have missed you," Giles said dryly. "It's away from any population of size, in the desert, and it's far, far weaker than the one in Sunnydale." He looked at Spike over Dawn's head. "When you closed the Hellmouth, the energies there seemed to move, not to the closest one, but to the next largest one on the continent."

"Which I'm guessing is Cleveland." Spike's expression was neutral. Closing the Hellmouth didn't mean anything, then, not if the mystical energy just surged to a new point. Explained why he hadn't had a champion's reward after death, then.

The Watcher nodded. "Yes. Cleveland was never as prominent as Sunnydale – the Council only had one Watcher there – but demonic activity has picked up in the last few months."

"Never even knew there was a portal there until I started hanging with you lot," Spike said. "Has it attracted the apocalyptic crowd yet?"

"No, but I fear it's only a matter of time."

"You're not going to ask us to move to Cleveland, are you?" Willow asked.

"No," Giles replied glumly. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything I'm not willing to do."

"I don't know," Xander mused. "Cleveland looked like a pretty fun town in _Major League_."

"Maybe, but it's no Rio," Willow said, then shot a glance at Giles, "er, Sao Paolo."

The talk became more general then, shared memories and funny things that had happened while living separate lives. Xander began to yawn around four o'clock, and Giles joined in about an hour later. Dawn was leaning bonelessly against Spike, who exchanged a look with Willow. She rousted everyone and got them downstairs for dinner in the hotel restaurant, but it was obvious that jet lag had caught up with the travelers.

They made breakfast plans, except for Willow, who was going to teleport back to Brazil, and Spike trailed them upstairs, saying his goodnights and sharing hugs with the two men. He joined Willow on one of the beds in Dawn's room as he waited for his Nibblet to finish showering.

"So, have you thought about what you're going to do?" Willow asked. She crossed her legs where she sat on the bed and slid her fingers into his cool hands, waiting for him to mindlink, if he wanted to.

 _No, not really._ He shrugged. _Go wherever Giles needs me, I s'pose._

 _That's what we did. He only let us sign one-year contracts, though, which was really sweet of him. I don't know if I want to be a Watcher. The girls are all nice, but there's not the same urgency, you know? It's not like any of them are the chosen One. I just wanted to help out, though._

 _What do you think you'll do, then?_

 _Finish my degree, maybe at Oxford. I was accepted there out of high school, and that way I would be close to the Council in London and the coven, too._

Spike smirked. _Oxford's a good school. Don't let Rupes tell you otherwise._

 _Does Fred or Wesley have any idea about that envelope you got that recorporealized you?_

 _Not a clue. Spell, obviously._

 _It was addressed to you._

His face hardened. _Yeah. Not worried about it. 'M my own man and don't owe anybody anything._

Willow looked down at their hands. _Nervous about seeing Buffy? She should be here in time for our early Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow._

 _Ah, yes, the traditional American feast with turkey, irate Indian warrior-ghosts, and bear demon-spirits._

 _And Buffy?_ She didn't let him get away with the evasion.

 _Not lettin' myself think about it too much. Have you talked to her?_

 _She's not so much with the talking these days._

 _Sweet Bit said much the same._

She nodded, and then changed the topic. _How are your mental defenses?_

His mindscape changed, and Willow saw that she was a small, ginger cat. Spike's big hand came down, scooped her up, and tossed her out a door into the night.

Willow blinked. "Pretty good mental defenses." Then she grinned. "That's a great image! Much better than your DeSoto."

"Wasn't the DeSoto," he said impatiently, "and I can't take credit for this image, either. Something I picked up a long time ago."

Sighing, Willow glanced at the bathroom door as the sound of the shower cut off. She stood up, rubbed her hands down her thighs, and walked around the small room until she spotted the manila envelope with Tara's picture laying on the nightstand. "This," she said, picking it up, "is just… I can't thank you enough."

"You don't need to thank me at all," he replied. "I'll apologize in advance if it ruffles the bin – uh, Kennedy's feathers."

Willow shook her head. "It won't." There was a tiny crease of worry on her forehead, though. It cleared as the bathroom door opened and Dawn came out, a towel wrapped around her hair. She was wearing shorty pajamas, and Willow gave her an envious look. "You have the longest legs."

Spike groaned, leaned over, and put his head in his hands. When he looked up, both women were watching him. "Just realized I need to stock up on weapons, is all."

"'Dawn doesn't get to have sex until she's thirty,'" Willow quoted. She smiled at the teen and gave her a hug, missing the look Dawn shared with Spike over her shoulder. They spoke in a low murmur for a couple of minutes, and Spike tried to respect their privacy by playing with his lighter. Willow gave Dawn a final hug and said goodbye. Spike stood up from the bed for his own hug, but the redhead surprised him by adding a light kiss on the mouth. She said a silent farewell and was gone.

"I'll say goodnight, too, love. You look dead on your feet, and coming from me…"

"But I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Breakfast downstairs, eight o'clock sharp."

"Where are you going to go?"

"Back to Angel's. Ponce needs to talk to me, if I can annoy him into it."

"What's up with you being friendly with the great poof?"

He smirked a little to hear his words in her voice, but answered truthfully. "He's not so bad. Not compared to Angelus. He's been there for me, much as he can be with that stick up his – Uh, anyway, I'd like to return the favor. Be there for him, I mean."

"You going to call in the limo?"

He shook his head. "Might take the underground."

"Oh. I always forget L.A. has a subway system. One place the monks messed up."

He moved away and turned down the covers on the bed. He glanced over his shoulder at Dawn, smiling a little. "Always wanted to do this when you were younger. Mind if I tuck you in?"

She was tired, she knew, but it wasn't fair how close her tears were to the surface. Not trusting her voice, she just bit her lip and nodded. Dawn got into bed, towel and all, and watched as he carefully covered her to the shoulders. She closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead.

"Sleep tight, Nibblet. I love you."

"'Night, Spike. I love you, too." She spoiled his neat work by sliding her arms from the covers for a hug. "See you in the morning."

With a final kiss, he walked away, turning off the lights and making sure her door was locked. In the hallway, he stretched, his coat gapping open. It was a warm night, so he took it off and slung it over his shoulder to blend in better with greater Los Angeles. He could hear regular, deep breathing from both Xander and Rupert's rooms and Dawn let out a tiny, contented-sounding sigh.

Finding that the coming night had revived his energy, Spike took the stairwell, bounding down to each landing. Go back to the penthouse, drink all the blood in the place, and pin Angel down on some specifics, preferably in the most aggravating manner possible. Sounded like a plan. He strode through the lobby, catching both wary and interested looks from the humans stranded in various queues. Then he froze, pivoting on his heel to face a seating area near the elevators, feeling everything inside him go still.

⸹

"Mr. Angel?"

"Just Angel," he said, turning away from the lobby view of the monitors. "What is it?" He didn't recognize the technician.

The woman frowned, looking at a slip of paper in her hand. "I thought you would want to know. A credit card belonging to Buffy Anne Summers was used less than an hour ago in the hotel you're surveilling." He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to go on. Looked like Buffy was in town earlier than expected. "Um, she asked for her own room. Since there wasn't a reservation in her name, she got a room that we didn't have wired." The woman shrugged. "We couldn't have known."

Angel looked back at the monitor. What he saw in the lobby made him close his eyes.

⸹

[Author's Note: Buffy and Spike reunite. This section is definitely rated R. Maybe more. YMMV.]

Buffy had been watching the elevators for the last twenty minutes, waiting for Spike to come down. She had checked in less than an hour ago, asking for a room of her own far away from other guests, because she was so tired and needed quiet to sleep. That wasn't really why, of course. They gave her a room on one of the top floors, and she had already unpacked and made the room ready.

She knew exactly where he was at, could feel him the old way. Not 'slaydar,' not the way she sensed other vampires. She hadn't really believed it could be true, that he could have returned, not until she felt him. Buffy had spied on him as he sat with her sister and the Scoobies in the hotel restaurant. No way was she about to join them. Now she could feel him coming closer, coming down to the main floor, and her stomach was in knots. Any moment now….

Buffy froze, then turned in her seat. He was there already, flanking her. The stairs, she realized, he never does the expected thing, and she took a tiny breath in through her parted lips. Spike's eyes were almost electric blue with the light that gleamed from them. He had stopped mid-stride, his coat thrown over his shoulder, muscles in his arm taut beneath the pale skin. She swallowed at the sight and stood up.

She didn't know if he moved or if she did, but suddenly she was right next to him, staring up at him. The look on his face was an indescribable mixture of awe and wariness and desire. Buffy took another breath, closed her eyes, and put a hand out to touch his chest.

He was solid, and she pulled her fingers back, covering her mouth. Some sound escaped anyway, a sob, a gasp. Then she put her hand out again, although not daring to touch him. "Spike," she whispered, and he was all blurry because her eyes were so full of tears.

He crushed her against him in a grasp so hard that air was forced from her lungs. He pressed his face pressed against her neck, and his hard body pressed against her everywhere else. "Buffy," he said, a word of worship.

She felt his coat crumple against her leg where he had dropped it, and suddenly she could move. She captured his head, prying it away from her shoulder just enough to turn him so that she could find his mouth. Then she held on, clinging to his arm and waist, because he had never kissed her like this, not in all the years they had danced.

Buffy pulled away enough to plead, "Come upstairs with me." Otherwise, they were going to be arrested, because there was no question what was going to happen between them in the next few minutes. She heard Spike's teeth click together as he gathered his willpower, and he nodded, just once. She turned away from his embrace reluctantly, squatting down to retrieve his coat. She put it over her own shoulder with one hand and took his cool fingers in her other, leading him to the elevator.

Spike followed close on her heels, almost stumbling. One set of elevator doors slid open right away, and he propelled her inside. Pinning her against the wall by the shoulders, his upper lip lifted somewhere between aggression and a smile, and he slowly dipped his body against hers, letting her know exactly why he'd had trouble walking.

The Slayer's eyes closed, and she let out a harsh breath. "Spiiike," she managed. "Oh, God, yes." He curved around her, shoulders and head blocking out everything else. Buffy raised her mouth to his, letting his coat fall on the floor again. She wound her strong arms around his neck. There was nothing else in her world, and for right now, she didn't want to be in any other.

Spike had the Slayer pressed flat against the side of the elevator car. He couldn't get his arms around her waist, so he put them against the wall on either side of her, moving, grinding into her, trying to get closer. He heard the elevator doors ding and slide open, heard her breathing become labored. She twisted her mouth from his, gasping for air.

"Ahem."

They both turned to look into the disapproving face of a Japanese woman dressed in a business suit. Buffy tilted her head up to Spike. "I didn't press the button," she realized, her voice faint.

"Which floor?" he asked, his a growl.

She shivered a little. "Twenty-seven." He found the right button and pressed down on it with his thumb. As soon as the doors began sliding closed again, he dove into another kiss, unconcerned by the businesswoman's delicate sensibilities or her loss of a lift. Spike's moved his hands from their perch by the Slayer's head to take her by the hips, drawing her against him. The movement combined with a slight sense of weightlessness from the rising elevator to give her a feeling of vertigo. Buffy made a muffled sound against Spike's mouth, and the noise brought her back to awareness. She pulled away again, desperate for air, and he was breathing now, that unnecessary reflex that she always dreaded. Breathing meant he was emotional. There was elevator music, too, stupid 'Karma Chameleon.'

"What's your room number?" His eyes never left hers.

"Um, 2705," she said, fumbling in the pocket of her skirt for the key card. The elevator slowed, nearing the twenty-seventh floor. She kept her face upturned, letting him search her eyes, knowing that whatever he found, it would be all right.

She tripped over his coat leaving the elevator, and Spike bent to scoop it up. He scooped her up as well, striding down the right-hand hallway after a quick glance at the room directions posted opposite the elevator. Leaning against the doorframe, he watched the light on the door lock turn green after she slid the card in. Good; meant he didn't have to kick the door down. Buffy opened it, and he got them inside, pushing it shut behind them with the heel of his boot. He got a quick impression of lit candles, a large bed with the covers stripped off, then the Slayer struggled away from him.

Buffy kicked off her shoes, tossed his coat after them, and turned to push him against the door, her hands pulling at his shirt. He helpfully stripped it off in a single movement, and she put her hands on him, sliding her fingers over his abdomen and up to his shoulders. Watching the progress of her tan hands over his pale flesh, she found words again. "I don't know if I believe that this is real." She didn't look up at him, but he put his hands on her waist. "I'm afraid. I've dreamed this so often, thought of ways you might…"

He stood rigid, wanting to let her have this, but he never could keep his own words at bay. "I'm here, love."

"On the plane, I planned this, something just for you and me, something just about us. No vampire, no Slayer, just you, because you're mine, and just me, because I'm yours." Her mouth twisted. "If I'm anyone's. You made me yours." She took a breath and lifted her gaze to meet his, feeling as if her entire existence was in the balance. This is what she feared. "If you still want me."

His fingers clenched. "Always want you."

She shivered, the growling affirmation vibrating inside her, and dropped her eyes to his chest again. Spike took this as a sign, and he began to rub his thumbs in small circles on her hips and tummy. Buffy shook her head. "No, you don't… need to." She smiled sheepishly, peeking up at him for just a second. "I-I joined the mile-high club all by myself, thinking about this." Spike chuckled, and she felt the low rumble inside her again. It made her knees go all weak and girly. She leaned against him for support, letting her fingertips trail down to the waistband of his jeans. He stopped breathing. "May I?"

He was touched that she asked, but he put a finger beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes again. "Only if you're honest with me, Buffy." Spike closed his eyes for a moment; just to have said her name… He firmed his jaw and watched her, saw the shame on her face. "It's the one thing I have to have from you. Otherwise, I might as well leave right now." It was a bluff; it wasn't possible for him to leave her. The Slayer took a deep breath, then nodded. His mouth twitched as he struggled to keep the grin off his face. "Then… you may."

What came next was almost a replay of their first time, with Buffy pressing him against the door and climbing his body like a tiny cat, her skirt rucked up around her hips. The difference was that she was speaking to him the whole time. "Nothing has been good or right… Missed you so much… No, I left them in the bathroom, they were soaked through… Can't believe this is really happening… You, here… I can't believe _this_ is real… No one has a body like this… Love your laugh, your voice; I can feel it inside me like thunder… Spike, let me – stop laughing."

He was holding her away from his body, watching her with a broad smile on his face as she struggled to sink down onto him. Her hair was tumbled, and the expression on her face was frustrated and so real… Spike took a breath, just to capture her scent, and said, "Don't you ever shut up?"

Buffy stilled and tipped her head to the side. "Make me."

For a second, he could do nothing but look at her, registering that she kept enough of what he had said to be able to quote him, then he pulled her toward him, helping now instead of hindering her efforts. Their bodies met, blended, and Buffy let her head fall back, closing her eyes, taking in a long, hissing breath. "Don't think I'm man enough to make you, love." He turned, pressing her back against the door, again echoing that first time. He surged into her. "Can take words from you, but not… oh, Buffy, love, yeah, like that… not sounds. Need to hear sounds, love, want to know this feels as good for you…" Spike's eyes drifted shut. The movement of his body was outside his own volition. Where had his control gone?

"Open your eyes," Buffy said with effort. "Want to see you." He complied, and what she saw there was another assault on her senses. She came, his name on her lips. That brought him off, groaning against her throat, inarticulate in the moment.

"Buffy… love."

"Bed." She clutched his shoulders. "Don't let go of me."

Spike's eyes darkened. "Can't." He had to kiss her then, until she struggled for breath. "Wrap yourself around me, love." She held on tight, and he got them to the bed, sitting with his back against the headboard, Buffy straddling his lap. "Ah, Slayer."

"This is real," Buffy said, a statement. "It feels real." She contracted her muscles deliberately around his hardness, making them both gasp. "You're really here."

"You're really here, too," he said, smiling up at her, seeing all of his Slayer in her eyes, there with him.

She pulled her sleeveless sweater over her head, and he smoothed her hair back from her face. "I don't know how I'm going to get the skirt off," she said wryly, glancing down at their joined bodies. "Maybe if…" Buffy slid the side zipper all the way down and pulled it up over her shoulders. It was a tight fit. Instead of helping, Spike brought his hands up and held her in place, the skirt covering her face and trapping her arms above her head. The second before his lips touched her breast, she realized what he was going to do. "Spike," she hissed.

"Gotta spend for me first," he told her, murmuring the words against her skin.

"Oh God," she whispered, her nipple puckering under his cool lips. By the time the aftershocks died away and she opened her eyes, her skirt was gone. Spike was grinning, pleased with himself and with her. "Not fair," she said. "You still have clothes." There was a mischievous glint in her hazel eyes. "Lift your knee." Watching her, he did as she asked. Buffy twisted around to undo his boot, driving her hips down hard onto him. She grinned as he groaned with pleasure. "Hold still, now. We've got to get you out of these."

"Sweetest torture, love." Spike put his hands on her hips, slouching down just enough to change the angle. "Gonna have to take my boots off like this all the time."

"There's one," Buffy declared, turning to face him. He lifted his other knee, and she unexpectedly slid down along his body. She cried out and braced her hands on his shoulders. He was deep inside her now, and he jostled her as he toed off the unlaced boot. Buffy clenched her teeth together. "Just… one more," she gritted out.

"Not just one," he disagreed, his tone lazy and arrogant. "Many, many–"

Buffy sat up and twisted in the opposite direction, cutting off his words, wringing a smoky sound of desire from him. She smirked as she undid the other boot.

"Oh," Spike said, "we were talking about footwear." She stayed upright this time as he kicked off the second boot, feeling his fingers tightening on her hips. "Only the jeans left, love. Here, grab them. Let me…" He lifted his own hips, and Buffy gave the denim a shove before giving up. She began bouncing on his lap, there was no other word for it, reaching out to grab the headboard so she didn't topple over.

She froze atop him when another orgasm hit her, unable to keep any rhythm. Spike did topple her then, rolling them over, pulling her thighs around his waist. He braced himself over her, watching her face until she could open her eyes again. "You're beautiful when you come," he told her. "So intense, putting all your body, your senses into it. Let me see it again, Buffy. Show me, love." He began to move, his expression becoming a little distant.

She knew that look, knew it meant he was close but was going to hold off until they could climax together. "Show you again. Like that's… oooh… an option. Okay, Spike. Just for you." A little deeper, the steel of him inside her touching electric places, conducting sensation throughout her body. She cried out with pleasure at each thrust, the movement alone so good, so right, even without it building into something greater.

"Ah, love, that's it. Hold me, tight as you want, hold onto me. Love those little sounds, Buffy. So good, love, so sweet, so perfect, telling me you like this, you want this."

"Love… your voice," she managed. "Love… the way your eyes darken just before… like they are now."

"For you, love. My words, for you. My eyes… I only see you, Buffy. My senses full of you, your scent, your heat, the feel of you surrounding me… My love, that's… Oh, Buffy, that's it, come for me, kitten, I can feel… Buffy, oh love, love you, love you so much." The soft words gave way to a wordless growl, drowning out the sound of her cries.

She held him to her, running her hands along the strength of his back as he let her catch her breath. After couple of minutes, he kicked his jeans the rest of the way off. Buffy knew this, too, knew he was getting unencumbered in preparation for a marathon session of lovemaking. "Spike?"

"Mm?"

"Let me see your other face."

Spike lifted himself on an elbow to look at her, even more startled than when Dawn had asked. "What?" He had never once allowed his demon features to dominate when they were alone.

"I know it sounds silly, but…"

"You need to know all of me is back?"

She shook her head. "No. It took me a long time to wrap my head around this, but I know you loved me before you had a soul. You loved me as a demon… I want to see the demon."

Spike stared at her, dumbstruck, but his body reacted. He watched her eyes drift shut for a moment at the additional proof of his arousal. Inside him, the demon was still, hardly able to believe her generosity, the gift she was bestowing. She knew. She finally understood. He was breathing hard as he shifted, blue eyes going yellow, ridges building on his forehead, his mouth too full of teeth.

Buffy looked up at him. Even in game face, as ferocious a demon as she had ever seen, his expressions were easy to read. She smiled and traced the new contours of his face, then lifted her mouth to his.

Spike growled and sat back on his heels, pulling her with him. He threw the pillows toward the headboard and pressed her body against it, rising up on his knees. With his demon's eyes, he watched the blood pulse just beneath her skin. The smell of her desire was overwhelming. "Not going to be gentle," he warned.

She cradled his head between her hands. "I can take it."

"'M gonna give it," he said, pulling away, then driving into her with a deliberate thrust, setting the rhythm. "Can see your blood, love," he traced along her body with his fingertips, so gentle in comparison to his battering hips, "see where you're flushed," he touched her cheek, "where your blood is flowing." The fingers of his other hand slid between their bodies. "When I'm like this, isn't just your scent and your blood. Feel your power, love, your strength, your goodness." His voice was a snarl. "You're the Slayer. I feel that, pulsing around me, just like I feel you here," Spike slammed his pelvis hard against hers, "slick and hot, pulsing around me."

Her head fell back, bumping against the wall as she came, her fingers digging into his shoulders. When she could open her eyes again, Buffy kissed his jaw, bit his chin with her blunt teeth, then found his mouth. He didn't let her deepen the kiss, careful even now not to let his sharp fangs cut her. She pressed her forehead against his, instead, gazing into his yellow eyes. "My vampire." Her voice was reedy; she was simply between orgasms, like a trough between ocean waves.

"My Slayer." His fingers slid along her skull, and he grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. Spike traced the line of her throat with his nose. "Long, lovely neck," he growled and felt her shiver. His lower body was almost jerking now in primal movement, the headboard slamming against the wall. "Demon wants to claim you, Buffy. Want to set my mark right…here." His lips traced the scar on the right side of her neck, and she stiffened. "Don't have to, though. You're already mine. Mine to love. My Slayer."

"Oh my God." Having no leverage, Buffy bucked her hips against him using sheer strength. "Spiike!"

Hearing her use his name to scream out her pleasure, feeling her convulse around him, was everything he or his demon had ever wanted. He rammed into her once, twice more, throwing his head back to roar his triumph at conquering this Slayer. He lifted his head again to look at her, his human features slipping back into place. "Buffy." She leaned against him, letting him take her weight, and Spike captured her mouth in a slow, sweet, drugging kiss. "Love, what you do to me."

She could feel his erection soften inside her, a mark of how complete his release had been. Spike settled back onto the mattress, pulling her down with him, stroking her hair as she rested her head on his chest. They lay there in silence, holding each other, content.

After a long time, he sighed. "Was talking to–"

She covered his mouth with her fingertips. "No."

Spike raised his eyebrows. "No?"

"Talking leads to badness."

"Not always.

"This trip it will."

He considered this, thinking of the anger he felt because she hadn't warned him, because of her lie. "Innit better to clear the air, get it out of the way?"

Buffy propped up on her elbow. "That can all wait until tomorrow. Tonight is just for us," she said, gazing down at him. "That's all I'm asking. It's easy for me," Buffy rolled her eyes. "I'm an expert on denial. But you can't tell me, that in a better world, where–" Buffy bit her lip. "In a world that doesn't depend on me to make decisions, I think things would be a lot better. We deserve better." Spike's brows drew together, the words distantly familiar. Maybe something Tara had said.

She looked up at the ceiling, as if appealing for help. "Can I have just one night of you," she met his gaze again, cupping his jaw with her hand, "of us, the way it's supposed to be? We are so good together, so right like this, Spike. You know we are. I can't always… I just want…" Her voice faded, and she blinked away tears. "You want me to be honest. Okay. I just want to be able to look back on one night that we had for our own, where we're not desperate, no apocalypse, no bad guy, where I didn't hurt you, where you didn't have to be something other than what you are, where I can _feel_..." She closed her eyes. "When I'm with you, I know who I am–" she bit down on the word 'again.' "I just want to know I deserve how much you love me, love you the way you deserve. One night where I'm clear. Can we have that, Spike?"

His lips parted at the expression of anguish on her face. "Yes, love." As if he could deny her.

⸹

Angel pinched the bridge of his nose. The technician had offered to set up magical surveillance – she had, she said, chanters standing by – but he sent her away. Why was he doing this? Was it any worse to simply imagine what their reunion was like? Did he have to have such control that he couldn't allow people in his life their private moments? He had Buffy under watch in Rome, too, but not like this. Those reports had been very general.

He turned away from the monitor, thinking of how he watched Connor and Cordelia in a moment of intimacy. Of course, it hadn't been Cordy, but he didn't know that at the time. He hadn't done anything, had simply been a witness, watching as his heart shredded inside his chest. It hadn't been about atonement.

"Balance," he mumbled. It was about the balance between his soul and Angelus. How far could he push the soul before it, too, wanted what the demon wanted and stood aside? Would only happiness loose his beast?

Angel stood up and left the room. Hakim had gone home a long time ago, so he caught the eye of the female technician.

"Ready for the chant to begin?"

"No. Shut it all down, every single camera. I told Hakim this morning I will be very angry," and he let his anger show, just a little, in his suddenly yellow eyes, "if those feeds were recorded in any fashion." Angel left before she could say anything, striding down the basement corridor to the elevators. Instead of going up to his apartment, he went out of the building, walking into the darkness.

⸹

"That's the third time your tummy has growled at me, love. When did you eat last?"

Shrugging was too much effort, so she just sighed. "Pretzels on the airplane, I think." She stroked her fingers through his hair, releasing curls. "I was too nervous to eat much."

"Let me take you out to dinner."

Buffy shook her head. "Don't want anything to cut into our time together. Maybe room service?"

Spike lifted his head from her abdomen to look at her full on. "What about this? We go out for a walk, eat as we go, and find a nice bunch of nasties to fight." He heard her pulse quicken, and he grinned. "Do I know what my lady likes, or do I know what my lady likes?"

She gave him an embarrassed look, but there was no censure in his blue eyes. "I haven't enjoyed a fight since before the potentials showed up at my door," Buffy admitted. Then she grinned, too. "I missed fighting with you – by your side, I mean." She traced his cheek with her fingertips. "We're a good team."

"That we are, love."

"If we go out, we'll have to shower." She shook her head so that her hair spilled over her shoulders. "I probably look like a mop."

"Sexiest, most beautiful mop in the world," he agreed, but his mind was on a memory. "We never did get to shower together."

The corner of Buffy's mouth lifted. "You couldn't have remembered that an hour ago, when I could still stand upright?"

Spike tilted his head. "Not getting old and tired, are you? Ancient age of twenty-two, after all."

"You'll never get old and tired," she said, no resentment in her voice. It was comforting to her, actually.

"In point of fact," he said slyly, rolling closer so he could press his body against her, "the thought of a shower – with you – makes me feel very much not tired. Invigorated. Zestful."

"Listen to those adjectives. You've been watching too many soap commercials," Buffy grumbled, making an effort to at least get to her elbows. The thought of a soap-slick Spike was a wonderful incentive to get out of bed.

An hour and a half later, they left the lobby, two blondes dressed in black who seemed to be physically incapable of separating, their hands linked, hips brushing. They paused beside the cab stand, then both heads turned to the left, and they moved towards the faint sense of trouble.

"A burrito? Is that all you want?" Spike looked down at her, thinking she was gorgeous even in the harsh fluorescent light of a fast food restaurant.

Buffy leaned back against him, breathing in. "You smell the way you're supposed to now." She had brought Bay Rum-scented soap for him, bought for herself months ago, never to use, just to sniff.

"And you're on the right side of one of these counters." He slid his arms around her waist.

"Mmm," she sighed, content.

They talked shop as they walked, Buffy taking bites from her burrito. Spike hadn't been able to see much of Los Angeles, but he had kept his ears open. He knew well enough what demons were in the city, which neighborhoods were risky. Open stores grew less frequent as they walked, and they took corners that led toward increasingly empty neighborhoods. Once she finished her late supper, Spike began to check the garbage cans and dumpsters for discarded furniture.

"So, 'm havin' trouble takin' these things seriously from the name alone," he was explaining as he veered toward a dumpster, walking backward so he could keep her in view. "I mean, 'kuddliteeler' sounds like the name of some saccharin-sweet German cartoon character." He looked critically at the two woebegone kitchen chairs someone had put out for the garbage collectors. "So they show up, six of them, and I'm tellin' you, trolls have nothing on these buggers." He aimed one precise, clinical kick at the back of the closest chair, then ripped two jagged spindles from the pile of kindling he'd made. "Fortunately, they had no idea of how to kill a vampire," Spike tossed Buffy one of the makeshift stakes, "and I figured out pretty quick that they were vulnerable in the armpit." He made the other stake disappear into his coat and rejoined the Slayer. "Pro'ly 'cause that was as high as I could reach. They must have been ten feet tall."

Buffy smiled. "And they were pink?"

"Yeah, like a West Hollywood Chewbacca."

"Still not as good as my Gachnar story."

"I've lived longer and have more stories." But he didn't elaborate, just took her hand as they strolled further into an industrial area that looked deserted this late at night. After a slow, deliberate look into the shadows, Spike began stealing little kisses, which Buffy didn't try too hard to avoid. He paused in front of a door, lifting an eyebrow, but she shook her head. They walked a short way down the street, and Spike backed her against another door. She giggled loudly, covering the sound of him ripping the doorknob off.

"Gee, it looks like an abandoned factory," the Slayer said, over-bright. "Where else would you take me?"

Spike shot her a look. "I understand these abandoned buildings sometimes just fall down around a person."

Buffy took a couple of steps toward him. "Sounds dangerous."

"Dangerous," a new voice said from the shadows, "is wandering into our territory.

Buffy let out an obliging "Eep!" as she spun around, making her eyes very wide, then turned to hide against Spike. She held up nine fingers where he could see.

"We'll just go, then, shall we?" Spike asked. He held up both hands in the space between their bodies, dropped them, and lifted one additional finger.

A vampire in game face and baggy jeans stepped into view. "Don't come across as the concerned boyfriend. It won't work with me. I know what you are." Two more vampires joined him. "I don't tolerate anyone poaching on my preserve."

Spike gave him a you-got-me look, then suited up. Buffy made another obliging squeal, and he pulled her against him with one arm. "Not poaching. Found this one, oh, blocks and blocks from here."

The head vampire wasn't satisfied with this response. "You don't get it, do you? You're dead, man."

"Well," Spike replied, one corner of his mouth lifting, "yeah."

Another vampire stepped into view, slightly to their right as the circle began to close. "I know what he's thinking, Jake."

"Jake the vampire," Buffy whispered to Spike, who fought against a snort of laughter.

"He's dressed like that Aurelian, Spike." This newest vampire scoffed. "Like that's going to fool us. First, Spike is dead in Sunnydale. Second, he was, like, Hulk Hogan's twin, big blond guy. Third, he was a crazy motherfucker, but even he wouldn't walk onto our turf alone. A leather coat and bleached hair don't make you him, man."

"So you met him, then?" Spike asked pleasantly. "'Cause I sure would appreciate any tips you have."

"Oh, oh, I saw him," Buffy piped up. She turned to face the other demons to explain, "I'm from Sunnydale."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Save me from vampire groupies."

"Never say it, pet! When did you see him, then?" Spike followed the progress of two additional vampires with his eyes as they slunk nearer.

"In a cemetery with the Slayer one night."

"What did she look like, love?" He couldn't believe these vampires couldn't sense her, fledges or not; death was coiling all around her.

"Oh, a real Amazon. She must have been six feet tall, really," Buffy gestured with her hands, "chesty."

"I heard the Slayer in Sunnydale was a short little thing." Another voice from the shadows.

Spike could see eight of the vampires now. "Bet there was a serious battle going on."

Buffy shook her head and let her eyes drift to a point above their heads. "Huh-uh. Serious macking going on."

"Oh, please," he said, clutching his stomach and pointing his index finger to a block of machinery to her left. "Give me Delhi belly talking about such abominations." His grin had a seductive edge, though, even with the fangs. "A Slayer and a vampire? Twisted."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, taking a step closer, smiling up at him. This was going to be so much fun. "But there they were, doing… twisty things." She lowered her lashes and nodded her head deliberately at him. The eleventh was behind him, at the door.

"Won't believe it, the Slayer of Slayers havin' a fling with a Slayer."

"What, you think he couldn't be seduced?"

"Musta been some kind of woman, that Slayer, to seduce him." They were in each other's arms now, the watching demons mesmerized by the show they were putting on. "Musta been some kind of vampire, to convince a Slayer not to stake him."

"Well, I did hear a rumor that he wasn't hung like a horse," Buffy said pragmatically, hiding a smile, "but like one of the larger marine mammals."

He drew his head back, resuming his human face. "Wait. Is that a good thing, Slayer?"

"Whales have to have a bone in their penises, they're so large. So, yeah, Spike, I'm massaging your ego."

"Rather have you massage my–"

"Oh, shit."

The worried exclamation came from the right, but the Slayer and the souled vampire broke and went straight for the leader, Buffy going low, Spike going high. Then they were past him, splitting apart to engage his bodyguards before all the dust hit the floor. They hadn't fought as a team for months, but their movements were complementary, seamlessly choreographed to destroy hapless enemies. Buffy punched her opponent toward Spike, who simply flung his at her. Their stakes rose at the same time, then they were turning at the same moment, falling into defensive stances.

"You're goin' down, Slayer!"

"First rule of fight club," Buffy said, dodging the wide right swing of the oncoming vampire, "only the Slayer gets to talk during fights." It stumbled past her, unable to stop its momentum. She didn't bother to glance behind her; she knew exactly where Spike was and that he'd take care of that one.

The vampiress who had been lurking overhead dropped down beside her. "You think you can just come down here–"

She ducked a kick, spinning so she could push the female vamp at Spike, who was already waiting with upraised stake, and she dusted the next closest one. "Second rule of fight club, only the Slayer gets to talk during fights." Buffy collared another vampire. "Because, frankly, my banter is so much better."

"Die, Slayer!"

"Colorwashed and highlighted, thank you very much."

Spike snorted, going past her to engage the vampire who had called him Hulk Hogan's twin. Sneering, he simply caught the punch coming toward his face and drove the stake home. He found himself in good position to block the exit. "Got the door, love." There were only three vampires left now, all on the run from one small woman. He watched her weave and dodge among them, keeping them corralled and under control like a border collie with its herd. There was a tiny smile on her face; she was doing exactly what she had been made to do. She was dancing.

He had never seen her more beautiful, and he began to breathe. Buffy dusted one vamp with a casual backhand motion of the stake, and he swallowed. The final pair began to advance on her, and her smile widened. Spike's hand drifted to the buckle of his belt. Buffy kicked out, high and hard, knocking one of the demons back, and staked the other as she came down. She raised her stake again, but the final enemy disintegrated as Spike ripped its head from its shoulders. He strode through the dust toward her, the intensity of his expression obvious even in the dim light, his blue eyes full of fierce light.

Buffy let her stake fall, clattering on the concrete floor, and launched herself at him, breathing just as hard. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and Spike carried her to a stack of pallets. His coat shielded her from view as her hands busily freed their bodies from clothing. Spike groaned with relief, then caught her face between his hands, kissing her slowly and deliberately. "Magnificent in action," he said against her lips. "Most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"Fewer – mmm – compliments," she commanded, "more – oh! – magnificent action."

The low rumble of Spike's laugh drifted up to the highest windows of the old factory, where one final vampire lurked. Even from his vantage point in the rafters, he could only see two blond heads and the sway of leather around them, could only hear the creak of the wooden pallets, the low murmur of Spike's narration, and the Slayer's gasps of pleasure.

Angel had followed them since they left the hotel, traveling on rooftops. He'd noted everything – Spike's unruly hair, the easy conversation, Buffy's relaxed smiles, Spike's constant concern for her. What he could smell was even more telling: sex still stronger than freshly washed bodies, Spike's preferred soap that she must have brought for him. Watching them was like watching two long-time pairs ice skaters; there was a constant awareness of each other's position, movement. The boy had surprised him by stepping back in combat and letting Buffy take the majority of the burden. It was obvious, now, why he had done so. Spike loved the Slayer as passionately as he loved the woman. Angel wasn't sure he'd ever thought about her power. Maybe just the one time she followed Faith to Los Angeles. It had always been her goodness that spoke to him.

They were beautiful together, Buffy and his boy.

The dark-haired vampire turned away and left through a broken window, unnoticed. His lack of rage and jealousy surprised him. All that was left inside, it seemed, was loneliness. Angel didn't want to be up here, trapped in the shadows. He wanted to be down there with them, fighting the good fight.

⸹

"Buffy, love, wake up." Spike cradled her against him.

"Nooo." She looked cross, even three-quarters asleep.

"I promised I'd meet your baby sis and the Scoobies for breakfast at eight." He kissed her shoulder. "Want to come with?"

Her brows drew together. "Don't go."

Spike frowned a little. He'd enjoyed their interlude, too, but it wasn't like her visit was over. "Have to, kitten. Don't want to disappoint the family."

She sighed. He might not have a resolve face like Willow, but he was a stubborn vampire. "All right," she gave in with ill grace. "What time is it? Do we have time to shower?"

The smirk on his face was equal parts arrogance and arousal. "Six-thirty. I took the liberty of waking you early." He kissed her shoulder again. "We have time for a very long, thorough shower.

"You think I'm awake? I'm not awake."

"Right, as always, love. Now, what do you suppose I could do," he mused, already sliding down her body, "to actually wake you up?"

Breakfast was a stilted affair. When Spike showed up with Buffy at his side, the welcomes ranged from Xander's exuberant hug to Dawn's cool, "I see you made it." No one missed the fact that both had hair still damp from the shower, and while there was no comment on her early arrival, the easy talk of the previous day was gone. The only time the conversation flowed was when Spike asked if anyone had heard from Clem. Buffy had received a few e-mails from the loose-skinned demon, who had relocated to San Francisco, through a website set up to help Sunnydale survivors reconnect. Dawn chimed in with news of a planned Sunnydale reunion set for next Labor Day in Dutton.

Xander shook his head, grinning so wide that his cheek pushed the eye patch up. "Can't wait to see that, Clem and Willy and the other denizens of Sunnydale After Hours swapping survivor stories over leaky paper plates of potato salad and baked beans with, say, my mother."

"Good morning." The Scooby gang looked behind Giles at the sound of the light, British-accented voice. "I trust I'm not intruding overly?"

"Hello, Wesley," Buffy said, smiling.

"Buffy. Good to see you."

Giles finished chewing. "No, not intruding at all," he said, patting his mouth with his napkin. "Please, join us."

"Thank you, but I only have a few minutes, I'm afraid." He looked toward the front of the restaurant. "If you could join me for a word, Rupert?"

"Of course." He laid his napkin on the table. "Excuse me."

"Buffy," Wesley said, nodding, "everyone."

Xander raised an eyebrow. "What's up with the politeness?"

"Wesley's always been polite," Buffy said. "But, yeah, he did seem kinda distant."

Dawn snorted and shot her sister a pointed look. Spike, sitting next to her, tucked his hand under her elbow. "Need your advice, Bit. Step out here with me a mo.'" He led her to the side entrance to the restaurant, away from the two Watchers.

Wesley was giving a thick envelope to Rupert. "Here are the printouts I mentioned to you. They're called," a pained look crossed his face, "'psi-smographs,' P-S-I, a pun on seismograph. I remembered some of the critical dates in Sunnydale, and I pulled the readings for those as well – when Buffy killed the Master, when Acathla was opened, the approximate date Angel returned."

Looking as though he'd like nothing better than spread the papers across the nearest empty table, Giles said, "Oh. I can't say how good this is of you, Wesley. Thank you. I'm sure they will be very useful."

"Do let me know what you find."

"I will." Giles hesitated, looking at the younger Watcher. His face had new lines, and his eyes were tired. "Wesley, are you sure I can't convince you to come work for the Council again?"

"Oh, I think one Wyndham-Pryce on the Council is enough."

Giles took in a long breath. "I can't be choosy, I'm afraid, about who comes out of retirement. We're stretched very thin, and your father, for all his… difficult qualities, has enormous corporate memory to draw upon." He forced a smile. "I'll just say I can't afford you now."

"I'm scared to leave." Even Wesley looked startled by his words.

"You're being forced to stay?" Giles glanced at his young charges, ready to deploy them for another hostile takeover of the law firm.

"No, I should have said I'm too worried to leave," Wesley said quickly. He looked away, tense, and let his head fall back for a moment. He respected Giles; he could scarcely believe that the respect was mutual. Before he spoke again, he took a step closer to Rupert, and his voice was very quiet. "As far as I know, when Angel Investigations took over Wolfram and Hart's Los Angeles offices, we all made the decision to join of our own free will. You know as well as I, a coerced oath is worth less than nothing, magically. However, the dregs of a very powerful spell were hovering about us for weeks after that."

Giles glanced at the table again. "Before Spike returned."

Wesley nodded. "I don't think it had anything to do with his return."

"Could it be on the firm itself? To prepare it for different management?"

"No. I'm not a powerful sorcerer, you know that. I can perform a ritual and do a little off-the-cuff magic, but every spell, everything I've tried points to the fact that we at Angel Investigations have been… enchanted. I've turned you down because I have to stay, have to watch out for the others. And, frankly, I wouldn't trust myself to be privy to Council business." He met Giles' eyes with his intense gaze. "I'm afraid for my friends. I keep watching, trying to see where the change has occurred… but there's a distinct possibility that I'm blind to it."

On the opposite side of the restaurant, Spike stopped and pulled Dawn very close. "Don't want to see you two at odds, Bit."

"Have you talked to her?"

"No." He grinned. "Talking wasn't a priority."

"Great, so she boinks you and all is forgiven." Dawn's mouth tightened. "Too bad that won't work with me; otherwise I bet she'd try it."

Spike rolled his eyes and tugged her even closer. "I haven't seen either of you for weeks – months, I guess. Can you give it a rest for today?"

"Do you think I like being this bitchy person?" She shook her head impatiently. "It's a habit; it's all I have – If she didn't have to defend herself, I don't know if she would even notice me at all."

He started to shoot back that Buffy loved Dawn so much that she died in her place, then took a good look at his girl's face. She was miserable. "Oh, love, I'll talk to her, I will." He pulled her all the way into a hug. "Know you just want things to be normal."

"I'll try to be nice," she said, feeling bitter to her soul. Spike would put it off to the end of their visit, no doubt, not wanting to jeopardize his chances of getting laid.

They got back to the table at the same time as Giles, who was trying not to be distracted by the data in his hand. After they all sat down, Spike leaned forward on his elbows to look at Buffy and said, "So. Bit here tells me she's missin' you 'cause you aren't around much, and she's mad 'cause you won't talk to her." Dawn's jaw almost dropped.

Buffy looked from him to Dawn, then glanced at the other two men. "What is this?" There was a nervous smile on her face. "Ambush Buffy Day?"

"No." He stole a bit of bacon from Xander's plate. "Thought we should just clear the air, get it over with." She narrowed her eyes at the echo of his words from the previous evening.

Xander put his elbows on the table, too, and put his head in his hands. "Way to go, Evil Dead."

"What?" He gestured at Dawn. "Bit says I'm the only one annoying enough to get through to her big sis."

"Gee," Buffy leaned on the sarcasm, "thanks, Dawn."

"Well," Spike went on, "I told her that people have different ways of grieving. Losing your entire hometown pro'ly throws you for a loop, yeah?" The sisters eyed each other, but remained silent, so he plowed on. "Even if you don't talk to each other now, think of how much you'll have to talk about on the flight back. You can gossip like fiends over how much of a jerk I was to bring this up at the breakfast table."

Dawn's lips curved reluctantly. She poked at a piece of egg left on her plate, watching the tines leave treads in the thick yolk. "I do miss you, Buffy. We're never home at the same time."

Buffy didn't look up, either. "A-are you not happy in Rome?"

"No. Not really."

Buffy nodded. "I guess we'll just have to see what we can do to make things better."

As a noncommittal answer, it was masterful, but Dawn lifted her head, blinking back tears. She reached across the table for her sister's hand.

"Anyone else have issues with me?" Buffy asked, not sounding happy.

"No," Giles said quickly. "I'm getting good reports from Armando about the progress the Italian Slayers are making."

"Might have one." It was Spike's turn to look at the table now.

"What?" Buffy's voice was full of dread.

"More coffee?" Startled, Xander twisted to look up at their waitress, then shook his head. She had come up on his left side, his blind side. He covered the cup with his hand, and they all waited until she went to another table.

"Might have liked to know what you were dreaming 'bout before the end." Spike's voice was mild.

Buffy closed her eyes for a long moment. "I couldn't." She opened her eyes and glanced at him. "How could it have helped to know? I remember what it was like when I learned the prophecy about the Master. I-I just didn't want to put you through that." She started fiddling with her empty glass of orange juice.

Giles was staring between them. "Do you mean," he asked, "you dreamt…? Slayer dreams?" At Buffy's nod, he took off his glasses. "I understand," he managed, "how you would have felt… uncomfortable speaking to Spike about this, but you could have come to me, Buffy. No matter how difficult, you can confide in me."

"I would have liked to know," Spike said. He focused on Buffy, willing her to lift her face. "Don't see how else it could have gone down, but…" he glanced at Dawn for a second, "I coulda said my goodbyes." The Slayer still didn't look up. "We were always honest with each other, Buffy, even when we were mortal enemies, right up till the end."

She did meet his eyes then, knowing exactly what he meant by that. "It all fell on me," she said finally. "When it was just me, like when I went to face the Master… no big." Buffy turned to look at Giles before dropping her gaze to her plate. "When it was me making decisions about other people, their lives and deaths… The really bad thing is, I wouldn't have trusted those decisions to anyone else."

Xander twisted in his chair to see her better and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. "Buf, even when you faced the Master, you weren't alone. I came after you, brought Angel. You don't have to do any of this alone."

"I know." Her voice was quiet. "In my heart, I know that. It's just that…" _In the end, I'm always alone_. Giles stretched out a hand to cover hers. She squeezed his fingers, took a breath, and faced Spike. "Are you mad at me?"

"Was for a while," he shrugged. "Got over it." He shot a quick look at Xander, seeming almost embarrassed, and then leaned close to her. "Might get angry, kitten, but nothing will ever make me stop lovin' you."

Buffy closed her eyes again, shutting them tight, having heard the same words in that same voice before. Just because it had been the First Evil saying them didn't make them any less true, or the implications any less frightening to her. There was no way this could ever work.

Giles took a sip of his coffee before charging into the growing silence. "So, what's on the agenda for today, besides our early Thanksgiving dinner at seven?"

"I'm turning into a woman even as I say this," Xander said, "but for me, it's shopping." He ducked away from the punch Dawn launched toward his shoulder. "I'm sitting on a nest egg of Council cash that I haven't been able to spend, and I never did get back to the necessary number of shirts and jeans after my closet plummeted into the chasm." He threw Spike a look of mock annoyance. "Thanks, Bleach Boy."

"Solids, Xander," he replied gravely. "Don't fear solids."

The dark-haired man gave his black t-shirt and jeans a scathing once-over. "Just because you have the fashion sense of a mortician doesn't mean I can't dress to impress." He stroked his chin musingly. "Wonder if I can find anything brighter than Hawaiian shirts…?"

Dawn shook her head. "Don't worry. I'll go with him."

"What do you need to shop for?" Buffy asked, thinking of Dawn's stuffed closet in their apartment.

"American brands," Dawn said defensively.

Buffy shook her head. "Just remember you have to haul everything through three airports." She toyed with her napkin. "You know, I think I'd like to come with." The Slayer turned to her Watcher. "Giles?"

"Will it involve malls?"

"Of course."

He gave her a pained smile. "No, thank you. I think I'll take the morning to catch up with Council business. If I get the chance, I'd like to go over this data Wesley brought to me."

"What about you, Spike?"

"If there will be parking garages, I'm game."

"Oooh," Dawn squealed, grinning. "Spike's fun to shop with."

"Because I buy you everything you want?"

"That may have something to do with it."

Spike's fingers rested against the small of Buffy's back as they made a much more decorous ascent in the elevator after breakfast. She was silent now, and he loved her this way, too, loved wondering what was going through her mind. Sometimes he thought he could spend three lifetimes just learning her, if only she had three lifetimes. Like Drusilla, she never stopped surprising him.

After she opened the door, he scooped her up and carried her inside, catching her earlobe between his lips for a second. "Think we've got time?" he asked, low and seductive. "I guarantee they won't dare come looking for us, 's'long as we don't keep 'em waitin' for hours."

Buffy sighed. "Set me down, Spike." He did, catching her mood, his brows drawn together as he studied her face. After a moment, she met his eyes. "Probably not a good idea." She sighed again. "That was last night. I-it's time to face reality."

No, she never stopped surprising him. "Amazing, passionate, endless lovemaking not in this reality, then?"

"It's probably better if it isn't." She and Willow had got a little drunk the one night she'd visited her friend in Sao Paola. Kennedy had been out on patrol with another slayer, and they had giggled for a long time before getting sappy. Buffy almost never talked about Spike, but the wine had loosened her tongue, and she confessed she missed him. Willow confided some of her own memories of the blond vampire, grinning a little as she told Buffy her theory about his expressions having an almost constant come-shag-me quality. The Slayer had laughed, having to agree, then surreptitiously wiped at her eyes.

His face was expressionless now. "Am I not in this reality?"

She gave him a fierce look, but didn't reach for his hand, didn't take him in a hug. "Of course you are. Do you know how much it means to me to know that you're here?" Before he could answer, Buffy turned away, walked to the corner of the room where his discarded coat lay on the floor. "But that still doesn't…" She picked up his coat and stared at it, holding the heavy leather against her chest. "I care about you, Spike, you know I do. I – there have been times I've loved you, just flashes, but I know I have. It's just, being with you is like… I'm like a little kid with their nose pressed against the glass of a toy store. I can see what…" She turned to him, her eyes too bright. "Sometimes, I think Tara missed it. I think I did come back wrong."

The tremulous smile on her face nearly broke his heart. "No, love." He took the coat from her and tossed it on the wrecked bed, taking her hands in his cool ones. "Told you once that I knew you'd never love me." Spike took a breath, but couldn't say anything more. He touched her hair, gritted his teeth. "This is enough," he managed. He failed her; this was his punishment. She had died because he failed her, she had to be snatched from heaven because he failed her; his fault her heart wasn't whole.

"No." She took his hand from her face. "It isn't. Even before you had the soul, you deserved more than that." Buffy let go of his hands and took a step back, away from him. Her voice was very small. "I deserve more. I wish… One night, Spike, and you gave me that. But today, the guilt is going to start, and I don't want to have to carry that. I don't want to look at you and feel like…" she shrugged, "a terrible person for not loving you. I don't want the fear that I'll…."

He watched her take another step away from him, but he couldn't speak, couldn't, for once, even find the wrong words.

"If I were a little meaner, if I wasn't… Joyce Summers' daughter, I could do it." Buffy nodded in agreement with herself. "I could use you, take everything you're offering." She swallowed. "If I were a better person, I would love you." Finally, she turned away from him, not wanting to see his face, his eyes. "That's me, never quite enough."

"No, love." He didn't sigh; his voice didn't break. Spike moved closer and put his arms around her waist. "You are a good person." He buried his nose in her hair, breathing in her scent. "Never doubt that. You let me in your life, despite what I am, despite what I've done. 'S'more than I ever really hoped for. You're the one." Spike closed his eyes tightly, putting all his effort in keeping his voice steady. "Told you once that things might change, further away you get from the grave. I got time. But even if they never do, Buffy, I'm here. If I can manage it at all, I'm here for you, whatever you need. You and Dawn."

She turned in his embrace, and they held each other a long time, each with a broken heart, unable to mend the other.

⸹

"Oh, hullo, Spike." Standing at his door, Rupert looked rumpled. He stood back, not having to ask the vampire inside a hotel room. "How was shopping?"

"You were right to take a pass." Spike started for the bed, but it was covered with printouts, so he sat gingerly on the edge of the nightstand instead. "Bit and Big Sis are next door trying to fit everything into the suitcases they brought."

"And Xander?"

"Doin' the same, I reckon."

Giles took a good look at the blond. "You seem… Are you all right?"

He shrugged. "Me and the Slayer had a talk. Looks like I was right, all those months ago, about me not being son-in-law material."

"Ah." Buffy was back to 'the Slayer.' Giles folded one of the printouts and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Any reason in particular?"

"Doesn't love me, Rupes." Spike gave him a wintry smile. "Feel bad for her, you know? 'Course, feel bad for me, too. 'M tryin' to be all mature about this, stiff upper lip an' everything, but mostly I just want to go out, get drunk off my face, and destroy a bunch of stuff."

"Spike…" The Watcher's voice trailed away. Something in his tone caught the vampire's attention, and he looked up sharply, waiting. "This isn't mine to tell, but I think you should know." Still, there was a troubled look on his face. "Please, don't tell either of the girls about this. Dawn should never hear this, and Buffy chose not to tell you."

"Tell me what?" He was worried now, his fists clenching inside his coat pockets.

"Remember when I told you I'd checked to see if Dawn had a soul? Later, after you had been captured by the First Evil, I think, Buffy came to me with the concern that she didn't feel things the way she ought. So, Willow and I checked. Dawn," he said carefully, "who does love you very much, has the same soul as her sister." Giles, waiting for a reaction, watched him stare at the floor for a long time.

"So, with only half a soul, maybe Buffy will never be able to recover from being pulled out of heaven."

It wasn't what he expected, some bitterness toward Dawn, and the flat tone wrung Rupert's heart. "I don't think it's that it's halved – which it may not be; Dawn may have had part of Joyce's soul, too." He shrugged. "Not that I – or anyone, really – understands about souls, but I think it's just that Dawn's is undamaged. What Buffy's had to go through…"

"I know." Spike's voice was quiet. He looked up to meet the Watcher's gaze. "Thank you for telling me."

"I don't know that it helps," Rupert offered, "but perhaps it will keep you from placing blame–"

"I'd never blame her," Spike broke in. "She's… she was the last Chosen One, Rupert. I can't know what it's like, but I do have a good idea, better than most, what it does to them." He remembered the relief in their eyes as they died. "But… 's'good to know, is all." He shrugged. "Maybe it's not entirely down to me."

Giles twisted his head to the side. "No, indeed, Spike. Even without a soul, there was something… likeable about you."

The vampire shook his head. "Not that." He looked at his boots. "I can sense the good in her, you know? I'm sure she can sense the monster in me."

There was no way to respond to that, so Rupert stood up and began folding the printouts. "Have you thought about what you'd like to do now?"

"Options are pretty open, I s'pose. Didn't really expect to end up in Rome, but I guess I could go for just a few months. Nibblet wants to come back stateside at the end of term." He stopped speaking until the Watcher turned to him. "Where do you need me, Rupes? Don't have to put me on the payroll or anything," he added quickly.

Giles frowned. "If you work for the Council, you'll get paid, Spike." He sat down again. "Would you? Work for the Council, I mean?"

A fleeting smirk crossed his mouth. "White hat, me, yeah?" Then, more seriously, "I'll go where you need me."

"What about here?" Giles asked carefully.

"Los Angeles?" he asked, startled.

"Wolfram and Hart, specifically." Giles watched Spike's face as he told what Wesley had revealed about a spell on the staff of Angel Investigations. "I see this doesn't come as a surprise."

"Not really." He frowned, thinking. "Adds a few more puzzle pieces, is all. Why they each agreed, individually, to go to work there, what happened to the cheerleader that even Willow can't reach her… it never adds up, Rupert. Even the defeat of their skanky hellgod… usually requires a sacrifice to get rid of one of those."

"Right. Buffy, for Dawn. And, for the First Evil, you know all too well."

Spike dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Seriously, Watcher. Your classic demigods all have their weakness, their fatal flaw – Baldur, Samson, Achilles. We're never that lucky; it's always got to be the blood sacrifice, the devastating battle – Oh, stop looking at me like puss with a canary in her mouth."

"Good to see you're putting your education to work," Giles smirked, then grew serious. "While I know less about Jasmine's demise than you do, I agree that it sounded rather too easily accomplished." He frowned. "Cordelia could possibly have done it, the mother destroying the child, but she was already in a coma."

"Or, if our conflict was interwoven – No, never mind, Bu – the Slayer didn't break the First's power, defeat preacher man till after Angel was in Sunnydale. Timeline doesn't work." Spike shrugged. "So it comes back to this spell of Wesley's. Huh."

"You understand, then, why I would like you here to keep an eye on things." He gave Spike a sidelong look. "It isn't exile, Spike, not even a long-term thing. Just see what you can find out, help Wesley if you can."

"No, 's'all right. Might find out more about the magic envelope what freed me from amulet-bondage. When Dawn finishes with the school year, though–"

"Of course," Giles said quickly, then looked down. "It seems wrong, doesn't it? That we're all not going to stay together. We'll be spread out all over the globe again."

"Yeah." Spike didn't sigh, but his chest hitched. "Dread the airport tomorrow."

"I'd figure you'd dread having to see Angel again."

Spike shrugged. "He's not so bad." At Giles disbelieving look, he added, "Not compared to Angelus."

"Oh. No, I suppose not."

The blond man hesitated, then just shook his head. He'd started to say that Angel felt like family, too, but he remembered what the Watcher had gone through with his grandsire, with Angelus. "Hate this city, but I like Angel's people okay. The Angel Investigations folks, I mean."

"Keep in touch with Wesley, but stay away from the Wolfram and Hart part as much as you can," Giles advised. He pulled a wry face. "I know you can take care of yourself."

"S'okay, Dad. I know it's just your way of sayin' you care."

"Just for that, you can't have the car this weekend, sonny."

⸹

Spike trudged up to the front of the Wolfram and Hart building. The flight to New York that they had all booked was gone, and the goodbyes had been just as wrenching as he expected. Dawn had made him buy a cell phone with outrageous coverage and a matching one for her, though, and she had called him before the plane began to taxi to the runway. Buffy had grabbed it away before the flight attendant saw, told him to be careful, and hung up. He'd never thought to be so grateful for telephones.

He opened the door and nodded to the person behind the security desk. He'd started to go past, to the elevator, when the guard stood up. "Excuse me, Mr. Spike. You don't have authorization to be in the building after hours."

Spike halted, mid-stride. "Authori – Cal, you're kiddin,' right?"

"No, sir." The elderly man looked unhappy. "Mr. Angel revoked your access to the building, unless you're escorted."

"He what?!" Spike clenched his fists, then forced himself to relax slightly when he saw that Cal was becoming uneasy. "When did he do this?"

Calvin consulted a clipboard. "Earlier today. Four-thirty."

Spike relaxed a little more. The New York flight had left at four; Angel must have thought he went with the Scoobies. "Oh, I see. Get him on the phone, would you, Cal, there's a lad?"

"I can't just call the CEO," the guard protested.

"I bloody well can," Spike said. "Slide the phone across." He dialed Angel's office, and when he got no answer, tried the penthouse. He let the phone ring eight times, frowned, and hung up. He tried Fred's number, but she had already left for the day. That was all the numbers he knew; he hadn't had occasion to call any of the others.

"You could just come back tomorrow," Calvin suggested.

Spike considered ignoring the stricture laid down by his cranky grandsire, but he couldn't risk Calvin or any of the other hourly employees getting hurt. He was fond of some of them. He could use vampire speed, but the building had old defenses designed to keep vampires – namely Angel – out; unleashing those demons might cause a human to get hurt, too. There was always the outside of the building, but, frankly, he didn't want to play Spiderman. What he wanted to do was ask Angel how you let go of her. What he wanted to do was thrash the old man, to take his fair share of blows so that he could feel something besides numb. What he wanted was to turn off every light in the penthouse, crawl into the safety of the family bed, and weep for days.

"I'll sign him in." Spike turned to the soft voice, raising an eyebrow and meeting Karalyn Reyes' steady gaze. Her look in return was measuring. "I'm sure it's just some sort of misunderstanding."

"Yeah, Pea – Angel thinks I left for Europe." Frowning, he watched Calvin shove the log across the counter to her, and she signed him in. He followed her through the employee's entrance, waiting with her as she held out her badge to the scanner. "Thanks, Reyes."

"Kara."

"Kara," he agreed gravely. "I owe you one."

"I know." She didn't smile, but there was a degree of satisfaction in her voice that she couldn't keep hidden. "Where do you need to go?"

"Wherever Angel is, the ponce. Figure I'll start with his office."

She smiled a little, lengthening her stride to keep pace with him. "Always nice to start at the top."

Spike knew before the elevator doors opened that Angel was in his office. The reception desk was empty, as Harmony had left already. It was after seven o'clock now, and only the most eager or fearful employees were left in the building. He cut his eyes to his companion, wondering again which category she fell into.

"Oi! Peaches!" Spike called, not willing to happen upon an unaware Angel.

The office door opened almost immediately. "Spike?" His grandsire looked horrible, tired and worn, but something warm flashed in the dark depths of his eyes for a second, no longer. "You're here."

Spike froze, a dozen feet from the door. "Liam?" His voice was soft. "What's wrong?"

Angel's expression was cold now, and his eyes flickered to the lawyer. "How did you get in?"

"Bloody lot of good I'd do you, stuck in your lobby," Spike said, avoiding that particular question, not wanting to get the brief in trouble. He took a couple of steps closer.

"Why aren't you on your way to Europe with your family?"

The blond head snapped back at the bitterness in his grandsire's voice, and he sent a sidelong glance at Reyes. "You know why." He had to draw breath to say it. "Angel, you've been drinking," he blurted, the smell of whiskey assaulting his nostrils, surprising him and making him wary. Instinctively, he moved between the big vampire and the human.

"Drinking alone," Angel confirmed, a humorless smile on his lips.

Spike canted his head to the side. "Well, you bar your mates from your soddin' house, hard not to be alone."

An equally humorless laugh escaped Angel. "Mates? We're not mates, Spike. We'll never be 'mates.'"

"Family, then." Soft and dangerous.

"You're not my family, bo–"

Spike pinned Angel against the doorframe. "As head of this family, I get to say who is and who isn't." He could feel the lawyer cringing away from the dangerous speed of his movement.

"Head of what family? Not the Aurelians. Boy." He shoved the blond man away, against Harmony's desk. "I've got a hundred and thirty years on you."

Even more wary, Spike righted himself and considered the dark-haired man. He was more coordinated than he should be, considering the smell of alcohol coming off him. "You're here at my sufferance, Angel." He tilted his head to the side again. "Wasn't just because I didn't want to hear her bitch. You know that."

"Her?" Angel scoffed. "Like she'd care."

"She tried to reach you all day yesterday. Yeah, she cares." Spike's eyes widened in realization. "You didn't return her calls out of spite?"

Angel sneered at him. "I don't want her phone calls, not when she can reach out and touch someone… else."

Something difficult crossed Spike's face. "'M not strong where she's concerned. Got nothing to do with you. Whatever she wants… needs from me, it's hers. Can't do otherwise."

The emotion in Angel's eyes was dangerously close to hatred. "Poor you."

"Yeah, poor me," Spike agreed acidly. "Hundred and twenty years of deludin' myself about where Dru's affections lay? Not gonna do that again. She doesn't love _me_ , Angel."

"You love her, though, and–"

"We both–"

"–she loves what you do to her."

A certain stillness descended on the blond man. "You were watching us."

Angel looked away. "You were going into a rough neighborhood."

Spike's hands clenched at his sides. "So nice of you to help."

Angel closed his eyes. "You didn't need my help."

"Bit of Angelus left, I see. Still like to watch."

"I left after you ripped the last one's head off."

Buffy's one perfect night, marred. Even William's soul was clamoring for the old man's blood, but he forced his fists to stay at his sides. "Why? Why do that to her? To me? To yourself, for Christ's sake?"

"Maybe so if Angelus ever gets loose again, he'll be aimed straight for you."

Spike's head rocked back, as if the words had been a physical blow. Then he moved in close, looking up into the murky depths of the usually clear brown eyes. He gave Angel a shark's grin. "Do you think I don't want that? Give him a taste of what he's inflicted on me? Be my pleasure, Peaches."

Angel was trembling with the effort it took to keep his human features in place. "You touched what was mine."

Spike scoffed. "Dru not yours? Darla? Been finishin' 'em off for you for decades, old man."

He lost the battle. "Get out, Spike," he growled through a mouthful of fangs. "Last warning."

Blue eyes held the yellow gaze for a long moment, then the younger vampire said in calm tones, "Reinstate the same access as I've always had here in your little empire, Aurelian, and I will be well pleased with you." He took a step back, remembering the nights he'd stood beneath Buffy's window, listening to the sounds of Riley Finn trying to satisfy a Slayer, hating everything about the scene, himself included, but powerless to be anywhere else. He felt so sorry for the old man, suddenly. "Pleased enough to overlook this… insubordination."

"You're not the Master."

This was too much. His game face slid into place. "Yes, I am." He grabbed the ring finger of Angel's right hand and bent it backwards, taking the powerful vampire to the floor, putting him on his knees. Spike had no idea where he'd picked up the aikido-style move, or even why he thought it would work. He actually blinked a little at how well it did. He placed his other hand on the back of Angel's neck and held him so he could lean down to press his forehead against his grandsire's. "You're my family. How can I watch your back if you shut me out?"

"Don't… want you… watching my back," Angel gritted out through the bright pain.

Spike let go, his human features sliding back into place as he stalked away. "And I don't want you watching any part of me! Not about what we want, is it?" He put his hands on the back of his head, fighting desperately to keep his temper. "Family is deeper than want. Family is need."

Angel braced himself against the doorframe and rose to his feet. "Don't need you." He was across the distance in a blur, turning Spike with one clawed hand on his shoulder, his free fist thudding against the other man's jaw. Then he grabbed the lapels of that damned leather coat. "I. Don't. Need. You." He punctuated each word with a shake.

The pale features of Spike's face were as impassive as a statue's. "Came to tell you I plan to stay in Los Angeles until Bit finishes up the school year in Rome. Don't know about after that." Spike covered Angel's hands with his own. "Gotta find an apartment somewhere, someplace to hole up during the day. After I get an address, I'll let you know what it is." His voice was normal, serene, even. "Next time I walk in your big, wide doors downstairs, there better not be any obstruction, or I will make you submit. Won't be quick, won't be pretty, but you know I never give up. Ever." He shoved Angel off his chest. "Consider whether you have that much time to spare."

This time Angel did stagger, the alcohol having an effect. "Last time you tortured me, you had to hire someone to do it for you," he sneered. "You don't have it in you, boy."

The blond man smiled at him, a mixture of tenderness and malice that made the hair on Angel's nape stir. "Last time I didn't have a soul, Peaches. Understand you better now." He took a step closer and put both hands on Angel's shoulders, his fingers digging into muscle, his voice at least an octave lower than usual. "I know what will make you submit." Spike smiled up at his grandsire, tightened his grip just a bit before shoving the big vampire away. He turned to go to the lift, surprised to see the human still there. He'd forgotten all about Kara. Provided her quite a show, he thought wearily as he held out an arm to indicate she should call the elevator.

Angel blinked after him, his human face sliding back into place. Something about the younger vampire's unflappable confidence touched him with fear. What did the boy mean? What did Spike think he could do to make him submit?

In the elevator, Kara leaned against the side of the car, hoping it wasn't too obvious she was shrinking away. "That was intense," she said, staring at the impassive profile. "What is he to you, anyway?"

"Family." There was something raw in his voice, despite the unrevealing face. "Means I'll kill for him, die for him… means sometimes I have to beat sense into him."

"I'm not sure I want to know what you do for a lover." She still did, though, and he probably knew it.

Spike turned to her as the elevator reached the lobby. "A lover? I turn my back on everything in my world, remake myself," he said, a grim smile on his face, "and then I die for her." He lifted his brows and advanced on her. "Or, once, I died first." He looked upward, toward the CEO's office. "Thanks again for this, Rey – Kara. I owe you… but I advise you to just bin it."

"Wh-what?"

"Don't cash in your chips, don't ask me to return the favor, not if it's what I think."

She straightened up, negotiating coming as naturally to her as breathing. "I've read your file. You always pay your debts."

"I do." He gripped her by the arms again, no gentler than before, his face close to hers. "In spades."

She watched him stalk away, crossing the lobby in no particular hurry, as she braced herself against the back of the elevator, her knees weak and her face flushed. Kara had enjoyed a discreet affair with Holland Manners a few years ago, but her career had stalled since his death. The current CEO was sexually forbidden; the blackly humorous Lilah Morgan had been very clear about that when she briefed them on their new boss, skeletal hands touching the scarf at her throat. The other souled vampire wasn't off limits, however, and she wouldn't mind hitching her wagon to his rising star. The way he moved, spoke, but mostly the way he looked… She wouldn't mind at all.

⸹

January 2004

"'Lo, love," Spike mumbled, one blue eye opening to find Fred, having smelled/sensed her as he woke.

"Well, hey there," she beamed, looking up from her book.

"You watchin' out for me, as usual?" He sat up in the hospital bed, automatically using his arms. He abruptly raised them to his chest, wincing.

Fred grimaced in sympathy. "I guess that includes reminding you to not use your arms."

"Heard anything about Dana? She okay?"

"No. I figure the Council of Watchers is more likely to get in touch with you than with us."

She was right, so he changed the subject. "Bandages can come off now, I think." He flexed his fingers experimentally, finding them stiff and twitchy.

"Y'all heal so fast," she marveled.

"Sorry I didn't get to take you to the Cat & Fiddle, though." He'd finally talked her into trying Kim Gardner's pub, a clean, upscale place that still managed to recall Blighty; they had planned to go this very night.

"I'll take a raincheck. You're the only handsome man who's askin' me out these days."

Spike ignored this and nodded his head at her book. "What are you reading, love?"

"Oh." She waved the book sheepishly. "A biography of Tyco Brahe."

"That's the astronomer who died when he wouldn't leave the table to pi – um, urinate, yeah?"

"That's him, Mr. Bursty Bladder."

"You want to read about more wholesome physicists, pet. Faradays, now, they were decent blokes, distant rellies of mine."

"Rellies? Relatives? Really?" Fred was delighted.

"Uh, yeah. Very distant, before my time," he added, hardly able to credit what he had just admitted. What kind of drugs had the Wolfram and Hart docs given him, anyway?

"Well, Michael would be, I suppose, but what about–"

"Is Peaches about?" he interrupted.

Fred leaned forward and smiled warmly. "He's been hovering over you the whole time you were asleep, until I came down to sit with you. It was kind of sweet."

"Angel? Sweet? That may be a first."

"He'll never admit it – you know how he is – but he really cares about you. You're the only family he's got, after all."

"Well, Drusilla's out there somewhere." Spike leaned back against the pillows. "Fred, love, you mind if I ask what happened to the other Aurelian?"

"Aurelian? Like Marcus Aurelius?"

He looked into her puzzled face. "No," he said slowly, "that's our line, the Order of Aurelius. There was another vampire from the family 'round, few months or weeks before you moved here. I smelled him at the hotel, the Hyperion, I mean."

Fred frowned, thinking back. "I don't remember any other vampire – I mean, we were fighting the Beast, not vampires. There was Angelus. Could that have been it?"

"That must be it," he agreed, his voice heavy with sarcasm. As if he wouldn't know his grandsire's scent if it really was different from the souled Angel. He tamped down his impatience, at a loss for further questions. She was observant in addition to being a genius; it didn't seem possible that Angel could have hidden another vampire from her.

"You sound tired," Fred said sympathetically.

Spike closed his eyes, feeling like a knob. "If I haven't thanked you yet, petal, I want to. You're a bit of all right."

She gave him that wide, dazzling smile. "Thank me for what?" she asked, ducking her head.

"For saving me again." When she looked as if she was about to wave it aside, he added quickly, "My arms, then."

"The men I know from back home would be embarrassed to admit a woman saved them," Fred told him, pleased.

He shook his head and gave her a serious answer. "Women are the best thing in this world, love, the only thing that keeps it from fallin' apart. You lot are strong and loving, and we testosterone bombs haven't figured out how to combine those two, for the most part. Makes you the superior sex, yeah? At least the more competent gender. Probably smarter, too. Not for nothing that the Slayer line is female."

Fred gave him an incredulous smile. "You really think that? I mean, it's not a very Victorian attitude."

"Not a very Victorian male, am I?"

"No, I reckon you're not."

"Glad I got to know you, pet, no matter my non-existence when we got started."

"Well, I'm glad I got to know you, too – under any circumstances."

He responded to her smile, but it faded quickly. "Why're you here, Fred?"

"'Cause you're my friend, silly. We just went over that."

"No." He started to wave his hand impatiently, but gave that up as a bad idea. "I mean, why are you at Wolfram and Hart? You're too good to be here." When she looked down at her book, he pressed the point. "You've got a world-class brain, love. I know your first doctoral program didn't work out, but there are others, more prestigious than these brand new unis you've got in America. Any of them would be glad to have you."

Fred thought for a moment before responding. "There's a part of me that wants that," she admitted quietly. "But… back home, we always say that it's the sinners who drive around in Cadillacs. They don't seem to get punished, and the people who try to be good don't seem to be rewarded for it, not on earth." She looked up to see if he understood what she was trying to say. "The lab here, Spike, it's… it's phenomenal. I can work with the magical as well as the physical. We'd been through so much, especially with Cordelia… It just felt nice to be recognized for doing good."

"But when it's the sinners who are handin' you the keys to the Cadillac, love…"

"I know," she agreed, dropping her eyes to the book in her lap again. "At the time, it seemed like a good idea. But the longer we're here… Even the people I thought were nice…" Fred trailed off, thinking of Knox. "You know, part of it is just like leavin' home." Her voice had a tone of discovery, as if this was the first time she'd considered the idea. "I couldn't wait to leave Texas, go out to the 'real' world, see if I could do all right in a big lake instead of in a small pond. Wolfram and Hart is bigger than Angel Investigations; could I do it? Could I manage a lab this big? Handle a bunch of really smart people? Could I get them to respect me?"

"'Course they respect you, love. 'S'obvious you know your onions. You don't have to prove anything."

"Yeah, I do," Fred said slowly. "I need to prove to myself that I'm not–"

"Well, good afternoon, Sunshine," Lorne beamed from the doorway. As he bustled in, full of good humor, Fred said her goodbyes. Spike never did learn what it was she needed to prove to her own satisfaction.

⸹

"I'm out," Wesley said, throwing down his cards in disgust. He rolled backwards in his chair a few inches, bumping into a stack of books that had been on his desk. "I don't understand why we had to play poker in my office." He rolled a couple inches to the left, closer to Charles.

"'S'where the good liquor's kept," Spike replied, giving him a piercing look. His glance moved to Lorne. "You in?"

Lorne considered his hand for a moment, then pushed two dollar bills across the polished desktop. "I'm in."

"Not much good liquor left now," Wes remarked, giving the glass at Spike's elbow a matching pointed stare.

Unruffled, Spike indicated Fred with his chin. "What about you, love?"

"Oh, I'm in," she said with determination, hunching her shoulders a little. She wore a green visor in order to look like a true poker player, and her hair was in a high ponytail. There wasn't a man or demon at the table who didn't think she looked adorable.

"Me, too," Gunn said, "if anyone's got change for a ten." Wesley got out his wallet and found a five and five ones for his friend.

"Wes, have you seen that grimoire with the–" Angel's question died away as he looked around the office at his friend's faces, his gaze hardening as it came to rest on the brat prince of the Aurelians. He had been preoccupied, reading a file as he walked the corridors, and had not expected this scene.

"Peaches!"

"Hey, Angel," Fred said brightly.

Angel's eyes remained on the boy. Spike was at that point of near-intoxication where he might do anything, literally anything, and inside him, Angelus uncoiled, spoiling to fight the young one.

"Angelcakes! There's room for you at the table."

"Come on, then. Join us." Spike's voice changed effortlessly into silky seduction. "Give me a chance to relieve you of the untouched wad you've been keeping hidden in your–"

"Why are you here, Spike?"

He raised his eyebrows at his grandsire's harsh tone. "Well, 's'true, I usually play with your hourly employees in the mailroom. Thought tonight I'd–"

"You know what? Never mind," Angel said, holding out his hands in a warding gesture.

Wesley looked between the two vampires, concern showing on his tired face. "Which grimoire, Angel? I've several from the archives."

"Spike's been dealing the cards, Angel," Fred offered. "There's a lot of improvement. His dexterity–" Her voice died away, as Angel was simply no longer at the door.

"What's up with Angel?" Gunn asked the room at large, frowning.

"I'm out," Spike said, grabbing up his coat as he threw his hand on the table. Then, he, too was gone.

"People come and go so quickly around here," Lorne said on a sigh. "I call." When the humans stared at him, he asked uncertainly, "What? Can I not do that just now?"

"Oi! Hold the lift."

Inside the elevator, Angel jabbed at the button with the 'close doors' pictograph, but realized he'd hit the 'open doors' button by mistake. He sighed; those two double-arrows symbols always confused him. "What?" he asked, as Spike put an arm out, just in case. He didn't get into the car, though.

"Why didn't you stay?"

"Some of us have jobs, Spike. I'm too busy to sit around playing card games."

"It's almost eleven at night!"

"Duh. Vampire."

Spike let out a sigh and looked up at the open space between the wall and the elevator car. "They're not mine, Angel. I know that. I don't want to make you unhappy. I'd never–"

Angel covered his hurt with a confused look. "I don't know what you mean. I just don't want you here, playing poker with my employees, distracting them from their work."

He threw his arms up in the air. "Oh, come on! As if you didn't get this place as the pot in some sort of cosmic poker game – or crap shoot."

Angel took the opportunity to shut the unimpeded doors. "You want to make me happy? Don't come here unless you have legitimate business." He glared at his lack of reflection in the metal doors as the car made its smooth descent, hearing Spike's string of curses clearly. "Same to you, 'mate,'" he said bitterly.

⸹

Angel stared into his mug of blood. It was better than staring out at the bright Los Angeles night, better than staring around at the walls of his penthouse. He couldn't stand the emptiness of his bed, not after having family in it, even for one night all those weeks ago.

Spike still came to the offices more often than Angel liked, but he'd been to the penthouse exactly twice. The first time had been before he flew to New York to spend Christmas with Buffy and her sister and her Watcher. He'd left a present on the nightstand, badly wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine, coming in quietly and leaving without waking him, like a dark Father Christmas. Inside was a new sketchpad, the first page of expensive paper marred with a cartoon of Angel with little fangs and spiky hair and a typical Spike message: 'Figure you can do better than this. Happy Christmas. William.' Honestly, the boy could draw better than that; he'd taught him, after all. The second time, Spike had ripped a parasitic creature from his grandsire's chest, sardonically given him the Angel Investigations slogan, and swaggered away. He had been there at need, that's all, just as he had said. Family was about need.

Connor was a few hours away from Los Angeles, but he might as well be on the moon. Cordelia was no closer, lying like a husk in her hospital bed. In a way, he was glad that Willow had seen her, had said there was nothing she could do. Willow, the only person on earth who could contain Angelus, meant power to Angel, and if she couldn't do anything, it meant that at least Wolfram and Hart weren't holding Cordy hostage.

Fred had taken a stab at a new relationship with a techie in her department, Knox something, but it hadn't gone anywhere, and she was quiet as of late. Charles loved every minute of his life as a high-powered lawyer, and Angel was grateful for his energies. He was the only one, it often seemed, who continued with their mission as he set up relief funds and sent money to shelters. Lorne was a whirlwind of energy, too, his manic strength poured into a shallow world where appearance meant everything and nothing had substance. And Wesley… Wes was further withdrawn, almost seemed paranoid. He was preoccupied all the time, and Angel hadn't found a chance to talk to him.

The only time they all connected was over work. There was no down time, no bonding over tacos or Thai food; they ate lunch in their separate offices. He was almost glad to see a report come across his desk about Spike's latest exploit outside the building, saving someone in the killing fields. Wesley would make a dry remark, Charles would joke, but he could see the same thing in their eyes those times that he knew was in his own: the sense that life, real life, was passing them by. Why were they in this steel and glass tower instead of out among people, making a difference? It was solidarity, of a sort.

Angel thought of the night the insane Slayer had escaped the institution, and he closed his eyes. Fred had done what needed to be done, got help for Spike, but he wanted to be in her place. All he had managed to do was beat up Dana and get into a pissing contest over possession of the sad, broken girl with the Council's boy, Andrew.

He snorted a little, lifting his cup to take a sip. Andrew, falling into Spike's arms like that. He couldn't believe William the Bloody had been so patient, hadn't snapped the junior Watcher's neck over that display. Still, he couldn't help feel a little envious of Andrew, too, for so fearlessly showing emotion. From his spies, he learned Giles had threatened to fire the little twerp for fawning over Spike so much he forgot to mention that the girl was a Slayer. It was unclear in the report if Rupert had meant actual fire. Buffy, showing mercy, had taken Andrew in, saved his job.

Angel sighed. Something inside him shifted when Eve showed her hand with the parasites. The expectation that Wolfram and Hart were going to play dirty had solidified into a certainty. He would have liked to talk to someone about it. If Spike hadn't been so weary that night at the hospital, he might have opened up, but Angel didn't want to burden him. It was just a want, not a need.

⸹

Spike stared into his pint of Guinness. Damned Irish beverage, anyhow. He didn't want to think of anything Irish. Not that it did him any good. His grandsire had him well and truly worried.

Wesley hadn't been much help lately, and it looked as if he was going to miss their second meeting in a row. Between rounds of darts and ale, the ex-Watcher had become friendlier until his father, a real piece of work, had shown up. Spike had tried to explain that the whole orphanage thing had happened when Dru snuck away for sweeties. He'd been there to collar her when the Watchers showed up. Dru, bless her, never could keep in her head the benefits of a low profile. At the time, of course, he wasn't exactly there to save toddlers. Wesley hadn't acted the same toward him since. Apparently, the opinion of that old bastard he called a father counted more than Rupert's. Spike wasn't sure he passed on all information to his Council liaison after that.

Of course, he hadn't been all that helpful to Wesley, either. He had lied to the man at Giles' request, telling him that there was nothing in the Watcher's diaries that matched up with the big quake recorded by the psismographs. Giles had filed away the printouts after roughly matching up the quake with Dawn's appearance. Didn't matter; he literally couldn't tell Wes about that, anyway, because of Rupert's spell.

Wesley had grown so haggard that the routine denial that went on in the Wolfram and Hart offices hadn't been enough. Charles and Fred – especially Fred, come to think of it – were rallying 'round the ex-Watcher. Spike was glad to see it. He felt like a flid every time he went into the building, trying to find some 'legitimate' excuse to be there. He was a bad liar, usually coming off as the world's most annoying gooseberry. If the lot of them finally started treating each other the way family ought to, though, it would be easier to believe his excuse was that he just dropped by to see them.

Family. Spike downed the last swallow of stout and nodded to the bartender. The Council paid him to spy on his rellies, even if it was for their own good. Well, only Angel was family, but he was always treading a thin line, wanting to claim Fred for his own. The AI staff belonged to Angel, though, and he had so little these days, despite his power. He wouldn't take anything away from the old man. 'Course, that's not what Angel believed.

Spike closed his eyes until he heard the thud of his next Guinness landing on the counter. Shanshu. Wesley and Gunn had come to see him over it, out of concern for Angel, he figured. As if he had any use for bleedin' prophecies; as if he wanted to be human again. Angel had lived twice as long as he had, though. Maybe it was different after all those years of seeing the world spinning on its merry way, heedless of you.

How would he feel, now that he had long-term attachments to humans? Dawn was the only one who had obviously aged, but that was just normal growth for a teenager. Thinking of her, he checked to make sure his cell phone was on. Sometimes she called him before she left for school, chattering at him around mouthfuls of toast as she ate breakfast. How would he feel in just twenty or thirty years, when Giles started to look elderly, when Buffy and her mates began to slip into middle age while he was unchanged? Spike tilted his head back and gulped down half the pint. As if he really believed they would all live that long.

He thought of the call he got the Tuesday before Christmas. Giles contacted everyone on the North American continent and flew in from London himself. Someone was performing rituals to prepare the Cleveland Hellmouth to open on the winter solstice. Spike had rushed to get his presents to the Angel Investigation folks, taken a nondescript sedan with necrotempered windows from the motor pool, and driven at high speed for twenty-two solid hours and waited another three at the airport to pick up Rupes. More Vahrall demons, as it turned out, and Giles was in a terrifically foul mood because somehow the amulet with the Word of Valios engraved on it had not been destroyed with the Council's London headquarters. Spike understood his worry that other powerful artifacts had been retrieved from the ruins, but felt it was somewhat comforting that they already knew how to stop the ritual. Besides, he had a fondness for Vahralls, since it was in the process of killing one that he had learned he could at least fight demons, post-chip.

The Vahrall demons were more organized this time. Instead of just three, there were eleven, plus a host of vampires they had hired as extra muscle. Their own offense wasn't very coordinated; only five slayers had managed to get to town. Of course, that was like saying Giles only had five nuclear weapons. They converged on the Hellmouth, which in Cleveland was deep beneath one of those malfunction junctions that traffic engineers seemed to deploy with malicious glee. Rupert had stayed in touch with the five women by cell phone, and it soon became clear that they were out of time. Spike and Giles arrived last, and they ran straight through the fighting, searching for the sacrifices.

It had been a little unnerving to feel so many slayers, his sense of them a steady rhythm calling him to fight. All slayers had their own particular vibe, which was what had kept him from recognizing it in Dana for so long. Her energy had been frenzied, unfocused, much more akin to a demon's. He recognized Vi as he ran, and told a huffing Giles to stay with the redhead, her bright hair mercifully free of any knit caps. The final one he passed, a dark-haired slayer, was a dervish, raining death on almost a dozen vampires in a splendid, spinning ballet. He would like to have watched her, would maybe have fought her back in the day.

In a mood for combat, he pelted unerringly down to the Hellmouth, drawn by its energy. It was sort of bowl-shaped, like an amphitheatre or the inside of a flowerpot. He leapt down the wide terraces to the small, flat center. There were three Vahralls there, and he snatched away a bundle of small bones from the first one he reached, tossing them far behind him onto a ledge. Then he tossed the demon itself onto an opposite ledge. None of them were armed, and he roared a joyous battle cry as he waded in, keeping the Vahralls from throwing their bodies into the Hellmouth in sacrifice.

Spike literally beat the three demons to death. Outside of the reunion with his family, it was the best thing that had happened to him since coming back. Partway through, he became aware of Giles and the five young women watching him from above, as if they were on a theatre balcony. Vi put one arm out, warning the others away from his fight, and he felt a flash of gratitude. He was hyper-aware, in the zone, able to process everything: the splash of blood from drops that fell on the ground as the injured Vahrall behind him tried to sneak closer; the admiring murmur of a slayer drawling 'I've found my next sensei' and an answering chorus of agreements; Rupert's slowing respiration rate as he caught his breath; the smell of sulfur and crackle of hellfire far, far below. He dropped the final demon atop the other two, the last thud-thud of its double heart echoing in his ears, and Vi vaulted down the terracing to embrace him tearfully. He stared at her with demon eyes, this young woman he had claimed all those months ago, then pulled her close, her head pressed against his shoulder and his hand over her other ear, and roared again, in triumph this time. Only then had he been able to leash his fury, been able to shake off his game face and greet Vi properly.

He had stayed with Rupert in Cleveland, just the two of them, as the slayers had scattered to spend Christmas with their families. Giles had fired the two Watchers who had been stationed there, a man and a woman who were legacies, generations of their families having served the Council. They had apparently been neglecting their sacred duties to carry on a torrid affair, though both had enough Watcher in them to be nasty about Giles' chosen companion. Spike had smiled pleasantly at them and let his eyes go to yellow.

In all, he had been more than glad to leave Cleveland for New York, one of his favorite cities, and see his favorite people. He took Xander to CBGB for old times' sake, and Willow to a magic shop still manned by the same proprietor who had served him the first time he'd patronized it in 1922. He and Dawn went to see the last of the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy, and he took both Summers girls ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. His Slayer had skimmed across the frozen water like an arrow, beautiful and true, her girlhood skills not at all rusty. They held hands, but their contact had been almost as chaste as his physical affection for Dawn, and his hopes that Buffy would come to his room went unfulfilled.

Christmas morning, they all met in Giles' hotel room to exchange gifts, early enough to make him a rather grumpy patriarch. Spike gave his ladies similar strands of pearls and versions of his own favorite new gadget, a handheld GPS receiver, to his male humans. He received a black turtleneck of fine cotton from Dawn, a gorgeous wooden carving of a cheetah from Xander, a book on classic cars from Willow, and a leather jacket from Buffy. Giles gave him a thirty-year-old bottle of Kentucky bourbon and a left-handed mug from Oxford, which Spike, uncomfortable, had explained away as a private joke. Buffy and Dawn had flown out to Illinois later that day to visit their Aunt Arlene, and Willow, who had teleported Xander to New York, took him back with her to Brazil for a party she had planned for New Year's Eve.

Left alone with Giles, whose flight to London left the following day, Spike took him to the roof of the hotel that night to share the bourbon when the Watcher said he wanted to talk. He had already guessed, but it was still good to hear that Rupert planned to leave London and head up the Council presence on the newly activated Hellmouth in Cleveland. Just to be on the same bloody continent as one member of his family made him feel better. The only thing that concerned him was the fact that Rupert was in pain. The cold weather, he said, wasn't kind to his hands. It took Spike a few seconds too long to remember what Angelus had done to the Watcher's fingers, and by then, Giles had moved on, had asked him to consider coming to Cleveland to train a small number of slayers. He promised to talk it over with Dawn. It was the nicest Christmas he could remember since his father died.

Then he had to drive back to Los Angeles, his least favorite city, to his oldest kin, the one who had tried to renounce family altogether, to his empty flat. The apartment, on the first floor of a low-rise, Spanish-style building that, thankfully, had no basement, had been silent as any crypt. Spike had hung his new clothes in the closet, balanced Xander's cheetah atop Willow's book and placed both on top of his telly, and hung Giles' mug on a hook in his kitchen. The new possessions brightened his flat, made it cheerier, although he didn't plan to be in it for long. It was important that his place didn't look as sterile as Angel's penthouse, though he also didn't want it to become too cluttered; twice he had made out the minute noise of surveillance cameras. The second time, before Spike destroyed it, he'd positioned the gadget on the kitchen counter, leaned over and sung the opening of the Clash's "Guns on the Roof," then turned to moon the camera. Might as well give those rats in the basement of Wolfram and Hart something good to watch. Nothing ever happened in his flat; it was just a place to hide from the sun, store his blood, and talk on the phone.

Dawn called him every day, sometimes more than once. Giles called every two or three days, and he talked to Buffy once or twice a week. He'd sent her a roomful of flowers for her birthday, and the phone call after that had lasted over an hour. What he spent on minutes with them, he saved with Willow, who would pop a polite _ringy-dingy_ into his head whenever she wanted to chat. Xander he hardly ever heard from, but, then, the young Watcher's only reliable means of communication was the Council-provided satellite phone. It was nice, kept him in their lives, but he was a vampire, and he missed having physical contact.

He should never have gone from Harmony's apartment to Angel's penthouse, never given in to the lure of the family bed. Sleeping elsewhere now felt unsafe, wrong. He wondered how much his need for skin-to-skin contact prompted his decision to take Harmony to bed after Dru had banished him. Even then, he'd never really liked being there with her; she wasn't an equal. Spike had to buy a new bed to furnish his flat, and he was the only one who had been in it, even after weeks. He didn't know how Angel stood it. It was an odd, lonely life for a vampire.

The oddest thing of all was the appearance of his own personal Cordelia, that psychic-to-the-champion, Doyle. While Spike could barely lie with enough competence to save his own skin, he was very good at spotting other liars. Doyle wasn't being truthful about something, but he was as smooth about hiding his agenda as Kara. The tattooed man had never been wrong about where he was needed, though. Spike still got chills thinking about that horseshoe crab thing that had been attached to Angel. The rest of it, saving stupid Angelinos, he found tiresome. If Doyle would get off his arse and help, it would be different, because the only thing that broke up the routine of patrol was company. Even though having only one hand was a good excuse, it was still an excuse. Maybe that's why he'd never warmed to his cheerleader: Spike never believed Doyle would risk himself to help anyone else. Of course, it was hard to believe that the Powers That Be would bother sending visions to someone on his behalf – he was a champion on his own terms, after all, no thanks to them. But as much as he resisted it, it still gave him a warm, private glow to know that someone up there had found him at least a little worthy.

This Guinness was gone, too, so he checked his cell phone for messages. He wouldn't wait an hour for anyone but a Summers, and Wes was forty minutes overdue. Spike tried calling him, then tossed some bills on the counter. If he couldn't get information from Wesley, he'd try to get it from Angel. Again. He took a breath, just so he could sigh. Maybe he'd take another car from the Wolfram and Hart motor pool to a chop shop, tell their CEO he'd plopped it in the ocean. That might make the great poof annoyed enough to do something, anything.

⸹

Angel leaned into the spray of the shower and let Nina's scent wash away. He'd done it, moved on. Seen what was going on around him right now. Closure, that was the word. Cordelia, so full of life, was gone for good. Buffy, whom he had under closer surveillance, wasn't quite the party girl she had been before Spike came back. She was staying in touch with the brat, though, and he was sure that had everything to do with her more modest lifestyle. Angel was doing the healthy thing. He was moving on.

He raised his face to the spray, not surprised at the hollow sound of the drops thrumming on his skin. He felt hollow inside. Nina had been appropriately awed; he had been pretty awesome, although he'd held back because she hadn't been a werewolf long enough to be much stronger than human when the moon wasn't on her. But while her warm body had felt indescribably good, Angel thought he understood Spike's attitude toward Harmony better now. He shouldn't have brought her here. The family bed was for equals. It wasn't that she was Nina; it was that she was there, wasn't someone else. She wasn't Buffy; she wasn't even Darla. She wasn't –

Angel sobbed suddenly, putting his arms against the wall of the shower and letting his head fall between them. He squeezed his eyes tight against the tears. All he could see was Cordelia, her face, her smile, the flash of anger and backbone that could almost always keep him in line. She was so beautiful, so strong, and she hadn't even finished becoming the woman she was destined to be. He had never really held her, never touched her, never opened his empty heart enough to let her in, not until it was too late. Nina was just a playmate; Cordy could have been his partner. Angel crumpled to the floor, the water still jetting down on his body, gritting his teeth to keep from howling his misery throughout the whole damn building. He grieved for his lost love, but it was regret that ate at him. Oh, Cordy. What might have been.

⸹

February 2004

The cell phone on the table by the couch vibrated a few inches to the right, playing a snatch of "London Calling" as the ringtone. Spike tossed the control pad for his game system none too gently toward the television and flexed his fingers before picking up the phone. "Buffy?" he said hastily, recognizing the number.

"Spike?"

He closed his eyes at the sound of her voice, a smile taking his mouth. "All right, then, love?" Oh, everything his pride wouldn't let him tell her – the tears he'd shed when he learned 'Doyle' had played him, that he wasn't good enough to have a guide from the Powers, after all; everything his soul wouldn't let him tell her – Angel was dating dog-girl and had been a wee puppet man; everything his fear wouldn't let him share – her ex's despair over losing Cordelia and the familiar itch Spike had between his shoulderblades, the one that always preceded a too-quiet Angelus letting loose with a really foul kill. "You okay?"

Spike wanted to know if she was all right, Buffy thought. What could she say? That she had come from her second date with a man who had such sad, beautiful, dark eyes – eyes that drew her in deeply, so deep that she was afraid she would drown, and there was no one to save her. "I need you."

Spike shot off the couch. "I'll get to the airport and check the flights."

"No, no," she said, trying not to sound desperate. "Everything's fine. It's just me. I… need you."

This time he heard the smokiness in her voice, and his eyes closed again as he sank onto the couch. "Ah, love. Wish I were there."

"So do I." She sighed. "Where are you?"

"My flat, doing the couch potato thing."

"Are you alone?"

"Solitary as an oyster."

"Does that mean yes?"

The corner of Spike's mouth curved. "Yeah, love, it does. Don't get many visitors. Where are you?"

"My apartment. Dawn's spending the night with her friend Cheyenne."

"Lonely, then?"

Lonely. She had tried so hard since Thanksgiving, since Spike came back. Yes, things were better with Dawn, but she was still alone. This new man filled her thoughts so full that she barely remembered anyone else. And if she didn't remember Spike, how could she remember who she was? "I miss you." She paused for a few seconds. "What are you wearing, Spike?" She couldn't keep hunger out of her voice.

Spike tilted his head, not that she could see. "Is this… Kitten, are you tryin' to get me to have phone sex with you?" He knew right away that it was the wrong thing to say.

"No. No, of course not. That's–"

"'Cause you'd pop my cherry, love," he said swiftly, trying to salvage the situation. "Never done that before."

"There's something you haven't done?" Buffy's voice was wry. And intrigued.

"Haven't done that. You'd have to be gentle with me."

"I could be so gentle, Spike." She heard him begin to breathe, and she was there with him, all of her there with him, seeing him, remembering him. Remembering herself, and that he adored her. He was her vampire, and she was the Slayer. Since he knew her and loved her anyway, maybe she could find a way to love herself, a way back to herself….

"'M wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans," he said, answering her earlier question, laughter in his voice.

"Not sure if I can imagine that," Buffy said dryly.

"What are you wearin,' pet?"

"I just got in. I'm wearing a short grey skirt and a white silk blouse."

Spike closed his eyes and put his legs up on the couch. "The silk," he said, "loves the line of your arms, the curve of your breasts. Touch your arms, Buffy, run your hands along your arms. Imagine that those are my hands."

"You're sure you've never done this before?"

"'M a quick learner, love. Besides, I have years of experience fantasizing 'bout me an' you." He shifted a little, getting comfortable. "What do you want me to do?"

"Well, if I were there, I'd rip your t-shirt apart and rub my body all over your chest, run my hands over your tummy, dip my tongue into your belly button."

He groaned. "Thought you were going to be gentle with me, love."

Buffy was quiet, listening to his breathing. "Then you tell me what to do. I want to hear your voice, Spike. Your voice is like chocolate, like leather. Your voice is like the night. Make love to me with your voice."

Spike's eyes opened wide. She'd thought about how he sounded. Just to know she had noticed that much about him… His tone shifted, became both more commanding and more vulnerable. "Want to make love with you, Buffy. Want to worship you. Unbutton your shirt."

"It's already unbuttoned, open for you."

"Open for me, kitten? I like that. Take your left hand, love, and put it on your ribs, right under your heart. Splay your fingers out. Don't move it. That's my hand, Buffy, holding you in place, not lettin' you go, no matter how much you squirm… 'cause I know you can take everything I can give you. I put it there so I can feel your heart when it starts to beat faster." He listened to her breathe, closed his eyes, and imagined resting on his knees and gazing down at her supine body, the way her golden hair would spill over a pillow. "Now, take your other hand…."

Twenty blocks away, Eve put in a new tape. Spike had found the two cameras in his apartment, but not the microphone inside the television. Lindsey would want to hear this when he came back. And he would be back. He always knew how things worked, what would happen. He had reassured her that Angel had certainly never touched Spike the night after they made the blond vampire corporeal again, but she still had her doubts. That had been some kiss in the elevator. Sometimes she thought Lindsey was a little too obsessed with the dark-haired vampire. Maybe he was right, though. Angel was boinking some werewolf girl, and Spike had, as he would say in his vulgar way, shagged the CEO's secretary and seemed more than willing to do the same to his ex in Rome. The Slayer was certainly getting her money's worth out of the international long distance call. They probably wouldn't say anything important, but you never knew what might be useful to record before they said their farewells.

In the basement of Wolfram and Hart across town, the night shift of chanters sat around a lounge, some playing cards at a table, others reading in solitude in comfortable chairs. All the while, they kept up a low, monotonic chant, all of them so familiar with their job that they barely had to pay attention any longer. The magic they wove swirled around a cluster of foci, tiny, doll-like representations of beings blond and brunette and variously shaped, arranged in neat rows on a railing. Behind these still dolls were computers, a fresh hard drive in each, capturing the actions of the humans and creatures represented on small scale, magical energy recorded digitally. Monitoring this high-priority feed, a shift worker on a different basement level nudged her colleague at the sound of a zipper sliding down. The other woman leaned over to see what was on the monitor, then grinned, her eyebrows going up.

And in a basement in Rome, two male co-workers did much the same as they went through their nightly routine at that branch office of Wolfram and Hart, monitoring, among others, a young, blond American. A few hours later, leaving work, one of them carried out a peripheral drive with an illicit recording of the feed and passed it along to a woman who worked for the Immortal. He didn't know why the Immortal wanted it, but he was happy to do it, even without the money. Anything for the Immortal.

⸹

Spike stared down into the vastness of the Well again, trying not to listen to Angel talk to Drogyn. Wonder when they met? The idle thought was followed by what little he knew of Angel's life after he left them the second time. Most of it had been spent in America, where he didn't have to worry about turning a corner and seeing a convent he'd violated as Angelus. Must have met soon after the Boxer Rebellion, or maybe just after the curse –

And why was he thinking about the poof, anyway? Spike leaned against the rail, put his head in his hands. Fred was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. Giles, unable to reach Willow, had contacted the Coven, who said they had no power to save Fred, either.

He hated to be helpless worse than anything; he'd give his own life for her with a song in his heart, if he could. Fred had been there for him, had kept him sane when he was being dragged down into hell and thought it was from the weight of his own sins, before they had known about the Reaper. Just that someone so nice would smile at him when the hellfires were licking about his boots… It was the same kind of grace that Tara had shown him. Maybe Fred, Tara, and Joyce would meet up –

He felt his arms and legs grow cold, not something that had happened very often since he became a reanimated corpse. Spike sprang away from the rail and strode toward Angel and Drogyn. "Oi! Where's her soul go? It's not gonna be trapped in that sarcophagus, is it?" Drogyn stiffened at this new round of questions, and Spike snarled. "Don't fuck with me. Pretend Angel asked you, you have to, but answer the question."

The guardian gave him a measured look, then turned away, something between shame and pain on his face. "It's the final sacrifice. The soul will be consumed. It won't… be, anymore."

"It what?" Angel asked, his eyes wide with horror. Spike just stared at Drogyn. Every time he thought things had bottomed out today, they got worse. Even their fate wasn't that bad; the demon blood made them vampires, but it didn't get their souls. For Buffy, he knew the assurance that heaven was still going to be there, that death was her gift, was the only thing that got her through the next minute, sometimes. Fred deserved that, too, deserved whatever heavenly dimension was set aside for sweet, slightly goofy physicists.

"Her soul will no longer exist, not once Illyria–"

"Like hell it won't," Spike growled. He spun away from them and went to sit cross-legged, his back to the bridge.

 _Oi! Red!_ He sent memories of Tara poring over books in the Magic Box, images of him flirting with Tara, his arms around her, the way Willow herself looked when she smiled at the other witch, the way Tara had looked at him the time she visited him in his crypt. If anything would get the Wicca's attention, it would be this, no matter what astral plane she was on.

 _Spike?_

Relief flooded through him. _Thank God. I need you, Red. Now._

 _Spike, I was kinda busy—_

He shunted his fury away, sending desperation to her instead. _Someone's after my soul, Red. Need you here with me now, with an orb thingy._

 _What!?_

It was a lie; she'd know that, but it was the quickest, most urgent thing he could think of. He could feel the query rising in her mind, almost see her fine brows draw together. Not wanting her to examine the lie, he covered it with other thoughts, ones he figured would distract her the most.

 _Spike!_

 _Sorry, love. Wicked thoughts, I know, but I'm under duress._

 _Almost to wherever you are. Where are you? And stop with the… the tongue thing._ He would have grinned at her panicky reaction, but the situation was too serious for that.

"What's he doing?" Drogyn asked, looking at Angel. Then he put his hand out to grasp Angel's forearm, afraid the dark-haired vampire was going to collapse.

Angel shook his head back and forth in denial, thinking only of saving Fred from the monsters. Tears were falling unheeded onto his face. He'd always found a way of saving Fred from the monsters. He didn't feel Drogyn slowly lower him to the ground, so that both he and Spike were sitting on the floor of the cave.

Drogyn looked up at the other vampire, whose face was illuminated by an abrupt burst of soft, white light. The guardian inhaled sharply in disbelief; a goddess, here? Freely? A female figure materialized from the light next to Spike, a round globe in her hand, like Aphrodite with an apple, and immediately knelt beside the vampire.

"Spike! Are you okay?" Willow, her hair shading from white to red again, just a slender young woman in blue jeans and a low-cut top, looked around wildly, her free hand prepared to throw magic. "What is this place? Who brought you here?"

Spike pulled her forehead against his. "Sorry, love, for lying, and for this." He opened his mind to her, quick and brutal.

Willow jerked away, pain on her face, then a dawning horror. "Oh, no. Fred." She sank down on the ground, her knees touching Spike's, and settled the Orb of Thesulah between them. "Hold my hands. I'll need to ground myself in you." Thank the Goddess she had another supernatural being as a source of strength to draw upon.

"Take what you need," he told her, clasping her hands. "My soul, even." _Anything to save Fred's._

"Me, too," Angel said, suddenly next to them, his eyes fixed on the Orb. "Just… please, Willow."

She nodded, looking grim, and the two Sunnydale survivors made room for him. "First, I need to find her; she's in Los Angeles, right?" When the two vampires nodded, she closed her eyes. Spike felt her leave, as distant from him as if she were still physically in Brazil. Angel squeezed his hand, and he looked over at the big vampire.

"Thanks," Angel said, his voice low. "I know I gave you grief about you… you know, you and Willow, the mindlink."

Spike shook his head. "Should have done this before we left."

Angel blinked, then swiped the side of his wet face against his shoulder. "Why would you? We were gonna save the girl, you and me."

"Got her," Willow said abruptly, her face pale. "She's… God, it's powerful." She opened her eyes and looked at them, her irises as black as the pupils. Willow clenched her fingers around their palms. "Don't let go of me."

"Won't happen," Angel said.

"You need souls," Spike asked, going to game face, "or demons?"

"Supernatural and indestructible sounds good," Willow said. "Go with the bumpies." As Angel followed suit, she focused on the Orb. "I'm going to isolate her soul just in case, but then I'm going to try to cast this Illyria thing out of her and stuff it back in the sarcophagus." She took a breath, met Spike's gaze briefly, and then closed her eyes. "Angel, Spike, concentrate on the Orb, keep your minds quiet." Willow heard Spike's last _Got you, love_ , then dropped like a stone into a mystical trance.

Angel stared at the Orb of Thesulah, feeling the demon inside of him nervous and fuming over its proximity. He felt a tingling in his left hand as Willow drew a little energy from him. Spike's fingers, large and cool, curled firmly against his right palm. Twice today, they had held hands; twice Spike had been there when he needed him. Once this was over, he was going to have to apologize for what happened before Thanksgiving. He wasn't looking forward to it, but Cordelia had told him that he was bigger than Wolfram and Hart. Spike had told him much the same thing weeks before. Cordy got him back on track, but it was up to him to stay there.

The Orb began to glow, energy coalescing into a swirl of light inside the thin glass. Angel let out a useless breath that he hadn't known he was holding. Now, no matter what, Winifred Burkle would be safe somewhere. Willow's grip became even tighter, and the tingling in his hand became stronger, an electrical tension now. The young witch began to glow, white light pulsing around her like a visible aura. She jerked suddenly, her fingers taxing even their unholy strength.

"Don't let go," Spike muttered, his teeth clenched, staring at the Orb. Then, to the woman, _Still got you, Red_. He leaned forward, giving Willow a little more range of movement.

Angel followed his lead. The white glow around Willow dimmed a little, and she sat up straight and began a low, fierce incantation in Latin. Her surrounding nimbus seemed to go out, but, with their enhanced vision, the two vampires could tell that it had changed hues, become dark blue.

"Take… what you… need," Spike gritted aloud. "Fred… most important."

Almost before the words were out, his eyes rolled upward and he moaned as Willow ruthlessly took his offer. The blue faded from the light, but there was still a bruised color around the young witch's constantly moving mouth, around her eyes, and the soft light was barely a nimbus around her head.

Angel forced his eyes to remain on the Orb, but he flinched when he realized that Willow was using very little of his energy. "I'm here, too, Wil. Take whatever you need." Then he felt the gloating presence of Angelus, who wasn't about to spare any of his vitality for a human. Angel shook off the demon, his human face coming back. Immediately, he gasped as Willow pulled strength from him. He clenched his jaw and forced his eyes to stay open, his mind to stay blank. In his peripheral vision, the white cloud of light around her grew brighter.

The three sat there, linked, for long minutes, Willow's intermittent chanting and Spike's ragged breathing the only sounds. The tendons along the young witch's arms stood out as she held onto them with all her physical strength. Suddenly, Angel got the sense that they had gotten someone's attention, as if the heavy regard of a cold eye had just turned their way, and even Angelus cringed away from it. He wondered what it was like for Spike, who was mindlinked to the sorceress, wondered what it must be like for her.

There came an ominous absence of noise, then the three of them were blasted apart, Willow and Spike landing in untidy, unconscious sprawls. Drogyn squatted down next to Angel, helping him sit up. The big vampire looked around, dazed. The Orb of Thesulah was still on the ground where Willow had placed it, its contents swirling prettily. He closed his eyes, relieved, almost smiling as he looked up at the guardian. Then he realized that his boy was perilously close to the precipice.

Angel crawled the few yards to Spike's still body and pulled him away from the edge, allowing himself the indulgence of just holding the younger Aurelian for a moment. Spike's human features had melted back into place, and Angel placed a kiss on the cool, smooth brow. He couldn't get to his feet yet, so he hauled Spike, hands under his armpits, sliding him along until he could lay the blond man next to the redhead. Angel could hear her shallow breathing and sense her blood moving, though he fortunately couldn't smell any. He ran his hands lightly over her skull and limbs, making sure she hadn't broken anything when they were hurled backwards. Angel let out all his air and knelt beside them, waiting for them to waken.

"Who is this?" Drogyn asked, kneeling down next to him and indicating Willow with a nod of his hand.

"Willow Rosenberg," Angel said absently, taking a shallow breath. "Nice girl."

The guardian gave him a disbelieving look. "Nice – she's the most powerful white witch I've ever seen."

"Plenty powerful when she's a dark sorceress, too," Spike mumbled, putting his hands on the ground and struggling into a sitting position. His eyes, back to blue, scanned around until he, too, saw the Orb was full and whole. Closing his eyes, he collapsed onto one elbow.

"What happened?" Angel asked.

"Dunno. I was there on the edges when she brought Fred's soul through, then I didn't see anything else until Red got its attention."

"I got a vague sense of that," Angel agreed. "Then there was a… blowback, maybe. Maybe it just swatted at us like a gnat. Anyway, we all went flying. You and Willow were out."

"Been long?"

Angel shook his head. "A minute, maybe two."

Wincing, Spike tried to turn to Willow, then gave up and just rolled so that their bodies were side by side, curled against her as if she was a lover. _Red? You there, love?_ He shook his head and met Angel's gaze. "She's in there alone, but she's done in. I could wake her, but…" Spike pulled her atop him, so her head rested on his chest. It seemed to take the last of his strength. "Let her kip." He closed his eyes, holding her.

Ten minutes later, Willow stirred, waking Spike. She stared into his eyes, startled for a second, and then the memories flooded her. Willow began to shake and closed her eyes again, a few tears escaping anyway. Angel helped her sit up, cradling her against his chest, and Spike held her hands. They waited for her to speak.

After a couple of minutes, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. "It was too strong."

Angel sighed into her hair. "It's an Old One, Willow. Thank you for trying."

New tears stood in her eyes. "I couldn't save her. I'm sorry."

"Neither could we."

"You did save her, love," Spike disagreed gently, his eyes straying to the Orb.

"No, I–"

"Drogyn here said it would have destroyed her soul."

The exhausted young woman could only stare at the two vampires in turn. What could possibly be strong enough and terrible enough to erase a person's very soul? She was too confused and tired to put the pieces together. "It's like… a virus, a cancer," Willow said finally, "taking over everything in her. The last thing I did, before it shunted me away, was cut as many of her pain centers as I could."

Angel squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "Thank you," he managed, his voice hoarse.

The three sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts of Fred. Then Willow slipped one of her hands from Spike's and wiped her face. "What is this place?"

"It's like the Restfield for old gods and demons," Spike said.

She smiled faintly at memories of Sunnydale cemeteries. "Does that mean he's the crusty old caretaker?" Willow tilted her head toward Drogyn, who, noticing her regard, looked shyly away.

"I think he's a little taken with you, Wil," Angel said quietly, close to her ear.

"Really?" Willow peeked around Angel's arm at the guardian and gave him a smile. He returned it, then again looked away hastily. "Okay." She tried to stand up. "I think that's my cue to leave, thus escaping the awkward, 'sorry, already involved' conversation." Willow eased back down. "Only, I don't think I'm going to be teleporting any time soon."

"Well, that's okay, since Mr. Branson here has a supersonic corporate jet," Spike said, but there wasn't much bite to it.

Angel gave him a bland look, then turned his attention back to Willow. "I guess we should be getting back to Los Angeles," he said, "get ready to fight it. Plenty of room on the plane. You're welcome to come."

"More than welcome, pet," Spike agreed.

"Here, let me help you up," Angel offered, lifting Willow as he stood. Spike moved in quickly and scooped the redhead into his arms.

"You carry the Orb; I'll carry the lady."

"Why do you get to carry the lady?"

"'Cause if I drop her," Spike said without any bravado, "she won't break."

Angel nodded, and Willow tried to glare at Spike, but failed. He knew what she'd gone through to fill the Orb. "You up to lugging my big butt all the way to an airplane?"

"You have a cute little bum, and you know it," he said. "'S'not ladylike to fish for compliments. And, if I feel like I'm going to drop you, I'll sit down and we can both rest."

With Drogyn offering even fewer words in the presence of an attractive female, their goodbyes took a very short time. Angel bore the Orb of Thesulah in careful hands, and they started on the long, quiet trip back to Wolfram and Hart.

⸹

March 2004

Trish Burkle opened her door, purse in her hand, then shielded her eyes against the white light that was… coming off a woman? There were other people there, too, four in all, and after a second she recognized Angel and Wesley. Smiling, she looked to see if Winifred was with them. "Angel! Wesley!" she said, pulling the too-thin Watcher into her embrace. "How good to see you. I was just on my way to church to help set up for…" She pulled away from Wesley and got a good look at his face. "What's wrong? Oh, no."

"Who are you talkin' to, Trish?" her husband asked, coming to stand in the door behind her. Like her, his face fell into a smile, well-used creases framing his eyes and mouth. "Well, howdy. What brings you folks from Los Angeles? Winifred with you?"

Willow realized that neither Angel nor Wesley were able to speak. "Mr. and Mrs. Burkle, may we come in?"

Roger Burkle looked at the young woman, who was holding a glowing ball in her hand. Something was wrong here. The back of his neck went cold, and he put his hand on his wife's shoulder, half for support, half to provide it. She covered it with her own hand, squeezing hard. "Y'all come on in," he said, stepping back, barely noticing that one of his guests was green.

Willow cradled the Orb of Thesulah in her hands as she sat in Roger Burkle's lounge chair, wishing that she could be like Tara, effortlessly comforting. The three men she had teleported were too far gone in their grief to be of use, and the burden of telling the parents of their daughter's fate fell to her. She plunged in, stumbling sometimes over details, but her silent appeals to Angel to step in went unheeded. The big vampire focused on the Burkles' clean wooden floor.

"So," Roger said finally, "you're telling me that my daughter's soul is in that little ball, and her body is possessed by some kinda mythological god?"

"Your spawn is dead," came a voice from behind them. Illyria stood in the doorway between the Burkles' living room and kitchen. She tilted her head and looked at them clutching each other, then focused on Wesley. "You were no longer in the Wolfram and Hart fiefdom," she said, "so I came to where you were."

"Illyria has… imprinted on Wesley," Willow said, looking away from the horrified faces of Fred's parents. "He was the first person she saw… after. Kinda like a baby duck." Her voice dwindled away.

Angel's cell phone rang. "Yeah?" he answered, his voice tired. "She's already here. Nothing you could do, Spike." He folded the phone. "I left her with the strongest member of my family," he explained, "but he wasn't able to…" His voice trailed off. "I'm so sorry."

"She – it looks just like her," Trish said, still staring at the Old One, who was staring at Wesley.

"Except for being blue," Roger agreed faintly.

Wesley stood up. "Illyria." He couldn't think of what to say for a moment. "Go back to the lab where Spike – the white-haired one is at. I will… attend you shortly." He closed his eyes. "This is a necessary thing that humans must do, and you would find it… tedious."

She drew her head back, movements still jerky as she acclimated to the assumed human form, considering this. "Very well," she said, and was gone. Those remaining sat in numb silence.

Once again, Willow shouldered the burden. "Illyria would have… consumed Fred's soul as well as her body." She held out the Orb toward them, her eyes on the swirl of light. "I had a friend who died a couple of years ago. Like Angel, she was a champion, and she sacrificed herself to save all of us. I… thought she was trapped in a hell dimension," she said, sighing, "and I went to some very dark places to get the power to bring her out. But she wasn't. In hell, I mean." Willow made herself look up. "She was in heaven, and…" There was nothing she could say to improve on that, she decided. "It's not a matter of faith; we know heaven exists, that it's a wonderful, peaceful place. When this Orb is broken, Fred's soul will be released. Since her body is dead…"

Trish Burkle swallowed and finished for the young woman, a stranger to them but one who had obviously cared about their daughter. "Her soul will go on to heaven." Willow nodded gravely. "But if it hadn't been for you, Fred's soul… would be gone?"

The redhead fidgeted. "Spike – Angel's, um, family that was babysitting Illyria – contacted me as soon as they found out about that. I tried to save Fred's life, too, but… This Old One is stronger than me, than any of us." She held out the Orb. "Please, take it."

Trish leaned away from her, and Roger shook his head in negation. "No, I… we can't." He shook his head again, meeting her eyes with his own bruised ones. "You can't ask us to…"

Willow couldn't think of any way to respond, and, across from her, Wesley sat back down and put his head in his hands. "I'll do it," she said quietly. "Is there a place where… a special place, I mean, that Fred…" God, this was hard.

"The back yard?" Trish said, turning to Roger, a note of bewilderment in her voice undercutting the question. The back yard was where you buried pets, but it was also where Fred had set up her first little telescope, where she had built a pendulum over her sandbox, watching the arcing movement slice patterns in the sand, creating something beautiful with science.

It took so much less time than it should for the small group to gather in the back yard, not far from the window of Fred's childhood bedroom. Willow closed her eyes and thought of Tara again. WWTD, like Spike had said all those months ago. "Lorne, would you sing for Fred?"

The demon nodded and took a long, slow breath. He began to sing 'Amazing Grace,' not something he had ever experienced, but this was for the Burkles. When he finished, Trish and Roger were huddled together, tears flooding from their eyes. Hearing the old, familiar hymn seemed to make it real for them in a way that the blue twin of their daughter could not.

"About the first thing Fred ever said to me in Pylea," Angel said, pausing to clear his throat, "was that she hoped I wasn't real, because she didn't want another human to be stuck there. In over two hundred and fifty years, I think she was the finest person I ever met." He stopped, because he couldn't say anything else.

Wesley took a step toward the Burkles, his eyes glittering in the dim light coming from the back porch. "I will mourn your daughter every remaining day of my life." His tone made it an oath.

Willow lifted the Orb above her head. "Angels speed your flight to heaven," she said simply, and let the glowing circle fall. As it hit the hard, dry Texas ground, the thin glass broke and the light went out.

⸹

April 2004

Spike shut the door of his apartment behind him and leaned against the door, feeling as though every inch of his body was bruised. He moved slowly to the refrigerator and stared inside at the neat bags of expired blood inserted between the wires of the top shelf. Since he wasn't a Wolfram and Hart employee, damned if he was going to contribute to the extinction of endangered species when there was healthier, guilt-free human blood available. Grabbing a couple of units, he tossed them haphazardly into the microwave and sat on the counter until the timer beeped. He went to game face and fed from the bags, too tired to bother with civilized things such as mugs.

Illyria had been more engaged with her surroundings today than usual, which meant they had tested the theory that a vampire's body was nearly indestructible. Better him than Wesley, he supposed. The ex-Watcher still wasn't talking to Charlie, who was nearly paralyzed by grief and guilt. Angel, at least, had unbent a little. Lorne, bless him, was the only one able to go on, drawing on demon practicality.

He was grateful for it himself, that practicality. Sometimes he would catch Illyria out of the corner of his eye and think, 'Fred,' but that seldom happened. Illyria smelled and felt so different from sweet Fred Burkle, that it was easy for him to think of them as two separate entities. For Wesley, it was much more difficult. Spike was no longer just concerned for the ex-Watcher's sanity, but his life. He still had a hard time wrapping his mind around old Percy stabbing Charlie or shooting the boffin who'd betrayed Fred to Illyria. Wes wasn't talking to him or anyone else, unless it was Illyria. Nothing he could do, except try to be a buffer between them. He wished the Old One hadn't taken such an interest in Wesley, to the point where it seemed that she pursued him.

An Old One. Not that he'd paid much attention, but the Master used to go on about the purpose of the Order of Aurelius being the revival of the Old Ones. He couldn't see the old leech surviving a day of Illyria.

His telephone rang, and he looked across the short expanse of kitchen to where he had tossed it on the living room couch. Groaning, he went to answer it, trading places with the phone and stretching out on the sofa.

"'Lo, Bit," he said recognizing the number. He closed his eyes in gratitude; he hadn't spoken to her for several days.

"Hey, Spike." Dawn sounded subdued.

"You sound like I feel, love. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Something actually went right yesterday," she replied. "I passed my final exams."

"That's why you were doing the big study marathon?" She had begged off talking to him for a while, so she could prepare for something at school. "Wait. Your final exams? Sort of early, innit?"

"I asked to take them early. And I passed them. It means I've finished high school, Spike." Dawn took a breath. "So, when can I move in?" When he didn't answer, she checked to make sure they were still connected. "Spike?"

He lay on the couch, unable to move as she offered everything he needed. Spike closed his eyes against the tears. "Can't come to L.A., Nibblet. We've got a hellgod."

"Not again?"

"Yeah, this one's more primitive than Glory, even."

"That's hard to believe."

Her sarcastic tone surprised him. "Willow tell you about Fred?"

"No, all I've done the past week is study in my room. She hasn't called that I know of. Why? What's wrong with Fred?" Dawn listened in dismay as Spike sighed, then told her about Fred, Gunn, Illyria – the whole mess. "It's almost like what happened to Cordelia, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he agreed wearily. "What are the odds?"

"Fred…" Dawn's voice trailed away, and she knew he would be able to tell she was crying. "She was such a sweet person, Spike. She was, like, the only nice thing I can remember from that week we stayed at the Hyperion." She found a tissue and blew her nose. "And this god-thing that took her over looks like her?"

"Except for being blue and having a fetish for tight leather, yeah."

"That's awful, like when Amy the Rat made Willow look like Warren. A murderer walking around with their victim's face…"

"Not good, no. I'm worried about Wesley."

"Taking it hard?"

"He was with Fred when she died."

"I think he had a crush on her."

"Somethin' had started between them, right before…"

"You're tired, Spike." She could hear it in his voice.

"Yeah, Angel's got me workin' with the Blue Meanie, testin' her abilities."

"So, what can she do?"

"Hit like a locomotive, mostly."

"Why don't you tell Angel to stick it?" Dawn asked pleasantly. "If he wants to know what she's capable of, let him test her."

Spike smiled at her protectiveness. "Nah, 's'all right, Bit. Just makes me tougher. Anyway, maybe I'll find her Achilles' heel."

"So, this means I can't come to stay with you."

"I'm so sorry, Nibblet, but I won't let you within a thousand miles of a hellgod who would like nothing more than to find her way to a world she can rule."

"Spike, I'm not about to give up on this." She thought hard for a moment. "I'm coming back to the States, anyway. I'll go stay in Cleveland with Giles. He'll let me."

"Yeah, he'll understand. He knows about what's going on out here. But choosin' a Hellmouth over Rome… That desperate to be back in the USA, pet?"

"Buffy's got a new boyfriend."

He listened to the subtle nuances in her voice, picking up on her dislike. "If the bastard has so much as looked at you cross-eyed, Bit, I'll replace his eyeballs with his testicles."

"No, nothing like that. He doesn't know I exist, I don't think." Her voice hardened. "Neither does Buffy."

"Nibblet–"

"Have you talked to her, Spike?"

"Not lately," he admitted. Not since their brilliant night of phone sex, as a matter of fact. He'd left her a message a few days later, something humorous about not having to be shy. He'd had one missed call on his mobile from her, while he and Angel were flying over the Atlantic.

"Look, I don't know what's going on between the two of you – I probably don't want to know. There aren't enough therapists in the world. So, I'm sorry, okay? But she hasn't been like this over a guy since… well, Angel."

He was quiet for a long time, stretched along the length of his couch, his heart falling into bleeding pieces inside his chest. "I'm glad she's found someone who makes her happy."

"Happy? Someone who makes her Buffybot," Dawn corrected. "She doesn't think of anything except him. She didn't even travel out of Rome this week to meet with the other Italian slayers. Armando's been hinting that he's going to have to report to Giles, and he really likes Buffy, in a grandfatherly kind of way."

"What's he like?" Warning bells were going off. Buffy, shirking duty?

"I don't know what's so special about him," Dawn huffed. "He's rich. And older, gray at the temples, looks good enough, I suppose, in a distinguished, Mediterranean way. But he… I don't know. It isn't anything specific, nothing I can point to – I wish there was, you know, so I could tell Buffy – but there's just something about him that's… off."

"Is she in any danger, pet?"

"Only of losing her job," Dawn said reluctantly. "We had a fight last week, and I told her that. She just said he'd take care of her if she lost her job."

Buffy, a kept woman. Spike's jaw clenched, thinking of the Slayer behind the counter of the Doublemeat Palace, turning down his offer of financial assistance. "That why you decided to take exams early? Because you want to leave?"

She loved him so much just then. Dawn knew this wasn't easy on him, hearing about the woman he loved most in the world being with yet another man. Still, he was focused on her. "That's why," she agreed. "I can't just stay here and watch Buffy… She's like the strongest woman I know, and she's acting all stupid and clingy and girly around him. I can't watch it." Dawn sighed. "I know she loves me, Spike. But she doesn't show it. It's been like it was before you came back. To see her like this around someone who wasn't in Sunnydale, who doesn't have a clue what we've been through, what she is… I just can't stand to see it."

"Probably why she can be like that," Spike said. His eyes closed again. "No history, yeah? Doesn't have to be the Slayer."

"Oh, he knows she's the Slayer," Dawn disagreed. "I think that's why he's interested in her. Like those great white hunter guys who go after the most exotic game." She snorted. "It's why he doesn't really see me – I'm just her ordinary little sister."

Something about this niggled at him, too, but he followed another train of thought. "How does he know she's the Slayer?"

"For all I know, she told him." Dawn sighed. "Do you think I'm abandoning her?"

"Yeah, I do," Spike said honestly. "But there's also the issue of who abandoned whom first."

"Why does she have to be this way, Spike?"

"Been through too much, yeah?" He thought about what Giles had told him in confidence. "She hasn't talked to me about it, Nibblet. Just said she's sorry she can't… Slayer loves you, though. I know she does."

Dawn couldn't return the reassurance. "So, you won't be mad if I leave Rome?" she asked instead.

"No, love. It'll be good to be closer to you. Easier for me to get to Cleveland than to Rome, yeah?"

"How long do you think you'll have to stay in Los Angeles?"

"Till this is done," he said wearily, "this thing with Illyria. I'd rather come to you in Cleveland, Bit, than stay here. Don't care much for this city."

"Choosing a Hellmouth over La La Land?"

"Smartass."

"Language – not even good, sturdy British, either, all Americanized."

"Right-o, then. Chuffed as nuts to talk to you, Bit, but I've not been this knackered since Adam was a lad. 'M so ready for a kip, can't be arsed to to go up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire; have to doss it on the divan."

"Smartass."

"Love you, Dawnie, more'n life itself. Let me know when you book your flight."

"I will. I love you, too, Spike. Good night."

"'Night."

Dawn closed her phone, staring around her little room pensively. It was neat, for a change. Most of her possessions were already packed, with just enough clothes hanging in her closet to get her through a last week of school. The apartment was quiet, and she thought briefly about going upstairs to visit Carlotta, but it was too early in the morning. Even Andrew would have been some company, but he was as taken with Italian nightlife as her sister.

Buffy hadn't been home in three days now. There were some things she just couldn't tell her best friend about her sister. The one time Buffy had tried to mesh her real life with this new man, Andros, he had taken them out to eat at a trendy restaurant that made Dawn feel clumsy just sitting on the spindly chairs. People kept coming up to their table, toadying up to Buffy's date, calling him some honorific, Il something. Her sister, staring at him with vacant adoration, had done her own share of toadying. Sitting alone on her bed, Dawn bit her lip and flipped open the cell phone again, scrolling down until she found Giles' number. She was pretty sure he'd still be awake. As she waited for him to pick up, she looked at the largest suitcase, hoping the glamour Willow had placed on the Slayer's Scythe would hold through customs one more time. It was packed carefully between her winter coats. No way was she leaving it here when Buffy was under someone's thrall.

It had to be thrall, had to be. Because otherwise it meant that her sister didn't love her anymore.

⸹

 _Spike?_

He lifted his arm from over his eyes, unsure for a moment if he had heard his name called in his head or in the apartment. Battered both physically and emotionally, he had fallen asleep on the sofa, the cell phone still in his hand. Twenty minutes since he'd said good night to Dawn, he judged, so it wasn't late.

 _Red?_

 _You decent? Can I pop in?_

 _Never be decent, but come on._ He sat up, running a hand across his hair.

"Hey." She was there, standing by the telly.

"Hey, yourself." She looked, he thought, awful. "You all right?"

"Not so much," Willow admitted, and tears tracked down her cheeks.

Wordlessly, Spike held open his arms, and Willow accepted his embrace, sitting next to him on the sofa. "What's wrong?"

 _Kennedy. We had a fight._ She pressed her face into his shoulder for a few moments. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to come and drip all over you."

"That's the thing about vampires. We're very absorbent."

She smiled a little. _Xander was taking two of his slayers on a hunt for some kind of toothy demon. Buffy is at the opposite end of the spectrum from me, all giddy with –_

 _New boyfriend. I heard._

 _Sorry._

 _Not about me right now._ His thoughts were firm. _What was the fight over?_

Willow didn't say anything in his mind or aloud for a while. _She was on the phone with one of our Slayers when Giles called about Fred. She didn't bother to reach me, like I showed her to do when I was on an astral plane._

Spike felt his dislike for Kennedy harden again, but he tried. _Wouldn't have made any difference, love._

 _Not this time._ Willow shifted, and he moved so she could lean against his chest, both of them facing the dark television. _She… Last year, she thought I was something special because of the magic. She's getting to be close friends with a couple of the other slayers, and it seems like I'm not so special since I'm not one of them._

 _Is that what you fought about?_

 _No. We had it out over her not passing on Giles' message._

 _But it's these other things that've got you angry?_

 _Slayers are all-important and magic is just – pooh! pooh!_ She sent him snippets of her recent memories of Kennedy, the way her girlfriend cut her out of training sessions, the slightly mocking tone when she talked about magic. It wasn't much of a stretch to apply what she thought of magic to what she thought of practitioners. This passed between them in seconds, what would have taken an hour for her to say aloud, if she could even find the words.

 _Seems like the type to devalue anything she isn't good at. Wasn't for magic, she wouldn't be a slayer now, would she? Wasn't as if she was ever Chosen._ He sighed. _Sorry. You know I'm not going to be balanced about this, as I can't stand the dimbo. If it was over for good, not just a fight, I'd take you out drinking to celebrate._

 _No, that's what friends do. Support me unconditionally and villainize my girlfriend until I start to defend her good qualities._

 _She has good qualities?_

Willow elbowed him, then turned to face him when he winced. "What's wrong?"

"Babysitting Illyria." He held her hands away from his ribs when she started to touch him, concerned. "Just bruises."

"How's that going?"

Spike shrugged. "Figure she could take us out at will. Either she's still too unsure about the current condition of planet earth, or she's been affected by assuming a human shape. Emotions, I mean. Hard to say why she hasn't just killed us. No weaknesses that I've found, not so far."

"You're going to have to find a way to contain her again. Or destroy her."

"I know." Always fidgety, he lifted her hand and placed it atop his, fitting their fingers together. It was something he did with his Bit, but it felt right with this family member, too. "Don't know what it's going to do to Watcher Boy, though."

"Wesley." At his nod, she slouched against his arm. "Love sucks, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

 _I've never ended a relationship. I mean, Oz left because he was afraid of hurting me with the whole werewolf thing, and Tara – I don't know if this is the right time or the right thing to do._

 _I've never ended one, either, love, so I dunno that I'll be any help. Dru sort of exiled me._

 _What about Harmony?_

 _Oh! Forgot about her. Don't think of that as a relationship. Guess I have, then._ He sent her a few images from his last night with Harmony, not bothering to edit anything or go into when, exactly, it had happened.

Willow laughed out loud. _She fell asleep while you were breaking up with her?_

 _Well, she was tired out, wasn't she?_

 _What was it like when Buffy broke it off with you?_ She saw she had become a small cat in his mind, and his hand hovered over her a moment, ready to toss her out. Then the big hand came down and scratched her behind the ears.

 _She was ready to do it right – 'I'm just using you' and whatnot. I was too mad over the whole Riley fit-up to listen._ He pulled to one side and turned his head, meeting her eyes. _You never expected the Slayer to end up with me, did you?_

Willow pressed her lips together. _No. Sorry._

 _Why not? I mean, you're her best friend; you have your reasons to think that._ He could feel her weighing her response.

 _You two are a lot alike. I mean, neither of you has much use for rules, you both appreciate how strong the other is. You trust each other, and there's definite sparkage. But… after what she went through with Angel, there was never going to be another vampire._

 _That's about what I used to think._

 _You don't think that any longer?_

 _I…_ He began to cover his knowledge of Dawn and Buffy's soul, but the redhead was too astute.

 _You know._ Willow looked down and patted his hand awkwardly.

 _Rupes told me. Trying to make me feel better._

 _So… you have this cosmic reason for not being with Buffy. Why can't I make a run-of-the-mill relationship with Kennedy work?_

 _Because you're too good for her?_ Spike felt her begin to protest and overrode it. _Oh, come on. She's a spoiled brat, a poor little rich girl. When has she ever been tested, other than being dumped in Sunnydale under our protection for a couple of months? You, on the other hand, have known true love and survived its loss, have stepped into darkness and taken power, then walked away from it. You're amazingly strong, Red, and you need someone who can balance that with some strength that they have inside._

Willow gave him a funny look. _Is that how you see me?_

His brows drew together, and he gave her a memory of her embracing Buffy in the aftermath of the First Evil's widespread attack the night the First Evil had appeared to her as Cassie. _You're a hero, love. You must know that._

Shyly, she let him see a vivid dream she would never forget, where the First Slayer had tried to kill her and the other Scoobies after the enjoining spell. In the dream, she was insecure and sure everyone would see through her.

The brows went up now. _Is that how you see yourself? Now?_

 _No. Maybe. I think that the thought of breaking things off with Kennedy, who is just so gorgeous, is making me feel… Will there ever be anyone like her again? That finds me, geeky little Willow, attractive?_ He put his hand over his chest and gave her a direct look, and the redhead rolled her eyes. _You're not my type, Spike._

 _Doesn't mean my opinion doesn't count._

 _Can you really do that thing with your tongue?_ It was out there before she could shove it back into a dark corner. She dropped her gaze for a moment, a pained look on her face, then peeked up at him. Laughter lit his eyes, and the corner of his mouth curved. She hadn't seen him so full of mischief in years, she realized, and she suddenly wasn't sorry she had asked.

Spike lifted her hand and grasped her index finger. He put it against his full lower lip. _You really want to know?_

 _Yes._ Faint, even in her own head. The corners of his eyes still crinkled, Spike slowly sucked the tip of her finger into his mouth. She felt his cool tongue slide over the pad for a moment, then begin to vibrate against her skin. Willow stared at her finger, at his mouth surrounded by a handsome face and gleeful blue eyes. _Omigod. That would be better than a pierced tongue._ He lost it, chuckling aloud, holding her finger against his even, blunt teeth now. Willow snatched her hand away and clenched it into a fist, blushing.

"Dunno, pet. Pierced tongues feel pretty good, as I remember."

"Can all vamps do that?" No way was she going to get inside his head, not right now.

"Never met any other. Never have figured out what purpose it serves, either. Real use, I mean, like for a hunt, communication or something. _Very_ useful in other situations. Figure it's one of those odd little things, like being double-jointed, being able to wriggle your ears." He was still grinning at her.

"Do you like being a vampire, Spike?"

"Well, yeah." He slouched against the cushions, an arrogantly satisfied expression considering permanent residence on his face. "Super strength, unlife as long as you don't let yourself be killed, enhanced senses. Lots of benefits. No scent, so I can drink and smoke without smelling like a dockside bar – don't have to wear socks with boots, even." He leaned closer to her, eyes sparkling. "Don't need to breathe, so I can dive in… anywhere for long, slow minutes." Spike put his tongue against his teeth for a second.

Willow swatted his forearm. "Bad. Bad Spike." She tried not to smile.

"Big Bad," he agreed, knees wide apart, suddenly seeming to take up all the couch.

"Thanks."

"What for?"

"Making me feel better."

 _You're special, Red. Even without the magic, you're special. I know that, even if you don't._

Their gazes met and held for a long time. _Think we might have_ – Willow cut the thought short. _Sorry. Seriously needy right now._

The arrogance faded from Spike's face, and he showed her a memory of apologizing to Buffy for Anya. _'You might try the not sleeping with my friends.'_ He looked down, his hands smoothing the denim over his knees. _Claimed you as mine, you know, family. Part of me is more than willing – natural for vampires to shag within the family bed, yeah? Always pisses my demon off whenever you say you're a lesbian – you're not to restrict yourself, you're mine, mine to… But you aren't. Would never really try to persuade you to be something you aren't, just because of the stupid, possessive demon. And I got my own reasons. Besides, I don't sleep with humans. Too fragile._ He gave her a quick, wicked grin. _Doesn't mean I don't fantasize about you an' me, though._

She shook her head. _Yeah, I figured that out with Xander a long time ago. The fantasy thing, I mean._ It was her turn to give him a wicked look. _You claimed Xander as your human, too._

He let his head fall back against the couch and laughed. _Yeah, not so much with the fantasizing about Harris._

 _Well, I'm sure my fantasies about him have more than made up for it over the years._

"Red?"

She sat up and turned to him, something in his tone alerting her. "Yeah?"

"I loved Dru for well over a hundred years. I know I'll never find anyone like her again… but after a while, I knew I didn't really want someone like her. Suddenly I was in love with someone else, someone very different." He gave her a sad smile. "It might take a while, but… Don't look for her."

Willow blinked, knowing he meant Tara. "Thanks for the advice."

He shrugged. _Don't know that I'd take advice from me. Loser in love, yeah?_

 _No, don't say that. You're really good at loving people, Spike._ She felt him turn away from her mind, uncomfortable with the praise.

 _Let me know, you want to find out just how good._ Another x-rated image, an easy way to avoid emotion.

She smacked his forearm again. _No one's that good._ He smirked at her, keeping his silence. "Here." She sighed and held her arms open. "Hug. I should get back."

"Time to kiss and make up?"

She rested her chin on his shoulder. "I'd like to see if we can salvage this. There's more to–"

"More to her than I know, yeah, yeah," he groused. Spike gave the witch a final squeeze and released her. Willow took a couple of steps away from the couch, waved, and was gone back to Brazil and Kennedy.

Spike slumped into the warm spot the young witch had made, savoring it even as he sighed. Another love on the rocks. For decades, he thought he and Drusilla had an eternal love, but now he was convinced of just the opposite, that love did not survive the world, that, as the poet said, the center did not hold.

Love wasn't enough.

⸹

One of the nice things about being CEO of a powerful, wealthy corporation, Angel thought, was knowing you could call in a locksmith to clean up behind you. He broke the lock on Spike's door and stepped inside. It was two in the morning, and the boy should be back from patrol soon. Angel had really wanted to go out with him, to fight alongside him, but the business with the Circle of the Black Thorn tonight had taken a lot longer than he thought it would.

Spike's apartment was nice. Not as nice as Cordelia's had been, but he guessed there was no resident Dennis, either. He'd never been here, though the boy had invited him. Angel prowled through it, processing all the information. The couch smelled of beer, blood, and spicy, garlic-flavored fried food, whereas the kitchen table was almost sterile. The sofa also smelled of Willow. Spike hadn't had any other visitors recently. He touched a beautiful woodcarving of a cheetah on top of the television, wondering what meaning it held for William.

Angel went to the kitchen. Inside the refrigerator were units of human blood. He stiffened a little, then checked the dates. Expired. Nothing he could really get angry about, more's the pity. Healthier for the boy, anyway.

Wesley had used some contraption to zap Illyria, draining her power to a less dangerous level. It gave them breathing room, and he was beginning to think they might be able to rely on the Old One, at least tentatively, as an ally. Ostensibly, it was what he was here to speak to Spike about. Inside his pocket was a glamour that he had made himself, that he could deploy to convince anyone monitoring them, magically or electronically, that they were talking about Illyria. The glamour would show it escalate into an argument, then into a fight, allowing them to really talk in peace, shielded from view. There were other things on his mind.

Angel hesitated, then went into Spike's bedroom. Like his bed in the penthouse had been, it was solitary. He felt a pang of sorrow; sex was such a part of who his boy was, it didn't seem right that he was celibate. Not that he hadn't done the same, pining for Buffy. Then Angel's mouth firmed. All the lack of scent meant was that he hadn't established a family bed. Spike had taken half the strip clubs in the city under his protection, it seemed. The few times he had shadowed him on patrol, Angel had seen him escort improbably proportioned women safely home. Who could say that the boy hadn't helped himself to the strippers' gratitude?

He wandered back into the living room and started to sit on the couch to wait, thinking that maybe he could find a delayed hockey game on one of the sports stations, knowing to his bones that his attention span-deficient grandchild had the maximum number of cable channels to surf. Then he saw the answering machine. Angel went over and pressed the play button, expecting nothing more than a beep.

"Hey, Spike. Giles got your ticket; the flight's at nine-thirty. Just take your Council credit card to the airline's kiosk. We'll be waiting for you when you land in Cleveland. I can't wait to see you. Oh, Willow's gonna bring Xander, now that he's had his last eye surgery. Call me when you get this message, okay? Love you. Bye."

Angel listened to the time stamp, his eyes yellow. Buffy's little sister, just this afternoon. Spike had left without a word, gone to Cleveland to see his beloved humans, and was using a corporate credit card, a Council of Watchers credit card, meaning that Spike was working for them. He'd suspected as much, but it was still a blow to know for sure. When you didn't know for sure, you could delude yourself that he got his money from gambling. What exactly did he do for the Council? Why, spy on Wolfram and Hart, of course.

Then his anger deflated. Why shouldn't he have a job? It wasn't as if Angel paid him much to put Illyria through her paces. At least Spike was working for the nominal good guys. And why shouldn't he fly away to be with people who actually treated him like family? This knee jerk possessiveness was bad. He had let go of Connor, and his son was doing so well. He needed to let go of Spike, too. Looking around the apartment, it was obvious that he would be back. They could talk then.

Nonetheless, it rankled not to have the boy at hand. Angel scrawled an enigmatic, 'Sorry I missed you' on the blank pad of paper next to the answering machine and stalked out of the apartment. Halfway back to the office, he relented and put in a call for the locksmith.

⸹

May 2004

[Author's Note: This section is very M for extremely strong language and sexual content.]

Angel watched Spike leave his office, then his shoulders slumped. He couldn't keep up the pretense any longer.

Buffy, with the Immortal?

Willingly?

What Andrew said… surely he was wrong about her being in love with that suave bastard. Spike didn't have much respect for the Council's boy, after all. Andrew had to be wrong.

Buffy and the Immortal.

And he thought he'd rather see her with anyone else besides Spike.

When he gave her up all those years ago, let her go so she could have something in the daylight, he'd done it for all the right reasons. It had been very noble. Then she just wasted the opportunity on a stupid lump of a human who was obviously too tall for her, then on his grandchild, and now on the Immortal.

He was just after her as a conquest, Angel was sure of it. He'd thought as much since the bastard had captured them all those decades ago. While it had probably never occurred to Spike – the boy ended up the dominant force in the family bed most nights out of sheer stamina and hadn't thought of himself as vulnerable since defeating James – the Immortal had left them cooling their heels, literally, with plans to come back for the two of them. If he could get past Darla's defenses, he could hypnotize all of them. It would have given the Immortal a stable of lovers (and bodyguards) that would make all of supernatural Europe envious.

So, it was obvious why the Immortal wanted a Slayer. Another notch in his belt. A lover with a built-in defense system.

Poor Buffy.

But if Andrew was right, there was nothing they could do.

He couldn't be right. She couldn't be in love, not with the Immortal.

Surely not. Buffy was too smart for that.

But if he was so sure, why hadn't he stayed to save her?

Spike left Angel's office, the sharp scent of new leather lying heavily in his nostrils. He paused at the elevator, then turned to the stairwell. He blurred to the thirty-first floor and began the familiar descent. He didn't breathe, didn't want to smell the leather. Despite what he had said, despite the slight relief that this coat hadn't been ripped off a warm corpse, it felt wrong. His old coat had never once smelled this way.

And why was he obsessing about the damned coat, anyway? Buffy with the Immortal.

Fuck.

And he thought he'd rather see her with anyone else besides Angel.

He had never used mesmer on her, never played it any other way than straight. She was right when she said that he thought of them as equals. There was no way the Immortal was playing fair. Spike thought again of her desperation the night she called him, the night she had complimented his voice. She had been fighting it, fighting his nefarious pull –

She was happy, and she was in love, according to Andrew.

She was Buffybot, according to Dawn.

The Immortal, he thought again, that complete cunt.

Spike thought of how he and his grandsire had been strung up all those years ago. It probably hadn't occurred to Angelus, with his alpha male mindset, but the Immortal would have come back for them to make a complete set of Aurelian conquests. If he could mesmerize Dru, of all vampires, and keep Darla from taking his head off, he wouldn't have had any trouble with them.

Or maybe their women really wanted the Immortal, his mind whispered. Maybe Buffy really wants him.

No. If they really wanted it, then so did all those women he and Angelus had lured to orgasmic death back when they hunted together. William's soul reassured him that was not the case. A sad, stray memory from Willow's mind came to him: Tara calling the memory spells a violation of her mind, a rape.

Buffy, happy and in love.

It couldn't be, not with the Immortal.

What little he knew about Dracula's visit to Sunnydale suggested Buffy wasn't immune to the mesmer any more than any other Slayer. How else could Drac get his fangs into her? It was what he told her she wanted, not what she really wanted.

But what if she was happy? What if Dawn was wrong, was just angry because it wasn't him? What if Andrew was right?

Fuck.

Buffy with yet another man Dru had cuckolded him with, a man about whom he had his suspicions, who –

The Slayer wouldn't listen to him. She would never listen to him, the beautiful, stubborn bitch. When it came to denial, she was world-class. What could they do? Kidnap Buffy? He'd tried chaining her up once to get her to listen; that had worked out so well. At least Angel was more pathetic about it than he was, going on desperately about Dog-girl, like that could be a substitute for loving Buffy.

Spike was never going to be able to move on. He closed his eyes for a second. She was the one, and he knew he was never going to move on. He was worse than Willow; at least she wanted to find someone else to love the way she had loved Tara. He was never going to love –

"Spike?"

Wolfram and Hart office building, twelfth floor, late at night. "Reyes."

"Kara," she corrected. "I thought we'd gotten past the last name."

"We did," he said evenly, "Kara."

She moved closer, her eyes drifting shut as she breathed in. "Mm. New leather." She opened her eyes and smiled up at him.

Spike stared into her lovely face for what seemed like a very long time. "I believe," he said eventually, "I owe you a debt of gratitude."

Kara's lips parted. Then she looked down, a fleeting look of satisfaction crossing her face as she sat her briefcase on the floor. She opened her purse, took out a business card, and wrote something on the back. Kara lifted her briefcase again, took a step closer, and pressed the card into his cool hand. "Meet me in the lobby in an hour."

He let her walk past, didn't look around to watch her leave, the elevator doors sliding shut behind him. Then he glanced down at the name of the hotel scrawled on the back of her cream-colored card. Smart and effortlessly smooth, as always. Didn't have to invite him into her home this way. Spike crumpled the card in his hand, the sharp corners stabbing against his palm for a moment.

⸹

Los Angeles waking up, alarm clocks going off, squares of light appearing in the buildings as humans stumbled to the coffeepot to start their day. Spike stared out over the hated city from atop the Wolfram and Hart building. His back was against a silent vent, his forearms rested on his knees. He held his lighter, spinning the little wheel and creating a flame every so often, then flipping down the silver lid to smother it.

Silvia Rubenstein, a human, had given it to him, had gotten him in the habit of smoking. Spike had met her in Cologne in 1938, during one of those periods where Dru had abandoned him. She was wild for a trip to Morocco with James and Elizabeth… and twin Norsemen that James had turned. He had been pretty good at denial himself back then, come to think of it, believing she would return to him after a more or less chaste voyage. Spike had refused to go with them. There was a Slayer in Cologne coming along nicely.

He had been prowling the streets at night, looking for the Slayer, when he overheard two big Germans assaulting a woman. More because they reminded him of James' matched set than any other reason, he had taken them out. He had fed already, so he indulged in a little whimsy and un-pantsed them both, making it look like a lover's spat, making it unlikely that anyone would investigate very deeply.

Then he glanced over at the woman huddled on the ground, his nose already telling him that he had arrived on the scene before any real damage was done. Sewn onto her thin coat was a yellow, six-sided star. Spike gave one of the corpses a vicious kick. Two humans against one, for such a stupid reason. He helped her to her feet. The woman fumbled in her purse for a cigarette, found one, but was unable to get her shaking hands to work the lighter. He took it from her and lit the cigarette. She took another cigarette from her purse, lit it from the glowing tip of her own, and placed it against his lips. Then she spat on one of the bodies, paused long enough to find enough saliva, and spat on the other one.

Only then did she raise her chin and thank him, speaking in French, requesting that he keep the lighter. Spike had never cared much for bland beauties, always preferring women with interesting features. Silvia's eyes were deep-set and her nose was a little too sharp. She also had long, lovely dark hair, something else he preferred. He offered to walk her home. Part of him enjoyed the irony of her inviting death into her home, just when she thought it was safe. The other part was transfixed when she lit the gas lamps.

Silvia was an artist, and her small house was crammed full of paintings and sculptures. Most of the paintings were by friends of hers, while the sculptures were her own. Her favorite subject seemed to be birds, songbirds and raptors and even nuisance birds like blue jays, done with extraordinary grace and accuracy. When she turned to him and saw him in the light, it was like being under Angelus' scrutiny again, familiar, something he found he needed just then. Spike told her he had just sent his family away from the shadow of war and was alone. She told him he was welcome to stay, if he would model for her. It was a familiar enough role for Spike. She didn't mind him talking while she sketched, and he had his first discussion of literature in decades. Within two days, he was smoking constantly and had taken his second human lover.

It was odd, being gentle and mindful of his strength. It was also odd to not be able to satisfy someone sexually. Decades later, he ran across the definition of nymphomania, recognizing Silvia's inability to reach orgasm in the dry, academic concept. The first time he brought her off, after literally hours between her legs, she wept with gratitude and relief. He held her while she cried, feeling needed in a way Dru hadn't made him feel for years.

The second time he brought her to climax, he was in game face, as she had learned what he was. Spike knew that his time with her was almost done, the novelty of her warm body having worn off for him. The only question left was whether she was food. During the days, he prowled her house, smoking, no longer able to be still as she sketched him, restless and naked in the hot, airless rooms. Silvia didn't ask him to sit for her; she was in love with him and was afraid to do anything that might make him angry enough to leave. Her desperation angered him by itself, but there was nothing she could do about that.

The final time he brought Silvia to orgasm, she was on her hands and knees. He knelt behind her, one hand on her shoulder, hips moving in the final vinegar strokes before he reached climax. She was trying, close as she ever was but not there, when she moved restlessly, throwing him off balance. His fingers had clenched on her shoulder for a second. It wasn't much, but it was enough to snap her fragile, human collarbone. As it broke, she cried out, contracting around him, bringing him off, too. He sneered down at her lovely, smooth back, hating her and hating himself: another one who needed the pain. He left as soon as it was night, sick unto death of Cologne, tired of waiting for the German Slayer, ready to kill the two Norse vampires and reclaim Dru. Silvia had shut herself in the bedroom, crying, but she didn't ask him to stay. Her dignity kept her from being food, that and his respect for her talent.

Spike had been with the artist less than a month, coming away with the lighter, a nicotine habit, and a renewed belief that humans and vampires should only mix at dinnertime. He tracked down Dru and beheaded both big, blond fledges in less than ten seconds, his dusty hands pinning his wayward sire against a wall a moment later. Dru, terrified and perversely wanting him more than she had in years, had persuaded him into James and Elizabeth's bed. Leaving her to James, he had pounded a delighted Elizabeth into the mattress for hours, giving her all of his pent-up energy. Dru's eyes had been on him the whole time, reminding him of the way she used to look at Daddy.

He didn't let Dru back in his bed for two months, but he did everything he could think of to make her into a version of Silvia, leaving her close to orgasm but not allowing her release. And Drusilla had reveled in it, had played her part for weeks, when all it had taken in the end to make him cave were her tears. At the time, he had felt like the world was at his feet, the way he was dominating his sire. It wasn't until she slipped and called him Daddy that he realized she was still the one in control, making him into a version of Angelus.

Full of disgust and self-loathing in that moment, he had opened his eyes, too aware of the weakness he had shown by being gentle with Silvia and harsh with Drusilla. Spike stared at his dark queen for a moment, then pulled her astride him. He fumbled in his discarded trousers for the lighter, produced a flame. Dru's wide eyes fixed on the lighter, and she took an involuntary breath, her eyelids fluttering shut in ecstasy. "Why don't you tell Daddy what you want?" he had suggested. She did, and the next time they parted, before the war was even over, Spike had been the one who manipulated her into leaving. He never stopped loving her, and the years rolled by with steady happiness, but it hadn't been perfect again until she needed him utterly, when she was physically weak and dependent on him, and he took her to Sunnydale to save her. Dru had saved him in turn, had stayed with him when he was paralyzed. It was love, and, despite their baggage, it was eternal. Before Angelus showed up, he really believed that.

⸹

Angel sat straight up, the sheet falling around his hips. He looked up at the ceiling, examining all his senses just to make sure. He pulled on his trousers and a shirt, not bothering to button it, then moved at speed to the stairwell that accessed the roof. The door opened beside the helipad, and he padded barefoot across most of the expanse. Spike was there, looking out over the city and playing with his lighter. Angel tested the wind, then sat down gingerly.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Your domain; suppose you're master of it." The blue eyes, easy to see in the false dawn, strayed over to him. "Not able to get hold of Dog-girl?"

Angel scowled, annoyed. After all these years, he should be immune to Spike. "Don't call her that. And, no, she was babysitting her niece." He looked away from the other man. "At least she's a werewolf. You reek of human. One of those cheap dancers from the strip clubs you're so protective of?"

"No. One of the fancy briefs from this law firm you're so protective of." Spike stared at the lighter in his hands. Click, flicker, snap. "I owed her, and she wanted to be repaid in this coin."

"Tawdry."

"No, very classy. Must have been wearing a thousand dollars of expensive lingerie." He sighed.

"Which you no doubt destroyed."

"What she was expecting, wasn't it?" Spike's voice was hollow. Reyes had told him at one point he wasn't David, whoever that was, not conversationally, but as an orgasmic cry. He was beginning to believe no one on earth was sexually healthy. "She'll call in sick for a couple of days, be back when she can walk properly. You've plenty of other lawyers to fill in for her."

The North London accent wasn't in evidence, Angel realized. His annoyance drained away. "You okay, Will?"

"No. I'm really not." Click, flicker, snap.

Angel closed his eyes. What he should do was listen, but he had spent a sleepless night thinking of Buffy. Spike wasn't the only one in pain. "I've wanted to ask you if you think we can rely on Illyria to be on our team."

"We have a team?" He plowed on quickly, as if sorry he'd said that. "Yeah, I do. She's taken with Wesley, and we're the only thing she understands in this world." Spike shrugged. "Fred left a mark on her, despite her protests to the contrary, the ability to care, maybe. Illyria doesn't believe it's wrong, since she doesn't believe in right and wrong, but she finds it… illogical. The illogic of it might not matter to her, since our world is so different from the one she expected. Also, she's a warrior, and we're usually the ones who bring the fight." Click, flicker, snap. "Probably why I'm in our corner."

Angel nodded. "So you don't think Wesley was wrong to weaken her instead of kill her?"

"Never said that. He was thinking of Fred the whole time, and she's not there anymore." Spike stared off into the growing light, the demon inside beginning to be nervous. "Been worried about Percy for a long while. That wasn't the action of a Watcher – or a sane man. But he can only see Fred. You and I, we can smell the difference, sense it inside."

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a little while, the sound of a far-off car alarm assaulting their ears. When it finally cut off, Spike folded his lighter for the last time and put it in his pocket. "I know you've been planning something."

"Um – what?" Angel asked unconvincingly, flinching a little. "What do you mean?"

Spike sighed. "We know each other too well, Liam. Part of the problem, yeah?" The Big Bad had returned. "Figure you're probably not researching how many potential exits to block in a convent, but I know you. You've been quiet too long." Angel started to lift his hand in the old hunting signal for 'silence,' afraid Spike, always astute, would say something that could be overheard. "Dunno what it is, but I figure it's likely to get me killed." The blond vampire shrugged. "Except for Dawn, I'm not fussed about it. But I need to know one thing from you."

"Need to…?" Wariness in his voice, his mind trying to understand what this grim version of his boy was saying. He was ready to die? A dark memory tried to surface, and he forced it down. "Which is?"

"How do you let her go?"

Angel closed his eyes at the stark question. He thought of the Gem of Amara, wondering now why he had let his fear that it would be taken from him override the desire to be with Buffy in the daylight. He thought of a twenty-four hour period that had been erased so that he could remain a champion. Buffy had been heartbroken, because she wanted him more than she wanted a fellow warrior. "You just keep turning down chances."

Spike stood up and looked down at his grandsire, his fists clenched at his sides. "What you call love," he said finally, "I'll never understand." He turned away.

"Nothing about Buffy," Angel said quickly, standing up, too, "or Dru, or the things Angelus did." His open shirt fluttered in the cool morning breeze. They both needed to get inside soon. "I just want you to know that I'm glad I can count on you to be there when there's need." Spike turned to him, the blue eyes lit from within. It wasn't the light of battle, Angel realized.

He could use vampire speed and get it over with, Spike thought. Instead, he deliberately stalked closer and very slowly lifted his arm past his grandsire's head. He curved his big hand around the back of Angel's skull and pulled his head down until their foreheads touched. "Family is about need, yeah," Spike said, his voice low, "but don't you know that family is who you love, Angel?" He let go, striding away, the new coat flapping around his thighs like the wings of some lone raptor. He went over the edge and dropped off the side of the building.

A second later, Angel heard what he was listening for, the sound of a lower ledge taking the boy's weight. He stood there until he began to smolder, tears in his eyes, looking out over the City of Angels.

⸹

"Would you like me to lie to you now?"

It was easy, a trace use of her power, to appear as the human Winifred to Wesley, to talk to him. Most of her was examining why she was doing this. The humans had labels for these feelings. This one was grace, and it was proper for a ruler to show grace, when it did not weaken their power. But there were other feelings, strong ones, and the labels she had for them were very off-putting.

Then the one called Wesley expired, and she turned all of her attention to him. This should not be so. She did not want this to be so. Godlike though she was, she had no sway in this.

"Oh, Wesley. Come on," a girlish voice urged from behind her.

Illyria looked around, her eyes widening as she saw the human Fred standing there, one hand held out toward them. She beckoned impatiently, and Wesley got up. His body remained in Illyria's arms, but he got up nonetheless.

"Fred," he whispered, and he smiled. Something inside Illyria bled to see him smile. He took the human Fred's hand, and they were gone, having never been there, to a place where Illyria could not track them despite her power, could never follow.

Another emotion welled inside her, one she knew, and she rose from the floor. She knew anger. She was ready to rain down destruction on her enemies. Illyria paused, too briefly for anyone on this paltry planet to notice. Who were her enemies?

Her enemies were the beings who took the human Wesley from her. She looked at the one called Vail and cocked her head.

⸹

[Author's Note: Vivid descriptions of the violence in battle.]

The grim language of demons filled the confined alleyway. The horde was nervous, as their kind had not been gathered into an army of this size for many centuries. Scornful of their enemies, Illyria listened to Angel but paid more attention to the light of battle in his eyes. She stared at the two vampires and one human, another emotion she could label welling up in her. Pride. That was a proper emotion. They would do well before sheer numbers cut them down. The massed demons were scared that this many had to be sent, not understanding that the Wolf, Ram, and Hart needed to make a show of their power. They believed they would have to face a mighty army, not three small champions.

Or four. She would not wear the label of champion, but she would stand with these three against the minions of her enemies. Illyria was fastest, drawing first blood, ripping the ribcage from an overeager opponent. She used it as a club as she tore into the next group of soldiers. Her form was a good one for this reality, gravity, and set of physical laws. She would be able to go for hours.

Illyria claimed a sword from a fallen opponent, taking an unnoticed moment to examine it, make sure it was worthy. She began to swing it, her arm untiring as various demons gave up their blood and body fluids in tribute to her skill. The extra length of it gave her room to check on the other three in her army.

Angel was also using his sword to hold off the swarming numbers, but he kept one eye on the dragon that circled above. There was a small smile on his face. He will be free soon, she thought. Behind him was Gunn, his face grim as he fought with one hand clutched over his abdomen. He would also be free soon, and she checked around to see if the Fred-soul was waiting to claim him, too. Only a few paces behind her was the white-haired one. Already a better warrior than she expected of a mere vampire, he had improved during his work with her, and he fought with both blade and fangs. Illyria watched as he brought down a hulking, troll-like creature, then threw his head back in a roar of joy. Yes, he would have made a good pet, if he weren't already chained at another's feet.

The dragon, predictable in its instinctual patterns of behavior, began its first descent, claws extended. It had been blooded and set loose with Angel's scent in its nostrils. The dark-haired vampire saw the shadow and ducked, bringing his sword up to hack at the talons. His weapon was inferior, not created to fight such creatures, and all it gained him was a bone-jarring strike that affected him more than the dragon. In its next pass, it would sweep them with fire, against which a vampire had no defense.

Her sword arm still in play, her other hand ripping into throats and abdomens, Illyria fell into deep thought. Beyond the tallest demons, she could see a portal. No more minions came through; they were all here now. The ones who could not reach the front lines were tearing into the dwelling structures, toying with the wheeled transportation boxes. If she were the Wolf, Ram, and Hart, she would not recall them, would leave them here to prepare the world for their eventual arrival. The ones called slayers would come to fight the remnants of the army, perhaps led by the one beloved of Spike, the one Angel denied himself. She did not have enough knowledge to say who would be victorious.

Gunn went down on one knee. Seeing this, the white-haired one turned and began hacking a path through the demons, then set himself in front of the human as a shield. Gunn used the vampire's shoulder to pull himself upright, and swung out with his weapon once more. Angel, looking upward as the dragon wheeled, moved away from the other two, drawing its fire down upon himself alone.

Illyria cocked her head and cleared a space for them, allowing no more demons to get close to the three champions. It cost her; she was sliced along her arm. No matter; she took the body of the one who had wounded her and made it a shield, letting its fellows hack into its soon-dead flesh instead of hers.

Her flesh. She was fond of this body, despite its limitations. However, she could not have victory over her enemies, over those who had taken Wesley from her, inside this vessel. Illyria sighted again down the alley, to where the portal pulsed. Inside, there were shadows. There were those who watched. She waited in stillness for the right moment, Illyria Battlegod, even as the useful human form continued to wield steel against bone.

No champion or minion saw Illyria move from her spot on the battlefield and go inside the Hyperion. None saw her return with a device in her hand. Her Wesley had built this to save her from her unstable powers. The necessity of containing her power had ended. She had already opened the Mutari device and altered the wiring. Pointing at herself, she switched it on, and a pocket universe of energy surged back into her body just as she returned to her position on the battlefield.

Only Gunn, on his knees again, saw Illyria's form fly apart like a hollow shell, pieces blowing upward and forward. Not an explosion, but a pulse of power controlled, released. Angel and Spike where also driven to the ground, agony on their faces as they covered their sensitive ears against the pressure. Blue light poured over the gathered masses, and where it touched, demons roared in agony, then went quiet. The dark blue moved like a wave, inexorable, toward the portal. The door began to close, but not soon enough. The harsh white light coming from the portal dimmed, darkened, and the roar of an ancient beast filled the alley for a moment, wild with grief and rage and other emotions best not labeled.

Then it was gone. The only movement in the alley was the writhing of a dragon trying to right itself. Bracing himself on his sword, Angel pulled himself to his feet. Swaying, he went forward and drove the blade into the beast's rolling eye. He staggered away as it whimpered, then came forward in a rush to impale its soft underbelly, pulling sharply upward so that its innards spilled onto the dirty asphalt of the alley. Angel moved back, away from the heat and smell of sulfur.

Spike was still kneeling on the ground, next to an unconscious Charles. Then he lifted his head and cried both aloud and in his mind, "Red!" Angel heard the desperation in his voice and went to them, falling on the slippery ground next to his friend. Charles' eyes were closed.

Barely a moment later, Willow stood next to them, dripping from the shower, still pulling a towel around her body. She looked at them in horror, her eyes tracking down the length of the alley, finally resting on the dragon.

"Charlie," Spike croaked, bringing her attention back to him. "Hospital." He scooped the tall human into his arms awkwardly and stood up.

"Not here," Angel added swiftly.

Willow nodded, thinking hard. Then she lifted the hand that wasn't clutching the towel and made a gentle gesture, murmuring something quiet. Spike and Charles disappeared. She stared at Angel, the water falling from her diluting the blood on the alley floor. "What happened here?"

"I resigned as CEO of Wolfram and Hart," Angel said. He didn't smile, but the muscles around his mouth twitched.

"Not much of a termination package," she said, looking down the alley again.

"I never was any good at negotiating." He forced himself to his feet.

"Wesley?"

Angel shook his head.

"Lorne?"

"He did one final thing for me, then he left. This," he gestured around, "is what he left his home dimension to escape."

Willow turned back to the alley. Many of the demons were breaking down into ectoplasm, but hundreds of bodies remained. "How did you survive this?"

"Illyria, the Old One who took Fred… She came down on our side." He snorted softly. "We'd be… well, deader if not for her."

The young witch took a breath and said a single word. "Scour." Cold white fire roared down the alley, consuming the bodies but not touching the overturned garbage cans, the milk crates. When Angel gave her a puzzled look, she smiled sadly. "Buffy and I were always sorry that, at the end, the citizens of Sunnydale couldn't go about their everyday lives. If Angelenos don't have to make room in their worldview for demons, then you've kept them safe."

Angel closed his eyes in gratitude. "Thanks. I…" He couldn't think of anything to say.

"Well," Willow said briskly, "why don't you come back with me so I can get some clothes on?"

"That's the best offer I've had in a year." He bent over to pick up the weapons Charles and Spike had been using, then nodded at her. Willow clutched her towel a little tighter, and the alley behind the Hyperion, which had seen so much, was abruptly empty.

⸹

Spike squinted against the bright light. He was inside the entrance of a hospital emergency room, still in America from the accents around him. It was too quiet, so he bellowed into the bright corridors. "Oi! A little help here!" Taking a breath of air heavy with disinfectant, he strode forward to meet the first human who responded, a round, competent-looking nurse. "My friend was attacked. Stab wounds in the torso. Lost a lot of blood."

The nurse called for a gurney. It had been a quiet night, and what seemed like dozens of eager health care professionals crowded forward, taking Charlie from him, pushing him to the side. He followed them until they barred him from the surgery. Spike stumbled away and found a waiting room, sinking down into a plastic chair. Fortunately, he was alone, didn't have to endure fearful looks at his blood-spattered, gory self. He put his head in his hands, weary to the bone.

"Spike?" He looked up, face wet, to find Rupert Giles staring at him, a coat folded over his arms. The head of the Council of Watchers turned to the doorway. "He's in here," he called to someone. As he turned back, he found the blond man directly in front of him, then two strong arms wrapped around him for dear life. Rupert patted his back awkwardly at this unexpected show of emotion.

The vampire lifted his head from Giles' shoulder, as if hearing something. He let go and took a half-step around the Watcher to look into blue eyes that mirrored everything in his own. "Bit," he managed. He lifted the teenager in his arms and settled back into one of the chairs, cradling her on his lap gently. Nose buried in her neck, he breathed in her scent.

Dawn looked at Giles, her eyebrows lifting to show her own confusion, then she curled around him, her brown hair spilling forward and hiding both faces from view. "I'm here, Spike," she said, soothing him with her voice, with her hand on the back of his neck. "Willow called and told us she sent you and Charles Gunn here to the hospital. We got here as quick as we could."

"We're in Cleveland?" he asked, letting his eyes go to yellow so he could sense her better, follow the blood as her heart pushed it through her warm body. He so badly needed her to be real.

"What happened?" Giles asked, but Dawn looked up for a moment, her own face wet and shook her head, wordlessly telling him that this wasn't the time. He stared at them, locked in a bond he really didn't understand, and was ashamed of how uncomfortable it made him. There was nothing sexual in their embrace, but the intensity of their focus on the other was disconcerting. "Er, why don't I go take care of some of the hospital's paperwork?" Rupert turned away, feeling a pang of envy. He'd known that connection only in flashes throughout his life – with Buffy, mostly, once with Ethan.

As his footsteps faded, Spike went to game face and nuzzled his fangs against Dawn's neck, letting his demon calm down, too. His girl didn't stiffen or move away, just let her fingers drift from the back of his neck to his short muzzle, the ridges above his eyes. Spike sighed, his face smoothing into its human features again. He kissed her neck where the fangs had left a damp spot, then her jaw, her mouth, her nose, finally pressing his forehead against hers. After a while, he stopped breathing.

This was the sign Dawn had been waiting for. He was ready to talk. "If you're here, I'm guessing that Illyria is gone?"

Spike nodded. "Went through a portal the Senior Partners opened."

"They'll have to pay for that," Dawn said. When she saw his surprise, she smiled. "For some reason, I've read everything I can find about mystical portals." The corners of his eyes crinkled just a little, so she plunged on. "So, you ready to come live with me again? Not going back to L.A.?"

"Bloody well hate Los Angeles," he growled in her ear. "Nothing keeping us apart, not now."

"Ribs," she complained, and Spike eased his embrace marginally. Dawn let arrogance seep into her voice, something that she had learned from him. "Finally."

He did smile at this. "Need you, Bit. Love you."

"Yeah, well, me too." She put her forehead against his once more, sensing that he had found the physical comfort he needed, figuring that he would be shifting her onto a chair in a few seconds. Probably would call her Alice, too. So it was a surprise to her when Spike nuzzled his face into her neck again.

"Family," he said, deep and contented.

Dawn hugged him back as tight as she could, wanting him to feel it. "Family," she agreed.

* * *

Next Chapter: Rescue, where the gang is reunited on another Hellmouth, with only one important person yet to come home.


	9. Rescue

**Rescue**

Cleveland

June 2004

"Rupert Giles?"

"Yes?" He stood at the door, a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder.

The man at the door held out an envelope, and Giles took it, tilting his head to look at the return address. "You've just been served with legal papers," the man said jauntily, and turned away.

Rupert made an exasperated face. "Oh, thank you so much," he called sarcastically to the retreating back. He held the envelope a little further away and made out the name of a law firm, happily not Wolfram and Hart. Sighing, he fished in the mailbox by the door for the morning's mail, two circulars and a letter from Los Angeles.

He closed the door just as Dawn tromped past him, carrying a breakfast tray. "Whoops!" She swerved a little, orange juice splashing over the side of a glass. "I'll be upstairs with Gunn," she informed him. Dawn, along with some of the slayers and Watchers, lived and worked at Watcher Central, the large house Giles had bought. The Council didn't have money to spare for separate office facilities.

"Good, then," he said absently, sinking down into the chair by the telephone table and opening the letter. The dishtowel fell onto the floor, unnoticed.

Dawn went up the stairs, automatically avoiding the fifth step, which squeaked. Charles was recuperating in Vi's bedroom while she, along with several of the Cleveland slayers, was in England for training with the fustier part of the Council. The door opened just as she got there, and Angel looked around the doorframe at her. Inside, she could hear Spike reading _The Color Purple_ , his voice trailing off as he sensed her presence. Since the only television in the house was in the living room, Angel had suggested Spike read to Gunn to help pass the time, the way he used to do for the family in the bad old days. Spike had nicked the book from Rona's room, happy to do anything to keep boredom at bay.

"Breakfast is served," Dawn announced cheerfully. "How's the impatient patient today?"

"Fine," Charles said, using his arms to lift himself up. Angel was behind him at once, fluffing his pillows. "'Fraid to say anything else with Nurse Rached here." The dark-haired vampire glared at him; even he had seen _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_.

"All I'm sayin,'" Spike said, closing the book, "is a tragic 'accident' whilst cleaning a shotgun, and Celie's Mister problem is all gone. I mean, I was never that mean to Harmony, and I didn't even have a soul at the time."

"Harmony and Hamilton," Gunn mused, taking the tray from Dawn. She let him, then took two mugs from the tray and passed one to Angel. "I'm still having a hard time picturing it. I mean, he was so evil and she was…"

"Evil," Angel supplied.

"I'm sure they made a cute couple," Spike said scathingly. He put down the book and offered Dawn his lap, smiling at her with his whole heart in his eyes.

Angel watched the way they relaxed into each other, like a circuit completing. Dawn had brought Spike home to her own bed as soon as Gunn was stable. Angel was the only one at Watcher Central comfortable with that level of intimacy, however, and as painful as it had been for Spike, the two had slept in separate beds since. Dawn knew she had almost lost her vampire for good, even if his body had survived this time. Losing Fred, Gunn's injuries, Wesley's self-inflicted wounds, and Angel's own inability to open up had made an environment too dark for Spike, or at least for his soul. Dawn got that, knew that Spike hadn't believed he would ever get the reward of being with his family, knew that he had accepted his own death. Angel, who still thought of her as just Buffy's little sister, was amazed by her profound understanding of vampire psychology.

It was amazing, too, the difference in Spike here in Cleveland, surrounded by people – mostly women, of course – who cared about him. The hardened warrior that he had coalesced into those last days in Los Angeles, stripped down to nothing more than skill, aggression, and innate defiance, was deeply buried again. Angel kept thinking about the last time they had really talked, atop the destroyed Wolfram and Hart building. He should have gone after Spike that morning. Or he should have approached him when Willow brought them to the hospital while Gunn was in surgery. Or anytime during the three days they had slept on cots in Giles' basement. Or yesterday, the awful morning that it had finally, finally been too much, and he had recovered from his weeping enough to realize that he was in Spike's strong embrace, the boy's own tears flowing for their lost friends. How could it feel like too late, when they would live forever?

Spike wasn't the only person in his life that he kept at a distance. Angel had bought a prepaid cell phone and chanced a single call to Connor, just to let his son know that he had survived. Their conversation had been brief, unremarkable, and so much less than what he wanted.

"When's Willow beaming in?" Dawn asked, passing Spike's mug of morning blood to him. The young witch was coming to finish Charles' healing process, much as she had Xander's.

"Any minute now," Gunn said. "I can't wait." He had gone through three hours of surgery, received four units of blood, and been in the hospital for five days. The pain was almost gone, but he hated being this weak.

"Hey," Rona said, knocking even as she opened the door. She was dressed and made up perfectly for eight o'clock in the morning. "How are you feeling, Gunn?"

"Better, thank you," he replied, his mouth curving at the attention from a lovely female.

"Mornin,' Ro," Spike said. "You look smashing today."

She grinned, ducking her head. "Thanks. Well, bye. See you after school." Her eyes strayed to Charles once more before she left, her crush on him easy to see. Rona had shown no interest in staying in her hometown of Philadelphia to finish high school. She never mentioned anything about her past and seemed content to be in Cleveland.

"Bye," Dawn called.

"Oh, come on, man," Gunn groaned, scowling at Spike. He put on a British accent. "'Smashing?' Leave one or two for the rest of us."

"All of the Sunnydale slayers are mine," Spike said flatly. "You think a papa bear is something to mess with, try dating one of my girls."

"He's not kidding," Dawn said. "It's well known that I don't get to have sex till I'm thirty." She shared a private look with the vampire.

"Really, Spike," Willow said, popping in next to Angel, "give it a rest. Let Dawn have a life." She looked around. "Hey, everybody."

"The right to rip arms and other body parts off suitors is fair recompense for inhaling paint fumes all these years so her highness can have pretty fingernails."

"You don't have to breathe, you know. Vampire." Dawn stood up and took the orange juice from Gunn's tray. "And, 'suitors?' Victorian much?"

"Victorian?" He looked at Angel. "Tell 'em what used to happen to unwanted boyfriends back in your day."

"Peat bogs," he said immediately, although he was surprised Spike had included him in the conversation. "Glug, glug, all gone."

Dawn rolled her eyes and held the glass in front of Willow, who poured a careful amount of some potion into the orange juice from an Erlenmeyer flask she was carrying.

"You sayin' that I wouldn't pass muster, if I wanted to date Rona?" Gunn raised his eyebrows and looked directly at Spike.

"She graduates high school this weekend. After that, I won't say a word," Spike admitted grudgingly. Then he pointed a threatening finger. "Make her cry, though, and I'll chain you up, take incriminating photographs, and post them on the Web."

Mild though the threat was, Gunn thought, he was probably crazy enough to do that. "Never actually said I wanted to date her," he mumbled.

"Rona's a slayer. If some guy makes her mad, she'll tear his arms off for herself," Dawn said. "Grrl power, baby."

It was Willow's turn to roll her eyes. "That's not what grrl power is about, Dawnie," she began, then stopped herself. "Here you go, Gunn. One heapin' helpin' of health in a glass."

"So, what? I just drink it?"

"Yup. Then you sleep for an hour, and when you wake up, you won't have so much as a scab anywhere on your body."

"Any side effects?" He swallowed half the glass.

"Well, you might possibly grow a third eye. Or breasts," Willow said, and Charles choked a little. "No, I'm just funnin.' It's a very benign potion."

Gunn gave her a wary look, but finished the orange juice. Grimacing at the sour taste, he gestured at Spike with the glass. "You lived with all these ladies in one house and survived? Man, no wonder you're the way you are. You had to get tough or die."

Standing up, Spike snaked an arm around Willow's waist and similarly captured Dawn. "Heed me, Charlie. I've lived many, many years, and if I've learned anything, it's that you cannot best a woman. They are smarter, stronger, better-made. Once you bow to the inevitable," he planted a kiss on Dawn's neck, "then you can just relax and enjoy being around them." He kissed Willow's cheek. "Wouldn't be worth livin' in this world, not for the ladies." Then he put his mouth against Willow's ear and said or did something that made her blush and smack his arm.

Gunn turned to Angel. "You lived with him all those years and survived? Man, no wonder you're the way you are."

"Already tough," Angel shrugged, "already dead."

Charles suddenly slumped back on the pillows, asleep. Angel snatched the tray before it could slide off his lap.

"Wow, I guess he is going to sleep for an hour," Dawn said, impressed. She stole the untouched lemon-poppy seed muffin from the tray. Spike helped himself to a strip of bacon. He sat back down and dunked it in his cup of blood, making Dawn's nose wrinkle. Willow looked over the tray, too, her hand hovering over the other slice of bacon in Rosenberg-temptation before choosing a couple of apple slices. Standing like a footman with his tray, Angel began to be a little annoyed. He set it down and pushed it halfway under the bed before taking his seat.

"Gunn…" Giles said, coming through the door, frowning at some papers in his hand. Then he looked up. "Oh. Hullo, my dear. Good to see you." He gave Willow a hug. "You've already, er, worked your mojo?"

"Yup."

"Will he sleep for an hour, like Xander did?" When she nodded, he sighed and tucked the papers back into their envelope. "Just as well. We have other things to discuss, yes?"

Willow nodded unhappily. There were two folding chairs behind the bureau, and Giles got both out. Once he and Willow were seated, Dawn sat down on Spike's knee. He tucked his fingers in hers and gave her a reassuring smile.

"I believe you all know," Rupert began with a sigh, "that Buffy has been suspended from active Watcher duty. Armando and Andrew have taken over her duties until a more, er, robust Watcher can be found. While Armando seems to have clarity where Buffy's new friend is concerned, I do not believe that Andrew has managed to keep the same level of objectivity.

"While it isn't like Buffy to shirk her duties, the lifestyle she's living now certainly has its… attractions. Willow volunteered to visit Buffy to see if her judgment has been unduly influenced." He turned to the redhead.

"I saw her, alone. We went shopping." Willow sounded bemused. "I never knew there were credit cards with limits that high." She let out a breath and turned to address Dawn directly. "I couldn't find any evidence of mesmer, or at least nothing that felt like the sample Angel did on Rona yesterday. There wasn't any trace of magic around her, not that I could detect. Just her Slayer-ness. I'm sorry, Dawnie."

"Did she ask about me?" When Willow didn't answer right away, her shoulders slumped.

"She did ask if you were doing okay in Cleveland," Willow said hastily. What Buffy had actually asked was whether Dawn was in Cleveland. She didn't seem to remember for sure.

"What's your opinion of her mental state, as her best friend?" Spike's words were careful. He studiously did not look at Dawn.

"She didn't ask about anyone from Sunnydale, except Dawn. She never mentioned slaying or the Watchers' Council. Buffy did mention losing her job, but it was pretty obvious she doesn't think it matters. She says she's happy and very much in love. She _is_ happy, that's obvious." Willow sighed. "As her best friend… I think someone's put the whammy on her." She rubbed her hands along her arms. "There's absolutely no proof of that, though. I left a crystal with her, all magicked up as an emergency homing beacon, just in case. I just kept repeating that over and over," her eyes widened in remembered exasperation, "until I think she'll remember it."

Giles nodded. "Thank you, my dear. I'm sure that it was a painful visit for you."

Willow looked at Dawn again. "You remember how my Mom always used to call Buffy 'Bunny?' It was almost like that. I kept expecting her to call me the wrong name, as if she was only vaguely aware of who I was."

Dawn nodded. "She was always very… pleasant to me, when she was in the apartment, but it was all just… surface stuff." Spike stroked his hand along her back, and she leaned into the comforting caress.

"So, while there are psychological constructs that could explain this type of behavior," Giles said, "our world being what it is, I don't think we should rule out supernatural influence."

Willow made a face. "I could do the Tirer la Couture, but I really don't like to be in a trance-state around just anyone."

"We'll place that in the desperate-measures category," Rupert said with a reassuring smile. "The next step is to gather as much information as we can on this… being who calls himself," distaste twisted his mouth, "the Immortal." He glanced between Angel and Spike. "So, you two have met him."

Angel took a deep breath. "Most obvious thing about him, he has other people to do his dirty work for him. And they are happy to do it. He's apparently very charming – to some people. He saved a group of nuns from me once." Angel made a pained face. "Angelus, I mean, and actually, he didn't save them. He asked the local government to provide a police escort for them. He never lifted a finger himself."

"Does he have a real name?" Giles asked.

"Not that I ever heard."

"So I'm stuck using that very annoying sobriquet." He took off his glasses and considered them.

"Buffy calls him Andros," Dawn supplied.

"Thank goodness." Giles turned to Angel. "You say he doesn't actually do good works. Does he do evil?" Spike shifted at this, but kept his silence.

Angel pondered this. "He doesn't do things like we did pre-soul, if that's what you mean."

"What Peaches doesn't want to tell you is that, yeah, he did something we consider evil, and I think it's very applicable to this situation." Spike's eyes narrowed. "Bit, apologies in advance. An' don't give me grief about it after, all right?" With a final look in Angel's direction, he told them, in general terms, about the way the Immortal separated the two of them from their ladies, their escape, about the way Darla and Drusilla had behaved. "Never seen Dru under anyone's mesmer – thrall, either, for that matter. Master didn't care for her none, despite her havin' the sight, 'cause he couldn't easily control her. 'S'why he never demanded we stay at court, I think. And Darla…" Spike waved a hand at his grandsire. "She was about a hundred and thirty years older than Angel here, turned by the Master when he was about two hundred. Very powerful vamp, but the Immortal got close enough to her to – well, to put a smile on her face. She let him leave intact. Wouldn't have thought it, myself."

"So… that wasn't typical behavior for your, er, paramours?"

The two vampires exchanged an enigmatic look. "No," Angel said shortly. "Not typical. We were faithful, in our way."

"What were his plans for the two of you?"

Giles' question went unanswered for many seconds. Finally, Spike sighed. "Same as for our ladies, I've thought."

"Divide and conquer," Angel agreed. Then his expression grew thoughtful. "Which implies that, uh, charming four vampires at once would have been too much for him."

"Yeah, does, doesn't it?" Spike said, sitting up straighter. Angel smiled a little. He'd seen a spark of battle light in the blue eyes.

"Guys, not to play Immortal's advocate here, but… that wasn't exactly evil. Immoral, maybe, but not like, well, massacring nuns." Willow sent Angel an apologetic look.

"No, but the, er, methods used does make coercion implicit." Giles put his glasses back on. "You said he never does his own work, that he has others do it for him. That also could be due to his brand of mesmer, that willingness to do what he asks. Did you ever fight him, Angel?"

The big vampire shook his head. "Couldn't get to him. I've been close enough that I recognize him by sight or scent, but I've never heard of him getting into a physical confrontation with anyone."

"Not a fighter, which is why it would have been very useful to have four adoring Aurelians around as his bleedin' bodyguards."

"Or one Slayer," Dawn said darkly. Spike rubbed her back again.

"Can you say absolutely that Darla and Dru didn't sleep with him of their own free will?" Giles looked between the two vampires.

"No," Angel said finally, "but I can say absolutely that Darla would have tried his blood afterwards, if she had been herself. Sort of… a rare vintage."

"Same," Spike said shortly. "Dru might've slept with him, but she wouldn't have been happy with a threesome. She was always jealous of any attention given to 'grandmummy' at her expense." He squeezed Dawn's fingers. "Sorry, pet."

Dawn looked at the ceiling, as if asking for patience. "Shocked, I'm sure."

Giles sighed. "So, there's still just enough doubt to prevent us from doing an intervention."

"Extraction," Dawn corrected. "I mean, she's a pain most of the time, but she is my sister." She sagged back against Spike, her voice suddenly sounding much younger. "I miss her."

Spike put both arms around her. Over her shoulder, he watched Giles shuffle deliberately through the mail in his hands. The two men shared a brief moment of eye contact, then the Watcher put one of the envelopes on the bottom of the pile.

"Oh, Dawnie," Willow said, crossing the short distance to sink down on the floor beside her. "I miss her, too." The two young women embraced for a long moment. When they pulled apart, Willow's face was sorrowful. "I haven't been as close to her… even since Tara, because I had her to talk to. But Buffy never really confided in me, either, not after…" Her voice trailed off. "Maybe if we'd stayed as close as we were in high school, I would have been there for her."

"She wasn't as close to me, either," Dawn said. "She tried, she really did, and sometimes it was perfect, we were so in sync, but it never lasted."

"Buffy stopped confiding in me, for the most part," Giles said, "even to the point of not telling me about Slayer dreams." He and Dawn shared a glance, their eyes then going to Spike. "It's this very pattern of withdrawal that makes it difficult to know whether this is really what she wants."

"Spike's the only one she talked to after she came back," Dawn said.

"Didn't last," he sighed.

"Yeah, not after what she did." Dawn missed Angel's puzzled look. He took in the grim faces of the humans, watched Dawn gently touch Spike's brow. What did she mean by that?

Spike, for his part, looked annoyed. "Had nothing to do with that. Me an' the Slayer… Even before Soldier Boy came back… It all went south after that soddin' song-and-dance demon came to town."

"Song and dance demon?" Angel echoed.

"It made us sing what was in our hearts," Dawn explained. "Not really of the good."

"Yeah," Spike drawled. "Thank heaven you weren't in Sunnydale for that."

"I still can't believe Xander summoned it," Willow said, shaking her head.

"I don't believe he did," Rupert said.

"You don't still think… It wasn't me," Dawn protested. "I might have taken that pendant, but I never–"

"No, I don't think it was you." Rupert shuffled the papers again. "I've meant to ask him for… goodness, years, but I think he was just protecting you. I can't see him resorting to magic, not after that wretched love spell."

"Now, that I remember," Angel said. He didn't really want to ask about the rest.

"So do I," Dawn said, thinking of wrestling her mother to get closer to Xander. "That's one memory I could have done without."

"We have," Giles said quickly, "gotten well off the point."

"Um, what was the point?" Willow asked.

"That we have all grown distant from Buffy over the years."

"She's grown distant with us," Dawn disagreed. "I've tried, I totally have. I mean, how much closer can you be than me and Buffy?"

Giles caught her eye and cut a quick glance at Angel. Her lips pursed, and she slumped back against Spike's shoulder again. "I know you've tried, Dawn, none harder," he assured her. "Why don't we focus on the Immortal instead? While there's very little information about him in what's left of the Council's records, Monsignor Oliveri from the Vatican was kind enough to provide more background. Most of it was, shall I say, easily dismissed, but one other pattern that emerges is that he stays close to Rome."

"I heard that he climbed Mt. Everest," Angel put in, frowning, "more than once."

"During which he no doubt saved Tenzing and twelve other Sherpas from freezing," Giles said dryly. "I'm looking for verifiable facts, gentlemen." His eyes strayed to Spike again. "No matter how embarrassing they may be to you personally."

"Right," Spike said. "I'd like to start by sayin' that I've defeated two Slayers in one-on-one combat and killed just about every kind of demon out there, up to and including Doc, whatever the hell he was." His sure voice became a mumble. "Immortal had me arrested for tax evasion."

Rupert struggled with a smile, and Willow actually giggled. "So, there you are," Giles said, with forced seriousness, "another instance of getting others to do his work for him. Hardly in the warrior's credo."

Angel covered a wince, remembering how Spike had taunted him for wielding the mighty power of the IRS. "Um, he had a captain put me off a boat and onto one of the Greek islands."

"Sounds awful," Willow said in a suspiciously light tone.

"You try being a vampire on a Greek isle in August," Angel shot back.

"Oh."

"It wasn't even one of the ones with cool ruins. Just a fishing village."

"'Cause I thought Harmony was a fluke," Gunn said, sitting up. He looked around at the other occupants of the room, then at his lap. "Where'd my breakfast go?"

"Hey, that was quick. How you feelin,' Gunn?" Willow asked.

His brow cleared. "Wait. I've been asleep, right?" He tested his stomach, pressing his fingers against his abdomen. When he lifted his head to look at Willow, his face was full of admiration. "Damn, girl. What was in that?"

"Tender loving care," she said cheerfully, getting to her feet so he would have room to stand up in Vi's crowded bedroom. The witch checked him over critically. "Everything looks good to me," she said.

Gunn disregarded the opportunity to preen, opting for sincerity. "Thanks to you," he agreed, and impulsively gave her a hug. Then he looked down at Angel, grinning. The dark-haired vampire smiled back, feeling something inside him ease to see one of his people alive and healthy.

"Good to see you on your feet," Giles said, "particularly since it's rather urgent that I tap your expertise."

"My expertise?" he echoed.

Giles held out the envelope he'd received that morning. "What do you know about this law firm?"

"Ronson, Ferguson, and Ronson," Charles read. He met Giles' unsettlingly intense gaze. "They're a firm near D.C., sort of a legitimate Wolfram and Hart – they do for demons, I mean, not that they're evil. I'm not saying they're good guys, because, you know – law firm. But they're above board. They don't do criminal law, they're known for their tax division, they're involved with a lot of lobbyists, and," he finished up, "they know their stuff. I saw a few things at Wolfram and Hart that they'd written – contracts, trusts – and they were unbreakable. By legal methods, anyway."

Giles nodded and held out the thick envelope. "Would you read over the documents inside and tell me if it means what I think it does?"

Gunn raised an eyebrow and sank back onto the bed to examine the contents. No one stirred as he scanned them, although it took several minutes. Their curiosity was too great. Finally, Charles looked up. "Well, if you think it means that someone just left you an estate worth approximately sixty-seven million dollars," he said slowly, "then it means what you think it means."

⸹

"It's a trap," Angel declared, looking at one of the documents.

"Of course it is. Much as I hate to agree with Angel." Spike had another sheaf of papers in his free hand. "The timing is just too perfect."

"Well," Gunn said, coming into Giles' study, "I've checked on what I can." He was wearing new jeans and a grey t-shirt, clothes his friends had bought for him in anticipation of his recovery.

"What did you find?" Rupert asked, taking off his glasses.

"These papers really were drawn up two years ago, by RFR." He sat down on the couch next to Angel, his fingers absently touching his healed stomach. "So, we know it isn't any kind of recent development. Also, your… benefactor earned the money legitimately." He leaned forward to toss a couple of pages onto the desk. "I printed these out from an old article in _Forbes_. Ohio, thank goodness, buys a lot of databases for public libraries, so I used those. He was a self-made man, human as far I can tell."

Giles scanned the article and looked carefully at the accompanying photograph. "I've never seen him before, I'm sure of it. He's a complete stranger to me." He dropped the papers and leaned back in his chair. "So why would he leave me millions of dollars?"

Charles put his hands between his knees. "I don't think he did." He took the legal-sized sheets from Angel's hands and passed them to Rupert. "This guy died in January. That article was about his retirement, and it's from the early 1980s, right? He was in his sixties then. Now look at the signatures. There's a durable power-of-attorney in there, too."

Rupert did so, then rubbed his brow. "So, his wife left me sixty-seven million dollars."

"Looks that way, but she died soon after these were drawn up, too." Gunn slid two other pages across the desk. "Her death certificate from 2002, his from this year. Marriage certificate from the forties. No record of children. This is all from North Carolina's online vital statistics database." He leaned over the desk and tilted his head to one side. "This is beginning to look like real money, Mr. Giles, but I can't think of any reason why you didn't get notified about this when Mr. Tolliver died in January."

Spike, sitting on the floor, handed the document he'd been looking at to Dawn in the chair next to him. He stood up and began pacing. "Perhaps because it's, oh, a trap?" He shook his head, sighing. "Right. I could believe, if I tried really hard and was drunk off my face, that stinking rich strangers had left their entire estate to Rupes. But when you add in that," he pointed at the papers Dawn was holding, "it just falls apart."

"Requiring people to be present at the reading of the will means they're mentioned in it, so you and Angel should have something coming to you, too," Charles said, shrugging. Seeing Spike's face, he hastily added, "Probably something bad. I agree completely about the timing."

"Hi," Willow said from the doorway. "I'm back."

"What did you find out?" Giles stood up from his chair and braced himself against the desk.

She unfolded a printout of a map and walked across the room to put in on the pile of papers. "It was an old farmhouse. Not where I would expect millionaires to live. There were workmen there, cutting down a tree that had fallen on the roof. All of them were from the area, and they said the old man who lived there never went out, had Alzheimer's for years."

"That explains the power-of-attorney," Charles said, satisfaction in his voice.

"No dark magic. In fact, just the opposite. Very serene place, magically speaking. I got the feeling that it had been in the same family for years. Threshold magic is among the strongest protections." She nodded at Angel. "That's what keeps out the vampires."

"Anything else?" Giles sounded almost desperate.

She shook her head. "It's isolated, very out-of-the way. If someone wanted to spring a trap, there are woods to hide in. It's really pretty there, though, lots of flowers, very tidy and well-kept." Willow smiled a little. "And there were these cute little goats. Which reminds me, I need to wash my hands. And I've really got to get back to Sao Paulo. Watcher responsibilities." She sketched a salute to Rupert, waved a general goodbye to everyone, and was gone.

"Well, I suggest that we just put this aside for now," Giles said. "I know all of you need to get some rest." He nodded at the vampires and the newly-healed vampire hunter.

"I ain't tired. I'll be happy to go over these again," Charles said, "see if there's anything else I can think of to check."

"Thank you, Gunn. I would appreciate that greatly. And, if I may ask for your discretion? I-I'd rather not have any of the other Watchers know about this." As the group began to file out of his study, he called, "Spike? Would you stay for a moment?"

"Uh, sure." The blond man gave Dawn a quick hug. Neither of them had managed to wean themselves away from almost constant physical contact, nor had they tried very hard. "See you tonight."

"Sleep tight," she said. The teenager closed the door behind her as she left.

"You got my letter, I see."

Giles' long fingers slid it from beneath the legal documents. "Yes. I'm not sure which of these two things made for more… interesting reading." He stared at the desk. "You really didn't expect to survive." His voice was quiet.

Spike smiled a little. "No. Angel was pretty clear about our odds."

"Why? Why would you do that for him?"

"Wasn't for him. It was just the right thing to do, Rupes."

Giles shook his head, looking at the envelope he'd received from Spike, postmarked from Los Angeles four days ago. Inside was a photocopy of a letter he'd sent to Buffy, with a Post-It message for him: 'You might need to see this, since she never listens. Your friend, William.' There were a dozen things he could say, but he settled for the easiest. "I'm glad you made it."

"Me, too. Just to see Dawn again… I'm glad I made it."

"And her sister?"

Spike's wide shoulders slumped. "Don't know anything to counter that kind of magic."

"I hope you're wrong." The Watcher met his blue eyes for a moment. "Go get some sleep. The slayers and what Dawn calls the Tweed Brigade will be back from London tonight, and that'll be the end of the quiet."

⸹

"Buffy!" Andrew leaned away from the peephole and opened the door. "Girlfriend, you look fabulous."

"Thanks," she said, smiling. She did look good, and she knew it.

"Come on in," he said, waving her inside. "How's _Il Immortale_?"

"Pretty much wonderful, thanks for asking." She beamed at him. "How's the apartment treating you?"

"Fine. Thanks for letting me assume the lease."

"How's Armando treating you?" Her voice was dry.

Andrew gave her a long-suffering look. "Oh, you know. He's old-school Council."

"I can't stay long. There's a driver waiting for me," she said expectantly.

"Oh. Right. Let me get those shoes for you."

"I was afraid I'd lost them."

Andrew picked up a bag next to the couch. "No, just in a dark corner of the closet." He handed it over. "I figured Dawn would have taken them with her to Cleveland."

A frown passed over Buffy's face for a second, no more, and her eyes darted around the flat, as if expecting to see her sister. Then her brow cleared. "As if. Her feet are way bigger than mine."

"Oh, I almost forgot." Andrew picked up a bundle of envelopes. "Your mail. I sorted the bills from everything else."

"Thanks, Andrew." She glanced through the bills, making a mental note to give them to the Immortal's secretary. There was a postcard from her sister and two letters, one without a return address. Buffy glanced at the postmark. Los Angeles. Then she dropped all her mail in the bag with the shoebox. "These will go great with this new dress I bought. Well, I've got a massage booked this afternoon, and we're going dancing tonight. See you, Andrew."

"Bye, Buffy." He watched her walk to the stairs, then let out an envious sigh. Dancing with the Immortal. The Slayer was so lucky.

A couple of hours later, Buffy was safely behind the gates of the Immortal's estate, enjoying the sensation of Carmine's strong fingers pressing into her shoulders and the heat of the sun on her body. She'd chosen to have her massage poolside, and the sunlight glinted off the blue water, glared off the white marble. Even through the sunglasses, it was painful. She turned her head and rested her chin on her arms, sighing in contentment. Of course, it wasn't the best massage she'd ever had –

Spike, the sound of his warm voice in her mother's bedroom making her feel almost as relaxed as his powerful fingers moving along her spine. He had looked so content –

"Wow, you are very tense just then," Carmine said. He liked to practice his English when he worked with her.

"Sorry." Buffy frowned. "Nothing you did." What had she been thinking of? She gave a mental shrug. If it was important, it would come back to her. Instead of following the thought, she followed a slant of sunlight as it went through the tall windows of the house, illuminating the Immortal's coat of arms. The shield had a cross in the center, some chevrons or something beside it, and fifteen silver rivets along either edge. Everything on a coat of arms had meaning, she knew, and she wondered for a moment about the meaning behind his device. Then she closed her eyes and just enjoyed the warmth of the afternoon and the way Carmine was kneading her muscles.

⸹

"Hey." Dawn closed the door to her room and moved to the bed where her best friend was laying, hands behind his head.

"'Lo, Bit." He held out an arm and waited until she had settled against him. "Been thinkin,' now that Gunn is out of–" he began.

"Don't do it."

Dawn propped up on an elbow, and he peered up at her. "Don't do what?"

"Go get Buffy." When Spike tried to maintain a poker face, she elaborated. "I know what you're thinking, because it's what I want to do, too. I've reconsidered. If you kidnap her – if you can kidnap her, even – she'll never forgive you. This is my sister we're talking about, Miss Stubborn. She'll have to decide to leave on her own. You know how she is with boyfriends," and when she saw the look in his eyes, Dawn grimaced, "well, I know how she is with boyfriends. It's sort of sad, you know? She's incredibly strong, yet she doesn't want to be without a boyfriend, so she puts up with all this crap."

"I blame your father."

"Yeah, probably." Dawn pushed her hair aside and slumped against him. "But… whatever you're thinking, don't do it." She could feel tension thrumming inside him as if it were physical, despite his still limbs. "I've thought it through, you know, every possible scenario. None of them work; it would just make her hate us. I call her every Sunday, and she's all happy and vague and… and not interested being with us. With me. So, I want you to try to do what I do."

"What's that?"

"I pretend she's on vacation," Dawn said lightly, but what was in her eyes made the words heartbreaking. "She's safe, and she's happy, and she'll come back sometime, and she'll have all these neat stories to tell."

Spike closed his eyes a moment, feeling every inch the selfish bastard, and hugged her hard, remembering how Dawn used to pretend that Joyce was just away on a buying trip instead of dead. "Let me bring her home for you."

"No." Her voice was firm, despite the tears in her eyes. "It has to be her decision to come back; I just know it."

"How?"

"Nothing magical," Dawn said, shrugging. "As far as I know, I'm… inert. But she's my sister. I just know." She gave him a beseeching look.

After a long time looking into the pleading blue eyes, Spike closed his. "All right. Dunno how long I can hold out, but I won't go to Rome without telling you."

She considered whether she could get him to promise, then simply nodded. "Thanks." They gazed at each other for a moment, neither particularly happy. "You look tired."

"Yeah, I got that from Rupes, too. Told me to get some sleep."

"I'll nap with you." Dawn laid her head on his shoulder. Neither said another word, but both were thinking of the Slayer.

⸹

"They're here," Dawn called, letting the screen door slam behind her. The taxi, a white passenger van hired at the airport, stopped at the curb and began disgorging stiff Watchers and bouncy slayers with too much pent-up energy. She waited on the porch, smiling, glad to see Vi again, as well as the other three girls, Vashti, Tribby, and Kayla. They had become close over the weeks since she'd left Rome. Kayla lived at Watcher Central, along with Rona and Vi, and she began dragging her suitcase toward the house, waving at Dawn. A Mercedes-Benz pulled in behind the van, Vashti's mother at the wheel. She popped the trunk and got out of the car, elegant in her sari. Vashti cheerfully swung two enormous suitcases onto the sidewalk, then turned back for yet another bag, an elaborate henna tattoo showing on her lower back as her shirt rode up. Vi and Tribby came next, the same red patterns on their wrists and hands, and formed a mini fire brigade with the remaining luggage.

Dawn felt a brief twinge on seeing the henna adornments, knowing the slayers had a bonding moment on their trip, that they were a part of something she could never have. It was an old hurt, though, and it didn't have much sting left.

"Hey, Dawn!" Kayla thumped the suitcase onto the step and bounded up to give her a hug.

"How was London?"

"It was so cool! The Watchers took us to all the tourist sites, but did you know the drinking age in England is eighteen?"

"I dimly remember that," Dawn agreed.

"It was like being naughty, only with no possibility of getting in trouble for it."

Dawn raised her eyebrows. "Did you get drunk?"

Kayla nodded vigorously. "I threw up half the morning."

"Maybe it's a Slayer thing. Buffy can't really hold her liquor, either."

"Kayla!" Vi called. "Some help here?"

"Coming," she caroled, and added so only Dawn could hear, "bossy."

Dawn grinned. If Kayla had known Vi back in Sunnydale, before the superpowers and the confidence... "Vashti!" she called loudly, beckoning to her so she wouldn't leave.

As luggage and people began to pile up, it became obvious that Dawn was blocking the door. She waited until the van drove off, then turned to the waiting people. "All right, listen up." When she first arrived, Giles made it clear that his newest Watcher was to be heeded, as well as protected at all cost, giving the vague excuse that Dawn had been taken hostage before. He'd given her responsibility for the patrol schedule and the day-to-day running of the household, as well as the title of ombudsman. For the slayers, though, she was a bridge between their generation and the rigid authority of the Council and therefore extremely popular. "Some of you might know, but I want to be sure everyone does. We have visitors inside from Los Angeles." She looked around, meeting everyone's eyes, especially the slayers'.

Vi's face lit with a smile as she figured out why her slayer senses were abuzz. "Can I…?"

"Go on," Dawn nodded, making room for the redhead to dash past her. A couple of seconds later, they heard a delighted squeal resounding from the kitchen. "All of these visitors have souls, but two of them are vampires."

"Your Spike is here?" Kayla asked eagerly.

How could she not grin? "Yes," she confirmed, "and Angel, too. Now, I know some of you are going to sense vampires and be all, 'stake now,' but keep in mind, these are the good guys, too. Take a close look at them, so you'll be able to recognize them anywhere. They are off limits, okay? Especially Spike; he's, you know, my best friend." She glared around at the Watchers, the 'or else' implicit. "The other visitor is Charles Gunn. He's not much older than us, but he's been fighting vampires, like, forever." Dawn stepped away from the door before Kayla plowed her down.

As people trooped past, maneuvering suitcases through the door, she saw Tribby carrying her luggage the other way. "Trib? Stay."

"Just taking these to my car, then I'll be back," the slayer replied. "I need to get something, anyway. Not a stake," she added for reassurance.

In the crowded kitchen, Spike leaned against the sink and slid one arm around Rona and the other around Vi, leaning close to her. "These people all right?" he asked in a low voice.

"The slayers are a good group," she replied, "but you probably don't have many fans among the Watchers, especially Pelham and Finnigan. I think Jacobson is all right, and I want to be Vishnaswamy when I grow up. I don't know the rest very well."

"Thanks for the heads-up."

"Everyone here?" Giles asked, seeing Dawn's shining brown hair just outside the kitchen. "I'll do the introductions, shall I?" He cleared his throat. "The impossibly blond man Vi's glommed onto is Spike. He will also answer to the more civilized William."

"William the Bloody," muttered an indistinct voice. "Scourge of Europe."

Spike's blue eyes sighted in on the speaker, a youngish man of middle height. "William the Bloody," he agreed blandly, "but 'fraid Angel here might take exception to you calling me the Scourge of Europe. Title more properly belongs to him."

"May I take this opportunity to remind everyone," Giles said, his voice slicing like a whip through the charged atmosphere, "that Spike willingly allowed himself to be burned to death to save this world barely a year ago? And that, at the same time, Angel," he indicated the other vampire, then pointed to Gunn, "and Charles Gunn, along with their colleagues in Los Angeles, defeated a hellgod at great personal cost?" He glared around at the Watchers, a good deal of Ripper in his eyes. "Less than a week ago they barely diverted an Insurgency in that city. These men are guests in my home, all of them, human or not, have souls, and anyone who has a problem with that is not welcome here."

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the sound of the back door opening. The final slayer, Tribby, looked around uncertainly. "Um, I…" All eyes went to her. Her own eyes met Vi's, then fell on Spike. She pasted on a grin. "Had something in the car I thought would make a good welcoming present," she mumbled, pulling a red message bracelet from her wrist and handing it to Spike. "Tribby Snapp, nice to meet you."

Spike looked at it and laughed out loud, an appreciative gleam in his eye. He stretched the rubber bracelet over his hand and held it out so everyone could see the letters stamped into it: 'Give Blood – Ask Me How.' Even Giles laughed, relieved that the tension in the room had eased. "Perfect gift for a universal recipient," he said, making Spike laugh again. He turned to introduce her to Angel.

"Nice to meet you," Tribby said. "Sorry I don't have one for you. I had a heads-up that Spike would be here – Dana told me – and I had that in my car from the last time I donated."

"Dana told you?" Giles echoed.

She nodded, then turned expectantly to Charles. As Rupert made the introductions, Angel examined her. She had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and moved like an athlete. Her skin was a coppery brown, not, he thought, from a tanning salon. Tribby was older than the other slayers, in her early twenties, he judged.

Kayla was next, staring way up at him as she vigorously shook his hand, her head tilting to the side in an almost birdlike gesture. She was, there was no getting around it, cute as a button, with short brown hair and enormous eyes, almost to the point where she looked like a cartoon character designed to elicit an involuntary 'Aww.' When she smiled at him, he wanted to pick her up and cuddle her. Angelus would have loved to get his hands on this one.

Vashti was more reserved than the first two slayers, but that might have been because her mother was hovering behind her. Even with her short black hair gelled into spikes and too much makeup, she was clearly a classic beauty. She shook his hand, then turned appreciative eyes to Gunn.

While Spike was charming Vashti's mother, Vi slipped away from him and approached the two men from Los Angeles. The way she looked at Angel screamed 'slayer,' and he took her hand warily. He hadn't met her last year, as she'd stayed at the hospital in Dutton with Rona, but he could tell a difference between the two right away. Where Rona had a built-in caution reminiscent of Faith, Vi's wariness came from meeting an enemy, so he tried to be extra nice. "Glad to meet you, Vi." He wondered if she had been reading about his career as Angelus recently.

She didn't respond, just shook his hand firmly and studied his face. "Did you know what that amulet would do?"

No need to ask which amulet. Angel schooled himself to not look at Spike. "No, I didn't. He's family to me."

She nodded, her face serious. "Okay. Welcome to Watcher Central." Vi let go of his hand and turned to shake Charles'.

Angel let out a breath and gave a forced smile to the first Watcher to approach him, an older British woman. While the slayers were very distinctive, what Dawn had called the Tweed Brigade began to blend together – they were all English and all disapproving. He did make sure he marked Pelham, the one who'd mentioned the Scourge.

As Vashti and her mother left, Tribby slipped in beside Spike. "Not to monopolize you," she said, "but I have a message for you from Dana."

"Message?" Spike tensed. "She's in England, then?"

The dark-haired slayer nodded. "The Council got her admitted into a very nice… I guess 'asylum' is the word, lots of green lawns and stately buildings, like in the old Pink Panther movie."

"How is she?" Spike asked, impatient. He knew all about country estates.

"She's… better, they say." The young woman shrugged. "They take all the slayers to meet her, some kind of bizarre object lesson, maybe. It just made me sad."

"What's the message?" Spike demanded, with some trepidation.

"She told me to get it exactly right," Tribby said, a corner of her mouth turning up. "So: 'When you see Spike again, tell him Dana says hello.' That's it. She was very lucid when she talked about you, but then she went off on something to do with the chopping off of arms and her orderly suggested we leave."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Well, thanks, I guess." Then his brows drew together. "'Again?' Have we met?"

"No, but I did see you before, fighting the Vahralls last Christmas. Very impressive, by the way."

"Thanks." He started to add, 'you, too,' but he wasn't sure it was her he had seen fighting so splendidly in a circle of vampires.

She nodded. "Welcome to Cleveland." As she turned away, her cell phone rang. "Ute! _Wie geht's_?"

Dawn slid in beside Spike, frowning. "Tribby's usually a lot shyer. She has an apartment with Ute." He nodded at this information, having met the tall German slayer already. "Vashti's mother moved here with her for a year. Her family owns, like, half of Vancouver. And Kayla's the one who stays here with Ro."

"Let me guess about the rest: they were all Watchers before the headquarters blew up."

"Right in one." She quirked a brow at him. "I think half of them are here to keep an eye on Giles."

"Watching the Watcher. So, how many of them live here?"

"Just two, Jacobson and Vishnaswamy. They're okay, especially Alpana. She rocks."

"Why are there more Watchers than slayers?"

"Most aren't field-trained. They're researchers or administrative types."

Spike sighed. "You know, I think I might miss Sunnydale."

She smirked at him. "At least this house has two bathrooms."

⸹

"Gentlemen? Are you awake?" Giles stood at the top of the stairs and rapped his knuckles against the door.

"Come on down," Angel said, sitting up to grab his shirt from the end of the bed. It just a dark blue shirt from Sears, not the Armani he'd become accustomed to as Wolfram and Hart CEO. If forced, he would have to admit there were some perks he missed.

"What brings you down here, slummin' with the cellar dwellers?" Spike tossed out. He sat up, too, still in his customary t-shirt and jeans.

"Cellar?" Giles scoffed, coming down the steps. "I rather think this is quite an improvement over Joyce's basement. It is finished, after all." He glanced around at the drop ceiling and the beige linoleum. The basement was open, not divided into rooms, and there were treadmills and punching bags in various locations. The overall effect made the ceiling seem too low, and even Spike, shorter than Angel, tended to hunch his shoulders a bit. "Besides," Giles continued, "I've seen some of the places you've lived, Spike. This is a palace compared to your crypt in Sunnydale."

"You never saw the downstairs," Spike shot back, biting down on his tongue to keep from adding something incendiary like, 'where I shagged your daughter-substitute in style.' Stupid demon. Not a good thing to say around either of these two men.

Giles paused and tilted his head. "That's true." He started to ask something, then gave it up. "I thought I'd let you know what I've decided about this whole estate business. Gunn says that we could just as easily been required to travel to Falls Church, in Virginia, to the Ronson, Ferguson offices for the reading of the will. He thinks the North Carolina meeting place may be to combine it with an inspection of the property… if it is, after all, legitimate." Rupert stepped closer, into the path between the two cots, hesitated, then perched on the end of Spike's.

"Between us," he said, his voice quiet and meant only for their enhanced hearing, "if we can't get access to the Swiss accounts, within two years, there will be no money to keep the Council going. All I can fund right now is operating expenses – salaries, rents. Nothing is going into research. I can't afford not to take this chance. The Council got most of its endowment in just this manner, from bequests." His voice went back to a more normal level. "I did contact the attorney to push the meeting date up. It's seven p.m., the day after tomorrow, giving anyone plotting against us less time to plan an ambush, put a scheme in motion – if there is a scheme."

"Rupes, I don't need a salary," Spike said, looking troubled.

"And I have some money put aside," Angel offered. "You're welcome to it."

"Spike, you're a Watcher and you will be paid," Giles said firmly. "And, Angel, that was very well done of you to offer, but you can't fund the whole organization. Thank you both, at any rate." He rubbed his brow. "I'm not going to North Carolina alone. Gunn has offered to accompany me to interpret the legalese. Dawn looked at the map and informed me that one of our slayers, Tribby Snapp, lived not very far from the North Carolina border. Tribby's offered to drive and put us up at her grandmother's overnight, as it's much safer to stay at a home than a hotel. Willow has given me a crystal to use as a panic button; it's designed to teleport me away if something goes wrong. So, with legal counsel, a slayer, a nearby haven, a crystal, and some sort of blade I can conceal on my person," he sighed, "I feel reasonably safe. Safe enough to see if this is legitimate, anyway. I must go, for the sake of the Council and all those slayers out there. The only question is," he glanced between them, "whether either of you will go."

"I'll go," Spike said immediately. "If you're going, I am, too." Then he shrugged, trying to cover the automatic loyalty. "Once Rona's graduated, I got nothing on my calendar."

"Thank you. I rather think that's one reason why the meeting was scheduled so late in the afternoon, to accommodate your, er, antipathy to sunlight." They shared a brief smile over that particular word, then looked at Angel.

The dark-haired vampire wore a troubled expression. "I don't like a situation that puts all of us in one place," he finally said, "but we're already all in one place, aren't we? If I were going to try to take us out, I'd set this house on fire during the daytime and put snipers outside. I mean, why go across three states to do it?" He shrugged. "I'm in." Giles stood up and clapped him on the arm, but it was the warmth in Spike's smile that made him glad he was going.

⸹

"The garage is through here," Giles said over his shoulder, moving a rolling cart stacked with appliances away from a door in the kitchen. As the five of them trooped into the dim room, the overhead light came on. It was eleven in the morning.

"It has that film on the windows that blocks sunlight," the Watcher said proudly, waving a hand at the Camry in the garage. He beamed at Spike. "I bought it in anticipation of you coming to Cleveland." He opened the trunk so they could deposit their overnight bags and a cooler with blood.

"Excellent," said Tribby, who had volunteered to drive.

"You bought a sedan with me in mind? I'm wounded."

"Why are you excited about driving a Camry?" Gunn asked the Slayer.

"Oh, an ancient wreck with blacked-out windows would be so much better," Giles snarked.

"Sedans are like a stealth bomber against radar," Tribby told Gunn, "like a license to speed." She indicated the Toyota. "We just shaved half an hour off our driving time." She fell silent, as if surprised she had spoken all those words.

"What else could I expect from someone who voluntarily drove a Citroen?" Spike tipped a wink at Rupert, then got in the front passenger seat. When Charles found himself stuffed between Angel and Giles, he protested loudly, pointing out that he was, after all, the tallest. With a good deal of bickering, they were off, Spike and Angel both tense for the first few minutes as sunlight streamed through the windows.

"Spike," Angel said suddenly, "you're wearing sunglasses."

"Yeah?" The hostility in the tone forbade any further comments. Angel decided to let it go, since he couldn't read the blue eyes behind the Wayfarers.

The slayer decided to take Interstate 77 down through West Virginia and Virginia, then turn west when they intersected I-81. She kept Spike entertained with her occasional commentary on other drivers' mental competence and probable inbreeding. He laughed out loud once when Tribby, gloomily plodding three car lengths behind a Jeep going 65.05 miles an hour in the fast lane in an attempt to pass an Escort going 65 miles an hour, mimicked a radio evangelist's voice to say, 'Yea, verily, he hath found the promised lane.' In the back seat, Gunn and Giles went over the legal documents and the other information they had managed to find.

Left to his own devices, Angel stared out the window and let his mind wander, oblivious to the wild beauty of the Appalachian Mountains as they passed from Ohio into West Virginia. He thought of Fred and Wesley, wondering if they were added to the tally of deaths he was responsible for. He thought of Doyle and Cordelia. Angel had the one vision, the night he learned that Cordy had died in her sleep, but nothing else. He had been blessed by the attention of the Powers That Be for so long that now he felt as if he were blind without a seer. Lorne, too, had been able to provide guidance, could let him know if he was going in the right direction. He'd driven Lorne away, though. Mostly, he thought of Connor. As long as Connor was safe in his new life, he was content.

Angel smiled a little as Gunn reeled off a long sentence of legal terms that made Giles respond, "In English, please." At least Gunn had come through all right, thanks to Willow and, he grudgingly admitted, Spike. Charles was a young man, might go anywhere from here. Angel certainly wasn't going to try to bind him to his own fate. He didn't know where he was going after this himself, except it would be somewhere near California. Maybe he could see Connor every few months.

In the front seat, Spike was eyeing the t-shirt the slayer was wearing. "So, which is your favorite?" he asked, nodding at her shirt when she gave him a puzzled look. Spike smiled a bit when she had to look down to see what she had on, a black Ramones tee. He expected her to say 'the hey, ho, let's go song,' or something equally lame.

"Oh. Um, has to be DeeDee, right?" She gave him a sidelong smile. "I figure that's what killed him so soon after Joey, that he lived hardest and wasn't the first to go."

Spike was taken aback. "Uh, no, I just meant which song."

Tribby quirked a brow. "Just one? That's a toughie. 'Teenage Lobotomy' – you gotta love a song that can rhyme 'cerebellum.'" She thought about it. "'The KKK Took My Baby Away.' It's the perfect mix of denial and paranoia."

He was impressed despite himself. "You know your Ramones."

She shrugged. "I like most music, but punk rock is the best."

"Too right," he agreed, and the conversation lapsed.

After another few minutes, Tribby broke the silence. "Mr. Giles, Gunn, y'all ready for a bathroom break?"

"Yes. I'd be grateful," Rupert replied.

Angel watched the slayer nod, then his eyes strayed to the silent blond in the passenger seat. He was looking out of his window. Angel wondered what he was thinking about, then mentally rolled his eyes. The boy was thinking of Buffy, of course. Then he frowned. He hadn't thought of Buffy since the discussion of the Immortal.

He still loved Buffy; every time he saw her it made him happy, even the day Sunnydale became a crater, even the night after Joyce's funeral. They had no good times to look back on, he realized, only stolen moments. All their memories were full of drama and tragedy. But he still thought of her as his girl. With a nasty start, he realized he hadn't thought of Nina at all since leaving Los Angeles.

The Camry took the next off-ramp. Tribby pulled beneath the shadiest corner of the service station overhang and began to fill the tank. The four men got out, Charles pointedly stretching his long limbs. Angel wandered into the convenient store last, looking at the rows and rows of junk food, smelling burnt coffee and bathroom disinfectant. Gunn was standing outside the closed door of the men's room, waiting for Rupert to come out. The older vampire spotted Spike's shocking white hair along a far wall and headed that way. The boy was standing impatiently in front of a microwave.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked, going for a polite tone.

"Burrito," Spike said, gesturing at the microwave. He never took his eyes away from the rotating food inside. "Spiciest thing I could find." When the dark-haired vampire didn't reply, he raised a scarred eyebrow. "No comment?" Angelus had always complained about his continuing interest in human food.

"No. Never made any difference before." The microwave beeped, and he watched Spike take his food to the counter. Other people were in the store, paying for gas, buying cigarettes, most speaking with a marked Southern accent. This was why they did it, he knew, to give these people the chance to go about their daily lives without worrying about anything inhuman taking over their world. A small smile came to his face as a father came into the store with a toddler perched on his shoulder. The little girl had soft red hair pulled into pigtails on either side of her head. When she saw Angel smiling at her, she smiled back.

In a few minutes, they were all back in the car and on their way. Spike let Gunn sit up front and had taken the back seat between Giles and Angel, figuring the two of them probably wouldn't want to rub shoulders. After a few moments, their driver made an annoyed face and glanced at the radio. "You mind finding us some better music?"

Charles fiddled with the radio, but all he could come up with were more country music stations. "How about 'All Things Considered?'" he finally asked, pausing at a public radio station.

"God, yes," a relieved Giles said.

The day's news washed over them, and after a while, between the murmur of the announcers' voices, his full tummy, and the warmth of the car, Spike began to nod. Noticing, Angel angled his body to the side until, after a few minutes, the younger vampire slumped against him. He drew in a deep breath, taking in the smell of the boy's soap, the lingering trace of burrito from his fingers, and his own subtle scent. Inside, Angel's demon relaxed with the proximity to family, and he, too, was asleep within a few minutes.

Giles, on the other side, looked out on the small towns they drove past as they went from West Virginia into Virginia. The cars on the road were older than the ones in Ohio, the little communities less prosperous. America amazed him with its differences between rich and poor. Here, at least, it had to do with location instead of ethnicity. The road system also amazed him, superhighways running through areas like this, miles of concrete snaking across the huge nation, no checkpoints, the freedom almost dizzying. There were WalMarts and Blockbusters and McDonalds here in Virginia, too, making for a numbing sameness. He wondered how rural the property they were going to see really was. Willow might not be the best judge, coming from California and crowded Sao Paulo.

By the time the Camry took the smooth intersection between I-77 and I-81, Giles was asleep, too. Charles looked in the backseat when Giles gave a particularly pronounced snore and was surprised and a little disturbed to see his two favorite vampires mashed comfortably against each other, Angel's nose nuzzling into harsh blond hair, Spike's head against the older vamp's shoulder. He would have guessed that Spike would lean into the warmth of his human friend before dozing against Angel. He gave his head a little shake and tried the radio again. Tribby gave him a grateful look when he found, to his shocked delight, a contemporary urban station out of Tennessee. The two of them had no trouble staying awake, heads bobbing in unison to the steady rhythm of the music.

How weird is this, Gunn wondered, to be headed into the South with yet another fine-looking slayer – they did tend to be pretty – by his side, with the head of the Watchers' Council and two creatures he was sworn to destroy in the back seat? Just over a month ago, he was imprisoned in a hell dimension, having his heart ripped out daily. He still wondered why Illyria had come to save him. He wanted to believe it was because there was some part of Fred in her that cared about him, but his logical mind had pretty much decided that it was because his fate had troubled Wesley.

That one was going to hurt for a long time. He and Wes… there was no one he'd rather fight alongside and, time was, they had been tight. Charles had been delighted when Fred's fling with Knox didn't go anywhere, and he thought she and Wesley were going to be good for each other. Then… Aw, hell, he thought, his face going tight.

Gunn had never allowed himself to grieve for Fred, not until he was trapped in the basement of that suburban hell. You didn't get to mourn people you'd killed, but it nearly killed him not to mourn Fred. It wasn't until Hamilton had come to him, trying to get him to turn away from his self-inflicted punishment, that he began to climb out of the abyss. The Senior Partners weren't as smart as they thought they were. If they were still after his soul, it could only mean that his mistake with the permanent upgrade hadn't cost his soul. It had shown him that they were capable of misjudgments, were vulnerable. Otherwise, he might have ended up staying and sleeping on the couch he'd helped Anne move instead of going back to Angel.

But he'd gone where pointed, met his quota of dusted vampires for a few months, maybe changed the course of America's future, a la the _Dead Zone_ , by assassinating Senator Bruckner, and had almost died. Illyria had saved him again, saved them all.

Spike, of all people, had then saved his life, had called in a white witch for his benefit. He'd only thought of the blond vampire as an amusing foil for Angel, a sometimes drinking buddy, and a stopgap on the street while the big boys played Wolfram and Hart. The amount of respect Spike was accorded by the slayers was an eye-opener, whereas Angel, who was the real hero in his book, was treated with a good deal of suspicion.

Gunn was in a different world now, no doubt, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do with himself. It was tempting to stay where fate had thrown him, in another organization that fought demons, but he wasn't sure that was him any longer. True, if there was one thing he could do, it was stake a vampire, but he also had a brain stuffed full of a first-class legal education. The cost of that education had been so high, he couldn't conceive of not using it to do good. Gunn pondered his options as they headed west into the afternoon sunshine falling on Tennessee. He wished he'd gotten the sunglasses from Spike and closed his eyes against the glare. The hip-hop station's signal faded, and he fell asleep to the sounds of an old Steve Miller song as the slayer took the gentle turn onto I-40.

The four men were roused by the feel of the car slowing. Tribby pulled into another gas station, then turned to look at Rupert, who was yawning. "We're in North Carolina and through with the interstates, thank goodness," she informed him. "Figured we could all use a good stretch." Once again, she'd chosen a service station with a generous overhang against the westering sun, and while she pumped gas, the two vampires straggled indoors after the humans, who had all but sprinted for the restroom.

This convenience store had more of a local flavor than the previous one, with Cherokee crafts for sale alongside bumper stickers supporting Duke and University of North Carolina sports. Spike was pondering a hot pink dreamcatcher when Tribby came inside.

"I see yo, cuz," she said slowly to the stocky young man behind the counter. Frowning at the nonsense syllables, Spike realized she must have spoken in another language.

" _Asiyo_ ," he replied, nodding back, his eyes going between her and the very pale white men. Like Tribby, he was dark-haired and dark-skinned, with high, chiseled cheekbones. Blaming his slowness on being groggy from sleep, Spike realized they were both Native American.

"Here, my dear, don't even think of paying," Giles said, coming up behind Tribby and pulling his wallet from inside his jacket. "I'll not have you spending your own money."

After Giles paid, the slayer caught the clerk's eye again. "Any roadwork on Seventy-four?"

"No," the young man replied. He gave her companions another look. "Strange company, cuz."

The slayer grinned. "I'm just the driver."

Spike grabbed a bag of cinnamon red hots and, as he paid, asked the clerk, "Was that pink dreamcatcher really made by the Tsalagi?" He dredged up the dusty memory of the word, amazed that he still remembered anything of the language except his name.

"No, dude," the clerk answered, his brown eyes sharpening as he handed over the change. "You want real, try the Qualla or Museum shops down the road in Cherokee."

"Didn't figure it was authentic," Spike said and nodded his farewell. He reclaimed the front seat, grinning when he heard what Gunn was muttering under his breath. As the other men got in the Camry, he turned to the slayer. "So, you're Tsalagi?"

She gave him an assessing look, then pulled out onto the road. "Long answer is, yes, three-quarters, by blood. I speak some Cherokee, know our history. I'm proud of who my people are. But I'm not a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee." She sighed a little. "Sensitive subject. Few years back, when the casino came in, everybody was suddenly real interested in becoming a tribe member. 'Round here, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who has a Cherokee or two in the woodpile. So, all these people who didn't grow up in the Qualla Boundary were way interested in their heritage, because their heritage suddenly involved money. My grandfather did grow up there, and he was pretty vocal about people taking money away from those who really needed it." This was the most Spike had ever heard her say. "If you want to know more, you can ask my grandmother tonight."

"'S'alright. I get it. You didn't grow up on a reservation."

"The Eastern Band does not live on a reservation," she corrected him, and he could hear a simmer in her words. "They live on the land where they belong, bought back, paid for in blood and dollars."

He held up his hands. "Sorry."

"Me, too." She sighed, ramping down. "Too much history, and I get emotional about it, militant." The slayer cast him a sidelong glance. "Where'd you learn the name Tsalagi?"

He thought of Angel in the back seat and decided to give his own short answer. "Met a Cherokee woman a long time ago, got to know some of the language." He looked out the window at the green hills. "She must have been from somewhere around here."

"Out of curiosity, how long is a long time ago?"

"Eighteen hundreds," he replied, purposely vague, then added, "I didn't eat her." A little smirk played about the corners of his lips, but he didn't qualify the statement. He could feel Angel's eyes on him as the older vampire tried to recall when this might have occurred. Spike looked straight ahead and popped one of the red hots into his mouth.

"How much longer, do you think?" Rupert asked.

The slayer shrugged. "Forty or so minutes, depending on the roads."

"We'll be early, then," Giles said with satisfaction. Just over thirty minutes later, Tribby took the turn onto the final road given in the directions and set the trip odometer to zero. This stretch wended upward, with steep drops visible off the side of the road every so often. They finally came out onto the top of a wide ridge, and when the odometer hit six miles, the slayer slowed down. They all studied the rusty barbed wire fence that marched alongside the road.

"There's a gate," Spike said, pointing.

"That must be it," Giles agreed, consulting the handheld GPS Spike had given him for Christmas. "We're here. Everyone look sharp."

The gate was already open, a lock hanging forlornly on the end of the chain that usually secured it. Tribby turned the car down a long gravel driveway, shaded by trees. This gave way to another clearing, revealing a low, white farmhouse and larger barn. There were several outbuildings, too, and a small herd of goats grazed in the front yard. Next to the front porch of the house was a shiny black Lexus, looking very out of place.

A middle-aged man with blond hair stood up from a rocking chair on the porch and waved at them. Tribby swung wide to point the car back toward the driveway, then drove carefully through the goats so she could pull close to the shady porch.

"Rupert Giles?" the blond man asked, as first Gunn, then the Watcher climbed out of the car.

"I am," Giles replied, one casual hand in his coat pocket, touching the short blade concealed inside. He looked around at the nearby trees, tall catalpas, their white blooms littering the ground except for a long area covered in sawdust and small tree limbs from the fallen tree Willow had mentioned. Specifically, he looked past them, into the shadows, seeing nothing telltale.

"Nice to meet you in person," he responded, squatting to jump off the low porch. He extended a hand. "Kevin Ronson. We spoke on the phone when you rescheduled the meeting." His eyes crinkled, affable and harmless.

Giles took the offered hand gingerly. "Yes. Nice to meet you." He let go and gestured at the man beside him. "Charles Gunn, who is here to represent my legal interests."

The lawyer's gaze sharpened. "Good to meet you, Mr. Gunn. You were with Wolfram and Hart, Los Angeles?"

Charles shook his hand, his own eyes closely examining the man. "I was." As they sized each other up, Tribby moved to Rupert's other side, flanking him.

Giles introduced the slayer, and the attorney shook her hand perfunctorily, then said, "Here, let me get out of the way. I don't know where my manners are. It's just, I guess I haven't worked with vampires before." He gestured at the two men who remained in the Camry and moved aside so that the path to the covered porch was clear. Spike and Angel unfolded themselves from the car, moving like the predators they were, their extra senses, nostrils, and eyes busy examining their surroundings. It was late enough in the day that they didn't have to hurry. Once they were up the steps, Ronson followed them and held out his hand once again.

"Angel," the dark-haired vampire said without shaking. He turned away, looking through the screen door into the gloom of the house, nostrils flaring.

"Spike," his fellow Aurelian said, deciding the porch railings would make the best makeshift weapons, if necessary.

The lawyer nodded and dropped his hand. "Well, if you gentlemen will follow me on through to the kitchen." He glanced at Tribby and started to say something.

"If it's all the same to you," she said quickly, "I'll just stay out here and stretch my legs, see if I can make friends with the livestock." Her eyes went to the Watcher's, then she strolled casually around the side of the house.

Giles' mouth curved in approval as the slayer went looking for potential danger. Ronson led the way in, followed by Spike, Rupert, and Gunn, with Angel bringing up the rear. The room they walked into was used for storage, with bookcases, boxes, and even a hospital bed in it, then passed into a hallway. All the doors along the short corridor were open, showing two small empty bedrooms, a larger living room with the gleam of electronics, and another bedroom opposite.

Ronson stopped here and waved into it. "There was a storm a week ago that knocked over one of the trees out front. It fell on the house and damaged the roof." The sunlight that streamed into the room had a blue tint from the tarpaulin that covered the hole. "We contacted the insurer and had the tree cut and removed. The roofers are due tomorrow. I'm sorry you had to see your property damaged like this." He started walking again. "Bathroom, if anyone needs it."

The hallway opened up into a cheerful kitchen, old-fashioned in design but with modern appliances. Blinds covering the windows were closed against the afternoon sun. A briefcase, obviously Ronson's, sat on the kitchen table. "Please, gentlemen, have a seat." There were four kitchen chairs and an office chair pulled in from somewhere else. "Can I offer you something to drink?" He opened the refrigerator to show bottled water and quart jars of blood. "I could make us some coffee."

"Er, no thank you," Rupert said, giving Charles a look. The tall man went to the kitchen door and opened it to step into a sunlit, screened-in back porch. He saw Tribby through the mesh, and the slayer gave him a quick wave and shake of her head before heading toward the barn. When Gunn came back in, closing the door, he caught the slightly amused expression on the other lawyer's face.

"Let's get started." He gave them a smile calculated to put clients at ease.

"Let's," Gunn agreed. Ronson wore a lightweight sports coat over worn jeans, and his shirt was open at the neck. He obviously hadn't dressed to impress the Wolfram and Hart survivors.

"The thing I like best about our branch of law," Ronson began, opening the briefcase, "demon law, I mean, is that as long as you dot all your i's for the human courts, you don't have to be so formal. So, if it's all the same to you gentlemen, I'd like to give Mr. Giles and his legal counsel copies of the will and dispense with the actual reading." He slid two identical thick documents across the table to them and, while they scanned the pages, opened the bottle of water he'd taken from the refrigerator for himself.

"Demon law?" Gunn asked, lifting an eyebrow.

The other attorney didn't elaborate. "What's inside is more detail about the papers you received in Cleveland." Ronson took a drink and sat back in his chair. "Mr. Giles is sole heir to the Tolliver estate, the main assets of which are one-hundred-and-ninety-seven acres of North Carolina real estate, including this house, and sixty-seven-point-six million dollars in a mix of stocks, bonds, and fairly liquid accounts." He passed over another two identical sheets which listed the financial assets. "I suggest that you take your time deciding whether to shed the stocks; Mr. Tolliver was something of a financial genius, and his mix of investments consistently did better than the market. But, of course, you can consult your own financial advisors about that."

"Of course," Giles mumbled, staring at the very large figures and musing about his nonexistent financial advisors.

"Now, to something I will read," Ronson said, and the smile on his face was genuine this time. "The Tollivers had been our clients for many years, and recently it was Mrs. Tolliver who took care of their legal affairs. I got to know her when my father retired and I took over their account. A real Southern lady." He took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and perched them on the end of his nose. "She wrote a narrative to accompany the will, because she knew this would be such an out-of-the-blue shock to you." Ronson cleared his throat and began to read:

 _Dear Mr. Giles:_

 _Welcome to my home, yours now. I know we've never met, but I feel I know you. I certainly know of the important work that you do, and once you've recovered from your surprise and allayed your suspicions, I'm sure that you will use this money to continue the mission that has guided your life. You might wonder why I didn't leave the estate to the Council. It's because I trust your judgment far more than I do theirs._

 _You are, I'm sure, very curious about how I know about this work and why you're the recipient of my estate. Your curiosity will go unsatisfied, I'm afraid. I don't know that my assurances are worth anything to you, but my awareness of you and your work doesn't come from any evil or illegal means. Think of this as the proverbial gift horse: don't look too hard, just accept it. The legal documents that Kevin has inundated you with take care of the real money, but there are a few personal bequests I'll entrust to you._

 _In the front parlor, on the bookshelf to the left of the door, is an early English printing of Dante's Paradise Lost and an autographed set of Jared Diamond books. These are for you. No meaning or secret codes in them; just enjoy reading them as you have time._

 _In one of the outbuildings is a 1967 Mustang. Please make sure that Angel gets this; it's just his type of car. I like to think of him smiling the first time he sees it._

The big vampire's jaw dropped. He looked between Ronson and Giles, dumbstruck. "How…?"

Ronson shook his head. "I couldn't say. All I can tell you is that Mrs. Tolliver decided two years ago to make a new will, this one." Angel blinked, but couldn't think of anything to say. Two years ago he'd been at the bottom of the ocean. "Shall I continue?" He cleared his throat again, relishing reading something so different from the usual dry missives in his business.

 _In the front parlor, in a box marked 'UNC,' there is an autographed program from an early eighties basketball game, when Michael Jordan was still in college. Please ask Angel to get this to his young friend Charles Gunn. Also, if Gunn needs it, there's a Cadillac parked with the Mustang that he can have. I know it's an old-person car, but he could trade it for something sportier or easier on gas. I've spoken with Kevin about Charles, and ask that you and Angel encourage him to continue his legal career. In Virginia, a person can 'read law' at a law firm for three years, then take the bar exam. This apprenticeship is perfectly legitimate, dates from Colonial times, and would work very well for Charles' situation. RFR would be lucky to get him, too._

It was Gunn's turn to look stunned. He lifted his eyebrows but didn't say anything, and Ronson gave him a measuring look before continuing.

 _Last, Mr. Giles, please tell Spike that I am proud of him, prouder than I can say. In the same outbuilding as the Mustang, there are two motorcycles, a Ducati 900ss and a Harley V-twin. Neither is working, but there is a new Ford F-150 pickup in the old tobacco shed to haul them. Please give all three to Spike and tell him to try a metric socket set on the Harley. I'm sure he'll get the bikes running in no time. Also, in my bedroom in the top drawer of my dresser is a mahogany jewelry box. Henry gave me all sorts of jewelry over the years, and I'd be tickled if you gave it to Spike to pick through with an eye for what the Summers girls would like. The rest can be sold to add to the estate._

By now, Ronson knew to stop to give his listeners time to absorb the newest bombshell. When Spike, in unaccustomed poker face, didn't comment, he put in, "I actually had the jewelry box moved because the workmen cutting down the tree had access to the house. It's in the trunk of my car. That pickup truck has necrotempered windows, by the way." He resumed reading.

 _That's it! I just want to say that I'm sorry we didn't get the chance to meet in person. When you're as old as I am, you get to dispense advice, so: I know at times things seem impossible, but have faith in your abilities and those of the people around you. Obviously, I do. If you can persuade them, keep Angel and Spike with you. They'll be needed. You might consider making this property a retreat for the Council. If not, there's always someone who wants to buy it for part of a ski resort. While it's up to you whether to sell the farm, I recommend keeping it as a peaceful place away from Hellmouths for you to retire to on occasion. And last, but certainly not least, please enjoy having more than enough money. Take vacations and leave your cell phone behind; enjoy the sunshine that others cannot. Or, if I know you, enjoy trumping other bidders on eBay as you bid for rare old books. Good luck with your work, Mr. Giles._

 _Cordially,_

 _Sarah E. Tolliver_

Ronson gave the handwritten letter to Giles, who stared at it without really seeing the words. "But it doesn't… Who was she?"

"She was my client," Ronson said.

"What was she?" Gunn gave the lawyer a pointed look.

"She was my client," the attorney repeated pleasantly.

"Why Ronson, Ferguson? Any law firm could have handled this."

Ronson shook his head. "Not every law firm could handle a client who talks about Hellmouths."

Gunn took the letter from Giles, looking over the witness signatures, certifying that it was written in the presence of – "Wait a minute," he said abruptly, looking up to stare at the lawyer. "This is dated seven months after Mrs. Tolliver died." He rifled quickly through the papers they had brought and passed over the copy of her death certificate. While the other lawyer scanned it, he checked the signature on the letter against the one on the legal documents. They were the same.

Ronson, for his part, looked embarrassed. "Good catch." He grimaced, then seemed to come to a decision. "Since the client-attorney privilege extends, even in human law, beyond death in certain instances, I can only tell you a bit. I never really knew Mr. Tolliver. He developed Alzheimer's in the nineties, which is why Mrs. Tolliver took care of their affairs. He was human, she wasn't. Some types of demons appear to never age, or age slowly. RFR took care of the paperwork in the seventies so she could legally pass as her own daughter, then, more recently, her granddaughter. The death certificate is, in fact, false. One of those little details where demon law and human law can't coexist comfortably."

"But she is dead now?" Charles asked.

"She died last week," the lawyer affirmed.

"Have anything to do with the storm that knocked over that tree?" Spike asked.

"Out of respect for my late client's wishes, I won't answer that," Ronson said, uncomfortable, "but I will say that one of the services RFR provides is a simple alert spell that is legally binding in demon courts as proof of death." He shrugged. "Many demons don't leave a corpse to satisfy a human coroner... or leave one that would scare a human coroner."

"Can I see that demon death certificate?" Charles asked. He took yet another page from Ronson and memorized the date and time of death. It would be easy enough to check the weather reports, if Spike thought it was important.

"Do you have a photograph of the Tollivers?" Giles asked, trying not to sound giddy. This bequest was beginning to seem real. A demon married to a human might well have heard about his own battles with the Council and decide to leave money to him instead of the organization.

Ronson shook his head. "I believe there is a portrait in the living room, though." Readjusting his reading glasses, he lifted a thick pile of documents from his open briefcase. "Well, if you're ready, we've got a great many documents that need your signature, a necessary evil with an estate of this size. Is your driver human?" At Giles' bemused nod, he explained, "If you could call her in, she and Mr. Gunn can serve as witnesses."

"Do we have to sign anything right now?" Angel asked. When the lawyer shook his head, the two vampires exchanged a look and left the table. Charles left, too, going through the back porch to call for the slayer.

The Aurelians went first to the living room. "You ever seen either of them?" Spike asked, looking at the only picture on the wall. He trusted Angel, as an artist, to have a better memory for faces than he did.

Angel examined the black-and-white portrait closely, staring at the features of the skinny young man in a military uniform and the severe forties hairstyle of his much shorter wife. "No," he said finally. "You would think multimillionaires would have a more recent portrait."

Spike nodded. "You would think they would live somewhere besides an old farmhouse in North Carolina. They were hiding." He fell silent as they heard Tribby and Gunn enter the house.

"We could live here," Angel said abruptly. "Notice the windows? Blinds on every one." He opened a couple of desk drawers.

"Right," Spike agreed. "So, what demons are light-sensitive but not evil, don't age, and don't leave a corpse?" He peered at a shelf of CDs.

"And who can pass as human." They stared at each other, and when Spike started to grin, Angel started shaking his head. "No. No. No! Don't even–"

Spike left the living room and went to the bedroom with the hole in the roof and turned on the light. Bits of tree were still scattered throughout the room, including branches left broken and lying on the bed. The blond vampire bent over, swept aside a limb with dead blossoms still attached, and lifted something from the floor. He waited until Angel was in the door before turning, holding up the manacle in his hand, the chain dragging across the floor.

"Looks like we're still just two of a kind, Peaches." He tossed the manacle onto the bed. "Some kind of were-creature, maybe, couldn't control herself."

Angel closed his eyes, wishing his relief was less strong so he could hide it from Spike. When had being souled become such a part of his identity that he was protective of it? "Makes sense," he said, clearing his throat and standing up straighter, as if nothing ever fazed him. There was a brush on the dresser with reddish-brown hairs caught in the bristles. Angel sniffed, but the scent stirred no memories at all. "Good reason to be isolated out here, just in case." He cast a glance at the plain white sheets sullied by bits of bark and dying leaves and grit, then tried without success to budge the bed frame. "Strong."

"Want me to chain you up, Peaches? Test your strength?" Spike gave him a heated look that turned into a grin as Angel left the room, shaking his head in exasperation.

Back in the kitchen, the stack of papers to sign had been halved. Gunn was looking over each before Giles signed, and Tribby was slumped with her elbows on the table, fidgeting with the pen in her hand. Rupert looked around as the two vampires entered. "The sunlight just disappeared a few minutes ago. Mr. Ronson said it went behind a ridge, that sunsets are often very sudden in the mountains. While we'll have to wait until the titles are transferred to move them, if you want to take a look at your new possessions…" His voice trailed away. He seemed a bit overwhelmed.

"Good thinkin', Rupes," Spike said, not sorry for an excuse to leave the little house. He went to a rack by the kitchen door, his nimble fingers quickly picking off keys, then he tossed the key to the –

[motor pool]

An odd feeling akin to déjà vu swept over him, freezing him in place. His brows drew together. Angel caught the key in his hand and watched as Spike looked down at the others he had automatically selected. He separated another key and held it out to the older vampire. "The key to the Mustang." He turned abruptly and walked out the kitchen door.

Angel was close on his heels. "What was that all about?"

"Dunno," came the short answer. He was moving at speed toward one of the outbuildings.

"Spike, slow down," he said, catching up. "What?"

The blond man shook his head. "Try the key, the first one I gave you."

Giving him a worried look, Angel slid the key into the lock. It turned. He pushed the doors to the side. In the dim light, they could see the shapes of automobiles inside. He got it, then. "How did you know which was the right key for this building?"

Spike shook his head and held out his hand. On his palm were three unmarked keys and a Ford keying with a remote opener. "Buggered if I know. If these two fit the motorcycles, I'm gonna be seriously freaked out."

Lifting his eyes, Angel saw electric lights overhead and found the switch. He walked past the uninspiring Cadillac to a low-slung, tarp-covered shape. Taking a breath, he pulled it off the car. Shiny black paint and style to burn. He let the breath out and found that he was, indeed, smiling as his eyes roamed over the low, sleek machine. He unlocked the Shelby and started to sit down, then stopped. In the driver's seat were two quart jars of clear liquid. Frowning, he lifted one carefully. It didn't look like an explosive, but he unwound the lid very slowly. The smell of raw liquor hit his nostrils. Puzzled, he recapped the jar and when he moved both to put in the passenger seat, he uncovered a folded sheet of paper. He took that from the driver's seat, too, and opened it. 'Grandpa Eugene Tolliver's moonshine recipe.' Angel snorted in amusement at the handwritten directions.

Meanwhile, Spike found that both unmarked keys were matches for the motorcycles, although neither engine turned over. He left the outbuilding and went to the tobacco shed, led by his nose. Sure enough, the final key unlocked the shed. He opened the door and stepped inside, finding the lights. A big, black, and very new pickup took up most of the space. With no doubt in his mind that it would work, he pushed a button on the remote opener. The driver's door unlocked with a loud clunk, and the big headlights blinked obligingly.

Spike shook his head. He took two hesitant steps further into the building, examining the empty rafters, as if looking for something that was missing, something that should be there, right where there were two rubbed places– Then he turned on his bootheel and strode back into the open, cursing all the extra senses vampires have.

Angel was there already, waiting on him and absently petting one of the goats. Sensing Spike's unease, he eyed him closely, but only asked, "Find the truck?"

Spike nodded, then went suddenly to game face, ignoring the way his grandsire tensed. He stared around at the barn and sheds, at the house. Shaking his head, he let his human features come back to the fore. "Do you get the feeling…" Spike bit his full lower lip and tried again. "Like, if you turn around fast enough, you'll catch something out of the corner of your eye?"

"No," Angel said honestly. "This is a peaceful place." He shrugged, then went to vampire face himself, breathing in the cooling air, loaded with the smells of green and blooming things, nearby water, and old wood. His face smoothed out, and he said, "Sort of reminds me of Ireland, in a way."

"Yeah, like every square inch of Ireland isn't haunted," Spike muttered, and started toward the farmhouse.

"Go on, Fili, get away now," Angel said, slapping the goat's flank lightly, and he turned to follow the boy. Then he froze. Spike felt the difference in his grandsire's mood and turned, his eyes probing the growing shadows before meeting widened brown ones. "Okay, that was weird." Angel stared after the retreating goat. How on earth had he known its name?

The younger vampire raised an elegant brow. "Now you think something is weird?"

"I knew its name."

They both jumped as the screen door banged. The slayer stopped on the top step, stretching. Seeing them, she waved uncertainly and joined them in the yard.

"All signed. Mr. Giles is asking about how to access Swiss accounts, and Charles and the other lawyer are talking about banks and the Holocaust and precedents, so I figured I wasn't needed any longer."

"Did you see the goats?" Angel asked.

"Yeah, I petted them," she admitted, looking down at her shirt. "Do I really smell?"

"Uh, no," Angel said and then, of course, he had to sniff her. He didn't feel too bad about the involuntary action, because Spike did the same. She smelled tasty, he realized, and quickly shunted that thought away. "I just meant… did you, um, notice their collars?"

Tribby's face lit with a lovely smile. "Isn't it cute? Bearded goats with dwarves' names."

"What names, pet?"

"I'm not sure if I got them all – the goats move around and all kind of look the same – but there's an Ori, a Kili, a Fili, a Gimli, and an Oin-sir and Gloin-sir." Tribby smiled again. "Of course, Gimli's from another book, but it's attached to the collar of the smallest one."

Spike blinked. "The goats are named for Tolkien characters?"

"Looks like. I didn't see a Thorin Goatenshield." Tribby made a face. "I am so sorry. I should have gotten more caffeine at our last stop." She gave them an apologetic smile and another awkward wave before heading to the car.

"So…" Spike touched the tip of his tongue to his teeth, "you have prior knowledge of that goat?"

"Shut up, Spike." Angel wanted to just to stalk off, but he was too unsettled. "So you just knew where the keys were and what they fit, and I just knew the name Fili – the same way the Tollivers just knew about us, that I like muscle cars."

"Seems that way."

"You know," Angel said, "I think I'm ready to get out of here."

⸹

[Author's Note: Tribby and her grandmother Lana do a family ritual parody of the 'Hey, Grandpa, what's for supper?' routine from the old _Hee Haw_ television program. I freely admit the Lana character is an indulgence; she has a great 'voice' and practically wrote herself.]

The journey along the southern border of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park was quiet, the men lost in their own thoughts, until Tribby crossed the state line and turned north toward her grandmother's house near Maryville, Tennessee. The reappearance of streetlights and heavier traffic seemed to reenergize them. Something occurred to Charles about the Council's frozen accounts, and he turned around in the front passenger seat to speak to Giles about it. Spike politely asked Angel about the Mustang. Tribby got to a clear, straight swath of road and called ahead to let her grandmother know they were nearly there. Something she said made Gunn stare at her until she hung up.

"Did you just say 'cornbread?'" he asked, then grinned when she nodded. "You don't know how happy you just made my stomach."

Spike's cell phone rang. "'Lo, Bit… Fine… No, I was going to call once we stopped for the night... Weird as it is, it seems on the up-and-up... You've been there?... I'll tell her… Listen, can I call you before bed?... Love you, too." He folded the phone and turned to Rupert. "I didn't know you let Dawn visit down here."

The Watcher raised his eyebrows at the reproof in the vampire's tone. "I do take my guardianship seriously, Spike. She visited with some of the slayers when it was exceptionally warm a couple of weeks ago. There was some sort of music festival nearby–"

"Bonaroo," Tribby supplied.

"– and they're her friends, and she's been… segregated enough by not being a slayer." He nodded toward their driver. "I've met Tribby's grandmother, and she's hardly the type to condone wild orgies."

"'S'not wild orgies I'm worried about," he replied, "and you know it."

"We know to keep Dawn safe," Tribby said, looking fruitlessly in the rear view mirror with narrow eyes.

"They do. Dawn has to have a chance to live. Being a surrogate parent isn't easy," Rupert said. "You don't have full authority, but you have all the love and concern. You have to be prepared to let them go, even when they do things you–" He took a breath and backtracked to the topic of Dawn, rather than her sister. "If she isn't safe in the company of four slayers, I don't know where she would be."

Spike bit his lip. "I bet you let her go to the mall, too," he said, mocking himself.

"Guilty as charged," Giles agreed. They were all silent for the rest of the trip.

A very short woman was waiting for them on the long porch when Tribby pulled into the driveway of a large house in a neighborhood of expensive waterfront homes. She gave her granddaughter an exuberant hug and greeted a surprised but pleased Rupert with one only slightly more restrained. Then she stared expectantly between the three strangers. Like her granddaughter, the smile on her face transformed her from pleasant-looking into truly lovely. "So, who are the vampires?"

Tribby rolled her eyes. "I don't think there's etiquette that covers this, but I'm pretty sure you were just rude, Mom." Any sting was taken out of her words by the arm she slid around the shorter woman's waist. "Sorry, guys, she's just excited."

"Well, I've never met a vampire before." She focused on Gunn. "You must be Angel."

"One in three odds." Smirking, Tribby took over the social requirements. "She didn't mean anything by it. Charles Gunn, who has been fighting vampires in Los Angeles for years, please meet my grandmother, Lana Dockery."

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Gunn," Lana said, turning red. "I really didn't mean anything by it. My, you have such a strong grip."

"Fair warning," Tribby said, "she's widowed and a terrible flirt."

Lana let go of his hand and elbowed her granddaughter. "Tribby said you couldn't tell a vampire just by looking at them – unless they were wearing their demon faces," she said hopefully.

"You can't, ma'am," Charles agreed, trying not to smile. "And just call me Gunn."

"This dark-haired gentleman is Angel," Tribby plowed on. "Angel, my grandmother, Lana."

Lana shook his hand, then captured it between her own. "It isn't cold!" she said, so genuinely delighted to meet a vampire that Angel couldn't work up any resentment.

"We stay at room temperature," he said, smiling faintly. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Well, don't that beat all." Lana beamed at him. She turned to the last stranger and stepped forward. "You must be Dawn's friend Spike, then."

"Couldn't have a better introduction than that," Spike said, knowing just how to deal with this one. He took her proffered hand, bowed, and placed a kiss below her knuckles. "Dawn sends her regards. I am indeed Spike, my lady, but I'll answer to William, if you prefer."

"Now, _this_ is a vampire," Lana said approvingly to Tribby. "Dawn is such a lovely, well-mannered girl," she informed Spike, "just a delight. She said you practically raised her."

"Er, no," Spike said. "All credit goes to Joyce, her mum, and after Joyce died, her sister and Mr. Giles here were the main ones–"

"Cute as a bug and modest, too," Lana said to Tribby, ignoring anything that would puncture her worldview on courtly vampires. She tucked her hand into the crook of Spike's elbow and beamed at the little group. "Please, come inside, all of you. Supper's on the table." She glanced over at Giles. "Was that enough of an invitation for vampires?"

Spike stared down at the dark head, liberally sprinkled with gray, bemused at being in the very rusty position of escorting his hostess in to dinner. He caught the look that Charlie and Angel exchanged, but refused to meet either's amused gaze.

"Now, Dawn was telling me that you saved her from a whole gang of demon bikers," Lana said, looking up at Spike expectantly.

"Well, I don't like to brag," Spike began.

"You don't?" Angel asked in surprise.

"You'll have to overlook my grandsire," Spike said, covering Lana's hand with his own. "He was born before they invented manners. Literally. By about sixty years. I b'lieve."

Tribby, carrying the cooler with the vampires' dinner, looked at Giles. "They weren't like this back in Cleveland," she said pointedly.

"Vampires are like a box of chocolates," Gunn said, grinning. Before he could finish the thought, he stepped inside the house and moaned, taking a second, appreciative sniff. "Fresh-baked cornbread."

"Hey, grandma, what's for supper?" Tribby asked, sounding as if she was quoting something.

Lana looked over her shoulder, yet still managed to steer Spike toward the dining room while maintaining the semblance that he was leading her. "We've got herb-roasted chicken, corn pudding, cucumber salad, sliced tomatoes, collard greens, cornbread, green onions, and baked pumpkin for dessert."

"Mmm-mmm," Tribby replied, completing their family ritual.

Gunn looked weak. "I died," he told Giles, "and went to Southern heaven." He met Lana's eye. "My grandmother was from Alabama," he explained. "If you had soup beans, I'd just move right in."

Lana gave him the satisfied smile of an appreciated cook. "Got some leftover from yesterday that I can warm up for you."

Tribby put the cooler on the edge of the dining room table, the only space remaining, as the rest was covered with dishes of food. With both hands free, she separated her grandmother from the blond vampire and steered the other woman into the kitchen. "Come on, Martha Stewart. I'll help you bring in the rest."

Giles wandered over to a set of French doors that opened onto a deck. A long wooden walkway, festooned with strands of white lights, led down to a boathouse and a gazebo. "There's the real reason the slayers were so keen to visit," he said, waving toward the dark water beyond. "They all came back rather sunburned."

"A lake?" Spike asked.

"The Tennessee River, I believe."

"They don't worry about flooding?"

"It's a tame river, controlled by dams."

Angel had moved away, closer to the kitchen, and was listening to the whispered conversation between the two women.

"… absolutely are not to ask how many people they've killed, or anything along those lines. And nothing about souls. That's personal. Remember, Dawn said Spike asked her to keep that a secret for the longest time."

"But if I don't ask, how can I ever learn anything?"

" _Alisi_ , if you ask something like that, ask after their fifth or sixth visit. Where's the salt?"

"Here you go. Well, what if they never come back? I just want to know more about what it is you do, honey. And you said these are the only two safe vampires in the world."

"You ask about their souls, I swear to you I will bring up what you keep in the drawer of your nightstand."

There was a pause. "There's nothing in the top drawer of my nightstand, missy, and–"

"Second drawer down, behind the box of embroidery floss you never use."

"That's blackmail."

"Yes, it is. I have to work with these people, Mom. Mr. Giles is my boss."

"You are a trial and a tribulation, _Kamama_."

Angel heard the sound of someone getting a kiss on the cheek, and he ambled over to the table before the women returned. He met Spike's amused blue eyes. "She's a pistol, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Odd, not bein' a secret." He turned to Giles. "One of your policies, Rupes? That families know?"

"It is, actually. The secrecy caused far too much grief for Joyce."

"Wasn't happy when she found out," Spike agreed. He smiled at the memory of Buffy's transparent lie about them being in a rock band together.

"Dinner!" Lana called, coming from the kitchen laden with yet more platters, and the group sat down for a feast. Giles, in high spirits, kept them all entertained by putting a light spin on his adventures contacting slayers the previous summer. It was almost eleven by the time Gunn pushed his chair back, declaring himself fat and happy.

Even Angel had been tempted to eat by the savory odor of roast chicken. If Lana held back on the questions she wanted to ask, Angel held back on his own questions about why Tribby called her grandmother 'Mom.' He watched the slayer as she cleared the table. Before Connor, it would never have occurred to him to think about the composition of families. The Burkles were the only nuclear family he knew; all the rest were people who had come together by choice or necessity. His eyes involuntarily strayed to Spike, who was being charming to Lana. It was hard to tell if he was sincere or playing a role, but Angel suspected it was a blend of both.

The humans, even the slayer, were beginning to wilt after the long day and the large meal. By the time Tribby started loading the dishwasher, Lana had shown Giles and Spike to the spare room. Angel followed Gunn into a bedroom with pink walls that must have been the slayer's childhood bedroom. Gunn came back from brushing his teeth, mumbled a good night, and was asleep almost instantly. Angel listened to the murmur of the women's voices from the master suite, the contented gurgle of Gunn's stomach, the sound of Rupert's voice tapering off and becoming snores. He felt more than heard Spike go out to the car, presumably to call Dawn. When the house was silent, he slid from bed, put his shoes back on, and went out to the end of the dock.

There was no moon, but lights from other houses sparkled on the wide river. To the left of the boathouse was a gazebo with chairs, but Angel went instead to the edge of the slip and took off his shoes again, dipping his feet into the water. It felt very odd to be a guest where his demonic nature was known. The acknowledgement made him cautious; being welcome anywhere was a fragile thing. He was tempted to swim, but didn't figure Lana's neighbors would approve of a pale, skinny-dipping stranger. Angel thought of bodies he'd thrown into other rivers, of being underwater himself for agonizing months, and then of Connor, where his thoughts so often strayed.

"Brooding, brooding, brooding by the river," Spike sang softly, not bothering to hide his fine singing voice behind punk affectation as he butchered the lyrics to 'Proud Mary.'

"Hey," Angel said, not looking around but going for not-surly. "Nice night." As invitations went, it was oblique. He listened as Spike prowled through the boathouse and gazebo before coming over to hunker down beside him.

"You ever been on one of those things? Jet skis?" The boathouse had two jet skis and a pontoon boat bobbing gently inside.

"No. Looks like fun." He lifted his feet from the river. "Water's pretty warm."

"Do you know how long it takes to get out of these boots? If they come off, everything comes off, and I don't particularly feel like a swim tonight."

Angel sighed. "You know, you could wear something other than combat boots. The leather, that hair makes you… stick out."

"Blends right in, the places I want to be."

The dark-haired man turned and gave him a critical look. "You could let your hair grow out so it doesn't curl. It's fashionable now."

Spike gave him a jaundiced look. "Why are you giving me the Queer Eye?" When Angel's expression stayed blank, he elaborated. "Trying to give me a makeover?"

"Why do you insist on looking like someone who mugs old ladies?"

The blond man chuckled. "Truth in advertising." He flopped down so that he was lying on his stomach on the dock. "Honestly? Can't be arsed to sort out every human bully who thinks I'm too pretty to be allowed. Found out quick that lookin' this way makes 'em think twice about pickin' a fight. Not as many handbags this way."

"You never did like an easy fight." A smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"Why else would I still be here with you?"

"I don't want to fight."

"All you've done is fight me."

Spike didn't seem to expect an answer, but after a long pause, Angel said softly, "I know." He continued to stare out over the dark water, but he could feel the other man's eyes studying him, waiting. After a while, Spike rolled to his side and propped up on one elbow. Angel lifted his feet from the river and pulled his knees up to his chest, so that his soles were on the rough edge of the wood. He watched a low bass boat go by along the opposite bank, moving slowly under power of its trolling motor.

"Or you keep your silence. Or you walk away." Spike's voice was weary.

After a long time, he found something that approximated an answer. "I'm going to stay in Cleveland. With all that happened this afternoon, the one thing that keeps coming back to me is what that lawyer read, that we would be needed." It was nice to have some kind of direction again. Angel wiggled his toes, wanting them to dry faster. "Before that, I planned to go to," he shrugged, "somewhere out west, where the towns are smaller."

"Alone."

He nodded his dark head. "I don't do so well with people. I… people die around me."

"Already dead."

"You, too, Will," he said, annoyed. "How do you think I felt when you died in Sunnydale? That I was the one who brought the am–" The words were out before he could think better of it.

"I honestly don't know."

It was Angel's turn to stare. "You don't – I lost someone I… cared about."

A flash of impatience crossed the blue eyes. "You can care about your neighbor's dog, the friendly one that plays fetch with you, and feel bad when it gets hit by a car. Then you go in your own house, have a beer, and never think of it again."

The boy's guarded expression hurt, and Angel turned back to the river. "I felt it when you died. The mindlink snapped."

"Oh. Yeah, that."

"I was glad I was alone when it happened. I–" Angry, Angel grabbed his shoes from behind him and began to put them on. "What do you want from me? A declaration of undying love?" The sneer twisting his mouth felt so familiar.

Spike's hand closed over his wrist, halting his movements. "I was glad that Buffy sent you to hell." He said his next words precisely. "I hate Angelus." He ignored the flash of pain in the clear brown eyes, letting go of his arm. "But he's family." Spike sighed and sat up, his hands propped on his knees. "You, now… I don't know about you. I don't _know_ you." It was Spike's turn to look away, uncertain. "Maybe we could… I'd like to get to know you, but you make it impossible." He studied the other man's averted face for a long moment, wishing that he didn't need companionship so much, wishing for once that he was more like Angel.

"It's different for you, I know that. My demon and soul, they get on all right. Angelus is a right bastard, but I don't know why it has to make you so pissy all the time."

"Pissy," Angel repeated. Then he said softly, "You son of a bitch." He shot to his feet, his fists clenched, glaring down at the other man.

Spike didn't move, just looked up at him. "Not gonna fight you. So, your choice. Stay and tell me why I'm such an SOB, or storm off like a magnificent poof."

Angel did neither. He took a couple of deep breaths and forced his hands to be loose at his sides. "I hate that word."

This obviously surprised Spike. "You do? Why?" He got to his feet slowly, as if Angel was a wild animal he didn't want to spook. "I've called you that dunno how many times, and you never said anything." When the big vampire didn't answer immediately, he sighed. "Come on, Peaches. Let's go sit and pretend to be civilized men." Without looking back, he went to the gazebo and sat down at the table inside.

Angel followed reluctantly. He took the seat to Spike's left, so he wouldn't have to stare directly across at the other man's face. It was darker here, not that it made that much difference to them. He could feel Spike, expectant and quiet, almost as well as he could see him, but silence was such a long habit that he wasn't sure how to begin.

"What's the worst thing your father ever did to you, Will, that really let you down?"

The scarred eyebrow rose. "He died too soon. Dunno there's ever a good time, but he died when I was just nineteen."

Angel nodded. It occurred to him that Spike might see himself in Dawn, who had lost her mother too early, that it might be one reason why he felt so close to her.

When the dark-haired man, typically, remained silent, Spike clasped his hands together and put them on the table. He was afraid of where this was going, wasn't sure if he was prepared, but Angel had never opened up before. After waiting almost a full minute, Spike realized there was a strong possibility he still might not talk. "How did your father let you down, Liam?" he prompted.

"I was eleven," Angel began. He sounded remote. "One of our horses was about to foal, and my father was out in the stables late." He shrugged. "I was excited, and I couldn't sleep. I got out of bed and went to see if the colt had been born. I caught my father in the stable with our groom." His eyes were on the wooden table, and he was quiet for another long minute. "I never told that to anyone."

Spike thought of a dozen things, but in the end said nothing. It was something he hadn't learned until his thirteenth decade, sitting on the Summers' couch with Dawn. Sometimes just being beside someone was enough.

"My father saw me. The groom was gone by the next day, fired. I didn't understand what I'd seen, exactly, but I knew I wasn't supposed to know. I remember feeling really bad that I'd cost John his job, because he'd always been nice to me. I think he was with us for about three years." Angel sighed. "My father didn't hire another groom for a long time. He told my mother I was old enough to do a groom's work. He said that at the breakfast table that morning. I was scared, because I didn't know what he meant by that."

Spike knew that fear. He remembered Angelus asking his opinion on what to use next on captive human flesh, knife or hot poker or boiling water, and his fear that the older vampire was seeking the answer to a very different question. Sometimes the choice would be used against his own flesh. Worse was when his choice was used on Dru.

"So, I rushed through my chores, started spending less time at home. My father wouldn't look at me for a long time, and I never saw him the same way again." Angel was silent for a few moments. "Thinking back, I honestly don't believe he would ever have touched me like that, but the fear was real enough then. It changed things. I got a little older, discovered women, had my first drink of whiskey, and there was little enough tying me to home. He'd fuss at me, tell me I was a disappointment. And every time he scolded me, I'd just look at him… We both knew what I could say about him. I never said, and he never did more than yell at me.

"Few years later, I went along with some older men who'd paid to get a lot of us lads drunk. They were going after a sodomite," Angel shook his head at the word, "who lived a few villages over, and I guess they needed a lot of men to face such a frightening thing. They beat him," he said quietly and a lilt crept into his voice as he sank into the early memories, "and once the man couldn't defend himself, you can pretty much guess what happened. That's how I found a name for what I'd seen in the stables. I spent the rest of the night throwin' up in a ditch. For weeks after that, I couldn't fall sleep at home, listenin' for those men to come after my father.

"Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been different if… if I had just stayed in bed that night, instead of going to see if the horse had foaled. Probably not, but…" He glanced over at Spike for the first time, then looked out over the water, uncomfortable with the compassion in the blue eyes. "You know who Burt Reynolds is?"

"Uh, yeah," he replied, taken completely by surprise by the question. "The actor." _Deliverance_ , he thought.

"Right. _Smokey and the Bandit_ ," Angel said. "He's from the Southern U.S., and he says, down here, you're not a man until your daddy tells you that you are. I think I read that his father finally told him when he was in his forties." The dark-haired man stood up and walked to the railing closest to the water. "Part of me is still waiting for that."

Spike held his peace once again. It wasn't his place to give that to Angel.

"Last few decades, I've wondered if they loved each other, if I showed up at the wrong time and made my father send away someone who made him happy. I mean, my parents were Catholic and only had two kids." He half-turned to Spike, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Or maybe the groom didn't have a real choice, had to do what his boss wanted to keep his job. I don't suppose it matters, not now." Angel fell quiet, but it was a good silence. He felt… light.

After a while, Spike came over and leaned against the railing. He looked out over the water, too. "Did you ever meet Anya, the ex-demon Harris almost married?"

Angel blinked. "Yeah. I think she was his date at Buffy's prom."

"Not long before Xander came down with cold feet, that git Riley Finn came back to Sunnydale. Very long story short, seeing his bland, bulky self made Buffy decide that a relationship with me was bad and wrong and un-American. Couple, three weeks later, Anya and I, both freshly dumped, split a bottle of Black Jack and had ourselves a table-ender." Spike glanced over at Angel, a self-mocking smile twisting his mouth. "One of the more pleasant ways I've screwed myself over, 'cause you know those things never stay a secret. Xander came within a hair of staking me, and the closest Buffy ever got to accepting my apology was to tell me I might try the not sleeping with her friends." He took a breath. "Figure you probably fall into that category. Just wanted to say you're safe with me."

Angel looked at him, exasperated, and put a big hand on the nape of Spike's neck. "That story had nothing to do with you and me," he said, giving the boy a little shake before letting go.

"Does that mean I can still call you a great poof?" Spike asked slowly.

Angel's grin was reluctant. "You will anyway."

"Prob'ly." He wasn't going to, though, not if it stirred up unresolved daddy issues. Spike breathed in through his nose, taking in the odor of the water, the cooling wood of the dock, and the familiar scent of the man next to him. "You are safe with me, though." There were a lot of meanings in the few words.

"Not too safe, I hope," Angel said, batting his lashes and making Spike roll his eyes. Then he took a breath. "I know. Family." He turned his hand over and held it open. Spike placed his cool palm against his grandsire's, and they stood there in silence for a long time, taking comfort in the physical contact and watching the occasional fishing boat pass by on the river.

Angel took a breath, his face tight, and plunged in, determined to get out the words that had been on his mind for weeks. "I know you won't agree – because we never agree – but I think sometimes it's too late for apologies. But it isn't too late for thanks. So," he took another breath, "thanks for seeing it through to the end in Los Angeles." He squeezed Spike's hand with his strong fingers. "Thanks for… Family doesn't have to be what it once was. And it isn't just about need; I know that." Angel firmed his chin and let out the rest of his air.

Spike closed his eyes, a smile playing about his lips at the awkwardness of the big vampire's words. He didn't say anything, just covered their clenched fingers with his other hand for a moment. "You're welcome." He waited until he could keep the humor out of his voice. "Was that so hard?"

"It was pretty bad," Angel admitted. With a final squeeze, he let go of the other man's hand and turned toward the house. "Good night."

"Good night, Liam."

⸹

[Author's Note: Karate is not an Olympic sport.]

Gunn was the first of the men to rise the next morning and consequently was the only one who got to say goodbye to their hostess before she left for work. They had coffee together in the living room, watching CNN to see what had happened overnight. As he went back for a second cup, his eyes still on the television, his shoulder bumped a shelf.

"Oops," he said, righting a picture that fell over. It was of a younger Tribby, wearing a karate uniform and standing on a platform. Gunn's brows drew together as his gaze went from the picture to a gleam of gold next to it. "Lana, is this what I think it is?"

She bustled up to him, proud grandmother to the fore. "It sure is." She lifted the Olympic medal in its shadowbox frame and held it out for him to see. "Tribby won in karate at the 2000 games in Sydney. She stopped competing after that – she hadn't lost since she was fourteen. Well, in sparring. She was never quite as good with her katas."

Gunn was smiling. "That is so cool," he said, genuinely impressed.

Lana beamed. "I thought so, too. She was the only bright spot on the karate team; none of the men medalled." Her smile faded. "The coaches tried to get her for the 2004 team, but she's a slayer now. It wouldn't be fair. She'd lost her amateur status, anyway. I would have liked to seen it, though," she added wistfully. A soft beeping started in the kitchen. "Oh, that's the biscuits. Come on," Lana said, putting the medal back on the shelf. "You'll want to eat them while they're hot."

"Can I have the funny biscuit?" He and Alonna had always bickered over who got the odd-sized one made from the last scraps of dough.

Lana's face lit with a smile he had already seen on Tribby. "You mean the little biscuit? That's what we call it in our family."

Giles stumbled into the kitchen soon after Lana left for work, finding the coffeepot with half-closed eyes. Tribby came in through the French doors not long after that, obviously back from a morning run. Gunn grinned at her from where he was propped against the sink and hummed a little of the Olympic theme. When she looked blank, he said, "Your grandmother showed me your medal."

"Oh." Her eyes flicked toward Giles before coming back to him, and she waved a too-casual hand. "Well, you know. She likes to brag."

Charles frowned a little. "That's something to brag about, winning a gold medal at the Olympics," he said, salaaming as best he could with a jelly biscuit in one hand and a full coffee cup in the other.

"You won gold at the Olympics?" Giles asked, lifting his head away from his own mug.

"Yeah." Tribby waved dismissively again. "Few years ago. Mom already gone?" When Gunn nodded, she said, "Well, I'm gonna grab a shower."

Giles watched as she darted off, then turned to Charles. "What event?"

"Karate," Gunn replied, frowning. Something was off here.

"Huh." Giles took another sip of coffee. "I don't remember that from her file. Of course, I've read probably read a thousand slayer profiles." There was a matching frown on his face, though.

By the time Angel and Spike were up and showered, it was after nine o'clock, and Giles was impatient to get back to Cleveland. Tribby pulled the Camry into the garage, a thoughtful but unnecessary gesture, as it was overcast. She was explaining the different route she had planned to Giles, tracking I-75 through Kentucky into Ohio, and he took the opportunity to commandeer the passenger seat. The Watcher gave the three men crammed into the back seat a smug smile, which faded a little as Tribby tuned the radio to a rap station airing out of Knoxville. The rain started soon afterwards, and the return trip was a quiet affair. Even the lovely horse farms in central Kentucky looked gloomy.

Sitting between Gunn and Spike, Angel nursed a cup of coffee. The blond man had given him an amused look when he bought it outside of Covington, but he hadn't slept very much the previous night, and caffeine was a useful crutch for vampires, too. Spike slouched against the car door, his legs sprawled out as much as the cramped back seat allowed, and their knees rubbed together. The contact was comforting, and Angel's demon was quiescent.

He thought about how the first thing Angelus had done in Sunnydale – after feeding – was seek out his family. And they had been happy to see him, too, even Spike for a little while. The fingers curled around the cardboard cup tightened a little as he remembered what the boy had said last night, that he hated Angelus, but he was family. The hatred had returned, he was pretty sure, when Angelus took Drusilla to his bed again. Spike never could stand to hear her in pain.

Angelus had chosen a room on the top floor of the mansion on Crawford Street, as inaccessible to the wheelchair-bound as possible. Even then, he had been wary of Spike. The boy looked harder, tougher than he had in the old days, had taken down another Slayer, and, unlike Angel, had been feeding off humans. Even without the use of his legs, he was too formidable to face openly. As the weeks passed and Spike continued to need the wheelchair, Angelus had grown bolder. Once he was sure he could count on Dru's loyalty, he planned to spend a couple of weeks focusing on Spike, trying to break the boy once and for all before turning his attention to the Slayer. Then Acathla was unearthed and everything changed. He sighed, thinking with shame of the tortures he had prepared. Hearing him, Spike glanced over, and Angel dropped his eyes.

⸹

Dawn let Spike pass into the bedroom in front of her, then stepped inside and shut the door. She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"What?" he asked.

"On the bed," she said shortly, nodding her head toward a box at the foot of her mattress.

"Oh." He had packed up the few possessions from his L.A. apartment that had meaning to him and shipped them to Dawn that last day. Inside was a letter plainly marked 'Open in the event of my (final) death.' "You read it anyway, didn't you?"

"Yes, I read it." The arms remained crossed. "What did I tell you about the dying to save the world?"

"Well, I didn't," he pointed out. "Anyway, you shouldn't have read it, as I'm here, safe and all."

Dawn slumped back against the door. "Shut up, Spike." She pushed her hair back. "This is, like, the fourth time I've had to face the thought of you being dead. It doesn't get any easier. You've got to go on, if only for me."

He ducked his head a little and opened his arms, but Dawn looked away, not about to be soothed so easily. "Oh, come on, Nibblet," he said, a little worried. "We're both grownups here – well, a little grown up. Jus' the way it is; you know that."

"The next time, you tell me," Dawn hissed. Her expression was implacable. "You have to at least say goodbye. Promise me."

"I promise."

She moved past him so swiftly that her brown hair swung out behind her. Dawn stopped at the window, looking out. Sometimes Spike came to her window, in deference to delicate Watcher sensibilities, and they held each other. He knew her better than anyone, and she knew him. But there were times she just couldn't understand him, when his thought processes were alien to her, and she couldn't look at him just now. "It's okay to be happy, Spike."

"I am happy. 'M here with you, yeah?"

"You deserve to be happy," she amended.

"No," he said. He moved to her like the predator he was, slowly and inexorably, and captured her in a fierce embrace. "I don't deserve this, but I am grateful for it."

Dawn felt his chest rise and fall, listened to him breath in her scent. When she had been confronted with what crept and flew and screamed out of the portal Doc had opened with her blood, she knew she had to close it. She would have thrown herself into the rift, a Key locking a door. Then Buffy did what she did, making her own death unnecessary. But she would have done it.

Dawn had hopes that what Spike did on the Hellmouth showed him that he was worthy, that he didn't have to keep offering his life. She might not need him the way she had when she was younger, but she wanted him around because she loved him. Dawn relented, turning to put her arms around him, safe and whole in his embrace. The monks should have just given her this knowledge, she thought, because it hurt to learn it.

Love, as powerful as it was, was not enough.

⸹

The next few weeks in Cleveland were busy ones for everybody because Giles, let loose with money, was determined to do things right. He was careful to keep his funds separate from the Council's, but everything he bought, with the exception of a red BMW convertible, was in support of the slayers. Rupert gave Spike the job title 'trainer,' bought out a struggling gym that had tried business a little too close to the Hellmouth, and gave him funds to refurbish it as an armory and a place where slayers could be physically challenged. Angel, the only person Giles knew who had been CEO of a multinational corporation, was recruited to coordinate expenditures in various locations around the world. The big vampire wouldn't join the Council, but Giles did persuade him to come on board as a consultant.

The Scoobies' contracts with the Council ended on June thirtieth, and Willow had decided not to sign a new one and to attend Oxford instead. She admitted to Spike that it was an easy way of ending things with Kennedy, who was going to stay in Brazil for another year. Giles decided to bring Xander to Cleveland right away, wanting someone who both could deal well with a group of slayers and who was loyal to him. Rupert had to hire four new Watchers to replace him in Africa, all of whom were recommended by Xander himself. Andrew was pulled back to Council headquarters in London. Giles expected him to be useful to talk to on occasion, because Andrew never knew when he was letting slip something of importance. Of Buffy, Giles had no direct word, and prevailed on Armando to be in charge in Italy despite his advanced years.

Then Rupert began to do things to rock the Watchers' Council boat – or lifeboat, as it were. He contributed five million dollars to the Council with strings attached – battleship chains, actually, as Gunn had written the contract. The endowment was entailed to fund salaries or scholarships for slayers who chose to relocate to an active Hellmouth. So many slayers across the globe expressed an interest that Giles had to limit the number to twenty. Rona, Vi, Vashti, and Kayla chose the scholarship and the generous stipend that went with it for books and board. Tribby, who lacked only a couple of classes to complete her master's degree, chose the salary. So did her roommate, Ute, who was scheduled to return to university in Bonn in August. Several Watchers complained loudly about funding girls who had a sacred duty, and two actually resigned. Giles was operating from a position of power, though, having not only money but legal counsel on retainer who was finally making headway with the Council's frozen assets.

Gunn spent weekdays in Falls Church, Virginia, working with Kevin Ronson. After some initial distrust on both sides, the two had bonded over NBA playoffs and golf. Ronson agreed that Charles could 'read law' at RFR in preparation for taking the bar. Although he missed him, Angel knew that taking a job with the law firm was the best thing for his friend. Gunn came back to Cleveland on the weekends in the Mercedes convertible for which he'd traded the Cadillac. He found that Spike was right; working with Rupert was fun, because the older Watcher had a sneaky, vindictive streak that he'd never seen in Wesley. Wes had been ruthless when necessary, but he never would have enjoyed sticking it to the Council in underhanded ways.

Once Xander got back to the States, he immediately organized another 'rescue party' for Buffy, getting Willow to take him and Giles with her to Rome to visit the Slayer. Not until he'd seen her obliviously happy with his own eyes did Xander's legendary determination waver. Dejected, he threw himself into physical labor, helping Spike get the training center ready, his construction experience invaluable in soundproofing and building a holding cell. After a couple of days in the basement with the 'dead boys,' he moved in with Willow in the apartment she had sublet for the summer.

If Xander was the most unhappy, Dawn was the happiest of the Sunnydale refugees. With the exception of her sister, who was at least safe and not dead, she had everyone she loved with her. She was going to start college soon, and being ombudsman for the slayers was a dream job. Giles had trusted her with choosing the additional fifteen slayers (including one to replace the departing Ute) to work in Cleveland. She chose with an eye for diversity, having a memory of how strange it was to move from Los Angeles to lily-white Sunnydale. With that justification, she weeded out the two applicants from Italy, not wanting anyone who could spread gossip about her sister, and made it a point to select one of Xander's former charges from Africa.

Continuing the lessons begun in Sunnydale in his DeSoto, Spike taught her how to drive in Giles' Camry, and she earned her license. The day she turned eighteen was overcast, and he went with her to co-sign for her first car, a Jeep Wrangler. Dawn felt competent and grown up, the absence of her sister the only thing that kept her from being perfectly happy.

Xander and Spike were reinforcing beams in one section of the gym in late June when Dawn brought by the patrol schedule. She watched them appreciatively from the doorway, both up on ladders and shirtless in the hot building. Industrial-strength heat pumps were due to be installed later in the week, but there was currently no air conditioning. The heavy toolbelt Spike wore pulled his black jeans down so low on his hipbones that Dawn had a guilty flashback to her crush days.

"Spike, I'm in danger of learning whether or not you're a natural blond," she called, stepping into the room. Her words pulled his attention away from the nail he was holding just long enough–

"Oww!" Spike shook his injured fingers. "Fu – Friar Tuck!"

"Hey, Dawnie. The return of Friar Tuck," Xander said, amused. "I haven't heard that since we fixed the front of your Mom's house."

Spike glared at him, since he couldn't very well glare at Dawn, then slid down the ladder with a disregard for personal safety that only a non-human could afford. "'Lo, Bit." He held out his hammered fingers for her perusal.

"Let me see," she said, taking his hand and putting two kisses on the digits. "There, all better."

He used his uninjured left hand to deftly undo the toolbelt and let it drop on the floor. Then he hooked his thumbs into the beltloops of his jeans and tugged them up. "This better, too?"

"Enough with the insolent eyebrows," Dawn warned, spoiling the effect by sliding her arm around his waist and putting her head against his shoulder. Spike buried his face against her hair, then her neck, breathing in deeply before turning her so her back was against his chest.

Coming down from his own ladder more slowly, Xander shook his head. Some of the other Watchers still looked askance at the way Dawn and her pet vampire were always in physical proximity, but they didn't see contact to this degree. By unspoken agreement, the two friends limited themselves to subtle touches on arms and shoulders, or at most piling together on the couch when in the public areas of Watcher Central. When it was just the Scoobies, the blond man was much more affectionate, and not just with his Bit. If he was sitting, Dawn would be in his lap, or sometimes Willow. With Giles or himself, and even with Angel, Spike would put a hand on their shoulder or sprawl until his knees touched theirs. Xander wondered whether the change was an aftereffect of spending months as a ghost, or if it had to do with Spike's vampiric nature. It struck him as sad that it was Buffy, one of the least physically demonstrative people he knew, who owned the vampire's heart.

"So, what brings the Dawnster all the way down here?" he asked, unhooking his own toolbelt.

She opened her purse and pulled out a colorful sheet of paper. "I came to post the patrol schedule – and to see you guys, of course." She eyed Xander's bare chest. "A lot of you guys."

Grinning, Xander struck a couple of bodybuilding poses. "Dere is zo much goodnezz to zee," he said in a bad Schwarzenegger accent.

Dawn felt a small puff of air against her hair as Spike let out a silent snort of laughter. "So," she went on, "where do I post it?" The three of them began walking through the building, looking for a likely spot. They found a good place near the front door, and Spike made a mental note to buy a bulletin board.

"Vashti and her mom are already using the exercise equipment that was left," Dawn said, taking a roll of scotch tape from her purse, "so we'll ask them if they notice it."

"Cellotape? What else do you have in there?" Spike asked, sounding both impressed and apprehensive as he tried to peek in the handbag.

"Yeah, I've noticed that Vashti's mother works out," Xander said, sounding far away. When the other two looked at him, he gave his head a little shake and shrugged. "What? She's hot. I've always had a thing for older women."

"Yeah, like a thousand years older," Dawn snarked, zipping her purse shut again to thwart Spike's interest. A wise woman, she carried condoms, and she saw no need to worry him with that knowledge.

"I seem to recall you crushing on Dead Man Walking here," Xander shot back, "as well as yours truly. Not a lot of room to talk, missy."

She blushed a little and gave Spike a dark look. "Don't give me that smile," she warned. "Anyway, that was a long time ago." Her eyes flicked to the two men flanking her. "You know, back when you two wore clothes." With a swirl of brown hair, she was gone, headed into the sunlight where Spike shouldn't follow and Xander wouldn't bother.

"She's getting in the last word too often," Spike said, his blue eyes narrow as he watched her get into her Jeep. "'S'not good for her."

"Or you," Xander added dryly, peering at the schedule. "Looks like it's me and you tomorrow night in Glenville... I know Giles wants to find out which areas aren't worth patrolling nightly, but this schedule can't be right." He pointed at row after row of blue, the shade Dawn had assigned in her color-coded chart to Spike. "She has you going out with me, Angel, Vashti, Rona twice, Kayla, Ute, and then a second shift every night with Vi or Tribby. What gives?"

"Got to earn my pay somehow," he said, shrugging.

"No, why the second shift?"

"Just to see if there are any variations, depending on the hour. Vi and Tribs volunteered, too - both early risers."

Xander gave him a sharp look. "Haven't been getting your violence on, huh?"

"Nope. Not gettin' laid, either."

"Man, we should form a club."

Spike smiled and let the subject drop. Giles had approached him privately with two goals for the week-long survey of the city at night. The first was simply to see where to most effectively deploy the slayers. The second was to get an independent assessment of the slayers' abilities. While Giles didn't necessarily distrust the other Watchers in Cleveland, he did trust Spike's insight.

⸹

With a sigh, Spike plopped down in front of the computer in Rupert's study. The week was up, and he had been out on patrol with every slayer. It was time to make an official report, and he didn't have a computer in his office at the gym yet. When he first got interested in computers in the 1980s, one of the things he used was a learn-to-type program. He was skilled enough at a keyboard that it was more efficient for him to type than to handwrite the report. Like any vampire, he was loath to admit his capabilities, so he fired up a web browser as well as the word processor. If he surfed between typing up parts of the report, it would take three or four times longer, and he could complain about having to hunt-and-peck.

He quickly set up a table and began to fill in a matrix of slayer names and the skills and abilities they had: sensing vampires, high jumps, various weapons, prophetic dreams, and so forth. He made a note that the absence of a check only meant the ability had not yet been demonstrated. Then he started on the narrative.

 _Confidential Report_

 _To: Rupert Giles, Council of Watchers Big Man_

 _From: Spike, William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, etc._

 _Re: Cleveland and Her Slayers, or, Earning One's Salary_

 _First, the city. Watcher Central (that's what the Slayers call your house, Rupes) is in the Payne-Sterling section of Cleveland. There's a high concentration of the elderly here, and while senior citizens are easy prey, they don't get out of their safe little homes as much, so the comings and goings of Slayers should be enough of a safety net. The Hellmouth itself is located beneath the central section, and it shows in the city above it. This place is even grimmer than Los Angeles, I guess because there's more poverty (but I still like it better than L.A.). Our new gym is in the nearby Industrial Valley, and both neighbourhoods are already slated for heavy patrol._

 _Interstates and other huge, American roads have bisected the city, so foot patrols are going to take our ladies into some areas where it won't be just demons they'll have to watch for, but lorries. You might consider buying a few subcompact cars to help them get around – Cleveland's a lot bigger than Sunnydale. Downtown, Tremont, Hough, and the Ohio City area are good hunting grounds for vampires early and late, so I suggest nightly patrols. Ute and Tribby live in Glenville and report that their neighbourhood has enough nighttime activity to be attractive to demons, but not so much in the second half of the night. Fairfax, where the Cleveland Clinic is located, and the University area are a given for a nightly walk-through. The Broadway, Brooklyn, Clark-Fulton, Stockyards, and Kinsman neighbourhoods are less likely to need Slayers as the distance from the Hellmouth increases. Detroit Shoreways, Kamms Corners (over where Vashti and her mother live), Edgewater, and Riverside on the west side should be ruled out for nightly patrol, as well as the Forest Hills and Collinwood areas to the east. I nearly died again of boredom those nights. The south side neighbourhoods, from Corlett up to Buckeye-Shaker, I would designate for a pass on alternating nights. I would also recommend having someone monitor police reports (has Red already hacked into the police and coroner offices?) to look for suspicious patterns, esp. in the areas we don't hit every night._

Spike stopped typing, opened a web browser, and Googled 'Cleveland demographics,' then added another paragraph.

 _The city has had a net loss of population since the 1940s, so I expect to find demons in abandoned buildings more often than not (no comments about the old factory in Sunnyhell, either). While this week we only found vampires – fledges, at that – Angel and I did catch the scent of some more exotic species, not fresh, but couldn't be too old. Cleveland doesn't have the kind of sewer system that Wilkins so thoughtfully built in Sunnydale, at least. It's always worth patrolling the cemeteries, of course, to put the newly risen out of their misery._

 _The striking feature about Cleveland is how open it is – Sunnydale had end-of-the-line train service, a small seaport, a regional airport, and pretty much just the one east-west highway. Cleveland has miles of Lake Erie to contend with, Amtrak as well as industrial railroads, international and municipal airports, and more major roads than I can be arsed to count. You should consider magical monitoring, Watcher._

He stopped typing and thought about the night he went out with Angel, when they found three nests. Spike got his violence on, but only against young vampires, the oldest of which couldn't have been more than ten. It wasn't enough, and afterwards they were both bristling with unspent aggression. Spike listened with dismay as their camaraderie deteriorated into biting comments, unable to stop himself, half-hoping his grandsire would goad him far enough. Angel, surprisingly, was the one who suggested that, since they had no real challenge, they should simply spar each other. Then he smiled and leapt to a nearby rooftop. Knowing it was a trap and grinning hugely, Spike followed, and by the time they limped back to Watcher Central, most of their injuries had healed. They were still bruised enough that Spike had to explain away the injuries to Vi, before he headed out with her for his second patrol of the night. He sighed again at the fond memory, then began the second part of the report.

 _As to your Slayers… By and large, they're safe from the Slayer of Slayers. To put it in perspective for you, I probably wouldn't bother with Faith, either (since she has such atrocious taste in men, feel free to pass my opinion on to her). My two, Vi and Rona, they're coming along. Your other Cleveland ladies are a mixed bag._

 _I'm especially proud of Vi. She was so timid before Willow worked the mojo, and now she's all business. Vi will do fine against any vampire under fifty, but she needs to be challenged so she can get better. If you give me leave to do so, I'll offer that challenge when the new training facility is done. I worry, though, that she's all business – we've both seen Slayers without joy in the rest of their lives. Vi said she wasn't close to her Watcher, but she's very fond of the other Slayers, especially Rona. If she were my minion, I'd put her to work bringing along a younger fledge. What do you think, Rupes? A mentor or peer-to-peer program?_

Spike thought of what he'd gotten out of her at five o'clock one morning: that Vi's mother had died when she was thirteen, that her father remarried soon after, and that she was literally the red-headed stepchild, a built-in babysitter for her much younger siblings and not much else in the new household. She had fallen silent after admitting that, so he just took her hand and kept his own silence as they walked. If there was one thing he could recognize, it was loneliness.

 _Rona is not quite as good as Vi, despite her early training : -` She's more balanced, though, happier than I ever saw her in Sunnydale – not that it was an especially happy period for the potentials, waiting to be killed by Bringers or the First Evil. Fun times! Back to Ro, though. I don't have any evidence for this, but my gut says she has a deep reserve of strength when necessary. It isn't something you'll see in daily patrol, but it's there. I'd actually worry more about her against a coffin-fresh vamp than a Ghora demon – she'll rise to the latter occasion, but she doesn't focus. Ro likes her Watcher, so send her out with him or with someone more nervous than she is. Of course, I'm happy to patrol with either of them._

Spike considered that statement floating on the screen, the cursor blinking at the end of it. 'Happy to patrol' overstated it. He would go out on patrol just to spend time with them, not because the fighting was fun. In the past, he had been cautious around Rona because of her obvious crush, but she had started relating to him as a person. Ro had been raised by her grandmother in Philadelphia, but the older woman died when she was fifteen. The teenager had to go live with her mother, who had been on the losing side of an addiction to bad men and drugs most of her life. It was a shock for the sheltered girl, and she got tough fast by building a wall around herself. Rona, cut loose from her grandmother and her church, also went through a string of loser guys. She'd gotten cards and phone calls from Philadelphia for her high school graduation, but only the slayers and Watchers had actually attended. It was, she told him, a relief when Giles came for her. All she had seen were doors closing, places she wouldn't go, things she wouldn't accomplish. Being a slayer was a validation for her, proof that she was somebody, just like her grandmother always told her. Spike smiled a little. He loved strong women.

 _Ute is solid. I'm sorry she's leaving, but you can feel confident that she'll do fine on her own. No clue what kind of Watchers you have in Germany, but she'll do best with someone who's flexible, not afraid of being questioned. In the meantime, pair her with any of the other Slayers or a Watcher._

 _Vashti has good technique, but she's not ready to be out alone on patrol. I'd only send her out with someone more experienced. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised she decided to stay in Cleveland. I believe it's because she knows she can get better, and she's competitive. Her mum is probably also a factor; I think it's as much as adventure for her as it is for Vashti. Will this Slayer stay if things get tough? I think she will._

Of all the patrols, he had been most on alert with Vashti at his side. He actually had to remind her to take off her headphones. Vashti came from privilege and in some ways reminded him of Kennedy, but she wasn't abrasive and did understand that other people in the world were not there for her convenience. Her family went back to India to see relatives at least once a year, and Spike could tell that made an impression on her. The poverty in central Cleveland seemed to make her somber. Vashti's father was a successful investment banker in Vancouver, and the stories she told evoked a sheltered childhood: lessons for violin, dressage, ballet; camps for soccer and gifted students; a carefully chosen selection of friends. She had one older brother, whom she idolized. He was in his second year of law school and had, Vashti confided, six piercings. Spike could see her desire to rebel, even in mild ways, against her traditional family.

 _I like Kayla because it's impossible not to – let's face it, she's as adorable and trusting as Willow before Dog-Boy broke her heart. I was impressed with her on patrol. She was alert, actually saw one vamp before I did. She relies too much on a handful of moves – effective, but anyone who watched her fight once would learn enough to counter those moves. I'll work on expanding her repertoire. Kayla is sunny and sweet, not at all what a Slayer's supposed to be, huh? Let's see if we can't turn out at least one who's well-adjusted. I'd recommend sending her out with Xander or other Watchers. If she has someone to protect, I think it will raise her game._

Kayla was from a large family in rural Minnesota, the middle of eight kids. She often joked about how much space she had at Giles' house, while everyone else was sidestepping the crowds with elbows tucked in. Like Rona, being a slayer made her feel special. Kayla was the same age as Dawn, and she wanted to become an elementary school teacher. Spike frowned a little. Kayla and Dawn were very close, which reminded him–

 _Note that I didn't patrol with any of the Watchers. As much as I don't want her to be around the darker side of things, Dawn should patrol – it's always been part of her life, and I've been training her myself since she was fifteen. She's ready as any human to be out there, as long as she's with me. [Just trying to make you smile, Rupes.] She can patrol with Slayers or maybe with two other Watchers. Xander is a given, of course, to patrol with anyone else. Willow can do a ride-along any time she so desires. Don't know about the rest of the Watchers and don't really care. The Head of the Council, I'm not too sure about, old as he is and all. I guess he can go out, as long as he's with me. [Smiling yet?]_

 _I did a patrol with Angel. We found three nests, took out over twenty vampires, and didn't even work up a sweat (so to speak). You've 'owned' me since Sunnydale, Rupes. You know I'll stay wherever my Bit is. I'll take whatever I find, go out on patrol with all your ladies like it's a classroom, but I don't know how the old man will take the boredom. I'd like him to stay, if we can keep him. The two of you have history, but if I can't have your Slayer, he's the one I want at my back when something big comes through town. He won't work for the Council – too proper a vampire. If you can think of anything to tempt him to stay in Cleveland, let me know. He's as much fun as cholera, but he is family._

 _Since we both know you aren't a mathematical prodigy, I'll save you from counting on your fingers. I've left Tribby Snapp for last._

Spike paused, his fingers poised over the keys, then slumped back in the chair. Of all the Cleveland slayers, she was the only one he hadn't managed to engage in a good conversation. He was headed out with Tribby on regular patrol in just a couple of hours and decided to finish his report afterwards. Saving his document, he closed the word processor and went back to the browser. The blue eyes narrowed as something occurred to him, and he clicked on the history button. Sure enough, there had been a number of searches on the Immortal. Spike smiled faintly. The only Slayer worth the title was on her Watcher's mind, too.

⸹

"Ready to go, then?" Spike asked, an impatient edge to his voice. He was waiting on Tribby, who had paused before the refrigerator door. They were patrolling the area around the ports tonight. Night had fallen, and he was ready to be out in it.

"Coming," she said, and she snagged a plastic bag of cherries and kicked the door of the fridge shut as she hurried to catch up to him in the yard. "Are we footin' it?"

"Yeah." He knew his answer was short, but she wasn't big on conversation. She was big on cherries, though, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's. "What, didn't you eat today?"

"Nope." She turned her head so he couldn't see her spit, a strangely ladylike gesture, and four or five pits shot out of her mouth in rapid succession. She held the bag toward him. "Want one? They're good.' He waved away her offer. Half the bag of cherries was gone before Tribby slowed down. "Better," she sighed, turning to spit out a final pit. The baggie disappeared into her denim jacket. Her ponytail was also tucked into the jacket, and she was wearing her Churchill Downs 'Gettin' lucky in Kentucky' shirt. It had inspired a locally legendary slayer road trip down to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby back in May. Since Dawn had gone along, he didn't want any details. Spike admired the way Tribby's logos kept anyone from looking any further, almost as much as he admired her worn Whiskey A Go-Go tee. He would have poached that one if she'd been a bigger girl, a Nikki-sized Slayer. The Whiskey was the only thing in L.A. he truly liked.

Nothing much was going on. They found two fledgling vampires stalking an oblivious couple who were making out desperately against the net of a soccer cage. Tribby could walk as almost as soundlessly as Spike, and they made short work of the demons. When they were a few yards away, Tribby glanced back at the necking teenagers and said in a low voice, "I vaguely remember that it sucks to not have a car."

He nodded, his eyes on some shadows on the opposite side of the sports field. When he was sure nothing was there, he used the statement as an opening and asked, "So, long time since you didn't have wheels? How old are you?"

"Twenty-four," she replied, amused that he would ask any female her age.

He nodded again. "Are you the oldest slayer?"

She shook her head. "Dana is, then me, then the last two Chosen Ones, Dawn's sister and the one who was in jail, then," her hesitation was so brief he nearly missed it, "after that, I don't know." Tribby gave him a curious look. "What happened between you two, anyway?"

Spike felt his chest rise and stopped himself before it could turn into respiration. "Spent a lot of years in Sunnydale. Long story."

Confusion passed over her face, then cleared. "No, sorry, I meant between you and Dana?"

"Oh." His own brow cleared; this was a much safer topic. "Thought she was a demon," Spike said, shrugging. "I kill demons. By the time I realized what she was, she had the advantage. Cut off my arms."

"She what?" Tribby asked in a faint voice, remembering what she had thought were the rantings of a crazy woman. She eyed his limbs.

"Girl had her reasons," Spike told her mildly. "Might not have been logic you or I would follow, but she had her reasons."

"She spoke so fondly of you, I thought you'd saved her or something."

"No, got saved from her. Angel swooped down, all Dark Avenger."

The curious look was back. "And he's your sire's… sire?" He remembered Dawn had said that Tribby was usually quiet, but all of the slayers seemed comfortable with him.

"Grandsire, yeah. Not usually a close relationship, but he trained me up."

Tribby nodded, the furrow between her brows betraying the questions she still had, but she didn't say anything else for a while, her attention on the quiet buildings around them. They were doing a circuit down to University Circle, then up through Fairfax toward the lake. After a brisk pass through an old cemetery, she asked, "Couldn't you sense that Dana was a slayer? 'Cause I can sure sense you're a vampire."

"I can sense slayers," he agreed, making a note of her ability for his report, "but I was operating under the assumption she was a human possessed by a demon. All slayers feel different to me – like everyone has a chili recipe, and they're all chili, but some are milder, some have cumin. Dana's presence was… frenzied." His shoulders lifted; the word was inadequate.

"Cincinnati chili," she offered. At his puzzled look, she explained, "They put cinnamon in it."

"Cinnamon?" He made a face. "You just put me back on an all-liquid diet."

Spike thought of the message bracelet she'd given him, somewhere in the jumble of his possessions in the crowded basement. He and Angel had talked several times about getting an apartment, though never actually saying they were going to get one together. If Angel had ever received a similar bracelet, he'd never heard of it. Although it came from Tribby, he always thought of Dana when he ran across the red 'Give Blood' band. If she could think of him fondly, maybe that meant the Slayer dreams weren't playing as loudly inside her head. Or, more worrisome, she was getting her positive opinion from current slayers.

They traveled in silence for a long way, until they came to a water tower overlooking an industrial park. A few lonely cars sat in the parking lot, waiting for the last workers. Tribby lifted her eyes, then began climbing the tower with the ease of a lifelong athlete. When she was halfway up, Spike simply jumped from the ground and waited for her at the railing.

"Showoff," she muttered.

"Can't you do leaps?"

"Not this high."

Spike made another mental note. They settled in silence, taking a seat around the curve of the tank, still within each other's sightline, but having a different view of the surrounding area. Tribby brought out the bag of cherries again.

"So," Spike ventured, "Tribby a Cherokee name?"

"Only in that my grandmother gave it to me," she said, this time putting the pits into her palm. "She was always saying that I was a trial and a tribulation. My real name is Libby, so 'Libby' and 'tribulation' got combined."

"Elizabeth?"

"Nope. Just Libby, Tribby since I was thirteen."

"That when you went to live with her?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you read my file?"

"There are files?"

Tribby nodded. "On all of us." She spat out another pit. "Some more complete than others."

"No, I haven't read any files." He considered this, then decided it was a good thing. If he didn't read what the Watchers wrote, he couldn't be influenced. "So," Spike asked, giving her a sly grin, "were you a tribulation?"

"Not so much," she replied, her answering smile fading quickly. "I was only twelve when my parents divorced, and I went to live with Mom." Her tone became forced, self-mocking. "In high school, I broke the curfew, did the underage drinking, smoked the weed, had the premarital sex." Tribby looked away from him, her quiet voice fading even further as she stared intently down into the darkness. "But I didn't really turn into a wild child until my husband died." Then she ducked beneath the railing, dropped over the side, and was gone.

Spike blinked at the sudden overload of information from the reticent slayer and her abrupt departure. Then he caught the scent and went over the rail himself, dropping down in time to see a tall, thin vampire block Tribby's downward slash with her stake. Another vampire was coming up behind her. He dusted the nearest one, and watched through the dissipating cloud as she simply dropped her weapon into her free hand and drove it into the heart of her attacker. She turned as soon as the demon's hold on her arm faded and came at Spike.

"I got the other one," he said, catching her by the arms.

"Thanks," she said, spreading her fingers wide to show she was ramping down.

"And you got three." This is what his nose told him. When she shrugged, Spike let go of her and canted his head to one side. "You were here for the Winter Solstice world-ender the Vahrall had planned, weren't you?"

"Uh-huh." Tribby tucked her stake into her denim jacket, then gave him a genuine grin. "I saw you fight."

Spike was frowning. Something about her, other than the dark hair, reminded him of Fred just then, but he didn't have time to follow the thought. "And I saw you fight. You were practically surrounded by vampires, and you were moving like you did just now. You just slew three vampires in the time it took me to fall thirty feet, love."

"You make it sound like I did something," she said, turning away to head north. "I just dropped down between them, caught them by surprise."

"Vi couldn't do that, or Rona, and I trained them." He caught up with her, blocking her path.

"Sure they could," Tribby began, contradicting him.

"But they would know better than to drop down between four vampires," he interrupted.

Her eyes flashed with something that sure looked like scorn to Spike. Then she lowered her gaze, demure. "I knew you were there to back me up."

He wasn't fooled. "What gives?" he asked, his voice soft, and if she had known him better, dangerous. "You didn't fight like that on any patrol last week. You were much more… deliberate." The word was the right one; every move she made the past several nights had been thought out. What he had seen tonight had flow, was unthinking use of ability. She wasn't on par with his Slayer, or even Nikki, but he had seen few enough slayers move like that.

Tribby's gaze never met his, hovering somewhere between his chin and his chest. "Maybe I did hold back so I wouldn't do anything that looked stupid. Does it matter? Tonight, there're four less vampires to feed on the humans in the city." She did meet his eyes then. "Let's go find some more."

She stepped around him, and Spike watched her walk away, his eyes narrowed. There was more going on here than a slayer hiding her ability. He gave a mental shrug. Tribby wasn't one of his; all he had to do was make a report to Giles.

⸹

Spike waited outside Dawn's bedroom window, not making a sound. After a moment, she sensed him and rolled over to see him blocking the light coming from the streetlamp. Dawn got up to open the window, and Spike went to slouch against the headboard, his boots carefully not on her clean sheets. She got back into bed and curled against him sleepily, using his chest as a pillow. Spike put his hand against her warm hair and began stroking the smooth strands. They both let out identical sighs of contentment.

"Patrol go okay?"

"No problem." He let himself relax, her warmth enveloping him inside and out, happy to be here, where he didn't have to be anything other than himself. "So, what do you know about Tribby?"

Dawn's brows drew together, and she opened her eyes, blinking a little. "Tribby?"

"Yeah. Can't get a bead on her."

"Oh." She put her head against his chest again, closing her eyes. "Um, she got married, like, right out of high school. Her husband died of leukemia a couple of years ago. I think that's why they married early, 'cause he'd already been sick a lot. I've never seen her go out on a date, so I think she still misses him. She doesn't talk much, but I like her." Dawn opened her eyes. "And I really like her grandmother. They're cute together."

"Her grandmother really likes you," Spike said, the corners of his eyes crinkling, pride obvious in his voice. "She said you were a 'delight.'"

"Well, duh," Dawn said, despite being half-asleep.

He snorted. "Anything else?"

"Trib doesn't like her Watcher all that much."

"Who's her Watcher?" He frowned himself. That was odd; he knew from their interactions who Watched the other Slayers.

"Caroline Greene."

"Thought that was Kayla's Watcher."

"They double up."

"Kayla like her?"

"Uh-huh. Calls her Caro, hangs with her like she was a big sister. I figured the difference between the amount of time Kayla spends with her versus Tribby is because Kayla lives here at Watcher Central." She shrugged. "Maybe not."

"Thanks, Bit. This helps." He put on an officious voice. "I value your opinion."

"Yeah, what would you do without me?"

"Can't do without you, love."

She squeezed his waist with her hand, closing her eyes. "I love you, too." Just when he thought she'd fallen asleep, Dawn lifted her head to look at him. "Oh! Speaking of Tribby, her grandmother has invited all of us down for the Fourth of July weekend. Will you come?"

"Why would I want to celebrate American independence?"

"Because I'm going. Please?"

"If I'm not scheduled to patrol," he groused, figuring he might as well give in now.

"Well, since I make the schedule…" Her voice was smug.

"Here, give us a kiss. I better go down to the basement and tuck Angel in for the night," he said sardonically.

Dawn moaned in complaint. "You're taking my pillow."

Spike paused for a second, the juxtaposition of Angel and his abdomen being used as a pillow dredging up old memories. They weren't so painful now. "Aw, poor baby. You only have ninety other pillows on this bed."

Instead of going to the basement, he went to Giles' office, knocking perfunctorily on the door before going in. He fired up the computer and opened the word processor so he could finish the report.

 _Since we both know you aren't a mathematical prodigy, I'll save you from counting on your fingers. I've left Tribby Snapp for last. On patrol, she's erratic. Twice, I've seen her fight well enough to draw my interest; mostly, I've seen her do minimal work. The thing is, I can't tell you why. I understand she isn't close to her Watcher. You might consider giving her a new one. If she was consistent, she could patrol alone – she took out three vampires in about as many seconds on our last patrol. But since she isn't at top form every night, send her out with a Watcher or the younger Slayers._

He scanned what he had written, password-protected the document, then exited. Spike stuck a note on the monitor to let Giles know it was done, as well as a question that would lead him to the password ('What's my family name?'). Then he went to the basement. Angel was out somewhere. Slightly disappointed, Spike lay down on his cot for a few unsleepy moments. He rolled over, fished around in the jumble of possessions beneath him, and came up with a slim volume of Dylan Thomas to read. He fell asleep before Angel returned.

Angel sat atop the rusting hulk of a Hulett iron ore unloader and looked out over Lake Erie. The big piece of equipment was unused now, a relic from a different age. He could relate. He knew what he must look like, the dark, brooding figure he cut if anyone should happen to spot him, a lone figure lost in the rich solitude and tones of black.

The comparison to Byron would have been slashed to shreds if anyone could see the agony on his face or hear the hoarse, wracking sobs as he mourned his dead.

⸹

July 2004

Only a skeleton crew of Watchers was left in Cleveland over the Fourth of July weekend. All of the slayers, Giles, Dawn, Xander, Willow, and both souled vampires were in the caravan headed to Tennessee. Gunn was going to meet them there, leaving from Falls Church, and he and Rupert planned to return to the North Carolina property. Angel was going with them just to spend some time with Gunn.

When they arrived at Lana's house late Thursday evening, it was obvious that they had left Watcher Central for party central. Children were running around the lawn with sparklers, every window in the house shone, and the strands of little light bulbs along the dock illuminated at least two dozen people.

"Who are all these folks?" Xander asked Dawn in a quiet voice.

"Lana's family," Dawn said with a shrug. She watched Xander's eyes widen as they fell on a well-endowed young blond woman in a bikini top and shorts. "That's Tribby's cousin Ursula," she informed him, her eyes narrowing. "From what her own grandmother says, make sure you wear a condom."

Xander tore his eyes away from Ursula, who was returning his interested gaze. "What? I'm not gonna… I mean…" But Dawn had already hoisted her bag and gone inside.

Spike clapped Harris on the back and went around him into the house, relieving Dawn of her suitcase. Three friendly people offered him a beer before he found Lana. She greeted him with a hug and led him to Tribby's room, which he would be sharing with Angel, Giles, and Xander. When he asked, concerned, if she had room for the lot of them, Lana assured him that her family all lived nearby or were staying with those who did. Spike was surprised to find she had five grandchildren; he'd assumed Tribby was the only one.

Giles and Angel had retreated to self-imposed isolation at one end of the porch, clutching their beers like lifelines, Rupert also balancing a plateful of food on one knee. Both had removed their jackets in deference to the casual dress of everyone around them. Willow sat between them for a few minutes, until Xander tempted her out onto the lawn with sparklers. Angel had counted three yawns before Giles finally set down his empty beer bottle and plate and stood up from the rocking chair with a groan. "I believe I'll go on to bed, because I'm incredibly sleepy. It must be the long trip and the food, because it certainly couldn't be the lemonade these Americans call beer. See you in the morning."

Angel lifted his own bottle in farewell, then settled into the growing shadows. He watched the rest of the Cleveland visitors mingle with Lana's family, not feeling left out, exactly, as he'd chosen to be alone, but touched by loneliness nonetheless. He thought back to the time after Connor's birth, the warmth between him and his A.I. crew, of Cordelia. Watching a young mother light a sparkler for her little girl, he smiled, remembering how surprisingly good the ex-cheerleader had been with a baby. During those months, Angel had to constantly remind himself of the bad things in his past, of what might be coming in the future, just to make sure he wasn't too happy. It had been, he realized, the best part of his entire existence, alive or not.

"Liam."

It took a moment for the quiet word to seep into his consciousness. "Yeah?" he asked, turning toward the voice before he realized who it was. Spike was peering at him over the railing, his folded arms resting against it. Angel could tell he was smiling by the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the mischief that lit them. "What is it?"

"One of Lana's brothers has fireworks. Real ones." When the older vampire continued to sit in his rocker, Spike made an impatient noise. "Oh, come on. Let's go help set them off."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

At this, Spike shoved himself away from the porch railing. "Seen you take on a dragon, mate. Didn't think a few firecrackers would make you tuck tail and run."

When the boy put it that way, he had no choice but to vault over the railing and follow the bright blond beacon through the soft twilight to the edge of the water. Spike wasn't wearing his coat, and Angel frowned at the boy's back, at the too-short arms of the black t-shirt. Spike only seemed to wear the coat on patrol now, as kind of a weapons cache. Angel wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that it was a gift from Wolfram and Hart.

An older man, his short stature and gray-shot hair identifying him as Lana's brother, was by the river with a bushel basket of fireworks of all kinds. He held a Bud longneck in one hand and a long tube of Roman candles in the other. Oh, this is going to end well, Angel thought sourly. Raymond, Lana's brother, must have caught the look on his face. "I've been doing this since before you were born, son. Still got all my fingers and toes." The big vampire didn't correct him.

Fifteen minutes later, Angel was dashing away from a mortar he had just lit, his dark eyes full of manic glee. Watching him, hands over his sensitive ears, Spike grinned. He hadn't seen Angel this happy, ever. Odd that the sparkle in his brown eyes didn't make him look like Angelus. It didn't occur to him that seeing his grandsire this way made him happy, too.

Thirty minutes later, the two of them were in Spike's truck, following directions Raymond had given to a roadside fireworks stand so they could refresh their supply. "There it is," Angel said, pointing, and Spike slewed the truck into a ninety degree turn at forty miles an hour, braking in the lot next to the red, white, and blue tent with a spray of gravel. He was laughing, and Angel didn't have the heart to scold him for his driving.

"I can't believe they sell these to just anyone," Angel mumbled, his hand hovering over a thirty-dollar battery of skyrockets. "Surely you have to have a permit."

"Nope," Spike said, plucking it from beneath Angel's fingers, "and don't call me Shirley. You just have to think like an American, Angel. Get your freedom on." He put the rockets in his already full wooden basket.

Angel wandered a little further along the folding table stacked with high-end fireworks. "A hundred and ten dollars?" he said, shocked by the price of a powerful monstrosity of a rocket.

Spike, however, could read him perfectly. "Big, red, shaped like a penis. Go on, then," he urged. He gave Angel a flirty look. "You know you want it."

"Thought you said I was safe with you."

The blond man gave an impatient sigh. "No one's safe with me," he replied, hefting the expensive firework and dropping it in Angel's own nearly empty basket. "Here. You used to have stones, you great–" Spike stopped abruptly, then finished in a rather lame voice, "uh, wanker."

Angel figured he couldn't ignore this attempt to break an old habit. "You think it's great?"

"Not bloody likely," he mumbled and stalked off to a different part of the tent.

Looking after him, Angel smiled. He was sure what had Spike flustered was being caught trying to be sensitive and not use the word 'poof.' He wished he could predict better what would embarrass the boy. Since he was so bold, almost nothing did, but nothing pleased Angel more.

When they made it back to Lana's, burdened with several hundred dollars worth of fireworks, the crush had thinned as those with children had taken them home to fall into exhausted sleep. Xander headed off in a Jeep piled full of bored young adults, the pneumatic Ursula all but sitting in his lap. Raymond was still there, and he introduced them to Lana's other brother, Everett. Everett happened to have a six-pack of beer. Angel trumped him by getting a jar of clear liquor from his suitcase. After sampling the moonshine and declaring it almost the best they'd ever had, the four men proceeded to light up the night sky as well as themselves.

Three hours later, the humans had gone to ground for the night. Reeking of cordite and, to their own enhanced sense of smell, contentment, the two Aurelians made their way quietly through the house. "I can't wait," Spike said, the grin on his face nearly a permanent fixture. "Three more nights to send up fireworks. American Independence bloody well rules."

"Shh," Angel warned, "don't wake Giles. You don't want him to hear you say that." He opened the door to Tribby's old bedroom. Rupert was sprawled across the small bed, snoring softly. On the floor of the dark room was an inflatable mattress. The two vampires surveyed the prone human, then shared a look. "Family air mattress?" Angel suggested.

Spike smothered a chuckle by turning away into the hall. Most things were striking him as funny, probably due to the moonshine Angel had supplied. "'M gonna get my toothbrush," he informed Angel in a stage whisper, "then I'll be right back. I don't get my teeth brushed tonight, it's gonna taste like I've got hedgehog stuck in 'em tomorrow mornin.'"

Angel snorted a little. "You've eaten hedgehog?" Before Spike could answer, he added, "There's precious little you won't put in your mouth, boy." He was referring to the blond man's penchant for eating human food, but the punch on his biceps was punishing. "I didn't mean it like that!" he hissed, still trying not to wake the oblivious Watcher as Spike rummaged in his bag for his Dopp kit. "I meant, you know, buffalo wings, stuff like that."

Spike gave him an arch look as he passed by on his way to the bathroom. "I know exactly what you meant, Peaches." He blew a kiss over his shoulder.

Shaking his head, the dark-haired vampire closed the door. So much for embarrassing the boy. He began to undress, throwing an envious look at Giles, asleep in an old t-shirt and pajama bottoms. He wished he'd had the foresight to buy clothes to sleep in; he was stuck with his jeans for the night. Angel was pleasantly surprised when he lowered himself onto the air mattress, finding it more comfortable than he expected.

He had dozed off by the time Spike quietly opened the door, smelling of Dawn now instead of gunpowder. Angel rolled onto his side, watching Spike get ready for bed. The blond vampire had pajama bottoms, too, and when he turned around and caught his grandsire looking at him, he seemed uncomfortable. "What? Bit got 'em for me. Said she was tired of seein' the full monty every time some crisis hit in the middle of the night."

"You changed a century-old habit for her?"

"Only when we're under the same roof," Spike said defensively, dropping down onto his side of the low mattress, his weight rocking Angel's body to one side. "'Sides, it was this or start wearing underwear." Angel snorted; not even Darla had been able to make him wear undergarments beneath the proper attire she insisted on. Then Spike went on, his voice softer. "Little enough I won't do for my Sweet Bit."

"People are like that with their kids," Angel agreed.

"Not my…" he trailed off, grimacing. "She's mine, that's all."

No, Angel thought, he never did care for labels. "I understand."

"Do you?"

So much more serious now that he had a soul. "Yes. I do." He could practically feel the weight of Spike's shrewd gaze and cautioned himself to not forget how perceptive the young one was. "So," Angel deliberately changed the subject, "did you get all the hedgehog?"

"Someday, Liam, you're going to talk to me." Spike shrugged a little, the lift of his bare shoulder easy for the other vampire to see, and dropped his head onto his pillow.

"Will?" Angel said after a few quiet moments. "I talk to you more than I've talked to anyone in my whole life."

Spike glanced over at him, at the downcast eyes. He closed his own eyes for a moment, then rolled over to press his forehead against his grandsire's. "I know. Won't make you regret it."

Extremely conscious of the sleeping Watcher just a couple of feet away, Angel cleared his throat. "I know you won't."

The younger vampire's mouth curved, and he cupped the back of Angel's neck for a moment. "Get some sleep now. When with humans, gotta do as they do." Progress, even when measured in millimeters, was still progress.

⸹

Giles woke later than usual the next morning and was surprised to find Xander nowhere in evidence and the two Aurelians still asleep. He was even more surprised at how they were tucked against each other. The mattress had deflated a little during the night, and Angel was using Spike's chest as a pillow, his arm draped over the narrow waist. Instead of trying to evade the heavier vampire, Spike's head was turned toward his grandsire, his own arm curved over the broad shoulders. Giles tried to take off his glasses to polish them before realizing he hadn't even put them on yet. Their sleeping arrangement made him uncomfortable the same way Spike's physical closeness to Dawn made him uncomfortable: it wasn't something humans did. At least Dawn and Spike were inseparable because they loved each other. Whatever bond, of blood or something less definable, drew the two prickly vampires together, it was alien to the Watcher. He wondered how much they understood it themselves, as it was only expressed in their sleep. With Buffy and the older shadow of Drusilla between them, he couldn't tell that they much more than tolerated each other during their waking hours. Perturbed, he headed towards the kitchen and the aroma of coffee.

As the sound of his footsteps faded, Angel spoke without opening his eyes. "Did he actually get out a magnifying glass and examine us?" He felt Spike's abdomen move in a short, silent laugh. "And I thought I was the voyeur of the bunch."

Spike chuckled again. Both of them had woken up when the Watcher sat up in bed, and both had been too content to move. "Rupes is just more likely to expect us to be at each other's throats, is all."

"Why do people always assume that?"

"Must be because we hate each other," Spike said neutrally.

After a moment of examining him as carefully as Rupert had studied the pair of them, Angel snorted. "Yeah. That must be it." He rolled off the low mattress, but not before Spike caught the grin he was trying to hide.

⸹

The two hours until Charles arrived were interminable for Angel. Ute, the German slayer, cornered him on the couch and engaged him in a discussion of Goethe. She was sharp and knew her philosophers, but she also kept edging closer, until he was effectively trapped, her knee touching his thigh. Ute was pretty enough, tall with sandy blond hair, but the sly look she got when he finally noticed she was invading his personal space reminded him he shouldn't have discounted the conversation he'd overheard the day Tribby drove him and Spike to North Carolina to take possession of their newly registered vehicles.

He and Spike had been in the back seat of the Camry, dozing during the long trip, and Ute, along for the ride, had turned around to examine them. "Why don't all vampires look like this?"

"Easier to stake them, I guess." He could hear a frown in the American's voice. "Have you ever seen these with their vampire faces?"

"No." There was a considerable amount of heat in the other slayer's voice. "Easier to get 'staked' by them when they look like this. So, which one do you want?"

"What?" Tribby's voice had a note genuine shock in it.

"Dark to dark, or should we mix and match?"

"Um, neither?"

"Oh, don't be an old woman. They're hot, you have to admit." Pleased despite himself, Angel focused his supernatural senses to his left. Spike was really asleep, unfortunately. He would have enjoyed the conversation, too.

" _Es macht nichts_ ," Tribby said. "They're not interested in us. We're like babies to them, Ute."

Her roommate ignored her. "I'll take the dark-haired one, then."

"Need new batteries?" Tribby asked dryly. "He has a name, you know. Angel. And, from what I heard from Dawn about what happened before they came to Cleveland, he's in mourning. He's a person, not a sex object."

Angel felt the weight of the slayer's gaze pass. "Come on, girlfriend. You aren't a little curious?"

"About necrophilia? Oddly enough, no."

"They're undead, Trib, not dead. That's the difference." The sense of Ute's gaze came back. "What do you think vampires are like in bed?" Her voice became dreamy. "You know how it is when you get all sweaty? I bet he would cool you and heat you up more, at the same time."

"You do know that neither of them is likely to be fully asleep, don't you?"

"So?" There were several long seconds of silence. "From what I can see, only well-hung vampires can get souls."

"Ute Langenbrunner!" Her roommate's voice was barely a hiss, but there was amusement lurking in it. "That's it, girl. I'm turning up the air conditioning."

Ute's response was a low chuckle, and Angel had heard the same throaty laugh a couple of times today on the couch. In a way, it was nice to know that the Scoobies hadn't broadcast the happiness clause in his curse, but that also would have made things easier. Ute was cute, but he wasn't interested. It had been hard enough to really 'see' Nina. So it was with a great deal of relief that he heard Gunn's Mercedes pull into the driveway.

"Excuse me, Ute," Angel told her, and hastily beat a retreat from the couch. "Giles," he said, finding the Watcher in the kitchen, talking to Lana, "Your lawyer is here."

Gunn, looking healthy and relaxed, entered the kitchen and gave Angel a one-armed hug. "Man, it's good to see you. Virginia's okay, but everyone's so damn polite all the time. Glad to be around some real people." He let go of Angel and shook Giles' hand. Lana got a hug. "Wouldn't have anything left over from breakfast, would you?" he asked her, a twinkle in his eye.

Spike, who had been conveniently absent the whole time Ute had Angel trapped on the couch, came through the other door. "Charlie! Been keepin the briefs busy?" He refused to meet Angel's pointed gaze.

"They've been keeping me busy," Gunn corrected, doling out another hug. "But it isn't the same, man. I have to go to the gym almost every day to stay in shape. It was a lot easier to keep up my vamp-dusting skills when I worked for Angel Investigations."

"Here you go, Gunn," Lana said, holding out a plate overflowing with pancakes and link sausages.

Gunn gave her a look as he accepted the late breakfast. "And right back to the gym I go." If he noticed that Angel shadowed him the whole time until he finished eating and they piled into Giles' necrotempered Camry, he didn't let on.

Chuckling a little, Spike waved one last time from the shadow of the garage, then went back into the house, tipping a wink at the disappointed Ute. The slayers, Xander, Willow, and his Bit were in swimwear, roasting in the sun or splashing in the river. He could hear Lana and one of her sisters talking in the kitchen as they made lunch. He felt a little lonely now that his fellow housebound vampire was gone. Thinking he would catch a quick nap to kill time until the sun was lower, he headed back to the room he had shared with Angel, Xander, and Giles.

It was also, he remembered as he saw her sitting cross-legged on the floor, Tribby's old bedroom. "Uh, hey."

She looked up from the box she had taken from the closet. "Hey, Spike. Here, let me clear out."

"No hurry." He watched as she tucked photographs and various gubbins back into the shoebox.

Tribby's hand paused for a moment, then she looked up at him, considering. "Would you be interested…?" she asked, holding out a plastic bag. Inside were two short joints. The dark-haired Slayer shrugged a little. "Supposed to be good for nausea, so I got these for when Jack got out of the hospital, only…" she shrugged again, "he never did."

"Uh, sure," Spike said, doing the only thing he thought polite in the unexpected situation and taking the baggie. "Your grandmum all right with it?"

"Not remotely. Take the boat out tonight, or save it for Cleveland." Not looking at him, she put the shoebox back inside a larger box in the closet, then got to her feet.

"The boat? You want to come with?" he asked, holding up the bag, again feeling that it was the polite thing.

"No." Tribby gave him a rueful smile. "I'm avoiding the water for a couple of days."

He nodded, acutely aware of where the all slayers were in their menstrual cycles. "Thanks, then." She nodded back and shut the bedroom door behind her as she left. Spike looked down at the baggie. He'd smoked his first marijuana in the twenties or thirties; he couldn't remember exactly. It hadn't done much for him, weaned on absinthe and opium as he was. He stuffed the plastic bag into his carryon, then started to shut the closet door.

Pausing as his eye fell on the stack of boxes inside that he suspected were the remnants of the quiet slayer's married life, Spike gave into temptation and pulled out an ornate picture frame. Sure enough, the hinged frame opened to show two pictures of Tribby with her dead husband. He saw that she, like her grandmother, was beautiful when she smiled. The photograph on the left was a wedding portrait, but it was the informal picture on the right that drew his eye. Tribby and Jack were in swimsuits, straight and slender as young trees, brown and laughing on a white-sand beach. Jack wasn't much taller than his wife, had not really grown into the breadth of full adulthood. He was the type Dawn would find cute. They looked very happy together.

Spike closed the frame and placed it back in the box, having learned something else about the reticent slayer. It made him unaccountably sad, he supposed because he had been there himself that terrible summer when Buffy was gone. At least he had hope; Tribby was in love with someone who wasn't coming back from the dead.

⸹

Woken from his nap around three by Dawn's approach, Spike rolled over on the bed Giles had claimed the previous night to wait for her.

"You awake?" she asked, opening the door.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice slow as he held his arms wide. With a sigh, Dawn came in and snuggled against him. She was warm, hot, even, from hours spent in the July sun, and he could feel heat radiate from her through the thin t-shirt and shorts she had put on.

"Mmm," Dawn sighed again, dazed from the sun, putting her forehead against his cool shoulder, "this feels nice."

"Bit, you smell like beer," Spike said, his brows drawing together as he woke up more.

"I just had one," Dawn said. "Like you told me back in Sunnydale, learn my limits somewhere safe."

"What's your limit?"

"Two." Then she shrugged. "Two American beers. Just one of your British pub concoctions."

"When were you in a pub?" He felt her tense fractionally.

"While you were… gone last year. Buffy and I went to London with Giles." Dawn's eyes squinched closed for a moment, then she opened them and met his gaze.

He knew of a sudden, not the details, but that her innocence had been lost to someone with a familiar accent, amid the evocative scent of alcohol and tobacco smoke, an experience too much about grief. There had never been a Catholic schoolboy in Rome. Spike's heart wrenched, but before he could say anything, Dawn closed her eyes again.

"I think I got too much sun," she murmured, putting her cheek against his chest. "Do you mind if I rest here for a while?"

"No, love." He stroked her hair until her breathing evened out, then just watched her sleep, loving her, keeping her safe.

⸹

For Angel, being in the farmhouse was like stepping into an old lair, too familiar from just one visit. That had made him tense for a while, but he eventually settled down in the absence of any threat. He chose the bedroom just down from the living room, and Gunn and Rupert had a coin toss to see who got the room with the waterbed. Angel watched them, a slight smile on his face. Charles hadn't been this happy in months, and he didn't think he had ever seen the Watcher look as carefree.

Giles and Gunn set out for the planned hike around the Watcher's new property, debating the merits of selling it. Angel planned to take his own walk later that night. Alone in the house after they left, he prowled through the rooms, not finding anything that triggered any more disquieting flashes of familiarity. The roof had been repaired in the third bedroom, the damaged furnishings and debris removed. Angel finally settled in front of the computer and began to search the Web for any news about Connor. When nothing came up, he fruitlessly checked for anything about Lorne or Nina.

Hearing his friends approach, he looked up from the computer, surprised he had been surfing for so long. "So, Rupert," he said, "what did you think?"

"I don't think he's going to sell," Charles said, grinning at the older human.

"Well, the property is stunning," Giles enthused. "Did you know there's a lake?"

"I smelled water nearby," Angel admitted.

"The former owner was right," Giles went on, "this would make a wonderful retreat for the Council. So tranquil here, and according to what Willow found, very safe." He stopped himself, clearing his throat. "A-and a very prudent investment, of course. So close to a national park, the property's value can only grow."

"Well, I think you're making the right decision," Gunn said kindly. "I wouldn't sell, either, if it belonged to me. I mean, it isn't like you need the money."

"No, it isn't, is it?" Rupert replied with a jaunty grin. Angel had a pang of envy. That was one part of being the CEO of Wolfram and Hart he missed, the financial freedom. "Well," the human said, changing the subject, "let's have dinner, shall we?" Rupert and Charles had picked up fast-food chicken on the trip, and Angel had two thermoses of blood brought from Cleveland. They dragged chairs onto the shaded front porch and sat with their feet propped up on the railing, the older men listening to Charles talk about his new life in Falls Church.

After a while, Gunn asked how things were going in Cleveland, and Rupert told him about the new training center and his plan to have twenty slayers on the Hellmouth. Familiar with these things, Angel's attention drifted to the fireflies that were beginning to float from the green lawn up into the trees. Giles left the porch for a few minutes and returned with three bottles of Guinness. He passed one to each of the other men, and Charles endured some grief for complaining that the brew was warm.

As darkness fell, Angel was called on to explain the night sounds to the two city-bred humans. After a while, he was anxious to be out in the night himself, and it was a relief when Giles stood to stretch. Angel took the opportunity to make his excuses and go for a walk around the farm alone. He headed along the gravel driveway, following his nose, and found a small herd of whitetail deer grazing in the hayfields. He was upwind of them, but they didn't seem unduly worried by his presence. Angel watched them for a while, knowing he could take down any of the large animals with nothing but his speed and powerful hands, humbled that they had no fear of a predator like him.

He headed towards the small lake, a downhill journey, finding that he was increasingly put in mind of Ireland. There was a calm, watchful feel to the land, an old feel. As he came to the edge, he spotted a boathouse, soundly built but in need of paint. Angel was tempted to swim, but the water here in the mountains was cooler than the river by Lana's house. He turned away and began to hike back toward the farmhouse, skirting a small family cemetery. His eyes lifted to the clear sky every so often, in awe at the number of stars visible.

The scent of green apples was already in his nostrils before he reached the small orchard, and his feet slowed. Angel's eyes swept left to right as he went among the apple trees, almost as if he expected… The odd feeling of familiarity washed over him again, and, for some reason, Spike came to mind. Why would he be nostalgic over the boy? They had seen each other just this morning. He forced himself to continue at the same pace through the trees, and the feeling faded as he walked onto the grass of the back yard. Giles had arranged for the herd of goats to be sold to a nearby farm, and their odor was nearly gone. The Watcher had also contracted with a mowing service to keep the grass cut, but it was still long enough to tickle his ankles as he walked. Angel stopped short of the light that fell on the lawn from the windows, and looked up once more at the bright Milky Way, the scattered constellations. A meteor swept across the silent sky, west to east, and he had a sudden, vivid memory of his long-dead little sister, Kathy smiling so joyfully at him as she held open the door in welcome for an….

"Angel? Hey, man. You all right?"

Startled, Angel lowered his face from the sky to find Charles watching him, concern on his face. "Um, yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "I'm fine. Clear tonight." When Gunn looked up, he took the opportunity to quickly swipe at his eyes.

"I didn't know there were this many stars," the human mused. He looked back to Angel, not fooled. "You thinking about them, huh?" He shook his head and stuffed his hands in the pouch on the front of the hoodie he was wearing. "Me, too. I miss them. Hits me at the strangest times, Fred's smile, something Cordy would roll her eyes at, Wesley's voice saying, 'Exactly.'" Sadness settled too easily on his young features. "I worry about Lorne, too. I hope he's okay."

"Me, too," Angel agreed. "I think about them all the time, slip off someplace alone when it gets to be too much."

"I still get pissed off when I think about Wes' father," Gunn said, bitterness in his voice. Their phone call to break the news to the old Watcher had been met with brutal indifference. Even Cordelia's parents, estranged from their daughter for years, had shown more emotion.

"Fathers and sons," Angel sighed.

"You and Spike?" Charles asked.

"Huh? No. What?" Angel was surprised out of his grief by the thought. "I'm not his–" He stopped himself. "I've stopped thinking of him as any kind of son, anyway."

"More like brothers?" Charles pressed, an intent look on his face.

"I guess," Angel agreed reluctantly. "It's hard to explain." Seeing his friend's expression, he tried. "We're equals. In fact, since Spike defeated me the last time we really fought, he's head of our Order now. But since I'm the elder, I can't acknowledge that. And he won't press the issue, because–" The dark-haired vampire stopped again, not wanting to say those words aloud, thinking that Spike probably had it right, dismissing labels. If there were labels, a fight to the death would be necessary. Angel shrugged and forced himself to say it. "'Brothers' is closest to it, I guess."

"What's up with him and Dawn Summers, all that hugging and sitting on his lap?" Charles asked. This had obviously bothered him for a while. "Surely she's too young for him."

Angel shook his head, glad to get away from his own unexamined feelings about the other Aurelian. "I've never seen a human that gets the whole vampire dynamic the way she does," he mused. "The closest thing for humans would be… I guess he's adopted her as his daughter, or maybe sister. And she understands, she claimed him right back, as a big brother, I suppose. But that's just the surface." He struggled for words. "They belong to each other, with each other. The physical things… I know you haven't seen it with me, but we're very tactile creatures, and that doesn't scare Dawn at all, apparently. For Spike the vampire, if it was sexual, it wouldn't be wrong, but I'm sure his soul keeps that from ever happening. She's Buffy's little sister, after all. But it's still expressed physically, because the… link is so strong. It's a bond, devotion that will exist past death – or it would between demons, anyway." Angel shook his head, thinking of how the boy would be separated for eternity from those he had claimed. "Spike is fearless, loving humans the way he does."

"You love humans," Gunn said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"I don't claim them," Angel said shortly, "not really, except for–"

"Buffy," Charles finished, watching the big vampire nod in silent agreement. "So, for you, it's Buffy and Spike."

"And Drusilla, wherever she is."

"And for Spike, he 'claims' you, Drusilla, Buffy and her little sister, Giles," Charles said, gesturing over his shoulder, "Buffy's friends Willow and Xander, and…?"

"All slayers from Sunnydale, I guess." Angel shrugged. "I'm surprised he didn't claim Fred."

"Well, Fred would be yours, wouldn't she? I mean, you saved her in Pylea."

Angel's lips parted as the dynamic became clear, his own inarticulate emotional reaction to having Spike around his employees from Angel Investigations. No doubt Spike would have wanted to claim Fred, and the only reason he hadn't was out of respect for his grandsire's prior relationship with the human. He stared at Charles for a long moment, then stepped closer. "We call it 'family.' You are mine," he said gruffly, "and it's about time I did something about it." Angel put his hand around the back of Gunn's head and pulled him down so their foreheads touched. "There."

"That's all?"

"It's enough."

"So you've claimed me? As family?"

"Uh-huh." Angel felt lighter than he had for days, probably because Angelus was pulling a little of the burden for a change. It didn't occur to him that he'd forgiven Gunn for his role in Fred's death.

"I don't, uh, feel any different."

"Is this freaking you out?"

"Oh, God, yes."

Chuckling, Angel let go of him. "It doesn't feel any different, does it?" he asked, surprised. "I mean, you already know that I… well, I love you."

"I love you, too, man." Gunn smiled at him. "I might hug you, but I'm not gonna sit on your lap."

"Optional," Angel agreed. "Only if, you know, you really want to."

⸹

Spike backed the pontoon boat out of the boathouse with a casual glance over his shoulder, squinting a bit against the sparkle of late afternoon sun on the water. The awning atop the boat provided more than enough protection.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Xander asked, nervousness apparent in his voice.

"I've handled ships before, mate," Spike reassured him impatiently. He smirked a little. "Almost had to figure out how to pilot a submarine once." He looked over at the dark-haired human, shirtless and decked out in predictably loud swim trunks.

"Yes, but this is a river, a narrow river," Xander fretted, "not an ocean."

"You want to drive, Harris?" The impatience in his voice was tempered by his sympathy for the other man, who had been out most of the night with Ursula, only to find that the well-endowed young woman had a fiancé she didn't dare cheat on again.

"When you put it that way, I'm sure you know what you're doing," he replied hastily, sitting back on the bench seat and sliding his arm around Willow.

Spike could feel nervousness pouring off the redhead, too, but hers was for a different reason. Willow and Xander, sent by Lana with news that dinner was almost ready, had found him and Dawn asleep. The young witch flung herself on the bed, bouncing them into wakefulness, and Xander sat down more gingerly. Within a minute, though, Spike had arranged his humans into a semblance of a family bed, his arm around Willow, Dawn still sleepy and safe between the two men. Deeply content, he took the two older humans to task for letting his Bit have alcohol. Willow's guilt was so immediate that he couldn't keep up the pretense, reassuring her that he was just teasing.

"Spike says," Dawn informed the Scoobies, pulling Xander's arm around her waist, "that you should learn your limits somewhere safe. Really, he's not mad."

"Speaking of which…" Spike mentioned the marijuana, though not where he'd gotten it, and invited the three of them on this excursion. Dawn had rolled her eyes and disparaged his usefulness as a role model. Xander had made a self-depreciating remark about how he had feared he had somehow gotten too old for people to offer him illegal substances. Willow had agreed, too, then fallen silent, and she was still very quiet.

"How deep is this river?" Xander asked, bringing Spike back to the present.

The blond man glanced at the depth-finder. "Thirty feet right here." He felt Xander relax, so he added, "And ten feet here."

"Slow down!"

Spike chuckled. "Don't fret, Harris. The draft on this boat can't be more'n a foot." He checked the GPS propped on the console, then scanned the bank. Tribby had recommended three private coves or shallow bays along the course of the wide river, and the first was already occupied by a bass boat. The second one, though, was empty, and he cut the engine and let the boat's momentum push them toward the bank. Leaving the wheel, and wringing a concerned, "Uh, Spike?" from Xander, he dropped anchor, then secured a line around a tree branch that hung out over the water so the craft wouldn't slew when wake from other boats reached them. Then he turned and bowed from the waist, barefoot and bare-chested, looking every inch the pirate.

"Wow," Dawn said, impressed. "Where'd you learn to do this?

"Here and there," he replied shortly. He and Dru had last appropriated a small yacht in the Mediterranean in the fifties and lived on it for over a year, going from port to port, feeding as they went. Spike thought it was the perfect setup for a couple of vampires. They'd used the living arrangement a few times over the years, never staying in the same place long enough to accumulate a telltale trail of victims, sleeping in the darkened cabin during the days. Dru hit a bad patch the last time, though, and she'd left him sleeping, raw and satisfied, to go play with the fuel. By the time she woke him, there was barely time to escape the flames. They left the blazing boat to sink and swam almost fifteen miles to reach the Spanish coast.

"So," Willow said, pulling him back to the present, "what now?" She sounded nervous.

"We swim," Dawn said, and opened one of the side doors on the pontoon. She slid out of her clothes matter-of-factly, as she still wore her bikini underneath, sat down on the edge of the boat, and slipped into the water. "Oh, that feels like heaven." Dawn had been sunburned that afternoon.

"Oh." Willow let out a breath. "Okay." She had shorts over her modest bikini, and she took them off self-consciously and followed the younger woman into the river.

"Not deep enough to dive," Spike warned Xander, who had kicked off his flip-flops. The dark-haired man nodded, getting into the water more cautiously than he had planned. Spike watched to make sure his three humans stayed in range in case they needed him, then tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his black trousers. They were pants from a karate uniform, a new item for him, more stylish than sweats. The gusseted crotch allowed free range of motion for kicking, and the elastic waist made them easier to get in and out of than jeans. He still hesitated, though, feeling more conscious of the black trunks he wore underneath than he would about being nude. Giving a mental shrug, Spike skinned down the pants. He'd swum in a wool bathing costume in his old life; this couldn't be worse.

Spike came up next to Willow in the water, pulling her back against his chest so they could float together. _You know, Red, you don't have to, if you don't want to._

 _My first time._

 _Figured._

 _I've always wanted to try marijuana. It's just…._

 _I got you. Safe place to give it a go, just like the Nibblet. No pressure, either way._

 _Thanks. You'd think, after all we've been through, nothing would make me nervous anymore._

 _That's a precious thing, yeah? Butterflies in your tummy over something new._

She sensed a thread of sadness. _Is there anything you haven't tried?_

 _Not unless some boffin has concocted something new._

Willow felt his shrug against her shoulderblades. They floated for a while, looking up at the sky. _Spike?_

"Yeah?" His deep voice rumbling against her ear surprised her; they had been speaking inside each other's heads the whole time.

 _Are you worried that Dawn might like it? You know, too much?_

 _You mean, am I worried that you'll become a stoner?_

She would have swatted him if she could reach him, but he had put his finger on it. _Well, you might have noticed in the past that I have an addictive streak._

 _You don't drink to excess, Red. Not worried about you. 'Sides, pot's not exactly what I would call empowering._

Willow felt his trust envelop her, almost as if they had hit a warm pocket in the water. She smiled a little, looking up at Moose Getting a Sponge Bath, and that's when Dawn and Xander launched their attack, splashing the pair from either side and breaking the moment.

Two hours passed in and out of the water before Spike flipped open his lighter and took the first drag from one joint. He considered his three humans as they sat on the boat couches, then passed it to Xander and let the whelp explain how to breathe in the smoke, smiling when all three of the others coughed a little. As it turned out, Spike was right with his inner predictions of how the drug would affect his humans in two cases. Xander got the giggles, and Willow grew more fey, staring around at the slightly altered night with a childlike wonder. Dawn, though, grew anxious, seeking shelter against his chest, and Spike cut her out of the rotation as they passed the second joint around.

"Dawnie," Willow said, standing up, "come see the lights with me." She held out her hand to the younger woman, and with a look of askance at Spike, Dawn clasped it. They went to the bow, and Willow lay down on her stomach, one hand trailing in the water. Across the surface, tiny lights appeared and began to bob.

"Oh," Dawn breathed, kneeling down next to the witch. The fairy lights began to luminesce with different colors. "It's like Christmas." Fascinated, her anxiety melting away.

"Watch this," Willow told her, and the lights began to dance like a water ballet across the surface and beneath it. She took Dawn's hand again, and all the lights dimmed for a moment, then became a clear green.

 _Red._ Spike's warning was adamant, and the witch released Dawn's hand.

"Was that me?" Dawn asked, sounding very young.

"Wasn't it beautiful?" the other woman asked.

"Yeah. It kinda was." Her voice was full of discovery, and she lay down next to Willow, trailing one hand in the water, too.

"Kinda beautiful," Xander agreed, but his eyes were on the display of feminine flesh on the deck of the boat. He passed the last of the second joint to Spike, who sat next to him on one of the padded benches. "I am so sprung."

"You know," Spike said conversationally, pausing to flick the dog end into the river, "I'd have to rip your arms off for that, if I wasn't in the same boat." He chuckled at his pun.

After a moment, Xander got it and began to laugh and found that he couldn't stop. "Same boat," he managed in a strangled voice. He laughed until tears came to his eyes, then he collapsed weakly against Spike. "Wait," he said, suddenly serious. "What was so funny? I can't remember."

The blond man put an arm around him and ruffled his hair affectionately. "You're in a bit of a puddle, mate."

"No, a river," Xander replied with a snort of laughter, and that set him off again.

"Not sure if you're off your face or off your nut," Spike grumbled, a reluctant grin on his face. He looked past the two cute, bikini-clad bums to the lights skimming across the water in a synchronized dance, and took a deep breath of night air, listening to Xander's laughter taper off once more. This was almost perfect.

⸹

" _Mia cara_? It is yours, I think."

Frowning, Buffy dug through her purse. Sure enough, her cell phone was ringing. She gave the men around the table an apologetic look and stepped away so they could continue talking business. As one, they all rose a polite few inches from their chairs as she left.

"Hello?" she asked, not recognizing the number. Buffy honestly hadn't realized that it was on, since the only person she wanted to talk to was with her here at the restaurant.

"Hi, Buffy. It's your sister, Dawn." The teenager made her voice bright and cheerful, but she had learned to identify herself clearly at the beginning of the weekly calls she made to Buffy.

"Dawnie!" Buffy felt her throat tighten. "Oh, I miss you."

"I miss you, too. I just called to say Happy Fourth of July."

"It's the Fourth of July?"

"Yeah. Me and Giles and all the slayers are down in Tennessee for the holiday weekend. One of the slayers has a house on the river. I got sunburned on Thursday and haven't been out in the sun since," she said ruefully.

"You never would put on sunscreen unless Mom nagged you for, like, an hour," Buffy said. She covered her mouth with her free hand at the thought of her mother.

"Well, my surrogate parent can't exactly be out in the sun to remind me."

"Spike? Spike is there?" The last she remembered, he had been in Los Angeles.

Not like I don't tell her this every week, Dawn thought tiredly. "Yes, Spike is here. Well, not just now. He and Angel went out to buy yet more fireworks. He's gonna be, like, bankrupt before we leave for Cleveland. Skint, he would say."

"Spike and… Angel?" Now, this was confusing on a whole other level.

"Yes, Buffy, Spike and Angel. They are family, remember?"

"I know that," she said automatically.

"Good to know that you remember about family." Dawn squeezed her eyes shut. Their conversations lasted longer if she kept her anger banked.

"I'm just surprised that Angel would leave Los Angeles."

"He had to, Buffy, remember?" Dawn couldn't keep the impatience out of her voice. "He picked a fight with the demons that control Wolfram and Hart, really more like a battle. All of his people are dead, except for Gunn and Lorne, and Lorne left."

"Battle?" He hadn't called on her. But, then, she had sent him away from the final battle in Sunnydale, had chosen….

"Yes, battle. Angel, Spike, Charles, and the blue thing that killed Fred against, like, a legion." Dawn had control of her temper again.

"Fred was killed?"

"Yes, but Willow managed to save her soul." It was a callous change of subject, but Dawn knew these facts weren't likely to keep her sister up at night. "So, how have you been?"

"When did this happen?"

"Uh, about a month ago," Dawn replied cautiously. Current events usually didn't engage Buffy's attention this much.

"What about Cordelia?"

"She never woke up. She died without coming out of the coma."

"Poor Xander."

"Sure." Dawn was pretty sure Willow had been more upset by the death of Xander's high school girlfriend. Angel was the one who couldn't handle the mention of her name.

"But you were in Cleveland, right? You're safe?"

"Yes, I'm safe. It took Spike about a week to unbend, though. He was… He was ready to die, I think."

"No," Buffy said slowly, "not if you were around. He'd stay for you." She looked over at the table, her mind on a trip to Cleveland. The Immortal met her gaze and gave her a tender smile, and all of Buffy's anxiety melted away.

"I like to think that," Dawn said simply, "but he wasn't about to leave Angel to fight alone."

Spike and Angel alone… some kind of oil involved. A fond fantasy of the two of them wrestling, shirtless, came to Buffy's mind. "And Spike likes Angel now?"

Dawn bit down on a sigh. "I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they like each other, but they're family. They do love each other. Or, at least Spike loves the great poof. You know how he is. You don't have to like family, just love them."

"I love you, Dawnie."

So much for her pointed words. Vague Buffy was back. "I love you, too, Buffy. So, Happy Fourth, I guess. I'll call you next week. Bye."

"Bye." But her sister had already hung up. Frowning, the Slayer turned off her phone and folded it. There was a lot going on stateside, apparently. She looked at the Immortal again, and her brow cleared. Dawn was safe. Everyone was doing just fine without her.

⸹

Back in Cleveland, the holiday spirit quickly faded. Rona, Vi, Kayla, Tribby, and Dawn all were taking a summer college class in addition to their jobs. Spike implemented a two-hour training regimen for the slayers' early evenings. Now that Giles had used his newfound wealth to make the changes that were, to his mind, most needed and Gunn was making progress on the Council's Swiss accounts, he turned his attention to the operation in Cleveland. He brought Andrew over for a week to set up, in addition to the magical alarms already in place, an electronic surveillance system around the known entrances to the Hellmouth. Andrew's presence had an unintended consequence that made Giles smile; the boy's hero worship of and crush on Spike continued unabated, and when the other Watchers saw how tolerant the vampire was of the socially inept young human, it made them less wary of him.

Rupert looked around at the people in his office on Wednesday. It was an American-free zone, he realized. Dawn was in class, and Xander and Willow were in Africa for the funeral of the mother of one of his slayers. Despite their absence, Giles had called a Watchers meeting, something he wanted to do on a more regular basis, especially now that he had rented office space for the Watchers and they would soon be held somewhere other than his study. At least this time, the blond vampire wasn't alone on the couch. Alan Jacobson was perched cautiously on the other end, and it probably wasn't just his usual sprawl that had Spike's arm across the top of the sofa. He was always going to be a predator, and Rupert wasn't convinced that his territorial stance was entirely unconscious.

"Let's begin, shall we? I trust everyone had a relaxing weekend avoiding the colonials' reminder of their independence." He saw Spike's grin from the corner of his eye, but studiously didn't meet his gaze. Spike had talked him into setting off fireworks with Lana's brothers one night. It had been surprisingly cathartic. He let the murmur of assent die down. "Good, then. Ms. Greene, you say you and Pelham spotted some sort of slime demon on patrol Saturday?"

From the Watchers' description of the creature, Spike identified it as a fairly harmless Blerghwoon, probably migrating and drawn by Lake Erie. The head of the Council was pleased; in the absence of a complete library, Spike was showing himself to be a great asset. He felt a pang of loss and grief, thinking of Anya, who had known so much about various demons and dark lore. Giles went onto the next item on his agenda, housing for the fifteen new slayers due to arrive in Cleveland the first of August. The Watchers kicked around several ideas before Spike broke in, impatient.

"Just buy an apartment building for them, Rupes. You can have your very own Council flats." The room erupted in laughter at this pun, and Giles' smile had a satisfied edge to it. This was exactly what he wanted from William, the endearing quick wit to melt the reserve of his other employees. "They'll have a salary or a stipend to go with the scholarship. Let them sort it out. It'll be good for them."

Giles regained control of the meeting, finished up with a few minor items, and then dismissed the Watchers. Before she left, he detained one of them. "Ms. Greene? Did you know your slayer had been on the Olympic karate team?"

"Kayla?" Caroline asked, startled.

"No, Tribby."

"No," she replied slowly. "I don't remember that from her file."

Giles gave her a warm smile. "I didn't, either." He shrugged. "I learned about it during our holiday at her grandmother's." The smile faded after the woman left, and he picked up Spike's report on the slayers as well as the file labeled 'Snapp, Libby.' When he saw the name of the Watcher who had done the interview, he let out a sigh. The whole situation with this slayer was beginning to be too reminiscent of Faith.

⸹

"All done with your meeting?"

Spike tilted his head and considered Angel from his vantage point on the bottom of the stairs. Despite the way the bulky body was trying to hide it, he could see a suitcase on his grandsire's cot, already zipped closed and, judging by the way it made the mattress sag, full. "Yeah." He ambled the short distance to the other man. "All done with your… packing?"

Angel shrugged and moved into a more normal stance. "Think I'll drive out to the coast, see Nina. Say goodbye." He would, but he was going primarily to see Connor. "Come back by way of Texas, see the Burkles."

Spike nodded. "When did you decide this?"

Another shrug. "Over the weekend. It was good to see Gunn, and that made me think about other people."

"Trying to track down Lorne?" Spike's gaze was piercing.

"He asked me not to."

"Right." Spike stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked away. "When do you expect to be back?"

Angel smiled a little at the boy's casual tone. "More than a week, less than two."

"Taking Rupes' Camry?"

"I asked yesterday. He said yes."

"So." Spike still didn't look at him. "When are you leaving?"

"Now, I suppose." Angel made a show of moving the zippers on his bag a half-inch to the left, trying to cover the fact that he had planned to leave without any awkward goodbyes. "Can I get you anything from L.A.?"

"Yeah, like I'd want anything from there." Spike nodded at the suitcase. "You need me to come with?"

"I'm not expecting any trouble. I figure I'll keep a low profile, stay alert. I'll be fine."

"Call me if you need me, yeah?"

"If there's trouble, you're the first person I'll call," Angel said, a touch of irony coloring his voice. Without thought, Spike had programmed his own number as the first speed dial into his grandsire's new cell phone. Angel had managed to upload "Copacabana" as the ring tone, but hadn't figured out how to promote Gunn's number to first position. He had to try on principle, but he hadn't tried very hard.

"I know you can handle yourself, but… just be careful, you know?"

"I'll be careful," Angel agreed. He stepped forward, elder to younger, and put his hand on the back of Spike's neck.

The blond man didn't move, making Angel bend to touch their pale foreheads together, a subtle declaration of his supremacy over the other Aurelian. "You do that." Then he let out the rest of the air in his lungs in a sigh, and let his senses reach out to the other vampire.

Angel felt as if he had stepped into a hothouse as Spike's aura surrounded him with a strong sense of warmth and family, tinged with worry. He was overwhelmed by the fact that someone cared that he still tried, by the certainty that, finally, they were friends. Unable to speak, he set his teeth, closed his eyes, and opened his own emotions as much as he could.

Angelus was there with his possessiveness and the need for dominance over the boy, and so were his soul's own uglier feelings of jealousy and dismissiveness. Beyond the dark edges, he hoped Spike also got a sense of how much he cared for him, how grateful he was that the vampire who never gave up had not given up on him. Angel knew how hard Spike had worked to be worthy of Angelus' approval. He wished he could tell William how much it meant that he, in turn, approved of Angel, that he considered his grandsire to be a good man. Tears threatened, and he opened his brown eyes, trying not to blink, glad that at least the boy was more emotional than he was.

The blue eyes were happy and laughing, though – never the expected thing. "About time, you stupid ponce." Spike moved forward a step, younger approaching elder contrary to vampire protocol, and took Angel in a hug that demon etiquette had never considered.

"Spike, I…" He tried, he really did, but the words had passed his lips so seldom, dead or alive, that they twisted into hard things in his throat and melted like sugar cubes before they made it to his hoarse voice.

"I love you, too, mate," Spike said, making it easy on him for the first time in twelve decades. With a final pat on the back, he pulled away. "You be careful out there in La-La Land."

"No." Angel didn't let go, gripped the younger vampire's shoulders tightly. "I should have said this on the roof that morning after we got back from Italy." He dropped his eyes, the forcefulness leaving his voice. "I never had a brother – I've barely had any friends, not that I've been able to keep. But we're family, Will." He took an unaccustomed breath. "I do love you." Angel chanced a glance at the pale face, finding the blue eyes overly bright now. "Thank you for staying with me this spring."

Their gaze held for almost a full minute. So much had happened for them to end up in the basement of a Watcher stronghold speaking honestly about their long relationship, that it seemed somehow inevitable. With their understanding of vampire hierarchy, they both knew that the fact that Spike was head of the Order of Aurelius was all that allowed either of them to voice their feelings. A dominant Angel would never bother to admit to such softness; a defiant Spike would never let himself be that vulnerable.

As head of the Aurelians, it was right that the blond vampire pulled away first, breaking the connection. He gave Angel a single nod, almost curt, then lifted the suitcase and passed it over. The lack of drama or teasing was testimony to how much the exchange had meant to him, too. "See you in a couple of weeks, then."

Angel nodded, having to take another breath before speaking. "You be careful here. On patrol, I mean."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, might have to herd Blerghwoon demons. 'M used to a more active Hellmouth." And there it was, the one issue between them that could never be resolved. Drusilla, after all, had been between their demons, not their souls. Blue eyes met brown for a second, their memories of her so vivid that they both might as well have said 'Buffy' out loud. He moved away, his eyes on the floor. "Uh, so…."

"Yeah, I, um, better go." Angel switched the suitcase to his other hand, clapped Spike awkwardly on the shoulder, and climbed the stairs.

The blond man listened to Angel say goodbye to one of the Watchers he chanced to pass, the path to the garage being cleared, the less-than-powerful signature of the quiet engine. Once his grandsire was gone, a slow grin crept across his features. Peaches had finally given in. At this rate, he might rejoin the human race before Dawn was a grandmother. If the ceiling hadn't been so low, he would have done a backflip, just to let off emotion.

⸹

"How was class?" Spike was perched on the end of Dawn's bed, one of the few spots not covered with pillows. He hadn't been able to sleep, working on his bikes in the backyard shed for a while, prowling through the house, making the Tweed Brigade nervous before his Bit finally returned. Angel would be somewhere in Indiana by now.

"Not bad," she replied, leaning over the spot where she'd thrown her bookbag on the floor. "Vi was right; there's a lot of reading, but I've been reading since I was, like, five. I can handle this."

"'Course you can." He waved a hand. "You're smart, love. Nothing you can't do."

Dawn stood up, her Introduction to Psychology textbook in her hand. "Riley used to go on about this stuff," she said, gesturing with the book, "so it's not like I haven't heard the terms before. And no matter what I decide to major in, the class will count towards my social studies requirement."

Even the mention of Soldier Boy wasn't enough to dim Spike's mood. "Plus, you won't be a newbie come September, when all the freshers arrive."

"Exactly." She sat down beside him and put her head against his shoulder, content to just be with him. They were quiet for a while, then Dawn finally broached the subject that had been on her mind since Sunday, when she'd called her sister. "I spoke to Buffy on the Fourth. She seemed… more aware of things."

"That right?" Spike asked, his voice neutral. "Should we try again?"

"I don't know," Dawn said, sighing. "She's happy, and I wonder if she can be happy here – not with us," she added hastily, "but as the Slayer."

"I want her to be happy, too," Spike said, knowing exactly the shape and texture of the hurt in Dawn's heart. It was in his own. "I don't want her to be… exploited, though."

Dawn nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. "When I call her this weekend, I'll see how she sounds. How's that?"

"Good enough, I s'pose."

"Hey," Rona said from the doorway. She hesitated a moment, then asked, "Room for me?" Wordlessly, Spike swept some of Dawn's pillows to the floor and held one arm open for her. "I can't believe I started college." She was grinning. "My Grandmother would be trippin.'"

"My Mom, too," Dawn agreed, grinning back. Rona's good mood was infectious.

"Dawn, did you see that guy on the skateboard? Hot, huh?" Kayla asked, coming to the door. "Oh. Sorry." She looked embarrassed, as if she'd walked in on something she shouldn't have.

"Come on in," Dawn said. "We're getting Spike snuggles. Try some."

Spike rolled his eyes, but shifted so that his back was against the wall. Dawn settled herself on his thigh, making room for Kayla on his left. Kayla lifted her eyebrows, looking mischievous, and squeezed close to Spike, too.

"Nice snuggles," she said approvingly as his arm curved around her.

"It's a burden, I tell you, bein' this lovable," he sighed melodramatically. In truth, he didn't mind. It was only a matter of time before he claimed the Minnesota slayer for his own.

"Kick-ass fighting skills, super strength, scholarships," Rona said, "they're all nice benefits of being a slayer, but I think having Spike is the best. He makes you feel safe."

"Hey!" Spike said, trying to sound offended.

"He's not bad," Kayla agreed, giving him a flirty look as she lightly pinched his biceps, "but I think hearing is the best."

"Hearing?" Rona echoed.

"I used to have to wear hearing aids in both ears," Kayla explained. "I was sitting in Mrs. Cavender's history class when Willow juiced all us potentials. I knew something was different because all of a sudden, I could hear everything." The smile on her face at the memory was still full of wonder. "I didn't figure out about the super-strength until that night when I was doing my chores, but I waited two days to tell my parents about the hearing because I was afraid I'd jinx it."

Spike absorbed this new information. It explained the bird-like movements Kayla sometimes still made with her head. "Didn't know that, love." He gave her shoulders a squeeze. "'M glad for you."

"I heard there's a slayer in Denmark who had cerebral palsy," Rona said, "and now she runs marathons."

"Ooh, dogpile on Spike," Vi said, launching herself from the doorway into the space between Rona and Spike's right leg.

"If my bed collapses," Dawn groused, "all you strong people have to fix it."

"How's your class shaping up, then?" Spike asked Vi.

She shrugged, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. Like Dawn, she had gotten too much sun over the holiday weekend, and the skin on her forehead and nose was peeling. "Okay. Principles of accounting. What can you do?"

"Dawn, have you seen – oh." Caroline Greene, Kayla's Watcher, was standing at the open door, looking unsure of whether or not to be scandalized.

"'M putting together a harem," Spike said, his wickedest grin in place. "Wanna join?" Dawn and Rona punched his torso.

"Er, um," she sputtered, then her voice firmed. "No. Thank you." She looked slightly appalled that she had thanked him, then rallied again. "Actually, I was looking for you, William. Mr. Giles wanted to see you."

Spike sighed. "Duty calls. Go on, geroff me." He grabbed Rona's hand as she moved away and pulled her close enough to mumble in her ear, "Glad I make you feel safe, love." The smile she gave him made him feel ten feet tall. He was having such a good day that Rupert's words didn't surprise him at all.

"Come in. We have a problem." Giles was at his desk, stacks of papers and files strewn everywhere.

Spike settled himself on a corner of the desk. "What kind of problem?"

"A Faith-shaped problem, I fear." He sighed, taking off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Dunno, Rupes. Even you have to admit, that's a pretty nice shape."

Giles let the withering stare speak for him. "Tribby's on her way over, and I want you to sit in on the meeting."

"Why me?" This perplexed him more than what the problem might be.

Rupert polished his glasses a moment before putting them back on, giving himself extra time to compose an answer. "Because you did such a good job on the report. Plus, you've spent time with her."

Spike blinked a little. "Rupes, I've talked to her grandmother more than I have to her. I barely know her."

"You've just put your finger on the problem. None of us know her, except perhaps Ute, and I don't know her that well, either. You've heard the saying, it's the quiet ones you have to watch for? I wanted you here because you are, ah… perceptive." Giles pushed a folder across to Spike. "This is her file, her very incomplete file."

The blond man pulled out the first document. "'Initial Slayer Interview Sheet,'" he read, then sniggered. "Nice acronym."

"Look at the bottom, at who conducted the interview."

Spike squinted at the cramped signature. "Roger Wyndham-Pryce? Wes' father?" At Giles' weary nod, he muttered, "That wanker."

"Rather of the same opinion, myself," Rupert agreed.

Spike scanned the information. Apparently Tribby had been born in Texas and lived there most of her childhood. It clicked then – something in her cadence explained the way she evoked Fred for him time to time. "So, what?" Spike asked, gesturing with the piece of paper. "Think the old bastard soured the well with one interview?"

"If anyone could do it, he could." Giles pushed himself away from the desk, an impatient gesture. "Having a slayer withholding information isn't a new situation. I'd just like to nip this one in the bud, as it were. Here in Cleveland, we have the chance–"

He was interrupted by a knock, and the door opened. "Mr. Giles?" Tribby stuck her head into his study. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, please do come in."

The slayer came in, closing the door behind her. When she saw Spike, she gave him an uncertain smile. He nodded back, blinking a little at her clothing, a light blue sweater and grey slacks.

"Have a seat, my dear," Giles offered, gesturing at the chair opposite Spike, his tense mood masked by genial politeness. He retrieved her file. "I know you have class at seven, so I'll make sure we get you out in time to get dinner before you head to campus."

"Um, thanks." Tribby took her seat gingerly. "History of modern art, last requirement to get in if I want to graduate this winter."

"Sounds interesting," Spike said sardonically. He started to make an off-color remark about Georgia O'Keefe, but Giles spoke first.

"You were, I see here," he said, looking down at the pages in front of him, "pre-med for your baccalaureate and halfway through medical school when, uh–"

"When Jack died," she supplied.

"Er, yes. And now you're getting a Master of Fine Arts. Quite a switch."

The dark-haired slayer looked down at her hands. "No real interest in spending any more time in hospitals." She took a breath and looked back up. "I had a minor in art, but you probably didn't call me in to discuss my choice of graduate degrees."

"No." Giles studied her for a moment. "I see your initial interview was conducted by Roger Wyndham-Pryce. How did you find him?"

Tribby paused before answering, clearly weighing her response. "Disapproving," she said finally.

"In what way?"

"Well, let's see," she said, giving her head a little shake. "He disapproved of a slayer being so old. He disapproved of a slayer being American. I'm pretty sure he disapproved of a slayer being female."

Giles' expression was rueful, but as he looked down, it changed to one of calculation. He passed the interview sheet across to her. "The information we have on you is, I gather, incomplete. I would think, for example, that it would be hard to become an Olympic medal-winner in karate with a black belt in… um, taekwondo, I believe."

Tribby looked at the page, then met the Watcher's gaze levelly. "It is incomplete. Part of it was the fact that he didn't particularly want to hear anything I had to say. The other part of it is, there's just no place on this form for me." She looked down and read from a few fields. "'Guardian's name, high school attended, height at time of interview.' I'm twenty-four, hardly likely to grow any taller, unfortunately." She handed the sheet back to Giles. "I know when Slayers are called, they're usually around sixteen, but after the, uh, mass awakening, the forms really didn't fit as well. As for Mr. Wyndham-Pryce… he asked if I had any martial arts training. I started with the black belt I earned at age ten, but before I could go any further, he wrote that down and went on to the next question. I figured, why bother?"

Giles examined her for a moment in her sweater and slacks, the dark hair pulled back efficiently. Only the most old-fashioned geezer would label her a girl. He handed a blank interview sheet across to her. "I'm assigning you the task of revising the form, then. Afterwards, you can fill one in completely."

She blinked. "All right. Guess I volunteered right into that one."

"What martial arts training do you have?" Spike asked.

She looked over at him, her eyebrows raised, as if she assumed he would just know. "The early black belt in tae kwon doe, a fourth degree black belt in Isshin-ru karate, some other things. I'll write them down."

"Weapons?" he pressed. She was cagey as any vampire.

"In katas, never in a real fight. Except for a stake." She turned back to Giles. "You probably won't be surprised if I say that a stake feels the most comfortable in my hand now."

"That does go with the territory." He moved his head a little to the side, choosing his words. "You're one of the most well-trained slayers not identified early as a Potential. Your Watcher doesn't know any of this, however."

Tribby bit her lip before making another careful reply. "Caro is a very competent Watcher, Mr. Giles. It's just, there's nothing she can teach me. She does very well with Kayla, I think. Caro… wasn't trained to have a Watcher-Slayer relationship with another adult – nor were other Watchers," she added hastily. Her voice became more confident. "The Watcher based out of Atlanta, Luc duBois, knows my background." She said 'Atlanta' the Southern way, the second 't' almost silent.

No defensiveness at being caught, no blame laid on the Council – Giles saw that, to her, there was no purpose to officially update her records. She might be a slayer, but she was never going to expect any support from the Council. It shook him; this was his Council, not Travers'. "Luc said you helped him train the other two slayers in the Tennessee group."

She nodded. "Tracy was just eleven and Heather was fourteen. Neither of them had any background in fighting. It just made sense for me to help out." Tilting her head to the side, she frowned as she studied Giles. "This still bothers you, I can tell. I'm sorry it isn't in there. It's just… not who I am anymore" She looked away. "Sometimes it's like the Olympics happened to someone else. It's not like I'll compete again. I lost my amateur status, did an endorsement deal with a sports equipment company after I got the gold medal."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Medical bills." Her answer hung in the air for a moment.

"Ah." Giles pushed a pile of paper awkwardly to the left.

"May I speak freely, Mr. Giles?"

He sat back in his chair. "Of course."

Tribby let out a long breath. "I know the Council is in a 'transitional period,'" she said, making Spike smile as he recognized the _Pulp Fiction_ reference. "But if it hadn't been for the call for help here in Cleveland at the winter solstice, I would have removed myself from active duty. There just wasn't anything that made me want to be a part of the culture. There are plenty of other slayers, so I figured it didn't matter if my file was complete. You don't really need me, and I never felt like I was part of things. I'm not pointing fingers or anything," she added, "but even getting a newsletter a couple of times a year would help."

"Yes, well," Giles said eventually, taking this all in. "I was merely concerned about the obvious lack of accurate information in your file. I appreciate you being so… forthcoming."

"That's all?"

"You sound disappointed."

She glanced over at Spike, surprising him. "I am." Tribby sat up straighter, still addressing Giles. "I thought that… You know why I came to Cleveland."

"Why?" Spike asked.

Tribby looked between the two men. "To train with you," she replied, then turned to face Giles. "When the first Watcher showed up to explain why I could suddenly run ten times as far and fast, I got excited for the first time since…" She trailed off. "Anyway, I was thinking the Council was going to train me to be, like, a ninja demon-fighter. Then all I get is a visit from Mr. Wyndham-Pryce and a session every two weeks with Heather and Tracy."

She looked back at Spike. "Do you know how long it's been since I've seen a new fighting style? When I saw you on the Hellmouth…" Her voice trailed off again, but the admiring look on her face spoke volumes. "I thought I was pretty clear about my reasons for coming to Cleveland. Now that the gym is almost done, I thought…."

 _I've found my new sensei._ Spike gave Rupert a lethal look, and the Watcher had the grace to be embarrassed. Firming his jaw, Spike bailed him out anyway. "Uh, yeah. Why don't we meet after the group training session tomorrow? You aren't on patrol, are you?" They set up a time, and after the slayer left, Spike folded his arms and gave his fellow Brit a narrow look.

"It wasn't as if we could offer the slayers anything beyond a place to stay when I first came to Cleveland," Rupert said, his tone defensive. "And I always intended to put you in charge of the slayers' martial training."

"You used me as bait, Rupes," he accused, working very hard to keep the amusement out of his voice now.

"You're like catnip for slayers," the Watcher said in exasperation. The vampire raised one arrogant eyebrow. "At any rate, you are in charge of their training. It won't hurt to have a better sense of what she's capable of." He sighed and put his forearms on the desk. "She thinks of this as a _job_ , William, and she'll leave if she doesn't like the hours or, or get promoted. I don't know – is that healthier than thinking of it as a sacred duty?" He stood up from the desk. "No one is qualified to run the Council, not these days. I never saw how… disconnected Tribby was from the Council, and I went through this with Buffy, how she became a strong woman, an adult, and all the Council was equipped to see was a girl. And here I'm guilty of the same."

Spike shifted uncomfortably, then remembered that Giles had mentioned Faith. "Look on the bright side, Rupes. At least now you know she's not about to go over the edge and start killing humans."

"There is that," he agreed in a dry voice.

⸹

Angel sighed. He was on I-70 going west through Utah, still a couple of hours before he had to pick up Interstate 15, and it was four in the morning. There was no traffic to speak of, nothing to focus on besides the straight, empty road, and he had caught himself brooding three times now.

Without letting himself think about it too much, he took out his cell phone and dialed the first number in the list.

"'Lo?"

The sleepy voice made Angel smile. "Don't tell me you were asleep at this time of the night. What kind of vampire are you?"

"Angel?"

"Definitely asleep." His voice grew guarded. "Are you with Dawn?"

"No." There were sounds behind Spike's yawn, which Angel recognized as cot springs. It helped him visualize the boy sitting on the edge of his bed in the basement. "Everything all right, mate? You can't be in Cali yet."

"Utah. Got bored."

"Oh. Well, sorry I'm not more scintillating company. Really, nothing wrong?" He sounded more awake now.

"No. Just driving and thinking. Can I ask you something?" There. He'd broken the ice.

"Can't hardly stop you, not with you in Utah and me in Ohio."

"How did you get it?" He blurted it out, had to hear the answer no matter what.

"What? The soul?" When Angel didn't answer, Spike frowned. "Don't really want to talk about it."

This left Angel at a loss. The boy loved to boast, or had once. Silence stretched out over the miles. "This isn't the easiest thing for me to ask about," the older vampire noted after almost a minute.

Spike sighed. "Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why do you want to know? Now, even."

Angel's jaw tightened. "Because we're family." Scowling, he made himself say it. "Maybe because I'm proud of you."

There was another pause, not as long, and Spike's voice was warm now despite the casual words. "Read a lot of variations of the demon-bound-to-a-grove, demon-bound-to-a-cave legend over the years. Got a story once from a vampire born in Uganda 'bout a local demon he knew about, then sort of put it all together."

When he didn't go on, Angel sighed. "So… You knew this demon existed."

"Yeah. Been through the area."

God, this was like pulling teeth. "And you knew he granted wishes."

"No. Doesn't grant anything. Sets a series of trials for anyone who seeks him. Most die, so not many seek him. Always about the sacrifice, innit?"

"What kind of trials were they?"

"Fights to the death."

"Couldn't he give you anything harder?" Spike chuckled at this, and Angel smiled, white teeth gleaming in the dim light from the dashboard.

"Took me a week or so to pass all his trials. More quantity than quality."

"How'd you come through?"

"Couldn't leave the cave, so any blood I lost was just gone. Got weaker in each fight as the days passed." Spike shrugged. "If they were easy, they wouldn't be called trials."

"Could you, oh, add any details?"

"No." Realizing this sounded curt, he added, "Four in the morning, after livin' with humans so long, I'm big with the sleepies."

"Well, let me ask you this," Angel said, unconsciously slowing down the Camry as he probed deeper. "Is it your soul?"

"Well, yeah." He felt proud not to have used the word 'duh' in reply.

"I mean… the same one that, uh, William had."

"'Course it is. Whose else would I get?" There was another long silence, which Spike finally broke, his voice troubled. "You don't think the curse gave you your own soul back?"

"I don't know," Angel sighed. He had never, ever discussed this with anyone, and he wasn't sure it felt like the right thing now. "It's just, I remember myself as… trouble. This soul seems… too nice to be mine."

The first thing that came to Spike's mind in the way of reassurance was that it took Angel a century to get off his ass and do good, plenty of evidence that the soul didn't like to work and was therefore the original. He bit down on this. "Well, think on it, Liam. You're the Scourge of Europe for over a hundred years. That would make the Zodiak Killer's soul seem kindly and spotless by comparison."

"I thought of that," Angel agreed reluctantly.

"'S'definitely a Catholic soul," he added, warming to it. "All that about guilt and forgiveness and atonement."

"As horrified as I am at the thought of Catholicism after all those convents," Angel said dryly, "I have to agree. That's the only reason I didn't take a walk at high noon those first years."

"Because suicide's a mortal sin?"

"Mm-hmm." He sped back up to eighty miles an hour. "Maybe it is my soul." He couldn't help but think that, unlike Buffy, he had no memories of heaven to torment him. Of course, neither did Spike. "Well, you should get some sleep."

Spike actually pulled the cell phone away from his ear for a moment to give it an incredulous look. "Yeah, dunno why I'm still awake."

Angel started to snort with laughter, cleared his throat to cover it. "Good night, boy." He wanted to add a gruff 'love you,' but the words wouldn't come.

"Night, Peaches."

⸹

When the doorbell rang a second time, Spike put down _Cold Mountain_ and frowned. It was almost the bloody slowest book he'd ever read, but he had to admire Inman's devotion to Ada. It made him wonder if he wasn't coming up short, saying that he loved Buffy but not going after her. He didn't know how to counter the Immortal's – The doorbell rang a third time, long and insistent. Listening and sensing, he realized that he was the only one in the house, and he vaulted up the stairs. A uniformed human was waiting outside.

"Package for Rupert Giles."

Spike looked at the padded envelope. "Right."

"He'll have to sign for it."

"I'll sign for it."

The deliveryman shook his head. "No," he said emphatically, "it has to be Rupert Giles."

Spike fished a slim wallet from the front pocket of his jeans. "I'm William Giles," he said, beginning to be testy as he showed his fake license. "Surely that's good enough."

The man didn't answer, and Spike looked up just in time to see the tail end of some expression – disbelief? pain? – smooth over. "You're his son?" There was a quality of defiance underlying the question, as if he was daring Spike to lie and say he was.

He didn't answer, just observed the human. He had short brown hair and elegant, somewhat overdefined features. Something was off about him besides his surge of emotion, something about the way he spoke. "No," he said, giving a slow, rich smile the man could interpret any way he wished.

"I'm sorry," the human said, tucking the package against his clipboard. "I'll try to deliver it again tomorrow."

This felt off, so Spike did something he rarely did. "What's in the package?" he asked, willing the man into his eyes, employing the mesmer. A real deliveryman would have no clue of a package's contents.

The human smiled at him.

"Hey, Spike," Vi said, coming up the front steps.

"Hullo, love," he replied.

"Any particular reason you're standing in the door?"

"Nice day."

She frowned. "For people who like to get tans."

Spike frowned, too. "Uh, package came for Giles," he said vaguely. "They'll try again tomorrow." Struggling to get out more, he felt magic uncoiling from around him. "Bloody hell," he roared suddenly, making Vi take an alarmed step back. Maybe just a minute, maybe as long as five that he'd been out of it. Spike charged off the front steps, but he could already tell that the scent trail ended at the curb, where the human had driven away.

"Spike, come out of the sun," Vi said, her voice anxious. "You're acting funny, and it's scaring me."

He turned around slowly, still leashing his temper. The right bastard, slamming him with an enchantment on his own threshold. Feeling uneasy at how much power that would take, Spike forced a smile for the redhead's benefit. He had the berk's scent, though, would know him if he ever turned up again.

⸹

Angel knocked on the door of Connor's family's home. He had been in the area for several hours, but had waited until seven o'clock, dark enough for him but not too late for receiving visitors.

"Hi, Mr. Reilly," he said to Connor's father, ducking his head sheepishly. The human gave him a puzzled look, obviously remembering his face but unable to place him. "Um, I'm Angel? We met a couple of months ago when you brought Connor to Wolfram and Hart."

"Oh! I'm sorry; I have a terrible memory for names. Here," he said cheerfully, stepping aside, "please, come in. And it's Laurence, just Laurence."

"Thanks. Just for a few minutes," Angel agreed, wincing at how casually the invitation was given. But wasn't this the sort of normal friendliness he wanted for his son? "I was up here for business and thought I would stop by, see how the boy was doing. He's a good kid, made quite an impression on me." He was babbling, he realized, and made himself shut up.

Mr. Reilly beamed. "Connor is a good kid," he agreed. "Well, I guess I can't call him a kid any more, but old habit, you know. Would you like something to drink?"

"Uh, just water, if you don't mind. I'm driving."

Mr. Reilly nodded approvingly. "I was just sitting down to catch the last of the Angels game." He gestured at the dark-haired man. "You follow them? With your name, I figure…"

"No. Hockey fan, myself."

"Yeah? Shame about the lock-out. Doesn't look like there's much hope."

Angel heaved a sigh. "You said it."

"Connor's out with some friends. Colleen – my wife's with my daughter at the community center, helping set up for an indoor garage sale this weekend – fundraiser for the high school sports teams." Mr. Reilly moved over to the mantel and picked up a picture. "Beth plays softball, and Connor was a starter on the football and baseball teams." Angel looked at a photograph of his son smiling, a wooden baseball bat poised over his shoulder. He'd only ever seen him carry a sword that way. "He's a natural athlete," Mr. Reilly went on. "If he'd been taller, he would have made varsity basketball."

"His–" _mother wasn't very tall_. Angel let the words die as he looked up to meet the other man's eyes.

"Angel…" Mr. Reilly frowned at him. "Is Connor in any danger?"

"No," he said emphatically, having anticipated this. "In fact… did you hear about the earthquake that took down the Wolfram and Hart building in Los Angeles?" When Mr. Riley nodded cautiously, as if, out of politeness, he would never have mentioned such a thing, Angel gave him a wolf's grin. "It wasn't an earthquake. Let's just say, with the loss of the law firm, Connor is safer now than he has been in his whole life."

"You don't sound too upset about what happened," Mr. Reilly said slowly.

"I am," he disagreed, "not about the building, but… about half the people I trust are gone now. There was evil in that building, the same kind of evil that was trying to get… to get at your son."

"So… why were you there?" They were still standing by the mantelpiece, the polite offer of water forgotten, it seemed, as Laurence examined him warily.

Angel looked down. What could he say, that he was still trying to work that out himself? "I guess it wouldn't be too far from the facts to say that I won the firm in a… poker game." Cosmic hold-em, five-karma stud.

"A poker game?" Mr. Reilly's expression was careful, not sure if Angel was playing him.

"Uh, yeah." Unbelievable what a bad influence Spike was on him. Ironic, really.

"Hey, Dad."

Both men turned to face Connor. The scent was wrong, but the voice, the face with hints of Darla's loveliness, the boy's aura… Angel smiled helplessly.

"Oh!" Flustered, just for a moment as he looked between the two, a tiny crease settled on Connor's brow. Then he smiled, covering. "Mr. Angel. Nice to see you. We, uh, heard about the earthquake in Los Angeles. Glad you're okay." Then his head tilted to the side and he got a wicked look on his face that Angel could swear was a twin of his other boy's. "That Camry in the driveway… is that what you're driving?"

The big vampire laughed, allowing himself a measure of happiness to see his son so whole. "It belongs to a friend. I'm traveling incognito."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." He closed his eyes just a moment, savoring the concern, the maturity, the normalcy behind the question. "Everything's just fine."

⸹

"A package that I had to sign for personally?" Giles echoed, as they went over the details of the mysterious deliveryman's aborted attempt for the third time.

"Yeah," Spike said heavily. He reached for his mug. They had come to a bar neither had been to before, wanting to talk as privately as possible.

"And you couldn't remember that he'd been there?"

"Figure he hit me with a memory spell – while I was trying the mesmer on him, mind – and it lasted long enough to get him clear."

"You're not particularly susceptible to magic, are you?"

"Supernatural myself," he replied, shrugging. "Red's about the only one who can bind me for any length of time. And Dru never had that kind of hold over me – as my sire, yeah, but not with the mesmer, not even when I was human."

"Willow's memory spell wasn't on the fly," Giles mused. "I know there was a crystal to focus and amplify it, and I suppose there was a spoken spell, maybe a burning." He signaled the barkeep for another. "It's the power inherent in spontaneously binding a magical creature that I don't like."

"Don't have to make me sound like a bloody unicorn," he grumbled, thinking of Harmony's signature motif.

"Do you think he'll really try to come back?"

"Not a chance. Smart bloke like you not bloody likely to sign for a package now, are you?" He looked at Giles, as serious as the Watcher had ever seen him. "Don't sign anything you don't read carefully, Rupert."

"I won't." He gave the vampire a reassuring smile. "Do describe him again, won't you?"

The blond head tilted to one side. "You know who it was."

"I have my suspicions," he agreed, but refused to elaborate.

⸹

The techno beat was like a pulse behind her eyes, magnifying a slight headache. Buffy was ready to go back to the compound, but the Immortal was spending an unusually long time at this particular club tonight. They had danced when they first got here, then he had left her on the floor to find other partners while he went to a table in a quiet corner with men whose faces were familiar now, only a perfunctory smile for the many other people who came up to greet him. The past several days, large men accompanied them whenever they left the estate, and his two bodyguards on duty tonight were watchful. On a more typical night, they would have hit three additional clubs by now. Buffy didn't appreciate the change in pattern, particularly not tonight, when she would prefer to make an early evening of it.

"Are you ready to go?" He was at her elbow suddenly, and Buffy looked up at him to nod, grateful. He propelled her out of the club in front of him, his bodyguards flanking them.

After the third time she had to say " _Scusa_ " after treading on someone's heels, she turned to give him a sharp look. "Why the big hurry?"

"I am ready to be away from here," he replied shortly. They waited to the side of the main door for the car to be brought around, an almost unheard-of inconvenience for the Immortal. "Where is it? Where is the car?" he demanded of no one in particular.

The noises of Rome at night faded for Buffy as her other senses came awake. Something was off. There was no bouncer, no queue of people waiting to get into the trendy club. The headache was forgotten. Her nostrils flared unconsciously, delicately; her hand found its way into her purse. As always, there was a slender but strong wooden stake in it. She'd thought many times how unnecessary, how silly… but it always went in when she changed handbags.

"Get behind me," she said, stepping away from the bodyguards who blocked her view, towering over her on either side.

"What is it, _bella ragazza_?"

Buffy held a hand up, commanding the men's silence, no thought behind the gesture, her authority here not to be questioned. Darkness was gathered in two places in unnatural shadows, one across the street, the other at the mouth of the alley to their left. Not vampires, not anything she'd fought before.

The shadows coalesced into tall, grey demons in black hooded cloaks, darkness tattering away from the edges as if the cloth was snapping at the existence of light. Their eyes glowed orange, like banked embers.

"Hey, I know," Buffy said brightly, a certain smile settling on her lips, the familiar expression feeling so damn good, "Scooby Doo and the mystery at the old boathouse. You're really the crusty old captain and his shady nephew, right?"

" _Il Immortale_ ," the creature to the left hissed, taking no notice of the small female. There was a scrape of claws on concrete as it advanced.

"Wha- what is that?" the taller bodyguard asked, his voice no more than a moan. The other man was frozen, one hand inside his jacket.

 _Oh, please_ , Buffy thought, _not guns_. She waited, her weight on the balls of her feet, making the heels she wore superfluous. They were tripping all her Slayer senses, but maybe they weren't a threat.

"They're here to try to kill me, I think," the Immortal said, his voice calm.

"Here to kill them," the demon said, nodding at the humans on either side of him. There was a sudden, sharp smell of urine in the air, and the shorter bodyguard turned to run, stumbling before he found his balance. The other man fired off a professional burst from his pistol, but the rounds seemed to disappear into nothingness before they reached the demons. His nerve broke, too, and he ran.

"Can't kill you, Immortal," the second demon said, advancing across the street. "We Percontolaus know that." Grim anticipation crept into the thin voice. "Can hurt you, though."

Definitely a threat. Buffy went for the demon who had spoken first, the one to the left, driving into its midsection with a powerful flying kick. She let the impact knock her toward the second Percontolaus, rolling into the fall, back on her feet in time to block a fist that fell at her like a hammer. The thing was strong, she had to admit. They were taller, had a longer reach, and if she wasn't careful, she could easily be disemboweled by the talons on their birdlike feet when they kicked out at her, their favorite tactic.

Less than a minute later, she stood in the street over the body of the second Percontolaus demon, brushing her hair back into place with an absent gesture of her hand and thinking, gratefully, that they seemed to be the type to dissolve into ectoplasm. Buffy looked back at the sidewalk where the Immortal stood alone, staring at her. She grinned at him.

"Buffy, you…" He took a couple of steps toward her.

In the dim light, she couldn't read his expression. The fierce joy in the victory, the sheer pleasure of using her talent ( _not rusty, not even after all these… months? could it be months?_ ) faded. This was the part she dreaded. Oh, he knew she was the Slayer, but knowing was different from witnessing with his own eyes what a powerful warrior she was. Which would it be? The need to best her, which she'd seen as a shadow in Riley's clear eyes ( _haven't thought of him in a while_ ), or the desire to shelter her, so that she wouldn't have to do what she was molded and tempered to do better than anyone ( _Angel and his insistence that she should have a different life_ )?

The Immortal took a step closer, his face illuminated by the streetlights now. There was a curious look of satisfaction on his face, and he was smiling. "Buffy, brave Buffy… you were magnificent!"

"You think so?" And she was grinning again, so happy to have known battle. He held his arms open to her, and she threw herself into his strong embrace, laughing. I've got that different life now, thank you very much. No demons. Then she frowned a little. Well, those two, percolator demons or whatever. She should tell Giles about them. The thought faded as her lips met the Immortal's in a long, fierce kiss, his shadowed jaw rasping against her skin. This life was much better, because, really, you couldn't have a man who—

One perfect night with a lover who was also her right hand in battle, a gorgeous man who worshiped her, who wanted to be her partner in all things—

No. Not going to think about that, because then she would have to think about that other night, the night in the alley, when she had—

"Mm," she said, drawing away from the kiss even as she put her hand on his cheek to rub at the bristles there. "You need a shave."

"Let's go home," he said, his voice hoarse, his beautiful, sad eyes never leaving hers although he held a hand out to indicate the approaching car. "Why the big smile, _fiammetta_?"

Buffy's smile deepened as all the memories faded except one, Faith's husky voice wondering why slaying made a girl hungry and horny. She waited as the driver and the two bodyguards piled out, armed with machine guns now, looking wildly around and becoming almost comically dejected that they couldn't save the Immortal. That's my job, she thought with satisfaction.

⸹

"Gather around, my lovelies," Spike said, "and behold Harris, who is our slathering, fanged menace tonight."

"Grr," Xander said obligingly, "argh."

"These," he said, holding up a tube from the center of a roll of paper towels, "are your stakes." The paper towels that had formerly been around the outside were now stuffed into the center. He dipped one end into a pot of red paint. It was their fourth night of training in the newly refurbished gym, and Spike was still going over what Xander called 'fundamentals.' "You each get one go with a non-lethal stake, and this," he indicated Xander's heart beneath the plain, white t-shirt the human wore, "is your target."

"Is that washable paint?" Rona asked, eyeing the contraption with distaste. She was wearing a new white-and-orange workout set.

"Dunno, pet. Won't matter if you do your job, now, will it?" Rona looked unhappy, but he ignored her. Spike had already put the slayers through their conditioning drills, which he was going to abandon if he didn't see significant improvement in a week. Frankly, he wasn't sure it was necessary. Rona and Kayla ate nothing but pizza and junk food, while Vi was giving vegetarianism a bash. He couldn't see a difference in their muscle tone. He was impatient to get started. "Right. Who's first?"

"I'm your huckleberry," Ute said, stepping forward with a grin on her face as she eyed Xander. She liked dark-haired men.

"Hey, _Tombstone_ ," Xander said happily, recognizing the quote from a movie. "I was just foolin' about."

"I wasn't," Ute replied in an odd hybrid of Old South and German accents.

"Uh-huh," Spike intoned heavily. "You have thirty seconds." He set the timer. Ute grabbed up the faux stake and began circling Harris, who responded by moving in the opposite direction. "Xander, you're a bloodthirsty vampire!" Spike said, exasperated. "Rrr! Tasty slayer blood. Go for her neck!"

"Are you kidding?" Xander continued to back away, his eyes on the blond slayer. "She'll dust my ass in a heartbeat. I'm a smart vampire, Spike. Ever met one of those before?" He grinned as he saw Spike's rude gesture with his peripheral vision. At that moment, Ute feinted, and Xander went after her, swift and efficient, taking her to the ground, the cardboard tube rolling harmlessly away.

The five-second warning sounded, and Spike let it wind down as Harris helped the German girl to her feet. "Next," he said in a no-nonsense tone. Vashti, Rona, and Kayla also failed to stake the vampire stand-in, whose white t-shirt remained free of red paint. "Oi! Bit!" he called finally, calling her over from where she was laying on a pile of mats, marking half the words in her textbook with a yellow highlighter. "Show 'em how it's done, love."

Dawn looked between Spike and Xander, then rolled her eyes. "Here, give it." She didn't wait for him to set the timer, just waded in and hooked Xander's calf with her foot. The move didn't take him down, but it did put him off-balance. When his arms windmilled out, Dawn tapped his chest with the wet end of the tube. "There you go," she said, handing it back to Spike and returning to her perch.

"Okay," he asked with a measure of sarcasm, "how did the non-slayer do it?"

"One human isn't afraid of hurting another human," Rona tried.

Spike gave her the withering look he'd appropriated from Giles. "You fought with Harris on the Hellmouth, pet. You know he's no lightweight. Try again."

"Yeah," Xander said, "I have field experience." He peeled off the wet t-shirt and struck the same bodybuilding poses he'd done for Dawn before the gym was finished. The slayers made good-natured woman-in-heat sounds as he ripped open a package to don another white t-shirt.

"How did the non-slayer do it?" Spike asked again.

"She moved into her opponent, put him on the defensive," Vi supplied, trying not to sound smug.

The vampire pointed at her. "Right. Sounds like you know your onions, love. Your turn." Vi found her mark in fifteen seconds, then ducked her head and gave Spike a proud grin as Xander went for another t-shirt. "That's the way," he encouraged. "Tribs, you're up." The final slayer feinted and tapped Xander's back instead of his chest. "That would have worked," Spike agreed, "but I asked for a strike on the front." He frowned suddenly. "You've wet your stake on both ends."

"I always use stakes with both ends sharpened."

He just managed not to do a double-take, realizing now how she'd been able to get three vampires in such a short time. He couldn't think of any flaw in this new design. It wasn't as if a slayer had to pound a stake in with a hammer, after all. "Leave it on, Xander, and let her try again. Front this time." He repeated the rotation until they ran out of the cheap white tees and all the slayers had managed to find the sweet spot at least once. Then he split them into teams, letting them take turns playing the demon. He noticed none of them used the red paint, though.

Spike walked between the pairs, correcting form here, giving advice there. He was pleased; they had only been at this for four days, but these slayers were uniformly good students, easy to teach. He thought of the nighttime slayer school in Joyce's backyard, of the timid girls, of Kennedy and lurking Bringers. This was like being an Oxford don after suffering as master of a one-room school. Twenty minutes later, their time was up. He called for a cool-down, leaving it up to them how they did it. After five more minutes, they began to drift away.

"Hey." Dawn came up behind him and slid her arms around his waist. She laid her cheek against his shoulders, and he could feel her yawn. "Want to ride back with me?"

"Sorry, Nibblet," he told her, covering her hands with his own. "Rupes has asked me to do some extra work with Tribby."

"Why? Looks like she's doing all right to me."

"I should have said, Rupert promised Tribby that, if she came to Cleveland, I would do extra work with her."

"Oh." He could hear the frown in her voice. "You didn't know, did you?"

"As I was in Los Angeles at the time, no," he sulked. "Makes me feel cheap and all, Rupes givin' my favors away."

"You can take it," Dawn said dryly.

"'Course I can, just don't want to, is all. Here, give us a hug," he said, unlacing his fingers from hers, "and I'll see you at home." Vi had talked Rona, Kayla, and Kayla's Watcher Caroline into going to a vegan restaurant with her. Ute was talking to Tribby near the door, the dark-haired slayer throwing glances Spike's way occasionally to see if he was ready for her. Vashti complimented Xander on his speed during the drills, making the whelp shy away like a spooked horse. He hadn't, he said, had this sort of flirtation with his slayers in Africa, and was saved from falling back on Watcher pomposity by the arrival of Vashti's mother. Xander waved goodbye to Spike, his eyebrows going up in a premature 'whew' look: Ute caught him at the door. Then Spike was alone with Giles' 'rogue' slayer.

"So," Tribby said cheerily, "where do you want to start, sir?"

"Uh," he hesitated, nonplussed. Not wanting to be here, he hadn't thought it through. Spike had read the revised information sheet she turned in, though, where she had admitted to additional training in kung fu, knowing a bit about several other fighting styles, and how to use the usual martial arts weapons. He shrugged. "Show me what you know, I s'pose."

She nodded, years of following a sensei's instructions in her readiness to comply. "Strikes first?" When he shrugged, Tribby fell into a stance with arms up, feet shoulder-width apart, and began to show him the punches she knew. She did each five times, the fifth identical to the first, knuckles or palms or fingertips striking an imaginary opponent until Spike's eyes began to glaze over.

"Stop," he said, waving his arm. "How many ways do you have of punching someone, anyway?"

She considered the question seriously. "Um… around ninety, I think. Only about forty kicks, though."

Spike blinked. "And do you use every one of these ninety techniques on patrol?"

"Of course not."

Spike had one other question. "You're right-handed, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I always fight off my left. It's a little bit of an advantage against most opponents."

"'S'true." He lowered his head a little, centered his weight. "Show me what you use on patrol." And he went at her about quarter-speed, a reluctant grin spreading across his face when his fingers snatched air. Tribby advanced on him immediately, but he was yards away. She grinned back, picked up one of the discarded cardboard tubes without taking her eyes off him, and came at him in a rush. They tested each other, their movements getting progressively faster, and Spike began to spot glimpses of the fighting form he had seen on the Cleveland Hellmouth at Winter Solstice. He caught her twice in the first two minutes, fangs at her neck, but she managed to graze the fabric on the front of his shirt once, not a killing blow, but more than he had been threatened with since coming to Cleveland.

Grinning in earnest now, he darted away. "Fun, innit?"

"You have no," she said, out of breath, "idea." More speed now, right on him, trying to sweep his legs from under him. As he leapt over her, he kicked out, trying to connect but not too hard. Instead, she grabbed his leg and took him down that way, pinning his shoulders for a moment.

"Don't tell me," he said darkly. "You studied wrestling."

"Nope, but Jack wrestled in high school. I might have learned a thing or two."

"Does this do you any good?" He had one foot firmly planted beneath him now.

"Nope. Can't get to my stake and hold you at the same time."

"Right, then." He rose, throwing her in what he hoped was a gentle way into the wall. As Tribby got up, she made the mistake of glancing away from him, putting a hand out to get her balance. Spike was on her in game face, flattening her against the wall, capturing her arms, fangs at her neck. He gave a short, low chuckle, his demon howling with glee.

Then she moved her bare foot just a fraction, pressing her heel against his groin. Spike went still, trying to imagine the impossible degree to which her knee must be bent.

"Will it save you?"

"No, sir," she admitted, "but I don't have anything else."

He chuckled again, shaking off his demon's face. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Can't do that," she said seriously.

"No," he agreed, "can't give up." Spike let her go. Tribby scooped up another paper towel tube, and they were off again. She was working hard and he was having fun, but it seemed to be enough for her. Occasionally she would get closer than he expected with the tube, with her feet or fists. He couldn't take her at will, but she gave him enough openings that it probably seemed that way to her. After half an hour, he called a break. Tribby grabbed her bottle of water and collapsed on the floor.

"So," she said, her breathing beginning to slow, "what do you think?"

"Not bad," he said grudgingly. "You shouldn't fall to a vampire who's less than fifty, not in an open fight." She started to smile, so he added, "Remember, most vampires don't care for an open fight. You tried a lot of different things." He sat down opposite her, crossing his legs.

"Are you kidding?" She took a quick sip from the bottle. "I threw everything I had at you. My sensei always said it was good to know other styles besides karate, to have a lot of different tools in your toolbox. You," she pointed the neck of the bottle at him, "have a whole hardware store. You could make serious money if you ever want to open your own dojo, sir."

"I've read your file, the new one. I still don't think you wrote down everything. I know I saw capoeira and boxing in there."

"You should read the files they have on us in England."

His gaze sharpened, and he let the change of topic slide. "Different from the ones Rupert has?"

She nodded. "Research-oriented files. Remember when a lot of us were in London a few weeks ago? They wanted to see how we were progressing, how much we could bench, how fast we could run, stuff like that. I guess we're the easiest bunch to get hold of."

"Outside of the girls who were called in Blighty," he reminded her, then frowned. "I don't figure you're supposed to see those files?" She shrugged, and he made one of the perceptive leaps that Rupert had talked about. "You didn't like what you read, I take it."

She considered him for a long moment, as if she was coming to an important decision. "Are we alone, Spike?"

His discomfort was back, but he listened to the building for a moment. "Yeah, we're alone."

"I managed to see some classified data in England, too, not just my record." She waited for his response.

"So," he said, wondering what she expected, "lax security is a concern, you've been a naughty slayer, and I'm not going to swear I won't tell anyone about this."

She nodded, then drained the water bottle. "Figured as much. When they finished tracking down the slayers, there was an interesting distribution in the data, as far as the ages went. Not your classic bell curve, like you have with natural occurrences. There were twenty-one eleven-year-olds chosen, all of whom had reached menarche."

"That makes sense," Spike mused. "Passage into adulthood. And," he added with a grin, "blood."

She nodded. "Then almost a hundred twelve-year-olds. Couple hundred thirteen-year-olds, peaking with sixteen-year-olds. Drops a little with seventeen-year-olds, more with the eighteen-year-olds. Only eight who were nineteen. Two who were twenty. Very sharp drop. Two Slayers who were twenty-two, Buffy and the other one who was Called. One twenty-three-year old, that was me. And then one twenty-five-year old."

"Dana," Spike said, dread in his voice.

"Yup." Tribby was staring straight ahead. "The Council didn't know about Dana at first and wasn't happy to find me. Older, seen a bit of life. I'm not overwhelmed by the doctorates and the tweed and the big words, not after being in hospitals and around the lab coats during Jack's illness. So I wasn't as easily… controlled, cowed, put off. I knew their language, understood their words for me. Outlier. Anomaly."

Spike glanced over at her, understanding beginning to dawn. "Square peg, huh, pet?"

"Uh-huh." There was an amused bitterness in her tone. "Just over two thousand of us, but they weren't happy that I was a chosen one. I don't fit their theory." She gave him a sidelong look. "Want to hear their official theory of Slayers?"

"Why not?"

"The theory goes: born with latent potential, potential activates at menarche, demony-Slayer energy lives in one body until it dies, then is attracted to the girl with the strongest potential, who then becomes the Slayer, singular. As the girl ages, the potential fades, even the Slayerness fades, disappearing utterly by age twenty-five, because no Slayer has ever lived past that age."

Spike raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak. He even took a breath, but didn't say anything.

"No, go ahead," Tribby urged. "You've got more experience fighting Slayers than anyone on earth. What do you think of the theory?"

"Well, I'm not much for figures," he said, although he had been once, when he'd been forced to leave university and manage the estate upon his father's death, "but the theory doesn't mesh with what I've seen in the real world. All right, the Watchers have these numbers–"

"Data set." Tribby's tone put quotes around the words.

"Right, data set, and it matches okay on the front end with their theory. But I've fought Slayers… like you said, I've been around them. The older they get, the stronger they get. I mean, the little Chinese Slayer was nothing next to Nikki, who was twenty. And she was called at what, seventeen? Probably just as much experience as the Chinese Slayer, but… more potent. Buffy has been at it since fifteen, and there's no one like my Slayer, no one."

Tribby nodded. "I've heard. No other Slayer has ever survived eight years."

He smiled at the respect in her voice. "Potentials, I don't know so much about. Ran into a bird in Paris when I was young and still with my family. She wasn't a Slayer, but she kicked our collective vampire asses. Since I been around you lot, I've often wondered if she was a potential Slayer, only never called. I'm positive she was over twenty-five."

She shrugged. "Doesn't agree with the reigning theory, though." She gave him a sidelong glance. "Of course, I've noticed – and been taught by my Watchers – that vampires get stronger as they get older. Seems to be a disconnect, if slayers get weaker as they get older."

"So," he said, "you should be doddering around like a relic. Your existence challenged their theory, and they didn't like that."

"No, I didn't challenge their theory at all."

"You… didn't?" He raised an eyebrow.

"For a long while, until Dana escaped the mental hospital in L.A.…" She looked askance at him and just let it go. "Anyway, they thought I was the oldest one. Not the best, of course, but the oldest. I didn't make them happy. 'When did you have your first period?'" her voice becoming all British upper-crust as she asked the question. "I was eleven. Wrong answer; should have been later." Tribby shook her head and lapsed into silence.

"There's something else. What?" He was seeing a different side of her, an unexpected anarchist emerging. And he'd always loved any talk about Slayers.

She paused. "Not yet. Then, they had their tests."

"Big on tests, the Watchers." He thought of the strings the Council had tried to tie to their scant information about Glory.

"I screwed up their data set." Her voice was full of satisfaction. "Did all the tasks at about seventy-five percent, unless I felt especially vindictive and went all over the scale. That's why I needed to see the classified data, so I could mess with it. Telemetry, my ass."

"All right, Tribs." He grinned at her.

"You don't mind? You are a Watcher, after all."

"I work for Rupert," he said. "If he ever goes, so do I."

"I've got my own theory."

"About Slayers?"

She nodded. "That the demony-Slayer thing is already in every potential, just asleep, and that outside factors play a big part in who gets chosen."

"And what outside factors would those be?"

"Okay," she said slowly, choosing her words. "Let's say you're Michael Jordan, and–"

"Or Becks," he suggested.

"Sure. So, you're born to be the ultimate athlete in a particular sport, the right physiology, perfect blend of strength and stamina, whatever. What happens if you never dribble a basketball or kick a socc – sorry, football?"

He shrugged. "All that atrophies, I guess." He'd seen the same thing in vampires, seen ones who'd survived their first years get soft and fall to the greenest of their minions.

"Exactly." She nodded. "So, you've got this innate skill to be a Slayer, and some people hone it more than others. Was the Chosen One going to be a doughy girl who spent all her time in front of the television, or would it be the girl who got strong doing farm chores or got fast running track?"

Spike nodded. He thought of all Joyce's pictures of bitty Buffy on ice skates and in cheerleading outfits, showing those cute, athletic legs. "And since you knew karate, you reckon it was a factor in being chosen at such an advanced age."

"One other outside factor, I think. You went looking for Slayers, right? I mean before, to fight them?"

Startled that she knew this, he met her earnest gaze. "Yeah. Not easy – she had to stay alive long enough for rumors to circulate, and by the time I could get to her, she'd most likely already be dead. Traveling isn't easy for those of us with sunlight sensitivity."

"Did you ever have to travel to East Nowhere, South Africa, or One-Horse, USA?"

Frowning, he shook his head. "No, they were always in cities. Moscow or Paris or London… where there were demons." Eureka crept into his voice.

"Where they were needed," Tribby added, nodding. "They were called where they were needed. Would you like to ask me something that no Watcher ever did, sir?"

"Like, where were you on the morning of May twenty-whatever it was, 2003?" The last time I died, he thought. I should know that date.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I was sitting in the Cleveland airport, as a matter of fact. Waiting for a connecting flight."

"On top of the other Hellmouth." He was quiet for a moment, then an evil grin took his mouth. "And you aren't going to mention this theory to the Tweed Brigade, are you?"

"Not a chance." Tribby shrugged. "I've put it in my official slayer diary, but I don't reckon any Watcher will get around to reading it for years. This 'anomaly' isn't inclined to give them anything they don't ask for. Politely. After crawling naked over broken glass."

"Attitude, Tribs," he said in a warning voice, "plus, not a great visual. Naked Watchers?" He grinned again, but he saw that she looked grim. 'There's something else?"

Glancing at him, she bit her lip. "Yeah, something else, something I think you and Angel both need to think about." Tribby concentrated on her empty bottle for almost a minute before she spoke again. "There are no eleven-year-old potentials."

He frowned. "But you just said there were, what, twenty-one?"

"They're twelve-year-old slayers, now."

He sat very still as the information and the implications sank in. "No new potentials are turning up." It was a statement.

"None. No new potentials have been identified so far."

Why had he never heard this in any Watchers' meeting? After a long time, he spoke. "Seems my Slayer of Slayers title is secure then." His tone was hollow, though, belying the words, and he looked down, picking at his bootlaces. "Gonna be extinct eventually."

"Maybe not. Maybe when a certain number of us are gone, new potentials will show up or be activated. Or, there was one paragraph about that Slayer called after Buffy, the theory being that the line lies with her. Me, I'm not worried. I don't think we're gonna wind down like toys with bad batteries at twenty-five. Odds aren't good for demons for a long time. But when we start to push fifty or sixty… it's a little much for the Watchers' Council to be funding hip replacements." She looked at his bowed head. "But in your much longer lifetime, if no one new is called… The Council is going to need warriors of some sort to fill the gap."

He could feel her watching him and lifted his head, mouth firming. "Like, say, souled vampires." It wasn't a question.

"Mm-hmm." Tribby stared at the wall. "A year ago, there was one active Slayer, but now the Council has to shift to operate with many slayers. If they ever manage the transition, if they run out of slayers, I think the temptation to have just as many souled vampires might be too much for them to resist. Dawn says you won your soul back on your own, but if a tribe of gypsies could do it to Angelus, I imagine it would be no problem for the Council."

"The gypsy curse rides again," he breathed, thinking of all the old sorcerers who still ran the London operation. "You know this for a fact?"

"When I was in London, I got hold of someone's password and managed to see a lot of computer data. But did I unearth a Council plot to ensoul vampires and keep them on a leash to fight evil? No." She shook her head. "It's just, I see the way they think. Not Mr. Giles, you can tell his heart's in the right place, but a lot of the other Watchers–" She moved her shoulders helplessly. "You know how militant I am about Native American issues, so maybe I'm just primed to see these patterns, abuses of power, whatever, even if they don't exist. But demons aren't real to the Watchers the same way my people weren't real to invading Europeans, the way Africans weren't really people to slavers. I don't even know if slayers are real to them."

She picked at the label on her empty water bottle. "Yeah, I could see it happening, after the last slayer goes in for a heart transplant. They say you're the equal of Buffy. I haven't seen Angel so much in the field, but he's way better than we are now, with a year's experience. Most vampires get dusted before they're six months old, I've heard, but an army of experienced vampires–" Tribby inhaled sharply, interrupting herself. "I'm sorry; this is old-fashioned paranoia."

"Why are you telling me this?" Spike examined her closely. He really didn't know why she was confiding in him.

She blinked. "What kind of person would I be if I didn't say anything? This way, you're forewarned. The worst thing that could happen is that you'll think I'm nuts. I probably am. Mostly, though, I'm telling you because of Dawn, because she trusts you." She smiled at him. "You don't know what it was like before she came to Cleveland to be our ombudsman. The Watchers were… repressive, I guess, and Mr. Giles spent most of his time in his study. Dawn knows what it's like for a slayer; she really made things a lot better. And she's an actual person, not, well, a Watcher. It was like going from silence to giggles." It was her turn to examine him closely. "Mr. Giles said we were to protect her with our lives. Any idea why he said that?"

"I couldn't say," he told her truthfully, going for casual.

"It doesn't matter. We would, you know. Her being here made Rona and Vi so happy, and I don't think Kayla would have stayed in Cleveland, if not for Dawn. She's a special person."

"She is," he agreed, a proud smile on his face.

"And, I figure, anyone she thinks so highly of…" Tribby gestured at him. "Plus, you're Mr. Chivalry with my grandmother, and you've been really gracious about this, you know, extra training. It was obvious that Mr. Giles foisted me on you."

"No," he protested, then met her level, amused gaze. "Well, yeah."

"Thanks for this," she said, gesturing around the gym. "I don't get a challenge very often, much less get my butt handed to me on a platter. I haven't felt this..." Tribby shrugged. "I'll probably leave Cleveland after I finish school in December, so anything I can learn…."

"You wanna spar tomorrow? Or day after tomorrow?"

Her face lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah, 'specially since Angel's away. Don't have my favorite punching bag."

"I'd like that."

He started to say something, then whipped around, sensing her even before he saw the white light. "Willow?" Spike was on his feet, across the floor to her in less than a second, because he could smell – "Buffy? What's wrong?"

The young witch stared up at him. "How – nothing. Nothing's wrong, but… I just need you to come with me."

He nodded, searching her face for some clue. "Right." He pivoted on his heel. "Tribs, close up the gym."

"Yes, sir."

Spike turned back, and found Willow's hand. "Hang on," she said, and they were gone.

⸹

Buffy stretched luxuriously, the covers sliding down her shoulders as she woke from a light doze. Nothing like hours of lovemaking. The Immortal swore that he was human, just not mortal, but she wasn't so sure. No human she'd ever known showed that kind of stamina. She glanced at the red LED on the clock to see how much longer she'd be able to burrow into the thousand-thread-count sheets.

Three-thirty-two.

Buffy frowned. That couldn't be right. Had she slept the whole day away? No, it was still dark outside. She leaned out of the bed to pull the clock closer.

Three-thirty-three now. And the little AM button was illuminated. She glanced over the wide bed to the lump under the covers where the Immortal was sleeping. They had got in a little after three, gone straight to bed, and they had gone at it for hours.

Hadn't they?

"Andros?" She shook his shoulder. "Andros, something weird is going on."

"What?" His tone was sharp as he roused from sleep. He sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. "What is it, _alessa_?"

Instead of speaking, she just stared at him. It was the Immortal, no doubt about that, but… He looked fifteen, twenty years older, careworn, a bit of a paunch spreading over the covers at his waist. "Andros?" she whispered.

"What's wrong?" He was more awake now, and he reached for her, concerned.

She moved away from his hand. "You're… you look… What's happening here?"

He smiled tiredly. "This is what I look like. I'm an old man, you know? Rose-tinted glasses clearing up, honeymoon's over or something." He yawned. "Just go back to sleep, Buffy. Everything will be fine in the morning."

"No." And, somehow, she knew it wouldn't be the same ever again. "You were… you use a glamour to look younger?" What else could explain it?

"No glamour," he sighed, balling up both fists to rub sleep from his eyes like a child. He turned to her, not seeming in the least concerned. "You see what you want to see." He gave a very European shrug. "It's part of being the Immortal; people all see whatever makes them feel best about themselves."

"People… everyone sees a glamour?"

"No," he sighed again. "It's complicated and simple at the same time. It's a gift; people like me because they see themselves as better, or happier, or braver. I don't have a potion I drink or a magic amulet. It's just me."

She stared at him. What made her happy? Did she even know anymore? "But… that can't be it. There's missing time, see?" She turned and held up the clock as proof. "We had… we made love for hours. This can't be the right time." She stared at his familiar yet older face, her heart sinking as he grinned.

"We made love, _belina_ , but again, I'm an old man." His head went to an arrogant cant. "I never need the Viagra, but… hours?" He touched her hair, her temple, and she didn't resist this time. "Only in your pretty head."

"Because that's what I expect?" Her voice sounded faint.

"If it's what makes you happy," he agreed.

Hours of Spike-shaped heaven, she thought numbly, but that wasn't happy, so much as an escape from unhappiness, from….

 _I was happy, at peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right… and I was warm, and I was loved… and I was finished._

She knew what made her happy.

"Oh, God. Dawn. Oh, God." She started fighting the covers, trying to get up, get away.

" _Caprina_ , please, just come back to bed," the Immortal asked, sounding weary. "Things will be fine in the morning, you'll see."

"You mean you'll put the whammy on me again," she accused, grateful she at least had on the scrap of lace and satin that passed for a nightgown.

"What? Whammy? No, I told you, it's just part of me." Then he went still, considering her. "The fight tonight," he sighed. "The gift, it always works on humans, but you're the Slayer, you're a supernatural being. It doesn't work so well on the supernatural."

"It worked long enough," Buffy said, appalled. Months. That last conversation with Dawn… hadn't her sister wished her a happy Fourth of July? "Why did you do this to me?" she whispered.

"Do – I do nothing to you," he said, beginning to get angry himself. He got out of bed, too, picking up a pair of tiny black briefs from the floor to don.

"I didn't do it to myself," she said, clear warning in her tone.

"Yes," he said, nodding vigorously, "you did. 'Hours of lovemaking?' All yours. A younger-looking Immortal? All in your head. I never asked you to believe any of that."

"No." She shook her head, setting her jaw. "You started paying attention to me. Why? You wanted to say you banged a Slayer?"

He threw his hands up. "Fine. I picked you. I did it to you. My fault! Happy now?" He took a couple of steps toward the end of the bed.

"This is not a domestic dispute," she ground out. "This is… kidnapping. Brainwashing."

The Immortal stopped and looked at her in disbelief. "Kidnapping? You come and go freely, I shower you with expensive presents, dress you in the finest clothes and jewels – you say you're kidnapped? _Dio Mio_!"

"Tell me why!"

There was power in her voice, and he stared at her for several seconds. "Fine," he said one last time. "Because of the Percontolaus demons. They've been after me for a while. I knew I needed protection, more than my bodyguards. Someone strong."

"A Slayer. Me."

He shrugged, then added softly. "There are other slayers. You were the one I wanted, Buffy."

She shook her head. "Don't ever say my name again."

"We've shared so much, _bell_ –"

"You. Took." She glared at him, shaking her head. "I never had the chance to give."

"So much," he overrode her, "that this doesn't have to be the end of it. Not like this. Come to bed," he coaxed. "Just to sleep. Let's just sleep, yes? Tomorrow, the sun will be up, everything will be so much more cheerful."

The Slayer was almost shaking with rage now. She had abandoned Dawn, done just what her sister had feared most, and he had caused it. And he wanted _cheerful_? Buffy turned on her heel and walked through the bathroom and into her enormous closet, closing the door behind her with a controlled snick as the soft lights came on automatically. She sat down on a plushly upholstered bench, not looking at herself in any of the mirrors, and drew her knees up against her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. Outside, she heard the Immortal muttering something in a low voice, then a slight creak from the mattress springs as he returned to bed.

The rage faded, and all that was left was despair. She was alone, in a foreign country, no money, because damned if she'd take a single euro from the Immortal, nothing of hers left anymore, thrown away because it had all seemed so shabby in this fine house. She had made her own trap, lovingly decorated it for comfort, and walked right in, leaving everyone she cared about helpless on the outside. Andrew wasn't in Rome any longer, and she couldn't go to Armando, not after treating him so condescendingly. Her cell phone was new, paid for by the Immortal; she had no idea what anyone's number was these days. What was she going to do? There was nowhere to turn, nothing left.

Buffy sat up, drawing in a breath, meeting her own eyes, bright and green with unshed tears, in one of the mirrors. She knew what was left; Angelus had taught her that lesson many years ago.

Me.

And there was one pair of shoes that were her own. That was a start.

In the same bag as those shoes, she found a postcard from Dawn and two letters. Her heart breaking, Buffy looked at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the front of the card, then flipped to the back. She'd never bothered to read it before.

 _Hey, Buffy. After Rome, Cleveland is cold and damp and gray. Wish you were here. Love, Dawn_

Buffy put her hand over her mouth, smothering a laugh that would sound scary and hysterical. She could practically hear her sister say those words, coating them with sarcasm. One of the letters was from Armando. Not going to open that one, no way. The other letter had no return address, but she recognized the beautiful, old-fashioned handwriting, and this one she did open.

 _Hullo, love. I hope this letter finds you well and clear-headed. I most likely will not be. The poof has scared up a big fight for us this time. Thought only a couple of crazy Aurelians would take such long odds, but Wesley, Lorne, Charlie, and that odd Old One, Illyria, are along for the ride, too. We all miss Fred, and I don't know if Peaches will ever stop grieving over the cheerleader. Don't forget Angel's people, Buffy, if the worst should happen. They're all right._

 _None of that signifies, though. I'm writing because, if I can't look out for Dawn, it's down to you. I know you're happy in Rome, pet, but I worry that there's something other than love behind it. I hope I'm wrong, because I do want you to be happy down here, Buffy, not just marking time until you can go back. Even if I'm not the one making you happy, I still want that for you._

 _So, stop reading here, I guess, if you're certain. But if you have your suspicions or odd moments, please read on._

He had left empty space at the bottom of the page, making it easy for her to ignore the rest. She wanted to stop, to fold the letter and put it away, but she read on because she was definitely having an 'odd moment' and because she was the Slayer. Buffy turned to the next page.

 _You'd never guess it, but I used to be considered well-educated. When I was a lad, I wanted to be what's called an archeologist nowadays, so I learned a bit of history and folklore. I studied the famous legends – the Grail, the Ark, Troy – and a lot more that aren't as well known. Have to tell you one of those, now, love._

 _Biblical lore says that after he betrayed Christ, Judas Iscariot threw away the thirty pieces of silver and hung himself out of guilt; everyone knows that. Other legend says that his story doesn't end there. Heaven wouldn't take him, obviously, and Lucifer, a fallen angel, would not take him either, out of the love he still held for his estranged family. Rejected by death, Judas just lived on and on, reviled by everyone, a wretched existence. Lucifer, having been there himself, finally took pity on the creature, and granted him the magical and nebulous ability to be at peace with humans. He lives on still, wandering the earth, just another man among billions. That's the legend._

 _The thing is, Buffy, there aren't a lot of legends about being immortal. Conquering death, yes – you've done it yourself. But not about immortality. Not even vampires have true immortality; you well know we can be killed._

Buffy's hands shook. No, this couldn't be. It was just Spike. He was wrong. He was jealous. It couldn't be.

 _I have no certainty in this, love, except that Dawn needs to be with one of us, and I don't know if it can be me after this battle. If you're happy in Rome, make room for her. If you aren't so sure, go to her in Cleveland. Vampires can't have children, but I hope you won't think too unkindly of a notion I've entertained about Dawn, that she's ours, somehow, yours and mine. She has your strength, your goodness (the two of you practically glow with it), my… well, you can blame all her bad traits on me, not that she has many._

 _If the worst happens tonight, we won't meet again. Know that I have loved you as no other man on earth has ever loved a woman, as no demon has ever loved. You're the one, Buffy. You're strong and good, and there's nothing you cannot do._

There was no 'Spike' or 'William' at the bottom of the letter, dated weeks before. He had signed the letter simply, 'Your Vampire.' A tear fell on the paper, splotching the ink. She knew he was all right, but just before she mastered herself, she thought of a world – again – without him….

Buffy's eyes went to her sister's name and laughed a little, a shaky sound, at the thought that Dawn was their lovechild. She could see that, in a way. The part of her soul that was undamaged and living in Dawn, loved Buffy and Spike more fiercely than anyone else. It was comforting, in a bizarre, only-in-my-life sort of way, that she did love Spike and did love herself. This let her focus on what was important instead of the contents of the letter.

"Oh, Dawnie," she whispered, "Hang on. I'm coming." Buffy folded the letter and put it in the bag with Dawn's postcard and Armando's unopened letter. She found a skirt and a top that belonged to her, realizing with a start that she hadn't thrown away the outfit that she had worn to Los Angeles when she got the impossible news about Spike. Her shoes didn't go with it, but it didn't matter.

Then she had a thought and began rummaging through her collection of purses. Willow had come to Rome (they had all come, hadn't they? And she had smiled and nodded and let it all fade into mist, because they were safe and she was done), and the two of them had gone shopping. Willow had given her something "in case." What was it? There, in the tiny aquamarine leather purse, a crystal. She looked at it, taking deep breaths. If it didn't work, she was tapped.

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment in self-contempt. Duh. Dawn had called her just a few days ago; she did have a current number in her received calls list. And if that didn't work, there was the American embassy. Breathing normally again, glad that she didn't have to rely solely on magic, she found her discarded passport and visa, tucked them in the plastic bag that had held the shoebox, and walked out of the closet.

If Andros wasn't asleep, he was doing a good job of faking it. She didn't stop to check, just strode through the bedroom, down the long hallways. Buffy halted in the large room beside the pool, sparsely furnished to allow guests to mingle freely. She turned and examined the coat of arms on the wall. The shield had a red, Spanish-looking cross in the center, something that looked like chevrons around it, and exactly fifteen silver rivets on either edge. Her mouth tightened. Then her gaze wandered to the two swords mounted behind it. She hadn't been the most studious Slayer, but she recognized them as Toledo workmanship, probably seventeenth-century.

Hell if she was going to leave this place unarmed, having dispatched vengeful demons for her erstwhile lover this very night. Buffy dragged over a deceptively heavy chair, not caring if the grating sound woke everyone in the house. She stood on the chair, ripped the device from the wall, and took the first sword that came loose. Leaping lightly to the floor, she shook her hair back. Then she picked up the shield, not because it was useful, but because she wanted him to know that she knew. Buffy looked out at the pool, the focus of much of her life of leisure, her face expressionless, then strode toward the front door.

No one barred her way. The dogs patrolling the compound knew and ignored her, and she simply walked along the driveway to the front gate. Buffy considered jumping over it, just for style, but all she had to do was turn sideways and walk between the bars. There was a guard in the gatehouse, sleeping, and she continued walking for about a mile, feeling awake for the first time in ages. Then, not knowing what else to do, she wrapped her fingers tightly around the crystal Willow had given her and concentrated hard. _Willow. It's Buffy. I need you. I don't know what this crystal does, but I'm hoping it will get us in touch with each other. Please, Wil. I don't want to be here anymore._

Nothing happened. A couple of tears leaked out, and Buffy wiped at them absently. She put the crystal back into her purse and pulled out the cell phone to look at the list of incoming calls. Like clockwork, Dawn had called every Sunday. A few more tears escaped over that. She was about to hit dial-back, not sure if that would work for an international call, when her purse began to hum. For a sliding moment, she thought the phone was vibrating, and she stared stupidly at the tiny screen. Then she grabbed the crystal.

She felt a whoosh of air and saw a lot of crimson light. Then she was in the empty outdoor café in the square where she and Willow had coffee the day they went shopping. Willow was standing across from her wearing a faded Hello Kitty t-shirt and what looked like an old pair of Xander's boxers, based on the loud pattern. In her hand was a matching crystal. The expression on her face was a mix of fear and hope.

"Buffy?" Willow asked.

"I want to go home," she managed, before the tears started. She held out her arms to her best friend, not sure if Willow would want to hug her anymore. "But I-I don't have a home."

Willow took her in a tight embrace, tears on her own face. "Oh, Buffy. Of course you do. Wherever Xander and me are, that's home. And Dawn. And Giles and Spike, too."

Buffy sobbed, her heart breaking. How many times had she really hugged Willow like this since her best friend first told her about liking girls? She couldn't remember. Things had been better at the end in Sunnydale, but she hadn't really been comfortable touching anyone for a long time. "Thank you for coming. I didn't know if you would, if I'd used it right."

"Of course I came. Come on," Willow said, pulling away so she could brush Buffy's hair back from her face. She gave the other woman a tremulous smile. "I'm staying with Xander in Cleveland this summer. We'll pile on the couch together and talk." When she saw Buffy's face fall, she added hastily, "Or we could make popcorn and find bad movies to watch, if you, you know, don't want to talk."

"I can't," she whispered, shamed again as she thought of the misery on Xander's face the last time her friends had come for her. "I can't face anyone, not yet. I let Giles down – he took a lot of crap when he gave me Italy, but he knew I always wanted to…" Her voice trailed off. "Could I… could you maybe take me to a hotel? I could get a room, just for tonight. I just… I just want to see Dawnie." Buffy's face screwed up again.

"All right," Willow agreed, staring at Buffy, her mind obviously trying to work out what happened. She held out her hand. "Hang on."

⸹

"She's inside with Dawn," Willow said. She and Spike had materialized on the second floor walkway of a motel, outside room 246. "I left her a crystal to get in touch with me, and all of a sudden it started glowing. She wanted to come back home." The young witch's face tightened for a moment at that word. Were any of the Sunnydale survivors ever going to feel at home ever again? "She hasn't told me or Dawn what happened."

Spike checked their surroundings. There was more road noise than he liked, but there were worse places in Cleveland. "Don't worry about me, pet. I'll make my own way back." He touched her cheek. "You look tired."

"I am," she admitted. "Transatlantic bopping with someone in tow is a bit of a strain." They leaned against the railing in silence, looking at the door.

"So," Spike said eventually, "any idea?" He was trying not to pace.

Willow knew exactly what he meant. "None. She had a sword and a tacky sort of shield, asked me if they had any sort of magical vibe. Inert," Willow added, answering the question he posed with an arched eyebrow. "She sort of looked like she just left all of a sudden in the middle of the night – which I guess is what she did." The redhead brushed hair out of her eyes. "She seems… very Buffy." When Spike met her eyes, she shrugged. "More like herself than she has been in a long time." A smile lit her face then.

"Nice when she's like that," Spike agreed. "She–" He broke off as the door opened.

Dawn came out. "Hey. Thought I heard your voice." She went into his arms automatically. "She's pretty much okay, I think. She didn't want to face anyone else at first, then she asked for you."

Spike examined her face, finding mostly happiness. "She knows you, yeah?"

"She knows me," Dawn confirmed. "She asked if I'd taken the Slayer's Scythe, so she's worried about the important things. If she were bossy and complaining, I'd say she was normal."

Spike heard Willow's little snort of laughter and pulled her into their embrace. "Good," he whispered, kissing first the red head, then the brown. "Thank you, both of you."

"Like we did anything for you," Dawn said, but she was smiling. "Go on in. She's waiting for you. Be nice. See you tomorrow, okay?"

"Xander and I will drive over tomorrow, whenever she's ready to go."

"Buffy's going to share my cramped little room," Dawn said, and she didn't even come close to sounding put out about it. She gave him a quick kiss. "'Night."

He nodded, nervous, and stepped up to the door, waiting until the surge of white light faded. He knocked. "Buffy."

She opened the door, looking up at him, clad in Dawn's too-long sleep shirt and looking about fourteen. "Spike," she managed, holding her arms out.

He held her small frame gently as possible as she clung to him, pushing the door shut with his foot. She was crying again, a terrible thing to do in a cheap motel room. The only furniture was a bed and the low dresser that supported the television, so he scooped her up and propped against the headboard, holding her.

Spike already knew more than Willow. She smelled of disgust, a lot of it self-directed, judging from the pink, scrubbed skin. Despite the shower she had taken, he could tell she had been with another man recently, consensually, and he had to have a long internal monologue with his demon about patience. There was something indefinable about her that made him think she had been slaying tonight, too. She was healthy, her skin and nails and hair perfect, not quite at fighting weight but close.

Buffy cried for a long time, mostly in relief. She thought of the letter, of the things he would never have written if he thought he would survive the battle, and gripped him very tight, hiding her face against his shoulder.

"Mind the ribs, love."

Oh God, his voice, wrapping around her with the warmth his body couldn't provide. "I love you, Spike. I love you."

His own arms tightened. She had said it. He had never dared dream of this, of hearing these words for the right reasons. Buffy finally said it.

"I love you, too. You know I do." He bit his lip, dismayed with the echo of a previous declaration, but she didn't catch it. "Always love you," he added, trying to bury any memories of their last time together in his Sunnydale crypt. Bloody Riley Finn. It had been lovemaking that night, had been brilliant until that wanker showed up. What might she have been spared?

"I finally read your letter," she told him, and then she had to cry for a few more minutes. What he wrote, about them not seeing each other after… It wasn't fair that he was barred from heaven. "I can't lose you again," Buffy said fiercely.

"Didn't think you wanted me. No reason to–" He gave her a ghastly imitation of a smile. "We heard about the Immortal, me an' Angel, went to Rome on a Wolfram and Hart supersonic, were in the same club as you – nothing. You didn't even turn around."

She shook her head. "No," she said slowly, "I would have known."

"Spun me, love," he admitted, "me and you in the same place, and you not even noticing, sensing I was there. Angel, either, but who cares about Peaches, yeah?" Spike put his face against her neck, fearful for a moment that he would feel her stiffen with the old wariness. "Not much reason to go on without you, without even being needed as your friend."

"You thought you were going to die," she whispered, "and I wasn't there, wouldn't have even–"

"Angel had the good fight; couldn't let him go it alone." He shrugged. "Came through it."

"You, and Angel, and Charles Gunn, right?" Buffy closed her eyes, her voice heavy. "Wesley is dead, and Cordelia died in the coma, and something awful happened to Fred."

"And Lorne left, got lost in America," he agreed, then sighed heavily. "You can't begin to imagine how much I hate Los Angeles, love, and that was before my most recent stay there."

"And Willow and Kennedy have broken up," she recited softly, a line of concentration set between her closed eyes.

"'Bout time," he growled.

"She's no Tara," Buffy agreed, and just like that she was ready to talk. "There's a shield against the wall over there. It's the Immortal's coat of arms." She felt him look away and took the opportunity to wipe her eyes and peek up at him. Spike looked good, better than he had in a long time, much like he had when they first began working together, fighting Glory. Loving him, grateful for the feeling, she watched his blue eyes suddenly narrow. He was counting the rivets, she knew. "You were right. What you wrote in the letter, I mean. Or, if it's not him, it might as well be."

"Is that why…?"

"No." She told him about the fight with the percolator demons ("Percontolaus," he corrected, rather predictably), then took a breath and told him everything else about the night, right down to the time discrepancy. By the time she revealed what her happiness was, she was crying again.

His eyes were wet, too. Warm and happy and finished, memories of those shocking words in a brightly-lit alley behind the Magic Box that would haunt him forever. "Had anything to drink tonight, love?" he asked abruptly.

"No," she said, frowning. "A cosmopolitan at the night club, but that was hours–"

"Sorry, wasn't clear. Water, I meant. You're getting dehydrated."

She blinked, affronted for a moment, thinking he was exasperated by her crying jag. Then she realized he was just being a vampire and smelling her. "That's just creepy," she groused, but she smiled at him.

Spike's lips parted. "If I had breath to take away, love…" he said, worship in his voice. Then he bit his full lower lip. "Here, uh, let me go find the vending. I'll get you a bottle of water." He slid away from her to stand beside the bed, staring down at her with a too-readable expression.

"Coke," she corrected him. "Full strength. Need calories and caffeine tonight."

"Be right back." His fingers lingered on her hand, then he was gone.

Buffy heard him sigh on the other side of the thin door. She pulled Dawn's nightshirt down a little lower. The whole time she had she had been sprawled in his lap, nothing. Then she just smiled, and he was hard, was ready for action. Buffy sighed herself. It would be a while before she could be intimate with anyone like that, after this… violation. And Spike knew that. For once, she found herself glad he was so perceptive, relieved that she wouldn't have to spell out how much she was affected by the way the Immortal had used her.

He took Dawn away from me, took Spike away from me, separated me from my friends, and that means he took my self away, she thought angrily. And he's… he's… She felt her gorge rise. He does this to everyone, to some extent, but so thoroughly to me… It was exactly the kind of gift Lucifer would give, providing comfort to a traitor and harm to everyone he came in contact with, like a mental Typhoid Mary.

At the end of the walkway, by the stairs, Spike fed dollar bills into a vending machine, his head against the cool glass, tears streaming down his face. She was there, all of her, and she had asked for him, needed him. She had said that she loved him. Any dream might come true now. Time he had, and patience could be learned, because he had dreams again.

There was a knock on the door, and Buffy started, then realized Spike didn't have a key. She opened the door for him, and he came in with three cans of cola and an armload of junk food. "I got whatever had the least nutritional value," he explained.

"Yummy," she told him, knowing it would sound forced. He filled the room, the vitality that had always set him apart from anyone else alive or undead crowding her. Tonight she didn't have anything to meet that, counter it. He saw her shrink away, and directed his attention elsewhere, finding a place to sit on the far corner of the bed, watching her as she ate and drank. He opened a bag of pretzels for himself, only eating a handful before Buffy finished, her hair spilling over her shoulder as she leaned over the bed to reach the little trash can.

"Got a story to tell you, love," he said, looking as if he dreaded it. "Doubt you're the only one who's been duped into guard duty over the years." He told her about his and Angelus' capture, their ladies' tryst with the Immortal, and the opportune escape. "Feel marginally better about it, given the new information you've uncovered," he concluded, his voice sour. "Maybe he wouldn't have seduced us into it; maybe he would have just put the whammy on us without the foreplay." A grim smile touched his face at some memory. "Given us what we thought we wanted."

They were sitting on the bed facing each other, bags of chips and candy bars between them. "Eewww," Buffy said, shaking her head against the mental picture. There were no good mental pictures involving the Immortal, not for her. "And Angel… eewww." She tilted her head. "Wait a minute. Where's the glower?"

"What glower?"

"The glower you always give me when I say his name."

"I don't always – well, okay, but that was Angelus. Angel's not bad – he's not great, but he's not bad. I finally got him to break down and admit we're family."

She looked puzzled. "He's, like, your grandsire. That's pretty much a fact. Why wouldn't he admit it?"

Spike waved away the complexities. "Vampire thing. Don't fret it." He watched her yawn. "Here, love. Let's clear this food off the bed, get you under the covers."

Panic filled her eyes. "Don't leave. Stay with me tonight." Buffy colored a little. "I don't mean – that way."

"I know, love," he said gently. "'Course I'll stay. Be on my best behavior."

She lay under the covers, clinging to his cool body, both of them studiously ignoring his willful erection. After a few minutes, Buffy whispered, "Dr. Spike's World Famous Amazing Thrill Ride." Then she snorted and started giggling and couldn't stop, a hysterical edge to the laughter, but it felt so good. She had once asked if he, like so many men, had a special name for his penis, and he came up with that on the spot, just to make her laugh. She hadn't laughed, not then. All she had wanted at the time was the thrill of the ride. She wiped her eyes and got a good look at Spike's face, his helpless expression of joy and love. "It is funny, Spike. Sorry I didn't laugh the first time."

He shook his head, then said in a fairly good barker's voice, "Step right up, pretty young lady, hurry, hurry, hurry, come see the world's largest, most advanced, and justly celebrated method of putting a smile on your face. For you, Dr. Spike's Famous Ride is always ready to thrill and amaze. Ride once, you'll want to ride again and again. No hurry, no hurry, no hurry."

Buffy laughed again, deep chuckles that made her clutch her belly. She knew he was staring at her, too amazed to join in.

"God, Buffy," he managed, closing his eyes. "I–" He was in a state of grace; how could he tell her that?

"I love you, too," she said, laughter still in her voice. They still loved her, and it was going to be okay. She had pushed them so far away that they couldn't rescue her from herself, but they still loved her. She could face Xander now, could face Giles. In a less than a minute, she fell asleep, and the vampire watched over her through the night, the expression on his face known by one other person in the world.

⸹

"Buffy."

Angel dropped his suitcase on the floor, his fingers gone numb. Buffy was sitting on Giles' couch under Xander's arm, Dawn on her other side.

"Oi! Peaches!" Spike practically skidded around the corner. "Buf – oh. Guess you know, then." He grimaced, wanting to have saved his grandsire from the shock.

"Hey, Angel," she said, sounding perfectly normal. "Welcome back."

"Same to you," he said, rather pleased with his brain for managing anything at all. Then she was up from the couch and smiling at him, expecting a hug. He felt dizzy and took an uncharacteristic steadying breath. "I can't tell you how good it is to see you." Over her shoulder, he saw Xander and Dawn regarding them, unsmiling. It wasn't him, he realized; it was the proximity of the three of them.

"I'm sorry to hear about your people," she said quietly, pulling away.

He nodded. "Thanks."

"So, how was L.A.?"

"Hot. Smoggy." He shrugged, hesitating over his next words. Angel wanted to ask about Rome, about what was going on with the Immortal. "So… are you here for a visit?"

Buffy's eyes were full of emotions before she averted them, none of them good. "I'm here to stay," she said firmly, and then he watched as her gaze went past him, pleading for something.

"Here, Liam," Spike said, "let's go get you unpacked." The impossibly blond head came into view as the other vampire reached for his suitcase. Buffy's plea, it seemed, had been answered.

"Uh, yeah," Angel managed. 'Liam' meant serious. He started to follow Spike, then turned back to Buffy for a moment. "I'm glad you're back."

She forced a smile. "Thanks. You, too – back, I mean. I-I'm glad you're back, safe and everything."

In the basement, Spike tossed the suitcase onto Angel's cot, threw himself sideways onto his own and propped up, ass and elbows, then patted the remainder of the thin mattress. Angel lowered himself gingerly next to where Spike was slouched. "What happened?"

Spike gave a snort of laughter, no real humor in it. "Never thought I'd wish we still had the mindlink. Right, then. Gotta say it." He gave an impressively concise report of what had happened while Angel was gone, his voice very low so only the other vampire would hear. If the boy could have managed to give such quick, precise summaries when they were hunting together, it would have cut down on the number of beatings he received.

Angel interrupted only once. "Judas Iscariot? Christ!" Then he realized how wholly inappropriate the blasphemy was, and put his head in his hands. "You knew this, and didn't tell me?"

Spike looked fixedly at the suitcase opposite, anger radiating from him, not aimed at his grandsire. "Had my suspicions, that's all. My burden to carry. You had enough of your own."

Staring at the blond vampire, he thought again of the resignation that defined Spike those last days in Los Angeles, the anarchy and humor that had sustained him for decades all but extinguished. It made more sense now. Supernatural though they were, they had nothing to counter the magic of angels, fallen or otherwise. _How do you give her up?_ "Spike… you should have told me."

"You had your own worries," he said, flapping a hand as if shooing away the whole thing. "Anyway, let me finish." When he did, Spike let out the rest of the air in his lungs and turned to Angel. They studied each other a long moment.

"What does she want to do?"

"Put it behind her."

Angel nodded. "Family matter, then."

"Thought so myself."

"Will Willow send us there?"

Spike frowned. "Dunno, mate. Remember, she doesn't handle vengeance as well as we demons do."

The dark-haired vampire nodded, having heard enough of what Willow had done the summer when he had….

Watching him, Spike saw Angelus in the brown eyes, and he responded, an evil look on his own face. "Tell me."

Angel shook his head. "Won't work. We'd need someone who can handle a boat. An ocean-going vessel, I mean."

"So happens I know my way around a boat."

Surprised, he met Spike's level blue gaze. "That a fact?" He sketched out a plan and was rewarded with the boy's deep, satisfied chuckle.

"Knew I could count on an appropriate scenario from you."

"I can't take credit for this one," Angel said, his eyes shadowed. "Another Aurelian came up with it."

⸹

With the addition of Buffy, the next couple of days were full of tense moments for various members of Rupert's large household. The worst for Angel was coming across a sweet domestic scene of Buffy and Dawn sitting on the couch, holding hands, talking and giggling together, Scoobies and several of the Cleveland slayers surrounding them, a court to the princesses. On the floor in front of them like a supplicant was Spike, their feet on his knees as he painted their toenails a cheery coral color, apparently content with his lot in life.

"I can't believe I never let you do this before," Buffy was saying.

Spike flashed her a look that clearly said they had done everything else. "Too busy, I guess," he said shortly, in deference to their audience.

"You next," Dawn said firmly.

"Dunno, Bit. Got any black?"

"Of course. And I think," Dawn said, examining him critically, "we need to do your hair."

Spike moaned a little in protest, but Rona sat up on her elbows from where she lounged on the floor next to him in anticipation. "Oh, yeah, like we did that day it rained in Sunnydale. That was fun."

"Fun?" Spike asked, his voice full of incredulity.

Kayla, trying to study in the space behind Vashti's chair, called out, "What did you do?"

"Dawn and a bunch of us potentials were stuck inside because it was raining, and there was nowhere to go in Sunnydale – literally, because everything was closed down by then. So Dawn offered to help Spike bleach his hair, and we all–"

"You nearly scalped me," Spike broke in, sending a sour looking at the grinning Rona. "Would never have let the lot of you near me, hadn't been weak from Buffy pulling me straight off the Hellmouth."

Rona rolled her eyes. "You know," she told Vashti, "bleach really stings. I thought straightener was bad."

Vi took up the story. "Then we got to return the favor and do his nails for a change. Dawn got him to tell us about when he started wearing his hair like that, back in the eighties–"

"Seventies," Spike corrected.

"Whatever." Vi tucked a pillow between her back and the arm of the couch. "Anyway, he used to wear eyeliner, too, and he let us do that. He looked really hot." She threw Xander a mischievous look. "Didn't he, Xander?"

"Yes," Xander agreed heavily, "good enough for a demon magnet like me." He shrugged and added in a defensive tone, "At that point in time, the endless string of demon ladies hadn't been working out so well. I was scraping bottom." He squinched his eyes tightly shut and pointed a large finger at Spike. "Don't say a word." Not looking away from Buffy's thin toes, the vampire twisted just enough to blow him a kiss.

"Do you have any piercings?" Vashti asked from her spot in the armchair Kayla was leaning against.

The look he flashed her had a wicked edge to it. "Hard for a vampire to keep anything pierced, innit? We heal so fast." He straightened into proper Victorian posture to examine his handiwork, eying the Slayer's foot critically. "Did creative things with safety pins – stupid to keep those for long, in case of a fight. Now, in the eighties, some boffin came up with a piercing gun. Dru got hold of one, and I've had studs in all sorts of improbable locations." Spike looked around at Willow, who seemed to turn red for no reason. "Hit a nerve in my tongue once, and for a couple hours I sounded like the babbling idiot Peaches always said I was."

It seemed to be a cue for everyone to notice Angel was standing there. "If the tongue fits," he said without thought. Buffy snorted, and Spike did nothing more than raise an eyebrow, but it was enough to make the dark-haired vampire look away, clearing his throat.

"Now, that's the kind of thing I usually say," Xander pointed out.

"Would have been better off at your tender mercies, Angel," Spike said, giving a theatrical shudder, "than I was with the potentials. Worst memory ever of being in Joyce's kitchen, this lot of harpies tearing at my flesh."

"Oh, please," Dawn said, "you loved it, being the center of attention for a houseful of women."

"And that differs from his current situation how, exactly?" Giles asked, walking past Angel without really looking up from the book in his hand. "William, take a look at this." His eyebrows going up again, Spike accepted the book from Rupert. "Bottom of the page."

"Coptic," the blond man mused aloud, holding the book a little closer. "Um… definitely 'twelve,' something like opportunities, chances… I'd say 'twelve opportunities.'" He handed the book back to the Watcher.

"Yes, that's what I thought, too. Odd." He hooked his glasses over an ear at a time, adding in an absent tone, "Er, thanks."

"Do you have enough translation to share with the rest of the class, Giles?" Buffy asked brightly.

He looked up at her, pulled from his reverie. "No."

Amused, she watched him head back to his office. "Go, go Wonder-researcher, away." She loved just being here, all of her favorite people around her.

"He must have gotten a new batch of those rare books he's been tracking down," Willow said.

"Without Wolfram and Hart, he's been able to get a lot more," Angel mused. He shifted uncomfortably when he realized he'd pulled everyone's attention back to him. "No bidding wars," he added lamely.

This didn't seem to require a response from anyone, so Spike changed the subject. "One last dab, all done, Bob's your uncle." He capped the bottle of nail polish. "Off me, then."

"Me next," Vi demanded, uncurling one leg and thrusting it toward the blond man.

"Huh-uh," Rona challenged. "I've been laying here breathing in those fumes for a reason. Line starts here, girl."

"Before you get started," Angel interrupted, obscurely offended by their bossy treatment of an Aurelian prince, "I thought I'd give this to you before I forget." He handed a large, heavy sheet of paper to Spike.

He took it, expressionless, then his face softened. "Dru," he said, touching her face with his fingertips. It was something Angel had drawn before he left the family for good, a portrait of Drusilla and her consort sitting closely together, their cheeks touching.

"Dru, that's your sire, right?" Rona sat up to peer over his shoulder. "She's beautiful."

"Yeah," he agreed. "No one like my Drusilla."

Dawn shot Buffy a look, to see how she was taking this, but her sister was looking at Spike with as much affection as he was looking at the portrait. Apparently, any old girlfriend your lover had offered to kill for you was nullified as a threat.

"'Course," Spike was telling Rona as he passed the picture to her, "she was also mad as the proverbial March hare. She's killed a Slayer herself, so–" He broke off as something dawned on him, and he looked up at Angel. The paper was yellowed, obviously not recent. "You went back to the Hyperion," he accused.

Angel shrugged. "I had to; that's where the–"

"Bloody hell, Angel!" Spike was on his feet and a step closer to his grandsire in less time than it took the humans to blink. "You knew before you even left you were going there; you should have asked me to come with."

"I'm a big boy; I can cross the road by myself and everything," the older vampire replied mildly.

"By going there, you put yourself in danger, and you know it." The deep voice was raw. "You think your Senior Partners won't be watching the hotel?"

"I didn't just waltz in off the street, Spike," Angel said, beginning to feel angry. "I was as invisible as I could be, and here I am, back safe and sound. It was fine."

Spike looked at the floor and shook his head. "I should never have let you go."

"You're not my–"

The blond head snapped up. "I am, actually."

Angel gave up trying to stare down the younger vampire after a few seconds. "You don't have a picture of her," he said at length, his voice soft. "I saw what you did for Willow, how much it meant to her." The broad shoulders lifted. "It's the kind of thing family does for each other, and I wanted you to have that."

"Dammit, Angel," Spike said, clearly both touched and exasperated. He let out most of his air. "Thank you," he said gruffly, and pulled the other vampire's head toward his with both hands, their foreheads touching briefly. "I should send you to bed without supper or ground you or something, but thank you." He flung himself back to the floor and plopped Rona's feet into his lap.

Angel's brown eyes were warm and laughing. "Don't you hate it when they won't mind?"

Spike's head swiveled sharply back up to meet his gaze. "Turnabout, huh?" A reluctant grin broke over his face.

"She's pretty," Vashti said, examining the portrait that Rona had passed to her. She was able to ignore the two men and their drama, having seen the same sort of jockeying between her father and her beloved older brother in her own family. "And this looks exactly like Spike. You've got a talented hand, Angel."

"Um, thanks."

"Can vampires be photographed?" she asked curiously.

"Depends on the amount of silver used in the lens mechanism," Willow replied, "but, generally speaking, yeah."

Vashti leaned over the arm of her chair to pass the drawing to Vi. "How come you don't have any pictures of her, then?" Then she rolled her eyes and answered the question herself. "Sunnydale Crater. Duh. Blond moment."

"Hey!" Spike and Buffy said in indignant unison.

Frowning, Angel lowered himself to the floor gingerly, not too close to either of them. "I thought you said you lost your things in a fire in your crypt before that."

Spike's blue gaze flashed to Buffy, who had closed her eyes. "I did," he said shortly, opening the nail paint.

"What happened there? All those candles you're so fond of?"

"Just one of those things, is all." Couldn't Angel hear the doors shutting in his voice?

For his part, Angel caught the troubled look that passed between Xander and Willow. There was a story here, obviously. "How did it–"

"So, how was Dog-girl?" Spike broke in, anger and resignation in his voice. He couldn't win this one; Angel could deploy the news of both Harmony and the female brief, Reyes, but he wasn't going to allow the memory of that night in the crypt to detour Buffy from the very healthy path she was on.

"Don't call her that," Angel said automatically. He felt Buffy's gaze on him like a physical touch and met her startled eyes, wincing inwardly. Then he dropped his gaze.

"Dog Girl?" Xander asked, amused.

"Yeah, female werewolf Angel was housetraining. So, any good shagging dog stories, mate?" The last word was bitten off as he got two blasts of painful emotion, one from Buffy and one, confusingly enough, from Willow. Realizing one source of pain, he lifted his head and looked into Rona's confused face. "Oh, bugger," he breathed.

"Shag – you slept with her?" Buffy's voice was strained.

"It wasn't… She had just…" Angel closed his eyes and tried again. "It didn't mean–"

"Angelus?" Xander spat the name, on his feet, a stake appearing in his hand. The new slayers grew uneasy, staring at Xander, not sure where the threat was.

"No!" Angel protested, looking away from where Buffy had interposed her slim, strong body between him and her sister. "I've got my soul, Xander."

"How do we know that?"

"I would know, Harris," Spike said, his voice heavy and deep in the tense atmosphere. He was still facing Rona, but his eyes shifted to a far point of the room. "Put it down, Rupes." They all turned around to where Giles stood in the door of his study, a crossbow held to his face, sighting down at Angel's back. The slayers looked at the tense Scoobies, then at each other, trying to figure out what was going on.

"If you're not," Buffy forced the next word past her lips, "Angelus, how were you able to…?" Her chest was rising and falling rapidly.

Angel shook his head and looked at his hands. "It's not – That wasn't the perfect happiness part. The perfect happiness was you."

A couple more of the quick breaths. "How long since you've figured this out?"

"Maybe a year and a half after I got to Los Angeles," he admitted, looking straight at her. There were two small blotches of color on her cheeks, and he hated that this was so public. "I – I was trying to lose the soul the first time I – It was a low point, and I wanted… I didn't want to fight any longer." Angel looked back down at his hands. "There've been one or two others."

"Cordelia?" Across from her, Xander made some slight noise, his fist tightening on the stake.

"No!" Angel's face was a mask now, furious at having to talk about this at all. "I would never–" He stopped, realization falling like a thunderclap. He had always shied away from intimacy with Cordelia because it could have led to exactly that moment of perfect happiness. He gazed into Buffy's hard face for another moment, then she was off the couch and stomping up the stairs.

"Way to go, soul man." Dawn threw the words at Spike like a cobra spitting venom, and she headed after her sister. Angel was gone, too, retreating in that swift way of his.

"Remarkable," Giles said, easing up on the bolt, "your capacity to say exactly the wrong thing, William." He retreated back into his office.

Spike let his head fall back on his shoulders, then headed for the closest part of the disaster that needed salvaged. Sighing, he scooted to Willow's chair on his knees. "Dunno what I said, love, but I'm sorry."

Behind the two of them, Xander's eyes widened. He had been so focused on the possibility of an unleashed Angelus that he had missed that altogether. "Veruca," he said bitterly.

"That sort of wart thing?" Spike asked, further confused.

"No, the name of the werewolf that tried to kill Willow," Xander told him, putting away his stake.

Willow met Spike's concerned eyes. "The Veruca-werewolf who slept with Oz-werewolf." She lifted her shoulders. "That's why he left. Human Oz wouldn't, but… he didn't have control, not as much as he thought."

"Goes with the territory," he said, but he was touching her chin gently.

"So, having been on the receiving end of slutty werewolf bitches, I guess I'm the voice of experience that should go up and speak with Buffy. Anything you can tell me?"

Spike closed his eyes. "Dog-girl didn't mean anything more to Angel than Harmony did to me – well, that's not true. She had been bitten just a short time ago, and Angel was trying to help her. But it wasn't anything like to love." The blue eyes opened again. "And I didn't mean to bring up Angelus. I was just trying to…" He firmed his jaw.

"You were trying to change the topic from your crypt fire," Xander finished. When the vampire turned to stare at him, he shrugged. "What? I can do insightful."

"Did Buffy start it, Spike?" Willow asked.

"What?"

"The fire. We've always wondered," Xander said, shrugging again. "It wouldn't be the worst–"

"No, she did not start the fire," Spike broke in, annoyed. He hadn't been there at the time, but he just knew it had been either a panicked or a malicious act by Riley. "Go on, then," he said to Willow, sounding tired, "go to her. I'll mend fences with Peaches."

After they left, Kayla peered from behind Vashti's chair, having long since given up studying her Introduction to Modern Education notes. "What the hell just happened here?"

Rona and Vi exchanged a look, then shook their heads. Their conception of the dynamic between their leaders, their mythology – Spike was brave and good and loved Buffy eternally; Buffy was brave and good and loved Spike but tried not to because he was, after all, a vampire – had just been severely shaken. "How does Angel fit into this? I mean, why would Buffy care if he slept with some werewolf girl?" Vi asked Xander.

"And why would you and Willow think Buffy would set Spike's house on fire? I mean, she's not some kind of crazy, Left-Eye Lopez chick," Rona added.

Xander looked around at the Slayers, then shook his head. "Huh-uh, no way. I lived through all this once; that was enough." He sat down, feeling weary to his bones, and stared at the floor. His conscience immediately began to nag at him. They were part of the gang, in their way; the slayers probably needed to know the background. He sighed. "Okay, the facts: Spike won his soul back in trial-by-combat, something like that. It's his. _Angelus_ pissed off the wrong tribe of wandering gypsies, ate one of their children, and they cursed him with a soul to torment him for his sins. If he experienced one moment of perfect happiness through the misery, the curse was broken. Welcome back Angelus, one of the most notoriously evil vampires ever.

"Buffy met Angel long before she met Spike. She gave Angel that happy." He closed his eyes. "She didn't know. No one did. Angelus came back, things got bad, people died. Willow, bless her, has a natural ability with soul magic and restored his." Xander's voice went hard. "I would have preferred that Buffy killed him then, and I'm not happy that he's not practicing abstinence now.

"The other part," he went on in the uncomfortable silence, "is something we didn't dwell on much when you potentials were in Sunnydale. Now you're part of an army of slayers, but Buffy was the Chosen One, a target for a lot of evil. Buffy had already died twice, the first time against a five-hundred-year old vampire, the second time sacrificing herself to save the world. To save Dawn. That's why Spike got his soul, because he promised Buffy he'd take care of Dawn, and he needed it after she… died. Whatever else he is, Spike's as good as his word." He ran a hand through his hair. "We brought Buffy back, me and Willow, not from the hell dimension we thought she was in, but from – let's just say, you guys have a great eternal reward in store." He struggled for a moment, then went on. "We were wrong, and she paid the price. It wasn't easy for her to adjust to being back here with us, and we were too guilty to be of much use, and… Spike took the brunt of it." He shook his head, clenching his teeth for a moment. "It was a… volatile relationship. Buffy wasn't… stable at the time." He didn't look up, just stared at his hands. There was a long silence.

"So," Vi said faintly, "Buffy has slept with Angel?"

"Exactly once," Xander confirmed, "which, not a good thing."

"How old was she?"

"It was on her seventeenth birthday." Xander looked up to see Vi wrinkle her nose in distaste at the age discrepancy. He was with her. "Gives a whole new perspective on cradle-robbing, doesn't it? Not the worst thing he's ever done, not by a long shot."

"And setting his house on fire wouldn't be the worst thing she did to Spike?" Rona's face was hard.

"None of you," Xander said fiercely, "gets to judge Buffy. We damn well better be clear on this. We yanked her out of heaven. Not one of you was Chosen, had the whole weight of the world's existence solely on your shoulders. None of you has stopped apocalypse after apocalypse with absolutely no thanks, none of you will ever have to give up the chance to go to college, to date, to have a life because of your duty. When you've died twice, when you've sacrificed both," his voice lashed at them, "of the men you love to save the world, then you can – No," he corrected himself, "not even then. Buffy has saved all of us; she's the warrior of the people." He looked around at all of them, their abashed faces, and finished on a gentler note. "Buffy isn't perfect, but she is my friend, and I love her. No one gets to say anything bad about her in front of me."

"We get it, Xan," Vi said in a quiet tone. "We're her friends, too." After a moment, he nodded at her stiffly.

⸹

Upstairs, Buffy was sitting on the bed she was sharing with Dawn, a pillow clutched to her stomach, staring between her sister and her best friend. "Why am I even upset?"

"Um," Willow managed, not expecting this.

"I mean, it's just that the idea is new to me, I guess. I always figured Angel was celibate, is all." She looked at her freshly-painted toes. "I'm glad for him," she said, determination in her voice. "I don't want him mooning over me forever; that's just stupid and selfish. So, yeah," she convinced herself, "I'm glad. A-as long as he isn't too happy, because – you know."

"Well, it threw you," Willow said, still willing to play along if Buffy wanted to bash anyone.

"That's the understatement of the year," Buffy said dryly.

"What I don't get," Dawn huffed, "is why Spike would just toss that out there, like a bomb."

"He was trying to change the subject," Willow ventured, peeping at Buffy before lowering her lashes, "and I'm sure he didn't realize – I mean, he wasn't around for the whole 'can't sleep with Angel' thing."

Buffy was frowning, trying to remember the other topic. When she didn't say anything, Dawn, resisting being mollified, went on, "Yeah, but even he knows better than to bring up girlfriends in front of an ex. That was just inexcusable."

Willow was still focused on Buffy. "Spike said it wasn't serious."

Buffy nodded, gave a humorless smile. "I know all about not-serious."

"Wait," Dawn protested, determined to hold on to her anger. It had been a long time since she had been able to be mad at Spike, and she always liked fighting with him. "What about the werewolf thing? He should have known better than to bring that up."

Willow turned to her and shook her head. "He came over, first thing, to find out why I was upset. He didn't know."

"Fiddlesticks."

Buffy smiled at her pouting sister, then tossed the pillow at her, unfolding her legs. "I'd better go apologize for storming off like that."

⸹

"Hold still," Spike gritted out.

"Get," Angel heaved his shoulder against Spike's torso, "off me."

"Not until you listen." He sent a silent thanks to Tribby's dead husband for this wrestling hold and pulled the big vampire a couple inches away from the wall and possible leverage.

Angel heaved again, then cursed Spike impressively.

The blond vampire sighed. "Technically, none of that is true. For one, my parents were married, and I would never do that with me mum, dead or alive."

"Fuck off."

"Position you're in," Spike said, resting his chin on Angel's shoulder so the other man could see him smile, "I wouldn't think it wise to mention – hey, hey! Easy now. I'm trying to apolog – will you hold still!?"

"Fine, apologize, then get off me."

"Aw, don't be that way, Peaches." He chuckled when Angel growled at him. "Missed fighting with you, mate. Right, then. First, I didn't know any of that was going to happen. I was just trying to change the subject, that's all. Figured I'd throw out Dog-girl, then you'd bring up Harmony and that lady lawyer, and I'd be in trouble and, voilà, the subject is very much changed."

Angel closed his eyes and shook his head. "You couldn't just say, 'Angel, I don't want to talk about the fire?'"

Spike grimaced. "I didn't think of that."

He scoffed. "You don't think at all, boy." But he relaxed, stopped fighting against the hold.

Feeling this, Spike let up on the pressure he was exerting and propped his chin on Angel's shoulder again. "I can't believe they thought you were being celibate all this time. I mean, you're a vampire."

"What's a few years?" Angel said wearily. "I was celibate for a century, Spike."

"Never? I mean, not at all after you left the family?"

The shock in the voice was real enough, and Angel shifted a little to see the pale face. "Never wanted to. Too miserable."

"No wonder Angelus was on such a tear when he came back to us," Spike mused. At Angel's confused look, he added. "Back to me an' Dru in Sunnydale, I mean."

"That was the least of it."

Watching the troubled face, Spike untangled their limbs and slouched against the basement wall, pulling Angel after him. The big vampire grumbled, but Spike had always been his favorite pillow, and he had sorely missed the comforting sense of family while he traveled, barely sleeping in the hotels he checked into each morning. Angel relaxed against the boy's torso and just stared across the basement, glad to be back where things felt right. He tensed for only a moment when he felt the cool fingers on his head.

"You should have taken me an' Dru with you, when Darla kicked you out that final time," Spike said, smoothing Angel's hopeless hair. "Leastways, you woulda got laid more than once in a century." He felt the big vampire relax a smidgen more.

"I wouldn't have stayed with you two long, either. My soul wouldn't let me, and you'd just killed a Slayer. You wouldn't have wanted me around."

"Not Angelus, you're right there," Spike agreed. "You wouldn't have been so bad, though."

Surprised, Angel thought about what it would have been like, the three of them without Angelus' domestic violence. For a moment, it was a tempting scenario. "No, I would have kept killing as long as I stayed with you. My soul wouldn't let me do it for long, not even criminals."

"Dru would have been a problem, wanting worse than you, souled you, would be willing to give her."

Implicit in that was that the demon Spike hadn't given her what she wanted, either. Angel remembered taunting Spike for not giving Drusilla the pre-show she preferred, and he closed his eyes against memories of the times he had. "Wonder where she is right now?"

"Leading some poor lad a merry chase," Spike said fondly.

"You're the only one who gets it," Angel said slowly.

"Gets what?"

"That it isn't about sex." When the boy continued to look puzzled, he added, "That it isn't the sex that makes me happy."

"Well, I saw you in bed with Darla often enough after you got your soul."

"She meant a lot to me – well, you know how it is with your sire – but she never made me happy." Until the last.

"Well," Spike said, lifting a brow, "Darla."

"What happened in that fire, Will?" Angel hadn't forgotten the subject the younger vampire was so desperate to avoid.

It was Spike's turn to tense up, but his fingers kept smoothing through Angel's hair, as though the topic was boring. "Just a fire. Burned everything in the lower level of the crypt. You know how Sunnydale had all those caverns? Broke open the floor of a crypt, dropped down a ladder, made it cozy. Had nearly everything I owned down there 'cept the DeSoto and this motorbike I took off some Hellions."

"How'd the fire start?" When Spike didn't say anything, he intoned, "If any two creatures on the planet have anything to talk–"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut it, will you?" He sighed, his fingers tightening in the thick, dark hair for a second. He dropped his hand and let his arm drape over Angel's shoulder. "Near as I can tell, incendiary grenades of some sort. Burned hot, whatever it was."

"Grenades?"

"Grenades. Remember Soldier Boy?"

"Overly tall, smelled like a pharmacy? I remember. He torched your crypt?"

"That's the least of what he did, but, yeah, I reckon that's what happened. I suppose I should thank him, though."

Angel twisted his neck to look up at the younger vampire in disbelief. "Thank him?"

"Well, otherwise, me an' Buffy might have been eaten over the course of several months by the Grimslaw demons he hid down there."

"Grimslaw demons?"

"Is there an echo down here? Yeah, just-hatched Grimslaws."

"Spike, why did…?" He felt Spike shrug.

"Mystery, innit? Easy answer is because I was shaggin' his ex, but to this day, I don't know what he hoped to accomplish with the Grimslaws. Discredit me, yeah, but I thought I was holding Suvolte eggs, part of a business deal. That alone would have been enough to piss off Buffy. And if he wanted to kill me, all he had to do was walk up and start swinging. Nothing I could do to the git, not with the chip. So, why go to the trouble and very real danger of scooping out Suvolte embryos and replacing them with Grimslaws? Dunno, me."

"So," Angel said after a moment, "that bastard Finn came back to Sunnydale, planted Grimslaws in Suvolte eggs that you were keeping in your crypt, then torched everything when they hatched? Have I got that right?"

"Yeah, except for the way he paraded his fancy new wife in front of poor Buffy, you've pretty much got it. And you probably don't know the reason he left Sunnydale is because Buffy found out he was getting suck jobs from vampire trulls."

"He was getting…" Yellow flickered in Angel's eyes. "I knew he wasn't good enough for Buffy, but I didn't realize what a complete bastard he was."

"Couldn't have said it better myself, mate."

"Where was Buffy when all this was going on?" When Spike didn't say anything, he answered the question himself. "She was there."

"She didn't know half of what was going on," defense of Buffy coming naturally to him in all venues, "just saw Captain America killing demons housed by a demon. Things all happened pretty quickly: he walked in on us, the eggs hatched, chaos ensued."

"Spike…"

"Look, 's'not the fire I care about," the younger vampire said, not meeting Angel's troubled gaze. "Afterwards, I laid into Buffy, just… cut her to ribbons – not like that," he clarified, "with words. I… told her off. She'd come to break things off with me, but I…" He shook his head.

Angel was silent. The boy had an individualized grasp of the Queen's English, and he could wield truth against someone the way Darla could wield a knife. Spike had always been able to push his own buttons like no one else. "What did you say?"

Spike shook his head again. "Should never have said any of it, not when she was so vulnerable. Let my temper get the best of me, and I don't want to remind her of what I said."

Hearing the self-loathing in the deep voice, Angel reached up to cover the boy's hand. "Buffy's tough. She can take it."

"Don't want her to have to be tough, not where her family's concerned." He laced his fingers absently through his grandsire's. "She's had to be so hard, to get done all that's been piled on her."

"Faith made her hard," Angel mused. "I care about Faith – see a lot of myself in her, maybe. Buffy finds that… threatening, I guess. She's always so worried she'll be like Faith that she gets irrational. You know she actually hit me once, because I gave Faith a hug?"

"Hmm," Spike said, noncommittal. Buffy hit Angel. Once. He took a breath and changed the subject with much more finesse than he'd shown upstairs. "Speaking of, strange, innit, to be talking about Buffy without coming to blows over her?"

"Yeah." Angel smiled. "God help us, we might be turning into adults."

"Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt," Spike replied.

"Hey, guys," Buffy said brightly, coming down the stairs. Angel flinched, and Spike bore down with his forearm, not allowing his grandsire to move away. "I just came to apologize," she said to the dark-haired vampire, as if finding them being casually affectionate was perfectly normal.

Spike narrowed his eyes at this giveaway. How long had she been there listening? How much had she heard?

"You don't need to apologize," Angel said, clearly uncomfortable. "Anything that might unleash Angelus is your concern."

"Yes, but your love life isn't," she said wryly, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm, you know," she lifted her shoulders, "glad for you, that you don't have to, you know. Not."

"All right," Angel said, not sure of what else he could say.

"Join us, pet?" Spike asked, holding out his free arm, as if this was no different from sitting with Dawn.

Buffy looked them over, Spike against the wall, one leg bent, Angel laying against his other, muscle corded along Spike's arm as he held the dark-haired man in place. Angel's head was against Spike's chest, his own legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, his body apparently relaxed but his face tense. She hid a private smile. "No, I've never had fantasies about this," she said sardonically. Blue and brown eyes widened, staring at her in surprise, and she smirked as she took Spike up on the offer. She felt his face against her hair for a moment, then looked over at Angel as the other vampire settled his arm around her. Angel met her gaze for a moment, then averted his eyes.

"So," Spike said, and Buffy won her inner wager about who would speak first, "Sweet Bit still mad at me?"

"She's trying to stay mad," the Slayer informed him.

"We haven't had a row in a while," Spike mused. "She likes to fight with me."

"People don't like to fight with you, boy," Angel, unable to escape without being obvious, said scathingly. "They don't have a choice." Buffy giggled a little, and, encouraged, he went on. "You just rub people the wrong way."

"I refuse to even answer to that," Spike drawled, and Angel closed his eyes, hearing the dark tone that made everything sound like pure sex, "on the grounds that both of you know better."

Buffy laughed out loud, startling Angel. He began to relax a little. This felt wrong in every way except where it counted. Both of these blonds were in his heart, were family. If he had one more blond here in the basement, he would be perfectly content.

For his part, Spike was perfectly content, smiling down at the laughing Slayer, feeling the tension draining from his grandsire. She hadn't heard what they were talking about; she couldn't have, not if she was laughing like this. He hugged them both a little closer.

⸹

 _I don't want to remind her of what I said. Did she deserve what you said? She actually hit me once._

Buffy closed her eyes tightly, sitting on the still-warm roof of Giles' house later that night. Spike thought Riley had started the fire that destroyed all his possessions, but it had been her. It had been the right thing to do, too – those spider things couldn't be allowed to get loose. But part of her had been glad to see the rugs burning, the bed smoldering, the destruction of all the many surfaces that had witnessed her passion in the embrace of a soulless thing.

Only, he hadn't been soulless, and he cared less about the destruction of his property than the ruined opportunity to find a threat to her sister.

 _She actually hit me once._

Buffy wiped at her wet cheeks. She had covered pretty well, she thought. It was always fun to tease Angel; he had so many sensitive places. Then she and Angel had ganged up on Spike, taking advantage of his many ticklish places. Angel knew them better than her, which did freak her out a little bit. Neither would guess that she had paused in the shadows on the stairs in surprise at their companionable proximity, that she had heard most of the conversation.

After all I've done to him, she thought, he still tries to protect me, still loves me. Oh, Spike.

Angel still loved her, too. How strange; he hardly knew her, really. Not anymore, and maybe he never had. He had been surprised at how she laughed at Spike's off-color humor, at how she hadn't been shocked by the relationship the two vampires had once had. While there was almost no facet of her personality that Spike didn't delight in knowing, she had hidden much of herself from Angel, afraid she would disappoint him. She had been so young then, so insecure; she could forgive herself for things done in those days.

She couldn't forgive herself for what she had done to Spike, though. There were no excuses.

⸹

"I don't know about this." Xander paced the length of the small living room. Willow had her small, bare feet pulled up onto the couch to let him pass unimpeded. "There's too much that could go wrong."

"You can't go, Xander, and neither can I," Willow said gently. "You know why."

He slashed a hand through the air. "I still don't like it." He swiveled his head toward the door at the sound of a knock. "They're here."

Angel stood at the door, smoldering a little, blocking his view for a moment of Spike and – "Dawn? Dawn, what are you doing here?"

"I'm going, too," she said grimly, glaring at Angel as she shouldered past him.

"Oh, sorry," Xander said, realizing, "come in, Angel." The big vampire crossed the threshold, and Spike came in last, his eyes on Dawn's tense shoulders. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, you're going?"

The teenager shrugged. "He didn't have an effect on me. They need me. All he'd have to do, otherwise, is just stay in his house until it's daylight."

"I don't like this, not at all," Angel said. "Willow, talk some sense into her."

Willow shook her head. "Don't put me in the middle of this."

"Spike?" Angel appealed to the younger vampire again, who seemed to be the only one the girl would listen to.

He looked at his Nibblet with a mixture of exasperation and pride. "She has the same right to vengeance as we do. Stronger right, comes down to it."

"Dammit, Spike!"

"I second that dammit," Xander said in agreement with Angel, and a small corner of hell froze over. "Dawn, this is going to be dangerous and, well, not pleasant."

She gave him a smile that wasn't pleasant. "No one hurts my sister and gets away with it," she said flatly.

"Buffy's not the only one who got hurt in this," Spike explained in a low voice, his eyes still on her.

Xander blew out a lungful of air. "I know about vengeance, okay? I'd like to have my measure, too."

"You can't go, Xander. I'm sorry, but you're vulnerable to mesmer, you know you are. You and Buffy both." Dawn didn't mention the name Dracula; she didn't have to.

"Well, darkness is wasting," Willow said brightly, unfolding her legs from the couch. It was an odd statement to make at five in the afternoon in July, but she wasn't referring to Cleveland. "Here you go," she said, handing a Ziploc bag of doggie treats to Dawn. She waited until the brown-haired young woman tucked it into the pocket of her black jeans, then pulled her into a fierce hug. "Be careful, Dawnie." Willow turned and gave Angel a hug too, surprising him. "Be careful."

"I will," he said gruffly.

Xander shook his head, but he embraced Dawn. "I don't like this," he grumbled, "but I guess I don't get a say in it. Stay behind the vampires, okay?"

"I will," she assured him.

Xander scowled and pulled away. "Buffy will kill both of us if you don't come back in one piece."

"She'll be safe, mate," Spike said. "I'll see to it."

Angel's eyes were dark with anger, and he met Xander's gaze and shook his head. "You're not the only one she's going to kill."

"She's never going to hear about this little adventure," Spike said firmly, "particularly if we don't get a move on. Let's go, people."

"Call if you need to get out," Willow said, letting her anxiety show as she faced him.

"No worries, love." He was impatient, ready to be away, and it showed in the quick hug he gave her.

She nodded, and picked up a large piece of quartz from an end table. "Gather around me," Willow directed, sitting back down on the couch. She held it out in front of her. "Now, put a hand on the crystal." Dawn and Angel extended their right hands, Spike's left between them. "Take a breath, and one, two, three." There was a flash of crimson light, and as it faded, the three people standing in front of her did, too. Willow looked across the empty space to where Xander stood.

"Man, I hate waiting," he said, coming across the room to flop down next to her on the couch.

"Me, too," she said. "Hey, wanna watch _Thelma and Louise_?

"That's the one with a young Brad Pitt?"

"Yup. He's never been that cute since."

"Double feature with _Apocalypse Now_?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. Go nuke us some popcorn; I'll get the DVDs."

⸹

Across the Atlantic, Dawn took another breath. "Whoa," she said, looking around at the square where they had materialized. An elderly man was staring at her, a tiny cup of espresso held a perfect centimeter from his mouth. Then he blinked his eyes, shook his head, and took a sip, deciding to ignore the impossible.

"Where to now?" Angel asked, checking their surroundings, looking almost as dangerous as he was.

"Over there," Spike said, nodding to their left. He had made the trip alone the previous night to find transportation.

"Let's do this," Dawn said, her young face grim and determined.

⸹

"Wake up, Wil. Wake up, Xander. We're back."

"No, don't wake them," Spike said. "They're too adorable." The two long-time friends were spilled against each other on the couch, deeply asleep.

"Wake them up, so we can go home," Angel said, weariness in his voice. The whole operation had been too full of bad memories for his liking. When the other two just stared at the sleeping humans, he reached past them, impatient, and shook Willow's foot.

"I want the astronaut suit!" She sat up, red hair spiking out in improbable directions. "Wha? Oh. Hey, guys, you're back." They smelled like the sea.

"Come back to bed," Xander mumbled, patting around for the warm female who had been there a moment ago. "We've got time before I have to leave." He opened one eye and looked directly at an amused Dawn. "Yah!" Xander sat up abruptly on the couch, his eyes wide now, bumping into Willow. "Dawnie!" He snatched the only thing that was available to cover his fully clothed self.

"Xander!" Willow said, pulling her hand away from his groin.

"You were right to wake them. They're even more adorable awake."

"Wil!" Xander looked at her and held both hands out in front of him in a warding gesture. "Okay. Wait. I know where I am now." He gestured at the three people standing in front of the couch and stated the obvious. "You're back."

"Did everything go all right?" Willow's voice was gentle.

"Fine," Angel said shortly.

"It's done," Spike said, a wolfish grin creeping onto his face.

Dawn nodded, disjointed images from the long night coming to her: Angel fussing at Spike for getting them lost trying to find the estate; the Rottweilers piled onto each other like harmless puppies, deep in magical sleep; the Immortal simply stepping out onto the patio to talk to her, heedless of the two creatures who had gathered darkness around them; Angel casually carrying hundreds of pounds of metal vault on one shoulder; Spike at the helm atop a yacht, ocean wind ruffling his short curls; the glow of the welding torch still bright despite the tinted helmet Spike made her wear; the ripple in the black water spreading out, disappearing in the choppy water. A smile that was sister to Spike's settled on her own full lips. "It's done," she agreed.

Watching her, Angel shook his head. There was a lot he didn't understand about this. Dawn was human; his nose and all his other senses told him this. But the Immortal's thrall had no effect on her, and there was a cold streak in her that put most vampires to shame. She moved like Spike, which made sense, as he had been training her since she was fifteen, but she was never going to be as skilled as, say, Xander. There was something there, though, in the way the Scoobies deferred to her, protected her. Angel had very few memories of Dawn, since Buffy had kept her calling hidden from her family back then. He had been mostly hidden, too.

"Here, Wil," Dawn said, handing over the nearly empty bag. "Thanks a bunch." She leaned over to hug the sleepy woman, brown hair spilling over her shoulder.

"You're welcome."

"We'll clear out and let you guys get to bed. 'Night."

"Yes," Angel added, "thank you."

Willow gave him a wan smile, then looked up at Spike. They stared at each other a long moment, speaking silently, then she nodded. "Go get some rest yourself," she said aloud.

"'Night, whelp," Spike said, unable to resist ruffling Xander's mussed hair. He turned off the table lamp, leaving the room in darkness except for the television.

As the door closed behind the three travelers, taking the smell of the ocean with them, Willow turned to Xander. "Have you actually seen _Apocalypse Now_ all the way through?"

"Not in years," he admitted, then yawned. "Bed, or…?" He held out his arms.

"Here is fine," Willow agreed, settling back against him.

He kissed the top of her head. "Mm-hmm." Xander turned off the television with the remote and both of them were asleep again within minutes.

⸹

"No! Connor, don't do this!" He pushed against the metal box. "You don't have to do this. Please don't do this to me!"

"Shh, 's'okay, mate. Just a dream. Wake up, now."

"No, don't do this!"

"Angel! Wake up," Spike said, shaking the broad shoulders with both hands now.

"No! Don't!" His eyes flew open, seeing not a small window, but his boy's concerned blue eyes. "Will?"

"Bad dream, Liam. 'S'alright now."

Angel blinked, realizing he was holding Spike's arms in what must be a painful grip. He let go, pulling away as much as the small cot allowed. "What-?"

"'Bout eleven in the morning," Spike said, rubbing the back of his neck. He sounded groggy.

"Sorry I woke you."

"Glad I was here to wake you. Sounded like a bad one. Remember any of it?"

"No." The lie came automatically. "Go back to bed."

Spike stared at Angel's back after the big vampire rolled over. "Right, then," he said slowly.

Angel took a shallow breath. The boy remained on the edge of the cot a moment longer, and Angel knew the only thing that kept him from spooning against him to provide comfort was the fact that there simply wasn't room. Then the extra weight was gone from the thin mattress, and Spike settled back onto his own cot with a sigh.

He closed his eyes. That had been bad. He seldom dreamed, but their night's work had brought this one on, vivid and so painful. A couple of tears escaped despite Angel's best efforts. His son didn't look at him like that any longer, with hate burning in his eyes. That was over. Like Spike said, just a bad dream.

* * *

Next Chapter: Realization, where Giles learns of an upcoming series of battles and Buffy puts Spike's safety above her own happiness.


	10. Realization

[Author's Note: A quick note about canon for Spike: someone (a guardian angel?) intervened for him in chapter one of this story, so he isn't nearly as damaged here as he was in BtVS. A quick note about canon for Buffy: she has saved the world countless times, killed her first love to save the world one of those times, died twice, offered her own life in place of her sister, been torn out of heaven after a timeless period of peace, been stranded back in a violent world where she can't be honest without hurting people who love her, and continued standing against the forces of evil. All of this before she was twenty-one. In the next chapters, she isn't going to deal well with life at times. She's still a hero, she can still love and grow, but she has Baggage. Please have patience with our girl. As always, these characters and the Buffyverse do not belong to me; this is just me bringing my own (sub)text.]

 **Realization**

Cleveland

Late July 2004

"I probably won't stay very long," Angel was explaining to Spike. "Someone has to patrol on the west side."

"Angel, you big girl's blouse," Spike replied, "at least act like you have a set. 'S'just a party."

Following them up the stairs to Ute and Tribby's apartment, Buffy smiled. She had heard about Ute's crush on Angel. Apparently the departing German slayer made the big vampire nervous.

"'Sides," Spike went on, "you ought to let her have her way with you. Won't have to face her disappointment afterwards, as she'll be back in Bonn." He ducked, avoiding the swat Angel had aimed at the back of his head.

"Someday, Spike, I'm going to–"

"Which floor do they live on, again?" Buffy interrupted, puffing out her cheeks in an exaggerated way as they reached a landing.

"Fourth," Dawn said, bumping into her sister. "We're almost there."

A door opened, and an elderly woman with a small dog in her arms poked her head out. "Are you here for the party, dears?" The dog growled at them.

"Um, yes, ma'am," Angel replied, unused to having old ladies face him with such confidence.

"Just upstairs one more flight. Have a good time!" She shut the door, cutting off the little dog in mid-snarl.

"Thanks, Mrs. Petrowsky," Dawn said, her voice trailing off. "It's just old women in this building," she explained. "They like having the slayers here. It makes them feel safer."

"Tribs says it's because they never bring men back here," Spike said.

"Never?" Angel asked, not having considered either slayer a candidate for celibacy.

"Because Ute's been saving herself for you," Spike said, taking two steps to distance himself from the dark-haired vampire. " _Jawohl, Engel_ ," he said in a high, breathy voice. " _Oh, jawohl_!" Grinning madly, he pelted up the stairs, Angel at his heels. Following at a more sedate pace, the two Summers girls heard a sharp "Ow!" from the younger vampire.

Buffy shook her head. "They never stop bickering, do they?"

"Spike's trying to keep you entertained."

"Spike's trying to keep himself entertained," she replied in a dry voice. They reached the fourth floor to find Spike laughing, apparently unconcerned that Angel had him in a headlock. The look on his grandsire's face had more than a touch of satisfaction in it, and Angel was pounding on the door with his other hand. A faint sound of music and voices could be heard.

"I don't think you have to knock so hard. It doesn't sound like much of a going-away party," Dawn mused.

"No, it's just muffled," Buffy disagreed, her Slayer's hearing more sensitive. "Maybe some sort of soundproof – Guh." It was all she could manage as the door opened, the noise level became significantly louder, and the most physically handsome man she had ever seen appeared. She knew it was rude to stare, but she did anyway. Two of her lovers had been selected for eternal life in no small part because of their looks, but this man eclipsed them. Rich, dark brown hair, perfect tan skin, piercing blue eyes surrounded by thick black lashes – Buffy swallowed hard.

"Hi, Dawn," he said in a loud voice, trying to be heard over the music that now blasted through the open door. His tone was warm and inviting, nonetheless. "Hey, Spike." His brows drew together in beautiful concern to see the blond man secured by a stranger. "Everything okay?"

"Fine, Ty," Spike said, still grinning. "Ute around?" He realized that Angel's hold had slackened and broke free. His grandsire was also staring at the man at the door, sketching hand no doubt twitching with the need to capture such a specimen.

"Hi!" Tribby came to the door, an anxious look on her face. "Angel, come on in," she said deliberately. "Meet my friend Tyson. Ty, this is Angel, and that's Dawn's sister Buffy. Come on inside, everybody, before our neighbors realize there's such a thing as hiphop."

Buffy went in before Dawn, wrenching her gaze away from the perfect Ty long enough to see that there was a pretty good party in swing. The gorgeous man was crowded back into the dark-haired Slayer, and she realized he wasn't much taller than Tribby. Jonathan-sized, she thought, which wasn't quite true, but it somehow made his beauty easier to handle. Then she felt a pang of loss, thinking of the Sunnydale native.

Spike jerked his head toward his grandsire. "He asks if he can sketch you, Ty, 's'not a come-on."

Angel snapped his mouth closed, only then realizing it had been hanging open. "Uh, of course I wouldn't. Ask, I mean. That would be, um, rude."

Ty rolled his eyes, then gave Angel a frank look, gazing up at him through thick, dark lashes. "I get that all the time from this crowd; don't worry about it." At the taller man's confused look, he added, "Art students."

"Right," Angel agreed, then closed his mouth to keep from babbling. He did want to draw the young man, and curse Spike for mentioning it. He shot the boy a look, then grew wary at the grin on his face.

"Angel! You came! _Wunderbar_ ," Ute said from behind him, claiming his arm. He had been flanked. "It's too loud to discuss philosophy, so you will dance with me, okay?"

"No," Angel protested.

"No!" Spike chimed in.

Ute's face fell a little, then she pasted a determined smile on her face. "No? Let's get something to drink, then." She steered Angel deeper into the room.

"He's cute," Ty said. "No wonder Ute's in heat."

Tribby nodded at him, then turned to Spike and the Summers women. "Thanks for bringing him. This will make the party for her."

"Wanna dance?" Ty asked Dawn.

She hesitated, as she was wearing three-inch heels, then she grinned, blushing. "I'd love to!"

Buffy watched them go, then turned to Tribby. "Is he…?"

"Gay," Tribby replied. "Dawn's safe with him, even if he wasn't. Ty's one of the good ones."

"Oh," Buffy said. She had wanted to ask if Ty was Tribby's boyfriend.

Someone else knocked on the door, and the dark-haired slayer excused herself. Spike took Buffy's arm and led her around the edge of the living room. "'Scuse us," he said to a woman with purple hair. "Don't sit on the futon," he advised Buffy, his mouth against her ear so he wouldn't have to shout as the music got louder, "not unless you know a good chiropractor."

"Got it," Buffy said, staring at him. Had she ever known how gregarious he was? Sure, even in Sunnydale, he'd gotten to know all her friends and family, but the fact that he knew the friends of other slayers seemed incredible to her. She realized then that he was leading her through the throng of Ute's friends toward familiar faces. "Hey, Wil. Hey, Vi. Hey, Rona."

The celebration in honor of the departing German slayer was nothing like the endless round of parties she had gone to in Rome. Here there was tattered, uncomfortable furniture, cheap beer in plastic cups, a schizophrenic selection of music that depended on the taste of whoever happened to be closest to the stereo, and people who were not thin or beautiful enough to get past the bouncer at trendy Roman nightclubs. Buffy found herself having a wonderful, uncomplicated time, dancing with other slayers, her sister, Xander, and once – which was enough – with Angel. Later, she saw Angel talking with Ute, having apparently decided to be a good sport about his role as going-away present. He even danced with the rangy slayer to a slow song. Buffy hid a grin behind her glass as Ute winced and the big vampire apologized. She only spotted Spike twice, once with his arm over Vi's shoulder, the other time having an intense discussion with an older, bearded man.

"Have you seen Ute?" Willow asked, appearing at Buffy's elbow a while later. "I've got a killer headache, and I wanted to wish her well before I leave."

Buffy, who was talking with Dawn and Ty, shook her head. "Not in a while."

"I'll take you to her, pet," Spike said, materializing behind the redhead. He put his hands on either side of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, and began stroking along a few pressure points.

"Keep doing that, and I'll follow you anywhere," Willow said, finishing the statement with a moan of pleasure.

Dawn shook her head. "Spike, you're disgusting."

Spike met Buffy's eyes. "Bit gets this way when she wears high heels," he told her, "wrong perspective on things or something." Reluctantly, he turned his attention from the hazel depths. "C'mon, Red. Let's get you through the social niceties so I can get you out of this ruck." He took her hand and led her down a hallway to where he sensed his grandsire. "Oi, Peaches, where's the guest of honor?"

Angel was standing, sentinel-like, outside a door. "She's in there. Someone's taking a picture of her and Tribby. They asked me to watch the door."

Spike peered over his shoulder into the brightly-lit room, his eyes widening before he rolled them. "Have you learned sod-all about women after two hundred and fifty years?" Sighing over the rhetorical question, he put his hands on Angel's shoulders and turned him so he was facing into the room. "It wasn't the door she wanted you to watch, mate."

Next to him, Willow raised her eyebrows. "My headache's a lot better," she said. "I could stay."

Two shirtless slayers were facing a camera manned by a thin woman in dramatic scarves. Ute, who had never sunbathed with a top and had the freckles to prove it, was bare-breasted. The American, more modest, had only dropped her bra straps. The tall German slayer was seated, the shorter Tribby behind her shoulder. "Beautiful contrast," the photographer muttered. "Trib, pull your hair over your left shoulder. Perfect. Look at me, look at me… great. Right, Trib, put your hand on Ute's shoulder. Ute, take Tribby's hand. Fabulous."

Angel had to agree; the composition was wonderful. The pale, blond Slayer against the darker skin of the brunette woman against a stark white wall – the portrait couldn't possibly turn out badly.

"You're thinking like an artist, aren't you?" Spike accused, his voice so quiet that even Willow, next to him, had trouble hearing. "C'mon, mate. She likes you – it's more than obvious. Would it kill you to let her wear you on her arm for the night, give her a sound snog?"

"Let her treat him like a sex object?" Willow asked sweetly.

Spike beamed at her. "Precisely!" Willow's jaw dropped. She shook her head and went past him to say her goodbyes.

By this point, Angel was looking everywhere except at the braless slayer, remembering that her friend had scolded Ute for thinking that very thing. "You be the sex object."

"She doesn't fancy me, mate. No accounting for taste." Spike shook his head. "Look, if you won't do it for her, do it for yourself. Ten, fifteen years from now, when there's a new head of the Council who decides once the Scourge of Europe, always the Scourge of Europe, you'll have an ally, someone who'll remember the night she found out you're a really good kisser."

"You think I'm a good kisser?"

Spike stared at him, at a loss for perhaps a half-second. "Not the point. Look, you can do something nice for someone at very small cost to yourself, something nice for a slayer." He raised his eyebrows and waited, as if this was an uncontestable point.

"What might it cost me if Buffy sees me with another woman?" Angel asked pleasantly, then he winced. From the expression on the boy's face, he hadn't been trying to hook him up with someone, anyone besides the Slayer.

"Let's go, pet," Spike said, not looking away from Angel as Willow returned. He found her hand. "I'll see you home safe." In the hallway, the two of them squeezed past the good-looking human, Ty, who came into the room with the ease of a frequent visitor.

"Trib, we're out of plastic cups," Ty said, then blinked a little. "Nice composition," he approved. Angel winced again at this echo of his clinical thoughts.

"Are we done, Rita?" Tribby asked the photographer, already tugging her bra straps back in place.

The thin woman nodded. "I'll have the prints ready tomorrow, so you can take one back to Bonn, Ute."

"Thanks, Ty," Tribby said, pulling her Donnas t-shirt over her head. "Excuse me, Angel," she murmured, brushing past him to follow Ty back to the party.

Rita collapsed her tripod, and she, too, went by Angel with a flutter of scarves. He stood awkwardly for a moment, making sure his gaze went no lower than Ute's nose. He spotted her blouse in his peripheral vision, picked it up, and held it out for her. She smiled up at him, then turned and let him help her don it, as if he was a gentleman assisting a lady with her coat.

She bustled about the room, pushing lampshades back into place, and Angel realized that the bare room was hers. Most of her things were packed in suitcases and boxes that filled one corner. She was going to be gone in three days. No complications. Ute turned to face him and started to button her blouse.

"Ute," he said, closing the door behind him. Her hands stilled, and she looked up at him. "You're leaving, and we probably aren't going to see each other after this, so it wouldn't really mean anything if I did," he drew very close to her, "this."

She lifted her head to meet his kiss, and after a moment, broke away, a happy curve to her mouth. She took his hands in hers. "And since we will probably not see each other again, or for a long time, it wouldn't matter if I did this." Ute brought his hands beneath her open shirt to cover her small breasts.

"That might mean something," Angel disagreed, and the tall slayer smiled at him as she lifted her face once again.

⸹

"You're quiet tonight," Buffy observed as they walked home, Dawn in front of them, arm-in-arm with Xander.

"Not much to say," Angel said, smoothing his hair for the fifth time. It still felt mussed. Part of it was the fact that Spike, beneath the teasing, had thought it was a good idea for him to 'snog' Ute. That alone should have sent him running the other way. The other part was simply physical. He hadn't casually made out with anyone since – well, ever, and he wasn't sure how he felt about the whole thing. At little out of sorts, at the very least. Since he'd first lain with a woman all those many years ago, he'd always had one goal or another when touching a female – except with Buffy, but that was different in any case.

"That was really nice, what you did, paying attention to Ute," Buffy said.

"It… was?"

"Yeah. I mean, she was obvious-crush girl, and you were really cool about it."

"Oh." He tried twice, then finally managed to ask her, "Is that okay? I mean, I wasn't leading her on?"

"Where could you lead her to?" Buffy asked, puzzled. "She's going to Berlin."

"Bonn," he corrected absently.

"Bonn, then, so it isn't like anything could happen between you."

"Spike seems to think we should try to make the slayers happy, even if, you know," he shrugged, "it makes us feel sort of… cheap." He thought the boy had been teasing him.

She shook her head and smiled a bit at his use of the word 'we;' their friendship was still odd to her. "Spike does make slayers happy," Buffy said, and there was a touch of jealousy in her voice, no more. "They've all got big old sloppy crushes on him, but he manages them so they end up thinking of him like a big brother." She waved toward Dawn. "Same with Dawn. She started out crushing on him, too."

"What about you?"

Buffy laughed. "I had time to look at him, register that he was cute in a punk kind of way, and then he announced that he was going to kill me. No crush."

Angel laughed. "Of course. What else would he do?"

"Balls to the wall, baby," Buffy said, her use of the phrase surprising him.

"What about the first time you saw me?"

She took her time answering, but he could see her smile even though she kept looking ahead. "I thought you were annoying, first, and gorgeous, second."

"Annoying?" he asked, but he glowed over the second part.

"Uh-huh. You'd show up, give me vague information about impending doom, and never compliment my hair or shoes or anything."

He laughed again, and then it was time to say goodbye to Xander, who peeled off to go toward the apartment he was sharing with Willow. Dawn fell back and linked arms with her sister, and they continued on their way, none of them saying much. Buffy looked over Giles' house carefully as they approached, her eyes sharpening, and she said her goodnights before heading out to the roof.

"You take me to a party and don't even walk me home?" she teased the dark shadow who sat outside her window. Spike raised his head, smiling at her. He held one of his arms out in invitation. Buffy settled next to him, breathing in his subtle scent, familiar and comforting. "Shouldn't let you off so easily," she grumbled. He still didn't say anything, just nuzzled his nose into her hair and pulled her closer. "Are you sorry to be losing this slayer?"

"Reckon so. Don't have to baby-sit her." She felt him shrug.

Buffy examined him. Most nights, she ended up on the couch with Spike and Dawn, or the three of them piled on one of the beds in the room the sisters shared. It went uncommented on, but despite the often silly turn the conversation took, the time they spent together was full of no-strings-attached physical affection. She got the same kind of hugs that Dawn got and gave her fair share; it was so much easier to touch her friends now. Buffy looked forward to the evening cuddle, as much as spending time with Giles or Willow and Xander. Being with Spike and Dawn made her feel whole and loved, made her feel like she was at home, but now it didn't look like her favorite part of the day would come. "What's the deal? No one's very talkative tonight, but with you, that doesn't happen very – That never happens."

She felt his cheek curve where it was pressed against hers. "Yeah, usually only one thing shuts me up."

"No, it doesn't – oh. Well, that's maybe ten seconds after hours of talking." His low chuckle rumbled into her, hitting all sorts of nerve endings. Buffy put her hand against his other cheek and turned his face to meet hers. There was nothing urgent in the kiss, no hurry. Spike was, she realized, waiting until she was recovered from her Roman holiday. Otherwise, given this much encouragement, she'd already have shingle burns on her bottom. Even his gentleness was almost enough to make her forget the ordeal. Desire bloomed again, filled her.

"I'm never going to stop wanting you," she said, pulling away for breath.

He laid his head to one side. "That sounded like regret, love."

Buffy looked down. "I'm not good for you, Spike. You know I'm not."

"You are," Spike said, taking her hand, "the best thing that ever happened to me."

Buffy looked into his eyes. He meant it. How bad had his long existence been, that their abusive relationship was the best thing in it? She dropped her gaze, feeling tears threaten. "Thanks," she managed.

"Buffy, love," Spike said, a trace of exasperation coloring his voice, "you have to let it go, forgive yourself. Do you know how much worse I've done? Not going to drown in it like Old Broodypants. Only one thing I can't forgive myself for, that's letting you down, letting Dawn be hurt. But I did what I could to make amends.

"Once, you asked me the worst thing you'd ever said to me. Your mum's bathroom, remember? But 'never' came, didn't it? Even if you're not in love with me, pet," he said, smiling a little when her startled eyes flew up to his, "I'm in your heart. Pretty good place for a monster like me."

"Spike," she said, her face tight, "when I said one night, one perfect night–"

"One night," he broke in, stern, "is my starting point, a bargaining position. Leaves you thinking, wow, brilliant, one perfect night. Next thing, you might ask for a perfect weekend getaway. Then a perfect week, a perfect fortnight, then one perfect month…" His eyes were full of good humor, his voice smug, but his expression was serious. "Pretty soon, I'm giving you what I wanted all along: a perfect life, slayin' demons at night, passionate lovin' all the rest of the time – maybe the occasional hour of sleep."

"You never give up, do you?" Buffy shook her head.

"Never."

His eyes glowed, not in the vampire way, but with an inner light that was white, or clear, maybe. Buffy felt a touch of fear along her spine, not for herself, but for her right hand, her dark half.

"Don't–" She had blurted it out before she could stop herself. The part of her that was the Slayer shivered.

"Don't what?"

Buffy shook her head, honestly trying to track down the prescient feeling. "I-I don't know. Nothing clear, just a…."

"Premonition?"

He would take those seriously, she realized, glad she was being honest with him. "No. Maybe it's just knowing you. You never give up, but what if it isn't worth the cost, Spike?"

"You?" His smiled easily, his cool hands sliding over her body, making her hot. "Oh, yeah, love. You're worth it." Watching her eyelids flutter shut, his lips parted with the need to say words she wasn't ready to hear. "Worth more than… weighed against the world, worth that, to me."

"Don't say that," she said, her own face serious as she opened her eyes. "I've saved the world too damn many times."

"You have," he agreed in a grave voice, hands still now, settled at her waist and knee. "Too many damned times."

"I want to ask you to make me forget," she whispered, "but it's too… I can't…."

"Ask me some other time, then."

She regarded him for a long moment, then looked down at the shingles. "I didn't come out here for the serious," she sighed. "I-I just wondered where you'd gone."

"Made sure Willow got home safe."

Buffy sent him a sidelong glance. "She's pretty much the most powerful white witch on earth, macho man."

"Pretty much the most stubborn vampire on earth." His eyes crinkled. "Red's one-off, I know. Doesn't mean a bloke can't see his lady friend home safe."

"But you didn't come back," she persisted.

Spike looked out into the night. "Something Angel said made me think. Easier to think here than in a fourth-floor walk-up with a hundred decibels of Radiohead blarin' at you."

"What did he say?"

He took a breath, but didn't say anything for a second. "Made me think how… broad my definition of family is getting."

Buffy frowned, not expecting this at all. "Bluh," she said, pretending her head was spinning, stopping it with her hands on her cheeks. "'Splainy."

"You and my Bit, that's a given. The Scoobies, as annoying as they are. Angel, on good days. That's manageable, enough family for anyone." He stretched his legs and stared at the scuffed toes of his boots. "Now, there are the potentials. People we've lost, and Fred and Wesley, too. Charlie over in Virginia. More and more slayers. Just wonder where it ends." He rubbed the toe of his right boot against the heel of the left. "Not much I won't do for family. Family gets too large, though, conflicts arise." Spike sighed. "I asked Angel to throw Ute a bone tonight." His head whipped around. "Uh, not that kind of bone. Not really. It's just… she's not family. Made me think, maybe I'm trying to make it up to slayers now, what I did to Slayers back then."

"So, you're trying to balance the scales with Angel kissage?"

He laughed, full and rich. "Yeah, hopeless when you put it like that."

Buffy watched him, a little breathless. She wanted him like this always, happy and utterly confident. "He's a pretty good kisser," she said, just to make him brag that he was better.

"'Angelus, Angelus, pudding and–'" He stopped himself abruptly.

"What?" Buffy asked, half-smiling. "That's a nursery rhyme, isn't it? Georgy Porgy."

He scoffed. "Some of Dru's nonsense, from when she didn't spend all her time pining for 'Daddy.'"

"Tell me."

Spike shook his head, but did as she asked. "Angelus, Angelus, pudding and pie, kissed the girl and made her cry. When the boy came to stay, Angelus, Angelus ran away." He shrugged. "Near as I can remember."

"You're the boy?"

"His word for me. Still slips and uses it."

"Then Drusilla would be the girl."

"Dru is very much at the center of her own universe, love. 'Course she's the girl."

"She remembers, doesn't she? Angel told me, sort of, how he stalked her, turned her."

Spike nodded, looking up at the sky now, thinking of how the stars talked to his black goddess. "Most heartbreaking story I ever heard. Dru may be mad, love, but she is sharp. She never forgot a moment of it. I don't think she forgot who she was, either, that she was once good and pure. May be why we got on so well, oddballs, the two of us."

"Were you good and pure?" There was a teasing quality in her voice; she couldn't imagine Spike without a zing of wickedness.

"No. I was too… proper to be anything other than good, but not the same as Dru. She had courage, had to, to live through the torment Angelus visited on her."

"So you've always liked strong women?"

"No, I always liked brunettes… like you."

She punched his arm lightly. "Are you trying to get in trouble?"

"'S'true. Some men have a 'type' – Angel, now, small blondes." She punched his arm again, making him smile. "Dark hair is about the only thing that ever caught my eye. Maybe because my whole family was towheaded like me – well, not like this," he admitted, indicating his bone-white hair, "made dark hair seemed more exotic, enticing.

"But to keep my attention," he said, infinitely closer although they were already sitting hip-to-hip, "a woman has to be interesting." He touched her chin. "Interesting features, interesting opinions, a brain to make up for my lack, and," Spike smiled, leaning down to find her mouth again, "the whole universe waiting to be found in her eyes."

"Arrgh! More talking, less kissing!"

Buffy pulled away with an "Mmph!" of outrage. "Dawn Michelle Summers! Have you been eavesdropping?"

"I have to! He never answers any of my questions!" This was followed by a loud squeal as Spike dropped through the open window into the room she shared with Buffy. "Get out of here! I'm not dressed!"

He snorted. "Get dressed, then, so your sister can give you a good paddling."

"She lays a finger on me, that's child abuse."

"Hah!" Buffy came through the window more sedately. "You're eighteen now."

"Oh." Dawn was caught flatfooted for perhaps two seconds. "You still can't touch me, because you're a Slayer, and I'm not." She jumped up and down a couple of times, clutching her shirt to her chest, keeping her bra covered. "Oh, and I'm a Watcher, so I'm the boss of you. So there."

"Well, I'll just hide all of your three-inch heels," Buffy said, putting a hand on Spike's shoulder. "Go on, let my freakishly tall baby sister get ready for bed." Buffy gave him a light kiss, not lingering against his lips as much as she wanted to.

Spike's gentle smile changed when he turned from her to her sister, became menacing. "Give us a good night kiss, Bit."

"No." She edged toward the door. "You're up to something."

"Me? No. You're way badder than me, remember? C'mon, love. Good night kiss for your favorite vampire."

"Angel?" she asked innocently. He growled, and Dawn squealed and broke for the door, Spike at her heels.

Amused, Buffy listened to the sound of them thundering down the stairs. Dawn apparently went to Giles for refuge, because she heard him say in a dry tone, "I say, Dawn, do put your shirt on. Spike, don't pester the child."

"Aww, the wee child, the ickle girly."

"Turn around so I can put on my shirt."

"Turn around yourself, you don't want anyone to see your knockers."

"Knockers!" Another squeal, this one of outrage, and the prey became the one giving chase. Mistake, Buffy thought, waiting for it, grateful that at least the other slayers were still at the party and not here to witness the spectacle.

"Eeep! No! No, Spike, don't," her little sister begged. The loud sound of a raspberry being blown with as much juiciness as possible on Dawn's belly ( _punkin belly_ , Buffy thought, and for a moment her mother was right there with her) reverberated throughout the house. "Oh, you are so going to get it." The sound of Dawn's footsteps followed Spike's chuckles until both were cut off by the slam of the basement door. "There's no lock on this door. You can't stand there holding that knob all night."

Spike's laughter was heartier than the comment seemed to deserve. "Can, s'matter of fact. But I'm not going to. You can't come in, Bit. Angel's undressed."

"Oh, he so is not. Like I'm going to fall for–" The house fell into ominous silence. Halfway through getting out of her own party clothes, Buffy paused. Still nothing. Finally, a creak from the fifth step on the staircase, and Dawn trudged back into the bedroom, her shirt on inside-out.

"Spike does tell the truth," Buffy reminded her.

Her face still flaming, Dawn just shook her head. "If Angel kills Spike, it'll be his own fault. I mean, I know he won't kill me, because I'm your sister, but whoa! Can he ever glare."

"Word of advice," Buffy said, pulling on a too-large t-shirt in lieu of a nightgown. Her wardrobe was still severely lacking. "Never let a demon trick you into chasing him."

Dawn's eyes flashed. "I've seen way too much of your old boyfriends, I'm traumatized for life, and you're giving me, like, survival tips?"

Buffy shrugged. "Spike has a natural affinity for springing traps, just like any predator."

"Okay, then, I have some advice for you: naked men who just stand there aren't nearly as much fun as naked men who'll chase you through the house."

"Spike wasn't chasing you through the house naked," Buffy said, then just stopped. "What?"

"I noticed you talking to Angel tonight," Dawn said, turning away, making a show of pulling off her shirt and turning it right-side out. "I'm just saying that Spike is way more fun."

"Because he's, like, eleven." Buffy rolled her eyes.

Dawn turned back, serious suddenly, something old in her eyes. "No, they've both been through hell, literally, but Spike can still laugh, Buffy. People don't change, not really. Angel is always going to be… somber, serious. Spike is always going to look for the fun. You'll laugh more if you choose him."

"Choose – I'm not choosing anyone, Dawnie." It was Buffy's turn to avert her face. "Besides, it's not like they're the only two men on earth."

"For you, it is," her sister corrected. "Humans can't compete. Emotionally, it always comes back to Angel. Physically, it always comes back to Spike." She was silent until Buffy looked around. "Not now, not tomorrow, but eventually, you'll have to decide what's important to you. At least they're very different; that'll make it easier."

Just for a moment, Buffy faced the fact that a human had never been, would never be enough, and was amazed that her baby sister knew and accepted this. Then she shunted the thought away, because it just couldn't be true. "No, you're wrong. Both of them… they're both very dear to me, but they aren't the only guys out there."

"Queen of Denial," Dawn muttered. She unhooked her bra. "Okay, then, pick Angel. He's got a better body."

"No, he doesn't," Buffy protested, then her mouth twisted as she realized she'd been tricked. She threw her bundle of laundry at her sister. "You little sneak."

Dawn caught the clothes and grinned back. "But he's got, like, fifteen miles of chest." She batted her eyelashes.

"Loose woman."

She gave it up. "You're right; it's just the novelty of seeing a naked man other than Spike."

"Do you know how disturbing this whole conversation is?"

"Really. I've changed my mind. Pick Spike. He's an exhibitionist; I like that in a man."

"He's not an exhibitionist. He just doesn't care."

"Oh, pick Angel. He holds still so you can get a real eyeful."

Downstairs in his office, Giles shook his head, hearing more feminine shrieks and another loud, wet raspberry. He looked up from the open book, waited for a moment, then turned to a fresh page in his yellow legal pad. Within seconds, he was lost in his research again.

Another level down, Angel turned his lingering glare to Spike. "Turn off the light."

"You turn it off, it's gettin' on your tits."

"You're closer."

Spike rolled to his side. "How can I be closer? These camp beds are exactly the same distance from the wall. You've just got your knickers in a twist because Dawn caught you starkers."

Angel stared up at the ceiling and began talking to it. "I haven't killed the boy over important things; I'm not going to kill him over this. I'm talking really, really good reasons, too, not just excuses. But have I killed him? No. I have restraint."

Spike sat up, grabbed one of his boots, and chucked it across the open room. It hit the light switch with a thunk! and as it slid down, turned off the light. "There."

An hour later, he sat up partway from the cot. "Five."

Angel frowned. "What?"

"Fifth time you've sighed since I began counting. Can't get to sleep?"

"Why should I have a problem getting to sleep? Not because it's night and I'm a vampire. And surely not because I'm worried Buffy is going to kill me tomorrow for being naked in front of her little sister. Or certainly not because I did what you asked and spent half an hour _not_ having sex with a slayer." Angel moaned a little. "She smelled so good."

Spike covered his eyes with his forearm and groaned a little himself. Scent, even the memory of it, was the most evocative sense for them. "Don't even," he warned.

"Warm, aroused slayer," Angel breathed, the darkness hiding the wicked gleam in his eye. "Heart rate up, pushing blood past all those pulse points–"

"Shut your gob." Cold and precise.

"–all those lovely, moist scents, the hot, open mouth, and – well, just the feel of her blood moving beneath her skin, her breasts–"

Spike flung his blanket to the foot of the bed and threw his legs over the side, resting his head in his hands. "Thanks ever so," he said sourly. "Now I'm hard and hungry."

"Hey," Angel chuckled, "evil here." He rolled over, giving Spike his back. "'Night." The boy growled, and he chuckled again.

⸹

"We're all here?" Giles asked, putting his glasses on so he could see properly. "Good, then." He looked around at the assembled slayers and Watchers, plus one each white witch and souled vampire unaffiliated with the Council. They were in the main training room at the gym, nothing like the board room at the destroyed London headquarters, but oddly comforting to a field-experienced Watcher like himself. The table for the conference room at the office building he'd leased was due next week, but he rather liked meeting here. "For the past few weeks, I've been deeply focused on translating and verifying a particular prophecy, one that was discounted for centuries because," he paused to take his glasses off again, "it dealt with slayers, plural."

"The Kanai prophecy?" one of the Watchers, Alan Jacobson, asked.

"Exactly so." He handed a folder to Dawn. "Would you distribute these, my dear? Thank you." He continued as she moved through the small crowd. "I had run across it years ago, and thought it remarkably silly that someone would try to pass off as accurate a prophecy about multiple slayers. After," he nodded toward Willow, "well, after all slayers were activated, suddenly it had a great deal more weight. Apparently no one had ever seriously researched it, which is what I've been doing in my study, not, as popular theory has it, surfing librarian porn sites."

"Pay up, then," Spike said to Caroline Greene, Kayla's Watcher. A nervous titter of laughter went through the throng.

"I feel sure enough of my translation and interpretation to present them to you. I've emailed the sheet you have to our offices in London, Cairo, and Buenos Aires as well. It will go out to the Watchers and slayers in the field in a couple of days."

"What are we looking at, exactly, Giles?" Buffy asked as she took her copy of the memo from her sister, her voice deeper than normal due to a cold she was fighting. She had rejoined the Council as a salaried Slayer, not wanting a Watcher's responsibilities again.

"To put it succinctly, we have an apocalypse."

"What else?" Xander asked the room in general. Willow made a show of counting on her fingers, then borrowed one of Xander's hands to continue.

"The prophecy says that the concentration of slayers on the Hellmouth will attract some force that will, in turn, attract demons of all varieties. Whoever gets to the power first, wins. Rather than one battle, it speaks of a series of battles, 'opportunities' being the precise word. The prophecy is written, remember, from the, er, other perspective, and says that 'those who fight for the humans will have as many as twelve opportunities to defeat the horde, and can stop the ending of days at any of these times. If the horde can stand against the slayers twelve times, on the thirteenth, the Old Ones will sanctify their efforts by returning from the mouth of Hell to aide them in their bid to obtain the source of power.'" He was obviously quoting, having committed the prophecy to memory.

"Will it be this Hellmouth?" Caro asked.

"I rather think it will be exactly as the prophecy states, Ms. Greene, and occur where the slayers are, and they are here."

She wasn't put off by his correction. "When?"

"If my calculations are accurate, and those are really the shakiest of all my research because of the differing calendars, within the next few months we'll see the first battle."

"No clue about the power source?" Buffy asked.

"None whatsoever. I've been able to purchase every book which even alludes to this prophecy, find every pertinent work on discredited prophesies. The only thing I don't have is the original source material, but that was destroyed long ago, at any rate."

Or this summer, Angel thought unhappily, thinking of the Wolfram and Hart archives. Standing still and silent against a wall, he had hoped to get through this meeting without being noticed. It didn't matter now. His brown eyes strayed to Spike, whose own gaze was fixed on the Head of the Council. _They'll be needed._

"There are almost no mythical power sources that are unaccounted for these days," Giles continued. "A new one, of course, came to light just over a year ago." They all knew he was referring to the Scythe.

"Perhaps the Ark of the Covenant?" Alpana Vishnaswamy suggested.

"Doubtful. This is a dark prophecy, remember."

"What if it isn't a thing at all?" Buffy mused.

"Yes, what if it is a supernatural being that attracts the other demons?" Pelham offered.

"Hey," Xander said, "you've found me. I surrender." While most of the crowd laughed, he fielded Buffy's grateful look.

For his part, Spike pulled Dawn back against him and rested his chin on her shoulder. "Not even in the ballpark, love," he murmured, dismissing the worry that had made her tense. "Rupes doesn't make mistakes of that sort."

"So, what do you want us to do to get ready?" Xander asked, his impatience making Buffy smile.

Giles held his head high. "I think we've already done a very fine job preparing. We'll have another fifteen slayers joining us next week; we're set up to train them properly. Our research facilities are getting better each day; Aubrey is joining us from London–"

"Willingham?" Caro and Pelham said together, their smiles also matching.

"Yes," Rupert beamed before adding for the benefit of the rest, "Fortunately, Aubrey Willingham was on holiday when headquarters was destroyed. He's one of the finest minds the Council has ever had in its employ." He frowned then. "The one place where I have been remiss is in working with the authorities in Cleveland. We had, for instance, an excellent relationship with the Yard, which helped us immeasurably during the aftermath of the bombing of London headquarters. I haven't reached out to the fire and police departments here." A wintry smile touched his lips. "I blame it on the years I spent in Sunnydale."

"Keystone Cops," Spike said, shaking his head.

"Only two official causes of death at the Sunnydale morgue," Willow added, "animal attack and natural causes."

"Yes, well, they are rather more professional here," Rupert said. "We could pool information, or even if we're given access to information of interest rather than having to, er, hack into it, that would be beneficial. Before I approach them, I thought I would ask if anyone knows a member of the police or rescue squads? Someone who could point us to sympathetic superiors?" He looked around at the quiet group and was about to continue when Vi's hand went belatedly into the air. "Yes?"

"I know the head of the homicide division, Joel Muse," she said, then cleared her throat. "I'm not sure of his title."

"Excellent," Rupert said. "Would you approach him, then?" When she nodded, he prompted, "The sooner the better."

"I'll see him Friday," she said after a moment's hesitation.

Giles began to speak again, but Rona interrupted him. "Friday? You holdin' out on us, Vi? Seeing someone?" She grinned at the possibility of being the first to figure it out.

Vi shook her head in the negative, though. "He teaches my concealed-carry class."

"Is he cute?" Rona pressed.

"He's too old for me," Vi said, giving her a repressive look, "and he's probably married, anyway."

"Yes, well, as fascinating as I'm sure slayers' love lives are," Giles got out.

"Or lack thereof," Dawn interrupted dryly, surprising Spike.

"Hear, hear," Vi added.

"None of us have a decent love life," Rona said.

"Yeah, why is that?" Kayla asked the room in general.

"Because it's so hard to meet decent guys," Rona said. By now, Giles was staring at the ceiling.

"Buffy, is it a slayer thing?" Vi asked.

Surprised, Buffy blinked. "Um, no. Meeting them isn't so hard. Having a relationship with someone you can bench press is, though," she admitted.

"So," Rona said, grinning wickedly, "what we really need are more ensouled vampires?"

"One for each slayer," Vi seconded.

"Or two," Kayla added slyly.

Looking over Dawn's shoulder, Spike met Tribby's troubled eyes. She stood up a little straighter, projecting her voice. "I don't believe anyone's gettin' laid on the Watcher side of the table, either–"

"Hear, hear," Xander agreed, echoing Vi.

"Tribby!" Caro interjected, scandalized.

"–so we don't have room to complain. Maybe Mr. Giles would like to proceed?"

"Thank you. I think." He shook his head a little, trying to come back to where they left off. "Um, Spike, would you accompany Vi to her meeting with…?"

"Joel Muse."

"Joel Muse, in case he needs, um, evidence of the existence of demons?"

"Uh… okay." Spike tried not to sound reluctant; since neither he nor either of the Summers were on patrol on Friday, he'd planned to go to the pictures with them.

"Good, then. I'll take care of contacting the fire department and medical examiner's office."

"I can help," Alpana put in.

"Thank you, Ms. Vishnaswamy. Pelham, you're Catholic, if I remember correctly?" When the Watcher nodded, Giles went on. "Perhaps you would like to recruit your priest?" At the man's nod, he looked around the room. "Other questions?"

"No questions, but I did want to announce that I've hired a masseuse for the slayers," Dawn said. "Her name is Sasha, and she'll be here at the gym Mondays through Thursdays, three until six."

"Other items of business?" When there were none, Giles dismissed the meeting.

Vi came directly across the open area to Spike and Dawn. "My class kicks off at seven, so maybe we can get you back by, say, nine?" She smiled at the uncomfortable expression on his face. "I thought you might have plans. You can say no, you know."

"No, he can't," Dawn scoffed.

Spike curled his arm around her waist, laid his head on her shoulder, and gave her a completely sappy look. "Not to you, Snackpack."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "We can go to the late show, I guess."

The blond man stood back up, recovering a little too quickly from his attack of sentimentality. "Good, then." He caught Dawn's fist before it could land on his arm. "Gettin' predictable, pet." She tried again, and he simply scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. "So, where's this at?"

"Spike, put me down!"

"Shh, pet, 'm talkin.'"

"The firing range in the basement of police headquarters," Vi answered, amused.

"Dammit, Spike!"

"Language, Bit." He smacked her bottom lightly with one large hand. "Dress?"

"Wear what you usually wear." Vi ducked to the side to where she could see the part of Dawn's face unobstructed by brown hair. "If you don't want to slam your elbow into the back of his head, start taking things out of his pockets and throwing them on the ground."

"Here, don't help her!" Spike protested, but the slayer was already gone, as was his wallet. "Oi, Bit, leave off the littering."

⸹

"So, pet, why the gun?"

Vi shrugged as they walked through the metal detector at the entrance to police headquarters, and indicated he should follow her down the hall to their left. "Why not? Easier to conceal than a sword."

"Most guns won't slow down your usual opponents," Spike countered, low because of the other people moving around. "You'd have to use explosive-tipped bullets for them to even notice you've shot them."

"Not all the bad guys are demons," Vi said stubbornly, as Spike lunged to hold open the stairwell door for her.

"You fight beautifully, love," Spike told her. "I don't think you need a gun, but if makes you feel better…"

The red-haired slayer smiled, ducking her head at the compliment. "It does make me feel better."

"All right, then." They came to the firing range and checked in, and Vi signed out a gun and protective earwear and goggles.

"I'll see if you can stay for the class. Be right back."

He nodded and watched her walk up to a heavy-set female police officer and ask a question. Spike took a few steps away from the table with the guns, all of which were thirty-eight caliber semi-automatic pistols, and leaned against the wall, people-watching. Before the civilian class started, several of Cleveland's finest were getting in target practice. Despite the loud noise and destruction, he rather thought shooting was on the boring side.

"So, you're the guest Vivian brought?"

The voice was light, reminiscent of Wesley's, and the policeman had come within three feet in the noisy environment without being heard by a vampire. Spike surveyed him, deciding that most of his kind would pass him over for easier prey. He was a blond man in his late forties, blue eyes, a little taller than Spike, fit despite the waist thickened by age, and there was a hint of danger in his watchful cop's eyes.

"Yeah. Hope it's okay I'm here."

The other blue eyes narrowed, but he held out a hand. "Joel Muse."

"William Giles."

"Hey, Spike." Vi came up and slid between the two blond men. "Sorry. I see you've met Lieutenant Muse."

"Just now."

"'Spike?'" Joel repeated. "Suits you better than William."

"Spike does the training for our neighborhood watch group," Vi explained.

"If you're interested in a concealed-carry permit, I don't think it's going to happen, since you're not an American, not with Homeland Security measures."

"Don't really have much use for guns, myself."

The two men exchanged another measuring look. "So, what's your style?"

Spike blinked in confusion for a moment before understanding dawned. He was asking about the training. "Oh. I have my own style." It sounded incredibly arrogant, even to him.

Muse merely nodded, though. "Could I come by your dojo sometime?"

"'Course." Rupert had said that tours could be arranged. "It's just called a gym, though. No mystical Mister Miyagi stuff." Spike looked around as the civilians began gathering at the front on the room. Class was about to start. "So, how much has Vi told you about our organization?"

His gaze narrowed, very much cop's eyes once more. "She said that the reason the Council chose Cleveland was because of the recent uptick in… unusual violent crime."

Oh, the policeman had definitely seen something he couldn't reconcile with standard criminological theory. "Mm-hm. Other places, we've found that nightly patrols are the best way to keep the citizens safe."

"What other places?"

"Last town where I, er, worked with the Council was Sunnydale, in California."

"Sunnydale." His eyes went to Vi for a moment. "Were you there, too, when…?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

He'd obviously shown his emotions. Like always. "'S'alright, now."

"So, how many people go on nightly patrols?"

"We go in pairs," Vi answered, then checked her watch. "Spike, if you want to go on, make the show time…? I'll finish up here, tell the Lieutenant which parts of the city we cover." It was obvious to her that the vampire wasn't going to smooth the process in any way, not even by showing his fangs as proof. Spike just struck some people the wrong way. "Say hey to Buffy for me."

"Buffy?" Muse echoed, laughing a little. Then he saw Spike's face and cleared his throat. "Um, unusual name."

"See you tomorrow, Vi." He inclined his head very slightly, using a lordly manner that would have made his gentle mother frown and remind him they really weren't any better than people of the lower classes. "Lieutenant."

⸹

Angel closed his eyes for a second, then readjusted his book so that it would be obvious that he was reading when she came down the basement stairs. "Hello, Buffy."

"Hey, Angel." She stopped at the foot of the staircase. "Whatcha readin'?"

How was it possible for her to be as cute now as she was when he first met her so many years ago? " _Merchant of Venice_."

"Ooh, that's practically light reading, for you." She came to the edge of his cot to peer at the cover of the thick book, then plopped down on Spike's empty cot opposite his.

He sat up abruptly, feeling exposed, so that they were facing each other. "Borrowed it from Will, while he's out."

"Yeah, the great slayer meet-and-greet." The fifteen new slayers had all arrived in Cleveland.

"How'd you get out of it?"

Buffy shrugged. "It's a Watcher thing. Once the orientation is done, we old school types will meet the newbies over dinner. That oughta be fun. See Buffy confuse Tiffany and Tiffani! Watch the senior Slayer mispronounce 'Isidra' in some dyslexic manner!" She sighed. "Of course, a couple of them were potentials I know from Sunnydale, Bethany and Maria, so it won't be totally awkward. Giles has reserved a private dining room at some swanky Italian place. I voted for the playground party room at McDonalds, since that's what all the non-American slayers will expect for their first meal here – hamburgers, I mean."

"Do you miss not being a Watcher?"

"No. It was just something I was doing for Giles, because the Council needed us last year, and I needed something to keep – something to do."

He nodded, then looked down at the book, to where he'd wedged one of his fingers between the pages to keep his place. "It took me a couple of weeks before I realized that last summer you went through what I'm going through. It's hard–" To loose people who made your mission their own? To never get the chance to really make it right with Wesley? To stoop to such ugliness that Lorne, a demon, turns from you? It was just hard.

Buffy put her hand on his knee, compassion in her eyes. "I know."

The hell of it was, she did. "I wish you didn't."

It was the wrong thing to say. Buffy pulled her hand back and shrugged. "I seem to be going from zero-to-serious in under six seconds these days." She shook her hair back. "I came down to ask if you wanted to go with me to the restaurant tonight."

Angel lifted his shoulders. "Isn't it just a Council thing?"

"We all fight on the same side. Besides, I don't have a car – or a license, as Dawn keeps going out of her way to remind me." Spike and even Dawn had offered to give her lessons if she wanted to get her license, but Buffy couldn't bring herself to care very much. She gave Angel the ghost of flirtatious look. "You haven't even asked me to go for a ride in your hot new – hot old car."

"If you think it's okay for me to be there."

"Of course it is. See you at, say, ten till seven?"

He nodded, returning her smile with one that didn't reach his eyes, and watched her go back upstairs. It occurred to him that Spike might have asked her to make sure he showed up.

⸹

"This isn't exactly what I would call an authentic English pub," Rupert complained, glaring at a potted fern as if it had just disparaged his mother.

"No, but it lured you away from the Tweed Brigade."

"Buffy says I used to be that stuffy," the Watcher sighed, "but I think she's exaggerating."

Spike decided the wisest thing would be to let that statement lie. "There's Guinness on tap, at any rate," and with the words, he caught a waitress' eye and lifted two fingers. They found a table, and Spike leaned over to invade Rupert's personal space. "Wanted to talk to you before now, but you've been King Swot the last few weeks."

"Yes, the Kanai prophecy," Giles agreed, looking weary. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see Aubrey." The former head of the Council's research department had arrived the day after the new slayers. A short, portly gentleman in his seventies, he had replaced Rupert as the man who poked his head out of the study to call for quiet.

"Been meaning to ask – thanks, love," he interrupted himself, flashing a smile at the waitress that guaranteed she would keep an eye on the level of their pints. Spike took a Herculean drink, then went on. "Been meaning to ask how many new potentials there are."

Rupert's eyes narrowed as he stopped drinking, staring at his fellow Brit over the rim. Then he leaned against the back of the booth. "You know."

"Got some information," Spike admitted with a short nod. "Didn't know how much to credit it."

The Watcher's eyes were still intent. "Incredibly good information, as we have kept that on very much a need-to-know basis. We hadn't planned on sharing that for at least two more years, just to be sure."

"Well, my informant figured I needed to know," Spike said, leaving Tribby's name out of it. "Why do you reckon there are no new potentials, Rupes?"

He shook his head. "I honestly don't know. My worst fear, the one that still keeps me awake some nights, is that we've exhausted the supply of Slayer energy, if you will. There are more reasonable explanations."

"Such as?" Spike prodded. He absently picked up a pretzel and popped it in his mouth.

"All of the girls with enough potential to be noticed are either dead at the hands of the Bringers or are slayers now. The rest are too weak or too young for the usual detection methods."

"And that will change when they become breeders?"

Distaste flashed across Giles face at the word, and he took another sip. "Menarche shouldn't make a difference, no, not with the methods we have to identify them."

"Other explanations?"

"That there is actually a limited supply of Slayer energy, and it's all in use right now. As the attrition rate among slayers increases–"

"As they die, you mean."

"Yes, Spike, as they die. Talking about slayers dying is painful to me, so forgive me if I use euphemisms. As they die, that energy will flow back into potentials, and we can identify them then."

"You're tetchy about this."

"I am, a bit." Rupert sat his mug on the table with a thump. "When Buffy proposed the idea to fight the First Evil's army, I was all for it. That means that fifty years from now, the Council may be cursing my name when they are overrun with vampires, or when there are demons and apocalypses and no Slayers being called to fight them." He let out a breath, and Spike wondered if he were actually counting to ten before continuing. "My personal theory is that activating all the slayers, along with the holocaust the Bringers unleashed, will make it very difficult to identify potentials for a long while. I expect the next time we find someone new will be when… when Faith dies." He took a long pull from his pint. "When Buffy died on Glory's tower, no new Slayer was called." Rupert shrugged. "From Buffy, to Kendra, to Faith, and since Faith is still alive… I think the line lies with her. I think – I hope that eventually there will be a single Chosen One again."

The waitress was looking their way, and Spike signaled for a second round. "Right, then. So, what happens in fifty years? What does the Council do, worst case and there are no more Slayers?"

Rupert shook his head. "We fight, to the best of our ability, limited and human though that may be. That's what we've always done in areas where there was demon activity but the Slayer was elsewhere."

Spike stared at his empty mug, rotating it between his hands side to side, the handle stopping it from making a full revolution each way. "I might still be around, don't let myself get dusted."

"Well, I would hope that you would still offer your assistance," Rupert said with some asperity.

"Angel might still be around, too." He looked up into Giles' eyes. "By that time, he finally might be as good as a Slayer, himself."

"Well, let's hope he'll be inclined to help, too," Rupert said, ignoring the insult Spike had zinged at his grandsire. "Thank you." This last was directed to their barmaid, and Spike pushed a twenty across the table to her, wanting her to leave. "William, what are you driving at?"

"Just wonderin' who has the gypsy's curse, Rupes. Just want to know who has the ability to shove a soul into some random vampire, so that he gives a damn, like a Slayer. A souled vampire who's a tough warrior, who can't die, not really, not like a Slayer. Easy to have more than one soulful vampire at a time, too, now the Council's getting used to your classic Slayer model being upended."

Studying Rupert's expression shuffle rapidly from confusion to horror answered the question that Spike most feared, would never ask. This particular solution had never occurred to the Watcher. "Good lord! The Council would nev–"

"It would," Spike disagreed quietly. "An organization's first mission is to ensure its continuing existence. Same as anything," he added with a shrug. "Or maybe do it just because it can be done, like the Initiative. I mean, why try to rehabilitate vampires with behavior modification chips? Easier to dust us, yeah? Doubt they ever thought it through – stupid idea if they were after a super-solider to make one only useful at night. Just wanted to know if it could be done, I reckon."

"Who told you this, about the potentials?" Rupert asked. "At first, I admit, I was brassed off that there had been a leak about the lack of potentials, but if there's a contingent among the Council who are planning this," and his face was suddenly hard and cold, "I want to know about it."

Spike shook his head. "No plan, just someone who knew about the potentials and bothered to think a few moves ahead."

"A chess player?"

"What? I dunno." Confusion cleared from his face. "Oh, you're trying to suss out who told me. May not be a good liar, Rupes, but I can keep a confidence." He put his elbows on the table. "My soul and my demon, they're mates, Rupes. Help each other pull the load. S'not the case with Angel. His soul is constantly suffering for events it had nothing to do with. The gypsies didn't call it a curse for nothing. So, I just wanted to know… who has it?"

"I got it from Willow, and it's in my Watcher's Diary," Giles said on a sigh. "I wanted it to be there for posterity, you see, because I was so proud of Jenny – Jenny Calendar – for reconstituting that spell. Her research was incredible."

"So, my hope that only Red had the spell was for naught."

"I'm afraid so. Watchers' Diaries are duplicated – they're often the only field research that gets performed and are invaluable because of it." The two sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for Giles to notice a dreadful instrumental version of 'Greensleeves' being piped through the speakers.

"Jenny, that the woman Dru pulled out of your mind when I stopped Angelus torturing you?"

"Yes." Rupert's voice was faint, and he was gave Spike an odd look.

"What?"

"I just realized that I owe you my life from a much earlier date." He looked down and took a long pull from his mug. "I-I don't like to think of that house on Crawford very often."

"Me, either, mate," Spike said grimly.

"What did Angel – er, Angelus do to you? Torture, as well?"

"Cuckolded me," Spike said sourly, "took a hundred years of work shoring up Dru's sanity and…" He shook his head and took a drink of his own.

"He didn't… hurt you directly?"

"I was in a wheelchair, Rupes, not helpless. Ran his mouth, mostly, but I did my fair share in return. Couldn't dress myself, manage my boots, things like that, and Angelus made fun of Dru takin' care of me, but he wasn't about to come within arm's reach and try anything." Spike shrugged. "S'pose he could have had his minions rush me, but anything he would have wanted to dish out would be personal-like, a family matter." He laid his head to one side. "If he gets loose again, Rupes, he'll come after me first. I've done what I can to make sure that he knows it's me an' him, _mano a mano_ , and the winner gets to be head of the family."

Giles' expression was grim. "I hadn't noticed that a stand-up fight was in his repertoire."

"No, it isn't," Spike agreed. "But I haven't noticed Angel being happy – trust me on that. Another encounter with that bastard isn't on the horizon for either of us." He turned his head as the waitress approached and gave her another devastating smile. "'Nother round, love."

"Talk to Willow about this," Rupert said after another comfortable silence. "She may have some idea of how to put the genie back in the bottle, delete existing copies of the spell."

"I will. Need to spend some time with her before she heads off to University, anyway," Spike replied. Then the twinkle came back into his somber eyes. "Where did she choose again? Ah, yes, Oxford, I believe, wasn't it, old chap?"

"Well, can't hold it against her," replied the Cambridge man, "she is American, after all, and doesn't know any better." The barmaid came by with the third round of drinks, and Giles took a sip before continuing. "One thing I envy you, William."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"You don't get solicitations from your alma mater," he said, pointing at the other man with his glass before leaning across the table. "You're far too old and dead." Another drink. "That's the real reason I came back to the States, to get away from the aggro of the bloody telecharities."

Blue eyes narrowed. "You trying to get drunk off your face, Rupes?"

"I'm an extremely wealthy man, William, and I've spent sod-all of it on having a good time. I'm tired of research, I admit it. For tonight, I don't give a toss. I want to get standing-up, falling-down drunk, and not think about the Council or even one tiny, little prophecy." He shook his head. "Besides, you're a good drinking companion. You – you're…"

"An attractive blond?" Spike guessed, batting his eyelashes.

"Don't think it's possible to get that pissed," Rupert said after a moment's thought. "No, I was going to say, the designated driver." He lifted his mug in a toast, then finished it off.

"Designated…" Spike looked pained. "You've just dealt a mortal blow to my self-image, Rupes."

⸹

"You brought Giles home drunk," Buffy said, half-accusingly and half-dumbfounded, after they got the Watcher's shoes off and poured him into his bed.

"What, you would rather I left him to go home with the barmaid? She was eying him. 'Sides, brought you home drunk before," he said with an easy grin, closing Rupert's door behind him.

"That's exactly the wrong memory to bring up."

"C'mon, pet. We had fun that night, you know we did."

"How much did you drink tonight?"

"Vampire, love. Takes a lot more than a few rounds to get me buzzed." His eyes roamed over her lazily. "You, now… You get in my blood like good bourbon." His hands followed the same path as his eyes.

"Spike, what do you think you're–"

But he was already doing it, kissing her, one large hand firmly planted on her bottom, holding her against him, the other under her t-shirt, fingers spreading across her back.

"So delicious," he said against her cheek, "so tasty." Another unhurried kiss. "I could survive off nothing but your kisses, Buffy. Like to try."

"Get a room," Rona said rudely, after a startled pause on her way from the bathroom to her bedroom.

"Offering yours?" Spike inquired, peering over Buffy's head with raised eyebrows.

"Ick," she said decisively and went on by, a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.

"Spike, we're in the hallway," Buffy said, emerging from her daze.

He leaned against Rupert's door and pulled her closer. "Can't be helped. They're all rooting for us, anyway. Nice safe snog, love, that's all."

Surprised into responsiveness by his sudden seduction, she thought of the bedroom she shared with Dawn and groaned a little. "I'm twenty-three," she complained, wriggling both hands under his shirt. "Why do I not have my own room, at least?"

"Dunno. Don't feel bad. I'm a hundred and twenty-four," he said, giving her a quick grin, "and bunking with my granddad."

"There's always your truck." She found his mouth with hers, giving him as many reasons as she could manage to seriously consider it.

"Too far. Knee-trembler right here, love," he managed, both hands anchoring her hips against him now. Then he shifted to the side and slid a thigh between hers, following with his fingers.

"Oh my God Spike," she gasped, all on one breath. There was room for nothing in her thoughts but this, no place for memories of Rome or heaven. Buffy moved against him mindlessly, both hands in his hair now, her mouth on his, greedily suckling the tip of his tongue. She broke away, burying her face in his shoulder, stifling her sobbing cry.

"Spend for me. So beautiful, love, so beautiful."

The low rumble of his voice brought her back to herself. "What about you?" she asked, making the question moot as her hands followed her thoughts.

He closed his eyes tightly, as if in pain, and leaned his forehead against hers. "Buffy, love, what you do to me… bring me off, kitten, I can't… Like that, like–" She shut him up with her lips, and he lost himself in the motion and pressure of her hands.

Spike slid his right hand in her hair, holding her close as he gave voice to his release against her mouth. The other traced the firm line of her stomach and slid beneath the elastic waistband of her yoga pants.

"Spike!" Her voice was a sharp hiss of warning and pleasure. Then his clever fingers found what they were searching for again, and the pleasure took over, her own hands clutching at the hardness of him through his jeans. She wanted him to hurry, too aware that at any moment another door along the hallway might open and find another young slayer scandalized. He didn't, of course, rubbing against her so slowly that she moaned and began to move insistently against his fingers, setting the pace. Buffy forced her eyes to remain open, wanting to see him when he… when she….

They came at the same time, inevitably, and after a moment of staring at her with his whole heart in his eyes, he closed them and ran the tip of his nose along hers until their lips were close enough for a long, lingering kiss. Before Buffy's breath could even out, he began the slow glide of his fingertips along her hot flesh once again.

"Mmm," she breathed, "more." Then some slight noise made her turn her head.

Angel stood stock-still at the top of the stairs, a towel over his shoulder and an unreadable expression on his face.

"Bad timing, mate," Spike said in a slow, almost-sated voice as he laid his cheek against Buffy's.

"Sorry."

The Slayer stared at the big vampire, stunned that she had been caught making out like some silly teenager, stunned that she had been overcome by lust in the very public hallway of Giles' house. Angel had seen her with another man. With Spike. Oh, God. She wasn't supposed to, shouldn't. She curved her body away from Spike, her hands pulling his from inside her clothes, moving away from his thigh. By the time she tucked her hair behind her ears and turned back around, Angel was gone, vanishing down the stairs. The fifth tread didn't even squeak.

"Great," she said, throwing an angry glare at Spike, "just perfect."

He watched her stomp down the hallway to her room and close the door behind her with a controlled click. Spike set his jaw and went in after her.

"Hey, Spike," Dawn said, not looking up from her psychology textbook. She was on her stomach on her bed, her feet in the air and a well-chewed pencil against her full lips.

"Spike, go away." Buffy yanked open a drawer.

"No. You're going to talk to me."

Dawn looked back up, her eyebrows climbing high. "Uh, you guys want me to leave?"

"No. _You_ can stay."

"No," Spike agreed, "you'll just eavesdrop." He tried to move in front of Buffy so she would have to look at him, hating the guilt that poured off of her. This was too much like their secret affair in Sunnydale. "Right, then. Why are you so upset that Angel saw us snogging?"

"It was just a little bit more than sn – kissing," she shot back.

"It was?" Dawn sounded delighted. Then she got an appalled look on her face, not remembering any sounds from the stairs. "Where? In the hallway?"

"Between the two of us," Spike corrected the Slayer, "that was just snogging. Not the point. Why did it upset you?"

"I don't want to hurt him," Buffy ground out.

"He bloody well left you!" Spike roared. "Who the hell cares if he's hurt?"

Watching the two people she loved most glaring icily at each other, Dawn rolled to her side and pulled her knees up to her chest. This was too much like her dim, implanted memories of the last few weeks before her parents divorced.

"I do," Buffy said resolutely. "I-I care about him."

"And I don't?" Spike shot back. "He's the closest thing I have to family, Buffy, but he left you." He took a step closer to her. "He was wrong," he ground out, "and he lost you. He has no say in your life, in whom you choose to be with."

Dawn closed her eyes, wishing that her best friend would glance over so that she could signal him, shake her head frantically, anything.

His eyes were on Buffy, though, and when she didn't answer, he asked, low and soft, "Why does he have power over you, kitten? Why do you let him make you feel this way?"

What way? Buffy wondered. Wrong and dirty for being with someone else, especially Spike? "He was the first man I ever loved," she said simply. "There's a part of me – I'll always love him, you know that."

Dawn squeezed her eyes shut more tightly, trying to will her sister to say, at the very least, that she loved Spike, too. Buffy could throw him any bone; even the slightest crumb had always been enough for him. There was a long silence.

"Right," Spike said, his voice normal. But there was defeat in the slump of his shoulders, his bowed head. He turned to the door. "'Night, Nibblet. Sorry for invadin.'"

"Good night," Dawn called after him, her voice small. She looked at Buffy's tense shoulders, already knowing the familiar pinched look that would be marring her sister's pretty face. "Buffy… If I were you, I'd go after him."

The Slayer shook her head jerkily. "No. I don't want to go anywhere near the basement tonight."

"Ohhh," Dawn breathed, realizing. "Bad situation, huh?"

"Bad," Buffy agreed, opening the drawer that housed most of her clothes. She stared into it and said without looking at her sister, "I don't want to hurt either of them."

"I know." There was compassion in her young voice. "I know you don't."

⸹

The bell of a church he was passing gave a single, solemn 'dong!' Angel looked up at the clock tower to see that it was four in the morning. His shoulders moved inside his jacket, almost a shrug. As he didn't care where he was going, he didn't suppose it mattered what time he got there.

Buffy and Spike. Not a bird's-eye view, but close up, a very personal view. He had given them his blessing, after all, because they were so good together, anyone could see that, see how beautiful... And they had never paraded their physical relationship in front of him. He just hadn't been paying attention, focused on getting a shower while the bathroom was unoccupied. No one was at fault, nothing was wrong, they were all adults. There was no problem.

Except it hurt like hell.

He would know.

Angel wanted to be furious, to have the desire to rip the two of them apart and smash Spike's chiseled features into a pulp, but it wasn't there. He wanted to feel that it was unfair; Buffy didn't cut anyone any slack, not him, not herself, yet Spike had weaseled his way past her defenses. That wasn't true, though. Will had earned his place at her side.

If the boy's place was with Buffy, and he was also Angel's family, and Angel still very much loved Buffy… how could the three of them fit together? Angel shook his head and stopped. He had found his way to the roof of a building overlooking Lake Erie.

He did know how they could fit together, not in Cleveland, of course, not within normal human society, but there was a way. Angel had listened for Rona to leave the bathroom so he could shower, had made his way up the stairs, had seen the two of them entwined, unable in their passion not to provide pleasure to the other. The sight had stopped him.

Had aroused him.

He had taken a step toward them, toward that passion. Spike had looked up, not surprised to see him, had said something to the effect that Angel had bad timing. That could mean 'sorry you had to see this;' it could also mean 'you're late.' He had seen that look on the boy's face before, nuzzled against Dru's hair, when they had shared a family bed, where he knew he was welcome. There could be a place for him. He let his mind follow that path for a few moments, his eyes closed, a cool breeze ruffling his hair.

Then he opened them, his expression stark. At the end of that road was Angelus, because that would make him happy, wouldn't it? The three of them in a family bed, a guilt-free relationship with the two people he loved best, after Connor.

On the thought of his son, he was over the side of the building, moving with shadow, impossible for any human to see, streetlights dimming as he stalked the streets. Why was he here instead of in California, near Connor? Why was he torturing himself with something that could never happen? Buffy was far too traditional to contemplate such a relationship. And after sharing Drusilla, Spike would never settle for anything less than an exclusive relationship again. It wasn't what his soul wanted, either, and Angel had a quickly suppressed memory of watching Cordelia initiate Connor. He should just leave, get away from the pain of seeing them together.

 _They'll be needed._

Angel slowed, releasing darkness from his control with a sigh. No, until this twelve-battles thing Giles had found was over, he was stuck in Cleveland. He dreaded going back to the Watcher's house, though, breathing the scent of her, known once and never forgotten, now mingled with his boy's; not knowing which would be worse – seeing Spike asleep and alone on the narrow cot, playing the gentleman he once was, or seeing the cot empty.

He didn't have to go back.

Something had caught at his attention a block ago, and he quickly retraced his steps, surveying the building critically. He stepped into the shadow of the building and plucked the 'For Rent' sign from the door. Furnished, that was a plus. Angel looked around, thinking that it wasn't far from the neighborhood where Ute had lived, that he should be able to afford the rent with no difficulty. Taking a breath, he realized he felt a little easier in his mind, as if he had dodged a stake.

The door opened and an elderly black man in a t-shirt and boxers flinched at the sight of him, almost dropping the bag of garbage he was holding. He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at Angel sourly, with no apparent fear. "What are you doing, lurking on my doorstep this hour of the morning?"

He held up the sign. "I'm here about the apartment."

The old man's face lit up. "Well, why didn't you say so? Come on in. Just let me get my britches on, and I'll show it to you."

⸹

"This is miserable," Dawn declared, throwing her highlighter on the floor. It was the last week of the summer semester, and all the slayers who were taking classes had congregated with her in Giles' living room to study for their finals. "I hate this."

"Not enough caffeine," Vi said wisely, speaking as an expert college student with enough hours to start the fall semester as a junior. "Trust me; it won't be as bad as you think. Once you sit down in the classroom with the final in front of you, you'll be fine."

Kayla looked up from her place next to Dawn. "Do you know what part of my test is? Writing on a blackboard. Can you imagine? Even my teachers back in Minnesota used white boards and Elmos and PowerPoint."

"At least all you have to do is take a test," Rona said, watching Dawn pick up her marker. "How am I going to get ten pages out of this topic?"

"What's the topic?" Tribby asked, looking up from her laptop.

"Alcohol use among college students."

"Yuck." The Southern slayer frowned. "Do a section on religion and drinking – down in the Bible Belt, people figure that once they've had one drink, they've already sinned, so they might as well make it a big, old sin and go on a huge binge. You can contrast that with typical, every weekend partying elsewhere."

"Hey, that's good," Rona said. "That'll pad out at least a page and a half." She nodded at Tribby. "What about you?"

"Twenty-five page minimum, and I'm at thirty, but I can't wrap it up. I ran into the 'but is it art?' angle," Tribby complained. "I thought I could skip Mapplethorpe and not have to deal with it, but here it is again with Rubenstein. She couldn't have stopped with _Rhiannon's Birds_ and made my life easy?"

"What do you mean, is it art?" Kayla asked, glad to have something to distract her. "It's an art history class, so… duh."

Tribby sat up, pulling her Germs t-shirt into place. "Okay. Have you ever seen a Robert Mapplethorpe print?" When Kayla shook her head, the other slayer went on. "He was a photographer, had this wonderful, dramatic sense of light. He's best known for photographs of flowers and people – and for being openly gay and dying of AIDS. Some of his work is clearly art – you see it, you're uplifted, proud to be human so you can appreciate the beauty."

Dawn smiled as she retrieved her highlighter. Tribby wasn't as quiet as she used to be, and she liked to think the slayer camaraderie had something to do with it. Besides, Dawn loved any discussion of art. It reminded her of her mother.

Tribby seesawed a hand in the air. "Some of his work, especially this one self-portrait I'm thinking of, maybe not so much high art. He had an exhibition down in Cincinnati that was shut down by the town fathers for being obscene."

"'High' art?" Dawn scoffed. "No such thing. Either it's art, or it's not – or it's kitsch, maybe." Joyce's opinion, but it made sense to her, too.

Downstairs, lying sleeplessly on his bunk, Spike smiled, also thinking of art conversations with Joyce. He missed her so badly, some days. He listened to the continuing chatter, glad to have something to distract him from Angel, who hadn't come home last night.

"Well, Mapplethorpe was so talented, his work is definitely art, but some of it–" Tribby broke off, thinking. "Okay, some of Mapplethorpe's work puts you in the position of voyeur – here are these great-looking, buff guys, staged as sex objects. Compare that to, oh, Michelangelo's _David_. Celebrated work of art, deserves its place in the canon, lovely, graceful, and despite the fact that the subject is a handsome nude, you don't look at it and feel any, um, prurient interest."

"Speak for yourself," Kayla said cheerfully.

"Except for Kayla," Tribby conceded. "It's the best argument for the human body being a work of art, and you can look at it with your parents next to you without feeling kinda squicked."

"My mom thinks _David_ is hot, too," Kayla added.

"Okay, so your backwoods Minnesota family gets turned on by statues of men with tiny little dicks," Rona said impatiently. "Can we talk about art/not art tomorrow, when we don't have finals and deadlines?"

"Is it really little?" Dawn asked, curious. "I thought it was supposed to be, you know, anatomically correct."

"Little," said Rona.

"Shrinkage," agreed Vi.

"Definitely little," Kayla said. "Normal is, like five inches or so."

"But that's when they're hard," Vi said, shaking her head.

Listening in, Spike began to grin. This discussion was way more interesting than art. Someone snorted in amusement, Tribby, he thought.

"Okay," the Southern slayer said sardonically, "define an inch. Go ahead, anybody, show me an inch."

Each of the other women held up their fingers, demonstrating an inch. No two held their fingers apart the same width. "Does anyone have a ruler?" Dawn asked.

"Ooh, I do," Kayla said proudly. "Teacher here."

"My point is, women have been lied to their whole lives about how long an inch is, so that men can get away with saying anything they want to about how well they're endowed," Tribby said.

"Feminist propaganda alert," Vi put in without rancor.

Tribby shot her a fond look; politically speaking, they were polar opposites. "Even your own father will lie to you if you're helping him measure a board or something; he can't help it. It's genetic or something."

Kayla and Dawn's brown heads bent over the plastic ruler the slayer had produced. "Huh. An inch is bigger than I thought it was," Kayla said.

"Shorter than I thought it was." Spike could hear the frown in Dawn's voice and wondered if he was going to be in trouble for lying to her about units of measurement, being the male figure in her life. "So, what is normal, then?"

"Nothing here," Buffy assured her, walking in with Willow.

"Hey, everybody," Willow said. "Normal is overrated."

"It is in this conversation," Rona agreed, smirking. She'd given up on her paper, now that the talk had turned to something interesting.

"What conversation?" Buffy asked.

"Penises." Vi rolled her eyes.

"I thought the plural was penies," Willow said, frowning. When the other women stared at her, she held out her hands in askance. "What? I just think it's a funny word."

"Why were you discussing… those things, Dawn?" Buffy asked pleasantly.

"We were trying to decide how big average is," Kayla explained.

Buffy and Willow looked at each other, then shrugged. "Beats me," Buffy said. "Men always lie about it anyway."

"Point," Rona said. "They even lie to us about how long an inch is so we'll never know for sure." A predatory smile settled on her face. "Unless you take a ruler to bed."

"You don't need a ruler," Tribby said, her voice a little distant as she typed away on her keyboard.

"You don't?" Willow asked.

"Why all the interest in male genitalia, Wil?" Buffy asked, grinning.

"A-academic interest," she said defensively.

Tribby clicked on 'save' in her word processor. "Okay, insofar as there is good data on averages, here it is: flaccid, three and a half; erect, five-point-five to a little over six inches. The _David_ is about normal, actually." She moved to sit on the floor by Kayla. "The larger a penis is flaccid, the less it grows when erect – has to fit, doesn't it?"

"Growers and showers," Rona said with a grin. "And then there are brothers."

Tribby nodded. "Penis size is generally proportional to body size, so there's some basis to the stereotypes."

"And just how do you know all this?" Vi asked archly.

Tribby shrugged. "Med school."

"Well, that's a pathetically boring answer," Kayla said. "I thought you might have lots of experience, stories you'd like to share in great detail."

"Yeah, I'm a regular Plaster Caster," Tribby said sarcastically. When the rest of them looked blank, she sighed. "Everybody hold out your right hand – or your dominant hand. Make the hang-loose sign," she tucked her middle three fingers against her palm and spread her thumb and pinkie out as far as they would go. "My grandfather taught me this, how to eyeball something and get a good estimate. This is your hand span, so all you have to do is measure it, and you'll have a built-in gauge next time you really want to know."

"But your grandfather didn't teach you exactly how long an inch was, did he?" Vi asked, making the other slayer laugh and shake her head.

"Me first," Kayla said, grabbing her ruler and measuring her hand span. "Six and a half inches. All right, boys, here I come."

"Seven and almost a quarter," Vi said. "So, no one's gonna measure up." The other slayers laughed, and she handed the ruler to Willow.

"Anyway, after all this," Tribby said, standing back up, "I have to say it: size doesn't matter, length or circumference."

"Ooh, a chubby," Kayla said in a dreamy voice.

"Kayla! You're awful," Dawn declared. Then she turned to the older slayer. "You were gonna say, 'size doesn't really matter when you love someone.'"

"No, but I probably should." Tribby fought against a grin. "Did you know that human males are proportionally the best endowed critters on the planet? Since genes are passed on selectively, cavewomen must have thought it mattered. So, thanks to them, we get the good stuff – but not too good. 'Cause, think about it: if we had to accommodate a race of John Holmes, our vaginas would have evolved to be enormous, too."

"Eww," Dawn said.

"I second that 'eww,'" Buffy agreed.

"What you really want," Tribby said, her eyes dancing, "isn't a man with a particular grade of equipment. It's a man who would make a good lesbian."

"Like Spike," Willow said, without thought.

There was a chorus of whoops and some happily shocked faces. Dawn crossed her arms. "And just how do you know that?"

Willow's face was redder than her hair. "Oh, I didn't mean – Oh, no, Buffy, we never, I swear. It's just, you know, the 'Bot, and I've been in his mind, you know, and some of the things I saw… H-he used to tease us, Tara and me, about…" She covered her eyes. "Shutting up now."

"TMI," Tribby said, shaking her head and going back to her computer.

Vi was holding her stomach, laughing. "Like we couldn't figure that out for ourselves."

"Oh, yeah," Rona said, a degree of heat in her voice. "That thing he does with his tongue against his teeth – girl!" She fanned herself.

Kayla was looking at Buffy expectantly. "What? Huh-uh. No way. Leaving, now," Buffy said, shaking her head, her own face scarlet. "Come on, Wil. Let's go find Giles."

As they left, Kayla turned to Dawn. "Okay, Dawn. Spill."

"Spill what? I have absolutely no knowledge of Spike's tongue. Oh, God, that sounded even worse out loud."

"Yeah, but I know you've seen him naked," Kayla pressed, "because you were scolding him about wearing clothes to bed." She grinned, and the other slayers fell into expectant silence, except for the clack of the keys of Tribby's laptop. "So?" Kayla held up her ruler.

Dawn's face was as red as her sister's. "Huh-uh, no way," she echoed her sister. "You want to know that bad, go ask him yourself. You know he'll tell you."

"Tell you what, Bit?" Spike said, having timed his entrance perfectly. The slayers broke into fits of giggles.

Dawn shook her head. "Oh, you so don't want to go there." She glared at Spike, knowing full well he'd heard everything, even if it hadn't occurred to the rest of the girls.

"Thought I heard your sis," he said, making it obvious, and the slayers now fell into an uneasy silence.

Then Vi snatched the ruler from Kayla's fingers and threw it at him. "You were listening!" she accused.

He plucked it out of the air, laughing. "You lot are so loud, how could I not hear, you runnin' your mouths while I'm tryin' to sleep in my own bed." Spike sauntered over to Kayla, placed his thumb deliberately over one of the hash marks, and held out the ruler to her. "Here you go, pet," he said, low. Then he smirked.

Kayla stared at where he had indicated, and her cheeks grew pink. "Um, thanks," she said, suddenly shy, taking the plastic ruler gingerly.

"You made Kayla blush," Vi said, awe in her voice.

He tucked his thumbs into his belt. "Not a one of you I couldn't make blush," he told her. Spike turned to Tribby and waggled the hang loose sign at her. "Clever system, pet."

"You bet," she mumbled.

"Come on," Dawn ordered, "as long as you're up here, quiz me on these terms." She held her feet up off the couch, making it clear that she expected to put them in his lap.

"Later, Bit. Gotta ask Big Sis something."

"Does it involve tongues?" Rona asked innocently. "Or hallways?"

"No, it's about Angel," Spike said. Then he added, conversationally, "You know, Nibblet's seen him naked, too."

"Oh, you are so gonna get it," Dawn muttered, launching herself at him. "Guys! A little help?"

Vi took his feet out from beneath him, and he and Dawn both fell, Spike twisting so that his body cushioned hers. Rona wrestled one of his arms down. There was a look of grim determination on Dawn's face as she untucked his t-shirt and blew a loud raspberry on his pale tummy. Once she'd finished, Spike caught Kayla's eye and grinned. He hoisted Dawn over his body to his other side and proceeded to get her back, then serve Rona and Vi some of the same.

"Oh, now it's on. Kayla, get his shirt," Vi managed, as Dawn and the two Sunnydale slayers maneuvered him against the couch. "Tribby, help."

"Need any help, sir?" Tribby inquired, pulling her feet to safety onto her chair and balancing the laptop on her knees.

"No," he said, chuckling as he squirmed out of Rona's grasp, "easy as naughts and crosses."

"Not him," Vi protested, grunting a little. "Us. Help us."

"You're the slipperiest blasted vampire," Kayla said, and then cut herself short as the fabric of Spike's t-shirt gave way. The ripping sound stopped them all. "Oh, Spike, I'm so sorry," she said, wincing.

"Not like it's the first time a pack of mad females has ripped my clothes off," he said ruefully, sitting up as Dawn and the slayers withdrew, holding a long, hanging piece of his black tee away from his side. Standing up, he doffed it. "No worries, love," he added, seeing Kayla's stricken face. "I've plenty of others." This wasn't technically true, but the cotton shirts were cheap.

"I'll buy you a new one," she assured him.

"No, really, don't fret, petal. I'll go change. You lot go on now, revise, er, study for your exams."

As the girls watched him go, Kayla said in a small voice, "Will you guys hit me if I say I don't know my own strength?"

Tribby was watching the bare-chested vampire walk past with an odd look on her face. "Not David," she said, low and stunned.

"I can't study anymore," Dawn declared, slamming her textbook shut.

"Come with me, then," Tribby said, standing up abruptly. "I need you to help me check on something at the library."

"Sure," Dawn said, giving her a curious look. Then she perked up. "Do you have your bike today?"

"No, the Maxima."

"Oh, well. Still better than studying."

Forty-five minutes later, they were in a viewing room at the art library, staring at a three-dimensional projection of a statue, both with their mouths hanging slightly open. "What do you think?" Tribby asked.

"It's him," Dawn said, her eyes going down the length of the sculpture. "Definitely. I mean, right down to his toes. Ohmigod."

"Do you think he knows?"

"He would have to, right? He must have posed for it."

"I can't believe I didn't see it before," Tribby said, tilting her head to the side. "It's…."

"Art," Dawn finished for her. She wished her mother could see this, see Spike caught as he was over sixty years ago, no different than he was today. The statue was masterfully rendered, giving the impression that the larger-than-life nude was going to start pacing at any moment, move the tensed thigh, swivel his head, bring his left hand to his mouth to smoke the cigarette cupped inside. Even without knowing the model, the work was a study in captured energy.

The little room had several digital projectors set up to cast a three-dimensional hologram of famous sculptures, a cutting-edge technology donated to the university by a dot-com millionaire alumnus. Only about a thousand works of art had been scanned for the program so far, including six of Silvia Rubenstein's pieces. They were looking at _Nicht David_ , not her most famous work, but certainly her most controversial.

"Go to the bronze," Dawn said, almost whispering. She considered the metal version of the statue. "No, I like the marble better."

"Me, too," Tribby said. "When you work in bronze, you have to exaggerate the features. Dark metal doesn't show as well, doesn't work with light to display the details as much."

"Is that why his, you know, thingy is a different color?"

"No, it's because visitors to the museum have touched it. Like it's been polished, the oils on their hands…" She stopped talking and bit the inside of her jaw, trying not to smile. Without Dawn asking, she went back to the marble image.

"I like this better," Dawn said critically. "It looks more like him, the features, I mean. More… well, not delicate, but true-to-life. And," she added the obvious, "pale."

"Do you know," Tribby mused, "I just read a forty-page scholarly article on whether or not the _Nicht David_ was tumescent." She shook her head.

"Tumescent?"

"Uh… sprung." The shorter woman shrugged. "It was written in the seventies. Weird decade for academics. It was supposed to be about the meaning of a Jewish artist depicting someone uncircumcised, but most of the article was about…" The Slayer trailed off, wincing a little, and simply gestured with the hang-loose sign.

"Oh." Dawn laid her head to one side, considering the statue. "No, it's just Spike. From what I've seen. Not that I've looked. It's just, he's naked half the time, just really, really comfortable with his body."

"I understand."

"So," Dawn said, "he posed for a famous statue."

"I don't know if posed is the right word," Tribby said, indicating the statue. "He's in motion–"

"He's always in motion."

"–so I don't think he posed in the traditional sense. But it's the only male figure she ever sculpted, that still exists, anyway. Spike obviously had some level of intimacy with the artist, for her to capture him in such detail." They had been lovers, she was sure of it, not that she would say this to Buffy's sister.

"Or he was around her for more than a day," Dawn said dryly. "And it's controversial? Why?"

"Because it's not _David_ ," the Slayer said. "Remember what I said about the _David_ being high art? Well, this one does affect people in, um, prurient ways. Some critics have said it's too sexual, too raw; the cigarette makes it vulgar, that it doesn't belong in a museum – that it's well-executed porn, basically. It makes them uncomfortable, like some of the Mapplethorpe photos. That's how it got the name, _Nicht David_ , not- _David_. Rubenstein never titled it, or if she did, the name went to Ravensbrück with her. It may have been the last thing she produced."

"Ravensbrück?"

"A Nazi concentration camp," Tribby said, her voice uneven. "She died there."

"That's awful," Dawn whispered, thinking of a real person that Spike had known, had maybe cared about. "Do you have a picture of her?" As Tribby dug through her bookbag, Dawn surveyed the slowly rotating image of the statue again, the planes of the face she loved so well, the defined muscles of his body. It was art, she decided, but she didn't like it. The sculpture was a reminder that Spike hadn't always been hers, would go on after she died to have an impact on someone else, just as he had obviously made an impression on this artist. "Don't mention it to him, okay? If he wanted us to know about it, he would have said something, bragged about it." She considered, just for a moment, telling Buffy about this second way Spike had been immortalized, but if her sister wasn't impressed by the real thing, a statue wouldn't make a difference. She wished again that she could share this with her mother. Joyce would have driven Spike around the bend with her questions, but he'd be secretly thrilled by her attention.

Later that afternoon, when she was back on the couch with her feet in Spike's lap, Dawn couldn't help studying him more than her psychology notes.

"Functional structuralism," he said, coating the phrase with sarcasm. When she didn't answer, he looked up from the textbook. "Not to be confused with structural functionalism, which may explain a good bit about Finn, that gormless–"

"Spike, why did you stop smoking?"

"What?"

She examined his surprised face, seeing anew how handsome he was. "Because you got a soul?"

"No." He frowned. "Dunno, Nibblet. Sort of fell out of the habit, what with being in bits so often the last couple of years in Sunnyhell. Didn't have so much a physiological addiction as a psychological one," he raised the textbook meaningfully, "and not havin' my lighter prob'ly played into it, too, once I got my lungs back in bloody Los Angeles. Went without those months on the Hellmouth and jus' never started again."

"How long did you smoke?"

"What's all this about, then?" His sharp gaze roamed over her guileless expression.

"Just curious."

After another moment of examining her, he shrugged. "Since the late thirties, I s'pose."

"Oh. That's a long time."

Spike closed the book. "What's really on your mind, love?"

Dawn pursed her lips. "Spike, when I'm gone…" She shook her head and listened to the house, the sounds of Watchers moving around. "Come upstairs with me." She grabbed up her bookbag and hit the stairs, not waiting for him. Once they were both inside her room, she closed the door behind him and stood facing Spike, practically trapping him against the door. "If I say the name Silvia Rubenstein, what's the first thing that pops into your mind?"

"Is this a psychological test, then?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No," Dawn said, serious. She enunciated carefully. "Silvia Rubenstein."

After a moment, his frown eased. "Oh. Is that why you were asking 'bout me smokin'? She's the bird gave me the lighter." Spike dug into the pocket of his jeans and produced the silver rectangle, thinking that he must have mentioned the name to Xander and the tale got passed along. Then Dawn gave him an unreadable look and threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly.

"Hey, hey," he said, rubbing her back. Whatever the question was, apparently he'd gotten lucky with the answer.

"I saw the statue, and it made me think of how long you've been around, how many people you've met, and I wondered if you'd remember me when I'm gone, if I'll still matter to you in a hundred years, if you'll think of me." Dawn's teeth clenched in an effort not to cry.

"Oh, love," he said, stepping back to sit on the bed and pulling her along, easing her down next to him. Spike brushed her hair over her shoulder. "I can't even make myself think about you not being here. You're the," he bit his lip and started over. "I've never loved anyone as purely as I love you. Don't even know how I could survive your death, how I could go on." Spike put his forehead against hers and made her an oath he could keep. "I will never, ever forget you, Dawn, light of my life, not if I live to be a thousand. That's old, even for our kind."

She looked down, away from the fierce, inhuman emotion that burned in his eyes, and spotted the lighter still clutched against his palm. Dawn took it from him. "She gave this to you?"

"Yeah." Because it was Dawn, because she had already said he was her hero, he gave her the truth. "Came across her one night and killed the two Germans who were assaulting her." He smiled a little at that memory. "She spat on the bodies, so I knew right away I liked her."

"Do you know what she was?"

"Jewish," he said, knowing that he was just guessing. The conversation had moved on, as it so often did with women.

"No," Dawn said impatiently, "do you know what she did?"

"She was an artist, did birds and things." He made a mouth. "Ah. Rubenstein's birds, Tribs' paper. She got to be well-known, then. That what brought this on?"

He really had no idea, Dawn realized. "Spike…" She bit her lip, her eyes roaming over the planes of his face, the line of his shoulders. Dawn leaned over to get her bookbag and began rummaging in it. She pulled out the book she had borrowed from Tribby and opened it to the page that she had been studying more than her psychology notes. "She sculpted you," Dawn said gently, holding out the book for him.

Spike looked at the photograph a long time, a slight crease between his brows. Then he read the caption. " _Nicht David_ ," he said numbly. He looked up to meet Dawn's eyes, realizing suddenly why the Wolfram and Hart lawyer, Karalyn Reyes, had been so keen to sleep with him.

"It's beautiful," she said, something sad in her voice.

"I… didn't know," Spike told her, looking back at the book. He had a sudden urge to shield her from the image, because the marble statue had been executed with from a lover's perspective. It didn't evoke pleasant memories for him. "Not sure what to say, pet."

"Women keep doing things to make you immortal," Dawn said. "How can I compete with that?"

He put down the book and pulled her close, kissed her forehead. "You don't have to compete, love. Dru took my life," he jerked his head toward the picture, "she took my body, but you never took anything. You gave. Makes you unique, yeah? Never wanted to be immortal, Dawnie. I only wanted to be loved." Spike made sure she was looking at him, holding her chin with gentle fingers. "Only wanted to love, and I love you."

"I love you, too," she replied, putting her hand over his, pressing his fingers to her cheek.

"And I never loved her, just stayed with her while Dru and I were on the outs for a couple of weeks."

"Was she human?"

"Yeah. 'Bout the only time I ever had anything to do with a human that wasn't about dinnertime."

Dawn gave him a faint smile. "I asked Tribby not to say anything to you about it. No one else knows."

"Good." He frowned as his gaze was drawn back to the photograph of the marble statue. "Not real sure I wanted to know."

⸹

"Do you expect us to be able to fight like that?" Ivana asked. She was a tiny slayer from Russia, and Spike knew her name mostly because she had glommed onto him after Rona told the newcomers that Spike would keep them safe.

He looked out over the gym floor to where Tribby was doing a series of wheel kicks, showy and designed to intimidate, impressive by human standards, but practically as slow and deliberate as Tai Chi for a slayer. Spike watched her consider her imaginary opponent, pretend to take a blow that knocked her down. She rolled, coming up in a low stance, a stake now in her hand. He shook his head at Ivana, gently pried her arm from about his waist, and held up a finger, silently telling her to wait.

"Buffy." He caught her eye and jerked his head toward the floor, wanting to show the slayers what real fighting looked like.

Buffy met the blue eyes and shook her head jerkily, then looked away. She was still angry about Angel seeing them the previous night, angry at them both, since the older vampire had gone off to brood. It had absolutely nothing to do with the little blond clinging to Spike.

His jaw tightened, and he strode away, going onto the open training area alone. "Tamika, Bethany, Maria, off the floor. Tribs! Step it up!"

The dark-haired slayer turned and caught his sidelong glance at the watching slayers. " _Hai_ ," she said simply, and rushed him. It wasn't as impressive as fighting with Buffy, but he trained with Tribby every Tuesday and Thursday after regular class, and she had come a long way, rivaling Nikki, maybe. At any rate, she knew how to perform for an audience and didn't hold back, slashing down at his chest with a real wooden stake, dealing blows that would leave bruises.

She didn't land any of those blows. Spike was by far the better fighter, making spectacular leaps, his strikes so fast that they were blurs. The nice thing about sparring with Tribby was that, unlike some other Slayer he could name, she would take direction. So when he made another subtle indication with his head and positioned himself just so, she knew what to do. He braced himself and took a hard, driving kick to his midsection that sent him staggering back to exactly the same place by Ivana's side. The blond vampire righted himself and grinned down at her. "I expect you to be able to fight like that," he said gently. He did not look over at Buffy, but he could feel her eyes on him.

Tribby came up and gave him a slight bow. "You okay, sir?"

"Fine. You remember Ivana?"

"Hi, Ivana. I'm Tribby." The Russian nodded, eyeing her warily. Tribby turned to another slayer who was standing silently behind them. "Hey, cuz." The girl, a tall, solidly built young woman from Arizona, nodded back, her wary eyes taking in everything. Like Tribby, Geneva was Native American, having spent part of her childhood on a Navajo pueblo. Still not eighteen, she was the youngest slayer in Cleveland.

"Gather around, my lovelies. You've all handled stakes; tonight, we're going to get comfortable with another extremely useful weapon: the sword. Trot over to where Caro is – that's the Watcher by the wall, blond lady, and Ms. Greene to you – and take a sword, any sword." When they were all back, standing around him in a ragged ring, he began pacing. Buffy had noted this was a habit while he was teaching.

"Right. Vampires and swords: only good for beheading. Dawn!"

"Coming," she sighed, scrambling off the padded mat she'd been sitting on, putting down her class notes.

He tossed her the sword in his own hand. "What would you do with a sword if you saw an undead fiend like me?"

Dawn grasped the handle with both hands, making it obvious that she was bringing all her strength to bear, then aimed for his neck, sliding the blade in a flat line just above his shoulder.

"Why not jab my other bits?"

"Vampires don't have circulation, don't bleed to any useful extent."

"Exactly." He took his sword, running his free hand along the length of her back. "Thanks, love." Spike waited until she was off the floor. "Xander!"

"Yes, Captain Peroxide?"

The titter of giggles from the slayers made the bottle blond give them a jaundiced look. "Me and the whelp have been trying to kill each other since you lot were still playing with Barbies." He gave Xander a flirty look. "We've got a special thing, me and him," the flirty look was gone, "means he's the only one can get away with calling me that.

"Now, Xander is going to be, oh, I dunno, a marine Nylaxal. Sounds like a medicine for a chesty cough, but they're these slimy things, can be bipedal on land despite walking on flippers. Now, anyone know the best way to kill one with a sword?" He saw Dawn raise her hand without looking up from her notes and ignored her. "Right. The best thing is, you don't have to know.

"First, a note about using a sword." He brought the blade up, holding it so it was horizontal just beneath his eyes. He twisted slowly to the side, making sure all the slayers had a chance to see the form.

Buffy was standing next to Maria, and she overheard as the other slayer leaned away from her, put her head next to Bethany's, and murmured, "Tell me if I start to drool."

"Can you believe how hot he looks? Way better than in California." Bethany whispered back.

Buffy's hand clenched tighter around her own sword. Both Maria and Bethany had been among the last potentials who made it to Sunnydale. She'd felt rather friendly and protective of them, up until now.

"You can slice with a blade," Spike was saying, then he changed his stance, using the sword one-handed, "or you can thrust." He put the tip of the sword lightly on the floor and rested both hands on the pommel. "I prefer to thrust."

Rona and Vi laughed out loud, encouraging the other slayers. "I'll bet he does," Maria muttered.

"Can anyone tell me why?"

"You prefer to thrust," Maria said aloud, grinning at Spike now, openly flirting, "because it's more effective." Another round of giggles.

"Yeah," he said, a slow grin settling on his face, "but can you tell me why it's more effective?" Maria wasn't that bold, so she just shook her head. Spike was serious as he began to speak again. "Jab into something's torso," he aimed the blade at Xander, who pretended to writhe, "and you create a lot of internal damage, a wound that will continue to bleed or seep in anything that has circulation, a wound that will weaken it. A human skewered here," he put his hand on the right side of Xander's abdomen, "would drop in about two minutes. If I slashed him with the sword across the forearm, he might go on fighting me for twenty minutes or more, maybe giving him enough time to take me down.

"So, thrust rather than slash. Now, when you want to kill a beastie and you don't know exactly what beastie it is, there are three things to remember: heart, eyes, head." He positioned the sword over Xander's body as he said each one, feeling an odd twinge when the blade was in front of the two healthy brown eyes. "If it has eyes, go for those first. If it has an obvious head, take it off. Only know one demon that can survive that, and he was a true demon, not from this dimension." He wondered where Lorne was in the wide world, if he was happy. "Finally, if you can hear a heart, or if it's humanoid, go for the heart."

"You won't believe how many things you can kill with a stake, though," Xander said.

"True," Spike agreed, "and those are a lot easier to conceal. Now, without hurting each other, pair up and play at slayers-and-demons." He and Xander moved among the young women for the next hour, correcting form, giving advice. Spike also spent time getting the new slayers settled, helping them feel at home. With the original Cleveland slayers, he was his normal, affectionate self. Before he knew it, class time was over.

"All right ladies, off the floor. Cool down any way you like for a couple of minutes, and see Dawn if you have any questions about patrol." He'd done some reading about human physiology and decided that warm-up exercises were less important than cool-down exercises and dispensed with them. Also, they were boring. As Buffy went by, he grabbed her wrist. She jerked, but couldn't pull loose. Surprised by this, she looked up into his fierce gaze.

He waited until the other slayers filed past. "This is my domain, Slayer. When we're here and I tell you to do something, you do it." He shook his head. "Nothing to do with me an' you."

"Fine," she gritted, still pulling against his hold, "Watcher-boy. But from what I see, any of your little groupies would do."

"None of them is near as good as you." His tone doubled the meaning. After a moment of glaring, his gaze softened. "If he's not back by the time we get home, love, I'll track him down." Spike let go of her arm and strode away without a backwards glance.

Her jaw dropped a little at the way he had misread her, maybe a first. She was allowed to lie to herself, but he was supposed to just know the truth. Buffy wasn't too concerned about Angel – he left, he brooded, he showed up again on his own timetable – but seeing Spike with the other slayers concerned her plenty, at least tonight. His blows, his quick grins, his embraces – those belonged to her. She watched him go, perversely wanting to fight now, appreciating the view of his wide shoulders and narrow hips, the dull throb around her wrist where he had held her so tightly matching a throb elsewhere. Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head to the side, trying to clear those thoughts. That way lay badness.

⸹

Angel's small stash of belongings was gone when Spike went down to the basement after the training session, the sheets stripped off the cot, washed now and tumbling in the dryer. He put his hands on his waist and blew out a sigh, thinking. Then he tried calling Angel, who still wasn't answering his phone. A minute later, he was rolling his Ducati out of the shed and taking a long breath, seeing what information he could glean from the night air. Angel's Mustang was gone, too, missing from its spot by Spike's truck.

When you have a truck, you're everybody's best friend. Spike had learned this corollary to truck-ownership from Tribby when she had come up to him before the Fourth of July holiday, placed a hand on his sleeve, and given him the wiggins by calling him her dearest friend in preparation for asking him to haul her motorcycle from Tennessee to Cleveland. What did it mean that Angel hadn't asked for his help in moving, or even bothered to tell him that he was moving? He started the bike and rolled onto the street, the big engine purring.

Thirty minutes later, he was knocking on the door of a large, old house. "'M here to see Angel," he explained to the old man who answered the door.

"Then go around back," he said shortly, closing the door hard enough that it was just shy of a slam.

Well, Peaches will fit in perfectly here, he thought as he went around the side of the building. There was only one door to choose from, at least, and he knocked.

Angel opened it, no surprise on his face. "Spike."

They regarded each other for a moment. "Know you don't have to invite me in, but it would be nice if you did."

"Come in." Angel stood away from the door, and Spike stepped over the threshold. The apartment had an open floor plan, and he could see the same hardwood floors in all the rooms off the central living space, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. It was already furnished with battered tables and chairs, but they were made of real wood and sturdy. The windows were tall, covered by long black-out shades left over from a different era. There were prints of various breeds of dogs on the walls, and Angel had already taken some time to put up his own work among them.

Spike walked up to a framed sketch of a smiling Fred and touched the frame lightly. Then he turned to his grandsire. "Nice place."

Angel grunted, staring at the floor. "It's all right."

"Been thinking about this for a while, have you?"

"You know I haven't."

Spike took a breath. "You didn't have to leave, Angel."

"Easier this way on all of us."

"She still loves you. You on the stairs, it upset her. She's barely spoken to me since last night."

"I'm sorry." He closed his eyes.

Spike waved it away. "Par for course, mate. 'Spect if she ever does settle on me for good, it'll be years from now."

"Maybe sooner if I'm not around." He looked up in time to see the ghost of a smile on the boy's face.

"Doubt it, but thanks." He shrugged, looking away. "Means something, knowing you trust me to… to take care of her."

"You're good at taking care of people. It's why Drusilla chose you." It was Angel's turn to shrug, and he moved away from the door, accepting that his visitor would be there for a while.

Spike looked around the walls until he found a portrait of Drusilla and Darla. He walked over to it, his thumbs hooked in his belt, pushing the leather coat to his sides. "From the way you've got the place decorated, looks like you're planning to stay."

Angel came up beside him, focused on the lovely face of the mother of his child, seeing the similarities in their features. "It isn't a bad place."

"You want to be alone, then?"

Their eyes met for a long time, Spike offering, Angel resistant. "It's probably for the best," Angel said. He didn't want to be alone, but he didn't want a roommate, either. Angel planned to put up an eight-by-ten graduation portrait of Connor in his bedroom, and he didn't want to have to explain that. A gift from his son before he left for Los Angeles, it was his most prized possession. Angel was surprised that his other boy would be willing to leave Giles' house, though, especially now that Buffy was there. Troubled, he added, "Spike, are you… You two looked pretty happy last night. You don't think…?"

He looked away, his blue eyes examining the line of Dru's cheek. "Dunno, mate. I can't push her, because she's as stubborn as I am. But I'm impatient, always have been, you know that, and since she…" Spike took a breath. Always protective of his Slayer, he didn't want to mention how she still suffered through life after spending time in heaven. There were other factors, anyway. "Sometimes I think she's looking everywhere except at me, like she's afraid to look too closely." He grimaced, uncharacteristically having trouble saying what he meant.

"At the law firm, I heard 'possession is nine-tenths of the law' almost every day," Angel said, shrugging. "I've heard people say you're Buffy's vampire." The first time he had heard it, Angel had felt a pang. Shouldn't he be her vampire?

"As much time, effort, and heartache as I've put in it, I ought to be hers," Spike retorted. He looked at the sketch again, his eyes on Drusilla. "Done my share of tomcattin' around since meetin' her, 'cause 's'hard for me to think like a human that way, but I never looked at another woman while we were together. Her, though… I think she's always lookin' for the next one, the one better'n me." He met Angel's eyes again. "Just gets hard, is all."

"She seemed to like that part," Angel said, his voice dry.

Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. "Shut it, you." He tried not to smile, but couldn't resist adding, "She likes all my parts."

"You want me to talk to her?"

"Good Lord, no. She'd get suspicious and stake us both."

"Will, you're always welcome to come here, and I'll pretend to commiserate."

"Yeah, poor me, huh?" He made a stab at the Big Bad. "Stock up on bourbon, then, and I'll try to stop by ever so often."

"I'm glad you came," Angel said, sounding sincere. "You're my first visitor."

"Yeah, you get visitors like me when you don't tell anyone where you've gone," Spike said pointedly, strolling toward the door.

"Not used to anyone caring where I am." Then he felt another pang, thinking of Wesley's single-minded devotion, of Cordelia and Fred and Gunn. His people had cared, but he'd never let them be family.

The casual statement wrung at the younger vampire's heart. "Well, I care," he said roughly. "And answer your damned phone."

Angel winced and went to the coat rack next to the door, where his jacket hung. He fished in his pockets and came up with his cell phone. "Battery died," he explained, "and I haven't unpacked the charger."

Spike rolled his eyes and reached for his grandsire, holding him close for a moment before pressing his forehead against Angel's. "I'll spread the word, okay? I'm not the only one who cares."

⸹

Angel's next visitor was Buffy, who called before she came over, waking Angel from a dreamless sleep. He had time for a quick shower and to find a book to pretend to read until she knocked at his door.

"Hey, Buffy. Come in." He stood back from the splash of sunlight at the entrance. "Nice shoes."

She gave him a wry smile. "Learned something the other night, huh?"

"Old dog, new trick. How about that."

She looked around. "Nice." It was a grand, high-ceilinged space, and it would never be homey. She much preferred his old digs in Sunnydale.

"It's okay." He indicated the couch, then sat down himself next to the discarded book.

Buffy didn't sit, though, wandering around, looking at his drawings. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry about the other night."

He shrugged. "Don't be. I'm sorry I," he looked down, "interrupted."

"I-it wasn't like we planned…" Grimacing, she moved left and put her fingers on the bottom of one frame. "Wesley."

"I miss him," Angel said simply. "He shouldn't have died so young."

Buffy nodded in commiseration. "Too many like that, huh?" If he had his regrets, she had hers, too. She wandered to the picture of Darla and Drusilla and threw him an arch look.

"I miss them, too, sometimes."

"I know. Spike does, too. Well, Drusilla." She went to Fred's picture next. "This is really nice, Angel. Maybe I'll have some of the pictures Aunt Arlene gave us blown up, mount them like this."

"People come and go," Angel mused. "It feels like you stay the same place, and everyone else exits."

"Dawn used to complain that everyone left," Buffy said. She shrugged. "She had good reason." The next portrait was Spike, the old one from India, and Buffy's fingers involuntarily went to touch the line of his jaw.

With his exquisite hearing, Angel could hear her fingernails click lightly on the glass. His own jaw tightened, and he looked down. There was something intimate about the drawing, and he had hesitated before framing it. "He came by," he offered.

"He told me, told me where to find you. He said you weren't mad." She didn't look at him.

"I'm not. It was just easier to not be there." He laughed, short and bitter. "Like always."

Buffy still didn't turn, her eyes focused on the portrait, her fingers still trying to reach past the glass. "He still looks at me this way," she said.

If her strangled voice hadn't been enough giveaway, Angel could smell her tears. He looked down at the book next to his thigh and picked it up, just to have something to do. "He loves you."

"What am I going to do, Angel?"

Gritting his teeth for a moment, he made himself say it. "Love him back, Buffy. You'll be good together."

"I can't," she took a breath, "let myself love him."

The odd statement made him look up, and he met her eyes, awash with tears and brilliant green. He was by her side in an instant. "Buffy…."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't come here to–" She gestured at her face, then wiped her eyes carefully and took a deep breath. "I've spent so much time avoiding the hard things; now I can't seem to have a conversation that doesn't – Can we just sit down?"

They made their way to the couch, sitting closer than an outside observer might expect, comfortable with each other on a primal level. "I don't know if I can help, but I can listen."

She looked up at Angel and gave him a watery smile. "Do you know how much your good opinion means to me?"

This took him aback. "Why would it?"

"Angel," she said, the smile on her face now as gentle as any madonna's, "you're the first man I ever loved. I compare everyone to you. You changed because you wanted to help me, and I never wanted you to see any part of me that wasn't good and strong."

"No one can be strong all the time," he said, but her next words made him realize he'd missed the mark.

"I'm not good."

"Of course you are. I can feel it, Buffy."

She shook her head. "I'm going to tell this to you, and I want you to know how hard it is to say, because I want you t-to think well of me, above all else."

Angel smiled at her. "Nothing's going to change my good opinion of you."

"Don't be so sure." She looked down. "You know, it's sweet of you – noble, really – to accept me and Spike. I-I appreciate it. I'm sorry," her eyes were beseeching, "I know you care about him, too, but it just can't happen."

"Why not?" She was quiet for a long time, and something in him grew cold, and he knew he didn't want to hear this. This wasn't going to be like her irrational jealousy of Faith, even. This was going to be bad.

"I died." This statement was all she could manage for a moment.

"I remember," he said, his voice stark. But there had been relief along with the pain, hadn't there? The biggest threat to his soul was gone, but that didn't entirely explain the feeling. The pain hadn't been that bad. Loving a Slayer wasn't easy, and now his boy was struggling with it, too.

"I was in heaven," she said, shivering, "I guess. It's hard to put a name on something so…" Buffy cleared her throat. "I remember it, Angel, all of it, the way I felt there." She looked into his eyes and said very deliberately, "I want to go back there more than I want anything else, more than I want to be with my sister, watch her grow up. It's been three years, and that… longing doesn't lessen. It's like grief for my Mom, just as sharp when it comes back to me. I've… tried. I've found some things that can take my mind off it, for a little while."

"That's good, Buffy," he said encouragingly.

"The first thing I ever found was Spike." She waited for his reaction, but he didn't show one. "Before I died, we'd reached an… understanding, I guess. He had the chip, but I knew that wasn't the reason he wouldn't hurt any of us. When I," she took a steadying breath, "came back, he was so patient and gentle, and quiet, if you can believe it. Most of all, he didn't have anything to do with the resurrection.

"Then this demon came to town, made everybody sing what was in their hearts, and I found out that Spike didn't just love me, love me." She rolled her eyes a little at her juvenile phrasing. "It made me so mad, Angel, so angry."

"Why?" He didn't know what else to ask.

"Because it took away my friend. I couldn't be around him anymore, because he was going to hurt me." She braced herself and met his gaze. "Because I had learned that demons don't love, demons can't love." His stricken expression tore at her heart, but even this was a distant ache.

"Buffy… if it helps at all, Spike has always been a special case. He isn't like Angelus, never was. He does love. It's why Drusilla chose him, why he was turned, so he could take care of her."

She nodded and put her hand over his for a moment before withdrawing it to clasp her fingers tightly together. "And then we found out, despite the chip, he could hit me." She licked her lips and smiled without any humor. "It explained a lot to me, why I hadn't been allowed to stay in heaven. I wasn't human, either. So, I… I showed him all my hatred and rage, and he… didn't look away. We–" She couldn't make herself say it.

"Started sleeping together," Angel supplied, his voice heavy.

She shook her head, couldn't make herself use the word that came to mind. "No sleeping involved. It wasn't always raw, sometimes it was… the way it's supposed to be, and I honestly don't know which I hated most. I didn't tell anyone I was having sex with an evil thing, and I… I told him I would kill him if he did. And I meant it."

"Oh, Buffy."

"Don't," she whispered. "Anything I asked for, he gave me. Anything I gave him," she shrugged, "he took it. And one night, someone convinced me that I had killed a human. Like Faith did."

Angel made a small sound, and the chill settled deeper inside him. Faith and Buffy, after all.

"It was an accident, but I wasn't going to be like Faith, no way. I was going to turn myself in, do the right thing." She closed her eyes. "Spike never believed that it was me, and he put himself in my way. He said to take it all out on him, and I did. He didn't fight back, and I," she took a breath, her eyes still closed, "hurt him. After… I went into the police station and found out he was right. It hadn't been me. But I-I didn't go back to him. I left him where he was, in an alley. He couldn't… move, Angel. The sun might have gotten him." Her voice broke. "He just lay there and let me–"

Staring at her, tears streaming down her face in remorse, eyelids tightly shut, Angel couldn't help withdrawing a little. Even mad Drusilla hadn't just left William, had made sure his body was found in a different alley and buried so he could claw his way out to her.

"H-he doesn't know that I know, but Willow always checked the morgue, and she said… funny, that someone that could be Spike had been brought in because he was dead." She swallowed hard. "He had bruises for over two weeks, Angel, and I did that to him."

Two weeks… Angel shook his head, mute, unable to believe what he was hearing. He had never hurt the boy that badly. Even Darla's cuts would heal within days. Of course, there were the weeks when he was in the wheelchair – He stopped himself. Buffy had done that, too.

"So, you see why I can't let myself love him," Buffy said firmly. "Because, if I don't, I won't ever be in a position to hurt him again."

"Buffy." He waited until she opened her eyes. "Do you know what I've done to him, over the years?"

She shook her head. "Not you. Angelus."

"I am Angelus, Buffy."

Her head moved more firmly in the negative. "When you did… whatever you did, you didn't have a soul then. I did. But that's not the worst, Angel." Her voice had fallen to a whisper. "I didn't feel bad for doing it, not until I found out he'd gotten his soul after I died, gotten it so he could keep a promise he made to me to take care of Dawn. I-it didn't matter when I thought he was just a monster, that I did that to him, the monster that l-loved me and took care of Dawnie like she was his sister, too. He wasn't real to me until I found out I'd b-beaten someone who had a soul, because that's when I had to admit," she clenched her teeth against the sobs, "that I was the m-monster."

Buffy bent from her waist, her head between her knees as she wept, and Angel had a sense of how long she had been keeping this in. So many things made sense now, little snippets of conversation, topics hastily changed. After a moment, he took her in his arms and pulled her close, his eyes looking wildly around the room for something to settle on. She was so broken, where she had always been so strong, and he didn't want to see her this way.

"Shh," he said, feeling stupid and useless. After a while, when her crying eased off, he offered her his own pain. "I don't know if it helps, but sometimes I look at him, and I feel so guilty, Buffy. I get a flash of a time when I hurt him, betrayed his trust, made him… do things that he could hardly stand to watch. But it doesn't matter anymore. He's forgiven me, if not Angelus. I know he's forgiven you." He rubbed her back. "Sounds odd coming from me, but you have to forgive yourself."

She pulled away from him, her eyes glittering strangely. "Never. I can't ever," she stated firmly. Then her face crumpled. "I love him, Angel, I really do. It was a long time coming, and he's my second-in-command, and my friend, because he's seen me at my absolute worst and he still... He's my… I still know who I am, who I'm supposed to be when I see myself through his eyes. But I can't–" Buffy took a gasping little breath. "Oh, Angel, how do I give him up?"

 _How do you give her up?_ The big vampire almost laughed at the cruel symmetry. It was a test, it had to be, because he could take her for his own right now, plant the seeds and wait for them to grow. He closed his eyes and said instead, "I don't know, Buffy. I'm not good at relationships; I never have been. I wish I could tell you it's all going to work out, but I won't do that. As his friend, as your friend, the best I can tell you is, don't shut him out. Don't stop talking to him. Don't," the words stuck for a moment, "give up something that could be very good."

"You… He said we'd never be friends."

Angel's face relaxed, more in relief than humor, grateful for the shift in conversation. "I remember."

"Are we?"

"I think so."

The corners of her mouth lifted tentatively. "I like that." She looked into his clear brown eyes. Buffy had always wished she could bring joy to his eyes, stop his brooding, make him happy.

Then she had.

He watched her look away, cursing Spike silently. Did the boy have to be right about that, of all things? Something had changed as she stared up at him, something that felt very different from mere friends. She felt it, too, he could tell by the awkwardness. "Um, can I get you something to drink?"

"Water would be nice. Thanks." Buffy watched him walk silently to the kitchen, shaken by what had happened, thinking of how he had come to her after her mother's burial. She'd felt the same pull then, the same attraction, even in her grief. Smoothing her skirt, she started pulling herself together, getting ready to go. Like Angel had taught her, sometimes the best thing to do was leave.

⸹

"So, Angel's moved out?" Dawn said without preamble, clumping down the basement stairs in some truly hideous thick-soled shoes.

"Yeah," Spike sighed, sitting up. "I probably should go, too." He swung his legs over the side of the cot, missing her stricken look, and began rummaging for his boots. "'Course, where am I going to find four-star accommodations like these?" He looked around at the drab basement, the punching bags hanging forlorn and unused since the gym was opened. "Maybe I'll see if the whelp – What's wrong, love?" His boots forgotten, he was across the short space to her.

"Don't leave," she whispered, tears on her cheeks and a terrified look in her eye.

"Not goin' anywhere, Bit," he crooned, collecting her into his arms. "What brought this on?"

She clung to him. "I-I don't know. Maybe because I don't think I can rely on Buffy to stay, not yet. A-and Angel just leaves, doesn't say a word, just because he saw the two of you kissing. I don't want you to go."

"Not going anywhere," he assured her. "I hadn't thought any further than Harris', if he wants a flatmate once Red goes to university."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No, you promised you and I would live together once the hellgod in L.A. was gone, not you and Xander."

"Did I?"

Dawn butted her head against his neck. "A gentleman always keeps his promises."

"Well, let's me off the hook, then," he said cheerfully, and he caught her close when she bumped him again, dropping a kiss on her ear.

The teenager wiped her eyes. "I don't know why I'm so needy right now," she said, then confessed. "When you and Buffy were fighting the other night, it was like when my parents were getting a divorce."

"Oh, Bit, that wasn't fighting between me and your sis," he assured her, "nothing like a row. When we fight, everyone will know about it. That was just me tryin' to wear her down, breach the walls she's built up."

Dawn searched his face a moment, then nodded. She looked around the basement, seeing it anew. "It is pretty dismal down here."

"Yeah," he sighed, "but I'm a veteran cellar dweller."

⸹

"Right, then." Spike put down the marker and nodded at the whiteboard. On it were the names of all the slayers and a simple yes/no column. "Gather 'round. Last thing before class ends: I want each of you alone in the armory with me, one at a time. I get thirty seconds. When you come out, answer yes or no beside your name. Don't tell anyone else what happens inside."

"Yes or no to what?" Tamika asked.

He gave her a wolfish smile. "To whether I kill you." Spike nodded at Vi. "You're up first, love." He held the door for her, then went in himself, closing the door behind them.

Fifteen seconds later, Vi emerged. She was pale, and she made a check in the 'yes' column with the dry erase marker. Vi cleared her throat and met Bethany's concerned gaze. "He asked for you next."

Less than nine minutes passed before Spike emerged with Nguise, the second-to-last slayer, who was adjusting her hijab around her neck. Buffy was waiting near the door, but the trainer just shook his head and gave her a smile. After Nguise checked the 'yes' box next to her name, Spike took the pen and marked 'no' beside Buffy's.

"Tragic." He made a show of looking over the board. There were only two other names marked in the 'no' column.

"Why did you do that?" Maria asked, unconsciously rubbing her arms as though she was cold.

"Why did I suddenly vamp out and jump at you?" He curbed the sarcasm. "It's to help you get past that element of surprise, innit?"

"Other vampires aren't going to get that close to us," Bethany protested.

"You quite sure about that?"

"A slayer must always reach for her weapon," Buffy interjected. "He already has his." This earned her a warm smile from the blond man.

"Just so." Spike cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the class. "The Slayer knows this, can stake a vamp faster than he can go to game face. Rona was surprised, but she can dig deep, meet whatever's thrown at her." She ducked her head with pleased embarrassment. "Now, Ivana, I was very impressed with you. How'd you manage it?"

The little slayer stood up straighter. "I was almost the last. I guessed you were using other face to scare us."

He nodded. "Clever girl. Very effective hunting technique for vamps. I get up close to an oblivious human, flash the fangs, and bam!" he smacked the whiteboard with his palm for emphasis, "dinnertime before they know what's on them." Spike changed cadences, becoming brisk. "Good class tonight, especially Ro and Ivana. See you lot tomorrow."

"Don't I get a gold star?" Buffy asked. She was holding out the eraser, which had tumbled off the easel when he hit it.

"You are the golden stars, and the pale moon," he said, low, "and the sun in all its–" Shut up, poet. "You can have as many gold stars as you like, kitten." He took the eraser and began wiping down the whiteboard to cover his awkwardness.

"Just one," Buffy said. "I'm not greedy." She gazed at him fondly for a moment, then cleared her throat. "I, um, better go. Dawn's giving me a ride."

⸹

[Author's note: The lyrics in this section are from Don Henley's 'New York Minute.']

Tribby walked the perimeter of the gym, picking up stakes and padded mitts. Spike watched her, caught between pride and ruefulness. It was Tuesday, one of their two usual days of sparring, and he had finished up with a quick, sidestepping move that she blocked. She had used his arm as a lever and ended up behind him, her free arm curled around him and her empty fist over his heart.

One good day.

It was the first time she had managed to get the drop on him, and she was very cheerful, even happy, and the smile on her face made her look like an entirely different person. Tribby wasn't as gloomy as Angel, but she was widowed, marked by grief. It made him think of what Buffy had been like when he first met her, saucy and never far from breaking into a smile. She had looked different when she was whole and happy, too. Perky, he thought, she had been perky, and he began to think of things he might do to help her feel that way again.

"All done," Tribby said, dropping down next to where he sat against the wall, her shoes in hand.

"Looks ship-shape," he said absently. "Tribs, what do you do for fun?"

The question caught her by surprise. "Um… This. This is fun." She grimaced. "Lame. I don't know. Listen to music? I like to work in my studio, not fun, exactly, but fulfilling." A lost look touched her face. "Everything used to be fun, you know? When you're with the right person…."

"I do know," he assured her, thinking of the times he and Dru were in sync, how they moved through the world like gods.

Tribby shook it off. "Back when I had a life, I liked carnivals and going out on a jet ski, hiking, horseback riding and four-wheeling. And skiing, in the winter. I liked going to clubs, not so much to dance, more for the bands. I love a band that gives a good stage performance, just blows you away, you know? The kind you never forget."

He nodded, then chuckled. "Saw the Ramones this one time, early on at CBGB, and they came out on stage, right? Got ready to play the first thing in their set, and each of them started playing a different song. They just threw their instruments to the stage, disgusted. It was brilliant."

She was smiling back at him, but there was something else in her expression. "You saw the Ramones at CBGB," Tribby murmured, awestruck. "That rocks."

"Saw everybody, pet," he said, getting comfortable, his knees a mile apart. "The Clash that you're so fond of, the Sex Pistols, Wendy O., the Dolls, the Stooges–"

"The Bad Brains?"

"Went down to D.C. for one of their shows. Ate a congressional page while I was there, which, turns out, is a scandalous thing to do." He waggled his eyebrows, and she laughed, thinking it was a joke. It was, sort of, as he wasn't sure about the tasty little git's exact title.

"What about the Screamers?"

"They were West Coast, but, yeah, went out to L.A., did the scene there. I've got Screamers bootlegs."

"Oh, awesome! Could I listen? Would you mind?"

He made a face and thumped the back of his head against the mirrored wall. "Forgot, pet. Lost 'em in a crypt fire in Sunnydale."

"Oh." She covered her disappointment, taking the scrunchie from her damp hair and combing her fingers through the dark strands.

"They weren't that good, anyway. The tapes, I mean. The music was brill."

"Hey, I know," she said, brightening. "I know what's fun. You get one of your bikes out, and we'll go riding. It's always more fun to go with someone else."

"I, uh, was trying to come up with fun things for Buffy, not me."

"Why didn't you say so?" She slapped at his knee. "Shopping, if she's anything like Dawn. No-brainer."

He laughed. "Yeah, you're right. Blond, me."

She began gathering her hair into a ponytail again. "How's she doing? Buffy, I mean. She seems okay in training."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Out of curiosity, pet, what have you heard?"

"That she tangled with a major sorcerer in Rome."

He nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much it." When she waited expectantly, he shrugged. "She's getting there, I think."

"Good." Her dark eyes twinkled. "I also hear through the grapevine that there's been smooching."

"The grapevine named Rona, I assume?"

"I'll never reveal my source." The teasing light faded from her eyes. "But, good for you, Spike. 'You find somebody to love in this world, you better hang on tooth and nail; the wolf is always at the door.'" He watched her stand and turn away. She was quoting something, he could tell, but he didn't recognize the reference. Tribby took a step and then paused, turning. "I meant it about the motorcycles, though. Let me know if you ever want to go out. I've found some sweet roads not far out of the city."

"Sounds good. I'd like to really test out the bikes before I sell them."

"You're selling your bikes?" Tribby asked, taken aback.

"Figure I can get a good price for them."

"But why? You worked so hard getting them running."

"Parts too hard to get – do you know how much tyres cost for the Ducati?"

"Just surprised me."

"Plan to get a newer model."

"Oh. Harley?" That's what she rode, a little production model.

"Dunno."

"If I could get any motorcycle, I'd get a 1990 Fatboy, the year they introduced the model."

"Yeah?"

"I'm just saying. Softtail, easy to get parts, too."

He grinned. "Go on with you, then. Said I'd swing by Angel's tonight, and I want to close things up."

"'Night, sir."

Shopping, he thought. When had he started overthinking things? "Tribs!" he called out, remembering his duty. "Good work tonight."

He could tell she was pleased, but she shrugged. "Any given Sunday."

This reference he recognized, equivalent to his own 'one good day.' Spike went around to all the windows and doors, checking the locks and turning off lights. He liked this gym. It felt like his lair, his own scent permeating all the surfaces, overlaid with the slayers, the Scoobies, and now Buffy. If he could get Angel in here more often, it would be perfect. He missed having him around.

⸹

She was there, working at register number two. Xander grabbed a couple of random items from the deli to push his number of items over fifteen, and headed toward the grocery checkout.

"Hey," he said, handing over his ID so she could scan his beer. Her nametag said Lina, and she had red hair, a bar through her eyebrow, and he'd never noticed rings on any of her fingers.

"Hey yourself," she said, giving him a smile that was warmer than professionalism required. Or, at least he hoped it was.

"Slow tonight."

"Yeah, Tuesdays always are." Efficient, she passed item number sixteen, a container of potato salad, over the scanner. "Your total is thirty-six eighty-two."

Xander swiped his cash card and paused before punching in his PIN. He took a deep breath, sent a prayer toward heaven that she would turn out to be a normal human being, and said, "I know you probably get this all the time from stupid customers, but my name is Xander and I was wondering if you would go have coffee with me sometime."

She blinked and seemed to really see him for the first time, a tall, tanned, good-looking young man. "I don't drink coffee."

"Oh." Xander punched in the number, hit the enter key, and gave it one more shot. "Well, I'd be glad to treat you to the beverage of your choice, in a well-lit, public area. Just liquid refreshment." He gave her his best grin and a shrug. "There could be talking."

Lina looked at him for a lingering moment, then shook her head. "No, I really can't. I don't do that, mess with other women's men." She sent a pointed look to his purchases, which included a box of tampons.

"Oh, no, those are for Willow. She's my roommate, my best friend since we were little kids. But we're not involved, and she's going to Oxford next week, so, I won't be buying those again. Probably," he added, trying to make his babbling sound more like comedic shtick.

"You buy tampons for your best friend?" Lina asked, sounding amused and a little impressed.

"Certain times of the month, I do everything she tells me to do," he said seriously.

Lina smiled as she ripped the receipt from the printer. "Tell you what," she said, "there's this really good band playing at the Skeller on Friday. Meet me there at the bar at nine o'clock."

"Lina, Skeller, Friday, nine o'clock," he repeated. Then he returned her smile. "I can't wait."

⸹

"Rona is dead." Spike nuzzled her neck with his lips, and she pretended to swoon.

"Yeah, but when am I going to face a vampire as fast as you?" Rona protested as she straightened up, folding her arms atop his, not in any hurry to escape his embrace.

"Thing is, pet, you never know what kind of beastie the Hellmouth will attract." He took a deep, appreciative breath. "You smell a treat, pet. New fragrance?"

"New lotion. I dropped a bundle at Bath and Body."

"You smell…" he hesitated, then cleared his throat, moving away from her, "good enough to eat, if you can bear the pun."

"Then I smell as good as you look," she shot back, giving him her usual outrageously flirty look.

He chuckled and turned his attention to little Ivana, gritting his teeth a little at his body's wayward reaction. Down, boy. "No, love," he corrected her, "Kayla the vampire wouldn't really let Ivana the slayer get by with leaving her right side undefended."

⸹

"Close your eyes."

"What, so you can tumble me down the stairs?" Spike groused, but he did as Dawn asked. She and Buffy had caught him as he left a meeting with Giles and Aubrey and marched him to the basement door. They had been up to something; he could smell it. Dawn went first, then him, Buffy following with a cautionary hand at his waist.

"Okay," Dawn said, a bit of a squeal in her voice, when they were most of the way down, "open your eyes."

He did, and breathed a very stunned, "Nibblet, what have you done?"

While the center and left side of the basement were the same, his cot and the one Angel had abandoned were gone, and the right side had been completely redone. The dropped ceiling had vanished, opening up the space considerably, and track lighting had been installed. A large bed was in the corner with a dark grey comforter and several fluffy pillows. Two wooden folding screens painted in black enamel were standing to either side of the bed, so he could move them if he wanted extra privacy. There was also a bureau and a bookcase that already held his books, a lit lamp on top spreading a cheery circle across several rugs that covered the linoleum on the floor.

"Not just me," Dawn said anxiously, pulling at his hand and leading him a couple of feet into the basement, "we all pitched in. Buffy helped me pick things out, and Xander did the ceiling and the lights, and Giles let me put on a lock." She pried a key from her jeans pocket. "Here. So, now you don't have to move."

Spike stared at the space they had made for him, tears pricking at his eyes. Behind them, he felt Xander, Willow, and Giles enter the basement, not coming down all the way. His jaw tightened, thinking of how they had taken him into their circle. It wasn't just his definition of family that had expanded, he realized, but theirs as well. There had been nights when nothing would have satisfied him more than their limp bodies dangling from his bloody hands, and they knew that. Yet now here they all were, and they loved him as much as he loved them. If one of the lowest points in his life was the night he had found his way into the Summers' home barred, then this surely was one of the highest. He didn't send a prayer – who would hear a creature like him? – but his heart was full of thanksgiving.

"Say something, Spike," Dawn groaned, nervous.

"I love it," and he gathered his girls into his arms. He did like it, but even if the furnishings were odious, he would have said the same. "Thank you." He kissed the brown head and the blond, then let them go so he could bound up the stairs and take Willow and Xander in a similar embrace. Then only Rupert was left, the Watcher who had seen the change in him, who not only cared about what he had been but who he was becoming, the Watcher who had invited a vampire into his home and even given him a name.

His countryman gave him a wry smile and held his arms out. "Better than a bathtub," Giles said.

Spike laughed, a shaky sound, as he hugged the human. "I love you," he blurted, then let go quickly, turning away. In for a penny, he thought. "If I don't say it often enough, it's true. I love you all."

"Aw," Willow said, easy tears in her own eyes. "We love you, too, Spike." She climbed a step higher so she could wrap her arms around his waist. Behind her, Xander's eyes were shining suspiciously.

"Well, come on then," Spike urged, "tell me all about it." They went back downstairs, prattling on about shopping and power tools and the general sneakiness at which the Scoobies excelled, especially Dawn. Eventually, Spike realized that not only was this her idea, she had paid for everything. "You spent too much on me, Bit."

Dawn shrugged. "I get paid a Watcher's salary, same as anyone. I can afford it." When his troubled look didn't disappear, she came a step closer. "You paid for, like, everything I wore the last two years in Sunnydale, made sure I had spending money for movies and CDs. You cosigned for my car, Spike."

"'S'not the same," shrugging it off.

She was too impatient to argue. "You know I'm badder, Spike, and I'll win, so just get over it."

He studied her for a moment, then caved, and his gaze went to the door at the top of the staircase. "You kept a key?"

"Of course," she said, smirking.

"Good, then. Whenever you need me, Nibblet, right?"

They all tested the mattress and declared it comfortable, Spike's nostrils flaring happily at this christening of his new lair. As Willow was praising Dawn's mastery of the Phillips screwdriver in the installation of the lock, Buffy moved close to Spike. "I picked out the rugs," she murmured.

"Did you, now?" Spike asked.

Buffy glanced away from the gleam in his eye, but the purr in his voice shot through her body anyway. "I-I know you like them."

"As I recall, you like them, too," he said, his voice low.

She closed her eyes, smiling, then moved away. Spike and rugs. Spike and… fill in the blank. She could imagine bodily removing her Watcher and her best friends and her sister from this basement, then coming back down the stairs, so like going to the lower level of his crypt, Spike waiting for her by the bed, the heat that would be in his eyes as she drew near. Buffy made her escape a few minutes later, her cheeks burning from thoughts she could not purge from her mind.

⸹

Back from patrol that night, Spike showered and went down to the renovated basement, leaving the door unlocked. He'd been out with Pelham and Vashti, and it had been an unusually active night. Vashti had even spotted two vampires first, probably because they seemed to be coming from all directions throughout the patrol. Hesitating for a moment over the top drawer, where the Bit had folded his pajama bottoms, he closed it with a satisfying _thunk_ and slipped between the sheets naked.

They had a private room now, a door that locked.

After eight seconds, impatience overwhelmed him, and he let his senses drift upwards, searching for Buffy. She wasn't in the house. A little deflated, he rolled over to reach for a book, finding that the bookcase was thoughtfully close enough for that. He opened up _Bleak House_ to a random chapter and started reading to pass the time.

 _Spike?_

He woke with a start. "What?"

 _It's me. Can I pop in?_

"Oh." _Red. Sure._ He rubbed the back of his neck. _Come on, love_.

She appeared at the foot of his bed, grinning. "Well, don't you look cute?"

Puzzled for a moment, he looked aside before ruffling his short blond curls. "Dunno about cute, but definitely comfortable." Spike gestured around. "I'm overwhelmed, Red, really. You lot really did a right nice thing for me." He sat up and put away his book, then patted the bed since there was nowhere else for her to sit. "I'll have to get the comfy chair, I guess."

"In case you need to torture someone. You could poke someone with those soft pillows in the meantime."

"Yeah, Nibblet does love her some pillows," he said, stealing a cadence from Rona.

She sat down on the edge, then smiled. "You look happy."

"I am happy."

Her gaze darted down the length of torso on display. _Nice abs._ Willow grimaced. _Sorry. Not the first time I've said that, huh?_

 _No, not the first time._

 _Did I ever tell you how sorry I am?_

 _Don't recall, love. The next time we met, all the way to Dagenham, me. Doesn't matter; what's a little attempted murder among friends?_ He let her see her own face, a broken bottle trailing along her cheek.

 _This must be what it's like for reformed drug addicts, having to recall just terrible, awful things and still believe, well, that's not me anymore. Like Angel, I guess._

 _Never was us, love, just our demons. Now we've got those on a lead, yeah?_

 _I hope so._

 _You're going to be fine. You'll have fun at Oxford. Bunch of smart blokes, just like you. Well, they've got girls there now, too, obviously._

 _That makes me hopeful._ She sent a meaningful glance at the left-handed Oxford mug that sat on his bureau. _You went there, didn't you?_

 _I did. Had to leave when my father died._

Willow's eyes narrowed. _Who were you, Spike?_

 _Nobody important, and I am absolutely not hiding anything when I say that._

 _Were you rich and titled? I remember something about Angelus and Darla preferring to hunt nobility._

 _It was Darla preferred to move among the wealthy, pet, and I was never prey and did not have a title._ He knew she would see the evasion, so he shifted the topic. _Important thing is, I'm happier now, here with you lot, than I ever have been. I was happy at Oxford, though. You will be, too._

 _What did you study?_

 _History. They didn't have archaeology back then, not as a named discipline, but that's what I wanted to do._

 _So that's why you were able to find the Gem of Amara._

 _See how bright, putting that together? Oxford material, you are._

 _I really didn't come by for an ego massage. I just came by to see if you wanted to come over tomorrow. Xander says he'll let you pick the movie, as long as it's_ Thirteenth Warrior _._

 _Right. You really just came by hoping to get a look at my body._

 _Sure, you go right on believing that._

 _I'll be there after I finish up at the gym, say nine-thirty?_

 _Sounds good._

They shared a quick hug, and Willow stood up and was gone. Spike didn't have a clock, but it was half two. He wondered if Buffy had been roped into patrolling with someone, even though it wasn't her night on the schedule. With an impatient noise, he left the bed and began to dress. If she was out on patrol, there was nowhere he'd rather be than by her side.

⸹

"I told him I picked out the rugs," Buffy said, shaking her head. "Why did I tell him that?"

"Uh, why wouldn't you?" Angel said, not clear on this point.

"Because–" Buffy broke off. She couldn't very well tell him about her adventures atop and occasionally beneath Spike's rugs. "I-it doesn't matter. The thing is, I know he's expecting me to go down there tonight."

"Do you want to?" He looked away, taking a drink from his black cup, not wanting to hear the answer any more than he'd really wanted to ask the question.

"Want–" Buffy shook her head over the word. "Want has nothing to do with it." She gave him a rueful smile. "That's why I'm here. I absolutely will not sleep with you, because people will get hurt. Feeling pretty safe."

"Whereas if you slept with Spike…?" Having this conversation was getting to be a fair approximation of hell.

"He might get hurt."

Angel shook his head, hating the role he was forced to play but unable to do anything else. "Buffy, I really don't believe that about you. Sure, maybe then, when you were messed up from, you know," his eyes slid away, "dying, but not now."

Buffy looked away this time. "I'd like to believe that, too. But it's all mixed up with violence, our affair, everything we've done, really. I used to fight with him, Angel, used to try to kill him – used to have to try so hard to keep him from killing me. It seems natural to… to fight him, and he didn't – it didn't seem to…." She trailed off, again not wanting to go into any details.

"Buffy," Angel said, closing his eyes, "he's a vampire."

"That doesn't mean S&M is what he wants."

The, uh, S&M –" He stopped, unwilling to go on. "Honestly, Buffy, no, pain isn't his…" he grimaced at the modern phrasing, "thing. We, Darla, Dru, and me, that was part of it." Unable to vocalize the difficult memories, Angel shook his head and opened his eyes, meeting her sharp gaze. "Even for a vampire, he has a high tolerance for pain."

"Which you know from experience," she said softly, a statement.

He nodded. "I hardly ever went after him, because it was much more effective to," he hesitated over the word, "torture Dru. Something quick, lay into him and break a couple of bones for an object lesson, but if I really wanted to hurt him… I hurt her." No need to mention the early years.

It was Buffy's turn to glance away, staring down into the glass of wine she'd been nursing since showing up at his door. "He said as much."

She missed his swift, surprised look. "You… ah, talked about this?"

"Not in any detail," she assured him, the humorless smile on her face fading swiftly.

"I don't know what it was like between Drusilla and Spike after I left," he admitted. "She... By the time, I was through with her, she needed the pain. If she couldn't get it, she didn't mind dealing it."

Buffy nodded, still looking into her glass. "So I'm just another link in a pattern."

Angel hesitated, then covered her hand. "No, Buffy, I don't believe that for a minute." He made himself say it. "If it can't be us, I can't think of anyone better than Spike. He'll be there for you no matter what."

Her hazel eyes were wide as she stared at him, then she shook her head. "I can't believe you're saying that."

"No one's better at taking care of people than Spike," he began, but Buffy withdrew her hand and made a slashing gesture.

"No. I mean, a friend is supposed to advise you to get as far away from your," her face tightened, "batterer as possible."

"He–" The words died as Angel realized that she meant he was failing in his duty as Spike's friend. "Oh, Buffy, no."

Her eyes were full of tears. "I love him, Angel. It's best if I don't… This is a sacrifice for me, you know? When I'm with him, when I see 'Buffy' the way he does, that's the only time I feel like myself, the only time I like who I am," Buffy shrugged, "who I might be again." A real smile touched her mouth. "Oh, and fighting with him, I mean in battle… It's better than with Faith or any of the other slayers."

"He is a good fighter." A fond smile of remembrance crossed his face. "Less than a month old, he killed another vampire who tried to take his mark."

"Nice memory."

Angel shrugged. "It's one reason why he's alive now." When she raised her eyebrows, he dropped his gaze. "You told me your first impression of me was that I was gorgeous–"

"And annoying?" she added.

He nodded and a fleeting smile touched his face. "The first time I saw Spike was when Drusilla brought him home – not right away," he added, humor coloring his voice. "She kept him all to herself for a couple of weeks. We knew she'd sired someone; we'd encouraged her to look for somebody. They walked in the door of the house we were staying in, Will and Drusilla, just after sunrise. The light was good, and the first thing I thought was that I wanted to draw him. He was smiling and so obviously taken with Dru, and I pulled him close to the window and held my hand into the light, dared him to do the same. My first impression of Will was… he was fresh, and so eager to please, wanting to fit in so he'd make Drusilla happy."

"Spike said you were like a big brother at first," she prompted.

"At first." His expression grew grim. "I taught him a lot, that's for sure." Angel shook it off. "But he was a natural when it came to fighting; I only had to show him a move once for him to get it. Took two humans the first night I had him out, willing to wade in, willing to retreat when the odds looked too steep. If all he had been was a pretty face, I would have killed him within a fortnight. I didn't show him Angelus' true nature for a while, too fascinated by how open he was. Darla was summoned away by the Master, and I took Dru to my bed to set him up for… for a fall."

"Don't you ever worry that you'll do that again? Hurt him, I mean?"

"No. Not me." Angelus' name remained unspoken. He considered her for a moment. "Did he tell you he finally beat me?"

"No." Buffy frowned. "How? I mean, you're, like, twice his age."

"Yeah." Angel nodded ruefully. "Right after he recorporealized, we had it out like we hadn't since… in over a century. He got better in the meantime," he said dryly. "I had wondered about that. I wouldn't even go against him directly when we were in Sunnydale, after… you know."

"I know."

"He'd killed a second Slayer, killed the anointed one and set himself up as the new Master."

"He did?"

"Well, until he broke his back–"

"Until I broke his back."

Angel decided to just nod. "Anyway, he was the most powerful Aurelian who wasn't insane or souled. So, when Angelus was loose, I wanted to challenge him, but I didn't know enough about his capabilities to chance it."

"He was in a wheelchair," Buffy protested.

"Yeah, and I kept him on short rations so he couldn't heal quickly, too." Angel shrugged. "Drusilla's idea of nutrition was puppies."

"Eww." Buffy made a face. "You know, if you've got a point…?"

"My point is, he can bide his time, if he has to. I believe I once told you that he never gives up." At her puzzled look, Angel went on. "You don't want to want him, Buffy, but I doubt he feels the same way. In Los Angeles, he stayed after me until he got me, and I really didn't give him any encouragement."

"He… got you?" Then her brow cleared. "To admit you're family, a vampire thing, he said."

"Right, a… vampire thing." He looked at his hands for a moment. "After he defeated me, he followed me back to Wolfram and Hart and," Angel lifted his head and let out a stream of air through his nostrils, "gave me a shoulder to cry on. Not about losing," he added hastily, "just… a lot was going on then, a lot of… difficult things."

"Cordelia."

"Among others." He oriented his body toward her a little more. "He doesn't hold a grudge."

"I do."

"Buffy…" Angel had to take a breath to go on. "You aren't abusive."

"I am." She shook her head. "Doesn't matter how reformed I am, it's always there."

"Does he know you feel this way?" When she nodded, Angel said firmly, "Then, you don't need to worry. He won't let you do it."

She gave him a twisted smile. "'Let' doesn't have anything to do with it. I'm the Slayer; I'm stronger."

He examined her closely. "I've heard people say you're pretty evenly matched."

Buffy nodded in agreement, unconcerned. "We are. Part of it is… I don't know, fighting style or something. We complement each other. But I am stronger, Angel. Ask Spike. He's the one who can judge whether a Slayer is worth fighting or not."

"And he's training them," Angel said, shaking his head. He snorted a little. "I guess if you live long enough, you see everything."

"He's good at it, too," Buffy said, surprise coloring her voice, as if she hadn't thought of this before.

"Do you find that you always underestimate him?" Angel asked, curious.

"Yes," Buffy answered slowly, "I do. Why is that?"

"Maybe since he doesn't take anything seriously, it's hard to take him seriously."

"It's probably some rare vampire ability," Buffy said sarcastically, "like, 'hey, I'm incompetent, ignore me,' right up until the moment he drives his fangs into your neck."

"If he had that ability," Angel said with matching sarcasm, "he wouldn't develop it."

"So I'm not the only one he drove crazy, huh?"

"Sad to say, no, you're not the only one." Angel was relieved to see a genuine smile reach her eyes, and he stared into the speckled green depths for a long while, lost as ever. "Um," he said, "can I freshen your glass?"

Buffy looked down at her wineglass, having forgotten she was holding it. "Why not?"

⸹

The tree branch snapped off raggedly, and Spike stripped the leaves from it and broke it into smaller, stake-sized pieces. He'd only come out with two stakes, and the second one had dusted with the eleventh vampire. No wonder Buffy wasn't at home; there was enough work for all the slayers tonight.

He caught a scent that brought him up short, coming from the other side of the park he was skirting, maybe. Putting on a burst of speed, he found what he was looking for, a type of demon he'd only ever seen once before.

"Clem?"

"Spike?" Always cheerful, the chance meeting with his old friend sent the loose-skinned demon's face into a literal ear-to-ear grin. "Spike!" Clem dropped the bucket of fried chicken he'd been carrying and spread his arms wide. "I heard you were dead, in Sunnydale."

"Dead no matter where I am," Spike said, laughing as he embraced him, careful not to snag any skin folds. "Good to see you, mate. No, brilliant to see you!" He pulled away. "What are you doing in Cleveland?"

Clem got a puzzled look on his face. "I'm not really sure. I settled up in San Francisco after the Hellmouth got weird, and it's pretty nice – not too much sun, if you ever want to give it a shot. All the moisture's good for my skin. Anyway, a few days ago, I just got this wild hair, thought I'd like to come east. The closer I got to here, the stronger I felt this pull, and, hey! Another Hellmouth, I guess." The puzzled look came back. "But it doesn't really feel like Hellmouth energy." He picked up his chicken. "I haven't even looked for a place to stay. I just got in town, wanted something to eat. If I'd known I would see you, I would have gotten some buffalo wings, too."

Spike grew tense. "Hold that thought." Three vampires, fresh from their graves, were approaching, two females and a male. Their clothes were askew, and if he knew his vampires, they had just come from a threesome and were hungry.

"Who sired you?" he challenged them, thinking it might be worth asking as he planted himself in their path.

"Who cares?" one of the female vampires replied. "Get out of our way. There's food behind–"

That was as far as she got. Spike dusted the other two before looks of shock even had time to form on their faces.

"Gee, Spike," Clem said. "That was a little harsh."

"You were the food they were talking about, Clem."

"I was?" He got a hurt look on his face. "Not much courtesy between demons in this town."

"No," Spike agreed absently. "Look, we've got to get you inside, somewhere safe. I'd invite you back to my place, but I'm staying with Rupes – er, Giles."

"The Slayer's Watcher?" Clem blurted. "Why are you living with a Watcher?"

"Sorta adopted me," he said, trying to think of where he could stash the harmless demon for a few days. Angel would take him, if he asked nicely, but it was still a good hike, and Clem wasn't fast. Then he remembered someone else with a free room, someone closer.

"He adopted you? But you're older than he is," Clem said, still trying to reason this out.

"Come on, then," Spike said, putting an arm around him. "I've got someone you can stay with, where you can keep safe."

"Well, any friend of yours…" Clem said, smiling.

"Dunno she's a friend," Spike said. "She's a slayer. That's what I'm doing here in Cleveland, training slayers."

"You mean Buffy?" Clem asked, the puzzled look now a fixture on his face. "You're training the Slayer?"

"Got some things to tell you while we walk, mate," Spike said. He explained how they had made all those nice little girls into an army of slayers to fight the army of über-vamps in Sunnydale, leaving out the part where he himself died. By the time he finished, Spike had to cut off Clem's questions so he could call Watcher Central and get Tribby's number. It occurred to him that it wasn't wise to barge in unannounced on a slayer with a demon in tow.

"'Lo?" Her voice was muzzy with sleep.

"Hey, pet, I need a favor."

"Spike? Uh, sure."

"Look, there's someone with me who needs a safe place to stay for a few days, and you've got an open spot for a roommate."

"Safe?"

"Yeah. City's crawling with vamps tonight."

"You need me to come out?"

"No," he said, knocking, "just to the door."

"That was," she said, opening the door, telephone still in hand.

Spike presumed that the word she swallowed was 'fast,' but he was too distracted by the threadbare white tank top she was wearing. Stretched over her dark skin, it left nothing to the imagination. They stood in tableau for a moment, the slayer staring at Clem, Clem staring the slayer with his best smile in place, and Spike staring at her chest.

Spike snapped back to the moment first. "Uh, Tribby," in an ancient wifebeater and boxers, probably her dead husband's, you insensitive git, "this is my friend Clem. He just got into town."

"Uh." She rallied a little. "Hi."

Clem raised his free hand. "Hi, Tribby." He leaned toward Spike over his bucket of chicken and said in a low voice, "How come all the females you know have such tight skin?"

Spike gave his head a shake. "Just my luck," he muttered. "Look, pet, can we come in?"

"Of course." Southern manners came to the fore, and she stepped back from the door. "Please, come in… Clem."

"Thank you," he said politely, looking around. "Nice apartment you have here."

The phone in her hand rang, and she looked at it blankly for a moment before answering. "Hello? Oh, hi, Mrs. Hanley. Yes, they're here now."

"Nosy neighbors," Spike explained to Clem. "Don't sit on the futon," he added, heading off the demon.

Her phone call finished, the slayer turned back to them. "Why don't you, um, go on into the kitchen?" Tribby suggested, her eyes going between the demon and his bucket of chicken. The kitchen was separated from the living room by nothing more than a length of low wooden railing, not enough privacy for the quick talk Spike needed to have.

"Let's get you into a robe, Tribs. Be right back, Clem. Enjoy those breas – er, drumsticks and whatnot."

"Spike," Tribby said, low, as he took her elbow and steered her down the hallway, "that's a demon."

"Yes, Clem's a demon, but he's a bit of all right," he said, going unerringly to her room by scent and feeling on the wall for the light switch. He flicked it on and glanced around.

"You brought a demon to my apartment," she said again, still trying to wrap her mind around the concept.

Impatient, he went to game face. "Yeah, I do tend to do that."

"Sorry. It's just kinda… unexpected."

Spike shook it off, opening her closet. "Unexpected to me, too. Knew Clem back in Sunnydale. He's a good guy, a friend. He even babysat Dawn once."

"Dawn knows him?" She sounded relieved.

He gave her a miffed look. "What, I can't vouch for him? And do you have a robe or something?"

Tribby closed her door and took a white terrycloth robe from its hook on the back. "So, he needs a place to stay for a few days because there are lots of vampires out right now?"

"No, he's a demon who needs a place to stay that's safe from patrolling slayers and assorted Council types who don't know that he isn't a threat." He spotted the other thing he was looking for on her nightstand and snatched it up.

"Ohh," she said, getting it as she pulled on the robe. She frowned a little as Spike reached brusquely over to knot the sash and tuck the edges of the robe together high at her neck.

"Here, put your hair up," he said, handing her the scrunchie he'd found and taking the telephone, still in her hand, from her.

"So… While he's here, I can take a picture of him to distribute, like an anti-wanted poster. That way we'll know he's okay, and he'll be safe from us. You know, Spike, I see your vampire face so seldom… You think maybe we should do mug shots of you and Angel, too? Especially for the new slayers?" Her hands made efficient motions at the nape of her neck.

"Good idea, pet," he said absently. There, she looked the way she was supposed to, dark hair and interesting bits tucked safely away. His demon, expecting to spend the night with Buffy, growled at having another slayer dangled in front of it, then taken away. Stupid demon, he scolded, monogamy, remember?

"Just for a few nights?" Tribby asked anxiously.

"Right," he breathed, and without distractions, everything fell into place. He'd killed fourteen vampires just now, on top of the nine during regular patrol. And Clem had been drawn here. He passed Tribby and went back down the hallway.

"What does he eat? Besides chicken?" she asked, on his heels, a Southern question.

"Ki – uh, junk food."

"He is a good demon, isn't he?"

"He's harmless," Spike allowed.

"So," she put her hand to the closely gathered robe at her throat, "why do I have to be covered from head to toe?"

Spike opened his mouth. "All that," he made a vague gesture in her direction, "tight skin. It offends him."

"Religious thing?" she asked.

"Maybe. Yeah. I dunno, pet. Here," he thrust her telephone back into her hand, "gotta run. Clem! See you tomorrow, mate." He began pelting down the four flights of stairs, hearing the slayer say, faint and bright with nervousness, 'So, Spike tells me you know Dawn?' even as he hit speed dial on his cell phone.

"Hullo?" Another sleepy human on the other end.

"Rupes? The first of your twelve battles is here."

⸹

Xander shouldered his way through the crowded club. The energy that had drawn so many demons to the Hellmouth seemed to enervate the humans, as well, and the party vibe was strong at the Skeller. The last couple of days had been full of strategy meetings and wild theories, but nothing had actually happened except for an increase in the number of patrols. Giles had given his blessing for Xander to go on a date, but he had his cell phone on vibrate, just in case. The other reason he felt justified in being here was that he didn't have any other way of getting in touch with Lina – he didn't even know her last name. He felt uneasy about her chances of getting home in one piece without him.

Concentrating on scanning the bar, he jumped when he felt a hand on his elbow. Then he looked down into Lina's brown eyes and melted. "Hey!" Loud, so she could hear him, a smile on his face so she knew he meant, 'damn, it's good to see you.'

"Hi!" She gestured toward the back. "Band's about to start!"

Good, he thought, no actual dancing and no chance I'll blurt out how pathetically much I've been looking forward to tonight. Lina took his hand, and he had a moment of mixed emotions about how natural that felt. If anyone noticed his smile now had a bittersweet edge to it, the noisy club was the wrong venue for them to make a comment. Oh, An, he thought, I'm moving on. I know you would, if it had been me.

⸹

"So… the locus isn't the Hellmouth," Spike said, leaning heavily on the table, looking at a map of Cleveland stuck with pins indicating slain demons.

"No," Aubrey Willingham agreed, forgetting in the academic excitement of this discovery that he mustn't get too close to the vampire. "It's here, to the south."

Spike grimaced. "But not far away enough to rule out the Hellmouth."

From her vantage point across the room, Buffy smiled as she watched their conversation, then bent over Gorham's _Cyclopedic Compendium of the Damned_ again. She felt Angel come up next to her, and without looking up, she asked, "Is it me, or does it seem odd to hear Spike say 'locus?' I don't think I've heard a 'bloody hell' in two days."

"Don't ask me," Angel grumbled. "It's still a shock to me to see people listening to him."

"Ignore me, ignore me," Buffy said, grinning and reaching out and to grab Angel's arm, "gotcha!"

He smiled down into her eyes. "Have you gotten any rest?"

She let go of his arm belatedly. He had really nice arms. "Um, not really. Not since falling asleep on your couch." Buffy made a face. "I shouldn't have had that second glass of wine. I'm not much of a drinker."

" _Mi_ sofa, _su_ sofa."

"Witty," Buffy approved. "Pretty soon you'll be be down to two packs of brood a day."

By the table in the middle of the room, Willow, searching for a hug, ducked under the arm Spike was using to trace a pattern. "Hey, you," she yawned, slipping an arm around his waist.

"Hey, yourself," he said, distracted, then forced himself to turn away from the puzzle at hand. Aubrey had gone to find a book in Giles' office. "Go on home, if you're tired, pet. Nothing's going to happen tonight; I'd feel it, if it was."

Willow nodded. "I might. Xander is out on a date, and I'll have the apartment to myself."

"Date?" Spike echoed, concerned. "Someone he met this week?"

She shook her head. "No, a cashier at Kroger he's been scamming on for weeks. He finally asked her out, and this happens."

"Any chance she's not a demon?"

"I'd say the chances are pretty slim for a demon this time. Maybe he'll get lucky – not-demon lucky, I mean." She yawned again. "Or the other kind."

"Off with you, then," he said, dropping an absent kiss atop her head. Then he caught her close, his arm around her waist. "Wait. How late will you stay up? Something I've been meaning to ask you," he said, his eyes straying across the room to where Angel was smiling at something Buffy had said, "private, and if Harris isn't there, it'd be a good time."

"Private?" Willow asked, quirking a flirtatious brow. "I am intrigued."

Spike shook his head. "There was a time, Red, where I would have taken a remark like that and just…" He trailed off. "Ignore me; just hard up for female companionship, is all."

"Boy, can I commiserate," Willow said. "Anyway, how about, I'm slightly intrigued?"

"Council related," he elaborated.

Her eyebrows drew together. "More intrigued than I'm letting on."

He bent his head close to hers. "Pick up some whipped cream on your way home, then."

"Spike," Willow said seriously, "I am fully stocked with tasty toppings."

First he grinned, then he groaned. "Take yourself from here, you wanton woman, before I hoist you onto the table and have my wicked way with you." He indicated the map with a quick glance. "I understand witches don't like being pricked," tongue against teeth, "with pins."

"I doubt those are brass pins," she said, still serious, then her eyes widened. "Oh, you. I forgot the slightly less famous, never go up against a vampire when an innuendo is on the line." She nodded pointedly toward her best friend, who had twisted her head far to one side to read something in Angel's book. "Not that there's a chance you'd make good on a promise like that in front of Buffy." Willow started to turn away before remembering. "Wait, there was a question. Maybe an hour?"

"Red, I'm insulted."

"How long I'll be up, Spike, not you." She took her opportunity to have the last word and was gone.

⸹

Willow puttered around, packing another group of things she wouldn't need before leaving for Oxford, then brushed her teeth and put on some incredibly unsexy pajamas that were baggy and too long. With Spike coming over, better to be safe. When the door rattled, she wasn't concerned. He didn't have a key.

"Who is it?" she called, knowing better than to issue a blanket invitation to come in.

"It's me," Xander said, finally managing to get his key to turn. He came in, then propelled a short, red-haired girl in a low-cut black top in front of him. "Willow, I'd like you to meet Lina. Lina, this is Wil."

"Hey," Willow said, raising a hand and giving a small smile. Feeling dowdy, she wished she had put on a slinky nightgown instead, then rethought the wish, figuring it was better not to be Sexy Roommate in front of Xander's date, who was, she couldn't help noticing, cute. "You guys have a good time tonight?"

"Wil," Xander hesitated, "I don't know how to say this, but… you might want to meet the new guitarist for Shipwrecked on Hell Island." He stepped away from the door. A young man stood there, short, with spiky black hair, his eyes closed as if he was in pain.

"Hi, Wil," Oz said, opening his eyes.

"Oz?" Her voice was faint with shock. Then, a grin spreading slowly across her face, "Oz!" She was across the room, stumbling a little in the overlong pajamas, and hugging him exuberantly.

"No one says hello like Willow," Xander said, smiling, as he put his hand at Lina's waist.

"It's so good to see you," she told Oz. "How've you been? Where've you been? What are you doing in Cleveland?"

"Willow," he said, holding her a few inches away, his voice tight, "are you seeing anyone?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, and she watched him visibly relax. He was still worried about his control, then.

"You stopped returning my emails," he said, closing his eyes again, as if he didn't want to see the blow that would fall.

"Oh." Willow blinked. "Oh, no, Oz, i-it wasn't you. I… had a bad semester; I dropped out for a while and lost my campus email account."

He breathed again, opening his eyes to drink in her face. "Xander said that," he hesitated over the name, "Tara was killed."

"Yes." Willow bit her lip.

"I'm sorry," Oz said. "I know that must have been hard."

"It still is."

"Xander said other things have changed?"

She raised her eyebrows, trying to think of where to start, when Oz spun around, putting his hand on Willow's stomach to keep her behind him.

"Red, you ought not leave your door–" Spike raised his eyebrows and drew up short at the sight of the snarl on the face of the young man in front of him. He frowned. "Dog-boy, right?"

"Um, Oz," Xander said, "you remember Spike?" The vampire came in just to prove he could, eyes narrow, bristling almost as much as Oz.

"I remember," Oz agreed.

Not necessarily a good thing. "Um, this is one of those things that has changed," Willow said, gathering power in her right hand, just in case.

Lina looked between the guitarist and the new arrival, then looked up at Xander questioningly. "Should we go?"

"Sure," Xander said slowly. "I'd like to drive you home, if that's okay."

"I'd like that," Lina said, her eyes still on the two men taking each other's measure.

"Why are you here?" Oz asked.

"Came to see Red," Spike said, arrogant, "for a private matter."

"Spike, buddy," Xander said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed, "not helping."

"Right," he said, forcing himself to back off. "Sorry, Red. So, you've got company?"

"Yeah," she said, grinning again.

"We'll talk later, then." With a last insolent look at Oz, he turned away. Then he paused in the doorway, obviously for dramatic effect, to withdraw a canister of whipped cream from a pocket of his coat. He tossed it to Willow, who caught the still-cold can. "S'pose I won't be indulging my sweet tooth. In case you want to indulge yours," he said meaningfully.

After a beat, Oz closed the door. He turned to Willow, unable to keep his eyes away from the whipped cream.

"Oh," Willow said, her face heating. "Just a-a joke."

"Uh-huh." Oz's brain, never quiet, processed this up to a point, then he shook his head. "Xander wasn't kidding. Changes include a harmless Spike?"

"Harmless?" Even chipped, that had never been a word to describe him. "Well, let's see," Willow said, a little put out with both of them for the testosterone posturing, "Spike fell in love with Buffy, then went to Africa and fought to get his soul back so he could take care of Dawnie after Buffy died saving the world, but then I brought Buffy back from the dead. That was before I nearly ended the world, until Xander stopped me, thus saving the world. Did I mention that Spike died saving the world, too? He's back, but I didn't do that."

Oz blinked.

Willow took pity on him. "Come on, Mr. Osborne. Have a seat on the couch, and you tell me all about what you've been up to." As she turned away, another smile touched her face. Oz!

⸹

Spike shadowed Xander's car to the Woodland Hills section of the city, where his date (who smelled human, at least) had her apartment. He slew another six vampires on the way, moving like death on the night air. When Xander didn't come out right away, he gave a predatory smile and let himself into the whelp's car to wait.

"Spike, why are you in my car?"

"Took you long enough," he said, pleased that he hadn't been able to get the drop on the human.

"Too long?" he asked anxiously. "'Cause I'm back in the abyss of dating – too much of a good night kiss? Is this too soon to make with the come-on? Am I overstaying?"

"Are you overthinking?"

"Yeah, probably. So, what're you doing?" He turned the key in the ignition and began the trip back to Watcher Central.

"Looking for a rolled-up newspaper to thump Dog-boy's nose," Spike said, then let his head fall back against the seat. "No, never mind. This energy is beginning to affect me, too, I reckon." He even didn't have a clear memory of buying the whipped cream.

"Affect you in what way?"

He waved it off. "Doesn't matter. Where'd you find the lad? I won't even make a crack about the pound."

"He was playing at a club called the Skeller, down in the Flats."

"Yeah, I know it."

"Funny thing is, he just got this gig, just started practicing with this band this week. One day, he's in Santa Fe, the next day he's thinking he'd like to give Cleveland a whirl."

"Just like Clem."

"So, you're starting to feel it, too?"

"S'pose so. Thought maybe the soul was protecting me, but if Dog-boy felt it, maybe it's because I'm already livin' here. Or maybe because…"

"Because you're an old and powerful demon," Xander finished matter-of-factly.

"Let me check with Angel," Spike said. "Haven't noticed he's fazed by this."

"C'mon, Spike, it's me. Fazed in what way?"

He shook his head, irritated with himself rather than with Xander. "Last coupla days, gaggin' for it, me. Ogling my slayers. Went to your flat tonight to see Red with more on my mind than business."

"Not likely to have much success on that front, old chap." Xander trotted out his English accent.

"'Course I would. The aftermath would be quite the dog's dinner, though."

"Oh, to be you for just one day," Xander laughed, shaking his head.

"What? You don't think I could talk her into it?"

"Spike, if you put your mind to it, you could probably talk me into it."

He sat up a little in the seat. "Yeah?"

"Too bad you didn't catch me last week, for today I am second-date man."

"Oh." He slumped down again. "Good on you, mate."

"Next time, we're going someone where it's quiet and we can," Xander grimaced, "talk."

"Where to begin, huh?"

"You said it." The dark-haired man gave him a sidelong look. "So, if you're hitting on me, I'm guessing you and Buffy aren't…?"

"No."

"Can I ask why?" he ventured after a moment.

"You can ask, but I can't give you an answer." He shifted restlessly. "Dunno, mate. She's makin' noise about not wantin' to hurt Angel's delicate sensibilities, but, honestly, I don't think that's it."

"Ah, the eternal mystery that is Buffy."

"Truer words." He sighed. "'M caught – not givin' the new bed a whirl with Buffy, certainly can't get a leg over anyone else."

"Well, there are other options."

Spike held out his left hand and considered it. "Think it's possible for vampires to get carpal tunnel syndrome?"

Xander made an odd, chopping movement with one hand and shuddered. "And you just grossed me out, the man who has years of Anya-frankness to harden him. Jeez, Spike, TMI." He shook his head, pulling up to the curb outside Giles' house. "No, I didn't mean…"

"The old hand-shandy?"

"Yes, thank goodness for quaint British euphemisms." He shook his head, turning off the car and shifting so he could look at the blond man. "I meant you should talk to her."

"In the entire history of the world, that has never worked."

Xander shook his head again, this time in impatience. "You're tired, Spike, I can tell. My advice, as your friend and Buffy's, is: go get some sleep. Tomorrow, when you're thinking with your brain–"

"That would be a first."

"–go talk to her, ask her what she wants. Then, at least you'll have a timeframe or something."

Spike stared out the window for a moment. Without looking around, he covered Xander's hand with his own. "Might give it a bash. Thanks, mate."

"Um, Spike? You can let go of my hand, now."

With a flash of white teeth, the vampire was gone. Xander started the car again, locking the doors out of habit, and pulled out. A good night: connecting with his 'mate,' finding Oz for Willow, and Lina… He found he was almost scared. Lina was too nice, too normal. He shook his head. Didn't matter. He was going to take each day as it came, not worry about the other shoe dropping. Maybe it never would.

⸹

Inside Watcher Central, Angel put down the reference book he was skimming when he heard the door open and felt Spike approach. He looked up into his boy's face and his brows drew together. "You need rest. When did you sleep last?"

"Dunno," Spike said, waving off the past three days. "'M headin' to bed now. Glad you're still here, 'cause I wanted to ask, you gettin' any buzz from this odd energy?"

Angel thought about it, then shook his head slowly. "No."

"Figured as much," Spike said. "Age, power. Didn't really hit me until today."

"Hit you how?"

Spike perused him, head to waist. "Bit of rough for me, but I'd drag you downstairs, I wasn't so tired."

"That's the best offer I've had in a while," Angel said. Then he raised a brow, surprised with himself. "Maybe it is affecting me. What about the other," his voice became confidential, "um, of the three f's?"

"Fightin's been like…" He couldn't find anything better than Buffy's phrase. "In the zone. So easy, it's almost scary. A little off my feed, but I've been too busy to notice."

Angel handed him a cup. "Here. Finish this up. It's still warm."

Spike put a hand on his shoulder briefly before taking the mug. "Thanks, mate." He drained it in one gulp, then handed it back, swaying a little.

"You wouldn't last an hour, boy," Angel said, poker-faced, picking up his book again. "Not much incentive for me to come downstairs."

"Yeah? You're not a lot of incentive for me to come up."

"Go get some sleep, Will." His gaze was fixed on the text, but a smile lurked at the corners of his mouth.

⸹

"Have you been here all night?" Buffy asked.

Angel looked up from the book he was flipping through, one of a pile on his lap and the arms of his chair. "Good morning," he said, beginning to move them. "Yes, I guess so." He nodded towards the table in the middle of the room where Giles was talking to a grey-faced Aubrey. "Giles napped for a few hours, but Willingham's been up all night. I'm kind of worried; he isn't a young man." He stood up and stretched a little, his neck popping.

"Neither are you, from the sound of it." Then she frowned. "Well, you are sort of old. I mean–" She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. "Ignore me. It's too early. You're not old at all. Come to the kitchen with me; I'm in serious need of coffee."

"Best offer I've had since last night." At her curious look, he shook his head. "Ignore me, too. Mornings aren't the best time for vampires."

"So, anything new turn up?"

"Nope." Angel looked outside at the morning light creeping over the lawn. "Giles is having a meeting at noon to discuss strategy."

She made a face. "More discussion. The waiting is starting to get to me."

He turned back to her, starting to ask if she was feeling unusually edgy, but the words died. Buffy was in morning sunlight, her hair mussed, bringing back memories of the nights they had stayed together.

"What?" Buffy asked, half-smiling at the odd look on his face.

"You look beautiful," he said softly.

She didn't roll her eyes, just sent a look of askance toward the ceiling, touching her hair with her empty hand. "Thanks," Buffy said wryly.

There was no expression on his face as he took the coffee cup from her and put it on the counter. He captured her fingers and pulled her away from the light, closer to him. "Buffy…" Angel leaned close, his clear brown eyes unreadable, then he shut them, brushing his lips across hers.

So many times this had happened, the wrong time, the wrong place, but it kept happening, the bond forged between them long ago still too strong to break. Buffy went up on tiptoe just as Angel put his hands under her elbows, lifting her up. The kiss deepened for a fleeting moment, then he opened his eyes, letting go of her just as she pushed against his chest. They stared at each other, still too close.

"Sorry," he managed. He wasn't, but he knew he should be.

Buffy covered her mouth, her eyes wide, then she was gone from the kitchen, the door swinging behind her.

Angel watched the diminishing arc of the door until it grew still, trying to find any conscious decision in what he had just done, still tasting her on his lips, seeing the shock in her eyes. Then he snatched a set of keys from the wall and turned toward the door into the garage, the path kept clear now for him, for Spike, and opened the door to Giles' Camry. He drove away from the Watcher's house, from the nagging sense of betrayal, the cheerful morning sunlight falling on him harmlessly through the necrotempered windows.

⸹

"Spike, you decent?" Dawn called from the top of the stairs.

"Am I ever?" he replied, then there was the sound of a zipper. "But I'm clothed." He had slept until eleven, when the noise of the humans upstairs had grown too loud, then showered. He felt much more himself, more in control.

She tromped down the steps and he came into view, pulling a shirt over his head. "Come on," she said impatiently, "I need you upstairs." She eyed him critically, then fussed with his hair.

"You've got umpteen slayers with long hair upstairs, and you want to play with mine?" He swatted her hands away.

"The only thing that keeps men well-groomed is women," she said authoritatively, "and everyone is going to be here today."

"Meeting doesn't start for half an hour," he protested, pulling her against his shoulder. "Stay with me a bit. Missed you the past few days."

Dawn went willing into his embrace. "We've all been so busy," she agreed, but she pulled away after just a few seconds. "All right, Mister Snuggles. Let's go."

"Mister Sn–" He gave her a warning look.

She grinned. "Come on. You've got an appointment with a camera."

"I do, do I?"

"Yup, fangs and all."

"Oh. Right." He followed her up the steps. "The mug shot, innit?"

"So you see why you need to be pretty for the camera."

"'Pretty' isn't necessarily the word I'd use, love. 'Terrifying,' now, I like that." The look on her face, love and acceptance and exasperation as she started to call him on exactly how bad he wasn't, overcame him, and he gathered her close again. "Missed you. Shoulda made time before now."

"It isn't just you. I've been busy, too."

"Know you have." He rested his forehead against hers. "Do you know how much the slayers depend on you, Bit?"

"They do?" Her smile was pleased and surprised.

"'Course they do. You run interference between them and the Tweed Brigade, speak their language, understand their problems. You earn all that money that you lavish on me." He jerked his head toward the furniture behind them.

"Thanks." She squeezed him, then pulled away again. "Come on, slowpoke, let's get upstairs. What?" she asked, as he was grinning.

"Slowpoke?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You can make anything sound dirty, can't you?"

"Only natural talent I have," he agreed, following her the rest of the way up the steps, his arm stretched along the rail just in case, always ready to catch her. "Anyway, you want the proper word, it's 'slowcoach.'"

"Proper for old fogies from your time, but you're in the New World now, with horseless carriages and everything." She led him into Giles' office, where Tribby was taking a picture of Angel, fangs and ridges on display, set against a backdrop of gray canvas strung between two of the framed maps on the wall.

"Time for my mug shot, I guess," Spike grumbled, as Angel brushed past them without a word, his eyes on the floor.

"Plus some others," Dawn said vaguely.

"Other what?" Spike asked. He didn't get his answer until he shook off his vampire face and Dawn moved into place beside him in front of the camera.

"What's this, then?" he asked.

"I want a picture of me and you," she said.

"Probably no film left in the camera," he offered, looking meaningfully at Tribby.

"No," the slayer said cheerfully, "it's digital. It can hold hundreds of images." She had jacked a cable into the camera and, with a few keystrokes on her laptop, sent something to Giles' printer.

"Really." Apparently Tribby would rather cross him than Dawn. He put a self-conscious hand to his hair, wondering if wind sprints could be inflicted on slayers. "You coulda warned me, Bit."

She raised an eyebrow. "And could I have gotten you here?" There was a determined gleam in her eye. "I'm never going to be caught without a picture of you again."

"Ready?" Tribby asked, unplugging the camera. She had already fixed the lighting to her satisfaction.

"Ready," Dawn said. Working efficiently, their photographer got several poses, then Dawn left the room for a moment. She came back, propelling Angel in front of her.

"But I already had my–" Angel broke off when he saw Spike still there. "Hey."

"Let's get a picture of you two together," Dawn said, steering the dark-haired man in front of the canvas, oblivious to his discomfort. Angel looked sour, but she folded her arms.

"Don't cross her, mate," Spike advised, chuckling. He threw an arm over Angel's shoulders and canted his head back for a jaunty smile. The arrogance faded as Dawn brought in first Buffy, then the rest of the Scoobies, and eventually everyone who had been in Sunnydale except, it seemed, Clem. Tribby had taken his picture already.

"Oh, I say," Giles said, even as he straightened his tie for his portrait with Xander and Willow, "aren't we done yet?"

"No," Dawn said. "Next, let's get one of Buffy and Giles."

"Really," the Watcher said, pausing long enough to smile for the camera, "we've got an impending apocalypse and a meeting that should have started five minutes ago."

"There's always an apocalypse, and it isn't even noon yet," Dawn replied, running through the mental list of the pictures she wanted. "We'll have time to get one of the slayers together before the meeting starts."

Spike, trying to be invisible in the corner, hid a smile. When the Bit was in charge, there was no use arguing with her. The photo shoot did go past noon, but only by a few minutes. The Watchers had taken all the seats in the living room, so he snaked one arm around Buffy, leaned against the wall, and pulled her close so she would have something more comfortable than sheetrock to lean against. She gave him a strained smile, and his eyes narrowed, but before he could ask her what was wrong, Giles cleared his throat.

"Before we begin, I'd like to introduce the two guests we have with us today," he said. "Lieutenant Joel Muse of the Cleveland police force," Giles waved a hand toward the blond officer, who was standing by the door next to Vi, his arms crossed and a neutral expression on his face, "and Daniel Osborne, a compatriot from our Sunnydale days."

Oz raised a hand from where he was sitting on the floor by Willow's chair. "Just Oz."

Giles walked over to the map that had been on the table, now mounted on an easel. "To make sure we are all on the same page, let me summarize what we know: there are twelve battles coming to the Hellmouth – perhaps thirteen, but we will of course try to keep the number as low as possible."

"How do you know there's going to be twelve battles?" Lieutenant Muse asked. Vi glanced up at him, an uncomfortable look on her face at this questioning of the Head of the Council.

"Prophecy," Rupert said shortly, peering at the man so that the light glanced off his spectacles, obscuring his expression. When the police officer raised his eyebrows but said nothing else, he went on. "Over the past week, we've witnessed an influx of demons, mostly vampires, impossible to hide, as the, uh, slay rate during patrols has soared." He paused to see if the policeman had anything to say in response to this, then continued. "The Hellmouth itself seems quiescent, and the massing of the hordes, as it were, seems to be focused somewhat to the south, between one and two miles away."

"What's in that area?" Pelham asked.

Giles rubbed his forehead. "Urban blight perhaps describes it best. The influence of the Hellmouth, the multilane roads cutting the neighborhoods in two… There are some warehouses and office buildings still in use, but there are an unfortunate number of abandoned houses in which demons can hide during the days."

He glanced up as Tribby began moving among the assembly, distributing the fliers she had printed off. "Our, er, resources in the demon community say that there is some energy in the city, not the usual kind that emanates from the Hellmouth itself. It is extremely… attractive to them," he quirked an eyebrow, "attracting them from as far away as California, in one instance. I believe the battle will ensue wherever this energy source is located, because, from the prophecy, it is this source that we must find and keep safe from dark influence."

"Still no indication of what the source is?" This from Caroline Greene, who was perched on the arm of the couch, next to Kayla.

"No, though Aubrey will address that next. I'm merely the cartoon before the main feature, I'm afraid." At the roomful of mostly blank faces, Giles sighed. "The only other thing is that we think it's going to be sooner rather than later, the first battle, I mean. From–"

"Jesus H. Christ," Muse interjected, having just received his flier. "What on earth are these things?" Vi got another pained look on her face as her companion became the focus of a good number of hostile glares.

"So sorry you were startled," Rupert said, though he sounded outraged rather than sorry, "I forget that we have the…" he hesitated, then chose a kinder word than the first several that came to mind, "uninitiated in our midst. Though they usually retain their human features, because things happen so quickly in battle, we wanted to refresh everyone's memory of what Angel and Spike look like."

"And don't hurt Clem, either, if you see him when you're out on patrol," Dawn piped up.

"We need a scorecard now?" This was not from the Lieutenant, but a mumble from one of the Watchers.

Ripper's cold gaze swept the room from behind Giles' spectacles. "Study these photographs and learn their faces. There will be no," his voice went wintry, "accidents."

Muse was shaking his head. "Wait a minute. Vi brought Spike to meet me; he's standing over there," he gestured to where Spike stood with Buffy, then held up the mug shots, "and this… freak isn't him. Is there another–" His question died on his lips as the blond vampire, impatient, suited up.

Power and anger radiated from Buffy as she listened to the slippery crunch of bone when Spike's face changed and watched the cop's horrified expression. She folded her hands over the forearm Spike had around her waist, anchoring him in place. "There are two vampires with souls in the whole world, and they are both in this room. They have done and will do more to keep this city safe than every cop you have on the police force, because they've saved the world. More than once." Buffy made her voice go quiet. "You're a guest here, Lieutenant, because maybe we can cooperate with each other, but we've never _needed_ the police. I'm going to tell you just once, don't interrupt Giles again."

Muse was nothing if not brave. He forced his shocked gaze away from the vampire. "And who are you?"

Spike growled in response to this challenge to the Slayer's authority, and she stroked his arm with the pad of one thumb, as if soothing an attack dog. "I'm Buffy Summers, the Chosen One," she said coldly, "and the general of the army of slayers. And Spike," she added, "is my second-in-command." There was a murmur of British-accented voices at this bald statement, then it died away.

The Lieutenant stared at the petite blond for a long moment, then gave a soft snort and shook his head. "If I hadn't gone out on foot patrol with Vivian last night, I'd be out that door." He looked down at the redhead, who met his gaze for a long moment of silent communication, then placed a hand on his arm. Across the room, Rona raised a knowing eyebrow.

"Um, if there are no other questions, Aubrey, would you…?" Giles asked, ceding the floor to the researcher.

The police officer didn't utter another word for the rest of the meeting, but whether it had to do with his new understanding of the Watchers' Council or Buffy's cool regard was unclear. She squeezed Spike's arm and heard him shake off his vampire features, then he pulled her closer, approval and love and fierce pride radiating off him. It seemed to amplify her own emotions, and she lifted her head, her jaw set, looking every inch the warrior in cropped cargo pants and a halter top. God, with him at her back, sometimes she thought there was nothing she couldn't do.

She caught her sister looking at her, and they shared a smile. Dawn's face was infused with admiration. She's proud of me, Buffy thought, a little stunned by the realization, and an odd feeling bloomed within her. After a moment, she placed it, found a name for it. I'm happy, she thought, I really am.

Across the room, Angel slipped into the kitchen unnoticed, unable to watch any longer. He had known Buffy and his boy were beautiful together, known they could move physically as if they shared the same mind, but he hadn't known the two of them were capable of a united front like that. Buffy had done something she had never done before, had publicly claimed Spike. She had stood there as Angel watched with all his senses, bright and strong and so good that it hurt him to see, while behind her, feeding her his dark strength, was Spike, mercurial and unpredictable except in his steadfast love for his fellow warrior. For the second time that day, Angel made his escape.

When the meeting was adjourned, Vi came directly across to where Buffy stood next to Spike and her sister, propelling the policeman along with her. "He didn't know, about Spike, I mean."

It was an apology, and Buffy nodded her acceptance before turning to Muse, an air of expectancy falling over her. The Lieutenant's attention was on the other blond man, though.

"So you're an honest-to-God vampire?" he asked, examining the sculpted human features.

"Dunno that God has anything to do with it," Spike said, looking down as Buffy slid her arm around his waist, moving closer to stand by him, "but, yeah."

There was small smile on the officer's face that suggested that he still couldn't quite accept what his eyes had seen. "So, you're, what, hundreds of years old and sleep in a coffin?"

"Hundred and twenty-four, and I sleep in a bed. Why do you ask? You want–" He shut up abruptly, staring down at Buffy, who had emphatically trod on his toes when his voice fell into its silky, sexy, tone.

"Vampires don't need coffins," she informed Muse. "They just need a place out of the sun where they can sleep."

"So, why do you and this other one have souls?" the other blond man asked, his eyes on Buffy, though, on the arm she had around Spike's waist.

"Angel was cursed by gypsies, but Spike earned his," Dawn spoke up, drawing their attention as she came to them. Her arms were crossed, and she was looking at the cop with even less warmth than was in his regard of her sister. "Buffy made Spike promise to take care of me when she died, and since he knew that eventually he would do something wrong without really understanding why, he went halfway around the world and fought for a solid week to get his soul back. So, his soul is really better than everyone else's." There was a trace of insult in her words.

"Can speak for myself, Bit," Spike mumbled, but he sent her a look of gratitude over her sister's head.

"Quite a fan club you have," Muse said, his voice a little too neutral.

"'S'mutual," Spike said, having decided he didn't care what this human thought, though he was a little disappointed by Vi's choice in men. "Dote on my slayers, but there's no one else like Summers women. You should have met their mum."

"Your slayers?"

"Spike trains us," Vi said hastily, her hand going back on the policeman's arm, "remember? That's why I'm at so tired after the gym every night. He's an incredible fighter." It was obvious to her that Joel wasn't going to apologize for his comment about freaks, so she slid her hand into his. "Well, I'll see you tonight," she said, nodding at the other three and turning away.

"Muse," Spike said, giving Buffy a reassuring look as he slipped free of her embrace, "a word." He gave Vi a duplicate look until, unhappy, she left them alone. He met the other man's eyes. "Look, I know what you're thinking, and I wanted to set you straight."

"Thinking?" Muse lifted an eyebrow. "What am I thinking?"

"We were once, but we aren't anymore," Spike said. "Buffy is a right lady, raised her sister by herself after their mother died, and," he moved closer, his eyes sliding past the other man to a point over his shoulder, "she's saved this world more times than I care to remember." His voice dropped into a dangerous register that made the hairs on the back of the cop's neck stir. "You don't get to judge her."

"All right," Muse agreed, not flinching away from the cold blue eyes as the vampire stepped back to face him again. He'd expected some flak over the 'freaks' remark, not for the creature to speak up and reveal a weakness. In an interrogation room, Muse would exploit that, use his love for this Buffy as leverage. But the knowledge was moot. He knew in his bones he would never get the vampire in a situation where the leverage could be applied, even if he thought it was necessary. He gave the other blond a tight smile. "Well… Vi says I need to talk to this Rupert Giles person."

Spike nodded. "Good idea. Just so you understand, Giles is no nutcase. He's the head of an international organization with hundreds of employees worldwide and millions of pounds in the yearly budget. The main headquarters are in London, not this living room," he added, "and the only reason he's here is to keep the humans in this city safe." His voice dropped again. "I'm the baddest, bloodiest monster you've ever met, Muse," he said, considering that a true statement as he couldn't feel Angel anywhere nearby. "Yet when I changed, Rupert Giles took me in and treated me like family. He's another one I'm telling you to respect."

"Or else?"

The cop's voice was cool and unconcerned, and his heart rate had barely increased. He wasn't easily cowed, Spike would give him that. He stepped back and shook his head, speaking in a normal tone. "Or else nothing. Look in his eyes, Lieutenant. Rupes can take care of himself." Satisfied with the conversation, Spike moved off, hipshot as any big cat hunting on the savannah, heading toward Buffy.

"So?" Rona asked, low and meaningful, as she sidled up to Vi.

Vi blushed. "Oh, shut up."

Rona grinned. "Ooh, my girl's got a boyfriend," she teased. "How long you been seeing him?"

"Really seeing him? Just a couple of weeks, but I've had a crush on him since I started taking his class."

"So… is he a good lieutenant or a _Bad Lieutenant_?"

Vi blushed again at the memory of a Sunnydale viewing of the Harvey Keitel movie, the first NC-17 picture she'd ever watched. "A very good lieutenant."

"And the, you know, age difference doesn't bother you?"

Vi shook her head. "No, because we've really got a lot in common. Beliefs, I mean." She looked pointedly at Tribby, whose t-shirts had taken a political direction as the national elections drew closer. Today she was wearing one that read AWOL, with the 'W' covered by a circle-and-slash. "We're both a lot more conservative than most of the people on the Council."

"Plus, he's hella cute," Rona said practically.

Vi looked over to the center of the room, where Joel Muse was talking to Giles, a sappy expression stealing over her face. "Yes, he is, isn't he?"

⸹

"Spike, you got plans this afternoon?" Xander asked, having found the vampire standing impatiently in front of the microwave in the kitchen.

"Pace and fret, waitin' for this bloody battle to get here already," Spike said.

"Had a call about your bikes," Xander said. Since the days were so long, he'd done the sunlight-averse Spike a favor and taken his motorcycles to a shop that would sell them on consignment. "They both sold."

"Yeah?" Spike said, looking around, pleased.

"So, you want to go by before they close this afternoon and pick up your big, fat check?"

"Why not?" Spike said, opening the microwave before it beeped and taking out a cup of blood. "Beats standing 'round with my big, fat knob in my hand."

Xander winced. "Thanks so much for that visual."

They took Spike's truck because of the necrotempered windows and waded into Cleveland's leisure-day traffic, Xander both buckled in and holding on for dear life, occasionally closing his eyes in either feigned or real prayer. "Oh, bloody hell, lady," Spike said, throwing an exasperated hand into the air. "What? Think you own the road?"

Xander gave him an incredulous look and shook his head. "Yeah," he said, sarcasm to the fore, "it obviously belongs to you."

Junior, the salesman who had handled the transaction was glad enough to see them, as it broke up the tedium of a slow Saturday. He had been selling bikes for almost twenty years, and he'd thought he'd had Xander pegged as a young man he could sell anything to just by playing on his insecurities, but nothing. He wasn't often wrong, and this new guy, bored by the five-figure check he'd stuffed in a pocket of his tight jeans, Junior couldn't pin down at all. Now the blond man was wandering through the bikes on the showroom floor, looking decidedly unimpressed.

Spike paused before one gleaming black machine. "What's this, then?" he called.

Junior, with a salesman's ability to be at a customer's side with only slightly less speed than a master vampire, was there in an instant. "Oh, that's a nice one, isn't it? One owner, low mileage. It's a 1990 Fatboy, the first–"

"Production year," Spike finished, a wolfish grin on his face. And Junior, sensing a sale, smiled back.

⸹

"Hello?"

"Angel," Giles said, "it's tonight."

"The battle?"

"Yes. We gotten confirmed reports that there's a large number of demons massing near an industrial park–"

"It's still daylight," Angel protested.

"I know. According to Clem, the, uh, demon from Sunnydale, the pull is terrific now."

"I'm on my way."

"Spike and Xander were in your part of town; they're stopping by to pick you up."

"Right." Rupert had hung up without saying goodbye; other people to call, probably. Angel looked around at his sparse belongings, thought longingly of the old weapons cabinet in the Hyperion, and headed for his stash of stakes.

Outside the apartment, Xander pulled as close to the alley that led to Angel's apartment entrance as possible, mindful of his flammable friend as well as the motorcycle in the bed. He got out, expecting Spike to be gone with eerie vampire speed, but the other man simply stood waiting for him.

"Spike!" Xander exclaimed, unable to keep his hands still. "You aren't on fire."

He shrugged. "Channel pure light through your soul, get less combustible, it seems." As they began walking, Xander kept his eyes on the strong afternoon sun that fell on Spike's bare neck, and just as they entered the darkness of the alley, he saw a thin tendril of smoke rising.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Gets hot, but doesn't burn the way it did, not for a while," he replied, shrugging. "Aurelians not quite as much with the human torch act to begin with."

Xander was quiet for a moment, then, just as they got to the steps, asked, "Do you remember it?"

"Yeah." He didn't know what the whelp heard in his voice, but it made him put a warm hand on his shoulder.

Angel opened the door before they could knock. "Let's go."

⸹

The Slayer army gathered at the gym, which served as their armory and was closer to the battlefront than Giles' house. Spike saw that his newer trainees were nervous and spent a few minutes with them, charging them up. Dawn came over, and he captured her in a hug, glad to get the chance for physical contact before the battle. It took a moment for him to realize she had another reason for coming to him.

"Here you go, Neo," she said dryly, handing him his coat.

"Thanks, Nibblet." It felt heavy, and he put it on, finding his Gurkha _Kukri_ knife hanging from a loop inside. He gave her an admiring look. "What all did you stock it with, sly boots?"

"Knives, hatchet, stakes, snow shovel, serving platter, condoms, kitchen sink, pixie dust," she replied promptly, making the slayers titter.

Buffy was motioning him over, looking impatient. He caught Dawn's eye, and she took over, spinning Sunnydale tales, telling the inexperienced slayers how ridiculously easy it was to defeat this demon or the cool move that had taken out that vampire. Spike gave her a grateful look before moving to stand by Buffy.

"How are we going to do this one? Hundreds of demons already, vampires will come after the sun goes down, all headed into one four-story office building."

The platinum blond head tilted back to an arrogant angle. "Sounds like easy pickings."

A tiny smile touched her mouth in answer. "Here," she said, holding out a notebook, "what do you think of this?"

Giles looked over to where his battle leaders were consulting, their heads close together. Impatient, he forced his attention away from them, giving them time to refine their plans, steadfastly refusing to think of all the times those plans had fallen apart. They always managed to pull it out of the fire, anyway. Willow joined the two blonds, he noticed. People came to him with questions, he fielded calls on his mobile, and then he saw what he'd been waiting for: Spike staring down at Buffy, nodding in agreement.

"Everyone!" Rupert called. They had been waiting, too, and their voices fell quiet almost immediately. He took a moment to step up onto a chair so everyone could see him. "We're ready to go, I think." He looked over at Buffy, who gave him a nod in turn. "Before Buffy sets out the battle plan, I want to say a few words about what happened in Sunnydale.

"There are several reasons to feel confident that Cleveland will still be standing tomorrow morning." He waited until the edgy laughter died away. "First, this is a vastly different situation. We're dealing with demons that are, to some extent or other, hybrids, that are from this dimension. In Sunnydale, we faced an army of Turok-Han, pure demons, proto-vampires that issued from the Hellmouth. Second, the focus of that army was to destroy us. We are not facing an army today, by all accounts, but a group of individuals who are intent on obtaining some power source and who may not be at peak fighting capability because they are so enthralled by it. There's every chance they will be fighting amongst themselves, doing our job for us. Third, we were in a desperate place there. The Council had been crippled, and there were only two Slayers. Here, we have the greatest assembly of white warriors this world has ever seen – even in the attempt to open the Hellmouth last winter, only five slayers made it to town."

"And one souled vampire," Vi said loyally. Her policeman was not with her tonight.

Giles nodded. "You know what happened in Sunnydale and what rose out of our losses and triumphs there. I am reminding you all of this so that you understand, those of you who have never faced such a situation, that there are differences. Tonight, I expect," his eyes scanned the upturned faces, "no casualties. If one of the slayers even breaks a nail, I will be quite put out." There was a hearty round of laughter at this. "Right, then. We have two goals. The first is to prevent harm to the citizens, now or in the aftermath. That means that each of you will work like you never have before, slaying so that nothing evil escapes to wreak havoc on greater Cleveland tomorrow.

"The second is to locate the source of power that has drawn the demons. This is the harder part, as we don't know the nature of the power, much less what it looks like. My guess – and it's only a guess – is that it will either be on the lowest level or the top floor. If you do run across something that you think is the power source, call me. Don't touch it." He looked over their faces again, from dark to unnaturally pale, then smiled. "It may be pure evil." The resulting chuckle was mostly from the Brits as they got the _Time Bandits_ reference.

"Pizza at my house afterwards," he said, still with a smile, "I'm buying." And may it please God that it's as easy as I'm telling them it's going to be.

The slayers and even some of the Watchers broke in to applause at this announcement, at the confidence behind it. "And now, you'll want to hear from Buffy for your assignments." He stepped down, pleased to be able to give her an eager crowd, and she came forward, her eyes on his. They had done this so many times, prepared to go into battle from his old library, from her mother's house, from the Magic Box… Giles gave her a gentle smile, and Buffy, trying not to return it, hugged him before taking his place atop the chair. There was a ripple of movement among the slayers; Buffy had the Scythe in her right hand, and they had all held it at least once.

"Okay, guys," she said, her voice crisp and full of command, "once we get there, we've got two fights. The first is in the parking lot. Demons are streaming into this building, a paper products supply business–"

"God, it's the Cleveland branch of Wernham Hogg," Caroline Green muttered, almost laughing.

"–like they're going to demonpalooza or something. Once we get across, we have to keep from being trapped inside. So, we're going to split into teams, some of which will stay outside the building to establish a perimeter, the rest of which will go in. Those of you outside, you'll have your back against a wall and good sightlines. The sides of the building are glass, so it's very unlikely anything will come down the walls at you, or try to go up the walls to get in. Just cover the doors and keep the demons out so the teams that go inside aren't flanked. If it does get too hot, retreat inside the building.

"Those of you who go inside, if you smell fire, start pulling out. It's the only thing we can't fight. If you see a small fire and know you can put it out, okay. Otherwise, back out and call Giles, let him know. I don't see why anybody would set fire to the building, but demons don't always to the smart thing." She sent a quick, fond look at Spike, who was busily writing in the notebook she'd left with him.

"Teams that go inside, think three-dimensionally. I doubt you'll face any vampires as old and skilled as ours, but there are other kinds of demons that might be on the walls or ceilings. Use your Slayer senses around corners, vents, and drop ceilings. Kill as you go; remember that you have a team with you, so if your first strike doesn't get the target, let the people behind you finish it." She looked over the group, at their expectant faces, and the old fear, that some would never return from the battle, surfaced and made her mouth go tight. "Willow is going to work a spell on all the cell phones here, so that no matter what number you dial, they'll call Giles. If we need to sound a retreat, same thing, just in reverse: any number Giles dials will call everyone."

Buffy looked at Spike, who had finished writing. He shot her a grin, anticipation practically crackling from him. She spared a look at Angel, who stood impassively, showing almost no emotion as he waited to be unleashed. "Any questions?" Willow was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her palms upturned on her knees, Giles' mobile in front of her. Xander stood beside Dawn, both looking at her, and she could feel Giles just behind her. They were ready.

Taking a breath, grateful that there had been no questions, Buffy forced herself to smile. "Good. Spike has the team assignments, so everyone see him. Then we'll be ready to go. Good hunting," she finished, then winced a little. Patrol had become a hunt for her at one time, the violence something she enjoyed too much. This was different, though.

"Right, then." Spike made a vertical leap to perch atop the pommel horse behind him, showmanship to the fore. "Xander, Sunnydale slayers, and slayers who've been in Cleveland longer than a month, congratulations, come on down, you're the team leaders." He handed each of them a sheet of paper with their team's responsibility. "Head over against the wall, then. The rest of you, listen for your name, then go to your team leader. Get yourself armed, if you aren't already. Team Xander, you are…" He read off names efficiently. Picking the leaders had been easy; balancing the teams hadn't been. He put Willow and Oz with Vashti and her Watcher, figuring their alertness would complement the slayer's strength. Maria and Bethany, two of his from Sunnydale but newcomers to Cleveland, he paired with the slayers he knew less well. Vi got the most important assignment, and he could tell she knew it by the look on her face when he read off Dawn's name. She gave him a reassuring nod, making a silent promise to watch out for the teenager.

When Spike was done, only Angel was left, obviously uncomfortable at being the last picked for a team. Spike jumped down next to him. "Ready, then?"

"Where do you want me?" the dark-haired man asked, his face impassive.

Giving his grandsire a confused look, Spike tilted his head. "With me an' Buffy an' Giles. Where else?" He threw his arm over the broad shoulders, partially covering the other man with his coat. "We're on point." He started walking, guiding Angel toward the two humans and missing the mix of emotions playing across the big vampire's face.

"Giles is going in?" Angel asked, covering both the flush of warmth at being included and his guilt over kissing Buffy.

"'Course. What, you think old Ripper is gonna sit on the sidelines? He'll want to see for himself what's about." Spike's voice dipped lower. "Buffy and I go first, breaking a path, then Giles, then you last, covering our backs. He can hold his own, will keep us from outpacing the other teams, but keep half an eye on him, anyway. He's not as young, et cetera."

Angel tried to read Buffy's face as they drew near, but if their kiss from earlier in the day was on her mind, she was hiding it very well. "Ready?" she asked, tucking a couple of stakes into the waistband of her trousers.

"How can you fit anything else in there, love?" Spike asked, half curious and half admiring, as he leisurely perused her leather-encased lower body.

She flashed him a look that promised she had a snappy answer, just not one she could deliver in decidedly mixed company. "Let's go, then. Giles is driving. Spike, give your truck keys to Xander."

"Yes, mum," he replied in a humble Cockney accent, grinning broadly. He loved her like this. It got her to smile back, quickly suppressed. "Oi! Whelp!" He tossed his keys across the length of the training area to Xander, who nodded once. He met Willow's eyes, and they exchanged a brief mental touch. Then Dawn, and he tipped her a wink, full of confidence and good cheer.

Their group was the first to leave the gym. Buffy claimed the passenger seat of the Camry, and the Aurelians piled into the backseat. "That took less time than I thought," Giles said, frowning. "The sun hasn't set."

"Better if we get set up around the perimeter before it sets," Buffy said, unperturbed.

"Perhaps, but if the shadow of the building doesn't fall the right way, our team has just been halved."

Spike leaned between the front seats. "If that happens, Buffy and I will go on ahead. You wait with Angel; we're only talking a matter of minutes."

"You know, despite evidence to the contrary, Spike," Buffy said, giving him an affectionate look, "you aren't really indestructible."

He weighed his words. "Not as sensitive to sunlight as I used to be, pet. No worries. 'Sides, gives me incentive to move fast, yeah?"

"You can't cover your head and fight at the same time," she said, in the same motherly tone she might use to point out to Dawn that you can't let a boy know you like him by ignoring him.

He set his jaw a little. "I'll borrow grandda's hoodie, it comes to that, all right?"

"Spike, I'm not going to let you risk yourself for no good reason."

"He is less sensitive to sunlight, crosses, all of it," Angel said, his tone surly and his eyes focused out the side window, "since he came back." He could feel Spike's eyes on him, willing him not to continue, but if Buffy was going to break his heart, he'd rather it happen quickly instead of watching this endless, careful dance between the two of them. If he had to be the catalyst, so be it. "He thinks it has something to do with having burned up once already."

Spike sat back, a low, frustrated snarl sounding in his throat. Buffy paled and turned her face away. Giles, however, caught himself futilely trying to use the rearview mirror to see his friend in the back seat.

"Really? That's quite interesting, William. I do wish you would have told me. Any, uh, other effects?"

"No," he said curtly.

"How long can you stay in the sun?" Giles pressed.

"And you're not getting my clothes," Angel informed Spike. Then, to the occupants of the front seat, "I saw him playing catch in the yard one afternoon with one of Lana's great-nephews. You were out there for, what, an hour?"

"Angel!" Spike said, appalled.

Buffy turned back around, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "He played catch?"

"Yeah," Angel said, as his boy let his head fall back onto the headrest in disgust. "Cute little kid."

"Aww," Buffy said.

"For an hour?" Giles asked, incredulous.

"Late afternoon," Spike said. "Evening, really, and we were in the shadow of the house." He glared at Angel. "And it wasn't an hour."

"Then he fell down and got grass stains on his knees and stared crying–"

"Don't you dare." Deep and precise.

"The little boy, I mean, not Spike; he didn't cry. But Spike picked him up and brushed the grass off and carried him," Angel finished in a tone of bliss, "to his mama. He might have crooned."

"Aww," Buffy said again, crooning herself and grinning now. She turned back to the front.

"I have two words for you, mate," Spike bit off, "and those words are ' _Smile Time_.'" But he reached out and squeezed his grandsire's hand, grateful for the diversion.

"How long, exactly?" Giles pressed, causing Spike to actually sink his teeth into his lower lip to keep from coming back with a vulgar answer. "Were you in sunshine, I mean," he added, after a second.

"Dunno," Spike said wearily.

"Had to be close to an hour," Angel said, "long enough for the little boy to hit him four times in the groin. Really bad aim – or really good aim."

"Aaron's what, three? Not a lot of coordination at that – Wait, you were counting? That's just depraved." Spike leaned forward. "Buffy, didn't tell you about that time Angel was investigating a children's telly programme that was infested with dem–" There was a flurry of movement as the scuffling between the two vampires began.

"I'll never get a straight answer out of him," Giles told Buffy, sighing. "It's like pulling teeth – or fangs. If I had – I say, if anyone hits the back of my seat again, I'll pull over and make both of you walk."

They were there before the rest of the Council's cars, so they got to see several minutes of uninterrupted flow of all types of demons streaming steadily into the building. Giles parked on the opposite side of the street, hoping to have a car to come back to when it was all over, and they waited for the rest of the Council.

"At least the shadow is falling the right way," the Watcher said.

"How can they all fit?" Spike asked after a while.

"Were there any humans in there?" Buffy asked.

"There aren't now," Angel answered grimly, "but at least the parking lot is empty." He looked around as a couple of cars, a van, and Spike's truck, Xander at the wheel, pulled in, so he missed Buffy's abrupt exit from the car.

Spike was at her heels, though. "What is it, love?"

She stopped, facing the building instead of him. "I just – I don't want to get anyone else killed," she whispered.

"Love, looks like they're not interested in a fight, in us at all," he reassured her, gesturing at a tusked demon walking past them, its focus on the office building.

Buffy shook her head. "There's just so many of them."

"Not a good time for a crisis of confidence, Buffy," he said impatiently, trying to step in front of her. She averted her eyes and turned away from him, from the cars, into the sunlight. "Oh, come on. No one's going to die."

"You did," she whispered.

This was too much. "Yeah?" Spike moved into the light, unafraid, grabbing her by the upper arms and forcing her to face him. "And didn't I get you killed, not keepin' Doc off your sister on that tower?" he snarled. "Fine, Buffy. We finally did it, the two of us, managed to kill each other. Didn't change anything."

She twisted away. "It isn't a joke!"

He stood swaying where she had pushed him, then he lowered his head, went right back at her, taking her by the arms again. "No, it's our life." Spike jerked her a little closer, and she was glaring right at him. "This is what we do," he said, and he tilted his head, seeing her anew, as if he didn't know every line and sweet curve of her face, "and this," Spike lowered his mouth to hers, "this is what we do."

"Oh my God," breathed Kayla, watching from the passenger seat of Dawn's Jeep.

"Oh my God," said Pelham, peering around Caro, "it's true."

"Come on, come on," Vi said, her voice full of hope as she exchanged a quick grin with Rona.

"Oh good Lord," said Giles impatiently, taking off his glasses. Behind him, Angel didn't say anything.

Buffy pushed Spike away again, needing air, and they were both breathing hard now. She stared at up at him, his eyes darkened, seeing her reflection in them. Could he even see his image in her eyes? Is that why Spike cast no reflection, because his strength was hers, because all that he was belonged to her?

No, she thought, rejecting that, not just because it was too great a burden to bear, but because it wasn't true. He stood there in the light, waiting for her as ever, but he was whole, not merely something striving to be like her.

In the light, Buffy realized, her gaze traveling over him. She'd thought him beautiful, and he was. Her lips parted. "Spike." She had never seen him like this, struck by the sun, a night thing accepted by the light of day.

Not a thing. A man.

"Spike," she whispered again, tears in her eyes.

If he turned to ash right then, it would be all right, because of the love he could see on her face. Love, all for him. "Whither thou goest, I will follow," he said, his voice soft, uncertain, utterly unlike Spike. Naked before her, as he had always been.

She nodded shortly and swallowed. Everything she needed was there in his eyes, reflected back to her from inside herself. This time, she pulled his face down to hers.

"Oh my God," Kayla said again, and next to her, Dawn squealed with delight.

Xander raised a brow and turned to Willow. "You know, I think we could have sold tickets to this."

"Could have made a mint," she agreed, but there was a sad, worried look in her eyes as she regarded the two through the passenger window.

This time it was Spike who broke away, not because he wanted to, but because time was passing. She was with him, all of her, the aura of her power all around them. "My Buffy," he said, unsteady, not realizing he had changed words, as she was his synonym for Slayer.

"My Spike," she replied. Then she gave him a smile that quickly faded into an expression of determination. "I goest." Buffy went back toward the Camry, not looking behind her, knowing exactly where Spike hovered, protecting her back, and there was nothing she couldn't do.

"Change in plans, everybody," she called, and waiting until the _thunk_ of car doors subsided as her army piled out of their vehicles. "I don't think we have to do any fighting to get to the building, so let's get over there as quickly as we can. Once we get there, same plan. Be alert, though." Buffy met Giles' piercing gaze unabashed, and nodded at Angel. "All right. Let's go. We're on point." She took the scythe from the car, turned on her heel, and began marching. Spike fell in at her left side, long coat flapping in the evening breeze, the Watcher and the dark-haired vampire close behind.

The office building had two entrances, four more emergency exits, and a loading dock. The teams were deployed around these in less than two minutes. On Giles signal, the inside teams moved in, while the outside groups stepped in front of approaching demons. The battle began with a stocky demon who took umbrage at Xander standing in its way. It took a swipe at him, and he ducked, coming up with his axe into its soft underbelly.

Inside, Buffy quickly scanned the area: an open reception area that led to elevators on the left and a stockroom on the right. Demons of various sizes and colors were ripping into the walls and throwing office chairs around, seeking the power that had drawn them. "Rona, take Kayla, Vi, and your team to the left. Kill everything – if they're here, they're evil by definition. Call the elevators and block them so they can't go up. I see an exit sign down there, so there must be a stairwell. Go there and wait, keep the hall clear, and the rest of us will sweep back to you. Everyone else, follow me."

She headed into the stock room, whose double doors had been ripped off the hinges. The paper company sold products for restaurants, and cups, plates, napkins, and wrappers were strewn everywhere as demons ransacked the place. Buffy got the feeling that they didn't know what they were looking for, either. She interrupted two squat, bluish demons squabbling over a box of placemats as their hooves slid around in a litter of waxed paper rolls, and both of them decided she was a better opponent. Buffy leapt into the air, kicking them both in the center of their chests, knocking them back a good ten feet.

With ten slayers, two vampires, and another ten humans, they made short work of the stockroom, and all the demons were down within minutes. "Sweep," Buffy called, and she and Spike separated, working along the perimeter to make sure there were no hidden enemies or entrances.

Angel jumped to the top of a forklift, then to the utility shelving to check behind a few ceiling tiles. "Clear," he said, leaping back down.

"Clear," Spike called.

"Door," Buffy said, wedging a metal bar through the handles and bending the ends so it couldn't be easily freed. "Clear."

"Whoa," said Geneva, the slayer from Arizona. "You're pretty strong."

"Comes from bench pressing bad guys," she answered pertly. "All right, this end is secure. Let's go see how Rona's group is doing."

"We've got vampires," Rona said as the two met a half a minute later. "They're coming up through a utility access tunnel, out of the first room –" she paused to plunge her short sword into a demon that came marauding out of the stairwell "– down that hall." Nodding at this report, the senior Slayer started to turn away and go staunch the new threat, but was stopped by someone calling her name.

"Buffy!" Willow came in, leading the rest of the army.

"Wil? Who's watching the doors?"

Xander hooked his thumb over his shoulder as he outpaced his best friend. "Wil set up some kinda force field," he said.

Giles, catching his breath with his hands on his thighs, shook his head. "No, it isn't enough just to keep them out," he told the new arrivals. "They might move from here and endanger people in the surround–"

"Give me some credit," Willow said, her tone and her black eyes making the Watcher shiver.

"Yeah, the force field is set to 'vaporize,'" Xander agreed, shaking his head.

Willow nodded. "Anything that doesn't have a soul, fries."

"Come with us, then," Buffy said. "It might be around the building, but we need it under the building, too. Vampires found an underground way in."

Spike took the lead, dusting two approaching vampires with one fluid motion. "What about the roof?" Angel asked, following close behind Buffy and Willow, Giles and Oz on his heels.

"I'll enclose the whole building," Willow said, her voice still a sardonic monotone.

Spike looked over his shoulder, worried, and met her black eyes. Even as his brow cleared, Angel called out, "Spike!"

He dodged left, pressing his shoulders against the wall, and the vampire that had pelted out of the door at him took the stake on Buffy's Scythe in the chest. "This must be where we have the leak," she said wryly, raising her arm for another lethal, wooden strike. "Okay, Wil, do your thing."

"It would help if I could see what I'm doing," the young witch snapped.

"Can't you just do your thing from here?" Buffy asked, impatient, striking for a third time.

Impatient himself, Spike lifted the Slayer bodily from the doorway. "Love, your best friend is working killing magic," he said, jabbing the next vampire to emerge. His stake dusted, and he scowled, reaching inside his coat for another one. "It's a bit of a strain on a white witch."

Buffy stopped frowning at him and frowned at Willow instead, but her annoyance was self-directed. "Willow, I'm sorry. I-I think of you as all-powerful. Sometimes I forget how hard it's been for you."

Willow nodded, slow and exact. "It's okay, Buffy."

"I love you," the blond woman said, placing her hand on Willow's arm.

"I love you, too," the witch replied.

Spike rolled his eyes, having staked three more vampires during this. "Angel, if I tell you I love you, will you come help me put these vamps out of their misery?"

"You'll have to buy me dinner, too," Angel muttered, but he was already shouldering his way past Giles. The two Aurelians quickly cleared the room, covering the floor with a fine layer of grit that crunched beneath Buffy's boots as she walked in, hand-in-hand with Willow.

"That's where they're coming from?" Buffy asked, a little shocked. The hole in the floor, a widening gouged roughly around a ten-inch water pipe, was barely big enough for her to squeeze through.

"They're distending themselves," Angel said, a pained look on his face. Even as he said it, a head came up through the hole, followed by one shoulder and an ugly cracking sound as the vampire threw its other shoulder out of joint to fit through. Angel staked it through the back for its trouble.

"Give me room," Willow said, bringing one hand up in front of her.

"Wait," Giles said. "Before you do, we need to check to see if the power source is down there."

"What?" Spike said. "You think they'd just walk past it?"

"It's obvious the demons have no idea what it looks like, either," Giles said.

"There is something down there," Willow said, her brows drawing together, "something magical."

"Guess I'll go," Buffy said, getting a better grip on her stake and starting forward.

"Not alone, you aren't," Spike protested, stepping forward, too. "You don't know what's down there."

"Sure I do," she replied, "vampires." She punctuated this by staking one whose torso had just cleared the rim of the crack in the floor. Buffy put one hand on the floor, dropped her legs into the hole, and slipped through.

"Buffy!" Angel cried in protest.

With a curse and a snarl, Spike followed her, at least until his ribs met the unyielding concrete. Only Angel was in a position to see his face, set in a furious scowl, nostrils flared, his eyes burning with the clear light of battle. Then he simply dissolved into smoke.

Beneath the floor, Spike coalesced, pulling himself together in time to fall backwards, out of the way of a huge boot swinging toward his face. There were at least thirty vampires in the small space beneath the hole, the ones too large to go up, and they were nearly insane with frustration.

Buffy, throwing punches and kicks, had time to grit out a surprised, "Spike?" before taking a blow to the stomach that knocked the breath out of her. The vampire that hit her, a powerfully-built, red-haired female over six feet tall, curled her arm around Buffy's waist and pulled the Slayer's back against her stomach, ready to bite into her neck. Buffy, her face a mask of agony as she tried to make her lungs work again, slammed her skull into the vampire's fangs.

Still under the hole, Spike roared with rage. "Buffy!" The long knife came out of his coat, and he used it like a machete, slicing his way through eight vampires to get to the big redhead holding his Slayer. "Duck," he growled, and Buffy dropped, hearing the whistle of the blade above her as it cut cleanly through the other vampire's neck.

Glaring, he helped her to her feet. "I _will_ follow." Still unable to pull in a breath, the only warning she could give him was a widening of her eyes. He moved to the side, but not quickly enough to avoid the driving blade of the sword coming at him.

Above them, at the sound of Spike desperately calling Buffy's name, Angel had stopped pacing long enough to rip a thick metal brace from the wall. He began to drive the end of it down onto the edges of the jagged hole, smashing off chunks of concrete to make it bigger. Then he heard another noise that made him redouble his efforts, the sound of his boy in pain, a gritted-out "Unnh!" that he'd know anywhere.

There were more sounds of battle from below, then Buffy called up, "Stop!" Angel dropped the rebar and put his arm down for her, pulling her up the moment her hand touched his. She handed Angel the Scythe, then turned back toward the small opening. Her hand flew out to snatch another weapon, a slender sword that Spike tossed up for her. "Is this what you felt?" Buffy asked, holding the sword towards Willow. When the young witch nodded, she ordered, "Close it up!"

Angel ignored Willow's chanting. He was stretched out on the floor, his arm back into the hole, ready to pull the younger Aurelian through by main force, if necessary. "Spike, dammit!" Where was the boy? An unhurried curl of smoke rose from the crack, then Spike was lying prone opposite Angel, his face tight with pain. The dark-haired vampire smelled his boy's blood, the scent too strong for a minor injury, and was by his side in a second, dimly aware that Buffy had just staked another vampire who had tried to wriggle through.

"Can't believe it got me a second time," Spike muttered, grimacing, then he laughed, a raw sound. He sat up and began struggling out of his coat, wincing as he pulled his right arm free. Blood was flowing freely from just above his elbow. When Angel only stared at the wound, dumbfounded, he pulled a face. "Not a faerie; can't kiss my own elbow," he said sarcastically. Spike held his arm out toward his grandsire. "You can do the honors, unless you'd rather I continue to bleed."

Glancing uncomfortably at Buffy, Angel went to game face and drew a small bit of blood into his mouth. Then he shook off his demon features and lathed his tongue against the wound, the clotting properties in his saliva staunching the flow. He determinedly ignored any effects the taste of his boy's blood might have on him. The sword had pierced completely through the skin and muscle, and he turned Spike's arm to place his mouth over the exit wound. Their gazes met, intimate even in a room full of humans, then Angel threw another guilty look toward the Slayer.

"Looks like something else survived the wreck of Council headquarters, Rupes," Spike said, shifting on his bottom until he was leaning against Angel. He pulled out his handkerchief and began wrapping it around the injury so it wouldn't reopen. "That's the same sword gave me this." He paused long enough to touch his left index finger to the scar on his eyebrow. Angel took over the job of binding the wound.

"You're sure it's the same?" Giles asked.

"Yeah," Spike said heavily. He met Buffy's eyes, where she still stood guard over the hole. "Leastways it's back in Slayer hands." He had hesitated, though, after taking it from the disintegrating grasp of the vampire who had skewered him, caught between snapping it over his knee and making sure it got into the hands of his charges.

"Spike… I didn't know you could do that," Buffy said, a troubled expression on her face.

"Didn't know I could do that, either," he said, looking up at Angel and nodding his satisfaction with the bandage. "Figured if that ponce Drac could do it, though, I could too."

"Done," Willow informed them in her detached voice.

"Dammit," Angel ground out, even as he took Spike's left hand and hauled him to his feet. He could tell the boy was exhausted, using that much energy for the dramatic magic. In addition to his hurt arm, he had a bruise on one cheek. "What if it hadn't worked?"

"It had to," the younger vampire replied, and threw a hard look at Buffy.

"Thanks," she said, clipped.

"Thanks right back."

"Let's go," Buffy said, averting her gaze first from Spike, then from Willow.

As the humans filed from the room, Angel put a hand on Spike's shoulder, holding out his coat. The blond nodded his appreciation. "Spike… how long until it heals?"

He shrugged, making it part of getting into his coat. "Dunno. A week? A little less than it would take a human. I'll take better care of it, now I know – maybe won't be such a scar."

"What was down there?" The big vampire went through the door first, his eyes and other senses checking everything carefully.

"Vamps, good-sized ones that didn't have a prayer of fitting through." He shook his head, frowning. "Didn't feel any particularly old and strong – dunno how they got hold of a weapon like that."

"What was Buffy thanking you for?"

"One of the big vamps knocked the breath out of her." Spike shrugged. "Stopped it from biting her."

"What did you thank her for?"

A slow smile covered his face. "Killing most of the rest of them."

Then they were back to Rona, who was holding the Chinese Slayer's sword admiringly as restless slayers took turns killing beasties at the stairwell entrance. Kayla's team was watching the elevators, as a couple of demons had come down the shaft and through the trapdoor at the top of one of the cars. Angel's jaw set a little as Spike fell into place on Buffy's left, injured though he was. The two blonds took point, charging up the stairs. The Slayer army cleared the building, floor by floor, securing the exits, until they had searched every last room. It took almost two hours, total.

"Anything?" Giles asked Buffy, as they met outside a fourth-floor conference room. She shook her head, as did Spike, who was at her heels, looking a little drawn. The Watcher grimaced. "Perhaps Willow can sense something."

But the redhead, looking drawn and tired herself, had detected nothing. "The energy is fading," she said, her eyes no longer black. Buffy put a hand out and rubbed her best friend's back.

"Damn," Giles said, low and intense. "I had hoped to find it our first time out."

"No one was hurt," Dawn reported, coming to them. "So, that's good." She looked between Buffy and Giles, who had both glanced at Spike. "Spike was hurt?" She moved to him, concerned, and as she did, Buffy pulled her Watcher away for a quiet word.

"Do we have any better idea of what we're looking for?"

"Unfortunately, no," Giles said, rubbing his brow. "But at least I, for one, feel better about our chances of defeating the 'hordes.'"

She gave him a little smile. "So you weren't quite as confident as you sounded with your pizza speech?"

"I'm just glad it's over, with no more damage than there was."

Buffy's eyes strayed over to where her sister was fussing over Spike, who wore a long-suffering look on his face as Dawn pulled his coat halfway off to see the wound. The open concern on her sister's face made her flinch.

⸹

"You're going to get some rest if I have to tie you to the bed," Angel said firmly, turning his face so Spike wouldn't see his expression darken at the memories of times when he had tied the boy to a bed. It was a mark of how tired Spike was that not only did he not protest, the younger vampire didn't even generate an innuendo-laced comeback. He'd stayed at the celebration upstairs long enough to snag a slice of victory pizza before Angel loomed over him with three units of expired human blood clutched in his hands and sent a meaningful look towards the basement door beneath the staircase. "Sleep," Angel ordered again, implacable, after he had fed, and the boy was gone before his head had been on the pillow for a minute.

The dark-haired vampire stayed, looking down at the still form for another ten minutes, until Dawn came to the stairs. He moved away, finally, going to her with a finger over his lips. "He's asleep."

"Good," she said, low, pushing her long hair behind a shoulder. "That always seems to help him heal faster."

Angel met her on the lowest step, frowning. "You know a lot about vampires."

She nodded. "Well, he's been banged up half the time I've known him, it seems. If I had a dollar for every time he's said," she put on a pretty good Spike accent, "'mind the ribs, love,' I'd be driving a Hummer."

Angel closed his eyes, now even more reluctant to leave his family. The taste of his boy's blood had him feeling protective, of all things. "Why has he been banged up?"

With her standing on the stairs, they were at the same height, and Dawn was gazing at him without much friendliness when he opened his eyes. "Well, there was the Initiative. They had him for three weeks or so, apparently, doing who knows what in addition to sawing into his skull to implant the chip. I'd met him once before, but I really got to know him after he escaped, saw how often he got hurt. When Spike started helping Buffy, the other demons in town turned on him, not that he minded the fights." Dawn dropped her eyes. "If he didn't do just what Buffy wanted, she'd pop him in the nose. Sometimes I wonder if her boyfriend, Riley, didn't do the same thing." She looked up again, and there was something old lurking behind the blue eyes, so like Spike's own. "Then he got involved with me, had to fight a Ghora demon, was tortured by a god, was thrown off, like, a ten-story tower and broke so many bones…."

Dawn sat down suddenly, putting her face in her hands. She was crying, Angel realized, weeping for his boy. "That was when Buffy died, and he was afraid that he couldn't keep his promise, wouldn't know how to take care of me, so he fought for a week, Angel, a solid week to earn his soul. So he could take care of me." The tired young woman wiped her eyes and did the same thing her best friend did, drew a mantle of strength and attitude around herself. She squared her shoulders and continued in a voice still thick with tears.

"Then Buffy came back, and things didn't exactly get better. Willow tried to kill him and came too damn close, and he almost burned up in the sunlight. Oh, and he went to hide in the basement of the high school, try to heal up right on the Hellmouth, because he didn't think he was welcome in my house, Angel – in my house," her voice was vehement. "The First Evil had him for weeks before Buffy could find him, and when it got him again, it drained his blood and tortured him and… worse. It made the chip in his head fire off when he was around people he loved, when he felt loving." Dawn glared up at him defiantly. "It would have killed him, because that's what he does, he cares about people. Buffy blackmailed the Initiative into taking it out. Then you came with that damn amulet."

"I didn't know," he began, but the teenager cut him off.

"I don't care if you knew," she said coldly. "You knew when you let the Old One that killed Fred use him as a punching bag. You knew when you pulled him into that last battle that he was ready to die." Dawn wiped her eyes. "You wanted to know why he's been banged up. There were so many times, I know I'm forgetting a bunch. And here he is again, hurt, trying to heal up for the next round."

Angel looked away. From her perspective, his behavior was indefensible. "I do love him," he said quietly. Angel had savored family blood on his tongue tonight. How could a human ever understand?

Dawn nodded. "Figures." She stood up. "Do you know how many of us, the Sunnydale people, I mean, have tried to kill him?" There was something difficult in her expression. "All of us. Everyone except me. Even my Mom," her mouth twisted a moment, as if she wasn't sure whether to smile or start weeping again, "brained him with a fire axe." She looked over at the still body. "Everyone except me." She sniffled once, then looked at him with eyes that did not blaze with the light of battle or a hint of yellow. They were merely blue, tired and a little bloodshot from tears, but what shone from her human eyes made him feel worse than most of his own memories. "So, you'll understand why I'm telling you to leave."

"You'll stay with him?" He knew she would; he asked the question so she would know it was important to him that the boy not be alone.

Dawn didn't bother answering. "You think I know a lot about vampires? Maybe. I know this scares me." She made a jerky gesture toward her best friend. "I don't want him to be scarred. I want him to be unmarked and confident and happy and immortal… And yet, I can't abide the thought that he lived so long without me, that someday I won't be there for him, that I'll just be a _memory_ …" She bit her lip. "He better not go to dust before that can happen, though, not before I do grow old and die."

There was a warning in her direct stare, and Angel felt a prickle of fear, ridiculous, really. "What do you want from me?" he asked, hating the petulance he heard in his voice.

"Don't hurt the people you love," she said simply.

"I always do." Angel shrugged, helpless. "I can't seem to do otherwise."

"You and Buffy," Dawn said, her voice weary, "you and Buffy." She brushed past him, then, leaned against the footboard to take off her shoes. "Just leave, Angel. Tonight's not a good night. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Her last words were indistinct as she turned completely away from him and slipped into Spike's bed, tucking herself beneath his left arm, against his chest, his unbeating heart. In his sleep, Spike curled his arm around her, taking in a breath to let out a contented sigh. Angel stared for a moment at the family bed he had no place in, then he was gone without a whisper of sound.

⸹

[Author's Note: This section includes somewhat explicit violence and sex in Angel's memory of a family meeting, where vampires use and abuse humans and each other. There are also derogatory remarks aimed at 'gypsies' and gay men.]

Angel found that he couldn't sleep, despite the battle, despite feeling obscurely quieter by the departure of the mysterious energy source. He turned on the lamp beside his bed, chose a book from the nightstand, and propped up on the pillows. It was _Death and the Disinterested Spectator_ , a book on philosophy Spike had given him, admitting that he chose it purely for the title. The philosophers considered were classical or early Christian, not the European thinkers he preferred, but it kept his mind off Dawn's words.

The page blurred, and he kept seeing Spike's face, the eyes blazing with clear light as he willed himself to perform a singular feat of magic Angel would not have believed if he hadn't seen it. The boy was competent at rituals; Darla had made sure of it, but to perform off-the-cuff alchemy, to tap into his own supernatural nature with no preparation… The curl of smoke that had been Spike brought to mind a memory older than a century, a memory of one of the last Gatherings he had been to. He knew where Spike had been introduced to that trick.

The Master had returned from America to Vienna, and Darla had gone to meet him, instructing Angelus to bring their family a few days later. The Master was also meeting with the heads of several other families. The Slayer at the time had been killed, and no one knew yet the new one would turn up in Madrid.

Over the years, as the infamy of the Scourge of Europe spread, the Master became fonder of him. So when Darla presented him, as the old vampire sat holding formal court in a dank basement hall with his contemporaries, he received Angelus with good grace. Darla was playing sire's pet, sitting on the Master's ancient knee, and Angelus' fingers twitched with the desire to twist his bald head from his neck. After exchanging a cool look with the eldest's second, Luke, he brought forward their own progeny, Drusilla the Seer and her consort, William the Bloody.

Drusilla was dressed in white and looked as pure as she ever had in life. Will held her hand high in his, ostensibly putting her in the spotlight, but their combined beauty, dark and fair, was what sent a stir through the court. The boy was in black, the pair of them a studied display of contrasts. Angelus felt the heavy, liquid sense of lust rolling out from the audience, and as Dru rose from her pretty curtsy and Will from a bow that was on the edge of being too shallow, he stepped in behind them, arms wide, dropping a heavy hand on their shoulders. Mine. There was nothing he could do to state it more clearly.

William gave him a sidelong look that made him long to be in a tavern with the boy already, drinking and having fun at the expense of this crowd. Instead, they awaited the Master's pleasure.

"Come, my dear," he said, beckoning Drusilla. Will held her hand high again, and they exchanged a wicked look as they parted. Angelus' insides tightened a little bit; it wasn't beyond them to be up to some mischief. The old vampire took her pale, delicate hand in his clawed fingers. He had been taken with Drusilla from the first time Darla introduced her, displaying an odd gentleness with her, treating her much like a favored niece – though it hadn't kept him from mating with her once. "Do you see anything of my future, Drusilla?"

"You will find what you seek in the New World," she said, a statement. As rehearsed. Then she let her head fall back, as if her cascade of curls was too heavy to hold up any longer, and her large eyes went to Luke. "You do know the sun only comes up at dawn?"

His heavy brow furrowed, but before he could speak, the Master released her fingers and raised a quelling hand, his eyes still on Dru. "Remarkable," he said, giving Darla an indulgent look. Then his sharp eyes went to William. "And my Darla has said you've killed Fyarl?"

"Yes, sir," he said, the automatic politeness that meant nothing. Angelus squeezed his shoulder hard, and he lowered his gaze. This was the boy's first time at court, and Darla had warned him against acting the guttersnipe.

"Five Fyarl demons when you were four," the Master mused. "How old are you now?"

"Seven, sir."

"Almost twice as old. Do you think you could kill twice as many Fyarl?"

Angelus' grip tightened again, this time involuntarily as a nasty fear wormed its way into his mind. But William's head came up, and his eyes flashed yellow with eagerness. "I have had the finest mentors as my example, sir." He inclined his head to Darla and covered Angelus' hand with his own. "There is nothing so vile that it exceeds their grasp, no swaddled infant safe in its cradle," he said, and of all at the Gathering, only Angelus heard the mockery in his cultured voice. Then he reined himself in and stood proudly, slender and strong as a young horse. "The blood of the Order of Aurelius runs in me, and if it pleases you that I should kill a given number of demons, sir, I will do so."

 _Boy_ , he warned, silent within the younger vampire's mind. They did not often speak that way.

"Well said," the Master praised. He smiled at Darla, who sent Angelus a swift, alarmed look. "Drusilla, my dear," the ancient demon said sweetly, "would you like to see your consort kill tonight?" He made a curling gesture of his fingers toward her, but Dru only looked at him curiously.

"My William will create lovely carnage for long years," she agreed. "I created him to tear and slash and," here she darted a bold glance at him, "love." Her carnal gaze kept anyone from dwelling on the unusual word. Her large eyes went back to the Master, unhurried, and she plucked a thought from his mind. "A shame you could only find three Fyarl in the city."

 _He tried to place her under thrall_ , Will snarled in Angelus' mind.

 _He didn't succeed_. Angelus' grip was bruising on his shoulder now, furious that the Master had thought to reduce something of his to nothing more than a dinner show for this dissolute lot.

Discomfited by Drusilla's telepathy but hiding it with ease, the Master chuckled. "Ah, the joy of hot blood is still with the young," he said nostalgically, indicating that Drusilla should return to her sire. She did so, exchanging a frankly sexual look with William that seemed to banish everyone else in the hall. "Darla, Angelus, you have chosen well for our line." The Master was not displeased that the strength and skills of the Aurelians had been on display. It would only make what was to come next sweeter. "I believe there is another presentation to make. My lord Dracula?" he said, turning his attention to the only vampire present who was older than he was.

Where the Master still looked vigorous, the current Count Dracula seemed feeble, as if caught between desiccated human and demon, a study in physical deterioration. Looks, as many had discovered to their despair, were deceiving. "I have another young prince to present to you, my dear friends," he said, addressing them in a quavering voice that carried nonetheless. The man at his knee rose, all dark eyes and soft mouth. "My child, my heart," he said, his eyes roaming possessively over the lovely, masculine form, "my heir."

 _My bum-boy_. Angelus sent the crass addition, though he probably should not have. Will lifted Drusilla's hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles to hide his grin.

The dark-eyed vampire nodded respectfully in all directions, not quite bowing. "It is a pleasure to be in your company," he said softly.

"You were a gypsy, were you not?" a vampiress asked from near the door, still clinging to her human beauty even after well over three hundred years.

He stiffened. "I know only what I am now, my lady," he said, bowing slightly, "better."

Count Dracula gave a wheezing chuckle. "Well spoken," he said, echoing the Master, pulling his child back down beside him, giving him a besotted look.

"Indeed," the Master said, satisfied that the Aurelians were obviously choosing stock with actual ability to complement their fine looks. "Remarkable how much the boy looks like you when you were younger, my lord." As the congenial host of this Gathering, the Master raised Darla, his hostess, from his knee. "Would you be so kind, my dear, as to bring in our dinner?"

While Darla brought in the small herd of young, tender humans already under thrall, Dru perused the Count and his consort. "Do you think he's really a gypsy?" she asked avidly.

The hall was noisy enough that Angelus felt it safe to give an honest reply, glad to have somewhere to vent his anger. "Sure. He's so pretty, it wouldn't have mattered to the old lecher what he came from."

"Angelus," William said reprovingly, fluttering his eyelashes, "prettier than me?" Any coquette would envy the kissable pout he made of his lips.

Angelus stifled a laugh. The boy did get on his nerves when he didn't take family matters seriously, but he rather hated courtly affairs like this one himself, and Will was entertaining when his wicked wit was turned on others. "Yes, boy, prettier than you. Prettier than most women."

"Prettier than me?" Drusilla asked, not sure why the gypsy-man amused her Daddy and her William so much, not sure that she liked the thought that a man could be prettier than she was.

"No," her consort declared. He took Dru's hands and went to one knee. "You are beyond pretty, my dark princess. You are beautiful. My Drusilla is nothing like the sun," he misquoted, "but walks in beauty amid the night, stars vying to lie on her earlobes, to rest at her bosom."

"Get up, boy," Angelus chided, but his tone was indulgent.

Drusilla was mollified. "You do say such nice things, my sweet," she told him.

"Only the truth," he replied gallantly.

"Get something to eat," Angelus told them, and added, with a warning look, "and remember what we talked about."

Dru nodded earnestly. "Don't talk to things that only I can see and don't mate with anyone who isn't family."

Angelus' teeth clicked together. There had been a whole host of other things.

"We'll be fine," William assured him. Having them mingle without an older family member hovering nearby was another subtle show of strength. _I'll watch her, won't let her do anything to make the duchess unhappy_.

 _You'd better, boy, if you value your hide_. Angelus sent them on their way with a light kiss, a final claim of ownership. To be chosen as an Aurelian was to be marked as desirable; he had himself been propositioned so many times before being presented to the Master that it had been one factor in deciding he wanted nothing to do with court life. Coupling outside family at a Gathering had too many political ramifications.

Perhaps it was snobbery, but there was little that tempted him away from the family bed these days. Even their last tryst with James and Elizabeth had been somehow unfulfilling. He was grateful that the Master had little use for sex and that Luke only had interest in the Master. Angelus and Darla and their get were blended in just the right balance, all of them still vital and desirable. It was bad enough that Darla was playing sire's pet. He wasn't sure he could control himself if either of the two oldest Aurelians had invaded the family bed; he wasn't sure he could prevail in that fight. He knew that Darla would not help, as she had ambitions to be head of their Order herself, one day. Drusilla might help him, if her mind was focused on what was happening rather than pixies or flickering candlelight, but her strengths would not be useful in a fight. And William was just too unpredictable. He had done nothing to bind the boy to him.

Angelus watched greedy eyes roam over the bodies of his young ones, watched the eyes turn warily on himself and Darla, and smiled with satisfaction and pride. He might be in the company of some of the few vampires in the world he would not challenge, but he was on that same list for most others in attendance.

When he awoke the next afternoon to find the boy absent from bed, Angelus assumed he'd gone off hunting. Will and Dru had shared a plump young woman at the previous evening's feast, and Angelus had seen how his lip curled in distaste as she offered herself up to them. The day was overcast, not that sunlight stopped Spike very often. Turning to Drusilla's lovely, naked form, he slid his large hand along her thigh, coaxing a sleepy, purring noise from her. Having William in the family meant that Drusilla was much more biddable, but it also meant he rarely got time alone with his mad child. Smiling, Angelus felt on the floor with his other hand, searching for his trousers, the knife he had in one pocket.

Hours later, as Drusilla lay on her stomach on the bed, blowing gently on the down escaping the seams of the pillow and letting the wounds carved into her back heal, Angel realized the boy hadn't returned. Darla wasn't there, either, awaiting her sire's pleasure wherever he had gone to ground. She would come back to them, frustrated by the former scholar's disinterest in her own field of expertise, and be insatiable for a couple of weeks. The absent William was the real concern. Ordering Drusilla to stay abed, he dressed and went out looking for the boy.

Since he didn't hear shouts or gunfire to indicate a brawl, Angelus began checking taverns. He found the boy in the third one he tried, and he wasn't alone. Dracula's pet was there, too, both young vampires in shirtsleeves, coats long since discarded. Angelus observed from the doorway for a few minutes, his aura tamped down, watching the tavern girls who vied to serve them, the unaware humans who strove to be the next to buy the immortals a round. William never did this, never used his ability to mesmerize, and Angelus' eyes narrowed. He could tell by the boy's movements that he wasn't nearly as drunk as he was letting on. Watching him kiss a sturdy blond barmaid while pulling a prettier one down into his lap, the older vampire shook his head. Brat prince of the Aurelians.

The other princeling was also interesting to watch. He had his own harem of tavern wenches, and he seemed perfectly content with them, hands and eyes seducing the women. The old Count hadn't sired him because he was turned the same way, apparently. Looks alone, then, because he did have an androgynous beauty. It left the artist in Angelus cold. No strength to it, maybe.

"William, you have stolen the finest flower for yourself," the young vampire chided, his eyes on the dark-haired lass on Will's knee.

"'Ve stolen nothing, Vlad my lad," he said, his voice slurred and soaked with raw sexuality. "She's given herself into my gentlemanly care." His hand disappeared beneath her skirts, and she didn't so much squeal as moan.

"Gentlemanly?" Vlad repeated. He had been drinking, too, but Angelus had a feeling that he wasn't as drunk as he seemed, either. "When I was less than I am now, my reason for existing was to steal from gentlemen."

"Go on, then," William drawled, withdrawing his hand to take up a bottle of whiskey. He finished it off, then looked at the other vampire, his eyes lit with mischief. "Steal her away, if you can. All I ask is a moment with her before you declare yourself victor." He raised a warning finger. "No biting."

"William," Vlad chided, his accent making the word 'Villiam.' "It would hardly be fair for me to accept your wager."

"'S'fair if you an' I both accept." He put a hand in his trouser pocket, checking to see what he had. "A bottle of Irish whiskey and, uh, eleven pounds to sweeten the pot."

"Done!" Vlad accepted the bet and pushed aside the three barmaids clustered around him. The onlooking humans cheered, although Angelus doubted they had any idea what they were cheering for. They had been caught in the spell the two careless vampires were weaving in the room.

The dark-eyed Vlad lowered his head slightly. "Gerte," he said, his voice soft, and she looked up at him from where she sat in William's lap. "Come to me, Gerte." After a moment, she did, her skirts swirling back into place, covering her pretty legs. Even with her mouth slightly agape, she was a lovely human.

Will, unconcerned, pulled the blond barmaid around his side to fill his empty lap and found his face practically trapped between the breasts spilling out of the low-cut blouse. "Well, you have been blessed," he said, giving her a wicked look. "Bloke could dive right in, yeah?" He murmured something to her in German that caused her to giggle. Angelus' eyes narrowed. He'd known that William spoke Latin and French, but not German.

In the meantime, Vlad had coaxed the dark-haired barmaid to him with nothing but the power in his eyes and voice. Angelus was impressed; he had seen the Master use thrall, but he was old and powerful. It hadn't worked on Dru, but she was special, in any case. That this vampire, roughly the age of his own boy, could do it was unexpected.

"She is mine," Vlad declared, finally breaking eye contact.

"Mmph," William said, disengaging from a deep kiss with the buxom server. "'Scuse me, pet." He didn't quite dump her out of his lap, but she did screech in protest as she found herself standing up, bereft of his touch. Will stood up, too, and Angelus shook his head at the obvious erection his boy was sporting. Maybe he was as drunk as he seemed.

"Right, then," he said, strolling over to the barmaid and insinuating his body between her and the other vampire. "Won't take a minute," he said, looking down at Gerte. "Hullo, love. Fancy a kiss?" He held her gaze, picking up her hand and bringing it to his mouth, palm against his lips.

" _Bitte_ ," she whispered, wrapping her other arm around his waist, completely focused on William. It was that quick. She whimpered a little and began moving against him.

"I see you've already finished hunting for the evening, boy," Angelus said, coming close. It was obvious what his young one had done, broken the other vampire's thrall and offered something more concrete: the sensual slide of his tongue vibrating on her palm. Obvious to him, anyway.

Vlad was staring at William with an expression of shock before anger set his eyes to flashing, then he looked up at Angelus and seemed to swallow the anger. Used to swallowing a lot, the big vampire figured. "Good evening, sir."

"Good evening," Angelus replied. "Will? If you'll remove your tongue from the human?" No trace of pride in his tone; no need for the boy to know.

He broke another deep kiss. "'Lo, Angelus. Care to join us?" He had a hand at Gerte's waist and used it to turn her toward his grandsire. "Say hullo to Angelus, Gerte."

She went up on tiptoe for him willingly, and he wondered for a moment if Will had better control of the mesmer than he let on. Then Angelus forgot about that in the heat of her mouth and the promise of the blood than flowed so swiftly beneath her fair skin.

"We must have a rematch, William." Vlad's smile didn't quite reach his eyes as he handed the other vampire a bottle of whiskey.

William smiled a bit too heartily, paused just a bit too long before clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Sure, Vlad. We'll do that." He turned away, the expression in his eyes making the half-smile on his face a smirk. "Upstairs, then, Gerte?"

"Bring a couple of them," Angelus ordered the other dark-haired vampire, nodding toward the row of idle barmaids.

"Vlad," Spike said, gesturing with the bottle, "show my grandsire what you can do."

With Angelus' expectant eyes on him, Vlad had little choice. He became smoke in an instant, wafted to the far side of where they stood, then recorporealized close to the stairs.

"Neat, innit?" Spike asked, lifting the bottle to his lips.

Angelus merely grunted, not about to compliment either of the younger demons. "Since you're closer, find us a room."

When Vlad left the tavern an hour later, Angelus was still hungry. William had insisted they leave the girl alive, for no reason that Angelus could see. _If you leave her alive, Dracula's catamite will just take her._

The younger vampire had shaken his head and answered silently, _Never happen, not after I won her._

Angelus had hesitated, but the boy had spent more time with the gypsy and had an undeniable ability to read people. "Well, then, you need to give her what you promised." He had pulled Gerte onto his own lap, draping her legs over his, and spread her wide. "I'll watch." He had fed as the barmaid came. Now her heated blood was driving him, making him eager to get back to the family bed, a stronger need than his hunger.

"Bugger."

Angelus lifted an eyebrow at the soft curse. "What?"

He lifted the nearly empty bottle of Irish whiskey. "Didn't get the eleven pounds he owes me."

"Maybe he didn't have it on him. Old Dracula is as rich as Croesus. The boy'll be good for it."

"He says he can turn into animals, too," Will reported as they walked, his voice unusually thoughtful. "Gypsy magic, that, but turning to smoke would be dead useful."

Angelus had also been interested in Vlad's display of metamorphism; he'd never seen anything turn into smoke before. But he wasn't interested in that now. "So you've been spying out the competition all afternoon," he asked sarcastically.

Spike gave his grandsire a sidelong look. "'Course not. Been out drinking and wenching. Only proper for an evil vampire." Angelus chuckled and put a heavy hand at the boy's nape. "Feel sorry for Vlad, though."

"Sorry for him?"

"The old man… keeps him," William said, not having to take it further. "Not as family."

"Family is rare with our kind," Angelus allowed.

William nodded. "He'll do the old sod in before long."

"You think so?" His voice was still disinterested; he had more pressing interests at the moment than the line of Dracula, wanting nothing more than to be at play between Drusilla's soft body and Will's hard one.

"I would."

Angelus stopped dead and turned, sharp eyes on the younger vampire, his fingers closing around a hank of honey brown hair. "Would you?"

William simply looked heavenward and shook his head. "Yeah." He pulled darkness toward them, concealing them from passerby on the street, and took Angelus' free hand. "Few years ago, yeah. But I've proven myself, now. It's not like that anymore. This is where I belong, with family." He emphasized the last word and tugged his grandsire down into a kiss.

Cloaked by shadows, Angelus returned the kiss fully, trying to show he accepted the offhand declaration of loyalty, knowing that was the only way William would ever deliver one. Mine, he thought, fierce and possessive. My bright, talented boy.

"Darla is going to be so angry she missed this," he said, pulling away, pulling him along by the hand, even more anxious to get to Drusilla and their bed. No more knife tonight, he promised himself, knowing the boy didn't like to see her in pain. Dru might pout, but since she had both of them to herself, he didn't think she'd pout for long.

It had been a good night, Angel thought, one of the best, the memory of it enough to make him hard. There was nothing for his soul to punish him for in that memory. He put the forgotten book aside and took himself in hand. Might as well have something to feel guilty about. A while later, he dressed and went out to patrol, but after the battle and the ebbing energy, Cleveland was experiencing one of the quietest Saturday nights it had seen in decades. He let his attention drift from the shadows along the streets to the feelings inside, stirred up by the taste of family blood.

Nothing was sweeter.

This time had been different, though. There had been desire; that was in the blood, was still making his own blood rush to all the wrong places. He had tacitly accepted Spike as head of the Order, so the flow of power had been from the younger vampire to him, despite the injury. But there was something… tender, as well. He couldn't explain the wave of protectiveness that had swept over him, had never experienced that with or without the soul, and he wondered again how much he had changed on a basic level since becoming a father.

⸹

Angel found out the next afternoon, when Buffy came to visit. She breezed in, sitting down close next to him on the couch, a pattern that was becoming a habit with them. Smelling of sunlight and fabric softener, she shook back her golden hair and began talking, apparently not noticing that he had nothing to say. He watched her, feeling that if he lowered his eyelids and tilted his head just so, he would be able to see her for the white warrior she was, uncloaked and blazing with the good.

"Giles doesn't know whether to be grumpy that we didn't find the energy source or relieved that we came through all right," she said. "He's pretty proud, though. I mean, he was right. No one so much as broke a nail."

"What?" Angel asked sharply. His boy, blood flowing, injured like the weakest human.

She caught his tone. "Well, Spike's arm, but that hardly counts."

He shifted on the couch so that he was squared off against her. "It counts," he contradicted her.

Buffy shook her head, a little frown between her eyes. "No. He doesn't even think it will scar this time."

"So it's okay, as long as he doesn't scar?"

"No, I didn't mean – Angel, what's with you?"

"You." He met her confused hazel eyes and shook his head. "It's always you, I guess. I mean, kisses aside, we can't be together. You come here, protesting how you can't be with Spike, either, because you love him so much, too much. But for you – he does six impossible things for you each day, and you don't even see them."

"What?" Buffy was thoroughly confused.

Angel leaned forward, getting into her space. "Don't tell me you love him, Buffy. I don't want to hear it any more." Dawn's words still stung him, and he used them against her. "You don't hurt the people you love. He transformed himself into air yesterday, performed a feat of alchemy for you, and you barely acknowledged it. Not to, I don't know, escape torture or save himself, but so he could follow you into a nest of unhappy vampires. Then, with an injury, he fought next to you for the rest of the battle because you expected it. You didn't acknowledge that, either." His handsome face contorted, knowing only how hollow he felt inside. "He loved you so much without a soul that he got one for you. I mean, what more can he do? If that isn't enough for you to – Don't tell me again that you love him."

She just stared at him, shock the dominant expression on her face. Then she flushed a deep red. What did Angel know? She had to lead her sisters into battle yesterday, had to get it done, hopefully not at the expense of anyone's life. Spike was there for her, her reservoir of strength, because that's what he wanted and what she needed. There was no time to acknowledge that, not in a fight. They understood that, the Slayer and her vampire.

Angel didn't know about last night, how she had sat on the edge of his bed, holding Spike's hand and watching her family sleep. She had bent over to kiss each cheek, and as her hair swung over Dawn, Spike woke up. The corners of the blue eyes crinkled, happy to see her and so loving, as their surrogate daughter slumbered safely between them.

Angel didn't know that the bruise on Spike's cheek had been from her own hand, the swing meant for another vampire in the confusion of battle in the subbasement. Spike had dusted it; her fist had connected with his cheek instead of its jaw. The bruise was gone, but the memory of how his flesh felt against her knuckles was still there. He didn't know that Spike had slain the four vampires that attacked around them as she stood there, frozen and numb.

Angel didn't know that she'd sat on the floor of the bathtub for half an hour last night, rocking back and forth, crying silently over the blond man. She had hurt him again. The barrier that had kept her from loving Spike was gone, now; she loved him as best she could. Every moment she wasn't thinking about heaven was because her vampire was with her. Every moment free of the pain of being on earth was because Spike was shielding her. And, again, she hurt him.

Oh, she loved Spike. She just couldn't be with him.

She stood, glaring down at the man she had loved first and best. "You're wrong." Her voice was flat, furious, then she was gone, flashing through the charged atmosphere and out the door as bright and dangerous as a blade. Angel was wrong, that's all. Just wrong.

⸹

Buffy was still fuming the next day as she sat in the dentist's office, waiting for her name to be called so she could have her teeth cleaned. Dawn had made the appointment, assuring her sister that she'd found a really gentle dental hygienist.

"Dental phobia?" Startled, she looked up at the question to find a cute, college-aged guy giving her a tense but sympathetic smile. "I have to have a cavity filled, and I tell you what, I'm about this close," he raised a hand and pressed his index finger and thumb together, "to bolting out the door. Man, I hate the dentist."

"Oh," Buffy said, looking at him more closely, dark skin and hazel eyes, the combination reminding her of Angel's friend Gunn. "No, I'm just here to get my teeth cleaned. No dental phobia."

"Oh." He shrugged. "It's just, you looked tense."

She smiled, a little grim. "Had a fight with an old boyfriend yesterday," she said, shaking her head ruefully. "Just reliving it. He can still get to me."

"Yeah, I heard that. My high school girlfriend can still push all my buttons."

"He was my high school boyfriend."

"What were you fighting over? With Denise, it always seems to come back around to our senior prom."

"This was over another ex-boyfriend."

He looked away a moment, then asked a little too casually. "So, you've got exes. You seeing anyone right now?"

Before Buffy could answer, a woman in a uniform stamped with a cheerful pattern of toothbrushes waltzing with toothpaste tubes came into the waiting room. "Rajon, we're ready for you."

"Great," he said heavily. He wasn't quite able to smile as he stood up. "Thanks for helping me keep my mind off this."

"No problem." She watched him disappear through the swinging doors, then picked up an old _Sports Illustrated_ to pass the time. Dawn was right about the dental hygienist, and Buffy got out of the chair without even wincing. She was paying at the counter, wincing at the cost, however, when Rajon came out.

"Hey," he said, lifting a hand.

"How'd it go?"

"Oh, wonderful," he said carefully. He waved at his face. "The Novocain is making my lower lip feel huge." 'Huge' sounded like 'huze,' and Buffy smiled a little. It seemed to encourage him. "Listen, I have to get back to work right now, but do you think maybe we could meet for drinks somewhere this Friday?" Then he shook his head, embarrassed, looking down. "I'm sorry. I don't even know your name."

"Buffy," she said, holding out her hand. "Buffy Summers. And I'd like that."

⸹

"Cluster around, my lovelies," Spike called at the end of Monday's training. When the slayers had gathered in a loose circle, he praised their work during the battle. "You're all veterans now, yeah? Tested, and came through just fine. I'm proud of you lot." When they just looked at him, he added, "What? You want medals? I'll see you tomorrow." This seemed to be the cue for them to cluster closer and ask about his wound. He tried not to smile too much as he held out his arm and let his ladies make over him.

Watching from the doorway, Angel shook his head. Some things never changed. It was a different blond that he was here to see, though. "Buffy," he said, by her side as she walked away from the knot of slayers.

"Angel," she said, giving him a less than friendly look, and he saw a distinct resemblance to her baby sister.

"I came to apologize for yesterday," he said, shrugging. "I was tired and feeling…" He let that trail off, reluctant to speak of blood magic. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"No," she agreed, "you shouldn't." When he opened his mouth to speak again, she overrode him. "Why bother, Angel? You obviously said what you really think."

When she started to walk around him, he got in her path. "Or maybe what I hope. I try, Buffy, but listening to you about certain topics is not the easiest thing in the world." His eyes went to Spike, who was speaking seriously to Vi, the only slayer still with him.

Buffy's expression eased a little. "Apology accepted." When Angel stood there, uncertain, she put her hand on his arm. "It's okay. I'm queen of saying things I wish I hadn't."

"Thanks." He looked away. "Need to talk to Spike, too, so I guess I'll hang around a bit." He wanted to see for himself how the boy was doing.

"Oh." She glanced back to the blond vampire, who was grinning at something Vi said. "Well, I'll see you later."

"Will you come by?"

She considered him for a moment before giving him a small smile. "Yes, I'll stop by."

"Hey, Peaches," Spike called, after Vi walked away. "Here to spar?"

Angel's lips parted, then he pressed them tightly together. "That's either a very good idea," he said, stepping close, his voice low, "or a very bad idea." When the boy quirked a questioning brow, he said wryly, "It's the only way I can think of to get my hands on you, Spike my boy." He had to smile at the poleaxed look on Spike's face.

"Oh! The blood," he said, understanding dawning. He ducked his head.

"Yeah, the blood," Angel agreed, still grinning at the other man's discomfort. Then Spike started laughing, hard, holding onto Angel's arm to keep himself upright. He had to chuckle, too, a little, because it was contagious and because he had so seldom given his boy reason to laugh. "What?"

"Just the idea of you," Spike said, "pining for me."

"'Pining' isn't exactly the word I'd use," Angel drawled.

"Sorry, mate," he said, clapping the other vampire's shoulder. "It'll be gone in a couple more days."

"I know. Just stay away from enchanted swords."

"That I know I can do." He met Angel's gaze, a smile still on his face.

He knew Spike wouldn't do it, not after the conversation they just had, wouldn't do anything to increase the call of blood, so Angel pulled him into a rough hug and touched his forehead to the boy's. "I'll see you in a couple of days, then." He put an unnecessary hand on Spike's abdomen. "Keep my pillow in shape." He left, satisfied with both conversations, especially the one with the boy. It wasn't often he got the last word in.

"What was that all about?" Dawn asked, curious, coming from behind to rest her chin on Spike's shoulder.

"Peaches was just, uh, touching base," he said. "Ready to go?"

"I guess. I'm gonna miss him." Clem was headed back to San Francisco, cheered by the thought he'd soon be drawn to the Hellmouth for another visit with his friends. They were going to meet him for dinner before he left.

"Me, too, pet, but there's the Sunnydale memorial thing coming up on Labor Day."

"You want to go?"

"Honestly? No. But I'll go if you want me to. Plenty of things from there I want to hit, now I've got the chip out."

"And the soul in," she added pointedly.

"Don't ruin my fun, Bit."

⸹

"Sure it's a good time, Red?" Spike, not wanting to be obvious, didn't look around the apartment, but Oz's scent was everywhere.

"Sure. Xander's usually on patrol an hour longer when he's out with Nguise. She always has questions; Cleveland's the biggest city she's ever been in."

"Right." He dropped down onto the couch, knees apart, and sighed. "Easier if we do it silent, I s'pose." He held his hands out, but Willow hesitated before taking them.

"I have to ask… What was the whipped cream for, Spike? Was it for a joke?"

He would have blushed if his physiology allowed. "The energy that was attractin' all the demons finally got to me. Made me… restless."

"Restless?" she repeated, her brows drawn together. Then her face cleared. "You mean it made you, um, horny?"

"More so than usual," he agreed gravely, his voice deep as a well.

"Oh." She blushed for them both. "So you were coming here with… intentions?"

Spike shook his head. "Red, I hardly remember stopping for the stuff. I just knew I was comin' here, where there was a lovely woman. I'll apologize for the pissin' contest with Dog-boy, but you know 'm not about to apologize for the impulse to get in your knickers." When Willow continued to give him a narrow look, he turned his palms up. "What?"

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd be more about getting into Buffy's knickers than mine, at least in front of Oz." Her face flamed again. "Not that I want you to keep trying to get in my knickers, whether it's in front or anyone or – oh, stop grinning like that. I just mean, it's the one place he isn't… confident."

He nodded. "I understand from Dawn that he can control himself during the full moon, but that he lost it over Tara?" When she nodded, he said, "That's pretty impressive."

"Oz is a pretty impressive guy."

"I hate him already."

Willow frowned. "Spike!"

"But I'll hide it well so he'll never know." He grinned. "Ignore the stupid vampire jealousy, love. You're family, yeah? My problem, not yours. I'll just try thinking of you as I do Dawn."

"And, like Dawn, I'm beginning to think I'll be thirty before I get to have sex again."

"What, Oz isn't willin'? You know, Red, it'd be a burden, but I could… gladly…"

She shoved the looming vampire away, feeling it, just a little, where his eyes were focused on her body. "Get a grip. Yeah, Oz is probably willing, but…" Willow closed her eyes and shook her head. "Gay, now."

"Rot. You're one of those people, needs for it to be about love. Outside package doesn't matter." He frowned. "Did we have this conversation before?"

"Yeah, just before…"

"Oh, right, that."

"So, changing the topic now. What did you want to talk to me about?" Willow held out her hands with determination, and Spike took them, telling her silently about the absence of new Potentials and the worry that the Council would eventually curse vampires with souls to create replacements for Slayers.

"Whoa," she breathed, her eyes wide. "Do you really think they would do that?" She answered her own question. "The _Tento di Cruciamentum_. Of course they would."

"The what test?"

Willow shook her head. "Never mind." She moved back into silent mode. _So, you're hoping I can put the genie back in the bottle?_

 _Just a hope._

 _I don't know if I can, how to go about it. Digital copies, I think I can find, do sort of a Moloch the Corrupter thing, but if anyone has printed off a copy… I'll have to think about that. I don't want to zap them and cause someone's house to burn down._ She hesitated a moment, and he could tell she wasn't sure if she should go there. _Spike… there's something I've always wanted to ask you. Why didn't you just ask me for a soul?_

His eyebrows went up. _Never thought about it, to tell you the truth._ He looked unhappy. _Do you really think – I wouldn't have wanted it that way, pet, a curse. Not because of the shagging clause – well, yeah, that too, but because I–_

 _You always want to earn what you have._ He could feel the understanding in her mind. _Like the coat, like this._ Willow let go of his hand and touched the scar at his brow.

 _No. Well, maybe something like. Dunno, Red. We weren't much friends then, anyway. Wouldn't have thought to turn to you. Glad I didn't, as it turns out. Got to know Angel a little better, and it truly is a curse._

 _Not anymore. I modified the spell._

 _You what?_

Willow put her other hand over his. _I looked at the spell again when you guys came to Cleveland, and I figured out how to take out the happiness clause, so it's less of a curse and more of a binding._ She shrugged. _If Angel ever loses his soul again, I can give it back to him in a permanent sort of way. It's safer for everyone._ His fingers clenched on hers a moment, and she knew his feelings, a surge of injustice and hatred rising within him, a cacophony of bitter thoughts. Then it receded.

 _Ignore me, love. Not really anything I wanted to share; not proud of those feelings._

 _Always second?_ Willow repeated one of the refrains, then shook her head. _Not you, Spike._

 _If he wanted it permanent-like, I'd take him to the cave, sit in his corner, and hold his towel. But he wouldn't. Even though it's a true curse, he wouldn't._

 _Which is why you aren't second._

 _Thanks, pet._ He sighed aloud. _Yeah, I reckon that's for the best, no happiness clause. Not keen on meeting up with Angelus again, as he shares a body with someone I don't actually dislike. Couldn't beat him to death with any sort of satisfaction._

 _That would be sort of funny, if I didn't know you meant it for real._ Then she smiled at him. _You, not hating Angel, though…_

 _He has his good points._

 _Okay._ She sent the challenge. _Name one._

 _Good kisser._ He smirked at her.

 _You want the whipped cream back? It's in the fridge._

Spike laughed out loud. "If you get it, I swear to you I'll use every bit of it on you, right here on this couch. Give me Delhi belly, but it'd be worth it."

"See, that's exactly the sort of thing you shouldn't be saying, not with Oz around."

"Oh, right, hide behind Dog-boy."

The doorbell rang, and Willow's eyebrows went up. "Speak of the devil."

Spike shook his head. "Buffy."

"Oh. Can I tell her?"

"Yeah, prob'ly should." He shrugged. "Just wanted to see if there was any chance we could get control over who had access to the spell."

"I meant about the whipped cream." A worried look settled on his face, and Willow grinned even wider. He looked adorable.

"Really rather you didn't. Dunno how she'd–"

"I'm teasing, Spike," she said, going to the door. As she turned away, the humor faded from her face. Like Oz with her, Buffy was the one place that Spike wasn't confident. With reason, she feared.

"Hey, Buffy."

"Hey, Wil. Got an hour or so for me to – Oh. Spike. Hi."

He raised a casual hand in greeting, but his eyes were bright with welcome. "'Lo, love." She wasn't as pleasantly surprised, he could tell.

Willow and Spike caught Buffy up on their conversation, and she absorbed it, frowning. "And you're sure this information is correct?"

"Yeah, ran it by Rupes."

"Well, you and Giles should have a copy of the spell, but I think we should get rid of any that are online. We can't do anything about paper copies, unless Willow can think of something else, so we'll just get rid of those as they crop up. Maybe we can say it's a recall, since there's a new, improved version of the spell." She gave Spike a small smile. "That's the best we can do, I guess. We've got time."

He nodded. "Glad we agree, love." Spike stood up. "Thanks, Red. I'll let myself out, let you two have BBF time."

"You're spending way too much time around Dawn," Willow called after him. Then she turned to Buffy. "Hey. Have a seat on the couch, where the soulful undead didn't leave it warm for you. Want anything to drink?"

"No, I'm good." Buffy waited until Willow curled onto the other sofa cushion. "So. Oxford next week."

"Yup. I'm pretty much all packed."

"Bet this really makes your parents happy."

"You'd think so, huh? But by now, I'm not sure if they really remember they have a daughter. My Mom, anyway."

Buffy put her hand over Willow's. "You've got family right here."

"Have you talked to your Dad lately?"

She shook her head. "Dawn got a birthday card. I guess she stayed in touch enough to send him her address here."

Willow looked at Buffy earnestly. "Do you know how happy I am to have Oz here? Someone I don't have to explain it to, someone who knows what it was like? My parents, they'll never know, Buffy. They're my blood relations, but you guys," she turned her palm and took Buffy's hand, "you're my family now."

"The Watchers, the new slayers… they don't have a clue, do they?"

Willow shook her head. "Do you resent them?"

"Sometimes." She looked away. "I resent them for other reasons, too."

"Jealous?" Willow had tagged along with Xander to a few training sessions.

"A little." She gave her friend a rueful smile. "They take up so much of Spike's time." The smile faded. "Not that I would spend it with him, anyway."

Willow's gaze was sympathetic and accepting. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

Buffy bit her lip for a second. "Angel… said some things. He said that I didn't love Spike."

"That's probably what he wants to believe, Buffy."

"Well, he's wrong," the Slayer said, her voice firm. "I do love Spike." The confidence faded on her next words. "I don't know if I'm in love with him." She couldn't verbalize the rest, how necessary he was to her, how he completed her in some way that no one else ever had.

It took the redhead a moment to find her next words. "There's no law that says you have to be in love with him."

"I made a date with a guy, a regular guy, for this Friday."

Willow blinked a little at the sudden change of topic, then realized it wasn't a different subject at all. "Not to be all judgmental girl, but you should probably not be having kissage with Spike, then."

"I know, Wil." Buffy sighed, took her hands away, and pressed her palms over her eyes for a moment. "I try, I really do. I try to be pillar-of-strength woman, but he's so…"

"Spike?" Willow supplied.

"Hot, I would say." The Slayer looked away. "So I try to be a good friend, period, but… I know what I'm missing."

Willow sighed and leaned toward her. "I don't doubt that you love him, Buffy, no matter what Angel thinks. But I never really thought the two of you would end up together. You know, before."

"Before he died," Buffy filled in. Her friends had always had such a difficult time saying the 'd' word around her.

She nodded. "It's okay if you're not in love with him, Buffy, but you've got to stop with the smoochies. Especially in public. It sends him mixed signals, but it gives everyone else certain expectations, too. Dawnie, for instance."

Buffy grimaced. "I know." Tears threatened. "Wil, we could be so good together, but–"

"But?"

"I'm not good for him."

"You're good enough for anybody, Buffy."

She looked up, startled, into her friend's face, warmed by the unwavering loyalty. "Oh, Willow." She reached out and squeezed the other woman's slender hand, then reiterated very carefully, "But I'm not good for him. You know what I did – the morgue, the… And even after I knew he had the soul, when he wouldn't let me stay and fight the preacher guy in that fight where Xander almost lost his eye… I was mad and frustrated, and I hit him." Her voice became small. "And I accidentally hit him during the battle. I just hit him, something I'd never do to you or Xan or anyone else, really." Buffy made herself look at Willow. "I heard Angel tell Spike that I'd hit him, once. And Spike didn't say anything."

"Aw, Buffy." Willow leaned forward to hug her.

She put her face in the bright, sweet-smelling auburn strands for a moment. "Angel kissed me the other morning, before the battle."

"He did? Really?"

Buffy nodded, lifting her shoulders. "We were just in the kitchen, I was getting some coffee… it was like we were magnets, just came together without thinking about it. Just one kiss."

"Do you think…?"

"I don't know that it means anything. It can't be me and Angel." She was quiet for a moment. "I'm not who I want to be, independent girl; I'm just not strong like that. I keep looking for someone, God, even someone like Riley, who I can latch onto and say, well, can't knock boots with Spike anymore, because I've got a boyfriend. Alone, I'm just not strong enough to not reach for him."

"I wish I had a magic bullet for you," Willow said, "but I don't."

Buffy pulled away enough to look at her. "That's good, Wil."

"Yah, me," the witch said glumly. "Even if I did have some spell in mind, which I don't, not really."

"Enough about me," Buffy said firmly, wiping beneath her eyes, repairing her mascara. "Tell me about you and Oz."

"There is no 'me and Oz.' There's me, and there's Oz." Willow shrugged a little. "But I am tempted." She shook her head abruptly. "No, wait. One more thing: what are the two of you going to do if the other gets involved with someone?" When Buffy looked blank, she added, "Will Spike stay in Cleveland if Friday-night guy turns into Mr. Right?"

"I-I don't know. I'm sure he'll stay for the twelve battles thing. That's what Angel plans to do. And there's Dawn; Spike will stay for her." She looked down. "If he leaves, I think she'll go with him. He's the better parent, I guess, and she still needs that. I-I wouldn't stop her."

"What about you, Buffy? What are you going to do if Spike ever looks at another woman?" She watched Buffy's face harden, recognized murder in someone else's eyes, as she knew it from her own. "Just something to think about," Willow added softly, backing away from the subject.

⸹

"Hey, Dawn," Kayla said, belatedly knocking on the door. "You busy?"

"No, just looking at pictures," she said absently. Dawn was kneeling in front of her bed, the portraits taken before the battle spread out on the comforter.

"Wow," Kayla said, picking up a picture of Dawn with her sister, "these turned out really well."

"They did," she agreed. "I'm picking out the ones I want duplicates of."

"Did Tribby charge you?"

"Just for the paper and an ink cartridge. I got off cheap; there are over a hundred photographs here."

"I want a poster-sized copy of this one," Kayla said, joining Dawn on the floor, putting her fingertips on the edge of a picture of Spike with Angel. "I'll pin it above my bed and… just imagine."

Dawn shook her head and nudged the slayer with a reproving elbow. "You go on like that all the time. I'll bet you're really a virgin." When the other girl didn't respond, she looked around, incredulous, and caught Kayla's trapped look. "You are?"

"So are you," Kayla said defensively. Examining Dawn's face, it was her turn for her jaw to drop. "You aren't?"

Dawn couldn't help it; she started giggling and couldn't stop, sliding down the side of the bed until she was on the floor, holding her sides. After a moment, Kayla joined her. It took them almost two minutes to recover.

"Oh, I needed that," Dawn breathed. "So, Kayla… just how much is this secret worth to you?"

"How much is yours?" the slayer shot back.

"Oh." Dawn's eyes got big. "Buffy doesn't know. She'd kill me." She frowned. "Or, maybe she'd cry; I'm not sure which would be worse. Spike knows."

"Oh. I sorta thought it might _be_ Spike."

"I could never be that lucky," Dawn said, and let it go at that.

"Well, I could still be," Kayla said, sighing dreamily.

Dawn didn't bother to respond, figuring that Kayla knew well enough where Spike's affections lay. "So, why the big slut act?"

The slayer shrugged. "Up until last year, I was just a farm kid who wore hearing aids, not a lot of prospects. At my high school, if you weren't getting married right after school or putting out, you were obviously a lesbo. So, I went on the offense against these guys who were bullies, scared them with how aggressive I was, and just never stopped."

"Huh. At Sunnydale High, you just died mysteriously."

Kayla's eyebrows went up. "Bigger problems, I guess." She crossed her legs, got comfortable. "So… story."

"Guy I met in a pub in London last year, David," Dawn said, shrugging. "It hadn't even been a month after Sunnydale caved in, and I just… needed someone. Something. I don't know." She did, but again, she wasn't going to elaborate.

The Slayer looked disappointed. "Oh. So, no romance?" When Dawn shook her head, she asked in a lower voice, "Did it hurt?"

Dawn nodded, making a face. "Yes, but it wasn't awful."

"Was he cute?"

"I thought so. He was nice, my age."

Kayla looked at her friend and made a rueful face. "'Nice.' I keep waiting for someone with a love story like in the books or movies, but I haven't seen one yet in real life."

"I haven't seen the fairy tale, either," Dawn agreed, looking away.

"And Buffy doesn't know?" Kayla rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin in her elbows. "If I lost my virginity, all three of my sisters would just immediately know, like a built-in alarm. There would be conference calls, and they'd all fight over who got to gently break it to Mom."

"Buffy has no alarm system, not where I'm concerned," Dawn said, shrugging. "She can spot a vampire at a hundred paces, but she's blind to a lot of family things."

Kayla tilted her head and gave her a shrewd look. "People only see what they want to see, or sometimes just what they can handle."

"That's another thing I learned in Sunnydale: never underestimate the human ability to ignore what they don't want to see."

"When I was little, I was in the truck with my Dad and my brother C.J.," Kayla said, "and they looked at each other over my head, just gave each other this strange look. 'Did you see something?' my Dad asked, and C.J. said, 'I saw something, but I'm not sure what.' So, Dad turned the truck around and went back around a curve. There was this tractor mowing on the side of this real steep hill, and it shouldn't have been able to stay there; it should have just tumbled down the slope. Dad and C.J. watched until the guy on the tractor saw us, and it turned out he had all these counterweights mounted on one side to stabilize it.

"What they saw was impossible, so their brains just decided that they _didn't_ see it." A small, almost embarrassed smile touched the slayer's mouth. "I was eight, I didn't know it was impossible, so I saw the tractor. Sometimes I wonder how much of what we see is just… weeded out. Like, what if guardian angels are always with us, it's just we can't see them because they're too holy or too beautiful?"

Dawn pretended concern, glancing around. "I've got to stop swearing." They both giggled.

⸹

"Come on in; you're getting soaked." Angel stood away from his doorway and let Spike in. It was Thursday, the first time Spike had come to visit since before the battle. "How's the arm?"

"Nearly healed." He took off the leather coat and hung it on a free hanger on the tree beside the door, where it promptly began dripping water on the floor. "No patrol. Tribs was a bit off tonight, so I sent her home early. Thought I'd stop by." Angel had gone to the kitchen, and he turned to toss a dishtowel to Spike for his hair. "Thanks, mate." Keeping his distance, he sent the other man a searching look from beneath the towel. "So, you gonna be able to keep your hands off me?"

"I'll manage it somehow," Angel replied dryly. "Blood's settled."

"Good, then." He tossed the towel back, and Angel hung it over the handle of the oven door to dry. "Came by last night, but you were out."

"Patrolling."

"You weren't on the schedule."

"Went by myself."

"Talkative."

Angel shrugged at the sardonic comment. "Maybe it's the letdown after a battle." He wandered over to the couch.

"Know what you mean." Spike sprawled on the other end. "At least we know we've got another one comin,' yeah?" They both sighed a little, then Spike gestured at the television. "Have you had it on yet?"

As much as he hated to be caught doing what the boy expected, Angel told the truth. "No." Spike had hauled in the huge set the week before, cheerfully located it exactly where he wanted in front of the sofa, and declared himself happy with it. The next day, a man from the cable company woke him from a sound sleep to hook it up. Angel expected a bill any day now. He had the feeling that it was the price he had to pay for the boy's company.

"History Channel's replaying _Band of Brothers_ ," Spike said, grabbing up the remote. "Great violence. Or Spike has _MXC_ most Thursdays."

"There's a channel named Spike?"

"Yeah." He smirked. "Network for lads."

"You have fun with that," Angel said, picking up his book, Lewis Mumford's _Condition of Man_. After a moment, he turned and oriented himself toward Spike. He raised his eyebrows, and Spike shifted, too, lifting one arm so his grandsire could prop up on his torso.

A sense of home wrapped around the two men, relaxing them, allowing them a measure of peace. Angel felt his boy move occasionally in a wince of sympathy or heard the deep rumble of his chuckle. Spike had the comfort of his grandsire's steady, still presence and the homey sound of Angel turning pages. They fell asleep that way, spilled against each other like wolf cubs in a den.

Waking up was awkward, but not mortifyingly so. They shared a quart of butcher's blood for breakfast, Angel sighing a little over the memory of the gourmet blend he used to get. Spike reminded him of Willow's going-away dinner the next night. Then he was out the door, holding his coat over his head against the continuing rain.

Watcher Central felt empty when Spike walked in, as Dawn and Buffy weren't there. He'd noticed that the Bit's Jeep was gone, and remembered that they were going shopping for dresses for Willow's party. He popped his head into Rupert's office.

"Wotcher, Watcher?"

"Oh. Just getting in?" Giles looked up from his desk, which was piled with billows of continuous-feed computer paper.

"I was careful, Dad. Used a johnny." When Giles only stared at him, he shrugged. "Fell asleep on Peaches' sofa."

"Um, Dawn and Buffy are out?"

"Yeah?" he answered slowly.

"Mind giving me your thoughts on something?"

"Topper Headon was underrated."

"On something pertinent?"

Spike went into the study, closing the door behind him. "What is it, Rupes?"

Giles put his hands and the small of his back and stretched. "I wanted to work on something different, something that had nothing to do with the Kanai prophecy. So I pulled out the 'psismograph' readings that Wesley Wyndham-Pryce gave me last year, thought I'd give interpreting them another bash."

A sad look touched Spike's face at the mention of the lost Watcher, but he didn't comment. "What's to interpret? Thought it was just matching up the largest 'shockwaves' with dates in your Watcher's Diary."

"In some cases, but there's something that…" He fussed with the printouts for a moment, then pointed to a written notation. "This was made by a tech at Wolfram and Hart. There was an enormous 'psi-smic' event when Buffy fought Adam."

"No kiddin.' Heard that spell attracted the attention of the First Slayer's spirit."

Giles rubbed his ear. "Yes, it did, rather. But what's interesting is this." He pointed to the lower part of the paper, where a second, low amplitude, high frequency wave began. Unlike the joining spell that had bound the Scoobies together, it went on and on. The handwritten note next to it said, "Background noise?"

"Dunno what to make of that," Spike said.

"I hoped you would," Giles said, pushing the top sheets aside to show him another printout, dated 2003. The low frequency graph stopped halfway across, next to another huge, frenetic spike of activity recorded above it. "It ended when you died."

Spike met his eyes for a moment, trying to read anything there. Then he shook his head. "A lot of things ended then, I s'pose."

Giles sighed. "True. I thought, as a supernatural creature, you might have sensed something around the time the Initiative left Sunnydale."

"No," Spike said slowly, examining the patterns, "but it was an odd time for me. Kept getting roped into helping you lot, finding that I resented it less and less…" He met Giles' eyes again, smiling ruefully. "Fallin' in love with your Slayer. It all felt weird, yeah?"

"My original thought was that was when Dawn appeared, but it never varied, not even the night on the tower. We're pretty sure she came to us sometime during that summer, between Adam and when Glorificus first showed up. But I don't think the spell had anything to do with her arrival."

"You're workin' up to something, Rupert. Go on."

"There are other dates that Wesley didn't know about that might be critical in interpreting this. When Wood gave Buffy his mother's things, for instance…" The Watcher looked intently at the readouts, not meeting the other man's sharp gaze, then pulled out the one on bottom. "I wish this was calibrated more precisely, because so many things happened so close together. But, see here," he pointed at the paper, "if I've got the flow of things correctly, this is when Buffy killed the preacher," he traced a burst of static with his long finger, "and this is when Willow performed the spell with the Slayer's Axe," he traced over a reading with solid, close lines that looked almost like the bowl of a goblet. "Right afterwards, there's…"

"Me." He stared at the huge, jagged spikes that ripped from one edge of the sheet to the other, at the abrupt end. "Give me the collywobbles, I could still feel 'em."

"I can feel them," Giles said simply, grimacing. "It's quite terrible to see, actually." His finger dropped to the lower edge of the page. "And the 'background noise' ends here, too."

"Well," Spike said, trying to think clinically, "defeat of the Turok-Han army, but that couldn't be it; they weren't massed there on the Hellmouth for three years. Defeat of the First Evil, as much as can be, anyway, but there's nothing to put it back three years, either. The closing of the Hellmouth itself, but you said the energies just surged from one weak point to, well, here," he gestured around, meaning Cleveland. "And the end of Sunnydale, which may have been harboring something we never even knew about, something that got destroyed at the same time."

"All of which I've thought of, too," Giles said on a sigh. "And to think I wanted something less knotty than the Kanai prophecy."

"How about a return visit to our favorite faux pub?" Spike asked innocently.

"What, and have Buffy glare at me for a week afterwards?" Rupert looked diffident for a moment, then said in a confidential tone, "Actually, I have some downtime on the horizon. My friend Olivia is coming to visit."

"Well, good on you, Rupes," Spike said, clapping him on the arm.

"It took her a year to get over the Gentlemen sufficiently to talk to me again, but I did manage to see her when I was back in Blighty, before the Council headquarters were destroyed. I've nearly rebuilt myself as a simple scholar in her eyes."

"You should take her to your place down in North Carolina," Spike advised, "away from the Hellmouth."

"I have considered that, but we may go to Chicago or Toronto. The farm is set up more for, um, goats than it is romance."

"True." He flipped through several of the printouts. "Does that lower line ever vary, ever get stronger or fade?"

"No." Giles followed the graph on one page with his finger. "Always regular, always the same." He stood up. "Thank you, William. You needn't stay; I think I'll put away this puzzle for a while." He began folding the printouts neatly. "I know there's an answer in here; I'm just not asking the right question."

"You'll think of it, Rupes," Spike reassured him. A little later, as he showered, he went over the psismographs in his mind, the jagged, frenetic lines that marked his death. He had always been practical, prosaic, even, focusing on the little things that made life worth living rather than the larger – and to his mind, gloomier – world view. Maybe he should think more about what it meant that he had returned twice from the dead… but he wouldn't. That little prick Lindsey and his bint Eve had laid a trap with an amulet and caught him instead of Angel, that's all, nothing cosmic, nothing planned by the Powers That Be. He had escaped death, inadvertently saving his grandsire. The important things were the Summers, the Scoobies, the slayers, and Angel. Family. Big enough picture, he figured.

⸹

By eleven in the morning, he was lying on his bed, hands behind his head, showered and dressed, but no place to go. Buffy and Dawn hadn't returned. He considered the large basement and it occurred to him to set up a billiards table set up on the other side. That way, at least Xander would come down to see him more.

Might as well ask Rupes, he thought, and headed upstairs. As he passed the phone by the stairs, it rang, and he answered it as a matter of course. "Watcher Central."

"Spike, is Dawn there?"

"No, I'm sorry. She's away right now." It took him a moment to place her voice. "Do you want to leave a message, Tribs?"

"No. I mean… Spike, could I ask a really big favor? Could you come and pick me up, take me home?" There was a note of pleading in Tribby's voice.

"Sure, pet. Where are you?"

"At a bus stop on Zeigler Drive. Outside the hospital."

"Are you all right?" Bloody hell, he thought as worry flooded through him, she isn't even one of mine.

"I'm fine, sir. I'm… it's just, I've been waiting over an hour for the bus." Tribby didn't sound fine, though. He could hear the tears in her voice. Sure, it was raining, but she ran an hour every day. It was an easy distance for her from the hospital to her flat. Something was wrong.

"I'll be there right quick, pet." The rain still showed no sign of slacking off, and it took Spike longer than he expected to get to the hospital. He spotted the bus stop, but was surprised that he couldn't feel the slayer, having to rely on vision to find her in the crowd of people waiting for the bus. She was huddled against the back of the clear shelter, her arms wrapped around her purse, and Spike was shocked at how small she was. She looked like prey, not even his prey. Prey for a fledge.

Then a young man, a hood drawn over his face despite the muggy weather, moved a step too close to her. Tribby stood up straighter, confidence and a hint of a challenge in her posture, holding the bag now as if it were a weapon. Which, in the hands of a slayer, Spike supposed it was. He honked, and she spotted his truck. Tribby darted through traffic, holding the handbag over her head to keep off the rain. "Thanks," she said, pulling the seatbelt over her shoulder. Behind them, a city bus pulled noisily to the curb. Tribby glared at it, then rolled her eyes.

"You all right?" he asked again, but her scent already told him more than her pallor did. She reeked of antiseptic, anesthetic, and illness, underlaid with the distinctive tang of slayer's blood.

"I'm fine, sir," she also said again, staring straight ahead. "I'm just – I just thought the bus was never going to come."

He drove, more carefully than usual, as he thought through this. Spike decided to call her on it. "Why were you at the hospital, Tribs?"

She didn't answer for a long time, and he was marshalling his arguments in case she said it was none of his business. "I wasn't hurt or anything," she finally allowed.

"Tribby."

"I wasn't there for an abortion," she said heavily, "if that's what you're thinking."

"Wasn't thinking that." He let the silence do his work for him.

A couple of blocks from her apartment, she sighed. "Don't tell anyone?"

"I won't."

"Remember that bracelet I gave you, the day we first met?"

"Yeah?" His bracelet from Dana.

"One of the Watchers cornered me not long after that, told me I wasn't to donate blood ever again, that I couldn't just give away slayer's blood because it was sacred, because it might raise questions." She was still looking ahead through the windshield. "Not Caro," she added.

"You donated blood?"

"No. Bone marrow." He saw her close her eyes, smelled her tears. "I got tested when – for Jack. I-I wasn't a match, but I'm in the registry now. They called last week; I matched with someone." Tribby's voice became fierce. "I don't think it works that way, but if my bone marrow, with or without slayer healing, can help someone, if I can save a life, save another family from going through–" She bit her lip as her voice cracked. "I don't care what some stupid, sheltered Watcher says."

Spike found he was staring at her, so he made his eyes go back to the street. He didn't say anything until he found parking and turned off the truck, the sound of the rain beating on the cab not giving either of them an incentive to get out. "I won't tell."

She nodded jerkily. "Thank you, sir. For the ride, too. I wasn't supposed to drive afterwards, so I thought I'd take the bus, and then–" Tribby took a breath. "Ignore me. I just really hate hospitals, and I'm… more tired than I thought I would be, not…."

"Is this why you were off last night?" He'd sent her home, as she wasn't doing a thing to challenge him or herself.

Tribby nodded again. "I'm sorry. I wasn't there, mentally. I'll be ready for patrol tomorrow," she assured him.

Spike shook his head. "No, pet, that's not–" This wasn't the time to scold her for not coming to him for help. She wasn't one of his, anyway. "Let's get you inside."

"I'm fine," she said, a mantra.

"I'll see you to your door." Four flights, he thought, looking at her critically. She made it, moving like an old woman as she trudged up from the last landing. He didn't bother asking whether or not he could come in, just followed her inside. "So, what instructions did the doctors give you?"

Tribby shook her head. "They said to take it easy for three days; I figure it'll take less time for me. Lots of fluids, the usual. It's not a difficult thing, sir." Tribby looked away. "Sorry I'm such a…" She couldn't find a word adequate for the disgust on her face.

"Bet they wanted you to eat, build your strength back. Let's get you some lunch, yeah? Surely Clem left something edible here."

She smiled a little as he mentioned the sweet-natured demon. "No, not really. I think he even found the peanut butter." Tribby looked at him directly for the first time since she'd climbed into his truck. "There's a pretty good Thai place that delivers. Do you like Thai?"

"The spicier, the better."

Tribby smiled. "I'll get the menu." It was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet, and when she returned with it, she said, "My treat, as thanks for the ride." He didn't protest, since that way he could be sure she ate. After she called in the order, Tribby sighed. "Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes? I'd like to shower, get the hospital smell out of my hair."

"No worries." He watched her pad down the hallway, pulling her shirt over her head as she went. Her knit pants were pushed low, and he saw a Band-Aid on one hip and a butterfly stitch on the other. Frowning, Spike sat down on the futon and picked up the remote, missing Angel's comfortable couch. Once he heard a loud thump from the bathroom, but the sound of the shower continued to vary instead of staying steady, so he turned his attention back to BBC USA and to finding a position on the futon that didn't knot his spine.

She was back before lunch was delivered, dressed in baggy shorts and a Circle Jerks t-shirt, her hair still damp. "Thanks for getting me home," she said, sounding much more like herself.

"I heard something fall in the bathroom."

"That would be me. Felt kinda faint. I think I had the shower too hot."

Spike stared at her hard. "You have a problem asking for help, don't you?"

Her face became expressionless. "I've already shown weakness before my sensei once today." Whatever she saw on his face made her look away. "I don't ask for help; I give it. That's what I do, sir." There was anger in her dark eyes when she looked back, but before she could say anything else, there was a knock on the door. Tribby went to answer it, paying for the food and tipping extravagantly for making the woman climb four flights of stairs.

"We can eat here," she said, indicating the living room, "if you're watching something."

"All right." She spread the containers on the table, then sat down cross-legged on the futon, facing him rather than the television. "So that's how you do it," he said, copying her and sitting down sideways on the other cushion.

"Do what?"

"Sit on this rotten thing." He dug a strip of beef out of his carton of pad prik. "Slept on stone slabs more comfortable, pet."

"Is it that bad? I never sit here. Ute picked it out."

"Don't tell me you never watch the telly, not with the cable package you have. Where do you sit?"

"On the floor."

Spike shook his head. "What did you get?"

"Kan shaw. Chicken, not beef. Want a bite?"

He speared a chunk on a chopstick. "Not bad. Has Dawn tried this Thai place? She likes spicy, too."

"I think so. Since Ute left, I don't see her so much."

"It's getting the gym open. People are more apt to go there or to Rupes', rather than to each other's flats." Spike swallowed, then gestured around. "How come you didn't get one of the new slayers to room with you?"

Tribby shrugged. "I can swing the rent. I'd rather get to know them first, not get stuck with a bad roommate. Ute and I got on really well. It would be hard to find someone as good as her. And now that they're here, they're so young, Spike. We don't have a lot in common. I've thought about asking Geneva, but she seems to be bonding with Tamika."

He smiled a little at how talkative she was now. Spike liked to think all the slayers were comfortable with him. Though not comfortable enough, it seemed. "So, you were calling to ask Dawn for a ride?" She only nodded, taking a large bite from the carton, chewing a little to get a large piece of pepper all the way in. "You do know that you can count on me, too."

She swallowed. "Thank you, sir."

She would never ask him for help; he knew that instinctively, and he sighed, reminded again of Angel. Not his problem, really, just his own stupid desire to help slayers, running out of control. When Tribby started picking at her carton of food, he took it from her. "Here, pet, off to bed with you. Get some rest; it's the best thing for slayers who need to heal. I'll clear this up." He put leftovers in the fridge and everything else in the garbage, then let himself out, making sure the door was locked, feeling obscurely sad.

⸹

"Who do you think it was?"

"Dunno, Bit." They were piled on his bed, as Buffy was taking a shower. "She just said that it wasn't Caroline Greene." Keeping Tribby's secret didn't extend to Dawn, who was the slayers' ombudsman and had been the first person the dark-haired slayer thought to turn to, in any case.

"What an asshole."

"Language, love," he warned absently.

"Yeah, but to tell someone who's a slayer that she can't do something helpful, al… all…"

"Altruistic."

"Yeah, that, well, that's just mean." Dawn looked over the top of a pillow at him. "I'll ask her."

"She might tell you."

"What's up with you?"

"Train her extra twice a week, patrol with her at least once a week, and she would never ask for my help." His eyes narrowed, thinking of his grandsire again. "What is it with some people, that they won't ask?"

She shrugged, no mean feat with her shoulders shoved into a pile of pillows. "Some people are so self-sufficient, they really don't need much help, so it's hard for them to know how to ask, maybe. Pride, too, I guess." Dawn wasn't about to give up on her anger so easily, though. "In this case, I think she just didn't want it known that she was donating bone marrow. I wish I knew who told her that."

"Your sister doesn't ask for help, either, but she doesn't have to. I'm always there for her – the Scoobies, too."

"You don't ask for help."

"Do, too," he challenged her. "First place I went for help after I figured out what the Initiative had done to me was to your Mum's house."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You two were gone for the Thanksgiving holiday, though. Ended up at Rupes.'"

Dawn was smiling. "Wow, Spike, that's really… unexpected."

He shrugged. "Like to think I'm a practical person."

"Is that why you're mad at Tribby?"

"Not mad, just…" He shrugged again. "Just hate to see a slayer… diminished, is all."

"Yeah, because it wouldn't be as much to brag about when you take her down."

He gave her a warning look. "How'd the shopping go, then?"

"Fine, change-the-subject-boy. Your eyes will pop when you see me tomorrow."

They were narrow now. "And why will they pop?"

"Because I will be absolutely stunning."

"And not because I'll see too much leg or any other bits?"

"La la la, look at the time, wonder what's for dinner?" Dawn laughed as he growled low in his throat. "You'll be there with me, all snarling and protective, anyway."

"Yeah, but Rupert won't let me throw forks into the eyeballs of perverted old men who ogle you." He sat up abruptly, his eyes examining the basement walls. "Yeah, a dartboard, too."

"Dartboard?"

"Since the allure of my personality isn't enough to draw people down here, apparently, I thought I'd see if Rupes would let me bring a billiards table in. Wouldn't even have to ask about a dartboard."

"How would you get a pool table down here?"

"Take the legs off," he said, giving her a look as if she was daft, "carry it down."

"Must be nice to be Superman."

"Pfft. Never cared for Superman. Batman, me, yeah? All dark and swooping in from the shadows."

"But Batman doesn't have super strength."

"Oh. Forgot about that."

"Well, don't worry, I won't tell Xander your geek credentials aren't in order."

"Xander's not a geek."

"Oh, he so is. You're just comparing him to the pinnacle of geekdom."

"That would be Andrew?"

"Who else? Come on, soul man. I think Giles is up in his study. I saw Aubrey leave, anyway."

"Aubrey's not bad. He'll come within two paces of me these days."

The doorbell rang as they got to the main floor, and Dawn went to answer it, lifting her eyebrows at the young man standing there. "Can I help you?"

"Hi," Rajon said, winning smile to the fore. "I'm here for Buffy?"

"You are?" she blurted, not meaning to be rude, just shocked.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Buffy Summers. We have a date. She lives here, right?" His smile fading, he leaned back, checking the house number.

"I'll get her, Bit," Spike said, his jaw set as he started up the stairs. He felt Buffy moving toward the landing, so he took the steps two at a time to catch her in private. "Your date's here," he informed the guilty-looking Slayer.

"Oh. Um, thanks," she said, standing up straighter and meeting his gaze.

"Have a good time."

"I will." Her tone was challenging.

"Buffy?" His voice was low as she marched past him.

"What?"

Spike snaked out an arm and grabbed her waist, pulling her into his embrace. He kissed her thoroughly, until she was kissing him back, her hands roaming restlessly across his back. "Good luck with that," he said, letting her go, stalking off to the bathroom, not slamming the door. He braced his hands on the edge of the vanity, breathing hard for almost a minute, trying to rein in his fury. Once that was under control, the hurt moved in. He didn't go back downstairs until Buffy had been gone for several minutes. Dawn and Rona were sitting on the couch together, anger radiating off them.

"How you doing?" Dawn asked, her soft voice at odds with her crossed arms.

He shrugged and sat down between them, his arms over the back of the sofa. As he'd hoped, they both moved in close, and he closed his eyes, glad for the physical comfort. "'S'all scuppered again."

"I thought that after last Saturday–" Dawn cut herself off.

"Don't blame her, Bit. She would, if she could." He sighed. "How come you're steamed, Ro?"

"Well, not only does she have a fine man of her own, if she was just smart enough to see it, girlfriend doesn't have to date brothers." Rona took a breath. "Not to be bitchy or anything, but it seems like white girls are always snatching up black guys, and this guy, Rajon, was fine." She winced a little. "Not really fine, not like souled-vampire fine, but, you know, okay."

"No worries, love." He pulled her closer, so they were temple to temple.

"She didn't have to meet him here, you know?" Dawn looked at Spike's denim-clad knee for a moment, then firmed her mouth. "Let's go out. It's still cloudy, so you can take us to the street fair by campus. It's part of an arts festival or something."

"Yeah," Rona agreed, "you get to take out the two best-looking girls in Cleveland."

Spike smiled a little, his heart easing. He'd been here so many times; he expected he'd be here again. "Right," he agreed, "but you should take me out, as I'm the injured party."

They ended up getting Giles to go with them, too, who agreed on the condition that he, not Spike, would drive. They walked around the booths, none of them tempted to buy any of the arts and crafts for sell. Spike appreciated the way the two girls kept the conversation light, but he knew he'd end up at Angel's later that night. There was no better place to brood.

"Hey," Dawn said, disentangling her arm from his, "there's Ty. Hey, Ty!" The handsome human looked over from where he stood next to a taller man, then smiled as he recognized Dawn. She wandered over to talk to him.

"Good lord," Rupert said, his hand moving to remove his glasses before he stopped himself, "I'm not sure I've ever seen someone that good-looking in real life."

Ty looked over at Spike, who had Rona on his other arm, and waved. "S'cuse me, pet," he said, letting go of her. "Be right back." Ty, friendly as a puppy, gave him the same hug that he'd given Dawn, and Spike used the contact as an excuse to take the young man by the arm and pull him to one side. "Ty, did Tribby mention anything to you about today?"

"No," he said, his voice slow. "It isn't her birthday, is it? No," he answered the question himself, adorable frown departing, "that's in November."

"She called me to pick her up at the hospital this morning," Spike said, examining the other man's face. He thought she might have told her non-Council friends, at least.

"Is she all right?"

He let out an exasperated sigh at the genuine concern. "Yeah, until I get my hands around her neck. She donated bone marrow today, only called me afterwards because the bus was so far behind schedule." He had no compunction about telling Ty this, either.

Ty's blue eyes narrowed. "No, she didn't tell me. Is she okay?"

Spike nodded. "I'd feel better if I knew someone would be checking on her, is all."

"I'll go by tomorrow," he promised. "I'm not surprised she did this, though, because of Jack." The thickly-lashed blue eyes gazed up at him earnestly. "Thanks for telling me. I appreciate you looking out for her."

He nodded, accepting another hug, and caught the man Ty had been with giving him an assessing look. Well, he thought, at least I can make someone jealous.

"Who was that?" Rona was asking Dawn. "And do you have his number?"

Dawn was looking put out again, though, and shook her head. "You didn't meet him at Ute's farewell party? I'll tell you later."

They were sitting down at a nearby café, inside instead of on the patio not just for Spike's sake but because the clouds looked threatening once again, before Dawn answered Rona's question. "That guy Ty was with? That's Greg, his boyfriend."

Rona sent a long-suffering look heavenward. "Of course."

"Anyway, he's a real shit." She looked at Spike, waiting.

"Language, Bit."

The formalities observed, she went on. "Tribby got to know Greg first, because he's in the art program, too, but she barely talks to him anymore. He's abusive."

"To Ty?" Spike blurted, surprised.

Dawn nodded. "I saw them together once at Tribby and Ute's, and he was talking so mean to Ty. Tribby said it was typical."

"So," Giles said, swallowing a spoonful of soup, "one must ask: why does this Ty put up with such behavior? I mean, he's terribly good-looking. I would think he could find someone else, someone nicer, in a heartbeat."

Dawn closed her eyes and shook her head, so she wouldn't look at Spike. "He's in love," she said darkly, looking up at Giles. "Ute said Ty has self-esteem issues. I mean, he's a physical therapist, has a doctorate and everything, but he's from a family of medical doctors, and they don't think that's good enough. Plus, I don't think it was easy for him to come out to his family."

Spike's eyes were narrow, still in attack dog mode. "Physical abuse?"

"Not that I know of, just beating him down verbally, kind of like Tara's family did to her," Dawn said scathingly.

Giles put his spoon into the soup, sitting up and taking a breath. "I'd nearly managed to put Tara's horrible family out of my mind," he said. "How such a lovely young woman managed to survive those louts, I'll never know."

Spike reached across the table and unobtrusively took Rona's hand, giving her a reassuring smile. Watching, Dawn lifted her drink to hide her expression. There he was, shoring up Rona, whose mother was so bad, and ready to wade in and give Greg a good beating on Ty's behalf. As quick as he was, Spike would never recognize himself as a victim, as someone who was abused. She was still going to give Buffy grief when she came home tonight, even though she knew why her sister did it, why she tried to find someone else. If she couldn't trust herself, Dawn just wished that Buffy would break things off cleanly.

⸹

Spike knocked on Angel's door. He wanted Peaches to give him a key, but he wouldn't ask. The door opened. "Took you long enough," he complained, shaking his coat a little. It wasn't raining as hard as it had been yesterday, but it was still enough to bead up on his shoulders. Then he looked up. "Oh. Charlie. Hey."

"Hey, Blondie Bear," Gunn said with an easy smile. "Come on in."

"Didn't know you were coming to town."

"I'm here for three weeks," Charles said. "During the August recess, nearly everyone at the firm takes vacation." At Spike's puzzled look, he elaborated, "Congressional recess."

"Oh." He hung his coat on the rack, then gave the tall man a quick hug. "How's it going, then?"

"He was just telling me that very thing," Angel spoke up from his usual place on the couch, next to the end table piled with books. Spike met the clear brown eyes, and there was a welcome in them that made him feel lighter. He sprawled in a chair opposite the remnants of Angel Investigations, listening to Gunn tell about the law firm and the election year political jockeying going on in the U. S. capitol. Spike remembered the conversation he had with Charlie in the limo the day he'd been reunited with his family. His desire to fit in seemed gone now, because he did fit in. Gunn told of golf games and going boating and spending a weekend at someone's country home, relaxing in the Virginia countryside.

"Long way from Los Angeles," Spike remarked.

"Yeah," Gunn agreed, a lost look in his eyes despite the small smile of acknowledgement. "And it gets lonely." He gave Angel a genuine smile. "Sorry I wasn't here for the fun last week."

After an hour or so, the human began to yawn, and Angel took him to the cot in the extra bedroom. While he got his guest settled in, Spike looked at the closed door of Angel's own room. He'd never been inside, he realized, finding that a bit odd. When Angel finished saying good night to Gunn, he came out of the guestroom and smoothly motioned the younger vampire toward the door. They ended up on top of a nearby building, beneath the shelter of a gable.

"What's wrong?" Angel asked, touching his shoulder lightly.

"Buffy's on a date." He laced the last word with irony, but his grandsire wasn't fooled, the comforting hand sliding to the back of his neck. "Should be used to it, I s'pose. Always lookin' for someone who isn't me."

Angel stared out over the lights of the city, at the wisps of clouds that still hung in the air. "When Buffy died, I had a hard time with it," he finally said.

"Yeah, know what you mean," Spike said grimly. "All I wanted to do was lie by her body and let the sunrise get me. Would have, too, hadn't been for Nibblet."

"No." He took a couple of steps away. "I had a hard time with it because… it wasn't that bad." He felt the weight of Spike's gaze on his shoulders, forced himself not to cringe. "I realized then that I'd been… expecting the news, grieving all along." He shrugged. "Probably not helpful. I just… it wasn't so bad. That's one thing I never expected.

"I retreated to a monastery for a while, but I felt the same in Sri Lanka as I did in L.A. Cordelia told me I needed to go on living, that my deeds could be a tribute to her. I… I liked that idea. It's easier to have loved a Slayer than it is to be in love with one. Then she came back, and my first thought was that I wasn't up to it, to seeing Buffy again. It felt like taking up a burden." He stopped there, as there was really nothing to add. Until they'd all ended up in Cleveland, he'd spent less than a handful of hours in her company after leaving Sunnydale. And twenty-four that belonged only to him.

"This guy, her 'date,'" Spike said the word delicately, "is nothing, less than nothing. 'M not even jealous of him, but… it hurts, can't deny it."

"Someone once told me that, as long as I've existed," Angel said, thinking of the subway where James had mourned Elizabeth to his last moment, "I've never loved." He shrugged. "Maybe he was right."

"That's not true," Spike said. They were talking around things, but if Angel was in the mood to share, it was best to go with the flow. He came close enough to lean into Angel, their shoulders brushing. "Don't need to know the particulars, Peaches, but I can feel it in you. You've loved, you've been hurt. That's living. It leaves its mark."

Angel closed his eyes, thinking of Connor, of how much he would like to see him. Connor had his cell phone number, but he had been very clear that his son was only supposed to call in case of an emergency, something he couldn't handle on his own. He'd bought Connor a new life at too steep a price to allow him to slip back into this dangerous world of demon-fighting. But he missed him. "Yeah." His voice was heavy. "It leaves its mark." After a moment, he looked at the blond head next to him. "She'd be crazy to give you up."

"She'd be crazy to have anything to do with me." He shrugged. "Still a demon, still allergic to holy water… Maybe you were right. Me, refusing to leave her, maybe it's just selfish."

"No, she depends on you. I don't doubt that she needs you."

"Some people need opium – well, meth. Showin' my age." He sighed. "Addiction isn't good for you."

""I doubt she's addicted to you," Angel said dryly. "You're not that good."

"I am, s'matter of fact."

"No, you're not."

"Am."

"Not."

They both had slight grins, staring straight out into the night.

⸹

Oz broke away from their kiss, a little breathless, and rubbed his nose against Willow's. They were on the couch at her apartment, Xander thoughtfully away for the afternoon. "God, Wil," he said, burying his face in her hair. "I hate that you're leaving, just when we found each other again."

"I'm going to miss you, too." She quirked an eyebrow. "You know, your test scores, you could get into Oxford, too."

"I guess," he said, pulling away to give her a direct look. "I'm so afraid of you."

"Of me?" she asked, something defensive in her tone.

He nodded, closing his eyes and touching his nose to hers again. "I've worked hard to keep my cool, but you're in my heart, under my skin… Control is an issue." Oz opened his eyes again. "I never wanted to be this thinking-too-much person, Wil."

"I'm afraid, too. N-not of you," she added hastily, "but of why I'm doing this." Willow gestured at them, at the couch. "I've got this easy out – going to Oxford, here – and I don't know if I'm doing this because I want to or because it's comforting and familiar."

"Comforting?"

She smiled at the sardonic tone. "Comforting in a really hot way."

Oz kissed her again, for longer than he intended, then he pulled away, an expression of pain on his face. "And I'm not sure if I'm doing this because I want to or if it's because I want to make sure I can control my monster."

Willow put her hand on his chest. "I understand," she said gravely, sympathy in her eyes. "And I think it's okay, because we aren't fooling each other or ourselves, and because," she dropped her eyes for a second, "because I'm always going to love you, Oz."

He got a helpless smile on his face. "Love you always, too, you know." His eyes dropped to her mouth, and he leaned closer. "What else can I do? You're Willow."

⸹

Buffy sat down on her bed in the darkness and slid out of her shoes, being very quiet so she wouldn't wake Dawn. She'd half-expected her sister would be downstairs with Spike. Sighing a little, she began unbuttoning her blouse.

"Buffy?" Dawn said sleepily, rolling over.

"It's me." Her voice was tired. Not getting off so easily, after all.

Dawn propped up on one elbow, her brown hair swinging across her shoulder and arm, didn't turn on the lamp. "Did you have a good time?"

Surprised at the neutral tone, Buffy leaned forward. "It was okay. He's a nice guy."

"You gonna go out with him again?"

Rajon worked at a bank, thought he might either go back to school for his MBA or use his financial skills to help a charity, and liked off-road biking in his spare time. He was funny, good-looking, and, for someone who only had maybe a decade of experience, not bad at kissing. He was eminently boyfriendable. After her long silence, the Slayer shook her head. "No. Probably not."

"Buffy…" Dawn was very still. "It is my business, okay? So, don't tell me it's not." She still didn't move, and her voice sounded older, somehow. "Don't do this. If you're too afraid of what might happen, just break things off cleanly. No more kissing on the roof, in the hallway, in front of the whole Council. He'll still be your friend, if that's all that you can handle." No need for her to mention his name.

"You're right." Buffy's voice was no more than a whisper. "I know you're right."

"Of course I'm right," she replied, a little impatient. "I love you both, and I know you love each other, but you're going to hurt him, Buffy, and not the way you're afraid of hurting him."

She listened to her sister breathe for a few moments, listened to the sounds of the other sleeping slayers and the faint rumble of Giles' snores. "The only person I can be happy with since I came back is Spike," Buffy said quietly. She had danced around this with Angel and Willow, but this was her sister. "That's what I'm giving up, Dawnie. I'm sorry, but that's… It's just the truth. He's so… vital, maybe, that it takes all my focus when I'm around him, so there's not the constant," she had been about to say _ache_ , "awareness of where I'm not." Still low, her voice took on a fierce edge. "But I will never hurt him again. I know what I need to do," she licked her dry lips, "but… it's like being exiled again."

Dawn gave herself a mental slap at being so slow on the uptake, and she pushed away the covers and swung her legs over the bed. "Oh, Buffy," she said, taking her weeping sister into her embrace. "I'm so sorry." She sank down on the bed next to the smaller woman, rocking her, stroking her hair. After a moment, she asked, because she had to, "Are you sure it can't be him?"

The Slayer latched onto Dawn's arm with one hand and swiped at her eyes with the other. "I-I'm sure. The… bad impulses are still there. I used to think, well, never again because that was when I was really hurting, but I," she took a breath, grateful that Dawn had not turned on the light, "I hit him on accident last week during the battle. Worse, I hit him on purpose after the fight at the vineyard." Buffy took another hiccupping breath. "That's twice since I knew he had a soul. I didn't even have the old excuse that he was evil, that he deserved–" She cut herself off. "Maybe it's part of being the Slayer. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the bad one, I'm evil–"

"No," Dawn said firmly, hugging her tight, "you're not. You're giving up someone you really care about for their own good. That's not evil, Buffy." She smoothed the hair from her sister's brow. "It's heroic."

Dawn couldn't see, but a tired, cynical expression settled onto her sister's face. "Just what I always wanted to be."

* * *

Next Chapter: What Happens in Boulder, where Buffy makes a decision and things fundamentally change for the Order of Aurelius.


	11. What Happens in Boulder

[Author's Note: This is a Spuffy story, but it's a looong story. For the next few chapters, there will be Bangel. Buffy and Angel have history that neither has dealt with enough to realize that it is just that: history. I promise plenty of Spuffy moments in these chapters, because those two cannot stay away from each other. Spike and Angel will have to create a completely different way of relating with one another to survive this.

One of the things I took away from broadcast canon was that each major character did something unforgivable (and unlikeable). In each case, this was something that seemed out of character to me. Your list may be different, but here's my top three: Undying Angel left Buffy, knowing Slayers only live a few years (allowing the AtS spinoff). Soulless Spike, in his pride, thought he could be good and wound up nearly raping the woman he loved (allowing the writers to establish that he was a Bad Boyfriend). And Buffy thrashed Spike and left him for dead in an alley (allowing… Lord, I don't even know – our Buffy to become a heartless bitch?). These things served the story, but were not true to the characters. Season two Angel would never have left Buffy; that drove a stake in Bangel for me. Spike is the one who wasn't going to hurt Buffy. And we'd seen Buffy in severe emotional pain before; she cried or fled or became catatonic, not abusive.

So, these wonderful characters - who totally do not belong to me - are working through the ramifications of those actions (Spike got some help, while Buffy also has to live with the pain of no longer being in heaven). After brief Bangel and a lot more story, there will be a happy (Spuffy) ending. Thank you so much for bearing with me.]

* * *

 **What Happens in Boulder**

August 2004

Cleveland

"Good. Thank you, Aubrey. Any questions?" Giles looked around at the Watchers gathered in his living room for a Tuesday morning meeting. He really should use the new offices, but the casual setting seemed more natural to him.

Pelham raised his hand. "So… since you've identified the energy's 'signature,' next time we can be more proactive?"

Aubrey nodded, settling his bulk back into an easy chair. "I believe so. If it's in another building, perhaps take up sniper positions on the roof with crossbows, clear the area of humans beforehand, and so forth. Although the slayers performed splendidly last week."

"Hear, hear," Caroline Greene said.

"The other thing is perhaps we can secure the area and isolate the source of the energy right away," Giles added. This was his main goal, to minimize the number of battles by fulfilling the prophecy early. "Other questions? Right. Next, report on our slayers?"

Dawn didn't stand up, just scooted forward to the edge of the couch from where she sat next to Spike. "Five of our slayers left for London on Saturday – Rona, Tamika, Bethany, Maria, and Natalie."

"Didn't Rona go earlier this summer?" Caro asked.

"No, she and Ute stayed," Dawn said. "The group got there just fine, hardly jet-lagged, and should be through a day of testing with the tech guys."

"Boffins," Alan Jacobson supplied with a smile.

"Boffins," she agreed. He was one of the best of the Tweed Brigade. "Not much new. Buffy sat down with Ivana on Sunday, talked to her about the battle. She's the only one who seems to have the wiggins after last weekend. Buffy said the talk went well."

"Wiggins," Jacobson said precisely, as if committing the word to memory.

"Er, good," Rupert said. "Anyone notice that their slayers were particularly stressed?" When no one spoke, Dawn scooted back, exchanging a look with Spike. Neither of them planned to mention the bone marrow donation. "Unless there's any old business to conclude, let's move on to this."

The Council head raised his eyebrows and a piece of paper. "This came in from a source in Colorado," he said, settling his spectacles. "It seems there's a gang of demons making rather a nuisance of themselves, getting bolder over time. They call themselves the, er, Skins, I thought perhaps after their preferred method of eating or killing, but it's apparently after skinheads."

"There are white supremacist demons?" Dawn asked, incredulous.

"I-I don't know that politics have much to do with it, but, yes, their favorite targets are minorities. This may also be because crime against minorities often isn't investigated as thoroughly."

"Is Colorado primarily white?" Alpana Vishnaswamy asked.

"Yes, and it isn't a heavily urban state," Giles said. "This gang gets around on motorbikes, real Hell's Angels, I suppose." A mild chuckle went through the group, and he smiled, gratified that there was a sense of humor in evidence today. One never knew with Watchers. "We've been asked to send a team."

"I'll go," Spike said, his hand in the air almost before Giles had finished speaking.

Rupert looked up from the sheet of paper. "You may want to hear the rest before you volunteer."

Spike shook his head. "Racist biker demons? C'mon, Rupes, right up my alley. Nibblet ever tell you about the time I saved her from a gang of biker demons in Sunnydale?"

"It was safe," Dawn said, shrugging. "Found a helmet for me and everything."

"I've heard the story, er, several times," Rupert said dryly. "There are at least ten, possibly as many as four times that number, and they are primarily," he put the paper on the table deliberately, "Carnyss demons." The humans in the room froze almost to a person, looking at each other fearfully.

"Pfft," Spike said, flapping a hand. "Narcissistic gym rats."

"I thought they hated humans in general," Dawn said, frowning. "What's with the discriminatory hatred?"

"Who knows?" Giles offered wearily. "So, Spike, I suppose you'd be willing to lead this team?"

"Yeah," he said, a gleam in his eye at the prospect of getting his violence on. "Who else is on it?"

"Well, that will be up to you," Giles said, tilting his head a bit to one side.

Spike gave a wolf's smile. "Think I can talk Gunn into it. Shame Ro's off to Blighty." He thought a moment. "I'll take Tribs, too, if that's okay with you, Caro."

"For an operation like this, there are usually at least a dozen people on the team," Giles said gently.

"Why?" Spike snorted. "For a pack of Carnyss? That many people, just make a bodge of it. If I can have Gunn and Tribs, I'll get 'em sorted out for you."

"You're quite sure you don't want to take Tamika and Nguise and Geneva and Miriam and Miko?" Rupert raised an eyebrow. "And maybe Alpana?" He threw an arch look at the other Watcher.

"Tamika's in London, unfortunately," Spike said, showing a great many teeth as he smiled, "and haven't got the other ladies trained up proper just yet." He sent Alpana a devastating grin. "You're welcome to come, of course."

"While I appreciate your use of poetic," Giles leaned heavily on the word, "justice in dispatching racist demons, I really think that three is too few."

"I'm a hundred-and-twenty-four, Rupes. Know how to retreat, if I have to."

"Fine, William," the Watcher sighed, taking of his glasses for a good polish. "See me afterwards in the study. The sooner you go, the better, I believe. You'll be wanted back here before the next battle."

When the meeting was over, Dawn put her hand on Spike's arm. "You want me to go?"

"Not for the team, love, but if you've always wanted to go to Colorado…."

"Gunn's human."

"Charlie's as good as some of the new slayers in a fight, pet. Not as fast, not as strong, but really good instincts."

She nodded, accepting this. "All right. Go on; Giles is waiting for you." She watched the two of them go into the study before she headed up the stairs. Dawn didn't blame Spike for wanting to get away, and Colorado seemed just about far enough. While the going-away party for Willow had been a success overall, it had been a fiasco on the Buffy-Spike level. Even Dawn had to admit her sister looked good wearing her new dress, a simple black sheath, and her blond hair swept up in a twist. Spike had stared for maybe a second and a half, then not looked at Buffy again the entire night. Dawn didn't think Buffy had planned to coordinate her outfit with Spike, who wore a black turtleneck as concession to the occasion. The two of them had been side by side when they entered the restaurant. She saw people actually turn around and stare at them. Like a pair of horses matched for their beauty and strength, they looked like they belonged together.

They did.

Dawn dropped onto her bed and pulled one of her collection of pillows onto her stomach. Spike made fun of them, but all the pillows were a way of remembering Tara. And if she needed proof that people didn't always end up with the person that suited them best, Tara's fate provided it. She should be here in Cleveland with them, kind gentleness around that core of steel. Tara would be so proud of how Willow was handling her power these days. Dawn had liked Kennedy okay, but the newly-made slayer had never been one of them.

We're all misfits, she decided. Me because I didn't start out as human. Spike because he stayed too human. Buffy because she was the Chosen One, for all her cheerleader and homecoming princess credentials. Xander because his parents were drunks; Willow because she couldn't hide how smart she was. Giles was a misfit because he was something quite different beneath the tweed-with-elbow-patches. Kennedy, with her wealth and looks, had never been a misfit.

Then she moved the pillow over her face and rolled onto her stomach, planting her chin in the softness. Not misfits. Warriors. All of us, we're warriors. When she changed the word, she realized that she had excluded two of the people who had been at the party. Oz had helped out plenty when he was in high school with Buffy, but he wasn't a misfit. The cool thing about Oz was that he fit in anywhere, with any group of people.

She had also left out Angel, which was odd. He was uncomfortable with people, read philosophy, definitely wasn't up on the latest in pop culture. But while the souled vampire was maladapted for life as a demon, there was nothing about him to make her use the word 'misfit' to describe him. Dawn had the sense that Angel might once have made a good pledge for a party-heavy college fraternity, that he had been popular with the loud, lewd crowd when he was alive.

Angel had complimented Buffy's shoes, of all things, at Willow's party, and the two of them laughed as if it was a standing joke. Spike hadn't glowered – well, not at Angel. Sitting next to Dawn, he had been glowering at one of the servers who took a moment from pouring water to check her out. True to form, Spike had hovered protectively beside her most of the night, barely letting on how proud he was of his confident, beautiful Nibblet in her very short, low-cut blue dress. Buffy spent most of the time talking to Xander and Willow, which left Dawn time to watch the two souled vampires interact.

She remembered his rant against Angel the night he told her he'd gotten his soul and a dozen others, besides. Yet the two had an easy rapport that belied the hatred she had seen then. They weren't exactly comfortable together, but there was trust there, and a certain fondness. Dawn supposed that it was the difference between Angelus and Angel that allowed Spike to thaw. As prickly as he was, her best friend seemed happier liking people than disliking them.

Dawn was surprised Spike hadn't wanted Angel to go with him to Colorado, but he didn't need a lot of firepower, despite Giles' concern. She thought of Spike standing in the middle of Revello Drive, unarmed, playing chicken with a demon on a motorcycle and smiled at the memory. Her heart had been in her throat, the only thing that prevented her from screaming his name, back in the days before she realized he was never going to be defeated. She loved him like that, utterly confident and kicking butt.

Glancing at the clock, Dawn rolled off the bed and began packing. The Summers girls were staying all night with Willow, getting in some girlfriend time while Xander was out with Lina. A weekday date smacked of serious, and she was dying to meet this non-demon. Buffy was probably at Xander's apartment already. Dawn didn't think her sister had been avoiding her, exactly, but it amounted to the same thing. After Willow's flight left Thursday, she'd be able to pin her sister down, talk to her again. Since Spike would probably be several large states away, it would be an especially good time. The sooner Buffy made a clean break, the better for both of them. Spike would have no reason to not respond to all the female attention that came his way. Then, surely, the jealous Slayer would realize how much she did want and love and miss him. These days the safety of the whole world didn't depend on her sister. Buffy could take her time about falling in love.

⸹

"Don't want to draw up some elaborate plan, get wedded to it, before I get on the ground and see the layout," Spike said, shrugging.

Giles nodded. "Agreed. The information we have is rather sketchy." He looked at the list in his hand. "And this is all the equipment you want to take?"

"Tribs and I have our own weapons. Charlie likes an axe; I figure you can spare one or two." He propped against a corner of Giles' desk. "I like your idea of leasing a private jet. Makes things easier for me."

"It was Angel's idea, actually," Rupert said, handing back the sheet. "You should tell him the money I paid him as a consultant wasn't wasted."

"Might put my own spin on it," Spike allowed, suppressing a smile.

"The timing couldn't be worse for this." The Watcher turned away to a side table and picked up a folder. "I'm going to be flying out of town just a few hours after you."

"Where to?"

"Chicago."

"Ah. Olivia," Spike said, and did smile. "Your orgasm friend."

Giles chuckled. "Oh, I do miss Anya." He laughed a little more. "I'm not sure I've ever been that appalled, though."

"Well, if she'll still fly from London to see you after that, mate, just might be something there."

The lingering smile on the Watcher's face faded into something sad. "We've been catching each other around corners and making time for each other for years. We don't seem to fit into each other's lives, only each other's holidays." He stood a bit straighter and made a carefree movement with his head. "Not going to complain, though."

"Good on you, Rupes," Spike agreed, helping to smooth over the wistfulness. He and Buffy fit perfectly into each other's lives, and they hadn't managed to make a go of it, either.

"At any rate, I'll be back Monday – Olivia is coming with me, just to see what I'm about here in Cleveland. If you need anything, call Dawn. She'll take care of you, and she has signature approval for big expenditures." He gave his head a little shake. "It's just, I've got to learn to let go, to delegate. I was counting up the other day, Spike, and I've given more than half my life to the Council."

"Depressing?"

"Perhaps. I am really not sure." He met the other man's eyes. "I keep going back to what Sarah Tolliver wrote, that I should enjoy life, take vacations and leave behind my mobile. She was right that you and Angel were needed here; I wonder…"

"Doubt she was like Dru, a seer," Spike reassured him. "You'll have a long life, plenty of time to enjoy all your massive wealth."

"Yes, well," Giles said, shaking off the somber mood, "I won't spend what remains of my best years battling the hidebound elements that remain among the Council. I may not spend them with Olivia, either, but I think I can spare a few days just for her."

⸹

Angel and Gunn watched from the edge of the training room floor as Spike put Tribby through her paces. He had wanted to fight close in tonight, so they were in a small corral made of five folding chairs. The slayer was lunging and twisting, and Spike was never where she expected. Even as the two men watched, the blond vampire suddenly had his blunt human teeth on the side of her neck. "Again," he said.

Gunn lifted a hand and pointed, asking in a hesitant voice, "Uh, isn't that a real stake she's using?"

Angel took a breath, processing the air. "Yes."

"Okay. Sure. Why not?" Charles shook his head.

Twice more Spike won, taking her down or finding her neck. "Kitchen sink," he said, apparently the signal for her to throw everything she had at him. The stake disappeared into the waistband at the small of her back, making Angel think of Buffy. The slayer went low, just a feint, then jumped up to land for a moment on the backs of two chairs. She didn't stay, just knocked them together, creating a distraction of movement and noise as she went low again, going for Spike's center of gravity. Tribby managed to take him down, but Spike did a twisting, rolling move, like a snake, carrying her with him, and he was astride her hips, neutralizing her legs as a weapon, holding her hands above her head.

The two combatants regarded each other, humor lurking at the edges of their expression. Then Spike leaned forward warily to touch her neck with his teeth. It was what she had been waiting for. Tribby head-butted him, twisting her torso to the side, unseating him. She got one hand loose, found the stake, and curved it around his back. The flurry of motion stopped.

"Did I get you?" They were lying side by side, legs tangled. Both had been trying for purchase.

Spike shook his head. "Punched through your ribs, splintered them into your heart, then pulled it clean out." He pushed his hand against her ribs to punctuate his opinion. "You had to reach for your weapon, yeah?" The slayer sighed, and he relented a little. "But I didn't bite you."

"Feel like I should say, 'get a room,'" Gunn called.

"Hey, Charlie," Spike said, rolling clear so he could rise from the floor with a grace that spoke of controlled strength. "She likes to wrestle; thinks it's the one place she's better'n me." He waited until the slayer flipped herself upright, moving from the automatic fighting stance into an at-ease position.

"Thank you, sir." She bowed to him.

Spike waved a hand. "Right." The formal ritual didn't bother him, and she seemed to need it. "Tribs, you remember Charlie."

"Hey, Gunn. I'd be friendlier, but I'm all sweaty."

"You just keep your distance."

"Hey, Angel," she said, nodding to him, too. She started to move the chairs, but Spike stopped her.

"Let's have a seat. Want to talk to you and Charlie, pet." He straddled one of the folding chairs, and Gunn did likewise. Tribby sat down on the floor cross-legged, and Angel remained standing, looming next to the younger vampire. Spike brought them up to speed on the situation in Colorado. "These Carnyss are operating out of Boulder, another college town. What Rupes doesn't know is that they like to control the flow of hard drugs into an area. It's their 'in,' how they keep tabs on their prey and the authorities."

"We've seen them operate out of a gym," Angel commented, meeting Charles' eyes.

"Yeah? Bet they were runnin' steroids, too. Not surprised. Pretty-boy demons," Spike sneered. Gunn lifted an amused eyebrow at this description. "Anyway, these gimboids have a hard-on for minorities. Thought I'd see if the two of you," he looked at the humans, "would be interested in helpin' take 'em out. Be all empowering and whatnot."

"See, and folks in Virginia thought I'd have a dull time in Cleveland," Gunn said. "Cool. I'm in." The two pranksters looked at each other for a moment, grinning.

Tribby was less effusive, but there was a gleam in her eye, too. "All right."

"Just the three of us going, three or four days," he said, absently reaching to touch Angel's hand before turning to look up at him. "And I'm counting on you to look after the Summers ladies for me."

Angel nodded, understanding the family obligation. "I can do that."

"Be nice to have you there," he added, "but I'm trying to change how the Council handles these things." He scoffed. "They usually send in dozens of people."

Gunn raised his brows, thinking of how Angel Investigations had six people at most to fight demons, four of them human. "Seems like overkill."

"My thinking exactly."

"Good thing they couldn't mobilize like that in the old days," Angel mused.

Gunn broke the uneasy silence that followed. "So, when do we leave?"

"We need to be at the airport at four a.m."

"Tomorrow?" Charles' eyebrows climbed high.

Spike nodded. "Not too early for you, is it, o mighty demon hunter?"

"So… asking us was just a formality?"

"Do I know my humans, or what?" Something occurred to him, and he looked up at Angel. "Not 'my' humans, you know, just a turn of phrase."

"I know," Angel reassured him. "Be careful in Colorado." He cleared his throat and looked belatedly at the slayer. "All of you."

⸹

Lina blinked, then studied the mug of beer she'd been nursing. "Uh-huh."

Xander grimaced. "This is so awkward. You know, I was determined to be completely honest with you."

"Why did you change your mind?"

"I – What? No, Lina, what I said, that's the truth."

She sighed. "Xander, I know you may not feel like you have the most exciting job in the world, but I think it's pretty noble, the neighborhood watch thing. I know you probably don't get paid much, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to try to make it something wild to impress me."

He bit his lip. This wasn't going well at all – he hadn't even begun to tell her the truth. Xander met her gaze, his brown eyes earnest. "I get paid ninety thousand dollars a year, not for watching out for prowlers. The Council of Watchers that I work for is an international organization. Last year, I lived in Africa; this year I'm based in Cleveland with over fifty other people. It's more than a neighborhood watch."

"Xander… demons?" She raised an eyebrow, then shook her head. "Really, I –"

"Lina, listen to me, please. I'm not going to start off with some sort of lame excuse or lie, because," he leaned forward, his elbows on the table, "because I already think too much of you to do that. I want to spend a lot more time with you. And that means," he sighed, "that you'll see some odd things, because I fight demons. It's just what I do, like I used to do construction."

"Don't you have to be a priest or something, to fight demons?" she interrupted.

"Just in the movies. Look, I'm not a superhero or anything. Back in Sunnydale, this was my hobby, I guess you could say, because one of my best friends…" He trailed off, not wanting to explain about Slayers just yet. "Now, I'm lucky enough to get paid to do it. Any proof you want, I can arrange… but I sort of hoped you would just keep an open mind."

"Xander, I'm an atheist. I don't even believe in gods, and you're asking me to believe in demons?"

"You may want–" _to reconsider believing in gods_. He stopped himself. "All I'm asking of you is to be aware that the world is dangerous – and wonderful, it's wonderful, too – in ways outside the ordinary. And," he licked his lips, "I'm asking you to keep spending time with me, Lina." He laid his hand on the table between them, palm up.

Lina considered it for a long time. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head.

His face was expressionless. "Okay. Believe me, I know this is hard to get your head around." Xander drew back his hand. "So, I guess… I'd like to at least give you a ride home, see you back safe."

Lina's brows drew together. "Oh." She pushed her beer away. "You… I didn't, this isn't–" It was her turn to bite her lip, then she firmed her jaw. "You said 'proof.' What kind of proof?"

"Well," Xander said cautiously, "would you like to meet an honest-to-Pete vampire?"

⸹

Buffy was loitering in the hallway, having listened for Spike to turn off the shower. It took longer than she expected, and she realized he had been packing when he emerged from the bathroom carrying his Dopp kit. "Hey," she said, giving herself an internal eye roll for the lameness.

"Hey, yourself."

Her heart broke a little at how guarded he was. Buffy steeled herself. "I just wanted to say, good luck out in Colorado. A-and be careful."

"Thanks. I will." He didn't unbend.

She stared at him, memorizing every plane of his face, the curl of his damp hair. "I'll miss you." Every day of my life.

Spike thawed, never able to hold himself from her for very long. "I'll miss you, too, love."

Buffy gave him a nod and a nervous smile. "Well, um, good night." She turned away, going back to her room.

"Good night, Buffy."

She shivered at the rich molasses of his voice saying her name, closing her eyes as she closed the door behind her. The way his lips formed the syllables, the 'B' a perfect segue into a kiss, the 'ee' also a good starting point. The Slayer leaned against the door for a moment, remembering how it felt to be pressed against vertical surfaces by his body. Then she opened her eyes and took a breath, putting those thoughts away. Dawn and Willow were right; no more soft, drugging kisses with Spike, not if she really meant it when she said she didn't want to hurt him again. Her willful brain brought to mind an image of him as she moved over him, a look of love and absolute belief in his eyes.

No.

Buffy shook her head to the side, making herself think instead of the way he had looked at her twenty-first birthday party, the ruin of bone over his eye, the bruises. What she might want didn't matter, not when compared to what she might do. She absently dashed tears from her cheeks with her fingers. At least now she had a plan.

⸹

"'Lo?"

"Hey, Spike. Listen, I wonder if you could do me a favor?"

"Sure, whelp. Owe you, since you're taking over training while I'm out of town."

"Where you at?"

"Headed over to Angel's. We're leaving for Denver from there."

"Listen, here's the thing," Xander began. When he finished, Spike was smiling.

"Why not? Don't think Peaches would mind. Bring her by."

"Thanks. It seems like I keep asking you to terrorize people – but don't terrorize her."

Chuckling a little, Spike hung up. He'd said goodbye to Dawn before she went to Willow's for the night, and he'd already said his farewells to Giles and Willow, who was flying to the UK the next day. Then there had been the unexpectedly nice farewell from Buffy. It would be good to touch base with the last Scooby, too.

Gunn was already packed when he got to Angel's apartment, and Spike quickly explained Xander's predicament to them. Then he grabbed the television remote and took up most of the couch, thoughtfully leaving Angel just enough room to serve as his pillow as they waited for Lina's visit. Somewhat embarrassed to have the blond head propped against his knee, the dark-haired vampire met Charles' amused eyes, shaking his head.

Xander and Lina arrived soon after, and he introduced her around. She sat down gingerly in one of the large leather chairs, Xander perched on the arm next to her. "So, you all work for the Council, too?"

"Just me," Spike said cheerfully, now sitting next to his grandsire. "Angel here is a freelancer, and Charlie is studying law in Virginia."

"I used to work with Angel in Los Angeles," Gunn explained, slouching in another chair. "Just here for a visit, hoping for another of the promised battles. Sorry I missed the one last week."

Lina nodded because she didn't know how else to respond, then turned to Spike, who was at least familiar. "So, you know Willow, too?"

"Yeah, me an' Red go back to Sunnydale." He leaned forward, clasping his hands together, resting his wrists on his knees. "Look, do I need to apologize for when we met? It's kind of blurry, so if I said or did anything that, uh, made you uncomfortable…."

"No." Lina frowned. "You were sort of focused on Oz."

"Oh. Good, then." He leaned against the cushions, sprawling an arm across the back of the couch. "'Cause the energy that was drawing the demons last week got to me in sort of a… specific way."

"What way?" Charles demanded, an expectant grin on his face.

"Gaggin' for it," he said ruefully.

"British for 'horny,' Xander supplied, noting Charles' puzzlement.

"Oh." Gunn was still grinning. "How was that any different from–"

Spike flashed him the v's. "Shut it, you." He made a self-mocking face. "'S'why I thought I might need to apologize. After my slayers, after Willow," he gestured at the whelp, "Xander, here."

"Three strikes, you're out," Xander said, unperturbed. "Even a baseball-challenged Brit should know that."

"Desperate, me. Even made a pass at my grandsire."

"Did I already say I was sorry I missed the excitement last weekend?" Gunn said. Angel, for his part, looked pained.

"Slayers? Grandsire?" Lina looked at Xander, even more sure he and the bleached blond were having her on. She was beginning to get angry.

"Slayers are young women chosen to fight demons," Spike said matter-of-factly, "and Angel here is my grandsire. He's recently achieved the grand old age of two-hundred-and-fifty-one. Doesn't look a day over two hundred, does he?"

Angel sent him an irritated look but kept his silence. Lina seemed too nice to inflict this Xander-hatched plan on her.

"Two-hundred-and-fifty-one," Lina repeated, glaring at Xander. "Funny."

"Not much family resemblance, I admit," Spike said, still in the same calm, cheerful voice, "unless we do this." The two Aurelians went to game face as planned.

Lina didn't make a noise, but pressed back against the chair, a horrified expression on her face.

"What?" Spike looked at the other men in the room before turning his golden gaze back to Lina. "Xander said you wanted to see a vampire."

"You know," Gunn said, blasé, his fist under his chin, "I don't think there's much family resemblance even this way." He pointed a finger between the pair of demons. "Maybe something in the brow ridges, but that's it."

Spike resumed his human features and beamed at Gunn as if he'd given a compliment. "Why, thanks, Charlie."

⸹

"That was a nice jet," Tribby said.

"It was okay," Gunn agreed, clearly distracted. They were at the Denver airport, waiting for Spike to finish the paperwork for their rental car. "So, you use stakes that are pointy on both ends, and you've sharpened the ends of those wooden nightstick things–"

"Tonfa."

"Right, tonfa." The two of them had started talking about weapons somewhere over Illinois, Gunn rhapsodizing for almost an hour over a tricked-out truck he used to have. "Do they work pretty well?"

"I've only used them on patrol a couple times, and when it got busy last week, I went back to a regular stake."

"A regular, double-ended stake."

"Uh-huh. Because the tonfa are longer, they're harder to control. I hit one vamp in the chest, and the wood kind of wobbled off to the side before–"

"Charlie." Spike's voice was loud and cold.

"Yes?"

Spike didn't turn around, just kept sending an unnerving glare at the clerk behind the car rental counter.

"You're a lawyer," he drawled. "This… person says he doesn't have an auto for us. What recourse do I have if this… service industry person doesn't service me?" The clerk, a young guy, stiffened indignantly at the choice of verb.

"Not a whole lot." Gunn came over and joined Spike in glaring. "Take his name; report him to his supervisor for mismanaging inventory and giving away a guaranteed reservation. Report them both to corporate customer service."

"Guys," Tribby said, taking on the role of good cop, "it's been a long night. Give him a break." She stood on her tiptoes a little to glance at the keyboard in front of the clerk, then gave him a hopeful smile. "Maybe there's an upgrade you could give us, or you could refer us to another rental company?"

Twenty minutes later, they rolled onto the road in a black Escalade, Spike at the wheel. Fortunately, there was little traffic before six in the morning. Gunn was fiddling with the radio.

"Hey, leave it there," Tribby said, when he was about to pass a Nappy Roots song.

"' _Awnaw_?'" Charles turned to give her a look where she sat in the back seat, wearing a black Ramones t-shirt. "Sure you don't want me to surf some more?"

"'Awnaw, hell no,'" she sang along in answer. "They're nice guys. I used to see them play all the time."

"Where at?"

"I worked as a bouncer at this club in Nashville for a while, where they played before they got big. They'd drive down from Western Kentucky University – that's in Bowling Green, where they make Corvettes – and they'd just burn up the stage. Feel-good, happy, party-time music."

Gunn was still half-turned, staring at her, his seatbelt reeling out until it locked. "How did you get a job as a bouncer at a club in Nashville?"

She shrugged. "I took down this three-hundred pound monster that worked the door."

"What kind of monster?"

"Oh! No, just a big ole farm boy."

"And that was before you got all super-girl with the slayerness?" When Tribby nodded, he shook his head and turned around, smiling.

Spike gave the tall man a sidelong glance, wondering if Charlie fancied this slayer. As far as he knew, Gunn hadn't had a steady relationship since Fred. These two might be good for each other, if it weren't for the distance between Ohio and Virginia. His eyes mostly on the road in front of them, Spike bobbed his head in time to the music.

They drove from Denver to Boulder and checked in very late for their hotel reservation. Per Giles' new policy on Council travel, based as much on safety as prevention of workplace tension, they all had separate rooms. After unpacking, they met in the hotel restaurant and headed to the darkest corner. Spike drank coffee while the two humans picked at the breakfast special.

"All right, game plan," Spike said, "such as it is. Our cover is, Charlie's the head of an organization that wants to be the ones moving gear into Boulder. I'm the muscle, and you are…" He hesitated, turning a salt shaker idly between his fingers.

"The girlfriend-slash-crackwhore that they won't even take into account," Tribby supplied.

"Yeah. So, I reckon they'll have a handful of humans as a front," Spike went on, "but with a vampire and a slayer, we'll be able to suss out what's really there and how many. Fortunately, it'll be easy to know if we've found their chief. A Carnyss leader always wears a covering over his horns."

"Sounds good," Gunn said. "So, we're going to do a drive-by today, find the two bars where they hang out, then come back here and wait for dark?"

"Add in a quick shopping trip, and you've got it."

"What are we shopping for?" Charles asked.

"Something that will make them believe Perry Mason and Mary Lou Retton are skanky, gangsta drug dealers." Spike frowned. "Wait… did I say a quick shopping trip?"

⸹

"Ah," Giles said, seeing an open clerk at the airline counter. He picked up his luggage and walked the short distance so he could put it down on the scale. Willow followed behind him, biting at her thumbnail. When he finished checking in, Giles turned and gave her a smile. "All done," he said cheerfully. They walked to the end of the counter, within a few yards of the queue of people waiting to be scanned through security. "End of the line, I'm afraid. Thank you for giving me a lift, my dear." Unencumbered by his suitcase, he opened both arms to embrace her.

"I'm gonna miss you," Willow said, giving him a fierce hug.

"You have a safe flight tomorrow." He surprised himself by placing a kiss on top of the red head.

"I dread it," she said, pulling away so she could look up at Giles, "but I can't exactly be in a country without a stamp on my passport."

"We could do that," Rupert offered, "the Council, I mean."

"I'd rather do it the normal way," Willow replied, a small smile on her face.

"Good for you." He gave her another hug. "I am quite proud of you, you know. What you did, walking away from the selfish use of such power… You're a very fine young woman."

Her eyes teared up. "Aw. Thanks, Giles."

"I know it hasn't been easy, and I-I think a lesser person would have crumbled."

"Well," she said, sniffling, "I've had good role models." Willow cleared her throat. "Go on, now. Get in the line to the left; the people at that x-ray machine don't look cranky. Less chance they'll do a body cavity search."

"Yes," he said, pained. "That queue, then. Goodbye, my dear."

"Have fun," Willow called after him softly. She hadn't felt so blue in a long time, not since just after Sunnydale disappeared. With a final wave, she turned away and began walking back to the car, one of the plain little Saturn sedans Giles had leased for the Council's fleet. Before she got there, her phone beebled at her. Willow pulled it out of her jeans pocket and smiled when she saw the text message. Oz was waiting for her at the apartment, and Xander would be at work late, covering for Spike at the gym. Glad to not think about leaving her friends, Willow felt a nervous anticipation bubble up inside at the prospect of being alone with Oz.

⸹

"I don't know," Gunn said, hesitating. "I don't think Giles would approve of us spending Council money this way."

"'Course he would," Spike urged. "Part of our mission, yeah?"

Gunn looked longingly at the leather duster, a sleeker model than the one Spike wore. "Nah, I just can't, man." He turned and browsed through the rack of jackets behind him. "Now, I might be persuaded to get one of these."

"Why not the long one?"

"Then I'd be looking all Day Walker," Gunn said, thinking that he would have gone ahead and explained the Blade comic books to the other souled vampire. "Wouldn't want to be giving us away."

"Not fussed, just as long as you get sunglasses," Spike shrugged.

"What about you?" Gunn asked, looking up from a particularly fine jacket in black. They were in a leather store in Boulder, a shop unlike any he had ever been in. Part biker gear, part fetish wear, part adult bookstore, he wasn't sure where to look first and what to look away from first. Mostly, Gunn was grateful that the slayer had headed to a different section.

"Me?" Spike was amused. "Don't need anything else to fit in with a gang of biker demons." He shook his head. "Might accessorize, though. Chains, maybe."

"I've never seen you wear jewelry before."

"Aren't you the lucky bugger?"

"And I'm getting sarcasm because…?"

"You saw the last piece I wore." When Charles continued to look blank, he added, "The amulet?"

"Ohhh."

"You've come back to that one three times now. Go ahead and try it on."

Gunn pulled out the jacket and considered it as he held it in the air, then gave the blond man a reluctant grin. "Where're the mirrors?"

"Off to your left," Spike said, pointing toward the telltale mirrors he'd noted as a matter of course. He checked Tribby's location without looking around as he browsed through the rack of leather dusters Charlie had been perusing. Nothing as fine as the Italian coat he wore, but, then, it wasn't as fine as the one he'd obtained in New York.

"What do you think?"

"You look good enough to eat."

"Ha, ha." Charles took off the jacket.

"No, seriously, if it fits okay, it'll work. Makes you look tough."

"I always look tough."

"Uh-huh. Two thousand dollar suits may make the man, but they do not make him look tough."

"Even then," Gunn returned absently, moving hangers away from him as he looked for a larger size of the same jacket.

"Can I get them?" Tribby asked, coming up with some leather item draped across her arm.

"'Course, pet. Get what?"

"Chaps. I've always wanted black leather chaps, but they're kind of frivolous, especially in the South."

"Sky's the limit," he said expansively. It was easy to fall into the sugar-daddy role; he'd played it with Drusilla for years, after all.

The slayer grinned happily. "What about you, Gunn?"

"This jacket," he said, having just decided, holding it up.

"Nice." She turned to her sensei. "What about you?"

"Don't really need anything," he said, shrugging.

Tribby hesitated for a moment, then broke into a grin. "Come see this," she said, including both men with a wave. She led them to a low box atop a waist-high counter. Inside were tiny wind-up toys in various unlikely shapes. "Watch this; it's hilarious." She wound up a cartoonish, penis-shaped toy, and it hopped a few inches across the cardboard before toppling over.

"Okay," Gunn said. He looked over the selection. "I can figure out everything except that." He pointed to a brown plastic shape in the corner of the box.

"At first, I thought it was Captain Caveman," Tribby said, "but my guess is…" she looked away, and Spike sensed blood filling the capillaries in her cheeks, "a bush."

Gunn couldn't help it; he laughed out loud, which caused the blushing slayer to giggle. After that, the two of them browsed through the kinkier parts of the store sniggering and pointing like preteens allowed in a Spencer's Gifts for the first time. Spike trailed after the pair, occasionally throwing in a random dirty remark, but mostly enjoying the silliness of the two young humans. Not a bad way to kill time, he figured.

Holding up a DVD titled _Spanking Fresh Six_ , Gunn raised his eyebrows. "You know sequels; no way it's as good as _Spanking Fresh_ and _Spanking Fresh II: Without a Paddle_."

"Please tell me that you made up that title and didn't actually see it," Tribby pleaded.

He put it back on the rack. "I'll never tell."

The slayer wrinkled her nose. "I can't watch porn. I get the giggles and have to turn it off."

"Yeah?" He stared down at her for a moment, clearly imagining what would give her a case of the giggles. Then Gunn shook his head to the side. "Uh, what about you, Blondie Bear?"

"I can't watch porn, either," Spike said, "'cause I don't get premium cable." After Gunn snorted, Spike added, "Doesn't do much for me – seen too much in real life."

"Don't even go there," Tribby warned.

"Go where?" Gunn asked, wondering if Spike would elaborate on Angel's history.

"There," she said, gesturing toward the next aisle, stocked with rows of brightly colored and variously shaped vibrators. "Time to check out."

"C'mon," Charles teased, "you might find a new model you like."

Blushing again, she shook her head. "Nooo. I'm strictly organic, thanks."

"No porn, no toys," he said, still teasing, "don't you have any fun?"

"I'm absolutely no fun in bed," she agreed with apparent seriousness, but there was a note in her voice that made Spike send a speculative look her way.

When he felt Gunn's gaze fall on him, he raised his brows. "What? I don't need one, Charlie. A real man supplies his own." He snatched Gunn's hand, brought it to his mouth, and placed his tongue against the knuckles for a second. Then he let go and tucked his thumbs into his belt, smirking at the other man.

"What?" Tribby asked, looking between Charles' stunned expression and Spike's wicked one.

"Can all," Gunn cleared his throat and began again, "can all vampires do that?"

"Never met any others," was the smug reply.

"Oh." He had thought, for a moment, he had found an explanation for Angel's weakness for Darla.

"Do what?" Tribby asked.

"This." Spike took her hand, too, and placed his mouth against her palm, vibrating his tongue against her warm skin. He grinned as her dark eyes widened.

"Uh." She stared at him a moment, then grabbed Gunn's elbow and began tugging him along. "I'm overcome with lust! C'mon, I saw a dressing room somewhere." Tribby couldn't keep a straight face, though.

"Hey!" Spike protested as both humans started laughing. "Not without me, author of said lust."

"Yeah," Gunn said, still smiling, "a business trip that becomes a threesome. I'll bet that's the plot for one of those DVDs over there."

Spike grew still and eyed the pair of them, then shrugged. "You two? Yeah, I'd do it."

Tribby ducked her head, but Gunn laughed out loud. "Yeah, right."

"Are you kidding?" Spike shook his head. "Never done that with humans." He jerked his head toward the DVDs. "No matter what the actors look like in those things, in real life, most humans who'd go for it are older, jaded. The two of you," his grin widened as Gunn began to look uncomfortable, "young, healthy, gorgeous, strong… Yeah, I'd do it in a heartbeat." Not a chance of it happening, of course, but since he didn't have anyone to practice monogamy with, he could tease them with the idea.

Neither of them would look at him or at each other for an awkward moment, and it didn't take a vampire to sense that the idea intrigued them, too, surprising him. Then the slayer began to giggle, her face flushed. "You're awful," she said, nothing he hadn't heard from Dawn in the same happily shocked tone.

"No way, man." Charles shook his head, unable to keep a grin off his own face.

"Why not?" Spike gave him a flirty look. "Wouldn't have to do anything to overly threaten your het identity, Charlie. Just hands and…" He trailed off, putting his tongue against his teeth instead of finishing the sentence. He leaned into Tribby's personal space. "'Course, you'd be… saddled with two," he lowered his lashes for a moment, "very aroused males." She bit her lip and blushed even darker. Still giggling, Tribby held up a hand, as if warding them off, and walked away.

"Guess she does giggle at porn," Gunn mumbled.

When the tall human finally met his amused eyes, Spike gave a dramatic sigh. "Sometimes I just miss being evil."

"Yeah, well, that was pretty evil." He broke into a relieved grin. "She may not be able to look at either of us the rest of the trip."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Think we can talk her into it?"

"Her? Man, you can't talk me into it."

"'Course I could," he said with absolute confidence, then he ducked as Gunn aimed a swat at the back of his head. "C'mon, Charlie," Spike smirked, clapping him on the shoulder. Angelus was one thing; human men, with all their body fluids, were another. The lad didn't have to know that, though. "Just a passing thought. Let's go pay."

⸹

Buffy had never been more nervous in her life, not over starting college, not even the times her Mom almost learned that she was the Slayer. She checked her reflection in the mirror once again, then snatched up a tissue and blotted her lips. Another check. Buffy readjusted her bra cups, plumping up her cleavage.

Not bad. She still had a lot of the gloss she'd acquired in Rome, the nearly all-over tan, the expert hair color. She could turn heads. Feeling more confident, she headed out of the house. Dawn had driven her Jeep to Willow's, which was just as well. This way, she wasn't tempted to borrow it without permission. Buffy wasn't worried about walking alone, anyway. With Spike out of town, there was nothing that could come close to taking her down.

Her steps slowed as she examined that thought. Once or twice, he had held her at will, a couple of weeks ago in the gym, the awful evening she had asked him to bite her. Was he really stronger than her? Did he hold back for her? She almost stopped dead in the street as the mirror image of that thought occurred to her. Maybe she held back because it was him.

If he fought with all the weapons at his disposal, he could have killed her back in Sunnydale. She knew this. Spike had dark abilities, that was obvious. He had turned to smoke in front of her, just willed himself to do it because he'd seen Dracula do the same thing. Once or twice, she had seen him disappear into the shadows the way Angel always did. He could move with blinding speed, and Angel had said he had a natural aptitude for mesmer. He had never used any of those things against her.

Do we really need weapons for this? She had asked him that once. He hadn't. If not for her mother swinging that fire axe… But, God, what a fight.

Then she shook her head, picking up her pace. He hadn't used anything except speed and strength against either of the Slayers he had defeated. That was just Spike; it had nothing to do with her. He loved the joy of battle. Buffy's face eased into a smile, thinking of their last fight together, the charge up the stairs to the second floor of the office building. Spike had used his big knife, keeping his injured right side oriented to her left as she swung the Slayer's Axe. She never once had to step in to take up slack caused by his wound, but she had been ready to do so, aware of her partner's potential weakness as well as his strengths, his position, his own awareness of her actions. Thank God she didn't have to give that up. He was her second, her left hand in battle, her other half, and there was nothing better than fighting alongside Spike.

There was one thing that was just as good, though.

Her head jerked a little in negation, then she used the motion to shake her hair back, lifting her face to the cool night breeze. Not going there, Buffy told herself firmly. She had indulged herself in these memories, had a good wallow. Now it was time to think about the future. Seeing him in the light (And how lame is that? It's not even a metaphor!) of the evening sun before the battle had been an epiphany. He wasn't just her shadow, her dark half. Spike was a person in his own right, and she loved him. And the best way to love him was to at least do what she did for absolute strangers: keep him safe. Buffy firmed her chin, willing her lips not to tremble. She could do this, give up any chance of having Spike in her bed, of depending on his strength. She was a hero, after all. She'd died to save the world; infinitely harder, she had killed to do so.

It wasn't as if this would be as bad, she thought, even as she felt part of herself dying, nothing to counter the huge space gaping open inside her, empty of the joy and peace she had known for a timeless while, no more access to anything irreverent, unpredictable, fun, and wholly diverting. Planting a serene smile on her mouth, she stepped up to the door and knocked. After a moment, it opened.

"Hey, Angel. Mind if I come in?"

⸹

"You'd never be able to talk her into it," Gunn said as they waited for the elevator. He was dressed for his role, new leather jacket riding comfortably over a black hoodie and designer camouflage pants.

"A point you've made several times," Spike said, jabbing the down button again for good measure. "Why're you still on about this?"

"I'm not," the taller man replied defensively. "I'm just saying, there are certain women you just know you can have, and there are other women you know you can't. This slayer is a can't."

Spike stared at him until the muted bell announcing the elevator sounded. "Maybe the whelp's right about me," he mused, mostly to himself. The car was empty, so as they went in and turned to the doors, he asked, "Women you can't have, huh? Define this unfamiliar concept for me."

Gunn threw him a half-annoyed, half-fond look. "C'mon, Spike, even you know this is true. There are women…" He trailed off, not wanting to sound like a total tool. "There are some women where it's just about fun, and there are other women where it means something." His voice changed. "Fred, that meant something."

Spike nodded, considering this. "But it's relative, yeah? Your 'means something' girl might be my 'just fun' girl – not Fred, of course."

"Yeah, I guess."

The blond thought for a moment longer, then shook his head. "Still doesn't work."

"What do you mean?" The elevator doors opened, and they moved toward the lobby, where they were due to meet the slayer.

He debated arguing the omission of a third category, for the women you both honor and shag, but shrugged it off. Too serious. "There are no women I can't have, but there are women that I decide are off-limits." A smile lurked at the corner of his mouth.

"No women you can't have," Gunn echoed, shaking his head. "Man, you are insufferable."

"Probably insufferable, but not a man," Spike said, turning to give him a pointed look. "No human I can't have, Charlie, and as old as I am, precious few vampires." He shrugged. "Lot of other kinds of demons, too, but I get picky there. You have to take into account a serious ick factor."

"Harmony?" Gunn's voice made the eyebrow he raised superfluous.

"Harm," Spike said firmly, "was gorgeous. No ick. Dim as a two-watt bulb, but you'd do her, she wasn't a vampire."

"Yeah, okay," he conceded. A woman in a business suit skirted the two dangerous-looking men as she walked past, speaking into her cell phone. She was well-turned out, but seriously overweight. "No woman, huh? Her?" Gunn asked in a low voice.

Spike's eyes narrowed as he watched her stop at the registration desk. "Yeah. Heavy women have more orgasms."

"What?" Gunn laughed as he spoke.

"'S'true. More estrogen or something. Heard it on Oprah. 'Sides, like a Cadillac. Nice, soft ride."

Charles shook his head again; he had to. He sat down on the arm of one of the couches in the lobby and glanced around, zeroing in on a fussy, middle-aged man staffing the concierge counter. "Him?"

The lurking smile was back. "He hardly looks promising. Sometimes still waters are just stagnant. 'Sides, like 'em a bit younger. 'Bout your age, 's'matter of fact."

"What about her?" Gunn asked hastily, indicating a woman he could see sitting on a stool through the open doors of the hotel bar.

Spike's gaze sharpened. "Dark hair?"

"Yeah. Now, that is a 'just fun' girl." The woman wore low-rise jeans and an abbreviated top, a half moon of tan flesh exposed between the two garments. Gunn could see one bare shoulder through the mass of tousled hair that fell down her back.

Spike's smirk was open now. "Yeah, I'd do her. But I've already told you my conditions for that one." He cupped a hand to his mouth. "Tribs!" The woman on the bar stool swiveled around and held up her index finger, indicating she'd be right there.

"Oh my sweet Lord," Gunn breathed.

"Too bad she's on your can't list." Spike's voice was overly innocent. The slayer got the bottle of water she'd been waiting for, slid off the barstool, and started over to them.

"She's wearing the chaps."

"Close your mouth, Charlie. Not attractive."

"Hey, guys." Tribby held up the water. "I just couldn't bring myself to pay five bucks for this from the honor bar." She was wearing the new black leather chaps over blue jeans, a strapless black velvet top, and several chunky bracelets laddered along her arms. There was more hair and makeup than Spike had ever seen.

"Tribby?" Gunn asked in a hoarse voice.

"Yeah," she said heavily, rolling her kohled eyes. She pointed at him. "Great jacket. You look pretty tough."

"Where'd you get the…?" Spike waved a hand vaguely at her torso, not sure what to call her shirt.

"Bustier," she supplied. "Brought it from Cleveland. It's what you had in mind, isn't it?"

"You look quite the ho-biscuit," he affirmed, borrowing a word from Dawn.

She beamed. "That's what I was going for."

"Okay," Gunn said, having recovered, "do you want me to stare openly or just keep stealing glances?"

Spike suppressed a smile. Yeah, Charlie liked her, and he had a feeling she had just moved into his 'can' column.

The slayer laughed and held her arms wide. "Stare and get it over with." She glanced down at her chest. "Give them a thrill; they're usually squished inside a sports bra."

Charles readily took the invitation to stare. "I'm impressed."

"I take it back; please stop staring." She was smiling when she said it, though.

"This would be the part where I say, 'get a room,' but since you both have rooms and I'd like to get out of here sometime tonight…."

"Cool."

" _Hai_."

"Let's ride, people."

⸹

"So," Buffy said, watching Angel's face, "I thought you'd like to know."

"Yes," he agreed faintly. "Thanks. I…" He stood abruptly, and paced away for a few strides, then stopped, running hand across his hair. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, not sure what to do with his arms.

"I-it's good news," Buffy said.

"It is." He nodded his agreement and came back to sit beside her again on the couch. "It really is. A curse with no loophole." A smile crept onto his face. "That Willow, she's something."

"She is." Buffy smiled. "She said it was more of a binding than a curse. It means that if you lose your soul again, that will be the last time Angelus ever gets a chance to hurt people – and he won't have much chance, since Wil will pop it right back in again."

He gave her a full, joyous smile, something she had seen so seldom, then grabbed her in a big hug. "Really good news," he said emphatically.

Buffy was smiling too when he let go of her. He looked so young when he was happy. "We should celebrate," she declared.

"I have more wine," Angel said, then hesitated. "You may not want to, not after the last time."

"What happened to _mi_ sofa, _su_ sofa? Dawn is with Wil again tonight, helping with last minute packing, so no one will miss me."

"Okay." The smile still on his face, he went to the kitchen, so he didn't see the Slayer's wistful expression. "You know, Buffy," he said, thinking of Connor, "this is more of a relief than I can ever tell you." His greatest fear was that Angelus would kill his son; the demon had gotten rid of every relative Liam had. With the distance between Cleveland and California, there was no way Angelus could get to Connor before Willow reinstated his soul.

"It's a relief to me, too," she said dryly.

Angel paused for a fraction of a second on his way back to the couch, a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. He met her eyes, remembering the sketchy details he had of her disappearing act after she drove the sword through him. "I know it is," he agreed. Some people might think it was hard to have sympathy for the person who killed you. He put a determined smile on his face. "It's worth celebrating."

They drank, raising their glasses in a silent toast. Buffy cleared her throat. "It's always nice to be the bearer of good news, but I had another reason for coming over tonight, Angel."

"What?" His voice was wary, his senses catching a dozen subtle clues that made him think she was nervous.

She sighed, looking down into her glass, toying with the stem. "What you said about me. You were right." She looked up, meeting his eyes. "I don't love Spike."

"Sure you do," he said. He sighed on the inside himself; they were going to have another one of those conversations.

"I love him," Buffy agreed, retreating, "but you were still right. I'm not in love with him." She shrugged. "And that's okay. There's no law that says I have to be in love with him." Willow's words.

Angel looked down into his glass, at the red liquid there that was nothing like blood. He decided that it was better to not say anything.

"So, you know, you were right." Buffy chanced a look at him, but his eyes were averted. "It makes what I'm about to ask you easier."

He looked up, searching her expression. The Slayer was suddenly serene, as if the hard part was over. "Ask what?"

"If we could maybe try to lose your soul tonight."

Angel looked at her for almost ten seconds. "What?" he finally managed. His voice was hoarse.

Buffy raised her chin. "I'd like to make love with you, Angel. Not just to get rid of Angelus once and for all, but because I want to." She watched him begin to shake his head. "You kissed me the other morning, in Giles' kitchen."

"Buffy…" He bit his lip. "There's nothing that I'd like more, but… I feel like this would be under false pretenses. I… I'd be happy – don't get me wrong. But I really don't think I'd lose my soul."

"Why do you think that?"

He shook his head. This was a classic, no-win situation. "I didn't lose my soul when I slept with… with those other women. It isn't the sex, Buffy, it's the moment of perfect happiness." Angel put his wineglass on the end table, between two stacks of books. "In Sunnydale, you… I was your first, Buffy, and knowing that you trusted me that much, cared about me that much… That's what made it perfect."

"You think I just want to sleep with you?" Buffy had a gentle smile on her face. "I'm not going to let you off that easy, mister." She leaned closer and put her hand on his knee. "I didn't stop loving you, Angel, just because you left. You were my first love, and that's special. Being around you has been so nice these past weeks… When Willow told me, when I found out that there was a way we could be together, I-I quit hiding from the fact that I never stopped being in love with you, either."

"Buffy…" Angel felt numb. Was she saying what he thought she was saying, the impossible? "This is…" His face went hard. "Why now? Does it have anything to do with, say, the fact that Spike is out of town?"

"No, but it has plenty to do with the fact that I just found out about Willow modifying the gypsy's spell," she replied, still calm, "and the fact that she's leaving for Oxford tomorrow." She moved closer, raising her face to him. "And plenty to do with the fact that you kissed me in Giles' kitchen. I got the impression, Angel, that you still had feelings, too."

He looked down, saw her hand on his knee, and looked away. "You know I do."

"Over the years," she said, something brittle in her tone, "I've come to believe that the reason you left had nothing to do with you wanting me to have a normal life," her voice smoothed out, "and everything to do with the fact that we couldn't have a normal relationship." She moved her hand from his knee to his jaw. "We have that chance now."

Angel couldn't read her as she came even closer and touched her lips to his. Nothing lurking in her tranquil eyes, no hesitation in her kiss as she chose him. He wanted to not respond, to break away, but he found his hands gripping her arms, drawing her closer. She straddled his thigh and wrapped her arms over his shoulders, and a thousand forbidden memories came surging back of the way she tasted, the way she moved… "Buffy." Angel murmured the word against her mouth as she pulled away for a second to breathe.

She smiled. "I can't believe we're doing this."

Something primitive roared through him, not his demon, compelling him to claim her, and he sprawled them both onto the couch, covering her body with his, kissing her again. She made a little sound, protest or passion, and he stopped, bracing his arms to lift his chest from hers, leaving his hips pressed against her despite his best intentions. "No," he said, his voice ragged. "We can't. I-I can't, Buffy."

"Not here," she agreed, sliding her hand around his neck, pulling him down to her again. "I know the perfect place." She laid a trail of hot kisses along his jaw to his chin. "But… no hurry. I love to kiss you, Angel. Let's start there."

How could he do anything after that except return her kisses? She had always been able to seduce him with a word, a look, had slipped behind his defenses from the beginning. Maybe she'd always been inside his defenses. He ignored the trace scent of his boy that lingered on the sofa and turned all of his attention to this moment, to this woman, to this gift that he never expected to receive.

⸹

[Author's Note: This section has descriptions of graphic violence, including the threat of rape. There are also homophobic and racist remarks.]

"This feels right," Spike said. It was the second bar on the list the informant had given the Council. The first one they cased had been empty, and there had been evidence of a recent fight, windows with price stickers still glued in place, the odor of sawdust. Forty miles away, the second one had appeared sinister even during their daytime reconnaissance. In the daylight, the small, rundown building looked as though it hadn't seen any maintenance since Spike became a platinum blond. Now at least the dim light that made it through the bar's dirty windows gave the illusion of life. He powered down the window. "Smells likely, too." The only thing that indicated the building was open to the public was a stuttering red neon sign that spelled 'beer.' As he rolled the window back up, he turned to Tribby for confirmation. Of the Cleveland slayers, she had the strongest ability to sense demons. When she nodded, he twisted to talk to Gunn in the back seat.

"Right. Got your walkie?" He waited until the tall man raised the tiny device. "I'll squawk you when it's time for the big entrance. Won't take long."

"I'm cool." To emphasize his point, Gunn put on his new sunglasses, then lifted the bundle of weapons.

"Well, Charlie," Spike said, pleased. "No one would ever guess you're a brief."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Tribby had touched up her burgundy lipstick as the two men spoke. She ran a finger across her teeth in case of smears, and waited for Spike to come around and open her door.

"Thank you, sir."

"I'm not someone you thank," he said, low, "not tonight." She nodded and pasted a disdainful look on her face. "Better." He looked her over critically. "Dunno, pet. Maybe you shoulda braided your hair, worn feathers or something. You don't look all that, uh, ethnic to me."

What twisted her mouth wasn't a smile. "I don't need the corn maiden look. If we're in the right place, trust me, they'll know."

As they walked through the door, the noise level dropped considerably as the occupants sent unfriendly glances their way. The clientele of the saloon ranged from small and wiry to tall and overweight, thirteen in all, plus a bartender. Spike didn't see a single person who couldn't handle himself in a fight. He didn't see anyone with dark skin, either.

Spike looked down at Tribby, and she shook her head, disguising it as a scornful once-over of the grubby interior. She hadn't identified any non-humans, either, but their other senses were registering demons nearby. The blond straddled a chair at an open table and looked around for a barmaid, taking the opportunity to mark the exits. The only visible door was where they had entered. His own demon was buzzing like a toddler on a sugar high, spoiling for a fight, but a sliver of unease slid into his anticipation. Tribby was the only female in the place.

He caught the bartender's eye and held up two fingers. "Place makes Willy's look like a bloody tearoom," he muttered. At Tribby's uncomprehending look, he explained, "Dive in Sunnyhell."

She couldn't be bothered to reply, sitting on the edge of the chair as if she might get cooties, projecting a superior air guaranteed to make a certain type of man want to smack her around. The bartender brought over two mugs of the cheap beer on tap, and Spike pushed a twenty across the table to him, waving away any change. He didn't discount their server, but he was older, in his late fifties, maybe, and not as much of a threat as the other humans. Then again, he might have a shotgun behind the bar, which would pose a problem for Spike's team.

Tribby wrinkled her nose as the barkeep walked away. "You expect me to drink this crap?" Her voice was meant to carry.

"You're the one wanted to stop, princess," he said, put upon.

"Not here," she said, her mouth drawn into a frown as she pushed the glass across the table into his space.

"You are such a bitch," he sighed, but there was an admiring glint in his eye. He hadn't been sure the slayer had it in her.

"You can't talk to me that way."

"Right now, I can–"

"I'm takin' your squaw."

Spike saw Tribby's face darken in anger even as she shot him a quick 'told you' look. He looked up at the human who had spoken and raised an elegant eyebrow. "You're what?"

Tribby played it even better, flicking a gaze over the newcomer, a hulking, solid man with his gray hair pulled back into a thin ponytail. "Please," she scoffed.

The human grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head sharply back. Tribby froze, as if confronted with a force the temptation of her body couldn't, for the moment, counter. "Shut up, bitch." He dismissed her, turning his gaze back to Spike. "I said, I'm taking your squaw. I might bring her back when I'm done." He twisted his hand, tilting her head roughly so he could get a better look at her features. "If there's anything left."

Spike didn't say anything, just shrugged and took another shallow sip of beer, an especially hideous American brew. Disgusted that the blond punk wasn't going to fight him, the man hoisted Tribby like a sack of potatoes and carried her off under one arm. She squealed in outrage. Still holding his beer, Spike leaned to one side, interested to see if she would fall out of her top.

The other patrons cackled and catcalled. "Awright, Dawg!" one shouted, holding his mug aloft. Tribby scrabbled uselessly at his arm, then flailed at him with her small fists. Spike put his elbows on the table and took another sip, merely watching as the human maneuvered her around one side of the bar.

He felt her slayer's aura pulse, and knew she had seen something. Casually snatching a barstool, she used nothing more than wrist movement to swing it around and into the back of Dawg's head. He took another step before beginning a slow crumple, as if it had taken his body a moment to catch up with what happened to his brain. Tribby slid along his leg as his grasp loosened, finding her feet and stepping clear of the fallen man. She gave him a petulant little kick in the thigh, then went back to stand over Spike, glaring, her hands on her hips. Two of the now-silent customers went to Dawg's side, their faces a study in anger and disbelief.

"All right, then, princess?"

"No thanks to you!"

"Yeah," said another human, younger, bigger, and redheaded, standing up to walk toward them, "what kind of pussy are you, your woman has to do your fightin'?"

He scoffed. "Didn't need my help for that. Anyway, she's not my–" Impatient, Spike decided to skip the rest of the setup; there didn't seem to be any need. He slid a surreptitious hand in his coat pocket and pushed the send button on his walky-talky.

"Fuckin' bleach-blond pussy." The redhead was looming over the supremely unconcerned vampire now.

"Well, you know what they say," Spike grinned, laying his tongue against his teeth, "you are what you eat." Two of the bar patrons spat on the floor in apparent disgust at this pronouncement, and he stood up. "'Course, that would make you…" his grin widened to an insufferable degree, "a dick."

Over the decades, he had found that nothing, not even championing Manchester United, was as effective at starting a bar fight as slandering someone's sexual preference. The silence was absolute after this insult, all eyes going from him to Dick, whose reaction was impressive. His fair skin reddened in a wave that moved from his collar upwards, and for a second, Spike rather fancied that steam would come out of his ears. Instead, he pulled a huge knife from a sheath on his belt and brandished it.

"You're dead, you pussy, red-nigger-loving faggot."

"Sure," Spike agreed, bored.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Gunn asked, slamming open the door. He stood framed there, a tall black man taking up the entire entrance. Carrying a cell phone in one hand and holding the door with his other, he commanded everyone's attention, and the patrons froze again, trying to wrap their worldview around the appearance of an actual African-American in their domain.

Tribby stomped over to him, hips swinging. "This place reeks, and that waste of space you call a bodyguard didn't even lift a finger when one of these men assaulted me." She clung to him as if made of Velcro, and added in an undertone that only Spike could hear, "All human. Demons down a staircase behind the bar. Cellar, I think."

Gunn, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, shoved her away impatiently. "Get off me, woman."

"Now you'll get it," she sneered at Spike, a bimbo too stupid to realize her petty feud with her boyfriend's hireling was the least of her worries. Spike had a nasty chill of recognition. Harmony had acted nearly the same way with him.

"Shut up," Gunn growled, turning his head toward Spike. "I believe I asked you what was going on in here?"

"Well, boss," Spike said diffidently, "it's like this–"

"Boss?" Dick repeated, looking at Spike with renewed disgust. The vampire almost rolled his eyes. This guy seemed physically incapable of speaking to anyone who wasn't white or male. He briefly wondered if it was due to some kind of spell. "You work for this n–"

Spike stepped aside after shutting Dick up with a quick, rabbit punch to the redhead's nose, watching him topple onto the table, his weight breaking the cheap wood.

"They be some mighty unfriendly crackers up in here," Gunn said, laying it on thick.

"How," Tribby agreed gravely.

After that, there was nothing to do but render the humans unconscious. Spike picked up Tribby's beer mug and pitched it over the bar, some of the yellow fluid falling in a graceful arc to the floor as it went. The glass caught the bartender on the forehead, dropping him on the spot. Spike figured he was the most likely to press any alarm buttons. By the time the barkeep fell, Tribby and Gunn had split apart and put two more of the humans on the floor. The remaining seven men became five as Spike blurred across the floor to thump two thick skulls together, and five seconds later, the three Council representatives were the only ones standing. The sole sound was the dull drone of a Toby Keith song coming from the cheap speakers of the jukebox.

"You called 911?" Spike asked, just to make sure the cell phone had gotten through.

Gunn nodded and held out a katana for Tribby, who took it after she finished tugging her bustier higher. He started to say something, but was interrupted by a harsh voice from behind the bar.

"What's all the noise–" That was as much as the Carnyss had time to say before it toppled to the floor, the hilt of one of the knives from Spike's coat peeking from its eye socket.

He lowered his arm after the almost casual throw. "Right. I'll go first. If it's clear, I'll say something; otherwise, come down together."

"You swing to the left?" Tribby asked Gunn. When he raised his eyebrows, she added impatiently, "Your axe."

"Oh." He hefted it. "Yeah."

"I'll be on your right, then." She lifted the sword into an elegant hold, the upright blade poised next to her left cheek.

The two humans fell in behind Spike, who took a breath, pulled his favorite Gurkha _Kukri_ blade from his coat, and was down the stairs faster than their eyes could follow. They heard the blade slice through air and then through something more solid. Exchanging a look, they began the descent in tandem, Gunn ducking his head in deference to the low ceiling.

The scene in the cellar was nothing new to Charles, who had seen worse even before he joined Angel Investigations. Over twenty Carnyss demons were in the dank room, a rough rectangle gouged into the earth beneath the bar. Two tall wooden tables were the only furnishings. At one, several demons had paused in the process of breaking down a large brick of cocaine for street sale. Human body parts were tossed on top of the other table, and a Carnyss demon had stopped in the act of biting into a forearm to stare at the blond dervish who had just slain three of his fellows at the bottom of the stairs.

Spike had lived in places that looked like this, particularly just before the Scourge of Europe packed up for a different city, so he didn't even blink. "You'll notice," he said to the room at large, "that I'm blond, blue-eyed, and very, very white. Wonder if I could join your little gang?" The Gurkha _Kukri_ sang through the air again and through the neck of the closest Carnyss, and he raised his voice to be heard over the fall of the body and the thump of the head as it bounced off a wall. "You'll need help, as everyone upstairs is out of the picture–" slice, thump, another one gone "–though I have to wonder if they knew," he made another slash, whirled in a complete circle, and came around again to finish the job, "that there are limbs from white people in that pile over yonder."

The carnage was new to the slayer. She paused for a moment halfway down the stairs, taking in the number of demons, the gruesome buffet table, and the stench of rot and carnage. Tribby swallowed, then took an extra step to catch up with Gunn. One of the Carnyss finally got over the shock of the intrusion and stepped in behind Spike. With a low growl, the slayer outpaced Charles and went to protect her sensei.

He had known where the attacker was, and his blade and Tribby's flashed at the same time, leaving a cross-section of demon on the floor, upper body to the left of it and lower body to the right. Spike slid the toe of his boot under the thin middle slice and kicked it into the face of another demon, as if it were a Porterhouse steak. He followed the grisly projectile with a thrust of the dagger held in his right hand. Tribby fell back next to Gunn, putting her back against his as they blocked the exit.

The slaughter that followed was more methodical than any of the three preferred. The Carnyss either panicked and tried to rush the exit or went after Spike as he moved deeper into the narrow room. Gunn's axe rose and fell with regularity, the only variation if he had to use his foot for leverage in removing it from some unlucky demon's body. Tribby danced beneath the arc of his swing, hacking into necks and limbs as they presented themselves.

Spike spotted the Carnyss he wanted at the back, a cloaked figure with a hood draped over his horns. He shoved a boot against a demon that came up on his right, knocking it into the table piled with body parts, toppling both to the floor. This apparently inspired the two Carnyss working behind the cutting surface to overturn the table, intending to trap the vampire beneath it. Their tactic only succeeded in covering his left side with a spray of fine, white powder. The two demons exchanged a glance, smiling as they relaxed.

Shaking his head, flinging cocaine off his hair the way a dog would shake off water, Spike made a sardonic mouth. "I don't breathe," he said, blade in play, skewering one, "you useless git. Not gonna keep me from doing," another sweep of the _Kukri_ ruining a throat, "this."

The end of the battle, at least, was slightly more to his satisfaction. By the time he slashed his way to the chief, there were no other Carnyss left. The big demon snarled, threw off its cloak to display its horns, and came at him in a rush. Spike tossed aside his knife, growling low in response, a twisted grin on his face. The big demon grappled with him a moment, then slammed him into the earthen side of the room. Spike put a foot behind him and shoved them both away from the wall, taking the ungainly beast down. The chief fell hard, the vampire astride him, and with a quick twist of his hands, Spike was done.

He grabbed his Gurkha knife as he stood and swiped it on the dead demon's tunic, tucked it into its loop inside his coat, then shrugged the leather off his shoulders to shake it out. "What do you reckon?" he asked the two humans. Gunn was resting his hands on his axe, and the slayer was watching him with shining eyes. "Four minutes?"

"Less," Charles said, hoisting the axe over his shoulder.

"Here," Tribby said, "lean over." She brushed the white powder from Spike's hair, then slapped at the patch of black t-shirt that had been sprayed.

"Expensive dust." Gunn put a hand on the staircase rail. "Since I don't know how quick the police response time is out here, may I suggest that we ride off into the sunset?"

"Good plan," Spike approved.

"These guys break down into ectoplasm?" Tribby asked, twisting her head around to inquire as she followed Gunn up the steps.

"Do I look like I care?" He glanced over his shoulder, though, and decided that the cellar was no more an abattoir now than before their descent.

"They do," Gunn affirmed. He watched the slayer clean her sword with some napkins from the bar, her face averted. Worst case of hero worship I've ever seen, he thought, and turned to the hero who had been so brusque. "What's got you all grumpy, blondie bear?" Then Tribby sneezed into one of the napkins, blowing that theory as well as her nose.

"Not much of a fight," Spike said. "Leastways, I've proven my point about the Council sending too many Watchers on these little outings." He seemed cheered by the thought.

"Demons might disintegrate," Charles mused, "but the blow and the body parts are gonna go on these guys' rap sheets."

Tribby sneezed again, then said in a hard voice, "They deserve it. No way they didn't know what was going on down there."

"Right." Spike, thinking of the slayer being carted toward the cellar, gave Dawg's limp body a thoughtful kick in the kidney. "People, we're done here."

⸹

"Do you mind walking?" Buffy asked, looking up at Angel. Her arm was tucked into the crook of his elbow.

"No." He smiled, helpless against the small woman. "I don't mind."

"Seems right, somehow. Neither of us had a car in Sunnydale."

"I might mind if I knew where we're going. I don't," he said, voice low, "want to be too tired when we get there."

Buffy felt her face flush. "As if. A-and it isn't far." She felt her control over the events of the night slip a little. Angel never said things like that.

Blushing Buffy. The smile touched his face again, and he covered her hand with his. She was nervous, and he didn't blame her. He was, too. Facing Angelus wasn't the easiest thing for either of them. After a few more blocks, he frowned. "We're getting close to the gym."

"That's where we're going," she affirmed. "One of the things that Xander put in was a holding cage – for, you know, like Oz, or if we captured a demon that had information."

He nodded. "It's strong enough?"

"Stronger than the book cage in Giles' old library," she said, a little grin on her face. There was so much history between them, more good than she usually allowed herself to remember.

"More private, too, I hope?"

"More private." She nodded. "You'll know? Before it happens, I mean?"

"I'll know." Angel took a breath. "You will, too. It's like… my soul is being ripped away. Which it is, I suppose."

"Is it painful?"

"Some." He inclined his head. "We're here."

"So we are." Buffy firmed her chin. She had rushed home after training tonight to get ready for this, leaving Xander alone with the slayers despite his beseeching look. She had counted on everyone being gone by now, and the building was dark. Unlocking a side entrance, she led Angel down a seldom-used hallway to the cell at the end. During the renovation, Xander had lined the simple, square office space there with rebar and cinder block, reinforced the floor and ceiling, removed any wiring, and installed soundproofing. He finished by setting in bars over the front of the small room that were thicker than her wrist. Spike had gotten her to try to break out, and she hadn't been able to. Satisfied that it would indeed hold anything, he'd opened the door for her, not moving aside so that she had to brush past him. He had looked down at her with eyes full of admiration. Buffy quickly pushed that memory away. "Not very homey," she apologized.

Angel forced a smile. "It's fine." Homey, for him, was an adjective that fit in the worst way. His boy's scent permeated the building. So much could still go wrong, there was no use worrying about how this development would affect Spike. He decided to not think about that until later. "Fine," he repeated.

"Stay here," Buffy said, frowning at the bare room. She came back in just a minute, carrying two floor mats awkwardly beneath her arm. "When I was in kindergarten, we used to have naptime on mats like these. I always fell asleep, so they must be pretty comfortable."

"They'll be fine," he said, then told himself not to use 'fine' again. He helped her move the blue mats through the cell door, then there was nothing left to do but look at each other.

Buffy's lips parted, but words died before she could formulate them. Their only night together had started with them both awkwardly sitting on the edge of Angel's bed. Kissing, she thought, but how to cross the foot and a half of space between them? "Stupid," she said, tapping her forehead. "I'll go get the lights." None of this awkwardness with the other vampire, her brain helpfully tossed out, and she quashed that, too, full of resentment toward Spike for lingering in her thoughts.

She palmed down the light switch, and as she came back down the corridor, Buffy gave a mental shrug. Stopping outside the cell, she slid out of her jacket and shoes. Angel was watching her in the dim emergency lighting, so she caught his eye and began removing the rest of her clothes. It wasn't a strip tease, just a methodical and literal shedding of the layers between them. After watching for a few moments, Angel shrugged out of his own jacket. She stepped into the little room in her bra and panties, stilling his hands beneath hers as he began to work on the buttons of his shirt. Buffy took over the task. When the open shirt framed a narrow strip of pale torso, she swallowed and laid her warm palm flat against his cool flesh. Angel's mouth softened with a small smile, and he bent to her, kissing her, his hands skimming across her bare back.

The building was silent, not even a hum from the ventilation system. Buffy had gotten used to the sound of her own desperate breathing, and she twitched a little with surprise when Angel murmured her name against her jaw.

"We're really doing this," he said, ragged and amazed.

She pulled away and gave him a wavering smile. "We're really doing this," she agreed, "and not just now. From now on, Angel. Every night. Only, you know, in better places." Buffy watched happiness flare like a light in his clear brown eyes.

Just as she had intended.

⸹

A host of police cars passed them, headed to the bar with lights blazing and sirens blaring. Spike spoke with Dawn as he drove, asking her to send the jet for them the next night. Gunn and Tribby grew more chipper and confident as they rode back into the city and toward the hotel. Spike blamed it on his coat and the heater in the Escalade blasting warm air throughout the confined space. He hadn't shaken the cocaine off it as well as he thought. Smiling at the brash talk of the two young humans, he drove past their hotel. "Anyone else peckish? There's a Thai place I noticed down a ways."

"Thai?" Gunn gave a little moan. "Can we? I'm starved." He gave Tribby's shoulder a little push, the first time Spike had noticed him touch her. "And since your grandma's not around to feed me, that sounds like the best possible alternative."

When they parked, Tribby stepped close to Spike and looked up at him, all dark eyes and full lips. "I think your coat is still contaminated," she murmured, giving him a fleeting grin. "Gunn probably thinks it's the high after a battle."

"Rocky Mountain high," he said, making her laugh. He watched her walk away. Years of training herself to always be in a balanced stance had left her gait slightly pigeon-toed. The high heels Tribby wore tonight made her steps mincing rather than catlike, and the swaying seat of her blue jeans, framed by the chaps, became his focal point for a few seconds.

"Mm-mmm," Gunn said, coming to stand closer to him than normal, also admiring the view. "Hey, man, I don't think you got all the blow off your coat, 'cause I gotta tell you, I'm feeling no pain," he confided in a low voice. "I don't think Tribby realizes, though."

Spike looked up at the tall man, all bright eyes and full lips, and shook his head at the symmetry. "Right," he said, because if he said anything else, it would be to curse the fact that he was with two young, strong, gorgeous humans who now had a good deal of their inhibitions stripped away… and he wasn't evil.

He took off his coat and gave it a heartier shaking than it probably deserved, muttering, "Spike and his amazing black leather dream coat," then followed Charles into the Thai restaurant. The two humans were a touch too manic, a little too alert, but neither seemed prone to cocaine paranoia. After the spicy meal, he wasn't surprised that Gunn, full of energy, suggested they go across the street to a club. On a Wednesday, there wasn't a band or much of a college crowd, but the people who were there were, judging from the number of times they were approached for dances, grateful to see new faces.

Taking a break after dancing with two sorority sisters, Spike tilted his longneck up to drain half of it, then leaned against the bar to watch Charlie and the slayer on the floor, the natural grace of their strong bodies making them look good together despite the height disparity. They looked happy, and it made him smile. He raised the beer in silent salute to the pair before polishing it off. To the possibility of love.

⸹

"Oooh," Buffy breathed, her eyes closed as she moved over Angel. So close.

"Buffy."

"Baby," she whispered back, focusing on her own body, on the rhythm. His hips were too broad for her to use her knees, so she had dug her toes into the mat for balance and leverage. "Just like that," she encouraged him, although she was the one setting the pace.

"Buffy."

"Angel." Her head fell back. "Oh, Angel." It hadn't been like their other time at all. They were an hour into it, and she was concentrating on the moment in the same way she had learned to put herself in a trance.

"Buffy."

His sharp tone pulled her back to reality, and she opened her eyes, staring down at him. There was something panicky in his eyes, despite the fact that his hands were still on her hips.

"I love you, Angel," she said, smiling, even as she put a hand behind her, trailing it up his thigh, doing whatever she could think of to help.

"Get ou – Nnnn…!" He came even as he toppled her to the side. She didn't, but she had several times already. Buffy rose to her feet, calmly found her discarded undies, and closed the cell door behind her, leaving the convulsing vampire lying on the floor.

She was in her clothes, shoes to jacket, before she turned around again to face him. He was silent, looking at her with a trace of a smile on his face.

"Angelus." She inclined her head slightly.

"Buf." His voice was hearty, and he didn't care that she noticed his fingers were wrapped around the bars, testing their strength. "Haven't you been the busy little beaver."

She gave him a tight smile, then the finger before turning her back. Buffy pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her jacket and speed-dialed the number for Willow and Xander's apartment. "Hey, Xander. It's Buffy. Could you get Willow for me? It's kind of an emergency."

"I'm surprised you didn't have her in the room with you," Angelus said. "We could have had a threesome, me, you, and cute little Willow. But, then, if she'd known, maybe she would have tried to stop you from doing something… unethical. She's like that."

Buffy didn't turn around, didn't hunch her shoulders, but his mocking voice sank into her like bitter cold. She heard a clunk on the other end, then Willow's sleepy voice. "Buffy? What is it?"

"Hey, Wil. I, uh," she did hunch her shoulders now, "kind of slept with Angel."

"Oh, Buffy." She was still too sleepy to read meaning into the words. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. He's… not quite himself."

"Angelus?" Willow sounded completely awake now.

"Angelus." Buffy closed her eyes, imagining Willow's face, the rapid play of expressions as she sorted through the implications. "Do you have an Orb?"

"Rare things, those Orbs," Angelus said dryly.

"Of course; I keep at least a dozen around." Buffy smirked a little; if he could overhear her conversation, she was glad he'd heard that. "But, Buffy, if he's slept with other women, why did…?"

"Not the point right now, Wil."

"O-of course. Where are you? That will make it easier."

"He's locked in the cell at the gym."

"Okay. Gimme, I don't know, twenty minutes? Call me if nothing has changed in half an hour. Or, I'll call you when I'm done."

"Thank you, Wil. I really, really appreciate it." She said her goodbyes and folded the phone.

"'Not the point,'" Angel echoed. "I think it's extremely pertinent, how you gave Angel," his voice dripped with derision as he named his counterpart, "the big happy – although, I'd like to thank you on his behalf for the other little happies you gave him just now."

"The less you speak, the less I want to compel you to silence by force," she warned, going for a Giles-ish pronouncement.

"As if you'd hurt this body." He moved to a different place along the bars and began testing those. "Of course, I guess you could beat me until I couldn't talk." He smiled maliciously. "I've heard that's your specialty."

Buffy flinched. "Shut up."

"Make me," he said, tilting his head just so. Watching her face, he laughed. "Did you forget he was my boy long before he was yours? Angel can't mimic a potted plant, but I've got Spiky's mannerisms down pretty well. I used to watch him… all the time. Looking for the slightest infraction, a reason to tear into him." Angelus leaned into the bars. "Hey! Something we have in common, Buf. Who would have thought?"

Buffy looked at the ceiling. "God. Twenty minutes of this." Taking a breath, she returned her cold gaze to him. "Go ahead, Angelus. Why not? This is, like, your last meal."

He gave her an unpleasant smile. "Don't bet on it."

She returned an equally grim smile. "I win. Angel wins. You lose."

"Angel wins?" He laughed. "Oh, right. He might not want to look at this too closely, but he isn't me."

"No. He isn't."

Angelus flashed her a sharp look, then ignored the interruption. Really, there was nothing else he could do. "I don't mind examining this… this little scenario. You didn't do this," he gestured down at his still nude body, "because of how much you still," more sarcasm, "love him. You did it because of how much you love Spike. And love is a weakness." He gave her a rattlesnake grin. "I love weaknesses. So much fun to exploit."

"We both care about Spike, A-Angel and I both do, I mean. But that isn't the point."

"You said that to the witch," he noted, then paused to really throw all his strength into pulling on the bars. They didn't give. "I think it's exactly the point. You had a taste of what it's like with a demon," Angelus said, rudely clutching his genitals, "and no matter how often you played the slut, you never found a human who could give you that. So, you took my boy."

"He isn't yours."

"That's yet to be determined."

"He's the Master of your Order," Buffy flung at him.

"Spike fought Angel, not me." Angelus gave her a wicked grin. "'Not the point.' You took my boy to bed, and one of his many weaknesses is showing tenderness. A demon 'lover,'" he sneered, shaking his head at the offensive concept, "so I guess he served your human needs very well. But he was still a demon, huh, Buf?"

"His demon isn't like yours. That had nothing to do with it."

"Wrong! It had everything to do with it, and you hated that. A Slayer, wanting and needing something from a demon. You hated yourself." Angelus paced away, the heavy muscles in his thighs and buttocks moving beneath the pale skin. He turned back, the sight of the tears standing in her eyes making his own sparkle. "So you treated him like trash, because that's the way loving him made you feel, and then you opened your legs for any human who would have you. But it just wasn't… quite enough."

"Shut up," she ground out.

"Come on in, Buf," he invited. "Make me." When she only gave him a hate-filled glare, he laughed. "Spike, though, poor, deluded boy, is never going to see a human as competition. All he has to do is wait. Either he'll outlast them, or you'll dump them." Angelus crouched down and began going through the pockets of his clothes, looking for some weapon or tool. "But a demon, now… That's why you settled on Angel."

"You're wrong. There's no settling. I love Angel. I never stopped loving Angel. You've never loved anyone. A monster like you wouldn't understand."

"A monster like me knows exactly how humans think; that's how I've been able to survive so long. I know exactly how you feel. The point is," he said, standing up, "that you know Spike will respect Angel's claim to your," his eyes flicked over her in contempt, "rather scrawny little body – God, Buf, you're an American girl. Have a hamburger every once in a while." His grin sharpened as the skin around her mouth went white. "Anyway, you'll break Spiky's poor, delicate little heart, but you figure it's better than breaking his bones." Angelus considered this. "I'm not sure about that one, myself. His heart, I suppose. That's worse for him." Another grin. "But, personally… not as satisfying."

He looked into her pale face and walked close to the bars again. "But the funny thing is what you're going to do to Angel. He's afraid to look too closely, I can tell. Subconsciously, he knows, but he won't examine it."

"Examine what?" she asked tiredly.

"Your lies. You know he could plow you a hundred times without unleashing me, so you lied and told him that this," he gestured around the cell mockingly, "would be the beginning of a beautiful relationship." Angelus was just on the other side of the bars now, but she was too canny to get within his reach. "We both know it isn't. All you needed was to get him happy enough, once. Then, you'll leave him. If you even stay tonight, I'll be surprised, but I'll admit, you've surprised me before. You might ride him another time or two. Tomorrow, the next day, though, you'll leave him, because it isn't him you want.

"So much for happily ever after, huh, Buf?" With that, he flung Angel's set of keys into her face, aiming for her eyes.

Buffy caught them millimeters from her face, the sharp edges cutting into her palm. "Nice try. Got anything else?"

Angelus shrugged. "Had to make the attempt. The thought of a tragically blind Slayer…" He went to his demon face, throwing back his head and breathing in deeply. "Ah, the scent of Slayer blood." He dropped one hand from the bars and began stroking himself.

She turned away, lifting her upper lip in disgust. "God, I've got to apologize to Spike for calling _him_ a pig."

Angelus chuckled, amused. "Sure, because, after this, he'll want to chit-chat with you so much."

"You're wrong, you know," Buffy said, leaning against the wall. If this was the worst Angelus could do, throw his version of the truth at her, it wasn't so bad. "I love Angel. We're going to be good together. And happy," she added. "He can be happy now."

"But you can't." She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Angelus dropped back into human face and wrapped both hands around the bars. "You could have been, isn't that right, Buf? With Spike. Because, unlike Angel," again, his voice became acrid as he said the name, "he doesn't need you to be good. He takes you the way you come," and there was an edge to that phrase, too, "flaws and all. God knows Spike has his own flaws, hard as I worked to beat them out of him." Angelus shook his head. "Pathetic, Buf. As usual. Too frightened of what might happen to try for something big. You always did think small." His brown eyes gleamed with malice. "And that will be your downfall."

"Big words from a vampire in a box."

"You're thinking like a human, Buf. But every time Angel's porking you, I'll be there, somewhere in the back, saving it all up. This may be it between me and you, and," he drew himself up, "I actually have a regret when it comes to you." She remained expressionless, and he went on after examining her a moment. "I regret not crucifying you on the door of your mother's house. She would have been so upset… but I would have been happy to take her in my embrace and… comfort her.

"Ah, well," he shrugged, a cruel smile on his face, "even if we never meet again, someday I'll be free of fuckin' Angel and his precious fuckin' soul. Maybe in this body, maybe some other way. And when that day comes, I'll track down your descendants, your sister's descendants, and serve them what I want to give you."

His cold words chilled her, there was no denying it, but Buffy's voice was even. "Like I said, big words."

"Well, I'm not afraid to think big, like the immortal I am. I'll track down his descendants, too." Angelus' brows drew together as he realized something wonderful, and he began to chuckle. "You don't know. Oh, I have news for you. The only reason he did this, that it worked –" His voice became strangled, and suddenly he was holding onto the bars to stay upright.

Buffy checked her watch. "Right on time, Wil," she murmured. She closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath, feeling as filthy as if she had trudged through the entire sewer network of Sunnydale. The Slayer slumped against the wall again. Even through her eyelids, she saw a flare of white light.

"Buffy?"

"In here," she called.

"Are you all right?" Willow asked, all but skidding to a halt. "You look beat."

"Tired," she agreed. "Dealing with Angelus is not high on the list of things that raise my self-esteem."

"How did you get him in here by yourself?" Willow asked, turning toward the cell. Then she saw the naked vampire prone on the floor and turned abruptly back to Buffy, too on edge from the magic to blush. "Oh."

"Yeah," Buffy affirmed.

Willow took her elbow and drew her away from the cell. "But how did you, you know, the capital-H happy? Just the sex wouldn't do it."

"C'mon, I have to get the key." Buffy led the way down the corridor toward the main office, grateful that she didn't have to go into Spike's office to get it. "I-it just came to me, Wil, after what you said about modifying the curse. Angel and I have been talking more now than we have since he left Sunnydale, and all the old feelings came back…" She stopped outside the office door and turned to the redhead. "And the reason it worked is because," she drew in a breath, "this is for keeps. We're together, Angel and me."

"Oh. Wow," Willow breathed. Her mouth curved in a tentative smile. "Wow, Buffy." She gave her a hug. "So that's why it was the moment of true happiness."

"I didn't know where else it would be safe to do it," she said over her friend's shoulder. "I'd tested that cell myself and couldn't get out."

"Well, smart thinking," Willow said, pulling away and rubbing Buffy's arms.

"A-and I figured tonight, before you got on the plane to Heathrow, and the moment was right…" She trailed off, realizing that she was only a few words away from babbling. "I sound like a Cialis ad." Buffy opened the door and went to the key safe attached to the wall.

"Buffy, this is great. You two were always so good together," Willow enthused. "Any, hey! Clause-free curse leads to lots of happiness."

"Thanks, Willow," Buffy said, clutching the cell key in one hand and giving her another hug. "I don't know that anyone else is going to be quite as thrilled about this."

"Well, Xander and Giles should be okay with it, what with the soul-staying-put-ness this time."

"I was thinking more of Dawn." Buffy made an anxious face.

"Oh." Willow's eyes widened. "Spike. Oh."

"Spike," Buffy agreed.

"Oh, God, Buffy." Willow put out an awkward hand to thread their fingers together. Holding hands, they started back, walking slowly.

"How bad do you think it will be?"

"Dawn's going to be mad," Willow said. That was a given. "Spike… He's really changed since getting the soul, Buffy. He'll be fine. It'll take a while, and I'm not saying he isn't going to be upset, but… He'll be fine. Eventually."

The Slayer's face was tense. "You… You think he'll come back, Wil?"

Willow forced a smile. "Of course he will. Dawn's here, right?"

Some color came back to Buffy's cheeks. "Right. He'll come back for Dawn." She nodded. They had reached the hallway that led to the cell. "I'll just check to see if Angel has his clothes on, and–"

"Buffy?" The young witch made a 'sorry' face. "Dawn was still at the apartment. I-it was so late, she just decided to stay over and catch up with you tomorrow at the airport. She helped me with the purifying part of the spell."

"That's okay," Buffy said. She started to turn away, but Willow put a hand on her arm.

"What do you want me to say to her?"

"Oh." The Slayer closed her eyes. "Oh, God." When she opened her eyes, she was staring up at the ceiling, as if asking for divine help. "I-I didn't think I'd have to face her this soon."

"I'll tell her," Willow said, her voice quiet.

Buffy pressed her lips together, trying not to cry. She flung her arms around Willow, the third hug of the night, a post-resurrection high. "Thank you," she whispered.

"No problem," Willow replied. "Now, let's go in here and see how Angel's doing."

He was dressed and waiting, a smile stealing over his face when he saw Buffy with his deliverer. "Willow," he said, as soon as the cell door opened, "I can never thank you enough." He took her in a hug that, despite the care he took, squeezed the breath from her.

She looked up into his clear brown eyes, trying to get used to this new expression. "Anytime." The dark-haired man hugged her again.

"Hey, I'm starting to feel a little jealous," Buffy said sardonically.

With a laugh, Angel let go of the redhead and slid his arm around the Slayer. "You'll never need to be jealous," he promised, bending to kiss her.

Willow found she was smiling. The two of them had been so good together in the early days when Buffy first came to Sunnydale. "Well, I'd better get going. I'd like a little sleep before tomorrow. Good night, you guys."

"'Night, Wil," Buffy said, and the redhead was gone.

"Come back to my place?" Angel suggested, giving Buffy a smile that was too big to be shy. "We haven't really talked about it, but I'd like you to stay. Since I already have an apartment…."

"I'd like that very much," she agreed, lifting her face to his.

They walked hand-in-hand all the way back, both lost in their own thoughts. Relieved that Willow would break the news to Dawn, Buffy was thinking that she would ask Angel to take her by Watcher Central to pick up her things. Even after almost two months of leaving Italy, she didn't have very much to pack. She really, really didn't want to be living in the same house with Spike for the next few weeks, even if a part of her felt raw at the thought of being cut off from him. He was her best friend, knowing her true self in a way even Willow never had. It would be hard to be without him, but surely it would just be for a little while. She thought of the way it had been with the three of them sitting on the floor of Giles' basement, Spike with one arm around her and one around Angel, all of them easy and friendly despite the oddness. It would be that way again, eventually, as Willow said. It had to be.

Angel stole glances at the quiet Slayer next to him. She would be like him, he knew, nervous about breaking the news, especially to Spike. He was so happy, though, that he didn't want to think about that. Instead, he thought about his son, who would never have to face Angelus, about how much safer his future was. Then he thought of Connor's graduation picture. It was the only picture he had hung on the wall in his bedroom. He'd have to tell Buffy about Connor soon, but he thought he would take the picture down tonight and put it behind the wardrobe. Later. He'd tell her later.

⸹

The clock on the nightstand by his bed said it was half one, but it seemed later. Used to a different time zone, Spike supposed. He kicked his boots off and stripped the manky bedspread off the huge mattress before grabbing the remote. Too late for Jon Stewart or Letterman's top ten list, but maybe the hotel provided HBO or Skinemax.

When the soft knock sounded at his door, Spike was startled. It was Tribby; he could sense the slayer, her nervousness and something darker. The three of them had been back less than a half hour, and she had bade both him and Charlie good night, cheerfully and firmly.

Still in his usual jeans and t-shirt, he had no compunction about opening the door. "What's up, pet?" Her hair was combed out and fell straight down her back, lovely and dark, but she was wearing a too-big t-shirt and loose cotton pajama bottoms. He didn't get a seductive vibe from her.

"Spike… Would you please come to my room for a minute?"

"Uh, sure." He checked to make sure the key card was in his pocket. "Do I need my boots?"

"No." She forced a smile.

"What's going on, then?" Her room was across the hall, next to Gunn's, and she had propped it open with the door guard. They stepped inside, and he saw Gunn standing awkwardly by the bed, not looking happy and not looking at him. He was also wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. "Uh, Charlie, Tribs, I didn't really mean–"

"Spike," Tribby said, licking her lips, "first, everyone's okay, but Dawn's going to call here in a just a minute to talk to you."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She gave him another forced smile and darted a nervous glance at Gunn. "Everyone is fine, it's just–"

The telephone on her nightstand rang, and she took a deep breath before answering. "Hey, Dawn. Yes, he's here." She listened for a moment, nodding despite the fact that Dawn couldn't see this. Then she held the phone out to Spike.

"'Lo, Nibblet. What's going on?" He sat down on one of the double beds to listen, and the slayer squeezed in to sit between him and the nightstand, not touching him, but closer than was normal.

"I'm going to kill my sister, is what's going on," Dawn said, her voice bright with anger and energy despite the hour.

His brow cleared. "What'd she do now?" Spike watched Gunn meet Tribby's gaze and come to sit down on his other side.

"Spike, promise you'll come home to me."

He frowned. "'Course I will, love. You're sending the plane; we're flyin' out tom–"

"She – Where Willow changed the curse, Buffy slept with Angel so that he would lose his soul, and Willow put it back with the new curse. And now she's going to stay with him for good, Spike. And she never said anything about this to me or to Willow, just did it, went out on her own like she always does, and you know that never works out. I swear, this time I'm gonna…"

Spike felt himself go numb as this sank in. Angelus was gone for good, because Buffy had slept with Angel. Willow used the new curse, the one without a clause, to put the soul back. And Buffy was with Angel now.

He had no clear memory of what he said to Dawn, of hanging up the phone or anything after that. He was lost inside a black, buzzing haze of hurt and pain. He'd been here before, floating and unattached to his body between torture sessions after the First Evil captured him and bled him to open the Seal of Danthalzar, an unhealthy refuge from unabating pain, but the only one he had.

The difference was, this time he knew no one was coming to rescue him.

⸹

"How'd it go?" Xander asked, opening his arms.

"He sounded okay," Dawn replied, troubled. She sat the phone back in its cradle and moved into his embrace. Willow, faced with a long flight and tired from performing the complex ritual, had gone to bed.

"He'll be fine, Dawnie," Xander promised, kissing her on the top of her head. "They'll take care of him, just like you asked."

"He promised he would come back, at least. That's what I was most worried about."

Xander nodded, his sympathy coming from experience. "It isn't easy when you get rejected like that." She met his eyes briefly, her given memories of their first year in Sunnydale coming to mind, remembering the crush he had on her sister. "But he's a survivor, Dawnie."

"The cockroach of vampires," she quoted.

"Well, I wasn't going to use that phrase, not tonight." Xander sighed.

"How could she, Xander? With no warning at all, how could she?"

"God, I feel for him." He slumped against the couch, pulling away so he could meet her eyes. "But to never have to worry about Angelus showing up… That's very much of the good."

"I know." She shivered a little. The memories weren't real, but he had tried unsuccessfully to lure her from the house once, the exultant sparkle in his eyes scaring her. She had been sitting at the kitchen counter when the call about Ms. Calendar came, too. Seeing Buffy and Willow clutching each other on the floor and sobbing was one of the most vivid and frightening memories she had, real or implanted. "Giles will be happy, at least."

"He has the most reason to be glad that son of a bitch is gone." Xander put his scratchy cheek against her hair, thinking of how Giles had managed to stay on his feet when he'd rescued him from Angelus' mansion, how much his respect for the man grew after witnessing that. The Watcher wouldn't be altogether happy, though. Ever since Willow's last memory spell, when he had briefly had a son named Randy, there had been a bond, such an odd thing, between the head of the Council and the blond vampire. No, not even Giles could be entirely happy about this.

⸹

[Author's Note: The misquoted lyrics in this section are from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Scar Tissue.']

Spike came back to himself abruptly, opening his eyes. Two hours, he guessed, and he took stock. His soul was curled in on itself, and his demon wasn't in much better shape. It was the cold, analytical part that brought him back, the inner anarchist, and it was compelling him to move, to get out into the night, to kill.

His body wouldn't respond, so he took a moment to check his physical condition. He was lying on one of the beds in Tribby's hotel room, secure and protected between two warm human bodies. Very faintly, he snorted. He'd gotten them both into bed, after all . His head was pillowed on Charlie's arm, the tall man's jaw resting against his hair. Tribby was curled against his other side, a small hand on his chest and one knee drawn up over his leg. He closed his eyes, caught between gratitude for their unselfish friendship and resentment that they had seen him at this new low.

Spike disentangled himself from the two, scooting down to the end of the bed. The slayer woke first, following him, one hand on his arm. Blinking, Gunn sat up, too, so that Spike found himself standing in front of the two sleepy humans. He looked at them for a moment, Tribby's dark eyes full of the knowledge of pain, Charles' green ones so sympathetic. "Thank you," he said gruffly. Spike leaned down and took the slayer in a rough hug, breathing in her scent, his nose buried in her hair. He kissed her, claimed her.

"Thank you, Charlie." He embraced the young man, taking in his scent, then kissed him lightly on the mouth. _Mine._

Looking much more awake now, Gunn mumbled, "Uh, you're welcome."

The blond man nodded, gazing down at the two lovely humans. As with Kayla, it had only been a matter of time before he claimed Tribby. Gunn, though… He had been Angel's. Something hard and bright pulsed inside him at the though. Only fair; Angel had taken something of his. Spike tamped it down.

His demon was more awake now, and it was clamoring to feed, to fight, to fuck, to lose itself in unrelenting motion. So easy to do, he supposed, just use the mesmer. They were already pliant and trusting on a bed, beautiful young things for him to break. Or he could sink his fangs into their necks, Gunn first, because he was more wary, then the woman, leave their bodies like empty husks as his response to the Slayer's betrayal. He could place them under thrall, or even break his long drought and turn them, taking everything from them and remaking them in his image, run with them and forge a new family and get lost in the wide world.

"I've, uh," he managed, because he could not do any of those things, "I've got to go out."

"Not alone." Tribby put her hand on his wrist. She had never touched him so much before. "We'll come with you, won't we, Gunn?" She turned to him.

Charles made himself look away from Spike, from the vampire's once-blue eyes. "Sure. Cool. Of course we will."

Tribby looked up at Spike, then turned back to Gunn and pulled his face down to hers, kissing his mouth softly, completing an unstated ritual. "What happens in Boulder," she said, standing up, "stays in Boulder."

Spike closed his eyes. She got it, something in her slayer's blood allowing her to understand on a primal level. It didn't matter if his demon lost face; these two belonged to him now. He couldn't smile, but he opened his eyes and made sure he met each gaze. "Get dressed; get stakes and a blade. Whatever we find, dies."

Gunn looked between the other two warriors, then dropped his legs off the bed and stood with them. He didn't understand, but he followed the slayer's lead. "We're with you, man," he said quietly.

The vampire nodded. The fact that Charlie didn't get it, but would be at his side anyway, made the companionship mean more, somehow.

They met in the hallway, all of them armed and dressed in black. Spike drove slowly through the deserted streets of the small city. Sometimes he would sense something, but more often it was the slayer's quiet 'here' that made him stop. Then the three of them would descend on whatever lived in the mausoleum or abandoned house or boarded-up storefront, dealing merciless death. Spike's blade rose and fell, and he went through three stakes and didn't bother to find a replacement, just used his old, powerful hands on fledges to decapitate them. The destruction didn't make him feel better, but each doomed demon was like storing away calmness against the storm coming in the near future.

Sunrise was imminent when he tossed the keys to the sleepy valet. His two humans followed him into the hotel, flanking him like an escort of bodyguards. When the elevator got to the floor where they were staying, Tribby refused to leave him alone, her implacable gaze not allowing Gunn to leave, either.

"My room, then," Spike allowed. He stripped off his ruined clothes, spattered with too many body fluids from too many kinds of demons to be worth packing, and sprawled on the mattress.

"Here," Tribby said, unperturbed by his nude form, and he remembered that she'd seen Silvia's statue. She was holding out a thermos, the last of the blood he'd brought from Cleveland. Too tired to protest, he took the path of least resistance and drank it down. She put the empty bottle away, pulled a sheet over him, and turned off the light. Spike closed his eyes, listening to her movements, the slide of her zipper. There was a knock on the door, and the slayer went to let Gunn in.

"How's the jaw?" Without Spike telling her, Tribby had watched out for Charlie and at one point had stepped between him and an axe wielded by a desperate vampire. She grabbed the handle, but underestimated the momentum and absorbed part of the impact on the face, dislocating her jaw.

"Almost healed." Spike heard the sound of the door closing, then the slayer half-sang in a quiet voice, "'Talk soft with a broken jaw.'" 'Jaw' sounded like 'zhaw,' and she sighed and added carefully, "He'll 'make it to the moon if he has to crawl.'" Spike could tell she was looking at the bed, at him. Apparently, Gunn was puzzled, because Tribby said, "Never mind. How are you?"

"Tired."

"Let's get to bed, then."

They surrounded him with their warmth, same as before, Gunn back in his t-shirt and pajama bottoms on one side, Tribby sleeping in panties and a modest sports bra on his other. Spike thought he slept, a natural thing for him to do as the daylight pressed against the barrier of the heavy curtains. The humans dreamed, eyes moving behind their closed lids, Charlie sprawled on his back, Tribby pressed familiarly against his body in the manner of someone used to sharing a bed. At one point in the early afternoon, he realized that they were Dawn's substitutes, that this was his Sweet Bit's way of looking after him until she could do it herself. She would have told them to not leave him alone, told them to make sure he had physical contact. Tears rolled across his cheeks at the warm, breathing proof of how much she cared. She loved him, and her soul was –

No use thinking that way. Dawn was her own person, was not B – was not her sister. Spike let himself circle close enough to the news to touch it, like prodding a sore tooth with his tongue. Angel, who was his best friend after Dawn, and Buffy, who was his… who was everything.

There was no sense to it, only emotion.

Betrayal.

Hurt.

And, building, rage.

The two humans let him shower alone, at least. He held a washcloth under the spray, letting it fill with water so he could then wring it out, and listened to them exchange life stories. Charlie's father had left the family before Gunn began grade school and had been killed in a car accident soon after. His mother never remarried or even dated, but put all her energies into raising her two children and working in city government to earn a living for her small family.

When he was barely fifteen, Charles was called into the school office. His mother had dropped dead of a sudden heart attack at her desk, leaving him to look after Alonna. They had no other relatives, and child services wouldn't let them stay with neighbors. Afraid they would be separated, the brother and sister snuck off to live with a friend who was in a gang, a different kind of gang, one that kept the neighborhood safe. Charles found out that very night that vampires were real. As the years went by and they left childhood, the dream of getting their GEDs and going to college dropped by the wayside in the daily struggle against demons. Then Gunn met Angel, a different kind of vampire, and Spike stopped listening.

He shampooed his hair, and by the time he finished that, Tribby was telling Gunn about growing up in Texas. Her father taught physics at a university, and her mother did volunteer work. She grew up in the country, riding horses and dirt bikes and four-wheelers. The idyllic childhood ended when her father took a job at Northwestern when she was eleven. By the time she turned twelve, her mother had an affair that ended her parents' marriage, and Tribby was dumped 'for a while' with her grandparents in Tennessee. When her grandfather died the next year, both parents were already remarried. Her mother was now on her fifth husband, and her father had three children with his new wife. Spike shut off the water, and the voices ceased. When he came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, only Gunn was there.

"Hey, man. Tribby went across to her room to shower and pack. Plane's still leaving at ten, right?"

"Right. Would you drive? That way I won't have to black out the windows." Outside, the sun still shone down on the rugged Colorado landscape. Spike was pleased at how normal he sounded, at how he was able to simply pick up his suitcase and begin packing instead of hurling it and every piece of furniture in the room through the window.

He sat alone in the back seat as they drove to the airport in Denver, using the slanting evening sunlight as an excuse. It was easy to ignore the slayer's concerned look, and he stayed apart from them through the short wait and boarding. Spike had to admit he felt something ease inside when she took the seat next to him on the chartered jet and tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. Tribby fell asleep against his shoulder, an unintentional but effective way of forcing him to maintain the soothing physical contact.

Spike had driven them all to the airport in his truck, and as they were putting the luggage in the back of the cab, Gunn casually said, "You don't mind, just drop me off at Xander's." Expressionless, he nodded, understanding that the Slayer had moved in with Angel, and Angel's houseguest would be staying in Willow's old room for the rest of his visit. They all rode in the front seat, Tribby's hip pressed against his. He didn't get out of the truck at Xander's apartment, just waved back at the dark-haired Sunnydale native, avoiding his sympathetic gaze, looking away when Charlie leaned over to squeeze his hand. Tribby stayed next to him as he drove her home, apparently following Dawn's instructions to the letter.

She hefted her suitcase and came around to the driver's side window, glancing toward her apartment building. Tribby's voice was brisk, her jaw healed, but her eyes were full of sympathy. "Do you want to come up for a while?"

"No. She'll be waiting for me."

Nodding, the dark-haired slayer gave him a small smile. "Yeah, I didn't figure you wanted to walk up four floors at the end of a journey. Say hi to Dawn for me, and," she shrugged, "you know, call me if you need anything."

"Right. See you at the gym." He pulled away, knowing Cleveland well enough now that the trip to Giles' was almost automatic, unthinking, which was to the good. Watcher Central was quiet when he opened the kitchen door and stepped in from the garage. Spike could sense his slayers asleep upstairs. Rupert, of course, was in Chicago with Olivia. And Dawn… Dawn was waiting for him.

He hung his coat on the row of hooks by the front door, then carried his suitcase to the stairs that led down to his basement. He took a breath before opening the door and made it down four steps before Dawn moved into view. Her jaw was set in anger, but her eyes were just for him.

Spike had managed to hold it together just long enough, it seemed. He threw the suitcase over the rail and onto the concrete floor with a force never imagined by baggage handlers, the frame warping, his cache of clothes and weapons spilling onto the cracked concrete. Spike went over the railing after it, his face twisted with agony. He kicked the case into two pieces, the top half going into the wall. Chips of cinderblock flew across the room. He picked up the remaining half and literally tore it apart, high-impact polycarbonate splintering beneath the strength of his hands.

Spike stood in the pile of clothes, his breathing harsh, and Dawn came up behind him and slid her arms over his shoulders. Her breathing and heart rate were normal, calm, unafraid of him even in this extreme state. Because her trust was the most precious gift his demon had ever received, and because he would never, ever violate that faith, Spike was able to draw in one long, final, ragged breath and rein in the need for destruction.

Dawn's hand went to his belt and tried to undo it, but she had almost no experience with men's clothes, so he took over, pulling it from his beltloops and letting it drop on the floor. Spike let her lead him to the bed and sit him down, watching from a long, tired distance as she slid his boots from his feet. He didn't know if being thus unencumbered was psychological or not, but when she stood up, it was finally time. His face screwed up, and he put his head against Dawn's stomach and wept, his arms wrapped clumsily around her waist.

She stroked his hair, not speaking, her own tears streaming down her face. Spike must have cried when Buffy died; she couldn't imagine that he would have been able to keep it in. Dawn remembered him drawing his coat over his face, feeble protection from the sunrise that terrible morning, but she had no clear memory of sobs like this. She had seen Spike's tears many times, but these terrible sounds of grief… She didn't remember; maybe she hadn't wanted to remember. Maybe her own grief had been too great to allow memories to form.

After a long while, she was able to get them both under the covers, and he wound himself around her, his face hidden against her neck, the sobs intermittent. Her own tears had dried, and even her anger seemed a small thing before his pain. "I love you, Spike," she said, simple and true. "I always will." The vampire's embrace tightened for a moment, making something in her shoulders pop and creak, and his grasp eased. She didn't expect a reply, and they lay in silence for a long time.

"I've never been in love," Dawn mused, her voice small. "I used to wonder if something was wrong with me, but now… Now I'm glad I haven't. It's too hard." She absently wiped her eyes, not entirely aware she was crying again. "I've had crushes, but never anything real or not magicked on me." She sighed. "You've been in love twice, I guess, the real thing. I don't know how you do it. You're the bravest person I know."

"Stupidest," he croaked, the velvet of his voice ruined.

"That, too." Dawn allowed herself some slight relief when she felt his abdomen hitch in a short, silent laugh at her unexpected insult. He was still in there, somewhere beneath the heartache. "Here," she said matter-of-factly, "move. You're on my hair, and I want to lie down on my side." He moved away just long enough for her to get comfortable, then wrapped his arms and a leg around her again. "If I fall asleep, Spike, it isn't because I'm not here for you. It's just that I'm human, and it's late." She felt him nod, and it was the last thing she remembered until morning.

When Dawn woke up, her back was cradled against Spike's chest, and he was stroking her hair. Spooned against him, she closed her eyes again. "What time is it?"

"Couple hours after sunrise." The answer wasn't really helpful to her, but before she could point this out, he added, "Half eight."

"Oh." She needed to go to the bathroom, but he had one arm tucked around her and his knee insinuated between hers. "Did you sleep?"

"No." Then, on the same breath, "Why?"

Dawn closed her eyes against the stark question. "Why this way? I have no idea." She was glad she was facing away from him. "Looking back, I can see her building up to this, and at least I can tell you why she felt she needed to do it." Dawn opened her eyes and stared at the edge of the mattress. "She did it so she could give you up, I think. She couldn't do it by herself." His pain was a burden that she didn't want to shoulder, but she turned to look at him, anyway.

Spike's eyes were closed tight, and after a struggle, he managed, "But… why?" He gritted his teeth, opening his eyes. They were quite black, and Dawn knew that, emotionally, he wasn't anywhere near acceptance. "I have a soul and a demon, and neither – I just… I don't understand."

"Because she hurt you, Spike. I think," she drew a breath to go on, "I think it would kill her to hurt you again. She doesn't like who she is, what being the Slayer has done to her, what she was capable of doing to you. If she ever physically hurt you somehow that wasn't a hundred percent accidental… She'd just give up."

"Physically," he said cynically, focusing on only one phrase.

"She's the Slayer; she understands the upraised fist. Buffy," and she watched him close his eyes when she said the name, "already lives with emotional pain every minute of every day." _Except when she's with you._ Dawn still couldn't keep from being jealous of that.

"Needn't be that way," he ground out.

"Spike," she said, her voice full of dread, because she should have known he understood with whom Buffy could be at peace, "maybe Angel makes her happy." He turned his face away, not deigning to reply, and Dawn couldn't blame him. She had never seen two people less likely to be a happy couple than the Slayer and the other souled vampire. Buffy lived to shop; Angel hated to spend money. Buffy loved to go out; Angel was a homebody. Buffy could barely stay still long enough to watch a movie all the way through; Angel could spend hours digesting a book on philosophy. But her sister was the most determined person she knew. If she decided there would be happiness in her life, she would grimly set out to make sure there was.

Dawn left Spike alone long enough to go to the restroom and grab some breakfast, then stayed with him the rest of the day, Friday, and through the night. On Saturday, she got him to drink some butcher's blood. Watching him, she ventured, "I need to go get a shower." When his fingers tightened in her hand, she added quickly, "Would you like anyone to come down while I do that?"

 _Angel_ , he thought, and closed his eyes. He'd never have that again, the bone-deep comfort of the family bed, not now. "No."

"Rona's back. Or Vi, maybe?" she pressed.

"Yeah, all right. Send them down."

Two for one, Dawn thought, but didn't smile. He wasn't anything like himself; he was colder, withdrawn. There was something about him that was… unpredictable, for lack of a better word, as if he might do anything, so much like before he had a soul or a chip. It worried her.

⸹

Spike watched Dawn trudge up the basement steps, then closed his eyes. Alone. It was almost more comforting to be by himself. Something inside him was numb or just missing, a worrisome absence of his unflappable inner anarchist, quiescent since getting him on his feet in Boulder. The last time the part of himself that was neither soul nor demon had gone on walkabout in disgust with falling for a Slayer, he'd hooked up with Drusilla and chained the Slayer so he could –

Never mind, then.

God, this was hard.

Two of his came down the stairs, claimed so long ago in the town he'd destroyed, taking them as his own so that he was obligated to keep them safe. Some of them had died anyway, but at least he'd been the sacrifice, not any of his family. He'd been a broken thing, his mind fragile from technology and the supernatural, but she'd called him a champion, made him feel –

No.

Vi and Rona curled around him, their scent heavy with anger, their expressions sorrowful. He could kill them with almost no effort, drain them or not, turn their presence in his bed into a carnal event, rutting with both. They were his, his to do with as he wished. Spike looked at Rona, her sober face and tender eyes. His to keep safe.

Sighing, he made himself answer some question she posed, told her what she wanted to hear for her own comfort. Vi rested her ginger head on his chest, her thin arm wrapped around his waist. He knew what was expected of him, the level of maturity with which he should respond. A human would do that, put on a brave face, remind everyone he'd said he wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn't with him.

He wasn't human.

She wasn't happy.

Spike could read her emotions as easily as he could these two young ones. He hadn't noticed it as it began with the tenuous friendship that had grown between them after Willow brought her back, but he had intuitively clutched at it when they began their fierce sexual exploration. The old truism was that madness was divine, and it was when he was in bits after the First Evil began its attack that he understood that the Slayer was happy when she was with him. On one level, it didn't matter; he was happy to be near her no matter her own emotional state. But however she felt when she came to him – and she did come to him – eventually her heart rate moderated, her mind turned from her own troubles, the tension eased from her brow and mouth. Memories of heaven, ever present, receded.

Sometimes it took the Slayer hours to unwind; other times – his favorite memories –her face would light up in an instant, happy to see him because it was him, not because of what he did for her. They were good together because they had weathered the absolute worst that any couple could face – death, violence, other lovers, the opposition of friends – and still had love. Not even his love for Drusilla had been so thoroughly tested.

He kissed both slayers on the forehead with absent fondness, a frown on his own brow. Did it all come down to the individual moments, where what she had done one night under terrible stress was worth more than all they shared, their love? Did certain moments in time weigh so much that they warped the Fates' thread e'er after?

Stupid poet. Shut up.

Nevertheless, he had one of those moments, too. Something had slipped through his fingers the night bloody Riley Finn came back to Sunnyhell and found the Slayer in his bed – well, in his crypt. He'd felt it as a physical thing, sliding inexorably away. She had asked for his love, and he was going to tell her about the soul, so she would understand that the love he gave her was real. It had always been real, but the soul gave it a human face that she could recognize. Then Soldier Boy arrived and everything went pear-shaped. It had taken him and the Slayer almost a year to get back to that level of intimacy, then the First Evil had its Bringers kidnap him and time ran out. But, as pivotal as that night was for him, she had already beaten him and left him sprawled helpless amid the other garbage on the floor of an alley. Had even that point been too late?

Spike closed his eyes, feeling the slight increase in pressure against his ribs each time Vi breathed in, hearing the slush-slush sound of Rona's blood pushing through her arteries. It had been too late the moment Doc got behind him on Glory's tower. His fault she died. No one should be asked to give up heaven.

Which brought him, full circle, back to the source of his confusion. Why? If they loved each other, if their bodies moved in perfect union on a battlefield or in a bed, if he was her escape… Why was she with Angel? Didn't she know that this hurt more than any beating? To be tossed aside for Daddy once again?

Not going to think about it. He stroked Rona's arm and Vi's back and did not otherwise move.

But his eyes went to yellow anyway.

⸹

"Spike?" Xander cracked open the door. When no one answered, he went down the steps. He hesitated on the last step when he saw two feminine shapes tucked against the still vampire, looking for all the world as if he as comforting them instead of the other way around. Asleep, he thought, then realized that Spike was looking straight at him. "Hey," he said softly.

"Whelp." The blond head inclined slightly, making Xander smile at the old nickname. "Here, lovelies, wake up now. Go on, then." Rona and Vi sat up groggily.

"Hey, Xander." Vi ran a hand through her short red hair.

Rona nodded at him. "What time is it?"

"Around five." The dark-haired man gave Spike a pointed look. "Nice day out there for the sunlight-averse. Overcast," he added, catching Vi's puzzled look.

"Oh. Are you, uh," she sent Spike a careful look, "going to be at the gym on Monday?"

"I'll be there, pet," Spike said.

"Don't get too cocky," Xander said, leaving as wide an opening as possible. The blond man didn't take it, though. "I'm a hard act to follow. I've been teaching them marching cadences." It was Spike's turn to look puzzled. "You know: 'I don't know but I've been told/You never slow down, you never grow old.'"

"I know and don't have to be told/The Slayer's heart is mighty cold," Vi chanted sourly.

Xander jabbed a finger at her. "Stow that crap." Any drill sergeant would have been proud of his bark.

She gave him a sullen look. "Come on, Rona."

Xander watched them go, then turned to Spike, who gave him a tired look. "Go easy on them, mate."

"Why? You don't."

"No," he smiled faintly. "I don't. Here, have a seat." Spike patted the edge of the bed. "Haven't got around to luggin' a chair down."

Xander sat down gingerly. "Gunn said you guys kicked major butt out in Colorado."

"They both did well."

"So," he said brightly, "how about going out to the Jake with me? The Twins are scheduled to get their collective asses handed to them by our very own Indians. Night game at Jacobs Field; what could be finer?"

"Thanks, but no." When Xander stared steadily at him, he added, "Go yourself, you want to. Or take your girl."

"Spike…" Xander sighed. The blond man looked more than tired; he looked half his twelve decades. "I didn't ask you because I wanted to go to a ballgame, man."

"I know. I appreciate it, really." He held out a hand. After looking at it for a moment, Xander clasped it with his own. "'S'hard to explain so a human would understand it, but… "Right now, it's better I stay here, so if I decide to go out, I have to explain to the Bit where I'm going. If I'm with you, an' decide to take a detour… Fewer barriers between my fists and… other things."

"A body at rest tends to stay at rest." Xander smiled when Spike looked at him in surprise, but it quickly faded. When had Spike stopped having blue eyes?

"An inert mass, that's me."

Xander was more worried now than he had been when he first found out about Buffy's impulsive decision. "Lot of things I've heard other people say," he finally managed. "You know the kind of thing: it takes time, silver lining, yadda yadda. I think it's a load of horseshit, myself. What I will say is, there'll be a new normal before long. Not that it'll be a good thing, but it will be a manageable thing. Now, tomorrow I go pick up Giles at the airport. Buffy's supposed to go with me. In the interest of helping us get to the new normal, is there anything you want me to tell her?"

The vampire's unnaturally dark eyes had closed when Xander said the Slayer's name, and he didn't open them when he replied. "Yeah. Tell her that I don't want to see her."

⸹

"I may never move again," Buffy moaned, rolling onto her back, the sheet from Angel's bed tangling around her waist. She had learned from Riley not to say that she found it relaxing.

"Yes, you will," Angel said, a mock threat in his voice and the ever-present smile on his face as he glanced at her across his pillow.

"Yes, I will," she agreed, "because I told Giles I'd pick him up at the airport tonight with Xander." It was Sunday, and they had barely left his bed since they brought her things in from the car early on Thursday. She had wondered once or twice if he was trying to prove he had as much stamina as –

"Can't Xander do that by himself? I understand he's all grown up now."

She gave him a stern look. "Be nice."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, trying to look contrite and failing spectacularly.

"You don't have to come with."

"I will if you want me to."

"No, that's okay. I guess I need to talk to Xander, see what's the damage."

He rolled over onto his back, too, and put a hand over his eyes. "Reality intrudes."

"Reality is evil." Buffy smiled slightly. "Means I can kill it if it manifests in the physical realm."

"It's good to have the Slayer as your girlfriend," Angel affirmed.

"Not 'the' Slayer," she corrected. "Just one of many, now."

"You aren't unhappy about that," he noted.

"No." She lifted a shoulder. "No one to blame but myself if I was." Buffy took a breath. "It's a relief, actually."

He moved closer and rested his chin on her arm. "Since there are so many slayers to do the work," he moved a little closer and spoke quietly into her ear, "do you think maybe we can go somewhere, take some time for a vacation?"

She moved away and gave him a startled look. "I, uh, wouldn't feel right, not with this twelve battles thing of Giles."

"Oh. No, you're right." He shrugged. "Maybe after, then."

Buffy gave him a quick smile. "I'd like that. It's a really good idea, Angel." Her smile became something tinged with faded happiness. "Before my parents divorced, we used to go on vacation every summer, Disneyland, to Illinois to visit my Aunt Arlene, somewhere. We never had money for vacations after that, me and Mom and Dawn, I mean. I remember the time–" Whatever she was about to say was lost in the ringing of her cell phone.

Angel watched her leave the bed and walk to the little puddle of clothing on the floor by the door. She was naked and unconcerned about it, so different from the girl she had been. They had spent five years apart, during which she had become an adult and he had become… older. Enmeshed in the human world. A father. He resolutely put aside those thoughts.

"Xander," she told him, checking the number displayed on her cell. "Hey, Xan."

"Hey, Buf." Angel could hear the young man, tinny and sometimes fading out. "I, uh, just wondered if we were still on to pick up Giles at the airport?"

"Sure, we're on," Buffy said, perky. "Angel and I were just talking about that. Do you mind driving?"

"No problem. When, um, would you like me to pick you up?" They made plans, and Buffy turned back to the bed as she folded the phone.

"There's that pesky reality."

"Had to happen."

"The past few days…" She came around to his side of the bed and sat down, bracing one arm across his waist. "Don't you think this has been good?" She searched his face.

"Really," he said, tugging her down to kiss her, "really good."

"And you're happy?"

"Very," kiss, "very happy."

"Good." She nodded. "That's very good. Look, I'd better, uh," she touched her hand to her limp hair, "try to look less like a mop before Xander shows up. Do you mind if I shower alone? I-it'll be faster that way."

Angel nodded and let her up, watching her gather her clothes from her suitcase. When he heard the hiss of the shower, he threw back the covers and retrieved Connor's picture from where he'd hidden it. He stowed it more securely behind a loose piece of paneling in the living room, tucking it beneath his portfolio. Spike wouldn't be likely to drop by to watch television and sniff out his new hiding place.

He took an involuntary breath and let his forehead rest on the wall for a moment. From talking to Gunn, he knew they had made it back safely from Colorado. The tall man had been remote, and although Charles was glad that Angelus was locked down, there had been a slight note of disapproval in his voice. Gunn hadn't said anything explicit, just that Dawn had arranged for him and the slayer who went with them to Boulder to be with Spike when she broke the news. It must have been bad, and Angel had a quick memory of the boy's face as he sat in a wheelchair and watched him lead Drusilla up the stairs, pain in the blue eyes, murder in the set of his jaw. He'd thought it funny at the time. Of course, at the time, Spike hadn't defeated him to become Master of the Aurelians.

Angel put the panel back in place and stood up, going back to the bedroom. No use worrying; he'd perfected brooding over his sins, but damned if he'd brood over this. He got the chance to have everything that he'd ever wanted, outside of having Connor in his life, and he took it. It wasn't like he'd been looking for this. Buffy offered; it came out of the blue. He was going to be happy, and he was going to make her happy.

Which meant Buffy didn't need to know that his life was forfeit.

⸹

Sunday afternoon was quiet in the basement of Watcher Central. Spike had finally sent Dawn and her surrogates away, telling them he was fine, just fine. He lay supine on his bed, arms behind his head, and just let everything be. His two newest, Charlie and Tribby, came to visit, but Dawn barred them from coming downstairs. Evening waned into darkness, and the house grew still. He was waiting.

Rupert returned around nine o'clock, put away his suitcase, and then descended. Spike heard him pause outside the door. "Come in," he invited, and if a door could be opened with diffidence, that's how Giles did it. "Enjoy your dirty weekend, then?"

"Yes, actually. Olivia and I saw a play," he said as he came down the stairs, "ate our dinners at a couple of Chicago's best restaurants, then had a good flight in to Cleveland. I saw her safely to a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, where I hope to join her a few times before she leaves." Giles stopped at the base of the bed, his hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of the jeans he'd changed into. "How are you, William?"

"Hopeless." The blond man stared straight up at the ceiling. "As in, lack of hope. Prob'ly the other meanings, as well."

Giles hesitated, then sat down on the corner of the bed. "I am sorry. This struck quite out of the blue for me, too."

"Life's full of surprises."

"I imagine you've had enough coddling, but just tell me to sod off if I'm wrong. We're not children, either of us, so there are some aspects of this for which I need information. The first thing that occurs to me to ask, is whether you're going to stay here in Cleveland?"

The vampire turned dark eyes on him, a hint of a sardonic smile touching the corners of his lips. "Good question, innit? My first impulse was to turn Charlie and your baby slayer while we were in Boulder, take them with me, and never come back." Giles nodded gravely, not shocked; he'd guessed as much. "The second was to come back here and take all your slayers. Think they'd follow me, Rupes? I think they would, the ones I've trained up. Take your army, leave you to fight the next of the twelve battles the time-honored way, with one Slayer."

Giles didn't move, but his expression tightened. This had not occurred to him. "Dooming this city to destruction."

"Not really full of altruism just now."

"No, I expect not. But you decided not to, er, take my army."

"Haven't decided yet."

Giles took a breath, paused, then pushed on. "Have you decided about… Angel?" Some of the other Watchers might get it, if only they'd bothered to understand the dynamics between two points of this love triangle. In many ways, this wasn't about Buffy at all, maybe a first.

"No options when it comes to that."

"You've never been one for rules, William."

"'S'not William," he said shortly. "It's a vampire thing." Then he looked annoyed, though it didn't seem to be directed at Rupert. "Not just now."

"What?" The vampire gave him a bland look, and Giles let out the rest of his breath in a long stream. "Before you had a soul, when you were 'just' a vampire, you did things your own way."

"Pleading for clemency?"

"Yes, actually."

"For her sake."

"Yes." Rupert looked down. "And for yours. I've studied your interactions. There's a bond between you and Angel that would be, I imagine, very difficult to break.

"Not so very. One quick jab with a stake…"

"Spike… you know as well as I do that killing Angel would be unforgivable in her eyes."

"'M exiled, anyway."

"Perhaps only temporarily. It was a childhood crush, Spike, and I don't know that there's enough there to allow for a mature, adult relationship. But I was referring to the fact that, the world we live in, people die all the time."

A touch of malice came into Spike's expression. "Quite true… Ripper. You offering?"

"No, of course not." There was something quite Ripper-ish in his eyes, though. "I'll not lie. I would far rather see her with you than him, and I don't have to explain the reasons why."

"But you'd far rather see her with some insipid human git than either of us."

"Yes." No equivocation. "But I don't see that happening." He took off his glasses, finally, staring at them in his hand instead of polishing them. "She's made her own decisions without me for years now. I've followed her lead. There are no prophecies to guide us, and I think her instincts, overall, are quite good. Now, I wasn't there in Sunnydale during the… when you had your affair, but I saw the aftermath. She hated herself."

"For lowering herself to consort with a pathetic demon."

Giles was taken aback by the corrosive tone. "No. Because she hurt you. She had become the very thing she was called to fight against, a monster."

"She's no monster."

"No, but she believed as much when she told us about what she did to you." There was a long silence. "Knowing Buffy, knowing how seriously she takes her duty – seriously enough to give her very life – I believe she would do anything to keep from being a monster." He met Spike's dark eyes. "Even at the expense of her own happiness."

"And mine."

"And yours – which sounds incredibly selfish."

"Says the man who doesn't want to give his remaining middle years to the Council." Spike sneered. "We're in America, mate. Pursuit of happiness, an' all that. Constitutionally guaranteed."

"I'm sorry, William." No use trying to talk further, not with Spike in this mood. Giles put his glasses on and started for the stairs.

"Rupert." The Watcher paused on the steps but didn't turn back. "I'll be at the gym tomorrow evening. Business as usual. But until then… It's better if I don't go about, right?"

The Watcher nodded, closing his eyes in relief. "Good, then."

Spike watched him go up the stairs, then sat up in bed. His nostrils flared for a moment, and his eyes flashed yellow. "All right. Now." Willow materialized a few feet away in a soft, white glow, one hand held out in a warding gesture. "What, witch? Don't trust me?"

"Should I? I figure you might be mad at me, Spike?" Her voice rose at the end, making it a question.

"A little." He shrugged. "Wasn't like you could leave Angelus loose. Nothing else you could have done, Red."

Willow lowered her hand, looking miserable. "I just… I never expected to have to do the spell because of Buffy. I thought it'd be because some Big Bad tried to steal his soul, unleash Angelus."

"'Course."

"Can I come sit down?" When he shrugged, she sat gingerly, facing him, then held out her hands in invitation.

Spike shook his head. "You don't want to be in here right now." He touched two fingers to his temple.

"I will, if you want."

"Difference between being brave and being stupid, Red."

She flinched a little. "I'm not trying to be either, Spike. I'm trying to be a friend."

"You're her friend, pet, more'n mine." He shook his head again. "No. You don't want to be in here."

"I am your friend, too," she said stubbornly. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. And sorry for interrupting you and Giles."

"Wait… it's well past midnight in Blighty." Spike frowned at her.

"I-I couldn't sleep. I'm staying with Andrew, and he's taken me out every night since I got in. Tomorrow I'm going to go look at apartments."

"Flats."

She gave him a small smile at the correction, but her eyes were wary. "Is there anything I can do?"

He reached out and slid a hand along the curve of her jaw, brushing his thumb across her lower lip, doing nothing to control the sexual persuasiveness that came naturally to his kind. "Don't make offers you'll not follow through, Red."

Her lips parted, and he moved in close, holding her in place with one hand. Willow's eyes widened as he kissed her, slowly and thoroughly, then they fluttered shut. There had been times when the only thing stopping her from doing this was her best friend, but that hardly mattered now. The Slayer had given him up. She had lived vicariously through Buffy before, imagining how romantic it would be to have Angel at her feet, but she had wondered about Spike in a much more carnal way. The kiss was as hot as she fantasized it would be, but Willow had never factored in his wandering hands or the way the hard muscles of his chest felt pressed against her.

She moaned, a small, needy sound, and he pulled away. His eyes, she saw, had come back to a dark blue, at least. "Am I so awful?" he asked, plaintive.

"No. No, Spike." This time, she cupped his face with her hands and took the lead, exploring the chiseled planes of his face with her fingers as she kissed him. He leaned back, bringing her with him, so that she was atop him, one thigh lying intimately over his lap.

"You don't want this," he said abruptly, turning his face and letting go of her, his jaw set in anger.

"What? No. I do," she assured him.

"Do you?" And he clamped down on his aura, pulling it inward.

Willow stared down into his face, her lips still parted. She had never had a mood so thoroughly broken. Oz, she remembered suddenly. They had been taking things slow until a couple of nights before she left. And she hadn't even thought about him since drawing close to this man, this demon.

"Fly away, pigeon," Spike said wearily. "I'd still like to be your friend after… after this."

She sat up, confused. "You… you mesmerized me."

"No. Or, not on purpose, if I did." His fingers found hers, brought her hand to his lips. "You're mine, Red, and I need – But you don't. You don't need this, just because I want."

"I'm not a substitute for Buffy," she said, wounded.

"You've never been," he agreed. "Want you for you. To take comfort from you. But, now, I want you to go. Do you understand why?"

"I-I don't know," she replied honestly.

"Come to me sometime when we're both free and not in mourning, love," he said, and kissed her hand again, "and I'll show you how much I've wanted you." Spike let go of her, closed his eyes. Then he sat up again, opening his darkened eyes, and took her by the shoulders. "I do love, you know. You need it to be about love, and I love you, Red. But that's not what it would be like now. No better way to show it than to send you away."

"A-all right," she agreed. He was scaring her. His impulse had apparently been for more than a simple coupling.

"Whatever happens, if I… If you hear I've done – want you to know that I am capable of love. Of mercy." He let go of her and rolled over, turning toward the other wall.

Standing up from the bed, Willow took two faltering steps away, then disappeared with a pulse of light.

⸹

"Stop here, Xander," Buffy said suddenly. She opened the glovebox and took out one of his beautifully carved stakes. "There's something down that alley back there."

"You want I should come with you, little lady?" he said in his best John Wayne. She had gone quiet after he delivered Spike's message.

"No. Go on home. Just a vampire, from the feel of it. And i-it's only a few blocks to Angel's apartment."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. See you tomorrow." She gave him a quick smile and was out of his Mercedes, gone into the shadows where nothing lurked. Buffy watched for a few seconds until the car pulled away from the curb, then she jumped onto the fire escape of the closest building and went onto the roof. It was a flat place dotted by a couple of heat pumps and a foot-high lip around the edge. She sat down with her back to the ledge, betting that nothing would come up the side of the building after her. Alone, she let herself cry.

' _Tell her I don't want to see her.'_ Nothing had made her feel so empty since… since Angel left, she supposed. Buffy wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. Oh, she understood her abandonment issues; Spike had been the one to point them out. But he hadn't abandoned her. She had left him, and she had gambled that he would still want to be her friend.

She had lost.

She was sitting on top of a roof in Cleveland, another damned Hellmouth, her other half severed from her. She was alone. There would be no purposeful scuff of a worn boot, no still presence sinking down to sit beside her. There would be no quieting of the turmoil inside, no one to shape an unwilling smile on her face. She wasn't at peace. She wasn't in –

Oh, God, Buffy thought, this is too hard.

The Slayer took a breath and set her jaw. No, it wasn't too hard. Hard was looking herself in the mirror but seeing the ruin of his face, the imprint of her fists, her hatred.

Hard was seeing his eyes still filled with love and belief, gazing at her from that ruin.

She swallowed, her throat aching from unshed sobs. Everything the Immortal had taken from her, forced on her (and I haven't dealt with that; I've just pushed it under the rug, but it won't be alone under there, oh no, plenty of other issues to keep it company) was tied up with being snatched back from heaven. She'd come to believe that there was no other way the Immortal could have kept her under his influence for so long. And what he compelled her to feel, Spike offered her fairly, freely. And she had flung it back in his face.

His beautiful, undamaged face.

That was what mattered.

Buffy got to her feet and was down to the street again in three graceful leaps. She made her breathing even out until it was smooth, unhurried. She was Joyce Summers' daughter and the last Chosen One. She had her first love, her soul mate waiting for her. Life was good.

It probably wouldn't last that long, anyway.

"Buffy."

"Jeez! Wil," the Slayer said, lowering the stake and glancing anxiously at the door to Angel's – to their apartment. "What are you doing here? Other than giving me a world-class wiggins?"

"I needed to… I just saw Spike. He's… God, Buffy, I don't even know how he is."

"Come on," Buffy said, her eyes going to the door again. "Let's go for a walk. We can't talk here."

"Don't worry." Willow waved a hand around them. "I put out a sensory dampener. No one can hear. He can't sense you." The young witch rose from Angel's steps anyway. "I just wanted to talk to you alone."

"About Spike?" Buffy sounded irritated.

"You remember when you were scared of him? Like when he first came to Sunnydale? How he was so atypical, not thinking like other vampires, unpredictable?"

"Yeah, then and just last Tuesday? I remember. He's always atypical."

"I think you should be scared again." Willow shrugged. "He was…" She looked uncomfortable for a moment. "He was… less than human, and not bothering to hide it. He said that, no matter what I hear that he's done, remember that he's capable of love and mercy." The redhead clenched her teeth. "I don't think Spike is feeling very merciful right now. So, just… you know, be careful. You and Angel both."

Buffy was frowning now. "No, he's completely predictable. He'll never do anything to hurt Dawn. So, he won't hurt me."

Willow lifted her shoulders again. "Yeah, you're right. But I don't think Dawn would care all that much if something happened to Angel."

"Oh," Buffy said, and to her, her voice sounded as though it were coming from miles away. "Okay. I'm a little scared." Then her wide eyes sharpened. "Willow, did he hurt you?"

The young witch shook her head. "No," she said quickly, then with more force, "no, of course not. But, Buffy, I've never seen him like that, not even when he was trying to get me to do a love spell in that old factory, not even when… when you were dead."

"Thanks for the heads-up," the Slayer said, making her mouth curve into a reassuring smile. "I'm sure it's just, you know, that right now, things are hard. It'll be better, soon."

"I hope so."

"Wil… What are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be in England?"

"I came to check on Spike," she admitted, pulling an apologetic face. "He's my friend, too, you know. And I… and something I did hurt him."

Buffy flinched, a slight jerk, then forced the smile again. "I know he's your friend. I'm cool with that. Hey, come on in, while you're here. Your number one fan will be happy to see you."

"My number one fan?" Willow's brows drew together in confusion.

"Angel? The man you released from an Angelus-haunted happiness-free zone?"

"Oh!" Willow grinned. "My number one fan?" The grin faded. "No, I'd better get back. Andrew is, I've learned to my regret, a morning person, and we're going apartm – er, flat-hunting in a few hours. I've gotta grab some z's while I can." She stepped forward to give the Slayer a hug. "Take care, Buffy. Be careful, both of you."

Buffy examined her friend's serious expression. "I will – but everything will be fine." With a nod, Willow let go and vanished. She stared at the brick past where her friend had been standing, turning things over in her mind, until the door opened.

"Hey. What's so special about out here?"

"Nothing." She gave Angel an automatic smile. "Better inside."

"Did everything go okay at the airport?" he asked, taking a step back to make room in the doorway.

"Fine. It's just…" Buffy quickly sorted through everything she had learned, "Xander said he spoke with Spike, and he," she bit her lip, "said he doesn't want to see me."

"Well," Angel said, jamming his hands in his jeans pockets, "you can't really blame him. It's, I guess, difficult. Just give him time."

"You're right." She looked up at him, into his clear brown eyes. "Do… do you think he…" The Slayer closed her eyes and tried again to form the words that sounded so alien. "Do you think he's a danger to… to us?"

Angel took her in his arms, sheltering her. God, did it feel good to take care of her. "No. Of course not. He'd never hurt you, no more than he'd hurt Dawn."

"Wh-what about you?"

He smiled down at her and lied with all of his considerable skill. "We're family. We might fight, but at the end of the day, we're blood. It'll be fine, I promise."

⸹

Training for the slayers kicked off around six-forty-five each weeknight, but Spike didn't call everyone to serious work until seven, allowing them a chance to talk, exchange patrol information, and warm up if they wanted to. At six-thirty, he was already perched in the rafters of the cavernous training room, shielded from casual view by the bright lights that shone down beneath him and the acoustic panels hung from the ceiling, further shielded by the shadows he'd gathered close. It was the first time he'd been out of the basement since returning from Colorado. He'd come into the gym early, showered, and settled on a vantage point, wanting to get the feel of the room, a useful concept he'd picked up from Wendy O. years ago.

His slayers straggled in, quieter than usual. They asked each other repeatedly whether he'd be leading the session tonight. Twice he heard Buffy's name used in an unflattering manner, and his jaw tightened, but the urge to take them to task was easy to control. Xander and Charlie came onto the floor. Unlike the other Watchers, Xander made a point of being at every training session. The slayers clustered around him, reminding Spike of a flock of chickens at feeding time. Harris answered the question in several ways before the young women seemed satisfied that, yes, their usual instructor would be back tonight, as rumored. These slayers were his, no doubt.

The two men began tossing a medicine ball back and forth, their muscles needing warming up even if the slayers' didn't. "So," Gunn asked casually, "when does Tribby usually show up?"

Xander smirked a little. "She's usually here by now." He threw the heavy ball back a little harder. "Nice time in Boulder?"

"Except for the racist demons and the heavy emotional trauma?" Gunn replied, returning the ball with equal gusto. "Yeah. Nice time."

Xander, serious now, shook his head. "Man, I've seen Spike completely thrashed, physically and emotionally, but I've never seen him so… dead." He tossed the ball. "So to speak."

Gunn studied him, returning the throw. "You guys close?"

Something difficult crossed Xander's face. "Closer than I want to be; not as close as we probably should be, as much as we've been through together." More energy in the next pitch than was warranted. "But he's my friend." When Gunn continued to look at him, he lifted a shoulder. "He's not the easiest person to get along with. Or, he wasn't at first."

Charles nodded and changed the topic. "So… you ever tempted?" He threw a glance at a knot of slayers.

"What? The girls?" Xander shook his head and heaved the ball back. "No, man. Been there, done that."

"Really?" Gunn grinned. "You and a slayer?"

"Really," Xander replied heavily.

"So… what's it like?"

He considered the question. "They take more than they give. That's my experience." They passed the ball a few more times, then Xander caught it a final time and held it against his hip as he continued. "These slayers, they haven't had to shoulder such a heavy load. Maybe it would be different with them."

Gunn lowered his voice. "No, man. I mean… what's it like?"

Xander kept a smile off his face. "Exhausting," he finally managed, "and perhaps not meant for mortal man."

"Hey, Gunn, Xander," Tribby said brightly. "What's not meant for mortal man?"

"The, uh, secrets of the Old Ones," the taller man supplied, considerably less smooth than he would have been in front of a judge.

"Oh." Her eyebrows rose, but before she could add anything, Ivana bounded up.

"Tribby, have you seen Spike?"

"Not since last week."

"But he will be here tonight?"

"That's what I heard. Xander?" She turned to the Watcher for confirmation.

At Xander's nod, Ivana smiled and turned back toward the group of slayers she had come from. To their left, Rona and some of the others who had been in England were learning Xander's marching cadences.

"Slayers are hot/ Slayers are fine/ We get the Big Bad/ Every time."

"Well, it's not Kanye West," Rona said, breaking into a grudging grin. "But it ain't bad."

Spike smiled faintly, watching over his flock. They cared about him, and he had claimed them. It was something. Directly beneath him, Tribby threw a towel over her shoulder and climbed onto a treadmill. If any of these slayers could sense him, it would be her. Buffy could, of course, and not with her 'slaydar.' She'd told him that his presence was unique, that she felt him –

Don't.

Stop.

"I don't know/But I've been told," Tribby chanted, her words pitched very low. She stared straight ahead as she continued, almost under her breath, "You never slow down/You never grow old/From what I've seen/You just get older/What happened there/Stays in Boulder."

Spike watched her foreshortened figure move below his perch, her legs moving faster, her arms confidently swinging instead of holding the rails of the treadmill. She had sensed him. It wasn't a great rhyme, but she'd made it up on the spot, and it had a certain emotional reserve that he found very British. He was touched by her protectiveness.

"Dawn!"

"Hi, Ivana."

"Is Spike with you?"

"No." Dawn linked arms with the slayer. They were the same age, but the tiny girl seemed younger to her. "He'll be here, though. He wasn't in the basement."

"He is all right?"

Dawn met the girl's green eyes squarely. "He's in a lot of pain, emotionally, Ivana, but he won't show it. He's a guy." When the Russian still didn't look appeased, she sighed. "Give him an extra hug or two, okay? And follow his instructions."

"That I can do," Ivana said, pleased. She practically skipped away.

"Crush city," Vi said, coming up on Dawn's other side, holding her left arm across her chest in a static stretch.

"Yeah," Dawn agreed, then gave her a sly look. "You were never like that."

"Well, I wasn't!"

"You weren't what?" Geneva asked, walking toward them with several other young women. As with most of the newcomers, Dawn was her touchstone in Cleveland.

"Totally over the moon for Spike when she was in Sunnydale," Dawn said.

Tamika grinned. "You had a crush on him, too?"

"So did Dawn!" Vi said, redder than her hair by now.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "That was when I was, like, fourteen."

Rona, joining them, rested her chin on Vi's shoulder. "You know, ladies, he's available now."

"That's right," Kayla breathed.

"He is, isn't he?" Maria had a speculative look in her eye.

"No, he is so totally not available," Dawn said firmly. "He needs time. If any of you do anything that he regrets and I hear of it…" She trailed off, an expert at the ominous threat.

"Dawn's right," Tribby said, coming up behind Tamika and taking the other woman's wrist to check her watch. "It takes a long time. Trust me on this."

In the uncomfortable silence following the widowed slayer's statement, Spike gathered the shadow and dropped lightly down on the mats between the entrance and the knot of women. He stopped bending the light at the same time he let go of the tight rein he was holding on his emotions. The gym grew completely quiet as the slayers turned to him, sensing his presence.

"Time to begin, my lovelies."

Only, it wasn't. Instead of falling into a loose circle around him, the slayers broke for him in a wave, vying to hug him. This evidence that someone cared was almost overwhelming, and he couldn't make himself smile. The only thing that kept him from tearing up was the sight of the kissy-face Dawn was making in the background. Then she pretended to throw up.

"Freakin' Hugh Hefner," Xander said to Gunn, shaking his head in mingled exasperation and admiration.

It was the last thing Spike heard for the next hour and a half that wasn't under his direction. He put the slayers through their paces, and instead of the usual good-natured grumbling, they were focused and biddable, having missed their instructor. Mindful of how effective Gunn and Tribby had been fighting back-to-back in the Carnyss dive in Boulder, Spike taught them more about working with a partner. Dividing them into groups of four, he had two slayers attacking and two defending. He went around the room, taking turns with each of them, correcting Nguise's grip on her axe, getting Bethany to widen her stance for better balance. Kayla, who had once relied on senses other than hearing, was the best at staying with her partner, and he praised her until she blushed, eliciting a round of applause and catcalls from the other women. It was the best training session he'd ever led.

The whole time, he was claiming them, or reestablishing his bond with subtle movements and intaken breaths. They were there for him; he could do nothing less than repay that with his own heart. As he'd been schooled on the Hellmouth, he couldn't not love, and the slayers' sweetness and generosity went a long way toward filling his emptiness.

⸹

"So," Gunn said, finishing his second set, "where do you see yourself in five years?"

"I know exactly where I'm going to be in five years," Tribby replied. She looked at him, upside-down in his point of view, from where she was spotting him as he did his bench presses.

Across the room, Spike looked up from where he was watching Isidra hip-throw Tiffani. If he could signal Charlie frantically yet subtly, he would. He wondered what happened to 'just fun.' Then it occurred to him that he wasn't thinking about himself. If he had anywhere to send a prayer of gratitude, he would have sent one.

"Yeah?" Gunn, expecting a pithy reply, grinned expectantly.

"I'm going to be pregnant," Tribby replied.

"Uh," Gunn said, abruptly reaching for the bar to begin his last set of repetitions, "huh."

"I'll be twenty-nine," Tribby said. " I don't want to be one of those moms who are too old and tired to play with their kids." She put a hand out toward the weights, just in case.

"Oh. Well, sure," Gunn grunted, his arms beginning to feel like rubber.

"'S'cuse me," Spike said to Isidra, shaking his head. Tribby was worse than Charlie; single motherhood was almost the number one way to make a man run away fast enough to break the sound barrier. He couldn't think of one real date Buffy had after assuming responsibility for Dawn.

Gunn stepped up. "You'll be needing a father," he heaved once more, the last he could manage, "I suppose."

"Not really," Tribby shrugged. "If I meet someone, that's great, but I'll be pregnant, either way." She cupped her hands over the ends of the bar as he sat it in the rests. "We banked Jack's sperm before he began chemo." She looked away to cover a smile, but the mirrors along the wall made the gesture futile. "One of the last really good memories." At Gunn's raised brows, she went on. "I went with him, dressed as, you know," she blushed, "Naughty Nurse."

Spike, only ten feet away now, shook his head. Tribby was way worse at this than Charlie.

"Anyway," the slayer shrugged, "that's a long time off. Lots of time between now and then."

"But that's your timetable?"

"Yes, insofar as I plan anything now."

"Carpe diem."

Her smile was gone now. "Diem, anyway." She forced her mouth to curve again. "What about you? In five years, I mean."

"Pass the bar, go back to South Central, help out some people," he said, shrugging.

"No interest in D.C.?"

"Falls Church," he corrected. When she just raised a sardonic brow, he relented. "The first thing everybody there thinks when they see me in a custom-made suit is 'affirmative action.' Well, I ain't gettin' no action," and here Spike came to stand by the bench, grimacing, "and I ain't nobody's affirmative-man."

"Hey, Spike," Tribby said. "What about you? Where do you plan to be in five years?"

"Considering where I was five years ago, soulless and in the death throes of a hundred-and-twenty-year relationship, think I'll take a pass on predicting that one." Determined to keep them from talking their way out of being attracted to each other, he held out a hand for Gunn, helping him up. "Here, Charlie, take the slayer over to the far corner and go after her with an axe. It's your best weapon, and she needs practice against it." He touched her face lightly. "How's the jaw?"

She lowered her gaze, as if ashamed. "Healed by midday Thursday, sir."

Spike nodded, and she scampered. Gunn watched her go to the weapons cabinet, then turned to give the blond man an assessing look. "What'd she do?"

"Flirting instead of working," he said shortly.

"But it's okay if a slayer's flirting with you?"

Spike gave him a fierce grin. "It's work if they're flirting with me. Immunizes 'em against a certain kind of vamp, predators like Drac."

"Sure it does," Gunn grumbled, but he went to take the axe Tribby was holding out for him. She said something, and he broke into a grin. Spike watched critically, wishing he had a couple of Fyarl to take a few swings at the slayer, instead of one tall, smitten human using kid gloves. Then he wished he had a dozen Fyarl or even a pissed-off troll to take a few swings at him. His wishes being as effective as usual, no demons burst through the doors.

By nine o'clock, only he and Dawn remained. They looked at each other, then she sighed and opened the cell phone she had in her hand. Pushing a button, she listened for a moment, then said, "Hold for Spike." Without another word, she handed him the phone, then moved behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her forehead on his back.

"Spike?"

He closed his eyes at the sound of Buffy's wary tone. "So, you're sick, then, Slayer?" He couldn't help the reflex; he started to breathe.

"What? No," she said, confused. "I'm fine."

"Then I fail to see your reason for not being at training tonight."

"I thought…" Her voice trailed off, and when it came back, sounded miserable. "Xander said you didn't want to see me."

"So I did. You are, however, one of the Council's employed slayers, and one of your duties is to be at training four nights a week. And I am one of the Council's employed Watchers, and one of my duties is to be your trainer." He had tried very hard, but he couldn't keep the mockery from his tone. "Shall I lecture you on acting like an adult? Maintaining a professional attitude?"

"No. No lectures from you, thanks."

"You'll attend training tomorrow, then?"

"I'll be there with bells on." Steel in her voice now.

"Good. I won't have to report to your Watcher. Less paperwork." He folded the phone and let out every bit of air in his lungs, feeling Dawn's arms tighten around him. It didn't work, though, and he kept on breathing.

"She should have come," Dawn said wearily. "If you can put a good face on this, she should have, too." She lifted her head. "Spike, you didn't even sound like yourself. You, like, out-Wesleyed Wesley."

"What?" His attention came back to the present. "Oh, no, love. Different class of snobbery entirely." He took her hand and turned so that she could see his tired smile. "And Wes was a bit of all right."

"I'm proud of you."

"Not as proud as I am of you, Nibblet."

"Why are you proud of me?"

"Not easy to negotiate between the two of us. Wouldn't want you to choose sides, love."

"You know who I'd choose."

"She needs you more."

"No. No, I don't think so."

He gestured around the gym. "You were right. I feel better. Throw myself into my work and whatnot. And my ladies…."

"They really do love you, you know," she said, smiling. "There's something about you and slayers. And they know you love them right back. It's pretty hard to not love someone who already loves you." Then she realized what she'd said.

Spike's mouth tightened, but he pulled her close and did the same thing he'd done with the slayers, drew in a deep breath, marking her scent, reclaiming her. Then he put his forehead against hers, and they stood in the middle of the gym, motionless, for a long time.

Dawn let him hold her, glad that he still felt at home here. She had scrubbed the mats on the floor of the nearby cell herself, aired out the room so that Spike's exquisite sense of smell wouldn't ruin the gym for him. He may or may not know where the de-Angelus-ing had taken place, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with that part of it. She had spoken to Buffy exactly once since it happened, both of them being overly normal as they saw Willow off at the airport, talking about mundane matters. Her sister had promised they would get together for lunch on Sunday; they hadn't. She hadn't called the Slayer on it. Dawn had advised Buffy to break it off with Spike, and look how well that had turned out. Maybe she should ignore her own advice and stop hoping that she'd ever get her sister back.

⸹

Lina's eyes were drawn to the dark figure lounging against a silver Mercedes, and she suppressed a smile as she walked over to him. "You don't have to drive me home every night I work late."

Xander smiled. "I do, actually. Otherwise I'd worry, get wrinkled and prematurely gray, and then you wouldn't want to go out with me anymore." On Tuesdays, Lina finished her shift at eleven, and picking her up was the brightest spot of this day.

"I'd still want to go out with you," she said, going up on tiptoe to kiss him. She glanced over her shoulder self-consciously at another clerk who was getting off work, catching her appreciative appraisal and knowing smirk.

"You hungry?" Xander opened the passenger door for her, not even glancing at the other woman, to her disappointment and Lina's satisfaction.

"Yeah, but I shouldn't eat this late. I don't know if it's true, but I read somewhere that when you're asleep, food doesn't digest at all."

"Well, I could find someway to keep you awake until your stomach stops gurgling." He shook his head, wrinkling his nose at the words that made it past his lips before his brain stepped in. "And am I not the most romantic guy you've ever met?"

Lina smiled and declined to comment, watching him as he closed her door and headed around the car. When he'd first asked her out, she'd thought he'd be fun and probably not much more, a goofy, good-looking guy, but not all that special. Her estimate of Xander had risen when he'd interrupted their first date to reunite two old friends, and she had been almost bitterly disappointed when she thought he was lying about what he did for a living in order to impress her.

But, no, he really did fight demons for a living, a good living at that, Lina thought, as Xander slid onto the leather of the driver's seat. Easy on the eyes, funny, but with a depth and purpose to him that left her a little breathless. She felt like Lois Lane. Xander might not have any superpowers, but to have a boyfriend with a secret identity… It was pretty amazing. "How'd it go tonight?" she asked. He grimaced and hesitated before turning on the engine. She could see him clearly, the security lights in the parking lot illuminating his face.

"Hard to watch," he said finally. "They didn't look at each other, hardly spoke to each other. Spike gave Buffy a couple of orders – go help that group, stuff like that, but as far as actual conversation…" Xander shrugged. "She's been my friend a long time, and it's–" He stopped abruptly. "Buffy used to be one of those people who just… shone, she was so bright and perky. You were just drawn to her. I'm a guy, so I tend to see things on the simplest level. Angel came along and put an end to that perkiness. I mean, Buffy was never the same. Then Spike brought her happiness again, not all the time, but when they were together, she got some of her bounce back." He held his hands up. "And so, of course, between the two of them, she chooses Angel.

"I don't know, Lina. I'm not in the middle of it, thank God. Buffy and Spike… they're literally our two best when they're apart, but when they fight side-by-side… They're that much better, unstoppable. And now I think that's probably gone for good. I mean, how do you fight together if you can't even look at each other?

"And, then, not that I even want to try to understand it, but Spike and Angel are like vampire brothers, or some kind of family. Now, you know I'm not any kind of expert on family, but at least they sort of liked each other. That's gone, too." Xander shrugged. "It's just a big old mess." He reached across the console and took her hand. "Thanks for asking, Lina, and for listening to me go off."

"Well, I knew you were dreading it," she said, squeezing his fingers. She loved the way he said her name. They hadn't slept together, not yet, but her inner timetable said that they would this coming weekend. A tingle started in her lower abdomen; he was an awesome kisser.

Some of what she was feeling must have been in her eyes, because Xander gave her a half-smile and leaned across the short distance to kiss her. "What did I do," he asked, his lips brushing the skin of her cheek, "to deserve such a caring, sympathetic girlfriend?"

"Must have been that time you saved the world," Lina replied, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, that," he said, dismissing it. They had watched a Chris Rock concert on DVD over the weekend, and he put on the comedian's voice to misquote him. "We do that every Tuesday." Then he stopped talking, just kissed her, and they sat in the parking lot for long minutes, oblivious to where they were until Xander's elbow hit the horn on the steering wheel.

They pulled away from each other, starting to laugh. A week ago, it would have been embarrassing. Now it was something shared, something that happened to them. "I thought you were going to get me home safe," Lina teased.

"You're a very distracting woman." Xander made himself stop looking at her and started the car. He felt bad for Spike and for Oz and was trying to be hopeful for Buffy, but he didn't think it was selfish to be happy for himself this time.

⸹

Spike looked over at Tribby impatiently. It was Thursday after class, and he was looking forward to working off some of his aggression on her. Buffy had spoken to him first tonight, said his name. It had been a bad moment, made worse by the fact that he started the stupid breathing and caught the scent of his grandsire. "Tribs!"

She looked up and smiled. Instead of Gunn, tonight she'd been working with Oz, who would be a fixture at the gym if it weren't for the irregular gigs he played. Tribby had commented on his ancient Widespread Panic t-shirt, beginning a long conversation about music, and now he was listening to something on her MP3 player. Spike raised his eyebrows and held his hands wide, waiting. Tribby handed the tiny machine to Oz and came over. Her t-shirt bore the legend 'Gorillaz,' a band name he didn't recognize, making him even more out of sorts.

"We can start any time, your majesty."

She ignored his mocking tone. "Actually, tonight I thought I might… what's the word? Stove off?"

"Skive off, and what makes you think I'll let you do that?"

"Because I thought you might want to come over to see Clem. He got in just before class this afternoon."

"Did you know he was coming?" Spike's voice was sharp.

"No, he just showed up."

Spike nodded curtly, already striding toward his office to call Rupert. If the second battle was on them, he'd be able to spend some of his pent-up aggression on creatures who shouldn't be out in the Cleveland streets.

⸹

The location of the demon-attracting energy, and the site of the second battle, was a two-story building occupied by an insurance company. The structure was new, part of a small industrial park about three miles from the Hellmouth. The spellcasters on the Council, familiar with the energy from the first battle, were able to pinpoint it early. Coordinating with Lieutenant Muse, the Watchers had the insurance company employees pack up their belongings, back up their data, and be out of the building two days before the battle. The Council had the run of it, blocking entrances and setting up sniper stations on the roof. The most sensitive aura-readers and electronic equipment couldn't more accurately locate the source of the energy, however, despite careful and repeated searches of the grounds.

Buffy and Spike walked the surrounding area and through the building with Giles, planning the battle strategy. Stilted at first, their business-like conversation grew easier until, as they stood at the far end of the second floor, their eyes met long enough to nod in agreement. Giles' phone rang at that moment, and as he turned away to answer it, he didn't notice that the two continued to look at each other.

Buffy grew pink. Hearing his voice, listening to his ideas, however wild, made her feel right inside, highlighted how badly she missed having him in her daily life. "Spike," she whispered miserably, but he cut her off.

"No." He turned and began to walk away. She put a hand over her mouth, but he heard the single, stifled sob anyway. Closing his eyes, Spike stopped at the doorway and turned his head slightly, not enough to really see her. "It's… too soon, Slayer." He caught the motion of her head nodding, then he was gone in a blur, out of the building and in his truck seconds later. He sat there, shaking with pain and anger, for a long time before he drove away.

⸹

Absently gazing at the reflection of the towel hanging on the rack behind him, Spike stood at the bathroom sink and brushed his teeth. Sunday afternoons always dragged, as far back as he could remember, even when he was human. He'd fed, and it would be dark in a couple of hours, time to hit the streets. He wasn't scheduled to patrol, but this close to the next battle, there was work enough for everyone on the Council. Half of the time he felt physically sick. The prospect of seeing Angel again, even in the rush of battle, was nerve-wracking. At least the energy wasn't playing on him the way it had the first time. Nothing left to play, perhaps.

As he left the bathroom, Rona stepped out of her room. "Spike?" she asked, her voice quiet. Raising a brow, he went to her, and she pulled him from the hallway into the room she shared with Vi. When she closed the door behind him, he had the first stirring of realization, but she had already put her arms around his neck and was kissing him before he understood what she was about. By then, he was kissing her in return. _Mine_ , his demon declared fiercely.

"Rona?" he managed, low and questioning as he pulled away, putting his nose against hers.

"Shh." She cupped his face and leaned into him. "You make me feel safe," Rona whispered, sliding her hands down his back, "loved. I need that."

He was about to ask why when she untucked his shirt and placed her warm hands on his body. _Mine_ , the insistent inner voice said again, and maybe the energy was affecting him more than he realized. And he had no one to practice monogamy with. He let her pull him down onto her bed, let her take the lead. She was an adult, had some experience, and they cared about each other. It was enough.

An hour later, his demon and his sex drive still clamoring for more, Spike pulled away from Rona, his teeth clenched. Too much, she'd said. If he'd learned nothing else from Buffy, it was that humans were not wired for nonstop sex the way vampires were. Despite the intensity of their coupling, they had been very quiet. He held Rona, listening to her ragged breathing return to something more regular. Then, because she was young and still shy about her body, he pulled the covers over them.

After a while, she looked over at him. "My mother died last night," she whispered. "I just got the phone call a while ago."

"Oh, love," he said, kissing her temple. "'M so sorry."

She nodded. "Me, too." Rona didn't cry, but she closed her eyes. "Drug overdose." A bitter smile touched her mouth. "I always expected to get this news," she said, "so how come it's still such a shock?"

Spike didn't answer, just pulled her closer so she could rest her head against him. After a few moments, when she didn't say anything, he spoke. "Would have been glad to just hold you, Ro."

"I wanted this," she said simply. "The planets might never align again." She set her chin on his chest so she could look at him. "This isn't a thing. I hope that's okay."

"Claimed you, yeah? You belong to me in the stupid vampire way, so this is perfectly natural." He stroked her cheek. "Won't change that I love you."

Rona sighed, content, and laid her head against him, relaxing. She even napped for a few minutes. Spike listened to her breathe and tried to live in the moment, the sounds of Kayla moving down the hall and the footsteps of various Watchers downstairs the only other noise in the house. Dawn was out; her sister had invited her to lunch a week late. They were trying to stay connected.

"I'm sorry I'll miss the battle," Rona said, startling him.

"No worries, love. Got ten more coming down the pike, it seems." He propped up on his elbow. "Do you need any help making arrangements?"

She shook her head. "I'll take Amtrak to Philly tomorrow, catch the bus when I get there. My uncle is taking care of the funeral. Apparently my grandmother prearranged everything. I never knew."

"You told your Watcher?" She shook her head again. "I'll tell him, then. How long will you be gone?"

"A week. Maybe. If I can make myself stay that long."

Spike thought of Xander's parents, of the stress between Dawn and her sister right now. "Family is the people who love you, Ro," he said gently. "Blood has very little to do with it." He managed to keep his tone even.

Tears did well in her eyes at this, then she laughed. "Does that make this incest?"

He snorted. "No. Hope not, as this feels quite normal." The one sin he hadn't committed. He smoothed her hair. "'S'one of the things people do to affirm life, pet. Laugh, eat, make love. Best things in life are simple, yeah?"

"I don't want to broadcast this," Rona said suddenly. "This… it belongs to us. I'm not ashamed or anything like that, it's just that…."

"What's simple in here is complicated out there," he offered, nodding toward the door.

She nodded, relieved that he understood. "Thanks. I couldn't have found better words than those."

Spike kissed her forehead, knowing to his bones that there would never be a repeat of this afternoon. "Why don't you," he said, letting go of her, "get your robe and go across to the bathroom, powder your nose or whatever you girls do to be stunning? I'll be here when you get back." He matter-of-factly got out of bed and turned away to dress, giving her privacy. Rona rested her cheek against his shoulderblade after she stood and put on her robe, a brief embrace before she left the room, carrying her clothes.

He finished buckling his boots, then made the bed and sat down on it to wait. Rona came back, and he held her the way he probably should have done to begin with, listening as she talked about her family, more about her beloved grandmother than her mother. After a while, Vi came in, still dressed for church and carrying the scent of her police officer. With a murmured excuse about patrol, he left the two slayers to talk, giving Rona a kiss that Vi hardly registered. As Spike went downstairs for his coat, he was distantly amused by his confused demon, who was processing the fact that slayers were not interchangeable in bed. Probably not a good thing to discover right now; just one more reason for fury over what he had lost.

⸹

"Giles, thanks for coming." Angel held the door wide.

The head of the Council of Watchers stepped warily across the threshold, looking around. Buffy's impact on the apartment was still minimal; a couple of sweaters were draped over the couch and a forgotten can of diet coke sat on the end table. "You wanted to see me alone?"

"Yeah. Buffy's out with her sister this afternoon." His smile faltered beneath Giles' piercing gaze. "What? What's wrong?"

"Your expression. Smiling, I mean. It's one I associate with Angelus rather than with you."

"Oh. Sorry." He gestured awkwardly at the couch and hurried to move the sweaters. "Um, please have a seat."

"I'll stand."

Angel bit his lip and crushed the soft cotton in his strong hands. Of course Giles would be this way. Spike was William Randall Giles, after all. He turned back to the human and nodded. "That's fine, too. It won't take long." He pulled an envelope from his back pocket and walked across the short distance to hold it out.

"A letter for Buffy?" Giles asked, tilting his head to read the name written on the paper. "In the event of your death, I presume?"

Angel nodded. "I thought of you. You'll know what's coming, and…" he shrugged, "well, I respect you." He didn't bother asking that the human not read the letter; it was an unspoken point of honor.

Rupert took the envelope and considered it for a long moment. "I've asked him for clemency."

"For Buffy's sake."

"Certainly not for yours."

Torturing a Watcher didn't lead to him harboring tender feelings. He shook his head. "My life is in the hands of a man I have shown absolutely no mercy toward the entire time I've known him." Angel laughed, a short, unhappy sound. "Well, once. He gave me his allegiance, and I didn't torture Dru that night. I doubt he even noticed it was on purpose. One of my best memories."

"Spare me the details."

"There isn't going to be clemency, but thank you for the thought." Angel watched as Giles tucked the letter into the inside pocket of his jacket. He had debated for a long time about whether to tell Buffy about Connor, but in the end decided that his son's new life should stay secret. The last thing he would want was for his son to seek vengeance on Spike, who in a better world would be Connor's godfather. Angel had contented himself with the thought of the portrait of himself with Darla, given during his visit. Connor should have an image of his parents.

"Anything else?" Giles' voice was still hard.

"I won't fight him."

"Would it do you any good?"

"I doubt it." Angel shrugged. "He's gotten better than me. I'm actually kind of proud of him."

Giles shook his head. "I don't pretend to understand your… relationship with Spike."

Angel smiled. "All that matters now is that I took something claimed by the head of my Order, and my life is forfeit."

"Yet you're… smiling again."

"I'm happy, Giles. I haven't been happy very much the past century, and I'm not really that good at it. Buffy gave me this, the way everything good in my life started with knowing her. She's been my gift." Angel actually laughed a little. "It makes it easy to live in the moment, easier to deal with… unfamiliar emotions, knowing it's probably going to be taken away."

"And then Spike will have lost Buffy's friendship for good, and she won't have either of you."

He finally understood the source of the Watcher's anger. It had nothing to do with their past experiences or with Spike. It was because Buffy was Giles' daughter in all but name. "She won't be alone. She has you and Dawn and Xander, Willow too."

Rupert's mouth was set in a grim line. "If Spike kills you, as is his right, I'd say there is a ninety-nine percent chance that Buffy will kill him." He recycled Angel's phrase like a weapon. "He won't fight her; it wouldn't do him any good. She'll use the Slayer's Scythe, then I think the odds are even that, in her grief, she'll turn it on herself. And if she doesn't, I think she'll let herself be killed on patrol within a month, perhaps two." He turned on his heel to leave, but paused in the doorway. "Enjoy your happiness."

Stunned, Angel watched Giles march out of sight. He hadn't bothered to close the door behind him. Walking stiffly, feeling every one of his two hundred and fifty one years, he went to the door and closed it on the summer day outside.

⸹

Spike volunteered to drive Rona to the train station the next day. She was somber and a little distant, dreading her arrival more than the journey. Spike managed to find parking that allowed him to lug her suitcase for her. Although she was perfectly capable of carrying her own bag, the gentleman in him was never going to die. Just before she boarded her train, she came back to her surroundings and gave him a soft, quizzical look. "Did yesterday really happen?"

"Wondered that myself, pet. Don't usually get sweetness like that."

"I love you, Spike." She gave him a perfectly natural hug.

"It was what you wanted, wasn't it?" When her brows drew together, he shrugged, uncomfortable. "Don't want to think it was because I… Because, you know–"

"You're not trying to seduce me, are you, Mr. Robinson?" Rona asked sardonically. Then, normally, "Don't be silly. It was my call."

Relieved, he gave her the tight hug he reserved for slayers. "I love you, Ro. Be careful. It'll be fine. Remember," he added, pulling away and pointing a finger at her, "family."

"Family," she agreed, smiling faintly.

⸹

"Hello?" Dawn swung her hair away from her left ear impatiently, then repositioned her cell phone. She was sitting at the kitchen in Tribby's apartment, talking to Clem. She listened for a few moments, then said, "Okay. Bye," and folded the phone.

"Is it time?" Clem asked, sounding anxious.

She sighed and nodded. "Yeah."

"Can I have the rest of your Bugles, then?"

Dawn smiled, pushing the corn chips across the table. Food distracted him from the pull of the energy. "Sure. Be my guest." It was Tuesday afternoon, and demons were beginning to make forays across the parking lot toward the insurance building. Standing up, she stretched and went to the living room. Five slayers were there; only Tribby had braved the futon, sitting in a cross-legged, sideways position. They all looked up at Dawn. "It's time."

"All right!" Geneva said, standing up. She had a stepfather who liked to use his fists somewhere back in Arizona, and while otherwise reserved, she was like Spike in her need to get her violence on.

Vashti pulled her ever-present earbuds from her head and wrapped the wires around her iPod. "I don't think we'll have as much fun this time."

"The Watchers have really gone all out," Dawn agreed, "with the booby traps and the barriers, but whatever makes it into the building should give us a good workout."

"Who's taking over for Rona in her group?" Maria asked.

"Oz." Dawn rummaged for her purse.

"He's kind of, you know," Maria looked for a kind way to put it, "slight."

Dawn looked over her shoulder. "He's a werewolf. Sorry, Maria. I thought you knew."

"A werewolf." Maria looked at Geneva, who blinked. "Of course."

"His baby cousin Jordy bit him back when he was in high school," Dawn said, having successfully found her keys. "He's, like, superstrong all the time and has a sense of smell better than a vampire's. And he's some kind of Zen master and doesn't even turn at the full moon anymore." She frowned. "Oz was always a Zen master, though. You should have seen him this one Halloween when he went as God. Very believable."

"Well, okay then." Vashti grinned. "Maybe I should be on his team."

"How's Rona doing?" Maria asked.

Vi answered the question. "I don't know if it's sunk in. Spike and I were with her most of the day Sunday, and I don't know if it was the same with him, but I think it just really makes her miss her grandmother all over again."

"Speaking of Spike," Dawn said, "and not meaning to interrupt..?

Vi and Maria exchanged a look. "No, I just wondered," Maria said, waving to show they were ceding the floor.

"So, you're all clear on the plan? If Spike starts in on Angel in a serious way, we – well, you guys – break it up." Dawn looked at Tribby. "Outside of my sister, you have the best chance of taking him down."

The Southern slayer grimaced. "I can crosscut him, get him down, but I can't hold him. I'll need backup. He's got most of my wrestling moves now."

"Hold Spike down bodily," Vashti mused. "Not sure if that should come with hazard pay or count as a fringe benefit."

"What about Angel?" Geneva asked.

Dawn hesitated. "I don't think he'll fight us. I don't even know if he'll fight Spike."

"I don't think Spike will fight," Tribby said, shaking her head. "To lose control like that… I just don't see it."

Dawn looked off into middle distance, thinking of a night when Buffy was dead and Spike had demolished an entire mausoleum by bashing it with every tombstone within throwing distance. Then he'd simply taken a breath and declared that he felt better. She was saved from answering, though, by Vi.

"Oh, sir, sensei-san is perfect, sir," the redhead teased, fluttering her eyelashes.

Tribby blushed and tossed a pillow at her. "I'm just saying, I don't see Spike losing his temper."

"He doesn't really lose his temper," Clem said, leaning on the white rail that separated the living room from the kitchen. "He just sort of unleashes it, then tightens it back up. Like this time this guy egged him on in a demon bar in Sunnydale until he pulled a vampire's heart out and showed it to him before he dusted."

"Whoa," Vashti said, impressed by the speed necessary for such a move.

"Then he pulled out the spine of the guy who got him to do it, showed it to him, and impaled him on the wall with it."

"Did it kill him?" Maria asked, revolted and admiring all at once.

"Oh," Clem said, taking the question seriously, "it was mammalian, yeah. But it was a Thanoss demon, real mouthy type. Spike was just trying to show the rest of the people in the bar that he doesn't take orders from anyone." These humans, while all rather on the homely side, were sweet and seemed to appreciate how well he could tell a story. "But what I meant was, you never know when he's going to turn the dial up to eleven."

" _This Is Spïnal Tap_?" Tribby asked, sitting up straighter. When Clem beamed at her, she added, "We've gotta watch it together before you go."

"Anyway, that stuff in the bar was just a warmup for my old buddy Spike. See, for months he'd been after this guy who hurt Dawn, and he caught him in the alley right after that. Spike took–"

"Clem," Dawn said softly. "Don't tell that story, okay?"

"Someone hurt you, Dawn?" Vi asked, soft and dangerous.

"Some… thing. I don't know what he was, exactly. He looked human, except for his tail, and his eyes were weird, and he could do a frog kind of thing with his tongue." She shrugged. "He's gone now."

"Yeah," Clem said emphatically, "Spike took care of him. He had to stab Spike and throw him off a tower to get to Dawn in the first place. That was when–"

"Clem. Please don't."

"Okay. I won't." He put an awkward hand on her arm.

"Thanks." She looked down. It wasn't that the memory was upsetting, though it was. Buffy had died that night. She just didn't want the slayers who were deployed to prevent Spike-on-Angel violence to be too wary of Spike's abilities. They loved the blond vampire, and Dawn didn't want anything to jeopardize that. It had taken so long for the Scoobies, who had first known Spike as an enemy, to get to the point where they trusted him. "So," she said, taking in a breath, "are we ready to go?"

⸹

For Buffy, the second battle got underway when a cluster of vampires overwhelmed the last barrier spell in the parking lot. Most of them made it through, despite the hail of bolts from the Watchers in sniper positions on the roof. She lifted the Slayer's Scythe and began slicing, dicing, and staking as they came through the open doors. To her left, she registered glass breaking, but it wasn't until she was turning at the last second to confront an enormous reptilian beast with yellow eyes that she realized one of the walls had been breached. Buffy parried desperately, blocking an arm-numbing blow with the Scythe flat across her chest. The weapon the demon was holding shattered, but before she could take a step back to get enough room to wield her own blade, the creature was snatched backwards by a leather-clad arm. Spike slit its throat with his knife and let it fall, not a drop of the viscous green fluid that served as blood spattering his coat. He met her eyes briefly, and she felt everything slide back into place.

"Duck," she said tenderly, making him smile at a memory. Then his eyes widened and he dropped just in time to avoid an aluminum baseball bat that a stocky vampire in overalls had swung at his head. She staked the vamp, grinning.

After that, he was on her left where he belonged, and they held the door alone while Giles and Angel joined Oz's team at the broken window. Buffy exchanged a swift glance with Angel as he moved away, relieved to see him nod his approval. Twice she tossed Spike her weapon when his own stakes went to dust from repeated use; he had handled the weapon the night she claimed it, and she had no compunction about letting him touch the Slayers' Scythe. They were mirror images combined into a deadly gestalt, and her small, fierce smile matched the feral joy on his face as they slew their enemies.

Three hours went by, and even Buffy's arms grew tired of wielding the Slayer's weapon. She and Spike moved outside the doorway, the pile of demon carcasses at the threshold hindering their movement. After another thirty minutes, the incoming stream of beasts became a trickle, then ceased entirely.

"Clear the building, love?" he asked, a beatific calm on his sculpted features after the non-stop carnage.

"Let's go." There were only two floors, so it took less time than at the previous site. Once again vampires had tried to come into the building from beneath, tunneling in this time from what looked like a natural cave, but Vi's team had kept the opening to a minimum and the slayage at a maximum. As in the first battle, no slayers were hurt.

On the second floor, they met Tribby, who was scowling. "The insurance company is obviously evil and deserves to have its building invaded by demons." When Spike and Buffy merely exchanged a look and waited with raised eyebrows, she added, "Listen."

Spike did, frowned, then spun and knocked the nearest door off its hinges with a side kick. He shrugged. "Seems fair." When the other slayer nodded and headed down the stairs, he caught Buffy's puzzled look. "Some bastard has turned 'Blitzkreig Bop' into elevator music."

"And that's always a bad thing," she agreed, which was her firm opinion despite the fact that she had no clue about this band Blitzkreig Bop.

Spike held the door that led to the roof for her, his fingers naturally at the small of her back as they climbed the steps. He grinned down at her. "You're hungry."

Buffy put a hand over her noisy stomach. "Starved. You know how it is after a battle." She pushed the last door open before he could reach around her, and the ambient traffic noise and the conversations of several Watchers almost drowned his reply.

"I do."

She pivoted at the low, velvety words, feeling them physically, the same way she felt his hand, still skimming her spine. Looking up into his eyes, she saw the blue darken, and she swallowed. He did know. He knew exactly what she needed after a battle.

Then his jaw flexed, and his eyes darkened far too much before looking away from her. Spike's hand fell from her back. "So," he called to a nearby Watcher, "all present and accounted for here, Jacobson?" He walked off, leaving her bereft.

Bereft. Buffy had read the word before, knew what it meant, but she hadn't really understood. Without. Deprived. Lacking.

She pulled the door open and went the down the stairs, through the second floor to the first, then out the ruined wall beside the door. By now she was able to breathe calmly, to think instead of just move. A detail of slayers was gathering the bodies that hadn't gone to dust or dissolved into ectoplasm, and she saw Angel working with them. There. That's where she belonged. Buffy moved next to him and took two of the limbs closest to the head of something heavy. "Need help?" she asked, her voice bright, shiny and thin as aluminum foil. From high above, she could feel the weight of a black gaze falling on her, but when she could bear it no longer and looked up at the roof, Spike was gone.

⸹

"Anyone go down?"

Vi jumped. Although she recognized the voice, she hadn't heard him approach. "No," she said, placing a hand over her heart and widening her eyes to let him know he'd scared her. "Nothing has come up for twenty minutes, though."

"Lend me a stake." He waited until she put it in his hand, then pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. "For luck," he said, giving her a rakish grin before dropping blindly through the hole in the floor.

Reckless, that's how he felt. Not a good thing, not with a stake in his hand and family nearby. Unfortunately, there were no random vampires on which to take out his frustrations.

"Spike!" Vi thrust a flashlight down. "Need this?"

"Yeah. Thanks, pet." The tunnel dead-ended at the building, and he walked along the single passage without using the torch, the faint light from the room above enough to keep a good footing, listening for sounds other than his own soft footfalls. The quality of the dank air changed after about twenty feet, and he emerged into a cave not quite large enough to stand in. He sensed air flowing from three directions, so there were at least that many openings into other passages or caves. Spike waited, using the patience he only displayed on a hunt, senses open. There were no vampires or other demons in the vicinity, nothing of any importance had left a scent in these caves for years until tonight, but he gave it another two minutes. Tired of waiting, he narrowed his eyes to slits and set his thumb over the switch on the torch, but before he could throw it, an odd sound came to him from the opening to the right. When it didn't repeat for an additional two minutes, he turned on the light, blinding only himself. He was alone, and best not to follow that maudlin thought.

Spike turned back, knowing Vi would be worried, but he paused anyway, turning his head toward the passage on the right, straining to hear the sound again. Maybe a bat stretching its wings, but… Hard to fool an old sea dog like him. It had sounded just like the snap of a sail in the wind.

⸹

The last of the bodies were gone, and Giles was speaking with Lieutenant Muse, who kept sending longing glances at Vi. She had a smudge of dirt on her nose, and he wanted to wipe it away.

"Any trouble?" the redheaded slayer asked Tribby, who was standing with Dawn.

"No," she said, a bit of I-told-you-so in her voice. "It was easier to stick with Angel than Spike, so I stayed with him, and then he left with Buffy after we finished cleanup."

"Good." Vi let out a breath. She missed Rona, felt too much responsibility falling on her without the other veteran slayer.

Dawn indicated the police officer with a nod of her head. "I think you're wanted."

Vi grinned. "I _know_ I'm wanted." The other women laughed as she walked away.

⸹

Spike left the building half an hour later, having stayed to watch the opening in the floor, just in case. When a detail of Watchers came to place a barrier spell over the hole, he was gone before there was a chance for polite exchange. He didn't want anything to do with humans just now, not if it didn't involve food.

Slayers were another matter. The parking lot across the street where Giles' people had left their cars had turned into party central, hiphop music blasting from someone's car. Slayers were dancing with each other, their spirits high after another successful fight. He lowered his head and went toward them with a determined air, catching Kayla about the waist and dancing with her. He finished by dipping her low to the ground and kissing her until she was out of breath. Next was Geneva, who was as tall and heavy as he was, so Spike simply sat her down on the hood of a car, inserted a thigh between her knees, and kissed her thoroughly.

His cool side was gone, no inner anarchist to remind him that his behavior wasn't human. These weren't humans, either; they were slayers, and they were his. Gunn and Tribby were dancing together, and he cut in. There was nothing in her kiss. He tried Vashti next, then Maria, then Tiffany, then Bethany. Something was wrong. He was dancing with slayers, but there was nothing. He pulled away from Bethany's soft mouth, seeing her happy, stunned expression from very far away. Tamika stepped up to him, grinning, eager for her turn.

A logo from a t-shirt he'd seen a long time ago came to him: you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. Spike had danced with all the slayers now, had not found the fairy tale ending. Something was wrong.

Then he saw her coming toward him, long brown hair blowing a little in the night breeze, one eyebrow raised. Spike cut her off, culled her from the herd, taking her to the far side of her Jeep. She was human, but not, and she had never hurt him, would never hurt him. She loved him. He could dance with her.

Dawn was saying something, her brows drawn together, then he was kissing her, too, exploring her lush mouth in a way he'd never considered. He felt her hands clench against him, fistfuls of leather bunched up, unsure of whether to hold him away or close. Then, tentatively, she kissed him back, less than a second, but enough for him to know it was wrong.

And wrong again.

Spike drew his head away, his eyes wide and blue once more. "Sorry," he said.

"Spike." Dawn said his name evenly. "What's going on? Come on, let me take you home, and you can tell me."

He shook his head wordlessly. No force on earth could make him go home with her, not tonight, because his soul was hunched in a corner, rocking back and forth in misery, his common sense was gone on walkabout, and his demon would not be denied. "I love you," he said, covering her hands with his, then he pulled away and was gone into the darkness.

He still had the stake in his pocket.

Vashti's MP3 player was also in his pocket, and he had a dim memory of nicking it for no good reason when he felt it in the pocket of her jeans. Draping the earphones loosely over his shoulders, he dialed through the playlist until he saw a song by Hole. It wasn't one he was familiar with, 'Be a Man,' but he'd seen them once at the Whiskey in Los Angeles, and they had been fierce. He listened to Courtney Love's orgasmic scream about the violence of men as he walked steadily through Cleveland, his eyes once again darker than the night.

⸹

It's going to be all right, Angel thought, taking in a small breath as he parked the car. Spike had fought by Buffy's side, and he was okay with that, more than okay. Spike was her best chance to stay alive. The boy hadn't spoken to him, or even looked at him, but if he would work with Buffy, surely that meant something. Maybe he'd decided that if they ignored each other, there didn't have to be a confrontation.

"Good fight tonight," Buffy said. She sounded tired.

"Well," he said, "we won. That's always the best kind." She opened the door on her side of the car, and Angel followed suit. "You and Spike were amazing to see. As always."

Buffy's face tightened. "We held the door."

Angel slid his arm around her, relieved that she wasn't gushing about how good it was to fight with the other vampire. "You were amazing, and amazing Slayers get Cherry Garcia ice cream."

"Isn't that your private stash?" Buffy teased.

"It is." Angel smiled down at her. "You're amazing and everything, but I do have to feed it to you. It's just one of those things."

"One of those things, huh?" She stood on tiptoe and lifted her face to him as he fumbled for the key to the door.

"Mmp," he said, giving her a last kiss, "found it." Angel unlocked the door and pulled her inside, grinning, and plopped her on the couch. "Ice cream. Spoon," he said, raising a finger. "I'll be right back."

His cell phone was on the kitchen counter by the refrigerator, so when it rang, he picked it up as a matter of course. "Hello?" he said, opening the freezer door.

"Aurelian." A black word in a voice as deep as an ocean. "Attend me."

Doom crashing down on him, entirely unexpected at this moment. "Where are you?"

"Find me."

Angel held the phone to his ear long after the click. He was no more than a cog in destiny's machine, nothing he could do to stop events from unfolding, no matter how wrong it felt. He loved Spike, Spike loved him, and Spike was going to murder him this night.

"I'll be right there," he said, surprised at how well he could fake normal. He folded the phone and laid it on the counter.

"Who was it?" Buffy asked. She'd taken off her boots and was stretching her calves, her legs stuck straight out from the edge of the couch.

"Spike." Angel was amazed again by how natural his voice sounded. There was even an edge of annoyance in it. "Looks like he's ready to talk. To me, at least."

"Now?"

Angel shrugged. "Wired after the battle, I guess."

Something flitted across the Slayer's face. "No fighting," she warned.

"I won't fight," he agreed, having decided this some time ago. She was so pretty, looking up at him. He cupped her face and gave her a lingering kiss. "Go on to bed," he urged, "you look tired." She'd given him everything good he'd ever known, even to the final thing that ensured his son's safety.

"I am tired." She covered his hands with hers. "Wake me up when you get in, though, no matter how late."

"I will," he promised. Easy to promise anything when it's beyond your power to keep. He was an excellent liar, and knew to immediately cover deception with the truth. "I love you, Buffy. Good night."

"I love you, too."

He felt her eyes on him as he strolled to the door. On the other side, he locked it, then put his forehead against the wood for a moment. "Be safe," he whispered, resolutely not thinking of what Giles had said.

Spike was on the move, wasn't waiting for him. It was classic Spike; the boy had never been one for holding still. It made it easier. Angel couldn't imagine trudging to some static destination, knowing what was waiting for him. He tracked Spike's scent from the University to the waterfront, but it wasn't until he was at Jacobs Field that he got close enough to sense him. Angel went into the stadium warily, avoiding the security measures with ease. The Indians were on a road trip somewhere, and the scent of crowds of humans had faded. He dropped over the side of the bleachers onto the field, and his sense of the boy suddenly magnified as the blond vampire stopped damping his power.

"Ow!" Angel went down, holding his jaw, and Spike grabbed him and threw him a good twenty feet, not far from third base. He struggled to his feet, one hand still on his face, and turned to meet his death.

Death looked like a demon just now, lips pulled back over fangs in an unhappy grin, hard brow ridges framing black eyes. Spike had drawn shadow to this area of the baseball diamond, hiding their conflict from any human observation. "You've touched what's mine, Aurelian."

"I have." And he was on the ground again, two broken fingers where the kick had smashed them against his jaw. Angel never saw it coming. For a half-second, he thought of punning that he'd made it past third base with Buffy, but there was no sense hiding behind inane taunts.

"You admit to taking what belongs to the Master of your Order?"

"I do." An axe kick this time, falling like lightning on his shoulder, breaking his collarbone.

"Show me your true face."

Angel took a breath. "Spike," he said, chancing a look up, but all he saw was a blurred palm, then he was holding his broken nose. Damn, that always stung.

"You don't get to speak except to answer questions, Aurelian." His voice became even darker. "That's how I remember it being."

Angel closed his watering eyes wearily. That's exactly how it had been, when their positions were reversed. God, the things he'd done to the boy, the unforgivable things.

"Get up." When the big vampire didn't move, Spike added impatiently, "On your feet, Aurelian."

Angel shook his head. "Not gonna fight you." His nose was already better, but his voice sounded nasal. "Just get it over with."

There was a long silence, so long that Angel cast another look at his grandchild. Spike was studying him, his head tilted to one side. "'Just get it over with?'" He paced away to the left, then came back. "'Just get it over with?' Where's the fun in that? You had years with me. What? You can dish it out, but you can't take it? Memory serves, you could, when it was Darla serving it up so cold."

"This isn't you, boy. Just go ahead–" The big fist hit just below his eye socket, taking his vision to a strange and segmented place. Angel bit down, struggling to keep his own demon in check. He stayed on his knees, determined now to not get up. He would fight if he did.

"Isn't it me, Angel?" Spike moved behind him now, and he tensed, expecting a blow at any time. "Isn't this what you made me to be? Ruthless? Isn't this what I've become? The head of a house so vicious that the Powers That Be have taken a personal interest?" Angel felt the overwhelming sense of the blond vampire's power recede as he stalked away once more. "You think you're the only one who's cursed? Everyone in your line must be wrong somehow, Dru for remembering what you did to her, me for–"

Spike stopped. He'd moved where Angel could see him again. There was the scent of blood in the air, and he realized it was from the boy's tears. The myth that vampires cry blood was based on the smell of them, coppery rather than salty. But what streaked the demon's cheeks looked no different than what would have fallen on his human face. "I've no choice, Angel. I don't want to do this, and I'm riven with it. But I've no choice." He turned away. "She killed us all when she did this."

Angel sighed. "She didn't know." His hands tensed to block the blow for speaking out, but it never came.

Spike looked over his shoulder, his lips having the memory of what a smile might look like. "She never cared to know much about vampires except how to kill us, yeah?" His gaze went to the perfectly maintained grass of the diamond. "I kill you, she kills me, and soon after," the words were twisted in the ruin of his voice, "some nasty gets one good night."

Exactly what Giles had said. Angel closed his eyes. "Will, you might be the Master, but you've never been one for rules. Can't you–" This time the punishment for speaking did come, delivered to his temple by the scuffed toe of Spike's boot. Angel heard delicate bone crack amid the pain.

Spike strode away, then continued as if he hadn't knocked Angel to the ground. "If there was a way, don't you think I'd have already found it? All you've got here for this is a demon, and we're not known for mercy," he spread his fingers wide over his chest. "Soul's tucked its tail between its legs and crawled away. The other part doesn't want to see this, either, and he was our best bet."

Angel put his hands on the ground and pushed up, locking his elbows. He didn't feel addled, but what he was hearing made no sense. Spitting out the scrim of blood and saliva that coated his mouth, Angel heaved himself back onto his knees once again. Spike had his back to him, his head cocked to one side, as if listening. He whirled suddenly, his black coat flaring out.

"Not going to let some random, undeserving demon get her," he said decisively, and there was something calculating in the yellow gaze now. "Once I'm done here, I'll go," the hoarse voice faltered, "have myself a good day. If she's going to die anyway, let it be at my hands, so it's done with love."

"No!" Angel's hands clenched into fists before he could make them relax. "You couldn't, anyway."

Nothing more than an open-handed smack on the cheek this time, contemptuous. "Killed two Slayers, Peaches. Think I can slide in under this one's defenses." He leaned in close, smirking sex in his voice, but there was no matching expression on his face. "I'll make sure she has a stake. We can go at the same time. Seems fitting, 'cause we always came at the same–"

Too much. Before Angel finished changing from human to demon face, he was on his feet, his hands latched onto the boy's neck, driving him back. They went to the ground yards away, the dark-haired vampire on top. He got in three solid blows before Spike wriggled away, leveraging an arm, grinding his broken clavicle against muscle. Angel didn't cry out, gritting his teeth instead, but he was caught in a wrestling hold, his cheek against the grass, the boy's mocking laughter in his ear.

"Bitch, innit? The thought of some git hurtin' your lady, nothing you can do to stop him?" Despite the agony of his collarbone, Angel renewed his struggles, snarling. "I always thought so." Spike's voice was thoughtful now. "Worst was when I was in the wheelchair. Figured I might be able to take you then, if I could just get to you."

"You leave her alone!" What he'd done to Dru was ancient history; nothing mattered now except Buffy.

"Can't do that, Peaches. She's mine."

"She's not! Not now, not ever – Aaurgh!"

Regarding his grandsire's neck thoughtfully, Spike pulled up the tiniest bit more on Angel's arm before easing off. "Hurts, dunnit?" They both knew he didn't mean the hold. "Don't contradict me, Aurelian. Claimed her. When did you ever have the stones to claim a human, knowing you'll be separated from them in the end?"

"Claimed Gunn," Angel managed, the bright red fading from the corners of his vision.

"Charlie's mine now," Spike said, and there was some satisfaction when the big vampire growled his fury. "Claimed him up in Boulder, the night… the night he and Tribs stayed with me." His voice went flat. "Now, you listen up, Aurelian, because I thought of a way where we all get to live," he eased up on Angel's arm a bit more, "for whatever it's worth."

Angel went still, feeling wrung out. "I'm listening."

"Can't hardly credit that I came up with it. Not known for thinking, me. The soul's a lot better, so's the other part." The bemusement faded. "You walk away from here, take care of the Slayer, and eventually we might be civil, the three of us. Interested?"

"I said I was listening." He stifled a groan as Spike rotated his arm a mite, then the boy was gone, ten yards away, circling him.

"What is she worth to you, Aurelian?"

"Everything." Excluding his son.

"Good answer."

Angel made himself rise to his knees once more, forced the demon down, and faced Spike with clear brown eyes. "Glad you approve."

Spike gave him a warning glance, still in game face. "You get the girl, we all live to fight another day… and all you have to do is," he stopped directly in front of the kneeling man, five yards away, "submit."

"What?" Then, right after the shocked exclamation, "No!"

The expressive face was unnervingly calm as the blond vampire drew a stake from the inside of his coat. "Worth everything, is she?" He came forward a couple of paces, then paused. "Anything you want me to tell her? Shall I lie and say she was the last thing on your mind, rather than your pride?"

"You complete bastard."

Shrug.

"I won't submit," he growled.

Spike nodded. "Didn't think so. A fight, then, Peaches, or will you just bare your lily white breast? Doesn't matter to me; I'm already thinking of my next fight." His placid face changed, was touched by a distant longing. "Been a while since we danced."

"Don't you go near her," Angel snarled. "You don't love her, you can't, not if you're planning to–"

"There have been times," Spike said, quite suddenly nose to nose with his grandsire, Vi's stake breaking the skin of Angel's chest, "when the only reason I bothered to keep my soul instead of letting it pass was the fact that I love her." Shaking a little, he banished the memory of the weeks of torture at the hands of the First Evil. His voice was harsh. "I lived for her when I wanted to die, I died for her when I wanted to live, I got the bloody soul for her." He pressed on the stake a bit harder, the tip of it scraping a rib. "What the hell have you _ever_ done for her?"

He'd… what? Let her live instead of a futile attempt to kill her at the First Evil's behest? Given her information? Left her for her own good? Angel knew what Spike meant, because he felt the same imbalance when he thought of what Buffy had given him – her virginity, her life's blood, her trust. Her love. A life free of Angelus.

When Angel's mouth worked and nothing came out, Spike said softly, "Thought so." His voice became clipped. "You don't get to lecture me when it comes to love."

"I'm not a fool, Spike. If I submit, you'll have us both."

A humorless chuckle. "You'll just have to trust me." There was a pause where neither of them addressed this. "What'll it be, then? Shall I become legend, kill my third Slayer? Or will you save us all?"

"If I submit, do you swear not to lay a hand on her?" There was a longer pause, and Angel had time to realize he could have worded it differently. He only wanted reassurance that Spike wouldn't kill her in some logic-impaired murder-suicide melodrama.

"I swear." The ravaged voice was full of dread.

Spike had always been a man of peculiar honor, and Angel was trying. "I'll do it, then."

The stake was gone, and the boy moved back a few yards. Angel let out his breath and went to game face, perversely glad at how stunned and furious Angelus was over this development. Now that his course was decided, there was no reason to drag it out. He bit into his wrist, tearing the veins open, and offered his blood freely to the Master of the Order of Aurelius.

Nothing happened. Angel opened his eyes and saw Spike in the limited field of vision his bowed head allowed, boots to belt buckle, drawn in close by the smell of blood. He heard a long sigh.

"If there's another way, Angel, I don't know what it is. I don't want this." He slid his fingers between his grandsire's, gave them an oddly gentle squeeze, and then lowered his head to feed.

The blood was like ambrosia; it always had been. Spike drank for a long time, unable to make it go quickly. His demon reveled in the process, eyes open to watch Angel's bowed head, his unresisting offer, his submission. When he'd taken enough to make the older vampire physically weak, Spike shook away his game face and spread a thin coat of saliva over the wound, feeling the broken skin heal beneath his mouth.

Stepping back, he saw something that made his stomach lurch: an expression of absolute adoration in Angel's yellow eyes, directed at him. "Rise," he directed, giving his first order, watching the big vampire struggle to comply. Both of them were already risen, of course, and in another sense, too, hard as standing stones from the exchange of blood. Oh, this will end well, Spike thought sourly.

On his feet now, Angel swayed, his eyes still fixed on his beautiful boy. It was so easy now, nothing between them, the animosity and brutality and history gone. "Master."

Spike flinched, his stomach giving another unsettled roll. Wouldn't that be perfect, vomiting up Angel's sacrifice? "Spike. You call me what you've always called me."

Tears of gratitude flooded the golden eyes. "Spike," he whispered.

 _Mine_. Inside, Spike's demon shifted restlessly, a flash of gold in the black eyes, rampant and hungry for what should follow a submission.

 _Don't even think it_. The soul, peeking out at the world again now that it didn't have to witness the death of family, was implacable. _You don't sleep with her friends._

"Right," Spike said, wincing a little. "Heed me, Aurelian. You are my instrument, my vessel, and I fill you with my will. You are mine, and I send you to take care of what is also mine. Through you, I keep the Slayer safe. I task you with this: you will do all that is in your power, or mine, to keep her from harm, to keep her," his voice faltered, "to try to keep her happy."

"I will do so, M – Spike." Very distantly, beneath the abject worship, Angel felt relief. This would work; by giving his Slayer into the care of a demon who belonged absolutely to him, Spike had circumvented the death sentence.

"Shake it off, mate." At Angel's confused look, he elaborated, "Lose the face. It'll help."

He did so, and it did help. Unfortunately, it put a more human edge on his desire for his Master. "What will you have me do now?" There was a huskiness in his voice.

"Go home," Spike said, weary. He couldn't go home; someone ought to be able to.

"Will." Angel took an involuntary step forward.

The smoky timbre of his voice made the name a caress, and Spike found himself looking into Angel's eyes a few moments too long. He gave his head a shake. "Huh-uh. Not gonna do something we'll both regret when this wears off." He didn't look away from the still-bruised face, though, didn't move away. "Go home," he repeated, closing his eyes, counting on the power his words would have over the other vampire.

When he opened his eyes, Angel was gone. Spike sighed and began the trek back to his truck, across the street from the site of the second battle. There were no other vehicles in the lot, the slayers long gone. Just as well; he felt lucky that his demon had been content to stop his search among them at a kiss. That gave him pause, one boot inside the truck, swaying a little as he held onto the door: the thought of testing each of them in his bed. Then he shook his head. Even he didn't have that kind of stamina.

Spike drove to the nearest liquor store, located in a poverty-stricken area where his was the palest skin by far. When he bothered to think of such things, he was always disheartened how easy it was to buy alcohol and firearms and to pawn stolen goods in bad neighborhoods. Maybe if there were more control over which businesses could operate in an area, life would get better for the people who lived there.

Tonight, though, he wasn't bothered. He met the hostile stares of the young men loitering across the street from the liquor store with his own bland gaze, then went inside and bought six bottles of Black Jack and a carton of Marlboros. When he came out, one of the young men had walked across the street to stand by the driver's door.

"Nice truck," he said, his posture challenging.

"My truck is nice," Spike agreed, meeting the man's eyes. He didn't know what he looked like, not having a reflection, but he felt dead in every sense of the word. "I like my nice truck."

The man's head rocked back, eyes widening. "Nice truck," he repeated, leaving his hands in his pockets as he strode away. Distantly, Spike heard him put on a brave face in front of his crew. "Ain't no way, man. Crazy motherfucker's on something."

Not the first time he'd been called that, however inaccurately; wouldn't be the last. He pulled away from the curb, ripping open the cigarettes, finding his lighter. He opened the first bottle of Jack Daniels, took a sip. After a few miles, Spike looked at the road signs. _East_ , came a cool voice.

 _Nice to have you back_ , he snarked at himself, demon to inner anarchist.

 _Good job tonight_.

 _Let's just leave_.

That last from his soul, and he wholeheartedly agreed. He took an on-ramp to a multi-lane road headed east, drifted from the shoulder into the fast lane, then pulled out his cell phone.

"Rupert Giles speaking."

"How's it hangin,' Rupes?"

"Spike? Where are you?"

"Didn't kill him, Rupert. Found a way. It's over." He took a swig from his bottle. "We're all safe as houses."

"That's very good to hear, but where are you?"

"Goin' on walkabout for a bit. Can't stay just now." Not in the same house with Sweet Bit, even with all his inner selves back. He was far too needy. "Have Nibblet give me a ring when Rona calls to say when she's coming back from Philly. Not till then."

"What about your training at the gym?"

"Get the whelp to cover. He did fine last time." When I was in Boulder, yet curiously getting buggered in Cleveland. Ah, the Jack Daniels was starting to kick in. He finished the first bottle, bothered to toss the dimp end of his fag out the window, and began opening his second.

"Are you all right, man?"

"Not remotely."

"William…" The concern in Giles' voice was open. "If you want to talk about it, I doubt anything you say can shock me."

"Angel submitted. He's mine. I gave Buffy into his protection, mine watching over what's mine." There was silence on the other end of the line, during which Spike finally opened the Jack with an unsafe degree of attention away from the road. "High voltage."

"What?"

"Apparently you were shocked." Half of the second bottle was gone now, and the sharp edges of life were smoother. Spike lit another cigarette.

"I – Yes, I guess I – He submitted?"

"Had to threaten the Slayer to get him to do it. Told him she'd kill me anyway, then it would only be a matter of time for her. Rather do it myself, quick-like."

"Yes, I agree. Er, I mean, I thought the same."

"Does it worry you, Watcher, that your thought processes are the same as the Master of the Order of Aurelius?"

"Not tonight. Maybe it will tomorrow."

"Swore to him I wouldn't touch the Slayer, would never lay a hand on her." Spike killed the second bottle. "Keep my promises, Rupes, best I can."

Giles sighed. "I am so sorry, William. This situation isn't… optimal for any of you."

"Yeah, well, thought I'd get out of town for a bit. Tell Dawnie I love her, see you lot in a few days – and have her ring me when she hears from Ro."

"But not before," Giles assured him. "Good work tonight, by the way."

It was a moment before Spike realized that Rupert meant the battle. "All down to my ladies."

"And their work is down to you."

"Thanks." He hung up, knowing it was abrupt, but he really needed his right hand to open the third bottle.

⸹

Home. Angel stood outside his door, staring at it for a long time. He was shaky, and it was more than blood loss. Things had changed on a fundamental level. Inside his apartment, he sensed Buffy, restless but asleep. It wasn't her he wanted to be with right now. He kept slipping into game face without realizing it. This was worse by far than the taste of blood when he'd healed the boy's arm, and he was amazed that Spike had managed to send him away.

Away. Even if Spike wouldn't allow anything else, he just wanted to be in the Master's presence.

Angel hated wanting that.

Hunger drove him inside within the hour, and he went directly to the refrigerator and drank all the blood that wasn't frozen. Spike had known. Even in Los Angeles, the Master had known what it would take to make him submit. There, he supposed, it would have been Fred, maybe Wesley or Gunn or Lorne, but probably Fred. He'd had a protective streak where she was concerned. The boy had his number, all right.

Not his own man. That thought was hard to wrap his mind around. Spike had never submitted, not in twenty years of living with the family. Angelus had never really given up, just got used to having the boy around. Things ran smoother with him in the family, and there isn't a lot a man won't accept for peace in his household. He'd never thought to do the same, to kill Drusilla unless Will submitted; it hadn't occurred to him to use love against a demon the same way he used it against the humans he captured. Demons, after all, don't love. Angel sighed. It came down to leverage, and Spike, an astute reader of human nature, had known exactly where to apply pressure.

Else he'd be dead.

Angel stared into space, an empty jar held absently in his hand. He'd expected to die, the certainty growing more each day of his post-Angelus life, despite his hopes. Demons were not capable of overlooking the kind of offense he'd given the M – Spike. If any vampire could have done it, it would have been his sensitive boy. He'd done the next best thing, though, had found a way other than a battle to the death.

And now he was going to live at Spike's sufferance. He had to go love Buffy and keep her happy, not because he wanted to – though he did – but because the Master willed it. Deep inside, this chafed.

He had enough pride to resist the pull of thoughts of his Master. What would Buffy think, if he started going on about Spike's quick grin, his full lower lip, the perfect pillow his abdomen made? He snorted softly. It would probably give her less wiggins than if he babbled about how clever, how wise the boy was.

This wasn't so bad. He was alive, no Angelus to worry about, living with the first person he'd ever really loved. Connor was safe, and he had Buffy, and he had Spike. That was quite a lot.

He would always have Spike. As family, they had always been bound beyond death, but now their existence here on earth was interwoven. An injury done to him would draw down Spike's wrath; an injury done to –

Angel had done it again, gone to vampire face without conscious decision at the thought of his boy being hurt. He sighed, forcing it down. Three days after the first battle before the scent of the other souled vampire had stopped causing him discomfort. How long before this blood exchange settled?

"Angel?" Buffy stood at the doorway to his bedroom, small and tousled. "I thought I heard you." She had sensed him, he knew, and his heart gave an odd little lurch to see her. "When did you get in?"

"A few minutes ago."

"Are you all right?"

Was he? He didn't know. Things had changed since he left less than three hours ago. He was powerless to do anything other than what the Master of his Order willed. How long before he forgot that he loved Buffy all by himself? "I'm fine."

"Spike?" There was fear in her voice.

"He's… Spike." Master. Beloved boy. Angel clenched his jaw.

"You two… talked?"

"We're good." Angel twisted to the side to put his jar down on the counter, then walked across the wooden floor to her side, surefooted in the dark room.

Buffy touched his temple unerringly. "You fought."

Angel shrugged. "What else could we do? We… came to an understanding."

"What understanding?" Humor lurked in her voice.

"That I take care of you the way he would, and," Angel stroked a hand down her hair, "he doesn't touch you."

"And I'm just a thing that you two reach agreements about?" The humor was absent this time.

He shrugged. "It's a vampire thing, Buffy. It's how we can respect the decision you made."

She nodded, mollified. "Are you coming to bed?"

Keep her safe; make her happy. "You bet."

⸹

The Amtrak station was noisy and crowded, but finding one human in the ruck was easy for him. "Ro."

She whirled around. "Spike!" Rona threw her arms around him, laughing a little. Then her embrace became fiercer. "I've missed you."

As loud as the train station was, he had no trouble hearing her. "Missed you, too, pet." It was the truth; he'd missed all his ladies the four days he'd been gone.

Spike wasn't too clear on where he had been. He knew that two police officers had pulled him over, but instead of treating them as meals on wheels as had been his strategy in the past, he'd shamelessly used the mesmer on them. Various _World's Most Stupid Criminals in Police Pursuits_ programmes had taught him to suggest to them that they should clear his license plate from their computers and mess with their videorecorders. His most vivid memory was of finding himself in a place as barren as the moon, a cleared, graded stretch that looked as if someone had decided to build a shopping mall, then thought better of the idea when they realized there were no humans dwelling nearby. It had been high noon when he was there, no shade as far as the eye could see. Spike sat in his truck and stared at the desolate landscape a long time, the fifth bottle of Jack clutched in his hand, debating the merits of a stroll.

"Dawn said you were going to pick me up; I thought she meant in Cleveland."

"Been out of town," he managed in a normal tone, "and I was close, so… Wanted the company, pet. Bought your ticket yet?" When she shook her head, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Save you some money, yeah?" He looked around. "Where's your luggage?"

"Over there," Rona said ruefully, pointing at a tall young human struggling manfully with her suitcase. She waited until he came over, then introduced the two men. "Rondell, this is Spike. Spike, this is Rondell. I know Rondell from church."

"Rona and Rondell," Spike mused, taking the young man's hand in a knuckle-cracking grip.

"Spike is my sensei, my trainer," Rona supplied. "He was in town and wanted some company on the way home." He didn't show any surprise at how she characterized him. It wasn't as if she could very well introduce him as the best lover she'd ever had. Although that wouldn't be a bad thing; his ego could use all the help it could get. "How come you aren't in Cleveland, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Buffy." It was now possible to say her name, at least. "Always about her, innit?" Rondell, while not understanding the nuances, relaxed visibly as the blond man associated himself with another woman.

Rona put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be done, love." He gave her a marginal smile. "Here, let me clear out, take your bag to the truck, let you say your goodbyes." He hoisted the suitcase with no visible effort, not really meaning to show up the kid, but too weary to care. "Nice to meet you, Rondell." Spike nodded, then turned away toward parking. Taking Rona home gave him an excuse to go home himself, and by this point he was near tears every time he thought about his Nibblet. He didn't have his Slayer, but he was homesick, and he had a place to go.

That had to count for something.

* * *

Next Chapter: Two crises bring Buffy, Angel, and Spike together, and Giles makes a shocking discovery.


	12. Consequences

**Consequences**

Cleveland

September 2004

"I gotta say, Spike, I'm not loving this." Xander looked across the pile of mats at the blond man. They were clearing away after a Wednesday night training session in the gym. After serving as stand-in the second time, Xander had become Spike's default assistant.

"What's got your knickers in a twist, then?"

The dark-haired man shook his head. The words were right, but there was no joy behind the use of them. "Just worried about you, old buddy." The spark had been missing even before the trip out west for the Sunnydale reunion, which was as much of a bust as he'd figured it would be. Of the people who showed up, only his own family was interesting, but not in the good way. Without the draw of the Hellmouth, no demons had returned. Robin Wood wouldn't come without Faith, who wouldn't come because of the warrants still out for her arrest. There was no escaping the fact that the humans who had lived in Sunnydale were on the dim side. It was mostly the people who had died there that Xander would have wanted to see, anyway. He was reduced to fruitlessly hoping Harmony might show up.

He, Willow, Dawn, and Spike had stood on the rim of the crater later that night, sharing a bottle of wine. They toasted Joyce, Tara, Anya, Jenny Calendar, and a whole raft of memories besides, most of which were bad. Buffy had refused to go to the reunion, and the discord between the Summers sisters over that still simmered. Dawn had confessed to Xander that, while she had encouraged Buffy to break things off with Spike, she hadn't considered it might be permanent, or who his replacement might be, or how bad it would get.

Nothing was open. Buffy, Angel, and Spike were all very civil to one another. On the surface, it was fine. But if you noticed the details, and Xander did, things were very much not fine. Buffy got training, for example, but nothing else from Spike. The other slayers got hugs, casual touches on their arms or, on good days, fleeting grins. He had seen Angel and Spike develop a real friendship over the summer, even after Angel moved to his own place, but that seemed to be gone – although he had noticed the big vampire send furtive looks at Spike that would do Andrew proud. Xander tried not to think about that very much.

Buffy never laughed. She had a determined smile, better than what she'd managed the months after they brought her back, but still not genuine to Xander's mind. She cleaved to Angel; there was no other word for it. The Slayer had always had a propensity for placing her boyfriend above everything else, culminating in the Immortal. While Xander had no doubt that she loved Angel, he also had no doubt that Buffy was determined to make sure her decision to pick him was the right one, period.

"No worries, whelp. I'm fine."

Xander stood up from gathering a stray stake that had rolled against the wall. "Can't help worrying," he said, shrugging.

The blond man slowed, closing his eyes for a moment, then began carefully stowing away protective gear. "Thanks, then." Just as impassive.

"Up for a game of pool?" Xander touched his jaw. "Keep my mind off that wild kick Miko got me with." Dawn had bought a pool table and dartboard for Spike's basement the week after Buffy moved out. Several of the slayers made a habit of stopping by after class, now that college was in session again.

"Not tonight. Think I'll patrol around Edgewater, Kamms Corners. We don't get over there much."

"Well, I'd offer you some company, but I don't really think you want any." This, at least, gained him a faint smile of acknowledgement. Xander sighed. "I know this 'new normal' pretty much sucks, and there's not a thing I can do to make it suck less, but you know I'm–"

"There for me," Spike finished for him. "I know." He tossed the remaining shin guards and helmets in the bin and walked the short distance to where Xander stood boxing the stakes. "And I appreciate it." Spike put a hand on his shoulder. "If it weren't for you lot, the Scoobies, I mean, and my ladies, I don't think I'd bother."

"Don't talk like that." Xander covered the cool hand with his own.

The vampire shrugged. "'S'true." He let out most of his breath. "I miss them both so much." Spike looked around the large, open training area. "These nights are the hardest, when she's here. It's all so… stilted, where we used to just flow, you know? Whether we were enemies or allies of convenience or friends, just bein' with her…" He trailed off.

"Do you ever talk to Angel?" Xander watched Spike's jaw tighten as the blond man simply shook his head. Later, as he drove back to his apartment, empty now that Gunn had gone back to Virginia, he pulled out his cell phone. "Hey, Dawnie."

"Oh, hey, Xander."

"This is the point where you get to say 'told you so.'"

"It is?"

"Yeah. I think you were right. The patrol schedule needs to go back to normal."

⸹

"Dawn Michelle Summers!"

She looked up as her sister stormed toward her, two red blotches on her cheeks and next week's patrol schedule in her hand. The younger Summers raised a cool eyebrow. "Yes?"

Buffy managed not to shake the paper in Dawn's face. "Why did you do this?"

Dawn stood up from Giles' sofa where she'd been studying, using her height as a subtle weapon. "If you're wondering why I'm not accommodating your personal problems, it's because, frankly, I got tired of it." She pushed her long hair over one shoulder. "If Angel can't handle it, well, I can't make him. He's just a volunteer. But you and Spike are Council employees. If you can train together, I assuming that you can patrol together."

"You know it's not that simple," the Slayer gritted out.

Her sister shrugged. "You know the policy. If you've got a conflict, find another slayer to switch with. Or, you could take it up with Giles." Dawn shook her head theatrically, something she'd learned from her best friend. "Jeez, Buffy, Spike has already seen the schedule and didn't have a problem. I never thought I'd see him being more mature than you." Buffy's mouth thinned, but she could find no reply. Dawn gave her a sweet smile, gathered her bookbag, and went up the stairs to her room.

⸹

"I think it's a good idea." Angel shrugged. "I think Dawn is right."

"You're supposed to be on my side," Buffy complained, pouting a little. She slumped against his arm, and he moved it so he could hold her as they sat on the couch in their apartment.

"You know I am."

"I know." She laid her head against his chest. "I know you are. It's just, it's going to be dreadful."

He nodded. "The first patrol will be bad, then–"

"The first fifty patrols will be bad."

"–Then it will get easier." Angel listened to her sigh. He was already looking forward to his own rotation with Spike. Buffy got to see the other souled vampire at evening training four days a week, but he hadn't spoken to Spike since the night he… since that night. It made him ache to think about it. Angel was reduced to old habits, watching Spike from the shadows as he waited for Buffy after Council activities.

"I do miss him," Buffy admitted. She looked up and met his eyes. "That's okay, isn't it?"

"Of course you miss him," Angel agreed. "I do, too."

Buffy frowned. "I forget about that. I've been so used to you two not liking each other."

Angel smiled a little. "Easier that way." When her brows drew together, he clarified. "Easier to not like each other."

She studied him for a moment. She almost asked him if their new relationship had been a good idea, but she stopped herself. Of course it was; it was the absolute best thing for Angel, and it was the best she could do for Spike. "I like you," Buffy said instead, sitting up so she could straddle his thigh. His smile broadened; he was so happy these days.

"I like you, too." Angel leaned down and gave her a soft kiss. It deepened into something more passionate, something that made clothes evaporate and led to their bedroom. Afterwards, he held Buffy as she drifted off, smoothing a strand of hair from her face. He had always loved her asleep best of all, the one time she was still. The mantra that always ran through his mind – _Is she safe? Is she happy?_ – was quietest during these times, too.

His fear, that he would forget that it was his own love for her that made him want to keep her safe and happy, had proved empty. Just being near her was soothing, made him disregard that for most of his existence he had been a blight on the planet, a scourge – The Scourge, actually. The fact that she loved him, this fine, good person, this white warrior, overwhelmed him sometimes. Outside of Connor, there was no one he loved more. He didn't try to integrate Spike into the hierarchy; it was enough that he was sure Connor would always be his top priority. Angel stroked Buffy's hair absently, waiting and thinking.

The nightmare came an hour or so later. There were four, one where she was trapped in her coffin, one where she had been turned, one where she realized she wasn't in heaven, and one where she was sorry. Tonight, it was the fourth, the worst of them, where she cried in her sleep, pleading for forgiveness for killing him or for hurting Spike, for sending him to die; sometimes it was hard to tell which of them she wept for. "Shh, sweetheart," he soothed her, kissing her brow, rousing her enough to make the nightmare end. "Just a dream, Buffy. Only a dream."

⸹

"One of these nights," Oz said, rolling away to the edge of his bed to let his skin cool, "you're going to kill me."

Willow tensed, her face a frozen mask. "Don't say that."

He turned toward her. "Not literally. We're just getting damn good at this. That's all I meant."

She made a face. "I know. Sorry. Baggage."

Oz put an arm across the space between them and cupped her cheek. Their eyes met and held for a long moment, then he smiled. Willow smiled back and covered his fingers with hers. Then she sighed. "I should be getting back. I've got Professor Allcock's seminar early tomorrow – or today, I should say."

He snorted a little. "I love that name."

"It fits. She's a complete poser."

"Not in awe of the Oxford dons, I see."

"Have any of them ever staked even one vampire?" She raised a disdainful brow.

"You gonna go see Xander?"

"I saw him the day before yesterday."

"What about Buffy?"

She sat up and found her panties still hanging tenaciously on the edge of the mattress. "No, not this time."

"Or the last time," Oz said neutrally.

"It's just different, Oz." Willow looked at the wad of cotton and lace in her hand. "I thought it would be better. I mean, I never thought Buffy would make Angel lose his soul on purpose, but I always kind of thought they might end up together after I did the curse one final time. Angel is happy, I know he is. But Buffy… I don't like to see her faking it, not after…" Willow took a breath to continue, "not after what she was like when I brought her back."

"And you don't want to see Spike."

She met his eyes again. "No." Willow knew he needed reassurance that there was nothing between her and the blond vampire; Oz had never quite gotten past the whole whipped cream incident. In a way, it was funny. "I've never known anyone who loves like Spike. I-I don't think it's healthy. And he loves Buffy." She put down her underwear and scooted across the short distance to where he lay. "I have loved and lost. When you left, Oz, I thought there'd never be anyone else. Then there was, and there will never be anyone like Tara." Her eyes, full of pain, went to his chest. "But I don't think there _will_ ever be anyone else for Spike. It just makes me sad."

He shook his head. "I just can't imagine Buffy hurting anyone on purpose. Faith, yeah, but not Buffy." Willow had told him the whole story of the months after she brought the Slayer back from the grave.

Willow's large eyes went to his again. "It's 'The Gift of the Magi,' you know." She was taking a class on the short story form just for fun.

Oz nodded, even as he frowned. "Spike gives up on Buffy so she can be happy, and Buffy gives up on Spike so she won't hurt him, but he's the only one who makes her happy. Doesn't quite follow the O. Henry story, though. No one like Angel in that story."

"At least he's happy," she agreed. Something occurred to her. "Oz, it isn't that I don't want anyone to know we're, you know, sort of together again." It had been something she had to work through to her own satisfaction. Willow had been positive that she was a lesbian, so accepting herself as bisexual had taken a while, emotionally and intellectually. "I like coming here to see you. It makes _me_ happy. If I go see Buffy," she lifted a shoulder, "no happy."

"I understand." He smiled at her, the slow smile that always made her toes want to curl.

"I love you." Willow stopped, her lips still parted. It was the first time she'd told him that since he'd left UC-Sunnydale.

"I love you, too, Wil," he said, rising up to kiss her. "I know what it looked like, and I don't know what I could have done differently, but I never stopped."

⸹

"Hello?" Xander stretched over Lina to answer the phone, and she made a sleepy sound before rolling to her side. Strictly speaking, she was the first human he had ever slept with, and he wasn't disappointed at all. They seemed to fit together seamlessly, bodies and needs, even getting drowsy at the same time.

"Hey, Xan."

"Hey, Buf. How'd it go?" Tonight had been her first patrol with Spike.

"It was fine. You were right. I was worried over nothing."

"See anything interesting?"

"No. A couple of vampires by that one cemetery near the Clinic, that's all." Buffy hesitated over her next words. "It was… awkward. Well, quiet. Neither of us had much to say, and you know how strange that is with Spike." What she really wanted to say was that they might as well have patrolled alone, as much connection as they had. He had been so untouchable, such a polite distance from her.

"He's been quiet lately," Xander agreed, "for him."

There was a short silence, then Buffy cleared her throat. "I'm sorry to call so late. It's just, I wanted to talk to someone."

"Besides Angel."

"Yeah. You know. More awkward."

"I know."

"Well, I'll let you get back to sleep."

"See you tomorrow, Buffy. Good night."

As he hung up the phone and sank down on his part of the bed, Lina rolled back toward him. "How'd it go?" she asked sleepily. She had been fascinated by the love triangle, though she kept her distance from all three of the points. The vampires made her nervous. So did the Slayer.

"It was fine. Of course. I don't know why she was so worried."

"She was worried they'd end up sleeping together instead of patrolling."

Dumbstruck, Xander looked down at Lina, who hadn't even opened her eyes as she made that statement. "No," he protested.

She shrugged. "Or not." Still not opening her eyes, she patted behind her until she found his hip. She urged him closer, and Xander spooned against her.

"Buffy has never, ever cheated on her boyfriends," he said firmly. "It never even occurred to her."

"Mmm," Lina agreed, more than half asleep now. Xander was awake for a long time afterwards, though, contemplating the idea that maybe things weren't as settled as he thought they were.

⸹

Dawn was waiting in his bed, reading a Janet Evanovich novel. She put it down and held out her arms. Spike lowered his head and put it against her shoulder, settling beside her with a sigh. "How was it?"

"Fine, Nibblet," he said.

Dawn's mouth curved at the telltale nickname. "How was it, really?"

"Bloody awful," Spike admitted. He pulled away long enough to loosen his boots and kick them off, then nestled beside her, not inclined to get out of bed until the next night for training. Being with Buffy had been exhausting.

"Language. She didn't dust your ass," Dawn said, "so that's of the good."

"On my best behavior, pet." It was all he was allowed, now. "And, language."

Gracing him with a kiss on the cheek, Dawn turned toward him, putting her forehead against his and tucking her arm across his waist. He hadn't allowed her back in his bed for a few days after returning from what he called walkabout. Tired of being shut out, she just barged in early one morning and plopped herself down, pulling aside the covers and curling against his naked body. No queasy-making sex had ensued, of course (and more's the pity, an opinion held by the small part of her mind still stunned by his kiss), and Spike hadn't kept her away any longer. "What was fine about it?"

He shrugged. "Killed a couple of vamps. She's in good form."

"What felt wrong?" Dawn used the long wait before he answered to watch his face.

"First time we fought together – hell, the first time we fought each other – there was a flow to it. Knew what she was going to do, even if I didn't know I could counter it. Together, we've got a… gestalt, I guess would be the word. It isn't there now, because we're so… tentative with each other." What he couldn't tell her is that he felt her sister yearning toward him, wanting to smile and laugh and talk. But she couldn't do that, because it could so easily lead from laughing and talking to touching and shagging.

"And you miss that."

"That connection, yeah. I miss it."

"You up for patrolling with Angel day after tomorrow?"

Spike closed his eyes. "I s'pose. Prob'ly be easier with him than with her."

"You think so?" Dawn asked, surprised. Spike was so possessive.

"Guess we'll see, won't we?"

⸹

"Will."

Spike looked up to see Angel emerge from the shadow of a stand of trees at the corner of a large front yard, where there was possibly more darkness than could be explained, even at one in the morning. He finished their shared name. "Liam."

Angel let his gaze feast on the Master's face, then closed his eyes. He held out his hand, and after a considering moment, the other man took it. "I've missed you," he said simply.

"Blood not settled?" It came out harsher than Spike intended.

Angel didn't take it the wrong way, though, merely shrugging. "Not going to keep things bottled up any longer, Will. You're my family, even, you know, my best friend. I love you." Then he grinned. "But, yeah, blood's settled." With a final squeeze, he let go of Spike's hand, then gave him a seductive grin. "Mostly."

"Stow it, you," Spike said, turning away to hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth. "We've got work to do. There's a nest up in Buckeye that I've been saving for us."

"Oh?" Angel raised an interested eyebrow. "How many?"

"Fifteen, maybe."

He frowned. "When did you find the nest?"

"'Bout five yesterday morning." He shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

"Saving it for me, huh?"

Spike did smile this time.

⸹

"So, it went well?"

Dawn regarded Giles for a moment, then shrugged. "'Well' is as good a word as any," she allowed. "None of them dusted, strangled, or otherwise murdered any of the others." She was briefing him on the return to a normal patrol schedule.

"Which in itself is a minor miracle," Giles said, his voice sharp. "William would have been well within his rights to kill Angel over this whole affair."

She didn't say anything to this, surprised as she had been by the return of Giles' strong dislike for Angel. "I've talked to Buffy and Spike both, and neither one is comfortable, but at least my sister isn't pitching a hissy when she thinks of patrolling with him."

"If we have even a smidgen of luck, they'll be comfortable by the time the next battle is upon us."

Dawn studied Giles, surprised to see how old he was looking. The stress of the Kanai prophecy was etched in new lines around his eyes and mouth. "Buffy and Spike did fine together during the last battle. Neither of them is so small-minded that they would let their personal problems get in the way of stopping an apocalypse."

The Watcher forced a smile. "You're right, of course, my dear." He gave her a penetrating look. "How are you holding up, being in the middle of this?"

She shrugged. "I'm not. In the middle, I mean. Buffy's pushed me away for years."

Giles looked down. "Me, too." He let out a sigh. "You know why, don't you?"

"Because she isn't in heaven. Because nothing compares."

Giles looked up, his eyebrows high. There was only sadness in her words, no bitterness. "Yes," he said, his voice thin. "She's told you this?"

Dawn shook her head. "No. She hides it – well, she thinks she hides it. Her two best friends stranded her back here with us, and she doesn't want them to see how she's hurting. The rest of us, we see it."

"Except Spike, because she isn't intensely unhappy with him."

"And Angel."

Giles frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He still seems to see her as she was in high school. The rest of us, we know what she's been through."

"So he isn't always asking how she is, if she's all right." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I thought it was just, she thought Spike would have to respect her choice. I think you're right."

"Of course I'm right," she said, getting up and stepping around his desk to give him a hug. "I'm always right."

"How could I ever forget?" he said, pleased and surprised by her embrace.

"I'm sorry you didn't get much chance to visit with Olivia while she was here."

Giles shrugged. "We had a lovely time before coming to Cleveland." There was an inward-looking quality to his expression. "She doesn't care for the danger. I'd say that makes her incredibly wise, except I fear that reflects badly on those of us who do stay."

"Stupid and brave, that's us."

⸹

"Tribby?"

"Hey, Dawn." The slayer put down the oversized art book she was reading and twisted in her chair to give the teenager a sleepy smile. "Thanks. I was about to doze off." She held it up so Dawn could read the title, _History of Mosaics_ , then laid the heavy book back down on the table in the kitchen of Watcher Central.

"Getting ready for your exhibit?" She knew the slayer had a lot to do, since Tribby planned to graduate in December.

"Sort of. My jury chair wanted me to read it. What's up?"

"I was hoping you could help me out with a song list." Pushing her long hair back impatiently, Dawn sat down next to her and dropped a notebook on the table. It was open to a blank page.

"Song list?"

"Yeah. Something for Spike. A 'get on with your life already, because you're the wronged party' mix tape." She made a face. "It's just that, the first thing that comes to my mind is "Bye Bye Bye," and I think Spike might really bite me if I connected his situation to boy band music. The songs he would listen to were all written, like, decades ago."

"And so you immediately thought of me? Thanks."

"No, it's just you know about his kind of music."

"Dawn," Tribby asked gently, "do you really think it would help?"

"I don't know." She sighed and made her hair into a loose ponytail and tucked it over her shoulder. "Kayla's taking education classes, right? And she says that people learn in different ways. Some people learn better by seeing, some by doing, some by hearing. Well, you know Spike isn't going to listen to anyone. But if he hears the message in a song–"

The dark-haired slayer still looked skeptical, but she reached for a pen. "Sounds scientific. But he does listen to you, Dawn. You know he does. We all do." She wrote something down, then thought for a minute and wrote down more songs. "Here. This is all I can think of right now. If you need more, catch me before I've read three straight chapters."

Dawn looked at the list. 'Train in Vain' by The Clash – good, she recognized that band as one of Spike's punk favorites, and she'd heard 'Self-Esteem' by The Offspring. 'What You Are' by Audioslave sounded metal, but she'd heard of them, too. 'Tainted Love' was spot on. 'True Lies' also had a good title, but it was by the country-sounding Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band. And one by Lucinda Williams called 'Joy?' "These last two don't seem to fit."

Tribby looked over the list again. "Well, 'True Lies' and 'Joy' are more blues, but Spike did say he once lived in New Orleans."

Dawn wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, those are Drusilla-flavored memories, so he doesn't talk about those much." She gathered up her notebook. "I'll surf for a while, see if I can find any more break-up songs."

"No Smiths," Tribby said seriously.

"Why?"

"The Smiths could depress, I don't know," she shrugged, "Kayla."

"Oh. No Smiths, then."

⸹

"Oh! Um, good morning, Alpana," Giles mumbled, pulling the edges of his robe a little closer at his throat.

Vishnaswamy paused as she came out of the bathroom, in a robe of her own, her eyebrows going up. "You're not wearing glasses," she tilted her head, "Rupert."

"No. You're up early."

She nodded. "Maria, Bethany, and I are going to the zoo down in Columbus."

"Oh." He was taken aback. "That's very good of you."

"It's supposed to be a good one. They have a moose, and I've never seen one before."

"I saw one in Banff once. Homely animals. Dangerous, too. The park staff kept mentioning that they kill more people than grizzlies."

She smiled, showing small, even teeth. "Why do you think I'm taking my slayers?"

Giles thought of all that he had never done with Buffy – daytime hikes or field trips, even a full round of miniature golf – but their situation had been so much more desperate, and he had been so sublimated in his role as her Watcher. "I think it's a fine idea, Vishnaswamy. Have a wonderful time."

"Thank you," she said, nodding, her eyes dropping, "Giles."

He paused before he went in to get his shower, staring after her. He had the nagging sense that she'd been disappointed somehow. Was he supposed to lecture her on proper Watcher-slayer boundaries? Shaking his head, he went into the bathroom, still steamy from her shower.

⸹

"You certainly are tense today," Sasha told Buffy. The masseuse had been working on the muscles in the Slayer's back and arms for fifteen minutes and felt she had made hardly a dent.

"A little," Buffy agreed. She made a face, since no one could see as she lay on the massage table, her face resting over the open oval, and thought sourly of patrolling with a monosyllabic Spike last night.

As if her thoughts had conjured him, she felt him enter the room, stopping by the door. Sasha practiced massage in a little area off the locker room. Rather grim and utilitarian most days, once the masseuse set up her table amid candles, towel warmers, and draped silk scarves, the room became a haven. She even put down a mossy green cotton rug beneath the table. Now Buffy could also see a scuffed pair of black boots in her limited field of vision.

"Let me give it a bash," he told Sasha, a certain diffidence in his voice.

"Uh…." Sasha had gotten so used to working on the muscles of these fit young women who never, ever told her that she was being too rough that she had learned to compensate by being very gentle with the few men who used her services at this gym. This trainer, Spike, hadn't scheduled any massages, more's the pity. He was eye candy, no doubt.

"It's all right," Buffy said, her voice even. "He's a pretty good masseur." Remembered snippets of his cool hands on her sore muscles after patrols, and one vivid memory of having a boy in her mother's room, quickly shunted away.

"Well, I'm glad for the break. Someone's signed up for a massage at five, though," she checked her list, "um, Rona. I'll set an alarm." Sasha let herself grin as she walked past. It was easy to see there was a spark between these two.

Spike's boots disappeared from Buffy's view. She could feel him considering her, and she was very aware of the single towel draped across her midsection, wondering if it had shifted lower, scolding herself that she should not hope it had. For a few seconds, she heard him breathing, then the respiration stopped as he became aware of it. A moment later, a thin trickle of warm oil hit one shoulderblade, and she could feel the drizzle making a u-shape on her back as he poured toward the towel and came up to the other shoulder.

Another long moment passed, and she could feel his eyes on her. Buffy wished she could see his face. The anticipation of his touch was doing inappropriate things to her body. Spike came around to the front of the table, and now she could see his boots and black jeans up to the thigh. If she lifted her head, she would be staring right at –

Spike placed the base of each thumb alongside the top of her spine. Her own breathing was suddenly, horribly erratic. Then, instead of spreading his fingers and kneading into her flesh, he leaned forward, letting his forearms glide along her back. As his wrists touched the towel, he brought his arms back, then bent over her in another shallow swoop, going along a slightly different trajectory. Buffy couldn't help it; she moaned with pleasure. The sound made him pause a moment, then he continued to move over her in silence.

 _Not sure I've gotten that particular sound out of you before_. Sasha was a good masseuse, and Carmine in Rome would work on her muscles for hours at a time, but, oh, no one had ever made her melt the way Spike could. Only now, she wasn't melting in relaxation.

Trying to take her breathing back to normal, Buffy inhaled deeply and nearly moaned again as she caught the subtle scent of him. Why did he have to smell so good? Ridiculous words her sister had said came to her, about Spike being more mature than she was, and she latched onto them, determined to play this the right way, to be professional. He was only doing this because he was so much stronger than Sasha, could do a better job. He was just watching out for her, the way he would for any slayer. Buffy could almost believe that.

"You're rising up to meet me," Spike said, his voice gruff. "Just relax, Bu–" She heard him swallow before he completed her name. "Buffy."

She tried, ignoring her body's arousal, not thinking of how his long, slow strokes were so evocative of another rhythm, focusing on the smell of disinfectant from the nearby showers instead of bay rum soap. Despite everything in her mind, Buffy found that she did relax as he soothed her muscles with his forearms and, eventually, his elbows. Spike filled her senses with his movement, the raw power of his presence, all focused exclusively on her, leaving no room for anything else. She was nowhere except here, perfectly content to be in the moment, such a rare occurrence in her life. Heaven was far away, and here was very good.

The alarm sounded, a soft chime, and Spike, at the apex of a long glide, broke the silence with a sigh. He moved back along her body, and Buffy sighed, too, as he stood up, breaking the contact. It hadn't lasted nearly long enough.

"Any time you're ready," Spike said, and Buffy lifted her head to see him holding out a large towel for her, his head turned and his eyes closed to preserve her modesty, as if he hadn't seen every square inch of her.

She paused a moment, then sat up, feeling dazed as she settled back into the world. Buffy took the towel from him and wrapped it around herself. Her eyes dropped involuntarily below his waist, and she wasn't sure how she felt to know that he had been affected by the physical intimacy as much as she had. "Thank you," she said, then cleared her voice. "For the massage, I mean. You ever get tired of training slayers, you have a career in massage." Oh, God, I'm babbling.

He opened his eyes, and instead of blazing with desire, the blue was deep with contentment. Buffy remembered that, too, from having a boy in her mother's room. Doing for her always seemed to feed something in him. "You're welcome," he said simply.

"I, um," she looked down for a moment, "I should go."

The contentment vanished, replaced with a sadness that she knew from her own eyes. "Right." He was the one who went, picking up a towel to wipe the oil from his arms as he left the room, not looking back at her. Buffy sat there until Rona came in, her eyes closed, trying to recapture the peace she had found under his ministrations, the peace that she had always, improbably, known in his presence since she came back to this world.

⸹

"Owe you an apology," Spike said.

Angel looked over at the other man. He'd been unusually quiet tonight, and the patrol was almost over. "For what?" he asked, surprise in his tone.

"Came across Sasha – that's the masseuse at the gym – trying to give the Slayer a massage a couple days ago." He looked into the distance, the way his shoulders were hunched hardly visible beneath the armor of his coat. "Sorta took over," he mumbled. When Angel didn't say anything, he stopped on the sidewalk. "Letter of the law, mate. Didn't lay a hand on her. Still feel uncomfortable about it, though."

Angel thought he knew the day it had happened. Buffy had been unusually quiet, too, then had the nightmare of clawing her way out of her coffin. When he'd woken her, she cried for a long time, and he distinctly heard her say, "I don't want to be here." He felt a surge of anger and jealousy, quickly quelled. Spike had too much honor to break his word, and he owed him his very existence. "Lot of things in this to be uncomfortable about," he said, his tone mild.

"Just can't get my head around it not bein' my job anymore," Spike mumbled, "keepin' her happy, I mean. Sasha just isn't strong enough to – What?"

Angel had tensed at the word 'happy,' staring at Spike with narrowed eyes. The boy had set him an impossible task, would be perfectly in his rights to kill him for failure, and then he would have a clear path to – No, not Will. Angel had learned everything he needed to know about the boy when he rummaged through his mind all those decades ago. Setting someone up for failure in order to punish them was one of Angelus' ploys, not something Spike would bother with. Then he realized that the important thing was the impossible task, and he couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him before.

 _Try to keep her happy._

 _Try._

"Can she be happy?"

If he'd hit him, Spike couldn't have been caught any more flat-footed. "'Course she can," he said, looking away. "Chose you, didn't she? Knew what would make her happy."

He was such a bad liar. "Will."

Spike met Angel's gaze reluctantly. "Never knew her when she was happy day-to-day, mate. Saw her that way from a distance, maybe, when Dru an' I first came to Sunnydale. Figure you know more about what makes her happy than I ever did." He wished desperately for a cigarette, for something to do with his hands. "Just do your best, yeah? Take care of her." He closed his eyes and turned away. There would be no quiet moment of physical contact between them tonight, foreheads pressed together in silent communion. "See you later."

Angel watched him stalk off, then turned and began walking slowly toward home. Do his best. He couldn't do any more in the bedroom; he and Buffy already spent more time making love than they did talking. The boy was right, though. He had watched Buffy for so long, before and after he revealed himself, that he should know what made her happy. Shopping and going out with her friends… and ice skating. Angel looked up to see that he was nearly home and sighed. He could do better, could –

Angel never saw the coils of the taser that struck his back, and then he knew no more.

⸹

Buffy stormed into Watcher Central, strode directly to the door to Spike's basement, and kicked the door open, leaving it hanging drunkenly by one hinge. She was down the stairs before the vampire in residence had time to do much more than wake and leap from his bed.

Naked, blinking owlishly, and holding a knife in one hand and its sheath in the other, Spike took in the angry Slayer at the foot of the staircase. He let out a breath and went past her to look up the steps at the damaged door, then favored her with a cold look. "It's called knocking, Slayer." He moved past her again, sheathing the blade.

Angry because she had convinced herself that Angel was with Spike, having a good time playing billiards while she worried, the last thing Buffy had expected was to be confronted with an oblivious, sleepy, and nude Spike. Her eyes refused to behave, lingering where they should not.

And he noticed, of course, the bastard. "See anything you like?"

"Where is he?"

Angry himself at the power she still had over him, Spike gave her a tight smile and indicated his growing erection. "Right here, kitten. Don't hardly see how you could overlook–"

"Angel, Spike. Where is Angel?"

"What, lost another one?" The words were out before he could make himself shut up. "Oh, Buffy, no," Spike said as her face crumpled, his voice entirely different now, gentle and remorseful. "I'm a bad, terrible man. Angel would never leave you," he assured her, _because I would track him down and torture him myself if he did_. "Just ignore–" Her meaning sank in. "Wait. Angel is missing?"

Tears gathered in her eyes, turning them a brilliant green. "He never came home."

He stared at her for a couple of seconds, then pivoted to scoop a pair of jeans from the canvas hamper near his bed. Wincing a little as he jammed unwilling parts into the denim, he turned back. "It's what, six-thirty? I left him at four, and he was headed your way." She still looked miserable, so he took Buffy by the arms. Spike looked at his wayward hands on her bare flesh a moment. He sighed. His oath had held just over a month. "Angel isn't going to be willingly anywhere but with you, pet."

"I thought he'd be here with you, playing pool or something," she whispered, "so I got mad because then I didn't have to be worried."

He nodded. "S'okay. Not answering his cell phone?"

"He left it on charge at the apartment."

"Right." He turned away, running a hand through his hair, and began to pace as he dressed. "We parted on Graybeal Drive. I can't track him myself, not in daylight – Oz. Dog-Boy can track him, yeah?"

"Oh, God," Buffy said, "you're worried, too." She crossed her arms, cupping her elbows.

He was saved by answering by Dawn's arrival, all icy eyes once she saw his door and her sister. "Buffy. I should have known by the debris at the top of the stairs," she said in a too-pleasant voice, wrapping her robe around her.

"Angel's missing," Spike cut in, stopping the incipient fight.

"Oh." Dawn's ire abated visibly. "How long?"

"Couple of hours. Should be inside, this time of the morning," he fretted.

"You okay, Buffy?" Dawn, not quite willing to forget the ruined door, was watching her sister with concerned eyes nonetheless. "I mean, you two didn't fight or anything?"

"No," Buffy replied, not meeting Dawn's eyes. She was right about the door; it had been a petty thing to do. "We never fight."

Spike closed his eyes for a second at the stark difference in the relationship she had with the two of them, then finished pulling on his coat, weighted down with weapons. "Bit, call Dog-Boy. Have him meet us on the corner of Graybeal and, um, Hudson, I remember right. Least it hasn't rained. C'mon, Slayer."

They drove through the pre-rush hour traffic in silence, Spike with his window already down in anticipation. Buffy watched him from the corner of her eye, the way his brow furrowed in concern. It made her own worry ratchet up a notch. "Here," he said, swinging the big truck in a u-turn, causing at least three cars and a city bus to honk their horns as he veered across the road to park by the curb. Despite the sunlight, he was out of the truck, breathing deeply, Buffy by his side, still watching him, hoping to see discovery on his face.

"All right, sunshine," she said finally, a small smile on her lips despite everything. Spike had been searching the area, widening his focus as he walked in increasing circles, for almost ten minutes. "That's enough exposure, even for you." While it was natural for her to turn to him in a crisis, Buffy was touched by his genuine concern for Angel's welfare. He was trying so hard in the morning sun.

He gave her an irritated look, but he was smoldering and he knew it. They both got back into the cab of the truck to wait for Oz, the familiar singed scent comforting to Buffy. Spike sighed. "Trail just ends on the sidewalk. He got into a car or something, best I can figure."

"Or someone made him get into one."

He grimaced. "Least he's alive; there's that much."

Buffy didn't look at him, just tucked a strand of hair back into her ponytail. "You'd know if anything happened to him?"

Spike nodded absently, checking the rear view mirror for Oz, who still had a fondness for old vans, despite higher petrol prices. "Same as you." When she didn't answer, he gave her a sharp look. "Bu – Slayer…" He trailed off, reconsidering before he asked her if she didn't have a connection to his grandsire. He asked anyway. "Don't you sense him?"

"Not the way I do–" She too thought better of completing her sentence, then shrugged self-consciously. "Even with you, I can't rely on it. Magic interferes; I couldn't sense you at all on the Hellmouth – before the First Evil kidnapped you, I mean, when you were crazy – and you said I didn't even know you were in the club when you and Angel came to Rome."

He nodded, but his mind kept circling around to the fact that she didn't have the same sort of link to the big vampire that she had forged with him. Her choice seemed that much more wrong. Spike had always assumed that what they shared before Angelus returned had been true and abiding. Now a troubled look settled on his face, and he thought of what Angel had told him about his feelings when Buffy died, that it wasn't so bad.

Stealing another glance at the unwontedly quiet man next to her, Buffy asked, "What?" There were a thousand emotions vying for dominance on his face.

"I don't…" He didn't understand, but he remembered what Dawn had told him, her opinion that hurting him physically one more time would be the end of Buffy Summers, that all that would be left would be the Slayer. Then he twisted to look at Buffy, angry. She was stronger than that; he knew she was. "Doesn't signify, but I think you made the wrong choice, Summers. What we had, a bond like that, how common do you think that is?" Spike turned away, gripping the steering wheel to keep his hands off her, still trying to honor his broken oath.

"It was the right choice." For both of you, she finished in her mind. Spike mumbled something, 'Fuckin' martyr complex,' she thought. Buffy's voice grew hard. "It was the only choice." He reset his grip on the steering wheel, knuckles standing out white even against his pale skin, then seemed to deflate. She'd done this to him before, had diminished him, taken away the spark in him.

"Not the time for this, is it?" He bit his lip, staring at his hands. Never will be. The words were there, wanting desperately to blurt out and hurt her. _I never thought you'd take the easy way out, Slayer._ But he was done with drama, had known more than a lifetime while loving Dru. He could be better than that. Buffy was a hero, and that's what heroes did, take the consequences on themselves. It was what he loved about her, one of many things, and he wouldn't change any of them.

Since he'd broken his oath already, he reached out and covered Buffy's hand with his own and said instead, "No worries, love. We'll find him, yeah?"

"We will," she agreed, turning her hand and sliding her fingers between his. She had this much of him; it was enough. It had to be.

"Dog-Boy's finally here." He didn't look at her again, just tugged his hand away to raise it in greeting for Oz. The new normal.

⸹

Oz had his eyes closed. "The scent trail ends here. I think he got into a car." Missing Spike's eye roll, he met Buffy's worried gaze and shook his head. "All I smell other than Spike and Angel are humans." He shrugged.

"Humans?" she echoed sharply, not believing it. What humans could take Angel, could capture a master vampire?

He nodded. "And something ozone-y. Electrical discharge of some sort." Buffy looked over at Spike, and Oz had the oddest sense that each confirmed the other's suspicion. The Slayer turned aside and pulled out her cell phone. Oz turned to where Spike sat in the open side door of his van and looked down at the older man. "That's all. Sorry."

"Locator spell, then?" Spike squinted up at Oz, his eyes narrowed against the bright sky.

Their gazes met for a measuring moment. "As we speak," Oz agreed. He knew he was covered in Willow's scent, having crawled over her to answer his mobile.

Spike's mouth curved, but he only nodded. Good for Red. "What'd Bit have to say, love?" he asked, as Buffy folded her cell phone and stepped closer.

"Not Dawn. Vi. And I left a message with the florist."

Oz watched them look at each other for the next several seconds: Spike's brow clearing as he understood something, Buffy's lopsided smile as they silently developed a plan. He shook his head at the bizarre connection between the Slayer and the vampire, and his last remnants of worry about the friendship Spike shared with his Willow faded.

⸹

"I'm sorry," Willow said, looking near tears as they sat around her in Oz's surprisingly neat apartment. "There's nothing, Buffy. It's as if he's vanished off the face of the earth, or-or out of phase, or invisible to magic, or something." Any of which, unfortunately, was a distinct possibility. She gave the atlas in front of her a dissatisfied little prod.

Both Oz and Spike were shaking their heads. "Didn't smell of gateways or any kind of magic," Spike said.

"He might have been taken in a car and then…" Buffy's voice trailed away. What was it Vi's Good Lieutenant called it? The second crime scene.

"Wait, Red. Invisible?" Spike unfolded himself from the couch and tore a piece of paper from Oz's phone book. Frowning, he scribbled a couple of symbols on the page and handed it to her.

"Arabic?" Willow asked.

"No. Well, it's the demonic alphabet that Arabic characters are based upon – you should see the basis for hieroglyphics." He shook his head and gestured at the paper. "Don't suppose you could do a locator spell on these, find if these symbols are represented anywhere else, on a wall or a person?"

Willow stared at the page, thinking about it. "Yeah," she breathed after a moment, "I think I can do a variation, as long as it's local." She looked up at Buffy. "I wouldn't want to try anything too long-range; since I haven't tried this before, the spell might be unstable."

Her gaze on Spike, the Slayer shrugged, showing her bewilderment. "That's better than anything else we've got, Wil."

⸹

Angel opened his eyes reluctantly. He had the most horrible, dry taste in his mouth, like he'd fed off a mummy. What he saw made no sense, a series of vertical white lines, so he closed his eyes again and tried to sit up. That was when he realized his hands were shackled above his head.

Fully awake now, he cautiously tested the chains, the clanking loud in the otherwise silent place. He was bound, lying naked and supine on some hard, curved surface, and the last thing he remembered was walking home to Buffy almost four hours ago. Angel opened his eyes and studied the dimly lit low ceiling of his cage. It was coffin-like, close enough to the metal box on the ocean floor to make him tense. The white lines were like fluorescent bulbs, like –

Like a tanning bed.

Even as Angel involuntarily flinched, a scent came to him from outside his high-tech cage, and he turned toward the source. His first reaction was annoyance. Unbelievable. "Eve. What are you up to now?"

"Hmm," came the light, slightly nasal voice. "If I were in your position, I think my first words would be," she stood over him, looking down from a prudent five feet away as the lid lifted, "no, please, don't push that button." Eve held up her hand, showing him the remote control for the tanning bed. "I've got it set for twenty-five minutes, for a real sun-worshiper's tan."

"You never did understand who you were dealing with, did you?"

"Big words from a vampire in a very precarious position."

"I've stood up to the Senior Partners you bowed down to, and I'm still here. You don't scare me." Angel expected her to smirk, to reply, but she remained calm, her expression hard to read. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, please don't push the button," he said in a high, panicky voice, at complete odds with his still-annoyed face. "Better?" His voice hardened. "What do you want, Eve?"

After a moment of regarding him, she said a single word. "Lindsey."

"Well, I see you've checked my pockets." He indicated his naked body as best he could with one bound hand.

There was another pause. "You always mocked him." She took a step to the side, still carefully not coming any closer. "I know he's dead on your orders. I arranged for his funeral myself, in a quiet cemetery in rural West Virginia that has surely never seen a vampire rise from any of its family plots." She tilted her head. "What I wanted you to understand is that you can't give me what I want." A step back, to her original location. "I'll have to settle for revenge."

"You don't have a clue about what constitutes revenge, little girl."

"Not by Angelus' standards, maybe. I'll just have to settle for what my own limited imagination can come up with."

He laughed. "No, you still don't get it, Eve. What I meant was, the revenge that will be taken on you if something – unlikely though that is – happens to me. You'll notice I'm not even trying very much to escape? I don't have to. All I have to do is lay here and wait to be rescued." Angel wasn't as confident as he sounded, even if the Scoobies had a better track record on rescue than Angel Investigations.

"Rescue? You mean your lover?" she asked, some humor in her own voice. Eve looked over her shoulders. "Gentlemen? The skylights, please." There was a clunk of machinery and the slight whine of pneumatics. The room was flooded with sunlight, her shadow an oval puddle at her feet, and deadly though it was, Angel was grateful for the shielding lid. "The lights are special, too, full-spectrum. I've tested in on several vampires, and it works just as well as sunlight. If the other souled vampire does manage to find this place, he'll die, day or night."

Angel shook his head, smiling, amused by her assumption and her plan. Spike would have him loose and Eve's minions, who all smelled human, dismantled before he even started smoldering. "Spike isn't my lover." He belonged to the Master, though, which held more meaning than even he could clearly encompass.

"Don't deny it, Angel. It doesn't bother me; why should it bother you?"

"My lover," he said, "is the Slayer. Which means they will both be looking for me," he gave her a wolfish grin, "and I've never seen a force like the two of them in two hundred and fifty years of existence. It was stupid to come after me, Eve. There's not a chance I won't be rescued or that you won't pay for abducting me."

She smiled again, a cold kind of amusement in her eyes. "Not in your lifetime. Goodbye, Angel." Looking down at her hands, she found a button on the remote control. "For Lindsey." And with a touch, she lowered the lid of the tanning bed and powered it on. Eve's hands were shaking, and she wondered if she could make herself turn it off before he went to dust. She really wanted him to see Spike die first, because that would be fitting.

⸹

"This feels so wrong," Buffy said, looking up into Spike's worried blue eyes.

"Bloody right it does," he agreed. They were crouched side by side, hips and shoulders touching, in the back of an ambulance. Buffy's hand was on the door, waiting for a signal from the radio clutched in Spike's.

"How do other people do it?" she asked, her brows drawn together. "Just… wait?"

"Dunno, love," he replied absently. "We'll be able to get him out this way, safe from the sun, soon as they find him." Once Willow had found the location, Dawn contacted Lieutenant Muse, who put a S.W.A.T. retrieval operation in motion while Oz drove the rest of them to what turned out to be an abandoned warehouse. Both Buffy and Spike were able to sense Angel, confirming that he was inside. Spike had put his head out of the van to confirm one other thing, and then called the Good Lieutenant with Eve's description. One of the Watchers with access to the telephone company created a record of a ransom call to Buffy's house, as well as a *69 back to the originating number. Another Watcher had delivered the ambulance to them, along with the EMS uniforms they had changed into, no longer awkward in each other's presence. By the time they finished, Buffy reaching up to adjust Spike's cap, the police had cut power to the building and lobbed tear gas inside.

"Maybe we should just go in," Buffy fretted.

"The only thing in there that isn't a human belongs to us," he agreed, tired of waiting.

"Us?" The Slayer looked up at him, amusement in her eyes.

The radio in his left hand squawked, saving him from having to answer. "EMS, we've located the victim." It wasn't the Lieutenant's voice, and the quality of their gaze changed at hearing Angel so described.

Buffy threw the doors open, and both were out of the ambulance in a second, Spike hauling the stretcher behind him and pulling his cap a little lower against the morning sun.

⸹

"Uungh!" Despite Angel's best intentions, the sound escaped his gritted teeth. Almost ninety seconds now; he had no idea why knowing how long it took for him to go to ash mattered, no idea why he was counting. Had to do something with his mind as his body burned, he supposed. It seemed that he might leave a skeleton now, as oldest in the line. Angel could hear Eve breathing to his right. She hadn't moved since the lid came down.

The buzz of the bulbs died abruptly, not a relief. She would just toy with him longer, and the pain was approaching hell-dimension proportions.

"What the hell?" Eve asked, jamming her thumb against the remote's 'on' button. A second later, every door into the building slammed open.

"Police!"

"Throw down your weapon!"

"Don't do it!"

Angel heard the steady clicking of the useless remote quit abruptly as Eve stopped trying to turn on the tanning bed. "The police?" Her voice was high-pitched and stunned. Then she started coughing as a cloud of tear gas rolled into the open area.

He wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much. Then he saw Eve taken to the floor by a figure in black, watched her be cuffed and hauled to her feet with his peripheral vision. Someone was telling her that she was under arrest for kidnapping and what rights she had. Then there was a blond man by his side, staring at him for a moment with horrified blue eyes above his gas mask before straining to lift the lid. It wasn't the right blue-eyed blond, but he recognized the policeman who had called him a freak.

"Good God," Lieutenant Joel Muse said. He raised a radio to his mouth. "I've found him."

⸹

[Author's note: The next section includes graphic descriptions of the aftermath of Angel's torture.]

"Through here." The masked figure of a S.W.A.T. member beckoned the EMS team through a set of double doors into a room flooded with sunlight, the pleasant morning rays turning into something darker and oily-looking as they fell on the strange, inky symbols on the wall. There was only one object in the room, and the two people with the stretcher fell into a flat-out run when they recognized it.

"Oh God," Buffy said, the burnt odor hitting her. It wasn't like eau de singed Spike. Not at all.

"I couldn't raise the lid," Muse said, gesturing at the tanning bed, "not with the power off." His mask was off, and they saw his face contort as he tried to find the words. "I don't think–"

"We'll handle it," Spike said, his voice grim. "Buffy, get that end."

She swallowed, finding his eyes, needing reassurance. "On two. One, two." There was a loud crack, and the lid slid easily upward for them to the highest position, now serving as a protective umbrella to block the overhead sun from falling on the man inside. Buffy put out a hand to Angel, then drew it back. "Oh, God," she said again. He was staring up at them; she didn't think he had a choice in this. Most of his soft tissue seemed to be gone.

"Liam," Spike said, dread in his voice.

"Spi…" The name trailed off. The skin around his mouth, like all of his remaining flesh, was drawn and lay across his bones as brittle as old paper.

"My God," Muse said. "He's still alive." The lieutenant thought hard, then turned toward the wide doors that led to the rest of the building. "Evidence camera! Now!" The S.W.A.T. officer thumbed her walkie and relayed the message.

"Liam… We're gonna get you out of here." He looked away, glad to do so. "Slayer, pull the chains loose on that end." Spike yanked the nearby chains from the floor, careful not to jostle Angel's arms. "We have to put a few sheets across you to protect you. Sunny today, yeah?" Angel didn't answer. Spike scrubbed a hand across his mouth and met the Slayer's horrified eyes. His own were flickering between blue and yellow as he fought for control. "Right, then."

He lifted the six layers of white sheets they had ready to go, his movement mirrored by Buffy's. She couldn't bear to look at Angel's devastated body, couldn't bring herself to look anywhere else. Help Angel, she thought, just… help Angel.

"Wait," Muse said, putting a hand on Spike's arm. He quickly withdrew it when the other man snarled at him. "Just a moment, okay? It'll help put that sadistic bitch away."

A short man with a bulky digital camera hurried up. "God- _damn_ ," he said, two high-pitched syllables. Then the camera flashed several times. "Got it," the policeman said, professional once more.

Buffy and Spike draped the sheets over Angel, head to foot. "Right then. We have to lift you to the stretcher, mate, get you out of here. I'm sorry." He looked up at Buffy, who was ready at Angel's feet, and used her count. "On two. One, two." The Slayer thought she'd hear the sound in her nightmares the rest of her life: Angel's drawn-out hiss of pain, the way it segued into a moan before abruptly ending as the big vampire passed into unconsciousness.

Spike pulled up the metal sides of the stretcher with an economy of motion, not letting himself think of why the big vampire felt so light, not looking at the layer of ash inside the sunbed. "Quick, before he wakes up." He set off faster than a human would be able to, not caring who might see them, his eyes blazing. He'd borne burns himself, and he'd already come to the conclusion that he wouldn't wish them on even his worst enemy, on Angelus. His own demon was surging against his will, tracking Eve's scent to a police car that was only forty feet away, wanting to make her pay for touching what belonged to him. His soul and his common sense were stronger. Angel was the top priority.

The stretcher lifted smoothly into the ambulance, Buffy going in first, raising the sheets from Angel's face. It was too grim, too final, too much like her experience when her mother died. She knew he wasn't dead, not really, he wasn't dust, but leaving his face covered was worse than seeing it. Even though his open eyes made him look more alive, she couldn't help wishing he could close them. "Oh, Angel, baby," she breathed, her own high voice scaring her, and she put out a useless hand. There was nowhere she could touch him.

Spike had no compunction about touching him, placing his wrist, already-bitten, against Angel's ruined mouth. "Wake, Aurelian," he commanded, then, softer, "Feed. Take what you need, mate."

Buffy's eyes went between the offered wrist and Spike's face. While she couldn't tell there was any difference in the still form, Spike seemed satisfied. His breathing hitched for a second. It was a slow process, so slow that Buffy could watch the burns retreat, healthy flesh fill in and spread into wider and wider patches, lifting the shallow depressions in the sheets. At one point, Spike said, "Stay awake. You can sleep when you're well."

"'Nough," Angel said finally, turning his head slightly to the side. His voice still sounded damaged.

Spike, pallid and drawn, looked as though he wanted to argue, and he studied the brown eyes for a long moment before nodding curtly. "I'm so sorry, Liam."

"Don't be." Clearing his throat, he tried twice before managing to find enough saliva to close the wounds on Spike's wrist. Their eyes met for several seconds, then Angel dropped his. "I'm sorry. Should have done the same for you back in Sunnydale. Your burns, I mean."

Spike shrugged. "Never would have occurred to you, mate. We were just vampires then."

Buffy watched their gazes meet again, the almost-smiles on their faces, and felt a throb of jealousy. She'd never know Angel like this, as well as Spike did. Then she remembered where Spike had got those burns. Turning away from their private connection, she saw that the sheets covering Angel's midsection had tented, and her wide eyes flew back to him.

He was watching her. "Knew you'd come for me."

"We should have just gone in, spared you–"

His bark of laughter interrupted her, a fine spray of soot puffing out of his mouth onto the white sheets. "Oh, no. Trust me, if I could have picked a way to handle this, I would have done it exactly this way. She's not worth the big guns. Poetic, in a way."

"But you were hurt. I should have been there quicker–"

"I'm fine, Buffy. Or, I am now. Spike took care of it."

She looked up at the blond man across from her, looking tired and much paler than usual. Realizing suddenly how much she owed him, Buffy cupped his face with her hands and kissed him thoroughly. If it was in front of Angel, it was okay. It had to be. "Thank you."

Spike stayed where she'd left him, his lips parted and his expression that of a drought-stricken man with his face lifted to the rain. After a second, he opened his eyes. "Uh, you're welcome." He cleared his throat. "No worries."

Angel raised his eyebrows, suddenly aware that the blood exchange had affected him the usual way. And he'd always liked to watch. "Maybe one of you should drive us out of here," he suggested, seeking to break the moment, shifting uncomfortably.

Watching Buffy wipe her eyes, Spike volunteered. He drove with unwonted attention to traffic laws, pulling away from the curb with a lack of speed that was telling to the police officers watching outside. First degree murder, they were saying, and the woman in the back of the police cruiser didn't know whether to smile or cry.

In the end, she smiled.

⸹

Spike listened as Angel explained who Eve was and how the symbols were a shield against magic, and he looked in the rear-view mirror a couple of times, watching Buffy's tearstained face, seeing how her hand clutched Angel's invisible one, the ferocious way she attacked the manacles now that the big vampire's flesh could bear it. The Slayer called Dawn and spread the word that Angel was rescued, then called Vi to thank her and her good lieutenant. By the time she finished, they were in the alley near Angel's apartment.

Between the two of them, they got the still-weak man inside and into his bed. "Thanks," he said, turning from Buffy to Spike.

The blond man shrugged. "No worries."

"We never would have found you if it hadn't been for Spike," the Slayer said fervently, wanting to give him credit.

"Nah. Down to Red, like usual. She did the locator spell."

"On those symbols," Buffy insisted. "I thought the Initiative had taken you."

"'S'what I thought, too, at first," Spike agreed. He took a breath, then his face tightened.

Angel got it right away. "You need blood, Will. There's plenty in the refrigerator," he said, giving him a way out.

"No, thanks. Got some at home. You'll need it yourself." He walked out of the bedroom, away from their mingled scents, the rumbled sheets, the casual mix of her clothes among Angel's.

Buffy frowned, then went after him when Angel just shook his head. "Spike? Are you just," her voice faltered, "going to, you know, leave?"

He nodded and gave her a strained smile. "Yeah." Indicating the room behind her with a jerk of his head, he added, "Make sure he drinks plenty of blood the next few days."

"I will." Hesitating, Buffy leaned forward and pulled him down for an awkward hug. "Thank you," she whispered, her cheek against his. "I mean it."

Spike nodded again and pulled away. "Better get that ambulance back to wherever it belongs."

She watched him until he closed the door behind him, and then went to the kitchen to heat up a quart of cow's blood. Angel was safe, and yet she felt so deflated. "Here you go," she said brightly, overcompensating as she settled on the side of the large mattress. "Drink every drop, Dr. Summers' orders."

"Yes, doctor." Angel smiled at her over the rim of the glass.

Buffy watched him drink for a moment, a line furrowing her brow, then asked, "Did that seem… odd, just now?"

He gave her a different sort of smile. "First time he's been here since…" When her face remained blank, he added, "In our bedroom."

"Oh." Her nose wrinkled; the whole thing about vampires and odor was creepy. Willow had it worse, she supposed, thinking for a moment of the fact that she had obviously been in Oz's apartment all night. She wondered why they had been secretive; Buffy thought the development was wonderful. It was the first time she, Xander, and Willow had all been in relationships since her last year at UC-Sunnydale, so now she didn't have to feel guilty that she was getting laid on a regular basis. On the slightly naughty thought, her eyes went back to Angel. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He raised his eyebrows.

"In the ambulance, you seemed to inappropriately have… um, pitched a tent." When he just shook his head, she let her eyes stray to his lap.

"Oh!" Angel gave a short laugh and looked away, embarrassed. "It was the blood exchange." Then he gave her a wicked grin. "You remember how it is."

It was her turn to look away, her cheeks flushing. She remembered. She remembered the heat, the passion… then she remembered growing colder and then she didn't remember anything, Angel too needy and too far gone with bloodlust to stop. And she remembered offering Spike the same opportunity, the way his demon had confounded her by refusing her blood. So she turned back to Angel and away from that memory, raising a mischievous eyebrow. "But… Spike?"

Angel's smile broadened until she grinned, too, and smacked his shoulder. "It's always like that," he said reassuringly.

"So I don't have to worry about you thinking about him the next time I do… this?" Buffy leaned forward and kissed him.

"And would you be doing that anytime soon?" His hands were on her waist, her shoulder.

"Are you up for it? You probably shouldn't."

"Oh, I'm up for it." He kissed her until she pulled away, breathless. "I promise I wasn't thinking of Spike." Buffy laughed and stripped off her shirt, then pushed the covers down to explore his body, whole and healthy.

She fell asleep before he did, rolling over so that he would lay his head on her shoulder. Angel had not thought of Spike; he thought of Spike and Buffy, the kiss she had given the boy over his healing body, his own surprising reaction to it. He wanted to believe that it was the blood exchange, but he had a feeling that his sense of what was proper had been irrevocably altered by so many years of vampirism. The three of them seemed right to him, but he knew he was the odd man out with that opinion. He mused on that for a moment, then gloated a little at how grumpy Angelus was over being rescued by the Slayer and the Master of the Aurelians, and then simply fell asleep.

⸹

"So, you can't think of any other people from the past who might show up here, causing trouble?"

"For me, Rupes? No. Well, maybe Drusilla, she gets sentimental. Can't say about Angel. He seems to rile people up more, provoke more extreme feelings." Spike shrugged. He was in Giles' office, getting debriefed by the Watcher and his Nibblet. "Must be a Scourge thing."

"I'll ask him later, then. The Council's Cleveland lawyer will be at the hearing tomorrow morning to see how that goes."

"Tomorrow? That's fast," Dawn commented.

"Yes, I gather the legal system here is more efficient than what we're used to," Giles said dryly, not mentioning Sunnydale by name. "Fortunately, if this Eve woman starts going on about vampires, everyone will think she's insane, or trying to be seen that way. I have a couple of Watchers who are good with makeup, who can get Angel ready for a videotaped deposition if necessary, make him look as if he's recovering. No one would expect a burn victim to risk infection by showing up in court in person." He looked at the blond man and frowned. "How are you doing, William?"

"What?" Spike looked up at Giles, obviously having missed the question. Next to him, Dawn considered him closely for a moment before looking up at Giles, too.

"I asked, how are you? It must have taken a lot of blood."

"Oh. Bit tired." He arranged the muscles around his mouth in a pretty good imitation of a smile, having learned from watching Buffy. "Nibblet'll see me back to a hundred per cent." He raised the mug of blood she'd brought as proof.

"Well, why don't you go on to bed? It's been a trying day, and it isn't even noon."

"Good idea." Standing up, he swayed a little, a bobble that Dawn noted. "See you tonight."

"I'll be there in a minute," she called after him, then turned to Giles, raising a warning finger until she heard Spike's door shut. "He's more than tired."

"What do you think is the problem?" Rupert lowered himself into his office chair.

Dawn pressed her lips together, then looked down at her hands. "I think it's that he's… unhappy. Angel, Buffy. You know."

"I rather think you're right," he replied with a sigh, "though I wish it were something else. I fear there's not a thing I can do to help. Time will take care of it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I know Buffy." Giles shrugged and didn't say anything else.

"See if Xander can spare a few minutes at tonight's training session," Dawn said, after a moment's thought. When he raised his eyebrows, she added, "I want to talk to the slayers while Spike isn't there."

⸹

Eve looked across the steel table at the pudgy public defender in the off-the-rack suit who was pushing papers toward her. Here was one lawyer that would never have been hired at Wolfram and Hart.

"These are the charges filed against you," the woman said. Eve hadn't bothered to remember her name. She was too busy basking in the fact that Angel was dead, really dead. People, human or otherwise, had been trying to kill the bastard for centuries. She'd done it, even if she wasn't going to get away free. Lindsey McDonald was avenged. "All that you have to do in tomorrow's court appearance is plead guilty or not guilty."

Eve gave her a wide smile. "Or _nolo contendre_. Or not guilty by reason of insanity." She shrugged. "There may be other options, but I'm not that conversant with Ohio law. Yet." The lawyer rolled her eyes, a lord-not-another-one gesture, and Eve pulled the sheaf of papers closer, interested to see whether it was first degree murder or some other charge. Kidnapping, unlawful restraint… "Where's the murder charge? Haven't they decided what to charge me with yet? It's been over twelve hours."

"Murder?" The attorney shook her head. "You didn't kill anyone." Then she closed her eyes and added in a dead voice, "Did you kill someone?"

Eve stared at her. "I killed Angel. Him. I killed him." She stabbed a finger at the first page, the kidnapping charge.

"Oh, no, honey, you didn't kill him. They say he had pretty bad burns, but he's going to pull through."

"No." Eve's chin thrust out. "No. I heard the police say I'd be charged with murder. That means he's dead. He's dead!"

The lawyer pushed her chair away a few inches. "No. He isn't dead. Listen, that's a good thing."

"A good thing? It's not a good thing! Angel's dead. I killed him. I killed him!" Eve was shaking now, hardly aware that the door to the room had opened, that someone was lifting her up by her shoulders and leading her away. "I killed him! He's dead, he has to be dead!"

The attorney shook her head and sighed as the woman's hysterical shouts died away. Just her luck, to pull this case. It seemed like she always got the crazy ones.

⸹

"Oh! Willow, my dear. Good to see you."

She went into Giles' arms. "I didn't mean to pop out at you like that, it's just you were coming out of your door." Willow gave him a squeeze, breathing in. Giles always smelled good to her, if a little musty, like a used bookstore.

"Good work this morning. You're quite the hero, in Angel's opinion. Mine, too, of course."

"Just a locator spell," she mumbled, blushing.

"I feared I'd need a locator spell for you, once you'd gone to University. Come in, won't you?" He held the door for her.

Willow examined his expression and decided that he didn't know she'd been in town already. "It's all down to Anya. She said my way of traveling, 'airborne,' she called it, was too slow, too showy. She's right. Teleporting is much quicker and takes less energy. And the physics behind it is fascinating."

Giles listened to her for a few minutes as she talked about how it was different that the understood model of wormholes, his eyes glazing over just a trifle, as they both sat on the couch in his office. When she came to what he thought was a good place to interrupt, he jumped in. "But, my dear, I'd much rather hear about your life at Oxford."

She changed track, telling him about the cozy flat she'd found, about the interesting classes and even more interesting people. Halfway through the description of her favorite pub, she stopped.

"What is it?" Giles asked, concerned.

"Even when I'm sitting there, and it's, like, wall-to-wall intelligent, involved people, even when I'm leaving a class, trying to figure out how I'm going to get to the next level and do the paper…" Willow dropped her eyes. "It's everything I thought I ever wanted, Giles. I'm intellectually challenged, I've made friends, I'm independent, and still," she looked up, something pleading in her hazel eyes, "it doesn't mean anything."

"Of course it does," he began, but she cut him off.

"No, Giles. I really, really think I'll, you know, 'take firsts' in most of my classes. My parents will be thrilled. But what means the most to me is that I helped saved my friend's life a few hours ago. It's the only thing that has meaning."

Giles started to say something, but instead held out an arm. Willow scooted against him, and he pulled her close. "Did you know that I've been making noises about retiring?"

"No!" Her eyes rounded. "Giles!"

"I have." He smiled down at her. "I've been a Watcher half my life now. Some days, all I can think of is that I have millions of dollars, and I can tell the Council and all the attendant headaches to sod off anytime I like." The smile faded. "The thing is, I can't imagine what I would do with the rest of my life. Sit on a beach? I'd go mad within a month."

"You understand," Willow said, relieved.

"I do." He patted her arm. "What greater calling can there be than to fight evil? But do you know what I want for you, Willow? I want you to cherish those academic discussions over a long pint. That's why we fight evil, you know. So that those sorts of absolutely useless conversations, full of laughter and arguments over which irrelevant eighteenth-century philosopher has the most relevance to modern times, can happen. And not just for other people, Willow. For us, too."

She nodded. "I'll try. But I always feel a little guilty, like I should be here."

"I worried that you might end up resenting the number of times we call on you."

"No!" Willow gave him an astounded look. "I'm always glad, almost, you know, relieved. I-I like to be needed."

Giles gave her another squeeze. "You'll always be needed, my dear." He hesitated, then pulled away from her. "In fact, there is something I've been wondering, about whether it's possible. Do you feel comfortable getting in touch with the coven?"

⸹

Dawn looked around the room. She'd waited until Xander had finished with the slayers' training, not wanting them to be distracted while he was working with them. "All right," she called, "I want to talk to everyone about what happened this morning." The slayers grew quiet; there had been more rumor than fact up until now. Spike wasn't there, or Vi, and Buffy was staying home with her recuperating boyfriend.

"On his way home from patrol this morning, Angel was kidnapped by a woman who worked directly for the demons that ran the law firm he was involved with last year. She was after revenge for the way he destroyed the demon's link to earth, as far as we can figure, and she put him in a tanning bed."

"Not good for vampires, I'm guessing." Natalie, a slayer from Indiana, looked queasy.

"Not good. This woman, Eve something, is just a human, so Buffy decided to use our contacts within the police department once Willow found Angel with a locator spell. Buffy and Spike rescued Angel, but he was already badly burned. Fortunately, vampires heal quickly, especially if they're given blood by a family member, so Angel is okay now."

"You mean, Spike gave blood to Angel? After all that drama?" Rona asked, her brows lifted. "Jeez. Saint Spike."

"Of course he did." Dawn sounded a little impatient. "They're family."

"Family doesn't treat you the way Angel treated Spike," Bethany said.

"It was Buffy who made that call," Maria disagreed. The Sunnydale slayers were still not inclined to accept Buffy's decision.

"Family may not like each other," said Tiffani, looking nervous at contradicting slayers with more seniority, "but they're there for each other."

"Anyway," Dawn said loudly, "that's why Spike isn't here tonight. He's resting, trying to get his blood built back up. While he's away, I wanted to talk to you guys about him. It's been a month, and he hasn't even started to get over it." She didn't have to be more specific about 'it;' all the slayers had noticed the change in their trainer. "I'm doing what I can, and now I'm asking you to help, to do whatever you can to cheer him up, from, you know, just doing your best here in the gym to talking about fun stuff while you patrol to… I don't know, whatever you can think of. Those of you who already stop by to play pool, that's a good start. He'd do anything for you slayers; I know you're all fond of him, too."

"Spike likes buffalo wings and those blooming onion things," Xander suggested.

"Another good idea; take him out to eat," Dawn said gratefully. It was nine o'clock, time for the first patrols to head out, and the class began to break up. Tamika came up to remind Dawn that her roommate, Geneva, had turned eighteen and was disappointed that she hadn't been scheduled to patrol the clubs yet. Dawn made a note, then turned to find Xander standing behind her, a lopsided smile on his face.

"I hope Bleach Boy appreciates you taking such good care of him."

Dawn let out a breath and leaned against him, happy to get the hug he had ready for her. "He doesn't even complain about it any more."

Xander gave her an extra squeeze. "We'll have him grumbling again in no time."

⸹

Spike stopped along the drab block wall to pinpoint the position of the humans sleeping nearby, the smell of disinfectant and despair so powerful that it made the mundane task harder than it should be. He had avoided or mesmerized the guards and, he was pretty sure, disabled all the video surveillance in the jail, but one scream from a frightened prisoner would be enough to keep him from his goal. And he could smell her now, not far around the corner from where he stood. For something this important, he had patience.

Gathering the darkness close, he moved past three cells to the one where Eve was held. His demon was at the fore, his cool common sense and his soul standing well back. This was Aurelian business, time for soothing violence. The bitch had touched what was his.

The jailers never really turned off the lights; the fluorescent bulbs over the corridor stayed on all night. So it was easy to see Eve's body, dangling grotesquely from the chain that held the upper bunk to the wall. It wasn't high enough to have really hung herself, so she must have forced a slow strangulation, leaning against the noose made from a strip of her prison shirt… Spike's jaw worked a little as he considered her last moments, saw the way her feet and her fingertips were the only things touching the bare concrete floors. Then his mouth settled into a cold little smile.

⸹

 _Aurelian._

Angel woke, sitting halfway up. Next to him, Buffy made a sleepy sound of protest. He touched her cheek, then tucked the covers around her shoulders. Once she was settled, Angel left the bed to answer the call, pausing only long enough to pull on his trousers.

It wasn't a mindlink, nothing that clear, but it sang in his blood that he was wanted, knew from his other senses that the Master was waiting for him just outside. There weren't too many minutes until sunrise, and Spike thoughtfully had his necrotempered truck idling at the mouth of the alley.

He started driving as soon as Angel was in, not speaking, his face oddly expressionless and his eyes black. Just as Angel's innate impatience was about to conquer the force of his submission, Spike turned abruptly into the drive-through of a twenty-four hour doughnut shop. Four coffees and a dozen fresh pastries were in the truck with them in under a minute.

Angel raised an eyebrow. "Hungry?"

"Not really." Without saying anything else, he drove back to the alley beside Angel's apartment. Taking a breath as he shut off the ignition, he moved the coffee and doughnuts to the wide dashboard, then scooted across the bench seat. Very gently, he put both hands on either side of Angel's face and examined him. "How are you?"

"Better. Healed." So much love in the boy's eyes.

"Eve is dead."

No wonder he was acting so odd; it must have taken a lot for him to get in the right mindset. "You shouldn't have–"

"No. I went there to kill her, but she'd hung herself."

"Oh." Angel thought about this, began to sort through his own feelings about her death. He realized he really didn't have any. Relief, maybe. He searched Spike's eyes, too dark in the brightening morning. "Why?"

He didn't try to misunderstand. "Because you're mine. Because I love you."

The Master didn't have to add the second part. Feeling feckless for even having asked, Angel took a breath and put his hands over Spike's, where they still rested on his neck. Then he leaned in, letting their foreheads touch. Everything inside him settled into place, and he had the sudden thought that he'd never once felt protected like this, not even as a child, certainly not as Darla's fledge. Even as often as Buffy had rescued him, he'd never really known to his bones that she would arrive in time, despite what he said to Eve. He had submitted, given himself over to the Master, and this one took care of his own the way no other in the long line of the Order of Aurelius ever had. This was family, and Angel had a moment of true gratitude for the soul he was cursed with, just so he could appreciate it.

They sat like that in silence for several minutes, closer than lovers. When Spike finally pulled away, Angel saw his eyes were back to blue, and he felt pride that it was their bond that had soothed him. "Thank you. For telling me, I mean." The he gave Spike a shy smile. "For everything."

Spike shrugged. "No worries." He moved two of the coffees to the truck's cupholders, then pushed the remaining cups and the box of doughnuts towards Angel. "Her favorites."

And there it was again, the barrier between them, the closeness slipping away. Angel looked at Spike, willing the boy to meet his eyes. _It doesn't have to be this way._ Spike was staring at the steering wheel, though. "I'll tell her. I think she'll be relieved, too."

"Yeah." His mouth thinned for a moment. "Liam, I broke my promise."

"Prom… oh."

He had been a man of honor, once. "I'm sorry. When you were taken, she was… distraught. Of course, she would be. Naturally." He took a deep breath, his eyes closed. "I couldn't not hug her, comfort her."

"Will, I never meant it literally. I just didn't want you to lay a hand on her to hurt her, in some sort of demented murder-suicide idiocy."

"Still, wasn't well done of me."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Master, I release you from your promise." His sarcastic tone was at complete odds with the humble words. "You don't have to make any more promises, either." He pulled a face. "None of us know how this is going to turn out, what might happen tonight or the next night. The only thing that matters is that we both want Buffy to be safe and happy."

"Right." Spike still didn't look at the other man. He was quiet for a long moment, then said in a tired voice, "See you Wednesday."

Angel forced himself not to sigh as he gathered the coffee and doughnuts. "See you then." The truck was out of sight before he finished opening the apartment door. After a moment's thought, he found a tray in the kitchen and arranged the pastries on it, having a brief sideslip of memory: Spike at the foot of his bed bearing breakfast on a legal dictionary.

"Hey," Buffy said sleepily, sitting up as he came in. She took a deep breath. "That coffee smells great." A little more alert, she quirked a questioning brow. "Breakfast in bed?"

He sat carefully next to her. "Spike came by, wanted to talk. It's Eve, Buffy. She hung herself last night in her cell."

She blinked. "She's dead?" Nodding, he opened the legs of the tray and set it across her legs. Buffy thought about it for a moment, didn't bother asking how Spike had known. He'd been there to take vengeance, of course, something she couldn't do. "I know it's wrong," the Slayer said softly, "but I can't feel sorry."

Angel met her eyes, seeing the lingering anger there, the sorrow. "I'm fine, Buffy."

"I know." Then there was nothing but love in her eyes, love and the other thing, the shadow that he always saw in her now. A tiny smile on her face, Buffy leaned forward as far as she dared without upsetting the tray, encouraging him to come to her, to meet her kiss.

He did.

⸹

"Al-Xander told me about these," Nguise said, her dark eyes shining.

"He did, did he?" Spike asked, his gaze sharpening. It was Saturday, and Nguise had asked to go to Hooters after they finished patrolling along the waterfront. He had been taken aback, but agreed.

"Oh, yes." The African slayer wiped a wayward smear of sauce from her chin, her eyes sparkling beneath her hijab. "But I did think we would be eating buffalo. This is just chicken – but very good."

"One of my favorites, pet." Their waitress came forward, but before she could begin her friendly spiel, he cut her off. "'Nother platter of wings, love."

⸹

"That's not the way to the cemetery," Spike said, trying not to be impatient.

"Nope," Tribby replied cheerfully. "It's the way to my apartment. I've got a CD you have to hear, just came out yesterday."

"Who?"

"Nuh-uh, I'm not saying. You've got to hear it, though. It's the best thing in ages, I swear. I think it's moved right behind _Give 'Em Enough Rope_ on my list of all-time favorite albums."

He sighed, but followed her up the four flights of stairs anyway. She worshipped The Clash, so that was high praise indeed. "Nice artwork," he said as she placed the jewel case in his hand. A heart-shaped grenade. He could identify.

Almost an hour later, as the last notes of _American Idiot_ died away, he grinned. "Pretty good. You were right."

"I've liked Green Day just for 'Minority,' but, wow, this is by far their best."

"I'll have to congratulate Billy Joe next time I see him."

Tribby gave him a look that was equal parts exasperated and admiring. "You know Green Day, too?"

"Not well. Lit up with him and Mike a couple of times here and there. Never in Cali, oddly enough. But, then, I was mostly there with Dru. I never introduce her to musicians I like."

⸹

Buffy had hung around as long as she could after training without being obvious, so she gave up and went for obvious. Maria and Spike were talking, the vampire leaning casually against the treadmill Maria was jogging on. She had a spiteful observation about the efficacy of Maria's sports bra and couldn't bring herself to feel bad about the pettiness. Every so often, Buffy saw the flash of Spike's white teeth, and she clamped down on her jealousy. The other slayers, especially the ones who had been in Sunnydale, were a little cool with her now that she was committed to Angel. She didn't mind; she was their general, and some distance wasn't a bad thing.

There could be more distance between her vampire and the slayers. She did mind how much warmer they were with Spike. Maria, for instance, had her dark hair loose in glossy waves tonight and was surely wearing more makeup than she had her first weeks in Cleveland. Maria wasn't the only slayer who dressed for the gym like it was a club. Buffy still hadn't been able to warm up to Ivana, and she only felt marginally better about the extra training Tribby had negotiated because of the Southern slayer's businesslike deference. Vi and Rona concerned her most because Spike really talked to them. Vi was seriously involved with the Good Lieutenant, though, and Rona had started seeing someone from Philadelphia.

By this point, she was positive that Maria was studiously not looking at her so that Spike wouldn't be alerted to her presence. Buffy allowed a smile to play across her mouth, tilted her head, and did the opposite of what she did when she wanted to sneak up on vampires. She saw by the set of his shoulders that he'd felt the pulse of her Slayer's aura.

Spike said something in Spanish, and Maria laughed before answering. " _Genial,_ " he replied, then he turned and came toward Buffy, one brow arched.

"Are you being served?"

"I didn't know you speak Spanish."

"There are a great many things you don't know about me, kitten. 'S'usually a good thing." He moved a tiny bit closer, setting his shoulders to curve around her space, centering his body on her. "What did you want, love?"

"Your attention, but Maria was too busy flipping back her hair to point out that I was waiting."

He gave a slow smile at the venom in her voice. "You know how to get my attention, Slayer," Spike said, deep. Then he seemed to remember himself. "Uh, what did you need?"

"Just to make sure we're still patrolling on Saturday."

"'Course." His expression became neutral. "You don't need to switch, do you?"

"No," she reassured him, smiling when he looked relieved. "I just wanted to make sure you're all recovered. I-I'm looking forward to it." Buffy gazed up into his eyes for a second too long. Flustered, she pulled the towel from her shoulder and patted her face, just to have something to do.

"Me, too. Anything else you need, love?"

The words, even without any silky innuendo in his voice, made her glance back up. "No. Guess I'll go home."

"Say hi to Peaches for me."

"Spike," she closed her eyes for a moment, almost afraid he would answer, "why do you call him Peaches?"

This got her a grin of her very own. "Let him tell you why," he chuckled, brushing her cheek with his fingertips because now he could. "Though I doubt he will."

⸹

"Dawn."

She looked up from where she lay across her bed, her feet propped on the wall. From this angle, Spike was upside-down, but even if he hadn't used her given name, she would have known he was in a mood. "Hey, you," she said with exaggerated cheer. "What can I do for you?"

"Stop interfering."

"Interfering?" She sat up, putting her feet on the floor, feeling dizzy for a moment as blood rushed away from her head.

"The slayers. I know good and well you said something to them; they've been treating me with kid gloves all week."

Dawn gave up all pretense. "And you've hated every minute of it?" She raised an eyebrow.

He had been forced to turn down Tiffani's shy and very sweet offer of sex and Bethany's much more aggressive one. He had slayers tripping over themselves in practice to do his bidding. He had to let his belt out a notch, he'd eaten so many post-patrol blooming onions. Worst of all, the Slayer had noticed the extra attention he was getting. "I hate being coddled."

She looked puzzled. "Isn't that something you do with eggs?"

He pointed a finger at her, gave her an even more pointed look, then disappeared from her doorway.

⸹

"Tribby!" Dawn ran a little to catch up with the shorter woman. She had just finished her painting class, the one elective she was taking this semester, and sometimes she ran into the MFA candidate in the halls of the art building.

"Hey, Dawn." The slayer pulled her into a quick one-armed hug. "You enjoying Fletcher's class?"

"Yeah. It's, like, the only fun I'm going to have all semester. Listen," she went on in a lower tone, "spread the word, would you? I won't be at training tonight, and I think you guys might be trying a little too hard to cheer up Spike. He's noticed."

"Good."

"No, not good. He said he didn't want to be," she thought a moment, dismissing the word 'poached' before the right one came to mind, "coddled."

"Oh. Okay, I'll pass the word to gear down." She waved her goodbyes.

"See you!"

"I didn't know you knew Libby Snapp," someone said behind her. Dawn turned around to see Mitch Czereski, who was also in her painting class. He was an art major and very cute. "I can't wait to see her exhibit."

"Lib – oh, Tribby. Yeah, we're in the same, uh, volunteer group."

"Oh, you do volunteer work? That's really cool."

Dawn felt herself blush. "Well, now I feel bad, because that's actually my job. I'm sort of an administrator."

"Full-time? That's rough, working and going to school. Me, too – not full-time, though. I deliver pizza three nights a week."

Her nerves were forgotten. "That's a dangerous job. Be careful when you're out, especially to, uh, new addresses."

Mitch gave her a full-on _look_ that made Dawn's toes curl. "Thanks. That's really sweet. Listen, are you doing anything this Friday? Maybe we could go to that exhibit Fletcher was talking about at the end of class."

⸹

"Hi," Geneva said, almost immediately looking down.

"Hi, Gen," Dawn said, pulling out a chair. "Have a seat. We were just looking at the class schedule for spring. Buffy's thinking of going full-time next semester." It was the first time her sister had sought her out since moving in with Angel.

"Um, do you mind if I ask you guys a favor?" The tall slayer sat gingerly, looking around Giles' kitchen as though there might be spies.

"Sure," Buffy said. "What do you need?"

Geneva held out a copy of the patrol schedule for the next week, folded and creased. "You've got me scheduled to patrol the clubs this Friday," she began, "and I wanted to, so thanks and everything. It's just," she pulled the paper back and folded it into compulsively smaller squares, not looking at either of the sisters, "I don't know what to wear. I mean, I have clothes, I have money to buy clothes. I just don't…" She sighed, then met Dawn's eyes pleadingly. "Most club clothes seem to be made for women smaller than you two. I don't know how to dress for this, and I don't want to embarrass anybody." Miserable, she looked down.

Buffy and Dawn exchanged a look, and the Slayer spoke up first. "If there's one thing Dawn and I can do, it's shop. We'll find the perfect outfits, things you can wear while dancing and kicking ass."

"And you'll look good doing it," Dawn added stoutly. She stood up. "Got your checkbook?"

"Now?" The young slayer looked between them, surprised.

"No time like the present," Buffy said brightly. Then she gave Dawn a tragic look. "Oh, God, I'm turning into Mom."

"Not a bad thing, love," Spike murmured, smiling, lying on his bed one floor beneath them.

⸹

"Then, a quick twack?" Rona asked.

"Twack?" Spike repeated, teasing. Then he tensed. "Angel. Come on down."

The small group of slayers went quiet as the big vampire came down the stairs to Spike's basement. "Will," he said, and covering his surprise, "ladies."

Rona was inside Spike's embrace as they both bent over the billiards table, his hand over hers as it rested on the green surface. "Just teaching Ro here a little about how to address the ball."

"Teaching her English?" Angel asked lightly.

Spike gave a short bark of laughter. "Go on, pet, give it a bash." He let go of Rona and walked over to where Angel had stopped at the bottom of the stairs. They could both feel the eyes of the slayers on them. Making it as casual as he could, he gave Angel a quick embrace. "What brings you back to your old digs?"

"We're patrolling in a couple of hours." He shrugged. "Buffy's out with Dawn, and I thought we could… uh, hang out." God, that sounded lame.

Sure enough, Spike called him on it. "Hang out?" Then, hastily, "Sure. Why not? Remember anything about billiards, Peaches?"

"A little. I'll be rusty."

"'S'what you get when you don't use your talents for so long," Spike said, just a touch of mocking sexuality in his voice. Angel had to smile, feeling that all was right in the world.

⸹

Friday afternoon found Xander and Spike sitting on Giles' front porch in lawn chairs, sipping beer. Xander was waiting for Lina to pick him up. He hadn't mentioned it to the other man, but Buffy was having him and Lina over for supper, along with Willow and Oz, a couples' get-together. They watched a motorcycle pull into the driveway.

"Nice bike," Xander said. Spike nodded in agreement, already knowing the rider.

Tribby kicked out the stand, then took off her helmet, shaking out her dark hair, which hung loose today. She sent a cheerful smile and wave at the two men on the porch, then took off her leather jacket and started walking over.

"Spike, she's wearing chaps," Xander said, his bottle of beer held forgotten halfway to his mouth.

His eyes flicked over her, more interested in the fact that she wore a red silk shirt tucked into her jeans instead of the usual punk band t-shirt. "Easy, Harris."

"Hey, guys," Tribby said, taking the steps two at a time. "Spike, want to go out riding?"

"Maybe some other time, pet."

She wasn't deterred. "Come on," she cajoled, giving him a flirty look. "Somebody needs to ride that big hog of yours." She took a step closer and leaned a hand on the arm of his chair, her voice lower than usual. "Go on, get that fine machine out of hiding, rev up that powerful engine, blow the dust out of those big pipes."

Spike's expression was bland, despite his amusement. The slayers were all trying so hard. "Some other time, maybe."

"I have got to get a motorcycle," Xander said, his voice hoarse.

Tribby glanced at him before going to work again. "Come on, you'll enjoy it. I'll take you to a powwow, after."

"No." Not so amused now.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

Tribby gave him a narrow look, then started into the house. "Dawn!"

"Bollocks!" Spike sat his beer down on the floor with a thump and headed off to the shed in the back yard, grumbling. He'd get no rest until he agreed to go. Dawn thought it was good for him to get out.

Inside, Dawn grabbed Tribby's hands. "Did it work?"

"I think so. He went to the back yard. Either he's getting the bike or we'll see him skedaddle in his truck."

"Either way," Dawn muttered. She checked the clock. Mitch would be here for her in just a few minutes. This was cutting it close. "How do I look?" She was wearing almost what she would wear to class, except slightly shorter and lower-cut, with more jewelry.

Tribby gave her an envious look. "Gorgeous, especially that hair. Have a good time. I don't have a clue if this exhibit is any good, but that's not really the point, is it?"

"No. The point is, my first date since I got to Cleveland!" A roar from a monstrous engine coincided with her squeal, and she gave the slayer a thousand-watt smile. "Here," she said, thrusting Spike's coat at Tribby, "go on. Get him out of here before Mitch shows up and somebody's arms get ripped off."

⸹

"So, what's a powwow, exactly?" Spike asked with a marked lack of enthusiasm, walking his bike back a few inches.

She handed over his coat. "A gathering where a group of drummers work themselves past the point of exhaustion while a bunch of the People dance and socialize, talk and gossip. This is isn't a particular tribe, just an elderly man, William Brant, who has a block building and doesn't want to travel two hours for the drums. No competition, just dancing." Tribby put her helmet back on. "Trust me; it's more fun than it sounds. Plus," she righted her bike from the kickstand, "sweet roads all the way there." She waved at Xander and Dawn, who had poked her head out the door, and Spike aimed a glare in his Bit's general direction.

Headed east just before seven, Spike wore his coat, leather gloves, and a helmet with a tinted facemask as concession to the fading sunlight. He also made a concession to the human, allowing her to set the pace on her little Harley. They were out of the city and on open roads before the speed limit got to be too much, and he passed her at seventy, still accelerating, manic smile hidden behind the black facemask. Motorcycles were pure adrenalin. He had been riding since taking one with a sidecar from a dinner of German soldier in France during the Occupation. Spike had made it less than five kilometers before wiping out in a ditch, but he was already addicted.

He slowed down when he came to an intersection, waiting for the slayer to catch up. She went left, then hit the throttle and popped a wheelie before letting up on the torque and bending low over the handlebars. Not about to let that kind of showy riding go unchallenged, Spike passed her again, taking curves with his big machine at a shallow forty-degree angle from the pavement, feeling it want to get away from him. He laughed, full of life, exactly where he was happiest, in defiance of mortality and the laws of physics. The only traffic was headed into Cleveland, and the slayer fell further behind. When he could barely hear the other Harley's distinctive sound, he slowed down, puttering along until Tribby caught up.

Less than five minutes later, she turned into a gravel parking lot next to a long, low building that had seen its last coat of white paint too many years ago. When she pulled off her helmet, Spike could see that she was grinning. "Man, that's a nice bike. Blow all the dust out?"

"Cleaned out those pipes," he affirmed, surprised that he wasn't going to be lectured for unsafe riding. He followed her lead and left his coat with the bikes, handing it over for her to stow in her saddlebags.

"You know the difference between a Hoover and a Harley?"

"What?"

"Position of the dirtbag attached to it."

Spike chuckled, looking pointedly at her own little Harley, then followed her toward the entrance. Huge industrial heat pumps were working hard against the late summer evening, but he could still hear random drumbeats from inside. Between them and the door was a small knot of adolescent boys.

"If y'all are smokin' that," Tribby said, nodding to the boys in greeting, "my guess is that the state trooper has already been here."

"No," said one of them, a heavy-set lad who also wore a leather jacket despite the heat, quickly putting his hand down behind his hip. "Uh, hey, Libby. State trooper? Man, does the po-po always have to poke their nose in?"

"Someone always stops by," she said gravely. "Thought you might want a head's up."

"Thanks, cuz." The other boys also mumbled their thanks, shooting sidelong looks at the slayer and the stranger with her. "Hey," the kid with the joint said, "you want a hit?"

He held the small cigarette out to her, and after a slight hesitation, Tribby accepted it, holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment before expelling it through her nostrils. Watching her, Spike was surprised to see blood rushing to her face as she struggled not to cough. "Thanks, cuz," she echoed, managing a smooth voice as she handed it back to the teenager.

"You want?"

"Thanks," Spike said, taking a quick, short drag, knowing the kid had only offered to be polite.

"See you inside," Tribby told them, and they went past as the boys hurriedly finished passing the joint. Turning a little to Spike, she shook her head and said, "Nearly embarrassed myself back there. That's what too much time as a Sunday School teacher will do to your cool."

His brows drawn together, he held the door for her, trying to fit this latest piece of information with what he already knew about her. "You were a Sunday School teacher?" he asked, not quite managing to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

She gave him a sharp glance but didn't reply, so he looked around. The inside of the building reminded him of Rupert's basement: open floor plan with a low ceiling. There were no windows, and, surprisingly, no floor, just packed earth. People milled around with the expectant air of hoping someone besides them would get the party started. "Building reminds me of a honky-tonk," he said aloud.

"That's what it was, once. The boys in blue never forget it, either." Tribby headed toward the concession stand, manned by a battery of females too old for Spike to ever have noticed as a mere vampire. They were, to a woman, comfortably built and wearing clothes made for ease rather than style. To the side were two elderly men, and the slayer went directly to them.

"Good evening, Mr. Brant," she said to the oldest, then turned to the other man. "Good evening, Mr. Pierson."

"Good evening, Libby Snapp," the older man replied in a voice so deep that it made Spike's sound like a tenor. "Glad to have you back. Who's your young man?"

She smiled easily, and Spike could tell she had anticipated this. "Not my young man," she corrected, "but someone I work with who's shown a respectful interest in our ways."

"William Giles," Spike said, offering his hand.

The old man took his hand, but didn't shake it. "Be welcome, William Giles. Good name. I am also called William." He examined Spike's face. "You have some blood of the People?"

He had the blood of a lot of people. "Uh, hundred percent British, I'm afraid." His father had always said their family could be traced back to the Roman occupation of Britain, but he wasn't about to say that. He was getting a little uncomfortable with the contact.

"Huh. What do you think, Claude? Something about the nose, the cheekbones?"

The other elderly man leaned forward to peer at Spike's face through the bottom of his bifocals. "Plains."

"That's what I thought. Features are too sharp for the Nations." He finally let go of Spike's hand, but his observant eyes remained on him. "Your hand is cold. They say this means a warm heart, but I think it just means poor circulation. You are too young for poor circulation."

"Um, I was – we came on motorbikes. Must be the wind," he mumbled.

Mr. Brant nodded. "So, how are your people feeling about Tony Blair these days?"

Spike blinked at the change in topic. "Er, couldn't say. Been living in the States for several years now."

"Bush will go in November, then Blair will go," predicted Pierson.

Brant shook his head. "Bush will be re-elected," he disagreed with a sigh, "or should I say elected?"

"Kerry will win, William," Pierson said stubbornly.

"The campaign and the election will be dirty," Brant said, "and Bush will win."

"Excuse me, sir," one of the teenagers who had been smoking outside said, "can I see Libby for a minute?"

"Mrs. Snapp," William Brant corrected the boy. Spike saw the weathered nostrils flare. Not much got past the old man.

"Oh. Sorry. Mrs. Snapp. Sure."

Brant nodded, dismissing them. "Good to meet you, Mr. Giles."

"Good to meet you, too, sir. Both of you." As they followed the teenager back toward the door, Spike flashed her an amused look. "They're terrifying," he whispered, making Tribby grin.

"Told you she came here," one of the boys waiting by the door said, low and secretive.

"Um, Libby – er, Mrs. Snapp," their escort said, "would you sign this?"

"Sure, if you've got a pen."

Between the four of them, the teenagers produced a pen and handed her a calendar from a sports equipment company. When she started to sign the cover, the boy holding it stopped her. "Would you sign, um, July?"

"July?" Tribby said the word at the same time, shaking her head ruefully. "I thought the photographer was insane, but that's everybody's favorite." She flipped through the pages and found the right month. The young man turned, shyly offering his back for her writing surface.

Spike's eyebrows rose as he saw a picture of Tribby on the page, then recalled that she had given up her amateur status as an athlete, signed a promotion contract to pay her husband's medical bills. Grinning, he reached for it after she finished. "Let me see that." The calendar was from 2001, the year after the Sydney Olympics. Most of the twelve pictures were so wholesome as to be boring, showing the athlete with her gold medal in various uniforms, wearing different styles of gloves and protective gear manufactured by the company. July was different in tone. She was wearing an abbreviated sports bra and form-fitting shorts in white, two Dobermans at her feet. All three subjects were looking to the left of the camera, where she was pointing with one confidently extended arm, the other controlling the two dogs. It was reminiscent of a Soviet worker poster, except with nipples.

"October is better," he told her, noticing that her face had flushed again. He did like October better; she was wearing a more modest black sports bra and black uniform pants, her body showing perfect form as she struck out with one fist, smooth brown skin taut over the muscles that popped out along her arm. Her real smile wasn't in evidence in any of the shots.

"You're crazy, man," the autograph-seeker said, taking the calendar back. "July is hot." One of his buddies punched his shoulder. "What? It is."

"Thanks," Tribby said dryly. "Come on; let's go outside and get some air before the dancing starts."

Ten yards before he gave in to temptation. "Didn't know I was keeping company with a pin-up."

"Oh, shut up," she said, no rancor in her tone.

"Where'd those kids get hold of a 2001 calendar, anyway?"

Tribby gave him a measuring look, then nodded toward the parking lot. "Notice anything about the cars? The clothes?" He shook his head, not sure where she was going. "Okay, name a famous Native American, just one, still alive." When he just shook his head again, Tribby nodded grimly. "Exactly. One last point: Who won the 100 meters in Sydney? Track or swimming. Or any event; name one medal winner." Spike shook his head a third time. "We don't have a lot, Spike, Native Americans, I mean. Not a lot of wealth, not a lot role models. I'm not even a member of the Eastern Band, but it means something to a few people besides my grandmother that I won a gold medal. That's… I'm important to – Who gets to have that? Whatever my people need from me, I'll give it to them."

He looked around the lot again, seeing what she had been getting at. The cars and trucks were not, for the most part, late model. The trainers on the boys' feet were scuffed, not the pristine, just-out-of-the-box sneakers that L.A. kids had. Then he looked at the slayer, taking in her pretty hair, the dark red of the silk blouse she wore instead of a t-shirt with a rude message. "I get it," he said quietly. She wasn't Tribby the slayer here, but Mrs. Libby Snapp, gold medal winner, honorable widow, famous Indian. He thought of the memories of the first Cherokee he'd met so long ago, illiterate, sold into marriage, sent away from her poor village with a single small trunk of possessions.

"Come on," Tribby said, hearing the beat of the drums change, become more structured, "time for the friendship dance." As they headed inside, she explained that it was a basic, slow march in a large circle around the drummers, the one dance in which everyone participated. The smell of smoke reached him from low braziers, hibachis, maybe, where fires had been started. The ability to have fire was probably the reason for holding the powwow in the old building, he supposed. Everyone, from Mr. Brant to the youngest toddler, was joining the circle, everyone facing the same way like a conga line. Conscious of his pale skin after their talk in the parking lot, he took his place behind Tribby. The slow shuffle began, and a woman with an infant in her arms slipped between him and the slayer. He felt foolish at first, the step-hop rhythm too slow to be real dancing. An overweight woman with more earrings than Buffy cut in behind the young mother, then a middle-aged man still wearing his work uniform from a garage joined the circle.

The beat picked up just a little, set the pace for more of a dance, and the sound of footfalls became part of the music. The friendship dance was mind-numbingly simple, he realized, exactly so it could be inclusive: anyone could join, even if they had never danced before, even if they had no sense of rhythm. Even Angel could do this.

Spike, feeling less visible, turned his attention to the four drummers in the middle of the circle. All were shirtless now, and none of them were young or in particularly good shape. One of them had long black hair and could have been an extra on any Western. Another had a long grey ponytail and would look equally at home in a biker picture as a cowboys-and-Indians shoot-em-up. The remaining two drummers had no obvious ethnicity. What the four had in common was the look of joy on their faces.

Enough people had come into the circle that he could see Tribby easily in the curve of bodies ahead of him. A man in his late forties cut in behind her, touching her shoulder to get her attention. When she looked up, he smiled down at her and said something. He was as blond and blue-eyed as Spike – well, maybe not as blond. There were other blonds in the line, fair faces flushed with the heat, and even a couple of redheads. No wonder Brant had tried to claim him as Native American.

The slow dance went on long enough for the circle to make several complete rotations, and Spike was sorry to see it end. He hadn't danced in an age. With no signal discernable to his human or vampire senses, people began to break away, applauding the drummers. Tribby stayed in the thinning circle, so he stayed in, too, not sure of what else to do, trying to keep his body at equidistance from the other dancers. The man in the mechanic's uniform was still between him and the slayer. As the drums began a different beat, Spike followed his lead, deliberate stomps against the earth, body bent slightly at the waist, shuffling steps, low kicks out to the side. Another part wound into the rhythm as the drummers began to work in earnest, and the dancers, mostly younger men, began to throw in high, athletic leaps on the counterbeat to the appreciative calls of the audience. This he could do. He smiled, losing himself in the insistent music, going into the air for a three-sixty leap, coming down on his haunches, then up again, stomp, stomp. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Mr. Brant clapping for him, his hands held high in the air. With every leap he took, some part of him seemed to stay aloft, as if he'd had something a lot stronger than a hit off a joint, but there was clarity along with the high. He was, he realized, happy, and it came welling up from within his own self, not dependent on anyone or anything else.

After another song, the drummers ceased with a final flourish, looking at each other with helpless smiles, transcendent. They were also breathing hard, a sheen of sweat covering their bare chests. Spike came back to himself, demon and soul abruptly still. He looked around for Tribby, but Brant caught his eye first and beckoned him over.

"You're enjoying yourself, also William," he said, taking in the blond man's grin with satisfaction.

"This is bloody brilliant," Spike agreed. "Don't know when I've felt so–"

"Whole?"

"Yeah," he said slowly. That word didn't quite work, though. "Connected," he offered.

Brant smiled, his wrinkled face falling into more creases. "The music is sacred," he agreed, "and is a bridge between us and all that has come before and all that will follow after."

"Thank you," he said abruptly, "for, you know, letting just anyone come to your party." It sounded stupid and awkward.

The gentle smile on the old man's face gained an edge of sadness. "We cannot afford to be insular. Keep the feeling of this night in your heart, William Giles, so that you will always know what our culture has to offer." He lifted his still-broad shoulders. "All cultures give something. Yours, for example. I love the Rolling Stones."

Spike's startled laughter began deep in his belly and rolled out, full and rich. He thought of the _Exile on Main Street_ vinyl that had been warped into a lump of black plastic in his Sunnydale crypt, the signed cover burned away. If he still had it in his possession, he'd lay it at this man's feet. "It has been a pleasure, William Brant," he said sincerely, taking the outstretched hand.

Sharp-eyed, the smile gone, Brant leaned forward. "You have danced with great energy, Englishman, and your hand is still cool."

Power, just a trace, nothing like Willow, or even Giles. Spike leaned closer, meeting the dark gaze. "My heart is warm."

The human nodded slowly. "Perhaps, then, you will come back to the circle someday."

"I only go where I'm welcome."

"All who cause no harm are welcome here."

Spike relaxed at the carefully worded welcome. "I am honored."

Brant relaxed, too, and he turned his attention from the vampire to another man waiting for his audience. "Good to see you again, Michael Redwing Dawson."

He nodded his farewell, leaving Mr. Brant to talk to the newcomer, and found Tribby at the concession stand, buying bottles of water. "For the drummers," she explained, "in thanks."

The musicians were grateful for the water, and if there was anyone Spike felt comfortable talking with, it was musicians. There was more open dancing and then a few performances, including a small troupe of elementary school children who had received honorable mention at a big powwow in Oklahoma. Tribby was persuaded to do a version of a hoop dance that substituted glow necklaces, a challenge beneath the low ceiling. She ended with a flourish, five of the hoops held up in the dark in the shape of the Olympic symbol. Spike got the feeling she had performed the same dance innumerable times. The musicians stopped playing at eleven, but most of the crowd had drifted away by then.

Spike waved goodbye to the slayer shortly after they reached the city limits, headed to the gym to meet Geneva for a second shift patrol. His mind was on the joy of the dance, the taste of bliss. He wondered if Buffy would experience the same thing, if it would be another approach to pushing aside her memories of heaven. Still, he couldn't bring himself to order Angel to take her dancing. He did love her, after all.

⸹

"Great party, Buffy," Willow gushed, giving her a hug at the door.

"It was, wasn't it?" the Slayer agreed. The dinner she'd cooked had turned out really well, the conversation had never lagged, and even Xander and Angel had gotten on as if they were friends.

"I really like Lina."

"I do, too. And," Buffy added, grinning, "not demon."

"Must have been a Sunnydale thing."

"They seem really happy together."

Willow took her hand. "So do you and Angel."

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "So do you and Oz."

The young witch ducked her head to the side, still a little embarrassed. "We are." She leaned closer to the Slayer. "God, Buffy, can you believe how this is? We've gone through so much, but this… Except for not having Cordelia, this is exactly what I thought it would be like after high school."

Buffy made herself smile. "Me, too." A part of her had never believed she would live through high school. She made plans with Willow to go shopping next weekend, then closed the door.

Leaning against it, she surveyed the apartment and groaned a little. Angel stood up from putting hummus in the refrigerator and quirked an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Now we have to clean up."

He looked at her and started smiling. "No, we don't, not really."

"Yes, we do. No one else is going to do it."

"But not now." He was halfway through the living room, a glint in his brown eyes.

Buffy smiled, too. "You look absolutely wicked."

"Well, I have been, but I'm not now." He scooped her up in his arms. "I'm saving you from tedious housework. How can that possibly be wicked?"

⸹

"Oh, man. No way." The guard at the entrance to the club crossed his arms, his biceps on prominent display.

Spike looked at Geneva and rolled his eyes. "Here," he said, fishing his Council ID from a coat pocket.

The bouncer examined it for a couple of seconds, then handed it back. He moved the rope aside with a sigh. "Go on, man. But, seriously, the seventies are over, you know?" He shifted his gaze to Geneva. "Hey, babe. Need to see some ID."

Geneva, wearing cargo capris and a sparkly t-shirt under a Diesel denim jacket, handed over her driver's license. She gave Spike a worried look, her big silver hoop earrings swinging. "Is that okay?" she asked the bouncer.

"Perfect, my fine lady," he replied, moving aside the rope and handing her license back, stamping the back of her hand with a practiced movement.

Geneva pulled a face, raising her eyebrows at Spike. He smiled at her and put his arm around her waist. Glancing over his other shoulder at the bouncer, he mouthed a silent 'thanks.' The brawny doorman tipped him a wink. Spike turned back to Geneva with a sigh. "Lot of these keepers of the gate are on a power trip. Don't appreciate vintage."

"Pay him no mind," Geneva assured him. "If he'd been a woman, he would have let you right in."

Spike chuckled, watching her eyes dart around the dim interior, feeling her excitement at being in an actual nightclub. "If I haven't told you, you do look quite the treat tonight, pet."

"Thanks."

His answering smile was genuine. If the slayers only understood: it wasn't what they could do to make him happy, it was what he could do for them that made him happy.

"At the bar, next to that blond lady with big, um…?"

He returned his attention to the bar, examining the lanky, dark-haired man leaning into the busty blond. Definitely not a fledge. "Good call," he agreed softly, and they went to work.

Afterwards, in the alley, Geneva took a big breath but didn't say anything, just tucked her stake into her jacket. Then she took another breath and exhaled again without saying anything. Spike studied her a moment, then took her elbow, guiding her toward the street. "What is it, love?"

"It's just…" She bit her lip. "I lured a vampire into an alley. Me."

"And?"

"It's just… Most slayers," she shook her head, "most girls are… small and cute, where I'm made to, I don't know, hoe the fields and tote water across the pueblo." Geneva made a mouth, not able to get the right words out. "I'm afraid to feel this way, powerful and," she bit her lip, "pretty, because somebody's going to point out that I'm not. I'm big and–"

"Gen, love," Spike interrupted, maneuvering her against the wall of the building, standing close enough that his open coat covered her thighs, "three men have flirted with you since we got in that club." He shrugged. "'Course, two of us were vampires, but…" He waited until she smiled, then put his fingers under her chin. "Not everybody is going to appreciate how you're lovely, but plenty enough will. Like the bouncer out there, he didn't think I belonged with Cleveland's beautiful people. 'M not fussed; can't please everyone.

"Now," he moved a little closer, having to lift his eyes since she was wearing a bit of a heel tonight, "I can tell you how gorgeous you are for hours, but it means nothing. That's something you have to tell yourself."

Geneva slid down the wall a couple of inches. Spike wanted to grin, but didn't. Instead, he gave her exactly what she needed, a slow, lingering kiss, followed by a long look and a regretful sigh. He took a step away, gave her a half-smile, and held out his hand. "Come on, then. Beasties out there we've got to go kill."

⸹

"Budge over," he ordered, having changed into pajama bottoms before waking her.

Dawn frowned, but rolled onto her side without opening her eyes. Once Spike had pulled the covers over them both and spooned against her, she murmured, "Have a good ride?" She felt his shoulder move in a shrug before he answered.

"'S'okay, I s'pose." Not wanting to talk about the powwow, he buried his nose in her warm hair and moved on to another topic. "You and big sis did a good job with Geneva. She ought to have that slayer confidence after tonight."

"Good," Dawn said, waking up enough to yawn. Might as well get it out of the way, she thought. "I went out on a date. It was nice."

She was flat on her back and staring into intense blue eyes in half a second. "You what?"

"Date, Spike," she said deliberately. "I had a date. I went with a guy from my painting class to see an exhibit."

"What guy?"

"See, this is why I didn't let you meet him," she said, grouchy and awake now. "Making with the interrogation and the threatening looks."

"What guy?"

Dawn sighed. "Can we talk about it later?"

"No, as you're in my bed, and you're also the one who brought it up." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "You must want to talk about it."

"All right!" That was probably too much, so Dawn dialed it down. "His name is Mitch, he's a freshman, too, from Dublin, a little town near Columbus. He goes to school full-time on an academic scholarship and delivers pizza to pay for books and rent."

"Well, he's obviously evil," Spike grumbled, after a moment's pause.

Dawn grinned, then launched herself at him, bowling him over, and gave him a big hug. "Thank you."

"Don't want you to feel like you have to hide things from me, Bit."

She pulled back enough to see him. "I don't. I tell you everything, you know that. It's just, you're really, really intimidating." The other thing, one she couldn't articulate, was that she knew they didn't have anything resembling a sibling-type relationship. Mitch would have questions she wouldn't be prepared to answer for months, not until he knew her life a lot better. "I really did worry you'd scare him away."

"So, he's chickenshit, is he?"

"Language, o role model."

"He's not good enough for you." The tone was flat.

"Well, duh," Dawn replied cheerfully.

"Did he lay a mitt on you?"

"I scored a good-night kiss." She raised her eyebrows. "Not bad for a nineteen-year-old."

"So he's older than you."

"Jeez, Spike!"

⸹

It had been, Buffy mused as she looked out of the kitchen window onto a small patch of sunlight on the brick of the opposite building, a good party last night. She put away the last of the plates from the dishwasher and went to the bedroom. Glancing at Angel, asleep and partially covered by a sheet, she quietly picked out some clothes and went to the bathroom to shower. It amazed her how quickly relationships fell into a routine. Angel always got up with her in the morning, but napped in the early afternoon. This was Saturday, so they would go see a movie before her patrol. She smiled a little. Routine was a good thing; she'd had too much upheaval since becoming the Slayer… maybe since her parents' divorce.

Time to lumberjack the forest, she thought, running a hand along her calf. Buffy ruefully remembered having her legs waxed in Rome, how they stayed sleek for so long. Maybe she should find someone in Cleveland and start getting them waxed again. Angel never complained, though, pointing out that women had been naturally fuzzy for most of his life. And Spike – no, better to not think of the night she'd burst into his crypt and found him shaving, the gleam in his eye as he knelt at the foot of the bed with the razor and the basin of water, the way his shaving brush tickled the backs of her knees –

Dammit! Buffy wiped at the trickle of blood on her thigh, smearing it pink as it mixed with the shaving cream. She hadn't realized she'd cut herself. Focus, girlfriend, she told herself sternly, or you'll be a mass of nicks and cuts.

Then she grabbed the rack on the shower door, pain doubling her over.

⸹

 _Buffy._

Spike woke, his hand low on his abdomen, covering a dull ache. It was late morning, and Dawn was already gone from bed. And something was wrong with Buffy.

No. He let out a breath. It's nothing. Bad dream, maybe. Not my job. Not… mine. He clenched his teeth at the bitter thought.

Another, sharper throb of pain, and he began to breathe, the memory of the day Tara died coming to him, when the ache in his chest matched the spot where Buffy had been shot. He was out of bed in less than a second.

Boots and the clothes he wore yesterday in his hand, fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his truck. Bloody hell! Why couldn't it be dark? He could get there faster on foot, but he wouldn't do anyone any good as a pile of dust. One leg in his jeans, then the other. Out the door, in the truck, feet in unbuckled boots, go.

Why the hell did Angel have to move so far away? Fuck! Doesn't matter; I'll be long gone by the time that cop gets turned around. Angel! Call him, know he's all right, ask him – ah, bloody hell, left my sodding mobile in my coat.

Spike drove faster, more reckless than usual, his right hand still absently covering his stomach. The faint ache would abate, then return sharply. He couldn't imagine what it might be. Maybe she'd been injured, and it hurt more when she moved. The muscles in his abdomen knotted at the thought, nothing to do with their link.

God, Buffy injured, hurt, even one drop of her precious blood spilled… Finally! He threw the truck into park, left the door open and the engine running as he pelted from the alley to the door of Angel's apartment. No key. No problem. Buffy was inside.

⸹

[Author's note: This part of the story is about a miscarriage.]

Angel sat up in bed, awake the moment he heard the crash. The door, he thought dazedly, starting to reach for the weapons he kept under the bed as someone burst into the bedroom. Then he saw who that someone was. Spike went past him without a word, too fast, directly to the bathroom, throwing the door open. And then he smelled blood.

Slayer's blood.

Buffy was sitting on the commode, her hair still wet, a towel wrapped around her. She was bent over, arms wrapped around herself, and when she looked up at Spike, he saw the tears on her face, the agony.

"Love," he said hoarsely, and dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor so they would be at eye level. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Her mouth worked for a moment. "I think," she said, closing her eyes against it, "I think I'm having a miscarriage."

At the door, Angel froze. Miscarriage?

Not his.

Not Spike's.

The Immortal.

Then, raw, damning, the fact that Spike was here.

He had slept through her pain, pain that had brought the boy halfway across town.

Spike stared at her a moment, no more, then he sat up on his knees and gathered Buffy against his chest. "'S'alright, now. We'll get you help." He cupped her head and turned to Angel. "A robe? Does she have a –?"

"I'll get it." He found it draped over a chair, and grabbed some clothes for himself.

"That last night, the night I left Rome, we didn't use…" Buffy grimaced, more at the memory than any pain. "It had to be then." She took a choking breath of air. "I never wanted this, anything like this."

"Thanks," Spike said absently, taking the pale green robe Angel was holding out. "Can you let me put this on you, kitten? Then we can get you to the hospital, get some help."

She let go of him reluctantly, holding out her arms so Spike could pull the robe over her. Buffy unwound the towel that was around her and handed it to him. Everything in his eyes, he gave her a tiny, reassuring smile and patted her wet hair with the damp towel. It was enough for the tension to ease from her eyes.

"Buffy?" Still in the doorway, Angel waited until she looked up at him. He was expecting it, but the startled guilt on her face still hurt. "How long…?" She hadn't even called out for him.

"I-I don't know."

"Dunno, ten minutes? Less?" Spike stood up. "Can you stand, love?"

Buffy took a breath and nodded, focusing on Spike again. "No, wait. My panties." He found them on the sink and handed them to her, and she had another horrible thought. "I don't have any… Oh, God, I can't even bear to think about a tampon."

Nonplussed, Angel and Spike looked at each other. This was way outside their comfort zone; they'd been men before being made into demons, after all. "Paper towels?" Spike asked tentatively, and Angel fled to the kitchen, relieved to have something to do. He was back in a flash, handing them to Spike. The blond man stared at the wad of paper for a moment, at a loss, then he unspooled toilet paper, crunched it up, and wound the paper towels around the flimsier tissue. He held it out to Buffy, his fearful and hesitant expression almost enough to make her smile.

"That'll work," she said, taking the makeshift pad. The two men turned away, and she arranged her underwear and pulled the robe closed. "A-all right." Spike scooped her up, and she closed her eyes against renewed tears, putting her arms around him. God, the way he made her feel, watched over, cared for. Safe.

Not sure what to do, his hands feeling useless no matter where he held them, Angel stepped back from the door. Spike met his eyes, then gave a subtle glance back into the bathroom. After a second, he knew. "I, uh, I'll be right there," the big vampire said. "Just let me get my shoes."

He went into the bathroom and let out his breath before looking into the bowl. All he could see was bloodstained water and a few crumples of toilet paper. Relieved, though he hadn't been sure what he would find, he waited until he felt Buffy and Spike leave the house before flushing the commode, not wanting her to hear.

They were waiting in Spike's truck, and he saw his role defined again in the helpless look the boy gave him. Spike was sitting in the passenger seat, the Slayer still in his lap. Her arms were wound tightly around his neck, and she wasn't about to let go. Angel went around to the driver's side and started to the emergency room. Everyone who patrolled knew its location too well.

"Shh, love," Spike was murmuring. "We'll be at Casualty in just a mo,' and they'll take good care of you, yeah? No worries. Get you fixed up. Like Rupes says, you'll be right as rain."

"I-I don't think I can patrol tonight." She had been looking forward to it, the only time this week they were going out together.

"'Course you can't. I'll be fine alone."

Her strong arms tightened more around him. "I don't want Dawn to know."

"She has to, kitten. She's your sister. No one else, though. I promise. I'll call her when we get there."

"Here," Angel said, handing over his cell phone. At least he could help this much.

Buffy hid her face against Spike's neck. She really, really didn't want anyone to know about this, not her sister, not either of these two men she loved. Just the thought that something of the Immortal's had existed inside her was almost enough to make her vomit.

"Dawnie?"

"Spike, what's wrong? Is it Buffy?"

"How'd you know?"

"You didn't even say goodbye when you tore out of here, just ran past me like I wasn't there. And, 'Dawnie?'" she added, impatient. "So, what gives?"

"It is your sis. We're on our way to the Clinic."

"Oh, God."

"It's – we think it's a miscarriage." His voice was matter-of-fact, and he felt Buffy become marginally less tense.

Listening, Buffy could hear her sister's intaken breath. "Shit."

"Language, Bit."

"Oh, God. Poor Buffy." Then, angry, "That bastard."

"Nibblet, less cursing, more help. Meet us there, bring the insurance stuff, some clothes," he spared a glance at Buffy's damp hair, "a comb, whatever few things you Summers ladies need to make you look stunning."

She couldn't help it, she smiled again, so relieved to have him here. Buffy relaxed a little more. There was nothing she couldn't do when he was by her side. She could get through this.

⸹

"Wait," Dawn said, holding up a commanding hand at the nurse who had come into the small room with a wheelchair. She put her phone against her mouth. "They want to do an ultrasound." She listened for a moment, her face screwing up in distaste, then nodded. "Thanks; hold on again." Dawn met the nurse's raised eyebrows. "No ultrasound. MRI."

The nurse shook her head. "Huh-uh. Insurance won't cover an MRI in these instances."

"We work at the same place, and I'm the one who signs off on all insurance claims," Dawn scowled. "Trust me, it'll get approved."

Letting out a sigh, the nurse shook her head and turned away. "Let me go see what I can do." The two men in the room had been bad enough; this latest arrival was worse than both of them put together.

"Why not an ultrasound?" Angel asked. He stuffed his hands awkwardly into his pockets.

"Trib says they have to press hard on the abdomen," she said, and watched as Buffy winced and wrapped her arms more protectively around her middle, "or sometimes they use an internal wand thingie." She shared a grimace with her sister.

"MRIs are non-invasive, right?" Spike looked up from where he had his face buried against Buffy's neck.

Dawn held up a finger. "Those scans aren't invasive?" she asked into the phone. After a moment of listening, she said goodbye and folded the phone. "Nothing even touches you."

"So," came a hearty voice from the door, "you're the little lady with all the bodyguards." When Buffy looked up, a young man in a lab coat smiled at her. "You're already famous around here. This shift, at least." He hooked a stool with his foot and rolled it over to her, readying his stethoscope. "Let's have a look at you."

"Are you a resident?" Dawn asked, crossing her arms.

He gave her a piercing look, then nodded. "I am."

"Where's the attending physician?"

"Taking care of someone who came in with a gunshot wound," he replied evenly. "I'm a real doctor, and I know this is very scary, but if it really is a miscarriage, it's something we see every day. Routine for us, unfortunately." He spun back to Buffy. "Now," he consulted the chart, "Ms. Summers, I'm Dr. Patil. Let me get your vitals, and you tell me what happened."

"I was in the shower, and I noticed some blood, then I had a really sharp pain here," Buffy said, her voice hoarse, indicating her pelvis.

"Would you say it felt like a menstrual cramp?"

"I've never had cramps like that."

"When was your last period?"

Buffy glanced at Dawn, then looked down. "I, uh, don't have very regular periods. Maybe some really light bleeding last month. In July, I mean."

"Had you taken a pregnancy test?"

"No."

Hanging his stethoscope around his neck, Dr. Patil looked at her critically. "How much do you weigh, Ms. Summers?"

"I-I don't know. I don't have a scale where I'm living right now."

"Have you ever been diagnosed with an eating disorder?"

Dawn stepped in. "Three years ago our mother died, and Buffy di – almost died herself. It's been rough. She eats just fine," she threw Buffy an exasperated glance, "when she remembers to eat."

"You're her sister?" When Dawn nodded, Dr. Patil turned back to Buffy. "I thought the older sister was supposed to be the bossy one."

"I'm having an off day."

The doctor chuckled. "Good, good. I like to hear my patients joke. How's the pain?"

"Nothing like it was in the bathroom at home."

"Right. Let me tell you what's going to happen, all right? I need to do a pelvic examination. We need to draw some blood, check that way to see if you have pregnancy hormones. Have you had an ultrasound yet?"

"She'll have an MRI." Dawn's arms were crossed again.

His eyebrows went up. "You must have good insurance."

Buffy peeked up at Dawn, her lips curving. "I do."

"Now, I need everyone except," he twirled around on the stool, pointing until his finger was aimed at Buffy, "you to clear out for a few minutes. It's time to get the stirrups out, I'm afraid."

"Do you want me to stay?" Spike searched Buffy's face; he couldn't be physically removed from the room against his will, or hers.

"I'll be okay." She didn't let go of his hand.

"Come on, Angel," Dawn said. She turned back to her sister. "We'll be right outside."

"All right." She glanced at her sister, then back at Spike. Feet up in stirrups, she reminded herself. Ugly and awkward. "I'll be okay." Buffy unlaced her fingers from his.

They waited in a line against the wall, trying to stay out of the way of the hospital personnel traveling the busy corridor. Dawn put her arm around Spike's waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Poor Buffy."

He nodded and looked at the man on his other side. "How you doing?"

"I honestly don't know." Angel laid his head against the wall, then slumped a little. "She didn't make a sound, didn't call for me. Why would she do that?"

Dawn was the one who answered. "Because it was another man's." There was a measure of sympathy in her tone.

Spike realized he was breathing and made himself stop, forced down the possessive surging of his demon. Not about you, he reminded himself. He searched until he found Angel's hand and squeezed it. From inside the room, they all heard Dr. Patil say, "I'm sorry, I know this hurts." Spike growled, and Dawn's grip on him tightened.

"Easy," she warned, watching his eyes flicker with yellow.

"I know, Bit. God, I hate this."

⸹

"There," Dr. Patil said, helping Buffy sit up. "You won't have to go through that again until your next Pap smear. The good news is that I don't believe we're dealing with an ectopic pregnancy, which would worry me very much. I still want diagnostic imaging, though, your MRI. The bad news is that what you suspected is true. I'm sorry."

"I didn't even know I was…" She couldn't bring herself to say the word.

He nodded, examining her bowed head. "Do you have an idea of how long…?"

"Late June. It had to be. That's the only time…" She trailed off, not wanting to think about it.

"You had unprotected sex?" When she nodded, he did too. "I'll order tests for STDs along with the other bloodwork."

Buffy closed her eyes, hating the Immortal more now than she had the night the blinders came off. "Okay."

"We really don't know what causes miscarriages, Ms. Summers. Most occur during the first weeks after conception, and the woman doesn't even know it's happened, just thinks it's a heavy period. You shouldn't blame yourself; it's very rare that a miscarriage can be tracked to something specific that happened, unless it's dramatic, like a fall or a car accident."

"Nothing like that," Buffy said. She hadn't been hit by anything since the last of Giles' twelve battles.

"The other thing is that it does not mean you can't have a successful pregnancy in the future."

"I'm not going to have children."

"You might change your mind–"

"I won't have children."

"All I'm trying to say is, you will be capable of having children, Ms. Summers. You need to be aware for contraceptive choices."

"A-all right. I understand."

He turned to where the door had opened, and a lab assistant came in with a carrier full of various sizes of needles and vials. He gave that young woman the additional orders, then sent a professional smile towards Buffy. "All done. We'll get you admitted, most likely just for a couple of hours. It will be more comfortable than here in Emergency. We'll monitor your bleeding, see what that scan looks like, but you'll probably be back in your own bed before dark." He raised an eyebrow. "Are you ready for all your bodyguards? If it's too much, I can order them away for a while."

I'd like to see you try, Buffy thought. "No, that's okay." She forced a smile. "I want to see them."

Dawn was inside before the doctor had left, wrapping her arms around her sister. "You all right?"

Another forced smile. "Yeah. I will be. It was a miscarriage."

Angel next, engulfing her. "Ah, Buffy. I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" She genuinely wasn't sure.

"That you had to go through this."

"Oh." She pulled away. "Me, too." Buffy was already looking past him, her eyes anxious. "Spike?"

"Here, love." He moved up beside her, and the Slayer put her arms out, closing her eyes when she was safe in his embrace, her heart rate slowing. "I got you."

⸹

Half an hour later, Buffy and her crew of bodyguards were in an unfortunately sunny room on one of the upper floors, the Slayer impatient before her MRI. When the nurse, a different one, came to take her, Buffy got in the wheelchair by herself, and the room fell quiet, Spike on the bed, the other two in chairs. They had lowered the blinds in the windows, and the room felt even darker with the Slayer gone. After a whole fifteen seconds, Spike stood up. "Be back," he mumbled, and left Dawn and Angel to the awkward silence.

"So, Buffy and Spike," he began, figuring he might as well use the time productively. Everyone had a lot of respect for Buffy's little sister, and he was almost never alone with her. "How long has it been like this?"

"Since she came back, I think. You've seen them in battle, Angel." Dawn looked puzzled, not sure where he was headed.

"This isn't battle."

The youngest Summers closed her eyes, reaching for patience. "She turns to him in a crisis, any crisis."

"That's not what I meant." He wanted to stand up, but didn't want her to think he was trying to intimidate her. Probably wouldn't work, anyway. Instead, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "She didn't phone him, Dawn. He just… knew."

Frowning, she tried. "The day Tara was shot, Buffy was shot, too. Warren, the one Willow killed, he was trying to murder Buffy. He nearly did. Spike knew that time, too, felt it in the same place, in the chest. And he knew to come to me when I found Tara's body." Dawn closed her eyes against the memory of that day. "He just knew. It probably has something to do with him claiming us, some kind of vampire thing."

Tara again, obviously loved and mourned by the Scoobies, and he didn't even know who she was. And he'd never known Buffy had been shot. He had a vivid memory of Darla trying to do just that, then forced himself back to the issue at hand. "No." Angel shook his head. "It isn't a vampire 'thing.' I've claimed Gunn, and I don't even know for sure if I'd know if he died, much less was injured."

He looked down, trying to reassure himself that it wasn't his failing, that it didn't show there was something lacking inside him. This connection between Buffy and his boy was… different, something outside his knowledge, even as old as he was. "Dawn, if it's like this, why…" He tried again, made himself say the difficult thing. "Why is she with me?"

Blue eyes, so like his boy's, studied him for a long moment. "Just because Spike feels that way, doesn't mean Buffy does."

"She does right now."

"It won't last."

Angel did stand now, going to face the wall, bracing one hand high against it. He'd seen them fight together, seen their attraction, even noted the effortless, silent way they communicated, but this… "I just don't… I thought I understood, but I really don't."

"She chose you, Angel. Isn't that enough?"

"Is it?" He let his head fall back. "I don't think she's happy."

"Angel," and the impatience was open now, "she was in heaven, and everything here pales next to that, even you." Dawn closed her eyes against the stark look he threw her way. _Even me. And she_ died _for me, you selfish –_ "I'm sorry; I'm not good at this. Too many crises in my past for me to be tactful. I've learned that some things just _are_." She sighed and put her head in her hands, her long hair falling over her face. "I wish they weren't. When I was younger, after Mom died, I really, really thought it would be Buffy and Spike and the white picket fence, that they'd take care of me, and we'd live happily ever after, killing demons and having pizza afterwards." She blew out a long breath and raised her head, pushing her hair back. "There's still demons and pizza, and Buffy and Spike look out for me, but there's no happily ever after."

"Can there be?"

 _Why are you asking me?_ Dawn clamped down on this, too. This had been hard on Angel, and there was no one to look out for him. She chose her words carefully. "If you mean, can Buffy be happy, yes. Not all the time, but who is? Spike's going to be in her life, because she needs him, especially when things get stressful. He's her rock or something."

"I remember what she was like right after Sunnydale… Well, you know." Such a small woman in the back of a battered Sunnydale school bus.

Dawn nodded, grateful he understood. "She changed after she came back. Spike is the only one who got to see all of Buffy, see her when she's weak or when she's mad. Even he probably doesn't get that now. I-I still get jealous of that sometimes, because she's my sister, because I love her and I know she loves me, and it shouldn't be so hard for us." Dawn sighed. "If she doesn't confide in me or think of me first when she needs help, well, that's just the way it is. But I have some of her," she closed her eyes, "and, believe me, that's better than nothing."

Angel turned to stare at the young woman while she had her head bowed, unable to find words in the face of such self-awareness and insight. Some of Buffy, and that's just the way things are. "Who are you?" he asked, a little stunned.

She met his eyes and gave him a tired smile. "Just Dawn," she said, "the Slayer's little sister."

⸹

Angel left the room, mumbling something about finding Spike. Fled, would be more like it. There was something about Dawn, something he couldn't quite articulate, and he had a feeling that it was Angelus that recognized whatever was off about the girl. The Immortal had no effect on her. Both Buffy and Spike loved her fiercely. Having two of the best of the good guys watching over her would arouse Angelus' suspicions. Or just arouse him.

He had walked down two corridors before he homed in on the boy. Spike was out on a balcony, probably a smoking area from a different era, leaning against the rail. Angel went through the doors, stopping a few feet short of the other man. There was a scatter of chairs, where family could sit with patients in wheelchairs and get some fresh air.

"Will, you do know you're in sunshine, don't you?" he asked gently. Spike turned to him, tears on his face, and gave a one-shouldered shrug. Angel remembered so long ago when Angelus had thought those tears evidence of weakness. God, the things he hadn't understood without his soul. He held out his arms. "Come on. Don't make me come over there." He still wasn't comfortable in the brightness, even with his Aurelian resistance. The ordeal with Eve was too recent.

"Would never do, would it?" Spike took a deep breath and came in from the light, letting the big vampire take him in an embrace.

"Spike?" Angel looked over the other man's shoulder and just asked. He knew it wasn't the right time, but it loomed too large in his mind. "How did you know?"

"Just knew. Felt it." He pulled away, but didn't go back into the sunlight.

"Did she call for you? A bloodlink?" And didn't he wish they still had one? He'd have answers that way.

"No. Told you I've never bi – Look, I dunno how." Spike was breathing again, and he put a hand low on his abdomen. "Just felt it, knew where she was hurt."

"Dawn said it's been this way since Buffy came back from," Angel stopped and took a breath of his own, "since she came back."

"No." His expression was remote.

"Since…?"

"You really don't want to know."

"I do. I just…" Angel grimaced, feeling an almost physical pain. "I want to understand. I've never even heard of anything like this."

"Me, either, mate." Spike sighed and patted the pockets of his jeans. Wonder if he'd exist long enough for the motions of a nicotine habit to desert him?

"Since… what was it? I mean, a spell or something?"

He did move into the sun this time, not wanting to look at Angel. "Since our first night together. She woke me up the next day, all pissed off on the outside, but I knew…" Spike laid his head back and looked up at the hazy blue sky, resting his hands on the rail to keep from them from another futile search for cigarettes. "Told you that you didn't want to hear about it."

"And you haven't tasted her blood?"

Spike turned his head enough that Angel saw his clenched teeth. "'Course I've tasted her blood, you nit. Painters were in, healin' up cuts an' the like. It's just… it's just how it is, innit?" He missed the swift play of expression on Angel's face. "Not a mindlink or a bloodlink or anything to do with – Both of us are a bit more than human. Grew out of that, I expect." He took a breath and met Angel's clear brown eyes for a moment, trying to lie, to cover his own thoughts. "Know when she's hurt. But it doesn't mean much beyond that."

I've never had that, Angel wanted to say, I'm never going to have that with Buffy, never going to have a connection like that with anyone. His heart was a shriveled walnut, inert, not able to grow. He shook his head to get rid of the image. "It means something," he disagreed. He didn't know what, exactly, wasn't sure he wanted to know. All he was sure about was that there would be pain involved. Angel closed his eyes for a moment, finding the strength. "I'm glad it's there, glad you're the one watching out for her." _Because I would have to kill anyone else._ "It helps you keep her safe."

"No.

"What?"

"No," Spike said precisely. "It doesn't help me keep her safe. It just lets me know that I've failed again, that she's been hurt." The deep voice was bleak. "Karma, innit?"

Something in his tone made Angel take an involuntary step forward, as if he might need to prevent Spike from leaping from the balcony. "Karma?"

"My fault she died, my fault she has those memories of heaven."

"Your fault?" He thought swiftly back over the story Buffy had told him, about the mad god kidnapping Dawn for a human sacrifice, how the Slayer had to finish what was in progress. "No. Buffy said–"

"I couldn't keep–"

"Couldn't keep Dawn from being kidnapped, but it was Buffy's decis–"

"I couldn't keep Dawn safe, so my fault the Slayer died," Spike overrode him, his voice loud, a weapon. "My failure. Now, someday, I'll get to feel it when she dies again, know if it's the neck or the heart or something slower, know it's happening and not be able to do anything to–" The balcony rail he had in his grip gave way on one end, thick bolts popping out of the brick. He let go, breathing hard. "My fault she has those memories of heaven and can't be happy living here. Those soddin' Powers That Be that have such fun dickin' around with you, mate, seems like they made it so I'm the one who can help her forget, let her be happy here… but she can't be my Sl – can't be around me.

"This," he gestured widely, covering nearly the whole planet, "this is all my fault, and she's the one who suffers." He turned away from the urban view and back to the other vampire.

Angel could see the boy's face now and wished he couldn't. There were no mirrors for their kind, but now he saw what he must have looked like the day he gave up Connor. "Will… Ah, no, boy, it isn't your–"

Spike lifted his face to the metallic sky and screamed, a howl of misery and fury and defiance. The city noises of birds and traffic and people dipped, and Angel could almost fancy that the Powers That Be had heard, had paused in their machinations. "Why does it have to be her? She sacrifices and takes the consequences on herself and gives everything to her last breath, her last drop of blood, and it's still not enough?" His voice rose on the last word, full of anger and incredulity. "Why does she have to suffer _this_? That bastard took everything from her that gives her strength, rooked her with fake happiness, and she has to endure more?"

Sunlight or not, Angel strode over to him, crossing the short distance and pulling Spike close. He spun them toward the shadows. "She'll be fine, boy," he said gruffly. He hadn't thought of any of this, hadn't dreamed of being as upset as the other man, and Spike's anguish was ratcheting up his own worry. Buffy was strong, would be fine. She had to be.

Eyes squeezed tight, his teeth gritted, Spike was trying desperately to keep everything inside him in check, clamped down the way it had to be. "She'll heal," he agreed, his hands gripping either side of Angel's shirt, holding on as if it was the last threads of his fraying control, "but this will bring up all the old pain of what she'll never have."

Children, Angel knew, a normal life. Another blow to the gut, another moment of clarity. He'd told the Slayer to go have a normal life. Angelus couldn't have been crueler.

"Wish we'd killed him, wish we were still killin' him," Spike was saying, low and fierce. "Must be some weakness to the magic, some way to put an end to the immortality."

"Spike?" Dawn's voice from behind them, sounding lost and very young.

"Bugger," Spike said, so quiet that Angel could hardly hear him. He let go of Angel's shirt and drew in a breath, tilted his head, and simply hid every emotion beneath a smooth, steel-strong façade. "Here, let go of me, Peaches. What is it, Bit?"

"Buffy's back." Her eyes were on him, and Angel saw she was vulnerable only because Spike needed her to be, that Dawn once again intuitively knew that the boy needed to take care of someone, needed to be strong for someone. Needed to be someone's rock.

⸹

An hour later and Dr. Patil had not come to Buffy's room, so Angel paced around the room, bouncing away from the others like a particle not inclined to attract. Spike and Buffy were the bonded pair, sitting together on the bed. He didn't have it in him to begrudge their closeness. Like Dawn said, it wouldn't last. Let them have a moment out of the darkness.

"Spike, your shirt's on inside out." Buffy's tone had an echo of Joyce, and she traced his collar lightly with a finger.

"Is it?" He was unconcerned. "Dressed in the truck." Sliding off the edge of the bed, he stood and doffed the shirt with no compunction, turning it inside out.

"What on earth are you wearing?" Buffy asked, amused, her eyes low on his abdomen.

"Wha – oh, Bit got me jimjams, er, pajama bottoms to wear so I don't scandalize the baby slayers."

"Or me," Dawn pointed out.

"Not possible to scandalize you, your royal badness." His eyes went back to Buffy. "Just pulled my jeans on over them."

"Well, none of us are exactly presentable today." She patted the mattress, the line of her shoulders relaxing when the blond man was beside her again.

Angel closed his eyes and turned away, pacing the eight steps to the door. She had not excluded him, but she had not turned to him, either. Some of Buffy, and that's better than nothing.

"Well, I'm presentable," Dawn contradicted her. "At least you look less like a drowned rat, though."

"You look lovely," Angel reassured the Slayer.

"Want to tell big sis why you're feeling so smug today?" Spike asked.

Dawn went still, a warning in her eyes. "Don't even."

"'Course I won't. You will, though."

Buffy looked between them. "She will what?"

"Tell you about her date last night."

"You had a date?" Buffy's voice was just shy of a squeal, and she gave Dawn a delighted look. The girl rolled her eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh before beginning her story. Angel paced away again, feeling superfluous. Buffy was distracted; the two of them were so good at taking care of her that the performance seemed effortless.

⸹

"I can walk, you know," Buffy informed Spike as he carried her into her bedroom, but there was a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

"But why should you? Glad to be your beast of burden." He deposited her carefully on the bed. "How you feeling, love?"

"Tired," she admitted. "I think I want to nap for a while." The scan had shown it had been a complete miscarriage, and the doctor had sent her home with orders to rest. Buffy felt clear; the Immortal was entirely in the past now, and she wasn't going to mourn something she'd not been aware of and never wanted. She understood that it wasn't actually that simple, but she was very good at denial.

"Best thing, innit?" Spike brushed her hair with a kiss. "Get some rest, then. I'll see you–"

Buffy's hand clutched his wrist. "Stay? Just for – I know you can't stay long, because of patrol, but–"

"'Course I'll stay. Whatever you need." He let her arrange him to her satisfaction, stretched out next to her as she curled against him. They could hear Angel and her sister talking in the kitchen, Dawn saying something wry about broken doors.

She met his eyes, seeing the blue darken, the lines of his face relax. Buffy brought a hand up and traced his jaw, letting her fingers rest a moment against his lower lip. He pressed a kiss onto her fingertips before she moved them, letting herself relearn the line of his neck as her hand trailed down. "Thank you," she whispered, knowing he could see the other thing, the thing she shouldn't say, in her eyes.

"You're welcome." He captured her hand, laced his fingers with hers.

Then she remembered, and it was something she could say aloud. "My vampire." Oh, God, his face, what she saw in his eyes.

"My Slayer." His grip tightened for a second, painful for them both.

"Here we go," Dawn came in, all cheerful voice and bustling energy. "One hot water bottle."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Buffy said, not sure if she was grateful for the chance to stop looking at the man next to her or angry that their moment of honesty had ended.

Dawn bought the water bottle in the hospital gift shop, and it had a fuzzy cover shaped like a sheep, black felt ears and everything. Buffy laughed a little at the silliness of it, catching Angel's answering smile as he stood in the doorway. She put it against her tummy and pulled her legs up, her knees against Spike's thighs. "Thanks, Dawnie."

"You're welcome. Listen, I'm going to go home, but you call me if you need anything." She leaned matter-of-factly over Spike and gave her sister a hug and kiss, then kissed Spike's cheek. "Are you still going to patrol tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll be all right alone."

"Spike's going to stay until then," Buffy said. "Is that okay?"

Angel knew it was just a formality, and he wished she hadn't even asked. "Of course it is. Whatever makes you feel better."

Her eyes drifted closed, partly in relief, partly just because it had been such a long afternoon. She put out a hand for her sister to clasp, then curled tighter around the water bottle. By the time Angel came back from jamming the broken door shut behind Dawn, she was asleep. He looked at her for a moment, then at Spike, not surprised by the neutral expression on the boy's face. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at the other side of the mattress, asking permission to join them on his own bed. Spike gave him a tired smile, and he lay himself down carefully. He put his face into the sweet area between Buffy's shoulder and neck for a moment, drawing in her scent. Then he held out his hand, palm up, holding it steady until Spike took it. Angel deliberately rested his knuckles against Buffy's hip and loosened his grip, but did not let go.

His boy was asleep within a few minutes, too, worn out from the emotions he kept so tightly in check. Angel watched over both of them, deeply content despite everything. A family bed without pain or politics, he thought wonderingly, humbled to be part of such a thing, fleeting though it would be. All of them equals, all of them loved and loving… Like the old saying, he'd captured lightning in a bottle.

Angel came awake over an hour later, stifling a curse. He'd meant to keep to his usual routine of staying awake so he could rouse Buffy from her nightmare. Glancing at the clock, he realized there wouldn't be one this afternoon, not with her rock in their bed. The three of them had shifted as they slept, Spike unbending enough to rest his knee over Buffy's, his hand tucked beneath the pillow. The Slayer had her face against the black fabric of Spike's t-shirt and her bottom pressed against Angel, curled into a fetal position between them. He had wrapped himself around her back, his own knee resting atop Spike's, the boy's other hand over his as it lay on her hip.

Perfection.

In his own warped view. Angel closed his eyes, wishing it could always be this way, the three of them in balance, away from the disapproval of human society. So he opened his eyes, reluctant to miss a moment of this time, and watched over his small family until sleep crept in and claimed him again.

⸹

The need to urinate brought Buffy up slowly from a dreamless, healing sleep. She was warm and toasty and would rather not move –

She couldn't move, not very far. Her eyes opened, and even in the darkness of her bedroom, she could see a patch of white-blond hair. Spike.

And Angel behind her.

She froze, automatically damping down her heartbeat, respiration, her Slayer's aura, not wanting to alert the vampires.

She was in bed with Spike _and_ Angel?

And then she remembered why.

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to dwell on that. She cautiously examined how she felt physically, and it seemed Slayer healing had done its job. So, no dwelling.

Angel and Spike.

Buffy bit her lip, trying not to smile. If she'd had fantasies, and she wasn't going to admit that she had, they definitely hadn't been like this, about feeling safe.

She was still clutching the sheep-shaped hot water bottle to her abdomen, and if the two men crowding her had body heat of their own, she would be sweating like a little piggy, just another barnyard animal. Bemused by her own thoughts, she figured she could blame them on the dregs of the pain medicine.

It was warm, though, and at some point while she slept, Spike had slipped out of his t-shirt and jeans, because she could see his bare arm and feel the soft material of his pajamas against her legs, where the nightgown Dawn had brought for her had ridden up. And Angel, she was pretty sure, was only in boxers.

And both of them were hard.

She did grin this time. It was funny, the odd pieces of humanity vampires retained, including a sleep cycle. She remembered enough about the curriculum in Maggie Walsh's psychology class to know sleep was necessary for mental health, for dreams and memory storage. So it made sense for the demons closest to humans to need the sleep cycle, she supposed, but the concomitant erections were kind of amusing. Men were so basic, in a way.

Squinching her eyes shut, she pulled the water bottle close against her body, easing her forearm away from sprung Spike, then straightened her legs, maneuvering her bottom away from aroused Angel. It was probably mild hysteria after the long day, but she could feel a fit of giggles threatening. And now she really, really had to pee.

Buffy began to slither down toward the foot of the bed, and her movement woke them both. "Just going to the bathroom," she explained, and Spike, closer to the bathroom door, was immediately out of bed, out of her way. It was six-thirty, she saw. Spike would be leaving for nine o'clock patrol soon.

Heaving a sigh over the fact that there was no use trying to pee quietly with two vampires in the next room, she took her time. The bleeding had stopped, and she brushed her teeth before going back out to the bedroom. She was surprised to find both apparently asleep, their heads on the same pillow. Buffy smiled a little at the sight and moved closer, maybe to touch their hair or caress a cheek.

Spike rolled over as she approached, though, holding out a supporting hand even as he stood up. "Still sleepy?"

"Tired."

As she lay down, Angel made room for her, then handed her the still-warm water bottle. His hand free, he held it out to Spike, who stood uncertainly by the bed. "Come on. Get a couple more hours of rest."

"I should–" probably go, he started to say, but he caught the full force of the Slayer's beseeching look, so he simply lay down next to her. Buffy's eyes closed as she laid on her back, letting out a tiny, contented-sounding sigh, her hands holding the sheep shape on her tummy. He felt Angel's gaze on him and met it reluctantly, finding the brown eyes warm and satisfied.

Family bed, he realized, and almost flinched. His eyes rounded, and he saw that Angel had already figured it out, had already accepted it, of all things. As he watched, Angel put a light kiss on Buffy's brow, then simply closed his eyes, trust obvious in the action.

He should leave, should run far away, because this could not be his family bed. Angel and him, maybe, but not the Slayer. He'd had to accept Angel with Drusilla when he was first turned, but he could never bear to see –

Spike closed his eyes. This was not a family bed, no matter what it felt like. And this wasn't the time for vampire social structure. It was about being here for Buffy, and he should be grateful Angel was allowing him such liberties. That's all. But his demon was quiet and content, and the way Spike's chin nuzzled against Buffy's cheek might be nothing more than equivalent of a wolf licking a wounded packmate. His soul knew better, though. It was a caress given to his beloved.

His internal clock woke him at eight-thirty. Buffy was turned toward Angel now, and it made it easier to move away, to get out of the bed, the family bed. Spike doffed his pajamas and pulled on his clothes. As he bent to retrieve his boots, he realized Buffy was awake and watching him. Sitting cautiously on the edge of the bed, he gave her his best smile and touched her cheek. "How you feeling?" Quiet, so as not to disturb Angel.

"Okay. Be careful out there by yourself."

"No worries, love."

"Will you come back, after?"

"Best not."

She didn't ask, and closed her eyes so they wouldn't tell him anything. She was the Slayer, and she didn't plead with anyone. But he knew.

"Here, I'll, uh, leave my jimjams just in case." There, he'd gotten her to smile.

"Good." Buffy held out her hand for his to squeeze it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, then her palm.

Buffy closed her fist tightly around the kiss, bringing it close to her heart. "Be safe."

"Get some rest, love." He carried his boots out to the living room and sat on the couch to put them on. Willow and Oz had been here recently, as well as Xander and his new bird, Lina. If he wasn't numb, he would have felt a pang about Red. She'd been avoiding him. He understood why, but he still missed her.

As quietly as he could, Spike yanked the broken door closed behind him, making sure he couldn't budge it with less than vampire strength. Just enough time now to go by Watcher Central and get his coat, load it with stakes and weapons. Good; no time to think.

He didn't have time to think on patrol, either. Spike had forgotten that it was Saturday in Cleveland. Lots of humans were out to have a good time, and there were plenty of predators following the herd. It would have been nice to have Buffy by his side, and not just for the company. He stayed out until almost one-thirty before he finished up with three particularly cagey vamps, not wanting to leave them for Maria and Vashti, the team up next in the Ohio City area. Grateful to have a purpose, he headed back to Giles' house to see if the other patrols had seen as much action. On the way, his silenced cell phone vibrated, and he answered it right away, in case it was about Buffy.

It was Tribby. "Hey, Spike. I'm standing here in the market, debating Pringles or Lays. What do you think?"

That I don't give a rat's ass about what kind of crisps you buy, was his initial thought. He clamped down on the words long enough to remember that she could be as oblique as any vampire and that he'd killed a lot of demons tonight. Spike felt another surge of gratitude; a battle was coming. "When did Clem get in?"

He headed north instead of to Watcher Central, figuring he had his answer about how other patrols were faring, and met Tribby as she started up the stairs to her apartment, her arms hung with plastic grocery bags full of food for Clem. "So, d'you talk to Dawn today?"

She gave him a neutral look. "On the phone for a while, yeah."

"I was at the hospital."

"Oh." The slayer looked relieved. "Well, since Dawn didn't say, I figured whoever it was, she wanted her privacy. Everything all right?"

"Well as can be expected." He felt just as relieved, hoped he didn't look it. Buffy was already the subject of too much gossip. "Good call with the MRI."

The former medical student wrinkled her nose. "I wouldn't want an ultrasound under those circumstances." She hefted the bags on her right arm where they had gathered at one point on her wrist. "Not that I'm in any danger of being any kind of pregnant."

"What, you and Charlie not…?"

Tribby gave him an exasperated look. "I don't even get to see Gunn, much less get anything else." Her eyes cut to the steps. "We did have a really nice smooching session on the couch, but that was all. You know, you might be right about the futon. When he left, he looked more uncomfortable than, you know, _uncomfortable_." Tribby smiled brightly at the elderly woman who poked her head out of the apartment on the third floor landing. "Hi, Mrs. Petrowsky. Clem's back for a visit." She held up the groceries as proof. "I'll bring him by in the morning." Appeased, the complicated arrangement of gray hair, curlers, and hairnet disappeared back into the apartment, the closing door cutting off the sound of her growling lapdog. "All the neighbor ladies love Clem."

"'Course they do." Good time to change the topic. "Scheduled for patrol with Buffy tonight. Lot of kills, so I wasn't surprised by your call." There, another veil against the truth of what had happened today. Between him and Dawn, no one would know Buffy hadn't patrolled.

"How'd that go? The two of you, I mean?"

"Well as can be expected," he said again. "Oh, here, pet, let me take some of those. Dunno where my manners are tonight." She let him have enough of the bags so she could get to her keys. "Were you patrolling tonight?"

"No," she said, opening the door. "Clem!" she called. "I'm back, and Spike is with me." Tribby took the groceries back from him. "He got in around midnight. I was awake, though." She rounded her eyes in mock panic. "Only two months until my exhibit, so I've been putting in extra time in the studio."

Before Spike could make a polite inquiry, Clem wandered into the living room, a toothbrush in his mouth. "Hey, Shpike," he said, holding out his saggy arms.

"Clem, good to see you, mate." They exchanged a brief hug.

"Let me go shpit, an' I'll be wight back."

"Makes himself at home," Spike said, following the sound of crinkling plastic bags into the kitchen.

" _Mi casa_ , and all. I had an extra key made," Tribby said, putting a package of liver cheese into the fridge. "If I can find it, I'll give it to him."

"For next time," Spike mused, examining a bag of mesquite barbeque chips and wondering if they'd be any good. "Rupes is at sixes and sevens with this energy thing."

"Are you worried? I mean, we've been totally dominant in battle."

"The battles don't worry me, but I don't want to get to twelve. Aurelian or not, I don't want to mess with Old Ones, plural. Just one was enough."

Something must have showed in his expression despite how tired he was, because Tribby put a hand on his arm for a moment. God, he missed Fred. He even missed Illyria a bit.

Clem came back in, his eyes lighting up at the smorgasbord of greasy, salty, crunchy items on the kitchen table. Tribby went to bed shortly after, and Spike was distantly amused by the hug and kiss she gave the wrinkly demon, remembering how nervous she had been – had it been just weeks ago? – the first time they met.

Polite and tactful as always, Clem asked about Dawn and her sister, saw Spike's tension, and quickly changed the subject to what he'd been doing. Instead of going back to San Francisco, since he figured he'd feel the pull of Cleveland before long anyway, Clem had gone up to Toronto for no reason other than that he'd always wanted to. Canadians were really nice, he said, even the humans.

"I made a pretty decent score up there, so I'm set for money. I may try Newfoundland next, get away from cities for a while. It's been decades since I went fly-fishing."

Blinking a little as he tried to wrap his mind around a vision of Clem in hip waders, he asked, "Score?"

"Yeah, latest thing," Clem said, beaming. "Artificial insemination for cats. I had a vial of high quality Persian semen, and it's worth much more in Toronto than in California."

A horrible mental image of Clem playing fluffer for a tomcat came to his mind before he could block it. Now in serious need of bourbon, Spike planned the route home past various liquor stores. "Uh, Clem, don't cats sort of do really, really well with natural insemination?"

"Yeah, but you can't guarantee the product," Clem scoffed. "Had a Siamese that I'd keep with another Siamese when she went into heat, but she put out three straight litters of marmalade-orange kittens. I never did know how she managed that. Artificial insemination is just a side road, though. The wave of the future will be cat cloning."

Spike smiled weakly. "Right. So, anyway, long night an' all, good to see you, even if it was the stupid energy what brought you here." His only thought was escape, and he started to stand up.

"Oh, Spike, there was one thing I thought you'd like to know."

"Yeah? What's that?" He sank back down. Clem was as serious as he'd ever seen him.

"Some new players are moving in." He leaned forward, as if something could get past Mrs. Petrowsky and the rest of the nosy biddies in the building to eavesdrop at the keyhole. "I saw this posted several places, including the bus station where I came in." Clem quickly sketched a sigil on the back of a napkin. "The guy standing next to it was wearing a hat, but I'm pretty sure he was growing antlers."

"Soddin' chaos demon?" Spike demanded.

Clem frowned. "Maybe. They're pretty non-aggressive, but I've seen them hired as frontmen for–"

Spike pointed an authoritative finger. "The size of their antlers means absolutely nothing," he declared. Then he frowned, looking at the sigil. "So, someone's meeting the immigrants." The symbol was one he'd posted himself at times, roughly translating into 'gather here for profit/mayhem.'

"Looks like it." Clem looked worried now. "You're right about Cleveland, about the crowd this energy attracts. I mean, I'm glad you set me up with safe digs here, but it's a good thing I'm so tough. There isn't much interdemon courtesy with things this wild. And I know you don't go after honest businessmen, just the unruly sorts. All the same, I'd rather not have anyone know I brought this to you."

"Can't be seen in public with me anymore?" Spike asked silkily.

Clem's expression settled somewhere between guilty and defiant. "Not really, no. It's nothing personal, Spike. You know you're one of my best buddies. It's just that you're… notorious."

"Used to be notorious for killin' Slayers. Legendary dark warrior, me. Guess that's changed."

"Was it worth it, Spike?" Clem's rheumy eyes were sympathetic.

He thought about where he'd been this day and of all he could not do to make things better. "Yeah, Clem. Worth it, worth everything."

⸹

"No."

Angel woke abruptly, already reaching for Buffy's shoulders.

"No, I'm sorry."

"Buffy."

"I'm so sorry."

"Buffy, wake up. It's just a dream."

"Spike?" She sat up, her hand reaching for the empty side of the bed. "I'm sor–" Buffy looked around wide-eyed, then collapsed back on the mattress. After a moment, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "He didn't come back."

"No." Angel scooted closer, pulling her into his embrace. "I didn't really think he would."

He was big and solid against her, if not warm, and Buffy turned and burrowed against him. "Thank you," she whispered.

Angel put his hand on her shoulder. "For what?"

"For understanding."

"I don't understand," he corrected her, wanting to be honest. "I don't think I'll ever be able to understand." She froze inside his embrace, her heart beating much faster. "But I can accept."

She lifted her face to him, her brow furrowed as she kept her eyes tightly shut. "You shouldn't have to. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Angel kissed her forehead.

"I love you." Buffy's grip on him tightened, and she buried her head against his chest again. "You know that, don't you?" It seemed she was always going to have to add that follow-up question.

"I know." Another kiss, this one falling on her hair. "And I love you, so much. I wish this day had never had to happen." She started to cry again. Angel could feel the warmth of her tears cooling against his chest, could smell them and feel her ragged attempts to breathe. "Shh, now, Buffy."

After a few moments more, she pulled away, already dashing her hand across her face, removing the evidence. "It's just… stupid. I know I'm never going to have babies. But… This made me think about it all over again."

"Would you have wanted it, if you hadn't…?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Not his. What he did to me… I know it's what he does to everyone, but… There's a word for it when you don't get to choose whether you sleep with someone." Buffy did not say the word; how could rape happen to even a Slayer?

Angel didn't tighten his grip, just leaned down to graze her temple with a kiss. "Whatever you would have decided, I'd be right here. And if you ever want to have children, you know I'll be here for you."

She looked up into his earnest face and wanted to laugh. She thought of how damaged Robin Wood was. How could she do that to a child? Even if she could go nine months without being injured in a fight, did he think she could ever bear to have an infant destined to grow up an orphan, or leave her baby, when it could be kidnapped or killed in a handful of seconds for no blame other than that its mother was the Slayer? And if she couldn't leave her baby, how was she to fight?

Instead, Buffy kissed his jaw, his mouth. "Thank you."

"For what?" he said again, smiling a little now.

"For always wanting the impossible for me."

"As much as I've seen, Buffy, I don't think anything is impossible."

Xander made a quick mark on the new doorframe, then measured again. Satisfied, he held out a hand to Angel, who was standing well inside the apartment, out of the sun. "Hand me the hinge."

"Here," Angel said. "Uh, just wanted to tell you again how much I appreciate you fixing the door."

"No problem," Xander replied. "Between Spike and Buffy, my carpentry skills will never get rusty." He lowered the screwdriver and smiled at Angel. "I have to say, despite the four hundred dollars it's costing you to replace it, I'm glad to see Spike being playful again." At Angel's blank look, he elaborated. "Well, 'playful' may be the wrong word, but after Buffy knocked down his door the morning you went missing, I figured he did this, then had that fake-innocent look on his when you two found him on the steps."

"Yeah," Angel said grimly, forcing a smile, "he said he thought that was how it was done."

"You okay, man? Not that I care or anything."

"I'm fine."

"Anyway," Xander said, getting back to work on the hinge, "I'm glad the three of you are talking again."

"Me, too." This time, the smile was genuine.

⸹

"Right," Spike said loudly, calling the slayers' attention to him. "Need to talk to you just a mo' before you head home or out on patrol. Tribs!" He waited until she came over. He tried to use everyone as a practice dummy during classes, but tended to make an example of Tribby. Being older, she didn't take it personally when he wanted to make a point.

"Now, my lovelies, I want to show you something. Tribs, let your hair down, pet." She froze for a second before taking the scrunchie from her hair, not understanding why he would want such a thing. "Don't get to see this much," he drawled, stepping behind her and adding in a low tone, "just in Boulder." He saw her slight nod; she remembered, knew where he was going. Spike put his fingers in the dark strands and spread them over her shoulders.

"My lady for most of my unlife, Dru, had long, dark hair," he said, letting his voice sound wistful. "Not as straight as this, more like yours, Maria," he said, sending her a devastating smile over Tribby's head. The class gave her the glares that had been aimed at Tribby. In his peripheral vision, Spike could see Buffy standing with crossed arms. He didn't dare look more closely.

"Now," he said, stepping away, "Tribs is going to escape me." She was three yards away instantly, but all he had to do was take one step and snatch her hair. The slayer stopped, and before she could turn, he pulled her backwards until her head was as low as his elbow. Pausing only to glance around at the class, Spike took her to the floor. "Thanks, Tribs. Up you go," he said, holding out a hand. "Now, pet, fix your hair the way you wear it on patrol." He began pacing around the line of slayers.

"You may have noticed," he drawled, "I'm a man. Men like long hair on women. It's supposed to be a biological indicator of fertility, but mostly it's just dead sexy. We like to see it spread on our pillow, moving around your shoulders," he looked Buffy's way, but didn't meet her eyes, "like to slide our fingers through it. Men like long hair." There was a hungry edge to the way his audience was watching him now, except for the one annoyed Slayer.

His smile and voice turned frosty. "Rapists like long hair." Spike made a turn and started back. "Demons like long hair." He paused next to Tribby for the second it took to snatch at her nape, where her hair lay flat, the length of it now safely tucked inside her t-shirt. He spread his empty fingers wide. "Lately, I've seen lots of bouncy tresses and unbound locks during training." He shrugged. "Getting on in the year, weather's cooler, I reckon. Keeps the neck warm. And I certainly don't mind being around my lovelies when they are even lovelier." Nearly at the end of the line now, where Buffy stood, her arms still crossed. "But you're slayers, and slayers don't make stupid mistakes, like flipping back their hair when there's a vampire around." Spike stopped in front of Buffy, the corners of his eyes crinkling, his expression just for her. His voice was loud and hard, though. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir." The honorific came automatically with the gloomy chorus of agreement.

"Good." Spike turned back to them. "Well? Go on, get out there and keep the good citizens of Cleveland safe."

When the subdued crowd thinned, Buffy wandered close enough to casually stand by Spike. "So, vampires like long hair?" There was amusement in her voice.

"We do."

"Do they like long coats?"

"You know we do."

"What about high heels?"

"Oh, yes."

"Spike, you never told me any of this back in Sunnydale."

"Love," he said, leaning over so his mouth was close to her ear, "a Slayer as good as you can wear whatever she bloody well pleases. All a demon can do is appreciate the view before he dies."

⸹

"Hey, Gunn."

"Angel! Good to hear from you, man." Charles swiveled in his office chair and put his other hand behind his head, stretching as he looked out the window for the first time that morning.

"I thought you'd like to know that battle number three is on us."

Charles sat up straight again. "I don't think I can get away," he said slowly, thinking of the number of files he was working on.

"That's fine," Angel reassured him, his pause hardly noticeable. "Don't worry about it. I know you've got your own life there. I'll call you and let you know how it goes." He switched the phone to his other ear, propping up against the arm of the sofa. Buffy was at the university for her American history class, and it seemed a good time to touch base with Gunn. "Just thought you'd like to be kept up with current events."

"Thanks. I appreciate it. So, how are things going with you and Buffy?"

"Fine." There was a shadow in his voice as he thought of her miscarriage, so he said more brightly, "Fine."

"What about Spike?"

"We're talking again."

"Good." He tapped the mouse for his desktop, moving it to the email icon. Spike usually sent him a message once or twice a week, rarely more than a funny sentence or two. There was nothing so far today. "That's very good news. I'm relieved."

"Me, too." Angel shifted on the couch. Gunn, nor any human, would ever understand how their relationship had fundamentally altered so they could talk again. "So, how are things going there?"

"Mmm," Charles hedged, "hard to say. I might be flying to Geneva next week to see about the Council's accounts, if nothing breaks before then. Oh! One thing, you'll never guess who I ran into last weekend on the Mall."

"Who?" Angel closed his eyes, dreading the answer.

"Gwen. You remember, Electric Girl?"

"I remember." The most stimulating kiss he'd ever had. "What's she up to?"

"Oh, she ain't about to tell me," Gunn said, his voice dry.

"Yeah, probably nothing within the letter of the law."

"But she looked good."

"Are you, uh," Angel tried to find polite words, "seeing her?"

"Well, she said she might call me this weekend. I plan to be available." Then, loyally, "Unless you need me in Cleveland."

"No, we did just fine in the last two battles. Don't worry about us."

"Still, you be careful, you and everybody else."

"We will. You, too. Good to talk to you, Gunn."

"Yeah, same here, Angel. Let me know if you need me."

They said their goodbyes, and Angel folded his phone, staring past the unused television Spike had parked in his living room. Gunn and Gwen. There had been something between them in the black days before Jasmine, hadn't there? He wasn't sure how he felt about it, not because of how Gwen affected him, but because of how difficult the relationship would be for Charles. Even if she was law-abiding, the logistics were almost insurmountable. Then he mentally rolled his eyes, thinking of how he and Buffy had been kept apart for so long by the curse. What was it he'd told her? He didn't believe anything was impossible.

⸹

Even after knowing him for half a year, Dawn found that she still kept stealing glances at Ty as they addressed flyers for the political campaign. He was almost supernaturally handsome. She, Tribby, and a few more people from the art department were on chairs and couches in Ty's house (and mercifully not on the futon in Tribby's apartment). The discussion of politics had waned.

"You're a native Ohioan, aren't you, Ty?" The question came from Jill, a girl intensely into black who reminded Dawn a little bit of Kit, the goth chick she got to know a little her last year in Sunnydale, before Kit's family moved.

Ty nodded at the question. "Makes me congenitally boring."

"I thought it was supposed to make you congenitally conservative."

He grinned. "You'd think so, huh? Must be something that skips generations, because my grandmother and I are the black sheep of our rock-ribbed right-wing family."

Next to him, Tribby smiled without looking up from folding. "I love your grandmother."

"I was really nervous about coming out to her. You know, we young whippersnappers think that the elderly were always old and staid, and Gran is kind of formidable. But after I told her, all she did was put her hand over her heart and say, 'Thank God! I thought you'd become a Republican.'"

Amid the laughter, Dawn snuck another peek at Ty. She loved being here, doing something important with this confident, older crowd who – except for Tribby – had nothing to do with slaying demons. She felt older herself and almost sophisticated, could feel her confidence growing around people who discussed everything and found her opinions just as valid as their own.

They didn't repress, either, which was refreshing. Another stolen glance at Ty made her think of Andrew, who was over a year out of Sunnydale and still conflicted about his sexual orientation. Dawn blamed a lot of things on the town, including the fear of being oneself. People who stuck out from the crowd would attract the attention of predators, so you learned quickly to blend. These quirky people might look back on their haircuts or clothes or even political candidates one day and roll their eyes, but they weren't afraid to say what they thought now or dress how they wanted. The freedom fed something inside Dawn, something she was pretty sure had nothing to do with being the Key.

She passed a stack of envelopes to Jill, the goth girl, and gave her a sincere smile. If she had anything to say about it, Cleveland would never become another Sunnydale, a town of fear and shadows.

⸹

Spike lay atop his covers, his wrists over his eyes, and listened to his slayers gabbing, gathered upstairs for a pre-battle meeting

"So, I told him he had issues of his own."

"You _named_ your vibrator?"

"I'll never be able to go completely vegan."

"They were on sale, so I got a red pair, too."

"Hey, T.C."

"T.C.?"

"Vashti, the world's Toughest Canadian."

"And after all that, I got a 'B' on the paper."

"Mr. Giles was in there for days last time."

"Then one just came out of nowhere. That was the first time I did an over-the-shoulder dust."

"Oh, me too. I always over-water plants."

"Ask Dawn. She'll know."

"You named it _Buster_?"

"The store over on Harper, not the other one."

"We had two of these things I've never seen before, cornered against a dumpster."

"He sounds like a loser."

"When is this meeting going to start?"

The slayers were all normal to his ears, to his other senses, soothing him. Then the Slayer came inside Watcher Central, and he tensed up again. Spike had talked to Buffy at training, but hadn't been around to visit. The encounter with the family bed and his own need to be the one who made her happy were too much to deal with. He had thrown himself into preparations for the coming battle, not about to give in to the temptation to go back. Though he ached to, it wasn't his place to take care of the Slayer.

Giles came out of his office and began the meeting, running it with quick efficiency as always. The site of this battle was another office building, an open, airy floor plan with a free-standing elevator and spiral staircase that served seven floors. There was an enormous skylight above that let in sunshine most hours of the day. The building was new and in use, so once again they had to get assistance from the Cleveland police department to force an evacuation.

Rupert began to go over Spike's information about the for-hire sigil posted at egress points. He'd had to stand firm with the Watcher to get out of the meeting. Spike's best guess was that the demons might be more coordinated this time, maybe better armed. Giles didn't need him upstairs just to blue-sky.

Since magical detection had failed to pinpoint the source of energy last time, they were trying electronic gadgets. Andrew flew in from London to set these up, and that was another reason Spike was hiding downstairs. The boy was sweet, in his way, but even his demon was embarrassed by Andrew's adoration.

The slayers were reminded to keep their cell phones with them at all times, then Giles answered a few minor questions and the meeting was over. Impatient to get out of the basement, too full of energy before the battle, but not feeling social, Spike forced himself to stay until his ladies were gone. And then he realized that he had trapped himself.

"Spike?"

He sat up, gripping the edge of the mattress. "Buffy."

She came down the stairs, a tentative smile on her face. "Whatcha doin' down here in the dark?"

In response, he turned on the lamp by his bed. "Avoiding Andrew, mostly."

Buffy laughed. "Oh, he's not so bad."

"You look good."

"You think I look good even when I'm covered with slime."

"True."

Her smile faded, and she busied herself by rummaging in the large purse she carried today. "Here you go, more or less freshly laundered." Buffy handed him his pajama bottoms.

"Uh, thanks. You didn't have to…."

"I-I just figured you might need them." She shrugged. "You don't come by much."

He looked down at the folded garment in his hand. "No."

"I won't nag you about it." She took in his surprised look. "It isn't easy for any of us, being together, I mean." Impulsively, she sat down next to him, wanting to catch his eye. "Spike, I really appreciate everything, you know, from this weekend."

He waved a hand. "Was nothing."

"No, it was definitely something. I don't know how I could have gotten through it without you."

He did look at her then, turning his head, his shoulders, orienting himself to her, wrapping his body around her space. "How are you, love?"

"Recovered." She said it firmly.

Spike examined her face. "Sleeping all right?"

Buffy looked away. "Just the usual dreams."

He picked up her hand, reveling in the fact that he could do it without guilt now. "Ah, love. I wish I could take them from you."

 _You do._ The smile on the Slayer's face was tight. "I know. You're my best–" No, she couldn't say that to him; not only was it cruel to him and unfair to Willow, it was inadequate. So Buffy touched his jaw and whispered the words that would have to do. "My vampire."

"Always."

Her wide eyes were enormous. "And I'm–" She bit her lip. "Please? I need to hear–"

"My Slayer."

Spike's deep voice, the expression in his eyes were the only things that existed as her world shrank down to the small puddle of light they were in and the shadows surrounding them. Buffy thought of the night she'd been Joan and he'd been Randy and things were so uncomplicated, how natural it had felt, from going to his defense in the Magic Box to straddling his lean hips to restrain him. Then everything had rushed back, all the memories, the ones so pure, so perfect that they made everything else painful. She had managed to turn from him once that night, but it had been the last of her strength. She'd needed him so much, chasing his retreating back through the Bronze, the arrogant tilt of his head hiding nothing from her, the stiff set of his broad shoulders telegraphing everything. And she caught him, her hand on his arm, her face lifted to his. She had been drowning, and he was there for her, pulling her to some safe place where there were no memories, just the two of them. He was her escape, and by choosing him to save her, she'd given him the deepest desire of his heart.

It was in her eyes again, she knew, her desire for all that he could give her. She could give him nothing in return now, and still she lifted her mouth to his. "My vampire," she murmured against his lips, settling against the velvety fullness. "My…."

So soft, so light… Buffy sighed, her eyelids sweeping closed. "My heaven," she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth. "My Spike." She leaned against him, settling her thigh closer to his. He was like this sometimes, so tentative, letting her take the lead, not wanting to –

Buffy pulled away, her eyes open now, staring at his ready mouth, his own closed eyes. Tentative because he didn't know what she was about, if she had come to him with her whole body or just her fists. "I'm sorry," she said, low and hoarse. So sorry for now, for those times.

"Sor…?" What Willow called his 'come-shag-me' look evaporated when he opened his eyes. His expression changed, hardened. "Why?"

"I–"

"Why?" His eyes were blazing now, and he took her by the arms.

"I'll never stop wanting you." She'd said it before.

"You know what I am, Slayer." And he pulled her hard against him, falling back against the bed so she draped over his body. "I'm yours."

"Mine." Her fierce reply was cut short. Spike's mouth was bruising against hers, and his hands were on the backs of her thighs, pressing her down against him, letting her feel what she had done to him. With a groan, she rubbed herself against the hardness, her hands on either side of his face, kissing him back, hardly noticing that he was rolling them over.

Then he was gone, standing on the other side of the bed and staring down at her, breathing hard. "Don't play me." It was a growl, a warning. Spike took another step backwards, then turned on his heel. "I won't… Don't make me do this to him."

He meant he didn't want cheat on Angel with her. Buffy sat up, stiff and slow. How had this happened? She put her head in her hands for a few seconds, then smoothed her hair back. "God, Spike, I am so sorry. I didn't…" Hadn't she? Why was she here? Had she hoped for something like this? Hadn't she wanted something more? Just to forget, to lose herself in him for a while?

Spike scoffed. "Didn't what?" He half-turned, but kept his face averted, as if there was too much pain involved in seeing her. "Didn't think this thing we have between us was still here? After last weekend? Till one or the other of us dies, Buffy."

"No. Don't say that. You can't die again." She couldn't bear the world without him, a world of complete exile.

He clenched his fists and closed his eyes again, because there was love amid the desolation of her voice. "Get out, Slayer. Now. 'Cause, God help us, I'll bury myself inside you if you stay another minute."

Buffy drew in a sharp breath as if he had physically touched her. She could go to him right now, cut that minute down to less than ten seconds, and she shivered at the thought of violent release. Or she could stay just where she was, let him come to her, and his hands would turn gentle so quickly.

How should I destroy him? Because it would, she knew. She could make him abandon honor, and he was the only vampire she'd ever met who had managed to retain that, the hero's trait that let him find his way back to the light. Without honor, he wouldn't be her Spike.

"I didn't mean for it to be like this," Buffy said dully as she stood up. Instead of going to him, just to embrace him, she trudged to the stairs. She was halfway up when he spoke.

"Go by the gym, pet." His voice sounded tired. "Don't go home till you shower."

She didn't nod, just closed her eyes. Angel.

"I don't want it to be like this, either, love."

"Sucks to be my vampire, huh?" Then she got her legs moving again, faster, needing to be out of the basement, needing to rise into daylight. She heard his response, though, the stark negation.

Buffy caught a ride with Alan Jacobson, who was headed to the office building targeted for the next battle and happy to drop her off. No one was at the gym, and Buffy's hands were shaking as she pulled out her cell phone. "Angel?"

"What's up?"

So cheerful and uncomplicated, and how bizarre was that?" "Can you meet me at the gym? Now?"

"Anything wrong?"

"No. See you soon, okay?"

She hung up and began shedding her telltale clothes on the way to the showers, hiding them in a tight bundle at the bottom of someone else's locker. By the time Angel got to the gym, she would be clean and naked and wet, smelling only of shampoo. She stood under the spray for a long time, holding the soap in her hands, shivering despite the hot water.

"Buffy?"

Her abrupt call had worried him, she could tell. Voiceless, she held out a hand, and he came to her, taking time only to kick off his shoes.

"Here?" Angel asked, his eyes so kind. It would be better here than at the apartment, away from the memories of the miscarriage, he thought.

"Please." She pulled him into the warm spray. His shirt was plastered to his chest, making it hard to unbutton, but her fingers were clever. Then she found his zipper.

"Like this?" Angel lifted her, pressing her against the tile of the wall.

"Oh, yes." Another vampire, another wall, but there were no more similarities. Afterwards, there were kisses and towels and found clothing instead of… more. She felt as if she was watching herself from a distance, seeing how this girl smiled at her lover, how she acted like someone so normal.

This was the first time since she left Rome that Buffy wondered if the loss of heaven would drive her insane, but it wasn't the first time she'd had the fear. The first time had been inside her coffin, deep in the ground. Part of her was always going to be down there, another part always up on the tower, part of her always backing away from Spike in a Sunnydale alley in horrified disbelief at what she had done. She looked at Angel and smiled automatically. Another part would always be driving a sword into him.

The tatters that were left hooked a towel over Angel's neck and pulled him down into a long, slow kiss.

⸹

Spike clutched the wood of one of the treads of the staircase that led down to the basement. He had been holding onto it with a literal death's grip for almost five minutes, and the pressure he was applying was creating heat beneath his fingers. For a crazy moment, he let himself follow the physics of it, the wooden board catching on fire, the fire consuming Watcher Central, everyone evacuating safely except the stupid vampire trapped in the basement.

Pathetic way to go.

He needed to talk to someone. The person he wanted to talk to was Angel, but that would never do. All he could think of was to ask his grandsire to set him another oath, and even Angel would be able to figure out why he was asking. He couldn't confide in Giles his almost uncontrollable desire for Buffy, not without the serious possibility of getting staked over his inevitable use of the word 'shag.' Red would be a good one to talk to, only he didn't want to see her hazel eyes fill with guilt the moment he brought up Buffy's pain. And Spike couldn't bring himself to put Dawn through another round.

Letting his head fall back, he redoubled his steady attack on the wood. Pity he didn't have a lump of coal to work on, turn it into a diamond to rest at her throat. Then he sensed someone upstairs that he might be able to talk to, someone who would understand. Spike had snatched his coat and was up the stairs in a blur, barely slowing down long enough to collar Xander and haul him out the kitchen door to his truck.

"You wanted to see me?" Xander asked in a voice heavy with sarcasm, rubbing his neck.

"Yeah. Wanted to talk to you."

"Andrew was available, sitting there green with envy." He glared at Spike even as he buckled the seatbelt. "Whereas I will be black and blue."

"Need a place to talk," Spike said, already rolling out onto the street. "Somewhere dark, quiet in the middle of the day. Don't want to sit in a bloody booth at a restaurant. Need to move."

Xander studied him, noting the tension in his hands. "Okay, let me think." After a moment, he thought of a place, and Spike drove around until they found a bowling alley. Feeling pretty clever for coming up with a solution that fit their needs, Xander was unprepared for Spike's reaction. He'd never seen a vampire balk before.

"You rent shoes?" His deep voice was sharp with disbelief. "That other people have worn?"

Xander fixed a smile on his face for the benefit of the bored, heavyset man behind the counter. "British," he said by way of explanation and leaned close to his friend. "Spike, you put your _teeth_ into strangers. This can't be worse."

"It is," Spike declared. "I pick my food, Harris. You don't know who – or what – might have been in those shoes before you."

"Look, they sanitize them, or something."

"Not from what I can smell. My boots are fine."

The clerk, finally having something to offer, broke in. "You can't bowl with street shoes." Then he took a step back from the counter, despite being fifty pounds heavier than the blond man who was glowering at him.

"No."

"Look," Xander said with a tight smile as he handed over a ten, "just make change, and we'll get out of your hair." While rolling his eyes, he'd noticed an arcade at the other end of the building. They ended up playing air hockey, batting the flat puck across the table in an even volley after Spike got the hang of how much more gently he should hit it than he wanted to.

"You're a dab hand at this."

"My friend Jesse and I used to go to the arcade in the mall and play after school every day. Better than going home."

"Jesse?"

"Darla turned him," Xander said, driving the puck sharply across the table and scoring. "I think it was her, anyway. And I staked him." He stared at the white, perforated surface of the table. "He was the first vampire I ever killed."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Xander said shortly. "Let's play."

"May not be my fault," Spike said, putting the puck back on the table and watching it spin to the left, "but my family."

"Yeah, well, vampires suck." There wasn't much irony in his voice. They played another three games, until Xander was out of quarters. Spike produced a twenty, and they resumed the air hockey marathon. The longer it went on, the better Spike played, until Xander began to lose and to run out of patience. "You said you wanted to talk?"

"Buffy came to see me today."

"Did you guys fight?" He put the puck straight through, then got a good look at Spike's face, the closed eyes. "Oh. Bad fight." When the blond man still didn't say anything, he sighed. "Cowboy up, Spike. Works better with your eyes open."

Spike launched the puck back across the table. "We didn't fight."

It probably took longer than it should have for Xander's eyes to widen. "Oh."

"We didn't do that, either," Spike said grimly, "though there was a serious danger of it."

"Well," he began, trying to think of something, "you know, you two… No, man, I'm tapped. I don't have a clue what to say."

"I know what I want you to say," Spike said, scoring at will. "You know the story, how Dru was at Daddy's beck and call even after a hundred years of me takin' care of her, lovin' her. He took my woman. You know how unfair that was. You know where it's all at now." He put his hands on the edge of the table and leaned toward the human. "I need you to tell me that it's wrong for me to take the Slayer from Angel."

"Sure. Spike, that 'eye for an eye' stuff is so Old Testament." Xander managed not to scoff. "I can also tell you that you can't take Buffy anywhere she doesn't want to go."

Spike closed his eyes again. "'M not strong where she's concerned." When he opened them, his expression was both bleak and longing. "Anything she wants from me, I want to give her."

"Oh," Xander said again, remembering Lina's theory of why Buffy was so worried when they started patrolling together again. It wasn't Spike who had initiated whatever had happened, which he so was not going to think of. Score one for women's intuition. "Well, Spike, once again you stand alone. I've never known Buffy to cheat on her boyfriends before."

The blue eyes became yellow. "'S'not cheating, not between us." The color changed again to something still not human, too dark to be blue. "No. You're right. As much as I want to cuckold Angel, give him a taste–" Spike gritted his teeth, didn't finish the thought. "I don't want to hurt him. Not really." He shook his head slowly. "'M trapped. I can't leave, not with these battles – not that I ever would. I can't avoid her. Don't want to. Don't want to hurt the old man, either. I don't know what to do, Xander."

Xander held the puck in his hand, staring at it instead of putting it in play. "The only thing I can think of, I know you don't want to hear." He sighed. "Buffy found someone else, and you respect that. If you find someone, she'll respect it."

"I don't want anyone except Buffy. And before you say anything, I've looked. Every day, I'm surrounded by all these birds, and they're sweet or pretty or hot, but they aren't her. There's not a one of them I don't care about, but there's not one who…" Spike trailed off, looking lost. "You'd think at least part of me, the vampire part, would be willing to give it a bash. But even my demon doesn't want anyone except Buffy." He rolled his eyes. "Well, he might want the slayers in bed, but he still wants Buffy most."

"Spike," Xander said gently, thinking of Willow's longtime crush on him as he said it, "I wasn't thinking of the slayers. Sometimes the right person can be so close that it's easy to overlook them."

He grew quite still. "Dawn?"

The dark-haired man nodded. "She's grown up now, and you love each–"

"Harris, I've tried to think of her that way, and it just… It feels wrong. Anyway, I've kept her from harm too long to risk hurting her that way."

"What way?"

Spike looked away. "Cheat on her."

"Oh, man, Spike." There was sorrow in his voice.

"Yeah," he agreed heavily. "Slayer's got me by the short and curlies."

"Do you mind if I ask why you're telling me all this? I mean, you and Willow are–"

"I'm asking you because she used to have you by the short and curlies, too." He watched the muscles of Xander's jaw flex. "Not blind, whelp. So, I have to ask. How'd you get past her?"

Staring at the puck again, he thought of how it was so not a good idea to tell the smitten supernatural being that Buffy had finally scratched his itch. Then he realized that it wasn't the truth, anyway. "Anya," Xander said simply, looking up. "I didn't go into it thinking that she was going to be the love of my life." He shrugged. "It was pretty much the sex. For Anya, too. Then came the relationship, and then, somehow, I just couldn't imagine getting through a day without seeing her smile. So I asked her to marry me, and then I totally and completely screwed the pooch." He flipped the puck onto the surface. "Better try Dear Abby. I'm not the best person to ask for advice when it comes to love."

Spike regarded him for several long seconds. "So, wanna go get drunk?"

"No." Xander knocked the puck towards him. "I plan to beat your sorry vampire ass, then go home and have dinner with Lina."

He heard the rebuke. "I can't move on, Harris. She needs me, and I have to be there when she needs me, whenever she needs me." He scored again. "I can make her happy," Spike added softly.

"If she comes to you and you just can't keep your hand out of the cookie jar," Xander said in a cold voice, "she'll lose Angel and that will make her very, very unhappy." He stared up at the dark ceiling for a few moments, struggling with words. "You know, part of me still feels like you should be grateful that Buffy ever even looked your way, ever gave you a second of her time, that you should crawl away and treasure those memories and be glad you have them.

"Of course," Xander looked down at the paddle in his hand, "you never pulled her out of heaven and stranded her back here with her 'sacred duty.' There are days when I can't get over the fact that she still talks to me and Willow. She's a special person. And I know you make her happy, Spike, I do." He mock-shuddered. "I don't like to analyze that too closely, but I do know. Still, Buffy picked Angel, and she had her reasons. You have to respect that choice."

"Then it's down to the last option." Spike sent the puck spinning slowly down the grid. "I geld Peaches."

"Or you could geld yourself," Xander pointed out, striking it back toward him. "Problem solved."

Spike cocked his head and gave him a look, then sent the puck fast and straight into his goal, setting off the buzzer, winning their last game.

Back in the truck, their interaction consisted mainly of Spike rather tunelessly muttering along to "Heart of Glass," and Xander giving him an occasional creeped-out look. When the radio went to commercial, the human couldn't keep from commenting on it. "You like Blondie?"

"What's not to like?" Spike asked, belligerent. "They were cool before you were even born, Harris, and the music is still cool." He frowned a little. "Well, maybe they were too cool to be really cool, you know what I mean."

"You mean like how Byers from the Lone Gunmen was really cooler than Mulder?" When Spike looked blank, Xander elaborated. "You know, on _X-Files_ , the Lone Gunman who wore the suit. He had the same kind of mission as Mulder, only the government took the woman he loved instead of his sister, and he made it his life's work to find out everything he could so he could get her back and he did it without being the star of the show, which," he finished triumphantly, "made it all that much cooler."

"Yeah, whelp," Spike said sardonically, feeling closer to normal than he had in a week, "just like that." He let Xander off in front of his apartment building a few minutes later. "Thanks for coming out with me."

Xander rubbed the back of his neck where Spike had grabbed him. "Glad I volunteered." The irony faded from his voice. "Sorry I wasn't much help."

"No, I feel better." Spike looked ahead through the windshield. "Good to talk about it an' all. Least someone knows I'm tryin' to not be a complete wanker."

"Good luck with that," Xander said, giving the vampire a smile to let him know that he didn't mean it. Much.

⸹

"Giles?"

"Oh!"

"Sorry," Willow said, sheepish. "I didn't mean to scare you. I seem to do that every time."

"Quite all right, my dear." He gave her an absent-minded hug, nothing like his usual warm greeting. They were once again standing at the door to his office.

"Here you go," she said as she handed over a four-inch thick stack of continuous-feed paper.

"Oh!" he said again, pleased this time. "Thank you, Willow. The Coven was able to do it, then?"

"I did it." She shrugged under his regard. "Once I talked to them about whether it was possible, I decided to just do it myself." Willow took a half-step closer, not looking happy. "I had my own suspicions after we talked, so I included some dates in this 'psisomograph' that you might not have thought about. "There's a timeline of events at the beginning of the file. I really didn't want anyone else to see it."

"Dates during the time I was back in England? After you, er, brought Buffy back, or when Tara…?"

Her hazel eyes were shadowed. "Mostly things around then. I-I just figured it was sort of a family matter."

Giles looked at the printout in his hands, clearly tempted to tear into the problem right away. Instead, he sighed. "Willow, I do appreciate you going to all the trouble for me, but I'm afraid I can't do justice to this until after the coming battle. Will that be soon enough?"

"Sure, Giles. Do you need me for anything?"

"I am so glad you asked. I'm leaving for a strategy session now. Would you accompany me to the site," he sighed before adding, "another office building? Perhaps you'll have some ideas of how to clear it. Buffy and Spike are concerned about the open floor plan."

Willow brightened visibly. "Of course I'll come with you."

⸹

The first thing Angel thought of when he heard the knock on his door was Spike, but he would have already sensed the Master. Nonetheless, he was smiling when he opened it.

"Hey, man," Gunn said, leaning across his suitcase on the step and into Angel's embrace.

"I thought you couldn't get away."

"Turns out RFR are very understanding when it comes to prophecies of human-demon conflicts."

"I'm glad you're here. The location of this one isn't good."

"No?" Gunn pushed his luggage across the threshold with his foot and came inside. "Where is it? Waste management plant?"

Angel shook his head with mild disbelief. "Another office building, but this one is mostly atrium."

The taller man frowned as he visualized this. "So, demons could come at us from every angle, and it'll be hard to clear an area and keep them out."

"Exactly." Angel shrugged, not too concerned. "Willow's working on it."

"That's comforting." He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I'm not, uh, barging in or anything; I just took a cab straight here from the airport, thought you'd have a better idea of where I might crash than I do."

"You can stay here. There's the spare bedroom. It's still empty, but there's the cot you used last time."

"You sure your lady won't mind?"

"Not at all."

⸹

"It's immoral."

"Possibly. On such a large scale, raising cattle is bad for the planet, but we don't live in a moral world."

"So you admit eating meat is immoral."

"No, I admit it isn't good for the planet."

Vi sighed and put down the knife she was using to whittle stakes. "It's wrong for the individual animal, too, obviously."

Tribby also put down her knife. "Did you know there was a study that showed common houseplants will spike an electromagnetic response at the same time as their owners take off in an airplane, leave the ground?"

Kayla, who had been following their debate on vegetarianism, had to speak up at this point. "What?"

"Exactly," said Tribby, as if she had agreed. "Plants are also living things and may have sentience outside of science's ability to understand right now. However, we have to eat something."

"You don't have to eat meat."

"No, but I like to."

Kayla shook her head. "I like meat, too, but it's supposed to be really hard to digest, like we're not meant to eat it very much."

Vi nodded. "Yeah, it's not like we're lions or something."

"Look," Tribby said, opening her mouth and pointing to her incisors. "See these? Human teeth are designed for both plant and animal matter. Our digestive acids are designed to break down both. We're omnivores."

"We can be better than that," Vi said loftily.

"As far as I'm concerned," Tribby said, starting on a stake again, "dentition is destiny."

Spike gave a soft snort of amusement at that. He was sitting on Giles' couch, Dawn asleep on his lap, and the slayers were having a post-training stake-whittling session.

"You two are just so twisted," Kayla complained.

"How's that?" Vi asked, frowning.

"Okay, you're a Republican vegetarian," Kayla replied, pointing at her, "and you're a meat-eating Democrat." She nodded toward Tribby's shirt, which bore the legend, 'Let's not elect him… again.' "Get with the stereotypes!"

"Here we go," Xander said, bustling in with a box of wood, lengths of ash that he'd split himself. There was a collective groan. "Well, all you have to do is stake faster and you won't need so many of them. Haven't you taught them anything, Spike?"

Not wanting to wake Dawn, Spike contented himself by replying with a two-finger salute.

Rona finished a stake and sat up to reach for a fresh piece of wood from Xander's box. "You're ex-military, Xander. Who are you going to vote for in November?"

"Me?" He sat down next to her and got out an expensive, understated pocketknife that oozed competent manliness. "I've only been in the military in the most rudimentary, magically-induced kind of way."

"Really? I thought you'd been in the army."

"Nah. Went one Halloween as a soldier, the usual Sunnydale highjinks ensued, and I never forgot the basic training that I didn't actually have."

"So, who are you going to vote for?" Kayla persisted.

"Do you know," Xander said, "I've never voted in my entire life? I'm not even registered."

"I can help you with that," Tribby said promptly.

Vi sent her a mock glare. "So can I, and I've known you longer, so you'd better let me get you registered."

"And I so need to vote because, gosh, aren't my choices starkly different?" the dark-haired man mused. "Should I vote for old white multimillionaire number one or old white multimillionaire number two?"

"I heard that," Natalie agreed, tossing her finished stake into the growing pile. "Both my parents are ex-Navy, though, and they're for Kerry."

"What about you, Spike?" Kayla asked, twisting so she could see him around Xander's shoulder.

"Brit."

"Oh. I forgot."

"Too much politics," Bethany spoke up, finishing with her stake, "not enough fun. I'd rather talk about vegetarianism."

"Not me," Kayla said. "I'd rather talk about–"

"Sex," Rona finished for her.

"No," Kayla said, wounded, "the election. This will be my first time to vote, and I'm trying to live up to the awesome responsibility that has been entrusted to me."

"Somebody give me a shovel," Rona muttered, "it's getting pretty deep down here. Hey!" she said, changing tone abruptly, staring at Xander. "You've finished one already?"

Xander held the smooth, beautifully-carved stake away from the sleeve of sandpaper he'd been using, blowing of the sawdust. "Almost."

"Harris is a carpenter, after all," Spike reminded her.

"I forget, too," Vi admitted. "It seems like he's been a Watcher forever."

"Yeah, but I'm the only Watcher around here with power tools." He didn't look up as he issued a warning to Spike. "Don't go there."

"Go where?" the blond man asked, looking innocent.

"What?" Dawn said, sitting up.

"'Lo, love," Spike said.

"I fell asleep?" When he nodded, she looked around, frowning. "Is Buffy still here?"

"No," Kayla answered. "She went home to sleep on her own vampire." In the heavy silence that followed this, Vi poked her with the end of a half-carved stake. "'Scuse me while I pull my foot out of my mouth," she mumbled.

"I don't know why you people are so sensitive," Dawn said, sounding grumpy as she sat up. "Look at Spike; he's fine with it." She grabbed his coat, which she'd used to cover her legs before napping, and began rummaging for a knife. Behind her, Spike put his hand onto her hip and gave her a deliberate squeeze, acknowledging her save. "Here," she said, handing him the first knife she found and sliding her hand back into the buttery leather to fish for another one.

"Love, this is an eleventh-century dagger from one of the Crusades, having spilled the blood of countless infidels… or was it Christians? Either way, I'm not going to whittle with it."

"Okay," she said, taking it back and giving him the more humble knife she'd just located. "I'll whittle with it."

⸹

Buffy fell asleep to the quiet rumble of men's voices as Angel and Gunn conversed in the living room. The two friends were talking about someplace called Pylea and reminiscing about Wesley and their green friend, Lorne, so she didn't suppose they would miss her if she went to bed. She hadn't been sleeping well for a few days.

Her dream was a new one, and even in her sleep she felt grateful. Must tell Giles, she thought to herself, because it was a Slayer dream; there was a visual clarity to prophetic dreams that she didn't have on a nightly basis.

She was on a pier that she recognized from when she was little, because sometimes her Daddy and Mommy would take her sailing on the weekend. The sleeping adult part of her wondered if her family had owned the sailboat or if they had just rented it. Buffy walked down the long plank pathway, her footsteps sounding hollow on the creaking wood as she passed white cruisers and colorful speedboats, headed for a forest of masts and sails.

Without actually choosing a boat or leaving the pier, she found herself on an enormous, old-fashioned sailing ship, a schooner maybe, with lots of billowing white canvas snapping above her. Here the wood did not creak beneath her feet; it was a well-made craft. Buffy found she was automatically moving from the deck up the steps toward to the bridge, toward the wheel where the captain ( _general_ ) belonged.

The wheel was dark and wooden as well, but when she put her hand on one of the pegs, a light began to emanate from it, soft at first, then brighter and whiter, until she could feel energy thrum beneath her fingertips. Above, the sheets of fabric grew quiet, going slack, but she still had the sense that she could go anywhere despite having no wind, that she had the power in her hands to do anything. She could be happy, because with this she could know everyone was safe, she could be _done_ , could finally –

"Buffy?" It was Angel, standing over her, the smile on his face patient and loving, waking her up from her dreams the way he did every night. Waiting for her dreams, part of the routine.

"Wha–? I'm fine," she said automatically, sitting up, reviewing the dream, trying to memorize it. "I'm fine." She hid her disappointment, then figured it was just as well he'd woken her. When had she ever had a good Slayer dream?

⸹

[Author's Note: This section contains an attempted suicide-by-demon during the battle.]

By Thursday, when demons began to make forays toward the battle site, everyone associated with the Council was relieved the long wait was over. Willow had altered an 'x marks the spot' spell, magicking a cache of permanent markers to seal thresholds against demons when used to scrawl an 'X' on a door. Xander had, perhaps inevitably, made a 'trust no one' reference. Andrew brightened and went on for almost a minute about _The X-Files_ until he caught Buffy's impatient expression. Willow's plan wouldn't keep the bad guys from getting into the hallways on every level, but it would allow the slayers to effectively clear all the closed rooms.

Now almost October, the light faded from the sky earlier. The slayer army was in position by six o'clock, the Watchers on the roof using spells and crossbows to keep the bad guys out, as they had been doing since early in the day. The teams were positioned inside the open doors, waiting to mow down the demons who tried to get inside the atrium. While most were covering the doors, a few slayers were on the second floor, waiting with crossbows as well as their usual weapons. There was a little milling around, the girls going to exchange a quick word with a friend on another team, but mostly they listened in silence to the snarls and howls outside.

Buffy stood next to Spike, not looking at him very much. Of course, he wasn't looking at her, either. She expected the demons to begin breaching the doors as darkness fell and the Watchers' aim grew less precise. Angel was behind her, Oz at his side. Giles was on the second floor this time, teamed with Gunn and two slayers. She felt safer with him there; the first battles had been hard on him. When she told him about her dream, they had decided she would go look for the energy source as soon as the fighting let up.

Everything seemed muffled to Buffy, as if she was inside a layer of bubble wrap. She had to keep reminding herself that there were reasons to do this, that there were people depending on her. Each time the futility of fighting yet another battle threatened to swamp her thoughts, she would turn to look at Dawn, or glance over her shoulder to where Giles watched at a railing. What she needed, a connection with the man to her left, wasn't available, not any longer. At some point, Angel put his hand on her shoulder, and she gave him a perfunctory smile. She loved Angel; she always would, but he seemed so much a part of her past just now.

Two groups away, Ivana was nervous, humming the first song she'd learned in English. After the second time through, Bethany smiled at her and began singing along. The other two slayers in their group knew it, too, and the song spread like a virus through the army, Xander taking up the words with a laugh, Oz shaking his head but singing, too. One of the Watchers, Angus McGann, took up the air with a grin and a robust Scottish baritone that surprised everyone. So it was that when the first vampires came into the building, the Slayer Army was singing the theme to "Gilligan's Island."

This time the demons were indeed better armed, but not more coordinated. Three slayers were injured in the first five minutes, falling back to the third floor where Andrew and two other Watchers bandaged their cuts. After that, the slayers began taking weapons away from demons that approached them, turning the blades on their former owners. There was a foot-high collection of swords, flails, and other weapons behind Buffy's group after the first half hour. Spike and Giles exchanged a grim look.

The battle was intense, with injuries in every group, even the General's. Spike took a mace on the shoulder rather than in the head, grimacing as he tore it out of the grip of the onrushing vampire. Miko sent a bolt zinging through it from the second floor.

Gunn similarly aimed his crossbow at a vampire who lunged at Tribby as she came back from the third floor. She saluted him with her right hand, three of her fingers taped together, their eyes meeting long enough for her to give him a grateful smile. He went down the staircase after her, figuring someone was needed on the bottom steps. Tribby was back with her group, he saw, a sharpened tonfa braced across her right forearm, a stake in her left hand, and he smiled to see her fight.

Buffy looked away when Spike sent her a sharp look, his brows drawn together, the third time he blocked a blow aimed at her head, but the stream of oncoming demons was thinning by then. Gunn, behind the teams at the doors, had held the staircase almost single-handedly, and only the rare flying or leaping demon had made it to the upper floors. Kept out of the rooms by Willow's 'X' spell, the demons were forced to fight instead of look for the energy source.

"Is that it?" Buffy said, sweeping her hair out of her eyes. They had fought for less than an hour, but there were no more demons coming through the doors.

"Odd," Spike said, frowning into the darkness past the doors.

"Despite our experience in Sunnydale," Oz mused, "perhaps there is a finite supply of demons."

"Has the energy dissipated?"

Angel answered Buffy's question, shaking his head. "I can still feel it."

Looking up at Giles on the second floor, she caught his eye, and he nodded. "Listen up, guys," she called. "It's not over. Stay in position, stay alert." In a lower voice, she called to Charles. "Gunn, would you mind coming here to help out for a minute?" When the tall human was standing with her team at the front door, she walked away, her eyes on the floor, trying to listen with senses other than her ears.

"Slayer?"

Spike beside her, looking concerned. "Not now."

"Not leavin' your side."

She nodded, but didn't look up. They walked past the atrium stairwell, into the relative shelter of the first floor hallway. "I had a Slayer dream a couple of nights ago, about Giles' energy source, I think." Not that a dream about a ship was helpful. This office building wasn't even near the lakeshore.

"Ah." Without another word, he began walking heel-to-toe, no sound coming from his worn boots, and he stopped breathing.

He always does that, she thought, gives me whatever I need, even silence. For the first time since she'd returned, the thought didn't ease the constant ache. What she really needed, she could no longer ask of him. Then she realized he wasn't at her side. It was enough to make her stop.

Spike was looking at a door, an unmarked metal door painted a buff color, no different than any of the other doors in the building, except it had not been 'x'ed with one of Willow's markers. Their eyes met, both puzzled. Surely they hadn't overlooked one.

The door opened at that moment, and four vampires burst out. Spike was closer, and Buffy watched, detached, as he twisted to the right, putting himself between her and the demons even as he dusted the first one. The second one, who looked like a former linebacker, hit the door running and didn't stop, simply plowed Spike down. She dodged the third vampire, then met the eyes of the last one, a female vamp. It smiled at her coldly and came forward.

It wasn't the mesmer or thrall; she knew what those felt like. This came from within. Disconnected from herself, from everything, Buffy let her arms remain at her side, didn't even tighten her hold on the stake in her hand, made the choice to do nothing. She watched the vampire take a dagger from a sheath at her side and aim it at her throat. Everything slowed down, and she knew this, too. It always felt like this when she died.

Behind her, she heard Spike grunt and two quick sighs as matter dissolved and air rushed in to fill the space where the two vampires had been. The vampiress took another step forward, drawing back her arm for a thrust. Buffy raised her chin slightly, and the smile on the demon's face deepened. She had a dimple, the Slayer saw, wondering if she had liked it back when she had a reflection.

With a furious roar from her own vampire's throat, time began moving normally again. Spike came over her shoulder, bringing his favorite big knife down directly through the forehead of the vampire. He jerked it free of the skull, flinging off the gory bits clinging to the blade, and took its head off with a backhanded sweep. Another roar, and he came around at her before the dust hit the floor, his eyes burning, the Gurkha blade aimed at her now, whooshing through the air. The blade stopped a bare inch from her unprotected neck.

Buffy never flinched.

Another sound from Spike, of rage and protest, and he flung open the unmarked door and pushed her inside. Her stake clattered on the floor of the hallway, and she looked down, not to locate it, but to get away from his glare.

"Fight," he snarled, pushing her again, dropping his own weapon so he could use both hands to do it. She went back four yards, stumbling a little, putting out a hand to steady herself. "Dammit, Slayer. Fight!" Up in her face, pushing her again. Buffy almost fell this time, stopping half-crouched along the wall.

Then he was lifting her, wrapping himself around her so that she was surrounded by leather and sinewy strength, his forehead against hers. "Come on, baby. Fight. You've got to fight." Buffy felt his tears on her face. "You have to, love."

"I don't want to anymore."

Spike lifted his face to the ceiling, breathing now, and put his chin on top of her head, holding her so tightly that she felt her ribs creak. "Please, Buffy," he begged, not wanting to see her eyes any longer, not wanting to see the plea there that he'd seen in two other Slayers' eyes.

"It never ends. There's no rest, nothing that doesn't–" She stopped. No use talking about it.

He held her for just a few seconds, too aware of time passing, of being in the midst of a battlefield. "Buffy." He made himself pull away enough to look at her. She wasn't there, though, gone from herself the way she had been so much during the first weeks after they brought her back. Spike shook her, hating that he was leaving bruises. "Buffy!"

Nothing.

He felt a cold touch of fear along his spine, thinking of the long hours after Glory took Dawn when the Slayer had been catatonic. He had hated that, had torn into her then, too, but it hadn't worked. Spike started to reach for Willow, then firmed his jaw.

"'M no Prince Charming, love, but I'll have to do." He lowered his mouth to hers gently, kissing her. Buffy didn't move. A painful memory of losing her attention as he made love to her body behind the Doublemeat one night in Sunnydale came to mind, and his own stirrings of desire vanished.

Anger again, because she'd brought it on herself, hadn't she? She bloody well knew how to keep the emptiness at bay. Spike stared down at her, small and pliant, hating her like this. "Goddammit, Slayer," he growled. "You don't want Prince Charming's kiss, do you? Never did. Think I can't give you what you want? This," he spat, letting out the demon inside, "this is what you want right now? Fine." He struck at her neck, his fangs sinking into the same place along her throat as his predecessors, giving her his demon's kiss.

"Nnnn…."

Spike didn't know what the sound meant; only that she had made it. It was something. He drew in a breath through his short muzzle, almost dizzy from the fact that he was doing this, then pulled her blood into his body. No tenderness, only love. His demon gave her what he could, taking what he hadn't wanted, not from her.

 _Slayer blood._

Buffy shoved him away, her eyes shocked, breathing hard. "Spike?" There was warning in her tone.

He forced down the demon and came at her again, this time covering the wound with his wet mouth, stopping the flow of blood, the metallic taste so different on his human tongue. Spike shook her again. "Whither thou goest," he growled. "And if I can't follow, you can't go. Won't let you."

"You bit me." She sounded shocked.

"Couldn't think of anything else, Slayer." He was close to losing control, not sure what he would do if he did. Pushing her back against the wall with his body, he ground against her, hard, insistent. "Buffy," he made himself say her name, felt better after he did. Give her control, he thought, seeing all of her in her wide hazel eyes again. Safer that way. "Want you. Ride me, love. Be your stallion. Mount up, let me bear you…" Spike found her lips again.

An invitation to life from a dead thing, and she found herself accepting with everything that was left inside her, her hands on his shoulders, pulling him closer. The taste of her own blood on his tongue as she plundered his mouth, the rivet of his jeans pocket against her inner thigh as she wrapped one leg around him, the sense of danger radiating from him… When had she started thinking he was safe? He might be her vampire, but he wasn't tame. And why, oh why, couldn't she have worn a skirt today?

Something intruded along with that thought, something from the hell of her reality that she didn't want to notice, but it wouldn't go away. "We can't?" she asked, wondering why she should think such a ridiculous thing. Even as she said it, her hands went under his coat, grabbing the firm muscle of his ass, pulling him closer.

"Only thing I can't do is be without you," he replied, his voice ragged. "Can't live without you, love. Need you," Spike said, between kisses, "love you, Buffy, love you so…"

The smell hit them at the same time, strong enough that Buffy almost gagged. They turned to their left, toward the hallway away from the door, to see a mass of slime coming at them faster than should be possible. Spike shoved Buffy once more, pushing her behind him, his skin crawling already, because he knew he'd have to touch it to kill –

Swift and true, a stake flew past him and directly into the slime demon, lodging in one of the darker spots in the semi-opaque mass. It began to quiver, and Spike stepped back, dipping his hands into the front pockets of his coat, no time to turn, spreading the black leather out like wings to ward the coming explosion off her. "Turn your head, love."

Instead of exploding, the demon liquefied, an inch-high tide of reeking stew moving toward them down the hallway. Spike backed up, the toes of his boots always in danger of being covered. They ended up crowded against the door, and the smell was finally too much for Buffy. She leaned over and retched. Spike held out his handkerchief, and she took it from his grasp. Another dry heave, her abdomen hitching once more, and she was done.

"Nice throw, kitten," he said, his eyes full of admiration and love.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered. He'd saved her again, and she hadn't wanted it this time, either. Buffy opened the door and rummaged in her jacket for her marker, drawing a big 'x' on the door.

Staring after her, Spike snatched up his big knife and followed. The sound of slayers and Watchers talking came to them again, and he looked carefully around before his gaze settled on her. "Love, we were just somewhere."

Somewhere that wasn't here, she realized. Even as she reached toward the door again, it faded into the wall. "Well," Buffy said, brushing her hair back, "at least we know we didn't miss marking a door."

"Energy's fading," he said, an inward expression on his face. Then he focused on her, waiting.

She said the only thing she could. "I'd better get back to Angel."

"Right." The line of his jaw tightened. "Better let me go first, then."

Buffy watched him stride away, back the way they had come just a few minutes ago. She closed her eyes. She was among the living again, not where she wanted to be. The pain was not distant now, not at all.

Spike found what he was searching for in his coat, one of Xander's from the feel, and he went directly to Angel. "Here," he said, holding out the stake.

Frowning, Angel took it. "Ugh. Nothing personal, Spike, but you reek."

He covered his grandsire's hand with his own and guided the stake to his breast. "At your pleasure, Liam." Spike lifted his chin.

Angel's brown eyes narrowed, lifting from the stake to Spike's averted gaze. "Where's Buffy?"

Watching from where she'd frozen beside the staircase, about to go report to Giles, Buffy started forward, feeling as though she was running through molasses.

"Incoming!" Rona cried.

"What?" Angel asked, incredulous. He'd seen Buffy, who was fine, and decided to ignore whatever melodrama the boy was brewing. "It can't be. The energy is gone."

Xander saw it first. "That's no horde," he said, peering into the darkness. The mass of demons moving across the parking lot in formation looked like soldiers. "Down! Everybody get down!"

Buffy figured it out an instant later, and those who didn't follow Xander's order followed hers. "On the floor!"

Bullets ripped through the windows even before the sound of gunfire came to them. Thick chunks of safety glass rained down on the slayers closest to the wide windows. The zing of crossbow bolts started again as the Watchers on the roof regrouped. On the floor, almost nose-to-nose, the two Aurelians nodded in agreement. The squad of demons outside would continue to advance, until they could aim down at the humans on the floor. They couldn't let that happen.

Angel and Spike each grabbed two weapons from the pile behind them. The dark-haired vampire went left on his elbows and knees until he was beside a shattered window. Then he stood, gathering shadow to himself, and went outside as fast as he had ability. He was across the empty space to the oncoming demons in less than two seconds, taking three bullets in the torso. His sword leapt out, piercing the big Fyarl on the far end of the line, even as he spun back to hack into the next demon with his axe.

On the other end, Spike did much the same, although he didn't bother with shadow. He'd snatched up a short sword and the mace that had got him in the shoulder earlier. A sneer curled his lip; there were no more than forty demons in this group, hardly anything after what they had stood against behind the Hyperion. Feeling as though he had all the time in the world, he sent his senses toward the darkness past them, disappointed that there were no more.

Behind them, Vi rolled over the floor until she was close to a broken window. She pulled her semi-automatic from her shoulder holster and peeked around the edge of the ruined frame. Then she quickly leaned out again and squeezed off three rounds. Two of the demons in the middle of the line dropped, impressive chunks of their middle sections destroyed by the explosive-tipped bullets that she, strictly speaking, shouldn't have in her possession.

Half a minute later, Spike and Angel met, touching blades, grinning at each other. Then Spike reached out a lazy hand and caught a bolt two inches from his grandsire's chest. "You can stop now, Finnigan," he called toward the roof, his tone more than a little sardonic. He turned back toward the building. "Nice shooting, Vi."

"Thanks! I took your advice about the bullets."

"That's it, kiddies. It's over." Spike grinned at Angel again. "Good fight, mate."

A smile crinkled the corners of the big vampire's eyes. "Now, that was fun," he said, quoting. The smile faded as he watched Spike's expression change, felt the guilt roll of him. That stake, he thought. "Will… what happened?"

Buffy hurried up to them at that moment. "A-are you two okay?"

"Angel got punctuated a few times," Spike said, deflecting her attention.

"So did you," he shot back, annoyed. "Anyway, they went through clean."

"And you have Fyarl mucus hardening on the sleeve of your leather jacket."

Angel looked down, dismayed, turning his arm this way and that to see. Then they were surrounded by nervous Watchers and excited slayers. Weapons were gathered up, orders were given, and in the confusion, Spike faded into the background.

"Spike? Where are you going?"

"Um, thought I'd try trackin' the army irregulars there," he said, jerking his chin toward the massed bodies of the armed demons, "see where they came from." Dawn had caught him when he was almost at the edge of the parking lot.

"Oh. It's worth a shot." She was frowning, though.

"I'll be careful, Bit."

"You better."

"Here, love," he said, spreading his arms.

Dawn gave him a lopsided smile as she went into his embrace. "I just worry. The demons are acting sneaky this time."

"'S'different, I'll give you that," he agreed, breathing in her scent, filling his lungs with the finest, purest part of his long existence. "Love you, Dawnie."

"I love you, too." She put a hand flat on his chest, covering a hole in his t-shirt. "How are the bullet wounds?"

"Healed." With Slayer blood in him, he wouldn't have been surprised if the bullets had bounced off. She was frowning again, so he made himself smile and tapped her nose with his finger. "I'm fine, love. Don't worry if I'm in a bit late. Need to touch base with Peaches sometime tonight."

⸹

"Okay," Vi said, folding her cell phone. "Joel says he can get us all in tomorrow morning, so anyone who wants to learn how to shoot can get at least a little practice in." She was flushed with pride and excitement, trying to hide it. Her sister slayers had looked up to her since the battle on the Sunnydale Hellmouth, but this was the first time she felt like she had earned it. They were gathered around her in the atrium at the foot of the stairs.

"I'll come," Ivana said, and a dozen other slayers joined the chorus.

One of them made Vi's brows draw together. "You, Tribby?"

"Sure. Just another tool in the toolbox," she said good-naturedly.

"And you'll come with me to Sprouts for dinner tonight?" Vi asked, pressing her advantage.

"Uh, no. Tonight, I'm in the mood for a big, thick, raw hunk of US Grade A Prime," Tribby replied. "Oh, look, there's Gunn." And with a smirk, she strolled away.

Kayla squealed, delighted. "Thank God, someone's gonna get laid. There's hope for us yet."

⸹

"A-and then the door just vanished," Buffy said, looking down at her hands.

Frustrated, Giles made himself take a deep breath. "No, that's good. It's the closest we've gotten, I think." He couldn't erase the worry from his face, though. Tonight's battle had been more than upsetting. Someone had held demons in reserve, had been powerful enough to hold forty demons away from the energy source. And that someone was most definitely targeting slayers. "Each time, we learn a little more, but it's just taking too long for my comfort."

They were sitting in the little security office of the building, copying the surveillance videos. Buffy scooted her chair closer and put a hand on his knee. "We'll find it, Giles." Her voice was tired. "We always do."

"And the only thing that drew you to that door was the fact that it wasn't marked with an 'x?' he asked again. "There was nothing else, no sixth sense, no clue from your dream?"

"Nothing."

He bit his lip, looking down. "Well, that's still something." He looked up again. "And there were demons already there, on the inside?"

Buffy's voice was colorless. "Four vampires came through the door. Then, inside, there was that stinky slime thing."

"Curious." He pushed across the floor plans for the building. "And a hallway?"

She nodded, pointing to the approximate location. Where she and Spike had seen a long hallway, the blueprint showed an outer wall. "It bent, you know, went around a corner. We… We didn't get that far."

Giles rolled the blueprint back into a cylinder. "My dear, your mission for these battles just changed."

She shook her head. The only thing that had kept her going most of the afternoon was the need to protect her army. "Not until the battle starts dying down. I can't leave them alone like that."

He hesitated, giving her a look. "Buffy, you take the most dangerous assignment, but there are others who are capable."

Buffy was already shaking her head. "No. I can look afterwards, while we clear the building, or wherever the next one is."

"What if I call in Faith?" He wasn't giving up.

"No. She's…" Buffy hesitated, not wanting to question Faith's ability openly.

"Would you trust Spike alone?"

Her face paled. Giles couldn't take that from her. The only place she could claim him at all was by her side in battle. "No, Giles. It isn't open for discussion."

He sighed. "Buffy, we may have this conversation again. It isn't the battles that are important; it's the source of the energy."

"I know, Giles. But the energy hasn't tried to kill any of my army."

⸹

Buffy was quiet during the ride home. She had been counting on Gunn's presence, but he surprised her by going home with Tribby. She hadn't known there was anything going on between them. Angel was quiet, too, and she was grateful for it.

He hardly said anything until she had her jacket and shoes off, in fact, then stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Any idea why Spike gave me this?" he asked neutrally, holding out a stake.

She closed her eyes, willing herself to not cry. Without saying a word, she turned her head, let him see the fresh wound on her neck.

"Oh." His voice was like ashes.

"I stopped fighting."

"You… stopped fighting it." His fingers clenched on her arm a moment, then he let go of her. "I know there's a… a strong attraction between–"

"No," she protested, looking up to meet his eyes. How could he misunderstand? "I… just stopped fighting. Period."

The pain in his eyes drained away, leaving a wary expression. "You… Why?"

She felt her chin tighten, her lip tremble. God, she hated to cry. Once she had been like Spike; tears were just a part of strong emotion. Now they were no use to her, were just another sign of where she wasn't. "Because," she started, then had to take a breath, "because maybe if I die, I can go back." Another breath. "At least it will be over."

"Buffy…" His hands were light, hesitant on her shoulders. "Is your life so bad?"

Her eyes widened, but the tears came anyway as she reached for him. "No. Oh, no, Angel, it isn't. I love you. This is what I always dreamed," her words were muffled now as she pressed her face against his shirt, "what I never really dared believe. But you don't know…."

"You were in heaven," he said softly. He had been in hell, and there wasn't a lot he wouldn't do to stay out of it. He could sort of understand.

"And now I'm not. This," she gestured around the apartment with one hand, "this would have been heaven, if I just didn't… if I didn't have the memory of…" She couldn't manage any more, just put her nose into his chest, burrowing against him.

Angel picked her up – she was so tiny; he hardly noticed that anymore – and carried her to the couch, cradling her in his lap. He thought of the miscarriage, of the pain of being banished from heaven that she bore everyday. After her sobs died away, he stroked her hair until she was able to take a ragged breath and look at him. "And this?" he asked, touching the mark on her neck. How odd that it was unfamiliar to him, but, then, Spike wasn't one for siring.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, her wet lashes hiding her eyes. "I-it's like I suddenly woke up, and he was…" No, don't remember that. "I-I think it was like a slap in the face."

"A slap."

She tried. "I… I remember him shaking me, before." Buffy looked down again. "That's all." Making herself meet his gaze, she asked in a voice full of dread, "So, what does this mean? Vampire procedures, or whatever?"

Angel shook his head, stroking her neck again. "It doesn't mean anything. He's already claimed you."

"So you two won't have to fight?"

"No." Spike had already claimed him, too. "In fact…" Angel picked up the stake once again and crushed it into pulp in his strong hand. "He sort of already apologized."

"I saw." A faint smile came to her face. "He can be such a drama queen, can't he?" His expression matched hers, and she sat up impulsively to kiss him. As it always did with them, what began as a casual gesture transformed into something passionate. Buffy pulled away after a moment. "Take me to bed?" she asked, almost formal.

Angel studied her, knowing that she was reaffirming their bond, rejecting the claim of the bite, but not sure if she realized it. She amazed him; her love for him amazed him. "I can do that." He stood up and carried her into their bedroom. And if his brown eyes were a little darker than normal, she wouldn't notice. Hers were closed.

⸹

Angel stayed with Buffy until he could wake her from the nightmare. He was wrong; instead of the one where she was turned, it was the one where she had to claw her way from her grave. It was a long time before she got back to sleep, but he didn't care. Then, still in no hurry, he put on his trousers and went out to the roof to where the Master of his Order waited.

Spike's nostrils flared and his mouth tightened, but he showed no other reaction, staying still before Angel's perusal. His impatience was still in working order, though. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Are you gonna stake me?"

"I'm not going to stake you, Will." Angel's voice was tired. "Tell me what happened."

Spike sighed and sat down cross-legged, his coat gapping out. He told the story, leaving out almost nothing.

Angel smiled a little at the graphic North London description of the disintegrating slime demon, then he sighed, too. "She said it was like a slap in the face."

"Couldn't think of what else to do."

"You never were the best thinker." The sarcasm was evident, but he sat down, too.

Spike took it, figuring he deserved anything his grandsire wanted to dish out. He sighed. "She may be fine for months after this. I dunno; certainly didn't see this coming. Maybe I should have, after…" He didn't have to mention the afternoon at the hospital.

"You two haven't been close lately."

"Can't be." He closed his eyes for a second. She'd slept with a vampire other than him tonight. "That's where you come in, mate. Watch her a little more closely, be ready to step in, just in case."

"She seemed okay. I mean, I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary."

"She's as changeable as the ocean. If the Slayer doesn't want you to notice something, you most likely won't." His voice was soft.

"Spike…" The words were hard to get out. "I haven't been human for twelve score and more years. That probably has something to do with it, but… This really doesn't bother me." He grimaced. "Well, if it were anyone else, it would. But… If the two of you…" They were hurting, and he hated it. He loved them both, after all. Buffy couldn't forget either the perfect memories of heaven or the one escape she had found. And Spike, with his obdurate honor, could not provide that escape.

Angel tried again. "If you must, let it be in my bed." Open, not cheating, everyone would be loved, and no one would be hurt.

The boy stared at him, brows drawn together, for a long moment. "Family bed?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.

Angel nodded. "Family bed."

"Can't do that." He looked away. "I mean… thank you, but… I can't."

The big vampire nodded again. "I figured that's what you would say. I just wanted you to know my terms."

Spike turned back to him, fear in his eyes. "Has she asked…?"

"No."

The blond man let out a breath, then closed his eyes. "She can't live like us."

"We would have to be incredibly discreet," Angel agreed, "or just leave Cleveland after these battles are over." He shrugged. "I think it would work." He gave Spike a lazy smile when the boy finally looked at him. "The two of us could keep her happy."

Spike shook his head, keeping a firm grip on his surging, possessive demon. _The one of me can keep her happy._

Angel shrugged and stood up. "If it's okay with you, Master," he drawled, "I think I'll go on back to bed. To Buffy." He smiled when he saw the blue eyes flash yellow. "Think about it." He reached down to brush his fingers across one lean cheek, a caress before leaving. Just as he was about to drop over the edge of the building to the fire escape, he looked over his shoulder to where Spike still sat motionless. "I'll ask again."

Spike sat atop the building for a long time, mulling the fact that Angel could be just as seductive, as manipulative as Angelus ever was. The offer appealed to his demon nature; they both belonged to him, so why should he deny himself the pleasure of their company?

He knew what happened in that bed every night, even if he didn't mope around the way he had outside Buffy's window in Sunnydale. But the thought of seeing it… His vampire features came to the fore, and his hands clenched. He wasn't Angel; he couldn't watch someone else touch Buffy and feel anything other than fury.

But if it had been Buffy asking….

The demon's face faded into tired human features. Whatever she wanted, no matter the cost to himself. He wasn't strong where she was concerned.

⸹

"So, there I was, hiking up four flights of stairs," Gunn said, looking over at Spike, who was driving him to the airport, "and I know I've got a sure thing. She's got her hair down, you know, like it was in Boulder, and I'm thinking about those chaps, wondering if maybe she'd like to wear those for a while."

"Uh-huh." Spike tried to sound amused.

"So, as soon as I get in the door, I turn to her… and get charley horses in both legs."

Spike glanced at him, his eyebrows going up. "Never say it!" Then he chuckled. "'Charlie' horses."

"Oh, yeah. So, I'm in her apartment, groaning, and she got those strong little hands on my thighs, and it isn't anything like I might have fantasized about."

"Bad luck, mate."

"Oh, it gets worse. You know, I would have been better off in Boulder, because at least the demon in that threesome wasn't Clem."

"Clem was there?"

"Yes, Clem was there, and Tribby's working out the knots in one leg and Clem is working on the other." Gunn shook his head at the memory. "Then Tribby feeds me a banana – apparently potassium is good for muscle cramps – and lectures me on eating better."

"Sounds like she was frustrated."

"Yeah, well," Gunn said dismissively. "She wasn't the only one."

"Charlie, if you can't get laid by a slayer after a battle…" His voice trailed off.

"I don't think it was meant to be," Gunn agreed glumly. "I mean, I love it when we're in a fight together, or dancing, or anything physical, but I don't know if we have that much in common."

"Is she in your can column or not, Charlie?"

"Man, I don't know." His voice was soft. "Listen, will you be mad if she's a can't?"

"No." He quirked a brow. "Why would I be?"

"She's one of your slayers."

"Yeah, but you're my friend." He shrugged; his slayers were special to him, no use denying it. Since they were his, he didn't have any problem if their sexual favors were theoretically reserved for him – not that he would admit this to Gunn. It was a vampire thing.

"Glad to hear it." He gave Spike an easy smile, then something occurred to him. "Do vampires get charley horses?"

If he wasn't driving, Spike would have closed his eyes to better picture a mischievous Tara advising him on muscles cramps. "Not in the classic sense, no."

⸹

Lunchtime at Watcher Central was a boisterous affair after target practice. All of the injured slayers had healed, and more than half of the Cleveland contingent was in Giles' kitchen eating the cheap staples always kept in stock, peanut butter and hot dogs and Ramen noodles.

"I think you're going to be a regular Annie Oakley, Ivana," Vi assured her.

"This is a good thing?" she asked anxiously.

"Very good. Annie was a world-famous shooter – well, not quite world-famous, I guess."

"I thought I did really well this morning at the firing range, considering I've never even held a gun before," Vashti said, licking a smear of peanut butter off her thumb.

"I did well, considering I've never seen a gun before," Nguise put in.

"Well, we're slayers," Vi said. "Of course we did good. Hey, Buffy. Want some noodles?"

Buffy closed the kitchen door behind her. "No, thanks. I ate." Dawn came around the table and put an arm around her sister's waist.

"Some of us have held a gun before," Rona said, swatting Tribby's shoulder, adding reprovingly, "Miss Ringer, here."

"Texan," she drawled, as if that explained everything.

"Sublimation," Dawn said dryly.

"You guys hexed me," the Southern slayer complained, "with that choreographed finger waggle." Vi, Rona, Kayla, and Dawn promptly put out their hands and made the hang-loose sign again, giggling.

"Gunn got charley horses walking up to her apartment," Dawn quickly explained to her sister.

"Well, what else would he get? George horses?" Buffy asked, making Dawn groan at the word play.

"Gunn told me the shooting last night was like being in South Central again," Maria said. She was from the Echo Park area of Los Angeles herself.

Bethany shook her head and swallowed a mouthful of noodles. "That was scary."

"Yeah," Natalie agreed. "I'd rather face ten vampires in a dark alley any night."

"We can face anything," Vi reassured her.

"Hey, girlfriend," Andrew said, coming through the door and seeing Buffy.

"Hey, Andrew," she said, kissing his cheek. "I heard good things about your work last night."

"Being on hospital duty made me think of Anya," he said with surprising sentimentality.

Buffy nodded her agreement, but changed the topic. "Where's Giles and everyone?"

"Mr. Giles is in his office," Andrew reported, "and he told Aubrey not to come in today. Spike is taking Gunn to the airport – isn't that sweet of him? Caro and Alan and Alpana are at the gym, restocking the armory." He shrugged. "Some of the other Watchers are working with Vi's police officer to trace the serial numbers on the guns."

"Anything?"

"Not that I've heard. I'll bet they were stolen."

"I'll bet you're right," Buffy agreed. "Excuse me." She slipped away from Dawn. With Andrew in the kitchen, Giles in his office, and everyone accounted for, her chances weren't going to get any better.

Spike, for all that he'd complained about people intruding, rarely locked his door. Buffy was counting on it being open, and it was. She locked the door behind her and went carefully down the steps, not wanting to make any noise that might alert someone upstairs. Pausing on the second-to-last tread, she surveyed his bed, the dark gray comforter Dawn had picked out, the rugs beneath that she had chosen herself. Taking a steadying breath, she went the rest of the way down and sat on the mattress.

Someone's been sleeping in my bed, she thought disjointedly, running a hand over the rumpled sheets to one long, shining strand of hair that stood out against the darkness. Dawn's, Buffy saw, and it made her smile. Tilting her head sideways, she read the spines of the books on his shelf, volumes of poetry mostly, Blake and Shelley and Dylan Thomas and Bennett and Browning and, of course, Shakespeare. No Dickinson, or even Emily Dickens. Buffy had read some of Emily Dickinson's poems since, and one verse stood out: 'I would not stop for death/So death kindly stopped for me.'

He had stopped for her, had done everything for her, sometimes kindly, sometimes not so much. Spike wasn't death, of course, for all that he could deal it, for all that he was, technically, not living. He was the most vibrant person she had ever met, refusing to give up life the same way he refused to give up food or music or breathing or love.

But if he was death… Death was her gift.

During the night, her sleep was silent, but since she had woken up this morning, she kept hearing his invitation, the deep voice raw and sensual. _Ride me. Mount up._ Buffy closed her eyes. No use denying it. She was here to RSVP in person.

As soon as Angel settled down for his customary nap during the sun's highest hours, she was out of the apartment and on her way to Watcher Central, stubbornly not thinking of the fact that she was leaving one man's bed for another's. It wasn't like that. It was… not like that.

I need this, Buffy thought. It's therapy. He owes me for bringing me back yet again. I deserve this much of heaven.

None of it was true.

The truth was, she was here because this was where she belonged.

The Slayer kicked her shoes off and tucked herself under the comforter. This bed was new and bouncy, and she thought longingly of the saggy mattress she had destroyed in his crypt. The springs were shot, and as the night wore on, their weight would cause a dip. They always woke up mashed comfortably together, or she would be sprawled atop his body. And it would be nice for thirty seconds or two minutes or however long it took before she remembered that she mustn't be happy to be in bed with the evil undead.

Buffy closed her eyes, pushing away those memories. Her plan today was to be naked when he came downstairs, to forestall any arguments or common sense with her welcoming body. After that… She'd worry about the aftermath later. Since she was so good at not thinking about things, surely she could not think of Angel for a while.

She would think of Spike, think of another night he had almost saved her with nothing more than the dark velvet of his voice, an ocean away. Buffy had put off the Immortal twice after that when he had called her, but then he had shown up in person at her door– No. Not going to think of that, either. If she had her demons, she had favorites among them, and she was going to think of Spike now.

 _Ride me, love._

Wherever they had been yesterday, even if Giles' mystical energy source had been right around the corner, the only thing she could bring herself to care about was the fact that they had a vertical surface. They did vertical so well, walls indoors and out, doorways, elevators. Spike had a British term for it, knee-trembler, but of course she was the Slayer and he was her vampire and neither had knees that would ever tremble. She put her left hand on her chest, splaying her fingers as she always did now, because that was his hand, holding her in place, feeling her heart speed up. Her other hand was a poor substitute for his as she touched herself, arching from his sheets, her face turned against his pillow to catch the Bay Rum scent of him.

Spike, his pale body against sheets and rugs and bark and grass and stone slabs and brick. Her vampire in leather, in handcuffs, in blindfolds, in nothing at all. Spike below her, behind her, beside her, at her feet, and, in the end, always atop her because he simply had more stamina for some things. On that thought, she bit down, catching his pillowcase between her teeth to smother her cry.

His face came to mind, a thousand expressions, the way he had looked up at her from the foot of her mother's staircase, the arrogant satisfaction when Riley caught them together, his shy, almost sheepish expression whenever Joyce was kind to him, the intensity of his stunned gaze the night she had taken him into herself, the wariness on his face when Tara had teased him at her birthday party –

His face at her birthday party.

No.

Oh, God.

She wanted to push that memory away, didn't. Wouldn't. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. She would never forget.

Buffy sat up, her teeth clenched, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she was in pain. She had to get away from here. Snatching up her shoes, she put them on as she went up the steps, hesitating only for a moment to make sure no one was standing directly outside his door. The Slayer fled the house, unseen, for the safety of the Cleveland streets.

⸹

"Spike?" Rupert stopped by the kitchen door, his tea held mid-sip.

"Hey, Rupes."

"Just back from the airport?"

"Yeah." He nodded toward the basement. "Thought I'd toddle off to bed for a while."

"Do you mind telling me about the unmarked door yesterday? I've already talked to Buffy, but I want to hear your version, too."

"Yeah, all right."

"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming. Want some tea?"

"Yeah, I could have some."

"Well, there's the kettle. I'll wait for you in my office."

Snorting a little, Spike put the still-warm kettle on a burner and brewed some tea. He wanted it more for the comfort of the ritual and the homey odor than any other reason. Blood, he didn't want at all. Right now, he felt as though he'd never have to feed again.

When he'd drained the Chinese Slayer all those years ago, the power of her blood had buzzed through him almost exactly like a swarm of bees, loud and frenetic. He'd stayed in the temple where they'd fought, too wired to know which way to go, what to do next. Then Drusilla had shown up, and his body had figured out the rest. This time, he simply felt, as the saying went, ten feet tall and bulletproof, the way being in sync with Buffy always made him feel. This second taste of taken Slayer blood had a more subtle effect. He felt… more himself than usual. He felt… more.

The water was done. Spike carried his tea to Giles' office, giving a perfunctory knock on the door.

"Come." Giles looked up, then folded a continuous-feed printout with an almost furtive movement. "Have a seat." Once Spike was settled, he leaned forward. "So, tell me about yesterday."

Spike shook his head. "Have to say, Rupes, didn't see it coming. That's what makes me nervous."

"I feel the same way. When something like that is practically under your nose, and you don't see it… Makes me wonder what else we've missed."

"I can't believe I missed it."

Giles frowned. "You're only human – so to speak. You mustn't let it bother you."

Spike looked up, thunderstruck, as understanding dawned. "What, exactly, did the Slayer tell you?"

"That you found an unmarked door," Giles said slowly, "and four vampires came out of it. Then, when you went inside, there was a slime demon. She killed it, but the smell made her throw up. She sealed the door with one of Willow's markers, then it disappeared."

"Oh, so she neglected to mention the fact that she just stood there and almost let one of the vampires cut her throat?"

Giles sat back in his chair. "No." He shook his head in negation. "No, she didn't mention that." Spike's eyes were shut, and the Watcher examined him. "Tell me."

He shook his head. "Bad as I've ever seen, Rupert. That's why we even bothered going in the room. I shoved her in there to give her a good talking-to in private. Otherwise, we probably would have just marked the door and went on, figured it was one we somehow missed."

"How bad?" She didn't talk to him anymore, but he knew that she struggled every day with the memories of heaven.

"Dunno how much you remember after Glory destroyed the Knights, you being injured an' all, but losin' Dawn shut Buffy down. Catatonia, Red called it. This was a close cousin to that." Spike leaned forward and put his head in his hands, not wanting to see the Watcher's face. "I shook her, I kissed her – didn't bring her out of it. Didn't know what else to do, Rupes. I bit her."

"You–"

"Worked, dinnit?" Spike asked, miserable. "Never wanted that, haven't for so long, since before the soul, even. Didn't take much; don't want her weak."

"What did she do?" he asked, ice in his voice.

"Snapped out of it, shoved me away." Spike sat back up and gave a short, humorless laugh.

"You bit her… Did she lash out at you?" The Watcher held his breath

"No. Won't bore you with… details. The slime demon showed up right after that."

Giles processed this for a while. "And Angel?"

The blond man shrugged. "They're both mine. I have the right to do what I want with either of them." He looked away. "Gave him a stake anyway, but he wouldn't use it. Better if he had."

Too wise to say anything, Giles simply lifted his eyebrows and waited.

"Can't bear to see her like this. Whatever she needs from me, Rupert, and we both know how that will end. And then I'll be no better than Angelus."

"You'll remember I had my doubts as to whether her relationship with Angel would be a lasting one." Giles looked at his hands. "I expect her to break off with him before long."

"She won't."

Giles didn't argue. "Tell me about the hallway, Spike."

Accepting the change in topic, he went through the whole thing again, this time focusing on whatever details might be pertinent to the energy source. Giles examined him clinically. Spike looked as healthy and fit as he had ever known him to be, but the separation Buffy had imposed on them showed in the tension around his eyes, could be heard in his voice. Neither of them could stand it much longer, and he could only hope the inevitable reconciliation wouldn't be too traumatic.

When Spike left his office soon afterwards, Giles once more opened the printout Willow had brought to him. He was more inclined than ever to believe what she suspected was true, especially in light of what Spike had revealed without realizing it. It was a horrible, blasphemous conclusion, but there was a ray of hope in it for Buffy, at least, and perhaps for Spike, too. He'd tell her tomorrow. Giles grimaced; there would be no free time for him, not after a battle. He checked his schedule, spat out a 'bollocks!' and penciled in a meeting on Tuesday.

⸹

"Is that my favorite vampire under there?" Dawn asked sardonically, lifting one of her pillows from Spike's face. He didn't answer, just opened his arms. She shoved a few more pillows off him and kicked out of her shoes before settling next to him on her bed.

"How was class?"

"Pop quiz in sociology, and on a Friday?! That T.A. is a real piece of work. Painting was okay, though."

"Your chickenshit boyfriend there?"

"Language. Yes, Mitch," she stressed his name, "was there. You won't be able to say that after tonight. You get to meet him. He's taking me to another exhibit, and he's coming here to pick me up."

Spike opened one eye. "You're going to chain me in a cage with a Hannibal Lecter mask, then?"

"Couldn't get one in time. You're going to be civil, spend no more than three minutes talking to him, no threats and no crushing his fingers if you shake hands."

"That about covers it."

"And you don't get to do anything mean, just because I didn't specifically tell you not to."

He closed the eye and said in a too-neutral voice, "I'll be right friendly."

"If you come on to him, I swear I'll give Andrew the key to your basement."

"Ruin all my fun, Nibblet."

"Please, Spike? Can you at least pretend we're a normal family, just this once?"

"Sure. Just a girl and the vampire who sleeps with her." He raised an elegant brow without opening his eyes.

"Keep that up with that attitude, mister, and the sleeping arrangements will change so fast your head will spin."

He scoffed. "Not much of a threat, Bit. You're gettin' soft."

"Please?"

Spike groaned. "Yes, bloody hell, I'll be nice."

"Language. What are you doing in my room, anyway?"

"Wanted to be alone."

"'I bloody well need billiards and darts to get anyone to come see me in this soddin' basement,'" she mimicked.

"Language again, and in a really bad accent."

"I do a pretty good British accent," she protested.

"Yeah? Not mine. Eliza Dolittle's, maybe."

"Yeah, you're right. Definitely gave bad Spike this time." She was quiet for a while. "No one had a busy patrol last night."

"I didn't see much. Couldn't track the demon stormtroopers past the end of the street, either."

"Now, that was bizarre. Demons with guns."

"I've owned guns, Bit. Just another weapon."

"I saw Vi downstairs, and she said that all the guns were stolen, so no luck there." She stared at his chin, not really focused on him. "Spike, Clem is about the most civilized demon I've ever met and he says it's really hard for him to not go running to the energy like a dog coming to a whistle. So, how did somebody hold back all those demons?"

"Sorcerer or witch, had to be," Spike said. "Stasis field, I reckon. Few Fyarl demons in that group, and they're pathetically grateful to have someone give them orders, but I can't feature controlling them against the pull of this energy."

"The First Evil?" Spike did open his eyes to look at her this time, and she shrugged. "Gunning for slayers, after all."

"Can't rule it out, but…" he grimaced at a memory, "doesn't feel right, somehow. Not saying I know how it thinks, or anything."

"But you got to know it pretty well."

"Yeah." His voice was dark, and Dawn's hand crept into his, squeezing his fingers. They were quiet for a few moments. "Listen, love, something I wanted to tell you."

"I knew you were here for a reason."

"Big sis had a bad patch yesterday, after the first part of the battle."

"Bad?"

"Missing heaven."

"Oh," Dawn sighed. "What happened?"

"Haven't seen her that low since Glory snatched you." He was silent for a few seconds. "Had to bite her to pull her out of it." As Dawn absorbed this, he relaxed. She would get it, all of it, know how serious it must have been, and he wouldn't have to use a thousand useless words explaining the obvious.

"I have to say, I'm surprised. She seemed okay all week."

"To me, too. So, watch out for her. I'm tellin' everybody." She would know who was included in 'everybody.'

⸹

"Hello?"

"Hi, Angel. I'm not waking you?"

"No." She had, actually, but she didn't have to know that. He moved the cell phone to his other ear. "What's up, Buffy?"

"I wondered if you'd mind coming to the gym?"

He grinned. "No. I wouldn't mind at all."

"Not like that," Buffy said, humor lurking in her voice. "I've been helping a couple of Watchers restock the armory, make an inventory of the weapons we took." She had also showered and changed, again hiding her clothes in someone else's locker until she could get them washed. "I just hoped we might do Tai Chi, you know, the way we did in Sunnydale."

Angel sat up straighter. "That's an excellent idea, Buffy. Let me get dressed, and I'll be right there."

"Didn't wake you, huh?" she teased, marveling at how normal she sounded.

"Well, maybe a little."

⸹

That's odd, Spike thought, as he stood outside the door to his basement. He didn't remember locking it. Despite everything, he and Dawn had napped for a couple of hours, then she'd kicked him out so she could start to get ready for her date. Snatching his coat from the nearby tree, he dug his keys from a pocket and opened it.

He was three steps from the bottom before some leading edge of scent made him breathe in deeply, and he froze, his head pivoting to his bed. "Buffy?"

She wasn't there, but she had been, had been in his bed, had….

Standing on the steps, hardly aware of his body's willful reaction, of his labored breathing, Spike tried to make sense of what she had done, why she would have done it. Then he thought of Angel's invitation last night.

No.

Please, no. Not her, too.

In a blur of black and platinum, he was up the steps and out the door, headed for his truck because he couldn't run during daylight, even if he really, really needed to.

⸹

"I think that's your cell," Mitch said.

"No," Dawn frowned, opening her purse, "that's not…" But it was. Spike had gotten hold of her phone and personalized the ringtone for his number to be a snatch of Korn's 'Freak on a Leash.' She answered the call. "Well? Where were you?"

"Sorry, Dawnie."

The irritation faded from her tone. "Spike, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Sorry I couldn't be there, is all."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing, really. No Big Bad or anything."

"Is it Buffy? Is everything okay?"

She heard him sigh before replying. "Everything's fine, Bit. Something personal. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Spike, did–" He had already hung up. Dawn sighed and folded her phone with a snap.

"Is everything okay?" Mitch asked, polite but giving her a concerned look.

Dawn forced a smile. "Fine. Spike was just calling to apologize that he missed you."

"You asked about Buffy. I thought you said he and your sister had broken up."

She shook her head as she put away the phone. "Those two will never be done with each other." She waved an impatient hand. "Whatever the drama was, I'll hear about it later. Let's check out the landscapes."

⸹

Darkness had fallen some time ago, and he'd ditched his truck. Spike wasn't scheduled for patrol, but it was a good excuse to kill things, so he did, roaming the blighted area near the Hellmouth. His first instinct, when he left Watcher Central, was to go to the gym, but he sensed Buffy and Angel inside, so he had driven until the sun set.

His mind was as restless as his body, turning from one memory to another, one bloody thought to another, the same way his boots turned onto new streets. _You made me a monster._ _If you must, let it be in my bed._ _What you call love, I'll never understand._ The look in Dru's eyes as she beckoned to him, her body curved against Angelus' chest. The way Buffy would look in the same pose, what he might see in her eyes.

She had said that she loved him once, her eyes clear and shining.

Not that love was ever, ever enough.

He walked on, detouring from the street into a graveyard, rousting three young vampires from a mausoleum, destroying them with his bare hands.

Buffy also once told him that it would never be him, that he was beneath her. And then he had been beneath her, above her, every possible orientation, and he had a soul while they did it, just as good as hers. He wasn't beneath her, or anyone.

But maybe he wasn't enough.

Maybe he wasn't good enough.

Maybe he wasn't man enough.

Maybe he was good for nothing more than fucking, fighting, and feeding. Demon things.

 _The two of us could keep her happy._

His mind tossed out dozens of memories in protest, the two of them lost in passion, Buffy spending in his arms time and time again. He damn well could keep her happy by himself. But that was just physical. Maybe she needed more than he could provide outside of the bedroom.

He closed his eyes for a second, then made a left turn, darting across a wide avenue almost free of cars now, the hour grown late. The thought that she needed more ached, because all he needed was her. All he wanted was her.

A soddin' timeshare wasn't good enough.

How could it be good enough for her? He knew her, through and through. She shone with the good, standing so tall as she scraped five-two, strong and proud with it. If one souled monster wasn't enough, how could two be better?

Is that why she had been in his bed? To issue an invitation, give him the scent of what he was missing?

And if that wasn't it, why had she come to him? Why hadn't she stayed?

He knew he could manage having Angel watch him be intimate with Buffy, since it had already happened in L.A. He could even survive the oddness of Buffy seeing him in bed with Angel. But there was no way around his violent reaction to the thought of watching Angel touch his Slayer.

Suddenly tired to his very bones, Spike looked around. He'd wandered back into a nicer part of town, and there was a bank nearby with a digital marquee. It was 3:52, and he couldn't go home, not to his bed. He couldn't go to any of the Scoobies, because he would never be able to bring himself to tell them why he was there. There was no safe haven for him in this town, and hell if he remembered where he'd left his truck.

Then a thought occurred to him. He hesitated for a moment, then began walking with purpose before he could talk himself out of it. If he could just get a few hours of sleep, his head would be clearer. Maybe there was something he was overlooking, his roiled thoughts getting in the way, not letting him see. Taking a breath, he knocked on the door.

Stupid, he thought. Four in the morning. Then the door opened. "Uh, hi."

"Thought it felt like you, sir," Tribby said, a tired smile on her face. "Come on in." She hadn't been asleep, and there was some sort of small specialty knife in her hand. "I can't believe no one called to let me know you were coming up."

"Clem around?"

"He left last night, had a ride with somebody."

"Oh. Well, actually, wondered if I could crash here, get away from the mornin' light?" He looked away.

"Sure." There was surprise in her voice, and he could feel her studying him, but she had never asked too many questions before and tonight was no different. "I haven't changed the sheets yet, but the bed's free. I think I've got another set, but they don't match –"

"Don't worry. Bed's good enough, pet," he said, relieved. Any other bed than his own sounded fine. "Been out on patrol?"

"No." She wrinkled her nose. "Working on a piece for my exhibit."

"Right." He gestured toward the hallway. "I'll be off to bed, then."

"You need a wakeup call, sir?"

What an absurdly normal question. Spike closed his eyes and swayed a little. "No. Thanks, pet."

⸹

"Who is it?" Dawn asked in response to the knock on her door, her eyes and nose visible over a pillow she had clutched to her chest.

"Me," Kayla said, cheerful as always. Still in her pajamas, she plopped down next to Dawn. "I heard Mitch leave last night at one o'clock." Dawn grinned, her lower face still hidden. "So…?"

"He's a pretty good kisser," Dawn allowed.

"And?"

"Are you kidding? Spike's going to kill me as it is for having a boy in my bedroom."

"Other than him?" Kayla raised an eyebrow.

"You know what I mean."

"How's he going to know, anyway? He was out last night. I certainly won't tell."

"Hello, vampire? Scent, o mighty vampire slayer."

"Oh." Kayla rolled her eyes at her moment of dimness. "Duh. So, anyway, do you two have plans for next weekend?"

"No, he's going back to his hometown to see his little brother play football."

"Oh lord, Ohioans and their football." Kayla rolled her eyes again.

"But I'll see him in class on Monday."

"So, you think he's the one?"

Dawn couldn't keep a grin off her face. "I don't know. He's nice." She shrugged. "It's too soon." She was awake enough now that she really had to go pee, so she swung her legs around Kayla and off the bed. "What about you? Find anyone yet?"

Kayla looked wistful. "No. The only man who seems interested in me at all is the fifty-year-old professor who teaches a class right after Educational Theory. He waits at the door and always catches me before I can escape."

"Eww."

"I don't know," Kayla shrugged. "He's starting to look pretty good."

⸹

Spike woke with a start, looking around the bare white walls in confusion and, for a mercifully brief moment courtesy of the Initiative, fear. He breathed in, immediately placing his surroundings by Clem's scent and a lingering bit of Ute's. It was, he was shocked to realize, four in the afternoon. Running a hand through his hair, he left the bedroom and went to the kitchen, where he sensed Tribby.

"Hey, Spike." She was sitting at the table, carefully pressing down on a colorful piece of tile with a different knife, her hair piled on top of her head in a sloppy bun and wide, clear safety goggles over her eyes. "You must have been pretty tired."

"What are you doing? Refinishing the bathroom?"

She didn't look up. "Working on the same mosaic I was working on last night," she mumbled, "and the night before, ad nauseum." With a final push, she cut through the tile. "There." She held up the piece and examined it critically. "Close enough."

"I thought you were a photographer," he said, surprised.

She shook her head. "Nope. I mean, I can take pictures, compose shots, but I just dabble."

"Have you been to bed?"

"I napped for a while." With that, she yawned. "As a matter of fact, I was getting ready to catch a few z's before we go out on patrol." They were scheduled to check the Ohio City area on first shift. Tribby took off the goggles and stretched. Gathering up her supplies, she headed out of the kitchen. "I'll set these in place, see how they look. Just make yourself at home, sir."

Tracking her movements absently with the basal, predatory part of himself, Spike used the rest of his brain to tackle the knotty dilemma he had been faced with yesterday. The sleep had helped, but what was fresh wasn't comforting. The most likely thing, he figured, was that Buffy was simply cracking under the strain. Seeking his bed could have been done on some sort of autopilot, and she fled when she snapped out of it. He needed to speak to Willow and the whelp, too, let them know the Slayer needed close, caring scrutiny.

What he really wanted to do was talk to Buffy, to see how she was holding up after Thursday's episode, take her in his arms where he knew she would be safe. But if they talked, he might hear Angel's invitation reissued in her lovely, husky voice. And he would have to tell her no, add to her pain.

At least, that's how he wanted to believe he'd respond.

Spike leaned against the sink and looked out the window into a sunny October Saturday, not noticing the crisp blue sky or the colorful trees scattered amid the buildings and concrete. There was something he wouldn't do for her, it seemed, and he didn't know how to move past it.

⸹

"Thank you again for coming, my dear." Giles gallantly held the chair for Willow as she joined him at the outdoor table, a plate of food in her hand. They were having Sunday brunch at a café. It was crowded, as many other people in town were taking advantage of one of the few warm, pretty weekends before winter, and there was no chance they would be overheard.

"How am I going to turn down an invitation from Dumbledore?" Willow teased. "Besides, I feel so guilty about missing the battle last week, you know you can ask anything of me."

"You did more with your 'magic markers,'" he punned, "than has been done by all the rest of us to bring an end to this whole affair." Rupert had shared the news about the vanishing door with her, but she hadn't come up with anything new.

"Thanks." She carefully sliced off the top of her muffin, not looking at him. "So, you finished looking at the printout?"

"I did." He took a sip of coffee, finding judicious words before speaking. "I also went back and looked at what Wesley got to me. I think I understand a great many things better, and I have to say it scares me."

"Me, too." She gave a grim little smile. "I was the one who did the spell, after all."

"You may also have been the one who ended it."

Willow shrugged. "Insofar as it can be ended. I've heard Spike say it more than once: 'there are always consequences.'"

"Would you be willing to come back later in the week? I-I'd like you to be there when I talk to Buffy and Dawn."

"And Xander."

"You think?"

"You should invite Spike, too."

Rupert blew out an impatient breath. "I've gone back and forth on that. He'll have to know, but I thought I might break it to him over a pint."

"Maybe you should do that with Buffy. It's going to be hardest on her."

"But it's also very hopeful."

She met his gaze, fine brows drawn together. "H-how do you mean?"

"I hope it means that Buffy can finally be happy again." He watched her consider this fresh angle, her agile mind taking in all the ramifications.

Willow shook her head, a great deal of sorrow and guilt in the hazel eyes. "No, Giles. She won't."

⸹

By Sunday afternoon, Spike was squirming on the uncomfortable futon in Tribby's apartment, flipping through channels without really noticing what was on the telly. Last night, he'd asked to stay again so she could drive him around until he spotted his truck. After they found it, he asked if he could watch a football game on Univision. Try as he might, he couldn't come up with a compelling reason to stay a third night.

He hadn't been back to Watcher Central, calling Rupert and his Bit to talk to them. He hadn't been to the gym, either, not after sensing Angel and Buffy both there on Friday. Spike considered barging in on Xander, but that was another place she might turn up.

Other than Ute's going-away party, Buffy had never been here. She hadn't bonded with the other slayers, not even with the ones who had been in Sunnydale as potentials. He understood it; she had to lead them. But it also meant that she was never going to casually show up at Tribby's door.

The apartment was a peaceful place, the slow movements of old women in the lower building, the steady sense of concentration from the slayer as she worked in the sunny bedroom she used as a studio. He had no strong memories associated with this place, hardly saw Tribs except in passing, and at least it wasn't a sodding basement. Spike needed the safe haven for just one more night. Tomorrow, he would have to see Buffy at training, but that was a controlled environment, with lots of eyes on them. Then, after he saw her, he would be past that hurdle.

Spike still hadn't concocted an excuse when he heard Tribby leave her studio for the kitchen an hour later. She came in and sat on the floor, a glass of water held high so she wouldn't spill, and gave him a tired smile, the imprint from the goggles ringing her eyes. "Got it."

"Good for you."

"All I have left on this one is the framing, make sure it's sturdy enough to move."

He raised an eyebrow. "How big are they? You gonna cart them down four flights?"

Tribby shook her head. "I'll take them out through the window, lower them down. My Dad's going to come down from Illinois to help. He made me promise he could be my date for the opening," she said, her smile an equal mix of affection and bitterness. "Last big event. I'm not going to walk at graduation in December."

"Lana coming up for the exhibit?"

She shook her head. "Mom doesn't much like to travel. I'll send her a video." Tribby took a drink of water. "My mother might come. Esteban, my latest stepfather," she gave the phrase a wry spin, "is fond of me, so they might fly in from Miami." Changing the subject, she gestured at the television. "How was your game?"

"Oh. Good, pet. They won." One of the teams had, at any rate. The silence after this seemed awkward to him, as they both watched the play of changing channels. Something low-key and innocuous, he thought desperately.

"Do you mind if I doss it here again tonight?" Bugger.

Something must have shown on his face, because her brows drew together beneath the creases left by the safety glasses. "Of course you can stay." She hesitated for a moment. "Spike, what's wrong?"

He closed his eyes and carefully put down the remote control, sighing. "Someone got in my bed at Watcher Central and had themselves a right nice time."

"Eww," she said, cringing. "Tacky. Remember a while back, those two teenagers in the soccer net? Sometimes–"

"A solo nice time," he corrected wearily, opening his eyes.

"Andrew." She said the name flatly. "I'll tan his hide."

"Slayer." He didn't have to lie badly, at least. There were two dozen of them in Cleveland alone.

She was shocked into silence. After a moment, Tribby blew a long stream of air from her nose. Setting down her glass on the floor, she put her hands on her hips and shook her head. He felt an odd pulse of her slayer's aura, the only other indication that she was angry. "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "No reason to apologize."

"I'm a slayer. Guilt by association." She shook her head. "They're young, sir. But, still…."

"No worries."

After a moment, she looked at the ceiling instead of him. "How are you going to handle it?"

"Haven't figured that out yet." He shifted on the hard cushion. "Hence the avoidance."

"Well," she said, "you're welcome to stay until you figure it out."

It didn't take any of his demon senses to know that she wanted to reach out and pat his knee, but felt awkward about it now. She was young, too. "Thanks, pet.

⸹

As much as he was dreading it, Monday night did arrive, finding Spike lurking in the rafters of the gym. Buffy arrived, a little nervous if her heart rate was any indication, but she began to stretch to warm up while she talked to Dawn, like normal. It was almost seven, and he was about to drop down and begin class when someone slammed the fire door shut with a resounding bang.

Tribby hardly need the door to claim her sisters' attention; her slayer's aura was burning from her, a call that would attract any demon worth its salt to battle. Dressed in a t-shirt he hadn't seen before, 'Native Texan' and a busted pair of cowboy boots printed on the front, she put her hands on her hips when she was about ten feet inside. "Slayer meeting. Everybody else, out."

Her Watcher, Carolyn Greene, was the first to speak. "Tribby, what's the meaning of–"

"Slayers, stay," Tribby overrode her. "Everyone else, out."

Xander's eyes were narrow, but he took Carolyn's elbow. "Come on," he said, "I don't think we're wanted right now." The few Watchers in attendance began to file out.

"Oh, Dawn, no," Tribby said, putting out a hand. "Not you."

Some emotion flashed in Dawn's blue eyes, and she stopped. When the door closed, she asked, "What's going on?"

"I am one hundred percent furious," the slayer said, sounding every bit the native Texan, "that's what's going on." Tribby paced away. "I wanted to talk to you guys before Spike gets here."

From his perch above, he couldn't tell from that statement if she knew where he was or not. Spike was beginning to get a sinking feeling.

"Now," Tribby turned back, "there's not a one of you that Spike doesn't love, wouldn't do anything for. What he does mostly, is keep us alive." Her eyes roamed over the slayers' faces. "I think that deserves some respect."

Rona shifted, impatient with the lecture. "And?"

"And," loud now, "he ain't gettin' respect, because this weekend someone went downstairs at Watcher Central and masturbated in Spike's bed."

This caused a stir of movement among the women, then Vi's voice came, hard. "Andrew."

"No," Tribby snapped, "a slayer."

Dawn winced and looked over at her sister, who had her arms folded. She could tell Buffy's mouth was tight even though she was looking at the floor. She's gonna murder someone, Dawn thought.

Bethany was the first to speak. "Well, that's really… sad, but, you know," she said, grinning, "it is Spike. Hard to blame–"

Incredulous, Tribby cut her off. "You're not gettin' it." Rona, her arms crossed too, was nodding her agreement.

"Look, I know he's your 'sensei,'" Maria said, air-quoting the word, "but you may have noticed he's also really hot."

Tribby gritted her teeth. "Fine." She glanced over to where Dawn stood and started toward her. "Let me put it another way. Say there's this guy, and he's crushing on Dawn. Why wouldn't he? That hair, those legs," she said, gesturing with broad, Vanna White waves of her arms. "And let's say that instead of, oh, talking to her, getting to know her," the sarcasm left her voice, and it became flat and furious, "he breaks into her house and jerks off on her bed." Her gaze swept the line of slayers again, and this time no one met her eye. "Leaves a puddle on her covers." Maria flinched at the image. Tribby's lip lifted from her teeth in a snarl as she turned to glare at Bethany. "Who could blame him, right? 'Cause Dawn's just so hot.

"This isn't harmless fantasy, people." She was quieter now, having made her point. "It's sexual harassment, stalking. Vi's Good Lieutenant can haul you to jail for that."

"Who?" Rona asked, and her slayer's aura had eclipsed Tribby's. "Who was it?"

"He didn't say."

"Spike hasn't been home all weekend," Dawn said, creeping realization in her voice.

"He's been staying in Clem's room," Tribby told her. Buffy's eyes cut to the dark-haired slayer, her mouth still tight. Tribby's voice became louder as she addressed the rest of the room. "Now, there's no reason the Watchers have to know. It'd just make life harder on Spike, 'cause a lot of them are suspicious of him, anyway. Just so we understand each other, I don't really care what kind of daydreams you have, but if anyone pulls this kind of crap again–"

"You'll answer to me," Dawn finished for her.

Tribby smiled. "I can't top that."

"Will he here today?" Ivana asked anxiously. Her eyes were bright with angry tears.

"As far as I know," Tribby replied, shrugging. "The only thing he said was that he wasn't sure how to handle it. I doubt this is covered in the Watchers' Manual."

"Let them back in," Dawn told Tribby, and the slayer went toward the doors obediently. On her way, she met Buffy's eyes. Grimacing, she patted the Slayer on the arm. Buffy looked pretty upset.

Dawn was thinking about what Tribby had said about the other Watchers, remembering what Spike told her once when she was much younger about no one believing that a vampire might turn down a girl's sexual invitation. She snapped back to the present when she heard someone murmur, 'What a bitch.' Dawn whipped around so fast that her hair belled out. "Oh, no. You haven't seen me on wheels. Do you guys have any idea how much danger this puts him in? You just better be glad I didn't know about this first," she spat.

Rona matched Dawn's furious glare with one of her own as she looked around at her sisters. "Damn right," she agreed.

Overhead, Spike grimaced and made his silent way to the wall just above the door. With his considerable stealth and a few vampire tricks, he was able to drop down unseen just behind Xander as he came in, clapping a hand on the whelp's shoulder. "Any idea what that was about?" he asked.

"Hey, Spike." Xander shrugged. "Not a clue."

Dawn dodged around Xander and all but tackled him. "Missed you," she said against his neck.

"Missed you, too, Sweet Bit." No use evading it.

"Air," she complained, and he let up on his grip. "Listen, I'm going to go home, okay? Have to do some stuff. But you come straight to me after training, all right?"

"Yes, your majesty." Spike knew she could hear the relief in his voice. He had been so homesick for her. "Love you, Nibblet."

"I love you, too."

Then there was nothing to do but call the class together. Rona and Vi stared at him steadily, mastiffs ready to attack any threat to his safety. Vashti, Kayla, and especially Ivana were looking at him sympathetically. The rest of the slayers were finding it harder to meet his gaze, the same way it had been for Tribby, guilt by association, she'd called it. The dark-haired slayer was back to normal, self-contained, as if she hadn't lashed out like a mama bear.

The Slayer would not meet his gaze at all. Spike finally managed to stand next to her near the end of class, and he stared into middle distance, too. "No idea any of that was going to happen, pet," he said, low. "No one understands what's between us." He forced a smile. "I certainly don't."

"I shouldn't have come." He thought Buffy meant she shouldn't have come to his room, until she turned on her heel and strode out of the gym.

⸹

Dawn grimly stuffed the last of the trash bags into the neighbor's garbage cans, feeling no compunction about doing so. The garbage truck ran early tomorrow morning; Mr. Gaffney would never know.

She had stopped at the mall on the way home and bought new bedding for Spike, wishing she could bill the slayer who made the purchase necessary. In a way, her bed had been violated, too; she spent half her nights sleeping next to him. Once she was back at Watcher Central, she put the new sheets in the washing machine, then stripped Spike's bed and stuffed everything into trash bags and turned the mattress. Now she was waiting for the sheets to come out of the dryer, and Dawn was no less angry.

Her eyes narrowed as she thought of a thousand little ways she could make a slayer's life miserable: docked or missing paychecks, bad credit references, cheap pine stakes that always seemed to leave splinters in one's palm, bleach spilled in a load of dark clothes… The possibilities were nearly endless. She thought of how many times she had ruined one of Buffy's shirts by dripping sauce or grease on it, just on accident. If she really tried –

Dawn went very still, thinking of how she had scrubbed the holding cell clean of her sister's scent just weeks ago. She suddenly knew it had been Buffy in Spike's bed. There was no other reason he would be so upset. Any other slayer, he would have dealt with directly, gently, decisively, managing to leave her even more in love with him even as he became less obtainable. But he could never handle Buffy.

Dawn closed her eyes, the anger fading, leaving only a great deal of sorrow for the two people she loved most. She wasn't really surprised that Buffy couldn't keep herself away from Spike; even Angel hadn't worked as a boundary. And while Spike would allow no other man, with the possible and very creepy-to-consider exception of Giles, to stop his pursuit of Buffy, Angel was his family. He would try to honor their bond, but Dawn didn't believe he would be able to keep himself away from Buffy, either. The last time he had not kept his word, when he couldn't protect her from Doc on Glory's tower, it had nearly destroyed him.

The dryer buzzed, its cycle complete. Dawn took the sheets out and trudged downstairs with them. She hated that Spike didn't feel safe in their own house, or in Giles' house, she supposed. Her plan had been that she and Spike would live together until she got married someday, then he would live next door. Or possibly her husband would; at this point, she couldn't imagine wanting to be with anyone else at the end of the day except Spike. Dawn snapped the crisp sheet over the bed, her brow furrowed, trying to think of a way to keep her sister and her pet vampire from hurting each other any more than they already had.

⸹

"Red!" Spike popped his head into Rupert's office, delighted. He hadn't seen her at the house in a long time. "Sorry, Rupes, know I'm early." The Watcher had asked him to a Tuesday morning meeting. "Didn't know my favorite redhead was going to be here."

"Hey, Spike," Willow said. She had been so anxious for so long about seeing him that she felt foolish. He was being perfectly friendly, not scary at all.

"How's university treating you?" He slung an arm over her shoulder.

"Good." She broke into a grin. "I'm really loving it, with the discussions and intelligent people."

"An' you fit right in, of course." Spike's smile faded, and he said quite sincerely, "I've missed you. My own fault, I know," he added hastily.

 _You scared me. A little._

 _Was tryin' to. Better for you to be away, yeah? Mad at me?_

 _No. Are you mad at me?_

He put his forehead against hers for a brief moment. _Never. Well, once._ She got a confusing rush of images at that, from the miserable time after Buffy's resurrection.

"Buffy!" Willow said, leaving Spike to greet her friend.

He stared at the Slayer hungrily until he realized, then smoothed out his expression. She had called Dawn to say she was too sick to come to training last night, but Buffy looked just fine to him. She still wasn't looking at him, though.

"Hi, Wil!" The perkiness was manufactured. Dawn entered behind Buffy, looking wary.

"Good, we're all here. Xander, close the door, won't you?" Giles nodded at the last arrival, then nervously moved around some papers on his desk.

Willow stood in the middle of the room, forcing Spike and Xander toward chairs. When she had Buffy and Dawn sitting side-by-side on the couch, she went to the chair closest to Giles.

The Watcher rubbed his forehead for a moment. "Let's just dive in, shall we? I've asked you all here today to discuss some research I've done on Wesley Wyndham-Pryce's printouts. What I learned from them earlier was… tantalizing, but incomplete. Willow has used the same techniques to recreate a record of the energies on the Sunnydale Hellmouth for some other dates, dates that proved to be critical in piecing together some… some things that were going on behind the scenes, as it were.

"I'm going to go slowly, because I've been over these printouts time and again, matching them with my Watcher's Diaries, with Willow's memories of what happened while I was in London. There's a lot to absorb.

"When I first looked at these, I was appalled because I thought I saw what amounted to a magical road sign saying 'This way to the Key.'" Giles glanced at Dawn. "But now I think it was something quite different. I still think Dawn came to us sometime during the summer after Adam… but something else came first.

"You'll remember that we had a great deal of difficulty facing Adam, finally performing an enjoining spell so that Buffy would be able to fight him with more resources than normally available to her. The spell itself worked wonderfully, powerfully. We invoked the spirit of the First Slayer, but–"

"But we didn't – or couldn't – send her back," Willow interjected.

Xander frowned. "I guess I should have figured that out from the dreams after the spell.

Willow took the printout from Giles and handed it to Buffy. "There, at the bottom, see where that reading begins? That was when we did the enjoining spell."

Buffy and Dawn looked at the pages, frowning. "And you thought this was me?" Dawn asked.

"Yes, at first," Rupert agreed.

"What does this mean, Giles? Is Sineya still around?" Buffy was very still as she asked.

"No." He started to say something, then sighed and handed another few pages of printout to her. "Dawn is here, obviously, and that reading ended the moment the Sunnydale Hellmouth closed. Both Willow and I are certain it's a record of the First Slayer's presence." Spike looked down, feeling the weight of the other's eyes resting on him. He remembered that printout.

Dawn's eyebrows had risen. "So Spike sent the First Slayer and the First Evil back to where they belong? Pretty impressive, soul man."

Looking pained, Giles closed his eyes a moment. "Let's back up a bit, shall we? A trip down memory lane." He pushed some more pages toward Willow, who passed the ones Wesley had given them to the other men. "You'll remember it was, er, a fallow time before Glorificus showed herself, and the printouts seem to prove it. In every page that Wesley brought to me, the line showed a very steady energy. But the ones Willow produced were… less calm.

"Buffy, this part is all conjecture, but I believe that after you stood against her, the First Slayer came to quite like you. Think of it: all of her progeny failed, were in fact doomed to failure by the very nature of the Slayer line. No matter how many demons a Slayer had slain, she would herself fall in battle. As did you, at the Master's hands.

"Then you came back. I believe that got her attention as much as the defeat she suffered in your dream."

"When did the spirit of the First Slayer try to kill you in your dreams? Right after Adam?" Spike asked, frowning, trying to keep the timeline straight. He had been quiet until now.

"Exactly."

"So, the First Slayer liked me." Buffy's tone made it clear she wasn't impressed by this conclusion.

"I think she… focused on you." Giles spread his hands. "I've said it before, Buffy. A Slayer of your caliber should have several prophecies about deeds and victories and triumphs. There are none. Something has been warding you from the attention of the Powers That Be, and I think it's been Sineya."

"Has she done anything otherwise?"

"If you mean, has she been helping you, no. I didn't detect any difference in your abilities after the enjoining spell. You're a remarkable Slayer, Buffy, and that's all internal, has nothing to do with the First. But that doesn't mean she hasn't done anything." He closed his eyes a moment. "Think of it, Buffy. She's eternal, yet has no real power. All she can do is watch as her sisters are Called, generation after generation. She can't just root for them like she's in the stands at a football match, because she knows the ending. She can't reach out and help them. And she can't not care about her line – it seems that no one else did, not at the first. I've no reason to suspect she had any connection to the female Guardians who warded the Slayer's Scythe. So, she watches and weeps over each Slayer who dies and, then, finally, she sees one who doesn't. How could she possibly not love that Slayer? And then, after millennia, she's called to act."

"Not the only time I messed with forces beyond my reckoning," Willow said in a self-mocking tone.

"No, Willow, you mustn't blame yourself in this. What other recourse did we have? This… it's far beyond you, beyond all of us."

"So, what did Sineya do after the enjoining spell?" Buffy asked, impatient.

"She watched, much as she always had, but with a foothold in our reality. I believe this is the source of the energy on the readout. She watched you with the friends you had defended from her so fiercely, watched you fight… watched you die again."

Buffy paled. "She brought me back."

"I brought you back," Willow corrected. "The First Slayer's energy signature never varied when I… I'm sorry, Buffy, but there's no reason that spell shouldn't have worked, no matter where you were. I'm the one responsible." She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I really, really believed you were trapped in Glory's homeworld, in a hell dimension."

The Slayer looked away. "I know, Wil." She didn't meet her friend's pleading gaze, but she did take her hand for a quick squeeze.

"We all believed that," Xander added, his brown eyes shadowed.

"Buffy…" Giles hesitated. "I feel the next thing I must do is apologize. I'll have to ask you some things that are… personal. If I didn't believe it had some bearing, I would not ask. So, my dear, I'm very sorry for any intrusion."

"Okay." Her voice was small.

"Last week, during the third battle, you, um," trailing off, he dipped his head to one side and cut his eyes away from her. "Spike bit you. Would you tell me your immediate reaction to this?"

Her cheeks flooded red. His statement hadn't surprised anyone, and Buffy wondered why Giles had bothered to apologize for asking about personal things. It seemed she didn't have any privacy. "I pushed him away."

"That's all?" Giles lifted his chin, and the light from the lamp glinted off his glasses. "You didn't, say, try to kill the vampire who was violating you in the way most abhorrent to a Slayer?"

She gave him a look. "It was Spike, Giles."

He nodded, looked for a moment as if he would smile. "Thank you."

"That's all?"

"About last week, yes."

"Oh. Good." Buffy glanced at Dawn, then down at her clasped hands before she could let herself look at Spike. She didn't want to talk about any other reactions.

The humor vanished from Rupert's face as he continued the line of questioning. "Buffy, since Spike came back to us last year, have there been any incidents at all where you've," his expression was as tight as his voice, "hurt him? Physically," he added.

The Slayer closed her eyes. "No. We haven't been around each other and," her voice was very small, "I've been careful."

"William, Buffy, I apologize again for intruding where neither of you wish," Giles said, and he pushed two pages toward them to the edge of his desk. "Would you both look at these? Willow and I feel that all we need is your confirmation of a couple of dates to be completely satisfied with our theory."

Buffy chanced a glance at Spike, finding him gazing at her. He gave her an encouraging nod, then moved to stand in front of Giles' desk. She joined him, wiping her damp palms on the sides of her trousers.

Willow took up the thread. "Since I – since none of us knew you guys were, you know, involved, I didn't have any exact dates to work with."

Buffy broke in. "Wil, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Patience, Buffy." Rupert didn't look away from Willow, though.

Meeting his gaze for a moment, Willow went on. "So I had to recreate the energy record for dates that I hoped weren't too random. The high-frequency, low-amplitude waves that we think mark the presence of the First Slayer don't vary in my readouts, either, except for two places." She looked down. "I-I think I know what happened in one, but we need you two to tell us if there was anything significant about the other."

Willow pointed to one printout closest to her on the right. "I wonder about myself, too, you know I do. I did this one for the time around my first visit to see Rack." She grimaced. "You remember, Dawnie, when I broke your arm. Nothing then, but there was a single spike in the reading about twenty-four hours earlier."

Spike was frowning, staring at the readout, but Buffy closed her eyes. "That would have been when I learned Spike's chip didn't work on me anymore."

"Ah." Giles studied the top of her bowed head. "I assume there was an exchange of blows?"

There had been an exchange of a lot of things. "Yes."

The silence lay heavily for a few seconds. Willow tucked that record beneath the second printout. "Okay," she said with forced brightness, "if there's a smoking gun, this is it. See," she pointed, "here, it's not just one spike, it's a jagged mountain range. And even after it goes back to normal, it isn't exactly the same energy. You have to look very closely, but you can see, side-by-side, where the reading is a slightly lower frequency. I don't know if the psimographs from Wolfram and Hart weren't as sensitive, or if it's just easy to overlook, page after page, when the amplitude remains the same."

Spike's head was starting to hurt, and he borrowed a phrase from Buffy. "Can you vague this up for us, Red?"

It surprised Willow into a sudden, hastily suppressed grin. "Sorry. I got ahead of myself." Her wide eyes went to Buffy. "I'm sorry, I really am. This," she put her finger above the small, jagged section, "is about two weeks before your twenty-first birthday. When you thought you killed Katrina."

Buffy didn't move, didn't look up. The ugly snarl of black ink was nothing compared to the event it represented. "That's when…" She couldn't finish, staring at the record of her abuse, and thought she might well throw up if anything had been in her stomach.

"Red, why does the energy signature for the First Slayer vary when Buffy and I fought?" Spike phrased this very carefully.

The two researchers exchanged a glance, and Giles answered instead. "I said that I have no evidence that the First Slayer helped you, Buffy, only that I think she watched over you because she was fond of you." He sighed. "She has, obviously, no fondness for vampires." Both of the blondes standing in front of him went perfectly still. "I don't know how well you recall that time period, but it was after the Initiative, and there simply weren't as many vampires in Sunnydale at the time. An entire generation of vampires had been wiped out, and their numbers hadn't recovered.

"There was, however, one vampire who was always around, a particularly old and powerful vampire." He took off his glasses. "One that would have been known to the First Slayer already."

"The Slayer of Slayers," Dawn said, rubbing her hands over the goosebumps on her arms.

"From what we know of her very difficult life, Sineya would have no mechanism to understand why her favorite daughter would not kill this vampire. So, I believe she tried to kill him herself. To remove the threat."

They all heard Buffy swallow as she reached out to touch the jagged line on the printout. "Through me?"

"But, of course, you were stronger than she was, my dear."

Willow was shuffling the printouts. "There's more, Buffy," she said gently.

Watching Buffy, Giles had a momentary urge to shush the young witch. He'd seen the tension around his Slayer's eyes ease, seen something brighten in the hazel depths. He fancied he could even see a burden lifted from her small shoulders.

"See, how after that, um, time, the reading looks slightly different? It changes here slightly and stays changed until it ends. Sineya's spirit would have been distracted by making you act, a-and I think something possessed her, or at least took her energy. We looked everywhere," Willow was saying, "well, you looked everywhere and never found Bringers working the chant to keep the First Evil sourced in our dimension. Now I don't believe there ever was a chant."

Spike got it first. "First Evil consumed the First Slayer, hijacked her power, the energy that kept her in our reality," he said flatly.

"Or, it's possible they teamed up." Giles rubbed his forehead. "Though I rather believe that the First Evil co-opted Sineya. Its goal was to destroy the line of Slayers, after all. I can't believe that would be what she wanted."

"Poor Sineya," Dawn breathed.

"'Splains why the First Evil always seemed so comfortable manifesting as the Slayer." Spike's expression was grim with the memory.

"So, when I used the Slayer's Scythe to charge up the potentials, I basically broke the 'chant,' took that energy away from the First Evil and gave it back to Sineya's line – and," she added, "finally ended the joining spell."

"Buffy recovered the Scythe, Willow returned the First Slayer's spirit to where it belonged, and Spike, um, destroyed the First Evil's army," Giles summarized.

"And everything else in Sunnydale," Xander added. He grinned when Spike flashed him a look.

Giles shook his head, amazed that they had stumbled around in such darkness and still managed to find the light switch. "And, my original worry, that someone might be able to pinpoint the Key's arrival in Sunnydale this way has proven groundless." He frowned. "Though I daresay there's quite a record of it, if anyone was bothering to monitor the Czech Republic."

"Rupert!" The door opened, and Aubrey's broad face came into view. "You must come to the phone right away. I need you to authorize the release of £200,000."

"You what?" Giles said faintly.

"Please," the elderly man pleaded. "My contact in Bahrain swears he'll sell it to someone else in an hour, and he doesn't barter, and I've been looking for this manuscript for so long. Well, it's only a fragment, but–"

Giles lifted a hand. "Coming, Aubrey." He turned to his friends. "I'm sorry for the interruption." He went around the left side of his desk, brushing past Spike.

"Willow," Buffy said urgently, "do you have a printout for the fight we had at the vineyard?" There was only one part of this new picture that needed more detail.

"Uh, sure," Willow said, and she flipped through the large pile until she saw the right date in her neat handwriting. "Here."

Buffy leaned closer. "Look. There's no spike, but it looks different." The lines were slightly denser.

Dawn's arms were crossed. "Why would it look different?"

"I-it's the last time I," Buffy straightened up, "hit Spike."

"Oh, yeah," Spike said. He had almost forgotten her angry swing as he pulled her out of the winery. Too much else had been going on. He glanced at Xander, who was using his two healthy eyes to focus on his own hands.

Willow was frowning as she looked at the printout, then compared it to an earlier one. "Yeah, just for a moment, it looks like the original wave pattern."

"Maybe it was the only way the spirit of the First Slayer could help," Spike mused. "I always wondered why the Bringers and the Preacher Man didn't track us down right after that, while we were weak. Maybe she broke the First Evil's power just long enough for us to get away, regroup."

Buffy was finally looking up at him, her lips parted. She hadn't beaten him, she wasn't… The awful labels that had defined her – batterer, abuser – might not be down to her, not entirely. A double dose of Slayer instincts in one body….

"Well, all this ancient history is very interesting," Dawn said dryly, "but we've got to book, like, now, or we won't get there in time for you to meet Mitch." It was overcast, and she had made Spike promise to accompany her to class to meet him.

Buffy sent a swift look of gratitude to her sister, knowing Dawn was coming to her rescue. She needed time to think this through. "That's okay; you two go on." The Slayer chanced another look up him. At her vampire. She quickly looked back down. "Be nice to him," she ordered, having met Mitch earlier the same way, accompanying her sister to class.

"As you wish."

Willow and Dawn exchanged a look of their own at the deep, precise words, Dawn mouthing 'whoa.' They had all watched _The Princess Bride_ innumerable times, knew every line.

Still staring down at Buffy, Spike firmed his mouth and asked briskly, "Found evidence of a nest somewhere around Garfield Reservation, love. Want to make a patrol of it tonight?"

He wanted to talk privately, she knew. "A-all right." Buffy tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He was crowding her without ever having moved, the vitality of his presence nearly smothering her.

Then it was gone. "C'mon, Bit. Let's go see how much of this gimboid's face needs rearranging."

⸹

Buffy walked home from Watcher Central, glad she still didn't have her license. A car would make the trip go too quickly, and she really needed time to absorb this.

She hadn't been the one who hurt Spike.

She hadn't been kicked out of heaven.

There was a possibility that she might not be a monster.

Her mind went over the time right after Spike got chipped, but before the enjoining spell, the only weak link she could find in this new theory. She hadn't seen Spike very often then, but had she been in the habit of punching his nose just to shut him up before the final battle with Adam? She remembered exchanging heated glares with him, seething over the fact that he could always read her, hating the mocking expressions on his too-handsome face, but she also remembered needling him about how she wouldn't hurt someone who was impotent. Maybe she had hit him without just cause, but she couldn't remember. That was so long ago, before her Mom died, before everything got too hard.

Buffy thought of fighting Spike when he wasn't incapacitated, how she went still inside the adrenaline, watching him so closely, exquisitely alert because she didn't know if she would live another second. Incredible how vivid that feeling was, really, because so much of the time he'd been in her life, he had been disabled by the chip, left in a wheelchair, leashed by his own love.

If she had hit him when he couldn't defend himself, then she was at fault, she was wrong. But she didn't remember feeling any glee while doing so until after the Initiative folded. There were memories of Riley, needy and anxious to prove himself, following after her, and she used her fists on Spike to get rid of the frustration of having the burden of her boyfriend while she patrolled. And it had been about hunting there for a while, hadn't it? Dracula had shown up, all suave smarminess, using that against her. She had been worried enough to speak with Giles.

But it hadn't been her, or at least not entirely her.

Love had been a problem, she thought. Looking back with clearer understanding, Buffy could forgive herself. She had pulled away from Riley, but he was changing after the Initiative, or maybe she was just seeing him plainly. He had been a substitute Angel for her, a big guy who fought demons, only with a pulse. He was genuinely nice in so many ways, it was easy to overlook his darker parts. Most important, he was a human and he wanted her, and she had desperately needed that, needed to have a normal life because that's what Angel had told her to get. If she failed with that new life, then what was the point of him leaving?

In the end with Riley, it had been about blood, as so many of the things in her life were. He had let vampires feed off him, and she had sensed that taint without knowing exactly what it was and withdrawn from him because of it. Her love for him had died, but it hadn't been her failing.

Loving her family and friends had never been a problem, only the small detail of actually spending time with them. Why did she always try to keep her boyfriends separate from everything else? Why did she think that spending time with her boyfriend was a good excuse to get out of being with everyone else? Am I ashamed of my sexuality, mixed as it is with slayage? Did that go back to Angel, too, the secrecy, the fear of disapproval?

I'm doing it again, she realized. Except for Gunn and the couples' get-together – and the day she needed Spike – no one came to visit her and Angel. He was fine with this, being such a private person. But she had once been outgoing, a cheerleader, for heaven's sake. She loved her sister and her friends, but for some reason, it was still easier to visit them instead of live with them.

That doesn't make me a bad person, though, just makes me a person who needs space. Frowning in concentration, she walked on, trying to wrap her mind around all the details.

There was a spell, one powerful spell, which could bring a person back to life when performed by an exceptional sorcerer, no matter where their soul happened to be. And Willow was exceptional. If she really wasn't a bad person, then it was the spell that yanked her away from heaven, that's all.

Acceptance of this new theory was still somewhere in the future. For so long, Buffy had believed she was not good enough to be in heaven, that she had been kicked out rather than pulled out. She couldn't love people enough. She was a killer. She was herself a monster.

Maybe she wasn't.

She might actually be allowed back into heaven someday. The thought overwhelmed her. If I'd been truly confident that I was going back, she admitted, I would never have lasted this long.

Buffy flinched as a bird zoomed in front of her, almost afraid that even thinking about suicide had brought down punishment. She stopped, her eyes following the progress of the little sparrow that had darted across her path. It landed in a tree, chirping in its small voice. That's a living thing like me, she thought. It's here because I saved this world.

Rolling her eyes in mockery at such hubris, she started on her way back to Angel again, unaware that she was standing a little taller.

⸹

[Author's Note: Some rolling around in the sheets that's at least a hard R.]

"So," Buffy said, suppressing a smile as they walked toward each other in the park that night, "I don't suppose there's really a nest of nearby vamps."

"Buffy," Spike said reprovingly, using her name, his voice like sweet sin soaked in brandy, "you know I'd never get you worked up like that and leave you hanging."

Staring at him in surprise at such open flirtation, she fought the smile that wanted to curve her mouth, tried to keep her heart rate normal. But she could look all she wanted, so she did. A red silk shirt fluttered beneath his open coat, a concession to the colder weather, and he wasn't just walking toward her, he was gliding. Right now, Spike looked so much like the arrogant, soulless demon she'd first met in Sunnydale, it was hard to reconcile everything else she knew about him. He tilted his head to the side and gave her a twisted little smile that invited her to indulge in every fantasy she ever had, all while dipped in chocolate. She placed it then, the predatory way he approached her. It reminded her sharply of one night early in their affair when he'd come to the Doublemeat to walk her home. Spike had stalked beside her, radiating a possessive, belligerent pride, as if he was ready to snarl, 'Yeah, I'm bangin' the Slayer; what of it?' to any random demon who might see them.

"Just looking at you makes me hungry," Buffy said when he stopped before her. It was his turn to look surprised, but before he could reply, she added. "Hungry for things that are bad for me, like cinnamon-covered fried ice cream. Let's slay these vampires so I can go eat something healthy, guilt-free."

"No."

Her turn for surprise. When was the last time Spike tried to set their agenda? "What?"

"We're not going anywhere until you answer a question for me, kitten," he raised a hand to forestall her interruption, "just a short-answer question, like the kind you aced on your SAT."

How did he know she did well on her college entrance exam? Oh. Mom, of course. Joyce had liked talking to Spike. "What question?"

"Honest answer: why did you come to my room Friday?"

Buffy looked up at his intense expression, her eyebrows arched high. She didn't think it was very difficult to figure out. "To finish what we started before the slime demon showed up." There was a hint of challenge in her cool, dignified answer.

He let out half his breath, not quite sighing, then a slow smile began. "Good, then."

The Slayer gave him a narrow look. "What did you think?" She answered her own question. "You thought I was cracking up."

"No, that's not…. Doesn't matter, not if…" He moved closer, the edges of his open coat beginning to encompass her, too. "Why didn't you stay, love?"

She could answer this now, free and clear. "Because I remembered that I might hurt you." She could see the gleam of his white teeth as the smile became a full grin. For some reason, her answers were making him very happy.

"Thank you." He didn't move away, but nonetheless backed off. "So, you want to go fight the bad guys?"

"That's sort of my reason for being here, Spike."

"Is it?" He took a step back and regarded her. "I'll tell you where they are, then, but you have to catch me first."

"Wh-what?"

"'M near to bursting, love. Can't hold still. Too much goin' on in here." He splayed his fingers over his heart. "Come on. Play with me."

"Spike, I'm not going to–"

"Gettin' too old, are we, Slayer?" He swayed toward her, then moved just out of reach. "Can't catch a vampire now that you're in your mid-twenties?"

"I'm only twenty-three!" She snatched for him, just missing the leather of his coat.

"Oh-ho! Not good enough."

"Spike, be serious."

"No. Been serious too bloody long." He took another step away.

"Just tell me where the nest is, and I'll take care of it myself."

He considered her, then reached out quickly. "Tig, you're it." Then he was ten feet away, still facing her and walking backwards, the look on his face making it impossible for her to resist. She ran flat out and almost had him in fifty yards when he dodged behind a tree. They peeked around it, back and forth, Buffy making swipes at him, then she got his fingertips with hers.

In an instant, she was gone, running with the cool night breeze in her face, her blond hair blowing back. She started laughing. Buffy couldn't remember the last time she ran just for fun. She made it to the park playground and kept him from tagging her for two minutes, squealing and giggling as Spike tried to trap her in the monkey bars. He finally did one of the spectacular vertical leaps that she secretly admired, landing above her, giving him the advantage. When she turned to jump down, he smacked her bottom and was gone again.

For half an hour they roamed the park, chasing each other, her bubbly laughter and Spike's deep chuckles the only sounds. When he went up a tree with a powerful jump, she grabbed a lower limb and swung herself up in a flat trajectory that any gymnast would envy and grabbed his coat before she even got her balance. "Gotcha!" she crowed.

"You always have," he agreed, turning so he could pull her against him, anchoring them safely between two branches.

"Spike," she began, but didn't know how to end.

"Two miles east," he said, again seeming to back off without actually letting her go.

"What?"

"The vampire nest, love." He leaned closer, didn't kiss her despite the gleam in his eyes. "Let's go put 'em out of their misery, Slayer, me an' you, fightin' side by side." Spike put his mouth next to her ear. "Then we'll see about making you… not hungry."

Gone again, no longer blocking the cool October breeze that pressed her clothes against her, underscoring how warm she felt as she considered Spike's pale hair and face as he waited beneath her, almost patient. Buffy dropped down next to him, self-consciously brushing at her windblown hair. We're on a date, she thought suddenly. The realization made her feel tingly all over.

She was the one who zeroed in on the nest, not surprising since most of Spike's attention was focused on her. And if she didn't, strictly speaking, have to do backflips to finish off the last one, he was showing off, too. Spinning kicks were never necessary.

"Only eight," she breathed, disappointed.

"Can't just order 'em up for you, love," he shrugged. Spike reached out and plucked a dry leaf from her hair. He was looking at her in a way he hadn't let her see for a while, absolute belief and so much love in the contented blue depths.

She didn't have to look away from it anymore. Maybe she deserved such devotion. Well, maybe not deserve, but… maybe she wasn't unworthy. Buffy moved closer, lifting her face to his, and their kiss was so gentle, so sweet… He was holding his body away from her, only touching her with his hand beneath her chin. She wanted more, much more.

"Hungry, pet?" His voice was a growl, a purr.

"Yes."

"So, where does one find cinnamon-covered fried ice cream?"

"Um, Mexican place?" Why wasn't he kissing her?

Another of his maddening grins as he offered her his arm. "My lady," he prompted, waiting until she placed her fingers on his sleeve. Her touch warmed the leather, and she could feel the play of muscles along his arm as they walked. Whenever she looked up at him, his eyes were already on her, loving and full of laughter.

"Why are you so happy tonight?"

"Got something I've been waiting for such a long time."

"What's that?" She hadn't given him anything.

"You to forgive yourself." Before she could speak, he pointed past her. "Think we'd find your ice cream there?"

The hole-in-the-wall Mexican place didn't have an extensive list of desserts, but it did have fried ice cream. Spike ordered for them, an old-fashioned courtesy Buffy had never had a man perform before. "You're a pig, Spike," she informed him. When he raised one elegant eyebrow in confusion, she clarified. "Male chauvinist variety. You didn't let me order for myself."

"Love, there's a whole host of things I want to do for you so that you don't have to do them for yourself." They were sitting side-by-side in a booth, and he leaned closer. "I could begin the list with what you did in my bed last Friday and go from there." He curled his tongue against his teeth for a moment, something else she hadn't seen in forever.

His grin was infectious, and she tried hard not to catch it. "And I say again, you're a pig, Spike."

"Never get tired of hearing it, pet," he said, touching his nose to hers, "'specially since I know you have an abiding fondness for pigs." It was her turn to be puzzled. "Mr. Gordo?" he prompted.

"How did you know about Mr. Gordo?"

"Your Mum. What do you think me an' Joyce talked about over all the cups of cocoa? You were the favorite topic for both of us."

Her mother had liked Spike. In fact, of the men she had loved, Spike was the only one Joyce had really had the chance to know. And Spike had liked her axe-wielding mother before he even properly met her. Before Buffy could follow these thoughts too far, their food arrived.

"Oh, yum." Buffy closed her eyes and breathed in the cinnamon smell before scooping her spoon into the round, chocolate-drizzled concoction. After a few moments, Spike stopped watching her long enough to taste the flan he had ordered for himself. She gestured at it with her own utensil. "Seems kind of bland for a buffalo-wings, bring-on the-garlic kind of guy."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "Love, I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone else." Spike took a spoonful of flan and put it in his mouth, closing his eyes and savoring the taste. "Most vampires can only taste blood. I never lost the ability to taste other things."

"Really?"

"Well, not everything. Oranges have almost no taste or smell, more's the pity. And raw oysters," he shuddered, "I'll never be able to eat those again because all that's left is the texture. Some things that I didn't have as a human, like those disgusting fluorescent orange cheese crackers, have no flavor, but maybe they don't anyway. But most everything else, yeah, I can taste it. Vanilla, for instance," he said, taking another spoonful, "still tastes the same."

"Huh." She was frowning. "Why wouldn't you tell anyone you could taste?"

"Angelus, Darla." He shrugged. "Another difference, maybe enough of one for them to take my life, well, unlife."

"Oh."

He put the spoon down. "Means I can taste you, love, savor you on my tongue," he gave her a slow, dead-sexy smile from inches away, "enjoy you with all my senses." Spike's voice was low now, a murmur for her ears alone. "Your nape, the backs of your knees, the tips of your breasts all have their own special flavor. Did you know that when I dip my tongue into your navel, I do it because it tastes spicier than anywhere else?" He put his mouth near her ear. "When I go down on you, love, it's like tasting honey beside the sea, just a tang of salt." He leaned back to watch her wide eyes darken. "Best thing I've ever had in my mouth."

Buffy swallowed, her melting ice cream forgotten. She dimly remembered saying something like that herself, raving over some fancy dessert after months of noodles and Doublemeat burgers, but none of that mattered now. All that mattered was that he was going to….

"All done?" Spike raised a hand to signal the waiter without waiting for her response. "Bill, please!"

They were on the street again, walking hip-to-hip, the same way they had one perfect night in Los Angeles, before Buffy realized that Spike had seized control of this Cleveland night from the first moment. They were going to finish what started when he bit her. He was the predator at the top of the food chain, and he was maneuvering her into a position where she wouldn't be able to escape. The thought made her feel a little weak, made her stomach flutter.

She didn't want to escape.

Spike touched her hand, then put his finger to his lips, warning her to silence. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners kept her from believing he sensed a real threat. He pointed to his right and led her into the side entrance of a hotel. Buffy tried not to smirk. They went up two flights of stairs usually used by staff, then into a dimly-lit ballroom. There was a fifteen-piece orchestra playing old, slow standards, and perhaps two dozen couples were on the floor. Staring around, the Slayer's eyebrows rose. Not a pair of them was under seventy.

"What is this place?" she whispered, following Spike along the wall. "Clubbing for the elderly?" Despite her sarcasm, she was nervous. The dancing couples were using actual steps and looked effortlessly elegant.

"Standards every Tuesday," he replied, and pulled her against him with one arm. The other hand found hers.

"Spike, I don't know how to dance like this," she protested.

"Your body knows how to fit itself to mine." His voice was deep as he put his feet on either side of hers. "I'll take care of the rest." Spike led them in a slow circle, never too far from the shadows, and after a moment, Buffy laid her cheek against his shirt. Maybe this wasn't the hotel room she had assumed he was taking her to, but she could feel his fingertips on her back, and he was pressed against her from thigh to chest. It was a pretty good place to be. She did know this dance, after all.

The song ended, and the other couples applauded. The orchestra began another number that Buffy truthfully couldn't tell from the first. She watched the silver-haired dancers twirl beneath the soft lights, wondering if they were as in love as they looked, if they had spent decades together. Part of her wanted to believe that, but her more realistic side knew that love didn't keep infidelities and heart attacks at bay. There might well be couples dancing together for the first time tonight, the way she fancied she was dancing with her vampire for the very first time.

Spike's mouth brushed her temple, and she closed her eyes. After a time, Buffy felt as though she was floating, content, and the only thing anchoring her was the music and the cool touch of Spike's hand on hers. The songs changed, but the tempo remained the same.

"What are you thinking, love?"

"I'm not." Her voice sounded small and far away even to her own ears. "I'm just living in the moment."

Spike wanted to speak, she knew, but he fell silent. He always knew, and that had scared and angered her in the past. Now it made her feel… safe, relieved. Buffy shied away from the word 'happy.'

Three songs later, she was still in his arms, a small smile on her face. The orchestra finally changed to a mambo rhythm, and more than half the couples left the floor. Spike spun her away, then caught her hard against him, Buffy's back against his chest, one hand holding hers high, the other splayed across her stomach, guiding her to the beat with his hips.

Her eyes closed tight again as they moved, not wanting to see anyone else because now she felt exposed, despite the shadows and shelter of his arms and the cocoon of black leather. Romantic though it had been to dance with him before, now she was pressed against the hard proof of his arousal, and it fueled her own. Buffy ground against him, moving her own hips, thinking that surely it was illegal to dance like this in the presence of people older than thirty. Then her smile broadened as she thought of how old her partner actually was.

"Spike?" He bent his head closer, his chin on her shoulder. "Let's get out of here because," she lifted her cheek to nuzzle his jaw, "you know I want to dance."

His fingers sank into her tummy for a second at her electric words, then his hips broke the rhythm of the song and started one of his own, short thrusts that rubbed his erection against her. Buffy almost moaned, a catch in her breath, and Spike chuckled, a deep, wicked sound against her ear. He spun her again, dipping her low, catching one of her thighs and pulling it along the length of his.

"I know you got a room," she told him, a little breathless now that she could see his expression.

"And how do you know this?"

"Because you always know what I need."

He laughed again and pulled them both upright. "Put your right hand in my pocket, love." He groaned, his eyes drifting shut. "No, um, my coat pocket."

Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from his jeans and found a small, cool object in his coat. Buffy fished it out and saw it was the key for room 820. "Do I know my vampire or what?"

Hand-in-hand, they waited for the elevators, Buffy leaning her head against Spike's shoulder. She already knew they were going to take it slow because that's what he wanted. For once, she didn't want to fight him. The car arrived, and they entered almost sedately, such a different vibe from the hotel in Los Angeles. Then she had scarcely believed he was really alive, had needed to devour him, touch him constantly.

Spike looked down at her when she squeezed his fingers, curious and still smiling. "I'm glad you're here, that's all," she said, answering his unspoken question.

"I'm glad I'm here, too, 's'matter of fact."

He waited as she opened the door with the key she'd discovered, then scooped her up and carried her inside. Buffy couldn't help thinking of newlyweds crossing a threshold. She let go of his neck and pushed his coat from his shoulders. Spike settled her on the bed so he could shrug out of the leather, the red shirt falling to the floor with it. He was in his standard tight t-shirt and black jeans, all lean and muscled and masculine, gazing down at her with more heat than someone who wasn't technically alive should be able to generate.

"Nice room," she said, never looking away from his face. Buffy put her hand up to cup his cheek, and he finally did what she had wanted him to do since the Mexican restaurant. It was a slow, drugging kiss, the kind he was so good at, the kind that pulled her in so deep that she forgot to breathe. "Mmm," she said finally, having to break the kiss the way she knew she would, "another perfect night."

"No."

"No? Not perfect?" Her tone was teasing. "Are you slipping?"

"Not a perfect night, Buffy." He shrugged, and she could see stubbornness in his eyes now, too, in the set of his jaw. "This is the first night of the rest of our life, pet." Spike moved over her then, not the hot, predatory, prowl-the-bed crawling that made her want to tackle him, but a deliberate settling of his weight against her body. "You know what I have to offer, this," he said, closing his eyes as she wrapped her legs around his thighs, his voice catching, "and all of my heart. My soul. My demon."

"Spike," she said, winding her arms around his neck, and there was regret in her voice, "you know I'll have to leave in a little while."

"No."

"I have to."

"No. You never have to go back there again. This, you and me," his mouth was on her neck now, covering the scar from his bite, his mark, "this is how it will be from now on. No excuses." Spike's tongue vibrated for a moment against the healed wound, and Buffy's hips rose from the bed. Oh God, she thought, dazed, he's made another g-spot.

He had her shirt unbuttoned before she recovered, tracing the curve of her breast above the lace of one bra cup. "Spike…."

"Love the way you say my name," he murmured, "love to hear your voice, but I want a different tone, kitten, something huskier," his eyes gleamed for a second as he glanced at her, "sustained." Then he pulled her bra away from one breast with his teeth. The same moment his lips landed on her nipple, his hand made its way under her skirt.

"Mmmm – Spike!" He got what he wanted. Buffy twined her fingers in his hair, softening the stiff strands, trying to catch her breath, trying to think. Spike was relentlessly and thoroughly seducing her, and thinking was hard to do. Her hands were under his shirt now, and he moved from her breast long enough for her to pull it over his head.

"Ah, love, the way your skin feels against mine," he purred, "but it isn't warm enough, Buffy. Let me make you hot, let me make it like your name for you, love, like the hottest summer day." His large hand was doing things to make her breathing erratic. "'S'gonna be like this from now on, Buffy, like August year-round."

"I can't," she whispered, even as three-quarters of her brain hissed at her to shut up. "I have to – oh my God." Spike's fingers slid deep inside.

"Never have to, love, I promise, my strong, beautiful… Spend for me, sweet, so beautiful." He moved down her body, making her skirt and undies disappear, waited until she was watching him, and slid his tongue into her navel. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, looking for all the world as if he was savoring the taste of fine wine. "Spicy," he said, grinning, tongue against teeth, "but I find I'm still peckish." Spike moved lower, and for a time he said nothing, and Buffy made all the noise.

"Please," she finally managed, untangling her fingers from Spike's hair.

"Love to take care of you," he said, rising up on his knees, straddling one of her legs. "Take care of everything for you. 'M gonna love you for hours, Buffy," he promised, "until you want sleep more'n you want me. Then I'll go break the news. Never gonna have to do anything you don't want to do." Spike lifted her other foot, still in its boot, and rested it against his shoulder as he tackled his obstinate belt.

Part of her puzzled over his words while the rest focused on his increasingly naked body. She knew he loved this position, where he could watch her face as he moved deep inside her body, his hands free to caress her everywhere – which he was doing now. "Wait," she said, her voice uneven. "What news?"

"Don't you know what this is, love?"

"Heaven," she said simply.

"Every night," he promised.

"No. You know I can't." Easy, she just wanted easy, and nothing came more naturally than this. "Just… please, Spike. I want you."

His hands stilled. "'M not gonna cheat with you, you know that. You want this, Buffy," and he pushed so close that penetration was a technicality, "you have to accept everything that goes with it." He pulled away, then moved close again, making her cry aloud with desire and frustration. "Me, fightin' at your side every patrol, moving inside your body every night, waking up next to you every day."

Buffy saw the determination in his eyes, and her arousal was smothered beneath a growing anger. "No, Spike."

"You keep turning me down, pet, and I'm going to start to believe you don't want me."

There was something awful in his tone, but Buffy couldn't deal with that right now. He'd tried to seduce her, trick her into something, kept her off-kilter all night so she couldn't think. Her ankle was resting against his shoulder, so she lowered her leg, blocking him. "Get off."

"Coulda been doin' just that." Spike had better leverage and, pouncing like an unusually gentle tiger, pinned her to the bed. He hadn't expected it to be easy. "Why not?"

"Because of Angel."

"Ah. New excuse, pet, now that the old one doesn't work?"

"Spike, I'm warning you."

He laughed in her face. "What? You gonna hit me?"

Buffy paled. "Don't even."

He shook his head. "Love, for some cosmic joke of a reason, I make you happy–"

"Not right now, you aren't."

"–I make you happy, keep your mind off the paradise you were in. You thought you couldn't have that, for my own good, and now you can. Believe me, love, it's my pleasure to give it to you." He grinned down at her.

"You just don't get it, do you?"

"Not for months."

"I'm not going to hurt Angel."

"You don't have to. I'll go, break the news. Figure he might leave town, but he'll be fine." Spike's voice was suddenly raw. "He doesn't love you the way I do, Buffy."

She stared up at him, getting angrier. "So, you just decide we're going to be together?"

"Yes." Equal parts arrogance and righteousness. Then his voice softened. "There's a house for sale not far from Rupes', love. Had my eye on it. Big yard, elderly neighbors who won't hear if we're a bit loud, shady porch, room for the Nibblet if she wants to stay with us. Reminds me of Joyce's house," his voice roughened, "reminds me of home.

"Been waitin' too long to put a ring on your finger, make you mine. You're twenty-three, so young, love, but you wouldn't believe how fast time passes." His eyes were haunted suddenly. "An' you're the Slayer. Had to see you die once already. Can you understand why I don't want to let another second go by without you?"

"Spike, you're not without me." Her tone was gentle.

He studied her for a moment, then let go, sitting up and tucking himself back into his jeans. Buffy hadn't tried to get away, not the way she'd leave the moment he'd tried to be serious or loving during their secret affair in Sunnydale. Maybe they could just talk.

Buffy sat up, too, drawing her knees up to her chest, feeling ridiculous in her unbuttoned shirt, naked otherwise, with her boots still on. "I'm not going to hurt him, Spike."

"Better to hurt me, is it?"

"No." She looked away, angry again. "But you have other people, Dawn, Giles," a slight tension in her next words, "the slayers. Angel doesn't have anyone."

"Buffy," Spike said, his voice unsteady, "this has to be my soul's fault, because at any time in my past I'd be more than willin' to be your backdoor man. Glad to accept the crumbs from your table. But not anymore." He sighed. "Can't stay stretched like this indefinitely, reaching out to you. So, it's an ultimatum, pet."

"An ultimatum?" she echoed.

"Yeah." Spike closed his eyes. "Have all of me, love, or none."

The room was so cold. Why hadn't she noticed before? "What?" Buffy hardly recognized her voice.

"Can't do this anymore," he said wearily. "Very simple, Slayer. Stay with me, and it'll be like this night every night – fightin' the bad guys, laughin', dancin,' lovin.' Leave me, and I can't fight at your side anymore, can't be just partly your man."

"You mean… But you're my second-in-command, Spike. You always fight at my side."

He gazed at her, his expression unusually guarded. "Anytime you want to come to me, Buffy, you know I'll be waiting, give myself completely to you. Tonight would be a really good time."

Buffy stared at the resolve in his eyes for just a second, then shot off the bed, looking for her skirt, her lips white with anger that he'd put her in this position. She found her skirt, her panties still inside. Her eyes blurred for a moment. Once he had pocketed them.

"Have to say it, Buffy. Never thought you'd settle, take the easy way out. Reckon Angel is safer, 'cause you won't ever let him in deep enough to hurt you again. But you used to be such a fighter, would have fought to get your own."

She swiveled to look at him, her eyes wide and full of hate for a second. He _always_ knew. Did he forget she'd seen him die, too? "Why do you think it would be any different for us, Spike? You think we'd never hurt each other? We've _killed_ each other!" She stalked toward him. "You think I can't turn the tables on you, that I can't be the one seducing you? You really think you're that strong? 'I won't cheat with you.' Like you've been so pure." Buffy buttoned her shirt with jerky but efficient motions, too furious to think, too far gone to school her words. "All I hear from you is how much you love me, and you give me ultimatums? Well, Riley did, too. And he married somebody else less than a year later!"

Spike closed his eyes for a moment, taking the hit. "S'pose it depends on what you know, dunnit? You saw your dad cheat, your parents divorce. I saw my widowed mother mourn my father for the rest of her life, never even look at another man. Guess I take after her, and you take after your dad." He watched her flinch, grow pale, and hated himself. "You want me, Buffy, it has to be all of me. And I won't settle for anything less than all of you." His final words were soft. "You're worth the risk."

Buffy stared down at him where he sat in his undone jeans, his face open, his eyes full of emotion that terrified her. She snatched her jacket from the floor, stepped over his coat, and left the room.

⸹

[Author's Note: The misquoted lyric is based on Kelis' 'Milkshake.']

"Spike, why are you lurking outside my window?" Dawn asked, pushing it opened. "The Watchers have gotten over you being in my room."

"Dunno where else to be."

She stifled a sigh of impatience as she glared at him, hunched into a tight mass on the shingles. "Well, come inside and tell me about it." He was as sleek and muscular as a tiger these days, a welcome change from his usual condition in Sunnydale, and soon she had a hundred-and-seventy odd pounds of vampire wrapped around her. Dawn stroked his hair and waited. He could be so quiet with her, and it made her obscurely proud.

"Figured after this morning, Buffy wouldn't have any excuses. Wrong as usual."

"Oh, Spike," Dawn said, kissing his forehead. "You should have talked to me first. It'll take her a while to get used to the idea that it wasn't her fault."

He shrugged. "No different now than before, just playing a waiting game. Only, don't schedule us to patrol together."

"Not patrol together?" Dawn echoed. "What do you mean?"

"The old 'why buy the cow' ploy, not that it's ever worked for me before."

"Urban girl, here. I don't know from cows. Try again."

"Old saying, innit? Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? S'posed to remind young maidens not to give their favors away, not the road to marriage an' all." He shrugged again. "She still likes to fight with me – alongside me, I mean. Dunno, Bit. Maybe she'll miss me."

"Your milkshake brings all the slayers to the yard," Dawn said, a bit of a cadence in her words.

"Oh, good lord." He used the Gilesism without thought.

She smiled at the disgust in his voice. "I won't make a promise about the schedule forever, but I'll try. What about Angel?"

"He's not gettin' any milk, either," Spike muttered, bitter. Then he sighed. "No, I'll patrol with Peaches."

"How long are you going to try living Buffy-free?" Dawn asked.

"Until she crooks her little finger at me," Spike replied, defeated. "Not strong where your sister's concerned."

She hugged him a little tighter. "I'll help with Operation Starve-a-Buffy as much as I can." Dawn felt his cheek curve against hers.

"'M in good hands, then."

⸹

"Buffy, aren't you going…" _to come in_ , he was going to say, but the scent of his boy, of the Master was all over her. His eyes flashed yellow for a second, no more.

She sat on the steps to their apartment, where she had been for over an hour. How unfair was it that she was miffed that Angel hadn't known to come out and sit down next to her? She'd finally lashed out with her Slayer's aura, as if it was an invisible whip she could flog him with.

 _He doesn't love you the way I do._

Buffy wiped her eyes, then twisted to look up at Angel. He was going to kick her out, break up with her, and she deserved it.

Angel sighed and sat down heavily next to her. "The blood?" She looked blankly at him. "From the bite last week?"

She nodded. Why not? "I'm so sorry."

He attempted a smile. "At least you… didn't."

"He wouldn't do that to you," Buffy said, "but I can't say the same." Honesty was the best policy, and he would have every right to break off with her. _And isn't that what you want?_ a small internal voice asked. _Because if he makes the decision for you, you can –_

"It hasn't been that long since I had a blood exchange with him. That's not easy to ignore."

"No," she protested, wiping her cheeks again. "You aren't supposed to be understanding. You should be mad at me."

"I know what it's like for you," he said, gathering her in his arms. "We're all so glad you're here, but sometimes you don't feel the same.

"That doesn't give me any right to–"

"No, but I can't be angry." Angel kissed her temple. "I saw the way you two were when you had the miscarriage. It was…" He laughed, a sound without humor. "Angelus looked for that kind of love, Buffy, people who would do anything for each other. And they usually did." Angel shook off the grimness. "I never understood that, really, until after I met you." She had opened a whole world for him, let him live again, had been a stepping stone to knowing how to best love his son.

"Angel," she said, agonized, "you can't forgive–"

"Nothing to forgive," he said softly. "Come on inside, Buffy." She let him lift her up, and they went into the dimly-lit apartment. "Did you get the vampire nest?"

"What? Oh. Yes. Only eight of them."

"We'll watch the cemeteries around there for a few days, just in case."

She was exhausted, Angel could tell, more from her emotions than any vampire slayage. He wouldn't have been surprised if this became one of the rare nights they didn't make love, but she turned to him as soon as they were in bed, silent, needy. Angel would never mistake her for Drusilla or even Darla, but if he closed his eyes, the scent of his boy clinging to her made things seem more… right, familiar. A few years ago, such overt vampirism would have led to a long, self-disgusted bout of brooding. Now, as he held Buffy while she slept, it just made him sad. There was someone missing from the family bed.

Angel also worried that this would be one of those nights where bad dreams woke her repeatedly. Today had been hard on her. She had come back from the meeting with Giles, telling him about the Watcher's theory that the First Evil had co-opted the First Slayer. It was obvious she felt a connection to the ancient warrior. Buffy had been so silent before heading out for the raid with Spike, the past on her mind. Until today, he had heard little about the First of Buffy's line, the terrible way it began or about how they had summoned the First Slayer's spirit to defeat the Initiative.

Another battle she didn't call on me to help with, he thought. Why should she? Her friends were willing to do anything for her, even literally becoming a part of her. She inspired such loyalty, never asking for help or special treatment, willing to do everything herself. A person would have to have a heart of stone, have to be soulless, to see how hard she worked and not want to help. And she was so loyal herself. He was the prime example.

He lay next to her, stroking the smooth skin of her back, thinking about things until, as always, he ended with thoughts of Connor, safe in an upper-middle-class family, in his second year of college. Giving up Buffy had been a trial run for giving up Connor, he realized, an idea that hadn't occurred to him before. He loved them both so much; maybe he hated himself that much more, knowing they were be better off without him in their lives.

Angelus was contained though, and as much as he loved the woman in his arms, the thought of his son was a constant pull away from her. But even with his soul permanently in his possession, Angel hesitated to go to California, get involved in Connor's life. Part of it was pragmatic; he was a warrior for the good, and wherever he was, trouble always found him.

The other part was harder to admit. No matter how seldom he went to demon face, no matter how much he could laugh now, he was a vampire. Connor had been reared to despise his kind. Angel thought of the last hour at Wolfram and Hart, when Hamilton had boasted that the power of the Senior Partners ran through his veins. The absolute joy and vicious satisfaction he had felt when the liaison said that was hard to describe. The taste of the demon-tainted blood hadn't been good, but the rush, the perfect sensation of feeding was something he couldn't find it in himself to feel guilty for enjoying.

He was a vampire; he would always be a vampire. Why shouldn't he live like one? The Shanshu was a fool's dream. Absently rubbing the tips of his fingers, feeling the way they were a bit more tapered than they had been just two years ago, he held Buffy, waiting for her nightmare.

⸹

"Dawn, hey," Tribby said, obviously not surprised. "Come on in. What can I do for you?"

The neighbors had called ahead, she realized, seeing the phone the slayer held. "Actually," Dawn said, heading to the kitchen table, too smart to sit on the futon, "I wanted to talk to you about Spike staying here."

The slayer shrugged. "I figured he thought of it because of the empty room, you know, since Clem always crashes here." She opened the refrigerator. "Want something? I've got water, milk, and, er, celery," she finished apologetically.

"No, I'm good," Dawn said, dropping her purse onto the table and sitting down. She hadn't been clear enough. "What I meant was, I wanted to talk to you about Spike staying here in the future. Spike and me."

The older woman raised her eyebrows in confusion. "You want to stay in the spare room, too?"

"No. Listen, are you still planning to leave Cleveland after you graduate this December?"

She shrugged. "I don't have any firm plans. I'll stay until this twelve battles thing is finished."

Dawn smiled. "I figured you would." All the slayers were willing to stay; never having been bound by duty the way her sister had been, they didn't resent it. Dawn bit her lip, deciding to just toss out her idea. "Would you like to have a couple of roommates, kind of on a gradually-move-in basis, and then we could assume the lease when you leave?"

"Mrs. Jackson on the first floor owns the building. She already knows both of you, so I don't think there would be a problem," Tribby said slowly. "I'll need the third bedroom as a studio for another month, until after my exhibit, then it will be free. If you and Spike want to find a place, though, are you sure you want a fourth-floor walkup? I mean, Ute and I got it because it was the best we could afford before the Council started giving us salaries."

Dawn paused a moment before answering. Truthfully, she was happy at Watcher Central with Kayla, Vi, and Rona across the hall and Spike downstairs. But since she figured out which Slayer had invaded Spike's bed, it meant she needed to get him out of temptation's way for his sake and Buffy's. She thought she knew even better than Spike why he had sought shelter here, and it wasn't the fact that there was an unused bedroom. It was because Buffy didn't come to this building, and if she did, Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Hanley, and Mrs. Petrowsky would all phone to say that a visitor was on her way up, and if Buffy did knock on the door, one of her peers was there. Insofar as there could be one for a vampire hiding from a Slayer, it was a safe house.

The fact that it wasn't a basement apartment was a just a plus.

"This is exactly what we want."

⸹

"Giles?"

"Hullo, Buffy," her Watcher said.

She looked up at him. He seemed to be in a hurry, ready to leave the kitchen she had just entered. "Do you have a minute?"

"I'm on my way to my office for a conference call with Charles Gunn and Kevin Ronson, but I have a minute or two."

"This won't take long." She smoothed her hair from her face. "I've decided to do what you asked, to try to track down the energy source the next time there's a battle. I-it was selfish of me to want to fight."

"No, no, of course it wasn't," he protested, but he was already beaming. "I'm so glad you changed your mind."

I meant to tell you yesterday," Buffy added. It was a complete lie; she intended to restrict the time she spent with Spike as much as possible in light of Angel's forgiveness of her… lapse. The man was a saint, and she didn't deserve him.

"How are you feeling, my dear?" Giles asked, examining her face.

She tried a smile, thought it was a pretty good one. "I'm good."

"Yesterday…" Rupert hesitated. "It's a lot to absorb, Buffy. I hope," he touched her shoulder awkwardly, "that knowing about the First Slayer provided some peace of mind for you." When she only smiled more and looked away, he added, "All I really want for you, Buffy, is for you to be happy. It seems that everything else falls away over the years."

"I am happy," she reassured him. Giles would know she was lying, but he wouldn't call her on it. She added something a little more truthful. "I'm dealing." He let her make her own way, his non-judgmental support a given in her life. Impulsively, she gave him a hug. "I love you, Giles. Thanks for doing that research."

"You're quite welcome, Buffy." His eyes sharpened as he looked down at her, and he started to ask something, but she cut him off.

"Don't forget about your conference call."

"Oh. No, that wouldn't do at all, would it?" He paused, though, looking back at her. "We'll talk later?"

"Sure. Go on." She shooed him out of the kitchen. "Don't want to be tele-late." Turning to leave, she stopped, holding the edge of the door, and listened/felt for Spike. He wasn't in the house.

 _I'm going to start to believe you don't want me._

No chance of that.

Willow asked her once what she would do if Spike got involved with someone else. She couldn't blame Sineya for the flash of murderous rage she'd felt at the idea, one she'd never really considered before. Spike was there for her. Only death or captivity had kept him away, never anything as prosaic as another woman. Oh, he had slept with Anya, but that was a drunken mistake for both of them. She thought of Maria's statement that Spike was hot, thought of how pretty the slayer had looked, flipping her hair as she laughed with Buffy's vampire. Even though Spike had reprimanded Maria for it, she was still pretty. And dark-haired. And younger. And interested.

And available.

Why had she done what she had done? Did she love Angel that much more? Or was it that she loved him less, that Spike was right about her being afraid?

It doesn't matter, Buffy thought dully. No matter what Giles wants for me, people don't really get to be happy. I'm content. Content is good. It isn't wrong to be just fine with content. It isn't settling.

Angel is the love of my life.

She left Watcher Central, shutting the door behind her.

* * *

Next Chapter: A new player is using the prophesied battles to target slayers and old allies are called in to help the Council.


	13. Gathering Shadows

**Gathering Shadows**

November 2004

Cleveland

Good Lord, Giles thought, listening to the hymn with a neutral expression even as he inwardly cringed. "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Who had chosen it, made this terrible day tacky on top of everything else?

A memorial service wasn't, fortunately, something he had to attend very often. They never had one for Buffy, wanting to keep the death of the notorious Slayer quiet, and most of the others he had been to were for Watchers, older people. Saying goodbye to a nineteen-year-old slayer was something he'd never wanted to do.

He hadn't known Natalie that well. She had been from Indiana, a military brat. She had been an avid cyclist, a collector of shot glasses, and was apparently known as an expert shopper among the other young women. Before they had pulled her body out of the pit, he hadn't been aware of any of those things.

Giles glanced down at Buffy, another shopping diva. She stood next to him, her face serene and giving nothing away. She hadn't been close to the younger slayer, either. Angel loomed on her other side, his hand at her waist. His Slayer was safe, but Giles felt so bad for Angus McGann, Natalie's Watcher. He'd walked the same dark path when Buffy leapt from the tower.

Of course, he hadn't had the same anger to contend with. A large part of the grieving Watcher's rage was aimed at the pointless cowardice behind Natalie's death. Someone had dug a large, deep hole in one of the grassy areas around the gym, lined the bottom with jutting stakes, and rolled strips of sod over the top. After the fifth battle, she had gone to the gym for some reason, no one knew exactly why, left the sidewalks to take a shortcut across the lawn, and fallen into the pit. Xander had found her body the next day, and the only mercy was that one of the stakes had gone through her eye and into her brain. Death had been immediate.

Xander had called him, then the police, and stayed with the body. Spike came with him and McGann to the gym, and having a literal bloodhound along had been a lifesaver: there were other booby traps. While they had been fighting the fifth battle, a team of unknown humans had rigged the gym and the grounds around it to take out slayers. Between Spike, Oz, and Angel, they had found all the places with freshly-disturbed earth, trip wires, frayed electrical cords, chemical-filled light bulbs, and teetering bottles of acid. Even the floor of the showers had been sprayed with cooking oil to make the tile dangerously slippery.

Rupert thought that things were going well; they hadn't lost anyone in five battles. In the last two, the demons still had more weapons than previously, but no guns, and both had been straightforward fights. Now he was operating under the assumption that the fourth battle had simply happened before whoever was arming the hordes was ready for the sabotage.

Giles hired Angel as a consultant again, this time to put security measures in place at the gym, Watcher Central, and the residences of anyone who worked for the Council and felt unsafe. Angel had signed off on enough Wolfram and Hart invoices from bio-identification firms to know what was available, which companies to call, and which to avoid. Rupert would have gladly paid for the security upgrade himself, but Charles Gunn and his colleagues at Ronson, Ferguson, and Ronson had gotten the Swiss banks to open the frozen accounts, so the Council had more than enough money again.

Andrew and Willow had also gone through the gym and Watcher Central. Andrew had found listening devices in Giles' office and in the living room, small, sophisticated voice-activated bugs which didn't transmit, but were designed to record passively and be picked up at a later date. Tellingly, Andrew had been impressed with the technology, the amount of available storage. There were other, less sophisticated bugs in the gym, which he scoffed at. Willow hadn't found any magical surveillance or other spells, which made Giles feel both relieved and uneasy.

In the row in front of him, McGann's shoulders shook, and he covered his face with his hands. Giles felt awful for letting his mind wander; Natalie deserved his full attention. Vishnaswamy stood next to her fellow Watcher, her small brown hand on his back. McGann's grief was terrible, but his wrath was even greater, and he had been adamant about firing the person he blamed for Natalie's death. Rupert glanced across the aisle.

Spike and Dawn were on either side of Kayla, who was in worse shape than McGann, sobbing into Spike's handkerchief. Giles knew Kayla blamed herself for Natalie's death; he'd have a talk with her later today, make her understand that these things were never certain. Kayla's former Watcher, Carolyn Greene, was on her way back to London to find other employment.

Kayla had gone to Caro the morning of the battle, troubled by a dream she had about Natalie. The Watcher brushed it aside, since Kayla had never had a Slayer dream before; indeed, none of the slayers called by Willow's spell had a verifiable prophetic dream to date.

Not reassured, Kayla had asked Spike (the sole ground commander since Giles pulled Buffy to find the energy source) to put her on the same team as Natalie during the fight. Nothing had happened in the fifth battle, so the Minnesota slayer had believed it was just a normal bad dream. Giles hadn't known Kayla's grief was different from any of the other young women until Greene came to him, white-faced, and admitted that she had failed her slayer by not taking her dreams seriously.

Unfortunately, McGann heard about the lapse. While Giles, wanting to first talk to Kayla, was still wrestling with whether to reassign Greene, Angus stormed into his office demanding that the other Watcher be fired. When they emerged, Caro had been outside his door, tears on her face, having listened to the whole conversation. She resigned on the spot.

He brought himself sharply back to the moment. Natalie's body would be on its way to her parents in Indiana in less than an hour. Giles wished he had more for them, some reassurance that their daughter's killers would be found, but neither the Council nor the police had turned up any clues. He couldn't imagine how her parents must be feeling. At least Buffy's death had purpose.

Giles had asked Aubrey to speak last, and the elderly man was making his ponderous way to the podium. This speech would be for the Cleveland slayers that remained, with Willingham using his considerable corporate memory to tie them to the long line of Slayers and reaffirm their mission. The Head of the Watchers Council sighed and let his attention wander once more, this time to form a rare prayer that Aubrey would not have to make this speech again.

⸹

Dawn decided to stay with Kayla overnight. She still had enough of her things in her old room at Watcher Central that it wasn't a big production to stay. Spike watched them walk toward Dawn's Jeep, his Nibblet's arm around the shorter girl, then turned back to the room where the funeral home staff were closing the coffin.

Natalie had been a steady slayer, neither his best student nor someone who needed a lot of work. Life, he thought, was most unfair for people like her; neither stellar nor abysmal, they seemed to get lost in the shuffle. But she had been a slayer, anything but ordinary, and she was one of his. He and Angel were going to try again, heading away from the gym in increasing circles in an attempt to track down the scent of the humans who had killed what was his. Spike's gaze met the brown eyes, letting him know it was time, then he turned away before he would have to see Angel say goodbye to the Slayer.

His plan to, as Dawn put it, 'starve her out' worked about as well as any of his plans. Buffy was still with Angel. In fact, the big vampire was his main source of information about her these days. She was going on with her life without any drama, going to school, patrolling, even getting her driver's license. Spike caught her watching him sometimes, but he did his share of watching, too, hungry for any glimpse of her. There had been nothing else.

Angel came up beside him, and he nodded shortly in greeting. The two Aurelians headed to the big, black truck without discussion, though it meant Buffy would drive herself home. Angel winced every time she got behind the wheel of his classic Mustang. She was trying to get him to buy the necrotempered Camry from Giles, though the memory of Connor's teasing made the prospect less than appealing.

"Gym first?" Angel asked, glancing over at the boy as he buckled up. Even virtually indestructible beings like him appreciated safety restraints when riding with Spike.

"Yeah, get a fresh whiff of a stale trail."

After a few minutes of silence, Angel threw out something that had been on his mind. "I've been thinking, and I don't think the bugs Andrew found in Giles' office were planted by the same people who set the traps at the gym."

Spike raised an eyebrow, turning to Angel as he made a left turn. "Why not?"

"The guns in the third battle, the sabotage… feels like the same people responsible. Eavesdropping devices that are passive, it just doesn't fit." He shrugged. "The first two, they want to be known, want us to be nervous. I understand the thinking behind the first two."

"You would." Swiftly, sorry for those words, Spike plowed on. "It's the fact that the traps were laid by humans that rings false. Why would humans do this?"

"Xander mentioned the Initiative." Angel examined the blond man, curious about his reaction.

"Wondered the same thing," Spike said. "Can't swear that I'd know the scent of every whoreson who served in the Sunnydale Initiative, but not a lot of them survived the fight with Adam, anyway. These humans we're after don't bunk or shower together. They don't smell enough alike."

Angel nodded in agreement. This was grim business, because they would most likely kill the humans if they found them. While Spike hadn't been as furious as when Eve had taken Angel, the enraged vampire had scared his slayers as they began showing up when the news spread the morning that Natalie's body was found, until Dawn arrived and calmed him.

Angel waited until they parked next to the back doors. "I'm sorry about your slayer," he said. It was the first time they had a quiet moment since well before the fifth battle.

"Thanks." Spike made himself smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Angel scooted across the bench seat and put a hand on Spike's knee. After a moment, the blond man turned and accepted the offered comfort, their foreheads touching, eyes closed. Spike stayed still for almost two minutes, but pulled away before he really relaxed. "Let's get to it."

After fixing the scents in their minds, the two vampires struck east, beginning the first circle at a quarter of a mile from the gym, increasing the distance a quarter-mile each time they finished a loop. Both moved with stealth, but fast, the gait they would use to approach mobile prey. The shifting winds made progress slow nonetheless.

Long after he'd come to believe their search was futile, Angel lifted his face, turning his head toward a tang of something familiar. They were almost four miles away from the slayer training center, walking across a road construction site that had been snarling traffic as long as they had been in Cleveland.

Spike caught his hesitation and breathed in, his eyes fixing, as had Angel's, on a trailer left on the site. Since it wasn't a residence, no threshold magic kept them out. Spike broke down the door with a casual kick.

"Getting to be pretty good at that," Angel commented, keeping a straight face.

Spike glanced at him but didn't reply. They prowled through the office, noting the litter of coffee cups, extra hard hats, blueprints, and other construction paraphernalia. After half a minute, their eyes met. "Four of them."

"That's what I got, too." He looked around again. "Why would a construction crew…?"

"Freelance?"

"Compelled?"

Spike raised an eyebrow at this. "Huh." He looked around again, then absently gave the old hand signal for 'fall back.'

Angel smiled a little. Once he would have corsicated himself for thinking fondly of anything from those heady days of hunting. He could forgive himself these days; after all, those tactics were now in employ of the good. He had switched sides at Whistler's prompting over eight years ago, and only recently had he allowed himself to use all the weapons in his arsenal. Spike had been back among the corporeal for a year now, and they had been fighting on the same side for somewhat less. They were still a good team.

The contentment faded as they walked in silence back to the gym. They were a good team, but nothing compared to the team Spike and Buffy made. He hadn't seen that for over a month. Buffy had never gone into detail about her brush with infidelity – he didn't really want details – but the two of them wouldn't look at each other anymore. Apart, they were all right. It was only when they were in the same room that he got a sense of how desperately unhappy they both were. Angel thought with longing of the few hours of peace they had spent as Buffy healed, of the only family bed suited for vampires with souls.

Glancing over at Spike as they moved through the darkness like two sentient shadows, he stifled a sigh. Making a bid to bring the boy back to the family bed had probably been a mistake. The Master had been more distant since then, and Angel couldn't tell if it was because he didn't want it or if he felt wrong for wanting it. But what was a mistake at present might pay off in the future. One of the best things about being a vampire was having time to plant ideas and wait for them grow and bear fruit.

Spike surprised him by going to the truck instead of into the gym. "Thinkin' we get Dog-boy to make a firm ID during daylight hours, and Red to bring them in. Best if it's her show, and Rupert's."

Surprised again that Spike didn't want to work them over himself, Angel limited himself to asking, "Do you want me to be there?"

"Yeah," he replied with a fleeting grin, "you can loom in the background and crack your knuckles."

The silence was better after that, more companionable, and when they were outside his apartment, Angel made the offer. "Come in for a while."

"Can't."

Angel heaved a sigh. "Nothing to do with the family bed, Will. Just because you're her friend."

The boy looked at him, his eyes tired and a simple blue. "We'll never be friends."

They regarded each other for a long time, the echo of that long-ago pronouncement hanging over them. Then Angel put his hand on Spike's nape and pulled him in for a brief hug, touched foreheads, and kissed his cheek. "See you tomorrow." Leaving the truck, he went inside his apartment. Buffy was sitting on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand and another waiting on the coffee table for him.

"Did you find anything?"

He sat down next to her. "We did," he said heavily, and he told her about the surprising discovery that humans involved in the long-standing road construction project had been the ones responsible, finishing up with the theory that they might not have had a choice and Spike's plan for interrogation.

Buffy nodded her agreement when he told her that Giles would be the one in charge. "He'll get it out of them." She sent him a warped little smile. "He's never let me see it, but I hear he's much more efficient than Angelus when it comes to torture."

"Well, for Angelus, the point never really was to get information," he said, his voice dry. It seemed like a good time to change the topic. "I invited Spike in, but he wouldn't come."

She sent him a swift look laced with guilt, then looked away. "I-I'm not surprised." Just to have something to do, she took a sip of wine. "He doesn't want to see me anymore."

"Of course he does, Buffy," Angel said, taking the goblet from her. He put it down next to his untouched glass and turned back to capture her hands. "He wants to be around you more than anything else." Angel leaned in close and kissed her. Plant the seeds, he thought, and was surprised how good it felt to be sneaky. "It doesn't bother me," another kiss, "and I'm not jealous." He let go of her hands and began undoing the buttons of her blouse. "I miss him, too, you know." Moving back against the couch so that he was behind her, he brushed the shirt from her shoulders and began trailing a series of kisses along her collarbone to her neck as he settled his hands at her waist. "One of my favorite memories is the three of us in Giles' basement, the day you found out I, you know, could." He nuzzled her ear.

"Mmmm." Even as she covered his hands and moved them higher, Buffy thought of how comfortable it had been between the three of them, how she and Spike had teased Angel, how she and Angel had tickled Spike. Part of it had been the mask she was wearing until she could be alone, her emotions about the conversation she overheard suppressed until she could deal with them by herself, but the rest had been surprisingly nice, the three of them uncoupled and not in conflict.

"He's so ticklish," Angel added, thinking that it would be all he dared, "right here." And he tickled her low on the tummy, by her hipbone, making her squirm.

She swatted his hands away. "I don't even want to think about how you know that."

"Sure you do," he teased. "You fantasize about it all the time." He chuckled when she swatted him harder, but he didn't miss the way the tiny capillaries in her face heated with blood. Shut up, shut up, Angel warned himself, and found Buffy's mouth with his. Of the ways to keep quiet, this was the absolute best.

⸹

Spike let himself in to the apartment, figuring that he must be tired and less stealthy than usual. Both Mrs. Hanley and Mrs. Petrowksy had come to their doors to wish him a good night. The elderly, he had found, didn't sleep through the night as well as younger people did. As proof, he found one of his roommates asleep on the couch.

When Dawn first approached him about moving into Tribby's apartment, he had been resistant for about two minutes before he caved. The only condition was that the futon had to go. He and Dawn had picked out a completely impractical cream-colored leather couch that had, Dawn swore, tiny elves inside who moved the cushioning to just where it was needed. Spike eyed the sofa; it was incredibly comfortable, plush and wide and more restful than his own bed. Tribby was currently dozing on it, still in the black dress she had worn to Natalie's memorial service. Spike hung up his coat, slid out of his boots, and lay down on the couch, too, tucking himself behind the slayer. She snuggled against him, making him smile. Like him, she had shared a bed long enough to get into companionable sleep habits.

He let out the rest of his air, nuzzling his face into the warmth of the dark hair at Tribby's nape. He would miss her when she moved after the battles were over, not only because she made a good pillow. She hadn't forgotten the lesson Dawn imparted in Boulder about vampires needing physical comfort, and the couch, without fanfare, had become the spot for cuddling. Spike imagined that was why she had fallen asleep here, needing comfort herself after the service. As he had learned early on, she wouldn't ask.

The main reason he'd miss her, though, had to do with Dawn. Tribby didn't try to be a big sister or even go out of her way to fit the teenager into her life; Dawn would have spotted that kind of coddling at a thousand yards. But the slayer had helped Dawn choose classes for the spring semester, warning her away from certain professors and showing her how to fill required courses in the easiest possible way. He'd found them sparring once or twice when he came home. Tribby was even protective in her own way; Spike had noticed her casually turn off Nine Inch Nail's 'Closer' before the profanity began.

When he first moved in, he'd barely seen his new roommate. She was either in her studio or working at voter registration events, trying to get John Kerry into the White House. The night of the election, she went to bed before midnight, having stayed up four years earlier for a decision that never came. Spike had met her in the hall the next morning. He'd overheard her final telephone conversations, full of reports of people in Ohio illegally turned away from the polls and a bogus terrorist threat in one precinct so that votes could be tallied in secret. Rumpled and still half-asleep, she'd raised a questioning eyebrow. He'd told her to go back to bed for four more years.

He liked the apartment. Though the building was quieter than Rupert's house, because of whatever sound-dampening modifications had been done to the upper floor, music had come back into his life. Tribby had the expected punk classics on CD, but also a host of obscure artists and bootlegs downloaded from the Internet. He'd never got around to asking how someone who was born after the demise of the Sex Pistols had come to love punk rock so much. Dawn, of course, scoffed at them both, but she would dance around with them on more manic evenings and had even learned the words to a couple of Ramones songs. She was delighted with their new place. Between the stairs and Tribby's empty refrigerator, she'd lost four pounds.

For Spike, it didn't matter where they were living. The only reason he'd stayed at Watcher Central was because Dawn was there. While it was nice to be near Rupert, he'd rather thought he was done with basements. That was, in fact, the excuse he'd given Giles when explaining that he was moving out. He didn't mention anything about being less accessible to Buffy, and he honestly didn't know if the Watcher had suspected anything.

Dawn knew, of course, had figured it out soon after Tribby's tirade at the gym. She was so protective of him, even to the point of placing him with another surrogate sister to look out for him. Dawn was protective of Buffy, too, if it came to that. Keeping them apart was the best way to keep peace, at least until Buffy found her courage.

Spike had to believe she would; he clung to that hope as if it was a life preserver and he was lost at sea. The idea that she might just stay with Angel was too painful to contemplate. Instead, he nestled against slayer-shaped warmth and fell into an exhausted sleep.

⸹

Giles stood at the end of the hallway absently wiping his knuckles with a handkerchief, watching as Angel supported one of their four prisoners back to the cell. Spike, he saw, had been making a good show of playing a maniacal guard, if it was indeed a show. He had made a snatch through the bars at the freckled one's neck, only stopped by the narrowly placed bars and the width of his muscled arm. The prisoner had jerked away, red fingermarks standing out against his throat, Spike grinning at him with canines on prominent display.

Only one prisoner remained to be interrogated, and he nodded at Angel to bring that man forward. This one had a homemade dressing of gauze wrapped around his right hand, covering a burn. Giles had left him until last, wanting him to feel as vulnerable as possible. The big vampire grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him from the cell, almost dragging him down the corridor.

Their makeshift interrogation room was the seldom-used men's shower room. Angel pulled the man inside and slung him down on one of the low benches between neat rows of lockers. Giles looked him over dispassionately. A burly man in his thirties, he was hunched over, holding his injured hand protectively to his chest, the white bandage standing in stark relief against his dark skin. He stared wild-eyed up at the Watcher.

"Five, four, three, two," Giles said, holding one hand near his face. On the last word, he dropped it to his side, and Angel felt the now-familiar pulse of power emanate from the sorcerer as he hypnotized the man. The Watcher had used his fist exactly once, on the first of the prisoners. Angel was impressed, though he'd never admit it, and wondered if Drusilla would have been able to mesmerize Giles if he hadn't already softened him up for her.

"Are you in pain?" From Giles' tone, he hoped the answer was 'yes.'

"My hand hurts."

"You will feel no pain from your hand while we are talking. Nothing is more important than answering my questions. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Blinking slowly, the man lowered his hand into his lap and regarded Giles with bovine trust.

"What is your name?"

"Alvin Epperson."

"Alvin, how did you burn your hand?"

"I don't remember."

Giles raised his hand a fraction. "You will remember it when I ask you. How did you burn your hand?"

"Acid burn," he said, his mouth working in a silent wince. "I don't remember… Did a car battery explode?"

"Where did you get the acid burn, Alvin?" The Watcher's voice was like a shard of ice. "Tell me."

"Here. I spilled some acid on my hand."

"What were you doing with the acid?"

"Putting it where she told us."

"Where who told you?"

"The woman."

"Where did you first see her?"

"At the site, four days ago."

"The road construction site where you work?"

"Yes."

"How did she approach you?"

"She didn't approach. She was just there. She told us we were going to help her, so we did."

"What did you help her do?"

"Digging and stuff." The man frowned, not wanting to remember. "Things that weren't safe. People could get hurt."

Indeed they could, Giles thought, wanting for a moment to burden Epperson with Natalie's death. "Who was the woman that you helped?"

"I don't know her. She never said her name."

"What did she look like?"

"White girl, pretty young thing. Brown hair, medium height."

Giles sighed. The irony could kill a person; Epperson's description fit Natalie. "Did she have an accent? Identifying marks? An unusual way of walking or dressing?"

"No. She was wearing jeans." Epperson thought hard. "She smiled a lot, like a nervous habit."

The Watcher nodded. One of the other workers had noted that, too. "Did she mention anyone by name?"

"No."

"Did she know you by name?"

"No."

"Where did you get the material you used in this building?"

"After she told us where to go, we found all the supplies in the back of Lavon's truck."

"Did she touch you?"

"No."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about this woman?"

"She said we wouldn't have to remember it." There was a hint of whine in his voice.

Giles regarded him for a long time, then his eyes flickered to Angel. His next words were less harsh. "Did you go to the hospital for your hand?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I was ashamed."

"Ashamed? Why?"

"Because I don't know how I burned it. The people at the hospital will think I been freebasing."

The Watcher closed his eyes. "When you come back to yourself, you will once again notice the pain in your hand. It will be as bad as it was when you first hurt it. Go to the hospital and tell them a car battery exploded while you were jump-starting it. You will also remember that I hit you, but you didn't know the answers to the questions I asked you, nor did you know why I was asking. Once you are returned to the work site, you will not remember being here at all. That's when you should go to the hospital. You will awaken when I say the word five." He looked at Angel and shook his head wearily, watching as the dark-haired man grabbed their prisoner by the collar. "Two, three, four, five," he murmured, lifting his hand. Then, in a considerably louder voice, "Have you nothing else to say?"

"No! I don't know anything. Please don't hurt me!" Epperson hugged his injured hand to his torso.

"Get him out of here," Giles said, real disgust in his voice. It wasn't aimed at the prisoner, but he wouldn't know that. He glanced at his watch. Xander should be here shortly, if he wasn't already, on the off chance that he might be able to identify one or more of the men from his construction days in Sunnydale. If that possibility didn't pan out, Willow would return them to their job site. She had already planted an alarm spell on them. If anything magical approached the men again, the Council would know.

Sighing, Giles sat down on the opposite bench and put his head in his hands. He was tired, and it wasn't even noon. His own suspicion about who was behind the attack hadn't panned out. If only he could tell Natalie's parents who had killed their daughter. All he had was a nebulous entity who compelled innocents to do its dirty work.

⸹

"First Evil." Xander stated this flatly, then looked around at the people gathered in Spike's office at the gym. The blond vampire had given up the place of honor behind the desk to Giles and was sitting in a lounge chair, Dawn perched on its arm. Angel and Buffy sat directly opposite in a similar arrangement on the matching chair. Willow was squished between Xander and Oz on the couch, with Aubrey taking up all the remaining space. There was no seat for Angus McGann, but he was far too involved in pacing to notice.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "And your reasons for thinking this?"

"Targeting slayers," Xander said, ticking off his points on his fingers, "manipulating other people to do the actual work, thinking on a large scale."

Aubrey harrumphed, then sighed. "It does fit, Rupert."

"Other thoughts?" Giles looked around.

"Not that I have any better ideas," Spike said, grimacing, "but I don't think it's the First Evil. All of Harris' points are valid, but this whole… Keystone Kops, Rube Goldberg way of doing in slayers…."

"The First Evil was efficient." Buffy said this quietly, and Spike sent her a grateful look for putting his thoughts into neatly packaged words. She gave him a fleeting smile, then looked away.

"We've ruled out Initiative involvement," Oz said, "so if it isn't the First Evil, who is it?"

His question was met with silence. Giles looked around at the people in the room, for his money the brightest minds on the Council. His eyes lingered longest on McGann. "I certainly won't rule out the First Evil, who nearly did in the Council and has in the very recent past targeted the line of Slayers. However, I suggest we keep an open mind. We've set alarm spells on the listening devices found in our subsequent search of the training center and my house, as well as on the four men who were compelled to set the traps. Can anyone think of additional steps?"

No one spoke up, but Xander leaned toward Spike and asked him a question directly. "Would you use those same humans twice?"

Angel answered the question. "You'd send minions, kill them when they returned, and make new ones."

"So, why leave these guys alive?"

"Because whoever is behind this expects to have some use for them in the future," McGann said, his expression fierce. "Get the American lad, Andrew, to set up video surveillance, too."

"Excellent suggestion, Angus," Aubrey said. He heaved himself up from the couch with a groan of protest. "Here, give me a ride back to Rupert's, and we'll see what we can come up with in the way of spy gadgets." The old man sent Giles a meaningful look, which the Head of the Council took to mean that he'd get the grief-stricken Watcher to take some rest.

When only the core group of Sunnydale veterans remained, Giles folded his arms atop Spike's desk. Any pretense at coolness vanished, and Ripper was very much in evidence behind the tired features. "Our number one priority is to find who is behind this. No one gets to boast about killing a slayer."

Buffy looked at Spike, who sucked in his cheeks and raised his eyebrows, but thankfully kept his peace. "Higher priority than the energy source?"

"I doubt there will be much overlap between work on the two missions," Giles said, "but yes. Buffy, you and your fellow slayers are our most precious resource. The battles haven't been unduly dangerous. But the person or persons behind the gunfire attack and the sabotage at the gym have used the battles, once to find you en masse, once to keep you busy. I can't help but believe our nemesis is also charting the energy and laying plans around those times."

"Has there been any progress on predicting the next one?" Willow asked.

"No." Giles sighed and removed his glasses for a good polish. "Frankly, with Clem turning up like clockwork well before each battle, we've simply used our resources elsewhere."

"There's only one Clem," the redhead mused, "and we've got him. I wonder if it's possible to track other efforts to predict the battles?"

Rupert sat up slightly. "Brilliant. Would you…?"

"I'd be happy to."

He gave her a smile. "Well, unless anyone can think of something else, I suggest you all go get some rest. That's certainly my plan for the next few hours."

Dawn spoke up. "Just one quick thing: Sasha, our masseuse, resigned. She doesn't want to work at the gym anymore."

Giles nodded grimly. He met Dawn's eyes. "Hire someone new?"

Dawn shook her head. "No. Not just yet, anyway." He looked so tired, old even, that she moved across to him and gave him a hug. Feeling almost embarrassed by her desire to shelter and protect Giles, of all people, she quickly turned away. "Ready?" she asked her sister.

Buffy nodded with no enthusiasm. "Ready." She leaned over and gave Angel a quick smooch before standing up. "I'll be home in a little while."

"She should be awake by now," Dawn said. Buffy had volunteered to talk to Kayla about Slayer dreams.

"Slayer?" Spike looked up, his expression guarded. "Thanks. For Kayla's sake, I mean."

"No prob." Forcing a smile, she fixed her gaze on her sister. "Lead on, McGruff." From behind Spike's desk, Giles winced.

"Lay on, McDuff," Spike provided in a soothing voice once both Summers were out of the room.

"Thank you, William."

⸹

"Kayla?" Buffy called softly, knocking on the door. "It's Buffy. May I come in?"

"Sure."

The Slayer hesitantly entered the room. Kayla sounded defeated, and she didn't look much better. She rolled onto her side from where she'd been prone on her bed to peer at Buffy with eyes red and swollen from tears.

"Thanks." Buffy sat carefully on the edge of the bed, smoothing her skirt. "Not feeling so great, huh?"

"Not great, no."

Still awkward, Buffy sighed, wishing she knew Kayla better. After all, she was probably Dawn's closest human friend. "I guess you know why I'm here."

"Same as Mr. Giles. You're going to try to make me feel better."

"No." Buffy studied her knees. "I'm not."

This got Kayla's attention, and she sat up further. "You're not?"

"No. I'm here to tell you that the dreams come, whether you want them or not, and they're not…" The Slayer trailed off. They were a burden, but Kayla knew that well enough. "The Slayer dreams are like hurricane warnings – a-at least that's how I think of them. Knowing that the storm is coming doesn't let you move it, or make it go away, but it does give you a chance to get prepared, to weather it better."

The younger woman looked furious. "So why bother? If Natalie had to die, why put me – or anyone – through this? What good are the dreams?"

"I'm not saying that they're useless." Buffy shook her head. "When I first had the dreams, they weren't clear. The older I get, the more… lucid they are, or maybe I'm just better at understanding them. But sometimes I have them," she thought of her shared dream with Faith, "and I don't understand what they mean for a long time." She made herself turn to the confused young woman, made herself take Kayla's hands. Touching other people, people she didn't know well, was still difficult.

"The most important thing is that you share your dream, and you did just that. When your Watcher didn't take you seriously, you went to Natalie. Both of you assumed the danger would be during the battle – why wouldn't you? You did everything right. It isn't your fault your Watcher let you down, and it isn't your fault Natalie died."

"It feels like it is." Kayla sounded miserable, and Buffy squeezed her hands.

"It isn't." Oh, she so did not want to go here. "One time I didn't tell Giles or anyone about dreams I was having. Not just one dream, but a whole series of them, always about the same thing." Buffy dropped her eyes. "About someone dying. A-and I couldn't handle the thought that he would die, so I didn't…."

"Was it Spike?"

Buffy's eyes slowly lifted until she was looking into Kayla's brown ones. She wondered how much of her life was legend for the other slayers. "Yes. If I had told him, or if I had told Giles, maybe something would have been different. I don't think so, you know, looking back, I don't see how else it could have been. But," she shrugged and a small smile touched her lips, "when Spike came back, he told me that he would have wanted to know, so he could say his goodbyes, at least.

"The important thing is, let other people know. The more information we have, the more input into decisions, the better. Plus, it takes it off your shoulders. That kind of knowledge is a lot to bear alone."

"I'm scared to go to sleep."

The Slayer smiled a little at this admission. "I know the feeling. Don't fear the dreams, though – you definitely need sleep. I've gone without having a dream for over a year before."

"So, they aren't common?"

"No." Buffy shook her head, then impulsively brushed Kayla's brown hair from her face.

"Who's going to be my Watcher now that Caro is gone?"

"I don't know."

"Can I come to you if I have another dream?"

"Of course you can." Buffy stood up, needing to get away from the growing feeling of intimacy. "O-or go to Giles, since you live here."

Kayla put a hand out and touched her wrist. "Buffy? It wasn't me. In Spike's room, I mean. Since I live here and everything, I just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't me."

The Slayer stared down at her for a moment, the expression on her face difficult to read. Then she forced a smile. "I know."

⸹

"Hey," Oz said, sitting up and blinking.

"Hey." Willow looked at him from the doorway of his bedroom. "I didn't want to wake you."

"No. Wake me." He ran his hand through his hair. "Headed back to Oxford?"

"I've got a stop to make," she told him, smiling, "then back to my paper on the limits of superstring theory."

"Shame the math doesn't work. It explained a lot." He folded the pillow and put it behind his back. "So, still thinking of switching to philosophy?"

"It's the only way I can think of to combine all my interests."

"You're something, you know that?" He gave her one of his patented Oz smiles, and Willow felt tears in the corners of her eyes.

"Aww. You're something, too," she told him softly. Blowing him a kiss, she closed the bedroom door.

Willow sighed and stood up a bit straighter. _Spike? You awake?_ She only had to wait a moment for his reply.

 _Yeah. Nice to hear from you, Red._

She felt a smidge of guilt. _I've been pretty busy. Do you mind if I pop by?_

' _Course not. Aim for the kitchen._

Willow teleported between the two apartments in less than a second. She expected Spike to be in the kitchen, and it took her a moment of looking around to find his blond head looking at her over the edge of the cream-colored sofa in the living room. He touched a finger to his lips and jerked his head toward the hallway before going over the back of the couch in a slinky fashion that reminded her of the cat she and Tara had once adopted. As she followed him, Willow glanced at the couch. Both Dawn and Tribby were asleep on it, and she was impressed all over again by his stealth.

Spike gallantly bowed her into his bedroom, undermining the courtesy with a wicked smile. He settled on the bed and patted the spot next to him. _To what do I owe the pleasure?_

Taking just a moment to look at him, in his usual black t-shirt and jeans, his feet bare, she decided he looked good, healthy. She was glad to see it. Willow sat down next to him and took his hands.

 _Do I have to have a reason? I just missed you._

 _Sorry, love. Hate that I made you feel… uncomfortable._

 _You've already apologized. So, how's the apartment?_

 _Good. I miss Rupes, but it's more fun living with my Bit and a slayer than living with my Bit and a bunch of Watchers._

 _Not the right Slayer._

He shrugged. _Yeah, well._

 _How are you doing with, you know, Natalie?_

 _Furious. Sad. And, since you know my deepest-darkest anyway, a little relieved it wasn't someone else._

Willow got brief images of Rona and Vi. _I know. It seems like death should bring out the best in us, not the petty feelings._

 _Brings out the most honest, I reckon, cutting so close to the bone as it does._

 _So, you really don't think it's the First Evil?_

 _It isn't._

She raised an eyebrow. _Pretty darn sure._

 _Hate to own up to it, but I got to know the git pretty well, even mad as a March hare an' all. This doesn't feel like the First Evil._

 _I haven't found anyone who's trying to track the energy._ Willow sighed. _Maybe they've got their own version of Clem and don't need to, either._

 _It was a good idea, though._ He shifted a little, holding his arms out further to make her more comfortable. _So, how're things with Dog-boy?_ Spike watched as the slow, helpless smile spread across her face, feeling happy just to see her happy.

 _Good. Real good._ She looked down. _I spend more nights here than I do in my apart– flat._

 _Glad for you, love._

 _Spike? What was going on the night you… we…._

He got a quick succession of images of his own intense face and the rapid shuffle of Willow's emotions from and about that night. _Oh, pet, 'm so sorry. There was a lot going on._ He took a breath, made himself stop, and simply opened his own memories: the hierarchies among vampires, being recorporealized and almost immediately defeating Angel and sparing his life, the night the Scoobies left Los Angeles and Angel got drunk, bits of what he remembered from the nightmarish time in Boulder, his demon's inability to ignore Angel's trespass on what was his, and the inspiration that struck in the final moments that allowed the big vampire to live.

Willow pulled away, her face pale. "I-I didn't know."

"Why would you, love?" He sounded tired. "Rupes was the only one who had a clue."

She slid tentatively back into his mind, still thinking of his effortless seduction. _Would it have helped?_

 _No._ Spike gave her a wan smile. _Not that it wouldn't have been really nice. Would have made it special for you, love._ "Not fair to you, though." His voice was deeper than usual.

"No." _You know, you don't have to carry all this by yourself._

Their eyes had been locked the whole time, but something in Spike's gaze became more intent. He let go of one hand and stroked Willow's cheek with his thumb. _Love, I am a monster. What I was carrying around was the idea of murder. I know that – part of me knows that it's murder, anyway. The demon… He wanted what was his, and he had the right. You're a brick, Red, and you've forgiven me so many wrongs, but I can't share that part of me. Don't want you to think of me as a monster._

She covered his hand with hers, squeezing his fingers with her other. _You'll never again be a monster to me, Spike._ There was sympathy and not a little wisdom in her next words. _But I understand that it wasn't a human you needed to confide in._ Willow didn't have to say Angel's name.

Spike shrugged. _Dunno why our unlives have to be so entwined. We're opposites in a lot of ways – in every way. Sometimes I feel like we're two leaves caught in the same current, being carried along, unwitting, swirling, tossed adrift on a river of blood – Oh, bloody hell._

[ _Shut up, poet._ ]

 _Ignore me. Yeah, I've got used to havin' the ponce around. Family, right? I miss him._

 _Well, I'm no Angel substitute, either, but you can still talk to me. Things you can't tell Dawn, maybe. You're not the only one who's murdered._ Her hands flexed convulsively with the admission.

 _You're no murderer, love. Never think it. 'S'why I didn't want to burden you. Don't want to scare Dawn, either, but not a lot gets past my Nibblet._

Willow could almost taste his pride through their link. She smiled at him. _I mean it._

 _Thanks, Red._ "Thank you, Miss Willow."

"It's the contrast," she said, letting go of his hands.

"What contrast?"

"You." She gestured at him. "All scary punk on the outside, all squishy goodness on the inside. Kinda irresistible."

"Squishy?" He wasn't pleased.

Willow leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss, much like the one she'd given him once in his apartment in Los Angeles. "Completely squishy, but I won't tell." She stood up. "I'm going to pop back and get a few hours of sleep, then I've got to work on a paper. I'll try to check in with you in the next few days, okay?"

He smiled up at her. "We're good, then?"

"Of course." And she was gone.

⸹

When he asked her what she would like to do over the weekend, and Lina said 'tennis,' Xander had more than a little trepidation. Buffy had invited them over for pizza and videos on Friday, so it was only fair that Lina got to pick something she wanted to do, too. She had played for her Catholic high school and was pretty good, but it turned out that driving stakes into the tough chest cavities of vampires was good training for the proper grip on a racket.

"That was fun," he admitted as they walked from the court to his car. She had beaten him, but he'd managed to pull off quite a few volleys.

"You're a natural," Lina said admiringly. "And that backhand… wow."

"Well, I'm just an athletic kind of guy," Xander said, going for casual even as he felt a warm glow from the compliment.

Lina got a funny look on her face, and she surprised him by pulling him into a quick, hard hug. "You're the right kind of guy," she said fiercely.

"And you're exactly the right kind of girl," he said, hugging her back, glad that even though it was sunny, the November weather was too cool for him to be gross and sweaty.

"Xander…" Lina bit her lip. "Never mind."

"No," he said, "go ahead. Tell me." She didn't say anything, just looked down, so he stopped walking and put his hand on her arm. "Hey."

"Do you ever," she paused for a second to take a breath, then looked up at him with wide brown eyes, "do you ever think you'll leave the Council?"

Xander considered her for a few seconds. "This is because of Natalie, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said, a little defiance in her tone, "and because of what you told me about your eye."

She had cried when he told her that story, which touched him so much. "Natalie was–" he began, but she cut him off.

"No, don't. This isn't the time or the place. Xander," she grimaced a little, "I wonder if you'd come back to Toledo with me for Thanksgiving?"

He quirked a brow at the abrupt change in topic and gave her a half-smile. "Meet the family?"

"Yes." It was her turn to smile faintly. "I've never brought a boy home before. I didn't even let my prom date meet me at my house."

"But you have a nice family," he protested, then backpedaled. "Well, they sound nice from the way you describe them."

"They are nice, but they would have me married off with six children to anyone I brought home."

He moved a step closer. "So, this would be a serious thing, inviting me for Thanksgiving?"

"Very serious." They looked at each other steadily for a few seconds.

"Lina, I can work almost anywhere in the world with the Council. It doesn't have to be on a Hellmouth. The demons in Africa were a lot less scary to me than the thought of Ebola, so it doesn't have to be Africa, either." Xander looked down and took her racket to tuck under his arm, then held her hands between his. "Being a Watcher isn't just a job for me," he smiled at her again, "but it isn't one I have to do on an epicenter of evil, either."

"I've always wanted to go to London," she said thoughtfully.

"And it turns out I've always wanted to go to Toledo."

⸹

"Keep the couch warm," Spike instructed Dawn as he and Tribby left for patrol on Saturday. It was only five, but already getting dark, time to be out on the streets.

Dawn looked up from where she had books and papers spread around her, Tribby's laptop on her knees. "Like I've got anything better to do." She pointed her chin at the slayer. "'Harder.' What does that mean?"

Confused for a moment, Tribby finally remembered the t-shirt she was wearing. Without missing a beat, she said, "Work harder, try harder. Kind of like the Nike ad campaign, 'Just do it.'"

"Mm-hmm," Dawn said skeptically. "Three of out three of us shouldn't wear that shirt."

Spike gave her a pained smile and shut the door. He'd come back from Watcher Central one afternoon to find Dawn and Tribby at the kitchen table, working their way through a box of Oreo cookies and a gallon of milk, The Donna's 'I Don't Care' repeating on a loop as the song blasted from the living room speakers. Mitch had come back from a weekend at home with the news that he had reunited with a high school girlfriend, and apparently Tribby had received a call from Gunn a few days earlier that he was seeing someone else, too. While the slayer didn't seem to be overly affected, Dawn had been in a funk ever since. He was more than ready for her to be her cheerful self again.

"She'll get over it," Tribby said, sending him a sidelong glance as they passed Mrs. Hanley's door.

"Soon, I hope," he muttered darkly. "Still say she shoulda let me truss up the wanker and leave him for a gang of Hellions. They're partial to humans." There was an evil gleam in his eye. "'Course, the parts don't quite fit together just right."

The slayer flashed him an amused look, but didn't say anything. They had walked a few blocks when she took a deep breath of the cool air and lifted her face. "I love this time of the day, late twilight, the 'time of the long vision.' I swear you can see individual leaves on trees a mile away."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, disinterested, "good light."

"No, it's because there's just enough light that both types of photoreceptors in your eyes, the rods and the cones, are active, not just one or the other." She started to go on, made a mouth. "Sorry. There's that pesky med student again."

As Tribby lapsed into her habitual quiet, Spike found himself examining her. She probably wouldn't have mentioned that Charlie had broken things off, if not for Dawn's romantic tragedy. She didn't put demands on anyone, not even for attention. Tara had been like that, but it had grown out of being told she didn't deserve the same notice because she was a demon. Tribby honestly didn't seem to need anyone else, and it puzzled him. He'd always needed people, now more than during his socially awkward living years. Even Buffy, one of the most self-reliant people he'd ever met, needed her sister and her Scoobies, admittedly in an intermittent fashion.

Meeting Tribby's parents at her capstone exhibit had provided some clues to why she chose to depend only on herself. Her father, a physics professor, had the air of a man living with regrets, and Spike wondered what it must be like when your child has grown up to be both a medical student and a world-class athlete, yet you can take almost no credit for it. He had been desperately helpful when he was down for Tribby's exhibit, but the slayer kept him at a polite distance. At least he was trying; at this point, the William part of Spike could only hope that he never got within punching distance of Hank Summers. There wouldn't be anything left of the git.

Tribby's mother was another story entirely, and Spike could scarcely believe she was Lana's daughter. In her late forties, Anita was one of the most beautiful women he had seen in his long existence, and also one of the coldest. Having made a career of marrying up, she certainly didn't want to acknowledge having a daughter in her mid-twenties, no matter how bright or talented. Although he'd met Xander's doormat of a mother and had heard stories about Sheila Rosenberg, his definition of 'mother' began with his own and ended with Joyce Summers, so it had been a shock to him when Tribby's purposely made cutting remarks to her daughter.

As people were filing into the exhibit, Anita had complimented Tribby's dress, only to add that it was a shame she was too muscular for it to drape well on her. A few moments later, she had murmured that Tribby was looming over her. Spike raised his eyebrows at this; the dark-haired slayer was shorter than Buffy. Tired of the demeaning comments designed to make one of his own feel ugly and awkward, he'd ramped up the come-hither that came naturally to his kind, made sure he had her attention, then jerked a thumb toward her and asked Rupert, "Who's the old cow?" When he'd tried to talk to Tribby about it later, she just shook her head and told him that as long as her thighs were bigger than her mother's, it didn't really matter.

What really mattered to her came out in her art. Dawn had said that Tribby's exhibit was the most anticipated of the semester, but Spike was still surprised by the quality of her work and the number of people who crammed the small gallery. Some of the pieces were made to fulfill requirements and show mastery of different styles of mosaics, and others were obviously designed to be commercial. There were two pieces, though, that weren't for sale.

One had been a cool composition in shades of blue and brown, done in a photorealistic style reminiscent of a Swedish artist he'd known in the first decade of the twentieth century, Carl Larsson (Spike had been hard-pressed to talk Dru out of eating Karin, Larsson's wife and frequent model). This mosaic was almost kinetic, showing a young man leaping off a dock into a lake, the play of light on wooden boards so realistic that Spike fancied they would feel warm from the sun. There was so much exuberance in the jumper's form, you could almost hear the 'yahoo!' as he bunched his muscles for the jump. Slim, straight, and with longish dark hair, Spike had known it was a portrait of her late husband before he ever saw the title, 'Lost to Summer.'

The other one, the largest piece by far, might not appeal to people unaffiliated with the Council of Watchers, despite being something of a map of Cleveland. With much more of a stained glass feel to it, the mosaic showed the Jake, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Museum, the Science Center, the Botanical Gardens and several other landmarks. Near each, there was a small female figure, always with a dark, tiny sliver protruding from their hands. In several places, the clever use of speckled rock showed vampires in the act of becoming dust. The bottom of the rectangular mosaic was dark, suggesting the Hellmouth to the initiated.

He'd started to grin as he looked at it, finding Rona's braids on one little figure, identifying Kayla by the tilt of her head on another. Vi was depicted to the left, the shade of red of the stone a perfect match for her hair. Spike had been so focused on finding the slayer near each bright landmark that he hadn't noticed the two enormous, dark figures on either edge, standing like columns or flanking angels, until Dawn pointed them out. They stood framing the mosaic, each with an arm extended toward the other, and Spike had taken a few steps back to see better.

One was him, obvious from the length of dark coat and white hair and sapphire-dark eye showing above his shoulder. The feminine figure on the right was Buffy, also in black, standing a little higher atop the Cleveland Clinic so that their arms were level. With only suggestive shapes and colors, Tribby had evoked Buffy down to gold- and brown-flecked green stone of her visible eye. Between their reaching fingers was the brightness of a rising sun. Despite the fact that they were meant to be seen as the city's guardians, they were focused on each other.

When he finally tore his real gaze away from the depiction of his proud, unyielding Slayer, he found other familiar shapes. Rupert and Dawn were at a table near the approximate location of the university, the Watcher poring over a book, Dawn looking into the distance, in an attitude of listening for something. Willow and Xander were together beneath the Clinic, Ute's tall, slender shape prowled to the southwest, Vashti patrolled near her home in Kamms Corners with a thin band of wire suggesting her ever-present MP3 player, and Angel's broad, dark shape was closest to the Hellmouth. None of the slayers who had arrived in August were in the mosaic, giving him a sense of how long it had taken Tribby to plan and execute 'There Will Always Be a Cleveland.' Spike felt a chill at the promise inherent in the title. He had destroyed another town built above a Hellmouth.

As roommates, he and Dawn had been obligated to attend the round of parties after the opening, a stilted affair with Tribby's parents in a private room of a restaurant, another at a palatial home in the Edgewater section of the city, which he later learned belonged to Ty's grandmother, and the final and best in his old basement at Watcher Central. Spike had gotten Aubrey tipsy on cheap wine, and the two of them had sung rude songs for an hour.

Smiling a little at the memory of the old man, unfortunately a West Ham fan, bellowing 'Knees Up Mother Brown,' Spike missed the first rush of attackers entirely. It was Tribby who met the vampires, and it was like a wave hitting a cliff, dust spraying from everywhere her double-ended stakes happened to hit. She had taken out four before Spike could get to her, but there were plenty left. Tribby spun, putting her back to his, and the vampires waited until they had made a ring around the two warriors before they attacked.

Not that this did them any good. Spike yanked a lanky blond vampire in close, using him as a shield and a distraction for the first six kills before dusting him, going through the disintegrating matter to stake the hapless vampire on the other side. Needing another stake, Spike took two from his pocket and used one in each hand, not necessarily going for the chest with every blow. He felt a knife rake across his ribs and, with a snarl, stepped clear of Tribby so that he could deliver a flying kick that put four vampires on the ground and another three off balance. Spike finished those off within seconds.

Whirling, he saw Tribby duck between two onrushing fledges who looked lame even in demon face, palm-striking one in the nose with her right hand and staking the other with an awkward wrist movement. While the hapless vampire held both hands over its broken nose, he dusted it. Spike looked around, reaching out with all his senses, but there were no more.

"Twelve," he said, dumbfounded. He raised his eyebrows. "You?"

"Nine," Tribby said, "I think."

"It isn't even seven o'clock," Spike protested. Twenty-one vampires gathered this early in the night? "They were looking for us, pet." She nodded, already pulling out her cell phone to call Watcher Central so that other patrol teams could be alerted.

He probed their surroundings again with ears, nose, and other senses, hoping that one of the young vampires had fled, but there was no one to pursue. None of their attackers seemed to value self-preservation. Tribby folded her phone, and he said, "Shame. We got them all."

"No one left to question." She leaned her shoulder against a lamppost and, with a muffled crack, forced her dislocated left shoulder back into place. After a moment, she resettled her jacket on her shoulders. She nodded at the now-healed pale flesh beneath his sliced t-shirt. "Do you want to change or go on to the park?"

Spike stared at her a moment, gauging whether the coolness was feigned. No, she genuinely wondered if he was ready to resume the usual patrol pattern. "Sure, pet. We'll go on." He remembered his duty. "Good job, by the way."

Tribby laughed. "Like you were watching. I'm just ticked that I didn't get to see you fight, sir."

He grinned. "We're still here, yeah? Means we can brag that it was an epic battle. They were all fledges, but no one has to know that."

⸹

"Yes?" Giles opened his office door and poked his head out, answering a knock. "Oh. Hullo, Mrs. Mehta." Vashti's mother was standing there, giving him a polite but determined smile.

"Hello, Mr. Giles. Do you have a few minutes for me?"

"Of course." He stood away from the door, waving her inside. He had hoped to get some paperwork done on this rainy Sunday afternoon. Instead of going back behind the desk, he sat on the couch across from her. "May I offer you tea? Something else?"

"No, thank you." She settled herself more comfortably in the chair, draping her sari gracefully over her ankles. "I wanted to talk to you about Vashti. Do you remember that she will be gone during the month of December?"

Rupert smiled. "Yes. I believe you're going to India to visit relatives?"

"Yes." Her answering smile faded. "There's no tactful way to say this. Her father and I are not going to allow her to return to Cleveland."

"Vashti doesn't want to come back?" He was surprised.

"We haven't told her yet, but you must realize that it isn't an option."

Giles nodded slowly. "Yes, I understand why you have concerns. After what happened with Natalie–"

"Vashti is our only daughter, our baby," Mrs. Mehta broke in. "We can't risk her like that."

"I do understand your feelings," Giles said, going for a gentle tone. "However, I believe Vashti is eighteen, nineteen soon. Neither your daughter nor her Watcher has mentioned leaving to me. She might have her own thoughts about this."

"She's a good daughter. She'll do as we say. Vashti won't be coming back to Cleveland."

Rupert examined her determined face and decided there was no purpose in further conversation. "Indeed. Well, Mrs. Mehta, I do appreciate you taking time to come by and tell me in person."

She stood up. "You're quite welcome."

He stood up, too, and escorted her to the front door, his mind occupied by other things than the polite small talk they made about travel plans. Was this the first of a wave of desertions? Giles scolded himself for thinking in those terms. The slayers weren't conscripts, after all. They were free to leave; the best unforeseen consequence of activating the Potentials was that no one was wedded to duty the way Buffy had been.

Frowning, Giles closed his office door again, then leaned against the wood. Dawn had stacks of applications from across the globe, passing him a selected group yesterday from which to choose a replacement for Natalie. Slayers were more interested in serving on the Hellmouth now that there was a guarantee of action, it seemed. But the young women already in Cleveland had months of camaraderie and training. Replacing one was going to be difficult. He didn't want to look for additional substitutes, no matter what the reason.

⸹

Rona was waiting for Spike, sitting outside the gym underneath the eaves, staring thoughtfully at the newly filled-in hole where Natalie had died, a tree planted on the spot as a memorial. She raised a cheerful hand in greeting as he pulled up in his truck, though.

He dashed through the cold rain to join her, and gave her a hug that included a lift and spin, then put her back on the sidewalk. "What's up, Ro? Why the mysterious assignation?"

"If you're asking me why I wanted to see you," she grinned, sliding an arm around his waist as they walked companionably inside, "I have a really good reason."

"And the reason is…?" He slid his ID card through the new security lock, nostrils flaring as he processed recent scents once the door opened. They were all much more careful now.

"Take me to your office and give me a diet coke, and I'll tell you."

"What makes you think I've beverages filled with vile chemicals in my fridge?"

"Hmm… because you're an evil vampire? No, wait: because you work with slayers?"

"Yeah, that'd be a better reason. Some of you lot would cleave off my leg if I got in the way of caffeine." He unlocked his office door, listening to the sound of someone on a treadmill and the hiss of air through the ventilation system. While he got a drink for Rona, Spike grabbed a bag of expired Type O for himself and tossed it in the microwave, and they settled on the couch together, his right arm around her. "So?"

"Rondell asked me to marry him."

Spike's eyebrows went up. Of all that he might have expected, this wasn't on the list. "'Course he did," he managed. "Got eyes, doesn't he?" The microwave beeped, and he was grateful for the interruption to give himself time to recover from the surprise. "How did you answer?"

"I said yes." Rona couldn't keep a smile off her face. "He's a couple years older than me, but I've known him all my life. Rondell's a good guy." She gave him a soft look. "You taught me how to appreciate one."

"Ah, pet," he said, sitting down next to her again, "bright girl like you doesn't need any examples from me."

"I did, though. The way you are with Dawn, the way you–" Rona stopped abruptly, then went on in a wry tone, as they knew each other well enough for honesty. "You're devoted to Buffy. That's what love's supposed to look like, just on both sides. Now, me and Rondell? Not all that drama. But I can picture him with our kids. I don't want to wait." Her voice was faraway for a moment, then she smoothed her braids back with her free hand. "I imagine him leaving his socks all over the floor, and it doesn't make me mad."

"Solid basis for marriage," Spike agreed. Then, seriously, "Does he make you happy, pet?"

"He does."

"Then, all I have to say is congratulations."

She accepted his hug, then pulled back. "His brother already had a hall rented out for a New Year's party, so we're just going to make it a really memorable reception instead."

"Let's see the stone." He took her hand for a moment and examined the modest diamond solitaire. "Very nice. Where'd he propose?"

"A fancy restaurant. Not original, but I do have one good story. When he asked, he held out the box, then dropped it in the candle holder in the middle of the table. Good thing it snuffed out the flame."

"Got your gown picked out?"

"Yeah. Fortunately, I'm an easy size. It won't be an elaborate wedding, because we just don't have time to plan a big one."

Spike thought of Xander and Anya. "Not necessarily a bad thing."

"No, since we're paying for it ourselves. We figure there're better things to spend our money on." She smiled. "Like a honeymoon. But it'll be a nice ceremony. My church in Philadelphia is beautiful."

"I'll be there."

"I want you to give me away, Spike. Would you?"

"What?" If he had been surprised by her announcement, this poleaxed him.

"At the wedding. It'll be after dark. I want you to give me away." She shrugged. "I never knew my father."

"Ro…" Hesitating over the words, he put down his blood and took her face in his hands. "I love you, pet, and I'm proud of you, but not in the way a father is."

She gave him a light kiss on the lips, then pulled away, a smile on her face. "Family, Spike."

He caved. "'Course I will, love. Whatever you want of me."

Rona squealed a little and flung her arms around him. "Thank you, thank you! This will make it perfect."

Making her happy put a smile on his face, and he hugged her back, breathing in her scent. "Ah, Ro, you've turned into quite a woman. Rondell better 'preciate just how lucky he is." By the time she let go, he had mastered the stupid grin that wanted to be his main expression. "Where are you going to live?"

"Here during the week, then I'll go back to Philly on the weekends. Rondell has one more year before he finishes college." Her face was serious. "I'm not leaving until these battles are done."

"And that's okay with him?"

She raised an eyebrow. "It better be." When he shook his head, amused, she relaxed against the couch. "I heard your patrol had some excitement last night."

"Yeah, couple dozen vamps gunning for us."

"After you specifically, do you think?"

"Dunno. After anyone on the Council, would be my guess." He grabbed up his blood from where he'd set it on the floor.

"This doesn't help. I mean, even if we find the energy source, it won't really be over until we find out who's behind these attacks." She watched as he nodded his agreement, sucking the blood through the bag's built-in 'straw.' "Juice boxes for vampires," Rona said, amused.

"Not as good as fresh," he leered at her.

"Aw, poor baby," she said. Grabbing her purse and her half-finished can of diet cola, Rona stood up. "Well, I'd better run."

"What, I'm just another item on your to-do list?" Spike asked, only part of the petulance in his voice put on. He was feeling rather lonely and hoped to spend more time with her.

"Uh-huh," Rona agreed. "Now I have to go talk Vi into being my maid of honor before she up and becomes a matron of honor."

"Is it that serious between her and the Good Lieutenant?" Hardly anyone used Joel Muse's name now.

"Pretty serious. He's old-fashioned, though. I bet he'll ask her over Christmas."

"They grow up so fast," Spike intoned, standing up to walk her out. Maybe he'd go see who was on the treadmill. If it wasn't Mrs. Mehta or a Watcher, perhaps they'd like to take Rona's place and keep him company.

⸹

"Let's go to the gym and do Tai Chi," Buffy suggested.

Angel flinched, startled, upsetting the book he had open on his lap. He hadn't been reading it anymore, lost in thoughts of Connor. "Wha–? Oh. Sure. Good idea." He began to turn back pages until he found the last passage he remembered reading.

Buffy watched him, thinking of other times she'd come upon him reading, too many to be a distinct memory. He looked good that way, a big man doing something urbane. She had loved that about him when they first got to know each other, brains wedded to brawn, had even loved the books of philosophy he read because they made her feel sophisticated by association. In those days, he would put down the book when she arrived, because she was a visitor. Now that they lived together, the books were beginning to be an annoyance.

No, not an annoyance, she told herself firmly. They had an adult relationship; Angel read while she studied the next chapter for her American history class, balanced her checkbook, did her nails, put in a load of laundry, flipped through all the television channels with the sound muted, organized her underwear drawer, and talked on the phone to Willow. He read a lot.

To be fair, Buffy told herself, he hadn't actually been reading this time. "So," she asked, sitting down close to him on the couch, "what were you brooding about?"

Having just marked the right page, Angel closed the book. He gave Buffy a fake smile. "Nothing." Standing up quickly, he stretched a little. "I'll go get my shoes."

She watched him go to the bedroom, a small furrow between her brows. That wasn't a question she asked often; when she had asked in the past, the answer had been that he was plagued by memories of Angelus' deeds. He would look sad and guilty when she asked. This time, Angel had looked furtive. Whatever he had been thinking of, he didn't want her to know.

⸹

"What in the name of all that's unholy are you doing?" Spike asked, his hands on his hips in disbelief.

"Nothing." Tribby kept her rhythm, running on the treadmill while striking out with straight punches, a fifteen-pound barbell in either hand.

Spike snatched up a towel and walked over. "Stop." She minded him as always, taking their sensei-student relationship seriously. He waited until she popped the weights into the cupholders on the treadmill console, then tossed her the towel. "You're as wet as the Thames, pet. How long have you been at it?"

"Um," she checked the LCD readout, "almost two hours."

"Two hours."

"It's too cold and rainy to run outside today."

"Yeah, but why are you doing this?" He gestured at the weights.

"Type of interval training, sir." At his raised eyebrow, she went on, wiping her face with the towel. "An athlete maintains a base level of fitness, but just before a competition, she trains really hard."

"And what are you training for?"

"Someone's targeting us, and they're going to pay for Natalie's death."

Spike listened to her flat tone and looked her over. Her anger had been well-hidden until today. Tribby was wearing a shirt that advertised a motorcycle dealership in Myrtle Beach, with the charming legend 'Put Some Fun Between Your Legs.' Now that she had stopped, her muscles were trembling like a horse that had been ridden too hard. "Can't make someone pay if you've dropped dead of exhaustion," he pointed out.

"Dead doesn't stop you," she pointed out.

He laughed. "C'mon, pet. You want to train, I've got time."

"It isn't Tuesday," she said, protesting even as he heard her heart rate increase in anticipation.

Spike shrugged. He'd left his coat and boots to dry in his office, and he was ready to go. "What, you can only fight me on days that begin with 't?'" Before he'd finished saying the letter, she sprinted away across the row of treadmills toward a cache of stakes.

He had her on the ropes for more than five minutes until her slayer healing kicked in and she recovered from the brutal workout. After that, she was in top form, which by this point put her higher on Spike's slayer scale than Nikki. This took the level of danger from nil to slight. There were slayers in Cleveland that he wouldn't train with at all while they held a real wooden stake, not because they might get him on purpose, but because they might flail at him wildly out of the blue and make unlucky contact. Buffy, of course, would be safe, if they were still doing anything together. She always knew exactly where he was at, which for the time being was nowhere near her.

Bloody hell, he thought, chastising himself for letting his mind go to her again, a moth to a flame. At any rate, Tribby had begun blunting the stakes she used when they fought because they didn't have much margin for error. Instead of going to the open training area, they stayed in the smaller room with the treadmills and ellipticals, using the equipment as platforms or shields. They ranged the length of the room for almost five minutes without either of them finding an opening.

"This interval training stuff must be working," he commented, then laughed because she was too out of breath to answer. Tribby glared and came at him just a little quicker. Spike dodged behind a treadmill, and she tried to get him around one of the supports. He was too cognizant of his surroundings for it to work, but he thought he might be able to turn it to his advantage. By chance, she switched directions just then and nearly got Spike as he lunged for her

Before he could do much more than leap back, there was a deep, guttural roar from behind them. Angel was suddenly there, lifting Tribby away from the other vampire, holding her in the air with one hand around her neck. Buffy was standing still in the doorway, watching. She knew exactly what was going on, and while she knew Spike wasn't in danger, she was too stunned to move.

Tribby, still in fight mode, grabbed onto Angel's arm with both hands and one leg. Bracing herself against his weight, she brought her other leg around and started to kick Angel in the temple.

"Aurelian! Drop my fledge!"

The big vampire obeyed the roared command immediately, shaking the dark-haired slayer off his arm and taking a step back. He stared at Spike with widened eyes.

Tribby landed badly, having to throw her body back to get to her feet instead of just flipping up from the spot where she fell. Now five feet away from her unexpected attacker, she started back toward him, fists clenched.

"At ease!" On Spike's order, she stopped and fell into a waiting stance, swaying a little.

Buffy's brow furrowed, staring at the suddenly motionless tableau, two warriors frozen at the command of a third. Who was he? Not her Spike, something of a joke because he tried too hard. Who was this person in complete control, whose orders others complied with instantly, this person who was so busy sparring with another woman that he didn't feel her approach?

Spike looked at Angel, who had seen someone attacking the Master and simply responded on instinct, then at Tribby, who was shaking again, this time with adrenaline. "Tribs, hit the showers. That's enough for today."

" _Hai_." She gave him a small bow, then turned to Angel, grimacing. "Sorry."

"Me, too." He watched her walk past him, then his gaze went back to Spike. "Fledge?" he asked, his voice low.

Spike firmed his mouth. He hadn't thought about the semantics or how his slayers might fit into vampire hierarchy; the term had been the one that came to mind. "Just a word," he said, dismissing it with a wave.

"That's a difficult relationship," Angel warned.

"When did you ever bring along a fledge?"

"You, boy," Angel said roughly. Their eyes met for a long moment.

Spike looked away, then bent to pick up the blunted stake Tribby had dropped. "Yeah, well, definitely don't have that kind of relationship with them." He inclined his head, bidding the other man goodbye with a short, "Peaches." Spike's attention was focused on the door, his awareness buffeted by his Slayer's anger and veiled hurt.

Buffy had cut her eyes away from the two vampires only long enough to acknowledge Tribby's greeting as the other woman passed. She didn't trust herself to say anything; no one else had the right to spar with Spike like that. Words said or unsaid, actions or inactions – none of these mattered next to the truth: he was her vampire. Her eyes were on him as he approached.

Spike knew she was upset, and it took all his self-control not to march up to Buffy and take her in his arms. "Slayer."

Her eyes grew enormous as it occurred to her that after they had a good workout, either with each other or against whatever demons they could drum up in Sunnydale, it was invariably followed by long hours alone in his crypt. She did a half-step to the side, blocking the door, her mind flashing back to what was printed on Tribby's shirt.

Giving her a curious look, Spike raised his eyebrows and waited. When Buffy didn't move or say anything, he brushed past her with a muttered, "Be in my office if you think of anything you want to tell me, pet."

She sagged in relief, putting a hand out to brace herself against the door. In his office, not in the shower with that bitch. Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, unable to feel remorse for her uncharitable thoughts, only for her own weakness.

"He's too involved with them," Angel fretted, coming to stand next to her.

"Yes," she agreed quietly. Buffy lifted her head and brushed a stray tendril of hair back. She made her shoulders lift in a casual shrug. "Nothing we can do about it."

⸹

After her shower, Tribby checked the training area for Spike, seeing only Buffy and Angel doing Tai Chi. She watched the two of them move in tandem for a few moments, admiring their grace, then went to the sensei's office.

"Hey," she said, knocking. When he beckoned her in, she plopped onto the couch. "Was it just me, or was that weird?"

"Majorly weird," he said, smiling a little at the echo of Dawn in the phrase.

"Good. Not just me, then." When he didn't say anything, just closed a program on his desktop, she ventured, "So, any particular reason Angel nearly strangled me?"

Spike shrugged. "He saw me being 'attacked,' and stepped in."

"Because you so need saving."

He ignored the sardonic tone. "Instinct, something like it, anyway, the way a wolfpack will pile in if the alpha wolf is attacked."

Tribby's eyes narrowed. "They might not for a junior member of the pack. I think it's more like a parent-child thing."

"Then you're wrong. Doesn't your Watcher teach–" He cut the sentence short; Tribby and Kayla were still Watcher-less. "A vampire doesn't give a damn about their get; they can always make more. Pull of the blood goes the other way, though. You'll fight at your sire's side because that is a strong tie, instinctive behavior. Saw Angelus send a newly-made vamp out to deliver a message in sunlight, just to make a statement."

"So, any vampire that you make is blindly loyal to you out of instinct?"

"Yeah, manner of speaking. Odd, that, since we were human once. Humans don't have such obvious driving instincts." He touched his chest. "My great-grandsire, for example. Hated the bitch, but when she was hurt, nothing could stand between me getting to Darla's side to protect her."

"But you're younger than Angel. Why did he come to your 'rescue?'"

"I'm the head of our line, and that's powerful. 'S'one of the reasons I always stayed away from the former Master, avoided his summons – didn't want to be one of his adoring crowd."

"How did you get to be the head of your line?" She was frowning, trying to understand vampire social structure.

Spike sighed, cursing the Council inwardly for their lackadaisical teaching. Whatever happened to know thy enemy? "Me an' Angel had a fight to the death – well, the brink of death, and he submitted to me, so I'm the Master of the Order of Aurelians. Yay, me," he finished glumly.

"This is since the soul, I take it?"

"Uh-huh."

"So," she said slowly, giving him a measuring look, "you could, for instance, just order Angel to leave?"

"I could, yeah."

Tribby did one of those feminine things that paradoxically made him feel uncomfortable but stayed with him ever after, a warm spot in his heart. She stared at him a long time, as if she could see around his corners, and finally said, "You're a good person."

Spike gave her a wary look. "You're off your nut, but," he turned away so she wouldn't see him smile, "thanks." He'd always thought so; nice to have some recognition.

"You're welcome, sir. Look, I can't make it until supper. I'm starved."

"Wonder why?"

Tribby ignored the interruption. "Come get some Thai with me, late lunch or something. I'll buy." She stood up, ready to go.

He seriously considered it, just to get out of the gym and away from the aura of the two people he missed most. "Better not. Kayla and Vashti are coming at sunset for patrol."

"No big. Thanks for the workout."

"Tribby? Who said 'know thy enemy?'"

"'If you know thy enemy and know thyself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles,'" she quoted automatically, turning back toward him. "'If you know thyself but not thy enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither thyself nor thy enemy, you will succumb in every battle.' Sun Tzu, _Art of War_." Tribby gave him a self-mocking smile. "Martial artists love that book."

Spike looked at her pointedly. "Next time you're at Watcher Central, ask Aubrey for a good book on your enemies."

"Or I could just ask the real expert." At his blank look, she elaborated. "Dawn."

"Really?" He couldn't keep the pride out of his voice.

"Unlike most Watchers, she's actually lived with a vampire."

"So do you," he pointed out.

"Oh. I guess I do." She smiled at the realization.

Spike waved her away, then sat and stared at his blank computer screen until he remembered that someone might interpret this as brooding. He didn't have anything that really needed doing, unfortunately, nothing that would keep his mind off the warm rush of feeling when Angel came to his defense, the pain that he'd felt at seeing the hurt in Buffy's eyes. If there was something he could do, other than sacrificing parts of the soul that he had fought so hard to regain, he couldn't think of it.

"Ah, brooding," came a voice from the doorway, "a vampire's favorite pastime."

He had lapsed into staring at the blank monitor again. "Not brooding, whelp," he said, so grateful to see Xander that he came around his desk to give the dark-haired young human a hug, "just thinking."

"Riiight," Xander agreed good-naturedly. They sat down on the couch. "Dawn said you were meeting Kayla here?"

"Yeah?"

"You're looking at her new Watcher."

"Rupes already decided?"

"Yeah. McGann wanted her, but Giles didn't think he was emotionally ready for another slayer."

"Good call."

"Anyway, I thought I'd stop by and give her the," he pretended to shoot his cuffs, "good news in person."

"She liked Caro."

"I liked Caro. She had more personality than most of the Tweed Brigade."

"Who gets Tribby?"

"Pelham. He flatly refused at first; said she was too much under the influence of dangerous elements."

"That would be," Spike smiled faintly, "me?"

"You are correct, sir."

"How do you know Carson? You're too young."

"I had a TV in my room for a while when I was young – an electronic babysitter. Used to stay up late and watch _The Tonight Show_. I loved Karnak the Magnificent."

"Leonard J. Waxdeck and the bird imitations, me. No one like Carson."

"Conan's okay, but that's getting to be too late for an old man like me to stay awake."

"And this is the point where I'm supposed to say something like, bloody hell, Harris, you're still a pup?"

"I would appreciate it." He propped an ankle on the opposite knee and regarded his shoe. "Saw the Buffster doing that slow karate stuff with Angel down in the training room."

"Tai Chi. Yeah."

Since Spike obviously wasn't in the mood to talk about it, Xander changed the subject. "Got plans for Thanksgiving?"

The blond man lifted his shoulders. "Got a couple of invites, but nothing in town. Gotta be here, since I volunteered to make Bit's life easier and patrol during the holiday weekend. What about you?"

"Going to meet the parents," he said heavily.

"Ah. Nervous?"

"No, I'm actually not. I can't imagine that Lina's family will be scarier than mine."

"You going to Elmwood next month to see them?"

"Yes, those are my Norman Rockwell Christmas plans," Xander agreed, more irony than bitterness in his voice. "I still can't decide whether to ask Lina to go with me. I mean, I like her too much to subject her to them, but you can't not introduce the girl you love to your parents."

"Love?" Spike teased.

Staring at his shoe again, a private smile touched Xander's mouth. "Yes, I guess it is."

"Good for you, mate."

"You know," he mused, "it isn't very flattering or even how I think about myself, but the word 'resilient' keeps coming to mind when I think about two-three years ago and where I am now." Xander shook his head. "I can't help but be glad that there was someone else out there for me, but I feel a little guilty, too."

"Grateful, not guilty."

"I still find myself wondering what Anya would have to say about this or that, thinking up ways she could make me cringe."

"Wonderful girl." Then guilt tinged Spike's expression. "I mean," he gestured vaguely, "you know."

"I know," he agreed in a quiet voice. Then, hearty, "So, any chance you can skate off patrol and come see the Jets defeat our beloved Browns? I've got a couple of tickets. Not good seats, but not too bad."

"Skate…? Oh, you mean skive. No. Last time Vashti and I patrol together before she heads off to India for a month, innit? Can't miss that."

Xander nodded. "I think I'll ask Jacobson, then. He'll be appalled by the prospect of American football, but too polite to turn me down."

"He's not bad, for a Watcher."

"Hey, show the proper respect. Watcher, here. And," he added, a glint of wickedness in his brown eyes, "so are you."

They discussed the Browns' prospects (negligible) and the support of Cleveland fans (astounding) for a few minutes, until Vashti bounced in, bobbing her head to whatever was playing on her MP3.

"Hey, it's the world's toughest Canadian," Xander greeted her. Kayla and the other Cleveland veterans routinely called her T.C.

"Hey," she said, her hands busy turning off her music. "Did you guys know it's started snowing?"

"Really?"

Spike smiled at the excitement in Xander's voice. "California native," he said, inclining his head.

"We don't get this much snow in Vancouver, either. Spike, after Kayla gets here, can we stop and grab a bite before patrol? I'm famished."

Spike, distracted for a moment by Buffy and Angel's auras, jerked a little before refocusing on Vashti. "What is it with you slayers today? Bottomless pits, the lot of you."

⸹

Buffy was in a black mood. She had hoped to have some semblance of a family Thanksgiving, and Xander had just informed her that he was going to Toledo. Willow and Oz were going out West to visit family. Dawn was spending the holiday in Minnesota with Kayla, and she flatly refused to reconsider. Giles would come, but he was still cool toward Angel. While a Summers' Thanksgiving sometimes had consisted of just three people in the past, Joyce and Dawn had been the other two.

Buffy kicked a beer bottle viciously toward a dumpster, with the satisfying result that it smashed on the open lid and all the shards fell neatly inside. Part of her bad mood was because Dawn had scheduled her for a double shift, back-to-back patrols with her current two least favorite slayers, Tribby and Maria. Buffy had long since realized that her sister did not team her up with Spike anymore, and she couldn't even pretend that it was Dawn's decision. If it hadn't been Spike's idea, he would have complained. Dawn usually paired her with Watchers these days. Since the mostly British Watchers would be doing the patrolling while the Americans scattered to their family homes for the Thanksgiving holiday, the week was frontloaded with slayer pairings.

Tribby, at least, didn't talk much, and they went through the first patrol of the night at a brisk clip in near silence. Buffy had gotten out of her that she was going to Tennessee for Thanksgiving since she had promised to spend Christmas in Miami with her mother. The Slayer didn't want to think about why there was a tiny easing sensation in her chest just from knowing that Spike's non-Dawn roommate would be out of town a lot the next couple of months.

Now Buffy saw Maria in the distance, her dark hair loose and curling despite the fact that vampires like long hair… or maybe because they like long hair. Raising a hand in greeting, she pasted a smile on her face. "Hey, Maria."

"Hey, Buffy. You look nice tonight."

"Thanks." Her tone was dry; she had her hair pulled back in a loose bun and had slathered on moisturizer instead of applying makeup. "I like it when the vampires drop at my feet; it makes them easier to slay."

Not quite able to decide if Buffy was being sarcastic in a biting way, Maria settled for just nodding. They headed toward downtown, where Buffy thought they were more likely to find aliens or leprechauns than vampires. No prey was out on this raw weekday, so the predators would be cozy in their crypts and lairs, too. After a few blocks, Maria tried again.

"Cold tonight."

"Very, especially for us California girls."

"Yeah." Maria pulled her hands inside the cuffs of her jacket. "Are you going back to Cali for Thanksgiving?"

"No. You?"

"Yeah. I haven't seen my family since August. I guess your family is here, though. No more Sunnydale."

"No more Sunnydale," Buffy agreed.

"I heard Dawn was going to Minnesota with Kayla."

"She is."

"What about Giles and Spike?"

Buffy bit down on the first words that came to mind. She was willing to bet that Maria didn't care where the Head of the Council of Watchers spent his holiday. "Giles is coming over for dinner. I don't know what Spike's plans are."

"I heard that a bunch of the English Watchers are going to get together for, like, an anti-Thanksgiving and have spotted dick or something," Maria said. "Maybe he'll go to that."

"Because he's so welcome?" Buffy said sarcastically, then immediately wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

"Yeah, they don't like him much," the other slayer agreed. She rolled her shoulders in an elaborate shrug. "That's okay; the slayers like him. We like him just fine."

"Uh-huh," Buffy agreed neutrally. Kittens and their claws.

"Buffy, can I ask you something?"

Can I stop you? "Sure."

"What's so special about Angel?"

"What?" She hadn't expected this question.

"Not to be all up in your business, but everyone knows you chose him over Spike. I just don't see it."

Buffy turned, peering at the taller slayer over the edge of her turned-up collar. "You don't see why a woman might want Angel?"

Maria shrugged. "He's okay. I've been around dark-haired men all my life, so… I've seen better. But, you know, not about me. Between the two, I just wondered why you chose Angel. I know it isn't based on looks."

"Angel was the first man I ever loved."

Maria was quiet for a long time. They walked through the empty streets, the occasional slushy sound of a car driving through the snow-wet streets the loudest thing they heard. The younger slayer finally looked over at her. "Thanks for telling me. I always wondered."

"I-it's okay." Buffy felt a little like she'd been hit with a pillow when she'd been expecting a brick. "I know the potentials had a different expectation about how things would turn out."

Maria nodded, and they walked along their route, each lost in her own thoughts. The only demon they found was a fledge exhausted from scrabbling through the frozen ground of her grave, and Buffy, feeling as though it was a mercy killing, dispatched her before the vampire knew they were there. At four-thirty, they stopped by mutual agreement at a convenient store and bought coffee to help them thaw. They finished up the last leg of patrol, ending at the gym, where Maria's Celica was parked next to Angel's classic Mustang.

"Buffy?"

"Mm-hmm?" she said, swallowing a sip of coffee. Like Maria, she had her fingers wrapped around the still-warm cup.

"A lot of times, I see guys come between women, mess up their friendship. I don't think it needs to be that way. You and I, maybe we're not really friends, but I look up to you. I wanted to tell you, straight up so there's no misunderstanding, that I'm aiming for Spike."

"Aiming for…?"

Maria held her gaze. "When I first got to know him, he was… exhausted. You know what he'd been through. But he was still fun, you know?" She lifted her shoulders. "Now, he's…" A sly grin curved her mouth. "He's hot. I live for the nights we use paint on the fake stakes and he changes his shirt. And he's more affectionate now, so more hugs. But he isn't as much fun. Spike seemed happier in Sunnydale. I'd like to see him that way again. And since you've got a man of your own… Maybe Spike and I can make each other happy. I just don't want you to hear secondhand."

Buffy clutched the coffee tightly between her palms, the only thing stopping her from throwing it in Maria's pretty, confident face the fact that it was no longer hot enough to scald. Her mind raced wildly past killing the bitch to the uproar of finding another slayer's body by the gym, to her Watcher's grief over the loss. It stopped her; she'd seen what losing Natalie had done to McGann, and Buffy couldn't bring herself to do that to Vishnaswamy.

"Thanks for telling me." Her voice was quiet, composed.

Maria seemed surprised by the calm acceptance, and she nodded, suddenly awkward. "Guess I'll head on home. See you tomorrow."

Buffy sat in the Mustang a long time after Maria left, shaking too much to drive. Spike was her vampire, but since she wouldn't claim him, the rest of the world saw him as available. Eligible. She pondered the word until it stopped making sense, became stupid, a series of meaningless sounds. Eligible to win. Eligible bachelor. She put her head against the steering wheel, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and didn't cry.

⸹

Tuesday was the last training session of the week, since so many slayers were traveling out of state the next day. Buffy made sure she was the last person to arrive, and she came in with her head high, wearing no more makeup than usual, her hair pulled back in a sensible ponytail. What she carried in her hand, though, made the slayers fall silent as she walked directly across the floor to Spike.

Holding out the Slayer's Scythe, she met his surprised eyes. "I thought it would be a good idea for the other slayers to get used to it." Spike's thoughts were so easy to read: it was a good idea; she should have let him know earlier; why not?

"Got nothing this exciting planned for tonight." He took it from her and shifted his grip a bit until it was balanced. "Good thinking, pet." Spike made himself look away from her intent, almost hungry gaze.

"Right, then," he said, raising his voice. "Gather 'round, my lovelies. Summers brought a treat for you tonight." Spike passed it to Geneva, starting it down the line so that each of the young women had a chance to touch it as he told them what was known of its provenance, how it had refocused the tremendous power of the original spell that created the line of Slayers and changed each of them from a potential into a slayer. As he finished, he took it back from the last person in line, Bethany. There were no other Watchers at the gym tonight.

"So, all your archetypes right here, Buffy descending into the underworld to come back with a tool to save the people," he threw her a warm look, "with more than a little Holy Grail mixed in." Holding the weapon above his head, he waited until all their eyes were fixed on it. "Each of you felt it, dunno, thrum in your hands like a plucked guitar string. I don't get that feeling. This is for you alone to wield."

"You wield it, too," Ivana pointed out. "I have seen you."

Spike looked nonplussed for a moment, then convulsed, holding his hands close to his body. "Ahh! It burns!" Then he stood up, grinning cheekily. "No, it doesn't. Sorry, love. Couldn't resist."

Her face pale, Ivana swatted him. Spike handed her the Scythe, and she feinted a jab at him, an unwilling grin finally blossoming on her own face as the slayers' giggles faded. Moving away, teeth still showing, he went to the rack of weapons along the wall and selected a five-foot length of rebar. Spinning it casually in front of him, he surveyed the group. "Who wants to have a go with the ravening, fanged menace first?" Ivana looked at him, then shook her head, holding out the Scythe and glancing to her left and right for takers.

"I will." Buffy stepped forward to reclaim the weapon, unable to keep her cheeks from curving. Spike went still.

"All right!" Tribby's eyes lit with anticipation; she'd waited to see this for months. "Let's give them some room, people." She led the way to the edge of the gym, where some slayers leaned against the wall and the rest sat down cross-legged to watch.

Spike began to smile. It had been too long. "Sure you can handle this?" he smirked, stepping backwards as he slowly circled her, the length of steel in constant motion.

"I can handle anything you've got." Buffy watched his smile broaden, then he came at her with a vicious downward sweep, a hand on either end of the rebar. She met the attack with the axe.

He ducked to the side, clear and unharmed, now holding two pieces of rebar, just as he had intended. Spike heard the appreciative murmur of voices at this proof of their weapon's strength, but he hardly cared. He was dancing with his Slayer.

Buffy retreated only when absolutely necessary as he came at her with the two bars, working with them as if they were escrima sticks, deadly in either hand. He forced her to use her weapon as a stake or a scythe, not leaving her enough room to swing the axe. She knew there was a small smile on her face, impossible to keep at bay. God, she had missed this. Then Spike sidestepped, coming at her weaker left flank.

"What was that?" Ivana said. "It was too fast."

"That," Tribby said, grinning, "was excellent peripheral vision. Buffy can see everything that's coming at her. You can't learn that. Look at them!" This last was in a tone of awestruck admiration.

"But what happened?"

"He tried to trap her hands–" Impatient, Tribby put an arm around the younger girl to keep her still. "Just watch."

There was a gasp from the crowd as Spike bent backwards, like a contestant in the world's most intense limbo tournament, to avoid Buffy's sweep. He came up chuckling, not to reassure the slayers, just because he was having so much fun. For three minutes, they tested each other, darting away like sandpipers in surf, zooming in close like hummingbirds to nectar. Spike had intended to switch weapons, to show his lovelies what a magnificent Scythe they had, but that was lost to the perfection of the dance.

The Slayer chopped one section of rebar in half again, and Spike managed to get the remaining length between the axe head and the handle, pulling it out of Buffy's grasp. With hardly a glance, he slid the Scythe all the way down and took it in his own hand long enough to toss it in Rona's direction. Dropping the rebar, he spoke, a gleam in his eye. "Do we really need weapons for this?"

Buffy's lips parted, her gaze locked on his, and she gave him a full, genuine smile, so rare these days. She ran her hand down her abdomen. "They just make me feel all womanly."

Her words put a fierce grin on his face, which blurred after a moment and became a display of fangs. Spike laid his head back and roared, then came at her full speed, faster than any of the other slayers in the room had seen him move. What blows Buffy didn't block were dodged; what kicks Spike didn't catch never landed.

Rona handed the Slayer's weapon to Vi. "God, this isn't even sticky hands. It's…."

"Ballet," Vi supplied.

"Fire dancing," Rona suggested.

"Thank God they're on our side."

The end came suddenly. Buffy hooked an ankle around Spike's knee and leveraged him down, straddling him, her empty fist over his heart. She blew hair out of her face and gave him a triumphant smirk. Then she felt a damp spot on her neck growing cool, drying. He had gotten her first, opposite his bitemark, his mouth leaving an invisible reminder that he was as deadly as she was. Spike was staring up at her, adoration in his now-blue eyes, and he was breathing, that unnecessary rise and fall of his chest, fast and hard.

Buffy was suddenly aware of the applause from their audience, and she scrambled off him, holding out a hand to help him up. When he stood, too close, she did what she'd seen other slayers do, gave him a shallow bow. He returned the gesture of respect by going down on one knee, a subject before his queen, a man asking for the hand of his beloved. She turned pink and looked away, flustered. Of all the eyes on them, she felt Maria's with a particular weight and studiously did not turn her way.

"Buffy, that was incredible!" Tribby was beside her, dark eyes glowing with excitement. "In nine years of competition, I never saw a fight like that! It was…" She gave up, unable to find a martial arts example. "It was like the 1992 Kentucky-Duke basketball game!"

"Um," Buffy said, "thanks?"

"Buffy, that was amazing," Ivana, next in line, assured her. "Your perforated vision is excellent."

"Girl," Rona said emphatically, and left it at that.

Spike watched, silent and proud, for a few moments as the slayers reaffirmed their bond with their general, and when he finally did speak, he found it difficult to get them settled down. He had them choose an axe to drill with, and passed the shining Slayer's Scythe down the line so that each woman got a chance to use it. Class could let out early, he decided, ready to kick off the long holiday weekend. He closed with good news.

"Right, then, ducks, flock to me." He waited until they were gathered loosely around him and captured Rona around the waist. "Got an announcement concerning the lovely Ro. On New Years Eve, she's going to get married, give Rondell the luckiest break he'll ever get. Go on, then, love, show them the rock." Spike kissed her cheek, shared a private smile with her, and withdrew as Rona's left hand became the focus of the slayers' attention.

As soon as she could, Buffy followed, tracking Spike to his office. He looked up as she entered, wary, and moved further behind his desk, physically blocking any possible contact with her. Just now his honor was a weak, puling thing next to his desire. "Something you want to say?" The words weren't the right ones. He was finding it hard to be tactful when he couldn't get past hard. She'd given him hope again through their dance.

"Would you come for Thanksgiving dinner?" she blurted, not having planned to ask at all. Something difficult was building inside her, and she felt the pressure against her lungs like a physical thing.

Spike took a breath; her words weren't the right ones, either. "Not what I was hoping to hear."

Buffy stared at him, hating the contrast between the open, laughing man he'd been in the training room and all the defenses he had in place here. Too much time went by, so she licked her dry lips and said, "Maria is interested in you."

His expression tightened. "Don't need you to pimp slayers for me, Summers." Spike's large hand settled at his waist for a moment, where his belt usually was. Their fight had primed him, the scent of her perspiration-damp body sang in his nostrils. "Can cull one from the herd myself, I need to." Shut up, shut up. He didn't want anyone else. But being kind and understanding was much easier when he didn't want to leap across the desk and ravish her against the door. God, Buffy and doors.

She shook her head, dismayed at his assumption. "No. I didn't mean… She told me she was interested in you, and I…."

He got it then. The dance hadn't been about them. "And you came in and gave her and everyone a fine display of how I'll always be yours."

This time Buffy simply closed her eyes and stood there, wishing she had the words. "Rona's getting married."

Spike blinked at this unexpected conversational detour. "Yeah?"

"She's younger than I am." Buffy took a breath and opened her wide eyes. They were very green. "You told me once you wanted to put a ring on my finger."

"I did." Where was she going with this? "Ask your sister; she saw it."

Buffy frowned. "You actually picked out a ring for me?"

"Paid for it, even, nothing illegal at all."

"Why?"

"Gonna ask you to marry me, wasn't I? Early on, I had hopes. Married, you wouldn't have had as much trouble with the social workers over keeping Dawn. Married… I coulda taken care of you."

"I wouldn't have said yes back then."

"You won't say yes now." It was his turn to close his eyes for a moment. "Don't fret, Slayer. I took it back. Box was a little singed from where Soldier Boy burned my crypt, but the store had a generous return policy."

They regarded each other across the desk for a long time. Finally, Buffy sighed. "I came to ask you to not sleep with Maria."

"You just assume I'm available to any slayer who asks? I've turned down offers already, Slayer. Did you forget you asked me to not sleep with your friends?" He smirked, unable to keep his mouth shut. Did she honestly expect a vampire to remain celibate when she wouldn't? "'Course, Maria's not your friend." Spike watched her swift, silent anger as she absorbed this, then braced his hands on the desk and leaned across. "What if I ask you to not sleep with my friends? What if I ask you not to sleep with Angel?" he challenged.

She lifted her chin, opened her mouth to say something, then turned and left his office. He watched her go, listened to her retreating steps, felt her aura recede. Spike closed his eyes for a moment, his jaw clenching. Could that have gone any worse? He slammed his fists down against the desk, denting the metal beneath the layers of files and papers.

⸹

Dawn waited until she was sure Kayla was asleep, then stealthily put her cold feet against her friend's warm calves. And she'd thought Ohio was frigid.

It was late on Black Friday. Still stuffed with turkey and ham and all the trimmings, Dawn had gone with Kayla's sisters and mother to the post-Thanksgiving sales, all of them squeezing into a creaky minivan at four in the morning. They hadn't returned until after two in the afternoon, a bout of shopping that even Buffy might not survive. Dawn certainly hadn't.

She had fallen in love with Kayla's family, their farm, even their livestock, and she had nattered on about milking a cow when she called Spike before falling into bed at an unheard-of nine o'clock. The small town was charming, and everyone was so normal that she felt like she must stick out like Lorne at a church picnic.

The one thing that Dawn was hoping for hadn't happened. Kayla's, brothers were too old or too young. Listening to her friend's steady breathing, she thought of what she'd told Spike once, that she just wanted someone for herself. Mitch wasn't that someone.

Dawn took in a deep breath, immediately burrowing her nose under the layers of homemade quilts to get away from the cool air in the old farmhouse. Really, it was better to be alone than to be in the wrong kind of relationship. Her sister, for instance, was sharing an apartment and a bed with someone she didn't even realize she wasn't in love with anymore.

She had seen it one Sunday afternoon, accompanying Buffy home to see a new pair of boots after they had their customary lunch. Angel had been awake, sitting on the couch and reading a book. Buffy had been almost perky over fajitas and a margarita, but grew serious when they got to the apartment. She gave Angel a fond kiss, greeted him, and then never said anything else to him the whole time Dawn was there. For his part, Angel read his book without ever looking up. The two of them had longed for each other for years without ever realizing what they dreamed of was not there anymore.

Oh, Dawn would never deny that Buffy and Angel loved each other, but comfortable distance wasn't what she wanted for herself. She wanted passion and laughter and honesty. She wanted to have a best friend and a lover in one. She still wanted someone to look at her with the same expression Spike had worn when he saw Buffy, newly returned from the grave, her knuckles scraped and raw. He had even looked at her like that once, when he'd been crazy and convinced she was dead. But he wasn't hers.

Sighing, her feet warm now, Dawn rolled onto her back. It wasn't Spike she wanted anymore, her girlhood crush long since evolved into a truer love for her best friend, but if anyone ever offered her what he wanted to give her sister, unswerving devotion in a handsome, fun-loving package, she'd grab on with both hands and never let go.

Not that anyone was offering.

Did other people wonder about their place in the world, she thought, wondered if their existence was tenuous, or was it just because of her own origins that she worried that one day she would simply evaporate? If that was meant to be her final fate, then maybe she would never meet anyone, never fall in love, never cause another being the kind of devastation she'd seen in Spike and Buffy when the other was gone. Dawn didn't want to hurt someone that way, didn't want someone to grieve for her at the expense of everything else.

But if she was going to stay here and age and have a life, Dawn couldn't help wanting someone of her very own, someone to love.

⸹

"You know," Kayla said conversationally, "I'm beginning to not believe in global warming."

"Is that right?" Spike replied, disinterested.

"If there was global warming, it wouldn't be this cold."

"You're from Minnesota, pet. Surely you're used to it."

Kayla raised an eyebrow. "I never went outside and walked in twenty-degree weather for hours in Minnesota. We're too smart for that." They went on in silence, cutting between couples and small knots of happy people on their way home after dinner as they wended their way down Mayfield, in the Little Italy section. This first Monday after Thanksgiving, the holiday spirit was already apparent and still felt new rather than commercialized and jaded.

Lost in his own thoughts, Spike ignored the Christmas decorations. He had spent the last few days either kicking himself for letting Buffy leave his office without making a decision or debating which slayer he could sleep with to piss her off the most. Throughout the long weekend, he had been alone in the apartment with nothing else to think about and no one in town to distract him. Giles and Aubrey had disappeared into a black hole of research together, and he no longer sought opportunities to spend time with Angel. A year ago, he'd been newly recorporealized and united with his family. How had that slipped away, with all of them in one town now?

Kayla snorted, drawing his attention back to her. "They always do that," she said, gesturing at a restaurant across the street with a large window that framed a couple dining in the romantic glow of candles. "Put some gorgeous couple who haven't yet started to fight in public on display for free advertising. Then, you go inside, and everyone else there has screaming children which they won't shut up because they're too busy braying into their cell phones to the people they'd rather be with." She stopped mid-rant. "Did that sound bitter?" Kayla glanced over her upturned collar and realized that Spike had halted a few feet behind her, looking apprehensive.

"Bloody hell," he said, whipping out his cell phone.

"I don't just sound bitter," Kayla mumbled, watching him dial, "I am bitter."

"Bit, thank God you're there. We forgot Tribs' birthday."

"You forgot, oh male-of-the-species. I've got a cake and a card. All you have to do is sign your name when you get home."

"Oh." He took a breath. "You're a goddess among women, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, but I never get tired of having it acknowledged. What made you remember, anyway?"

"The fact that I'm currently watching Ty give Tribby a birthday present." He glanced up to see the slayer lean over the table to embrace Ty, threatening the containment powers of the little black dress she wore. Kayla was right; framed by the window, they were the very image of romance.

"Yup, pretty big clue."

"Thanks, Nibblet."

"No problem. Where would you be, ad infinitum, et cetera."

"Lost, utterly lost. Bye, love." Spike folded his phone and looked around. Kayla had wandered up to the window and tapped on the glass, making a surprised Ty clutch his heart melodramatically and appalling the sommelier. Tribby laughed and waved back at the other slayer. She looked happy and carefree, which, Spike reflected, was the way it ought to be when one turned twenty-five. Since it hadn't happened that way for him, it should for someone.

"Still bitter?" he asked Kayla as they walked on.

"No. The restaurant should give them a free dessert or something, though, for seating them like that. It's a shame Ty's not het; they do make a lovely couple." She burrowed her hands deeper into her coat pockets. "This is her twenty-fifth, isn't it?"

"Big birthday for a slayer," he agreed. Kayla was looking off in the distance, and he followed her gaze to a thin man loitering beside a doorway. Before they got close, a woman came out and joined him, and they headed innocently to their car.

"And you forgot?" Kayla went on, as if there had been no interruption.

"Don't do birthdays, do I? Didn't want to play favorites amongst the slayers, so it's better to forget everyone's birthday. 'Course, when you live with someone, things change a wee bit." He looked at her. "Here you go, love. You need a better coat." Spike took off his own and helped her into it.

"Oh, Spike, you shouldn't," Kayla protested, but her big, brown eyes lit up at the gallantry.

"'Course I should." He shrugged and tugged at the long-sleeved turtleneck he was wearing. "Cold doesn't bother me, and so long as no one looks too closely, I won't look odd." The prophetic dream of Natalie's death had taken a toll on Kayla, and he was pleased to see a hint of her old sparkle returning.

"How long have you had this coat?" she asked, running an appreciative hand over the supple leather before tucking it back inside a pocket.

"Since last year in Italy. Before that, had one similar for almost thirty years."

She caught the note of sorrow in his voice. "That's longer than I've been alive," she said brightly, hoping to distract him, get him to tell a story.

"Longer than I was alive myself."

There was nothing she could say to that, so they walked in silence for a while, heading toward the University. "Have you seen Giles lately?" Kayla asked, knowing that it sounded abrupt.

"No. Willingham bought some fragment of parchment that he made over, then Rupes was mad for it, too. Dunno what it is, but it's taken all their time lately."

"I saw him in the kitchen yesterday, and he sort of looked up from the notes he was holding and said," she slipped into a pretty good Giles imitation, "'oh, hullo, dear,' then walked into the doorframe. I could have been a space alien for all he noticed."

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Can't say that I've ever seen him that preoccupied before."

When their patrol was over, Kayla elected to go back with him to visit Dawn and have birthday cake. Tribby hadn't returned, and the three of them settled on the couch to watch Conan O'Brien while they waited. Before the show came on, though, Spike sat upright and, with a muffled curse, pelted for the stairs, pausing only to grab a stake from the cache by the door.

Three floors down, his sense of other vampires in the vicinity began to fade, and by the time he threw open the front door, it was over. Tribby was standing on one foot, holding a double-ended stake in one hand and her shoe in the other, examining its broken heel. She shrugged, a wry expression on her face. Ty was next to her, holding her coat and purse, looking shocked.

"You just stabbed those guys," he said, his face blank but his voice tight. "And they exploded. You killed them."

"Can't kill what's already dead," Spike said, but his eyes were on the slayer. "How many?"

"Seven." Her tone was just as grave, but she cut her eyes to Ty meaningfully. This made twice that a group of vampires had been in suspicious proximity to their apartment, but now wasn't the time to discuss it. "Hey, Dawn. Hey, Kayla. It's over. We're fine."

Ty, fumbling for his cell phone, didn't notice the two women in the doorway. "We have to call somebody, the police or something."

"No." Spike took the phone from his grasp and slung an arm over the young human's shoulders. "Come on up for a bit, Ty. We need to tell you some things that you don't know about Cleveland."

⸹

"Have you tried the not killing of at least one of these vampires?" Giles asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had called a meeting of the Sunnydale veterans in the conference room of the new offices he'd rented for the Watchers, mostly because it was certified free of listening devices. Buffy sat on his right, next to Angel. Oz, Willow, Xander, Dawn, and Spike were there, as well as Aubrey and, for this unrelated matter, Tribby.

She looked uncomfortable at the censure in Giles' tone. "The second time, there was a, uh, civilian present."

"No, my dear," he said, forcing a smile, "that's what we do, isn't it, kill vampires? I'm not faulting you. It's just, I would like to have more information. And we do have that lovely holding cell at the armory."

Aubrey was frowning. "There are no active cemeteries or reported nests in the area. The only explanation is that they were there for a purpose."

"To get Spike," Xander said, making the blond vampire snort in derision. The dark-haired human smiled and added generously, "However futile that might be."

Giles studiously did not look at Dawn. "Whoever or whatever they might be after, if there is another attempt, please try to save one of the attackers for interrogation."

"Yes, sir." Tribby glanced over at Spike, who smiled faintly at her respectful answer. Her gaze went back to Giles. "Will you need me for anything else?"

"No." He perched his glasses on his nose again, then realized he had sounded abrupt. "Thank you, my dear, for coming by, and, er, happy birthday." Once the slayer had made her exit, he sighed. "Spike, you're quite sure you haven't noticed anyone from your past in the vicinity? Nothing like that woman Eve who kidnapped Angel?"

Aubrey shifted, watching Spike shake his head. He had become fond of the blond vampire after bonding over drinking songs. Giles had also confided to him that Spike had been an Oxford man, once. "I'll have Hoggard and Willis do a scan of the area for magical loci, just in case there's something else that brings them to the neighborhood."

"Good idea." Giles let out another sigh and mentally girded himself. "Right. The main reason I wanted you here today is because, though I am hesitant to say it," here he shot an almost irritated look at Willingham, "we believe we've made progress toward identifying the energy source." His piercing gaze fell on Buffy. "The first clue we had was a Slayer dream. Would you care to recount it for us, Buffy?"

She did so, and when she told about the setting, the marina where her parents would take her out on a boat, Spike caught the uncomfortable movement of Dawn's hands. He covered them with his own, knowing that she got upset when she didn't have memories to match Buffy's. When the Slayer finished, he was frowning, too. He'd never heard her tell about the dream before.

"Dunno that it's important, Rupert, but that reminds me of something I heard in the second battle." He told them about going down into the caves beneath the building afterwards and the sound that he had heard. "Coulda been a bat's wings, but I'm almost positive it was the snap of a sail."

Aubrey seemed much more excited by this than Giles. "You're quite sure? You're familiar with sailboats?" When the blond man nodded, he gave the Head of the Council a brisk nod. "Excellent. Shall I, or would you like to proceed?"

Giles gave him a tight smile. "No, please, go ahead."

"Right, then. One of the things I've always done – one of the things that makes me the researcher I am – is monitor the black market for occult material. Not only do I occasionally run across some volume or fragment that was assumed lost, I also became familiar with the hoaxes that pop up every few years, with the legendary bits that someone says they've seen in a private collection, and so forth. Keeping track became much easier in the nineties, as the technopagans moved the occult market online." Buffy met Giles' gaze for a moment, and he gave her a sad smile. "Prices went up, it's true," Willingham continued, "since more interested parties were aware of what was up for bid, but I didn't have to submit as many travel requisitions, so it balanced out."

"Anyhow," he said, seeing Xander squirm restlessly, "one of the things that I remembered from many years ago was an odd little Turkish document that referenced the Kanai prophecy in a tangential way. When it came up for auction last month, I knew we had to have it. And sure enough, it's allowed us to identify the source of the energy that draws the demons to battle."

Giles rolled his eyes. "Possibly." Then he gave Aubrey an apologetic look. "Honestly, I don't know why I balk at this, when we've faced nearly everything except pixies."

Mollified, Willingham resettled his bulk and went on. "Young Rupert does have a point; this is certainly out of fairy tales." Willow and Xander exchanged a quick, amused look at his description of Giles as young. "However, it's also certainly a source of great, apparently limitless power, one which we should endeavor to keep out the hands of dark forces at all cost."

"What is the source of the energy?" Buffy asked, almost able to keep the impatience out of her voice.

"Not a what, a whom," Aubrey said. Then, with deliberate drama, he named it. "A djinn." When only Spike and Willow reacted, he added in a disappointed tone, "A, er, genie."

Xander's brow furrowed. "Like, genie in a bottle? An _I Dream of Jeannie_ genie?" He leaned into the table, grinning. "In which case, I volunteer to find her."

Oz was frowning. "Isn't there a Hebrew legend that genies are demons that King Solomon bound?" He glanced at Willow for confirmation.

Aubrey nodded vigorously. "Yes, there is. Oh, there are fabulous tales about the djinn."

"But they are demons?" Buffy asked, just for clarification.

"Yes, but the interesting thing is that the stories conflict about whether they are good or bad. In fact, they may – like humans – be both. The only element that agrees in all the stories is that their power is nearly limitless."

"Do you think they are the same thing as the Old Ones?" Angel asked. He saw Spike send him a swift look that he didn't meet.

"No. I doubt even a sorcerer as great as King Solomon could have bound a number of Old Ones. However, there could be some connection between them that was not preserved for posterity. After all, the Old Ones are mentioned in the Kanai prophecy, too."

"The important thing," Giles said, his voice a bit loud at first to gain everyone's attention, "is that we now have a sense of what might be done if the demons get to the energy source first. Imagine what a demon might wish for." The people around the table grew quiet and somber as they pondered this.

"A world without sunlight," Angel offered grimly.

"A world without slayers," Xander said.

"Let's bring Clem with us next time there's a battle," Dawn said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "He'd wish for a world full of junk food and tasty kittens." It worked, and Spike threw her an admiring glance.

Oz snorted. "Just saying, he's already made the wish."

Willow's expression became wary. "How do you know what kittens taste like?"

Oz was saved from answering by Spike, who leaned impatiently over the table. "Yeah, well, 'cept for Clem, demons are stupid. No sunlight or slayers, pretty soon no prey, either. My guess is that whoever gets it would wish for power or the ever-popular hell on earth."

Giles coughed in a patently fake way, almost covering the words, "The Judge!" He returned Spike's irate glare with a look of innocence.

"That was mostly for Dru, an' me bein' too depressed to care. Anyway," he went on, resolutely not looking at Buffy, "Rupes is right. Even more reason to put an end to this."

"What if we're supposed to make a wish? What do we wish for?" Oz put his hands under the table and rocked forward a little, his eyes fixed on the wood.

This led to a fearful silence, which Dawn broke with a bit of a grin. "That world full of junk food isn't sounding like such a bad thing." This time, no one laughed.

"It's been a long time since I read _A Thousand and One Nights_ ," Willow said, a frown of concentration on her brow, "but doesn't the genie usually set conditions on what can be wished? So, until we actually get to a genie and uncork the bottle or rub the lamp or whatever and see what we're allowed to wish, maybe we shouldn't worry too much about it.

"Sound logic," Giles agreed. He took off his glasses. "Aubrey, I can't begin to tell you how impressive this is. I don't know that a supercomputer could have put together such disparate sources of information. I wanted to say publicly how grateful I am to you – even if it is a genie."

The old man beamed. "You're quite welcome."

Rupert finished up the meeting with some general announcements and an admonition to keep this latest development private. After he dismissed them, Xander turned to Willow and Oz. "How about some lunch?"

Oz shook his head. "Sound check." He shrugged. "It's almost like being in a real band."

"I'm game. Non-pub food," Willow added enthusiastically. "What about you, Buffy?"

She paused, halfway risen from the table. "No," the Slayer said slowly, glancing at Angel. "Not today."

"Go on, Buffy," Angel urged. "I'll probably just go home and nap."

She smiled at him. "Sounds good to me, too. A nap, I mean." Buffy turned the smile on Xander. "I'm not very hungry."

"Okay." He gave her back his own insincere smile. "Some other time then." Xander glanced around. "Anyone else?" Dawn had class, and Spike had offered to drive Giles back to Watcher Central, so it was just the two old friends.

After the usual discussion of who had Chinese just last night and who wasn't really in the mood for burgers, they settled on a Mexican restaurant. Willow scanned the menu, found a likely entrée, then smiled brightly at Xander. "So. Toledo. How'd it go?"

"Lina's family embarrasses her," Xander said. "I could tell. And there I was, thinking that if my family was even a quarter as functional as hers is, I'd be ecstatic."

"Why do they embarrass her?"

He shrugged. "Her mom is a little on the religious side – her family is Catholic – and her dad is blue collar. With five brothers and sisters, I'm not sure what embarrassing qualities are attached to which just yet." Xander nodded at the waitress as she set a glass of water by his elbow. He moved it and gave Willow a look, countering, "And how did it go in Arizona?"

"Pretty well until my mother asked Oz where he was matriculating. Then she began hinting that I might discover some nice member of the faculty at Oxford is an eligible bachelor – or bachelorette."

"Willow!" he said with mock sternness. "How dare you not follow her template for your future?"

"Yeah, in academics, married to an academic, at an academic institution that pays well enough to hire a nanny for my two-point-five."

"What about your father?" Xander had a soft spot for the man, a quiet sort overwhelmed by his steamroller of a wife.

"He stayed in his study most of the time. I don't think work on his book is going well." She took a sip of her own water. "But they're healthy and as happy as they get, and still dining out on tales of surviving Sunnydale."

"Really?" Xander looked faintly impressed. "I've got to work that angle more. Since, you know, I was actually in Sunnydale for the big collapse instead of in Arizona."

"What about your part of the parental unveiling?"

He winced. "Christmas. I've already booked the flight. Got a convertible booked, too, so we can put the top down and head to Santa Monica as soon as things with my family get ugly."

"Only staying one afternoon, then."

"Exactly."

The waitress came back to take their order, and the two friends spoke about day-to-day things until their food arrived. Xander was picking at his refried beans before the conversation turned to the Council.

"So, what did you think of the new Big Bad this morning?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied, "maybe not so bad."

"Yeah, I guess we'll see." Willow pushed a wilted piece of lettuce to the edge of her plate, looking gloomy.

Xander picked up on it. "Where'd shiny, happy Willow go?"

"Behind the cloud that constantly hangs over Buffy." She met his brown eyes. "Xander, remember when Buffy would have been the first one with a Christina Aguilera joke? I mean, _genie_ , and she doesn't even crack a smile."

"I know." Xander's voice was quiet. "I guess I'm always going to worry about her, but I don't even know where to begin these days, what to look for." He thought of Spike's private briefing about the way she gave up during the battle with the gunfire finale. "I miss her, Wil."

"I do, too." They exchanged a guilty look. "I-I don't feel like I can interfere, not after…" She traced her fork through a smudge of salsa.

Lunch ended on a somber note, with Willow hugging him before popping back to the UK. Xander drove to the gym, pondering the forced smiles and old eyes of his good friend Buffy Summers.

⸹

"So," Spike said by way of preamble, "why'd Willingham think it important about the ships and sails," he slammed the truck door and found he was unable not to add, "and sealing wax and cabbages and kings?"

"The djinn are always associated with the sea," Giles explained, taking care to buckle his seat belt tightly. "Solomon was supposed to have cast them into the ocean inside their prisons, but even before that, the lore connects them to open water." The Watcher gripped the 'oh-shit' handle above the door as they careened around a corner, but otherwise showed no undue concern. "Seems less than legendary wisdom to toss out demons in bottles that float and not expect them to come home to roost."

Spike smirked at some private thought. "Yeah, really shoulda weighted them down so they'd sink."

Giles raised an eyebrow at the self-satisfied expression on his companion's face, but when Spike didn't elaborate, he sighed. "I can't imagine why a djinn would be drawn to a Hellmouth, even one close to the ocean like the one in Sunnydale."

"Yeah, well, like Red pointed out, no use rubbin' the lamp before we get our hands on it."

"True."

It was Spike's turn to raise his brows. "You really believe Willingham is right?"

"Aubrey has a good deal of common sense to go along with his fine researcher's mind. He may get excited over arcane knowledge, but I've never known him to bring forward an idea without being sure of it."

After a few moments of silence and a false start, Spike grimaced and made himself say it. "You lot have checked out Harris' new bird, haven't you?"

"Yes. Human."

"Ah." He pulled off the freeway toward the Payne-Sterling section of town, cutting kitty-corner through an intersection to a indignant series of beeps from an elderly woman in a Buick. "Bloody hell. Thought we might be able to use the whelp to locate the genie."

"It's unlikely to be gendered – though, with that kind of power, it certainly could appear as anything it wished."

Spike was frowning. "It won't manifest. We won't see it until it's found," he said, something sure in his voice. "Something like it's bound by the prophecy, not able to do as it wishes, to be here when there's not a battle."

"I rather think you're right, William. Let's hope it's grateful to be freed of the constraints of the prophecy, whatever those might be."

"Or that we don't have even have to let it loose."

⸹

Buffy smoothed Angel's eyebrow, making him twitch in his sleep, making her smile. He was so handsome, even when he was twitchy.

She loved him; knowing that she really did love him was the best thing about their relationship, just being positive that she could still love. They had good chemistry, too; anytime they were in proximity, smooches soon followed. And she loved to see him so happy.

Sometimes, though, she wished they had more in common.

Buffy bit her lip and eased away from his naked form. She had lain down to nap with him, but between her hands and his lips, one thing had led to another. Lovemaking always left her either revved up and ready to go or relaxed and ready to sleep; there was no in between, except with – There was no in between. She was completely awake now, so she figured she might as well go work on her paper for her history class. Buffy had no doubt she was going to make an 'A;' she studied more living here with Angel than she had at any other time in her checkered college career.

Instead of reading the pile of journal articles she'd downloaded from the library's databases, Buffy sat at the kitchen table and stared into space, listening to the quiet apartment, feeling odd. It took her a moment to place it. She was lonely.

She'd been talking to Angel last night about nothing in particular, but when she looked across the couch at him after the second 'mm-hmm,' she saw he was watching something about a hockey strike on ESPN. Nothing, really, but it had jolted her, made her realize all over again how few interests they shared.

More important, he never shared anything with her. He'd turn off the television when she came to sit with him, rather than just let her watch, too. When she asked him what he was reading, his standard answer was 'nothing interesting.' Angel never told stories about his time in Los Angeles, never shared any of his past with her. Oh, she knew why; most of his past was repugnant to them both. It never stopped Spike, though. He might not tell her what he called 'hunting stories,' but she knew more about Darla from him than she did from Angel, the vampire she'd sired and kept in her bed for a hundred and fifty years. Even some tales from Angel's human past would be nice, because he'd known her since she was just a girl. He knew all her stories; she knew too much to ask him his, and sometimes it seemed they had nothing at all to talk about.

It doesn't matter, she told herself as she always did, firming her mouth. There were times when they would have a long lapse in conversation, when the silence would stretch and seem awkward to her. Then Angel would look down at her and smile, such open happiness on his face that it took her breath away. He loved her, too, and she knew that he was grateful that he could feel that, the same way she was grateful.

Love was enough. She would make it be enough.

Buffy listened to the silence another minute, though, to how quiet the air in their apartment was. She tried to think of the last time she'd listened to music. In the car, maybe. Sighing, she pulled a random article from her bookbag, sat down at the kitchen table, and began to read.

⸹

Spike entered the apartment feeling as though he had done all of his good deeds for the week. At Watcher Central, McGann had caught him in the kitchen, and he'd shared a cuppa with the man, listening to him talk through his grief about Natalie's loss. Then, Mrs. Jackson had caught him first thing as he came through the foyer. It was always prudent to be polite to one's landlady, so he'd eaten some of her homemade pineapple upside-down cake (which really was very good), and listened to her stories about her grandchildren and her cats.

He wasn't the only one doing good deeds, he saw. Tribby was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, letting Dawn perform hair therapy. His Bit looked up at him but otherwise ignored him. Tribby, wearing a t-shirt with a picture of some stiffly-posed nineteenth century Indian chiefs armed with long guns and the caption 'Homeland Security: Fighting foreign terrorists since 1492,' looked up at him, her expression somewhere between long-suffering and a warning. Dawn had braided the dark hair in two long plaits, emphasizing her high, flat cheekbones.

"… better off without him, the turd-monkey," Dawn rattled on, pausing only long enough to glance up. "Hey, Spike."

"Nibblet. Tribs." He debated on whether to kip before meeting Angel for patrol later, but decided against it and took the other end of the couch from Dawn, closest to the television remote.

"Let's see." Tribby turned around obligingly, and Dawn examined her work. "Wow, Trib, you look like an Indian princess, Pocahontas or something."

"That noble?"

Spike bit down on the inside of his jaw at the dry tone, resolutely not grinning. In his dealings with them, Geneva and Tribby both had mentioned the phrase 'noble savage' with irony.

"Well, I don't know if 'noble' is the right word." Dawn tilted her head. "Serene, maybe." She held up a mirror.

"Here," the older woman said, moving up onto the couch, "let me do a coronet for you. You'll look like a Russian princess – except, you know, pretty."

"Princesses are always pretty," Dawn protested.

Spike snorted. "No," he said emphatically. "You're used to the modern age of princesses – Grace Kelly, Princess Di. They're not royal princesses, Bit, just married into it. The princesses of Europe before the World Wars," he shuddered, "were a skanky, inbred lot."

"All of them?" Tribby stopped brushing Dawn's hair. "I just said that based on some portraits I've seen."

He thumbed the off button on the remote and settled in on the couch, feeling expansive as he told them of long ago scandals of insane, promiscuous, and ugly royalty. Dawn, he could tell, was in the mood for malice, so he laid it on thick.

"Did she have the Hapsbourg lip?" she demanded as he wound down with a particular gruesome princess.

"She had every possible defect, up to and possibly including hermaphroditic organs. And," he added, pointing a large finger, "whatever she didn't have, she carried as a recessive gene."

"Ugly and insane," Dawn said, some satisfaction in her voice. Then she went even more still, the slayer's hands moving over her hair, braiding the thick tresses. "There is no fairy tale, is there? I mean, even royalty doesn't get to live happily ever after."

He saw something in her wide-set eyes and tried to reassure her. "Dunno, love. Somebody gets the happy ending, I s'pose."

Tribby stared at Dawn's head, her lips compressing for a second, then her fingers began to move again, briskly. "Sure. Maybe we just don't see it so much in our line of work."

No fairy tale for Tribby. Dawn looked down so she wouldn't have to see Spike. No happily ever after for him, either. She felt guilty, being so bitter over a guy she only dated a little while. Mitch had been nice right up until he turned into a jerk, and even with her limited experience, Dawn knew her heart wasn't broken. She cast about for a new topic.

Before she found one, Tribby placed a last pin in her hair and handed her the mirror. "There. What do you think?"

"Wow." Dawn turned her head to either side. "Very medieval. What do you think, Spike?"

"Gorgeous; you know you are. Shows off your eyes."

"Thank you, Sir Spike," she said graciously, putting on a high-toned English accent. She handed the mirror back to Tribby. "So, if princesses aren't pretty, who is?"

"Indian women," he said promptly, then sent an apologetic look to the slayer. "Women from India, I mean." He pronounced 'India' so it sounded like 'Indja.'

Dawn rolled her eyes. "You, always with the dark hair."

He shrugged. "American women, too, pro'ly because of the genetic variety thing." He glanced at his two ladies on the other end of the couch and waved in their direction. "Just look at you two."

"Oh, good save," Dawn approved. She slid across the couch and propped against his side, then put her feet in Tribby's lap. A little moan of contentment escaped her as she burrowed her bottom into the comfort of the couch. "So, if I'm not exactly a Czech princess," she gave Spike a private look, "can I be an American princess?"

"Abracadabra, you are an American princess." He touched her nose, giving her a look with his whole heart in his eyes, seeing love mirrored in her own. "Or my princess, anyway."

Dawn didn't shy away from his intense gaze, but her attention was drawn by movement at the other end of the couch as Tribby began unbraiding one plait. "Aw," the younger woman complained. "Now you won't be Princess Tribby anymore."

"There has never been a princess in the entire history of the world named Tribby," she replied dryly, "or even Libby."

"What about your Indian name? Do you have a Cherokee name?"

Before the slayer could answer, Spike spoke up. "I do. It's–"

"No! Don't tell your–"

"– Adahihi."

"…name," Tribby finished, too late. Her face tightened a little as her eyes went to Spike's.

"Why not?" He shrugged, his voice light and mocking. "Neither of you are about to work magic with my secret name." When the slayer didn't look away, he made a mouth. "'S'far as I know, pet, I've never killed any Native Americans. Bird who named me originally wanted to call me, whatsit, the word for panther."

" _Tlvdatsi_."

Dawn looked up at him curiously. "Who was she? The woman who named you?"

"Remember the story I told the potentials about the ordinary human who gutted Darla and nearly beheaded Angelus? Her."

"Oh."

"What does it mean?" When Spike didn't answer, she looked at Tribby expectantly.

"Killer," she supplied, "roughly."

Dawn's nose wrinkled. "Nice."

Tribby was frowning as she started unwinding the second braid, then she sighed. " _Kamama_."

"Oh, that's pretty," Dawn said.

The slayer got a pained look on her face. "My mother named me, so I'm lucky to even have one."

"Spill, pet," Spike said, already smirking.

"Butterfly."

He snorted.

"Nice," Dawn said again, in a different tone.

"I," Tribby said with dignity, "am no butterfly."

"Hey, my sister is 'Buffy.' Doesn't keep her from being tough."

"No, it doesn't," Spike sighed.

Dawn elbowed him without looking away from Tribby. "I'm ' _Usha_ ' in Hindu, according to Alpana. What's the word for dawn in Cherokee?"

" _Degalvyi_."

"Day-gah-luh-yee," she repeated slowly. "That's pretty."

"Pretty name for a pretty girl."

"You're just full of compliments today, soul man."

"Complaining?"

"No." She gave him a narrow look. "As long as you aren't saying nice things just to cheer me up."

"One hundred percent genuine compliments," Spike said, resting his hand over his unbeating heart for a moment.

"All right, then."

⸹

"Want to get some coffee?" Angel suggested. Spike was driving him home after patrol, the wipers on the truck knocking away snow every few seconds, and he was looking for an excuse to spend a few minutes longer with the Master – with his boy. With Spike, he supposed, who was in such a good mood that he didn't want to waste the opportunity.

"Yeah, all right." He tilted his blond head to the side, trying to think of the closest doughnut shop.

"Did the Watchers do that scan of your building?" They hadn't seen anything unusual on patrol, unfortunately, only three young vampires whose remains had created a brief and interesting pattern on the crust of snow before the wind blew the grit away.

"This afternoon. The only thing they found was a gremlin living in the dryer in the basement laundry room." He leered a little. "Tribs says she has matching bra and panty sets she'll start using again now that one or the other won't go missing."

"Oh?" Angel raised a brow.

"She won't, though." He spied the restaurant he had been looking for and nodded in satisfaction; the sign was lit and the inside lights were on. "All about the sports bras, unfortunately."

As they waited to turn into the lot, Angel cleared his throat. "Let's go inside and sit down." He caught Spike's sharp look out of the corner of his eye and shrugged. "Just looks inviting."

The shop did look inviting, its glowing windows cheery against the inky darkness and the swirling snow, and smelled even more seductive, the aroma of coffee and the homey smell of baking doughnuts luring them inside. Since it had been Angel's idea, he paid. As he opened his wallet, Spike pretended to catch something out of the air.

"Moth escaped." He offered his closed hand to Angel, making the flour-splattered clerk chuckle, making Angel glare.

They sat at a table by one of the windows, coffee and half a dozen fresh pastries between them. Their sense of the sole employee faded as the man moved back into the kitchen, occasional sounds of a blender or 'May I take your order?' coming to their ears.

Spike nodded toward the darkness outside. "Perishing tonight."

"A lot colder than L.A.," Angel agreed. "Though not as cold as St. Petersburg."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, putting his elbows on the table, a smile curving his lean cheeks at the memory. "God, that was miserable. 'Ve never been constantly hungry like that."

"And we had to fight for territory on top of it."

The quality of Spike's smile changed, became arrogant. "Berks. Shoulda just ceded the city to us the moment they learned Aurelians were in town."

"Nah. I liked the fight."

"Yeah." Spike found he was staring at Angel, still unused to seeing him so open and happy. "Uh, my favorite part was where you strung up the two brothers outside where Peter the Great would put heads to rot."

Angel smiled, remembering. "I didn't realize the sun came out for only a few hours a day that time of year, and with all the cloud cover… It took, what, four days before they dusted?"

"At least that long." Spike sipped his coffee. "The Duchess wasn't happy with you."

"Got her off your back for a while . It was usually you who drew attention to us." Angel's smile faded. That hadn't always been the case. Early on, Spike had mastered the quiet, elegant kill. The dark memory of Darla leaving him in charge for a fortnight came back to him. Things had changed after that.

"Let it go, mate."

He met Spike's warm eyes for a moment, then dropped his gaze to his untouched coffee.

"So," Spike said, changing the topic, "what did you want to talk about?"

Angel shrugged. "Nothing."

"You just prefer being here with me, eatin' human food, to your own warm bed?" There was a very slight edge to his voice.

"Just felt like talking."

"Well, there's a first."

"I miss you, Will." He stared deeper into the dark depths of his coffee, wishing he hadn't blurted out the words.

"Miss you, too, Liam."

Spike's hand covered his for a moment, and he lifted his head to meet the wry expression. "Um, other than gremlins, how are things in the new apartment?" He could change the subject, too.

The boy shrugged. "'S'alright. You oughta come by, try out the posh couch me and Nibblet got to replace Tribby's useless futon."

"How is it, living with her?"

"No different than living with the other slayers, 'cept she's quieter."

"Is Dawn okay with it?"

Spike's brows drew together. "It was Bit's idea to move." Then his brow cleared. "Oh. You're still on about that fledge thing, aren't you? Wish I hadn't mentioned the underwear, then." He shook his head. "Just a word, mate."

Angel considered the table for a few moments before speaking. "You train her, she obeys your commands…."

"I train her because she was savvy enough to ask Rupes for private lessons in exchange for coming to Cleveland," Spike said impatiently. "You remember how it was before Giles got the inheritance. Didn't have much to offer beyond four-poster and three square."

"So he offered you?"

He ignored the sardonic tone. "Yeah, he did. Got three top slayers to relocate, dinnit? Rona and Vi, and Tribs is coming along nicely." Angel opened his mouth to say something, but Spike raised a hand. "'Fledge' is just a word, but if it applies to one, it applies to all of them. No worries. I would never hurt any of my ladies. Not just a vampire anymore."

"I know." Angel looked out the window before he spoke again, his eyes fixed on the blowing snowflakes. "It isn't hurt that I was thinking of. I guess I'd just like to see you," he shrugged, "find somebody."

"I did."

Angel let his head fall back and he looked at the ceiling as he tried to find better words. "I'd like to see you happy, boy. You won't come–"

"Let's leave off the subject of who I'm not sleeping with, and we won't have to discuss who you are sleeping with."

"Sounds like a plan," Angel muttered. He drained his cup, the coffee leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. "I'm ready to go."

Spike watched his grandsire stalk to the door and wait for him, resentment obvious in his stiff motions. The doughnuts were untouched, and he realized that he had picked out Buffy's favorites. Picking up the closest jelly-filled pastry, he packed it back in the bag. At least they wouldn't go to waste.

They were parked outside Angel's apartment before the silence got to be too much. "Liam."

"What?"

Spike stared at the span of steering wheel between his hands. "Love all my slayers, yeah? Not opposed to sleeping with them, comes down to it. Love my Bit, even fond of some of the Tweed Brigade." He sighed. "None of them, not one causes the same… spark that Dru did, that the Slayer does." He shifted so he could meet Angel's gaze. "I really resent it when someone shoves a replacement at me."

"Especially me," Angel said, and Spike shrugged again. He sighed. "You know what I really wanted? I just wanted to hear about your day, that kind of thing. Spend time with you. Talk to somebody."

"You do have somebody to talk to," Spike pointed out.

"We don't talk much."

The scarred eyebrow rose. "You're practically joined at the hip. If you don't talk, what do – Never mind; don't answer that." The first question that came to mind was whether Buffy was okay, but he changed it. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm happy, I really am." He looked away from the blond vampire. "But I get lonesome sometimes. Me with Buffy… Not a popular combination, I'm finding out. That makes us a little," he frowned, unable to find a better word, "isolated."

Spike looked out of the windshield. "People will come around, accept things the way they are."

Angel closed his eyes against the bleak tone. "And I worry about you. Three 'f's, you know, not just two."

"Reckon it's time to retire that – or change it, maybe. Feedin' and fightin' and family. Works better for us ensouled vampires." Angel wasn't looking at him, so Spike examined the big man for a few seconds. "You want to know about my day? After the meeting, I went home and told the Nibblet and Tribs about the beautiful European princesses of our time."

"Beautiful?" He turned to give Spike an incredulous look.

"'S'called sarcasm, mate."

"They even tasted bad."

"How on earth do you know that?"

Angel shrugged. "Playing highwayman along the German forest roads in the early nineteenth century. I leapt on top of a carriage, and this silly bit of fluff inside kept referring to herself in the third person. Even biting her didn't shut her up, and then she started groping at my privates. Blood was so… thin that it wasn't doing much for me down there, so I just bailed out."

Spike tilted his head. "Wonder if the blood tasted that way from being a hemophilia carrier?"

"I don't think so. I did bite someone with hemophilia once. Tasted all right, but it was like trying to drink wine out of a goatskin or a bladder bag, just gushing too fast to keep up with. The saliva thing didn't make the wound seal, either."

"Never noticed hepatitis or HIV-positive blood tasted any different."

"You drank from someone with AIDS?"

"'Course. New York, London, even in L.A. in the early eighties, yeah?"

Angel pondered this. "Did you ever get up to San Francisco?"

"No, never been. Last place the Sex Pistols ever played, so I've been a bit superstitious about going there. Clem likes it, says it's a good climate for vampires."

"It is. I spent time there in the late fifties."

"Really? Beat generation?"

"Nascent hippies." Angel smiled. "Sweet kids – not, you know, literally, but there was a sort of innocence about them."

The pair talked for a while longer, sharing the sorts of things that ensouled vampires couldn't share comfortably with anyone else. The nearby streetlight illuminated their faces, each handsome, each animated by the conversation, their strong, white teeth showing in relaxed smiles.

From the window of the apartment, Buffy watched them talk, a tiny smile on her own face as she peeked around the blinds. A happy Angel fed something inside her, and she was greedy to see any expression on Spike besides wariness. At the end, they met in the middle of the bench seat, the dark and light heads close together. A shock of desire curled through the Slayer to see them in such proximity, lingering even after she realized it wasn't a kiss. She recognized the way they rested their foreheads together, something she'd seen Dawn do with Spike countless times. Buffy considered asking Giles what that was about, but she knew she never would. Quietly, before Angel came inside, she crept back to bed so she could fake being asleep.

⸹

"You want to catch a movie with me on Friday?"

Startled, Spike looked up. It was Tuesday after training, and he thought his slayers had scarpered. "Maria," he said, clutching his chest in an exaggerated, you-scared-me gesture. Standing up, he tossed the last few stakes at the box next to the axe cabinet and turned to consider her. She looked especially pretty today, even with her hair drawn back in a loose ponytail. Maria had changed into street clothes, and he was sure she'd left a couple of extra buttons on her shirt open just for him.

Don't sleep with Maria, Buffy had said. She had said nothing else to him, had not approached him, had not even phoned from a safe distance.

"Sure, pet. What's showing?"

⸹

Angel drove carefully back to the apartment after dropping Buffy off for her final examination in her history class. A new driver, she didn't like to be behind the wheel while it was snowing, and Cleveland was getting dumped on by a lake-effect storm. Angel didn't mind taking her on this daylight errand since it meant they had to use the necrotempered Camry that Giles had sold them, keeping his Mustang off the slick roads. Taking a shortcut along a largely abandoned street, he frowned, something tingling at the edge of his senses. Then he saw them, two Krantznitz demons – they always traveled in pairs – and turned the car, skidding across the street in a move Spike would envy and backtracking until he spotted them going into a boarded-up building. Angel considered going in after them alone, but he only had stakes and the Krantznitz had long and poisonous spines.

He burst through the front door of Watcher Central, not bothering to stamp the snow from his feet. "Giles!" His cell phone battery, typically, had been dead, and this was the closest thing to an emergency he'd seen in Cleveland. "Where's Giles?" he asked the Watcher who peered out of the study off the living room.

"At the office building," the man said warily.

Angel wracked his brain for the Watcher's name but came up empty. "I need a sword or an axe. I wouldn't mind a slayer or two, either. I just spotted two Krantznitz not a mile away from the University." The human only stood there, staring at him. "Krantznitz demons. You've heard of them? Claws, paralyzing poison in their spines? Eat their own body weight in whatever they can catch every day?"

The Watcher closed the door behind him and crossed his arms, looking up at Angel with a bland expression tinged with a slight hint of satisfaction. "You aren't part of the Council. I can hardly authorize slayers on your word."

"What?" Angel goggled at him, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. It was too ridiculous to make him angry, so he shook his head and said more slowly, "Krantznitz demons. We have to kill them."

"You're welcome to do what you like," he said, and now it was obvious that he was enjoying himself, "but I don't have to do anything for you."

Angel went very still and seemed to loom taller than he had a moment before. "You know who I am. Buffy–"

"Yes," the human overrode him, "Buffy. She isn't here right now, is she? She may be our general, but you… Well, you sleep with her. Doesn't say much about her taste," he sniffed, "and it doesn't give you access to Council resources. If she's George Washington, that makes you, oh, Martha Washington, doesn't it? And the troops don't follow Martha."

"And if it was Spike asking?" Angel's voice was dangerous. This attitude had nothing to do with his relationship with Buffy; it was about being a vampire.

"He is, however painful the fact may be, an employee of the Council of Watchers. Analagous to one of Washington's lieutenants, say," the man smiled again, his eyes raking over Angel, "Walter Stewart."

Angel scowled at the comparison. "I met Stewart; he wasn't that good-looking."

The Watcher shrugged. "But William the Bloody isn't here, either."

He took a moment to leash his temper. "Is it worth human lives to put me in my place?"

"What could human life possibly mean to you?"

"Hey, Angel," Kayla said, opening the front door and stomping her boots on the porch before coming inside. "Hey, Mr. Finnigan."

Shamed that he shared a homeland with the man's ancestors, Angel turned to the slayer. "Kayla, you interested in killing a couple of Krantznitz demons with me?"

"Sure!" Kayla stopped unwinding her muffler. "Beats studying for finals. What kind of weapons do we need?"

As she bustled by him, Angel glared down at Finnigan, struggling to keep his eyes brown. "Swords would be best, I think," he called after Kayla. The Watcher coolly met his eyes, unconcerned about any reprisals for obstructing him.

Angel was still steaming when they made it back to the area where he'd spotted the demons. Ahead of them, he saw a yellow schoolbus making its careful way along the street, dropping children off at the end of the day. His irritation disappeared into a sick feeling in his stomach, based on nothing more than the Krantznitz's voracious reputation.

"Kayla," he said, his voice urgent as he slewed the car close to the curb, "do you have your cell phone?"

"Sure."

"Go ahead and call our team at the rescue squad."

She followed his gaze, still lingering on the diminishing yellow shape of the bus. "Let's go," Kayla said, grabbing her sword even as she pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket.

Both of them could sense the demons' location, but it wasn't necessary. Terrified wails led them to an upper room in the abandoned building where two children had run as far as they could before being trapped. A girl, maybe eight years old, was standing in front of her little brother, arms out, warding the monster away despite her own terror. One of the Krantznitz was looming over her.

"Leave them alone," Kayla said. It turned toward her, and she smiled, a tiny expression. Then she drove her sword back into the torso of the second one who had tried to flank them.

Angel sprang forward, snarling, and beheaded the one near the children with one mighty slice of his blade. He kicked the body backwards, away from the children, and plunged the sword into its midsection, just to be sure.

Kayla had finished with the other one. "Just two?" she asked.

He nodded. "It didn't get you with its spines?"

She shook her head and went directly to the children, sinking down on her knees. "Well, that was scary, wasn't it?" she said brightly. "But you were both very, very brave." She was going to be a schoolteacher, Angel remembered. "What's your name?"

"Keisha. This is my baby brother Kobe." The little girl's chin was still quivering.

"Hi, Keisha, Kobe. My name is Kayla, and I am so proud of you."

⸹

Spike and Giles sat across from Angel and Buffy at a table at Buffy's favorite coffee shop. He had picked her up after her test – the fight with the Krantznitz hadn't even made him late – and asked her to call the two Watchers. Angel felt a little disappointed that only Buffy was seething with anger after he finished his tale, though Giles' posture had become slightly stiffer. The Head of the Council exchanged a glance with the blond vampire, and both looked resigned.

"Angel, on behalf of the sane members of the Council, I apologize for the way you were treated." Rupert looked pained, but he got it out.

"It isn't me I'm worried about. You knew this was going to happen?" Angel asked, hiding his hurt.

"Not this, but something along these general lines, yes." Giles took a sip of his coffee.

"Politics," Spike said brusquely, not waiting for the Watcher. "The old guard is none too happy with our presence."

"Unfortunately true," Giles agreed.

"Giles, those children could have been killed!" Buffy glanced around at the other customers and lowered her voice. "And not just them. Those demons stay hungry."

"Yes," he agreed, lifting his brows and looking into the distance, "people could have been killed." Giles exchanged a look with Spike again. "Foolish, really, for the faction to show their hand in this manner."

"Yeah, especially since we'll have the report from the Watcher embedded in the EMS and video from the psychologist who'll debrief those children."

Ripper looked out from Giles' eyes for a moment. "It means that I'll be able to simply sack Finnigan instead of sending him back to the UK. It will be uncomfortable and ugly, but f I play it right, I'll be able to identify his allies."

Angel's jaw was set at a dangerous angle. "None of this is going to make those children's nightmares go away." He glanced down at Buffy, wanting to share his anger.

Buffy's eyes were fixed on Spike, though. "You put up with that kind of crap all the time." There was a tone of discovery in her voice.

He shrugged, uncomfortable beneath her regard. "Not from all of them. My slayers make up for it." Not looking at her, he didn't see her expression darken at his statement.

"You know what the CoW is like, Buffy," Giles said. He sighed and frowned at his half-empty cup. "The prejudices, the worldview, even… I am deeply ashamed to be Head of the Council while these elements are still very much a part of the organization. While it doesn't seem this way in Cleveland, we're stretched so thin, it will be years before we can afford to simply fire people and root out the willful intolerance."

"You never will," Spike said. He stared moodily into his own espresso. "Not really a need for it. Only me an' Peaches, yeah? Not like they'll have to learn to cooperate with demons."

"It's not just you," Buffy disagreed. "What about Clem?" She turned to Angel. "Or Lorne?" She shook her head. "I don't find it hard to distinguish between demons who are evil and those who know how to live with humans." Her eyes flickered to Spike for a moment. "And if I can learn that, surely your overeducated Watchers can."

"Some of them, obviously, cannot." Giles drained his cup. "It'll work out nicely, though. Which slayer does Finnigan have?"

"Isidra," Spike replied promptly.

"I'll give her to Vashti's Watcher, then, Alpana."

"Don't give up on Vashti."

"You're being an optimist, William. You sure you're feeling well?" Spike made an annoyed face, and Giles smiled in a self-satisfied way. The expression faded and he visibly steeled himself as he switched focus to Angel. "Which still leaves us one Watcher down."

The dark-haired vampire raised his brows, surprised, but his answer was immediate. "No."

Spike leaned back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head, and regarded the other Aurelian. "Why not?" he challenged.

Giles toyed with his cup, "Yes. What are your reasons for not joining the Council?"

Angel sighed. "Look, thanks for the offer, but no thanks."

"Too good for us, mate?" His eyes were narrow.

"No, it isn't that." Angel put his elbows on the table and hunched forward. "I just don't want to be tied down, that's all." Realizing what he had said, he shot a swift look at Buffy. "I mean, not to a job. Not after Wolfram and Hart."

Looking unhappy, the Slayer nevertheless stepped up. "I-it isn't like he needs the money," she told Giles. "We're doing okay."

"Perhaps it's what the Council needs rather than what Angel needs," Giles retorted. "Maybe I am asking, just a bit, because I would enjoy rubbing your hire in the faces of Watchers like Finnigan. But it's also because we need you here in Cleveland. You already patrol and fight with us. You ought to get the benefits as well as the risks."

"What about another contract?" Angel countered.

"Bloody hell." Spike put his own elbows on the table, looking disgusted.

Giles looked at his fellow Watcher. "You could just order him to accept."

"I could," Spike agreed as he shot Angel a look. His voice and his eyebrows were lower than usual.

"Order him?" Buffy echoed. "What do you mean, order him?"

"Spike is the Master of the Order of Aurelius," Giles said, surprise in his voice. Since Angel was still alive, surely she must… He looked at Angel, then Spike, and let out a sigh. They were both protecting her. Of course.

There was a half-smile on the Slayer's face as she turned her own gaze from Angel to Spike. "So, you can just tell him to do whatever you want?" Angel had told her that Spike had beaten him in a fight after he'd stopped being a ghost, but nothing about taking orders.

"Yes," he replied shortly.

She glanced back at Angel, sitting in stolid silence next to her, his eyes on the section of table between his chest and his clasped hands. "And you'd just… do it," she added, a measure of sarcasm in her voice.

"Not necessarily," Angel replied.

Giles, having pushed Buffy to stand on her own two feet before, shook his head. "The consequence of refusing a direct order is, however, death." Spike glared from beside him, and Angel heaved his chest in an unproductive sigh across the table, but the Watcher gazed fixedly at Buffy, waiting for her to see the implications.

She got it right away, her lips parting as she looked from Spike to Angel, then back to the bowed blond head. He could have simply told Angel to break up with her, or to get out of Cleveland and never see her again, or any variation, could have told Angel to leave the playing field open for him. She would turn to him by default, and they both knew it.

Spike wanted her; that had been a constant – and even a comfort – for years. But he wanted something more, and she had never fully understood it until now. Spike wanted her to choose him.

He was leaving the decision entirely to her.

Buffy's eyes widened, and she closed her mouth, firming her lower lip so that it didn't tremble. She felt as if she had walked around the corner and looked directly into a mirror, seen herself unguarded, no makeup, naked. What she saw shamed her. She was too scared to try for happiness, too weak to make a move, while Spike, the very definition of undisciplined, refused to use any indirect means to get what he wanted. For him, love was no different than the field of combat, not worth winning unless it was done with honor.

Since she couldn't look at either of her lovers, she looked at Giles, willing herself not to cry. Giles gave her a small smile, full of steadfast love as well as the expectation that she was strong enough to meet any challenge. She nodded curtly at him, having no idea what she really meant by it, if anything.

He took it as a declaration, though, nodding back, and turned his head slightly as he changed the subject. "Ah, then. As interesting as vampire hierarchies are, I would encourage you to wait to give me a firm answer for a few days, Angel."

The dark-haired vampire shrugged. "I won't change my mind."

Spike looked up from the table, letting out an impatient breath. "No, he doesn't do that."

Angel looked affronted. "Oh, like I'm the stubborn one."

"Ladies," Rupert said pleasantly, "you're both stubborn, and let's leave it there." He caught Buffy's grateful look. "In any case, I think I'll call that meeting for tomorrow. We should have the debriefing by–" Spike's phone rang, interrupting him, and he glared at the blond man.

"Sorry."

"'Pretty Woman?'" Giles asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Spike shrugged. "Ringtone for my slayers." Guilt settled on his expressive features as he saw who was calling, and he shot a look at Buffy before mumbling, "'Scuse me." Twisting in his seat, he answered the call with a quiet, "'Lo?"

"Hey, Spike. It's Maria."

"'Course it is, pet. What can I do for you?"

She gave a sultry laugh. "You shouldn't ask open-ended questions like that." Maria's voice became brisk. "I was calling because I got Vi to take your late patrol on Friday. Is that all right?"

Spike closed his eyes. That was one of the reasons he had said yes to the date; he had a firm reason to end it at a reasonable hour. Maria's call confirmed two things for him: that Vi had given her tacit approval for him to see Maria and that he was doomed to be outmaneuvered by women for his entire existence. "Uh, sure."

"Good." Her voice dropped to a confidential register. "That means we don't have to be in a hurry."

"Always a good thing. Listen, pet, Giles is glaring daggers at me…."

"I'll let you go, then. See you at training, Spike."

"See you tonight," he agreed, saying his goodbyes and folding the phone before turning back to the table. Angel had heard everything, of course, and Buffy probably had as well. "You don't have a problem patrolling with Vi on Friday, do you, Peaches?"

"No. Vi's fine." Angel looked amused. "And what will you be doing on Friday?"

He looked at the table, not wanting to see Buffy's reaction. "Going to the pictures with Maria." Hurt and anger rolled off the Slayer, quickly suppressed because of Angel, and Spike registered unhappy surprise from Giles.

"This is… abrupt," Giles said.

"She asked," Spike said, unable to keep his eyes from darting to the Slayer, "and I got nothing better to do."

"Sounds like fun," Angel said mildly. "Glad to see you enjoying yourself, boy."

The blond man closed his eyes for a second, grateful for his family. Angel was the only one who responded normally to the news of a social engagement (it was nothing more than that), who was glad for him. "Thanks."

"Er, yes," Giles agreed faintly. His first thought had been, oh, please, not another slayer. "About the meeting tomorrow…."

Spike stood abruptly, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. One of the nice things about being a vampire was that you didn't have to be polite, could just cut out when you felt like it. Spike was more than ready to leave. "Just let me know when and where, Rupes." He nodded at the couple across the table. "See you there."

⸹

"That was brutal," Dawn said, heading straight for the couch. "We deserve to eat pizza and watch _Return of the King_ for the rest of the afternoon. The extended version."

"You are a goddess," Xander said, going down on one knee by the couch and catching Dawn's hand so he could press it against his forehead. "Who else would know how to restore my soul after that meeting?"

Spike closed the door and waved his hand in the air sardonically. "Uh, me? Pretty much got the whole restore-the-soul thing down."

Xander let go of Dawn's hand and threw himself on the couch next to her. "Somehow, I find I prefer Dawnie. Or Willow. Willow is good, too."

Spike tossed his coat onto the rack by the door and regarded the humans for a moment, hands on his hips. "Take it I'm buying the pizza?"

"He's smarter than he looks," Dawn said. Xander nodded in agreement. "No Canadian bacon, and get breadsticks, too."

"Yes, mum," Spike said humbly, heading toward the kitchen for the list of numbers for nearby order-out restaurants posted on the fridge.

"Weird how you can work with someone for half a year and never know how narrow-minded and nasty they really are," Xander mused.

"Yeah," Dawn agreed. "Or how many dirty words they know." Finnigan hadn't taken being fired in a calm way. "Do you really think Giles can get him on a CIA watch list so he isn't allowed back into the States?"

"Yes. I absolutely believe Giles can do that. I also believe he could close Finnigan's mouth for him, both with his fists and in some permanent way." Rupert had taken strong exception to the man's language, but Xander was certain that it was his slander of Buffy that really made Giles furious. Disliking even souled vampires enough to jeopardize civilians was one thing, but attacking Buffy for her love life was out of bounds and nearly the first thing Finnigan had brought up. "And to completely change the subject to something that doesn't make me feel like I need a bath, where's Tribby?" Xander looked over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the slayer come into the living room, lured by the promised pizza.

"Taking down her exhibit. The month is up. Then she's going to a party some of the MFA students are having."

"A party on a Wednesday?"

Dawn shrugged. "They want to have it before finals week is over and everyone leaves town. I'd go myself, but I have one last test tomorrow."

"Are you sure you have time to watch _Lord of the Rings_?"

She smiled at his concern. "I have time, but more importantly, I have a serious need to indulge in Aragorn lust."

"Aragorn," Xander said pointedly as Spike came back into the room. "Human. Dark-haired. None of this blond elf nonsense."

"Aragorn the unwashed," the blond man mused, dropping down on the couch on Xander's other side, his knees a mile apart. "No accounting for taste." The two humans were soon engrossed in Middle Earth, but Spike couldn't settle his mind. The Watchers' meeting had been ugly, and he was glad to spend the afternoon with his Bit and the whelp. A good deal of resentment had been directed at him. Some of it was from Watchers he respected, good people who did a good job, and that was disheartening. Not only could he not help being what he was, he was proud of it.

After the movie, Dawn opened her bookbag, so he headed to the gym with Xander, ready to take out his frustrations on the slayers. Like so many of his plans, it didn't work out. Maria was cheerful and chatty to the point where he had to ask her to focus twice, and he stored this trainer-slayer problem away for the inevitable 'we aren't going to work' conversation. In contrast, Buffy was silent, refusing to look at him, and his heart ached to see her so unhappy.

At the end of class, he headed her off as she tried to be the first out the door. "Buffy," he said, the power of just saying her name making him close his eyes for a moment, "about the meeting today, what Finnigan said… I'm sorry you had to hear that."

She shrugged. "That's what people think, isn't it? Can't change their minds."

"No, but we can rip them out," he muttered. "Finnigan's lucky I got the soul to brake me, keep me from my impulses."

"Why should you care?" Before he could answer, she added in a malicious tone, "Maybe I should warn Maria about her reputation."

His anger was sudden, hot. "Not doing anything for her reputation to be sullied, Slayer. She voluntarily wants to spend time with me. I find that refreshing."

"You can spend–" She stopped, twisting her head to the side as she remembered what meaning that word had for him. "You know what? Never mind." He watched her walk away from him, thinking sourly that she'd lived with Angel long enough for his habits to start rubbing off on her.

While he wasn't scheduled for patrol, Spike had a serious need for movement and, with any luck, combat. Turning down Xander's offer of a ride home, he headed into the night, taking a curving route through University Circle on his way back to the apartment. It was cold and clear, the remnants of the last snowfall crunching under his sure step. Spike didn't want to think, so he tracked down every scent, every sense of demon, no matter how slight.

There was nothing in Cleveland's darkness to challenge him. Spike was reduced to jerking open a car door and serving as coitus interruptus for the couple inside. He yanked the hapless young man off the vampire, giving him a withering look. "Don't you know better than to have sex with something you just met?" he asked, continuing the conversation as he waited for the vampire inside the Civic to adjust her skirt. "You could die, you know, and not of some virus." Snarling, she shifted to vamp face and sprang out of the passenger door toward him, conveniently impaling herself on the waiting stake. Spike shook his head in disgust. "Bloody fledge."

His soul took him to task for being so unfeeling, and he got the lad zipped up and on his way with a few grudging words of comfort and the strong suggestion that he'd probably had too many beers to really remember what happened. Apparently they had been in the dusted vampire's car, and he was debating if it was worth selling it to a chop shop when he remembered it had likely belonged to one of her victims. Swearing at his soul, he called in the car as abandoned and went on, finding two more vampires prowling for students distracted by exam week.

As he left campus and walked through the thin fringe of bars, tanning salons, and other businesses that cater to college students, he picked up the faint sense of an aura, growing stronger as he turned toward the west. Spike began to get a little excited; a demon with an aura this strong might have something to do with the attack on the gym. At the very least, it would be a worthwhile fight.

His senses led him to a club set between a very large parking lot and a municipal storage facility, allowing the noise level to be a little higher than at some other campus bars. Spike did a turn through it about once a week, and the bouncer waved him through with a cheery, "Merry Christmas, Spike." Inside, the thing's aura resonated in him like a gong. All he had to do was isolate the source of the frenzied energy, get it out in the parking lot, and unleash hell on earth. He zeroed in on a room just off the main bar.

"Private party – Oh, hey, Spike," the bouncer at the door of the roped-off room said, stepping back. "How's it goin'?"

"Fine, I can keep the bloody Christmas carols from gettin' stuck in my head. Good to see you, Rojas." A big guy who was sharper than people expected, the bouncer had gotten fired from another club after helping Xander and Nguise expel a pair of big-spending vamps. "Really good to see you gainfully employed again."

"Yeah, it's not bad." His dark eyes sharpened. "Something up?" Keenly interested in the fact that there was a supernatural underworld, Manny Rojas had volunteered his services to the Council. Spike had been too taken aback to do more than promise he'd call at some vague future time.

"Dunno." He shrugged. "Something feels off; thought I'd check it out."

Rojas leaned down, his massive shoulders blocking most of Spike's view. "There's drugs in there, man." He shrugged. "What can you do? Only, I don't really want the boys in blue to have to come in. Just got this job."

Spike gave him a small smile, glad for the easy opening. "Right. I'll take it outside, then, there's a problem."

"'Preciate it." Rojas stood aside again. "Hey, Merry Christmas, Spike."

"Happy Christmas to you, too." He clapped the human on one ham-sized bicep as he went into the private room, the aura of the being within a call to battle. Spike kept his own tamped down as he surveyed the room.

There. Whatever it was, it was masquerading as a human female, poured into tan suede pants and a fringed leather halter top. Most demons kept an association with what they actually were, no matter how they manifested, and he saw that the skin was brown and the last couple inches of long, dark hair was tipped with gold. Egyptian, he thought, calling to mind the kinds of demons who could pass as human from that area.

Spike approached from behind and to the left of where the demon was speaking with a tall girl with festive green hair. The human spotted him and waved, and he realized with a nasty shock that he knew her. She was an art student, had been at Ute's going-away party, her hair purple then. Smiling, she touched the demon's arm and pointed to him. Oh, bloody hell, he thought, so much for the element of surprise. The demon turned, and he found himself staring down at his roommate.

"Spike!" Tribby said, smiling, pleased to see him.

What the hell? he thought, and then he examined her more closely. Her pupils were dilated, and there was a slight chemical tang to her usual scent. Whatever she was on, it was playing havoc with her slayer's aura, making it, like Dana's, into something unrecognizable.

The thwarted possibility of a good fight fed his anger. "Tribby," he said, his voice overly smooth, "I hardly recognized you."

"She looks great, doesn't she?" the green-haired woman beamed. "I've been trying for months to get her to dress like an art student is supposed to. Ooh," she added, looking down at her watch, "I've got to drive Phyllis home." She made a face. "Designated driver. Good to see you, Spike."

"You, too," he said, still glaring at Tribby. She looked as alert as a collie, but she didn't pick up on his mood.

"Bye, Jill. What are you doing here, Spike?" She rested her hand on his forearm, stepping closer so she wouldn't have to shout over the music.

"Felt your aura," he said shortly, "and thought you were–"

"Tribby!" a tall man interrupted, and Spike turned his glare on Ty's boyfriend, Greg. "Ready to go?" His eyes roamed over the blond vampire, body first, meeting Spike's eyes last.

The slayer's aura pulsed, and Spike could hardly believe it didn't knock the human over, it was so strong. Tribby moved between the two men, an obvious protective gesture. "Not yet." The two exchanged tight, fake smiles for a moment, then Tribby turned to Spike without quite looking away from Greg. "Come on, let's dance. No, you have to. Roommate obligation."

Spike thought it was just a ploy to leave, but she led him onto the dance floor, turning to grab his right hand, and began to dance, somewhat more to her own beat than the techno blasting through the club speakers.

He didn't move. "Tribs, what are you on?"

"Happy stuff," she shrugged. "Come on, dance with me before it wears off."

"Why?"

Looking slightly exasperated, she stood on tiptoe to answer. "I came here to get laid. I figure that after tonight I won't see these people again. So, why not?"

"Greg?"

"No! Yuck. I'd never do that to Ty." She wrinkled her nose. "I'd never do that, period."

"You have to be high to get laid?"

Her expression was suddenly sharp, lucid, with a hard edge of grief. "It helps." Tribby shook it off, gave him her thousand-watt smile, and took his coat in her other hand.

Grudgingly, he shuffled his feet. "What brought this on?"

She put his hand atop the one she had on his lapel. "Feel that?" He didn't feel anything unusual, but she rambled on before he could answer. "I'm retaining water, this thin layer of fluid under my skin, pressing on my nerves, making them so sensitive, making me feel every touch," her eyes fluttered closed, "exquisitely." Then she was close to normal again. "Plus, I've got hormones screaming at me that I've only got this egg for a couple more days, so I better get pregnant, quick."

He stopped moving again. "You want to get pregnant?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. Laid!" She said it loudly as the beat changed to something more primal, and she began to dance in earnest, pulling him close and resting his hands on her hips.

Spike shook his head, recapping what she had said, trying to put it together. She was hormone-driven, horny, and off her face. She was here to find another student for a one night stand, for the precise reason that she wouldn't have to see the guy again. Everything clicked into place. Since it couldn't be Jack, who was off being inconveniently dead, it didn't matter who it was.

He could relate.

While he was deep in thought, the feel of her strong, rounded body beneath his hands bypassed his brain entirely, and Spike snapped back to the moment to find his hips moving to complement hers. He glanced around, relieved that his own motions were rather less sexual than most of the other dancers'. He looked down at Tribby, who had her eyes closed. "Tribs," he said tiredly, and she opened her eyes and smiled again. Instead of saying anything, she mimed getting a drink. Spike followed her as she headed toward the bar, relieved to get off the dance floor. She bought two longnecks from the bored attendant at the bar, then headed for an empty table near a wall, where it was marginally quieter.

"Pet, have you thought this through?" He sat the pallid American brew, untouched, on the table.

She took a drink, grimacing at the taste, then shrugged. "Worked before."

She hadn't been a wild child until after her husband died, he remembered, her own words from a patrol early on, and more things fell into place. The Sunday School teacher and wholesome Olympic champion were from a time before she was a widow. "Oh, Tribby," he said, sorrowful. It was at that moment that he knew he wouldn't keep his date with Maria, and Spike felt a weight lift.

"You know the sorority girl's mating call?" a malicious voice drawled. Spike and Tribby turned to find Greg behind them, an unhappy Ty trailing along in his wake. Greg grinned down at Tribby and answered his own question in a high-pitched, Valley-accented voice. "I am so wasted!"

Tribby watched him laugh at his own joke and replied acidly. "I wasn't in a sorority. Were you?"

"They'd take me before they would a grim little thing like you."

She shrugged. "Phi Beta Kappa took me."

Ty lifted his eyebrows at the academic snottiness, then shook his head. "Tribby, why are you even here?"

She nodded at Spike and answered truthfully, "Because of him."

"No. I mean, you've got to go back to med school." Apparently Ty was having the typical reaction to finding that one's friend fought demons every night: he was trying to extract her from it.

"Never happen." Tribby took another pull from the beer.

"Then get your doctorate in physical therapy. We'll open a practice together."

"But first," Greg said, taking the beer from her hand and smiling down at her in a predatory way, "we're all going to my after-party." He wiggled the bottle in the air and said meaningfully, "I've got way better stuff than this."

Spike studied him, puzzled. The human wanted Tribby in a way that wasn't sexual, or not entirely sexual. She'd been his friend first, hadn't she, until she found out how he treated Ty? Now she was vulnerable, and Greg knew it. Spike had a feeling that the human didn't much care if he won her over again or paid her back for dropping him; he just wanted to be her focal point.

Greg sensed his examination and looked at him, again doing the automatic cataloging to see whether Spike was worthy of his regard. The blond man scanned him in return. Greg could be charming; he'd seen as much when Ute was still in town, and the human was attractive in a country-club, sweater-over-shoulders kind of way, but he still couldn't see the appeal. Spike gave him a shark's smile, one that would send most people hurrying off to the other side of the room.

Greg just smiled back, considering himself to be the more dangerous predator. "Bring your friend. Spike, isn't it? I wouldn't mind getting to know you."

As the pup's eyes roved over his body again and before he could get anything out or do much more than register the hurt on Ty's face, Tribby moved between them once more. Her aura surged out in all directions, and she showed her teeth to her former friend. "You'll never get your hands on this one," she said, her tone making it a vow. "Have a good party." Then she did the absolute meanest thing one could do to someone like Greg; she turned away dismissively. "Ty, call me this weekend." Tribby put her hand on Spike's arm for a second. "I like this song. Let's go."

Spike waited until she had gone a couple of steps toward the dance floor, then leaned in to confide in Greg, "She totally dominates in bed, too." He put his tongue momentarily against his teeth, pleased to get off a rare believable lie. Turning to follow the slayer, he caught the brief flash of fury in the human's eyes.

"Greg is a sociopath," he said flatly, anchoring her with one hand on her waist.

"I think you're right," she agreed, lucid again. "Narcisstic personality disorder, anyway." Tribby shrugged. "Forget him."

He raised an eyebrow. "You really like this song?"

"I don't even know this song." As she spoke, it segued into Ginuwine's 'Pony.' "This song, though," she smiled up at him, hormones outpacing inhibitions, "I do know."

Like every other couple on the floor, their dance to the song was a facsimile of sex, hips grinding, Tribby's body arching toward him. He watched her as she got lost in the music, freed of habitual grief by whatever she had inhaled or ingested, strong body on display, inviting him along on her trip. It was affecting him more than all of Maria's carefully calculated moves, and after a brief hesitation, he put his other hand on her waist.

The deliberate beat of the music went on, and Tribby turned, her back to him, covering his hands with hers, hips swiveling. He didn't try to follow along exactly, letting her brush against him, then moving closer so their thighs were always in contact. Spike didn't let himself think, just held his breath, an unnecessary exercise. This wasn't Maria. She wanted to get laid, no complications.

As the song wound down, Tribby shifted in his arms, molding her body against his. He had his own effect on her, apparently. She lifted her face, and he realized he'd kissed her before, once in Boulder and once after the battle when he'd kissed all his slayers. How odd that he never really thought of her sexually. Before he could follow the thought, she pulled away.

"Come on." Tribby slipped her hand into his without meeting his eyes. She led him through a door and a couple of winding hallways until they came to an emergency exit. Then they were in the narrow alley between the club and the warehouse. Spike looked around, coming out of his slayer-induced haze. An alley and a woman. And didn't that always end well?

Tribby pressed him against the brick of the nearest wall and kissed him again. She was good at it; not nearly as good as Angel, but he'd had centuries to practice. Tribby had been married for at least a few years, he supposed. Spike had a theory that you only really got good in bed by sleeping with one person a long time rather than with a lot of different people in one night stands. After all, if you had to constantly raise your game to satisfy someone habituated to you, you were bound to get to be pretty good.

Spike's attention came back to Tribby as she pulled away. He didn't know why he couldn't focus his mind; his body wasn't having any trouble keeping up. The slayer's deft hands were at his belt, were unbuttoning his jeans. He put his own over them, trapping them. "Here?" She was bare-armed and the temperature was hovering in the twenties. In answer, she knelt before him. Spike's brows drew together, and he hauled her back to her feet. He saw her eyes then, still dilated but much more aware of what was happening than he seemed to be.

Tribby gave him a miserable smile. "That was my exit strategy."

"Look around, pet. There're exits everywhere, and the best one isn't on your knees in an alley."

Her voice was even. "I can't just leave. That wouldn't be fair to you."

"Then let's go someplace we can be fair to each other."

Beneath his hands, her shoulders slumped. "I can't." Tribby moved away then, stopping when she was at the edge of the building, looking small and shivering in her halter top. She spun suddenly, her booted foot kicking two loose bricks from the corner. They shattered harmlessly, bam! bam! against the opposite wall. Neither of them flinched at the violence. Tribby stood upright again and shrugged. "I'm strong enough to do that," she said, her voice catching, "but I'm not strong enough to sleep with someone I actually care about."

"Tribs," he said, sorrowful, his fleeting desire gone, and went to pull her into a hug, dropping a kiss atop her head. "Come on, pet. Let's get you home."

Her car was in the parking lot, with her coat and purse stashed in the trunk. Spike took the wheel, hitting the Starbucks drive-through for espressos along the way. He waited until the slayer stopped shivering, her hands wrapped around the cup, before he spoke. "So, you've done that before."

A bitter smile curved her mouth. "Twice." Tribby shrugged. "Once at the Telluride Film Festival, once in Boise. Young, geeky guys I figured didn't have much sexual experience. Easy prey for an older woman."

He glanced over at the sarcasm in her voice. "Pet, you can pretty much have any man you set your sights on."

She snorted. "Because I so want to turn into my mother."

Spike left that one alone. "No one but your husband until then?"

"No." Tribby took a sip of coffee and lowered her eyes. "I love sex. It's always been good." Her mouth curved beneath the lowered lashes. "Our first time was after junior prom. Jack had this camper on the back of his truck, and we were in there till sunrise before…" Her voice trailed off, and this smile was warm and rich with memory. "He borrowed that from the Plains tribes, where newlyweds are supposed to fool around all night but not consummate the marriage until the sun comes up." Tribby sent him an apologetic look. "Sorry. TMI."

"'S'okay, pet." His first time had been moments after he burst the confines of his coffin and burrowed his way to the surface, his back on the loose soil as Dru rode him, exultant. He remembered worrying that the dirt under his nails and the blood on his shredded hands would stain her gown.

"I just miss it, is all."

"I can see why. Was Jack Cherokee, too?"

"And Scots-Irish."

"You don't talk about him much."

"No one wants to hear it." Tribby brought the cup to her mouth but didn't drink. "I'm supposed to be moving on." She did take a sip then, as if for courage, because she added, "You know how it is."

"I do," he agreed.

"It gets lonely, though."

"It does."

The silence stretched out comfortably until Spike pulled up to the curb beside the apartment building. When Tribby didn't make any move to get out, he waited, expectant. She was struggling with something.

"At the end," Tribby said finally, "the cancer spread. It got in his brain, it," she licked her lips, staring out of the windshield, "made him mean. He said… He accused me of cheating on him, of all kinds of things. It wasn't just me," she added. "He said his parents beat him, that the nurses molested him, just anything to be hurtful, it seemed. Everyone said, oh, this happens sometimes, but I could see the speculation in their eyes, that maybe I did sleep around, maybe I was a slut. Then the cancer got to his speech centers, and he didn't say anything at all."

Spike could smell her tears, but he stayed where he was, letting her finish. After a moment, she went on, her voice nasal. "I know this is an issue, baggage. But even though I know it logically, my heart can't escape the things he said. He was my everything." She drew a shaky breath. "Maybe I'm trying to live down to it."

"Maybe it's just like you said, it's easier when your heart's not involved," he countered.

"Thanks," she managed. Tribby took one hand off the coffee and wiped her cheeks.

"I don't think she's going to come to me," Spike blurted, his hands clenching on the steering wheel. God, where had that come from? But once he said it, the words hung there, and he buried them beneath others. "Something changed, something that she thought was a barrier between us. It's gone now, has been for 'most a month, and she still hasn't come to me. She's so strong, Tribs, so strong, and if she doesn't come, I can't help but think it's not just that she doesn't want me more than Angel, it's that she doesn't want me at all.

"He doesn't love her, either, not like I do. 'M not just sayin' it; it's true. He–" Spike stopped abruptly, met her sympathetic gaze. She'd laid her own ugly pain bare for him. "He invited me into their bed, Tribs." Spike was breathing now, couldn't help it. "Not unusual for vampires, but I could never share her. If he loved her, really loved her, how could he even consider it?" Spike felt the steering wheel creak under his hands, and he made himself let go, fingers splaying out as if to brace himself against the emptiness. "I love Angel, too; he's family, but…."

If Tribby was shocked, she didn't show it. She caught his hand where he held it in midair, and he remembered how well she'd learned Dawn's lessons about a vampire's need for touch. "She's in love with you, Spike. We can all see it, the way she watches you, the way she glares at Ivana and Maria. But it isn't… I'm sorry, Spike. Things won't be the same if she comes to you now, will it?"

"No." It was his turn to stare out of the window, his eyes wide. He'd never let himself articulate it before, but she was right. After learning that she could be with him without the constant fear she would hurt him, every day that Buffy stayed with Angel lowered her just a little bit in his estimation.

"Will it still be good enough?"

"God, yes." He'd given up on having anything pure and shining long ago. What was a little tarnish on his golden goddess?

"Then your heart is going to wait just as long as it takes," she said, "and to hell with what anyone else thinks."

Spike smiled at her, feeling lighter. He hadn't been able to share that with Dawn, so it had been festering. He took his venti espresso from the cupholder and regarded it for a moment, then sighed. "Ready to go up?"

She nodded, then met his eyes. "Are we good? I mean, we don't have to be all awkward about things?"

"We're good." Before she could pull her hand away, he added, "The good part was here, pet, not at the club." He squeezed her fingers and let go, two damaged people doing what came naturally. Spike finished his untouched coffee on the way up, most of it on the second landing when Mrs. Hanley caught them and had to hear an explanation of Tribby's outfit. They escaped when the slayer lied and said she'd been to a costume party, finally making it up to the fourth floor. Dawn opened the door when she heard the key scraping in the lock, expecting them from Mrs. Petrowsky's phone call, excited and happy.

"Hey, you two. Clem's back!"

⸹

"No," Xander moaned. He put his head in his hands, not feeling as though he was being melodramatic at all. "A mall? Two weeks before Christmas?"

Just down the table from him, Joel Muse was looking just as stunned. "Less." The lieutenant shook his head. "This isn't a company we can evacuate from their building with some trumped-up story. The mall stores won't close; they depend on December sales to stay in business the rest of the year. And there are," he calculated quickly, "at least eight roads that lead there, eight major roads. The whole CPD doesn't have the manpower to keep shoppers away, much less the small group of us in the know."

Giles sighed, looking down the length of the table, wondering why conference rooms were always rectangular. People were squished together around the table and sitting in chairs all along the wall. It was a bad design, he thought. "We've done the locator spell three times. There's no mistake. The energy is coming from the mall."

"Well, we'll just have to do things differently," Willow said by way of encouragement. "As long as we have blueprints, we don't have to be in there the whole time to plan strategy." She was thinking as she spoke, coming up with and discarding ideas. "The slayers can case the mall by going undercover as shoppers–"

"Not a stretch," Buffy said, grinning. She was feeling cheerful. It had nothing to do with the fact that Giles had ordered the Watchers to cancel all their other plans.

"–and since I'll be here for this battle, the Watchers don't have to set up barriers beforehand."

"You're right, my dear," Giles said, giving her a grateful look. He looked around the table at the faces, the good lieutenant's the most concerned.

"Crowd control," he said, frowning. "This one's all about crowd control. We can't let Christmas shoppers mingle with the demons. I mean, come on! They may be single-mindedly focused on this energy, but if they'll fight each other, they'll attack any nearby human."

"He's right," Angel said quietly. "If we figure out how to keep the Christmas shoppers safe, everything else will be easy."

Giles flashed a look at him. The big vampire hadn't given him a 'yes' yet, but he hadn't pushed. Next to Angel, Buffy was staring at the polished tabletop, her frown deeper than Muse's. "Well, let's think on it. We'll meet back here tomorrow at nine. We should have the mall layout by then. In the meantime, Spike, will you organize the slayers into recon units?"

"Yeah, that'll be hard to do," he mumbled sarcastically.

"Are you kidding, Giles?" Buffy said, snapping back to the moment. "Slayer duties combined with Christmas shopping? You're definitely Santa Claus this year."

He smiled back at her, so glad to see some of her old sparkle. "Yes, well, be that as it may, it's the reconnaissance that's the important part."

⸹

Spike made a point of teaming up with Maria for his mall crawl. The coming battle had given him a too-easy way out of their date; Giles had asked the Watchers to focus on the coming battle, and everyone had patrol because of the influx of demons. They stopped at the edge of the food court after getting a couple of tacos, unable to find an empty table in the atrium of the crowded mall.

Maria was shaking her head, thinking of the empty office buildings they had the run of for past battles. "How on earth is this going to work?" she asked.

"Willow will figure something out," Spike said, shrugging. "Planning's not my strong suit, I'm told."

"Mine either," Maria said, taking a bite and swallowing before she went on. "Any ideas when this is going to go down?"

"Tuesday, maybe, based on the last few battles." It was Friday now.

They would be sitting in a movie theater if things had worked out. Maria examined him, the way his blue eyes scanned the crowd, his head slightly lowered, his weight centered so he would be ready to lash out in any direction. She shook her head, wondering what he was like when he wasn't on point. "Do you ever have any downtime?"

He looked at her. Maria's tone was nothing more than curious. She'd claimed a raincheck for their date, but hadn't been upset. "Downtime?" He thought of cuddling on the couch with his Bit, the deep sense of peace they both had when they were together. Internal talks with Willow, billiards with Xander, sitting quietly at a table with Giles, piles of open books around them. He remembered patrolling the active Sunnydale cemeteries with Buffy, long hours of quiet or conversation between bursts of violence. A lot of his peace was associated with that destroyed town, and except for Dawn, he hadn't managed to recreate many of those moments in Cleveland.

"Not much," he admitted.

She heard the surprise in his voice. "Maybe you should make it a priority."

"Hard to do when the world is depending on you."

"Is that how you feel?" She sounded surprised now.

"You don't?" He stared at her, her clear dark eyes, the carefree set of her shoulders days before a major battle. She'd never been Chosen. "No, you don't, do you? Good for you, pet."

Maria tossed the rest of her taco at a nearby trash can, then pumped her fist when it went in neatly. "What do you do for fun, Spike?" she asked as they began to walk away.

He'd asked the same question of Tribby once, trying to find things that might make Buffy smile again. Giving her an honest answer, he watched resignation settle on Maria's face. "Spend time with Dawn. Train you lot. And – not often enough – get Buffy to smile."

After a moment, her expression hardened. "Does it even matter to you that she's shacked up with another man?"

"No."

She looked away. "You'll always love her."

"Yes."

There was no hesitation in his answer. Maria took a breath. "I'd like to make you happy, Spike. Is that even… Could I?"

"Yes. 'M not hard to please, love. But I was a man of honor, once. Won't lie to you," he stopped, pulling her out of the path of a frazzled woman pushing a stroller and into an alcove with an ATM. "Can't see a time when it won't be about Buffy." When she started to shake her head, he plowed on. "I was with Drusilla for a hundred and twenty years, Maria. I know my own heart."

Her dark eyes snapped, and she opened her mouth. Then she just shook her head and began walking again. "So," Maria took a deep breath, "what kinds of things are we supposed to be looking for?"

"Glass that could shatter, be a hazard," he said, so proud of her. "Loose wiring, camping equipment or such with propane, things that could be used to set fires." He took her fingers in his for a moment and gave them a quick squeeze. "For our side, natural defenses, shops that have a dais for a better view."

They went through the mall, Maria becoming less stilted as the hours wore on. She spotted one vampire in a Santa hat, which they took care of in the less-crowded hosiery section of JC Penney, leaving a visible scatter of dark gray ash on the tile. Maria snarked, "Cleanup on aisle five," making him laugh. They did a turn around one side of the big building as they headed to Spike's truck. Even as late as it was, the parking lot was full of cars, more prowling the lanes looking for an empty space. The slayer shook her head. "How are we going to keep the customers out of this?"

"Dunno, me. The best minds on the Council are working on it, though." He opened the passenger door for her, and a half a minute later, made an elderly man in a van very happy by vacating the parking space. Maria's apartment wasn't far away, and as he pulled in at the curb, she unbuckled her seatbelt and put her hand on his arm. Spike looked over at her, brows raised.

"Come in," she offered, dropping her eyes after a moment. "Bethany's on patrol. I could make you happy."

Spike regarded her for a long moment, wondering what drug Tribby had been on the other night and where he could score some, then he turned off the truck. "Maria," he began, twisting so he could see her, "you could. Been a demon so long, I could do that, hardly a twinge of my conscience. But I want better for you."

She lifted a shoulder. "From what I understand, it doesn't get much better." When he blinked, taken aback, she suppressed a grin. "Back in Sunnydale, I overheard Faith ask about a few things. Buffy warned her away."

"Faith, huh?" He shook his head, thinking of what Xander had confided. "Real maneater, that one, and not in a good way. If she wanted me, pet," and she had, "part of it was just because I was at hand, but the bigger part was because she wanted to take things away from Buffy."

"That's not why I–"

"I know. But the answer is no, Maria. I can't give you what you deserve."

She looked down at her hands, let out a sigh, and lifted her head. "All right. I guess it's for the best and everything, but I have to tell you it still feels really shitty."

"'M sorry."

Anger at his rejection bubbled up inside her, and though Maria was trying to be mature, it wasn't working. "Yeah? Well, you will be sorry if you go on pining after Buffy Summers. You have to get over her, Spike."

"No. I don't."

She glared at him because his voice was so sure and calm, and her full lips pinched into a tight line. "Then I feel really sorry for you."

The slam of the door reverberated inside the cab. Spike stayed until the light in her apartment came on, then slowly drove away, too tired to violate traffic laws.

⸹

Back in the conference room at the Council offices the next morning, the Watchers, Muse, Willow, Buffy, and Angel pored over the floorplans. There were several areas where a few judiciously deployed slayers could hold an entire section, and Vishnaswamy came up with the brilliant idea of having a priest bless the water in the central fountain. Giles was in a more relaxed mood as they rolled up the blueprints and returned to their seats.

"All that leaves is a method of keeping patrons out of the stores. Any suggestions?" People glanced around at each other, and when no one spoke, began to study the grain of the wooden table. "No one?"

"I have a plan," Buffy said, her voice quiet. She tucked her hair behind her ear. Angel looked down at her bowed head, wondering why she seemed so nervous.

"Yes?" Giles prompted.

"I've actually put the plan into action. It's taken care of. Yesterday afternoon I contacted the Initiative. They'll come to Cleveland on Monday and stay until it's over. They'll send soldiers out with barriers and troop transports to block the roads. They say they'll handle the press, too, give out that it's a terrorist threat."

"They?" Dawn asked in a sharp tone. "'They' being Riley?"

"Yes." Buffy's voice was still quiet.

Angel's eyebrows went up, but otherwise the big vampire stayed perfectly still. He glanced over at Spike, whose lips had curled into a sneer. Xander and Willow were looking edgy, too.

"Are you sure about this, Buffy?" Willow asked.

The Slayer shrugged. "Someone suggested yesterday that we call out the National Guard. Well, a few of the local Guard units are overseas, and this way we don't have to explain the nature of the threat to anyone who doesn't already know."

"No," Giles said, looking pained, "it's a good idea, Buffy. I wish you would have spoken to me before you made the call, though."

"I wanted to make sure the Initiative would come before I mentioned it." She looked up and gave him a tight smile before dropping her eyes again. "They were willing."

⸹

"Riley Fucking Finn," Dawn said, a black scowl on her face as she and Spike walked through the door of their apartment.

"Dawn Michelle Summers," Spike said, frowning at her, "watch your language."

She ignored him, tossing her coat at the rack. "Do you suppose he'll bring his fancy new wife with him this time?"

"If she's still part of his unit," Spike shrugged.

"Hey, guys. How'd it go?" Tribby came out of the kitchen, carrying two just-wrapped Christmas presents. She put them under the Christmas tree in the corner, a real tree that Dawn had chosen and Spike had carried up four flights of stairs, staining his hands with sap that didn't come off for several days.

"Feh." Dawn kicked her shoes off and dropped onto the plush sofa, clutching a throw pillow to her chest.

"Oh? Well, I put an anorak on Clem and we went shopping. He really likes Target. Anyway," Tribby said, sitting down next to Dawn and settling a strand of the girl's brown hair back in place, "I'm done. I crossed the last names off my Christmas list."

"Good for you," Dawn said glumly.

"Ignore her," Spike advised. "Where is Clem, anyway?"

"Downstairs, visiting Mrs. Hanley. She's really taken a shine to him."

"Ignore me?" Dawn protested. "I'm not the one ignoring things, Mr. Denial."

Spike sighed. "I'm not ignoring things; I just don't give a rat's – I mean, I just don't care. Why should I? Not like I'll really do anything to the gormless–"

"Spike! We're talking about Riley!"

"Who?" Tribby asked, having looked back and forth between them through this volley.

"Riley Finn," Dawn said in the same tone she might use for 'Nazi collaborator.'

"Who's Riley Finn?"

"Buffy's ex from college. Git works for the government. He's bringing in some troops for crowd control around the mall during the battle."

Dawn snorted. "No, Riley Finn is a member of the Initiative that captured you and put a 'bloody cattle prod' in your head, the jerk who arranged for hungry Grimslaw larvae to be in your home, and the bastard who cheated on my sister with vampire sluts."

Spike sighed and shrugged out of his coat, dropping it on the floor and collapsing onto the other end of the couch. "First, they were vampire whores, Bit. Sluts don't charge; you know that. Got to use your vulgar words properly. Second, he seemed plenty scared by the Grimslaws, too. Don't think he knew how bad those were there, for all that he fit me up and barged in on us. Third, he didn't personally put the chip in my head. Only time the wanker ever laid a hand on me was when he staked me."

"He staked you!" Dawn's voice had the high-pitched, ear-splintering quality of her younger years for a moment. Then she snorted again. "Must have done his usual competent job, since you're still here."

Spike shook his head impatiently. "He used a plastic stake. Looked real, though. Thought for sure I was a goner that time." He stopped talking and stared curiously at Tribby. Her slayer's aura had given a sudden, bright pulse. The first time he'd felt that, she ended up dressed down the rest of the Cleveland slayers because someone had been in his bed.

"The last time we talked about him," Dawn plowed on, distracting him, "you at least were saying you were going to give the Great Hall Monitor a giant wedgie."

Spike snickered. "Yeah," he grinned, "might still do that." Then he gave her a too-innocent look. "I can't kill humans anymore. Shame, that."

"Don't you dare use my words against me when I'm in a towering rage."

"You are?" This was from Tribby, who had turned to look at Dawn. "Here, sweetie, let me French braid your hair, and you can tell me all about it."

"See? French-braiding my hair doesn't threaten her masculinity."

Spike squinted. "Insane troll logic," he pointed out.

"So, what exactly is the Initiative?" Tribby asked, taking the comb Dawn pulled out of her purse and shifting so she was in the corner of the couch.

"Another great use of our tax dollars," she replied, her voice scornful as she began the story of how the Initiative captured and experimented on demons. By the time she got to Spike's request for asylum with the Scoobies, he was unable to keep quiet and began to help tell the story. Dawn listened in silence along with the slayer as Spike told about learning that Riley was visiting vampire trulls, Riley's spiteful visit to his crypt after he informed Buffy, and how the hulking soldier ended up drinking with him.

By the time the story was finished, Tribby had taken Dawn's hair back down and was combing through it with long, soothing strokes. "I have to say," the slayer said slowly, "he certainly sounds like a piece of work."

Dawn made a face as she struggled with her conscience. "He really had a lot of nice qualities," she said, trying to be fair. "I liked him okay before I found out what the Initiative had done to Spike, before he cheated on Buffy." Her brow darkened again. "Before he breezed back into Sunnydale for a night and flaunted his glamorous life in front of my broken sister."

"That's enough, Bit," Spike said impatiently.

"So, this Initiative," Tribby said, beginning the braiding again, "they aren't still experimenting on demons?"

"No – at least, that we know of. They're supposed to be fighting demons in friendly countries in South America."

"Like government-funded slayers, except now there are slayers everywhere to do that. Seems like we would have put them out of business."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, the glut of slayers would tend to make them redundant." He lapsed into silence, remembering what he once said to Giles about a business' main mission being its continuing existence, his mind making lightning-fast connections. "'Nough of this lounging about," he said, standing abruptly and grabbing up his coat. "Got places to go, demons to kill." Moving smoothly, he bent and kissed Dawn's cheek, then tapped Tribby's nose. "See you ladies tonight." Spike stopped and pivoted on his heel. "No, you're housesitting, aren't you?"

"Yup." Tribby was taking care of Ty's house and dog for a week while he took Greg skiing in Utah as a graduation present. "But I'm sure I'll see you sometime tomorrow, with all that's going on."

"If anyone doesn't deserve a rich, gorgeous lover, it's Greg," Dawn complained.

"Hear, hear," Spike agreed. As he loped down the stairs, he reached out to Willow, touching her mind, waiting impatiently for her to answer. _Red?_

 _What's up, Spike?_

 _Wonder if you could meet me for lunch?_

 _Sure. How about that German restaurant near my old apartment – I guess I should say, near Xander's. It's cold, and that puts me in the mood for potato soup._

 _German it is. See you there in, say, half an hour?_

Willow was already waiting when Spike pulled up in his big truck. "'Lo, love," he murmured, giving her the full-body hug he hadn't been able to that morning.

"Hey, Spike." She squeezed him tightly, grinning.

"Glad to have you back in town."

"Good to be here."

"C'mon, pet. Let's get you out of the cold."

"Yes, it's 'perishing,'" Willow said, proudly using the Britishism. They sat down at a cozy table, and after the attractive waitress took their order, she blushed to realize that she and Spike had both been enjoying the woman's low-cut blouse. Then she grinned, shrugging.

Spike was in no hurry to ruin her good mood, so he nursed a cup of coffee and listened while she scooped up bites of thick potato soup and told him about her studies. Willow looked happy, her cheeks glowing from the cold, as she talked about her life at Oxford. After a while, though, she put her spoon in the bowl and asked kindly, with a tinge of worry, "Is it Buffy?"

"What? No." He gave her a sheepish grin. "Not this time. Not my ex. Yours, actually."

Willow frowned, and he knew her first thought, Tara. Then she asked, a little tension around her eyes, "Kennedy?"

"Yeah. Listen, love, Sweet Bit and I were talking today about the Initiative–"

"Because of Riley?"

"Right. Since Soldier Boy was stationed down in South America, I just wondered if the slayers and his troops ever had occasions where their paths crossed." His mouth compressed, then he simply held out his hands for her to take.

Experiments on slayers was the first worry she saw, his own nightmarish experiences feeding into fears of dissection and forced pregnancies and grotesque amalgams of slayer and demon and cybernetic enhancement. From his post-resurrection life, the worry that slayers would be placed in units and given free reign to kill the way Faith had, not just demons, but whoever their commanders pointed them at, nearly unstoppable soldiers without even the limited moral guidance the Council provided.

She pulled away from the horror-movie thoughts, pulled her hands away. "Why would you think of Ken…?" Her voice trailed off. If the Initiative had enough savvy to court Kennedy, to make her feel important… Willow pushed her bowl away. "I'm ready to leave," she said quietly.

They sat in Spike's truck, and the blond man looked around, checking to see if anyone was noticing. Then he nodded, and Willow popped out of the silence of the cab. Spike sighed and turned on the heat so her return from the Southern hemisphere wouldn't be such a shock, then unscrewed a Thermos of blood he had left over from patrol the previous night.

Willow was back sooner than he would have thought. She sat in silence for a few moments, and without looking at him, asked, "How did you know?"

He shrugged. "Never trusted her. She wanted to be in charge without earning it. Figured she might be vulnerable to being recruited." Spike waited until Willow took a breath and looked up at him. "So, what was going on?"

"I-I didn't have to make any conversation," the young witch said, shrugging. "When I knocked on the door, she opened it wearing the same type gear Riley and Sam were wearing when they came back to Sunnydale."

"Dead giveaway."

Willow made a face. "I compelled her to tell me. Not fair, but she… She wasn't glad to see me."

"Felt guilty, maybe."

"Wondered what she ever saw in me, maybe."

 _Red._ He gave her the image he had, the opinion he held of her.

 _Sorry. Self-esteem issues._ "Anyway, she's working for them, along with three other slayers, all from Brazil."

"That she knows about."

Willow nodded. "That we know about. I'll ask the Coven to check to see if all the slayers are where they're supposed to be, that there's not a concentration of them anywhere except here." She sighed. "I can't blame those girls, Spike. I know them. Two of them live in the _favelas_. They talked about coming to Cleveland so they could get the salary, but they didn't want to leave their families at the mercy of the PCC."

"Wonder if we could get the Council to revisit the issue of salaries, now that the Swiss accounts are free?" he mused. After Buffy's experiences as a single mother and the thin funds during the last weeks in Sunnydale, he didn't like to think of slayers going without.

"We can ask Giles."

Spike nodded. "Good idea to have the Coven check, just in case there're slayers being held somewhere against their will. The Initiative was big on the right hand not telling the left, as I remember. Kennedy might not have a clue. But let's hold off on telling Rupes until after the battle. He has enough to worry about."

"Okay. I think I'll go home to Oz and tell him how grateful I am to have him. I mean, he might have given in to his werewolf nature once, but he has a clear idea who he is."

"So… you have him?"

She waved a hand at his sly tone. "Pretty much out in the open by now."

"Glad to hear it."

Willow looked away again. "Anything with Buffy?"

"No. Angel and I are talking again, but haven't managed it with the Slayer."

She nodded, still looking out at the weak December sunlight falling on the city. "How's the new apartment?"

"'S'okay. I miss seeing Rupes every day, the other slayers who lived at Watcher Central, but I see more of Clem." He gave her a killer smile. "Best thing about Christmas is that I get to see more of you, too."

She scooted across the bench seat to give him another hug. The awkwardness from his basement bedroom was gone, finally, though Willow couldn't help notice the press of his body against hers. When she pulled away, she saw from his expression that he was affected, too. "You are too cute," she sighed, feeling obscurely adult for being able to acknowledge the attraction without acting on it.

Spike looked affronted. "'Cute' is for toddlers and red-haired witches," he corrected, touching her cheek, "not for ruthless, dead-sexy demons who rip out hearts and other vital organs with their bare hands."

"Double-oh vampire," she suggested.

"Nah, Bond doesn't appreciate women."

She raised a brow at his dismissive tone. "He sleeps with enough of them."

Spike snorted. "Like that means anything. Bond sleeps with more people in one book that I've slept with my entire unlife." When she raised an eyebrow, he grudgingly added, "Ten."

"You've slept with ten women?" That number was a lot lower than she would have thought.

"Uh," he said, looking away and grateful that he wasn't capable of blushing, "nine women."

Angel, Willow remembered, and she bit the inside of her jaw, desperate not to smile. "I think you've shown incredible restraint, Spike."

"Yeah," he agreed with unconscious arrogance, "I have, haven't I? Anyway, I actually like women. Bond just likes to shag 'em."

"Why do we catalog that? I mean, somebody asks me that question, I can just whip out the number 'three' without thinking about it."

He quickly glanced away, hiding his surprise, grateful they were communicating aloud and wondering if she even remembered what price Rack had required of her. "Dunno. Internal check to make sure we aren't any worse than anyone else?" He shrugged. "Honestly, I didn't tally it up until I saw _Four Weddings and a Funeral_."

"Did you watch it with Dawn?"

"Saw it when it came out. British picture, after all," he added somewhat defensively.

She leaned across and kissed his cheek. Something about Spike always cheered her, maybe just because of what he had said, that he genuinely liked women, including her. "We'll talk after the battle, okay? See you soon."

To his surprise, she got out of the truck and began walking back to Oz's apartment. Spike considered shadowing her to make sure she got there safe, then gave himself a mental kick. She might look small and vulnerable as she went briskly up the street, but Willow was more capable of taking care of herself than any slayer.

⸹

Buffy knocked on the door of Giles' office, and it opened immediately. "Hullo, my dear. Come on in."

"What's up?"

He turned away, not quite successful at hiding his guilt. "What makes you think something is, as you say, up?"

"Well, the fact that you asked me to come a half-hour before Riley gets here." She shrugged, sitting in the chair on the far side of his desk. "It's what we in the field call a 'clue.'" To her surprise, Giles took the seat next to her instead of going around to sit in the comfortable, leather-upholstered one.

"Ah, you've found me out," he said, grinning a little. "I did want to talk to you, ask you if you need anything of me for this… reunion."

"No." She shrugged and met his concerned gaze. "I'm completely over Riley. A-and I'm sure about that, you know? I never really got over Angel, so I know the difference."

"Are you angry with him?"

Buffy looked away, thinking of lumpy gray eggs improbably hatching while incubating in the cool downstairs of Spike's crypt, thinking of the way Riley had tried to hide his righteousness when he burst in on them upstairs. "I don't know if he's shown himself to be my enemy," she said after a moment, "but he's shown that he isn't my friend." When she saw that Giles was still examining her, she added, "I'm not angry. I mean, the Immortal did way worse to me, and I'm not trying to get revenge on him or anything."

"No," her Watcher agreed, stilling his hands when they wanted to reach for his glasses for a good polish. Armando had informed him that the Immortal had disappeared from his estate one night soon after Buffy left and hadn't been seen since. Souls or not, Rupert assumed that he knew the two vampires responsible and the Scoobies who were complicit. "Well, that's one of three things."

A smile curved her cheek, and she had an urge to hug him, but she didn't want to make him feel awkward. "What're the other two?"

"Have you had any more dreams, Slayer dreams, about the energy source?"

"No."

"Buffy…" He did take off his glasses this time, not wanting to see her face. "I've noticed that you and Spike… aren't close these days, but I wondered if the two of you would look for the djinn together? He is the only other person who's reported any sign, and it was when the two of you were together that you found yourself in an unknown passage."

"Not until after–"

"After the battle, yes. That's what I meant."

"Sure," she said, her voice casual. Buffy was glad that Giles wasn't a vampire, though, because he couldn't hear her increased heart rate. "I'm not the one avoiding him," she added. "He asked not to be scheduled for patrol with me anymore."

"Do you know why?" Giles asked in a neutral tone.

"Not really." She looked at her hands in her lap. _You keep turning me down, pet, and I'm going to start to believe you don't want me._ "But it's okay. I mean, we can work together."

"I know you can." He put a hand on her shoulder briefly. "How's Angel?"

Buffy smiled again. "Stubborn. He's not going to join the Council, Giles."

"Any idea why not?"

"He hasn't said in so many words, but the longest he's ever stayed in one place is probably the five years in Los Angeles, and he lived three different places there." Buffy lifted her eyebrows. "Was that the third thing?"

"Third? Oh." Giles looked grim for a moment. "I was going to tell you that Aubrey will be coming to get me for a moment when Lieutenant Muse leaves, and I want you to look like you feel awkward and leave with me."

She frowned for a moment, then she lifted her eyebrows in realization. "The listening devices."

He nodded. Before he could add anything else, there was a knock on the door. "Come in."

Lieutenant Muse peeked around the edge of the door. His expression relaxed when he saw it was just them. He had come to have a great deal of respect for Buffy after tagging along with her and Vi on patrol, although he still preferred not to deal with Angel, Spike, and Clem, or even Willow and Oz. "Hope I'm not too early."

"Not at all, Lieutenant. Come in."

"So, anything I need to know about this general before he gets here?"

"He isn't a general," Buffy said, standing up because Giles had. "I don't know what his title is, exactly. This is less military and more CIA, Pentagon or something."

"Oh, like it always is in Central America," Muse said dryly. At Giles raised eyebrows, he grinned, and Buffy could see why Vi was so taken with him. "Hey, I've seen my _Predator_ movies."

"And I used to date him."

The good lieutenant gave his head a tiny shake. "This is the part where I don't ask if there's anyone you haven't dated."

"Just one other in my closet. If you ever have a chance to vote for a guy named Parker Abrams," she said, shrugging, "don't."

"What about that Chambers boy? Or Scott Hope?" Giles said, frowning.

"I'm not counting anyone I dated in high school," she said pointedly, then backed down a bit. "E-except Angel."

"You were… uh, seeing him when you were in high school?"

Buffy gave Muse a look. "You want to compare cradle-robbing tips with him?"

He snorted, and Giles asked, "Are Vi and Rona back from Philadelphia yet?"

"Yes, and won't I be glad when this wedding is over? Vivian's getting ideas."

"Wedding?" someone asked from the door.

"Hey, Riley," Buffy said. She scanned him, and although Willow had said he'd put on weight, she couldn't tell. He was dressed in street clothes and looked at her for just a second before his eyes skipped away. I'm really over him, Buffy thought, relieved.

"You getting married, Buffy?"

She smiled. "No. Closest I got was looking at wedding dresses not long after we met."

"I remember." Riley's smile was tight. Spike had been the prospective groom. He looked at the floor instead of her, then came in to shake hands with the two men. After the introductions, they got down to the issue of deployment, and Buffy didn't back down even a tiny fraction on where she wanted the Initiative to be. Finally, Riley turned up his palms.

"Okay, Buffy. No humans get in; every demon gets through."

"Except the ones who try to come in at the press point." Riley was going to speak to the inevitable reporters at one roadblock that was at a long distance from the mall. "You'll want your men stationed well away so the press doesn't hear any shooting, or whatever weapons you're using these days."

"Understood," he replied.

You were always good at taking orders, she thought, but simply gave him a tight smile. "Good." Buffy turned to the good lieutenant. "Joel, is there anything I've forgotten?"

"No," he said, giving her an admiring look, "I think that's everything. We'll coordinate with you," he held up the business card with Riley's cell phone number, "whenever the battle starts." Muse checked his watch. "I've got to go if I want to be at headquarters for the start of second shift." He said his goodbyes, leaving the other three in an awkward silence.

"Oh," Riley said, handing over a folder that he'd brought with him, "here you go."

"Thank you," Giles said, checking the contents without expression. "Not difficult to obtain, I hope?"

"No."

Buffy looked between the two men, waiting for an explanation. When neither spoke, an uneasy silence fell.

"So," Riley said heartily, "are you sure there's nothing else we can do?"

"We're sure," Giles said. "This is our sixth battle; the only thing we can't handle is crowd control. A shopping mall at the height of the Christmas rush – Yes?" This was directed at the door, where someone else was knocking.

"Rupert, I'm so sorry to interrupt," Aubrey said, overacting tremendously, "but there's a matter that simply cannot wait. Would you be so good as to join me a moment?"

"Of course, Aubrey," Giles said with a fixed smile. "Riley, Buffy, excuse me."

"I-I better go, too," Buffy said, standing up as soon as her Watcher had walked by. "It was nice to see you, Riley. You look good."

"Thanks." He stood too, with automatic politeness.

She slid her purse onto her shoulder. "How's Sam?" Buffy asked, turning away.

"Fine. She's home with my parents in Iowa. Safer that way. We're going to have a baby."

Buffy froze. "A – baby?"

"Yes. She's eight months along."

"Oh. Congratulations. That's… great. Really. Great. Well, I've got to be–"

He interrupted her babbling. "So… how's Spike?"

Buffy took a small breath and stood up straight, his obvious question bringing her into familiar territory. It was sparring, just the verbal kind. "Riley, there's not a chance you don't know I'm living with Angel. Spike is fine, now that he's got that chip out. Did you know he's got his soul?"

"No. I didn't know that." Riley had an unreadable expression on his face. "But you're not with him."

"No." Her voice was quiet as she considered him, a good-looking guy with major blind spots in his worldview. "I'm with the first man I ever loved, Angel. Not a bad place to be."

"I'm not too fond of him, either."

"I really don't care." She let out a breath, let go of everything. "Congratulations again. Tell Sam I'm glad for her." Buffy let herself out the door. She knew she should stay to see if Riley tried to retrieve the listening devices, but she slipped out of the house and went to the Camry. Everything she was supposed to want, some of which she actually did want, and the man who should have been the perfect one to give those things to her… Buffy didn't know where she was going until she was there. She looked up at the building and let out a shaky laugh. After driving around to the side lot to see if his truck was there, she parked and took out her cell phone. He answered on the first ring.

⸹

'Go on/Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.' Spike sat up in bed. Janis Joplin sang his ringtone for Buffy, and he was grabbing for the phone and answering before he was fully awake. "Slayer?"

"Spike, could you meet me at the gym?"

"Be there quick as a wink, love. You all right?" One leg in his jeans, then the other. She didn't sound all right.

"I will be."

"Clem," Spike said as he came down the hallway to snatch his coat from the tree, "tell Bit I'll be back in a while and to call me if she needs me."

"Sure, Spike," Clem, from his place on the couch, remote in hand, agreed, his voice trailing off as the apartment door shut behind the blond man, the last flutter of dark leather just escaping capture in the doorframe.

He careened into the parking lot at the gym a few minutes later, already sensing Buffy's presence. Spike found her in the dimly-lit armory, her hair a bright beacon in the light that came through the high windows, holding a sword.

"This isn't balanced," she said, looking down the length of it.

"I know. Can't always choose your weapon, though. Teaches them to use whatever is to hand." He closed on her, a smooth predator. "What's wrong, love?"

Oh, God, his voice. She closed her eyes for a moment, then put down the sword and turned to him, her face breaking into a smile despite everything. "You're curly today."

"What?" He touched his hair. "Oh, yeah. Showered before I went to bed. Wants cutting."

"Sorry to wake you up."

"Whenever you need me, love, you know I'm there." He waited, holding his useless breath.

Buffy saw the hope in his eyes and closed her own. "I need you to hold me for a while," she whispered, all she could manage. She couldn't hold in the tears any longer.

He was there, gathering her close in an embrace that wasn't warm but still thawed something inside her. "Long as you need," he said softly, kissing the top of her head. Spike looked around, then moved to the only flat surface that wasn't the floor, a steel table. He plopped her onto it, then joined her, scooting all the way back against the wall so she could curl against him. After a while, she stopped crying. "Tell me."

"Riley," she whispered, feeling his fingers tighten on her arm, her waist. "Whenever he comes back into my life, it's a great big reminder of how empty, how not-normal my own is."

"Love, your life isn't empty," he soothed.

Buffy took a shaky breath. "Sam is eight months pregnant."

"Oh." The miscarriage, another of the burdens she carried.

She felt him kiss her hair again and found she still had some tears left. "I'm over him, I really am, but what he represents…."

"What's that?"

For a long time, she didn't answer. "A life with a future. You know, progress. You find a guy, get married, get a house, have babies, get fat, have grandkids, retire, die." Buffy's mouth twisted bitterly. "Whereas, I find a guy and die, skipping all the other steps."

"Doesn't have to be that way." He took a breath and quickly added, "Your life can be whatever you want it to be."

"Angel said the same thing," she told him. He could feel her shrug.

"You may want to step away in case lightning strikes, but I have to agree with him."

Buffy snorted, wiped her eyes. He could always make her smile. She felt better, clearer, just from being with him. "You know what? This is the last thing Riley can ever do to spin me. There's nothing left. He got married; they're going to have a baby. There's no other news that can touch me now. 'Oh, Buffy, we're having another baby?' Not hardly. I mean, I'm over him. That's it. I'm good."

"'Course you are. Hit the high points already, yeah? After this," he said expansively, "it'll be, 'Buffy, I'm in debt up to my neck for this McMansion in the 'burbs.' 'Buffy, did you hear? I'm on my second wife.' 'Buffy, I finally joined AARP.'" He felt a smile curve her cheek. "You really jealous of Soldier Boy and his bint, love?"

She thought about it. "No. I'm envious because I don't have that option."

"'M sorry, love. Isn't easy being special, yeah?"

"No," she agreed, her voice a whisper. She closed her eyes and held on to him tightly, appreciating more than she could say the fact that he didn't argue with her, didn't tell her again she could have that suburban life if she wanted it. "Not easy." Of course, she thought, if he really believed that was the life she wanted, he would set about getting it for her.

They sat there for a long time in silence, Spike stroking her hair in a way that seemed absent but she knew wasn't. Buffy found herself staring at his thighs, so muscular for a guy with such a lean build. I've found the secret behind those vertical jumps, she thought, smiling.

"What?"

"What 'what?'"

"You smiled."

"You heard me smile?"

"Felt it."

She wasn't clear whether he meant he felt the muscles of her face move or if he felt it on the inside. It didn't matter, she supposed. "Nothing. Trust me, it's too stupid to say out loud."

"You can tell me anything. Might laugh, but won't think any differently of you."

"No," she said emphatically, not about to tell him she was admiring any part of his body.

"Why are you here with me, Buffy?"

She looked up at him, at the hoarseness in his voice when he said her name. "You believe in me," she said simply. "Even when I don't, even when I feel like there's not much to me. I needed that."

"Did you forget your best friend is in town?"

"Willow doesn't know about the miscarriage."

"There's always your sister, too."

"My baby sister."

"And, of course, there's Angel." Spike listened to her take a deeper breath and knew her temper was becoming short.

"Some things I just can't explain to Angel. You understand."

"Then–"

"Spike, don't."

"Then why are you still with him?"

She rolled her eyes and tried to get away, but he wouldn't let go of her. "Why are you here with me instead of with Maria?" she snapped.

Spike held her away from him so he could see her, his jaw set. "There's nothing with Maria. Didn't go out with her; explained to her that I–" His grip softened, and he looked into her wide hazel eyes. "That I'm always going to belong to you, Buffy."

Buffy felt awful then, not for herself. "No Maria?"

"No."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He lifted a shoulder, still staring into her face. "Better she knew that sooner than later. Not pleasant, in any case. She told me I should get over you. What do you think?"

Yes. Buffy tried to make her mouth say the word. That's all it would take. He wouldn't get over her, but he might be able to find a place with Maria or someone like her, have something for himself.

Or, no. She could say that, too, and he would be worshipping her body in seconds flat, would take care of everything with Angel. He could simply order Angel away, apparently. He would arrange everything, and she could stop being so still inside.

In the end, she said nothing, gazing at him with everything in her eyes, love and confusion and fear. He was so beautiful, his short blond hair curling in the way he hated and she loved, his blue eyes full of hurt.

"Run on home, pet," he said, letting go of her and scooting to the edge of the table. His wide shoulders looked weighted down, and he kept his head averted. "Got some things I need to do in my office."

Buffy watched Spike walk away, feeling far worse for what she had done to him than she had when she needed his comfort earlier. "Oh, Spike," she whispered, when she was sure he couldn't hear, "I'm sorry."

⸹

[Author's Note: The real WSLA is a sports radio station out of Slidell, Louisiana.]

The sixth battle hit Tuesday, as expected, and everyone was grateful that it fell on a slightly slower shopping day. The Hummers and troop transport trucks rolled at four o'clock, just before rush hour. Some blocked the entrances to the mall; other troops went to implacably escort shoppers and employees out of the stores. Lieutenant Muse had coordinated with mall security, using the handy excuse of a terrorist threat, and they closed all the entrances to the shops, pulling down the heavy chain barriers, shutting the reinforced glass doors.

He had also provided SWAT uniforms for the slayers, and they went through the empty mall preening in the black gear, giggling and window shopping as they got into position. From the roof, Willow shielded the perimeter until the last military vehicle was out of sight. Darkness was falling as she dropped the invisible barrier, and she could just barely see fleet vampires and awkwardly shaped demons begin to cross the parking lot.

"Incoming," she yelled to the slayer by the door, Tribby, who was serving as runner. Willow's magic, they had discovered in this larger venue, fried walkie talkies. The young witch looked around at the nearby Watchers, smiling wanly, and they moved to the edges of the building, some going over last-minute details of spells, others readying their crossbows. Overhead, two police helicopters swooped noisily past, enforcing the no-fly zone.

Tribby bounded through the access door and down the ladder to the upper floor, then went down the motionless escalators shouting the news like an old-fashioned town crier. In case anyone hadn't heard, she headed to the security office, where she repeated the announcement over the mall speakers. Then she plugged her MP3 player into the public address system and leaned into the microphone.

"You're listening to WSLA, coming at you with all the hits for my sisters out there, especially Ivana. If you can't slay to this mix," Tribby said in a smooth DJ's voice, "you ain't got no soul."

Laughter rose from the slayers as the first notes of Rose Royce's old classic "Car Wash" came over the speakers. "No 'Gilligan's Island' this time," Ivana said, grinning.

"I'm happy so long as it's anything except freakin' Christmas carols," Bethany said.

"Hallelujah," Kayla agreed, singing the word.

"Tribs!" Spike shouted as the dark-haired slayer pelted back toward her group's assigned area. Since she was housesitting for Ty, he'd hardly seen her all week. "You worked in radio?"

"In college," she yelled back, turning to jog backwards for a few steps. "Four hours of punk, five nights a week. Lowest-rated music program aired in Nashville!"

He gave her a thumbs-up. "Way it's supposed to be!" Now he knew where she came by her encyclopedic knowledge of punk rock. Before the last handclaps of the song had died away, the fastest demons were dead, slain by stakes, sliced by swords. The next song was "Play that Funky Music," and Spike laughed, his favorite knife sliding into the soft underbelly of some green, horned demon. There were no punk classics in the mix, much less Christmas carols, just a selection of upbeat seventies funk, familiar to the Watchers because they'd lived during the decade, familiar to the slayers from movie soundtracks.

For almost three hours they battled the horde. Some parts of the mall had less carnage, depending on the proximity to the main doors; Willow was shielding the store entrances. In the atrium, the slayers soon lost their appetite for pitching vampires into the fountain of holy water, the screams and writhing too much even for their bloody-minded sensibilities. As the influx began to lessen, Willow sent another runner, Isidra, to spread the word that she was, to use Xander's phrase, setting phasers on kill.

This was also the cue to begin the hunt for the source of the energy. Spike gave Vi a tap on the shoulder and let her know with a jerk of his head that he was gone. The red-haired slayer nodded shortly and stepped into his place, raising her axe to her shoulder. He killed as he went, the number of demons dwindling as he came near the main escalator where Buffy was stationed, with Angel and Xander fighting by her side.

"Ready to go search for the magic lamp?" he asked sardonically. "And just how," he said, turning abruptly to Angel, "do you know the words to 'Brickhouse?'"

Angel gave him a bland look and a non-answer. "Lived in Detroit for a while in the seventies." When Spike continued to give him a questioning stare, he shrugged. "I like Motown."

Spike snorted. "Come on, then, pet. Let's see what we can find."

Nothing, as it turned out, though Buffy did spot a pair of shoes in Nine West that she made a mental note to buy as a present for Dawn. They didn't talk; he had said everything, and she wasn't able to say anything. After a thorough walk-through of the mall, the blond pair went back to help with cleanup efforts. No one had been injured this time. The extent of the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been; only two stores had been breached, with a few mannequins shattered. Several Watchers banded together to do Willow's scour spell, and they were done.

As the slayers loaded into two armored SWAT vans, still singing "We Are Family" with their arms around each others' waists, Giles called Riley to let him know they were clear. In high spirits, the Council members headed back to the armory for a debriefing and the traditional pizza.

Spike voluntarily stationed himself between Giles and Aubrey, serving up breadsticks and rotating empty boxes for full ones. He looked around the training room, smiling, at peace after the rush of violence, watching his slayers strutting a little in their borrowed body armor. Dawn was standing next to Buffy and Angel, no thoughts of Mitch ruining her good mood. Xander, Willow, and Oz were talking to Vi and her good lieutenant. Maria and Tamika were sitting cross-legged to eat their pizza. Rona was animatedly explaining something to Geneva and several other slayers, probably about her upcoming wedding. Ivana and Tribby were standing side-by-side, arms linked, talking to Jacobson. Spike smiled. Life was good. Not perfect, maybe, but good.

Or, it was good for a few minutes. Riley slipped through the gym door, flanked by two shorter men in similar dress. Spike knew it was his hair, a bleached-blond beacon, but it still seemed inevitable that the git's eyes came directly to him. He gave Riley a sarcastic salute, then nudged Giles to let him know they had company.

The Head of the Council slid effortlessly into the role of grateful host, beckoning the three soldiers forward, sharing out more of the pizza. "Capital job," he said, beaming, rolling his eyes at Spike as he turned away for another pie.

Buffy, Spike saw, had moved into the comforting circle of Angel's arm, and she wasn't looking at him or at Soldier Boy. Maria was looking at him, and he gave her a brief smile, which she didn't return. Catching Dawn's eye, he waved and slipped out the far door, no longer pleased with the company.

Cleveland was busier than usual, fewer vampires but more exotic demons falling to his blade. After a few hours of solitary patrol, Spike circled back to the empty gym and got his truck. His thermos was inside, but more than he wanted blood, he wanted to do one final thing before heading home.

Riley's detachment was camped on the grounds of the local Guard unit, which had been deployed to the Middle East. Spike didn't know why, in a Cleveland winter, the Initiative had set up in tents rather than inside the dark buildings, but, then, he'd never been impressed with Riley's wits. It was a small matter to evade the guards, and their fancy temperature monitors wouldn't pick him up after hours spent patrolling the cold streets. Spike found his way to Riley's tent by smell. He thought an ambush might make it easier to suss out whether the wanker knew about the Initiative's recruitment of slayers, and a not-so-small part of him wouldn't be sorry if Soldier Boy tried to lay a hand on him, now that he was chipless. There was another scent in the air, though, and a frown settled on his face. What was she doing here?

Checking the terrain and the layout of the tents, Spike chose a tree and leapt into it. From his high vantage point, he was staring at the front of what smelled like Riley's tent, dark right now and empty. Just as he got settled, the big soldier walked into the tent, closing it behind him and turning on a light. Right on his heels was the stealthy figure of a small woman, and she opened the flap, not bothering to close it, affording Spike a good view inside.

"Riley Finn?" Tribby asked, making the tall man jump and turn around.

"Yes." He frowned at her. "How'd you get in here?"

"My name is Libby Snapp. I'm a slayer."

"Oh." He peered at her, trying to place her face. Except for Buffy, they all blended together for him.

"I wanted to make sure you knew my name before I killed you." As she said this, she smoothly pulled a pistol from her coat.

Above them, Spike flinched after her calm words sank in. The pulse of her aura, he remembered. She was going mama bear again, then. He knew his lovelies, though, knew none of them were killers, and a smile caught at the corner of his mouth. This should be good.

"Kill me?" Riley repeated, staring at the gun. There was, of all things, a potato jammed onto its end. He took a step toward her. "I don't even know you."

"You know my friend Spike." Riley took another step toward her, and she fired a round between his feet, blowing chunks of potato all through the tent, the report soft and muffled.

Before Riley could do much more than jump back, Tribby had shoved another potato over the barrel of the automatic. A homemade silencer, Spike realized, stunned by how serious she was, stunned into inaction.

"Right there is good," Tribby said, her voice a Texas drawl. "I been usin' guns since I was itty bitty. The only reason for a gun is when you need a distance weapon, and I like you just fine at a distance."

Riley's hands went into the air in a placating manner. "Look, I don't know what Spike told you about those eggs, but I didn't know they were going to hatch. They were supposed to be Suvoltes; I don't even know what it was that came out of them."

She let out a soft snort of disbelief. "Amazing how many bad things you musta done to him, 'cause I don't know anything about that." She took a half-step back, settling into a Weaver stance. "No, I'm here because you staked him."

Riley, once again proving himself to be an idiot in Spike's estimation, relaxed enough to smile. "Staked him? That? That's all? It wasn't a real stake, obviously. He's fine."

"No, it wasn't a real stake. But I can't imagine that you find realistic-looking, wood-grain plastic stakes just laying around. I reckon that you have to have a Pentagon contractor make them, at great taxpayer expense, so you can use them to perform mock executions." There was fury in her voice now, making it too tight for a drawl.

He tensed up again. "Look, it's not like–"

"Shut up." Tribby tilted her head. "I know you. My people know you, Native Americans know the face of the US government, all nice words covering cold lies. The rest of the country might think that Abu Ghraib occurred in a vacuum, but we know better. You think nothing of experimenting on prisoners, of performing–"

"They weren't even human!" Riley cut in, frustrated.

"I don't care if they aren't human; demons are sentient, aren't they?" she shot back. "Dumb lab animals aren't treated that cruelly." She shuffled forward a few inches, and Riley backed away the same distance. "Do you know how often that excuse has been used? 'They aren't really people?' You were in a position of power, and you mistreated your prisoners. That makes your heart just as black as theirs."

Riley's jaw clenched, but his gaze dropped to the floor of the tent. "Look–" he began.

"Shut up. Your Initiative performed medical experiments on my friend. He might not have had a soul at the time, but you couldn't have helped but notice he uses the same damn language. Then you, and not anybody else, came to him to take petty revenge because your cheatin' came out in the open. You shoved a stake into his heart that he fully believed was real. If that isn't a mock execution, I don't know what is." Tribby's voice went heavy with sarcasm. "Now, I'm not even going to bother with the Freudian implications of your need to penetrate another man. All I want from you is for you to face your cot, drop to your knees, and put your hands on your head."

"What?" His voice was hoarse.

"You heard me. Get down."

He did so, slowly. In his tree, Spike prepared to jump into the tent. As entertaining and satisfying as this had been, he wasn't about to let one of his own become a murderer. He knew too well how corrosive it was.

"My wife is going to have a baby," Riley said. It was also a tool for talking down hostage-takers, but from his tone, it was a genuine plea. "She's eight months pregnant."

"You don't want to talk to me about widows and orphans, Army man. There were plenty after the Trail of Tears. Your troops drove my people off their land on a forced winter march. And they died, bodies left by the wayside, strung out over the miles. In my estimation, you're gettin' off easy."

"Please," Riley said.

"If you don't live by the Geneva Convention, GI Joe, you don't die by it." Tribby reached into her pocket for something, then pointed the gun at the ground. She fired straight down, at the same time hurling whatever had been in her pocket at the back of his head.

Spike's cry of negation died in his throat at the same time a yell tore from Riley's. Tribby had thrown another potato, this one cooked, at his head. Shaking debris from her gun, she calmly waited until he reached up to touch the smashed potato and brought his hands around so he could see. Riley twisted backwards, still on his knees. He stared mutely up at her, tears on his face.

"Next time you want to mock-execute somebody," Tribby said coldly, tucking her gun back into her jacket, "think what it feels like." She turned on her heel and left, closing the flap of the tent behind her.

Five steps away from the tent, she was snatched off the ground, hauled up into an oak tree, and pinned against the trunk.

"Sp–!"

He covered her mouth with his finger, warning her to silence. A moment later, Riley came out of the tent, calling for someone named Fox. Spike waited until he had moved off, then put his mouth very close to her ear. "Why?"

"No one should get away with doing that," she ground out, "especially not to my friends."

Spike stared into her fierce, dark eyes, a slow smile taking his mouth as he thought of the sheer poetry of an Irish potato mashed onto the back of Finn's thick head. He had no words, couldn't have used them anyway, so he leaned in close and gave her his thanks and his blessing with a kiss. He didn't hold back; she was a slayer, could take it, and he pressed her body hard against the tree. They had known battle that night, and Tribby was running on adrenaline. She kissed him in return.

Almost a full minute passed before Spike broke away. There were no humans about now. He scanned her flushed face and parted lips for a moment, then said, quiet, "Now. Stay with me, stay low." He dropped from the tree, the slayer following more carefully, and they began to make their way to the periphery of the camp. Two minutes later, they were in his truck, and he drove her the short distance to where she had concealed her car. Two vehicles looked less suspicious than one, Spike supposed, and he followed her west through Cleveland until they came to Ty's house. Tribby parked on the driveway close to the front door, and he pulled his truck in behind her.

He took a breath, trying to think of the many excellent reasons why he should just honk the horn and drive off. Instead, he thought about the way she put herself between him and whatever might harm him, whoever wronged him. She didn't ask anything of him, would hardly accept his help, but thought nothing of committing a felony to avenge him. Tribby had declared that she was his by her actions, his fledge, and she could bloody well do one more thing for him.

She gave him an anxious smile as he approached, waiting so they could walk to the door together. "How much trouble am I in?"

"None. Not here to scold you."

Her head swiveled up to meet his burning gaze, and she swallowed. She was bright, and he could almost see the thoughts flashing behind her eyes. She was also a slayer who had won a battle tonight. Tribby set her jaw. "Okay." She tapped in the security code on the keypad and unlocked the door. "Spike, I invite you in."

He could tell she had calculated the odds on whether her temporary guardianship of someone else's home would give her that right, letting the outcome dictate what happened next. It was her latest exit strategy. Spike gave her a predatory smile and stepped toward the threshold, thinking that a slayer should know better than to gamble with him. When he was inside, she shut the door.

"Hey, Gretl," Spike said, stooping down to pet the bull terrier that came up behind them, wagging its short tail.

"You've been here before," Tribby said, her eyes widening with the realization.

"Night of your birthday," he agreed, smirking. "Made sure Ty got home all right, didn't have a relapse and call 9-1-1."

She shook her head and made a self-mocking face. "Of course you did, sir."

He stood up, considered her for a moment before taking her face in his cold hands, and kissed her again. "Now," he said, "much as I want to stay," another light kiss; he'd known how to seduce women for decades, "I should go." His words surprised him, and Spike stared at her upturned face for a moment. What was wrong with him?

Before she opened her eyes, Tribby bit her lip. "Because if you stay, I will be in trouble."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "I should have expected Clash lyrics."

She laughed and took a step back, then abruptly squatted down to pet the dog. "Thank you," Tribby mumbled, not looking at him.

"No. Thank you. That was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me."

The absurdity of the statement was enough to get her to look up. "Attempted murder?"

"Attempted justice." When she shrugged and dropped her eyes to the blissful dog, he grabbed the doorknob. "See you later, Tribs." In his truck, Spike stared at his hands on the steering wheel, wondering when he had changed so much. He'd done Harmony and the Wolfram and Hart lawyer, Reyes, after all, no problem.

That had been before she told him she loved him.

He sighed and started the truck, heading toward Dawn and home.

⸹

[Author's Note: Angel quotes lyrics from 'Suicide is Painless,' music by Johnny Mandel and lyrics by Michael Altman.]

"We're halfway there," Angel mused, waiting for Buffy to go through the apartment door ahead of him.

She turned on the lights, looking confused. "We're all the way here."

"The battles, I mean. This was number six."

"Oh. Giles is going to be in a state the rest of the week." She shrugged out of her coat, letting him take it from her and hang it up. "At least there weren't any booby traps this time."

"How are you doing?" he asked, placing his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back against him. "Seeing Riley, I mean?"

Buffy leaned into him, sighing. "I won't lie to you. The news about Sam made me feel kind of weird."

He nuzzled her ear. "Because of the miscarriage."

"Yeah. I suppose that had a lot to do with it."

Angel switched directions so that he could trail a line of kisses along her neck without touching the Master's mark. "Want to talk about it?"

"Mm, no, nothing to talk about." Buffy rubbed sinuously against the press of his erection. "Doesn't matter. I'd make a lousy mom, you'd make a lousy dad. Nice that we don't have to worry about it."

He froze for a moment. She had no way of knowing how hurtful those words were. He never had found a good time to tell her about Connor. She was still moving against him, though, the scent of her arousal and the heat of her body enough to keep him in the moment. Angel redoubled his efforts, sliding his hands over her body, nibbling at the nape of her neck. After a handful of seconds, Buffy had forgotten all about Riley and parenthood, and after a few more, he'd put her estimation of him as a father from his own mind. Angel smiled a little as she gasped, his teeth against her skin. He'd been seducing women for centuries, but she made it all seem new.

An hour later, Buffy sighed and turned to spoon against him. They were on the couch, not having made it as far as the bedroom, and she reached out to idly grab the remote and check what was on television. Not finding anything, she passed it to Angel, who thumbed through a few channels before finding _MASH_. It was just coming on, and he hummed along for a moment, then sang "'Suicide is painless/It brings on many changes.'"

She looked over her shoulder quizzically. "Suicide is painless?"

"Name of the theme song. I've always liked it, even if I would never do it."

"Do what? Commit suicide?"

"No." He lifted a bare shoulder in a shrug. "I was Catholic, right? Suicide is a mortal sin – not that it would matter for me."

Buffy shifted on the couch so she was looking up at him. His eyes were shadowed. Usually she would say something to nudge him back toward happiness, but this was something that had been on her mind ever since she learned that Sineya had been the one who beat Spike. "Someone who does that can't go to heaven, right? I mean, that's what the Catholics believe?"

"A lot of Christians believe that. Here," he said, handing her the remote control. "You can find something else to watch."

She took it from him and used the power button to turn off the television, to change the subject. "Or we could just not watch television." Time to make him happy.

⸹

"We caught him," Giles said smugly. The Watchers were meeting in their offices, before heading to a debriefing with the slayers at the gym that would turn into a holiday party. "Riley Finn was in my office at four this morning, caught red-handed with the bug in his grasp."

"Was it a literal red-hand spell?" Jacobson asked curiously.

"No, it was a mousetrap variation," Giles replied, "holding him there. At first, he went on some bizarre rant about slayers and potatoes, but then he just admitted that the Initiative had thought it prudent to spy on us."

"Why would they do that?" McGann asked. "There's hardly a reason for them to even exist, with so many slayers in the world."

"That's exactly the reason why," Giles replied. He glanced at Willow, who was looking at the table, then at Spike, who blinked at him for all the world like a sated lion. "It's come to my attention that the Initiative has recruited slayers in South America."

This caused an uproar and the phrase 'sacred duty' to be, inevitably, invoked several times. Giles threw out a few general facts, including the news that the work visa for the Watcher in Brazil had been revoked without mentioning Kennedy by name. Willow didn't look up from the table once. Spike, as planned, tossed out the idea that slayers everywhere should receive stipends, or at least received by those living below the poverty line.

"The important thing," Giles said, "is that the Coven was able to locate all the slayers. The Initiative has a record of medical experimentation, and we should all be relieved that none of our young women have become captives."

"Hard to capture a slayer," Vishnaswamy said coolly.

"They have stun guns that can bring me down," Spike said, "and you can ask Summers how well they work, too." He flashed her a smirk, and she rolled her eyes from where she sat between Angel and Willow, holding Willow's hand. "Didn't keep the Slayer paralyzed for long, but long enough to bind her."

"As I recall," Buffy said in a chilly voice, "the Council already knows exactly how to capture a Slayer."

"Er, yes," Giles said, wading in, "the important thing is that forewarned is forearmed. We'll keep a weather eye out for the Initiative."

"I'll renew my efforts to get their funding cut," said Hatcher, an American Watcher whose duties included keeping track of federal programs that might impact the Council. "Not difficult right now, with so much being poured into the war on terror," he added dryly.

"And I will of course write a letter of thanks for their help that completely contradicts your efforts," Giles said with a sigh. "No civilians were harmed, no Council members were injured, and there was very little property damage. Except for being no closer to obtaining the energy source, things could not have gone better."

"As long as the next battle isn't at a Cavs game," Xander said, "there's nothing we can't handle."

"Let's not tempt fate, Xander," Giles warned. "No, I find I'm quite ready for another small office building myself."

"After Christmas," Jacobson said.

"Next year," Pelham added, making Jacobson smile. They seldom agreed on anything.

"One final thing. Before getting caught retrieving the bug, Finn brought me the record of someone who may present a danger to the Council." Giles passed a sheaf of papers to his left. "Please take one. This man is Ethan Rayne, once a chum of mine from university. He's quite a powerful sorcerer. Originally, I suspected him of sabotaging the gym, of–"

"This is the deliveryman," Spike interrupted, having just received his copy. "The one who had to have your signature or nothing, from last summer."

"The one who did an off-the-cuff memory spell on Spike," Rupert added, having long suspected that it had been Ethan at his door. There was a murmur among the Watchers at this proof of magical ability. He let it die away. "Ethan has caused… mischief before, in Sunnydale."

Spike looked away from Rupert to stare at Angel, whose anger he'd been primed to recognize for years. Turning back to the Head of the Council, he asked, "This the bloke that turned you into a Fyarl?"

"Yes," Giles said, taking off his glasses, "and thank you so much for bringing that up." Polishing them, he glanced down the table. "Xander, remember the song-and-dance demon? I know you took responsibility for it at the time, but did you invoke him?"

The dark-haired young man darted a swift glance toward Dawn, then looked at the table. "No. I mean, I wasn't about to mess with that kind of magic after every woman in Sunnydale saw me as their personal love-monkey for a day." His mind was on a more recent spell he'd participated in, though, and he darted a glance at his friend Buffy. There was no way he'd have risked more magic when she was so fragile after they had summoned her back from death.

"Love monkey?" Jacobson echoed, but Giles' attention had turned to Dawn.

"It wasn't me," she said emphatically. "All I did was find the amulet and put it on."

Giles hooked the earpieces of his glasses into place. "I've suspected as much."

"So you think that was Ethan Rayne's spell?" Buffy had two blotches of color on her cheeks.

"It would fit," Giles admitted. "The Halloween spell, the enchanted band candy… just another way of causing chaos."

Spike, unaware that the Slayer considered the musical disaster to be her equivalent of Riley's fit-up with the eggs, was grinning at a memory. "He's the one who turned the Slayer into a fainting bit of fluff? And, Rupes, if he magicked up that chocolate, I'd say you're in his debt."

"Spike!" Buffy and Dawn both glared at him.

"Uh… I mean, powerful sorcerer like that ought to be kept in line."

Rupert rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I do agree on that point. The Initiative actually had him in custody until several months after the US put troops into Afghanistan. As the military were spread thin, they released him and deported him back to England. Our contacts at the State Department put him on a no-entry list, but getting back into the country would be a fairly easy thing for him to manage.

"I'd like each of you to learn what he looks like and make sure your slayers know as well. If you want more horribly embarrassing details of his exploits, just ask anyone who was ever based in Sunnydale. He's very powerful, lives to release chaos, and he does it very well. If anyone sees him, do not confront him. Leave him to me, or to Willow."

Angel's aura surged again, and Spike glanced at him. He didn't think his grandsire would take Rupert's advice, and he made a mental note to ask why.

"That's all. Let me take this opportunity to wish everyone safe travels," Giles said. Along with the slayers, most of the Watchers would be leaving Cleveland for the holidays. "How are we set for patrols?" he asked Dawn.

"We're good, thanks to Spike and Angel." Most of the slayers had holiday plans out of Cleveland. She and Buffy were flying to Illinois to spend Christmas with their Aunt Arlene again, and Angel had chosen to stay behind. Dawn wasn't sure how Buffy felt about that, but she wasn't surprised by Angel's decision. He'd never shown a great desire to interact with Buffy's family.

"Excellent. Well, let's adjourn to the training center, shall we? The slayers will be waiting."

"Are you okay, Wil?" Buffy said, as soon as the noise of chairs sliding out covered her words.

"I guess. I hate that I cost Kennedy her job, but the Watcher's contract is pretty clear about conflicts of interest."

"It wasn't your fault," Buffy said firmly. "Come on, Willow. Could you ever keep her from doing anything?"

"No," Willow admitted, still looking glum.

"It's not like she'll be penniless when she gets home," Buffy added. If there was one thing she had always resented about Kennedy, it was the fact that the younger slayer would never have to worry about money.

"Let's get you to the gym," Xander said, squeezing his best friend's hand. "Oz will be there, and I bet he'll make you feel all kinds of better."

Aware that he was often lumped into the same stuffy category as the Tweed Brigade, Giles had arranged for his lunch meeting with the slayers to be catered. Food worked wonders with slayers. He waited until the catering staff had set up the tables, spread out the feast, and left before he clambered onto a chair. "Excellent work!" he began. The slayers gave themselves a hearty round of applause. Looking over them he saw that someone had brought a large quantity of Santa hats, now perched festively atop many of the young women's heads. It was, he was pleased to see, going to turn into a party.

"This was the most challenging – oh, I say, Tribby," he interrupted himself. She gave him a deer-in-headlights look, and he added, "Your shirt."

This made her look down to see what she was wearing, a faded grey t-shirt that said 'Fearless Vampire Killers.' "Oh! No, sir, it's–"

"Bad Brains," Spike broke in, amused. When Giles still looked blank after he named the band, he added, "Name of a song, pro'ly older than she is."

"Yes, well," Giles said, only a little mollified, "I expect a modicum of discretion. No need to advertise." He looked away hurriedly as Tribby obligingly pulled the t-shirt over her head to turn it inside out. Sighing as he glimpsed the modest sports bra beneath, Giles wondered if he wasn't a part of the fusty Tweed Brigade after all. "I wanted to thank you," he said, "not just for your efforts yesterday in the most challenging battle we've faced thus far, but for the work you've done all year. Have a wonderful holiday with your families, be safe, and I'll see you all next year." There were still a lot of issues, he thought, stepping back down to the floor amid applause for his short speech. Had Ethan set the booby traps? If Andrew was right, who had planted the cheaper listening devices? And the big question, when – or whether – they would find the source of the demonic energy and put an end to the battles entirely. But Giles couldn't help be pleased with both the slayers and the Watchers, as well as things were going.

The hungry slayers and a handful of Watchers crowded around the buffet tables. Someone put a CD of Christmas music over the speakers, making Giles' smile freeze for a moment. He was heartily sick of carols and novelty songs.

"Hey, Giles," Xander said, slipping into last place in line behind him. "We're getting together at Buffy's this Saturday, right?"

"Yes," he agreed. It was the last day that everyone would be in town.

"And you're staying in Cleveland for the holidays?"

"Yes. You're going to California to see your parents?"

"Unfortunately." Xander perked up. "I don't plan to stay long, though."

Further along the line, Spike was listening to Rona talk, remarkably, about something other than her upcoming wedding. "And, bam! I came down on the back of his neck with my elbow in this sort of modified pile-drive. That was the end of that demon."

"Wish I'd seen it, pet."

"Yeah, next time, I hope we won't be so spread out." She speared a broccoli floret and returned to wedding talk. "Oh, by the way, did you get fitted for your tux?"

Slayers who already had their plates filled were sitting at the small tables, talking. "He's like Lloyd Dobler with a laptop," Tamika was opining.

"Who's Lloyd Dobler?" Dawn asked, stopping with a fork halfway to her lips when the rest of the women at the table turned to stare at her.

"You don't know who Lloyd Dobler is?" Miriam asked, incredulous.

"I know Lloyd Dobler," Ivana said quickly.

"I know Sunnydale was a small town," Maria said, "but it wasn't that small. Surely you've seen _Say Anything_."

"No," Dawn said, "and don't call me Shirley."

"Man, girlfriend's been missing out," Bethany said, putting down her napkin. "We're going to Blockbuster, renting _Say Anything_ , and going straight back to Watcher Central to see it. How can you fall in love if you don't know the kind of guy to look for?"

"So Lloyd Dobler's hot?"

"No," Tamika said, "not so much that he's hot, as he's the perfect man – good-looking, sweet, and completely devoted to you. I'm looking for Lloyd Dobler with braids."

Bethany leaned across the table and smirked at Maria. "And Spike is Lloyd Dobler with fangs."

"I don't know about that," Maria mumbled.

Dawn had fallen quiet and jumped a little when Buffy came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Lloyd Dobler?" she asked, puzzled.

"You've fallen down on your sisterly duty," Tamika chastised, "not making sure Dawn has seen _Say Anything_."

"Oh. I've never seen that, either. John Cusack, right?"

"John Cusack?" Dawn said, sitting up a little. If Buffy had never seen the movie, that explained why the monks hadn't been able to give her a memory of it. "From _Grosse Point Blank_? Why didn't you say so?"

Buffy wandered on to her own table, plopping down next to Willow and across from Oz.

"What's going on over there?" the redhead asked, as a burst of giggles echoed from the table Dawn was sitting.

"Talking about boys," the Slayer answered, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, we never did that," Willow agreed, looking extremely innocent. Oz stared between the two of them for a moment, but didn't say anything, just helped himself to more chicken.

"Did we used to be that young, Wil?" Buffy asked, a serious edge to her voice. "I can hardly remember."

⸹

Spike stretched out on the couch, determined to enjoy his solitude. Tribby, after effortlessly avoiding him for days, had flown to Tennessee for a visit with her grandmother and her late husband's family before going on to spend the holidays with her mother in Florida. Dawn was at Buffy's for a Very Scooby Christmas from which he had excused himself. The sisters were flying to Illinois a couple of days later, and he assumed that Clem would leave soon after. Then he would have the apartment entirely to himself. He had no real plans for the time alone, and if it wasn't for the trip to Philadelphia for Rona's wedding, he'd be dreading the rest of the holidays.

Last year, he'd spent Christmas with his family in New York. Despite being newly corporeal, life had been less complicated then. This year, Dawn had taken his presents for the gang with her, and no doubt she would return laden with their gifts to him. He didn't want things, though; he wanted them, to spend time with them. But his presence would lead to awkwardness, and if he stayed away, it guaranteed a good time for everyone else.

No programmes on the telly that weren't Christmas-themed, so he put it on MTV to watch their patented mix of non-musical reality programming framed by thousands of acne cream commercials. He was pleasantly surprised to find an Osbornes marathon and fell asleep to the sound of homey accents.

⸹

Buffy stared at the pre-decorated tree she'd bought, had delivered, and placed in the corner of the apartment. The tree was tasteful and beautiful, and the remaining pile of gifts, wrapped in elegant black with red ribbon, Spike's signature colors, only added to its beauty. Dawn brought them, saying Spike decided not to come. What Buffy hadn't been able to have for Thanksgiving, she was getting now: a family gathering, almost everyone here instead of almost no one. Somehow, it seemed just as hollow. She had dressed in a solid black dress so she could wear her only pearls with it, Dawn having salvaged the necklace from her abandoned jewelry box in Rome. Now her fingers strayed to her neck to touch Spike's present as she thought of last Christmas, and she regretted wearing it.

"You look lovely," Angel said, stopping as he went by her with a plate of cheese and crackers. He slid an arm around her waist and kissed her temple.

"Thank you. You, too. Handsome, I mean." And he did, in dark slacks and a dark blue shirt, open at the throat.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Not gorgeous anymore?"

She grinned reluctantly, brought all the way back to the moment. "You know you are."

He laughed, the sound still as charming to her as when his good humor had been rare. "How am I going to know that without constant reinforcement from you? No reflection, after all."

"You're just doomed to uncertainty." Things between them were so good right now. He hadn't read a book in two days.

Angel hugged her to him, one-armed. "I have confidence in you. You've rescued me from worse fates."

She stole a piece of edam from the plate. "Go on, gorgeous. We have guests."

⸹

Giles paused outside the door, winded, but his plan to wait until he had recovered from the climb was for naught. Spike opened the door and raised an eyebrow.

"William," he said unevenly. "Curse vampire senses."

"No, curse Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Hanley, who called to say there was an Englishman huffing and puffing his way to see me." He stood back so Giles could enter. "Or, don't curse them. They're a bit of all right."

"Fourth floor walkup?" he asked, clutching his side and grimacing. "What were you thinking?"

"I've seen you whale on demons for hours in battle," Spike pointed out.

"Yes, but on horizontal surfaces." He sat down on the couch, a funny look stealing over his face. Giles shifted just a little. "My word," he blurted, surprised. "I think Dawn's right about the tiny elves that live in this couch."

"When Clem's in, we fight about who gives up a bed for him," the blond man agreed, hurling himself into the other corner of it. "Don't even ask how much we paid for it."

"Whatever it was, it was too little."

"So, what brings you by?"

"You, of course." Giles, still in his overcoat, pulled a small, rectangular package from his pocket. "Happy Christmas."

He frowned as he took it. "Nibblet delivered my presents?"

"She did. Thank you very much. You'll have to show me how to use it, of course." Spike had given him a tiny voice recorder to capture the odd thought, as well as expensive earphones to better listen to his collection of classic vinyl.

"I'll set up voice recognition on your computer – er, get Red to help you–"

"Hah! Too late." Giles, recovered from the climb, grinned. "You needn't hide your foul abilities from me, Spike – mesmer, transformation, computers."

He snorted. "Should I open it now, or wait?"

"Oh, no, go ahead. Open it now. It's why I braved your stairwell."

He did, expecting a book, perhaps a rare first edition, considering Rupert's overstuffed bank account. Instead, he unwrapped a small white box. Spike opened it and pulled away the tissue to find a familiar item inside. He went very still. After a moment, he touched it reverently. "How did you find this?" Spike scarcely recognized his own voice.

"I didn't, myself. I hired an estate researcher in London. She checked through the several families associated with yours and found it residing with an elderly Mrs. Carrington."

"Carrington," Spike whispered, staring down into his mother's face, at himself as a toddler. The portrait had been on his father's desk as far back as he could remember. "Pippa – my cousin, Philippa, that was her husband's name." Then, if possible, he grew paler. "I have rellies?"

"Distant, I would think," Giles said kindly. "I take it that this miniature is familiar?"

"Yes." His voice was soft. "My mother."

"She's quite lovely."

"She was."

Hugs from Spike certainly weren't rare, but this one left Giles as breathless as he had been from the climb. "And you were," he wheezed, "quite the cherub."

Spike gave a shaky laugh and sat back down on the cushion next to the Watcher. "Don't believe it; just the bloody blond curls."

Giles smiled fondly at the man, who couldn't seem to look away from the picture. "I got the idea from you, you know. What you did for Willow just after you came back to us, getting Tara's picture for her."

"Thank you, Rupert." The muscles in his jaw flexed for a moment, and he made himself lay the frame on the coffee table. Spike bent to pick up the fallen box and wrapping paper. "Couple of years ago, might have killed anyone who brought this to me."

Giles' head snapped back. "Ah. I can see where… But you've forgiven yourself?"

"Soul had its own view of what happened," he shrugged, his eyes drawn back to the picture once again. "Couldn't have known. At the time, I thought all vampires stayed themselves, just became a little more fond of alcohol and murder. I wanted to cure her. Didn't know she'd become…."

"Losing you might well have been the death of her, anyway."

"No. She was made of stronger stuff than that." But he looked troubled for a moment, imagining his mother unprotected in a greedy age. Then his brow cleared. "Let me take you out, Rupes. We haven't been drinking for an age."

"On a Sunday?"

"Like you're a praying man."

"Oh, I pray," Giles promised. "I was just thinking that the crowds would be bad."

Spike waved a dismissive hand. "Churchgoers will be back home by now. We'll head out, make some barmaid very happy. Two blokes like us? Selfish of us not to, really."

"Let's take your truck, shall we?"

"Why? Are the streets bad?"

"No. I just don't want you drunk behind the wheel of my BMW."

"When was the last time you saw me drunk?" He reached for his coat. "'M actually a better driver when I've had a pint or three."

As Giles stood up, groaning softly, he noticed the miniature was gone from the coffee table, no doubt in one of the many pockets of Spike's leather coat. "Spike, I don't think there's anything that can make you a better driver."

"Hey! I'm a good driver!"

"My Citroen begs to differ."

"I was being chased by the bloody Initiative, you might recall."

"I might also recall you'd nearly stripped the gears before we picked up the tail." They left the apartment and went down the stairs, Spike's neighbors poking gray heads from their doors to check on the bickering pair.

⸹

"So, Clem," Dawn said, coming from the hallway into the kitchen, "which looks more festive?" She held up a red sweater and a blue one.

"Red's more traditional," he said, pausing with a handful of corn chips halfway to his mouth, "but I'd go with the blue. It suits you better."

"Thanks," she beamed.

"You're headed out to Illinois day after tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Me and Buffy." She grimaced. "Short flight, at least. I should be able to hide in a magazine both directions."

"You two don't talk much?"

"No. I've given up." Dawn sat down, folding the sweaters and smoothing them across her lap. "I don't know, Clem. Now that she and Spike aren't speaking, she doesn't talk to anyone, as far as I know."

"Maybe she talks to that Angel fellow."

"Maybe." Dawn picked at the fringe on the placemat. "Angel's never been much of a talker, either."

"That's probably why she's with him," Clem said sagely. Then his honest face sagged a little. "Only, don't repeat that. I wouldn't say it if Spike was here."

"I've been meaning to ask," she said, shaking off her nagging concern about her sister, "are you staying through Christmas? I don't like to think of Spike rattling around the apartment alone."

"Oh, I'll stay through the next battle," he said, practical, "because it's too hard to resist. But I hope it's over by Christmas. I'd like to spend the holidays in San Francisco."

"Clem," Dawn said slowly, "the battle is over. Last Tuesday."

"That one," he agreed. "But the energy is building up again."

She stared at him, stunned. "Shit." She left the table in a swirl of brown hair and headed to the phone. "Giles. It's Dawn. We've got another one. Days."

⸹

The skeleton crew of Watchers met that afternoon in an emergency session.

"Bugger," Giles said, setting the tone for the meeting. "Right, then. We've got three slayers in town for two days, until Wednesday. Buffy's leaving then, but Geneva and Miko are here through the holidays. We've got Spike and Angel. Including me, there are six Watchers. Is that enough?"

"I've got a call in to Charlie," Spike added, "so there's one more, 's'long as he can get a flight."

"Don't forget Willow," Dawn said. "She's in California with Oz, but she'll pop back here for the battle."

"We'll just recall the slayers," Pelham broke in.

Giles frowned. "Not unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Giles, working with the large group of slayers, we've won every battle and had no casualties." Pelham caught himself, but McGann had flown back to the UK two days before. "Almost no casualties, but that, strictly speaking, wasn't because of the battle."

"Yes, but we can work with fewer slayers," Giles said. "Spike took a small strike team to Boulder and did just fine, and the experiences of Angel Investigations suggest that one or two warriors with a contingent of skilled humans can accomplish a great deal."

"Five slayers, plus you and Spike, were enough to do the job last Christmas," Alpana added.

"The real question," Aubrey said, "is whether we will be endangering our slayers by putting them in a situation where they are outmanned?"

"Dunno that slayers are ever outmanned," Spike said. "Outgunned, outmaneuvered, out-planned, maybe." He pursed his lips. "Right. The Slayer, no question. Miko and Geneva are coming along, but neither has led a team in battle yet." He tapped his pencil on the table, mentally divvying up his resources. "Yeah. 'S'long as I have Charlie, another experienced fighter, we'll be all right, unless this warehouse is radically different that what we expect."

"I tend to agree with Spike," Giles said. "Up until two years ago, we really only had one Slayer to work with." He sighed. "I'll put out a call. If someone wants to return, let them. But I won't require it. Those young ladies need downtime."

"What about Faith Lehane?" Vishnaswamy asked.

"Excellent suggestion, Alpana. I'll ask her."

"The slayer who was in charge in Brazil just came back–"

"No." Giles, Xander, and Spike looked at each other, all having simultaneously nixed Pelham's idea. "She isn't in disgrace, but I have my reasons," Giles added. He rubbed his brow. "Right. Now that we've identified the venue, we should have the blueprints from the city zoning office to consult by noon. Buffy and Spike are going to do a walkthrough of the building right after. I'm going to contact our jet charter service to see how many planes they have available; if Gunn can't get a flight, perhaps we can provide one. The same for Faith and any other slayer, I suppose."

"Are we good on stakes?" Pelham asked.

Dawn nodded. "Xander set up a programmable lathe just last week. It takes just a few seconds per stake, including loading lengths of wood."

"Good, then," Giles said, pausing to see if there were other comments. "I'll man the phones. First thing is, I suppose, a call to Lieutenant Muse to see who else in the know at the police department is still in town."

"Is he on holiday with Vi?" Vishnaswamy asked.

"In Florida, I believe, meeting her family."

"Brilliant," said the Indian Watcher, smiling.

Dawn and Spike exchanged a glance, Dawn's eyebrows rising high. Neither had known that. "The slyboots," Spike said.

"Yes, well," Rupert said with some asperity, "I don't think we've time to discuss the slayers' love lives. Let's get to it, shall we?"

⸹

"Benny, is Rojas workin' tonight?" Spike asked at the door.

Benny's flat gaze flicked over Spike, then slowly examined Angel. He shifted his eyes back to the blond man, breaking into a large smile that still looked too small for the enormous bouncer. "Hey, man," he said easily. "He ain't here. New guy, right? It's gonna be slow till after Christmas, so he ain't on the schedule till then."

"That's good news for me. Got a short-term job he might be interested in, he wants a little extra foldin' for the holidays." He stepped out of the way as Benny waved a Goth couple in. "You know where he lives?"

"No, man. We don't hang. You might try Richie Santiago inside, one of the bartenders."

"Thanks, Benny."

"Spike, this job," Benny said, leaning in a little, "would I be interested?"

"No, mate. You got those two little girls. Like you too much to get you involved in this. Money's not worth it."

It took them a while to track down Manny Rojas, patrolling as they walked the city on foot. They finally found him down in a dismal little apartment that reminded Spike strongly of his crypt in Sunnydale. Manny had experienced a run of bad luck even before he was fired from the last nightclub and hadn't managed to scrape together enough money for a deposit on a decent place to live. He was enthusiastic about helping in the battle even before Spike mentioned that he would be paid.

"Nice guy," Angel commented after they left.

"Yeah. Hope he does well in the fight."

"You never know until the person's in it whether they'll do well."

"No."

"Darla hated a stand-up fight."

"Duchess never cared much about exerting herself anywhere."

"Except in bed, sometimes."

Spike shot him a look, then shook his head, making no comment. He frowned and turned to glance behind them. The icy street was empty to the casual eye. "Picked up a tail."

Angel smiled. "There's a vacant lot a few blocks up. Lots of room to play with a fledge."

⸹

"Bollocks," Giles breathed, watching the papers he had just held go scattering across the floor of his living room.

"Oh," Alpana said, stepping out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hand. She set it on the telephone table. "Here, let me help." As they finished picking up the last pages, she noticed the Head of the Council flexing his fingers and grimacing. "Bang your hand on something?"

"No," he sighed. "It's the weather in this wretched city." Giles gave his head a little shake, closing his eyes for a second. "I'm sorry, Alpana. Ignore me. It would be just as bad in Blighty. Never thought I'd say this, but I miss Sunnydale, the mild winters."

"Arthritis?" Her eyes were full of sympathy.

He thought of Angelus' eyes, dark and glittering with glee, of pliers and hammers and the vampire's own strong hands. He thought of the weeks of rehabilitation after that, of calling all over California by dialing with awkward fingers as he searched for anyone who might have seen his missing Slayer. "Something like that."

⸹

"Who else can we get?"

Spike looked around from where he was stowing his axe after their patrol, an eyebrow raised as Angel broke the comfortable silence. They had been out all night, finding enough demons to slake even their urge for violence. He wondered if Angel really wanted him to answer or if it was rhetorical. "Um, the only person I can think of that I wouldn't feel like I was sending to certain death would be Rojas, and we've already booked him."

Angel nodded slowly. "Yeah. I knew a cow – er, a man from Pylea, Lorne's home dimension, who was a great warrior, but I doubt we could open a portal to him." He hadn't heard anything of Groo since he left the hotel and assumed he went home. "Not easily, anyway." He started to say something else, then hesitated, thinking of his sense that someone besides the Initiative was spying on them. "Let's go for a walk."

Spike nodded, and they went out the front door, locking up the gym, and headed east without words, walking shoulder to shoulder. After a few minutes, the thought that was weighing on Angel's mind made it into words. "When you were testing Illyria… One day I brought a client, a young man, into the lab. Remember?"

Frowning a bit, Spike nodded. "Yeah, vaguely. I only remember because I thought it was odd. He seemed a bit wholesome to be exposed to Wolfram and Hart's less public areas."

"Wholesome?" Angel echoed, smiling. Then he cleared his throat. "Well, he's more than human, has speed and strength."

"So you're thinking of bringing him into this?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I know we could use the help, mate, but he seemed like a rookie."

"I watched him kill a demon, a time-shifter."

"Impressive," Spike said, raising his eyebrows. "Do you know why he's all superhero? I didn't get the sense that he was 'rrr.'" Spike bared his teeth and made his fingers into the shape of claws.

As always, the boy cut right to the point, to the quick. "No, he's human. He isn't a demon. Or a vampire." Angel looked over at Spike, slowing. "His father is; his mother was."

Spike stopped walking, a sharp look on his face as he put a hand on Angel's arm. "His fath– Angel, you know that isn't possible; we can't sire that kind…" His voice died away, and he tilted his head to the right, examining his grandsire's face. Spike made one of those lighting fast connections that gave him insight into everyone, except perhaps himself. "You're his father." There was wonder in his voice.

The dark-haired man nodded. Then he gave the Master an uncertain smile. It wasn't so much a relief to tell someone as it was just so _nice_ to be able to do so.

The blond head turned to the side, almost in negation. "How?"

"I had won a life for someone, but she couldn't have it, so… The life became my son. Connor… was prophesied, so it isn't anything I went looking for. Those two things sort of… converged."

"A dhampire?" Creating a human-vampire hybrid took incredible magic and was supposed to be invariably fatal to the vampire involved. Then he corrected himself. "No, you said his mother is a vampire, too."

"She was."

"How long ago was this? He's what, twenty?"

"He just turned nineteen," Angel said, surprise in his voice. God, the years they had lost.

"And his mum? If he's not a dhampire?"

"Darla."

"Darla?" Spike repeated, a choked word halfway between revulsion and amusement. "I heard rumors a few years ago that a vampiress was pregnant, and it was supposed to be Darla, but those kinds of rumors always say it's an Aurelian. Makes it sexier." Spike frowned. "Or more believable. Darla." He shook his head. "And I thought I had a horror story with my mum. How'd you keep her from eating him?" Angel gave him an annoyed look and began walking again. "Hold," Spike said, a certain ring of authority to his voice, and the big vampire stopped, throwing a frustrated look to the heavens. "It was him, wasn't it? The Aurelian I smelled in the Hyperion Thanksgiving before last?" Spike moved in front of Angel, frowning. "No, I would have known him by scent when you brought him trhough the labs." Spike took a half-step closer, looking wounded. The kid had favored Darla, come to think of it. "Liam, why didn't you tell me?" He had more family.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" Angel's voice was harsher than he intended, and he knew from the way the Master studied him that some of his anguish had shown.

"All ears, mate." Spike gestured for him to continue, and Angel told Connor's story, from Darla's unwanted but impervious pregnancy through Connor's kidnapping by Holtz and his eventual return. His words grew more terse as he told how he'd come to make the deal with Wolfram and Hart. They walked in silence for a long while after he finished the tale, side by side, heedless of the coming sunrise. Finally, Spike stopped, turning to face him. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Give him up?" Spike shook his head. "For the best be buggered. 'S'been back a while, but at one point, Buffy broke it off with me, tried to keep me from seeing Dawn. I was ready to blackmail her, or tell the Bit things to make her hate her sister. Had no compunction about doin' it, 'cause Dawn is mine." The final word was nearly a snarl, and he put his hand to his chest. "We're vampires, mate, the very definition of possessive. When I smelled him at the Hyperion, bloody hell, even I wanted him. Didn't know who he was, just he's family." He shook his head, looking at Angel in amazement. "God, no wonder you were so depressed last year. How could you bring yourself to give him up?"

The dark-haired man looked away, uncomfortable. "I had to. Otherwise, I would have lost him entirely." He aimed a sad smile at the pavement. "Wish I would have learned that earlier with you."

"Angelus lost me. Not you."

Angel stared into the steady blue eyes, then closed his own and leaned forward to press his forehead against his grandchild's, his hand heavy on the pale nape. After a second, Spike's cool hand curved around his own neck. They stayed that way in the empty street for almost a minute, like two horses resting against each other.

After an internal struggle, Angel managed to say what was on his mind. "The only reason I can tell you this is because I know you can keep a secret, and," he licked his lips, "and because you know how it feels to rip your own heart in two. You gave Buffy up to me."

Spike pulled away a few inches and regarded Angel for a long moment, his eyes fierce and glowing with that odd, clear light. He had known that Angel was trying, that he really was a different being than Angelus. But if he understood that sometimes you had to let people go… It was the hardest lesson Spike had ever learned. Ever a creature of impulse and action, he went to demon face and ripped into the flesh at his own wrist. Then he dropped to his knees before Angel, head bowed, and offered his blood.

Submitted.

"Spike? What the hell?"

"See it in the animal kingdom, yeah?" Spike asked, his voice unsteady as he looked back up into Angel's face. "Two lions, claiming territory together," he was breathing hard now. "Two brothers, equals. Has to be brothers." He had never really wanted the position, didn't want to be senior to his grandsire anymore.

Angel looked horrified at the prospect. Two vampires, jointly Head of an Order? It was insane, unprecedented!

"Don't leave me hangin,' Liam."

He looked into the burning eyes of a man who had vexed and challenged him for decades, a man he had wronged, who was already closer to him than a brother, who trusted him with the most precious thing in his world. The part of him that was Angelus was hard and straining at the sight of the boy – finally! – kneeling before him, at the earthy smell of family blood, freely offered. The rest of him was dumbstruck at the incredible generosity of the gesture. "Will," he whispered. Then Angel brought out his fangs and gathered the other man's arm to his mouth.

Family blood. Nothing was sweeter.

Like Spike, he wasn't able to make it go quickly, savoring the taste of blood, the power. There was no taking involved this time, and Angel somehow knew it wasn't even sharing, that some alchemy of the blood magic would leave them both stronger rather than equal and lesser. Now, though, he staggered, putting one hand out to rest on Spike's shoulder, but it wasn't enough. Overcome, he dropped to his knees, too, both on the same level, supernatural forces coursing through him, between them.

Angel managed to put on his human face and run his tongue across Spike's wrist. He would have collapsed all the way if the boy hadn't been there to hold him up. "Will," he said again, soft. Desire was a small thing against the enormity of his emotions, the overriding protectiveness, the surety of family. He wished he had some better way of expressing love, but the light kiss he placed against Spike's mouth would have to do. He felt the cool breath against his lips and rested his forehead against the other vampire's once again.

"Ponce," Spike said, lowering his lashes. When he looked up, his face was full of laughter.

Never the expected thing, and it helped Angel get his bearings. He smiled tiredly. "That was worth waiting a hundred and twenty years for."

"Told you I was good." He sat back on his heels, swaying. "C'mon. Sunrise is comin.'" They helped each other up awkwardly, for all the world like two drunks holding each other upright.

"Why?"

Shrug. "Lonely at the top."

"Will."

"Never comfortable with the whole Master bit. No problem being the face of Aurelians to the outside world, but not happy lording it over family." Spike looked away. "Over you. Pro'ly a soul thing, yeah?" He took a breath and met Angel's gaze again, much less affected by the exchange. Having already gone through the process while in considerable emotional pain, he was surprised at the toll it had taken on Angel. "You all right, mate?"

He laughed, a short, shaky sound. "Feel like I got my balls back."

"Strong?"

"Yeah. And…" he paused, thinking to see if it was the right word, "free."

Spike's eyes lit with a softer version of his inner fire. "Yeah? Felt that way when I decided to take Dru with me and leave Darla. Good feeling."

He got it, the feeling of being unfettered, the world before you… he understood; they had a connection. Angel shook his head helplessly, then took Spike by a shoulder so he could kiss him again.

"Geroff me," Spike said, pushing him away. There was no rancor in the words. "S'posed to make us brothers, not girlfriends," he grumbled.

Angel put his hands to his own face for a moment, then laced his fingers behind his head. "I… How else is there to… I don't know what else to do to show how much–"

"Well, I bloody well do. Back to the gym, Peaches. We'll get out swords or something. Sublimate. You say you feel strong." He laid his head to one side. "Prove it."

Two hours and two ruined shirts later, Spike stood over him, holding the point of an unfamiliar sword at Angel's neck. The big vampire had broken the one Spike originally chose. Then he smiled, moved the sword, and held out a hand.

"You won again."

"And you're surprised?" Spike scoffed, then frowned at the blade. "This is a bleedin' _espada_." A smirk. "Guess it's appropriate, then." When Angel raised an eyebrow, he struck a pose, the tip of the weapon on the floor of the training room. "Matador's sword." He was moving again a second later, unable to stay still. "Blood settled, then?"

"Better." Angel watched him cross the floor. "Could you, you know, not move for a few seconds?"

"No. Toss me your sword."

The corners of Angel's eyes crinkled at the flat answer. "Blood not settled?" Spike grinned over his shoulder at the other man, and the dark-haired vampire had to laugh. "I love you, Will."

"Liam, I love you, too." They smiled across the distance, and after a moment, Angel looked away, covering it with an extravagant stretch.

"That felt really good."

"It did." He closed the weapons cabinet. "You're in good form. Still think we need extra hands?"

"Can we afford to not call him in?"

"Yes."

Angel felt a rush of gratitude at Spike's concern for his son. "No. I don't think we can."

"I think you're looking for an excuse to see him."

Angel considered his bare feet. "You're right," he admitted. It was Christmas, when you were supposed to be with family.

"Usually am."

"And arrogant."

"Learned from the best."

"I am not arrogant. I'm actually very humble." He waited until Spike snorted before adding, "I am."

Spike just smiled and let it go. "Hungry? Got some pre-embalm O-neg in the fridge in my office."

"Sounds good."

As they got to the door, Angel's cell phone rang, and he retrieved it from the coat he had slung over his shoulder. Spike shook his head wearily; the ring tone was the chorus of 'Copacabana.'

The guilty look on Angel's face faded as he saw the number. "Hey, Gunn. How are you?"

"Fine. Took Giles up on his offer of a ride."

He glanced at Spike, raising his eyebrows, and the other man gave a thumbs-up. He could hear just fine. "When do you get in? Noon? Spike, can you pick him up? Spike'll be at the airport."

"Oh, hey, say hi to Blondie Bear for me," Gunn said affectionately. "Tell him I've still got a raincheck for going out drinking."

Angel glanced over at Spike in time to catch him rolling his eyes. "I will. See you soon."

"'Blondie' – I should have staked her more than just the one time," Spike mused, absently ruffling his platinum hair.

"Harmony? I thought that was the problem," Angel said, tucking away the cell phone again. "All that… staking, no commitment."

"Very funny," Spike said. Then he added brightly, "Good news is, thirteenth battle happens, we'll all be dead, so I won't have to worry about my bleeding tragic history with women."

"It is tragic," Angel agreed. His expression changed, and an awkward silence grew between them as Spike turned away to get the blood. Both contemplated one particular woman.

"You should tell her," Spike said suddenly. "About Junior, I mean."

Closing his eyes, Angel gave it a rehearsal. "Hey, Buffy, remember how I left because I couldn't give you a life or children? Guess what? I'm a daddy after all."

"Tell her," Spike repeated with a good deal of gravity. "When you do, tell her I specifically told you to tell her because everyone's secrets have a shelf-life." Angel glanced at him, wondering what he meant by that, and was further confused when Spike barked a laugh of pure amusement. "Oh, you'd better tell her, grandsire." He gave the dark-haired man a devilish grin. "Our family dynamic? Your boy's only a few years younger than the Slayer, and he did say he liked older women." Spike stopped laughing at the look on Angel's face. "Oh. The cheerleader."

"You've made your point," Angel mumbled. "I'll tell her."

"This means you're going to see if he can visit for the holiday bloodshed?"

Angel couldn't keep the smile from his face. "Yes."

"Paid a big price for that shiny new life he's got."

The big vampire sat down and put his hands on his knees. "It wasn't the life. I did it to give him the childhood I hadn't been able to give him. The sorcerer who cast the spell is dead. As I understand magic, that means if it didn't break when the spellcaster died, it can't be broken, that those memories can never be taken from him. It's like… he's built on a strong foundation now."

"Like Joyce gave her girls," Spike said, nodding.

"When Connor came back to Wolfram and Hart that last night… It was like a benediction, Will. He… didn't hate me anymore."

Spike took out his mobile. "Giles? Angel has a bead on a young warrior out in Cali. Do we have another jet?"

Angel looked at his own phone as he listened to the deep voice. The Master was – No, not the Master. His friend, his brother was helping him take the last step toward healing wounds that had been inflicted when his son was stolen. Nothing had been right since then, and precious little had been right before.

He hadn't programmed Connor's number into his phone, too wary to do that, but he had it memorized. Angel tapped it in quickly, then hesitated for a long time before pressing send. It rang six times before he got an answer.

"Hey."

Angel closed his eyes at the easy, confident greeting. "Hello, Connor. It's your – It's me. Call me back at this number if it isn't a good time."

A very slight pause. "Hey, can I call you back in a few? Sure. Bye."

"You're shaking, man." Spike sat down and handed him the blood, then scooted closer, sprawling so that his knee touched Angel's. He felt his grandsire relax, tension draining away with the contact.

Angel smiled helplessly. "Just hearing his voice…" He trailed off, unable to finish, and covered his emotions by breaking into the blood. When Spike's phone rang, his fingers clenched on his own cell convulsively.

"The Slayer," Spike said, patting his arm absently as he opened his mobile and stopped 'Piece of My Heart.' "Yeah?"

"Spike, is Angel still with you?"

"Safe as houses, Slayer. We're working out the last details with Gunn, then he'll be done." He knew Angel could hear everything, too.

"I couldn't get through on his cell. Was your patrol bad? It was a double shift, and I–"

"And you were worried when you woke up and he wasn't there," Spike finished for her. "Patrol was fine, just lively enough to keep us both busy. And he was on the phone with Charlie. He'll tell you all about it when he gets back."

"Oh."

"Eve's gone, pet. Won't let anyone get him."

"You always know."

The sculpted jaw tightened. "Yeah. I do." He drew himself in a little, the companionable knee withdrawing from Angel's. "Anything else, Slayer?"

"No. Bye."

Spike folded the phone and tossed it on his desk. He stared ahead, ripped into his own packet of blood. "Worried a bit."

"I gathered."

Spike's phone rang again, this time with the strains of 'Emotional Rescue.' "That'll be the Nibblet." At Angel's raised eyebrow, he shrugged. "She set up that ringtone herself." He put down the blood and grabbed the mobile. "MacEwen's Tripe and Ale."

"Eww, gross, Spike. You're all right, then?"

"Yeah. In my office, not outside somewhere, sizzling."

"Well, that's always good." She yawned. "Clem says hey."

"Hey back to him. I'll be home soon, love."

"You need sleep."

"Always hard to sleep before one of these battles."

"Well, I need more sleep, too. I'll nap with you."

"Nicest offer I've had in the last eight seconds."

"Hah bloody hah."

"Language."

"God only knows why I love you."

"Love you, too, Dawnie. Bye." He'd slipped, and he knew it, so Spike ended the call before his bright girl could inquire further. Spike didn't bother forcing a smile when he looked at Angel; his grandsire was looking at the floor, anyway. "Reckon I'll go on home and kip before I pick up Charlie."

"Sure." He was dismayed at how the outside world had intruded and made their closeness evaporate like dew beneath morning sun. As Spike went by him, his arms full of leather coat and blood packet and loose cell phone, Angel stood, stopping him. "Will? I want you to meet him. I want… I want you two to get to know each other. Will you go with me to pick him up – if he comes, I mean?"

"'Course." He shoved everything to the crook of his elbow to free up a hand so he could pull Angel's forehead down to his. "Love you, mate. Never doubt it."

"Me, too," he replied, his voice gruff. Angel watched him walk away, then sank back onto the couch. Just as he was about to see if he could choke down more blood, his own phone finally rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey. Anything wrong?"

Not anymore. Angel closed his eyes. "No. Actually, things have gotten better since I saw you."

"Well, good."

"How did your semester go?"

"All A's. I changed my major to criminal justice."

"My constant worry just racheted up a notch."

Connor snorted. "You sound like my Dad." There was an awkward pause. "I mean… you know."

"I know. It's okay." Angel took a breath. "I was calling to see if you'd be interested in coming out to – coming to my new town for a battle." He wanted to be cautious, in case anyone left from Wolfram and Hart might be listening.

"A battle?"

He could hear the slight quickening in his son's voice. "We're a little short-handed – people gone for the holidays."

"What kind of battle?"

"We get a mix. Say, half garden-variety vampires, the other half anything from Fyarl to things even I haven't seen before."

"When you say 'short-handed,' how desperate do you really mean?"

"Uh," Angel said, seeing a visit with his son slipping away, "we've got three slayers here and Faith may be on her way, two Aurelians, Charles Gunn, half a dozen sorcerers from the Council of Watchers, and," he closed his eyes, "the single most powerful white witch alive today. Not really desperate." Spike was right; he had been searching for any excuse.

Connor's voice changed again, warmed. "So, you don't need me?"

"No, I guess not. That's okay. I mean, it was just a thought. It's probably for the best, staying away from–"

"What's the best way to get there?" Connor interrupted.

A wide smile stole across Angel's face. "We can send a chartered jet for you."

"No lame Camry?"

"I, uh, ended up buying that Camry," he admitted, a silly expression on his face. "I also have a classic Mustang, a Shelby," he added hastily.

"When is it?"

"Probably Wednesday, maybe Thursday. The prediction isn't precise."

"They never are, are they? As long as I can get back by Christmas Day, I think I can get my parents to let me go on a ski trip or something."

⸹

"What happened?" There was no preamble, and Dawn's arms were already crossed.

"Bed." He hung his coat on the rack and went down the hallway without another word. Spike sat on the bed and took off his boots, then stripped off his shirt. Giving Dawn a pointed look until she turned around, he stripped naked and found a pair of pajama bottoms to put on. "Right, then," he said, holding out his arms.

Dawn kicked off her slippers prior to climbing in next to him. He had an odd, sliding moment, thinking of the houseshoes she had been wearing the night he came back to Sunnydale after getting his soul. Those had little bows on them, too, had been white instead of pink.

"Love you, Nibblet," he said, enfolding her in a hug.

"Love you, too. Tell me."

"Nothing bad. Something good, I think." Since it wasn't his secret to tell, he left out Angel's interrupted parenthood as he explained about sharing the leadership of the Order of Aurelius.

"You're, like, co-chair?" she asked in an incredulous tone.

"Not precisely how I would put it, but, yeah, I guess."

"You shouldn't have. I mean, now you can't order him around."

"Bit, the whole time after he submitted, the only command I really gave him was to take care of your big sis." And that was something he didn't want to talk about. "Anyway, when you called, I'd just gotten off the phone with her, reassuring her that I hadn't let Angel play in traffic or something."

"So that's why you sounded upset."

"Didn't sound upset."

"Of course not," she agreed, not caring that she sounded insincere. "But you do sound tired."

"Not surprised. The whole submitting or sharing or whatever the hell we did was sort of draining for me."

"What about for Angel?" She was surprised to see a genuine smile form on his face.

"Set him free, yeah?"

⸹

"You've got your portfolio out," Buffy said, surprised.

Angel nodded. "It's about time."

She nodded, coming from their bedroom where she'd finished dressing to perch beside him on the couch. "I agree. I haven't seen you draw hardly any." Spike had given him an expensive-looking set of charcoals for Christmas, and she wondered if that was what inspired him. "Some of these look old," she said, touching the edges of the pages in the portfolio.

"Might be a few in here over two hundred years old," he agreed.

"Can I see them?"

"As a matter of fact, I planned on showing you everything." Angel had sorted through the drawings, reinstating the ones that had been hidden. "I've got a story to tell you, Buffy."

"Ooh, complete with illustrations," she said brightly. "Will there be sock puppets, too?" Her expression faltered when he didn't smile back. "I'm not going to like this story, am I?"

"I hope you will, but none of my stories are easy," he said, trying for neutral but hitting an anxious note. Angel took a deep breath, ready to talk. He turned a page. "This is a sketch of a young man named Connor. He's flying in from California to help with the battles."

"Cute," Buffy said, unaware of making Angel's gut clench. "Did you work with him at Wolfram and Hart? He's trustworthy, isn't he?"

"How old do you think he is?"

She studied the portrait. "Um… eighteen?"

"He's nineteen," Angel said, "or, if you look at it another way, only four."

"Really." Buffy raised an eyebrow. Dawn was only five.

Encouraged by her acceptance of this, Angel went on. "Connor is a good person, a human, soul and everything, but as strong as a vampire. I saw him defeat a time-shifting demon, and that isn't easy."

"Why is he so strong?"

"His parents, his real parents, were vampires," Angel said, and he turned over the next sketch.

Buffy stared at it for a long time, color leeching from her face. A beautiful woman holding an infant, love obvious on a face absent its habitual smirk. "That's Darla."

"It is. That's where this story starts." He told her about Darla's resurrection, why it was done, how the Wolfram and Hart plot had both succeeded and failed, told her about winning a life by forfeiting his own. When Angel got to the part where he had tried to lose his soul, he looked away from Buffy and stared at the sketch. He went through Darla's pregnancy and her sacrifice, told of the precious few weeks he'd had with his son, how even those were marred by outside forces.

Buffy gazed steadily at the next portrait, Cordelia holding Angel's child. She listened as he told her about Holz, about Wesley, about Quor'Toth and Connor's eventual return as an adolescent. Her eyes went back to him when Angel explained how he had been imprisoned, even though he glossed over how long he'd been at the bottom of the ocean. Angel turned to a portrait of his son, going over the outline of the terrible thing that had happened to Cordy, of how the being that wore her form used the confused boy, and of Connor's eventual emotional and mental collapse.

The Slayer nodded when he got to the deal with Wolfram and Hart, finally understanding how he'd come to be associated with them. Connor was now, she gathered, a great kid, someone who had turned out well despite everything – like Dawn, really. Shyly, Angel held out the framed graduation picture, explaining how Connor had defeated Sahjhan in the prophesied battle and how he remembered his real story now. She examined the features again. He did look like a nice person, except for favoring Darla.

"And that's the tale," Angel said finally, "illustrations and all." She'd been quiet the whole time, all wide eyes and pale face.

"That's quite a story." Buffy took a breath. "You never told me."

"I couldn't. I'd paid such a price for his new life–"

"No," she interrupted. "You said that Wolfram and Hart modified the memories of people associated with Angel Investigations. They didn't have to modify mine, did they? I'd never known."

"No." He looked down.

Buffy stood up, cupping her elbows. "You became a father, and you never told me."

"How could I, Buffy? After what I said about leaving so you could have a normal–"

"Your son was kidnapped and taken to a demon dimension, and you didn't call me, didn't call the Slayer to help save an innocent?"

"You'd been dead! How could I put that on–"

"Your people didn't even call me to look for you and Cordelia when you were missing!" Her voice had risen. "Was I that far out of your life?!"

"Buffy," he said, his voice even, "this isn't about you."

"No, but I think it's about us." She took a step forward. "Okay, so, four years, whatever. We've been together now for months, and you never told me."

"I'm telling you now."

Her head snapped back, as if his voice had been raised. "Yes. I guess you are." Buffy uncrossed her arms, smoothed her shirt. "Who are you? Do I even know you?"

"Buffy, you never talk to me, either."

"You know everything about me, everything that's mine to tell." Her eyes were bright with tears. "You know about how I wasn't enough for a human, that Riley left me. You know how awful it was after Mom died, how our father didn't even bother to come to Mom's funeral, how I couldn't afford to stay in college. You know I died again, that they brought me back from heaven. From heaven, Angel, from _peace_." She looked away, tears spilling over her cheeks. "You know what I did to Spike. I stopped getting in touch with you after that, because I was so…" She took a breath. "You know what happened to Tara and Willow, what happened to Sunnydale, what happened with the Immortal. You know I lost a baby. Can you see why I might not want to rehash any of that?"

"Buffy…" Angel gritted his teeth. "I can't change how things happened. But Connor is coming here, and I want him to get to know you. You're both important to me."

She twisted her head to the side and gave him a disbelieving look. "Important to you? But not important enough to actually include in your life?"

If the Slayer had hit him physically, the blow couldn't have been more direct. When it came to keeping people at a distance, he knew he was world-class. Angel had thought he was changing, though. Cornered, he lashed out. "Spike said to tell you that everyone's secrets have an expiration date. What does that mean, Buffy?"

Buffy knew the troublesome blond had been referring to Dawn, another adolescent thrust suddenly into a less-than-normal world, but she metaphysically could not tell Angel, even if she had been of a mind to do so. She was preoccupied with something else. "Spike knew? You told Spike before you told me?"

"Just this morning," he replied, closing his eyes with weariness. Angel tried again. "The longer I went without telling you, the harder it was to tell you."

"Don't." She held out a warding hand, closing her eyes. "I-I can't deal with this right now." She went to the door, randomly grabbed a coat and her purse. "I'm going for a walk." In the pale December sunlight, where Angel couldn't follow.

⸹

Buffy stood outside the house, staring up at the windows on the fourth floor. She needed desperately to talk to someone. Her sister, who routinely begged her to share things, was just inside this building. So was her dark half, who was always going to be there for her, no matter how much it hurt him. They loved her, would always love her, even if she had gotten it wrong with yet another man.

She had known all along that they didn't have the same closeness as before, but it hadn't mattered. Night after night, the sex was good. Seeing Angel smile or hearing him laugh was even better. She'd given that to him. And he gave her a safe haven, where things were Buffy-proofed, no sharp corners, no accidental shocks, no emotional burns. For a long time, it had been enough. Angel, after all, could never hurt her again as much as he already had.

But he could still hurt her.

It sucks to be me, she thought bitterly.

Willow and Xander were both in California, improving their healthy, normal relationships. Giles was climbing the walls, trying to make sure they could triumph in this latest battle. So, really, she had to talk to Dawn or Spike, or both of them. There was no one else.

Or, she didn't have to talk to anyone. She could keep it all inside, just another weight pressing her down.

Buffy still didn't move, just stared longingly, wishing that she could teleport, be there with them, the story already told, giggling and silly like they had been when she'd come home from Italy.

Home.

The Slayer put a hand over her mouth, covering a sob. She wanted to go home so badly.

The door opened and a pale figure in black pants appeared, dark eyes coming to focus directly on her. Spike took a breath, like a man preparing to lift a burden, and strode out to her, bare feet sure in the patches of gray snow. "Love," he said, nothing more, and held out a hand. She took it, let herself be pulled against his surprising warm bare chest, let herself be led to the door, where Dawn waited, looking at her anxiously.

"Are you okay? Spike said he felt you." Dawn's eyes examined her, looking for injuries.

Buffy swallowed, still pressed against Spike's side, and found that she was able to be brave now. "I'm fine."

Dawn snorted, managing to look superior despite her bed-head. "Sure, you're fine, standing out in the cold, all in black, looking like some goth-tard."

"Hey," Spike said, giving her a narrow look.

"Oh, not you," Dawn said, pointedly not rolling her eyes. "You're only half-dressed in black. Let's go back up." She shivered. "It's cold down here."

They were doing it again, weaving a net of jokes and unconscious caring, making her feel like things weren't all that bad. But they were bad, very bad, as bad as it could get without souls being lost.

"Mrs. Hanley?" Spike called, knocking on the door on the second-floor landing. It opened almost immediately. "'Lo, love. Couldn't help but smell that delicious spice cake."

Pleasure lit the rheumy eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses. "Why, thank you, dear. Would you like to come in and – my, William," she said, laying a hand on her bony chest, "where is your shirt?" Buffy had a tiny green moment; it seemed even very elderly women couldn't keep their eyes off her vampire's body.

"I'm terribly sorry for my state of undress," he said, his voice courteous and suspiciously non-North London. Buffy shot a look at Dawn, who subtly mimed throwing up. "We can't come in just now. This is Dawn's sister Buffy, who's quite upset. Would you be so kind as to entertain Clem with a visit and some cake while we talk with her?"

"Oh, of course not, dear. Clem is such a sweet young man." She tutted a little, shaking her head. "It's a terrible shame about his condition."

"Indeed," Spike agreed gravely. "He'll be down in just a few moments. I do envy him a taste of your baking."

On the third landing, after waving at Mrs. Petrowksy and her dog, Dawn said in an obnoxious tone touched with envy, "How do you just turn that on?"

"What? Manners?" Spike shot back.

"No. The civilized thing."

"Pet, I was civilized before your great-greats were born. Got over it, mostly."

"I think it's a vampire trick," she grumbled, opening the door. "You two, off to bed. I'll be there after I talk to Clem."

"B-bed?" Buffy asked.

"Little knackered, but hard to sleep with the energy before the battle. Bit was being sweet, napping with me."

"Oh." She nodded at Clem and trailed after Spike, envying her sister's ease with the vampire. That's why he'd been warm. The Slayer slowed a little, wondering if her presence had woken him from a sound sleep. That was actually kind of awesome, so she decided she'd better not think about it. "I haven't been here before," she said, stopping at the door.

"No." Many shades of meaning in the single word. He continued, his voice lighter, both formal and sardonic. "I invite you in."

She smiled. There, he'd done it. The first thing her eyes fell on were framed pictures on his dresser. One was of her and Dawn from earlier in the fall, but the other… She went straight to it. "Who is this?"

"My moth – me mum."

Buffy looked up, brows raised. "It is?"

"Giles tracked it down, gave it to me couple of days ago for a Christmas present."

She picked it up and examined the little figures. "Spike… is this you?"

"Yeah."

"You were adorable!" She glanced up in time to see him look pained.

"When was he adorable?" Dawn demanded, coming in. She turned to Spike and added, "Clem's gone."

Buffy held out the portrait. "This is Spike when he was a baby, on his mom's lap. Giles found it for him for Christmas."

"Aww!" A foolish smile spread over her face. "Look at those curls! You were precious!" Spike winced. "Why didn't you show this to me before?"

"Possibly to avoid hearing the word 'precious,'" he said sourly. His expression, though, was soft as he watched the sisters, their heads bent close together.

"Your mother looks so… nice," Buffy said, knowing the word was lame.

"She was. She would have loved the pair of you."

The last word was a caress, and Buffy looked past her sister to meet Spike's eyes. She could imagine meeting William's mother without any nervousness; a woman who had raised a son as loving as he was couldn't possibly be intimidating. He would have burst with pride and happiness to have the most important women in his life meet.

Spike held his breath at the dreamy smile on her face, her beautiful face, dying a little inside as it faded and was replaced by pain. She relinquished the frame to Dawn and turned away. "Kitten?" he asked.

"Mothers and sons," she said, cupping her elbows, thinking of the other portrait she had seen. "Seems to be the theme today."

"What?" Dawn said, staring between them.

Spike walked up behind Buffy and put his hands on her waist, dropping a kiss on her hair. "Glad he told you."

"Did you tell him to?"

"Strongly suggested it."

"Tell you what?"

Spike tensed, but before he could think up a diversion, Buffy answered.

"Guess what? Angel has a son."

"He _what_?"

"Pretty much my reaction."

Dawn's eyes went to Spike. "Did you know?"

"Found out a few hours ago."

"Holy shit."

"Language, Bit," Spike said absently.

Buffy closed her eyes at the exchange. Mothers and sons and fathers and daughters, too.

"A vampire makes a baby? That's news! I can't believe you didn't tell me."

"Not mine to share." Blue eyes bore into blue eyes; she well knew he didn't give away secrets.

Dawn backed off. "Oh. Of course not."

"If anyone should hear this story," Buffy said wearily, "it's probably Dawn."

Spike frowned for a second. "You're right," he replied, discovery in his tone. Then he firmed his mouth. "Secret's out; nothing to do about it except make sure it doesn't go any further." He grabbed a black t-shirt from the floor. "Let's go talk about it on the couch. Probably the real reason you came, yeah? Just for the famous couch."

Buffy smiled again, following the pair back into the living room. Dawn had told her once she'd laugh more if she chose Spike. Her sister was, she was discovering, quite wise.

"Clem left some tortilla chips, if anyone wants any." Dawn put them on the table and sat down in the middle, leaving both blonds irritated and relieved that they wouldn't be side-by-side. "So, how does a vampire get a son?"

Spike started, telling how Angel had broached the topic, this time leaving out the development in Aurelian leadership in the interest of time and simplicity. Buffy picked up the tale, finding that she grew calmer as she heard the facts again.

"So, I just left," she finished. "I was upset. I mean, who wouldn't be? If he didn't think that a child was important enough to share, what else isn't he sharing?"

"Well?" Dawn said, giving Spike a sharp look.

"What? Don't look at me. Dunno what he's been up to for most of the past century. Peaches doesn't share secrets with me, either. Obviously."

"Maybe I'm just not important enough to share things with." Buffy looked at her hands.

"No, Buffy, don't think that." Dawn patted her hand.

"Remember when we didn't talk, after I came back? How bad was that?" She rolled her eyes at the rhetorical question. "I mean, even I learned not to keep secrets, and I'm like one-eighth his age."

"One-ninth, but who's counting?"

She glanced past Dawn but ignored Spike's comment. "How do I face him after this?"

"Don't have to," Spike said helpfully.

"What do you mean, how do you face him? How can he face you? On his knees, I'm thinking. On a really clean floor that he's scrubbed for you."

Buffy looked at her sister. Dawn expected that she was going back to the apartment, back to Angel. "I'm overreacting?" she asked, her words measured.

"No, you're not. He needs to pay with, like, lots of dinners out at expensive restaurants. You shouldn't cook for a month. A-and you'll need foot massages."

"Am I overreacting? I mean, he did have reasons to keep his son a secret, at least while he was at the law firm. But he should have told me – just out of professional courtesy, if nothing else. Should I forgive him? What do you think, Spike?"

"I think, Slayer, if you ask me for relationship advice again, I will stop talking to you entirely." His voice was pleasant enough, but his jaw was tight and his eyes were like ice chips.

Dawn shook her head, disregarding the two blotches of color on her sister's pale cheeks. "Yeah, Buffy. Tactless much? Like Spike can give you an unbiased opinion." She flopped back against the couch. "I think you should definitely stay mad at him, but be nice to this kid. It isn't his fault his father is a jerk."

Not looking at the silent vampire, Buffy nodded, remembering that she'd just described her sister as wise in her own mind a little while ago. "That also keeps me from making any decisions I'll regret later."

There was a noise from the far end of the couch that could have been a derisive snort. "Sneezed," Spike said, smiling falsely. "Excuse me. No, wouldn't want to make any decisions, now would we?"

Dawn turned away from her sister to stare at him, missing the way Buffy flinched. "What's your problem? You're not helping."

"Don't exactly want to help, do I?" He stood from the couch, agitated, the muscles in his arms standing out. Buffy looked down at his tightly clenched hands. "Bit, this isn't an isolated incident. It's a way of thinking." He could see the Slayer's eyes narrow from where she was just on the edge of his peripheral vision.

"I don't get it."

Spike turned away. "I love Liam, I do, I – He's the only brother I'll ever have. But he will always know what's best for you, and he will do what he can to make what's best for you happen, and he will never, ever ask you if that's what you want." He stopped and looked at the ceiling. "Shouldn't even say this," he muttered, shaking his head. "Did he ask his son what he wanted? Did he consider coming to Giles, or consulting Faith, people who have experience with headcases who can rip their way out of handcuffs? Did he ask Charlie or Fred or Wes or Lorne if they wanted to forget?" Spike looked at the floor, then met Dawn's eyes, could not be paid enough to meet Buffy's. "Doesn't matter how much it hurts him or what the consequences are for other people. He will do what's best, by his lights, and he will never ask, or consult, or confer, or – Fuck it."

Dawn watched him stride away, not about to hazard a 'language' comment. She looked at her knees for a moment, then glanced at Buffy. "Spike has good insight into people."

"I know," she said, her voice small.

"Buffy, you know you don't have to…" Dawn began before her cell phone interrupted her. She moved the bag of tortilla chips and found it on the table, checking the number. Making an impatient mouth, she muttered, "Sorry, Buffy, just a minute."

"I should go talk to him." She sighed and stood up. Dawn was talking to Kayla, apparently. She was halfway down the hall when she heard another cell phone, then Spike say quietly, "'Lo, love."

Buffy stopped. The ringtone was 'Pretty Woman,' which meant one of 'his' slayers. She wondered if she was lumped in with all the rest. Closing her eyes, tired and so sad, she leaned against the wall, waiting.

Before Spike finished his conversation, Dawn's phone beebled again, and her sister said hello to Tribby. Just as she heard her vampire's phone snap shut, it rang again, and he greeted another slayer with, "Hey, pet." Buffy gritted her teeth and tried to think of someplace she could go other than to Giles' house.

Dawn came down the hallway, simply grabbed Buffy's arm and pulled her along, maneuvering her into Spike's bedroom again just as he was hanging up. "Kayla and Tribby," she said.

"Ro and Vi," he answered. When Buffy raised her eyebrows at the shorthand, he elaborated. "Apparently Giles sent out the call for people who wanted to volunteer to give up their holiday. They wanted to know how serious he was."

"Yeah, could he not vague it up more? 'If you feel that you are able to suspend your holidays?' Please."

A smile tugged one corner of Buffy's mouth up. "He really said that?"

"Wrote it, anyway." Dawn turned off her phone, then took Spike's and did the same. "I'm tired of this." She gave her best friend a look. "You, with the language?" Dawn turned to Buffy. "And you, with the moping?" She crossed her arms. "Talk. Now. I'll referee. And," she quickly held up a hand to belay any protest before recrossing her arms, "there's nothing I don't know about. I'm just here to keep you honest – and from killing each other. You first, Spike," she sent him a mean look, "since you know so many interesting words."

He gave her a murderous glare, then caved. She almost always had better instincts than him. He looked at the floor, at his bare feet, his chest rising and falling in a shallow rhythm. "Seeing you in pain, Slayer, makes me… It makes me so mad, 'cause it doesn't have to be this way, if you weren't so stubborn, or blind, or," he threw his hands up, "whatever it is. And I feel like I'm bound, like I've still got a chip in my head making me bloody useless, 'cause I can't say anything without betraying someone I really do care about." He put a hand over his still heart. "I'm the one that doesn't hurt you, Slayer. So when are you going to get your fill of bein' hurt?"

Buffy's lips parted, and she stared at him. She hardly needed Dawn's quiet, "Your turn," to jump in.

"I don't know if it ever occurred to you, Mr. Perfect, but I'm happy with An–"

"No," he said, deep, and was in her face before Dawn had time to blink, "you aren't."

She didn't back off. "Maybe things aren't perfect, but it's good–"

"It's easy."

"–and it doesn't hurt."

"Which is why you're here," he leaned on the words, sarcastic, "not hurting."

"What makes you think that if I leave Angel, I'll come to you?" she spat. "You know, I don't need a man."

"'M'not a man, Buffy."

Dawn watched them, fascinated and more than a little scared by what she had unleashed. They glared at each other, almost nose to nose, Spike looming over the Slayer, Buffy toe-to-toe with him, her chin thrust out. She had the sense that whole conversations were taking place, that each knew exactly what the other was thinking, thought after thought.

"I don't have to be with anyone," Buffy finally said.

"I do," he said, soft. "I'm lonely. Not alone," he said, sending Dawn a look of acknowledgement, "but I need to be with someone." He clenched his jaw, closing his eyes for a second. "Stupid soul. Maybe it's finally about me." Somehow he found space that he wasn't already occupying and moved closer to her. "Want you to be my someone. If you can't do it for yourself, kitten, will you do it for me?"

Buffy blinked, staring into his darkened eyes as he stood before her, as vulnerable as he had ever been. He was putting it on her again, and she didn't want to be in this position, didn't want to make a decision. She had made one, a big one, and all she wanted was to drift along in that same direction. Was that too much to ask? After all she'd been through, couldn't the Powers That Be just grant that one wish? And couldn't Spike just leave her in the fog, where it was comfortable and quiet?

Dawn stood apart from them, biting fiercely on her lower lip so she wouldn't say anything, silently urging her sister to just say yes. One little word; then Buffy could take her time, if she could stay out of his bed, anyway, could slowly let him build a life for her, a life that would include her sister for a change. And if Buffy wanted it now, Spike would take care of the hard things. Heck, she'd be willing to go tell Angel herself.

The silence stretched out, and Buffy dropped her eyes. Spike lifted his head, straightening his shoulders, staring past Buffy. Dawn felt her own shoulders slump.

Then, fast and unexpected like the predator he was, Spike swooped down, back into the Slayer's space, and kissed her. Watching, Dawn's lips parted. She'd never seen anything so gentle, never seen him show so much restraint in any other part of his life.

He lifted his head, pulling away from Buffy. "Get out."

Dazed, she opened her eyes, finding that her hands were resting on his chest. "What?"

"We're done here. Dawnie, you can schedule us together for patrol. Why not? She's not my Slayer. Girl I fell in love with, she was strong. God, was she strong. Thing I loved most about her."

Dawn raised her eyebrows a mite. Something had occurred to Spike; she could see the calculation on his face. He had come up with a plan, seldom a good thing.

"Wh-what?" The Slayer was too frozen to blink.

"Strong." He stepped in again, intense, right in Buffy's face. "Remember that feeling? Girl I fell in love with, I kissed her like that, she woulda thrown me on the bed, thrown her sister out, and had me beggin' for–" He glanced at Dawn and grimaced. "Had me beggin' for mercy." He closed his eyes and shook his head for a frustrated moment. "Girl I fell in love with, some guy lied to her for four bloody years, she'd have kicked him to the curb and not looked back, would have known," his volume went up to eleven, "exactly whose fault that was." He took a step back from Buffy. "She wouldn't need anyone to tell her."

Tears stood in Buffy's eyes. She tried to not blink, but she did anyway, and they rolled down her cheeks. "That girl doesn't exist anymore. So sorry to disappoint you. There's just too much pain, and it's so hard–"

"Girl I loved was never a victim," he shot back. "She took a breath, grabbed her fear with those powerful little hands, and made it work for her. I started whinging about something, she'd grab me and tell me to stop acting like an ass." He moved in again, and Dawn realized he was weaving as if he was in a physical fight. "God, I miss that girl. Got my heart with her, wherever she is."

"She's gone," Buffy whispered fiercely. "I'm not a girl anymore. I'm a grown woman."

"For God's sake, Buffy," he roared, "I'm goin' on my soddin' thirteenth decade, and I'm not grown up."

"I can tell. Grownups accept that they don't always get what they want, Spike. Only spoiled children expect that."

He stood up very straight, as if she had pushed him back, whatever plan he had forgotten. "Spoiled?"

Dawn sucked in a breath. That was Spike's sore spot, rational or not. He felt he'd had to fight for every inch of progress when others got destiny delivered to them on a silver platter. She hadn't seen the vampire this angry since he demolished half a cemetery just after Buffy died. "Okay, guys," she broke in, "that's enough."

"Dawn, take your sister and get her out of here." He turned away, his motions jerky, and peeled off the t-shirt.

"Spike, what are you doing?" Dawn asked, worried.

"Getting dressed so I can pick up Charlie at the airport." He glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "Or, stay. I don't really care." He tucked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his pajama pants and stripped them down.

Dawn turned to the door hastily. "Come on, Buffy."

The Slayer stared at Spike with narrow, angry eyes, easily resisting the tug on her arm. "I'm not a victim, and you're acting like an ass. I'm happy with my life."

He paused, one of the drawers to his dresser half-open, knowing exactly what ass her gaze was resting on. "Once more with feeling, love." It was her turn to draw back, wounded.

Even Dawn half-turned at that. "Spike!" she hissed, appalled.

"If you want me, Buffy, you'll have to win me all over again." He yanked out another t-shirt, exactly like the one he'd just taken off. "I'm done talking." His wide shoulders drooped a little. "Sorry about the fight, Bit. Didn't mean for you to ever see that again."

She shook her head and pulled on her sister's arm again, dragging Buffy out into the hall. They stopped just inside the living room, and she met her sister's wide hazel eyes, full of tears and anger and distress. Then the Slayer turned and dashed through the closest door, into the bathroom. Dawn closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples, listening to her sister vomit into the toilet. Making herself calm, she took a shallow breath and went in to kneel beside her.

Buffy pulled a few sheets of paper from the roll and blew her nose, then spat into the bowl a couple of times before flushing it. An agonized expression on her face, she looked at Dawn, then just crumpled. Dawn caught her, letting her sob, her own tears trailing down her cheeks, dripping off her nose. "Well," she finally said, "that was ugly."

"I'm sorry, Dawnie." Buffy pulled away and got more toilet paper, blowing her nose again. "You shouldn't have to see this."

"Like Mom and Dad before the divorce." Dawn's voice was bright with malice. "I remember they used to apologize for their fighting, too."

"He was willing to die for her, Dawnie," Buffy said, gasping for breath between the sobs. "He offered his life for her, and he wouldn't even stay in Sunnydale for me."

Buffy was talking about the other vampire, Dawn realized, about Angel being willing to give his life for Darla, thus earning the life that became his son. She didn't know what to say, so she just rubbed her sister's back. "Shh."

"All this time, I thought, you know, if only… And now we can, and I'm thinking that maybe what I always believed was wrong, that maybe he never felt the same way that I did, and what I thought I've always wanted is just not the same as…" She sniffled, swallowing and forcing her chin to stop trembling.

"It's going to be fine, Buffy." Or it would if Buffy would ever realize she wasn't in love with Angel any longer.

"And now he doesn't even want to look at me."

Back to the blond vampire, Dawn assumed. "Shh. It's okay."

No more tears; they didn't help, anyway. She shrugged. "I-it just hit me hard. I guess I always thought he'd just be there, that he'd always want me."

"What?" Stunned, Dawn moved back enough to examine her sister's face.

The Slayer closed her eyes, more tears forcing their way out. "It's over. I mean, I guess it's been over since before Sunnydale… you know? But not like this, not–"

"Buffy, you're my sister. I love you very much. But you're an idiot."

"Wh-what?"

"A mental defective." Dawn spoke very slowly. "A dumb blond." When Buffy goggled at her, she let out a sigh. "Spike still wants you. He is always going to want you, until he goes to dust. When you're older than Mrs. Petrowsky, he'll want you. I don't know what he was trying to do, exactly, but he practically begged you to step up and take what's yours." Dawn dashed her own tears away with an angry gesture. "Didn't you hear a word he said?"

"He said I wasn't his Slayer."

"God, Buffy." She shook her head and stood up, holding out a hand. "Come on. Off the floor." Dawn helped her sister up. "Listen, give me two minutes. I'll get some real clothes on, and I'm out the door. I'll pick up Charles, and you two can hash things out in private. Just go back in there," she said, giving her sister a wan smile, "and be his Slayer." Buffy's eyes were enormous, and tearstained or not, she was beautiful, Dawn thought ruefully.

"I–" She looked down, her blond hair spilling around her face, covering her expression. "I'm not just going to go from one man to another one. I don't need to have a man in my life."

"Like you so don't already have two?"

"If Spike really wanted me, he could just order Angel to leave."

"Because you would be so happy with him if he did that? Anyway, he can't anymore. You know that." When Buffy looked blank, she went on. "Spike made Angel co-chair of the Aurelians last night, or whatever they call it."

"He did what?"

"Spike's not his boss anymore – another thing I guess he didn't tell you." Dawn shook her head impatiently when her sister didn't show any reaction. "Whatever. Look, if you leave here without talking to Spike, you'll go back to Angel. You know you will… from one man to another. Aren't you going to at least call him on it?"

Before she could answer, both women tensed at the sound of a door opening. Spike strode down the hallway, stopping outside the bathroom. "Bit, sorry to run out during a crisis. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Charlie's flight gets in at noon."

"You heard," Dawn accused.

"Overheard," he agreed, unconcerned. "We're all quite aware that I'm a vampire." His gaze flicked to Buffy. Her head was bowed. Spike waited five seconds, then five more, counting them off silently. "See you around." He grabbed his coat from the rack, let himself out, and was in his truck before it was too much, before he couldn't hold it inside any longer. He stretched out over the bench seat, out of anyone's view, and wept for the pain he'd caused her, for his own pain.

In the apartment, Buffy dried her tears. "You're right. I've got to get back."

"No, Buffy." Her voice was quiet. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"All right. I want to go back."

"That was a really shitty thing Angel did."

She shrugged. "I haven't told him about you."

"That's different. You _can't_ tell him about me."

"I know. I'm just saying, who am I to judge?"

"Angel is aware of my existence, Buffy. The monks actually built me into his memory, because he was a part of your life. Don't let him get away with not telling you about parts of his."

"I won't." She sounded composed, almost looked composed again. "I promise I'll talk to him."

⸹

"You're quiet today," Gunn commented, holding his hands out to the heat blasting from the truck vents. When Spike didn't reply, he glanced over. When the blond vampire drove, his attention was usually on his passenger, who was lucky if he was using only one hand to gesture. Now Spike was staring at the road ahead of them, both hands resting on the wheel. Gunn leaned over and glanced at the dashboard. "Spike, you do know you're doing the speed limit, don't you?"

"What?" He glanced down at the speedometer and actually eased off the accelerator. "Sorry, mate. Mind's somewhere else."

"What 'else?'"

He sighed. "Good thing the Council is putting you up at the Ritz-Carlton. Buffy and Angel had a fight this morning. Buffy came over to cry on her sister's shoulder, then I had a fight with Buffy." His mouth tightened. "She was hurting, and I added to it."

"Why were they fighting?"

"Uh," he hedged, "I don't know."

"Man, are you a bad liar."

"Can't tell you, Charlie."

He waved a hand. "That's okay."

"So, how're things in Washington?"

"Falls Church," Gunn corrected, "Mr. Change-the-subject guy. And they're very good."

"What's her name?"

"What makes you think there's a woman involved?"

"If things were merely 'good,' couldn't be a woman. It's a woman makes things very good, innit? – or very bad. 'Sides, you told Tribby you met an old flame."

"I forgot you were living with her."

"We share a flat," Spike clarified, "and you're avoiding the subject."

"It's complicated," Gunn admitted. "I'm learning the law, and she's bending it."

"Bending it to the breaking point?" Spike raised an interested eyebrow.

"Sometimes."

"She another brief?"

"Lord, no." He tried to imagine Gwen addressing a jury and shivered.

"So, she the one?"

"Uh, no. I figure she'll dump me before too long."

Both eyebrows went up this time. "She must be quite something."

"Oh, yeah," he said emphatically. "I would have regretted it the rest of my life if I hadn't hooked up with her again, but she's not the type you could settle down with."

"There you go, categorizing women again."

"Not Gwen. She's in a class by herself."

⸹

Buffy let herself in quietly, closing the door behind her and locking it. She had walked for over an hour before heading home – before heading back to the apartment, she corrected herself.

"Buffy?" Angel came out of the bedroom, dressed and wearing a leather jacket.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere. Not yet, anyway. Connor's plane gets in at five."

She nodded. "Angel? Before either of us says anything that starts the fight again," she turned and began hanging her coat, not wanting to look at him, "is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything that happened, anything major that I might, as your significant other, want to know about before it gets tossed at me like a grenade?"

"Before either of us says anything to start a fight?"

"Angel."

He heard the warning in her tone and honestly tried to think of anything else. "No. There's nothing else, Buffy."

She nodded again. "So, the fact that just today you stopped being Spike's peon and became co-chair of the Order of Aurelius," she gritted her teeth for a moment, "that wouldn't be of any interest to me, as your lover or as the Slayer?"

Angel became very still, then closed his eyes. "I didn't think about–"

"You didn't think that was important? That I might not be relieved to know he couldn't just order you to leave?"

"He wouldn't do that," Angel replied, "and I really didn't think about it. Everything else pales next to the fact that I get to see Connor in a few hours. That's what's on my mind, Buffy. Not the Order of Aurelius."

"You love him. You're his father." She said the words, understood what she was saying, understood where that put her in his hierarchy.

Angel smiled. "I do. You don't know what it's like. Someone who's completely dependent on you, then they grow up and become this incredible person. It's just amazing, Buffy."

Dawn, she thought, a part of her from her blood to her soul, who had been so small and vulnerable and now was managing adulthood better than she was. "No," she agreed in a dead voice, "how could I know what that's like?"

He froze again. "Buffy… I'm not good at this, at being with people. I was alone for a hundred years; before that, I lived little better than an animal, like a tiger in a jungle. It seems like I say things that seem fine in my thoughts, but they hurt you when I get them out." He came forward, his eyes on her face. "I do love you. You're my inspiration, so good and so strong." Angel took her hands in his, stroked his thumbs across her knuckles. "After this is over, these battles, let's get out of here, away from the pressure of being part of the Council. We can go back to California, find a place–"

"To California, where Connor is."

He paused, not sure of her mood. "Yes. I won't have him for long, Buffy. You're human, so you don't know… You wouldn't believe how quickly the time passes. And I've already lost so many years with him."

She had heard the same thing before, words almost identical in a deeper voice. Spike had said them about her. Stark, black and white, the difference between the two men. It had nothing to do with personalities or histories or worthiness. The difference was that the person Angel loved most in the world was not her, or even Darla. It was his son, whom he hadn't even told her existed.

Buffy pulled her hands away and gave him a small smile. "Angel, let's get past this battle, let you have a visit with," she swallowed, "with Connor while Dawn and I are in Illinois. We'll talk about everything when I get back."

⸹

"Will you settle down, mate? You get much more agitated, Homeland Security will be giving you a body cavity search in a tiny room somewhere."

"The plane landed almost ten minutes ago," Angel said, craning his neck. "What could be taking so long?"

"Short staff at the charter hangar? Landed at the far end of the terminal? He'll be here, Angel."

The big vampire stilled suddenly, his whole body turning slightly to the left. Spike wanted to scan the crowd, too, to see if he could spot his grandsire's get, but he couldn't look away from Angel. He'd never seen such naked love on the other man's face. Spike's eyes crinkled at the corners; despite everything on this very long day, he had to smile to see Peaches so happy.

"Connor!" Angel yelled, holding his hand high, waving. He was grinning, and began to make his way toward his son, his broad form parting the crowd like the prow of a boat cutting through water.

"Hey," Connor said, and then, "Oof!"

Angel grabbed him in a fierce embrace, his eyes closed tightly. "Connor."

When several seconds passed and he didn't let go, Connor patted his back awkwardly. "Um… Dad?"

Spike hooked his fingers under Angel's biceps. "Been talking to him about inappropriate public displays of affection," he said, "but hasn't made any difference so far. Name's Spike. Nice to meet you."

As Angel took a step back, completely unembarrassed, Connor's eyes focused on the other blond and became narrow. "You're a… You're one, too."

"You can sense it, huh? No worries. Got my soul a few years ago."

Angel was still staring at Connor, smiling, as he threw an arm over Spike's shoulders. "This is your Uncle Will."

"Uh," Connor said, trying to mesh this physical affection with what he knew of his father's austere habits and his past, "uncle?"

Spike rolled his eyes and pushed Angel away. "Honestly, Peaches." Then he heard his own words and clenched his jaw. Could they come off any more as stereotypes? "He's trying to say we're family. I'm Drusilla's; he's my grandsire." He held out a hand. "And it's Spike, just Spike."

"Yeah, I remember you from Wolfram and Hart."

They traded grips, sizing up each other. Connor saw a slender man who looked dangerous even next to his hulking father. Spike, satisfied with the strength of the boy's hand, saw something else.

"You look like your mother," he said, his voice soft with wonder. Then he let go of the human's warm fingers and gave his head a little shake. "You got the best of the genetic pool." He jerked his head toward Angel. "Wouldn't want that hair."

"He's always like this," Angel said fondly. He looked at both of them in turn, feeling very much the father. Connor, taking after Darla in stature, too, was not quite as tall as Spike. Tow-headed, strong, and rebellious – it was no wonder he'd sometimes fallen back on the harsh measures he'd favored as Angelus when dealing with his second go-round as sire to a young warrior.

"No one else has the stones to puncture his dignity."

"You've got more than your fair share," Angel shot back, "of stupidity, not stones.

Spike was saved from answering when his mobile went off. "Slayer," he said by way of explanation.

"Uh, let's go get my suitcase." Connor led the way to luggage claim, Angel by his side, Spike trailing behind them.

"Good flight?"

"Yes." He grinned. "Really nice. I've never been in a private jet before."

"Well, it's just a lease. Not mine, I mean, the Council's."

"So, this is the Council of Watchers that Wesley used to work for?"

"No. This Council is nothing like the one that he worked for. There's a new head, Rupert Giles."

"I remember that name," Connor said. "He was Buffy Summers' Watcher."

"That's right," Angel said, grinning. He took a breath. "I can't tell you how happy I am that you remember."

Connor looked away from the open love. "I… I don't remember you ever being this…"

"Emotional?"

"Yeah."

"Something changed. I lost my soul again, and when Willow put it back, she modified the curse so that there's no happiness clause."

Connor stopped walking and stared up at him. "She – When did this happen?"

"Just a few months ago."

"How did–" _you lose your soul?_ he started to ask, but a rich chuckle interrupted him.

Tribby, with exquisite timing, had sent Spike a text message. 'Esteban trying 2 fix me up w stepbrother. Posit: my family most warped on earth. Discuss.' Attached was a picture, which he shared with Angel. "Tribs got set up on a blind date," he explained.

Angel looked at the picture, then looked some more. Any picture of a slayer in a bikini was worth seeing. He took in the man standing next to her and laughed, too. "She'd snap him like a twig." Esteban's son – or possibly his stepson from another marriage – was a walking stereotype, a sleaze from central casting, with black hair slicked back from a receding hairline, several gold medallions resting on his hairy chest, and tiny red Speedos on his skinny hips. They were on a beach with pastel buildings in the background.

Spike politely turned the little screen so Connor could see. "Whoa," the boy said.

"Tribby, slayer I live with," he said, tossing out the het credential with no small measure of relief, "in Miami visitin' her mum."

"Um," Connor hedged, backing off, "she's… pretty."

Spike turned the phone back and glanced down at the picture. "Yeah." He smiled and shook his head, snapping the cell shut. Angel, recovering from his bout of bliss, gave him an assessing look. Then he pushed it from his mind; they had talked about the 'fledge' bit already.

"There's my bag," Connor said, and Angel was already there, shouldering it.

"Let's go," he said, beaming at the two shorter men, and they started walking to the parking garage.

"Well, s'pose I should give you the official Council welcome," Spike began.

"He's a Watcher," Angel interrupted.

Connor's eyebrows went up, thinking of Wesley's rigid background. "I guess the Council has changed."

"Yeah, all down to Rupes," Spike said fondly. "Anyway, got a room for you at the Ritz-Carlton–"

"But you can stay with me," Angel interrupted in a hopeful tone.

"–and Charlie's already there."

"Charlie?"

"Gunn," Angel supplied.

"Gunn," Connor breathed, a smile breaking over his face. Then he compressed his lips. "I guess he doesn't…?"

"No. He doesn't remember. Spike knows."

"Peaches just told me this morning. Figure we'll just tell folks you're one of the good guys Angel knew from California – which is true."

"Okay. So, I'll call you Angel."

The dark-haired man looked away, not pleased with the loss of his title. "I guess it's for the best."

"Anyone else I know here?"

"No. Gunn's the only one left."

"Lorne's out there, somewhere," Spike added.

"And whatever is left of Fred," Connor said.

"Illyria went through a portal to another dimension that last day at Wolfram and Hart."

"Saved our lives," Spike said, unusually somber. "Charlie nearly didn't make it."

"You said 'the most powerful white witch alive,'" Connor pressed. "Did you mean Willow?"

"Right, Willow. She won't remember you, either, though," he warned. "She'll be here for the battle. She's actually in California right now, but she can teleport in seconds." There was a certain pride in Angel's voice that made Spike smile again.

"Anyone else I've heard of?"

"Rupert Giles, the Head of the Council, is here," Spike said.

"We haven't heard yet if Faith can come," Angel mused. Then he smacked himself in the head. "And Buffy! How could I forget Buffy?"

"Buffy is here?" Connor asked, amused. "Cordy was always so catty about her."

The good humor faded from Angel's face at the mention of Cordelia, and he looked away from Connor. "Buffy knows about you, too," Spike said, and before he could add Dawn's name, Angel let out a sigh that drew Connor's attention.

"I'm living with Buffy. We're together."

"Oh." Connor absorbed this, watching his feet for a few seconds. "I'm glad it worked out for you two." He looked back up at his father. "Is that how you lost your soul, when Willow modified the curse?"

"Yes," he said, not looking at Spike. "It was sort of… controlled circumstances."

Connor caught how uncomfortable the topic made him and turned to Spike. "So, you've known him a long time?"

"Knew Angelus first twenty years of my unlife," Spike agreed in a bright voice, "and I have to tell you, I hate the bastard."

"Something we have in common," Connor said flatly. They exchanged a look, the accord almost enough to make them friends.

"Knew Angel a bit before your mum banished him, 'round the time I killed my first Slayer – train 'em now, that's what I do for the Council, funny old world, innit? – but I only really got to know him when I got shackled to Wolfram and Hart as a ghost last year – don't ask; we don't have time to go into that story."

"Your first Slayer?" Connor reassessed the blond vampire. "How many have you killed?"

"Two," Angel said, full of pride, "one-on-one combat, no mesmer or anything."

"Or three," Spike said, letting out his air through his nose, "depending on how forgiving you are." He shook it off. "Here we are." He clicked the remote, unlocking the truck.

Angel put Connor's suitcase in the back of the cab, then waited until Connor got in. He found himself flanked on either side by a vampire. It set his nerves on edge, even if one of them was his father. "So, is that how you got cursed with a soul? For killing Slayers?"

"It's no curse," Angel said quickly. "He faced trials and fought to earn his soul."

"Woman I loved died," Spike said, warmed by Angel's words, as he backed out of the parking space, "and left her baby sis in my care. Couldn't raise a teenager without a moral compass, so I went to Africa and jumped through hoops for a powerful demon until I got what I went for."

Connor glanced at his father, who nodded proudly. His initial protest – what kind of idiot would entrust a child to a demon? – was forgotten. "But… you're a vampire." All the hatred that Holz had taught him was still there, too. A demon could never want a soul.

"Spike was always–"

"Careful, there."

"–atypical," Angel finished diplomatically.

"You wanted your soul?" He couldn't help asking.

"I needed it," Spike said with dignity. "Mine, anyway, yeah?"

"There's not a lot a parent won't do for his child," Angel said. Connor turned and met his eyes for a moment.

"Dawn's not my child," Spike muttered, with very little conviction. "She knows, too, by the way. Buffy told her."

"She knows everything," Angel said, shaking his head.

"Dawn won't tell anyone," Spike said, "so that's just the four of us. You don't have to be ashamed in front of anyone else."

Angel snaked a hand behind Connor and smacked the side of Spike's head, making the blond man chuckle. With anyone else, Connor would have warned him not to distract the driver, but he was beginning to think that it didn't matter with Spike at the wheel.

Connor was reeling. With his memories restored, he thought he was comfortable in the world that acknowledged demons. But a vampire, one of his father's line, _wanting_ a soul… Not even Lorne, one of the most civilized people he'd ever met of any species, had wanted a soul – but, then, he'd never had one. "I guess," he said, deciding to drop the subject, "I should ask about this battle."

Angel went through the history of what they knew, ending with the run-up to this one. "So, we've really had very little trouble containing the demons, but because everyone's gone out of town for Christmas, we're shorthanded. The horde won't descend on the site until the energy gets stronger, and since it isn't tonight, it will almost definitely be tomorrow night." He smiled. "I'm glad it's held off a day; it means we'll get a chance to visit."

"Do you still have the weapons cabinet? I don't have any with me – I don't have any at all, these days."

Angel felt a pang at the reminder of his lost weapons. "There's an armory at the training center."

"We'll take you there tomorrow. You can have your pick, mate." Spike turned into the alley by Angel's apartment. "We'll be going to the battle site, too, a warehouse this time." He put the big truck in park, but left the motor running. "All ashore that's goin' ashore."

Angel slid out, and while he was getting Connor's bag, the young man turned back to Spike. "You aren't coming in?"

Spike considered the steering wheel. "While Peaches was in Los Angeles setting up Angel Investigations, I was in Sunnydale falling in love with Buffy. So, I don't exactly visit."

"Okay," Connor said slowly, his eyebrows climbing high. He stepped out of the truck at the same time as the apartment door opened. A young woman with shining brown hair peered out, her eyes finding Angel, then Spike, and finally resting on him. She gave him a tentative smile.

"Oh boy," Connor said heavily. He glanced back at Spike. "She's really young."

Spike turned off the engine. "That's my Bit, Dawn, I mean. Buffy's little sister. Guess I'm coming in after all." Another woman had joined her in the doorway. "That's the Slayer."

Connor stood by the door of the truck and took his first look at the legendary Slayer. She was smaller than her stories, and his first thought was that she was similar in stature to his own mother. Connor glanced at his father, who was also watching Buffy, a worried expression on his face. Then he met the Slayer's steady gaze, thinking she was pretty but careworn, and he felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her, the woman who was in the role that he couldn't help but feel rightfully belonged to Cordelia.

"Come on in, son," Angel said, looking away from Buffy's unreadable eyes.

"'Lo, love," Spike was saying to Dawn, standing on the lowest step and looking up at her. "This is unexpected."

"Hi," Dawn said coolly, "'ass.'" She gave him a pointed look. "You better behave."

"On my best," he agreed humbly, not quite sighing. "'Lo, Buffy," he mumbled.

She didn't answer, just looked down, and Dawn heaved a sigh. "I thought we'd have dinner together, so I ordered out." She smiled brightly. "Hi, Connor. Welcome to Cleveland. I'm Dawn Summers."

"Hi," he said, smiling, taking her offered hand. She was even prettier close up. He switched his gaze to Buffy and held out his hand again. She had died – he'd heard those stories told in lowered voices – and it showed in her eyes. "You must be Buffy. Sorry to just drop in like this; I understand he didn't tell you about me until the last minute. Typical."

She forced a smile. "Nice to meet you, too, Connor. Please, come in."

"You must be pretty tough, to put up with him." He stepped inside and knew right away that it was his father's house, that the Slayer would never have picked such an open floor plan, the high ceilings. "Nice place," he said. "Oh, something smells good."

"Take-out from this German restaurant that Willow knows. They have the best potato soup," Dawn said, leading the way toward the table. Connor followed, and Angel trailed after them, unobtrusively putting Connor's suitcase by the couch.

Still by the door, Buffy stared at her hand on the knob for a moment, then lifted her face to find Spike gazing at her.

"You want me to, I'll leave."

"No, that's okay, Spike. You can stay."

He started to reach out and take her hand, offering his support, but he stopped mid-gesture. Looking away, he made an awkward motion and went toward Dawn.

"My grandmother is Swedish," Connor was telling the younger Summers, "and she makes really good potato soup, too." When Dawn raised her brows, he found himself flushing and wishing that she wasn't so pretty. "I mean, you know. My other family."

"Is it hard having two sets of memories?" Dawn paused behind a chair, wincing a little. "If you don't mind me asking?"

"No, I don't mind." He grasped the back of the chair and waited until she moved away, confused, then pulled it out for her. Dawn sat, flustered and pleased, and he scooted her chair in. "To me, my real life is my normal set of memories, of growing up kind of boring. My really real life," he said, sitting in the chair at the end of the table, ninety degrees from her, "seems like this incredibly realistic movie I saw, or a story I read and re-read." He looked up at his father, who was taking the chair at the other end of the table. "It's only when I'm with Angel that the line starts to blur." He took the napkin from the plate in front of him and put it in his lap. "But I'm still me, you know? I figure this is who I was supposed to be all along, if I hadn't been raised in Quor'Toth by a man driven insane by hatred."

"I-I wondered how it worked," Dawn said, thinking that she liked his matter-of-fact demeanor. He had nice eyes and didn't look anything like Angel, a plus in her book.

Buffy was pulling an extra chair to the table. "Are you eating?" she asked Spike. When he shrugged and nodded, she went into the kitchen for an extra bowl. Spike moved her place setting to the right so that he wouldn't be between her and Angel, then slouched into the chair, giving Connor a tight smile.

When Buffy put the china and utensils in front of him, Connor raised his eyebrows. "You're going to eat?" He looked at his father. "Da – er, Angel never eats."

The dark-haired man spread his fingers wide. "Atypical."

Spike shrugged. "Never lost my taste for it." Buffy thumped a full mug, identical to the one in front on Angel, onto the table by his hand, and he met her eyes with a bland expression.

"Okay," Dawn said, used to never knowing why the two were glaring at each other, "help yourself." She waved vaguely at the Styrofoam containers in the middle of the table.

After the food was passed back and forth, a silence fell. Connor could see that Dawn was trying to think of something to say; Angel was content just to gaze at him. "Well," he said, putting down his spoon, "I figure it's no use asking quietly about something if I'm confused, not with two vampires in the house." He gave Buffy a rueful smile. "I don't know if Slayers have super-hearing or not, but I do. So, I'm just going to ask, if that's okay. I've got a lot of questions about you guys, 'cause I'm so used to Angel being sort of alone. And you probably have a lot of questions about me."

"I don't have a problem with that," Dawn said emphatically. "I'm a firm believer in the power of people actually communicating."

Connor waited until she looked from her sister back to him. "I know that Buffy died and came back, but I don't think Dad ever mentioned she had a sister. Spike said he got his soul so he could take care of you, that you," he turned to Buffy, "trusted a vampire with a child." He stopped. "I mean, that was four years ago, I think. You're what, sixteen, seventeen?"

Dawn looked pained. "Eighteen. I'm a freshman in college."

"Oh. I'm a sophomore. I turned nineteen in November."

She pushed her hair over her shoulder. "Where do you go to college?"

"Stanford."

"Good school."

"It's not as hard as you'd think."

"Anyway, you were asking about…?"

"Oh, uh, about why your sister didn't ask my Dad to take care of you?"

"Because Spike already loved me and would give his life to save me."

"And, after all, who would think of Angel as a father?" Buffy's voice was sweet.

Dawn's eyelids lowered for a moment as she prayed for patience. "I barely knew Angel; all I really remember of when he was in Sunnydale was that Buffy was moody and cried a lot."

"Gee, thanks, Dawn," her sister said. "I was sixteen, seventeen," she told Connor, shrugging, "so, moody anyway."

He shot his father a look of askance, as he had just been relieved by the information that Dawn was legal, then let the age difference go and turned to Spike. "How could you love without a soul? I mean, Holz wasn't exactly a reliable source, but he never lied to me when it came to demons. He didn't – or wouldn't – see that Angel was different from Angelus, but Dad has a soul. That's the difference."

Spike squirmed in his chair, unwilling to bare himself so publicly. Then he sighed; Connor was right about communicating. "Your mum and dad told my sire, Drusilla, to find someone to take care of her. She found me."

Connor gave his father a long look. "To take care of her because she was insane?"

"Because Angelus had driven her insane, yeah," Spike corrected. "Don't know that many vampires keep their human emotions when the demon blood takes over; haven't met many others. Figure they just don't last long, that their sire or other vamps get rid of them right quick for being weak. Dru has the sight, so she knew I would keep enough of the higher emotions to take care of her, but be vicious enough to survive. And I did. Took care of her, loved her for over a century, till she kicked me out."

The boy had homed in on one word. "Vicious?"

"William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers," he said heavily, prodding at the skin atop his cooling soup. "Yeah, quite vicious, much more than Sid ever hoped to be, the ponce. Killed nearly everything at one time or another."

"You never lived up to Angelus' expectations, boy," Angel said. Brown eyes met blue for a long moment. "He came out of the grave quick, with good instincts for a fight, but he was never into the… never into it the way the rest of us were."

"Not gonna compare sins." They exchanged another look, evoking a shared memory of another conversation. Spike lowered his head, breaking the connection. "Anyway, thanks to Uncle Sam, I spent some time in Sunnydale essentially harmless to humans. Started helping the Slayer kill demons just to get my violence on, got to know her and her mum and Bit, here. How could anyone not love them?"

Connor nodded and changed the subject. "How come you still speak with an accent, and Dad doesn't?"

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Half his age, for one, and he's been in the States for over a century. Lived all over the world, me, but always go back home, spend time in Blighty. This is about as long as I've ever lived as an ex-pat." He nodded across the table. "Bit says I am losing my accent."

"He says 'smartass' instead of 'smart-arse,'" she explained. Dawn flashed him a look. "One of his many pet names for me."

"Only when you've earned it," he drawled. "And, language." The two shared a smile.

"I came to America to get away from what I'd been before the soul," Angel said. "Even in the early twentieth century, there was still a lot of prejudice against the Irish, so I tried to lose the accent. After a while, I did." He'd never told anyone this tidbit, dating from his first years of solitude; he'd never been around people who would ask.

Connor nodded. He saw that Dawn and her vampire were still smiling at each other, and he looked back and forth between them. "So, he, like, adopted you?" He glanced back at Spike, uncomfortable that his partiality for the man was dependent on the answer to his next question. "You're like her father?"

As the blond vampire winced, Dawn rolled her eyes. "As if. You have to be grown-up to be–" She stopped suddenly, her gaze darting to Buffy. Dawn turned back to Connor even as she held her hand across the table to Spike. "He's my best friend."

"And you're mine, love." He squeezed her fingers. "Bit keeps me honest."

Angel was examining the young woman. "Dawn gets the whole vampire thing better than any human I've ever seen," he said, half to himself. He glanced around the table as everyone's eyes fell on him. "The vampire family thing, I mean, the physical contact, the trust."

Buffy looked at her sister, thinking of how it had never mattered to her that Spike was a vampire or soulless. To her, he was simply family, and family was important to her. Dawn had shown up bearing food just as Buffy was ready to bolt the apartment, too nervous to meet Angel's son. She had offered herself as moral support, as a buffer, and the Slayer was grateful. Her own expression softened.

"Labels don't work really well for us," Angel went on. "I mean, since we've both had souls and had a chance to get to know each other, Spike and I have become more like…" he hesitated, as if afraid the younger vampire would contradict him, "brothers, even though I'm his sire's sire. And Spike was the Master, too, so there's that dynamic. It get complicated."

"We usually just leave it at 'family,'" Spike said. "Same for me an' Sweet Bit."

Connor turned back to Dawn. "It's just weird for me to see Dad surrounded by people." He looked down the table at his father. "I mean, the folks from Angel Investigations were employees, in a way, even though they were your friends."

"You're right," Angel agreed. "I should have treated them like family." He looked down, studying his half-empty cup of blood. "One of the things I regret the most."

Buffy had been quiet, listening to Connor's questions, to the others' answers. She took a breath. "Connor? I just want to say I'm sorry for what happened to Cordelia. We weren't friends, exactly, but she was a strong person, a good person. She deserved better."

He stared at her, tears suddenly pricking at his eyes. Connor looked down. No one else had ever said anything directly to him about Cordelia, and he got a sense of how brave the Slayer was, of how doing the right thing came as naturally to her as waking up in the morning. "Thanks. I wish she were still around, still herself. I had a terrible crush on her; I'm sure it wasn't obvious at all," he added sarcastically, "but she was really nice about it."

Spike's head swiveled around to Angel, his brows drawn together. Quick, he pushed back from the table. "Sod it all," he muttered. "Told Charlie I'd take him to the Century at the Ritz-Carlton for dinner. Liam, a word? Walk me to the truck?"

Angel, his jaw clenched, kept his head lowered as he nodded, rising from the table without a word.

"Connor, nice to meet you. See you tomorrow at the gym, get you armed, yeah? Bit, see you at home." He paused before he got up, not quite looking at Buffy. "What I said earlier…" He firmed his mouth. "What I said the night you left your mum's house is nearer to it." Spike stood and dragged the chair with him, leaving it where it belonged, away from the table.

"The night Kennedy and Anya were such bitches?" Dawn asked, watching Spike's blond head disappear out the door. When Buffy nodded jerkily, she asked, "He tracked you down, didn't he? What did he say?"

That she was the one, and that it had nothing to do with him. "I-I don't really remember," Buffy lied. "Excuse me. I'll be right back." She went into her bedroom, closing the door.

"Ookay," Dawn said. "Not awkward at all."

"I understand it's something of a love triangle?" Connor asked, his voice low.

"I'd say that's an understatement," Dawn replied. She gave him a wan smile.

"Angel always wins when it comes to those." Connor stared down at his plate.

"I'm beginning to think you're right. While Angel's away, you should probably know my sister got uber-mad when Angel told her about you – not about you, but about the fact that he never told her from day one that he was a father."

"Oh."

"So, if she's quiet, it's because they had a fight. And then she came to me and Spike for comfort, and then she had a fight with him."

"What was that one over?"

"The fact that he can't comfort her because she's with Angel instead of him."

Connor bit his lip. "I sort of got the idea that they're friends – Dad and Spike, I mean."

"Oh, they are. They're family; they love each other. That's what makes it so painful to watch." Dawn toyed with her spoon. "I have to admit, I'm not close to your father. I'd love to see my sister and my best friend together, but Buffy chose Angel. He was her first love, and I guess he feeds something in her." She shrugged.

"My first love was either used as a chrysalis for a god and discarded when it was over," Connor said, forcing his tight voice toward something more normal, "this vegan chick named Tracy, or, what seems most true to me, a 1997 Jeep Wrangler." When the large blue eyes widened in disbelief, he lifted a shoulder. "A boy and his first car; what can I say?"

She grinned. "My first car is a Wrangler, too, but I'm not in love with it."

"No way! Is it the one that's outside?" Dawn nodded, and her hair slid over her shoulder, obscuring part of her face. Connor watched her push it back, revealing the blue eyes and faint freckles once again, and his heart made an odd little fillip.

Angel stood by Spike's truck, relieved to be alone with the boy, because it didn't matter to Spike if he cried. Cordelia. Buffy's simple words brought so much back, made him remember all over again how unfair her fate was.

"'S'alright, mate," Spike said, joining him, stepping in close so Angel could lean against him. He'd felt the big vampire's emotions break at the mention of the cheerleader, done his best to get him alone.

He took a shaky breath, already close to regaining his control, and wiped his face. "Buffy's right. She didn't deserve to die like that." They stood in silence, foreheads together. After another minute, Angel sighed. "I should get back.

"Yeah. You okay?"

"Sure. Thanks for the save." He pulled away first.

"No, really, told Charlie I'd have dinner with him."

The corner of Angel's mouth lifted. "See you tomorrow, then." He watched until the boy drove away, then went back toward the apartment.

In their bedroom, Buffy carefully moved the blind back into position. She had mentioned Cordelia, thinking that someone needed to acknowledge her, and Angel had all but burst into tears. Cordelia had meant a great deal to him, more than he even realized. Walking to the bathroom so she could flush the toilet, hiding the fact that she'd been spying, Buffy again wondered exactly how much Angel had moved on from their time in Sunnydale. The answer, she was beginning to suspect, was much more than she ever had.

⸹

"It never occurred to me to actually furnish the other bedroom in the apartment when I moved in," Angel apologized, his hands in his coat pockets as Connor slid the keycard into the hotel door.

"No problem," Connor assured him. "It's just that a bed sounds better right now than a cot." He opened the door and turned on the light. "Nice. Smaller than I thought it would be, though."

"Do you want a larger room?" He was already turning away to go to the front desk.

"No, no, this is fine. It's just such a fancy place, I guess I thought it was all penthouse suites." Connor put his suitcase down and unzipped it, opening it wide on the top of the low dresser, and decided that he was unpacked. He was tired, but he turned to his father, knowing that this was what he had been waiting for all day. "Have a seat, Ang – Dad. We haven't really had a chance to talk."

Angel smiled, knowing the expression probably still looked odd to Connor, and took one of the two chairs at the table in the corner. It was too small for him and not very comfortable, but at this moment in time he liked it better than a throne. He waited until Connor sat down. "So, tell me about school. You switched majors?" He listened, his whole body involved, leaning forward, his hands clasped so he wouldn't be tempted to reach out and grab Connor's. The young man grew more animated, telling his father stories with self-depreciating humor, able to admit to triumphs like good grades and won games without sounding like he was bragging because the dark-haired man was starved to hear about them.

In the bad old days, Connor had never been able to accept that a vampire could love, that his father, even with a soul, really loved him. It wasn't until he stood before Sahjhan, years of hardship and horror and howling emptiness unveiled, that he could see it, could understand the depth of love that allowed Angel to make the sacrifice he had made. Even then, Connor didn't think he could have appreciated it without his grafted-on memories of a loving childhood in a stable family. His years with Holtz had made him too hard. He had been taught that humans protected each other against demons, but that it was proper to sacrifice fellow humans if that's the only way a demon could be killed, and he had accepted that code, even as his heart yearned for something he could never articulate.

He stopped talking and smiled at his father. "Well, enough of my yammering. What about you? Shacking up with some woman, setting a bad example for your impressionable kid?"

Angel looked down at the table, laughing. "Yeah. Willow told Buffy that she'd modified the curse, and Buffy thought about it for a couple of days and decided there was nothing standing in our way. She kind of blindsided me, because I wouldn't have let her do it if I'd thought about it. I've been really happy. We're good for each other."

"So, she's the take-charge type?" Connor raised his eyebrows; she'd seemed so quiet and retiring tongith.

Angel nodded emphatically. "The one time she… hesitated to do her duty, Angelus made her regret it. Wait until you see her in battle."

"What, she's better than you?" He sounded skeptical; he'd never seen anyone outfight his father, had been bitter about that once.

"Yes. She had Angelus on the ropes." No need to go into more detail.

"She's…."

"Tiny?" Angel laughed again. "She's the Slayer, the general of an army of slayers. Size has nothing to do with it – look at Spike. He's better than I am."

"Spike?"

Angel smiled, remembering. "He is now, anyway. He showed promise early on, enough to keep me on my toes. When he came to Sunnydale and found out the Master, the head of our line, was dead – Buffy killed him, by the way – Spike set himself up as the new Master. We had a huge fight about a year ago, and when he won, Spike dredged that up again." Angel rolled his eyes. "I told him about you early this morning, and he–" The big vampire stood up, shaking his head, too full of emotion to stand still. "I guess he was impressed that I'd done that, given you up because it was best for you, so he…" How to describe it? "He raised me to the Head of our line, too. Equals." Angel sat down again. "It's been a big day for me. Good thing there's no clause. I'm not beholden to anybody in this world," he finally gave into his impulse and covered Connor's hand with his own for a moment, "and I got to see you."

"What does that mean," Connor asked, more curious than wary, "that you're head of a line of vampires?"

"Not much as far as number of vampires goes – unless Dru's sired someone and not dusted them, I think it's just the three of us – but just the mention of the Order of Aurelius is enough to make most demons hesitate. We're… notorious."

"Am I…?"

"No. Yes." When Connor gave him a cockeyed look, he shrugged and grinned. "Who knows? There's no precedent for you – there's no precedent for two vampires heading up an Order at the same time. You can be anything you want to be, son," he grew serious as he said the words, "and I know you'll be better than an Aurelian."

"But feel free to use the name and throw my weight around in the demon world, get in to all the trendy vampire clubs?" Angel chuckled, and Connor tilted his head. "I like you without the curse."

"Still cursed, thank goodness, but no happiness clause."

"You have a nice laugh."

Angel's eyes were shining. "Thanks."

"So, you're happy here in Cleveland?"

"Cleveland's okay. I asked Buffy this morning what she thought of going back to California after we're through with the battles."

"Back to California?"

"To be near you – if that's okay. Not too near, I mean, but… closer."

Connor firmed his mouth. "I understand you and Buffy had a fight because of me."

"Boy never could keep his mouth shut," Angel muttered.

"No," Connor said, puzzling over who 'boy' was since his father obviously meant someone besides him, "Dawn told me."

"Dawn…? Oh." Angel studied the floor. "Not over you, over the fact that I never told her about you." He looked back up, acceptance on his face. "Buffy's right; I should have told her. Won't be the first time I've had to atone for past sins."

"I don't want to cause problems, especially if you're happy."

"Not your fault," he said emphatically. "It's my own.

"Dawn said Buffy and Spike had a fight, too," he added, watching his father's face, curious to see how he really felt about another man's love for his woman, if things were playing out differently in Cleveland than they had in Los Angeles.

"They did?" Angel let his head fall back and sighed. "It's complicated, Connor. They are so good together, so close, that sometimes I think I should just step aside, except for the fact that I love her, too. The only thing you really need to know about Spike is that he's a man of honor. He loves Buffy the way you only read about in stories, in tragedies, I guess. But he never wanted anything he didn't earn, and he won't try to take her away – not that anyone can take Buffy, in any case.

"I'd given them my blessing –they didn't need it, but, you know, a nice thing to do – when Buffy came to me, chose me. If I had breath, that would take it away." His eyes, bright with that memory, dimmed. "The one time Spike and I, uh, talked about it, he bound me to an oath to take care of her and make her happy, that's all.

"I… She isn't the same person I fell in love with, in a lot of ways. When she died, Connor, before you were born," he took a breath, "she went to heaven. I may have the name, but she's the genuine article. And she remembers, son. She can't begin to describe it to us, but she remembers what it was like. In comparison, this," he spread his hands to encompass more than the room, "this world, this life… It's hard for her to be here."

"My God," Connor said, appalled.

"Buffy wasn't expelled from heaven," Angel said quickly, misinterpreting his son's exclamation. "It just happened that her best friend is Willow, who had the resources to find the right spell and the power to work it. Buffy gave her life closing a portal to a hellworld, and Willow thought she was stuck there."

"No wonder she's quiet," Connor said.

Angel nodded. "She was so bright and full of life, and so small and alone," he said, remembering. "Now, she's… Sometimes we brood together, me for what I've done, her for her loss. She's still the most incredible person I've ever met, in three centuries. Buffy's that special. When I was young, there was a saying about a person being too good for this world, and that's Buffy." He closed his eyes for a moment. "But this world needs her."

"There are a lot of slayers."

"Without her, there would be none, and we would be overrun with real vampires, not just us human hybrids. I think that's why the Powers That Be allowed Willow to bring her back, so she could fight the force that was trying to bring the pure vampires here, a force called the First Evil, Original Evil." Angel thought about mentioning his own encounter with the First, then thought better of it. Buffy had been in heaven, and he had been in hell. Putting it that bluntly almost made it worse. Instead, he looked down, made himself say it. "That's what was going on in Sunnydale when Jasmine was in Los Angeles."

Connor could hear the question in his father's careful words. "I never… felt very much for Jasmine, I suppose. I don't know if I felt very much of anything after… It wasn't Cordelia. Of all of it, I guess the thing that," he looked away, "shattered me was that what I thought was Cordy, wasn't. There was no love." He gave his father a bittersweet smile. "I wasn't equipped to know love then, but I understood betrayal. Jasmine was there and I didn't care, because Cordelia was the same as dead."

Angel nodded. "Even if Sahjhan hadn't cornered you at the sorcerer's house, even if you'd never known, I would be glad that I had done it. It's all I ever wanted, to give you a loving, happy childhood, let you grow into a good man. I couldn't do it, so…."

"I'm glad that you did it, too." He closed his eyes. "Fred and Wesley, though. I'm not sure the price wasn't too high."

"Connor, if you hadn't killed Jasmine, all of us would already be dead. They made their own decisions to go to Wolfram and Hart."

"Maybe it would have been better if I had died."

Angel's eyes flashed yellow for the briefest of moments. "If you had died, then my entire existence would have been pointless." Angel shifted his eyes to the window and slowly leaned back in his chair. "That may have been the most pompous thing I've ever said." He gave a self-mocking, inward-directed smile. "The boy's right; I am arrogant. What I mean is that I will never, ever be able to make up for the evil I inflicted as Angelus. It's important to me to do good, and you are the absolute best thing I can give to this world, Connor."

"Dad," he said, twisting his head, "that whole 'only begotten son' thing… I'm fairly bright and a helluva first baseman, but I don't think I can live up to those kinds of expectations."

Angel ignored the mock hubris and leaned forward again. "You've already exceeded expectations. You're the child of two vampires, and it doesn't even occur to you to do evil. You can be a warrior for the good anywhere, in any arena, Connor. I appreciate you coming here, but you don't have to fight in the battle. Gunn's fighting the good fight using the law; you're majoring in criminal justice."

"Oh, I'm going to fight," the younger man said, grinning. "Just try to stop me." When Angel chuckled, pride lighting his eyes, Connor figured there would never be a better time. "Dad? Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"What?" He concealed the dread in his voice, thinking it would be a question about Angelus.

"Did you love Cordelia? I mean, like, wish you had her in your life the way Buffy is… instead of Buffy?"

For the second time that night, the mention of her name brought tears to his eyes. Angel covered his eyes with one big hand for a few seconds before answering. "I've been around for so long, Connor. You see people come and go, even supernatural beings… everything ends. But when something doesn't even begin… You see a door standing open, and it leads to such a bright place, but you never go through it…" He shook his head, making a face. "I'm not saying this very well. I was afraid, because of the curse, and I never made a move toward her, never told her what I was beginning to feel for her. We reached out to each other, but we never touched. That's the thing I regret most. Having a soul doesn't mean you know your own heart, I've found."

"What about my mother?"

Angel looked up at the quiet question, staring at the young man who looked so much like Darla. "As Angelus, I never loved her, and she never loved me." He frowned, concentrating hard on the memories. "We very much loved ourselves and how the other… intensified our own sense of who we were." Angel sighed. "We were merciless killers, son. But when Wolfram and Hart brought her back as a human, I loved her. If I possibly could have saved her, I would have. And she chose mortality over evil, wouldn't have chosen to become a vampire again, in the end.

"A shaman… well, he really wasn't – that's not the point," he said impatiently, interrupting himself. "A shaman pointed out to me that Darla was the love of my life, that no one else had ever meant as much to me. I think that's true for her, too, until you. And never doubt that she loved you, Connor. To do what she did, to sacrifice herself as nothing more than a vampire in order to save your life… She loved you as much as I do."

Connor thought of sharing his vision – visitation? – of his mother, but decided to keep that just for himself. "We've never talked like this."

"No." A helpless smile took Angel's face. "It's grand, isn't it?"

The young man laughed a little at the slight Irish brogue; their topics had all been grim, but his father was right. "It's grand," he agreed.

⸹

"You think Angel will swing by?" Gunn asked, pressing the button for the elevator.

"Not tonight, Charlie." Spike tucked his hands in the pockets of his coat and looked away.

"Trying to make things right with Buffy?"

"Something like that."

"Man, I'm full. Hotel restaurants aren't usually that good."

"'S'the best restaurant in Cleveland. Restaurants in hotels are either dull or brilliant; there doesn't seem to be much in between."

"You're the only vampire who'd know."

Spike checked around automatically for anyone who might overhear, but Gunn was too savvy to make a blunder like that. "So, what are your plans for Christmas?"

"I'm going to see what happens when you put a brother on skis," he replied, trepidation in his voice. "Kevin invited me and Gwen to Vermont." He shrugged. "I intended to go back to South Central during the break, look up some friends, but…" Gunn bit his lip. He still intended to go back to Los Angeles after he took the bar exam, but things in Falls Church, he was finding, were very comfortable.

"There's your elevator," Spike said, nodding, and one of the doors opened a couple of seconds later. "See you tomorrow at the gym?"

"Sure. See you then." Gunn waved goodbye. He had been on the verge of inviting Spike up for a while, but the blond man had fought with Buffy, too, and vampires were a broody bunch. He watched the retreating leather-clad figure until the doors closed and let out a sigh. This was the first time he'd felt lonely in Cleveland, with the remnants of the old crew. South Central wasn't the only place he didn't feel he fit in anymore.

⸹

"Gunn always gets an axe," Dawn said, opening first one, then several other cabinets in the armory, displays of swords and axes and knives to make any warrior salivate.

"He always picks an axe?" When she only looked at him blankly, Connor added, "Pick axe…?" His voice trailed off.

She raised an eyebrow at the wordplay, then sized Connor up critically, asking, "What do you want?"

"A sword."

"Good. That's what I would have suggested. You have much experience with a sword?" She stepped out of his way.

He gave her a look over his shoulder. "I've been using a sword since I was little."

Dawn was unimpressed. "Take your pick, then."

Connor had noticed that she was much more businesslike this morning, all her duties as a Watcher keeping her focus away from him. "What weapon do you prefer?" he asked, just so she'd stay with him another few seconds.

"A stake."

"Really? But you're not a slayer," he blurted.

"Sunnydale?" Dawn heard the sarcasm in her voice and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. No, I'm not a slayer, but I staked my first vampire when I was fifteen. It's not so much strength as it is technique."

"Won't there be more than vampires tonight?" She nodded, but before she could answer, Spike appeared out of nowhere.

"Which is why she always carries a dagger as well." He slung his arm over her shoulder. Connor looked away from the sight. One of the slayers had suggested that she would be able to warm up much better if Spike took off his shirt while they sparred. He had done so, with a quick, 'But will you be able to practice better?' Connor found that the sight of the incredibly toned pale torso against Dawn made his teeth clench.

"Eleventh century," she intoned, bored, "from some Crusade, used to kill hundreds of infidels, or was it Christians?"

"Keep it up, and I'll take it back, leave you with a kitchen knife or somesuch."

"As if."

"I like that knife. Got something better for you, though." He had an absolutely wicked smile on his face.

"What?" she asked warily.

Spike left her and brushed past Connor to rummage in the bottom of the sword cabinet. "Here you go," he told her, "a patented Initiative cattle-prod-for-demons. Nicked a few last battle. Felt bereft without one since my crypt burned."

Her eyes sparkled with matching malice. "Excellent!"

Spike turned to Connor. "Not your run-of-the-Stanley Milgram kind of electroshock. This one takes down demons – 's'how they got me. Even put Buffy down for a good twenty minutes."

"It doesn't kill them," Connor pointed out, trying to be polite.

"Nope, but it'll bloody well take the fight out of them long enough to kill 'em at one's leisure." He nodded toward the sword display. "Used that _espada_ on the left to defeat and humiliate your father; you might want it for a good luck charm."

"Took him two hours of whacking at empty air to get in a lucky hit," Angel said dryly. He had also popped up with supernatural abruptness.

Spike just grinned, having made the comment for his grandsire's benefit, then nodded at the younger man. "I'd pick the bast – er, hand-and-a-half sword, myself."

"Hand-and-a-half… Spike, I love you, but you're a prude." Dawn shook her head; as if naming a bastard sword in front of her would sully her pure mind.

"But you do love me."

"Most of the time."

"Prude." He considered the word. "Believe I prefer, what was it you once called me? A vampire sex god?"

"Dawn, please," Angel said, exasperated, "don't encourage him."

"I only said that because your massive ego might have deflated a bit while you were off being selfishly dead." Spike simply smiled at her and leaned in to kiss her nose. Then he was gone, too stoked on the energy to stay in one place for long.

"Off being dead?" Connor asked. "Isn't he sort of always dead?"

"Spike sacrificed himself to save the world," Dawn said flatly, "then he came back." She gave Angel a cool look. "You can ask your father about that."

They watched her walk off. At his son's raised eyebrows, Angel looked pained and shook his head. "Long story. I'll tell you some other time."

"Dawn doesn't like you very much," Connor said.

"She doesn't have much reason to." Angel slammed the door on that topic with an emphatic, "Let's spar. I'll get a sword, too."

All the warriors in the gym were loose, casual conversation mixing with the clang of crossed swords and the zip of bolts from crossbow practice. Connor kept his eye on Spike, who never stopped moving from one sparring partner to another, trying to determine for himself if he was better than Angel. He forgot to watch for his father while the blond vampire was working with Dawn, though, captivated by the way she moved just like Spike and how the overall effect was much prettier, and had his weapon taken from him. "Sorry," he said, hastily looking away from Angel's suspicious examination.

"Connor," he began, his words slow, "do you–"

Fortunately for Connor, he was interrupted by a very loud, alarmed "Spike!" from the front of the building. The folks in the training room broke into a run to find Geneva standing over a prone man, his immense arm twisted at a painful-looking angle by both her hands. "Look what I found skulking around," she said with great satisfaction.

"Very good, pet," Spike said. "You've found Manny Rojas, one of our volunteers. Let him up." He held out a hand and pulled the stunned human easily from the floor. "Teach you to be on time," he said, grinning. "Have trouble finding the place?"

Rubbing his arm, Manny ignored Spike to stare down at Geneva in awe. "Who are you?"

"Geneva." The answer was grudging.

"You put me on the floor."

She gave him a look that plainly said she'd be happy to do it again, but a glance at Spike's expectant face made her mumble. "Sorry about that. We've had trouble here before."

"No, pet," Spike said, "you were right to be careful. No harm done." His head swiveled back to Rojas. "No harm, right?"

"No harm that can't be smoothed over by buying me a drink after this," the big man said, still gazing at Geneva with admiration. A diffident look stole over his face. "How old – please tell me that you're over eighteen?"

"I just turned eighteen."

Manny looked up at the ceiling and said a devout, "Thank you." Miko and Dawn exchanged amused glances, and Geneva's expression was stuck somewhere between embarrassed, surprised, and flattered.

"Everything all right?" Giles asked, coming through the door, Buffy right behind him.

"Yeah," Spike replied. "Not everyone's met. Alpana, you want to start the introductions?" Vishnaswamy, looking odd in jeans and sweatshirt instead of a sari, gave her name and credentials, and the round of introductions ended with Spike. "And I'm Spike, gladly handing things over to our fearless leader."

Giles opened his mouth, but Buffy took a step forward. "Good to see everyone. We usually have more people, but this battle will be in a large, open space, a warehouse, good sightlines, so we'll be fine. Willow, who isn't here yet, will handle the outside once most of the demons are inside. Our goal is to get rid of every last one of them, so they don't leave the battle and get loose in Cleveland. The Watchers will be up high with crossbows; the rest of us will be in teams on the ground. Oh. Giles, Faith called. She and Robin are in Beverly Hills, so they won't be here. Except for Wil, this is it.

"Spike and I will take point. If something gets past us, we know one of you will take care of it. Questions?"

There were none, but Manny looked much less confident than he had a couple of minutes before. Spike took a step closer. "You've got your choice of weapons, and the best way to kill anything that isn't a vampire is to behead it or take it through the eyes. If it's really exotic, me an' the Slayer will take care of it." He peeled off and put an arm around Geneva's waist. "Think you should take him under your wing, love, since you nearly broke his off." In a lower voice, he added, "He's okay."

"He's an ass," she hissed back.

"Nah. We confident guys get that a lot. Trust me, if you manhandle a guy and he thinks it's great, he's a keeper." Might as well try to get one slayer to see things his way.

⸹

The official Council report on the seventh battle stated that the number of demons killed was smaller than in previous battles because it was so close on the heels of another. To the combatants on the floor and to the Watchers above, since their numbers were fewer, things didn't seem so easy. For Manny, who had never killed anything bigger than a spider, his maiden battle was both horrific and life-affirming. When he didn't throw up after beheading a reptilian thing with four arms, Geneva gave him a quick smile that got him upright and crashing into the next vampire with his short sword at the ready.

Connor, veteran of many conflicts, had the strange sense of being home as he fought between his father and Gunn. He remembered Gunn's efficient style, his long reach and canny sense of where to be next. And of course he knew his father's fluid moves, so graceful for a big guy, the way he used his powerful body to mow down opponents. Connor had studied it for weaknesses in the past and never found any that could be exploited.

The demons came in waves, so he was able, as Buffy had predicted, to take advantage of the sightlines to watch the rest of the battle. Connor knew the exact moment Dawn shot her last bolt, dropped her crossbow, and used a rope to rappel down to the main floor to join Miko's team. The small slayer was quicker than Dawn, but the Summers girl was cleaner, with Spike's moves and thinking drummed into her. Connor didn't feel anxious that she was fighting, not the way he'd always felt nervous about Cordelia and Fred being in a battle. The only other Watcher on the ground with them was the Head of the Council, and Giles was lethal with his sword, taking a position behind and to the left of the general and her second-in-command.

These were the two that Connor found his gaze coming back to, time and again. He finally believed his father's easy admission that Buffy and Spike were better than him. Connor had never seen anyone as good as Buffy, and he knew that skill came from innumerable other fights. The rise and fall of her stake was precise as a blueprint, the thrust of her short blade was clinical and clean; the odd hybrid axe she wielded must have been custom-made for her. Buffy had fought everything; she knew the moves her opponent would make and had already thought ahead to the deaths of the next four in line.

If Buffy made battle an exact science, Spike elevated it to an art form. Connor got the sense that he had so many possible moves that even he wasn't sure what he was going to do until his body did it, unerringly choosing the right parry, the effortless dodge. He had an eye for battle, the unthinking use of his own strength and skill, but it was his balance on the knife edge between control and chaos that took him to the next level.

Connor's sister took gymnastics, and he had suffered through many meets and watched countless matches on television. He had seen gymnasts who were technically perfect and boring; he had seen gymnasts with fire who gave a routine their all and fell short of perfection. It was possible that Buffy's economical motions would be dull if Spike wasn't to her left, pulling stray demons out of her orbit; Spike's brilliant moves might seem random if Buffy wasn't there with her smooth calm to counterbalance them. They knew exactly where the other was at every second, knew exactly what the other's capability was. If they had practiced with the demons they were killing, the two of them could not be more deadly, more precise, more flowing.

Most impressive to Connor was the fact that their dance wasn't exclusive. They were aware of the other conflicts in the large building, calling out warnings, occasionally darting away to lend a hand. He watched Spike drop back to help Angel take on three particularly nasty lumpkins (it wasn't the putty-skinned demons' technical name, but that's what Holtz had always called them in Quor'Toth), and he got a sense of how long the two warriors had fought together, how close the pull of the ancestral demon blood made them. They moved together seamlessly, swords lancing into where the creatures' vital organs were concealed deep inside their earthen bodies. That camraderie paled into awkwardness as Spike rejoined Buffy, circling back-to-back without a word to take down a semi-coordinated rush, Spike darting out of the way as Buffy drove her Scythe backward into the remaining vampire, the blond man casually flicking out with his own blade to slice off its head.

Then there were too many demons streaming in for even Buffy and Spike to hold, and Connor had all that he could handle. He finally realized that the number of bodies piling up on the floor remained manageable because Willow, on one of the high platforms the Watchers had built, was periodically disposing of them with a gesture of power. After a long, intense period of fighting, in his peripheral vision he saw Spike's blond head nod, his glowing blue eyes – were they supposed to do that? – flash toward Willow's position.

"Right, people," he bellowed, "Red's closing it up!"

The slayers redoubled their efforts, moving their teams forward to join the general, and the amount of carnage was hard for Connor to believe. Then they were down to twenty demons, and when he had killed another one himself, there were only four. Connor smiled up at his father, who looked around quickly, his nostrils flaring, before returning the smile as the last enemy went down beneath Giles' blade.

"No one was so much as scratched," Angel informed him.

The big vampire would know if human blood scented the air. Once, Connor would have flung that fact at him, meaning to hurt Angel by pointing out that he would always be a demon, always be evil. He felt a tiny pang over those times, then let it go. "Are we not awesome?" he asked. Angel didn't answer the rhetorical question, his eyes on his other two favorite blonds, who were walking away, obviously prowling for something. "Where are they going?"

"They're looking for the source of the energy that attracts the demons," his father replied absently. "Buffy had a Slayer dream about it, and Spike heard something a few battles ago. Then they found a hallway that wasn't supposed to be there. That's as close as we've gotten."

"What are you going to do when you find it?"

Angel shook his head wearily. "What we always do. Destroy it if we can; contain it if we can't." He visibly forced himself into a more cheerful mood. "Come on. Giles always gets pizza afterwards. You'd better put in your order if you still like anchovies. Everyone else has better taste."

⸹

The after-battle party at the armory was a more subdued affair than usual, Dawn told Connor. "The slayers get so pumped, it takes them a couple of days to settle down." She bit into her slice of pizza and closed her eyes. Without bothering to do much more than chew the food into submission, she added around the mouthful, "Thish is great. I 'aven't 'ad anchoviesh in a long time."

He watched her with a stupid grin on his face, utterly charmed by how real she was. "Most people think I'm weird, liking anchovies."

Dawn made a manful swallow. "Oh, I love weird food." She flapped a hand in the air dismissively. "Everyone else is just unimaginative."

"What's your favorite weird food?"

"I'll take anything on a peanut butter base – pepperonis, orange slices, canned peaches."

He mock-shuddered. "Are you sure you're human?"

Dawn stopped chewing and gave him a long look that seemed to touch him all the way down to his soul. "I'm as human as you are," she finally replied.

"Dawn," he said, liking very much how her name formed in his mouth, "I don't know how human I am."

"Exactly." Then she looked down at the rest of the slice of pizza. "For a long time I didn't try anchovies because I thought they would look like sardines, you know, where you can tell that they're fish. But chopped up like this, they might as well be salty little pieces of mushroom. So, that kind of makes anchovies sort of, you know, fishy. Maybe they're just camouflaged mushrooms."

He gave her a puzzled look, wondering what she had meant by 'exactly,' but now that the battle was over, she was focusing on him again. Anything else, he thought, staring into her blue eyes a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, was gravy.

⸹

"I think he likes her," Angel fretted.

Buffy looked up from where she had been toying with a second piece of pizza, hearing the worry in his voice, and followed his gaze. It was, inevitably, on Connor. "Who? Dawn?" She watched them for a moment, too, saw how they smiled at each other. Her own expression was neutral. Once, Buffy had been at the absolute center of Hemery High School society, and she still could tell at a glance when a boy was interested in a girl. Rusty though those social skills were, she could tell Connor was falling for her sister, who, typically, seemed more or less clueless. "I'm sure it's just that they're both about the same age, have things in common," she told Angel.

"You think so?"

The Slayer nodded, but didn't say anything. She took a nibble from the edge of the pizza, biting off part of a green pepper so she'd have an excuse not to talk. While they were in Illinois, she'd warn Dawn away. Connor might not be anything like his father… but Angel was still his father.

"Buffy?" Angel waited until she looked up at him, her eyes dull. He hesitated. The source of the energy had not been found, and they had fought two battles in a week on a scale that they would never have dreamed of in the good old days in Sunnydale. Yet something else weighed on his mind more. "Are we okay?"

She put down the pizza and looked at her hands. "We are so far from okay, Angel, that I don't know how to get back."

He frowned. "I love you. Let that light your path back."

Looking up at him, she kept her face expressionless. He thought it was her problem, that once she accepted Connor's existence, things would be all right. Buffy closed her eyes. "I love you, too, Angel. I always will." He took her in an embrace, and she put her arms around him, holding him close. Even as she did, she could feel him yearning to be away from her, to join his son. "We'll talk when I get back." She pulled free and glanced at his watch, turning his wrist. "I guess we'd better go if we want to catch our flight." Dawn had rescheduled them for the last plane leaving for Chicago that night, and Buffy had persuaded Giles to drive them to the airport.

Gazing down at her, Angel smiled and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and gave her a light kiss. "Be careful out there."

She forced a smile. "Be careful here."

On the other side of the room, in a crowd of people, Spike closed his eyes against the sight of his grandsire and his Slayer making up. The realization that had been growing for the past month couldn't be ignored any longer.

She wasn't coming back to him.

He wanted to grab Dawn and head to the apartment, curl around her, just drift in sorrow for the rest of his grotty existence. Instead, he put something on his face that resembled a smile. "So, Manny, you want Gen to buy you a drink, now she's made you her bitch? 'S'alright by me, but Charlie and I have to go along as chaperones."

⸹

Spike thumbed the off button on the television remote and sat on the couch, listening to the silence in the apartment. He used his demon-enhanced hearing for the rest of the building. Mrs. Hanley and Mrs. Petrowsky had been picked up by grandkids and taken to other places for Christmas celebrations; several relatives had descended on Mrs. Jackson on the first floor yesterday, but they had left. His tired landlady was snoring contentedly three floors below.

Since it was Christmas Day, Dawn had called, so chipper and sweet that he had put on a good front, easy to do since she wasn't able to see his face. She had insisted that Buffy get on the line and wish him a happy Christmas, too, and the Slayer hadn't been as successful at hiding her feelings. Spike thought she sounded tired and sad, and he warned Dawn to keep an eye on her.

All day long he got calls and messages from his slayers. Tribby simply sent a text message that read ' _Danistayohihv_ ,' which he took to be Cherokee for 'Merry Christmas.' Maria called because, she noted, she knew he'd be alone. Even Ute, gone some months now, emailed an animated greeting card from Germany with an incredibly annoying trio of singing trees slaughtering 'O Tannenbaum.'

He had Christmas dinner with Giles and Alpana. Where he and Rupert were still influenced by their Christian upbringing, the female Watcher was cheerfully agnostic, so while Spike had a collegial time, nothing in their dinner conversation had touched him on a deeper level. Last Christmas, he thought, had been better.

Movement always soothed his demon, but while it was Saturday night, it was also Christmas. Bars and nightclubs would be closed; everyone would be sticking close to home and loved ones. Demons knew that, too, so patrol would be pointless. He was stuck by himself for the night. The thought made him feel lonesome and maudlin.

When the knock came at the door, his hand was off the remote and on the _tantō_ under the couch in less than a second. Then he relaxed. Even if he didn't feel Angel's presence now, there was only one being who could sneak up on him and then be snide enough to knock.

"Peaches," he said, opening the door.

Looking extremely pleased with himself, Angel grinned and held out a bottle of Jameson. "Merry Christmas."

"Come on in," he replied, out of politeness rather than necessity. "What brings you out to this neck of the woods?"

Angel stepped inside and looked around. Not much had changed since he'd first been in the apartment, except for the famed couch. His eyes settled on Spike, who was in his habitual black, feet bare, his boots on the floor by the door. "You. Supposed to spend Christmas with family." The boy looked swiftly away, telling Angel all he needed to know. He'd been right to stop by, and the worry over whether he'd be welcome now seemed silly.

"I'll get a couple of glasses."

While the other man went to the kitchen, Angel settled himself gingerly on the sofa, sinking into the buttery leather and feeling muscles relax that had been knotted for two hundred years, apparently. He let out a moan of pleasure mixed with disbelief.

"I usually hear that sound when I'm much closer," Spike teased, coming back with two mismatched glasses.

"Is this," he shifted a tiny amount, "an enchanted couch?"

Spike gave him a withering look, setting the glasses on the coffee table and taking the whiskey from his grandsire. "Yeah," he said sarcastically, "to go with the bewitched bed and the charmed comfy chair."

Having much experience at it, Angel ignored him. "Where did you get it?"

"Furniture store off Euclid. Dawn and I made the mistake of sitting on it, then we had no choice but to shell out massive amounts of cash to bring it home."

"It was worth it," Angel said. "I don't think I can get up," he added softly.

"That happens sometimes with geezers old as you." He raised a brow, his expression serious. "They've got that Viagra drug now, but I've heard unsettling stories 'bout what happens when a vampire takes it."

The dark-haired man gave him a jaundiced look. "Pour the whiskey."

Spike did so, asking as he handed a very full glass across the short distance between them, "Brat get off to California all right?"

"Yeah. I miss him already."

"He's a good kid."

"Yes," Angel smiled, "he is." He looked around, at the forlorn Christmas tree, all the presents that were once beneath it now gone. "So, you go to Philadelphia on the twenty-ninth?" When Spike nodded, he looked down. "I haven't been to a wedding for… years."

Spike's jaw tightened as bad memories came to mind. "Wouldn't invite you to Rona's, even if I could."

"No." He stared into the dark liquid for a moment. "I'm not the world's best wedding guest."

"'S'weird," Spike said, considering his own glass. "'S'like I'm standing at the top of a hill, and I see this one pebble beginning to roll down, and I know there'll be a landslide, an avalanche soon." When Angel looked at him, he shrugged. "Change, right? Ro's the first, but the humans we know are all young, 'bout at the point of marrying and making babies. 'S'all gonna change, except for us."

Angel leaned over to grab the bottle and top off Spike's drink. There was no other response he could make. "So, is she forcing you to wear a tuxedo?"

"Yeah, hangin' in my closet even as we speak."

"Show me."

"What is it, mate?"

"What is what?"

"In the history of the world, no man has ever asked another if he could see his tuxedo."

Angel batted his lashes. "No straight man." When Spike rolled his eyes, he shrugged. "Just want to see the apartment now that you and Dawn have moved in."

"Means you'll have to get your arse off my enchanted couch."

The big vampire sighed as he stood up. "Life is not fair." He followed Spike down the hallway, peeking in Dawn's room, formerly the studio, then in the slayer's room. They ended up in Spike's room, standing in front of the closet. "Nice tux."

"Yeah."

Angel processed the scent of the room, finding only Spike and Dawn had been inside, and, fleetingly, Buffy. Very faintly, he detected another human. "Ute's old room." He could smile now at the memory of not sleeping with a slayer.

"Yeah." Spike closed the closet door.

"New bed. Is it as comfortable as the sofa?"

"Nothing's that comfortable. Spend more time in the living room than I do in here."

"Maybe it would be different if it was a family bed." Under Spike's steady regard, he shrugged. "We're both on our own until the new year. I'd like to get a good day's rest for once."

The blond man turned away. "Just makes it harder to sleep afterwards."

"I know," Angel agreed. "That's what it was like after you stayed the one night at Wolfram and Hart." He gave the other man an understated smile. "But it was worth it."

"Yeah," Spike said. The corners of his own mouth lifted. "It was."

⸹

Lina retied the scarf around her head, anchoring it with her sunglasses. She felt exactly like a movie star, dressed like this for a convertible ride on Christmas Day in incredibly warm southern California. Glancing over at Xander, she could see him relaxing in stages as they got further away from Elmwood and his family. She waited until he felt her looking and turned to him, so he would see her smiling just for him.

How in the world did someone as sweet and dependable as Xander emerge from a family like that? His mother had cowered in the background the whole four hours they were in Elmwood, darting out to make friendly forays to talk to the woman her son had brought home to meet the family. Then a cutting remark from her husband would send her scurrying back to the kitchen, back to her constantly refilled drink. Xander's favorite relative, Uncle Rory, was amiable enough but openly drank like a fish. His drunken father had spent a solid hour criticizing Xander and his last girlfriend, taking the memory of someone his son had loved very deeply and turning her into a freak from a long line of freaks. Then he made a pass at Lina. She shook her head.

Xander caught the motion from the corner of his eye. "We survived," he reassured her, leaning across the console to pat her knee.

"How did you survive?" she asked bluntly.

He looked out the windshield for a moment, his mouth tightening. When he turned back, he gave her a genuine smile and a simple answer. "My friends."

⸹

"Liam?"

"Mmm?" He let his head fall to the side to look blurrily at Spike's face on the other pillow. It was two days after Christmas, and the bottle of Jameson he had brought was long gone. Spike had made a run to the liquor store and returned with several bottles of bourbon and even one of rye. Angel hadn't been this tight in a century.

"Reckon it's possible to circumsize a vampire?"

"What?" His voice was much more lucid.

Spike lifted a shoulder, still staring up at the ceiling above his bed, a slight frown marring his forehead. "Just curious. I mean, in the old days, we would have tried it on a minion to see. What do you think?"

Angel opened his mouth to explain in great detail why Spike was one sick puppy, then he just shook his head. "No. It'd be painful as hell, but the foreskin would regenerate."

"'S'what I think, too," Spike agreed companionably, the frown disappearing. "Like old what's-his-name, that vampire from the Scottish clan that had part of his lip cut off in a fight. He was fine the next time I saw him."

"McMeans." He was staring at the ceiling again.

"Yeah, that's him."

"What on earth made you think of that? The circumcision, I mean?" Angel asked curiously.

Spike lifted his head and turned to face him. "D'you know we're unfashionable these days? Leastways in western countries. Well, not in the skin mags, but on the dating scene. Was talking to Xander couple weeks ago about the mother of one of his slayers in Africa who died of AIDS. The public health boffins are trying to get men in Africa to consider circumcision, think it'll help cut down on het HIV transmission."

"Adult men?" Angel asked, feeling queasy.

"Yeah."

"You're not considering it, are you? To be in fashion?" He turned to glance at the bright blond hair. "I mean, you've changed your look before."

"Uh," Spike said precisely, "no." He studiously didn't roll his eyes.

"Oh. Good to know you're not that crazy."

⸹

From onstage, Oz oriented his guitar toward her and met her eyes for a moment. Willow raised her bottle in return, smiling at him. They had seen his family over Christmas, who, if not as laid back as Oz, were still much more relaxed than her overachieving parents. She had been surprised and pleased that Oz wanted her to go to San Diego, where all his family had relocated. The only person she hadn't seen was his sister, who was working in the Peace Corps. His nephew Jordy was ten now, as hard as that was to believe, and Oz always made a point of talking to the boy who'd inadvertently made him a werewolf, to give him advice.

They had traveled up the coast to Los Angeles to see Devon, who – predictably – just happened to need a guitarist for a gig he was playing on New Year's Eve, which is how Willow came to be sitting in a bar on the last day of the year. It had been a while since she'd seen Oz play, though, and she was enjoying it. He'd come a long way, though he told her with a twinkle in his eye that he still hadn't mastered a diminishing ninth.

"Hey, great band, huh?"

"What?" She nearly spilled beer from her bottle, surprised. Turning to see who it was she hadn't seen approach, she found a clean-cut young man leaning against the tall table. "Oh. Great," she agreed, nodding vigorously. Get a grip, Wil, she told herself. Socially confident now.

"You aren't here without your boyfriend, are you?" he asked, in a tone that suggested there was no way a girl as pretty as she was could be by herself.

She leaned toward him and smiled. "Don't assume I'm straight."

"Oh." The way his face fell was almost comical. Then he rallied. "How come all the good ones are gay?"

It was enough to make her laugh. "Actually, right now I'm the guitarist's girlfriend." She held out her hand. "Willow."

"Matthew." He shook her hand, then looked onstage. "He's not their usual guitarist, is he?"

"No. Oz used to be in a band with the lead singer, Devon, back in Sunnydale."

"Sunnydale?" Matthew asked sharply, looking up at Devon and Oz again. "Uh, you sure you want to date someone from Sunnydale?"

Her eyebrows rose. "Why not?"

"Well," he said slowly, "I heard that what caused the crater was that the government stored nuclear wastes in these caverns beneath the town, and they leaked radiation for years and years before exploding."

Willow grinned at the rumor. "Is that what they're saying?" She shook her head. "No, there was a honeycomb of caverns beneath the town, but it was an, uh, earthquake that was just too much for the ground to support. You can trust me on this; I grew up there."

"Oh. Well, uh, happy new year." And with that, Matthew walked away.

She had to laugh, just a little. She'd overcome social awkwardness and insecurity, only to drive away interested parties because her hometown happened to be on a Hellmouth.

⸹

"Who gives this woman in holy matrimony?"

"I do." Spike sat down, relieved his role was over. He and Rona had walked the aisle with no major disasters, and she looked absolutely stunning in her elegant white dress. He had given Rondell a stern look and an emphatic, low-pitched, " _Never_ hurt her," as he joined their hands. The service was solemn, sweet, and longer than he remembered weddings being. His demon, unnerved at being on holy ground, amused itself by imagining Buffy in a white dress with a long train, but his common sense punctured the fantasy by stuffing Angel into a tuxedo next to her at the altar.

He couldn't work up much resentment toward his grandsire, not with Buffy hundreds of miles away and the bone-deep peace of a family bed so fresh in his memory. Angel had stayed until he left for Philadelphia, waving at him one final time as the Camry pulled away in the opposite direction. Spike hadn't been as well-rested in years, not since before the mob had taken Drusilla in Prague. He and Angel had slept during the days, patrolled at night, and even talked a little – not about anything painful, just the normal, day-to-day things. Spike knew his bed would always feel empty without a family member now, and he pressed his lips together, wondering if he should concoct a story for Dawn or just ask her to move into his room.

Angel had confided that he thought Connor was interested in Dawn, and while Spike hadn't noticed anything, he was glad to have advance notice. He thought up myriad reasons why she shouldn't return Connor's interest: he was Darla's get, she was on the rebound from that wanker Mitch, long-distance relationships rarely worked, he was Angel's get, she would be taller than him when she wore heels. But Spike found he was comfortable with the idea. He liked the lad. Not that he was good enough for Dawn, but who could be?

Then he stood up, half a beat behind the rest of the congregation, to greet the newly married couple. Rona, grinning hugely and clutching Rondell's hand, turned and began making her way down the aisle. She met Spike's proud gaze and winked, but he felt a pang of loss to see the private smile she shared with her husband. The slayer was a different person now, would be moving away from him, have less time in her life for him. As was proper.

Spike had flatly refused to be part of a receiving line, pointing out that his cool handshake might be off-putting. He did go through the line, though, claiming a kiss from the bride, giving Rondell another stern look before almost literally crushing him in a hug. "Welcome to the family," he murmured, shading the phrase with a Sopranos meaning and a menacing smile. The more wary of him Rondell was, the better he liked it.

Vi came up to him, looking very pretty in her dark green bridesmaid's dress, with an anxious expression. "Was I supposed to be in the line?"

Sliding an arm about her waist, he shrugged. "Pro'ly. Too late now, yeah? C'mon, pet, let's find a table." The reception hall was set up more for a party, and he remembered that the groom's brother already had it booked for a New Year's Eve blowout. "How were your holidays?"

Sitting down in a pouf of skirts, Vi raised her eyebrows. "Good, which is kind of surprising. My father approved of Joel, but it wouldn't have mattered if he didn't. And Joel wasn't too scared of my half-brothers and -sister, so that bodes well." At his curious look, Vi sighed. "Baby hunger."

"Now I'm surprised."

She flapped a hand. "Just hormones. Be glad you're a man."

He leaned in. "Being around you? Very glad I'm a man."

Vi colored a little, looked away, then grinned and met his eyes again. "You silver-tongued devil, you."

"Not the first time I've been called that." Tongue against teeth.

"Shut up, Spike," she warned, growing redder. "So, total change of subject, how was your Christmas?"

"Spent 'em with Angel, if that answers your question."

"Buffy and Dawn went to see their aunt, right?" When he nodded, Vi leaned her head to the side. "Angel didn't go meet the family?"

"He doesn't have a great history with families."

She nodded, then leaned over and covered his clasped hands. "Hang in there, Spike. Sometimes 'wanting is not the same as having.'"

He didn't recognize the quote. "What's that from? Spent too much time with Xander; I only recognize quotes from action movies now."

"Guy Gavriel Kay, a series of books called the Fionovar Tapestry, sort of the Arthurian legend by way of Tolkien. One of the characters had the answers to all the riddles, except for one. He sought that final answer for a long time. Just before he finally got it, one of those capricious god figures–"

"I know the type."

"–teased him about life not being worth it once he had nothing left to quest after."

There was a pause. "Well?" Spike asked.

"Oh. It, um, made him happy, but he was wise enough to know it could have gone the other way."

Would have been the Taliesin or Merlin character, then. "Huh. Like, you might just get what you wished for." Spike looked down; he knew he wasn't wise. "Sorry, pet. Doesn't work. I've had as well as wanted, and having is better."

Startled, she shook her head. "Oh! No, I meant Buffy. Wanting Angel, her first love, all that."

"Not a patient man, pet." He nodded at the banner hanging nearby, congratulating Rona and Rondell. "Would rather have beaten all of you to the altar." Spike compressed his mouth and turned the topic back to her. "So, this make you want to go the nuptial route?"

Shyly, she held out her left hand. Adorning it was a diamond engagement ring. "Don't say anything. I don't want to take the focus away from Rona for even a second. Today is her day."

He leaned over and gave her a hug. "Congratulations. Not surprised, but I'm very happy for you, love."

"Tomorrow we're going down to Cincinnati to meet Joel's parents and break the news. I understand they'd given up on him ever getting married again." At his raised eyebrow, she wrinkled her nose. "Bad divorce."

"Kids?"

"No, thank goodness. If he had kids, they'd be as old as me, and wouldn't that be fun?

"What's fun?" Joel Muse asked, taking a bare second to include Spike with his nod before putting all of his attention on the redhead.

"If you had kids," she said, lifting her face to him, taking a kiss as her due. "With my halfsies, I feel like I've already been a stepmom."

Spike, surprised by the easy honesty, watched their faces. He didn't see his own reflection on any kind of regular basis, but he imagined the smitten look on the good lieutenant's face was pretty much what he looked like when Buffy was giving him reason to hope. Life is good, he thought, seeing another pebble start down the slope. Unlife, though… "Excuse me, Vi, Lieutenant," he said with a politeness drilled into him decades ago, "I must speak with Giles."

Just as he got to Rupert, who was looking lost after going through the receiving line, the DJ for the party started up a Nelly tune. "Do you suppose Philadelphia has demons we ought to go kill?" Giles shouted over the noise.

"Dunno, but I'd wager there's a few pints we could kill."

"Capital idea."

Philadelphia, a fine old town with fine old taverns, provided a suitably dark, pub-like establishment not too far from the hall. Giles took a drink of stout, closed his eyes blissfully, and said without opening them, "I suppose we must get back to the reception before midnight?"

"Otherwise, my ladies will have no one to kiss."

"They're slayers," Giles said, glaring at him. "They'll improvise."

"Yeah, well, I don't fancy the idea of making do with what's on hand," Spike pointed out. "Namely, you."

"Oh. That would never do, would it?" Giles stretched. "Well, three hours until then. Aren't you uncomfortable, dressed as a penguin?"

"Yes." He added a glare to the short answer. Two quiet drinks later, Spike was frowning. "Giles, something's on your mind. Another prophecy? What are we in for?"

"What?" Giles put down his glass. "No, no, er, prophecy." He sighed. "Can I count on your discre – No, never mind, of course I can. Please don't tell anyone, but I fear I've made rather a fool of myself."

A slow smile spread over his face. "Do tell."

"You don't have to sound so ridiculously pleased."

"As often as I've made a fool of myself, it does please me to find I'm in good company." He signaled the bartender and turned on the stool to face the Watcher. "Go on, then."

Giles sighed. "I kissed Vishnaswamy after you left Christmas Day." He looked uncomfortable and quickly protested, "There was mistletoe. Kayla's fault, actually, as she hung it."

"Rupes," Spike said after a long silence, "you kissed another adult. Outside of me, she's quite the most attractive Watcher in Cleveland. I don't see how this makes you a fool."

"Someday, William, I'm going to take an hour or two and puncture your overly-inflated ego."

Spike waved away the threat. "Next year."

"No fool like an old fool," Giles said, sighing. "I asked her if she'd be my date to Rona's wedding, and she said no. So, obviously, the wine and the good company a-and musn't forget the mistletoe–"

"Rupes, you're her boss. Everyone here knows it."

"I know that. It isn't as if we couldn't be discreet."

"Actually, I don't think anyone could be that discreet. You both live at Watcher Central. It's a fishbowl, man."

"I know that, and I'm incredibly annoyed with myself. But she kept smiling up at me, and she has such pretty teeth."

"Doubt she thought you a fool for kissing her, Rupes. But you should–" He shook his head and fell silent.

"I should what?"

"You should not take advice on matters from the heart from a two-time loser like me."

The corners of Giles' eyes crinkled. "William, you've been in love with Drusilla and Buffy, and though I hesitate to lump them together in any category, it's fair to say that neither is easy to handle. So, if you have advice, I'm willing to listen."

Spike shrugged. "Assume she turned you down because she's too smart – and she is smart – to date her boss. Tell her you're not long for the Council, that you would very much like to see her after you retire. See how she reacts, and you'll know if there's anything there. Mention that you're not only passably educated and handsome enough to be mistaken for my father, but that you've pots of money, too."

"I could turn you into a toad, you know."

"Won't stick. Nibblet's already promised to kiss me if that happens."

⸹

"Hey," Dawn said softly as Buffy came into the room they were sharing. She was trying to be quiet in case Aunt Arlene was already asleep.

"Hey, yourself." Buffy put her little red bag of toiletries into her open suitcase. "Not exactly the same party atmosphere as last year, huh?"

Last year Dawn had waited for two hours before Buffy was ready to leave the New Years party at a nightclub in Rome, watching her manic sister dance with anyone who didn't look like Spike. This year, they had watched Dick Clark's countdown in Times Square on television and listened to Uncle Matt reminisce about how much better Guy Lombardo had been. "It's okay. Not like I have anyone special I want to kiss, or something."

"Good."

"Good? How is this good, and not pathetic?"

Buffy, in overlarge pajamas, sat down on the corner of Dawn's narrow bed and tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear. "It's of the good because," she took a breath, "because I think Connor likes you."

"I know."

"You do?" When Dawn raised one eloquent eyebrow, Buffy pursed her lips. "Oh. A-and do you like him?"

"Of course. He's cute and, especially considering who his parents are, sweet." Dawn sat down next to her. "But he's two thousand miles away most of the time."

"Th-that's right," Buffy agreed, relieved.

"So, why are you warning me away from him? And don't tell me it's because it's a long-distance relationship."

Startled, she looked into her sister's blue eyes. "It's just, you know," Buffy studied her hands, "maybe you shouldn't overlook who his parents are."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're thinking more Angel than Darla?" When the Slayer was silent and continued to stare at her hands, Dawn shifted a couple of inches closer. "Come on, Buffy. Talk to me."

"What is there to say that hasn't been said already? Angel isn't a sharer. Neither am I."

"You can be. You haven't had two hundred years to get set in your ways."

"No. I mean, I can't share with Angel. It's one of the things I like best about him. Feelings are for keeping inside."

"But not secrets."

"No. Not secrets. I learned that much, at least."

"Maybe feelings are for sharing, too."

"Maybe they are for other people. You know my feelings." Buffy shrugged. "Emptiness. Loss." She sighed. "I'm just marking time, Dawn. Another year," she waved vaguely toward the downstairs where they'd celebrated in front of the television, "doesn't mean a new beginning for me. It means one more year that I've been in exile." Buffy took a breath and faced Dawn, her pain and sorrow clearly showing in the hazel eyes, only to be replaced by longing. "One less year to go."

"Oh, Buffy." Dawn put her arms around her sister, who didn't cry or take comfort, only submitted to the embrace. She pulled back and met the unearthly gaze. "Have you thought that maybe it would be okay to ask Willow for a memory spell?"

"No." The blond woman shook her head emphatically. "I don't want to forget." Buffy looked down again. "I don't know that I'd say it's getting better, but so much… _life_ gets shoveled on top of the memories that they get buried. When I can just go on and everything is calm, i-it's okay. When things are like this, though… It just gets hard."

"When things are like…?" When Buffy didn't answer, Dawn forced herself not to blow out an impatient breath. "You know," she said gently, "if you want out, this would be a good place to break up."

"Angel doesn't think he's done anything wrong," Buffy said miserably. "That's just the way he is."

"He hurt you, Buffy, and if he doesn't see that he should have told you about Connor in the first place, he's not going to change. He'll go on being high-handed, and he'll hurt you again."

"It's not so bad."

"What?"

She could feel Dawn staring at her incredulously. "It's not so bad, Dawn," she repeated in a quiet voice. "He's never going to hurt me as much as he already has." Buffy took a breath and met the confused blue eyes. "I know I can live through that level of pain. Learning he loved Darla more than me, that he probably loved Cordelia… Not so bad."

"Buffy… do you think medicine would help again? Zoloft, I mean."

"No."

"So you're going to live with pain?"

"Do you think I'm living?" Buffy's eyes widened after she blurted out the words, and she shot off the bed. Averting her head, she took a few steps away, arms across her chest, cradling herself. "I'm just waiting for this to be over, Dawn. I'm sorry. I know I let you down, let everyone down, but I can't be any other way."

After a silence, her sister said simply, "It doesn't have to be that way."

Buffy made a bitter sound and turned completely away from Dawn, going to the window. "Right. I told him once that if he was the answer, I didn't know what the question was." She put her forehead against the glass and looked outside at the alien landscape, blue moonlight falling on gray snow and so cold to a child of California. "I know how much I can hurt Spike." She shut her mouth abruptly. How could she tell Dawn that sometimes she considered suicide? If she did that while Spike thought he was saving her, it would destroy him. But Dawn was part of her; it would devastate her, too. There were some hours where knowing this had saved Buffy already.

She redirected. "I know how much Angel can hurt me. But if I let myself love Spike… If he hurt me, I couldn't survive that kind of pain. There'd be nothing left of who I am, if I lost him," her voice was gone, "again."

Behind her, she heard Dawn stand up, and her sister's voice was composed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe everything has been said before. But I'm tired of seeing you both unhappy, so I'll say one more thing." Dawn moved away, to the bedroom door. "If Spike ever hurt you, he'd do everything in his power, spend the rest of his life making things right. That's something that you don't have with Angel." She started to say something more, then shrugged. "I'm going to go brush my teeth."

Buffy listened to the door close. When she was alone, a sob escaped her. She swallowed the rest, sniffling, and lifted her head to look outside once again. Part of her expected to see a darker shadow among the bruised blues and grays, the scent of cigarettes and leather on the wind as he came to sit quietly next to her and ease her misery, but he was as far away as she could make him.

She was safe here. If she was alone and unhappy, that was all right. No one was making demands on her. She was safe, and other people were safe from her. Buffy firmed her mouth, comforting herself with the uncontestable fact that she could mark another year off the time she had to be the Slayer.

* * *

Next Chapter: The shadowy figures targeting the Council make a deadly play by making pawns of Harmony, Kennedy, Nina, Olivia, and... Dracula.


	14. Asunder

[Author Note: The next two chapter are going to be intense, as in character death. Let me know how you're doing with everything, and I'll attempt to be Chris Hardwick or a psychologist.]

* * *

 **Asunder**

Cleveland

Early January 2005

As soon as Dawn opened the door to the building, her suitcases were taken from her. "You big chicken," she accused, managing to glare at Spike for two entire seconds before flinging her arms around him. "I missed you." She pulled back to examine him anxiously. "You did your hair without me, I see. Was Christmas okay?"

"Spent it with Angel; you know that." He hugged her, one of the suitcases knocking her off balance.

"Good. I just wanted to see your face when you said it." She let go of him to wave at Mrs. Jackson, who had opened her door. They ended up stopping on each landing to talk to their neighbors, so it wasn't until they were outside their own apartment that Dawn had a chance to hug him again. "I missed you."

"Sorry I didn't come to the airport, but I thought it'd be easier if I wasn't there, and Angel said he didn't mind dropping you off."

She cupped her ear. "All I heard was, 'sorry, I'm a big chicken.'" Dawn gave him a malicious smile as she opened the door. "I can't tell you how good it is to be home," she sang cheerfully, kicking off her shoes.

"Aunt Arlene's not the hopping kind of place you have here in Cleveland?" He disappeared down the hallway, taking her luggage to her room.

Dawn kept talking, knowing he could hear her, as she dropped onto the couch. "You know how Mom was kind of square? Aunt Arlene is cubed. And Uncle Matt actually wears slippers while he smokes the one pipe she allows him each night." He chuckled as he came back, her words drawing a vivid mental picture, and joined her on the couch, pulling her against him. They both relaxed, Dawn letting out an audible sigh. "And here I am, probably looking a lot like Uncle Matt, only without the slippers and the stinky herb." She sat up a little, turning so she could see him. "Oh! Let me see the pictures."

They had spoken every day, so she'd heard about the wedding, but Spike had refused to upload and send the pictures he'd gotten as an email attachment from Vi, citing general laziness. Tribby's laptop was a fixture on the coffee table, near the cable modem, so he leaned over and pulled up the files.

"Oh, she looks gorgeous," Dawn cooed, fawning over a picture of Rona. "And you and Giles look very handsome, too."

"Rupes said I looked like a penguin."

"He was just jealous that he wasn't as well turned out."

"'S'what I thought, too."

"Oh, look at Vi!" She turned to look at him. "After Anya's wedding, I never thought I'd be able to stand green bridesmaid dresses again, but she looks nice in it."

Spike smiled at a warm memory. _You glow_. "How's your sis?"

Dawn frowned. It seemed like an abrupt change of topic to her, but she supposed Buffy was always on his mind. "Spike," she began, her voice tentative.

"I know," he said, the lines of his face falling into the resigned sadness that had become habitual. "Not counting on her comin' back to me. 'S'been, what, three years, really, since we were together, and that wasn't even public. But," he let out most of his air, "how is she?"

Dawn thought about her answer for a moment, then simply shrugged. "The same." When he nodded, she thought of her sister's words, how everything had been said already.

⸹

Buffy made herself very busy unpacking. She responded to Angel's conversational gambits with monosyllabic answers, and after a while, he let out a sigh and just watched her from the doorway. "Tired from the trip?" he asked.

She considered the easy out, easy for both of them. "No, I'm fine," she replied, putting away the last pair of shoes. "Not a very long flight."

"Good."

"I think I'll get something to eat," she said briskly. "I've got patrol in an hour or so."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, that's okay. I'm scheduled with Pelham."

"Oh." Angel put his hands in his pockets and looked down. Pelham might not have been one of Finnigan's allies, but he didn't like vampires with or without souls.

Buffy brushed past him and went to the kitchen, considering the few cans of soup in the cabinet. She chose tomato and closed her eyes she felt him approach.

"Buffy," he asked hesitantly, "what's wrong?"

"Angel," she said tiredly, "the fact that you're asking what's wrong is a pretty big clue about what's wrong."

"If it's about Connor-"

"It isn't about Connor." She felt like smashing the can against the counter, but she made her hands simply open it and dump the contents in a bowl. Buffy held her tongue until she got the food in the microwave. "It's about the fact that you hurt me by not telling me from the beginning."

"How could I-"

"And it's even more about the fact that you don't seem to care or understand why I'm hurt."

They stared at each other across the counter. Angel set his jaw. "Can I finish a sentence? Is it my turn?"

She gestured at him. "Please. Go ahead."

He took a breath. "I do care if you're hurt. Deeply. But you're upset about decisions I made in the past, when we were both very different people. You were so fragile, Buffy. I didn't know why, didn't know about heaven, but we could hardly talk that day we met halfway," he gave her a wintry smile, "tried to meet halfway. And I had… I had been in a dark place. You know how Connor was conceived, why I… that I slept with Darla because I hoped I would lose my soul. I didn't know how to tell you that, didn't want to burden you."

"And you still think you made the right decision? By not telling me?"

"You know the saying about hindsight. At the time, no, there was no other decision."

"What about later?"

"It is later."

She opened her mouth, but before she got anything out, the microwave beeped. Buffy turned away to get her soup and stirred it slowly, her back to Angel. She'd been over this in her mind. There was probably nothing she, Giles, or anyone could have done to save Darla, not with the wards placed on the pregnancy; that was classic Powers That Be demanding their sacrifice for balance. But if Angel had a Slayer in residence, Giles around for Wesley to consult about prophecies, Willow to put up guards against Holz, things might have turned out very differently. Even if Angel had called them in after his son was kidnapped and they'd managed to go to Quor'Toth, Connor might have been spared a great deal of agony. Cordelia, Wesley, and that skinny, smart girl Fred might still be alive.

Buffy sighed. Or maybe they would have died different horrible deaths. Just because she had a track record of keeping her human friends alive and mostly whole didn't mean she could have kept the team from Angel Investigations safe. Leaving the spoon in the bowl, she turned back to the first man she'd ever loved, a man that she would always love.

"I understand why you feel that way. But I'd like to ask you to think about why I'm hurt. It's because you made a decision to keep me out of your life at all costs." Buffy dropped her eyes, thinking of her out-of-control emotions the final time she'd seen him in his old office building, the time she'd hit him. "I even understand why you decided that. But it still hurts; it hurts right now. I'm not asking you to admit that you were wrong or anything. Neither of us can know if it was the wrong or right decision. I just need you to know why you hurt me. Otherwise, you'll do it again."

He moved around the counter, smooth and silent, pain in the brown eyes. "I didn't want you out of my life at all cost, Buffy. It's just that I knew what the cost would be."

"Angelus." Her voice was heavy.

Angel nodded. "Angelus. He's locked away for good now, so it's easy to forget how trapped I was, how I couldn't…."

"Couldn't let yourself be happy."

He nodded again, relieved she understood, and held out his arms. After a moment, she moved into his embrace, turning her face so her cheek rested against his chest. "I'm sorry I hurt you." Angel stroked her hair with his large hand. "And I wanted to say thank you for being so nice to Connor."

Buffy closed her eyes and simply nodded. It came back to Connor, and that was proper, but she had her own suspicions about the way he'd kept her far from his life. As if she wouldn't understand! The whole time she'd been around Spike, she knew she wasn't supposed to fall in love with him, that her heart was always supposed to belong to her first love. Angel had felt the same conflict, she suspected, about Cordy. She couldn't tell him that she knew his heart better than he did – she wasn't close enough to him to know for sure.

Later that night, after an unremarkable patrol with Pelham, he turned to her in their bed, and Buffy poised on the knife-edge of welcoming Angel into her body, of burying her resentment beneath physical passion. It would be enough for him; makeup sex would put it all behind them, as far as he was concerned. She'd learned that with Riley, that men equate sex with intimacy.

She gave Angel a quick kiss on the cheek, then turned on her side, away from him. "Good night."

He didn't sigh, but he paused for a few seconds before rolling onto his back. "Good night, Buffy."

⸹

Dawn was already in a foul mood when the phone rang. She and Spike had Chinese, then had fallen asleep on the couch in a food stupor. Now she was a day behind where she'd planned to be. After unpacking her suitcases, she decided she could probably combine darks and colors, put off the whites, and only have one load of laundry, at least. While she let the machine run, Dawn decided to work on the patrol schedule for next week. She'd just started to put her thoughts in order when she got the call. Tapping her pencil on the paper one final time, she tossed it on top of the washer. It hit eraser-first and bounced behind the machine. She growled a little.

"Spike! Get your lazy butt in here and move the washer so I can get my pencil!" she called, just to spread the cheer. Then she opened her phone. "Yeah."

"You're in a good mood," Kayla pointed out.

"Hey, you're back."

"I am. I just got in, and there's no one here. I mean, Giles and Aubrey and Alpana and Alan and Pelham, but, you know, there's nobody here."

"Well, Rona's in Bermuda on her honeymoon, and Vi's in Cincinnati or somewhere, meeting the good lieutenant's parents. Why does every town in Ohio start with a 'c,' anyway? Cleveland, Columbus-"

"So, can you come over?"

"What's going on?" she asked slowly.

"One, I got a new haircut. Two, I got two hundred dollars for Christmas that's burning a hole in my pocket, and you have to help me decide how to spend it. Three," Kayla's tone changed, "I got a boyfriend."

Dawn shrieked. "No way! Kayla, that's great."

"What's great?" Spike said sourly, squeezing by her and turning off the washer.

She ignored him. "What's his name?"

"Oh." Spike gave her a dark look. "Boys." He grabbed the heavy washing machine and pulled it away from the wall as easily as if it was on coasters.

"His name is Wally."

"Wally?"

"Yes, I know. We don't have boys with cool names like Tristan and Joaquin back home. So, Wally."

"Your pencil, your highness," Spike said, presenting it to her with a flourish.

Dawn mouthed a 'thank you' at him. "How'd you meet him?"

"It's kind of weird. I knew him in high school, and he was sort of a jerk."

"But he's changed?" Dawn watched as Spike shoved the washer in place. "Don't forget to turn it back on," she reminded him, covering part of the phone with her hand.

"I live to serve, madam." He gave her a butler's bow, turned the machine on, and left with a long-suffering look on his face.

"He better have changed, else I'm in trouble. We spent, like, all this week together. He was never really a jerk to me, I guess, but he hung with guys who were. Anyway, he saw me out at the ice rink and came up to me – I was with all three of my sisters, so let me tell you, that took nerve – and basically made over me and said he never thought he'd see me again."

"Why?"

"Why would I go back to Pipestone, Minnesota?"

"Because your family is there?"

"And, again, why would I go back to Pipestone, Minnesota?"

"Like Cleveland is so much better? I love Pipestone; it's awesome – it's like Mayberry."

"Dawn, you world traveler you, you have no idea how awesome Cleveland really is. Anyway, he went to Southwest this year, but he's transferring to Minneapolis."

"Like I care about his education," Dawn scoffed. "Details, woman. Tell me about him. Tall, dark, handsome?"

"Not really, are you kidding – hello, Minnesota? – and I think so."

Dawn groaned. "What part of details don't you understand?"

"Well, come over and I'll tell all. I brought my senior yearbook with me so I could show you his picture."

She thought hard. The schedule couldn't really be finished until she touched base with the slayers who were still out of town, after all. "Okay. Let me throw this load of laundry in the dryer, and I'll be over."

"Stay all night? Please?" Kayla begged. "It's lonesome without other slayers in the house."

"Hmm… juicy girl talk versus doing more laundry? Okay, you twisted my arm. But I have to do some work, or Giles will, like, fire me." She had a fleeting urge to tell Kayla about Connor, but decided not to. Since he left at Christmas, they had exchanged text messages, but it was too new to share. By the time Dawn finished packing, the spin cycle was over, so she tossed everything into the dryer, set it for crispy, and went to say goodbye to Spike.

"You're abandoning me already," he complained.

"Like you'll be alone, you baby," she said, giving him a hug and rummaging for her keys at the same time. "I know you're picking up Tribby at the airport in a little while. You two can go kill things if you get bored."

"I can kill things anytime," he pointed out.

Dawn paused, giving him a fond look. "This is important to Kayla. It's her first real boyfriend. And I kind of feel like I abandoned her when we moved."

He sighed. "I know, pet. Just ignore me," he turned toward the television, giving her a sidelong look as he grabbed the remote, "since I'm not important anyway, only the man who came back from death for his Nibblet."

"Oh, please," Dawn laughed. She leaned over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Come with me, then. You can do our nails."

He gave her a look that would clear minions from the lair, day or night, though it didn't faze her. "I think not."

⸹

A few hours later, Spike was at the airport, reading an article in the _Plain Dealer_ about the tsunami that had devastated Indonesia, waiting to feel Tribby rather than keep watch for her. If he didn't catch her, he knew she'd either sense him or spot his freshly bleached hair.

"Awful, isn't it?" she asked a few minutes later, peering at the newspaper from around his elbow.

"Yeah, pet." He gave her an absent hug. "Me an' Dru spent some time there on the beach in the nineties. Good vacation, s'long as we had a place to keep away from the sun."

"I sent money to CARE," she said, "and got Estaban to make a donation, too. It looks really bad." Tribby turned to head toward luggage claim, and he fell in step, noting that they were moving the same way they did on patrol, the slayer slightly ahead and to his right.

"Council scrambled a team – kept Rupes busy, these last few days," Spike said, folding his newspaper and chucking it onto a nearby chair. He saw her puzzled look. "Demons flock to disaster areas to gorge themselves. Easy pickings, what with the confusion. What's a few more added to the body count?" He tensed, ready for the inevitable question of how, exactly, he knew that.

"Oh. So, how was the wedding?"

Relieved, he took a breath to answer. "Very nice. Vi sent some pic-" Spike's brows drew together, his head swiveling toward her, looking at her for the first time. In a second, he had moved them out of the stream of human traffic, pinning his flatmate against the wall. "Tribby… what happened?" Spike could smell blood, fresh blood where he should detect nothing but old.

"Uh… nothing?"

He resettled his grip on her shoulders, gritting his teeth. "You're bleeding, pet." Tribby looked away from him as she got it, her dark eyes suddenly swimming with tears. She looked small and tired, he saw, and Spike gathered her into a careful hug. "What happened?" The gentleness in his voice was at complete odds with the lethal expression on his face.

"My mother," Tribby said, miserable.

"Your moth-" He pulled away to stare at her in confusion.

Tribby wiped her eyes determinedly and sniffled. "I don't know why I let her get to me. I mean, I know better."

"Get to you?" Spike found his anger was beginning to turn onto the slayer, like a guided missile that had lost its original target. "Tell me from the beginning."

"You know the picture I sent you?" When he nodded, she rolled her eyes. "My mother saw it and said I was… fuzzy. So I let her schedule us for a bikini wax today rather than listen to her harp."

Spike's jaw flexed. He let go of her and turned away, feeling both relief and disgust at having conjured a sexual assault from a stupid personal hygiene choice. Then he stilled. "Tribs, that had to be hours ago."

She nodded, her face screwing up for a moment before she got control again. "Yeah. I don't know if the girl who did it was new or what, but I can testify she wasn't very good at a Brazilian wax." She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, then took a short breath. "I cried, Spike, and you know I don't do that – I didn't cry when I got my jaw broke in Boulder." She shook her head and started to walk again. Spike understood; sometimes movement was the only thing that allowed him to keep it together. "And the whole time her attendant was pulling off the wax, rip, rip, my mother was telling me that I didn't see her crying, and wasn't I supposed to be a big, strong athlete." Tribby widened her eyes, willing herself to not tear up again. "I don't know how she stands it."

"'Cause she's a tough old cu-"

"Don't," she overrode him. "She is my mother."

"Tough old twat, then."

Tribby gave him a reproving look, but let it go. "So, I'll obviously never be half the woman she is, which is the reassurance she was looking for all along." She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand a couple of times. "I'll never learn." They walked in silence through the airport. The slayer spotted her suitcase circling on the luggage conveyor and went to get it.

Spike watched her go, feeling sorry for her and for Xander and Willow, finding that he was very grateful for his gentle parents. "Here, pet," he said, taking the suitcase from her as she came back. He lowered his voice, getting back to his original point now that she was calmer. "Shouldn't you be all healed by now?"

She looked down. "I don't think I have slayer healing," she admitted, "not the way most of us do."

"What do you mean?"

"Wait a sec." She opened the outside pocket of her suitcase as she talked, getting out her coat against the cold Cleveland afternoon. "I don't know exactly how it works, but the two times I've been hurt actually doing a slayer's work, in Boulder and in the, what was it, third battle when I broke a finger, those injuries healed right up. But other things… from paper cuts to donating bone marrow," she zipped the pocket and stood up, letting out a breath, "to, I don't know," she rolled her eyes mockingly, "self-inflicted wounds… those take just as long as they always did to heal. Maybe since I'm really good at sensing demons, I'm not so good with the healing."

"Interesting," he said, hoisting the bag again. It made sense; Kayla had precognitive dreams, while none of the other new slayers seemed to have that at all. The Slayer abilities didn't seem to be spread across the young women evenly. Of course, not all the chosen Slayers he had seen were equals, either. "This way, love. You up to walking?" They were in the truck before either said much more. Spike turned to her and asked something that he'd wondered about for a while. "About the bone marrow… Was it Finnigan who told you not to donate blood?"

She nodded. "It was. I'm surprised Dawn didn't tell you. She asked right after that incident with the Krantznitz."

"Oh." He looked away, faintly embarrassed. "So you know I told her. You did try to get hold of Dawn in the first place," he reminded her.

Tribby waved it off. "I figure you two talk about everything."

He heard the question lurking behind her words. "Not everything, pet."

"They're back from Illinois, aren't they?"

"Mm-hmm," Spike said, looking over his shoulder to back out of the parking place, "but Bit's over at Watcher Central for the night with Kayla, who," he turned to face the steering wheel and put the truck in gear, "apparently has obtained a boyfriend, which must be discussed in great depth."

"She did? That's great. Good for her." After a moment, Tribby added, "Have you spoken to her?"

He shook his head, knowing exactly whom she meant. No need to elaborate about the Slayer. Back home, Spike wandered restlessly through the rooms of the apartment after Tribby begged off to shower. Dawn actually had a good idea about patrolling. If Tribby didn't feel like it, maybe he could get Angel to go with him.

Spike made a mouth. He was in his own bedroom, so he knew where that thought had come from. Last night, he and Dawn had slept on the couch. He glanced at the bed; he'd been counting on her to overlay his grandsire's scent, not that he really wanted the feel of the family bed obliterated. Angel had said that it was worth it, and Spike supposed it had been, just for the bone-deep rest they'd had for those four days. But it made him miss the big vampire fiercely.

Which was nothing compared to how he missed the woman with whom Angel got to share a bed.

Buffy wasn't coming back. He tested the thought again, still as raw and painful as the first time he'd had the realization. If she had wanted an excuse to leave his grandsire, Angel had given her the perfect out. She had stayed with him, though. And if Buffy could forgive Angel for not telling her about fathering a child, then she would forgive him anything. She was committed to Angel.

His grandsire, his closest friend… his brother. He never wanted to hurt Angel again, and so long as Buffy didn't beckon to him, Spike knew he could be honorable. So long as the Slayer gave him no reason to hope… well, he was more likely to sleep with Angel than with her.

Spike sighed at the memory of the Christmas holiday he'd spent with the other vampire. At least the pull of the desire in their blood seemed to be gone now that they were equals, sharing the throne, as it were, though the more human desire for contact was there. Angel had been a perfect gentleman, insofar as he could ever be a gentleman. Or perfect. They hadn't talked about their continuing attraction, and the gods only knew what they might do in a pinch, but at least they could comfortably share a family bed again.

So, of course, they weren't. Spike grimaced and wandered into the kitchen, feeling lonesome, wishing for Dawn. He opened the fridge to see if there was anything to nosh on. He wasn't so much peckish as restless, and then he got it. One hand on the refrigerator door, he looked up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes. Of course you're restless, you nit, he thought sourly. You've been inhaling the scent of fresh slayer blood all afternoon.

At the realization, Spike closed his eyes, involuntarily breathing in. Fresh blood. He didn't miss it, not really. Patrols and training satisfied his need for the hunt and for violence. Even the act of biting prey, the feeling of sliding his fangs into warm flesh, wasn't something he craved. But nothing was more powerful than scent to a vampire, and slayer blood was akin to the smell of… Christmas goose, he supposed, casting about for a savory comparison, or a rich stew on a cold day.

He had been through a long string of cold days.

There would never again be anything except cold days.

Not letting himself think, Spike went down the hallway and paused outside the bathroom door for a moment. The shower cut off, and he knocked. "Tribs?"

A beat of silence, then, "Yes?"

He opened the door. She was still standing in the tub, holding a towel in front of her. Spike glanced at the sink, where a tube of Neosporin lay. She was tired physically and emotionally, running on reserves, and she already belonged to him. Easy prey, in short. "Pet, I, uh," he took a breath, then reminded himself not to breathe, "you let me, I could heal everything up for you." He watched her confusion be replaced by widened eyes.

"Saliva?" He nodded and let her think it through, consider the inevitable outcome, since he wasn't going to. She squeezed her eyes shut and blinked water from them, wiping her face with the towel, careful to preserve her modesty. "Why?" He raised an eyebrow and let his eyes travel slowly over her body as answer. Tribby shook her head. "Seriously."

"Because you'd never ask for help, love. That's why I'm offering." He'd told Buffy once he wondered if he was trying to do for slayers now to make up for what he'd done to them then. He no longer wondered.

She considered him for a long while, long enough for him to become aware of the decreasing drip from the faucet, the gurgle of water trickling down the drain. Curiously, she seemed to find what she needed in his eyes, as if she was doing something for him instead of the other way around. She gave him a small, resigned smile below nervous eyes. "All right."

When she realized his physiology was quite different from a human's, the medical student had come to the fore for a few minutes, and he had answered her questions as patiently as he could. Then Tribby caught herself, made a remark about vampires having nullified the whole spit or swallow controversy. Spike had laughed, not the only time in the course of the night. Stripped of her grief, she was salty, amusing, uninhibited, everything a man could want in a lover.

And nothing, nothing compared to the lover he wanted.

He wasn't as cautious with her as he had been with Rona, but eventually he pulled away, tucking her against his body so she would sleep. He didn't feel it had been wrong, but it had been a long time since anything was right.

"What are you thinking about?"

He had been so deep in his own thoughts, it took him a moment to realize she was awake. Spike considered lying, telling her he was thinking about her, but that sort of maneuver was not in his repertoire. "Nothing. The past."

"The very recent past?" He could hear trepidation in Tribby's voice.

"No, else I wouldn't be frowning." He propped up on one elbow. "Very nice, pet."

She gave him a full, genuine smile. "Very nice."

"You okay with it?"

"Part of me wants to panic and hide in the bathroom." Tribby traced the line of his jaw before saying quietly, "Thank you."

It had been a hurdle for her, he knew, so he gave her a serious answer. "You're welcome."

Neither of them spoke after that, and the silence morphed into another presence. Spike had the stones to face the awkwardness. "Either of us can beat up the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room, you know."

A sigh. "I figure the best thing is to put this in deep freeze and come back to it. I mean, I can't imagine how uncomfortable this would make Dawn, just out of the blue. Maybe see how we feel in three months?"

Three months? His mouth twisted. "Three months, at the rate the battles have been happening, would see us to the end of the prophecy, and to the end of the time you planned to stay in Cleveland."

Tribby looked away. "Have to have an exit strategy."

"Do you?"

"You aren't Jack," she finally said, "and I'm not Buffy. I can't give you what you want; you can't..." She didn't bother finishing.

"No, s'pose not."

"That's not fair to you."

"Or you." Spike frowned. "Why are you so protective of me, pet?"

"Someone needs to be."

"I hardly need protecting."

"Of course you don't," she agreed in a soothing tone.

"Bloody hell. Cossetting women." He smiled, though. He'd been given a 'get out of bed free' card, after all. No complications.

⸹

 _Ring!_

The stridently fake-bell sound from the apartment telephone made Spike's mouth curl in momentary dissatisfaction before his face smoothed again into sleep.

 _Ring!_

His consciousness swam upward a tentative bit more and heard Tribby's bare footfalls by the phone. Her voice was low, considerate of her sleeping flatmate, and he drifted back down.

"Hello? No… Are you all right? … No problem… Just take a couple of deep breaths, and I'll be right there… See you soon."

Spike heard the murmured words, but paid no attention to the content. He nuzzled his cheek deeper into the pillow, breathing in the scent of slayer, the physical release bringing better sleep than he'd had since Angel left. He'd taken Tribby to her bed, taken things slow because he could feel her wanting to hurry. It had been nice, nothing approaching what he had once had, or even emotionally as meaningful as the afternoon with Rona, but satisfying after such a long period of abstinence. And no complications.

⸹

"…in a couple of hours. You feel better now?" Tribby's voice again. Spike woke again as he heard the apartment door close. She had returned from somewhere, and he was content to sense that Dawn was home, too.

"A little. This has been, like, the absolute worst day." Dawn's voice made him open his eyes and smile; apparently, she was still in a grumpy mood. Spike stretched his arms above his head and listened.

"It just seems that way, I promise." He heard the door of the dishwasher open and someone – Tribby, he supposed, as neither Dawn nor Buffy had inherited Joyce's effortless cleanliness – begin to put things away. "So, Buffy not at home?"

"No, I just couldn't… I tried here first…" Either he was drifting in and out of sleep, or Dawn was communicating mostly with gestures. "But, daylight." More domestic sounds of cups and cupboards. "I didn't want Angel involved. He always looks so… disapproving."

Spike remembered that look residing on his grandsire's face most of the time. His mind caught on his Bit's words. Involved in what?

"I'm sure he wouldn't have been hard on you," Tribby protested. "He'd know that the important thing was, no one was hurt."

Spike was on his feet and down the hall, a stupid sheet tripping him up until he kicked it away. "Hurt?" He was kneeling by the chair at the kitchen table where Dawn sat, running his hands over her arms. "What happened? Who hurt you? Where?"

Dawn shoved at him a little, self-contained in the face of one-hundred-and-seventy pounds of naked, worried, possessive vampire. His demon features flickered across his face, the yellow taking a little longer to fade from his eyes. "Jeez, Spike. I'm fine."

Tribby turned away, wiping down a plate, amused. She put it in the cabinet and left them alone in the kitchen.

Spike was still turning Dawn side-to-side, breathing deeply to catch the scent of any blood. "What happened?"

"I had a car accident, a fender-bender." She made a face. "It was no big."

He read otherwise in her shaky voice and pallor and took her in his arms. "But you're okay?"

She put her head against his shoulder, a few more tears squeezing through. "Just nerves, now."

"Oh, Nibblet."

"I called here before I thought, duh, daytime. But Tribby came out. She was, like, so calm."

"No problem," Tribby said cheerfully, coming back into the kitchen. A pair of Spike's black jeans was in her hands, still warm from the dryer. "Here you go, Chippendales. Just your normal, non-demon mishap in Cleveland traffic. Dawn rear-ended some lady in a minivan, low speed, lots of traffic between two stoplights, slick roads, bored cops, routine unless it's your first accident." She smoothed the shiny brown hair, an affectionate gesture, then left them alone again.

Spike and Dawn gazed into each other's eyes for a long moment. Worry, guilt, and barely-banked anger passed over his face, while hers held shame and fear. By the end, the only thing left in either expression was love.

Then Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm okay, Spike." She put her forehead against his, feeling perfectly safe and cared-for. "I could have held it together okay if it hadn't been for the carseat. I kept thinking, what if she'd had her kid in the back?"

"How's the Jeep?"

"Completely undamaged, except for a headlight. I really messed up her bumper, though."

"Here, love, turn around." He waited until she was facing the other direction, then stood up and stepped into the jeans. He looked around the apartment and breathed in. "Tribs has been cleaning," he said, surprised. It was past noon, later than he usually slept.

"I'm glad someone does," Dawn said, glaring at him.

"Room to talk, is there, domestic goddess?" he shot back. Then he sank back down, enfolding her in another hug. "Thank God you're all right."

"I'm off to Kroger, as we lack anything that resembles food," Tribby said, coming back through the kitchen to get the shopping list, purse in hand. "Any requests?"

"Turnips," Dawn said promptly.

A queasy look on his face, Spike shook his head. "Some more of those wasabi peas, pet."

"Turnips, wasabi peas, check." She left without meeting his eyes, but he scarcely noticed.

Dawn gave Spike a wan smile. "Kayla says hi." He nodded, expression serious, still searching her face. "Jeez, Spike," she said, feeling much more on an even keel now that she was starting to feel over-protected, "I'm fine." She stood up, dragging the backpack she'd used as an overnight bag with her. "You know, I blame it all on Sunnydale. They had to cut out driver education because sometimes the cars just wouldn't come back, found empty, no student or instructor." She called over her shoulder as she went down the hall to her room. "This all could have been avoided if I'd been enrolled in decent schools."

"Don't think Harris has ever been in an accident," Spike pointed out, sliding into the seat she'd abandoned.

"Oh, like Xander's perfect," she muttered, knowing he could hear. After adding to the remaining pile of laundry in her hamper, Dawn sighed and went through the kitchen to the tiny laundry room. A second later, she came back out, frowning. "Did you fold my clothes?" At his eloquently raised eyebrow, she scoffed. "Oh, never mind. What was I thinking? I guess Tribby needed the dryer." Dawn looked at Spike critically. "You look sleepy."

"I am, a bit."

"Come on, then. I know you want to cuddle, and Kayla and I were up late, anyway. I could use a nap."

"Couch?" he suggested hastily, not ready to chance her noticing that his bed hadn't been slept in.

"Sure."

⸹

When the doorknob to her apartment rattled, Maria looked up from the computer screen, and then relaxed at the immediate, impatient rap on the door. She stood up and took the three steps from easy chair to the door, brushing her long hair back from her face. "Forget your key again, Bethany?" she asked, opening the door for her roommate.

Only, it wasn't her roommate. For a moment, she tensed, then regained her equilibrium. Slayers never issued blind invitations, after all. Then Maria forgot about Bethany or safety, because she was going to get everything she'd wanted, and she stepped into the hallway of her own accord.

⸹

Buffy tried sitting up on the couch, crossing her legs and leaning against the cushions, looking for a comfortable position. Angel was out on patrol with Spike. She had been home for three days and hadn't heard from her vampire. Of course, she hadn't tried to get in touch with him, either. She also hadn't slept with her lover. Tomorrow she was supposed to have lunch with Xander and Willow, and she had no idea how she was going to keep it together in front of her friends.

I don't have to, she reminded herself. Wil and Xan loved her whether things in her life were going well or not. She sighed; she'd sat through the scroll twice on the television programming guide and still hadn't spotted anything that looked interesting. She had never been much of a couch potato, preferring to be out with friends instead of watching the tube.

The knock came a couple of seconds after she realized there was a werewolf on her doorstep. Grateful for the distraction, Buffy hopped off the couch and went to the door. "Hey, Oz," she said, but it wasn't Oz. "Oh," she said, surprised, looking up at a willowy blond woman.

"Uh, hi," the stranger said, equally surprised. She looked Buffy over, then asked in an overly bright voice, "Is this where Angel lives?"

Dog-girl, she thought, remembering the day Spike had asked Angel if he had any good shagging dog stories, the awful day she'd realized just how bad she was for her vampire. The Slayer forced a smile onto her face. There wouldn't be a full moon for another two weeks. "Yes. Please, come in. I'm Buffy, and I guess we've just achieved awkward."

The woman smiled and nodded, laughing a little. "Good way to put it. I'm Nina."

⸹

Angel waited until Spike finished talking to the convenient store clerk before turning away, anxious to get back onto the streets. They only had a half hour left on patrol, and they hadn't found nearly enough demons on which to take out his frustrations.

"You eat too much like a human," he complained after they were outside.

Spike, holding an enchilada to his mouth, gave him a look at this old complaint. He swallowed the bite he'd taken. "Just tryin' to make a new contact, 's'all, easy way to keep an eye on this neighborhood."

"You didn't have to buy anything."

"The two of us walk into a store at one in the morning, the best a clerk would hope for is a shakedown. I was just tryin' to put the lad at ease." He spotted a garbage can, stuffed the rest of the food in his mouth, and tossed the wrapper.

"Maybe if you didn't dress like a mugger…."

The blond man scowled and swallowed mightily. "What's with you tonight, Peaches?" Before Angel could answer, Spike's cell phone rang.

"'Lo, Tribs." He was surprised she was calling; he'd already seen her move into her signature effortless avoidance.

"Hello yourself, Blondie Bear," she said in a cool voice. "Meet me at the gym? Now?"

"Emergency?"

"Something along those lines."

"Be right there." He folded the phone, a frown settling on his brow as he tried to figure out the odd conversation. Blondie Bear… she must have picked up that nickname from Charlie. "Want to tag along?"

"No," Angel sighed, "I'd better get home." He had half-hoped he could goad Spike into an old-fashioned brawl after their work was done. "I'll finish up along our route. You go on."

"Later, then." With a quick press of his forehead against Angel's and a clap on the shoulder, he was gone.

Angel walked on, his head down and his eyes on the way his shadow pooled and stretched as he passed beneath streetlights, alert for any trouble with his other senses. He hadn't meant to keep picking at Spike, but he was in a bad mood. Usually things died when he was in a bad mood, and patrol had been unfortunately quiet. The boy hadn't helped, being slow to take offense. Spike hadn't asked about Buffy, either, another thing Angel had half-hoped for. It would have been a good segue into talking about their problems.

His head lifted, and he looked into the darkness of a small park. He could sense something old, a trace of power not quite concealed. A small smile touched Angel's face, and he started toward it.

⸹

"Slayer's here," Oz murmured against Willow's shoulder.

She groaned. They had just fallen asleep, it seemed, but whoever was knocking at the door was persistent. "Buffy?"

"It isn't Buffy." He opened his eyes a little more and tested the air. "I can't smell who it is."

"I'll go. If it's a slayer, it's probably for me." Half asleep, she sat up and found her robe.

"Probably," he agreed, scooting into her spot. "I'll keep it warm for you."

She leaned over and kissed him, then stood up to pull on her robe. Willow thought for a moment about running a comb through her hair, but she heard another knock. "Coming!" she called, and hurried to open the door.

"I like the sound of that," Kennedy said.

⸹

Alpana Vishnaswamy and Alan Jacobson were sitting on the couch at Watcher Central, going over the applications Dawn had given them of slayers who wanted to replace Vashti, when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," Jacobson said. "I'm closer." He opened the door and couldn't help but return the smile of the person who stood on the other side. "Well, hello. Come on in." He held the door. "I know who you are, but I'm terrible with names. I'm so sorry."

"It's Olivia," she said, lifting her suitcase and walking in. "It's late, I know, but I was hoping that Rupert is still awake?"

"As far as I know." The Watcher started to call for the Head, but Giles' study door was already opening.

"Olivia?"

"Rupert!" she said, her voice alive with warmth and promise. Leaving her suitcase just inside the door, she went to hug him.

"What a wonderful surprise!" He hugged her in return, smiling. It faded a little as he saw Vishnaswamy gathering up papers in the living room, her back to the embracing couple.

"I just blew into town," Olivia was saying. "I hope I'm not an inconvenience?"

Giles beamed. "Never."

⸹

"I'm sorry, Nina," Buffy said, "but I have to go. I have the second patrol tonight."

"Oh." Nina looked around at the spare furnishings, obviously uncomfortable at being left alone. "Do you want me to…?"

"No, stay right where you are," the Slayer reassured her. "Angel will be home in just a few. He'll call if he's going to be late, so if the phone rings, just answer it." Buffy pulled on her coat.

Nina stood up, shrugging a little. "Thanks. You know, it's so weird and totally not the way it's supposed to be, but I've really enjoyed talking to you."

If she was lying, Buffy thought, she was good at it. She couldn't quite say the same, not truthfully, but she would have liked Nina under other circumstances. "Me, too," she said. "I hope you have a good visit."

Outside, Buffy let out a breath. She wasn't actually scheduled for patrol, but she had to get out of the apartment. Walking at a brisk clip, she headed northeast, figuring that it wouldn't hurt if she did a loop of the most active areas around the Clinic and the University.

Nina was nice, really nice, and she and Angel had such a chivalrous story. She was also simple and uncomplicated, and the Slayer didn't quite understand what Angel would see in her… outside of the fact that she was younger and taller and blonder and sunnier than Buffy.

She let go of her leashed Slayer's aura, wanting to attract anything and everything to her, wanting to lose herself in the one thing that still came naturally to her. This would easier if she could just hate Nina, but the woman was hate-proof: not so bright that she could resent her, not so dumb that she could make fun of her; not too pretty; not too sexy. The only thing really wrong with Nina was that she had shown up in Cleveland looking for Angel, and the timing could not be worse.

So, no easy there. There should be something easy out here, though. Buffy found, however, she was unprepared for what she attracted.

"Hello, Buffy," came the urbane, accented voice. "It is fitting that we meet again in darkness." Her hand flew to her neck involuntarily, but that was all right; it was Spike's mark now.

"Hello, Drac," she replied, her other hand tightening on her stake.

⸹

"Oi, pet, what's the gen?"

Tribby was waiting for him at the front, sitting cross-legged on the unused reception desk, wearing a threadbare Slits t-shirt beneath her jacket. "Spikey!" she said, too cheerful. "Found another vampire lurking around the apartment, someone who said she was an old friend of yours, come to town to look you up." The slayer hopped off the counter and put her hands on her hips. "So, instead of dusting her, I did what Mr. Giles asked. I locked her in the holding cell."

He lifted his head and tested the air. "Harm?!"

Tribby nodded slowly. "Yes. Harmony." She gave him an unpleasant smile.

"What's Harm want with me?" The slayer eyed his body, as silently eloquent as he had been earlier. "Why? I mean, we've been quits a long time."

"So you did have a thing with her?"

There was something akin to disgust in Tribby's voice, and Spike focused his attention on her. "'Did have' being the important part." He took a step closer, a satisfied smirk forming on his mouth. "Jealous?"

"Of her?" The scoff was followed by the slayer averting her face. "Maybe," she admitted. Her voice was quiet, and she moved farther away from him. "It's hard not to feel possessive…" Tribby took a breath. "I'm sorry."

"No worries, pet."

"But mostly I'm disappointed."

"Disappointed?"

"In you."

"In me?" He furrowed his brow. "Why?"

"I thought better of you." She took another step away. "Or better of myself. Maybe whatever attracted you to her you see in me, too." Tribby physically shuddered. "I mean, I don't mind being in a category with Buffy, that's a compliment, but I hate to be in the same category as… her." She jerked her head toward the part of the building with the cell. "What did you see in her, anyway… Blondie Bear?"

He shrugged. "Midlife crisis, for want of better. Dru had just kicked me to the curb, so it was a salve to my ego to parade a built blond bombshell on my arm. Got bored with her pretty quick, tried to stake her. Just, you know, a trophy girlfriend."

"Not all trophies are first place."

Spike finally managed to capture her gaze. "She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she's not a bad sort. I mean, she grows on you after a while."

"Like warts?"

Smiling at the malicious question, Spike stalked closer. "Last time I knew anything about Harmony, me and Angel were in Los Angeles, and she betrayed us to our enemies. Not likely to fall in with her again, pet."

"So why is she here?"

"Dunno." He sighed. "Guess I'd better go find out. Most likely, she's in over her head and needs help."

Tribby shook her head and backed away again. "Helping unsouled vampires? Not in my job description." She lifted her hands. "I just need to leave," and as she turned away, added, "Cleveland."

"Tribs," he snapped, a command. He watched her stop, then slowly turn, a flush warming her face. "Not playing games, yeah? There's nothing for you to be upset about."

She closed her eyes, nodding. "You don't look it, so it's hard to remember you're a lot older than I am. Vi talks about this, how the good lieutenant sees things from such a different perspective than she does because he's older." Tribby looked at him, and he could feel her wanting to come closer, but she didn't. "I'm twenty-five, Spike, and I have absolutely no perspective. Jack never gave me any reason to feel jealous." She grimaced. "It's a really ugly feeling."

"It is." Jealousy had colored his relationship with Angel for a long time.

"Look, it's my problem." She shrugged. "We're friends, Spike. The rest of it… Neither of us really wants… This is confusing the hell out of me."

As with Rona, Spike knew to his bones that they'd never share a bed again. She had found her exit. He felt a pang of regret, then shoved the selfish feeling away. "Tribs," he said, moving in before she could counter, "you are nothing like her. Harmony is… uncomplicated." It was more charitable than 'simple.' "She was… a vacation, and I'm fond of her. Despite the fact that she's evil and incompetent and false, always gonna have a soft spot for her.

"You," he said, tapping her on the nose with one finger, "needn't feel jealous. To begin with, you're a slayer. She's just a vampire. And we are friends. Whatever you want from me, it's yours. Even if you just want to be flatmates." The relief on her face stung his ego, but when she grabbed him around his torso and hugged him, it more than made up for it. Then she was gone, the glass door closing silently behind her, pushing the scent of her tears back in a final puff of air.

Spike laughed at himself, the rich sound rolling in the high-ceilinged room. If he had a cartoon angel and devil over each shoulder, his various parts couldn't be more typical in their disagreement. His demon was in a sulk, wondering what he was going to do with his always ready-to-go hardon; his pious soul was congratulating him on salvaging his friendship with the poor, widowed dear. Doesn't help get you laid, his priapic demon noted sourly. What else could his inner anarchist do but laugh? He had turned to go deal with Harmony, already looking forward to whatever nonsense she had in store for him, when he froze, his blood singing, a single thought buzzing through him.

Buffy needed him. He didn't know how he was aware of this, but there was no doubt. Spike already had his hand on the outside door when he stopped dead. He tilted his head, listening for anything to make him question his instinct, and then marched back into the gym, heading for the armory, one thing to get before he went to her.

⸹

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Uh," Willow said, thinking hard about that. She moved aside without issuing an invitation, and Kennedy strolled in, looking around Oz's small, neat apartment with ill-concealed distaste. "What are you doing here?" She knew it sounded rude, but between her surprise and trepidation, there wasn't much she could do about it.

"I'm back in the States now," Kennedy said, turning all around and stopping when she faced Willow, "but I guess you know that."

"I-I did."

"What's going on?" Oz stood at the doorway to the bedroom, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt.

Willow glanced at him nervously. His head was lowered just a little, and there was a predatory glint in his eye. He had sensed her unease, obviously. "Uh, Oz, this is Kennedy. Kennedy, Oz."

"Driving stick again?" Kennedy gave her a false smile, and even that looked good on her. "Interesting."

"It's a little late for visitors," Oz pointed out, his eyes muddy.

If she had ever had daydreams about two lovers fighting over her, Willow regretted them. "It is late, Kennedy. Is there something you need…?"

"Maybe I need you."

"A little late," Oz repeated. He had lifted his head now, and that wasn't good, either. He and the slayer were staring at each other, taking each other's measure.

Willow was suddenly awake enough that everything rang false. She tilted her head to the side. "Kennedy, how did you know I was here?"

"I asked at Watcher Central."

That was enough for Willow; it was very unlikely Kennedy would know the local nickname for Giles' house or that anyone there would give her Oz's address. " _Rigor_ ," she said, holding out her palm toward the slayer. A flare of reddish energy enveloped the other woman for a moment, and there was a slight sound like water sizzling on a hot griddle. The figure froze in the act of aiming a superior smirk at Oz. "That's odd," Willow said, frowning. She hadn't expected any sound.

"I take it that's not Kennedy?"

"Oh, you with the big brain," Willow said, going to rummage on the couch for her purse.

"She's pretty."

"She is," the witch agreed, finding her cell phone. "You'll notice that I'm not with her, though."

A small smile came to Oz's face. "In case I haven't told you in the last couple of minutes," he said, "I love you."

⸹

"Olivia, what brings you to the States?" Rupert asked, setting the kettle on the burner before joining her at the kitchen table. It was as much privacy as they could have without being in his study or bedroom, and he was too ashamed at how much clutter there was in both.

"You, of course," she replied easily. "I missed seeing you over the holidays. I had a window of time that I could be away from work…" She shrugged. "Can you blame me for wanting to see you?"

He grinned. "I'll not answer that on the grounds that I'd sound incredibly arrogant."

"So, how's Cleveland treating you?"

"Better by the minute." Before he could say anything else, the kettle whistled. As Giles bustled around, collecting tea and cups, he asked over his shoulder. "Where are you staying?"

"Where would you like me?"

The heat in her voice earned another grin. Rupert cleared his throat. "How about the hotel from last time?"

"Sounds lovely. It was quite posh."

"And far less crowded than we are here," he added. He paused a moment before turning back to the table, remembering the set of Alpana's shoulders, the way she had avoided looking at them.

"Mmm," Olivia said appreciatively, her nose hovering just over the rim of the cup, holding it with both hands. "This is wonderful. It's so cold outside, much different than California."

"I don't know if I've adjusted to the climate myself," he said. "I've – Oh, bother. Sorry, my dear," he said, getting up to answer the phone, "when it rings this time of the night, it usually isn't anything happy." Giles sighed as he walked to the living room, hoping that it was only a minor crisis. "Hullo?"

"Oh, good. Giles," Willow said. "I just needed to ask whether Kennedy showed up asking for me tonight."

"Kennedy?" His tone sharpened. "No."

"I didn't think so," she said dryly. "Giles, this is weird. I've frozen something in Oz's living room that looks exactly like Kennedy, and I think it was using my memories and expectations to seem realistic."

He listened as she told the story, his grip on the telephone tightening. The suitcase Olivia had left by the door was gone, he saw. "Willow, I don't suppose you could come right away? There may something similar going on here."

⸹

"Different town, same shtick," Buffy said pleasantly. "You know, you might want to work on some new material."

"We have unfinished business," Dracula said, gliding toward her.

"No, vee really don't," she said, mocking his accent. "Unless you mean this…?" Buffy held up her stake.

He smiled. "You are so much more than you were, so much…" a little closer, "darker."

"That didn't work the first time."

"Didn't it?"

"Look, I am really, so-much-that-you-wouldn't-believe not in the mood for this tonight. If you came here to deal out the seductive vibe," Buffy said, bored, "you're out of luck. If you came here to fight, then we do have business."

"I don't think he came here to fight," a voice drawled from the shadows. Angel stepped forward, a grim smile on his face. "I think he came here to die."

"Angelus," Dracula greeted him, not surprised. Buffy shook her head wearily. Vampires and their sense of smell.

"Make no mistake," he replied, coming closer, "I'm not Angelus, and that's not good news for you."

"You are Angelus."

"It's Angel now."

"Honey," Buffy said in the pleasant tone again, "I'm dealing with this."

Dracula gave Angel a superior smile. "She is the better warrior."

"But why send in the big guns just for you?" he shot back.

"He's older than you, Angel," Buffy said, her voice strained now. "A lot older."

Angel scoffed. "Not hardly. He's younger than Drusilla."

"No," she said, hanging onto her patience by a thread, "Anya knew him, like, five hundred years ago."

"Buffy," he said, turning away from the other vampire to give her a meaningful look, "You do know 'Count Dracula' is just a title? He's the second Count I've known; the first one, the one who," he send a malevolent, amused glance at the other man and stressed the next word, "made him was older and even less human-looking than the Master."

"But he can do all these cool things," Buffy protested.

"Cool?" He sounded affronted.

"Well, yeah, like turning into a wolf without the whole Oz-by-moonlight thing, that's pretty cool, you have to admit."

"That has nothing to do with him being a vampire. He was a gypsy before he was turned."

"And you're not one to underestimate gypsy magic, are you, Angelus?" Dracula asked silkily.

"No," Angel said, "I'm not." He threw the stake in his hand directly into the other vampire's heart.

The stake bounced harmlessly on the brown grass several yards away. The line of smoke Dracula had turned into reassembled closer to Buffy. "Nice throw," he said condescendingly.

"See? Cool tricks. Will you let me work now?" Buffy ground out.

"She is quite correct," Dracula said. "This is between her and me. She bears my mark, after all."

Angel gave him a shark's grin. "No, she doesn't."

Every ounce of charm disappeared from the Count's face. "You overrode my mark?" Even his posture had changed, aggression radiating from him.

"You bit over mine."

Buffy touched her neck again, covering the scar, looking between them as the two men glared at each other. Then there was an abrupt darkness, as if all the light in the park had fled before an even greater evil. She felt a soft touch at the base of her spine, felt a presence in a way so much different than 'slaydar,' and she smiled. Things had suddenly become easy.

"She bears the mark of the Master of the Order of Aurelius," said a deep voice next to her, as light began to seep from the streetlights back toward the ground they stood on.

"There is no Master," Dracula scoffed, his eyes raking over the newcomer as the shadows faded. "Yours is a fallen line, William."

"Spike is the Master," Angel said. Spike gave him a smile, and the two exchanged a warm look.

"You claim her, William?" Dracula blurted, surprised, his eyes darting toward Angel.

"No, mate," he said, giving the other vampire an insufferable grin. "Not even I have the stones for that." The grin vanished, and his next words were stark. "I belong to her." Dismissing the other man, he turned back to Buffy, holding something out to her. "This what you wanted, my lady?"

She looked at the sword he offered, the one used by the Chinese Slayer so long ago, and her eyes went to his, startled. She had wanted something other than her stake, which hadn't worked the first time she'd fought Dracula. How could he possibly have known what she was thinking? Then her fingers went to the scar on her throat once more, her hazel eyes widening. Spike swallowed, as if she had touched him instead of herself. His eyes were dark, telling her so many things, telling her she was magnificent, telling her that there was nothing she couldn't do.

She believed him.

When she didn't take the sword immediately, Spike shifted his feet, moving into an offensive stance. "Unless you'd prefer I do the light lifting," he took a slight, hitching breath and added, "Slayer?"

"No," Buffy said serenely, her heart singing to hear that word in that voice. "I'll do it." She took the sword from his hand and he stepped back to his place at her left, feet planted wide apart, arms crossed, waiting for the show.

Dracula looked at the Slayer, at the two Aurelians flanking her, a half-smile on his face. "The youngest is head of your line?"

"Title's his, too. Angel and I share." Spike shrugged. "What can I say? It gets lonely at the top."

The other vampire frowned, not taking such a ridiculous story seriously. "She… does not stay with you, William. If you had truly marked her, she would not be with your grandsire."

"As usual," Angel drawled, "you miss the small but important things." He nodded at Buffy. "That would be her."

Dracula took a step closer, turning on the smile again, refocusing on her. "Though it pains me to admit, the Aurelian is right. You are important. You are why I have come here."

She looked into his eyes, ready to draw back if she felt herself slipping under his spell. There was nothing there, or rather, what she felt enveloping her did not come from Dracula. Buffy was on bedrock now, standing tall, and she could conquer anything. She loved this feeling; it had been hers once, and she loved the man who allowed her to feel this way again.

"You know, I think Angel is right," she said, thrusting the blade straight and true into Dracula's heart. "You didn't come here for me. You came here to die."

The slight, patronizing smile on the Count's face faded as he realized he was still corporeal, and he looked down. Then he burst into dust, scattering everywhere with a slight sizzling noise rather than dissolving into a heap.

Buffy took a step back, getting out of the spray of grit. "I've never seen one do that before."

"Bugger," Spike said quietly. "Now I'll never get that eleven pounds he owned me."

Buffy gave a little snort of laughter, turning to him. "It was worth more than that to get rid of that pest. I'll pay you the eleven pounds."

"Easy come, as they say." He smiled at her, meeting her eyes for a moment, then remembered himself. Spike looked away.

"I've missed you," Buffy said quietly.

Even with his head bowed, she saw him close his eyes. "Yeah. Me, too." He was breathing now, and he looked over her head at Angel. "Party's over, I s'pose, so I better run. Got a mess to clean up back at the gym." Spike shifted his gaze back to Buffy, not about to tell his grandsire that Harmony was in town. Grumpy as Angel was, he might bother to kill her. "You, uh, want me to take that back to the armory for you?"

"Thank you," Buffy said, holding out the sword. Spike had brought it to her, given her the tools, given her the decision of whether she wanted to handle Drac or let him, let her be the Slayer and loved her for it. She hadn't had to ask. As he took back the sword, she brushed her fingers across his knuckles. "My vampire."

If she'd said she loved him, he couldn't have looked more stunned. Spike met her eyes, as always searching for the answer to the question in his own. Whatever he saw made him grow still.

"That's the Chinese Slayer's sword, isn't it?" Angel asked. They were communicating wordlessly again, leaving him outside their bond. He tried very hard not to be jealous.

"Uh, yeah," Spike said, hastily looking away from Buffy, breaking the moment.

"You're lucky to have gotten away with nothing more than a scar."

"Yeah." Spike hunched his shoulders inside the leather coat. "Well, I'll leave you two to it." He couldn't resist another peek at Buffy. "Later."

She watched him leave, returning to exile from her, the sword held at a shallow angle away from his body. Buffy found she was holding her breath. Something had shifted, had fallen into place, and the real world wasn't going to give her time to examine it. Turning to Angel, she gave him no time to prepare, either. "Nina is waiting for you at the apartment."

"What?!"

Buffy had wondered, just a little, if he had been expecting the visit, but he was obviously surprised. "She showed up a couple of hours ago."

"How did she even know where to find me?" he asked, his bewilderment obvious.

"I don't know," Buffy said evenly. "I assumed you told her."

Angel shook his head, at a loss. He was still spoiling for a fight, had once again been awed and obscurely humbled by Spike's eerie connection to Buffy, and now this. "I'm sorry, Buffy. She knows it's over between us," he put his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged, "what little we ever had, I mean."

"It meant something to her." The Slayer looked away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "She's nice."

"She is," he agreed, "but she isn't you."

Meaning you shared even less with her than you share with me, Buffy thought, but she didn't say it aloud. She forced a smile. "Thanks."

"Let's go home," he said, sighing, and held out a hand.

Buffy took it and squeezed his fingers reassuringly. "Nothing worse than an ex who keeps turning up, huh? Riley has been my bane." She saw the relief in his eyes, knew that he was thinking that the fight over secrecy was behind them. In a way, he was right.

⸹

"Harmony."

"Spikey?" She curled her fingers around the bars. "Oh, I am so glad to see you. I can't bend these, not even a little. And that short girl with the tacky t-shirt was mean to me. Can you get me out of here?"

"Depends on why you're here, pet." He tucked his thumbs in his belt and looked at her critically. "You look good."

"Aww, thank you, Blondie Bear. You're always such a gentleman."

"Not always."

She grinned at the tone in his voice. "No, not always. Come on, Spikey. Do you have the keys or something?"

The come-hither was absent from his voice now. "Why are you here, Harm?"

"I came to see you, silly."

"All the way to Cleveland?"

"Well, there's that energy stuff that drew me here. Then I heard you were in town, too." Her face went a little hard. "I heard that you're staying with Buffy."

"'M not, 's'matter of fact. Living with her little sister."

Harmony made a face. "Really? She was, like, so annoying."

"I love her like she was my own."

"Oh." She gave him a false smile and turned on a dime. "She was a cute little girl."

"Not so little. She's taller than you, now."

"Are you going to let me out, or what?"

"Let me ask you a question, pet. If someone betrayed you to your enemies, what would you do to them?"

"Kill them, of course," she said, an as-if expression on her face. Then her eyes rounded. "I mean…" She bit her full lower lip and wrinkled her nose, realizing she'd walked into that one. "I totally didn't betray you guys, not really. It was all Hamilton; it was like a domestic abuse thingy where I was too scared to-"

"Bin it, Harm. You're a vampire. Why are you apologizing for being evil?"

"Because I was evil to you?" she guessed.

Spike gave a short laugh and looked at the floor, shaking his head. "Love, did you change even one little bit when you were turned?"

"Well, sure," she said, puzzled. "I mean, for one, I had the whole no-reflection thing, and let me tell you, that's not easy for a girl."

He waved it away. "Never mind. If I let you out, Harm, you have to leave town."

She nodded vigorously. "I can do that."

Spike leaned in and put his face close to hers, resting his hands on the bars. "I'm serious, pet. There are plenty of slayers in Cleveland and more coming back. 'S'not a safe place for a vampire, not ones without souls."

Harmony looked at him anxiously. "Are we alone now? No slayers?"

"We're alone."

"Good." She put her hands over his, and Spike's world went black.

⸹

"This is weird," Jacobson said, circling the table and then stepping back, the better to see the Olivia-thing sitting frozen in its chair. His tone said that it was more cool and interesting than weird, though.

Leaning against the stove, Rupert looked down at Willow. "It isn't the First Evil. The first thing I did was hug Olivia, and she was quite solid."

"Kayla's still asleep," Alpana reported, coming into the kitchen.

"Let her sleep, then."

"Did it do anything to you, Rupert?" she asked.

He met her anxious eyes. "No." Giles turned away and put his hand on Willow's shoulder. "I'd just made us tea when I got Willow's telephone call, and she popped right over."

"How long will the containment spell last?" Alpana asked, turning her gaze from the Head of the Council to Willow at the last moment.

"Until dawn, at least. If it's a magical construct, it'll disappear at daybreak."

"If not," Giles said, "I've always felt the holding cell at the training center is underused."

"What did this… not-Olivia want?"

He lifted his shoulders. "Nothing. We talked; I made tea. I can't imagine that someone would go to the trouble to produce a benign… manifestation, though."

"Okay," Willow said, obviously thinking as fast as she could. "We're good here and at Oz's place, but what about other people on the Council? There are still a lot of us out of town, so that's good, but if these were sent to me and you, maybe there's more."

Giles paled. "Xander. Dear Lord." Willow's eyes flew to his, and she disappeared a second later.

"Oh," Jacobson said, "the demon magnet."

Rupert straightened and firmed his mouth. "Yes, unfortunately. In the meantime, let's get busy. Call everyone in town to warn them against any old friends who turn up unexpectedly – Dawn first; then she can help contact those who are still on holiday. I'll try to ring Olivia."

⸹

Buffy and Angel gave each other wary looks. Both their cell phones had rung at the same time, and they answered almost simultaneously, Angel's "Hello?" a beat behind Buffy's.

Dawn didn't bother with preamble while explaining things to her sister. "So," she finished. "Old friends turning up. Be warned."

"Already taken care of." Buffy told the story of how Dracula had shown himself. "I'm pretty sure we've got one more, though. Nina's here."

"Who?"

"Angel's Dog-girl." Already through with his conversation with Giles, Angel shifted uncomfortably beside her when she used the nickname.

"Oh. I'll get Willow over as soon as she checks with Xander. Wait for her on the front step."

"Will do."

"I'm calling Spike next. Do you want the sword back?"

"No. Considering his scary ex, he might need it more than I do."

"Oh. Drusilla," Dawn said, her voice growing anxious. She had never met the vampiress, but she remembered too well the destruction the dark-haired seer left in her wake.

"Tell him it's not really Drusilla, if he sees her," Buffy said dryly. "That way he won't hesitate." The sisters said their goodbyes, and Buffy looked up at Angel, her eyebrows lifted.

"Giles told me that it isn't Nina waiting for us." He shook his head. "Willow thinks the way they behave comes from us, from out of our memories, from how we expect them to act. Giles said to tell you that it wasn't the First Evil, that they can be touched."

She nodded, though she wouldn't feel relieved until 'Nina' had been contained. "I'm no expert, but this has to be a powerful spell." Buffy thought not of Willow's memory spells, but of Amy Madison's spell against Willow in the dying town of Sunnydale. "Dawn said she's gone to check on Xander. No word yet."

His brown eyes widened. "Oh. That might be bad."

"Yeah. Dawn said to wait for Willow outside the apartment." She increased her pace to keep up with Angel's longer stride. "I was with her for a couple of hours, but she never tried to do anything evil."

"I wouldn't expect her to be evil, if the manifestation really comes from our thoughts." He looked down at Buffy, where the line of her shoulders was tight. "Are you cold?"

"No. A little," she contradicted herself, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her jacket. "I'll be fine." She nodded toward the end of the street. "Willow'll probably beat us there."

⸹

Xander's apartment was quiet and dark when Willow materialized in the kitchen. She listened for a moment, dread in her heart. "Xander?" she whispered. No answer. Going cautiously toward the hallway and out of reach of the glow of the LED clocks on the various appliances, she wished she could chance a small light spell.

"Xander?" she whispered again, outside his bedroom door. No answer, no sound. Then her cell phone rang, and Willow said in a low, miserable voice, "Oh, poo." She'd forgotten to turn off the ringer. Taking a breath, she threw open the door. "Ahh!"

"Ahh!" Xander said at the same time. From the opposite side of the bed, Lina turned on the lamp, blinding them all.

"Willow?" he said, lowering the axe he had poised, squinting at the blurry, red-haired person in front of him.

"Ahh!" she said again, cringing back from the axe and closing her eyes against the light. Xander, she was pretty sure, was naked. Willow scrambled for the phone. "Just a minute," she snapped. Then, turning and looking cautiously with one open eye, "Are you guys okay?"

"Other than the heart attack I'm having," he said, shaking his head and hurrying to the spot on the floor where he'd abandoned his robe a few hours ago. "Why are you sneaking around my apartment at this hour?"

"Just a minute," she told him, and put the phone back to her ear. "Yes?"

"You need to get over to Angel's. His ex Dog-Girl showed up."

"Okay. I'm on it. Could you call Xander and explain what's going on? Thanks. Bye." Willow gave Xander and Lina an apologetic look. "I'm sorry; I'm here to save you and all, but you don't need it. Dawn will explain everything. Don't let anyone in your apartment until you talk to her. I'm glad you're okay," and with a wave, she popped out of their bedroom.

Lina raised her eyebrows. "Sounds like a Council crisis."

"Holy understatement, Lina."

"To the Batcave!"

He chuckled, going the rest of the way around the bed to tuck her against his side. "You get a gold star for coming up with that sixty seconds after being woken from a sound sleep by an incompetent burglar-slash-rescuing friend." The telephone rang, and he picked it up. "Hey, Dawnie. What's the sitch?"

⸹

Dawn was speed-dialing Spike's cell phone with hers even as she hung up the landline with Xander. She jumped a little when it rang behind her, and she pushed aside a stack of rejected slayer applications to see his cell phone vibrate a couple of inches to one side, a tinny rendition of Guns N Roses' 'Sweet Child O Mine' coming from its speaker. She snorted. He must have been feeling sentimental while she was gone.

She tried the gym, then called Geneva, apologizing first thing for waking her. She said she wasn't asleep but would be as soon as she kicked Manny out. Dawn was on the phone for a couple of minutes longer, finding out more about the slayer's progress with her new boyfriend. Next, she called Maria, who wasn't answering. She crossed two more slayers off her list after that no-answer, then tried Spike once more.

No answer at the gym. Frowning and trying not to think of Drusilla's doppelganger coming after Spike, Dawn tried Maria again. I swear, she thought, if those two have gone off somewhere together, I'll geld him.

⸹

Xander unlocked the front door of Watcher Central and stepped inside, nodding at McGann, who looked better now that he'd taken some time off. "Anything new?"

"No," he said, running his hand through his already-ruffled hair. "Know I'm back in Cleveland, though. Got me out of a nice warm bed."

"Me, too," Xander sympathized. His cell phone rang before he could ask about the other Watcher's holiday, and he saw the call was from Dawn.

"Hey, Xan. Did you get hold of Nguise?"

"I did. She's fine, other than being grouchy because I woke her up. She had a long flight back – flying while Muslim."

"Oh. Well, at least she knows; I'll mark her off my list. Xander, could you check to see if Spike is there?"

"Hang on a minute." He asked McGann and checked Rupert's office. "Nope. No Captain Peroxide."

"Thanks. Doofus went off without his phone tonight, and no one is answering at the gym."

"He's probably on patrol."

"You're probably right, but have him call me if he shows up."

Xander tucked his phone into the holder on his belt and went back to McGann.

"Have you seen her yet?" the older man asked. "It's really weird, the way she's not moving." He led Xander into the kitchen.

Upstairs, curled in her bed beneath several blankets, Kayla began to dream, her eyes darting jerkily back and forth beneath her eyelids.

⸹

" _Rigor_ ," Willow said as soon as Angel unlocked and pushed open the door. "All done." She'd caught the faux werewolf just as she started to rise from the couch, arms pushing down into the cushions. "Ooh, that doesn't look comfortable."

"What was that sizzling noise?" Angel asked.

"A clue, I hope," Willow said, going inside cautiously. "Not-Kennedy and Not-Olivia made the same noise when I froze them. Maybe it'll help us to find out what's causing this, the spell or the demon or whatever it is."

"Not-Count sort of sizzled when he went to dust," Buffy said, remembering, "and it was more of an explosion than a regular poof."

Her word choice made Angel smile, but it faded as he walked over to look down at the Nina shape, his hands in his pockets. "It looks exactly like her," he marveled.

"Mine was a pretty good imitation Kennedy, too," Willow agreed.

"Why?" Buffy asked, going toward the kitchen table to sit down, not wanting to sit near to the frozen form. "You got Kennedy, I got Dracula, Giles got Olivia, and Angel got Nina. What's the common factor?"

"I think you might have said it," Angel said, joining her. "Unfinished business."

She raised her eyebrows. "I thought you said it was over between you two."

"It was," he said steadily, "as far as I was concerned. She felt it was kind of… abrupt."

Willow hadn't sat down, and she stood by Buffy with a tiny frown on her face. "I don't know, but it doesn't feel right to me, the why, I mean. Shouldn't it be our unfinished business, if these apparitions are appearing to us?" She shook her head. "We'll see if anyone else gets a visit, and if they dissolve at daybreak. Then we'll know more." Willow bent down to give Buffy a quick hug. "I'm going to go back to Oz's. It has to be sort of gruesome to sit there alone and watch one of these creepy mannequins."

After she'd gone, Angel looked back at Buffy and caught her yawning. "Why don't you go take a nap?" he suggested. "I'll watch," he gestured towards the sofa, "whatever that is."

Buffy only hesitated for a moment before answering. "Thanks. If you really don't mind, a nap sounds wonderful."

"Go on," he urged.

"Wake me if anything else turns up," she asked. Buffy stood from the table and gave him a small smile, then leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Angel watched her walk to the bedroom, relieved that she was getting back to the affectionate woman he was used to. Then he went to the front step and stood just outside, the door open a crack so he could see the Nina-shape on the couch. He took out his phone and called Connor to warn him against old friends, grateful that it was earlier in California, that he wasn't waking his son.

In their bedroom, Buffy unzipped her boots and took them off, sliding under the covers still in her clothes. She didn't really feel sleepy; she just wanted an uninterrupted chance to think. With everything going on, she found that her mind kept circling back to one moment, one word.

 _Slayer_.

He could still see her, see all of her, could still open the door for his Slayer, like the gentleman he'd once been. She'd come back with less of herself; how could it be otherwise, when the indescribable memories of heaven took up so much inside of her? But she'd come back to a changed world, where a vampire had voluntarily regained his soul. Spike was there for her, there to help her, to shore her up. Someone had known she would need a support, maybe, had made sure she'd had one. And she had pushed that support away because it wasn't in the shape she expected, an Angel-shape, she supposed.

Buffy curled into a fetal position and closed her eyes. It was too much to think about just now, because if Spike was meant to be her support, then it was meant… She found she couldn't finish the thought; it was too enormous. But she was able to keep looking at it, considering the thought as if it was an unfinished symphony, imagining the notes that would bring it to a finale.

She fell asleep and, soon after, began to dream.

⸹

Dawn looked at the list, just an old patrol schedule she'd grabbed to keep track of who was in town and who wasn't. All the names were crossed out except Maria's and both her roommates'; everyone else was accounted for and warned, even Kennedy and Nina. Giles' friend Olivia hadn't been located, but he didn't have a reliable number for her right now. "Come on," she muttered, dialing the gym again. No answer.

The apartment door opened, and she turned around, hopeful. "Oh, hey, Tribby," she said, trying not to sound disappointed. Being thorough, she marked the name off her list.

"Hey, Dawn. You're up late."

Dawn sent a look at the ceiling and blew out a breath. "Not by choice." She quickly filled in the developing story, and the slayer began to look sick. Tribby was searching through her purse even as she explained that she'd nearly staked a vampire who was looking for Spike.

"Harmony?" Dawn asked, her voice a squeak. "He won't have his guard up, not for her."

"That was almost three hours ago." Tribby's voice was tight as she found the keys she was looking for. "I went to visit Ty before coming home. Call Willow; I'm on my way back to the gym. I'll have my phone on." She was gone, the sound of her feet pelting down the four flights of stairs over in a few seconds.

Dawn heard a motorcycle start up before she'd finished dialing Willow. Oh, great, she thought sourly, now I'll have one missing roommate and one with pneumonia. "Wil, it's Dawn. I think we've found a fifth one."

⸹

"Spike!"

"In here, Tribby," Willow said tiredly from where she stood in the hallway in front of the locked cell.

The slayer skidded around the doorway, her eyes sweeping the room. "She's gone. He let her out?"

"No, I don't think so," the witch said. "There's some serious magical vibes still resonating. I think she took Spike somewhere."

"Oh, no. Where?"

Willow's face tightened. "I don't know." She looked down at her right hand, a map of the city crumpled in her fingers. "I can't find him." The locator spell hadn't worked, and there were so many reasons that might be, few of them good.

"Is it the same people who kidnapped Angel, with the symbols?"

"No. He's just… gone."

"It wasn't his old girlfriend, then? One of these chimeras?"

"That's the one thing I am sure of, that Harmony was another spell."

"Can you trace the magic?"

"I don't know!" Tribby took a step back, and Willow sighed, closing her eyes. When she opened them, they were hazel again. "I'm trying to think of what I can try next."

"I'm sorry." The dark-haired woman looked away. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have left him alone with her."

"It's not your fault," Willow said, too tired and worried to put much conviction behind it.

Years of competition lay behind the way the slayer put her emotions aside, ready for the next round. "I'll go see if I can find him out in the city. If there's one thing I can do, it's sense vampires."

Willow nodded. "Okay. Good, you do that. Call Giles if you find anything." With a nod, the slayer was gone, and the young witch sighed again. Buffy could be captured and get away without getting her hair mussed, but whenever Spike was taken, it seemed he got the stuffing beat out of him.

⸹

"Dammit," Giles said, throwing another unproductive book onto the coffee table. "There has to be something we're missing.

"Even if we do find out which spell it is," McGann began.

"When we find out what spell it is," Rupert overrode him, "it will be in plenty of time. Spike's survived torture at the hands of a god, man, not to mention weeks at the mercy of First Evil."

Despite the set of his boss' jaw, McGann plowed on. "All I was going to say is that the spell may simply end in a couple of hours, with the sunrise."

"Willingham is working on it, Angus," Alpana said wearily, rubbing her forehead. "Don't forget, Maria is missing, too, and Rupert hasn't been able to get in touch with his – with Olivia."

Before Giles could respond to that, there was a noise from the landing on the stairs. The Watchers in the living room looked up to see Kayla standing there in pajamas printed with a Betty Boop motif. She was as pale as any vampire.

"She's got Spike," Kayla said, her eyes too wide.

"Yes, we know," Giles said impatiently. Then he slowly stood from the armchair. "You dreamed…? A Slayer dream?" He was across the floor to the staircase, pulling her gently down the last steps.

Xander was a step behind Rupert. "Kayla, are you all right?"

She nodded at her Watcher, but it was an absent gesture. "It's his ex-girlfriend. I dreamed…."

"What did you dream, Kayla?" Giles asked, settling her in the chair he'd abandoned. Xander knelt down next to her, concerned, touching her clammy cheek with the back of his hand. Before she answered, Giles' cell phone rang, and he sent a desperate look to Xander before answering it.

"His old girlfriend, the vampire, what she did to him was terrible," Kayla said, her voice small and sounding far away. On the sofa, McGann and Jacobson leaned forward, but their cell phones beebled at almost the same time.

Xander frowned, wondering what was going on that the other Watchers were being called, but he put it away. "She took him, we know. Did you see where he was?"

Kayla shook her head. "A large, dark room; that's all I saw. A-and a painted wooden floor. Xander, she's going to hurt him. Bad."

"No, she won't, Kayla. I promise. We'll find him."

"But I dreamed it, Xander. She kills him." She grabbed his hand.

"No," he said, even as he went cold. He made himself smile and touched her face, acting for all he was worth. This was, he understood from the movies if not real life, what parents were supposed to do. "We're looking for him right now. Besides, you can't kill Captain Peroxide. Not only has he come back twice, technically he's already dead."

He could usually make her smile, but not this time. Meanwhile, Giles had folded his phone. His eyes locked on Kayla for a moment, then he caught some word in the conversation Jacobson was having. As soon as the other man ended the call, he asked, "Alan? Someone reporting a dream?"

Jacobson nodded. "A slayer in France."

"Me, too," McGann said. "Thistlewaithe, old mate of mine in Edinburgh called to say his slayer dreamed about Spike."

"That was the Buttermere Institute for me," Giles said. "Dana dreamt about him, too. They had to sedate her."

Xander looked up at the bewildered Head of the Council. "Kayla says Harmony's got Spike in a large, dark room with a painted wooden floor, but that's all she knows."

"Wha…? Harmony? Who's Harmony?" Kayla asked, still clutching Xander's hand. "It's Drusilla. I know her from the portrait Angel drew of the two of them. Drusilla has Spike."

⸹

Buffy looked at her feet, encased in sparkly red shoes, then at the road she was following, made of yellow brick. Somewhere else in her mind, she rolled her eyes at the too-familiar setting, but the rest of her knew it was a Slayer dream, so she stopped admiring her shoes and looked around. There was a whitewashed rail fence lining the road, with cornfields on either side. She stepped off the path and looked at the scarecrow hanging in the left-side field.

He was staring back at her with merry blue eyes, almost lounging on his pole, his arms tucked over the crossbar, pulling the long black coat open. A tiny falcon, brown and white and blue of wing, perched on one of his elbows. It looked at Buffy, cocked its head to the side, and winked. Then it flew up, hovered over them for a moment, and was gone.

"You're not a very good scarecrow," she observed.

"Not with that bird," he agreed.

"I didn't know straw could be that blond."

"You're quite blond yourself. Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to follow this road until I can get back to heaven."

"Heaven?" He considered this. "Think this road goes to Iowa, kitten."

"It's Kansas you're thinking of," she snapped. "I'm never going to Iowa."

He wasn't bothered by her anger. "'Course not; why would you want to?"

"Look, are you going to come with me or not?"

The smile the scarecrow gave her made her toes curl inside the flashy shoes. "Thought you'd never ask, love." He dropped down from the crosstree and leapt over the fence, and she felt better as soon as he fell in place to her left, curving his body around her space. "Can't go with you to heaven, maybe, but I can get you there."

"Why can't you go to heaven?"

"Don't have a soul."

"Well, you should get one."

"Do you really think I need one?"

"I don't want to lose you."

"I'll get one, then."

She smiled at him and slipped her hand in his. "I'm glad I found you first."

"No one else found me until you," he replied, smiling back. They set off, going past more fields. There was a photocopier as big as a VW Beetle parked in the middle of the path at one point, blank pages blowing away as it ceaselessly churned them out, and they skirted around it.

"Oh," she said, as they passed though an apple orchard, "I think we need to stop for the tin man."

"Why? I like just the two of us."

"We're part of the world, you know," though it made her sad, too. "It can't be just us."

The scarecrow thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Right. Well, better get to it, then. Long time until heaven."

"It is?" she asked, even sadder.

"It's all about the trip." He grinned down at her. "Even I know that."

"I thought you'd never get here," the tin man said, stepping out from between two apple trees, holding his axe, removing the patch over one eye. "I've got both eyes, but the people who made me forgot to give me a heart, so I need one. I love you," he told Buffy. "Will you give me my heart?"

"No," she said, patting his arm. "I love you, too, but I'm not the one who can give you the heart. But I'd really like it if you came with us. I'm following this path to heaven, and maybe you can find a heart while we travel."

"Because it's all about the journey," the scarecrow added.

"Well, I don't want to stay here alone," the tin man said, "so let's go."

"Next stop, creepy forest and the lion," Buffy said cheerfully, but it sounded forced even to her.

The lion appeared from the shadowy woods without a noise, came up to her, and looked down with soulful brown eyes. "Hello, Buffy."

"Sod off," the scarecrow said. Then he saw her irate expression and said to the lion, "Er, I mean, would you like to come with us on this really long journey that lions wouldn't enjoy at all?"

"She's looking for heaven, he's looking for a soul, and I need to find my heart," the tin man added helpfully.

"I have a heart and most of the time I have a soul," the lion told Buffy, "but I have no courage." He looked at the scarecrow. "Are you sure you don't need a brain?"

"Quite sure."

"Oh." The lion looked back at Buffy. "Now that I've met you, I feel a little more courageous. I'll come and protect you."

"I don't need protecting," she said, annoyed. "I just want company."

They came out of the woods to more farmland, but before they could go far, a bubble came down and landed next to them on the yellow brick. As it burst, they saw a red-haired woman. "I'm the good witch, and I've come to help you."

"You aren't Glinda," the scarecrow pointed out.

"No," she agreed sadly, "but she taught me everything I know about being a good witch."

"Oh, I'm so glad you'll help us," Buffy said. "He needs courage," she explained, putting her hand on the lion's arm.

"You've taken courage from Buffy, so you can travel any road you wish." As soon as the witch said the words, the lion began to walk down a different road, a path of black brick that led to the West.

"Goodbye, Buffy. I'll always love you."

"Goodbye," she said, frowning. "People come and go so quickly around here. Anyway," she said, "the tin man needs a heart."

He stepped forward. "Oh, I remember now. I have a heart, because the witch helped me find it when we were little. All I have to do is give my heart to someone, and I'll be fine."

"I'm sorry I can't take your heart, but I'm glad you'll be okay," Buffy said tenderly. He hugged her and continued on his way down the yellow brick road.

"It's time for you to come with me, Buffy," the witch said kindly.

"But isn't there a wizard?"

"Yes, you can go see the Great and Wondrous Giles if you want to, but that's more journey."

"Maybe I could follow the path a little further," she hedged.

"Why would you want to do that?" the witch asked.

Buffy turned to the scarecrow. "Because I'll miss you most of all."

"I'll always be with you."

"But what about your soul?"

"Oh, I got that while you weren't looking."

"That's good." She turned to the witch. "We'll keep on this road, catch up with the Tin Man. Thank you, though." Buffy was going to watch the good witch float away in the awesome bubble again, but something cold made her turn in the other direction.

"Hullo, scarecrow. Care to play with fire?"

"Oh, great," Buffy said, "the wicked witch."

"For a scarecrow, I'm surprisingly non-flammable."

"Oh, I have other games we can play," the wicked witch replied, smiling with small teeth, "my scarecrow."

"Ahem," Buffy said, stepping forward, the red shoes tip-tapping firmly on the brick. "This scarecrow belongs to me."

"I made this scarecrow," the wicked witch said, and she had him in her grasp, her dark hair flowing over his shoulder, "and he'll always be mine. Mine to love, mine to destroy."

"No," Buffy said, "I'm not ready to have him out of my life."

"It won't be for very long," the witch said, strangely sympathetic. "I know these things." She turned back to the Scarecrow. "The time has run out on your hourglass, though." She turned away, pulling him with her, and Buffy couldn't see what she was doing, but there was the horribly familiar sound of air rushing into space once occupied by a vampire.

Buffy felt herself falling, kept expecting to feel the yellow brick cut into her knees, because she had to feel something else, something other than emptiness. Not again. She couldn't lose him again.

She sat up, breathing hard, the silence in the dark bedroom almost too much for her sanity to take.

Angel was at the door, across the room to her side. "Buffy? Are you all right?"

"Bad dream," she said shakily. "Slayer dream. You were in it, and-" She made herself shut up. "Drusilla has Spike."

"No. Harmony-" he began, frowning.

"Harmony was just… vapor," Buffy snapped, throwing the covers off her legs and reaching for her boots, "as always. I'm telling you, Drusilla has Spike, and she's not happy with him."

⸹

"I just got off the phone with Aubrey. He found the answer," Alpana reported, "and it's a spell."

Five o'clock in the morning, and everyone had congregated at Watcher Central. Willow had moved all the chimeras to the kitchen, which kept the humans and slayers from wanting to get coffee and tea quite as much. The frozen figures of the women were creepy. In the living room, Willow was perched on the arm of the chair Oz sat in. Dawn was cuddling Kayla on the couch, and Buffy was cuddling Dawn. Xander was next to her, and he looked up at Vishnaswamy. "What kind of spell?"

She looked unhappy to have to say it. "A transport spell, basically a door shaped so you want to go through it. He says there's no limit on how far away they could be."

"Now that we know Drusilla is involved, it explains how the," Giles waved a hand toward the paralyzed forms in the kitchen, too tired to think of a name for them, "how they came to be. She can… pull memories from you and make them seem very realistic."

"But she isn't a witch," Xander said. "She can't be doing this, not by herself."

"The thought of Drusilla in league with anyone magical…" Giles didn't bother to finish.

Dawn, looking gray, gave Kayla a reassuring pat. "He's all right," she said. "I'd know if he wasn't."

Buffy felt a pang of jealousy, wishing she could say the same, but she simply pressed her lips to her sister's shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze. Angel was out looking for Spike, since blood called to blood, and so was Tribby, who was good at sensing vampires. Buffy felt useless, just sitting here, and the way she felt at the end of her dream was crouching behind every thought, ready to pounce. She couldn't lose him again. "He'll be all right."

Alpana turned away. She was fond of Spike, but Maria was also missing, and she was Maria's Watcher. Spike had enough people worrying about him.

Worldwide, dozens of slayers had dreamed that the Slayer of Slayers was in trouble, was in pain, was dead. They woke in their beds, and despite the various fates they reported, the emotions were always the same: anguish, worry, fear. Not one of the upset slayers was glad to see this particular vampire die. None of the Watchers knew meaning of the widespread dreaming, exactly, and were unwilling to speculate.

"Giles?" Jacobson came out of the study. "Telephone. It's an Englishman, but he wouldn't say who he is."

Rupert touched Alpana's shoulder as he went by. "I'll take it out here." He picked up the portable telephone from its base on a table near the stairs. "Rupert Giles speaking."

"No need to identify yourself, Rupert. I'd recognize your voice anywhere."

Giles went quite as still as the chimeras for a moment, then bent to write on a scrap of notepaper. "As I would yours, Ethan." He took the paper to the couch and passed it to Xander. The dark-haired man read the block letters and his expression went hard.

ETHAN RAYNE.

"Oh, very gratifying, Rupert, because I was afraid you'd forgotten me. Out of sight means out of mind, they say, and I was quite out of sight in a United States government holding facility in the vast nothingness that is Nevada. Not that I saw any vastness, confined in an eight by twelve cell as I was."

"Ethan, I can't say that I'm interested in your troubles right now."

"No, I imagine that you're quite worried about your missing people, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

Even through the phone lines, Giles could hear the smile. Enjoy the power while you have it, you pillock, he thought. "And is there something you want in exchange for their safe return?"

"Oh, it's too early in the game to haggle over the pawns. We're on my timetable, Rupert. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"Good. That means when I tell you that you must do as I say if you want to see your lover again, why, you'll do exactly as I say."

Giles closed his eyes. The bastard did have Olivia. Spike was worrisome; Maria made his gut clench; but that Ethan had plain, ordinary human Olivia… "What is it you want me to do?"

"The portal that came to you is nearby, yes?"

"In the next room."

"Go stand next to it."

Giles gestured to Willow, who jumped off the chair and followed him into the kitchen. "I'm standing next to it."

"Very good. I like it when you're cooperative, Rupert. Now, tuck the telephone against your shoulder and place both hands on the portal."

He looked at Willow, widening his eyes, and she slid her arms around his waist, holding on tight. Giles put his hands on the Olivia-shaped shoulders. It disappeared and so did Giles, leaving Willow juggling the telephone, which had fallen through the air where the Watcher had been.

"Rupert!" Alpana, watching from the doorway, covered her mouth immediately after the outburst.

"Now we've lost Giles, too," Buffy said in a dead voice, next to the Watcher.

"No, I-I don't think so," Willow said, frowning. "He wouldn't have been so willing to go, I don't think, if he didn't have something in mind. I think he knows we can track him."

"How?"

"Give me a minute. I need to get something from my apartment."

"I'll go," Oz volunteered. "What do you need?"

"I mean my apartment in England." And she was gone, too.

⸹

"Rupert! How nice of you to drop in," Ethan said, beaming at him.

Giles stumbled, no longer having anything to brace himself against, the Olivia-construct having evaporated. Good; nothing between him and Ethan. He started forward, fists clenched.

"Ah, ah, none of that," Ethan warned. He nodded to the corners of the room they were in, what looked like a large executive office. In each corner was a Fyarl, all of whom were training crossbows on him. The weapons looked like toys in their large hands. Ethan gave him a mean little smile when he stopped short. "I thought you'd appreciate the guards."

"Are they actual Fyarl, or did you dupe more of your friends?"

"Friends? Really? How long has it been since we were friends?"

"Not long enough," he answered steadily.

Ethan chuckled. "Oh, Rupert." He regarded the other man for a moment. "Not to be maudlin, but I've been waiting for this moment for a long time."

"Have you?"

"Oh, yes." He walked a short distance away and leaned against the desk. "I've learned to bide my time. I've learned I'll never be able to match your," Ethan smiled again, "physical prowess, hence the guards. I trust you've learned you'll never outwit me."

"I hardly have to," Giles said, shrugging. "Hoisting yourself via your own petard seems to be the one thing you do exceptionally well."

"Things have changed," he replied with equanimity. "For you, too. You were alone for a long time."

The Watcher frowned. "I haven't been alone for years."

"Those children could hardly provide… companionship, not at the level you're used to."

At that moment, the cell phone in Giles' pocket rang. He reached for it, an automatic motion, but Ethan made a gesture in the air and it flew to his hand. Giles' fist was clenched again as he pulled it from his empty pocket. He was discovering that Ethan had grown stronger, and the implications were unsettling.

Ethan took the call, smirking at his old friend. "Ah, Buffy. I'm afraid Rupert can't come to the phone right now. How very… pedestrian of you to try to call him."

Even from a few yards away, Giles could hear his Slayer's voice. "I figured he'd already have taken your head off, you pathetic little sh-"

Ethan dropped the phone and stamped on it, hard. "Tsk. Such language. What have you been teaching her? Actually," he looked up, his eyebrows raised, "you could teach her quite a lot. But that would be, what's the word… wrong? A betrayal of her trust."

"Look, Ethan," he began, thinking that he might as well spend the time with an obligatory appeal to reason, "you have me. Let the others go."

"And then what would I have to make you so cooperative? I know you, Rupert, down to your very soul." His voice was dark. "On your own, you'll break before you bend, but with another's well-being at, shall we say, stake…? That's a scenario I very much enjoy contemplating." He idly kicked the pieces of the telephone beneath the desk.

"Keep us men, then, and let the wo-"

"Keep you men?" Ethan laughed openly at this. "How incredibly sexist, from the Watcher of a Slayer like little Buffy." He leaned against the desk again, and Giles steeled himself from violence at the satisfied look on his one-time friend's face. "I don't have your junior slayer anymore, anyway," he said, watching Rupert's face with relish. "She's dead."

"Maria is dead?" he managed, hoarse.

Ethan gave an elegant shrug. "Perhaps… undead is a better word."

"Oh dear Lord."

"It should be interesting to see how she comes along." Ethan tilted his head to one side, watching Rupert closely, not wanting to miss an emotion. "We talked about that, wondering if it had been purged from the records or had just never happened. A slayer, turned."

"Who would be insane enough to…" And then he knew. From the gloating expression of Ethan's face, he wanted him to figure it out. "You brought in Drusilla. You gave Spike to her."

Energy crackled from Ethan. This, obviously, was the high point of his evening. "Spike. Very… phallic, Rupert. You usually call him William, I believe." The sorcerer went to a whiteboard along the wall, flanked by two Fyarl, and pressed a button. The panel folded back to reveal a small bank of three monitors. One was on, showing a closed-circuit feed of a dark room with a slightly darker shape lying supine on the floor. "You do, don't you?" he demanded.

"Wha…? Yes," Giles said impatiently, "as that's his name."

"William Giles."

Rupert gave him a searching look, then an incredulous smile touched his mouth. "Ethan, you think… You think that…" And then true understanding dawned. "You're jealous."

"You needn't be the upstanding Watcher here, Rupert," Ethan said, almost kindly. He nodded toward the monitor. "He told me what your relationship is."

"If you asked a vampire a direct question and took his answer at face value, then I'm frankly shocked you've not been eaten," Giles said. "Spike is a friend. The only other feelings I've had toward him, once he got his soul and I got past the disgust and hatred, have been rather fatherly."

Ethan gave him a pitying smile. "Very discreet, Giles." He took a manila envelope that was propped between two of the monitors and tossed it at the Watcher.

Eying his former friend for a wary moment, Giles opened it. Inside were surveillance photos of him and Spike in Philadelphia for Rona's wedding, sitting elbow to elbow at a bar, Spike with his arm slung over Giles' shoulders as they laughed together at the reception hall, walking into the hotel room they had shared, leaving the next day in Spike's truck.

"He touches you quite a lot for someone who's just a friend."

"He touches everyone quite a lot. You get used to it, after a while."

Smiling tolerantly, the slender man shook his head. "Very convincing. Not a chance I'll believe you, of course. Once I told you I had your lover, you were here in a thrice. Betrayed by your own actions, Rupert."

"That's because you have Olivia, you berk." He once again read everything on Ethan's face. "You have no idea who Olivia is," he said, relief in his tone. The part of him that would always be Ripper rebalanced the figures and came up with better odds, ruthlessly cutting poor Maria out of the equation. Just him and Spike, and they could hang on until they were rescued – they'd both survived torture at Angelus' hands, after all, and Spike considerably worse.

"Well," Ethan said, regrouping, "it seems I may have been mistaken on the specifics, but I do have you pegged in general." He waved a dramatic hand toward the monitor, where a light had come on. "I wonder how much of this you'll be able to watch?" Drusilla appeared in the frame and sent a playful look toward the camera. Behind her, wearing her demon face because it was new and wonderful to her, was Maria.

"Call her off, Ethan," Giles warned.

He shook his head, chuckling again. "Do you really think I have control over that magnificently mad creature? All I can do is point her in a particular direction," he smirked, "and I've aimed her right at William Giles."

⸹

Angel ducked through the low doorway into the demon bar. He let his aura spread out, and creatures of all shapes scurried out of his path. There was someone in here, something that made him feel sick at the familiarity because it wasn't anyone he'd ever met. There, at the table by the bar, a young man dark of hair and eye. It was the same for the stranger, who stared at him, his lips curving in a smile. "I should know you."

"You should," Angel said, not returning the smile, "as I am head of your line."

His words made the friendliness fade. "No. Drusilla is the Mistress."

Angel's cold expression became even more forbidding. "I made Drusilla, fledge. Take me to her."

The younger vampire thought about it, staring up at him. Then he smiled again, slowly. "All right. Come with me." He strode out of the club, the big vampire following close behind.

Angel knew the exact moment the vampire was going to turn to fight, and it was no solace to him that he was right. He had the fledge in a headlock in two moves. "It's over, son. I am sorry she turned you; she doesn't have permission."

"She doesn't need your permission," he replied, still struggling. "And why are you sorry? You should be glad there's one less weak, insipid human in the world."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know. She was busy tonight." There was a sulk in his voice, the tone of a child who wasn't getting the attention it felt it rightfully deserved, that made Angel believe him.

"Since you're an unlicensed Aurelian knockoff," Angel said, "your life is forfeit. But I'll give you a chance to get out of Cleveland if you save me the trouble of tracking her down. Tell me the last place you saw her."

"You won't kill me," he said, stupidly convinced of this. "I'm family."

"Son," Angel said, his face stony as he abruptly separated the vampire's head from its body, "if you were family, I wouldn't kill you this quick." He stood there a moment, letting out the rest of his breath. Drusilla was somewhere nearby, and she was siring. Her oldest child was missing. Someone was sending magical constructs after key people. He had under two hours of darkness left to find the answer to any of these riddles. Angel closed his eyes for a moment, took in the deepest possible breath, and began to analyze the information in the air as he started moving through the night once again.

⸹

The two female vampires were so quiet as they crossed the empty floor, at first Giles thought there was no audio with the surveillance camera. Then Drusilla knelt, still a respectful distance away from the unconscious vampire, and spoke quietly, her voice echoing as if they were in a much larger space than what Giles could see. "Wake, my Spike." The Watcher went cold as the blond man sat up as commanded, putting one hand to the back of his neck. She still had power over him.

"'Lo, Dru. Long time, yeah?" He twisted around, and even with the static camera angle, Giles could see the sorrow on Spike's face. "Oh, Maria. I'm so sorry, love."

"I'm not sorry," she said, a little sibilant through the new fangs.

"Dru, you don't have permission to sire," he reproved, still gazing at the youngest vampire.

"Don't need permission," she said, a bit put out that he had focused so little attention on her. "I'm the head of our order, after all."

"Might want to take that up with Angel," he replied mildly.

"He's not Angelus," she pointed out. "Can't be Master with a soul."

"Not the opinion held by two out of three leading Aurelians."

"Your opinion doesn't count, not now." She swayed toward him, then moved back, hissing. "You've got one, too."

"I do," he agreed, and sat up a little more, putting both hands on the floor and studying her, his expression serious. "Thought a lot about this, love. We can make it a full house. You want your soul back, poodle? I'll get it for you."

"What?" Not even Drusilla had foreseen this offer.

"Your soul, pet. I'd love to know you the way you used to be. Me an' Angel, we're family again, and we miss you – you know how that is. We'll take care of you, you get ensouled. You an' me, we'll scarper off to Africa, won't take but a week. Figure I can come through the trials with a bit less bother this time, so maybe not even a week. You can have what Angelus took from you, love."

Oh, you dear, sweet man, Giles thought, staring at Spike's earnest face and Drusilla's shocked, unsettlingly lucid expression.

She shook her head, dark curls bouncing. "I've never been that mad, Spike. You'd have me know my own crimes?" She stood up, clutching at herself, then holding her arms as if cradling an infant. "You'd force me to know what I've done, what blood is on my hands? Do you hate me so much now?"

"I love you, Dru. Always will. An' it wouldn't be like that, not like it is for Angelus. It'd be a gift, pet. And I know your soul is sweet and gentle as a lamb. Has to be. It'd forgive you."

His sire straightened, her head dipping as though she was hearing something. "Can't ever be, my Spike. My soul is safe, safe as houses, safe where Daddy can never find it, can never go. You can't get it for me. Not a grail, my fine knight." Her voice grew strident. "Can't give it to me, a gift, like a jewel or a bouquet or a toddler. Don't ever think you could take it from where it's safe, where it smells of lemons and custard, make it a lamb caught in the brambles!" She flew at him, ready to strike his face.

Spike was on his feet in a blurred motion, gripping her hand, holding it away from him. Maria made an outraged noise to see her sire so mistreated, and she came at her former trainer with a snarl. Without looking away from Dru, he backhanded Maria, sending her sprawling several yards away.

"H-how…?" She touched her fingers to her fang-punctured lip, was unable to resist licking the blood from them.

"You think you get the kid gloves," he responded, his eyes still locked on Drusilla, "like when you were one of mine?"

"You've grown stronger, my Spike," Dru purred. Neither of them paid attention as Maria got back to her feet.

"I have," he agreed. "Always been stronger than you, love, physically. An' you can't get me with the big eyes. Means you're not safe." He let go of her wrist, and put his hands carefully on her shoulders. "Don't want to think of a world without you in it somewhere, Dru. You need to get out of Cleveland. Too many slayers, my Slayer. And Angel, love. He brought you into being-"

"He'll unmake me," she breathed, something ecstatic in her voice.

"Yes, but then I'd be alone in a world the poorer for having no Drusilla."

"You're not alone," she accused. Dru gave him a sly look and abruptly changed the topic. "I've grown stronger, too."

"Have you, pet?"

She sidled away from him, smiling. "Met a man who gave me something strong."

Spike's expression was set, guarded "What's that?"

"Magic." Her eyes sparkled. "Not like pixies dancing in the ether, not even like the gypsies' magic. Magic that trails from my fingertips." Drusilla drummed her long fingers against the air, then gave her former lover a sharp look. "Magic against you, my Spike."

She flexed her fingers and pushed her hands toward him, her wide eyes sparkling with glee. Spike went backwards from the waist with unnatural reflexes, feeling the air on his face from the scimitar that had materialized inches before him and slashed at his throat. Drusilla spread her fingers again, and more blades materialized next to him, slicing down, leaving him almost no time to react. Then she pulled her fingers back toward herself, as if she was playing an autoharp, and Spike dodged one of two final swords.

The second one was at knee-level, and he couldn't duck and jump effectively at the same time. It took him across the backs of his ankles before disappearing into nothingness, leaving him on the floor.

Watching, Giles took in a small breath. He cut his eyes to Ethan, who was in turn watching him, satisfaction evident on his face.

Spike winced, scuttling toward the closest wall as a defense and for possible leverage. He could feel his Achilles tendons contracting, sliding upwards, away from his heels, like tension easing from stretched rubber bands. "Oh, bloody hell," he muttered. He had no idea how long it would take to heal; this was a new injury for him. He looked up to see Dru advancing toward him, a delighted smile on her face. "Nice trick, pet."

"It is, isn't it?" she beamed.

"What'd you have to give for it?"

"Why, nothing, my Spike," she said with reproof, "you naughty thing. You mustn't think such thoughts." She turned, her skirt belling out, and clapped her hands. "Jorge," she called, and a young vampire emerged from the shadows. He handed her a cylinder-shaped object, and she ran a long finger down the length of his torso, then casually waved him away. "I've found the loveliest new toy, sweet William."

"Who, Jorge?" He grimaced a little, propping himself against the wall.

She flashed an irate look at him, but nothing could mar her good humor. "It's called an acetylene torch."

Giles found he couldn't bring himself to wait any longer. He lashed out with a left jab, taking Ethan across the jaw, then quickly moved in behind him, getting him in a chokehold. "That's far enough," Rupert warned the advancing Fyarl, his grip on the other man tightening. The big demons stopped, one even falling back in confusion. "All right, Ethan. Call her off."

"I told you, Rupert," he said, his voice choked, "I don't control her." He laughed a little. "I do, however, have some influence with _her_."

Giles looked up in time to see the door open and a brown-haired young woman step inside. He saw a deeply satisfied smile, then a blast of energy took him full in the face. He was immobile, paralyzed by the magic, but if he'd been able to, he would have whispered her name.

She saw the recognition in his eyes. "Hello, Mr. Giles," Amy Madison said smoothly as Ethan extracted himself from Rupert's entangling arms. "You're a long way from your library."

Tugging his shirt back into place, the sorcerer went across to the young woman and slid his arm around her waist. With a gesture, he waved the Fyarl back to their corners. "I'm sorry he must be so rude as to not return your greeting, my angel," Ethan said, smiling down at her, "but that was a brilliant bit of work."

"It was, wasn't it? And you knew exactly what he would do."

"I've known him for a long time," Ethan said. He turned his attention to Giles, rubbing his jaw. "No one works me over the way you do, old friend." His eyes gleamed for a moment, and then he turned back to Amy. "I gave up being alone myself, Rupert, when I found Amy, another soul who'd been abandoned by those too busy doing good to actually be good. We met in Sunnydale not long after I sent Sweet to visit you." This apparently didn't get the reaction he was expecting as he studied Giles' eyes, so he added, "The singing and dancing? The combustion?" Ethan smiled at the flash of confirmed suspicions and remembered pain in Rupert's eyes.

"Your loss is my gain," Amy purred, lifting her face to his thin one for a kiss. She smiled maliciously at the Watcher. "I'm more powerful than my mother ever was, Mr. Giles. Between me and Ethan, your Council doesn't stand a chance."

"I'd like to test that theory," Willow said, materializing next to Giles.

⸹

If not for Slayer healing, Tribby knew that she would long ago have lost sensation in her limbs and simply wrecked, her mission to find Spike ending with an ignoble motorcycle crash. She did not have frostbite or hypothermia, though, and the part of her that had once been a medical student was amazed by this. She'd paused long enough as she left the gym to put on the leather jacket, gloves, and chaps in the saddlebags as concession to the cold, and the facemask of the helmet kept the chill air off her face. The streets were dry, but the temperature hovered in the single digits.

Over two hours now, and she continued to wend the motorcycle down alleys and beneath bridges where a car couldn't go. She had sensed dozens of demons and two large nests of vampires and ignored them all, though it chafed her slayer's heart. There was only one being she needed to home in on, and she'd been over much of Cleveland fruitlessly, with no sign of her sensei. Disheartened, she made herself continue the sweep she'd begun at the Hellmouth, fanning out methodically, going up and down the streets. There was a good chance that he wasn't in Cleveland, or even in the world she knew, but she didn't let herself think about that. Consider the task at hand, she told herself, reciting the mantra of an earlier sensei: block a roundhouse kick, score the winning point, locate your friend; all the same. Ask yourself what you have to get done, then do it. She rode.

Ten minutes later, she felt Spike's signature tingle along with a chorus of other vampires' auras. Gritting her teeth, Tribby forced herself to pass by his location on her loud motorcycle, letting the sound of it fade from the attention of those inside. Not bothering to park the bike, she slid off, letting her cherished little Harley continue on its way until it rolled the curb and plowed into a wall. She had already turned away, tossing her helmet to the ground and speed-dialing Dawn on her cell phone. "Come on, come on," she muttered.

"Hello?" There was fear in Dawn's voice, making her sound younger.

"I just now found him," Tribby said, the earliest cadences of her childhood slipping in, making the Texas accent prominent. "James Garfield Elementary School on Franklin Street, in the middle part, the gym or auditorium, maybe."

"Thank God."

"There's a whole heap of vampires in there with him. I'll go in, see what I can do." She hung up without saying goodbye, and jumped in place a few times to get her blood going again. Wouldn't help Spike if she couldn't do simple things like open a door with her numb fingers. Tribby let out all her air and began to breathe through her nose so her breath wouldn't ghost white in the cold night, then moved across the dead grass along the edge of the play yard, making no sound. She kept to the shadows and placed her feet deliberately, heel to toe and rolling, the way her grandfather had taught her when he'd taken her to the woods. Sometimes they had hunted squirrel or deer; mostly he had taught her the old ways, the names of plants, how to watch her surroundings.

Here, she didn't have to watch. The vampires serving as sentinels couldn't have been plainer to her if they were wearing neon. The slayer in her wanted to march up to them and start staking; the older part of her knew the best chance lay in stealth. She glided along the outside wall until she came to an operable window. Wedging her fingers along the edges, Tribby eased the window up and soundlessly slipped inside the building.

Her feet had just touched the linoleum on the floor of a classroom when she heard a harsh, drawn-out cry of pain. Spike, she thought, and had nearly burst through the door into the hallway before she checked herself. Making herself calm again, breathing silently through her mouth, she took out a stash of her modified weapons and readied them. Hang on, sir, she thought, and headed toward the sound of another anguished cry.

⸹

His eyes stinging from staring unblinkingly into the cold night, Angel jumped the guardrail and prepared to dash across six lanes of scant traffic when his phone rang. He dragged it out of his coat and pressed the icy plastic to his equally icy face. "Did you find him?"

"Tribby just called." It was Dawn. "She found him at the James Garfield Elementary School on-"

"I know where it is," he interrupted. "I'm on my way." He'd already turned, angling toward the east.

"So is Buffy." Her sister had said nothing, just turned and disappeared into the night, leaving the door standing open. Dawn wished she could run forty miles an hour, too. "Hurry. The Slayer dreams have been bad."

⸹

"Willow," Amy said in a too-sweet voice, and that was all she got out.

" _Bind_ ," the red-haired witch said, white power flaring around her, and the other two practitioners keeled over onto the floor, stiff and unmoving. " _Shatter_ ," Willow said, gesturing at the Fyarl, her power darkening, and the big demons burst into dust just as if they had been vampires.

"Oh, Giles," she said, the black in her eyes fading, "what did they do to you?" Even frozen, he managed an annoyed look. "Oh. I-I guess you can't tell me." Willow thought for a moment of what she knew of Amy's magic, then she said simply, " _Thaw_."

"Ah." Giles slumped and staggered a little, caught off guard by the ability to move. "Thank you, my dear." He staggered again as Willow flung herself at him, hugging him around the middle. "There, dear, it's all right. I'm fine," he said, surprised at her wet face when she pulled away, and he drew her against his side.

"It's been a long night."

"Quite." He held out his hand, offering her the crystal he'd kept on his person since taking it as a homing device when he first went to see his inherited property in North Carolina. "I was actually going to try to get more information out of Ethan before I used it, but my cell phone rang and since my hand was in my pocket anyway…."

Willow folded his fingers over it. "No, keep it. The way our lives are, you might need it again."

"Unfortunately true." His face was grim, and he turned to the bank of monitors. "Drusilla has Spike there, but I don't know where 'there' is."

She looked distant for a moment. "Not in this building." Willow's attention came back to the monitor. "What's she doing?"

Drusilla had approached the camera. She smiled up at it, gamine, and tilted her head. Reaching up to snatch it with her long fingers, the picture of the camera angle went wide, and then the signal was gone, wires snapping, the equipment crushed in her powerful hand.

"Ethan," Giles said, staring down at the man's unmoving body and taking a handkerchief from his pocket, "it's time we had a talk."

⸹

Jorge, Spike had discovered, was less mean than most of his new family members. After Dru had the torch in her hand, she considered her first child for a moment, then gave the order to secure him. Nineteen vampires, not including Maria, had descended on him from various locations in the auditorium. They hadn't been very gentle, and he'd returned the courtesy, but numbers overwhelmed him. Jorge was the only one he knew for sure had followed her order without adding a lagniappe of a cuff or kick. Twenty-one, including their sire, and he wondered if the number had some significance for Drusilla.

She had withdrawn to consider a surveillance camera mounted in the corner of the large room. "Don't feel like putting on a show, not without orchestra and curtains," she murmured, tossing the ruined videorecorder against the wall.

They bound him to a bench, his useless legs draped off either side, his own weight helping to keep him in place. Spike's arms were tightly tied with rope enchanted by the usual vampire binding spell, then secured beneath him. Maria came over to consider him, and he had the most ridiculous wish that he could tug his shirt into place. The leather coat was open, falling to the floor on either side of him, and the hem of his black t-shirt was above his navel. She straddled him, her eyes on the patch of pale flesh, and she put a sharp fingernail into his belly button.

"I have you right where I want you," she said, smiling around a mouthful of fangs.

"You have nothing that I do not give you," Dru corrected, coming up to them. She made a shooing gesture. "Off him." When Maria gave her a defiant look, Drusilla only smiled. "Don't vex me, lamb."

"Yeah," Spike said, figuring since they hadn't gagged him, he might well stir up trouble. "Not worth it. Face like you've got now, never gonna get me hard."

Her mouth fell open, not used to insults from the gallant trainer of slayers. Then she gave him what once would have been a sweet smile. "Yes, you will. Mistress Drusilla told me what you like."

Spike turned to look at Dru. _Mistress Drusilla_? he mouthed. She gave him a petulant look.

"She said I could have whatever I want before she unmakes you."

"Dru, honestly. Been a while since we shared a bed, but you should remember it wasn't about the nasty things you'd do to me." He gave her a wicked grin that excluded everyone else in the room, purposely trying to burn Maria. "It was watching your face, love, seeing you get off on it that did it for me." Spike held Dru's gaze, watching her remember, and, God help him, he felt his own desire stir. "Our last time, in Sunnydale, that was all my way." He touched his tongue to his teeth for a second, grinning. "Get rid of the minions, pet. You never fancied an audience. Then, have me your way."

She gave him a full, beautiful smile. "You're mine for the taking already, my Spike." She sparked off the torch, her small teeth gleaming in the flare of blue flame. "Maria, do I have to give you an order twice?"

Giving the two powerful older demons a sulky look, Maria threw her leg over Spike and moved away. Drusilla came over and took the former slayer's place, lifting her skirts to settle atop him. She ran her fingers along his chest, rucking the fabric up, then grabbed his shirt at the collar and ripped down. Drusilla lay her palm flat against his sternum and smoothed her hand over his bare skin.

"You've been very naughty, my Spike."

"What have I done, then?"

"Ran away."

"You banished me."

"Gave your heart to another."

"'Cause I never had yours."

She moved her hand down over the denim of his jeans, tracing his familiar contours. "Let yourself be declawed by a soul." Her fingers clenched.

He gritted his teeth against the pain, groaning and chuckling at the same time. "Love, my soul has given me claws, talons the likes of which you can't imagine."

She smiled, moving her hand over him, part of her giving over to the connection they shared. "What can't I imagine, sweet Willy?" The torch in her other hand hissed. "I walk in worlds you'll never reach."

Spike focused only on Drusilla and gave her a slow grin. "Why walk when you can ride?"

Maria watched their twisted foreplay from a few yards away, anger building in her against her sire. The vampiress had promised things with her eyes, and now she was with Spike, taking the very things she had promised Maria. It was like being in Buffy's shadow all over again.

"Ride?" Dru cocked her head to the side. "Never cared for a pale horse." She removed her questing fingers, raking them in the air and hissing, as if forking the evil eye at some enemy. "But I can make you dark, my Spike." She gave him a tender smile and bore down on him with fire.

⸹

Buffy ran. She'd run just for fun only a couple of months ago, playing tag in a park with her dark half, and they had laughed like two children. Now she was running flat out to save him, to keep him with her.

As phone calls came in from all over the world, reports of slayers dreaming of Spike being beheaded, burned, staked, rendered limb from limb, Buffy had felt something inside her tighten, draw in on itself. She had seen him just a few hours ago; he couldn't be dying. He had given power into her hand, reminded her of how much was contained within her small frame; how could she have none now? Twice while waiting for word at Watcher Central, she had caught herself beginning to pray. _If you spare them, I'll…_ But she could never finish the sentence.

 _I don't see you as the begging kind._

She wasn't, and Spike had always known that. He'd always known her. She couldn't beg for him or for Giles.

The cell phone in her clenched fist rang, and her heart locked up inside her chest. It was her sister on the other end. Buffy made herself answer the call. "Dawnie?"

"Willow found Giles, and he's safe. It wasn't just Ethan Rayne; it was Amy Madison, too."

Thank God. But the other… "Spike?" She kept running.

"There's a magical block around the school. Willow can't teleport there, but she's working to break it. Xander is on his way to you; Vishnaswamy's team is going to Willow."

"Angel?"

"Angel's on his way to the school, too. Buffy? Giles said that Drusilla turned Maria. Be careful. Nothing else from Tribby yet."

"Thanks. I'll call when I can. Love you."

"I love you, too. Run."

Giles was safe. She found she could breathe better.

The enemy had taken Maria. Not the first time she'd have to kill someone she'd known before they became undead.

Save Spike. She'd done that before, too.

Run.

Something was happening inside her, and she didn't have time to examine it. When Spike left with the sword, everything had sped up, events happening, the night evolving into something horrible. Though she had only wanted to float with the current, to drift, continue with her life the way it was because it was easy, she'd hit rough water or a snag or had bumped a log, something that made her look around. Buffy couldn't think of any other way to describe it. She had looked up from her life. She was close to shore, and she could step out of her lifeboat… if she really wanted to.

Change was possible, the thought of it not exhausting, not frightening.

Because, after all, what did she have to fear? If there was any word to describe Spike, it was steadfast. He had loved her steadily, despite the roadblocks and barriers. Dawn had been right when she said he'd never hurt her, and if he did, he'd spend the rest of his life making it up to her. There was nothing to fear.

Except being too late. Spike might never hurt her, but the world could take him from her. She couldn't let that happen, wouldn't let it happen. Buffy dodged through traffic, which was picking up. It was five-thirty now, and Spike had been missing for hours. She was maybe five minutes away from the school.

⸹

Spike had heard a joke once, about a blond, a brunette, and a redhead who, falsely arrested in a banana republic, were sentenced to die in the electric chair. The brunette had prayed that God would spare her, and the electric chair had not worked. Awed, the warden let her go. The redhead had cited her faith in justice, saying that an innocent person could not be killed. The chair had failed with her in it, too, and the warden let her go. The blond came in to be executed, and she'd shaken her head at the incompetence of puppet dictatorships, then stepped behind the electric chair to plug it in.

He was blond, but he wasn't that blond.

Dru had messed up a valve on the torch, but damned if he'd volunteer this knowledge. He let his wounds heal as much as possible during the lull and listened as Dru consulted with his younger, nothing-siblings, trying to get the tool to work again. It wasn't, he'd known, acetylene at all, but propane, which burned less white-hot, not that it mattered. Any temperature measured in Kelvin… God, the pain. He hated burns, and they hurt more healing than they did being inflicted. The nerves died quickly, but it was a bitch when they regenerated.

"Stake 'em, Dru, they're that incompetent," he called helpfully. She'd left his face alone, at least. It was impossible to ignore burns on one's face. Buffy and Angel were coming for him; Spike could feel it. All he had to do was wait for rescue… and perhaps avoid more torture.

"Begone!" Drusilla ordered, angry, and the vampires faded back to the positions they were manning. Spike listened as she chucked the torch across the room, flinching a little when it clanged. No explosion, more's the pity. Someone would have to investigate an explosion at a school.

"I did like that," she said sadly. "It had a cheerful blue flame, like periwinkles." Sighing, she moved away, and Spike heard the sound of a chest opening. He could turn and see, but he supposed if it wasn't the same chest, it would have the same things in it: fillet knives, holy water, whips with bits of metal braided into the leather.

"Dru," he said, just to keep himself entertained, distracted from the pain, "don't bore me with the same old. Be creative, pet."

She stood up and glared at him. "My Spike? Hold your tongue."

"Hold it for me."

"Not when I'm about to sprinkle it with holy water."

"Really, love. Holy water? I could bathe in it."

Drusilla thought about that for a moment, his sarcasm lost on her. "We don't have a tub, though."

"Such a pity."

"Do you want to know what I have planned for you, Spike? Before the end?"

"Regale me, pet."

"I'll drain your blood, leave you nothing but a husk."

He laughed. "Been done."

"What?" Her voice was sharp.

"First Evil made a blood sacrifice of me on the Hellmouth, poodle. Came through it."

"Gouge out your organs and entrails."

"Already had my cherry popped for that, too," he said, thinking of Glory. "By a god, even. Not hardly scared of you."

She gave him an annoyed look. "I'll not touch your eyes, though."

"Why is that, petal?"

"So you can see me turn your…" Drusilla made a snatching gesture in the air, "Nibblet."

She'd pulled the word from his mind, he had no doubt. "Dru," he said, his voice devoid of humor, "I'll see you dead before I'll let you lay a hand on her." The pain was banished; this had, to his mind, just become serious, more than just a waiting game and deserving of his full attention.

Drusilla gave him an indulgent look. "You're hardly in a condition to stop me, sweetheart." She came a step closer, lowering her head so he could see her eyes sparkle, her voice becoming confidential. "Want to know something?" He didn't respond, no longer in the mood to play, but this didn't deter her. "I'll kill more slayers than you will," she said in a singsong tone.

The second string Slayer in Sunnydale and Maria, that was only two… She was seeing the future. Spike's blue gaze was flat. "Not the thing to be admitting, Dru."

"Maria," Drusilla said, "go get this Nibblet. She won't know you've changed; it should be easy for a bright girl like you." The new vampire widened her yellow eyes, her brows no longer able to draw together in a frown. It was her first sunrise as a vampire, but she knew it was coming. And even more than her innate fear of the dawn, it was her lingering feelings for the girl named after it that gave her pause. Before she could answer, though, Spike roared.

He wrenched himself to the side, and the heavy bench fell over, landing on and breaking his right arm. Brilliant, he thought, down to one whole limb. "'Tis but a flesh wound," he muttered, "have at you." Then he heaved, his shoulders straining, pulling against the enchanted ropes.

"Now, look what you've done," Drusilla said, tutting. "You've hurt your arm."

This illogic caused him to throw her an incredulous look, not one she'd seen from him often during the time she was his dark princess and he laid the world at her feet. "Don't you go near her," Spike ground out.

"Mistress," Maria said, clearly troubled, "listen-"

Drusilla rarely hurried, but she was across the floor and holding Maria by the shoulders in an instant, capturing the other woman with her eyes as well. "You will do as you're told."

"Yes." Maria's voice was a whisper, the former slayer abject before her sire.

"Better," Drusilla said imperiously. She turned back to Spike and waggled a finger at him. "You've reared a naughty girl."

"She was a slayer, Dru. They're a willful lot, they don't mind me, and they all love Dawn. Won't be just me you'll have baying for your blood." Distract her, he thought wildly, the muscles in his arms standing out as he tried to loosen the rope, trying to wiggle his newly flexible arm through the coils. "And don't forget Buffy."

She hissed at the name. "She stole you from me. I got games to play with her." Drusilla stood up straighter, holding her head high. Without looking at Maria, she waved her away. "Go. We'll find something to do in the meantime." The smile she sent at Spike was terrifying.

⸹

"Amy?" Willow asked hesitantly. She had tried to break the magical block that surrounded the school, but it had an oily, slippery feel, a type of magicks she hadn't encountered before. Thinking that maybe Amy would give her a handle, Willow went back into Ethan's office. She had been unable to look away as Giles extracted information from the man now puddled at his feet. When Ethan had first broken, giving away Drusilla's location, she thought the Head of the Council would stop, but he kept going, asking questions about arming demons with guns, about sabotage at the slayers' training center, about the source of Ethan's power. The ugliness would never stop, it seemed.

Amy felt the same way, her angry, tear-filled eyes on the whimpering shape across the floor from her. "I'd ask you to make him stop," she said bitterly, "but I know you wouldn't."

"I might ask," Willow disagreed, "but he won't stop until he gets all the answers." She hunkered down next to the prone witch. "So are you two, uh…?"

Amy gave her a flat stare. "Lovers? Can't even bring yourself to say the word?"

"In love, I was going to ask."

She looked away, and her voice sounded remote. "I've put my arms up to the elbow in the egg sac of a dead Grimslaw demon for him, taken-" Whatever else she was going to list trailed off as Ethan laughed loudly, bitterly. She turned back to Willow, her eyes burning. "I hate you."

Willow's first instinct was to blurt a confused, 'Me?' She didn't say it, though. "I don't hate you back." Amy wasn't going to help her with anything, she could already tell.

"Why would you? You've got power, more than I'll ever have." Her eyes darted back to Ethan, who'd given an exceptionally loud yowl of pain.

Willow refused to look. "It isn't about power, Amy."

"Easy for you to say."

"There aren't many people who understand how hard it is, so why should you?" She shrugged, examining her former friend's face. "Did you notice the power becomes dark when I use it to kill, Amy? Even to kill demons? It's so easy to do terrible things in the name of good." Willow closed her eyes as Ethan cried out again. "I failed with you, too, I guess."

"Like I needed you," Amy scoffed. Her face was hard. "Ethan found me, chose me. He introduced me to real power, showed me which gods and demons I could turn to."

Willow shook her head. "Amy, how could you want that, after what your mother did to you?"

"God, Willow," she jeered. "Even as a murderer, you were boring. I wanted power because of what my mother did, you stupid bitch."

She sat back on her heels and stared at Amy, stunned by the vicious words. Then she made her chin not quiver, willed herself not to cry. "I guess you are your mother's daughter." Willow turned away, her heart clenching at the thought that it could easily have been her on the floor, seeking power to soothe all the hurts the world inflicted. Clinging to the memory how of love and pride just for her had shone in Tara's eyes, she rose to her feet and walked away.

⸹

"Spike, what shall we do to while away the hours?" Dru grinned at him, taking a step toward the chest again.

At that moment, a slayer dropped from the rafters like a shooting star, shedding not light but a pulse of power outside the visible spectrum. Tribby stopped damping down her aura as she fell between Spike and the two female vampires. She landed lightly on the balls of her feet, knees bent, one hand on the floor. "Help's coming," she murmured. As she stood, Spike saw she'd left a dagger on the floor for him, and he half-inched it, quick and silent.

Tribby faced Dru, a challenge. "You don't have hours." As repartee, it was pretty lame. Spike wished it was Buffy coming to his rescue, arriving first with snappy one-liners at the ready, but he'd take any help he could get.

Drusilla smiled, having anticipated this. "Don't need hours, not for you. You've come between me and what's mine."

"Then I'm where I'm supposed to be." Spike, angling the knife against his bonds, felt his heart warm. Silly as it was, she'd been protective of him from the first.

Drusilla turned to Maria. "Since you're still here, willful girl, you can take care of this one." Dru turned her grin on the blond man. "What do you think, my Spike? Your fledge against mine?"

Spike stopped sawing at the rope and looked at his ex-lover. She'd known this would happen. "That's why you turned Maria, a slayer to fight a slayer."

Drusilla gave him a pleased look. "Wanted yours," she said, nodding at Tribby, "but this one is prettier."

Something inside him hardened at the thought of pitting slayers against each other as blood sport. He'd never really believed he could kill Drusilla unless it was a dramatic, split-second decision to save Dawn or a Scooby. Perhaps he was mistaken. Spike redoubled his efforts with the knife.

"We don't have to fight, Maria," Tribby said, shaking her head. "I'm here for Spike, that's all."

"No," Maria said softly, "I must do my mistress' bidding."

Tribby shook her head again. "You were a slayer, Maria. You don't have to follow anyone's orders." There was an edge of impatience in her voice. "You don't want to let her get hold of Dawn." She'd at least heard that part, Spike realized.

"No." Despite the denial, the docile, mesmerized quality of her voice was giving way to something more vital, and Spike had a sense of an inner battle between the demon and the remnants of the slayer she had been. Maria darted a look at Drusilla. "I only wanted to get hold of Spike."

"There will be time enough for that," Drusilla said, "after you kill this slayer-brat."

"You know vampire hierarchy, Maria," Tribby said. "They don't share. Spike belongs to her."

Dru's head tilted to the side as she listened to something no one else could hear. "Don't know about share, but I see you've helped yourself." She gave Tribby a cold smile. "Someone's been sleeping in my bed," she sang.

Maria looked between the two, then her eyes flicked to Spike for a moment before widening. "Tribby? You…?"

"Bad boy," Drusilla purred, "shagging slayers and not being true." She looked at Spike and her smile widened. "Not just this one, but… twice." He clenched his teeth, willing her not to say Rona's name. That was private.

With a cry of pure fury, Maria hurled herself at the shorter slayer. Tribby dodged a few yards to the left, drawing her opponent away from Spike, then came back at her, leading with her left foot. Maria had never really gotten really good at fighting a leftie, using her sparring time with Spike to flirt rather than practice, and Tribby knew it. The vampire went for the slayer's neck, and Tribby threw her arm over the hands scrabbling at her, then slid it back toward taller girl, one of her double-ended stakes going straight and true into Maria's heart. It was a classic Spike move, executed with clinical swiftness.

Maria had time to find Tribby's eyes, her fury gone, the war between her conflicting natures over. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," the other woman said at the same time. And it was done, dust spilling on the floor, the silence shocking. Tribby pivoted off her lead foot, moving once more between Spike and his sire. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth, not in a grin.

"Steady." Spike watched his fledge swallow her anguish, force it down. He tried to give her a smile to let her know he was proud of her, that she'd done the right thing, but he couldn't quite manage it. Maria had already been dead, but nothing was so final as dust.

"You've taken what's mine," Drusilla said, seething, and Spike truly didn't know if she meant him or Maria.

Tribby did. "He isn't yours," she said, compartmentalizing, her focus snapping onto the vampiress. "You gave him up, and he chose us. He belongs with the slayers now."

Spike jerked a little as his hands came free, staring up at the slayer's back, wishing he could see her face. That hadn't sounded like her voice.

"He will always be my Spike," Dru said, her words lucid and unamused. "People? Tear her to bits." It was a command Darla would have been proud of.

Their eyes had time to meet, Tribby and Spike thinking the same thing: too many. He held himself up with one arm, trying to get his legs beneath him so he would have some leverage, but these minions were better at following commands than the turned slayer. Ignoring him entirely, the vampires ringing the gym came at Tribby, intending to take her down, the brightness of her slayer's aura an irresistible goad. She had, of course, known their positions, and she went forward to meet them, once again drawing danger away from him. Tribby was a demon-enhanced world-class athlete, trained by Spike personally, armed with dual-pointed stakes, ready to do her avowed duty and avenge Natalie's death and now Maria's. And she'd taken out nine once, when they were fighting back-to-back.

She didn't have a chance.

Spike's heart sank. There were too many, and these were Aurelians. He reached desperately for Buffy or Angel or Willow, but felt no one close by. Tribby said help was coming, but they were still a distance away.

The fastest vampire went to dust as the wire of a modified camp saw whipped around its neck, weighted on one end with what looked like brass knuckles. Tribby had crossed a manriki and a garrote, Spike noted approvingly, but the homemade weapon dusted along with the vampire. There were two double-ended stakes in her hands now, and she never stopped moving, circling, going for the kill if she could, more often striking to inflict damage to noses and throats and soft underbellies. She moved so fast that none of them could grab her, take her down. Spike felt a tiny flicker of hope.

He rarely got to see her fight, and this display brought to mind the first time, when she had been the dervish he'd admired on his inaugural visit to the Cleveland Hellmouth. Fourteen left now. Inside, his demon watched her with satisfaction, having no desire to fight slayers to the death anymore, not even wanting to test himself when she did her own moves. One of them grabbed her leg, slowing her; without coming to a halt, she used her leg to draw him close enough to stake, then whipped her knee out so that ash flew into the faces of two more.

Eleven remaining, and he saw Dru take an uncertain step backwards as her favorite disintegrated. Only one stake, the other gone to dust along with Jorge. Palm strike to a face, spin to kick the sternum of the one sneaking closer, stake to the heart, spin, take a punch to the shoulder and go with that momentum, strike, stake, kick, stake. Eight vampires. To Spike, it was a thing of beauty.

She leaped high, coming down with an axe kick that broke a shoulder, ducking low to avoid a blow and jamming the stake upward. Four left. With each Aurelian that dusted, Spike felt a physical pang, but no sorrow, no rage. This wasn't his family who was dying. The last two exchanged a glance, then set on the slayer as one. With only two to fight, Tribby had enough time to reach into her coat to find another stake. Dropping low, she lunged at them, meeting them, driving the stakes true. She paused like that a moment, arms high and arched as if representing a deer during a dance. Spike grinned. She might not have good one-liners, but she did know how to end a performance with style.

Turning as she stood back up, she met his gaze, a shy smile on her face. "Did you see, sir?" She was breathing hard, a purpling bruise on her cheek the only visible injury.

He gave her a proud look. "Very nice, Tribs." He watched her dark eyes widen as she finally had time to notice the seeping burns on his chest. She started to come to him, but Drusilla's words made her turn around.

"You've killed them all," Dru said in a lost voice.

"I had to." Her eyes were on her enemy again, and she put herself more directly between the two vampires, never wavering from her mission to protect Spike. She took a breath. "I've seen Angel's portrait, but you're much lovelier in person, Drusilla," Tribby said, and Spike knew the courtesy she showed was for his sake as much as it was to stall a showdown.

"You killed them all," Dru said again, then she gave the slayer a murderous look and flared her fingers toward her.

No time for a warning, and this blade was a crosscut saw, broad and sharp and long enough to fell a redwood, materializing inches from the slayer's torso. It sliced into Tribby deep, right to left, then disappeared. The human looked down at her chest, dropped the stake in her right hand so she could hold it against her reddening torso, then crumpled to the floor.

"Tribs!" Spike cried, hoarse.

"Teach you to take things from me," Drusilla said, stalking forward. "I'll have tasty slayer blood as fair price." She squatted next to the slayer and yanked her hand away from the wound, bending the human's arm backward. Tribby looked up from her torso to Drusilla, mute with shock and pain. The fury faded from Drusilla's expression as their eyes met, replaced by a mounting horror. "No," she whispered. "Not here. Can't be now." Drusilla stood up, backing away from the fallen slayer, covering her face. "My eyes! It hurts my eyes," she moaned.

Spike drew in a breath, the overwhelming smell of slayer blood pulling his attention away from Drusilla. He dragged himself forward a couple of yards to settle Tribby's head against his ribs, heedless of his own injuries. "You'll be fine," he said automatically. "Just hang on, get you to a hospital." He lifted his broken right arm, but there was nowhere to settle his hand. Her vintage t-shirt was ruined, the word 'Slits' obliterated by blood, the motorcycle jacket hanging in tatters. The wound itself was gaping open, too much blood pumping forth.

"Won't matter." Her words were unsupported by air; Tribby's lungs were punctured.

"You'll be fine, love." If he willed it hard enough, it had to be true. He couldn't lose another one.

She grimaced. "No." No illusions about the death blow; Tribby had once trained as a doctor. She lifted her hand so slowly that it almost seemed to float and managed to grab his. "Drink."

"Drink?" Spike shook his head. It had been a very long night, and this was too much to wrap his mind around. "No."

"Some good…" She closed her eyes. "Knew from… first… blood donor." Her fingers were cold as she squeezed his with the last of her strength and allowed her head to loll to the side, offering her neck, her lips drawn back in a smile at the gallows humor as much as in a grimace against the pain.

He threw a last, desperate look at Dru, still covering her face and whimpering, lost in some troubled world of her own. Even after going to demon face, he hesitated. Help was coming, but it wasn't here yet, and Dru had now killed more slayers than he had. She knew the future, she had threatened Dawn, and scruples weren't an option.

Spike drove his fangs in, fast and brutal. He drank, pulling Tribby's blood into his body as quickly as possible, fighting for it against the mortal wound. Her heart was slowing as his tendons reattached, bone began to knit, the burns on his chest shrank. The slayer blood buzzed through him, and he could almost hear the voices of her sisters through the magic.

Tribby's heart stopped for a moment, then gave a few erratic beats. Spike pulled away, his yellow eyes searching her face, her blood coating his fangs and short muzzle. She was gray beneath the coppery brown of her skin, and his heart broke a little when he saw the expression in her eyes, one that he'd seen before. Tribby tried to smile, the muscles around her dark eyes moving more than her mouth, and then she was gone.

He tried, he really did, to put it away for later, as he had with Maria, but it was too abrupt. With Maria, he'd had time to process that she was gone and that she had to be put out of her misery, but this… Mine, he thought, gripping the limp body, knowing he should lose the demon face, that it would help him be calmer. She was one of mine. He tightened his hold on her, dragging her a few inches closer, and the stake rolled from her other hand. He picked it up, just to stop the sound. His ladies were dead; the world should go silent. His lovelies, his slayers had been taken from him. Spike was on his feet now, his fists clenched, quite as furious as Drusilla had been over the demise of her own fledges. They were _mine_!

"Dru."

She jerked at the sound of her name, at the tone, brought back from her inner world, and looked up from where she'd been sheltering her head in her hands. Understanding dawned in her large eyes, and Drusilla backed up a step. He was still in game face, still bloody from feeding, but his eyes weren't yellow.

Even Dru would run when he was in a black rage. Spike didn't give her the chance. He was across the space between them in a tick, shoving her against the wall, her hands trapped between them.

"My Spike," she whispered in ecstasy and terror.

"Not yours." His voice was low and ragged, choked by an ugly, unfamiliar feeling roiling inside him. He leaned in and kissed her hard, razor-sharp fangs slicing her lips. She went to demon face and bit him back.

Spike pulled away, an unpleasant grin on his face. "Did you think I'd let you go on from this? Never cared what you did to me, Dru, but you've harmed what was mine."

She smiled back, one demon facing another, and murmured, "I killed your fledge." His fingers clenched tighter over hers, grinding small bones together. "I killed the little girl who skipped after you." She lay her head back, prideful. "Do you think I learned nothing from Angelus? I watched you so I would know where your heart lay, and I will kill your Slayer after she watches me turn baby sister. She'll be my little sister then, and I'll have a family again."

Spike dropped his gaze, unable to bear the yearning expression in her eyes, looking down to where their bodies pressed together. He held her hands in one of his large ones, trapping her long fingers so she couldn't do magic. His left hand held the double-ended stake to her heart, the other point pressing into his own chest below the right nipple, still disfigured by her torture. All he had to do, really, was just lean in.

He couldn't do it. As evil as she was, she was also desolate and pitiable, her thin humanity wretched and warped but still recognizable. He'd searched for a new family after their separation, too. The dark, alien hate was gone from him, along with his momentary ability to do what had to be done.

Spike looked into her eyes again, his own golden once more. What he could do was move to the right, position the point of the double-ended stake over his own heart, and take her in a final embrace. It would be fitting, in a bizarre way, for them both to go with the same stroke. Her hold over him was still strong enough for him to consider it. He couldn't weaken and do that to Dawn, though. Dru had threatened her, and she had allies somewhere, a man who'd given her power.

Anyway, he had promised Dawn that he would at least say goodbye.

Spike took a breath and let his human features come to the fore. He did the only thing he could with the current players in the room. Spinning, he put himself against the wall and shoved her away. Drusilla stumbled a little on the hem of her skirt, then righted herself, regarding him warily.

"So, killed yourself three slayers, have you, pet?" He pushed himself away from the wall, cocksure, swaggering. "Think it makes you better'n me in a fight, do you?" He tilted his head and went for insufferable. "Prove it."

Drusilla frowned in confusion and shook her head jerkily. "Can't fight you."

"What? Can't fling the cutlery at me from thin air? The magic fingers not working? All out of quarters?"

Her head snapped back as if he had slapped her. "I don't know you."

"'S'me, all right, princess. This is the Spike the Slayers saw before I killed 'em. Real Chosen Ones they were, not this recent crop. Makes me better, dunnit? Come on, Dru. You wanted to be my enemy. Come on!" he roared.

Even as she shook her head, not wanting to be in this final act, Drusilla spread her fingers wide. "Goodbye, my Spike." Tears splashed onto her cheeks, but grief did not deter her. She thrust her hands at him.

Four swords clattered harmlessly to the ground between them. Angel appeared behind Dru, yanking her arms down, and now he held her, one long arm wrapped over her torso.

"Daddy," she whispered, exultant, smiling and closing her eyes in bliss.

"I'm so sorry, Drusilla," he said, bringing up his other hand and plunging the stake he held into her chest. Angel stood where he was, swaying, then let his empty arms fall to his sides. He took a breath, finding it difficult, and met Spike's wide eyes. "I had to. I heard what you said, and I couldn't let her…."

"I know," Spike said. He gritted his teeth a moment. "Sorry. Knew you were there, knew you'd save me. C-couldn't do it myself, so I made sure you could."

The break in his unbreakable boy's voice got him moving, and Angel went across the floor to him. He couldn't quite bring himself to look openly at the slayer's body, but he nodded in the general direction, hoping Spike understood how sorry he was. "I should have finished the job in Los Angeles." He gently touched one of the remaining burns on Spike's chest. "Then she wouldn't have…" From the blood smudging his face to the lost expression in his eyes, Spike looked like an ill-used child. Angel made his mouth curve into a gentle smile, unaware of how ghastly it looked on his own grief-stricken face. "Are you all right, Will?"

"Dunno that I'll ever be all right again," he managed. Then he simply leaned forward and rested his forehead against Angel's shoulder.

⸹

Buffy burst into the gym, out of breath, to find both men weeping, holding on to each other. That was all it took for her to know it was over. She was reluctant to intrude on their mourning for a demon she primarily thought of as Kendra's killer. The Slayer knelt beside Tribby's body, having to confirm what was obvious, and closed the lids over the dark, empty eyes. Apparently, Drusilla was responsible for another slayer's death. Getting out her cell phone, she called Dawn, keeping her voice quiet.

"Buffy?" her sister asked anxiously.

"I'm here. Spike is safe. Angel's fine, too. I don't have the full story – I got here late – but Drusilla is dead."

"Good." Her voice was hard. "What about Maria?"

"I-I don't know, but I think… I think she's gone. There's more. Dawnie, I'm sorry…" Buffy made herself tell the news about Dawn's roommate, make it official. "Tribby is dead, too."

"Oh, no."

"Would you pass the word? And maybe send out our ambulance team?"

"O-okay." Buffy heard her sister take a hitching breath. "Can I talk to Spike?"

She looked up at the two men, the dark head against the blond. "He's with Angel right now, sweetie. They're grieving."

⸹

Willow stood in the hallway outside of Ethan's office, flinching at the sound of knuckles hitting flesh. She heard Ethan's light voice murmuring something, his sour laugh, and decided to move a couple more feet away. Giles had tied Ethan and Amy to chairs, and she had thrown a magical block of her own over the room before releasing them from the paralysis spell. Still trying to get answers for Natalie's parents, Giles suggested that Willow leave the room.

She hated this, the ugliness that bred more ugliness, which forced a good man like Giles to act in such brutal ways. If there was another response, though, she didn't have it.

Tired, she slumped against the wall, only to stand back up and dig in her pocket when her phone rang. "Dawnie?"

"Spike's safe. He's with Angel and Buffy. Drusilla is dead."

"And Maria?"

"Dead. So is Tribby."

"Oh, Dawnie, I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me, too."

The youngest Summers sounded drained, the way Willow felt. "I'll let Giles know."

"Thanks. I love you, Willow. Thank you for rescuing Giles."

"Hey, no problem," she said, forcing her voice to be light. "I love you, too."

They said their goodbyes, and Willow tucked her phone back into her pocket. She was so tired, and so many unhappy things had happened since the knock on Oz's door. The world, she decided, was a disheartening place. At this point, she wanted to curl into bed and cry for a week. For a very brief moment, she wondered if she'd had the right idea in her grief and madness over Tara's death, that the world should just stop, so that suffering would be at an end.

She made herself shake it off, made the thought go away, because she felt the pull of the dark power, always present, like muck at the bottom of a clear pond. She heard noise, British accents, and knew the Watchers had arrived. She nodded as they came around the corner, and Oz was with them.

Willow felt bad, then, for her cynicism. Oz was a microcosm of the world with his inner struggle against unthinking brutality, a simple bite from a toddler giving him a nature at war with his civilized soul. Oz had found a way to leash it, since there was no cure, and Willow was suddenly so proud of him. The last, lingering resentment she held evaporated: he left to find a way to control his beast. After all, she had to leave Sunnydale for much the same reason.

Oz must have seen something of her thoughts in her eyes, because his face lit to see her, more than usual. "Hey, you," he said, closing the gap between them, pulling her into an embrace. He held her close, and she saw his eyes close. "You're all right."

"I love you, Oz. I'm so glad you're here." Her voice gave it several layers of meaning.

"I'm glad to be here for you." He stroked her back. "Is it over?"

"Not the aftermath," she said sadly.

⸹

"At least school's not back in session yet. I'd hate for any little kids to see Hurricane Drusilla's latest landfall." Xander stood with Buffy, his arm around her shoulders, and they watched the two Aurelians on the other side of the gym. Spike and Angel had sunk to the floor now, still leaning against each other, weeping in their silent, breathless manner. The humans were waiting for the teams from the police station and coroner's office to arrive. "Any idea of what happened?" Xander's question was quiet.

"Not really. My guess is Drusilla killed Tribby, Spike got Maria, and Angel got Drusilla."

Xander, who had strolled over to look inside the chest Drusilla had left open, shivered a little. "Is Spike okay?"

"Nothing like what the First Evil or Glory did to him, it doesn't seem," Buffy said.

Xander looked down at her. "Are you all right?"

She shrugged. "They really care about each other, don't they? I mean, not just the two of them. They're mourning Drusilla."

He continued to stare at her. She hadn't really answered his question. "They aren't typical, Buffy. You know, souls and everything."

"I know." She pulled herself back from the grim thoughts, old ones, the fear that she was nothing more than a killer. Vampires were evil and better off dusted; even Angel and Spike said so. Buffy forced herself to look up and give her friend a bit of a smile.

An answering smile settled uncertainly on Xander's face. He hadn't seen her look so normal in a long time. Her smile wasn't really genuine, but it wasn't an expression she was wearing because she thought it might be the appropriate one. Xander squeezed her shoulder.

The good lieutenant's handpicked detectives arrived almost an hour after Buffy had, surveyed the scene, and came up to her and Xander diffidently. The pair, a nondescript man and a tough-looking woman, had seen just a little too much in Cleveland the last few months. Xander took over, explaining that they'd found the 'person' responsible for the murder of Natalie at the gym in November and that same 'person' had also killed this slayer.

When the paramedics arrived, the clacking of the wheels of the gurney across the floor seemed to rouse Spike. He wiped his face and came to claim what was his one last time, not suffering anyone else to lift Tribby. Watching him as he smoothed her dark hair into place, Buffy felt no jealousy. It was the sight of the burns on his chest that made her close her eyes. This was one of the days she believed her entire life could move into the success column if she could just once rescue him in time.

Angel put his arm around the younger vampire, pulling him close so their heads touched as the paramedics trundled the stretcher out of the gym. This was what Buffy had been waiting for. She moved up along Spike's other side and slid her warm hand into his cool one.

It was also what the detectives had been waiting for. They came up to get a statement, but Spike just shook his head, and Angel shut his eyes. Xander put on an officious air that could have come straight from the ghost of Quentin Travers and bullied them into coming to Watcher Central for the whole story later that morning. He also volunteered to take everyone home, as he was the only one that had his car.

Angel huddled in the back seat with Spike, beneath the blanket Xander kept in the trunk just in case any vampires needed a lift. No one spoke as he drove through rush hour traffic, passing commuters sucking caffeine from mugs of coffee more desperately than a starved vampire. Just another morning in Cleveland.

He felt curiously light, all the tears cried out of him, his grandchild's head on his shoulder. The source of the feeling of freedom wasn't hard to pinpoint, Angel supposed. The awful things he'd done in his past were ghosts now, excepting this one battered reminder. Spike was different, though. He had earned his soul and put an end to the line of evil that stretched from Angel, through him, and on to those he might hurt. There was no one in the family now to feel guilty about. Angelus was caged and his legacy was silenced. Angel took a slight breath at the realization. He was free.

"We're here," Xander said. He held out his hand to Buffy, who took it and gave it a brief squeeze.

"Thanks, Xander. See you at Giles' in a little while, I guess."

He nodded. "And won't that be fun?" referring to the police interview. "Spike, you want shotgun?" He turned around. "Spike?"

Angel twisted his head to examine the silent man. "Spike? Will?" His voice was full of dread on the second word. The boy was gazing at nothing, his blue eyes vacant. "Will!" The blanket slipped, and Angel grabbed for it, his fingers numb. He had seen the same expression once before, and the lightness of a few moments ago was gone, his shoulders burdened with the past again.

Buffy leaned across the console, putting her hand on Spike's knee. "Spike?" she asked. No response.

Xander looked at Spike, who was simply not at home, and thought again of the First Evil. Then he glanced at Angel, whose face wore a guilty, haunted expression. "What happened?" he asked sharply.

"I…" Angel trailed off, then twisted to grasp Spike by the shoulders. "Will!" he barked, an order, but the other man remained passive.

"Let's get him inside," Buffy said, the general stepping up.

Angel lifted him in a fireman's carry, Xander holding the blanket over the pair the best he could, and Buffy opened the door and led the way to the bedroom. Twice he's been here, she thought, some part of her marveling that it didn't seem strange. She leaned over him, one hand on his cheek. "Spike?"

Xander looked between the silent vampire and the stricken one standing over him. "You've seen this before," he said. There was no accusation in his tone, but Angel flinched nonetheless.

"When?" Buffy's voice was sharp.

"Once, after he was tortured," he replied shortly. When the dark-haired man continued to regard him closely, he grudgingly elaborated. "It's not a vampire thing, more like… a fugue state. Like shock."

"He lost the woman he loved. I mean, for over a hundred years. That has to be hard," Xander said, sending an apologetic glance at Buffy.

She gently touched one of the scabs on his torso, bare where the torn shirt had fallen away. "And she tortured him again."

"Will he be all right?" Xander asked, his eyes still on Angel.

"Yes." His voice was remote, then he answered more strongly. "Uh, yes." Angel turned away from where Buffy knelt on the bed next to the boy and forced himself to be polite. "If you want to go on home and clean up or whatever," he shrugged, willing the human to leave, "we'll look after him."

"How long was he in shock?"

Xander, Angel was remembering, never really gave up on anyone. Buffy was watching him, too. "A few days. Darla was gone, but she figured out what to do when she returned."

"Which was?"

"Blood," Angel said grudgingly.

Buffy had been silent until now. "So, since you're older, you could give him blood?"

"If it comes to that. It may just be shock."

Finally satisfied, Xander nodded. "All right." He fished his car keys from his pocket. "I think I will go home and grab a shower and maybe some breakfast. See you at Watcher Central."

Angel walked out with him. "Xander…"

The dark-haired young man paused at the door. "Yeah?" When Angel didn't say anything, only looked uncomfortable, he gave him a lopsided smile. "This _is_ a vampire thing?"

"Yes," he said gratefully. "Please don't broadcast this?"

"You don't have to be ashamed, you know," Xander said. "So, you're a vampire. Your medical treatment is pretty much, here, have some blood."

Angel looked at the floor, wishing it were, in fact, that simple. "Thanks."

"No problem."

He shut the door behind Xander and went back to the bedroom. Buffy had stripped off Spike's coat and ruined shirt and was heaving his legs into her lap to work on the complicated system of boot buckles and laces.

"Dead weight," he said, punning.

"I'm used to it." Her face matched her sad tone. "Do you know how many times I've done this, taken care of him when he's too weak to…" Buffy's voice trailed off, and her fingers stilled. "Do you know how often I should have done this? Or wished that I could do it?" She gave her head a little shake and started on the laces. "I guess you do. I'm sure he's always been the 'where's the grenade so I can throw my body on it' type."

"No." He shrugged, still in the doorway. "I mean, yes, he's thrown himself on grenades enough times, but I never…" Angel stared at the pale foot as Buffy took off the boot. "It's just, I've never taken care of him."

She examined Angel's expression and decided he was about two seconds away from a nice, long brood. "Yes, you have," she said briskly, going to work on the other boot. "I've seen you. When he followed me down into the subbasement during the first battle, and we found the Chinese Slayer's sword."

"Oh. I guess so." It seemed like too little, too late. Angel watched her toss the second boot onto the floor, saw how she stared at the still, pale body, simple love on her face. He supposed it was easier for her this way, when she didn't have to hide her emotions to spare his. It was easier for him, too. "The only thing I know about people in shock is that you're supposed to keep them warm. I don't know about vampires, but…."

Buffy nodded and slid Spike's feet from her lap so she could lie next to him. Angel covered them both with the blankets that had been at the bottom of their unmade bed. Then he sat on the edge of the mattress, and she watched him stare at Spike for a few moments. "How are you doing?"

"What?" He jerked, pulling his gaze away from Spike. "Oh. Sad. Relieved."

She held out her hand, shaking the edge of a blanket from her wrist. "I'm sorry, Angel."

He gave her a reflexive smile. "I'm not."

"I love you."

It was the first time she'd told him since before Christmas, and he gave her a real smile. "I love you, too, Buffy. Always."

⸹

"Hey, Dawnie," Xander said, coming in the front door of Watcher Central. It was ten in the morning, after such a long night. He pulled her into a loose embrace, noting her red-rimmed eyes.

"Hi, Xan." She let go of him, her eyes looking out of the door before he closed it. "Snowing again."

"Almost makes me miss Sunnydale."

"I like the snow. I just miss the sunshine."

"I like the snow, too. I did my first doughnut in the parking lot at Kroger the other night when I was picking up Lina after her late shift."

"In your Mercedes?"

"Yes." He sounded defensive.

"Whatever. Not my insurance rates." Dawn went still, remembering. "Which are going to go sky-high now because I rear-ended that woman." Tears welled in her eyes. "I don't know how I could have gotten through it without Tribby."

"Hey, hey" he said, putting his hand on her back.

Dawn wiped at her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just, we have to get through this meeting, then all I want to do is go home and curl up on the couch with Spike for about fifty years."

Xander looked into the living room, where Watchers were beginning to gather. "Is he here?"

"No." She shrugged. "I figured he was at home cleaning up, and we'd cross if I tried to catch him there."

He was shaking his head. "No. I drove Buffy and Angel home, and by the time we got to their apartment, Spike had just checked out. Shock, or Angel said something like Fugees… fugue state, that's it." Xander ducked his head to be closer to her, lowering his voice. "I thought Buffy would have called you. It hit him pretty hard. Drusilla, I mean."

"He never stopped loving her."

"Angel says he's seen this before, that he'll be fine."

Dawn scoffed and started to say something about Angel's track record when it came to Spike's wellbeing, but the doorbell rang. She turned back to answer it, finding two detectives Xander recognized from earlier on the step.

"Rupert Giles' residence?" The hard-faced female detective showed her badge. "Detective Gibbs, and this is Detective Rondo. We're here to question William Giles about the death of Libby Snapp."

⸹

"It isn't doing anything," Buffy fretted.

Angel had to agree. The burns Dru had left on Spike's chest had healed almost as soon as his blood offering touched the boy's mouth, but the blond man remained still, his eyes vacant. Angel absently switched back to his human features and licked his own wrist, then wiped a stray trickle of blood from the corner of Spike's mouth. The blood exchange, if it could be called that with Spike so passive, had done nothing for him. Nonplussed, he darted a quick glance at Spike's midsection. Apparently the boy was just as unimpressed as he was.

"We share leadership now," he said, shrugging helplessly. "Maybe since we're equals, the blood doesn't have any effect? There is no lore for this, Buffy."

He had let Buffy sleep for a couple of hours, curled against Spike, watching the two of them from the boy's other side, content in the family bed. He had drifted off for a few minutes himself, then the ringing telephone woke him, his reflexes turning him toward the sound before he truly left sleep. Whoever had called didn't leave a message on the machine, and when he looked back, Angel saw Buffy was awake, too. That's when they'd tried the blood. Now they sat on either side of Spike's still form.

"Well, what else can we do?" Buffy had a tiny frown between her eyebrows, only needing a direction so she could charge ahead. "Did Darla do anything else?"

Angel closed his eyes. "She gave him blood, then she sent me and Drusilla away, but I'm pretty sure she only did one other thing."

"What was it?"

"Sex."

"What?"

Her voice was sharp, and he closed his eyes tighter, as if she had hurt him. "She… had her way with him. The blood… it woke up one part of him, anyway. Darla brought him the rest of the way back. That's what worked the last time."

Buffy's round eyes went from Angel to Spike to Spike's groin and back to Angel. Her face flamed. If her life depended on it, she didn't think she could say a word.

"It still took hours."

"If you're suggesting-"

She was shocked, he could tell. "No. I'm not suggesting. I'm just telling you what Darla did."

Buffy was shaking her head. "Angel… He's not even here. It's like a roofies experience or something. That's just… cold."

"That pretty much describes Darla."

"There has to be something else."

Angel's mouth compressed and he finally met her eyes. "He was like this for almost a week. Angelus tried a lot of things before Darla got home."

She held his gaze a moment, then lowered her lids, noticing how he had distanced himself from 'a lot of things.' "A week?" Buffy thought of the Initiative caves, the female surgeon who said Spike had been unconscious for almost two weeks after the surgery.

"Buffy, I… It didn't work for me before, but if you want to go," Angel offered, his voice even, "I'll do what I can."

"Wha – You're gonna try to… boink him back to normal?"

"If you've ever wondered," said a cold voice from the doorway, "why you two never get a kitten for Christmas, I think this answers the question." Dawn had a deadly gleam in her eye. Behind her stood Willow, looking stricken.

"Dawn!" Buffy scrambled off the bed, guilty. "W-we tried blood, Angel's blood, but it didn't help."

"Darla," Angel's jaw tightened and he refused to look up from Spike's passive face, "actually did… boink him back to normal once."

Willow shook her head and came in, skirting around Angel. "Buffy, why didn't you call me? He was like this after he escaped the First Evil, when I came back from England." She saw the Slayer remember their mental connection too late, her tired face flushing.

"Get out." Dawn's voice was still cold, tightly controlled.

"We're trying-" Angel began.

"Get out!" They all winced at the shrill edge to her voice. Dawn was worn from anxiety and grief and didn't much care if she offended anyone at this point. "Willow, if you'd please explain to my ethics-challenged sister and her… boyfriend that Spike is needed so he can answer questions in a murder investigation," she came into the room, her scathing glance sweeping from Buffy to Angel, as she took her place beside the bed, "and while you do that, I'll take care of him." Dawn looked over Angel's dark head at Willow, her voice modulating. "If I need you, I'll let you know." She met her sister's eyes again, could tell that Buffy was thinking of objecting, but in the end the Slayer followed as the other two filed out silently.

"Oh, Spike," Dawn said, weary, kneeling on the floor next to the bed. "I'd like to join you, but we don't have the time to mourn our dead." She took his hand, warm from her sister's body. "I'm so sorry about Dru," she whispered, "but you've got to come back to me now. I need you."

⸹

"Isn't this a beautiful dress, my Spike?"

"Only if you're in it, poodle." They were in a shop on Carnaby Street, and Drusilla was wearing a gauzy concoction that one could see through if she wore it in sunlight. No danger of that, of course. "Or out of it."

"You say such nice things." Her eyes sparkled, and he combed his fingers through her dark locks and drew the strands over one shoulder.

"You make me want to say nice things." They were thigh-to-thigh now, eyes only for each other.

"Shall we have dinner while we're here?" she murmured, her large eyes cutting to the shop girl a few feet away.

He glanced over at the clerk, who looked at him and said softly, "I need you."

Spike turned from her and found that he and Dru were in the doorway of the cabin of a yacht, looking out at a sunset that painted primary colors over the Mediterranean Sea.

"Do you like the sun this way, Spike? I do," she said dreamily, leaning back against him. "I think I could swim in the sunshine when it's like this."

He put his chin over her shoulder and nuzzled his jaw against hers. "Tell me if you want to swim, pet. I'll go in with you."

"Even if it's in sunlight?"

"Won't ever let you swim there, Dru. You belong in darker waters, gliding through the waves like a graceful schooner with black sails."

"Like Theseus."

"Yeah, only in a happier story."

"What would make it a happier story?" He could feel her cheek curve. "Perhaps the minotaur could kill Theseus."

"Or the berk could have stayed with Ariadne."

"You would never leave me."

"Only when you send me away."

"Can't stay away from you long." Her clever hands slid over his naked body, and he chuckled.

"Come back to me. I need you." It didn't sound like Drusilla's voice, and he didn't want to hear it, so he turned away again.

He was lying on their bed in the old factory in Sunnydale, in pain and unable to do much more than move his fingers. Drusilla, strong and vital, came into the room. It had been so long since he'd seen her like this, healthy.

"Let me look at you, love."

She preened for him, turning from side to side. "You found the ritual that worked," she said, crowing a little, "and I'm all better. Now we got to get you out of that bed." Dru gave him a wicked look. "Though I do like you in bed."

"Give me time, pet," he said, dark promise in his tone.

"Let me heal you," she said, suddenly next to him, holding out her wrist.

"No," he said firmly, annoyed. "You know what we went through to get you that blood. I won't jeopardize your recovery." Spike's voice softened. "You saved me, pet."

She gave him a quizzical look. "Of course I did. I love you, silly goose."

"Means a lot to me." He smiled up at her, despite the pain to his burned face.

"I love you. You have to wake up now."

Spike sighed, closed his eyes against the image of Drusilla's sincere face, and turned toward the insistent voice. When he opened them again, Dawn was there, hovering over him, her blue eyes bloodshot with weeping and lack of sleep. "Nibblet." His voice sounded rusty.

"Thank God," she said, throwing herself on him, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

He noticed that it didn't hurt, and that made him close his eyes again. Slayer's blood. Angel's blood, too, which made sense. He was in their bed. He didn't let himself think about that, just wrapped his arms around Dawn. "How long?"

"Just a few hours. I'm so sorry, Spike. The police want their questions answered, and the Good Lieutenant isn't back in Cleveland yet."

"How are you?" he asked, not bothering with anyone else.

Tears welled in her eyes. "Not good. This one hit too close to home." She didn't say Tribby's name. "I called Ty, then I called her uncle, great-uncle I guess, Lana's brother Raymond, so Lana wouldn't have to find out over the phone. He was going to drive to her office to break the news in person."

Spike rubbed her back. "Someone else should have made the call. Her Watcher, I s'pose."

"Pelham was busy." There was something dark in her tone, but she let it go. "Vishnaswamy called Maria's parents. She's pretty upset, too."

"Makes you think of your sis, I know."

"I guess. Part of me is grateful that, if slayers had to die… But it's still hard."

"Sorry I wasn't there for you."

"How are you doing?"

"Numb." He patted her back. "Here, off me. Reckon I'd better get dressed."

Dawn reached across the floor for his boots, then picked up his shirt, examining the way the fabric fell open. "You're going to need a new shirt."

"'S'alright. That one shrank in the wash anyway."

"Everything you have shrinks when you wash it. You should never wash your truck."

Spike closed his eyes, grateful to his core for her, for the way she kept him grounded. "I love you, Dawnie."

"I love you, too."

Outside, Willow and Buffy sat on opposite ends of the couch while Angel puttered in the kitchen, getting together a late breakfast of toast and fruit for the humans. When they heard the low rumble of Spike's voice, the two women exchanged small smiles.

Dawn came out of the bedroom a few moments later, followed by Spike. Willow stood up, and her eyes met Spike's. They gazed at each other a moment, then she gave him a wan smile, satisfied with their quiet conversation. He went past Buffy to give Willow a hug and press a kiss into her hair.

"'M fine, love." He glanced at Buffy. "Not too sure how I ended up here."

She stood up, too, smoothing her shirt so she'd have something to do with her hands. "Xander was driving us all home, but you…."

His mouth curved, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Spending a last little bit of time with Dru, yeah?" She looked down, nodding, but had no reply. "Anyway," Spike said, forcing briskness into his voice, "thanks for looking out for me." When Dawn snorted, he looked at her, puzzled.

"I donated blood," Angel said, coming back into the living room and handing a plate to Willow, then to Buffy, rubbing his hand along her back. He missed the resigned look that flashed across the blond man's face as she accepted the unthinking intimacy. "When that didn't work, I thought of," he put his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor, "of what Darla did when… when she came home."

"Oh." After a moment, Spike moved away from Willow and put a hand on Angel's shoulder. "Thanks for the thought," he said, faint amusement tingeing the words. He studied the older man, then squeezed his shoulder. "How you holdin' up, mate?"

"I'll be all right." Angel still didn't look up.

"I don't blame you." There were more meanings behind the words than the women in the room knew. "Had to be done." He slid his hand up to Angel's nape and pulled his head down to place a kiss on his temple. Spike turned to Buffy. "Thank you, kitten."

She gripped the plate with both hands, then made herself ease up as she heard the faint grinding noise of stoneware under stress. "I didn't do anything." It was meant for Dawn and Willow more than him.

"You stayed with me, yeah?"

He turned away before she could answer, and this time Buffy saw the pain in his eyes. She wanted to grab him and take him out of the apartment to some place quiet and safe and isolated, wanted to be the one to take the pain away. It should be her place to do that, and she had the right, but like a muscle not used, her ability to exercise it had atrophied.

"Reckon I'm needed at Watcher Central." Spike focused his attention on Willow.

"They are waiting on you," she agreed, putting down a piece of toast.

"Help me out, Red? Stay in my head?" he asked. "Don't want to run my mouth overmuch."

"Can you take us, too?" Buffy put in quickly.

Tired though she was, Willow took them all to save time. Except for more cups of tea and coffee in the hands of more people, Giles' living room was much as they had left it. The one notable exception was the nerve of the two detectives, which had diminished considerably when Willow and Dawn simply vanished.

"Giles," Buffy said, rushing to give him a hug. "I'm so glad you're-"

"Yes," he said, overriding her, patting her back in a very un-Gilesian manner, "I'm always here for you." He gave the police officers a strained smile. "This has been very difficult for the other slayers." Buffy gave him an odd look, not understanding, then turned away. While she had been greeting him, two of the Watchers had vacated the couch. Willow and Dawn were flanking Spike, so she went to perch next to Angel on the arm of his chair.

The cops began with their salient facts: they had a body clad in biking leather inside a building and a crashed motorcycle and discarded helmet with strands of hair that matched the body outside. Though there was no murder weapon, there were many other disturbing items found at the scene. They wanted answers and had a tape recorder to capture them. Giles and Dawn set up the story of Spike's disappearance and the search conducted by Angel and Tribby.

Gibbs, the female officer, interrupted at this point. "Why those two? Did they have some knowledge of the suspected kidnapper?"

"As a vampire, Angel's ability to sense and smell might have led us to Spike." Giles left out the way blood called to blood.

"And Tribby was my best at sensing demons," Spike said, his eyes downcast, thinking of the dark hours spent hunting with her and Gunn in Colorado.

Gibbs looked sorry she'd asked. "So, the victim… 'sensed' Mr. Giles here and… it caused her to wreck?"

Dawn sighed. "Just Spike," she said from her place next to him on the sofa. "The only 'Mr. Giles' here is him." She nodded at Rupert. "And Tribby was my roommate. If I know her, she found Spike and didn't take the time to park her bike."

"Wait," Spike said, looking at Dawn. "She was out in this weather on her Harley?" Then he remembered that he couldn't scold her for this.

All eyes were on him now, and it was his turn to tell the story. He plowed through it, his fingers intertwined with Willow's. She sat on his other side, her mind touching his lightly. She reminded him of details that he overlooked, such as the fact that he was bound by rope magicked to hold vampires, and edited out others, like Drusilla's confusing a propane torch for an acetylene torch, as irrelevant.

"Excuse me," Detective Rondo interjected. "Were you there?"

"No." Too weary to explain, she grazed his mind. "When you were six, you had a dog named Grover, after the Muppet on _Sesame Street_. I can read minds, when it's necessary." He sat back in his chair, stunned, and she let out a sigh. "Spike lost two friends and the woman he's loved since, like, 1880. He's not at his most coherent right now. I'm just helping."

"Eighteen-eighty." Detective Gibbs' voice was flat. "And this is the same woman who was torturing you."

"She was the vampire who made him," Angel threw in.

Rondo sat forward again, finally taking his eyes from Willow to focus on Spike. "You don't have any visible injuries."

Spike closed his eyes. "I'm getting to that."

Aubrey, who was the only other Watcher besides Spike and Giles who was sitting, leaned forward. "Were you injured, William? We'd gotten the most disturbing reports from slayer dreams, warning that you'd been hurt, even killed." Against the wall, Kayla burrowed against Xander's side, her eyes filling with tears at the memory of her own dream. When Spike didn't answer, Willow did, her face pale as she detailed the sliced tendons, the cuts and broken bones and burns.

"That's enough, love," Spike said aloud, squeezing both her hand and Dawn's. Giving his upset Nibblet a small, encouraging smile, he told them how Maria hesitated over the order to abduct her and what happened after Tribby's arrival. Some animation crept into his voice as he recounted her fight with nineteen Aurelian-bred demons, his pride obvious. Spike explained that the same magic that had hamstrung him killed Tribby. Abashed, he told of taking her blood, the last protection she had to offer.

Willow frowned. "Any idea why Drusilla backed off?"

"Not a clue." Spike smiled a little. "Never quite knew how her mind worked, not in a hundred and twenty years."

"I have a theory that it was," Aubrey said in the quiet that followed this, his eyes on Spike, "that it was due to Maria's blood."

"Why is that?" Vishnaswamy demanded.

"Over the centuries, Watcher records show that the force of good held within a Slayer is… toxic to vampires when ingested. It makes them suicidal."

Both Spike and Angel gave the elderly Watcher a sharp look, but, across the room, something in Alpana's expression eased.

The police officers exchanged a look, then the female officer shook her head, dismissing the creepy tangent. "Can all vampires make swords appear out of thin air?" Gibbs had a skeptical eyebrow raised. Spike forced down his objection, that he'd taken in slayer blood scant hours before, because the topic had changed. He needed to concentrate on the interview.

"No," Angel said firmly. "She had never been able to do that before."

"We may have an explanation," Giles said, "if you'd let William finish…?"

He did so, declaring his determination to kill Drusilla to stop her from wreaking more destruction, turning to give Dawn and Buffy an apologetic look when he confessed he couldn't do it. "Didn't have the stones," he said, dropping his eyes, "not with her saying she just wanted a family."

Angel would have smiled, remembering how the Gilbert and Sullivan-loving Gunn had teased Spike about not killing orphans, except it would seem inappropriate anywhere but in his own mind. It was now time for him to take up the tale. There wasn't much to say, really, just that he'd heard what the blond man meant for him to hear, that she had a new, deadly ability to throw knives from nowhere, that he stopped her.

"I don't know if it's clear, but Angel is the one who made Drusilla," Giles said unexpectedly. "This can't have been easy for him."

"No." He left it at that stark word.

Pelham, who had come in through the kitchen door a few minutes before, took the opportunity to step forward and hand a videotape to Giles. "It's a feed from that school we went to," he said vaguely. "Alpana and Maria's parents might want to see it." His mouth tightened. "Tribby isn't on it." Buffy looked up at him, having forgotten until that moment that he was her Watcher.

"Oh, thank you." Giles promptly handed it to Detective Gibbs. "We've been trying to track down a sorcerer who caused trouble for us in the past. Once we found out about Drusilla's new… ability, I suspected this man, Ethan Rayne, might be involved." He picked up a file from the floor next to him, the one Riley Finn had passed to him in December. The Department of Defense logo was on the cover. "I don't think I'd be violating any security clearances to let you see this, not in light of recent events." He gave Gibbs a chance to glance inside, waiting until he had everyone's attention, because he only wanted to say this once.

"I trust that videotape means you found them?" When Pelham nodded, his expression neutral, Giles turned back to the detectives. "We may not be vampires, but we have ways of tracking down magic. Mr. Pelham here went to investigate, to see if Ethan," he quickly added the surname, "Rayne was there. What did you find?"

Pelham didn't look at the police officers, simply 'reported' to his boss. "He's dead." There was a stir among the rest of the audience, but Giles simply grew more still. "I went to the address we identified, quietly, but I didn't find anyone, so I kept poking around. There was an office upstairs, and it looked like… a murder-suicide, I'd say. The man in that file," he nodded toward the Department of Defense folder, "was on the floor with a gun in his hand. There was a younger woman there, too, also dead. There was evidence that they had been sacrificing to the demon," and here Pelham did show some emotion, hesitating over the name with something akin to fear, "Szerwragroth. I called another policeman on the list that Lieutenant Muse gave us, Sergeant Rotella, and she's there now, investigating. She let me make a copy of that tape."

"Let's see what's on it," Rondo said. McGann stood, too, helping him to start the VCR beneath the television in the corner.

Willow had closed her eyes, gripping Spike's hand.

 _What's wrong, love?_

 _The last time I saw Amy and Ethan Rayne, they were tied up. They kidnapped Giles using an Olivia-shaped portal, just like the Harmony-thing kidnapped you, but I rescued him. Pelham's lying._

Spike looked at Pelham, at his bland expression. _He killed them_. He didn't need any special abilities to know this.

 _I hate this, Spike. But I can't help but feel relieved. What else can we do? How can you jail someone like Ethan, like Amy? Is it any worse to keep her trapped forever inside a cell – or a rat?_

 _If there's another solution, I don't know what it is._ His thought echoed her own. _Demon, me. Don't have a problem with them being dead. They sicced Dru on my slayers, and Maria and Tribby are dead._ Even in her mind, his next words were loud, vehement. _They killed Drusilla, more surely than Angel._

 _I'm not saying it's wrong, Spike, but it isn't right, either. It stains us. Even if Giles didn't order their deaths, he condoned it, didn't stop it. I don't want him to have that on his conscience._

She was thinking of Warren, he knew. _Dunno how we can stay clean in this world, love._

Buffy was frowning at Giles, her brows drawn together. She started to say something, but Angel put his hand on the back of her neck. She looked down at him, and he gave his head a tiny shake.

"There we go." McGann stood up and moved away from the television. The gathering became a small audience for a boring yet horrifying movie: Spike's still body on the floor, Drusilla's sly smiles, a transformed Maria. Rondo and Gibbs exchanged a look after it was over, Dru's dark look and her long fingers the last image. They had actual proof of the impossible story, vampires and sharp objects conjured from thin air on film. And they both knew no one higher than Lieutenant Muse would ever see it.

"If they were worshiping Szerwragoth," Willingham told the detectives, "check with the coroner's office. They'll have seen a string of healthy people without any apparent cause of death, just a cut on their palm. It's quite possible that there will be some forensic evidence, particularly blood, tying the unsolved cases to the two dead sorcerers."

Xander let them out into the cold, snowy day soon after, closing the door behind them. It was time to attend to the details now, setting up memorial services for Maria and Tribby, juggling the schedule, getting things back to normal. Dawn and Spike had stood, and Oz had slid into their place next to Willow, holding her hands in his. Xander sighed, feeling empty and so lonesome for Lina of a sudden.

"What really happened?" Buffy was standing in front of Pelham, staring up at him with her feet planted wide apart and her hands on her hips.

"After Giles left," he said, giving her an as-if-you-don't-know look, "they tried to escape using magic. I had to defend myself."

She looked up at him for a few seconds longer, thinking the words so loudly that she might as well have said them aloud: you executed them. The moment stretched out, and Angel came to put a hand on her shoulder.

"We stand for the right thing," she said, wishing she wasn't so tired, wanting to express herself better. "Watchers and slayers, we're the good guys."

"Yes," Pelham agreed, completely sincere, "we are the good guys."

"I questioned Ethan earlier," Giles broke in. "He had been drawn to Cleveland much as the lowest demon, had been recruiting them, arming them. He gave guns to the demons that were held in reserve after the third battle. He planned the sabotage of the gym, and Amy compelled that construction crew to do their dirty work. It isn't just Maria and Tribby they're responsible for; they murdered Natalie, too. They are also the ones who send those gangs of vampires after Spike, trying to capture him in order to lure Drusilla here. When she eventually came to town on her own, they were quick to ally with her. Ethan hadn't figured out what the source of the energy was, but he knew enough to want it for himself. That's what he wanted with me, used Drusilla to read our minds for the Olivia and Kennedy shapes and would have used her to get the specifics of the energy source from me once she'd finished with Spike. And I gather they wanted Willow to drain, like a battery." His voice grew quite hard. "Ethan called up the singing demon in Sunnydale, a summoning that can only end with human deaths, and now he - they were sacrificing humans to Szerwragroth – it only accepts humans – in exchange for power. They had to be stopped."

Buffy turned away, just in time to see Dawn and Spike slip out the door. She shook her head, not willing to meet Giles' eyes just now, afraid of what she might see in them. Angel was there, standing behind her, and she went into the shelter of his arms. The world was a hard, violent place, and she hadn't wanted to be in it for a very long time.

⸹

For Spike, the next three days passed in a blur. Apparently, there had been nothing better for the slayers to dream about than him the night he was kidnapped, and the other Watchers spent a lot of time discussing his connection to their charges in hushed tones. He avoided them. There was a memorial service in Cleveland for the lost slayers, at which he refused to speak. The following day, he drove his truck down to Tennessee, Tribby's Harley, its front crumpled, in the bed, along with her boxed-up belongings, Dawn silent in the passenger seat. Time continued to pass until he found himself quite suddenly under an awning at a cemetery, standing next to Tribby's grave, the double marker with both her name and her husband's to his left, listening to a minister talk about dust to dust.

He looked around, coming out of a daze. Dawn was on one side, Kayla on his other. Both women had their hands in his and had guided him to the deepest shade. Tribby's cousin Ursula began to sing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' in a surprisingly pure and lovely voice. The sky was overcast, but it was warmer in the South, and Dawn, who was wearing a black sweater, hadn't bothered to turn him out in anything other than a suit.

Lana dropped a white rose atop the casket, then turned away, her brother Raymond waiting with open arms for her. Tribby's father was next, his second family trailing behind him solemnly. Her mother, composed, beautiful, and seemingly unaffected, dropped her rose, clinging to Estaban's arm. Then it was their turn to say their farewells, and a little dark-haired girl held out a vase of white roses. He took one and stepped up.

As far as he knew, Angelus and Darla had stayed at the despoiled convent until the next night, when Drusilla woke to her new life. She had never had last rites or a Christian burial. Spike pressed a kiss onto the white bud and let it fall to the surface of the white casket, let his tears fall, too. He was at Tribby's funeral, grieving for Drusilla. Somehow, he didn't think either would mind.

Back at Lana's, the outpouring of food from concerned friends and neighbors covered every surface in the kitchen. Tribby's grandmother busied herself serving it to her family, the folks who stopped by, and people from Cleveland who had come down for the funeral. Spike moved up to Lana contritely, shaking his head when she asked if he wanted anything to eat, then slid his arms around her for a long moment. They'd had a quiet talk the night before, and he'd told her at length how her granddaughter had died a hero, saving him. It meant a lot that Lana would still let him in her house.

Spike left the kitchen, passing the living room where someone was playing videotapes of Tribby's Olympic competition. He paused a second, just to see how she'd fought before she became a slayer, then went out to the porch to find a quiet place. Ty was there, and he gave Spike a nod of acknowledgement, so the vampire went to stand next to him by the rail. "Greg not available for the funeral, then?"

Ty shook his head. "I told him not to come. I didn't want anyone here who might be even the slightest bit glad she's gone."

"Good."

The shorter man gave him a sidelong glance. "How are you holding up?" When Spike shrugged, keeping his eyes focused on a dead patch of clover in the yard, Ty kept examining him. "She told me." He met the startled blue eyes steadily. "She came to see me that last night, upset because… well, I think because she was upset over being upset." Smiling a little, he lifted a shoulder. "Women, right? Anyway, she talked it through, and I just listened, and I think it would have been good for her, a step in the right direction, if she…" Ty trailed off with a sigh. "But she didn't think it was good for you, the… change in your relationship, I mean."

His brows drew together. "Why not?"

"She said for you, it was about loneliness."

Spike's lips pulled back from his teeth as he grimaced, fighting a sudden rush of tears. "Yeah," he admitted. "Don't go a bundle on that description, because it was good – passionate, you know. But I think that nails it." He cleared his throat. "Why do we sleep with the people we do? I honestly don't have a clue."

"Because we're men," Ty said, his own thoughts obviously somewhere else now.

"Dunno if that's a reason or an excuse."

⸹

"Thanks for coming."

"No problem." Connor took off his jacket and slid onto the seat across from Angel. They were in a booth at an anonymous Jack in the Box in Los Angeles, and his father was smiling at him. That just killed him, a smiling Angel, so he leaned across the table and gave his father a hug. "I'm sorry it's under these circumstances."

Angel shrugged. "Giles was looking for volunteers to come to California to represent the Council at Maria's funeral."

"She wasn't one of the slayers at the battle last month, was she?"

"No. She was here, actually. Lived in Echo Park." He pushed his untouched coffee to the left. "At least she got one last visit with her family."

"Wait a minute," Connor said, giving Angel a sharp look as his father's statement sank in. "You're here representing the Council?"

"Well, both of us, but," he looked down, faintly embarrassed, "Giles finally got me to join. I figured they needed the help." Angel shrugged. "I don't know if I ever really understood how many forces were arrayed against them."

Connor nodded. "So, you're gainfully employed?"

"Yeah, how about that?" He laughed a little. "Benefits and everything. Setting a good example for my son."

"Where's Buffy?"

"She's with Maria's Watcher, Alpana Vishnaswamy. She was in Cleveland when you were there; you might remember her. They're spending some time with Maria's family."

"How are things between you two?"

"Getting back to normal. I think." He lifted his shoulders. "It's hard to tell, since nothing has been normal so far this year. Buffy and I haven't had a lot of time to talk." They hadn't been intimate since she'd returned from the visit to her aunt's, but he wasn't about to share that with his son.

"What about Spike?"

Angel lifted the coffee cup, just to have something to do with his hands. "Not good. Losing Dru was hard on him. He lost two of his slayers as well. But Dawn's with him. She'll take care of him." He was counting on it.

"So Dawn's okay?" Connor's tone was casual.

"One of the dead slayers was her roommate, but other than that…" He examined his son. "You really like her, don't you?"

"Oh, well, you know," he said, waving a hand, "she's smart and cute, but it's not like anything could come of it. We live half a country apart." Of course, generous cell phone plans and instant messages made the distance moot. Connor had checked Cleveland universities to see which offered degrees in criminal justice, but he wasn't about to share that with his father. Angel was still giving him a penetrating look, so he cleared his throat and changed the subject. "How are you? About Drusilla, I mean?"

"Truthfully? Relieved." When Connor raised his eyebrows, Angel elaborated. "I always worried she might find you, turn you."

"I can defend myself against vampires, Dad," he said tolerantly.

His clear brown eyes glowing from hearing his son use the word 'Dad,' Angel smiled. "I know you can."

⸹

The days were noticeably longer now, midwinter over three weeks gone. The evening after the funeral, Spike sat on Lana's back porch again, watching the sun set over the river. Dawn had sat with him for a while in silence, and then gone inside. It was too cold for humans, even ones used to Cleveland weather, and he was glad to be alone. They were going back to the Hellmouth the next morning, and there were never many chances to think in any city with one of those.

He felt light, as if he had gone through a closed house with a lot of rooms, skirting around sheet-covered furniture, wandering along echoing corridors, before coming out the front doors into fresh air, the stillness and stifling atmosphere behind him. Clear, maybe. If he'd felt empty, Spike wouldn't have been surprised. There wasn't much left inside him. The tears had fallen for most of the afternoon, spent in Tribby's girlhood bedroom, curled around Dawn.

Drusilla was at rest. He knew this, not with his human or vampire senses, but with his soul, and he was grateful again that he had it. The bleakness of knowing he would never open his door to find her there had been alleviated only by that certainty. The innocent young nun, the scarred seer was finally at peace.

Moving beyond that particular grief, he had come to terms with his guilt over Maria. She had been no different than him, a young human dreaming of love unfortunate enough to have Drusilla offer the perfect temptation. They had both been weak, had made the wrong choice. It wasn't his fault that he had been the temptation. If he had gone along with her advances, had any kind of relationship with her, it would have made her an even larger target for Drusilla. He had mused over the chain of events that led him to be in the alley outside the livery the night he died. With Maria, it seemed that all her paths led to an encounter with Dru. Sometimes, as he'd learned so bitterly with Buffy and with Fred, you couldn't be the savior. At least now he was able to mourn Maria.

The sun dropped below the horizon, no longer sparkling over the cold water. He could see individual twigs on trees up and down the riverbanks as far as the lay of the land allowed. It was twilight, the time of long vision, Tribby had called it. Spike gritted his teeth. Her, he wasn't able to mourn. He had watched Buffy sacrifice herself to save the world; bloody hell, he'd done it himself. But he hadn't had anyone give their life for him before.

She had continually put herself between him and any threat, from what the Council might do in the future to what Soldier Boy had done in the past. He'd never asked, and she'd never said why beyond telling him that someone needed to. Spike didn't understand, didn't know how to approach the steadfast loyalty that he'd done nothing to earn. Mostly, he was ashamed that she had died saving him.

There was a slight noise to his left, and he turned his head to see. It was as if the sun had moved above the horizon again, and Spike squinted his eyes against the brightness. A shape blocked the light, and he saw it was Tribby. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders, and she wore a deerhide dress. In her hands was a woven basket, and she held it toward him, offering, as she always did for him.

"Tribby… I'm so sorry." There was no surprise in his voice at seeing this apparition.

She shook her head. "I was in your debt, doubly so." When his brows drew together, she moved closer, and he heard a rustle inside the basket. "This is for you."

Spike drew back, not wanting to take it. Tribby gave him one of her full, genuine smiles, silently encouraging him, and he put out a hesitant hand. The basket had a cover, he saw, and he lifted it. Something flew at him in a rush of dark wings, taking his vision.

He was standing in a field, an open space surrounded on all sides by woods. The sun shone down on him, and he lifted his face to the warmth for a moment, knowing this light could not harm him. Just twenty yards away, a bison wallowed on its back in a depression in the earth, dust rising from its matted hide. A few more grazed further along the meadow. Somewhere, a woodpecker knocked cheerfully against a tree as other birds sang and chirped. At the edge of the forest, a whitetail deer appeared, studying the buffalo and the field with large brown eyes. It saw him and abruptly melted into the shadow of the trees as if it had never been there.

His feet were getting wet, and he looked down at his bare toes, rocking back on his heels to lift them from the long grass of the meadow. It was early morning, and the blades were covered in dew. The big buffalo rolled to its feet, snorting. It regarded him for a moment, then turned toward the other members of its herd. A yellow butterfly floated down to rest on a tall weed nearby, settling its wings away from its tiny body, airing them. Spike smiled a little at this gift. He hadn't enjoyed a warm summer morning for so long.

A shadow glided past his, and he lifted his face to the sky again to watch a pale brown bird about the size of a crow circle, then settle on a blackened stump behind him. It was a hawk, he thought, noting its white underbelly and bluish wings, or some kind of small falcon. It regarded him for a moment with its dark eye, seeming almost merry, morning ground fog swirling beneath it. Then it spread its wings and took off, hovering over him for several seconds. It's a kestrel, he thought, the name coming over him like a sunrise, inexorable. A kestrel taking wing –

Back in the rocker on Lana's porch, he sat up straight, then sprang from the chair, looking all around. No time had passed; it was still twilight. Spike realized he was breathing, couldn't make himself stop. He turned and went into the house, to the kitchen where Lana stood among casseroles, cakes, and pans of fried chicken, small offerings from family and friends in her time of grief.

"Lana, do you have a Bible?"

She saw the urgency in his eyes, and that gave her something to do. "Of course," she said, grateful. Lana tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and led him to her bedroom. She handed him her Bible, bound in white, but Spike shook his head.

"No, I meant a family Bible, an old Bible."

Lana gave him a puzzled look. "There's one I have from the Bennetts, my side of the family."

"That's fine," he said impatiently. She led him to a room he'd passed but never been inside, an old-fashioned formal parlor with a fireplace. Spike looked around while she searched the shelves of a bookcase, knowing this was where she put up her Christmas tree by the lingering scent of pine.

"Here it is," Lana said at last, "my grandfather's." She handed him a worn black book with red-tipped pages, the acidic paper brittle.

Spike opened the front cover and turned the first leaves until he found what he was looking for, the family tree written in faded ink. The Bible had once belonged to a man whose name was Royce Bennett, whose father was Robert H. Bennett, whose mother was….

He lowered the Bible and took another look at the fireplace, at the sword hanging above the mantle. Swallowing, he asked his hostess, "That's from the American civil war, isn't it?" He already knew.

Lana smiled, a ghost of her usual smile, but so familiar nonetheless. "It is. It belonged to one of my great-great-great grandfathers. He was looking for a chance to fight the U.S. Army."

"He joined the Confederates," Spike said, staring up at the weapon, "and brought back that sword. He taught his daughter Becca how to use it, taught her how to fight, that being left-handed was an advantage." He had more tears after all, it seemed. "She taught her son, Robert Horace. Did he teach this," he lifted the Bible again, "Royce? Did Royce pass it down to your grandfather, and so on?"

Lana was looking at him with wide eyes. "Spike? What are you talking about?"

He shook his head and handed the book back to her. "No wonder she didn't like her name. She was never a butterfly, Lana. She was a falcon." Spike turned and walked to where Dawn was already waiting for him at the doorway, called by the intensity of his emotion. He let her lead him away from Lana, who stared after him, the Bible held loosely in her hands.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asked, settling against him on the mattress, her arms around his neck.

Spike shook his head and hid his face in the fall of her brown hair. "I never wanted…" He couldn't manage any more. There was too much anger and shame in him, that another soul would be required as sacrifice to save his worthless hide, too much grief. But the worst was the fear that if the soul of his thrall was bound to him, all the souls belonging to his unending string of victims were similarly bound. They might be all around him, might be the very people he loved so much now. He might have drained Willow, leaving her body without a backwards glance. Joyce might have been no more that a meal to him once. He might have hunted Buffy in tandem with Angelus.

"Dru?" Dawn asked, stroking his back. "Or is it Maria and Tribby?"

He couldn't answer, couldn't use that false name. After a time, he stopped shaking. Dawn fell asleep before he did, and he was grateful he wouldn't have to explain just how tainted he truly was.

* * *

Next Chapter: The gang finds the source of the energy, fulfilling the Kanai prophecy.


	15. Kanai

[Author's Note: The deaths in the last chapter were AU characters; the death in this chapter is Buffyverse. Again, I am very willing to be your grief counselor – I always reply to reviews (except from guests, because there's no link) or just send a message.]

 **Kanai**

Cleveland

Mid-January 2005

Shutting off the engine of his truck, Spike looked up at the four-story apartment building. It had been a long trip back home, some of it traveling on roads hazardous with ice and snow. He couldn't say it was good to be back, though the city had done its usual fine job of clearing the streets, making it easy to get to his destination. Even before they had left for the funeral in Tennessee, he had avoided the apartment. "Home sweet home," he muttered.

He'd dropped Dawn and Kayla at Watcher Central, where his Bit planned to help her friend get settled before driving her Jeep back home. Spike couldn't decide if he preferred to face the sight and scent of the empty flat alone, or if he'd rather wait for Dawn to join him. There was blood in the fridge, and he was hungry, but it wasn't enough motivation. You useless git, he berated himself. Go face it like a man. The internal scolding wasn't enough to get him moving, either.

The shadow moving behind the blinds in Dawn's bedroom, however, was enough.

Spike went up the stairs noiselessly, past his neighbors' doors and to his own, which was slightly ajar. Gurkha knife in hand, he pushed the door open.

"Blondie Bear!" Lorne stood up from the couch, smiling, white teeth showing clearly in the green features.

"Lorne?" Surprised, he rolled the big knife over the back of his hand before stowing it in his coat, the flourish unconscious as he checked for other presences in the apartment. Spike stepped inside and hugged the other demon. "Good to see you, mate. Quite a surprise."

"Surprising to me, too," Lorne agreed, his smile becoming a trifle fixed. "I settled down in Palm Springs, working a dinner show – nice place, you know, older audience, lots of appreciation for the standards – and it wasn't bad. Not as good as being my own boss, but not bad. Then, last week, out of nowhere, _she_ showed up inside my head." He shook his head, making a mouth. "At least it was after New Years." He gave Spike a sly look. "Hope yours was half as fun as mine."

"Doubt it. Went to a wedding."

"Yours?"

Spike scoffed. "Not hardly. I was giving away the bride."

"Well, I've met this Grevelslaugh demon. They're not really male or female – sort of both – and let me tell you," Lorne grinned, "once you figure things out-"

"Lorne," Spike said wearily, "I've buried two of my slayers this week. Just came from a funeral in Tennessee, 's'matter of fact. Not that I'm not glad to see you, but I have a feeling that you'd be with your Grevelslaugh honey instead of here if you didn't have a good reason."

"True." Lorne sighed and sat down, patting the cushion beside him. "I love this couch, by the way. Enchanted?"

"No."

He took the hint. "Okay. So, last week, she shows up inside my head, back in this dimension, then this morning she says she's found a vessel, and next thing I know, we're here. Poof." His eyes went past Spike to the hallway. "And poof again." Assuming that 'poof' referred to a teleportation rather than to Angel in Lorne's rather disjointed narration, Spike turned around to see the poofter.

Tribby walked into the living room, clad in leather much tighter than her chaps had ever been, long hair loose. Spike could see two small, ragged semicircular wounds on her neck, the mark of his hurried bite. She tilted her head and turned on the thousand-watt smile, Becca's smile, moving toward him as if the muscles in her abdomen had never been sliced in two.

And she was blue.

"Illyria," Spike said flatly.

"As I told you, the white-haired one did return to this box." She came around the edge of the couch, moving her gaze from Lorne to Spike, examining him, possibly to the molecular level. "You are fit."

"Fit for an asylum," he muttered.

"You will attend me," Illyria said. "I require retainers as I fight my enemies."

"Got enough of my own," Spike said, pressing himself away from her and into the sofa, feeling it give beneath him, welcoming him home.

She blinked at him. "You refuse me?"

"Refuse a lady? Me? Never." Spike smiled at her for a second before it vanished utterly. "Get out of that body."

"I require a shell for this small dimension."

"Yes, I know, your worship. I also know that you can look like whomever you wish."

"True. However, this vessel is uniquely adapted for the set of physical laws on this planet." Demonstrating, she stuck one leg straight out and moved it to the side, then behind her, curling it over her back. "It is strong and well-balanced." Illyria put her foot back on the floor. "I have also learned that the display of mammary glands," her hand stoked over her chest, "is distracting to the male of your species."

"That's all true," he agreed. "But I won't be much good to you as a retainer if I am distracted by… your form."

She stared at him for a moment, her head tilting. "You are not sexually aroused. You feel the emotion called grief."

Spike closed his eyes for a moment. "Illyria, love, you have no idea how many reasons I have to feel grief. Your… shell is just one of them. I would be much more inclined to be your willing retainer if you made yourself look like Fred. That's what my," he sighed, giving her what she wanted to hear and what was also probably true, "limited human brain can comprehend."

Illyria had already compromised for the puny hybrid, had he but known. Returning to their dimension, many of her powers restored, she had searched the location they called Los Angeles. After her defeat of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart's hordes, she expected the one called Angel to have consolidated his kingdom. Instead, the city was bereft of any significant demon presence. Widening her search, she found the Pylean closest to the city. He was suitable for carrying her consciousness, though he had complained unceasingly of headaches. At any time, she could have directed him to evict a soul from an appropriate shell so she could inhabit it. Instead, she had located Angel and the white-haired one, finding them among a group of humans enhanced by the essence of a strong, long-gone demon. She approved of their forging of a worthy army, and approved even more when one of the enhanced humans vacated its shell.

The part of her that she most treasured, the part touched and changed by the one named Wesley, knew this emotion the white-haired one felt. The human vermin alleviated their grief by sharing pain, but for warriors, even in such unevolved form as these, only battle assuaged the pain. If the white-haired one was in pain, he would be willing to fight with her, and he was the best this paltry planet had to offer. She would not see him diminished.

She thought it through thoroughly in less than a second. Illyria changed, gaining inches of height, morphing into the form of the one called Fred, beloved of Wesley. The Old One found that the form felt… appropriate. "Will this distract you?"

"No." Spike stood up, no longer staggered by seeing his flatmate's dead body or by the accompanying guilt. Fred's form caused a pang, but it was also a way of seeing an old friend. He stepped toward Illyria and embraced her stiff form. "Glad you've survived, love."

"I am not Fred." It was warning as much as anything.

"I know you aren't. It's you I'm glad to see."

"Why?"

"You're a hell of a warrior." He smiled. The whole time he was greeting her, he was thinking hard. Illyria's presence meant danger to his own.

She felt her mouth curve in response, the primitive mirroring instinct taking control of her muscles for a moment. Her words displayed no softness, however. "Even the least of my kind would seem impressive to you."

Spike let it go, glancing over at Lorne. "So, who're we fighting?"

"The usual," he said, shaking his head. "Wolfram and Hart – well, the Senior Partners. Here in Cleveland, if I understand her royal blueness."

The blond man turned to Illyria. "Then I will be your… retainer in this dimension. I can only speak for myself, and I have one condition."

Another short pause. "Which is?"

"I claim one you will know as Dawn Summers. She is mine. You will never hurt or use her, and you will do all in your power to protect her, same as me." Spike, an astute judge of human and non-human nature, inclined his head. "I feel for her the way you feel for Wesley Wyndham-Pryce."

"Done." This time, there was no hesitation. "I cannot guarantee that she will always be safe, but I will abide by your condition." Fred's large eyes regarded him unblinkingly. "My agreement is a token of my esteem."

He nodded. "You saved me an' Charlie an' Angel in that alley behind the Hyperion. You already have my loyalty, your worship." Illyria's surprised look was enough to make him laugh. "Sit down, then, and tell me whatever you think my insignificant human brain can comprehend of your adventures since you went through the portal."

Spike zoned out after the first minute, as Illyria, god or not, tended to speak in a monotone with too much descriptive detail. He was waiting until Dawn came home. Ten minutes later, she did. Illyria's eyes were already fixed on the door. Spike hustled to open it, putting his body between the Old One and the Key as he made the introductions. He kept his hand on Dawn's arm, preventing her from going to Lorne.

"This is the one known as Dawn Summers?"

"It is," he replied steadily.

"This is what killed Fred?" Dawn shot back, her eyes narrow.

"You have a Key?" The Battlegod's voice was louder.

"What key?" Lorne asked.

"No." Spike's blue eyes seemed to glow. "This is Dawn, a human with a soul more precious to me than anything else in any dimension."

"That is not true," Illyria snapped.

"The other one can take care of herself."

Dawn looked between the two, remembering that Spike had stayed in Los Angeles alone, had nearly destroyed himself from the inside out rather than let her be near this creature. A tingle of fear went through her. "Spike?" she said, low, almost a whisper.

"One who possesses a Key might control many dimensions."

"One who has a true friend has something far more valuable." He really, really did not like the way the Old One was staring at Dawn. "She's my Wesley, Illyria," he reminded her.

The large eyes left Dawn's face and fixed somewhere in middle distance. "I will never have that again."

"No." Perhaps it was brutal, but it was true. He'd never seen any beings love the way humans did, and neither had she.

"Very well." Illyria turned her gaze on Dawn again. "The white-haired one has enjoined me to not use you. I would destroy a Key that I could not use, but he has also struck a bargain with me that I will not harm you, will protect you if necessary."

"Bargain?" Dawn said sharply, turning to Spike. "What bargain?"

"I gave her my loyalty," he said evenly, "which she already had."

"Spike…."

"The Senior Partners are coming to Cleveland, Bit. Strange bedfellows, as they say, but we're all on the same side."

⸹

"Welcome back, all of you." Giles resettled his glasses and glanced around the big table in the conference room of the Council's offices. "This year has gotten off to a terrible start, and I extend my condolences to each of you." His eyes lingered on Alpana's bowed head. He hadn't had time to speak with her beyond a formal debriefing. "We've suffered losses yet again, but we've also rooted out those responsible for supplying resources to the demons that arrive in Cleveland, attracted by the energy. After they were, er, dealt with, we found several more… artifacts from the ruins of our London headquarters." Giles couldn't keep his jaw from flexing at the thought of any of those objects of power in dark hands. There was no doubt now that Ethan had provided both the Chinese Slayer's sword and the amulet with the Word of Valios to demons. "Perhaps now we'll be able to make more headway on the Kanai Prophecy."

He opened one of the folders in front of him. "I returned from California by way of Tennessee and Indiana, speaking to Maria's family, Tribby's grandmother, and Natalie's parents. They know what we know, that Ethan Rayne was in Cleveland, working against us, ultimately causing three slayers' deaths. I've also reassured the families – I hope – of the returning slayers' safety, making personal calls to all of them. Only one, Tiffany, will not be rejoining us."

"Tiffany or Tiffani?" Xander asked.

"Tiffany Dillon," Dawn supplied.

"Thank you," Giles said. "We still don't have official word from Vashti. Dawn has extended offers to five new slayers, who should arrive here next week. Our contact at the University already has them enrolled in classes. They will hit the ground running, so to speak. Two Watchers will be joining us, Gladstone from London and Uwali from Cairo. Locally, you know our two newest Watchers. We'll be back to our operating level of last summer very shortly. Any questions?" No one spoke up, and he closed the file on the three dead young women with a distinct bitterness. His eyes lingered for a moment on the recently installed artwork on the wall behind Spike, _There Will Always Be a Cleveland_. Rupert had a hunch that the blond man had chosen the seat purposefully so he wouldn't have to look at the mosaic.

"We also have two visitors with us. This is, er, Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan, a true demon from the Pylean dimension. I hope I pronounced that right?"

"Just Lorne," he said, waving from his seat beside Angel. At their reunion, he'd made Angel sing the chorus of 'Mandy,' then relaxed and hugged him. Lieutenant Muse, sitting across the table from Lorne, gave his head a bemused shake, eying the green demon's horns.

"Lorne has the ability to see your destiny if you, er…."

"Sing for me," he supplied.

"Yes," Giles agreed faintly.

"I understand you have a great voice."

"Ooh, he does," Willow agreed, a little too enthusiastically. She shot a guilty look at Oz, who, like Angel, had accepted employment with the Council as a Watcher.

"Yes, well, perhaps another time," Rupert said. "Our other guest is, er…." He was having uncharacteristic trouble with the social niceties.

"This is Illyria Battlegod," Angel put in. "An Old One, and lately my ally in a conflict with Wolfram and Hart." He was sitting next to Illyria, feeling as if he had won a major concession just to get her to take a seat at the table.

"She's the best warrior I've ever seen," Spike added. Angel glanced toward his fellow Aurelian. He was healthy, pale biceps prominent even as he rested his arms on the table, but there was something about Spike's eyes that worried him. Angel had been to see Lorne at the boy's apartment and had noted the change in the scent of Tribby's bed. She had become Spike's fledge in all senses before her death, it seemed, but he hadn't had a chance to talk to the boy about it.

"Better than Buffy?" The compliment was surprised out of Pelham.

"I endure this small dimension inside this shell," Illyria said, turning her fathomless eyes on the Watcher. "It does not, however, limit me."

"Welcome, both of you," Giles said hastily. He had heard from Spike whose 'shell' the Old One was using and had no desire to think about it again. "We are grateful to have your abilities available to us."

"My abilities are unquestioned," Illyria said.

Xander leaned over and put his head next to Willow's. "Once upon a time I thought Spike was arrogant," he muttered.

"It is my knowledge that you require at this flow in your fourth dimension."

"Time," Oz supplied, seeing several confused faces at Illyria's statement.

She tilted her head and examined the young man a moment. "You are also white-haired."

"Today," Oz agreed.

Spike idly wondered what Illyria made of them both having bleached-blond hair, if she placed them together in a tribe or alliance because of the similarity. He had been greatly relieved that she showed none of Tribby's traits, having come to the 'shell' well after the soul had departed. It was disconcerting enough to see glimpses of his friend Fred in the cold being.

"Angel," Illyria said, turning to him. "Tell me of this army."

He took it that she wanted introductions. "At the head of the table is Rupert Giles. He is the head of the Council of Watchers."

"A group of ants who play at sorcery," Illyria said, nodding. Giles raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Um, you might want to-" Angel began.

"Don't bother explaining our place in the universe, your worship," Spike broke in, sarcasm tingeing his words. "Waste of fourth dimension, since we can hardly comprehend it."

"True," Illyria agreed.

"Next to Giles is Buffy Summers, the Chosen Slayer."

Illyria and Buffy exchanged a long look before Illyria's farseeing eyes went first to Dawn and then to Spike. She said nothing.

"Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Daniel Osborne, called Oz." Angel watched the Old One examine each of them in turn, her cold gaze lingering longest on Willow. He went on down the line of Watchers, and she followed with a dismissive air, ignoring the Good Lieutenant entirely. Angel came back up the table, ending with, "And you know Spike and Dawn." The youngest Summers' blue eyes were cool as she nodded from her place at Giles' left.

When Illyria seemed content to stare at Dawn, Giles cleared his throat. "You said you had some knowledge…?"

The Battlegod's eyes settled on him once more. "What you have been fighting feeble battles to gain has also attracted the attention of the ones you know as the Senior Partners."

"The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart?" McGann asked. He flinched as her gaze settled on him.

"The Wolf is no more. I destroyed her in battle after they opened a portal in the place you know as Los Angeles."

"All right, Illyria," Spike said, the only one to speak after this stunning pronouncement.

He had done it again, caused the reflexive return of his fierce grin. She considered for a moment, then decided she would not school herself against this expression, as her time in this confining dimension would be limited and the effort an unnecessary waste of energy. "I took her power as some return to my own true capacity," she said. "Then I turned on the other two and gravely injured the Hart. It will be many of your centuries before he can take up arms again. The Ram fled. It is the Ram who has decided to procure the djinn's power. When the djinn returns to this miserable collection of nests-"

"She means Cleveland," Angel translated.

"-the Ram will open a portal."

"How do you know this?" Giles asked hesitantly.

"It is what I would do."

"Do you also want the djinn's power?" Aubrey Willingham asked.

She examined him for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was slightly more courteous. "No. You begin to comprehend why."

"I'm sorry, Aubrey. The rest of us do not begin," Giles said.

"Djinn are not gods or Old Ones or demons or angels." Aubrey's voice was slow, and he watched Illyria to see if she would correct him. "I don't have a text that says this explicitly, but my theory is that they are akin to the Fallen. They did not rebel against the Creator, but they failed to fight for him in the conflict. Since they did not use their power for good or for evil, they were bound and restricted, unable to wield their power directly ever again, banished to earth when it was ruled by demons."

"Useless beings," Illyria agreed.

"So that's why there are wishes," Willow breathed. "We get to use their power, wish for anything we want."

"There is no one here who is capable of wishing for anything they want," Illyria disagreed.

"Explain," Angel said.

"Grace us with your knowledge, he means," Spike interjected. The older vampire scowled at him, knowing full well where he'd perfected the ability to coat polite phrasing with underlying disrespect.

"I would have the capacity to wish for anything, to wield its full power, but I am too wise to do this. Tiny beings such as yourself can safely make your small pleas. What you can achieve is limited by your own lack."

"Why, in your wisdom, would you not seek to gain the djinn's power?" Giles asked, taking his cue from Spike.

"The Creator, long departed from these regions, wielded true Power," she said, something like greed flashing in her eyes. "The Creator bound the wretched djinns' energy so that anyone strong enough to use it would also become bound."

"So," Aubrey said, "if you used a djinn's wish, you would cease to have the ability to exercise your own, er, powers."

"Sort of like a mystical Venus flytrap," Xander offered.

"I'm beginning to understand how you came to be in the Deeper Well," Angel mused. He bore the Old One's irate look without any qualms.

"I knew betrayal," she said, and there was something in her voice that did make him feel a slight regret.

"Fascinating," Giles said, referring to the new information rather than the Old One. Illyria, predictably, took it as her due and nodded her head. "Er," he continued, "when we find the location of the next battle, will you assist us in locating the energy?"

Illyria examined him a moment. "You wish only to protect this small dimension?"

"Well," he said, trying not to be irritated as it appeared she could read his thoughts, "we do call it home."

"As did I, once. I will assist you," she said. "In return, you will provide whatever increments of assistance possible as I battle the Ram."

"Agreed." Giles looked around the table. "If we get enough lead time, I'd like to call in all our resources and try to put an end to this once and for all. We're getting far too close to the twelfth battle for my taste."

After Giles dismissed them, Buffy hurried to catch Spike, who was sticking close to Dawn. "Spike?" she said, wishing she didn't sound so anxious.

He turned to her, no pleasure lighting his eyes, no anticipation in his gaze. He looked tired, she thought, almost as hopeless as he had after Riley's last visit to Sunnydale. "Yeah?"

Nothing in his stance invited it, but Buffy made herself reach out and put her hand on his arm. "I just wanted to tell you I'm here if you want to talk. A-about Drusilla, I mean, or Maria or Tribby." She shrugged. "You were always so kind after I came back. I'd like to do the same, be there for you – if you need me, I mean."

Spike examined her for a moment, and from his peripheral vision, he could see Dawn looking between the two of them. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Which was more polite than saying no. "Sure," she said, managing a weak smile. "Just, you know, anytime."

"Buffy?" Dawn had an approving look on her face. "You should come by for lunch or dinner or something. It's kind of lonely at home right now."

Her sister nodded, grateful for the invitation. They still wanted her. "I will."

⸹

At one time, the gym and the apartment had been havens for Spike. Now both smelled of guilt, permeated with the scent of his dead fledges. He knew that dwelling on Tribby or Becca or whatever her name was a defense; if he thought of her, he didn't have to think about Maria. And if he didn't think about Maria, he didn't have to think of Drusilla, either the loss of her or what she had done. But, as he wandered aimlessly through the gym, that understanding seemed pointless.

Spike touched the rail of a treadmill. Training sessions had been suspended until next week, when the replacement slayers would arrive, so the gym had been quieter than usual. He preferred to be here instead of the apartment. Although Lorne was quite happily ensconced at the Ritz-Carlton, Illyria thought nothing of popping into his bedroom and waking him or appearing suddenly on the couch just as he was about to complete a level of _Halo_. She hadn't been to the gym so far. At least he didn't have it as bad as Angel; yesterday the big vampire had been in the shower, shampooing his hair, and opened his eyes to find her examining his naked body far too closely for comfort.

The mental image was enough to bring the ghost of a smile to Spike's face, then he looked up just before he heard the sound of the front door opening. He ran flat out to the reception desk, breathing, stopping a yard or so away from the woman who had just entered.

Vashti dropped her backpack on the floor. "Hi, Spike."

"You're back."

The slayer's hair was lank, and she wore no makeup, but there was a new strength to her that appealed to Spike more than her better-groomed self did. She didn't come closer, just gave him a mischievous look and lifted the hem of her t-shirt.

Spike grinned. She'd gotten her belly button pierced. He pulled her into a hug that made her give an involuntary grunt, the small sound drowned by his laughter. "Aren't you the proverbial unexpected pleasure, pet."

Her eyes were shining. "Did you miss me?"

"Terribly. Told Harris not to give up on you."

"My parents didn't even tell me what they had," she paused a moment before choosing her words, her mouth tightening, "decided for me. I didn't know until we got back from India and there was no plane reservation for Cleveland."

"Talk 'em into it, did you?" He put his arm around her waist and hoisted her up onto the reception desk, one of the remaining relics of the building's previous public life. He put his hands on either side of her and just grinned up at her, delighting in her presence.

"No." Vashti's jaw firmed, and he got a sense of what must have been a terrible family row. "I just left. I sold some of my stuff and bought a bus ticket. It's taken me four days to get here."

Spike noticed that her ever-present MP3 player was gone. "You could have called me."

"I know," she agreed. "I wanted to do this on my own." She lifted a shoulder. "I've never really been on my own before."

"Love, you're one of my slayers. You're never on your own."

"I've stayed in touch with my brother," Vashti admitted. "He says I'm his hero."

"Mine, too, pet." Her face lit up with happiness at his words, and Spike felt lighter than he had in weeks.

⸹

Xander was driving back from getting Vashti settled in Bethany's apartment, a smile lingering on his lips. Bethany, still weepy about Maria, was grateful to have T.C. move in. He was delighted to have her back, too. When he got to the gym, he'd found Vashti sparring Spike, and she had taken some sort of mental leap that translated into better fighting skills. The blond man was smiling, too. Both boded well for the future.

Life was, he had to admit, good. At work, he had all his slayers back, Nguise and Kayla and Vashti, and Xander was grateful that all were safe and whole. At home, he had Lina, who had not dumped him despite meeting his family when they were having a truly classic Harris family Christmas, fueled by booze and bitterness. In fact, they had been carefully talking about moving in together. Xander felt bad for his fellow Watchers, for their losses, but as for himself, he was living an almost charmed life. Absently rapping his knuckles on his head, knocking wood, he pulled to the curb in front of Oz's apartment.

Before he could get out of the car, Willow came out, waving and turning to lock the door. They were having lunch before she went back to Oxford the next day. "Hey, gorgeous," he said as she got in the passenger seat.

"Thank you kindly," she said, grinning. "Just for that, I'll let you pick the restaurant."

"I don't think that's a gift," he complained, and they went through the traditional not-in-the-mood-for and had-that-last-night before deciding on barbeque.

Willow had just finished tucking her napkin into her collar when she looked up at Xander and said, "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"You're giving me that look."

"Which look?" He thought she was adorable, a woman confident enough to put the safety of her cashmere sweater, a Winter Solstice present from Oz, before perfect manners.

"That look that says 'you're special' to whomever you're looking at." She tried to look severe. "The one that kept me with the big, sloppy crush on you for most of my life." He laughed, and Willow gave up. "You're in a good mood. Because of Vashti?"

"That's a big part of it," he agreed. "And then there's Lina, and my job, and my friends." Xander put his hand over hers. "I'm going to miss seeing you every day."

"I'm not that far away," she said, then made a face. "Well, you know what I mean. I'll probably be back within a couple of weeks, anyway."

"Number eight," he agreed, naming the next battle. "Think we'll finish up with them, now that we've got this Old One on board?"

Willow shivered. "She gives me the wiggins."

"Do you think she knows it was you who rescued Fred's soul?"

"I don't know. Probably. I got the sense that she reads minds."

"Yeah, but why would she bother? We're insignificant insects to her."

"True," Willow agreed, matching his sarcasm, but she still looked troubled.

⸹

Giles looked around the faux pub with a mix of distaste and affection. He and Spike had been here enough times that it had grown on him with its meager charm and lack of authenticity. The best thing about it was the fact that none of the Tweed Brigade would ever think of patronizing the place.

He slid into his usual booth and signaled for the barmaid to bring over two pints of Guinness. Giles wanted to pick Spike's brain about Illyria some more, and this was the best place to do it, free as it was of distractions – other than the barmaid, who by now knew them by name.

His pint was half gone before he spotted Spike's distinctive hair. "William," he said with a great deal of gravity, "you're late."

The scarred brow lifted as he took the seat opposite. "Blame it on the Blue Meanie. She laid hands on my engine."

It was Giles' turn to raise his eyebrows. "You do mean your truck?"

"Yeah, my truck. Drained the battery, and I had to get out the jumper cables from Bit's Jeep. Still not sure it's gonna hold a charge." He lifted his glass and drained the pint, turning to where the barmaid was hovering. "'Nother round, Giselle, there's a love."

"So, did you warn her not to do it again?"

He lifted a shoulder. "She was interested in the on-board computers. Couldn't be much to them, so I doubt she'll have another go." Spike settled his elbows on the table. "Not that there's anything I can do to stop her."

"Doesn't that make you nervous?"

Spike examined Giles for a moment. "No, but it makes you nervous."

"The introduction of a morally-lacking being with god-like powers into my life…" Giles gratefully accepted his second pint, pausing until their waitress turned away, "yes, it does make me nervous."

"I haven't seen her kill capriciously," Spike said, "though she's certainly capable of it. Old as she is, she has some wisdom; she usually doesn't act until she's gathered information."

Giles gave him a sharp look. "So, what makes you nervous is volatile behavior? The kind you are, yourself, known for?" Spike smirked a little and didn't reply, taking a more measured pull from his stout. "Don't answer, then. Do you trust her?"

The blond man considered his answer. "I trust that she has no real interest in us, only that the battle she wants to fight with the Ram is likely to be here, and we're useful because Wolfram and Hart are our enemies, too. I trust that I understand her motives. Fred… I guess she would consider what she kept of Fred an infection. Gave her something she'd never had before. Fred loved Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, maybe was in love with him, and he stayed with her during the transformation. If seeing that didn't drive him insane, he wasn't far from it. But their emotional connection affected Illyria, and she's operating from rage, grief, and loss, because there will never be another being for her to love, who will love her. She doesn't understand it, but she values it, cannot help but act on it." He took another drink. "So, yeah, I understand her."

Giles kept his face blank, wondering if he could trust Spike's insight or if the other man was projecting, seeing his pre-soul self in the Old One. "What about afterwards? What will she do then?"

"Nothing here for her," he said, shrugging. "She's been nothing but openly contemptuous of how small our world has become." He saw the intense thought going on behind Giles' mild eyes and added, "Not that I think we can make Illyria Battlegod do our bidding and then quietly go away. Just a case of nothing here for her, innit?"

"And she can't exist here without… pouring herself into a vessel," the Council Head added, mostly to himself. Spike's expression didn't change, but he took another drink from his glass. "One thing I did wonder, William… Why does she defer to Angel?"

"He was in charge at Wolfram and Hart," Spike replied, "which means he was Wes' boss. Don't think it's any more complicated than that. If it is, hell if I can figure it out." He sat up, taking his elbows off the table. "Since we're all serious anyway," Spike hesitated, almost lifting his stout again, uncharacteristically diffident, "how was California?"

"Unhappy." After a moment, Giles elaborated on the curt answer. "The videotape helped Maria's family, I think, seeing her transformed like that... One thing to thank Ethan for."

Spike nodded, picturing Maria's face before and after Dru had gotten her. "Any repercussions over taking care of him?"

"No. He had no relatives." Giles looked grim for a moment. "We haven't been able to locate Amy's father, either. Since Sunnydale's demise, that's perhaps not unexpected," he took a drink before he said what was on his mind, "but I fear the worst."

"That she killed her father after meeting Ethan? Sacrificed him?" Spike pursed his lips. "Don't tell Red."

"Unfortunately, she's the one who took it on herself to contact the man."

"Oh. Haven't seen her to talk since getting back from Tennessee. She all right, then?"

"I don't think so," Giles said sadly. "I think she feels she might have saved Amy when she, er, un-ratted her."

"She was busy trying to save herself at the time."

"Willow may not see that as clearly as we do." Giles looked at the table. "She was very far gone down a dark path. She's strong, though. It's a credit to her that she was able to come back to us." He leaned forward, taking his own opportunity to change the subject. "How was Tennessee?"

"Unhappy." Spike watched Giles acknowledge the echo, then made a mouth, wanting to separate his own experience from the funeral so he could give an honest answer. "It's going to take time for Lana, but I don't think it will be all that hard on anyone else."

"Tribby's parents, you mean? I rather thought the same thing myself." He studied the other man. "How are you, William?"

Spike was on the verge of telling Giles about the vision, about his fears when the barmaid loomed into view. Giles covered his glass with a hand, and Spike shook his head. When he turned back to the Watcher, he punted. "Still can't wrap my mind around the fact that Dru is gone."

Giles reached across the table and patted his arm. "I'm sorry, William, for your sake." It was the best he could manage; three slayers gone, young women that he'd known personally, that loss and his own memories of her in Sunnydale didn't let him have sympathy for the mad creature.

⸹

Dawn had gone to buy her textbooks for the spring semester, leaving Spike by himself on a dull Wednesday afternoon. He was clicking through the channels, marveling that he had well over a hundred equally unappealing options, when he felt Clem enter the building. Spike took a breath and closed his eyes, relieved and grateful. In a few days, he'd have an outlet for all his emotions. Mrs. Jackson caught Clem before he even made it to the staircase, so Spike took the opportunity to call Giles and let him know. Mrs. Petrowsky also caught him, which gave Spike time to call Angel.

"'Lo, mate. Clem's here, or he will be after my neighbors get through with him."

"So, battle is upon us."

"Very pompous."

"It's being around Illyria," Angel sighed.

Spike couldn't resist. "Must have rubbed off on you in the shower."

"Shut up, Spike." He couldn't quite forgive Buffy for passing on that story.

"What do you think she'd be like in bed?" the younger vampire wondered idly. "Bet she'd go all black widow on you afterwards, suck out your vital-"

"Spike, shut up!" The sickening thought of bedding down with not-Fred far outweighed any curiosity about a Battlegod. "I know you get off on powerful women, but jeez!"

He pondered Angel's assessment for half a second before dismissing it out of hand. "Strong women, Peaches. There's a difference. So, you wanna ring Charlie?"

"I have a call list, actually. Part of my Watcher duties. I'm the contact for Gunn and for Faith, too. And I'll call Connor."

"Sure you want to do that, mate? Paid a steep price for his new life." It had been on his mind more with Illyria's appearance.

"We need him for this one." There was something defensive in his tone.

"Got a lot more slayers in town this time. I think you should leave him out, since her worship is here."

"It isn't really your call."

Spike let his head fall back in exasperation. "Angel, it became mine when you told me. That's what friends _do_. Don't mistake missing the lad for needin' him to be here."

"Spike," Angel said, his voice tight, "if I want your opinion, I'll –"

"Ply me with chocolates and flowers? Never worked before."

"I've never given you flowers." Since Spike had never lost the habit of eating human food, it was possible that he actually had at some point given the boy chocolate.

"'S'why I'm not sleepin' with you, then, innit? Don't underestimate the power of a romantic gift, Peaches."

Angel wondered for a couple of seconds if the boy was hinting that he should do a better job of romancing Buffy, then he remembered Spike rarely exhibited any trace of tact. "You're in a good mood," he noted.

"Got a battle coming, and d'you hear? T.C. came back." His tone was smug.

"That's, um, Vashti, right? Tough Canadian?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You've infected them," Angel complained. "Everyone has to have a nickname – T.C., the Good Lieutenant."

"I, Liam? Use nicknames? How vulgar." He listened to Angel's reluctant snort of laughter. "'Sides, you've called me 'boy' from day one."

"That isn't a nickname." The big vampire's voice became low, intimate. "It's a pet name."

At that moment, Spike knew for sure that Buffy wasn't in the apartment with Angel. "La, Peaches, you'll turn my head."

"Quite possibly," he agreed, "and continue turning it until it snaps clean off."

"Talking dirty to me? I like it."

"What?" Angel thought back over what he'd said, trying to figure out what had evoked the sin-soaked voice. "I didn't say anything dirty."

"No," Spike agreed, "more's the pity." He got up from the couch and moved to the door. "Clem's made it past our gray-haired sentinels. Say 'hey' to Charlie for me, granddad." Spike chucked the portable phone at the closest chair as he opened the door. "'Lo, Clem." They gave each other one-armed hugs, and Spike took the saggy-skinned demon's battered suitcase.

"You knew I was on my way up, didn't you? Who called? Mrs. Jackson?"

"Sensed you," Spike said. "Not to say that one of the ladies didn't try, but I was on the phone already. Good to see you, mate. How was your New Years?"

Clem shrugged. "Nothing special. Stayed in with a few friends at my place in Frisco." He settled on the couch with a contented sigh. "I'm going to have to get me one of these."

"How's the cat business?"

"Slow. Lots of demons hibernating, you know, but things will pick up in the spring when they wake up hungry." He waited until Spike came back from stowing his luggage. "So, who gets the couch this time?"

The blond man sank down onto the opposite end of the sofa. "Uh, listen, Clem. Got some bad news." Spike gave a brief version of Drusilla's appearance in Cleveland and the resulting deaths.

Clem's honest face sagged as he listened, then he leaned over and patted Spike's knee sympathetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't know the other one, but Tribby was a nice girl." He looked pensive a moment. "You ever notice how the homely ones are always so nice?"

Spike almost smiled. "Yeah, I have noticed that." He thought of Tara, unaware of just how beautiful she was.

"How's Dawn taking it?"

"She's gettin' on. She's strong."

"How long had you been," Clem paused and glanced down the hallway, as if not willing to visualize the thought, "uh, lovers?"

Spike stared at him, stunned. Vampires aren't the only ones with a good sense of smell, stupid, he reminded himself. Caught flat-footed, he goggled at Clem for a couple of seconds longer before answering. "Since you were here last. Just the one time." When the other demon only nodded, he plunged on. "'Ve not told anyone else. Wasn't anything planned, and it got really weird." On impulse, Spike told Clem about the vision or dream he had while in Tennessee, then gave him a sketchy account of his first and only thrall. "So, now I gotta say I'm scared, mate. What if all my victims are somehow attached to me like this?"

Clem had leaned forward, engaged in the story. Now he frowned. "Well… it doesn't sound like this thrall was your victim, exactly. I mean, you pretty much saved her. Maybe that's why she came back into your life, to repay the debt. This is fascinating – I mean, we might be long-lived, but it's only beings with souls that can do reincarnation, obviously. And since we don't really mix with-"

"Wait." Spike held up a hand. "What did you say, before the bit about reincarnation?"

He thought back. "Um… maybe she felt she owed you for saving her life, since she saved yours?"

If Spike hadn't already been sitting down, his knees would have buckled with relief. The rest of the vision had pushed it from his mind, but Tribby had said something similar at the beginning, that she was in his debt. "…Doubly so." His voice was muted.

"Spike? You all right?"

"Thanks, mate. I think you've nailed it."

Clem saw the set of Spike's shoulders ease. "It helps to talk about things, doesn't it?"

Spike laughed, for no reason that Clem could see. "Yeah, it does. Think I'd have learned that by now."

"Well, I guess I have something to tell you, too."

"What's that, mate?"

"I've been seeing Mrs. Hanley down on the second floor, since the night she made spice cake."

"You…" Spike grew very still and looked down, repressing a shudder, a mirror image of Clem's body language when the demon had asked about Spike and Tribby.

"She's fun and a good cook, but it's the wattles that do it for me," Clem said, a dreamy look in his rheumy eyes. "You ever notice them when she shakes her head?"

⸹

Later that night, Dawn was huddled under her covers next to Spike, trying to get them both warm. They were practically nose-to-nose as he told her what he'd told Clem earlier. "Wow," she said softly. "Mom used to say – well, she did before we moved to Sunnydale – that we encounter 'angels unawares.' That makes two angels for you."

"Tribby was no angel," he muttered.

Dawn grinned. "No, I guess not, considering what she did to Riley. That was awesome." Her amusement faded. "I wish she was here for me to tell her." Dawn studied his face for a moment, his content blue eyes. "This has been what's on your mind? That you're like Bob Marley, pulling around a chain of souls like his moneyboxes? I thought you were so quiet because of Dru."

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Think you mean Jacob Marley, love. And, yeah, Dru's never too far from my thoughts." He thought of the deaths she'd left in her wake, of her sad desire to have a family again. Spike considered Dawn for a moment, then stroked her cheek with his fingers. "Haven't thanked Angel properly. Don't know what I would have done if she'd gotten to you."

"You would've already been dead," she said simply. He would never let anything get to her again. "I saw Illyria today at Watcher Central." In her mind, it wasn't a change of topic.

"Yeah?"

"She stares at me." There was a shadow in her eyes. "I wonder what she sees."

"Pro'ly not what I see," he said, smiling. "Her loss."

Dawn ignored the compliment. "Do you trust her?"

Spike hadn't told anyone except Giles whose shell Illyria was inhabiting. The fact that the Battlegod was willing to appear in Fred-shape was the strongest thing in her favor. "Yeah, in a strange way. Don't think she wants to be here, in this 'puny dimension,' I mean, but I don't think she can keep away until she gets her revenge on the Senior Partners. This is where she met Wesley and, I suspect, loved for the first time."

She nodded. If Spike trusted Illyria to keep her word, she would, too. "Giles really thinks we'll be able to put an end to the battles this time."

"Never a good idea to bet against Rupes."

"Connor is coming to town for it."

"Yeah, couldn't talk Ang – Hang about. How did you know he was coming in?" His eyes were narrow.

"I got a text message from him." She got messages from Connor every day.

Spike looked into her suspiciously guileless blue eyes, thinking of all the arguments he'd marshaled against her getting involved with the lad. He chucked them. "He's not a bad sort."

"I want to tell him about me. About the Key stuff, I mean." Before he could say anything, she added, "He says that it's nice to have someone who understands what it's like for him to have all these fragments of reality – Quor'Toth, coming back and hating Angel, then having all the fake memories that seem more real that anything else." Dawn shrugged. "I'd like to have that, too, someone to talk to."

His first instinct was to say that she could talk to him about anything, but he remembered once she had told him she wanted someone just for herself. His second instinct was to pull her into an hour-long hug, because he could feel her slipping away from him, another pebble rolling down the hill. He didn't act on this impulse, either, because his mother had, in her own sweet way, never let him even consider leaving her. He wanted to do better by his Nibblet. "Best talk to Red about getting him covered by the spell, too. Pro'ly the easiest way of doing it."

Dawn smiled at him. "Good idea. Thanks." She meant for accepting her interest in Connor. "I love you, you know."

"Love you, too, Bit."

"You'll be nice to him? You know, if…" She trailed off and shrugged.

"S'long as he's nice to you. He makes you cry, I'll have his guts for garters."

Dawn's eyes crinkled at the Big Bad threat as well as the mental image. "I'm trying to imagine you in garters. Lacy black ones."

He rolled his eyes. "Back before elastic and spandex, a man's horribly itchy wool socks would puddle about the ankles if he didn't wear-"

"Oh, I've seen those. Peter Sellers or David Niven, some old actor in some old movie."

"Yeah." He gave her a mock-flirtatious look. "Though I do have nice legs. Better than John Cleese, anyway." They'd seen some _Monty Python_ on public television just before bed.

Dawn frowned. "You're insane. John Cleese has great legs – well, he did back then. And your chin is too sharp."

He'd been prepared to argue about the knobbiness of Cleese's knees, but this threw him. "My chin…? My chin has sod-all to do with garters."

"No, I was still trying to imagine you in drag. You'd have to be one of the frumpy, severe ones in _Python_."

Spike closed his eyes. "Why do I feel like I shouldn't be insulted, even when I've been insulted?"

"You'll just have to settle for being a hot guy."

"Save harder."

"I can't; I'm too tired."

"Go to sleep, then."

"Stay with me?"

"Got nothing else to do. Clem's gone."

Dawn giggled. "Clem and Mrs. Hanley." When Spike shuddered, she added, "What? I think it's sweet. Two wrinkly people making each other happy."

"You won't say that if she gets him pregnant."

"Eew!" Dawn grabbed a random pillow and bashed him with it a couple of times before he took it away from her. "Don't even say things like that! Anyway, boys can't get pregnant. You've not kept me that sheltered." When he only regarded her steadily, she wrinkled her nose. "Can they? Demons, I mean?"

"Some demons. Male seahorses do, too. Saw a documentary about it once on the Beeb." Watching her face, he warmed to the topic. "Imagine Clem, his tummy all swollen with little Mrs. Hanleys."

"Gross, Spike." She swatted him with another pillow, making him laugh, moving both of them further away from grief.

⸹

"How was patrol?"

Buffy looked up at Angel, fumbling with the key in the lock as she came in. "Fine."

Angel, content after a long telephone conversation with Connor, felt his peaceful state of mind slip away. She wasn't investing much energy in conversation these days. He tried again. "Has it picked up yet?"

"Not really. A few more vampires. What a great birthday present, huh? Another battle."

Angel tried to divine whether she meant anything by that statement beyond the obvious cynicism. Between Drusilla, joining the Council, and Illyria's reappearance, he had forgotten her birthday entirely. Dawn had shown up at their door with Willow, Xander, a cake, and presents, the nicest of which was a knee-length burgundy leather coat from both Spike and Dawn, 'paid for and everything,' she'd added. It had made Buffy laugh, for no reason he understood. Buffy had assured him that she wasn't upset that he'd forgotten, but Angel wasn't sure she meant it. She'd continued to be distant with him, and he thought he'd lost some ground.

Buffy hung her new coat on the rack beside the door. "How was Connor?"

He shifted on the couch. "How do you know I talked to Connor?"

"You always try to talk to him when I'm not here," she said quietly, smoothing her sweater. "You don't have to. When I'm not here, I mean." Buffy shrugged. "I like him, Angel. I know you love him. You don't have to hide your conversations." She looked down. "I don't want you to feel you have to hide anything."

He heard the several shadings of meaning in her words, wished he could put aside the defensiveness. "I'm not hiding anything, Buffy."

She showed him an expression that used all the right muscles but had nothing to do with an actual smile, one with which the Scoobies were painfully familiar. "Well, I'm kinda tired. I'm going to go on to bed. Good night. See you tomorrow."

He clenched his teeth and averted his eyes, feeling like he was in the wrong again somehow, hating the feeling. Angel picked up one of the pillows from the corner of the couch and crushed it in his hands. When he heard the quiet click of the bedroom door closing, he put it over his face. His mind flashed on Wesley, and he hastily removed it.

They hadn't talked, not really, since they'd returned from Maria's funeral. Before Buffy left, they had spent a chaste night cuddled against each other. She had told him that she was sorry about Drusilla, and he said he was, too. Then he'd cried while she held him, his tears for the lonely, destructive, childlike vampire, tears for what he had done to her. Things had been good between them when he fell asleep, and he had reached for her the next morning, his hands on her body, his mouth on hers. After a moment, she'd stopped responding and pulled back, telling him she didn't feel ready yet. Since then, Angel suspected that she was avoiding him. After this battle, he thought, he'd have a talk with her, apologize again or say whatever she needed to hear. He'd missed her birthday, but he could make up for it with a really nice Valentine's Day present. Giles and Illyria both seemed to believe they could put an end to the prophecy with this one, and then it would be time to talk about moving to California again. Getting away from the pressures of guarding a Hellmouth would be good for her.

⸹

"'Lo, Rupes."

"Spike," he said, pausing with the kettle poised over his cup. "How is it that you always find me making tea?" The blond man turned without answering to close the door to the garage behind him. "Or perhaps I just drink a great deal of tea."

"Too right, you do."

"Wake up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning?"

"Just want this battle to bloody well get here."

"Violence isn't always the solution." When Spike didn't answer, Giles turned to find him looking warily toward the living room, as if he could see through the door. "Oh, and that was going to be my cure for your grumpiness, too." He set the teakettle on the back burner of the stove. "Do be kind to her; she's very emotional."

"When did she get in?"

"This morning, and jet-lagged beyond belief." He gave Spike a weary smile. "She's determined to get payback, or as she put it, 'back pay.'"

"Aren't we all?" He put a hand out to briefly touch Rupert's arm as he passed. "Ute." She was sitting on the couch, talking to Kayla and Ty, and she looked around when he spoke her name.

The rangy slayer was off the couch in an instant, launching herself at him. "Spike, _ich traum_ – I mean to say, I had the most awful dream about you. I am so happy that you are okay."

"I'm all right," he said, pressing a kiss into her short blond hair. "Wish that was true for everyone."

Ute pulled away. "How is Lana?"

"Hurting."

" _Also, ihre_ – in English, stupid." She grimaced. "I'm tired and not in my right mind. I mean to say, of course she is."

"No worries," Spike reassured her. He nodded at the people still on the couch. "'Lo, love," he told Kayla. "'Lo, Ty." Kayla looked fine, but Ty was unkempt, with dark circles under his eyes, looking like possibly only the second-most handsome man on the planet.

"I was glad to hear you and Dawn became Tribby's roommates, no?" Ute gestured at Ty. "I'm staying with Ty, keeping him company now that Greg is gone."

"Good riddance." Kayla crossed her arms, and Ty gave her a wan smile.

"When did this happen?" Spike asked, curious.

The young man shrugged. "Life's too short to put up with jerks."

After the funeral, then. "Good on you, mate."

Ute broke the short, awkward silence. "When is this next battle, huh?" She shifted, bumping into Spike's side like a restless puppy.

"Can't be soon enough, love."

⸹

[Author's Note: This section is NC-17 for somewhat explicit sex.]

The Watchers didn't identify the site for the eighth battle until late on Wednesday. It was a two-story medical practice building, which made Giles sigh, thinking of sharp scalpels and delicate, expensive equipment. Willow came up with the brilliant idea of impersonating a Centers for Disease Control response team, and the Watchers descended on the bewildered health care professionals, spewing random, threatening jargon about nosocomial infections and necrotizing bacteria. They gave the doctors a day to reschedule appointments and get out, then Willow, enjoying herself way too much as 'Dr. Scully,' the scientist in charge, magicked a large plastic tent around the building. Lieutenant Muse was delighted by this ruse, too, commenting wryly that he could scarcely manage to sell Cleveland as quite as much of a hotbed of terrorist activity as he'd been telling people, but that he could get behind some old-fashioned flesh-eating germs.

Buffy and Spike did their walkthrough on Thursday, a painstaking task that involved decisions on whether or not x-ray readers, jars of swabs, and stethoscopes could be used as weapons (yes to all). At eight o'clock, after the examination rooms were all sealed with an 'x' from Willow's 'magic markers,' Buffy grimaced and checked her watch. "You're not patrolling, are you?"

"Not tonight."

"Me, either." She let her head fall back and stretched her neck. They had been in the building for over five hours. The 'walkthrough' included crawling in the space between the second floor and the first floor drop ceiling and rappelling the elevator shafts. "I'm hungry and dirty and tired. Another day in the slayer corps. God, I love my job."

"Ooh-rah," Spike intoned, but he was smiling. Buffy was whinging in a matter-of-fact rather than a worrisome manner.

She sighed and stood up straight, catching the look he was giving her. "Have dinner with me," she suggested.

"Won't Peaches miss you?" It was the first thing he could think of to cover his surprise.

Buffy shook her head. "He's picking up Connor at the airport, then he has late shift patrol – which I'm sure Connor will be along for, though he probably doesn't know it." She turned and began walking back to the front lobby.

Spike fell in at his place beside her. "'S'weird, seeing him as the paternal type. 'Course, the lad's grown, but Angel's not half-bad at it."

"As long as Connor stands up to him now and then, yes, I think he is a good father." She changed the subject. "So, about dinner?"

He shrugged. "Anything in mind?"

"Indian food," she said after a moment, the tiny frown creasing her brows disappearing.

"There's a good place near where we live," he offered. "Well, never eaten there, exactly. We always get delivery."

"Ooh, delivery," she breathed. "Then I won't have to worry about changing clothes." Buffy had grease on her pants from the elevator shaft. "Do you think Dawn would mind?"

"The Nibblet, mind food?" he scoffed, pulling out his cell phone. He called her, and Dawn was so pleased to have Buffy visit that she agreed to put in the order so their meal would get there by the time they did.

An hour later, the three of them were lounging on the sofa, over which Dawn had drawn a protective sheet taken from a pile of Clem's bedding, with full tummies and an undemanding crime procedural on television. "That was a good idea," Dawn said, with a sigh of contentment.

"Then I'll take full credit," Buffy declared. She'd take credit for recreating home, too, as they sprawled companionably together on the couch. The mood seemed like the first days after she had returned from Italy, easy and carefree.

Spike sent her a fond look from where he'd wedged himself cater-corner on the couch, so that he could see both his girls. "Anyone want more?" Buffy shook her head, but Dawn eyed the coffee table where the boxes of food sat.

"I'll take a couple pieces of _naan_ with me. I've got late patrol with Kayla tonight, and it'll make a good snack." She looked at the clock on the DVD player and sighed. "I'd better go ahead and get ready." She heaved herself to her feet and went to her room.

"Gimme the remote," Buffy demanded. "I want something without lawyers." Spike handed it over wordlessly, content just to have her in his lair. Well, flat, he supposed. She wasn't his, would never be his, but that didn't mean he wasn't grateful for any moment spent in her presence. He watched her fleeting expressions as she flipped through the television channels, his own heart swelling when she found something that made her happy. Spike glanced from her to the screen, his brows rising in surprise. " _Terminator_?"

"Yes, _Terminator_ ," she said defensively. "Xander made me watch it when I was a junior in high school, and it's, like, the best love story." Buffy sent him a sidelong glance. "You don't know everything about me, you know."

"Want to," he said, low, and immediately regretted it.

"Well, I'm off," Dawn said, coming back into the living room, now dressed in dark, warm clothing. She caught Spike's grateful look and shook her head as she bent over to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at the meeting."

"Tomorrow?" Buffy asked, frowning up at her.

Dawn nodded, stepping away from Spike so she could lean over and give her sister a hug. "I'm staying with Kayla for what's left of the night, then I'll catch a ride with Giles to the Watchers' meeting. It's at seven, so I'll get more sleep if I crash there." She stood up and looked back at Spike. "Besides, Kayla's still freaked after the dream she had about you. She doesn't like to sleep alone."

"'S'long as she's not sleepin' with anyone but you," Spike grumbled. "You two be careful."

"We will."

Buffy had been staring at Spike, remembering anew that she wasn't the only Slayer who had a prophetic dream about him the night not-Nina showed up. Almost all of the dreams had ended in his death. His life had been in the balance for those hours, and she might have lost him for good.

"Bye, Buffy," Dawn said, pulling her back to the moment.

"Bye, Dawnie. Hey, would you turn off the lights? This movie's filmed in black-on-black."

"Sure. Don't kill each other. It'll piss me off." Dawn hit the light switch just before she closed the door behind her, rattling the knob as she checked to make sure it was locked.

"Language!" Spike called loudly.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Buffy scooted over and leaned against Spike's chest. "You tell her," she said, not looking up at him, staring at the television as if her life depended on it. After a moment, she felt his arm settle around her, gentle and possessive. On the screen, Kyle was teaching Sarah Connor how to make pipe bombs, and since she knew there was a love scene coming next, Buffy went ahead and took Spike's other hand, lacing her fingers through his and resting them on his thigh.

Even cut for a TV-14 rating, the love scene was steamy, and Spike didn't miss that it ended with a shot of the two lovers' hands intertwined. He looked down, noting the curve of Buffy's cheek, and smiled himself. The sly minx, he thought, knowing that she missed his body if nothing else.

A few minutes later, Buffy let go of his hand and found the remote, turning off the television. He frowned, examining her averted face by the light of various LED displays in the apartment. She felt his eyes on her and turned to meet his gaze. "I don't like how it ends."

"What? With Sarah going to Mexico?"

"No," Buffy said, rolling her eyes. "She loses him. I don't want to see that." She scooted closer. "I could have lost you last week, Spike. I don't think I could have lived through that twice." Shining in her mind, though, was the confrontation with the faux Dracula, how perfect Spike was with her, how that made her feel.

He touched her face with gentle fingertips. "No worries, love. You're strong. You don't need me." It was the right thing to say, the words he should, as a soul-possessing being, tell her.

"Yes, I do," she disagreed, speaking each word clearly. Buffy moved closer, wanting to face him, then simply moved onto his lap, straddling him, taking his face in her hands. "I do need you."

Spike closed his eyes for a moment, desperate, already knowing it wasn't a battle he could win, not after all the losses this year. This was the moment he had been dreading, the test of his honor that he knew he would fail. He was weak, clay in her hands, ready to be molded to her will. He had been hard for her since she leaned against him; now he was nearly in agony. "Buffy…."

"I need you, Spike. I can't do this without you."

Life, she meant. He knew it. "Whatever you need from me, love. You know it's yours. Can't deny you." His honor had no chance, not tonight, not ever.

"I need you." Buffy kept her gaze steady, willing him to understand. "I need my vampire."

"Then you have me," he said, resignation in his tone. Inside his demon capered, ignoring the soul and its distress.

"I don't want to do this without you," she said, still looking into his eyes in the dim light. "I want you."

"Always want you," he agreed gruffly, and gave in, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her head toward his. Just before their lips met, he murmured the words that he usually kept chained, the words that were always looking for escape. "I love you, Buffy."

Half a minute later, Buffy pulled away from the velvety, drugging kiss. He'd done it again, made her forget to breathe, even as he began. The kiss had been sweet and gentle and thorough, and she lowered her mouth for another. "Spike," she whispered on an intaken breath, "I love you."

He pulled back an inch, no more, studying her expression, sure that it was a sop for him, a bone she was throwing in exchange for his, in exchange for the piece of his soul that this was going to cost. Instead, he saw all of her in the hazel depths, meeting him with a steadiness he'd never seen in her, not for him, anyway. "Buffy?"

"Raise your arms." He obeyed, and she stripped the black t-shirt off him. Buffy let her eyes feast on him a moment; she'd never allowed herself to touch him when he was this healthy, sleek muscle beneath smooth flesh. She laid her hands on his chest, then slid them up to his shoulders and down his arms. Spike moaned, a low, needy sound. "Take off my shirt," she suggested, and lifted her own arms.

He obliged, then rested his head against her chest, waiting for her to undo the hooks at the back of her bra. When he felt it loosen, he turned his head and nuzzled aside the lace, drawing a hiss of pleasure from her as his mouth covered her hard little nipple. Barely able to think, he threw together an incoherent plea inside his head that the Powers That Be would spare them an hour, just one hour….

"Wait," Buffy said, sliding away, finding the floor so she could stand up and slip out of the rest of her clothes. His expression told her she was beautiful. She straddled him again, curving away from his body so she could unbuckle his belt, undo his jeans.

Spike groaned again as she freed him from the denim, put his hands on her hips to pull her closer, lifting his face to his goddess. "My love," he said, low, "my Buffy."

"Tell me," she demanded, kissing the corner of his mouth, "please, I need…."

"My Slayer." His voice made it a vow and a prayer.

"My vampire," Buffy said again, and then neither of them spoke for long minutes, their mouths occupied with relearning each other. "Spike," she finally managed, breaking away from his kiss to look at him. Oh God, what was in his eyes, just for her. She put a hand on the arm of the couch to steady herself, raising up higher so she could sink back down, taking him inside her. "My stallion," Buffy said, smiling.

Spike had pushed himself forward so that his knees were off the couch, slouching against the cushions to make his lap more comfortable, but he froze at her words, staring up at her. The encounter with Drusilla prevented him from getting the reference for a moment, from when he had saved her, when he had taken her blood, when he had offered... Then he came as she moved over him, bringing her off, a chain reaction. Pitifully fast, but had been over a year, and it seemed he would take whatever she could give. He would give everything in return.

Buffy captured his questing hand, blocking him, squeezing his fingertips as she caught her breath. "Your Slayer."

There was something in her inflection that wasn't quite a question but that still needed reassurance. "My Slayer," he replied, but he couldn't find it in himself to really claim her. Even if his Slayer was there in her eyes, even if she was looking out at him from some whole place, she didn't belong to him. His body knew the motions of making her his, though, and he shifted his hips again, rising to meet her.

Her eyelids fluttered closed. She didn't want this, not just this, but, oh God, the way he felt inside her. "Spike…" Buffy began to move over him in earnest. "My… vampire…." She brought him again, and then once more before the capacity for thought deserted her.

It was wrong, he knew it, but Spike couldn't help smiling as he gazed up at Buffy's face, watching her lose herself in pleasure. Just an escape, but he could give that to her, and nothing made him happier than doing for her. Her climax triggered another for him, and Spike scarcely noticed. "My Slayer," he whispered, trying to burn every second into his mind, the way she looked, hoarding the memories against a bleak future without her.

Buffy gasped and opened her eyes, saw how he was watching her. Spike wasn't talking, wasn't weaving words of love around her with his deep voice. There was something close to pain in his eyes, and she had wanted to take that from him. "Your Slayer," she whispered back, trying to reassure him. Her fingers rose of their own volition to the scar on her neck, to his mark. "I belong-"

That was all she got out. Buffy had the fleeting thought that she might as well have touched herself much more intimately, remembered her previous discovery that Spike had made his own private g-spot on her neck. Then she arched her back, driving herself down on him, her head falling onto her shoulders as a long series of rolling orgasms swept over her.

 _She was running in the darkness of the old Restfield Cemetery in Sunnydale, not running from something, but running toward, her heart hammering. Then she saw him, blond on black, seeming to swagger without moving, waiting for her to find him, and everything felt lighter. She was younger, beaming with happiness, and she flung herself into Spike's arms, making him chuckle._

" _You've been gone a good long while," he said, and she could see his even white teeth as he smiled._

" _Too long. I've missed you." She pulled away, clutching his arms._

" _I've missed you, too, kitten."_

" _I'm not going away anymore," she promised._

 _His fingers tightened on her elbows. "You've just made me a very happy man."_

" _This is where I belong," the Slayer said, "here with you. With my vampire."_

" _A Slayer and her vampire," he agreed, grinning again. "Nothing more perfect than that, love."_

 _She laughed, because it really was ridiculous, unless the vampire in question was Spike and the Slayer in question was her. She trusted him the way she trusted herself, this soulful monster, this kindly Death, and death was her gift._

" _I belong with you," she said again, moving closer, lifting her face toward his, "and I love you."_

" _You're the one, Buffy," he said, "and I'm yours. Always have been." His blue eyes sparkled with a clear, fiery energy. "I will always be your vampire."_

" _My man," she corrected, "my love." And she kissed him._

She kissed Spike, taking the sound of his growl as he found his release into her mouth, and opened her eyes. She was still astride him on the sofa in his apartment, a rumpled sheet protecting the leather, the smell of cold curry permeating the air. And she was out of breath, almost tired. Mundane, ordinary, except she had really _been_ with him. She slid off his lap, sitting next to him, one leg still over him, and leaned against his chest.

Spike slid his arm around her automatically, his mind spinning around one central point: they had made love. There was no getting around it.

"That was amazing," she whispered.

"Yeah." He twisted away from her abruptly, raising his hips to pull his jeans up.

Buffy put her hand on his shoulder, confused. "Do you know what it means?" She wasn't sure she did.

"Yeah." Guilt so easy to read on his face, in his voice.

"It isn't cheating, not between us." Buffy's voice was sharp. She hadn't meant sex at all, but the strange connection they had shared.

"Doubt that Angel would agree."

She stopped him from reaching for his shirt, pulling him back down to her. "Between us, nothing can be wrong." When he didn't immediately meet her gaze, Buffy felt tears threaten. "Spike… weren't you there with me? Didn't you… Wasn't it the same for you?"

He gave her a tired smile. "You've told me in the past that I have the most amazing capacity for self-delusion, love. So why don't you tell me what happened?"

Buffy just stared at him, wounded. Then her eyes rounded. He didn't understand because this was where he lived, this wondrous place where everything between them was right and free and loving. It had always been like this for him. And he was so guarded, so cautious because she had told him repeatedly that such a place couldn't exist, that he was stupid for believing. She had turned away, run away, had hit him for insisting it was there.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her voice breaking.

Spike's brows drew together and he rolled them over so that she was laying against his chest, weeping in his arms. "Shh, love. It'll be all right. No one has to know. It'll be all right."

He didn't understand because she had taught him too well that there was no use to hope. "No," she managed, wiping her eyes, "l-listen." Buffy pushed herself away a few inches, bracing her hands on his chest. "I haven't s-slept with him since before the last battle. Before Christmas."

Spike's expression became neutral, and it broke her heart. "Why?"

She smacked his chest lightly, frustrated with him and with herself. "Why do you think?"

"Because he lied to you."

"Yes!" When he still didn't react, Buffy rolled her eyes. "About the important things. He doesn't tell me the important things." She stopped bracing herself and gripped his shoulders, lying fully against him. "I w-would never know about this," she widened her eyes to indicate everything, "that this even existed. Just with you. This is important."

There was a spark in his eyes, one she had seen go out on several occasions, one she had personally extinguished. "Buffy…" He searched her face, holding her too tightly now. "Stop."

"What?"

"Don't." He closed his eyes for a second, as if in pain. "Don't say anything you don't mean. Don't tell me you want something you're not ready for." Spike was breathing again. "Waiting, I can do that. Been waiting forever, it seems. But don't…."

She knew. Don't break his heart yet again. Buffy closed her own eyes, not wanting to see hope, such a fragile thing, not wanting to see his wariness. "Wait for me," she whispered, "just a while longer." And she tried to tell him with kisses that she meant it.

She'd never been one to hesitate when she had a plan, and she understood there was only thing that would convince Spike that she really wanted him. For the first time, she knew she could do it, was strong enough. The fact that Connor was in town helped. She knew where Angel's heart truly lay. Angel was out of reach, though, at least for a serious conversation, and this was where she wanted to be.

"Just wait," she said, lifting her mouth from his, a little breathless, "I'm going to-"

Spike laid a finger across her lips. "Don't." He closed his eyes again; there was too much love in hers, love that couldn't possibly be for him, love that could destroy him more completely than any sword, any stake.

"No promises," she agreed. "But you'll see." When he opened his eyes again, tears blurred hers. His expression was almost one of dread, and she found herself making a promise anyway. "I'm never going to hurt you again," Buffy vowed, cupping his cheek with one hand.

"'Course not," he agreed, and she knew he still didn't understand.

Buffy moved her hand to touch his right brow reverently. "I'm never going to hurt you," she said again, her tears falling on him, "anywhere." She moved her hand so it rested over his unbeating heart.

He frowned, studying her. "Buffy…" he began, but it was her turn to quiet him by putting her fingers over his mouth.

"I want to stay here with you," she said, trying to make her words as plain as possible, "because this is where I belong." She wiped her eyes. "Now, will you just go ahead make love to me already?" She wanted to go back, find him again in the place that didn't exist anymore, in the breezy California darkness of the Restfield, wanted to be free and happy with him by her side.

Spike's brows were still drawn together, but something bright was dawning in his eyes. "Buffy…" He shut his mouth, the line of his jaw firming. "'Course I will," he said hoarsely. He stroked up her arm to her neck, brushing aside her hair. "Gonna make it so good for you, Summers." His fingertips fluttered over his mark, making her eyelids close, making her moan. "Thank God for the sound-dampening in the apartment, otherwise the olds would be calling, wondering what the commotion is."

"Commotion?" She opened her eyes, grinning at the old-fashioned word.

"You, love, making sounds."

"I'm not making any – oooohh."

"Sounds just like that," his fingers traveled a little further along her body, "only louder."

He was talking to her again, narrating their lovemaking. Spike had been nearly silent while she rode him. Now his voice caressed her, just as his hands did. He was being her vampire again, fully and completely. Buffy braced her hands on either side of his body and pushed herself away, standing beside the couch, holding out her hand. "The wall?" She nodded toward a clear space by the coat rack.

"Knee-trembler?" He grinned up at her, taking her hand.

"You are so gorgeous when you smile." When he only lay there, giving her a stunned look, she tugged at him. "Come on, Spike. We rule at vertical. Up and at 'em."

"Up, at any rate," he mumbled as he stood, beginning to feel dazed. Buffy had never, ever complimented his looks.

"Ooh, I like that." She pushed his jeans down far enough so he could step out of them, then recaptured his hand and pulled him after her. Pressing him against the wall, she watched his face as her hands wandered freely over his body. "Tell me you love me, Spike," she invited, "in every language you know."

His teeth clenched for a moment, his eyes drifting momentarily shut as her hands found a particularly needy portion of his anatomy. "Um, some of the languages – oh, Buffy, yeah, right there – the demon ones don't have words for love."

Buffy sank down before him, feeling the muscles of his abdomen knot beneath her hands. "Just the languages that do have the words, then." She pursed her lips and blew a warm stream of air over his straining erection.

"What are you about, love?"

"Winning you back." Warm fingers to go with the warm breath now. "Tell me."

He had been reborn reckless and didn't hesitate. "Queen's English, then. I love you, Buffy. I love you above all others. I worship you with my body. I give you my life, my love, my soul, my demon. All that I have, all that I am, is yours."

She stilled, her startled eyes meeting his. This was beyond a declaration of love. It was a marriage vow.

He returned her gaze, unblinking, a challenge in his expression. "You asked. Won't take it back."

Buffy nodded. "I won't let you take it back." She gave him a tremulous smile. "More."

" _Ti voglio_ , Buffy." Italian, because he knew she spoke the language. He translated exactly, his voice growing husky at the last as Buffy took him into her mouth. She caught most of the next vow from her hated high school French, recognized the German, couldn't really tell the Portuguese from the Spanish because by that point she was concentrating and had him almost to the point of orgasm. He stumbled through the words in Swedish, something with a long 'e' verging into a moan as she brought him off.

His fingers were at her shoulder, urging her to stand, but she shook her head, pulling away long enough to say, "More." He knew several Slavic languages, it seemed, and Basque and Arabic and Farsi and Hindi and Tamil and Punjabi. She listened as her name was embedded in Japanese and Mandarin and, after an interlude that included a bad word and a low roar, Afrikaans, Luganda, and Swahili.

Spike lay his temple against the wall. Welsh, he knew Welsh, and Gaelic and Breton and Latin and Aramaic and his classical Greek and enough modern Greek and Turkish to cobble together the words. Anything if she'd keep doing _that_.

She smiled a little as words failed him before she realized the growls Spike made were probably from some demon language. Really, it was hard to tell. Then his fingers sank into her shoulders as he came again, and he couldn't keep his hips still, making her gag.

"'M sorry, love," he managed, this time tugging her to her feet. Spike kissed her, turning her so she was the one against the wall.

Buffy shrugged, grinning. "I kind of expect it." She took an involuntary breath as his fingers moved over her body. "It, um, happens every time."

"Know a better place for the silly thing, then," he suggested.

"Oh yeah," she agreed, putting her hands on his shoulders so she could lift herself higher. Her eyelids fluttered and closed as their bodies joined again. "Don't move," she whispered.

"You don't know what you're asking," he said roughly.

"You're a big," she clenched her muscles, "strong vampire. You can take it." Buffy leaned down to kiss his scarred brow. "It just feels so," she kissed his mouth, "so good, so right."

"Perfect." Spike smiled helplessly.

"Perfect." She nodded in agreement.

"You are so beautiful." Worship was in his voice.

"So are you."

"Gotta move now, kitten."

"Like this?"

"Oh, love. Yes. Like that." He pressed her against the wall. "Or like this." Spike covered the scar from his fangs with his lips, hips moving slowly, his heart swelling with pride as she came in his arms. "Spend for me, love," he whispered against her skin.

"More," she gasped.

He knew that she wanted his mouth against her neck again, and he traced the puncture wounds with his tongue, surprised that it was enough to bring her off once again. Spike listened to her moans, sweetest sound in the great, wide world to him. "Make it good for you, Slayer," he promised again, and vibrated the tip of his tongue against his mark.

 _She took his hand, feeling almost shy as they walked along a row of tombstones. "Another turn through the Restfield. You don't mind patrolling with me?"_

" _Me, turn down a chance to kill things?" Then, more seriously, "Don't mind what we're doing, love, so long as we're together."_

 _Buffy shot a mischievous glance at him. "What if I had homework? In geography?"_

" _Been everywhere, love. We'd finish in minutes, then have the rest of the time just for ourselves." There was a sensual promise in his low tone that made her feel a little weak._

" _Um, what if I had to do laundry?"_

" _Always heard the spin cycle could be very stimulating."_

" _Washing cars?" When she was a cheerleader, her squad had raised money by holding carwashes, her least favorite fundraiser._

" _Would you be in a wet t-shirt?" Spike asked, raising an interested eyebrow._

" _Don't you think about anything else?"_

" _When I'm around you? Very hard," he said, pausing meaningfully, "to think about anything else."_

 _She laughed. "You're incorrogated."_

" _Think you mean 'incorrigible,'" he said, capturing her around the middle, "and, yeah, I am." Spike pulled her close. "Love the sound of your laughter, Slayer." His hands closed around her waist, and he lifted her onto a tombstone. "Love everything about you." He began kissing her, cool lips caressing hers, still managing to talk the whole while. "Love your smiles. Love your frowns. Love your determination. Love to see you mad, 's'long as it's not at me." He grinned. "Well, yeah, I love that, too. Means you're focused on me."_

" _I love your smiles," she replied. "You look so handsome when you're smiling. You should smile more often."_

" _When I'm around you, I must be the most handsome man in the world, 'cause I can't imagine being happier."_

 _Buffy stared up at him. He meant it; he really did. "I can't imagine being anywhere else." She touched his jaw. "Being with you makes me happy, too, Spike. I love you."_

"Love you, Slayer," Spike said raggedly.

"Show me," Buffy managed, "other face."

He could deny her nothing. Spike suited up, his demon growing still for a moment. Then he placed his claw-tipped hands over her breasts, lids closing over golden eyes at the softness, the Slayer vulnerable and trusting in his grasp, with only his absolute love to keep her safe. Buffy came again and did not stop, reaching a plateau of utter pleasure, bracing her shoulders against the wall so she could push back against him.

More than a little desperate, he cupped his hands carefully beneath her bottom and carried her to the stupid decorative rail that divided the living room from the kitchen area, settling her on the edge. She was off-balance, unable to move against him now, and he took advantage by slowing the pace. He was almost done for; his next orgasm would be absolute, but Spike was so afraid that it would signal the end of their interlude. If Buffy left, he didn't know how he could bear it.

"Please," Buffy whispered, her voice ragged as she struggled to press against him.

Her blood, his demon suggested, Slayer blood is an aphrodisiac. Keep you hard. With no more thought, Spike brought Buffy's wrist to his mouth and bit down.

"Spiike!"

" _Higher?"_

" _Yes!"_

 _They were in the playground that bordered the cemetery – only in Sunnydale – and he was pushing her on the swings. Buffy lay down flat, preparing to pump her legs, and caught a flash of white teeth as he grinned at her delight._

" _I'm going over the top!" She had always dreamed of doing that when she was a child._

" _That's right," he said, fierce and very British, "defy the laws of physics. That's my Slayer."_

 _She laughed, carefree and childlike. "Swing with me!"_

 _He jumped into the swing next to her, standing up on the flat seat, dark leather swirling around him. He grabbed the chains and leaned his strong body away, getting started._

" _You'll never catch up with me!"_

" _B'lieve I will." He moved with the chains now, trying to get his swing in sync with hers._

" _You'll have to try harder than that," she told him, laughing._

" _You wouldn't believe how hard," a wicked grin, "I can try."_

" _Actually, I think I can." There was something sly in her voice, too._

"Slayer," he said, his voice a fraction of its usual depth as he watched her expression. She looked stunned, almost overwhelmed, but not sated. Not his Buffy.

"Spike," she managed again.

His features melted into human form and he laved her wrist with his tongue. Spike curved his body into hers, seeking his release now that it was safe, wanting to share this with her. "My Buffy. Oh my love, my Buffy. Worshipped at the altars of false goddesses, love, but never again. Never anyone but you, love. There is no one else, just you. Only you. You're the one. Just you, love, oh my love, my Buff–" Words were gone, and he roared over her shoulder, his face a study of bliss edged with pain.

" _Love," he said, low, "oh Buffy. Are you all right?"_

" _Keep doing that," she said, "and I'll be more than all right." Back in the graveyard, in the darkness behind the Thackery mausoleum, against a tree, she fought to bring her breathing under control._

 _Spike removed his hand from beneath her skirt. "Keep doing that, I think I might expire right here. Convenient we're in a graveyard, innit?"_

" _Come back home with me," she suggested._

 _He stared at her, uncertain. "You sure, Slayer? You, me," he gave her one of his seductive, tongue-against-teeth grins, "an actual bed?"_

"Take me to your bed?" she asked, resting her head against his chest, her hand over the place where his heart didn't beat.

He pulled away, meeting her eyes, and she saw that he finally knew. They were in the same place. "You aren't leaving?"

"If it's all right with you," Buffy looked down and hid her face against his shoulder, "if you don't mind."

"Mind?" he repeated, his voice trailing off. A slow grin spread over his face. "No." Spike scooped her up, away from the rail. She could feel it bubbling up inside him, so she wasn't surprised when he started chuckling and spun her in a circle on the way to the hall, dancing her to his bed, plopping her down in the middle. He pounced on her immediately, rolling them over to the edge.

Buffy put a hand out, bracing herself on the floor, laying halfway across his body. She smiled down at him. "More." She went back to the middle of the bed, pulling him atop her.

"I like a woman who knows what she wants."

"Like? I thought there might have been some mention of love."

" _Never thought I'd be going up there," Spike said, nodding up at her window as they came to her house._

" _I feel very naughty, having a boy alone in the house."_

" _You are very naughty." He moved so he was right behind her, his fingers at her waist for a moment. "One of the things I like best about you."_

 _She swatted at his wandering hands, giggling. "I'll never find my keys if you're doing that."_

" _Buffy," he said, suddenly serious. "Only if you want to."_

" _I want to." She turned in his arms and looked up at him, her hazel eyes shining and clear._

"I love you." A quick grin. "Don't make me think in other languages any more," he begged.

"I only want to say it this way," Buffy said, meeting his eyes, knowing he could see her clearly. She kissed him, then touched her nose to his. "I love you, Spike."

"That's good enough for me, more than good enough." He studied her for a moment, then sat up on his knees. "Now, let's make it good enough for you."

" _That was wonderful," Buffy said, resting her head on Spike's shoulder._

" _You were wonderful." He buried his face in her hair, then kissed his way down her forehead to her nose. "You are wonderful. My Slayer."_

" _My vampire."_

 _He shifted, pulling Mr. Gordo from beneath his hip. Spike considered the stuffed pig for a moment, then squished its little snout against her ribs, making snuffling sounds._

 _Buffy squealed. "That tickles!"_

 _He laughed, looming over her threateningly. "S'posed to." He waggled Mr. Gordo over her tummy._

 _She snatched her stuffed animal and poked it into his side, making him squirm away. "Good for the goose," she muttered, giving up with Mr. Gordo and using her fingers._

" _No, no, don't," he pleaded, laughing, trying to capture her hands._

 _Stronger, she had him on the edge of the mattress before she relented. "That'll teach you to start tickle fights."_

" _Probably won't," he said, shrugging. Spike brought her fingers to his mouth, kissing them. "I never learn."_

" _Can we stay here?" Buffy asked abruptly. "I mean… here, where we're happy. I like it here."_

 _His eyes were bright. "I like it here, too, kitten. Even if we leave, we can come back. It's always here."_

⸹

"The weather says it'll be clear today. Here, don't forget your coffee," Lina said, holding out a travel mug. She didn't drink coffee, but he swore he liked how she made it.

"Breakfast of champions," Xander said, taking it in one hand and pulling her close with his other, "or at least breakfast of Watchers." He kissed her once, then again. "I think I'm going to like having you here every morning." They had decided last night, with very little fanfare, to give up her apartment. They spent most of the time in his, anyway.

"I'm going today to apply for my passport," she said. They had also talked again about Xander transferring to London.

He smiled down at her. "I've never been overseas with someone," he admitted. "It'll be nice to share the experience."

"You can share anything with me. In fact, you better."

"Even my cooties?" he asked, rubbing his nose against hers.

"Cooties and all," she said, smiling.

"Thanks," he said, holding up the coffee. "Go on back to bed," he told her, "get some sleep."

Lina shook her head. "I think I'll move a few things from my place, get all the closet space while you're not here to stop me." She moved close again, molding her body against his. "Then, by the time you come back, I'll be ready to go to bed."

Emotion spilled through him, making his knees weak for a moment. She was completely ordinary and so wonderful at the same time. "I love you, Lina." Xander bent over and kissed her thoroughly. "I'll see you in just a little while."

⸹

Angel opened his eyes, his sense of the sun rising waking him. He looked across the short distance at the mussed blond hair of his son where he was asleep on the other bed in the hotel room, his mouth, so like Darla's, slightly open. Propping up on one elbow to see better, he couldn't help smiling. Connor's flight arrived late yesterday, and Angel liked to think the boy had arranged it that way to ensure his father could pick him up. They had greeted each other with a hug, and Connor had called him 'Dad.' The memory alone was enough to make his heart fill with happiness.

No reason it shouldn't.

Connor had agreed to go on patrol with him, and they had slain several demons together, in addition to the usual complement of vampires. He had stepped back and let his son do all the vamps, just so he could get in some practice. Each time they spoke on the telephone, Angel would ask anxiously if Connor had seen anything odd, unusual, and each time the answer was the same: no. He had managed to give his son a normal life.

Rolling silently from the bed, Angel found a pad of paper on the nightstand and left Connor a note. They had talked until five, until the human's body had given in to jet lag. Sighing, the big vampire looked at his son longingly, wishing he could stay. He would go to the Watchers' meeting, then home to get some sleep himself. Angel was out of the hotel and almost to where the Camry was parked before he realized he hadn't called to tell Buffy he'd be gone all night. He stifled a curse, grimacing. She hadn't called him, either. Things between them had eased a little, begun to thaw; this wouldn't help.

For the first time, he thought about what he would do if she wouldn't leave Cleveland. Angel stopped with his hand on the car's door handle. He'd go anyway, he realized. He would leave Buffy again. Connor came first. Looking up at the concrete of the parking garage roof, Angel let out a shaky laugh. He'd leave her, and once again, it would be the right thing to do.

⸹

Buffy opened her eyes, a frown creasing her brow. Where – Then she remembered, and she turned her head to find a blond head beside hers. It was early morning, judging from the pale light peeking around the shades, and she had done the impossible, had managed to exhaust Spike. Of course, he'd barely taken any of her blood. Smiling a little, she looked at her wrist, but there was nothing there, no mark, not even a bruise.

Her eyes flew to his face, innocent in sleep. He had left no mark on purpose, she was sure. A quick shower, and she could go back to her usual life.

If she wanted to.

Buffy laid her head back onto the pillow next to his, examining her feelings, looking for guilt. It was there, but very faint. Angel was – Angel had been something that she couldn't have. It seemed that she had to have the impossible to realize that it wasn't what she wanted, after all. They were so different, so dissimilar, so ill-suited for life together. She would always love Angel, but she wasn't in love with him anymore. At some point during the last four months, she had gotten past the dream of him.

Which brought her to the other lover she'd never gotten past. Buffy considered the sharp angles of Spike's face. He was stubborn and maddening and blunt and caring and outgoing and open and impulsive and loved to dance and laugh and get out of the house. They were compatible, and she frowned a little at the clinical word. Spike was like her, at least the way she had been before the burden of being the Slayer had taken so much from her. He was fun, and she had been, once.

She had giggled more during the night than she had since coming back from death. Hours of Spike-shaped heaven had been an escape at one time, but this time she wasn't trying to avoid anything. The heaven designed for Slayers was a peaceful, quiet, safe place. This was very different – noisy, silly, and sometimes even painful, she admitted, thinking a position they had tried that hadn't worked very well. Poor, stubbed Spike, but it made her grin.

This was life. It was messy and noisy and absurd, and she was happy here. She was happy to be here. Over three years of waiting for this. Buffy looked at the man next to her. Death was her gift.

"Spike?"

"Buffy?" he said, waking immediately, nuzzling his face against hers. "What is it?"

"Don't you have a Watchers' meeting?" She waited for his panic, her mouth curving at one corner.

His eyes opened, round and staring as he checked his internal clock. "Oh, bloody hell." Spike started to get out of bed, sitting up and pushing the covers down to his waist, then stopped, staring at her. "You stayed."

"Why wouldn't I stay?" she asked reasonably. Then, diffident, "You said I could."

He put out a hand. "No, love, I didn't mean…" His fingers drifted down her arm. "It's just… You stayed."

Buffy looked away, uncomfortable with the wonder in his voice. "I fell asleep." She gave him a mischievous look. "We both did."

"Bit shagged out, wasn't I?" he asked, running a hand through his hair. He froze again, a pained look on his face at the inadvertent pun. "Er, shattered, I mean."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Go on, hit the showers. You don't want to be late. Got to be 'serious Watcher boy,'" she said, finishing in a plummy British accent.

"Could miss it," he suggested, low and sensual.

"No," she said, lifting up to kiss his chin, "you can't. You have to tell them what we decided on for the battle so they won't be shooting bolts at you and Angel."

No other word in any language could destroy his mood so completely, and Spike dropped his eyes. He took a breath, getting the scent of the other Aurelian from the time at Christmas when his had been the family bed. He resolved not to think about it. This couldn't be cheating, not between them. Anything she needed from him; he wasn't strong where she was concerned; he belonged to the Slayer. It wasn't wrong. "Will you be here when I get back?"

"No, probably not." Buffy sat up on her elbow. "The battle will likely be tomorrow, but just in case it's tonight-"

"Things you gotta do, I know."

She waited until he looked at her, the guilt and trepidation so easy to read in his blue eyes. Buffy had to smile, though; with his mussed hair and clean-shaven jaw, he could be a ten-year-old who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or nookie jar, she supposed, giving herself a mental smack for the tacky thought. "You told me not to make any promises, so I won't. All I ask is that you wait, Spike, just a little longer."

After a moment, he forced a smile. "So, nothing's changed."

The good humor faded from her face. "You don't think so?" Buffy reached out to trace the planes of his face. "I've changed. Well, come around, maybe, back to where I used to be. To who I used to be." She gave him a mock-stern look. "You don't get to change, though. I like you just the way you are, and last time you wanted to change, you went off and got a soul without telling anyone."

"Don't think you minded that."

"No," she agreed, having meant the danger of what he had dared. "I like having you able to think like a human. I don't get knocked out and tied up nearly as often."

"Coulda swore you didn't mind bein' tied up, either." Sin in his voice, temptation in the tilt of his head.

Buffy groaned and fell back onto the mattress, pulling the covers over her face. "You barely have time to shower and get to the Council offices." She groaned again, peeling back the sheet enough to peek at him, confessing, "I like tying you up even better."

"We've got time," he promised, sliding back under the covers, one knowing hand already stroking her hip. "Maybe not for restraints, but we've got time."

"Time?" she repeated, a little too breathless to be completely sarcastic. "Mr. Five-hours-straight?"

"Can be just fast enough," he cajoled. "Like your minutemen, ready at a moment's notice." His voice faded into a hiss as she found proof of his readiness. "Not gonna break, love. Harder." He had never dreamed it could be like this, because every other time he had his mind on the next minute, when she might leave. If they weren't finished, she couldn't flounce off in a flurry of rage and guilt. Now he let himself live in the moment, sliding into her body with a drawn-out moan. Buffy was still slick from their earlier lovemaking, but she wasn't ready for him. He brought her to climax with his fingers, murmuring in her ear in lilting Gaelic, waiting until she began making impatient movements beneath him before starting his own rhythm. Buffy curved her back, drawing her thighs higher around his hips. Since he'd promised something fast, he found the scar on her neck, reshaped into his mark, and covered it with his mouth, suckling. As she came, he gave himself over to the pleasure, spending completely within her.

"Okay," Buffy said a few moments later, still panting, "I admit, that was pretty quick." She slid her hand down his back and smacked his bottom. "Now, you better go get ready. I'll just lay here for a few minutes… catch my breath."

She had fallen asleep when he came back, still damp from a quick shower, to stand beside the bed. Spike wasted several minutes simply staring down at her, at the spill of her hair across his pillow, before he clenched his teeth and turned away. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a blue turtleneck Dawn had gotten for him for Christmas, then went to the living room for his coat and boots, cursing the fact that there were only ten minutes before he was supposed to be at a meeting. Something important, the most important thing of all, was happening here, and he had to leave.

⸹

"'Lo, love," Spike said, slipping into the chair that Dawn had saved for him, leaning over to kiss her cheek. "How was patrol?"

"Fine. Not as busy as you'd expect." Her eyes narrowed. "So, did you kill each other?"

"Nearly did," he said, going for a smirk but only managing to beam.

Dawn narrowed her blue eyes even more. "What do you mean by that?" she asked slowly.

"Everyone here? Ah, Angel," Giles said, as the big vampire eased into the room, "you're not late. Close the door behind you, if you will." Giles glanced around the table expectantly and launched into the agenda. "Right. Within two or three days, I hope to never have to think about the wretched Kanai prophecy again. William, what can you tell us about the battle site?"

Jerking a little, Spike pulled his guilty gaze away from Angel and began. "Er, the medical practice. Right. Yesterday, me an' the Slayer," another guilty glance toward the far end of the table to where his grandsire had found a seat, "Buffy, that is, we, um, went through the building." Spike cleared his throat. "Got the doors all 'x'ed with Red's magic markers. The elevator shafts, now those may…."

Watching him, Dawn felt her lips part. Her best friend and her sister had slept together again. She was sure of it, just as sure as she had been when she left them alone that it would never happen. Closing her eyes, she bent her head over her notebook. Poor Buffy, Dawn thought, and poor Spike. Then, belatedly, poor Angel.

⸹

"Spike?" Xander asked, leaning across the table as soon as Giles dismissed them. "You doing anything for the next couple of hours?"

"No," he said, darting a glance at Dawn. He could feel her wanting to talk to him, but since he already knew what she was going to say, Spike figured he could skip it. Illyria wasn't in attendance, anyway.

"Good. We'll take your truck because it's sunny, but I get to drive."

Although he was already reaching for the keys in a coat pocket, Spike put up a token protest. "Why do you get to drive?"

"Because I know where we're going," Xander replied in a reasonable tone.

They walked out together, and Spike wasn't sorry to have an excuse to get away from Angel, either. The meeting had gone past nine-thirty, so the shops were open. When they drove across Lakeshore for the second time, Spike sent Xander a chary look. "You sure you know where we're going?"

"You know anything about gemstones, Spike?"

"A bit," he replied guardedly.

"Good. I need you to help me pick out a ring for Lina."

Spike began to grin. "Well, well, well," he said, diverted, shifting his whole body so he could examine the dark-haired young man. "The whelp's gonna pop the question again." Then, when Xander shot him a sour look, he added, "Good on you, mate. Congratulations. You two seem really happy."

"Yeah, well, I intend this to go better than it did the last time," Xander said grimly, turning into the parking lot of a jewelry store. "Starting with, not a secret. Well, except from Lina. I intend to ask her on Valentine's Day, if I can hold out that long." He shut off the truck and turned toward the blond man. "Another difference is that this time, I have money. The standard is a month's salary for the ring, but that standard, oddly enough, is set by the diamond industry. If I haul out an eight thousand dollar rock, Lina will brain me with it." Anya, on the other hand, would have been delighted by the dollar amount, and Xander's mouth curved in a slight smile at the difference between the two women. "She'd rather spend the money on a honeymoon. You," he said, pointing at Spike, "I figure have some idea of what is a good value."

"Pro'ly can't tell you if it's a good value, since I haven't actually bought a diamond in well over a hundred years," Spike pointed out, "but I can tell you if it's a good stone or not."

"Fair enough," Xander said, but he made no move to get out of the truck. "One other thing. Would you…" He stopped and looked away for a moment. "We've had our differences, but I think we're," he grimaced and borrowed a word, "'mates' now. I know that I feel closer to you than anyone else on the Council. The reason I wanted you to be here when I buy the ring is because I want you to carry it, too." When Spike looked blank, he added impatiently. "I hope you'll be my best man."

The first thing out of Spike's mouth was, "Red turned you down, did she?"

"She very tactfully said she didn't want to go through that again," Xander agreed.

"I'd be honored, Harris." Spike slid across the bench seat and took the young human in a bone-cracking embrace. "Honored." He cleared his throat and pulled away. "'Sides, I look smashing in a tux."

"I don't know if there will be tuxedos," Xander warned, shaking his head. "This may be a low-key affair. I'll have to see what Lina wants. But you will have to go to Toledo."

The blond man shrugged. "Lived in L.A. for a year. A few days in Toledo won't kill me."

Xander looked away, biting his lip. "Thanks, man."

"One condition," Spike said, holding up a finger. His eyes were shining. "You have to stand up with me, I ever get leg-shackled."

"You got it." He snorted a little at the idea, figuring it was Spike's way of proving he wasn't doing it for soft, squishy reasons.

"Good, then." Spike's first preference would be to have Giles as his best man, but Rupes would already have a role in the ceremony he envisioned, giving away the bride. Then Spike gave himself a stern internal warning about letting hope get the best of him and resolved not to even glance at emerald-set rings. He was waiting, that's all, same as ever. "Let's go find a rock for your intended."

⸹

"Alpana?" Giles stopped dead in the hallway, blocking her. "Where are you going?"

She looked around the edge of the boxes she had stacked in her arms. "I'm moving to a flat. I've already arranged with Phyllidia Gladstone. She'll be taking up residence in my room."

"You don't have to – I mean, obviously, if you want to…" He rubbed a hand on his brow. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Still holding the boxes, she nevertheless managed to give the impression that she was shrugging. "I haven't had the opportunity. You've been away, and now that you're back, you're quite busy. It won't affect my work," she added.

"Here," he said, belatedly realizing he wasn't being much of a gentleman. He stuffed the pen and paper in his hand into a random jacket pocket and took all but the bottom box. "At the very least, I can help you carry these things."

"Thank you, Rupert."

Helping her take the boxes to her car turned into going to her new apartment and helping her carry them inside. He'd been cramped with a pile of shoeboxes on his lap in the passenger seat of her stuffed car, and Giles was relieved to find the townhouse had only a short staircase. She would be closer to Bethany, Alpana said, and she talked about how the two of them were getting on now that Maria's funeral was past.

They had just brought in the last load from her small car as she noted that having Vashti move in with Bethany was the best thing that could have happened. Giles looked down at her, frowning. "Does your moving out have anything to do with Maria?"

She shook her head. "No. I went looking for a new place while you were in Philadelphia." When he didn't react, Alpana sighed. Englishmen. "I moved because you kissed me on Christmas Day."

"Oh." He clenched his teeth and looked down at his shoes. "I'm terribly sorr–"

"I'm not," she said gently, amusement in her eyes. "Rupert, look at me. I'm not sorry. I rather liked it."

"You did?"

Alpana nodded. "I don't ever want you to kiss me in the workplace, though. It's why I had to move." She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy. "I hope you'll be a frequent visitor, now that you know where I'm at."

Giles stayed quiet until she looked back up. "Then, I really must tell you that Olivia and I only see each other when we aren't seeing other people. It never has been and never will be serious between us." He wanted to be as plain as possible. "I'm not involved with her or anyone, and I'm sorry if the shape of Ethan's… magical construct caused you any pain."

She gave him a shy and lovely smile. "I really didn't think I was obvious about it."

"You weren't," he reassured her. "You see, I was watching you." The look she gave him then was enough to restore his confidence, and Giles took a step closer, close enough to put his hand at her waist. "I promise never to kiss you in the workplace, but I should warn you that I consider anywhere else fair game. Starting with here," he added, lowering his mouth to hers.

⸹

Connor tossed the damp towel into the bathroom and brushed his nearly-dry hair back so he could line up the buttons on his shirt. Before he could get the first one, he heard a knock at the door. Angel's back, he thought sardonically, then chastised himself for the mean thought. His father loved him so much, thought so highly of him that it was always good for his ego to be around him, but the big vampire could be smothering.

"Hey," he said. It wasn't Angel. "Oh, hey," he said, fumbling with his buttons. "Dawn. Good to see you. I, uh, wasn't expect – Come in," he babbled, stepping out of the way.

"Hi, Connor," she said, amused. Dawn stepped inside, her coat folded neatly over her arm. "I'll try to catch you when you're not expecting me more often."

He pulled the edges of his shirt together, trying to find even one damn buttonhole, then he grew still, an unwilling smile spreading across his face. Connor pulled the shirt away from his body and struck a couple of poses, making her laugh. "Well, I feel like an idiot."

"You don't look like one." Her cheeks were a little pink.

The buttons were finally where they were supposed to be. "Let me get this. Here, have a seat."

"On the bed, or the other bed?" she mused. His suitcase was in one chair and the tray with the remnants of his room service breakfast was in the other.

"Either will do," Connor replied, feeling vaguely James Bondish.

"Expecting Angel?" Her voice was sweet and put an end to his few seconds of rakishness.

"No, but he'll show up sooner than later," Connor sighed.

"Think we've got an hour?"

"Uh," he managed, staring at her as she settled herself on the bed that Angel had vacated, her coat next to her. "An hour?" She wanted to be alone with him for an hour? Shut up, shut up. Think with your brain.

"There's something I wanted to tell you, something important. I couldn't tell you before, and we have to be alone. I can't tell Angel."

There was an odd emphasis in the sentence, but Connor barely registered it, sinking down onto his own bed. This would be something bad, he figured. "What do you want to tell me?"

Dawn had seen Xander's relationship with Anya implode, seen Willow magic her way out of confrontations, had watched her sister wriggle out of all possible emotional connections, and she had learned to value directness and honesty. She looked Connor in the eye and held out her hand until he took it. "This is important, Connor, and that's why I want to tell you. I don't want any secrets between us. First, I need to tell you that you've been added to a spell cast by a coven of the most powerful white witches on earth. They did it to keep me safe, and once I tell you this, you'll be able to talk to me about it, or anyone else that knows, but if you try to tell someone else, you'll lose your train of thought and won't be able to tell. I'm sorry to have you spelled up, but I literally couldn't tell you beforehand."

Concentrating hard, he frowned at her. "Okay," he said slowly. "This spell is to keep you safe, because it's a secret that no one else can know."

She took a breath. "Right."

"So… who else knows?"

"My sister, Spike, the Scoob – er, Xander, Willow, Giles. My mother knew. Tara knew, that was Willow's girlfriend, and Anya, Xander's girlfriend." She grimaced a little. "I-it seems like people who know have a high mortality rate, but that's just our line of…" Dawn grew pale. "I guess someone did die because of the secret, but I should just go ahead and tell you."

"Does my father know?"

She shook her head. "Only people who were in my life, close friends and family. Angel hasn't been part of my life, ever, really." Dawn's fingers clenched over his for a second. "Illyria knows. All she had to do was look at me, and she knew."

"Knew what?" He was trying to be patient.

"When Angel told your story, he told it from his point of view, from our timeline, I mean. You were a baby, and then a few months later, you were a teenager, as far as he was concerned. But it isn't his story. You have all these memories of growing up in Quor'Toth, I know, and now you have a whole different set of memories, implanted memories of a normal childhood.

"I have implanted memories, too, and they're my entire story." After Dawn said this, she closed her eyes for a moment. "I've never told anyone else that. Everyone that was part of my life, they already knew, found out around the same time I did." She blew out a breath and gave him a shaky smile. "This is a big deal to me. Ta-da, Dawn is not a normal girl."

"I like you just the way you are," Connor said, wishing he had something more suave to say.

The words were enough to make her smile less wobbly, though. "Thanks. You've got memories of this real, perfect, whole family – actually have the family; I've got the memories Buffy Summers' little sister would have: divorce, moving to Sunnydale, starting at a new school, feeling lonely and awkward with a big sister who was not just popular and a cheerleader, but the freakin' Chosen One." She rolled her eyes. "Maybe my not-so-perfect memories are more normal than yours."

"So," he said slowly, "you have a traumatic past someone hid from you?"

"No." She covered their joined hands with her other one, stroking his wrist. "You're human, Connor, flesh and blood and soul, just born to unusual parents. I may have a belly button, but I was never born." Taking a deep breath, almost a gasp, Dawn plowed on, telling him about the monks and Glorificus and the Key, about finding out, freaking out, of losing her Mom; she told him the horror of being the Key in the mad god's ritual, of Buffy's sacrifice, of the devotion of Buffy's friends as they made a new family for her, of Spike's trials so he could become her defender. She finished by telling him that she had finally learned she had a soul, of how her sister had never doubted this, of their bone-deep love, even if Buffy was unable to show it anymore, and how Giles had arranged for her origins to be hidden so well that not even the First Evil could extract it from Spike's broken mind.

Realizing that she was crushing his fingers, she eased up and made herself take a slow, calming breath. "I don't know if I'm real sometimes, if I exist. Sometimes I don't know if I'm really human, since I was created, not born. It… makes me different, sets me apart. I figured if anyone should know about my weird past, it would be someone with their own weird past." Dawn's blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Just, you know, you're not alone."

"Is that why you wanted to tell me, include me under the secrecy spell?" Without letting go of her hand, he moved to sit next to her, examining her face closely. The why, he knew instinctively, was the most important thing. "So I wouldn't feel… alone?"

"No." Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength. Being honest was much harder than she had imagined – what if he didn't feel the same way? – but the wreckage of relationships she'd seen around her was incentive. "I wanted you to know because I hope you're going to be part of my life from now on. I want to spend time with you. You're special, Connor, and not because of where you're from or how many sets of memories you have." She put her hand over his heart. "I like who you are, what comes from here. That's why you're special," she swallowed, "to me."

Connor felt as if he'd been hit hard in the pit of the stomach, only instead of pain, a warmth radiated throughout him, widening his eyes, parting his lips. He looked into Dawn's direct gaze and knew that she would carry a piece of his heart forever after, no matter what happened, because he'd just given it to her. He'd never been in love before, he realized, not with Tracy despite dating her for over two years, not even with his hopeless crush on Cordelia in his other life.

Dawn finally dropped her eyes. "Say something," she whispered, nearly in agony.

He put his hand beneath her chin, because he had to see the dark blue depths. Instead of saying anything, he leaned in closer and kissed the full lips the way he'd wanted to every time he'd seen her.

 _Shiver me timbers_ , she thought as he pulled away. "Wh-what does that mean," Dawn said, swallowing, "exactly?"

"I think it means that I'm transferring here," he said.

After a moment of incomprehension, Dawn frowned. "You can't leave Stanford," she protested.

He shrugged. "Then you transfer." Connor shook his head. "Either way, this can't wait. We've both seen too much happen, everything change in a handful of seconds." He slid his hand into the silkiness of her long hair, marveling at the feel. "This could be really, really good, and I don't want to waste any time."

"Connor?" Dawn forgot to breathe; he was looking at her the way she'd seen Spike look at Buffy, the expression in his eyes mirroring what had been in Spike's as he saw Buffy come down the stairs and back from the dead. This wasn't for Buffy. This was just for her.

He scooted closer, kissing her again, the part of him that was hard-wired masculinity cursing the fact that he wasn't carrying condoms, a nobler section of his brain grateful, because he didn't want to mess this up. Just because he didn't want to waste time didn't mean he should rush her; she was just eighteen. Then he realized she was crying. "Dawn?" Terrified that her tears were his fault, he didn't know what he could do, only that he wanted to make it better.

"I've worried that I was a monster," she whispered, wishing she could just say that she was afraid he would think she was a monster.

"You're not." His mouth worked. "I have been a monster," he managed, "so into killing monsters that I became worse–" He put his hands on her cheeks. "Don't cry."

"No." She shook her head and wiped her cheeks. "No more tears."

"Here," he said, fumbling in his jeans pocket and producing a handkerchief. "Is this okay?"

Dawn stared at the little square of folded cloth, a tiny smile coming to her face. "Perfect," she said. "Connor, it's perfect."

⸹

"Giles?" Buffy looked around his study, disappointed, and closed the door. Watcher Central was unfortunately quiet, because she was wired, had been wired ever since a returning Clem slammed the door and woke her up a half hour ago. She bit her lip and loped up the stairs, knocking perfunctorily on Dawn's old door before opening it. Dawn still used the empty bedroom as a makeshift office, and she could definitely talk to her sister about this. That alone was enough to make her smile. "Dawnie?"

This room was empty, too. The Watchers' meeting must have lasted longer than usual. Deflating a bit, Buffy sat down on the edge of her sister's bed, grabbing the one forlorn pillow that remained and hugging it to her chest, a small smile playing about her lips. She had an odd feeling, and she chased it down and compared it with dusty memories until she could identify it. Anticipation. How long since she'd anticipated anything? She was looking forward to the coming battle, to fighting next to her dark half. Buffy smirked at the way she was avoiding the real matter, recognizing how she was distancing herself. I am looking forward to seeing Spike, she told herself sternly.

And she was avoiding seeing Angel. Slumping a little over the pillow, Buffy sighed. She should have gone home, but she was happy and she was selfish and she didn't want the happy to end so soon. Angel wasn't ready for them to be finished, or not quite ready.

She sighed. As General, she wasn't about to do anything to jeopardize the ability of her second-best warrior. She didn't want Angel to be distracted. After the battle, then. After the battle and before Connor left, she'd tell him that she was moving out, that it was over.

⸹

"Oz?" Willow turned her head on the pillow and looked over at him.

"Yeah?" His voice was soft. They had come home from the Council meeting and she had moved into his arms, something fierce in her kisses. It wasn't often that she took the lead.

"Have you ever killed anyone? A person, I mean?"

Oz stared at the ceiling, at a thin crack in the plaster for a short while. "I know I killed Veruca," he said, having waited so that he wouldn't hesitate as he said the name, "and I'm ninety-nine percent sure I've killed other people. I just don't have the memory of it."

She nodded and turned her head so she was looking at the ceiling, too. "I wish I didn't."

He rolled over and tucked his arm around her. "Is this about Amy and Ethan Rayne?"

Willow nodded. "It is." She closed her eyes. "I guess it's about me, too."

He found her hand, taking it and rubbing his thumb gently across her knuckles as he pressed kisses onto her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "This has been weighing on you."

"It isn't even about the right or wrong, you know? The way Ethan or Amy would have to be caged, that's just… If I look at it from a purpose or evolutionary standpoint, death is the best thing for them, because they would never do anything to promote the survival of their fellow humans." The muscles of her face became tense for a moment, as if the clinical analysis wasn't enough to keep back a sob. "And Warren… He'd gone from hating and fearing women to killing them. I don't believe he would ever have stopped."

She rolled over, pressing her body against his, pulling her head away so they could see each other. "But, Oz, that's not our decision to make. Who are we to decide that?"

"What happened to Amy and her friend, that wasn't your call."

"The decision was made by the people I work with, that I support. I'm complicit."

"Then so am I." He sighed. "There is no jury of peers, no system of appeals for people like that."

"There should have been for Warren."

He grimaced and pulled her closer, putting his mouth against her forehead, kissing the furrow on her brow. "Oh, baby."

Willow was crying now. "I don't know if I want to do this anymore." She swallowed. "When we were in Sunnydale, in high school, things seemed pretty clear. Oh, there's a monster; let's kill it. Not so much now."

"I think this is part of growing up," Oz said, his voice sorrowful. "You step outside yourself, see things from other people's perspective, how they ended up where they are, thinking the way they do." He kissed her forehead again, shifting so her head would tuck against his neck. "I know people who've never been to Latin or South America who are passionate about saving the rain forests so the indigenous tribes can live the way they always have. That's what I used to think was best, too. But the people in those tribes learn about vaccines and processed foods and iPods, and maybe that's the life they want.

"So, now, maybe I think we should save the rain forests because we're supposed to be stewards of this planet and because it's one of the easiest things we can do to save ourselves, because it's so obviously the moral, right thing to do. But if people in the Amazon tribes want to leave the forest, stop eating birds and plants and start eating Big Macs, then that's their choice. Even if I think it's not the best thing for them, it's not my call. I can see things from both sides, now. In another five years, maybe I'll think something else, something wiser, I hope."

He never talked to anyone the way he talked to her. Something inside her turned, a happier facet prevailing. "So, you're saying it's never going to be easy again. I've tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

"I'm saying, you have to make peace with yourself, Wil."

"I had," she breathed. "I was all, like, well, I killed Warren and I almost killed everyone on the whole planet, but I'm sorry and I'll never do that again. And, here I am, working with the Watchers' Council, and they just unilaterally executed two people. I mean, how is that different? Didn't I just do it again?"

Oz pulled away, didn't answer, just gave her a small smile. "The way I deal with," his mouth hardened, "with Veruca, is that I stopped her from going forward from that point and hurting other people." He closed his eyes. "It's easy with demons. The others, though… I'm so afraid that I've stopped people from going forward to do good from the point they crossed paths with me."

"With werewolf Oz," she said staunchly.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Then it matters with you just as much."

"No," Willow whispered miserably. "I should have done more for Amy."

"If you had, you might have been dragged down with her, been on her side, on Ethan's side, and there would have been more dead slayers." She jerked a little at his words, and Oz pulled her closer. "From what you told me, you weren't riding your power. You were being ridden. She never got control of hers, and it was all you could do to master yourself. You can't save everybody, Willow."

"Then what's the use of having all this power?" Her eyes flew open after this, then she slowly closed them, the furrow between her brows back. "Sorry. Control freak."

"Sometimes, when we're in a battle," Oz said, his voice soft again, very precise, "I get this feeling of contempt, where I just want to let go, give in to the beast and transform. Because then I could tear through the demons and the vampires, better than any slayer, kill at will. But I wouldn't be able to stop. I'd turn on the slayers, on Xander or Buffy or," he gritted his teeth, "or you." When she made a sound of protest, he shook his head. "No, I've done it before, would have killed you if not for Buffy." Her hands were soothing him now, rubbing along his shoulder, his back. "I have the power, and I know that I can't give in to it. So, I use what I can – better sense of smell, better reflexes, more strength – and leave the rest of it alone.

"Yours isn't that clear-cut. For you, it's how much rather than whether. But I have faith in you."

Her tears, which had tapered off, came back fresh, and she hugged him to her as hard as she could. "Thanks." Tara had faith in her once, too, and Giles, Xander, and Buffy still did.

"You should talk with Giles," Oz suggested. "Or Spike. He probably knows a lot about deciding how much he can live with."

Surprised by this, she lifted her face so she could see his eyes. He really did have faith in her, whether it was in limiting her seemingly-limitless power or avoiding the temptations of a whipped cream-wielding vampire. "I've already talked to Spike. He wasn't too fussed about what happened to Amy. I'll talk to Giles, though. Good idea."

"I'm full of them." Oz touched her nose with his. "Of something, anyway."

⸹

Buffy had found some of her clothes hanging forgotten in the closet, cheap jeans and an Oxford shirt bought after her return from Italy. She'd borrowed some of Kayla's shampoo and taken a quick shower, since she wasn't going back to the apartment. As she bounded down the stairs, ready for more battle planning, she saw Jacobson at the door, looking out at two people on the porch without any enthusiasm.

"May I help you?"

"Faith!" Buffy cried, skipping the last three treads and brushing past Jacobson to take her sister Slayer in a crushing embrace.

"B," she replied, overwhelmed at the welcome. The smile on her face softened and broadened into something gentle as she hugged Buffy in return. It wasn't often that she found someone glad to see her.

"You're Faith Lehane, I take it," Jacobson said wryly. "Come in. We've been expecting you."

"We had this wicked long layover in Atlanta," Faith explained, holding Buffy's hand as the other Slayer dragged her into the house, "and there was an earlier flight that was coming to Cleveland, too. We didn't get to sit together, and our luggage won't be here until later this afternoon, but Robin and I were both itching to get to a real battle."

Robin, who had been introducing himself to Alan Jacobson, smiled and shook his head. "Well, she was, anyway."

"Robin," Buffy said determinedly, putting out her hand.

"Hi, Buffy. It's good to see you."

"You're looking really good," Faith said, something teasing in her voice. "Living with Angel seems to agree with you."

"Something like that," Buffy managed after a moment.

"Faith." Angel smiled at her as he came from the opposite direction, through the kitchen. He'd gotten a call from her that she was on her way to Watcher Central and to come right away, which he had, parking the Camry in its familiar place in Giles' garage.

"Angel!" Laughing, she jumped into his arms. "It is so good to see you."

There was something sad on Buffy's face as she watched the big vampire give into happiness at seeing the wayward Slayer, smiling and laughing. It didn't make her jealous any longer, and there was a loss in it.

"Look at you, all smiles," she marveled. "Angel, I want you to meet Robin." Faith turned away from her guardian demon, pulling him along by the arm. "This is the other man in my life," she explained. "Robin Wood, this is Angel."

"Hi, Robin," he began, putting out his hand. This guy was taller than Gunn. Then he froze, staring at the prominent puncture wounds on the man's neck. A couple of months ago, he would have just assumed there had been a close call with a random vampire, not unexpected for a human in this business. But he'd been learning the shape of that mark on Buffy's neck for weeks now, and he crushed the breakable human hand in his grip. He thought of the way Lindsey had played Spike, got him to believe that Cordelia was a demon. There must be something suspect about Wood for the boy to use his fangs. "Why did Spike let you live?"

Wood's other hand went halfway to his neck before he caught himself. He made a reflexive fist before lowering it. "Mercy," he said simply.

Angel let go of Robin's hand. "Make sure there's no need for mercy in the future. I'm not known for it the way he is." His voice held no hint of irony. He felt small fingers on his sleeve, and he looked down, expecting to see a chastening expression on Buffy's face. Instead, she was also staring steadily at Robin, backing Angel up.

Wood's jaw tensed. "There won't be."

Angel nodded, his attention going almost immediately back to the blond Slayer. "I'm sorry I didn't call last night."

She gave him a wry smile, entirely normal. "I didn't expect you to. Patrol go okay?"

"Busier." He shrugged. "Picks up, this close to a battle, but less than I expected."

"So you had lots of time to talk?"

He smiled helplessly, nodding his head. "Yeah."

"So, tell me about this battle," Faith said. She had watched the interaction between the two men, been surprised by the way Angel automatically assumed Robin was in the wrong in his encounter with Spike. She expected the warm interaction between Angel and Buffy, something she had once hated and envied.

"I have handouts," Jacobson offered, still examining Robin closely, faintly surprised that his loyalty was with the souled vampires rather than another human.

"Well, let's go look at them," Buffy said brightly. Less than ten minutes later, as talking about battle wasn't the same as fighting one, she and Faith ditched the men and headed out into the sunshine for a walk.

"I love your jacket," Buffy told her.

"Thanks. I bought it just for Cleveland." Faith's hands were burrowed into the pockets. "It's short enough that it won't get in my way while I fight. I don't know how you do long coats like that – which, by the way, is gorgeous."

Long hair, long coats, high heels, Buffy thought, the memory bringing a smile to her face. "Oh, you learn to manage. I'm cold-natured, I guess." She smoothed the burgundy leather of the coat over her thighs. "And, thanks. It was a birthday present."

"So, Spike's in town, too," Faith said, still thinking of long coats. "You know, Robin's really over the revenge kick. I like to think I had something to do with it."

Another memory, of Faith cadging Spike's cigarettes. "About Spike, Faith. If you flirt with him while you're here, I'll snatch all that lovely dark hair," and for some reason, her voice sounded vaguely British, "from your head. He's off limits."

It took a moment for Buffy's pleasant tone to be disconnected from her words. "Why?" Faith stopped walking and stared at her. "You're living with Angel, right?"

"Not really, not since before Christmas." She looked down and kept walking, forcing the other Slayer to catch up with her.

"Oh, no you don't. Spill."

Buffy sighed. "Honestly, it'll be good to tell someone. You know how I've been in love with Angel, like, forever-"

"I know," Faith said sardonically.

"Well, sometimes you really want what you can't have. And now we can have it."

"Yeah, I heard Superwitch fixed the curse."

"And that was the absolute best thing ever. I'm so glad Angel can be happy. But, Faith, I think he got over me a long time ago. He still loves me, but it isn't…."

"It isn't what you had in Sunnydale?"

"No." She stopped after this agreement, thinking for a moment. "Last month, just before Christmas, I found out something that he'd never bothered to tell me, something that he should have told me, not just because I'm the Slayer, but because I should have been important enough to tell."

"About Cordelia?" Faith's expression was sympathetic.

Buffy gave her a piercing look. "You saw that, too?"

Faith looked away. "When he'd come to see me in prison, he talked about her all the time." She looked back. "I don't know what was going on at Angel Investigations there at the end."

Buffy sighed. "Another hellgod. It used Cordy to be born into this world."

"Oh. Poor Angel." Faith had never cared for the cheerleader very much. "So, it was about her."

"Something like that," Buffy hedged. About Darla, actually, but Cordelia would work for this conversation. She didn't want to give away Angel's secret. "It really showed me the difference in how… I don't know, in how we look at things, maybe? Angel was my first love, but I wasn't his… wasn't his only love."

"I always wondered about him and Cordelia and him losing his soul," Faith mused. A shaman was supposed to have done it the last time, but an hour of sack-time seemed much simpler to her.

"He never slept with her," Buffy said, "but he did sleep with other women. I think he knew he cared too much for her, that it might cost him his soul, but I don't think he ever admitted it to himself. Or to Cordy."

"Denial? Angel?" Faith said, widening her eyes in mock disbelief.

"Yeah, I know." She smiled back, glad to be with Faith, who understood so much without having lived in her hip pocket for years. Buffy took a breath. "He's not the only one who's a master of denial. While he was trying not to be in love with Cordelia, I was trying not to be in love with Spike."

"Oh." The syllable was drawn out. "Not just a pre-apocalypse thing."

"Loads more than just a pre-apocalypse thing." They walked a little further, and Buffy stopped. "So, after that big fight, we haven't really been living together, me and Angel. And then Drusilla came to town, and Spike could have died." Her face tightened. "Again."

"And you realized what your feelings really were?" Faith was examining her face. Buffy had gone silent and dark after the Hellmouth closed, switching off all her light as if happiness was a room she didn't expect to enter anytime soon.

"Not right away. It's been terrible here, Faith. Ethan Rayne and Amy Madison were behind it, you remember, from Sunnydale? There was another slayer killed a little while ago, Natalie, that was their fault. They brought in Drusilla, and she turned one slayer and killed another, both of them close to Spike. He's been grieving, mostly for Drusilla, I think."

"What about Angel?"

"He cried – I mean, Drusilla had been part of his world for a century and a half. Mostly, though, I think he was relieved." When Faith nodded, she let out a sigh. "There's nothing I can say to Spike right now, not so he'll understand that I really mean it, but after this battle, whether it's the last one or not," Buffy took a deep breath, "I'm breaking things off with Angel. I want to be fair to him."

"Oh." She looked down. "Let's go back. I'm cold, even if it is sunny. I know I'm not in Miami anymore." They'd gone a block before she spoke again. "He's not the easiest person in the world, I know that, but Angel is my friend. How do you think he'll take it?"

"The funny thing is, I think he'll be fine with it. Relieved." Buffy's mouth twisted with a caustic smile. "I mean, I'm such a prize, huh? I think he'll go back to California, be closer to… to some people he knew from L.A. But I think he'll be fine."

"And Spike, he's just waiting in the wings? I mean, you've been living with Angel, and they might be family, but I never got the impression that Angel cared very much for him. I assume it's mutual. He still wants you?"

 _Always want you_. "I think so."

Something in her voice gave her away. "B!" Faith looked delighted.

Buffy felt her face flush, and she hunkered into the collar of her coat. "Don't say anything, okay? This is too new, too fragile, and I don't want anything to distract Angel before a major battle like this."

Faith was chuckling. "I knew you had it in you."

"Oh, shut up." There was no rancor in her tone.

"I won't say anything," the other Slayer assured her. "And I won't even look at your fine punk vampire." She sent Buffy a sly grin. "Well, I might look."

Buffy growled, embarrassed for a moment by her reaction. She knew exactly where she had learned that noise, her and Dawn both. "Thanks. For listening, I mean." Shaking her head, she changed the topic. "Enough of my drama. Tell me about you. How's Miami?"

"Miami is a very fine town, not like Boston at all. Not cold, pretty, great parties, and far away from California law enforcement."

"Always a good thing."

"The Council has done a good job of burying the warrants, getting them off the network, but all I'd need is one bad break. I don't want to go back to prison. I'm doing more good out here."

"I know you are."

Faith gave her a swift look. She'd probably always look for the sarcasm when Buffy gave her a compliment, and it always fed something inside her when the other Slayer was sincere. "Thanks. We've broken up three demon-smuggling rings since we've been there, me and Robin and my Watcher, this crazy old Irish dude named Seamus."

"How are things between you and Robin?"

"Good." There was a little surprise in her voice, as if she never examined Robin's presence in her life. "This is the longest I've ever stayed with one man."

"So… Things are working out?"

"You know me, B. I'm never gonna say, oh, this is my man for-evah. But, yeah, things are working out. I don't think about that side of it a lot." Faith gave Buffy a sidelong glance. "The sex is wicked good."

She laughed. "Very important."

"Is that the bait that Spike's dangling?"

She ignored the speculative glint in the dark-haired Slayer's eye. "No. I can be happy with him. He's the only one, really, since I was brought back from heaven, for whatever reason. Another vampire, yada yada… I'd done that, you know, had the t-shirt and traumatic emotional scars. And loving Spike made it that much harder. It would have been easier if he could have stayed what he was to me before."

"What's that?"

Buffy shrugged. "A respected former enemy. An ally. I knew he loved me; he knew I didn't love him, and we were both okay with that. Then he went off and got his soul, and there wasn't much reason I shouldn't be in love with him. You saw how he was in Sunnydale, how he took care of Dawn and all the Potentials. So, of course," her voice grew self-mocking, "I fought every step of the way, kicking and screaming. A vampire who loved me with or without his soul? Hard for me to believe." She glanced over at Faith. "That's the bait. I can be happy with him, and he loves me, despite what I am."

"Despite?"

Buffy wasn't going there, wasn't going to debate the hardships of being a Slayer and a good person, not with someone she had tried so hard not to be. So she changed the subject. "And his 'bait' doesn't just… dangle."

Faith laughed. "God, Buffy. I didn't realize how much I've missed you, now that you've grown up."

⸹

Xander watched from his car and waved as Spike drove off, losing a good millimeter of tread off his tires as he peeled out of the parking lot of the Watchers' Council offices. He said he was going home to get some rest, and he did look tired, as if he hadn't slept much the previous night. A lot on his mind with the Drusilla Death and Destruction Tour 2005, Xander supposed.

Not that he didn't have a lot on his own mind. He was supposed to go home and have a nap, too. Thinking of Lina, his hand crept into the inside pocket of his jacket, making sure the small, expensive box was still there. He found his fingers made their way to it repeatedly as he drove home.

Home. It was an odd word. All it had really meant to him was familiar surroundings – his parents' house in Sunnydale, the halls of the schools, the arcade. Then, for a time, home meant the library at Sunnydale High or the Magic Box. After a while, he realized 'home' was wherever Willow, Buffy, and Giles were. Then it had been where Anya was.

Lina meant home to him now, and as he unlocked the apartment door, he knew he'd never really expected he could make it until Valentine's Day. Xander went straight to the bedroom, where she was asleep, napping just like she'd said she would. He stared down at her for a moment, at the auburn hair against the light green linens she had brought with her, then knelt by the bed and put his head on her tummy.

"Lina?" Xander hid a smile. "Wake up. You've got to go brush your teeth."

"What?" She lifted her head from the pillow. "You're back."

"Uh-huh. Come on. Let's get those teeth brushed."

"Why do I need to brush my teeth?" she asked sleepily.

"Because if you don't brush your teeth, I'll never hear the end of it."

Frowning, her eyes still mostly closed, Lina threw the covers off, heaving a sigh. Smiling openly now, he waited until she reopened the bathroom door and peered out at him, turning on her electronic toothbrush. Might as well brush my teeth, too, he thought, moving beside her next to the sink. They ended up spitting at the same time.

"You keep smiling at me," Lina complained. "What are you up to?"

"I know you always brush your teeth when you think we're going to be kissing."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm getting to know you pretty well."

"You made me get out of bed," she said, giving him a look, "because you think there's going to be kissing?"

"Well, I hope so." He sank down on one knee, holding out the little box. "I really hope there'll be kissing, now and for the rest of our lives. Lina, will you be my wife?"

She stared down at him for what seemed like a long time. Lina smiled at him, beginning to cry at the same time. "Yes," she said, dropping down to her own knees to hug him. "Yes. Oh, Xander, of course I want to be your wife." And only then did she reach for the box.

⸹

"Giles?"

"Yes, my dear. What is it?"

"I've been waiting to talk to you, but if you're too busy..."

"For you? Never. I've just gotten back from, uh, helping Alpana, Vishnaswamy, that is, move to her new apartment."

Willow's eyebrows went up as he turned away and opened the door to his office for her, wondering if he was crushing on Alpana. Not that Giles would crush, exactly, because he was too old for that, but he had sort of crushed on Jenny Calendar, and he'd been adorable and shy about it then, too. Having been shy herself, she decided not to comment. "Angel is here. So are Faith and Robin."

"Oh." He looked over her toward the sound of voices coming from the living room. "Well, I'll go say hullo after we've talked, then."

She felt a warm rush of pleasure that he would put her first, feeling valued. "Okay. I'll try not to take too long."

When she'd settled on the couch next to him and still hadn't said anything, a small, sad expression settled on his face. "This is about Amy and Ethan, isn't it?"

"Yes." She looked down. "I feel complicit, Giles. I know Pelham killed them."

"He did." Giles regarded her steadily. "On my orders."

"I figured." Her voice was small.

"I didn't put it up for debate, because there wasn't any other option. I felt it would be worse to be their jailer in what would have to be a very… rigorous confinement." He waited for her to speak.

"I don't know what else we could have done, either," Willow finally said. "But it doesn't make me feel better."

"I've killed many things, Willow, and I'm responsible for human deaths, but I've only killed one human. You remember when I told you about that, early on in Devonshire?"

She nodded. "About Ben."

"I don't believe there was anything I could have done otherwise in that situation, either. We are the good guys, Willow. We don't kill for the pleasure of it, or for gain. Only to protect. It's much harder when it isn't in the heat of battle." He looked at his hands. "I still dwell on it. Ben, I mean."

"Even though you were preventing Glory from returning, safeguarding Dawn, I know." She closed her eyes. "It's a terrible thing to have that much power over another human being. Over anything."

"I don't think you're feeling anything more complicated than guilt."

Her eyes widened. "I do, I feel guilty because I didn't do more to help Amy, but-"

"Guilt for having done worse, as far as you know, yet you're alive, and she isn't." He leaned toward her. "You're a part of the Council, protected, and she wasn't, and she's dead."

Paralyzed, Willow could only stare at him, tears spilling over her cheeks.

"I can tell you, Willow," Giles said kindly, "but I can't make you take it to heart. The coven in Devonshire, white witches all, would have killed you, struck you down without ever meeting you, if not for my intervention. I vouched for you, and that still wasn't enough for them. They examined my memories of you very closely before they agreed to allow you a second chance, to let you come to them, to help you come back. The difference is, Amy wasn't powerful enough to attract their attention. You were, and you were strong enough to ally yourself with the good. It's why you're alive today. Otherwise, they would have… taken you out of the equation.

"Sometimes we do have to make these decisions." He sighed and took off his glasses. "I do everything I can to keep you, or Buffy, or anyone else from having to make them. It's my duty to assume those burdens, and I dislike doing so intensely. But I have to, because there's a type of being out there who has already decided that it's okay to kill, or people like Ben who won't stop others from killing. And if I have nights where I can't sleep…" He took a breath, looking at the floor, meditative, and when he looked back up, his voice was steely. "It's one price I pay. Would it have been easier for you if, instead of executing her, I let Amy go free, aimed her at you the way Ethan pointed Drusilla at Spike and our slayers, and let you destroy her?"

She didn't meet his eyes. "While we were in England," Willow said after a moment, pausing to clear her throat, "Buffy said the First Evil started by raising some manifest spirits, probably by having Spike fashion a talisman and cast the spell – he was crazy then – and one of the spirits told her that while she was busy making out with Angel she, the girl who became the spirit, I mean, was killed by werewolves." When Giles only stared at her, uncomprehending after her disjointed sentence, Willow gave him a weak smile. "It bothered Buffy, I know. Every time we found a body, every time she had to stake someone whose face she knew, she died a little inside. She hadn't saved them. But she couldn't be everywhere. So, I know, I do. We can't save everyone." She wiped her eyes, careful of her makeup. "But this one is going to hurt for a long time."

He lifted his eyebrows and focused on her again, coming back from his own self-loathing after her remark about Buffy being eaten away by her failures. One Slayer on a Hellmouth. Dear Lord, it had been inhuman to put that on her slight shoulders. Giles forced a smile. "Anytime you need to talk about it, Willow, I'll be more than willing to commiserate."

"Who do you talk to?"

"No one." He made a carefree movement with his head, but his smile was ghastly.

"We're not kids anymore, Giles. You can talk to us, too."

He leaned forward and took her in his arms. "Thank you, my dear. I may take you up on that."

⸹

"Spike? Clem?" Dawn let herself into the apartment, and when no one answered, went to the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, she felt a pang. Velveeta and tubs of cake frosting had never been on the shelves while Tribby was alive. Clem had done his own shopping, she assumed, as well as made his own lunch, judging by the crumbs and empty bag of Funyuns on the table. She took a breath and closed the refrigerator, deciding on a peanut-butter-and-potato-chip sandwich for her late lunch.

She didn't bother sitting down, just leaned against the counter to eat her sandwich. Dawn's thoughts were full of Connor, but she was surprised by how much of her thinking revolved around herself, monitoring how she had melted when he stroked her face, how light she had felt after he didn't turn away from her story, what it had been like to lie next to him on the bed, even fully clothed. Maybe being self-centered was part of falling in love, she thought, how this person makes me feel as well as how I feel about….

About Connor.

A slow smile spread over her face, and she swallowed her peanut butter, took a swig of milk from her glass, and said his name aloud. Dawn giggled at her silliness, then spun around in a circle, her hair fanning out. "Connor, Connor, Connor," she chanted, ending with a sigh.

That last was enough to make her straighten her posture and roll her eyes. And she'd thought Janice was boy-crazy. Work, she thought, gotta do something to be serious, levelheaded girl. But the schedule was done through next week, when she'd start incorporating the new slayers, and there was little to do until the battle began. She jumped a little when she heard the door open. "Clem?"

"'S'me, Bit," Spike replied.

She came around the table so she could see him, the last of her sandwich in one hand and the milk in the other, eyes narrowing. "What happened to living Buffy-free?"

He tossed his coat over the back of the sofa and stalked toward her. She didn't miss the flare of his nostrils. Satisfied that nothing had progressed to the point where he'd have to break fingers for touching his Nibblet, Spike put on a falsetto. "Connor, Connor, Connor."

"Oh, shut up." She stuffed the last corner of bread into her mouth, licked her thumb, and pointed at him. "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy."

"Dear lord," Spike said, so appalled that he used a Gilesism. "Seen decayed slime demons less disgusting than that half-masticated wad in your mouth."

Dawn swallowed. "You slept with my sister again, didn't you?" When he grinned, she shook her head. "Spike, how could you? It doesn't make – She isn't bad again, is she?"

Spike swept her into his arms, causing her to hold the mostly-empty glass of milk high. "No, love, she's fine. It's actually scary how fine she is. You saw her last night; she's acting… well, whatever passes for normal on Buffy."

"Spike…" Dawn pulled away from him long enough to finish her milk and put the glass on the table. "How are you going to manage this? You've tried to get Angel to stake you over less, and you know you can't keep these kinds of things secret. Well, Buffy can, but it's written all over your face."

He captured her again. "She says she hasn't…" Those words stuck in his throat, so he tried again. "She hasn't really been living with him since before Christmas."

"She hasn't?" Dawn frowned, then put her forehead against his. "Because of Connor?"

"No, because he never bothered to keep her in his life."

"She says she likes Connor."

"Are we gonna talk about my love life or yours?" he complained. "You told him, then?"

She nodded. "I told him. He didn't think I was a bizarre monster."

Spike snorted. "Oh, so the fact that I've been telling you that for years means nothing?"

"Yeah, well, you love me."

He grew very still and lowered his head so they were eye to eye. "Do you… Do you love him, Dawnie?"

She closed her eyes. "I don't know. I've never felt this way about anyone before." She gave a shaky laugh and looked at him. "Pretty scary." What played over his expressive face – pride, happiness for her, and so much sadness – made her pull him close.

"Yeah, it is." Spike rocked her back and forth. "You should tell Liam. The lad's important to him, too, something you have in common."

"Now, that's really scary."

"Having something in common with Peaches?" His grin faded even as he felt her nod. "I'm glad for you, love." He leaned away again. "Try to be glad for me, 'cause something's different about her this time. Wasn't just a one-off shag or a fit of desperation."

"Language."

He shrugged. "Never thought I could do that to Liam, so I'm hopin' I didn't. She said she was never going to hurt me again, Nibblet, and she didn't mean with her strong little hands."

Dawn looked down, avoiding the plea in his eyes. "She hasn't talked to me about how she's feeling, but nothing new there." Then she frowned. "Though she did say something while we were at Aunt Arlene's about being scared because you could hurt her worse than Angel ever had."

"Hurt her…? I would never-"

"I know, Spike," she reassured him, squeezing his waist. "I meant, you know, she was thinking about the reasons she isn't with you."

"Oh." He frowned. "Doesn't matter, anyway. Finally figured it out. There's no one else for me 'cept your big sis." When Dawn only regarded him steadily, he shook his head. "'Ve tried."

She raised a brow. "There'll be some cute slayer in this next batch we're getting Monday, and you'll-"

"I've tried," he repeated. "My demon finally gets it, so all of me is on board. Never been faithful to anyone before – except her, for those few months – but it doesn't scare me. There's no comparison to having love, Bit, and I only love the Slayer. She's the one."

Dawn closed her eyes, her heart hurting for him, for his hope. Right now, she had to be a friend before being a sister. "And even if Buffy does come back, someday she will leave you, go back to heaven."

"Then I'll either be holding her when it happens or skulking outside her house. Whatever she needs from me, even if it's my absence." Spike gave her an untroubled smile. "Love's bitch, yeah?"

⸹

"Thanks again for the ride, Xander," Willow said as they came in the door of Watcher Central. "I had lunch at home with Oz, and he took the van to the medical office, and there I was going in the opposite direction."

"No problem." Xander shrugged out of his coat. "Lina had to be at work at three, so nothing keeping me at home, either." A gleam came to his eye. "Oh, hey, you got a minute?" Without waiting for an answer, he went to knock on the door of Giles' office.

"Come in," came the muffled reply.

"Hey, Giles. I wanted to get you and Wil alone for a minute. I've got-"

"Rupert?" The portly figure of Willingham squeezed between Xander and Willow at the door. "I'm sorry, but I need you right away. It's Illyria; she's in my office."

Giles sighed. "Have a seat," he said, indicating the couch. "I'll be right back." They heard him say something indistinct to someone in the living room, and then Buffy popped her head into the room.

"Hey, guys. Whatcha doing?"

"It's the Buffster!" Xander said. "Excellent. You should stay for this, too."

Willow swiveled her head to stare at him. "Ohhh. I bet I know what this is."

"Don't spoil it for me," he said, smiling down at her.

"Spoil what?"

"Well, if my two almost-favoritest girls would join me here on the couch…?" He held his arms wide, and Buffy and Willow sat down next to him. He opened his mouth, then said in a rush, "Nope, still not gonna tell. I'll wait till Giles gets back." Willow slugged his arm, making him laugh.

"I hate it when boys tease and then don't come through," Buffy said, irony in her voice.

"Girls, too," Willow added. When they both looked at her, she said, "What?" without a trace of defensiveness.

Buffy started chuckling. "I've missed you two," she said impulsively. Then, when they both stared at her, she echoed Willow. "What?"

Xander looked uncertain. "It's just, um, you're in a good mood."

"I'm happy," she said brightly.

"What happened?" Willow asked slowly.

"Nothing happened." Buffy looked away, hiding a smile. "Or, maybe it did. Maybe I just got over myself."

"Oookay," Xander said. Then he gave his head a small, determined shake. "Cool by me. I like happy Buffy."

"I like happy Buffy, too," Willow said.

"Then it's unanimous," the Slayer declared, slapping her hands on her thighs. "We all like happy Buffy."

"Well, Happy Xander is glad Happy Buffy is here," he said, then turned to his best friend. "And is Happy Willow here?"

"Oh! That reminds me of Bob Ross, the painter who used to be on public television – 'a happy little tree lives here.'"

Buffy nodded at her. "A happy little Willow tree. Oh, I loved Bob Ross."

"Not me," Xander said. "He creeped me out. Too mellow."

"I like mellow."

"Of course you like mellow, Wil – Oz." Xander gave her a look. "He's as much mellow as I can take."

"Well, that's because you're hyper."

"Not so much now. You have scary monsters jump out at you around every gravestone for a few years, you get less hyper."

Buffy was smiling at them fondly. "Maybe we're just getting older."

"Speak for yourself, little miss adult," Xander admonished.

"Are we grownups?" Willow mused.

"Ooh, I can answer that one," Giles said, coming back into his office. He pulled a chair closer to face the three sitting on the couch, but didn't give the answer. "I got Aubrey settled. Illyria can be quite intimidating."

"Well, he's not used to anyone who's intellectually superior," Buffy said.

"Superior in every way," Xander added, gesturing for emphasis.

"Perhaps we won't see her again after this battle," Giles said with a sigh.

"I bet Angel will be glad to shower alone again," Willow said, smirking.

"What?" Buffy said. Then, "Oh. Right."

"But what did you want, Xander?" He went ahead and took his glasses off, just to be prepared.

"I am the man with the announcement. This morning, I asked Lina to marry me." He beamed, then added quickly. "She said yes."

"Oh, Xander, that's wonderful!" Buffy hugged him.

"I knew you couldn't wait until Valentine's Day," Willow said, snaking her arms beneath Buffy's and hugging him, too.

"Congratulations," Giles said, shaking the young man's hand. "From what I've seen, she's a lovely girl."

"We have to celebrate!" Buffy enthused. "Big party, lots of fun."

"Lina and I already celebrated," Xander said, something sly in his voice, "then we both had to go off to work since I was too impatient to wait for some romantic occasion to give her the ring. Or at least a weekend. I feel very stupid and very adult."

"Well, after the battle, but," Buffy allowed, "then… Party."

"'Cause we have to see the ring," Willow said, nodding her agreement.

"Oh, yes, totally," Giles said, his voice light and his accent suspiciously Californian. There was another knock on the door, and he turned his head toward the sound. "Yes, Aubrey?"

It was Alan Jacobson. "It's me," he said apologetically. "They're coming in." When the four looked at him blankly, he added. "Demons, to the medical arts building. The battle is tonight."

"Tonight?" Buffy looked between her Watcher and her friends. "Did we know it would be tonight?"

"You're sure?" Giles posed the question to Jacobson. "We were all quite positive it would be tomorrow."

"Unless the Watchers on site have gotten into the nitrous oxide in the second floor dental office, I can't imagine that they'd not know a demon influx after seven battles."

Giles forced a smile. "You're right, of course, Alan. I'm just surprised, is all. Thank you." The other man nodded and withdrew.

"Good." There was a gleam in Xander's eyes. "I'll be glad to take care of this prophecy once and for all."

"You really think we can, Giles?" Willow asked.

He rubbed his brow. "I think so. If Illyria comes through with her assistance in locating the energy…" Giles looked at their faces, so dear to him, and he had to smile. "I think we can. We have to try."

"What can't we do…" Willow began, then trailed off, sending an uncertain look at Buffy.

"When we're together?" Buffy finished. She still hated the whole, literal sing-your-heart-out incident, but the sorcerer who had conjured that particular demon was dead now, and those emotions had been good ones. And she had to admit, it had been a catchy tune.

"So long as we don't find the Energizer bunny is the source of the power, we're good." Xander had a slight smile on his face.

Giles laughed and stood up. "Oh, I do miss Anya. Well, I suppose we all have work to do now."

Buffy let Willow and Xander go out ahead of her. "Giles? Do you have a minute? I-it won't take long." If the battle was tonight, then her life was going to restart a day earlier. She might as well start laying the groundwork. Some non-blond support would be good to have before her talk with Angel.

"Of course, Buffy." Giles examined her face, then closed the door, giving them privacy.

She looked up at him and gave him a reassuring smile. "It's nothing bad. Only, do you remember a while back, you told me that you only wanted for me to be happy, that everything else seems to fall away?"

Giles' chin rose a fraction. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to tell you," she shrugged, "I think I'm ready to give the happy a try."

If anything, he studied her even more closely. "You're… ready to be happy?"

Buffy moved restlessly. "Three years, Giles, since I came back. I've been running away instead of dealing for most of that time." She gave him a wistful smile. "Maybe I was running instead of dealing before I died. I don't know." Buffy's lips compressed for a second. "But I'm always gonna be the Slayer, and I can deal with at least that much now. I'd like to do more than just… exist, just choose the easiest path. I've been back a long time, and if I'm going to be here, I want to be happy."

"You deserve to be happy."

She shrugged. "Doesn't everybody?"

"Buffy… Did something happen?"

"It did. Drusilla came to town and people died."

"And some almost died." One of his patented penetrating Giles looks.

Her gaze didn't waver despite her relief. He got it. "Almost."

Her Watcher gave her a very slight smile. "I'm very glad to hear you're ready." He looked away, finally, and asked in a casual tone, "I suppose this means you'll want to be closer to your sister. Move in with her, perhaps."

Buffy tried to hide her smile. "I had dinner at Dawn's apartment last night. It's nice there. I think there's room for me."

"Fourth floor walkup," he pointed out.

"Not the easiest path," was her soft reply, "but if I can be happy, I'll deal."

He let out most of his breath in a soundless laugh, a real smile creasing his face. "Whatever you decide to do, I will always support you." Giles stepped toward her, but she was already moving in to give him a rib-crunching embrace.

⸹

Angel picked at his rare steak, not interested in the excellent food at the Ritz-Carlton's Century, but glad to be at a table anywhere with his companions. He and Lorne had gone to the airport for Gunn, and the three of them were having a late lunch at the hotel. Since he could feel that Connor was not in the building, it freed him to enjoy his friends' company, rather than wishing he was upstairs with his son.

Gunn and Lorne teased him about joining the Council and becoming a Wesley, then they had toasted the memory of the rogue demon hunter. The conversation was sober for a while, focusing mostly on Illyria's return and how much of Fred, if any, was left. Charles firmly changed the subject, asking Lorne about his new job and condo and Grevelslaugh lover. Entertainment ran so strongly in Lorne that he'd had to change dimensions to express it, and he soon had them laughing and boisterous with his descriptions of tight-faced Palm Beach matrons, aged perma-tanned playboys, and a rumored unfortunate Viagra incident at a seniors' golf tournament. Lorne skillfully switched the conversation to Gunn's life in Falls Church, all the while making sure that brooding never entered Angel's mind.

"So, there I was, at the top of what they were calling a bunny slope," Gunn said, shaking his head at the memory, "and I'm thinking I'd rather face a whole mess of vampires."

"You survived," Lorne said encouragingly.

"Yeah, but my cool didn't. I was one pale brother."

"How did Gwen handle it?" Angel asked, curious.

"The whole bundled-up ski bunny thing worked for her," the tall man said, lifting a shoulder, "of course. And you know how she moves. No problem staying upright on her skis at all."

"I'm glad you had a good time," Angel said, and with gentle ribbing, "and aren't in a body cast."

"I'd just get your best friend and mine, Willow, to brew up some of that magic healing potion."

Lorne put an elbow on the table and propped his chin in his hand, observing the vampire. "Isn't it just delicious to see Mr. Broodypants smile? I've got to tell you, Angel, it's a good look on you."

"All down to Willow," he said, lifting his water glass in salute, as he saw that he had nothing left in his wineglass.

"And to Buffy," Gunn added slyly.

He laughed. "And to Buffy." Angel lifted his glass once more. "Couldn't have done it without her." He stopped, turning to the front of the restaurant, sensing his son. Connor, wearing jeans and a hoodie with a disreputable design, was speaking with one of the waiters. Angel lifted his hand in greeting, rising from his chair so the boy would be sure to see him.

Connor, of course, was perfectly aware of where the vampire and demon were. The waiter grudgingly let him pass, and Connor shuffled over, his hands in the kangaroo pouch. "Hey, Angel, Lorne, Gunn," he greeted them. "I was down at the gym, but there's not a lot going on there right now."

"There will be tomorrow," Gunn reassured him. He held out his hand. "Good work last time, man."

Connor shook. "You, too. I wish I had your reach."

"I wish I had your speed."

Meanwhile, Lorne was frowning. "Have we met?"

The young man flushed. "Uh, back in California, once." His eyes shifted apologetically to his father. "Angel introduced us in passing. I bet people in this dimension tend to remember meeting you, huh?" Connor belatedly held out his hand, wondering for a fleeting moment what this meeting would be like if his father had chosen to keep secrets the way the Scoobies had kept Dawn's secret. Lorne probably wouldn't shake my hand, he decided. "Connor Reilly."

Since the Pylean was still studying his son more closely than Angel felt comfortable with, he rushed in. "Connor's family brought him to Wolfram and Hart because someone was trying to kill him."

Connor shrugged. "It was a whole prophecy thing. It's over now." He shifted his focus to his father. "But it put me in touch with Angel, gave me a chance to fight for the good guys."

"Well, have a seat with the good guys," Lorne invited, pushing an unoccupied chair toward him.

"Thanks." Connor threw a glance over his shoulder. "It'll keep me from being thrown out."

Gunn made a wry mouth. "What? You didn't bring a dinner jacket to wear while fighting demons?"

"Left it at the cleaners."

"Well, if they don't object to me, I don't see how they can object to you." Though his small horns were hidden beneath a hat, Lorne had long since given up trying to hide his green skin.

"You're wearing a suit, though," Connor pointed out. Lorne was, in a conservative eggplant shade. Changing the topic, he looked between Gunn and the Pylean. "Now that Wolfram and Hart is out of business, what have you been doing?"

Angel stayed quiet, listening to them reacquaint themselves, watching his son's social ease and affability with a proud heart. This was everything he had wanted for Connor, for him to become a bright, gregarious, kind young man. The fact that he got to be in his son's life, even on the margins, was more than he'd ever dared to hope.

Connor's cell phone rang a couple of seconds before Angel's. After very short conversations, they both hung up. "Buffy," Angel said. "Demons are starting to migrate toward the medical office."

"Dawn," Connor said, stowing away the phone, "same thing."

"Today?" Lorne asked. "I thought it was supposed to be tomorrow."

"You don't feel it?" Angel asked in surprise. He put his napkin on the table and stood up.

"Dawn?" Gunn asked, teasing.

Connor looked away. "She's a nice girl."

"Full demon," Lorne said, shrugging and taking his napkin from his lap. "I get a brush of it every so often."

"She is a nice girl," Gunn agreed, standing up, "with a Rottweiler named Spike guarding her. I thought about dating one of his slayers, Rona, back before she got married, and he was all up in my face about it." He turned to Angel as he reached for the check. "I'll sign for it."

"Oh, it's nothing like that," Angel said hurriedly, nodding to acknowledge Gunn's generosity but keeping his eyes on Connor. "It's just that she's Buffy's little sister, and they're the same age."

"It is something like that, actually," Connor corrected.

Angel stopped so suddenly that Gunn plowed into his back. "It is?"

Connor met his eyes for a long moment. "I really like her.

Gunn chuckled. "All I'm sayin' is, stay away from bleached blondes in dark alleys."

The young man forced a laugh. "I'll do that." He looked away from Angel, caught Gunn's eye. "I guess we go to the armory first?"

"Sure." Angel couldn't bring himself to smile. Dawn had always made him uncomfortable. "We'll take my Camry, since it's still light outside."

"Do you have room for me?"

Angel stared at Lorne in surprise. "You… want to help?" he asked slowly.

"Oh, I always want to help. I'm not going to fight, though. I just want to come along and meet more of these yummy slayers."

⸹

"Spike, is this going to be okay?"

They were walking the short distance between his truck to the gym, and he gave Dawn a puzzled look. "Okay?"

She shrugged, not wanting to articulate it. "Illyria did seek you out first. I remember what you were like after you came from L.A."

After a moment, his brow cleared. "Oh, no, pet. Nothing like that." Spike pulled her against his side in a one-armed embrace and aimed a kiss at her temple.

She dodged away, needing him to take this seriously. "The Ram is supposed to be a pretty badass demon."

"Language."

"You'll be careful?"

He looked into her anxious face. "I will, and you be careful, too." When she didn't look away, he added, "I don't know these things, Bit, not a seer like Dru, but if I thought this was a kamikaze run, I'd say goodbye, like I promised." He gave her a smile and a bit of a shrug. "Got stuff to live for, yeah?"

She did a Xander impression, jabbing her index finger at him emphatically. "And don't you forget it." As Spike held the door of the gym for her, Dawn looked over her shoulder to ask, "Everyone already here?"

"We're the last," he confirmed.

"Well, I had to have a shower after you drooled on me."

"I didn't drool." He looked abashed, though. "Dead tired, Bit, you'll pardon the pun."

"And you snored."

"Don't push it."

"Oh, good," Buffy said, coming toward to them in a rush. "You're here. Can I talk to you?"

Dawn looked down to where Buffy had claimed her arm. "You want to talk to me? That's good, because I'd like to talk to you, too."

"Off your high horse, Dawnie," her sister warned, but there was no heat in her voice. Buffy turned her attention to Spike. "Can I borrow the keys to your truck for a moment? Please," she added.

"Uh," he said, snapping back to the present, the obvious look of fond remembrance giving way to forced seriousness as he fished in a coat pocket. "Sure."

"More drool," Dawn sighed.

"You can't hear what people say when they're in the parking lot, can you?" Buffy couldn't, and she was pretty sure vampire hearing wasn't that much better than hers. When Spike shook his head, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "I'll bring her back in a moment," she said, hauling her sister out the door after her, leaving a bemused vampire in her wake.

"We're already late, Buffy," Dawn hissed.

"Well, they're not going to start without me."

Even Dawn had to concede this point, and she was curious anyway. She did make sure she got the driver's seat, though, going for psychological command of the situation. After starting the engine and turning up the heater, she turned to Buffy. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Did Spike tell you I stayed last night?"

"He did."

Buffy looked at Dawn's lowered brows and felt a wave of love for her sister because she so fiercely protected her best friend. She had been just like Dawn, once upon a time. "Good. How would you feel if I stayed more often? Say, every night?"

"What?"

"I want to know if I can move in with you."

"What is Angel going to say about you having sleepovers with Spike?"

This was enough to make her look down at her hands. "I'm going to talk to Angel tonight. After that, I-I… We won't be living together."

"What's going on, Buffy?"

"Remember what I said at New Years, when we were going to bed?" When Dawn nodded, she went on. "Well, I didn't risk anything, didn't give Spike the chance to hurt me." She took a breath. "But if Drusilla had killed him, I would have died, too, it would have hurt so bad." Buffy pursed her lips. That wasn't the whole story, and she wanted to be honest. "Even before that, he showed up with the Chinese Slayer's sword to give to me so I could skewer Dracula – well, you know, fake Dracula. I didn't call him or even try Willow's mind-link thing. Spike just knew – and he didn't show up to save me." She rolled her eyes at the idea. "I can't tell you how… whole that made me feel. I think that's when I realized."

"Realized… what?"

"The difference."

"Difference." Dawn lifted her eyebrows to show she was still clueless.

"I'm always going to love Angel, but I don't think we're in love anymore." Buffy's expression was sad. "Star-crossed soulmates, epic love. I can't tell you how hard it is to give that up, that idea. That kind of love must mean you're special, right? Not just Slayer special… extra-special. But I don't think his love for me survived that long in Los Angeles, and maybe I've just been in love with the idea of loving him, too.

"He's a different person, more commanding, more… more of a force, I guess. He doesn't need me to help him fight his battles any more than I need him to help me fight mine – well," she rolled her eyes again, "obviously it's good to have him here for this. But we have different battles to fight."

Dawn was frowning. "Spike showing up with the sword made you finally realize that you weren't in love with Angel?"

"No." She looked up from her hands into her sister's eyes, taken aback to see how close their blue was to Spike's as much as she was by the fact that Dawn already knew. But she was their lovechild, wasn't she? "That's when I really understood the difference between the way I feel about them. It isn't that I feel something with Spike that I don't feel with Angel anymore. I feel something completely different." Her voice dropped to a whisper for a moment. "Something amazing. And when Drusilla showed up and nearly killed him, I realized that I depend on Spike to just always be there, whether I let him get any closer or not.

"When he died, and we moved to Rome," Buffy said, reaching for her sister's hand, "I couldn't share anything with you, because I was so empty inside." She looked down, watching her thumb rub over Dawn's knuckles. "Or, not empty. Full of guilt, because of the Slayer dreams, but empty because of the prospect of years and years of life without having a connection like that to anyone ever again. I neglected you, sweetie, but it was never your fault, never about you."

Dawn thought of Connor, how he filled a space in her heart that had never had anything in it before, a place that she'd never known was empty, waiting for something new to fill it. "I think I understand. I won't lie; it hurt. I wish you could have told me this in Italy, but I think I understand."

"I am so sorry." She sighed. "And then he came back. You figured out that I was terrified because I couldn't lose him again, I just couldn't. And Angel was so alone. Spike had you, and Giles, too, and then all 'his' slayers, but Angel had lost almost everyone from L.A."

"Only, now you know he does have someone," Dawn said, realizing. "Knowing about Connor makes a difference."

Buffy nodded, relieved to have that out in the open. "I was still angry that he'd never told me about his son, but I was even angrier because I had made the wrong decision because I just didn't know."

"Plus, at the time, you didn't know the First Slayer had used you to try to kill Spike," Dawn reminded her.

She put a hand on her chest. "Right. Horrible, awful Buffy." The Slayer closed her eyes for a moment; the memories were still there, even if the rage was gone. "But there was something else, Dawn. I…" She licked her lips; she'd never said this aloud. "Sometimes I didn't know how I could go on for another second. And if I… died again, let something kill me…."

"If you killed yourself," Dawn supplied, putting a hand out to her sister.

Buffy nodded. "Angel would be able to go on. I couldn't hurt Spike like that."

Dawn wiped her eyes. For a long moment, she didn't say anything. "Does this, wanting to be with Spike, does this mean… you're better?"

"I'm able to face truth," she squeezed Dawn's hand, "able to tell the truth. To myself, to others. I hope that means I'm better."

"How much of this did you tell Spike?"

Buffy shook her head. "I told Giles and Faith, sort of, but Spike… He told me not to say anything, not to make promises. I did anyway; I told him I would never hurt him again." She gave her sister a beseeching look. "And I won't, Dawn. I asked him to wait just a little while longer, long enough to end things with Angel. Even though I dread telling him, I'm glad the battle is today, because after it's over," she squeezed Dawn's fingers, "I'd like to come home."

In the past, Dawn would have flung herself at Buffy for hugs and happy tears, but she had grown wary of the Slayer's promises, too. Still, her sister had also told Giles and, of all people, Faith. Spike was right; she was being open, certainly different than she had been for so long. "How do you think Angel will take it?"

Buffy took her hand from Dawn's and clasped both hers together. "I think… Angel wanted to talk about moving back to California – both of us, I mean – after the Kanai prophecy battles are over. I think he'll go, no matter what I do."

"To be closer to Connor," Dawn said, a certain weariness in her voice.

"To be with his son," she agreed, studying her sister's downcast eyes. "I can't blame him. I feel like I missed so much of your growing-up."

"More than you know," Dawn muttered. Then, louder, "Listen, Buffy, when you have your talk with Angel, do it right. You two are going to be in each other's lives."

"Angel will always be part of my life," Buffy said firmly, "and I hope he'll feel the same way this time." Then she gave Dawn a narrow look, getting it. "You and Connor."

Her sister nodded. "I asked Willow to get the Coven to expand the spell to include him. I told him about me being the Key today."

Buffy's eyes widened in fear. No one could know! Dawn was watching her carefully, waiting for her reaction, though, so she forced herself to relax. "That's… serious."

"I've never felt this way about anyone before," Dawn confessed, looking down. Her sleek brown hair fell over her face, obscuring her expression. "He's cute and everything, but I'm so comfortable with him. I can talk to him, really talk, instead of spazzing." She looked back up, a plea in her eyes, wanting her sister to understand. "The best part of my day is getting a message from him, or hearing his voice on the phone."

Buffy stared at her hands. Her fingers had been raw and bloody once, and the best part of her day had been fleeing the bright, loud world to return to the quiet, dark cemetery, descending not to her grave but to the crypt of someone who knew what it was like to claw one's way out of a coffin. "I understand," she said, quiet. Her baby sister was in love.

Dawn waited anxiously. There were times when her sister's first reaction to any roadblock in her path was to blow it up. Between them, Buffy and Angel could make things with Connor difficult.

The Slayer took a breath. "I hadn't planned to be all drama queen with Angel, anyway. I'll do everything I can not to burn my bridges, though."

 _Good_. "Thanks," she said instead.

"Does Spike know?" She was just curious.

"I told him. He's fine with it." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Well, maybe not fine, but he hasn't threatened to geld Connor."

Buffy snorted. "He really does like him."

Warm air blew onto the floorboards, the only sound for several seconds. Then Dawn took a breath. "So, do you want your own room, or are you going to stay with Spike?"

She bit her lip, tears coming to her eyes because Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You could go home again, and at the end of this day, that's where she was going. Buffy reached blindly for Dawn's hand. "I'd like to share a room with him."

Her little sister nodded. "All right. But the couch is off-limits for gross displays of lurve," she warned, giving the last word a British spin. "It's just for cuddles, family bonding."

The Slayer cleared her throat. "Um, okay."

Dawn closed her eyes. Too late. Maybe she should transfer to Stanford. "Come on," she said, letting go of her sister's hand to switch off the ignition. "We'd better get inside. You've got a battle to plan."

⸹

Back in the gym, everything sped up. Giles was waiting impatiently at the door, Connor behind him, loitering near the reception desk. The younger man cast Dawn a worried look, eyebrows raised, so she sent him a reassuring smile. Buffy fell in step beside her Watcher, conversing in low, intense tones, so Dawn took Connor's hand as they went into the armory, going for casual and failing miserably.

Spike looked up from his notebook as the four came in, his sharp eyes cataloging the latest development in puppy love and the fact that Dawn wasn't upset. He bent his head back to the team rosters, staying busy so that Angel wouldn't be able to catch his eye. Despite all this, his focus was on Buffy, feeling her presence moving next to Giles, hearing her voice, her heartbeat, taking in the clean scent of her. He fancied that his cheek still tingled where she'd kissed him, such a normal gesture between two lovers and utterly outside his experience.

Across the room next to Lorne, Angel looked away from watching Gunn taking practice swings with a halberd to see his son as he entered the armory. Connor was holding hands with Dawn. Frowning, he looked at Buffy, but she was talking to Giles as if there was nothing worrisome about her little sister flirting with someone who went to a much better college on the West coast.

"Yo, B," Faith called from where she stood next to Vi. "What's the holdup?"

Buffy smiled at her instead of answering, knowing to take this as a sign that the other Slayer was ready to go, already. Robin had a long night ahead of him, once the battle was over. "Excuse me, Giles," she said, and walked over to Spike. "So, teams all set?"

He handed the notebook to her without a word. With slayers dead and Tiffany not returning, and well as the addition of Faith and Ute, Spike had to make several changes. Buffy held out her hand for his pencil and made one more.

Spike tilted his head to the side to read and frowned. She had put herself on point with him and Angel again. "What about finding the energy source?" he asked.

"That's what Illyria is supposed to do," she said, lifting a shoulder. The Slayer waited until he met her gaze. "I think we can be together from now on." It was a bold statement, and Buffy could tell he still was afraid to accept it at face value. The confusion on his face made her smile; he was cocksure so much of the time. It was kind of nice to be able to fluster Spike. She started to turn away, couldn't resist adding, "See you at the Restfield later." Then she turned back. He hadn't taken in a breath, but something had grabbed her attention. He was staring at her with an indescribable mix of disbelief and hope and adoration.

She'd seen. She'd really been there with him. "Always thought it was the Sunny Rest, myself." His voice was faint.

Buffy stared back at him. She'd thought she was being obscure, that he would have no idea what she meant. Once she'd shared elements of a dream with her closest friends in the aftermath of a powerful spell, and she and Faith, the two Chosen Ones, had visited each other's dreams. But no one had ever shared the landscape of her very thoughts. "We'll compare notes," she managed, her voice just as faint.

"Right," he agreed slowly.

"Okay," Buffy said, turning away to address her army, finding that she needed to move because this was too much to encompass at once, "get your stakes and come see Spike for your assignment. As long as it doesn't weigh you down, take an extra weapon. We have a good chance at finally tracking down the source of the energy that's been drawing demons to the Hellmouth, and we don't know if we'll have to fight another battle after the usual one. I'd rather be prepared." She looked at Xander, who was leaning against the programmable lathe, and gave him a little grin. There was a waist-high mountain of stakes stacked neatly against the wall behind it.

"Patrols have been quieter than normal before a battle," she went on, "and our resident experts think that's because a good number of demons hibernate in winter, at least in this climate. There may be mo' better vampires, though." No need to mention from whose line. Buffy unobtrusively put her hand out and groped around until she found Spike's. She gave him a reassuring squeeze before letting go. Looking around at the expectant faces, she crossed her arms. "Let's end this tonight, give Cleveland a reputation as a place of death for demons instead of a haven. That would be our best response to the losses we've endured."

"Hear, hear," Giles said, a sentiment echoed by several other Watchers.

The slayers came forward to Spike or went to take a few extra stakes from Xander. Buffy gave her vampire one last warm look, then squared her shoulders and went across the floor to Angel. "Hi, you," she said, looking up into his clear brown eyes.

"They're moving too fast," he said without preamble. "Connor and Dawn are too young, and living this far away from each other, it's just a guaranteed heartache."

His fretting was almost enough to make her smile. "I agree."

"You do?" This surprised him, she could tell.

"Just the distance between Sunnydale and Los Angeles was too much, as I recall," she said wryly. "But what can we do? We can't forbid them to see each other."

Angel looked as if he strongly disagreed with this statement. He looked away from her to find his son and Dawn smiling over some private joke. How could he tell Buffy that the reason he didn't want her sister to date Connor was because there was something that was just plain off about the girl?

"Winter Solstice was a month ago," Willow said, her hands in her pockets as she and the Slayer walked beneath the flap of the tent she'd magicked over the medical building, "so the days are longer. That gives us a little more time to get ready."

"Still January in Cleveland," Buffy said, her own hands near her mouth to capture her warm breath. "The extra sunlight doesn't seem to do much." The ride from the armory had been too short for the heater in Oz's van to get cranked up, and her focus was on the promised warmth inside the building ahead. She held her breath a second, catching sight of a slender blue figure at the door. "Illyria's here."

"I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to her being gone."

Buffy glanced at the redhead, surprised by the vehemence in her tone. "Because of Fred?" she asked sympathetically.

"Because I think she can kill us all without breaking a sweat if she feels like it."

"Angel and Spike both think she's… stable."

"And they're such models of logical, sane behavior."

The Slayer snorted; she couldn't help it. "But they do keep the collateral damage to a minimum," she pointed out.

"Not emotionally." Willow grimaced. "I'm sorry; just ignore me. I'm always snappish before one of these battles. I hate to use killing magic, even on demons."

"Then, let me say 'thank you,'" Buffy said, sliding an arm around her best friend's waist, "because I probably haven't before. And let me also say, you don't have to do it. I mean, come on, Wil – army of slayers?"

"Yeah, but if someone got hurt or worse while I was just sitting around, I'd feel responsible – you know what I mean."

"I do," Buffy said. That was all they had time for; they were at the door by now, and Illyria was blocking the way.

"You have 728 of the time units known as seconds to deploy your warriors before the mass influx occurs," Illyria said without preamble.

Buffy just goggled at her, but Willow said coolly, "Twelve minutes? More than enough time." The Battlegod regarded her for a moment, then turned and went into the building.

"Good mental math," the Slayer approved, impressed.

"Buffy, you'd just better get everyone in position and ready to go in ten minutes." Willow's eyes were narrow and cold, fixed on the slim back of the retreating Illyria.

"Yes, ma'am." She sketched a salute and turned toward the parking lot in time to see the enormous containment tent disappear.

The slayer army was in place in nine minutes, from the Watchers on the roof to Giles leaning against the information desk in front of the main doors, and Willow sent Buffy a strained smile before heading to the stairwell. Ute had asked to be stationed at the rear entrance, which had a wheelchair ramp that promised to be a bear to defend, and Spike had put her there with Gunn, Rona, and Faith. Dawn was with Vi, Isidra, and Xander at the foot of one first floor stairwell; Connor, Geneva, Kayla, and Vashti were at the other. Most Watchers were on the roof as usual, but several, including Oz, were on the second floor because the windows there had been glazed with nothing more than normal, breakable plate glass. The remaining slayers and their two human guests, Robin Wood and Manny Rojas, were also stationed there. Lorne parted ways with Gunn and headed for the second floor as well, wanting to be out of the way of the major carnage.

Spike tried to stare out into the increasingly dark parking lot instead of at the back of Buffy's head. She either was giving a great impression of serenity or actually was calm, her heart rate hovering just below sixty beats per minute. He was a wreck because of the man standing next to him, and he jumped when Angel spoke.

"I have to tell you, this makes me worry."

"It does?"

"I don't see any way it can work." The big vampire sighed. "It's only going to lead to heartache." He gave Spike a sour look. "And you aren't helping."

"Uh –" He glanced at his grandsire, guilt all over his face.

"Can't you tell her not to –"

Buffy's heart rate was at sixty-five now. "They're coming," she said, lifting the Slayer's Scythe.

Angel was silent a moment, then went on, lower. "I mean, they're both so young."

"Oh!" Spike felt tense muscles ease; Angel had been talking about Connor and Dawn. "Um, yeah, can't make 'em listen, gotta learn the hard way, an' all."

"Don't give me that," Angel scoffed. "Connor told me that you gave Dawn your blessing." Another guilty look from the blond Aurelian. "Well, why wouldn't you? Connor's a great kid." When Angel didn't add anything, Spike turned to give him an irate look. Angel dropped his gaze, might as well have bitten his tongue, the rest of his thought clear: he wasn't rejoicing because Dawn wasn't an equally great kid.

There was no guilt in the blue eyes now, just the beginnings of anger. "Connor is a great kid. And, still, he's not good enough for Dawn."

This time clear brown eyes grew muddy, but Angel forced himself to smile. "I don't mean anything by it. I just don't want either of them getting hurt."

"Yeah, well, don't ever forget that none of us – you, me, your son – are worthy of the Summers women. We're all of us just lucky to have ever been in their good graces." His grip on his Gurkha _Kukri_ knife tightened; outside, a rain of bolts was falling on the charging demons, mostly vampires who had been waiting for darkness to fall.

"Spike – she's just odd." Angel looked away from the other souled vampire at the coming horde, too. He would mention that she was immune to the Immortal if Buffy wasn't standing with them. "I mean, don't you think she gets vampires just a little too well?"

"Yeah, it'd be awful for a lad whose parents are vampires to end up with a girl like that."

"Don't give me that, boy. You know she's… different." Angel lowered his sword and glanced back to see if Giles was listening, then continued low and fierce. "And you know what price I paid to give him a normal life."

"Yeah? That why you got special boy here fighting demons?" Spike snarled. He would have given an oil tanker full of blood to be free to fling the fact that Dawn was prophecy girl just as much as Connor was prophecy boy in Angel's face, but he never would, spell or not. "Dawn is different; she knows how to love. If Connor's lucky enough to have that, maybe you have atoned."

They were nearly nose-to-nose now, and both sprang back as the Slayer's Scythe cut between them, singing as it sliced through the air. "Boys," Buffy said, smiling tightly, "if Connor and Dawn end up breaking each other's hearts, that's just life. If the two of you interfere, that's something I can deal with. Now, Montague, Caplet, if you don't mind," she turned her back on them, "we have a battle to fight."

"Capulet," Spike corrected, but he was grinning. He caught sight of Angel's diffident look. "Ponce."

"Pain in the ass." Angel had already closed his eyes before the smirk even settled on the other man's face. "Shut up, Spike."

"Take it out on them," the general directed, and on cue, the first demons crashed through the doors. Buffy mowed down the first five demons, so Angel and Spike flanked her, the blond vampire to her left, both more than ready to kill. The three of them fought silently, the Slayer with a small smile on her face.

A few yards behind them, Giles stepped forward, Bethany on his left and tiny Ivana on his right. There were enough vampires that some did make it past the three champions on point. Ivana kicked a seven-foot-tall demon in the face, staking it on the way down, grunting like a professional tennis player. On the floor above, Giles heard the tinkling of glass as the subgrade windows shattered. "Bugger," he said softly, then he had no time to say anything else, driving his blade into the face of some tusked, hairy demon that even he could not name.

"Xander!" Buffy called. "Take your team upstairs!" The sounds of combat above them could be heard over the din of their own battle.

"On our way!" He held the door for Vi, then Dawn and Isidra.

"Giles –" Buffy began, jabbing the wooden end of the Scythe into a vampire.

"Got it!" He was already falling back to cover the stairwell with Bethany and Ivana.

Left on point, the Slayer took a step back, away from the growing stack of bodies, positioning herself between the two souled vampires. Demons began crawling over their fallen numbers, frenzied and desperate to get to the energy that was a constant itch inside their heads. Angel kicked a carcass out of the way to step forward, putting his big body in the line of fire, happy to do so, the smile on his face not a match for the feral smile on his grandchild's or the serene one on Buffy's. It was colder, with a glint of malice. Angel grabbed the closest Hellion by the neck and simply crushed its throat with his hand, his sword slicing through the neck of the vampire behind it. He'd been waiting to unleash his emotions for weeks. Without a word or glance between them, Spike and Buffy began to fight in tandem, holding the center and the left of the entrance, leaving the right side defense in Angel's capable hands.

The battle went on for nearly an hour, longer than the Watchers had predicted based on light patrol tallies for the past week. When the influx of demons slowed to a trickle, Willow called down the screen that Xander had nicknamed 'the bug-zapper,' letting the magic pick off stray demons who were late to the party.

"Illyria!" Spike, in a rollicking good mood, beamed at her as she approached. "What, you didn't fight?"

She spared a disdainful look at the limp body he was letting fall to the floor. "I am maintaining my focus on the Ram."

"Have you located the source of the energy yet?" Buffy asked in a pleasant voice, confronting her simply because it would make Willow happy.

Illyria blinked at her. "It has not arrived yet."

"I'm sure it will show up in a few time units." Buffy turned away to hide the gleam in her eye, bending to wipe her blade on the leather tunic of a scaly dead something.

Angel bent close to her to do the same. "Don't bait the Battlegod." He wiped the other side of his sword and gave her a small smile as he added in a louder voice, "Good fight."

"You, too."

Spike looked away from the pair regarding each other warmly, reminding himself to not breathe. Just waiting, same as ever. He caught Illyria's eye. "So, your worship, any clue as to where this bloke will appear?"

"Not here." Illyria's remote gaze scanned their surroundings, penetrating the walls, room after room. "There will be a passage."

"We'd better go upstairs and see what's going on there." Buffy marched toward the stairs without waiting for agreement; it was a command, and the two men and even Illyria trailed in her wake.

"Liam?"

"Mm?"

"I do like Connor." They were shoulder to shoulder on the stairs, not looking at each other.

"Dawn doesn't like me," Angel said, leaving aside the issue of whether he liked her. The girl just made him nervous. "But I'm not the one who wants to date her."

That idea was enough to put an ugly glint in Spike's eye. "No. You're not."

"I just want him to be happy."

"And nothing makes kids happier than parents who interfere." When the dark-haired man didn't say anything, Spike added in a soft tone, "Don't hold onto him too tightly, Liam. Doesn't work."

"And you're a model of letting people go free?" Angel's tone was wry.

"No." His voice was clipped. "Look how well that's worked out for me. Alone, yeah? But I'm trying with Sweet Bit, gonna let her make her own way, be a person in full. Doesn't always work out how I'd like, but 'm'not a monster anymore. Can't force people to do things."

Angel frowned, glancing at Spike, wondering if he meant anything by that. The blond man had his eyes on Buffy as she went through the door to the second floor, a longing expression on his face. He let the boy go ahead, feeling for him, and held the door for Illyria, too, who inclined her head royally.

"Everything okay here?" Buffy asked Xander.

"Under control." He shook his head. "Too bad I'm not still in construction. I'd love to have the contract on this one." When she raised her brows, he added, "Every window will need to be replaced." Xander jerked his head down the corridor. "We're about to go room-to-room to kill the vamps and whatnot; they can't get at us because of the X's."

"Sounds like fun," she sighed. By the time they finished with the last room, all the teams except the Watchers on the roof had joined them on the second floor.

"Illyria," Giles began, having kept a watch on her since coming upstairs, "is there any-"

"Come," she said abruptly, turning away to stride toward the far end of the corridor. Like a hunting dog, she stopped dead before a door, her focus scarily intense. There was no 'x' on this one. Her head tilted to the side, and she looked over her shoulder at the group trailing behind, her eyes going over each face consideringly. "This is the passage."

"Where does it lead?" Willow was frowning.

"Elsewhere."

"Another dimension?" the young witch pressed.

Illyria's gaze went to Dawn. "No. A pocket of this one."

Buffy watched the two study each other for a moment, Dawn's gaze nearly as alien as Illyria's, then she glanced back at Giles. He nodded at her, grave and unsmiling. "Let's go," she muttered, starting forward. "These doors don't last long."

Illyria stood aside and let the Slayer go first, surprising her. Buffy put her hand on the lever, pushed down, and swung the door open cautiously. Inside was an empty hallway, a mirror of the one she'd just left, the carpet and muted wallpaper the same. She couldn't see far; the corridor bent around a corner.

"Careful," Spike said, anxious, crowding up behind her. "Could still be some things inside, like that slime demon."

"He's right," Illyria said, tilting her head to give Angel a piercing look. The big vampire lifted his sword and followed closely on Spike's heels.

"I'll go next," Willow said, stepping forward, and Oz and Xander fell in right behind her. Lorne moved forward, more out of curiosity than any other reason. Giles came next, then Dawn, who had been standing next to him, and Connor, who had been standing next to her. Illyria moved so that she was directly at his back, and when she'd gone through the doorway, she shut it behind her.

"Hey!" Faith yelled, the door slamming in her face. She rattled the knob, which was now locked.

The expression known as 'smile' touched Illyria's face again, and she didn't bother making it go away as she casually gestured toward the door behind her, dampening the sound on the other side.

"Open the door!" Faith gave the blue not-Fred thing two seconds, then muttered, "Fine. I'll open it myself." She raised her arm and brought it down in a hammer fist, aiming for the spot just above the lock. Instead, she found her arm buried up to the elbow in drywall. "What the hell?" She turned back, dark hair falling over her shoulder, to meet the uneasy stares of the people behind her: Robin, Gunn, the other slayers, a couple of stray Watchers. "The door's just… gone."

Inside the corridor, Connor started to turn around, something catching at the edges of his perception. There was a snarl from ahead in the corridor, though, and he slid in front of Dawn protectively. "What's going on?"

A muscular, orange demon in a stained loincloth and little else had barreled around the corner of the corridor. On point, Buffy lifted the Slayer Scythe like a halberd and came down on the right side of its neck. Quicker than human sight, Spike was beside her, his motions her mirror image, his long knife biting into its neck on the left.

Peering around Angel, Giles leaned back to answer Connor. "Nothing. Watch your step." Seeing that no one was behind Illyria, he frowned. "Where are the rest of us?"

"The door closed." Illyria regarded him without blinking.

Hearing this, Buffy stepped between the two Aurelians and did a quick count of the eleven beings present. She jumped to see, getting a glimpse of the blank wall behind Dawn and Illyria. "It really didn't last long."

At the head of the column, Angel suddenly lunged past Spike, a stake in his hand, and dusted a vampire that emerged from around the corridor. Before he moved back, he winked at the other Aurelian. "You can thank me later."

Spike gave him a cool look. "Close your eyes, and I'll do it now." He moved his sword in an arc above his head, slicing through the neck of the vampire that was creeping along the ceiling toward them. Angel, blinking, slapped the grit from his hair and shoulders. The blond man grinned. "You can thank me anytime you want, Peaches."

Buffy rolled her eyes at the silky tone. "Give it a rest, you two, before I get jealous." She stepped over the orange demon's carcass and slid between them, lifting the Scythe as a precaution as she rounded the bend in the hallway. "Let's see where these guys are coming from." The corridor was empty. "Huh. I'm not getting anything."

"Me, either." Angel's grip on his sword tightened. There was another corner to go around. When they got there, the carpeting ended, giving way to a simple plank floor. Their footsteps sounded hollow and muffled on the wood.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Xander said, perhaps inevitably, as they rounded yet another crook in the passage.

"We are not in the geographic location on this continent currently above water and labeled Kansas," Illyria agreed.

He turned to give her a look. "Just an expression." Xander met Willow's amused eyes.

"C'mon," Spike muttered, his nerves stretched, willing more opponents to pop out at him, but nothing happened as the three on point rounded another bend. "I feel air movement," he said abruptly. "We're coming to the end."

A few more steps, and Buffy lifted her brows. "You could say that." They were about to step into a cavern or were on a lower ledge of a canyon; it was hard to tell which. Stone walls rose above and went on below, with the open space resembling a cylinder. She leaned forward to look up and down, unable to see either a roof or the bottom, both shrouded in darkness. The wooden floor continued, in a fashion, with a board walkway leading from the rough doorway toward whatever was at the bottom, slanting down with many turns and switchbacks. No path that led up the rock face.

Spike and Angel had both put a hand on her waist as she leaned forward. The blond man slid one shoulder past her, then went to game face for a moment. "Nothing." He shook his head as he moved back, having gathered no more from his supernatural senses than they already knew.

"Good thing we've got these sturdy-looking… things that we can use to go down," Angel said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Scaffolding," Xander offered, peering over Angel's shoulder.

"Gangways," Buffy said, her voice sounding with a note of power.

"From your dream?" Giles asked.

She met his eyes, answering without a word. "I guess we're on the right track."

"Illyria?" Giles asked.

"There is only one path," she said.

"Helpful as ever," Willow muttered, shaking her head. Oz squeezed her fingers.

"Okay." Buffy took a breath. "These don't look that sturdy. I'll go first, see if they'll support my weight." She turned to Spike. "Stay with Dawn?" He nodded, then hung back, waiting for the youngest Summers to move up.

"I'll go after Buffy. I think I'm heaviest," Angel said, quickly sizing up Lorne and Xander.

"Stay back a section," Buffy warned. She stepped out onto the first wooden platform, ready to spring back if necessary. When it held, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and looked over her shoulder at the anxious faces. "So far, so good."

The group began picking their way carefully down the walkway, Buffy first, then Angel, Giles, Xander, Willow, Oz, Lorne, Connor, Dawn, Spike, and Illyria. They left plenty of space between them, not trusting the sections of wooden scaffolding to hold all their weight at once.

"The light is following us," Giles said after about five minutes. "We should have moved into darkness by now. Angel, can you see anything?"

"Just more of the same," the big vampire replied, his eyes showing yellow as he looked back at the Watcher.

"I don't smell anything living."

Willow glanced at Oz and nodded. "At least it's dry, no damp places for frogs and spiders," she said, nonetheless being careful not to touch the walls any more than necessary. "How far down is it, I wonder?"

"All the way." Oz gave her a little smile.

The downward progress went on for a while longer. "Anyone know how long we've been walking?" Lorne asked.

"An accurate measure of time cannot be realized here." Illyria stared unblinkingly at the green demon as he paused at a switchback to regard her.

Lorne leaned over to Willow. "Remind me again why I'm here?"

"I think it's because we're the good guys," she said, giving him a grim little smile.

"She's right, though," Connor whispered to Dawn and Spike, holding up his wrist. "My watch has stopped."

"How about a round of that great road trip standard, '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?'" Xander suggested a short time later.

"Uh, let's not talk about what would happen if one of the bottles should happen to fall," Buffy said dryly.

"Please, no singing," Lorne added. "I really don't want to be distracted."

A long silence fell after that, not broken until Spike picked up the slight sound of Dawn wincing. "You all right, then, love?"

She grimaced. "Tight muscles or ligaments or something, from walking downhill for so long."

Connor gave her a concerned look. "Do you need to stop?"

"No. I've got dibs on the ibuprofen whenever we get back, though."

"Do you sense anything?" Buffy, at the head of the line, asked in a low voice.

"No," Angel replied, leaning close. "Like Oz said, this place is almost… sterile. Not much in the way of scent outside of dust. No auras of anything living, nothing to hear."

She nodded. "At least we're on the right path, since there is only one."

He noticed the dry tone. "Illyria did come through," he said defensively. "We've never been this close to the source of the energy."

"I know," she sighed. "It's just –" Whatever else she was about to say faded as she heard an ominous cracking noise from the boards beneath her. A second later, the section of planking she stood on tore away from the stone face of the wall and crashed into the one below, pulling the above series of walkways along with it.

Even with a preponderance of champions and humans with enhanced abilities, not all of them made it to safety. Buffy jumped along with the falling boards, eventually perching three levels lower on part of the walkway that stayed anchored to the wall. Angel's first thought was to snatch her to safety, but she was too far away, and he ended up clinging to the rock alone, fingertips scrabbling against the surface for a moment until he went to demon form. Higher up, Oz grabbed a thick iron nail still in the rock with one hand and Willow's waist with his other, his quick reflexes and strength allowing them both a critical extra second to find footholds. At the end of the line, both Connor and Spike reached out for Dawn, the vampire going to game face even as he yanked his Nibblet close, holding to the wall with supernatural ability. Last of all, Illyria stood on the jagged edge of the walkway, hers being the final section that held.

Even with her brown hair tumbling over her face, Dawn saw Connor fall, still reaching for her. She screamed his name as his pale face disappeared into the darkness.

"Giles!" Buffy's voice was high and hoarse.

"Lorne!" Angel bellowed, grabbing futilely for the eggplant-colored coat as his friend plummeted past him.

"Xander!" Even as she said his name, Willow thrust a hand toward the darkness. " _Catch!_ " It was a raw, inelegant use of magic, and Oz lost his handhold for a moment as the force of the spell yanked against them both.

"Did you get them?" Buffy called anxiously.

 _Connor_. Looking up, not seeing his son, Angel met Dawn's eyes instead, the anguish in hers mirroring his own. "Did you get them all?"

"I think so." Willow's face was white.

"This is inefficient," Illyria said, her flat voice shaded with exasperation. With a wave of her hand, she enclosed the people clinging to the wall in a field of cold plasma, and they began floating down toward the bottom.

As soon as the energy enveloped him, Angel made his way toward the Old One. "You couldn't have done this from the first?" he snarled.

She was unperturbed. "There was no need."

The big vampire stood before her, his fists clenched, wild with worry. It was Dawn's slim hand on his shoulder that anchored him, the physical touch soothing, and he looked down at her, surprise in the brown eyes, knowing she wanted to reassure him, needing reassurance herself. On her other side, Spike tried to provide it, winding his arm around her waist.

Willow, a white nimbus around her outstretched arm, took a breath as she peered beneath them. "I see someone. It's Giles!"

The Head of the Council was literally caught in midair, his arms spread out as if he was floating in water. As the plasma field enveloped him, he moved, grasping at anything that had substance to right himself. Buffy was there, helping him to an upright position, then burying her face in his checked shirt. "Oh, Giles," she breathed.

"Wonderful to see you, my dear," he said, shaky. Then he joined her in looking down. "Who else?"

"Xander, Lorne, Connor," she recited quickly, still clinging to him.

"There's the whelp," Spike said, relief apparent in his voice.

"And Lorne," Angel added, anxiously peering past his friend, willing his yellow eyes to see further. The green-skinned demon was dangling upside down, as if Willow's spell had caught him by the ankle.

"And that was so fun," Xander murmured, having watched the rest of the group descend toward his midair position. As soon as he got to his knees, he took Spike's outstretched hand and let the blond man haul him to his feet. "Bungee jumping with no bungee. Oh, yeah, there's money to be made here."

"Illyria," Lorne said as the energy field enveloped him, "I will never forgive you for the fact that I'm here rather than in Palm Springs."

"It is immaterial to me." She was still regarding Angel.

"Nevertheless," he said, staggering to his feet and righting his suit coat.

"I still have one more," Willow said. Angel closed his eyes in relief, and Dawn swayed, leaning against him.

Connor had been 'caught' considerably below the rest, and the first thing they saw was him looking up at them. The second was the fact that he had crashed partway through some surface, pieces of fallen walkway scattered around him.

"Connor!" Angel, pale even for a vampire, called to his son, but some property of the plasma field muffled his son's response.

"Are you all right?" Dawn clutched both Aurelians' arms tight enough for them to feel it. Connor just shook his head, frustrated.

"He sees us, he's conscious," Lorne noted. "That's good." Already he was less shaky than Xander and Giles, his demon practicality coming to his aid.

Illyria let the energy field dissipate, stepping lightly onto the slightly curved structure into which Connor had crashed. The rest weren't as graceful, dropping or stumbling on it. Dawn was quickest to regain her footing and was across to Connor in an instant, falling to her knees beside him. "Are you okay?"

"I think so." He gave her a shaky smile.

"Connor." Angel had his arms tight around him and started to haul him to the surface.

"Wait," Willow said, her arm still held out, maintaining the spell. "We don't know what's down there, and I don't want to let go."

As the big vampire stepped away, holding Dawn back with his arm. "You're what slowed me down?" Connor asked, looking up at Willow.

The young witch lifted her hand, and he came free of the broken floor. She settled him next to Angel, who was already examining his legs, smelling blood. "I tried to catch you in time." The glow of white power faded from around her.

"I think you saved my life."

Xander came up, his footsteps sounding hollowly, and put his arms around Willow, giving her a grateful hug. "She does tend to do that."

Seeming to almost come back to herself, Willow returned his hug, and then looked around until her eyes found Oz. "There's a lot of that going around." He gave her a private smile.

Giles looked around at the platform they were on, the top of some shallowly curved structure that was made of something almost wooden. He couldn't see the edge in the dim light.

"Just scratches, as far as I can tell." Angel let out the rest of his breath in a sigh of relief, his hands still clutching his son's shin.

Connor nodded. "These jeans are trashed, though." He considered his legs for a moment. "Or really trendy, one of the two."

"Just… shut up," said Dawn, glaring at him, still too scared for him to be ready for humor.

"I'm okay," he reassured her.

"Thank goodness – and Willow – that we're all okay," Giles said, speaking for everyone.

Over Dawn's head, Buffy and Spike's gazes met with a family understanding that made her feel warm. The Slayer closed her eyes for a moment, so grateful that her people were safe, grateful that she didn't have any more deaths to carry. "Where are we?" She gave a tentative jump, her boots making a booming noise as she landed. "What are we standing on?"

"There's a light down there," Giles said, still examining the area where they had landed, staring into the jagged hole Connor had made. "Anyone have a torch?"

Spike produced a flashlight from his coat, the one Vi had given him the first time he'd been close to the energy source all those weeks ago, and handed it over, his hand covering the Watcher's. Their eyes met for a moment. "What a cock-up. Glad you're all right, mate."

"As am I." Giles smiled back at him, then lay down flat next to the hole and aimed the light into it. "No movement. I see the ground, not too terribly far below, ten meters, perhaps." He lifted his head. "It looks like stone, or white sand, maybe."

"I can jump," Buffy said, "but not everyone can." She eyed Spike's coat. "You have any rope in there?"

He slowly raised an eyebrow. "No." Buffy shook her head at his tone, but before she could say anything, Willow held out her hand.

"Here," she offered, and the Slayer took a coil of rope from her.

Illyria, who had been silent since the descent, jumped down first. Buffy and Willow exchanged a glance. "I'll go next," Buffy said, knowing that Willow didn't trust the Old One alone. She squatted down by Angel as she went, handing him the rope, her hand lingering on his. "You all right?"

"Scary," he said, his voice thin.

"I'm fine," Connor said, looking away from Dawn to give his father a quick smile that belied the exasperation in his voice.

"We'll stay here," Spike said from Angel's other side, meeting Buffy's eyes over the dark head, "hold the rope. You be careful."

"I'll be fine," she promised. Without another word, she slid her legs into the opening and dropped lightly down. "Just a room," she called. "Empty."

"Up you go," Spike said, putting his hand at Angel's elbow. Movement seemed to calm the big vampire's nerves, and he began to fashion a strong loop at one end of the rope as a foothold so they could begin lowering the humans down. While they did this, Oz leapt to the bottom to join the Slayer and Illyria. Willow materialized beside him in the next moment.

"I'll see you down there," Connor said, leaning in to give Dawn a light kiss, his eyes going self-consciously to the two Aurelians.

"You sure you're up to it?" she asked anxiously.

"Really, I'm fine. See you in a minute."

Dawn watched him jump, then met Spike's glare. "What?"

"You don't kiss on important missions," he told her, annoyed. "'S'not tough."

"He could have…" She bit her lip and trailed off, then squared her shoulders and donned the mantle of attitude she'd learned from him. "If I want to be a caring, tender person, I will be."

"Girly, you mean."

"If the bra fits…" she retorted, making him snort.

"I'll be your guinea pig," Lorne told Angel, sliding one wingtip into the loop. "If that knot will hold for me, everyone else should be fine."

"All aboard, then," Spike said, wrapping the other end of the rope around his arm, serving as anchor. "Sing out when you reach the bottom." Xander added his strength between the two vampires, and they lowered Lorne to the next level without incident. "You next, Bit," Spike said as the green-skinned demon stepped free and they began to haul the rope back up.

She paused long enough to give him a hug and a quick, "Thanks," before taking hold of the rope.

He knew she'd just realized that she might have fallen, too. "Always got you." His tone was bittersweet; she had already turned away, eager to be down to where the lad was waiting.

"That got serious fast," Xander commented, moving a hand along the rope as they lowered her. "They've only seen each other twice, right?"

"I blame IM," Spike said.

"IM?" Angel echoed. That might be something he could banish.

"Instant messaging. Power of technology."

"Mm." No banishing. As Dawn safely reached the ground, Angel couldn't help wondering if Connor had tried to save her up on the walkway instead of himself, knowing his own first impulse had been to grab Buffy.

"What do we know about this Connor guy?" Xander asked in concern over Dawn. In front of him, Angel's jaw tightened in irritation.

"He's all right," said Spike, effectively ending the discussion. If he was willing to accept Dawn's choice, Xander took it to be roughly the equivalent of beatification.

Giles went next, sliding Spike's flashlight into a pocket of his jacket, then Xander, who waited until Angel dropped the rope to him so he could kick it out of their way. There was nothing to anchor the rope to, anyway, and no one expected to return the way they came. As Angel prepared to jump down, Spike caught his eye. "Rather hope there's no more of that," he glanced at the scaffolding that wound up into the darkness.

"Me, either," Angel agreed. He hesitated as he sat on the lip of the hole, putting a hand out to pull Spike down, touching his forehead to his grandchild's for a brief moment. They hadn't spent much time together since Drusilla's death. Angel didn't for a moment believe that Spike blamed him – it had to be done – but he knew it might still be a wedge between them if they let the distance grow. "You all right, Will? It's been, you know…"

"Been a strange year so far," he allowed. "You?"

"I have no idea." The things that were bad – having to stake Drusilla, the strain between him and Buffy, the way Spike was hurting – were still not so bad that Connor's presence in his life didn't balance them. "Doesn't matter. I love you, boy," he added, low and brusque, before he could think better of it.

A dozen emotions flitted across the expressive features. "Love you, too, Angel."

He smiled up at the boy from his perch on the lip of the opening. No nickname this time.

Spike watched his grandsire disappear down the latest rabbit hole and let out the rest of his breath, wishing all his dreams would come true just so that the guilt could go away. He made a silent vow that, whatever happened, he would manage it so that he didn't lose Angel again. With a flutter of black leather, he joined his large family below. The first thing that Spike heard after he landed, crouched, was the snap of sails. As he stood up, he nodded to his right. "That direction."

Buffy nodded in agreement. "That's where the light is coming from, and Lorne says he can feel something that way." Giles, she saw, was being thorough, pointing the beam from Vi's flashlight into the darkness in the other direction.

"Let us proceed." Illyria began to move, but the Slayer, quicker, took the lead.

"Stay together, everyone," Buffy said, glancing at them over her shoulder.

Without any discussion, the two Aurelians split up, Angel moving between Lorne and his son, who was holding Dawn's hand, and Spike sliding between Giles and Xander. There would be no more fallen, not if they could help it.

"Giles, this is wood," Willow said, trailing her fingertips along the wall. "Are we… could we be on a ship?"

"I can't imagine how," he replied, lifting his shoulders, "but nothing about this is what one might call normal."

The corridor they were traveling along wasn't narrow, and it widened further as they curved around a bend, opening quite suddenly into a space too large to be called a room. As far as they could see in any direction were long, wide strips of white cloth hanging nearly to the floor, suspended from so far above that not even the vampires could see the ceiling. The fabric swayed slightly with the air movement, rippling, producing the occasional snap. The wall beside them and the floor was white, too, but the overall effect was soft rather than glaringly bright.

"Here're your sails," Buffy said to Spike, glancing over her shoulder as he moved up behind her, touching her waist for a moment.

"And your ship, o captain my captain," he murmured, still looking around, trying to take it in.

"This is ginormous," Xander said, squatting down to see if he could spot anything beneath the hanging fabric.

"Is this a ship?" Dawn asked, echoing Willow as she stepped forward to touch one of the sheets.

Oz shook his head. "I don't smell the ocean."

Having allowed them sufficient time to encompass this new space with their limited capacities, Illyria set off toward where the light shone brightest. "Come," she remembered in time, calling the word over her shoulder.

Buffy, with a glance at Giles, set after her, determination in the Slayer's stride, the line of her jaw. Get rid of this energy and no more battles, she thought, hurrying to keep up with Illyria's brisk pace, and no more not-Fred.

Though the Old One had said there was no way to keep track of time, this part of the journey seemed to take only a few minutes. Following Illyria's lead, the small group went straight toward the area where the white light originated, brushing past the odd fabric walls, Buffy never more than two steps behind the Battle-God.

When she stopped, it was so abrupt that the Slayer nearly trod on her heels. Buffy quickly sidestepped and saw they had arrived. The first thing she noticed was a dark face, which stood out amid all the white. A fierce-looking man dressed in white sat at a white table, looking up from the large book he had been reading, his eyes on Illyria, something in his stare making Buffy think that he recognized the Old One.

The second thing she noticed was the source of the light, an urn-shaped object with two handles, so small to emit such energy. She had the urge to go forward and take it up. The impulse wasn't the same as how she had known the Scythe was hers, but the Slayer knew she could wield this, too.

The man at the table looked away from Illyria to address Buffy. "You are expected." His tone made it sound as though she was late.

"This one is called as the Slayer." Illyria was not looking at him, instead examining the surrounding area, the gently rippling sheets with her intense gaze.

"My name is Buffy Summers," she corrected, nodding her head, "and I am the Slayer."

"I am called Sayeed," he replied gravely. He stood from the white table he was sitting at, closing the book as he did so. It vanished, making Buffy blink. "You are the Slayer, yet you do not travel alone." The rest of the group had spread out in a shallow ring behind them.

"The companions are all unique," Illyria said, walking past the source of the light without sparing it a glance, her eyes still scanning the surroundings, "so this will meet all requirements."

Buffy looked between the two. "Requirements?" She glanced at Giles, who was crowded at the edge of the small open area among the rest.

Her Watcher shrugged. "I've no idea."

Illyria turned back. "A sorcerer, a human, a vampire, a Pylean, a Key, a witch, the prophesied offspring of two vampires, a werewolf, a souled vampire, and the Slayer."

"There are two ensouled vampires," Sayeed corrected her.

"One souled vampire, one cursed vampire." She met his stern look, and after a moment, he nodded. Illyria resumed her scanning. Spike and Angel exchanged a look, distracting the big vampire from wondering what a Key was. Neither was comfortable with being separated into two distinct categories.

"I am Rupert Giles, al-Sayeed," Giles said, "the Slayer's Watcher. Might you tell us what we are to do here?"

"Those who come this way do one of two things," Sayeed said, and something about the way he said it made Buffy think he'd spoken it innumerable times before and expected to say it many more times again. "They either pass by without taking up the lamp and go to their deaths, or they take up the lamp to illuminate the wish of their heart."

Xander lifted a hand. "I vote for not passing by."

"What wish?" Willow wondered aloud.

Giles was still studying the djinn. "You expected Buffy? She's the one to take up the lamp?" At the single, solemn nod, he pressed, "What happens when she touches the lamp?"

Sayeed looked at the Slayer. "You will die."

"No!" Dawn protested.

"Unacceptable," Angel snapped. "I'll do it." Spike, who had been staring at Buffy, his heart breaking at the longing on her face at Sayeed's words, swiveled his head to glare at the other Aurelian. On Dawn's other side, Connor did the same.

"The Slayer is the strongest among you who can take up the lamp," Sayeed said, considering the big vampire who had offered his life. "It is not your task."

Buffy wasn't looking at anyone, her eyes on the floor. She moistened her dry lips, then smoothed her palms down her sides. "So, I lift the lamp, make the wish, make the sacrifice." She darted a glance at Dawn, then almost met Giles' sorrowful eyes. "It's okay, guys. I've been on borrowed time for years now."

"You champions are so eager to die," Lorne said, shaking his head. He didn't understand it.

"So no one else has to." Buffy was composed, serene.

Spike saw Dawn turn her gaze on him, pleading, but he was looking at Illyria, a small, admiring smile settling on his mouth. His quick mind had made the connections. "No. No one dies today. You've outdone yourself, Smurfette."

Her face still lifted toward the unseen ceiling, she shifted her eyes to meet his look of admiration, something in the movement so evocative of Fred. "And you are worthy to be my pet."

"What?" Dawn's voice was sharp.

"Her worship," and there was nothing mocking in Spike's voice, "anticipated this." He sauntered over to the Slayer and glared down at her. "Not where I can't follow," he growled, his upper lip lifted in a snarl. Then he whipped around to Angel; looking at her was too much for his temper just now. He could barely contain his anger at his grandsire. "You, either, Peaches."

Xander shared a puzzled look with Oz. "What?" he asked.

"Illyria," Spike explained, inclining his head respectfully toward her and walking back to Dawn and Giles, needing to be close to members of his family who actually liked life, "brought each of us along for a specific reason. There's no sacrifice required, despite our overly eager volunteers. 'S'just that no being who can touch the lamp without having their own power limited the way Illyria's would be, is also strong enough to wield the magic and survive. But what if a team tried it? Same kind of beings, same kind of strength, same outcome. Two Slayers or two demons or two humans couldn't do it, but unique beings can take up the lamp together, s'long as they make the same wish, and there're ten of us to try. That about right?" This last was directed at Sayeed.

The djinn blinked, then twisted his head to look at Illyria for a moment. "It has never been done," he said, interest and not anger building in his voice, "but you may attempt this."

Giles put a hand on Spike's shoulder. "If I've never said I'm grateful for your quick thinking, consider it said now." He gave Buffy a sharp look. The Slayer and Angel, wearing matching abashed expressions, glanced at each other, then hurriedly away.

"Are we all willing?" Oz asked, looking around at the group.

"Depends on the wish, I guess," Lorne said, when no one else spoke up.

"I think," Giles said, "it's obvious: we wish that the source of energy is unavailable to demons and end the prophecy." The relief in his voice was obvious, too.

Dawn, watching Illyria, shook her head. "No. She says we're small. Think bigger."

"Something bigger?" Willow's eyes widened. "End all demons?"

"Not too comfortable with that one," Spike shot back.

"Or me," Lorne added.

"Oh. No, I-I guess not."

"All bad demons?" Xander suggested.

"All demons are bad," Angel said. He felt a twinge; it wasn't true, but his gut instinct was that sorting out the good from the bad was beyond them.

"What can we wish for, al-Sayeed?" Giles asked abruptly, turning to the djinn. "Are there limits?"

The heavy eyebrows furrowed as he thought hard, enjoying the challenge. "There are limits. Alone, the Slayer Buffy Summers would have been able to close this avenue – prophecy, as you call it – to demons."

"At the cost of her life," Giles said.

The djinn nodded, unperturbed by that fact. "If you do attempt this as a clan, I cannot say what you might accomplish."

Buffy had been quiet, staring at her boots. She took a breath and lifted her head. "Our wish, together, is pretty clear." The Slayer looked around at the faces, knowing that on some level they had been waiting for her to make the decision. "We close this dimension to any other demons."

"No demons could be summoned," Angel said, and they each had a different memory of demons summoned by fraternity brothers or lawyers or the Troika or themselves.

Oz blinked. "A finite number of demons."

"The Hellmouths would be closed," Giles said, his voice soft.

"Really closed," Spike added.

"I could never go back to Pylea," Lorne said. Then he smiled. "I'm on board."

Connor, his brows drawn together as he stared at his father, asked, "What would happen to those who are left?"

"Nothing," Buffy said, still looking at the ground.

"Maybe," Willow said, her voice slow. "Or, cut off from any outside power, they might weaken."

"I don't think we could make any kind of guess about that," Giles said, "but I can't see why it would put any demons already living here in jeopardy."

"Can we make that wish if we do it together?" Dawn asked, looking away from her sister to the djinn. If it worked, Buffy, Faith, and the other slayers would have such a lighter burden.

Spike looked away from the Slayer to the djinn, too. She could be finished, and he was surprised at how fiercely he wanted that for her, so long as it didn't mean she would have to leave him.

Sayeed looked around at the beings in the room. He took the white cap from his head and held it in his hands, considering it, then he nodded, not grudgingly. "Yes. You have the strength to make this wish."

Giles gave his head a little shake, an equally tiny smile lurking on his mouth. "Good, then." The group of white warriors looked at each other, no one moving.

"Not everybody at once," Buffy said wryly. People were eyeing the light, very aware that it was powerful enough to kill even her.

Xander looked between the strong, soft light coming from the lamp and the man in white, and something clicked. "It's his soul," he said, his voice abrupt in the silence.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked.

Xander gestured. "His soul, it's contained in that lamp. That power is his soul."

Sayeed stared at him, looking fierce and somewhat more than human. "How do you know this?"

Xander shrugged. "I see things."

Willow, used to handling souls, found this comforting. She took a breath and was the first to step forward. "Okay. Let's wish."

Smiling at her best friend, Buffy took her hand, and they approached the lamp, the rest of the group trailing behind them. Sayeed stepped to one side of his table to let them pass. Buffy squeezed Willow's fingers once, then took a breath and let go. "I am Buffy Summers, the Slayer, the Chosen One, and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." She grasped the handle, jerking a little at the contact.

Watching her, Willow's eyes widened. She cleared her throat. "I am Willow Rosenberg, white witch by choice and grace, and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." The redhead grabbed the same handle, her fingers below Buffy's. She drew in a little gasp as the power thrummed along her palm, and the Slayer slid her arm around her friend's waist, offering support.

Giles stepped up, somehow knowing there was an order to this. "I am Rupert Giles, Head of the Council of Watchers, indifferent sorcerer, and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." He put his hand over Buffy's. The effect on him, whether because he was less powerful or simply older than the two young women, was more pronounced, and he swayed.

Xander was there, bracing him. "I am Alexander Harris, human, and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." He covered Willow's hand, then he and Giles were holding each other up. The four of them exchanged glances, enjoined once again. What can't we do when we're together, he thought, and he wasn't the only one.

Angel came closer, checking the Watcher's face to make sure. "Once Liam Gallagher, I am now Angel, vampire cursed with a soul, champion." His clear brown eyes gleamed as he declared this. "I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." He slid his fingers around the other handle, taking an involuntary breath as a numbing energy surged along his nerves.

Lorne stepped forward. "I am Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan, a true demon from Pylea, and I wish that this world, my chosen home, be closed to any demons not already here." He slid his mottled green fingers onto the handle beneath Angel's big hand, gasping at the contact.

"I am Connor Reilly," the young man said, his voice strong, "a human life born of two vampires, a prophesied champion, and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here." He covered his father's fingers, gritting his teeth, refusing to show any other reaction.

"I am Daniel Osborne, a human in control of my werewolf nature," Oz said, like Angel, feeling the need to be as truthful as possible, "and I wish our world to be closed to any demons not already here."

Something in this ritual called to Dawn, and she tried to track it, see if she had any other memories. But, no, there was nothing, just her own self, same as ever. "I am Dawn Summers, a Key, and I wish all doors to our world be locked to any demons not already here." She ignored the puzzled looks some of their 'clan' gave her and considered the light for a moment. Instead of finding a place for her hand on one of the handles, she stood between the two groups and put her fingers on the lamp itself. For her, there was warmth and a slight tingle. The white light grew brighter, and she smiled at how lovely it was.

Afraid to wonder why he was last, Spike tore his eyes away from his Nibblet. He didn't think he dared to touch the surface of the lamp himself, planned to place both his hands over those already grasping either handle. "Name's Spike," he said, because he really wasn't anyone else, no matter what Giles and Angel called him. Before he could get any further, the hushed atmosphere was broken by Illyria's laugh.

It was a rich, happy sound, full of anticipation. "The Ram comes," she said, her eyes bright. Illyria Battle-god lifted her arms, and from nowhere a polished silver shield and sword appeared in her hands. "Attend me," she commanded, and strode away from the lamp into the hanging canvas.

Spike's head snapped around, knowing the command was for him. Before any excuse could form on his lips, there was a ripping sound from the air, high up among the slack sheets of white, a sound he recognized from a night behind the Hyperion Hotel. No time. He gave a last desperate glance at the pale faces gathered around the lamp, not sure if the pallor was from the strain or if the white light was seeping into them. They were so vulnerable, had to have someone between them and anything that would harm them until this wishing business was done. His role, then.

Spike reached into his coat for his favorite blade, the Gurkha _Kukri_ knife an extension of his arm. "Nine's enough, yeah?" he said shortly. "I'll keep 'em off you."

Buffy's eyes, almost completely green, were desperately telling him a story that needed a happy ending. Angel knew what the sound meant and burned with the need to be fighting, too. And Dawn, blue eyes enormous, gave him a small, simple smile, a human grown into adulthood, a Key come into her own. He smiled back, and then was gone, wanting to be as far away from them as possible so whatever issued from the portal could be drawn even further away.

Watching next to his white table, Sayeed considered the way unique experiences were piling up at this moment: a joint wish, an overdemon slashing a portal into his prison, a coming battle to enliven the routine quiet of his nearly limitless days. "Huh," he muttered, lifting an unironic eyebrow. "Be careful what you wish for."

⸹

[Author's Note: The sections describing the battle with the Ram contain vivid descriptions of violence and injury.]

Illyria Battle-god tilted her head to one side, waiting for the Ram to emerge. Part of her thought to coolly allow the demon to try to claim the djinn's power, let him destroy himself by touching it, but it was a small part. She was bred for war, the need for combat and bloodshed knit into her essence, and she would destroy the Ram with her own hand. Wesley was gone, and this one would suffer for it.

Spike had settled in at her left, his head also tilted as he looked up at the rent in reality that had opened perhaps twenty feet above them. Illyria considered for a moment whether to fight in her shell, whether to alter the white-haired one's form, too. But, no, this shell was beautifully adapted to this planet's physics, as was her pet's. Better to not change at the last moment. She thoughtfully kept her Fred-illusion in place, not wanting to have him unsettled emotionally, either.

A huge, sinewy leg covered in sleek hide, black streaked with red, came through the portal, and as the hoof settled on the stone floor, hollow vibrations rolled away from the impact. Spike chuckled with gallows humor; based on the haunch, the bugger would be fifty feet tall. Be tasty roasted, he thought, having become partial to goat after an early swing through Turkey. Darla had been disgusted, which made him like the gamey taste that much more. Above them, the portal stretched to the side as cloven hands pulled at the rip, trying to work a set of ram's horns into their reality.

"Just him?" Spike had expected another horde.

Illyria nodded. "Only the Ram. His resources are thin, as are mine, and he must take the field himself."

Bloody hell. How did one fight a giant? Spike's thoughts ran over descriptions of David fighting Goliath, of old movies with Ray Harryhausen effects, of the battles in the recent _Lord of the Rings_ cycle with Balrogs and Oliphants. He thought of ten-foot-tall pink kuddliteeler demons with nostalgia.

The Ram shook his heavy head to the side as he emerged, setting his other hoof into their reality. The demon stood up, not quite five stories high, bipedal, no clothes and no apparent genitalia, a club fastened to one wrist. Looking down at Illyria, a smile curved his mouth, revealing tusks and fangs from which dripped thick strings of saliva. Not an herbivore, then, Spike thought sardonically. "Illyria," the demon said, satisfied, in a voice like the screams of horses being torn apart.

The Battle-god crashed the hilt of her sword into her shield once, the sound a call to war. Next to her, Spike lifted his upper lip in a sneer, rolling the big knife over the back of his hand in a flourish. Then, fast, faster than such a huge being could be expected to move, the Ram brought his club crashing down on the two small figures before him.

The white light grew brighter, and keeping their hands on the lamp had passed the point of discomfort into real pain for everyone except Dawn. Just after Spike had left in a stir of air and a snap of black leather, Giles had said, "Stay focused. Don't let go." No one had said anything else since, not when the floor shook as something big landed in their reality, not even when the awful voice sounded. They could hear sounds of a battle close by, but couldn't see anything for the white lengths of fabric.

Xander had the worst of it because he had no inner magic to draw upon, but he kept his fingers wrapped around Willow's with a grim determination. Across from him, he saw Oz slowly close his eyes. They were at the full moon, Xander realized belatedly, and he had the sense that the timing made it harder for his friend. No more demon energy coming through, the taller man thought, maybe that'll make things easier for Oz. He started chanting the wish over and over in his mind.

Buffy looked at her sister, at Dawn's lovely face almost glowing with light, holding fast to the wish. I'll be done, and I can stay with Dawn. If I'm done, my happiness won't be dependent on Spike, a burden for him. This was the only way she could stay still. Her Slayer senses were alight with the knowledge that there was a nearby demon to kill. There was an agonized cry from somewhere behind them. Giles' fingers tightened over hers, wordlessly telling her to be steady as the spell built around their foundation.

Yellow flickered in Angel's eyes when he heard Spike's 'Unnh!' of pain, unmistakable to his ears. He ruthlessly forced his human features to stay in place. No matter what he wanted right now, no matter how much his muscles twitched, wanting to join the battle, he wanted a future for Connor even more, and one for himself. If there were no more demons coming through, then Connor would be that much safer, maybe safe enough that he could stay in his son's life, not just on the margins. Close this world to all demons not already here, he thought. This is what I want.

Willow opened her eyes for just a moment, enough to get a retinal imprint of the shapes of the people she loved, silhouettes against the light. We have no guarantees, she realized. Sayeed said we were strong enough to make this wish, but not that we will all survive the process.

The white light grew stronger again, so bright that everyone except Dawn closed their eyes against the intensity. The lamp did not vibrate, but each of them felt the power thrum beneath their fingers.

⸹

After a moment of numb bonelessness, Spike grimaced and sat up in the impact crater where he'd been thrown onto the floor, spine first. Tossed, more accurately. Okay, learned not to let him grab me, he thought, shaking bits of rock and dust from his short hair. He took stock before trying to stand up: nothing broken outside of a few ribs; a mass of bruises coming on, but those would be gone in a couple of minutes. Nothing worse, and now he had another reason to be thankful for his recent taste of Slayer blood. Spike had the sense that if his kidneys worked, he'd be in agony. Good thing they didn't, then. He snatched his Gurkha blade from the floor and stood up, lowered his head, and charged through several of the sails to where he could hear Illyria and the Ram going at it.

He emerged next to them just in time to see Illyria take a blow from the club. It fell on her from right above, but she held up her shield, arms slightly bent, absorbed the impact and barely seemed to feel it. Must be nice to be an Old One.

Right, then. Spike found another knife in his coat, one with a death's head on it that reminded him of one he'd taken from some Nazi in the forties. During the last World War, he'd eaten primarily German food, with the occasional Italian meal thrown in for good measure. Never could get past being British, never lost all his loyalty to queen and country and everything they represented. Spike skirted Illyria, moving at speed, and leapt to the jutting tendon at the back of the hoof. He stabbed the German knife into the Ram's shank and used it as a handhold to swing himself higher, aiming for the demon's back. He knew he wasn't much more than a gadfly in this fight, just a nuisance, but if he could annoy the beastie at just the right time, the Blue Meanie might be able to get in the killing blow.

The Ram's hide was smooth, could barely be called a pelt, and smelled hideous from some oil that made it slick, almost impossible to cling to. No tail, at least. Spike plunged his Gurkha blade between two ribs, held on grimly, and fished the Initiative cattle prod from a loop inside his coat. He thought resentfully of his ancestors, of Celts fighting with nothing but woad dye on their bodies. Stupid demon was stealing a page from earth's playbook, and couldn't it even have a fleece to grab, a place for purchase, it had to be this big? Spike's mouth tightened for a moment, wishing the thing had a set of wrinklies to jab with the stun gun, then he leaned over and released the charge into the underside of the Ram's arm.

The demon roared, a sound like the contents of a thousand fish bellies spilling onto a tile floor. Spike answering roar of satisfaction wasn't much more than a kitten's mewl in comparison, but he didn't care, spinning away from the swatting arm with a grin on his face. On the floor, tucking and rolling in a motion that would have been familiar to Spike, Illyria went beneath its grasp, drew her sword across its leg, and danced away before the Ram realized what she'd done.

The vampire clung to the demon like a burr. The club came down toward Spike, but it he could tell it would fall well to the left of where he was. Then, just before it landed on the beast's hide, it changed from a gnarled solid surface to a hydra of silvery metal whips. "Bollocks," Spike whispered, grabbing the solidly planted knife and swinging further to the left, shielding his face. At that moment, the Ram's right leg gave way, causing him to lurch, throwing Spike back into the line of the lashes. Several bit into him, sharp as concertina wire, whistling until they sliced through the thin layer of leather that served him as armor. He closed his eyes against the stinging pain, waiting to see if he'd be beheaded or just flayed to bits.

Illyria considered her right hand for a moment, at the two fingers smashed beyond repair, bone showing, the elegant length of them now squashed and flattened. The nerves along the shell's arm were sending frantic signals to the brain; she cut these off ruthlessly. After another considering moment that would be undetectable to any except another Old One, she decided she would not be able to wield the sword, taken after considerable effort from the Wolf, effectively with only two fingers and a thumb. Quick as the current set of physical laws allowed, she tossed both the sword and the shield into the air and reclaimed them with the opposite hand, switching their positions. The ruined right hand would be capable of holding the shield.

Muscle memory and neural pathways, still intact in the shell, moved Illyria's body into an automatic aggressive stance, left foot leading, no thought behind it. She smiled. As useful as her first shell had been, this one was trained for battle, and holding the sword in its left hand felt more natural. Her pet also primarily used his left for battle. Illyria had a small measure of unhappiness that it was unlikely she would get the chance to ask him for the meaning. The Battle-god gripped the sword more firmly and dropped back into the flow of the fourth dimension of this world, renewing her attack on the Ram.

⸹

Willow didn't know if the lamp had grown colder or if she was just gripping the handle too hard. The tension around her was building to a breaking point, when the spell would be cast, and she was ready for it. Her companions, she knew, were even more ready. Oz, Xander, and Giles were barely managing to keep their feet as the strain of bearing the magic wore on them.

Buffy and Angel were also having a hard time, not because their tough, supernatural constitutions couldn't take it, but because Spike was off fighting without them. Willow, an old hand at concentrating on the magic, had no problem keeping the wish in mind, but the two champions were trying very hard not to be distracted.

Just then, Illyria skidded into the open area, on the last momentum of being knocked back by the Ram. Small droplets of dark blue blood fell from her hand and stained the white floor, then she lowered her head and sprinted back the direction she'd came.

"I am so," Giles said, having to take a breath to finish, "proud of all of you." No one had opened their eyes or turned their head to look; more importantly, no one had let go of the lamp.

⸹

Nil visibility. Blue eyes narrow, Spike considered the massive shoulderblade in front of him, the only view available at this inaccessible spot he'd found on its back. Not good enough, he thought. It would be putting himself in harm's way, but something had to be done about the weapon the beast had clutched in its right hand, sometimes a club, sometimes a flail or a whip. The Ram had just sent Illyria flying out of sight with the force of one blow from it. Gritting his teeth, Spike left the relative safety of the area just below the right shoulderblade and began climbing higher. Monkey on its back, he thought, and the randomness of his own thoughts was beginning to frighten him. The stupid cross-references meant he was overwhelmed, not focusing on the fight he was in.

First thing, he thought, pulling yet another knife from his coat, the German military knife having broken against the Ram's ribs, we're succeeding, yeah? Keepin' this git off the Scoobies while they work the spell. He drew back and stabbed the new blade, a stiletto, into the sleek black hide. Spike pulled himself up another arm's length, withdrew the _Kukri_ from the Ram and shoved it in higher, as high as he could reach. So really, he thought, going hand-over-hand up the giant back, we're winning.

Faster now, because if Illyria hadn't returned, the big beastie wouldn't have anything to focus on except for his own bad self. Surprisingly, the Ram didn't seem to be much of a thinker, and Spike wondered if it was because it was maddened by battle rage or if it was due to being in a pocket of their dimension, which was forbidden to it. High enough to peek over the shoulder now, and there was Illyria speeding back, sword braced across shield. Good. Might give him a chance to be more than an annoyance.

With so many maneuvers possible for one of his strength and agility, he never really decided which he was going to do. To Illyria, though, it looked like a well-thought-out strategy. The back of the Ram's neck was less steep, and Spike sped toward the floppy right ear and jammed the entire length of the stun gun into the hearing canal. He set it off and was gone, ducking beneath the hand that came up to cover the ear as the Ram roared in agony, another ugly, blinding sound. Both hands had jerked involuntarily higher, and Spike popped around and plunged both knives into its wrist, just above the brace that helped the cloven-handed demon hold its weapon. The vampire gave another, competing roar and ripped along the flesh, doing his best to cut through tough tendons and ligaments.

He made it a quarter of the way around its wrist before the stiletto broke off – wasn't really meant for this kind of work anyway, he reckoned – but his trusty Gurkha knife stayed strong. Over halfway now, sawing on something like gristle. Then the Ram held its hand away to see the source of this new pain. Falling, Spike grabbed onto a loose strap of leather on the handle of the dangling weapon, which was in the form of a club just now. The Ram's rolling black eyes settled on him, and Spike got a watery feeling in his gut, sure it would just pop him into its maw and crunch him in two.

Instead, the Ram flicked its hand the same way a lady might if a wasp landed on her knuckles. Spike went flying through the air, hitting the edge of one sail and bouncing into another. He slashed the _Kukri_ into the slack sheet, the sharp blade slicing through it, not breaking his fall. Desperate, he grabbed the fabric itself, tearing away a strip, still falling, but slower. Heaving himself sideways, he stabbed the sail again, grimacing as his knuckles were scraped by several feet of unraveling cloth before he could shove his arm through. It was enough to slow his fall, though, and Spike landed soft on his feet, turning just in time to throw his hands over his face and neck.

The Ram looked at its injured hand, at the tiny being who had caused it pain, then flicked the whip out at him. It was a poor lash, the big wrist too damaged to effectively wield the weapon any more, but enough to bite deeply into the flesh along both Spike's arms, his ribs, and his stomach. Bother, he thought sourly, just now healing up from the last cuts on my back. Leastways it didn't get the family jewels.

Before the big demon could draw back again, one last smile settled on Illyria's face. Showing none of the respect for gravity that was inborn in her pet, she leapt onto the Ram's knee, then jumped again, the arm holding the Wolf's sword held high. She reached the apex of her leap just when she wanted to, bringing the sword down on the beast's wounded wrist. Forged in the Ram's home dimension, wielded by an Old One, the blade sliced cleanly through the arm, and Illyria fell back to the floor at the same time the severed hand and whip hit the stone.

Despite the fact that a human landing on their feet from such a height would have broken both legs, Illyria was moving again immediately, darting beneath the spray of dark ichor spewing from the stump above her, going for the Ram's sound leg. She swung the sword in a vicious upstroke, hacking above the hoof, then pulling back, sawing completely through the tendon. Battle-god or not, she scampered to get out of the way as the demon crumpled with an anguished howl.

Connor and Angel were holding up Oz now, and on the other side of the lamp, Willow and Buffy were each bracing their smaller bodies against Xander and Giles. Dawn watched them with concern, wishing she could share some of her strength. She had a feeling that it was the wish itself that made this so easy for her, not the wishing. Now even her fingertips were beginning to feel numb, as though she'd been using their old gas push-mower that vibrated so much, the secondhand one that had only lasted their first summer in Sunnydale. Willow's eyes were open a slit, and she met them with a question in her own.

Willow shook her head. The spell was around them like a bubble, stretched to maximum tension before bursting, and it had been for well over a minute now. She had no idea why it wasn't being cast.

And then it was, with no stir of air or noise, but the flare of light that burst through them made the nearby sheets billow away nonetheless. All of them except Dawn snatched their hands away from the lamp, now casting only a gentle white glow. Willow tucked her cold fingers into her armpits to warm them. Buffy slid her arm around Giles' waist to offer support, and across from her, Angel bent over for a moment and rested his hands on his knees. Xander shook his head and sat down on the floor, his legs sprawled out in front of him.

"Man, that'll take it out of you."

With a last gentle touch, Dawn withdrew her fingers from the lamp. She turned to the djinn. "Did it work, al-Sayeed?" she asked, copying the way Giles had addressed him. "Are the doors closed for good?"

"It is not in the nature of doors to remain closed, but this was a strong wish and will hold for many generations. All portals to your world are now closed, except for one."

"One?" Buffy echoed, her heart sinking. "Where?"

At that moment, there was another horrific howl from whatever Spike and Illyria were fighting, then they saw the white sheets pushed out of the way by something as it fell. A huge, horned head fell into the small open area, and they all took a step back as the ground shook beneath them, Xander scrambling away a yard or so on his hands and knees before getting his footing.

"There," Sayeed replied, pointing to the jagged portal pulsing high above the beast's head.

⸹

The Ram, black eyes rolling wildly in agony, spotted the lamp. It smiled, revealing every jagged, razor-edged tooth in its mouth, and its laugh sounded like a fall of rock. Bracing itself on its one good arm, the demon began to pull itself toward the source of power. Buffy and Angel exchanged a short, desperate look and started toward it, Angel taking up his sword, Buffy the Slayer's Scythe. Connor started forward, too, but Dawn put a hand on his arm, shaking her head.

A blue figure appeared on the Ram's back. With no apparent hurry, Illyria walked to the top of its spine and shoved her sword deep into the back of its neck. The Ram roared, its fetid breath washing out toward the small group of white warriors around the lamp. Illyria stabbed once again, and it seemed to cause some galvanic reaction in the demon, who convulsed in a long spasm. The Battle-god withdrew the sword, ignoring the gout of blood, and brought it down again at a slightly different angle. The Ram moaned, shuddered once, then slumped onto the floor, its one whole hand still reaching for power.

Illyria didn't stop, just kept hacking at the neck, and her purpose occurred to everyone at the same time: the severed head would be her trophy. Spike appeared behind her, sauntering up the dead demon's back, his coat and shirt hanging in shreds from him. Dawn and Buffy gave each other a small smile, relieved to see him. After watching Illyria for a moment, he went to work on the opposite side of the neck with his own knife.

When it was done, Illyria leapt down and grabbed of the horns, lifting the fallen face to stare into empty eyes. She gave the dead demon a slow, satisfied smile. "I do this in Wesley's honor," she said, clear and precise. With no discernable effort, she gripped one of the Ram's horns, aligned her body, and tossed the head through the portal above.

"Good fight, pet." Spike dropped down from the shoulder to stand next to her.

Illyria frowned. "You are my pet, and it was an acceptable battle." She cocked her head to the side. "Though I did expect it would be more difficult. Your assistance shortened the struggle."

"Uh-huh," Spike intoned, looking down at the shreds of his coat, the long cuts on his torso. "Piece of cake."

"I would never consider cake as a reward for service." Illyria was frowning now. "You are my retainer; service to me is reward enough."

"Too true, your highness," Spike agreed, grinning. "I ask no boon, for it has been an honor and my very great privilege." He bowed low; he'd been presented to Queen Victoria herself once, and he knew how to do it properly.

Benevolence was called for, she thought. The Old One inclined her head. "I release you from my service, then, as I am leaving this small place." She looked up at the portal. "You would not wish to leave this world."

As if she could make him; not even an Old One could take him from his family. "You are greatness personified, highness. Thank you." The sarcasm was back, but she was too busy to notice, staring at the door rent into the air above them. Illyria lifted her hand and spread her fingers, pulling the portal closer to her. Shaking his head, grinning again, Spike walked back toward the people he loved.

"Have a nice time?" Buffy asked, her hands on her hips, trying not to look amused.

"Spiffing." He gave her and Angel a glare. "I see you both survived. Too awful, yeah?" The sardonic tone changed. "Wish granted, then?"

"Al-Sayeed said –" Buffy began.

From behind them, Illyria called imperiously to Dawn. "Key. I require your blood."

Spike was closer, but Buffy was there before him. "No."

Illyria stared at the two champions, at Spike's long knife and the Slayer's weapon aimed at her, then at Connor, who was shielding Dawn with his body. She met Buffy's eyes instead of Spike's. "I promised I would not use her, so I ask: is it not worth a few drops of her blood to close this final portal to me and any other outsider?"

"It's worth it," Dawn said, exasperated.

"Dawn, no," Buffy snapped.

"Why does Illyria call her a key?" Lorne asked, low, leaning toward Oz, who simply shrugged.

"It'll be easy, Buffy, and safe," Dawn answered, her tone gentle. "Don't ask me how I know, but I do."

"What's this Key business?" Angel asked. He glared at Dawn and his son, both uncomfortable, then around at the rest. No one met his eye.

"They are under a magical constraint that prevents them from telling you, or anyone," Illyria said, impatient, her eyes never leaving Dawn.

"All of them?" Angel asked, his gaze settling on Connor.

The young man shrugged. "It's not like we have a problem telling you," he said, then he frowned. "What were we talking about?"

Oz lifted his brows. "I don't know. Or, I don't think I do."

"Never mind," Angel said, exasperated himself now. Spike had said something about all secrets having a shelf-life, hadn't he? And he'd known something was off about the girl.

"Oh!" Dawn said, stepping forward, bringing out her eleventh-century dagger. "I almost forgot." She shook her hair back. "What do I do?"

"Once I've gone through, a few drops of your blood given to the portal will close it. No ritual should be necessary." Illyria inclined her head toward the pulsing door. "Let those on the other side ponder the Ram's death while I bid farewell to Angel and the Pylean. Attend me," she said, this last directed to the big vampire and Lorne.

"So, this is goodbye," Lorne said, not in the least sentimental in this instance.

"We will not meet again," she agreed. "You have borne an Old One. It is a high honor."

"I need no more honors," Lorne agreed, a pained smile on his face as he thought of the constant headache before Illyria had found another shell.

The Old One turned to Angel. "There will be no one to challenge your dominion over your puny world now that the pathways are closed."

He shook his head. "I don't want dominion over it, Illyria. I only want to live here in peace."

Illyria's large eyes were devoid of understanding. "This world has grown too small for me. I go now."

"Goodbye, Illyria Battle-god. I hope you find what you seek."

She looked even more distant a moment, and somehow Angel knew that she was thinking of Wesley. "I will find a new army and a suitable kingdom to win and to rule."

"I have no doubt." He wondered, though, if it would be enough.

She inclined her head, then marched over to grab the remaining whole limb of the Ram. Tugging the enormous carcass behind her, she moved to the portal she had brought to floor level and stepped through. Illyria turned to look at Spike, who was standing next to the Key, and nodded. She did not smile. She would never have a need for that expression again.

Spike nodded back. "Get ready, Nibblet."

Dawn was ready, was looking forward to this in a way she would never be able to explain. She had cut herself once to see if she was real, but this would be different. Holding the dagger in her right hand, she nicked a vein in her left wrist and let blood flow into the groove on the blade. It really wasn't a lot of blood, she thought. Balancing the knife carefully, she stepped up to the gash in reality, saw into it, saw Illyria, distorted and small, explode outward, leaving the shell. Dawn flicked the knife at the portal defensively, the thin line of blood droplets arcing through the air until they went through. With a hissing and a small snap, the portal closed, and the last drops fell on the floor, not far from the splattered blood from Illyria's injury.

Spike was next to her, already in game face. He lifted her cut wrist to his mouth, then resumed his human features and pressed his tongue against the wound again to close the cut, following with a quick kiss to her palm. "Nice work, love." He nodded toward someone behind her. "B'lieve you've got an admirer."

"Believe you need a new coat."

"Dunno that I need one now. No more big battles, yeah?"

She gave him a slow smile. "No, I guess not." Dawn felt her heart lift and glanced at Buffy, who smiled back. Feeling almost giddy, she went to Connor.

Willow, standing closest to Sayeed, turned when she heard him say, "Huh." He saw that she was looking, and he shook his head. "Even the usual rules seem not to apply today. Very different."

"In what…" _way_ , she started to say, but then she knew. Her eyes widened. "No." Willow's protest was a bare whisper. "Can't he make one of his own?"

"No. He passed by the lamp."

Spike was watching Connor embrace Dawn, a wistful smile on his face, when he felt a painful, overwhelming, burning sensation in his chest. Can't be having a heart attack, he thought incredulously, his knife dropping from numb fingers, heart doesn't work. His head felt full of fire, too, as if it was about to burst. He couldn't recall feeling this horrible, not without being at the First Evil's mercies. Dropping to his knees from sudden weakness, he didn't know where to put his hands, on his head or his chest.

Then, with a horrible ripping that seemed to damage every nerve lining and his very soul, his demon was yanked from him, pulled away, snuffed out. "Nnn…" he managed, trying to protest, but even greater pain doubled him over. Oh God, he must be dying; his demon was dead. There was nothing left to animate his body.

"Spike?" Angel said. The call of blood had stilled, just like the day Spike died on the Hellmouth. He started toward his grandchild, then stopped. The other Aurelian had fallen to his knees. There was blood flowing over the pale chest, which was moving, not anything new, the boy was always breathing, but since when did his heart beat?

Something in Angel's tone alerting her, Dawn turned in Connor's embrace to see what was going on. "Omigod," she breathed, and then a piercing shriek, "Spike!" She ran for him, beating Buffy to his side by a half-second.

"Spike, what's wrong?" The Slayer's eyes were wide and horrified, wanting to fix on the blood that was almost gushing from him. She took his hand in hers, helped him lower his body to the floor. "What's happening?" she demanded, panic making her voice small.

"Shanshu." Angel swayed where he stood.

"He didn't wish, Buffy," Willow said, tears streaming down her face. "He passed by without taking up the lamp."

"What?" She spared a glance at Willow, then her eyes went back to Spike. Why was his hand warm?

"Pass by without taking up the lamp and go to your death," Willow said, her voice faint, repeating what the djinn had said to them at the beginning. Oz came up and put his hands on her shoulders.

"What's wrong with him?" Dawn asked no one in particular. "Oh, God, he can't be dying."

"No, it's the Shanshu," Angel protested, his fists clenching. It was life, not death.

Giles joined the two Summers sisters beside Spike, stripping off his tweed jacket, pressing it over the bleeding cuts on the blond man's torso. "Surely the Powers That Be wouldn't grant Spike humanity while his vampire body was riddled with mortal wounds?"

"Yes," Angel said, growing cold, so odd for one of his kind, letting go of his resentment, realizing what this meant, "that's exactly what they would do." Live until he dies, Wes had said, trying to decipher what 'shanshu' meant for the souled vampire in the prophecy.

"Bloody… hell." Even gasping for air, Spike managed to convey the depth of his disgust. He'd never wanted to be human again.

Buffy looked from Angel to Spike, her eyes enormous. Then she was away from his side almost faster than anyone could see, skidding to a halt at the lamp, grasping both handles. She fell to her knees in front of it, and no one there had any doubt what the wish of her heart was.

"No, Slayer," Sayeed said, his fierce demeanor tempered with kindness, "the lamp will not work for you again."

She let go of the lamp, and it toppled, ready to smash – then it was sitting upright on its stand again, glowing with a calm, gentle light. In an instant, Buffy was next to the djinn, not touching him, but her hands were in fists by her side. "Then you make him better. Make him be all right."

He shook his head. "I cannot. I may not use my power, and in any case, I, too, exist under the authority of the Powers That Be."

Meanwhile, Giles was staring down at his countryman, at a loss. "Where does it hurt?"

"Can't breathe," Spike said, his full, deep voice thin now, "broke some ribs, maybe punctured a lung? Injured some internal organs, kidneys, I think. Beastie got me with a lash here," he moved his hand slightly where it rested atop Giles' jacket, "back, too."

The Watcher nodded, not knowing what else to do. "Hang on, William." He looked up at Willow. "Can you take us directly to the Clinic, my dear?" She nodded vigorously and motioned in a circle with her right hand to include them all, gathering power.

Hurrying, Buffy went to Spike's side again, taking his hand. Where it had been warm before, now it was icy, seeming so much colder than his normal room temperature. His face was paler than she'd seen it since pulling him off the Hellmouth after the First Evil had ritually drained his blood.

He met her eyes and smiled, hating to be weak, covering it. "No… worries." Spike couldn't turn his head, just rolled his eyes until he found Dawn's dear, tear-streaked face. "You either."

"I-it's not working," Willow said, almost dumbstruck. "Something's blocking me."

"It is not I," the djinn said gravely, "but it might be the magic that governs this place."

"Oh, man," Xander said, miserable. Lorne put out a hand and rested it on his shoulder.

"What a… cock-up," Spike said. He had said that earlier about something else, couldn't quite remember what. He took a hitching breath, thinking of one of his slayers bleeding out. Karma, innit? No one to give his blood to, though. He took another breath, then the pounding of his pulse, so loud in his ears after his heart had been still all these years, ceased.

And somehow he was standing behind Dawn, gazing down fondly at her shining brown hair, then at himself. I look ghastly, Spike thought, taken aback. Usually leave a better-looking corpse. Then he looked at Buffy, her mouth drawn in grief. He'd held her once or twice when she cried, and he wanted to go to her and hold her now.

But his eyes were drawn to the far side of the open area, away from his body, and there were three women standing there, dressed in white, shining with a light quite as lovely as the lamp. His mother held out her hand to him, and on either side, Joyce and Tara gave him welcoming smiles.

The goddess in all her aspects, he thought, his heart full. Don't deserve that, and don't think Mother would appreciate being called a crone at any rate. The maiden label wouldn't sit too well with Tara, either, but Joyce always has been the good mum. Spike was drawn to them, three who had claimed him as surely as he'd claimed them, knowing they had come to take him home.

Home.

He turned away from the three and looked back once more. Buffy was paler than any vampire, rigid with shock next to his body, and very distantly he could hear Dawn's sobs. He wanted to be with them, with his family, more than he wanted heaven. Not fair. He wanted to bounce Dawn's kids on his knee, wanted to hold Red's hands and talk without words, wanted to stand up as Xander's best man, wanted to lift a pint with Rupert, wanted to fall asleep with Angel's head on his tummy. This Shanshu mess should be Angel's; he was the one who'd wanted to fulfill the damned prophecy.

Spike wanted most to be at Buffy's side, make her stop looking so stricken, wanted to know if she'd found her courage. And if she had, if she was going to choose him… Well, that was everything he'd ever wanted.

He could feel his lip curl in defiance, this immaterial state so different from being a ghostie at Wolfram and Hart. Not fair. Buffy needed him. He should be with them.

He was going to be with them.

And then he was back, his soul refusing heaven once more, pain singing along his body, his heart banging too fast in his chest, drawing in an ugly-sounding, rattling breath. Can't stay here, he realized. My demon's gone, can't make this body go any further. He'd known since he was a human the first time that life wasn't fair. One last chance to spit in the face of destiny, then. It'd never wanted him, and the feeling was mutual. He clenched his teeth, found his voice. " _Angel_."

Frozen by his own jealousy at first, by the time the big vampire had wrapped his mind around what was happening, there was no room for him next to his boy. Alone of the people gathered around, he'd heard the heart stop. The sound of his name was like a gift beyond all expectation.

"Here," he said, going to his brother, falling beside Dawn. "I'm here." He knew what he had to do, if Spike had enough blood, if he wanted it. No time to wonder if the new demon would be close to the one he loved; Angel had always suspected that Darla hadn't been as hardcore the second time. God, do we have a fucked-up family. Drusilla siring grandmummy, now me siring her boy. If he wanted it. Angel examined the unfocused blue eyes.

"Close…" _Closer_ , Spike tried to say.

Angel bent his head near, and Spike managed to lift his arm. He grabbed the back of Angel's head with desperate strength and pulled the big vampire's mouth down to his.

 _Yours_ , he thought, and willed the life out of his body into Angel's. His demon was gone, but the human life that had been shoved into its place wasn't natural, maybe was supernatural enough to allow this. His soul and the other part, the inner anarchist, pushed the life away, out of his mouth toward Angel. Don't want it, he thought with grim determination. B'longs to Angel.

And then the dark-haired vampire hurtled back several feet, sprawling far past Dawn. "Aaargh!" he cried, an agonized sound as humanity settled back into his body.

"Dad!" Connor rushed to his side, supporting him, lifting him from the floor. Giles jerked around to see when Angel was thrown past him, and his eyes narrowed at the word. He couldn't look away from Angel, from the two feverish blotches and the tears on his cheeks. He's alive, the Watcher thought, cataloging it methodically.

He's dead, Angel thought. Angelus was slain, as surely as if he'd been staked, as surely as Spike's demon was also dead, and he was breathing. He couldn't sire anyone now. "Oh, God," he said, trying to pull away from Connor's grasp, but he was human now, too weak. No! Not like this, not at this cost. He had a flash of Doyle and Cordelia, lost to him now, of the ability that passed from one to the other. Spike had given him the Shanshu. "Will!"

Spike took in one last breath, pitifully small, and let his body relax against the stone floor. One thing salvaged, anyway. He met Dawn's eyes and then his Slayer's, last of all. "B–" His head fell to the side, all the vitality and strength gone from him, blue eyes empty.

 _Buffy_ , the Slayer thought, dying along with him.

 _Bye,_ Dawn thought, clutching his cold hand so hard, not able to see him for the tears _._ He'd promised.

* * *

New Chapter: Spike has a last visit with his angel to discuss his options.


	16. Intermission

[Author's Note: Quicker than expected update, especially for RiverQueen15. Thank you for coming back! This story is basically in two parts; we've just finished the first and are about to embark on the second, much happier part.]

 **Intermission**

Spike woke with a start and lifted his head. He was in his truck, his forehead on the steering wheel. Now, why did I fall asleep here? he wondered. The truck was inside some structure, but its tall, wooden doors were open. Through them he could see sunlit countryside.

Rupert's farm, he thought, absently picking up the glasses sitting on the dash so he could see better. Then he stopped, staring at them. His own spectacles, fallen outside a London livery, or perhaps left in an anonymous pauper's grave, yet here they were, the same pair he'd worn so long ago. Spike lifted his head, looking all around. His glasses, his truck, possessions from two different lifetimes, but not his clothes. He was dressed in blue jeans and a button-down shirt. No belt. He leaned to the side. No boots, trainers instead.

He lifted his head and saw movement. It made him freeze, assessing the threat, then he realized he'd seen himself in the rearview mirror. Spike sucked in a breath and grabbed the mirror, examining the shocked blue eyes that stared back at him. His hair was its natural dark blond and longer than he'd worn it for decades, his cheeks and lips tinged with color from the blood beneath the skin, and he even had a slight tan. Without really being aware of it, he put on his glasses to study his reflection more closely. The novelty of seeing himself made him smile, and he mugged at the Spike in the mirror for a couple of seconds. I don't look half-bad, he thought.

And on the thought, he remembered the last time he'd seen himself, dead and white with blood loss, lying between his ladies. The smile faded. That had been just moments before. Hadn't it? Letting go of the mirror, he put the glasses back on the dashboard and opened the door of the truck to step out. He was in a barn or an outbuilding, one of the structures on Rupert's property in North Carolina, anyway. How did I end up here?

He glanced up at the blue sky. One o'clock, two at the latest, he figured, and no coat to protect him, so he was stuck – No, he had a reflection, was – or had been – human again, and he remembered. The damned Shanshu prophecy. His demon was dead, ripped from him and destroyed by the Powers That Be so they'd have room to shove a human life back into his carcass. His face screwed up at that, and he put a hand out to brace himself against the truck. The other he put over his eyes, mourning the loss of his self, or part of his self. Half of him was dead, killed by the Powers That Be, his closest mate gone. His demon was dead; how was he to go on alone?

Grimacing, he stood up straight, rubbed his wet cheeks, and took a deep breath. Right, then. Not the time, not when he didn't know what was lurking outside. The air was warm and perfumed with growing things, though he couldn't smell it like a demon could. Cautiously, Spike stepped through the open doors until he could put his hand into the sunlight. Nothing happened. The warmth of the sun fell harmlessly on his skin.

He tilted his head, forced a sneer. Thought as much. The farmhouse, he supposed, and started walking toward it. Sunlight flooded his world, making the horizon too far away, messing with his sense of depth. Spike swayed drunkenly once, then took a breath and focused on the ground near his feet.

Before he got halfway to the house, he caught motion in his peripheral vision. There was someone in the garden behind the house, a red-haired woman in a simple shift dress. Caution, or perhaps paranoia, seemed to be part of him now, because he checked all around to make sure she was alone before heading to her.

The woman looked up, smiled at him, and bit into a ripe, red tomato she had plucked from one of the vines. "Mmm," she said appreciatively. "Nothing better than a tomato straight out of the garden."

"Fancy seeing you here." His words were sardonic, but inside he was relieved. Spike had always believed he would be on an express to hell when he died, but here was his guardian angel. He rather preferred his goddesses as escort, though.

The woman laughed. "Oh, no, I'm not your guardian angel." She laughed again, finding this funny.

She'd read his thoughts. He stopped several paces away, expressionless. "Who are you?"

"Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name?" she asked, teasing.

He ignored the Rolling Stones quote. "You're from the Powers That Be, then."

This seemed to strike a nerve. "I have nothing to do with your Powers." Her eyes were no longer green, glittering like sunlight on clear water instead.

"If you're not my guardian angel or from the Powers, why did you come to me in Sunnydale? And why are we here?" he said, gesturing around at the farm.

"Huh," she said, looking surprised. "You're so quick, I thought you'd figure it out." She shrugged, unconcerned. "Maybe this, instead?"

They were in his mother's parlor, and he was wearing a high-collared, uncomfortable suit, but that didn't matter, because his manners were wanted. In front of him was a familiar face beneath unfashionably short hair. "Miss Emma!" he said, holding out his hand for hers.

Cheerful brown eyes beamed up at him through her own glasses. "How lovely to see you, Mr. Withorn-Allgood."

The pleasure at seeing an old friend faded, and he let go of the frail hand and gave the being in front of him a narrow look. "The name's Spike. Not gonna play games. Get out of her body." After the First Evil and even Illyria, he was tired of seeing creatures wearing the bodies of people he knew.

"It was my body for a short time," was the pleasant reply, "but I do not wish for you to be uncomfortable." With a shrug, Emma became the red-haired woman again. The plushly decorated parlor faded, and they were back on the farm, now beneath a night sky full of summer stars. He was still in Victorian dress.

Spike lifted his chin, remembering how he'd finally found his feet against Pavayne. A moment later, he was in his Doc Martens, his leather coat surrounding him, the faint smell of bleach in his nostrils from his freshly-done hair, and chipped black polish on his nails. The very last thing was his spectacles, and they vanished from his face. "Now I'm comfortable."

This elicited a nod of approval. "Very good."

"If you aren't an angel, what are you?"

"I didn't say I wasn't an angel, just that I wasn't your guardian angel."

He grew still. "So you're here to make sure I end up where I belong, then."

"I'm here to offer you a job," she told him cheerfully, still sounding like Emma, "but I seem to be making rather a hash of it."

"A job," he echoed. There was an Adirondack chair behind him, and he sat down. Quite suddenly, it was too much to process. Overhead, a falling star etched across the sky.

"You did turn down your heavenly reward," she pointed out.

His mother and Joyce and Tara, he thought, he'd turned away from his goddesses. "I had more to do."

"And isn't that the very essence of a job?" She sat down, too, in another convenient Adirondack chair. "I was born… my soul was, rather, as Emma, born into the same world as you were born into. I was already sick with scarlet fever when you were killed, and I died shortly thereafter. Like you, I turned away from heaven, wanting to do more." The being gave a sad smile of remembrance. "It seemed I spent half my short years as a human in a sick bed. At any rate, I wanted to do more than rest and rejoice. I wanted to serve."

"I serve no one."

"You serve love, William. You always have."

His head snapped back. "I don't serve you."

"No," she agreed, smiling again. "You would not be working for me."

Anger burned through Spike. It felt good. "And I'll never do a soddin' thing for the Powers That Be. Wouldn't cross the street to piss on 'em if they were on fire."

There was a matching anger in her glittering, crystalline eyes. "Nor would I." Then she snorted with laughter. "What a great expression! I hadn't heard that before. Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining, that one I know."

Spike watched her laugh. Joy seemed to be part of this creature, and that made it hard to stay on guard against her. "What do you have against the Powers That Be?"

"The same thing that you do, actually. They killed Spike." She grimaced. "More broadly, they keep balance between good and evil the way toddlers build towers out blocks. They lack… finesse. Just look at the way they kept the djinn's prison sacrosanct by bringing to pass the Shanshu prophecy before it had been completely fulfilled."

"So… you want to offer me a job working against the Powers That Be?"

"Oh, no!" She looked appalled at the idea. "No, we don't work against the Powers."

"Then I'm not interested. Got a bone to pick with them, I do. Everything was just… scuppered." His mouth twisted, and he quoted her the most pathetic and heart-wrenching question he'd ever heard. "'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'"

"Neither Johnny Rotten nor the demon Spike can be avenged." Her voice was gentle.

"Not about me," Spike growled. "Took me away from my family, took me away from where I was needed."

She shook her head. "You weren't needed any longer. With the portals closed for nearly four hundred of earth's years, there were no more apocalypses for you to face. The doors were locked against outside magic; vampires couldn't sire anymore, demons weakened and nearly died out."

"Do you think I was just a champion?" he sneered, echoing something Dawn had once told him. "Had people that loved me, that depended on me."

"Would you like to see what happened to them? I feel your heart crying out for them."

He closed his eyes, all bravado gone. "Yes."

She stretched across the space between their chairs to place cool fingers on his warm brow, and Spike felt a rushing sensation, though he didn't think he really had a physical form. He saw.

Buffy, dead-eyed, supported by Giles as Willow, magicks working again, took them back to the medical practice building where they'd fought the final battle, his body in Angel's arms, who refused to let him go. A long-delayed funeral with so many mourners, even Lana, who hated to travel, even Dana, who had hated him. A tombstone in his family's London plot, arranged by Rupert, who insisted that his marker read 1852-2005 and have both names on it, the inscription beneath 'Never Conquered Except By Love.'

"Not interested in this," Spike growled. "Show me my family."

Rona and Rondell and their children, Vi and her Good Lieutenant and theirs; Kayla and Bethany and Ute and Vashti and Miko and Nguise and Ivana and Isidra and Miriam and all the rest, and marriages and children and divorces and remarriages and grandchildren and death, all his lovelies living full lives and battling the occasional demon before their strength and the need diminished, being a slayer never a burden for them.

Dana leaving the mental institution the year she turned forty, living a quiet life as a volunteer at a halfway house, succumbing to organ failure caused by decades of strong medication.

Clem and Lorne both dying of natural causes within five years of his own death, the earth no longer a healthy place for demons.

Giles leaving the Council and moving back to Bath, Alpana eventually joining him, knighthood, a quiet life full of travel and research ended by a stroke at age seventy-three.

Willow becoming another Dr. Rosenberg, becoming Mrs. Osborne, her power fading as the closed world diminished the flow of magic, no children, divorcing Oz during a difficult menopause, reconciling with him a few years later.

Xander, always a constant in Willow's life, marrying Lina, becoming a good father to five children, traveling across the globe to work with slayers, becoming the first American head of the Council of Watchers.

Gunn passing the bar and joining Ronson, Ferguson, and Ronson, becoming a partner in the firm, dating a string of lovely, polished ladies until waking up at forty and resigning his position to return to Los Angeles, opening a no-frills law office with the motto 'Helping the Helpless,' marrying a woman half his age and having three children, dying at his desk of a heart attack, just like his mother.

Dawn, sister, daughter, his very heart, marrying Connor, finishing college, having beautiful children, working for the Council, working as a business consultant, happy with her husband, happy with her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, the ancestor to a long line of humans, mixed Summers and Slayer and Aurelian blood in generation after generation until it came to pass that another Chosen One was needed.

Buffy, his beloved, empty inside again, dead-eyed as any vampire, turning to Angel in silence, not considering that he was human, staying alive because now she was carrying the baby of a man she did love, never being able to explain to Angel why he should not have named their son William, a life with her first love and their beautiful child still not enough to balance the emptiness, orphaning her son when he was three by not moving quickly enough out of the path of the last Fyarl left on earth, thinking of how Giles had looked once and so ready to go back to heaven, at peace now, death her gift, and her tombstone next to his own by Giles' arrangement, 1981-2009, 'She Saved the World a Lot.'

Angel, brother, knowing how to be a good father now, how to be a good father-in-law, his life devoted to raising William and helping Connor and Dawn raise their children, nothing more to atone for but so much sorrow for someone who could be happy, Faith coming back into his life years later and another child, his daughter Kathleen Bea forty years younger than her older brother Connor, twenty years between each child, always a family joke, dying quite peacefully of a brain aneurysm, blood his downfall in the end, and his tombstone on the other side of Buffy's by Dawn's arrangement, their three odd markers a great favorite of London tourists, with Angel's reading 1729-2030, 'Beloved Father.'

Spike shuddered as the last pebble of the avalanche rolled over him. He drew in a breath, then another before he was able to meet the being's gaze. "They're all gone."

"Nothing with a soul is every really gone."

"But… my family, my world… It's all gone." He stared at his hands, willing himself to not cry.

She nodded. "That reality is 'past' for you. You cannot return." She perched on the edge of her low chair. "They did all right without you."

His head jerked around. "All right?" he roared, that much of Spike still left. "All right? You think the Slayer did all right? Bloody hell, woman. She needed me, and I wasn't there for her."

The being shook her head. "Of all possible outcomes, this was the best, William."

"The best poss – rubbish! Best for who? Not for Buffy."

"The best possible for you, of course."

He stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"This reality was for you, William, because I avenged your death, your loss of free will at the hands of the vampiress Drusilla."

"Never asked you to avenge anything."

"No," she agreed.

When she didn't say anything else, he gritted his teeth. "How, exactly, did you avenge my death?"

"By arranging for you to get your soul earlier."

"What?"

She smiled, and Spike knew it was because she was delighted with her success. "It wasn't the usual work we do, avenging angels, I mean, in restoring free will. I did what we call a 'straddle,' standing in two realities and bridging them. I tracked you from the most likely dimension, took your sin on myself to create a new reality, and gave you a reason to go get your soul earlier. That created the world you just left." She shrugged. "Very little, really. You did most of the work – as, of course, you should."

"Realities? Dimensions?"

"Oh, yes. Alexander Vilenkin was very close to explaining everything." A frown creased her brow. "A little too close." When he still looked puzzled, her mouth tightened. "Take it on faith, William. This reality was better."

"You changed my reality?" There was a threat in his voice, something else he'd learned as Spike. "This is supposed to be better?"

"I only changed circumstances to give back your free will." When she saw his distrust didn't fade, she asked, "Do you really have to see to believe?"

"I do."

"I am sorry." And she touched his forehead again.

He saw his world, all the same, triumphs and losses great and small, all the same until Buffy died on the tower. And he did nothing, just drifted in grief, did not get his soul, did not take care of Dawn the way she needed. Spike watched events unfurl, puzzled that he hadn't known better, so much the same yet just a little off, his own behavior shocking him as the chip malfunctioned and he gave as good as he got to Buffy because he just didn't know how to love a human, because maybe she wasn't human, either, because maybe she belonged in the dark with him.

Then he saw what he tried to do, insane with emotion, his face so distorted he didn't even look like himself – him, the one who didn't hurt her, and he cried aloud into the dark summer night in protest. He'd asked, though, so he was forced to see more, see it through, do nothing more than watch as he got his soul a single year too late, watch as he never felt clean enough to touch her again, watch as the First Evil made him into a killer with a soul, watch himself gladly die, watch as he was tied to Angel and they both died again battling Wolfram and Hart. He saw, too, what happened after his death, powerless to do anything but watch as Illyria ripped Willow's powers from her instead of reclaiming her own, watch as Buffy married the Immortal and bore him a child, watch as she discovered who he really was and fled with her daughter back to America to hide with Dawn and a life spent looking over her shoulder until one night Drusilla was behind her looking back.

"Oh God," he breathed, so grateful that it was over.

"In the bridging reality, I had no real power, could never have done it if the Powers That Be knew what I was about. I coopted the djinn's wish to create your world, William, the one you remember, took your sin and," she shrugged again, "gave you a nudge out the door."

She was quoting something, he knew that quote, but he couldn't think just now. He'd tried to… he'd hurt Buffy. He'd murdered, bloody hell, he'd _sired_ while he had his soul. He'd never grown close to Angel, had lost any connection to Dawn. It wasn't possible, couldn't be the way things were supposed to be. It was too awful. He had been passive, letting things happen to him. The Scoobies had barely talked to each other, hadn't even acted like a family. And Rupert had helped Robin Wood try to kill him!

But he knew, deep in his heart, that it could have been just like that. That could have been him, could have been his world. "It seemed so real."

"It was real. For one Spike, it was real."

"Poor bugger." She nodded, smiling faintly, and he pounced. "And this was the best you could do?"

The being raised her brows. "Yes. I do know where your heart lies, William. Before, you were exiled from Buffy." She gave him a sympathetic look. "Of course, she was exiled from heaven. That was the best possible reality."

"Bollocks." Spike stood up and paced away a few feet. "Right, so I wasn't a violent, insane… git, didn't try to…" he couldn't bring himself to say the word 'rape' in connection with Buffy, so he moved on, "wasn't the First Evil's bitch, siring on command –" He stilled. "That was the sin you took."

She nodded. "I murdered and sired the same number of people so the realities would match. It had to happen in a bridged reality, a souled vampire killing humans, so I did it in your place."

His jaw flexed. "I never asked-"

"No."

Spike hated her calmness. "Are you responsible for Becca?" Another thing he'd never asked for.

"Who?" She was genuinely confused.

"Tribby, then?"

Frowning, the woman reached into thin air and brought back a book in her hand, for all the world as if from a shelf. She thumbed through several pages, her eyebrows going up. "No. I'm not." A piercing look. "The souls you touched are not bound to you or to the demon Spike. She chose to do that of her own free will, to save you from vampires as you saved her, to repay her debt." Placing the book back into thin air, she turned away before it disappeared. "There was no debt, of course, but she felt an obligation. You let her son live, let her live."

His jaw clenched. He'd made her his thrall, harmed her. She owed him nothing, should never have thought of him afterwards except with hatred. Not wanting to examine that further, he lashed out. "All that effort, and this was the best you could do? Me, dying on a floor as a human," he spat the word, "just as things might have been getting good?"

"I did not will that, and, yes, that was the best I could do. Wasn't it better?"

"There must be another possible reality, one that-"

"Must you see this, too?" she asked, a thread of impatience in her voice.

"Never cared to be protected," he shot back. "Haven't you figured that out by now?"

This time she didn't touch him. Instead, she stood up from the chair and lifted her hand so that a round bubble of bright grayness, like fog, appeared in the warm night air. "Behold: all earth's possible realities."

And there they were, spinning inside the fog like the beacon atop a lighthouse, strobing fast, but somehow he was able to keep up: Worlds where humans didn't evolve, where true demons never departed, where he was never conceived or his mother couldn't carry him to term, realities where he didn't get turned, worlds where he helped Darla kill the newly-souled Angelus and became her consort, worlds where Drusilla was saved from her fate, dimensions where Drusilla never went to Prague and they never went to Sunnydale. Dimensions where he successfully wooed Cecily, where he never married and died alone and unremarked and human; where he and Angel or Angelus ended up together, two immortal beings bound by time and familiarity; where he ended up in the Master's service and the surface world became their playground. But he watched most closely the ones where he did go to Sunnydale, and since they met when she was such a young, inexperienced Slayer, he killed Buffy almost every time, and Angel shortly thereafter. In the worlds where he didn't manage it right away, they ended up killing each other, sometimes him, sometimes her, always the dance, an electricity between them even as enemies. In dozens of worlds, he was her whipping boy, defanged by the chip, sometimes useful, sometimes a sneaking menace, almost never welcome. In a handful, he became her friend. In three, he became her lover. In one, she loved him.

Spike closed his eyes as the bubble disappeared, weary through his entire soul. It had taken no time at all; it had taken forever. "So we never…" His mouth tightened; he hated to ask, as he'd seen this being work for decades in two worlds to give him back his free will, but… "You said she'd love me."

"She did. You were meant to have that. It was the Powers That Be who interceded." Before he could ask anything else, she turned away. "Perhaps I have sinned in pride, because I really thought…" She looked back. "You were my friend when we were both so young and so human, William, so of course I love you, but I loved the demon Spike just as dearly. I thought…" She bit her lip, and tears from an angel made diamonds look dim, made snowflakes look impure. "No demon has ever chosen good, not since the Rebellion. I believe he would have been the first, and I was so proud." Her voice trailed off. "Perhaps I was proud of myself, though I did nothing and you and he did everything. Perhaps it was my sin."

"Angels can sin?"

"Of course we can. You've met the Fallen." Her shoulders slumped. "If I have sinned, I will ask for forgiveness and atone as necessary." Then she turned back to him, eyes clear and bright and frightening. "But my sin is not envy. The Powers That Be will have to atone for that."

"Envy?"

She took a step closer. "Yes, envy. They are charged with balancing good and evil. Easy enough, right?"

"If you say so," he mumbled.

"But they watch the love and hate and beauty and passion, and they envy what humans have. Granting the Shanshu is well within their rights, but to do so capriciously, to do so in a spiteful manner…" Her voice trailed off again. "They slew Spike, took his free will as surely as Drusilla took yours, used the excuse of the djinn's prison, and I can do nothing, because as much as he strived for the light," her voice was soft, "he had no soul."

"He had mine," Spike said staunchly. Something flickered in the diamond-bright eyes, and for a moment it seemed she held a sword, and he felt a call inside him, something like the pull of Aurelian blood. Spike wanted to join her, because maybe he could avenge his demon's death if she couldn't. Something occurred to him, though, distracting him.

"I had to die because I passed by the lamp. So did Illyria."

"Illyria is an Old One and operates under different laws, is not beholden to the Powers. She could not have made a wish, in any case." The colorless eyes were cold. "The Powers do love a tidy solution, taking care of the Shanshu prophecy and the sanctity of the djinn's sentence with one stroke. Of course, they don't care who gets trampled in the process."

"She would have loved me?"

"She did love you. She had healed enough, and her work was finished."

Because she didn't have to be anything other than Buffy, they might have… Everything he had ever wanted, the one thing he'd ever wanted since he'd been a human the first time, within his grasp but snatched away by the Powers. His fists clenched, and he turned half-away, fury and the need for revenge boiling through him. Revenge. Spike grew still again. "You're recruiting me to be an avenging angel. Like you."

"Yes," she agreed, and withdrew without moving, letting him consider the offer.

Spike looked around the farmyard, recalling nights spent here talking to Angel in the bridging reality, knowing now why Rupert had received this bequest. They weren't really on a farm in North Carolina, of course. He couldn't have been here very long, surely not, and already he'd learned so much. What more might he discover if he could pull the books of life out of thin air? And he loved to fight, lived to fight, even. What glorious battles might an avenging angel enjoy?

But who would be at his right side as he fought? And he couldn't fool himself; the only books he wanted to read were those about his family.

"No." He bit his lip, forcing himself to be nice about it. "Thank you very much for asking."

"If you're holding out for a better offer," she said, "you'll probably get one."

He snorted. "What, they're gonna make me an archangel?"

"No openings. Archangels have been with the Creator since before this universe occurred. A guardian angel?" She shook her head, reading his thoughts again, reminding him to bring up the mental defenses that Willow had helped him restore. "You could have gone on to your heaven and there been a guardian angel; their duties are typically light. No, William, if you aren't happy with how the Powers That Be handle things, you may get your chance to show them how it's supposed to be done."

"What?" His voice was hoarse. She couldn't be suggesting….

"I know you, though. You know life's not fair, but you want it to be, anyway. I think, for you, being a Power would… chafe. You would be constrained to balance good and evil, so that humans might choose. I do not believe you would enjoy allowing people to suffer for the sake of balance." She gave him an impish grin. "And you do love battle. I am glad I was able to make this offer first."

"Bloody hell," he said, imagining himself glaring across a conference table at another Power in a white robe (who, in his imagination, looked suspiciously like Roger Wyndham-Pryce). "I can't become something I despise."

"You could."

"I don't even have a demon inside me. You said you were Emma; you know I'm just William, nothing special. This is…" Spike tried to find a stronger word than ridiculous.

"The Powers That Be have to come from somewhere."

"Not from the Order of Aurelius."

She took a step closer and said gently, "You just said you aren't a vampire. Your soul, William, is stronger than mine ever was, stronger than your demon. Don't you see? It stayed out of heaven for over a hundred of our years, waiting until it could get back to the body where it belonged." Her shoulders lifted. "I didn't know that was possible. And even if it never had, the soul shaped your personality, gave your demon… leeway. What he did with that free will, showing love, mercy, during –"

"It was my demon, he was the strong one, he –"

"After your demon was gone, you turned away from your heavenly reward so you could go back and turn down a prophesied boon," she said, loud enough to override him, "and in fact give it to another." Her brows drew together. "Do you think the Powers That Be foresaw that, ever considered that you would be strong enough to pass their 'gift' to someone else? Oh, William," she shook her head admiringly, "you've been a thorn in their side in several realities."

"Good."

"And even here, which for you is really nowhere at all, you can keep me from knowing your thoughts, were able to choose how you wanted to look."

He frowned, looking down at his boots. "I just… wanted to be out of that damned wool suit," he mumbled. More laughter from her, and it was like bells. But angel or not, she had to be wrong about his soul being powerful. "Don't hardly feature being a Power," he said, thinking of how little he'd enjoyed being in charge the months after Angel submitted.

"Join our forces, then," she encouraged him. "We do not have to worry about the balance."

"What do you do?"

"When someone has been robbed of their free will, we restore it. That's our only mission." Her eyes brightened. "But sometimes we are called to do battle with Chaos. Oh, those are grand!"

Spike sat back down in the chair, his head in his hands. It sounded dreadfully dull, except for the battles, but still better than endless eons of infighting with the Powers That Be. At least I have a choice, he thought sourly. It's more than I usually get. "So," he said, lifting his head, "what do you do for fun around here?"

"Serving is our joy." It made Spike think of Illyria Battle-god's arrogant assurance that being her vassal was honor enough. Then the being's eyes widened. "Oh. I remember what you mean." She gave him sly grin. "I had quite a bit of fun restoring your free will. Emma died without ever drinking, cursing, or marrying, after all."

This was enough to make him put his head in his hands again. Second-hand experiences, still better than world governance by committee? He'd have to think about that. "What do I have to do? Angel boot camp? Learn a secret handshake?"

"You give up your free will."

"Your job is to restore free will, and you don't have any of your own?"

The crystal clear eyes lit. "I serve the will of the Creator." She spread her arms wide and lifted her face to the night sky. "All of this, so vast and wide, yet the Creator's will still binds all together." She was worshipping, he realized.

"I gotta say, not loving my options here," Spike said, and he missed Xander so much that it was almost a physical pain. "Either I fold now and give up my free will, or hold my cards to see if the Powers That Be up the ante."

"Both are great honors," she assured him, crestfallen. Her glum look lifted suddenly. "Oh! Avenging angels get this." And the sword he'd glimpsed/sensed earlier appeared in her right hand. It flared to life with a fierce blue flame.

He couldn't keep from flinching away from it. "Been a vampire a long time, pet. Not too keen on fire."

"Oh." The sword disappeared.

"Maybe I don't want a job." He was so weary, and there was nothing to look forward to from his viewpoint. "Can I just go to my whats-it, heavenly reward?" Spike sat up straighter, something occurring to him. "Will Buf – Will my family be there, eventually?"

"Some of them."

He knew already. "But not the Slayer."

She shook her head. "They bear so much in their short lives. There is a realm of rest just for them."

"But they can choose otherwise." Tribby had appeared to him after she died, and she had been a slayer.

"They can," the being agreed solemnly.

Buffy wouldn't choose anything but a return to her heaven, where she wouldn't have to be empty. _I was warm, and I was loved… and I was finished._ Spike closed his eyes. He wanted that for her, even, but, oh, to be parted from her forever….

Then he grew still, his mind doing the one thing it did brilliantly, putting together random pieces to come up with a clear picture. "Those aren't the only options. I can choose otherwise."

She, too, became still, and although Spike couldn't read her mind, he suddenly knew that she had constraints laid on what she could tell him. "You can. You still have free will." The words were careful, and she was giving him a sharp, encouraging look.

"I could choose to be reincarnated."

"You could." There was still something expectant in her eyes.

What else was there? Spike racked his brains, thinking of beliefs about death from dozens of religions. He didn't want nirvana, obviously, if it meant being without his Slayer. No Valhalla, no parade of insipid virgins – and then he realized he was going about this the wrong way.

What do I want? And once he asked the question, he knew the answer.

"I could choose to not die, to have a different outcome."

"No." She gave him a sad smile, but there was disappointment lurking beneath. "That existence is closed for you. You cannot return."

"Bloody hell." Frustrated, he stood from the chair and turned away in a swirl of leather. "Wasn't that great a reality, anyway." Then, as clear as if she was standing next to him, he heard Dawn's voice: _Think bigger._ He stopped so suddenly that his coat wrapped around his thighs before falling into its usual lines. Spike turned back to her, his head tilting to the side. "I can choose a different reality."

Colorless eyes met his. She gave him a slow nod. "There are infinite dimensions."

God, he'd always had quite a set, but the gall, the sheer cheek of this… Spike swallowed. "I can create a new reality." Despite his trepidation, his voice was sure and deep. "I can create the reality that I want. A new one," his lips felt numb as he said these words, "as I will it."

"Yes, William. You can." She smiled now, full of pride.

Jackpot, he thought. He drew in a breath, a helpless smile of his own taking his mouth. "Not just for me. Better for… better for my family."

"And perhaps for your demon," she suggested.

Spike's mind was racing. "My father needn't die so early."

"No," she agreed, but there was a warning in her tone now. "And if he lives until you're twenty-five and the title goes to you, then I'm sure Cecily would happily accept your suit, and there would be no reason for you ever to be alone and unprotected on the streets of a London night."

And he would die decades before most of his family were ever born. But Cecily would never become a vengeance demon, he thought, having seen that, too, in his tour of all possible worlds. Something inside him quailed; it couldn't be all about him, could it? So many billions of people in the world at the same time, so many unintended consequences. Spike looked up and squinted at the innumerable stars visible in the dark sky. "How many people choose this?"

"No one."

"Ever?"

"No."

He could understand why. The hubris, the sheer ballsiness of it… Then the corollary of the thing occurred to him, not about the masses of people who would have to go along for the ride, but about what he would have to do himself.

"Have to live through it all again, yeah?" The blood and the murder and twenty years of his warped family and decades more worshipping his mad sire and and all the attendant mayhem.

"Most of it." She looked up at the stars, too. "Very little can change – nothing at all, I imagine, until your death beneath Drusilla's fangs. To get what you want, you need to exist in the late twentieth century." Her tone was compassionate. "Or you might choose to not be a vampire at all, simply be born at the same time as your family in Sunnydale. Please don't let me influence you."

"No, I am Spike. I want him, too. We're mates. Together, we're just... me." And how would he help Buffy if he wasn't a warrior? He wasn't the only one who needed Spike.

"Then your reality will splinter from your old one sometime after your rebirth and begin from there."

Spike closed his eyes. He would do it all over again, but, God, it had been a long journey. "How can I know anything will be different even after that?"

"Don't worry." She gestured and suddenly held a pendant on the end of a chain. She swung it to the left. "The Powers That Be have the task of moving this" – the pendant was obeying no laws of physics he was familiar with – "to the equal and opposite side." The pendant did so. "But in a world where your will prevails…" The pendant dropped immediately, hanging without a hint of movement. "The Powers That Be have nothing to balance." With a flick of her fingers, the prop disappeared.

He hated being weak, hated needing reassurance. "But... how will I understand what I know now?"

She waited until he was looking at her before she gave him another proud smile. "Don't worry. Your soul will know."

He lifted a shoulder, uncomfortable with asking. "Seen Angel, other people get guidance." His mouth tightened. "Not the Slayer, though."

"Oh, I don't think that it's such a bad thing that Sineya shields Buffy from prophets and from the Powers." The avenging angel gave him a considering look. She gestured with her hand again, and their surroundings changed to a hillside park on the edge of Sunnydale, a place he had liked to go to be alone, where Buffy hardly ever patrolled. Together they looked down on the dark town before them, Spike's eyes automatically seeking Joyce's house. "I believe I can arrange a guide, nothing like Doyle or Cordelia, but something small." She smiled up at him again. "You don't really need anything except your soul, but I recall your loneliness."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me," she said pointedly. "In fact," and for a moment he simply could not see her, could not comprehend her with his still-human mind, but he knew she was rejoicing, offering a song of joy in a key too perfect for him to hear, "I should thank you. You've given me a great deal of hope."

He closed his eyes, his teeth clenched tightly together. "Will it be all right?"

"Remember your Hegel: the desire for another is the desire to be recognized by the other. You've always wanted someone who sees you, William. This will be your chance to be seen."

More terrifying than reassuring. "Good, then." He lifted his head and put on a decent layer of attitude, despite his nerves. "What next?"

"Focus on what you want."

"What? That's it?"

She laughed, a peal of bells. "It's in your very name, William. Will what you want. That's your gift, one all humans have. Make a choice of your own free will and see it through, difficult though the path must be. Where we are," she gestured again, and they were nowhere, in a swirling gray mist, "anything is possible."

Spike took another breath and closed his eyes to concentrate better. What did he want? He had a pang for his parents and his London childhood, but his heart was in Sunnydale. He wanted them all: Buffy, happy and whole, and his Nibblet, and the Scoobies. He needed Spike to be whole, himself. He wanted the ones who were lost: Joyce, Tara, Anya, Fred, Wesley. He wanted his brother, wanted Angel to be happy and whole, too. Maybe they could make it a better world for everyone.

And for himself, he wanted love. He'd loved two women and offered them both his entire being. Drusilla was too damaged to take it, and Buffy hadn't wanted it. How good could it be to love recklessly and have it returned in full? What would it be like to live in a world where love could really be enough, could really conquer all? He wanted to know.

 _Haven't had a dream in a long time_

 _See, the life I've had would make a good man bad_

Focusing so intently on this wish of his heart, he didn't realize that he was alone until it was too late for farewell.

 _So for once in my life let me get what I want_

He was fading; no, he was evaporating, becoming concentrated, compact, coalescing into nothing more than his bare essence. And of all things, he had a bloody song stuck in his head, Morrissey's perfect, doleful voice a lullaby following him down, down, out of existence.

 _Lord knows it would be the first time_

Funny old world.

[Author's Note: The song is The Smiths' 'Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.' The earlier misquote about a nudge is what Gandalf told Bilbo in J.R.R. Tolkein's _The Hobbit_. The first song lyric is from the Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil.' Spike quotes Johnny Rotten's words to the audience as the Sex Pistols fell apart onstage in San Francisco in 1978.]

[Author's Note: Thank you to readers, especially rfsalinasjr, who asked questions that helped give this chapter more clarity. This is the last we'll see of the angel who helps Spike. Early on, I decided to cut a few chapters of 'prologue' about the bridging reality. No matter how much I revised, I couldn't quite beat the Mary Sue out of Spike's guardian angel. That part of the story had some excellent Spike-Angel scenes, though. If you have a high tolerance for AU characters and want to know what happens when an undercover avenging angel gives Spike, Angel, and Gunn a ride to a demon hospital after the battle behind the Hyperion, let me know. I'll try to wring some more Mary Sue out of her and post it as a separate story.]

* * *

Next Chapter: Meet young Master William, who is hiding under the kitchen table after sneaking out of bed one night.


	17. Memories

**Memories**

June 1856

London

[Content Warning: This chapter begins the night that William's mother delivers a stillborn baby. There are descriptions of her emotions and of William briefly seeing his little sister.]

The house was too quiet.

Hiding in the darkness beneath the sturdy wooden table where the servants ate in the kitchen, William pondered the silence and nibbled on a slice of dried apple he'd taken from the cloth where Cook had been preparing a pie for tomorrow. His father had warned him that a new baby made for a noisy house, but there was no noise now.

There had been noise for a while the previous night, some of them scary sounds. Doors opening and closing, footsteps up and down both sets of stairs, carriages coming and going outside the front gates. Someone had been crying out in pain for a long time; he'd just turned four – and he held up four of his fingers on his right hand, not his left, because he mustn't use his left – but he knew what pain sounded like. And then he'd heard sobs, but it hadn't sounded like a baby crying, like Cousin Pippa's new little brother Georgie.

He wasn't sure he wanted a Georgie of his own, but he'd noticed that Pippa got to do more since her nurse had two charges. She'd been on his rocking horse for several minutes, with him pretending to lead it by the reins, before Pippa's nurse had swooped down and taken her off its back and away from danger. Maybe if he had a baby brother the nurse had to attend to, he'd get to do more, too.

William already did more than anyone else in his house knew. He felt a little thrill at knowing something no one else knew, too. Nurse – his new nurse, not the old one – slept very soundly. He'd learned that the very night she was hired, when her snores had woken him. After trying to shake her awake, he gave up and wandered out into the hallway to find someone who could. There had been music from downstairs, and he'd lurked at the curve of the banister, watching adults talking and laughing. He saw his father smiling with a beautiful woman holding his arm, and he'd realized with a start that she was his mother, elegant in a rich burgundy gown, so unlike the pale colors she wore when she visited the nursery. It had been like looking into a secret world.

Since then, whenever Nurse woke him up with her snores, he'd sneak out of bed. He'd learned the best hiding places throughout the house. The only time William had been caught was when he'd been particularly restless and had gone out the servants' door, across the cobblestones and small lawn to the left of the garden and into the stables. A smelly old man with faded red hair had surprised him with a loud, "Who goes there?" He'd seen the man before, but never spoken to him, and William had been tongue-tied. After staring down at him for what seemed like a very long time, the man finally asked, "Here to see the horses, are you?" When he nodded, mute before the stranger, the old man said gruffly, "Well, you can't. They're all asleep, like you should be." Then the stableman had taken him back to the door and made sure he went inside. William hadn't been scared of him, exactly, but he hadn't left the house since.

The area under the servants table was his favorite hiding place, mostly because it was in the kitchen, and he could always find something to eat. With so many chairs pulled up to it, the chances of being seen were slim. But he became very still when he heard Cook and Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper, coming in from the hallway. Both women were in their robes and nightclothes instead of their crisp service dresses, and he wondered just how late it was.

"Ye should have said when ye didn't get anythin' to eat, Mary," Cook was scolding. "I willna get a wink's sleep with yer stomach growlin' at me so."

"I'm so sorry, Ellen," Mrs. Brown apologized. "There's been so much to-do around the house, I didn't think until it was too late." Ellen, William thought. Cook had a whole name, too, Ellen MacReedy.

"Well, isna too late," Cook said, and her voice didn't sound so gruff now. "Ooo, 'tis a terrible shame." She tutted and opened the door to the pantry, muffling her next words.

"Oh, indeed," Mary said, agreeing with Cook. "After her misery upon miscarrying two years ago, I don't know how she'll bear this."

"Terrible thing to lose a bairn," Cook said, coming out of the pantry and closing the door behind her.

Something in her voice made Mary look up. "Did you…?" She changed her question midway. "Did you ever marry, then?"

"Aye." Cook didn't look at Mary, just watched her knife slice through the loaf of bread she'd placed on the sideboard. "Ye'll not believe it, but I was a bonny lass once. Had a great, strapping husband and two little girls." She turned her knife to the wheel of cheese. "The scarlet fever took them all. I couldna stay in Scotland. That's when I came down to London and entered service."

"I never knew," Mary said at length, sympathy in her voice. She pulled out two of the chairs from the table and sat down at one. William scooted toward the opposite end of the table, away from their legs, but he didn't dare try to get away. "This was a little girl, too."

"So I heard. Here you go, dear." Cook settled the platter on the table and unstoppered a pot of jam to go along. She swung the kettle over the fire and poked at the embers before settling at the table. "Shoulda done that first, but we'll have hot tea in a bit."

"Thank you, Ellen. That will be lovely, and so it this," Mary said, lifting her bread.

"Ye're sure ye don't want it toasted?"

William listened to the clinks and thumps as the two women shared out the bread, cheese, and jam. He was cramped and wanted to leave, but he couldn't without being found out. Being trapped seemed to make him that much more uncomfortable.

"I dinna think her ladyship could have more, not after the last."

"Shouldn't and couldn't are two different things." The housekeeper sniffed. "His lordship might have stayed out of her chambers."

"Ooo, but, Mary, 'tis a love match they have." There was something wistful in Cook's voice. "Jeffries was just making a point the other night about how the master doesna keep a Cyprian. He's good people. Canna blame him for it, or her, either."

The housekeeper sniffed again. "It isn't my place, or I'd have Sally tell her ladyship a bit of what she knows. If that one hasn't found herself in trouble yet, she knows the ways around it."

"That upstairs lass? Aye, she's a fresh one. Dinna think she'd last this long."

"She does quite well with madam's hair. I'll send her up tomorrow, see if her ladyship might feel better if she's done up a bit."

William absently rubbed at his nose with the palm of his left hand, then remembered. He transferred the apple to his left hand and scratched with his right.

"'Tis a terrible thing to lose a baby," Cook said again, sighing.

Beneath the table, William frowned. The new baby had gotten lost? How on earth had that happened? Then, horribly, he sneezed.

The two servants froze, then Mary leaned over to peer beneath the table. "What on…? Master William? Come out of there, child. What are you doing out of bed?" He knew he mustn't lie, so William crawled from beneath the table, stood up, then held out his open hand.

Cook saw the bit of remaining apple and chuckled a little. "Hungry, were you, dear?" He nodded, his blue eyes serious, and she chuckled again. "Gave us a start, you did. I thought maybe there was a wee mousie under the table, sneezing from the dust." She stood up and held out a hand. "Would you like another, Master William?"

"Yes, please." He popped the last bite into his mouth and took her hand. He liked Cook, and she liked him back, always saying that it did her heart good to see a growing boy eat.

The housekeeper wasn't amused. "You shouldn't be out of the nursery, child. If you were hungry, you should have told Nurse."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brown. I can't wake her."

"Likes her nip," Cook said, handing him two more apple slices. "Oh, there's the kettle." She let go of William's hand and went to the fireplace.

"Several nips," Mary said dryly. She held out her own hand to William, who came forward immediately. "Why on earth did you hide under the table?"

"I know I'm not supposed to be in the kitchen."

"No, dear. It's quite dangerous down here, with all the hot pans and sharp knives." She smoothed his curls and gave him a kindly smile. The housekeeper didn't often show affection, not like Cook, but this time she held out her arms to pick him up and set him on her knee. Cold, he nestled against her, putting his head against her shoulder and taking a bite of apple. Mary shook her head and looked at Cook helplessly.

"Can ye blame her for wanting another like that one?" She held the kettle carefully, a folded towel wrapped around the handle, and poured the hot water into the teapot.

"No," Mary said, and she gave William a squeeze. In a low voice, she asked, "Ellen, what should I do?"

"Best take him to his lordship," Cook advised. "That way, he'll learn for himself the habits of the woman hired to look after…" She trailed off and simply nodded at William.

"His lordship is still awake," Mary said, half to herself.

"Isna likely either of them will be sleeping well for a while." Cook smeared jam on a crust of her bread, smiling when she noticed the boy's eyes following the operation. "Here, Master William. I don't have to ask if ye'd like a bit of my blackberry jam."

"Thank you, Cook – I mean, Mrs. MacReedy."

"Ye're welcome, dear." She sent the housekeeper a pointed look. "Such good manners for one of the quality. Wouldna like to see that ruined on account of…" Cook shot her eyes toward the corner of the house where the nursery was located.

Mary seemed to find her resolve. "I'll do it. Here, Ellen, get a cloth. We'll get the jam off your little paws, dear, and take you to your father. Would you like that?"

William nodded, not sure if he would like it or not. Father might frown at him, but he'd known there was a risk of getting into trouble. The housekeeper slid him off her lap and smoothed her hands over his shoulders, then gave his head a brusque pat. She always did that after she'd been especially nice, as if to negate the affection. William didn't understand it.

Cook knelt down beside him and cleaned his hands, then his chin. She dabbed his nose with the damp cloth, making him grin. "Mrs. MacReedy is a lot for a wee 'un to say. You can still call me 'Cook.'"

"But not 'Cookie,' because it isn't respectful." That's what he'd called her for the longest time, until the new Nurse made him stop.

"Best not," she agreed. William gave her a hug. In the privacy of her kitchen, she hugged him back and placed a kiss on his unruly blond curls.

"Come along, then, Master William. I believe his lordship is in the study." Mrs. Brown held out her hand for him to take and led him down the short servants' hallway with the plain carpet runner, through the dining room with the enormous Turkish carpet with patterns William liked to trace with his foot, into the marble-floored main entry hall, and there they were, outside the door of his father's study. The housekeeper rapped firmly on the door, her motions sure now that she'd made up her mind.

"What is it?"

Mrs. Brown tucked her robe a bit tighter around her neck and opened the door. "So sorry to disturb, sir, but I thought you'd want to know that the young master was in the kitchen just now."

"Alone?"

"Yes, sir. He said he couldn't wake Nurse." She propelled the child in front of her. "I believe he was hungry." She gave William's shoulders a little squeeze before withdrawing. "Please do not hesitate to ring if you need anything at all, sir."

"Thank you, Mrs. Brown."

William stared solemnly at his father, who looked very tired. "Papa, do you feel well?" He knew that he was supposed to say 'Father' now that he had attained the great age of four, but the old term slipped out.

Henry Withorn-Allgood, Viscount Colinvaux, closed his eyes at the piping voice, not able to find words. Instead, he simply held out his arms for his son.

Across the room in just a few steps, William threw himself into his father's embrace. His mother always said there was almost nothing that couldn't be cured by a hug and a kiss, so he wrapped his little arms around his father's neck and kissed his raspy cheek. Putting his hands on either side of his father's face, he asked, "Better, Papa?"

"Yes, William. I am. Thank you." But there were tears on his cheeks and his voice was shaky.

His father was hugging him too tightly, but he didn't protest, feeling as if he'd been lucky not to get a scolding. "I learned that from Mama – from Mother, I mean," he corrected himself.

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Henry made himself smile. "She is quite a wise woman, your mother." He shifted his son to one arm and went back to his desk. He had been contemplating a bottle of very good French brandy that he had kept despite his general agreement with his wife that it was better to abstain from alcohol. Perhaps the Lord was trying to remind him that the loss of a daughter didn't mean there wasn't a son who needed his attention. He had thought to sit down with William on his knee, but perhaps it would do Anne good to see their living child, healthy and whole, too. He took another item from his desk instead of the brandy, tucking it into a pocket of his jacket. "Let's go see her, shall we?"

"I'd like that, Father."

"You're wide awake for it to be so late," he said as he shut the door of the study behind him and headed for the stairs. "Not sleepy?"

"Not even a little. You aren't sleepy, either."

"I am tired, but, no, I don't believe I shall sleep for some time."

William puzzled over that for a moment, as tired and sleepy meant the same thing to him. But they were close to his mother's door now. "May I knock?"

"Of course." Bemused, Henry watched as the boy reached up so he could knock at the very top of the carved door. Who knew what went through a child's mind?

"Yes?"

He smiled. He hadn't heard his mother's voice forever, it seemed. He hadn't even heard her sing for days. "Guess who?"

There was a pause. "William? What on earth…?"

Henry opened the door, and his son began to struggle, trying to get down, so he bent over until the little feet touched the carpeted floor. "He woke up and went to the kitchen to get something to eat."

"Mama!" William pelted across the room and clambered onto the bed, scampering across the covers until he could throw his arms around her neck. He hadn't seen her for two days, something to do with the new baby. "You guessed it was me!"

"Oh, William." Her voice was faint, but her embrace was almost as strong as Papa's. "Dear one, you should be asleep."

"I'll take him back to the nursery, but he did want to see you." Henry sat on the edge of the bed. "I knew you'd still be awake."

William pulled away from his mother and examined her in the light from the astral lamp on a nearby table. Her hair was down, and she looked younger but not as beautiful as she usually did. She looked sad, he decided. "Mam – Mother, I'll help you look."

She sent a glance at Henry, puzzled. "Look?"

William nodded. "I heard Mrs. Brown say you lost the baby. I'll help you look. I'm very good at finding lost things." He put out a hand and laid it over hers.

His mother looked at his earnest little face, and a complex array of emotions crossed hers before her face screwed up into a sob. She didn't want him to see her upset, so she gathered him close again, hiding his face against her shoulder. "Thank you," she managed.

Henry closed his eyes. "Here, Anne," he offered, holding out his arms for their child, "I'll take him–"

"No," she said, her voice ragged. "Don't Henry. I still have one who needs me."

"Yes," he agreed slowly, encouraged. Her mood had been so low since the doctors left. "We still need you." He put his hand on his son's fair curls, then leaned in so that his forehead rested against both their heads. "We both still need you."

Both his parents were crying. William couldn't remember feeling this frightened in his entire life, not even when one of the horses had reared, startled by a dog running beneath its hooves, and almost upset the carriage. "What's wrong, Mama?" He felt like crying himself. "Don't cry. You won't lose me; I'm too big to lose." This only made her sob louder and clutch him so tight he could barely breathe. He turned his head, his eyes full of tears, his lower lip trembling. "Papa?" he asked in a scared voice.

After a moment, Anne closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She fumbled for her husband's hand with her free one, gripping it tightly. "William, what Mrs. Brown meant was that," she swallowed, not having made herself say it until just now, "the baby died."

"Died?" He examined his mother's face. Her eyes were closed and there was a tiny frown of concentration between her eyes, as if she was trying very hard to think of something. 'Died' meant gone away never to return, like Bitsy, the fat old Spaniel who died last summer. "Why did the baby die?"

"We don't know," Henry said, and he seemed to be talking to Anne more than to his son. "No one knows why these things happen. Not the doctors, not anyone."

"Sometimes," Anne said, pulling her son closer, "when God sends one of his angels to us, he misses it so much, he brings it right back home to him."

Henry gazed at the two fair heads, the two most precious people in his whole world. Anne had turned some corner, he could tell, and he was beyond relieved. She hadn't really spoken to him all afternoon, hadn't eaten, hadn't wanted to take the laudanum. But she would be strong for her son, and that had brought her around. She was such a splendid mother. "Come, William. Let us go, and let your Mama rest."

"Will you sing a lullaby for me?"

"Oh, my darling, I don't believe I can–"

"Perhaps she can sing for us tomorrow, William." He picked the boy up again. "Do get some rest, my dear." Henry dug into his pocket awkwardly, bringing out a miniature to put on the table beside the bed. "There, my love. You'll be able to see your son any time you wish."

Anne gazed at the likeness of her younger self, William on her lap. Henry kept the miniature on the desk in his office. She dropped back against the pillows and nodded. After a moment, her eyes left the portrait and moved to her husband. "I'm so sorry, Henry."

"You've nothing to be sorry about, darling." He started to add that he was simply glad that he hadn't lost her, but he remembered how she had been after an earlier miscarriage. A woman's grief was complicated, he'd found, and she wouldn't want to hear how he'd trade any potential children for her safety. She was alive, and they had William, and there would be time later to reassure her that this was more than enough to make him content. "Sleep, now."

"Good night, Mama." Papa had called her that, so he could, too.

⸹

He had never seen a dead person, only Bitsy, the dog. The baby in the wooden box didn't look like Georgie, and it didn't look like a doll, either. It didn't even look like a girl. William considered the tiny, still form with a solemn face. Very carefully, he put out his hand and touched the fingers, which were so delicate and translucent, they almost seemed to be made from a candle. They were cool and stiff, and this made him sad somehow, in a way the little wrinkled face hadn't.

Maybe its mouth, he thought, looking at the tiny Cupid's bow. If he looked just at the mouth, he could almost imagine that it might have been his sister, his very own Pippa. Father said Pippa would be here soon, and they could play in his room, with her nurse to watch out for them.

His nurse was gone; Father said it was because she slept too soundly. But his voice had been tight when he said it, and William couldn't help think of the empty bottle he'd fished from beneath Nurse's bed. Father had hurled it at the wall when Nurse started arguing with him, and it smashed into about a hundred pieces. She'd gone quiet then, her eyes round, and William hadn't seen her since. Her clothes and shoes and the funny, itchy things she packed into her hair were gone, too.

William stepped carefully from the chair he'd pushed next to the little casket and began shoving it back to its place by the wall as quietly as he could. He didn't know exactly why, but he had a feeling he wasn't supposed to be in here alone with the lost baby. But he was free of nurses just now, so he could go where he liked. It wasn't as much fun, he found, since there was no danger of being caught.

Waiting beside the door for a moment, listening for Jeffries, the footman and surely the tallest man in the world, or Mrs. Brown or his parents, he absently scratched his back. He was in a new set of clothes made of itchy black wool. The pants and coat were so uncomfortable, he would almost be willing to submit to a backboard just to have something between the garments and his skin. He didn't hear anything, so he opened the door and slipped out.

Almost before the parlor door closed, there was a rap on the front door, then a single, impatient ring of the bell. That would be Aunt Charlotte; she was always in a great rush. Papa said he took after his aunt, which he didn't quite understand. William hurried forward, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, waiting for Jeffries. He couldn't open the big door by himself, or at least he hadn't been able to the last time he tried. Jeffries came in, and William stared way, way up at him. The footman was even taller than Papa.

"Stand aside, young master William," Jeffries said absently, pushing him back with one gloved hand. Then he opened the door, bowing at the small family outside.

"Pippa!" William said, too excited to wait any longer. He dashed over the threshold to take his cousin's hand and pull her inside. She was dressed in black, too.

"Oh! Philippa!" Charlotte shook her head. "Go after them, Nurse. Here, take Georgie with you."

The cousins were on the first landing by the time she gave the order, heading for the nursery. "How can you play in all that?" William asked, wrinkling his nose at the mounds of black material encasing Pippa.

"I can play," she said defensively. Pippa gave his clothes a look of askance. "You're wearing long pants."

"They itch horribly. I hate them."

"I hate this dress, too." She gave him a challenging look and took off at a run without saying a word.

"Not fair!" he said, sprinting after her down the hallway to the next flight of stairs. William passed her on the unadorned wooden steps, almost knocking her down, and put his hand on the door of the nursery first. "I win!"

"You're supposed to let the lady win," Pippa pouted, stamping her foot.

"You didn't say go or anything, so I don't have to." He opened the door, and they both tried to go in at once, stumbling a little in their stiff leather shoes.

"I would have won if it wasn't for this," she said, grabbing the hem of the dress with both hands, her lower lip still protruding. "We have to wear black because of your stupid sister, have to be sad."

"She isn't my sister," he said, not sure why he felt so strongly about this. "She's dead."

"She's still your sister."

"It doesn't even look like a girl," he told her, "so it can't be a sister."

Pippa grew still. "You saw it?"

He felt he'd won a point because he'd gotten her to call the baby an 'it,' too. "Just before you got here."

Pippa's eyes were wide. "What did she look like? Mama said I couldn't see her."

William shrugged. "Not pretty like a doll." He turned away, uncomfortable. "Let's not talk about it." Blue eyes lit on his rocking horse, and he headed toward it in a flash. "Me first!"

"No, me," Pippa protested. "I'm the guest."

"You aren't a guest, you're my cousin."

"But I'm a girl, and girls go first."

He stared down at her from his perch atop the wooden horse and let out a long-suffering sigh before he slid off. "Girls," he said, disgusted.

⸹

April 1857

"Mother!" William sprang up from the seat across from his father and ran to the door of the parlor.

Henry stood, too. "Are you feeling better, darling?"

"I am," Anne said with a wan smile. For a few days, she'd thought that she was with child again, but her menses had come, heavier than usual. She had been in bed for the past two days, unable to find the energy to get into one of her heavy, restrictive, beautiful dresses. Mrs. MacReedy had sent a tray up to her for supper, and after she ate, she began to feel nearly normal.

"Here, it's far too dark in here." Henry went to the mantle and fussed with the astral lamp.

"We were using the magic lantern," William explained, pulling his mother along by her hand, leading her to a small couch near the table.

"It wasn't that dreadful Rat-catcher, was it?" she asked repressively.

William giggled; even the memory of the shadow rats jumping into the mouth of the silhouetted sleeping man was hilarious. "No," he sighed. "Just images of famous buildings. Did you know that the Taj Mahal was built by a great king for his wife?"

"I did know that," Anne admitted. She smiled up at her husband as he came to sit beside her. "It's a beautiful structure; he must have loved her very much."

"I guess," William agreed, losing interest. He considered wriggling in between his parents, but there really wasn't room. "Do you want to play charades?"

"Let's let your mother rest, shall we?" Henry interceded. "It's so nice to have her with us, let's not tire her out."

"Yes, father." It was a rare treat to have just their small family together without guests. Unwilling to part from them, William quickly dragged a footstool to the couch and plopped down on it.

"Thank you for taking such good care of me," Anne said, smiling at the two. "I might not be ready for charades, but I could sing for you."

"Oh, will you?" Those were the best evenings, when they sang together or just listened to his mother's beautiful voice.

Anne looked down into her son's shining eyes and warned herself against pride. She had received compliments on her singing voice since she was as young as William. "I will."

"Did you know that Queen praised your mother's singing?" Henry asked, beaming at his wife.

"Henry," Anne said reprovingly, but a flush of pleasure came to her cheeks nonetheless.

"Tell me the story," William demanded. He had heard it many times, but it was one of the most prized piece of family lore.

"She was seventeen," Henry said, "and almost as beautiful as she is now."

"Henry, honestly," Anne said, but then she laughed and told the story of how Queen Victoria herself had come to a musicale where Anne had sang two songs. Then she let herself be persuaded to sing, Henry holding the music for her. As the evening wore on, she switched to lullabies, stroking her son's soft blond hair as his head nodded against her knee.

⸹

October 1858

"Thank you for seeing me, Lord Colinvaux."

"Not at all. I always have time for anything concerning my son." Henry didn't sit in the seat behind his study desk, though, so the tutor couldn't sit, either. "What is it you wanted to see me about, Mr. Carstairs?"

The tutor hesitated, feeling he had to approach this delicately. "I only wanted to make sure of my facts, sir. Your son is six, is that correct?"

"Yes, since April."

Mr. Carstairs tilted his head to the side, clearly unsure of his next question. "And I'm the first tutor you've employed?"

"Yes. William's last nurse taught him his letters, and he learned to read under my wife's tutelage – and from his primer."

"Sir… I certainly don't mean anything political by it, but is there anyone in your family who is French?" The Bonapartes were more than just a memory to many decimated British families.

"No."

He could tell his patron was becoming impatient. "Then I can only conclude that your son has quite an extraordinary gift."

Henry's gaze sharpened. He was used to being flattered; he had been the oldest son and in line for the title, and the toadying had only become more pronounced on his father's death. "Gift?"

'Yes." Mr. Carstairs shook his head, his expression somewhere between a smile and wonder. "If you'll permit me, Master William is outside. May I call him in?"

Henry nodded his assent, gesturing toward the door. He'd hired the young man for his progressive views, despite the fact that he'd only served with one other family. William was obviously tending toward the left hand, like his grandfather, and the Viscount was impatient with the prevailing superstitions about the 'sinister hand.' He'd gotten rid of one of his son's early nurses for nothing more than her constant scolding about only using the right hand, as if they were Ottomans.

The boy was crouched down, petting his mother's new Cairn terrier. "Come in, Master William." Mr. Carstairs gave him an encouraging smile. "Would you recite for your father what you did for me yesterday?"

William had no question what piece the tutor was referring to; he'd seen the disbelief on the man's face. "Go on, then, Sergeant." He gave the dog a last pat before he stood up, as if the little dog had obeyed him instead of sitting. "Good morning, Father."

"Good morning, William. I trust you're applying yourself to your lessons?"

"Yes, Father."

"Would you be so kind as to open these books to the pages I've marked?" Mr. Carstairs took two books from his student and handed them to the Viscount.

He frowned at the books, Victor Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' in English and French, and opened both. "Well," Henry said, waving impatiently and suppressing his impulse to take out his watch. He should have been out of the house fifteen minutes ago.

William took a breath. "Acclamation fut unanime. On se précipita vers la chapelle. On en fit sortir en triomphe le bienheureux pape des fous. Mais c'est alors que la surprise et l'admiration furent à leur comble. La grimace était son visage." He took another breath, looking up at the ceiling a moment, then went on. "Ou plutôt toute sa personne était une grimace. Une grosse tête hérissée de cheveux roux ; entre les deux épaules une bosse énorme dont le contre-coup se faisait sentir par devant ; un système de cuisses et de jambes si étrangement fourvoyées qu'elles ne pouvaient se toucher que par les genoux, et, vues de face, ressemblaient à deux croissants de faucilles qui se rejoignent par la poignée ; de larges pieds, des mains monstrueuses ; et, avec toute cette difformité, je ne sais quelle allure redoutable de vigueur, d'agilité et de courage ; étrange exception à la règle éternelle qui veut que la force, comme la beauté, résulte de l'harmonie. Tel était le pape que les fous venaient de se donner." A tiny smile came to his face. "On eût dit un géant brisé et mal ressoudé."

Henry raised his eyebrows. That was quite a bit for William to recite, having been introduced to French only within the past month. "Very good, my boy."

"No," Mr. Carstairs interjected, moving in an agitated way. "He isn't reciting – well, he is, but," he licked his lips, "he read it, you see." He turned to his pupil. "Will you tell your father what it means, please?"

"It's a description of Quasimodo, telling how the French crowd was mean to him and crowned him Pope because he was strong but hideous to see – 'a giant who had been broken and badly put together again.'" William smiled. "It's a story I've never heard before, Father. There's a beautiful orphan in it named Esmerelda, and–"

"William…" Henry looked between his son and the tutor. "You… read this?"

"He did," Mr. Carstairs assured him. "I scarcely believed it myself. I helped him with the pronunciation, but… Your son has a remarkable ability with languages."

"Indeed?" He was staring at the lad with an odd look on his face.

"Yes." Mr. Carstairs chubby face lit. "You can't imagine how a scholar such as myself longs for a student like William, so bright and eager to absorb knowledge." Forgetting himself, he moved forward to beam at his employer. "I don't have the right texts, but he's also read a passage in Italian and German. I have very great hopes, sir," he finished, remembering himself and stepping away from the Viscount, "that you would permit me to instruct Master William in Latin as well."

"Latin?" Henry shook his head. "He's but six."

"Yes, yes, you're right, of course. I-I forget myself in my excitement."

The Viscount gave his son a tentative smile. "Perhaps once William has mastered French, you could move on to Italian."

"Yes, of course. Very wise, sir."

Ah, the flattery had reared its head. He handed the books to the tutor. "Come here, William." He held out a hand.

William came forward and took his father's hand, unsure of what the odd look on his father's face meant. "Yes, Father?"

"Did you know that your grandmother spoke Russian and corresponded with the Empress Catherine the Great?"

"No, Father." He had never known any of his grandparents.

"I believe your facility with languages can be traced to her," he leaned down and added in a confidential tone, "though your mother will say it's from the Faradays on her side."

He smiled back at his father, even though he wasn't sure why that was supposed to be funny. Mostly, he just wanted to go back to the book, lose himself in the adventure and see what became of the poor creature Quasimodo.

"I'm very proud of you."

This he understood, and it made him smile. "Thank you, Father."

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Carstairs. I believe I made an excellent choice with your employment."

"I do appreciate your trust in my poor abilities." The tutor ducked his head, not quite bowing.

"I look forward to your progress."

"Yes." Mr. Carstairs, sensing his impatience, turned and opened the door. "Thank you for your time, sir. Come, Master William. Let's return to your studies."

⸹

December 1859

"Christmas is only eight days away."

"That's right, William," his mother agreed, tucking his covers close over his shoulders. The light from the fairy lamp played over her lovely face and made the beads on her burgundy dress sparkle. His parents were having a party tonight, and William knew he would be out of bed soon and hidden behind the fern by the clock at the top of the stairs, watching the dancers and listening to the music.

"May I go skating, if the weather stays cold enough?"

She hesitated. "You may, but you must be careful not to turn your ankle. And you must dress warmly." Anne smiled at him, then sat down on the edge of her son's little bed and touched a finger to his nose. "And you must be very careful not to catch a cold."

"I will," he agreed. A hundred thoughts passed though his head before he abruptly asked, "Do you think this is the best time of the year?"

"Winter?"

"No, Christmas."

"I rather prefer spring."

"Why?"

"It's such a hopeful, green season. Everything wakes up after its winter nap, we celebrate Easter and the resurrection of our dear Lord. And because you were born in the spring, too, of course." She touched her finger to his nose once more.

"I like my birthday, but I like Christmas better." He wasn't sure his mother had really noticed what he said. She was looking at him the way she did sometimes, with a faraway fierceness that he didn't understand.

"Do you know how precious you are to me, William? My son, my only child."

He had no answer to this; she had posed the question before, and he had learned from his father that the best response was to hug her. So he did. "Have a lovely time tonight, Mother."

"Thank you, darling. I will." Giving him another squeeze, she rose in a tinkling of beads that sounded something like rainfall. "Good night."

"Good night." He lay in bed, staring at the shape of his knees beneath the covers, waiting until strains of music began to waft up the stairs. Then William crept from the bed to go watch the adults at play in their sparkling nighttime world.

⸹

March 1861

"I wish I had a tutor."

"You do," William said, frowning at Pippa.

"Not a real tutor. If I had one, perhaps I shouldn't have to go away to school," she said glumly. The cousins were in a window seat, looking out at a rainy, cold spring day, and William had been reading her his favorite story, the one about the hunchback. "I wish I were a boy."

"I wish you were a boy, too. Then we could play better games."

"What games?" she shot back. "I'm quite good at all the games we play."

"You can't run faster than me – not unless you cheat," he added darkly.

"I don't cheat."

"You do."

"Do not."

"Do."

"Do not."

He shook his head. "You're just angry because you have to go to boarding school."

Pippa turned away and looked out of the window again. The finches in the cage next to it twittered in the abrupt silence. "I'll miss our birthday." Since she was born only a few days later than him, albeit a year earlier, their families usually held a special lunch for the two of them in celebration.

"You won't miss Georgie, though."

"No." She brightened a little. "Or Nurse." Pippa gave him a sharp look. "I still don't understand how you get away with not having a nurse."

"I'm too old to need one," he said loftily.

"You're not even nine," she protested, "like I am."

William gave her a superior look. "But I'm a boy."

She snorted. "Like that matters."

"It matters."

"How?" Pippa challenged.

"Well," he said, closing the book with one of his fingers marking the page, "men are stronger and smarter so they can take care of women."

Her brows lowered, and she launched herself at him, pinning him down against the cushions. William struggled, but couldn't get free. "Who's stronger?" she crowed.

"Only because you're older," he said, panting a little, still trying to get free. Pippa let go of him, and he scooted away far enough to chance a remark. "I'll be stronger someday, and I'm smarter." At her warning look, he quickly noted, "Who can speak four languages?"

She glowered. "Okay, but not all men are smarter. Mother is much smarter than Papa."

He nodded, agreeing. Even at age eight, he'd noticed that Aunt Charlotte was brighter than her dull, good-natured husband. "Mother and Father are both smart, but Father is stronger. He takes care of her, and I'll take care of them both when I'm grown."

"Queen Victoria is a woman, and she's strong and smart and wise and takes care of us all."

William couldn't argue this point. "But you still have to go away to school."

"Yes, and learn stupid things like 'comportment' instead of math and Latin."

"What's…" he hesitated over the long word, "'comportment?'"

"I daresay I'll find out; Mother says they teach it and that I desperately need to learn it. I think it has something to do with being a lady."

"Like wearing wide skirts?" It was a serious question; he'd long wondered how women carried those things around, had already noticed that they didn't get to sit in the comfortable chairs with armrests. He wasn't surprised they had to learn to maneuver hoop skirts, bustles, and such things in a school.

She got a pained look on her face. "I hope not; I don't know how I'd run in something like that." Pippa looked out the window, a sad expression in her eyes. "And corsets, too, I bet," she muttered darkly.

"What?"

"Ladies' things, clothes." She gestured over her straight trunk. "Squeeze you in at the middle and push everything up here."

He laughed; she had nothing to push up. It was too ridiculous to think Pippa would ever have a curvy form.

"Oh, Will, don't laugh at me."

She looked ready to cry. "No, Pippa, I'm not. See?" He patted her arm.

"Mother says I'll make friends, but what if the other girls there don't like me?"

"I like you," he said, practical, "so they will, too."

"But you're family, and a boy. I don't really know any other girls."

"I don't really know any other boys or girls." He'd never thought of this. They saw other children at church and more distant cousins at large family gatherings, but not often enough to be comfortable. "We aren't just cousins, though. We're friends, too."

"Yes." She smiled. "We are." Pippa let out a long sigh. "I just hope the girls at boarding school know how to play the games we do."

"You'll be the fastest girl there," he told her, "and you'll win all the footraces, and you're jolly good at hide-and-seek, too."

"But what if they don't have races or play games?"

He shook his head, impatient with her anxiety. "Then you'll be the smartest in the classroom. No boys there, after all," he couldn't resist adding. William ducked, laughing again, as she punched toward his shoulder.

"Miss Philippa!" Her nurse was standing with a hand on one hip and Georgie on the other. "You're not to cuff people; 'tisn't such as a lady ought to do."

"I haven't learned how to be one yet," Pippa scowled.

"None of your sauce, miss." Nurse reached out and smoothed down the ribbon in the girl's blond hair. "Your mother is ready to leave. Come, you must say your farewells to your aunt."

"See you tomorrow, Will."

"Bye, Pippa." He waved a hand, then stood up, as he was supposed to when the ladies present were standing. "Good day, Nurse."

"Master William," she said, giving him a distracted smile as Georgie shifted in her grasp, pulling his thumb from his mouth and giving a wide yawn.

He watched them leave, then dashed silently up the stairs to his room to take the book back to its small shelf. He loved books, but he loved this hour of the day more, after Pippa and Aunt Charlotte left and his mother was changing from her day gown to more formal wear. Mr. Carstairs was gone for the day, and his father wasn't home. Without a nurse, he could do as he pleased.

He was supposed to nap, but he had never needed much sleep. Some days he sat in the kitchen with Cook and helped her peel potatoes, happy to have something to do with his hands and feeling very adult that he got to handle a knife. He would listen silently as the servants gossiped about other houses, the employees and employers and their habits. But most afternoons he went to the stables to see Angus and the horses. William loved horses, and he loved Angus, who was like no other person he'd ever met.

"Oi, William!" Mrs. MacReedy called as he dashed through the kitchen. "Cinnamon bun?"

"Oh, yes, please, Cook." He took the still-warm treat in his hands. "Thank you, Cook."

"Off to see Angus, then?"

"Yes." And he was gone.

The stables were dark; there was never a great deal of light, tucked as they were in the shadow of the large houses in their London neighborhood, but the rain clouds also kept the afternoon sunlight at bay. He paused to pat Apollo's velvety black nose. "Good afternoon, you big beastie," he whispered, copying the stableman's words for the animals they both loved. Then he opened the tack room to get a pair of boots and a coat. Both were too big, but they kept the worst of the stable grime off him.

"You again, is it?" Angus said, peering around the wooden door. He was habitually grouchy, but he'd been pleased from the first that the boy hadn't been frightened of him or of the big horses. William had been coming to the stables most afternoons for over a year, and it was the brightest part of his day, too. "Here to keep me from my job?"

"Hello, Angus." William broke the cinnamon bun in half and held out the larger portion. "Cook – er, Mrs. MacReedy sent it for us." He smiled up at the bandy-legged man, whose faded red hair was dusted with chaff from moving hay this afternoon.

"Sent it for you, maybe." He took the sweet, though, and overturned a bucket to sit on. "How were your lessons with that prat Carstairs?"

"Fine." He'd given up on protesting at Angus' opinions of people in the household. Sometimes William thought the only people the old man liked were him and his father. He loved all animals, though, and one of the cats who lived in the barn jumped down from its perch on a beam and began winding itself around Angus' ankles. "He says he's going to speak with Father about Latin after my birthday."

"Might as well learn a dead language. Queen Vic's set on owning the whole world, it seems, so all those languages you've already learned will be dead, too." The gnarled fingers pinched a bit of bread from the bun and held it out to the cat, who deigned to sniff it. "Everyone from India to Fiji will sound like they're from London."

"It seems odd to me that a people could outlast their native tongue." William shook his head.

"Saw it happen in Virginia," Angus said, shrugging. "Indians there took to our ways and religion, started speaking the Queen's English, and forgot their own tongue."

"Have you been everywhere, Angus?" The old man had been in the merchant marine until he was shipwrecked of the Cornish coast. He hadn't gone back to sea after that.

"Just about. Never been to France." He got a sly little smile on his face, but William knew it would do no good to ask why he was amused. Angus never explained those sorts of things. "'Spect I'll never be anywhere except London from now on. Born here; most likely die here."

"I want to go everywhere," William proclaimed, "even France, because I want to see Notre Dame."

"Well, before you go off to everywhere, come over here with me. Apollo needs a good brushing."

William followed the old man to one of the wide stalls. Currying was hard work for him; he was very small next to the tall stallion. But after he was done with Apollo, Pallas Athene would need to be exercised, and Angus would let him scramble up on her broad back as he led her in the small carriage yard. This was, in fact, where his father found him an hour later.

"William." The voice was very calm. "Angus."

"Father." He wanted to cringe, but he didn't, just kept squeezing his knees into the horse and sat up a bit straighter inside the oversized coat.

"'Lo, Lord Henry. Bit of wet this afternoon." Angus was the only one who addressed his father in that manner.

"It is." He drew off both of his pearl grey gloves before continuing in the same calm tone. "Angus, could you tell me why my son is up on the back of a seventeen-hand horse without a saddle instead of napping in his nursery?"

"'Spect he's learning a thing or three that's useful."

Henry closed his eyes for a moment. "I take it that this is not the first time that my son has had… riding lessons?"

"Not riding lessons, milord," Angus said, and there was a tickle of worry in his voice now. He knew he wasn't qualified to teach dressage and all that nonsense. "Horsemanship."

"Horsemanship."

"Well, yeah. How to take care of a horse, how to know when there's something wrong with the beast, how to know when someone else isn't taking care. Horse is a big investment."

"A son is far more precious than any thoroughbred."

"He's safe as houses with me lookin' out for him, Lord Henry."

His employer met his eyes for a long moment, long enough that the big mare shifted restlessly. Henry noted how his son moved to compensate, his little fist gripping the mane. "William, does anyone in the house know where you are?"

"No, Father." His cheeks were flushed now.

"Do you think your mother might be worried if she looked for you in your room and found you missing?"

William knew better than to offer excuses. His father was right; his mother wanted to know where he was at all times. "Yes, Father."

"Yes, she would. William, because you've gone astray, you may not come out to the stables," he paused, looking at both tense faces, "for a week."

"Yes, Father. I'm sorry, Father." But there was relief instead of contrition on his face.

Angus also looked relieved, then hid it behind lowered brows. "My apologies, milord."

Henry took a breath. "Well, aren't you two going to finish exercising Athene?" His son smiled, a quick grin that went straight to his heart. "I expect to see you inside directly afterwards."

"Yes, Father. Thank you."

"You're welcome, son. And William? Keep your heels down." He turned away and headed back to the carriage waiting at the curb, then made a midcourse change in direction, having by now quite forgotten the errand that had brought him home early. A young woman had asked for directions as he left his offices, and as she distracted him, her accomplice had lifted his wallet. It was the second time in two years he'd fallen for the ploy.

He had a week. That should be long enough to get Anne used to the idea that William needed to start to learn about men's affairs. She was too protective of the boy, but he hardly had it in him to deny his wife anything. Still, the boy should have been riding a pony before he was five. At least the prospect of riding lessons would divert her from tutting over the misfortune of losing his wallet again, due to his own foolish, trusting nature.

⸹

August 1861

Devonshire

William floated on his back, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. This was the last day of their visit to the Larches, the estate that belonged to his father's friend, Arthur Scott. All summer, he had played with his friend Peter Scott, avoided Peter's little sister Victoria, and ridden the new horse his father had bought for him, a gelding he'd named Charlemagne. Tomorrow his family would climb into a carriage early, trunks packed and loaded on top by the Scotts' servants, and lurch their way back to London. Part of him was looking forward to seeing Mr. Carstairs and getting back to his studies, but a larger part would prefer to stay here. He envied Peter, who got to live here year round, though the one time he had voiced the thought, his mother had told him to never wish he was like Peter.

Not that Peter got to swim year round; only June and July were really warm enough for that. Today was too cool, but it would be his last chance to be in anything deeper than a bathtub for a year. William rolled in the water and struck for the far bank, warming his muscles with the exercise. As he swam back, he squinted when he saw someone on the bank, trying to blink water from his eyes. At first he thought Peter had wriggled out of staying for the vicar's visit, but he slowed when he realized there were two boys on the bank, strangers.

They were brothers, both with identical snub noses and the same shade of dirty blond hair, and they were carrying fishing poles. The taller one frowned at him. "Here, now. You don't belong here. Get out of our pond."

William blinked at the rudeness. "This is Arthur Scott's land. I'm his guest." He treaded water, ten feet from the bank.

"William!" Peter's voice came from the other direction, toward the house. "Mother let me go, but Tory had to stay and play the pianoforte for the vicar. She was – Oh." He stopped his headlong rush, seeing the two strangers. "Hello. Who are you?"

The older of the two ignored him, turning instead to his brother. "That's him, Owen, his lordship's son. The simpleton."

Peter came to a dead stop, his face flushing with anger and hurt. "You take that back!"

"Don't have to take back anything that's true. My da said so," came the stout reply.

Owen, the younger brother, nodded, a superior smile on his face. "That's right. We're here to fish. You wouldn't understand how to."

"Yes, I would!" Peter's hands were clenched by his sides.

"No, you wouldn't." The younger boy sneered. "You'd probably try to fish in a tree or some'at."

These weren't nice people, William realized, feeling stupid himself for being so slow on the uptake. He took another look at Peter's face, the tears standing in his eyes, and something began to burn in his chest. These strangers talked about Peter with such familiarity and contempt, but they didn't know him at all. William moved close enough to stand on the muddy bottom. "You leave him alone."

"Why? Because you say so?" The older brother eyed the skinny little boy in his dripping undergarments and scoffed.

"Because you don't belong here!" Peter said triumphantly.

"That's right," William agreed, relieved that Peter had said it, clambering out of the water so he could stand beside his friend. "If you've not been invited, it's trespassing, and it's illegal. You'll have to leave."

The two brothers exchanged a look, some understanding passing between them that William couldn't read. The older one looked at him again. "You think you can make us?" He stepped closer, so there were only a few feet between them. "I think you should go, the both of you. We're stayin' here to catch some fish."

"I'll tell my father, and he'll make you leave."

The brothers looked at each other again, and William knew Peter had scored a hit. "Go on, then. Get off the Scott's land."

The younger of the two strangers stuck out his lower lip, unhappy. "I want fish for dinner."

"Then go buy some from the fishwife."

Peter had scored again, but William could tell it hit in a different place. The older brother paled, then two blotches of angry red formed on his cheeks. Without a word, he came at Peter, pausing only long enough to cast aside his fishing pole. William stepped between them without thought, his hands raised to ward the boy away from his friend.

"Ow!" He was on the ground, cradling the side of his face, his ear ringing.

"Stupid toff! Don't tell us what we should do!" Humiliation burned on the boy's cheeks, but his eyes were blazing hotter with fury. "Think you're better than us?" He grabbed the wet undershirt and hauled William from the ground to deliver another punch, this one to his cheek.

"Don't hurt him!" Peter's voice was high with disbelief and panic. Enraged, the boy let go of William and lunged toward Peter.

"No!" William stopped covering his face and grabbed the boy's leg, toppling him to the ground.

"Kenneth, stop it!" The younger one, Owen, rushed up and grabbed his brother's arm, pulling him off the ground. "You can't hit him, you know you mustn't. Come now, come away from here."

"Geroff me!"

"Come on, Kenneth." The younger boy's voice was thin with fear. "We'll get in trouble."

His brother rose to his knees, still glaring at Peter, and aimed a kick at William. The smaller boy was too quick, though, and got out of the way of the bare, dirty foot. "Think you're better," Kenneth mumbled, tears standing in his eyes.

"Please, Kenneth." Owen tugged on his arm.

Peter and William watched the older brother stalk off, sending a last, murderous glare their way as he bent to retrieve his abandoned pole. Owen gave them a fearful glance over his shoulder as he trailed behind the silent Kenneth.

"Are you all right?" Peter fretted, holding out his hand to help William to his feet.

Was he? William had no idea. The whole side of his face hurt, but he ached even more inside, sick from seeing so much ugliness. No one had ever hit him like that. The smacks and paddlings that he'd endured in the nursery and schoolroom had not prepared him for such hatred, but there was something inevitable about the whole affair, it seemed. William let Peter lead him away from the pond and back to the manor house, his pleasure in the warm, sunny afternoon ruined.

The two of them decided, with minimal words, to keep the incident to themselves. The next morning, William put on his heavy, uncomfortable traveling clothes and trudged downstairs for breakfast. Turning away from the sideboard with a full plate, he nodded at his mother. "Good morning."

She stared at him, horrorstruck. One by one, the other adults noticed her distress, and soon all eyes were on William. He looked back at their solemn faces, uncertain, racking his brain for what he could have done.

"Your face," his mother said in a faint voice. Then she was out of her seat, snatching his plate away and thrusting it toward the sideboard, pushing the carefully arranged platters askew. When her hands were free, she cradled his cheeks between them. "What happened?"

There were blotches of angry red on her own cheeks, and he began cautiously, "I-I don't–"

"Who hit you?" There was a touch of hysteria in her voice, and it stunned William into silence.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Mr. Scott cleared his throat and looked at Peter. "Have you two been fighting?"

"No." Peter shook his head, horrified. "No, father."

"Henry, just look at your son's face!" Her fingers were digging into his jaw in a painful way. His father rose uncertainly from his seat. "Who hit you, William? Answer me right away!"

Peter burst into tears, his hands resting loosely on either side of his breakfast plate, and Margaret Scott made a small sound and dropped her napkin on the table, preparing to go to her son. Her husband beat her to his side, cradling Peter against his chest. Similarly, Henry strode over and simply picked up his son, pulling him from his mother's grasp. Even though he was nine and hadn't been held by his father for years, William's arms went automatically around his neck.

"Peter, who hit William? Was it you?"

Glaring down as Peter began to haltingly tell the story of their encounter with the two local boys, William tried to ignore the way his mother was clutching at his leg. They had agreed they wouldn't tell. His eyes settled on Peter's little sister for a moment, and Victoria gave him a solemn, round-eyed look that he didn't quite understand.

It seemed an instant later they were standing outside the carriage, ready to leave for London, his mother's hand holding his tightly except when she was hugging Mrs. Scott. Victoria scooted up quickly and thrust a bulky object into his hand. "'Bye, Will. See you next summer."

"'Bye, Tory." As she scampered off, he looked down at the napkin she'd given him. Inside were several sweet rolls. William's stomach gave a loud growl, and he realized his breakfast plate was still on the sideboard, cold and untouched. Looking back up, he saw Mr. Scott coming out of the stables on his horse, and the man paused to long enough to catch Henry's gaze. The two men nodded at each other, and Mr. Scott turned the horse and headed the opposite way.

As soon as they were outside the gates, Anne carefully tugged off her silk gloves. Then she buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

"Shh," Henry said, turning to take her in his arms. He sent his son an almost embarrassed look. "It's all right, Anne. 'Tis but a black eye. William will be fine."

She took a long, shuddering breath, trying to regain her control. "I know. He'll be fine." She put her hand out across the space between the two seats, and William took her damp fingers. She gave his a hard squeeze. "I just hate such ugliness."

As soon as she said the word, William realized the reason the whole incident had an inevitable feeling about it. His mother had always said there was ugliness in the world. It seemed she was right.

⸹

"My dear cousin!"

William goggled at Pippa across the threshold. After settling in, he'd been looking forward to seeing her most, after Angus and more than Mr. Carstairs, who wouldn't return until Tuesday. Now Pippa sailed sedately into the foyer and took his hands. He eyed her spotless dress and neatly curled locks with a jaundiced eye.

"How lovely to see you! I trust you had an enjoyable time rusticating in the countryside?"

"Pippa, what are you playing at?" He let go of her hands and took a step back from this too-proper stranger.

She gave him a reproving look. "You really should call me Phil…" Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at the remnants of his shiner. "Will, what on earth happened to your face?"

"What on earth happened to my cousin?" he shot back, turning away before his Aunt Charlotte finished fussing with Georgie and made it to the doorway. She was in a family way again and could only manage a slow waddle. William set his foot on the first step of the staircase, preparing to dash away.

Pippa swayed uncertainly where she stood for a few agonized seconds, then gave up her hard-earned comportment and came after him. "Come back here and tell me this instant!"

William grinned at her. "Catch me first!" he called over his shoulder. Ten minutes later they were at the parlor table, halfway through a chess match, and he was finishing up the story of the odd end to his family's annual visit to the Scott's.

"Mr. Scott was going to boot that family off his land," Pippa said wisely.

"Really? Just because that boy hit me?" William paused, a pawn in his hand. It seemed a rather harsh punishment for a scuffle.

"Of course not because he hit you. The tenants cannot be allowed to make fun of Peter, that's why. When he grows up, he'll be their master, after all."

He slowly placed the chess piece, trying to imagine Peter in charge of the Scott's estate. "It seems an awful thing, to lose one's home."

She frowned. "I suppose it does. But it's the family's responsibility to teach their children how to behave."

"I should hate it if Angus or Cook were made to leave. This is their home, too."

"Yes, but neither of them would ever act in such a horrid manner."

The mention of Angus pushed the black eye from his mind. "I have a new horse, a real horse, not a pony. His name is Charlemagne."

"Oh! What color is he? Roan? Brindle?"

"No, black, except for his stockings. Come to the stables. I'll let you ride him," he offered generously.

Pippa's face fell. "I can't. I'm only allowed to ride sidesaddle now."

William made an impatient noise. "I won't tell, and neither will Angus. Your mother never comes to the stable yard, anyway."

"True. Not that she could right now." Pippa grinned at him. "Thanks."

"Anything in your service, dear cousin," he said slyly, and he ducked away as she aimed a smack at his arm.

⸹

December 24, 1862

"Take three steps forward."

William did so, then bowed.

"A bit deeper, darling. You must show great respect to the Queen."

"Yes, Mother." He sighed. The smell of roast goose wafted throughout the house, distracting him.

Henry, in a comfortable chair on the far side of the parlor and near the astral lamp so he could read the paper, had lowered the _Times_ to observe his son. He suppressed a smile at the way the boy lifted his head, inhaling the good smells coming from the kitchen. "Darling, she adores children, and she adores you." Henry indicated their son, dressed in a fussy suit of dark velvet, his dark blond curls shining. "As he's a perfect copy of you, she'll adore him. He'll do fine. Let him go."

Anne sent a reproving look at her husband. "It's hardly accurate to say she adores me. I haven't seen her since I was at court. I was barely older than –" She let out an exasperated sigh; her son had chosen that exact moment to dig at the cravat scratching his neck. "William, honestly."

Henry folded his newspaper and laid it among the Christmas greeting cards on the parlor table. He stood and stretched. "Well, she remembers how sweet your voice is. That's how the church choir obtained the audience, after all, because of your solo."

She sent a quick look at the back of the chair to check how the antimacassar had fared against the oil shining in her husband's hair. Then she caught the admiring gleam in his eye and put a hand to her own hair, flustered. Anne watched him walk toward her, and color flared in her cheeks.

"May I go now, Mother?"

"Yes, dear." Her gaze became rather sharper when it left her husband and settled on William. "And I don't want to see a single speck of food on your clothes."

He lit out of the parlor without another word, rolling his eyes at the fading sound of his mother's giggles. As much as he loved Queen Victoria, it was hard not to resent the fact that he had to wear uncomfortable new clothes to meet her. Angus had called them 'precious' before allowing that Queen Vic would probably like them. But after his mother sang for the Queen, they were going to hear Mr. Dickens himself give a reading of _A Christmas Carol_ , one of his favorites. Then they were taking baskets of food to needy families in a sleigh, and Father had said they might go ice-skating if there was time. And then the whole family was coming over for dinner.

And the next day was Christmas.

His heart full, William reminded himself to say an extra prayer of thanks at church. His stomach, however, was empty, so he headed for the kitchen, where he knew he could charm Cook out of something. It would be fine, just as long as he didn't get any spots on his suit.

⸹

September 1866

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Master William."

"Georgette! No, no. Entirely my fault; I shouldn't rush around like that." He let go of her elbow, which he'd taken automatically to steady her after they crashed into each other. His eyes strayed to where the maid had her hand pressed to her rounded chest; his own heart skipped a beat at the sight. She was sixteen, two years older than he was, and he thought her the prettiest thing he'd ever seen.

"I'm, um, heading to the parlor to dust." She'd been working in the Viscount's household since early in the summer and didn't feel confident enough to stand around idly to chat yet.

Was there an invitation in her words? He couldn't tell; maybe he just wanted to hear a welcoming tone. "Oh. I'm meeting my German tutor in a few minutes. Will I keep you from your work if I while away the time with you?" He liked the way his words sounded. His newly deep voice still surprised him at times.

Georgette smiled at him. "No, not at all."

"After you, then," he said gallantly, waving her before him. She giggled a bit at the courtesy, ducking her head, and William felt his stomach muscles tighten. He could see her glossy dark hair was caught in a neat bun beneath the starched white cap she wore, and he wondered for the thousandth time how far it would fall along her back if she let it down.

"I wanted to thank you again," she said, her voice falling into a confidential tone, "for the picture. It brightens the room so. All I have is an image of the Menken – she's so pretty, but the one you gave me is, too, in a different way. I hung it near my bed so I see it as I fall asleep, and I pretend I'm back home."

A few days ago, William had given her a small lithograph of a seashore with sand dunes and a tiny sailboat far out to sea. He couldn't think of anything to say, not with the image of her in her bed taking up most of his brain, but he managed to get out a strangled sort of, "Er, uh-huh."

"I do miss my little village. You'd think I wouldn't – the work, the smell of fish. I mean, it's much nicer here in London, and I'm ever so grateful that I found a good position – your mother is a very fine lady, a good lady, I mean – and glad that I'm earning my keep and able to send money home, but I do miss my little brothers and sisters." Georgette took a breath and finished simply. "The picture makes me think of home."

"I'm glad, then." His mother had the paperhangers in to spruce up the walls, and the sea motif had been deemed a bad match to the new wallpaper. The picture had hung in his room, mostly ignored, for several years. It had been an impulsive gift, made when she'd picked up the discarded frame from the floor of his bedroom and admired it. He had been standing outside in the hallway while she dusted, having had it drilled into him that he mustn't be alone in a room with a woman who wasn't family. The parlor wasn't the same as a bedroom, though, and Herr Metzer was due shortly. William carefully left the door open, for propriety's sake. "Tell me about your brothers and sisters." He picked up his mother's _carte-de-visite_ album from the parlor table to get it out of her way.

Georgette chattered on, and he tried to pay attention, but she was picking up the many knick-knacks on the tables to dust the surfaces, making her apron gap away from her dress as she moved, and he was thoroughly distracted. She had a small waist and a bosom as round as a dove's, and several times William had been close enough to her to know she smelled of lemons. They had both helped Cook slice apricots and pit cherries during the annual marathon to put up preserves, and he'd managed to touch Georgette's fingers as he handed her a knife.

When he first met her, Georgette hadn't captured his interest, excited as he was to be off to Devonshire for the summer to visit Peter and Victoria. Once they'd returned from the Larches, though, the far-away Tory had faded in contrast to the pretty parlor maid at hand. Georgette was a good girl, Cook had said, unspoiled and willing to work. It was enough of an endorsement for William.

"So, Freddie hid the crab in our bed, and I'm just lucky that Francine likes to sleep in the middle. It latched onto her eyebrow, if you can believe, and the whole house was in an uproar. Father came in with his axe, ready to –"

"William?" His mother's sharp voice broke into Georgette's prattle from the open door.

The smile fell from his face, replaced by a guilty look. "Yes, Mother?"

"Escort me to the door while I wait for John to bring around the carriage?"

"Of course. Excuse me, Georgette."

She bobbed a curtsy. "G'day, Mum, sir."

"Where are you off to?" he asked, trying to divert his mother as he took her elbow.

Anne hesitated only a moment. "Lunch at the Underwoods. They're new money and sometimes gauche, but Beth is such a dear woman, a bit too timid, maybe. But her little girls are well-mannered."

"You look very handsome today, Mother," he said impulsively. She did, too, very pale in her dark blue dress.

She touched her upswept hair, the surprised smile that came to her face making her even lovelier. "Why, thank you, William." They had no sooner got to the foyer than there was a knock on the door. "There's Mr. Metzer."

"I'll still wait with you, if you like. It won't take long for the carriage, I'm sure."

"No, dear, I shouldn't wish to interfere with your studies." The smile she gave him faded as he escorted the short, fat tutor down the hall to the library, replaced by a thoughtful look. The clatter of the carriage wheels over stones brought her back to the moment, and she turned away to go to her lunch appointment.

⸹

"Mrs. Goodwin, may I have a word with you?"

"Of course, my lady."

Anne led the new housekeeper to her sitting room, then shut the door. She faced the woman for a moment, wishing Mary Brown was still with them, but the previous housekeeper had left them recently to take care of her aged mother after both her sisters had died of cholera. The household was just as efficient as when Mrs. Brown ran it, but she didn't yet know what Mrs. Goodwin was thinking at any given moment. There was a breaking-in period with any new servant.

"Please, won't you have a seat? I have something that I'd like to discuss with you." Before Anne could continue, she began to cough. She quickly took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress and turned away, covering her mouth.

"May I fetch you a glass of water?" The housekeeper didn't like the sound of the cough, or the way it went on. To Mrs. Goodwin, Madam's pallor seemed more ashen than the fashionable paleness of well-shielded skin.

Anne held out a negating hand as the coughing fit subsided. "No, thank you." She shook her head and took a breath. "I should like you to hire a new parlor maid and let this one go."

Surprised, Mrs. Goodwin blinked a few times before replying, priding herself that her hands remained still in her lap. She had been in service in three households, and this one was the most free of disreputable and capricious behavior, but one never knew all the secrets and habits right away. "I've found Georgette's work to be acceptable, my lady. Has she done aught…?"

Lifting her chin, Anne answered with a bit of frost in her tone. "You may give her a letter of recommendation; I'm sure she'll find a suitable position elsewhere. I would like to meet the next girl before you hire her." She inclined her head. "That is all. Thank you, Mrs. Goodwin."

The interview was over. Mrs. Goodwin held her wide skirts carefully, stood, and gave a small bob. "Of course, my lady. I'll inform her at once. Good day, my lady." As she left the room, closing the door behind her, she thought cynically that the only acceptable replacement would be someone much plainer or much older than little Georgette. Which one, she wondered, the father or the son? Then she put it out of her mind.

⸹

August 1867

"Are you finished packing?"

William jumped at the sound of his father's voice at his doorway. He closed the book he'd been looking at and put it in the small trunk on his bed. Another, larger trunk was on the floor behind him, full of clothing the servants had cleaned and packed. "Yes, Father." He couldn't think of anything else to say, and it seemed like silence was another presence in the room.

Silence was throughout the entire house; it had been ever since his mother had gone to the sanitarium in April. The summer had been long and stifling and strange. Their habitual retreat to the country was a thing of the past. The cholera epidemic had taken Mr. Scott and Victoria early in the winter, and the Larches had gone to one of Mr. Scott's cousins. Peter and Mrs. Scott were living with relatives in a small house in Edinburgh now. His own mother had become ill last autumn, and her cough had worsened over the winter to the point they could no longer pretend it wasn't consumption. She at least had fresh air at the seaside sanitarium; London was nearly unbearable. The streets and even the Thames reeked with the smell of human and animal waste. William had pleaded with his father to visit his mother, but the doctors who ran the sanitarium frowned on healthy interlopers, and his father confessed that Anne feared exposing them, lest they be stricken, too.

This was why he was being sent away to school. As she regained her strength, her letters to them had grown longer, and she always included a passage about her fear of the cholera that had stalked England since last year. Everyone knew that London wasn't a healthy environment, and Anne had persuaded his father he would be safer at boarding school. Everything was changing, and it didn't seem to him that it was for the good.

"I've, um, had John bring around the carriage." His father looked away, making his face passive before meeting William's gaze again. "You've said your goodbyes?"

"Yes, I have." There hadn't been many to make. He'd spoken to both Cook and Angus earlier in the day. He'd never been close to Mrs. Brown's replacement, or to Jeffries, now promoted to butler, the new John Groomsman (William wasn't even sure what his given name was), or his father's valet, Troussant. The two housemaids he knew had gone with his mother to her retreat. On Sunday, he'd shaken hands with all his acquaintances at church after the sermon. Yesterday he and his father had taken dinner with Pippa's family, so those farewells had been given, too. That left only one person. "Except to you."

Henry looked away again and cleared his throat. "You'll have a smashing time with the other boys. It will be difficult at first, but I've no doubts you'll do well in your studies. Just remember to be kind to your fellow students. Many of them don't have nearby family." It was the very best school, after all, where the sons of England's greatest families stayed while their fathers were far away, minding the empire's business in exotic countries.

"I will," William promised. It was an easy one to make, as he was never unkind to anyone.

"This will be an excellent opportunity to get to know boys of your own station."

"I know." Except for leaving his home, he was rather looking forward to going away to school. He had no male friends his own age; Angus was terribly old and his younger cousin Georgie was a mostly a nuisance. Pippa was his best friend even if she was a girl, and her baby sister Lucinda was adorable but was too young to hardly count. When Pippa had gone to school, she'd acquired a cadre of friends who were so ubiquitous that it seemed quite proper for William to address them all by first name – Daphne, Emma, Millicent, Sarah, Gwen. The contrast between the noise level in Pippa's house and his was always startling, and he wanted a group of boisterous friends of his own.

Henry looked around at the bare walls of his son's room. The wallpaper, installed just last year, had been stripped throughout the house not long after Anne left; it turned out that the vivid green of the fern print was due to a toxic dye. The first to be poisoned was the tweenie who dusted the many pictures on the walls; the maid's eyes and throat had swollen, and she nearly died. "Your chambers will look cheerier when you come home for Christmas. The paper-hangers are coming in next week."

William nodded. He cared nothing about the décor; the plainness of his old nursery had suited him better than the busy print. "Will Mother be home?"

Henry closed his eyes a moment and forced a smile. "It's her hope." Then, horribly, words rushed out. "What will become of me without the two of you?"

Startled, he stared at his father, frozen with uncertainty. Then William strode over and embraced Henry. "I'm sorry, Father. I've been selfish, excited about going away. I didn't think of what it will be like for you here alone." He didn't dare suggest that he could stay here in the only home he'd ever known, didn't know whether he wanted his father to ask.

Henry enfolded his son in his arms, schooling his features while William couldn't see him. "Don't fret. I apologize for the outburst. That was quite selfish of me. I'll be fine. Maybe I'll spend more time at my club, renew some old acquaintances." With a last squeeze, he let go. He was, he realized, looking up at William, and he gave a shaky laugh. "You've grown again."

"Sorry, Father." He didn't know what else to say.

He laughed again. "Don't be silly. Isn't as though you can help it, eh?" He put his hands on William's shoulders and looked him over, trying to keep a critical expression on his face. "You've gotten taller and too thin. I'll make sure to send you a package each week after bake day."

"Mrs. MacReedy is sending a basket along today," he admitted, grinning reluctantly.

The mood lightened, and this is how Jeffries found them. "Sir? Master William? The carriage is ready. The footman is on his way up for the trunks."

"Thank you, Jeffries." He waited until the butler withdrew. "Go on, then. Finish choosing your books." Once William was safely across the room and he was sure that he wouldn't break down, he added in a rough voice, "I love you, son."

William turned and smiled at Henry. He didn't hear those words often. "I love you, too, Father."

⸹

February 1868

"Are you sure you feel quite well enough, William?"

"I do, Mother." He forced the impatience from his voice and pointed out, "I did make it down the stairs by myself."

"You did," she agreed, "and I can't tell you how happy that makes me."

"Me, too," he said in an undertone. It was good to be anywhere other than his room, and even the familiar parlor seemed a new and interesting place. His recovery from pneumonia had been a long and wearisome five months, and he was expecting a visit from Pippa. He'd only seen her briefly at Christmas; she'd popped up beside his sickbed for a rushed, clandestine greeting.

"What was that, my dear?"

"Nothing, Mother. Would you sing for me until Pippa arrives?"

Anne beamed. "Of course. Let me get over to the piano and I'll play, too." He watched her maneuver her skirts through the crowded furnishings of the parlor. Her recovery from consumption had been remarkably swift; a spring and summer in the fresh air and clean environment of the sanitarium was all she'd needed, it seemed. Without waiting for her doctors' leave, Anne had packed and returned home as soon as word reached her that her son was gravely ill. She'd countered her husband's concerns with a scoffed 'What do I have to fear? That I might become sick?' Caring for William, she said, had done her as much good as the rest she'd taken. As her breath returned, so had her love of song, and she'd been well enough to sing a featured role in the Christmas choir at church again.

William was sorry he'd missed her triumphant performance, but he had yet to leave the house for any reason. Just coming down the stairs had tired him more than he would admit. He pulled his robe closer at his throat and tucked the blanket beneath his knee. Even sitting next to the fire, he felt cold, so he tried not to think of how he felt. He listened instead to her clear voice and dozed as he waited for his visitor.

"William?"

He jerked a little as he woke. "Mother?"

"No. It's Pippa. Hullo, cousin." She held out her hand to him, and as he took it, she burst into tears.

"Do I look that bad?" he asked, smiling faintly.

"You look awful!"

"Philippa!" her mother scolded from the doorway. She glanced apologetically at her sister, who was next to her.

"It's quite all right, Aunt Charlotte," William reassured her. "Pippa is honest, for all her faults."

His insult had the intended effect, and his cousin wiped her eyes and glared at him. "I don't know how I put up with you."

"I'm horrid," he agreed, his smile more sure now. "Please, sit down."

"Georgie wanted to come, but he's had a head cold, and Mother thought it best to keep the two of you apart."

"You're right to do so," William agreed, nodding at his aunt. "I shouldn't wish Georgie to get this." Also, he still tired too quickly, and the young imp was nothing if not energetic.

"Or for you to catch his cold and have a relapse," she countered. Charlotte looked at Anne again and sighed. "We'll leave you two to catch up. Philippa, don't weary him."

"No, Mother." She waited until the older women had left. "I'm sorry I'm such a goose."

"I'm sorry my appearance shocked you."

Pippa pressed her lips together. "It isn't just that you've been ill. You don't even look like yourself. Your hair is long, you've got whiskers and a moustache, and you're wearing spectacles. It's as if you're disguised."

He moved his thin hand from beneath the blanket to rub at the wiry growth on his chin. There was nothing to be done about the glasses. "The illness weakened my eyes. I was hardly able to read before Father brought home several pairs of eyeglasses for me to try."

"Well," she said acerbically, "now that you can see, you should shave."

"That's a terribly personal comment," he teased.

She rolled her eyes. "It's nothing compared to what I would say if you weren't just out of the sickroom."

He laughed, and it turned into a cough. When he recovered, he was smiling, though. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you, too, and I can't tell you how happy I am that you're better." She shook her head. "I've never known anyone go to such lengths to leave school. Was it that bad?"

"No, I quite liked it." It wasn't the complete truth, though he'd enjoyed some of his short time at boarding school. Many of the pupils had been there for years, and William was made very aware that he was a newcomer. Despite being a highly regarded school, studies had been secondary to everything else, and his academic ability was a liability rather than an asset. The fact that he was one of the fastest boys on the playing fields counted for more. He was also the son of a viscount, and the title had protected him to a degree that still amazed him. "I wouldn't have left if not for being ill." He barely remembered the surreal trip home; the only clear memory he had was of pushing aside the carriage curtains once when the horses came to a standstill, peering out, and seeing the blurry dark brick mass of St. Paul's.

"Did you meet any new friends?"

"Hardly had time, did I? Wasn't even there the full Michaelmas Half." That aspect of his experience at school still puzzled him. No one had ever been unfriendly to him, but he had a sense that his expected title was a greater reason for the affability than his classmates' innate kindness. People wanted to curry his favor because he might be useful someday. Many of the boys had already formed close friendships years before, and he envied those, because he hadn't made any of the deep bonds he'd hoped for.

"Tell me about the other boys, the ones you were acquainted with."

He narrowed his eyes. "Why do you want to know?"

She shook her head impatiently. "Not for any of those reasons. If I ever marry, it will be to a man older and established, not to a boy your age."

"Pippa, I know you too well. You have some reason for asking that question."

Her voice grew cold. "Because they locked you out into the night."

William looked at her fierce face, bemused. "I was already sick. They could hardly know a simple prank would have such severe consequences." He suppressed troublesome memories, forcing good cheer into his voice. "We all went down the kitchens to find biscuits late at night, in high spirits. If I hadn't been out of bed against the rules, I wouldn't have been in this mess, now, would I?" When her anger didn't abate, he sighed and added, "They were good enough lads. They meant no real harm." It was the truth; any cruelty in the boys was usually unthinking. His classmates had been crude, using words and expressions well outside his experience, and he had been appalled by their attitude toward the gentler sex as well as toward their fellow men – and sheep, for that matter. But he'd kept in mind what his father had said, that not everyone was lucky enough to have a family to guide them, and absorbed any insults and overlooked the coarser comments that he simply didn't understand.

His cousin examined his face for a moment. "You're an idiot, Will, but kind and good-hearted. I'd make a point of thumping each of those boys, if I were you."

"Well, I don't know how I would have survived my grim mood without my own personal Amazon here to tell me I am a prattling idiot-child in need of a barber. You're coming by to cheer me is all I could have wanted." He grinned at her crestfallen look. "I'm quite serious. I've been mollycoddled as much as I can bear."

She nodded. "Your mother has always…" Pippa's voice trailed off, and she looked down at her hands on her lap. Some things about one's family weren't said aloud.

"No, it's true," William agreed quietly. Then he sat up a bit straighter. "I don't like to be cosseted, though. You treat me as you ever have, and I find it quite refreshing."

"Oh!" She picked up a bundle she'd set next to her chair and held it over. "Here you go. I've heard from Aunt Anne that you've read everything in the house to tatters."

" _Songs of Innocence_ ," he said, looking at the spines of the two books she'd given him, " _Leaves of Grass_."

"It's a newer edition, the Whitman, I mean, with a quite moving poem he wrote after Mr. Lincoln was slain."

"Poetry?" William asked in a doubtful tone.

"Don't turn up your nose just because these are in English," Pippa said, then leaned forward to continue in a lower voice, "and they are considered a bit scandalous. If you like them, I've volumes of Byron and Shelley, too."

He lifted a brow. "How did you come by the works of such questionable poets?"

"One of Father's uncles passed on, and he bequeathed us his library as well as, near as I can gather, ten thousand pounds. Father had the volumes moved onto the shelves of our library, and I'm the only one who has looked at them since."

"You wicked girl," he said absently, his interest piqued enough that he looked at the contents. The print was close, though, and his concentration was at a low. William closed the book. "If I become corrupted, I'll have you to blame."

"Or to thank," Pippa replied smartly.

⸹

October 1868

"And one and two, and one and two," the dance master chanted, tapping his slim conductor's wand against his palm.

William whirled Millicent toward the edge of his Aunt Charlotte's ballroom – small, but a ballroom nonetheless – and then back. Pippa was hammering out a rather tuneless waltz on the piano, but Millicent was one of the better dancers among her cadre of friends and stayed on beat.

"Very good, Miss Millicent. Thank you, Master William." The instructor turned to Pippa with a slight air of exasperation; he was also her music teacher. "Miss Philippa, I trust you did practice this piece?"

"Thank you, William," Millicent said, ignoring Pippa's unconvincing reply and touching her damp forehead with the back of her hand.

"My pleasure," he said sincerely. It could have been Daphne, who had two left feet.

"Me next!" Lucinda demanded, lifting her small arms to her cousin.

"No, dear," the child's nurse scolded. "Remember, we can only watch the dancing if you are very quiet."

"Oh, but if Miss Lu favors me with a dance, how can I refuse?" William leaned down and took her rather sticky little hands in his. "Put your feet on mine, petal." He enjoyed the uncomplicated company of his smallest cousin.

"Try the Liszt waltz piece, then," the dance master instructed Pippa. She placed her fingers on the keys and plowed into the music with grim determination.

"Oh, I do love this waltz," Daphne declared, rising from the divan. "Partner me next, Will."

"Wait your turn," Lucinda reprimanded her.

"Miss Lucinda! You mustn't be so fresh," Nurse scolded. The child giggled, though, because her cousin William was mouthing a silent 'thank you' while he was turned away from Daphne.

"Lucinda," Pippa warned in a certain tone of voice, and lost her place for a moment. William ruffled Lucinda's fair curls as she walked away, her lower lip stuck out in a pout as Daphne came forward to take her place.

"Will!" Georgie peeked around the edge of the door. "Are you done with this lot?"

William threw his hands into the air melodramatically. "Would that Fortune could smile upon me to that extent."

"It has, fair sir!" Georgie replied with fervor. "Fortune has smiled upon you in the form of," his voice went back to normal, "in the form of that tennis match you promised me."

Pippa stopped playing and threw a grape at him from the plate atop the piano. "You can't have him. Our skirts make it too hard to partner each other." The put-upon dance instructor lifted his eyes to the heavens, a gesture ignored by everyone.

"Oh, how tragic!" Georgie considered tossing the grape back at her but ate it instead. "You'll never catch a husband if you trample all your partner's toes."

Pippa glared at Georgie. "Go, William, and do take that horror that calls himself my brother with you."

Two hours later, William gave a nod of acknowledgement to his cousin after his desperate lunge for the ball came up short. It was only the second time the boy had won a set against him.

"I think I'm ready for the Farleigh's tennis party this Saturday," Georgie said smugly, twirling his racquet in his loose grip.

"Oh?" William asked, raising an eyebrow. "Something in your tone makes me think you wanted to sharpen your skills for a reason."

"Because I want to humiliate Lawrence Jacoby."

"Miss Millicent's brother?" William put his own racquet back in its box and patted his brow absently with his handkerchief.

Georgie nodded. "He's awful to her," he said darkly.

"Is he, now?" William hid his smile; Georgie had suffered from unrequited love for Millicent, five years his senior, since the day she'd first come home with Pippa.

"Yes, he is," Georgie said firmly.

"Any you're never similarly awful to your sister?"

Georgie glowered for a moment, then his demeanor changed. "Say, come inside for tea. I'll bet we can get Cook to serve us early."

"No, thank you. Mother's expecting me. I suppose I should ride on home." He stood firm against his cousin's cajoling and promises of orange cake and left the boy with a casual wave from atop Charlemagne. William didn't turn his steed toward home, though, as Anne had gone out for tea herself. He had somewhere to be, somewhere secret.

Since recovering from pneumonia, he'd spent the minimum time possible inside. His mother, grateful to be out of confinement herself, had returned to the social whirl with a zest she hadn't displayed for several years. Without her scrutiny, William was able to do more on his own, and he seized every opportunity. Two days a week, he was the patient partner for Pippa and her giggling friends. It wasn't a burden for him; every time his body could dance a minute longer was a minor triumph. He and Georgie were regulars at the lawn club as he taught the lad how to play tennis. William's father had purchased a small sailboat, and Henry, William, and Angus had been out most summer weekends on the water. The long days of his recovery had fomented a dislike of walls and inactivity.

His favorite was riding, though, and he turned the horse toward the park. His daily constitutional had gone from a slow meander through the park into a quick canter astride Charlemagne, and that was how his secret life had come about. One day in June, a young man a few years older had settled his horse next to Charlemagne on a riding path, then sped up. William wasn't a naturally competitive person, but something wild and reckless had burst forth inside him. Having learned to ride on the chancy hills of Derbyshire, the paths in the park hadn't been particularly challenging. He and Charlemagne had passed the other man without undue effort, and the gentleman had laughed and clapped William on the shoulder afterwards, complimenting his horsemanship and his steed. The next day, the same man, Hollister, had hailed him and asked if he cared to race again. Hollister was a gregarious young man, and he had introduced William to his group of friends. He shortly gained a reputation as a worthy opponent in a horserace.

The thing was, he won more races than he lost, and it made him feel competent in a way very different from making high marks in his studies. He was doing well at something valued by other men, grown men, and he was tall enough to be counted as one of them despite his years. And it wasn't as if he gambled, refusing all bets, though he knew there were onlookers who placed wagers. Angus, proud of his horseflesh as well as his young friend, served as William's groom and kept his secret. Still, if his parents found out, particularly his mother, it would be the end of his racing. It wasn't the wagering that would bother her, but the danger.

He found his new friends on a rise at the far end of the park. Hollister was laughing at something, and it occurred to William that everyone except Hollister was the offspring of some level of lord. For the first time, he wondered how Hollister could afford his expensive horses.

"The 'Girl of the Period,' despite what Eliza Lynn Linton says, is not nearly fast enough," one young man lamented.

"She's too young," another advised. "You need to find yourself an older woman, a widow or a handsome matron with a roving eye."

"Or an actress," Hollister added. He put his hand over his heart. "Remember the British Blondes last year? Pauline Markham?"

"Gorgeous creature," a fourth young man averred. He saw William and threw up a hand. "Speaking of fast, there's Charlemagne."

"And William," Hollister agreed. He waved, too. "Did you see Lydia Thompson's British Blondes before they decamped to the wilds of America?"

"No," William said. He had heard of the irreverent all-women comedy troupe, though, even in his straitlaced household. "Was Miss Markham as pretty as they say?"

"Prettier," one of the other young gentlemen said, guiding his horse to the left and making room for Charlemagne. He went into rapturous and explicit detail.

William shifted in the saddle, feeling out of his depth, and unconsciously pushed his spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose. They made him look older, he thought, and he needed every advantage with these worldly young men.

"Darby!" Hollister called, lifting his hand in lazy greeting. "Join us." Two fashionably dressed young men turned their horses toward the gathering. One of them doffed his tall hat, and William was surprised to find he knew the newcomer.

"Hollister," the young man said, "meet my cousin Richard." Darby's cousin nodded, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

The men nodded back, and Darby did a double-take, staring at William. "I know you from school, don't I? You were there last year, just for a couple of months. William, isn't it?"

"Hullo, Colin. Yes. Left because of pneumonia."

"I heard." He'd heard the whole story, in fact.

"What about you? Are you finished?"

"No, they booted me," Darby said cheerfully.

"They don't expel anyone," one of the other young men scoffed. "What did you do? Burn the place down?"

"Just a minor indiscretion, I thought," Darby said, leaving it at that.

"I'm sorry," William said sincerely. Though he hadn't know the older student well, Colin had once had said something kind to him after a cricket match.

"I'm not fussed. Father is going to get me in at Cambridge." Darby hooked a thumb at his cousin. "Richard here is riding herd on me in the meantime, keeping me on the path of righteousness."

"That's hardly how I would–" Richard began.

"Enough of this. Are we here to race?" Darby turned away from his cousin, his brusqueness just this side of rude.

"William is," Hollister said, exasperated once the delay was brought to his attention. "The rest of us are here to stare after him."

"Not a bad view," Darby said. He immediately dropped from the saddle and stepped over to rub Charlemagne's flank. "Beautiful beast."

Always willing to talk horses, William missed the exchange of uneasy glances around him. "He's out of Durham's Jezebel."

"Gelding, though." Darby took Charlemagne's long face in his hands.

"It's the only way they'll sell them off the farm. Can't blame Durham for protecting his breeding stock."

"Mm," Darby agreed, then said without looking at his cousin, "Richard? Up for a gallop?"

Richard stared at the side of his cousin's averted face for a long moment. "Of course," he finally replied, his voice tight.

William picked up on his reluctance. "We can do it some other time."

"No," Richard said, giving William a flat look and not looking at the other man. "Now."

"Look out, cousin," Darby said, swinging effortlessly back into the saddle. "If his horse is half as fast on a bridle path as young Will is on a playing field, you've already lost."

Hollister looked between the two cousins, then at the lad who was flustered by the compliment. Too much was going on here, but he had made a great deal of money betting on William, and his investments came first. He settled his horse next to Charlemagne as they headed for the starting line, a lightning-struck oak. "William," he said quietly. When the boy looked over, he hesitated for a moment over his words, then plunged on. "Don't trust Darby, eh? Not alone, at any rate."

"Darby?" He lowered his voice. "I rather thought it was Richard you'd want me to watch for. Bad blood between the cousins?"

"No, just the usual resentment, Darby because he doesn't want a nurse, and the cousin because Darby's rich and he isn't."

William nodded slowly, wondering if Hollister ever resented him. "Darby's always seemed very kind. Why wouldn't I trust him?"

Hollister's brows lifted at the innocent question. "He's a molly, that's why." When the blue eyes remained puzzled, he added, "Darby fancies the boys – fancies you, I think."

This got through. "Me?" Then, "Darby?"

At least he wasn't so innocent that he didn't understand, Hollister thought with relief. "Master William," he said cheerfully, "you're the very bloom of English manhood. I can't believe you haven't been bothered for your favors before." He lowered his voice. "Some fellow gets taken with your blue eyes and blond locks, simply tell him you aren't interested. Men can be blunt with one another, at least."

"Oh."

"And get over your upset, if you don't mind. I've a quid that says you can outpace Darby's cousin."

Riding away later, William was lost in thought, and it was Charlemagne's determination to get to his comfortable stall and portion of oats that saw them home. He beat Richard handily, and William feared he'd made an enemy. Richard had given him a tight nod of acknowledgement at the finish line, but his eyes had burned with loathing when Darby came to congratulate the winner. William had given up on why Richard hated him, too busy with being cordial but not overly friendly with the cousin. He'd felt awkward and resentful and vaguely dirty, and it made him think of what Pippa had said about one inappropriate suitor, a squire thirty years her senior: "I want to scrub my skin clean each time he takes my hand."

Darby hadn't done or said anything untoward, and without Hollister's warning, William knew he would have responded to the other young man's friendliness. He resented that, too, because he wanted friends. William kept examining his own words and behavior, trying to find anything he'd said or done to encourage Darby, but they barely knew each other. Part of his confusion came from the fact that Darby was his own age. The boys had told each other sniggering stories about various schoolmasters who liked to grope students, but they were so old and wizened they had no hope of getting wives. Hollister hadn't seemed bothered by Darby's odd preferences, though. William wished there was someone he could talk to, but he had no idea of how to broach the topic to Angus or his father – he doubted his father even knew such things existed.

Angus was taking his early dinner when William arrived at the stables, and he put away Charlemagne's tack and brushed the horse down for himself as they talked, Angus often around a mouthful of food. Maybe he should take a holiday from racing, William thought, walking the horse around the small stableyard to cool down. It wasn't something his parents would approve of, anyway.

Back inside, he saw his mother as she left her chambers. "Good afternoon, Mother. I'll stay over here – I smell rather of horse."

She wrinkled her nose. "Did you have a nice ride?"

His conscience twinged. "I did." Then, to change the subject from what he had been doing, "You look as if you're on your way out."

"I'm off to Char's." Anne considered him across the hallway. "She's at her wit's end on what to do with Philippa."

William raised his eyebrows. "What needs to be done with Pippa? I would be delighted to provide several suggestions," he added.

"None of your nonsense," she replied, reproof in her voice. Then Anne sighed. "Your cousin has become a young lady just a bit early, and there are those who have taken notice of her, even though she hasn't been presented to society. Charlotte scarcely knows what to do. She wants Philippa to help her with her duties as your Uncle George's hostess – she needs to learn for the future how to run her own household, after all – but some of his business associates…" Anne trailed off, her gaze refocusing on her son. "Never mind me, darling. I'm just glad that you are years away from the marriage market."

"Market?" he asked, amused.

"A fitting word, unfortunately. It was much worse in my day – at least I have hopes that you will marry sensibly, but to a girl of whom you're fond. Your happiness will be a comfort to me when I can no longer see your dear face every day." She held out her hand to him, as if she couldn't bear to be parted from him a second more.

William strode the short distance down the hall and took her cool fingers in his. "As you say, I'm years away from even thinking about marriage, Mother. And I can't imagine that I'd ever live apart from you and Father."

Her fingers tightened their grip. "Oh, William." Anne's eyes brightened with tears. "Do you promise?"

"Of course, Mother."

She pulled his face down to hers and kissed his cheeks. "It was so awful when I was ill and we were apart." Then she laughed, a shaky sound. "You do smell of the stable." She brushed at her skirts, covering her emotional outburst with a murmured, "Well, I must be off. Your aunt is expecting me." William watched her bustle away, a bemused expression on his face.

⸹

November 1868

"Father will have my hide," William fretted.

"Your father will have both our hides. 'Course, you could just not tell him," Angus pointed out, but without much hope. Some things couldn't be hidden, and the boy wasn't one to lie, in any case. They were nearly back to the house, and it was the first indication the lad was thinking of himself instead of his horse.

"I'll tell him straightaway," William said glumly. "I have to." They were both leading their mounts from the park, and his secret life was about to end. He gave his limping horse a guilty look, ashamed of his selfish thoughts. Angus said the strained fetlock could be healed, given time, but that the gelding would probably never be good in a race again. William looked back at Charlemagne again and sighed. The horse was a goer.

"Don't actually have to," Angus growled. "Horses come up lame all the time."

"But it's my fault."

"'S'the fault of that fuzzy-headed Waltrip boy," Angus corrected him, scowling, "cuttin' in front of you like that, and his horse twice Charlemagne's size."

"If I hadn't been racing in the first place, it could never have happened."

Angus had no reply to this, and he stared at the lad's hunched shoulders for a few moments. "Slow down a mite. Trotting's a pace too fast for an old tar like me, innit?"

"Angus, truly, I am sorry." William came to a dead stop and turned to look at the old man. "I was so wrapped up in my own worries, I didn't think of you. You should ride."

"Can't do that."

"I scarcely care about propriety," William told him, impatient. When the servant didn't budge, his mouth firmed. "Then mount up and ride ahead. It isn't far now." Angus hesitated, though he clearly wanted to get off his aching feet. "Go on," he encouraged, "I'll be fine. It won't be the first time I've made my way home alone. Besides, you'll need to get the medicine together."

The last comment decided matters. "I'll get the poultices and the lineament ready for when you get the beastie home. Mind your purse, now."

"See you there as quickly as we can manage." As he watched the old man clamber into the saddle and turn his horse's nose toward home, William's brave front wavered for a moment. He had made his way alone countless times, but always astride a horse. Down here on street-level, it didn't seem nearly as safe. In what he hoped was a casual gesture, he took the quirt from where it was tucked on the saddle before starting after Angus.

Children with alert eyes seemed to be everywhere, quick to dart toward him until they saw the short horsewhip in his hand. Garishly dressed women called to him from doorways, and he was thankful their accents were too thick for him to easily understand their words. The sound of loud arguing came from rooms above the storefronts, and once he heard a woman's voice cut off by a loud crash. William cringed from the ominous silence that followed. Even though it wasn't fully dark, prostitutes were already conducting business in the alleys. What was usually a fleeting glimpse of shadowy forms as he rode by was now a clear view of worn-looking women with skirts hiked above pale legs as rough men took what their coins had purchased. Trying to look everywhere for danger without really seeing any of the ugliness, William felt very young and awkward.

He didn't breathe easily until he came to his own quiet, respectable street. Too late for social calls and too early for carriages to be readied for the evening's social events, William found himself still suffering from an awful sort of solitude. Figures solidified out of the gloom and headed toward him, and he gripped the quirt in his sweating hand until he recognized Angus and his father. A wave of relief broke over him, quickly replaced by guilt and worry. Then he saw his father was atop an unfamiliar horse, and he forgot everything else.

"That's the horse we saw at Newmarket," William blurted. "Father… you didn't…" He trailed off. Of course his father hadn't bought the magnificent racehorse. It was absurd, but… "Why are you riding him?"

"I could ask why you aren't riding your mount." Henry's voice was cool, and William felt his ears begin to burn. "Angus tells me he came up lame."

"Yes, his rear–"

"How did it happen?"

He lowered his head. "I was racing him, sir."

"Racing." Henry let the word hang in the air for a moment. "You've never ran in a horserace before, but you put Charlemagne in harm's way?"

Ignoring Angus stealthy nod of encouragement, William took a breath and met his father's steady gaze. "No, sir. I've been racing him for months, since the summer. I wouldn't do anything a-purpose that would hurt him." He looked down again, and shrugged. "I usually have better luck."

"Luck? You wager, then?"

He looked back up swiftly. "No, sir. Never."

"Why not? You've lied and hidden your doings from your parents, a sin of omission. Why stop there?"

William closed his eyes, determined not to cry, wanting to take his punishment like a man. "I am sorry, Father."

"Sorry? For which of your actions?" When his son remained silent, head bowed, Henry let out an impatient breath. "Angus, take Charlemagne back to the stables. We'll be along directly." He waited until Angus had turned his horse, taken Charlemagne's reins, and led the limping animal back home. Their slow progress let him hold his tongue and regain his temper, which had been sorely tested by worry. The thought of his only child alone in the London streets on foot made his insides go watery with fear. Now that he knew the lad was safe, surely he could think logically. Once the servant was out of earshot, he swung down from the saddle to square off against his son. "Why did you do it?"

"The racing?" William shifted his weight, caught himself doing it, and stood up straighter. "It's something that makes me…" he tried to think of the right word for how riding made him feel, nothing ahead of him but the wind, but ended up using a pale synonym. "I feel happy, and it seems I'm good at it, sir. I've made friends who–"

"Friends? Do they come to visit? Spend time with you in your family home? Those aren't your friends. They're gamblers and opportunists, to a man."

"They're good lads," he protested.

"I know who they are. I've watched you race." At William's swift, darting look of surprise, Henry nodded grimly. "Do you really think I wouldn't know everything that has to do with the welfare of my only son? I've known since September. Men were coming up to me to congratulate me, and I hadn't a clue what they were going on about. I felt quite the fool."

"I'm sorry," he said again. This time he didn't dare risk another look to gauge his father's expression.

"I had one old idiot tell me it was a shame you were so tall, as if one of your station would have nothing higher to aspire to than the position of jockey." He fumed silently for a few seconds, then sighed. "I've given you several chances to tell me. Why do you think I took you on the trip to Newmarket, if not to talk about horses? And don't tell me you're sorry again," he added. He seemed to debate with himself a moment, then said in a clipped tone, "Come, walk with me."

William fell in step beside his father as he led the big, black horse back to their house. Its iron-shod hooves echoed hollowly in the thickening fog. For all that he was in trouble, he couldn't keep his mind off the horse. Perhaps his father had purchased it with the intention of joining him in the park. William couldn't imagine his father wanting to keep such fast company, though, much less participate in the racing.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

His father's quiet question broke into his thoughts. "Because I knew you'd make me stop."

Henry's head swiveled toward him. "Make you stop?"

"Because it's dangerous."

"Horseracing is dangerous."

William flinched at the studied neutrality of his father's voice. "I don't think it is," he quickly clarified before remembering the events of the afternoon, "or at least I didn't think so until Charlemagne came up lame. But Mother does worry so."

"Yes," Henry agreed. "She does." He grew silent, and his steps slowed until he came to a halt just outside the lane that led to the stables. Behind them, the big horse blew impatiently. It was all very clear to him now. "Do you remember… You would have been very young, but perhaps you remember that you were going to become a big brother, but the child was stillborn?"

"I remember." The change in subject bewildered him.

"I would never be so indelicate as to mention this in front of your mother, but we lost two others as well. She can't seem to… well, carry to term. You are the only child she'll ever have, William, and that much more precious to her for it." His voice sounded remote. "And her sister, who has no problems with childbirth, has always been so thoughtless, prattling on – Never mind. Do you understand why your mother cossets you? Because if anything happened to you…."

William only nodded, because he felt as if his mind had just expanded beyond the capacity of his cranium. He'd always thought that his mother was fearful just because that was who she was. The idea that she was specifically afraid of losing another child made her seem more like, well, a person rather than his mother.

Watching him, his father smiled slightly. "You never knew, did you? It isn't anything she confided it me; seeing how she changed, I merely put myself in her place and came to that conclusion." The fond look became shrewd. "Similarly, I put myself in the place of my sixteen-year-old son, out of his sickbed and eager to be out in the world, and came to the conclusion that you've been concealing certain things from us." He watched as the boy struggled for words, then simply hung his head. "I understand why you did it, son, but that doesn't mean it was right."

"Will you tell her?"

A long pause. "No. Not today, at any rate. In exchange for my silence, though, you'll have to have me along the first time you race Loki."

"Loki?"

"Your new horse." Henry nodded at the tall stallion standing passively behind them and pressed the reins into his son's hand.

William swiveled to look at the horse, and then stared at his father for a moment. "His name is Loki?" His voice was hoarse, and he didn't dare ask the real question, whether the magnificent stallion could possibly belong to him. Surely he mistook his father's words, because he deserved punishment, not… not this unexpected and wonderful gift.

"Loki, yes." Then his father laughed, because William had grabbed him in a fierce hug. "Go on, then. Take him on in and have a look at him." He couldn't keep the smile off his face as his son ran his hand along the sleek beast.

Later, as they left the stables, Loki in his new home and Charlemagne in Angus' capable hands, William quietly asked, "Did she change much?"

Henry knew he was referring to their early conversation about Anne. "Some. She's… quieter, more timid. Your mother used to be… rather more like Philippa than Charlotte. Outspoken, but in such a charming way… She's still like that occasionally, and it's like the sunshine coming out. I live for those moments."

Another realization crowded William's mind: his parents were in love. How odd to think of them that way. Just before they got to the final step into the house, he said in a low voice, "I won't lie to you again, sir."

"I know you won't."

⸹

May 1869

"Would you please hold these for a moment?" William asked, handing his father his gloves and hat. As an afterthought, he stripped off his coat, too, then went into the gloom of the stables, where Angus was struggling to get a saddle over Baldur's broad, chestnut back. "Good day, Angus. Father's in a bit of a hurry. I'll just get Loki ready, if you don't mind."

"No, be glad of the help, young Master." He got the saddle settled, then lowered his arms, wheezing. "Dunno what's got into the water or feed, but I b'lieve it's making the horses grow taller."

William laughed a little and clapped Angus on the shoulder. "Don't tell Mother your theory. She'd not allow me near the stables." He insinuated himself between the older man and his father's horse and took over the task, reaching beneath the animal for the girth strap, waiting until Baldur breathed out to tighten the saddle.

"Are you ridin' in the park, then?"

He put the bit in Baldur's mouth, then held the buckles for Angus to finish the job before answering. "No, Father's taking me to his offices today."

"Sounds excitin.'"

"It is, a little, to me. I've not been since I was very young." His own tack was resting on the wall of a stall, and he hoisted it and went to run a fond hand along Loki's sleek black neck. "Hullo, you great beast."

Angus looked over at him, smiling a little. "You sound like me when you talk to the rotten things."

"Well, everything I know about them, I learned from you," he said lightly, and was surprised to see Angus' wrinkled face screw up for a moment. He turned his attention to cinching the strap tight, but not before he saw the stableman swipe at his eyes.

Angus cleared his throat. "Still got more to learn."

"If I ever know a tenth of what you know about horses, women, or boats, I'll be content," he agreed, putting the saddle blanket across Loki.

"Well… not the women. Them are a mystery, even to me."

"Sometimes I forget that you used to be a sailor, Angus," Henry said from the stable yard, peering into the gloom. "We should go sailing again this summer, when the weather is more predictable."

"Aye, Lord Henry. Forget myself, sometimes. Seems I've been caring for horseflesh forever."

"The sea's loss is our gain."

William saw impatience in his father's posture, even if his voice was kind. "Almost finished. Angus, if you want to lead Baldur on out, I'll be right there." He set the bridle and waited until he and Loki had walked clear of the eaves before swinging himself into the saddle. After he and his father had reached the end of their street, William asked, "How old is Angus, do you know?"

Henry gave him a sad look, tinged with pride. His son was outgrowing the self-centeredness of youth, focusing on the world around him. "I don't know exactly. Sixty, maybe, or not much past it."

Not wanting to think about how he'd suddenly noticed that Angus had almost no red left in his white hair, William changed the subject. "Why are we riding instead of taking the carriage?"

"We're going to the docks as well."

"The docks?" He tightened the reins, controlling Loki's head. The horse hadn't had a good gallop in a couple of weeks. Ever since the final arrangements for his first term at Oxford had been set, his mother had required his presence most afternoons, escorting her to shops or on calls to her friends, sometimes just the two of them singing in the parlor. He thought there was a chance he might get his father to swing by the park for a race before they went home.

"Yes. I've come to some decisions, and as they affect your future financial well-being, son, I thought you should know about them."

"Financial…?" Money wasn't something he thought about often.

Henry nodded and waited until a delivery wagon clattered past before continuing. "Your mother's illness made me think about our future – I always think of yours," he added, giving his son a warm look. "Residence in London is necessary for business and politics, and the social whirl has always pleased her, but I can't help but think that your mother only became ill with consumption after we stopped going to the country to rusticate each summer." They both reined sharply, Loki wheeling to the left, as two ragged young boys darted out from the wooden boards of the sidewalk and across the street. Henry shook his head, watching the giggling urchins dash down an alley.

"You don't mean that you want to spend more time at Allgood Abbey?" It was the family seat, but his Uncle Harold managed the rural estate. Henry went there twice a year to meet with his younger brother, but seldom took his wife and son. As much as Henry disliked his ancestral home, Harold disliked London, and the brothers had arranged their affairs so they were mutually content.

"What? Good heavens, no. Actually, I understand that Arthur's cousin is in a bit of a bind and that the Larches may be on the market in a while." He gave William a sidelong glance. "I propose to buy it."

"Us? Own the Larches?" The grand estate was very different from the sheep and crops of Allgood Abbey. And, immediately, "Could Peter and Mrs. Scott live there again?"

Henry beamed at him. "My very thoughts. Not only would your mother enjoy seeing Margaret again – they still correspond, you know – it would be the right thing to do. But the sticking point isn't so much the price of the estate, it's having enough dosh to maintain it – the same problem the current owner is facing."

"I imagine it would take a great deal of money to properly take care of so large a property," William said slowly, thinking of maids' salaries and tenants' houses and the staggering number of flowers the gardeners planted each spring. The cost of upkeep was another thing he hadn't given much thought.

His father nodded. "So, I propose investing in shipping. I've dabbled in the import business for many years, but I've never financed a ship before."

"An actual ship?"

"Yes, steam-powered." He reined in Baldur and they waited as a funeral procession passed in front of them, both absently doffing their tall hats.

"Cor," William said, his voice soft with wonder. "An entire ship."

"Two, actually, both sailing to Bangkok."

"Bangkok."

Henry smiled fondly once again. One of William's favorite pastimes was poring over the atlas, dreaming of all the places he planned to visit on his grand tour. Actual travel was tedious and slow, and he wondered if his son, a homebody, would really want to venture much further abroad than France and his cherished Notre Dame. "People will pay more for luxury than they will for necessity, I've noticed, and items from China fetch a good price." The last mourners passed, and they urged their mounts forward with nearly identical movements, William's left hand a mirror of his father's right as they put on their hats. "The reason I'm telling you is that our capital will be tied up in this investment for the next several years. Since you'll be a penniless scholar at university for the foreseeable future, your mother and I won't have to worry about turning you out for balls and parties. Our own needs are not substantial, so… it just seemed a good time."

"I think it's a splendid idea, Father. We've all missed Devonshire summers."

"This is all with an eye toward your future, as well. You'll be an excellent catch for some lucky girl anyway, but having land relatively near London and the funds for its upkeep…" He shrugged. "Perhaps I'm thinking of grandchildren who will carry our name, a healthy place for them to grow and thrive."

William raised a brow. "Grandchildren?"

"Your mother tells me that I am an unrepentant schemer."

He shook his head, bemused. "Let's think only about ships for right now." Something occurred to him. "He wouldn't have sailed aboard a steamer, but perhaps Angus might go along on an inspection of the vessels – he'd know if it was seaworthy, at any rate."

"An excellent suggestion." Henry smiled at his son. "I hope you'll send your days before you go to University with me in my offices. It's high time you learn our business affairs."

"Of course," he replied dutifully.

Henry laughed. "You needn't sound as though your life just ended. I believe there are enough hours in the day that one or two can be spent racing hell-for-leather along the bridle paths."

⸹

June 1870

"William Arthur Albert Withorn-Allgood," Anne said, glaring toward the kitchen door, "if you aren't out here in an instant, I shall be–"

"I'm here, Mother." Winking at Cook, he swallowed the last bit of scone and emerged from the kitchen empty-handed. "Don't be vexed. When is the wedding breakfast again?"

"Your appetite is a disgrace," she scolded. "I'm sure it isn't healthy."

"Nonsense, my dear," Henry said, patting her arm. "It's been a long time since dinner for a growing boy, and," he added, knowing it would divert her, "you know he doesn't get enough to eat during the school term."

"You are too thin, darling," Anne said, fussing with her son's collar.

"I eat," he said, dodging her hands, though not before she'd made him a good deal more presentable.

"I do believe we're all here and ready to leave." Henry consulted his pocket watch.

Anne took the hint. "Yes, let's. The carriage has been waiting for half an hour. If I'm not there to help with Philippa's gown, Char will never forgive me." Jeffries opened the door for them, and soon, with a delay for maneuvering Anne's skirts through the carriage's narrow door, they were on their way to the church to witness Pippa's marriage to the Honorable Mr. James Carrington.

His cousin was beautiful in her yards and yards of lace wedding dress, and William admitted it to her in the receiving line at her parents' house. Pippa, already emotional, had tears in her eyes as she hugged him, and then he was through to the dining hall and the sideboards. Two plates later, he sighed with contentment and looked around for Georgie – he couldn't believe his cousin hadn't been next to him at the buffet. The groom found him first, though.

"William," James said, pumping his hand, "Today, I am a lucky man."

"Yes," he agreed forcefully, "you are." William didn't dislike Carrington, but there wasn't anyone good enough for Pippa. They both gazed at her a moment, standing near the staircase in the hallway, surrounded by her friends. "I've never seen her happier," he added.

"Or lovelier," James said, something far away in his voice. The tone made William uncomfortable, but before he could think of any change of topic, Pippa looked up and beamed at them, then excused herself to hurry over.

"Darling," she said, letting go of her skirts to take James' arm, "do you know what Emma's wedding gift is?"

"Serviettes knit by deaf and dumb orphans?" he guessed. William involuntarily looked toward Pippa's group of friends, where the sickly Emma was looking paler than usual next to the brightness of the bridesmaid dresses.

"James," she said reprovingly, "don't be so unkind. No, she's donated two hundred pounds in our name to the Women's Reform Society."

"To her pet charity?" The groom raised a sardonic eyebrow.

Pippa stood a little straighter. "To my pet charity." She examined her new husband closely. "Two hundred pounds from Mr. and Mrs. James Carrington, something I'm sure will be looked upon very favorably by Lord Gravely and his wife."

He got it then, his eyes rounding. "Oh! Well, I must be sure to thank her father."

"Thank Emma. It was her money." She frowned, trying to remember. "Her family gave us a silver serving tray, I think."

James nodded absently, then patted her hand. "Excuse me, Philippa. I must pay my respects to Havisham."

The two cousins watched him walk away, and Pippa shook her head in bemusement. "He's a darling, wonderful man, but he isn't as politically astute," and then she realized her words were in fact criticism, "yet."

"You'll have him socially adept in no time," William said stoutly.

"I've saved you all these years."

He had to smile at her amused satisfaction. "Yes, without you, I'd be quite unpresentable. My mother takes no credit whatsoever."

"Can you believe I'm married?"

He was used to these outbursts; her wedding had consumed her thoughts for weeks, even at their birthday celebration. "I remember when you used to say you likely would never marry, but devote your life to charitable works."

"Have you tried the shortbread?" Georgie asked, having come up behind them unnoticed, a plate in one hand.

"You two," Pippa warned, "leave some crumbs for the wedding guests." She gave each of them a kiss on the cheek and was gone, working her way through a throng of well-wishers.

"Poor Pippa," Georgie said, though it would have sounded more sympathetic if it hadn't been around a mouthful of apple tart.

"What? Why?" His cousin seemed cheerful enough to him.

The boy shrugged. "James expects her to become a docile wife now that they're married, but you know my sister – frank and forthright as they come."

"Why would he want her to change?" William asked, honestly puzzled. "She's brilliant – but don't tell her I said so."

"Men who didn't grow up in our family don't appreciate a woman who speaks her mind."

"Good thing you did, then," William teased, "because Millicent is definitely a woman who knows her own mind."

Georgie looked down at his plate and pushed discontentedly at the shortbread. "I think she'll be the next to marry, before I ever get old enough for her to consider."

"You're fifteen," he reminded his cousin, "and she's nineteen–"

"Twenty," Georgie interjected glumly.

"Twenty, then. There never was a chance." His voice was gentle, even if the words were firm.

"I know." Georgie sighed and handed his plate to a passing servant, his appetite gone. He looked at Millicent a moment, tall and elegant in her yellow bridesmaid dress. "Have you ever been in love before?"

William was startled by the question. "No," he said slowly, "I don't think so."

"You'd know it, if you had been. It hurts."

⸹

October 1871

Oxford

"Excellent work."

William tried not to smile with pleasure as he took his paper from the professor. Old Thaxton rarely praised anything he or any student submitted, but this was his second year studying with the don, and his gift for languages made him useful. "Thank you, sir."

The old man put down the paper and took his pipe from the corner of his mouth. He carefully tapped the ash from the bowl into a glass dish on the desk. William understood why he was being careful; there were forty years worth of research and papers in the cramped office. "Do you have the time to work with me on the etchings that Anglin took from his excavations in Kalymnos?"

"You've received more, then?" He didn't bother hiding his smile this time. Thaxton had asked for his assistance in translating the tomb inscription, charcoal-rubbed onto paper and shipped to Oxford. The Greek letters turned out to be little more than a list of funerary goods, but the thought that no one had read the words for centuries set William's imagination on fire.

"In the post yesterday."

"I have time." William took a step toward a chair piled high with books. The old scholar's servants kept the rest of his abode clean, but they weren't permitted in this room. "If you'll allow me to move these, I can sit–"

"Oh, not right now," Thaxton said, amused. "The translation will keep until tomorrow. It's late enough that my intellect must give in to my stomach." He peered over his glasses. "Would you care to join us?"

"Us?"

"Yes, myself and several of the other professors. We meet Tuesdays at the pub for a bite and a pint."

"At the Bird and Baby?"

Thaxton gave him a severe look at that. William thought at first it was because he'd used the students' nickname for the Eagle and Child. "No, the White Horse."

"I usually drop by the Lamb and Flag," he clarified hastily. Pub preference was a social thicket he had yet to understand. By the way the shoulders relaxed beneath the dingy robes, it seemed he had mollified the professor. William cleared his throat. "Thank you very much for the invitation, and please allow me to accept for a later date. I just remembered I have some reading to do." His ears grew hot, and William lamented the fact that he was such a bad liar. The truth was that he rarely went to a public house with other people; they tended to either think him odd for not drinking with them or to actually take offense when he refused the local brew. He didn't want to jeopardize his professor's high regard because of his family's beliefs. It might be an _entre_ to the adventure he'd always wanted. Perhaps when Anglin came back to Oxford next year, Thaxton would give him an introduction, and perhaps Anglin would be impressed enough by his skill with old languages that he would include William in his next expedition.

After he said good night, he wound his muffler around his neck and headed back to his apartments, musing about alcohol. He knew several lads from church who did drink while they were away from their families, but he didn't have any desire to be like them. It would make things easier, he knew. Students socialized at the pubs, and he could make friends much faster that way. But he had a stubborn streak, didn't see why he had to lower his standards in order to fit in with his fellows.

Besides, liquor tasted horrible. He thought of the time his curiosity about the flask Angus kept hidden in the tack room had finally gotten the better of him. The old servant had caught him, but before he could stammer out an explanation, Angus simply asked, "Ever tasted it?"

"N-no. I've promised it will never pass my lips."

"Well, then, touch your tongue to it. Won't break your promise, but you'll learn something."

He had never forgotten the thin, sour taste or the burning on the end of his tongue. Angus had laughed at the faces the boy made, taken the flask, and downed a quick swallow. He put it back behind the wooden box of tools, and that was the end of it.

William let himself into the house where his father had leased rooms for him. It still struck him as odd not to have someone open the front door. The Simms family let out rooms to him and another boarder, and the only servant they had was a cook. They were good people, an aging couple taking care of their even more elderly parents, but he knew that his living arrangements were an impediment to making friends. He was sure his father had been thinking of the poorly supervised dormitory at boarding school when he chose the Simms, not considering that William was a grown man. They did look after him, and they didn't have strict rules about hours or visitors – other than for female guests, who were of course banned – but he wouldn't be so unthinking as to keep the elderly Simms up late with noise from his rooms. The few fellow students he'd brought home hadn't returned, and he supposed he couldn't blame them. It wasn't a hub of excitement. But it was clean and the food was good, and this way they didn't have to pay the lease on an entire house and for servants to staff it.

William didn't mind making sacrifices. Henry had hammered out a tentative agreement for the Larches over the summer, though the current owner was dragging his feet, hoping for a fiscal miracle that would let him keep the land. Their own investment in shipping was going well. The first voyage of their ships had been quite profitable, and they plowed the money into more trade goods and sent them on another trip to the Orient.

"'Scuse me, young sir," Mr. Simms said, coming out of the parlor. He was a thin man with a perpetually anxious expression, and he held out a letter to William. "This came in today's post for you."

As he took the letter, anxiety of his own curled in his gut. The seal was black wax, the writing his mother's. William stared at it a moment, then broke the seal.

⸹

Darling, I am so sorry to have to send bad news to you. Angus died yesterday. The new groomsman found him in his bed. It seems he passed very peacefully in his sleep. He was a great favorite of yours, I know. Your father made arrangements for –

⸹

"Bad news?" Mr. Simms asked, his hands knotted together in front of him.

"What?" William looked up from the pages. "Yes, Angus – a servant of ours for many years, took care of the stables – he died this week. Taught me everything I know about horses." And about so much more.

"Oh. Very sorry to hear it, I am, but when I saw the black letter, I worried that it was much worse news."

"What?" he asked again. "Oh. Yes." It could be worse news, he supposed, but it was hard to think that anything could make him feel worse. "Excuse me, would you? I-I shall see you at supper."

He trudged up the stairs, reading his mother's angular handwriting as he went. There was little more; his father had notified Angus' mates from the North London pub he frequented whenever he had a day off, and they had come to the graveside service.

⸹

Your father told me such quaint stories about the public house, mimicking the rough accents of the men. He was abed the day before with a flux of the bowells, but he is better now. He sends his love, darling, as do I.

⸹

Angus, dead. It didn't seem possible. William sat down on the chair in front of his desk without removing his scarf or coat. He'd noticed how frail Angus was, though, how little red was left in his hair. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped his eyes. Pippa had once said, with some exasperation, that his heart was too soft, that he cried too easily. But surely there was nothing wrong this time.

There was a knock on the door. "Yes?" he answered, crumpling the damp kerchief in his hand.

"Sorry to bother, but you've a visitor, dear," Mrs. Simms said, a sympathetic look on her round face. She stepped back to show Georgie behind her. He gave his cousin an uncertain look, and William thought of how ridiculous he must look, sitting inside in his coat and scarf.

"Georgie," he said, standing and unwinding the muffler. "Do come in."

"I'll leave you, then," Mrs. Sims said, giving Georgie an encouraging smile as she left.

He didn't return it. "Hullo, Will."

"What are you doing here? Not that I'm not glad to see you," he added hastily. "I just got the news, and I have to say I'm glad to have the company."

"You got the news?" Georgie echoed, frowning.

"Yes. Mother's letter." He held it up. "I suppose I should have been expecting it. He hasn't seemed well for a long time now."

Georgie frowned at the letter, and then he turned the frown on William. "How could you expect...?" He turned halfway toward the door, confused.

"You're acting odd," William said. He held the letter to his cousin, shrugged out of his overcoat.

"I could say the same," Georgie mumbled, reading the letter. "Oh! Angus." He looked up then, miserable. "I'm so sorry, Will."

He lifted a shoulder, being brave. "Thanks. He had a good, long–"

"No," Georgie interrupted. "I'm sorry–" He took William's coat from where he'd thrown it on the bed and held it out to him. "Not about Angus. Mother sent me to fetch you. She's with Aunt Anne. Will… your father died this morning."

Staring at his cousin, he shook his head, not comprehending for a moment, but the truth of it was in Georgie's unwontedly solemn face. William sank back down into the chair, numb. He'd been wrong, it seemed.

He could feel much worse.

⸹

November 1871

"William? Are you in here?" She'd knocked twice on the study door before opening it.

He looked up at Pippa, then struggled to keep a miserable expression off his face. "Sorry. I was… preoccupied."

"I should have waited for someone to announce me."

"Of course you shouldn't. We're family; you don't need to be announced. Please," he said, forcing himself to his feet, "do come in. Have a seat."

She glided gracefully to the chair on his right, the one without arms that would accommodate her wide skirts. "Where is Jeffries, anyway?"

William gave a little laugh and pushed an envelope toward her. "He's gone. That's his resignation." He sat back down behind his father's desk.

"He left?"

"Yes. I gather he'll not stoop to butling for anyone less than a lord."

Frowning, his cousin scanned the brief letter, then shook her head. "Servants can be higher in the instep than their betters."

"Can they? I certainly hadn't a clue."

"How is your mother taking it?"

"To be honest, she probably won't remember that I've told her."

Pippa closed her eyes. "No better, then?"

"No. I fear we must soon exhaust the supply of laudanum in London."

"You think she's taking too much?" she asked in a sharp voice.

He shrugged. "I cannot fault her. If I could, I'd prefer to sleep the day away, too."

Pippa examined her cousin closely. He looked exhausted, and she imagined that he was overwhelmed by the responsibilities that had been thrust on him. "Is there anything I can do? Or perhaps James…?"

"No," he replied, waving away the offer of help. "I know the two of you have your own work right now."

She smoothed an unconscious hand over her still-flat stomach. The fact that he would be so indelicate as to refer to her pregnancy was telling. "William…."

He sighed and forced himself to meet her concerned gaze. "Pippa, you're a darling and you've been my rock the past fortnight – don't think I haven't noticed." She and her mother had guided a hollow-eyed Anne through the funeral and the initial bustle of well-wishers, but William had regretted his Aunt Charlotte's suggestion of laudanum since the second night his mother requested it. "Forgive me; I'm just tired right now." He pushed another letter across the desk to her. "Uncle Harold is coming back to London in a few days to sign power-of-attorney papers making me his agent." A faint smile touched his face. "Didn't even know what those terms meant until yesterday."

Pippa scanned the letter, then gave him a sharp look. "He wants to continue the arrangement he and your father had?"

"I'll handle the estate finances, yes."

"He isn't moving here?"

"He's never wanted to leave the Abbey."

"So you won't be returning to Oxford, then?"

"No." He closed his eyes just for a moment, thinking of the pub he'd never visit with old Thaxton, languages he'd never have a chance to study, dusty Greek tombs he'd never discover on expeditions he'd never take. He lifted a shoulder. "Better this way; I can take care of Mother."

To his eternal relief, Pippa briskly folded the letter and placed it on his desk. "Well," she said with determined cheer, "once Sir Harold arrives, you'll be on firmer ground."

The title sounded odd to both of them. "Do you know, I ran into Albert Smythe from church as I was getting into the carriage outside Father's – outside my offices the other day, and he offered me his condolences."

"Of course."

"Not for Father," William said tiredly, "his condolences on losing the title. Then he reminded me that the coat of arms needed to be removed from the coach."

"Why, that horrible little man!"

"Never thought of him that way before, but I rather agree."

Pippa was distracted from her outrage by her cousin's voice. He was dropping his pronouns, slurring his words, his exhaustion impairing his precise diction. "Never mind him. How are you sleeping?"

"I'm not." He wandered the house at night, as he had done when he was a small boy, no longer having to hide, looking not for wonder but for peace, unable to find any. The house had changed, become empty, and didn't even feel like home. William saw the dismay on his cousin's face and made himself sit up straighter. "You're quite right, though. Things will get better, become more settled once Uncle Harold is here."

⸹

William could find at least one thing for which to be grateful, and that was the fact that his uncle did not look like his father. Harold had darker hair than Henry, was burlier, and looked twenty years older than his forty-five years after a life spent out-of-doors. Perhaps the ladies were right to shield their skin so carefully, William mused. Today, worry was stamped on Harold's face as well. He saw his uncle was staring at him and shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry, Uncle. I drifted away for a moment. What were you saying?"

The lined face softened. "How are ye, lad?"

"I think it shall be a considerable while before I can truthfully say that I'm doing fine." He and his uncle had awkwardly avoided the chair behind the desk, neither wanting to claim that authority, and both were sitting in chairs in the open part of the study.

"'S'hard on ye, I know, and yer mother." He sighed, the worried look returning. "I hate to bring it up, add to your burdens, but how bad is it?"

"I'm sorry," William replied slowly, "how bad is what?"

Harold grimaced. "The money."

For the first time, William noticed the envelope in his uncle's hands. He was compulsively rolling it into a cylinder, then smoothing it straight. "I don't believe I follow you. Is that what's bothering you?" He held out his hand for the envelope, and Harold passed it over.

The letter inside was from their bank, and William unfurled the curling paper. Random words jumped out at him: abeyance, default, foreclosure. After a second pass through the document, he finally understood, yet it still made no sense. "The bank wants immediate payment on the shipping loan?"

"Near as I can make of it."

"But… that makes no sense. We have months before the note is due."

"Maybe it has some'un to do with Henry's death." Harold lifted his shoulders. These matters were beyond him; transactions in the thousands of pounds made his hands sweaty and his ears go hot. Still, he had to say it. "Never did agree with all those risky investments."

William was pondering the letter again, and he was glad to have it because it helped him shield his surprise. He'd never known that his father and uncle disagreed about anything. Not that it would have mattered when Henry was Viscount. "It shouldn't make a difference. The ships are due back this month, December at the latest."

"That letter said 'immediate.'"

They could not produce that kind of cash, not in a short period of time. Even though his father's conservative investments had been left largely intact during the recent financial downturn, other people hadn't been as lucky. There would be too few buyers for all they would need to sell to meet this unreasonable repayment. William felt his stomach knot, then he realized even that felt better than the hollowness he'd been living with for the past month. He wanted to reassure his uncle that his faith wasn't misplaced by naming him agent, wanted to take the look of worry from his face. "If I ride, I can reach the bank before Cromley leaves. We can straighten this out before supper," he reassured the other man. It was something to do, something to focus on that wasn't his grief.

His nephew was gone so quickly that Harold barely had time to stand up. "Will!" he called after him. "Your coat!"

He noticed the chill in the air as soon as he walked Loki out of the stable and swung himself up into the saddle, but William couldn't bring himself to care. The smell of hay and horse was the same, but the cozy outbuilding felt as wrong, as hollow as the house did. It wasn't fair to Angus that his death had been eclipsed by his master's, that Lord Henry's death had taken all the attention. And yet William felt the same stir of anger against the servant as he did against his father, feeling abandoned by both men.

I'm sure they would both much rather be here than be dead, and then he felt shamed by the morbid thought. No, both of them are surely in heaven, and if they're looking down, I won't let them see me being maudlin and selfish. He took a breath and gave a little more slack in the reins. Loki picked up the pace as they wove through London traffic. The adrenalin rush of riding wasn't there, but the physicality of their movement soothed the heartsick young man.

William tied Loki to an ornate hitching post near the bank with a firm, "Stay." Angus had taught him that trick, a useful one for a magnificent horse that would attract the attention of thieves. He closed his eyes for a moment and put his hand against Loki's strong neck, thinking of all the times he'd seen Angus do the very same thing. Then he tugged his day coat closer around him and hurried inside, passing by the imposing lobby and heading directly to the office of the man who handled the estate accounts. Instead of old Gibson, Cromley's aged secretary, there was a young man he recognized sitting at the desk. He wracked his brain for a moment before dredging up the name. "Excuse me. It's Richard, isn't it?"

The dark-haired man looked up from some papers. He didn't seem surprised to see William. "Colin's cousin, yes. Hullo, William. I was very sorry to hear about your father's passing."

"Thank you," he said, relieved that whatever grudge Richard had against him seemed to be in the past. "I appreciate that very much. Is Mr. Cromley in to-day?"

"Yes. Do you have an appointment?"

"No, but I don't think the matter will take much of his time."

"I'll tell him you're here. May I take your…" Richard trailed off, looking over the other man's rumpled clothes.

William gave him a lame smile. "I left the house in rather a hurry."

"I have always doubted your sanity." When William gave him a confused look, Richard elaborated. "I've seen you ride, after all." If he was expecting to get a rise out of the other man, he was disappointed. "Have a seat. I'll tell Mr. Cromley that you're here."

The wait was longer than William would have expected, and he unfolded the letter that brought him on his errand as an excuse not to make conversation with Richard, who busied himself with a column of numbers after he returned to his desk. When the door to Cromley's office did finally open, the banker came out holding his coat.

"William, I regret that I don't have time to see you – you did come without an appointment, after all," the stout little man said reprovingly, groping behind him to find the last coat sleeve.

He stood up, not intending to block the door but nonetheless doing so. "I am very sorry, Mr. Cromley. I realize I've arrived late in the day, but this won't take–"

"You can arrange a time on my schedule for later this week with young Richard here," the banker said, taking a couple of steps to the left. "I'm afraid that I'm already late–"

"This won't take but a moment," William said firmly, holding the open letter out to him.

Cromley had no choice but to take it. He scanned over the page impatiently, then handed it back. "What of it?"

William was dumbfounded. "What…? Mr. Cromley, this is highly irregular."

The little man drew himself up. "It most certainly is not. It's sound business to make sure one is at the front of a line of creditors when an estate is settled."

"Line of… Mr. Cromley," William said, feeling his cheeks begin to burn, "you've been our family's banker for years. You know full well this is the only debt of significance – you were the one who drew up the papers for our shipping venture. You know it's a sound investment."

He shook his head impatiently. "It's speculation, is what it is. Now, speak with Richard about an appointment. I must be on my–"

"I hate to be rude," William interrupted, though as slow anger built inside him, he found it wasn't quite true, "but there is no need for this sort of thing." He raised the letter a little higher, made himself not shake it for emphasis. "The ships will return shortly with a good cargo, and there's no reason to believe anything has changed since their last communication. We'll see a sound profit, as will you." William leaned closer, not wanting Richard to hear any of this. "Mr. Cromley, my family has quite enough to deal with at this time. I trust the matter is resolved?"

Cromley's face grew splotchy with color. "'Resolved?'" he mimicked. "What cheek! You think you can strut into my office and simply declare matters 'resolved?'" His voice became higher, tight with rage. "You're not a Lord anymore, boy. You're no better than me or Richard here!"

If he'd been dumbfounded before, now William was aghast. The banker's reaction was entirely out of proportion, and he had a vague sense that the man's resentment had very little to do with him – he'd never even had a title. "I-I certainly have never thought of myself as better than you, or anyone," he said haltingly. "We go to the same church. You and I are the same before the Lord."

"Don't you dare speak to me that way!" the banker shrieked, and William actually took a step back. "You think I don't know your uncle has two sons? You'll never have the title, so I don't have to put up with any of this from you." He stomped to the hatrack and jammed his hat atop his head. "And this matter will be 'resolved' when I get my money!" Then Cromley was gone, the slam of the door echoing behind him.

Wide-eyed, William looked at Richard. The dark-haired man regarded him blandly, then asked, "Shall I schedule an appointment for Friday? Mr. Cromley also has an open hour on Monday, if you prefer."

The satisfaction in Richard's voice, so at odds with his carefully neutral expression, got William's attention. His father had been unusually perceptive about other people's feelings and motives; it seemed he had the same quality. Now it was as if he could see Richard and Mr. Cromley through a window, sharpening their resentment of the nobility on each other, gloating at William's lost chance at being a Viscount, not because of any personal reason, but just because it was so good to see one of the fortunate fall.

"William? You do want an appointment?"

"No," he heard himself reply, unplanned, "I don't believe I shall ever require any of Cromley's time." William shook his head, trying to clear it as he stared at the smug secretary. And he'd thought Richard's hatred had something to do with his cousin Darby, when it had been aimed at him all along, him and all the other indolent young men who'd been born into privilege. He was thinking of his mother's words as he turned away, not wanting to hear anything else Richard had to say: the world was an ugly place.

⸹

"William? Darling?"

He sat up in bed, feeling groggy. "Mother? Is it morning?"

"It's nearly noon," she replied, placing her cool hand on his brow.

"Noon? I can't have slept so long." As soon as he said the words, his stomach gave a loud growl, indicating it had, in fact, not been fed in quite some time.

"Obviously, you've missed breakfast," his mother said mildly, sinking down onto the edge of his bed. She was still in her wrapper, but the maid had fixed her hair today.

He coughed suddenly, hurrying to cover his mouth. "Ohhh," William said, remembering the events of yesterday. Coatless, he'd ridden home from the bank in a steady rain and taken a chill. Feverish, he'd put off his uncle and had taken only a cup of tea before going to bed.

"How are you feeling?" Anne asked anxiously.

"Much better than last night," he said, and even if his voice was a bit nasal, it was true. He hadn't had so much sleep in weeks.

"Harold said you rode out without your coat or hat yesterday evening," she said in reproof. Then the anxiety returned. "Something about our bank…?"

"Nothing for you to worry about," he said, waving a hand, wanting to spare her the sordid tale. "But, Mother… you're out of bed?"

"Well, you didn't come to see me last night. I knew something must be amiss."

He honestly hadn't thought she was lucid enough to know he was there, and this touched him. "I'm very sorry. I wasn't feeling well–"

"It isn't like you to be so careless, darling. Nothing has happened to the ships? Truly?"

"No. We haven't had word," he pushed himself into a seated position, "don't expect word until they dock, actually, this late in the voyage." The worry didn't leave her eyes, so he stifled a sigh and took her hand. "To be honest, yes, there is something wrong. I miss Angus dreadfully, and I miss Father more, and if I forget my overcoat, well, I'm just relieved that I remembered to put on my shoes."

A spasm of emotion crossed her face. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For mentioning him. No one talks to me about Henry. It's as if he'd done something wrong, something shameful, when he… He died, William. That's all he did. And no one wants to talk about it."

He squeezed her hand, knowing that his eyes were as full of tears as hers. "Someone so good as Father shouldn't die so young," William began, but that was all he could manage for a moment. He cleared his throat. "It scares people, I think. If he's at fault somehow, they can still think of themselves as safe from death."

Anne considered this, then nodded. "You're very like him, you know, like Henry. You understand how the world works."

"No," William said bitterly, "I don't."

⸹

The chest cold was still bad enough that he could have used it as an excuse to stay abed on Sunday, but something hotter than fever was burning inside him. William put up a token protest when his mother begged off attending church services, but he was relieved that she wouldn't be attending. If things did not go as planned, it was better if she was home.

His uncle did go to church with him, and William had a bitter satisfaction that the family crest was still on their coach and that it was perfectly correct for it to be there. Beside him in the pew, Harold sang well but loudly, and he was glad for that, too, so that people in attendance would mark the new Viscount's presence. He didn't sing himself, not wanting to go into a fit of coughing, and he scarcely listened to the sermon, which was on tithing. He feared his prayer for forgiveness for not being in a worshipful state of mind was also an afterthought. What he was waiting for was the socializing in the cloakroom after church.

The final "Amen" sounded, and William led the way from their pew. "Uncle, there's someone I'd like you to meet," he said, and bypassed the vicar and the Underwood family with their flock of little girls with scarcely a nod. There, in the rather ugly plum suit. "Mr. Goforth?"

"Yes?" Distracted from finding the sleeve of his greatcoat, he turned around. "Oh, hullo, William. How are you?" There was real concern in his question.

"Well as can be expected, thank you. Mr. Goforth, I'd like you to meet my uncle, Viscount Colinvaux, Harold Withorn-Allgood. Uncle, this is Calvin Goforth." As the two men shook hands, he added in a rather loud tone, "Mr. Goforth is in banking."

"Good to meet you," Harold said, giving his nephew a quick look.

Calvin Goforth had shaken Harold's hand before he realized a different greeting was called for, and he bobbed quickly. "Very good to meet you, too, sir."

"Mr. Goforth, my uncle wishes to change banks. Do you believe you might have a time available to speak with us about that tomorrow?" William saw the young banker turn to lock eyes with his wife, who was prudently staying away while business was under discussion. The quick glance was full of communication, though. Neither could believe the good fortune that had come their way.

"T-time? Yes, of course I have the time." He nodded vigorously.

"Good, then," Harold said, covering his surprise well.

"I'm so glad," William said, still talking much louder than he usually did. "My uncle is looking for a banker who is a good, Christian man, one who protects the interests of widows and orphans, even in our greedy times. I thought of you," he added some emphasis, "right away. Shall we come by your offices at ten o'clock?"

"Oh, no, of course I wouldn't ask you to come out, William," Mr. Goforth protested, his eyes going to the black armbands the two men wore. "I will be delighted to come to you at your home and spare you the inconvenience."

Harold, clearly pleased by this deference, beamed. "That would be much appreciated."

"I-I might bring along a clerk," Mr. Goforth said. "Ten o'clock, did you say?"

"Ten o'clock," Harold agreed, and they all shook hands again. As he turned away, Mrs. Goforth came up and gave her husband a proud squeeze on his arm.

She was not the only one who overheard the conversation, just as William intended. As he and his uncle retrieved their coats and made their way through the throng, shaking hands along the way, he could see people whispering and turning to stare. Just before they made it to the church doors, he saw Mr. Cromley listen to what a taller man was whispering, then crane his head, looking around the vestibule. William waited until the banker spotted him, then gave him a cold smile. Cromley's face went from red to purple, and William's smile deepened as he ducked out the door.

"An excellent idea, William," Harold approved, "and I like that young man. Proper manners."

"They're a good family." He squinted up at the weak winter sun, still smiling. It was amazing how good it felt to be petty.

⸹

"William, if you need funds, I trust you will come to me?"

"What?!" He gaped down at Emma.

She didn't look at him, just lifted the latch of the bird cote. Emma and Millicent had come to visit his mother, which turned into staying for lunch. When William excused himself to take a bit of air and feed their birds, Emma bundled up and followed him. "You'll need to move them inside soon," she advised, trying to coax a finch onto her finger. She returned to the main topic without looking at him. "I'm sorry, but I've heard the rumors, and it would be unthinkable of me not to offer, when I'm in a position–"

"What rumors?" William thrust his hand inside the cage and left a fistful of millet seed, then latched the door and squared off against her.

"The rumors about your family finances. I know it's indelicate to mention, but your cousin Philippa is my dearest friend, and our families–"

"What rumors, Miss Emma?" He looked into her pale face and saw that her lips were blue. Her brown hair had been shorn to cool her down during a recent bout with a fever, and she still looked frail. William felt like a brute for being impatient. "Here, come with me to the greenhouse," he directed, taking her by the elbow.

Both of them removed their spectacles, as the lenses fogged up in the warm, moist air of the little greenhouse the moment they stepped inside. The glass walls made it public enough to preserve Emma's reputation, but private enough for them to talk openly. "Now, what about these rumors?"

"It's being said that you must go live with your uncle, that you will have to sell the house to settle your debts. I would so miss your mother; she's such a kind–"

"Sell our – who is saying this?"

She lifted a shoulder. "It's hard to say where a rumor begins, but I imagine it has to do with your ships being lost at sea."

"Lost at–" Stop repeating things, he told himself sternly. "The ships aren't lost at sea. If that were the case, I would surely have had word. They're in the Atlantic, after all, and on their way to port."

Her face cleared of its concern. "They are? That's lovely, William. I'm so glad the rumors aren't true." She laid a hand on his sleeve, something she usually did when she was asking him for money for a charity, rather than offering it to him. "But I would be glad to help. Your family is very dear to mine." Emma blushed as if she had said something bold, then excused herself.

William watched her retreating back, his mind on what she had said. He had no doubt where the rumors had originated, but if someone as sensible as Emma was listening to them, they were being taken as credible. What can one do about rumors, he wondered, taking care to close the glass door behind him, mindful of the delicate plants inside.

⸹

"William! Top of the morn!"

He looked up from the selection of black-edged stationery and glanced around until he found the source of the friendly greeting. "Oh, hullo, Hollister." How odd that he hardly recognized the other man when they weren't on horseback.

"I saw Loki nearby and took a chance on finding you. Fine horse," he added.

"Yes." He held up a sheet of paper. "Shopping for Mother.

"Ah." Hollister made a ducking motion. "So," he said with forced good cheer, "I haven't seen you in an age."

"I've been away at university, and, well," he gave the other man a sad smile, "I'm sure you know the rest."

"Er, yes. My condolences." He started to say something, and then just lifted a hand. "Good to see you."

"And you. Thank you." The other man nodded awkwardly and turned away. William remembered what his father said, that the lads he raced with weren't his friends. As with so many things, he had been right. There was nothing to connect him to Hollister when they weren't in the saddle. Then he heard Hollister say 'Bugger' very quietly before turning around and skirting the table of stationery samples to stand close to him.

"William, if you have to sell Loki, I wish you would consider offering him to me first. I can't give you all he's worth, but I can give you a reasonable price very quickly."

"Sell…? Why would I – Oh. You've heard the rumors."

Hollister was quick, one of the things William had always liked most about him. He grew still. "They aren't true."

"No."

He nodded at William, knowing that he'd overplayed his hand, revealed where his true interest in their friendship lay. Without another word said, he knew that he'd never again place a wager on the other man's racing skill. "Well, then, the next time I hear such a rumor, I'll set the bearer straight."

William held out his hand. "I would appreciate that, Albert." It was the first time he'd ever used his first name.

The usual, carefree grin settled on Hollister's face, and with a quick handshake, he turned and was gone from William's life.

⸹

"It's far worse than what you've heard."

After saying these words, Pippa turned away, pushing aside the curtain to see out of the coach as it swayed slowly through the London streets. William had asked for this private meeting, where there was no chance his mother or uncle could overhear. Ostensibly, he had escorted his pregnant cousin as she shopped for Christmas gifts, and now they were headed home. He studied her for a moment, rarely having seen her be so still. It was bad, then. "What haven't I heard?"

Pippa's mouth tightened. "That the family is utterly ruined. That Uncle Henry gambled away all the estate's assets." He didn't say anything, didn't even make a noise, but she knew. "I'm so, so sorry, William."

The stunned feeling didn't last for long, giving way to fury. His father, a gambler! His jaw worked for a moment, then he took a couple of deep breaths, tamping down on his anger. "How can we put an end to this?"

She shook her head. "I can't think of a single thing we can do. If circumstances were different, I'd say throw a lavish party, show that money is no object, but we can hardly do that." Violating the mourning period for her husband would surely send Anne to join him.

"This… I can't even say it's ridiculous anymore, not if Father's good name is being sullied."

"Will… I just thought of one other thing we could do."

"What's that?"

"Start rumors of our own. Give the gossips something else to seize upon. Raise doubts about the motives of whomever started the ones about our family."

He heard the question in her voice, met her steadfast gaze, but he chose to focus on something else. "Our family?" He hadn't felt so warmed in a long while.

"Of course." Persistent, she leaned toward him from the opposite bench. "You know who it was, don't you?"

"I have a fair idea." Cromley, going from calm to unreasonably angry in a matter of seconds, the resentful Richard's pleased smile. The memory of their faces was never far from his mind.

"But you won't tell me." She shifted, sliding forward on the seat. "I can't do anything unless you tell me who it is."

William sighed and looked away. "I don't want to contribute more ugliness to the world." He heard her blow an impatient stream of air from her nose. "Not unless we have no other recourse," he added. She was the most socially adept person he knew, and if she thought rumormongering of their own would work to stop the whispers, she was probably right. He patted her knee, turning solicitous, though she looked the very picture of health. "How have you been, Pip? Well?"

She accepted the change of subject. "Much better now; the women I know who are already mothers tell me that I should have smooth sailing from now until–" She'd started to say 'the birth,' but she couldn't even bring herself to say that out loud to her husband. Pippa felt very odd about her pregnancy, proud but also shamed that something so personal should be a topic of interest to the world at large.

"Good."

A smile lit her face as she thought of something else that she couldn't tell her husband but that she could tell her cousin. "Do you know what I did at Daphne's? I had a scrying done!"

"A scrying?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes. Daphne employs an old dear who can't do much in the way of work anymore, just takes care of the linens and mending, but she's supposed to have the Sight. She threaded a silver needle with one of my hairs, held it over me, and from the way it swung, she said that I shall have a son!"

"A needle, Pippa?"

"A silver one! The finest possible pendulum!" And it worked; she'd coaxed a laugh out of him.

She prattled on effortlessly about her visit to see Daphne for the next few minutes, until the carriage arrived at William's front step. He handed her down, grateful for her and her ability to create weightless conversation. He was calm now, having absorbed the new information about the rumors.

Carlyle, the new butler, opened the door for them. William nodded his head and forced a smile; while he didn't exactly miss Jeffries, Carlyle was short and bald, hardly the impressive figure cut by the previous family gatekeeper.

"Philippa!" Anne came down the last few steps and crossed the foyer to embrace her niece.

"How lovely to see you up and about, Aunt Anne." Pippa shot William an approving look over the older woman's shoulder.

"I can't stay abed, not with a guest in the house."

"Is Uncle Harold in this afternoon? I should be pleased to see him."

"No, he's down at the docks."

"The docks?" echoed William, puzzled.

"Yes. We got word just a short time ago, perhaps an hour. Our steamships have returned."

⸹

William walked up the steps into the church, his mother's hand on his forearm, going slowly for her benefit. It was the first time she had been out of the house since the funeral. He waited, outwardly calm, for her to greet yet another friend.

Inside, though, he was anything but calm. The ships had docked Friday afternoon; all day Saturday, he and Harold had walked through the stuffed cargo holds, stunned at the bounty. If the first venture had been successful, this one had been triply so. They had given both captains bonuses, as well as an extra twenty per cent to the crew, both of them touched by the way the men quieted and removed their caps at the news of Henry's death. The rough sailors had broke open a cask (bought in London scant minutes before; all the liquor for the voyage was long gone) and toasted the owners. Harold laughed and drank the raw brew to the dregs, and though William had not taken a drink, he raised the tin cup high, a wide grin on his face.

All the rest of the day, he and his uncle oversaw the warehousing of the cargo, the fine silks, delicate china, and aromatic spices. A steady stream of black carriages with soberly clad men had stopped at the doors; while William had never doubted the ships' return, he had worried that Cromley would find ways to turn buyers against them. He shouldn't have worried; it seemed there was no merchant in Britain uninterested in buying their wares. Mr. Goforth, the new family banker, had come by and brought two eager young clerks with him. It was well after dark when they left, clapping the newly-hired off-duty policemen on their burly shoulders as they patrolled around the warehouse.

Now it was the Sabbath, and though he felt anything but worshipful, he was in church as usual. William's eyes strayed to the Cromleys' pew, a satisfied smile playing over his mouth. In public, the man would ignore him, he knew, but there must be some way to shove the Withorn-Allgoods' good fortune down his throat.

Then William noticed a small knot of ladies looking their way, the way their heads moved close together as they spoke, the movement of busy lips around the edges of their bonnets. The news of the ships' arrival hadn't spread, he realized. The hurtful rumors were still going around.

He looked away from the gossips at his mother's movement, his need to bludgeon Cromley with his good news fading as he observed her. She was pale and lovely and faded, so marked by grief. What he needed to do was protect his family from the untruths, to make sure his mother never heard any ill word about her late husband. William's eyes lit on Emma and her mother at the other end of the cloakroom as they took off their sumptuous, fur-lined cloaks. What he wouldn't give to be as wealthy as them; no one ever doubted that they had money. They could offer charity to anyone, it seemed, from the poorest street urchin to… well, him.

An abrupt idea blossomed in William's mind, startling him before putting a smile back on his face. Absently, he took his mother's wrap from her, then led her to their pew, where Uncle Harold already waited. William murmured his excuses and set off in a beeline to where he'd last seen the Reverend Stiles' handsome gray head amongst a cluster of worshipers.

"What was it?" his mother whispered as he returned to their pew.

He patted her thin hand as he settled between her and Harold. "Later." Just to have something to do with his hands, he picked up the hymnal. Chastened by the error of his thinking these last weeks, he closed his eyes to make a brief prayer for forgiveness. One turned the other cheek, one did unto others. He could not control what other people did, but he could control his own actions, and those should be for the glory of God. If those actions also happened to squelch the ugly rumors, well, then, perhaps his idea had been divinely inspired. William was pulled from his reverie by the way Reverend Stiles' eyes had settled on him.

The Reverend had a good voice, filling the large sanctuary without sounding strident. "Friends, we are on this earth such a short time. We should all strive to be pure in thought and deed, mindful of others, and a credit to our families and our Lord. Recently, we lost just such a one," his gaze roved over the congregation before coming to rest on William once again, "a sound member of our congregation, the late Lord Colinvaux, Henry Withorn-Allgood." The Reverend took a breath before continuing, and was slightly surprised by the small murmur that rose from the pews. He let it die away before continuing. "Let us remember him fondly because he was a good man and strive to be like him. Because none of us know the hour that we, too, will fade like a bloom on the wild rose. Today, his family wishes to honor him in a permanent way, by commissioning new windows of stained glass in his memory, making our beautiful place of worship even more beautiful." This time, he anticipated the excited murmur of voices and propped his hands on the lectern, smiling down on them in benevolence.

William saw heads turning, craned necks, but the only person who caught his attention was Pippa's merry face and approving smile. Their eyes met for a moment, hers smug with the knowledge that the expensive gesture would show the town that their family had no scarcity of money. Then he turned to his mother, who pulled his head down to kiss his cheek. He gave her a smile and took her hand in his, noting the thin bracelet she'd woven from Henry's hair. She had vowed it would never leave her wrist.

"What a lovely thing to do," she managed, quite overcome. "Thank you."

On his other side, Harold patted him roughly. "Good idea, William. Henry would be pleased."

He nodded, directing his eyes toward the front of the church, where Reverend Stiles was speaking again. Though he could see from his peripheral vision that Cromley was glaring at him, William never met his gaze. He didn't have to.

⸹

"Can't rightly say I ever wanted the title, William, but it don't matter, s'long as it stays in the family." Harold didn't wait for a reply, just leaned forward and put his hands on his knees, then fixed his nephew with a piercing look. "Henry said ye were coming along on keeping the money part running, and from what I've seen this week, I reckon that's right, but that was doing things his way. I want to change direction a mite."

They were in the study again, both still in chairs in front of Henry's desk. Harold had announced at the breakfast table that morning that he was going back to the Abbey, wanting to spend the Christmas holiday with his family. William shifted. "Change directions how, Uncle? We've been very successful in shipping."

Harold didn't answer right away. "'Spect it worked out for the best, Henry being the older brother. He was bold, and I've never been. Now that those ships are back, it's all right, but the time we were waiting for them… I don't have the nerve for it, to be honest."

William had been leaning forward, but now he sat back, disappointment on his face. They had the price for the Larches now, and enough left over to purchase another steamer. A third voyage like this one would finance the upkeep of the estate for generations. He looked into his uncle's sincere, weathered face and saw that his father's plan would never bear fruit. Owning the Larches was Henry's dream, not Harold's. Allgood Abbey was all he wanted in the world, perhaps as high as he dared dream.

"I… I hardly know what to say. As your agent, I would advise you to purchase another vessel, to continue in what has been a very profitable business venture…" he faltered as he studied Harold's face. "That truly isn't what you want."

"Don't we have enough already? I've never seen numbers like these on the ledgers. If we invest conservatively, the family's fortune is made, and without any risk." Harold leaned across the desk to his brother's desk and pulled a sheet of stationery from the pile. "Here… what if we do this," he quickly wrote a list of numbers on the paper, giving William a sense of how much thought he'd put into it, "maybe this much for good, solid investments, this for upkeep of the London house…."

The London house, William thought faintly. To his uncle, the only home he'd ever known was just 'the London house,' a place he'd visit when Parliament was in session. For the first time, the reality of his situation settled about him. He wasn't the sole son of a Viscount any longer, the presumptive heir to the Colinvaux estate. He was third in line behind Henry's two younger sons, and he worked for his uncle. The decisions made would not be his. Sorrow over his father's loss had blinded him to his new role, despite polite society's best efforts to school him.

"… and if ye would continue to handle things here in the capitol the way Henry did, I'd be most grateful. I never did care much for town, and I miss the Abbey something dreadful."

"Of course, Uncle," he replied automatically, his eyes on the page of numbers instead of Harold's imploring face. The amounts for his salary, his mother's allowance, the staffing of 'the London house' were overly generous, but when he pointed this out, Harold waved it away.

"Know you have your share from the shipping, but I reckon that's how Henry would have wanted the ongoing expenses to be handled. It's how he did for me." Then, the difficult matter out of the way, he spoke for a while about homey things: repairing or rebuilding the little houses his few tenants lived in, a bloodhound bitch that he intended to buy now that he had so much money, maybe purchasing stained glass windows for the Abbey's small church, too.

William smiled and nodded, scarcely listening, something inside him crumpling and growing smaller. When his uncle left a few minutes later, he stood for a long time with his hand on the wood of his father's desk, longing fiercely for the life he'd had a month before.

⸹

July 1872

"She's beautiful, Pippa."

His cousin beamed at him as her coterie of friends tittered. William knew he was supposed to be the object of fun, the inexperienced young man holding a baby, but he didn't care. He gazed down into little Lily Carrington's face, studying her unfocused blue eyes.

"I think she favors you rather than James." His eyes left his baby cousin's face to stare at her hand, which had found his thumb and wrapped around it. The tiny, delicate fingers were nearly translucent, and he was swept with the need to protect her at all costs, hardly conscious of a brief memory of his own lost baby sister.

"I certainly hope she does look like you, Philippa," Daphne added. "I would hate to think of James' eyebrows on a little girl." Too late, she realized what she'd said and hastily added, "Though they look very fine on James."

Pippa sent her a glare, but there was no heat to it. Nothing could dampen her mood; her confinement had bored her to pieces, and this was the first time she'd been able to see her friends. Still a little ungainly, she moved in her light morning gown to stand behind William, resting her hands on his shoulders in affection. "I do think she might have the Carrington chin, but she has our mouth, don't you think, Will?"

"If you say so," he said doubtfully.

"Do you want me to take her back?"

"No, I'm fine with her." Lily's eyelids had drooped, and he didn't want to disturb her.

"You are good with her," Millicent agreed, crowding up on his left, her skirts lapping over his knees.

"Well, I did get some practice with Lu."

"She'll be here with Mother in a few minutes," Pippa said darkly. "Don't let her hold Lily, no matter how much she begs." Lucinda wasn't entirely trustworthy when it came to telling the difference between her new niece and a doll.

The aside about Lucinda wasn't enough to distract Millicent from her point. "Daphne, don't you think William will make a good father?"

"What?" both Daphne and William asked at the same time. He looked up into Millicent's face, her eyes full of wickedness and matchmaking. For the first time, he felt awkward with Lily in his arms. "You're being silly, Milly." It was a ritual phrase among the young women. He lifted the infant higher, offering her to her mother. "I'm far too young to even think about that."

Pippa took her daughter with motions that were already practiced, holding her sleepy child tenderly against her shoulder. "Goodness, don't put ideas into his head. If William gets married now, there'll be no stopping Georgie from thinking that he's old enough to woo you."

"Good point," Daphne agreed, a blush fading from her cheeks as the small group focused on Millicent now. "Besides, you know men won't let themselves be tied down at our age. Right, William?"

"Quite right," he answered forcefully. But later, strolling home because Pippa lived too near to justify saddling Loki for the trip, he wondered how it was that he did feel tied down at barely twenty years of age.

⸹

April 1873

"What have you done?" Anne whispered in a faint voice.

"Nothing, Mother. Just a haircut."

"What did William do?" Pippa asked, peering around the door of the parlor, her mother just behind her. "Oh my Lord."

"It's a haircut," William said defensively. "I just turned a year older, felt like making a change." He'd come home to change shirts after his usual shave had turned into an impulsive haircut.

While his mother stood in front of him, his cousin and his aunt circled him. "Oh my," Aunt Charlotte said.

"William," Anne began kindly, but Pippa was quicker.

"It won't do," she said flatly, moving so that she stood in front of him.

He gave her a gimlet eye. "Thank you so much for your encouragement."

"Well, I am encouraging you," she shot back. "I'm encouraging you to start growing your hair back out right away."

Unable to say exactly what he was thinking, not in front of his mother, he threw his hands up. "Why? Many men wear their hair like this."

"Darling, it doesn't suit you." Anne clasped her hands together, so as not to reach up to try to fix the damage.

"It makes you look… harsh," Charlotte finally decided.

"Harsh?" He reached up to touch his short hair, which was slick with Macassar oil. "Father had much the same style."

"Yes, but you take more after our side of the family, dear." Charlotte shrugged. "It's unflattering."

"It makes your lovely fair hair look so dark," Anne added.

"There's very little I can do about it now," he said, rather tightly, "but thank you so much for your comments." He left them and went to the stairs, taking them two steps at a time.

"Were we rude?" Charlotte wondered, unaware that her voice carried.

William shook his head and went to his rooms. Troussant was already at the door, and he simply gazed at his employer and raised an eyebrow before ushering him inside. "A fresh shirt, sir?"

"If you please." He let Troussant take his coat, but began undoing his shirt himself. "So, what do you think?"

The little man answered without looking away from the wardrobe. " _Non_."

William sighed. "What about a moustache?"

" _Non_."

⸹

December 1873

"Who's next, then?" William asked, as the last of the boys scrambled out of the sleigh.

"Us!" said one of a cluster of girls.

"We are," another one agreed. She had dark hair peeping out from beneath the fur of her dark blue velvet cap.

"Well, come along," he said, trying not to be impatient. William had been coerced into being one of the drivers for a sleigh ride organized by the ladies of the church. At least Loki wasn't hitched up front, though Baldur didn't seem to mind. He studied the broad back of his father's favorite horse, a sad smile of remembrance on his face.

"Oh, there isn't room for all of us!"

The forlorn wail cut into his reverie, and William glanced around. "Of course there's room. Here," he said, transferring the reins to one hand and holding the other out to the straggler, the girl with dark hair. "You can sit by me." He waited as she settled and tucked the blanket over her lap. "You're one of the Underwood girls, aren't you?"

"I'm Cecily Underwood," she agreed, with a great deal of gravity.

"Indeed you are."

"Don't you usually wear spectacles?" one of girls in the other seat asked, rather rudely.

"Not when I'm taking a bevy of beautiful ladies for a drive through the park," he replied, going for gallant as he slackened the reins and thumped them against the horse. In truth, he'd removed them because the metal resting against his temples turned so cold in this weather that it gave him a headache. "Would you like to go fast, Miss Cecily Underwood?" he asked, ignoring the giggles from the other girls and grinning down at her.

"Yes," she replied after a moment, just as grave as before. "Very fast."

"Fly like the wind, Baldur," he called dramatically, guiding the horse just a little to the left to break out of the icy track, then correcting their course. The young girls whispered and giggled some more for no reason he could see, even after years with Pippa and her friends.

What the preadolescent girls saw was their reserved friend sitting by a young man in a tall black hat and coat that set off merry blue eyes and the white of his teeth when he smiled. A handsome man was enough to make them giggle, anyway, but when one was seated next to Cecily, who never showed any interest in the opposite sex… well, all the more reason to giggle.

⸹

April 1875

Blinking, William closed the book. He was huddled at his desk in a pool of lamplight, and he drew his robe more closely around him against the chill in the air. The fire had died down as he read.

The grandfather clock at the top of the landing chimed two o'clock, and a few seconds later, he heard the muffled toll of Big Ben verifying the hour. He looked at the back cover of the book Pippa had given him as a birthday gift. William had been considering adding another log to fuel the fire in his study, but he'd best get to bed.

He didn't rise, though, just turned the book over and stared at the gold etched on its cover, at the author's name. Howard Smith. He'd translated the tale of Gilgamesh, a story no one had read for thousands of years. William felt almost sick: giddy from touching the past, full of longing to live such an adventure, and roiled with envy. He could have been the translator. This… he touched the book again with shaking fingers. This was what he had always meant to do, to return treasures to the world.

William didn't sigh or curse or weep. He simply withdrew his fingers from the top of the book, snuffed out the lamp, and walked stiffly up to his cold bed.

⸹

October 1876

The membership for the gentlemen's club to which his father belonged had long since become his, and William was not used to seeing in change in the dark, smoky rooms. He always settled in with his newspaper near the fireplace, where the smoke from the fire covered the more pungent odor of cigars. Today his favorite chair was gone, replaced by a dark leather wingback. He circled it warily, noticing that the gleam of new leather shone from all the other chairs in the room.

"Making improvements, are they?" he asked Alberson.

The old man in the chair across from his grunted and rattled his own _Times_ in disapproval. William hid a smile and settled in for a good read. To call Alberson gruff was probably too polite. When he first started coming here, something his uncle recommended, he'd been very aware of how young he was and modeled his behavior on Alberson because the elderly man didn't have much to say but was respected by all. The older man had probably known he was being emulated, but was kind to William in his own way.

An hour later, the _Times_ was read and William was staring into the fire, putting off the trip home for supper because he didn't want to face the cold autumn night. It would be only the two of them at the table this evening, and Anne was always unhappy this time of the year, as it reminded her of her husband's death. Lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed two other club members at first as they walked through the room.

"I'm not going to wager on anything I know already as fact." The speaker was Kincaid, a slightly older man that William knew only from the club. His loud voice made Alberson snap the _Times_ meaningfully.

The words seemed to work like a galvanic shock on Kincaid's companion, who stopped dead, staring at him. They were directly beside the fireplace. "You _know_?"

Kincaid scowled. "I know she's made my cousin miserable. If I knew further details, I would hardly share it with you. You live for gossip, Purvey, you know you do."

In his armchair, William hunched his shoulders and hid a smile behind the newspaper. All the Purveys were known gossips; even his own mother, who never had an ill word for anyone, would admit that.

Purvey didn't take offense, instead pursuing the topic. "So the lady in question truly…?"

Kincaid sighed, looking badgered. "All I can tell you is that I won't place a wager in the books. Other than make Garrett moo and pine like a lost calf, I don't know what she'll do. Either way, it won't be good for Garrett," he finished bitterly. "A pox on Philippa Carrington."

"What did you say?" William wasn't aware of rising to his feet. Distantly, he heard Alberson clear his throat and mutter his name, but that wasn't important just now.

Kincaid gave him an impatient once-over. "I'm simply wishing ill on my cousin's paramour – not that it's your concern."

"Philippa Carrington is _my_ cousin," he said, folding his newspaper and throwing it on his chair, "and an honorable woman. It is my concern when someone uses her name and that word in the same breath."

A wary expression settled on Kincaid's face, and he glanced aside from the anger burning in the younger man's eyes. "Look, I only know Garrett's side of it. Your cousin has led my cousin a merry chase, and he's miserable."

"Pip – My cousin is a married woman, a mother with an impeccable reputation. I would ask you to take back your words."

Kincaid's jaw moved out to a stubborn angle. "I won't take back what's the truth."

"It is not the truth, and you will disavow your words." William scarcely recognized his own voice.

Alberson folded his newspaper and stood up. Since he rarely spoke, it was always a bit of surprise how much presence he had. "Gentlemen, this is not the time nor place for such a discussion."

William became aware of the rapt audience of men in their dark suits, of more shapes at the doors of the room. Alberson was someone he should listen to, he knew, but there was a singing in his ears, and his gaze was locked with Kincaid's.

"Truth cannot be unsaid."

"Then I'll take my satisfaction out of your hide." Two red blotches bloomed on William's cheeks. He'd never threatened anyone before.

"There will be no fighting in this club." Alberson's tone gave the statement the weight of law.

"I'll be outside in five minutes." Kincaid's lips peeled back in an unhappy smile, revealing his tobacco-stained teeth.

William watched him walk away, and then he finally turned to the older man.

Alberson shook his head. "You should not have done that," he said, disgusted.

"What kind of man would I be if I allowed such slander of my family to go unchallenged?"

Still shaking his white head, Alberson folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm. "You just brought attention to the slander, gave it credence." With a last pitying look, he walked away.

Six minutes later, William found himself seated in an ungainly heap on the damp cobblestones, Kincaid looming over him. Holding his jaw, he tucked his feet beneath him and stood up again. He played tennis, rode, and had always enjoyed the strength of body that an active life brought, but he was not a fighter. Kincaid, it seemed, was.

Two of his blows hit his opponent. William was not heartened by this; the impact didn't seem very effective. Kincaid lifted his fists again, and once more he found himself on the ground. Three times it happened the same way, and each time it took him longer to stagger to his feet.

"Stay down, man," Kincaid advised in a low voice, not unkindly. "She isn't worth it."

"She is. She's my family, and you," William put out a hand and found the solid brick of the club building to heave himself upright, "are going to apologize for what you said."

Shaking his head, Kincaid took a couple of steps back. "It's the truth. I don't know how far it's gone, but Garrett fancies her, and she hasn't discouraged him. It's making him miserable, and I curse the day he ever laid eyes on her. She might be your family, but Garrett is mine."

"You're deranged," William said. He couldn't see the other man very well, and at first he blamed it on having removed his spectacles. After a moment, he realized blood was dripping into his eye from a cut on his brow. "Pippa would never act as anything less than a lady." He curled his hands into fists and swiped at Kincaid, who simply stepped out of the way, then drove a quick, brutal punch into William's sternum.

Watching the other man drop to the wet street once again, he said dispassionately, "I'm not going to fight you anymore. You're not worth it, either. And I'm not taking it back. Ask her yourself. See what she says."

William heard the footsteps recede, couldn't make his body obey him any more and rise from the ground. After a few agonizing moments, he could breathe again. Very slowly, he turned so his shoulder was resting against the club wall and slumped against its solid strength. He had lost the fight, but might did not make right. Kincaid was wrong.

⸹

"He was speaking the truth."

Unable to reply, William watched his cousin. They were in his parlor, Pippa having sent him a note asking him to meet her where they could talk. Both of their mothers were out on a mission of charity with other ladies of the church. The bruise on his jaw was hardly noticeable, certainly not as bad as the rainbow of colors on his torso, but Pippa had flown to his side the moment the parlor door closed, lifting her hand to touch his face, the cut on his brow. William couldn't help it; he flinched away. After that, she did not meet his eyes or sit down, simply circled the path through the crowded room, touching the rich furnishings.

"Say something, Will," she pleaded, agonized, but she was facing the couch instead of him.

"I… I don't know what to say." He needed to sit, as his knees were wobbly after her confession, but he must stand in the presence of a lady. William ruthlessly cut off the mean thought that she was not the lady he thought she was. "Did… Have you…" He shook his head. "I don't know what to say."

"I wouldn't have you hurt for the world."

"I know." He watched her move to the bookshelves. "Why?"

"Because…" Pippa gave a short, humorless laugh. "Because I don't know who I am anymore. Does that make sense to you?"

"It does, actually. But I don't see how–"

"Do you know what I am to James?" Her voice was soft, and she carefully placed the lid on a little china box shaped like a kitten. "I am the mother of his daughters. That's all." She waited, as if William might want to put in a word, but there was only silence. "Maybe it would have been different if Alice had been a boy – I don't know. But when I talk to Garrett – and that's all, I swear, we talk to each other – I remember who I used to be: clever Philippa, original Philippa, not…" Her shoulders slumped. "Not just another mother with a perambulator." She finally turned to face him. "Do you understand?"

"Do you love him?"

Her laugh was brittle. "You always have asked the hard questions. I don't know. I love the way I feel when I'm around him."

"No. I meant to say, do you love James?"

Pippa smoothed the antimacassar on the back of a chair, concentrating on it as if the task was of utmost importance. "I – I thought I did. I'm no longer sure."

"How could you do this to him?"

"I honestly don't believe he will notice."

William closed his eyes for a moment. "Pippa, if even I've heard…."

"James is not the victim here! He – He's – Perhaps he beats me!"

"Does he?" William asked in a dead voice.

She stilled and glanced up at him before hastily averting her eyes from his grim expression. She wasn't used to being uneasy around her cousin, and she backed away from the incendiary words. "No. No, of course not. But at least then he would be paying attention to me. I see him sometimes at breakfast, that's all. This isn't the man I married. Does he still love me? I don't know. Why would I look at another man if… He barely speaks to me, and it's been weeks–" Pippa broke off; she could scarcely confide how seldom James came to her bedchamber. Anger coursed through her suddenly. "Who are you to question me? Have you ever been in love? Do you know what it feels like?"

He drew back from her emotional outburst. "No. You know I've never been in love. I'm very fond of you, though. You're my cousin, and I do love you. I am worried for you."

His quiet words calmed her. "I'm sorry. I keep saying this isn't my fault, but I know it is. I should never have agreed to meet Garrett alone, but…" Pippa looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "It's just been so long since I've been happy."

With a sigh, he crossed the room to her and put his hands over hers. "I do want you to be happy, Pippa, but I fear this ultimately will be your ruin. Before we had our," he forced a lightness into his voice, "little bout of fisticuffs, Kincaid said that his cousin is quite miserable, too." She looked startled by this, and it encouraged him. "It isn't good for either of you, I think, and rumors are spreading." He let go of her hands and turned away. "For the role I've played in that, I'm very sorry. I heard your name bandied about, and I lost all reason. I would never have believed–"

She looked at his stiff back for a moment, then went to his side in turn and leaned against his shoulder. Even if his actions had fueled the gossip, how could she be angry that he defended her? "You're a good man, Will. An idiot, true, but a good man. And I love you, too."

He put his arm around her waist. They were facing the window, and for a few peaceful moments, they stared out at the little garden, where raindrops dripped down the sides of the greenhouse. "I know I can't counsel you. As you say, I've never been in love."

"I don't know that I am." She sighed. "I know what I must do, only… It's like cleaving off part of myself, giving up the dreams I had, giving up the chance to be who I…" Pippa bit her lip and stopped, not having the words to express herself. "Will you be here for me? To talk with?" she asked suddenly? "This isn't something I can exactly…."

"Of course I will," he reassured her, patting her hand. "We've been friends all our lives. Nothing can change that."

⸹

"Philippa won't be received here." Anne made the statement, then made herself stop wringing her hands. William was taking it worse than she expected.

He looked at his mother, at her conflicted face. They were in her sitting room, and he was grateful they were both sitting down. All he could manage was a rather stupid and faint, "What?"

"I cannot countenance such behavior, William." Anne smoothed her skirts, and her voice softened. "Philippa is my oldest niece, dear to me as a daughter. We'll still see her at Charlotte's, of course, at family gatherings. But… she can no longer come here."

"Mother…" He leaned forward. "She needs us right now. I know that what she's done looks bad enough, but I don't think she's broken her marriage vows. If we turn her away, she'll have no one to turn to but… this other man."

"She a clever girl. If she sees that there are consequences for her indiscretion, she'll turn away from that path." Anne closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to see his face. "Those are the rules of society, darling. I didn't make them, but I must follow them."

No use trying logic, then. "Philippa isn't just my cousin, Mother. She's my friend."

Anne leaned across the space between their two chairs and patted his knee. "I know she is. But you have other friends, you know." Her face darkened as she stood up. "But I don't want you seeing any of them at that club. You must resign your membership immediately." Anne touched the scab over his eyebrow gently. "If they accept brutes like that Kincaid into their ranks, you certainly wouldn't wish to belong. I can't believe how far its quality has fallen since your father's days."

William took her hand as he stood, too, with manners ingrained in him from the nursery. "Of course," he said absently, the club the least of his concerns just now, "I'll find another one. But must we abandon her? If we hold ranks, put on a united front as a family, surely the _ton_ will see that she–"

"It's a good thought, my dear, but we can't save her. Only her husband can." Anne sighed. "Perhaps this will be enough to make him reexamine what he has at home and stop keeping that mistress of his." Something in her son's stillness made her look up. "You did know…? Oh, William, I'm sorry to be the one to mention such ugliness."

He pulled his hands free and walked to the fireplace, resting his arm on the mantle. "When I talked to Pippa, she said that he was hardly ever at home. It didn't occur to me…."

"And why would it?" Anne said stoutly. "You should be shocked by such wickedness. Though it's a risky game your cousin is playing. The old saying about what's good for the gander being good for the goose is hardly ever–"

"She doesn't know." His face twisted in disgust at the thought of Pippa lowering herself for no other reason than one-upping her straying husband. William could tell that his mother didn't believe him. "I would stake my life on it," he said firmly. "She knows something is different, but she has no idea that James is keeping a mistress." His cheeks flushed; this was scarcely a topic he cared to discuss with his mother.

"Oh." Anne put her hand on the back of the nearest chair, looking down at the carpet, obviously thinking. "Then I must tell Charlotte. This changes things. Perhaps…" She shook her head and forced a smile onto her lips. "It will take time, darling, but Philippa is a good, sensible girl. It will all work out in the end."

William watched her leave the room, the skirt of her grey dress the last thing in his sight. She never wore bright colors anymore, and had only grudgingly given up the dark colors of mourning. Anne still missed Henry as much as ever, even if the sharp edge of grief had dulled. William had always taken their kind of marriage for granted, assuming that all husbands and wives were in love and loyal. It was not so, it seemed.

His face twisted a moment as he tried to prevent the tears that threatened. The true import of their conversation was only now occurring to him. He was to no longer see Pippa, who was his best friend, and he was no longer to go to the club where he found masculine company. Of course, the acquaintances there were nothing in comparison to the depth of friendship he had with his cousin. He hardly ever felt trapped any longer, as it was a very comfortable cage, but just now William felt how alone in the world he was. The tears, it seemed, could not be put aside this morning.

⸹

William looked up as the door opened, but immediately had to drop his gaze. "Good morn – Lily! Have you taken up butling, then?"

"No, indeed, sir, she hasn't," Preston said, appearing behind the girl, a little out of breath. "She's just a mite quicker than I am. May I take your coat?"

"Mummy is in the conservat'ry," Lily said, darting forward to help him with the heavy wool coat, tugging at one sleeve and managing to drag it over his boots. William looked wryly at the streak of mud. Troussant, his valet, was going to be unhappy. "Will you play chess with me, Cousin William?"

"Of course I will," he replied, smiling down at her, all shining eyes and blond hair. She reminded him so much of Pippa when she was that age. "But I warn you, I shall win."

"No, you shan't. I've been practicing since our last match."

"Have you?" He wiped his boots the best he could with her hanging off his arm. "I shall have to concentrate very hard, then." The child rarely made it through a full match, though he usually let her win if she returned to the board. "Now, back to your grandmother. Your mother thinks I came to see her, though really I came just to see if you would play chess with me."

"Did you?"

"I did. And to bring you this." He fished a coin from his pocket for her.

Lily squealed. "And will you take me to the sweets shop to spend it?"

He hesitated. "Not today, but perhaps later this week we can go. Run along now. I'll join you and Alice in the nursery in a while."

Happy with this, she skipped away toward the stairs, the coin clutched in her hand. William watched her a moment, then sighed and went to the conservatory. They had met here half a dozen times since Pippa had been barred from his house. It took him a moment to spot his cousin amongst the plants, but he finally saw her sitting on a bench with a book in her hand. She was not reading.

"'Lo, Pip." He settled next to her. "I got your message."

She started without preamble. "Garrett offered to take me away to Italy. Venice, Rome, wherever I please." There was a small, bitter smile on her face.

"I notice that you are here."

Pippa nodded. "I am, and here I shall stay. I can't leave my girls, can I? He did not offer to take them."

"I'm sorry." William covered her hand with his.

"As am I. It took that for me to realize–" She broke off and looked at the book in her other hand, as if surprised that she was holding something. "He said he was going with or without me. You were right, what you told me about him feeling miserable, too. There is no happiness left, I suppose." Pippa took a breath and met his eyes. "Millicent informed me that James has obtained a mistress." When he didn't react, she sighed. "You knew?"

"Mother told me. I didn't know whether to tell you or not, or even if I should believe the rumor. I chose not to say anything, as this," William began to say 'affair' and stopped himself, "whole thing is complicated enough. I'm sorry if that was the wrong choice."

"I think I'm glad I didn't know. Mother has advised me to use this against James, to tell him I pursued Garrett to make him jealous, that I then realized my foolishness and sent him away because he would not leave me be." She tossed the book to the bench opposite theirs. "She has more faith in my ability to scheme than I do, because I swear I did nothing out of calculation. Indeed, I've let my heart lead, yet it took this for me to realize where it really lies."

With her daughters, William knew. "Do you want James to come back, to be a family again?"

"I don't know. I'm so tired, Will." She did look drawn, older. "My friends tell me to confront him; the older women tell me that I should ignore it, that it's the way of things. Mother and Father lead separate lives, but they're fond of each other, at least. I could live with that, I suppose, but what I wanted was the kind of marriage that your parents had."

He nodded in understanding. It was what he wanted, too, someday. "But what you want now is to be with your children, to do what's best for them."

"Yes." Pippa pulled her hand away and stood, walking away a few moments. "I will sacrifice my pride, my very self. I must get James to appear at my side enough to squelch the rumors, put this behind me."

"Mother said much the same thing."

"And yet, James is doing the very thing I did not do, yet I am shunned, and he's… admired."

"No. He is not admired, not by decent folk."

"If only they were all as decent as you."

He sighed. "You're still angry with Mother."

"I'm angry with a great many people, myself most of all." She turned enough to look at him, her blue eyes boring in his. "But I'll never feel the same about Aunt Anne." Pippa turned away again. "I expected her to be there for me, you see."

William looked down at his clasped hands, debated for a moment, then gave her the only answer he could. "I'm sorry to say it, Pippa. You shut yourself out of her house. And you know she'll very publicly have you visit the moment Garrett is on the Continent."

"If it had been your house?"

He absently pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "We're of the modern era, and we can't appreciate how rigid society was back in Mother's time. She–"

"If it had been your house?" she persisted.

William grinned, looking suddenly much younger. "My doors would have been wide open. Nothing is more important to me than the people I love."

Later that afternoon, after he 'lost' a chess match to Lily, he closed himself in his room. For a while, he stared down at the traffic on the street, but it was still raining and not many people were stirring. William wandered to his bookshelf and scanned the titles, looking for something to read until it was time to dress for dinner. A slim volume of poetry caught his eye, and on impulse he pulled it from its resting place. He hadn't read poetry for, well, he supposed it had been years, and he had a sudden need for something of beauty in a stained world.

Without sitting down, William opened to a random page and began read Byron. He had done the same with the Bible many times. By the time he got partway through 'When We Two Parted,' he was reading aloud. "Thy vows are all broken/And light is thy fame;/I hear thy name spoken,/And share in its shame."

He looked up from the book, blind from the power of the words. Someone else had this ache once, had struggled up from the pain of a rift to craft these words, which might as well be a personal gift. William looked back down at the page, seeing not the words but the slender line of letters and spaces. Something inside his chest was burning; he had a working knowledge of fourteen languages, was an educated man with an extensive vocabulary, and his heart was so full of emotion – surely he could….

Trembling, he moved across his small room to sink into the wooden chair before his secretary. He pushed back the roll-top to reveal the neat pigeonholes with their stacks of paper, envelopes, nibs and inkpots. William swallowed and took one sheet of paper. The creamy blankness of it was rather like staring at a revealing image of a woman. The empty page held the same seductiveness for him.

Thoughts flickered behind the need to express his emotions. After years of allowing his intellect to remain idle, perhaps he was as a fallow field. Yes, he thought, as stories of other tortured poets coalesced. There cannot be art without suffering. Excitement pulsed through him. This is what I was meant to do, not become an explorer or a man of business. I was meant to be a poet.

⸹

September 1877

Against the earth the horses' hooves pound

Soil churns and curls up from the ground

Beating the face pressed to red flank

Steam and heat and none to thank

Striving as one to breast the mound!

⸹

Beast creating the scarlet sound

Fists white from leather tightly wound

Pushing legs strain to clear the bank

Against the earth!

⸹

So fast, but here slow time can astound

Pulsate both hearts in kinship found,

Made minotaur, victory they drank!

Slowing, still, from the saddle he sank

Apart, alone, the rider goes down

Against the earth.

⸹

"William, that was quite a bold image you used, with all the color red," Dame Swindon said approvingly. She sat forward in her seat, clutching the head of her cane. "And I don't believe I've ever heard the word 'pulsate' used in verse before. One would expect it to be off-putting, but it was well chosen."

"Thank you for your kind words," he murmured, trying to look modest after reciting. The invitation to Dame Swindon's _salon_ was one he had longed for; he had scarcely expected praise for his work in such a rarified realm of literature.

"Really, I felt as though I could see the race in your rondeau," another poet put in, a young man named Percival, "practically smell the horses – in a good way," he added hastily.

"Yes, very vivid, very modern," Dame Swindon agreed, nodding her white head. Her shrewd gaze sharpened. "Well? Don't lounge about, boy. Take your seat. Miss Babbitt? Do you have something for us this week?"

William stopped himself from lunging for the closest chair. Swindon was an intimidating woman, for all that she was tiny and well into her seventies. She had edited two literary magazines, and it was an honor and a fabulous opportunity to be included in her _salon_.

After they discussed their work, Dame Swindon's staff served lemonade and sandwiches. Like William's family, she was firmly opposed to liquor, and it was the only reason his mother approved of his participation in a gathering of questionable artistic types. He stood next to Percival by the door, absently listening to the other man revere Jonson. When the young poet's eyes widened and he hastily excused himself, he knew it meant that Dame Swindon was approaching.

"William, have you met Miss Babbitt?" she asked.

"Er, not formally. A pleasure," he assured her, taking her hand in his for a second.

"I saw you at the Tennis Club in July, when Mr. Gore beat Mr. Marshall. You were with your," she hesitated a moment, "your family."

With Pippa, she meant. The charm of her brown curls and merry eyes faded for him. "Yes. It was a good match."

Dame Swindon all but groaned; the two seemed very suited to her, but she didn't think Miss Babbitt could recover from such a misstep. She tried anyway. "William speaks twelve languages, isn't it?"

"Fourteen, Madam."

"Oh!" Miss Babbitt peered up at him, impressed. "You must have traveled everywhere."

"I've barely been outside of London."

"Oh." The syllable was less enthusiastic this time.

Dame Swindon didn't bother to stifle a sigh. She plucked the half-full lemonade glass from William's hand and held it out, confident that there would be a passing servant to take it away. "I look forward to seeing you again next week, William. Come, my dear – have you met Percival?"

Bemused, William accepted his coat and hat from another well-trained servant who appeared at his side. He wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but he knew his hostess was disappointed in him. He watched her sweep toward the hapless Percival, Miss Babbitt trailing in her wake, then headed for the door. He had an idea for a poem for the next _salon_ that he wanted to pursue.

⸹

January 1878

"Sir, I simply don't think I'm the right man for the job."

Carruthers sighed. "Are you quite sure? You've only taught for two Sundays, after all."

William put on a contrite face and met the Sunday school superintendent's gaze. "I don't believe I have the patience to be a teacher, sir." He tried a rueful smile. "It's just as well that I had to give up academe for the prosaic world of business affairs."

"Well, if you're sure. I think I can persuade Gladstone to do it one more year."

After he finished thanking the older man, William turned to go down the steps of the church to the carriage with a troubled heart. He'd handed his mother in, then taken the opportunity to get the interview with Carruthers out of the way. Not that he wasn't grateful and relieved to no longer be the teacher for the class of teenaged boys, but he knew he hadn't been quite truthful.

He didn't have patience with them, true enough, but it didn't stem from any lack of teaching ability. It was just that his voice grew tight and his ears burned each time he'd led the Bible study. Just before he looked up, their faces would go blank; he could almost catch the lads smirking at each other, and they would whisper to each other just out of his hearing. It wasn't any disrespectful behavior he could call them on, but it unsettled him. Surely they wouldn't be talking about him – what fun could they poke at someone as staid as he was? But the nagging sense that he didn't have their respect kept him from focusing on Ephesians I. And that was the important thing, that the boys absorbed the good word. Someone else would do a better job of it.

Soothed in his own mind that he had done the right thing, he doffed his tall hat and joined his mother in the carriage.

⸹

June 1878

"…Expectation and joy," William recited, looking up from the page because he knew this by heart, "On the occasion of the birth of this baby, a boy."

The audience broke into applause and smiles, and he beamed back at them. Then he remembered himself and looked down, fussing with the paper, then his glasses.

"That was beautiful!" Daphne said, leaning over as he came back to his seat next to her. She had recently married, and he had felt a bit of a pang. They had often been pushed together by their social circle, and though he had never thought of it consciously, Daphne really had been his fall-back if no other bride presented herself. She was a pleasant person and a handsome woman, though he felt no real passion for her. "You truly wrote it yourself?"

"I did," he agreed, beaming. Really, it was hard to present oneself as a tortured poet when your heart was swollen with happiness and pride. And why not? His first public reading was at the christening of Pippa's first son, the most public of all possible proof that she and James had reconciled. It was a joyous day. As they stood for prayer, he leaned over to whisper, "I'm so glad you liked it."

After the christening, the Carringtons had invited everyone to their home for a reception. As William led his mother through the throng, people made a point of praising his poem. Anne gave his hand a proud squeeze. He had to give himself a stern lecture about his own pride and a reminder that this day was a celebration of Jonathan, his new cousin. Yet he was so seldom the focus of approval, it was impossible not to bask a little.

Almost an hour had passed before he made it to Pippa's side. William smiled down approvingly at the infant in her arms, asleep despite the noise around him. "I see he's survived his big day."

"Yes." Pippa looked happy, but tired. This pregnancy had not been easy on her. "Now if only his mother can survive."

"His mother," William said fondly, tapping her nose with his finger, "can survive anything."

They exchanged a long look. "Yes, she can." Pippa gave him a resolute smile and changed the unuttered topic. "Even though it made me nervous at the time, I'm glad you didn't let me read your poem beforehand. It was lovely, Will, your best so far."

"Thank you." There he went, beaming again. A loud laugh from nearby made them both look over to see who it was, Pippa beginning to sway without conscious thought to soothe her sleeping baby against the sound. "Who is that?"

"One of the Underwoods." When her cousin didn't reply right away, she looked up from Jonathan's peaceful face. William was still staring across the short distance at the laughing woman.

"What is her name?"

The softness in his voice made Pippa frown. "Cecily, I believe." She looked at the other young women in the group, not girls of whom she particularly approved. They weren't fast or indecorous, but they tended to be mean-spirited. "She's not quite out of the schoolroom yet," Pippa added repressively.

"What? Oh, er, no," William agreed, looking back at her, flustered. He put on a smile. "Would you like me to take him for a few minutes?"

"No, thank you, I see old Mrs. Todd bearing down on us. She'll want to hold him." Pippa plastered on her own smile for the benefit of the grey-haired woman coming to admire her son, so she missed the way her cousin's eyes strayed back to Cecily Underwood.

⸹

August 1879

"You wished to see me, sir?"

"Thank you for coming down, Troussant." William saw that the elderly servant, once his father's valet and now his, was nervous, so he pushed on. There was no other way to put the man at ease, as he would never agree to take a seat in his employer's presence. "I wished to discuss the purchase of a new wardrobe."

"For you?" Troussant blurted.

"Yes." He kept the irritation from his face; it was true that he didn't set a great store on appearance, but his sudden interest in his clothing hardly called for that level of surprise.

He had done far more than put the servant at ease. Troussant beamed at him. "This is excellent," he said, rubbing his dry, bony hands together.

William couldn't help but smile. As he'd gotten older, the man's French accent often gave way to more pedestrian London rhythms. "Yes, well–"

"Will sir require clothing for any event in particular?"

"Er, raiment for the usual social activities, I suppose." He thought for a moment. "Several suits for formal occasions, for evening events, but I daresay what I wear on a daily basis to my offices could stand a renewal."

"A morning coat," Troussant said thoughtfully, adopted French accent back in place, "and two new overcoats, one for evening. Hats and gloves, and perhaps boots as well…?"

"Yes, if you think–" William began, beginning to be alarmed. The thought of all the fittings filled him with dread. His poetry was taking all his time these days. The notion of being well turned out as he announced the publication of his first volume of poems was one thing; the reality would involve a lot of time that couldn't be used to think of new ways to praise Cecily in verse.

"I know just the right gentlemen on Saville," Troussant said. He bowed toward William. "If sir will permit, I will attend to this right away."

"Will it take very much of my time?" he blurted anxiously.

The servant paused, affronted by the insinuation that attention to clothing was a waste of time. Then he remembered that the master had other matters that claimed his attention. "I will gladly see to as many of the details as you will allow – selection of the best fabrics with the best drape, the colors that suit sir's fair–"

It was William's turn to interrupt. "I trust your judgement implicitly," he told the servant, with some relief.

Quite overwhelmed by this, Troussant's chin trembled. "Thank you, sir. You will not be disappointed."

⸹

September 1879

"Please accept this in honor of thirty years of loyal service to our family." Anne pinned the small gold watch to the front of Cook's starched white apron.

William led the applause as Cook stood at the head of the short line of their household staff. Anne stepped back until she was next to her son and her sister Charlotte, letting Cook have her moment in the spotlight.

"Thank ye kindly, mum. It's been my pleasure to work in such a fine place, with such good people." She dashed a plump hand at the tears on her cheeks. "I hardly know what I'll do with myself."

"You'll rest and enjoy your retirement, Mrs. MacReedy," William said firmly.

The old servant came forward to impulsively take his hand. "I don't know that I'll ever be able to bake a batch of scones without adding extra cinnamon special for Master William." There was general laughter at this, and Cook turned to Anne. "I hope you don't think it too forward if I feel I've had a hand in rearing such a fine young man as your son, mum."

"Of course not," Anne said kindly. She looked beautiful today, pale in her dark blue dress, tall and slim next to the shorter woman. "I believe William spent half his childhood pestering you for buns and sweets."

"And let's not forget her preserves," William added, to more laughter. The small party adjourned to the dining room for punch and a light lunch, which was catered so Cook would have her last day free. Anne and Charlotte withdrew to the side, not wanting the servants to feel uncomfortable mingling with their employers, but William had no such worries.

"It sounds like a lovely place," he told Cook, after she described the Edinburgh cottage she was going to share with a niece.

"Aye. It won't be grand like here, but I don't need much." She gave him a wistful look. "Just as well. With you getting married, I don't know that I'm spry enough for another round of children in the house."

"Married?" William echoed, startled. The servants all glanced toward Troussant, who paused with a tart halfway to his lips.

A guilty look settled on his face, then he shrugged. "When a gentleman of your age requires new clothing, it can only mean he is looking for a wife."

William thought of Cecily Underwood and ducked his head shyly. "I suppose you're right." He stayed in the small knot of servants, disparaging the caterer's biscuits and joking with Cook, until the sound of coughing made him look up.

His mother was leaning on Charlotte's arm, covering her mouth with the handkerchief in her other hand. William walked around the table to them, concerned.

"Are you all right?" Charlotte asked, steadying her sister. She looked up at William, her brows drawn together in concern.

"Yes." Anne look several breaths, then gave them a determined smile. "Something went down the wrong way, I suppose." She patted her sister's hand. "Now, did Jonathan really walk all the way across the ballroom by himself?"

William, staring at the red blotches that stood out starkly against his mother's pale cheeks, scarcely heard the answer. He didn't like the sound of that cough.

Later that night he lay in the darkness of his room, the heavy curtains pulled against the lamplight from the street. A family, children of his own. William felt a tickle of fear at the thought, and it made him frown. His mother had lost babies, though, and he had seen what it did to her. He wouldn't wish that on anyone, but Cecily was not only lovely, she was sturdy, with wide hips….

He gritted his teeth at his wayward body, not wishing to despoil his thoughts of her with such base needs. Then the gallant thought was the least of his worries as he sat abruptly up in bed.

What if he hurt her? Something ugly from long ago swam toward the surface of his mind, but he evaded the memory. Still, he knew the mechanics of what went on between husbands and wives, and he knew he was… misshapen, compared to other men. Even without getting her with child, he might cause Cecily harm. It dawned on him that was a major reason he'd never considered Daphne as a serious candidate for marriage: she was too slender, too slight.

Wishing that there was some light in the room, William carefully grasped himself through the nightshirt he wore, too worried to consider how inappropriate it was to gauge his size and think of Cecily's womanly parts. He wasn't exactly sure of the arrangement of those parts, but he believed it would work, with her, at least. Babies' heads were certainly larger, but childbirth was pain, wasn't it? He grimaced at the thought of causing any woman, especially Cecily, pain. The thought made his manhood soften, made it less imposing. Perhaps if he could keep himself in this state…?

Not for the first time, he wished his father were still alive. He needed guidance in so many things, but there was truly no one he could ask about this.

[Author's Note: I am not implying anything at all about actress Kali Rocha's physique; for me, the gown her character wore and the camera angle made her stomach and hips the most noticeable part of her. I just ran with that being a reason William thought of her romantically.]

⸹

December 1879

"Well?"

Anne gave him a bemused smile and opened the envelope with the royal seal. She was able to sit in the parlor today, making it a good day. A smile touched her face as she read the short note inside. "How lovely."

"What is lovely?"

"The Queen has offered the services of her personal physician, Dr. Gull."

"Oh, Mother. That is an honor. He did so much for the Prince when he suffered from typhoid."

"It is quite an honor," she agreed. "She also said that she regrets she will not hear me sing this Christmas."

"Next Christmas she shall hear you sing. With the finest physician in attendance, you'll certainly be well and able to sing by this time next year," he said stoutly.

"Of course I will." Anne placed the sheet of stationery back inside the envelope, smoothing it on her lap. She looked up from the settee, gave her son a small smile, and changed the subject. "Did you go by the club this evening?"

"Oh. No. I did mean to; it's a shame to pay the dues and then never take advantage." William had found another gentleman's club after leaving his father's years ago, but rarely visited. In November, he'd realized that he had not been once this year. A month later, he still hadn't made it.

"You were writing again."

He looked down in chagrin. "I was. The words are coming so easily these days." He'd stayed in the cold office until his fingers were numb, too caught up in writing to call for coal for the fire.

"I believe you must have some inspiration." Anne's tone was almost arch.

"I do," he agreed fervently. "My own muse."

"You must tell me about her."

"I will soon, I promise. But I fear…" Impulsively, he sat down at her feet. "If I say something, perhaps something will go wrong. I know it's silly and superstitious, but… After I see the publisher, I'll tell you about her. Will that suffice?"

"It will." Anne smoothed his hair. "Darling, any girl would be lucky to have a gentleman as fine as you offering suit."

⸹

March 1880

"Thank you for the tea, my lady." William balanced the ridiculously fragile cup on its saucer and waited expectantly.

"The reason I asked you to come by isn't the one for which you're hoping," Dame Swindon said bluntly. "It's about my little literary get-togethers."

His teacup rattled. "Your _salon_? Oh. Yes, I am rather disappointed. I hoped you had heard from the publisher."

She fixed him with her sharp blue eyes. "I have heard from Mr. Wilson. He has decided to pass on your book."

His response was a long time in coming. "I see."

"No, boy, you don't see at all," she said impatiently, stirring her own tea with such vigor that William was surprised the thin china could survive. "I recommended you to Wilson on the strength of your early work, your poems about London and horses and stablemen. No one writes about that; you had something unique to say. And you go and send him a raft of mushy verse about some mystery woman."

"M-mushy?" It was all he could manage.

"Yes, mushy. Means soft, unformed, overcooked." She put down the spoon, took a small sip of tea, considered the brew for a moment, then seemed to decide that it was cool enough for a larger drink. William understood that she was searching for the precise words; she often took her time and had told him what to expect upon their introduction. "Shakespeare did that dark-haired beauty nonsense hundreds of years ago – there's no use trying to do him one better. You have something to say, boy, and it isn't about love. Don't go all cow-eyed and lose your true vision."

"I write what I feel." He said it with dignity.

Dame Swindon snorted. "Bosh. Don't fool yourself. You're not a moony 'poet,' William. You're a good craftsman. Don't start thinking of yourself as a Romantic – the world has enough of them." She paused again, debating whether even she was blunt enough to tell him the truth: his poems not only made one doubt he was in love, but made one certain he'd never experienced physical passion. She put down her cup and gripped her cane, then leaned across the low table. "What are you? Twenty-five? Go to this raven-haired creature of yours, marry her, and get her fat with babies. Then, after you're wedded and bedded, maybe you can write again." She stood up, the interview over.

"My lady?" William asked in a faint voice, hastening to put down his cup and rise to his own feet. He'd rarely heard anyone speak so graphically.

"I don't want to hear what you've written until you've finished 'aching' and 'trembling.' Once you've gotten it all out of your system, we'll see if you can't compose a proper poem again."

"Madam, if you don't wish to hear love poems at your _salon_ , that's your prerogative. I am, however, a poet. I must write what I feel."

She nodded, her expression not unkind. "Then I shall miss you, boy." Dame Swindon turned away. "You know the way out."

⸹

April 1880

"William? Are you in here?"

"Oh!" He stood from his seat behind the desk in his study. "Pippa! Hullo. Please, come in." William came around the desk and pulled a chair with no arms close to the fire for her. "What brings you out on such a dreadful day?"

"It is not a dreadful day," she said indignantly. When he only looked at her blankly, she shook her head in exasperation. "Today is our birthday, you goose."

"It is?" He turned to the desk, but the calendar there still read March. "I'd quite forgotten."

"Obviously." Pippa sat down, shaking her head again.

"Well, happy birthday." They hadn't celebrated their birthdays jointly since before she was married.

"Happy birthday to you, too."

He watched her smile fade. "What, Pippa? Is anything amiss?"

"No. I'm just worried for you."

"For me?" He thought he knew what she meant. "You needn't worry. Mother is doing better. Dr. Hull is doing wonders, as is the spring air, even here in London."

"No, that isn't what's worrying me – not only that," she amended.

"What is it, then?" He guessed again. "My work? There are other publishers in London. I shan't give up after only four tries." The first two letters had been short and brusque, but the last two had been more detailed and, well, disheartening. His dreams were fixed on placing a book in Cecily's hands, though. The only detail he hadn't imagined was whether the dedication would be 'In honor of a dark-haired beauty' or if he would be bold enough to simply have it read "For C."

"That isn't – well, I suppose your poetry is part of it. Your poems were quite good at first, I thought, but recently you've been writing," she seemed to change tack in mid-sentence, "writing on a different topic."

"Oh," he began, not wanting to go through this with her. Once with Dame Swindon was more than enough. "Yes, I suppose I have."

"For the past year or so, all your poems have been love poems."

William couldn't help smiling. "Yes, I suppose they are."

"They aren't thought of as highly as your earlier work by those who have heard them," she said diplomatically. She had overheard William's lovesickness being mocked just last week, as a matter of fact, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him that.

"I only write what I feel."

"You once told me you'd never been in love."

"That is no longer true."

"You were writing another poem just now, weren't you, when you didn't hear me knock?" Pippa looked at the jeweled rings on her hands for a moment. "They're for Cecily Underwood, aren't they? Your verses are about her."

"You know me so well." To him, it was a moment of closeness, so he was surprised when Pippa stood and walked away from the fire. He rose to his own feet with automatic politeness.

"Have you spoken with her?"

"No," he said slowly, "not yet. I wanted to publish the book before I pledged my –"

"I'm not asking whether you've spoken with her father, I'm asking if you have ever bothered to talk to her, ask her – oh, I don't know, her favorite color or which author she likes best or if she prefers spaniels and terriers to cats."

He was taken aback. "No, I haven't spoken with her as often as I would like. She won't be formally introduced to society for a few more days. There will be plenty of time after that. I would never do anything to sully her reputation."

"Will, talking with her isn't going to – never mind." She turned to him, her expression earnest. "I have spoken with her, more in the past few weeks since I've suspected that you've become taken with her. I," Pippa took a breath, "I don't think the two of you will suit."

"What made you decide this?" he asked. William realized he was gripping the top of the chair he'd sat in and made himself let go.

Pippa stared at him for a long moment, weighing her words. Not for all the world would she tell him that Cecily Underwood enjoyed his attention for the sole reason that it increased her marketability to have a besotted poet rumored to be writing verse about her. She cared nothing for William himself, despite his wealth and connections, and Pippa could see why. He'd cut himself off from anything except his mother and his writing for over a year now. His hair was far too long to be fashionable, and he'd left decisions about his wardrobe to a servant who's idea of what was _au courant_ hovered somewhere in the 1860s. Without friends to guide him, he was lost in his own little world, and Aunt Anne, frankly, doted on him far too much to be of any help. Pippa felt her own guilt as she studied him.

"William," she said gently, "you're a kind, good man and I want more than anything for you to find someone with the same temperament. You need someone with the same loving sensibilities, that's all."

"I have observed Cecily very closely for some time now. She is happy and good, and I believe she will," he took a breath and a step back from a possessive claim, "will make someone a very fine wife."

"Have you also observed her friends? The girls she chooses to spend time with?"

"Her friends?" he asked, confused.

"Yes, her friends. They are shallow and mean-spirited and, well, unkind. Compare them to my friends, Will. At that age, were frivolous, true, but we were also interested in charity and making the world a better place. And there are girls that age who do have those interests; I see them in church each week. Only, not around Cecily Underwood."

"Pippa, you're speaking of the woman I love."

She seized on this. "I don't know that you can be in love with someone you don't know, Will. You've said yourself that you've barely spoken with her. She's a handsome girl; I'll freely admit that. But there's something about her I can't quite figure, something that's off. And I don't think you're in love with her."

"And should I take advice on love from you?" The expression on her face made him clutch the back of the chair again. "Oh, Pippa," he breathed, "I would take that back."

She took a few shallow breaths, color flooding her cheeks. "No, I suppose you shouldn't."

"I'm a bad, terrible man. I am so very sorry."

Pippa was made of sterner stuff and rallied. "I'm going to give this advice, anyway, because I," her voice caught for a second, "want you to be happier than I've been. Marry someone sweet and kind, Will, someone who will love you as well as herself. That isn't the Underwood girl." She smoothed down her skirts. "There. I've said what I came to say. Good day."

"Pippa," he whispered, miserable. She did not pause, and he didn't go after her because he saw the first tears roll down her cheeks.

For a long time, William stood quite motionless by the chair in his study and thought about what she had said. Pippa was a social creature, much better with people than he was. Still, he knew himself to be quite insightful. And, fair or not, she hadn't chosen perfectly when she accepted James' marriage proposal. He couldn't take her advice; she simply didn't understand Cecily as he did, could not conjure the dear face or the mischievous laugh with a moment's thought. Cecily was a charming, lovely creature, and he was sure she had nothing but good qualities. Why, his own mother doted on Mrs. Underwood and her daughters. No, Pippa was wrong, must be mistaken.

But a troubled frown remained on his face a long time.

⸹

May 1880

Bother, William thought, scraping his soles against the bootjack outside the stables. It would be raining today. Daphne's party was tonight, and he was determined to speak to Cecily about his feelings, even without a published volume of his poems to lay at her feet. He was running late, coming from the offices after meeting with Mr. Goforth, his banker, for longer than he had anticipated. He had wanted to finish one final poem, too. A quick bite in the kitchen, he thought, then I'll change into my evening clothes and be on my way. Perhaps I can write more in the carriage.

"Hullo, Mrs. Gowen," he said, forcing good cheer into his voice. He never thought of her as Cook.

"Good evening, sir," she replied, dropping a stiff curtsy.

"And what delicious dish have you prepared for us this evening?"

"Oh, sir, I'm so sorry, sir, but the fish I had purchased for this evening was spoiled. Madam was taken quite ill by the smell."

William lifted his eyebrows. "Mother was in the kitchens?"

"No." Even though the new cook was older than him, she gave the impression of a child caught being thoughtless. "The smell of it cooking drifted to her sitting room."

He processed this. The woman had taken a rotten fish from its wrappings without noticing that it had gone over, then proceeded to bake it. This wasn't the first time he suspected Mrs. Gowen had no sense of smell, a terrible handicap for a cook. He thought with longing of old Mrs. MacReedy and her scones and her effortless way of ensuring that meals were always hot. "Ah, well, that's that, then. Is there aught for dinner?" he asked politely.

"I'm making a thin potato soup for Madam."

William forced a smile. That was the reason they kept her in their employ: she made very good soups, and these days there wasn't much else his mother could stomach. "Thank you. I'll have a bowl of your lovely soup, too." He hoped she hadn't heard his stomach growl.

Cook bobbed a curtsy. "It will be done by nine."

"Well, then. I'm afraid I have to be elsewhere by eight." His stomach made another loud noise. "Good night." The real Cook would have offered him an apple or a biscuit or toast or something, he thought resentfully, leaving the kitchen.

The house was quiet, and as he passed through the hallway, William peeked into his mother's sitting room. She had nodded off where she sat on a chaise lounge, her hands still on her lap, an embroidery hoop beside her and a hank of thick thread clutched between her fingers. He closed the door silently, letting her rest. If he brought the happy news he hoped for upon his return, she would be glad of the nap.

"William?"

He opened the door again and stepped just inside. "I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you."

She sat up stiffly, swinging her legs from the cushions to the floor. Color bloomed in two patches on her pale cheeks with the effort, and she stifled a cough. "No, darling. I'm glad to see you. Did you have a good day?"

"Well enough, I suppose."

Anne, still groggy from the nap, glanced at the ornate clock on the mantle. "You're running late, aren't you? This is the night Daphne is having guests over?"

"It is." He shrugged and tried a smile. "It's just as well that there's no supper. It will save time."

"But you'll eat something at the party? You're too thin," she fretted.

"It's this suit," he said, picking at the pale fabric. "The fit is rather close."

She shook her head. "We've been through three housekeepers in the last two years, and without a firm hand there, the rest of the servants don't seem to do–" A coughing fit took her, and she yanked at her tight sleeve until she retrieved the handkerchief kept there.

William watched her as the disease inside her lungs bent her double, wracking her slender form, pain etched on his face. His determination to speak to Cecily this night redoubled. God forbid the worst should happen, but the sooner his mother saw him settled, the better. She deserved the chance to know her grandchildren, to see them grow. As the coughing fit eased, he moved to her side, one hand supporting her by the elbow, the other rubbing her back.

"I'm sorry, dear." She closed her eyes, the lashes damp from tears of pain. Anne took a few breaths, and then looked up into his eyes. Her heart contracted at the love and concern on his dear face, but she made herself smile. "I think I'll just go on to my chambers."

He helped her to her feet. "I'll tell Mrs. Gowen to prepare a tray." They made their way up the stairs, not speaking so Anne could save her air for the exertion. William settled her on the edge of the bed, then called for the upstairs maid, bemused by how familiar his mother's bedroom was now.

"I'll be off to my room, then. Good night, Mother."

"Good night, darling." She peered around the maid to fix him with a worried look. "Do watch out for pickpockets, won't you?"

"I will."

"Your father lost I don't know how many wallets to pickpockets," she fretted.

"I'll be careful," he reassured her, "and safely inside the carriage most of the time." William closed the door, frowning. She seemed to worry about such things more as she left the house less. London, he supposed, seemed frightening to one so small and frail.

"Troussant!" he called, then rang the bell when he heard no answer. He went ahead and opened the door to his wardrobe, searching for his best black suit to wear tonight. The old valet had managed to outfit him with only two black suits, one for daytime wear. Often, William found he was the most brightly dressed man in any gathering, and he rather thought that fashion had moved on. The fabrics were good, though, and it seemed a shame not to wear them. Perhaps a new, more somber wardrobe would be warranted if he did as his mother wished and put on a stone… "Troussant!" he called again. The black suit was not inside the wardrobe. William turned, searching his dimly lit room. It wasn't laid out for him, either.

A sinking feeling came over him. The delay at work, the unfinished poem, the spoiled supper, and now he couldn't even get dressed in a timely fashion… It seemed the very world was conspiring against him this evening. William pulled the bell again even as the valet shuffled into the room.

"Yes, sir?" He looked owlish and sleepy.

"Good evening, Troussant. Is my suit ready?"

"Your suit?"

"Yes," he agreed, biting down on his impatience, "my suit. The black one I'm to wear tonight." He could tell by the woebegone realization on Troussant's face that it was not to be.

The old man turned to the door, then started to the wardrobe before indecisively bobbing between the two for a moment. Then he met his employer's gaze, his wrinkled face ashen. "I'm very sorry, sir. I think… I think I must not have brushed and cleaned it since the last time you wore it. I believe it's downstairs in the laundry." He firmed his mouth. "I can have it presentable for _monsieur_ in only a few–"

The grandfather clock on the upstairs landing chimed the hour. William closed his eyes and sighed. "Never mind. This will have to do; I'm late as it is." He brushed by the servant, feeling too sour to worry about the old man's feelings just now. "Perhaps at least the carriage is ready," he muttered darkly.

It was, and he settled into the seat with another long, drawn-out sigh, tossing his hat and overcoat onto the bench opposite. Then he rummaged in the pocket of his coat until he found a small sheet of paper and a pencil. With traffic, it might take as long as twenty minutes to reach Daphne's townhouse. He had some time to work on the latest poem for Cecily, anyway, and he opened the curtains to allow the light from the streetlamps inside.

William took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves, letting go of the frustration and resentment so he could focus his thoughts. Just as he finished reassuring himself that showing up in a business suit at an evening social event didn't matter, his stomach gave a loud growl. With a muttered, "Damn," he threw the pencil across the way.

With a quick, contrite prayer for forgiveness over his temper, he felt around on the dark floor until he located the pencil and smoothed the paper across his knee. Nothing mattered, not one the thousand things in his life that he wished were different. The only thing that mattered was mastering the words so that Cecily would be able to see how he felt. Other men were beginning to vie for her, but she would realize how deep his feelings were if they could inspire words of such beauty.

Tonight he had a date with destiny, and nothing was going to get in his way.

⸹

Dying felt… odd.

William distantly thought he should feel frustrated at not being able to find a better word (and wasn't that a constant?), but frustration didn't seem to be an available emotion just now. Only a few moments before, he'd been embarrassed that his member was so obviously hard, but both the shame and the erection had faded.

Cold. Dying felt cold and odd. His eyes didn't want to stay open. Vision was distorted, anyway; his spectacles were so wildly askew across his face that he only had partial view of a clear world. Just the dark hair of the woman in front of him.

She wasn't a woman, beautiful and shapely thought she might be. Horror was absent, too. I must feel _something_ , William thought. I'm dying, after all.

And as he crumpled to the ground, only the livery wall keeping his shoulders upright, unable to move his arms or legs through the icy weakness, as the dark-haired creature drew away to smile down at him with fangs smeared red from his life's blood, it dawned on William that he did feel something.

Rage.

He felt rage.

It mounted inside him, as impotent as it had ever been. Anger had almost never served him his sedate, straitlaced world, but it was there now, his final companion.

The creature lifted her slender wrist and bit into the flesh there, opening a wound of her own. "Drink," she encouraged him, holding her wrist to his mouth.

William made his eyes stay open, wishing he could manage a scowl, any expression to let her know how furious he was. It wasn't fair that he should die!

Even with her face distorted, distress showed on her face. "You must drink. You said you wanted it." She pressed her thin arm against his mouth. "Now. You have to drink from me now, my sweet."

Processing her words was difficult. She said he wanted it, but this wasn't what he had wanted. William tried to glare at her over her white arm.

He didn't want death, hadn't known she was offering death.

Love, that's it, he'd wanted love and connection and to share everything with someone special, and his rage flared again. Pippa had been right; he hadn't loved Cecily. When she said those words, he'd felt disbelief and anger and humiliation, but his heart hadn't broken. William knew what heartbreak looked like. He'd seen his mother mourn his father for years.

I'm going to die without ever loving anyone, and the thought would have brought tears to his eyes if his body could manage that. I'm going to die without ever doing anything at all. I've found a death as empty of meaning as my life has been.

"All you have to do is drink," the creature cajoled, "and you can stay."

Did she really offer him another chance? William looked into her golden eyes, knowing instinctively that there was too much vacancy in the gaze for him to ever gauge her true intent. His anger had changed, had hardened into a will to live, to go forth from this place. His life would be different hereafter; he would make everything different, better.

"There is no time!" she wailed. "Drink!"

With his last strength, William parted his lips and drank.

* * *

Next Chapter: 'Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.' John Milton, _Paradise Lost_. Or, William becomes Spike in twenty years of blood and madness.


	18. Scenes from a Family

[Author's Note: Skip this chapter. It's unrelentingly dark. Truly. It isn't much AU yet – it begins with Drusilla taking Spike home to the in-laws and ends with Spike winning his first battle with a Slayer – and you already have a good idea what the older vampires do that changes our hero from William into Spike. You can skip it.

I'm giving a **content warning** for almost every paragraph in this chapter. That may sound like overkill, but it was wretched to write this and wretched to edit it, so I'm assuming it will make you feel wretched to read it. Here's a partial list: graphic language; Drusilla retelling her origin; depiction of several mental illnesses; graphic descriptions of sex; graphic descriptions of violence; torture; non-consensual sex; murder of adults and children.

Obviously, it's dark. Go forth with this summary and my blessing.

If you read on, I want to apologize for any sloppiness in the writing. This was my least favorite to write, so I haven't revisited this as much as other parts. Only one chapter between this one and a return to Sunnydale, where things will get considerably lighter-hearted.]

⸹

 **Scenes from a Family**

⸹

[Author's Note: Content warning for the entire chapter, okay? Murder, torture, vampires using and abusing humans, rape, harsh language, and graphic depictions of mental disorders, violence, and sex. Honestly, you don't have to read this.]

London

June 1880

William dug his fingers into the fabric of Drusilla's skirts, rucking them up around her hips, and smiled up at her. "This is like our first time," he murmured.

"It is," she agreed. "I like this best so far, but there are even more ways to try."

"There are?"

She had to smile back; there was so much delight in his voice at her simple statement. "There are. Dozens, scores. Hundreds, perhaps."

William considered this. Hundreds. He had been on top, too, and there had been the time she straddled him as he sat in an armless wooden chair, and innumerable times against an opportune wall… that was four. "Show me."

"Not here, my impatient, my sweet…" She drew the word out with a hiss, her pleasure upon her now.

It was what he had been waiting for, the wonderful feel of her convulsing around him. William gave in to his own climax, then waited with open arms until she collapsed onto his chest, sated for now. They were in a lushly appointed coach inside a carriage house somewhere in Kensington, hiding from the daylight. "If not here, my lady, my dove, then where?" He had coaxed her into unbuttoning the blouse of her dress and was wild to see her completely naked.

"When we go home to Daddy and Grandmummy," Drusilla said with a sigh.

He caught the hint of regret in her voice. "But not yet, because this," he nuzzled the scar on her neck, "is our honeymoon."

"It is," she agreed, "and I'm going to keep you all to myself for just a little longer. I don't care to share my William just yet."

She sounded possessive, and William found that knowing he belonged to this beautiful creature fueled his desire. Of course, it took very little coaxing to rekindle him, as if all the years of abstinence had been stacked like cordwood, waiting for her fire. At first, he worried that Drusilla might find this wearisome, but, if anything, she seemed impressed. It wasn't the only thing she found impressive. He had awoken with the knowledge that he wasn't 'misshapen,' at least. His innate understanding of human anatomy had soothed the worry that he was to big to have sex without hurting his partner.

"Might I beg a favor from my lady? Grant your William a boon, love, just a small thing and well in your power to give."

"What?" She said this with a smile and a sidelong glance. Drusilla had never been a coquette in life, but she'd studied Darla for years. She had to, in order to survive.

"One more way."

"You wicked, naughty Willy." Both of them were smiling, though, and she let herself be persuaded. It was lovely to be with him, all soap bubbles and mother-of-pearl and the soft rainbows that she never got to see anymore. "All right." She held up a warning finger. "But just one more. For the rest, we'll need a proper bed. Sit up, then."

He did, resting his shoulders against the overstuffed squabs. Drusilla never had gotten her skirts back into place, so she simply lifted them higher and sat on his lap, facing away instead of straddling his thighs. "Oh," he said, chuckling as he caught on. There was a brief glimpse of her pale bottom, then she let her skirts fall around them. "Will this be good for you?" William had been shocked when she told him she didn't usually reach her peak. They'd had a long conversation about sexuality – that many men didn't believe women could enjoy sex, that most prostitutes didn't climax during business transactions – before the lucid interval ended.

Dru gave him a smoldering look over her shoulder. "You'll make sure it is."

"I will." His emphatic vow was the only sound for a long time, other than his harsh breathing, which he couldn't seem to get out of the habit of doing. He always held back until she came. Unlike him, she had not come to their relationship a virgin, but he was determined to be the best lover she would ever have.

"William…."

He smirked at the sound of his name spoken with such a husky voice, but it faded as he felt her attention drift from their lovemaking. She was a delight, and he loved her unpredictable nature, but here he wanted her focus to be on them, on him. He slid his hand beneath the skirts and along her thigh, the satisfied smile settling on his face again as she jerked at the contact and whispered his name.

 _William._ Was he William? He was; he knew who he was, but it seemed that something of himself was missing, gone. But there was so much more crowding in him, like this intrinsic knowledge of human anatomy that let him unerringly find an artery the glorious times they had fed, that allowed his fingers to be so knowing as they touched the places between her thighs for which he didn't even have names. There was… more to him.

And less.

He watched Dru move over him faster now and more erratic, the line of her narrow back so easy for him to see in the dark, and he knew it was his sire Drusilla. Yet he also knew he was watching one facet of what was inside him, that they were the same demon at the core, something in the blood shining through them like a prism, a dark light that illuminated different parts of the bodies it inhabited. It was still Drusilla who had once been human, despite the blood, still a gifted seer who saw things he never could. It was still him, still William who remembered what it was like to love. But endlessly contained inside him was the dim demon memory of abject worship and of domination and of Hell. He knew he could dwell on the ancestral memories and let the demon blood burn away all other facets of himself, his personality, but he wouldn't please his sire if he couldn't love. Besides, there was no need. William felt comfortable in his new form – either his demon was at home with William, or an aggressive part of William was now liberated.

None of these philosophical matters interested him as much as Drusilla. She was his black goddess, his very reason for existence. As he knelt before her the first hour of his unlife, she'd brushed the dirt from his hair and clothes and told him that she had made him to love her and take care of her.

It was a task at which he expected to excel.

This time was quick; Drusilla lost her balance as she came, and, unwilling to lose contact with her sweet body, he moved with her as she fell onto the opposite bench, kneeling behind her. _Six_ , he thought, grinning, and he liked this sixth way so much that he climaxed almost immediately. William draped himself over her, trailing kisses along her neck and jaw, anywhere he could reach smooth skin or dusky hair rather than fabric. "I want you naked." God, the overwhelming sense of freedom that came from being blunt!

Drusilla gave a light laugh. "As I want you." She reached behind her to touch his thigh, then grew still, listening again. "Dinner is served, my love."

He heard it, too, a harsh coughing from a human who had just ducked into the dimness of the coach house, though he hadn't needed the sound. Having more than five senses was odd and wonderful – knowing that there was someone exactly fifteen feet away as surely as if he saw them. "Peckish, sweetheart?" he asked quietly, then nipped at her earlobe.

She gave him another flirtatious, sidelong look, stolen from her grandsire's repertoire. "I am now." It made him chuckle.

So easy to flank the human as he knelt by the wheel of a surrey, examining the axle, so easy to take him by the back of the coat and hold him for his black goddess. Drusilla came at the human with a tender smile full of fangs, and the man was coughing so hard he couldn't scream. William drank from one side of the neck, Dru from the other, her fingers playing in his hair as they fed. As the dying human dropped to the floor, they came together in a passionate kiss. Nothing in life had ever been as glorious as even the most mundane moment of unlife.

"I hope he wasn't contagious," William said, nuzzling his face into her dark hair.

"We don't get sick, my sweet." She laid a pale hand on his undone shirt. "We don't age or grow old or die – though we can be killed."

He didn't reply, taking this in. Vampires couldn't be sick. William was still quiet several minutes later, after they had hidden the man's body inside a brougham, but he finally spoke as Drusilla opened the door to return to their own carriage. He put out his hand to hinder her. "Love? I know where we can find a bed."

⸹

Four days later

"Get your coat. I'm taking you out."

Angelus was regarding William as he said this, the same assessing look he'd worn all day despite the affable invitation. It was Drusilla who answered, though.

"Out? But it's midday!"

There was a shrill note in her voice that William had never heard before. He gave her a curious look and her sire a cautious reply. "Is that wise?"

Angelus shrugged. "This is London. It's so dark from the smoke that it's never really light."

William looked at Drusilla before answering. The only word to describe her was anxious – not that he cared about finding the most exquisitely precise word any longer. She had been nervous since they'd left his… since they'd left the London house, knowing they were coming to her home to introduce him to her family. To his new family.

Her large eyes were fixed on Angelus now, trying to read the big vampire. Drusilla wanted him to make a good impression, he knew. "Quite true," he said briskly. "Where do you propose to go?"

Angelus gave him a smile as lazy as a cat. "I'm sure we'll find something of interest," he answered vaguely. "If Darla gets back, tell her I'll return 'round nightfall."

Drusilla didn't miss the fact that he hadn't included William's return in those plans. She glanced quickly at her newly-made lover before her gaze settled on Angelus once again.

"Did ye hear me?" he prompted.

"Yes." Her voice was faint. "Be careful."

In the meantime, William had retrieved both his overcoat and one that he judged belonged to Angelus by the length. He handed over the garment to the other man and gave his mistress a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine. I've taken your lessons to heart." Before he could give her a kiss farewell, Angelus had propelled him by the shoulder to the door. He quickly pulled on his coat and looked back at Dru, whose face seemed paler than normal.

"What lessons?" Angelus asked.

They stood on the stoop, only the overhang protecting them from wan sunlight. The street was narrow, though, and the shadows from the buildings facing them were nearby. William felt quite as if he was standing on a cliff, but he schooled himself from shrinking back against the door. "Er, how to kill, how to hunt."

"What about who to hunt?"

"No." He was startled by the idea.

Angelus smiled. "Dru is a female. Everything you need to know about the hunt, you'll learn from me."

Though he knew several women who were capable hunters, what Angelus said made sense to William. Drusilla wasn't a "horsey" type of woman. "Lead on."

Something almost surprised crossed the older vampire's face, as though he hadn't expected immediate agreement. "Eager. I like that." Without another word, he took the few short steps to the street and turned left, moving into the shadows William had found comforting.

"What do you know about your new situation?"

"Only what I've learned from Drusilla and seen for myself – and felt."

The last prompted another curious stare from the older vampire, then he shook his head. "All of it," he said expansively, "can be summed up by the three Fs."

"Three Fs?"

"Feeding, fighting, fucking."

There was a brutal poetry to the phrase, William had to admit, even as he flinched away from the profanity. Always a good student, he began to recite, "Feeding–"

"That's the most important one," Angelus interrupted. "The other two, they just help pass the time between feeding. But how you feed, boy – that's the difference between us and the gutter-trash bastards that get sired with no name and no idea of how to survive."

The next few hours were eye-opening for the young demon, and not in the same way his first hours of existence had been. He and Drusilla had laughed and danced and drank, carefree, in love with themselves and each other. There was drinking with Angelus, too, but seated quietly at a table in a pub, listening to the experienced vampire point out humans and explain who was best to feed upon and why. Some people would never be missed, while some classes of people were simply too much bother – unless, he said with a private smile, it was a special occasion. All were inferior to them. The vampires ranged the city from the financial district to the poorest neighborhoods, from a hospital to a cathedral, where William learned not to touch crucifixes.

"How did it do that?" he whispered, clutching his burned hand to his chest.

Still smiling at the boy's gullibility, Angelus answered expansively. "Represents the great sacrifice, doesn't it? But I think," he went on, drawing closer, "that it's because the priests believe in us. Recognize that something exists, you can take steps against it."

"Priests are our enemies?"

"Often enough." He nodded at the crucifix again. "It can hurt, but it's not like sunlight or fire or beheading or a stake through the heart. It can't turn you to dust."

William looked around the serene church, bathed in jewel-toned light where the late sun came through the tall, stained glass windows. He had never been afraid in church before. "Are there other things that can hurt us?"

"You can pick up a psalter or read from the Bible, if you like, but I wouldn't be touching holy water any more than I had to." Bored by the empty building, he turned away from the altar, ready to leave. "Country folk on the Continent use the bloom from garlic to ward against vampires, but it only seems to have much effect on the local line."

Lengthening his stride to keep up, William let his hand fall to his side. It wasn't quite healed, but he wanted to impress his new mentor as much as possible. "How many kinds of us are there?"

"Lines," Angelus corrected. "We're all the same kind, but I don't know if anyone knows how many clans. All you have to keep track of," and here he gave the boy a piercing look, "is who is part of our line, the Order of Aurelius."

"Aurelius? Like the emperor? Marcus Aurelius was one of us?"

Angelus shrugged, having only the vaguest idea of who Marcus Aurelius was or why this seemed to impress the boy. "I doubt it. If you want to know more about the genealogy, ask my sire. I'm more concerned with practical matters, myself." He pushed the heavy oak doors open with a bang and stood in the doorway of the church, surveying the bustle of people on the street with a smile. "Now, it's close enough to their suppertime that it makes me think of ours. Who do you pick, boy?"

He knew it was a test, and carefully he thought over what he'd learned that day. After a moment, he pointed to a far street corner, where a thin woman was trying to sell her last, wilted bouquets to passersby. "Her."

"Where, then? There on the corner?"

"No. She's only a few steps away from the mouth of an alley."

"Good, but how will you get there?"

William scanned the shadows. "Cut across the street to the far sidewalk, then cross near that four-story hotel." He waited as Angelus nodded.

"Well?"

"Now?" William blinked. "Oh. Right." With a last, anxious look at the still-bright sky, he darted across the churchyard and into evening traffic, Angelus at his heels.

The kill seemed to take no time at all. William simply picked up a bouquet from the woman's small tray and began reaching into his coat as if for payment as he backed into the alley, for all the world as if trying to get away from the street to safely open his purse. The flower girl followed, her eyes on his hands, and Angelus moved in behind her. Pedestrians hurried past the mouth of the alley scant yards away as William gripped her shoulders and struck at her neck. The larger vampire added his own bite, and as they drained the victim, his large hand slid into the honey-colored locks at the nape of William's neck. It seemed odd at first, then simply _right_ , as he once again felt the bone-deep sense of being the same creature. Drusilla had done this, too; perhaps it was a gesture of affection in their family.

Angelus pulled away first, blood smearing his short muzzle. "Like a lamb to slaughter," he said, the last light of the evening glinting on his fangs. "Very good, boy." He caught the girl's limp body and let it slide down the closest wall until she slumped against the ground. Then he shook off his demon features and wiped his mouth, licking the extra blood from the side of his hand.

William followed suit, then considered the dead girl at their feet. After a moment, he leaned over and plucked the freshest bouquet from the spilled tray of flowers. He caught the older vampire's look as he straightened. "For Drusilla. A token of my esteem."

"A token – you've not known her long enough to know what she considers a gift, I see." Amusement was obvious in his tone.

"All women like flowers," he replied, a little defensively.

Angelus gave a wide grin, then stooped to snatch up a random bunch of the blossoms. "Just on the chance that Darla is back."

William laughed, and when Angelus clapped him on the shoulder as they returned to the streets, he felt nearly as happy with his grandsire as he did with Drusilla. "Might we hunt just once more?" The big vampire gave him another of the surprised glances before nodding his approval. William felt his heart expand with pride. He had always wanted another man to explain things to him, and Angelus was an excellent teacher.

⸹

Darla opened the door to their current home less than ten minutes after Angelus and William returned. Her eyes found her consort, and she went straight to him, placing her palms against his chest and pushing him against the closest wall. She ran her hands up to his shoulders, peeling his coat away. "I missed you." Then the scent of the newcomer caught her attention. Still pressing Angelus against the wall with her body, she turned her head to find him. "Who's this?"

"Drusilla found someone to sire." Angelus was grinning down at her. "Name's William."

"Should I bother?"

"I had him out today. He'll do."

Darla moved away from her consort, considering the stranger. "So, you're Drusilla's."

"Yes, madam, I am."

Darla walked around him, studying him frankly. "Not what I expected," she finally allowed, "but overall not bad."

Drusilla let out a tiny sigh of relief. "Thank you." She met William's eyes from where she stood in the doorway of the parlor, as if she had been ready to flee.

Things were going so well with Angelus that William was emboldened to speak up to the other senior vampire. He started to comment on her American accent, but remembered that he could be frank now. "You'll forgive me if I stare, Miss Darla, but I did not expect you to be so young and so lovely."

"You've been calling me 'grandmummy' again, haven't you, Drusilla?" After a brief glare at the other woman, Darla's eyes came back to him, then she leaned against Angelus, who put his arms around her. "You have good manners. I like that."

"So do I." Angelus presented the sad little bouquet of flowers to Darla. She stared at them for a moment, but made no comment or move to accept them. The dark-haired vampire gave William a pointed look.

Darla was looking at him again, too, her gaze roaming over him greedily, making William feel somewhat like the token gift of appreciation. "He's rather handsome, isn't he, lover?"

"I'll have to sketch him," the big vampire said by way of agreement.

"But not now." Darla turned her heated gaze to Angelus, running her hands over his body again and drawing his face down to hers. After a moment, she pulled away. "Drusilla? My dress?"

"Yes, Grand – Darla." Drusilla stepped forward and began unbuttoning the fashionable gown the other woman wore, beginning with the line of tiny buttons at her wrist. The blond woman returned her attention to making love to Angelus.

Feeling both awkward and aroused, William watched the other vampires, stunned into inaction by their behavior. He started to turn away, his hand going automatically to adjust the spectacles he no longer wore.

"My sweet?" Drusilla asked. "Would you get the other sleeve?"

William could feel the demon inside him wanting to be closer to the senior vampires, but surely it was beyond the pale…? He found that he had moved next to them already. "If Miss Darla has no objection?"

The blond woman broke away from Angelus' kiss, turning her head so he could nip at her neck. Her eyes glittered as she looked at William. "Miss Darla has no objection."

He knew she was laughing at him, but he didn't care. His fingers trembled as he disrobed another woman in front of his lover. Together, he and Drusilla undid the complicated dress, and when Darla stepped free of it, she turned so William could admire her body. Clad only in her unmentionables and looking unbearably lovely, she was no less imperious, and she ordered the two younger vampires to hang her frock in the bedroom. Disappointed, William thought that they had been dismissed and was surprised when Angelus and Darla followed them into the room.

"Now, let's get Dru free of her dress." Darla pulled the other woman close and slid her arms along Drusilla's back. As she began to unbutton the bodice, she lifted her head for a kiss. If he'd been aroused before by watching Darla with Angelus, William was now painfully hard as he goggled at the two women kissing.

"Pretty sight, isn't it, boy?" Angelus chuckled, and he slid William's coat from his shoulders.

"Pretty," he repeated hoarsely. He glanced aside as the big vampire hung both their jackets in the closet, his attention immediately returning to the erotic spectacle.

"I missed you, Grandmummy," Drusilla said dutifully, moving back so Darla could lift the dress over her head.

"And I've missed you both," Darla said fervently.

Laughing again, Angelus stepped behind her, nuzzling her neck as he began undoing the laces of her corset. "The Master dry as ever, I take it?"

"Don't speak ill of the Master," Darla said, her eyes drifting shut as Angelus began to grind against her. "But… yes. It's been a long, dry spell."

Drusilla stepped closer to her new child, and that proximity was all he needed. William pulled her against him and began rucking up her chemise. "Where can we go?"

"Here, silly lamb," she answered, a little breathless. "We're family. We share a bed."

"We do?"

"Of course."

Vampires, he thought as he propelled his sire to the high bed, have very different rules. William continued to undress her even as he shed his trousers, wild to be inside Drusilla.

Darla was no less driven by desire, pushing a still-clothed Angelus down next to Dru and perching naked atop him. "For all his manners, Drusilla's new toy knows what he wants. I want the same."

Angelus noticed how William's gaze darted toward them and grinned as his sire laid open his trousers. "Go on, boy. Watch."

Darla was laughing at him again, and William still didn't care. He did watch until the other pair climaxed the first time, then he turned all his attention to Drusilla, wanting to bring her off so he could succumb himself. His missed the way Darla held Angelus against the mattress, shaking her head. "Wait," she said. "Let's take our time."

Angelus looked away from the fresh newcomer to the family bed and up at his sire, puzzled until he saw the malice and greed in her eyes. Then he understood and began to smile. "You're right," he said. "No need to hurry." There were few things better than stealing away innocence.

⸹

When William woke the next day, it was only a couple of hours until dusk. He sat up a few inches, then stopped. Drusilla was sprawled atop him, and he didn't want to wake her. They had never gone at it so hard, but having the other couple in bed seemed to inspire his lust. He stroked her back, hoping he hadn't hurt her with his insatiable attentions. William pressed a kiss into her hair, then flinched when he realized Angelus was regarding him from just a couple of inches away.

"Darla always comes back from the Master with all her feelings pent up," he explained, pressing the pillow down with his jaw to better see the other man. "It's best to let her have her head."

"I see." Anything else he might have said disappeared when Angelus closed the short distance between them and kissed him. Before he had a clear understanding of what was happening or any thought could form, he was kissing the other man in return. A moment later, he pulled away, his eyes wide, a very dusty memory reminding him to just say that he wasn't interested.

Was he?

Angelus chuckled as Darla lifted her head to peer over his chest at the two of them, wondering what had stirred her consort again. "What's wrong, boy?"

"You're a good kisser," William blurted. It wasn't what he wanted to say, exactly, but how could he ask if this was normal when they were all most certainly not normal?

"But I'm better," Darla purred, and crawled across the big vampire's chest to kiss him as well. Then she turned her attention to Angelus, catching his lower lip between her teeth and mounting him with a hiss of indrawn breath. She sat up and cupped her breasts with her hands, knowing it would draw the fledge's attention to them. "Kiss him again, lover," she ordered Angelus, "get him hard for Drusilla. We wouldn't want her to feel left out."

⸹

During the next weeks, William felt he was pushed by a driving wind. The discovery that it wasn't only Drusilla's touch that could make him feel hotter than was physically possible for his dead body made the days pass in a haze of golden lust. Though he never mated with Darla, he gained a thorough knowledge of her body. Angelus didn't seem to mind, not as long as he could watch. The youngest vampire began to understand the boundaries, as Angelus didn't have intercourse with Drusilla, either. William didn't know if what he and Angelus did with each other constituted adultery, but it felt too good for him to care. The ladies seemed to enjoy their performances, and he found he turned from Angelus' hard body to Drusilla's soft one so often that he wasn't sure where he'd started. And he didn't care to give up watching the two female demons together, even if it did mean Drusilla was cheating on him. Yet he felt so possessive, the human rules of monogamy must still apply. With a practicality that was new to him, he found he could easily set aside the confusion.

The nights also passed in a rush, red instead of golden. Angelus taught him how to think through a fight, though the actual moves came naturally to him now. William killed another vampire who tried to take his victim, and Darla herself praised him, her hand on his arm soothing him after the shock of the disintegration and the adrenaline rush. Sometimes he and Angelus went hunting without the women so he could study the lone kill. Angelus' methods were… different. Once he asked the older vampire whether swiving a victim meant he was being unfaithful to Drusilla. Angelus gave him an odd look that made him realize he didn't quite understand the boundaries after all. William would watch the way the brown eyes gleamed as the victim screamed, and it seemed odd to him that something so ineffective should please his grandsire so much.

Several times the two older vampires went off together and left him with Drusilla, something William gathered they hadn't been able to do in the past. Alone, they pleased themselves, holding hands as they hunted, and he got a sense of how powerful his sire was. Where Angelus used guile and sometimes brute force and Darla used beauty and speed, Drusilla simply looked into her victims eyes. He never understood why she would choose one meal over another, but he learned enough to use the mesmer himself. For him, this kind of hunt was unfulfilling – he liked the chase more than any other method. When they were full, they would return to the house with the dawn, retire to the bedroom and glory in the pleasures of the flesh, and if the senior vampires had returned, so much the better. He could feel the residual veneer of William beginning to thin and fray as the days passed, and his new life was so glorious he couldn't bring himself to care.

⸹

"What are you doing, boy?"

"The first strawberries I've seen this year," William said and gestured at the display on the sideboard by way of explanation. They had been invited into a quiet house by the housekeeper who was looking to give away puppies. An excess population of dogs had been the least of her worries when he left Angelus with her in her bedroom. He had dined on a tweenie, himself, and had an uncomfortable memory of another quiet London home, of how amused Drusilla had been by old Troussant. He shook his head, not wanting to remember any more, and had gladly been distracted to the dining room by the sweet, heady smell. He'd never known strawberries had such a heavenly odor, and it seemed odd that only a demon could truly appreciate it.

Angelus gave him a half smile. "Go on, then. Have one."

There was clotted cream, too, ready for the family who owned the house. Neither vampire was concerned about the family's imminent return. William chose the plumpest, ripest strawberry, trailed the tip through the cream, then closed his eyes as he popped it in his mouth, biting off the cap and stem.

Angelus chuckled. "Sorry, boy. Human food doesn't any taste now for you." He stepped closer and picked up one of the larger berries and held it close to his nose. "They smell wonderful, but," he dropped it back into the bowl, "it isn't food. It isn't blood."

William stared at him, then slowly chewed the strawberry and swallowed. The strawberry tasted just fine to him – not as good as it smelled, perhaps, not with his new and exquisite ability with scent – but it tasted the way it always had. Other than liquor, it was the first thing he'd taken besides blood for weeks. "Vampires can't taste human food?" he blurted, puzzled.

"Why should you?" Angelus asked reasonably. "All you need is blood, and what could possibly taste better than that? Which reminds me," he added thoughtfully, "we should take a puppy or two back with us."

⸹

Darla's heart sank even before she broke the seal on the envelope. She read the short message – the Master had insisted that she learn to read – and then closed her eyes in irritation. What she saw when she opened them didn't assuage the feeling.

William was seated on the bed, Angelus standing before him, both of them naked and it nearly an hour past dark. The two men were kissing, and Angelus held both of their erections in his big hand, slowly stroking rigid flesh with his thumb. Darla gritted her teeth. "Angelus." When her consort didn't immediately turn around, she said more sharply, "Angelus!"

He broke the kiss and turned his head. "Yes?"

"Let go of Drusilla's pet, darling, and come here." He did so without haste, and the bobbing of his hard cock as he strolled over to her increased her irritation. She wouldn't get nearly enough of it. Behind Angelus, William rolled to the other side of the bed where Drusilla was brushing her hair and murmuring some dreamy nonsense.

"Again?" he asked, nodding at the summons.

Darla didn't bother answering, just lifted her dress and grasped his erection. She let him take her against the wall, felt her bad mood begin to abate as he pounded into her. On the bed, William had taken the brush and was stroking his sire's dark hair. It was a tender display, and she had the sense that the fledge didn't especially care if it turned into sex. Darla rested her head on Angelus' shoulder and willed the other woman to notice the splendid hardon her mate was sporting. Drusilla didn't turn, just stayed passive beneath the brush and the feel of William's hands on her hair, and Darla realized why she was irritated as much about staying as leaving.

She found her peak before Angelus did and slipped away from him, glad to leave him frustrated. Swatting his hands as he reached for her again, Darla led him from the bedroom into the parlor. "No, I don't have time. You get to stay here with those two, anyway. I'm the one who has to leave."

"Tell the old bat-face you won't come, then," he cajoled, planting a large hand on each of her buttocks and jerking her close.

Darla pushed him back almost a yard. "There's something you need to do while I'm gone."

"What's that?" Angelus asked, a certain wariness in his expression.

"Put an end to all this kid-glove treatment," she said, running an expert hand over her hair to make sure it had stayed sleek. "When I get back, I want to take him without worrying that he'll whisper love poems in my ear."

Angelus gave her a knowing look. "I doubt you'd notice what he'll be whispering, not when he's ramming that big –"

"He doesn't ram, though," she corrected, drawing on the short jacket that matched her dress. "Did you notice that he always makes sure you come before he does?" She saw his surprise and gave him a malicious smile. "You hadn't noticed. He's giving you what you should be taking, Angelus. I don't care what he does with Drusilla; whatever he does, it keeps her calm. But I hate to see him tame the Scourge of Europe like a lapdog."

He thought about it for a moment, remembering considerate things, the way the boy listened to his moans and then repeated the caresses that evoked them, the way William's hands would slide around his waist and down to his cock, how that made it so much more intense. Resentment at Darla's words bubbled up inside him. He didn't ask for it. He didn't do that for the boy, after all; he didn't reciprocate all the thoughtful… loving….

Darla smiled again as she watched realization dawn on her child's face. The darker his mien, the happier she felt, despite having to leave the carnal pleasures of their small family. "You understand, then," she purred. Darla briskly pulled on her gloves. "I don't care if Drusilla pouts, just have him up to speed by the time I get back. I want hours of a good, hard fuck without all the soft words and frills."

Angelus' resentment doubled at her order; if the boy wanted to be accommodating, why should he deny himself the pleasure? And then he realized that he had been denying himself pleasure. He looked over his shoulder, where he could see the younger demons through the open bedroom door, William still brushing Drusilla's dark hair, the pale skin of her naked body.

Her smooth, unmarked skin.

Darla had waited for him to reach this epiphany. Now she gave him another smile, settled her hat on her head, and strolled to the door, her hips swaying. "I should be home in a few days. If the Master really is going back to America this time, it may be longer." She went without a parting gesture or word, leaving him in exactly the frame of mind she wanted.

He stared at the closed door for a long time, then turned and went back to the family bed. The besotted pair was still talking, the hairbrush laying forgotten at the foot of the bed. Angelus thought about what a nice paddle it would make.

"Has Grandmummy gone?" Drusilla asked, almost hiding the satisfaction in her voice.

"She's left us all alone," Angelus agreed.

William held out a hand. "Needn't feel lonely."

He settled on the bed next to them, and soon they were tumbling over him the way he'd seen puppies climb atop a tolerant hound, nipping and vying for attention. Not even an hour ago, he would have been perfectly content to play with them, and he was chilled at how easily one could become weak.

"Don't fret, Daddy," Drusilla cajoled, putting her slender fingers on his bare chest.

"The days will pass before you know it," William added, propping up on his elbows on Angelus' other side, "and Miss Darla will be back."

 _Miss Darla_. The older demon shook his dark head, even as he put an arm around each of the children. "And what will we do in the meantime?"

"Have cakes!"

Even William gave her an odd look over that one. "I don't like cakes, Drusilla." Angelus noted with interest that she didn't even flinch at the reproof in his voice.

"I know what you do like," William offered, then he looked away, abashed by his own boldness.

 _No, you don't_ , Angelus thought, even as something fierce and possessive surged within him at the guileless beauty of the boy. _But you will_.

⸹

[Author's Note: Final content warning, guys. It all gets horrible from here. This chapter ends with Spike defeating the Slayer in the Boxer Rebellion; if you like, you can skip to the next chapter.]

⸹

Angelus watched with distant amusement as William left the carriage to look for Drusilla. He knew who was going to find her first. The boy had been nearly babbling, his voice high and tight with shock after the frenzy at the wedding. Angelus was quite aware of why he had chosen that venue; he felt like smashing anything that hinted of love. Somewhere inside, though, he was worried. The humans in their wedding finery had screamed and panicked and bled in a manner that should have been satisfying, but something had been lacking. Artistry, he thought, finesse. He should have taken the newlyweds after the party ended, worked on them until their love for each other broke and their own selfish desire to survive took over. The attack had been rather too public to chance another one so soon, he thought ruefully. All he had available to him now was his family.

The carriage was near enough to their house now that he rapped on the side to get the driver to stop. He paid the fare, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and stalked purposely to the house. It made a nice lair, once they had cleaned up the remains of the previous owners, though it didn't have the kind of view Darla preferred. When she left the Master to join him above ground, she'd come to value all sorts of unusual things.

Drusilla was inside the house. He paused for a moment on the threshold, anticipating what was to come despite the niggling worry that the need for… artistry had not been slaked. Angelus could feel it roil inside him, both a liquid feeling and a maddening itch. He thought of his human family, his mother, little Kathy, and his hateful father. He thought of their bodies, then he thought of Drusilla, who was his family now, who was his and who would always belong to him. Angelus opened the door and went inside.

"All for you," he said.

Drusilla withdrew her head from the wardrobe. She was wearing her chemise, apparently in the process of deciding what clothes to wear. "All for me?" she echoed.

"Darla's gone," he said, grinning, peeling his coat from his shoulders, knowing his child resented the attention he gave 'grandmummy.' "While she's gone, you have the two of us to yourself."

She became very still, sensing that he meant something very different from the previous night. "You and William?"

"Yes." He stalked closer. "Both of us, Drusilla. Both of us, just for you." With no haste, he took her wrist in a tight grip and pulled her closer, grinding the slender bones beneath his fingers. Her head fell back as she took an involuntary breath. Angelus chuckled. "You want that, don't you?"

"Yes." It was a long sigh of agreement. She had missed her Daddy's touch.

"Both of us, Drusilla, doing all sorts of wicked things to your body." He yanked her closer. "I've missed you."

She had the full attention of her sire. "Then don't miss me."

"What will your William say when you spread your legs for me?" He twisted the cloth of her chemise in his other hand, drawing her even closer.

"He is my William; I made him. I do not belong to him."

"No," Angelus agreed. "You belong to me."

Drusilla closed her dark eyes. "Please," she whispered.

"Open your eyes." When she did, when she was staring fixedly at him as if hypnotized, he grinned. "I want him to see me fuck you, Drusilla. Will I get what I want? Can you see it?"

For a moment, her eyes were unfocused, full of horror, then they snapped back to him. She shivered. "Yes. Everything you want."

With a powerful, abrupt movement, he hurled her across and room and onto the bed. Angelus stalked toward her, unbuttoning his trousers. "I want your pain. I'm going to take you right now, and when your new pet gets back, I'm going to take him." He stood by the bed so he could haul her close and thrust his hard cock inside her with no consideration. She writhed beneath him, not coming but so close. "And you're going to help me."

"Yes." She looked up at him, aroused and afraid. She hadn't had his full attention for years. "Everything you want me to do."

"Are you sure?" he crooned, withdrawing from her.

She grasped the edge of the mattress and heaved her body closer to his. "I will, I swear. Please."

"Will you let me hurt him?"

"Yes."

"Will you help me hurt him?"

"Yes."

"Will you hurt him, then?"

"Yes. Please." Drusilla put her ankles on the back of his thighs and tried to draw him nearer.

Angelus grinned down at her. "You'll make him scream?"

"Yes. Whatever you want."

"Will you betray him?"

"I will."

"You already have." Angelus drove back into her, laughing as she came, her nails digging into her own thighs, leaving long, red trails on her white skin.

⸹

William woke up cautiously, not opening his eyes, not even breathing. The inside of his head was mercifully quiet, which meant that Angelus was asleep. Lying motionless, he took stock. Drusilla was asleep to his right, and Angelus' dark head was resting on his abdomen. On the heels of that realization, vivid images from the past few days began to flit through his mind, like demented pictures for a stereoscope, starting with the madness of Angelus' massacre at the wedding.

Everything had changed: the power he felt, his joy in this new life, his view of his love. It all looked and felt different now, tasted of bright pain and blood, was filtered through a haze of betrayal. He was a demon, but this, _this_ ….

Drusilla. God, the things they had done to her, and so much worse, the way she had enjoyed it. She had looked up at him and pleaded with him to hurt her more. And he had hurt her, had burned her pale flesh, marked it with candle wax and watched her writhe against Angelus with pleasure. Part of him had a vicious satisfaction from punishing his mistress for taking a lover, but not a very large part.

They had been lovers long before he arrived, he supposed, and he felt foolish for assuming otherwise. They were demons, all of them, and if Angelus hadn't touched his child for a short time, it was because his own sire had kept him on a leash. But Darla was gone for now, and both he and his sire were at the big vampire's mercy.

Not that Drusilla minded.

She had been at his mercy, too. William didn't have to look very deep to know how he could treat her so – demon, after all – but he didn't understand why she wanted such pain. Drusilla had power and strength of her own, and she had him at her command. If she wanted to be free of Angelus, the two of them could manage it; William was sure of it. Maybe not Angelus and Darla both, but together they could flee Drusilla's sire.

She didn't want to leave; she would never leave. He knew it, had learned it to a certainty in the way her eyes never left 'Daddy.'

William gritted his teeth, his abdomen hitching. He wouldn't cry, not over this. Three days ago, he hadn't wanted to leave, either. Darla would come back, and their lives would be as it had been. Except now he knew what Darla and his grandsire were capable of doing, even to their own family… especially to their family.

Some long time into the carnal frenzy, even his vaunted stamina had given out. The curious fact that Angelus was still hard should have alerted him, he supposed. The older man had offered him a taste of blood from his wrist, and the red wine of it had shot through his body like no alcohol he had ever tasted. His nerve endings singing with power, William hadn't given Angelus' request for a taste of his own blood a second thought. Drusilla had gasped, though nothing else seemed to shock her.

He knew why, now. The sharing of blood had opened up his mind to Angelus, not that there was much for him to find, William thought, full of self-loathing. How could he have been so stupid? Hadn't he learned how powerful vampire blood was when he drank from Drusilla? But far, far worse was having the landscape of Angelus' mind laid bare to him, to know that the other man was quite sane, to see the desires the older demon had, to see the memories of when he had acted on those desires. Angelus had slyly insisted that those were his desires, too, that he wanted to bruise Drusilla's tender flesh as much as her sire did. Just before this dawn, William had finally managed to close his thoughts, falling into an uneasy sleep. Now he was awake, alone in his mind, and a new thought popped into his head: I could leave.

I could leave all of them.

He thought of Drusilla, the way she held him, her beautiful dark eyes, the feel of her hair. William gritted his teeth again. Despite everything that had happened since Darla left, he loved Drusilla. He was bound to her.

Maybe if I leave, she will come after me. William started to breathe on the thought, unaware that he was doing so. Maybe if I can get her away from Angelus and Darla, she will break free from this madness. He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. And she was mad; he'd known this. Now he had a good idea of why. In sleep, she looked peaceful and almost innocent. William felt a contracting pain in his chest, as if his heart could still beat for love of this woman. A tendril of dark hair lay across her face, and he lifted his hand to brush it aside.

His hand wouldn't move.

Angelus lifted his head from William's flat stomach. "Drusilla. He's awake."

She propped up on one elbow. "He is?" She smiled at William. "Good afternoon, sleepyhead." He wasn't looking at her, his attention on the ropes that bound him, wrist and ankle, to the bed. "You can't break them, silly boy."

"Enchanted with a magic that resists our strength," Angelus explained. He rolled so he was on William's left side, opposite Drusilla, and they both looked down at him, something gleeful and frightening glittering in their eyes.

"Untie me," he said, because he had to at least try.

"If we did that, my sweet," Drusilla said, reaching for the lone candle that was still burning on the nightstand, "then we couldn't play." She met Angelus's eyes, then smiled down at her child. "And we have such good games for you."

⸹

"We've killed him," Drusilla said sadly. Then she reeled, holding the side of her face where Angelus' large hand had connected.

"Isn't he whole there on the bed, you stupid cunt?" Angelus hissed. "Of course we haven't killed him." He paced away from where they stood at the door of the bedroom, then came back, his unwilling eyes going to the still form on the bed. The fledge hadn't moved or responded in three days, and Darla should have been back even before then.

"Broken, then," Drusilla went on in the same tone, as if they were having a calm conversation. "My William is broken, and Grandmummy won't be happy about it."

"She told me to," Angelus said petulantly. "She's the one who said to take off the kid gloves." He went over to the bed and stared down at the unmoving body, the unblinking eyes. He was worried about what Darla would do when she got back, but Drusilla didn't need to know that. Running a hand through his hair, he considered William. The gashes and bruises were healed, thanks to the blood he'd given from his own veins; as far as he could tell, even the broken bones were whole again. What had he – had they done to the boy that could leave him like this, like an empty-eyed doll? He went over the whole thing, from the moment the boy had woken and he'd turned his attention from inflicting pain on Dru to inflicting pain on her child, but there was nothing he hadn't done before, at one time or another.

William's firm insistence on being untied had changed to a steady stream of sounds that only encouraged Angelus, the word 'no' being the most prominent. He never stopped resisting, even spitting on Angelus at one point. The big vampire had gags, though, and more ropes, and when he grew tired of working on William, he set Drusilla loose on the boy and sat back to watch. The fledge had refused to make any noise at all for her, turning his face away, though he couldn't keep from being aroused by his sire. That had caught Angelus' attention. William had remained limp and uninterested beneath his punishing hands. The fledge couldn't ignore Drusilla, though. She was the key.

Before he could start toward the bed, Angelus was distracted from the new ideas that were blossoming in his mind by the realization that he was hungry. Checking his inner clock, he'd been surprised that several days had passed. It didn't take him long to dress and go out; he was back even quicker with a dinner of streetwalker. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom watching Drusilla ride her bound lover, and his hands roamed over the human's body as he undressed her. Angelus had offered the prostitute's blood to both the children, but only Dru had fed. He finished off his victim as he watched the other vampires from the chair in the corner, refining his idea. At some point, he had stripped, his clothes scattered on the floor. Angelus stood and used the last of the human's blood to paint his erection.

"Dessert?" he'd asked his mad child, and, still astride the boy, she'd turned her head to smile at his joke and take him in her mouth. William watched, and though this was nothing new in the family bed, this time his eyes burned with anger above the gag. Smiling, Angelus began to hurt Dru just a little, yanking her hair tight in his hand, making her whimper. Beneath her, the boy writhed, straining against the ropes. His smile had widened, knowing William wanted to get at him. Angelus gloried in being the cause of this impotence.

He had taken a long time with Drusilla, putting on a show for the fledge, doing things to her that he'd never done to a family member. When she finally stopped reacting, too worked over and overstimulated to even moan, he'd propped her on the mattress. He left them alone in the bedroom and went to the parlor for a few minutes. When he came into the bedroom again, he'd kept one hand behind his back. Wary of his gleeful expression, Drusilla moved away from her bound lover, grimacing in pain with her injuries. Angelus gave her a warning look, then turned deliberately to the boy.

 _Submit._ And he made the boy understand what was meant by his unspoken order.

 _Never._ With a struggle, William had forced Angelus from his mind.

"I think you'll find never, and quick." And from behind his back he brought what he'd needed from the parlor hearth: an iron poker, no longer glowing red from the fire, but still hot. He moved close to the immobile vampire and brandished the poker so that the heat from the metal baked both their faces. There was so much sweetness in the look of horror on William's face as he stared at the hot iron. Then the wide blue eyes met his. Horror gave way to defiance as the blue turned gold. With a huge wrench of his neck, he powered his sharp fangs through the gag.

"Fuck off!"

Those had been the last coherent words from the boy, though certainly not the last sound. At some point, he had lost the energy to stay in game face; some time after that, he'd stopped resisting. When Angelus realized the fledge was limp in his bonds, he'd grabbed William's broken jaw to make sure he was still awake. The blue eyes had been open, but they had been blank, emotionless. Angelus didn't like being ignored, so he redoubled his efforts, but nothing he did seemed to have an effect on the still body.

Three days now, and the body was still yet. Angelus wasn't sure how long he'd been alone with the children before that; he'd lost track of time in his frenzy, and that was the other thing, besides Darla's return, that worried him. He hadn't lost control in decades. The moment his awareness had returned, the moment he came back from the dark places inside and realized a lot of time had elapsed, he began preparing for his sire's return. Thinking that the boy needed blood, he'd captured a drunken man and made sure most of the food flowed down his slack throat. The wounds had retreated, but William himself remained unresponsive. He'd helped Drusilla change the linens and clean the boy's body, then Angelus himself did a minion's work, putting away the ropes, disposing of the ruined sheets and the two human husks.

William's unnatural stillness unnerved him, so he and Drusilla had escaped, going out to hunt every night since. He found himself avoiding the bedroom, which irritated him, and he'd finally let Dru cajole him into doing what was necessary: feeding the boy from his own wrist. While he let the blood drain into the open mouth, he cautiously touched William's mind, trying to wake him that way. When neither had effect, he'd even given in to the unspoken plea in her eyes and joined her in caressing the motionless body. The whole exercise was pointless, and it occurred to him that touching the boy was no different that handling a dead human body. Without a captive audience of live humans to appreciate such handling, the idea caused him to recoil, and he'd left Dru alone in the bed with her empty mate.

"She won't be happy," Drusilla said again from her place in the doorway.

Shaken from the memories, Angelus gritted his teeth and tried to think of anything else to try. He sighed, coming back to the only thing left. "Go get yourself some dinner."

"Alone?" They rarely let her go anywhere alone.

"Yes, Drusilla," he answered impatiently. "Think you can manage it?"

"What are you going to do?"

Her quiet voice was much too lucid and suspicious. "God damn you, Dru. Go!" He felt her turn away, felt the brush of air from her movement, and waited until he heard the door to the front of the house close. Angelus turned his attention to the supine body on the bed. He reached a final time for the other man's mind, feeling tentatively for any conscious thought. There was nothing.

Healed now, the boy's naked form was strong and beautiful. Angelus considered drawing him, then dismissed the idea. Time was running out before Darla's return. He might have to burn the existing sketches, anyway. The memories might overset Drusilla.

"Well, boy," he said, shaking his head just once, "I guess you didn't submit, at that." He took the stake from his coat pocket.

"Angelus," Darla drawled from behind him, "what have you done?"

He looked over his shoulder to see his sire gazing steadily at him, Drusilla clutching her arm. Discreetly pocketing the stake, he hid his trepidation beneath a shrug. "Only what you asked." He left the bed and walked toward her, holding out his arms and ignoring Dru for the time being. "Miss me?"

⸹

"Why would you do that?" "A week and a half!?" "Well, what would be strong enough? A troll? One of the Fallen?" "But those were humans, not family!" Shrill words penetrated down, down to where what was left of William was curled, huddled deep inside his still body. There were other words interspersed, a rumble of sound, but the higher-pitched ones were intelligible. Something was associated with the noise, the return of that particular voice… but it didn't matter, not now.

"The Master finally found a ship that would suit, and once he boarded, all I wanted was to come back to the family bed. You knew that, Angelus. Instead, I come back to… this!"

Darla, he remembered, the voice was named Darla.

He knew he didn't want to remember Angelus, so he drifted away from the sounds. It was easy to do.

The voices were muted now, much as the physical pain had been. That pain was gone, but it could return. Here, he was disconnected from it; here was a good place to be. But he couldn't move very much, because the worse-pain was very close by. If he didn't stay quite still, he might nudge it. Right now, it was like a sack that had been tied at the top. But the worse-pain was sneaky, and even acknowledging its existence might make the knot unravel and let the contents spill out. Drusilla was inside there, as was Mother.

William didn't want to remember them any more than he wanted to think of Angelus. Those memories could destroy him.

Suddenly there was heat coiling through him, insistent and powerful. No, he tried to tell it, be still. The heat seemed to listen, hesitating for a moment, then flowing away. It pooled elsewhere in William's body, and that was fine. He wasn't connected to the body, not any more.

⸹

"I did try that." Angelus knew his protest made him sound weak.

"My blood is older and more powerful, lover," Darla said, absently lathing her wrist with her tongue. Before the skin healed, she had snatched it from her mouth and used her arm to point toward William's groin. "See?" she crowed. "I knew I could wake him up."

Angelus grimaced at the slight tumescence, then leaned over and gingerly pushed the boy's face to the side. They both stared into his vacant eyes for a moment. "I don't know that he's awake."

"More than you managed, apparently," Darla shot back. She tapped her foot on the wooden floor, thinking. "Here," she said, turning toward Angelus, "help me out of this gown. I've been wearing the same one for days, and it's driving me mad."

He began unbuttoning the bodice with automatic movements. "So, do you think it will take more blood?"

"I don't know," Darla said. "I've never even heard of anything like this." She looked over his shoulder at him. "The fact that he isn't ash right now is a testament to your skill, Angelus – and your stupidity."

Jerking the open dress down over her shoulders, he scowled. "Don't push me, Darla."

She scoffed. "Finish undressing me, _child_ , so I can take care of your mess."

Angelus stood behind her, fistfuls of material in his hands. After a long moment, he continued peeling the dress away from her arms in silence. Facing the far wall, a tiny smile played over Darla's mouth. When she was free of the dress, she stepped out of the circle of cloth and kicked at it. "Take this dress to the nearest trash heap; I never want to see it again. And take Drusilla with you."

She had decided on a course of action, he could tell. Angelus gave her a narrow look. "It's nearly dawn."

"I think you can manage." Darla began undoing the ribbons on her corset, her elbows akimbo as she worked on the laces. "Don't come back until dark."

"What if you need supplies?" He was thinking of a ritual.

"Everything I need," Darla said, running her hands along her abdomen, smoothing the thin cloth over her taut body, "I have right here." When her consort started to protest, she added, "It will be over by then. One way or another." Darla watched him bite back the words he wanted to say, and she waited until he had turned to walk away. "And Angelus? Leave that stake you have in your pocket." His jaw flexed as he nonetheless obediently returned to hand it over, giving her no small thrill of power.

"Anything else?"

"Just one thing." She tossed the corset aside and shimmied out of her chemise, glorying in the feel of cool air on her naked body. Angelus was like all men; he couldn't control where his eyes strayed. It made her smile again. "If I can't revive him, I won't go back to playing house with Drusilla. I've put up with you cosseting her for years."

"She can find another–"

Darla cut him off with an imperious hand. "No, Angelus. If he goes, she goes." With a jerk of her head toward the bed, she added, "We've never found anyone else who could control her before, and I won't wait twenty more years to find another."

His dark eyes burned into her implacable ones. "Fine," Angelus said in a tight voice. He had no room to bargain, and he knew it. He sent a meaningful look at the bed. "I hope you enjoy your… work."

Her voice became a shade colder. "I always have." Darla waited until the door slammed and the sense of the other Aurelians faded before turning toward the bed. She considered the still form for a moment, then took the pins from her hair and let them scatter on the floor. "Well, William," she said conversationally, walking to the foot of the mattress, "it looks like Miss Darla will get to try you for a while, anyway. And without the love poems." She put her knee on the bed and lay the stake in a rivulet of sheets, then crawled halfway up his body. With only a little coaxing with her mouth, she transformed his tentative erection into one that stood proudly away from the unmoving vampire. "I always was good at that," Darla told him. Sitting back on her heels, she examined William for a moment. "Waste not, want not."

Darla settled atop him, taking him into her body with a hiss of pleasure. She rode him for a long time, touching herself, bringing herself off half a dozen times. His empty eyes didn't bother her; back in Virginia, she'd seen enough of the girls who worked for her adopt the same expression. If he could only stay hard like this, she mused, it might be worth keeping him around. His big tool hit her in all the right places.

She came once more, finally taking the edge off her hunger, and then draped herself over his chest with a long, luxurious sigh. "Mm. Not bad, William. But I can find a stiff cock anywhere. You have to wake up now if you're going to be of any further use."

Softness; a sliding friction. The sensation was pleasant, but not so much so that he was tempted away from safety.

"If you don't wake up, do you know what will happen? You'll die. I have a stake; you know I'll do it."

He didn't care. His origins were in hell, no different than here. There was constant hunger, true, and he didn't like being hungry, but there was no love in hell, so betrayal and pain were just expected, day-to-day occurrences there. Dead didn't sound so bad. He'd died once, after all.

"You don't care, do you?" Darla sounded amused. "I didn't think you would. But if I have to stake you, William, then I'll stake Drusilla as soon as Angelus brings her home."

Drusilla. Staked. He put the two concepts together, knowing that he shouldn't think about her. He frowned, though his mouth didn't move. She wouldn't fare well in hell, wretched as she was.

No, don't think about Drusilla. Close to him, always near, he felt the memories threaten, knew the worse-pain was awake. He wasn't so safe now.

"Think about it," Darla purred in his ear. "If you don't come back, she'll be dust, and it will be your fault." She ground her hips against him. "And Angelus and I will laugh. Someday soon, the Master will conquer the humans, and we'll rule this world. No one will know or care that either of you ever existed."

He didn't care, himself. He didn't want Angelus laughing about killing Dru, but, really, Angelus was nothing more than physical pain.

Darla's sense of the fledge receded, so she nipped his earlobe with her small, sharp teeth. "Maybe I won't stake Drusilla. Maybe I'll turn Angelus loose on her. She'll survive for a long time – she's stronger than she looks, you know." Darla pulled away a few inches, examining his face. Ah, something had flickered in the blue eyes, just for a second. "I think she could bear it if he did to her," she sat up, sinking onto his hardness thoughtfully, "everything that he did to you. She's already survived quite a bit." Darla began to smile, sensing turmoil inside the younger vampire. "He won't stop there. For her, he'll think of different things. She's his masterpiece, after all."

What things? He couldn't keep from wondering, from feeling worry.

"The last time we sailed in the Baltic, the captain offered us free passage if we let Drusilla… entertain the crew. Angelus killed the captain for even suggesting it, but that was then. Wonder what he would do now, when she's been the cause of so much trouble for him? Think of it, William: Drusilla tied to a bed in a tiny room for days while we're at sea, her legs open for every rough, dirty sailor who shovels coal. You know what they like to do? They like to find other things to fit inside a woman, like the handles of their shovels, like–"

Her words were like scissors, cutting into him and into the contained pain. The bonds ripped, and worse-pain tumbled over him, memories drowning him, dragging him under. He was such a small thing beneath them: the feel of Drusilla's hair so soft on his face, the feel of her teeth ripping into the flesh of his thigh; her sigh of pleasure as she straddled him on his grave, the way she screamed her Daddy's name as he broke another finger and her body convulsed around his own cock as he sodomized her; Drusilla's naked, swaying body as she danced in the moonlight that fell though the bedroom window, and her battered, misshapen form as she huddled on the mattress, too afraid to speak to him. He couldn't save her. He wanted to save her, she was his black goddess, but he couldn't, not here, not where she betrayed him, not where he betrayed her ( _betrayed your own mother_ ). The memories pressed him flat, then he slid over the edge of some precipice, falling into an abyss, escaping from everything except the knowledge that her misery would be his fault.

He fell deeper, receding from even the safe place, all hope gone. He'd failed again, was as empty as he'd ever been. The demon frayed, fragmented into nothingness.

And then strong hands cupped the splinters of him, holding him with a gentleness he'd nearly forgotten existed.

 _Got you, mate._

Angus? The cadence was right, but it wasn't his old friend.

It was himself.

No. It was William, the remnants of the human saving the pieces of a shattered demon.

How?

 _Dinna fash yerself._

Words stolen from old Cook, gone from his life for so many years. They made him smile, these memories of the human he inhabited.

 _Not you, right? Doesn't have to be you. It'll be me. I'll keep these memories, too, get you on your feet again._

But you are me.

 _Not exactly. You're the one who has to stay._

He didn't understand, but he felt safe again, and the mass of worse-pain was no longer cozied up to him.

 _I'll carry your 'worse-pain,' anything else you need me to. Not yours anymore, right? Mine, now. It ever gets to be too much, I'll take care of things._

Why?

 _Why, what? Why bother?_

Yes. He was so tired.

' _Cause you can't give in, mate. You can't just_ –

Submit.

 _Right. Will you stay?_

You decide.

 _Sorry. Not my decision to make. Has to be yours, mate._

The worse-pain was still there, but farther away, the memories of betrayal and Drusilla and Mother less painful than before. If they stayed as distant as his human memories, he could manage. Before making the bargain, supplying the will to live in exchange for defiance, he hesitated. He didn't have to be a seer to know there was going to be pain. Whatever it was that was driving him forward, he couldn't articulate. It wasn't the need for revenge, or the need to protect. He had a fleeting idea that it was hope, which made him snort faintly. He gave his answer.

Very well.

⸹

In the next instant he was shocked by a rush of sensation: sound and sex and the dank smell of the bedroom and the sight of Darla's blond hair and naked breasts.

"… knows where the Hellions stay. They don't think too highly of vampires, and they aren't really close enough to humans to mate with us – but it doesn't mean they won't try. Hellions have spines and these mouths with sharp, little fangs on their–"

With a roar, William sat up and grabbed Darla by the shoulders. "Shut up." He twisted sideways, gaining the upper position but putting them both nearly off the bed. He grabbed one of her hands and pinned it to the floor, bracing himself from sliding any further. Their bodies were still joined, and he saw her realize it at the same time. With a sneer that felt both new and entirely at home twisting his mouth, he shifted his weight and then drove into her.

Darla gasped, her eyes drifting almost shut. Her voice was even, though. "I didn't expect you to come back."

William saw her free arm move, and he captured it, too. She was at a disadvantage, almost off the bed, and unless she could levitate, he couldn't see any way for her to get free. Not that she wanted to. He thrust into her again, and she moaned, quickly biting down on the sound. "Had to come back. How else was I going to shut you up?"

There was calculation and challenge in her eyes. Very deliberately, Darla wound her legs around his thighs. "I've always found the best way to keep someone from talking is to fuck them."

"My lady," he said, driving into her again, "I live to serve." She laughed, and it was as if he could hear it both normally and from somewhere deep inside. But if he'd been confused before as to whether he was still William, he wasn't now. The rage that he'd felt when Drusilla had killed him had returned, and it was his shield. He fucked the senior vampire with his fury, and it didn't abate when she came, her stifled whimper building into a scream.

"Let me up," she said, a whisper because she'd used all the air in her lungs.

"Not yet."

It wasn't lovemaking, for all that they were staring into each other's eyes. He was in a fight for his very life, the first of a series of trials. Their battle of wills went on for another ten minutes, and he knew all along it wasn't one he couldn't win. Darla managed to get both hands on the floor and levered her hips higher, changing the angle of his penetration, and he came with an agonized grunt. But I brought her off five times, he thought grimly, his muscles too lax to keep her pinned any longer.

Darla hauled them both up and onto the mattress. Instead of mounting him again, she turned him on his side, then threw her legs over his hips, wriggling closer until they were joined once more. "How long can you go?"

It was a business negotiation, no different from a meeting in his old offices. He'd put himself out to stud. William started to sarcastically give her Loki's bloodlines before thinking of a better rejoinder. "Dunno. Drusilla can keep me hard for hours."

She nodded, acknowledging the way he'd tried to bait her. "It'll take more to satisfy me."

He slid one leg between hers, then forced himself to rise to his knees, still drained from his explosive orgasm despite being hard. Something rolled against his knee, and he looked down to see a wooden stake. His movement knocked Darla on her side, nearly onto her face, and while she was at a disadvantage, he began to thrust once again. "You sounded pretty satisfied a minute ago." His voice was even despite the weapon at his knee.

Darla was just as limber, and she tucked her arms beneath her and got up on her hands and knees, raising her hips to slide against him, meeting him. "The Kama Sutra calls this the union of the cow," she informed him, her voice silky, pure sex.

"More like dogs."

Her head lifted a bit at the scorn in his voice, but his magnificent cock was filling her even deeper than before, and she didn't mind being distracted. Drusilla's pet was turning out to be more interesting than expected. She laughed. "It's called that, too."

William watched the line of her back, seemed to see his hands on her hips as though they were a stranger's hands. Darla was lovely, he had to admit, and that would be enough to keep his basic masculine nature involved in their battle. That was good; it meant he could let his body do its work automatically, leaving him free to think.

Could he stake her? She was fast; he'd seen it when the family hunted together. If he missed, that would be the end. The weapon was meant for him, after all. On instinct, he picked up the stake and tossed it across the room. Darla caught the motion and started to turn, but he grabbed her around the waist and, on his knees, walked her toward the headboard, the wall. "Poking me in the leg," he lied.

Suspicious, she still tried to turn on him, but he grabbed her elbow and jerked it high and behind her, which had two immediate effects. William barely noticed her hiss of pain; he was too busy processing the way she slammed her hips back against him. "Like that, do you?" The mean little smile on his face wasn't one he'd ever worn as a human. Everyone in their warped little family found pleasure in pain, giving and receiving. Even him.

And still, part of him was calmly analyzing everything. He wasn't going to chance killing her, so he had to prove himself, and he already knew how to do that – Angelus had taught him all he needed to know about being a vampire the first day Dru introduced them. William began toying with Darla's body. He knew where to touch to bring her pleasure from all the previous nights in the family bed, and he now had no compunction about causing her pain. When they were done, he would suggest finding food. The final of the three Fs, the fighting… Well, he'd have to wait for that one.

Darla turned the tables on him soon enough, but he kept pace with her and rallied so that when it ended, hours later, he pulled out of her limp body without climaxing, a minor victory. Looking down at her, he let out most of the air in his lungs and gave her a tight smile. "Let's go have dinner, my lady. I'm famished."

She watched him as he left the bed in search of clothes, noted the slowly abating erection, and gave a grudging snort of approval. Just as well; she hadn't fed well during the last flurry of preparation before the Master set sail. Otherwise, she wouldn't be as tired. Before long it would be dark, and if Angelus returned to an empty lair, so much the better.

William helped her dress and watched as she smoothed her hair into an elegant coif without aid of a mirror. She perched a small, fashionable hat atop the blond tresses, and they set out at a leisurely pace. He was headed toward the theatre district where there would be people moving about, so he was surprised when she drew up well short of that goal.

"There." She did not point or even nod her head, but he knew right away which humans she meant. She'd sprung a trap on him and was watching him avidly.

Two little girls were playing with a little black terrier on the steps of their house, laughing at the bright-eyed animal's antics. The older one, maybe five, was bolder and ventured onto the sidewalk as they watched. Although the fabric of their matching dresses wasn't fine, it was sturdy and clean.

"Hardly a mouthful," he pointed out calmly. On the inside, he quailed. _I can't do this._

 _Why should you care? You're a vampire._ The practical part of him ruthlessly shut down all emotion, throwing it away like excess ballast, and shunted him aside.

He tried a final time, even as he gave over control. _They're just children._

"A tasty mouthful." Darla smiled up at him, but her eyes were calculating. "Tender, like veal or lamb."

 _Us or them._ "As you wish." He began strolling toward the girls. "I've never bothered. Is it a different kind of hunt?" William didn't hide his disdain.

"Watch. Be ready." Darla tugged off one silk glove and bit into the pad of her thumb. As they neared the stoop, she squatted down and called to the little dog. It lifted its little black ears, tested the air, then came cautiously to her outstretched hand. Darla watched it lick the drops of blood, then she smiled at its owners. "What an adorable animal. What's its name?"

They stared at the beautiful woman. The younger of the girls popped her thumb in her mouth, but her older sister answered timidly, "Blackie, mum. His name is Blackie."

"How imaginative." Darla scooped the puppy into the crook of her arm and carried it to the older child. "I think she likes me, but I know she loves the two of you." She held Blackie out to the oldest sister, who took the little dog awkwardly. It squirmed and wriggled its legs, and as she bent to put it on the sidewalk, Darla swooped down on her.

William didn't hesitate, just snaked out an arm and grabbed the younger child around the waist. He struck with precision at her neck, holding her close against him to keep her still, and stared fixedly at the cracked stone steps as he fed. All he could see was a wisp of blond hair, and that could belong to any human of any age, any age at all.

The streetlamps weren't lit, but it seemed like there was far too much light on their dark deed. He realized the door had opened and there was a teenaged girl gawking at the scene in the spill of candlelight, speechless for the moment.

Without withdrawing his fangs from the toddler, William was up the short flight of steps and had snatched the newcomer by the wrist and jerked her the rest of the way over her threshold. Still holding the little girl, he pressed the teenager against the doorframe and transferred his bite from one tender neck to the other. The scream forming on the girl's mouth turned into a long, drawn-out sigh.

Darla was there next to him, feeding from the other side of the teenager's throat. It took less than a minute for the two vampires to drain her. William hauled her body away from the wall, and it oozed down his leg to crumple on the top step. He stared at her, because he didn't want to look anywhere else. He heard Darla chuckle, and she plopped the five-year-old's body down next to the oldest girl. They leaned together as if asleep.

Carefully, he set the littlest sister on the opposite side, then backed away, the fine taste of human blood still on his tongue, the power of it buzzing inside his body. William went down one step, then another, until he was on the street. Darla put her hand at the crook of his elbow, and she laughed again, a silvery sound.

"Look, William. It still has its thumb in its mouth."

He saw.

William turned away and started to walk, beginning to breathe, covering her hand with his in a hard grip. The terrier followed them a few feet, glanced back at its owners, then gave one sharp yip before heading home.

"Imagine when they're found that way." Darla was amused by the idea.

William had a mercifully brief vision of Pippa finding Lily and Lu and Jonathan lifeless on her doorstep. He made some noise in acknowledgement, but felt sick. He didn't think he was going to be able to manage. They were just _children_.

 _So?_ He grew stern with himself. _You're – we're a demon, after all. What do I care for human brats?_

But he did. Gritting his teeth, he found a place inside to bury it, to hide the shame and grief and self-loathing. Let his other part deal with it. He couldn't stop breathing, though, no more than he could keep the blood inside him from changing into life and strength. His lungs had begun to atrophy from disuse, and the deep gulps of air stung.

"You don't have to do that, you know." Darla gave him an indulgent look. "The sooner you break the habit, the better."

He looked down at her blankly. He'd developed all sorts of new habits since Drusilla found him: drunkenness and theft and fornication and murder. None had bothered him until now, and William knew he had crossed a line, had moved into unexplored territory with no hope of finding his way back. The demon had just done something that, on its own in a well-stocked city, it would never have considered doing. He wanted to sit down on the sidewalk and cry; he wanted to run and never stop. Neither was an option.

Instead, he stared at Darla. She was talking again, but he couldn't hear her words. The blood he'd taken tonight had transformed into the life-force that kept his dead body animated, and physically he felt strong, powerful. He'd passed the test. With no conscious thought, he steered her into a shadowed doorway and began pulling yards of cloth up to her hips, lifting her skirts even as he unfastened his trousers. Darla laughed again and began to help, her clever fingers moving clothing aside, guiding him into her once again.

He tried to push the horror of their hunt back at her, tried to drive the memories into her and away from him. It didn't work, but when he found his release, William could hear once more, could modulate his breathing into something shallow and silent.

Darla smoothed her skirts, then did up his trousers. She smirked up at him and patted his chest, two quick taps. "I knew you'd like it. You're an Aurelian, after all."

⸹

"They're home."

William nodded. He'd known without Darla telling him, but he had no emotion about the prospect of seeing Drusilla and Angelus. The senior vampire opened the door to the house, and he followed her in without pause. The inner turmoil of the hunt had left him numb, and he didn't think he would feel anything for a year.

The moment he saw Angelus' face, though, William knew he had been fooling himself. The brown eyes went between him and Darla, the fine nostrils flared, but before his grandsire's gaze could narrow in displeasure, he roared and launched himself across the empty parlor at him, taking them both to the floor. Time for the third F.

As with his round with Darla, William knew he couldn't win this kind of fight, but this time he didn't care if he showed well. He was strong and fast and had good instincts; he'd killed a vampire already. The more punches he got in, the further away the pain and hurt seemed, and it seemed that blows to Angelus' handsome face were especially therapeutic.

The dark-haired vampire was laughing, though, almost in relief. Angelus had two stone and well over a hundred years of experience on the boy; if the blows hurt him a little more than he expected, Darla's presence meant they were atonement. It took him almost three minutes and a well-aimed, punishing blow across William's sensitive nose to pin him, still struggling against the parlor wall. Grinning, Angelus leaned in and kissed him roughly. "Welcome back, boy." He hauled the blond vampire away from the wall and clapped him rather hard on the shoulder. "Say hello to your William, Drusilla."

"Hullo, William," she repeated dutifully. Her eyes were open very wide, as if she was trying to convince herself that what she was seeing was the same thing that everyone else saw.

Angelus had propelled him toward her. He tugged at the sleeves of his coat and nodded at Drusilla but didn't really looking at her. Without even realizing it, somehow he had passed another test.

Darla, a master at manipulation, had gone to Angelus as soon as he was free of his attacker and started to disrobe him. "No harm done," she said, not referring to the little skirmish. With a short glare, she added, "Lucky for you." She tossed his coat toward the junior vampires. "Now, I need you to show me how much you've missed me." Darla watched her consort's nostrils flare, something she had been waiting for. She wanted him in the mood to reclaim his straying mate, so she let something smug show in her expression. "Drusilla, take your pet out for the evening." Without looking away from her own mate, she added, "Two evenings."

"Yes, Gr – Darla." Drusilla still wore her cloak. She and Daddy had returned to the empty house, and he began pacing right away. Since he hadn't offered to take her wrap, she decided not to take it off herself. Just as well, it seemed. Her William didn't seem to be in a very gallant mood, either.

They walked along in silence on the dim streets of London, not holding hands. Too many years with her sire made Drusilla wary of beginning the conversation.

"Have you fed?" His question was polite, disinterested. Drusilla was the love of his unlife, but William couldn't feel anything toward her just now.

"Yes. Shopkeeper." She could tell he'd fed recently, but one of her more helpful sprites settled on her shoulder and advised her not to ask what he'd had for dinner. They walked further along the London streets, and the silence dragged out. "Perhaps we should find a place to go to ground," Drusilla ventured.

William nodded rather than answer, and a few minutes later he steered them into a cemetery. They found a likely-looking mausoleum, but as soon as he lifted Drusilla onto the heavy stone lid of the crypt, he began pacing the length of the little room. It was a night for pacing, apparently.

He not only wasn't speaking to her, he wasn't looking at her. Drusilla cupped her elbows with her hands, unsure what to do. _Give him the truth_ , one of the sprites whispered in her ear, but it was a malicious, orange creature and not to be trusted.

"I'm sorry that you hate me," she finally managed, and her heart sank a little when he glanced her way for barely a second before shrugging. It was because he didn't understand what she and her Daddy had done; she knew this by the way he sulked. Part of her sneered at what had to be a willful lack of understanding; they were demons, after all. But the other part of her, the part that had preferred insanity to being snuffed out of existence, decided to take the capricious orange sprite's advice.

"We had a dog named Chance," she began, and William stopped pacing and turned to look at her, arrested by the odd statement. "My sister Ophelia got to name him, and she chose that because all he needed was a chance to steal food from someone's plate. He disappeared first. Maybe I should have known it meant the visions were coming to pass.

"I don't think it was my brother who was first, but it's all so far and blurry now." Her dark brows drew together for a moment. "He was the baby, and he died of a fever when he was three. Yes, I'm sure it was fever. My first Daddy stopped spending so much time at home after that. But I think Reginald died two years before Chance disappeared.

"Without Chance to bark, Daddy started whispering to me from outside the window, telling me…" Drusilla trailed off. William was looking at her now, and she was the one who turned away. "We would be in the kitchen cooking or in the parlor sewing, and eventually I would just know he was watching me from somewhere nearby." A troubled look crossed her face. "Mummy never liked it when I just knew things; she told me to ignore it. But then Ophelia went away, too.

"Daddy took them one by one, Anne next. She was such a tiny, funny thing. Then my uncle, home for a visit from the navy. Mummy was last. But she'd already made all the arrangements, and I went to become a bride to Jesus." The name made her eyes glitter for a moment, and she bared her teeth as though they were her fangs. William hadn't come closer, but she could feel the weight of his gaze. "For a while, I was safe from Daddy. It wasn't like home, but I had sisters again, and they were kind to me, even the Mother Superior. She frowned a lot, but she had the softest little bit of a beard. I always wanted to touch it…."

Drusilla glanced at her handsome child, taking in the wary concentration on his face. Maybe the naughty orange sprite had been right this time. "But Daddy came for me. I always knew he would. I'd seen it. Then I didn't have sisters anymore, just him."

"He killed nuns?" William didn't know why he was shocked by this, even in this muffled distant way. Of course Angelus would kill nuns.

"He didn't kill me, though. Maybe because I didn't smell like a nun. I'd only taken my vows that morning. I tried to slice my throat before he could, but he stopped me. Daddy and Grandmummy fucked then. I'd never seen it before, and I didn't want to look, but they kept bumping my legs."

Her eyes settled on a spot in the middle distance, watching as her memories shimmered in the air. When she continued, her voice was dreamy. "After they were satisfied with each other, they turned their attention to me. How odd to be naked in a chapel. It was all cold and sharp and biting fangs and claws scrabbling at me. Daddy was vexed with Grandmummy for using the crucifix, but he took its place, took both virtue and life, until nothing was left but the taste of his blood, on my tongue like catmint caught thick between my teeth."

She looked away from the memories and saw that her William had drawn close, horror in his eyes. Without a word, he took her hand in his cool ones and pressed his lips against her knuckles. Drusilla gave him a beatific smile, unaware of the tears that flowed unrelentingly down her cheeks. "You mustn't feel badly for me. I felt myself leave, but I wasn't alone while I slept. My pixies finally peeked out at me. I saw them, their cunning little faces. I knew they'd been there all along, but I'd never seen them until I died.

"When I woke, I understood why there had to be pain and screams. I had my Daddy and Grandmummy, too. Then I found you. So it's all right now. I've a family again."

"My darling, brave girl," William managed, kissing her hand again. "How strong you are to have survived." It hadn't been like being in Angelus' mind, but what she had endured seemed more real to him. She was a victim, too. Perhaps even Angelus, even Darla had been a victim, once.

"Silly thing," she said in a teasing tone, "of course I didn't survive. Neither of us did."

Hesitantly, he put his hands at her waist, looking up at her. "I still say you're quite brave."

She smoothed the hair back from his brow. "I have to be, because I'm a disappointment."

"You are?" This he couldn't follow at all.

"I'll never be what I was when I was human."

"Surely you're more?"

"I was unattainable." Her focus left him, went somewhere else. "After I woke, when we finally left the convent the next night, I overheard Daddy tell Grandmummy that he wished they'd left me untouched."

"He wouldn't have… touched you?"

"No. We heal. Vampires heal. If they had waited, I would have been a virgin renewed after every… encounter."

The horror William felt at the thought of the violation being fresh each time was nothing compared to the horror he felt as he gaped at Drusilla's face. There was such longing on it. She wanted it more fiercely than her sire ever had.

"Darling, you aren't a disappointment to me." He pushed away the memory of what she had done to his body with her own hands, and William lifted her from the crypt to wrap her in his embrace. She needed him, and he loved her. "You'll never be a disappointment to me."

⸹

When they returned to the lair two days later, Darla was pleased and welcoming. Angelus was quiet, with fine, white marks of nearly-healed wounds latticing his torso. There was an easy air about him, though, the peace after a storm has passed. Even Darla, though her smirk remained firmly in place as she quickly bedded both the children, didn't seem as driven by lust as before.

Afterward, as he lay drained and stunned by the speed of the senior vampire, William wondered if she had used some form of the mesmer on him. He had been determined to remain aloof in the family bed, saving his favors for his sire alone. That determination had lasted all of three minutes. At least Angelus was only involved to the point of watching from a chair that had been dragged close to the bed. By daybreak, all of them were abed, paired much as they had the first few weeks. Darla seemed to have little use for him outside of providing him instruction in the oral arts, and William was determined to not give Angelus satisfaction of any kind.

Even as the nights and days settled into the early pattern of 'the three Fs,' the part of William that kept him alive stayed aloof. With every touch of Angelus' hand on Drusilla's body, with every scratch left on his own pale skin by Darla's nails, that part stored up anger, keeping it hidden from the older demons. He found that he did not have adequate room for all the rage, that it had to come out somewhere.

The first time was on a hunt. Under Angelus' supervision, he was stalking a burly human just before dawn near the river. Just as he was about to close in, the man was joined by an acquaintance. Hungry and frustrated, William ignored Angelus' signal to fall back. Instead, he lay his head back and howled like an animal, like the demon he was, then bore down on both men. He didn't bother with subtlety, just beat them both to the ground with his fists, crushing windpipes so they couldn't scream anymore, feeding sloppily on both.

Afterwards, as he stood up, breathing hard, Angelus had come to stand next to him. Without saying a word, he used the toe of his boot to fold a flap of skin back over one of the humans' skulls, putting the ear back in place. Surveying the pair, the older vampire noted the frayed cuffs of their pants, the thin fabric at the elbows of their coats. No one would investigate their deaths closely. He shook his head and walked away, leaving William with no alternative but to follow. Angelus' only comment on the outburst came just before they reached their lair: "Don't do that again."

He didn't, but he found himself dwelling on the oddest things. Since he could not be angry at his family, William found himself reliving all the slights and insults he had endured while alive, enjoying the thought of how different things would be with his new freedom to act, with his demon's strength. Cromley was ripped into imaginary shreds, Kincaid was smeared on the bricks outside the old club, snotty Sunday school students were disciplined with their cries stifled by gags, disappointing and inefficient servants were dealt with in a most satisfactory manner.

But he spent the most time thinking about Richard, who had mocked his poems in public, who had conspired with Cromley to blacken his father's good name, who had disliked him without provocation from the moment they were introduced. Richard, who deserved comeuppance most of all. William thought about Richard when he needed to send his mind away from the noises Drusilla was making, when he needed to drown out Angelus' instruction.

He was thinking about Richard now, lying atop the sheets in the gloomy bedroom. Darla and Drusilla were taking advantage of a rainy afternoon to shop for new dresses, as most of the ones they wore were too stained with blood to pass inspection. They had left him alone with Angelus, and for a while he had feigned sleep. To pass the time, he went over his favorite imagined deaths for Richard. Fire, fire was good… but too imprecise. William remembered how Richard had dismissed him, dismissed his poetry, and something new blossomed in his mind, a new and deliciously appropriate end for his critic. "A spike," he whispered.

"What did you say, Willy?"

"William." Maybe he should get a new name for his dead self, just to keep Angelus from using the mocking diminutive. Both of the grands had, after all. He sat up abruptly, unable to keep still. It was dark enough. "You feel up to a little mayhem?"

Angelus raised an interested eyebrow. "Always up for that, boy." He watched the blond man rise to his feet and begin dressing. "Where do you propose?"

"Someplace not too far from here," he replied vaguely, buttoning his pants. "But we need to go by a railyard first." He frowned. "Or perhaps where they're building the Underground."

"Why?" Angelus had thrown his legs over the edge of the bed, but hadn't stood up yet. He examined William closely.

"I need to get something."

⸹

"I'm sorry."

William flinched, hearing the echo of Richard's last words once again. They kept coming back to him, sneaky with their unexpected power. The human had begged for his forgiveness. Oh, he doubted that Richard really felt contrite; the man had pissed himself with terror, after all. He had been trying to save his life, having been too cowardly to fight for his two companions as William demonstrated what a spike though the head was really like.

It was quick, actually. The first two humans had jerked in a gruesome manner, but he knew their lives were already ended, their last movements no different from those of a beheaded chicken. The railroad spike he drove into their skulls had been too effective for the revenge he wanted. Making Richard watch, though, knowing that it would be his own end… that had been true revenge. He had felt an incredible rush of power, and afterwards Angelus had spoken approvingly.

But the words kept slipping past his guard. He moved toward the edge of the family bed and put his face under a pillow, hiding from the early light, determined to sleep.

"I'm sorry."

"Sweetheart?" Drusilla rolled over, opening her eyes just a slit. "Were you dreaming?"

William sat up in bed, rubbing at his arms. He hadn't known vampires could have gooseflesh. "Bad dream. Don't worry, Dru. Go back to sleep."

He left the family bed without waking the other two vampires. Drusilla sighed sleepily as he found a robe to pull over his naked body. Automatically avoiding the afternoon sunlight that fell through the windows, he went up the stairs to the room farthest from the rest of the household. It had belonged to a servant, he guessed, based on the plainness of the furnishings. Glad for the simple bed, he lay down, feeling weak, and curled into a tight ball, his arms around his own shoulders.

"I'm sorry."

William started to shake. Other things were coming back. He knew one of Richard's companions, knew he had a young wife and three little boys at home. The man had begged, too, but he had been an afterthought. Richard's death had been the one that mattered. So why had the snippet of Richard begging for his life expanded to include the whole episode? And why was he crying?

 _Because I knew them. They were real to me, and I murdered them._

They deserved it! They mocked us!

 _And does that warrant death?_

You're supposed to be the one who deals with this sort of thing.

 _I'm just William. I was never very good at dealing with anything._

You kept us alive.

 _That was different. That wasn't anger. That was… necessity._

Well, Richard might not have been necessity, but it was fun.

 _Fun._

Maybe it was necessary, too. Since we can't fight Darla and Angelus, we have to fight someone.

 _That wasn't a fight._

But I'm not so furious anymore.

 _No. Not furious._

He was worried. With demon practicality, he had accepted the new part of himself, had assumed it was there to stay and dependable. The remnants of William weren't, he realized, stable. They were grief-stricken and sickened by what they had done. If the burden was enough to destroy William, then he would be destroyed, too. And, like William, he had an unidentified but strong urge to continue in this world.

It isn't really you, either, you know.

 _What?_

You aren't the same being. This, what we did – it wasn't part of you.

 _Is it a part of you?_

Yes, and I'm not sorry. I don't care if they're dead.

 _You cared about those little girls._

That's different.

 _Why?_

Because… because innocent is different, that's all. I don't know why. It just is. It hurts to see innocence die.

 _You're a demon._

Innocence is rare. Something rare should be valued – like love. I don't like to see good, fine things destroyed, wasted. Most things, it doesn't matter. But rare things… it hurts, feels wrong.

 _I hurt. I did wrong._

You aren't the same being. Before, you didn't even talk like William.

 _I didn't._

There was a long pause as something slow and halting took shape, jelled inside him. The demon waited for William to harden and coalesce again, and while he did, he made his body quieter, made the tears stop.

 _I'm not William?_

Not really, not anymore. Just the best parts, maybe. The smartest parts.

 _I think I know who we are. Who we need to be._

Someone tough?

 _Yeah._

The precise, gentlemanly cadence was gone, replaced once more by the close approximation of a North London accent. The demon felt weak again, this time with relief. It would be all right. He dried his tears, wiping the evidence of weakness from his face, his neck, and went downstairs. With each step, he felt calmer, stronger. As he slipped out of the robe and into the family bed, Drusilla woke again.

"Come back to bed, William," she murmured.

"Call me Spike."

⸹

Barcelona

September 1880

They were going to get rid of him. Drusilla, too. They had been angry for days.

Spike lay on the family bed, his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. Dru sat at the foot of the bed, playing with the dollhouse people he'd picked up for her on impulse as they passed through Dover. Directing their little lives seemed to soothe her. Right now, the miniature father of the wooden family was being punished for some infraction.

Darla and Angelus had gone off alone, had been gone for two nights now. It had occurred to him that the older vampires might not return, that it could be as simple as that. They were tired of him, tired of cleaning up after him the same as they were tired of cleaning up after Dru. But he couldn't make himself be sly and subtle. There was too much satisfaction to be had in a fight. Especially with a mob.

So what if they didn't come back? He could take care of Drusilla; he was fearless and almost – almost – as strong as Angelus.

The part of Spike that was Aurelian knew they would come back, though, at least one final time. They wouldn't leave any loose ends.

It would be his fault, since he'd been, to use Darla's word, indiscreet. He'd been good since they had left Britain, but the memory of those weeks on the run hadn't faded and neither had their anger. There must be some way to change the older vampires' minds, to become something more than a liability.

Being good hadn't been easy, either. The foursome had passed through Paris on their way here, and the possibility of seeing Notre Dame, site of his favorite childhood book, had buoyed Spike's spirits for a while. Angelus had torn away all the good associated with that, too, widening the neck wound on an evening's dinner to do something unspeakable to the body in the deep shadows outside the church. The urge to attack his grandsire had rushed back and resisting his impulse to turn his fists and fangs on Angelus had been a near thing. Only the horrific spectacle of the flopping limbs of the limp human body had deterred him.

A stray scent of something citrus came through the open window, thankfully pulling him away from that memory. Since they were alone and Drusilla was occupied, he began to recite from Don Quixote. What little he'd seen of Barcelona was beautiful and evocative, but the two younger vampires had been sequestered, so he hadn't had a chance to speak Spanish. Perhaps his facility with languages would be enough for Darla to keep him around, though he was inclined to hide any talent from them, as he had his continuing ability to enjoy human food.

Something that he had just said arrested him, so he said it again. He rolled the 'r' thoughtfully on his tongue. Then, after a moment, he tried a German 'r,' forming it further back in his throat, then the same consonant in light Portuguese. He trilled his tongue, felt it buzzing against his palate. Odd, he thought, don't remember being able to do that before. As a human, he'd learned to wrap his mouth around a wide variety of sounds. Perhaps it had carried over into his unlife as extra ability. But, no, he'd been a horseman and a tennis player; he didn't seem to have unusually strong thighs for a vampire, or the ability to lunge after victims particularly fast. Just one of those things, he supposed. He trilled once again, then pressed his lips together. It had tickled.

Spike sat upright in bed, his eyes widening as he made a quick connection in his mind. "Dru."

"Yes, my sweet?" she replied, her eyes still on her dolls.

Instead of answering, he lifted the hem of her nightdress and wriggled beneath it. Drusilla grabbed the footboard for balance as he pressed his head between her thighs. "Oh, you've knocked my little family – Oh!" She let go of the doll and put both hands on the footboard. "Oh my sweet Willy," she gasped. When she recovered, she lifted the front of her gown and peered down at him. "What did you just do?"

He had never brought her off so fast. Spike put his tongue against his teeth and grinned at her. "I just saved our lives."

"Well, do it again." She let the white fabric fall, covering him, and grasped the bed again. And as soon as he stopped chuckling, he began to practice in earnest.

Darla and Angelus returned the next day. The first thing Spike noticed was that they didn't head straight for the family bed. Instead, they took off only their outerwear, and Angelus began to make up a small fire. Spike found himself watching the way the older vampire carefully laid fuel in the fireplace, the way he stopped to examine some lengths of wood. The bastard never did work, ever. If Spike's blood could run any colder, it would.

Taking his cue from the senior vampires, he didn't give Dru a significant look or let on in any way that he noticed their behavior wasn't typical. Instead, he started walking toward Darla. "Come, Dru, let's help get them out of those clothes." He put heat in his voice to cover any nervousness. It might not be enough. What if it wasn't enough?

While the pair dealt with the many buttons on her dress, Darla met Angelus' questioning gaze, then lifted a shoulder in a delicate shrug. One last romp with the two young ones… why not? They must have been bored while she and Angelus were away, judging from the way William was avid to get to her. As she stepped out of her dress, he picked her up and put her on a chair, kneeling before her. Darla saw Drusilla go to Angelus and begin undressing him, then felt his dark eyes on her. She gave him a small smile, but focused on keeping her expression otherwise neutral. William was getting rather good at this.

Ten seconds later, she cried out and grasped the youngest Aurelian by the hair, all thought of schooling her features gone. Angelus was staring at her again, his eyes startled and sharp. Darla couldn't bring herself to care, too lost in this new and unexpected pleasure.

Spike closed his eyes lest she see the satisfaction in them and continued to vibrate his tongue against her sensitive flesh. He counted fourteen, but finally lost track of the number of orgasms he gave Darla when Drusilla's cool hands began to play with his body. His knees cracked loudly when the blond woman reluctantly let him rise so they could all stagger to bed.

It was a long night, and on several occasions Darla gave Spike reason to be grateful that he didn't have to breathe. When the two senior vampires were asleep, he tucked Drusilla close against him, his arm slung around her neck, and gave her a wicked grin and a victory kiss. "How're you feeling, pet?"

"Safe." She laid her head against his chest, absently stroking his naked thigh. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. "You keep me safe, Spike."

⸹

Bucharest

November 1880

Spike mesmerized his victim, quieting her. "Shh," he commanded, closing her eyes with his palm. He turned her so she was facing away from him and brushed the loose tendrils of her hair away from her neck. Sliding his fangs into her neck, he savored the hot, pumping blood, and his own eyes closed at the exquisite taste of it. She had been out with another girl, the two of them walking together for safety after dark. It hadn't worked out very well for them, the walking, nor the running afterwards.

Across the alleyway, the second girl shrank away from Angelus, her hands over her mouth in horror. Grinning, he took a deliberate step closer to where she was trapped, faint streetlight glittering off his sharp teeth and throwing the harsh ridges on his forehead into relief. "You know you want it," he said laughing.

She caught the smirking undertone even if she didn't know English and shook her head vigorously. " _N-nu_ ," she stammered. Chancing a desperate glance over her shoulder toward her companion, she saw her friend pliant and unmoving in the other demon's grasp.

In the moment before she looked back, Angelus swooped in. The girl screamed, struggling futilely. Instead of aiming for her throat, he ripped the front of her dress open and struck at her breast.

Her screams were enough to make Spike open his eyes, so he got to see the human swatting uselessly at his grandsire's dark head, got to watch her cries and sobs die away as the blood drained from her and her struggles grew weaker. At the last, she looked around in complete despair and met the gaze of the only possible source of help, Spike's own golden eyes. He flinched away, his bloody fangs pulling free of his victim's neck, and watched hope drain from the other girl with the last of her blood.

"Why do you do that?" he whispered.

"What?" Angelus asked, pulling his face away from the ruined flesh, half of his face coated in blood.

"I-it might attract attention." Spike couldn't think of anything else to say that would be logical.

Angelus grinned again. "It's not worth it if they don't scream." He let the dead human drop to the ground and stood up, surveying the pair in front of him. "Sure now, she's a pretty one." He pointed his chin at her. "Sire her."

"W-what?"

"She's still lively enough." He leered at Spike. "Open your veins and let her suck from you a while, till we can teach her how to do it properly."

In less than a second, he made up his mind. Spike shoved his victim away. "You want her turned so much, do it yourself." Spike knew what Angelus wanted from this; it had happened twice already. He would drain her, but it would be Angelus who came back for her the next night. He would take her home and put her through hell on earth until Spike could find an excuse to be displeased with her and stake her. The first time had been a young man, near his own general age and build. The last time the big vampire had ordered him to sire a woman. That had been bad; it took Spike four days to find a reason to dust her because Angelus hadn't left her side.

This human was forgotten as the older vampire stopped staring at her and started staring at him. "Are you disobeying me, Will?"

"Yeah, reckon I am. Liam."

His voice became very even. "And what madness would cause you to disobey, _Spike_?"

"Because it's pointless, that's why." He strolled away a few feet, thrusting his hands into the pockets of the overcoat he wore. Spike felt no particular closeness to the vampires he made, but one would have to bloody well be made of stone to leave anything in Angelus' tender care. So far, at least, his get had been no more important to the structure of the family than any houseless vampire they happened across, nothing more than minions, left untrained and not allowed to sleep in the family bed. Spike had brought no punishment on his own head for staking them.

"You're saying my orders are pointless?"

"Yeah, I am. Why sire her? I'll just stake her, first time she looks at me cross-eyed. I don't even like the look of her; why would I want to keep–"

That was all he got out; Angelus plowed into him with a driving uppercut, his momentum sending them both to the cobblestone surface of the alley floor. Spike recovered from the surprise and pain in a flash, rolling out of his grandsire's reach before launching his body back at Angelus with a roar. They rolled around, getting the occasional punch in as they grappled, cursing each other.

Their forgotten victim backed away, her hand to her bleeding neck, awareness trickling back into her vacant eyes until she could register the body of her cousin lying on the ground near the brawling… things. Making no noise, she turned and fled the alley, running without pause all the way back to her mother's house. It was almost fifteen minutes later before either vampire noticed she was gone.

They limped back into the lair well before morning, both still nursing unhealed injuries. Darla, well-fed and as satisfied as a cat, looked them over from where she perched naked on the bed, counting money. "What happened to you two?"

"I'm not siring any more," Spike declared sulkily. He turned from her to take off his coat, holding it up to see the damage. Even if it had been whole, it was too soiled to pass muster, and vampires didn't hire washerwomen. He tossed it in a corner.

"You'll do what I tell you," Angelus shot back.

"Make your own playthings!"

"Boys." It was a quiet word. Darla eyed them both for a moment, then resumed her count.

"This isn't over," Angelus warned, stripping off both his coats in one move and attacking the studs on his shirt.

"It'll never be over," Spike agreed in a low voice. He undid the top of his own shirt and then simply whipped it over his head. "Where's Dru?" he asked in a louder voice.

Darla sighed. "Still out, but it's a long time until dawn." She considered them both for a moment and began to smile. She gathered the currency in neat stacks, then leaned over to put it under the bed.

"I'll go find her." Spike opened the wardrobe to get more clothes.

"Don't be silly. You can't go out looking like that." Darla stepped off the mattress and came over to examine his face. "Here, let me heal that up for you." She pulled his head down and ran her tongue over a gash on his temple. It had exactly the effect she wanted it to, healing the wound and arousing the fledge. Spike sent a challenging look toward Angelus as he placed his hands on Darla's hips.

She turned in his embrace and smiled at her consort. "What about you, lover? Do you have anything that needs my attention?"

In response, he began unbuttoning his trousers. Spike's hands slid up to cup Darla's breasts, and he glared at the boy. "Go find Dru," he ordered, drawing close enough to let Darla finish disrobing him. "Without finding a mob this time," he added.

"Enough," Darla said, steel in her voice despite the pleasant tone. "No more siring until we're more settled. Four Aurelians is enough. And I want you both here right now. I want," she tugged Angelus' head down to her bosom, "you to kiss and make up. If you can't kiss each other, you can kiss me."

Angelus nipped one of Spike's fingers that was keeping his mouth from Darla's nipple. In response, the boy thrust it past his lips and into his mouth. Still keyed up from the fight, needing an outlet, the dark-haired vampire sucked on it for a moment, then bit down hard enough to draw blood. The taste went straight to his groin. He stood up and regarded the two fair-haired members of his family, then slid his big hands around both napes. He kissed Darla first, then the boy. They both drew back with bloody lips.

Darla laughed, running her hands over Angelus' chest, rubbing her bottom against the fledge's lean hips. The two men butted against her, pushing at each other with Darla as a barrier. "To the bed," and this was an order both men obeyed.

She was experienced, capable, and inventive, and she got them both inside her, an orgasm shuddering through her almost immediately. Darla was nearly sideways between them, and Spike and Angelus glared at each other across her arm, their cocks sliding against each other as they thrust into the senior vampire's accommodating body. She came again, begging them for harder. Both men complied, and they weren't glaring now.

"Fuck, boy," Angelus said roughly, cradling Spike's head again. This time his kiss was deep and slow and free of fangs.

Spike was too caught up in the erotic ménage a trios to remember his decision to never provide the bastard any pleasure. He slid his hand between their thrusting bodies, bringing Darla off again, bringing his fingers away wet. He thought he could reach over Angelus just far enough… and he could, penetrating the big vampire with one, two of his digits. Angelus came, and the feel of his full, jerking member combined with Darla's slick tightness was enough to bring him, too. Spike pulled away from the kiss, roaring his pleasure.

"See?" Darla purred. "Plenty of Aurelian to suit me."

When Drusilla returned an hour later, the three of them were still in bed. She tried pouting, but gave it up after a handful of seconds. It was obvious they weren't going to notice her just standing there. With a sigh, she struggled out of her dress, throwing it on the heap of clothes the men had shed, and joined her family on the squeaking bed.

⸹

Rotterdam

March 1881

Spike glared up at Angelus, too hurt to resist as the other man gently touched his bloody cheek, his broken nose.

"Why do you do it, boy?" the big vampire murmured. "You knew I had marked that human for my own. Santje was… intriguing." Even though Spike either was mulishly refusing to speak or couldn't with his broken jaw and injured windpipe, Angelus knew what the answer would be. "And it wasn't because you were hungry. There's plenty of other food in a city this size." He limped away from the bedside, not without his share of injuries from their fight, and went to his trunk.

Spike tensed, readying himself despite his condition to fight again if the bastard brought out ropes. Instead, Angelus found the half-empty bottle of scotch he'd been looking for. He closed the lid and sat down on it instead of returning, and the younger vampire relaxed marginally.

"I just want to know why. You aren't stupid, boy, despite what Darla thinks." He uncorked the bottle, took a deep swig, then gestured at the other man. "If it weren't for whatever it is you do for her in bed and the fact that you're halfway competent with Drusilla, she'd stake you herself. You draw too much attention to us – this is the fifth city we've been in since Dru brought you home." Angelus took another drink of scotch and gave him a shrewd look. "First few weeks, you weren't like this."

Wonder whose fault that is, Spike thought bitterly, glaring at Angelus. Then he closed his eyes and tried not to think about how much he hurt. The two of them fought all the time – natural squabbles for dominance, was how Darla put it – but this had been a beating.

Angelus had been stalking a sixteen-year-old girl for a couple of weeks, having come across Santje leaving a church one evening, still singing the song she had been practicing for Easter services. He'd followed her home and pretty much everywhere since. Darla had feigned exasperation, but she wouldn't mind being in on the kill if Angelus did the heavy lifting during the stalking phase. Drusilla had become more withdrawn as the days passed and Daddy continued to ignore her for his new obsession. Spike had been with Angelus several nights, standing in a snowbank with his boots slowly soaking through as they watched for a glimpse of Santje though the windows of her home. Then, once the last lamp was extinguished, they carefully probed the narrow little building she lived in for entry and egress. Santje was a pretty thing, slender and tall, reminding him rather of a more pious Millicent. She reminded Angelus of someone else, and Spike overheard him tell Darla one night that he intended to do it right this time. That comment made them both look at Drusilla, playing with her dolls.

It was that more than anything that drove Spike to leap out at her when he found himself one block closer to her than Angelus as she separated from the other girls after choir practice. It was fast and therefore merciful, he reasoned. Spike had his fangs in her before she had a chance to so much as squeak, had her cold and drained before Angelus came around the corner. "Tasty," he said approvingly, holding her body upright more as shield than for any other reason.

Even prepared and well-fed, even already in game face, Spike had gone down in record time before Angelus' fury. He'd always been able to put up some semblance of a fight, even matching his grandsire punch for punch until the other man's greater experience came into play. But there was no chance this night. Angelus ruthlessly incapacitated him, then continued to punish him, blow after methodical blow. After some time, the big vampire had hoisted his limp body like a sack of potatoes and toted him to the lair, like any good Irishman.

At least Drusilla and Darla would be back by dawn. The coming day promised to be another bright one where the sun glared off the remaining snow and left no hiding place for demons. Of course, he might not survive that long. Spike didn't have to open his eyes to sense Angelus draw closer. He did open them when he smelled Aurelian blood.

"Drink, boy," Angelus said with a sigh, offering his bitten wrist. "Let's get you healed up."

Warily, Spike lifted his head, hardly able to believe that had been the extent of it. He could have drank more, but the big vampire wasn't being generous. Instead, he held out the bottle as he laved his wrist. Spike propped up on an elbow and took a shallow drink of scotch, then handed the bottle back.

Angelus took another drink, then set the scotch on the bedside table. He sank down onto the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands for a moment. When he looked at Spike, his eyes were tired and red-rimmed. "Undress yourself, when you're able. I don't want to bother with you anymore tonight, and you know Darla doesn't like dirty boots on her sheets."

Spike watched as the senior vampire disrobed, then scooted out of his way so he could lay down. The blood was already helping, but his torso still ached as he sat up to pry off his boots. A few painful minutes later, he was naked, too. He collapsed back onto the bed and simply dragged a corner of the blanket over his body, too exhausted to roll over again. He was asleep in minutes.

Spike never knew what woke him up or why he didn't wake earlier, but both arms were already bound above his head. He gave Angelus a bit of trouble, but soon enough the big vampire had his ankles secured to the bedstead, too. Wide awake now, he strained against the ropes, glaring up at the other man. He didn't look tired now, and Spike realized he'd been deceived by the best.

Angelus watched him, a small smile on his face. The boy had such an expressive face. He could see every thought: denial that this could be happening again, dawning horror, resignation, even some despair before the mask fell into place. He didn't like the mask. All bravado and careless attitude, it hid the exciting real emotions beneath. The mask was something new, like wanting to be called Spike, and he wondered where it came from. He believed he could find out if he tried hard enough.

Spike broke the silence. "Thought you didn't want to bother with me anymore tonight."

The mocking voice made Angelus' smile deepen. "Thanks to you, I have nothing better to do." He laughed. "I can't believe you fell asleep."

"Tired, aren't I? Takes it out of you, healing up wounds."

"You'll be exhausted before morning, then."

"Usually describes you."

Angelus nodded, as if appreciating the gibe. "I've been meaning to ask. How is it that a fledge, not even a year old, can bring Darla off so fast? I've never seen anyone do that, not in a hundred and thirty years."

Just in time, Spike bit down on the words – "she finally found a real man" – that sprang from some suicidal part of him. Shut up, shut up, he warned himself. He settled for a scathing glare and a simple, "Sod off."

"And why are you talking like gutter trash? You're a gentleman, William." His teeth were very white in the candlelight. "I can spot one at a hundred paces." A reborn master of psychology, he leaned on the bed, making the mattress give beneath his weight, making the boy's defenseless body roll toward him. "I don't mind 'Spike' – better name than William – but I don't know why you put on a fake accent. I don't know why you provoke crowds of humans when I taught you how to hunt myself." He put his finger on the tip of Spike's barely healed nose. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

Growing very still, Spike kept his expression exactly the same. Inside, he panicked. How did the bastard do it? Angelus had homed in on the exact thing that let him survive as an Aurelian. _Give him nothing_ , William whispered. He made a corner of his mouth lift in a sneer.

Doesn't matter, the demon replied, resigned. He'll take everything.

The show of bravado seemed to help Angelus determine a course of action. He picked up the bottle from the nightstand and poured most of the remaining scotch over Spike's chest. Instead of reaching for the lit candle, he produced a box of matches from beneath the bed. "Maybe this will loosen your tongue." He made a show of finding a match, of striking the scratchpaper, his dark eyes reflecting the hot light.

When Angelus lit up his skin like a dessert of cherries flambé, Spike managed to keep his cry to a long, low moan that lasted only a few seconds longer than the fire. Really, after having burns from a hot poker in most of his major muscle groups, this wasn't so bad. Relatively. Except where it had pooled in his navel. If he could just hold very still….

"Anything you'd like to say, boy?" Angelus watched the fledge master the pain, wondering at how much more control he had than just a few months before. "No?" He upended the bottle, and the last of the scotch splashed onto Spike's groin. Angelus shook the last few drops out with exaggerated disappointment, not bothering to hide his own aroused state as he watched the other man's damp testicles climb towards the inadequate shelter of his body. "Huh. Well, that's all right." He grinned wolfishly at his captive. "There's another bottle in my trunk." Letting Spike think on the coming pain, he turned toward the trunk.

No. Please, no. The words bubbled up from inside, even though he was smart enough to not give them voice. The first time, Angelus had wanted him sexually functional, hadn't hurt his bits overly. Not this time, it seemed. Dread crept throughout him, just ahead of panic.

 _Don't fret, mate. Let's answer his question about Darla, then._ Having reassessed their options, his inner anarchist calmly offered up a plan to divert Angelus.

Spike let go, gave the reins to his hidden strength. The pain receded, the panic dissipated, and he settled back to watch from a safe distance. He didn't have to feign fear, only use it, and hope it would work to his advantage. Angelus was coming back, a generous swig from the fresh bottle going down his throat.

"Whiskey," he informed Spike with an apologetic shrug. "Some say you shouldn't mix your liquors, but I've never had a problem with it." Tilting the bottle from high above, Angelus poured more of the flammable liquid on him.

Spike felt droplets bounce from his midsection down to his knees and spatter on the burned skin of his chest. He couldn't keep from flinching. "No," he agreed in an even voice, "I've never seen you have a problem with liquor."

Angelus lifted his brows, surprised by the cool mockery. "Aye, and you're a quick study. At least I don't start bar brawls when I drink."

"No, you try to sing. That's far worse."

The older vampire couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice. "You're not in a position to give insults, boy."

A little exasperated, Spike shook his head. "If you wanted to know, Angelus, you only had to ask nicely."

"What is it you think I want to know?"

The big vampire was wary, not sure of what game he was playing. Good. "What it is I do for Darla." Spike forced a shade of impatience into his voice. God, he didn't want to do this.

"And what is it, then?"

"Can't exactly tell you. I can… demonstrate, though." He looked pointedly at Angelus' naked midsection.

"Nothing you haven't done before."

"You think not?" He couldn't shrug with his arms above his head, so he lifted his eyebrows in an approximation.

Angelus had a calculating look in his eye. "Demonstrate, then." It was an order, a challenge. He put one knee on the bed, then set the bottle carefully on the nightstand, next to the matches.

Spike couldn't make himself go into this with open eyes. He closed them, hiding his self-loathing, his hatred of this man, and turned his head blindly, trusting that Angelus would find his open mouth. He also hid his own calculation, knowing exactly what he had to do to ramp up the tension. As soon as he had most of the other vampire's hardening penis in his mouth, Spike went to game face.

The moment he heard the soft crunch of slurring bone, Angelus grinned, and the big hand that had been hovering just over Spike's testicles clamped down. "You think I didn't know what you were about, b–" His gloating was cut off by an involuntary gasp. The boy's moan of pain had turned into a vibration along his shaft that felt… Fuck. Like nothing he'd ever experienced as a human or a demon. Then Spike moved his head and wiggled his tongue until it hit the tip of his grandsire's cock.

Angelus let go of Spike's balls and put a steadying hand on the boy's chest, noticing that the incredible sensation faltered without being quite aware of the crackle of burnt skin beneath his palm. "Don't stop."

Spike didn't.

Angelus let him go on for a long time, only hurting the boy's wounds inadvertently, concentrating on his own pleasure instead of his captive's pain. The fifth time he came, the novelty wore off enough for him to notice two things: Spike's eyes were still closed, and he was as limp as a nonagenarian.

He fixed the first problem easily enough. Spike's yellow eyes flew open as Angelus, still hard, withdrew from his mouth with a soft pop as the suction broke. The second problem, though… "Lose the fangs, boy." The fledge obeyed, and his human features were so damn beautiful before the guarded expression settled in. Angelus looked at him for a long moment, then put out both hands to flip him over. He was on top of the boy before the hiss of pain had died away.

Making sure Spike was securely pinned beneath his weight, Angelus propped up on one arm and considered the pale, unblemished skin of his back. "Sure, now that's quite a trick, boy. I can see why Darla's so taken with it. She still needs a good, hard swiving, though." His voice dropped to a lower register. "So do I."

Spike lapsed in and out of consciousness for a while and was glad of it. His burned torso scraped against the rough sheets as Angelus pounded away. When he couldn't stave off awareness any longer, he realized he had grabbed onto one of the iron spindles at the head of the bed with both hands, holding on in an effort to keep his wounds from being rubbed raw. And the spindle was bending beneath the pressure.

It was something to focus on instead of the pain of his burns, something much more pleasant than Angelus's selfish lust, even better than his hatred and futile rage. The ropes might be enchanted against a vampire's strength, but the plain iron bedstead wasn't.

With a couple of pained grunts, Angelus finished and collapsed atop the other man. Dazed from his slaked lust, he tried to put his thoughts in order, to remember the next step. The boy had stolen his prey; that's how all this got started. Such stupidity had to be punished. He spoke practically into Spike's ear. "If you think that evens the scales for taking Santje, you're wrong. Not even close."

"The scales will never be balanced," Spike agreed. He yanked the iron rod free of it's mooring, one end snapping off raggedly, and turned it in his bound hands. Moving his head to the side, he drove it blindly over his shoulder, skimming the side of Angelus' face and stabbing into the big vampire's body.

The slim metal bar pierced his neck and shoulder, chipped the edge of Angelus' collarbone, and slammed into his chest cavity. The cold, jagged end of it punched into his heart. With a cry, he tore away from Spike and leapt clear of the bed, his own hand now on the a few inches of iron that protruded from his left shoulder. He stood where he landed for a moment, too shocked to move. If it had been a wooden spindle, he'd be dust right now.

Before this could sink in, the front door opened. A few seconds later, Darla came into the room, tugging off one of her snug leather gloves. Drusilla trailed after her, the soft little tune she was humming coming to an abrupt stop in mid-note as the two women took in the scene.

"What's going on here?" Darla demanded, sounding weary.

"He killed Santje." Angelus still had his hand on the iron rod sticking out of his neck.

She sucked in a deep breath. "You took his prey?"

Apparently this night could grow more miserable. He made himself turn his head to face them, feeling ridiculous and vulnerable still tied prone on the bed, unable to roll over because of the pain it would cause his burns. "If she was prey," Spike sneered, "the great poof could have taken her a fortnight ago. I was taught never to play with my food." Even with the North London accent, he sounded haughty.

It was the wrong tone to use on Darla. She finished taking her other glove off, then walked to Angelus. Placing one hand on his bare chest, she moved his hand aside and replaced it with her other, drawing the metal rod from his body with a smooth, clean motion. Then she turned to Spike, tapping the bar against her palm. "Enough. Tonight, you're going to learn your place in this family, fledge." In no hurry, she moved to the other side, where the steps leading to the tall bed were at, and mounted them. "Drusilla, tend your sire." Lifting her arm until she was satisfied with the angle, she began to cane Spike with the spindle. Darla didn't stop until the thin rod snapped in two.

Spike lay immobile, his face pressed into the mattress, into the shreds of the sheet that he'd bitten through as he tried not to cry out. Every rib was broken, and his shoulders and hipbones were simply shattered. From very far away, he could hear now Darla bustling around the bedroom, ordering Drusilla to help her out of her dress. He didn't hear a peep from either of the other two Aurelians, but he could sense their presence. Angelus was ensconced in the chair he usually sat in to watch whomever was in bed, and Drusilla had shrank into the furthest corner, hoping to avoid notice.

After a few minutes – though it could have been longer; he wasn't sure – he felt the mattress shift beneath Darla's slight weight. She straddled one of his thighs. He realized that she was naked just before she laid two cold, heavy objects on his relatively undamaged buttocks.

"Just so you can't say that you didn't know the rules, you're never to touch these knives." Her fingers trailed over the handles as she admired them in the dim, guttering light from the stub of the candle. For a moment, she held one near Spike's face so he could mark it. "They belong to me exclusively. I took them from a sea captain not long after the Master chose me. He'd used them on me, once." There was something remote in her voice as she said this, and she was quiet for almost a minute. When she spoke again, it was in her usual brisk tone. "The next time you think you might do something to make me take out my knives, William… Well, I don't think there will be a next time, do you?"

Spike's empty stomach rolled as he remembered the latticework of thin, healed cuts on Angelus after the big vampire had nearly destroyed him. It didn't matter. Even if he hadn't still been bound by the enchanted ropes, he was too damaged to fight. And he had chosen to stay. Unless he slipped into unconsciousness again, he was going to be present for every minute of this.

Darla didn't expect an answer, just sank half the sharp blade into his lower back and sliced up with an easy, practiced motion and waited for his whimper of pain to die away before speaking. "You're the youngest, William, the weakest. The most ignorant, so it's my job to teach you. And you're going to have to learn," she set the blade at another point on his back and opened a gash nearly two feet long, "how to behave. And the first thing is, you don't steal another Aurelian's prey." She instructed him at length, never requiring a reply. His agonized cries were answer enough. The last of the candle burned away, but the darkness didn't last long. Daylight crept around the edges of the carefully pulled curtains.

Darla sighed, looking at the tenacious light. She never liked to be awake at dawn. Wiping the knives carefully on a corner of the sheet, she looked down at the roughly human-shaped mass of raw meat on the bed. "Here endeth the lesson." Folding the fabric once, she dabbed at the gore on her naked body. "Dru? Take your pet off the bed and change the linens, would you?"

Spike groaned as the mattress gave beneath Darla's movements as she left the bed, but was nothing compared to the pain when Drusilla gathered the edges of the ruined sheets and hoisted him in a bundle to the floor at the edge of the room. He grayed out for a while, and when he came back to his senses, Darla and Angelus were together on the freshly made bed, and Drusilla was huddled beside him. He was safe for the moment.

"Why did you steal Daddy's prey?"

Spike woke, gasping like a fish as he tried to make his collapsed lungs work. Darla's knives had struck deep. "Dru?" he wheezed. She was cradling his head against her leg. That's right, the bastard hadn't hurt her this time. That was something, anyway.

"Shh!" Drusilla watched the senior vampires from the corner of her eye for a moment, and when she was sure they were still asleep, she repeated her question. "Why did you steal Daddy's prey?"

"Killed her so… he wouldn't do to her… what he did to you," he managed.

Drusilla's head drew back like a serpent's. "You wouldn't save me, but you would spare her…? You love her more than me!" she spat, scooting away from him. "I knew you would – I saw it!"

Spike's head thumped against the floor. He couldn't think of any response to such an insane statement. Still on his belly, he opened his eyes just enough to see her bare ankles beneath the hem of her night rail as she strode out of the bedroom. Good job, he thought wearily. Not even Dru gives a toss about you anymore. He didn't have much reaction to this, though intellectually he knew he should be devastated. Right now, he was too tired.

"Spike?"

Dru again. It couldn't have been long; he didn't feel significantly better or worse. "Yeah?"

"I remember now. You couldn't have saved me. You weren't real then."

"Would have saved…" He couldn't find the energy to finish.

"But you saved me from having a sister." Her voice hardened. "Another one to take my Daddy's attention." The ugly jealousy that twisted her mouth faded after a moment. "You do keep me safe, my love, my brave Spike. But you mustn't take Daddy's prey again. We must love and obey him."

If he could cry any more, he would have. How could she say she loved Spike, when she still loved her 'Daddy' after he did things like this?

"Here." Dru offered her arm to him. It took her a few seconds to realize that he wasn't able to go to game face. She generously bit into her wrist and held it to his mouth.

Spike took the blood, didn't let himself think about the long and painful healing process ahead of him. He laid with his face on the wood floor afterwards, hoping enough of his bones would heal so he could curl into a ball before sleep took him. The fetal position protected more sensitive areas.

Are we going to stay? He didn't know that he wanted to, particularly

 _Yeah, reckon we are._ The inner voice gave the answer in a monotone.

Thanks, then.

A long pause before William replied with a simple _Welcome_. He moved aside, letting the demon take on the burden of the aching, battered body. Before he withdrew completely, he added, _Be sure to thank her_.

"Dru?"

"Mmm?" She sounded dreamy, distant, and he was glad she could escape this place.

"Thank you."

"My Spike, my own." Drusilla touched his brow, avoided his notched ear, and trailed her fingers through his hair. "Sleep now. It will be better tonight. You'll see."

⸹

Brussels

February 1883

"Cut out his tongue." Darla's eyes glittered.

Angelus looked down at his knife, clotted with blood, then back at Darla. "His tongue?" he repeated on a bark of laughter. "I think not."

Darla leisurely wiped one of her own finer knives on the sheet. The other was still embedded in Drusilla's thigh. When the blade was clean, she held it up to consider, high enough so that she could look past it at her consort. "Are you disobeying me?"

"Not at all," he replied with plain mockery.

"You asked what next, and I say his tongue." She gestured at Spike with the knife, her eyes never leaving Angelus.

"So that the next time you feel the need of it, you'll be able to blame me?" He scoffed. "Cut it out yourself. Lord knows I wouldn't mind the loss of the prattling thing."

"No," Darla said, danger in her tone, patient though it was on the surface. "You're not playing by the rules. It's your turn to use the knife, and I picked." She cut the distance between them in half. "Your turn, Angelus."

"And if it doesn't grow back?" He glowered down at her. "I don't want the sharp edge of your tongue – or your knife – turned on me over a game."

A game. Spike, his eyes closed, moved his bare foot just an inch, enough to touch Drusilla's calf. They were trussed up too tightly to do much more than double up against the pain, but he could manage this. It was all the comfort he could offer. This game had been going on for quite some time. He would give her an encouraging smile, only he couldn't wipe the blood from his mouth. Sometimes the sight of blood against human teeth would set her off, so he settled for the subtle touch. His eyes were closed, mostly so he didn't have to see his damaged princess, but also because he didn't want anyone to see the hatred in them.

The senior vampires continued bickering over the rules, and he was grateful for the delay of game. A little time to heal was more than welcome. They had fed well, all of them; Brussels was a good city so far. Too good, perhaps, as Darla and Angelus had grown bored. Spike let out the rest of the air in his lungs.

"Perhaps it's just that you actually like hearing all the cooing about love." Darla's voice was scathing.

"Or perhaps it's that I just know you too well to fall for such an obvious trap."

The argument continued, but Spike lost track, concentrating on the tiny contact he had with Drusilla. Already exhausted, the healing of contusions and incisions took all of his remaining strength, and Spike fell asleep. He never knew why Angelus and Darla abandoned the game, just that he still had his tongue when he woke later that afternoon.

⸹

Paris

September 1886

The house was quiet and dark as Spike slipped inside, shutting the door behind him. He could sense his family in the bedroom above him, so he headed up the stairs. The higher he got, the more disagreeable the smell. Meant no more food in the pantry, he supposed.

Sure enough, there was an ungainly heap of human bodies in one corner. Spike set down the pillowcase he carried and struggled out of his coat with a sigh. Work to do before sunrise, getting rid of them. The other members of his family were asleep in the big bed. The sheets were fresh, at least. He knew because the soiled ones were in a ball beside the bed. Absently, he picked up the ruined sheets and tossed them haphazardly toward the same corner as the bodies.

"Spike?"

"Yeah. How are you?" The human had done a job on the other three Aurelians, no doubt. He watched his grandsire sit up in bed. The big vampire looked well, but his voice was still raspy, and the healed cut along his throat was an angry red.

"Better. Did you do it?"

Next to Angelus, Darla sat up, too, a stiffness in her movements that was unusual. "Did you kill the bitch?"

Without answering, Spike turned and retrieved the pillowcase from the floor. He undid the knot and opened his makeshift bag. Turning back to his audience on the bed, he withdrew a bloodstained sword.

Dru was also awake now, her dark eyes whole and glittering. "She hurt me, Spike."

"I know she did, Princess," he agreed soothingly, feeling the slightest tingle of guilt. "She won't hurt you again," he added, his voice more sure.

Darla held out her hand for the sword. She considered it, breathing in the scent of the blood that still clung to the metal. "Good."

"And this," Spike said, bringing forth another object from the pillowcase. He tossed it to Angelus.

The dark-haired man turned it over in his hand. It was an odd little doll made of corn husks, dressed in overalls and a checked shirt and even a tiny straw hat. The face had been painted to look like a little boy, but it was hard to see now with the splash of blood that covered its features. A cold smile touched Angelus' mouth. "Did she see you do it?"

"Made her do it, actually." Spike said this casually, then lobbed the empty pillowcase into the corner. It landed on the body of one of the dead prostitutes, then folded down, covering her face. "Told her I just needed blood. Obviously, I lied."

Angelus laughed. "Ye've done well, boy."

Spike smiled, but evaded giving an answer by moving to the other side of the bed, toward Drusilla. It was the second time Angelus had told him that, both compliments coming during this odd week. A single human, nearly destroying three Aurelians. His smile deepened at the thought, and he covered it by cupping Drusilla's face. "You look a treat, love. Completely healed."

"I couldn't see where you were, my Spike."

She didn't know he'd spared their attacker and her son. Again, he repurposed his emotions, this time using the relief he felt as a more obvious emotion. "I'm so glad you can use your lovely eyes to see me now, my dove."

"Spare me the tender-hearted lovers' reunion," Darla said sourly. She held the sword above her head and aimed it like a spear, heaving it into the growing pile of rubbish in the corner of the bedroom. "We'll dispose of this along with the gendarme it belongs to." She pulled a pillow behind her and relaxed against it with a little grimace.

Spike's gaze went to the long, misshapen scar on her midsection. It was paler than the one on Angelus' neck, closer to being healed, at least on the outside. He thought fleetingly of the wounds Darla's own knives made, then pushed the thought away before he grinned again. He put on a business-like façade. "Reckon, what, a couple hours before dawn? And then we're on a train out of town?"

She nodded, and it was easy to see that she was surprised as well as pleased with him. "Marseille, perhaps. I know you didn't have much choice in the food you brought for us."

The blond man settled on the edge of the bed, something inside him easing in the presence of family despite everything. "Had to get the ones I found first, without anyone seeing. But you're right. Their disappearances will be noted."

"Good thing the Slayer's in Russia," Angelus said.

"Let's go to St. Petersburg, then."

"Spike!" Darla's tone was indulgent, though. Her next words were quite serious. "This is Paris. The Watchers' Council will have a post here."

"Even without a Slayer present?" Spike asked, always interested in any talk related to Slayers.

"Always a strong presence in Paris, Rome, and London."

"And lone affiliates everywhere that report to them?"

"You were listening," Darla said with mild surprise.

"To your every dulcet syllable, Duchess."

"About Slayers, anyway." She turned on her side, shifting the pillow higher. "I want to sleep in. We'll get ready to leave after midnight."

This was the cue for them all to settle down to sleep for a couple more hours. Spike got out of his boots and slid into bed next to Drusilla, letting out all his air as he put his forehead against hers. She smiled at him, and his heart gave a little lurch. Making no sound, he mouthed, 'I love you.'

Drusilla's smile deepened. 'I love you, too,' she told him in the same silent manner. She watched him until he fell asleep, glad to have her consort back safely, even if he did have secrets buzzing around him now.

⸹

Stranraer, Scotland

November 1887

Darla wrinkled her nose at the modest furnishings of the house they had taken for their use. "It'll have to do," she sighed.

Angelus whirled on her. "It's Scotland, Darla. What do you expect?" He'd wanted to wait for a ship to Liverpool, but she had insisted they leave Belfast as soon as possible.

She met his glare with one of her own. "More from a vampire of your caliber." From almost the first day they had debarked in Ireland, Angelus had been drinking heavily. He was short-tempered with the family in private and practiced as little tact as Spike in public. The four of them had moved steadily north instead of spending a leisurely month in Dublin, keeping ahead of the ridiculous amount of bodies. Darla studied her consort now, his hair still disheveled even if the scent of alcohol was gone. Even his Irish accent had been more pronounced, and she had thought it prudent to get out of his home country as soon as possible. In a way, she understood. She hated to pass through Virginia.

Drusilla and Spike emerged from another room of the small house, having finished their explorations. Spike had his hands on his sire's waist, and both of the senior vampires clearly heard the tail end of their conversation: "Gonna love you like a satyr, because I love you at all times, my dark, ripe–"

It was as much as he got out. Angelus grabbed Spike by the neck and pinned him to the doorway. Drusilla's giggle turned into a shriek as she ducked away from the two men. "You 'love her at all times,'" he mimicked, a sneer on his face. "What kind of worthless, puling excuse for a demon are you, boy?"

Spike froze, his arms still slightly raised from where he'd been embracing Drusilla. He met Angelus' eyes for a moment, dropped his gaze from the expression of cold rage, and glanced at Darla. She wore an expectant smirk on her face. No help there.

He'd been beaten for this before, for the weakness of loving Drusilla, and the older vampires made sure he had a long recovery period. No more, he decided, and it wasn't as if something inside him snapped. Instead, it was as if someone in him had picked up a stick and deliberately broken it across a knee. No more.

The youngest Aurelian pushed himself up against the wall to his fullest height and met Angelus' eyes again. A sneer twisted his mouth as his hand settled over his grandsire's. "The kind of demon who does what you need. The kind of demon who takes care of his sire," he snarled, forcing Angelus' fingers from his throat. "How am I supposed to do that if I don't love her?" Spike shoved himself away from the wall with his shoulders, scarcely an inch separating him from the bigger vampire. He used his forearms to push Angelus back. "Now, if it's all right with you, I'm gonna do what I do best." He held out his hand for Drusilla and waited.

She could only see the back of her sire's neck, so she looked at Darla for her cue, and the senior vampire looked amused. Hesitantly, she stretched out her fingers and when nothing catastrophic happened, slid them along Spike's palm until he took her hand. Standing up very straight, she let Spike lead her around Angelus and back to a bedroom. Drusilla could never remember what happened next, if she looked back or simply walked into the room, but what happened after the door shut stayed with her forever.

"Thank you," Spike whispered in her ear, one hand already pulling up her dress as his other worked on the buttons of his trousers. "My brave, my warrior queen, my love."

Drusilla climaxed as he entered her, giddy and weak with fear and arousal as the sound of Darla's laughter came to them through the thin walls. Her nails bit into his shoulders for a moment, then she could speak again. "I love you, Spike. Take me to the bed, please."

"Anything you desire."

"You." Drusilla stared at him as though she had never seen her child before, taking in the beauty of his skin in lamplight as he shed his shirt, wondering at the sleek muscles along his back, his thighs. "I scarcely know you," she whispered to the vampire who had stood up to her masters.

Somehow, he knew what she meant. "No, love," he said, smiling as he took her hand and tugged her closer. "You picked me, yeah? You've always known me."

"I have?"

"I'm the one who takes care of you."

⸹

Venice

August 1888

"Gryzt tach blyrx," Darla said, the words of an old, old language sliding off her clever tongue. The sound of them clung to the interior of Spike's brain, oily and leechlike.

"Bryz glych," he recited, waving the black candle in his hand to either side, shoulder to shoulder. "Bryz closh."

The light flickered and dimmed, highlighting the harsh ridges of Darla's face and not much else. They were standing knee-deep in water in the remains of a dungeon of a renaissance-era mansion. A message from the Master had caught up to the family in London with a task for his Darla to perform. Luck had been with them, and thanks to a fast ship, five days later they were in Venice. Seven hours later, they were in the lowest, oldest area of the city, invoking an esoteric demon for long-lost information. Angelus had refused to help with the ritual, some kind of amusement in his dark eyes, and was watching over Drusilla back at the hotel. Spike tried not to think of what that might entail. Darla's voice stopped, which he took as his cue to do more candle-waving and chanting.

A dim, gray-green light appeared midair in front of Darla, resolving into a pulsating glob that drowned the light from their single candle and almost immediately gave Spike a headache. This was the demon, then. Spike wasn't impressed, but he prudently kept his mouth shut.

"I seek knowledge," Darla said, abandoning the language of the ritual. "I offer our essence."

"Snybn," the demon replied, something hungry in its voice. Tendrils of light stretched toward her and toward Spike, only a few inches but enough for its purposes. Both vampires sank to their knees into the brackish water, not in worship, but overcome by weakness.

Spike felt drained, not unlike he'd felt when Drusilla sired him years ago in a London alley. But Darla had given him explicit directions to stay silent except for the chant, so he bit down on the low moan that wanted to escape.

With a last pulse of light, the demon was gone. In the guttering light of his candle, which he'd kept above the water, he saw Darla smile. She struggled to her feet, her face lifted toward the sky. " _Teledans_ ," she cried in elation. "For you, Master." Darla stayed that way for nearly a minute, then sighed. She looked at Spike with a different kind of disappointment than the usual. "Well? Don't just sit there in the water like an idiot. Let's go."

He trudged after her, his feet squishing in his ruined shoes. "Went well, did it?"

"The Master was pleased." She didn't look back as she said it.

"The Mast…" he trailed off. Darla could talk to the Master over distances with nothing more than her mind?

"Yes, the Master," she snapped. "I was able to get the information he needed. He was pleased."

She misses him, Spike realized, misses her sire. Musing on this first indication that Darla had a sentimental side, he let the conversation lapse. They went into the hotel via the servants' entrance so their ruined clothing wouldn't attract attention. Angelus opened the door for them, having felt their approach. His amusement was open now as he took in their bedraggled appearance.

"Finished, are ye?"

"Yes, Angelus," Darla said tiredly, "no thanks to you."

She brushed past him, and Angelus' eyes followed her. He didn't acknowledge Spike other than waiting until he was inside to close the door, but did ask Darla, "The boy pass muster?"

"He did well, actually," she said, some surprise in her voice as she realized this. "He's a good conduit." Darla looked around at her consort. "Better than you, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear."

They were talking about him as if he wasn't there, which Spike took as permission to move into the bedroom and start discarding his clothes. Drusilla was on the bed, and even though she was covered by a sheet, Spike knew she was naked. Jealousy flared inside him, hot and ugly, and he finished peeling out of the damp clothes all that much quicker, ready to reestablish his bond with her. He slid beneath the sheets, curling around her cool body.

"Spike?" she murmured. "You're back."

"Yeah," he agreed, tracing a line of kisses along her slim arm. "I am." She was pliant beneath his touch, so he rose up on his knees beside her. Nothing else rose, though. Frowning, Spike kept one hand beneath the sheet, doing something that made Drusilla giggle sleepily. His other hand touched his own body, to no effect. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was, incredibly, weak. He sank back onto the mattress, confused.

"Having trouble, are ye, boy?" Angelus asked maliciously. Through with helping Darla from her wet garments, he was leaning against the wall, grinning as he watched.

Spike felt his ears want to burn, though of course they couldn't. He was flaccid and exposed before Angelus, never a good thing. "No," he said, defiant.

"Of course you are," Darla said impatiently, sweeping past her consort to lay down next to Spike. She let out a long sigh. "We were spellcasting tonight, sacrificed some of our essence for information. Magic always has consequences." Darla's eyes closed.

"Spike?" Drusilla asked, more awake now. "More, please."

"Oh, Spike's a tired," Angelus' eyes gleamed as he emphasized the next word, "little boy tonight, Dru. Let him go to sleepy. Daddy will take care of you."

"Thank you, Daddy."

Only Darla's steel grip on his arm kept Spike from lunging toward his gleeful grandsire. "Enough. I'm tired, and no one better keep me awake." She lifted herself slightly to peer over Spike's pale body. "That means you, too, Angelus. Keep quiet." She grabbed a corner of the sheet and dragged it across Spike and over herself, turning her back to the rest of the family.

After an initial squeal as Angelus joined them in bed, Drusilla was silent. Trapped between the two vampiresses, Spike fumed. He was sure Angelus had known what the consequences would be. How long until he regained his strength? He was sure, too, that he would be awake all night, but his eyes closed against the sight of Dru's arms sliding around Angelus' broad shoulders, and he was asleep within seconds.

⸹

Milan

March 1889

"They grow on trees," Drusilla said. "I've seen them."

"That's nice, love," Spike murmured in response. He tucked closer against her without opening his eyes, nearly asleep.

"I never saw them growing when I was alive, but I liked the way they tasted." She thought about it for a moment. "Like marmalade kittens."

"Mmm." The bed swayed, rhythmically if not gently, rocking almost like a boat. Angelus and Darla had watched him with Dru for what seemed like hours, and now Darla was finally letting Angelus have his turn. If he opened his eyes, he would see the other man's broad rear swiveling with effort, so it was just as well he was sleepy. It was still enough to make him move his head from where it rested on Dru's arm, changing the potential view to toes. The older couple had fallen onto the bed so their feet were at the headboard.

"You can just pluck them from the tree."

"Kittens?" His brow furrowed for a moment, trying to follow his lady's monologue, but smoothed out within a couple of seconds. Spike was almost asleep.

"I've had them warm from the sun, fuzzy and juicy." There was a mesmerized quality to Drusilla's voice, and unlike her child, she was staring fixedly at the coupling going on beside them. "And if the wind blows, they sway on the branch." She lifted her hand and moved it back and forth, as if in a breeze.

"Mmm." This was all he could manage now. The conversation wasn't making sense, and Spike wasn't sure if it was because he was already drifting in sleep or because it was Drusilla being her usual self. Later, he never knew if he was actually aware of Drusilla's movement or if his imagination had filled in what happened.

"The fruit is heavy and ready to pluck, to fall…" Drusilla tilted her head and stared with wide, distant eyes at the sway of Angelus' testicles, not yet tight against his body. "Get past the fuzz to taste the juice. It slips over my tongue, drips down my chin." She didn't go to game face, just put her face close enough to bite down with even teeth on her Daddy's scrotum.

Angelus' roar of agony brought Spike wide awake, sitting up in bed and looking wildly around. His abrupt movement knocked Drusilla over, saving her from a powerful swipe of Angelus' hand. He had jerked forward, deep into Darla and away from the pain. It took the matriarch a moment to recover from her orgasm and realize her mate had rolled to the side, clutching between his legs.

"What happened?" the senior vampire demanded, echoing Spike's thought.

"She bit me!" Angelus ground out, curling into a ball.

"Peaches," Drusilla whispered, firmly in the same reality as everyone else at this moment. "I dreamt they were peaches." She started to wail.

"Well, they're not fuckin' peaches!"

Darla looked at Angelus, then at Drusilla, who had a tiny bit of blood on her chin. Then her eyes met Spike's, and it struck both of them as funny. Their shock gave way to peals of laughter, full and unexpected.

Angelus groaned. "It's not funny."

It was, though. Spike tried to put an arm around Dru to reassure her, but he could barely do anything other than clutch his stomach. He fell back onto the bed, still chuckling. Drusilla looked down at him and tried a hesitant smile.

"If it isn't too much trouble, Darla," Angelus snapped, still doubled over, "could you stop laughing and heal this up?"

Wiping at the tears of laughter, she hauled her leg from beneath him and put her arm around his middle in a rare hug. "Of course I will," she said soothingly. "I'll heal you right up… Peaches."

This set her off with renewed giggles and removed any possibility of recovery for Spike. Drusilla, wide-eyed and uncertain, made a sincere offer. "I'll make it better, Daddy."

"No!" Angelus scooted a few more inches away from her.

"Yeah," Spike managed, "she might still be hungry for peaches." This made Darla snort, but she at least had recovered enough to call up her demon features. It took three attempts to close the little wound because she kept lapsing into laughter.

Angelus sat up gingerly, still achy and sore. He gave them all a sour look. "I said, it isn't funny."

"Don't hurt her, Angelus," Darla ordered, though he'd made no more toward Drusilla. She reached over and patted the dark-haired woman on the wrist. "Are your teeth okay? You didn't hurt them on the pit?"

Spike lost control again, and Angelus turned his glare on the boy. "You're supposed to keep her out of trouble."

"I was asleep, mate." He wiped his eyes. "Just be glad she didn't think they were tennis balls." He pantomimed a serve.

"What do tennis balls look like?" Drusilla asked in all innocence, sending Darla and Spike into peals of laughter. It didn't take much of a trigger at this point.

"You're all insane," Angelus mumbled, moving carefully to the edge of the bed. He stepped onto the floor and reached for his clothes.

"Darling," Darla cajoled, "come back to bed. It's midday."

"I'll be safer out there," Angelus retorted, taking his clothes and leaving the bedroom.

After the door slammed, the three remaining vampires looked at each other in silence. Then Darla whispered, "Peaches," making Spike, helpless with laughter, slide off his side of the bed with a thump. He lay there wheezing amid the dustbunnies, happier than he had been in years.

⸹

London

September 1891

"Good to be back in London?" Angelus asked idly. They were walking along the Thames in Limehouse, looking for unwary sailors.

Spike shrugged. "Yeah, I s'pose. Hadn't given it much thought."

They went silent after that, both getting a whiff of a lone human not too far ahead. The process of taking the man down, draining his body, and dumping it in the Thames took less than three minutes. As they watched the last of the ripples float away beneath the light of a thin moon, Angelus stretched. "That's better."

The blond man grunted in response. He felt out of sorts, and he wondered if it was because they were back in a place he'd known as a human. Spike found his eyes straying to the warehouses, looking for familiar buildings.

"You ever been in one?"

"One what?"

"An opium den." Angelus nodded toward a dimly lit doorway down an alley.

"No."

"Well, I have been remiss in your education. You're in for a treat."

"Is it like liquor?"

"Better. Quicker, stronger, even for us." The big vampire led the way down the alley. The English tough lounging against the doorway let them pass without challenge, his sleepy eyes taking in the quality of their clothes and shoes. The meager light in the front room revealed no furnishings, and a strong medicinal aroma hung in the air. Angelus sneered. "Should have done this in Paris, or Toulon. This place is a dump." He breathed in deeply, then added in a grudging tone, "The opium smells all right, though."

A short Asian man came through the curtained doorway and bowed his way to them. "Help ye gents?" he asked.

The British accent jarred Spike. He had rarely seen a Chinaman this close, and he was disappointed at the prosaic words. The man's eyes were odd and fascinating, though, and he studied the genial face while Angelus made the arrangements.

"Do you have money on you, boy?"

"What? Oh, uh, yeah." He pulled a wad of notes from the inner pocket of his coat. Angelus snatched them away and finished the transaction, then handed the remainder back to him. "What next?"

"We follow him. I paid for one pipe each. It won't take us long."

The two vampires followed the proprietor into the house and up a set of stairs. He beckoned them down a hallway with more curtained doors. Through some of them, Spike got a glimpse of bedsteads laced with rope to hold up the thin mattresses, and humans laid out in a stupor upon them.

"It'll do," Angelus sighed, and he hurried to catch up. The Chinese man waved them into a small room with two cots, one wide and one narrow. The smaller one had a silent human on it, his eyes open but vacant.

"Two pipes in just a minute, gov'nah."

Spike watched Angelus make himself comfortable and followed his lead, taking off his coat and loosening his tie. They spread the coats over the mattress, and the big vampire lowered himself gingerly onto the surface. Satisfied that the rough wood frame would take their weight, he patted the spot beside him. Spike bounced a little in anticipation. He knew better than to ask what to expect, just kept his peace and assumed he would get instruction when it was time. The man on the other cot never moved, his respiration slow and shallow. Angelus regarded him with muddy, opaque eyes.

The proprietor came back in with a tray that held a lamp and two pipes. Both were made with bamboo stems and had blue and white bowls. The pattern was so reminiscent of staid blue willow that Spike had to smile. Angelus gave one of the pipes to him and gave a terse explanation of how he should breathe the vapors as the Chinese man lit the specialized lamp.

As they waited for the opium to heat, Angelus met his gaze and gave him a rare smile. "You'll like it, boy."

"'Course he will. Best opium in London, there's a fact." Their host grinned at him and indicated he should lay back. Still holding the pipe, Spike reclined on the cot and drew in several lungfuls.

He was only distantly aware of Angelus smoking his own pipe. The older vampire was right: opium was quick. The light took on an odd, lemony color. Spike felt fine, sure he could get up and leave if he had to, but there didn't seem to be any pressing reason to move. He closed his eyes and saw the ocean. He opened them again and saw Angelus, leaning toward him. Smiling back at the dark-haired man, he let his eyes drift shut and went back to the water.

Spike was on the ocean. At first, he thought he was sailing with his father and Angus in their little sailboat, but he turned around and found he was on the prow of a much larger ship, with many sails snapping crisply in the breeze. He looked back out to sea, watching the swells close in and disappear behind him. A moment later, he was the ship, slicing through the water, cold below and warm from the sun above. For weeks he traveled the endless ocean, sailing past green islands, racing dolphins and sailfish, self-contained and free. A seagull landed on his rail for a while, and the ability to be a haven to the bird brought tears of joy to his eyes.

And then this reality began to fade. Spike became aware of his own body again, arms and legs instead of wood and canvas, and at first he tried to get back to the dream. More opium, he thought, and that want more than anything began to sober him. He'd spent a whole life inside his own head already.

When he looked around, the first thing he saw was the human on the other cot, still lost inside his own dream, the opium high lasting longer for the living. The second was Angelus' dark head, bent over his hand. The great poof was holding his hand, in fact, and examining it as if to memorize every detail of each finger.

"Angelus?" He wanted to pull his hand away; didn't.

"Beautiful," Angelus said dreamily. He lifted his sleepy eyes to Spike and smiled, looking almost… besotted.

The younger vampire couldn't help but shift away. He never wanted to be the focus of Angelus' attention, a risky place to be. "Yeah, I'm sure she is. Whoever you're thinking of, I mean."

Angelus was quiet for a very long moment, and when he finally spoke, it was very nearly the last thing Spike could have imagined. "She doesn't love me." Tears sparkled in his eyes.

"Sure she does, mate." When Angelus just stared at him helplessly, Spike disentangled his hand and eased his grandsire onto his back on the cheap mattress. "Think of," he cast his mind about for things that Angelus enjoyed, "whiskey. Drinking at your favorite pub."

"Sully's."

"Right." He had no idea who Sully was.

"Says that's where she saw me first," Angelus said in a plaintive tone.

"Rest now." Spike's skin was crawling, and he scooted another couple inches away. He didn't want to see this. He didn't think this was the demon talking, and if anything was left of the human at this late point, it was too wretched to witness. Closing his eyes, he lay back against the cot. After a couple of minutes, feigned sleep became real.

"Spike."

Angelus was shaking him. Disoriented, Spike looked up at him. His grandsire was dressed and ready to leave, a remote expression on his face. He stood up and retrieved his coat, then followed Angelus from the building. The night breeze worked wonders on him, and he felt alert again the moment they left the alley.

"So, what do you think, boy?"

"Of opium?" Spike shrugged. "Dunno that I like it. Reckon it's all right."

"Do you remember anything?"

If there was ever the time to get off a good lie, this was it. William's hesitation was imperceptible. "Something dream-like about being on the water." He gestured around. "Comes from being at the wharf, I s'pose." He paused for just the right amount of time. "You?"

"I don't remember," Angelus said shortly, and that was the end of it.

⸹

Paris

October 1895

"Scat."

The little grey cat looked at him calmly, licked one shoulder, then turned its steady regard back to Spike.

He grinned at it, showing too many teeth. "Won't be so composed if Dru sees you, Puss."

Something in the bigger predator's expression made the cat rise from its haunches. After a moment of hesitation, poised lightly on all four paws, it decided to follow its instincts.

Spike watched it scurry away, losing the slight sound of it almost as soon as it disappeared. Felines were very quiet, like the mice they hunted. Of course, in Paris there were far more rats than mice. He leaned against the outer wall of the house the family was staying in during this jaunt to the City of Light and looked out over the Seine. The view was better from the upstairs, but that's where his family was. There were also guests that he was happy to avoid. Besides, the shadows were deep here, beneath the balcony.

The Master had summoned Darla to Paris. He had been in the Americas for a long time, a time of relative peace for their little family. Now he was back on the Continent to retrieve some rare texts, and Spike gathered that all the Aurelians would be heading to Rome before long. This gathering was much less formal that the other two that Spike had been at, and he was glad of it – not that he liked the Master's court informal, either.

Things were… crowded. Drusilla had taken a shine to a minion, a fifteen-year-old American girl that had returned with the Master. Spike wondered if she reminded Dru of one of her lost sisters. He'd thought it rather sweet until he found the two in bed with some of the Duchess' store of holy water in play. James and Elizabeth were also in town, paying their respects to the Master though they weren't Aurelians. He swung between envying them their lifestyle as a couple and avoiding James' advances.

Last night hadn't been bad, though. He'd talked to Luke, the Master's personal bodyguard, a vampire so big that he made Angelus look normal-sized. They were on the landing of the staircase that led to the Master's Paris headquarters, the extensive wine cellar beneath an old abbey. Luke had taken the high ground so he could watch for potential threats to his Master, and Spike had joined him. Luke didn't mind that Spike had a bottle of the good vintage, although he didn't partake. His attention on their leader, it had been a long time before he spoke.

"I enjoyed your reading."

"Oh. Er, thank you." Darla had ordered him to read _Mill on the Floss_ to the court during the day, something he often did to while away the sunlit hours for the family. It was the first time he'd known she enjoyed listening to him read books, especially after she'd beaten him with a copy of _Fanny Hill_. Must have been the subject matter.

"They say you want to fight a Slayer."

Spike looked up at the huge man. "Yeah. Never been near one, though."

"Why do you want to?"

"What, fight a Slayer?" He lifted a shoulder. "Biggest challenge there is, yeah? I've fought mobs of humans – no challenge left there. I've fought as many demons as I can manage – Hellions, Fyarl–"

"I remember hearing about that." Luke gave him a sly look. "And you live with Angelus."

Spike looked up at the big vampire's smiling face. It surprised a bark of laughter from him; he'd always thought Luke rather humorless. "Yeah, living with Angelus counts as combat training, that's for sure."

"I fought a Slayer once."

"Did you now?"

"In Barcelona. 1820… twenty-something. I had to break off, retreat. She would have defeated me."

"You?" His voice was thin. He'd assumed Luke had killed the Slayer. If any vampire could, it would be the one who guarded their leader. Spike suddenly wanted a drink from the bottle of Bordeaux in his hand.

"They are… difficult to fight. They are, after all, made to destroy us." Luke looked away from the Master and down at the younger Aurelian. His tone was kind. "You are right to fight demons, though there can be no real training for a battle with a Slayer."

"Thanks for the advice, mate." Spike was grateful for it, but the generous attention of the senior vampire fed something within him. "I mean it. I don't get much encouragement."

Luke had smiled again. "Perhaps because it is madness to _want_ to fight a Slayer." A fond, tender look touched his face, reminding William sharply of how his mother used to look at his absent-minded father. "If you ever hear how the Master fought a Slayer… he didn't."

Voices on the balcony above him now broke through his reverie. Angelus and Darla had stepped outside, and Spike put Luke's words from his mind and moved back into the shadows, against the wall, and damped down his aura.

"Such a lovely view," Darla sighed.

"Yes," Angelus agreed as he closed the door behind him, cutting off the sounds of James and Elizabeth coupling.

"I thought we would never get free of them," Darla said in a much less sentimental tone, though her voice was low. "Having them here is a double dose of Drusilla and Spike."

"Mmm." He wouldn't mind watching the other two vampires.

"The Master has asked for Spike to join the Three," Darla announced without preamble.

"Spike? The Three?" Angelus was quiet for a while, mulling this over.

Below, Spike bit into his lower lip, almost surprised into making a noise in his dismay. Become the one of the Master's assassination squad? It was flattering, but he had no wish to live at court, to be parted from Drusilla. Forcing himself to not breathe, he waited for the two senior vampires to decide his fate.

"It would be difficult to find someone else who can control Drusilla as well," Angelus finally said.

"If he joins the Three, she stays with the Master, too." Darla's voice was hard and brooked no disagreement.

The thought of his mad sire amid the intrigue of court was even worse than the idea of being separated from her. Drusilla would do the wrong thing, say something too frank, tell someone an unhappy destiny, any of which would lead to her destruction.

"Put him off," Angelus said finally. "Tell him… tell him Spike doesn't have the necessary discipline yet."

"Is that the only reason?" Darla teased.

"That's the only one old bat-face will accept."

⸹

Budapest

April 1897

Darla watched the two men slope into the hotel room, covered with bruises, their clothing torn. She sighed. "Spike, do you have other clothing?"

He glowered at her. "You know I don't."

"Then you should refrain from fighting Angelus."

The big vampire snorted but didn't say anything. He went to the closet, where Drusilla had hung his other suits, chose one, and began to change.

Spike knew better than to settle anywhere in their temporary lair. Darla hadn't been happy with him since – well, since his first mob in 1880. If she was in a bad mood, his lack of decent clothing would be enough for her to tear into him. He sighed. "Tell Dru I'll be back by morning."

He found a nicely-dressed man about his height and build quickly enough, but he didn't rejoin his family. Instead, he skulked through the city, restless. Angelus never really fought him anymore, and he wondered if it was because the other man was afraid he would lose or if it was just because they were family.

This squabble had been because Spike had heard a rumor the Slayer was in Rome and wanted to go there next. He understood why Angelus didn't want to go back to Rome; his own blood still boiled at the memory of what the Immortal had done. The shame of it was greater than the anger. But he'd never been this close to a Slayer before.

Going alone, just leaving his family and heading off on his own, occurred to him for the millionth time. But he couldn't leave Drusilla, and she wouldn't leave Daddy. Spike glared blackly around at the world in general. Unfortunately, it was now too late for humans to be out, so he settled for wrenching a handrail from someone's stoop and twisting the thin iron into a 'U,' then into a knot.

He stopped and heard nothing but his own harsh breathing. For a moment, he heard Darla's voice in his head, telling him to stop the respiration. Defiantly, he kept breathing. Spike stalked away, tossing the mangled iron away with a satisfying clang. He could go for weeks, even months in perfect harmony with his little family, but once that was broken, he would realize all over again how much of his unlife chafed, how dissatisfied he was.

What did he want, exactly? He wanted Dru – no, he wanted Dru to want him. He wanted freedom from Angelus and Darla. He wanted to fight and hunt without drama and elaborate mind games. He wanted to go up against a Slayer, something no one else in his family had ever dared.

But nothing ever changed.

Including me, he thought sourly. Already he was on his was back to the lair, where he would be welcome in the family bed, where he could rest in perfect safety from the outside world.

 _It'll happen, mate._

What do you mean? He hadn't heard from that part of himself for a long time. No need, he supposed.

 _Change. It'll happen._

How do you know?

 _Just got a feeling._

⸹

Belgrade

September 1899

"Daddy's back."

At first Spike thought Drusilla was narrating the goings-on of her little doll family, but as he looked up from where he was lying abed with Darla, he realized she was staring at the door. Just before he, too, sensed Angelus, Darla sat straight up, holding the sheet to her chest and looking for all the world like a woman stunned that she had been caught cheating.

Not surprising, he thought sourly. She had been at him incessantly, once her fruitless quest to cure Angelus led her to enough dead ends. Without as much of his attention, Drusilla had grown quieter, odder. He'd never appreciated the time Angelus spent on their demanding matriarch until he was gone.

Drusilla had skipped out of the bedroom toward the front door before either Spike or Darla could decide what to do. Darla turned her wide eyes on him, and Spike leaned over the edge of the bed and wordlessly handed her a dressing gown. He was still quicker than she was, considering his trousers to be enough, and so was at the doorway in time to watch Dru hurl herself at the large shape outside their threshold.

"Daddy!" She laughed with joyful abandon.

"Hello, Drusilla." The smile on Angelus' face was strained, if genuine.

She grew still and let go of him, backing up a step. "You're not really…" Drusilla trailed off in confusion, backing away another few inches.

Spike felt her disappointment, and it got him moving down the stairs. "'Lo, Angelus." He had no idea of how to greet his grandsire, exactly, so he settled for a quick handshake, then put a comforting arm around Dru. The two men examined each other for a moment, and Spike decided that Angelus looked better than the last time he had seen him. Of course, it wasn't hard to look better than a raving madman. "You're looking well."

The big vampire's nostrils flared delicately. "You're looking tired."

The mild comment surprised a bark of laughter from Spike. He gave Angelus a sheepish grin. "Well, have to say I've missed having you around." It was true, he realized, and this was even more surprising than his grandsire's diffidence.

"Hello, Angelus."

They all turned to look at Darla, poised at the top of the stairs. Spike tugged Drusilla to one side, letting the two older vampires have a clear view of each other. Hers was the only greeting that mattered.

"Darla."

Spike's head swiveled to look at Darla's reaction to having her name spoken with such naked longing and relief. Some expression flitted across her face, then the emotion was efficiently tucked away beneath her usual assessing demeanor.

"Why are you here, Angelus?"

"I've come home."

"Is this your home?"

"Wherever you are," he sent a guilty look toward the younger pair, "wherever my family is, is home. I have no other."

"Well, come in." Darla's voice was calm, but her avid eyes were locked on Angelus and she came down another few steps. "Stay there much longer and you'll be letting in the sunlight."

"Wouldn't want that." He stepped inside and turned to close the door.

Spike watched him pause and realized that Angelus wasn't sure what to do next. Seeing his grandsire uncertain was unsettling enough to jar some dusty notions of etiquette into his head. "Uh, yeah, Darla, it's all right with you, me and Dru will just run out, find something to eat, quick-like."

Drusilla gave him a grateful look, and he led her up the stairs, skirting Darla on their way. They dressed in silence, and when they came down the stairway, it was as though neither senior vampire had moved, even if Angelus had taken another couple of steps inside and Darla had descended to the foyer. Not daring to do more than nod their goodbyes, Drusilla slid her hand into Spike's, and they left the lair. Belgrade was quiet in the pre-dawn darkness, and the pair added to the silence, walking with no sound from Drusilla's thin slippers or Spike's boots.

"Reckon they'd want us to find shelter out here?"

Dru flinched at the sound of his voice, her nerves on edge. "No," she said after a moment, "I think we should go back."

As one, they turned back toward the family's house, but their footsteps slowed. Spike felt dread settle around him, knowing there would be a change now, knowing that they would leave Belgrade. They had lingered too long as it was, but Darla was unwilling to leave the region. She hadn't given up hope. "Think it's true?" he blurted. "About the soul, I mean?"

Drusilla's thin fingers clenched for a moment, remembering how Darla had become enraged and nearly sliced them off when she had dared broach the same question. "Yes."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know, my Spike," she whispered. Their slow steps stopped entirely, and they stood hand-in-hand looking up at the door to their lair. It gave away no secrets, but they both sensed that Angelus and Darla were inside.

"No matter what, I love you, Drusilla."

She turned her face toward him and gave him a watery smile. "And I you. Always, my Spike."

⸹

Aboard the Orient Express

October 1899

[Author's Note: I know I've overestimated the privacy and luxury of a late 19th century sleeper car, so I apologize to readers who are railroad enthusiasts. Istanbul was the proper name of their destination at the time, but Spike displays a foreigner's ignorance here by using Constantinople.]

Angelus unlocked the door to their cabin. Darla and Drusilla were in the dining coach, which now had more of the feel of a bar, laughing at the jokes of all the men who were vying to buy them drinks. Even if someone had been buying him drinks, it was time to stop. He hadn't fed for a few days, and the human smell of prey was overwhelming. He needed to be away from people, or at least sober around them. As he opened the door, he realized he wasn't going to get the privacy he'd been looking for.

"Thought you'd be with that redhead," he said shortly to Spike.

The younger vampire had just put on a fresh shirt and was currently working the studs from the one that had drops of blood on it. "I was. She's probably tossing off in her berth right now." Spike frowned and looked up at the taller man. "Is that what they call it, for women, I mean?"

A small smile tugged one side of Angelus' mouth. "Polishing the pearl. Only phrase I can think of."

Spike considered this. "That just sounds… pretty, you know?"

Angelus had closed and locked the door behind him and was standing close to the boy. Not that he had a real choice; the narrow entryway was flanked by a water closet, a small sink, and a writing cubby on one side and the upper and lower bunks on the other. He looked down at Spike in the light of the single electric bulb. "Pretty," he agreed, though he was thinking of the blond man as he said the word. Being taller than Spike was a blessing and a curse; the boy had no bad angles from above.

And of course he would key on the possessive lust that roiled through his grandsire. Spike looked up, raising an eyebrow. "And just what are you thinking of polishing?"

The insolence goaded him into action as much as the humor in the dark blue eyes. Angelus had never been able to capture the frame of dark eyelashes at this angle with his pencils or charcoals, only when the blue eyes were lowered. He loved the way Spike looked in white, probably because it was also hard to capture the contrast with alabaster skin. He couldn't feed, but he could do this.

Spike returned the kiss, surprised and wary. This was as much initiative Angelus had shown since rejoining them. Darla wanted a change of scenery, so they were on their way to Constantinople and from there into Asia. Angelus had been passive about that and much else. Right now, he took the stained shirt from Spike and tossed it onto the desk, so nothing was between them.

Angelus knelt down and tugged at Spike's trousers, until they caught. He gave up and fumbled with the button. Spike frowned down at him, then checked that the shades were securely down. Humans criminalized this side of sexuality, and he was pretty sure that got worse as you went east. Darla would hurt them both badly if they were thrown off the train. Then Angelus freed his burgeoning erection from the dark material and set his mouth on him. Not thinking anymore, he took a breath and sank his fingers into the dark, unruly hair.

Angelus was careful as Spike kicked his trousers away, then stopped and looked up at the boy. "Leave the shirt on," he ordered, then took the boy in his mouth again. Was it wrong to want this body, the way he'd been taught as a human? The soul was silent on that account, only showing him the many, many times he'd wronged William. Not that this would make up for any of that, a single act of the flesh. But he was good at it, and the boy was his.

That roused his soul. Spike was not his; the possessiveness his demon felt was wrong. Still, he kept bobbing his head, encouraged by an involuntary sound Spike made, by the caress of the boy's fingers through his hair. With his soul, he thought often of the first weeks after Drusilla brought him home, of the generosity that, along with his eagerness to learn, make him such a good lover. He could give that back to William, maybe.

The speeding train lurched a bit more than usual to one side, throwing Spike slightly off balance. He moved to compensate, and Angelus gagged. He pulled away from the boy, grinning at the mechanical reflex.

"Sorry," Spike whispered. Even with the light still on and the sounds of humans around them, there had been a bubble of seclusion around them for a moment.

Angelus shrugged. "Happens every time," he said dryly. He looked up at the other man, at his bad angles. From here, the chin was too sharp and the line of his jaw not sharp enough, but just now the mask wasn't quite in place. He saw uncertainty and something else. Maybe he only wanted to see it, but Angelus saw desire there. And right now, he felt so wretched and unwanted.

"Turn around." Like everything he said to the fledge, it came out as an order. The expressive face slid behind the disguise, and he did what he was told.

Angelus leaned his forehead against the muscles of Spike's lower back. "Move your legs apart." Spike half twisted around, but he shoved against him, just a little. Angelus lifted the tail of the shirt and let it fall over his head, light filtering through the fine cloth. He ran his tongue down the cleft of Spike's ass, then lower, probing. His hand drifted up Spike's muscular thigh, to the soft tangle of dark curls, and grasped the boy's erection.

This, he was not good at. Angelus had done both these things, to Spike, to other men, but never at once or with the goal of giving pleasure. Even so, another involuntary cry slid from Spike's throat. Angelus stayed on his knees, penitent, working his tongue and his hand over rigid flesh, until the boy bucked against him.

Spike muffled his moan against the thin mattress of the upper berth, his muscles already tensing, ready to lash out, to run. What was Angelus playing at? Wet fingers replaced wet tongue inside him, and the big hand grasped him again, sliding solid and tight along his length. Fuck, that felt good, and the danger of being vulnerable before the big vampire made it that much more intense.

Another shudder wracked the boy's body, and Angelus closed his eyes. "Lay down," he whispered. When Spike started to comply, he redirected him. "The other way." He wanted to lie on his left side, so his right hand was free. "On your side." Angelus joined him on the narrow lower berth, pulling Spike's shoulders against his chest. As much as he'd hurt this man, it didn't keep his own member from making a prideful cockstand. With a sigh, he nudged his knee against Spike's leg, then pushed partway into his body.

Penetration was… easy. He usually tore his own foreskin, a bright pain that would made him grin. He moved forward a bit more, then took Spike's hard cock in his hand again. This, he had never done, not for Spike or James or anyone. Angelus set his blunt, human teeth against Spike's shoulder, willing himself to not cry.

Spike's eyes were wide. He clutched Angelus's wrist, trying to decipher this… whatever this was. The bits of pleasure he always gleaned from Angelus' touch had grown to overshadow… No, that wasn't right. There was no pain to overshadow; there was nothing but pleasure. What the hell? "Angelus?" he asked.

"You like this, boy?"

No contempt or victory in the question. "Uh, yeah. You could maybe… move more."

Angelus did. He gave the boy another orgasm. Something in him eased, mostly because he didn't have to think. Spike gave another cry, turning his head to muffle the sound against the flat pillow. The big vampire pulled away, then stood up in the narrow aisle. He hadn't come, just given. That made it… okay.

Misunderstanding, Spike came off the bed with a smile. He kissed Angelus hard, then murmured, "Stay right there." He moved, blocking the door. After rummaging in the small closet a moment, he was back with a flat, glass jar with a lid that screwed on, flipping down the switch for the light as he came. "Petroleum jelly," he explained, "used for burns. But it works for these as well." Then his slick fingers were on Angelus' still hard cock. "Here." Spike's thumb smeared a dollop onto Angelus' own fingers, his meaning plain.

Off balance from the energy of the fledge, his fingers went to the erection already pressing against his abdomen. Enough light filtered around the edges of the drawn shade that he could see the white of Spike's teeth as he grinned. Angelus came, almost defensively, but the younger vampire didn't let up. He pushed him backward, so that his head and shoulders were in the writing cubby, then used his hips to push between Angelus' legs. Truly off balance now, the big vampire braced one foot on the bedframe.

"Perfect," Spike said. Slick fingers slid along the crease of Angelus' thigh, then into his rectum. The big vampire made an involuntary sound of his own, and Spike chuckled as his cock jerked against his palm.

No, Angelus thought in hazy protest. How could William misunderstand? He just wanted to, for once, give instead of take. He drew in air to speak, but at the same moment, Spike moved free from his grasp, ducking behind the trousers that were around his ankles, coming up with his other leg.

With just as much consideration as he'd shown the younger man, Spike entered his body. Angelus saw the glisten of light on his tongue as the boy laid it against his teeth, then his free hand wrapped around the big vampire's cock once again.

"Boy, you–" Words left him. Even without deliberate movement, the swaying of the speeding train was doing a great deal to pump Spike's hard cock into him. The boy's grip on his erection was very deliberate. His voice a good deal thinner, Angelus ground out, "Hold on." Using the edge of the little desk and Spike's grip on his thigh, he raised his bracing leg from the lower bunk to the upper, giving the other man all the access he could want.

Spike's hips moved slowly, though his hand didn't. Angelus found that he was panting. He was so grateful the light was off; he couldn't have survived being this exposed before Spike's demon. Here he was, debased by lust once again, unable to manage even one kind and noble action. Because, God help him, even if he hadn't chosen to take pleasure, he wanted it. He came again, said nothing to stop his beautiful boy from continuing this carnal delight. Selfish, his soul scolded, but his body and his demon ignored everything but the stroke of slick cock and hand.

And then Spike shifted, planting his feet further apart, and changed the angle. Angelus spent utterly, biting into his lip to keep his roar of pleasure from escaping. Spike pulled free of his body, as though he knew the edge of the writing desk was cutting into his back, then stepped free of the tangle of legs and trousers. As Angelus stood, he moved back in and kissed the bitten lip, moving his tongue over the broken skin, healing it.

Angelus firmed his jaw, waiting for the boast or the sarcasm, knowing William would hand him an excuse to lash out, to storm out. He'd make his way back to the smoking car and stay there until sunrise drove him into the cabin.

"That was… lovely."

Confound him, that was not what he was supposed to say, and this was not supposed to happen. Spike shouldn't have noticed he'd done anything different at all, certainly wasn't supposed to respond as though he'd been waiting for a softer touch for all these years. Spike was a demon, nothing more than a demon, a foul thing like he had been. Like he still was.

"The seats?" Spike tilted his head toward the padded benches facing each other at the back of the cabin. The shades were drawn over the windows, but shadows would stipple their pale bodies, whatever they chose to do there.

Angelus ignored the invitation. He bent and gathered his trousers, fastening the fly and his belt. Grateful to still be dressed, he tucked in the shirt and smoothed his jacket. Spike took a step back from him, bewildered by the abrupt change in his grandsire's mood.

He cataloged him dispassionately a moment, standing in nothing but the undone white shirt, beautiful and looking concerned despite being devoid of any true understanding. Then Angelus turned on his heel and left the cabin.

Spike went automatically to turn the lock, then slumped against the door of the water closet. Tears stood in his eyes before he resolutely blinked them away, flicking on the light again so he could find wherever he'd kicked his trousers and wherever else the old man had thrown his shirt. However much he had changed since his madness, Angelus hadn't changed nearly enough.

⸹

Tianjin, China

March 1900

Get up.

Spike stared down at the still body on the floor of the temple and willed the girl to get up. Because he needed….

He needed the Slayer. There was something she knew, something she could tell him, something he desperately needed.

The Slayer blood buzzed inside him. Agitated, he walked a circle around the body, like a big cat in a cage. He could almost hear words in his ears, feminine voices speaking many tongues. Though he knew two dozen languages, he didn't understand any of it.

Crouching down next to the body, he wiped the smear of blood on her neck with his fingers, as if cleaning away the evidence could undo the crime.

Not a crime. This was the outcome of battle, of mortal combat, one warrior fallen, one victorious. She would have killed him, if she could. And he had wanted to fight a Slayer for so long.

But he didn't want her dead.

Spike stood up from the body and backed away a couple of steps, regarding her. Of course I want her dead, he protested, but it was reflexive and empty. He didn't want her dead. He wanted… to be with her.

He touched his head for a moment, then let his hands drop to his sides. They clenched into fists without him being aware of it. Already dead, too, he thought with his usual black humor. So now she's with me.

But the Slayer wasn't with him, and there was no one else who could help him interpret these strange, discordant voices in his blood.

 _Find another Slayer._

Spike grew still, listening to this authoritative inner voice, louder than the others. It was himself ( _William_ ), and he hadn't heard it in years.

That's right. One Slayer dies, another is called.

Took twenty years to find this one, he thought sourly.

 _What, you don't have time?_

He snorted, didn't quite laugh. Yeah. Too true. Find another Slayer. He had time.

"Ooh, Spike. Look at the wonderful mess you've made."

He turned and saw Dru standing just inside the temple, her eyes wide with wonder and delight. The voices in the blood stilled, and then it was simply blood, if potent, and the sight of his dark mistress turned it from something ( _effulgent_ ) ethereal into something carnal, something he could handle. Something he could bloody well ride.

⸹

Two days later

Spike flopped over onto his back and sent a despairing, guilty look toward where Drusilla sat in a chair in the corner, humming quietly, her dolls gathered around her. This was like the first time Darla had given up on Angelus, but now there was no possibility of the big vampire returning. Darla had banished him, had made it plain that if either of the other two Aurelians saw him, they were to disable and hold him so she could finish him. He wasn't, she had said, fit to exist any longer.

For two days they had been indoors, all of them well-fed from a stint amongst the rioters. After the first few hours, Darla had dismissed Drusilla from the bed. This wasn't an unexpected development, but Spike was surprised at the depth of his resentment.

Not that it had kept him from fucking her for the past two days. He put a hand over his eyes. Vampires and the three Fs. It made him think of Angelus, who wouldn't even kill a baby now.

His own conscience had been untroubled by their prey for many years. Did that mean he had become a better demon than his grandsire? Angelus had never defeated a Slayer, after all. He'd never even wanted to be in the same city as one.

The Slayer. All the vexation of being the only stud in their little herd slid away. Spike went over the battle again, a slight smile on his face. He became conscious of his hand still covering his eyes and moved his fingers to investigate the odd stiffness of the scab over his eyebrow. Darla had said the sword the Slayer wielded must have had an enchantment on it, that he would scar. The disgruntlement in her voice didn't bother him. For him, a battle scar would be a trophy. And Drusilla said it gave him a mysterious air, as though he had stories to tell.

Spike looked over at her again, alone in the corner. "Dru." He was surprised at how raspy his voice was.

"Yes, my love?" She rose and came to the corner of the bed.

"Let's go hunting," he said impulsively. There wasn't much he could give her in the bedroom right now, and he wanted to spend time with her. Spike helped his sire dress, then slid into his own clothes. He looked with regret at the shirt stained with Slayer blood. Darla would never let him wear it again. Speaking of….

"Darla? Are you hungry?"

She lifted her head from the pillows and gave them a bleary look. "Not just yet." She yawned and rolled to her side, pulling the covers over her head.

The streets of Tianjin were nearly empty this night, its citizens wary of more violence. There was a simmering in the air, though, and both vampires knew it would only take a spark to touch off another riot. Neither felt like bothering, and they turned as one toward the wharf, where they soon found a suitable sailor. The only other people were far along the dock, a group of refugees boarding a ship, and no one heard his brief cry.

As they watched his body sink into the water, Spike slid his arm around his sire's waist. "What would you like to do now, love?"

She heard the heated invitation in his voice, but only gave him a sad, faraway look. "Whatever you like."

"Dru?" He tightened his grip, keeping her from turning away. "'M sorry about the Duchess." Spike lifted a shoulder. "What can I do? Can't very well tell her no."

She gave him an unreadable look, then moved out of his embrace and began to walk away. "You're one of us now."

"What's that mean, anyway?" He quickened his pace to catch up with her.

"You've killed a Slayer. You're a master vampire."

"Yeah?" He looked pleased. This was an unexpected benefit of defeating the Slayer. "You're a master vampire, too, then?" Spike knew that Darla and Angelus were, but he thought it had to do with longevity.

"I have been almost since the first. I can control the mesmer."

He stopped, struck by a thought. "You're… You mean, if we'd come across a Slayer sooner, Angelus couldn't have called me fledge all these years?" No wonder the bastard hadn't let him within two countries of one.

"Yes. Or you'd be dead. But killing a Slayer in single combat, and you this young… no one has ever bragged of that in court. But, yes, you're a master vampire."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "You don't seem very happy for me."

"It means you're an equal. Darla can take you for her consort now." Drusilla started walking again.

"Her consort? I'm yours, love. She knows that."

Drusilla came to a halt and turned to face him, a frank and unexpectedly lucid expression on her face. "Grandmummy has lost her consort to a gypsy curse, but she won't lose any status if her new consort has defeated a Slayer. She'll do away with me and take you with her to the Master's court."

"You've seen this?" He grew very still.

The brief bout of sanity was ending. "No vision, no whispers in my ears. But I know Grandmummy. Daddy is gone; people will know why. Rumors will spread, and she doesn't like rumors that she doesn't start herself. And Daddy is… The soul smothers him." She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she had a chill.

Spike took her by the shoulders and met her eyes. "I'm yours, Drusilla," he said emphatically.

"Soon enough, I'll have nothing." There was no anticipation in her tone, but there was no bitterness, either.

Troubled, he fell in step beside her and thought over her words. Her theory made sense –she often did, if one cared to look for it. Despite them having no interest in each other outside of bed, Darla would not want to move in court circles uncoupled. He was the logical candidate. And she'd never particularly wanted Drusilla in the family, anyway. She was Angelus' get.

No plan, no real decision, just impulse. "Dru? Come away with me."

She looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Let's not go back." He started to grin. "There's a ship just there," he nodded over his shoulder at the dock. "Let's be on it, wherever it's going."

"Leave Grandmummy?" There was fear on her face, but an undercurrent of excitement, too.

"Yeah." He took her hands in his. So many times, he'd wanted this and he'd never bothered to ask her, knowing her answer, but now… This was the moment. Angelus was gone, and he had defeated a Slayer. He was a master vampire.

"She'll find us, punish us."

"No. Think how big the world is. She'll never find us." He moved closer, pleading with his eyes. "I'll take care of you, Dru, keep you in dresses and dolls and whatever you want. New things, fun things. Keep you safe, just you an' me in the wide world. We'll have just each other, like Elizabeth and James."

"Where will we go?"

"Everywhere." Drusilla's eyes were focused on him, seeing him. It was a heady feeling.

"Together?"

"Always."

Her fear of Darla gave way to his earnest entreaty. "All right."

He kissed her so hard they both staggered back a couple of paces. Then Spike pulled away and let out a whoop of pure joy. With nothing more than the clothes on their backs, they ran hand-in-hand for the first ship out.

Next Chapter: Spike and his mad sire travel the world during the 20th century, having adventures and seeking out Slayers.


	19. Nights of Wine

**Nights of Wine**

Colombo

January 1901

⸹

"May I really have it?"

Spike smiled at Dru. "Anything your heart desires, pet." He loved to indulge her.

The jeweler smiled. "It looks lovely on madam."

They had drifted into Ceylon on another ship, their fourth or fifth voyage since boarding the refugee ship that left China – Spike hadn't bothered to keep track – and found the warm climate much to their liking. After five weeks in the British colony, he felt confident in trading with the more useful humans.

Freedom hadn't made him giddy, but Spike couldn't remember a time when he simply became happier with each passing day. Drusilla loved him as he was – she always had – and now he could speak any language he knew, choose any meal that walked past, wear comfortable clothing, even eat human food openly. Free to be himself, Spike found that he didn't miss the Great Poof or the Duchess at all.

He had learned his lessons from Darla well, though, and when he realized that he had amassed a bit of wealth from the string of victims they left in their wake, Spike began to think, in a rather William sort of way, of how best to use it. Money, like food, was abundant, and they had no need to invest for the future. Therefore, it should be spent, and – quite logically – he determined that it should be spent on Drusilla. He couldn't help but notice that their freedom hadn't filled her with the same kind of joy.

They were staying at a hotel, wolves in sheep's clothing, a ploy in which Spike reveled. He had arranged to spend a good chunk of his money for something special. All afternoon, he had humans up to their suite to ply their trades: dressmaker, hairdresser, cobbler, and now the owner of a local jewelry store where Spike had already purchased a modern pocket watch.

Drusilla looked away from the hand mirror that showed her absolutely nothing and studied her consort. "What are you planning, my sly boots?"

"No," he chided, pretending to lock his lips, "I'm silent as the grave. You know that better than anyone." With a last private look, Spike turned to the jeweler. "We'll take the rubies."

"Necklace and earrings?" the merchant asked, holding his breath.

"Yes." He dismissed the ebullient man, leaning toward Drusilla to study her better. Her dark hair was in an elaborate upsweep like the girls in Gibson's illustrations, and the low neckline of the dark blue dress she wore framed the jewels. She looked fashionable and… classy, a combination that Darla never quite seemed to achieve. "Leave them on," he murmured.

The lovers gazed at each other so long that the jeweler cleared his throat to remind them of his presence. Spike looked away from Drusilla reluctantly, then straightened from the chair he was leaning against to pull banknotes from his coat pocket. He waited with a raised eyebrow until the merchant quoted him a price, then added a large gratuity to the amount since the man had come out after business hours. After what seemed hours the jeweler managed to bow his way out of the suite, and he was alone with his dark princess.

Spike was beside her in a flash, raising her to her feet, running his hands along her body. "I can't do what I want," he said in a low, silken voice, "because I need you to be in this dress for just a while longer. I envy it, my beauty, my dove, the way it gets to touch every line of your body," and his hands followed the fabric of the close-fitting dress, "clinging to the curve of your hips, your breasts." Playfully, he took the largest ruby of the necklace in his mouth and lifted it from her bosom, looking up at her with it held in his teeth like a cherry.

"How much longer are you going to keep me in suspense?" she asked, and Spike let the jewel fall and laughed with delight to hear her make a double entendre.

He checked his new watch. "Your curiosity? Only a few more minutes, sweetling." It was less, in fact: there came a knock on their door. "Ah. I should eat them for rushing us, but perhaps it's for the best." With a last squeeze of her bottom, Spike offered his arm to Drusilla and went the door. "Our carriage is ready."

"Where are we going?"

"That would be telling."

She cajoled throughout the trip, but Spike merely smiled and nuzzled her. The ride didn't take long, and the groomsman ushered them the few feet from the curb to a plain door of an office building, marked only with the proprietor's name. The hotel employee rapped on the door, then bowed to them and returned to the carriage.

The owner opened the door before the surrey was out of sight. Drusilla recoiled a bit as the human ushered them inside. He smelled, to be blunt, and it was a strong chemical scent she had never encountered before. It wasn't until he pulled the dust cover from his equipment that she realized what trade he plied.

"A photographer!" she cried, gleeful as though she had won a tricky game of charades. Spike beamed at her. "We're to sit for a photograph?" she asked excitedly.

"Indeed we are." The pair sat for several photographs, actually, their bodies touching in every pose, Spike's hands on Drusilla's waist or shoulders, her cheek against his. When the photographer excused himself to develop the portraits, the two lovers were in each other's arms the moment the door to the darkroom closed. They had been posed on a settee for the last few pictures, which Spike found very convenient.

"Hate this dress," he muttered, pausing in his quest to move thousands of yards of taffeta out of his way as Drusilla's clever fingers worked at the buttons of his trousers.

"I thought you liked it."

"Not when it's keeping me from you."

More than fifteen minutes had passed before Drusilla's eyes focused on something beyond Spike's bare shoulder. "You're being impertinent."

Spike heard the human swallow before he turned his head to bestow a reproving stare, and he couldn't determine if the reflex was out of nervousness or lust until he saw the man's face. He hadn't bothered to really notice before, but now he saw the human, despite his thinning hair, was only in his twenties.

"They're done, the first…" The photographer's voice trailed away as he continued to stare at the beautiful creatures entwined on his settee. His pale face flushed, and he began to spew words, trying to get them all out before he lost his nerve. "I want – I could photograph you while – Now, I mean, while you're – Photographs just for you to see, of course, not–"

Spike turned back to Drusilla. "You're right. He is impertinent."

She laid a quieting hand on his arm and met his eyes for a long moment. It wasn't as though being watched was new to them. "Do you take good photographs?" Drusilla wondered, something mocking in her voice.

The human didn't answer, averted his eyes for a moment before stealing another peek, then fetched a smaller camera. His hands were shaking, so he took a deep breath before lifting it to his face.

On the whole, Spike thought the process was much more intrusive than being sketched by Angelus. Drusilla was entertained, though, and asked to be present as the photographer developed the film. Spike thought she simply wanted to tease the obviously aroused human with her attention and barely-clad body, but he understood better when she nodded significantly at the camera. He, too, feigned interest, and once the man had showed him how to load the film, Spike gave his lover a slight nod.

They left the photographer's body on the floor of the studio, and Spike sat on the counter in the darkroom, looking at their formal portraits in the dim red light as Drusilla made the last prints.

"You look lovely," he said, studying the black and white image. We look stunning together, he thought, taken aback by how beautiful they were. It wasn't how he thought of himself, anyway.

"And you look wicked." Drusilla handed him a photograph still tacky to the touch. In it, he was bowed away as he bore into her, his own eyes closed.

The erotic image wasn't how he imagined the way they looked, either, but it made a definite impression. Spike felt his throat close, and he swallowed much as the photographer had. "Nearly done, are you, pet?"

"Soon." She swished the paper in its solution, peering intently into the shallow box.

Considerate of her moods as always, he let her concentrate and perused the second round of photographs as they dried. "Shame we ate him. He wasn't half-bad at this."

"Oh." Drusilla stared at the coalescing image of a dark-haired vampiress biting into a human neck, at the large eyes that stared back at her from beneath heavy brow ridges. "How odd I look."

Spike moved in next to her. "Not odd, love. Strong. Beautiful."

"Do you really think so?" she asked.

"Never doubt it." He curved his arm around her, and in his hand was another picture that he wanted her to see, one that clearly showed his mouth at her breast.

Drusilla pressed back against him, a small smile settling on her mouth. "Am I beautiful in this one, too?"

"Mm-hmm," he agreed, nuzzling her neck. "More beautiful than sunsets or rainbows."

Her arm drooped, canting the photograph away from her. "I never see rainbows anymore."

Spike headed her away from the thought of what could be found in daylight hours. "We'll find you a pretty painting of a rainbow, if you want," he lifted her hand higher, "though I prefer this," he nodded at the black and white photograph. "It has the colors of the night."

"The photographer said that these chemicals can be very explosive."

He went with the change in topic. "Can they, now?"

"Yes. Shall we? It would be lovely. I miss the fireworks."

Spike pulled away to consider her. She hadn't mentioned China before, even obliquely. "Whatever my lady wants. A capital idea." It was really a very practical way to cover their tracks. He slid his arms around her waist and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Then… back to the hotel." He let go and began gathering up their pictures. "Don't want to forget these in here if the building's going to go ka-boom."

⸹

Sydney

August 1902

⸹

The crystal caught the candlelight, and the dull gleam of silver shone from the tablecloth. " _Madame_ ," the waiter said in a credible French accent, holding Drusilla's chair for her.

She gave Spike a sly look, then sat demurely at the table. "It's lovely," she whispered, leaning over the table as he took his seat. "I feel like a princess."

"You are a princess," he assured her, capturing her hand across the small table, "my wicked, ripe princess, ready to be plucked from the highest tower."

"And you're my knight, the finest in all the land." Drusilla tilted her head, her cascade of dark curls falling over one shoulder.

Spike stared at her a moment, lost in adoration and pride. "I don't know if I've ever seen you look more beautiful, love. The red suits you."

She looked down at the velvet of the red dress she wore, an immodest display of white flesh swelling above the black lace trim. "I feel beautiful."

"The stars shine for you."

"They've told me so," she agreed gravely. The arrival of food at a nearby table distracted her, and she watched another beautiful woman, a matron with shining chestnut hair and even shinier jewels, attack a lamb chop on a translucently delicate plate. "Humans eat like this?" Drusilla asked doubtfully, looking around the fancy restaurant, her gaze lingering on the pianist in one corner, tinkling away on the keys of a gleaming white piano. She dimly recalled her large family gathered around a simple wooden table to say a quick prayer before wolfing down the modest, plain food she had helped to cook. But her father, who clerked for an importer, sometimes brought home exotic pomegranates and lemons, such tasty things.

"On special occasions."

"Are we having a special occasion?" Her family had a tablecloth brought out only for Christmas dinner. Perhaps this restaurant was the same and was only glamorous this night because vampires were present.

Before he could answer, their waiter approached. Spike's North London accent softened, became something more refined. By the time he finished arranging the wine and several courses, Drusilla looked worried again. "What is it, pet?"

"They'll notice I'm not eating," she whispered.

"No one will notice. Just use your fork to push the food around, draw pictures in your soup." Spike grinned. "There are human women who never seem to eat in public, anyway." He changed the subject. "Don't you want to know the special occasion?"

Her mercurial moods were one of the things Spike loved best about her. "What is it?" she demanded, her trepidation vanishing.

"This will become a special occasion, every year from now on," Spike said, then added hastily, "I hope." He produced a small box and opened it, holding it toward her across the table. "Drusilla, love of my life, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?"

She stared at the ring, at the large, sparkling diamond nestled in a ring of sapphires, but made no move to take the box. "Wife?" she echoed.

Nervousness had not been part of the plan, but Spike felt it coil around his insides as the moment drew out. Twenty-two years they had, and for the past two he had fulfilled his vow to her, keeping her safe and happy and diverted in the wide world. While the desire to marry had been impulsive and unexamined, nothing else had, from his theft of the perfect ring to carefully thought-out answers to any objections about a demon entering into holy matrimony. But to get no answer, no response at all from the woman who had owned his heart for a quarter-century… He could not read Dru's face. "Just say yes, love."

Drusilla finally sighed and turned her gaze from the engagement ring to his face. "I am already wed."

Hatred and jealousy of Angelus sparked and leaped within him. Spike felt his eyes go to yellow, but before he could reply or make any motion, Dru gave him an accusing look.

"You forgot."

The sound of the piano faded as Spike felt himself pitch over the edge of an abyss. He had forgotten. Drusilla was a bride of Christ.

She was looking down at the empty span around the finger where she had worn a plain gold band for a few hours, before Angelus had ripped it from her and flung it carelessly over his shoulder, before he had made her his instead. "Don't fret, my sweet. Sometimes I forget, too. It was such a long time ago."

Spike closed the lid on the little hinged box and put it back into his coat pocket. He stared at the napkin he had automatically placed on his lap for a few seconds, then braced himself and looked into her eyes, his own a simple blue again. "I'm sorry, Dru."

Putting her hand out to him, she did not hesitate. "Don't be. It was a very lovely thing to think of, as nice as a spray of blood on snow."

He opened his mouth to reply, but the waiter showed up just then, finding the wrong moment as waiters worldwide always do. The man placed two shallow bowls of steaming lobster bisque before them, and Spike dismissed him with a mumble of words. His vaunted appetite for human food was gone now, though he put on a good face for Drusilla, keeping her laughing with his observations about the humans around them. He was numb inside, knowing that she would never agree to become his bride. What was left for them?

Later, when they were walking along the harbor, he took the box from his pocket and prepared to fling it into the water. Spike was surprised when Drusilla laid a restraining hand on his arm; he hadn't been dramatic about it, hadn't expected her to notice.

"Give it to me," she murmured. She held the little box in her hand as they strolled past the boats, contemplating it. After a while, she turned away from the harbor and led them toward a main road. The days were getting longer, and there were more people about. She stopped at a corner and said, "Listen."

Spike did. He heard the usual noise one could expect in a large town: people talking and laughing, clanks and bangs of unknown objects, hoofbeats, the putt-putt of an approaching automobile, a whinny from a horse. He raised his brows, silently wondering what he was supposed to hear.

"It was a sweet thought, my Spike, but I don't care for things from the old days. You promised me new things, fun things. Like automobile rides." She turned her large, expectant eyes on him, and Spike knew what she wanted.

He strode away from her and into traffic, blocking the path of the oncoming automobile. The driver swore impressively, waving at him, but Spike didn't move. Forced to stop, the driver whipped off his goggles and started to stand in the open car, but was distracted by the lovely woman in red who appeared suddenly at the side of the automobile. He stared at her and, after a moment, leaned over to open the door for her.

Spike laughed and ran to leap in the high back seat. They'd never stolen a car before. Under Drusilla's will, the human explained how to drive, how to start the car, what hazards to look for on the road.

"Words, words," Drusilla said tiredly, touching her fingers to her temple. "Show us."

The driver put his hands on the steering wheel again, and off they went, bouncing over the rough street.

Watching carefully, Spike got the basics before they had gone half of a mile. He had never thought about driving an automobile, though they had ridden in them. He would be in complete control. Drusilla sensed his impatience and directed the human to stop.

When he did, she met his eyes for a long moment, then held out her hand. The driver took the small jewel case from her palm, absently tucked it into the pocket of his coat, then opened the door and got out. He began walking away, weaving a little, not aware of much of anything, including how close he had been to death.

"I've bought you an automobile, my sweet."

He eased over the back of the driver's seat and picked up the discarded goggles. "So you have." With a pang, he imagined how the ring would have looked on her pale finger one last time, then made himself smile at his sire. "It was a good bargain."

"I think so." She put her hand on his knee and faced forward. "Can this machine go as fast as horses?"

He lifted her hand to his lips for a tender kiss before putting it back on his thigh. "There's only one way to find out." He grabbed the steering wheel, found the throttle, and they were off.

⸹

Crete

January 1903

⸹

The Atlantic crossing had been horrible, with even their cast-iron stomachs tested by the constant swells. Instead of continuing on to Paris, as had been their vague plan, Drusilla and Spike had debarked in Marseilles and stayed in the mild climate, meandering eastward. One afternoon, Spike read an account of Arthur Evans' work that gave them direction, and now they were prowling the ruins of what the historian believed was Atlantis. They had eaten well the night before and were content with nothing more than the prospect of a moonlit ramble through the unearthed structures.

"These columns were painted red," Spike marveled. When Dru didn't answer, he turned to see where she had gone.

"Hullo," Drusilla said, her voice kind as if she were talking to a child.

It was no child that stepped into sight, but a tall, thickly scaled demon of a darker red than the columns had been. He stared at Drusilla with an unblinking gaze. After a moment, he bared his pointed teeth. "You are not human."

"No," Spike agreed. He moved up next to Drusilla, though he had noted the pleasure in the demon's voice. The creature had spoken Italian, so he switched smoothly to that language. "I apologize if we've trespassed in your home."

"Not my home, Englishman," the demon replied, something in his tone suggesting amusement.

"He has something pretty to show us," Drusilla said, staring up at the newcomer's blank, black eyes, a smile of anticipation playing around her mouth.

"We're here to see the sights, after all," Spike agreed. Out of courtesy, he translated his words into Italian.

"The humans think this is Atlantis." The demon showed his teeth again.

"Won't be the first time a human gets it wrong." Spike stepped forward and held out a hand. "Name's Spike. This lovely creature is Drusilla."

" _Kozopolzwoup_."

The red demon gave his name carelessly, which made Spike assume that it wasn't his true name. "That's a mouthful. How about Koz?"

He bared his teeth again. "Koz," he agreed, laughing. Turning away, Kozopolzwoup gestured at them with a clawed hand. "Come," he invited.

Spike considered Drusilla for a moment. Her finely-tuned sense of self-preservation was at ease, judging from the happy expectation in her eyes. "My sweet," he said, providing the crook of his elbow for her to rest her fingers upon. They followed the tall demon away from the ruins and toward the sea. He strode in and the waves calmed. Half-turning, Kozopolzwoup waited for them"Your dress?" Spike asked, but Dru shook her head, only pausing to kick off her shoes.

"I'm so glad you taught me to swim." He had, on another night with a bright moon, Angelus watching their pale bodies from the bank as she learned in the cool water of a lake. Now she waited for Spike to doff his boots. They waded in and when they were deep enough, the three demons dove beneath the unnaturally still water.

The swim was too short, but Spike didn't need that clue to know that they weren't on the usual physical plane. Drusilla turned to look at him as Kozopolzwoup began his ascent, her eyes sparkling. Spike watched her dark hair billow around her, able to see her clearly in the greenish light. He took her hand and kicked harder.

They came up through what looked like a door floating on the water. When their heads bobbed above the sides, though, they could see they had surfaced inside a small rectangular pool in the square of a marble city.

Spike hefted himself out of the pool and swung his legs over the edge before turning to lift Drusilla from the water. By the time she stood up straight, her hair and dress were dry. He let go of her hands to tug at the leg of his trousers, which were no longer dripping. It had taken seconds to dry instead of minutes, and he felt as if he had been scrubbed clean in the water.

"Welcome to Atlantis," Kozopolzwoup said, and he bowed just a bit.

They looked around, taking in the lack of odor and sound, the trees that stood unstirred by any breeze, the empty houses and temples and public buildings that gleamed in the greenish light. "Beautiful," Spike murmured calmly, and he knew he should be unnerved by the brightness in the sky.

"Beautiful," a voice agreed, "but not human."

The two vampires turned to look behind them. Standing on the far side of the little pool was a centaur, smiling at them through a full red beard that matched his chestnut flanks. Before a response, whether polite or challenging, could form on Spike's lips, another voice spoke from just behind them.

"Why have you brought these, Kozopolzwoup?"

They spun again at the sighing sound of the words to see a very tall, slender female, leaves in her hair and her silver dress peeling away from her body like birch bark. A dryad, Spike thought, stunned. The centaur wasn't so different from other hoofed demons he'd seen, but this creature was… otherworldly. He took Drusilla's hand and pulled her closer, all of them looking now at the red demon for an answer.

"They wished to see Atlantis," Kozopolzwoup said quite reasonably.

The backs of Spike's thighs bumped into a solid mass, and he looked behind him to see an altar with evidence of old sacrifice splattered across the white marble surface. His nostrils flared even as his eyes went to yellow. Bovine blood. Relaxing a little, he turned back to regard the two not- so-mythical beings.

"We've seen so much more than expected," he said, keeping the irony in his voice to a minimum.

"You wish to serve a purpose," Drusilla said, her voice silvery and unexpected.

The dryad came closer, a floating movement. "We are no longer called." A sadness suffused her words.

"I call you."

Spike turned to his sire, alarmed. "Dru! No, you shouldn't–"

But the other trees in the square were moving now, limbs swaying and sweeping downward to form arms. Six of them, Spike counted, but he could also hear more hoofbeats as other creatures emerged from nearby houses, centaurs and fauns and, trailing behind, a minotaur. Two green water sprites climbed from the same pool that had been their doorway, wet clothes clinging to their breasts and hips, their hungry eyes on the two vampires.

"It's all right, my Spike," Drusilla said, patting his chest with an absent soothing motion. Her eyes were on the demigods around them. "They need us for tonight."

"Else we fade," the first dryad agreed, and she was shorter now, sizing herself to the scale of vampires.

Drusilla met the unearthly eyes without flinching, and they gazed at each other a long time. "Take care of him," she said finally. "He is sweet."

The naiads and dryads surrounding them made a low, hungry sound, and their limbs made a rippling motion. "Sweet," the first dryad agreed. She touched Spike with unnaturally long fingers, lacing through his hair, caressing his mouth.

Arousal was instantaneous and nearly painful. Nonetheless, Spike tried to do his duty. "Drusilla," he said, but it was a weak sound, and his open lips were irresistible bait for one of the naiads, who perched on one side of the dryad's trunk to plunder his mouth. Female bodies surrounded him, soft hair flowed over his suddenly naked skin, and he lost sight of Drusilla, though he could sense her moving further away.

The dryad in charge bent her head meet his gaze. She tilted her head to one side, then looked around at her sisters, who caressed him the whole time. Some silent communication passed between them, and all of them suddenly had human eyes, lovely wide-set green eyes with flecks of gold that Spike had never seen on anyone before.

They were beautiful, those eyes, and somehow familiar, and they were looking at him with innocence and trust, feeding something inside him. He lifted his face for a kiss from the owner and was lost for a long while. Spike felt himself to be underwater, and other times held aloft. At one point, he knew he was enveloped inside the trunk of a tree, and the horror of druidic lore lost to humans was not enough to break his lust. He was in rut, and the danger played on his arousal like their alien hands. The creatures used him, but not cruelly. Drusilla had asked.

That memory woke his inner anarchist. He took a sharp, unnecessary breath and craned his neck from where he was supine on the ground, a writhing mass of inhuman bodies over his. "Dru," he croaked, and it was a blessing that the trees – and they were trees, he knew that they were that, as well as more – parted long enough to see her.

It was also a curse to see. Drusilla was upon the altar, gladly offering sad trickles of blood to the minotaur who knelt before her. He drew back with the flail in his hand, and Spike realized that the face beneath the ponderous horns was Angelus' face. Dru's smiling mouth formed a word, and he didn't have to hear the ecstatic whisper to know what she said.

 _Daddy_.

Hopelessness and an unbearable sadness filled him. Drusilla was not his, had never been and would never be. She belonged to the twisted creature that had made her. The dryads moved closer again, their shifting bodies blocking his view.

"Spike?"

His head swiveled toward the sound of his name, spoken in a voice that was familiar though he had never heard before: husky and squeaky at once, full of uncertainty and fear. "B–" A name had formed on his lips in response, but the same greedy naiad swooped down and took the sound from him. Spike was overcome with a full and rich feeling, without measure or question, and it obscured all thought of Drusilla. He felt love, sure and pure, as if he had known it before. That voice and those eyes… He let it sweep him away, take him under….

Spike sat up, the sound of surf in his ears. Drusilla was in a heap next to him on the beach, and Kozopolzwoup was staring down at the two bedraggled vampires, looking amused. Spike had the feeling that he had carried them there, one under each arm, and dumped them like empty sacks.

He sat up, wincing, sore everywhere. "Where are we?"

"Back on the beach." Kozopolzwoup nodded his great red head and pointed with one scaly arm. "Near your shoes." He grinned. "How liked you Atlantis?"

"It was lovely," Drusilla sighed, propping up on one elbow. Her hair was a damp mass of curls and her mouth looked too vivid and red, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. She met her consort's gaze, then her eyes slid away. "We must thank Koz," she suggested.

"Yeah," Spike said, and now he didn't bother hiding the irony, "thanks."

"No, I must thank you. You've given my masters something they have not known in the fullness of many years."

Spike forced his legs to bend, ready to get up despite the pain, ready to fight for his lady's honor. "What's that?"

"Rest." Kozopolzwoup turned from them and began to march back into the water.

Spike watched the red scales of the demon's back as it dove deep, until Kozopolzwoup was hidden from view by the surf. He could see very plainly, he realized. "We'd better go, Dru. Rosy-fingered dawn is on her way."

Not conversant with the classics, she gave him a blank look and allowed him to raise her from the sand. They staggered a few yards away and retrieved their shoes. "I always liked being helpful," she said wistfully, shaking sand from one of her low-heeled slippers.

"Helpful?" he echoed. "Love, I don't get you."

"They needed to serve," she said, as if it was as obvious as the coming day, "to give us what we wanted."

"And what was it that you wanted?"

Drusilla met his gaze evenly, knowing what he was asking in such silky tones. "We must find shelter," she said. Putting on her shoes, she turned and headed inland.

Spike followed more slowly. Drusilla wanted Angelus, but he didn't exist anymore. What was left of him was smothered beneath a soul, and that soul had charged Spike with taking care of her. Not that he'd done a good job tonight.

Had he been given anything he wanted? Sex that he couldn't say no to, that's all. Then he frowned, a disjointed memory of green eyes surfacing. There had been a name, hadn't there? Beatrice? Bernice? Bonnie? If he could only think of it, the whole incident would make much more sense. Betsy? Frustrated, he decided the name had been Beelzebub, and he stomped across the sand to the rocks, trailing after Drusilla, determined to put the whole thing behind him.

⸹

Morocco

September 1905

⸹

"I want to go home," Drusilla moaned, trying to pull her right hand free of the restraints. She gave up the struggle and dropped her head onto the pillow with a frustrated sigh. "Don't like it here. Hurts my eyes."

Spike closed the door on her without reply, turning to the minions in the outer room. They quailed before his grim look. "Two nights," he said in a quiet, controlled tone. "She was gone two nights, and," his voice became huge, "you lot didn't find her." None of the three vampires, one Aurelian that Drusilla had made and two Spanish females they had found wandering the waterfront, would meet his eyes. "I told you to watch her while I was gone. But did you?" He slammed his palm into the wall, breaking the plaster and making a jagged crack in the stone. "I wasn't gone a handful of hours, and you weren't competent enough to keep her safe that long?!"

"Sh-she compelled us, sir."

He became deceptively still. "Did she?" Spike stalked toward the young Englishman, his eyes narrow. He'd seen how the fledge's gaze lingered on Dru. "Of course, it wasn't as though you had been warned about her mesmer." The vampire twitched, wanting to avert his face from the sarcasm. Spike had drilled them on how to manage her while he was away. "Perhaps she didn't even have to use the mesmer. Perhaps she only had to show you a bit of leg to get you to set her free."

The fledge didn't answer, and Spike whirled away from him. Bloody hell, all he'd wanted was half a night free to investigate whether there really was a Slayer in Marrakesh. There wasn't; instead he'd found three young men, brothers from the smell, who had found a good area to lure and behead vampires. He'd disabled two of them and got from the youngest that a vampire had taken their sister. Too disgusted to even kill them, he'd tossed the boy against a wall and stalked home, only to find that Drusilla had gotten away.

The past few months had been rough. Her visions were overwhelming her, breaking her tenuous grasp on reality. Twice she'd been burned after leaving their lair during the daylight hours. Spike had to resort to taking on minions because he simply couldn't watch her constantly. Of course, that led to the headache of minding the minions, too. He sent a sour look at the youngest Aurelian.

During the summer, Drusilla had asked repeatedly to go home to the fog and darkness of England. On the voyage, she had taken a fancy to a Brit aboard their sailing vessel, had taken his life and given him unlife in return one morning while Spike was sleeping. He'd had a devil of a time keeping the lad's body from being tossed over the side, managing to replace his corpse with one that belonged to a coal room tar just an hour before the captain presided over the funeral. Any thought that the fledge might divert her went out the window the moment he awoke, utter adoration in his eyes whenever he spotted his sire. It made Spike sick, and he found that he didn't have to steel himself to do what had to be done.

"She could have died," he ground out. Faster than any of the other three vampires could move, he was across the room and in front of the fledge, lifting him against the cracked wall. "And because she might have died, you have to." Spike took as much time as he could manage, five minutes in all, though Angelus would have punished him for such mercy. He stood away from the settling dust and turned his black gaze on the two remaining minions.

They came to him, murmuring in Spanish, laying hands on him to placate the senior vampire, offering him sex or their throats or whatever he wanted, abject with fear and desire. He brushed them away, saying simply, "Remember what you've seen," before leaving the two women to return to Drusilla's side.

She was sleeping, and Spike knelt by the low bed, retying the knot on the rope that held her right hand. "What am I going to do with you, love?" he asked wearily. "How am I supposed to get you home if you won't stay where I leave you?" He sensed a presence at the open door and turned his head. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice harsh.

"I know where to get laudanum." The older of the two Spanish vampires stood there giving him a beseeching look. She had been in her early twenties when she was turned, not very much younger than he had been. "It will let her sleep, keep her safe in bed."

He stared at her for a moment, recalling a half-submerged memory of his mother sleeping through most of the weeks after his father's funeral. Spike lifted a brow, then asked in an impatient tone, "Well? What are you waiting for? Get laudanum!"

"You left me."

Startled, he jerked back to find Drusilla's accusing eyes on him. "Only for a few hours, love. Came back as quick as I could."

"The Slayer means more to you than I do."

Spike's voice grew cold. "The fact that I've done a Slayer is the only reason we have the life we do. You think we could travel unchallenged otherwise?" No matter what vampire clan claimed a city, all he had to do was identify himself – and brag a bit. His reputation had spread.

Drusilla glared at him a long moment, then her expression became confused. She turned her face away. "I want to go home."

"And I'll get you home quick as I can, love. You'll smell the Thames and the boiled mutton before you know it." He stayed with her the next two hours, administering the laudanum until he found the right dose. Like Angelus, she was sensitive to medicines and drugs, and he counted himself fortunate. Much later, after he stole one of her pillows to nap on the floor beside the bed, Spike realized how odd his answer to Drusilla's accusation had been. He should have just said no one was more important to him, certainly not Slayers.

⸹

London

October 1908

⸹

No other productions made Spike feel more cosmopolitan than Gilbert and Sullivan's fizzy operas. He had been to this production of _Pirates of Penzance_ already, with Drusilla, and had come back alone to try to commit more lyrics to memory. That, and to hunt. He always found it amusing to dress as the lambs and to pass among them. Just now, he had a glass of champagne in his hand, blending in with the other opera-goers during intermission.

"William?"

He had been Spike for so long, he nearly passed the speaker. He'd been Will to Angelus, was still sometimes Willy to Dru when she was feeling puckish, and very occasionally William the Bloody to court acquaintances. So the sharp, shocked 'William' almost didn't register. It was the tone, really, that made him turn his head.

"Good gracious." A tall, grey-haired matron had her hand at her throat, her other hand on a cane. And she was standing next to his Uncle George. What was Uncle George doing accompanying someone other than Aunt Charlotte?

But it wasn't his Uncle George, of course, unless the man hadn't aged a day in nearly thirty years. Spike hadn't aged, of course, but this geezer had a heartbeat, which meant….

If he hadn't been holding a full glass, he might have bollixed everything by grabbing his cousin Georgie in a hug and laughing as he pounded him on the back. Instead, Spike managed to keep an expression of polite interest on his face.

"Beg pardon," Georgie said, still staring raptly at Spike's features, "but you're the very image of my cousin."

"Of course, you couldn't be him," the tall woman said. "That was so very long ago."

 _Millicent_. Spike nearly blurted her name. His eyes darted to Georgie, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. Good for you, old man. You got the girl.

"He disappeared, you see." Georgie shook his head, marveling. "I kept an eye out for so long, I suppose I must still be looking."

"Your cousin disappeared?" Spike put on an accent, realizing belatedly that it was Angelus' lilt.

Millicent recovered from the shock of seeing him quicker than Georgie. "Yes. I know it's difficult for you to imagine in this age of telegraph and telephone, but when William and his mother disappeared, there was really no way of investigating."

"Not outside London, leastways."

They were speaking as one, and Spike realized they must have been married for a long time. Belatedly, he transferred his glass to his left hand and held out his right to his cousin. "Liam Gallagher." In for a penny, he supposed. When Georgie's warm hand touched his, he was shocked at the rush of emotion he felt. Spike always assumed that only his vampire family could touch his senses this way, but his cousin felt as much like family as Darla or Angelus ever had. Feelings flooded through him, unlocking memories of silly jokes and sunshine and tennis matches and the smell of cinnamon buns and orange cake. He blinked and came back to himself just in time to take Millicent's hand and bring it to his mouth for a moment. Spike had missed the introductions, but he didn't really need them. "Er, sorry to remind you of any, uh, unpleasantness."

"No, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gallagher," Millicent said firmly.

"It is," Georgie chimed in. "Of course it is."

Spike had to grin. "Forgive me, but have you been married long?"

The human couple exchanged a glance, the same kind he often shared with Drusilla. "Twenty-six years," Georgie replied.

"Twenty-seven," Millicent corrected, assertive as ever.

"Are you quite sure, m'dear?"

"Yes. Remember, it was the year after Daphne died."

Spike's smile faded, as did Georgie's reply. Daphne, dead? And so long ago? Then, pushing aside the fond memories, he was afire with curiosity. Were Uncle George and Aunt Charlotte still alive? Lucinda would surely have started her own family by now, as would Lily and Jonathan.

But mostly he thought of Pippa, his best friend, his rock, his favorite human ever… whom he had not thought of for years.

"You and this William, you were close, then?" he prompted, wanting to elicit more from Georgie. Pippa would be… he wracked his brain, trying to recall the year. Fifty-seven, maybe? Could that be right?

"Yes – not as close as he was to my sister, God rest her. They were just a year apart."

The house lights dimmed, and he seized the excuse to escape. Mumbling something apparently appropriate, he stumbled in opposite direction from the one Georgie and Millicent took. After a moment, he found a break in the crowd and put on a burst of supernatural speed, gathering shadow to him, and got out of the theater as quick as inhumanly possible. Then he bent over, spilling the scant contents of his stomach on the ground, along with the forgotten glass of champagne. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he realized he was shaking.

Good thing Dru wasn't with me to see this, he thought, gritting his teeth in disgust at his emotional display. She would have thought the cute old couple looked delicious. The thought was enough to bend him over again.

Pippa, dead. Bloody hell.

Spitting the foul taste from his mouth, Spike hurled the glass against the theater wall, staring for a moment at the glittering stain of powdered silica on brick. He clenched his fists, didn't even bother trying to stop himself from breathing, then whirled and pelted down the London streets toward the hotel. Please God, let Dru be there. Fuck, who was he kidding? He couldn't bloody well pray.

"Dru?" he asked as he let himself in, though he already knew she was there. He sought his lover with desperate eyes, trying with all his mental might to push his curiosity, his memories of his cousin back into a safe place.

"Spike?" She paused in the process of brushing out her hair, letting the hand that held the brush fall slowly to her side. "You've had an upset," she observed, no less serene than before.

"I need you," he said raggedly. Without a word, she held out her arms, and he was in them. His momentum knocked her off the chair she sat on, but Spike scooped her up and carried her far enough for both of them to fall on the bed.

"You're… fervent tonight," Dru said between kisses.

"It was the operetta," he lied, ridding their bodies of clothing, pulling her astride him, wanting only to lose himself in her body, in her essence. "Tell me what you see, love. Tell me what you see when I do… this."

Drusilla's eyes closed and a smile spread over her face. "I see daffodils by a stream in the woods. And the fairies that live inside them are doing naughty, wicked things to one another."

"Things you'd like me to do to you?" He held his breath.

"Yes, please."

Thank God. "Tell me."

Outside their room, the sun rose and sank once again, and they ignored the maid who knocked on the door and also the maid who unlocked the door for a brief, shocked moment. Eventually, Spike put his hands on Dru's shoulders and moved her away a few inches, chuckling and shaking his head. "You've done me in, love."

Drusilla lowered her lashes and smiled demurely before snuggling into his shoulders. She traced the scratches zig-zagged on his chest for a few minutes, then said, "I should like to go to Sweden. It's cold there."

Spike smiled, grateful for her sensitivity. "And I should like to take you to Sweden, sweetheart. Though I never find it cold where you are."

⸹

Sundborn, Sweden

June 1909

⸹

"You don't love me."

Weary, Spike looked away from the accusation in Drusilla's eyes. "I do love you, 's'matter of fact. That's why I'm not going to let you eat Karin."

"But she looks so tasty." Tears leaked from her large eyes, and the protest was quiet rather than a wail.

"I know, love, but the Larssons are too prominent. You mustn't take anyone who will be missed, not if you don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention." Spike settled beside her on the bed and stroked an errant strand of dark hair into place. "You remember what you were taught, don't you?"

"Daddy would punish me if I didn't listen." Her tone was accusing again and more tears slid down her cheeks.

He sighed. "Yeah, but he didn't love you like I do, Dru." Spike was exhausted. He'd been awake for three days, keeping Dru from going back to the artists' home and eating Karin. She and her husband Carl had graciously invited them into the house, and both vampires had been charmed by the eccentric family. Spike was surprised that Drusilla fixated on Karin instead of her children; Dru was more apt to find toddlers appealed to her appetite. Instead, she had read to the Larsson's brood and plaited hair and laced small boots, greed showing in her eyes only when she was gazing at one of the many portraits Carl painted featuring his wife or when Karin was present but distracted by her children or with her embroidery.

Spike had caught Drusilla with Karin, their dark heads close together in the bright, cheerful living room like the dearest of friends, not realizing for a moment that she had her fangs in the human's neck. He overpowered his sire, left Karin with no recent memories on the couch beneath one of her tapestries, and carried Dru back to their lair. He knew they could never go back to the cheer of the Larssons' colorful, chaotic home. Spike had found some opiate-based patent medicine and forced it on Drusilla. She was calm now, but the medicine wasn't strong enough to put her to sleep, which meant he couldn't sleep, either.

"Here, love," he said, sitting back up and rummaging through the litter of books on the table next to the bed, most stolen from the Larssons, "let me read to you." He pulled out a book that was illustrated, readying a bedtime story for his dark mistress.

"You don't let me have any fun."

"Must be thinking of Darla, pet." Spike tried to force himself into patience. "Let's find out about this bint Alice. She's off to Wonderland. You've been there yourself, yeah?"

⸹

Chicago

October 1911

⸹

Spike looked out of the window of the express train at the station. A lot of them had skylights, but this one had been built with Midwestern winters in mind. Skylights couldn't support tons of lake effect snow.

"Luck's holding, love," he said, turning back to Drusilla. "We'll be able to stay here for a few hours, get a bite to eat maybe, then head out into the city."

"I want to get a hotel room," Drusilla said crossly. She was wearing a light-colored summer gown, impractical for travel, and they had left Boston as soon as Spike heard that there was a Slayer in Chicago.

"We'll do that, love," he said. His voice sounded patient, at least. Luck did indeed seem to be with him. There was a hotel across the street from the station. They crossed the street at speed and stood beneath the awning as if miffed that they had been standing there so long without notice of a doorman.

Several minutes later, safe inside a hotel room with a bad view, Spike began to unbutton the tight sleeves of Drusilla's dress. As he peeled it away from her pale flesh, he began to make love to her body. She didn't notice that his attention was elsewhere.

If he were a Slayer, where would he be in the wide city of Chicago? Would she have a habitual route each night? Cemeteries? Nightclubs and bars, where the herds were? A demon bar, he thought, that would be the best place to pick up useful gossip.

Drusilla bit into his shoulder with fangs, drawing his attention back to her. She was mostly stable; she would be all right by herself. All he had to do was convince her to stay here or to hunt alone.

"Heal me up, love," he murmured.

After a long moment where she did nothing but stare at him, Drusilla licked along the deep cuts she'd made. "You're my Spike."

"I am indeed."

"Mine." She rolled him over onto his back, holding him down.

"And you're my darling Drusilla."

"She can't have you."

Spike stilled beneath her. "You've seen something." The excitement at facing another Slayer edged into fear. He loved his unlife; he didn't want to go to dust. But, oh, he wanted another fight like the one in China!

"No," Drusilla said angrily. She moved off of him and went to the window. There was nothing to see except the brick of the next building, but at least there was no one staring into their room at her naked form.

Spike sat up, considering her. If she was going off the rails, this Slayer might as well be in China, for all that he'd be free to fight her.

"Tell your Spike what's going on in that lovely, dark head of yours."

"Can't see them," Drusilla said, crossing her arms as if shivering. "Don't like Slayers."

He stood up and padded across the thin carpet to take her in his arms. "Well, no one likes Slayers. Doesn't matter if you can see them, my sweet. You can see me, yeah? I'll be here at your side forever." He swayed a little, not quite dancing her away from the window, but still getting her closer to the bed.

Drusilla's brow cleared. "That's right." She nodded her head. "I can see you, Spike."

He sat down and pulled her onto his lap. "And I can see you, sweetling. All of you, in fact." Holding his breath was unnecessary, but he did, hoping that he had jollied her free of her bad mood. He had, as it turned out. She was willing to let him gather information while she went out for a bite to eat.

⸹

"So, this Slayer," Spike said, leaning across the space between him and the short vampire on the stool next to his, "where is she, usually?"

"I wouldn't be in any hurry to take in a show or attend a soiree," he replied in a dry tone. He pronounced it 'sworry.'

"What, she stays around the toffs?"

"Seems that way," he replied, helping himself to another shot from the bottle of whiskey Spike was sharing. "Leastways, I never heard of her much this side of town." The shorter vampire raised his glass.

Spike clinked it absently. Looked like he and Drusilla would need fancier clothes. "So, where do the swells prance about?"

Half an hour later, he was strolling along Michigan Avenue. He wasn't wearing evening clothes, but he could pass for a respectable businessman keeping late hours. All of the buildings seemed new to him, and he vaguely recalled something about a bad fire in the city a few years back. The evening was pleasant, at least, so he could take his time, listening for anything amiss. The swell of an orchestra along one block, a mezzo soprano straining for soprano notes at a nightclub down another. He got a whiff of a livery from across a small park… and something else. The thud of a fist on flesh.

Spike called darkness to him as he crossed the park. There was a long line of buggies on this side of the park, horses quietened by the feedbags hooked to their bridles. No humans seemed to be around; he would guess the drivers had a favorite pub where they would grab a pint before the evening's entertainment let out. The fight was happening in the alleyway between two low municipal buildings.

Two men were looming over a woman. Just a robbery, Spike thought. Then the woman punched one of the men. As the body twisted to the side, he saw the brow ridges that marked one of his own.

No human woman could punch that hard. Without really realizing it, he went to game face and barreled across the street and into the untouched vampire, driving him to the ground. Spike had no weapons, but he found he didn't need any. He was an Aurelian, had thirty years of combat experience, and his own fury against this nameless spawn. Spike twisted the vampire's head and pulled sharply upwards.

"What the hell?" the other vampire cried.

He was staring at Spike, an unwise move. Without a sound, the Slayer drove her stake into his back, through the ribs and pericardium, and into his heart.

Her stake dusted along with the vampire. She reached into the pocket of her skirt, and Spike knew from the way that her face fell that she had no more stakes.

"Slayer," he said, standing up and brushing dust from his trousers. He tilted his head and looked at her for a moment. For someone who supposedly looked out for the wealthy, she was dressed plainly in a shirtwaist and a full, modern, short skirt that only hit her ankles, showing the whole of her sturdy little boots. If she'd had a hat, she'd lost it.

She did not have a stake, but she had a blade in her other pocket. She swiped out at him. Spike jumped back, bowing his body away from her, but his hands reached for her arm. He pushed it back at her.

Instead of pivoting away from him or using her supernatural strength to counter him, she cried out, her arm giving way. With no resistance, Spike drove the knife into her abdomen. Her arm was broken, he realized. It had been a feint, only he was too fast for her.

They both stared down at the knife numbly. She brought her good arm up to grasp it.

"Don't," Spike said, but she already had.

The Slayer let out a soft sound and took what Spike thought was a step backwards. Then he realized her leg had buckled. Blood pulsed from the wound, and Spike realized the knife had severed an artery. It fell from her grasp and clattered on the ground.

His human features came to the fore, and he was there before she fell. Spike lowered her down, propping her back against the wall.

"How many were there?" he asked, brows drawn together.

"Eight," she said. Then her upper lip lifted in a ghost of a snarl. "Or, you're nine, I reckon."

He shook his head. "Not with that lot. I didn't know your arm was broken, love."

She was staring down at the dark blood spreading across her white shirt. "Go ahead and finish it," she whispered.

Spike shook his head. "I was looking for a fair fight, not… not this."

There wasn't much light in the alley, but she looked up at him. "Doesn't matter now," she said dully.

"I'll stay with you," Spike said, not having to say 'until the end.'

"I hated it more than I ever hated you."

He knew she meant vampires in general, but didn't understand the first part. "Hated what more?" She didn't answer. She had brown hair, he realized, and was maybe eighteen years old. "Slayer? Hated what?"

"Cold." It was her final word.

Spike sat with her body in his arms for a long time. Their encounter hadn't lasted ten seconds, and she was gone within another minute. It hadn't been a fight; it had been a bloody slaughter. Well, there's always another one, he thought bleakly. He stood up and took couple of steps back from her. Dead in an alley. No one deserves that fate. Spike leaned down and closed her eyes. Without thought, he picked up the knife.

He made his way back to the demon bar. The vampire he'd been drinking with was still there, though the bottle he'd bought had been replenished with a new, cheaper one. Spike sat down on a barstool and lifted a finger to the bartender. He didn't realize the place had gone quiet until he downed the first shot.

"That's…" A burly demon with blood from the slaughterhouses on his own shirt put his hand on Spike's shoulder and spun him around. "That's Slayer blood."

Then the demon was on the ground. Spike had taken his hand and twisted it, pinning back one finger. "Yeah." He looked around the taproom, at all the eyes fixed on him. "Your Slayer's dead."

"That's why you were asking me about her?" the short vampire asked incredulously. "You were looking for her?"

Spike let go of the demon's hand and poured himself another drink, tossed it back. He felt a little sick. The euphoria he'd felt after the fight with the first Slayer was completely absent, but the attention of every demon was his. "Yeah, I was looking for her." He gave up on the shot glass and drank a long pull of whisky directly from the bottle. "Haven't fought a Slayer since 1900. China, the Boxer Rebellion."

"Did you kill that one, too?" someone in the crowd asked.

A lost smile touched his face. "Drained her," he said.

"You've killed two Slayers?" the short vampire asked, awe in his voice.

"Yeah," Spike said. "As of tonight." He upended the whisky, trying to ignore the clapping and stamping that began to rumble through the bar. When he lowered the bottle, it was empty. He didn't have to pay for the next one.

⸹

Rouen, France

May 1914

⸹

"No."

They had just debarked a train bringing supplies closer to the front lines. It was almost nine o'clock at night, so it couldn't be sunlight that evoked Drusilla's denial. Spike looked down to where she had clutched his forearm, then followed the direction of her horrified gaze. When he found what had frozen her in place, he had the same reaction, a quick, if unuttered negation. Instead, he said the name. "Darla."

As if invoked, she turned toward them, sensing her grandchild just as Drusilla had sensed her. If Darla was surprised to see her family, it didn't show on her face. Instead, she began walking deliberately toward them, her customary smirk in place. She was wearing a tailored nurse's uniform, a little cap perched on her shining hair.

"Steady," Spike murmured, laying his cheek against Drusilla's as he pulled her into a close embrace. He put a smile on his face and greeted her first. "Darla. Haven't seen you in an age."

"No," she agreed, her smile curving like a scythe, "not since China." Darla gave Drusilla the once-over. "Drusilla. You're both looking well."

Dru managed a nod, and Spike stepped in to cover the fact that his sire couldn't make her mouth work. "What brings you to France? I heard you were in the Americas."

"Same thing that brings you here," she replied, lifting a shoulder, "war and rumors of war."

Spike chuckled. "Quoting the classics," he said approvingly. "How has it been with the Master?"

"Quiet," she said without thought. Then Darla stood a little straighter and spoke with more care. "His research is going very well. We have been in America, actually. California, on the west coast." Her eyes, always greedy, roamed over them again. "You should come out."

Drusilla shook her head. "The Master will kill any that he cannot control," she said, frank as always.

His great-grandsire's face became a tight mask for a moment. "The Master," and there was steel in her voice now, "can control any vampire, especially young and foolish ones."

Spike put on a smile to smooth over Drusilla's inadvertent insult, though it was quite true that the Master couldn't control Drusilla. "He can control older ones, too. I still remember how he showed up old Drac the year you presented us at court."

The memory made her smile, too. "Speaking of Dracula, I saw the young Count here just a few days ago."

"He's around? Good. Wanker owes me eleven pounds."

"Yeah," Drusilla agreed, "wanker."

Darla laughed. "I see you've been teaching her new words."

Now that it was clear that Darla wasn't going to kill them out of hand, Drusilla was unhappy that she was being talked about as if she wasn't there. She ran her long fingers from Spike's face down to his chest. "I've learned many things since the last time I saw you, Grandmummy."

Though she acknowledged the hated name with a slight nod, the rest of Dru's statement put the greed back into Darla's eyes. "So… do you two have a place to stay?"

Three days later, Darla picked her nurse's uniform off the floor and tried to shake the wrinkles out of the skirt. Giving up, she tossed it toward a chair along the wall and found a robe instead. She looked over at Spike, who had just donned his trousers, then glanced at Drusilla, who was sleeping it off on the bed. Darla leaned down to pick up another discarded item and wordlessly handed Spike his braces.

He nodded his thanks, sore and moving slowly because he was no longer accustomed to an orgy each night. Had the family bed always been this exhausting? Those memories weren't any that he cared to dwell upon, but he dimly recalled the months that Angelus was away from the family as being similarly grueling.

"Want a drink?" Darla offered, checking again to see if Drusilla was still sleeping.

"'Course."

She gave a quiet snort of amusement. "You haven't changed. Come into the sitting room. I have absinthe."

"Haven't had that in a while." Spike snagged his shirt from where it had fallen and followed her into the other room. Darla was boarding in a private home while she played nurse and had placed the elderly owner and his family under thrall. The vampires had the upstairs to themselves, and he watched her as she opened a trunk and took out a dark bottle and a couple of glasses. She moved to a low table with a pitcher of water and some pieces of a tea service. "Nice situation," he ventured.

"It'll do. The oldest girl is handy with an iron, at least. I'll put my uniform out for her to press." She balanced a fork on the rim of one glass of absinthe and set a sugar cube on it.

"You fill out that uniform very nicely." He added a leer.

Darla preened a little, always ready for a compliment. "The uniform is the only nice thing about being a nurse. That, and easy access to those poor, tender, wounded boys." She poured and handed him a glass.

He lifted it in salute, then gave her a piercing look. "Why are you really in France, then, Duchess?"

She didn't answer until she'd finished pouring the water over the sugar cube for her glass, then stirred it with the makeshift spoon. "I'm looking for something for the Master."

Spike nodded, recognizing from the finality in her tone that he would get nothing more from her. He couldn't keep from goosing her, though. "Valley of the Sun search going places, then?" When she paused with her drink halfway to her mouth, staring at him, he grinned and shrugged. "I hear things."

She examined him for a moment, then relaxed enough to drink. "I hear things, too. You've killed another Slayer."

"In Chicago," he agreed. "She wasn't as good as the one in China." It was the first time any of them had mentioned the events around the Boxer Rebellion, even obliquely. "Fought another one in Canada. Not worth my time."

"You mean… You let her go?" Her eyes were wide, staring at him, taking in his muscled form and relaxed lines.

He shrugged. "I wanted a real fight, and she wasn't going to give me one."

"You're a fool and a sorry excuse for a vampire," Darla declared. "Any time you can kill a Slayer, you should. For everyone's sake."

Spike drained his glass, giving himself time. How could he explain his reluctance to end her, when he didn't understand it himself? "Yeah, and then we don't know where the new one will pop up. Better to leave a substandard Slayer out there than risk a really good one being called. Right now, just stay away from Quebec."

After another few seconds of staring, she shook her head. "If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: you're an idiot, Spike."

He gave her a cheeky grin. "What you like about me best, yeah?" Then, because he did remember that it had always been about the attack when the family had been whole, "Do you ever feel guilty?"

"Guilty?" Darla echoed, clearly taken aback.

"Yeah. About stealing that gypsy girl." He held up his hand holding the glass and pointed one of his fingers at her. "That tribe got it wrong, didn't they? Shoulda cursed you instead of Angelus. Or cursed you both." Spike shrugged and brought the glass to his lips, adding just before he drained the last of the absinthe, "Just wondered if you ever felt guilty for getting him cursed while you got off scot free."

Her mouth worked, shocked by what he had said out loud, then Darla's eyes dropped to her own glass. "I don't know what you mean," she mumbled. After a moment of heavy silence, she blurted, "I saw him in Japan."

Unease prickled along his neck at the low words. "Did you kill him, then?" Spike asked, sympathy in his voice.

"No. He was a distance away." She shrugged. "You can't run in a kimono." Darla tossed back the last of her drink, then lifted her glass inquiringly. "Another?"

"No." Spike moved deliberately toward her, remembering this too, the ever-present need to placate the senior family members. "I'm in the mood for something more intoxicating." He picked up a cube of sugar with the cruel little silver tongs and held it out between them. After just the right pause to consider it, his eyes went from the sugar cube to her. He smiled. "And I've thought of a much better place to dissolve this." Just to be clear, he put his tongue against his teeth.

Darla gave him a smile rich with two deadly sins, avarice and lust, and undid her robe. "You're the bartender," she purred.

⸹

"Love?" Spike shook her shoulder and spoke louder. "Dru?"

She sat up, blinking. "I had such a lovely dream," Drusilla murmured, "and rested so well." Then she frowned. "Grandmummy's gone?"

"She went to the hospital," Spike said, leaving the bed and going to the closet where he'd hung Dru's clothes.

"You're dressed," Drusilla said, still sounding sleepy.

"Yeah. We're leaving."

"We are?" Her tone was sharp now.

Spike turned to meet her eyes. "Nothing has changed, Dru. It's been a nice little family reunion, but we need to cut loose from her right away."

Drusilla looked down, her dark hair falling over one bare breast, sad and beautiful. "It isn't the same without Daddy."

"No." Spike forced himself not to sigh. "It isn't."

"Where shall we go, then?"

Her consort shrugged. "Bugger this war for a game of soldiers." He laughed shortly at his inadvertent pun. "Don't really care. We've covered latitude for a while; let's do longitude." When Drusilla only stared at him blankly, he gave himself a mental kick. Not everyone had spent their childhood poring over maps. "North or south, love. Down to you."

"South." Her voice was sure.

A slow grin spread over Spike's face, and he fancied that his blood quickened, though this was not possible. He loved the novelty and adventure of travel. Holding out his hand, he waited until she put hers inside, then helped her from the bed. "South it is."

⸹

Alexandria, Egypt

February 1919

⸹

Spike jerked awake, coughing and gasping, as if he could have contracted the influenza. _Adahihi_. Then a slender, dusty thread in his mind snapped and the coughing stopped. An ocean away, the only thrall he ever made had died. Shrugging, Spike rolled over to take Dru, still sleeping peacefully, in his arms, the afternoon sun falling harmlessly on the floor on the far side of the room.

He dreamed of fire.

He was sitting cross-legged at a campfire, a large one shooting sparks up into the darkness. The night was alive with noises, few of which could be found in Egypt. He looked around to see an owl float along the meadow behind him, watched its claws stretch out, and heard the last, tiny squeak of a field mouse. In front of him, on the other side of the fire, was a forest, and he could see the gleam of eyes watching him. It was a good night for predators.

He wasn't alone by the fire. Sitting next to him was the American he had made into his thrall. Instead of a fashionable Parisian gown or a night rail, she wore a shapeless dress of deer hide. _Becca_ , Spike said gravely, although he hadn't bothered to remember her name.

Adahihi. _It has been many moons._ A smile lurked at the corner of her mouth, an ironic look that didn't seem to belong to her.

 _Was it the epidemic, then?_

 _Yes._ She gave him a sidelong look. _We will not meet like this again._

 _You mean I won't dream of you?_ He hadn't ever dreamed of her, except when she was carving his family with her sword.

 _We travel different paths, but I will walk with you for a short time._

Great answer, he thought sourly, if you like them meaningless. _So, what's with the bonfire?_ He had the oddest desire to dance.

 _It is a night for speaking truth._ She wore a strip of rawhide tied about her waist, and from this she untied a small pouch to toss into the fire entire. The flames licked at the bundle, then shot up as if they found the morsel tasty and wanted more. A spicy smell came from the fire, and Spike inhaled appreciatively.

 _Truth? All right, here's some. That was a narcotic._ He gestured at the fire.

 _Do you understand totems?_

 _Totems?_ Abrupt change of topic. _No._

She gave him a look so that he would know she knew he was being sly. _Do you know what a totem is?_

 _Several meanings. A… representation. A guide._

 _Good enough,_ asgina _. You might understand it better if I say familiar, a familiar spirit. Medicine men—_

 _Like Merlin's owl?_

 _You will not get an owl,_ Adahihi. There was amusement on her face. _You do not have wisdom. You are a predator, so your totem animal will be a predator. A small one, as I am not a predator._

 _Right._ He hadn't a clue what she was blathering on about. _So why do I rate a totem animal?_

 _You asked for a guide._

He gave her an annoyed look. _I never asked – who would I ask for such a thing? I don't need a guide._

She sidestepped his question. _You did, because of what you are._

 _Vampires don't have totems – or need them._

 _You are not a vampire._ When he raised his scarred eyebrow, she elaborated. _Not only a vampire._

 _What am I, then?_

 _They say you are what you eat._ Again, the wryness that was not quite Becca. When he looked puzzled, she elaborated. _You eat humans._

 _I am not human._ Vehement.

No fear of him now, as she was not his thrall. _You can be what you will._

More riddles. He sighed and looked into the fire. _Why are you here?_

 _To speak the truth. To remind you that what happens to you does not define you. To guide you toward understanding the possibilities. Because…_ They were suddenly standing almost nose-to-nose, despite her being shorter, and she was screaming, her words huge in his mind. _Because life isn't fair!_

Becca wasn't Becca any longer. She was him, his own blue eyes blazing at him from inches away, scary in their intensity, afire with emotions no longer held in check.

 _Not fair._

 _Not fair that I couldn't save Mother._

 _Not fair that Father died before he could tell me the secret of how to be a decent man and still be respected by the Cecilys and Richards of the world._

 _Not fair that Victoria died and we never made a home with Peter._

Becca again. _All those human memories_ , Adahihi. _You are what you eat._

His own face once more, looking shocked that he had screamed these things into the now-silent night. And he wasn't done. The face of his inner anarchist snarled, its raw strength revealed.

 _Not fair that I have to feel these emotions all the time._

 _Not fair that I work so hard and no one ever notices._

 _Not fair that I'm always second._

 _Not fair that I'm never quite good enough._

 _Not fair that she loves Angelus more._

Then, almost as shocking, they were sitting calmly in the same positions around the fire, the noises of the unconcerned nocturnal creatures coming from all around.

 _Life isn't fair. I've known that since I was a lad._ Cold, controlled. He had never said any of that to anyone.

 _That is why I am here._ Becca was staring into the fire. _I know unfair._ Her spine straightened slightly, perfect posture becoming something more substantial. _Fair has nothing to do with what happened to me. I am bigger than unfair._ Her dark eyes did not blink as the fire leapt toward her, as if she was fuel. _I encompass unfair, become the sky, and unfair is a small thing beneath me, a single blade of grass, and I endure._

She turned to him, then, and Spike wished she hadn't. Her eyes were black and bottomless, belonging in part to something much older and larger. _None among the gods or the powers watch out for the likes of you or me. We may help each other, though. I endure because, like the sky I belong to, I change. I will walk with you a short way that you may endure, change, become what you will._

 _Uh-huh. I'm going to wake up now._

 _Don't._ It was Becca now, smiling, her brown eyes windows to nothing more than her own uncomplicated soul. _Let us hunt together._

 _We could stay here and do other things._ He did remember that, remembered putting that smile on her face.

 _That would be silly. I'm not here_. _Why would you want to stay here by yourself and wank off while we could be out in the night?_ His word; so odd in her voice.

 _What are we hunting? Humans? Perhaps I could find another woman to not be here with me._ He was irritated.

 _You no longer hunt like that._

 _What?_

Fathomless eyes again, fleetingly. _Since Angelus was restrained by a soul, you have not used your prey's bodies._

 _What of it?_

 _You do not need to be defensive; we are inside your own self. Angelus enjoyed their screams, their fear and pain. You used the magic in your eyes, your voice to quiet your prey so they did not scream, so that their bodies became willing. Yet you were always disquieted that it was still rape._

He flinched away from the word, and a knot of sap cracked loudly inside the flames. _I am a vampire, a predator. You said so yourself._

 _A predator hunts to survive, culls the weaker members from the herds, has its place in the order of Nature. Rape is about power, about enjoying holding power over another being. That was Angelus. It is not your way._

There was no response to these raw truths, his own thoughts.

 _There is no shame in having honor, wherever it appears, even among demons._ Becca turned toward the forest. _We are in the No-time. I did not hunt like this; I was born after the time of the great herds. We should find many things other than humans to hunt in the woods tonight._ She pulled a knife from a sheath at her waistband.

Spike shifted into demon form, found that he changed into the pale shape of a mountain lion rather than the visage of a vampire. Odd as it was, being a four-legged beast did not unnerve him. He padded around the fire, turning his head side to side to admire his sleek new body, the pale brown fur.

 _Unega tlvdatsi._ A note of approval was in Becca's voice. She began to move, her form blurring into the lithe body of a less careworn _Tsalagi_ woman. Spike didn't question it, or that he remembered her words meant white cougar, only loped at her side, muscles rippling beneath his hide as they moved past prey too insignificant for them. He knew how to move like this already, silent and fluid as smoke, all his movement coming from his hips. Then there was a scent in his nose, rank and musky, and he lengthened into a low streak above the ground, enjoying a proper hunt.

Becca spotted the boar first, and ran straight at it, springing at the last so that she vaulted over its tusks and tiny eyes, her blade sinking into the back of its neck as she somersaulted like a bull dancer from ancient times. At the same time, Spike came in low, long fangs and powerful jaws sinking into its throat, ripping until the hot blood flowed across his muzzle. He roared his satisfaction into the still darkness.

Retrieving her knife, Becca held it high, looking once again like the thrall he had taken so many years before. _Thank you for the gift of your life, brother boar_. She saluted the four directions. _Thank you for the hunt._

They were back at the campfire, now a small thing with a spit over it, and the savory smell of roasting pork filled his human nostrils.

 _You thanked the, uh, Great Spirit for this?_

 _The hunt does not define me, merely allows me to continue. I honor brother boar for the role he played; I honor God for the role I play._

 _I have no God._ I sound like a twit, he thought, hearing a thread of sorrow in his voice.

Becca smiled and leaned over to touch his knee. _That's all right. We have you._

Spike awoke with a start, pulling in a breath that was free of roast boar and wood smoke. Dru stirred, and he looked down at her, his eyes widening with horror as he saw that hers were black and too full of knowledge.

"The kestrel is a raptor, part of the falcon family," she said, and it was not her own voice using her mouth.

He jerked again, waking up for real, and Dru pressed closer. "What is it, my Spike?" she murmured sleepily.

"Bad dream," he told her, trying not to shake. "Nothing more."

⸹

Mombasa

November 1920

⸹

Spike slapped at the dust on his dark trousers as he stepped into a tavern. Even this late in the day, the equatorial sun was wicked. He shoved a wad of money across the counter at the barkeep and indicated a bottle of scotch he spotted behind the man. Though he had learned passable Swahili after the couple of months they'd spent in Zanzibar, he didn't feel like talking.

Dru was in the lair, packing, having made it clear that she didn't want to spend another summer in Africa. She was thinking of a tour through America, planning to meet Tom Mix and Mary Pickford in Hollywood, and then back to Italy. Spike agreed, hoping for a side trip to Mexico City. The rumored Slayer there might still be alive. The movie stars he could care less about, and he suspected Drusilla would be just as happy to run into Darla again, wherever the Master was lurking in California. He wasn't fussed; the encounter with the Duchess had been tolerable. During his investigations this evening, he'd discovered a ship whose destination was Seattle, but he couldn't find a crewman who knew exactly when it left. Sighing, he wiped the filthy glass the bartender gave him with his sleeve and poured the scotch. He wasn't fastidious by nature, but some things were below even a vampire's standards.

"You aren't in that mirror," an amused voice murmured behind him.

Spike glanced up at the dark, smiling face, then toward the mirror behind the bar. "Neither are you," he replied.

The other vampire laughed and held out his hand. "Kamau."

"Spike." He nodded toward a table. "Join me for a drink away from the telltale bar?"

Kamau nodded and snagged another shot glass from behind the counter. The bartender, a human, frowned but didn't say a word. The two vampires settled at a table in the shadows of the bar.

"Have you been traveling long?" It was a courteous question among vampires, thieves, and vagabonds, not specific or curious enough to provoke violence.

"For a while. You? Or are you from 'round here?"

The other vampire smiled. "From here? No? Another island all together."

"In Nalubaale?" Lake Victoria was big enough that Spike didn't feel like he was prying.

Kamau gave him a narrow look then nodded. "Yes. You have been in Africa for a while."

Spike smiled and, without looking at his companion, poured another round of drinks as he switched from English to Swahili, "I come from an island myself."

"Well, we islanders should stand together," Kamau answered in Luganda.

"So we should," Spike countered in Luganda as he lifted his glass. Then, because he didn't know the noun, he added in English in a low tone, "And also we vampires." He tossed back his scotch and retreated from the dangerous topic of territory. "Haven't seen many of our kind round here."

Kamau relaxed. "You won't," he agreed, returning to English as well. "The sun, for one thing. The other is that our common ancestor made the first of us near here. The human shamans have been fighting us longer here than anywhere. They have passed down chants that can cause great pain just in the recitation, chants that can paralyze us."

"Really?" Spike raised a brow and leaned closer. Like all of his kind, he had the ancestral memories that told him this was where humans and vampires had first arisen. It had never occurred to him that it such long intimacy would give the humans better means of fighting their enemies, though. "I haven't run into any problems."

"You sound disappointed," Kamau noted, obviously surprised.

"Well, yeah," Spike said. "Live for a good fight, if you'll pardon the expression."

Kamau looked down, watching the scotch slosh in the glass as he tilted it side to side. After a long, considering moment, he faced Spike with the air of a man proposing a deal. "I could take you to a shaman who knows the chants. Three days, there and back."

Spike leaned forward, then forced himself to be realistic. "Thanks, mate, but I'm looking for the next tide out."

Thinking hard, Kamau pursed his lips. "The _Tranquilo_?"

Blue eyes narrowed, but he nodded. "Yeah."

"There's another ship going out early next week, to California instead of Seattle, but what do destination or departure date matter to us? It isn't far to the village, I'm thinking."

California. Drusilla wanted to go there, and it wasn't much of a delay… Spike lifted his glass to his mouth but didn't drink, just let his gaze bore into Kamau's dark eyes. "Why are you so keen on showing me the sights?"

After a moment, Kamau leaned back in his chair and lifted his chin. "I've seen you with a woman."

Spike wasn't expecting a direct answer. He took a slow sip of scotch, then sat the glass carefully on the table. "I wouldn't make a deal like that, even if I could. She's my sire, not a minion."

This answer seemed to please him. His dark eyes glittered, something far away in them. "She looked at me. A whole street away, and I felt it in here." Kamau put his hand on his chest.

The emotion on the other vampire's face made Spike snort derisively. "Yeah, she does that."

"I want to meet her." His voice was flat, and he leaned forward.

After a moment, Spike smiled. "I'll ask her. No promises."

"If we leave tonight, even tomorrow, we'll be back as the other docks. The _Pacific Commerce_ is due within the week. She goes on to Port Angeles in California just a couple days later." Kamau bent his head closer, his earnest look an odd one for a vampire. "I just want to meet your sire. That's all."

The two vampires parted ways at the door of the bar, and after several loops back over his trail, Spike headed to their lair to meet Drusilla for dinner. He was deep in thought, but a slight rustle of noise drew his attention. Above him, sitting on a balcony rail in the close street. Spike had seen birds like it once or twice in the past few months, just a small hawk awakened by something. It stared at him a moment with sharp black eyes, then was gone with a flex of wings. Spike knew little about birds, though, and dismissed it from his mind.

⸹

"He wants to meet me?" Drusilla said, her tone putting a cryptic spin on the words. She looked amused, though her attention remained on the doll she was dressing.

"'S'what he said." Spike shrugged and moved out of her range of vision, dropping onto the unmade bed. He made sure to keep his boots over the edge, an unthinking politeness. "I did check about the second ship, but we can board it or not without his leave."

"He felt it here," she mused. Drusilla lay two fingers on the doll's chest, roughly where the heart was. "Do you want to go?"

"Sounds interestin,' I s'pose." He shrugged, though she could not see him.

"I will be stranded alone in Mombasa while you are away."

A low chuckle rumbled from Spike. "Mmm, and helpless as a kitten." He sat up and regarded his delicate and frail-seeming sire. She was on an even keel these days, and he had no worries that she would survive as well as any Aurelian. Feeling his gaze, she turned her head, looking at him over her shoulder. Drusilla's dressing gown was made of lace, her dark hair obscuring more of her body than the skimpy robe. "Anyone can see why he wants to meet you," Spike said, his voice rough. He was beside her suddenly, stroking her cheek with one large hand.

"In the moving picture shows, the doomed character always gets his last wish."

She could mean him, just as easily. "Do you want me to stay, Dru? You know I will."

If there was one thing she liked about her consort, it was that he never demanded to know what she saw. There were times she didn't see anything that had to do with a current predicament, other times when she only understood years later what a vision had been. Spike seemed to get that. He would, she knew, acquiesce to her wishes. Drusilla wanted him to stay.

"You should go. A little bird told me." Her own words surprised her, and she stared up at his dear face, waiting.

"Only for three days," Spike said finally. "Less, maybe, if I leave now."

As he rushed about the room, selecting his weapons, Drusilla watched him, but she was listening to other things: a door opening, a lock clicking, a box snapping shut, the rattle of chain as another link was added. She tilted her head, curious about the odd noises inside and what they meant.

⸹

Kamau and Spike stepped ashore together, several paces behind another vampire the African demon had brought along. "Demonstration," Kamau had explained in an English undertone at Spike's lifted brow before introducing the newcomer as Tuwile.

Tuwile had taken Kamau's amusement in stride. "He thinks it's a funny name for a vampire."

"It means 'destined to die.'" Kamau's smile held only the slightest hint of malice.

Spike could see the humor in that. They were a night and day out of Mombasa now, and he helped pull the boat they'd stolen high up onto the beach on the darkness of the northern shore of Lake Victoria.

"Tuwile is from the village that guards the cave." Kamau hefted a tent. "He'll lead us there."

Cave? "Tell me more," Spike said, falling in behind them. The three vampires began to walk uphill.

"The legends are true." Tuwile turned his head for a second to find his audience as he topped the hill, then veered left, away from the lake. "Though I did not believe until I became a vampire and could sense it for myself. The demon who is bound to the cave is powerful enough to grant any request. No one has been strong enough to pass the trials in living memory, though, and few can persuade the shamans to let them try." Tuwile waited until the other two demons were beside him. "They say that Alexander came as nothing more than a boy."

"Alexander?" Kamau asked.

"The Conquerer," Spike supplied, impressed despite himself. Kamau still looked blank, but his plan was clearer to Spike now. He had this fledge leading them to his village, not for a demon in a cave, but for the shamans who guarded it. Spike briefly entertained the idea of going into the cave and meeting this all-powerful demon, but why bother? He already had everything he ever wanted.

 _As a vampire._

He stumbled a little on the rough terrain in his surprise. He hadn't heard that inner voice in years. _What would I have wanted from a cave-demon as a human, then?_

The inner voice had no reply to the question he posed, but the usual blessed quiet in his head seemed to echo a bit. Spike sucked his cheeks in, out of sorts with himself. What right did William have to pester him now? He was years past needing any help.

Tuwile was still nattering on about the demon and its legend, a local showing off something prized. They were headed uphill again, and at the top of the rise was a fire and the sense of humans. This was, Spike gathered, where the shamans kept watch at the entrance of the cave. Any respect he had for the demon inside dissipated; couldn't the beast even shoo away the dogs at its door?

Tuwile dropped into a crouch, and Spike and Kamau followed suit. They were less than a hundred feet from the campfire now. Tuwile beckoned them and began to crawl forward. Instead of following, Kamau stood up and let his yellow eyes reflect the flames.

" _Laba! Laba!_ " The lone cry was taken up by several voices. Kamau dropped to the ground near to Spike and gave him a quick smile before hiding his telltale white fangs. An atonal chant rose from an old man who stumbled into the light, a blanket still draped over his forearm. Kamau covered his ears, and Spike followed suit.

Tuwile was well out in front of them, and the other two vampires could see him rise from his crouch, something in his jerky movements suggesting that he could not control himself. Two of the younger humans began running toward him, and Tuwile swayed as though he wanted to flee.

He couldn't, and his end was swift and unremarkable. Both young humans froze, much as the vampire had been, one of them still holding an upraised stake. He stood rooted to the spot in surprise as the dust blew away from them on a lake breeze. They had obviously never killed a vampire before.

Kamau shot Spike a triumphant look as the two young men started back toward the fire, strutting a little. He didn't have the clear view that Spike had, and since Spike was still covering his ears, he had no way to signal Kamau that the chant still continued.

The Ugandan vampire put his hands on the ground, preparing to move into a low crouch. Instead, the moment he dropped his hands, his face grew slack. Grimacing, Spike shifted on the ground enough to kick him in the ankle, trying to break the enchantment.

It had no effect. Stumbling a little, Kamau rose to his feet, his ridged face and golden eyes toward the fire. The cry of alarm rose before the two guards had made it all the way back to their posts.

"Bugger," Spike murmured, grimacing. There was no way they wouldn't see him; he was too close to Kamau. He scuttled away on his elbows and knees, hands anchored over his ears, for about a yard, then gave it up with the second stone bruise. He was leaving a telltale swath in the grass, anyway.

The pounding of the young guards' feet grew closer, began to slow as they neared Kamau, who was standing with his back to Spike. The occasional and frantic jerk of his shoulders was the only indication he wasn't calmly waiting for death. Spike had time for one jumbled thought, enough to decide that Kamau was his mate because he'd provided a diversion amid the long days of immortality, and he rose from the darkness behind the other vampire, his own game face coming out to play.

"Fight it!" he ordered his companion, but they had shared no blood and had sprung from different lines. His command had no effect. Spike ran the short distance to Kamau's side, amazed at how much one's arms helped balance when not firmly planted over one's ears. He hated being awkward and hated looking foolish, and Spike channeled his anger over looking stupid into a flashing roundhouse kick at the nearest human. The young man flew back a good six yards, his hands over cracked ribs.

The second human yelled something at him, three syllables that came muffled to Spike's covered ears, but he didn't turn back for his injured companion. With a snarl on his face that made it nearly as inhuman as any vampire's, the guard slammed the wood into Kamau's unresisting breast. Before the dust cleared, Spike's foot drove into this human's midsection, too.

Spike's pivot foot was half on a stone, and it threw him off balance. Without his arms to windmill, he stumbled, and his own quick reflexes betrayed him: he put his arms out to break his fall and uncovered his ears.

Something other than his own will brought him to his feet, turned him to face the shaman, still chanting by the fire. It wasn't atonal, after all, with a beat twining through the sounds much slower than found in human music. An insistent beat, a rhythm that lulled him… Like Tuwile and Kamau, Spike was unable to drop down into the grass, out of the firelight. Like them, he couldn't turn away from the sound.

I'm not like them! I'm an Aurelian! The words were unsaid, but they rang inside Spike's mind. With every scrap of might, he tried to force motion back into his legs.

No use. One of the guards, the first he'd kicked, was on his feet again, holding his side. He stopped to touch the second human's shoulder, but his eyes never left the vampire.

 _Bugger this for a lark_. William shouldered Spike aside and took control, unaffected by spells meant for demons. _Chant's not what you'd call a rollicking tune, nohow_. One step back, then another. _Draw shadow to us, mate, and lose the face_. And then he was gone again, but Spike could still step backwards. He lifted one hand, not to cover his ears, but to point with one promissory index finger at the shaman. Not yours, not tonight, not ever. Another step back, and the vampire was lost in blackness.

He looked back, though, when the chant broke off in a strangled cry. The two guards were stumbling around the place where he had been, but they also turned to see why the shaman had gone silent. The flickering light of the guard fires showed a large bird flapping its wings directly in front of the shaman, who cringed away. The bird hovered for a moment – could birds that big do that? – then turned with a sweep of wing and flew straight up, away from the light.

Spike put on a burst of demon speed, not caring if he left a trail through the grass. Once he got back to the boat, Lake Victoria wouldn't show his tracks. He dragged the boat down the beach and into the water, oars in his free hand, and flung himself inside once he was thigh-deep. Lying on his back, staring up at the stars, he began to laugh. Hah! Nothing like a close call to make a bloke feel alive.

He drifted for a while, then sighed with contentment. Time to get back to Dru. Before he could sit up, though, something dark blotted out a section of the stars, an airborne shape that slid through the air to alight on the prow of Spike's boat. It was the same little hawk from Mombasa and other places, the same bird who had silenced the shaman.

"Who," Spike asked, sitting up, "or what are you?" The bird was a pale brown and about the size of a crow, with the distinctive white underbelly of a bird of prey. It tilted its head and shifted on its clawed feet. Spike gave it a severe look. "Well? No use playing an ordinary bird, not after –"

With a feeling of vertigo, Spike felt himself fall forward, though the boat didn't move. I've fallen into a trance, he thought, but any further examination was interrupted.

 _You still wish for an owl as your totem, then?_ An undercurrent of humor limned the words in his mind.

 _Totem?_

 _Yes. Your totem animal_ , Adahihi.

Spike remembered then: the most unsettling dream he'd ever had. _Totem_ , he repeated, feeling slow and stupid.

 _I am a kestrel_. It preened a little.

He remembered something else. _What did you say to that shaman? I saw you hover, look at him. Were you talking to him?_

 _I told him to mark you, that you have won the right to walk that land_.

 _Oh_. Still feeling off-kilter, the only thing he could think of to say was, _As if I'd want to go back there_.

 _You can do as you will. The demon is ritually bound to that cave and will always be there. Goodbye, Adahihi_. With a blink of its eyes, it broke the connection between them. For a moment, the kestrel was poised on the side of the boat, then it was gone into the night.

Nonplussed, Spike turned his head to follow the sound of retreating wings, then it was lost. "Huh." Then, more strongly, "Some totem animal you are – skulking around, not letting on for months." Or had it been years? He wasn't sure, one year at least. Frowning, he took up the oars and began a sure, strong stroke, glad to cut into the distance between himself and Drusilla. Spike thought she'd be interested in hearing about his totem animal, but he already knew he wouldn't mention that part of the night's adventure. A dream crossing into regular life was something Dru experienced quite often, but this felt private somehow.

⸹

Rio de Janeiro

1926

⸹

"Out!" Spike commanded, pointing a finger toward the door to underline his desire. The Fyarl swung its horns once, agitated, then lumbered away. He turned to glare at the four vampires lined in a ragged row before him and switched to Portuguese. "And what about you? How difficult is it to bring back a musician? During Carnivale?" His glittering eyes raked over the minions. "Well?"

"They play in bands, sir," one of the males ventured. "We couldn't find one alone."

Spike was glaring down at him, nose to nose, within a millisecond. "Then bring a band of musicians," he ground out. Frustrated with their stupidity, he grabbed the vampire to his left and simply separated his head from his body. As the dust scattered over the floor of the empty school, he snarled. "What are you waiting for? Ash Wednesday? Because I can give you ashes."

They fled. Spike sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Rio was a great town, but the quality of minions to be had was seriously lacking. He was reduced to hiring Fyarl to guard the outside of the lair, since the local vampires were not to be trusted. The inside help, the minions who saw to Drusilla's comfort, he'd tried to base on his old London home and find a housekeeper (a Mary Brown, whispered a stray memory) to oversee the rest of the 'staff,' but to no avail. Thank goodness they were in Rio for only for a couple more weeks.

Twice he had to track down minions who had defected, and twice he'd unmade them in a gruesome and lingering manner. It didn't seem to matter. Of the three he had sent out, maybe two would return. More than likely, they wouldn't even find their way into the service of another, rival master vampire; prey was just too easily found here. At least the Fyarl were somewhat dependable, if deeply stupid. Theirs was the easiest language he'd ever learned, with perhaps a thousand-word vocabulary.

"Spike?" Drusilla smiled as he whipped around. He hadn't heard her approach. "Let's go out." She lifted her arms and began to dance on the spot, swaying.

His eyes fixed on her body, Spike began to grin. "Rather stay in, myself."

She stopped dancing. "None of that, my sweet. Well… dancing first. Can you hear the drums?"

Spike slid his hands around her waist and down to her bottom. "Love, I'd like nothing better than to squire the prettiest girl in Brazil, but you know it isn't safe." Too many vampire clans were elbowing for territory during the festival, and the newcomer Aurelians weren't nearly as notorious as Spike would prefer. In addition, there were more species of lower demons in this part of the world than he'd seen anywhere else. Closer to animals than Old Ones, they didn't care if flesh came from humans or other demons.

"Tonight we'll dance to the drumbeat, safe beneath the stars." A smile blossomed on Dru's mouth, and she looked at him from beneath her lashes. If this wasn't temptation enough, she slid one hand down his torso.

"Mmm…" Spike's eyes closed for a moment. "Sure you wouldn't rather stay here?"

"Dance with me in the streets," she cajoled, "then we'll dance in the shadows."

He was smiling, too, putty in her hands, willing to be molded into a dancer if that's what she wanted. If she was happy, it made the whole ordeal with the minions worthwhile. Spike took her arm and escorted her toward the door of the school. "Don't wait up," he told the two Fyarl stationed outside, snarling the order in their language. He didn't look back, but if he had, Spike would have seen the two demons exchange a look, then sink down on their haunches instead of standing upright to await their master's return.

⸹

Paris

1927

⸹

"Where would you like to picnic?"

"We went to Venus the last time," Dru replied slowly. She and Spike were headed to the Louvre on a date, holding hands. "It's lovely how she's missing limbs. But her breasts do point in different directions."

Spike swung the wicker basket in his other hand, feeling the bottle of wine roll a little in its nest of checked napkins. "If the Venus de Milo won't do, I know one you'll like."

"Which one?" she demanded.

"Ah, my dark and beautiful princess," he teased, smiling, "you'll have to wait." Spike thought she'd like the Fortune Teller, so long as he didn't mention that the sly seer slipping a ring from her distracted mark was a gypsy. "Though if you like it, you'll have to give me a token of your gratitude."

She slid her free hand across his chest, then lower. Much lower. "Only a token?"

"A boon, then." Spike was breathless for more than the usual reasons.

They went to the back entrance, where deliveries were made, and rang the bell. Both vampires waited in silence for the night guard to let them in. "I hope," Drusilla said in a low voice, "it isn't the plump one. He's too old for my taste."

"P'rhaps he's been pensioned off." He tilted his head. "Someone new. Mystery course for our picnic, love."

"Then we have to dine somewhere new."

"Caravaggio it is, then."

⸹

Brainerd, Texas

1932

⸹

Mile after mile of sameness, with nothing on the radio but static. Spike was glad to be driving at night in their stolen car, just to get through Texas. The road was bad, and after a particularly rough section of washboard ruts, he glanced over at Drusilla. She was quiet tonight, lost in her own thoughts, her dark hair blowing softly in the wind that came through the open windows.

"Lights ahead," she murmured.

Spike stopped looking at her and returned his attention to driving. He saw them, too. "Town, do you think?"

"No." There was a hint of anticipation in her voice, but he knew the nuances well. She wanted to be diverted more than she wanted to feed. They were leaving winter behind them in Vancouver, headed to New Orleans. Spike had heard that the music there was fine, that it was, true to its nickname, an easy city for vampires. From there, they planned to find a ship headed back to Europe. Drusilla missed the cobblestones and sturdy cathedrals, she said, as everything in this new world was built of wood.

They were close enough now to see that the glow was from car headlights at an intersection and that people were milling around on the road. Accident, Spike thought, but somehow he already knew it wasn't.

"I hear music," Drusilla said.

"Do you, pet?" he replied absently, then realized it wasn't her own personal symphony. He could hear music, too, coming from ahead. There was a pattern to the moving figures now. The people were dancing.

The corners of Drusilla's mouth drew down slightly in a frown. "Spike," she said slowly, unsure if she should trust her senses, "do you see…?"

"Yeah. They're dancing right in the middle of the road." He grinned at her. "Let's see what the fun is." He eased up on the gas and geared down, his left hand splayed on the edge of the wheel of the stolen coupe they had picked up in Portland. They parked next to a rickety truck with a homemade wooden cage for livestock built on the back. Music was coming from all around them, wending its way from the radios of many of the vehicles. Spike walked around to open Drusilla's door, breathing in the smells of exhaust, cool night air, and alcohol, the last coming from the jars of clear liquid that were being passed hand to hand among the observers.

As she got out of the car, Drusilla's eyes were on the dancers. "Can we dance, too, my Spike?"

"Don't see why not. Seems to be a party," he raised her hand to his lips for a moment, "no invitation required." It was warm enough that not everyone wore their coats, so he shed his and escorted his lady toward the intersection in his shirt sleeves. In his opinion, it made him look less threatening.

One small knot of men watched their approach. Like all the humans, they were white and young, under thirty. "Evening," one of them said.

Spike nodded back at the human, a red-faced man with a cowboy hat. He gestured at the dancers. "Odd place for a dance hall."

Another of the humans spat on the ground. "Dance hall in town closed last May. Ain't another one in forty miles."

"Say," said the first man, "y'all not from around here, huh?" He accepted an open jar of corn whiskey with a nod, most of his attention on Spike. "You sound foreign." He pronounced it 'furn.'

"From England, actually," Spike said, adopting a more cultured accent. He held out his hand. "William, and this lovely creature is Drusilla."

She ignored the introductions, staring at the ruddy-faced man. "May I wear your hat?"

He chuckled and took it off. "Mite big for you, I reckon." Sure enough, when he put it on her head, it nearly covered her eyes.

"Here, I got one b'longs to my nephew," another man said and soon returned from his car with a brown cowboy hat that did fit.

Spike leaned back to get the full effect. "You look a treat, love." The men were smiling now, charmed by Drusilla in native costume and by Spike's accent. He'd noticed that Americans were, by and large, enchanted with British speech patterns.

"How'd y'all end up here?"

"Heading for Louisiana," he said, immediately kicking himself for telling the truth, "heard there was work there." He pulled Drusilla a little closer, trying to appear the concerned provider. "Times are hard everywhere, though."

"Damn right," someone agreed.

"Willie, my sweet," Drusilla said, giving him a sly smile with the pet name, "I'd like to dance." She turned to the group of humans. "May I?"

"'Course you can, little lady," answered the man who'd provided her with a hat, "but you have your first dance with me." He crooked an arm for Drusilla and shot Spike a questioning look.

He smiled and nodded. "Have fun, pet." She did, spinning and whirling to the music, occasionally with one hand on top of her head to hold the hat in place. Drusilla had a knack of being able to watch a dance and pick up the measure, where Spike, more of a physical learner, had to go through the steps once or twice. They danced everywhere they went, in ballrooms and dance halls and parties, all good feeding grounds. But they'd never danced in the intersection of two roads so far from towns that there was no glow on the horizon.

The men watching from the sidelines soon included Spike in the rotation of the corn liquor, and when the song on the radio changed, he went to reclaim Drusilla. Stars shining overhead and the woman he loved moving in his arms, Spike thought that Texas wasn't so bad after all.

"Let's taste them," Drusilla said suddenly. "Let's taste each of them."

Spike's brows rose. "You know how that will affect them, love. It'll be like a Roman orgy."

"I want to keep a little of tonight inside me," she said, touching her chest as they danced.

He chuckled, liking these humans too much to want to end them. But just a taste... "Right, then. But do save me another dance, my wicked, sweet…" Spike pulled away from their kiss, and they went in separate directions. Though they didn't go to game face, two creatures of the night now wound among the dancers, drawing partners to them with ease, pulling blood from wrists and necks. More jars of clear alcohol appeared, and more of the observers joined the dance. The two vampires wove their magic among the laughing faces and tapping feet, and after an hour, couples began to disappear for brief absences, only managing to stay away from the music for long enough to take the edge off their lust. After another hour, whole clusters of humans went missing, only to reappear with clothing askew and hairdos ruined.

Spike was grinning almost constantly, drunk on the chaos more than the blood or the moonshine. Sometimes it was fun to be the puppet master, to rule over the weak, to dance with his dark princess on the lives of others. He and Dru had instigated behavior far outside of what was normal for these humans, and the sight and muffled sounds were intoxicating. "Nine months from now," he told Drusilla, laughter in his voice, "there's going to be a bumper crop of babies and some very confused papas."

"They're all turning into pumpkins."

At first he thought it was her reply, but then he realized the music had stopped and understood. It was midnight, and the radio station was signing off. "Mmm," he sighed, pulling Drusilla close and molding their bodies together, "s'pose we'd better get some more driving in tonight."

"It was fun, though." Holding hands, they walked back toward their stolen car, their departure unnoticed by the intoxicated humans. Drusilla took off the cowboy hat and absently placed it over the face of a man who was passed out on the ground in front of his car.

"Yeah," Spike agreed. "These Texans know how to throw a party."

⸹

Vienna

1935

⸹

Spike's head was spinning as he left the lecture hall. He'd kept up with the rapid changes in modern physics since October of 1927, when they'd been in Brussels and he'd stumbled into a group of very bright men headed toward the Solvay lectures. He'd tagged along, thinking it might be a treat to take one of the funny old things back to Drusilla, then become interested in photons and electrons and the lively laughter after Professor Bohr gently scolded Professor Einstein for telling God what to do. The math gave him a headache, but he was unsettled by what they were finding. Some of the implications led down the dark alleys to where his kind dwelled.

This lecture hadn't been nearly as high-powered, but still rather above his head. Spike tucked his hands absently into the pockets of his dark coat, walking amongst the chattering humans. One or two of the white-haired gentlemen sent a look of askance at the presence of a young lady in their midst, but the older generation was like that. Drusilla stared back at them frankly. He was glad that society was moving more toward his own opinion, one that he'd held ever since he was human, that women were bright and capable.

Spike's brain felt… stretched. How long had it been since he'd read anything? Oh, he'd learned more languages, but the world was moving on in many ways. He needed to keep pace unless he wanted to turn into a useless git so behind the times that he was fit for nothing except paying court to the Master. I'll get into a library next chance I have, he thought. They were staying in a fairly small territory.

He and Drusilla alit in Germany for the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and were waiting for the buffet of humans to return for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Berlin. What he was seeing in the human population was disturbing, and had nothing to do with progress. Some sort of nationalist party had won power in Germany, and the military buildup could only mean more war. They had opted out of the last big one early on, but the War to End All Wars had touched even pokey old Africa, and the composition of the herds had changed. Young men had been a rarity on the menu for quite a while after that.

"They look tasty," Drusilla said, focusing on a pair of soldiers walking away from them.

Spike wondered if she'd picked up on the tenor of his thoughts. "Yeah, they'll do. Come on, love. Let's grab dinner here and see if we have time to catch a cabaret tonight."

⸹

Elmwood, California

1937

⸹

"Trapped?" Spike echoed.

"Trapped." Dalton repeated.

"Oooh," Drusilla breathed, "a little rat in a trap." She smacked her hands together with satisfaction, miming a tripped rattrap.

The call had gone out for all Aurelians to gather on a Hellmouth in a burg called Sunnydale, inconveniently in California. Neither Spike nor Dru had found a convincing reason to ignore the summons, though they hadn't hurried. They were less than a hundred miles from their destination when they felt the strong sense of a fellow Aurelian coming from a bar. That alone was enough to make Spike stop the car, though he would have taken any excuse for a delay. Considering the strength of his aura, this Dalton must have been sired by the Master, but he was surprisingly meek. He'd invited them to the wine cellar where he'd taken shelter after the earthquake trapped his sire and told them the whole story. "Wasted trip, I s'pose," Spike drawled, smiling at Drusilla.

"You aren't going to see him?" Dalton asked, surprised.

"When he can't force me to? No." Spike grinned. "And you aren't sniffing around old Batface's petticoats, either."

Dalton looked defensive. "No, but none of the other vampires have any use for me except the Master."

Drusilla leaned closer to their cousin. "He smells of books and naughty thoughts."

"Or not naughty enough." Spike's eyes gleamed, and he could feel Dalton's nervousness ratchet upward. He shrugged, not interested in a power play. "You help him do research, then?"

"Yes. I did." Dalton was defiant now. "The Master valued my assistance."

"I'll bet he did."

"We were close, too."

"Close to what?" Drusilla asked the question before Spike could.

"Nothing. Doesn't matter, now."

Spike rather thought Dalton didn't know what the Master was looking for, not that he would tell. "What about Luke? He value your assistance?"

The defiance broke beneath Dalton's uneasiness. "No. He just… watched me. All the time, just watching."

"Yeah, he does that." Spike tilted his head, a smirk lurking in the corner of his mouth. "Slaughter a bunch of hangers-on in the confusion after the earthquake, did he?"

"H-how did you know that?" Dalton didn't pale exactly, but he stared at Spike with a new respect. He straightened his shoulders. "I'm not going back."

Spike grinned again and turned to take Drusilla in his arms. "What do you say, pet? Got any interest in visiting the rellies?"

She pouted prettily. "I want to go to Paris."

"Paris?" Spike echoed, hoping he had masked his weariness with the City of Light. After forty or fifty visits, the charm began to wane – though Parisians were tasty. Of course he would take her. It was close to Brussels, too, and he did want to be there for the next Solvay Conference. "Why Paris, my plum?"

"The sewers." She didn't elaborate on her dreamy response.

"Sunnydale has sewers," Dalton offered.

"You change your mind about going back, then?" Spike, still holding Drusilla, gave him a sidelong look.

Dalton didn't meet his eyes, just looked at the floor and shook his head. "No."

"Well, come with us, if you can do two things." He met Drusilla's eyes for a long moment, waiting to see if she felt strongly one way or another. He already knew she wasn't interested in recreating the family bed with Dalton.

"What two things?" Dalton asked warily.

"Lose the face and carry a few bottles of the better vintage." Spike jerked his head toward a dustier corner of the wine cellar.

Dalton's face melted into a milder visage. "I-I can do that."

"Good." Spike turned his attention back to Drusilla. "By way of Hollywood, then?"

Drusilla smiled, closing her eyes in happy anticipation. "Gary Cooper looks delicious."

⸹

Cologne

1938

⸹

Spike didn't slam the door behind him, but it was a near thing. He'd been with Silvia Rubenstein two weeks, about thirteen days, twenty-three and three-quarters hours too long. Humans were food, sometimes a diversion, but definitely not meant to be companions. He stalked down the wet street, away from her small house.

Something flew at him from the garden of a neighbor's house, a bird, he realized, as soft-feathered wings battered at his shoulders and head. He put up both arms, one to protect his face. With the other, he grabbed his attacker.

It's the bloody kestrel, he thought, and that was all he had time for. He met its bright black eye and slid into a different place.

 _What the hell are you doing? Showing up now? 'S'been yonks, and I have to say, as totems go, you're not worth a toss._

 _It is not me that you are angry with, Adahihi._

 _Yeah._ He threw a black look over his shoulder toward Silvia's house before focusing on the little hawk again. _But I got plenty to spare._

 _You are angry with Drusilla for leaving and with yourself for letting her go._

 _Thanks ever so, Herr Docktor Freud._

The little bird tilted its head and fixed him with both eyes. _You can be angry._

 _Didn't ask for permission._

 _No._

He sighed. _What are you doing here? Got a message, do you?_

 _No, Adahihi. I am delaying you._

 _Delaying… Why?_

"Spike?" He got his answer: Silvia's voice behind him, the hesitant tap of her heels against the sidewalk.

 _Aren't totems supposed to be helpful?_ It just stared at him, so he tossed it rather hard into the air. The kestrel spread its wings and arrowed away, hovered over a roof, and was gone.

Spike didn't turn, impatience in the line of his shoulders beneath his damp coat. "What?"

"Take me with you." She skittered close to him, then away, not daring to put herself directly in front of him. "Not far, I mean, not for long. Just… If you're headed to Morocco, you'll be boarding a ship. I want to get out of Cologne, out of Europe. I'll take a different ship, I promise, but…" Silvia had a silk scarf tied over her hair, and she was all dark eyes as she looked up at him. "The last two weeks, I forgot how afraid I've been. When I heard you shut the door, the house was quiet, and I remembered the soldiers and how alone..." She swallowed and put her hand out to touch his sleeve. "Please. It isn't safe for me here, and you can get me out of the country. Then you won't see me again, I promise." Her fingers clenched, then fell away. "Please, Spike."

He let out a long sigh and finally turned to look at her, a small woman in a dark coat marred by a yellow, six-sided star. She had her purse and nothing else. "No luggage."

She shook her head and her fingers clenched again, this time on her purse. "No. I have some money and a couple of letters to post to friends. They'll take care of my pieces. I don't care about anything else."

"Well?" He lifted a brow. "What are you waiting for? And don't slow me down."

Silvia did slow him down, of course. He made her ditch the coat, stole a car instead of taking the train, and it took a day longer than he anticipated to make it to Marseilles. Then, of course, he had to find a ship for her to Lisbon, another delay. She was pathetically eager to please, to do anything he asked, and that irritated him even more. At least she had the sense to know they would never share a bed again. His own ship left a day later, so he watched from the shadows of a fishmonger's stall until she went aboard, looking over her shoulder, then melted away into the maze of alleys. He felt her eyes still searching for him and didn't care enough to look back. Spike was thinking of Drusilla, of her companions, and his fangs slid into place in anticipation.

⸹

Paris

1939

⸹

"There." Drusilla stood up, a wet glass from the nightstand in her hand, and observed her handiwork. "Comb it back."

Spike gave her a jaundiced eye and rubbed his wet hair with the towel again before taking up the comb. "Satisfied, pet?"

She set down the glass and examined him critically. They were in a hotel near a movie theatre, and she had seen _Gone With the Wind_ four times so far. "You don't look like Rhett. But you do look nice."

Spike looked at the towel, marred now by traces of black dye. "Let's swing by the photographers while we're out for dinner tonight, sweetheart. I'd like to see what I look like."

"Severe. Like a father, one who punishes his children and brooks no disobedience," Drusilla suggested.

He pursed his lips, his expression inscrutable. Since reclaiming her from James and Elizabeth and the defunct Norse twins, Spike had played the role of Daddy. He was tired of it. Spike was ready for another role, and the movie he had sat through gave him inspiration. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Drusilla's eyes sparkled. "But, Rhett, whatever shall I do?" she asked in a credible Southern accent, wringing her hands prettily.

"Oh, I reckon you can think of something to keep me from walking away," Spike replied, wishing he had a cigar just for the effect. "Something as naughty as you, Scarlett."

Drusilla smiled and sank down in front of him. Spike put his hands behind his head, his fingers in his damp hair, and let out his breath as Dru undid his trousers. This was, he decided, much better than the other movie she'd been obsessed with this year. He might not look all that much like Rhett, but he had no chance of impersonating a Munchkin.

⸹

New York City

1943

⸹

"What do we do now?" Sam Lawson wondered.

"'We' don't do anything," Spike answered, irritated. "I'm going to figure out how to get back to France, and I think we both know how fun that'll be." It was easy to be irked with the wet-behind-the-fangs Aurelian. That kept him from thinking about Angelus or, even better, the personal arrogance that had led to his own capture. "You can do whatever you like."

Lawson looked uncertain, then uneasy, obviously searching for an inner answer. "I don't think," he said slowly, "that I like to do anything."

They were leaning against the brick of a building whose fire escape made a useful lookout tower as they waited for prey on the streets below. They'd made the swim to shore with time to spare, enough for Spike to select an elderly milkman and lead Lawson through his first breakfast. After sheltering in a basement, they'd found suitable clothes and made their way to Manhattan. Spike figured they might as well see a show while they were in town, before he began the daunting task of finding a ship back to war-torn Europe. The fledge was hungry, though, and kept slipping into game face at inopportune moments, which nixed his plans for a bit of nightlife.

Now he sighed. Like most vampires, he needed somewhat less food as the years passed and his demon grew more stable, more powerful. The constant hunger of youth was something he'd forgotten about, and he wondered if the risk of the hunt was another reason few vampires survived their first years. "Sammy, it's all about the three Fs: feeding, fighting, and fucking."

The fledge frowned thoughtfully. "I've never fucked a girl."

Unsurprised by this, Spike shrugged. "Yeah? Find a vampiress, give it a go."

"What about her?" Lawson pointed at a feminine form scurrying beneath their perch.

"Humans are too fragile."

"I could, though. I could do anything I want to her."

"Well, aren't you the very image of your sire," Spike muttered. "Look, you can do what you want once you're on your own. But s'long as you're tagging along with me, you'll do a proper hunt." He went on at length, explaining to Lawson the lessons he learned early: who was prey, who wouldn't be missed, how to tell the difference.

"Did Angelus teach you this?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't he teach me?"

Spike let out a breath at the wounded jealousy in the fledge's voice. "Not the vampire he used to be, is he? He didn't fall all over himself to welcome me, but you don't see me with my knickers in a twist over it." He shook his head. "Look down there," Spike went on, "those two girls. Notice how they're walking. They're drunk, easy prey. Cheap coats, you can tell from here. No one will fret over their disappearance."

Lawson made no move, just studied Spike. "Why isn't he the vampire he used to be?"

"Another one obsessed with Angelus," Spike gritted out. He crouched and gave Lawson a two-fingered salute. "Got enough like you at home, mate. Have a good unlife." With that, he leapt from the fire escape to the dirty alley below, growling and waving his arms like a madman. The two tipsy humans screamed and scattered, and Spike swaggered after them, feeling the sense of the other Aurelian diminish. He'd given up on a seeing a show and now just wanted a bar. Then he'd find a ship, a military transport if nothing else, and get back to Drusilla.

⸹

London

1952

⸹

"What have they done to St. Paul's?"

Drusilla's voice was shrill, enough to make Spike roll out of bed and get him stumbling to his sire's side. Damage from the war, he thought, dreading the sight. They'd seen too many landmarks scarred and so many more that were simply gone. But St. Paul's? He squinted against the bright afternoon sunlight that fell on the white brick, then blinked.

"How'd that happen?" he wondered aloud. St. Paul's had always been a dark grey. The two vampires stared at the huge church for almost half a minute before Spike got it. "I know, love. It was the smoke. Smoke from the factories would always make your white clothes turn black, right? It must have turned the church black, too. The air's clearer now, so the rain must have washed off the soot."

A pout formed on Drusilla's mouth. "I liked it better black."

Spike was focused more on her lips than the church now. "Yeah, pet, me too. Let's forget it now, just go back to bed."

"Can we paint it black?"

"We can paint it red or orange for all I care, Dru. Anything your heart desires." He tugged at her hand. "Right now, I have my own desires."

Drusilla gave him an arch look. "I have my desires, too."

Spike stifled a sigh. "Just got my arms healed up from last night, love. Let's do it my way, yeah? Then we'll go out for a big dinner–"

"And you'll be able to heal up quick with a full tummy," she finished, her eyes sparkling. "So will I. Can we use the whip?" she wheedled.

"Yeah," Spike agreed, forcing a smile. "Whatever you want, pet."

⸹

Indian Ocean

1956

⸹

Humming 'Naughty Lady of Shady Lane,' Spike puttered contently around the efficient little galley of the yacht he and Drusilla had taken. They were headed toward Italy by way of India and Africa, in no hurry. Their last port of call had been Jakarta, full of unrest and easy dining as the new country moved away from being a Dutch colony. He and Drusilla hadn't been in this part of the world for years. The trip was noteworthy for another reason: Spike had fought another Slayer there. He'd left her alive, finding her unworthy.

He paused, looking into space, the half-open tin of corned beef forgotten in his hand as he replayed the fight in his head. Appetite gone, he left the food to spoil on the counter and went above deck, quick and nimble as lightning. There was no moon out, but the stars provided him enough light to reenact the battle with the memory of the Slayer.

Spike moved silently away from her stake, enjoying the way her almond eyes widened in fear at his speed. The Slayer struck again, and he plucked the stake from her fist. She stood frozen, no counter coming to mind, and he grabbed her by her outstretched arm and pulled her close to him, glorying at the terror on her face, her fear of him. Then he shoved her away, backing off a few steps himself, unsatisfied. "Come on!" he roared, going to game face.

Spike had retreated on the deck, too, and his hip touched the wooden railing. The solid contact brought him back to the present. He'd wounded her in the shoulder and broken a couple of her fingers before stalking away, still keyed up. This Slayer, who spoke a dialect he didn't understand, was almost worse than the last one in Quebec.

He turned to look out over the still ocean. The one in Quebec had been somehow childlike, for all that she had been taller than him. Of sturdy Swedish or Polish stock, she had accepted his presence in front of her with a bovine calm, not at all taken aback as the shadows tattered away from his form. The Slayer had fought him with all she had, a handful of moves that had no doubt been drilled into her head until her mind was full. For most vampires, those moves would be sufficient, but he had her down on the ground within a half minute. She had stared up at him fearfully with no idea of what to try next, but not because of inexperience. This Slayer had held Quebec against the demons for over two years. She simply didn't have the capacity for improvisation the Chinese Slayer had shown. There was no connection, and he'd risen, turned on his heel, and left her where she lay, her heart still racing.

This recent battle was the same. He'd tried Dutch and what Indonesian he knew, but the Slayer in Jakarta had spat unknown words back at him, Javanese if he had to guess. They couldn't communicate, only fight, and since his victory was inevitable, there wasn't any reason to stay. He'd felt a connection with the first Slayer, though, despite his wretched Mandarin. Their eyes had met, and that alone was enough. He tried not to think of the Slayer in Chicago. That had just been a waste.

Spike sighed. He had gotten out of the habit of looking for Slayers. When he felt a particularly strong need for a brawl, he'd find a demon bar, insult Abaddon or some other popular overdemon, and take on any comers. It kept him sharp, but he'd give a hundred bar fights to be able to experience a battle like the one during the Boxer Rebellion, have one more chance to sort out a warrior like that, to have a peer.

Coming back to the present, he looked east toward one of the Indonesian Islands as it slid away, the ocean breeze fluttering his unbuttoned shirt. Face facts, he told himself, never gonna happen. You've gotten too good.

⸹

Atlanta

December 1959

⸹

"I want to ride the Pink Pig."

Spike grinned and nearly blurted the first thing that came to his mind – 'You've never called it that before' – until he realized Drusilla's statement had an odd emphasis on the word 'I.' They were leaving the scene of a wreck on an icy secondary road just outside Atlanta. A family of four had lost control of their car and flipped it onto its roof in a ditch. They might have survived, too, if the car behind them hadn't contained opportunistic hunters.

"You want to ride what, love?" Spike asked, holding out a hand for Drusilla as she clambered from the upturned back seat.

"The Pink Pig. The little girl's blood sang to me, told me of all the fun and magic. Priscilla." She put a delicate fingertip to the corner of her mouth, checking for blood. "Pink magic, like candy canes."

"Ah." It was the only neutral thing Spike could think of to say as he handed her into the big, black Ford he'd stolen in Miami. Winter though it was, there was still too much sunshine for their liking in that city, so they'd headed North on snow-slick roads. And now he had to find a magical pink pig.

A billboard only a mile ahead solved the problem nicely. Drusilla pointed it out, her eyes shining. Apparently it was an attraction at a local department store to lure the American consumer into the Christmas spirit of spending: Priscilla the Pink Pig at Rich's. Spike plucked Drusilla's index finger from the air, kissed the tip, then popped it in his mouth. She giggled, and he felt the energy from their dinner coil in his loins.

Still holding her finger against his lips, he made an offer. "Let's find a close place for the night, love, and then we'll see about this big pink porker, shall we?"

Drusilla gave him a sly look. "I'm not at all certain that we're talking about the same thing."

With a diversion to look forward to and a new mattress in the motel room they found, the rest of the night and the next day passed pleasantly. When five o'clock came around to darken the skies, they ventured out into the grey afternoon, headed for Rich's. The management ran an amusement ride through their toy section for the children of Atlanta and designed it, for whatever reason, as a pink pig. Getting to the pig-shaped car was easily done, as the two vampires wove their magic over the crowd as they strode to the front of the queue. Their supernatural powers couldn't make Priscilla larger, though, so Spike and Drusilla crouched awkwardly on the child-sized benches as the car lurched along the monorail's path.

Beneath them was a spectacle that bewitched them just as surely as it did children. Dolls pretty enough to make Drusilla squeal; horses that rocked by themselves, button-eyed teddy bears perched on the colorful saddles; model trains that churned out smoke as they looped among the glittering Christmas garlands; shiny toy cars almost as magical as the real thing. Everywhere the eye settled was something to delight any child, even the remnants of a long-ago child left in an undead heart. Drusilla, with her humble roots, had never known a Christmas with the kind of bounty promised by the cunning display, and the last present William had received in the more restrained Victorian era was a simple collar case.

Their delight didn't last. Both vampires fell silent as the ride went on, and Spike knew that Drusilla was feeling the same thing: this was a powerful, pure magic, quick as sugar in the blood, and not meant for them. Only a couple of minutes passed before Priscilla returned to the ground, and the two vampires squeezed out of the doors, somber as their dark clothes, neither their mood nor their raiment a match for the shiny happiness of the excited children in their bright winter coats.

"It's no Pleasure Beach," Spike said as they pushed through the revolving doors and into the cold air outside the department store. It sounded forced, even to him.

"I don't like Atlanta," Drusilla said. She never quite whined about anything, but this was as close as she ever came.

"Then let's leave it behind, pet. New York? Toronto? Philadelphia?" There was a lot of new, good music in Philadelphia.

"Boston."

"Beacon Hill it is, then." He handed her into the car, then went around to the driver's side.

"Spike? I don't want a present this year."

Or any year, he heard. "'Course not." His smile was just as forced as his voice. "Whatever you don't want, love."

⸹

[Author's Note: Drusilla visits an orphanage and slaughter ensues. Not massively graphic, but she does kill infants and toddlers.]

Vienna

1963

⸹

"Sir?"

"Mmmph." Spike sat up in bed, blurrily identifying one of their minions, a vamp they'd accepted in Dusseldorf. "What?" he asked, scrubbing his hands over his face.

" _Fraulein_ Drusilla… she, ah, left a moment ago."

"Left?" he repeated, still not completely awake.

"Yes. You did say to tell you."

"I did," he agreed, grabbing his pants and sliding one foot inside. He could feel the minion watching, irritating but not unexpected. They took no underlings into the family bed. Both had their fill of being watched during the time of the Scourge. The minions didn't understand the need for privacy, though, and came up with all sorts of wild tales about what went on in the Aurelians' bed. Spike started some of the stories himself.

Grabbing a shirt, he turned on the vampire, a male sired in his thirties. "How long did you say?"

"Not five minutes. I saw her heading east."

Spike ignored the way the minion cringed. It was an hour or so before dawn. He was more concerned by what lay in that direction, older homes and far too many churches. "Right, then. Let's go."

"Me, sir?"

"Yeah, you," he answered harshly. "You live here for a reason, don't you?" He was in his boots and coat before the vampire stopped dithering, but he didn't bother looking over his shoulder to see if the useless creature followed him. This lot feared Drusilla. Spike supposed that was natural, though. She had been rather strict with them.

"Finish the packing," he ordered the other three minions, who were scattered in various stages of dress in the front room of the house they had appropriated. Drusilla hadn't cared for the cramped little rooms, carping on it until Spike had suggested traveling to Bonn just to buy some silence. She had been uncommonly difficult the past few weeks.

He didn't bother closing the door behind him, wide awake now and aware that some low-level unease was driving his steps. Spike didn't note whether the minion followed, just headed east, hoping Drusilla hadn't decided to visit a cathedral full of crosses, holy water, and lit candles. He was worried for her and didn't like the feeling.

Two more streets down, he paused and turned like a dog picking up a scent. Drusilla was on the hunt, her aura tamped down, but the barest feel of another Aurelian buzzed behind him and to the right. He stalked back slowly, not bothering to nod at the minion who caught up with him, then stopped, letting his senses stretch into the night: a far-off radio, the fading scent of cooked suppers, an infant crying, the press of humidity on his skin from an incoming rainstorm, a car motor shutting off a few blocks away….

The infant's crying had stopped, as if it had latched onto its mother's breast. But it hadn't sounded like a cry of hunger. Spike's head swiveled to the left, and he saw a discrete plaque on a nearby building: _Waisenhaus_.

His body froze for a half second, but his brain was blazing, putting together all the information. _Oh, Dru, no_ , he thought in dismay, flying over the low wall and scrabbling up the side of the orphanage in a way the younger vampire could not follow. Drusilla knew better than this, had been taught better by her sire before he'd even been made. A smart vampire only culls humans who won't be missed.

There, an open window. Inside the room, Spike grew utterly still, reading his surroundings. There was a row of iron beds, not much more than cots, and the crisp smell of bleached sheets stung his nose. All the little bodies were still, but only half had heartbeats. He could smell his dark princess, could envision her moving along the aisle like a housewife doing the weekly shopping at a market, choosing one plump offering instead of another. Spike could feel her now, and he followed the faint aura, out of the room and into a hallway, then through another door.

Drusilla was in the nursery. She was leaning over a cradle, her long fingers brushing aside the wisps of blond hair on the head of a sleeping baby. She was holding the limp form of another infant in her other hand, dangling it by her side by the heel of one foot. Spike watched a single drop of blood fall to the wooden floor next to her shoe. That had been the one who had cried, then.

"I think I'd like your hair fair again, Spike." Drusilla continued to stroke the baby's brow.

Spike took a shallow breath and stepped closer to her. "Whatever you like, Dru. You're the one who has to look at me." The damage was done; all that was left was to get her away.

"This is a good baby," she told him, not looking away from the child in its cradle. Her tone darkened. "Not all here are."

"Then let's leave," he suggested, wondering where the matron was. "Had your fill, have you?"

"I've eaten the bad ones," she said, still not looking at him. "Perhaps the good ones taste different from the bad ones."

"Love," he began, close enough now to put a hand on her hip, "it's not safe to stay here any–"

She whirled on him, her eyes narrow and her mouth open to speak, but Drusilla never got a chance to say the words. From the hallway, a human sneezed. Both vampires whipped around, Dru depositing the dead infant's body in the same cradle as the living child in a clean, noiseless motion. They heard a man utter a low curse, then the sound of several pairs of heavy feet running toward them.

Spike was already at the door, waiting for the first one. The human was swinging his torch wildly, trying to see into the room, leading with the light instead of with the stake in his hand. It was a fatal mistake. Spike grabbed the hand with the flashlight and spun him into the nursery. With his other hand, he forced the stake up into the man's throat. He tossed the body into the corner before the gurgling sounds were done, reached back for Drusilla's hand, and pulled her toward one of the windows.

"Wilson?" a hoarse whisper inquired from the hallway.

Drusilla pulled away from Spike and swooped down on the fallen human. When the second man peered around the doorway, she was ready. Holding the torch like a sword, she thrust it toward his face and switched it on, blinding him and causing him to cry out in surprise. He was holding a crossbow at the ready, and the bolt went wide, burying itself in a wall above a crib. Two of the infants woke and began to fuss.

"Bugger this," Spike muttered, throwing open the window. He hadn't signed on for a vampire hunt, particularly not when Drusilla was the prey. Watching only long enough to see the human draw back into the hallway, he snatched his sire into his arms and threw himself out the window, taking a couple panes of glass along for the ride. He made himself drift downward, gathering shadow to them, trying to buy enough time to see if any of the hunting party lurked below.

Sure enough, there was a man hunkered down next to a gate, his pale face easy to spot as he scanned the ground beneath the broken window, looking for fallen figures where gravity should have deposited them. Spike landed lightly on the wall above the man and dropped Drusilla onto the sidewalk outside. Hearing her heels click against the cobblestones, the human began to turn, but Spike grabbed him by the collar and hauled him atop the wall before he could finish the movement. There was a trace scent of ash on the air, remnants of the minion he'd left in the street.

"Think you're a match for William the Bloody?" he snarled. "Not even with a hundred more at your back." Spike had timed it perfectly and simply stretched out a hand to catch the bolt fired from their assailant with the crossbow, now hunkered by the shattered nursery window. He grinned at the man he'd captured, enjoying this now that Dru was safe, and threw the shaking human down at his feet. Then he shoved the bolt through a meaty shoulder and into the mortar of the wall, threw a vulgar hand gesture toward the window, and dropped down onto the street to follow the feel of Drusilla's retreating aura.

She held out her hand for him as he caught up, and the two vampires ran along the quiet streets of Vienna silently, shadow conveniently there for them at every turn. Spike cast a measuring look toward his sire, wondering about her mental state. She rarely felt the need to assert herself beyond her collection of dolls and minions; it was possible that Drusilla was descending into one of the depressions she'd had the first twenty or thirty years after they'd left Darla. He found he was dreading the coming months.

So it was with a great deal of surprise that he heard Drusilla laughing. He shook off his dark frame of mind, curious. "What's the joke, love?"

Drusilla beamed at him. "I just feel… wonderful." She grabbed his other hand and spun him in a little dance, off the sidewalk and into the street. "Let's go to London instead of Bonn. I've been wandering for over a hundred years. I want to go home for a while."

"You feel wonderful?" he asked, unable to do more than stare at her, unaware of the smile on his own face. This was just how he always wanted her, sparkling with happiness.

"I do." She stopped spinning him and moved closer, lowering her eyes. "I am sorry, my Spike. I know we're to be careful and only take the right prey, not show ourselves to those who Watch…" Her voice trailed off, and she met his eyes again. "But what's the point in being a vampire if you can't do as you like?"

Spike stared at her a few moments, taken by the clarity in her gaze. "Yeah," he agreed, "what's the point?" They came together for a long, slow kiss before reluctantly pulling apart and starting toward the little house.

"If they've finished packing, can we leave the minions?" Drusilla asked. "They've too many eyes for the number of heads."

Nearly eighty years as her consort insured that Spike understood her meaning. "They have been a might nosy," he agreed, touching his own. "Just you an' me, Dru, if that's what makes you happy."

She gave him a dark smile. "You shall make me very happy for many years, my sweet Willie."

"Forever," he corrected her. Drusilla returned his smile but didn't otherwise acknowledge his correction. Something she'd said earlier niggled at him. "'Those who watch?' Were those blokes from the Council of Watchers, then?"

⸹

London

1965

⸹

"I have a surprise for you."

Spike smiled up at Drusilla, hiding his trepidation. "A surprise? What's the occasion, poodles?"

"Nothing special, just that I love you."

"That's quite special," he corrected her.

"Now, close your eyes. Don't peek," she warned. He listened to her leave their bedroom long enough to pick up something in the hall. They were staying in a flat near Carnaby Street, paying rent and everything, and she had been in a good mood for years. "Are they still closed?" she called, pausing at the door.

"Can't see a blinking thing," he replied, making her giggle. Spike heard her come closer.

"Open your eyes. See what I got you!" she commanded.

He stared at the guitar case she'd laid at the foot of the bed and tilted his head. "What's in it?"

"A guitar, of course. Don't be so silly." She opened it for him, revealing a glossy black electric guitar.

"Cor," he said softly, reaching out a hand to stroke the ebony body. "It's a beaut, Dru."

"Play it for me," she ordered, perching cross-legged on the end of the bed.

He glanced up at her expectant face. "I can't play. Dunno how."

"You can do anything, my Spike."

Inside his chest, his dead heart swelled with pride. "Well, not right away. But I'll learn, quick-like. Play you love songs all day long. Right now, though," he set the guitar case on the floor beside the bed and reached for her, "I haven't thanked you for my present."

⸹

Spike wished he could see their reflection in the shop windows, a young couple out for the evening, him carrying a guitar case like a lot of other blokes who fancied themselves the next Eric Clapton. Instead, he snuck a glance at Drusilla. It was like being stabbed in the heart by beauty ( _stupid poet_ ). She had taken to wearing her hair straight, which made her look as young and innocent as she'd once been. Earlier Spike had tucked a daisy behind her ear, something he couldn't do with the elaborate hairstyles she often favored. He watched her exchange a secretive smile with another girl walking with her fellow. "Have I told you in the past seven minutes that you put the stars to shame with your loveliness?" he asked, pleased to get out the rare graceful poetic line.

"No," Drusilla said with mild disapproval. She pointed at a sign. "Is that it?"

"Over another street, I believe." He'd been taking guitar lessons for a month, and his instructor, a young man with hair longer than Drusilla's, wanted him to perform at a ratskeller. Spike had an affinity for the guitar much as he had an affinity for language, and he already read music. He had spent hours noodling with chords in their flat instead of sleeping, learning the instrument with his clever fingers. Ted, his music teacher, had tried to persuade him to switch to a left-hand guitar, but Spike hadn't bothered to explain why rejecting Drusilla's gift in any way would be a bad idea.

"Is that it?"

Spike followed the direction of his sire's pointing finger. "That's it." The same pleasantly nervous feeling he'd gotten from the thought of performing in front of a crowd of people came over him again. Nervousness was an unfamiliar sensation, an emotion that had ebbed away from him over the years. What did he have to fear from a mostly-stoned audience, when he could dismantle armed mobs and taverns full of demons? And yet his anxiety lingered.

His guitar was a secondary consideration as he handed Dru carefully down the steep stairs to the little club. Ted was on the far side of the stage, and he lifted a lazy hand in acknowledgement. More people were inside than he expected, so it took the two vampires a full minute to pick their polite way across the floor. A young woman was playing the harp on stage, her arms moving languidly.

"Sure this lot will want to hear what I have?" Spike asked, surprised again by his fit of nerves.

Ted nodded his head toward the harpist. "Yeah. She's almost done. A few more acts, then it'll be your turn."

"If you gentlemen will excuse me," Drusilla broke in, "I think I'll get something to drink." She pulled Spike in for a kiss. "For good luck."

"Just three songs, innit? Anyway, be careful." He gave her a fleeting smile. "Don't want you to miss my London debut."

"Flarkthen demons couldn't keep me away."

The two men watched her move back toward the stairs, people skirting out of her way so that she never once had to pause. Ted swallowed. "I know I've met your bird before, mate, but she's…."

"Indescribable," Spike supplied, a slight warning in his tone.

"Uh, yeah. She's one-off, that's for certain."

"No one like my Dru," Spike agreed before changing the subject. "So, bring the amp?"

Drusilla still hadn't returned by the time – and that time came so quickly – Spike mounted the stage. He propped against a wooden stool and let Ted lower the microphone to pick up the guitar, then busied himself with the amp. Positively phallic, Spike thought, clutching the neck of the guitar and staring at the length of microphone poking toward him. Snorting a little, he took a minute to make sure his instrument was in tune, then launched into 'Rock Around the Clock.'

Ted had taught him better, but he didn't look up from his own playing until a warm wave of applause rolled over him. Cries of "Raise the mike!" rang out, and Spike realized he'd been singing along. His eyes went automatically to where Drusilla now stood, a dark flower among a bland field of English roses. She gave him a rich smile and lifted her arms to applaud louder. The approval of the crowd was like a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon, warming him through more completely than blood ever could. Ted clambered back onstage and raised the microphone to mouth level. With a jerk of his head, Spike indicated 'higher,' then stood. Grinning hugely at his pupil's success, Ted grabbed the stool and left Spike alone onstage with nothing but his guitar.

He nodded at the crowd, then tore into the Beatles' 'Can't Buy Me Love.' Girls began gravitating toward the stage, their rapt eyes shining up at him. Drusilla was laughing, dancing at the back of the crowd, her slim, pale arms still raised high in the air. Spike finished with a flourish and began his final song, feeling confident now, his fingers wringing solid notes out of the guitar.

Girls were jostling against each other at the edge of the stage now, looking up at him, their little exclamations of excitement only audible over the amplified music because of his supernatural hearing. The music vibrated along his arms as he finished the last words, and Spike grinned as he launched into the finale, moving closer to the edge of the little stage, the guitar aimed at the audience like a weapon. The young women squealed louder, and behind them Drusilla danced closer, her eyes closed now, a pleased expression on her fair features.

The grin left Spike's face, and he finished with a sudden downstroke and a whine of feedback from the amp. The room broke into applause, considerably louder and more sustained than for the harpist. Spike unplugged and reclaimed Ted's amp, then dismounted the stage with no fanfare. The small mob of females pressed him against the stage, their voices shrill and demanding attention, hands snatching at his clothing. His eyes became a muddy, golden color for a few seconds, and he met every fevered gaze that was fixed on him. The girls blinked and grew quieter, stumbling back so that he could see the room again. He gave Drusilla a pointed look and a sharp jerk of his head before finding his music teacher. His fan club fell away with disappointed murmurs.

"Brill," Ted said genially. "Good technical work, still muffling a little with your pinkie finger – keep it on the fret. Didn't know you could sing, mate." He leaned in a little closer, peering at Spike's chest. "They've torn your shirt. Haven't seen birds flock close like that for a debut before, and I wouldn't take it as commentary on your playing, but–"

"No worries," Spike interrupted, "won't let it big me up." His attention was on Drusilla, whose smile faltered as she came close enough to see his expression.

She slid in beside him, her hand automatically running along his back to rest on his bottom. "You made very good music."

"Why did you do it?" The music had been good, and he knew he was attractive, that the charisma natural to his kind did attract humans. Nonetheless, he knew his performance wasn't the reason the excited girls had popped up at the foot of the stage.

Drusilla matched his quiet tone. "Because you're far more dazzling than any human musician."

She had given him a gift, he realized, mesmerizing the women in the room, stripping away their inhibitions and goading them into a mild, Beatlesesque hysteria. Their blood had pulsed through their veins to the tune of his guitar because Drusilla had willed it, had wanted him to be the star. And she would never understand why he didn't want the unearned adulation.

"Thanks, then, poodles." He dropped a quick kiss on her temple, still very aware of the dozens of pairs of female eyes still on him. "But don't do it again, ever. You know it's best not to draw too much attention to ourselves." That would do as a reason.

Drusilla had produced the usual effect on Ted, who was staring at her with his mouth slightly agape, which is why he didn't see the man working his way through the crowd until he felt his sleeve grabbed.

"Ted, old man! This is your student, I take it?" The newcomer let go of Ted and reached to grab Spike's hand. "Name's Clarence. Groovin' on your performance. Got a name, do you?"

"Spike." He pulled his hand away.

Clarence didn't take offense. "Hul-lo!" he exclaimed, reaching for Drusilla's hand and planting a kiss on her knuckles. "And who might you be, you adorable creature?"

"Drusilla the adorable," she replied, amused by all humans this night.

"Yes, you are," he agreed emphatically and turned his attention back to Spike. "You already in a band?"

Spike glanced at Ted, looking for a clue on how seriously to take Clarence, with his muttonchops and wide collar. "No. Debut performance just now."

"Excellent! Seems everybody's in a band these days, am I right?" His eyes scanned the crowd behind them as he spoke, and Clarence nodded and waved at a couple of people he knew. "Do you like the blues, Spike?"

"Spent some time in Memphis," he answered, kicking himself for the honesty.

"Well, that's something. I know a band – a rock band, you know, but with blues influences – who are looking for a guitarist." He stopped talking for the first time and watched Spike expectantly.

Alarmed at this sudden new direction, he looked from Drusilla to Ted. "Uh, I'm just learning, not nearly good enough for–"

"The band's just getting started, old chap, don't even have a name yet. They're just rehearsing, seeing if there's anything there. A garage band, don't you know – I mean a real auto service place, not the shed where dad keeps his Anglia estate car. They're looking for another guitar, someone who can sing a little. Here," he dug in the inside pocket of his tight-fitting suit jacket, "here's the address. Pop by there just as they're closing for the day, ask for Owen. My particulars are on the other side." Clarence pressed the business card into Spike's hand, then clapped him and Ted on the shoulders in rapid succession. "'Scuse me, just gotta go speak to a bloke I know." And he left them, already calling out to his next target.

Spike held up the card quizzically. "What do you make of this?" he asked Ted.

"I know Owen. Good musician, but," Ted grimaced, a nice man looking for a way to be tactful, "no oil painting. Plus, he's too cautious – won't chuck his day job at his father-in-law's garage. People have been starting with him, then moving on to bands with better chances for seems like years. Still, might be a good place for you to jam."

"Yeah, all right," Spike lied, relieved it was a casual thing that he would be missing.

"You should go see him," Drusilla said. Her eyes were fixed in the middle distance but seeing much farther.

"You have a good feeling about it?" Ted asked, then held his breath to see if she would focus any of her attention on him.

He got his wish. "A good feeling," Drusilla answered, her hand wandering even lower, skimming over Spike's buttock to scratch her nails on the demin of his jeans, sinking her fingers into his upper thigh. She turned to him, lowering her lashes demurely, a gesture at odds with the hunger in her gaze. "Don't you have a good feeling, my Spike?"

"Uh, yeah." His eyes were slightly glazed. "Very good feeling."

⸹

August 1966

⸹

"Look what I got, Dru!" Spike called as he came through the door of their small flat.

Drusilla was using both hands and one foot to tie a complicated macramé knot. She looked up curiously at the little rectangles of paper Spike held high in his fist. "What?"

"Tickets to the World Cup. Took 'em off a bloke couldn't hold his liquor over on Brewer Street." He dropped down onto the floor next to her. "How's the net coming?" Drusilla had seen a net in a seafood restaurant used as decoration, studded with fake cod and starfish. She thought a net would be a nice addition to their flat and planned to use dolls instead of sea life. Or perhaps doll parts; she hadn't decided yet.

"It'll be done soon." She finished tying the knot and untangled herself, holding out her hand for Spike's prize. "We don't usually bother with tickets," she mused, examining them. "Half eight… that's a little early this time of year."

"We can go in the night before," Spike said with a shrug.

Drusilla looked up at him with hopeful eyes. "Do you think Pickles will be there?"

"Would make sense they'd have him there," he hedged. The Jules Rimet Trophy had been stolen in March and later found stashed on the ground by a man walking his dog, Pickles. Like so many in football-mad Britain, Drusilla had been taken with the four-legged hero.

She clapped her hands together, the tickets caught between her palms. "Ooh, let's go. I want to see Pickles!"

"They probably won't win, what with Jimmy Greaves injured," he warned. Drusilla was also following the World Cup series, with England's final against West Germany the fever-pitch focus of the whole nation.

They were living very much like human Brits these days, having settled in London. It was the influx of young people and drugs that allowed them to live this way, with accidental overdose being the cause of death misapplied to many of their meals. Birth control, antibiotics, and demographics were rapidly changing the old city's culture, and that allowed Spike and Drusilla to live a more conventional life. They even paid rent to the old dear who let half her duplex to them, preferring her rather vague version of landlady to the previous string of more lucid landlords or the decrepit digs that could be had for free.

Drusilla often took classes in the evenings, like the current one in macramé. It seemed everybody had something to teach, and from his unique standpoint, Spike would look back on this time as the beginning of the Information Age. One of Dru's teachers, a painter, had been so impressed with her quirky collages that he had started to find a gallery to exhibit her work before she ate him. Spike had human contact of his own as the lone constant in Owen's ever-changing roster of band members, and he had hung out at the garage enough during working hours to become rather a good mechanic. All their acquaintances were human rather than demon, though they occasionally caught up with James and Elizabeth when they were in town. For Spike, it was the happiest time of his unlife, and he hoped it was the same for his sire.

Right now, Dru was smiling. "I might take a flyer on England winning."

Spike examined her face. "Yeah? That based on good, old-fashioned love of country or the Sight, love?"

"Hurst is playing well," she replied, demure. Then she gave him a sidelong look that made him half-hard in seconds. "Spike? If I undress and drape this over my body," she tugged the rough rope of the net up to shoulder height, "will you kiss me through all the open squares?"

"Yeah." He touched his tongue to his teeth. "Might nibble a bit, too." And he set about making her wish become reality.

The rough twine scratched Drusilla's bare skin, pleasing her. She lay against the cushions Spike had thoughtfully piled on the floor and gazed at his hair, its natural honey color now, as he bent over her breast. "My Spike?"

"Mmm?"

"I saw Ted last night." When he didn't answer right away, she slid her fingers into his hair. "Your guitar teacher?"

"Mm-hum?"

"He said to say hullo." She traced the contours of his ear with one sharp fingernail. "'Hullo.'"

"'Lo."

She could feel his mouth curve in a smile. "Spike?"

"Yeah." A thread of impatience in his voice now.

"I want a minion."

Later, Spike would think back on this statement as the first indication that trouble was brewing. Now, he was too aroused to spend time thinking about the implications. "Then you shall have one, my sweet. Anything your heart desires."

⸹

"Owen! You in here?" Spike walked into the garage, steeling himself as always against the overwhelming odor of petrol products, harsh to his sensitive sense of smell.

"Over here." Owen stood up from the guts of a Citroen. "Give me just a mo' to wipe up."

"No worries, mate." Instead of band practice – they had lost their drummer to another band anyway – tonight they were going to the West End to listen to a jam at Central London Polytechnic. Eric Clapton was playing, and Chas Chandler had imported an American guitarist who was supposed to be the next big thing. He waited as patiently as he could while Owen got out of his overalls, donned a close-fitting, striped jacket, and combed his longish brown hair. Owen could sing like an angel and wrote solid music, but he was shy before an audience and was as plain as the day was long. Their band was never going anywhere, and that suited Spike just fine.

"Thom Lundgren from Gypsy Forest came by today, chatting me up about being drummer."

Spike fell in step beside Owen, who paused to lock the side entrance and check the big doors over the garage bays. He suppressed a smile at the outfit his mate wore. He'd lived through Edwardian clothes once, and that was enough. "Huh. Dunno that he's any better than that Phelps bloke."

"Need a Russian linesman to make that call," Owen said, referring to a referee's decision at the recent World Cup final.

Spike snorted. "Yeah. Thom's a flash dresser, though." He liked knocking about with the human, who had a dry sense of humor. "Where's Jenny tonight?"

"At her mum's." He hunched his shoulders against the air, already cool on the first day of October. "They're about to finish the blanket they've been at since April. You'd think the baby was going to be eleven feet tall." He and Jenny were expecting their first. "What about you and Dru? Patter of little feet yet?"

"Never happen, mate. God bless the Pill. Want to stop at the pub before we go?"

Owen checked his watch. "After, maybe. I don't want to miss this. S'posed to be good." He fell silent for a while, long enough for them to travel a block. "When Clarence told me about this gig, he mentioned that he thought Ted was on the stuff. Seemed strange to me – never known Ted to be into drugs."

"Everybody is these days." Spike watched a distracted young man crossing the street with predator's eyes, then shook it off. He'd eaten just yesterday. "What's his name again? The American?"

"Hendrix. Jimmy or Timmy, something like that."

⸹

"Spike?" Drusilla asked sleepily. She had been abed for about an hour. Spike had been noodling with his guitar in the sitting room when she came in with the dawn, preoccupied over something. Now he stood in their bedroom, staring at the guitar case he'd just closed. Drusilla couldn't read his emotions or his expression, and she sat up in bed. "What is it?"

"Wanted to thank you again for your gift," he said, touching his fingers to the case for a moment in a fleeting caress, "but I don't think I'll be playing anymore."

"Not play?" Drusilla leaned forward, the sheet falling away from her bare body. "Why not, my Spike?"

"Isn't the gift, pet, it's that I don't have a gift." He sighed and looked toward her. Instead of explaining the riddle, he gave her a rueful little smile. "Saw a bloke play tonight, better than I'll ever be." 'Both of you lefties,' Clarence had said, introducing him to the exhausted young American after the show, 'and you both use right-hand guitars. Isn't that something?'

"I could eat him," Drusilla suggested, brow furrowed, brushing against his thoughts. "Take his hands, left and right, his–"

"No." It wasn't a command, and they never discussed power, but they both knew when the other had given the final word. "He's… he'll take music to new places. I want to hear what he does. I just… I'm not going to play anymore." Spike shrugged. "No reason to."

"You won't be in Owen's band?" When he shook his head, Drusilla thought for a moment. "I'll find you another gift sometime, sweetheart."

Spike turned away completely from the guitar case. "You are the best present I ever got."

Pleased, Drusilla smiled and held out her arms. They whiled away the daylight hours quite pleasantly and separated that night so Spike could break the news to Owen. When he returned to the flat, the guitar case was gone.

⸹

"It's good to be home," Spike remarked. Impulsively, he swept Drusilla off her feet and carried her over the threshold. They had spent November and December on the Continent, going to Paris because Dru wanted to and to Amsterdam because Spike had heard it was a scene not to be missed. He froze, nostrils flaring, staring wildly around their little flat. It smelled like an abattoir.

His eyes fell on a small crumple of white hair and bony limbs in a beige dressing gown. "Mrs. Crowder?" Their landlady had fallen and broken something vital, was his first thought, and he let Drusilla slide down his body so she was standing.

"Ted, you've been a naughty boy," she scolded indulgently, and Spike's former music teacher emerged from the bedroom.

She wanted a minion, she'd said, and Spike stared at the fledge, taking in the disheveled hair and smell of blood and unwashed clothing, hearing no heartbeat. Nothing clever came to mind, and his fingers made fists just for a moment. Drusilla hadn't said a word about what she had done before they left for Paris.

His sire brushed past him and went to the fledge, gracing him with an indulgent smile. "You've been busy while we were away."

"Made yourself right at home, I see." Spike stepped forward, his new boots making hollow sounds on the wooden floor. They hadn't been a Christmas present from Drusilla, since they didn't acknowledge Christmas anymore, but still. He indicated the desiccated remains of the landlady forgotten on the floor. " Dru not teach you to clean up?"

"It's my lair," Ted replied sullenly. He only wanted to bask in his sire's presence, preferably with her consort elsewhere.

Spike moved faster than the fledge could follow, and the older vampire had the younger pinned against the doorframe, his feet dangling in the air. "It is not your lair," he said precisely, "it's our flat. Or was, before you killed the bird who rented it out. Do you know how difficult it is to find a human that uninterested in–"

"Spike." Drusilla watched the scene from where she'd first touched down on the floor, her eyes wide and entertained. "You did say I could have a minion."

Around Ted's neck, his clenched fingers gave just a little. "I did, Dru. But you can't leave 'em to their own devices, not knowing how to dispose of bodies, not knowing better than to make themselves at home in our bed." His fingers tightened once more. And did it have to be gentle old Ted?

"Edward," Drusilla said, coming forward now, "you have been a very naughty boy." Her dark eyes glittered.

Suddenly tired of the whole thing, Spike let go of Ted. The fledge crumpled at his feet, but the heavy boots were already in motion. One swift kick later, Spike left Ted holding his ribs and was across the room, checking his pockets for money. "Out of smokes, Dru. Get him sorted out, and I'll be back." He kissed her on the cheek and headed out the door, calling over his shoulder, "Might stop by Owen's 'round dawn."

"He's not there anymore," Drusilla said.

Spike came back in the door, staring at his sire. She had her back to him, but her head was tilted slightly, all her attention on him.

Eager to curry favor with both senior vampires now, Ted took his hand away from his bruised neck, still holding his midsection. "We put all three bodies in a car that time," he rasped, "made it look like an accident."

Spike closed his eyes, imagining the scene. Owen and Jenny and their baby, ripped from its mother to only to die under someone's fangs moments later. He stared at Drusilla's back for a long moment. "Back in a bit, love," he managed in a tight voice. "Be packed and ready to go." He sent a harder look toward the shell of his music teacher. "Get rid of her," Spike jerked his head at the daft, dead old dear on the floor, "and the bodies in the other rooms, too." He managed to not slam the door, already hearing all kinds of them slamming shut in his mind. South America, he decided, get to Brazil in time for Carnivale. There was nothing left for them in London except the certainty of a future visit from investigating Watchers, and Drusilla wasn't reliable anymore. He had just about enough time to get drunk and start a brawl in the first demon bar he could find. Spike found that he needed a fight just now.

⸹

[Author's Note: It's been a long time since I've seen _The London Rock and Roll Show_ , a documentary about the concert, so I won't swear the Mick Jagger quote is accurate.]

⸹

London

August 1972

⸹

"Rock and roll at Wembley," Drusilla murmured mistrustfully. "Doesn't seem real."

Spike patted her hand in reassurance. "Real as you or me, poodles." The London Rock and Roll Show was worthy to be the first concert at the old stadium. They were headed backstage to get out of the ruck. On stage, Chuck Berry was tearing into 'Memphis, Tennessee.' It was a song Spike used to play, and his fingers twitched a little, trying to make chords.

"I'm hungry."

He gestured expansively. "Choose your cuisine, my plum."

"It's good to be back home. South America was too spicy." She touched her stomach delicately. "Here it's kidney and stout and chips in the tum."

Spike had his hand at her elbow now, guiding her up a short flight of stairs, and her list made his stomach growl. "Pub food," he agreed with some longing. "Just peckish, pet?" She had already told him she was looking for a new minion, Ted and a string of unsatisfactory others behind them.

"Mmm," she said, a hungry sound. "Not him, though." Her eyes fixed on someone Spike, still behind her, couldn't see. "He tastes of luck."

Well used to her oblique words, Spike was unsurprised to spot Mick Jagger standing nearby in a group of cameramen. Like most men who saw her, his eyes were already lingering on Drusilla. They had met Mick and his bandmates through mutual friends in the London music scene a few years ago. Drusilla had already tasted the singer, Spike remembered, had put a finger to a shaving nick on his chin. After a few seconds, the human pulled free of her undertow and turned his attention to the man behind her. Looking a little sheepish, he nodded at them, and they drifted to the knot of people. Mick was holding a movie camera himself.

"You're not playing?" someone asked the singer, brief and loud to be heard over the rock coming from the amps.

Mick shook his head. "Not on that stage," he said with reverence. The song ended and the sound of applause was comparatively quiet.

Drusilla had been looking at Spike, lost in nostalgia, and was a few beats behind the conversation. "We've been off seeing the world for years now."

One of the cameramen was bold enough to insert himself into the conversation, wanting Drusilla's attention. "London's not the same as it was. New York, now that's a scene. New, happening." Drusilla tilted her head at his impertinence.

In front of the audience, Chuck Berry began the first notes of 'Sweet Little Sixteen,' and the men turned their attention to the music. A burly stagehand went past, and Drusilla gave Spike a smile and a squeeze on his arm before following the sweating man. She was back to reclaim her consort, glowing and still warm from the blood, as the song ended.

"See you in New York," she told the singer with a secretive smile. Drusilla led Spike away.

"Are we going to New York, then?" Spike raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Someday," she answered vaguely. "Right now, let's find someplace dark… and private."

⸹

New York City

April 1975

⸹

Spike looked around the club, packed with human bodies, and slit his eyes to see better. Excitement was crackling off them, general horniness and youthful rebellion, all under a haze of cigarette and marijuana smoke. They were all so young. He let out a sigh, then moved through the ruck further into CBGB. It hadn't been the same since Hilly took out the billiards tables.

A teenager in a t-shirt painted with a dripping red 'A' for anarchy collided with Spike. He lifted his lip in a sneer, then straightened and backed away with a mumbled "Sorry" after getting a closer look at the other club-goer. The blond man looked dangerous.

When Drusilla gave up on living the non-demon life – and she'd tried, she really had – he had, too. Spike let her do him up after they landed in New York and he'd started going out for the music every night. No reason to try to fit in, after all. He still ran into people he'd known from the music scene in London, but they never recognized him unless he bothered to greet them. Dru had taken Polaroids after she'd been at him with the shears and the peroxide, working on him like he was one of her dollies, and he certainly didn't appear the same.

Spike looked dangerous even with his human visage. Despite the grey snow still packed against the curbs, he wore a thin t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, a careless display of strong arms and attitude. Until he opened his mouth, the only possible clue he was British was the pair of heavy Doc Martens laced onto his feet. He felt like a New Yorker, and like a lot of them, he identified with Travis Bickle. Quite unlike most New Yorkers, violence and insanity were a part of his daily life instead of cinematic fantasy.

Now the young human had backed away nearly to the back wall, his gaze still locked with Spike's. Though the vampire wasn't hungry, the urge to stalk and toy with his prey was strong. A grinding gash of noise, feedback from the amplifiers on the little stage, caught his attention. The teenager drew in a shaky breath and headed for the exit, patting his pockets for a much-needed cigarette.

CBGB and many of the other punk clubs were Spike's domain, and woe to any demon who thought to hunt in the area. There were three strong clans of vampires in the city, but after he'd delivered the heads of the six Fyarl demons hired to kill him to the Riis, an old Knickerbocker clan, his claim to the clubs went unquestioned. No one wanted this blighted territory, anyway. The people uptown were too easy to hunt these days. Spike killed at will any demon stupid or stubborn enough to ignore his marked territory, not caring that gossips laughed at stories of how the Aurelian even escorted musicians safely home. Love of music was a harmless eccentricity for one of his bloodline, after all. Usually Aurelians wanted power.

New York had taken on a new sheen for him, a dark city in a dark time, where being a demon was only slightly beyond the pale. Decent folk rarely went out after dark, afraid of muggers and murderers, sensing there were other things to fear. Plenty of people didn't self-identify as decent, though. There were always jittery young things out on the streets of Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx, knowing they were prey but not caring. Even Manhattan was dirty and blemished, a place where vampires fit right in. Drusilla, he realized, had been ahead of the game when she gave up on fitting in the human world. New York was turning into their world, devolving into a charnel house, and there was nothing left but to live like a demon, killing first and never bothering to ask questions later.

Now Spike claimed his usual spot, two sullen human women vacating it after he stared at them long enough. The band wasn't one he knew, but he already loved them just for the torn fishnet stockings the lead singer wore and the disaffected snarl on her face. He lit up a cigarette and waited for the band to finish tuning their instruments, his eyes glowing just a little more than could be explained by the red tip of his smoke. There was nothing like punk rock, with its cheerful ugliness and blunt, humorous lyrics, and part of him felt he'd been waiting for this soundtrack to his unlife since the beginning. It was the best thing he had right now, and he meant for this party to go on a good long while.

⸹

"Dru!" Spike bellowed, turning the vodka bottle up to waterfall the last of it into his mouth. "'M'home!" Around him, minions moved lethargically in the outer room of the abandoned house they occupied. It was a couple hours after dawn, and the younger vampires hated how the sunrise didn't faze him. He ignored them in turn, his usual practice unless there was a direct order to be given. "Dru!"

She didn't answer. They rarely hunted together, their long affair continuing mostly in the bedroom for the past few years. Where was she? Irritated, he bashed the bottle against the wall, pulling out a piece of glass that went into the thick pad of muscle beneath his thumb. He stared owlishly at the injury for a moment. Let Dru heal it up, he figured. The glass would lay where it fell, because Dru didn't keep her minions busy. This dump was certainly not worth keeping up, anyway. His only requirement was that the master bedroom be halfway presentable. Spike walked up the stairs, stumbling a little. The streetwalker he'd eaten had been high on some kind of narcotic that hadn't quite worked its way out of his supernatural system. Plus, there was no light in the stairwell; he'd smashed all the fluorescent lights because he hated the buzzing noise they made. The door to their bedroom opened.

"Drusilla. Didn't you hear me call?"

She smiled at him, pleased with herself. "Got a surprise for you."

"Do you?" He noticed she was still blocking the door.

"Close your eyes." She held out her hand, though, so he took it before shutting his eyes, and she pulled him inside.

"When can I open them?" He wasn't in a mood for games, but Drusilla was happy. He didn't want to ruin a good thing.

"Not yet." Hands began roaming over his body, tugging at his clothing. Spike lifted his arms, let his shirt be pulled away. It was the lack of scratching that made him frown and open his eyes. "Those aren't your hands, pet."

"Surprise!" Drusilla clapped her hands, her eyes shining. "Its name is Bubbles. Say hullo, Bubbles."

"Hey."

A young woman was holding his shirt, her hair a bright pink and her heart no longer beating. "Ah. Another minion."

"Maybe not a minion."

"Mm," Spike said neutrally. Drusilla had tried adding various fresh vampires to the family bed for the past several months. The experiments rarely last longer than a night. "Bubbles? That always been your name?"

"It's my vampire name," she replied.

"Isn't she clever?" Drusilla asked, putting her arm around the fledge. She stood a head taller than the girl, who was cute and compact. Spike had a feeling it was the hair that had drawn Dru to her prey, a magpie to something shiny. "First I was going to call her 'Marrow,' but it really isn't that color."

"She'll brighten up the place, anyway." Spike ran a hand through his short hair, turning toward the bed. Mostly, he wanted to sleep it off.

"More than that. I've found her to be," Drusilla paused delicately, "quite skilled."

He let Dru push him down on the mattress, and Bubbles was on him in a second, making short work of his belt, unzipping his jeans. Instead of watching, Drusilla let the lacy peignoir slip from her shoulders and joined them on the bed, pulling Spike's mouth up to meet hers.

Puzzled, he pulled away. "What's this – umm – about?"

"Don't you like it?"

"Yes, but–" She stopped his words with another kiss. Spike resisted a moment longer – Drusilla might bring a trinket for him, but she never touched him at the same time; this was an unwritten rule that went back to Darla – but Bubbles actually was quite skilled. Words died away, and he forgot about being tired.

Hours later, Spike woke. It was already dark, and he should be out. He rolled over onto his side and found Drusilla idly admiring a mood ring around her finger. Bubbles was asleep near the foot of the bed, her head caught between Dru's ankles.

"Evenin,' love." He nodded toward the pink hair. "What was that all about?"

"You didn't like it?"

"Yeah, it was all right." He didn't want to be enthusiastic lest she be put out. "Just a bit confused, that's all. The duchess never allowed that."

Still considering her ring, Drusilla smiled. "Grandmummy said it was a carrot." A slight frown marred her brow. "Didn't seem like carrots, though. Maybe if her hair was orange."

Even with this disjointed explanation, Spike got it: a dangling carrot for a cart horse. Darla hadn't allowed Drusilla any authority in her bed, had denied Angelus a threesome while leaving the tantalizing suggestion that it would happen someday. 'I just don't like to share you,' she'd purr to her consort when he complained. Of course, Spike, Drusilla, and Angelus had spent dutiful hours with Darla as the focus of their lust. That didn't threaten the matriarch's ideas on sharing or her iron grip on the family – nor had it precluded a three-way with the Immortal, but Spike let that irritating thought slide away. "What made you decide to do this now, after all these years?" he asked, curious.

She didn't look at him for a moment, and Spike knew she was thinking of an answer. "Why should we follow the old rules?" she finally replied.

He stared at her, then forced a smile. "Yeah. No rules for us." Sitting up, he threw his legs off the side of the bed and triangulated the location of his scattered clothing. "No, stay put, love. It's a rainy night out." The inside of his ear still felt damp in the breeze he generated as he moved around the room; Bubbles tended to poke her talented little tongue into any orifice she could find. He'd not been so well-tended since Angelus left the family.

Spike's fingers tightened on his jeans at the thought of the other Aurelian. Drusilla didn't mind sharing her Spike, did she? He wasn't Daddy, after all. He left the room in silence, taking the bitter thoughts with him. One of Dru's minions was idly sitting on a sagging couch playing with clackers, actually doing a good job whacking the hard orbs together. Unfortunately for the other vampire, the toy made enough noise that Spike had an excuse to behead it.

Feeling marginally better, he left the moldy parlor a little dustier than he'd found it, breathing the damp air in deeply the moment he was out of the house. Exhaust, garbage, and a soupcon of sewage was still fresher than Drusilla's lair. He never thought of it as his, not the way he had their London flat, though they had been living here for several months. Loping down the few steps to the sidewalk, he turned and headed toward the Bowery, needing to hear a good, loud band. He liked to end the night at CBGB, part of his routine, but it was late already. Music, smoking, booze or drugs to dull the ennui. Here he was, white-haired and nearing ninety, feeling like an old man instead of an immortal warrior.

"Aurelian!"

Spike glanced lazily across the street at the hail. He already knew there were two vampires there, both less than ten years old. He deigned to slow, forcing them to dodge traffic and come to him. "Name's Spike."

"Yeah. We know."

"You gonna do this one?"

"Do what to which?" He didn't bother to sound interested, instead letting his eyes size them up openly. A smile played around the corners of his mouth. No more than five moves to kill them both. Not much bother, white-haired old man or not.

"The Slayer." The shorter of the two gave him a challenging look. "They say you killed a Slayer, long time ago."

"Yeah," Spike said, "Three Slayers, actually." He let his head fall back, nostrils flaring, testing the air to see if there were other vampires nearby, not expecting an ambush but not completely without hope. "Long before you were born or reborn. Want me to reenact it for you? Need volunteers to play the Slayers." His smile had lots and lots of teeth.

"Why not just kill this one?" the taller vampire said sardonically.

Spike stood up quite straight. "You're trying to tell me there's a Slayer in New York?"

"Yeah." The shorter on leaned in, trying to intimidate Spike. "Scared?"

Less than a second later, Spike had one hand around the vampire's throat, dangling him off the ground. He turned to the taller of the two, the one who was able to speak. "Take me to her."

Once the two younger vampires realized that he fully expected them to produce the Slayer, their attitude changed markedly. They flanked him, yapping at him like small dogs at their master's heels, giving him nothing but rumor and hearsay. She was new; she was back; she was a different one. Thirty blocks later, with no Slayer-caused carnage in evidence, Spike ditched them and headed to find dinner. He left them with clear orders to find him if she showed, but he no more expected that to happen than for New York to experience a Yeti sighting. Thought they could yank his chain, he supposed. There were drawbacks to being notorious.

⸹

Three nights later, Spike was in CBGB and in a better mood, half a beer in his hand (all that was left after leaving the bar and crossing the crowded floor) nodding along to the Patti Smith Group. Halfway through a chorus of 'Redondo Beach,' Spike felt demons in the club. He finished the beer in one swallow and cracked his neck, loosening up. Territory to defend.

He felt their auras as they came straight for him, recognizing the two vampires from earlier in the week just before he spotted them in the ruck. "Oi!" he bellowed, because only other vampires could hear him over the band. A curious prickling sensation trailed along his spine, and scolded himself for letting his hopes rise. Surely not a Slayer, not that they had been worthwhile opponents these past few decades. Must be some other scheme. "You do know you're not supposed to be here?" His voice was calm.

"We found her! Jackie's following her right now, she–"

The shorter vampire interrupted. "She's up in Harlem, saw her not twenty minutes ago!"

"The Slayer?" Spike's question was precise and coated with disbelief.

"Yeah, her! We'll take you there. Come on!" The shorter vampire reached for Spike's arm, but let his hand fall to his side under the weight of the blond vampire's gaze and raised eyebrow.

A trap, he thought, and the idea cheered him up considerably. It had been yonks since he had a decent fight, so he put on a skeptical but willing expression, not wanting them to know he rumbled their plan. Spike followed them from the club. Something made him look up, swivel his head around to look at the streetlight. Perched atop the light was a small falcon.

It looked back at him gravely, no more than that, then spread its wings and took to the sky, disappearing in the dark canyons of the buildings. That was enough for Spike, though. He snatched Shorty's coattail and hauled him away from the curb, where he was craning his head, looking for a cab.

"No taxi," Spike said, his voice rough with emotion. "We're on foot." Once again, he schooled himself from too much hope… but he hadn't seen his totem for years. Might mean something.

"There." It was half an hour later. Spike pointed down, waiting for the younger pair to catch up. They were much less confident leaping from roof to roof than he was. His first sight of the newest Slayer was encouraging. She was kicking the crap out of a vampire in an alley.

"She got Jackie," the taller vamp said in dismay.

"Must have noticed her following," said Shorty, sounding much less concerned.

"Shut up." Spike gave the order in a low voice. Even with the noise from the upended garbage cans, the Slayer might hear them. He wanted to study her.

She was a tall young woman with a strong, sturdy, yet shapely body. Her movements were smooth and confident, though she seemed to be without a stake at the moment. This was the first black Slayer Spike had seen, and the gentle sway of her enormous Afro as she moved made him smile. She had clothes style, too, the yards of fabric of the elephant-ear legs of her pants hiding her footwork from her hapless enemy. If she had a stake, Spike thought, the vampiress would already be dust.

The short vampire gave his companion a sidelong look. "Aren't you going to go help her?" This earned him an irritated look; vampires usually wouldn't put themselves out for anyone but their sire.

Spike grinned and put a hand on either vampire's shoulder. "What kind of gentlemen are you, not helping a lady?" And he shoved both off the side of the building. He followed, drawing shadow to himself as he fell.

The Slayer wasted no time worrying about the newcomers. With an economy of motion, she spun so a wall of the alley was behind her, sparing only a glance upward to make sure there were no other vampires on the way. She pulled a knife from a sheath at her belt, only eight inches long, and grabbed the vampiress, Jackie, by the arm. Beheading was a gruesome business with such a short blade, even without spurting blood, but the Slayer sawed through the bone and gristle in less than three seconds. She was brushing grit off her shirt before the two New York vampires had regained their footing after their awkward descent.

The two-to-one odds didn't seem to embolden either demon, and it was only the sense of Spike at their backs that kept them from fleeing. "Got you cornered, girlie," the shorter one said, his voice thin.

"No," she retorted, "this is an alley. No corners, dipshit." She shifted her knife to her other hand.

Spike grinned again in the darkness he'd created. He'd seen where she was looking, a heap of rubbish a few feet from her, and already knew what she was going to do next.

Sure enough, the Slayer feinted to the right, enough to get one of the other vampires to commit, then dodged to her left to the trash. Pushing a stained mattress out of the way, she snatched a wooden pallet from beneath it, bashing it against the wall. It didn't break cleanly, but she had something wooden again, three short planks still nailed to a fourth. With a snarl, she kicked the closest vampire away, then turned and plunged toward the other. The Slayer drove a broken slat into the shorter vampire's chest, and Spike winced a little in sympathy.

A second later, all expression left his face. The remnants of the pallet had all dusted along with the hapless demon, and the weaponless Slayer was turning to face the tall vampire, who was running at her. Spike had time to think, _Mine_ , and then he was flying out of the darkness to grab the other vampire. A hand on either side of its face, one knee in its back, he rode it down, giving a brutal twist and wrenching the vampire's head from its neck. He fell into its disintegrating body, rolled to his side to save his knees and went with his momentum, coming back to his feet just in front of the Slayer.

She was breathing hard, her eyes wide as she stared at him. Spike was breathing hard, too, and this close he could smell her: light perspiration, Charlie perfume, and a powdery, milky smell he couldn't place. "What?" he said, smiling at her. "Aren't you going to thank me?"

She was looking at him warily. "Who are you?"

And he was on her in a flash, his hands on her neck now, still smiling, showing his demon face. "I'm the one who gets to kill you." He jerked his head toward the dust on the broken pavement of the alley. "They didn't deserve the chance. You're too good for them. Never would have faced you if I hadn't forced them."

She scratched at his hands, struggling to free herself, but she was pinned between his unyielding body and the brick of the building behind her. Spike let go of her neck and grabbed her hands, wrenching them above her. Her mouth was set in a mutinous line, eyes blazing with fury. She was trying to kick him, to wrap a leg around his, so he ground his thighs against hers. He brought his human features to the fore again, not wanting to be tempted by the blood he could see as it raced beneath her skin.

"Well?" she spat.

"Oh, no, love," he crooned. "Not gonna waste you. I've been looking for another Slayer to fight for a long time. You're the best I've seen since I killed the one in China, what, seventy years ago." Spike leaned into her, and she averted her face without exposing her neck, quite a feat. He chuckled. "But you're not there yet. Gonna let you ripen for a while longer before," he leaned in just a hair closer and clicked his teeth together, "before I pluck you."

Spike let go of her and was five yards away before she could blink, back in the shadows. The Slayer didn't stay frozen for more than a second, was scrambling away to claim more makeshift stakes from the shattered pallet. She stood up and examined her surroundings, still except for her eyes.

On the rooftop above, Spike watched her, knowing she was trying to sense him. He was too elated to try to dampen his aura. Instead, he lay his head back and shouted his glee to the starless New York sky above. When he finished, the Slayer had left the alley for safer territory, and he grinned again. This one had good instincts. He trailed her from above for several blocks, then let her believe she'd lost him in the subways. Spike followed her for the next few hours, using tracking skills that were rusty from disuse but nonetheless effective, learning all he could about his quarry. He didn't know the future the way Drusilla did, but he had a good feeling about the coming weeks.

⸹

"Dru!" Spike sprinted through the door an hour after sunrise, knocking a minion aside in the stairwell as he dashed to their bedroom. "Dru!" he called again, bursting through the door. The pink-haired vampire was just sitting up from the bed, looking sleepy, and he grabbed her by the closest limb – her leg – and tossed her outside. Drusilla turned from her vanity, the top covered with dolls instead of makeup. She had been cutting off the hair from one of her dolls – Miss Mary, Spike thought – and putting the brown curls in a white mug with a yellow smiley face printed on the side. Spike slammed the door with a great deal of satisfaction. "Found a good one this time, Dru."

She frowned a little. "A good one, what?" Drusilla turned to face him on the spindly stool, her brow clearing as she saw the mingled arrogance and excitement. "Another Slayer?"

"Yeah." He was prowling about the little bedroom because he couldn't stay still. "Finally, a good one."

She tilted her head, smelling him. "Did you kill her?"

"No, greedy little piglet," he grinned, reaching out to tap the tip of her nose, "gonna let her get ripe." Spike pulled Drusilla from the stool and danced her across the room. "Gonna keep her in the pantry, gonna wait until she's at her prime."

"Yeah," Drusilla agreed with an avid grin. "She'll be your fatted calf."

He laughed at the faint whiff of blasphemy from the former nun and began tugging her skirt higher. "Got something fattening for you, my peach. Wait… think it's ripe for you right now."

⸹

December 1975

⸹

"I want a pet rock for Christmas."

Spike opened his eyes, found he was beneath a sheet. Drusilla wanted a what?

"Did you hear me, my Spike? I want you to get me a pet rock. Father Christmas won't bring it for me." The tranquility in her voice was replaced by a bitter darkness. "He won't put vampires on his nice list. I asked very prettily, too, before I ate him."

"'Course I'll get it," he managed, pulling the sheet from his head and blinking owlishly. Their bedroom was ablaze with candles, and Drusilla was dancing in the center of it, her arms out. Occasionally her fingertips would touch a candelabra. "Pet rock" – whatever that was – "for Christmas, and I think you want to go dancing right now, do you, princess?" He looked around the floor and saw his jeans pinned to the linoleum by a four-footed, wrought iron candleholder.

Drusilla stopped for a moment. "You never take me dancing anymore." There was no hurt in her voice, just accusation.

Spike sighed. "I have asked. You don't want to come out dancing with me, Dru."

"Don't like the music. Too much mold and loudness." Drusilla tilted her head. "I like my music better."

"Share it with me, then. Sing your music for me, love." He had more patience with Drusilla now than he had since they lived in London. Spike knew it was because he had something else in his unlife. Getting up from the bed, he took his sire's hand and bowed, ready to dance with her. Drusilla didn't have a good voice, but she hummed aloud the tune playing in her head, a pleasant sound. As they danced, Spike snuffed out the closest candles. He wrapped one hand over her waist, rubbing his thumb against the velvet of her dressing gown, and used his other hand to bring her fingers to his mouth. As he suspected, they were burned.

⸹

"Un-fuckin'-believable." Spike stared down at the display in disbelief.

"Yeah, some wiseguy is making a million bucks offa this," the clerk said sourly. "You kiddin' me? Wish I'd thought of it."

"I'll take that one," Spike mumbled, pointing at a random pet rock. Drusilla hadn't wanted anything for Christmas for nearly twenty years, so if she wanted a rock with stuffed-animal googly eyes glued to it, he'd get her one. "Wrap it for me, would you?"

The clerk in the little Times Square souvenir shop took the indicated present and plopped it in a small box. When he finished wrapping it in festive, Santa-covered paper, he stuck a red bow atop. "Anything else for you?"

"Yeah," Spike said, having noted the only other customer leave. He went to demon face. "One more thing."

⸹

March 1976

⸹

It was near dawn, and Spike was trudging back to the lair after a long night of following Nikki, who had dispatched a Harrick demon on West 123rd. He had decided to go help her, a depressing setback, when she managed to roll beneath it with her sword for the deathblow. Spike had nearly sighed with relief, exasperated with his Slayer. She was usually better in combat, and he felt his estimate of when they would have their own battle slip a little further into the future.

A board fence was on his left, shielding a construction site, and someone had stapled up a long line of identical posters. It was, he later supposed, the repetition that caught his attention. "Silvia Rubenstein." Spike slowed to look closer at the posters, wondering why the name sounded so familiar. Other words sprang out in the improving light: exhibit, galley, sculpture.

The human from Cologne, back before the war started. She'd been some kind of artist, had sketched him all the bloody time. Silvia Rubenstein… it sounded right. He ripped one of the flyers from the fence and stuffed it in his pocket, then stumbled on back to the lair. Drusilla had parted with him when he decided to leave the hunt to check on Nikki, and she still wasn't back. Most of the minions were gone, too, a relief. Spike fell into bed and sprawled across the entire mattress, enjoying his lonely state for all of the half minute it took for him to fall asleep.

He woke at the distant sound of thunder, and he sat up, alert. It was almost dark, but Drusilla hadn't come back. In other times and in other cities, this would worry him, but not now. New York was a safe haven for demons, and she would send one of the minions if he was needed. Stretching, still enjoying the empty bed, he waited until he heard the sound of raindrops pattering on the rusting fire escape before he bothered to get up and get ready to go out into the night. As he slid his jeans up over his thighs, he heard an unexpected crinkle. Fishing in his pocket, he found the exhibit notice. Counting back through the days, he was pretty sure that today was Thursday, which meant the gallery would be opening its door in a half hour or so.

Spike debated whether to go for no other excuse than to break the monotony. He decided not to, since it was raining and the gallery was in the opposite direction of the Bowery. Got nothing to wear, anyway, he thought, then grew still. Buggered if he wasn't still thinking like a human, after all this time. He put on a t-shirt held together by a row of safety pins, rumpled his hair, and searched for almost five minutes before he located both his boots. By the time he had smudged some of Drusilla's eyeliner beneath his lower lashes, he was grinning. Let the high society types stare at his uncouth, badass self. Defiance trumped the novelty factor of possibly seeing a human years after their first encounter as his main reason for going into Manhattan tonight.

Lack of an invitation hadn't worried him, but Spike was bemused by the reaction of the attendant on duty at the gallery doors. The man did a double-take when he saw the vampire approach, then began to chuckle as he waved him inside. Once past the unnecessary coat check, Spike was still trying to puzzle the attendant's "Fabulous, simply perfect."

The party was a typical reception, just beginning to be crowded an hour after the stated time, and he snagged a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. The only thing he found odd was the number of assessing looks sent his way. While he always got his fair share of attention, the constant scrutiny tonight was unusual. Spike began to feel paranoid and had to think back to remember if his last meal had drugs in its system. He put the empty glass on a plinth and decided not to have any more.

A moment later, his gaze was drawn to a puddle of light amid the people. In it was another plinth supporting a sculpture of two courting birds. He didn't remember the work, but he did remember the artist's style. It was the human he remembered, then.

Behind him, he heard a sharp laugh and the buzz of a haughty voice. Half-turning, he saw a tall, thin woman with her hand beneath the elbow of an elderly lady. The taller bird was gesturing at him and nattering in a New York society voice that he simply ignored. The older woman, though, was staring at him with dark eyes he recognized. The nose wasn't as sharp as he remembered, but he supposed age might account for that.

The old lady shook loose of the loud woman and took a few steps toward him, tilting her head in wonder. "Spike? Is it really you?"

He answered in French. " _Oui_. It has been a long time, madame." He kissed her hand with manners from a different age.

"Not for you." Silvia's eyes were round. "You haven't changed… haven't aged."

Spike smiled, suddenly glad he had found the poster. "And you've become famous."

"No, I –" Flustered, she moved her hands in a circle. "Well, somewhat, I suppose." Silvia made herself be still, then asked simply, "Why are you here?"

He knew she was afraid, so he pulled the wrinkled poster from his pocket. "Your publicity worked."

"You aren't angry?"

"Angry? Why would I be angry?"

Instead of answering, she hesitantly took his arm. When he didn't object, she led him toward the back of the gallery, where the ceilings were higher. There were two tall statues there behind velvet ropes, not of birds but of a human. Spike looked at the male nudes, one in white marble, the other a duplicate in bronze. He lifted a brow and started to make a snide comment, but it died on his lips as he realized.

"That's me," he mumbled instead.

"I… you saved my life. It was – you were the only thing I could think of for years." Silvia stopped the words that wanted to pour from her.

"I what? I didn't save your life." His eyes never left the two statues.

"You did. That first night, and you got me out before the Nazis scoured the city for Jews." There was a pause, then her emotion-filled voice went dark. "Oh, damn."

This was enough to make him look down at her. She was looking not at him or the statues, but at a horde of people behind them. The woman with the society voice was leading several photographers. As their audience began applauding, flashbulbs went off, and Silvia forced a smile. It seemed to go on forever, bright gashes of light against his sensitive eyes, the exclamations of 'Remarkable likeness!' and 'Wherever do you suppose they found him?' Spike felt exposed in several ways. He would have liked to contemplate the statues in private, to have time to come to terms with the enormity of it. Just as he felt his fangs begin to descend, Silvia touched his hand.

"I'm going to pretend to feel faint," she said in a very low voice, knowing he would hear. "Escort me out." She reeled a little, and Spike put out an automatic hand to steady her. Even as she leaned against him, she began leading him toward a door to the side, pleading dizziness. The woman with the society voice moved in behind them, shooing away the concerned well-wishers, anxiety in her voice as she complimented Spike's likeness to the statues and Madame's clever idea, though Madame must realize how much she still needed her assistant.

Then they were up a steep flight of stairs and through a door into a tiny rooftop garden. Silvia shut the door deliberately before turning to give him a shrug. "I'm very sorry about that. I thought you knew, that you came because of the not-David."

"Not David?"

Silvia shook her head. "I didn't name it, some offended art critic said the statue was the anti- _David_." He seemed to see her better here in the darkness, her once-dark hair pulled into a bun, the softness of her lax skin. She looked away from his scrutiny. "I know it wasn't ethical, that I should have asked your permission. And it was guilt, survivor's guilt. Why should I be alive when so many of the people I knew were dead? You couldn't have been real, you see, you must have been there to save me, not because I deserved it but from grace, a guardian angel. Nothing so beautiful could have been –" She stopped abruptly. "But you are real."

"But I'm no angel." Spike looked at her curiously, wondering at the source of her nervousness. Then it dawned on him. "Not the Grim Reaper, either."

She looked at him, tears in her eyes. "I always thought if I saw you again, it would be the last thing I saw."

He wrinkled his nose. "I'm more of a veal kind of guy."

Silvia laughed, still a strong sound despite her age. "You must think I'm so self-centered. I'm surprised you even remember me."

Nothing made Spike happier than to catch someone underestimating him. He pulled something else from his pocket with a flourish and held it up so she could see.

Her lips, coated with an old-lady shade of coral lipstick, parted in disbelief. "You still have the lighter you took from me?"

"Took? Way I remember it, you gave it to me."

She smiled, and it took years from her. "Let's call it a gift, a poor gift in return for what you gave me." When he looked expectant, she reiterated, "My life."

"Drove you to a port, got you on a boat," he mumbled. She had no right to saddle him with her gratitude. "Anyway, I, uh, gotta go." Spike moved away from the naked adoration on her wrinkled face. "Congratulations on your opening."

"Exhibit." Silvia firmed her jaw. "Those figures of you, they're on loan from museums, Spike. You gave me a career, too."

"Didn't give you talent," he protested, feeling harassed. "Look, take care and all." He went over the rail and down the side of the building, knowing that the human had rushed to the edge in horror. Spike looked up at her from where he stood safely in the alleyway, nodded once, then strode to where the shadows were suddenly much darker.

Instead of going to a club, he walked the wet streets, not noticing the easy prey scurrying past. Didn't she understand he was a demon? He took lives; he didn't save them. It was just that she was a woman, and he'd always been a soft touch when it came to women. It's why he'd saved her from the two soldiers, probably. Leftover chivalry, that's all, because he was a stupid Victorian.

A shadow moved at his feet, not his. Spike calculated the fall of the streetlights unerringly, looking up just in time to see a light-bellied bird glide to a roost atop the corner of a bus shelter. "You," he said, not surprised, not tonight.

The kestrel fluffed its feathers against the rain and cocked its head at him inquisitively. Spike raised one sardonic eyebrow, then held out his forearm. It lit on his offered perch, sharp claws pressing against his bare skin. Looking into its black eye, he knew what to expect, but it was still disconcerting.

 _Why did you have me save that bird?_ He asked the question before he'd regained his equilibrium from their connection.

 _Is it not good that you saved her?_

 _Good? I don't do 'good.' Demon, aren't I?_ Spike knew he was being querulous.

 _Hasn't she repaid you with her art?_

He snorted. _Nothing to repay_.

 _If she amused you for two weeks out of your long life, I would think that would be recompense_ , Adahihi.

 _Those two weeks? Not that bloody amusing. 'Sides, there was the inconvenience of traveling with her._

The kestrel raised the feathers around its face. _You have only yourself to answer to. You set your own standard, you always have. You are right to do so. Here in this city, you save musicians nearly every night._

His eyes narrowed. _That's different. They give me something._

 _If you feel you did wrong by saving an artist so she could bring beauty into this world, take out the lighter you have kept all this time and set the gallery on fire. Burn the beauty._

Spike was caught flatfooted, shocked at such an idea. It was just… wrong. He shifted the argument to cover. _What I ought to do is wring your neck. Bleeding useless as a totem animal, you are._

Its wings lifted in a slight shrug. _You and I will not travel together for much longer,_ Adahihi _. Then you can judge whether I am useless_. The kestrel bunched its tiny muscles and flew into the air.

Spike watched the bird, wings working like mad to conquer gravity. "Yeah, that's right – 'that which kills,' not that which saves," he called after it. The rain had returned while they touched minds. Turning sharply to the left, he darted across the street, through a puddle, and set out on a different, equally random path, feeling harried. Him, a hero to humans. The very idea felt like a warning. Angelus would punish him for days for such blasphemy.

That stopped him dead, fortunately beneath the awning of a pawn shop. He blinked water from his eyes, breathing hard. Angelus was not here, had nothing to do with him as he was now, as he had been for seventy years. Fuck Angelus. Spike squared his shoulders, defiance in the set of his jaw. If he wanted to save a human or two to amuse himself, so what? What were rules to him? He was the most powerful vampire in this city, the most powerful vampire for hundreds of miles. Slayers were his true prey, not humans.

There was a bench on the curb. He picked it up one-handed and swung it like a cricket bat, breaking the window of the pawnshop. Spike took a final deep breath, then made himself stop. He felt better. Wondering if Drusilla was back, he headed toward the lair, leaving the bench inside the display window, shards of glass and gold chains glittering in the faint neon glow of the light that still dangled drunkenly overhead.

⸹

June 1976

⸹

The night had started well, Spike supposed, before taking a sharp turn for the worse. Dru, bless her, had the fantastic idea to steal a cab and play with the fares. They chose a likely taxi, disposed of the driver, and Spike took the wheel. Drusilla sat in the back, calling out which people he should pick up. Spike got to be quite good at flipping on the light atop the cab, amazed at how people just got inside without a qualm. It would be a good hunting strategy, but right now Dru was feeling puckish. She toyed with the humans, putting them back out on the street without clothes, teasing out their darkest secrets.

"Them," Dru said, pointing to the right. There was a couple walking hip-to-hip along the sidewalk, the man's arm slung over his girlfriend's shoulders.

Spike slid the big automobile along the curb, pacing them. After a moment, the couple became aware of the taxi. They exchanged a glance, and Spike saw a flash of white teeth. Something about the grin made him frown, but the door was already opening. They tumbled into the back seat of the cab, laughing, and the man's fist thumped rather hard against the glass divider between the seats as he caught his balance.

"Where to, buddy?" Spike asked in his best Brooklynese.

At the same time, the woman said, "Oh, I didn't realize this cab was taken."

"Excellent," said her boyfriend, and Spike heard the soft crunch of a vampire's face taking shape. This time the fist smashed through the glass partition.

"Hullo, Elizabeth," Dru said with a serene smile. "How good to see you."

Spike had his foot on the brake, one hand on the wheel, and the other in a vice around the man's wrist before the questing fingers could find something vulnerable. "Eliz – James?" he asked, turning to look at the passenger with his own golden eyes.

Elizabeth recovered first, laughing. "Dru!" She pulled the other vampires into an embrace. "And Spike, I didn't recognize you at all."

"Spike? How embarrassing." James eyes twinkled under his brow ridges. He went back to human face, shaking his head. "You do look completely different." Then he smiled, just as predatory without the fangs. "But just as good."

Spike let go of James' wrist and stifled a sigh. "Fancy running into you," he said, using a hearty tone of voice Angelus would have recognized, where the insolence was on the border of being tangible. "What brings you to New York?" The follow-up question – "And will you be leaving soon?" – was implied.

Drusilla still had Elizabeth in her arms. "You must come stay with us. We have minions to spare; you won't have to leave the lair if you don't want to." She gave Spike a sparkling look. "We can play parlor games now!"

He turned back toward the steering wheel. "'Course!" he agreed in the overly hearty voice.

"Spike's hunting the Slayer," Drusilla informed the other couple. "But she's a tardy girl who won't get ripe."

"Another Slayer, is it?" James asked, looking at Spike.

"Well, you look ripe, Dru," Elizabeth informed her. There was a fair amount of giggling that followed this statement, and Spike assumed soft feminine flesh had been groped.

"Driver," Drusilla demanded, rapping on the roof instead of the shattered partition, "take us home."

"As you wish, madam," Spike replied in his top-loftiest voice. Drusilla giggled again, and James gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment, then guided the taxi back into the street, wishing that aspirin worked for his headaches.

⸹

Several days later, he and James were at a neighborhood bar in a much nicer neighborhood than the ones around the lair. It was the Fourth of July during the American Bicentennial, and the humans around them buzzed with excitement. The two vampires had thrown good-natured insults about in their British accents, but the crowd was mellow and no one took offense. Just as well; James wasn't the best bar brawler.

To Spike's surprise, they were having a good time together. Elizabeth had offed two of Dru's more annoying minions and had assumed her hostess' toilette, so that Drusilla shone like a dark star. Even better, James had stayed with Elizabeth during their romps in the family bed. Enough alcohol had been consumed that he felt safe in asking about that.

"Why haven't I been after you?" James shrugged and raised his Guinness. "Never gonna work, is it? Not stupid. I figured, for you, it must be Angelus or nothing."

"I'd have preferred the nothing," Spike said, though that was unfair. He'd been fine with things until Angelus showed his stripes. "And it was because you just assumed I was there for the taking."

James leaned a little closer and gave him a flirty grin. "Give me a go, then. Don't know much, but I know I'm a better cocksman than Angelus."

"No. But, thanks."

"Oh." James looked at him with a dawning comprehension. "You don't… not at all, then?"

"Not even other female vampires. Only Drusilla. Or family bed, obviously." He shrugged. "Dunno why. One-woman man, I s'pose."

James smiled. "Now that, I understand. Nothing for me in this world without Elizabeth." He moved aside his mostly unbuttoned shirt to show a slight scar on his chest. "Shot myself when she died – two days before our wedding, it was. Didn't know she'd been turned. Fortunately, I did a bad job. She showed up by my deathbed and managed to get enough blood out of me before giving me some of hers. I'd love her for that alone, for giving my heart back to me before I died." He raised his glass. "To our lady loves."

Spike drank, but looked at him narrowly. "Who turned her?"

"Not a clue. She said it was a tall, thin woman with ginger hair who offered her something old for her wedding." He lifted a brow in appreciation of that irony. "Didn't ever claim her."

"Oh. I thought it might have been Angelus. He always did like to disrupt a wedding."

James shook his head, his eyes widening in mock horror. "No. That'd make us Aurelians, and I'm happy to be unclaimed." He lifted two fingers toward the bartender, then turned back to Spike. "For me, it's only Elizabeth. I could never be like you."

"Like me?" Spike echoed, and there was something dangerous in his tone. "I don't understand. For me, it's only Dru."

For his part, James looked perplexed. "Don't mean anything by it, mate. I mean, you have Drusilla, I know that, and I can remember being human enough to understand the monogamy even if I know better – it's only sex, not love – for me, at least." His tone wasn't condescending, but it had a shading of you'll-learn-as-you-get-older anyway. "And I really appreciate you and Dru, 'cause there's no one else we've ever met who understands us, you know? Darla and Angelus… we had a falling out, stayed away from them for a long time. They used to mock us for the love."

"Yeah, been there."

"But you're an Aurelian, both of you are. Higher purpose and all." When Spike raised questioning brows, James continued. "Well, Drusilla has her visions, right? And you hunt Slayers." He took the two mugs from the barkeep and slid across a ten, waving off the change. James slid one toward Spike. "That's the Aurelian in you."

He didn't like this assumption, either. "The Slayers… I don't look for them because it's part of an Aurelian plan, mate. It's because they bloody well fight better than anything else I've ever found."

Smiling, James shook his head. "Last time I saw Darla, she let slip that the Master had you out in the world hunting down Slayers on his orders."

"She said that?" Incredulity warred with anger in his voice.

"You mean… you really just hunt them down for fun?" James chuckled. "You are crazy, man, trust me on this." He took a long pull of ale. "I meet people, they don't even believe you're real when I tell them I know you. Think you're a legend. The only way they do believe is when I say you're an Aurelian. Yours is the only court left, even if the Master is trapped."

"Pro'ly why it's survived, innit?" Spike sighed. "Been a rough century." On the inside, he was preening. He was a legend; James said so. "C'mon. Our ladies await." He could sense Drusilla outside, nearly at the door.

Draining his glass as he stood, James swallowed and said firmly, "You'll not be takin' me back to that same club, either. The noise the band was making nearly burst my eardrums."

"No clubs tonight, mate," Spike said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Two hundred years of American independence. Should be a party."

"Bloody colonials," James grumbled without rancor. "And I can remember when they were just colonials, too."

"Did they taste as good?"

Elizabeth answered as the men came out of the bar. "Everything tasted better then. We were young and greedy."

Dru bounced on her toes. "Let's head toward the waterfront. I want to see all the fireworks, every one."

"Come on, then, my beauty," Spike said, offering his arm. "Wouldn't want to miss a Bicentennial minute."

⸹

Spike slipped through the inner door of the lair as early morning commuter traffic began to pick up. He didn't mind coming home these days. During the three weeks Elizabeth and James had been staying with them, the place stayed neat and clean, as the older vampiress was almost as good as Darla at keeping minions busy. The only bad thing was that the other couple would be leaving for the UK soon. They kept Drusilla diverted while he was out. Tonight he had been following Nikki on patrol, then back to her to her mother's home, watching her from his favorite lurking place on a fire escape on the opposite building.

Nikki had checked on her young son, not really a toddler any longer, as he slept in his new big boy bed, then sat down with her mother. Mrs. Wood was a nurse, and Nikki had intended to follow in her footsteps. That thought made Spike smile with the irony of the hands of a death-dealing Slayer used to alleviate the suffering of sick humans. The women had talked quietly as Nikki's mother got ready for the early shift at her hospital, and for the first time he learned that her son's father was alive. He'd assumed the sperm donor had been killed by demons. Mrs. Wood used words like 'shiftless' and 'no-good' as she described an encounter with him at a corner store. Nikki had responded with tough indifference, even if there had been sadness in her voice, and changed the subject.

He knew a lot about Nikki, her family, and her Watcher, who was a bastard if Spike had ever seen one. He wouldn't have been surprised if Crowley literally was one of Aleister's bastards, though to him it seemed risky for the Council of Watchers to allow a sorcerer's spawn into the organization. The old man had tried to kill Spike himself, a laughable attempt with a gun that shot wooden bullets. The round had splintered in his hip when the Watcher tried to shoot him in the back. Crowley's cowardice was only exceeded by his stupidity – Spike would have put the wooden slug in a full metal jacket if he'd been making a bullet for a modern firearm. One thing he'd learned under Angelus: know your weapons. Though, of course, Angelus would never have worked to improve anything that fell into his hand.

A loud wail interrupted his reverie. "Dru!" he bellowed, already halfway up the stairs to the landing. He threw a minion over the banister, then his shoulder against the door, and, Watchers already on his mind, he looked wildly around their bedroom for tweed-covered assassins.

Elizabeth looked up from where she sat with her arms around Drusilla in a vice-like grip. She gave him an exasperated look that wouldn't have been out of place on Darla's face. Spike rushed to the bed and took his sire in his own embrace. "What is it, poodles? Tell your Spike. Something need a good killing?"

She nodded, the tears on her face as innocent as a child's. "He wants to kill me."

"Who? Who wants to kill you, Dru?" Spike's jaw went rigid, despite his gentle embrace.

"Because of my hair," she wailed, collapsing against him. "I don't want to change my hair. Then I wouldn't be your d-dark princess."

Spike looked over her head at Elizabeth, who gave him a bewildered shrug. "She was brushing my hair, then her voice got… I don't know, dreamy? She said he, whoever 'he' is, wouldn't harm me, that he hates brunettes, only kills brunettes." Elizabeth touched her own blond hair. "She threw the brush across the room and started… pulling out her hair. Trying to, anyway."

His arms tightened, and Spike ducked his head to find Drusilla behind her curtain of dangerously dark hair. "No one will ever kill you, Drusilla. I won't let anything happen to you. Is it a demon, sweetheart? I'll kill it first thing for you."

She shook her head, shaking. "Not a demon, not… quite." Drusilla lifted her face and put her forehead against his. "I have to get away from New York, Spike. If he sees me, it will be me he wants. Don't you see?"

"No, pet, I'm sorry. I don't." He stroked her cheek. "Do you think I'd ever let anyone lay a finger on my girl?"

"But he'll see me, Spike, I know he will." She closed her eyes, squeezing fresh tears onto her face. "I want to go to London with Elizabeth. I'll be safe there, safe from him and his greedy thoughts."

"Tell me who it is, love, and I'll kill him now. Then you'll be safe; I swear it."

"I don't know where he is," Drusilla said with a shiver, "but he's close. I can't see him, just feel him, what's in his nasty little brain. Plans, Spike, plans for pretty women with dark hair. Bad plans."

It was as much as he could get out of her. Drusilla wailed and cried and insisted that she would be safe if she could go to London. She wasn't above using subterfuge to get what she wanted, but this was innocent madness caused by her visions. Spike could always tell genuine panic, though it could well be for something that wouldn't happen even in their long years on earth. By noon he was out of arguments and options. He would take her back home.

⸹

London

August 1976

⸹

"Did you like her, pet?"

Drusilla shrugged and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "She sang about horses, and that was nice. Don't see horses anymore."

"Yeah." Patti Smith had recognized him in the audience, probably from his hair, and sent him a grave wink. He and Dru weren't the only people late of New York.

London was brilliant in its own way, with its old smells and memories, his favorite music now blaring out of all the dark places. Even a decade later, there were still people in the music scene who knew him, and he had entre everywhere. Spike was a fixture at the 100 Club, enjoying the nihilistic energy of the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks, and the Damned were damned good, but he had taken a shine to a younger band, the Clash, mostly because they were so earnest and so bad.

He smiled at Drusilla and immediately felt guilty. Of course, the best thing about the trip was that she had found her equilibrium almost as soon as the _Queen Elizabeth 2_ cast off and began her eastward journey. Elizabeth and James had picked an elderly couple in a not-quite first class cabin, and the four of them had settled in after carefully covering the porthole. The minions had been left with stern instructions to guard the lair for his and Drusilla's eventual return.

On the penultimate night in New York, Spike had tracked down Nikki with every intention of having the long-delayed final battle. She was at home instead of riding the subway or moving through Central Park. This surprised Spike until he saw the Slayer was celebrating her mother's fortieth birthday. Like Nikki, Mrs. Wood must have given birth as a teenager. The vampire watched them through the window, Nikki and her mother, Nikki's little boy licking cake icing from the candles, and the Watcher Crowley smiling stiffly across their kitchen table. He hadn't had the heart to kill Mrs. Wood's daughter on her birthday.

"Perhaps we should find a horse and turn it," Drusilla mused, breaking into his reverie. "Then we could see a horse every day again."

"You tried that, remember, my lovely plum? Didn't work out well." Spike almost shuddered at the memory of the abject terror of the dumb animal, saddled with a bloodthirsty, alien intelligence. Cats were the worst, but fortunately Drusilla didn't like the way they tasted.

"Oh. Yes. I thought I had dreamt of it." After a moment's thought, Dru squeezed his arm. "Will you take me to where there are horses?"

"Want to get out of the city already, love?"

"No. No, I like it here, living with Elizabeth and James. It's almost like family again."

She fell silent, so Spike was forced to answer. "Almost."

And that was the trouble, wasn't it? The independent life they had led for nearly eighty years was like an entangled balloon, trapped in one place, becoming less buoyant. Oh, it was nice to see Dru with another woman, a friend, and it was nice to go out drinking with James. But 'nice' could never be enough for a demon, and nice certainly didn't describe family as they knew it.

⸹

September 1976

⸹

"This is killing you, mate."

Spike turned his head on the pillow at the quiet words and met James' eyes. Elizabeth's blond hair spilled across his chest where he held her motionless body against his as she slept. Spike lifted an eyebrow. "Already dead."

"You know what I mean," James said, impatient. "Giving up your third Slayer." When Spike only gazed at him blandly, he added, "You've been quite the dour lad lately."

He didn't shrug, not wanting to disturb Drusilla's sleep. It was about two in the afternoon, the hour which always seemed to take the longest to pass. "Life's not all blood and barfights, is it?" Spike turned his head away, burying his nose in Drusilla's hair. The dark strands still smelled of smoke from the demon pub they had visited earlier, and he closed his eyes. He could feel James' eyes on him, but it's easy to feign sleep when you're a vampire, and soon he was really asleep in the basement flat where they were staying.

James brought up the subject again as they dressed that night, and Spike pinned him with an impatient glare. "Why are you still on about this? I know the Slayer's three thousand miles away, all right? Why keep bringing it up?"

The dark-haired vampire shrugged. "Maybe because I've got what I want. I hate to see you without what you want."

Spike shoved his feet into his boots and stood up. "I do have what I want. Drusilla."

"You want the Slayer."

"Right now, Drusilla and New York are mutually exclusive. You know what I chose, what I will always choose." He moved away from the bed and put his foot up on the windowsill so he could lace the boot.

"Dru can stay with us. We'll keep her safe."

This offer was generous enough that Spike turned his gaze away from the laces and back to the other man. James was looking at him earnestly, still sitting on the bed, and they both were thinking about the last time Drusilla had stayed with them. "She'll never agree."

"Well." James stood up and found his trousers. "Let's get downstairs before our ladies leave without us. I know Elizabeth is hungry. We'll have to hunt tonight."

⸹

"You've been unhappy, my Spike. You should go kill the Slayer."

"There are always Slayers, pet."

"But the one in New York is yours," Drusilla said. They were atop an old house that had been divided into flats, full from an early dinner of pensioner. "I've seen it." Her voice had darkened.

He grew still. "Have you?"

"Yes." She gave him a secretive smile. "My Spike has learned to play with his prey."

"Then it's safe to go back to New York?"

Drusilla leaned away from him and shook her head. "No. Not for me. I can stay here while you kill her."

"Ah. You've been talking to James."

"Elizabeth asked me if I wanted to stay with them while you," she bunched her fingers together to simulate little paws and scurried them up his arm, "run your errand." This time her smile was sly. "I do."

Spike gave her a speculative look. "Are you so eager to be rid of me? Sending me off to the slaughter?"

"I rather fancy having a consort who's killed more Slayers than any other vampire or demon." Drusilla's eyes gleamed. "All the demons will look on us with fear and desire when we promenade past."

He knew the look; it was the one given to Angelus and Darla whenever they had been at court. "Demons look at us that way now, love."

"The Slayer is your destiny," Drusilla said, and a troubled frown marred her smooth face for a moment. Then, more sure, she added, "You'll fight her, kill her. I've seen it." She put her right hand flat against his chest, over his still heart. "And then you'll come back to me."

⸹

It took the other three vampires most of a week to convince Spike that Drusilla would be safe while he was away and almost as long to find a suitable ship for travel, but his departure date finally arrived. He left Drusilla exhausted on the bed and gave Elizabeth a quick peck on the cheek as they passed each other at the bedroom door. The two women giggled together softly as he strode across the basement, and he refused to look back toward his dark goddess.

James was waiting outside on the stoop, smoking in the pre-dawn stillness, as quiet as London ever was. "Will you have enough time to get to the dock?"

Spike nodded. After a moment, he made himself say what he had to, and it came out sounding less grudging than he expected. "I suppose I owe you for this."

"Just having you in a better mood has payment enough." He passed the cigarette to Spike.

"No, I owe you." The words were flat. Not only did he hate to give in after so long, he simply wasn't attracted to the other man.

James gave him an impish grin. "A kiss, then, for watching after Dru a few months. A kiss, and we'll call it even."

It wasn't what Spike expected, and he blinked in surprise, feeling the pull of real friendship between them. Then he nodded and took a final drag on the cigarette. He tossed the dimp end away and moved in to where James was leaning against the rail. Spike snaked a hand around his nape, snagging the dark curls between his fingers, and gave James what he had asked for. A full, leisurely minute later, he stopped grinding his body against the other man and stepped back, his lips the last part to break contact.

"Damme," James whispered, beginning to smile as he opened his eyes. "For that, I'll look after her for a year."

⸹

New York

November 1976

⸹

Spike held up the newspaper just a little higher, watching Nikki across the subway platform. She was carrying herself with confidence, and she had reason to. He'd watched her take on four vampires who were about to eat a homeless man in an alley, and she'd barely gotten a layer of dust on her tight-fitting, military-styled pants.

Spike had labored under the certainty that he would hear about Nikki's death when the ship docked in the Big Apple, but she had been fine and easily found. After reestablishing surveillance on the Slayer, he'd dropped by the lair to put the fear of himself in the minions. Unfortunately, none survived the ordeal. For the past few days, he'd been dossing it anywhere except that old dump, cumulating in an uncomfortable sleep under a bridge. Last night he'd given up and gone to a hotel, showered for about an hour until he was as warm as a human, then felt his own confidence come back. Nikki was still alive and would stay that way until he felt it was time for a change.

The five rolled in with a blast of warm air and a squeal of brakes. He watched until the Slayer got into a car, then turned and stalked into the night. The Slayer was his again.

⸹

"You looking for an apartment?"

Spike turned away from the bulletin board outside the bar's bathroom to the human who had asked, one of the waitresses. She was as tall as he was, a sturdy woman with pale brown hair and freckles. There was something odd in her eyes, and he rather thought she wouldn't get much trouble out of the university students who frequented this tavern. He had actually been looking at the announcements to see which bands were currently playing nearby, but he did need a place to crash. He'd stayed with some friends in the music scene, everywhere from penthouses to squats, but it was good to have a place you knew would be safe from the sun. "Uh, yeah. I am."

"My roommate just left, dropped out. She didn't finish the semester."

Spike found himself waiting for her to go on, but she just stood there, examining him. "You live near here?"

"Two blocks away. One main room, a small bath, two bedrooms. Not bad for this city."

"I work nights," he said cautiously.

"You're a musician, band manager or something. I've seen you at some of the clubs."

"That's right," he lied. "Do you get decent water pressure?"

"It's okay. Two hundred a month plus half of the Con Ed and water."

"Sounds good."

The waitress tucked her round tray beneath her other arm and stuck out her hand to shake. "I'm Ella."

"Spike."

"You're English."

"A Brit, yeah. That a problem?"

"No." She lifted the tray to a ready position again. "My shift ends at two. Wait for me, and I'll take you by."

⸹

Life without Drusilla was not life. Spike wrote to her, posting the letters to a demon bar near the building where Elizabeth and James kept their basement flat. He took advantage of the darkening days to use the public library and read more than he had in years, enough that he got headaches from his poor close vision. The music was still good, but even that paled without his love waiting nearby.

He rarely saw his roommate and was glad for that. Ella was the coldest human he'd ever met, and he thought it odd that she was getting her doctorate in psychology. Spike couldn't feature her ever helping anyone with their problems. He did find her store of textbooks fascinating, though – they gave him labels for all the strangeness he'd seen in his own life.

The only time he felt alive was when he had Nikki in his sights. He hadn't made himself known and rather thought she fancied herself free of him. From rooftops or doorways or shadows, Spike watched her patrol each night, stake always at the ready. For every twenty easy kills, though, there would be one that would make him groan: an undefended flank, an exposed neck, a stray movement that could be so easily used against her. He wanted a battle royale, not a slaughter.

Spike finally broke down out of simple loneliness a few days after Christmas weekend. Part of it was due to an odd moment as he was escorting the Feelies from CBGB one evening. He could have sworn he'd felt Angelus watching him from the darkness of an alley. It couldn't have been – Peaches would have spoken to him, soul or not – but the desire to be with family was all that much greater afterwards.

Tonight Nikki was dressed for partying rather than patrolling, and he followed her into the noisy hell of Studio 54, neither of them having any trouble getting past the bouncer. He watched her drink what several men were happy to buy her, watched her dance with each of them in turn. A smile settling on his lean face, he went down the stairs, past the copulating couples, and descended to the dance floor to catch the eye of Nikki's current partner.

The man's face turned a shade not much darker than his white leisure suit, and he backed away as Spike approached. Nikki was dancing with her eyes closed, and Spike slid in behind her. He felt her aura flare as she recognized him as a vampire, but he already had his arms snaked around her waist. "'Lo, Nikki. Have a happy Christmas?"

She jerked and whipped around to glare at him. "You."

For just a moment, he let himself enjoy the softness of her hair against his face and her perfume in his nostrils. "Yeah. Didn't think you'd seen the last of me, did you, love?"

"I'd hoped."

He laughed, and at that moment realized that he was hard, rampant with need. It had been a long time, and they did have a connection of sorts. "Dance with me."

"Not gonna happen."

"No?" He ground his hips into her ass and had the satisfaction of hearing her sharp intake of breath. "Shame. Leaves only one matter of business." Spike felt her tense even further. "Just wanted to wish you a happy new year, Nikki." He leaned closer, his lips against her earlobe, feeling the hard curve of her hoop earring. "You'll want to enjoy every… last… minute."

He let go of her, sliding back a step so he could get a good look as she turned to glare at him. "I'll be in Times Square for the ball drop, love… and a midnight snack. Maybe I'll see you there." Spike winked, then he took another step back, so that dancing bodies entered the space. He held her furious gaze as the crowd parted them further, then blew her a kiss. As he left the club, he drew in a deep breath, the car-exhaust smell of the outside city still better than the stale air of the disco. He was smiling as he walked away.

⸹

April 1977

⸹

"I know what you are."

Spike let out all of his breath in a sigh before rolling over to face his roommate. She was standing in the door of his bedroom. "And what's that, pet?"

Ella gazed at him with more interest than he'd ever gotten from her. "A vampire. I saw you kill a man behind the restaurant last night."

He raised his eyebrows and slowly sat up, putting his feet on the floor. Though as a rule he didn't hurt near his lair, he had killed a man there, because the git pestered him for two blocks to take a pamphlet. He didn't want to spook her, but did want to be ready in case she had a stake or holy water to use against him, so he leaned forward, keeping his hands loose in front of him. "Did you, now?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you try to stop me?"

"Why would I?"

"Well, killing is wrong." Spike kept the sarcasm to a minimum. He liked the apartment, and moving would be a pain. Mesmer, he thought. Get her to forget what she saw. "If you actually did see anything."

"I don't care if you kill them."

This gave him pause. "Them?" Had he missed something? He drew in her scent and examined it with renewed attention, listened to her heart, the soft slushing of her blood. She was human.

Ella ignored the question and took a step forward. "What's it like for you?"

"Dinner," he said flatly, bracing his hands against the mattress. Even with her torso blocking most of the light, he could clearly see that she wasn't carrying any weapons.

"I thought it was disappointing," she said conversationally. "I thought I would feel something."

Spike raised his eyebrows. "You've killed someone, then?"

"My old roommate. I tried to make her kill herself – make her so depressed, you know," Ella went on as she sat down next to him, "that she would just off herself. But I couldn't make her. So I did it myself. I smothered her."

He kept the horror off his face as he listened to her description, her voice more animated than he had ever heard. Spike had read her psychology textbooks and found labels for so much in his twisted existence: codependence, Stockholm Syndrome, sadism, narcissistic personality disorder. But he'd never met a sociopath before, at least not a human one. He could hear the excitement in her voice, feel the heat of her body, so he wasn't surprised when she finished the tale by propositioning him – 'here on the bed where I did it.'

"No," he blurted, forcing himself not to scoot a few inches away from her. "I don't do humans."

Ella just nodded, then examined him, apparently not put out by his rejection. "I never knew there was anything except humans. Can you make me like you? A vampire?"

"I could."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Is it worth it?"

"Depends." He had never had such a bizarre conversation.

"How old are you?"

"I've been a vampire almost a hundred years."

Real emotion showed on her face. "I could live forever." Then, before he could correct her, she demanded, "Do it. Make me a vampire."

Spike had not lived with Angelus and Darla for all those years without learning a thing or two about manipulation, and Ella had just given him the key to controlling her. "No." He stood up, relieved to have more distance between them, and played the role. "I don't know if you'd make a good vampire."

She stood up, too. "I would. I've already killed someone."

"Yes, but can you keep a secret?"

"What?"

"Why do you think you never knew that anything existed except humans?" he asked condescendingly. "We're very good at laying low. I can't risk it."

"I can keep a secret."

"Told me what you'd done, didn't you?" he sneered. "Not much on secrecy that I can see." She stood there, not sure what to do, but Spike could practically hear the gears inside her head grind away. "Tell you what," he said, acting as if he was softening, "keep your lips sealed for six months, and we'll see." And I won't have the bother of finding another flat, he thought.

"So, if I don't tell anyone that you're a vampire, after six months you'll make me one?" Ella's eyes glittered in the dark room, as if she had already been turned.

"No," he said with exaggerated patience, "if you don't tell anyone that any vampire exists, if you don't do anything to draw the attention of the authorities – basically, if you can lay low for six months, I'll reconsider." It was, he thought as he watched her nod in agreement, the best lie he'd told all decade.

⸹

July 1977

⸹

Spike had never been to this sports bar, and it seemed to cater to a higher class of people than his usual clubs. Tennis was on, anyway, not the usual baseball, so Spike slung himself into one of the more dimly-lit booths and angled his body toward the television over the bar. Yesterday he'd put down two hundred dollars on Bjorn Borg to win in this brave new age. He'd seen Mr. Gore win at the first tournament a hundred years ago. He'd been human then. Sighing, Spike caught the barmaid's eye and lifted a finger. She was giving him the once-over, not liking his bleached hair and the safety pin through his eyebrow, so he tossed a bundle of cash on the table.

Hard to believe just a year ago, he'd been having fun with Dru, going out on double dates with James and Elizabeth to revel in the Bicentennial celebrations. The city was surly now, with nothing of the happy, hopeful air remaining. No one was happy without Dru.

At least now he knew why she didn't feel safe in New York, stupid old Son of Sam and his obsession with killing brunettes. Maybe he'd find the wanker and pan in his head, then Drusilla could join him. Or maybe SoS would select Nikki as his next target; she was dark-haired after all. The thought of that encounter put a fleeting smile on Spike's face.

Tennis. He watched a long volley, his excellent hearing picking up the hushed excitement of the crowd. Such a civilized sport. Part of him sneered automatically, but another part missed the careful rules, the finesse, the _cleanness_ of a game like tennis. No mud, no blood, no brute force. It was a daylight game, though. And you had to have someone willing to play with you. Nothing there for him.

All he had was the night. Without waiting for his drink, Spike went back out into it.

⸹

The honking woke him. Spike sat up, immediately awake, listening. It was time to be up, anyway, near dark even in summertime. He leaned over to find his boots and realized that he couldn't really see his black footwear on the floor.

Sitting up slowly, he looked at the shade over his window. There was no glow at the edges from the outside streetlights. He tilted his head and listened carefully, but there was no hum from his radio clock or the refrigerator in the other room. On the street below, someone cried out and more car horns honked. Power's out, he thought, and groped around until he found his boots. He was already dressed. Spike didn't sleep naked in Ella's apartment, not any longer.

Out on the street, he drew in a long breath. There was panic in the air, in the sounds of high-pitched voices and glass smashing, and Spike set off toward the smell of fire. It brought to mind China, and that led to thoughts of the little Slayer who'd left him with a scar and a formidable reputation. He was smiling as he came to a stop behind two humans pulling a child's red wagon laden with a console television. They aimed a flashlight at him for a moment, then moved away when they saw he wasn't wearing a uniform. The looting had begun.

Timid people hung out of windows as he moved though the residential streets, trying to see what was going on, while bolder humans ran past him. Demons were out, too, and he saw a female vampire draining the life out of a naked young man even as he tried weakly to remove her dress. She recognized Spike for what he was and gave him a two-fingered salute. After a moment, he realized she meant it as a V for victory instead of an insult. Or maybe it was the peace sign; he wasn't sure and didn't stay around to find out. Nikki would be out tonight.

It took less time to find her than he expected. She had only made it a few blocks from her mother's apartment, and she was in the middle of an intersection, standing astride a smoking car as her higher ground, fighting a group of demons. She was wearing a long, black leather coat that hung oddly on her, the weapons she had loaded in the pockets weighing it down.

Spike saw a couple of uptown vampires he recognized and the Fyarl they had hired, then the rage took over and he saw only red. The strategy was clear: the Riis Clan vampires had chased her down in cars until they crashed here. Nikki was his; everyone knew he'd claimed her, and his fury crystallized into something cold and deadly.

Laying his head back, Spike roared. The demons froze, turning to see the new threat, and Nikki took the opportunity to kick a Fyarl in the head. Spike waded in, taking out two young vampires right away. The Fyarl were tougher, and he and Nikki fought in the inadequate light of the wrecked cars for a good ten minutes before the last horned head cracked against the pavement.

He held out a hand absently, and Nikki didn't hesitate in taking in as she stepped down from the hood. She let go of his cool fingers immediately as she remembered that he wasn't her ally and bent to finish off the Fyarl with a silver dagger. Then they stared at each other for a moment, she studiously not offering thanks, Spike working hard to keep his euphoria from leading into their final dance too soon.

"Go." He jerked his head toward the streets. "Bushwick's burning. Keep 'em safe. They'll need you tonight."

Nikki didn't nod or acknowledge their short-lived alliance in any way. She turned on her heel and strode away.

"Nice coat, by the way," he called after her. Spike got some satisfaction from the fact that she didn't bother turning to keep an eye on him. She was beginning to understand.

September came, and the weather began to cool, a relief after the heat of late summer in the city. The boys of summer still ruled, with baseball the focus of the conversations Spike heard in bars and on the subway. For a time after the blackout, people had not talked, not trusting each other, but the mood of the city had settled into an uneasy wariness. The Son of Sam, terror of the city, had turned out to be an underwhelming little man. Despair became the mundane, and there was a sense of things on the wane.

Spike's mood, however, was contrary to the norm. He was whistling the Sex Pistols' 'God Save the Queen' as he strolled through the Bowery. It was a matter of days now, and Drusilla had said afterwards he'd be on his way back to her, victorious and destined for celebrity in the demon world.

It had come to him as he skulked in a phone booth and watched Nikki dismantle a vampire couple: she was never going to get better. Spike had been waiting for her to smooth out the rough edges, but she kept defeating all foes just as she was. Nikki didn't have any reason to train harder.

Well, she did, actually. Her brat had been with her, hidden when the Slayer meted out death to the hapless vampires and again when he'd caught up to her for a little chat. Even then she hadn't gone for him the way she should have.

They'd worked together for a few minutes once, and Spike had a feeling Nikki knew he wouldn't kill her in front of her child. He had been in her life a long time, maybe so long that she no longer took his threat seriously. They had a meeting coming soon, though, a private engagement. Only then, he thought, would she tumble to just how dangerous he was.

⸹

September 1977

⸹

 _The Slayer is dead_. The whispers began before the dawn, spreading through New York's demon population like an infection, accompanied by a fever of argument. The Aurelian finally got her, some said. She was shot on the subway by a mugger, said others. Couldn't have been Spike; he was uptown setting fire to the Riis Clan's manor house. All gossip agreed on that, though none of the demons much cared if a clan of half-breed vampires burned. Severe humans in dark suits and tweed were spotted in several locations. Witnesses came forward who swore to seeing the Aurelian with a telltale trophy. Inflections turned from derisive to impressed, and glasses were raised amid quiet laughter. Those with the longest memories were unable to answer the question: had anyone killed two Slayers before, much less three?

Rumor became news and picked up new rumors. He took out the Slayer and those uptown Riis vampires in the same night. They crossed him; they killed his sire; he killed them all on the Master's orders. The whispers spread out from New York, with the most important part always first: _the Slayer is dead_.

The news hit Boston first, then Baltimore and D.C. In Philadelphia, word of the Slayer's death was passed in a shoddy shop that sold blood and worse to those who had money. Passing over a crumpled fiver, a tall, dark-haired vampire, menacing despite his scrawny frame, listened to the conversation of the demons behind the counter. A smile flitted across his face for a moment, then the pride died beneath guilt. He took the small container of blood and walked out of the shop and into the night.

Overlooked by all of the demons who read the _Times_ for Nikki Wood's obituary was a news item about another dead young woman, an apparent suicide found in her apartment. Police would not confirm details of her suicide note, but based on the contents, they were opening an investigation into the earlier death of her roommate.

Demons are not patient, and when the Aurelian did not come to their bars or lairs to brag, they went into the Bowery looking for him in the music clubs. Many of those immediately came out, holding their sensitive ears. He really was a crazy son of a bitch. Darkness fell again, but still the Aurelian did not appear. Rumor turned to where he might be, with most believing he was headed to the Hellmouth in California.

The news that the Slayer was dead was all over London even before the first telephone calls came through, thanks to a telepathic demon who had observed the turmoil at the Council of Watcher headquarters. In a pub that evening, three old and powerful vampires sat alone at a table and raised a pint in salute. One was a dark-haired woman, and she took a dainty sip of her blood before making the final statement about the gossip: news, she said, travels faster than ships.

Ships traveled quickly in this bright century, too, and it was only a handful of days after Drusilla made this pronouncement that Spike came to her and knelt down, his head against her hip as he wrapped his arms around her. James and Elizabeth withdrew discreetly. Drusilla's fingers played in his hair much as a smile played on her lips. "You've come back to my, my sweet William."

"Never going to leave you again, love. Been miserable without you." His voice was muffled.

She ran her hand over the leather-clad shoulder. "You still smell of Slayer." When he didn't answer, Drusilla went on, satisfaction in her voice. "Take me out to the waterfront, to where you find our kind. I want them to look at us, glittering like stars on water."

"Later," he said, and despite his position at her feet, there was nothing of the supplicant in his tone. "Much later."

⸹

New York

1979

⸹

"Hey, Spike. Spikeeeeey!"

He lifted a lazy hand in acknowledgement of the greeting from a young vampire from Brooklyn, and Drusilla's long fingernails scraped against the leather of his coat.

"They still know you here."

"Hasn't been that long." He didn't have to say since when; the whispers around them were all about the Slayer of Slayers. The bartender, a demon with boar-like tusks, was already uncorking a bottle of champagne for two ready glasses. Spike put his arm around Drusilla's neck and drew her close. "This is a city that knows how to treat its heroes. Would have given me a ticker-tape parade if I'd stayed a day longer." He gave her a perfunctory kiss, then a more leisurely one. "I had to hie away to your side, though."

And yet, New York wasn't the haven it had once been. Spike had already visited the clubs he loved, and the musicians were better, but the music less moving. Money was gilding the haunts he'd known as the outré was co-opted by the larger society.

One night in particular summed up the change for Spike. The head of a lesser line of vampires that had benefited from the demise of the Riis clan invited him and Drusilla to Plato's Retreat, a Manhattan sex club, for a hunt. Spike had found the orgy somewhat less interesting than the fact that the establishment offered flagging swingers a buffet. Hegemony, Spike thought for the thousandth time, sucks. But the toadying was quite gratifying. Not far from the hot tables with the overcooked pasta, his host offered him and Drusilla a tasty, mesmered morsel with not a single mark on its skin. Nodding his head graciously despite his contempt, Spike took the first bite. New York was played out.

⸹

Los Angeles

February 1981

⸹

What Spike thought of as the North American Victory Tour had been going on for well over a year, and he was tired of it and wished Dru was, too. He was feted in every city on arrival – or soon after, once he'd done a bit of bragging and killed enough skeptics – and his dark princess was always on his arm, proud of him and delighted at the sheer number of demons envious of her status as his princess.

He made sure she got her share of attention, of course, letting her manhandle him into compromising positions in public so that her strength as his sire would be remarked upon. Spike didn't want anyone to consider messing with her or with him. She already expected everyone they met to know her, living in her own world as she did and seeing others as players in her dreams. The notoriety actually made life easier for her.

They were on the west coast now, staying at the Tropicana Motel. They had been there since November, too long, but no one in this town could spot a demon. Spike looked out from the shade of the balcony and blew his smoke into the heavy flocked vinyl curtain. Two women in their forties were in the pool, foreshortened from his view and their skin tanned like leather. It was another sunny day, and didn't he fucking hate Los Angeles?

He'd been to the Whiskey the night before, but neither of the bands he'd caught had any passion to them. The mosh pit at a Black Flag show was the sole bright spot in recent memory, sweat-soaked boys touching each other the only way they knew how. Spike had slam-danced through the violent, writhing mass, tasting here and there, raising the level of testosterone to a fever pitch.

Other than that night, Los Angeles had gone sour the first week of December, watching the Germs play at the Starwood and Darby Crash dead just days later. John Lennon gone now, too, not that he cared so much about the Beatles' music, but still.

Posers, that's what they were, that's what L.A. was full of: palm trees and posers. Sighing, he turned away from the balcony, carefully twitching the heavy curtain so the glass was covered. Drusilla moved restlessly in the bed, and he wished he was asleep beside her.

Spike kept expecting that she would propose a visit to the Hellmouth, but she'd been having too much fun in the larger city to be interested in Sunnydale. Dru had asked to go to San Francisco, but he flatly refused. He didn't often do that, but that's where the Sex Pistols had broken up. The day the music died, he thought morbidly.

He flexed his jaw and looked at the dimp end of the joint in his fingers. Impatient, he ground it out. He'd been smoking too much weed and drinking too little, repeatedly frying what few brain cells he had and probably not giving them enough time to –

"Spike!" Drusilla sat straight up, going from asleep to awake in the movement.

"Here, love. Right here." He had moved onto the bed and had his hands on her shoulders. "I got you."

Her eyes, wide and staring, found his. "She's crying."

Spike stroked her arms as he listened, but didn't hear any nearby sobs. "Nothing to do with us, love. We got no reason to worry about other people's waterworks."

"She cried with her own breath, and I saw her. I can't stop it."

"She scrikes that much, I'll stop her."

Drusilla's eyes turned away from what she was seeing to look at him. "We could. It isn't her yet."

"Isn't who, love?" he asked patiently.

"What?" She dropped her gaze to where he held her, looking confused. "It's too early to be up, silly Willy."

Spike sat back on his heels on the bed, dropping his hands from her arms. "So, no worries about this bint greetin' the dawn?" When she just looked at him, he prompted, "Your dream?"

She frowned. "Dream? I… don't remember. It's faded like the snow that never came."

This was an opportunity worth seizing. "Want me to take you somewhere there's snow, love?"

The frown lingered for a moment. Drusilla wasn't used to forgetting her dreams. It was as if something had dropped into a crouch in front of her memories, a shadow and a fire that tasted of ancient power. Her visions should be her own, but maybe this dream belonged to someone else and had strayed into her head.

"Love?" Spike persisted.

"I'd like that," she finally answered, the frown that marred her smooth brow fading. Yes, she rather thought she would like to get away from Los Angeles.

⸹

Manchester

1989

⸹

"It's not posh," the young man said apologetically, "but you're welcome to stay."

That was enough for Drusilla and Spike to enter, looking around curiously at the high ceilings off to the right of the open loft of the warehouse.

"You live here?" Spike asked, sounding faintly impressed.

"Right above the party," he agreed.

"Albert, it smells lovely," Drusilla said, and Spike was glad she remembered the name, "like licorice and," a delicate pause, "naughty thoughts."

Spike would have said ouzo, but he knew better than to mention any liquor just now. Drusilla had come close to a Darla-type tantrum after the last time he started a loud, drunken public row in a demon bar. Someone had called in the human police, and they left London in rather a rush. He didn't mind; Manchester was one of his very favorite places these days.

"That's the X," Albert agreed. He pushed his spectacles up a little higher on his nose, looking much like the university student he had recently been. "Or the sassafras oil, anyway."

"Like powdered dreams," Drusilla said, leaving Spike to trail her long fingers over the railing that protected against a drop to the bare concrete floor below.

After giving her a careful and habitual onceover to make sure she wasn't feeling too manic or too blue next to a steep drop, Spike turned to the opposite wall. Windows were set along the length of it, but they had already been blacked out. Crates and boxes were stacked there as well, beneath a Red Devils pennant, and he knew the contents as if the sides were made of glass: chemicals, stacks of money, and carefully rationed tabs of ecstasy. It smelled like what it was, a successful drug operation.

He loved X, not for what it made him feel, but for what it did for Drusilla. She had been a handful until they landed in Manchester a few months ago and into the middle of an underground scene that was developing around them. Aimless young people, parties in the dark – what vampire wouldn't love that? – and a new drug. Everyone said ecstasy was safe, but people always said that until bitter experience proved otherwise. For humans, anyway. When Drusilla was on X, she became more lucid, more empathetic, less prone to paranoia and anxiety, then safely returned to her normal self.

Since he got his third Slayer and they became internationally notorious, she had blossomed like the dark flower he so often named her, becoming as imperious as Darla and sometimes as artful as her sire. She was an old and powerful vampire and expected deference, sometimes from the wrong sorts (Dru considered demons to be cute potential pets rather than superior and dangerous beasts). Spike had all the fights he could handle in some cities. But here in Blighty during this X-fueled second summer of love… no minions, no headline-grabbing kills, and no self-inflicted harm. She hadn't opened her chest of holy water, scalpels, and other love toys for weeks, and Spike gave all credit to the ecstasy.

"Thanks, uh, Albert, for letting us crash here," Spike said, going for sincere. "We'll be out of your hair soon as we find a place of our own."

"No problem."

He really was the most trusting drug dealer Spike had ever met. Suppressing a smile, he looked at Drusilla until she felt his gaze. When their eyes met, he tipped her a wink.

With a demure look, she left the edge and went to lay a palm on Albert's lapel. "Yes, you're lovely to help us."

"Gladly." The smitten look on his face slid into guilt as Spike came up and laid his hand on Drusilla's waist.

"Why don't you go get something to eat," she suggested to the human, "while we make a little nest?"

"Yeah, right knackered, we are. Probably sleep straight through," Spike added.

"Until the acid house cranks up, anyway," Albert said.

"Tonight? Another one?" Spike wondered if someone had paid off the local officials.

"Almost any time there's a United match, there's a 'rave,'" Albert said, making quotation marks with his fingers. He was already doing what Drusilla had suggested, edging toward the stairs.

"See you then," Spike said, raising his free hand in farewell. He put his mouth against Drusilla's ear. "You've set yourself a high mark this time, love. We're right in the catbird seat. It's perfect." Or it would be if the music wasn't techno. Could be worse, he supposed; one could dance to it, at any rate. And Dru liked it. He wondered sometimes if trance was the music that played in her mind.

The next few weeks passed quite pleasantly once a large television was wrestled up the narrow stairs, with Spike playing footie on the empty floor of the warehouse with Albert and his mates or mucking about with computers during the days and gliding through splendid parties most nights. It was good to be amongst the United-mad for a change, though he was already impatient with Ferguson and was prone to be nostalgic for George Best after nine or ten pints. It was a good setup. Spike scrupulously paid for all the X Drusilla dropped, wanting to keep Albert's trust.

He woke once morning to find Albert on a tall ladder, working on the fluorescent lights of the loft. Spike put a hand on the ladder in case the lad started at his voice. "What are you about, then?"

Albert looked down. "I never liked fluorescent lights. The caretaker at my school that sold us puff, he taught me how to stop the buzzing sound."

"Yeah?" Spike was genuinely interested. "How? 'Cause I hate that sound."

Albert passed down the bulb he was holding in his gloved hands. "Should be cool enough. See the prongs? Sometimes they're crooked and that won't let them align right. Sometimes, it's just dust." He mimed blowing on them.

"Huh. That's it?" He passed it back up. After he'd moved the ladder a couple of times, Albert let him go up and work on the remaining lights.

"And that sounds so much nicer," the human sighed.

"It does," Spike agreed.

"Where's your lady?" Albert asked.

A sizable chunk of Spike's good will evaporated, and he sent Albert a warning glare. "She's about."

⸹

The two of them took a quick trip to Penrith for a few rambling tourists and a pint of Jennings for a couple of days during the manufacturing process. Spike was interested in seeing how X was made, but the pleasant sassafras scent turned into an odor of ammonia ("cat piss," Dru named it with unusual crudity) that was too harsh for their vampire sense of smell. She seemed to find it hard to settle back in upon their return to Manchester, wafting from one end of the loft to the other, ignoring _EastEnders_ in favor of clipping off her dolls' feet with a pair of gardening shears. Spike even wondered if she was experiencing withdrawal or just a return of her usual moodiness. He found himself building up the next acid house party to her, hoping to keep her firmly in reality with anticipation.

He got his answer early in the morning, about six hours after the party kicked off, when he found her in the loft instead of down with the revelers. She wasn't alone. Cautiously examining the girl dangling by her bound wrists from one of the overhead beams, her toes barely touching the floor, he asked in a neutral voice, "Who you got there, love?"

"She thinks her name is Lucy," Dru said. She was holding the gardening shears and considering her captive.

"Yeah?"

"I'm teaching her. She knows her right name now."

"Good on you," Spike said, relief flooding him as the girl twitched. She was alive, and he was already planning excuses: bad trip, she was up here to steal drugs or money, anything to get her out of the warehouse. He inched closer.

"I didn't have a bowl." Drusilla nodded to the desk where Albert kept his computer. Sitting next to it was a white Styrofoam box, left over from a curry take-away. Inside, on the clean upper part of the clamshell, were two human eyeballs.

Spike closed his own eyes, resisting the temptation to look again to make sure. There really wasn't anything else that looked like eyeballs. "Lucia," he sighed. Lucy had become Saint Lucia. Tiredness swept over him. "'The same procedure as last year, madam?'" he muttered, then answered himself. "'The same procedure as every year, James.'"

"Tell me your name, sweetheart," Drusilla crooned, still focused on her captive.

"Dru," Spike said, and he couldn't believe how gentle his voice sounded when he was so furious. This had been a brilliant setup. "We have to leave. Now."

"What?" She turned to him in protest. "I haven't finished."

"Yes, we are indeed finished." He slid between her and the human, staring at the empty eye sockets, nonplused for a moment. He'd never used the mesmer on anyone who was blind before. My voice, he decided on instinct, I'll put the whammy in that, but before he could speak, Dru put a hand on his shoulder, easily spinning him to face her.

"I'm not finished, my William."

"Drusilla," he ground out evenly, the gentle tone gone, "I know Angelus used to play these games, but he carried them out in a safe lair, not," he took a step closer to her and increased the volume, "in an open area directly above dozens of humans."

She flinched away, awareness seeping into her eyes. Drusilla looked past him at the suspended girl. "They'll see."

"Yeah, lots of humans will see the one who no longer can. Get your things." His voice was simply hard now, and he turned from her to begin tidying up as best he could. Spike took down the human and undid the rope, wishing he could salve vampiric healing on her damaged wrists. Or her eyes. He told her she had a bad trip, the baddest, and to be quiet and hide when people came upstairs. Then he put her behind some boxes and shoved the Styrofoam box into her hands.

Drusilla waited in silence with her trunk and suitcase at the top of the stairs. Spike grabbed his leather coat; everything he needed was inside. He considered taking the Manchester United pennant from the wall, but just turned away and took the trunk roughly from his sire.

Albert was on the stairs, headed up to them. "Drusilla," he greeted her, smiling until he saw the suitcase and trunk. "Spike, where are –"

Spike took the human by the arm and leaned into his face, the mesmer coming easier with this one. "Don't go up there for an hour, not unless someone else does. You will remember that we saw it, too, got upset and left. That's all." It was odd to half-shout the suggestion, but the music was too loud for anything else.

They left Albert at the foot of the stairway, moving along the edges of the dark building toward the nearest door, trying to be inconspicuous amongst the dancers. Get of out Madchester, Spike was thinking, find a different car, get over to Brittany. Luxemburg, maybe, or Monaco, somewhere it isn't a handicap to be young and good-looking with no visible means of support. He stowed their possessions in the back of the Hillman with a pang. He did like the car; it was so old, he fancied he might have worked on it back in the sixties at Owen's garage.

Drusilla sat in silence for more than twenty minutes before she spoke. "Are you tired of me?" She looked straight ahead at the blackened windshield.

Spike's hands tightened on the steering wheel. He glanced to his left without really meeting her eyes. "You're my very own wicked princess." Eyes forward again, he stared through the few clear slits into the darkness ahead. His voice was almost as black as he finished his answer. "Always will be."

⸹

[Author's Note: The above quote Spike uses about the same procedure is from a British comedy sketch from the 1963 called _Dinner for One_. It's broadcast as a German tradition at New Year's, of all things, and it's worth looking up the story. Content warning: In the next section, Spike and Drusilla have angry sex.]

⸹

Seattle

February 1993

⸹

If I increase my grip just a tiny bit more, Spike calculated, the glass will break. He stared at it owlishly, having arrived at the bar already drunk. He'd had a bottle of whiskey at each of the two other demon bars he'd searched before finding her here. The stress on this bottle came to his sensitive ears as a high squeaking sound. It was, he judged, the right moment.

Spike stood up and walked in an approximately straight line to the table where Drusilla sat with a dark-haired vampire. He was tall, too, if thin instead of beefy, just her type. She had been flirting with the stranger, in Spike's opinion, outrageously. Something needed to be done about it.

"Fee fi fo fum," he said, suddenly just behind Drusilla's shoulder, "I smell the blood of something that needs a good sorting out." His free hand slid beneath her hair to clutch the back of her neck.

The interloper raised his eyebrows, aware that the bar was quieter now. Demons were always quick to sense entertainment. "You have your hand on my companion," he said in silky tones.

The git had been Canadian, Spike knew from his accent. He also knew the dark-haired vampire had about fifty years of experience and absolutely no luck. "I have," he contradicted the stranger, "my hand on my consort."

"This is William the Bloody," Drusilla said, a noticeable excitement in her voice. "I sired him."

"Spike," he said, contradicting her, too. "Slayer of Slayers."

"Pick a name and stick with it," the other vampire advised, jeering. The chuckle from their audience was weaker than he expected. Many of the bar patrons were staring at Spike now, whispering.

"Then… you can call me death."

"Oh? You're shorter than I remember." Nervous laughter rose across the spectators, then died away.

Spike vaguely noticed money being placed for a bet to his left. Before he could respond to the taunt, Drusilla serenely continued the introductions. "Willy, this is Fred."

"Fred." Spike laughed. "Rhymes with dead."

Fred spread his hands wide. "We're all dead here." He leaned forward and took one of Drusilla's slim hands from where it lay on the table. "Why don't you go back to your lair and sleep it off? Your lovely sire seems to think it's past your bedtime."

Even extremely drunk and with Drusilla and the table in his way, Spike had broken the whiskey bottle and embedded it in Fred's throat before the liquor spattered across the floor. He was behind her chair again before the wounded vampire had his hands around the jagged glass edges.

Drusilla ignored the choking sounds, looking down at Spike's arm. "You've cut yourself," she chided, bringing his palm to her mouth. Her large eyes drifted closed as she sipped from the cut.

He felt her tongue lathe the wound, felt it heal without ever taking his eyes off the stunned Fred. Spike let go of her neck and helped her from her seat with his healed hand. Then he spun, bringing up a booted foot to slam the glass in further. As he came around on the last part of the spin, his leg shifted direction, and he mule-kicked Fred's jaw. The force of the blow further rent cut tendons and ligaments before separating the skull from the spinal column. The dark-haired vampire went to dust in his chair.

Spike never looked around. He took Drusilla's elbow roughly, barely noticing the whistles and smattering of applause. "We're going to head to Pike Place," he informed her, "and on the way, we're going to find a brightly lit church, and on the front steps, you're going to give me what Fred the Dead wanted from you."

She pulled away as he frog-marched her from the bar, struggling. "I'll not do it."

He showed his teeth. "I think you will."

Drusilla never breathed, but there was a catch in her voice and her eyes were afire. "You can't make me."

"I think I can." Beneath her thin dress, he could see her nipples harden, and he leaned in close to her. "I can smell your desire, poodles. You didn't smell this way when you were toying with Fred, did you?" Take her, his demon demanded, mark her as yours. "You didn't smell this… delicious."

She got her arm free and smacked his cheek. It just made him smile, and he slammed her against the brick of the nearest building, six feet away. Drusilla's eyes widened, but instead of attacking, she waited for him, scratching him with her sharp fingernails as soon as he was close enough.

Using the wall, Spike trapped her and turned her toward the brick, lifting her dress to spank her bottom two or three times. She gave up all pretense and wriggled away enough to flatten against the wall, her arms above her head.

"Don't think we're going to make it to the church," he growled, unzipping his jeans.

"Hurry," she whimpered.

"Wanted my attention, did you?" He knew he was rough, knew he smelled like a brewery, knew he was ruining her clothes. He didn't care. "You got it." They were quiet, the only sound his breathing until the end.

Later, as they walked back to the lair arm-in-arm, Drusilla leaned her head against his shoulder. "Spikey?"

"Mmm?" He should never have left her alone and gone off to the workshop on the new World Wide Web thing.

She was wearing his coat over the shreds of her dress, and she tugged one sleeve a little higher. "That was a good idea."

"What's that, pet?" They passed a coffeehouse where someone inside was attempting an acoustic Happy Mondays cover.

"The church. Only, let's take some holy water along." She took in a small breath of delight. "Or we could find a cathedral."

"If it will make you happy, love."

Her face and voice were both serious as she looked up at him. "You know it will. It'll be just like we're the grownups."

⸹

Prague

August 1998

⸹

"You want to play?"

Drusilla got the meaning of the words more from the woman's actions than from her words, and she sat stunned for a moment before nodding her head vigorously. Silently thanking her imps for suggesting she don trousers this morning, she rose from the bleachers and headed to the floor of the gym, leaving her brocade coat on one of the safety rails.

It was just after the Czech Open, and Drusilla had become enamored with floorball. She had seen women playing sports over the years without noticing anything about the athletes except their practices often lasted into the night hours. This sport, though, wasn't played in the hurtful sunlight. It looked like something she could do, and she often stopped by this gym, not far from the lair, to wait for full darkness to fall.

The woman who had invited her onto the court was looking her over, having chosen someone from the stands who looked fit enough to substitute for a few minutes. Satisfied, she turned to another player who was leaving the floor, holding up a finger to indicate she wouldn't be long, then nodded and said something in Czech.

" _Nemluvím česky_ ," Drusilla explained as the woman turned back to her. Spike always taught her a phrase or two to excuse her from having to talk to foreign people.

"English?" the floorball player asked after a nonplussed moment. When Drusilla nodded, she smiled. "Play?" She mimed swatting the ball with her stick.

Drusilla nodded, smiled, and held her hand out for the stick. Once it was in her hands, she gave it an experimental swing, finding the fulcrum. She beamed at the other woman. "I should liked to have had this a few years ago. I could have used it to take the eyestalks right off an impertinent Grunserger in Peru."

The floorball player knit her brow and shrugged to indicate she didn't understand. Then she beckoned Drusilla onto the court. Giving the stick another sweep through the air, Drusilla followed, her eyes glittering with excitement.

⸹

Spike put down his beer. "You mean, all that and no one won?"

His three companions laughed. They were a good-natured bunch of young humans and had been trying to teach him whist. He charmed them and bought them a couple of rounds, not letting on that he'd known the card game since Darla taught him a defunct variant called Ruff and Honours.

They were sitting at an outdoor café in Malá Strana, the Lesser Quarter, enjoying the warm summer weather. He liked Prague, a city ancient even by European standards, both because of and despite the weird creatures and odd human practices still lurking in the shadowy places. It had character. Even better, Drusilla liked it. She was taken with floorball, of all things, but it bored him to tears. What was the point of hockey without violence?

"One more," the taller female suggested, beginning to deal out the cards, "and maybe this time a winner." Spike leaned forward and started to say something witty, but he stopped as his sensitive hearing picked up the sound of incoming wings.

Kudlak was his first thought, hopefully not anything bad as a lugat. The semi-sentient demons could be touchy about his type of vampire being in their territory. Spike had a knife in his hand before he realized it was just a bird.

Or, not just a bird. His totem animal dropped from the sky and hovered just above the table, disturbing the cards with its beating wings and the humans with its presence. The kestrel wasn't attempting to hide the fact that it was looking him full in the face, and Spike's brows drew together in concern at this highly noticeable behavior. He sheathed the knife, then he let it draw him in with its black eyes.

No time for words, only images: Drusilla on the court playing floorball instead of just watching from the bleachers, violently checking another player, then Drusilla violently objecting to the ten-minute penalty and going to game face, players fleeing if they weren't dropped, bleeding, onto the floor; Drusilla's with her fangs buried in a boy's neck, and he somehow knew this was the offending referee's son.

"Oh, God, no." The words came out of him as he came out of the trance. It had lasted maybe two seconds; two of the whist players were still rising from their seats to get away from the crazy bird. He didn't waste any more time, blurring away from the café at full vampire speed. Drusilla was to his east, across the Vltava River. Spike covered the span of the Charles Bridge less than a minute later, but the masses of tourists in the Old Town Square forced him to slow.

Grabbing a handy Kofola sign on the side of a building, he hauled himself up to the rooftops and began loping across them, free of the crowd and headed toward the gym Drusilla had haunted the past few days. I shouldn't have left her alone, he thought, guilt and anger and worry churning inside his chest.

Then he was down a drainpipe and at the gym. Emergency responders were at the entrances in their uniforms, but they didn't see him pass. No Drusilla. He knew this before he'd spent three seconds inside; he didn't feel her in the vicinity at all, and Spike breathed a quick sigh of relief. The gym smelled of old sweat and bright, fresh blood, and he left as fast as he'd arrived, a blur and a breeze.

Where was she? Not in the shadows of the alleys, not in the dark doorways. Back atop a building for a better view, Spike searched his surroundings with all senses, but didn't feel any vampires. A cold certainty that she was dust tried to take hold of him and make him panic, but he shoved it ruthlessly away. He would know if anything happened to his sire. Making himself calm and still, he pivoted on the spot and looked across the city. If he didn't see her, he'd head to the lair.

There were no unnatural shadows on the bridges or in the streets he could see, no lone female figure gliding confidently or wandering aimlessly. To the south were some hurrying human figures. Just before his gaze passed on, he saw the dark shape of a bird scissoring along the canyon between buildings, headed toward the rushing people. Sure it was his totem, Spike bounded after it.

Quite a crowd of people had gathered at the intersection of two streets, an open area not really large enough to be a square. They were unusually quiet for a mob, and Spike didn't see or feel Drusilla. He could hear a single voice clearly, querulous and raspy, but he couldn't see the old person to whom it belonged. A single phrase stood out from the rest of the noise because it was uttered by so many people: "child murderer."

In the middle of the mob, humans with floorball sticks, broom handles, all sorts of implements, were whacking away at something. Each time a weapon fell on its target, he could see a faint blue light. And he could smell blood. If Spike didn't know already, the dark shape of a hovering bird made it certain: Drusilla was the something being whacked.

He let out all his breath, felt time slow to a crawl, and knew what was going to happen next. He was going to charge in, bowl humans to his left and right, scoop Drusilla up from the crush that bore her down, and save her. They would get somewhere safe, feed like they were fresh out of the grave, and once she was healed up, they would leave and never, ever come back to Prague.

In the second it took Spike to imagine all this, including Drusilla's gratifying appreciation for the gallant rescue, one last piece of the puzzle fell into place. The lone, tremulous voice was not speaking. It was chanting. Someone was working magic on Dru.

Spike hurled himself from the building, reaching out a sure hand to grab a light pole to swing his body further toward the mob. He landed lightly next to a middle-aged man and seized a broom from him. Without bothering to inflict any particular harm, he pushed through the mass of people, using the hovering kestrel as his landmark. Inside, his demon howled for vengeance, but Spike kept his focus on rescue instead. Just ahead was the real danger.

He detoured four paces to the right, only close enough to reach out and lay the broom's handle across the temple of an old woman. She was wrapped in a shawl despite the warm night and the sense of her brought to mind a gypsy caravan from a long time ago. She went down after the one blow, and Spike didn't bother to notice if she died. He immediately angled back toward the center of the mob. Dropping the broom, he began grabbing shoulders and hurling humans aside.

There, on the ground behind a final barrier of assailants, a pitiful, huddled shape. He grabbed the closest elbow and threw the human over his shoulder. The glimpse Spike had was bad enough, so he didn't let himself really focus on the bundle he scooped into his arms, didn't dwell on the unfamiliar shape of her. He just ran.

⸹

" _Ich werde dich toeten_ ," the vampire hissed, writhing against the ropes, the same magical ones that Drusilla used to tie Spike down for her personal use.

"Well," Spike said, staring down at the weakened ancient with his hands on his hips, "I can understand that. I actually was going to let you go, but I can't chance having you on my trail just now." He reached into the little trunk and took out a gladius, just the size to fit in Drusilla's kit. It was long enough to take care of the other vampire and its threats, and Spike was wary of getting too close. Anything that had lived long enough to have permanent facial ridges and claws was too sneaky to live anyway. He'd had a devil of a time getting it back to their hotel alive.

" _Sie sind_ –"

"Yeah, yeah," Spike muttered, cutting off the threat as he cut off the head. Dust rained down everywhere for half a minute, coating its bones and the carpet. "Huh," he said, vaguely impressed. He'd always heard that the head of a vampire line left bones. Now he knew what he needed to do if a funeral became his dearest wish instead of a hoovering after death.

Retrieving the ropes and giving them a good shake, he put them back in her trunk, along with the short sword. Then he turned toward the bedroom and bit his lip.

He couldn't see her from this angle, but Drusilla lay on the huge bed in the suite, blinds and curtains drawn against the sun outside. Her body looked almost normal now, but whatever harm the chanting gypsy had done to her on the inside still remained.

Closing his eyes a moment, he tried to gather the strength to put on a positive front for her benefit. Human blood barely did anything for her; it was his own blood that had knit her bones back together. In Prague, he'd corralled at least six other vampires and compelled them to donate their blood towards her cure, but progress had been slow. He did notice that the older the vamp, the more Drusilla revived, and he hit on the idea of going to Hamburg, where there were rumors of a really old vampire. Spike looked again at the bones. He must have been at least as old as the Master.

"Drusilla?" he called, his voice light.

"Is our guest gone?" she asked, raising a languid hand toward him as he entered the bedroom.

"Yeah." Spike knelt by the bed and kissed the inside of her wrist. She was still in game face, and he wiped the corners of her mouth with the sheet. "How do you feel, darling?" She hadn't been able to go easily go between her human and vampire features since Prague.

"It doesn't hurt now," she said.

He closed his eyes. "That's good. No, that's bloody great."

"Everything is still gray, though."

"We're getting there, pet."

"Only my visions…." She simply fell asleep, leaving the thought unfinished, but Spike knew the rest. Drusilla could no longer see in the dark or smell prey or blur with vampire speed, and the psychic talent she had since being human swelled to fill the emptiness. Her visions were as real to her as he was, and they seemed to suck energy from her like a spiritual parasite.

He smoothed her hair from her cheek. It wasn't the seer that he loved, and her gift rarely had any impact on their lives. Darla and Angelus had often pestered her to know things, but her precognizance, while strong, wasn't anything she could control. It didn't seem fair that the visions should swarm her when she was so weak.

Spike stood and began gathering her dolls. He already had their next step planned. His own blood seemed to help her more, and old blood had taken away the pain. It followed that old family blood would be the most helpful of all. In fact, it should be a cure.

It had to be.

He packed away Miss Edith and the rest and closed the trunk. Deciding that he didn't care what housekeeping thought of the skeleton on the floor, he kicked the old vampire's bones aside, clearing the way to the door. At least Drusilla could walk now; that would be a help getting onto a ship.

California, he thought, here we come.

⸹

Next Chapter: Spike fills a power vacuum, makes a few friends, and meets a Slayer unlike any other.


	20. Home Sweet Home

**Home Sweet Home**

⸹

Sunnydale, California

September 1997

⸹

After the satisfying crunch from the destroyed sign, the only sound was the steady thump of the bass line of the song playing on his jury-rigged CD player and the tick of the cooling engine. Spike slipped into game face and listened a moment longer, then opened the car door and stepped onto Sunnydale soil for the first time. He glanced at the remnants of the welcome sign. Once he had processed the surrounding scents, he pulled out a cigarette.

He'd redlined it across the States, from the gentle rolling hills of one coast to the jagged peaks close to the other, then down from the Rockies, feeling as if gravity had him in its grip, letting inertia take him to this little burg by the sea.

He'd been lucky with the car, stealing it from the carport of an elderly chap. It had been well maintained, and it had been an unusually roomy, private conveyance to California. Come to visit the rellies, just a few months too late, if the rumors were to be believed. They scarcely ever were. They bloody well better not be. He lit his smoke.

"Home sweet home," he said aloud, amused by the thought. And the damnedest thing was that he did have a sense of home. It wasn't the way he'd felt the years after his father died when the door closed behind him and he could hide from the world, he and his mother rattling around in their huge London house. No, this was the sense of home from an earlier age, when he would explore the big house as an unsupervised little boy, never knowing what wonderful thing might be discovered in a cupboard or closet.

Behind him came a slight sound from the DeSoto's boot. "Easy, love." He'd been forced to bind Drusilla and lock her in the trunk; she'd tried to jump out into the daylight of Pennsylvania when she'd woken in the backseat a couple of days ago. Thankfully, like her sire, she was sensitive to drugs. Spike had broken into a chemist's and cleaned out their controlled substances, keeping some of the stimulants for himself. He chided himself for feeling so… upbeat, when Drusilla was still sick.

 _Scree!_

If only he could blame the drugs for what he had spotted on a nearby light pole. The kestrel fixed him with a bright eye, then fluttered down, as harmless-seeming as a finch, to perch on one broken post of the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign he'd just demolished.

"Becca," he said, his voice sardonic. He flipped the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it as he took another step toward the front of the car.

The pint-sized raptor tilted its head, then lowered it, as well as one wing. Spike blinked. The damned thing was bowing to him.

"Come on," he growled, giving in. Spike held his arm out for it. "Grotty little sparrow hawk." He couldn't hide the fondness in his voice, and it fluttered to him. A beaky smile, a short stroll a few inches along his arm, and it stretched closer to nip his earlobe.

"Here, now! None of that. Cheeky blighter." He gave in again and stroked its back. The kestrel ruffled its feathers, making it look twice its normal size for a moment, then it flew off, pushing his arm down with the strength of its wings, despite its scant weight.

"What are you on about?" he asked curiously after it settled on the broken post again.

The kestrel resettled its talons, then carefully lifted one wing to wave at him.

The blond man went still. "Goodbye?" Spike felt himself falling forward, not physically. Ah, bugger, he thought, held its beady little eye too long.

 _I am here to welcome you._ A tilt of its head. _And because I wanted to see you one last time._

 _What, you're skiving off your totem duty?_

 _You've reached your aerie. You will not see me again._ The kestrel spread its wings wide, preening.

 _Some fine, feathered friend you are._ He watched it bob its head, and he sighed. "Fine. Off with you."

 _I trust you did not find me worthless_.

 _No_. He gave it a sincere look. _Thank you._

It ignored his thanks. _There is no shame in honor._

"Yeah, b'lieve you've said that before."

 _Goodbye,_ Adahihi _._ The kestrel bowed to him again. Bunching its legs, it pushed off from the post and rose into the air. Even in the darkness, he saw it wing back to hover over him for a moment. Impulsively, he raised his hand in farewell, and then it was gone from his sight.

"Well," and there was really nothing to add. Not as if he was bereft, though it was odd to think he'd never see the blue-edged wing of the speckled brown and white pest hover overhead again. Reached his aerie, had he? He'd rather hoped for something more posh. The odd sense of home struck again, and he thought hard for a moment, trying to track the source, to remember….

Spike put it from his mind, as he had nothing to remember of this place, and lifted his face to the night air. His head swiveled to the left. There was a young vampire not a hundred yards away, a distant cousin by the feel of it. He was sure he could persuade it to provide a safe place where he and Dru could shelter for the day. Even if the Master really was gone, Luke or Darla would do just fine, and this fledge would tell him their whereabouts. A wolf's grin settling on his lean face, he sped off into the dark.

⸹

"The Slayer killed the Master?" Spike echoed. He was surprised by this, but it had been years since he'd really kept track of them. Still, Sunnydale wasn't too far away from where he had heard she was. "Come in from Los Angeles, did she?"

"No." The little boy gave him a steady look. "She is on the Hellmouth all the time."

Spike nodded, but his head was reeling. Drusilla was outside while he had audience with the remnants of the Master's court. They had heard the rumors about the Master, but Darla? It was hard to believe she was really gone, and it gave him an odd feeling, not of grief, but more as if the world had changed. And he did have a little pang of sadness about Luke, one Aurelian who had never been actively mean to him. But most of all, his heart sank. Without the Master, Luke, or Darla, there was no one to feed their old blood to Drusilla. And there was a Slayer here, and with Drusilla so vulnerable….

He put his dismay aside. Now was not the time to display weakness. "What do you plan to do about your Slayer problem, then?"

"Kill her." This not from the Anointed One, but a large enforcer type aggressively defending his left side.

"Uh huh. And how has that worked for you so far?"

"Can't you understand? She killed the Master. It is not a simple errand to kill a Slayer."

"Dunno about that. I've killed three myself." Spike pinned the big vamp with a glare when he scoffed, but he didn't bother boasting.

"We almost had the Master back," said another vamp querulously. He had been an old man when turned. "If the Slayer hadn't interrupted the ritual, he could have taken care of her himself."

Confused, Spike looked back at the boy on his throne-like chair. "Bring him back? Aren't you in charge here?"

"My training was incomplete when the Master died."

Doesn't matter how much training you get, Spike thought. You're always going to be a toddler and look like prey to the rest of us. "And if you brought him back, the Slayer would just kill him again. She's got his number, now that's she's killed him once."

"The Night of St. Vigeous is soon. We are preparing to take care of the Slayer."

"We chant, we scourge ourselves." The old vamp smiled at the thought.

"Right." Spike drew the word out. "You do know that you're a demon and not a monk, right?"

"I don't like your tone," the big vamp said. His stupid face grew muddy, promising violence.

"Spike? I got lonely all by myself."

All eyes turned to where Drusilla had wandered into the darkness of the old factory. "Drusilla," Spike said, sighing. "I told you to wait outside."

"Are we getting along?" She looked around at the assembled vampires, all male, and then her eyes lit on the Anointed One. "Ooh, this one has power."

This seemed to be his cue to speak again. "What do you want here?"

"Safe haven," Spike said promptly. "Got some business here on the Hellmouth for a while." Not that he had a plan anymore, but he did need time to formulate one.

"Safe haven," the big vamp mocked. "For someone who's killed three Slayers? Why would such a magnificent vampire need haven?" He took a step closer and made a slashing gesture with his hand. "I've never heard of any vampire killing three Slayers, and I've been around since Jesus walked the earth. I was there at the Crucifixion."

"Please," Spike said, limbering up his shoulders. The wankstain wasn't even twenty yet, though that seemed to be old for this gathering, and was obviously not an Aurelian if he hadn't heard about William the Bloody. "If everyone who said that really was there, it would have–"

"Spike? I'm cold," Drusilla interrupted.

He turned to her, and as he did, Big Ugly rushed at his back. Contemptible, really. Spike didn't turn around, just threw up a backfist at the last moment and let the other vampire's momentum do all the work. As the big body went sprawling loose-limbed on the floor, he doffed his coat and draped it over Drusilla's shoulders. "Better, poodles?"

She nodded, then laid her dark head on his shoulder. He turned back to the Anointed One. "Do you have a room for us? Preferably one with a color tv?"

⸹

The hours of chanting wore on, even though it was long since daylight. Spike gave up on getting any rest, not that he felt safe enough to sleep. Darla had said something about St. Vigeous, but they hadn't observed any holiday traditions like scourging and chanting. The only thing he really remembered was that it was hard to remember, as it was on some calendar other than Gregorian. He rolled over, put his foot over Drusilla's ankle so he would know if she rose, and covered his head with a pillow to muffle the sound. He did need sleep.

He could still hear it. Spike sighed. In the hours since he'd learned that the hoped-for cure was dust in the wind, there had been time to think. The Master had been quite scholarly, and what he needed was access to old Batface's library. It was the most likely place to find an answer.

Giving up on sleep, he rose from the bed to put his boots on. Probably no one else was getting any shuteye, what with the monotonous noise, so he might as well see where the codices were stashed. While putting on his coat, he gazed down at the bed where Drusilla lay, quiet and exposed. Vulnerable. After a moment, he had an idea.

Spike went to her little trunk and took out a golden cord. His hands were smoking by the time he finished winding it around the doorknob. It had been blessed by some pope, one of the Leos, he thought, but Drusilla had bound him with it so often he had about forty seconds of immunity. If one of these yobs went for Drusilla, they'd either break down the door or hurt themselves trying the handle. Either way, he'd hear trouble.

He glanced into the area where the chanting was loudest as he went past, watching the whips fall in unison a couple of times. Shuddering, he went on to the main floor of the factory, what he thought of as the throne room.

"Oi!" he called toward the small knot of vampires conversing near the throne where the deepest shadows lay. "Any of you spend time with the Master?"

They fell silent as he approached, and Spike's smile widened. It isn't paranoia if they're really out to get you, he thought humorlessly. "Well?" he prompted.

"Of course I did."

It was Big Ugly from last night. "Did you, now. Think you could take me to his lair? Under a church or something, wasn't it?"

A long, considered pause. "Maybe later."

"Not going to let a little sunshine stop you, are you?" Spike's wide smile grew predatory; the younger the vampire, the greater the fear of daylight. "I thought Sunnydale was famous for its sewers."

"Why do you want to go?"

"Pay my respects," Spike said promptly, looking Big Ugly in the eye. He was pleased with the lie, which sounded sincere, though they both knew he wasn't telling the truth.

The lair had no more than three dozen vampires, of that he was sure. He would fight them any other time, but retreat wasn't an option with Drusilla so weak. If most weren't Aurelians, he'd make his move right now, but it was better to be cautious when family was involved. No one was sneakier than their line.

"Your respects," Big Ugly echoed. "You should have paid them to him yourself, when he was here to hear them."

"Did that," Spike shot back, "over a hundred years ago. Before he was trapped." He soaked his tone in contempt at that ignominious fate and let it spill onto any who served a hampered vampire as well. Then he took a sharp breath. "Well, the historic tour later, then. What about this Slayer? Where can I find her?"

This commanded a gratifying reaction. "Y-you want to find her?" one of the shorter vampires asked.

"Can't very well kill her from a distance, can I? Where does she hang? Have any predictable patterns?"

"She patrols every night," the other one volunteered, shooting a nervous look at Big Ugly.

"Always the same route?"

"I-I don't know," he admitted.

"You don't know." Spike didn't lean on the disapproval, but he turned away. "Any females around, maybe who could act friendly, get to her that way?"

"Darla never liked–"

"Other women around?" Spike let out a short laugh. "Consistent to the end, she was. Never cared much for Drusilla, either."

"You keep her to yourself," Big Ugly commented.

Spike smiled broadly, but his eyes were dark. He never liked other men noticing Drusilla, and particularly not now. "You misunderstand. She keeps me close. She's my sire. That's how I'm in the direct line of the Master."

"Darla was her sire?" Big Ugly asked incredulously, thinking he'd caught the newcomer in an exploitable lie.

"No. Angelus."

Big Ugly spat on the ground. "Curse his name."

"Already cursed," Spike agreed, mildly surprised the others knew anything about Angelus. Maybe the Master had spread the story to shame Darla. He got the conversation back on track. "Anyway, do any of you know anything at all about the Slayer?"

"The Bronze is her territory." This again from the short, nervous vampire.

"The Bronze?"

"A dance club not far from here."

"Yeah? You want to take me there when it opens?"

"You," Big Ugly said, glaring at both of them but talking to the nervous one, "are to stay here and wait for the Anointed One. If he bids it, then you can go."

"Right," Spike drawled. He nodded to both of them and started to go when one of the vampires who had been silent during the conversation laid a restraining hand on his arm. Spike glanced back toward the direction he was looking. The Anointed One had woken and was walking toward the throne, deeply in conversation with the elderly vampire. He nodded his respects along with the rest of them as the pair passed.

Well, Spike thought, noticing the resentment that blossomed within him, that's it, then. He simply didn't have another night of toadying to the mini-git left in him. No different from anywhere they went, just a big demonstration that he should not be messed with for the locals to consider. When he thought of how they used to keep a low profile in the early days, it almost made him laugh. Even when the whole family was together, they wouldn't kill off a bunch of vampires and demons when they entered a new city. Well, except that one time in St. Petersburg.

He nodded at the other vampires, assessed the large room in the dwindling light with a general's eye, and turned on his heel to leave them to resume their conversation. It only took a few more seconds to get back to the bedroom. "Dru? Love?" He leaned over her supine body, his weight disturbing the mattress and making her roll toward him.

"Ooh, Spike," she breathed, opening her eyes. "You're going to cause such lovely chaos. I've seen it."

"Seen it, have you? Must be true, then. Come on, then, come see it with your actual eyes." He drew her to her feet, where she swayed a little to one side. Spike steadied her. "Wish you didn't have the visions so often, love. They do take it out of you."

"I would be lost without them," she said, lucid and unsettling. "They are all I'm worth."

"If you never foresaw another thing, you would still be the very center of my world. You," he touched her nose, "are what holds worth in any world."

"You really love me," Drusilla said, looking into his eyes, wonder and sadness in her tone, along with an edge of something acrid.

"I do," he agreed lightly. "Now, come, my dark beauty, and see the chaos." He fetched her shoes. "Just… watch from a safe place, near an exit. It's dark enough now, should something go pear-shaped."

"It won't." She held out one foot from beneath her prim nightgown so he could slide on the slipper like a good Prince Charming.

As they strolled down the corridor, Spike got an odd sense of déjà vu, as though he had shared Drusilla's vision. It seemed to him as if everything was slightly slower than it should be.

"You didn't prepare for St. Vigeous last night," the Anointed One said as they walked in.

"Yeah," Spike said, releasing Drusilla's arm, "about that…" He strolled a couple of yards toward the throne, keeping attention on him so she could move away. "I been meaning to tell you," and here he snaked out a hand to grab the vampire that was unlucky enough to be nearest, "I'm never getting chanty with your boys." The sigh of disintegrating vampire punctuated this declaration with finality.

The fight was swift and remarkably easy. He'd already marked the places with chains and support posts earlier, and the other Aurelians were younger and behaved exactly how he expected them to act in the fray. It was disappointing, really, for a bunch of Aurelians, but he supposed that court life did make one soft. At the end, when the remnants were beginning to hedge their bets, he turned in a slow circle.

"The rest of you," he said, "either you're with me or you're dust." He met every eye. "Your choice."

They had lived with ceremony since the night they crawled from their graves, and they came to him in an uneven, battered line, kneeling before him in turn.

All except the Annoying One, who remained on his throne, rigid with shock and confusion. Not that Spike would have left him alive anyway. He grabbed the half-sized vampire and carried him across the floor to a metal crate rigged to a hoist. He really hoped the old mechanism worked; that would be brilliant.

It did. "From now on," Spike said, listening for the unlikely sound of any approaching defenders as the rattle of the chains died away, "we're gonna have a little less ritual and a little more fun around here." Above them, the last rays of sunlight did their work. All he heard was the final sighing plink! plink! as the last dust from the Chosen One settled on the concrete floor of the old factory. He turned to meet Drusilla's gaze. She was smiling at him, an avid smile. He knew she would submit to his every wish for days after this display, if her frail body were at all capable.

But it wasn't. He held out a hand for her, marking her very publicly as his property. "Let's see what's on the telly."

⸹

The short, nervous vampire went by Butch. It seemed unlikely to Spike that proud new mums and dads still bestowed that name, but he used it anyway. "Through here, Butch?"

"I-I think so. A lot of it has collapsed."

New management hadn't changed the nervousness, but that was all right with Spike. "Smells right. Old, you know, like a layer of incense."

"Oh, yeah," Butch agreed, brightening. "He had these lanterns on chains, used to swing them around."

"Censers," Spike agreed absently, ducking beneath a beam. He stood up again and looked around. "We're here."

Enough of the illumination spell remained to light the oddly shaped open area. It was strewn with debris from what looked like an explosion from the floor, and half of what had been there originally looked as if it had collapsed into the earth.

"Somebody open a Hellmouth or something?" Spike asked sardonically. He shook his head and leaped lightly down into the chamber. All that was left of the stone steps was rubble. "Funny, considering it used to be a church."

Butch followed more cautiously. "You think anything's living in here?" The nervousness was in evidence again.

"Why would it be?" The blond vampire shook his head. "You'd have to have a distinct lack of taste to hang out here." Then he shrugged, reconsidering. "On the other hand, that does describe most demons I've met."

"What are you looking for?" Butch asked, brushing past a curl of what looked like linoleum.

"That," said Spike, who had just spotted a patch of roiling blackness on the floor. He hadn't seen any books or scrolls, a room, or even a nook where the Master might have stayed in the truncated cave. He shuddered at the sight. "Bet no one ever went down there with him."

Butch shivered, too. "Darla always offered. Luke went down there once, just before he became the Vessel. That was right before–"

"Before the Slayer killed him," Spike finished absently, leaning over to peer into the darkness of the pit, then he tossed in a chunk of concrete and listened. "Nice of old Batface to throw him a final bone." He stood up and gestured to a shadowy area behind Butch. "See if any of those chains are ten-twelve feet long."

There were, and Spike took the longer of the two. He wrapped it around a boulder and pinned it by pinching a broken link through two others. Then he dropped the remaining length into the hole. When nothing exploded, boiled forth, or otherwise happened, Spike mentally crossed his fingers that it wasn't more than a fancy privacy curtain. "Hand me the torch," he said, holding out a hand. When Butch only looked around blankly, Spike sighed. "The oojah-ma-thingy we brought." He dredged up the American word. "Flashlight."

"Oh!" Butch dug it out of his waistband and slapped it into his hand.

Spike touched it to his temple and pretended a confidence he did not feel. "We who are about to descend into the boredom of the Master's bedchamber salute you." And he took an unnecessary breath, grabbed the chain, and dropped into the blackness feet-first.

He didn't feel anything as his boots, then his calves went in, but as the dark substance got to his knees, Spike started to get mental images of… things. Bad things. Like an acidic mist that was even now eating away his body, killing the nerves so he would keep descending until his heart touched the gas. A wicked, razor-sharp blade positioned directly between his thighs, only waiting for the mass of him to fall on it and cut him in half. A cave floor covered with hungry rats with sharp teeth, watching for his foot to get close enough so they could jump onto him and start devouring him alive.

Butch was watching with wide eyes, so Spike let himself down another foot, tensed to feel the first touch of anything, worried even more about the fact that he didn't feel anything at all.

His fear intensified as the darkness reached his waist, and Spike became convinced that he was nothing now except a torso, disintegrated into nothingness as the plane of the blackness touched him. The inner anarchist scoffed at this, reminding him that if these were really his fears, he'd be worried about his bits dangling down into the void rather than rats.

Magic, then, a spell laid by the Master to keep out nosy minions. Taking another unnecessary breath, Spike gripped the chain tightly, then let go long enough to drop another two feet before grabbing it again.

Fear of triggering a wall of sharp stakes, of having his chest ripped open by dozens of sharp-clawed little Bilas demons, of sparking off a geyser of flame beset him in the few seconds it took for Spike to turn on the flashlight.

He was in a snug, dry cave not much bigger than a closet and shaped roughly like a triangle. Books lined one side. A hammock, a table, and a stool completed the furnishings. A single candle was stuck atop a frozen waterfall of wax that had accumulated on the corner of the desk over the years.

"Huh," Spike said. "It's a monk's cell." He remembered that old Batface had been a scholar before he was turned, and it occurred to him that the Master might actually have been a monk.

Then he dropped the last two feet to the stone floor and went to the bookshelves, tipping each out from the spine to see the covers without regard to the health of the volume. Most were about the Old Ones, but a few went into his coat pockets. There was a sheaf of papers on the desk covered with close, cramped writing. Spike didn't bother reading these, just scooped them all up.

He looked around once more. There were no panels behind the bookcase, no drawers in the table, and no disturbed rock. The Master, if he had any secrets, felt comfortable enough keeping them in the open here in his lair. Spike sighed, letting out all his air, and gripped the chain in one hand. Then he put away the torch and scrambled up the chain as fast as he could.

"You're back!" Butch said, surprise in his tone.

"Almost wasn't," Spike grunted. He threw himself onto the floor of the bigger cave, trying to act scared. "Not going down there again. Booby traps everywhere." No need to have every baby vampire in the country popping into Batface's library for a book on raising Old Ones.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

He gave Butch a jaundiced eye, then fished in his pocket for a random book. "Yeah." Spike put it away, got to his feet, and gave the collapsed church a final, sneering look. "Think I prefer Welsh coal mines to this dump." He gave Butch an impatient wave of his hand, and they started toward the access tunnels.

"How would you like to be my social secretary?" Spike knew the offer was abrupt.

"Your… A secretary?"

"Yeah, like prime ministers have cabinets, exchequers, secretaries of defense, and what have you. My social secretary."

"What would I have to do?" Butch asked, admitting his uncertainty.

"Need to know who the players are around town. Meet this Mayor, for one. Need to get to know him, who the local money is, the guy who knows everybody, that kind of thing."

Butch brightened. "Oh! Like Willy."

"Willy?"

"He owns a demon bar in town."

"Yeah," Spike said, studiously not sighing. "People like that." They walked on for a minute more, then he remembered something Butch had said earlier. "And tell me more about that club that's under the Slayer's protection."

⸹

The Bronze was crowded, the only action in a small town, and numbingly like a thousand other unimaginative clubs he'd been to over the years. Mostly for the living, he judged, based on the tame music and fashionable clothing. Still, the local vampires had mentioned it as a hunting ground, at least before the Slayer showed up.

And there she was, his eyes alighting on her immediately. This one was a tiny thing, but she would have gotten his attention even without being the Slayer. It was partly how she could wear skintight trousers and a halter-top and still seem classy, but there was more there than just a Slayer in a nubile body. She had a spark to her, a brightness. On the outside, she was golden, the prototypical California girl with her blond hair and tan skin, but on the inside was a white fire that would burn his kind. His own insides grew tight with longing, wanting to dance in that fire, wanting to challenge it, but his common sense reminded him why he was here.

The books that he'd taken from the Master were not helpful, and the individual pages of notes were of not only useless but liable to lead to chaos. After a frustrating bout of throwing the books against the walls and nearly doing the same to his new coterie (who were still chanting their annoying little dead hearts out), Spike thought of another source of books in Sunnydale. That had led to careful thought and consideration that lasted almost five minutes, which had led to a plan. The first step of that plan was here at the Bronze.

Spike watched her dance with her companions for a moment longer, watched her blond hair brush against her shoulders as she moved, then followed his nose to the table she'd taken. His excuse was all but laid out on a silver platter. He scanned the papers and books spread over the tall surface. Her little redheaded companion, sweet as a strawberry, was the first to notice him. She was protective of the homework, he could tell.

"Um, this is where we're sitting," she told him, but her inflection rose at the last, making it sound like a question. Still, she put a proprietary hand on one of the books.

" _Excusez-moi_ ," he began smoothly, turning on the charm. He touched the corner of one textbook and continued in French. "I didn't mean to intrude. There were no other tables available. I couldn't help but notice… your verb tense here is wrong." He pointed at the last thing on the page.

Her face lit up, and Spike felt a tingle of interest in this one, too. "Oh! You speak French. I mean, you speak it really well."

He shrugged. "Had to learn it years ago. Dunno about us Brits; we loathe the French and every soddin' thing about them, yet we all bow down to their culture." The redhead bounced a little with excitement. Spike blinked, an unwilling grin coming to his face as he gazed down at her. In his peripheral vision, he saw the dark-haired boy watching them from the dance floor.

"You're English! I know someone from England. He doesn't sound like you at all, but he has an accent, too. I thought you might be from Canada at first, you know, French-speaking Canada. Where are you from? In England, I mean?"

"London," he answered, trying to read the lad's expression as he came toward the table. Concern, he thought, protective of his little girlfriend. "Came here by way of France, actually. Ever been there?" He lifted the textbook again. "School trip or the like?"

"Oh, no, I've never been out of the States." She turned around, her hair belling out a little. "Xander, he speaks French," she said happily.

Not too bright, maybe, Spike thought, but sweet. She still expected good in other people. He turned his smile on the young man, having to look up an inch or so. "Sorry to barge in, but I couldn't see any other tables." The Slayer was coming now, a frown on her face because she was, after all, made to look for trouble. Focus on her friends, Spike told himself, feeling the urge to challenge her surging again. Don't bollix this up. Of course, she might sense him, force a confrontation. Part of him longed for that.

"We only left for a couple of minutes to dance," Xander said, reserved, glancing pointedly at the table.

"Who's your friend, Wil?"

Spike watched the Slayer slide protectively between the two humans, a neutral expression on her face. Her voice was a little squeaky, a little husky. It suited her; a cute voice for a cute girl. She had a light sheen of perspiration on her upper lip and brow from dancing, and she smelled delicious. It was her eyes, though, that caught his attention. They were very sharp and a lovely shade of hazel green that seemed familiar, somehow. And she radiated good to a greater degree than any Slayer he'd ever met. He tamped down his aura and redoubled his efforts to charm.

"Sorry," he said, all but smacking his forehead, "dunno where my manners have gotten to." He put his too-cool hand over his chest instead of offering it. "Name's Spike. I'm A&R for Public Image, Limited, of London, by way of L.A. Out here scouting local music talent." No other business would be so forgiving of his bleached hair and leather, and he'd used John Lydon's band name before without his marks being the wiser.

"Xander Harris," the lad told him, giving him a perfunctory nod.

" _Comment tu t'appelles_?" he asked, turning to the little redhead.

"Willow Rosenberg."

"Willow…?" She wasn't insulted when he grinned, just rolled her eyes. "No, it suits you." Spike turned to the Slayer. "And your friend…?"

"Buffy."

No last name, either, he noted, and went for jollier still. "Spiffing to meet you all."

"Why are you in Sunnydale?"

The Slayer was wary of him. Good for her. "What, the music's that bad around here?"

"I wouldn't say it's bad," Xander allowed. He shrugged. "I wouldn't say it's good, either."

"Well, since I've foisted myself on you already, maybe you'll let me buy you drinks in exchange for giving me the skinny on any more-good-than-bad local bands. Expense account, after all." Spike turned his smile on a passing waitress in shiny gold pants. "Oi, love. I'll have whatever's on tap. Same for my mate here – you're eighteen, right?" he asked the boy, then corrected himself. "No, that won't do, will it? Legal age is twenty-one. Uh, what'll you have?"

"Coke," Xander said, surprised into ordering and flattered that he'd been taken for eighteen.

"Same," Willow said when Spike turned to her, eyebrows raised.

Buffy was slower to answer. "A bottle of water."

"Here you go, then," Spike said, tucking two twenties into the waitress' hand. "Anything good on the menu?"

"Good?" she echoed. "Not really. But the blooming onion won't kill you."

He dipped his head toward her. "A bloomin' onion, then, and keep the change." He lowered his voice, appreciative. "Love the pants."

She finally smiled back. "They're good for tips," she admitted, then went toward the bar to get their drinks.

The three humans stared at Spike for a moment, until the silence grew awkward. Willow broke it. "Um, I was helping Buffy with her French. You said there was a wrong verb tense?"

The wary Slayer examined Willow's worried face and in a second, she melted into someone comforting and contrite. Spike blinked again. "Oh, my bad, Wil. I hadn't changed that last thing you told me about." She shrugged, a pretty, unselfconscious gesture, as she picked up her pencil, eraser at the ready. "My mistake. Definitely not yours. _Je_ stink."

" _Avoir mangé_ ," Spike and Willow said at the same time. Then, again simultaneously, "Jinx!" Willow giggled.

Xander snorted a little. "Well, you're already buying her a coke."

"We're good, then," Spike said. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened when the redhead glanced surreptitiously at the Slayer – Buffy, he supposed, but it was such a… fluffy name, it hardly fit – and lifted her brows in a 'wow' kind of way after his chuckle died away. He relaxed a little more, well aware of what he looked and sounded like. A little attraction always made things easier and more fun, and it wasn't as if he was putting out a come-hither vibe on purpose.

"There," Buffy said, brushing away eraser crumbs. "All fixed."

Across the room, by the door, Spike felt the big, ugly vampire who'd knelt at his feet the night before and hid his irritation. "Uh, before she gets back with the drinks, which way's the men's?"

"Past the stairs," Xander said, pointing with his chin in the general direction.

"Thanks, mate. 'S'cuse me," Spike nodded at the two girls, "ladies." As he walked away, he could hear Willow gushing about his manners. With a barely perceptible jerk of his head, he got the other vampire to trail after him. Spike made sure the bathroom was empty and waited, expressionless. He hadn't bothered to remember this vamp's name; the git thought he was cunning, but Spike judged he'd make his move to unseat the new Master within the week. No sense remembering the name of a dead vampire.

As the door opened, he snaked out a hand and hauled the big vamp in by his collar, leading him to one of the stalls with contemptuous ease. "Why are you here and not at the factory?" Spike shoved the bulky body against the stalls, angling it so the demon bounced off the door, banged into the wall, and found itself seated, ungainly and undignified, on the toilet.

"I-I just thought you might need help with the Slayer." Apologetic tone or not, he'd gone to game face.

"I wouldn't need your help if I wanted to kill her and everyone in here." Spike found himself explaining without making a conscious decision to do so. He gave himself another mental smack; God knew why Big Bads got infected with the exposition bug. It was the one thing the movies got right. "I'm here to get the lay of the land, see for myself what this Slayer's about. It requires finesse, which means you are not required." He turned away, his last words directed at the door as he left, his power implicit in his confidence that the younger vampire would obey. "Don't let me see you again."

By the time he made it back to the table, the French textbooks and papers were put away in bookbags beneath the table. Drinks and a platter of something savory and deep-fried had taken their place. "None too soon," Xander said, picking off a piece of battered onion. "These seemingly delicate maidens were about to tear into it like a pack of wolves on a moose carcass."

"Or hyenas on a gazelle carcass," the little redhead said, something teasing in her tone.

"But you protected it, did you?" Spike's severe words were undermined by the twinkle in his eyes. God, if only he could get minions with half the wit as these children.

Xander popped the piece of onion into his mouth, unfazed. "With my very life."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "As if." She looked at the deep-fried concoction for a moment, longing in her eyes. "It does smell good, though."

Spike took an appreciative sniff. "Yeah. What d'ya think? Garlic?" He waited to see if the blatant vampire reference got any response from the Slayer.

"Just the onion," Xander said, shaking his head. "But it could be in the horseradish dip."

Spike took a bit, dunked it in the sauce, and tasted it. "Mmm. This is really good." He tore off another piece and savored it in his mouth for a moment. "Never had one of these before. Have at," he urged, pushing the platter toward the two girls.

Buffy shook her head. "It smells good, but if I eat fried food, it's like carpet-bombing my complexion."

"One bite," the blond man cajoled. Temptation overcame the Slayer, and the sight put a smile on his face.

Buffy closed her eyes for a second, a groan of approval escaping her. "This has to be majorly bad for you."

Willow tore off a piece of onion, too, and dunked it in the horseradish sauce. "Deep-frying vegetables is strange to me," she said, pushing some of her hair absently behind her shoulder.

"What about French fries?" Xander asked.

"Oh. But that's like the exception that proves it. Deep-frying's only supposed to be used on, like, chicken or corn dogs, and when you do it to an onion, it's like it's sort of a meat and a vegetable at the same time, only not."

"Schrödinger's onion," Spike mumbled around a mouth of food, just to amuse himself.

Willow's face lit up again. "You know quantum physics?"

He stopped chewing for a moment, reassessing his initial opinion of her. "Not hardly," he said, swallowing. "The only thing I have in common with Einstein is that I'm amused by the example, too."

Seeing their puzzled looks, the red-haired girl turned to her friends. "Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger corresponded in…."

"1935," Spike supplied. He and Dru had been in Austria at the time.

"…about the nature of quantum physics, how molecular matter can be in two states at once, unless you observe it, in which case you can only see it in one state…" She looked at Spike expectantly.

"'Cause by observing it, you've influenced what you see. Schrödinger applied the theory to a much more complex creature, a cat, added some poison gas, and put it in a box."

"And depending on whether or not an atom decayed in an hour, triggering the gas, the cat would die. Fifty-fifty odds. Until you open the box to find out, you can expect the cat is both dead and alive," Willow finished. She beamed at the blond man.

"Uh-huh," Xander said, his brow furrowed. He took a sip from his glass. "So, where does the onion come in?"

"No onion," Willow reassured him. "Just a cat, to make physics fun. Neither of them believed the cat could be in both states at once."

"Check out the big brain on Red." The blond man was still gazing at Willow.

"Hey! That one I know," Xander said happily. " _Pulp Fiction_."

Spike grinned at the lad, and then noticed Willow had a funny look on her face. He backpedaled, knowing he'd come off as fake. "Sorry, love. I've a bad habit of nicknaming everyone. Haven't forgotten; it's Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and Buffy… I didn't get your last name, pet."

"Summers."

"Right, Buffy Summers." Now, that name suited her: a golden name for a golden girl. He turned from her to meet Willow's gaze, pleased to find she was mollified. "Not likely to forget your names." Spike took a sip of beer, grimaced, then gestured with the mug. "You lot are the best company I've had in months." The three friends exchanged looks, and Spike felt himself lose further ground. It mattered to him, for no reason he could readily supply. Being here with these three bright, happy humans was so different from the past few days, hell, the past few decades… It felt like stepping into the future, maybe, instead of living in the past.

"Promise, m'not having you on. Music industry's not a haven for deep thinkers, and when you keep the hours I do, anyone you meet who does have half a brain is probably too pissed to talk about how a cat can be dead and undead at the same time." He literally bit his tongue, knowing he should never have used that word.

Buffy shot an amused glance at Willow, then looked at Xander, who had raised his eyebrows. "I don't know that we sit around talking about undead cats," she said with a suspicious amount of innocence, making her friends smile, "but we are dazzling conversationalists."

"That you are," Spike agreed fervently, raising his mug to cover how surprised he was. Xander and Willow _knew_. Slayers were usually so cosseted by their Watchers that they didn't even have friends, much less ones who knew about their calling.

After bragging about their conversational skills, Buffy couldn't think of a single thing to say. Fortunately, Xander asked how one ended up looking for bands in Sunnydale, and she watched the newcomer as he replied. For all the eyeliner and leather, he came off more cute than tough. He had an expressive face, full of good humor, and he was paying more attention to Willow and Xander than he was to her. Which was okay, because, cute or not, he was totally too old for her.

"How old are you?" she blurted, right on the heels of Xander naming the only truly local band he knew, Dingoes Ate My Baby. Her friends looked at her, and she hastily grabbed her water and took a drink.

"Twenty-seven," Spike said, after a slight hesitation. Was she on to him? "Twenty-eight, I mean. Just had a birthday."

"Well, happy birthday," Willow said.

"Thanks." He smiled at her. "After you get past twenty-five or so, you start having to think about which birthday, add 'em up. Doesn't mean as much anymore."

"So, what you're saying is, once you can drink legally, there's nothing worth looking forward to?" Xander asked.

Buffy put down her bottle. Barely twenty-eight, and too old for her. Angel had been twenty-seven when he was turned. She took another bite from the blooming onion, chewing absently.

"Hey, where did shiny, happy Buffy go?" Xander asked, reaching out a hand without actually touching her as his attention returned to her.

She forced a smile, forced her voice to sound perky. "Right here I am."

Spike's eyes narrowed. The lad's concern was genuine, but her response was to hide her more difficult thoughts rather than admit to them. They might know she was the Slayer, but she did keep secrets from them. He wondered what was going on her mind. But, back on task, because she was asking him a question.

"Does your family mind you traveling so much?"

He shook his head, grimacing again as he took another pull from his beer. "Not married. Me Mum and Dad are dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Willow patted his arm.

Spike looked down at her, something inside him thawing a little further. "S'alright. Been a while. I do have an SO."

"Esso?" Xander echoed, puzzled.

"Significant other," Buffy provided. When Spike raised his glass in acknowledgement, she nodded at it. "Why do you keep drinking that when you make a face every time you taste it?"

He stared at the flat, nasty brew for a moment before setting it on the table. "Yeah, good point."

"So, is your girlfriend from England, too?" Willow asked, and Buffy's inner social goddess had a bad moment, wondering if in fact the significant other was a boyfriend. There weren't a lot of guys in Sunnydale who wore eyeliner.

"Yeah, she's a Brit, too. Long, dark hair, big eyes, a little crazy – has to be to put up with the likes of me. We've been together a long time. Love of my life." He didn't want to talk more about Dru. "Are you two…?" Spike gestured between Willow and Xander.

"Uh, no." Willow smiled bashfully.

"Oh, no," Xander added.

"We're all pretty much footloose and fancy-free," Buffy said, with a slightly bitter spin on the words.

"So, Sunnydale has a dearth of hometown bands and an overwhelming preponderance of vision problems amongst the dating population."

Willow giggled, pleased and embarrassed. Xander, too, was flattered, but he waved a dismissive hand. "Not much of a dating population."

Spike made the praise more extravagant. "Still, glad I ended up at this table, with the beautiful people."

Buffy shook her head and said wryly, "I think they're over there." A group of Cordettes were clustered around Cordelia as she held court on a couch.

The blond man followed her gaze. The girls were bland and plasticized, for all that they were pretty, and each suffered from a disdainful expression and an attitude of bored entitlement. "That lot? All fur coat and no knickers," he said dismissively.

Xander nearly spat out a mouthful of soda. "That? Is great. Never heard that one before."

"No? Means all they've got is on the outside, meant to be seen, no substance underneath."

"I wouldn't say Cordelia and her little clones lack substance," Xander said, "if that substance is, oh, shrew." He lifted his glass and drained the last of the soda, ice cubes clinking.

"'Nother round?" Spike asked, lifting his hand at the waitress as she passed.

"Not for me, thanks," Buffy said, gathering her purse. "I better book."

"School night?" He shook his head in negation at the waitress' lifted brows.

Buffy looked at the blond man. "Uh, yeah, school night. Nice to meet you, Spike…?"

"Just Spike." He shrugged apologetically.

"Like Cher," Willow said, beaming.

Xander caught the other man's pained look. "Or Bono."

The pained look didn't abate. "Like Pele, myself." The young humans looked blank. Spike sighed. "Like Bono," he agreed. "Makes it easier for pissed musicians to remember me."

Xander had been pondering the phrase, one he'd used earlier. "Why do they get pissed at you?"

Spike blinked at the lad. "Sorry. Talking whilst British. Drunken musicians, I mean."

"Oh," Xander said, drawing out the syllable. He filed away the 'talking whilst British' phrase for later use on Giles.

"And, sorry again," Spike offered, noting that Willow looked uncomfortable with his word choice. "I've a bit of a mouth on me."

"No, it's okay," Willow said, tucking her hair behind her ear again.

"It isn't," Spike corrected, "not with ladies present. My apologies."

"It's okay," she said again, her cheeks growing pink beneath the sincere look he was giving her.

Meanwhile, Buffy found that she was still looking at Spike's lower lip, in agreement with his statement that he did have quite a mouth on him. She gave her head a little shake, trying to snap out of it. She barely knew him, she'd already decided he was too old for her, he had a girlfriend, and she might have a boyfriend. Even if he hadn't shown up tonight. Which he hadn't said for sure he would. Which sort of made it all right to look, especially since the view was so nicely chiseled. A girl had hormones, too. Speaking of which… "Wil? Would you watch my bookbag for a minute? I'm going to run to the ladies before I go on pa – um, before my mom goes on the warpath. Unless I get home, I mean. Soon."

Spike slid from his stool, standing as she did out of politeness. He froze for a second, unable to remember the last time he'd paid such a courtesy to a stranger. "Guess I better get over to the clubs by UC-Sunnydale," he sighed, covering his confusion.

"You might want to avoid the Fish Tank," Xander advised. "Talent in the musicians who play there is second to how virus-resistant they are."

"Right. No Fish Tank." Spike clapped the lad on the shoulder and bowed a little to Willow. " _Bonsoir, mademoiselle_."

" _Bonsoir_."

"Nice meeting you, Buffy." It had been a good meeting; he'd played it pretty well, he thought. He could work with this one, could already tell she was trustworthy. Now he only had to meet her Watcher.

"Nice meeting you, too." She watched him walk away as she headed toward the bathrooms, until he was out of her peripheral vision. Spike didn't walk, exactly, and his movement was too smooth to be swagger or strut. Still reaching for the word she wanted, Buffy rummaged through her purse for a tampon. She'd never met anyone quite like him, not even in L.A., and his appearance had made a simple night at the Bronze something interesting.

She headed back to her friends at the table a minute later, wiping her hands surreptitiously on the sides of her pants. The Bronze never had paper towels in the bathroom dispensers, but at least there had been soap tonight. "Hey, you guys going straight home?"

"Yes. We'll be fine," Xander said, a little impatient.

"Don't worry, I'll protect him," Willow agreed, her tone innocent.

Buffy covered her smile by leaning over for her bookbag. "I'll at least go with you to Wilkins Boulevard, then head over to the Sunny Rest." She waited for her friends to gather their things, then the three of them headed toward the doors, passing Cordelia as they did. The dark-haired beauty's eyes flicked over them, and her mouth curled slightly in distaste before she dismissed them from her mind. She wouldn't associate with them in public.

It still stung a little, Buffy admitted to herself, even if by now she was mostly amused by Cordelia's attitude. Back in L.A., a much bigger pond than Sunnydale, she had been the one who was at the top of the pecking order. She didn't really want that life back, not the shallowness of the friendships or the endless pressure to be the wittiest and most fashionable. But part of her wanted to take Cordelia down with a sleek Prada outfit and a well-placed quip, wanted to assume her rightful place at the center of Sunnydale High life instead of skulking around the edges. Even as she scolded herself for the pompous thought, deep down she still had to think that she'd be a much more benevolent queen than Cordelia, who didn't know the pain of being on the outside. Maybe she hadn't had knickers under her fur coat in L.A., but she probably would have rated at least a thong, and she definitely had knickers now, if not granny-panties or pantaloons or –

"Buffy."

Xander's low, warning tone pulled her out of her reverie. She glanced up, then followed his gaze. In the shadows along the outside wall of the Bronze was the British man they'd just met. In front of Spike was an enormous guy, squared off to face him. No, Buffy corrected herself, the enormous guy was looming.

"B'lieve I told you to leave," Spike said mildly, his voice and gaze level, his body language showing nothing but relaxed lines. What an idiot, Buffy thought, though part of her was impressed by his nonchalance. He could get seriously hurt by this bruiser.

"You know," the big guy said, "I'm done. I'm not taking orders from you or anybody else."

Spike chuckled, sounding for all the world as if he was really amused. "Yeah? Your declaration of independence, given in an alleyway?" He scoffed. "Suits you."

Buffy's heart sank. Don't provoke the big drunk, she willed him, even as she took a couple of steps closer. That was all it took for her to get a little tingle, a slight touch on her Slayer's senses. _Vampire_ , she thought, not even a full second before the aggressive stranger made an inarticulate sound of rage and went to demon face.

"Spike!" she yelled. Startled, he looked from the demon in front of him toward her. "Run!" She was running herself, flying into the vampire's big body with a side kick that moved him only a yard away from the blond man. Buffy's heart sank. This was a strong one.

He was slow, though, recovering and coming back at her with a wide swing. The Slayer had plenty of time to set up a barrage of punches even as she ducked his. She drove the vampire against the wall, then sprang away, reaching for her purse. It wasn't there.

"Buffy!"

"Need help?"

Her friends were there for her. "Stake from my purse would be," she pivoted on one heel and wasn't there when the vampire lunged for her, "nice." Buffy put her hands together and brought the joined strength of both fists down on the demon's spine. "And get him out of here!"

Xander bent to retrieve a stake from her fallen purse, and Willow darted forward, hesitating for a second to make sure the battle wasn't swinging her way, then snatched at the sleeve of Spike's leather coat. "Come on!"

"Are you daft?" he asked, never looking away from the battle. This Slayer was better than he assumed, had more in her arsenal. He'd yet to see her use a move twice.

Willow misinterpreted his reluctance to leave. "No, she'll be fine. She doesn't need you to help. This is, like, her thing."

Spike dragged his eyes away from the fight, where Buffy had just gotten off a particularly nice hook punch, impressive considering the difference in the opponents' heights. Willow was tugging on his coat, giving him a beseeching look. He was, he realized, being saved. The Slayer and her friends were saving his life.

At that moment, Buffy's little foot found the vampire's midsection, and he staggered back against Spike. "Oooh," Buffy breathed in dismay, her eyes full of horror, sure the demon would have his kill after all.

Master and minion locked eyes for a moment, the inhuman yellow ones pleading, but William the Bloody was not known for sparing misbehaving underlings. A snarl twisted his mouth, and he drove a brutal straight punch into the area opposite where the Slayer's kick had landed, sending the demon reeling away, back into the fray.

Xander juggled a tampon he found in his hand for a disconcerting moment, then his fingers touched the stake. "Buffy!" he called, holding it up, waiting for the right moment to throw it.

Before he did, the big vampire feinted, picking Buffy up instead of hitting her. He threw her against a corrugated delivery door, and she crumpled down to the floor of the alley, dazed for a moment. "I don't need to wait until St. Vigeous to be the Master!" he crowed, turning back toward his chosen victim.

She looked up at her assailant, the wariness in her eyes edged with fear. Then the emotion disappeared, and she got back to her feet in an economical motion.

"Here!" Xander had found the right moment.

The stake hit her hand, and Buffy struck as the big vampire realized she was up and barged toward her, spinning and driving the wood deep into his chest. It wasn't a perfect hit, but she angled the stake enough that it pierced the monster's heart. He dissolved into dust, the grit scattering on the dirty pavement.

The three friends turned fearful eyes on Spike, who gave himself a mental shake. He was supposed to be clueless in the face of the Slayer rescuing him, not acting as if he was at a football match. "That guy, he, uh, just exploded," he managed.

"Yeah," Xander said, "about that…."

"Was he," Spike said, taking a step toward the disintegrated demon and acting for all he was worth, "was that a vampire?"

"A what?" Buffy said, her acting even less convincing than Spike's.

"How do you know about vampires?" Willow asked. She met Buffy's disapproving glare. "Well, he did say…."

"You don't get 'round to the places I do and not hear rumors, strange things…" Spike trailed off; he knew he wasn't a good liar. Better to feign confusion. "But this is real. He just… turned into dust."

"And ash," Buffy said grimly. "Ashes to ashes." She let out a breath. "Are you all right?"

"Me? Yeah." Spike took a step toward her. "Thank you." And he was grateful; she'd saved him the effort of killing the stupid minion himself. "I think you saved my life," he added softly, striving for shocked sincerity, looking around at the children. "All of you. That guy, he would have killed me, wouldn't he?"

"Maybe." Buffy blew her hair out of her eyes, anxious to leave and report to Giles. What the vamp had said about waiting until St. Vigeous worried her. It sounded like there was a plan. The Master was gone, doubly so. But the memory was still too close, the fear too real. I need to talk to Giles, she thought, but first I need to get rid of this guy. "Are you parked close by? We can walk you to your car. You'll be safe in your hotel room until morning; just don't invite anyone in."

No way could he let her or her little friends see his ride, the blacked-out windows. "I, uh, walked over. You think I should maybe call a taxi?" Spike hoped he sounded anxious.

"That's probably the safest thing to do," Willow agreed, nodding vigorously. She and Buffy exchanged a silent communication.

Xander glanced between the two girls, and a moment later, his eyes widened in understanding. "Yeah, there's a pay phone in the Bronze, near the bar. Just stay inside until it gets here."

"Okay." Spike started to turn away, then paused. "Thank you. I mean, words aren't enough… but thank you."

Buffy gave him a pleased, slightly embarrassed smile. "You're welcome."

He gave a last glance and uncertain smile, then went just inside the nightclub's door to listen.

"Look, you two go on home," the Slayer said. "I'm going to swing by to see Giles before I patrol, tell him about this St. Vigorous thing."

"You sure?" Xander asked, belated realizing he still held her purse and handing it over. "Because we can come with."

"No, that's all right." Buffy took her purse. "Be careful, guys. See you tomorrow."

"Night, Buffy." Willow watched the Slayer stride away. "Come on, Xan. I need to get home anyway – I forgot to feed my fish this morning."

Waiting until the sound of their footsteps faded, Spike slipped into the alley and began to follow the Slayer. To his disappointment, it was an uneventful trip; he would have liked to see more of her fighting style. He was surprised when her path led to the local high school, and he wondered if his assumption that this Giles was her Watcher was wrong. The public building offered no threshold barriers against him, though. He should be grateful for small favors.

The Slayer went directly to a side door and strode inside. Spike followed a half minute later, tracking her scent, a pleasant, girly smell mixed with shampoo and laundry detergent and light perspiration that floated above the odor of ammonia on the recently mopped floors. He gained on her as the trail led to the double doors of the high school library, which had porthole windows for the safety of approaching traffic. Convenient, that. Spike got a glimpse of a tall man with a high hairline and glasses, clad in tweed. Watcher, then. At a library. Grinning at how well his plan was going, he sank down onto the linoleum to listen.

"Giles, who is St. Vigorous?" she asked without preamble.

"Hullo, Buffy." He looked up from the book open on the checkout counter. "I believe you mean St. Vigeous, and I've just been reading about him. Jenny – er, Miss Calendar reminded me that the Feast of St. Vigeous falls on Saturday night."

"So, is he like St. Nick or St. Valentine?"

"Not remotely."

Buffy leaned against the counter and closed her eyes for a moment. "Not on the Catholic calendar, then."

"No. He led a crusade of vampires–"

"Let's skip the history lesson. What happens on Saturday?"

Outside the library, Spike's eyebrows rose. He'd never known a Slayer to interrupt a Watcher, certainly not during an important discussion like this.

Giles paused. "I don't think it would hurt to know the background," he finally said in a mild tone.

"I'm sorry." Buffy looked down at her nails, absently noting that the glittery pink needed a touch-up. Her voice was very low as she asked the question that had been on her mind since first hearing the name. "Is it a big night for rituals? Resurrection rituals?"

Giles stared at the top of her head, steeling himself against the impulse to comfort her. That wouldn't be the right thing for either of them. "No. Vampires fast and scourge themselves for three days to prepare for the night of the Feast, then attack a target _en masse_. Reenacting a micro-crusade, as it were"

The Slayer visibly relaxed. "Oh. Okay," she breathed.

"Buffy, I don't think you're taking this seriously enough."

"I've got a lot going on. It's on Saturday; I have to get through Thursday first."

The Watcher sighed. "I hardly think this parent-teacher…thing is–"

"Expelled." When he started to protest again, she added, "My mom will be there."

"We will have to prepare for, for whatever they throw at us on Saturday."

"We will. But we have time." She pushed away from the counter. "I'd better book. Patrol isn't going to take care of itself."

Frowning, Giles put out a hand. "You haven't been on patrol yet? Where did you hear the name St. Vigeous?"

"Dusted a vamp outside the Bronze." She saw he wanted more detail. "He said that he didn't need to wait for St. Vigeous."

"Apparently he did."

"He said that he didn't need to wait for St. Vigeous to be the Master."

"Ah." The impulse to comfort her came back even stronger. "Sounds like he had personal ambitions, wanted to take the dominant position in the local vampire hierarchy. Defeating you would have given him, er, 'cred.'" The Watcher resettled his glasses. "The Feast of St. Vigeous wouldn't have made a difference, not against you."

Neither of them smiled, but the mood lightened. The Slayer turned toward the door, and Giles delayed her once more. "He is gone, Buffy."

"I know." The words were small, but she firmed her mouth and made it curve into a smile.

Spike went high, looking down on the Slayer from the ceiling as she left. Had they meant the Master? He waited as she had made her way out of the building, until he heard the faint clang of the outer door. Then he dropped lightly to the floor and opened one of the library doors.

Inside, it smelled like books, of course, acidic pulp of newer volumes overlaying the mustiness of leather covers and sweet rag paper of the older tomes he would need. How odd that they let this Slayer go to school, as if she was a regular girl – though placing her Watcher in the school library was brilliant.

"May I help you?"

There was a forbidding chill to the words, as if the answer should obviously be 'no, and I'm sorry to trespass.' Spike turned to the small office behind the counter, where he knew the Watcher had been. "I think you just might." 'Giles' was younger and more handsome than Spike had caught with the first glimpse. He wondered if the Slayer had a crush on him – though it didn't seem so from their conversation.

Giles cataloged him in return, without warmth. "You're too old to be a student here." And not old enough to be a parent, but he left that unspoken.

"Far too old," he agreed.

"State your business for being on school grounds."

"Very fussy, Giles. But normal for a Watcher."

That was all the confirmation Giles needed. He lifted the crossbow from where he'd been holding it slightly behind him and fired.

Spike caught the bolt a full foot away from his heart and gave the Watcher a fierce grin as he crushed it in his hand. "Not a very friendly way to greet a countryman," he chided.

If the Watcher was dismayed, he hid it well. Without pause, he lifted a large crucifix to ward against the creature. "Leave this place."

Spike shook his head, smiling now. "Not until we talk – and I'd wager that your arm is going to get tired, holding up that," his eyes narrowed sardonically, "powerful symbol of goodness and whatnot."

"Thank you so much for your concern," Giles retorted, equally sarcastic, "but you mustn't worry on my account." He walked to the left, putting the counter between them. "You said you want to talk," he prompted.

"The manners of a Watcher," Spike sighed. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"

"You already know my name."

"That name crops up for several generations in your business." When the human didn't respond, he raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to ask for my name?"

"I make a practice of not knowing you lot on a first-name basis."

Spike tutted. "How are we going to work together, you with that attitude?" He put his hands on a table behind him and propped against it. "Name's Spike."

"How very… rock-and-roll of you."

He blinked. This wasn't the reaction he was expecting. The human kept his silence, eyes sharp, waiting for the talking to end and the bloodletting to begin. He sighed, impatient. "Look, they don't entrust the Slayer to idiots, at least. You must know who I am."

"I neither know nor care who you are," Giles corrected.

"You should." Then his face brightened. "You'll forgive me; I did forget how hidebound you lot are. Perhaps you know me as," he performed a quick, backwards move, ending up seated cross-legged on the table, "William the Bloody."

Giles paled. Not yet, he thought frantically, his mind running in a panic. She's not ready for a challenge like this, not yet. And did he say _three_? When he spoke, though, his voice was calm. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Liar." Spike inclined his head toward the Watcher. "Even if your heart rate didn't give you away, the Council wouldn't put the Slayer in the care of someone who didn't know every scrap of information on the only vampire who's fought and killed three Slayers."

Something eased in the Watcher's posture, as if he was glad to have a disguise out of the way. "Perhaps I have heard of you… but I'm scarcely concerned."

Spike smiled, but let the lie go uncontested. "You needn't be. I'm here to make a treaty with the Slayer."

"You're what?" Giles voice was uncharacteristically thin.

"That's the first genuine thing I've heard out of you," Spike said, chuckling. He was off the table and over the counter in less time than it took for Giles to blink, pinning the Watcher against the wall, holding both wrists tightly. "A treaty, Watcher. 'S'been done before, if half of what the Duchess told me was true, mostly when two Clans were at war." Spike let go of the human, capturing the crucifix in his own hand as it fell. It sizzled for a second, and he gave Giles a lazy, sexual grin before tossing it aside. "Now," he said, strolling away, all business, "I'm the new Master 'round here. Not a job I really want, but there's a tragic dearth of suitable candidates. This town of yours," he waved an all-encompassing hand, "this Hellmouth, it's mine. The vampires all answer to me, do what I tell 'em. I could make your life very difficult, very… short. Or not.

"I didn't come to this oh-so-charming Hellmouth for mayhem – not that I'm opposed. Pretty simple, really: you keep your Slayer out of my business, I don't send so much her way that she can't handle it. We have a treaty, and you only have to do one thing for me. Interested?"

"I don't make deals with demons."

Spike shrugged. "Well, then. I'll just go kill your Slayer. Should be a fun minute or so." He turned and began to walk away, not hurrying.

Giles watched the pillock swagger away, thinking of Crowley's Watcher diaries from the 1970s, of how this vampire had waited – waited! – until he judged that slayer was up to his standards. And he'd waited for two years. Giles thought of the worry in Buffy's eyes just moments before, fearing the rise of the old Master when this new one was far worse. This one sought out Slayers. "Wait."

The vampire turned around, not troubling to hide the triumph in his eyes. "Of course. I have all the time in the world."

"You can keep the vampires away? Even on St. Vigeous?"

"I can't keep every demon away," Spike said cautiously, "but I control the vamps, yeah. They obey me, or else."

"What do you want from us?"

He smiled. "I want you to help me leave this little seaside paradise."

"You don't plan to stay on the Hellmouth?"

"What? In this burg? No, Watcher. Let me do my business in peace, maybe a little access to your research materials to help me on my way. That's all, really."

Giles gritted his teeth. "What research?"

"How to cure a sick vampire."

This surprised him. "You look fit enough."

"Isn't me, is it?" He rolled his eyes.

"There's only one cure for vampires." At Spike's narrow look, he managed a humorless smile. "I was going to say, blood."

He shook his head. "Didn't work."

Giles studied him for a moment. "Why do you care?"

"It's my sire who's sick."

"Ah." He had always read that it was a strong bond, though he'd seldom seen evidence of it.

The curious way the Watcher was studying him made him uncomfortable. "What? Nothing wrong in wanting to help one's sire. Instinct to help her, innit?" He put his head to the side and pointed at the other man. "Think about it. I'll be back tomorrow night for your answer. And not a word to Buffy."

Giles' heart sank. The demon knew her name and probably a great deal more. He could buy her some time, though. "Tomorrow night, then." The double doors swung shut behind Spike, but instead of hurrying for a stake, he simply stared into space. The Slayer of Slayers had come to town, but not for the expected reason.

⸹

"Ah, love," Spike said quietly, staring at Drusilla from the doorway. She was abed, clean and comfortable and safe, dozing in the impromptu fortress he'd created for them. "Look at you."

"Where have you been, my Spike?" she asked sleepily. "I can't see you, not for the moment."

He sat next to her on the bed, careful to keep his boots off the covers. "Been out seeing to your safety." Spike leaned closer and put his nose against hers. "And you'll be safe here. Hellmouth, yeah? Good place for our kind."

"You've fed," Dru murmured, her eyes fixed on him but focused elsewhere, as if seeing his memories.

"Wilkins, that's the mayor of Sunnyhell, is some kind of demon or other. He thoughtfully stocked this place with plenty of trout."

"Lazy, stupid trout," she said, "no sport to it."

She had snatched that from his head. "Yeah, well, not here for the fine dining. More like going to the baths somewhere."

"To get healthy. Like going to a sanitarium." Their eyes locked for a long moment as she caressed his mind, touching the old, old memory of his mother's first bout with consumption. Then Drusilla slipped away, sagging onto the pillows.

"Don't tire yourself, my sweet." He sat up and began stripping off his coat. "Here, let me get undressed, and I'll join you."

"You don't have to. I made a pudding for you."

Spike was able to puzzle this out after only a second's thought, and it made him grow still, staring at her. "What, the blond I brought you for dinner?" Drusilla met his gaze steadily. Exasperated with her, Spike shook his head. "Dru, I don't want anyone except you. Not interested in bringing someone else into our bed." Spike finished doffing his coat. "And I don't want you using your blood to sire. It's precious, every drop of it."

"We'll need some who are loyal to us."

"Yeah, well, I've made the rounds. Dalton is in town – remember him? Bookish type the Master turned, what, eighty years ago? Had coffee with him, and he'll throw in with us."

"He has too many eyes." Her voice was a hiss.

"Wears glasses, yeah." He headed her off the topic of eyes. "He was living away from the Annoying One on the outskirts of town. Thinks he can round up a few others who aren't as… reverent as these." Spike paused with one boot off. "Got rid of Big Ugly tonight. Thought he might make a better Master than me, until I taught him better." Though he hadn't the bother of finishing the job.

"If you don't want to bed her, can she be my maid?"

Back to the blond woman, then. "'Course she can. Get her to do your hair up nice, find new dresses for you. You'll look a treat, love."

"You take such good care of me, Spike."

Naked now, he went around the opposite side of the bed to slide in next to her, pulling the covers over them both. "And I always will."

⸹

Giles spent the rest of the night at the library, reacquainting himself with the records on this particular vampire. He added the new information he had gleaned (not much, admittedly: 'Alias: Spike' and that he boasted of killing an additional, unknown Slayer), and called on one of the other four Watchers in California as soon as it was a decent hour. Well, Crowley was retired, but a Watcher never really left the business. Usually the bitter old man would rant on about his late Slayer and the murdering vampire who still walked the night and the bastards on the Council who wouldn't lift a finger to end him. Today, of course, Giles couldn't seem to get him on the topic. Having dealt with the pretext for his call, he was about to ring off in despair when he politely asked the old man about his son. It had seemed odd to him that Americans would let a man as old as Crowley adopt a child, even an older and hard-to-place child, but he was incredibly wealthy, after all.

Now Crowley's voice was as pleased as it ever was. "Good, good. Robin's home from college on fall break."

"This is his last year, yes?"

"He's decided to go on to graduate school. Educational administration."

"You must be very proud."

"I am." Without much more than a pause for breath, Crowley asked, "And how's that Slayer of yours?"

"Well enough. I earn my pay, I have to admit."

"My Nikki was a handful." And that's all it took for the old Watcher to retell the story of her death. This time Giles listened carefully rather than out of duty, asking the two things that had kept him awake all night. It was easy to get Crowley to elaborate on the first: the skill of the powerful vampire and his arrogance in waiting until Nikki could give him a challenge. But Giles finally had to blurt out his other concern.

"Forgive me; I know this is painful. But… he didn't take her blood?"

"No." In the silence, Giles and Crowley both thought of how she had died, the quick snap of her neck taking her from a vibrant warrior into a motionless corpse. "Learned his lesson with the first one, the Chinese Slayer, I suppose."

This, then, was the meat of it. "And there's no doubt that this William the Bloody is the same one that drained the Slayer in 1900?"

"None. I went over the records every possible way, even translated the old Watcher's Diary myself. And he bragged about it, the little punk."

That term drove away any doubt that he could be dealing with a different vampire. Giles shook his head in bewilderment. "Then how could he have survived?"

"I don't know," Crowley said wearily. "Too evil for the Slayer's blood to have any effect, I guess." After a short pause, he continued in a slower voice. "Are you asking for any particular reason, Rupert?"

"No. No, just after nearly losing my own Slayer to the Master – well, I have to admit, I gained a new appreciation for what you went through. Listening with new ears, as it were." He heard a good deal of background noise on the other end.

"Rupert, I don't mean to cut you short, but Robin is awake and banging pots about in search of breakfast. Is there anything else?"

"Er, no. Do go and enjoy your son's company. Thank you for your time."

After he hung up, Giles sat motionless for a while, staring down at the transcript of an eighteenth century Watcher's Diary, thinking about what Crowley had said. After a while, the passage that he'd re-read several times already swam into focus.

⸹

There was aught that could be done for Sarah when We found her, but We stayed with her until the end, giving her great comfort by our Presence and by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Both Clayborne and I believed the Creature who had Killed her must be the same as had Killed so many in Edinburgh in recent days. Sullivan remained to stand watch over Sarah's body, should the Worst happen. We Resolved to track him, a task less difficult than expected. Near Dawn, we followed the sound of his mad Laughter to a rooftop.

He was sitting atop a Chimney, no risk in the mild summer night. It seemed he could not Settle between his two faces, changing rapidly between the face of a handsome lad and the fearsome visage of one of Satan's imps. He continued to laugh wildly, exhorting us to kill him, though we were hesitant to draw near him in his Insanity. The Creature spoke of how Sarah's blood burned in his mind, making him remember that Which he never wanted to think of again. Clayborne thought the Vampyre meant his wickedness and foul deeds, but I gathered differently, thinking that he meant memories of Life before wretched Unlife.

Before we could gird ourselves to approach him with Stakes, the Sun rose over the city. The Creature turned toward it and rent his clothes, baring a pale breast to the daylight. As he began to Burn, the first licks of the flame he will Endure in his everlasting punishment, he turned back toward us. Clayborne and I both agree that it was with Relief that he was destroyed.

⸹

The next paragraph was about the poor, dead Slayer's funeral, and Giles stopped reading. He had been able to reassure Buffy after they had all been caught in little Billy Palmer's dreams that Slayer blood warded against being turned, that vampires drain Slayers, but there was no record of one ever being sired. Taking much blood from a White warrior inevitably drove a vampire mad, either propelling them into suicide by daybreak or addling them so that they were easy prey for a grieving and vengeful Watcher.

Except for bloody William the Bloody. What, Giles wondered, was it about this vampire that made him immune? His eyes strayed to another stack of books, all marked at the relevant passages about the Feast of St. Vigeous. This 'Spike' could not have shown up at a worse time.

Giles stood up from his desk, his back popping pleasantly, and he stretched, yawning. He wasn't as young as he used to be, and staying up all night would leave him with a sleep debt that would have to be repaid shortly and a mother of a headache by the afternoon. And he still hadn't decided what to do about the proposed treaty.

Tea. He'd make tea, then he could think more clearly. Giles grabbed his electric kettle and started for the water fountain. With any luck, Buffy and her friends would be too busy to stop by during school hours. The sight of her dear face would ratchet his worry up another notch. When he'd taken the assignment, he'd never expected to grow so fond of his Slayer. She not only had incredible potential as a Slayer, she was a fine person beneath the teenage attitude. Buffy deserved better than to die at the hands of a boastful killer.

⸹

October 1997

⸹

Spike woke earlier than usual, feeling rested, and slipped from bed without waking Drusilla. He was full of anticipation, an emotion not to be taken lightly after nearly twelve decades. Anything might happen tonight, as he had no idea of what the Watcher would decide.

The monotonous drone of the chanting vampires grew louder as he went to the central area of the old factory. At the last moment, he detoured, not willing to be obliged to join in, much less flog himself. Through a bullet hole in a painted-over window, he saw that it was raining. Huh. So much for sunny California. But it gave him a chance to slip away.

He had no real agenda as he drove through the wet streets. Sunnydale, he realized, was the definition of a burg. It lay off a main road, and there was really only one way to drive into town. It boasted a municipal airport with commuter flights and a manky seaport, both of which Spike figured existed primarily for demon traffic. The college campus probably doubled the town's population when it was in session. On the outskirts was a military base, little of which he could observe except a chain link fence, a wide brown lawn, and low gray buildings at a distance. Seemed small, though. He drove past the deserted beach, free of humans on a rainy morning in early fall, then headed back into the downtown area. He'd spotted a theatre marquee and wanted to see what was playing. Dru still loved to go to the movies.

While waiting at one of the few traffic lights, an awning over a business caught his eye. The storefronts screamed 'urban renewal,' a project that had kept downtown Sunnydale from dying completely after an influx of franchises a few blocks over. Downtown was primarily tearooms and antique shops, but one was 'Summers Fine Arts.' The light turned as he wondered at the coincidence, and he made an impulsive decision, cutting in front of an oncoming Civic into an empty parking space in front of the gallery. The driver beeped her horn at him indignantly, but he wasn't fussed. Overall, there were few things on the road with less than four axles that posed a threat to the old DeSoto.

The bell over the door rang a single, sweet note as he entered. The shop was empty of customers, and the woman behind the counter didn't rush over, which pleased him. He liked it when they gave him a chance to look around instead of trying to head off an obvious shoplifter. Spike recognized most of the prints. The original works of local artists were pretty derivative, but there was a collection of tribal art that wasn't too shabby. He didn't linger long, making his way to the counter.

"Good morning. Can I help you with anything?"

"Uh, yeah." Spike was diffident in the face of her smile, now ninety-nine percent sure this was who he thought it was. "I, uh, 'm'new in town, and I just wondered if…" Ooh, suave, he mocked himself. "Saw the name Summers over the shop. By any chance are you Buffy's mum?"

"Yes. Yes I am." Her smile had frozen a bit, but she held out a determined hand. "I'm Joyce Summers." She examined him, then frowned as she tried to find a memory. "You look so familiar. Have we met?"

"Er, no. Just got into town." He took her hand, blinking a little at her courtesy before letting go. "Delighted to meet you now, though. It's, um, Spike."

"Spike?" At his nod, Joyce forced another smile. "How do you know Buffy?"

For the first time, he thought of washing his face and brushing his teeth. "Uh, she didn't tell you?"

Joyce shook her head. "Tell me what?"

He could almost hear her inner plea that her daughter wasn't dating him, and he had never had the heart to tease a mother. "She saved my life the other night. Outside this club, the Bronze?"

"No, she didn't mention…" Joyce shook her head, confused. "She… saved your life? Buffy?"

If the Slayer's mother was confused, he was dumbstruck. She had friends who knew, but not her own mum? Spike covered his surprise by vigorously nodding his head until some plausible words came to mind. It wouldn't do to roil the Slayer's home life during negotiations. "Uh, yeah. I'm in town scouting bands, and maybe I had a little too much at the club, and there was this guy outside – dunno if he was going to mug me or just didn't like the look of me or what, but your daughter came out with her friends and, uh, stood right up to this guy. Really helped me out – I was a little afraid, you know, alone in a strange town and all." He shut up.

Joyce blinked. After a moment of processing all this, she asked, "She wasn't fighting, was she?"

The Slayer, not fight? "Oh, no. Just, er, assertive. Told this guy off, threatened him with the bouncer, the const – er, police. Then he just slunk off, instead of panning in my head." Even if his skills were rusty, he had a knack for shielding mothers from the harsher realities. "Anyway, I just wanted to, uh, you know, let you know you got a good kid. Does the right thing and all. You're doing a spiffing job with her."

"Yes," Joyce answered, sounding dazed. "It's always good to hear that."

"Yeah. I'll, uh, let you get back to work. Nice meetin' you."

Before he could turn away from the counter, Joyce had made a sort of ducking movement with her head that took away much of her regal air and made her seem younger. "Wait. I'm not busy, not right now," she waved a hand at the deserted shop. "Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me? You can tell me all about it, since Buffy didn't mention it." Joyce made a 'daughters-what-can-you-expect' face, then gave him such a pleading look, complete with Buffy's smile, that Spike, Master of the Order of Aurelius, was powerless to say no.

⸹

"Mom! I'm home!" Buffy made a beeline for the kitchen, rehearsing her plan for the evening. A quick bite of whatever was in the fridge, change, back to school to meet Mrs. Telford, the student activities sponsor, to pick through leftover decorations from other school functions to see what could be repurposed for parent-teacher night, then to Willow's for a quick study session before patrol. And, she thought, maybe see Angel. The idea put a smile on her face. "Mom?"

The house felt empty, and Buffy had her suspicions confirmed by the note she spotted on the refrigerator door. 'Working late tonight so I'm free for the parent-teacher meeting tomorrow. Greek salad in fridge. Real dinner on Friday at 6:30 – no excuses! Love, Mom.'

The message didn't make her happy. Well, 6:30 wasn't too late; she could go to the library and help Giles prepare for St. Vigeous after dinner. Of course, she had to live through the parent-teacher open house first. And she might be grounded afterwards, so she'd be home for dinner every night for a week, anyway. Buffy found the salad in the refrigerator and put half of it on a plate, leaving most of the feta cheese but taking more than her fair share of olives. She popped a tempting chunk of lettuce in her mouth even before she got to the dining room table. The last Greek salad she'd had was in L.A.

She wasn't aware that her movements slowed as she sank down into the chair, a frown settling between her brows. Part of her had wanted to stay in Los Angeles, though she knew she had to come back to the Hellmouth. To Sunnydale, Buffy corrected herself absently. Of course, her father hadn't asked her to stay. Still, she couldn't help but wonder how much different her life might be, just a hundred-odd miles down the coast. There were a lot of high schools in the city she could attend; at one of those, she might be halfway through cheerleading practice instead of sitting alone at home.

Mope much? she scolded herself. It was way better to have a mother who didn't hover than one overly involved. She hadn't forgotten Amy Madison's home life. Buffy finished the salad, stole one more olive from the bowl in the refrigerator, and rinsed her plate. Then she dashed up the stairs and considered the clothes in her closet for three minutes, trying to cover all the bases from not wanting Mrs. Telford to think she was a skank to looking ravishing should she happen to meet a tall, dark, mysterious vampire during patrol. Settling on a basic tee and knit pants, she capped it with a long jacket with a collar that framed her face. After a quick fix of makeup and hair, she stocked her bookbag with textbooks, study guides, and stakes, then it was off to Sunnydale High.

Just over an hour later, she walked Mrs. Telford to her car, chattering on like an absolute airhead to make sure the teacher got inside safely. As the faculty at this school went, she wasn't too bad. Buffy got the sense that the student activities sponsor didn't like Principal Skinner either, though she did speak fondly of Principal Flutie.

"Would you like a ride home, dear?"

"Oh, no. Thank you," she beamed. "I'm going to a friend's house to study."

"I could drop you there." When Buffy shook her head again, the teacher's kind face fell into lines of worry. She had fretted about the absence of Sheila Martini, the other member of the parent-teacher reception committee. "Then be careful, Buffy."

"I will. Thanks again for those tablecloths." She waved to Mrs. Telford one last time, then hiked her bookbag a little higher and turned toward Willow's house.

The glow of security lights shining on blond hair at the side of the building caught her attention. Buffy turned almost halfway around to see who was going back into the high school at this hour. She stopped, as did the other person. It was Spike, the guy from the Bronze the other night, and the unexpected sight of him made her wary.

He wasn't looking at her. He paused before the side door, glancing up as if to check that he was in the right place, then opened the unlocked door. Watching him, Buffy frowned. After what he'd been through, she was surprised that he would be out after dark in Sunnydale. Curious, she trotted back across the parking lot and went back into the school, easing the door shut behind her. Maybe he was meeting one of the Dingoes here. The way things went in Sunnydale, she might have to rescue him from a vampire again. The thought of having to do that didn't irritate her; he'd been pretty cool at the Bronze.

Spike was already out of the first, short hallway. Buffy held her breath for a couple of beats, but didn't hear anything. Not sure which corridor to take, she chose the one that led toward the library, the only part of the building that was staffed so late. Sure enough, she heard the blond man's distinctive chuckle as she drew close to the double doors. Maybe he found out that there's another Englishman in town. Buffy started to go in, but for no reason she could put her finger on, she hesitated and leaned against the wall instead, listening.

"All right. You'd have to, I suppose. Those are my conditions," Giles was saying.

"I don't like 'em, but I can live with it."

"Even so, being blunt, I don't trust you."

"Same here," Spike said, laughing. "Wouldn't need a treaty if we had trust, now would we, Watcher?"

Buffy turned her head sharply, her eyes widening. Watcher? Treaty? She shrugged the straps of her bookbag off her shoulders and eased it onto the floor, her hand going into her coat for a stake even as she made herself quieter, became stealthier. Spike knew about vampires, and it looked like he knew about the Council, too. Who was he?

"Way I see it, you don't lose anything by making a gentleman's agreement, and you gain quite a bit." Spike's voice faded as he moved further into the library, away from the doors.

"I'm inclined to agree."

"You are?" Sounding pleased, he moved closer again. "Very wise, Watcher."

"I don't think anyone in their right mind would call it wise," Giles snapped, "but I don't like the odds. I've only been training her for a handful of months."

"Wild caught?" There was surprise in Spike's tone. "She has good instincts, I'll give her that." At Giles uncomprehending look, he elaborated. "Got to see her fight last night. Thought she was one of the ones the Council had hold of from early on." He snorted, amused. "No wonder she has a personality."

Outside in the hallway, Buffy's face flushed.

"So… shall we have this in writing?"

"Got some parchment?" There was the sound of movement, then Spike let loose with another laugh. "You really do? I love it. What'd you title it, something pompous in Latin like 'Pax Aurelius?' He laughed again.

The blood drained from Buffy's face. _Aurelius_.

"That's quite enough." Giles' voice was icy.

"Face of stone there, Watcher. Mind it doesn't get stuck that way."

"I'll smile again when you're out of town."

"Right, then. Let's sign the treaty and get on with business. What volumes do you have in Middle French?"

"What treaty?" Buffy's tone was quiet and deadly as she stood just inside the doors of the library, looking at the two men.

Giles looked stricken. "Buffy…."

"Slayer," Spike smiled, opening his arms in welcome. "Good news, pet. You get to live."

"You don't." She threw the stake at his heart, having felt the signature tingle along her Slayer senses once she had him in sight.

Spike plucked the fast-moving stake from the air much closer to his heart than Giles' bolt and raised an eyebrow. "Don't I?" The humor drained from his face, and he addressed Giles, though his eyes never left Buffy. "Better tell her the new rules, Watcher."

"I only have one rule: slay vampires," she spat. She was ready to fight, no matter how fast he was.

"Buffy," Giles broke in, "I gave my word."

"I didn't."

"In these circumstances, I speak for us both," he said, forceful but with an underlying plea in his voice.

"Yeah," Spike said, and though his tone was full of humor, his eyes were assessing, "listen to your Watcher."

"Buffy, you left your bookbag in the hall," Xander said as he opened one of the doors behind her.

"Oh, hey. It's Spike," Willow said happily. She turned to Buffy. "Now I know why you didn't come over. I was worr–"

"Wil, Xander, stay back. He's a vampire."

"Oh." Willow's eyes widened.

"Oh, man," Xander said miserably. "One of them got him anyway."

Tired of all this, Spike shook his head and tossed the stake over his shoulder. "Sorry, mate. Been a vampire for a good long while. And I won't hurt them, Slayer, or you, or your Watcher. We've made a treaty, me an' him, and I'll abide by it 's'long as you lot do."

"Treaty? What treaty?" Xander asked.

"You made a treaty with a vampire?" There was something wounded in Willow's tone as she turned to Giles.

"Not exactly SALT II," Spike scoffed. His attention was fixed on Buffy. "Simple, really. Watcher here gave me access to his library in order to get me out of town as fast as possible. In the meantime, the Slayer leaves me alone, and in return," he smiled, "I don't kill her."

Xander's eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. "You can't kill Buffy."

"He might, actually." Giles' statement created a stunned silence, and he rubbed his temple with the fingertips of one hand, his eyes closed in pain. "He's killed at least two Slayers."

"You've killed Slayers?" Willow felt as if her legs were gone, as if she was floating in place and unable to move, to run.

"They weren't me. What makes you think you can kill me?" Buffy's focus was on Spike, but Giles flinched, knowing that she meant, what make him think Spike could kill her?

For his part, Spike shook his head in exasperation. "Love, I'm not going to kill anyone, not unless you break the treaty."

Willow studied the misery etched on Giles' face. "Buffy, I don't think Giles would agree to anything bad." Her next question was anxious, though. "You didn't, did you?"

"No," he said emphatically. "It's like he said, access to the library so he can do his research and get out of Sunnydale, the faster the better." He firmed his chin. "And a non-aggression clause between you and him, Buffy."

"I didn't agree to anything." She wouldn't look at Giles, though keeping her eyes on the enemy was a very good excuse not to.

"He's been called the 'Slayer of Slayers.'"

"Have I?" Spike interjected, pleased this sobriquet had been documented.

"I won't risk it," Giles went on, ignoring the interruption and speaking only for Buffy's benefit. "He's in the line of the Master, and he can order the rest of the vampire population to stay away, too, even for St. Vigeous."

"The Aurelians, anyway," Spike said, shrugging. "Don't know that the rest of the demon population knows there's a new Master in town."

"The Master?" Buffy echoed, her eyes leaving her enemy and going to Giles in a panic.

"Yeah, that's right. Nature abhors a vacuum, an' all. Someone's got to fill the top spot; might as well be me, long as I'm here. Killed off all the top management you didn't get. They kept going on about old Batface's plans, and who wants that? He never was much fun." Spike moved forward, wanting the Slayer's attention again. She'd looked down, lost in her own thoughts. He pointed at the group as they stood in front of the door, three young humans in a row. "Not to worry. I've given my word. Let's sit and hash this out." He turned away, deliberately showing his back, listening for the first rustle of clothing as someone went for a concealed stake, but heard only silence. Spike chose a chair at the nearest table, spun it around, and sat down with his arms propped on the back.

Unwilling though they were, the three teenagers filed to the table and took chairs opposite the vampire. Giles moved so he stood behind Buffy. She felt his steadying presence, but she didn't look at him. "I can't agree to this. I can't let you walk around because of some treaty, free to kill anybody except us."

"Won't kill anyone while I'm here, love – your Watcher's terms."

"This is the agreement, Buffy," Giles said, handing a scroll over her shoulder.

She darted a glance up at him, then leaned forward to unroll the parchment. Willow and Xander put their heads close to hers, and they read through the points quickly: Spike, Master of the Order of Aurelius, proposed a non-aggression treaty between himself and the Slayer. He would agree to not fight her, to not direct vampires under his control to attack her, and to not kill any human while in Sunnydale, though he would feed. In return, the Slayer would agree to not attack him and the Watcher would agree to provide assistance with research. Giles and Spike signed, Giles without asking Buffy to do likewise and Spike without making the obvious joke about needing blood for ink.

Willow broke the silence first. "What research?" she asked, then absorbed Giles' answer without comment.

Xander wasn't worried about sick vampires. "Why don't you order the rest of your kind to leave humans alone, too?"

Spike snorted. "Not about to promise things I have no control over."

"Any vampires that aren't Aurelians," Giles said, to spell it out, "will be considered as trespassers, will they not?" In answer, Spike laid a finger aside his nose.

Moments later, Buffy stood to escort the vampire out of the high school, her mind still spinning. Spike, the fun, cute guy from the Bronze, was a vampire, an extremely dangerous vampire. He was here to find a cure for a sick vampire, only wanted peace so he could do it quickly, and wasn't interested in fighting her because she just wasn't a challenge to him. She shot a warning look at the others to stay in the library and left with Spike, her silence around her like armor.

"Why so righteously upset, pet?" He held the door for her.

She spun away, willing herself not to simply attack him or to stalk off down the sidewalk and through the parking lot, away from Giles, almost trembling with impotent rage. "You lied to me."

"Vampire."

His sardonic tone made her turn and meet his amused gaze with her flat one. "Why should I trust you, treaty or not? You played us for fools, laughing at how stupid we were."

"I did not." He stood a little straighter. "You lot were more interesting than anyone else I've talked to in this…" he glanced around, lifting a sarcastic eyebrow, "metropolis. Wasn't fooling you that I found the company enjoyable." He took a step closer, and she felt the odd undercurrent of humor again, pulling at her, cajoling her to find the fun, too. "Couldn't very well say, hi, I'm a vampire, mind if I sit and talk? That would have gone over well. I followed you and approached Watcher Boy as soon as I knew who he was."

She moved close enough to have to look up at him, an edge to her voice. "Let's get one thing straight: if you want me to trust you and that… treaty, never lie to me again."

"Vampire." Again, the same nuance and tone. "What, you want me to swear on my sainted mother's grave to always be honest with you? Please."

"Yes, that's exactly what I want. An oath between me and you, nothing to do with the Pax Aurelius. A treaty is about trust, right? If you can't be honest, we might as well have it out right here."

Part of him wanted that, could taste it. How long had it been since he'd had anything approaching a proper fight? The sane parts thought of Drusilla, though. "Won't make your Watcher happy, you breakin' his word."

"How will he ever know?" She gave him a triumphant little smile. "You're as good as you keep saying you are, I'll be dead. Somehow, I don't think Giles will believe that you were a model of oath-keeping. 'Vampire.'" Buffy served the word back to him, then took another step closer. "Giles would do everything in his power to kill you, would call in the Council of Watchers to hunt you down. You might survive," her eyes flicked over him, "but your sire probably wouldn't." She was bluffing; she didn't have a very high opinion of the Council. Giles was the best of them, by far.

Spike's fists clenched, and he took a shuffling half-step toward her, his eyes dark now. Then he lifted his head, a calculating expression on his face, and looked down his nose at her. "I swear to you that I'll always be honest, you have to give me your word you won't complain when I am."

"What?" Buffy's brows drew together in puzzlement. "Why would I complain?"

"Sometimes the truth isn't easy to hear."

Her anger was giving way to wariness. "I'll promise if you will."

"Fine." There was a finality in his tone, and Spike moved in so close that when he leaned down to speak next to her left ear, all she could see was part of a jaw and a sculpted cheekbone. "I'll give you honesty. Won't swear on my mother's grave, though. She didn't have one. I turned her myself, and then I staked her."

If he was expecting a reaction, Buffy thought, he was going to be disappointed. She crossed her arms. "This is supposed to terrify me? That's the first thing you do after you get turned, isn't it? Kill your family?"

"What?" he asked, pulling back, genuinely confused. "That the line the Council feeds you? 'Course that's not what happens. Reports all over Sunnydale, are there, whole families slaughtered in their houses?" He scoffed. "Mostly, vampires want to get as far away from their stupid human rellies as possible. Who wants to be reminded of bein' human?

"No, Slayer," and he leaned in close again, drawing her in a little with his eyes, "first thing I did after I was turned was spend two weeks shagging my sire." Spike gave her a sensual smile. "That, and drinking. Never had blood before, of course, but never had alcohol, either." The smile became self-mocking. "I was a little giddy. So, when I fed off someone who was coughing, I mentioned that I hoped I wouldn't get consumption, you call it tuberculosis these days. That's when I learned that vampires don't get sick, can't host bacteria or catch diseases.

"And that's when I went back home," he said, and he moved closer still, the storyteller's cadence of his words keeping the Slayer rapt, "because my Mum had consumption, and I had a cure."

Buffy gave him a wary look. "You wanted to turn your mother into a vampire to… save her?" She shook her head. "You aren't too bright, are you?"

"You think not?" His mouth firmed, and he spun on his heel and moved a couple yards away. "Dunno. Maybe you're right." Spike shrugged. "I was young, yeah? All I knew was that I wasn't all that different from who I had been, still me with my inhibitions stripped away. Thought it'd be the same for her, just that she wouldn't have to cough up blood every two minutes. Could drink it instead."

Buffy could see his face in the glow from the campus security lights, the haunted look on his face. She thought of her cousin, of how she would have given anything if Celia could have lived. "Why kill her after you'd… administered your cure?"

"She wasn't the same, wasn't herself. She was a monster."

Buffy hadn't seen him so serious, and when he turned to her, there was a lost look in his eyes, the expression of someone who could never go home again. She knew that feeling, had felt it since the day the house in L.A. had sold, and she and her Mom had to leave. How odd to feel kinship with a demon. She tried to dispel the empathy. "You're a monster," she pointed out.

"How would you feel if your father propositioned you, told you that it was what you'd always wanted?" The distaste and unease on her face was answer enough, and Spike lifted his upper lip in a sneer. "Yeah, me, too." Then he moved back into her space, his fingers on her elbow, connecting them. "That's the reason I can't swear on my mother's grave, Slayer. She never had one.

"Truth is, for me there're still lines I won't cross, things I won't do." Some dark memory crossed his mind; she could see it in his eyes. "Not willingly, anyway." He seemed to withdraw from her without moving. "I'll tell you the truth, and I'll keep my word – got that much honor left; no shame in it – but don't ever want to hear you whinge about it when the truth isn't pretty."

"I won't."

"You called me a monster."

His hurt tone surprised her. "You're a vampire, Spike, a monster by definition."

He lifted his chin. "Yeah? Maybe I'm a little more than that." He let go of her elbow and started to walk away, calling over his shoulder. "You're a Slayer, and I've seen 'em come and go, called and killed. Maybe you're no different than them, just another disposable girl." He pivoted and said one final thing. "And maybe you're being angry with me instead of your Watcher, 'cause you think he doesn't have confidence in you."

He knew the true source of her anger. Unsettled, she watched him until he went around the corner, the way he didn't bother to disappear into shadow, her brow marred by a frown.

⸹

"That's enough." It was with great satisfaction that Spike hefted the iron candelabra and threw it across the room, over the heads of the kneeling vampires. The chanting stopped immediately, and they stared up at him with dumbstruck expressions, the pious little gits. Oh, he was looking forward to this.

"Right," he said, making sure they were all looking at him. "No more of this poncing about." Spike grabbed a whip from a nearby minion's slack hand. "Jack it in, boys, there isn't going to be any knees-up for St. Vigeous."

Nothing happened. He looked around at the blank faces. "Oh, for fucksake! No one touches the Slayer except me. Pack up your whips, get to work with push brooms or something and clean up the lair. You're grounded for the weekend."

"But we have to cleanse ourselves for –"

Spike lashed out with the whip, then hauled back sharply, reeling in the vampire who had spoken. "I'm beginning to be seriously dischuffed. How can I make myself plainer?" he asked, nose to nose with the talky minion. "St. Vigeous has been cancelled; the Great Pumpkin ain't coming. Anyone who disagrees…" he let go of the whip handle and punched the younger vampire in the jaw, driving him away, "is welcome to express their displeasure."

The most traditional of the remaining minions were here, and Spike wasn't surprised when two of them rushed him, followed a few seconds later by the rest. What was surprising was how easy it was to destroy them in the confined space. He smashed a wooden folding chair over a convenient head, and then he had all the stakes he needed. After three of them were gone, he was chanting himself. "Ea-sy, ea-sy, ea-sy."

When he first walked into the room, there had been eleven minions. Two minutes later, he was alone with a fine layer of grit. "This is so fuckin' easy," he breathed, looking around the empty room, almost stunned. The Manchester United chant faded from his mind.

Eleven vampires, mostly Aurelians, true believers, in two minutes. Spike hadn't been worried about the fight or the numbers; it was just something that he knew had to be done. None of these spods would have fallen in line and let go of the plan to attack the Slayer. What he hadn't expected was how easy the fight turned out to be, even more so than the previous purge.

Spike shrugged, letting it go. Maybe he just fought better on the Hellmouth. He turned to see the remaining minions peering through the door, gaping at him. He walked past them all, heading toward Drusilla, sorry that she hadn't seen his impressive form. "Right, kiddies," he announced, not looking back at them, "clean that up, make sure the candles are out, then head over to campus to find dinner. I know you're hungry, and we're done with this fasting nonsense. We go out on Saturday for some mayhem, we won't need rituals to ride the holiday juice. No siring. Stay away from the cemeteries, stay away from high school kids," and here his voice turned to ice, "and stay away from _my_ Slayer."

⸹

Willow absorbed the story, then absently pushed her hair behind her ear. Buffy had rejoined the crew in the library after escorting Spike out of the building and passed along what she had learned. "He wanted to save his dying mother," Willow mused. "That's kind of strange for a vampire, to want to help his mom, I mean. They're usually all about themselves."

Buffy frowned. "It is, isn't it?" Then she shook her head. "He's not a typical vampire, that's for sure. They're usually all dour and, you know, sort of old. He doesn't seem to take anything too seriously."

"Remarkable," Giles said softly. "He said he felt much the same, and expected the process to leave his mother similarly unchanged… And this was just after he was turned?"

Buffy remembered what Spike said he'd done the first couple of weeks after getting turned, and her cheeks warmed. "Not very long after." She looked up at Giles as he rose and walked away from the table they were sitting around. The library was chillier than usual, and she pulled her coat around her torso. "Giles? Guys? Let's not mention Angel to Spike. I mean, if he's killing local vampires…."

"Oh," Willow said. "And other vampires really don't like Angel?"

"What's not to like?" Xander's tone had an acidic edge.

Buffy gave him a reproving look. He gave her an unrepentant grin in return.

"So, G-man," Xander asked, eyeing the large pile of books on the edge of the table, "with this treaty and everything… We're still going to prepare for Saturday, right?"

"Yes, certainly," Giles said. "Far better to be prepared and disappointed than to be unprepared." He gave Xander a severe look. "And address me as Giles. Or sir."

"Yes, sir," Xander said glumly, pulling a book off the pile.

⸹

Buffy stopped by the library after her last class on Thursday, carrying two boxes marked 'banquet supplies' she'd picked up from the cafeteria. Her arms were laddered with plastic grocery bags full of vegetables. "Giles, I'm going to set up here." She set everything down on a table free of St. Vigeous materials.

"That's fine." Giles emerged from his office, an open book in hand.

"In research mode?"

"Er, yes," he replied, finally looking up at her. "Here, let me help." He put down the book and began unpacking raw carrots and containers of ranch dip.

Buffy picked up the book he'd set aside, needing space to unpack the punch bowl. "Hey, this is a Watcher's Diary," she noted, looking at the cover. "Any other Slayers have to deal with major trouble on St. Vigeous?"

"No. Well, I mean, yes, but that isn't what I was looking for."

She examined Giles and asked in a slow voice, "I thought we had to be uber-prepared. Why are you slacking?"

"I was looking for more information about William the – I mean, about Spike."

She nodded and began searching through the box for the ladle. That made perfect sense to her. Anyone with the title 'Master' should be priority. "What have you found?"

Giles paused to gather his thoughts and leaned against the table. "Remember what I told you after the Billy Palmer nightmares? That large quantities of Slayer blood drive vampires to despair, so they don't turn Slayers?"

She nodded, remembering his reassurance that her fate would never be so horrible, understanding where he was going. "But Spike isn't in the pit of despair."

"No." Giles nodded toward the book. "That's an account of a vampire who waited on top of a roof for the sunrise after draining an eighteenth-century Slayer."

She stopped rummaging and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "And Spike drained two."

"No. Just one, actually, that we know of, the first one in China. I spoke with the other Slayer's Watcher on the phone. Nikki – that was her name – wasn't drained or…" He had started to say mutilated, but no need to be graphic. Giles frowned. "Both fights were one-on-one. He used no weapons, no ambush, no…."

Buffy was frowning, too. "So, you do think he is better than me."

"You are an extraordinary Slayer, Buffy, as well as an extraordinary young woman. You defeated the Master, one of the oldest vampires in existence. But you know at what cost." He looked down, thinking of Xander's description of her body in the pool of water. "I'm not willing to risk it."

She nodded, but her expression was troubled. "It just seems wrong, Giles. I'm she-who-slays-vampires, not she-who-bargains-with-vampires."

"This isn't the first time a Slayer has had an arrangement with her enemies, though," he gave a faint smile, "they aren't all as formal as the Pax Aurelius. There was a Slayer in Mexico who joined forces with the local clan of vampires to drive out an incursion of Thragoth demons, another case in the late eighteen hundreds where she helped the vampires of Rome repel an attempt by the more vicious Transylvanian vampires to take over that city. With modern transport, vampires don't stay in the area they were turned, so the clans aren't as strong. There hasn't been a treaty in at least sixty years."

"It still seems wrong." She looked up at him. "Do you trust him, Giles? Really?"

"No. But I can't see what his game might be. For a vampire, he has been honorable in battle. No ambush, just single combat – that we're aware of. Perhaps I'll get a chance to ask him about the third Slayer he… mentioned.

"I'm inclined to believe his motives," Giles said, changing that subject. "He referred to his sire as female, and he's been seen repeatedly over the years in the company of a dark-haired vampiress. It seems to be a committed… relationship. And there were reports that she was killed by a mob in Prague last spring."

"They don't make mobs like they used to," Buffy said dryly. "Do you think she's here, too?"

"Since he's in a hurry to find the cure he needs and get out of town, I would think not. One of the Council's researchers did her thesis on Spike not too long ago. I'm having a copy shipped express from London. It should be here by Monday at the latest, but I do hope it arrives earlier."

"So, we're going to do the same thing for Spike and St. Vigeous: be prepared."

"That certainly seems our wisest approach."

"Well," Buffy said with a sigh, "I better get prepared for the hungry parents." She found the ladle and dropped it in the empty bowl. "Sheila wasn't in school again today, so I've asked the guys to help. They should be here soon."

The next few hours passed in a rush of setting up tables, taping up signs, and arranging trays of crudités. Buffy sent a significant look to Willow when she spotted her mother, then went right on smiling at the milling crowd and offering refreshments. Principal Snyder really did seem to have it in for her, popping up every few minutes with a threatening comment. It was inevitable that the odious little man would eventually find out which parent was there for Buffy, though Willow managed to keep them apart for most of the night. The Slayer watched with a sinking feeling as he began walking Joyce toward his office.

"Buffy!"

She turned toward the loud voice coming down the right-hand corridor, as did most everyone. Snyder stopped, and Joyce clutched her purse closer as she looked toward the loud newcomer. "Great," Buffy muttered. Sheila Martini was finally making an appearance.

"I'm here," Sheila announced unnecessarily. "I got a ride." She gestured at the two sandy-haired guys behind her. "Wasn't that sweet of them?" The trio seemed rather too happy to be at a parent-teacher night, and Sheila was stumbling a little.

Snyder marched up to her. "You're late, missy," he snapped, then turned to her companions, "and you're too old to be students here."

"Sheila!" someone else snarled.

"I told you, I wasn't talking to you," Sheila yelled back, pushing between the two men with her to confront a third guy who'd followed them in.

"And I told you, this isn't over."

Every eye was on the foursome, even Buffy's. This was beginning to look like trouble, so she moved around the edge of the punch table to have freedom of movement.

"It is over," Sheila corrected him. "Get it through your head, Meatpie. Quit following me. You don't own me."

"Yeah," said one of the sandy-haired men. "She's spending all her time with us now." The other one was sniggered, mouthing 'Meatpie' in a silent laugh.

"Is that right?" Meatpie said, his voice gone soft as all his attention went back to Sheila. "Is that where you were last night? With these two assholes? You little –"

"Sheila," Buffy said, stepping forward, putting herself between the dark-haired girl and Meatpie. "I'm so glad you're here. I could really use your help." She tugged at Sheila's arm, trying to pull her away.

"All of you three," Snyder said, taking a couple of steps back toward the reception tables, "I want you off school property right now."

Sheila ignored him and shook herself free of Buffy's arm so she could take a step closer to Meatpie. "That's exactly where I was last night."

He took another step toward her. "I bet you don't even know their names." Meatpie's voice was still soft.

"That's Dwayne, and that's Dell."

"I'm Dell," one of the sandy-haired guys corrected Sheila.

Snyder tried again. "I said, you three, out of here. And you, young lady," he pointed at Sheila, "my office right now."

Meatpie lunged at his girlfriend, but Buffy was suddenly between them, levering the big guy off to the side. She spun neatly back to guide Sheila toward Principal Snyder. "Go with him," she urged.

Sheila shook her off again. "You're not cool," she complained. "You're just a goody-two-shoes after all."

"Just get–" That was all Buffy had time to say before Meatpie waded back in and shoved her toward the tables. She caught her hip on the edge and winced, then lowered her head and gave an inward sigh. Meatpie had raised his fist and was staring at her with fury, his anger turned away from Sheila and onto Buffy. Looked like a good time for the Slayer to step up. "All right, if…"

Her voice died away. Joyce had crossed the short distance and laid her purse upside Meatpie's head. "You get the hell away from my daughter!" She smacked him again for good measure.

"This is a violence-free school!" Snyder howled. "All of you, out of here. You, young lady," he snarled at Sheila, "you're expelled. Report to the alternative school downtown tomorrow morning, or you're out of the Sunnydale school system for good." He pulled his vest down and turned to give Joyce a sour look. "Now I see where she gets it."

Meatpie had backed off and was watching Joyce warily, and Sheila crossed to him to place a hand over his temple, cooing over him. Dwayne and Dell looked disgusted and pivoted away, heading down the hallway. Buffy stared in shock at her mother, who was glaring at Snyder. Then Joyce firmed her jaw and turned to her daughter.

"Are you okay?" At Buffy's mute nod, she threw another heated glare toward the principal, who was ushering Sheila and Meatpie toward an exit. "I'd better go out, too, because if I stay here, I'm going to say something I won't regret."

"You… won't?"

Joyce shook her head. "How long will it take you to clean up?"

"I don't know. A half hour?"

Her mother nodded. "All right, then. I'll meet you out front at nine-thirty and drive us home." Joyce gave Buffy a quick kiss on the forehead, then marched in the opposite direction that Snyder had taken.

Willow edged around the table. "Wow, Buffy. Your mom just walloped a biker."

"Yeah, she kinda did, didn't she?" A little smile curved her lips.

"Your mother," Cordelia declared, "is one cool lady. This whole evening was worth it just for that look she gave Snyder."

Buffy waited for the insult that should follow, but Cordelia didn't add anything. Feeling lighter than she had all week, she turned back to the refreshment table to cover her confusion. "She can be cool. For a mom."

It didn't take very long for the parents to leave after the ugly scene with Sheila and her swains. Buffy and Willow took leftovers back to the cafeteria and supplies to Mrs. Telford, who was still clucking about the excitement. When the two friends went to say goodbye to Giles, Buffy spotted Spike's blond hair in the stacks.

"You feel comfortable alone with him?" she asked in a low voice.

"I'll be fine," Giles reassured her.

"You could just check the books out to him," Willow suggested.

The Watcher gave her a severe look. "I don't loan my own books to people I like, much less to the evil undead."

"Oh. Good point."

"I'll go out for patrol after Mom goes to bed," Buffy told her Watcher, then turned to her friend. "You want a ride home, Wil? She's waiting outside for me."

"Sure, I'll come with."

Joyce seemed a little surprised to see Willow, but didn't mind the detour. She was silent after that, except to ask if Sheila was the other girl who was supposed to work on making parent-teacher night a success.

After they said good night to Willow, Joyce turned the SUV toward home. They were nearly to Revello Drive before she spoke. "Principal Snyder said you were a troublemaker."

Buffy jumped a little when her mother broke the silence. "That's me," she said sadly.

"No, it isn't."

That was heartening. When she didn't say anything else, Buffy offered her own praise. "Willow thinks you're pretty cool for what you did. So does Cordelia."

Joyce shook her head. "That wasn't cool. I lost my cool, actually, but when I saw that guy shove you and then raise his hand to hit you..." She took a breath. "Your principal is wrong about you, honey. If he can't tell the difference between you and someone like that other girl…" Joyce trailed off. Sheila had been high and had obviously been with three men, all of whom were too old for her. Buffy may have had her share of problems, but she wasn't Sheila. "I don't care what he thinks. My daughter is brave and resourceful and thinks of others in a crisis. He gave you a job to do, and you did really it really well. Everything looked so nice tonight."

There was another length of silence while Joyce turned into the driveway and parked the car. "I'm proud of you, Buffy. You're doing really well here in Sunnydale. I like your friends," she sent Buffy a humorous look, "and I probably would like your teachers if I'd met them."

Buffy lunged across the console and hugged her mother as tightly as she dared. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too, Buffy."

"So, how long before this wears off and you start ragging on me again?"

Joyce laughed. "At least a week and a half, if you help me get the house ready for the foreign exchange student." She unbuckled and gathered her purse. "Oh, I can't believe it's already time for the second quarter. I'll be seeing your grades soon, won't I?"

"Maybe not a week and a half, after all," Buffy said lightly.

⸹

The next day got off to a good start, with Buffy somehow acing a quiz on French verbs after only five minutes of study. She checked in with Giles to report a quiet patrol when she had a break in classes and stayed to ask about his evening.

"How did vampire study hall go?"

"He hardly said a word to me." Giles hesitated for a moment. "I don't know whether to make anything of it, but I've seen him read books in six languages."

"That's more than you know, isn't it?" Buffy asked, her eyebrows rising.

"Yes, well, given the amount of time he's been around, it seems he's put at least some of it to good use. I guess what I mean is, we shouldn't underestimate him. He may look… uncultured, but he isn't dumb."

"Got it." She slumped onto the counter. "So, what's the plan tonight?"

"Midnight patrol, see if anything is going on at the beginning of St. Vigeous."

"My mom wants me to have dinner with her tonight. I'll be here afterwards."

"Let's just meet at the Shady Rest, at that low, flat mausoleum near the gate."

"Kind of in the middle for us both," she approved. "I'll be by after school to stock up."

After her last class, Buffy ended up staying at the library to help Xander whittle a last batch of sharp stakes, both of them a little giddy because it was Friday and school was over for the week. She left with a groan of dismay when she realized it was almost six o'clock. "I'm rapidly sliding back into bad-daughter territory," she explained as she grabbed her bookbag and began shoving stakes inside. "She wants me home for dinner."

"Fly," Xander ordered, "fly like the wind." Buffy was gone so quickly that she missed his wistful expression. "Just you and me now," he called toward Giles' office.

"Right," the Watcher replied absently. It was more of a response than Xander expected.

⸹

"Sorry I'm late. Can I do anything to help?" Buffy asked, out of breath as she came through the kitchen door. "Ooh, lasagna."

"Hi, sweetie. Go wash up, then you can set the table for me." Joyce listened as Buffy's swift footsteps went up the stairs, then smiled when she heard the expected bang of her daughter's bedroom door. What she wouldn't give to have that kind of energy again!

A few minutes later, Buffy was back downstairs and staring at Joyce. "Three place settings?"

"Yes, dear. We're having a guest."

"Who?" Buffy went very still. It was Friday night. "Mom, are you seeing someone?"

"What?" Joyce asked blankly, then realized. "Oh, no, nothing like that." She looked at the clock. "Go ahead and set the table, then I'll tell you all about it."

Buffy just finished laying out the last fork when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" she hollered toward the kitchen, not worried about who it was as long as it wasn't a potential father-substitute. She opened the door and froze, puzzle pieces of her life trying to fit together in her mind. Spike was standing there. Her mother was inside. There was a vampire on the doorstep. It was dinnertime. Her mother was going to see him.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, closing the door as far as possible behind her without stepping outside herself.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "I'm here to… have dinner? Your mum invited me."

"She what?" Buffy's eyes darted toward the inside of her home, worried and afraid. "How do you know my mom?"

The Slayer had such an expressive face. "She doesn't know about me," he reassured her, his voice very low, "just that you called the bouncer on a guy you saw threatening me."

"But why are you _here_?"

"Buffy!" Joyce admonished, wiping her hands on a dishtowel as she came up behind her daughter and opened the door fully. "She's just surprised to see you," she covered. "Please, Spike, come in. I'm so glad you could make it."

Spike sent Buffy an apologetic look as he crossed the threshold unimpeded. "Thank you. These are for you." He held out a bouquet of cut flowers and a bottle of wine.

"Oh, thank you so much," Joyce said, beaming. "How thoughtful. Such beautiful flowers."

"And this is for you," Spike continued, holding a single daisy out to Buffy. "Just a token, because I can never adequately thank you for saving me at the Bronze the night we met."

"How sweet. Oh, good, it's a red." Joyce looked up from the label on the wine bottle. "We're having lasagna, so I'll go ahead and open this. I'll be right back; just let me get these into a vase."

Buffy couldn't find any way out of accepting the flower. As she took it, she realized the stem of the daisy was wrapped in an oak leaf. "Thank you?"

Spike saw her brow furrow. "The daisy symbolizes purity, and the oak leaf bravery." When she gave him a suspicious look, he elaborated. "It's an old-fashioned thing. S'posed to show how I regard you."

"How do you know my mother?" She could care less about the meaning of his gift.

He lowered his voice to match her hissed question. "I went into her shop. When I found out she was your mum, I told her you saved my life."

Buffy's suspicious glare didn't waver. "Why were you at the gallery?"

Spike closed his eyes for a moment, hurt by her attitude, but he had a look of hard anger when he opened them. He moved away from Buffy toward the kitchen, talking to Joyce as she came out of the kitchen to put the flowers on the hutch. "I was just telling your daughter how I saw the name 'Summers' on your shop and went in to see if you might be related to my savior."

Joyce nearly laughed at that word, but she moved to give Buffy a proud little hug. "I know my little peanut doesn't look like a hero, but she was at it again just last night."

"Mom!" Buffy protested, appalled. Spike looked amused, but not in a malicious way. Just for a second before he replied, she saw a momentary sadness, and she knew he was thinking of his own mother. He had such an expressive face.

"Again? Do tell?"

Joyce recounted the ugly scene with Sheila and her three boyfriends until the oven timer went off. She waved off his offer to help and ushered him into the dining room to wait.

"I hope you don't mind," Joyce apologized as she and Buffy moved into the kitchen, "but he's all alone in a new town. The way his job sounds, I'm sure he doesn't get home-cooked food very often. I'm glad I asked him over, just for the chance to see such good manners for a change." She took the oven mitt Buffy was offering and scooped up the hot lasagna pan. "If you'd grab the salad…."

A couple of minutes later the three of them were seated around the dining room table, and Joyce was pouring two glasses of wine. "I was running a little late this evening – I'm so far behind on paperwork at the gallery, I don't have any idea if I was even close on this quarter's tax payment – so I'm sorry dinner's still too hot to eat. But there's salad."

"It smells wonderful. Anticipation will just make it that much better. I don't get home-cooked meals very often." Buffy, well aware he had overhead everything said in the kitchen, won a mighty battle not to roll her eyes.

Joyce beamed at him and sent Buffy a significant look. She took a sip of wine, then looked at her guest with appreciation. "This is wonderful! You must know a lot about wine, because I never manage to buy a bottle that tastes this good."

Buffy did roll her eyes, then took a bite of lasagna to keep from saying something rude. Then she covered her mouth with her napkin, covering her burnt tongue. "Mmmp." She hastily took a sip of water.

Spike gave her a look that said she was a lost cause and focused all his attention on Joyce. "Dunno anything about wine, but I've learned what kinds of grapes I like. I just get wines made from those grapes."

"Oh, what a smart idea," Joyce marveled, and Buffy thought she might throw up. Her mother was more than willing to be charmed by this complete stranger, and the vampire was irritating her to no end by being genuinely charming. It just wasn't fair.

She kept silent during the meal, deflecting the others' attempts to engage her in the conversation, and found she learned a great deal about her mother as well as Spike.

Joyce was lonely. Buffy supposed she knew this, but her mom was so self-possessed that it was easy to overlook. Now she was laughing and bantering like she had back in Los Angeles before things had gone south in her marriage. Buffy remembered when her parents entertained, how Joyce had been the perfect hostess, making everyone around her comfortable. She was more brittle now, and Buffy felt so sad for the security and the easy lifestyle her mother had lost. The divorce and flight from Los Angeles had changed both of them.

And this vampire… he was unlike any she had ever met. No high-handedness, no superiority complex, no obvious relish of the falseness in his role as guest. Spike seemed to genuinely like and be interested in her mother. Joyce had been on target about his manners; they were flawless. He kept the conversation going without monopolizing it, was complimentary of everything, and made himself the joke in every anecdote he told. Giles had been right about his brains, too. Spike seemed to be knowledgeable about lots of things, including art, which was their main topic. He wasn't like Lothos or Darla or the Master. He wasn't even like Angel, and Buffy hid a smile behind her napkin at the thought of having the dark-haired vampire over for an awkward dinner with her mother.

Spike is lonely, too. The thought struck her as she listened to his rich chuckle after Joyce had made some witty remark. He lifted his glass in salute and brought it to his lips, then glanced at Buffy. When he caught her watching him, whatever expression he saw made him give her a serious look in return. He saluted her with his glass, too, before tipping the last of the wine into his mouth.

"Joyce, you've fed me far too well," he complained, touching his flat stomach. "I won't be hungry for a week. Everything was just capital."

"Oh, I don't mind cooking for someone who appreciates it as much as you," she said, flustered. The gift bottle was empty, and the wine had affected her much more than her guest.

"I'm glad Mom invited you," Buffy said, more sincerity in her tone than she expected. "I think she's had more fun tonight than she has in weeks."

"No, it is I who have the most reason to be grateful for the invitation," Spike said, somehow sounding very Giles-ish. He lifted his plate. "May I help you clear the table?"

He wouldn't let Joyce keep him out of the kitchen this time, and Buffy stopped holding herself apart from the conversation. Spike asked her about French, allowing her to brag about her good grade on the morning's quiz. By the time they exhausted school as a topic, the kitchen was clean and the dishwasher was humming.

"Thank you for a lovely evening, Joyce. I truly can't remember the last time I ate so well or enjoyed the company more."

Buffy looked at the clock. "Oh! I can't believe how late it is. Mom, I'm sorry, I told Willow I would ask you if I could go over tonight. She rented _Jerry Maguire_. Please, please?"

"Fifteen after eight? Can that be right?" Spike gave Joyce a severe look. "You've surely bewitched me, my lady. I have to be at the Campus Grill for the Dingoes' next set at nine."

"Oh, must you go? Well, if you have to. We'd love to have you over again, wouldn't we, Buffy? Sometime before you leave town."

"It would be my honor." Spike took Joyce's hand, didn't quite kiss it, and headed to the door.

Joyce stared after him for a moment, the strong sense that she had seen him before coming back to her. Unable to place the feeling of familiarity, she turned to her daughter. "Yes, you can go over to Willow's. I'll probably be asleep in ten minutes, so I won't be much fun." She put her hands to her temples. "I never drink that much anymore."

They said goodbye to their guest, Joyce handing Spike's disreputable leather coat back to him gingerly and Buffy standing beside him on the porch as the door closed. She looked up at him, and he lifted an eyebrow.

"So, you really headed to see your ginger friend?"

"Willow? No, I'm going to patrol for a little while. And I don't think you're headed to see Dingoes Ate My Baby." He shook his head. They headed down the steps and turned left without any more words. Spike stalked beside her, and she somehow knew he was thinking furiously. "Dinner wasn't awful," Buffy ventured, feeling as though she just conceded ground.

The next second, she was pinned against a tree, his angry blue eyes inches from hers. "She invited me into her home."

"Yes, I hadn't forgotten." She pushed against his arms. God, how could a vampire not even two hundred years old be so strong? He was way stronger than Angel.

He ignored the sardonic tone. "You need to tell her." When Buffy didn't react, he ground out, "You got to tell her you're the Slayer."

"I can't."

"'Course you can. You told your little mates, you can tell her." His jaw flexed. "'S'gonna get her killed. Wasn't using any tricks on your mother. If she'll invite me home, she'll invite anyone."

"I can't," she whispered again.

This time he picked up on it. "Can't? Why not?"

Buffy stared at him for a moment, then shoved him away, suddenly having all the strength she needed. "Because she doesn't want to know."

Spike staggered a little, then got his balance. "You've lost me, love." The Slayer folded her arms across her chest and walked away, looking troubled. Spike fell in next to her, his eyes on her averted face. "Nothing your mum doesn't want to know about you; you're all she's got." When she didn't answer, he let out most of his air. "She has to be told. She can't keep invitin' strangers into her house. 'S'not safe for her – you either, for that matter."

"What do you care?" Maybe if he got mad, he'd just leave.

The question seemed to bother him in a different way, though. "Dunno. I like her. Don't want anything bad to happen to her." A few seconds later, he smelled her tears and had his handkerchief out. He never considered his action; if he had, he would have dismissed it as the caretaker in him. "What's wrong, love? Tell me," he cajoled.

"I-I can't. Not here," she allowed, staring at the handkerchief. Buffy had never known anyone who wasn't a Watcher who carried a handkerchief. It didn't occur to her to use it to dab her eyes; handkerchiefs were for polishing glasses. She clutched the clean square of fabric in one fist and carefully wiped beneath her wet eyes with the pad of her thumb. With any luck, her mascara wasn't too smeared.

Spike watched her, bemused. "Come with me then," he said impulsively. "Know a place, kind of place where no one wants to know your name."

"Where?"

Even as part of him applauded her wariness, he was exasperated. She should know by now that she could trust him. She'd seen him with Joyce, after all. "Truck stop just outside town. Good coffee. No demons go out there."

"Why not?"

"How should I know? 'S'your town. Ask your Watcher."

She listened as he blew twin streams of air from his nostrils in impatience. Buffy was a social savant; she knew he was trying to make her feel better, that he genuinely was concerned for her and Joyce. And he was a vampire who killed Slayers, she reminded herself. He made it so easy to forget that he wasn't human. "Why do you breathe all the time?"

He shrugged. "Never got out of the habit." Spike moved a few inches closer. "Why don't you share anything that isn't all sunshine and rainbows?" When her face screwed up again, he gave himself a mental kick. Feeling awkward, he moved next to her and patted her clumsily on the shoulder. "'M'sorry, love. Didn't mean to touch a sore spot."

Almost a minute passed before she could speak, and this time Buffy did use the handkerchief. "You're right. I'm not one to over-share."

"Come on," he said, taking her elbow. Again, it amazed him how quickly he fell back into the old patterns of etiquette with her. The DeSoto was clean, and he figured he was already in for a penny, so he opened the door for her.

By the time he walked around to the driver's side, Buffy had regained her composure. "This is the oldest car I've ever been in," she said, staring at the instrument panel with interest. It smelled of cigarette smoke, but it was still better than Kimberly's car back at Hemery. She always dumped Obsession on the carpet to try to mask cigarette and pot smoke.

"Yeah? Not a lot has changed over the years," he answered, turning the key in the ignition. "Same old combustion engine. Figured by now some boffin'd have come up with a flying car or something."

"You always see that in the movies," Buffy agreed. She looked at him instead of the car. "You've been around since the first cars, haven't you? So you've seen them not change."

Spike shrugged. "I predate the combustion engine, far as I know, but at least the steam engine is older'n me."

He didn't seem embarrassed by his age, and Buffy couldn't help contrasting his matter-of-fact attitude to Angel's reluctance to talk about his past. The difference, she supposed, was that Angel had a soul and was ashamed of what he'd done down through the years. She watched him drive for a moment, noting how he sat so he could peer through the blacked-out windshield. "I guess you've seen a lot."

Glancing at her, just to see if he could read her expression, he shrugged again. "S'pose. Computers being inside everything is the wildest, I guess. Sometimes I think about how, say, an automated teller would have struck me back in my human days. Lots of things like magic – might as well be magic, for all I understand how they work. But I can use them."

"And you don't hate it," she pressed, thinking of how Giles shied away from computers.

"What, progress? No, I think it's neat. 'Course, with me, the fun is in being one step – well, in being one hundred steps ahead of other demons. 'M a guy, yeah? Love gadgets anyway. But part it is knowing as much about cell phones and the like as the freshest-out-of-the-grave vamp, plus a whole lot more."

"How old are you?"

Another sidelong look. "Turned in 1880." He'd promised her the truth.

Refreshing, if expected: a vampire who wasn't mysterious and simply answered questions. "And you were twenty-eight?"

"Yeah, just after my birthday. How old are you, pet?"

"Sixteen. I'll be seventeen in January."

"And you took out the Master?"

Buffy smiled. She could tell he was impressed by his tone. "Not before he got me first. There was a prophecy and everything."

"Got you?"

"He – he killed me. Got me under thrall in his lair, paralyzed me, took some of my blood, and tossed me aside. I-I landed in a pool of water, and I drowned."

Spike didn't have to look at her. "You remember everything, don't you?"

"Everything." Buffy's voice was barely a whisper, but it was steady.

"Me, too. Remember my last heartbeats." Spike lifted his chin, dispelling the mood. "How come you're still here?"

"Xander. He came after me, gave me CPR."

"Brave lad."

"He is," she agreed. Xander would have come for her with or without Angel.

"He loves you. In love with you, I mean."

"I know. We've talked about it."

"Good. Better he doesn't have any illusions."

"Any girl would be lucky to have Xander as –" Buffy began loyally.

"You love who you love," Spike interrupted. "Not anything you can do about it." The brisk tone faded, and he did give her a glance as he took a left curve. "When did you become the Slayer?"

"I was fifteen."

"Almost two years, then."

"Can't say they've been the best two years of my life."

"What, you don't like being the Slayer?"

His tone was one of interest, and it was enough to keep Buffy talking. "No," she said emphatically. "What's to like?"

"Dunno – strength, speed, good hand with weapons."

She shook her head. "Like I'd ever need those if I wasn't the Slayer. I just want to be a normal girl."

Spike smiled. "Pet, I'll become a vegetarian if you were ever a normal girl."

"What do you mean?"

"You've got a brightness to you, a confidence. Saw the pictures your Mum's got out. You were a cheerleader, yeah? The head girl at school, the one the other girls emulate."

The word 'emulate' arrested her for a moment, such an oddly academic word for a punk rock guy. Then she shook her head. "Being a cheerleader didn't mean I didn't have the same anxieties, the same kinds of–"

"Meant you handled them in a different way, though," he interrupted. "I know your type."

"I'm not a type." Buffy's voice was cold.

"Don't mean anything by it, Slayer. Just, you remind me of my favorite cousin. She was a take-charge sort of girl, led her group of friends, made everyone around her happier and brighter, just by being in her presence."

She thawed; how could she not when he complimented her and spoke so wistfully? His favorite cousin. "Oh." Buffy looked down at his damp handkerchief, which she'd absently wound around her fingers. "Maybe I was one of those bitchy cheerleaders, like you always see being mean to the good girl in the movies."

"You weren't."

Buffy felt her cheeks warm with pleasure at the assured statement. "You aren't always right, you know."

"Often enough. Older you get, more you know how things work. Nothing changes, not really. Not people."

"Why are we having this conversation?" Buffy asked abruptly. "I mean… deep." She gestured between them. "You vampire, me Slayer."

He lifted a shoulder. "Dunno about you, but no one else I see during my usual day I can talk to about things."

She considered this a moment. "How's your sire?" Another shrug. "You miss her."

"Yeah." His voice was husky. "I do." Spike shot a look her way, something diffident in it. "Not like I can talk to her about things like this, though."

"Because she's evil?" Buffy gave him a little grin. "A monster?"

The sculpted jaw flexed. "She – she's insane, Slayer. Has been since before she was turned."

"Insane?" She'd been thought insane once, too, which was why she was in this car talking to this man – vampire, she corrected herself – in the first place. And wasn't there some irony there?

Insanity was an old-fashioned concept the human couldn't wrap her mind around, he thought. "Insane, as in her mind is broken. Not like she can take Lithium or some kind of pill. Not like it's her fault," he added.

Buffy heard the odd emphasis in his words. "Whose fault is it?"

"We're here." He slowed and pulled into a parking lot.

Sure enough, they were at a truck stop; Buffy could see the neon sign and harsh fluorescent lights through the streaks in the lampblack on the windows. She kept looking at him, though, wanting to know more about his sire's insanity if she was going to tell about hers, not really sure if he would answer. "Whose fault?"

"'S'the saddest story you'll ever hear, love." He stared at his hands on the steering wheel. "She was a nun, became a nun because she thought she'd be safe in a convent, safe from…" Spike shook his head. "You know my line, yeah? You fought the Master. So when I tell you that the Aurelian who eventually sired Dr-" he paused; he'd never given her name to the Slayer. But he'd promised her honesty, and she was a good listener. He'd never told anyone his sire's story; he'd never even known he needed to.

"Drusilla. He spotted her when she was fifteen and instead of turning her right away, he pursued her for four years, killed her mum, all her sisters, every member of her family, lurked outside her window to tell her it was her fault, filled her with guilt–" Spike stopped for a moment, then took a breath, staring at the dashboard. "The day she took her holy orders, he and his sire breached the convent, killed all those sisters, too, raped her, broke her mind.

"Only then, after all that, did he turn her."

"That's…" Buffy couldn't find words to finish the sentence. She felt queasy.

"Yeah, is, innit?" Spike took another breath, amazed at how raw his feelings were about it after all the years, then shook it off. "'S'alright. I look out for her, since she doesn't always look out for herself. So, no," he met Buffy's eyes for a moment, his eyes glittering with unshed tears, "we don't have what you might call stimulating intellectual discussions. But she's enormously diverting," he added staunchly, "good fun, the center of my life – unlife."

"So the cure you're looking for…."

"For something else, not for insanity. Not help for that. You get your leg amputated before you're turned, it doesn't grow back. Vampires stay as they are when they're turned. So, she's always going to be… spontaneous, keep everything fun and unexpected."

Buffy listened to all that he wasn't saying, thought of the broken girls shambling through the halls of the mental facility she'd been in, the tired, hopeless faces of the parents who were trapped as caregivers and were never going to have the normal life they wanted for their daughters. She impulsively put her left hand over his right, where it rested on the steering wheel. "You must really love her."

He gave her a lopsided smile. "I do."

"I didn't know vampires could love." As she said it, she realized how wrong the concept was and removed her hand.

"And you don't know how many times I've been beaten for it."

"Beaten?"

"No worries, pet." He gave his head a resolute shake. "Didn't come here to talk; came here to listen. Your story can't be worse than Dru's, yeah? Come on in; tell Uncle Spike everything." He was out of the car and around to her door with unbelievable speed, as if movement could stave off the memories.

Buffy got out as he held the door, blinking a little against the sodium lights of the parking lot after the dim car. "Your seat swivels," she said, nodding into the interior of the DeSoto.

"Yeah." He was still restless, seeming to take up all the space around her. "Dunno why they don't make 'em like that anymore. Safety issues, I 'spect."

"You know, you have interesting taste in fine dining," Buffy said, gesturing at the diner, which had been new in the 1970s and never remodeled. "The Bronze, this… place."

"Good coffee."

She shook her head and followed him inside, a bell over the door announcing their arrival. A tired-looking man looked at them from a window between the serving area and the kitchen, his powerful body encased in stained cook's whites. "Just have a seat," he called. "Right with you."

"Right, Bart." Then, to Buffy, "How 'bout here?" Spike slid into the fourth booth from the door. There were no other customers.

"Trade sides with me." Buffy preferred to face the door. There was one more booth in the row, but it was backed by a window and too vulnerable to attack. He had taken the spot she would have chosen for herself, and while she could see the door reflected in the window, some of her enemies cast no reflection.

Spike grumbled, but obliged her, sliding from the vinyl seat and waving her in with a broad gesture. "Always on duty, you are." With a sigh, he settled into the opposite seat. Both blond heads turned as their waitress approached.

"What'll it be?"

"Two cups of Joe," Spike said. "You take cream, love?" He watched Buffy nod, then looked back at the waitress, waiting for her to leave.

She stood there, a short woman with too much history etched onto her face, 'Carlene' stenciled on her crooked nametag. Sighing, she muttered to herself, "Ain't like I'm blowing a big tip." She leaned down, caught Buffy's eye, and said in a firm voice, "Honey, I don't care how cute he is or what kind of car he drives. He's too old and too wild, and he'll break your heart. Dump him. You'll be better off, trust me."

"Carlene," came a warning voice from the kitchen, presumably from the cook, Bart.

"Wh-what?" Buffy stammered. This woman thought she… that she and this vampire… This soulless vampire, she amended.

"Too right," Spike approved. "Good advice, but you've got it all wrong. I'm her parole officer." He ignored the way the Slayer's head snapped around so she could glare at him.

"Parole officer," Carlene repeated, her gaze roving over him from bleached hair to disreputable boots, acres of black leather in between. The waitress sighed. "Two coffees, coming right up."

The Slayer waited until they were alone. "My parole officer?"

He grinned at the warning in her voice. "Cute, innit, the way she tried to look out for you? God, I love humans."

"I'd stake you on principle, if it wasn't such a long trip back to town." She stared pointedly at his hair. "As if I'd ever go out with someone as dated as you." This didn't dim his smile in the slightest. Instead, he simply met her gaze until her cheeks grew warm. "A-and as if you'd ever be hired as a parole officer." It seemed a good change of topic.

"Yeah, not exactly the law-abiding type." He grabbed the stoneware box that held the sugar packets and began to fidget with it. "So, you tried to tell your Mum once," he said, as if their original conversation had never been interrupted.

"Dad, too." She watched his hands as she answered, knowing he was still gazing at her. Buffy didn't want to meet his eyes, not while she was telling this. Spike had competent-looking hands. There was only a single speck of black polish on his left thumb today. She focused on that and went on.

"It was after I had to burn down the school gym because it was full of vamps, when they came to pick me up at the police station." A little smile twisted her mouth. "There were a bunch of witnesses of the undead variety, and the cops took their statements and arrested me and one of the vamps. She wanted a cage match, she said. I don't know how the police ever accounted for the perp missing from the holding cell."

He pictured the Slayer in the back of a squad car with a sleazy-looking vampire, imagined how the demon would whisper threats and promises to the human for the whole ride. "How'd you kill her, no weapons an' all?" Spike asked.

Buffy chanced a look at him, saw the admiring gleam in his eye once more. "Once I made her head fit through the bars, it didn't take long to take it off. Anyway, nothing ever came of it and the charges were dropped, since the 'witnesses' couldn't be located. But I didn't know that when Mom and Dad picked me up from the police station–" She stopped talking as Carlene plunked down two white mugs, scattered containers of creamer, and poured coffee for them. The waitress had her eyebrows lifted; she had overheard some of the conversation and wondered if Buffy really was checking in with her parole officer.

"Leave the carafe, love," Spike directed, giving Carlene a winning smile. He watched her walk back toward the kitchen, then turned his focus on the Slayer. "That's when you explained to them that you had an excellent reason for burning down a school building, as fire is definitely on the 'bad idea' list for vamps."

"They…" Buffy poured two little pots of half-and-half into her coffee before continuing. "They'd been worried about me, because I was hanging around with different people, with… especially with this one guy who believed me, who wanted to help. Let's just say… Pike wasn't ever going to be elected class president." He'd been something like Spike, actually, someone who purposely stayed on the wrong side of society's tracks. "That night, they picked me up and started in on me, then they started on each other, all through the car ride, into the house. My first Watcher was dead, I didn't have anyone to back me up, not a grownup anyway, and I-I just couldn't take it anymore. So, I told them that my job was to kill vampires."

"And they didn't believe you."

"Not only did they not believe me, they thought I was… insane." Buffy watched Spike's hands grow still. "Dad told me to go to bed, get some rest, and that we'd talk more in the morning. When I woke up, someone was jabbing a needle in my arm. I fought them, but I was really weak and loopy, and these two nurses, a man and a woman, got me down and gave me another shot. When I woke up, I was in a… 'facility,' locked in a room with all the furniture bolted down.

"I told my parents, and they had me committed."

Neither of them spoke for almost a minute after that, and Buffy burned her tongue on the too-hot coffee as she waited out the silence. Second time tonight. Thank goodness for Slayer healing.

When he spoke, it was the worst thing he could have ever said. "They didn't know you at all, did they? Shit," he muttered as her chin began to quiver, grabbing a handful of napkins from the holder and thrusting them toward her.

"Thanks," Buffy managed. The vampire she'd met days before had more faith in her than her own parents.

"You and Joyce seem so close, I never expected…" Spike grabbed his own cup, and it was his turn to burn his tongue.

She dabbed her eyes again, figuring there was no mascara left to smudge. "It was different before the divorce. Still…I don't know," Buffy said miserably, "you'd think I would have trust built up, but I knew something was going on with them even before the Slayer thing, and I was," she air-quoted, "'acting out' – you know, breaking curfew, shoplifting, wearing Mom's clothes without permission. Trying to get some attention from them. But I'd always been, like, a good kid."

"How long were you locked up?"

"A month." She put the napkins down and picked up her coffee, cradling it with both hands. The difficult words had been said now, and he got it, understood that the most painful thing was that her parents had never considered that she was telling them the truth. "The drugs would wear off pretty quick, and I'd learned from the movies how to hide the pills when I could."

"Was it bad in there?"

She blinked. There were more tears left, after all. "It was awful. Hopeless, you know, and sad. I told my psychiatrist that I'd been depressed and anxious about my parents, definitely not delusional, that I'd taken Valium that someone from school gave me, and I got myself transferred away from the schizos. After that, it was just a matter of saying the right things in group and bonding with the anorexics to show that I was 'coming along.'"

"And you were there for a month?"

Buffy nodded. "Mom and Dad picked me up. They'd been to see me and everything, mostly Mom, but never together. On the way home Dad made this really snarky comment about how much the treatment facility cost, and Mom just burst into tears. When we got home, they sat me down and gave me the talk." She saw Spike's confused look and elaborated. "The divorce talk, about how they loved me very much and would be there for me, but they'd grown apart."

"How did they 'grow apart?'" He didn't comment on the bitterness in her voice.

"They never said, wanted to 'protect' me, but… I think that Dad cheated on Mom."

Spike lifted his cup. The coffee was cool enough to drink now. "So, you never tried to tell them about being the Slayer again?"

She shook her head. "They were too busy with their own mess, and I'd learned my lesson." Buffy pushed the coffee away a few inches. "The gym I burned made a difference, I guess. There weren't as many vamps around, so I didn't have as much to do. Dad moved out, and it was easy to hide it from Mom because she was so distracted. And I never saw anything except vampires until I came to Sunnydale. Lots more variety on the Hellmouth."

"What about your friend, the one who helped you?"

"I never saw him after I got out. His parents said he'd left town. H-he'd planned to and everything, but I don't know. I never heard from him."

Spike watched her stare at her cup, almost felt as though he knew the memories and suspicions about her boyfriend that passed through her mind. He didn't have any illusions, just hoped for Buffy's sake that it had been quick and final. "So, good on you. You killed all the vamps in the sucking desert that is L.A. and decamped for the charming quaintness of Sunnydale."

She raised an eyebrow. "You don't like L.A.?"

He shook his head. "Love, there are hell dimensions that I like better – well, I don't like either of them."

"You're a demon, and you're not down with hell?"

"What's to like? Hell," he said pointedly. "All I have are these sort of ancestral memories of it, but you wouldn't believe how boring and pointless it seems. Which also aptly describes Los Angeles."

"L.A. is not boring."

"Yeah, it is. 'Cept for the Whiskey A Go Go."

"It's my hometown."

"Then, pet, you're the exception that proves the rule."

"God, what is it with you vampires?" Buffy asked, feeling lighter and curiously ready for a good bicker. "You just don't like the New World."

"'S'not true. Love New York, Chicago, D.C., Toronto, New Orleans," he pronounced it "N'awlins,' "Rio, Memphis, hell, even like Miami, outside of the sun. All great cities." Spike gulped half his coffee. "Los Angeles will never be one of the great cities of the world."

"That's your opinion."

"That's the opinion of a man who's lived nearly everywhere."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, right, the cosmopolitan vampire act." Her eyes swept over his rakish form. "Even Lothos couldn't pull off that one."

"Lothos? That wanker? You met him?"

"Slew him," she said coolly, taking a sip of coffee.

"You did?" he asked, delighted. When she nodded in affirmation, he laughed out loud, a rich, infectious chuckle. "Brilliant."

"Let me get this straight," Buffy said, lacing her voice with irony, "you're glad that I killed another vampire?"

"'Specially that one. God, he was insufferable." He leaned forward, hungry for details. "Was it a good fight?"

"I-I don't think it was. He had me under thrall, and he'd killed my first Watcher."

Spike stared at her a few moments, then tilted his head to the side, for all the world as if he was studying a rare specimen. "You really don't enjoy being the Slayer."

"Not too often."

"You, uh," he gestured clumsily to give himself time to think of her motivations, "save other humans, people and what-all."

"Slayers don't get parades and medals," she said, brushing at a stray tendril of blond hair, "they just get up and go to school the next day, fall asleep in French class."

"Then don't do it." A sudden, cheeky grin. "Not for my benefit or anything, but, you know, you don't enjoy it, why bother?"

"If I don't do it, people die."

The humor left Spike's eyes. "Buffy," he said, diffidence and a rusty empathy in his tone, "that's too much for you to carry." If there was one thing he could recognize, it was an unfair situation.

"It's true."

No illusions, this one. "Well, I've made things easier for you, anyway, killed all the older, stronger vamps in Sunnydale."

It worked, but not the way he expected. Buffy gave him an impish smile. "You made things easier for yourself."

"Well," he shrugged, "yeah. But easier for you, too."

"True. Sunnydale vamps are tougher than L.A. vamps."

"Aurelian stock."

She pondered this a moment. "'Order of Aurelius,' what does that mean, anyway?" If what he said matched what Giles had told her, it would be a way to check that he was keeping his promise about honesty.

Spike drained the last of his coffee and poured another cup from the pot as he spoke. "'S'far as I paid attention to the duchess' history lessons, the Order originally was a group of Roman vamps who wanted to bring back the Old Ones. Stupid, you ask me, tryin' to bring in beings more powerful than you are – first thing they'll do is set themselves in the top spot and get rid of anyone that might ask them for favors, yeah? – but the other vamps in the cabal died off, so our line's the only one that's left. We're the brain trust of the vampire world, the big thinkers and planners," and his grin let her know how seriously he took this charge.

"You're the guy who doesn't like hell. What are you doing in the Order of Aurelius?" He shrugged again, and she knew he didn't want to answer, since he wouldn't lie. "C'mon."

"'S'true, I'm not a good fit. Pro'ly should have been killed off early," Spike finally said, "but I have certain… useful skills, so they couldn't bear to part with me." He lifted his chin, and the corner of his mouth curled in a sneer. "Can't kill me now."

Buffy wasn't sure if he meant her or other demons. "Vampires kill each other a lot, from what you say. It's a wonder I have any work at all."

"Nine months to make a baby, three nights at the most for vampires, right? Easy to make, easy to unmake."

"So, how many have you killed?"

"Dunno. Before we had this conversation, I would have said more'n you. Cuppa?" He had noticed her empty cup and lifted the coffeepot and his eyebrows in query.

She hesitated. "Why not? One more cup. Then back to Sunnydale. I need to patrol."

"Want me to come with?" Spike saw Buffy's inner thoughts on the pretty, expressive face, and he finished pouring and sat down the pot with a thump. "Not checking you for weaknesses, Slayer. I wanted to make you another notch in my belt, I wouldn't have bothered with a treaty." He leaned forward, his regard steady. "I don't use tricks, or the thrall. Straight-up, balls-out, bare knuckle fight, if it comes to it."

"Okay." And because it wouldn't hurt to know his strengths, "Can you do the thrall?"

"No, but I can do the twist."

"Spike."

"Never tried."

"You've never tried."

"No," he replied, a little sharp in the face of her flat gaze. "Don't need it." She still looked skeptical. "I can do mesmer." Spike kicked himself for becoming defensive and revealing something.

"What's the difference?"

"You know what thrall is, what the Master did, pulled you to him against your will. You knew all along that you didn't want to do it. 'Mesmer' is like hypnosis in the movies, where you wouldn't really be aware what you were doing."

"Like Renfield in _Dracula_."

He snorted, for no reason Buffy could fathom. "Yeah, like that, I reckon."

"What else can you do?"

"You're the Slayer," he said slowly, "which makes you sort of an expert on what vampires can do."

Buffy shook her head. "You said you had skills, useful skills that kept you alive."

After a pause, he answered. "I took care of Dru."

"Well, anyone could do that."

"No, not just anyone could do that. Not even being human means you're suited to taking care of the insane. And vampires?" He scoffed. "We're a cold, selfish, uncaring, unthinking, self-centered lot. What do we care, another vampire gets crisped? Not us, so it's good for a laugh, unless it's our sire. B'lieve I told you before, I'm not just another monster. I can still love, Slayer, same as when I was alive. You don't get that often with vamps. So, yeah, I care whether Dru is safe. Made me dead useful to the old man and the duchess."

"The who?"

"Her sire and his sire, Dru's 'grandmummy.'"

Buffy's lip lifted in disgust. "You stayed with them?" He gave an affirmative shrug, and she thought again of his offhand comment about being beaten for being able to love. "So, why did they care if Drusilla was taken care of?"

"She… has certain useful skills, too." Not that he was going to tell her about those. He leaned forward, catching her eye. 'Course, they also kept me around because I'm incredibly good in bed." He touched the tip of his tongue to his teeth for a second.

His change of topic worked. Buffy drew away from him, from his blatant sexuality; this was way out of her depth. "Oookay. TMI, Spike." She ignored the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. "I think I'm ready to go back."

He nodded and lifted his hand in the air. "Bill, please." Buffy watched him pay, which consisted of tucking a twenty into the pocket of Carlene's apron. She slid out of the booth and followed him to the door.

"'Night, Bart." After the door closed, Spike looked down at Buffy's bowed head. "Pet? Thanks for talking to me, telling me."

She lifted a shoulder. "No problem. Thanks for listening."

"You, too." He opened the door of the DeSoto for her. "You ever feel like it, just wanna talk, we'll come here again."

"To talk?" This was too weird.

"Yeah. I like talking to you. Plus, gives me an excuse to come to this fine dining establishment."

Buffy got in the car, bemused, watching him until the door shut and the blacked-out window cut off the view. He liked talking to her. It was refreshing, knowing exactly where she stood with a guy.

"Where to?"

"The Restfield, I guess."

"That the one near downtown?"

"That's the one." My landmarks are cemeteries, Buffy thought, but the bleak thought lacked its usual bite. She actually felt carefree; she had until midnight to meet Giles. But his car still smelled like smoke. "Do you mind if I roll down the window?"

"Whatever you like, kitten."

"'Kitten?'"

"Tol' you from the first, I'm prone to giving nicknames."

She let it go, just used the crank handle to roll down the window, something she'd seen in old television shows but not anything she'd ever done before. Spike turned off the air vents and turned on the car's sound system. They drove in silence, Buffy putting her hand out the window and holding it flat, angling her wrist so the wind lifted or pushed down her hand. The music wasn't anything she'd heard before, but it was nice; the October air was cool and fresh; and the company was restful. "That's a good song."

"'Hateful,' yeah."

"Is that the name of the song?" He nodded, and she leaned over to look at the dashboard. "What station is this?"

"'S'not; it's a CD." He indicated the player that had been added beneath the dash. "The Clash." When Buffy's expression remained blank, he sighed, "One of the all-time great punk bands, some would say the greatest."

"That's a punk band?"

Her incredulous tone got him to look around. "Yeah, that's a punk band. What d'ya mean by it?"

"I don't know. I-I guess I just expect punk to be… harder. Kind of, you know, loud."

"Can be hard; should always be loud."

"That was a good song, though. It should have been a hit. I mean, why haven't I heard it on the radio?"

"Song's about doin' drugs and the self-contempt and badness. Not exactly something A-B-C easy, 'I Want Your Sex' or the like. Little more complicated."

"Oh."

"'S'my favorite music ever, punk rock. Heard the Stooges at CBGB from two blocks over in New York, followed the sound like a dog on scent. Club was practically my home for the next several years. Staked it out as my territory, killed any vamps or demons what tried to snack on musicians. Couldn't save them from themselves, though."

Buffy had stopped listening partway through. "You protected humans?"

A slight defensiveness crept into his voice. "No, I protected my favorite musicians. Nothing altruistic to it; very selfish. Just wanted the party to go on."

"Did it?"

"Yeah, good ride. Old bands broke up, new bands came in, Brits came over and took punk global. Here, listen to this." He fiddled with the CD player for a moment, bringing up 'London Calling.' "Classic punk song, and if you listen… just here…."

"Except for that one," Joe Strummer sang, "with the yellowy eyes."

"That's me, pet."

"Really?" She was faintly impressed. "This band knew about you?"

"No. But they got a chance to see me in action one night when these three junkies thought they'd roll the band for their share of the gate, the box office." He shrugged. "Or, could be it's just another drug reference. Jaundice, yeah?" He put a hand to his abdomen and gave her a sidelong glance. "Like to think it's about me, though."

Buffy snorted. He was full of himself, but he was in on the joke, could laugh about his own ego. "Play another good one," she urged.

Spike shot her a smile and found 'Brand New Cadillac.' She made him play it again, able to sing along with the chorus the second time through, then Spike, who she was finding was a champion talker, lectured on the difference between punk and glam and new wave. But it was interesting and cool and sort of familiar, the way having a cute teacher made even math less painful. They had parked and were going through the Restfield before Buffy remembered that she'd never actually agreed to let him patrol with her.

They fell into an easy silence until the Slayer had an uneasy thought, wondering what would happen if Angel saw them patrolling, if he would know Spike was another vampire or if he would think she had a new friend, a male friend. Then she realized he might already have seen them, just slunk off in that soundless way of his. Before she could begin looking around, though, Spike spoke.

"I call the first one," he muttered, and sped away from her. He stopped above a recent grave, poised for all the world like a spear fisherman, and waited. After maybe four seconds, Buffy heard it, too, the scrabbling of a new vampire trying to be born.

As soon as the top of the vamp's head emerged from the dirt, Spike swooped down and grabbed the skull, gave it a brutal twist, pulled sharply upwards, and had strode away from the disintegrating head before dust could settle on his coat. The dirt sank a few inches into the grave where the body had been. "Too easy," he scoffed. "What'd I tell you? Nothing but fledges left."

"Easy as pie," she agreed in a strained voice. Sure, the Council and Spike both said he'd killed three Slayers, but from being around him, Buffy had almost come to think it must be bragging; he was so laid back, let his mouth do the work instead of his fists. But, no, he'd just done something she couldn't do, was scarily fast and powerful. If he could kill her prey that easily, he could also….

"What?" He had sensed her abrupt change in mood.

"Nothing."

"Sorry. Should have let a lady go first." He grinned down at her. "Tell you what, I'll let you have the next two." Spike frowned suddenly. "Or three." His frown deepened. "Can't let you have all of them, love."

She looked around at the night, where she, too, sensed the ambush waiting for her. "Busy night in the Restfield," Buffy said dryly, taking a stake from the pocket of her coat. Vampires were emerging from around trees and standing up from behind headstones.

"You get coordinated attacks from a half dozen vampires often?"

"Oh, you know, like once a week." She shrugged. "Hellmouth." If this was some early St. Vigeous activity, it wasn't too different from the usual.

"Maybe Sunnydale is a party town." Spike put his shoulder against hers, and they began moving in a shallow circle as the vampires came closer. "Got another stake?"

"In my pocket." Before she could offer it to him, she felt his hand go unerringly into her coat and find a spare stake. He'd barely gotten clear when some signal seemed to pass among their attackers, who collapsed on them.

Buffy and Spike each took out the vampires who attacked them from the front within the first ten seconds. Bracing herself against Spike's back, the Slayer kicked out hard and took a tall one in the face, knocking him away.

"Grab my arm!"

She knew instinctively what he wanted, and she grabbed his forearm as he swung away, lifting her high and flat. She put her boot heel across the temple of a black-haired female, and Spike landed her lightly on his left side, in a perfect position to stake the oldest demon, who looked like he'd lived long enough to take retirement before becoming undead. Buffy heard a hiss in the air as Spike got his second one, then his quiet "Bugger." He'd not been quick enough with the stake, and it had turned to dust along with the demon. Bending out of the way of an uppercut, she didn't know how she knew this. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him take a punch to the jaw. He swayed, then snapped upright, balancing on the balls of his feet, grinning now.

The vampire facing her was quick, and she absorbed a glancing blow on the shoulder. Going with the momentum, she angled back toward where she could see a blur of white-blond hair and hear the sound of another fight. Two steps away from her attacker now, and apparently Spike thought it was enough. He turned. "Buffy!" And he back-handed his opponent, then snatched the dazed vampire and shoved him toward her.

The Slayer was ready. She adjusted her aim and had the stake in and withdrawn, bringing it back around as the demon began to turn to dust. The one behind her renewed its attack, leaping on her. Buffy twisted, driving the stake upward with one hand, shielding her face with the other. Grit rained around her, and she grimaced.

As she stood up and began brushing at her hair, she heard the sound of running footsteps going away from them. "You missed one," she told Spike.

He had lifted his hand to swat the dust from the back of her coat, with that admiring gleam in his eyes. Instead, Spike gave a sardonic little nod. "I'll go get her."

He was gone so fast, she didn't have time to protest. Buffy pelted after him, feeling the rush of air wipe the dust from her. She gained on Spike, got to see him outpace the other vamp, the black-haired female, got to watch him crouch and sweep a dark-clad leg from beneath the leather coat to trip the fleeing demon. The Slayer didn't stop, but went around them both, so that when he looked up, she was standing with her arms crossed, trying very hard to look as though he'd kept her waiting.

Trapped between the two, the vampiress glanced over her shoulder at Spike, then at Buffy, who stood in her path. Deciding to try to elude the Slayer and head for her lair, she put her hands on the ground and prepared to shove herself upright and run.

Anticipating this, Buffy discounted her first impulse, which was to wade in and stake her. Instead, the Slayer did a one-handed cartwheel to cross the distance, bringing the stake down as the female vampire pushed herself up, driving the stake deep into the unbeating heart. It was showy, but she wanted to impress Spike.

She had. He clapped his hands together a few times, chuckling. "Now that," he said, his eyes crinkling at the corner, "was some brilliant work, Slayer."

"I told Giles I could combine slayage and cheerleading," she said, brushing her hair back. "You, too. Good work, I mean."

He was staring at her, then gave a belated shrug. "I like your hair. The way it moves," he motioned around his shoulder with one hand. Spike's mouth firmed. "It, uh, suits you."

"Thanks?" Bewildered, she thought about returning a compliment. She'd already said she didn't like his severely gelled hair. Buffy found her eyes on his mouth. She did like his mouth, but she couldn't tell him that.

"Where to now?" he asked crisply. "Is there another boneyard nearby with some non-Aurelians to dispatch?" He gave a carefree shrug. "Not as much fight in these, but it's open space, and if you can get a lot of them together…."

"Now, I go home. This many demons will deplete the stock for tonight." Buffy lifted her empty hands. "All out of stakes, anyway."

"And your mum will be worried."

"Yes. She does. She tries not to hover, but she does worry."

Spike was looking thoughtful. "Didn't know how hard this was for you, pet." Then he gave her a little bow. "May I offer you a ride home?"

Buffy considered the offer. It was four miles home. "Okay. Thanks." They walked back to his car in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Spike spoke first, opening the door for her. "Nearly always fight alone. Have since the great poof left, must be more'n a hundred years ago. But we did well together."

She blinked at him, hesitating before getting into the car. Buffy had been thinking how easy it had been tonight, how nice it was not to be hobbling home with injuries after fighting so many vamps. "We did," she agreed.

"Eight of them," Spike mused after he slid behind the driver's seat. "Somebody's still siring, an' I haven't given permission for that."

"Permission?"

"Yeah. Master, after all."

"So, if you say," she put on a stern face, "'you may not sire new vampires,' they have to obey you?"

"Means they better, or face the consequences." He pulled away from the curb without checking his mirrors.

"What consequences?"

He seemed faintly embarrassed. "A good dusting, yeah? The Master, the one you slew, was one for disemboweling – unpleasant for a vamp, that, takes a long while to heal – and blinding. Me? Not so much with the torture. Mess up once, why should I bother with object lessons? There's four billion potential replacements in the world."

"Five billion," Buffy corrected without thought.

"Really?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Breeders."

⸹

"Who's ready for St. Vigeous?" Spike roared, entering the factory. "Get your arses in here!" He paced in front of the remaining vampires as they scrambled into what used to be the main production floor. "We're going to visit some vigorous righteousness on some pathetic demons who dare to be in the same town as the Master of the Order of Aurelius."

Drusilla had come to the doorway. She leaned against it, looking amused. Spike sent her a wicked leer and continued.

"Somebody's been poaching on our turf," he announced in a singsong voice. "Gonna go take them out." He chucked Butch under the chin. "And you kiddies say I never let you have any fun."

"We're going to… kill other vampires?"

"Yeah." Spike whirled to give the one who'd spoken a direct look. "They're hunting our prey and disrespecting us." He pulled the blonde female that Drusilla had turned into an embrace. "You're up for a midnight ride and some trouble, aren't you, love?"

"Yes, Master," she whispered, shivering. He'd never shown her so much attention before.

"And she's the youngest of you," Spike said meaningfully, releasing her. He was pleased to see the other vampires were beginning to be excited. "Grab something wooden, make it pointy, and let's go. You," he gestured at Butch, "and you, stay here with Dru. Make her happy until I get back. Or else." He gave the younger vampire a serious look and, with a final nod to Drusilla, he led his merry band toward the door. The nest had to be somewhere around the Restfield Cemetery; they'd start there.

⸹

Since her mother was sleeping the sound sleep of the tipsy, Buffy didn't have any trouble ducking out of her window. She was at the Shady Rest almost ten minutes before midnight and was surprised to hear Giles talking to someone.

"Hi, Xander. You decided to come with?"

"It's Friday," he shrugged. "Got nothing better to do."

"I'm sorry, and thank you." She gave him a quick, sincere smile, and he shrugged. Then she turned to Giles and gave a concise report of her patrol at the Restfield. "So," she concluded, "I don't think there's much point in going back there tonight."

Her Watcher nodded, but he was frowning. "I'd usually agree, but I don't know if the typical patterns will hold tonight. We'll save it for later, though." He stood up from the mausoleum and stretched. "It's been quiet here so far tonight."

"One other thing," Buffy said. "Spike was with me. He killed," she frowned, trying to remember, "three of those vampires."

"He helped you patrol?" Xander asked sharply.

"Not only that, my mom," and there was a great deal of teenaged disgust in her tone, "invited him to dinner." She explained the reason for the invitation and finished with a frown. "And the whole time, he was really listening to what Mom had to say, really eating, was really enjoying having dinner with us." She looked down, trying to not have to say anything about having coffee with him. "I like him," Buffy said finally, "and I don't want to. Liking could lead to trusting, and I just…."

"Cannot and must not do that," Giles finished.

Xander was watching her. "How worried are you that he can get into your house at any time?"

She was ready for this. "He scolded me after dinner, told me I needed to tell her about being the Slayer so she wouldn't invite any 'dangerous' vampires home." Buffy rolled her eyes and air-quoted around the word 'dangerous.' "He really does like my mother."

"Yeah, but look what he did to his own mother."

"Xander has a point. You can't expect him to follow the rules of good behavior."

"I know." She took a breath. "I'm not worried about his invitation. And that's crazy. It's crazy, right?"

"There must be spells to revoke invitations," Giles said meditatively. "I'll ask Jen – er, Ms. Calendar to check on those."

"Good." Xander sounded relieved. "How much longer before he's through with his research, do you think?"

"He didn't come in today." Giles placed a bolt in his crossbow. "I was rather worried that it might be because he was preparing some mischief for tomorrow."

Xander checked his watch. "For today."

"Well, let's start patrol, shall we?" She bummed a couple of stakes from Giles, and they set off.

⸹

Joyce woke up and the niggling sense of familiarity had resolved itself overnight. She sat up, a little smile on her face. Her mother always said you should sleep on a problem. She got her robe and slippers, stopping to check on Buffy on her way to the bathroom. Her daughter was asleep, blond hair tumbled everywhere and Mr. Gordo tucked against her chest. Joyce smiled at this evidence of her little girl in the body of someone fast on her way to adulthood.

She mused on how things had been easier since Thursday, when she'd impulsively decided to let up on Buffy. It had been the right decision – probably a lot of her daughter's problems in Los Angeles had been because of the problems between her and Hank. Joyce made the single cup of coffee she allowed herself, then took it to the bookcase in the living room, peering at the titles with her head tilted. The book on sculpture she was searching for must be in her office at the gallery. Which, she thought as she glanced at her watch, I'd better get to if I want to entice the Saturday tourists into buying anything. Joyce resisted the impulse to check on Buffy as she went past again, wary of waking her daughter. Let her sleep in; she was such a night owl, and a couple extra hours of sleep would do her good before the exchange student arrived early next week.

A few hours later, Joyce glanced over as the bell above the gallery entrance chimed. It was Buffy, who was carefully balancing a box with their lunches inside. She turned her attention back to the elderly couple from Orange County who were dithering over a tribal mask. She really didn't think they would buy it, so she was pleasantly surprised to find herself adding three hundred dollars to the till twenty minutes later. With a spring in her step, she turned the sign on the door to 'closed' and went back to her office.

She froze, remembering the book on sculpture laying open on her desk. Buffy was sitting on the couch away from the desk, though, curled up with last month's _Vogue_ in her hands. "Hey, Mom. You made a sale."

"How did you know?"

"Heard the cash register." Buffy closed the magazine and sat up. "I got the lentil soup this time. And they have lemon poppy seed mini-muffins for dessert." The café across the street had an affordable weekend box lunch that both Summers women enjoyed.

"Good. Turkey sandwiches?"

"Mm-hmm."

Joyce made a tiny space for her lunch on the overflowing paperwork on the desk. "I think I may get a computer," she mused. "There has to be a better way to take care of all this." A local computer guy had stopped by a few days earlier and given her a card. She would give him a call, even if he'd made her nervous by flirting with her.

Buffy seemed preoccupied, and Joyce took the edge of the book and considered closing it for a moment. Instead, she took a sticky note and placed it strategically over the picture. "Remember last night how I kept thinking that Spike looked so familiar?"

"Yeah?"

"Look at this." She pushed the book across the desk. "This has to be what I was thinking of. Doesn't it look like him?"

Buffy twisted her head to see, then grew still. "It looks exactly like him." Her gaze went from his face to the detailed muscles of the sculpture. So that's what he's hiding under that coat, she thought. No wonder he's so strong.

"It isn't, of course – the artist cast this in the forties, and it's been in a museum since before he was born. But every detail, everything is so…."

Raising an eyebrow, Buffy looked up at her mother. "Everything is so what, exactly?"

Joyce gave her a narrow look. "Much like your friend Spike," she finished with dignity. "It was driving me nuts, why he looked so familiar. Now I know." She grabbed her turkey sandwich and took a bite.

"Good for you. Here," Buffy said, "let me move this before we get soup on it." She lifted the book and turned away toward the shelf, spotting the empty slot where the tome on sculpture belonged. With her back blocking her mother's view, she lifted the Post-it note and raised an eyebrow before smoothing it back over the interesting bits. No, he was definitely not _David_.

Spike was – and she was sure he had been the model – in an art book. And he had been right about St. Vigeous being quiet with him installed as the Master. The only thing she, Giles, and Xander had even heard was some whooping as some college kids drove by the Restfield toward four o'clock. Spike made things less black-and-white than they had been, and Buffy wished desperately that she could talk to Angel about what was going on. Surely, he had heard about the new Master.

⸹

Next Chapter: Spike finds the cure for Drusilla.


	21. First Steps

**First Steps**

⸹

Sunnydale, California

October 1997

⸹

After finishing the vacuuming and dusting, Buffy polished the dining room furniture, wiped the windows until they squeaked, and called it a day. The house was as ready as it ever would be for the exchange student. She phoned Willow and arranged a time to meet at the Bronze, then she went to take a shower. She was humming as she went up the stairs. Saturday was the day everyone got out, even mysterious, dark-haired vampires. She would definitely see Angel tonight.

Three hours later, she trudged up the steps to the front door, ready to put on patrolling clothes and make a circuit with Giles. St. Vigeous may or may not be a bust, but her social life definitely was. Not only had Angel not shown, neither had Xander, who couldn't go with as little sleep as the Slayer. She and Willow had attracted no attention at all. As she started to put the key in the lock, Buffy tilted her head. The inside of her house sounded more hopping than the Bronze had been.

She opened the door and heard old music and her mother's laughter. Joyce had rolled up the rug she'd vacuumed that afternoon and was dancing with Spike, both of them barefooted.

Buffy walked over to the clock radio that was usually in her mom's bedroom and turned it down, muffling Bobby Darin singing 'Splish Splash.' "What are you two doing?"

"Oh! Buffy!" Joyce put a hand to her chest. "You surprised me."

"You surprised me," Buffy rejoined, but she was smiling.

Joyce's hands fluttered, and she tried to still them by turning off the radio. "Spike's here," she pointed out helpfully as she found the off button. She gave up then, letting her hands drop. They made a soft slap against the fabric of her slacks.

Taking pity on her, he explained. "I stopped by to see if I could borrow Joyce for a dance over in Dutton."

The amusement left Buffy's expression, and she gave Spike a flat look. "You want to take my mother out dancing?"

Joyce visibly cringed. "No, no, nothing–"

"Yes," Spike contradicted her. "It's a dance contest. If I don't go with someone, I won't be able to find a partner."

Buffy's eyebrows rose, and she looked at her mother. "You're going to enter a dance contest?"

"No." Joyce had found her dignity. "It sounds like fun, but I have too much to do here."

"She was nice enough to dance with me anyway."

The two Summers women were communicating almost exclusively through a supremely tense look now. "It's for his job, Buffy."

"No, it's just because I like to dance." Spike gave Joyce a maddening grin. "Fifties music isn't going to make a comeback, but it's fun. Saw a flyer posted at the Bronze for it and thought I'd see if I could find someone to go with me. Can't be picky; don't know that many people in town."

Both of the women gave him an exasperated look, and Joyce sighed. "Let's put the rug back."

He helped her roll it into place. "Thank you for being so kind."

As they stood up, Joyce caught Buffy watching them with amusement, and something occurred to her. "You should go. You like to dance."

"Me?" she squeaked.

"Her?" Spike said sharply.

"I-I don't know any of those old dances," Buffy protested, thinking swiftly, "not like you do. If anyone should go, you should."

"I have laundry and a ton of paperwork from the gallery to get in order before I meet the accountant this week. And," she added, a warning gleam in her eye, "'those old dances' are before my time, too."

"It's half ten, anyway," Spike said. There was a troubled look on his face. "Couldn't get there in time to do much dancing." He put his bare feet back into his boots and had them laced in a surprisingly short amount of time, then grabbed his coat. "Time for me to go." He reached for Joyce's hand and bent low over it. "A pleasure as always. Thank you for the cocoa and for the dance, madam."

After Buffy closed the door behind him, she turned back to her mother. "Cocoa?"

Her mother shrugged. "He likes the little marshmallows more than you do."

⸹

Late on Friday, Giles was reshelving books on the Incas and feeling unaccountably glum. They had defeated the evil mummy, so he should feel fine, but she hadn't seemed so much evil as sad. He knew that Buffy saw the parallels between the ancient girl's fate and her own, too.

"You needn't reshelve those yourself," he said, more harshly than he meant.

"I'm being careful to put them in the right place, Watcher." Spike leaned against the end of the range, looking insolent without really trying. He nodded at the books in Giles' arms. "What's so interesting about the Incas?"

"The exchange student Buffy was hosting was killed by a mummy that escaped from the museum."

"Really. Woulda thought the exchange students would be more of a danger than old relics." At Giles questioning look, he went on. "Sunnydale has the exchange program as a front for bringing in illegal immigrants of the demon variety. Most of the 'exchange students' are Hellmouth tourists who can pass."

"You're joking."

Spike shrugged. "'S'what I heard."

"Good lord." He wished he had a place to set his stack of books so he could do something other than stand there, stunned. "Though I do suppose that explains why Impata's parents weren't trying to reach him." Giles' eyes narrowed. "And why the exchange is one-way. There was supposed to have been some mix-up with the paperwork and a missed deadline."

"You ever met the mayor 'round here?"

"No. Can't say that I have."

"He's human, just barely. I doubt anything much happens that he and his town hall toadies haven't arranged."

"Mmm." Giles was noncommittal. Buffy had confided in him about what Spike said, that he was created to be a caregiver, to love, in essence. But he was still a vampire and not to be trusted. He shelved another book and asked casually, "Were you interested in politics before you were turned?"

"Not hardly," Spike snorted.

"You seem well-educated."

The vampire grew still. "What do you mean?"

"You read several languages."

"Just what I've picked up." This confirmed what Giles assumed, that he'd learned useful languages over the course of his long existence. Then his next words shattered that impression. "The only formal education I had was a Michaelmas half and only half of that."

Giles quickly looked at his books and began scanning the shelves for matching call numbers. 'Michaelmas half' was a public school term, in which case William the Bloody was definitely not the wideboy he seemed.

"Wait, wasn't Xander scamming on that exchange student?" Spike asked to change the subject, following the Watcher into the next row.

"He's rather devastated, I'm afraid." He changed the subject, too. "How is your research getting on?"

"Anxious to get rid of me?" The humor faded. "Truthfully, I've hit a rough patch. I have some possible solutions, but… Shame the Slayer didn't hold off killing old Batface for a few months. His blood probably would have worked."

Giles blinked. "Old Batface? The Master?" The vampire smirked and went back to the row with German books on demons. Giles shook his head a little. Every other vampire he'd seen had a reverent and deferential attitude toward the Master. This one was definitely different. He considered asking Spike about the third Slayer he'd claimed, but it didn't seem prudent.

"Watcher?"

Spike's voice came through the stacks. Giles ducked his head, but he couldn't see the vampire through the gaps. "Yes?"

"You have a, dunno, chronology of Slayers?"

"Yes, I suppose. Nothing that formal." Giles blinked a little. Could the vampire read his thoughts?

Spike appeared at the front of the row. He almost immediately took a step back, realizing that he had trapped the human. "Uh, wondered if you could get me the name of a Slayer."

"Depends on how far back she was. Our records get sketchy before the Renaissance, and even after–"

"Nothing that far back. Nineteen-…" he thought a moment, "… eleven? Chicago."

Ah, Giles thought. He couldn't keep the coldness from his voice. "That was the other Slayer you killed?"

The side of the vampire's mouth twitched, not in a smile. He shook his head, but answered. "Yeah. Took a train into town because I heard she was there, found her fighting vampires that same night. She was already injured, but… I didn't know that." He turned away, considering the Dewey Decimal range listed on the end panel of the shelf. "Wasn't much of a fight."

Giles' brows drew together. Was that… shame in his voice? "I'll check the records," he managed. The vampire nodded and wandered into another row.

⸹

"Spike?" Xander blinked at him through the window, then unlocked it. He raised the sash halfway. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't even think it, Harris. Don't want an invite." He smiled at the human through the window. "Just wanted to know if you're interested." He held up a zip-top sandwich bag with three joints.

"Where did you get those?" Xander held up a hand. "Never mind; I don't want to know."

Spike told him anyway. "Some kid in the parking lot of a video store. He ended up donating 'em to me, along with a pint of blood."

Xander hesitated. Spike had been around two weeks now, and they were still alive. He had kept his promise about no vampire attacks on St. Vigeous. It wasn't trust, and a lot of it was not caring just now, but he found himself saying, "I'll meet you outside."

Only pausing long enough to retrieve his wallet, shoes, and a jacket, he ducked out the back door. They met at the picnic table where his drunken father had knocked over a platter of deviled eggs on Labor Day, causing his Uncle Rory to laugh and his mother to run to the kitchen to escape blame for putting the eggs on the wrong part of the table. "Let's go," Xander said shortly.

"I got wheels," Spike offered.

"This isn't far." They walked in silence for a few minutes. "I haven't smoked anything since my friend Jesse got killed and turned into a vampire."

Spike heard anger and accusation and sorrow in the boy's tone. "'M sorry, mate." His brow furrowed. By now, he had a good bead on the various vampires in town. "He still around?"

"I staked him." Xander's innate honesty wouldn't let him leave it there. "Well, he sort of stumbled into a stake I was holding, but the result was the same."

"Not an easy thing."

Xander didn't say anything. He let the sympathetic words slide, because Spike knew what it was like; his stupid idea to cure tuberculosis had a heartbreaking outcome. He just felt low tonight. Since Buffy had come to town, he'd lost so much and not gained what he hoped. He loved and worshipped the Slayer, believed totally in her and her mission, but sometimes wished he'd never met her. "Here we are."

Xander strode through the playground of one of Sunnydale's mini-parks and climbed in a couple of easy moves to the top of a wooden children's fortress. Spike joined him with one disturbingly fast leap, then looked around. "Nice view." The fortress was built atop the highest point of the park, and they could see over the trees that covered the terrain as the land sloped west in the direction of the ocean.

"I've been coming here to toke since I was twelve." He sat cross-legged and leaned against a post. "Jesse was nearly always here with me. He gave me my first joint, as a matter of fact. He always had a little something-something. His parents were divorced, and his dad gave him a lot of guilt-money."

Spike stayed quiet and let him talk, handing him a joint and his lighter. Xander hefted the heavy little Zippo and raised his eyebrows. Spike smiled as he took it back. "Had it since before the last world war. Thirty-nine? I'd hate to lose it. Funny how you get attached to things, inanimate objects, I mean."

"Nineteen thirty-nine?" Xander shook his head. "You've had that longer than my grandfather's been alive." He had the oddest feeling of déjà vu as Spike gave him a sour look. They both drew in lungfuls of smoke and let the beginnings of a buzz build.

Xander got more talkative and began to find things funny after ten minutes or so, and Spike broached the topic he was interested in. "So, you saved the Slayer's life."

"Yeah." The slight smile that had been on his face disappeared. "There was this prophecy that she would die, and she just marched right into it." He shook his head. "I didn't understand it then, and I still don't."

Spike nodded emphatically. "Yeah. Don't give a shit about 'destiny' and 'fate,' myself." He lived with a seer and knew first-hand how unclear her visions could be.

"I mean, it worked out. But the prophecy didn't say, 'And, lo, wise men in the future will have arcane knowledge of life, and the Slayer's friend will revive her so afterwards she can put a tree trunk through the Master's ribcage.'" He smiled a little as Spike chuckled. "But I can't tell you how scary it was, seeing her lying there, all still… What if she had come back brain-damaged? I mean," and he thought of her crush on Angel, who had to be shamed into helping her, "more than before." He took another drag.

In the manner of men, they weren't looking at each other, were facing different directions, in fact. Spike lit up the last joint and asked if he had a car, which kept the conversation going for a while as they passed the blunt. Xander, who had turned seventeen over the summer, was really feeling the social stigma of not having a car. He walked over two miles to school, cutting through backyards and alleys, rather than ride the schoolbus or his bike. The skateboarding idea hadn't really worked out.

"Are you ever sorry you got bit?" Xander asked the question after a companionable silence. Jesse had obviously been happy to be turned.

"You mean that I ended up a vampire?" He lifted a brow. "No. Else I wouldn't be here, yeah?"

"Where would you be? I mean, what do you think you would have done with your life?"

"Dunno."

"Did you have a girlfriend?"

Spike smiled a little at that word. "Had a lady in mind, completely wrong for me. Passed up a nicer one." He smiled at the memory of Daphne. "Just as well. She couldn't dance for shit. Still got bruises on my feet from her."

Xander giggled, finding the joke funnier than it really was. "So, no regrets."

"No. Anyway, you can't change what happens to you. You only get to regret the things that you chose not to do."

"Do you have any regrets?"

"'Ve done some things that I wish I hadn't, turns out. But I don't have anything I passed on that haunts me, where I think, man, wish I had…" He trailed off, waving an expansive hand.

"I don't know," Xander said, something bitter in his voice. "I sure have chosen to do things I regret."

Spike considered him. "You and Buffy, huh?"

Xander nodded, then took a final hit from the roach. "There is no 'me and Buffy,' unfortunately. You know how in the movies the guy rescues the girl, she falls for him, and they end up happily ever after? Not so much in real life."

"But think how much more you'd regret it if you never said anything to her, never knowing what you might have missed."

Xander bit down on his reply, deferring to Buffy's quiet request to not mention Angel to this new Master, since other vampires really didn't like him. "You're right; I just wish her answer had been different, is all." He wouldn't have regrets if she would look at someone who was worthy of her. Then his thoughts turned to the brief happiness he'd had with a girl who did choose him, another female who had been a demon with designs on his life rather than his love. It was the high that let him ask his question. "Spike, is there something about me that's just attractive to demons?"

Startled, Spike met his eyes. Then he shrugged and appraised the human, his gaze running down his form from dark hair to long legs. "You are attractive. Nice shoulders." Xander looked a little dazed, and the vampire hastily withdrew any sexual aspect of his attention. "Why do you ask?"

"Impata wasn't the first demon that I've… that has come on to me."

"Nothing 'specially, not like you have 'victim' or 'sex toy' written on your forehead." Spike smiled and fluttered his lashes to temper the reassurance. "Unless you really want me to think of you that way."

Xander looked as though he had been struck. "I'm not gay." Then, "Do you think I'm gay?"

Spike shifted to look more directly at the boy. "Do you think you're gay?"

"No." Xander looked down. "I don't know. If I was straight, wouldn't I have had a girlfriend by now? Maybe I am, and I just don't realize it."

The boy was miserable because he was a virgin. A virgin without a car. Spike resolutely shut down his sniggering demon. "What I think," and he stood up, getting ready to move out, "is that you're too nice to sleep with a girl you don't love, and that's a bad thing these days, when sex is held cheaply." When the human looked up at him mutely, he held out a hand and hauled him to his feet.

"Sometimes," Xander said, his eyes on the ground, "I wonder. I mean, I notice other guy's bodies…."

Spike sighed. "Yeah, at this age, your bodies are changing. Doesn't look the same week to week, so of course you'll look. Are my biceps bigger than his? Poor Bernie still doesn't have hair on his arms, that kind of thing. Makes sense to me." He jumped down from the playground equipment and waited until Xander reached the ground more cautiously to continue. "Or maybe you are a little attracted to guys. It's like sexuality is on a continuum, right? No one's all one way or the other. Maybe you're only ninety-five percent het." Spike shrugged. "I've had sexual contact of all kinds over the years, but it's women that I prefer by far."

"You?"

Spike chuckled at the boy's dumbstruck look and gave him a flirty look. "Yeah, me."

"I did wonder about the eyeliner." Xander didn't realize the smartmouth comment had escaped until Spike was laughing, and his last lingering wariness disappeared.

"My lady likes me pretty." His swagger became more pronounced. "All the ladies like me pretty."

"And the men."

Spike chuckled again, and the two continued on their way back to Xander's house in silence for a bit. "What about Willow?" the vampire asked abruptly. "I mean, she's lovely."

He shrugged. "I don't know why not. It's just, she's my friend – my best friend. I think she might go for it, but I would never lead her on."

"Oh, she'd go for it." Spike was emphatic. "Think about it. Friendship's s'posed to be a great start to a relationship." They walked past his DeSoto, but he wanted to see the lad safe in his house.

"I'm not going to think about much tonight," Xander said, "and thank you for that."

"No, thank you. Haven't done anything really bad in Sunnydale – Watcher Boy can write a contract – but I least I can still corrupt the youth."

⸹

Spike realized he had the munchies after he left Xander, always one of the hazards of toking. He stopped at the Bronze for a bite, as it was on the way back to the factory. He knew the Slayer was there before he was inside, and Buffy was on her way to intercept him before he'd taken more than a couple of steps toward the bar.

"What are you doing here?" When he only raised an eyebrow, she voiced her suspicion. "You're hunting, aren't you?"

"'Course."

"Why?"

"I'm… hungry?" The eyebrow rose again.

"No," Buffy said with exaggerated patience, "why here?" Before he could give another sardonic response, she added, "Why the Bronze? Why not somewhere that's else?"

"What twisted your knickers today?" he asked. When she only looked at him, Spike sighed dramatically. "Got lonesome. Wanted some of that sparkling conversation that you're," he paused for effect and whipped out the sardonic tone, "so good at."

"Spike, I'm not in the mood." And she wasn't, having been on the receiving end of Cordelia's lecture on how to be less Buffy for the last hour.

"Words no one has ever said to me before." He sensed her irritation edging toward true anger and gave up. "I'll leave the Bronze if you will," he cajoled. "No other vampires here, so I'll go patrol with you until we find some. Give them a good dusting."

Their eyes met for a moment, and she knew what tempted her wasn't the wildness in him, that she didn't have the same need he did for violence. She couldn't put into words or even coherent thought what made his offer so perfect. "Let's go. You first."

Surprise registered for a second, and then he grinned, quickly covering his happiness by scoffing, "Feminist." He strode to the alley entrance and held the door for her automatically before remembering not to do stuff like that. Spike took half a step outside, then abruptly changed his mind, pulling the door closed and blocking it with his body. "Uh, let's go out the other side."

Confused, Buffy stared at his face, at the play of expressions across his readable features. Guilt was the main one, and her own face hardened as she pushed past him, a stake already in her hand. It wouldn't be the first vampire she'd slain while it fed in the alley.

There were two figures in the alley, but neither was undead. A young woman was on her knees before a young man, fellating him. As her head bobbed, he turned to the sound of the door. The man shifted his grip on the girl's hair as his eyes flicked over Buffy. He lifted his chin, evaluating her, and gave her an insolent smile as he thrust his hips toward his girlfriend.

Spike was waiting for her as she pivoted back into the noise of the Bronze, a pained look on his face. "Should know by now you can trust me." Buffy averted her shocked eyes, blotches of color standing on her cheeks, and he said gruffly. "Sorry. You don't need to see that." She was just a kid. He took her elbow and led her away from the door a few yards. "You need a couple minutes?" She shook her head mutely, and they went out via the front door.

"So, how are things?" He was uncomfortable with what she'd seen, so he figured she wouldn't mind talking about anything else.

"I've got a date tomorrow."

"Yeah? Anyone I know?"

She shook her head. "He's in college."

"Well, I would tell you to watch out for dirty old men of nineteen, but I know you can take care of yourself. How's Joyce doing?"

"She met with the accountant this week and finally decided she's going to get a computer system installed." The Slayer shrugged, her eyes on the shadows to their right. "Maybe she won't have to work so many late nights."

"Good thing, being home at night in Sunnydale." They continued the patrol, speaking quietly every so often, without finding any trouble. Spike stopped at a convenient store and came out with a hastily nuked burrito, which he devoured as they walked back toward downtown.

"Here you go." Buffy held out something for him.

He took the white square from her hand, realizing it was the handkerchief he'd loaned her, now freshly laundered. "Oh. Um, thanks."

"With that burrito, you might need it." She took a breath, trying to be nice to make up for being grumpy at the Bronze. "How's Drusilla?"

He glanced at her, surprised. "No worse, at least." After a moment, he added, "Thank you for asking."

"Giles says you're in the library most evenings."

"Yeah, unfortunately. I'm not finding anything useful." Not without the missing ingredient of old Aurelian blood.

"Well, maybe you'll find something soon."

He smiled, appreciating how the Slayer was trying to make him feel better. "Yeah, maybe." Spying a nearby trashcan, he tossed the burrito wrap into it. "Well, I'd better get back before the minions get into the liquor cabinet."

"Minions?" she asked, amused.

He shrugged. "Vampires that aren't family that you don't kill. They can be useful, but they're also nothing but trouble."

"Well, you'd better go take care of that."

"Right. Have fun tomorrow night." As he walked back to his car, Spike thought about going by the library to have another go at the Latin section, but it was huge and he was still hungry. He left the Bronze parking lot and went to the Fish Tank, finally getting home to Drusilla just before five in the morning. She was watching an old movie with Michael Caine on the television, and he snuggled in beside her.

"You feel like the seventies," she said dreamily. "Have a good night?"

"Yeah," he said, a little surprised. "It wasn't bad."

⸹

"Hey, Giles."

"Oh, Buffy. How was your French test?"

" _Que sera, sera._ "

He scrutinized his Slayer. "You do know that is Spanish?"

"Yes." She rolled her eyes. "If you want me to learn as many languages as you and Spike, you'll have to give me more time off."

"As if you would use spare time for study." He'd happened across Buffy and Willow in the art section a few days ago and had started to praise them for their attention to schoolwork. Then whatever they were looking at and whispering about had led to giggles. It obviously wasn't school related.

"You're in a mood."

"Just tired. Spike was here rather late last night."

"You know, you could leave him alone."

"I most certainly cannot." He pushed his glasses up with his knuckles and pinched his nose. Giles believed that Spike was trustworthy with the books, but he couldn't take the chance that the blond vampire might realize his grandsire was in town. Angel had been scarce for a while before the treaty, and when he did finally turn up, Giles had privately informed him of Spike's presence in town and assumption of the title of Master. The way his nostrils had flared, he probably already knew the first part. Angel had melted away and been scarce again for several days. The Watcher didn't know how much of Lydia Chalmer's thesis on Spike was accurate, but if even a quarter of it was correct, a reunion between the remaining Aurelians would be a violent one.

Buffy patted his arm. "Go home and get some sleep. It's been quiet; I'll stay here and babysit the vampire tonight."

"I think I will." He paused, then admitted his terrible secret. "We have tea sometimes and talk about home. I constantly tell myself, do not trust Spike. It's difficult to remember that he is a soulless demon."

Buffy grinned impishly. "We've had coffee together a few times at this diner just outside town after patrol."

"The Sit N Bull?"

"Yes. How do you know about it?" She took the tangent, glad he wasn't going to fuss at her for socializing with another vampire.

"Good coffee. Also, it's just outside the range of the Hellmouth. Or, some white sorcerer put a spell on it a long time ago. I never can decide; I can just feel it, like a, a border."

"Huh. Spike says demons never go there."

"He does."

"I don't think he thinks of himself as a demon."

"Unless it suits his purposes."

One of the library doors opened, and Jenny Calendar looked around until she spotted them at the rail. Buffy watched the way the two adults smiled at each other and quickly excused herself, smiling a little, too.

⸹

"Someone's come to change it all."

Spike had dwelled on Drusilla's words all day. Nothing ever happened on Halloween. She was abed, full as a tick and the body disposed of, and the minions were settled in to watch a marathon of horror movies for the night. He was restless, though, wondering what she had meant about the outside switching with the inside. He stood abruptly and headed for the door.

"Master?" Julia, the blond vampire Drusilla had turned, started to rise to follow him.

He waved her away. "Gonna get some fresh air." It was the kind of thing he said that always drove the minions crazy. Why would a vampire need fresh air?

The streets were busy with little kids in their Halloween costumes. Some of the costumes were not costumes at all, but the spawn or hatchlings of town demons who got to show their true faces one day a year. He rather thought the kiddies would grow up and resent their parents for making them celebrate sodding Halloween.

Spike wasn't sure when exactly he realized that none of the children was in costume; they were all real. He supposed it was the screaming. A reluctant grin spread over his face. "Well, this is just… neat."

He wandered through Sunnydale, enjoying the chaos, checking to make sure no one was looting Summers Fine Arts. It was well known that the gallery was under his protection, but Spike was pretty sure his status as Master wouldn't matter very much tonight. Fortunately, Joyce was out of town on a buying trip. And Buffy would be busy.

His first instinct was to join her, but he realized that would be an exercise in frustration. Most of the demons running around were actually human children, and she wouldn't want him to kill them. Spike headed to see Giles, instead, curious about what had turned sleepy All Hallow's Eve into a party.

"Willow!" He whistled in appreciation. She was standing next to Giles by a library table, and it was obvious he had interrupted their conversation, but she looked too fine not to comment.

Usually, Willow would have blushed, but things were too dire. "Spike, I need you to go to Buffy's house and protect her and Xander and Cordelia."

"Protect the Slayer? What are you on about?"

She explained succinctly what had happened to people outfitted from Ethan Costume Shops while Giles gathered supplies from the cage in the far wall. Spike still couldn't take things too seriously. "What were you dressed as?"

"A ghost," she snapped, and walked through the table on her way to the Watcher.

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Right. Well, good luck at the costume shop." Protect the Slayer. Him. Switched-up night, indeed.

On his way to Revello Drive, he passed a SWAT truck crashed against a light post. He had a flash of inspiration and detoured into the back of it, searching through the jumbled weaponry until he found what he was after. Smirking at the heft of it, he put it over his shoulder and loped on to the Summers house.

Before he got there, he heard familiar voices from an alley. "Xander!" he called, turning the corner in time to see the lad drop a heavier human dressed as a pirate. "Nice work, mate." Buffy was inexplicably a brunette and just as inexplicably clinging to Cordelia. Xander leveled his weapon at Spike, who raised a hand. "Willow sent me. I'm Spike, by the way."

Buffy took a breath. "You have a proper musket."

"Never heard it called that before," he muttered, but he unslung the riot gun from his shoulder. "Non-lethal beanbag projectiles for the midgets," he explained to Xander. "Giles and Willow think they have a lead on what's going on." He whirled suddenly, sensing a demon at the other end of the alley, but nothing came in.

"Go, them," Cordelia said, "but can we get the princess here back to her house where it's sort of safe?"

"I'm afraid to move," Buffy whispered.

Cordelia rolled her eyes, and both she and Spike eyed the Slayer with distaste. Spike glanced at Xander. "You shoot the tall ones; I'll shoot the short ones." He turned to Buffy. "Madam, if you would permit me to escort you, I believe you will feel easier in the safety and comfort of your cottage." He held out an arm for her.

"You speak like a gentleman," she said warily.

"A gentleman with a musket," he replied gravely. "Just a costume, pet," and Buffy took his arm.

The spell broke just as they reached the porch. "Only got to knock over two of the little brats," Spike groused. The Slayer had clung to him, hindering his aim, whenever the Halloween revelers had pelted past them.

Buffy pulled off her wig. "Well, that was humiliating."

Xander gestured at her with his toy gun. "Xena costume next time."

"Or don't shop at discount stores," was Cordelia's contribution.

"So you remember everything?" Buffy and Xander answered with silent nods.

"I hope Willow is okay." Xander looked worried. "I mean, she was a ghost."

"Since the spell is broken, I'd say she and Giles saved the day." Buffy caught herself smoothing dark hair on the offending wig and made herself stop.

Still on an adrenaline high from the chaos of the night, Spike felt himself withdrawing from the humans. "Think I'll head on back." He nodded goodbye at them and left at vampire speed, feeling out of sorts.

The Slayer had been… wet. Useless. He thought of Pippa, Millicent, and Daphne, any of which would have picked up the nearest vase and bashed the head of a demon who threatened them. If they fainted, it would be afterwards. This spell, for all its potential, had diminished a Slayer. He felt his anger coalesce and changed directions, heading toward downtown.

Spike waited for a long time in the empty costume shop, until almost six in the morning. He was about to give up and go back to the factory when a thin man with elegant features entered the store, looking around warily. When he felt sure the store was deserted, he began to quickly pack his desk. Spike chose that moment to move in behind him.

"You put the Slayer in danger," he said silkily, putting a cold hand on the human's neck. He squeaked and tried to turn. "I'm the only one who gets to do that."

"Who are you?"

"The only thing you need to know about me is that I'm the Master." Spike let go of the man. "Ethan, is it?" He leaned close. "Pack your stuff; you're done here. I ever see you in Sunnydale again," Spike leaned closer, until he was speaking into the man's left ear, "I will kill you. I'll take my time doing it." He was suddenly at the doorway, staring wolfishly at Ethan with yellow eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. "Don't try me." He pointed with one clawed finger, then left the shop. Feeling satisfied that he wouldn't see the human again, Spike left the store and made for the nearest sewer access. It was already dawn.

⸹

After the sorcerer left the costume shop, Angel slid down the fire escape of the Expresso Pump, heading for the sewers, too. He'd followed Spike from the time he found him in the alley with Buffy and her friends, at first so he could rush in with a stake if Spike turned on them, then to see if he could take news of a treaty violation to Giles. The younger vampire hadn't done anything he could use against him, unfortunately. He really wanted Spike and Dru out of Sunnydale.

He sighed as he turned toward his home. It wasn't just because he missed the freedom to see Buffy and Giles when he wanted, it was because he didn't want the miserable mix of fear and longing any longer. He was afraid of Spike, and how wrong was that? Even Drusilla could kill him, he was so weak after decades of near starvation. Neither kept him from wanting to be near them. The lure, the _safety_ of family, after all the long years of loneliness….

Knowing Buffy made up for a lot of those years; her touch made up for almost all of them. When he first came to Sunnydale, first made contact with her, he'd been such an idiot, more than halfway in love with her and not the slightest clue of how to act around people. He could barely believe she wanted anything to do with him.

He'd changed for her, more than once, more than he ever cared for her to know. From the first time Whistler had shown him the inexperienced Slayer, he'd tried to be better. When he saw what she liked in a date, he'd gotten rid of the clothes Whistler provided and tried to dress more like Owen, had bought secondhand books on philosophy to read. When he saw how she loved her friends, he worked to be sociable with the people she hung out with, even Xander. Except for the precious moments he was alone with Buffy, it was all hard.

Family was easy. He missed that, and he closed his eyes as he thought of how difficult it was to ignore the slush-slush of Willow Rosenberg's blood, to ignore every instinct that told him she was food. But he could. He was changed, was changing. He was braver than he ever thought he could be, when Buffy was in danger.

Family was danger. For him, surely also for the Slayer. Hunching his shoulders against the first rays of light over the horizon, Angel hurried for his door.

⸹

November 1997

⸹

"I don't want you to go."

Spike sighed. He'd tried to get her to let him love her earlier, but Dru had touched her temples lightly and begged off. Then she wouldn't eat the stoned kid the minions brought for her. After that, she'd smashed Miss Lavinia's porcelain head to powder, swinging the doll by her feet against the floor. Drusilla had finished off the day's performance by tearing into the stoner's midsection and plunging her face into the wounds. It was the only blood she'd taken in two days.

Now she was in bed, the ruined sheets and rugs removed and the floor mopped up. She stared up at him with desperation.

"Have to, love." He sat down on the bed next to her. "I need to finish going though the books, see if I can find a cure, make you all better."

"There's nothing in books. They're dry and good for nothing but flames."

"We'll see. I've found things already, just don't have what I need for those."

"The Master's blood."

"Yeah." He smiled down at her; Drusilla wasn't stupid. "If I'd had one of these books, I'd have used a ritual with that old German vamp. It would have strengthened the effect. Might be something else there, pet."

"I just want you to stay with me."

"Love, I won't be long. I'll be back with you before half the night is gone. You get some sleep, and you won't even know I'm gone."

"Wrong time to be sleeping."

"You didn't sleep today. You need to rest sometime."

She looked mutely up at him, and his heart nearly broke. If she was stronger, she could go with him, but he didn't want her around a Watcher, much less a Slayer. Spike firmed his mouth and slipped off the red silk shirt he wore over the black t-shirt. "Here, poodles. Sit up." He dressed her in his shirt. "There, just like I've got my arms around you. Smells like me and everything."

"I can't smell."

He went still. "You'd gotten your sense of smell back," he protested. She shrugged, and he knew she'd told him what would make him happy, less worried. "Ah, love." Spike took her in his arms and kissed the top of her dark head. After a few minutes, he felt Drusilla relax into sleep.

Twenty minutes later, he was in a completely different world, taking a cup of steeping tea from Giles, bantering with Xander, and turning the pages of a well-repaired library book that he didn't have to pretend he couldn't read. He sat on the table next to Willow's computer for a couple of minutes, listening to her explain Flash. When Buffy came in at eight, bookbags were opened, and the students did their homework in the comfortable silence. It wasn't his life, but it was nice to take a little bit of the calm and store it against what was waiting at the factory. Maybe he'd call it an early night, stop by and see Joyce. Nothing like hot cocoa when the nights turned nippy.

⸹

Buffy dodged to the left, then moved toward the vampire. It was one of the more athletic ones she had ever faced, and she'd been trying to get close enough to use her stake for more than five minutes. She glanced down at the sidewalk where they were fighting, right outside a park with a playground and picnic area. There. If she could just get it to change direction….

She faked right, and the vampire fell for it. It was wearing dress shoes, and one of the heels caught on the uneven part of the pavement where an earthquake had cracked the concrete and lifted one edge. Buffy waded in and drove her stake home, quickly pulling away from the rain of dust.

"Nice work, love," Spike called, applauding her performance.

He was, maddeningly, grinning at her. Fighting to catch her breath, Buffy returned her stake to its usual place at the small of her back. "What's that? The look of the well-rested?"

If her dig about not helping bothered him, he didn't show it. "No, pet. Just thinking of the old saying." He leaned forward from his perch atop the picnic table. "Tough in the streets, sweet between the sheets."

"Sweet… What? You think–"

Spike grinned more broadly as she sputtered. "No need to get your knickers in a twist."

The Slayer grew still, thinking of how her reputation at Hemery had been blackened by people she thought were friends. "What have you heard?"

His brows rose; he'd just thought to tease her. "Nothing. Wouldn't believe it if I did. I know you're a virgin. Still, can't blame a fellow for a bit of speculation."

Buffy drew her dignity about her. "You don't know that I'm a virgin."

"Sure, I do." He oozed from atop the table like a panther, beside her without so much as a flutter of noise from his coat. "Slayer, aren't you? The Council keeps you lot closeted away."

"What was it you called me? Wild caught?" When he simply held her gaze, the grin in place, she added, "You wouldn't believe some of the things I did before I became the Slayer."

"What? 'Gimme an H?'" The grin became lazier, more insolent. "Your mum can't tell me enough. You're her favorite topic, pet."

Some warmth in his voice made the last sentence approving, even a touch envious, but Buffy ignored it. "I have a boyfriend. Right now, I mean, not just back at Hemery."

"Oh? Since frat boy? That was fast."

"I-it's someone I've known for a while."

He tilted his head and regarded her. Since it wasn't Xander, it wouldn't be anyone like him. Not a jock, either; Joyce had been clear that Buffy's old friends had shut her out. "Let me guess," he mused. "Quiet waters type. Reads a lot, maybe, but not an intellectual. Other people don't quite get him, but, oh, you do."

Buffy paled. He couldn't know about Angel. Then she rallied. The description could fit Owen, too – which, not going to examine too closely. "Way off base," she lied, turning to walk toward the Restfield.

He gave a quiet snort. "Uh huh." Spike slid his hands in his pockets and followed her. "So, tell me where I was wrong."

"I'm not going to discuss my love life with you."

"Fine with me. Couldn't be all that interesting, anyway, little girl."

She glared at him. "I'm the Slayer. I'm not a little kid."

"Tell it to someone who isn't a hundred years older than you."

"You're a pig, Spike."

He considered telling her about the human who had shown up at the factory offering to sell the Slayer to him, but it would just upset her. Besides, she would then ask what happened to the git. No need to point out that even if he restrained himself, vampires like Dalton did not. That would upset her, too. But he could get her to take care of the irritating part that remained. "There is something I interesting I wanted to tell you, though. There's a club of vapid little wanna-not-bes a few blocks away from the Bronze, the Sunset Club."

"I haven't heard about a new club."

"It's private. Just for stupid kids who think vampires are cool and misunderstood." He smiled grimly at her startled look. "Read too much Anne Rice, I reckon. Anyway, just wanted you to know. There are vampires who don't care for a fair fight that like to get embedded in a cushy situation like that. It's like having your very own herd."

"Is there a vampire there now?"

"Dunno. Just heard about it. Thought you might like to set them straight about the undead."

She nodded. "Thanks." There was something sardonic in her next words. "A vampire who drops by just to bring me information. Who would've thought?"

"Well, we are cool and misunderstood."

She grinned. "The evil undead have been pretty cool lately."

He gave her a wicked look that only lasted for a couple of seconds, long enough for him to examine her. "Here, kitten, are you cold?"

"A little. There's more wind than I thought tonight. At least it's blowing away the smoke smell." It was wildfire season, and one was burning just outside of town.

"Wanna get coffee?"

"Sure. It's your turn to pay, after all."

The inside of the DeSoto didn't smell as much like smoke, since Spike hardly ever drove without her in the car, and Buffy had asked him not to light up around her. The old car had good heat, so she took off her jacket and half-turned toward him. Spike asked about American football, and Buffy explained it to him. She'd had to learn the rules of all the sports the cheerleading squad supported, so she was familiar with the other football, too.

Carlene brought over a carafe of coffee, then left them to their own devices. There were three truck drivers eating at the counter, and she spent her time there. In the brightly lit diner, Buffy watched Spike's face, wondering at how expressive it was. She told him about Principal Synder's latest unfair tirade against her, and his mouth twisted in a one-sided sneer that made him look more punk rock than his bleached hair ever could. It made her smile a little; Giles told her that their unsouled vampire had more education than he let on.

Spike caught her looking at him and raised his eyebrows. The Slayer immediately picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. When she stayed silent, he asked if she really missed cheerleading. Buffy gave him a serious answer, from not missing the skimpy uniforms during November football games to a longing for the routine of it. This led into an examination of the difference between her friends in Sunnydale and what she thought was friendship at Hemery.

The way she'd been treated still hurt, he could tell. She had such an expressive face, and it made something inside him hurt to see how becoming the Slayer had shown her how alone she really was. People shouldn't have to learn that until they were much older. He reached across and ran a thumb over her fingers where she held the stoneware mug, offering to find musk glands from some South American ha'keeh demons to put in the closets of the surviving cheer squad members.

"How bad do they smell?" she asked, fighting a smile.

"Worse than skunk," he said gravely. "They'd never wear their Backstreet Boys t-shirts again."

"Ruin Kimberly's leopard print knit pants," she mused. "I am tempted."

"Leopard print?" He leaned back and tilted his head. "You had forty-seven-year olds on the team?"

Buffy snorted; she couldn't help it. "You're right. She thought they made her look sexy, but mostly they just made her look old." His hand still lay on the table, so she squeezed it before withdrawing to her side of the booth. "Thanks for the offer. I'll keep it in mind."

⸹

Buffy checked her image in the mirror a final time. Hair, shiny. Lips, pouty. Wonderbra was go. She wished her mother would give in and let her wear the red leather pants she'd bought with her father's guilt-induced access to the plastic, but the boots went well with these pants, too. Back at Hemery, she would have gone out looking like this and been confident that there was no guy in the school she couldn't have. Vampires, she thought wryly as she stocked her purse with stakes, were a different matter.

Not that she wanted more than one particular vampire. It was just that Spike's dismissal of her as a 'little girl' rankled. Plus, whoever that dark-haired woman was that Angel had met in the park was the final straw. Lately Angel was big with the disappearing side of his disappearing/reappearing act, and she had to wonder if it had anything to do with that skinny skank.

Part of her pique had to do with how he had wended his way through the Sunset Club the night they went to show those kids the error of their ways. Angel had played the role of evil vampire, and he had done a very realistic acting job. Ms. Calendar had actually sent a bolt into his arm when he had the blond girl, Chantarelle, crying against the wall. Buffy had known he was pretending, but something behind his clear brown eyes had truly enjoyed the terror. Chantarelle had been holding her breast when Buffy pulled the savage vampire off her and made a show of killing him. While Giles was lecturing the club members on their mistaken ways, she'd noted how the girl's shirt was torn from Angel's claws. It made Buffy more determined than ever to not read anything about Angelus.

And who was the skinny, dark-haired woman, anyway? She couldn't be human; she was too… well, ethereal wasn't the right word, but she seemed to waft or drift rather than walk. Was Angel interested in her? She'd touched his chest, and he hadn't tried to stop her. He didn't touch her back, though.

Anyway, if she wanted to flirt a little with a cute guy, there was nothing wrong with that. It wasn't payback. Angel hadn't said anything about being exclusive. Or even about serious. Buffy glanced in the mirror one last time and hurried down the steps so she could get out of the house without having to answer any of her mother's questions. "Bye, Mom!" she called, and was out the door and into the cool air of a Sunnydale night.

The Sunny Rest was first up on the night's schedule, with two new-ish graves to investigate. One was already empty by the time she got there, but it was a small matter to track the inexperienced vampire to the front gates. Buffy looped back to the second grave and waited for almost half an hour before getting too impatient to stay. She still had the Restfield to go through before turning her attention to the public areas where humans were.

Spike was in Memorial Park, laying on his back on the base of the soldiers' statue, looking up at the stars. "Clear night," he commented, then sat up as she approached. His only comment was, "Aren't you cold? You trying to get me to spring for coffee again?" Buffy noticed that his eyes lingered on her, though, and she smiled a little.

She was with a man who liked her, who liked talking to her, and she rattled on about the upcoming football game, how she thought Giles and Ms. Calendar liked each other, and taking Willow shopping without any fear that he would become impatient. If she brushed up against him now and then, well, the ground was uneven. Even the Slayer could trip.

They were just coming to the gates of the Shady View when two vampires came out, almost barreling into them. Nearly identical smiles curved their mouths, and Spike crossed behind Buffy to be on her left. The Slayer ducked beneath a blow and came up with a punch into its jaw.

"Switch!" Spike called, having similarly laid a big fist across the jaw of the other vampire. As they passed each other, their hands met, and Spike came away with a stake. He played with his for another few moves, because he kept snatching glances at the Slayer. She ducked the vampire's wild swings, grinning the whole time, then dusted it with a quick thrust of the stake. Buffy pulled back into a ready stance, her clenched arm pressing against the swell of one breast.

The grin on his face became a lazy smile, and Spike staked his own opponent with a move that took him behind the disintegrating body like a matador skirting a bull. Buffy giggled and came back to his side to nudge him playfully, once the dust had settled. "I like patrolling with you." She stayed close to him as they continued walking, chattering about patrol being lonely, how she worried about her friends, and how easy slaying was with him.

Spike looked down at her in puzzlement, getting an eyeful of cleavage each time he did. She was a touch manic, walking a little too close, and he couldn't figure what was up with her tonight. The fourth time she tripped and fell against him, he grabbed her arm. "Kitten…." Buffy was looking up at him, her lips parted, and he could swear she had more stars in her eyes than there were in the skies. He wasn't puzzled anymore, but he was confused.

"Yes?"

"How's your boyfriend?"

She shrugged and smiled prettily. "I haven't seen him lately." Spike was looking at her, almost as if seeing her for the first time, his eyes touching every part of her in turn, hair, eyes, lips, breasts. Buffy felt a great deal of satisfaction – she still had it – and an unexpected nervousness low in her tummy.

The Slayer was gorgeous, Spike realized. She was too young, just a girl, but her body was well on its way to adulthood. He had too many years of knowing when a woman wanted to be kissed, and the signs were unmistakable. The Slayer wanted him to kiss her.

Why? What was her game? His demon hissed at the inner anarchist to shut up, just see where this led, but he liked the chit too much to hurt her. _Wouldn't hurt her_ , the demon pointed out. _She's the Slayer. She's strong_.

Watching him, Buffy's inviting smile faded. Something in his eyes had changed and, though he hadn't moved, the vampire suddenly seemed to be much closer to her than before. Spike looked around, scanning the empty street and mostly dark houses, then he looked up. Within two seconds, he had leapt onto a lower limb of the nearest tree, a maple.

"Take my hand." She did so without question, and he hauled her up into the branches. There were still leaves on the tree, enough to shield them from casual observers.

Spike turned her so she was against the tree trunk, safe from falling. He was close again, and there wasn't enough light to read his expression, but he paused before kissing her. The hesitation only lasted a moment, long enough for her to protest. She didn't. Just a kiss, that's all, she thought. Just one.

A single kiss, Spike thought. She tasted of toothpaste and lip gloss and goodness and power. Spike slid his tongue against her lips, then nibbled along her lower lip. When she didn't open for him, he wedged his knee between hers, getting her to gasp, giving him access. He forgot all about a single kiss.

Buffy grabbed his shoulders as one of her feet slid off the branch, afraid she might fall. Spike tongue had just gently touched hers, but when he felt her weight shift, he leaned away from her to grab her leg. He pulled it along his thigh until her calf was at his hip.

Buffy's eyes opened when his mouth broke contact with hers. She knew she was stable, wasn't going to fall, but mostly she knew she wanted more of his kiss. All those weeks ago, she'd been right about his lower lip. Her fingers clenched into the leather of his jacket and pulled him down to her.

Spike leaned in, settling his chest, then his hips against the warmth of the Slayer's body. "Love," he murmured against her mouth, and she tilted her chin, just a little, as though she thought he might stop again.

This is… This isn't… Buffy felt dazed. He didn't taste of tobacco like she'd thought he might, or anything specific, but he did have a salty tang that she found her tongue questing to taste again. Everything was happening at once, and now Spike's fingers were drawing soft circles on the underside of her right breast. Even through their clothes, she could feel something swelling and stiffening against her thigh. Her first reaction was to pull him closer, and that shocked her back to reality. The moment she froze, stopped moving her mouth against his, Spike pulled away. This time, she could see him, his gaze soft and dazed as hers must be, his lips slightly parted. Then he firmed his mouth.

His hand still held her thigh against his waist, and his fingers were still cupping her breast. She had a brief flash of Chantarelle's torn shirt, but he was already letting go of her before she could move.

"Not going to fall?"

"No." Her voice was shaky. She took her hands from his shoulders and put them behind her, holding the tree.

"Then why don't you tell me what you're doing?"

"Spike, I… I didn't…." Buffy took a breath. It wasn't just me, she reassured herself. He'd kissed her without being asked. "I just wanted a kiss."

"No," he corrected her. "You just wanted to see if you could get me to kiss you." Spike moved his hips deliberately against hers. "You can. You can have anything you want of me, Slayer." It had been months, _months_ , since Dru had truly shared his bed.

She bowed her head. "I'm sorry. That's all I want."

He went opposite, lifting his head, blowing a long stream of air through his nostrils. "I know."

His voice was kind, and that was what pushed mortified tears past her self-control. Spike's first reaction was irritation – Dru cried quite often, too – so he was surprised at her low, "Oh, great." She was crying in front of Spike again.

"Here, love." He gave her his handkerchief, then simply scooped her up and dropped to the ground. "Let's go have that coffee."

They didn't say much until they were seated in their usual booth. Bart was all alone that night, and he brought the carafe to them, as well as a piece of lemon meringue pie. Spike had gotten no further than pouring his coffee before he sighed, stood back up, and stripped off his coat. "Here," he said shortly, "put it on."

"I'm not cold," she protested.

"Put it on anyway, Lolita. Your perky, not-so-little breasts are fucking distracting."

She pulled it on gingerly, finding it heavier than it should be, though nothing clinked. "What do you have in here?" Much better topic, now that his compliment shored up her ego.

"Weapons," he said shortly. Spike seemed to be all business until he sat back down and looked at her. His gaze softened. "Kinda of nice to see a Slayer wearing that coat again."

"Again?"

"Belonged to my last Slayer."

Buffy stiffened. He'd taken it off a dead Slayer, a Slayer he'd defeated.

Spike missed her reaction and was touching his brow. "My first Slayer marked me here, had some sort of sword that had an enchantment on it. The wound didn't heal like it should have, like human instead of vampire healing. Nikki didn't have anything to mark me with. Didn't seem right somehow, so I took the coat."

If he'd said the word 'trophy,' Buffy quite possibly would have hit him. Instead, she watched the fond look in his eyes at the memory of the fight and swallowed her first, harsh response. "She must have been a big girl." Buffy was swimming in the coat.

"She was fit," Spike protested, defending her, "tall as me and curvy. Had style to burn." He looked down. "Used to have a knife from the Chicago Slayer. Lost it, somewhere."

"Giles told me he was looking for information about her."

He nodded in agreement, then tested the coffee and found it was still too hot. "So, tell me what you were thinking when you got dressed to patrol tonight."

"You are an evil vampire. I'm not going to be lectured by you," she said primly, smiling a little now. "Not for a… misdemeanor."

"Love, if it had been any demon except me, it would have gone well past the misdemeanor stage."

"If it had been any vampire besides you, I wouldn't have wanted a kiss." She bit her lip and quickly grabbed the coffee cup. That wasn't what she meant to say, even if it was true.

"Oh. Um, thanks." He didn't know how to react, either, and fidgeted a little with a skull ring he was wearing on his index finger.

Buffy watched him, at the way his biceps jumped below his too-short shirtsleeves, and wondered where his usual red shirt was tonight. She felt a wave of affection for the suddenly shy vampire across from her. He was so easy to read, and she found she was able to talk about her current emotional crisis.

"I saw my boyfriend talking to another, to a girl, and he hasn't been around much lately. I just, I don't know. Needed reassurance."

He nodded. "Not a good idea for an underage girl to seek reassurance from a dangerous, full-grown man."

"I know."

"Glad to provide it, anyway."

She could see the gleam of his teeth even without looking up, and one corner of her mouth lifted. "Thank you for feeding my ego."

"Seriously, kitten. You're too young for these kinds of games."

"I'm the Slayer. I walk around at night and everything," she said sarcastically. "No one's going to do anything I don't want them to do." She thought of the hyena spell that infected Xander. She met Spike's eyes frankly.

His were haunted. "Don't ever try to lure your prey like that. It isn't safe, kitten. It's…."

"Spike?" She put her hand over his, stilling his fingers from rotating the ring, not sure why he was distressed, why she even thought of comforting him.

"That was one of my grandsire's favorite ways of hunting, forcing fangs and…" he chose a different word, "sex on his victims. He insisted I learn. I haven't… hunted that way since he left the family. It's… ugly. It's ugly, and it's wrong, even I know that, and it can happen to a Slayer."

"You… you've never… never touched a Slayer…."

"No." His answer was brief and firm. "Listen, pet. I'm just trying to say, don't test your wiles. You don't have to. Nothing to do with slayage. If your beau was talking to another girl, then he's a blind git and not worth your time."

"What do you do when other vampires talk to Dru?"

"Mostly, I kill them. Won't work in your situation, I guess."

"I can't think of many other strategies," she said wryly.

"Think harder. You are fine and beautiful, and you don't need reassurance from some grubby sod who just wants to rub his bits all over you." He could look at her again.

"You aren't grubby," Buffy said, wanting to lighten the conversation.

"When it comes to sixteen-year-old humans, I am."

"All right, Spike," she said, becoming peeved. "It wasn't a great decision – I am sixteen, after all."

He drank some coffee and seemed to relax in stages. "Does Joyce know what you're wearing?" He picked up a fork and sliced into the pie.

She heard the humor in his voice and smiled. "No, I ran out the front door while she was in the kitchen." Spike was holding the forkful of lemon meringue pie out for her, and she let him feed her just one bite. After that, they found their usual level of ease, and Buffy ended another quiet patrol with Spike dropping her at her door. Later that night, she found herself thinking of the haunted look in his eyes. It must be what Angel feels all the time, she realized. No wonder he's so quiet.

⸹

[Author's Note: This is actually the newest part of the story, written to make the length of this chapter closer to average. I dedicate this section to reader momnesia, who asked if Spike was ever going to be happy. He's happy right now, and so is Buffy.]

"Duck!" Buffy called.

Spike dropped with incredible speed, and she jabbed into the slime demon. It was ten feet across, almost as wide, and nearly as fast as the blond vampire. He rolled from where he'd gone to ground just ahead of its suffocating bulk.

It almost immediately pulled away from them, the first time anything they'd done had any effect on it. Heartened, Buffy advanced with the oak branch she'd taken from the ground and poked at it again.

Spike had joined her on patrol near the seaside park, and they'd found the slime demon vibrating over the remains of a coyote as it absorbed its meal. "Ouch," was Spike's comment.

"Definitely dangerous," Buffy sighed.

They'd quickly learned not to directly hit it, since their legs would just plunge into its gelatinous body and get stuck. They also hadn't been able to drive it back toward the sea. Both of them were so used to being at the top of their respective food chains that it took them a while to realize it had decided they were potential meals. It followed them to an inland park, where at least they had more options for fighting it.

Spike flipped upright and moved close beside her. "Car's not far. I could get it and run over the bloody thing."

Buffy was staring at it carefully as it feinted toward them. Here, where the streetlights were too close for it to avoid, she could see darker patches inside it. "I've got an idea," she said, passing the branch to him. "You've got a longer reach. See if you can poke it in that dark spot."

"Organ, you think?" He gave her an approving look and took it in his left hand like a javelin. Instead of throwing it, he sprinted at the slime demon with a roar and shoved the tree limb into the target the Slayer had pointed out.

Nothing happened, so he pulled it out again. Spike half-turned, keeping an eye on the demon. "Car, then?"

"Something's happening." Buffy took a step closer, ready to grab Spike out of the way if it charged. The slime demon began quivering, a different motion than when it was absorbing the coyote. Then it exploded outward, ejecting gallons of slime twenty-five feet in every direction.

"Ugh," Spike said, averting his face too late. "Oh, _fuck_ , that smells."

"My mouth," Buffy said, "in my _mouth_." It came out as 'inma muth,' and then everything left from dinner and lunch also came out of her mouth.

Spike tried swiping at his face with his sleeve, but it had no dry patches. He tossed his coat away, trying to keep it right-side out, and tore off his t-shirt, swiping his face. Then he went to where the Slayer was crouching and held her hair away from her face. After another couple of heaves, she realized he was holding out his t-shirt. Buffy took it gratefully and wiped her face.

She stood up and faced away from him, spitting a few times. The shirt was nearly sodden by now, but she found a dry patch near the hem and wiped her face and neck again. "Well," she said, offering him the mucus-covered shirt, "we killed it."

Spike's face worked for a moment, and then he grinned and began to laugh. It struck her funny, too, and Buffy started giggling. They stood there, laughing like loons, a hysterical edge to it, each thinking their drenched companion looked ridiculous.

"Well," Buffy said, hiccupping, "that's it for patrol tonight." She lifted an arm and snapped it away from her, sending gobs of goo flying to the side. "I've got to get out of these clothes."

The practical aspect of getting clean hadn't occurred to Spike until just now. He grimaced. "Don't have a shower where I'm at." He looked down at his naked torso to his wet jeans.

"How are you going to get that stuff off?" she asked.

"Dunno." He lifted a dripping leg, then grimaced again, gesturing at his hair. "Maybe the locker rooms at the high school?"

Buffy shook her head. "My house is closer."

"Joyce won't let me in like this," he protested.

"She wouldn't let _me_ in like this," Buffy agreed. "You hose me down, I'll hose you down."

Spike stared down at her, touched, and hid behind a glib comment. "Yeah, a wet cheerleader with a hose, yet somehow this doesn't promise to be a sexy carwash type thing." He leaned over to retrieve his coat and fell in at her side.

"Oh God, I hated those things." Buffy began walking toward the northern edge of the park, heading in the general direction of Revello Drive. "I mean, it was my least favorite fundraiser. It would always be twenty degrees below normal, and there we'd be, out at seven in the morning in t-shirts and shorts. It was usually, like, suburban dads all alone or, you know, grizzled old trucker dudes. You know why they were there." She shuddered.

"Perving on nubile young athletes?" Spike guessed.

She sent him a dark look. "And we had to be nice to them, so they'd give us more money."

"DeSoto is in need of a good scrubbing," he mused, "if, you know, you – oof!" He rubbed the right side of his ribcage. "Just joking, love." She glared at him, and he leered back. "Actually, I'm the one in need of a good scrubbing."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but you're the one half-dressed, like you need money."

He surged ahead of her and strutted down the sidewalk in his best high-fashion model imitation, then turned and pouted at her, fluttering his eyelashes. "Can I… wash anything for you, love?" She couldn't help herself; she giggled again. When she caught up with him, he fell into step with her, grinning.

"Too bad you didn't have your Slayer powers at your fundraisers," he said. Putting on a high-pitched voice, he said, "Oh, Mr. Lusting-After-Jailbait, be a shame if anything happened to your engine block or your axles." Spike put his hands in front of him and made a graphic snapping motion. "That'll be a hundred bucks, perv."

It made her grin, too. "I'd probably take a more direct approach, track down school board members or something."

"Buffy the Educational Funding Equalizer," he said, one hand rubbing his chin as he gave her a critical look. "Doesn't have the same ring to it."

Buffy put a hand to her hair. "This stuff is… Oh, God. You don't think it's hardening, do you?"

He put a hand to his own hair. "No. But we might want to go a bit faster."

They made a slight detour to his car, where Spike fumbled his keys from his pocket, carefully not getting slime on them, and took an extra pair of jeans from the boot. Buffy grabbed a receipt that fluttered toward the ground.

"You paid for these," she noted.

"And you're surprised, why?"

"You do look like someone who might shoplift."

"True, but I don't always." He used his keys as a handle to close the trunk and slid them into a back pocket. "I did rob a bank once, back in the thirties."

She chuckled. "You robbed a bank?"

"Yeah. Princely sum of six hundred dollars." He waved at his torso. "Took two bullets from the coppers. Didn't seem worth it, for all that fuss."

Buffy shook her head, then turned it sharply toward him. "What happens if a vampire gets arrested?"

"Depends on whether the jail cell has a window, I guess," he said, shrugging. "Never heard of it happening." A sneer twisted his mouth. "Pathetic excuse for a vampire, if a human can capture them." He nodded toward her. "You could break handcuffs, for sure."

"Couldn't you?"

"Yeah, pro'ly." He started to offer to wear them for her and find out, but their arrival distracted him from his leading comment. Spike nodded at her house. "Where's the faucet?"

"Back of the house, past the porch." They trudged around the side of the house.

"Where's Joyce's Jeep?" he asked.

"Mom's on a buying trip for the gallery," Buffy told him. There was a frown on her face. "Look, don't be a jerk, okay? We're going to need towels, and I can't walk in the house like this."

Understanding dawned, and he raised a hand. "I'll be a gentleman."

"Were you ever?" she teased.

"Once."

There was a seriousness to Spike's reply that caused Buffy to still and look at him. She gave him a grave nod. "Turn around, okay?" After he did, she kicked off her shoes and undid her pants. Then she took off her jacket and top in one move, hoping not to smear the slime on herself any further. Buffy took the house key from her jacket and went into the kitchen. After raiding the basement for the old towels, she stopped at the sink and grabbed the dish detergent. "This is going to strip my hair," she muttered, then headed back out. The outdoor security light shone on the kitchen floor, and she was relieved that her bare feet hadn't left a trail of smelly footprints.

⸹

In the hedge on the other side of Joyce's property, Angel watched Buffy reemerge from the house, lovely in pink underwear, carefully holding a stack of towels away from her body. He had followed them from Spike's car, realizing his own scent would never be detected through the stench of whatever they'd tangled with. Now his hands clenched in impotent fury that Spike got to see his girl like this.

"You want to go first, kitten?" Spike said. Angel could just see him standing past the porch. He had gone to the faucet and connected the hose. Now he was aiming at the Slayer, giving her an evil grin.

"Yes, actually. I'd hate to have to cut my hair or something."

"Tell you what," Spike said. "Lean over. I'll rinse your hair, then you rinse mine. We'll work from the top down."

"Sounds like a plan." She held out something to him, then leaned over, showing her neck, vulnerable before the Slayer of Slayers.

"Good thinking, pet," he approved. "Close your eyes."

"God, that's cold!"

Angel watched Spike pour what looked like half a bottle of dish detergent onto his palm, then work the soap into her hair. She took over, and Spike stuck the nozzle between his knees and began working on his own arms and hands with the leftover suds. They stood there, all business. From the neighbor's bushes, watching the two oblivious, half-naked bodies made Angel's own body do inappropriate things.

"Ready to rinse," Buffy said indistinctly. Spike grabbed the hose and began spraying water at the nape of her neck, helping rinse the suds with one hand. As Buffy wrung out her hair, the blond vampire handed her a towel. While she wrapped it around the wet strands of her hair, Spike's eyes roamed over her. You bastard, Angel thought.

Then Spike averted his eyes and held the nozzle out in Buffy's general direction, waiting patiently. Angel closed his own eyes, suddenly so tired. If Angelus had been in Spike's position, the things he would have done, the terrible things.

"Lean over," Buffy directed. Angel watched Spike do the same thing the Slayer had, put himself into a vulnerable position before his enemy. Buffy made some joke about it being impossible to tell his hair gel from the hardening slime, and he twisted to give her a sour look. She chose that moment to turn on the hose, grinning impishly.

Angel grinned, too. He loved to see her happy, even if it was because she was teasing Spike. Now that the smell of slime demon was dissipating, he needed to move back. He didn't want Spike to know he was around. Angel didn't leave quickly enough, though.

"Ready," Spike said. Buffy helped him rinse, then handed him a towel. He rubbed at his wet hair with both hands. After a moment facing the blond man, Buffy turned to the side, just a little. Angel's heart sank. If she hadn't moved, he would never have known she was blushing. His own eyes went to the boy, to his muscular chest and shoulders and abdomen. Now there was no way he could leave.

"Spray my back?" Spike asked, turning. "Then I'll get you. You go on in, get a proper shower, with hot water and everything, and I'll rinse off our clothes, best I can."

Buffy put the nozzle close to his back and turned it on. Even from where he was hidden, Angel could see the galvanic response Spike had to the cold water. "Bloody hell, Slayer. Think main water would be hotter on the Hellmouth."

Buffy ran her hand down his back and over his shoulders a few times, feeling for any slime. "I think you're good."

He took the hose from her and set his teeth, then sprayed his chest and stomach. "Brr. Right. You ready?"

"No, but let's get this over with." Spike did the same thing she had, held the nozzle close to her, pointing downward. Buffy ran her hands along her arms and torso, then her legs. Spike swiped at her back once or twice. "Clear, I think."

His eyes were on Buffy again as she lunged for the towels in her sodden underwear. Then Spike gave his head a little shake, and he went back toward the porch to get the slime-encrusted clothing they'd left. He looked away from the lawn, his eyes examining the hedge, and Angel went utterly still. Spike's head tilted to listen closely. After a moment, he turned back to the Slayer.

"Uh, leave me a towel, love."

"I'll leave you two," she replied pertly. "Thanks for getting the clothes."

"No worries."

She stepped closer, holding a towel around herself against the chill, and said something too low for Angel to hear. Spike's head drew back in surprise, then he shrugged and nodded. Angel watched Buffy go inside. Even over the sound of the garden hose spraying on leather, he heard her shower come on a few moments later.

He knew he should leave now, but again he didn't. Spike had done nothing worse than what any man would do, had behaved better than most, in fact. Buffy was safe inside now. Angel watched Spike hang his leather coat over one post of the porch to dry.

The blond vampire went back to the pile of clothes. He picked up a wadded-up black t-shirt, sniffed it, then took it to the garbage can. When he came back, he dumped more dish detergent on the remaining clothes, sort of rubbed the fabrics against each other, then rinsed them off. Next were his boots, and he twisted side-to-side, spraying them from all angles before taking them off and rinsing them again.

 _Go_ , Angel told himself. And then Spike doffed his black jeans. Still not wearing underwear, the older vampire observed. The boy squatted down and began to give the jeans the same half-hearted wash, the harsh security light highlighting muscles along his thigh and back. After a minute or so, he stood up, muttered a profanity, and turned the water on his lower body.

Angel heard the sharp inhalation and another mutter, but it was secondary to his other senses. His beautiful boy. Hard as it was to admit, he missed Spike, who could be such good company, just as he missed Dru, who simply belonged to him. He had kicked himself over the years for not taking the boy up on his offer to leave with them. Once, he had the right to touch that body, to smile at those offhand comments.

He finally turned away, afraid his scent would reach Spike, but couldn't resist another look back as Spike turned off the hose and all but dove for the dry towels. Angel smiled a little. He really wasn't going to catch Spike violating the treaty; he knew the boy, had always known him to be honorable. But he couldn't be too careful where Buffy was concerned. She was safe inside now, and he pulled shadows closer and headed home.

⸹

"Brr," Spike said again, bending over to scoop up wet towels and clothes. Leaving his coat and boots, he dashed up the porch steps and into the kitchen, the driest towel wrapped around his lean hips. He'd never been down to the basement before, but he knew the doorway. Once downstairs, he looked around, finding the washer and dryer right away. He continued looking around. Joyce used it mostly for storage, he figured.

The washing machine was a good deal fancier than those he encountered in the laundromat. Spike dumped all the clothes and towels into the tub, then looked at the bewildering array of products. He skipped anything that said bleach, loaded the detergent compartment, then dumped a quarter bottle of stain remover over the clothes. Sniffing suspiciously of some fabric softener, he added a little to the machine.

Spike glanced over at the water heater in the corner and considered the shower Buffy had promised him. Jealous of the hot water, he set the machine to warm/cold and pressed the start button. He considered going back upstairs, but figured he might as well continue dripping on the same spot down here.

The basement wasn't warm, but it wasn't freezing, either. He put his brain into neutral, waiting for Buffy to call for him, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he began humming. A minute later, he began to sing the lyrics to Soundgarden's 'Blow Up the Outside World.' "Nothing/Seems to kill me/No matter how hard I try."

"Isn't that the truth," Buffy agreed dryly. She came down a few steps, enough so she could lean over and look at him. "Shower's all yours. Upstairs, to the left."

"Got it."

"Pink's really your color," she said, grinning.

Spike stopped at the bottom of the stairs and bowed, one hand going to the roll of pink terrycloth fabric at his waist to secure it as he took the steps. Buffy turned and stepped out of his way in the kitchen. She was wearing shorty pajamas with a long, loose-knit cotton sweater over them and an enormous yellow towel on her head. "I left a washcloth and more towels for you."

"Thanks." He gave her a cheeky grin. "You smell better."

"You don't," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh. Uh, your turn to close your eyes and not be a jerk." He pulled the towel an inch or so away from his body and lifted his eyebrows.

"I'll put it in the washer," she agreed, holding out her hand and closing her eyes. A second later, she had the damp towel in her hand. Spike turned away, not hurrying, so Buffy peeked at his butt. She turned back to the basement, hiding a smile.

Spike came downstairs ten minutes later, wearing the stiff, new black jeans he'd grabbed from his car. Buffy was puttering in the kitchen. "I know Mom usually makes you hot chocolate, but you and I always have coffee. I made a pot, since it'll take a while for the laundry."

He'd borrowed some mousse from her or Joyce, anything to tame his curls even a little. Buffy had taken the towel from her own hair, letting it air-dry. "Thank you. Right nice of you, kitten." Spike was surprised, actually. He figured she would just get the jeans back to him, like she had his handkerchief.

"You have a good voice." When Spike looked blank, she raised an eyebrow. "You were singing in the basement?"

"Oh. That. Yeah, thanks."

"You did a Pavarotti in the shower, and I missed it?" she teased.

He grinned and picked up a kitchen towel from the island and tossed it at her. Then he leaned against it. "You sing, love?"

She shook her head. "Too shy."

"Shy? You were a cheerleader," he protested.

"I hate being on a stage, though. Cheerleading's different. Maybe because I'm not just standing still or something."

"Huh. So, when our treaty is over and I can be evil again, I want to torture you, karaoke it is."

Buffy rolled her eyes. Then she reached across the counter and touched his blond curls. He leaned away, swatting at her hand. "And I'll destroy all your hair products."

Spike touched his heart. "You're cruel, Summers."

"Ugh, that song!"

He remembered the one she had to be referencing, 'Cruel Summer' by Bananarama. "Got teased with it?"

"Yeah, once or twice." Her voice was dry. "I can't think of a single song with the word 'spike' in it."

"Oh, there is one. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I hate it."

"So now I'll have to find it." Something behind her beeped. "There's the coffee." She brought the pot to the island and poured into the two cups. "Mom doesn't use cream, so I'll have to make do with milk." Once she had her coffee the way she wanted it, Buffy nodded toward the living room. "Wanna watch TV until the washer's done?"

"Sure." He gestured her ahead of him, then followed her. They settled on the couch, one on either end, and watched some of _Ladyhawke_. Ten minutes later, the quality of Buffy's breathing changed, and Spike looked away from a luminous Michelle Pfeiffer to find the Slayer asleep.

He didn't realize he was smiling fondly at her as he leaned over and took the coffee mug from her fingers. Spike took it to the kitchen with his own empty one. Then he went back to the living room, debating whether to search for a blanket. In the end, he picked her up, cradling the sleeping Slayer against his chest. Spike looked down at her, bemused, and wondered why she bothered with makeup. He went carefully up the steps to her door; his sense of smell had already told him which room was hers.

Spike settled her on the bed, the skin of his torso immediately missing her warmth, then bent over to peer at her alarm clock, making sure it was set. He regarded her a moment, then drew the covers up to her waist. Maybe tomorrow she wouldn't have to fall asleep in class.

Ten minutes later, he'd checked the locks, rinsed the cups, and put the laundry into the dryer. Outside, his coat smelled acceptable, though his boots still had a slight scent of slime demon to them. Well, he had leather polish in his stuff at the factory and minions to do the polishing.

Spike found his gaze going up to the window to Buffy's bedroom. What an odd friendship they had. His eyes widened a little; this was the first time he'd really put a name to whatever this was. She was his friend, and her mum as well. Xander, too, maybe, and there was the beginnings of friendship with Willow and even the Watcher. Shaking his head, he headed back to his car. The Hellmouth was a weirder place than he would ever have thought.

⸹

"…about two in the morning, hosing off behind the house. It was freezing."

"How big was the demon?" Giles asked, frowning. He was looking through _Albrecht's Taxonomy of Demons, Greater and Lesser,_ but not finding anything that matched.

Buffy looked over her shoulder at the library entrance. "Big as the double doors. It was hard to tell until we got to the park, but I think it had sort of a yellowish color."

"And transparent?" Giles asked, turning a page.

Xander leaned across the table to where Willow sat beside Buffy. "And I'm not having Jell-O in the cafeteria for a while."

"Me, either," Buffy said, wrinkling her nose. "I mean, the smell…"

"Xander?" Giles peered at him. "Would you help me gather a few more volumes?"

"Sure, G-man."

The Watcher sighed. "Please don't call me that." After he'd found the books that likely had information about marine demons, he headed back.

"…butt the same as it was in the books," Buffy was saying to Willow in a low voice.

But what was the same as in books, Giles wondered. He passed the red-haired student a book, and he thought her grin looked wider than usual.

⸹

Spike left the factory and started walking, leaving the DeSoto behind. He'd grown short-tempered today and dusted Julia for doing no more than stroking his thigh. Sighing, he took a last puff of his cigarette and ground out the dimp end, then crossed the street at speed to take a bite from a policeman through his open car window.

Wiping his mouth, he continued down the streets, walking so slowly that the policeman had time to roll past him before he turned right. Spike wasn't really going anywhere in particular.

It was time to leave Sunnydale, but he didn't have any idea of where to go next. Oh, he still went to the library at the high school, but it was mostly to have a pot of tea with the Watcher or to joke around with Xander as he shelved books. There weren't any more answers there. He had learned the spells, but had no old family blood.

Drusilla wasn't getting any worse physically, but mentally was another matter. She seemed sly of late. Often, her dark head bent close to Dalton's as they pored over the few pages of notes he'd taken from the Master's lair, trying to determine how to reassemble the stone demon called the Judge. It was a bad idea, but it diverted her. He wasn't sure what she was hiding, but it hadn't helped her frame of mind.

He'd never failed her. Over a hundred years they had, but he didn't know if they had even one more left now, not with her so weak and not eating most of the time. She couldn't defend herself or be relied upon to hunt. She'd only let him pleasure her twice since the mob had taken her down, and there was no question that she was too weak for lovemaking. Travel was hard on her, but the Hellmouth seemed to make her visions worse. Spike knew he had to get her away –

His head snapped up as a scent came to him, and the worries and doubts burned away before a fine, clear fury. Spike tracked the smell down within two minutes and was grateful that it was the same storefront that had housed the costume shop. No threshold to worry about. He looked around the dark shop, surprised to see a table and a tattoo gun had been added. Looked like Ethan had a new business in mind. The proprietor was missing, though, so he sat on the table and waited.

He didn't have time to become bored. Ethan ran through the door and locked it behind him, backing away from the door even as he tried to peer through it.

"Got it wrong, mate," Spike drawled. "The danger's behind you."

"What? Who?"

"You were supposed to stay out of town," Spike said, standing, "and I was supposed to let you live." His white teeth were visible even in the darkness of the shop. "Nobody taught you cause and effect?"

Ethan laughed. "Let me live? You think I'm scared of you?"

Spike realized the human was crying just before a shape darkened the glass door. His attention was pulled back to Ethan, who grabbed his arm. "I thought I had longer, but Ripper had his tattoo removed. Removed! I never even thought it could be so simple, or I'd be in London, having it done. And now it's – " Ethan seemed to realize all at once who he was speaking to. "You! You can fight it. You have to – "

Glass flew all around them as the figure outside crashed through the door. It was a dead man, but the body wasn't animated by a vampire. Focused entirely on Ethan, it lunged at him. Spike jerked away from the two, reacting from surprise and adrenaline.

Seconds later, he heard Ethan's neck snap. The dead body stood over him, looking at the floor for just a few more seconds, then abruptly dissolved. Spike backed away again, not anxious to get near the spreading ooze.

"Guess I wasn't the only demon he'd crossed," he said aloud, and he heard a shakiness in his voice. Spike found his lighter and lit a cigarette, tilting his head back to inhale deeply, then blow twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. Nothing to do but leave, he supposed.

He was just stepping through the broken door when he heard movement behind him. Spike turned to see Ethan's body sit upright, then stand to regard him. Smiling coldly, he dropped the cigarette and put it out with a deliberate twist of his boot. "Looks like I get to kill you after all," he said pleasantly, smiling as he went back inside.

⸹

"Spike! What happened to your face?" Willow asked, her eyes widening in dismay.

"Fought a demon last night," he said with a shrug, joining her at her table at the Bronze.

"Are you all right?"

"You should see the other guy, only you can't, 'cause he's a dried-up pool of slime." Spike raised his finger to a passing waitress before turning back to Willow. "You all alone, love?" He rather hoped she was, so he could spend time with her. He'd spent less time getting to know Willow than the rest of the Slayer's coterie.

"Xander should be here soon."

"Buffy out patrolling?"

"No, she's with A – with her boyfriend."

The blond man nodded. "What about the Watcher? He wasn't at the library."

Willow's face lit with a smile. "He's on a date with one of the other teachers. They're just so cute together."

The waitress plunked a mug down in front of Spike. "May I get something for you?" he asked as he slid a folded twenty across the table to the server.

"No, I've got half my cappuccino left."

He nodded at it. "Stunts your growth, they say."

"I don't believe that," she replied seriously. "I think it's all genetics. I'm exactly as tall as I'm supposed to be, based on how tall my parents are."

"Don't count out what you eat. As nutrition has improved, the general population has grown a lot taller."

"Wow. I guess you've seen that with your own eyes, haven't you?" She leaned forward. "I think we won't get much taller as a species, though."

"I think you're right. Saw an article a long time ago where a bunch of scientists agreed that the human race couldn't survive, and if it did, we'd evolve into sort of birdlike creatures."

"That's silly."

"I thought so, too."

"If anything, we'd tap into our earlier growth phases and be more fish-like. Did you know embryos go through a period where we still have tails like dolphins or some other kind of marine mammal?"

"No. Can't say I've ever thought much about embryonic development."

"It's really fascinating, how the cells divide and differentiate."

"You going to be a doctor, love?" He took a drink of beer and found it no better than the first one he'd had at the Bronze.

"No. I don't know. There are so many things to study, and you really have to specialize in medicine. I'd like to do something interdisciplinary that includes medicine, maybe." She toyed with her coffee, turning the big cup side to side. "I like computers a lot, and since getting to know Buffy, I'm really interested in magic. It's like a whole big thing with its own laws and everything."

"First law," he said sternly, "is that magic has consequences. Always." Then he looked down. "Wish it wasn't the case."

"How come?"

He sighed. "Haven't found what I need. A cure, I mean. Anything that might be useful, can't be done, because the main ingredient isn't available anymore. So I've been thinking about magical healing, but the price is just too high."

"Price?"

"Yeah. Like this one demon, he's powerful enough to fix her up, but we'd both be his servants for five years. Wouldn't be anything left of who we are after six months, so it's really an eternity of slavery."

"Oh."

Spike could practically hear her thinking through all the ramifications. "Yeah. If I could find a way to take the consequences on myself, it wouldn't be so bad, but what's the use of that kind of cure?"

"What if – "

"Hey, Wil," Xander said, sitting down, "and hey, Spike. Your face." He made an inquisitive gesture.

"See the other guy, yada yada."

"Taking a night off from the library?"

"Yeah, about that… I really came by to let you lot know that I'll be headed out of Sunnyhell soon."

The two friends looked at him, then at each other. "Oh," Willow said. "Because you aren't finding what you need, I guess."

"Where will you go next?"

"Dunno. Los Angeles is close; maybe start there. Might find a more extensive library."

"Well," Xander said, forcing a smile, "stop in and see us next time you're on the Hellmouth. That's not an invitation, or anything," he added hastily.

Spike smiled back at the lad, more with his eyes than his mouth. "I'll do that. Not leaving just yet, anyway. It'll take a few more days." He did grin now. "Plenty of time to buy booze for you, get you set up with fake IDs, corrupt you good and proper, like the evil demon I am."

"You're not – "

"I am, actually." He stood up. "But I'm very glad to have met you both." Goodbyes were difficult. "I'll stop by the library in the next couple of days, probably see you there, give the Slayer and her Watcher my goodbyes."

"Hey, man," Xander said, standing up as well and holding out his hand. Spike shook it, embarrassed. He covered this unnatural emotion by very properly bowing over Willow's slender fingers and brushing a kiss on her knuckles. Then he strode out of the Bronze without looking back. Vampires didn't wave, after all.

He'd left the DeSoto parked in a spot reserved for the handicapped behind the factory – never pass up a chance to break the rules, Spike always thought – as he'd decided that Sunnydale was a walkable town. It wasn't late or very far, and he debated making a quick trip to see Joyce. Not late for vampires, he amended, looking up at the sky. Joyce was probably asleep. Or maybe not, if her daughter was out. Still, she probably wouldn't want company if she were in her jimjams.

Vacillating over the idea of going anyway, Spike found he'd turned onto a cross street that led to the Slayer's neighborhood. He wasn't surprised to see Buffy ahead of him, moving dreamily, a stake in her hand but her mind apparently a thousand miles away.

"Slayer," he called. "Have a good time, did you?" Spike abruptly froze as she turned to walk backwards, waving at him with her stake. She was smiling and saying something, but he could only process one thing right now: the scent of Angelus, all over Buffy.

He was on her in a second, tilting her head to check her neck, running his hands over her arms. "Love, did he hurt you? Oh, God, Buffy. Are you all right?"

"Spike," Buffy said, squirming away from him, "personal space issues, much?" She got a look at his injured face. "You're hurt."

Spike ignored this and took her very carefully by the shoulders, wanting to see her eyes, make sure she was still her own person and not in thrall. "Where is he? He touched one hair, I'll give him a good killing."

"Who?" She was genuinely confused.

"You don't remember." Fear was like ash in his mouth. "Love, you met a vampire tonight. I can smell him on you. I don't want to frighten –"

"Oh, that." Buffy looked rueful now. "You don't need to worry. In fact –"

He interrupted. "I do have to worry. It's Angelus, love, my –"

"It's Angel, now. Really, it's fine. Angel's my boyfriend."

Spike stared at her, and his brain felt like it was twitching. His mouth formed "Whu…" but no sound escaped him.

"I should have said something, but I didn't trust you at first, and, well, other vampires really don't like –"

"The Scourge of Europe is your _boyfriend_?" Spike's voice was a full-throated roar. A street over, an awakened dog began to bark. He still had her by the shoulders, so he gave her a good shake. "Are you insane?"

Buffy pushed him away, and he staggered back several feet. Her voice was cold. "I'm not insane."

Spike knew there was something associated with that word, but he couldn't worry about that right now; he had to make her _listen._ "Angelus is the worst of us, Buffy. This is what he does, gets to know you –"

"He has been helping me for about a year now," she overrode him, "and he's not Angelus. He's Angel."

"Don't be a soddin' idiot. Changing his name doesn't change who he is."

"He has changed. Whenever you met him, he's different now. He has a soul."

Spike's mouth twisted in a snarl, showing his human teeth. "His soul. Right. Say hi to his soul when he's picking the splinters of your skull out of his palms."

Buffy shook her head at how wrong he was. "No. I – he loves me, Spike."

Shaking his head, he backed away from her. "Forget it, Slayer. Got nothing more to say to you. The treaty? It's off. Stay clear of me, you want to live." He turned away, shaking his head, and the last thing Buffy heard before he disappeared with shocking speed was, "Got a death wish, anyway."

She stood on the sidewalk for a full minute, too numb to react. She'd had a really good time with Angel tonight, and then this. No more treaty, he'd said. For a moment, she wondered where the two had met, but the realization of what she'd lost drowned that question. The last few weeks had been so nice, with almost no vampires and Spike, who was almost as strong as she was, at her side to help when there was trouble on patrol. If it hadn't been for Impata and the serpent demon at the frat house, her life would have seemed almost normal.

Buffy turned away from where he had disappeared, dashing a hand over her cheek. Just a few days ago, she'd woken up in her bed, sweating because she still had a sweater over her pajamas, because he had very sweetly put her there. She didn't remember falling asleep on the couch, but she knew he'd cleaned up the kitchen and put their laundry in the dryer. He was so considerate. Her father had never done that sort of thing around the house.

She started walking a little faster, pulling her jacket closer around her body, the stake half-hidden inside the fabric. The treaty wasn't what made things easy the past few weeks; it was Spike. He even made patrol fun. Sure, she looked forward to patrolling with Angel, but it was because they spent a good chunk of time making out. With Spike fighting beside her, moving flawlessly to complement her in a way no cheerleading squad ever had, for the first time her sacred duty wasn't a chore.

Spike had looked so disappointed in her. Buffy sniffled, then firmed her chin. She didn't lead her life to please a vampire that didn't even have a soul. Still, there was no more spring in her step as she trudged the last couple of blocks home. She'd just lost a friend.

⸹

The factory was in sight before Spike calmed down and stopped thinking about the bloody stupid little blond Slayer enough to realize the most important thing: an old Aurelian was in town.

He actually stood in the middle of the factory parking lot and began to laugh. Perfect. It was perfect. He had the incantation, had the last ingredient, and had even broken the treaty and the promise not to hurt her friends. Spike swaggered through the fire exit, slamming the door behind him. Minions scattered out of his way. He could sense Drusilla in their bedroom, and he headed that way.

"Dru? Love?" His voice was gentle despite his manic joy.

She was playing quietly with her dolls, and she stilled when he came in, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "You sing of lemon ice and sugar."

"About that happy, yeah." Spike put his arms around her waist. "Love, you're going to be back in the pink within the week. Found what I was looking for."

"A cure?"

"Yeah. Old blood." He turned her so she faced him and put his forehead against hers. "You'll never guess who's in town, poodles." When her eyes slid away, Spike's grin became fixed. "Or maybe you can guess." Drusilla still didn't answer, and his grip tightened. "How long have you known?"

"Hard to think. Days pass by so."

Looking down at her dark hair, his quick mind put everything together. Buffy must have seen Drusilla talking to Angelus. Jealous and hurt, she'd flirted with him to get revenge. The irony could kill a fellow. Only then did he realize that Dru had kept a secret, kept from him information that could make her well.

He watched her smooth the skirt of the doll she held, feeling sick as the old pain sped through his mind and heart. She still loved Daddy, more even than herself, it seemed.

He dug a little, dragged his happiness back out, and wiped some of the dirt off. "We're going to have to have Angelus over for a visit. Have to talk to him about things."

"She's got him." Drusilla's eyes became unfocused. "All of him swims around her."

Spike shook her once. "Princess, you're going to have to stay here with me and answer one question." When he was sure she was listening, he put it in clear terms. "You have to decide: do you love yourself more than you love Daddy? Because to get you well, we're going to need his blood."

"All of it?"

"Yeah. To get you healthy, all of it."

"Can I punish him first? Make him sorry for leaving? Sorry for everything?"

His mouth quirked. "So long as you don't spill his blood, you can hurt him all you like."

"I would like." There was something savage in Drusilla's voice. "All gone, for so long. Bad Daddy."

"No truer words," Spike said heavily, but he wasn't thinking of how Angelus had left the family.

"Then he'll hurt outside and in," Drusilla declared with pronounced satisfaction.

"Yeah? What do you have planned?"

"Will you tie him tightly? So he can writhe and twist but not get away?"

"Anything you like."

"I'll open my trunk and let him taste water and steel and iron and silk," she said dreamily, "and the Order of Taraka will make him taste despair."

"The assassins? How's that, love?"

She moved out of his embrace and swayed back and forth. "He put the girl in his heart," and her voice was venomous, "filled him with shame and anger. I can make that stop, can end it."

Even for Spike, it took a few moments to piece it together. The soul loved Buffy, which made the demon inside Angelus furious. She wouldn't kill Daddy, so Drusilla was going to have Buffy assassinated.

Nothing showed on his face. He hadn't wanted to burden Drusilla with details, so she knew nothing of the treaty or of how he got access to the library. He had told her only that he wasn't going to bother killing this Slayer. Drusilla had done nothing wrong, given what she knew, hadn't despoiled everything twice in two minutes. She didn't need to know how angry he was.

"How are you going to pay the Order?" His voice was silky.

"Pay?"

"Yes. Pay."

"We have gold."

"If they fulfill the contract, they name their price."

"We can pay."

"What if it's you, love?"

"You'll kill them."

He closed his eyes. "I can kill a lot of things for a long time, but I can't kill all those assassins forever." Sighing, he held out his hand. "Give me the token."

Drusilla was pouting now. "But I want her out of his insides."

"Won't be anything left in his insides, anyway, and we'll want some folding when we blow this fuckin' town." He tapped his palm with his fingers impatiently. "The token."

Drusilla reluctantly unwrapped the blindfold around Miss Mary's eyes and produced a plain gold signet ring engraved with the letter 'D' from the eye socket. "Here," she said with ill grace.

Spike left and went to what had probably been a supply closet to draw a chalk circle and contact the Order. Half an hour later, he had ended the contract and negotiated a cancellation price that left him furious at the same time he was grateful they would even take it. The Taraka representative huffed a bit, allowed that some of the assassins might not get the message, but that they would not charge for completion. Out of curiosity, he asked what the price would have been. The demon couldn't smile, but it clacked its mandibles together and said that he would make a fine assassin and that twenty years wasn't that long for a vampire.

Spike broke the circle and crushed the signet ring. A sorcerer with a good healing spell wouldn't even have charged that much. The things he did for his princess. At least the Order was only getting gold from them. The Slayer could take care of a few stray assassins.

He thought about going down to bash in Dalton's head, as he was the only vampire who could possibly have known how to get in touch with the Order, but decided it could wait. Drusilla was still playing with her dolls, so he kicked off his boots and laid down on top the mattress to wait for her to come to bed.

"You must be a good girl, Miss Edith, because Daddy will be here soon. You know how he gets when he's cross with you."

Spike closed his eyes. Daddy. Right. And now the wanker had his hooks in a Slayer, too. He rolled to his side, away from Drusilla, and hoped for sleep.

⸹

Giles closed the thin volume for the fourth time that night, determined not to return to Lydia Chelmer's thesis. It was late – it was, in fact, time to leave the library. Willow had spent an hour earlier in the evening studying. Xander had been at the same table with his schoolwork, but had not exactly studied. They left after Buffy came by to meet Angel for patrol, leaving him alone.

He was glad the dark-haired vampire hadn't stayed for any length of time. It still gave him knots in his stomach, knowing the guilt-ridden creature was the same detestable grandsire he and Buffy had heard Spike speak about so casually. Giles was sure that Buffy had not made that connection.

The books were reshelved, the computers had been turned off hours ago, and the water in the kettle had cooled. There was really no reason to stay.

"Wotcher, Watcher."

Or, there was one reason to stay.

Giles hand tightened on the stake in his jacket pocket. "I thought you might stop by."

Spike moved further into the library, trailing his hand along the tables and watching that rather than looking at Giles. He seemed… embarrassed. "Yeah." He squared his shoulders. "Wanted to say goodbye."

"By killing me?" And he couldn't help but think of Deirdre and Philip and Ethan then, wondering if it was his turn after all.

"Rather permanent goodbye, that," Spike said, but he didn't seem angered. "You don't need the stake."

"You're leaving then? With a cure in reach?"

Spike did look at him then, moving only his eyes. Then the diffidence went away, and he moved with his usual swagger. "Like I said when we met, they don't give Slayers to idiots."

Giles hadn't loosened his grip on the stake. It might not make a difference – he'd seen how quickly the blond vampire could move – but he might get lucky. "Why goodbye? Why would you leave if your sire is already in town?"

"Why would I stay?" Spike shot back immediately. "Here? In Sunnyhell?"

"You're the Master. It's the Hellmouth."

"Yeah, well, don't give a toss about either of those things." He tilted his head. "Aren't you going to offer me a spot of tea?"

"Kettle's cold," Giles said, taking his hand from his pocket and turning around to go into his office to get things started. No interest in being Master; no pull to stay on the Hellmouth. He was going to trust that his theory was correct. The Watcher took the opportunity to move the thesis on Spike to the top of a filing cabinet, then piled several more books atop it under the guise of clearing a space for cups.

"Am I keeping you from your bed? Wouldn't want the caffeine to keep you up."

"Might as well pretend we're civilized men."

Spike snorted and flung himself into the other chair in the office, watching the human turn on the electric kettle and get out the tin of loose Earl Grey tea. "Love that smell," he said appreciatively. Then his tone changed. "I take it Angelus told you that he talked to Drusilla. She shouldn't have been out by herself, but the minions are too easy for her to get around."

"Angel," he stressed the name, "did share that with me, after Buffy confronted him about him talking to some woman one night." Giles sat down in his own chair. "You know, he feels such enormous guilt about what he did to her, he might agree to do whatever you ask of him."

"'Angel' staked his own sire, if what I heard is true. He isn't going to help an enormously powerful vampire recover her strength so that he can feel guilty about what she's bound to do afterwards." At Giles surprise, he gave the human a louche look. "Spent two years, on and off, with the great poof after he got cursed by the gypsies. Can't say I know him well, but I do know him."

Giles was beginning to be impatient for the tea to be done. He rather needed it. "Buffy said… The night you broke the treaty, she said you were upset that she was, was seeing Angel, that you called him Angelus."

"'S what I've always called him, if not worse. 'Angel' is new to me." Spike shrugged.

"He isn't the same being, not with the soul." Giles felt he had to try reason.

"Soul or not, he's Angelus." Spike leaned forward. "Would you want to be around him if he didn't have a soul? Like me?"

Giles looked away from the frank expression and changed the subject. "Why did you break the treaty?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Fit of pique."

"You didn't know about Angel's presence until that time, did you?"

"No; how would I? People I saw every day didn't tell me."

"I won't apologize. Angel is an ally, and other demons tend to dislike him."

Something clear blazed in Spike's eyes for a moment. "I can understand that."

The water had finished heating, and Giles was silent as he poured. They both puttered over their cups for a moment, then sat back at the same time. "What are your intentions?"

"Just like before. Get my sire healthy and get out of this boring little town."

"Buffy won't let you just take him."

"She won't be able to stop me." He lifted the cup and blew on the surface of his tea. "I like her, Watcher. Won't hurt her unless I have to."

"I'll have to warn him, you know."

Malice glittered in his eyes. "You don't care one _sou_ whether he lives or dies. I'm sure you are less than overjoyed about your Slayer macking on a vampire."

Macking? "True, but I care about Buffy. Slayers don't live long. I don't have it in me to deny her any moment of happiness."

"Slayers who do stupid things like dallying with vampires live very short lives." He put his cup down and pushed it away, closing his eyes. "Seen this too many times, Watcher. The old man fixates on a young girl – always very young, often small and blond – and he gets to know their routine, their habits," he opened his eyes and met Giles gaze steadily, "their weaknesses. Then he kills them or turns them… whatever he did, his methods were always horrific.

"As I said, I like your Slayer. She's just a girl, practically a child. Don't want to see anyone else hurt by him." He picked up the cup again and took a reckless sip. "Whatever he does, doesn't heal."

Giles watched him wince at the hot tea and knew he was thinking of his own sire. Caught between wanting to ask about the vampiress Drusilla and not wanting to know graphic details, he hesitated too long, and the moment was lost. Spike rose, leaving his tea with the token sip gone, and went to the door. "None of you need to worry about your lives, unduly. Just keep her out of my way. Think about it, Watcher. Do nothing, and a great many of your worries will just disappear."

The vampire was gone, the library door swinging in his wake, leaving Giles with his tea. Say nothing. Angel gone, and the other two Aurelians out of Sunnydale and someone else's problem. No vampires compromising Buffy's calling with souls or treaties. It was the best offer he'd had since the chance to train a Slayer of his own. He sat there thinking until the forgotten tea was too cold and bitter to drink.

⸹

"Dammit," Xander said groggily. He scooted to the edge of his bed and groped around for a t-shirt, then went to the window, where someone was rapping steadily. "It's insane o'clock in the morning, Willow." Then he woke up just a little more. "Oh, God. Is something wrong?"

"It is if you can't tell I'm not Willow," came the amused answer.

Xander pushed the curtains aside but didn't open the window. "Spike." The tone wasn't inviting, either.

"Not here to kill you, whelp."

"Then why are you here? 'Cause I got a long day of skipping class ahead of me. I need my sleep."

"I'll be heading out of town in a few days," the vampire explained, keeping his timeframe vague. "I travel light, so wanted to give you something I can't take with me."

"Leave it on the windowsill."

"Won't fit." He tilted his head. "You gonna come outside?"

"No. I'm not stupid."

Spike let his head fall back. "I broke the treaty because I found out who the Slayer is calling 'boyfriend' these days. I know and loathe the old man. She wouldn't listen to me, so I got mad. 'S'really the only thing that changed." He looked directly at Xander. "I won't hurt you, mate."

Xander pondered this for a few seconds. "Okay. I'll come out."

Spike gestured at his own head. "Might wanna run a comb over that."

Grumbling, he found jeans and shoes, half-heartedly tried to flatten his hair with his hand, and scrambled out of the window. Spike was waiting at the edge of the back yard and inclined his head toward the street.

"Where are we going?"

"Just here."

Xander looked around at the empty street. Lights were off in the houses, cars lined the curb, and there was a decent chill in the air. "There's nothing here." He began to feel nervous.

"Here, right in front of you." The cooling engine of the car ticked just before Spike thumped the roof.

"That?" It was old, long, and low. He couldn't tell much about it in the darkness.

"Yeah, that. Won it 'bout a week ago, and since I can't very well drive two cars when I leave, thought you could use one."

Xander blinked at him. "You want to give me a car?"

Spike shrugged. "Well, you don't have one. I don't need two. Made sense." The boy didn't need to know he'd traveled to Santa Clarita for a drag race, a race notorious for having pinks as the stakes, for the purpose of having a spare car. Winning a race is a pretty easy thing when you have supernatural reflexes and no fear of a crash. "'S'not cherry, but it runs, has all its windows. Seventy-three, I think. Probably cost you a fortune to maintain."

Still looking confused, as though the concept of someone giving him a present couldn't be absorbed, Xander bent over to look through the passenger window. He saw a long dashboard and a gleam along the top of a steering wheel. "It's not new or anything," he mused, "and it didn't cost a lot?"

Surprised by the boy's neutral reaction, Spike lifted a shoulder. "Didn't cost me anything. Like I said, I won it. Title's in the cubby, er, glove box. Not sure how to take care of the legal part, but I'm sure you can figure that out."

"I don't know what to say."

"'Thank you' is customary, I believe." Spike's tone was dry. "Here," he fished the keys from a pocket of his coat, "night's wasting."

"I can't take it. I mean, thank you, man, but I just can't. It's too much."

Spike lifted a shoulder. "Fine. I'll leave the keys on the boot. Someone will take it."

Xander spazzed a little with his hands. "You can't do that!"

"I don't need it, Harris. Got wheels I like a lot better." He enunciated clearly.

The human held out for one last second, then took the keys. "Thank you," he said, clearly embarrassed. "I mean… this is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"It's just a thing," Spike said, trying to shrug it off. The boy stopped his words with a quick, awkward, one-armed hug.

"Thank you."

"Like I said, I'm not doing you any favors. Old tank like this, probably be at the auto shop every week." He turned back toward Xander's yard, and the human followed, looking over his shoulder at the car, the keys clutched tightly in his hand. "Anyway, I shouldn't have come by so late. Just trying to get 'round to see everyone, say my goodbyes like I said I would."

"Are you going to see Buffy?"

It was Spike's turn to look embarrassed. "Pro'ly not. Made a prat of myself." He shrugged. "And I'd likely get angry and try to knock sense into her. Best if I don't."

Xander put his hands on the windowsill and wedged his shoulders through, then half-fell inside. He turned and looked down at the blond man. "You know why I came out?" When the vampire shook his head, the human smiled. "I don't really like Angel, either."

He couldn't help it; it was a visceral reaction. "Has he hurt you?"

Xander shook his head. "The night I saved Buffy's life? I had to shame him into showing me the way to the Master's lair. He wouldn't have done anything."

"Never did care to put himself out."

"Thank you." He held up a fist tight around the keys. "I mean… Really, thank you."

" _De nada_. Night, mate. I'll try to get back around to visit in a few years."

"Bye, Spike." He waited until the vampire was out of view before closing the window. Xander stripped down to his boxers again and dropped onto the bed. The keys were still in his hand. There were two of them on a ring with a worn leather loop. "I have a car," he said softly. "I am California man."

⸹

Willow's alarm clock went off at 4:55. She grabbed it, fumbled with the off button, and lay on her bed, blinking in the darkness. She listened for a minute, then got up and went to the bathroom. Before her parents woke up at five, she was already sitting at her desk, going over her homework.

The Rosenbergs liked to get up early and get a start on the day. Her mother was fond of saying it was the easiest way to excel in the world. Ira would get his daily cup of coffee and go into his study to work on the next revision of his textbook, _Principles of Accounting_ , used in colleges all over the world. Sheila would grade papers, go over committee work, or read new issues of political science journals as she cut up fruit and made whole-grain toast for breakfast. By seven-thirty, her parents would be dropping her off at school on their way to campus. It was a very structured morning routine.

Willow was working on some additional trig problems that hadn't been assigned but would help her retain the concept, when there was a light knock on her balcony door. She wrote down the solution quickly, then turned.

Instead of Xander or even Buffy, it was Spike. She could clearly see his blond head. Hesitantly, she went to look at him through the glass.

"Hey, Red." He gave her a crooked smile. "Don't invite me in. I just came to say goodbye." Spike nodded at his surroundings. "Though, this time of day, this setting, I really want to whip out the 'What light through yonder window' speech."

She didn't smile as she looked out at him on her balcony. She didn't feel very much like Juliet in her fuzzy pajamas and floor-length terry-cloth robe. "My parents are awake. Please be quiet."

"I heard them."

"You really upset Buffy."

"Yeah, well, she really upset me, being so stupid. Bad taste in men, that one."

"You might have known him when he didn't have his soul, but you don't know him now. He's really been a big help to us."

Clearly not interested in this debate, Spike shrugged. "Whatever."

Willow didn't say anything for a moment, recognizing an opinion that wasn't going to change from living with her mother all these years. "So, Giles' library was a bust. Are you going to try magic for the cure?"

"Anything I do," he said with another shrug, "I'll take the consequences on myself. No worries."

She looked troubled. "You've got something in mind."

Oh, she was sharp. "Listen, Red, I feel like I should give you a lovely parting gift, but I really don't have anything. Just wanted to maybe give some advice." When she started to say something, he lifted a hand. "Not about Angelus. About you." He shifted his feet, uncomfortable. "Dunno how you see yourself, love, but to me you seem like that light under the bushel. You're prettier than you let on, you've got brains, and you are going to blossom in the next few years. So my advice is just… get out of Sunnydale."

"I-I will. I'll be going away to college." This wasn't what she expected.

"Good. Go far, far away. This town doesn't reward people who stand out – makes 'em an easy target. You're one of the sweetest people I've met this century. Just don't want you to stay here and see so much ugliness that you lose that." He shrugged. "Makes you, dunno, special. Rare quality and all.

"I see you helping the Slayer, helping Giles." His eyes were sincere through the glass. "You're not meant to be in the shadows, just helping. What I mean is, make sure it's about you sometimes."

"O-okay."

He nodded. "Right, then. I get back in the area, I'll check and see where you're at. Try to visit," he raised a placating hand, "just a nice, non-lethal kind of visit." Then he thought of something that might work. "May I shake your hand?"

"Uh… sure." Still wary, she opened her door slightly and reached out.

He took her hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Willow. You know," he gave her thin fingers a tiny squeeze, "I shook Professor Einstein's hand in Brussels in 1927."

Her hand clenched on his for a moment. "You… with Albert Einstein?"

Spike couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled like this, open and happy. With his cousin Pippa, maybe. "Yeah. He smelled of pipe tobacco." Pulling his hand away, he nodded at her. "Bye, love."

"Bye, Spike."

And he was gone from the balcony. Einstein. Willow looked out at the darkness for a moment, then shook the stars from her eyes, focusing. What he said about leaving Sunnydale sounded a great deal like disloyalty to her. Giles needed her help – he didn't know the first thing about computers – and Buffy was her best friend. Best girl friend, right next to Xander in besty-ness. But something in her felt warm and gooey, because he saw her as something more than just part of the Slayer's team. She went back to her desk, closed her book, and put it in her bookbag. It was five-twenty now, her time to shower.

⸹

Xander woke up the second time his mother tapped on his door. "'M'up," he said, blinking and using his elbows to prop up. Then, "Ow." He rolled to the side and fished for the sharp thing poking him.

He looked at the keys for almost a minute. It felt like a dream, but it hadn't been.

A smile was on his face the whole time he was getting ready, even present when he fished a piece of bacon off a plate as he waded through the argument his parents were having in the kitchen. I have a heap, he thought happily. I have a junker, a hooptie, and I don't have to walk to school today. He took off through the back yard to the sidewalk, then stopped abruptly.

It was still old, long, and low. It was dusty and would probably need new tires soon.

It was also a 1973 Charger.

Xander let out a long breath that was almost a moan. He had a classic American muscle car. It was black. He looked around for anyone who might tell him he was mistaken, then tried the door. It was unlocked, something that wouldn't happen again.

The interior was clean, but he scarcely noticed. Xander put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car started immediately with a smooth, low rumble. He was helpless to keep the smile off his face. "Spike, old buddy," he said in the privacy of his very own vehicle, "I'm going to have to find out what your other car is."

⸹

"Joyce?"

"Oh!" Joyce put her hand to her heart. "Spike, you startled me." He was standing at the door to the gallery, holding the door that she'd just unlocked.

"Sorry. Do you have just a minute? Wanted to speak with you before I leave town."

He let the door close, and as it chimed, Joyce smelled something burnt waft inside. She wrinkled her nose a little. Must be a wildfire somewhere; it was the height of the season. "Of course. Please, come on back to my office." Leading the way, she talked to him over her shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't be here long, but I'm so sorry we didn't get a chance to have dinner again. I really enjoyed the nights you stopped by for cocoa."

"Yeah, me, too." He waited for her to sit, and Joyce surprised him by settling on one end of the couch. Spike dropped down on the other end. "Wanted to talk to you about Buffy. 'M worried about her," he mumbled.

"Worried?" she echoed.

"Yeah, about her…" It struck him then. Joyce had never mentioned that Buffy had a… boyfriend. "Uh, there's this guy that seems to be, I dunno, stalking her. Tall guy, dark hair, looks like a Neanderthal?" He waved his hand around his brow.

It wasn't a fair description, but Joyce was sure she knew the man Spike was talking about. "I met him once. He was tutoring Buffy last year."

Tutoring. Angels wept. "Anyway, I've noticed him around places where she's at," he lied. "Buffy doesn't seem worried about him, but," he leaned toward her and put his best mesmer forward, "don't let him come in your house or anything." Maybe he could get her mum to listen to reason, with a little extra help. Until he saw Angelus go to dust, Spike was going to assume his grandsire was still a danger to everyone he cared about.

"I won't let him in." Joyce's brow furrowed for a moment, then she shook her head a little, clearing it. "Thank you for letting me know, for looking out for her."

"Least I could do, after what she did for me."

Impulsively, Joyce put her hands out for his. "I'm going to miss you."

"I make it back to Sunnydale, I'll definitely stop by to visit."

"I'm going to hold you to that." She looked down. "Goodness, your hands are cold! Do you want some tea? I can make some in no time."

"No, but thank you. I'd better clear out, let you work."

They stood, and Joyce hesitated on her way to the door. She turned to him with a mischievous look. "I finally figured out where I'd seen you before."

"Yeah?"

She smiled again at his puzzled look and turned to pull a volume from her bookcase. Joyce found the page she was looking for and was grateful the sticky note was still in position. She turned the book to face him and held it out so he could see.

Several expressions crossed his face before chagrin became dominant. "Yeah, I've seen that. Looks like me, dunnit?"

"It looks incredibly like you. I actually wanted to ask if your grandfather knew the artist or something."

"No, he never left England. Artist was French, I remember right."

"Still, it was worth asking."

"Couldn't be something highbrow, like Rodin, huh?"

"This is in the Museum of Modern Art," Joyce said somewhat starchily. "That's pretty highbrow."

"Just promise not to tease me about it, okay?"

She held up her hand, the lovely Summers smile on her face. "Pinky promise." He smiled back, but he felt a pang. If he ever did see her again, it would be well after the life expectancy of a Slayer. Spike managed a half-hearted smile of his own and wished her well as he made his exit.

That took care of saying goodbye to everyone he cared about in Sunnydale. Well, he thought with a pang, except the Slayer. The best he could do for her was say goodbye to those in Sunnydale he did not care for.

⸹

Spike shoved the heavy manhole cover to the side and climbed into the factory's boiler room from the sewer access. He was grateful for it; the night's errands had taken a long time, mostly due to humans' light-oriented schedule. Of course, it hadn't been all rainbows and goodbyes. The most important errand had been at the first.

He'd watched Buffy leave with Angelus on patrol before going in to bid farewell to Giles. After that little chat with the Watcher, it was obvious that he had to bag the bastard right away. Knowing the Slayer's routine had helped; all he had to do was drive back to the factory and get a couple of the beefier minions for heavy lifting, then make a quick detour to a veterinarian's office for large animal tranquilizers.

They'd trailed the Slayer and her escort as she left the Shady Rest and headed home. Angelus hadn't quite walked her to her door, and it was a simple matter to send the minions to pin his arms while he was watching her and distracted. Spike moved in at speed behind them, drawing shadow to the scene, and plunged the syringe unerringly into his grandsire's carotid artery. It only took a few seconds before the big body slumped, and he was frankly surprised at how little strength the old man had during the short struggle. Spike knew he was a hundred years more powerful, but so was Angelus. After that, it was an easy drive to deliver the package to Drusilla, nicely trussed up for her amusement. He wondered what she'd done to Daddy since he'd been out.

Lots of things that led to the smell of burned flesh, it seemed. Spike took a final breath of unpolluted air and opened the door to their bedroom. Drusilla turned to him, her eyes sparkling, and she looked so much livelier already that he had to smile.

"You been a good girl, then? No knives or pokers?" He went to her and curved his body around her back, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.

"No. You said to leave the blood for now." Together, they considered her captive.

"You were supposed to take care of her."

No other words from Angelus could hurt Spike so much. The bastard had always had a knack for finding vulnerable spots. Unable to come up with any defense for what had happened in Prague, he just lifted his chin and sneered at his grandsire.

Angel responded to the sneer with some old, familiar nastiness. "You haven't taken care of her in any way. I can feel her hunger in the way she touches me." He shifted his gaze to Drusilla, addressing her in a seductive tone. "He never did care for the pre-show, didn't know how to tease –"

"Hush. Bad dog."

Spike let go of her. "Both of you can hush." He went to stand close enough to Angelus that he had to look up. "Or not. Say what you want. Like a condemned man's last night, innit? First of the new moon tomorrow, and now I've got her sire's blood, we'll have us a little ritual and get her all better. Take care of her, good and proper." He leaned even closer and reached down to squeeze Angel's package. "Huh. Not much life in the old man," he informed Drusilla. "Whatever Angelus says, he's not having as much fun as you are."

"Angel."

Spike backed away a step and lifted an eyebrow. Beside him, Drusilla hissed. Before he could make a reply, his grandsire went on.

"Not Angelus. Not anymore. It's Angel."

"Whatever." He turned and encircled Dru's thin body once again. "You can't provoke me, she can't provoke you… not much of a family reunion."

"Whatever you have planned, Buffy won't let you get away with it."

"Planned?" Spike shook his head. "Drusilla's well-being is the only plan. Surely the Slayer wouldn't interfere in family matters."

"Spikey isn't the only one who can kill Slayers," Drusilla murmured.

Fear flashed across Angel's face for a brief moment. That sounded like prophecy. He mastered his emotions. "The Slayer isn't the only one who can kill vampires."

"No," Spike agreed lazily, "she isn't." He let go of Drusilla and walked toward the door. "Gonna go take care of some last details for tomorrow. You all good here?"

She nodded. "I was reminding Daddy about the past. I'd only gotten around to Mummy."

"Lot of rellies to go," Spike said amiably, but his eyes were on Angel's face, hard with condemnation. He closed the door, satisfied as he could be with the old man and Drusilla under the same roof. Didn't matter. After tomorrow night, everything would be better.

⸹

Spike swam up from the darkness, fighting against it. There was pain and, much more frightening, a lack of pain. His memories were muddled. Drusilla and… Angelus? Tied together? And two Slayers, which made no sense.

He tried to move and couldn't. Without meaning to, he made some noise.

"Don't worry, dearheart."

Dru's voice, reassuring him. She was pulling on him, and it hurt, it hurt –

⸹

The next time he woke, he was much more lucid, enough to know he felt like shit. Sighing, he left his eyes closed and did an inventory of the damage. Burns, mostly on his face. God, he hated burns. His left shoulder and a few ribs were broken. He couldn't feel his lower half.

Spike's eyes flew open. He couldn't feel his legs.

The next five minutes were terrifying. Ignoring the pain, Spike hauled his torso upright and felt along his bits and his legs. Everything was there; must have a broken back. It would heal, but he had no idea how long that would take.

He was lying on his bed at the factory, still in Sunnydale. Someone was looking out for him, and that meant Drusilla was operational at the very least. His memories were less fragmented now. There had been an old pipe organ in the church; it must have collapsed. He remembered a clanging as parts of it rained down on him. He had an odd, floating moment where he thought of a building falling in around him almost unnoticed, but that had never happened, not even in London during the bombing. He shook it off, lay back down with a groan of relief, and explored his scalp gingerly, checking for concussions and trying to determine the extent of the burns.

Drusilla, strong and vital, came into the room. It had been so long since he'd seen her like this, healthy, that he forgot about his own pitiful condition and smiled.

"Let me look at you, love."

She preened for him, turning from side to side. "You found the ritual that worked," she said, crowing a little, "and I'm all better. Now we got to get you out of that bed." Dru gave him a wicked look. "Though I do like you in bed."

"Give me time, pet," he said, dark promise in his tone.

"Let me finish healing you," she said, suddenly next to him, holding out her wrist.

"No," he said firmly, annoyed. "You know what we went through to get you that blood. I won't jeopardize your recovery." Spike's voice softened. "You saved me, pet."

She gave him a quizzical look. "Of course I did. I love you, silly goose."

"Means a lot to me." He smiled up at her, despite the pain to his burned face. "Tell me, 'cause I can't remember everything. What happened?"

"I ran. I thought you would be behind me. There were two Slayers, Spike." He saw fear in her eyes.

"Yeah, will wonders never cease." He didn't add anything, but he was thinking of what Buffy and Xander had told him about the night she defeated the Master, how she'd died and been revived. Interesting times they lived in.

"It was enough to cure me, though. I came back for you as soon as it was dark, let you drink." Drusilla's focus went to the sheet that covered him, and she traced a sharp fingernail along the hem. "The Slayer got Daddy out."

"Angelus survived?"

"We won't see him for a long time. He didn't have much blood left." She wrinkled her nose, and he knew she was thinking of scary, shuffling, starved vampires. The legend of mummies was based on Egyptian vampires who'd been sealed in tombs.

"Yeah, well, blood me up. I'll get back on my feet, and we'll get out of this dump." He paused for a moment, then went on diffidently. "May take longer than usual. I channeled the spell." And then had a fight with two Slayers. Consequences, he thought.

"I like the Hellmouth," Drusilla said, something dreamy in her voice.

"I don't."

She gave him an impish smile. "Less than Los Angeles? Or Antarctica?"

"Only place I like less is Prague," he growled. Then he changed the subject. "Any problems with the minions?"

"Just one," Drusilla said with a secretive smile, "and now that the problem is taken care of, I don't think there will be any more."

Spike decided he didn't want to know details. He was tired; coming to terms with being paralyzed, even temporarily, was a new and horrifying experience. But it was worth it: Drusilla was well.

"Think I'll sleep for a while," he said, his eyelids already closing. Showed you, was his last thought. I do take care of her.

⸹

[Author's Note: A chunk of dialogue in this section comes from 'Lie to Me,' because Joss Whedon's words are perfect.]

"I don't want to read it."

Giles sighed. He recognized the set of Buffy's shoulders, the way she had her head averted. Kendra had been the opposite, so biddable and willing. And so much less of a warrior than Buffy. Thank God for mulish Slayers, he thought tiredly.

"Very well," he said, laying the thesis aside. "If you won't read it, I must tell you something –"

"Don't." Buffy was tired, having stayed with Angel all night. She'd forced every unit and jar of blood in his refrigerator into his frighteningly thin body, then tucked him into bed as dawn approached. Then, just like she'd explained to Spike, she'd gone to school and fallen asleep in French class. "I think I know what you're going to say."

Giles watched her walk a few steps away. She looked so tired, and he hoped there would be a lull now. With any luck, Spike had taken his mad sire and left town, but Kendra's words haunted him: a dark power arising in Sunnydale. It had to be Drusilla, and he wasn't enough of an optimist to believe she would just go away. Angel hadn't died, though the ritual had taken most of his blood. The vampiress would stay for him. Giles waited, feeling sympathy for Buffy.

"They're related, aren't they?" She closed her eyes. "I mean, Angel sired Drusilla."

"Yes." It was a simple word, but he saw what it did to the Slayer. It took every year of Watcher training to restrain himself from going to her.

"I knew, I just… didn't want to know," Buffy whispered. She bowed her head a moment before turning to Giles. She'd shared almost everything with her Watcher, the things Spike had told her, the reasons she found him trustworthy. The only thing she'd kept to herself was the story of the asylum in Los Angeles. She was sure that had never made it back to the Council, and she had no desire to let them add it to their files. Well, that and her need for a kiss to bolster her ego. And she'd neglected to mention anything past using the outside hose after the slime demon incident. But the oddity of why Spike was sired and the punishments he'd received for the ability to care… yeah, her Watcher knew those, too.

When she spoke again, her voice was stronger, and she went to stand closer to Giles. "H-he tried to tell me last night, but I wouldn't let him talk. He was too weak. But he's sorry, he said that, he–"

"Angel didn't have his soul when they were in family." Giles' voice was kind. "I know that, Buffy." He understood her reluctance to admit the truth. He didn't like thinking of the brooding dark-haired vampire and the amusing blond-haired vampire in a violent relationship, either. He thought of the reason Spike had broken the treaty, checking Buffy for harm inflicted by his grandsire.

"And Spike only wanted to help his…" Buffy bit her lip. She didn't have a better word than 'girlfriend,' but it didn't fit the strange woman very well.

"I think Spike came here to do to the Master what he ended up doing with Angel." At Buffy's surprised look, he shrugged. "The older the blood, the stronger it is. I only mean, I don't think it was anything necessarily personal. It's just," he smiled a little, "you'd killed the rest of the Aurelians. I doubt Angel is in danger from them now."

"I don't think Spike got out."

Giles tilted his head to better hear her quiet words. "Of the church?"

Buffy shook her head. "I saw Drusilla get out, but… Those big pipes collapsed on him after I knocked him into the organ."

"And then the fire…" Giles closed his eyes for a moment, then forced himself to say what he had to, his voice gentle. "He was a vampire, Buffy."

She shook her head. "He was. He was my friend, too." The Slayer turned away, unhappy with herself. "Why was he so… different, Giles?"

He didn't answer right away, reaching to rest his fingers atop the thesis about the singular vampire. "I doubt we'll ever know. I suspect…."

When her Watcher didn't finish, Buffy came back to look up at him. "Tell me."

How odd that she didn't want to know anything about Angel's past but did want to hear this. "I suspect that there never will be another vampire like him, not one that survives long enough to be that strong. The reasons he was sired are the very ones that would get similar vampires killed shortly after the turning. Buffy," he sat down on the table so their eyes would be on the same level, "when he killed the first Slayer, the one in China, he drained her. It's how he killed her, actually. He took her blood."

She frowned. "I thought that was supposed to lead to suicide."

"It does. I've been checking. With every other vampire on record who has killed a Slayer by taking her blood, it leads to, to madness and self-destructive behavior. Our records aren't complete by any means, but we do have accounts from ancient Babylon, from earliest China. It's as constant as gravity. Even the Master knew better than to take much of your blood."

"So you think that Spike's ability to care…."

"I don't have any other known factor to pin it on. But, other than Angel, he's the most human vampire I've ever met – and Angel is a special case, of course. I think that humanity let Spike survive the Slayer's blood the first time, and he didn't drink from the others."

"You found information about the one in Chicago?"

"Yes. Just got the annotated diaries this week. Knife wound to the abdomen. It was quick." Giles noted Buffy's squeamish look. "I'm sorry, my dear. The death of Slayers isn't my favorite topic, either." He stood up and lifted Lydia Chalmers' book, meaning to put the thesis away for good.

"I hope he got out." When the Watcher turned back to her, Buffy met his eyes with a small shrug. "He was a friend," she said again.

"I rather enjoyed his company, too."

"It can't be easy, can it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Life," and she made an all-encompassing gesture. "What he did was wrong, but I understand why he did it. He wasn't evil, just… It would be easier if he was completely evil." She made a little movement, as if to turn, and stilled herself. "You know, it's just, like, nothing's simple. I'm always trying to work it out. Who to love, or hate… who to trust… It's like the more I know, the more confused I get."

Her boyfriend is a vampire, Giles thought, feeling the irony all over again. "I believe that's called growing up."

"Make it stop."

"It'll be all right."

"Promise? It'll get easy again?"

"What do you want me to say?

She gave him that small smile that always melted his heart. "Lie to me."

"Yes. It's terribly simple." He tucked the thesis against his chest. "The good guys are stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. Nobody ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after."

Buffy's smile grew into a real one, albeit wry. She went over and stood on tiptoe, waiting until he stiffly bent so she could kiss him on the cheek. She patted his arm, then scooped up her bookbag and headed out of the library, calling one word over her shoulder. "Liar."

⸹

January 1998

⸹

By the time Drusilla had a minion fetch him a wheelchair, the worst of the burns had healed and the new year was well underway. Spike was beyond tired of the slowness of the healing process, which wasn't helped by the fact that Drusilla often forgot to feed him, rather like the budgies and other pets she killed through neglect. He reminded her, but only when they were alone. It would never do to let the minions see him begging for food.

There were an annoying number of minions, too. Spike didn't think Drusilla or Dalton were siring, but someone in Sunnydale was, and their get seemed to make their way to the factory. In the evenings, it looked like the place was still in operation, like a shift was punching out for the day as vampires streamed away from the old building into the darkness. He thought it was far too high profile, but he didn't feel confident enough to issue orders, not until he was back on his feet. Twice he'd killed minions with his bare hands, but both had been isolated incidents. If any of the fledges started to scheme, Dru wouldn't notice and they might well take her out if they got him first. Fortunately, the lot of them were idiots, Sunnydale stock. How he'd managed to meet the five most interesting, most –

Spike stopped himself from continuing the thought. He wanted to hate the Slayer for putting him in a wheelchair, for undermining his reign as Master of the Hellmouth. The most he could manage, though, was vague resentment.

Didn't signify. Dru was healed, and as soon as he healed, they were out of here. He'd said his goodbyes.

⸹

Stairs. All it took was fucking stairs.

Spike did not meet any of the glances sent his way, did not gaze toward the upper floor of the factory. He stared into middle distance, as if in much deeper thought than he was.

If he grabbed the hoist chains by the far support pillar, he could get to the second story by pulling himself hand-over-hand, no problem, then swing to catch hold of the catwalk. No wheelchair up there, of course, so he'd be forced to belly-crawl to the room where Drusilla was… where she was.

The first day Angelus showed up, he had him practically as seduced as Drusilla. Then the git had groped him, not that he could feel it, and Spike immediately became of no use to him. The old man hadn't said anything, just threw a surprised look to Dru, who had too many stars in her eyes to give an apology. Angelus hadn't been within arm's reach since, because he was unfortunately not an idiot, and all it took to be safe from any possible Spike vengeance was a fucking flight of stairs.

Had he known this was coming? Spike supposed he had. Nearly a hundred years had passed, but he never forgot who held his black queen's heart. Their laughter sounded from the completely inaccessible upstairs room, and feeling all eyes on him, Spike tilted his head to an unconcerned angle.

He wasn't concerned about the minions. The cock-up with the Judge was too recent, as was Angelus' well-known past as a piss-poor excuse for a vampire. Spike was starved, but he was still fast enough to punch through chest cavities. As stupid as it was right now, he was worried about Dru. He was also furious with her, but shied away from that fact. Worried, he was worried. Angelus always put too much pressure on her to have visions, and that wasn't how it worked.

A cold, evil smile fell across his face, and the minions looked away. The Slayer had ended the Judge where whole armies hadn't been able to do it – and wouldn't he have loved to see Buffy with a rocket launcher over her shoulder? He fully expected the Slayer to end Angelus, too. He'd just have to goad the bastard to engage with her whenever possible.

Ah, poor Buffy. Angelus hadn't explicitly said what broke the curse, but it had to be something that involved her. What Spike knew of curses was cursory, but what he knew of magic gave a pretty big clue. An ironclad spell took enormous, coven-sized magic, but one with a linchpin clause let a single practitioner spin up a strong one. If Angelus wouldn't say what had freed him from the curse, the linchpin would have something to do with softness. Maybe he told her that he loved her.

The git still wasn't strong and had never been inclined to even visit a city where a Slayer lived. But right now he needed to seem powerful and put up a good front. Yeah, the more he prodded Angelus to face the Slayer, the better. However it happened, she was a woman scorned and undoubtedly furious about it.

⸹

"A 'real man?'" Angelus said with a smirk. He followed Drusilla, who stalked to where Spike sat. She plopped into his lap, felt his arms wrap around her automatically, and shot her sire a sulky look. "Oh, compared to this, I guess so."

"Dirty tricks from dirty little witches," Drusilla complained.

"Why so huffy, pet?"

"Made me feel fascination for a _human_."

His brows furrowed, glad to have her attention for at least a moment. "Made you… a spell, was it, pet?"

"Yeah, one of the Slayer's friends." Angelus was still amused. "Dru offered him eternal life," he added, needling her.

"You offer it to everyone else," she shot back. While Spike knew Angelus was siring so that he would have minions loyal just to him, for Drusilla they were only reasons to be jealous of Daddy's attention.

"No," Spike said, in a tone that made the unspoken 'you stupid bints' unnecessary, "the important thing here is, who cast a spell that can affect Drusilla?"

They shared a startled look, neither of them having considered this. Not even the Master could bind Drusilla. She pressed into Spike's chest, seeking shelter, breaking eye contact with Angelus.

"Tell me," he urged, and he pieced together a confusing story about a group of women chasing after Xander, of Drusilla caught up in the spell and becoming one of the pursuers. "Wasn't the boy," he said, "he doesn't have a drop of magic."

"The gypsy," Angelus said, "Jenny Calendar."

"It wasn't gypsy magic," Drusilla hissed, glaring at her sire, "I know gypsy magic."

"You," Spike said, his gaze on a minion, not one of Angelus', who was lingering nearby. Get over to the high school, outside the windows to the library, and listen. We need a name for a witch."

A couple of hours later, the minion returned not only with a name, but also with an address. Spike praised the initiative, and Drusilla and Angelus left, returning just before dawn with.…

"That's a mouse, pet."

Drusilla shook her head, catching the little white rodent as it tried to escape over her thin fingers. "No, it's a pet mouse. My pet mouse. I'm tired of budgies."

"Problem solved, then?" Spike turned to his grandsire for a lucid answer.

Angelus, watching Dru trying to corral the quick little creature, gave a short laugh. "Yeah. All that's left after our visit is the mouse, and I don't think it's going to cast spells." He laughed for no reason apparent to Spike.

"Angelus nearly killed it," Drusilla cooed. "Then it escaped right into my hands." She gave it a severe look. "Bit me, though." She showed her own teeth and made a snapping noise.

While Drusilla's attention was on her new pet, Spike choked out the words. "Thank you for taking care of that."

Angelus leaned over him, just out of reach, a cruel smile on his handsome face. "No problem. I just love to take care of her."

He forced himself to remain passive. If there had been a good time for him to take on the bastard, it was already in the past. Which, of course, left all of the wide open future.

⸹

Buffy watched vampires file out of the old factory. It was Friday night, so there were lots of potential victims out as well. She should be following them, felt the need to follow them and slay them almost as a physical ache, but forced herself to stay in place, breathing into her knit gloves to keep her breath from ghosting. It was cold tonight.

There. Tall and bulky, next to a shorter shadow with the shape of a skirt instead of legs. Angel – Angelus, with Drusilla. The big vampire strode toward the east, not paying attention to the woman at his side, though her head was turned up toward him. Buffy was downwind of the entrance, her bright hair hidden beneath a black beanie. She watched the two of them walk away, thinking of how Xander had tried to be brave and mock the fact that both of them nearly killed him the other night. Xander, who wanted her but had turned down her enchanted offer of sex because he loved her.

After the main group left, a few more vampires wandered out, then nothing for the long fifteen minutes she forced herself to wait. Standing, she ran to a telephone pole, then an empty guard gate, concealing herself as best she could on the journey across the parking lot to the doorway.

The inside of the old factory was well-lit, as though the vampires weren't at all worried about the police investigating trespassers at a supposedly abandoned building. She filed that away, but kept her focus on her surroundings. There would be guards.

A moment later, she pulled her stake sharply up and away from one of those guards. Good, she thought as it went to ash, no noise. Buffy went on her careful way.

She hadn't told Giles her plan, but it had been a tentative thought since the night she demolished the Judge. Staking a demon that wore Angel's face was just too much; she'd tried and failed. But killing a demon that wore Angel's face from a distance… Buffy thought she could do that. And a rocket launcher was very much a distance weapon. All she needed was a target.

So here she was, spying out which part of the building housed Angelus during the daylight hours. Hopefully the explosion would take out Drusilla as well, and a whole bunch of other vampires, too. If not, there would be huge, gaping entry for sunlight, probably a fire, too. Maybe Giles could think up a vampire-killing trap to set in the sewers to cut off escape.

Buffy crouched behind a column, hearing something. Wheels, maybe someone rolling a cart? Then the cause of the noise came into view.

All thoughts of subterfuge were forgotten. She stood and walked a couple of steps into the open floor of the factory. "Spike?"

His eyes snapped up to her, her voice breaking into his reverie. Then his eyes went past her, and Buffy was moving even before he got out the words. "Behind you."

Within two seconds, the vampire who'd been rushing her was dust, and she whirled around again. "Spike." In a wheelchair. And his face….

"There's another one."

"I got it already." She took another few steps forward, stood before him with her arms loose at her sides. After a long moment, she took in enough air to say, "I thought you were dead." Buffy covered her mouth with the hand that wasn't holding a stake, her eyes wide.

"You can't be here, pet," he said urgently, rolling the last few feet to her, braking the wheels with his hands.

Her hand left her mouth and went to his face, touching the skin at his temple, still rippled with burns. He ducked his head away, and Buffy let her eyes drop to his legs. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

"Sorr –" Spike gave an impatient shake of his head, capturing her fingers in his. "You need to leave."

Instead, she let out a muffled sob, bringing his hand to her face in turn, pressing it against her cheek. "I thought you were dead," she repeated.

Looking past her, Spike let out a breath, then his eyes came back to her. "Here, then." He took his hand away and turned the wheelchair, urging her to follow him with a jerk of his head. She trailed him until they were behind a furnace, and he turned the wheelchair again to face her. Buffy had tears on her cheeks, and she reached out again toward his face. Before she could say it again, he took her hand. "I'm sorry, too." His eyes were blue and kind and so human.

Her face screwed up. All that had happened since the last time they'd spoken, when he had warned her about Angelus –

"Ah, love," he said, holding out his arms. Then, somehow, he was sitting in the wheelchair along with the person who put him there, Buffy crying in his arms, curled onto his lap. He stopped looking past her and buried his face in her shoulder. When she eventually took a breath, mastering herself, Spike's face was wet, too.

"What happened?"

"Someone dropped a pipe organ on me," he answered, humor in his voice.

She looked down. "I-I had to."

"I know. Brilliant fight, love."

"B-bad burns?" She touched his temple again, thinking of the blaze in the old church, of him living through that, then lowered her fingers to wipe away the wetness on his lean cheek.

"Almost healed. I'll be all right. The back will heal, too. Just takes time." He returned the favor, brushing the tears from her cheek. Tears for me, he thought, bemused. "I channeled magic that night, takes a lot out of you, drains your reserves, I mean," he added, trying to offer comfort. He didn't consider why.

"You were right, that night you broke the treaty," she managed, then squeezed her eyes shut. Buffy turned her face away for a moment, letting out a harsh breath. More tears fell despite this, but she swallowed and brought her eyes back to his.

"First time for everything, I guess."

His second attempt at humor worked, barely. Buffy dashed the tears from her face, then traced under her eyeliner with the pad of her thumb. "It's been bad."

"Not too good here, either." He shrugged. "Didn't plan to be here, was gonna get Drusilla cured and leave Sunnydale."

Buffy's lips parted as the corollary of Spike being alive – well, not dust – occurred to her. "Has he… hurt you?"

"Only by sleeping with Dru," he said reassuringly.

She knew him well enough to recognize the misery beneath the light tone, but it was her own pain that closed her eyes. Of course Angelus would be sleeping with Drusilla. The one night with her meant nothing, not that way.

Spike's next words brought her back to the present. "You gotta leave now, Slayer."

Buffy's reply left the vampire speechless. "Let's go, then. You need to get out of here, too." She started to twist so she could stand up, but his arms tightened around her.

Spike was staring at her with a dumbstruck expression, something complicated behind it. He moved his head to one side, as if in negation, and his lips parted. No words came out.

She didn't know why, but she leaned forward and kissed him. Maybe because he was alive, because he was in pain, too. And when he kissed her back, it was nothing like their previous kiss in the tree. His mouth moved against her roughly, his hands suddenly on either side of the knit cap she wore. And when had she moved her hands to the back of his neck, the better to pull him closer? Her friend Spike, alive.

"Mmmph," he said, pulling away abruptly. God, what was wrong with him? He'd completely lost himself in their kiss, in her warmth and the rush of desire, his face turned up to hers like it was a safe source of sunlight. "Love, you gotta go. Now."

Buffy had leaned forward a half-inch, trying to recapture his kiss. She felt like covering her mouth again. She didn't, but it didn't change how dazed she was. What was that? "Spike?"

"I can't. It'd be a death sentence. But… thanks for asking." He took one of her hands, brought it to his mouth for a hard kiss, then began pushing her off his lap. "Here, I'll need this." Spike took the forgotten stake from her other hand. "I'll make up some story."

Buffy swallowed, standing up. His urgency was contagious. "You'll be okay?"

He didn't bother to answer; okay wouldn't describe either of them for a long while. "I'll come to you as soon as I'm able, yeah? Just go, love."

She touched him one final time, a brief stroke of his forearm, then produced a second stake from the small of her back. With a nod, Buffy turned away to leave the factory with more speed than stealth. She was halfway to the library before she realized that her reconnaissance had failed.

Giles took the news of her incursion with sharp words, but the news Spike's continuing existence with a sigh of relief. "And he said he'd come to you when he could?"

Buffy nodded slowly. She'd told Giles everything from her reason to going to the significance of Spike keeping a stake, everything except the fact that she'd kissed him. She couldn't explain that, anyway. "I put him in a wheelchair, Giles. That was weeks ago."

Her Watcher sighed. "We can't depend on him, then, not right now. I imagine he's doing his best to survive, too." Neither of them said anything about what Angelus might do to an injured member of his pack. Death sentence, he'd said. "At least he's armed. Maybe our problem is best solved by, er, family."

"If Spike kills him, I don't know what Drusilla would do."

"To Spike, you mean?" At her nod, he grimaced. "I'm sure that's occurred to Spike, too." She looked so glum; he couldn't just leave it there. "That was good thinking, Buffy. About the rocket launcher, I mean. If rash," he added severely, "to go alone, I mean."

"I'm really trying, Giles, I am," she said, meeting his eyes. "I know what my duty is."

"And you'll do it." He waited until she turned away toward the doors before he closed his eyes, thinking of the close call with Xander the night Amy cast her spell. He frowned, realizing he hadn't seen the girl since then. Probably in a pit of teenaged mortification, if he remembered his own youth.

⸹

"The Slayer was here?" Angel echoed, his nostrils flaring.

"Yeah, got right past those guards you left," Spike said, his voice heavy with reproof.

Drusilla was still, staring at the man in the wheelchair. "What did you do, my Spike?"

"Hurt her with words. Best I could do, innit?" His mouth twisted into a bitter smirk. "She came at me, I took this from her," he raised his left hand, showing the wooden stake, "and she backed off." Spike's eyes went to Angel. "She thought I was weak, I suppose, when I'm just… lower."

The big vampire didn't miss the threat. His eyes narrowed. "What was she doing here?"

"Oh, looking to kiss and make up with her snugglelykins," Spike mocked. He gave Angelus a malicious look. "Same thing the two of you were doing when you came here with her, I reckon. Spying out the lay of the land."

Drusilla's suspicious look went to her sire. "I couldn't see her then, can't see her at all." Still sharp, her gaze went back to Spike. "It's very vexing."

"They are vexing, those Slayers," Spike agreed. "Shame no one's out there killing them." He gave a tragic shake of his head. "I came closer tonight than… anyone else has." Tossing the stake into the air, he caught it, rolling it across his knuckles in a showy fashion, before tucking it into his coat. "Slayer of Slayers, me… but I'm out of commission for a bit longer." He looked at Angelus expectantly, noting how his grandsire's eyes lingered on the bulge in his coat.

"I'll take care of her," the dark-haired vampire said defensively. "In my own way."

"And I need to take care of you," Drusilla said, moving to take hold of the wheelchair's handles. "You reek of Slayer, my Spike." As she began rolling him toward the room they used to share, calling for the minions to bring water and towels, Spike kept still. For a moment, he hadn't been sure what she meant by 'taking care of him.'

Drusilla left him alone, and he struggled out of his coat. Yeah, he might just take care of her, too. Buffy on his lap had given him proof that he was, indeed, healing. Not that he could necessarily feel anything, but if the equipment was working, he could make Drusilla feel something.

"Hungry, darling? It's a bit," Drusilla said from the doorway, shaking the corpse she was dragging after her, "dead, but only just."

Spike looked at the distinguished grey on the pudgy, middle-aged man and forced a smile. "Appreciate it." He might not be reduced to begging, but he was not choosing. The blood had pooled into the extremities and there was no pulse to drive it, so he bit into the hands and ankles, gleaning a bit more than a couple of pints and making a mess.

Drusilla watched him throughout, unsettlingly lucid. She didn't often try to see his or anyone's thoughts; they just invaded her head. When she could spare attention for them, her instincts were good. "Did the Slayer say anything?" she asked, breaking the long silence.

Spike took a breath for speech. "Said she thought I was dead." Though it wasn't as potent as from a living victim, the blood was doing him all kinds of good. He was voracious, wanting more. Won't always be a scavenger, he thought. No, indeed.

After considering his words for a moment, Drusilla relaxed. This was truth, and this was her Spike. "Hair first?"

"Yeah, sounds a treat, poodles." He took a breath and shook off the fangs.

After washing his hair, Drusilla got him out of his clothes and gave him a sponge bath. Spike was waiting impatiently, as it wouldn't do to start things with her while smelling of another female. Partway through, anticipation turned to confusion. His sire's touch was doing nothing, not even causing a twitch of his disinterested equipment. He'd even had blood. Drusilla's handling was almost impersonal, nothing like it had been before Angelus' return, though he was sure she noticed that there was no change. Probably had to report to Angel that stonkers were still not on the menu.

But one had been. He'd been aware of his erection, though he still had no feeling below the waist. He'd touched himself to make sure, even. Spike was pulling on a clean t-shirt before she finished toweling his legs, feeling confused and out of sorts.

"Dressing before bed?"

"Yeah." No reason to be starkers, apparently. Drusilla helped him into his jeans, then into bed, surprising him by settling down beside him. He pulled her into his arms automatically. "Nice to hold you." His tone was as neutral as possible.

She was silent for a long time, not humming or fidgeting. "I don't think I like Sunnydale, after all," she finally said.

"No?"

"I'm ready to leave."

"Then we'll put it behind us, sweet." Drusilla didn't reply, just drew her fingers through his curls and ran her fingernails along his ear to his shoulder.

Spike was alone when he woke an hour before sunset. The corpse and the basin were gone, his coat thoughtfully arranged in the nearby wheelchair so he could easily get into both. He had rolled toward the door and reached for the handle before he realized that Buffy's stake was gone from its inner pocket.

⸹

Xander made for the library after a cut class and a long wait at the DMV. Uncle Rory had come through after a windfall playing the ponies, helping him transfer the title, cover taxes, and get liability insurance. He already had his parking sticker for the student lot. Tomorrow morning, just another Tuesday morning, except it would be his first time driving to school. He'd chickened out of driving it the morning Spike had given it to him, not willing to risk impoundment after he realized it was a Charger. If he'd looked forward to anything more, it hadn't been since he started to shave.

"Hey, G-man."

Giles didn't take issue with his greeting. "Good news. Well, relatively speaking. Spike survived the church fire. Buffy saw him yesterday."

Xander absorbed the story in silence, then broke out in a relieved smile. "He asked for her to leave her stake, huh?"

The Watcher met the young man's eyes, satisfaction in his own. "I'll not turn away an ally just because he's a vampire. Well, a soulless vampire," he amended. Then his lips parted. "I cannot believe I just said that." Giles winced.

"Said what?" Willow asked, swinging open the door.

Xander gave her an affectionate hug, leaving his hand on her shoulder as she sat her bookbag on a table and listened to Giles' news. He moved his hand when Cordelia came in not long after, feeling slightly guilty, holding it out for her in turn. Maybe she'll let me drive her to school this week. She is going to look awesome on the other side of that bench seat, he thought. Bench seat, a really long and roomy bench seat… focus, Xander, he scolded himself.

Annoyed now by a third retelling, Giles reopened the book he'd been marking with his index finger and made his way back to his office. As he did, Cordelia squeezed Xander's hand. "What's with you today? You're so quiet, I mean."

He hadn't told anyone about his car, afraid to jinx anything before he actually got to drive it legally. It remained under the tarp he'd bought to hide it, wishing for a garage to shelter the American classic. "Just happy." He added, with a toss of his head, "Don't worry, probably won't last."

"Not in Sunnydale," Cordelia agreed drily. But she gave him a full, happy smile of her own. "You guys up for the Bronze tonight?"

"I am," Buffy said in a bright voice, pushing open the library door. "I am so up for it."

⸹

I can't do this, Buffy thought, her hand clamped on Giles' sleeve as she pulled him toward his car and away from the burning factory. I can't keep going, I can't bear to kill him, and I can't live with this guilt. Despite that, her eyes were on their surroundings, watching for any attack.

Sirens were sounding in the distance. Why did Angelus have to keep saying things to her in Angel's voice, hinting that he still loved her? Why did it still hurt, when she knew it was all lies?

She saw her friends waiting, wished she felt relieved. It was wrong, she knew it was wrong, but what if it had been Xander instead of Ms. Calendar? What if it had been Wil?

And, tonight, it could have been Giles. Even after he'd scolded her for going off alone, he'd done the same and put himself in the worst danger. Beneath the guilt and the pain, she felt her anger begin to build.

It felt so damn good to feel something, anything, else.

⸹

"What on earth are you watching? A rodeo?"

The sound of Angelus' amused words behind him made Spike's shoulders hunch. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching Spike doing nothing and doing it poorly. "Professional bull-riding." He gave the big vampire a sidelong, knowing look as he walked into the room. "Reminds me of the good old days," Spike drawled. "Maybe I'll take it up. As I recall, real good at riding thick-necked beasties into the dirt, going till they were exhausted."

Angelus examined him with disbelief for a long moment, then snorted. "You won't be riding anything for a good long while, will you, Scooter?" He laughed at his jibe, then struck out like lightning to flick the tip of Spike's ear with a precise forefinger. "Guess I'll go see if Drusilla still likes pony rides." The sound of his laughter continued even after he'd left the room.

Spike made his hands unclench from the armrests of the wheelchair. His sensitive hearing picked up the creak of Angelus mounting the stairs of the mansion the big vampire had found for them, then a squeal from Drusilla, abruptly cut off. Closing his eyes, he refrained from lifting his legs with his hands. Instead, he moaned from the pain as they obeyed his conscious command to move from the footrests of the wheelchair to the floor, one by one. Without looking, he set the brakes on either wheel and put his hands back on the armrests.

"Yee-haw!"

Spike's head fell back as Angelus' crude shout echoed through the empty rooms. It was specially meant for him to hear. Of course. Taking a deep breath, he willed himself to notice nothing, to hear nothing. All that mattered was the glitching of the electrochemical signals trying to make their mangled way from his brainstem to his stupid legs. Grunting with effort, Spike made his thighs flex, made his hips shift to counterbalance the movement. That didn't work, but his grip on the wheelchair compensated for the lack as he slowly pulled himself into a crouch. After a moment of effort, he let go of the armrests and stood up all the way. Upright for the first time in months, he allowed himself the slightest smile of satisfaction.

He fell back into the wheelchair, letting out all his breath as the pain subsided. It was okay. He'd meant to sit, because now it was time to stand all over again. And then again, over and over, until his body did what it was bloody well supposed to do.

Angelus didn't have minions living in the mansion, which was ominous but also useful for hiding his work and progress. Spike struggled upright once again. He was afraid that the poof might be turning his attention back to him. There was no proper bed on this lower floor, and that was a convenient excuse for never getting into any stationary position.

Plop, not at all graceful. Not as much pain and effort as it was when he first began extending his legs, but if he were alive, he'd be pouring with sweat. Spike gripped the armrests, preparing to get up once more.

How safe would he be if Drusilla realized he could get up – in both senses? Not that he had a smidgeon of guilt for keeping her in the dark, not after she had rooked him so thoroughly, taking care of him so she could steal his weapon away. She only wanted to protect Daddy, didn't realize – or care – how vulnerable he was.

That was the only reason he'd done it, pique after she took the stake. He'd rolled his wheelchair onto the factory floor, freshly bathed and infuriated, when he noticed a white shape moving down one of the chains from the upper floor. It was Dru's pet mouse, escaped from whatever cage she had it in. Barely a mouthful of blood, but hell if it hadn't packed a wallop of energy. Whatever enchantment the dead witch had put on her pet mouse, it did more toward healing him than all of Dru's leavings. She and Angelus had been out, so his tiny meal had gone unnoticed, though he'd overheard Drusilla whinging about the lost pet until Angelus did something that had made her abruptly go silent.

Spike gritted his teeth, upright once more. This time, he could feel his toes flex inside his boots as they automatically worked to help him balance. It was after the mouse that he realized he'd had a whole buffet – a whole Buffy, heh – of magical blood in his arms, had he been so inclined. Didn't signify; the Slayer wasn't food. Still, if he'd thought to ask, she might have volunteered a pint. She'd kissed him, after all.

Back into the chair. And why had she done that? He knew why Buffy had wanted him to leave the factory with her; they had been friends until he lost it over the identity of her boyfriend and broke the treaty. She wasn't the type to leave a friend behind. He had no idea why the kiss had happened, though. The Slayer probably couldn't explain it, either.

Up again. He had to crouch with his fingers gripping the armrests a long moment, disheartened and in misery before his knees straightened. Once or twice, he wished that Dru had just left him behind, left him the night of the healing ritual. She had been down lately, too; that bastard Angelus was putting too much pressure on her to have visions.

Spike's legs gave out, and he dropped unceremoniously onto the seat, rolling the braked chair back a foot or so. He listened for a moment, and because he didn't hear anything, he lifted his shaking legs up and positioned his feet on the footrests, then oriented himself once more toward the television. Drusilla brought it in, driving his DeSoto to the mansion's garage, carrying the heavy telly as a sop for him, he was sure… but he'd also seen her toting in her slightly scorched chest of goodies from the factory. Holy water, candles, whips… ropes for vampires. Vigilance, then, because he was never going to be bound and at Angelus' mercy again.

⸹

"So, anything going on at school?"

 _That I should know about?_ Buffy added silently, then gave herself a mental kick for being a bad daughter. "Not much." She pushed a kernel of corn away from her pile of mashed potatoes. "Well, Xander made the swim team."

"Oh, that's good. I didn't know he swam. Well, I mean."

"Me, either." Silence fell again, and Buffy took a couple bites of dinner. Things had been strained between them since Angelus showed up and dropped his bomb.

"Do you mind cleaning up?" Joyce asked, and it sounded abrupt in the quiet house. "Mark hasn't been in to work the past couple of days. That's twice I've had people just quit without notice." She was already on her feet, gathering her plate and utensils. "No one has a work ethic anymore, it seems."

Or Mark was eaten, Buffy thought morosely. "So you have to go back in?"

"I can't cut gallery hours," Joyce replied. "The summer will be better, more tourists, and I'm sure I'll have another good Christmas."

Buffy heard what her mother left unsaid: money was tight. "Of course I'll clean up." She stood up, took the plate from Joyce's hand, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Go on; I'll take care of everything." It was nice to be able to say that and mean it, knowing she could do what was needed. If only everything else in her life was as clear and easy.

⸹

It was the second time he'd been out, and this was much riskier than the first. Then, Spike had hours alone in the mansion, could pick and choose which were the best for a stealthy trip out. He'd gone on to drink from seven different, wonderfully tasty humans, plucked from the UC-Sunnydale campus. It was enough to let him run back to his wheelchair and bide some more time. Now he was out of time, if the guest at the mansion was any indication.

But he was still starved and unable to do a whole host of things he'd likely need to do. If he stopped just a couple – well, five – times on his way to the Slayer, who would know?

A police car was up ahead, the officer out of his vehicle. Six, yeah, six wasn't a bad number. It wasn't until he was on the man that Spike realized he'd interrupted an arrest, the cop with his pistol drawn. And then he realized who was being arrested.

A bright, clean rage swept over him. Not even bothering to go to game face, he knocked the gun to the ground and picked up the policeman with a snarl. Spike buried his fangs in the sweet spot above the collar and beneath the jawbone, drinking a good two pints in as many seconds. Then he slammed the git onto the bonnet of his own patrol car. Either of those would be enough to render him unconscious. Wiping his mouth with the side of his hand as his features returned to human shape, he grinned at Buffy. "Hello, cutie."

She punched him in the nose.

Spike punched her back.

They stood across from each other, both holding a hand over their faces.

"What the hell, Slayer?"

"Kendra's dead." When Spike looked at her blankly, Buffy went on, "The other Slayer? Drusilla killed her." Her Slayer senses were still tripping, but this was Spike, she reminded herself, not some random vampire.

"Dru bagged a Slayer?"

Buffy punched his nose again.

Spike took half a step back, though he sent her a murderous look over his fingers. "Would you stop? I didn't have any idea what they were up to, other than Acathla."

"She…" Buffy didn't have words. "And Willow's in the hospital, head trauma. No one knows where Giles is."

"I do, s'why I'm here."

"Angel has him?"

"Yeah. Probably torturing him." Spike dropped his hand, seeing what those words did to her, and came very close. "Why I'm here, yeah? I'm mobile. It's time." He lifted his gaze and looked past her. "Let's get off the street."

"My house," she said shortly.

They turned away from the police officer and his car, Spike's nostrils flaring at the smell of blood. "Why was he trying to arrest you?"

"They think I killed Kendra."

"That's obviously a fit-up, er, frame job," he added, seeing her confusion.

"Yeah, well, I don't have time for the wheels of justice. Stuff to do, vampires to kill." They were already on Revello Drive.

His eyes narrowed, but before he could ask her more about 'vampires,' an SUV rolled past them into Buffy's driveway. Joyce got out of her Jeep. She looked at Spike but didn't seem to really register him. "Buffy, where have you been? Are you okay? The police were here, and they –"

At that moment, a snarling vampire burst into the space between them. While it was supposed to be watching Buffy, it was also less than two weeks old. And a human was just standing there, ready to be eaten.

Its poor impulse control was the end of it. Spike snatched it roughly and dislocated its jaw with one powerful cross punch, then shoved it toward Buffy, who was ready with her stake. They shared a look, then turned to her mother.

Joyce stood still, staring between them and the spot where… "That man just exploded."

"Not a man," Buffy said.

"A vampire," Spike offered.

"You… you killed him?" Joyce asked, her voice high and thin.

"I slayed him." Buffy firmed her mouth. "I'm the vampire Slayer." There was a hardness in her eyes as she looked Joyce in the face.

"We need to get inside," Spike said. He took Joyce's elbow and propelled her forward as Buffy got the door unlocked.

Inside, Joyce shook free from his grasp. "What's going on here?"

"Mom, I'm sorry you had to find out about vampires like that. Look, you're safe in here. I need to call the hospital, see if there's any change with Willow." Her mother's mouth was working, as if no words could escape the logjam of thoughts, so she turned to Spike. "Where is he?"

He knew she meant Giles. "Crawford Street." He described the mansion.

"I've seen it."

And then he was alone with Joyce. "It's all right, mum."

"How is it all right?" Spike blinked in the face of her ferocity. "The police are looking for my daughter because she's a suspect in a murder investigation, and now there's all this nonsense about vampires."

"Nonsense?" Spike gave her a wary look, not wanting her to continue. He was afraid she'd show him something he could not admire. "Joyce, you just saw an undead being, a vampire, with full fangs, come at you. You saw your daughter end it with a pointy stick. Don't pretend you didn't."

"I… I don't know what I saw." She turned away from him, taking off her coat and tossing it onto the couch. "I need a drink."

He sat down, the very old and proper part of himself disapproving because she hadn't offered him the same hospitality. He found his jaw set and his eyes narrow when she sat down across from him, bourbon sloshing in her glass.

"So, how do you fit into this? Are you a vampire slayer, too?"

"Me? Not hardly."

Before she could question him further, Buffy returned to the living room. Joyce turned to her daughter. "How's Willow?"

"Awake, thank God. She sounds fine." Buffy turned to Spike. "Talk to me. What's the deal?"

"We take care of the old man, you get Giles, and I grab Dru and get the hell out of town."

"Forget Drusilla. She doesn't walk." She was suddenly staring up at Spike, and Buffy met his glare full on. "She killed Kendra."

"So you didn't kill that girl?"

Both of them turned to Joyce. Buffy's "Of course not!" was immediately followed by Spike's icy, "How could you even think that?"

"Did she explode like that man outside?"

"She was a Slayer, mom."

"Like what you are?"

Buffy nodded, then turned back to Spike. "A Slayer like me."

He got her point, but they were not having a negotiation. "I help you kill Angelus –"

"Angelus? Angel? Your boyfriend?"

Both of them ignored Joyce's question. "I help you kill Angelus, get Giles out, and I take Drusilla out of the country. You'll never hear from us again, I bloody well hope."

"Spike, why? She's a big ho."

"Yeah, well, he's worse."

After a moment, Buffy nodded. It was true, and she hadn't been able to stop loving him. "Get Giles out safe. If Giles dies, she dies."

"Are you sure you're a Slayer?"

"Mom…."

"I've been gone too long."

"Sunrise, so he can't escape. Be ready to back me when I make my move."

"I mean, have you tried _not_ being a Slayer?"

"No, Joyce," Spike said, his temper fraying, "she hasn't, because you raised her to think of others in a crisis, now didn't you?" He couldn't believe this was the same woman with whom he'd shared so many cups of cocoa. Had she forgotten she was a mother?

Buffy put a hand on the leather sleeve over his forearm. "Not helping, Spike."

Setting his jaw again, he gave her a tight nod and left. Behind him, he heard Joyce say, "It's because you didn't have a strong father figure, isn't it?" He shook his head and began to run.

⸹

The rest of the night passed in a blur of Angelus' laughter, Giles' moans, and his own nerves about being found out. Fortunately, Dru was in a good mood and didn't notice anything off about him. Not that she noticed him much anymore, anyway. Spike tried not to think about that, or about Buffy's assessment of his dark lady, or of the thousand ways something could go tit's-up before daybreak.

Another chuckle from Angelus, and Spike fidgeted in the wheelchair. That sound brought back memories, almost none of them good. Then the old man called for a chainsaw, and he swiftly turned his chair into the hallway and bulled his way through the minions to put an end to that idea.

Maybe his suggestion to set Dru loose on the Watcher for information hadn't been an entirely good one. She did it so quickly, and it wasn't time yet, and….

 _She's a big ho_. "Uh, Drusilla."

"Honey," Angelus added.

Drusilla broke the passionate kiss and looked up from the blissful face of the Watcher. "Sorry. I was in the moment."

Spike headed off Angelus from Giles once again, then was trundled out of the room by Dru. "It's almost the end," she said cheerily. Spike looked up at her sharply, twisting in his seat. She gave him a full and loving smile.

Then they were in front of the Acathla statue again for more of Angelus poncing about, being all special. This was happening too fast. Giles was probably right about the ritual; God, it might really become hell on earth –

Buffy. Thank God. And he curved his hand around the poker concealed along the side of his leg, took his feet from the wheelchair pedals for the final time. Buffy had the bastard distracted. Spike swung the poker as hard as he could. It felt grand.

Looking down at Angelus, it felt just like another.

And then he was grappling with Drusilla; she'd come down on Daddy's side, of course. Had he ever expected otherwise? "I don't want to hurt you, baby." But he kind of did.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xander supporting the Watcher as they made their way toward the door. Giles taken care of, then. More fighting, Buffy piddling around with minions, giving Angelus his chance. Dru turned from him to see what big thing Daddy was doing.

"Oooh, here it comes."

Here I come, and his fingers were around her neck, on the pressure points that would eventually put down even a vampire. By the time Drusilla lapsed into unconsciousness, Angelus had the sword from the statue, fighting the Slayer. The big vampire had two centuries of experience behind each cut.

Spike picked up his sire, sparing a glance toward the combatants. God, he's going to kill her, he thought. He looked back down at Drusilla, then at the growing vortex. He made up his mind and walked as swiftly as he could to the garage. Dumping her in the back seat of the DeSoto, he slammed the car door and headed back. He'd told Buffy he'd take Drusilla and get out of town, but he couldn't think of one destination that would make the idea appealing. He'd also said he would help her kill Angelus, and there was over a hundred years of anticipation in Spike's smile.

The fight was over. What the hell? He stopped, confused staring at them stare at each other.

"I love you."

"I love you."

"Close your eyes."

Spike took a shocked breath as Buffy drove the sword into his passive grandsire, driving him into the gaping maw at the center of the statue. Then Drusilla knocked into Spike, went past him, leaving him with nothing between his grasping fingers.

"Nooo!" Drusilla passed Buffy, who was backing away from what she had done, and threw herself at her sire, her arms going around his neck with desperate strength. Angelus – no, Angel, had to be – never stopped looking at the Slayer.

The vortex closed. Acathla was merely a stone statue again. The mansion was shockingly quiet.

Spike fell to his knees, his legs no longer supporting him, nothing to do with ever having a broken back.

He couldn't stop staring at where Drusilla wasn't. She was gone. Just… gone.

Buffy let out one small, hiccupping sob. She moved to him, dropped down beside him.

They were both on the floor, holding each other, weeping.

The sun was well up before Buffy pulled away from Spike, who was curled into a fetal position around her. He sat up, too. They both stared at Acathla.

"Mom kicked me out." Her nose was completely stopped up, making her voice sound strange in her ears.

Spike took this in, a Slayer denied the safety of her threshold, but couldn't manage any context or emotion. "I have to get the fuck out of this town."

"L.A.?"

He shrugged.

"Take me by my house first?"

Something to do, other than stare at Acathla. Buffy stood up, her sword hanging limply in her hand. Spike stood up, too, then he sprang toward the statue, roaring, hitting it with a flying side kick. The heavy stone figure tottered over and smashed into hundreds of pieces, the magic gone from it.

He stood there, breathing heavily and unnecessarily, fists clenched. Buffy came up beside him, did nothing except stand there. They looked at the broken statue for a long minute, then turned in unison.

Spike stared at the DeSoto as they went into the garage. The back door was open. Feeling every one of his twelve decades, he closed the door, putting to right the last mark Drusilla had made on the world. Then he opened the front one for the Slayer.

It was later, the Slayer was in bright sunlight. "Be right back." He sat in the driver's seat, the car in idle, saw a yellow school bus go past on the cross street. Then Buffy was back with her things, and Spike started down Revello Drive before turning east.

Buffy turned her head as they passed the Sit N Bull, noting that there were a good number of cars and trucks in the lot. If the sun wasn't reflecting off the windows, she could have seen their usual booth. Then she turned her attention back to the dashboard.

Twenty miles outside of Sunnydale, well before the point where any other towns had dared to creep to proximity with the Hellmouth, Spike pulled over onto the shoulder. He was looking straight ahead as he put the car into park, then sat with his hands on the wheel. Feeling wrung out, Buffy could barely make herself care that they'd run out of gas. Here, of course, where there was hardly any other traffic.

But, no, the car was still running. "Spike?" Her voice was small and wispy, her throat swollen from weeping.

He didn't answer, just stared ahead. "Got plenty of gas," he said finally. "Get you through most of the way to L.A., to your Dad's, yeah?"

"What?"

The twist of his lips was nothing like his usual smirk, certainly wasn't a smile. "This is where I get off."

She shook her head, not understanding. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"Good a place as any." She followed his gaze, which rested on his hand as it hovered in a patch of sunlight that fell on the dash through a chink in the blackened windshield. He was watching dreamily as it smoldered.

"No." Understanding was being to take shape.

"Better this way, pet." Spike finally turned to look at her, taking his smoking right hand from the sun, using it to touch her forearm awkwardly. "Got no reason to… You're well shut of the likes of me."

"What?" she said again, but now she knew. "No. You can't."

"Sure I can," and since he didn't have to hold it together for much longer, there was a ghost of the cocky vampire she'd first come to know in the soft, breezy darkness of the town behind them. Spike nodded toward the world outside their dim cocoon. "Nice, sunny day, innit? Won't take a minute." He lifted his burned hand to touch her face, no awkwardness in this gesture. "You take care, kitten. You're a right lady, you are, and strong. You're gonna be fine."

Buffy's eyes were enormous now. "No. You can't leave me." What she wanted to say was that he couldn't do it, couldn't put an end to himself. He was too vital, or he would be again. She wanted to say that she didn't know how to move forward without another of the walking wounded limping next to her, that if he drowned, she would sink, too. But all she could find were the same words she'd used before. "You can't."

"There's some cash in the glovebox, might come in handy." Spike's hand dropped away from her cheek, and his mouth sketched a smile. "Won't meet again, I reckon." He gave her a considering look and dredged up dusty courtesy more than a century old. "It has been my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Buffy," and the deep voice was civilized and warm.

Paralyzed by this unthinkable thing that was happening, just one more in this awful, endless morning, she watched him turn away and open the car door so he could stand up. In no hurry, he took off the leather coat and absently tossed it over the bench seat to land in the back of the DeSoto. He was silhouetted against the burning blue sky for a moment, a wisp of smoke rising from his exposed nape, then he shut the door.

The sound freed her. Buffy scrambled across the seat, knocking her elbow against the steering wheel and honking the horn. "Nooo," she growled, throwing open the door. The seat of the DeSoto rotated with her, tripping her up, but she had him by the arm a couple of seconds later and hurled him back toward the car. "You can't."

His face was stony and fixed, even as he staggered a little, putting out a hand toward the door to find his balance. "Buffy, get back in the car. You don't want to see this, kitten. Just drive on." Smoke was rolling off him now, and if he felt pain, he didn't show it.

She seized on the words, seized at his shirt and began manhandling him, trying to stuff him back inside. "No. I can't. I can't drive a car like this." She grunted a little, then used her knee to fold him over.

He grunted, too, then grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away. "It's an automatic, a pushbutton automatic."

Buffy came back at him, something inside her fierce and happy to be fighting. "I can't! It's weird; the gearstick is on the steering wheel." Her head lowered, she plowed into him, sending them both back into the car, Spike rapping his head on the frame before they went sprawling over the seat.

"Bloody hell!" It was a roar, but indistinct with the Slayer's shoulder in his face. "Geroff!"

Instinctively, she twisted him to the left, putting his head and torso off the seat into the space of the passenger-side floorboard, not allowing him any purchase. Buffy glared down at him, then her face screwed up. "You can't leave," she whispered. "I can't do this by myself." She meant take the next step, travel the next mile, L.A., everything.

"I don't want to do this."

She knew he meant that he didn't want to go on any longer, and she shook him. "You're stronger than that. You have to be!" Her eyes widened; she wasn't going to cry again. "I can't be strong enough on my own." It hadn't worked. Her fingers clenched on his shirt, then she simply dropped her head onto his chest and began to bawl. He was as warm as a human after his exposure to the sun, but that odd fact didn't register.

Something akin to panic flashed across Spike's face as what certainly felt like a cage closed around him. Bitch, brat, baby – the hurtful words came to his mind so easily. He was dead inside, didn't she understand, Drusilla's loss killing him more thoroughly than her fangs ever had.

Then he gritted his teeth. The Slayer needed someone to take care of her, even if it was just for a few hours, and God knew it was the one thing he'd ever been good at. Get her on her feet, dump her at her father's, and then get the hell out of L.A., because he sure as fuck wouldn't deign to die in that town, either. He squared his shoulders, taking up the burden.

"Shh, pet." Hesitantly, he put his arms around her. Now that she wasn't bulldozing him, he could get his body back up onto the seat. He pulled her higher against him, so she could cry on his shoulder in the best clichéd manner. Realizing his feet felt uncomfortably warm, he pulled his legs all the way into the shelter of the car. "I'm here. Won't go anywhere." He patted Buffy's back awkwardly, the span of his hand covering both her shoulderblades. She was little more than a child beneath the wise-beyond-her-years veneer and the Slayer strength, just a few birthdays past riding bikes and skinning her knees. Whatever else she was, she wasn't one of the nihilistic undead. "Shouldn't have put that on you. 'M'sorry, kitten."

After a while, she sat up, one of her elbows digging into his stomach in a painful manner, and wiped her eyes. "Let's… just go." She sat up a little more, taking her slight weight off him.

"All right." Spike wiped his own face, surprised he'd been crying. He felt so hollow inside. Swinging his legs into the floorboard, he waited until she clambered over him, back to the passenger side. Before she'd quite settled, he put out his hand and cupped the back of her neck, drawing her forehead forward until it touched his. He didn't say anything; there was nothing to say.

They drove in silence for almost an hour before Buffy cleared her throat. "I need to stop."

"Sure, pet." He kept an eye out for the next motorway services, exited the freeway to the nearest station, and rolled the window down a couple of inches. Then Spike cranked the window back up and drove away. "You don't want to stop there. Toilets didn't smell up to snuff."

She nodded. "Good to know." The next convenience store was only a few hundred yards away, and this one apparently passed the sniff test.

Spike lifted his hips from the seat, bumping his thighs against the steering wheel, and dug some money out of his pockets. "Get yourself something to drink, water or something."

Buffy nodded and left the car, closing the door quickly against the sunny day. She went to the bathroom, then stood in line holding her bottle of water and staring at the twenty-dollar bill, wondering what had happened to the human who'd last had it. Spike had moved his DeSoto to a parking spot in the shade of the building. The three sets of taillights were on, as if he was impatient to go, but she didn't have it in her to walk faster. Resting a hand on the fin for a moment, the Slayer took a deep breath, then opened the door. "Spike?"

He had put his coat on. Now he was asleep, his arms folded over the steering wheel, and he jerked at the sound of his name. "Yeah."

"Your change." She held out a wad of bills and coins.

"So much for my poker stake," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Toss it in there, love." He waved toward the glovebox.

"This is your poker money?"

"Yeah." Blinking a little, he patted the seat where sun didn't fall on it, enjoining her to sit. "All set, kitten?"

Gambling winnings was better than money stolen off victims. "Sure." It was the last word said for the next couple of hours. Buffy drank half her water, then she started nodding. The air conditioning in the old car wasn't as cold as she was used to, and it was a long, monotonous trip with nothing to see through the blackened windows. Spike noticed, and touched her shoulder, holding his arm wide. After a moment's hesitation, she took his invitation, leaning against him. He always smelled good, some subtle scent, and Buffy wondered again what it was. Half an hour later, her head was resting on Spike's thigh as she slept, and he cradled her head loosely with one hand, driving with the other.

Now there was enough traffic that he didn't have to think about anything else. At the first stop light that marked the end of the freeway, Buffy woke and sat up.

"I can't do it."

Buffy's voice was barely more than a whisper, but Spike had no trouble hearing the words. "Can't do what?"

His voice was as hollow as she felt. "I can't face my father. Not yet." Buffy looked down at her hands. She had a broken nail on her left hand, and she was pretty sure she hadn't packed any emery boards. "I… I just can't."

Glancing away from the road, he saw that she was pale except for the dark circles beneath her eyes. "We could find a place to hole up, somewhere you could rest, get a good day, er, night's sleep."

"Okay." Buffy was too relieved that he had an idea of how to put off her next drama-filled meeting to care that a suicidal creature of the night felt sorry for her. It was comforting, in fact, because it meant he was acting more like the master vampire who had somehow become her friend. The car pulled forward, and she closed her eyes.

⸹

Next Chapter: Grief-stricken and unsure of their next move, Spike and Buffy hunker down for a few days in Los Angeles.


	22. Motel California

**Motel California**

⸹

Los Angeles

May 1998

⸹

Somewhere buried beneath the landslide of the day, Buffy was impressed that Spike could find anything except road lines through the lampblack over the windows. He pulled into a motel parking lot, window open enough to sniff, then parked in front of the office.

"Grab some money from the, uh," he waved at the glovebox, as if he couldn't think of the right word. "Ask for eight or nine. Tell 'em you've been driving all night." Because usual check in times would be some hours later. She nodded once, grabbed some cash, and stepped out of the car.

The motel was in a lousy neighborhood with streets busy with traffic on two sides. Buffy thought about teasing him over his preference in lodging as well as dining, but why would she ever bother to do that again?

Inside the lobby, she told the middle-aged Hispanic man behind the bulletproof glass window that she'd been driving all night and wanted room eight or nine. It struck her that she felt somehow more comfortable being in a town that wasn't lily-white.

"How long you need it?"

She didn't know. Since she couldn't answer him, she looked down at the money in her hand and saw two one-hundred dollar bills. Then she read the sign that gave the rates. "Uh, a week."

"Cash up front."

"How many?"

"Uh, two of us."

"Sign here."

And then it was done. She had a keychain that read "Room 9" and was standing in a Los Angeles morning, a gray cast to the sky from smog dimming the sunlight. Instead of getting back into the car, she rapped on the hood and walked down to the door that fit her key.

The rooms were detached, barely, enough to classify them as bungalows or cabins, she guessed. Number nine was the last one, and it, like eight, was shaded by an enormous Moreton Bay fig tree. Something else inside her chest loosened. She knew that species of tree; all L.A. natives did.

Buffy opened the door and let it swing inward. Worn linoleum floor, battle-scarred bureau with a television atop, the bathroom door ajar into a tiny room jammed with white porcelain, a threadbare bedspread atop a queen bed, a closet with no door. There was nothing else to see.

Spike parked the DeSoto behind her, then was beside her, propelling her inside with his fingers at the small of her back. He was carrying her bag, she saw.

"Thanks." She gestured around. "Ours for the week."

"Sure." He twitched the curtains over the single large window, shutting them a tiny bit more.

He sounded exhausted, and she remembered that he hadn't slept. "You want to lay down?"

"Yeah, guess so." Dropping her bag onto the floor, he stripped the bedspread without a word, then sank onto the bed to undo his boots.

Buffy picked it up and went to the closet. She unfolded the luggage rack inside, sat her bag on it, and unzipped it to find her toothbrush. By the time she finished in the bathroom, Spike was asleep. Buffy stood at the foot of the bed for a long time before gingerly laying down on the other side. She saw he had tossed his coat over the television. The sheets smelled of bleach, at least, even if the pillow was flat and the mattress sagged in the middle. Without meaning to at all, she fell asleep beside him.

⸹

Spike woke to the sound of a whimper. "Shh," he said automatically, reaching for her.

Only it wasn't her. It was the Slayer, and the whimper was the only part of a scream that could escape the sleep paralysis.

"Nightmare, pet," he said, shaking her, "just a dream." Buffy sat up, but only stared at him, uncomprehending, and Spike knew she wasn't truly awake. "Shh," he said again. She was sweating, so he rolled off the bed and went to the air conditioning unit beneath the window. Once it was on, he laid back down.

Buffy's eyes were open, as if she was afraid to close them. Must have been a bad one, Spike thought. He eased her back down and put his arm over her waist. "Just a dream. You're safe now." After a minute or so, the Slayer dropped fully into sleep. Lucky her, he thought sourly, I'll never get back to sleep.

⸹

Buffy woke up, already knowing where she was and what had happened. And who she was with. _Vampire_ , her Slayer senses insisted. It's just Spike, she told them dully. Who was asleep with his arm around her. Not in an improper way, just… eesh.

Eesh, that was a Willow word. She wondered if Willow was out of the hospital now. If she knew for sure, she'd call her and ask about the soul. What on earth prompted her to try the ritual again? Because it worked, and because it had worked –

No. It wasn't Willow's fault.

Xander could have warned her – but, again, no. Even if he had known that Willow was going to try, he wouldn't have told her, and he would have been right. No reason to expect success, and if she had even the tiniest bit of hope that she could have Angel back, she would be the one who was gone. She hadn't been winning until the end. Note to self: do not swordfight Angelus.

What was the point in learning a lesson you could never apply?

But she could slay him, was about to behead his undead ass (head, I mean, she thought, worried a bit by her random thoughts), had somehow found the extra strength inside herself.

And so, apparently, had Willow.

She shut her eyes. It wasn't Willow, Xander or anyone's fault. It was just her, driving a sword into Angel, drawing his blood, as necessary, sending him to hell, as necessary.

Killing him, as necessary.

Killing a being with a soul.

Murdering him.

Tears ran from her closed eyes. Eventually, exhausted and numb, without ever moving from beneath the curve of Spike's arm, she fell back asleep.

⸹

"What time is it?"

"Dunno," Spike said. He sat up, one hand on the mattress, the other at his nape. "Dark for about forty minutes."

Buffy sat up, too. She didn't know what to do next, but it seemed like there must be something that wanted a good doing. Her stomach gave a long, gurgling complaint.

"Hungry, love?"

"I guess." With a sigh, she swung her legs from the bed and went to the bathroom. By the time she finished brushing her hair and putting on her shoes, Spike had gone outside.

He was leaning against the trunk of the DeSoto, smoking a cigarette. When she came out, he dropped it and crushed it beneath his boot without turning around. "Ready?"

She didn't try to find his gaze, either, just put one foot in front of the other. He fell into step beside her. At the intersection, he faced east, and they waited to cross. Buffy didn't particularly care where they were going, so she offered no opinion when he led them to a convenience store.

A slice of pizza was the only thing that seemed remotely appetizing, and she added a banana and a coke to her dinner. The shelves she walked past had bandages and tampons, so she paused long enough to snag an overpriced package of emery boards.

Spike laid a steaming burrito next to her things, asked the clerk for a bottle of Jack Daniels from behind the counter, and paid for it all. They ate as they walked, Spike holding the bag with the liquor and the nail files in the crook of his arm. By the time they were back at the room, they had finished eating.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Buffy said, looking up at him for the first time. She had just switched on the light. His eyes looked bruised, as if grief could give a physical beating. "I mean, unless you want…?"

"No, go ahead, pet." His voice was kind, and she wondered how much must have been showing on her own face. She gathered her things and closed the bathroom door behind her before steeling herself to face the mirror.

Bad. She looked pretty bad. Not that it mattered. She stepped into the shower and let the spray fall on her for a long time, not caring whether it was water or tears that ran down her face.

"Spike, I used both towels," she informed him as she came back into the room. "Do you want – "

"I already picked up more at the desk," he said from his spot on the bed. He had the television on to some program about lizards.

Buffy looked at the short stack of towels on the bureau. Beside them were two bottles of Jack Daniels. "I thought you only bought one bottle?"

"Already drank it."

"Okay." She kept her tone neutral. Hopefully he wouldn't be like her mom, strident and then sleepy when she drank. Buffy turned back to the bathroom at the thought of her mother, of the note she'd left. It hadn't been mean, she didn't think, but she hadn't spared Joyce's feelings, either.

 _He went out for more than booze_ , her mind whispered. Hunting, of course he'd been hunting. Then Buffy stuck her tongue out at herself. So? Right now, she didn't give a shit about vampires or their victims.

Her eyes grew wide at this blasphemous thought. Then she purposely narrowed them, glaring at herself. No. I resign, I quit, I retire, I… whatever other words there are for it. Abdicate. Renounce. I never asked to be Slayer. I….

You've quit before.

This time is different.

This time, I don't have anything left to give.

More tears left, though. When they tapered off, Buffy splashed cold water on her face and opened the bathroom door once more. "Your turn."

Spike looked blankly at her. He was propped against the wooden headboard, boots off and feet on the bed. "Mm?"

"Shower's free. Unless the lizards are really that interesting." She gestured toward the tv.

"Yeah." When he didn't get up, Buffy went and joined him on the bed, facing the screen.

"Do you remember it?"

"Remember what?" This awful day? As if she could stop reliving it and forget.

"Your dream. Nightmare, from earlier." When Buffy shook her head, he went on. "Good. Sounded like a bad one."

The lizards show went off, and the next thing up on public television was penguins. They watched in silence until the program was over, then the station signed off for the night. Later than I thought. Then she twitched, because Spike was very suddenly off the bed. She had almost forgotten he was there. He turned off the television, and the only light came from the bathroom.

"I think she knew."

"Drusilla?"

"Yeah." His voice was small.

"How could she have?" Buffy asked, trying to be reasonable. "What happened was… nobody could have predicted that."

"She could." He lifted his brows at her blank look. "Angelus never told you?" When the Slayer shook her head, he let out a humorless snort. "Yeah, that's what made her so useful to them, innit? Her visions."

Visions. Drusilla had visions. "You never told me that, either," she pointed out.

"I never lied about anything, but, yeah, of course I protected her." He turned away. "She could see things coming, not everything, but…lots. Angelus pushed her to see, always…."

"No wonder you guys were always a step ahead of us."

Spike ignored the bitterness in her voice. "She'd been… down, for the last couple weeks. Quiet-like, you know. But this morning, she was so happy. It was the end, she said."

"So, you think she committed suicide by apocalypse?" Buffy asked, her brow furrowing, trying to understand this.

"It wasn't – " His voice started loud, but the words died. A spasm went across his face. "She'd rather be in hell than with me." A "hah!" that might have been a bitter laugh wrenched its way from his chest, but Buffy knew better.

"I'm sorry. For what it's worth."

He nodded, walking away, his face turned toward the wall. After a moment, he tilted his head, still facing away. "I'm sorry, too. I saw. It wasn't Angelus." When he turned around, her head was bowed. "Who did the ritual? Someone from the Council?"

"Willow."

"Red? Where did she get magic?"

Buffy shook her head. "The first time she tried it, when… when they were attacked, it wasn't working. I didn't know that she was going to try again."

"Buffy?" Spike waited until she looked up. "I was coming back. To help, I mean. I just wanted to get Dru out of the way."

"It's okay. I had him. I mean, he had me on the ropes at first, but I was just about to… then he came back."

"Serves Dru right," he said, pacing away again. "Throwing herself at Daddy and getting Angel instead."

Buffy closed her eyes, trying to be empathetic. "Maybe she just missed him too much to want to be in a world without him."

Spike stopped dead, letting his head fall back. "Too right. She loved Daddy too much to want to be without him. She loved him more than she ever did me." He started pacing again. "But I loved her, Slayer. I loved her." As if Buffy had contradicted him, he pointed a finger at her. "And she loved me, she did. Came back for me at that church, saved me… I could feel it." He curled a fist over his unbeating heart. "She loved me, but she loved him more."

Buffy glanced at him, saw him clench his teeth, maybe to hold back the sobs. At least he was sure of Drusilla's love. She didn't even have that. "Did he… Did Angelus ever… care about me?"

Spike looked over in surprise. "No, kitten. I'm sorry. I never knew him to love anyone."

Buffy nodded, unheeded tears in her eyes. "Angel loved me, though. His soul loved me."

"Why do we love who we love, huh?" Spike had turned away again.

"And I murdered him. I murdered love." She gave a shaky laugh. "Guess the police should have arrested me, after all."

"Hang about. You didn't murder anyone."

"I did. I'm a murderer." Buffy forced kindness into her voice. "I know you feel bad, Spike, but I not only lost love, I killed it." She looked up to see his skeptical expression. "You don't have a soul; you can't understand, not really."

"I take strong exception to that statement."

She glared at him, brooking no dissent. "He had a soul. It's the same as if I'd killed a human."

Apparently, that wasn't his objection. "Yeah, an' Dru took my heart with her. No heart, no soul, so how m'I still walkin' around?" His teeth were showing in an unhappy smile. "I loved Drusilla all my unlife, Slayer, one hundred and eighteen years." Spike pronounced the number precisely. "You played kissy-face with Peaches for a few months. Think that compares?"

Buffy looked away from him, but set her own jaw. "You don't have a soul. You don't really know what love is."

"No?" There was an odd, clear light in his eyes as he refuted this, too. "Had one once, Slayer, and I can tell you heartbreak feels the same with or without one." He dropped onto the other side of the mattress, his gaze burning holes in the ceiling instead of her. "I know love. It's what I had with Dru."

"How could you love her?" she scoffed. "She slept around on you."

With a snarl, Spike grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her so they were facing each other. His voice, when it came, was soft. "How can you love your Angel? He was evil, it was always in there, soul or not, and he cheated with Dru." Once he said the words, he gritted his teeth.

Buffy saw the pain in his eyes and slowly closed her own. She knew he could love; she'd known that from the first week she met him. "I'm sorry." Her voice was broken. "I shouldn't have said any of that. Like there's any way we can quantify this: mine hurts more." But she knew hers hurt worse, because hers also included a truckload of guilt.

His lips compressed for a moment, then his grip on her shoulder eased. "Heart doesn't care about pain, I guess. It just loves, the way you didn't stop loving Angel after he broke the curse." He let go and they sat there in silence, both of them sure their loss was worse.

Looking for a less charged topic, Spike asked, "How did he break the curse?"

"Angelus never told you?"

"All he ever said was, we wouldn't believe it." The vampire shrugged. "Figured it had to be something sweet, to embarrass him so much."

"We slept together."

After a short silence, Spike said, "Oh, love, I'm so sorry." He'd woken up to Angelus once, too.

She shrugged. "He was gone when I woke up. I-I didn't know, not for a while."

"Wait, sex was the clause in the curse?" His voice was disbelieving; Angelus had been a participant in the family bed often enough after the Rom woman bound him.

"No. One moment of pure happiness."

He smelled fresh tears and put out a hand. After a moment, she placed her small one in his, and he squeezed. There was nothing he could say to that.

"He didn't know. Obviously."

"Never really knew him," Spike said, after a while, "Angel, I mean. Knew Angelus far too well, but with a soul… He was quieter, didn't torment us. A couple of years after it happened, the curse, I mean, we were in China – "

"A couple of years?" Buffy stared at him, her gaze sharp.

"Yeah, till Darla kicked him out of the family for good. He tried to, uh, eat only criminals and such, but that wasn't up to her standards." Spike took a breath, a slight smile touching the corners of his eyes. "We left, too, Dru and me, ditched Darla in China and never looked back." He looked down as her fingers clenched against his. "What?"

"I never knew that."

"Do you want to know?"

Buffy thought about this for a long moment. Angel, not just Angelus, had stayed with Darla, had killed with her. Did I ever really know him? "Did he love Darla? Angel, I mean?"

"Dunno. It isn't like he confided in me, pet. Well, once, but not about that. He loved Dru, I think, like a daughter, maybe. Gave me permission to protect her."

"Permission?"

"To protect her from Darla. She was Angelus,' not Darla's. The Duchess didn't have much patience with her."

Buffy tilted her head back and closed her eyes. "Did he sleep with Darla when he had the soul?"

"Slept with all of us." He felt her tension, and she let go of his hand. "It's what vampires do, pet. Nothing to do with love." Spike frowned, trying to remember so he could give her the truth. "He was better with the soul, at least I thought so. Not so… unpredictable, vicious. I asked him to come with us, just me and Dru, I mean. But he said Darla would hunt us down and unmake us, which was true, and also that he couldn't give Dru what she wanted anymore. Pain, I mean." He stared at the silent girl. "Buffy?"

"I always thought… Clear difference, you know, a line between what he did before he had a soul."

Spike again thought carefully, searching for the truth in the dusty memories. "He wasn't even functional, at first. Just doubled over by guilt. It was a curse; the soul suffered for things it never did. When he got on his feet, he came back to us. All he'd known for decades; didn't know what else to do, I guess." This was his own truth, and he closed his eyes.

Buffy swallowed, then cleared her throat. "I get that." If Angel were here in front of her, she would forgive him in a second. She would forgive him anything.

"Darla never really took him back. Always watching him, judging him, like she did when Drusilla first sired me. She only slept with him when he'd gotten a kill." Spike missed the expression that crossed the Slayer's face. "We had to stay in line, too, and she was always weepy.

"I thought Dru was mine, then, with Daddy gone. I knew I could make her happy, and I did. She was pretty bent before I got there, you know, but I could always bring her off. But I think she was always looking for him, and sometimes, yeah, I did use the whips or the hot candlewax, but I'd rather she work me over instead."

"Spike," Buffy ground out, "I don't want to hear any of it."

"Oh. Right." He took in a sharp breath. "So, yeah, Drusilla never loved me best, but I loved her, and she was the center of my life. Dunno what to do next."

"Me, either." Buffy looked at the dead tv screen. "But I know what I'm not doing. I'm done being the Slayer."

"I don't know that you can be done, kitten," Spike said slowly, facing her.

"Watch me."

When he didn't reply, the conversation lapsed. Buffy got ready for bed and was almost asleep when Spike emerged from his shower. He had thoughtfully turned the bathroom light off, but when he padded over to fuss with the air conditioning, Buffy realized he was naked. She shut down the part of her that would have absolutely forbidden the nakedness of vampires in her proximity. Who cared? Not her. She decided he looked thinner than the statue version of his form, then rolled to her side, facing away from him, and went to sleep.

⸹

Throughout their second day in the room, Spike drank steadily. Except for a slight sway when he walked, it didn't seem to affect him, and Buffy found herself curiously comfortable around him. Every so often, he would politely offer her a drink. She declined just as politely.

She turned away housekeeping at some point, Spike behind the door to avoid the spill of sunlight. By the afternoon, she knew she would stay another night because she was afraid to leave him alone. She'd never known him to be this quiet.

"Spike, why are you doing this?" she asked, sinking down to join him on the floor of the bathroom where he'd gone to be out of her way. They were leaning against the tub, and the room was small enough that Buffy put her feet up on the toilet because there was no space for her legs. She didn't get an answer, so she stared at his scuffed boots, thinking that they looked too large. The old saying about men with large feet came to mind, but it wasn't enough to make her smile. She couldn't imagine what would be enough. "Drinking, I mean."

"'Cause I'm afraid."

She looked at him, surprised both by the fact that he answered and by the answer. He was holding the bottle of amber liquor against his chest with one curled wrist. His left hand rested on his bent knee, and he was picking at the chipped black polish on his ring finger with his thumb.

"You?" She went for teasing, probably didn't make it. "Afraid? Of what?" At least he was talking again.

"Dunno if I exist."

Buffy leaned against his arm, pushing it a couple of inches to the side. "Yup, you exist."

He ignored her practicality. "What I am, is what I'm not. That's me, so what am I?"

"Um… 'splainy?"

"I'm 'not.'" Spike shrugged, setting the bottle carefully on the linoleum. His words had a slight slur to them. "'M not like other vamps. I eat, smoke, get on with humans all right, when 'm not peckish. 'M not Angelus. Might be a killer, but not like him. I'm not cruel – well, overly – with the terrorizing and torture. 'S'how I've always defined myself, by what I'm not. An' I'm not heartless. I love, Buffy. Don't want to lose that, don't know that I could go on without that. You don't understan,' I know, but years and years and years and the only bright thing is love, pet. Tha's all. An' without Dru to love, will I lose that? What if I don't exist? Worse, kitten," his voice was hardly louder than a whisper, "what if I do?"

"You exist, Spike." Incredibly, her mouth did curve a little. "Trust me, you exist. Better to exist than not."

"Yeah, but what's left of who am I?"

God, an existential crisis with a vampire, Buffy thought. She turned to him, though, and tried to look reassuring. "You're… Spike. You may dress like a refugee from a so-over punk band, and you may be a killer and a vampire," her voice gentled as she regarded the one person she could stand to be with right now, "but you're a good man."

He stared at her until she became uncomfortable and started to turn away. He stopped her, cupping her face in his large hand so she saw the play of emotion on his own. "Who are you? You're a baby Slayer, love, but you see me more clearly than anyone ever has, dead or undead."

She shrugged, really uncomfortable now, because the statement warmed her, and she shouldn't feel warmed. She shouldn't feel anything, not ever again. "I see you, that's all."

Spike's eyes traveled over her face, examining each feature carefully, her jaw, her mouth, her nose, and finally back to her eyes. There was a tiny smile on his face, and he didn't look drunk at all. "You see me," he breathed. "I may be a bad poet, kitten, but I am a good man."

He was quoting something, Buffy could tell, but had no idea what it was from. She wanted to get away, leave the bathroom because Spike needed something from her now, demanded it with his intense gaze, and she didn't have anything left.

Without closing his eyes, Spike leaned in to kiss her. This was the third time they had kissed, once in a tree, once in a wheelchair, and now on a bathroom floor. If the first time had been about power and the second about desperation, this was so different from any kiss in her experience that it took her more than a minute to figure it out. Spike didn't have the words to tell her what was in his heart, so he was trying to give them to her physically, deliver them to from his mouth through the warm surface of her lips, slide his thoughts to her with the play of his tongue along hers.

Buffy never pondered the fact that it worked, the odd communication effective either because they were both supernatural creatures or because she already knew what he wanted her to know. He was a demon and a good man, neither side of him able to dominate. He was dark warrior in combat boots and a lust object in eyeliner, and she stared into those eyes Dru had rimmed with kohl to draw humans in close enough to die and saw all of him. He was a killer and a lover; he was callous and soft; he was a demon who took and a friend who gave. He was Spike.

Swiftly, she went up on her knees next to him, winding her arms around his neck, then straddled his thigh, pushing him against the edge of the tub. What she saw in his eyes now was adoration, all for her. So she told him with her own mouth, with the way she held his lower lip between her small teeth so she could run her tongue over the fullness and taste it properly, all the things she could never say aloud. And it was okay, because he accepted all that she was, already knew her own contradictions and deepest wounds. He didn't need anything from her after all, only for her to acknowledge that he existed, entire, contradictions and all. How could she not do that, since he acknowledged all that she was and accepted it? She couldn't seem to get close enough to him, wanted to be inside him, even, the one place she could be safe.

Buffy was a killer too, had killed what she loved most in the world, knowing she would never get it back. _I killed my own innocence_ , she told him, tears falling on his face, on her fingers where they cupped his cheeks. _I never wanted this; I liked it when things were easy, before my parents' divorce, when I was the homecoming princess of my own high school. I never wanted to be the Slayer, never wanted to know how strong I could be, but I'll never give up this strength. The Slayer abilities may have come without my asking, but I earned this, I earned the right to this strength. It's mine._

 _It is yours_ , Spike agreed fiercely, his hands at her waist, raising the leg that she straddled so she was pressed against his chest. _It's you, Buffy. The Slayer part was just the catalyst. Known other Slayers, love, but they weren't strong like you. It's you. It's your strength, and there's nothing you can't do, nothing you can't conquer and make your own. You're the one. You're strong and beautiful, love. Don't fear that strength, because it's yours._ He moved his hands from her waist to frame her face and brush the tears away with gentle thumbs.

What they were doing couldn't properly be called kissing any longer. The movement of her lips against his was like murmured words, but words weren't necessary now. Buffy had the sense that if she never said another syllable to him, never saw him again after they left this room, he would still know her better than anyone else ever could. And she could see relief and fear in his eyes that someone had finally, after so long, seen him for who he was.

 _You're beautiful, too_ , she assured him, resting the tip of her nose against his, _and I'm not scared or repulsed. If it's okay for me to be strong, it's okay for you to be weak._

 _S'alright for both of us to be weak and to be strong._ He pressed his forehead against hers, his fingers trailing soft along her neck and down her back to enfold her in an embrace that shouldn't make her feel warm. _Glad that I can be strong for you; more'n glad you were here to be strong for me._

"Spike." Aloud, her voice seemed to grate against her own ears, tattering the spell that surrounded them, and she didn't want that, wasn't ready to not feel close to someone. And who else could she be close to again? Who else could ever accept the darkness inside her now? So she said the first words that came to her, and once they were out, it was all right. They were the words she had meant to say all along. "My vampire." And he was hers; she'd known that when she tried to take him from the factory. He belonged with her.

His fingers clenched against her fractionally, because words spoken aloud also have power. "My Slayer." Some emotion made his voice ragged, almost harsh, gave it the echo of a vow.

Buffy blinked a little, sensing some tiny _snick_ of closure at the edge of her Slayer's perception, as if something had sealed. She could follow it, but she didn't want to lose their sense of communion, didn't want to start to think about how their bodies were pressed together so intimately, didn't want to think of how this would look if someone were to see….

Too late. They were two separate beings again, and she watched Spike close his eyes, his brow furrowed with something like pain. Then he forced a smile and lifted a hand to push back a strand of her hair.

"Thank you, love." He grimaced a little; words were so inadequate, had always been inadequate, no matter how many you knew in dozens of languages. Then Spike smiled, a real smile, showing her his white, even human teeth. "You know what I mean." Because she would.

"Thank you, too." Buffy impulsively rubbed her nose against his, the silly gesture evoking a childhood where her Mommy and Daddy still loved her and each other.

Nothing was left now except to pull away from each other, because otherwise their physical position might lead to a lesser kind of intimacy. "Here." Spike took her hands and let her brace against his palms to regain her footing, then he stood up next to her, only to fix her with a steady regard.

Buffy dropped her eyes to the floor. "Don't look at me like that," she mumbled.

"Kitten, I'll never be able to look at you the same way again, to see you the same way again," he corrected himself.

She looked up at the humor in his voice, a small answering smile on her face. It faded as their eyes met, and Buffy reached up to touch the scar on his eyebrow, a memento from one of her long-ago sisters. She didn't really know why she did it, or why her fingertips stayed to caress his cheek. All she knew was relief. The connection was still there, could be called up again. She wasn't alone.

⸹

The corners of Spike's mouth flattened as the kid behind the counter overlooked the plainly marked carton of Marlboros for a second time. His muddy gaze left the probably stoned human and went to the displays next to the cash register. Pills to stay awake, pills to keep it up, plastic cards for calling long distance, cheap plastic lighters.

"Anything else, brah?" The kid had finally come through.

Spike started to shake his head, then he tossed one of the long distance cards next to the cigarettes and bottles of Four Roses. "Just this."

He left the convenience store and went further afield to a McDonalds. It was about five-thirty, close to the time she'd wake up. Spike got two Egg McMuffins. He strolled back outside, catching the eye of a khakis-and-polo clad young man whose neck was the perfect height for a lightning-fast strike at the door. He and his meal had passed each other within four seconds, the young man stumbling a bit, feeling unaccountably lightheaded.

Spike put the McDonalds bag on the dresser, then went outside to sit on the back of his car, ripping the cellophane from a new pack of cigarettes. He lit the first one, then shook his lighter. It would need a refill soon. He conserved his lighter fluid by chain-smoking.

A little after six, Buffy came out, holding the paper bag with breakfast. She sat it next to him and went to the vending machine for a Mountain Dew. As she came back, Spike ground out his sixth cigarette and scooted over. Buffy hopped up next to him and handed him one of the sandwiches. They sat side by side in the grey, pre-dawn light, watching traffic.

"Did you get back to sleep?" Buffy asked. He'd bolted upright, the word "No!" escaping in a cracked voice, waking her. As she'd woken him at least twice with her nightmares, it only seemed fair that he'd done the same to her.

Spike shook his head shortly and reached behind his back for the bag that held the booze and cigarettes. He washed down breakfast, screwed the cap back on, and put the bottle back in the bag. His fingers brushed against a hard, thin shape.

"Oh. Here," he said, holding out the card. Buffy looked at it blankly, then turned her gaze on him. Spike shrugged. "Dunno. Giles, I thought."

She stared at the calling card again. She'd seen Xander supporting Giles as they made their escape. It was enough that he was all right.

Then she stood up and started walking toward the sidewalk. There was a payphone at the corner, beneath the sign for their motel. She read the directions on the back of the card, then picked up a small gravel to scrape the coating from the code number. It wasn't until she let the gravel drop that she realized there was no receiver resting in the cradle.

Buffy went back to sit on the trunk of the DeSoto again. "I'll try somewhere else," she said with a shrug. The vampire nodded, distracted by the brightening sky, and handed the Mountain Dew back to her.

⸹

"Come on." Buffy held her hand out to Spike. Lunch and dinner passed in companionable, if morose, silence on their third day. She was tired of the quiet.

He looked away from the television judge giving small claims justice to gaze at her blankly. "Where?"

"I always wanted to climb a Moreton Bay fig tree. Now I'm gonna."

He nodded, but didn't take her hand, unfolding himself from his perch on the bed slowly. Buffy led the way out the door and past the DeSoto, stopping beneath the canopy of the tree, staring up at the trunk through the aerial roots.

"Looks climbable."

"For us? No problem." She led the way up, Spike climbing behind her. Buffy didn't know if he was hindered by the drooping branches or if he just didn't feel like leaping ahead of her.

Fifty feet up, the branches began to be too slender for comfort. Buffy settled against the trunk and waited for Spike to join her. When they were on adjacent branches, they stared out over the lights of the city visible through the leaves. Traffic noises were muffled up here, and they had a light, constant breeze.

"Everything you hoped?"

She shrugged. "You aren't allowed to climb the trees in parks."

"You let that stop you?"

"I have been a very good girl most of my life."

"I am truly sorry."

She smiled. "Thank you for bringing me back to L.A. Even this part."

"No accounting for taste."

"Not for yours." She nodded toward the ground. "Cars, your choice in lodging." How about that, she was teasing him after all.

"You never said fuck-all about the Four Seasons, just find a place to hole up."

She was arrested by the thought of a luxury hotel, of towels that were thick and covers that were touchable and, oh, room service. Then she looked out over the city again. "You know, you're the only person in my life that says 'fuck.'"

"Oh. Sorry. I'll try – "

"Don't worry about it. It's okay, here, I mean. The Four Seasons wouldn't be…."

"Seemly," Spike offered.

Buffy nodded. "This has been the right place."

He noticed the tense. She's moving on, Spike thought, taking the first step, anyway. He didn't know where that left him.

"Where's your favorite place, Spike? You've travelled everywhere, I guess."

"Yeah. Uh, favorite, I dunno." He was quiet for a moment. "I guess it's _mal du pays_ , you know, nostalgia, because it isn't so much a where as a when." She could see the sadness in his small smile. "London in the sixties, maybe." He started to mention New York in the seventies, but figured it might not be the smartest thing to remind her of that history.

"I guess that makes sense. L.A. didn't seem like the same city when I stayed with my dad last summer."

"Things change."

"They do."

"What's your favorite place?"

"I haven't been many places." She shrugged. "To Illinois to visit my aunt. San Diego and Sacramento for cheerleading competitions, San Jose for ice skating."

"Where do you want to go, love?" He heard the wistfulness in her voice.

She glanced over and gave him a quick smile. "Europe. Glamorous places. Tokyo, maybe. Fashion week in Paris."

"I can picture you in Paris, wearing those overlarge sunglasses."

"And carrying twenty shopping bags."

"And you say Slayer strength isn't good for anything."

Silence fell again, but it was better. Buffy rubbed her hands over her bare arms. She was wearing a tank top that had been fine at ground level.

"Here, love." Spike dropped down to the next branch beneath them and sat on the stronger limb, propping his back against the tree. He held his coat open. "It'll block the wind."

She understood the diffidence in his voice; he didn't have body heat. "Thanks." Buffy swung down and gingerly perched herself on the branch between his thighs. The awkward part over, he folded his coat over her arms and laced his fingers around her midsection to keep her safe. "That does feel better."

"View is better here, too" he commented. There was a gap in the leaves, and lights stretched as far as they could see.

It was kind of a wonderful experience, to be safe and hidden in a bower among the swaying branches, a whole city laid out before them, darkness hiding all of its flaws. I have this, and Angel will never have anything ever again. Buffy thought that it was just her until Spike lifted a hand to his eyes. A minute later, they began the climb back down.

Buffy let Spike shower first, though she regretted her generosity when she realized she'd picked up a couple of ants during the climb. He came out of the bathroom within a few minutes, a towel wrapped around his hips.

"Had an ant on me," he said, stepping to the far side of the bed so her path to the shower was clear.

"I found two." She made a face as she closed the bathroom door. The little room was steamy and her brow and upper lip immediately beaded with perspiration. Buffy shed her clothes and examined them for more ants, then hopped into the shower. After a moment, she stopped smelling whatever subtle cologne Spike wore.

When she came out, Spike was propped against the headboard, his flat pillow providing marginal protection between his back and the fake wood. The light was off, but he was watching television. Avoiding the sight of the naked vampire, Buffy laid down and watched, too.

"Change the channel," she said after a moment.

Spike turned to look at her, startled. He hadn't been paying attention to what was on the screen, apparently, lost in his own thoughts. His eyes went to the movie that was on, then back to her. "What, you don't like _noir_?"

"What?"

" _Body Heat_ , it's film _noir_ , yeah?"

On the fuzzy screen, two sweaty bodies were writhing against each other. "Whatever. It's also porn. Which is, like, inappropriate."

Spike examined her face a moment, then shrugged and got up to change channels. He stood naked in front of the television, turning the dial to find something else.

Buffy closed her eyes against the light and shadow flickering across his nude form. I should have stuck with the movie, she thought resentfully. Turning to her side, she drew the sheet up to her chin and closed her eyes.

⸹

[Author's Note: The next section contains explicit material.]

⸹

"You need food."

"I'm not hungry." When he didn't answer, she looked up. She was lying on the bed, her feet toward the pillows, not watching _Wheel of Fortune_. It was their fourth day, and she'd passed on lunch. Spike was frowning, an expression Buffy hadn't seen directed her way too often.

He took in a small breath, exhibiting the air of a man having come to a decision. "Be back in a bit, kitten. I'll bring something for dinner, and you will eat."

"Oooh, forceful. I hate that in a man," she said brightly.

Spike gave her a rich smile that said he had plenty of comebacks, all too x-rated for her underaged ears. "Be back soon." With a fleeting caress of her hair, he was gone. Neither of them had been in tears for over two hours.

One game show went off, and after a lot of commercials, another came on. Not until Alex Trebek started the Double Jeopardy round did it occur to Buffy that the blond vampire was going to get something to eat for himself as well. She felt a pang; she should have reminded him not to eat people. Buffy put her face flat against the bed, trying to not breathe, not be. Nag my roommate about not killing people and drinking their blood, she thought, welcome to my brave new world. Then it occurred to her that if he was feeding, he was taking a step away from the abyss.

Spike had been gone almost an hour more before the doorknob rattled and he stepped in, carrying a brown sack of groceries. "Hi, honey, I'm home," he said.

Sarcasm on low, Buffy noted. "So, how many people did you kill today, dear?" she asked, going for a matching tone.

"None. Boss is gonna sack me if I can't start showing some bodies." When she continued to look at him steadily, Spike rolled his eyes. "Thought you were giving up the Slayer gig. I fed off three different people. They'll all be exceptionally horny for a few days, then they'll be fine."

Something escaped her that sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter. Buffy covered her mouth, aghast. She was in mourning. "Horny?" she repeated, when she could manage a severe tone.

"In a hurry, yeah? Quickest way to fill my belly." He shrugged. "No challenge, but easy this way."

She shook her head. "I'm still somewhere between you in a hurry and your half-eaten happy meals on legs being horny."

"Some Slayer you are, not knowing your enemy's tactics." He sat down next to her and plopped a real grocery bag, from Ralphs instead of a Circle K, between them. "Pick two things out of here to eat, and I'll tell all."

"I'm not hungry."

"Does it look like I care if you're hungry?" he shot back. "Not on a restricted diet now, but I'm still weak. You want that dynamic to change, to not be stronger than me, fine." He pulled the bag away.

Buffy put her hand over his, stopping him because something inside the brown paper smelled good. "What's in there, anyway?" He handed it to her without answering, and she pilfered through the contents. Blinking a little, she withdrew a deli sandwich and held it up, a question in her eyes.

"Turkey, lettuce, and tomato on whole grain." Spike shrugged.

"Thanks." She didn't smile, but there was something wry in her voice. "No buffalo wings?" The beer at the Bronze might not have been up to his standards, but he had liked the menu.

He gave her a fleeting grin. "No buffalo wings."

She didn't answer, just looked further, finding a bag of plain potato chips, more bananas, and a plastic bowl of premade salad. There was also a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and a carton of cigarettes. "For me?" She held up the Marlboros. He growled, and she felt her cheeks curve. "Well, this must be for me," she indicated the bourbon, "as you've already drank and there's nothing else."

"Vending's just around the corner. Woulda got warm, otherwise."

"Would you get me a diet anything?"

He slid off the bed and straightened to his feet. "I live to serve, mum." Then, all swagger. "Be back."

Five minutes later, they were sitting cross-legged on the bed, Buffy eating her sandwich, Spike stealing slivers of carrot from her salad, his left hand curved around the neck of the bourbon bottle. "So," Buffy said, swallowing, "spill."

A shadow of a sensual grin touched his mouth at the command, but he merely shrugged. "One way to feed, yeah? 'S'all some vampires ever learn – all they need. Effective, innit? Put out the vibe, wait until they're looking at you, bit of the mesmer, Bob's your uncle."

She shook her head. "In English. What 'vibe?'"

"This one."

Suddenly, she couldn't take her eyes off him, noticing all over again how cute he was, the breadth of his shoulders, the way his hair was curling and unruly and touchable, the nuance of muscle beneath the black t-shirt. Then, just as abruptly, the almost overwhelming need to reach out to him was gone, and he was giving her a mocking little grin. "That vibe, the 'come-shag-me' vibe. Too easy for my taste."

"Except tonight," she said, a bite in her tone. She shouldn't be susceptible to that.

"'S'quick, an' I'm still not as strong as I'd like." Spike stole another carrot. "So, anyway, pull 'em in close enough, suggest that they be quiet, and feed."

"So, it's the 'vibe,'" she air-quoted the word, "that makes them horny for a while." Buffy popped the last of the sandwich into her mouth without realizing she'd finished the whole thing.

He shook his head. "The feeding."

"How's that?"

Spike furrowed his brow as his eyes went to the scar on her neck. "You didn't feel anything when the Master bit you?"

Buffy shrugged. "Horror and paralysis and this awful kind of numb acceptance."

"Huh." He regarded her, but his mind was elsewhere. "Always was an asexual old bastard. Maybe the thrall? Or, maybe it just wasn't strong in him."

"Are you saying," she asked slowly, "that being bitten is supposed to feel… good?"

"Well, yeah."

"That's disgusting."

"No, that's bloody good design. Else it's fight or flight, right? Who's going to fight pleasure, or run away from it?" He leaned back, lifting his knees higher to loosely clasp with his hands, and gave her a close look. "Why do you say disgusting?"

"It's… sneaky to use our instincts against us."

"Well, demon, after all." He tilted the bourbon, took a quick swig. "Just wanted to be sure you didn't mean the, uh, feeling good part." Another drink, and he recapped the bottle. "Though I agree with you. Much rather have a standup fight."

"Except tonight," she said again, a little maliciously. "You got a three course meal and three women go home and make their husbands or boyfriends very happy."

"One woman, two men. Not much choice with fast food."

Buffy's eyes widened; she hadn't considered this. She put the lid on the remnants of the salad, shaking her head. "It's weird to think of you feeding on guys."

"Why? Do you care if that turkey came from a tom or a hen?"

"Well, won't it freak those guys out, thinking they were attracted to you?"

"And I care that they're secure in their sexual preferences why?" He shook his head. "'Sides, they won't remember, anyway."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"No." He laughed. "Not looking for true love, pet. Just dinner."

"I don't know," she said, troubled but unable to pin down the thought. "It still seems kind of…."

"Sexual?" He leaned closer, dark blue eyes sparkling with wickedness. "I'll feed off both women and men, pet. Penetration works with both sexes."

He was baiting her, she knew, trying to make her feel gauche and juvenile. "I so don't want to go there."

"Why?" Spike's tone was challenging. There was something… brittle about her, something he'd never noticed with Buffy before.

"What?"

"Why does it frighten you to talk about sex?"

"We were talking about feeding," she pointed out. "And I'm not frightened."

He scoffed. "You can talk about vampires driving their fangs into flesh, milking their pliant victims, sucking, all that without batting a lash. It's sex what shuts you down."

"Spike, I said let's not go there." Buffy climbed off the bed to throw away her trash.

He watched her as she moved about the room. Since there were no chairs, she had no other place to go, so Buffy came back and sat with her back against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest. Nothing defensive there, he thought. Something had changed from her blushing avoidance of his naughtier comments during the pax, seemed more like rejection now.

Tenacity coming more naturally than breathing, he heaved himself higher on the mattress, so that he was slumped next to her, looking up at her tense jaw. "What makes a Slayer not want to go somewhere?" he asked. Before she could answer, a black thought occurred to him. In a moment, he had moved in front of her, his arms on her shoulders, his chest above her knees as angry eyes examined her.

Buffy never flinched, as the anger wasn't directed at her. A slight crease between her brows, she waited for him to explain himself.

"Did someone hurt you, kitten?" His voice was deadly and so soft.

Understanding dawned. "Oh. Oh, no. Nothing like that." She thought briefly of her first Watcher. Something had been odd about him, but he'd never touched her inappropriately. And she refused to even think of Hyena Xander, not with Spike looking at her like that.

He examined her face for a long moment before slowly nodding. "But you have been hurt."

"Well, duh," she said, immediately hating the echo of Cordelia in the words.

"Tell me."

She just frowned at him, drawing her arms tighter around her knees. Spike simply moved his arms along her body so he could scoop her up, and he twisted so he was the one leaning against the headboard and she was cradled on his lap. Buffy glared at him, holding on to her anger. "I don't want to –"

"Tell me."

She looked away, closing her eyes, giving her head a small shake. At least there were no tears left. "Afterwards… when I saw him again, Angel said I wasn't very good. I-I didn't know it was Angelus. And he said," her voice became very small, "I was a real pro."

Spike let out a long, irate sigh, holding her closer. "Wanker."

"He'd know, wouldn't he? I mean, Darla–"

"He said those things to hurt you, Buffy, trying to make you feel dirty."

"I know. It worked."

"Only if you let it." Spike turned her head with his palm, until she was resting her forehead against his. "Don't let him win, pet. Don't ever let him win."

She was silent, keeping her thoughts to herself. Maybe Angelus' words had simply struck too close to the bone, but sharing this didn't make her feel any better or any less insecure.

"It must be hard to be a girl," Spike said abruptly.

"What?"

She could feel him shrug. "Western society's set up these rules that you shouldn't enjoy sex, else you must be a slut. At the same time, you're supposed to be a sex kitten in short skirts like that bint in the videos, Britney what's-her-face. You can't win."

Buffy had never thought about it that way before, and she automatically rejected the Catch-22. "I dress to be pretty, sexy for me, not because I'm supposed to."

"Then you have to like sex for you, too."

"I have absolutely no interest in ever having sex again."

"Don't say that." His brows were drawn together. "'S'one of the top things in the world."

"Maybe for vampires."

"For you, too, at least before the git's soul got stripped away." When she didn't respond, Spike's fingers tightened on her arm and calf. "You were with an Aurelian, pet," he said slowly. "It had to be good."

Buffy shrugged. "It was… okay. You know, nice."

"Nice," Spike repeated, staring at her as if she was speaking an obscure language that he somehow hadn't encountered. Then he roared, making her twitch. "Oh, come on! Twenty years in a bed with me, a century an' more with the Duchess, and he learned nothing?!"

Buffy didn't even bother to call him on his arrogance. "I was a virgin," she ground out. "I don't think it can be good for girls the first time."

"Rot."

"Why are you so angry?"

"I–" He stared at her, his mouth working for a couple of seconds. Then he looked away, eyes still burning. "Should have made it good for you, is all." Spike found a peg to hang his anger on. "'S'a blow to the family honor, that's what it is."

"Oh, yes, the honor of vampires."

"What use is a fuckin' soul if – Oh, blood – Sorry, pet. Forgot to mind my tongue."

She waved a hand, smiling faintly at the flustered vampire. "Don't worry about it. I'm not gonna be Buffy the profanity Slayer, either. Here," she said, breaking free, moving off his lap. "I think I'll go brush my teeth, shower." She sighed. "I guess tomorrow is back to the real world."

"We've got all week." She looked at him, startled, did not agree or disagree.

Long after the bathroom door had shut, Spike stared at it, something still smoldering in the depths of his eyes. To have a chance to introduce the woman you love to pleasure… He would give an eye or even an arm to have been the one to deflower Dru, neither too great a price to spare her (and Spike hardly noticed his defenses kicking in: just like she's in London, staying with Elizabeth and James, out there somewhere, that's all). He found it unforgivable that a being with a soul and well over two centuries of experience had botched the job with Buffy.

Almost half an hour passed before the Slayer came out of the bathroom, her hair damp. She was wearing one of his black t-shirts from the trunk of the DeSoto, apparently saving her last clean clothes for the next day. "Still brooding?" she asked.

"I don't brood," he snapped.

"Yup," she sighed. "Still brooding."

He made an impatient noise and moved off the bed, catlike, but all he did was turn down the sheets. "Too cold?"

"I'm all right." She crossed her arms, though, waiting for him to finish fussing with the sad, flat pillow.

"I'll turn down the air."

"I'm going to bed." It wasn't much of an announcement, she supposed, but as it was only ten and at this time of night he was just getting revved up, she figured it was best to be clear.

"Any hot water left?"

"I think so." She listened as he took his turn in the shower, her mind blessedly not on much of anything. Despite the temptation that Spike placed in front of her, noting that this room was theirs for three more nights, it was time to go. Tomorrow at this time, she'd be in the spare bedroom of her father's condo, and his girlfriend would be warned away for the duration of her visit. There was the very real possibility that Hank would pack her into his car and take her back to Sunnydale, and Buffy definitely couldn't face that idea right now. So, no thinking, just listening: the hiss of the shower, a thunk of machinery as the air conditioner under the window kicked on again, the trill of cicadas dying away as the heat outside faded.

Sleep wouldn't come. Buffy wondered if it was because she'd slept too much already or if her subconscious had decided that insomnia was better than another nightmare. She stared up at the ceiling a long time, wondering if her mother missed her, now that she couldn't go home. I have no home, she thought, but two years after leaving L.A., it wasn't a new thought.

Spike came out of the bathroom, quiet and naked, his pale form moving around the room putting away his things before he lifted the sheets and slid onto the far side of the mattress. "Can't sleep?"

Impossible to fool a vampire, she supposed. "No." She could feel his eyes examining her, his sight better than hers in the dim room. She placed her hands on top of a fold of covers, wanting to hold on to the warmed area. After a few moments, he let out a sigh and lifted his arms behind his head. "You smell good," she blurted.

"Uh," he said, twisting to look at her, surprised, "thanks."

"I've always wondered what your scent is."

"Scent?"

"Cologne."

"Oh. Don't use one. Just soap, bay rum soap. Did use it as aftershave years ago, since before I was a vampire, even."

"Bay rum?"

"Made in the West Indies for longer than even I've been around."

"Oh."

"Not all flowery," he said, and there was something expansive in his tone that made her smile. She'd gotten him to talking again. "Most scents are either floral or musk-based, and I don't really care for either. Shoulda smelled some of the scents back when perfumes were designed to cover up body odor."

"Must have been a bad time to be a vampire, with your sense of smell."

"Funny thing is, we didn't notice so much. All our prey smelled strong. Then plumbing got better and some boffin came up with deodorant and another with the hand-held hair dryer, and now everyone," he lifted a shoulder, "smells much nicer."

When he fell silent, she was surprised. He was a champion talker, seemed to know a little bit about every topic. Spike had a lot on his mind, too, she supposed.

She thought of Willow and Xander and especially Giles, wondering how he was, if he'd spoken with Kendra's Watcher yet, then made herself stop because she knew that train of thought would circle back to the murder she didn't commit and the murder she did.

"Spike?" She felt the mattress give as he leaned a couple of inches closer. "Why are we… better?" Words weren't going to be easy for this one. "I mean, I should be thinking of what happened every minute, but… it's getting easier." She looked over at him in the dim room.

"Reckon that's just being human, love. You're made to move on. Must have been that way from the first, otherwise the saber-toothed beasties would have killed everyone at the first funeral."

"I thought it's supposed to be grief, anger, bargaining, all that for, like, weeks."

"Oh, no, that's the process for people who are terminally ill. Saw Kubler-Ross speak about it back in the seventies, the doctor that came up with the five stages. Good-looking lady."

Buffy smiled faintly. Of course he would remember that. "What about for… survivors?"

"Dunno that there's any particular model to follow." He let out a sigh. "As I remember, the worst is the first day or so, the shock. Then practical matters start demanding your attention, the mind gets distracted, life gets shoveled over top… But the grief comes back, sometimes just as sharp, but at longer and longer intervals. Then comes a day that something reminds you of them, and it makes you smile as well as tear up."

"Who are you thinking of?"

"My father." She felt him shrug. "Everyone, I guess."

"My cousin Celia died when we were little kids. Mom took me to a psychologist for a while." Buffy lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "What I remember most is how uncomfortable it made my parents when I mentioned her. I never understood that."

"Me, either. Not like they did anything wrong. But people act like it's a sin to die."

"Kids dying should be a sin. Well, taboo."

"Yeah. Hurts the worst, I guess. My mom had miscarriages, I think, and I had a sister that was stillborn. Broke her heart." He shifted. "After Father died, my mother's main role was 'widow' for the rest of her life, and I never thought anything of it, even though the rest of us just got on with things. Victorian culture, I guess."

"Mom says my aunt has never been the same, either." She sighed. "I guess we aren't the same as we were a few days ago."

He slid a hand from the covers and patted her hand, then settled back. No, he wasn't the same. The lines of grief on his face relaxed; Buffy said he was a good man. If he wasn't the same old Spike, caretaker of and boy toy for Drusilla… he could be something different. Not a good man, not really, but… if he was his own man… he would make his own choices.

That was overwhelming, too exhausting to consider right now, so he went back to their earlier conversation. Angelus – Angel had botched things so thoroughly with Buffy that she had no interest in lovemaking. He had finally realized why that made him so angry; after decades with Drusilla, it wasn't a hard connection to make. Spike had tried to change that for his dark beauty, but Dru was too broken to ever be healthy that way.

Buffy wasn't.

Spike had been quiet for so long that he felt Buffy jump when he spoke. "Love?"

"Huh?"

"You trust me, Slayer?"

"I'm here with you, aren't I?" Buffy sighed; that hadn't come out the way she'd wanted it to sound. "I trust you, Spike. I'm surprised you felt you had to ask."

"After the bathroom, yeah." They had been so close then.

"Even before that. I always know where I stand with you."

"Good. Me, too – trust you, I mean."

He went silent again before taking an abrupt breath, then the words tumbled out. "What you said while you were eating, 'bout never wanting to have sex again, it bothered me, love. Don't want you to feel like that. Figured maybe if an Aurelian made you feel that way, it should be an Aurelian to change your mind." He rolled to his side to look at her and almost closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to. "Want to make it good for you, kitten," Spike said, his voice rough, "not shagging, I mean, may be a lot of things, but 'm not a hypocrite, just…" He made himself meet her eyes, made himself not touch her in case it scared her. "You deserve better, love – any woman does," he added hastily.

"Spike… What are you… where do you think this is going?" Buffy's grip on the covers tightened.

He looked away, and even in the dark room, she could see his jaw flex before he turned back. "Anyone gone down on you, love?" When she didn't reply, he got his answer from her widened eyes. "Didn't think so. Otherwise, you would be looking forward to the next guy." Provided he isn't another selfish git, Spike amended silently.

"You want to…" Buffy's voice trailed off, her hands pulling the covers involuntarily higher.

"Ever been to a wake, pet?"

She blinked at the abrupt change of topic. "N-no." Miss Calendar's funeral had been brutal and short, as grim as her black-clad family. "Wha – huh?"

"At the wake, people talk and laugh and eat, and a lot of times when they go back to their own homes, they make love. Way of affirming life, I s'pose."

"You want to… affirm life?" An insane proposition from the undead.

"Maybe something like that, yeah." He wasn't looking away now, just regarding her. "Not for me, though. For you, just for you, so you'll know it can be better than 'nice.' No," she could see the corner of his mouth lift in a lazy grin, "penetration of any kind." He stated the limits of what he would permit himself, and the demon inside relaxed, understanding what behavior was allowed. "Just want to bring you off, love."

She'd never heard that phrase, but she didn't have to ask what it meant. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut. "… can't."

"What?"

A few days ago, this conversation might have made her die of embarrassment, but now she was already dead in all the ways that mattered. "I might not be able to." Her eyes were still closed. "When I… you know, try, I can't always… get there. I just can't… go through that." Not again, not even with Spike.

She wasn't good at it, Angelus had told her. Spike gazed at her, sensing the increased blood flow as she blushed. "No reason you should be able to come every time, pet. I don't." Buffy shot him a swift, surprised glance. "'S'a chance not to think for a while, anyway. We can try. You say stop, I will."

A long silence. "…okay." Buffy thought of the first boy who'd stroked her tongue with his when he kissed her instead of thrusting it in and out of her mouth. Since then, she'd wondered how that sort of caress might feel… elsewhere. After Angel took himself in hand and moved atop her, she was disappointed. She remembered hoping that maybe that would happen their second time.

"Really?"

He sounded so delighted, she had to smile. "You never believed I'd say yes?" she replied, diverted.

"No." Must have been the not-thinking bit, he decided.

Her eyes had adjusted to the imperfect darkness, and she could see him gazing at her as if he'd found an especially neat prize in the bottom of his cereal box. "You don't know me as well as you think you do."

"Never cease to amaze me, kitten."

She looked away from the intensity of his regard. "Well?"

"Well, what?" He got it then. "No, love," and she could hear the humor in his voice, "can't rush these things." Spike leaned closer, hesitating when she froze.

"This is weird." Buffy hadn't considered that there would be kissing.

"Why?" He sounded genuinely curious.

"B-because we're friends." The closeness was there again; she could feel how happy her words had made him.

He cleared his throat. "We've kissed before."

"That was different."

"S'pose so." A lazy grin. "This different will be better."

"You are so full of yourself."

He bit down on the rejoinder that came to mind, not opposed to making her full of himself, laying his head to the side instead because that sort of thing was outside the limits. "Now's your chance to set me on my ear, then, you think I'm all hat and no cattle."

"What?" She laughed a little. This strange encounter was slyly pulling her away from reality, freeing her from having to grieve.

"'An American expression; thought you'd know it. Cowboys, yeah? Big talk, you know, but nothing to back it up with." A wicked grin. "You be the judge, pet, whether I'm all talk."

"You are all talk so far," she pointed out, amazed at how easily the banter came to her, because she was still nervous, gripping the thin sheet in her hands.

Spike chuckled, giving her a look that was enough to convince her, at least for this interval of time, that she was the only woman in the entire world. "Fair cop."

"Is… Was that a compliment? Like, my fair lady? 'Cause I'm not sure if I want to be called a cop." When he smiled but didn't answer, her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't look at me that way."

What way? She'd asked him that before. "Close your eyes, then. You say stop, I will," he repeated, emphasizing the word 'stop.' As her lids fluttered shut, he lowered his mouth to hers.

He was warm from the shower, maybe from being close to her, too. His kisses were a lot like Angel's, slow, unhurried, but, like before, Spike's hands were an altogether different matter. The fingers of his right hand stroking her nape, his other was beneath the covers, smoothing along her hip. After a moment, he pulled away, his expression a mix of fondness and mischief. Without saying a word, he eased the pillow from beneath her head, so that she was lying flat.

"What do you need me to do?" Buffy bit her lip. She could hear nervousness in her voice, knew he could, too.

"You," he said, tilting his head, smiling down at her, "don't need to do anything. Although, if you feel so moved, I would find it quite gratifying," he slid his fingers into her hand and pried the sheet from her grasp, "for you to sing my praises." Moving the covers down just to her ribs, no more, he gave her a considering look. "Though I doubt you'll be able to form words."

"You are such a complete – Oh!"

His mouth was at her breast, his tongue lathing her through the t-shirt, making the roughness of the fabric part of the caress. Spike caught her watching and managed to grin at her without once stopping. His left hand was still beneath the covers, stroking her calf, cupping her knee, sliding along her thigh. Then his fingers eased beneath the hem of his t-shirt and over her panties, along her ribs to cup her right breast.

She watched because it wasn't too obvious in the dim room. He was in no hurry, and so far, she wouldn't say this was any different from her earlier experiences, just… nice. Then he nipped her with his blunt teeth, making her jerk, making her feel it much lower.

His hand slid to her left breast, curving around it, and he pulled his head back slightly to blow a stream of cool air on the damp spot he'd made on the cotton. Buffy felt her nipple pucker further, almost to the point of pain. Spike bent his head again, like kissing a boo-boo, she thought, and somewhere along the way, he'd begun stroking the top of his foot along her calf. Minutes melted away as the nice feelings continued, and Buffy put one hand beneath her head so she could continue to watch him. The other she put tentatively on his shoulder.

Spike wasn't on autopilot, exactly, but he was so focused that it was almost as if he came back to himself when he finally moved the t-shirt high enough to place his mouth on her skin. Pausing before he lowered his head, he took stock. She was trusting him with the weight of one thigh across hers, her naked torso beneath his hands, and now his mouth on her flesh. Spike began nibbling at the underside of her breast.

And it was like tasting heaven.

It wasn't the heat or the slight tang of salt as she grew warmer or even the subtle chemical and hormonal release caused by desire. He'd had human lovers before. This was something unique, and it wasn't due to the aura of purity and power that clung to her. Whatever was special about her came from her, would have been there even if she was nothing more than a student at Hemery High in Los Angeles. Or maybe it was that along with being the Slayer, some alchemy that made her taste perfect to him. Spike hadn't meant to lavish such attention on her breasts, just planned to kill time until she relaxed somewhat, move on. But now that he was here, he rather thought that he could spend the rest of the week loving her body. Angelus, he realized anew, was a bloody fool.

On the thought, he lifted his face and moved so his nose touched hers, wanting to make sure he told her just how desirable she was. "Might take a closer examination, pet," he murmured, pausing to kiss her once, then again, "but I'm pretty sure you have the world's most kissable breasts."

Buffy's lips parted, and it was the same as an invitation for Spike. She wanted to smile at the compliment, feeling a glow inside that had nothing to do with desire, but it would be rude not to kiss him back.

"I'd best check further," he said, rubbing his nose against hers once more, "just to be sure."

His mouth was on her bare skin now, and Buffy could feel the slide of his tongue, the hardness of his even teeth, even the occasional rasp of beard from some random spot he'd not shaved quite perfectly. Her eyes were drifting shut more often than she could keep them open now. This was better than 'nice,' she decided, and it was because he was always doing at least three things at once. Spike might be nibbling her breast, but he was also caressing her foot with his and drawing slow circles on her tummy with his free hand. She found she was doing almost the same on his back, tracing the contour of muscle along his spine. He framed her ribs with his hands and shifted his body further down the bed. Buffy drew in a breath. Any minute now.

Spike slid lower, placing both hands lightly on her breasts as his mouth moved over her ribs so he could dip his tongue into her navel. She tasted spicier there, and he lingered, probing the tiny bump inside, thinking of her as a wee thing, of an umbilical cord that once connected her to Joyce, of the fact that she was a growing, living being. Then Buffy shifted restlessly beneath him, arching her back to push against his hands, proof of her desire, that she wanted more. Something inside him lit, caught fire, and he began breathing, full of masculine satisfaction with his own ability and pride in this woman who was taking back the pleasure that was rightfully hers.

Pushing aside the sheets, he moved over her, parting her thighs with his knee and bending so he could do the same thing he'd done earlier, touching her with his mouth through her clothing, through the nylon of her panties. Buffy jerked and cried out, not in delight, but in surprise. Spike stopped to grin at her. The hard part, the initial contact, was over.

She stared back at him, her eyes wide, taking in everything from the black of his t-shirt rucked up past her naked breasts to the pale pink of her underwear to the mischief on his face. His eyes were practically glowing with it. No, they were glowing, she realized, not yellow, but with a clear light. There was nothing in the blue depths that even hinted that he was a monster, and that was good, because she wanted him and she shouldn't. "Spike," she whispered, unsure.

"'S'all right, love," he said, reassuring her. Then his voice grew rough, uneven. "Gotta taste you now."

He didn't, though, only shifted his body a little lower and watched his fingers trail along her thighs, brushing against the edges of her panties. Buffy flinched again, and Spike felt the tension in her strong muscles. It wasn't, he thought, that she was afraid he would touch her. She was afraid he wouldn't. Her breathing was rapid and ragged, and he'd matched his own to it.

Spike lowered his head. He sprawled between her legs, forcing them further apart, giving him more access. The smile of anticipation on his face was for her, certain now that she was going to enjoy this. He ran his tongue along the nylon, past the tiny damp spot on the cotton lining, then back up. Even if it wasn't going to happen, her body was getting ready to welcome his, he thought, and the scent of her desire made him feel almost dizzy.

Buffy couldn't keep her breathing even, and she realized she had grabbed his shoulder, not sure if she wanted to push him away. She couldn't believe she was doing this. It was too intimate, but something in her craved it, not despite who she was with, but because it was him. He must have sensed her unease, because he stilled and met her eyes.

Spike covered her hand with his, coaxed her to lace her fingers through his, her left hand joined with his right. He gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze, took a last, steadying breath, and made the respiration stop. It wouldn't last, he knew; his emotions were too close to the surface. These were good emotions, though: wonder, pride, desire, and a deep contentment that came from knowing he was taking care of her, that Buffy trusted him. Settling his body further between her thighs, he bent his head once again.

"Oh my God," Buffy said, thinking distantly that she'd just said something incredibly inappropriate. This was nothing like masturbation; she felt like something wild was loose inside her, looking for a way out, making her feel twitchy and shuddery. Or, she thought with near-hysteria, something was coming, and she was pretty sure it was going to be her. "Oh, please… no."

He ignored her contradictory words, listening instead to her body, the pressure of her fingers against his. He settled the tip of his tongue over the seam that held the cotton lining, pushing down against her clitoris through the cloth. Buffy lifted her hips higher even as she made another sound of negation, one of her knees raising to press against his hip. Spike closed his eyes, firmly leashing in his urge to ruin her for humans with what he could do to her body. Instead, trying not to grin, he began to move his tongue deliberately over the hard ridge of cloth and thread, feeling the firm little nub beneath give against the pressure.

"Oh!" Buffy lifted her shoulders from the mattress, her head falling back. Something inside her uncoiled, a familiar feeling from when she touched herself. There, she'd done it. She wasn't frigid. Then her brows drew together. She always stopped at this point, but Spike was… She managed to focus on his blond head still settled at the juncture of her thighs. Stop, she could say the word and he would; why wasn't she saying the word? He must have felt her watching him, because he turned his head just a little, enough to meet her eyes, even as he kept working magic with his tongue. "Spiike!" she cried, and this time her hips lifted from the bed, a second, stronger orgasm shocking her. "Oh," she said, when she could breathe again, wait, this couldn't be right, "oh God…" A third climax rocked through her, and she could feel muscles down there contracting, almost pulsing, such an odd thing.

With an inarticulate sound, Spike made himself stop. He rose up on his knees and found her gaze. The expression on his face wasn't a smirk or a mischievous smile; it was the fierce grin of a big cat recognizing its mate. He hauled her into a sitting position with their still-joined hands. "My Slayer," he growled, half pulling her into his embrace, giving her a quick, hard kiss. "Good thing I'm not a human, kitten. You woulda broken my fingers, you held on so tight."

"Sorry," she whispered, her gaze falling to their hands. She couldn't bring herself to let loose.

"No," he said. "Hold on to me. Don't you ever be sorry." Spike held up their twined fingers. "Tells me you enjoyed it, that you let go, gave into it." He held her arm above her head, began taking off the damp t-shirt. "'S'what I want for you, love, so proud of you." Spike slid his hand from hers and tossed the t-shirt blindly over his shoulder. It landed on the television. He kissed her again, pressing her down against the mattress, and she had a fleeting touch of something hard against her belly before he settled back on his knees again. Then he lifted her feet and placed them on his chest. "Raise your hips, pet."

"Why?" she asked, even as she did as he requested. In a moment, his hands were skinning the thin nylon panties along her thighs, had them down to her ankles. All that, and he didn't even undress me, she thought, dazed.

He's undressing me now. Buffy's eyes opened wide as her panties also hit the television and dropped to the floor. She was naked in a cheap hotel room with an older man; she was underage and undressed and tawdry only began to describe it, even leaving off the fact that he was an evil demon. "Spike," she whispered.

Even as he settled her legs on the mattress, he met her eyes, saw her backing away. "Same rules; nothing's changed." Spike held out his hand, holding his breath, waiting for her decision. She never answered, simply took his hand again. This time his smile was fleeting, as if he was uncertain, too.

Buffy closed her eyes tightly, not at all sure if she could survive this. Nevertheless, she wanted more of what he was offering. Why wouldn't she? It was a hundred times better than she'd ever hoped, and that had been through her underwear. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he sank down on her, his breathing such a strange thing, then the slide of his fingers gently touching between her legs. Buffy flinched, then stilled, waiting. _More_. Couldn't he hurry?

Spike swallowed. She was incredibly warm to his touch, and now he couldn't keep from breathing, so the scent of her desire was overwhelming. I did this, he thought, made her feel this, his fingertips skimming the velvety wetness. Another rueful smile passed across his mouth as he reconsidered his promise of no penetration of any kind. He stroked his fingers over her again, pressing a little harder, and Buffy made a tiny noise.

"Please." The tension was going to kill her before the orgasms got their chance.

He looked up at her, something stark in his expression, then lowered his head, his teeth clenched for a moment. The Slayer was willing beneath him, pleading for his touch. Even better, Buffy wanted him, needed him. Nothing like this in his whole, long existence; no other demon had ever had this experience. This was unique, and he claimed it.

She tasted of honey and salt, and he was utterly lost. Spike felt her hold on his fingers tighten, and he was gripping her hand hard in return. Buffy was saying his name repeatedly, her voice almost a sob, and even that was distant to him. This was perfect; she was perfect. He stroked her with his tongue, nothing existing beyond her response to his touch: her lifted hips, her rapid heartbeat, the pulse of her blood against his lips, the tremor of tiny muscles. Spike was focused utterly on her, on what she responded to, on what caress of fingers or lap of tongue would please her most. Somewhere far away, he was amazed she could bear the intensity of her pleasure.

And then she couldn't, twisting her body away from his mouth. Spike stopped immediately, though she hadn't said the word, pulling away to settle on his knees, covering her mons protectively with his free hand as he met her eyes. "Buffy," he said, worship in his voice.

Then he realized he was hard and straining, she was open and so beautiful and trusting before him, and he moved his hand from her body, the other still entwined with hers, touching himself with fingers slick with her arousal.

Buffy's mouth dropped open as she watched him lean away from her, the dim light in the room enough to show her everything, the way his eyes were tightly closed, the almost brutal way he gripped his erection, the movement of his hand once, twice along the length of it. "Ahh, fuck, Buffy," Spike ground out, his jaw tight. She watched him as he came, his expression both harsh and vulnerable, and something inside her clenched again just to see.

Then he threw himself down next to her, breathing as hard as she was, bringing her hand to his mouth to kiss each knuckle. "Love," he said, his voice velvety again, "what a woman you are."

Shocked, she decided as she took stock, she was shocked. "I can't feel my feet," she said wanly.

He chuckled and rolled to his side to face her, giving her that look again, the one that said that she was the only woman in the entire world. "You don't need to feel your feet," he assured her, "not just yet." Then he bent close to give her a slow, lingering kiss. "You taste like honey eaten beside the sea," he said, his voice husky, and she could taste herself on his lips.

"That was…" She trailed off, staring up into his merry blue eyes, something inside her thawing because she'd made him happy.

"Incredible?" he suggested, grinning. "Awe-inspiring?"

"Exhausting."

"You should be exhausted." He leaned back, examining her face. "Do you know how few women can do what you did?"

"I didn't do anything," she mumbled, reaching for the sheet to pull over her body. He was still giving her that look.

"'Course you did. Had multiple orgasms, didn't you? Not every woman can do that." He was serious now. "Knew you had it in you, pet. Seen your passion in the way you fight, in the way you love and protect. It's here, too," he said, sliding his hand beneath the sheet and placing it on her bare stomach, "it's yours. You were made for passion." He could see uncertainty in her eyes, and he lifted higher, propping up on an elbow.

"It's something just for you, love," Spike said, wishing he had the words. "Like when you walk into a graveyard, you know you can handle yourself, even if all everyone else can see is a little girl. You know what you are on the inside. No one else has to know. Gives you confidence, right? You don't have to show it to anyone to know that you have it. This is the same." He glanced away, something sad in his expression. "Known too many women who don't have that, who aren't healthy that way." There was something pleading in his eyes when he looked back at her. "More'n anything, I want you to have this, keep this. It's a gift to be able to feel this intensely, this honestly, yeah?" She didn't understand, he knew, and since he didn't want to elaborate, Spike just shrugged and bent to kiss her nose. "Proud of you, love, and proud that you gave me the privilege. Thank you."

Buffy gave him a wry look, understanding this, at least. "I don't know why you're thanking me."

He realized his erection was pressed against her hip, didn't move away. "Won't apologize for tossin' off, love. Like it says in the song, you could make a dead man come." Spike grinned a little at the wordplay.

"But you… didn't. I mean, you're still…" Buffy trailed off, embarrassed.

Staring down at her, Spike tried again to make sense of all that she'd let slip about her one night with Angelus – Angel – and still couldn't put it together. Soul or not, the old man was a vampire, would have been good to go for hours. Maybe he'd tried to spare a virgin, for once?

Spike gave up, let it go. "As I'm well over a hundred years older than you, officially makes me a dirty old man, here in a hotel room with a schoolgirl, a soddin' cheerleader, even." He grinned and pressed a little closer for a second, shaking his head tragically. "Silly thing's gonna be up all night."

She laughed. It was an echo of her own thoughts, but expressed in his own unique way. He didn't have a thing for schoolgirls, she knew, and that meant his arousal was because of her. "Spike?" While I have the courage, she thought. "Thanks. It was… better than nice."

He looked affronted. "Earth-shattering, did you say?"

Buffy shook her head. "I hate earthquakes." Then she gave him an impish look. "I'll give you 'incredible.'"

The serious was back. "Not down to me, kitten, all inside you." Let her go away looking forward to the next man; that's what he wanted, wasn't it? "You're a white warrior and pure, but you're dead sexy, love. Man would have to be blind and a poofter to boot, not to want you." Spike was taken aback by the realization that he had wanted her for a long time and immediately buried that thought. "Can, uh, you feel your feet yet?"

"What? Oh. Um, yeah, there they are." She wiggled her toes. "I think you had a whole lot to do with it," she persisted. "Big hat, plenty of cattle."

He laughed, pleased and warmed by her praise, oblique though it was. Spike handed her the forgotten pillow and rolled over onto his back, stretching, feeling at peace and not willing to examine anything very closely. They both lay there, staring up at the ceiling in easy silence.

Big hat, Buffy thought again, and plenty of cattle. Spike had never mentioned Angelus directly, just gone out of his way to make her feel confident. He'd succeeded, too, healing a lot of the damage, less through his words than with what he'd proven her body was capable of feeling. He must have taken a little pleasure in striking back at Angelus through her, a demonstration that he was better, she knew, but all she had gotten through their odd connection was affection and concern and contentment. Somewhere deep inside, a voice that sounded a great deal like Willow's was asking a question that she couldn't consider just yet, wondering why the man she loved hadn't made her feel the same way. Then, horrible and dark, she felt other, more recent memories press against her awareness once again.

 _A chance to not think_ , he'd said, and she hadn't. The motel didn't provide a clock in the room, but surely it had been at least an hour since she'd had to be sad and miserable. Buffy glanced at the man beside her, quiet and no longer breathing.

She rolled over. "Spike?" Not thinking.

"Mm?" His voice was slow, a sleepy quality to it.

"We could do more." She saw what her words did to him, the way his still-jutting penis twitched. It seemed kind of funny, only her nerves were stretched too tight for her to smile.

"More?" He turned to consider her, one eyebrow raised.

"You're not blind or a poofer."

Spike gave his head a little shake. "Poofter," he corrected, giving her a puzzled look. "I'm neither, but I don't –"

"Do you want… more?" She changed the last word from 'me' at the last second.

He pressed his lips together. Doesn't she realize that if she changed the rules, he wouldn't know the limits until he'd gone past them? No, he told himself, of course she doesn't. "Played this game before, me an' you. I'm not safe, you'll recall." _A year_ , his demon howled. _It's been a year!_

"I don't care."

She really didn't, he thought, and he turned toward her, part of him fiercely glad to do so, knowing her body was ready for his, knowing he could be inside the Slayer in one smooth motion, driving into the one warm, breathing human who could take everything he could give, who –

Spike gripped her elbow. "I do care," he said precisely. He wanted her to care, too. This wasn't just a Slayer; this was his Slayer. This was Buffy Summers. And he wasn't some random vampire. He was the Slayer of Slayers; more, he was her vampire. She'd said so.

Not understanding, she lifted her face toward him. He leaned away from her. "Spike?"

"You don't want me, love." He gave her a strained smile. "You don't want this."

"I do," she said stubbornly, boldly pressing her hips against his. "You do, too."

He closed his eyes, his body willing and eager to follow her lead. "Buffy–"

"I could," she made herself not think, just say it, "go down on you."

Spike groaned, pressing his forehead against hers, the thought of her hot mouth wrapped around him making him hard as he'd ever been. "Love," and this time his protest was weaker. He started to breathe.

Encouraged by this at first, Buffy faltered, feeling her inexperience as a failing once again. "I-I've never–"

He clutched at this admission like a lifeline. "And you're not going to now."

She shook her head. "I could. With you, I could." Buffy took a breath. Shy? What was shy? Not her, no sir. Shy people had to think, had to remember. "I want to… explore," she managed, "how, you know, you're different, your body, I mean, how it's different from mine." Oh, God, I sound like a ninth-grade textbook. I sound like an idiot.

Hadn't she touched Angel, undressed him? On the thought, Spike let his head drop back, stopped breathing. "You want to escape, pet, not explore."

"No, I–"

"Where does it end, Buffy? Don't you know?" He pushed her onto her back and dragged the sheet from her body, then slid one thigh between hers, the sheet tangling around his legs, letting her take his weight. Feeding tonight had helped; he could tell he was already stronger by the way he easily captured her wrists in his hands. And there they were, him sliding hard against her where she was slick, pressure on his part or a little movement on hers all that it would take to consummate their protracted foreplay. Spike lifted his upper lip in a snarl. He could take her. What were bloody limits to him? Why should he be leashed? Oh, but her eyes, the way she was looking up at him. "Is this what you want?"

She didn't breathe, couldn't move, though if she did, she could break free. _No_ , she thought, and he heard her, sliding further down her body, letting go of her hands. Spike rolled over and pulled her with him, so that she was lying on his chest, his arms wrapped around her too tightly because he was afraid of what he would do if his hands were free.

 _Don't want to go back on all that I've said, don't want to bollix it up, but I'm not made of stone._

 _Sorry, so sorry._

 _Don't be. Just like I can't be sorry for wishing you did want me._

 _A chance to not think._ She couldn't find any better way to put it than by repeating his invitation.

 _I know, love. I know._

He felt her tighten inside, fighting against the pain, so he threw out the first thing that came to mind. "Tell you what, kitten. You turn eighteen, legal adult and all, you're still curious, you can have me for your birthday present." Then he heard his voice and stared at her in the darkness. They had been talking inside each other's minds. But that was impossible. They had never shared blood.

"What?" Buffy propped up so she could look at him, couldn't keep from giggling at this insane, random idea. "You, my birthday present?"

Musta imagined it. "Well, yeah. That way, I won't be acting the hypocrite, and you'll be a consenting adult. Everyone wins; happy birthday to you. You could unwrap me, try me on, see if I fit." He lifted an insolent eyebrow.

"I might break you." He'd done it again, somehow, had made her smile.

"Never happen. Be back in form by then. You can play with me for hours, explore much as you like."

She shook her head at the silky tone. "Spike…."

"Not offering to be your pet," he said, grinning, "just your present for a night." He took a breath, feeling safer now that they were both back in control, back where there were clear limits. "Think on it, love."

"Maybe I'd rather have a Mercedes for my eighteenth birthday," she suggested, hiding her smile against his shoulder.

"I'm the better ride." Insufferable and arrogant and utterly confident.

"You're awful." Shaking her head, Buffy untangled herself from his arms and rolled back to her side of the bed, drawing the covers up over her shoulders. She was cold, she realized.

"I am," he agreed, "and don't you go forgettin' it."

She heard the warning in his voice. "Good night, Spike."

"Good night, love."

⸹

Buffy woke up in a way she hadn't done in months, her body boneless and relaxed, her mind completely alert. All she had in her view was the blank, off-white wall and a door, but she didn't need the visual clues to know where she was. _Vampire_ , whispered the Slayer part of her, and a vampire was there, all right, spooned against her, cradling her with one arm over her waist. Her naked waist, another part of her noted, the part that had gone to Sunday School before Celia died. Before the inner moralizing could begin, she closed the door on both voices. This was her vampire, her friend, and there was nothing wrong with him being in bed with her, period. There were plenty of bigger things for which to recriminate herself. Also, she had to pee.

The Slayer snatched her panties from the floor and Spike's shirt from the television as she hurried to the bathroom. She put them back on after flushing the toilet and washing her hands. She reached automatically for her toothbrush, and as she brushed, her reflection caught her eye. For a long time, Buffy stared at herself in the mirror, trying to see if the events of the last days had left their mark. Other than being a little bruised around the eyes, she looked the same. Her father wouldn't be able to tell a difference, anyway. Standing a little taller, she raised her chin and practiced a normal expression.

Okay. I can't stay here forever, she thought. Got to go to Dad's today. Mom's bound to have called him by now, so I'll have to answer questions. I can do that, I really can.

The girl in the mirror stared back at her without offering any encouragement.

After a shower, then. An hour's delay isn't the same as putting it off. She opened the door to see if Spike needed the bathroom before she realized he never needed the bathroom. She froze, feeling stupid and slow, and of course he was awake to see it.

"'Mornin,' love."

Nothing more than his sleepy voice and the sight of him, his hair all curly and untamed. Buffy smiled. "You look cute."

Confusion was rapidly replaced by a scowl, and he ran a self-conscious hand over his tousled hair, then cupped his ear. "Fearsome, did you say?"

She came and perched on the end of the bed, and he sat up, pulling his feet out of the way. "Not just cute. Adorable." On impulse, she put out her hand and ruffled his hair.

"God," he whinged, "not nearly enough bourbon on hand to face being called 'adorable' by a Slayer first thing of the morning."

"Positively gorgeous."

Spike's eyes crinkled at the corners at those words. "And you look… delectable."

She rolled her eyes at the food adjective and cupped her ear. "Stunning, did you say?"

The mimicry elicited a real smile, and he reached out for her, taking her by the wrist and shoulder to draw her close, easing both of them to the mattress. "How're you doin,' love?"

"All right." She was dressed again, mostly, and on top of the sheet he was beneath. No, not nervous. "You?"

His eyes were serious. "Guess I have to be all right. We check out today, yeah?"

Buffy closed her eyes, almost embarrassed that she'd felt awkward. Sex was the last thing on his mind, or at least not the first. "I think we'd better. It isn't going to get any easier."

"No." He sighed. "'Least, not for a long time."

"Where will you go?"

Spike shrugged. "Dunno. World's my oyster, innit?" His voice was hollow.

"Don't make me worry about you. It isn't natural." One of the girls in the mental institution had been on her third committal, and she talked about how her parents locked up the medicine cabinet and cleaning chemicals so she wouldn't be able to do anything impulsive. She'd gone on to talk about scarves, shoelaces, and gardening implements, all the things her folks had never thought to hide. If Spike was feeling impulsive, all he had to do was step outside during the day. "I'm going to worry."

He shifted so they were chest-to-chest and smoothed her hair with one hand. "Gonna worry about you in any case, Summers."

"You should get a cell phone or something, so you can call me if you need… anything." _To talk_ , she'd started to say.

"Me with a mobile?" He didn't quite scoff. Then he went still and looked at her for long enough that Buffy felt uncomfortable. "I'd feel better if you could get in touch with me, you need anything." At her puzzled look, he shrugged. "'Nother Acathla, something big-like."

"You don't have to worry about that. I'm done. Retired." Again, she thought. And here I am, leaving again to escape it.

He smoothed her hair again. "Life has a way of drawing you back in."

"They've taken all of me that I have to give. No more."

Spike nodded, but didn't say anything. Even muted though it was by grief and weariness, Buffy still shone with good. He didn't think the Powers That Be would let her out of her duty just on her say-so.

"What about you? What if you need me?"

Once again, he kicked himself for the melodrama in the desert. "Don't fuss yourself 'bout me, hear?"

"Spike, I–"

He put his finger over her lips and closed his eyes. "Never make promises if I dunno that I can keep them."

Buffy removed his hand from her mouth. "Spike, she isn't worth it."

When his eyes opened, they were blazing. His jaw moving out to a stubborn angle, he shot back, "Neither is Angelus. Angel, either."

Buffy pressed her lips into a line for a moment. "All I'm saying – and I can't believe I'm saying this to you – is don't do anything stupid."

Another long, considering look. "You know, there are a great many ways to kill yourself, some of which don't even look like suicide. Taking on impossible odds, for instance." Spike thought of her surrounded by fifty vampires, a nightmare image that could too easily come true.

"Retired."

"Right." He sighed and looked away, then his gaze came back to her almost immediately.

"What?" Something had occurred to him, she could tell.

"A mindlink."

"A what?"

"Mindlink," he said more slowly. "Buffy, we've already… communicated without words."

"Sure," she cut in, "in the bathroom. Last night, too."

Spike's lips parted. He had been fairly drunk in the bathroom, hadn't been sure he'd remembered everything correctly. Then his gaze sharpened as he looked at her. She saw absolutely nothing abnormal in this. "It's emotional, I think."

"It's just a vampire thing." She shrugged. "Not the weirdest thing in my life. At least it's you."

"No." He shook his head slowly. "It's not just a 'vampire' thing, kitten. Not… spontaneously like that. Not pure like that. Not without sharing blood."

Buffy frowned. "Then how did it happen? Because I know yesterday…."

He looked troubled. "Dunno, love." Spike lifted a shoulder. "The oaths we've made… I don't know." Closing his eyes, gathering his strength, he grasped her elbow for a moment before meeting her gaze. "I want to forge a mindlink with you, a bloodlink. You take the tiniest bit of my blood, and I take the tiniest bit of yours, and, Bob's your uncle, there's your mobile. You can always reach me, anytime, anywhere."

The Slayer looked warily at him from behind the hazel eyes. "Exchange blood?"

He half-closed his eyes in frustration. "A very small, tiny amount. You know I don't sire; I'd certainly never hurt you."

"I know you won't." Buffy drew in a breath; her words had put a stark expression in his eyes. She shied away from it. "All right."

"Don't have to prove you trust me," he said in a rough voice.

"No." When he showed no sign of wanting to do anything except stare at her, Buffy moved her head impatiently. "So, what do we do?"

"Buffy…" Spike looked uncomfortable. "There are degrees to this, to blood magic. You know what happens if a vampire drains you and you take some of his blood. If a vampire feeds off a human and lets you live, even without taking some of his blood, he could make you his thrall."

"Like you'd have any use for a thrall."

His gaze was steady. "If two vampires share blood, they can create a mindlink. Angelus got into my head that way, read my thoughts. Didn't know what would happen. It was…" Spike took a breath. "It was the closest thing to rape I've ever experienced."

Buffy studied his face, saw the shame lurking in his serious expression, and didn't ask for details. "You'll be able to read my mind?"

"Dunno, Summers. You're a Slayer, yeah? More than human. All I intend is to forge enough of a link so I'll know if you need me, but I honestly don't know what will happen." He lifted a shoulder. "For what it's worth, you'd be able to read my thoughts, too, if it goes that far. And it's very strong at first, but it fades."

Bright summer sunlight pried at the edges of the heavy curtains, and Buffy could see Spike clearly, the earnest dark blue of his eyes, the softness of his lower lip, the sharp angles of his face. He was too pale to pass as human, maybe too beautiful to be human, as well. She took a quick breath, but didn't say anything aloud. _You're worried that I can't get away from being the Slayer._

 _Yes._

 _Not every vampire actively seeks out Slayers, you know. You're pretty much the only one._

 _Worse things than me out there. Some force in the universe puts Slayers where they're needed._

 _Dru killed Kendra, Spike. There'll be another Chosen One, maybe another one who's trained, one they identified early. They don't need me._

 _Love, there's never been another Slayer like you._

 _You aren't that old._

 _Know it in my bones, Buffy. You're the one. There've been other Slayers, there'll be more Slayers, but you're the one._

 _I'm your Slayer._ Dismissive.

"Yeah. You're my Slayer." His fingers tightened on her elbow. "Aim to keep you in this world bein' my Slayer, too."

"Spike, didn't you notice?" She gestured in the space between their throats. "Wasn't that enough? That kind of talking?"

"Couldn't be much closer physically," he pointed out, something suggestive behind the words. He gave his head a tiny shake, as if to kick free of an undertow. "Dunno how well this would work when we're a thousand miles apart."

"Fine." Buffy turned her head, offering her neck.

For a long time, Spike stared at the mark the previous Master of his Order had made, and what was on his face wasn't physical hunger. He cleared his throat. "No, love. That bite's from a vampire you killed. No shame in it. Won't have you… branded like a soddin' cow by me."

"You calling me a cow?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

He gave her a little shake where he still held her elbow. "Would you be serious? This has a great deal of meaning."

"For vampires, maybe."

He let go of her and rolled onto his back. "Buffy…" How could he explain it so she understood? "First Slayer I killed, yeah, I drained her, same as I would any human. I didn't know any better – there's not a lot of lore about it, yeah? My kind say it's an aphrodisiac, and it is, but Slayer blood…" Spike closed his eyes a moment, then resumed his study of the ceiling. "Dunno I've ever been the same since then, love." It was a complicated thought, and not anything that he'd ever articulated. "Vampire blood changed me. Not all that sure Slayer blood didn't change me again."

Buffy sat up on her elbow, propping up her head with one hand. This went beyond Giles' conjectures. "How?"

"I… It's hard to put into words." Had it changed him at all, or just let him be more comfortable with his own inner contradictions? "Not saying Slayer blood is a cure for evil vampires, just…" She was waiting, Spike saw, and he struggled for a moment for words, then gave up, touching her face. _After the Chinese Slayer died, I didn't want her to be dead, love. I just stood there and stared at her, wanting her to get up. This was in a burning building, and you know vampires and fire. I might have let myself be burned up if Drusilla hadn't come looking for me. I… missed the Slayer, which makes no sense, I know, felt as if she was the only one I could really talk to… connect with. I didn't feel that before I fed, and I doubt she was interested in me beyond how best to kill me. It's like… the blood was a bridge, not back to being human, but..._

She frowned. _You gave up trying to be a typical vampire._

 _Didn't have to be anything except what I was: a vampire who'd killed a Slayer. Baddest of the bad. But after that I was comfortable in my own skin, yeah, but set apart, too._ He breathed a sigh of relief; she understood, knew what that felt like. "So, don't underestimate blood magic, 's'all."

"For you, killing a Slayer is like…" she thought hard for a moment, trying to remember the right sports metaphor, "like winning the World Cup. So, no wonder you were comfortable. You'd proven you were a way better fighter than most vamps."

"Maybe," he said, unconvinced.

"Are you even sure this will work?" Buffy moved their conversation back on topic; she already knew he was different from other vampires.

"Am I sure we'll know when the other is needed afterwards, no matter how far apart we are? Yeah. I'm just not sure what other effects it might have."

She studied him as he turned toward her. Truthfully, she didn't want another vampire to bite her, but if she let him go without the thought that she might call on him, she had her doubts how long Spike would stay out of the sunlight. He wouldn't promise her, after all, and she… wasn't ready for him to be gone. He was her friend. Buffy gave a wry smile. "Couldn't be the worst unintended effect my actions have had," she assured him. "Where do you want to do it? Wrist?" She held out her hand. Not for the first time this morning, her eyes danced away from the most naked parts of his body.

 _Won't mark you, not where it can be seen._ He pushed her wrist away and studied her body for a moment. _Thigh._

"My thigh?"

"Upper thigh." Spike grinned and touched his tongue to his teeth for a moment. "High enough so no one can see it with those short skirts you wear."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine." Buffy scooted away from him a few inches and made her legs relax. Spike smiled down at her with enough wickedness in his expression that she rolled her eyes again. "Any day now, Big Bad."

Something in his expression shifted when she called him that, replaced the teasing and made his lustful expression more serious. Spike took a steadying breath and put his hand on her thigh. "Be ready to drink. You'll have to suck it in, like from a drinking straw, 'cause I don't have a pulse to drive it. Just enough to swallow, half a mouthful, no more."

The Slayer nodded at his warning. She didn't want this, didn't want anything to do with blood not safely inside veins and arteries where it belonged. But he needed it, and somehow the feel of his palm on her leg was more unsettling than any of the rest. To her mind, they'd already been far more intimate. He went to game face, and she realized all over again how scary this demon looked, such a contrast to his usual features.

Spike bit into his left wrist, then held it out to her. Buffy took his forearm and brought her mouth close to the wound. Her nose wrinkled a little in adorable distaste, and he grinned at her, inadvertently exposing his fangs. "Here's something never thought I'd say," and his voice became silky, "I'll make it quick." Then there was a small, bright pain as two sharp teeth drove into her, just beneath the juncture of her thigh.

Buffy's fingers dug into his arm. So that's what he was talking about, she thought dazedly, lust singing through her veins. It was that feeling more than anything else that let her bring his wrist to her lips. She drew his blood into her mouth only until she could taste it, and then quickly swallowed. Distantly, she heard the sound of bone readjusting as Spike went back to human face, then Buffy felt the glide of his tongue over the wound. Her hips bucked from the thin mattress, a tiny moan escaping her. Spike slid up her body, rucking up the t-shirt. He absently licked the punctures at his wrist, then met Buffy's eyes.

"All right, love?"

She stared at him a moment, at the concern in his eyes, then took a tiny breath before throwing her arms around his neck, bowling him over onto his back as she sprawled on top of him. Before the weary mattress springs stopped bouncing, Buffy was kissing him, and the second before he started kissing her back, she found herself sitting in the fourth booth from the door at the Sit N Bull Café.

 _Buffy!_

 _Spike?_ She looked up at him. Instead of sliding onto the bench across from her, he sat down beside her, and she automatically made room for him, scooting further in. _Why… How?_

 _Dunno._ He shrugged, looking around. _Makes sense, dunnit? We've always met here. Guess this means it worked._ He looked delighted to see her.

Then the oddest thing happened. Spike appeared again, this time slouching into his accustomed place across from her. He immediately grabbed the sugar shaker and began fidgeting with it, but his intense gaze was on her. She looked between the two incarnations of her vampire. _Spike?_

 _Yeah. No worries, love._

 _Uh…_ She looked around the diner, checking for secondary Buffys. _Why are there two of you?_

The Spike next to her answered, still gazing at her in adoration. _He looks out for me. He showed up –_ His open expression closed suddenly, as did his mouth.

Buffy turned her confused gaze to the Spike across the table. Still fidgeting with the sugar, he sighed before speaking. He looked, she noticed, more careworn than the first one. _Think of him as the demon, me as his…_ a dryness crept into his voice… _dunno, guardian angel. I take over when it gets to be too much. Have ever since –_

 _Not a good time, mate._ The two exchanged a look, not mirror images of each other.

 _Angelus?_ Buffy closed her eyes for a long moment. _Go ahead; it can't be worse than what I already know._

But it was. She felt/saw Drusilla and Angelus break him, was with him as he broke again beneath Darla, his psyche splitting because he loved Dru too much to sentence her to death.

 _Sorry, love. Didn't mean for you to know that._ Spike put one arm over her shoulders and rested his other in front of her, almost encircling her.

In the less-real world, Buffy broke away from the kiss, desire going to ash before disappearing utterly. She rested her forehead against Spike's chin, gritting her teeth against a sob.

 _I promised you I'd always be honest._ He pushed aside the sugar and took up the salt.

Tears standing in her eyes, Buffy put one hand on Spike's sleeve and the other over the second Spike's restless fingers as he played with the shaker.

He picked up on her thoughts. _Yeah, something like a split personality. Never had a real blackout, the both of us always aware of what's happening, but I s'pose it's similar. Pathetic, but you do what you have to in order to survive._

 _Not pathetic._ She shook her head. _I'm glad you survived._

The Spike across from her nodded and squeezed her fingers, his eyes downcast. Letting go, he stood abruptly and left the table, headed for the jukebox.

 _Ignore him_ , the other Spike advised. _He's not around all the time anyway, not these days. 'S'pect he just wanted to meet you._

 _Is this where we'll meet each other? When we mind-meld or whatever?_

His eyes crinkled at the corners. _Been around Xander too long, love._ Then he glanced around at their shared memory of the restaurant, his eyes settling on his double. _It's just ours, yeah?_

Buffy gave a push, only with her mind, somehow, and all of her was back in the shabby motel room. She rolled off Spike until she was sitting on the bottom edge of the mattress, her face in her hands. "Well, that was intense."

Spike sat up, too, cross-legged in the middle of the bed. "That's a word." He rubbed at the back of his neck. Firming his mouth, he reached out a hand to touch her back. "Summers? That was the very worst. Nothing else in there as bad." He dropped his hand into his lap and looked down.

Buffy thought of the night he'd found out she was dating Angel, how he'd checked her for injury, the dread and concern on his face. She made herself turn and take his hand. Spike had wanted to spare her from ever meeting his grandsire. She wished she could have done the same for him, would have been there to stop… English grammar was not her friend; the right tense for saving someone who died before she was born didn't exist. She gave Spike's hand a final squeeze and went back to take her shower.

By the time she finished in the bathroom, he had his belongings moved back to the trunk of the DeSoto and her things thoughtfully gathered in one place. Buffy handed him his t-shirt with a wan smile.

"Not the panties?"

She looked up at him, genuinely disgusted. "Eew!" Then she saw the humor in his eyes. "Gross, Spike. You're such a pig."

Less than a minute later, there was nothing left to do in the room except leave. Buffy went out first, opening the driver's door before opening her own so that he could dash inside. She hefted her bag over the seat into the back and faced the dashboard, trying to remember where her father's condo was. It was close to his office, so she gave Spike that address, warned him away from the 405, and they set off.

Fifty minutes later, they were in standstill traffic downtown. Spike inclined his head to the taillights in front of him. "Sirens ahead."

"Crap."

"Take me to L.A., she said."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I love my city, but I can't defend the traffic."

Thirty minutes later, the DeSoto had managed four blocks. Buffy found she was biting on the cuticle of her left thumb. What was she going to do, just show up at her dad's office? What if he was in a meeting? She'd been a child of divorce long enough to know that she was an inconvenience even at a distance, a hassle when she was underfoot.

"Wanna take a detour?" Spike asked, inclining his head to a green sign indicating Chinatown. "Get some lunch, dim sum, maybe?"

"It's lunchtime?"

"No, but restaurants usually open a bit before."

Buffy thought about this, having lunch with Spike in a restaurant with chopsticks, joking about two stakes, no waiting. She thought of other places in the neighborhood she knew, places to show him. Then it might be five, and her dad wouldn't be in his office, and she really didn't know how to get to his townhouse, so they could go back to the motel. It was theirs for three more nights, after all. It was safe there.

 _Where does it end, Buffy? Don't you know?_

She knew. "I'm okay. But, thanks."

Twenty minutes later, she half-climbed over the seat so she could retrieve her bag. "This is close enough. I can walk from here."

Spike looked at the Slayer, at the smile plastered on her face. "No hurry, love. You don't have to – "

"No, really, it's okay." Buffy's smile tightened. "Traffic isn't usually this bad in this area."

He was staring at her with too-sharp eyes. Then he leaned past her, opening the glovebox. "Here," he said, handing her a fistful of bills from inside.

"I don't need –"

"I know, but you don't have many clothes with you." He looked at her, his lips parting, then he looked down. "Maybe not twenty bags worth, but, you know, some clothes."

She knew that he had been about to say something else, and for the first time, she shied away from the connection between them. It was easier to take the money, jam it into a side pocket of her bag. I'm not going to cry, dammit. She zipped the pocket and took a small breath before looking up. "Thank you." Buffy leaned across and put an arm around him. "You take care. You better take care."

"You, too, love." He gave her a one-armed hug in return. "Thank you."

And then she was out of the car, already to the sidewalk before the door shut, hurrying down the street away from him. Buffy brushed her hand across either side of her face, then hefted her bag higher. People in business clothes walked past, traffic still wasn't moving, so she walked faster, leaving the DeSoto and the vampire inside behind her.

⸹

Next Chapter: Buffy calls Spike back to Sunnydale to help with Angel, newly returned from Hell.


	23. Thou Wast Stone

**Thou Wast Stone**

⸹

[Author's Note: The title of the chapter is a partial quote from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ , about the sculptor Pygmalion and the statue he wished to life.]

⸹

Sunnydale, California

November 1998

⸹

Buffy worked her way toward the east corner of the Shady Hill Cemetery, as far as she planned to go tonight. She had an English test over Macbeth the next day and hadn't even read past the three witches yet. Between the eight Cooper tombstones (she'd counted one slow night) and the Braesler mausoleum, she paused, the oddest sensation stealing over her. Concentrating, the closest thing she could find was a sharp memory of coming back to their house in Los Angeles after a trip to Aunt Arlene's when she was eleven, of going into her own room and feeling at home.

That's when her Slayer senses told her there was a vampire present.

She turned, not knowing whether to give in to her first instinct or not, afraid to simply fling herself at him, a Slayer laughing with relief to see a vampire. "Spike."

"Hello, cutie."

Instead of hurtling toward him, Buffy gave him a small smile and moved forward at a measured pace. She held her arms out at almost the same time he did, and they did an awkward kind of dance, raising and lowering their arms at just the wrong time. She ended it by leaning into him, her cheek pressed against silk and cotton, the leather of his coat and the clean smell of him closing around her. The memory of stepping into her girlhood room came to her mind again, the feeling of home, of safety. "Hi, Spike."

His arms folded around her. "Hi, Buffy," he said, simple words floated on a voice made complex by emotion. The connection between them zinged to life, and he felt weak to know that he was her haven.

"I'd given up on seeing you," she said, pulling away, grinning now. She'd made him happy without having to do a single thing.

"Pfft," he said, standing up straighter, drawing his head back, "this is what I get from the woman for whom I crossed whole continents?"

"Whole continents?" Buffy echoed, puzzled. "Where were you?" She stared up at him, unaware that her fingers had curled into his belt loops, holding him as if he might suddenly try to leave.

"Patagonia," he said, "not all the way to Cape Horn, but getting there." Spike shrugged. "Left L.A., started south, and just never stopped." When she only stared up at him, he added, "'S'in Argentina, love."

"You… heard me that far away?"

The wonder in her voice made his face relax into a smile. "'Course." He took her hands even as he stepped away to examine her. "Look at you, love. All grown up." Spike's blue eyes sharpened. "'S'been hard, then?"

Buffy looked off into the darkness, tears blurring her vision. "Yeah," she agreed, then cleared her throat, firmed her chin.

"All grown up," he repeated, his head tilted to one side, something akin to sadness in his voice.

"Look at you," she countered. "Exactly the same." Except he wasn't. Though his words were witty, she didn't get the old sense of wicked humor behind the words.

"Bitch, innit, bein' friends with a vampire? We never get fat and wrinkly."

She snorted. "Yeah, the unchanging undead." He did look good, though.

Very good.

He had relaxed even further when she accepted his bold statement of their friendship. "Came as quick as I could. Roads didn't really get better until I got back into Mexico." Spike could feel desire coming off her now, could see what she wanted in her upturned face. His jaw flexed as he tried to control his own stupid urge to possess the Slayer. Instead of kissing her, he put his forehead against hers, nothing wrong with that, just affection. But his body was willful, holding her hands to the side so he could push against her, maneuvering them toward the shadows of a nearby mausoleum, his thighs against hers.

"I'm glad you came." She closed her eyes against the handsome stranger who was practically part of her. How do you greet the person who knows you best when he's also your mortal enemy? How do you face someone after sharing the kind of intimacy they had known in a dingy motel room on the outskirts of L.A.? Buffy laughed a little. He probably knew exactly what she was feeling. "Thank you for coming, Spike." She opened her eyes to look at him, but he was so close she could only really focus on one dark eye at a time. She chose the left one. "This is hard."

"Truer words," he agreed, and there was something smoky in his tone. "Odd thing we got, between one of my kind and the one of you." He touched his nose to hers, seeming much closer than he had been just a second ago. Then something in his expression tightened, as if he had leashed himself, and he withdrew without moving. This wasn't what he expected, this… electricity between them. "So, you got a Big Bad needs killing?"

"No. No Big Bad." She hadn't realized he was still holding her hands until she felt him squeeze her fingers. He must have heard something in her voice, despite her careful words. Buffy became aware of the world around them, of what it would look like if someone saw him nuzzling her against the Braesler mausoleum. "I-it's nothing like that."

He pulled away from her, and she was both relieved and dismayed. "But it's something you can't handle?" Spike studied her face for a moment. "Love, you've lived too much for just the few months we've been – since we parted." He laid his head to the side again. "You didn't go to your Dad's, then?"

Buffy half-smiled. "You knew I wasn't going when you dropped me off downtown."

"Yeah. Couldn't take you with me, not and you have any kind of proper life, but the only way I could leave you was to pretend to believe the lie." It was, for a vampire or a human, an incredibly bald statement. He almost grimaced at revealing his worry and the way he cared, at how he trusted her to be all right on her own, but there was nothing in her hazel eyes to give him regrets.

"The only way I could leave you was because I had an excuse." She took his hands again.

If his heart worked, that sentence would have made it skip a beat. He cleared his throat. "You didn't come back here right away, either."

Buffy wondered how much he was deducing and how much he was getting from where their consciousnesses were brushing together. She seemed to know far more than what his words had revealed, too. "And you've not been able to stop moving."

"Can't. I don't stop, I don't have to figure out what comes next."

"And you aren't ready yet." She lifted his hands into the small space between them, sighing. "I can't tell you how grateful I am to have one last year of high school left. If I'd been, like, ready to graduate when everything happened, I don't know what I would have done with myself, where I'd be right now."

"An anchor. Structure," he said, nodding, "routine." Spike indicated the cemetery with a nod of his head. "Or as routine as it gets around here."

"Routine and Sunnydale are unmixy things," she agreed ruefully. "I need to talk to you, Spike."

His expression was grave, as if he already knew. "Serious, then. Well, only one place to go."

"No. I-I could never get words out." Buffy looked down. "Can we still… talk, like in L.A.? When I tried to reach you, I couldn't say words. I could see you in the diner with me, but you were at the jukebox, didn't come over."

"For me, I was sitting in your spot, where I could see the door. You were outside, you tapped on the window, smiled at me, and beckoned."

"Huh." A reluctant smile spread across her face. "That's kind of cool."

"We're all kinds of closer now," he said, lifting her hands. "Should help."

"Okay."

And then they were across from each other in their booth at the Sit N Bull. _What I want to tell you…._ She let him see everything: that Angel was back, soul and demon, nearly rabid from his time in hell, how she'd tried to keep everything a secret, that she'd called him to help with the burden and with Angel himself. Then she couldn't stop, showing him Faith and her own jealousy and competitiveness, her fear that she was wrong to still care about the man she killed and her guilt over doing that. Above all, her relief that her act of murder was erased.

 _He came back alone?_

 _Yes._

 _No idea why?_

 _No. Or how._

Spike pulled away from her so that they were back at Shady Hill, but not before she felt his anger. His voice was neutral, though. "Yeah, I can see how that would take all the words and a lot of hours."

They were still holding hands. "It was probably wrong for me to ask you –"

"You can ask anything of me, love. I'll help, best I can." Spike let go of her hands and touched her face, opening to her, holding one of her hands across the table in their booth. _I really wanted to know about you, about your summer._

 _Oh, Spike._

She let him see Anne and her anger and her miserable return to Sunnydale, how hurt her friends and Watcher were, how bad things were between her and her mother.

 _You?_

Miles and miles of road at night, reckless border crossings using only the mesmer, even more reckless daylight ferry crossings, a dawn where he stood poised atop a cliff until the skin on his face blistered, another night when he climbed some sort of banyan and thought of her.

 _A whole pack of nothing and empty, yeah?_

 _Yours was worse. Your pain._

 _No, love –_

 _It was. You'd built your whole life around her. I have all these… people, pulling me in all these directions. I still have people, even if I can't stand them sometimes._

 _You had to kill the one you loved. All I had to do was watch her choose Daddy. Seen that before._

 _Someday, Spike, you're going to find someone who loves you best._

They were back in the cemetery. Spike dropped his hand from her face and turned away. Buffy gave him space, her heart going out to him. He handled a punch in the nose better than kindness.

After a moment, Spike cleared his throat and turned back to her. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"Let me tell Angel you're here. He's better now, but… you're a vampire, and I'm not. I'm sure it will do him good to talk to you. And definitely stay away from Faith, who's big with the stabby."

He nodded at their surroundings. "Anything I can help with tonight?"

"It's been fairly slow. I dusted a vamp at the Restfield." She rolled her eyes. "You missed the big action. Tribute to Lurconis came due, some demon who only wants babies."

"Yeah? I could get behind killing those gits."

"The Mayor had to get the adults out of the way, so he brought in some skanky sorceress with big – Oh! Do you know anything about the Mayor?"

"What, the one in Sunnydale?" he asked, confused by the sudden change in topic. "Met him once. Was he the one paying tribute?" They fell into step together, and Buffy found herself heading to Memorial Gardens instead of home. Spike only once interrupted her story about band candy and babies to exclaim, "Your mum and Giles!?"

They heard a scream and turned as a unit, vaulting side-by-side over the low fence to the street where a vampire was taking a bite out of a jogger. The vampire saw that it was the Slayer bearing down on him and turned to run.

"Got him," Spike said shortly, and pursued. By the time he returned, Buffy had helped the jogger get oriented toward his house, and the pair shadowed him until he went inside.

"You ever notice," Spike said, as if there had been no interruption in their quiet stroll through a graveyard, "how sometimes, it's like you take a mental leap, and you fight better?"

"Yeah," she answered slowly. "I've noticed that. It never seems to be because I've trained more or practiced a new move."

"Same here. Last time it happened, I killed eleven Aurelian vamps. I mean, I did it quicker than I expected."

"Wait… eleven?"

"Confined space," he said shortly, nodding around them, "easier than out here."

"Last time I got better," Buffy said wryly, "I beat Angelus in a swordfight."

He turned to meet her eyes, which were clear and full of humor aimed at herself. "Good timing," he said neutrally. He was glad that burden had been lifted for her, but he couldn't be glad that the git wasn't still in hell.

⸹

Angel trudged down the stairs to the back door, figuring he'd walk in through the garden to where he'd left his book. The night was only half over, but he still tired too easily. He'd taken one foot away from the staircase when a wind went past him, solidifying into the shape of someone as familiar as his own hand.

Spike sarcastically bowed as he opened the door. "Welcome back." He hadn't wanted to spend any time waiting for this meeting.

For Angel, fury was the first emotion, boiling up from his demon. The brat had betrayed him! The soul wasn't far behind, grief for what he had done to the boy, what he'd molded him to be. And, trailing, was the first spark of fear. "Spike." His tone was mild and even.

"Angel… and Angelus."

"Buffy said she'd called you about me."

"Did she? I suppose we must have a social visit, then. So…" the blond vampire tossed his coat inside, where it landed halfway on the couch. Angel saw him mostly as a lean figure against the brightness of the doorway. "You're back."

"Yes. I don't know why. Or how."

"You're back. Alone."

"Yes." He turned away, then saw the jasmine Dru had loved and turned again. "She… it wasn't her, after. Just the demon. Whatever is left of the human that we were, it gets stripped away in... There was a…" Angel's jaw worked. "You know how it says in the Bible that people in hell cry out to heaven? They got that right. I… cried out." His mouth twisted. "Not that I got to talk to her, but I was assured… that she forgives me."

"Big of her." Something about his voice was softer, maybe, but it was so hard to begin with. "I don't, though," he added brightly.

"I… can't forgive myself."

"Nor should you." No trace of his North London accent.

"I don't remember everything… It was… longer for me there, years, decades, so I don't remember everything clearly. I don't know how Dru got there, but I wouldn't ever have wanted to… take her down with me."

Spike pulled in a breath and turned away, began prowling the small garden in the same manner he always had, only now there was no need for a wheelchair. "Not really here about Drusilla." His missed Angel's swift look. "Want to talk to you about Buffy."

"What about Buffy?" he bristled.

"Settle down, Peaches." Spike gave him an insolent look to match his tone. "Can't exactly get up on your high horse, soul or not. I came to ask," his voice grew mocking, "your intentions. Don't plan to statutorily rape a sixteen-year-old again, do we?"

"It wasn't rape," Angel ground out.

"Hence, 'statutorily."

"And she was seventeen."

"Yeah. Seventeen," Spike sneered. "That very night."

"That isn't any of your business."

"Made a pax, me an' her," Spike disagreed. "That makes her my business. And she's a Slayer, which also makes her my business." He came closer, an intensity flowing off him that made the hairs on the back of Angel's neck stand on end. "Not planning to do anything that'll uncork Angelus, then?"

"No," he snarled.

"Good answer," Spike approved. "Keep it up, and I might let you survive the night."

Angel's feet shifted into an automatic fighting stance. "You really think you could take me?"

The younger vampire scoffed. "Please. You're weaker than I was last spring, even if you are on your feet." He paced away. "I won't, though." There was regret in his voice.

"It would make Buffy unhappy," Angel guessed.

"Yeah." Spike shook his head, examining the fountain. "No accounting for taste."

"She was… She was the only thing good and pure I've ever had in my life."

Spike looked up, but Angel averted his face after this bald statement. "Another being might fault you for sullying that one good and pure thing."

"But not you?" He was surprised.

The blond man shrugged. "You've always liked 'em young. I don't forget that you're a century an' more older than me. Back in your day, if they were old enough to bleed, they were old enough to breed." He made the crude statement matter-of-factly. "Got to procreate before they die of fever or pox. I get that. It's of your time. Part of me still lives in a time when a proper lady didn't show her ankles.

"But the Slayer… Despite what she is – and she's going to be one of the best, you can mark my word – she's young for her age. Since she was Chosen, her life has changed, and not for the better. I won't even hazard a guess what that night meant to you before the 'Big Soul Incident of 1998,' but I know what it meant to her. You don't get to –"

"What did it mean to her?" The question was sincere; the boy had always had insights into other people.

Spike considered him. "You spent well over a hundred years with, not to put too fine a point on it, a whore. Sex was a pretty casual thing for Darla. Then forty years with Dru, who would have been just as happy to go on as she'd lived all but the last minutes of her life, a virgin. She'd taken her holy orders, Angelus."

A tension had crept into Spike's voice, but he took a long breath and let go of part of it. "All you had were stereotypes. Buffy is neither the madonna nor the whore; she's a person. It wasn't the most important thing in her life, but it wasn't casual. She might not have done it if she wasn't the Slayer; you know their life expectancy. What you were offering… Takes a better man than me to turn it down, yeah?" He flashed a cheeky grin, but was serious in the next instant. "You're older, know what you're about, and you bloody well know we put off that shag-me-hard vibe, whether we mean to or not.

"That wasn't the only temptation. She's lost her father, the wanker." He gave Angel a sour look. "You're very much an older man. You may not like it, but you're a father figure. She wanted someone to take care of her." He looked away, covering some emotion. Buffy always had to be strong; was it any wonder she might like to be taken care of once in a while? "It isn't for nothing it's called 'giving yourself' to someone, Angelus."

"Angel."

He nodded, but didn't acknowledge the interruption otherwise. "She gave herself into your care, became your responsibility, wanted to tie you to her." He walked into the shadows, his voice becoming remote. "Yours to protect and cherish, yours to…" He shrugged angrily.

"It wasn't… it wasn't marriage."

"No?" Spike's jaw was tight. The berk had given her a ring, even.

"Spike… Why are you mad?"

"'M not mad. I'm here to keep you from breakin' another one, 's'all." When Angel opened his mouth, Spike raised a hand. "You broke Dru, and you broke her again when you grew bored with her."

"I never wanted to hurt Buffy. I didn't know what would happen!"

Spike clenched his jaw, obviously fighting to control his temper. "I know that. 'S'not like you get perfect happiness every time you have sex. What I'm trying –"

"I hadn't had sex at all since leaving the family in Shanghai," Angel ground out. "It meant something to me, too."

"No sex?" Spike blinked, taken aback. "At all?" At Angel's short, affirmative nod, he snorted. "No wonder you were on such a tear when you came back to us."

"That wasn't me; that was Angelus."

"Not going to play word games with you, mate."

"We're not mates."

"No." Spike tilted his head back and considered Angel from beneath half-closed eyes. "But we've been closer than either of us like to remember. I know you, Ang–" he changed pronunciation midway through, "Angel. I know you intimately, down to your last move." He came a step closer. "Your last move is always the same. It's you walking away. Tell me, Peaches," he said conversationally, "what were you going to do the morning after if you hadn't lost the soul?"

Angel looked down at his hands, then closed his eyes. "Leave." His voice was small, weary.

"Thought so."

"It doesn't matter. Not now. I… We can't… be together. I can… be her friend."

"You'll never be friends."

"I love her, Will." The words were quiet. "She may be the only person I've loved… since Kathy. My little sister."

"I loved Dru. I stayed with her for almost twelve decades," Spike said, taking a step closer. "I stayed with her when we drank blood and wine and danced all night. I stayed with her when she was too melancholy to get out of bed for weeks. I stayed with her when she was lucid; stayed with her when she was so in bits that I had to shackle her hand and foot so she wouldn't harm herself." He was close enough to speak almost directly into Angel's ear now. "I stayed with her when I couldn't satisfy her, when she only wanted 'Daddy,' when she turned the knives and the brands on me because I wouldn't use them on her.

"I stayed, Angel, because that's what love is." He stepped away, disgust on his face. "It's being there."

Angel turned suddenly and glared at him. "You didn't stay with her! I saw you in New York. Without Dru."

Recollection dawned in Spike's eyes. "It was you!"

"Yeah, it was me."

Spike took a step back toward him, confused. "Why did you run from me?"

Angel's mouth thinned into a straight line. "I didn't want you to see me like that." He had been at a low point, one of several that seemed to occur particularly in New York in winter. Scavenging for rats, he'd felt a powerful demon nearby and damped down his own aura, too underfed and tired to fight. But something about the sense of the thing was familiar, and he drew close enough to peek out of the alley. Three young men were loitering beneath the only working streetlight, but the light loved only one.

The sight of his boy had taken his breath. Where before Will could blend in anywhere, now every line of his body announced his presence, screamed that he was dangerous. The light brown hair was bleached white, and the sharp eyes were lined with something dark that underscored their beauty and turned them into a weapon. His strong body was on display in ripped and shredded clothing despite the cold. Spike laughed at something one of the humans said, the one with a guitar case hung across his back, and turned to flick his cigarette butt into the street. Then he stilled, his head tilting to the side as if hearing something. He lifted his face and breathed in the air, turning toward the mouth of the alley before Angel could withdraw all the way.

Silhouetted against the light in the street, his platinum hair the halo of an unholy angel, Spike scanned the alley. In his hiding place, Angel could feel his dead heart lurch. His family, still alive, at least one of them.

"Sir?" Hoarse, uncertain, but the same deep timbre. He'd recognize it anywhere; the boy had read aloud to them to while away the hours many a sunny afternoon. Angel gripped a loose brick and threw it against the opposite wall. Spike's focus came right to him, and he felt a fierce pride that the warrior he'd trained wasn't fooled by the classic distraction. Then he ran, feeling the younger vampire pursuing. Angel knew the sewer access better, though, and got away. He left for Boston the next day, afraid Spike would track him, ashamed of what he had become, ashamed of what he'd forced Spike to become. That single word, 'sir,' haunted him for weeks.

Now, still looking dangerous, Spike got closer. "Like what? Just to see you…" Then he firmed his jaw. "If you needed help, Angelus, you know I would –"

"I didn't want your help then." Angel walked a few steps away. "I don't want it now."

"Good thing I'm not helping you, you great poof." He moved away, too, then spun around, his eyes blazing with a clear light. "I'm here to help the Slayer."

"You left Drusilla!"

"She left me!" Spike roared. "She was my sire, Peaches, in case you've forgotten. Could hardly keep her if she really wanted to go, could I? A bit of the big eyes, and she's gone."

"You're immune to her mesmer," Angel protested.

"Not me, you nit. The minions." He shook his head, forced his voice to moderate. "Most of the time I was in New York waitin' for the Slayer there to come up to snuff, Dru was in London with James and Elizabeth." His lip curled. "They rather took a fancy to havin' Dru in their bed right before the war."

"Which war?"

"The big war," he growled. "Remember that one, Captain America? Get a Congressional Medal of Honor for your undersea adventure, did you?"

"Well, at least I wasn't collaborating with Nazis!" Even demons despised the Nazis, prompted though it was by a certain jealousy.

"I wasn't collaborating with the bloody Nazis," Spike spat. "I was eating them!" Then he reined himself in so completely, it was as if the anger had disappeared. Angel grew wary. "Let me get this out, then, before I decide that it would just be better to kill you and have done with." He strode forward and got in Angel's face. "The only reason you're alive is that you've been honest with me tonight. I'm the Head of the Order, so my word is the law you live by, Aurelian. You hurt Buffy, you answer to me. If she decides she still wants your sorry arse, you stay and you treat her like she's a princess. If you can't stay, you bloody well make sure she understands that it's your fault you're abandoning her."

"You're not the Master."

"Who is, then? You?" He gave Angel the once-over, then scoffed. "As if. Now, if neither of those options works for you, I got one more," Spike placed a heavy hand on Angel's neck. "Die."

"I'm staying."

Spike nodded. Without another word, he turned on the heel of his boot, strode into the mansion to collect his coat, and was gone. Angel took in a long breath, then let it out slowly, not quite a sigh. He hadn't known what he was going to do until the boy forced it out of him.

Why did Spike care about Buffy? She wasn't like Drusilla, didn't need anyone to take care of her. She'd told him that Spike took her to L.A. after Acathla closed, that the boy had been suicidal afterwards. She'd left a lot of it vague; she obviously had not been in good shape after that morning, either. He had not asked her how she had gained the boy's alliance, though it had been very much on Angelus' mind during the long years in hell.

Angel went inside, closing the door behind him. He looked at the book on the couch, didn't go to it. Could Spike really have killed him? As much as his demon might protest, he knew a fight wouldn't have gone his way. Angel went to a room he hadn't been in since getting his mental facilities somewhat in order. He opened the trunk and looked inside at the manacles and chains Buffy had used to hold him. There were other things in the trunk, a litter of candles, thick glass bottles with holy water inside, but his eyes stayed on the chains. He and Drusilla had gathered them to use on Spike, to bring him into their bed because she thought he was more healed than he let on, because she wanted to make her Daddy happy. Because he wanted to break the boy once and for all.

Angel closed his eyes and carefully shut the lid. No more touching Buffy, no more kisses. Angelus must never be loose again.

⸹

Spike woke abruptly, in full vampire face, snarling, his hand going to the axe handle beside him.

He was sleeping atop a tomb in a mausoleum in the Shady Rest. It wasn't his first choice; there was a motel on the south side of Sunnydale that rather reminded him of the one he and Buffy had shared in Los Angeles. There was already a Slayer staying there, however. He'd spotted Faith after parking, while he was trying to straighten some American bills.

It had been an odd thing to see a person in real life after only seeing an image in Buffy's thoughts. He already knew how this Slayer would move, that she would turn and give a very obvious look over the parking lot before she unlocked her door. He already knew what she looked like in a blind fury, beating a vampire rather than staking it. Yeah, not staying at that place.

The nightmare that awakened him had faded. It was a few minutes until true darkness, but he hefted the hickory axe handle over his shoulder and headed outside. Bugger this vampire lair stuff.

An hour later, he left his second floor room at the cookie-cutter franchise hotel by the airport, showered, wearing fresh clothes, and looking forward to an actual mattress in the morning. Two people had joined him in the elevator on the way down, so that took care of dinner.

He breathed in the salt air of early winter in coastal California, then turned toward the town, deciding to walk rather than drive. Maybe by the time he got to Sunnydale proper, he'd know where he was going.

Giles. He could see the Watcher and have tea. Or Xander and Willow might be at the Bronze. Joyce, he was not ready to see yet.

Or he could see Angel again, which was even less appealing.

It was Buffy that he really wanted to see.

Thousands of miles of road, a dozen countries, months gone by, and only the thought of one tiny blond teenager keeping him going.

 _She was the only good and pure thing I've ever had in my life_.

He felt for the old man, he really did. But he feared for Buffy. Angelus had broken Drusilla, but the real damage came when he abandoned his broken toy. Now that he was back from hell, Spike was afraid he'd compound Buffy's hurt the same way.

Oh, he understood why Angel had fallen for Buffy, could almost believe it was love. But he couldn't help but worry instead that it was the same obsession he'd seen before. Spike wondered if the other girls Angelus had fixated on might have loved him if he'd come to them as Angel, lonely and misunderstood, rather than as a vicious vampire.

Spike had come to Buffy, after that first meeting, as nothing but himself: a vicious vampire, but one who made his own rules. She had 'saved' him at that first meeting, then truly saved him all those months later. And she'd claimed him in the old factory building, included him in _us_ , wanted to roll his wheelchair away from his family to safety at her side. Buffy was his friend; they all were. He would do anything for her, and that meant that there were also things he would refrain from doing. Angel wouldn't.

Spike sighed; found that his steps had led him to the high school. Giles it is, then. Five minutes later, he had endured the wariness, the greeting, and the condolences, and the two of them were sitting in the Watcher's office, waiting for the kettle to heat up.

"Before I forget," Giles said, thumbing through some folders in his desk drawer until he found the one he was looking for, "you had asked for some information about a Slayer in Chicago."

Spike took the file. "Er, thank you." He opened it to glance at the papers inside, a memo and some photocopied pages, then closed it. Curling it a little, he made it fit a deep pocket inside his coat. He kept the trepidation from his expression. "I'll, uh, look at it later. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Giles gave him a wry look. "I need to thank you for never forcing me to make a decision about your, uh, cure."

"Yeah, already knew what you woulda done. I bagged Angel within the hour."

Giles nodded and changed the subject. "Buffy hasn't shared much of what happened that morning with Acathla. Of course, I didn't share much of what happened that night."

Spike involuntarily looked at Giles' hands. "Did what I could to keep you alive. I know it wasn't much." He met the Watcher's eyes. "You are a very impressive human."

"She said you left the mansion to find her after Angelus brought me there, that you weren't quite healed, that you," he tilted his head back to examine the other man, "made another deal with her."

"Between the two of us, we could take down Angelus, get you out," he sighed, "get Dru out. Not much of a deal."

"You helped save the world."

Spike flapped a hand. "Incidental."

"Nonetheless. You're quite the singular demon."

"La, you'll turn my head." He changed the subject, nodding at Giles' fingers. "I forget that humans don't heal as well. How are they?"

"Fully functional, minus the feeling in the last two on my left and the pinkie on my right. It should come back over the years. And I'll have terrible arthritis as I age. I had a good doctor and a draconian physical therapist."

Spike absorbed this. "Yeah, guess you weren't too happy about Peaches being back. Any idea why?"

"None. Ah, there's the kettle. Earl Grey, isn't it?"

Giles was less brittle once the tea was made. "Spike, Buffy didn't let on that Angelus was re-souled for, it must have been weeks. If you can tell me what happened that morning, maybe I can be of more help to her."

"Not easy to talk about." He picked up his cup and stared into it morosely. "Drusilla tackled me as soon as I laid into Angelus, and the minions jumped Buffy. It's how the git got his chance to finish the ritual. She took care of the muscle, then had to face the old man while the statue started opening. I finally got Dru unconscious, went to stow her in the getaway car, and when I got back….

"I knew right away it was the souled version. He… seemed confused about what was going on. Buffy told him she loved him, told him to close his eyes, and then she shoved that sword of hers into him, drew blood, closed the portal." He took a breath, remembering Drusilla's desperate hold on Angel. "Your girl did everything right, Watcher. You should be proud of her.

"Of course, she does believe she's a murderer now."

Giles looked up swiftly, a myriad of expressions fleeting across his face. "Because he had a soul." He looked sad and guilty. "I should have known."

"And, her mum kicked her out that night. I understand that you lot blame her for abandoning you, for not coming back that morning to lick your wounds for you."

"Yes." The Watcher's tone was flat, his gaze muddy. "We do.

"Bit much to ask of her: save the world, kill her love, check on your delicate sensibilities."

"I don't think it's asking too much of her for one phone call, to let all the people who love her know that she's alive."

Spike sat down his tea and stood, facing away from the other man. "She said that was it, she was out of the Slayer business. I know she changed her mind, Watcher, but she said that she had nothing left to give."

He turned around and leaned over, bracing his hands on the desk, meeting the Watcher's defiant gaze. "I fought seven Slayers, Rupes. The ones that died, I could see it in their eyes, that same look of… relief when it happened. Your Slayer is my friend. I don't ever want to see that look in those hazel green eyes again."

Something flashed through Rupert's eyes, and Spike started to go back and examine his words, but the Watcher emerged entire. "You've fought seven Slayers?"

He stood back up, feeling as though he had a chink in his armor. "Yeah?" he asked warily. "Or, nine now, I guess."

"When? Where? I mean, you're still here, you must have –"

"Calm down, Rupert. You aren't a young man." Spike sat back down, feeling the oddest sense of déjà vu.

"Would you be willing to let me interview you? About the Slayers you've faced, I mean?"

"No. No interview with this vampire."

Giles looked at the vampire's closed expression. "May I ask you one question, then?" He leaned forward. "Buffy does tell me most things. She told me that, after you, er, won your fight against the first Slayer you fought, that the building was burning."

"She told you that?"

The same rapid calculation as before flashed behind the Watcher's eyes at this careful question. "She said you told her that you felt that the Slayer blood changed you." Giles saw the wounded look, knew that he felt betrayed, and went on hastily. "When you first came to Sunnydale, I researched all I could find about you. She wasn't ready for you, you know that. I wanted any advantage I could get.

"Spike, you may be the only vampire on record who killed multiple Slayers… but you're also the only known vampire to drain one… and live."

"What?" He was genuinely puzzled.

"Slayer blood addles vampires, so they're easily killed. It can also simply make them suicidal."

"On our side, Slayer blood is supposed to be an aphrodisiac."

Giles waved this away. "All blood is an aphrodisiac for vampires."

"Well, true." He considered the Watcher's words. "Well, I guess I was a bit addled. If Drusilla hadn't come for me, I might have burned up."

"You didn't drain the Slayer you killed in New York."

"First, I didn't kill her. Single combat, just like with the one in China – and she had a sword. All I had was fangs. Second, Nikki wasn't food. No Slayer is."

Giles took in the familiar use of the dead Slayer's name. "Why do you fight Slayers?"

Spike seemed to suddenly age ten, twenty years. "Only fight that's worth it anymore, Watcher. Started out fighting, got so good at it, nothing challenged me. Just Slayers. Not all of them, even."

Giles let the silence stretch, watching the man across from him. "Thank you," he said softly. "That was quite informative."

"Yeah? Well, good on you." He took a sip of the tea.

Giles did the same. "Xander's quite proud of his automobile. He gave me a ride, first thing." He had also been driven away from the mansion in Xander's car.

Spike accepted the change in topic. "Glad it's still running."

"Do you know what his family is like?"

"No. Figured they don't have pots of money."

"I overhear things Buffy's friends say. They really do help, you know, though I should never have allowed it. They forget I'm here, talk about things to each other." He leaned forward. "His parents are alcoholics and abusive, or at the very least neglectful. He's ashamed of that, when it's his parents who should be ashamed."

"Too right, they should." Spike's eyes had a hint of yellow in them.

"I never did anything for him, or even thought about him very much. I find him annoying a lot of the time." Giles leaned back. "And then you gave him a car."

Spike shrugged. "I didn't need it."

"No, but you saw a young man who did, who could use a boost to his confidence. That made me feel ashamed." He looked at Spike, who raised a brow in confusion. "It never occurred to me that Xander was special, because he isn't. Except he has had absolutely no encouragement or proper role models, and he still has a good heart." Giles looked down. "And you told Willow to be more than just Buffy's sidekick."

"Just saying goodbye, is all." He sounded uncomfortable. "Dunno where you're going with this, but I'm objecting on general principles."

"Yes, well, now I'm trying to be of use to her friends as well." Giles couldn't bring himself to ask the question he'd gone over, phrased in other ways: _Has anyone ever encouraged you to switch sides, Spike?_ Instead, he stood up, and after a moment, Spike stood up, too, realizing his visit was over. "What I'm saying is, I'm happy to work with you in the future."

"Happy?"

"Well, willing."

Spike nodded once, then turned to go.

"Spike?"

He turned back.

Giles' tone was serious. "Stay away from the other Slayer. She isn't as good as Buffy, and she… isn't stable."

Spike was out of sorts as he left the library. He'd thought a spot of tea and some mutual Angelus bashing and instead gotten into some fairly deep waters with the Watcher. He didn't want to swim there with anyone. Well, anyone except….

 _Slayer, you on patrol?_

Immediately, _The Bronze with Willow. Join us?_

Spike closed his eyes with relief. _Order us a blooming onion, then._

Willow greeted him with a hug and a grin and a proud, "That's my boyfriend," she indicated the stage, "the one playing guitar."

"Is it, now?"

He shot a swift look at Buffy, who filled him in silently. They had barely spoken about her friends last spring, too mired in their own misery. _A werewolf?_

"You finally get to hear Dingoes Ate My Baby play," she said aloud.

"I can die happy." She looked happy, he thought, and very pretty tonight. Spike turned back to Willow. "So, you've got magic now?"

"Yeah. Not much, I mean, the only thing I've really done was the spell with the Orb of Thesulah. That wasn't even me. Some power went through me. A-and it left, but after that, it's like I've forged new neural pathways, or something. All it is now, is practice."

"Don't forget," Spike said, troubled by this blasé statement, "magic has consequences. I did that healing spell with Dru and was in a wheelchair for months longer than I would have been, normally."

"Oh, of course. I get tired when I try to conjure fire."

"Blooming onion," a waitress announced, before Spike could formulate a reply. He made a move for his pocket, but Buffy stopped him.

"I've already paid. My treat." She patted the stool next to her, and he sat down. "If you want a beer, you'll have to order that yourself."

"I'm good," he told her wryly. From the smell of it, the beers on tap were still crap. "So, where's Xander?"

"With his girlfriend," Willow said, "which is right and proper, just like I'm here with my boyfriend."

Buffy shot a quick _Huh?_ to Spike, who gave a small shrug and tore off an onion petal. He didn't get it, didn't much care. He was here with the Slayer, and everything seemed like solid ground instead of the usual edge of the abyss.

They talked when the music allowed, and then boyfriend came offstage. Spike approved of the way he carefully inspected the newcomer and of the way the boy was entirely focused on Willow.

 _They're cute, aren't they?_

Spike smiled at Buffy. _Yeah, puppy love._ She nudged his knee for the bad joke.

"Guys, I better book. The slayage won't take care of itself." She picked up her coat from an unoccupied stool. "Spike, you want to come with?"

 _Bloody right I do_. "Course." He grabbed one last onion petal and wiped his fingers as he stood up.

"Wil, do you want me to walk you home?"

"No, I'll stay."

"I'll make sure she gets home all right," Oz promised. "Nice to meet you, Spike."

"Says no one, ever," Spike replied, but in an affable manner. Oz snorted.

 _I kind of like being able to have our own conversation. Sort of like passing notes in class._

 _Okay._ He grinned. _Do you think they'll, like, kiss on the mouth tonight?_

 _You never passed notes, did you?_

A few minutes later, Spike and Buffy were turning off Wilkins Avenue toward Memorial Gardens. The silence was companionable. For his part, he was glad the sexual spark between them seemed to be extinguished. That just complicated things.

"Do you think I'm self-centered? Sorry, that was out of the blue." The abrupt question had made him start.

"Aren't all young people?" He shrugged. "Not overly, no."

"When I first got back," Buffy said, tucking her hands into her coat pockets, "I didn't ask Willow about her magic, not the way you just did. It hurt her feelings, and we kind of had a tiff. Just a little, baby one, but it was the first time."

"I saw, you know, sort of, when we were bloodlinked. They seem to want," he struggled for the words, "they want you to be normal and nice, save the world, then come back and be normal and nice some more. We send soldiers off to war, they don't come back the same. So, no, I don't think you're self-centered."

"You think I'm damaged?" Her voice was small.

"No." He stopped. "Just me, not expressing myself well." He held out his hands. Hers were warm in his after she took them from her pockets. _You see something bad, it impacts you. You might as well be dead if it doesn't. You're the one who has to drive the stake through the skin, the muscle, the one who gets to see the last snarl up close and personal. And you do it well, make it look easy. It isn't. They can't really understand what it costs you._

Tears were in her eyes as she looked up at him. She took her hands away, turned away, and wiped her eyes as she walked to the cemetery gates. _Thank you._

Buffy had never come close to articulating the price she paid as clearly as he had. It wasn't something she could share with anyone. But Spike had seen her, just as she had seen him. He knew her flaws and her pain, had held her and loved her even when she was laid bare before him.

Just as she had seen him clearly, and yet held him and loved him.

She glanced at him. He was looking up at the trees, waiting for her to be ready to go, in no hurry. Her stomach gave a nervous flutter at the sight. He was liquid shadow, except for his hair and his face. Light from the streetlamps fell on his cheeks and forehead. Professional photographers couldn't have made the light more flattering; in her opinion, professional models didn't look half as gorgeous. Buffy felt vulnerable and pulled away from him, mentally and emotionally. It was one thing to have a friend that close in a different part of the world; it was another to have him here, vital, far too handsome, and entirely focused on her.

They patrolled Memorial Gardens without talking, finding no activity, then headed for the Shady Rest. Spike thought about pointing out the mausoleum where he'd slept during the day, but refrained on the grounds that it made him look wet. It reminded him of something, though.

"I saw the other Slayer. Thought I might stay at that motel, then figured there were nicer ones in town, anyway. Doesn't she patrol?"

"Not every night."

"We going to see her tonight?"

"I don't know. We don't hang, not really. Sometimes I try to be nice, sometimes she does, but we never really seem to connect."

"Who's her Watcher?"

"Giles, technically."

"Sounds like the Council doesn't know what to do with two of you."

"With Kendra, it was easier. Faith and I are both… 'wild-caught.'"

Spike flashed her a look. "Dead tonight." They were going through a city park now.

"You're kind of always – oh, the town. Yeah, close to the holidays, it does seem to slow down. Also, winter. Even here, it gets cold." Something occurred to her, and she looked over at him. "Do you have, like, plans for the holidays?"

He quickly formulated some. "Yeah, uh, heading up the coast, Seattle. Maybe Vancouver."

"Oh. When?"

"I already talked to Angelus, er Angel." He glanced down at her expressionless face. "Unless there's something else you need…?"

"No. I don't need anything."

She was closed to him, something resolute about the barrier between their minds. Spike wasn't sure why. "Next couple of days, then. I'll try to see Xander before I go. And this time, I won't go so far," he offered, trying to get her to look at him.

"What about Mom?"

"Next time, maybe."

"I've gotten over it, Spike." When he didn't reply, Buffy sighed and turned the conversation back to Angel. "He told me you went by, that you only threatened to kill him twice."

"Is that all? I must be slippin'."

Buffy left the path, crossed some dead-looking grass, and went to a swingset. She sat down in one of the seats, and Spike followed her lead.

"I don't know what I could have done differently, about Angel, I mean. If I'd told anyone, he was so weak and so scary… Any one of them could have killed him. He was there, like, a hundred years, Spike. It drove him mad."

Fair recompense, he thought, but didn't say anything, just listened.

"I still have feelings for him." She sighed and looked down. "Why can't I just say it? I still love him. Even though I know what he is, I still love him. I saw what he's like," she darted a glance at him, "and I can never forget what he did to you or Drusilla. I know he doesn't love without a soul. And still, sometimes I want to make with the smoochies. I know what would happen, but it's like my heart never got the memo." Buffy pushed off, swinging a little bit.

"You asked how I could still love Drusilla, when I knew she cheated on me. I mean, I was in the same bed some of the time, yeah? There have been maybe a dozen other vampires and demons, male and female… And she never really cared if I was with someone else, not like… And that was just jealousy. I knew I could never really win her heart away from Angelus.

"So, sorry, can't answer that. The heart loves where it will." He kicked off, too, trying to get his swing in sync with hers.

"Can anything stop it?"

He snorted. "A stake could definitely stop my heart. Yours too, I guess."

"Not all that funny."

"No." He kicked off the ground a bit harder. "I hope time and distance do it. Before, every time I thought, well, that's it, I'm done, she would do one nice thing, and I'd be right back, loving her just as hard."

Buffy stretched to match him, striking the balls of her feet against the earth. "Yep, I'm over it, I'm over him, then: boom! He's all sweet and kills a demon for me." She leaned her head back, just to feel the rush of air through her hair. "When I was a kid, I always wanted to swing all the way over."

"Yeah?" Spike shot her a quick grin, then kicked extra hard. He went higher… and then the tension on the chains loosened, and he jounced hard as the swing fell back under the sway of gravity. "Ouch. Not recommended."

Buffy laughed, dragging her feet on the ground to slow herself. "There's some advice I'll listen to."

"You're cruel, Summers."

"Don't you dare sing that song."

They left the park and headed to the sidewalks, turning north toward the Restfield. "Saw Giles earlier tonight. He said you told him about the Slayer blood."

She nodded, matter-of-fact about it. "We couldn't figure you out, Spike, whether to trust you. I think it's interesting, about taking Slayer blood and still being here. We think it's because you were chosen to be a caretaker."

He put a modest hand over his chest. "I, a 'chosen one?'"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you don't even want to be Chosen. Giles thinks that people who retain that much humanity almost never live very long as vampires, because other vampires kill them."

Spike stopped, putting a hand on her arm to stop her, too. _Did you tell him about me?_ And she saw the two of him, the more careworn Spike across the table.

 _No! Just the story about the building catching on fire, that you stayed in it._ Buffy put her arms around his waist for a quick hug, sensing how exposed and vulnerable he felt. _Your secrets stay here._ She put her hand to her chest.

He looked down at her. _Well, I feel like a fool. I told your Watcher that you felt like a murderer, that you were through with the Slayer gig. I'm sorry._ He let her see, wanting her to know that he was trying to make Giles feel bad for blaming her for leaving. _No excuse, but I am sorry._

Buffy turned away, her head down for a moment. Then she lifted it, taking in a breath. "No, it's okay. He should know that." There was a viciousness in her voice, which changed to wryness with her next words. "If you really wanted to upset him, you could have told him some other things."

There was a quick exchange of images, each from their own point of view, of what he looked like grinning at her from between her thighs, of what she looked like when she couldn't feel her feet. It left them staring at each other for a long moment, the air between them full of electricity again.

"So," Buffy said, breaking eye contact, turning to walk toward, she hoped, a whole nest of mood-killing vampires, "did Giles ask you to find out some more about the Mayor?"

"Um, no." He put his hands in the pockets of his coat, wrapped it somewhat closer, and followed. "I'll do it before I leave."

⸹

Spike broke into the Sunnydale Public Library before heading back to the hotel, looking for some information about the local government. He grabbed the Sunnydale phone directory from the reference desk, along with a pencil and notepaper, and headed to a table near the newspapers.

Right, then. Spike scanned through the list of government departments, making a list of heads and assistants, then leafed through the phone book itself to get their home addresses. He made a note by a couple that intrigued him, city planner and secretary. Next, he rifled through a couple of months of newspapers, but the stories were inane. There were seven photographs featuring the mayor. The assistant mayor was with him in three, the head of the Citizen Outreach Department was in two. He made of note of this, too.

Spike fired up the librarian's computer at the reference desk, opening up a drawer and checking beneath the keyboard before finding the password. While it finished booting up, he browsed in the stacks for a volume of Dylan Thomas. _Though lovers be lost love shall not…._

He opened Netscape and searched the first two names, but didn't really find anything of value. The third name, Deputy Mayor Allan Finch, pulled up far more results but no more information. Likely have to search them all, Spike thought glumly.

The last name he circled did bring up unexpected results. The head of the Citizen Outreach Department was a practicing psychologist. That seemed odd.

Good enough, then. He cleared his cache, shut down the computer, and took his leave, the book of poetry in one of his pockets. Spike was tired; too much emotion this night. He was also hungry. Sunnydale had a small fleet of streetcleaners rolling through the streets. It was almost too easy, as slow as they went, with open sides. He encountered three of them on the way back to the hotel. Three driver-snacks made a good-sized meal.

Probably shouldn't read this before bedtime, Spike thought, throwing himself on the too-firm mattress in his hotel room. He held the folder the Watcher gave him in his hands a full minute before opening it.

CHAPTER BREAK

From: Rupert Giles, Council of Watchers

To: Spike

Re: Slayer in Chicago in 1911

⸹

Her name was Ina Burleigh. She was called in April 1911 and, as you know, died in October of the same year. Until she was called, she resided in a small town called Ethel, Missouri, where her Watcher, James Ingram, joined her in May 1911.

There was paperwork filed with their diaries, not by Ingram, but by a deputy of the New York City branch of the Council in 1913. Neither of the pair wrote extensively, but both books included the standard language of where to send a lost diary for reward. The owner of a boardinghouse did exactly that when he gave up on Ingram returning to pay his bill. New York sent a couple of Watchers to investigate further, but with the beginning of the Great War, they were called away and so did not do as thorough a job as they might have. Ingram died in December of 1911, and his body was pulled from the Chicago River.

What the Council knows is sketchy. Ingram met the untrained Slayer and they relocated to Chicago at the behest of the Council. He was the fourth son of a landowner and came to us through the recommendation of his cousin. There's little in our records about him, other than he met all the training requirements. He did not stand out in classwork, research, or magical ability. He did volunteer to relocate from London to America. At the time, a 'wild-caught' Slayer usually lasted 12-15 weeks. Ms. Burleigh was not considered a plum assignment.

While the investigators in 1913-1914 were hesitant to put names to Ingram, I am not. He was an opportunist, an extortionist, and a berk. Ingram saw the chance to enrich himself with a Slayer as his muscle. He did worse, I'm sure, but the investigators found ledgers in his belongings that proved that scheme. You said that Ms. Burleigh told you she had been fighting eight vampires; I'm sure it was his crime that provoked a counter-strike of that magnitude. I'm also sure it was what killed Ingram, in the end.

I have copied a few pages from the diaries. By Council rules, I should not have done so. To give you perspective, Ingram wrote seventeen pages the whole time he was an active Watcher. I wrote eighteen pages in my first three days with Buffy. Once you're through with this folder, please return it to me. As of yet, I have not appended the information that you were in Chicago at the time of her death.

⸹

Spike frowned at the last sentence. Before he turned to the photocopied pages, he went to the desk in the room. It was chintzy, but there was a single sheet of paper in the desk, along with a flimsy ballpoint pen. He quickly wrote down details of his encounter with Ina Burleigh, including all of the words they'd exchanged, to the best of his memory. He owed her that much.

When he was done, Spike went back to the bed and considered the folder, not sure if he wanted to read the Slayer's words and sure he didn't want to read the Watcher's. He laid down to read them anyway.

⸹

Miss Burleigh's farming background has fortunately made her limbs and back strong. She is coming along with the use of a stake….

I have secured lodging for Miss Burleigh in a nearby hotel for women. She is situated on the first floor, so she will be able to perform her work in the evenings by slipping from the window without the knowledge of the two elderly sisters who run the establishment….

I understand from a contact that a certain dry goods store harbors demons. I instructed Miss Burleigh to take care of the establishment, and she did so very capably….

The Slayer injured a human last night, one of my informants. With her simple country ways, she may have misinterpreted the encounter. I've spoken to her extensively about dealing with humans….

Last night, Miss Burleigh stayed with my automobile, as it would not be acceptable for her to accompany me to my entertainments. It was an uneventful evening, so her presence was a deterrent to the demonic element….

⸹

Spike took an unnecessary breath and turned to the first photocopy from Ina's diary. He squinted a little against the Spencerian script and began.

⸹

Chicago is bigger than I ever dreamed. We got into the city at ten o'clock and didn't get to Mr. Ingram's boardinghouse until ten-thirty, and he says we haven't seen even a quarter of it! He went out to find respectable lodging for me, which is why I am writing now. I miss Pa and Ma and the twins, but I cannot help but be excited….

Mr. Ingram trained me on how to use a stake and a dagger today. I do not mind hard work and hoped we might do more. He told me that vampires and demons are not very good at fighting, since no one ever fights them, so this is all I need. I will become better with practice, I am sure….

Miss Betsy said she knocked on my door last night. I hate to lie to her, as I have come to care for her and Miss Alma as good aunts, but I could only think to tell her I sleep very soundly. It made me feel especially bad since they made an icebox pie for dessert after our evening meal….

Mr. Ingram gave me the address of a dry goods store that smuggles demons through Chicago. He said the owners were humans and that we would do better to warn them than to try to kill the demons in case the people got hurt. I did as he suggested, breaking windows and overturning shelves, but I had to outrun policemen afterwards. I already felt like a criminal, after that mischief….

To-day I took the money that Mr. Ingram allowed me and replaced my clothes. He is still unhappy that I didn't take these items from the smuggler's store. Everything in Chicago is more expensive than at home, but I must have new shirtwaists, at least. The bloodstains cannot be hidden any longer, and my last summer skirt has a rent than is beyond my skill to repair. I miss Ma's fine needle almost as much as I miss her….

I should have been keeping a count of how many vampires and other demons, Mr. Ingram said. I have found at least one every night, sometimes two, and I have slain four different types of demons. Mr. Ingram has had me leave warnings at two more businesses….

…not explain to my satisfaction why that odious Mr. Croft was waiting in his chambers. I may not have a fancy college education, but I am well aware of what fresh behavior is like! Mr. Ingram said the bounder's fingers were broken, and I am afraid I replied "Good!"

… saw him take a thick envelope from his strongbox and give it to Mr. Ingram. My blood ran cold. Why would someone who does harbor demons pay money to a Watcher? I fear that he was merely an honest businessman, and that I wrecked his store. I do not know to whom I could tell these suspicions, though….

Mr. Ingram says his life is in danger. I cannot disagree that he is more likely to be a target, but having me stay in his automobile for hours makes the streets less safe for every other person in Chicago….

…thought he was quite dashing, but now I realize I was wrong about his character. I feel as foolish as the girls in the dime novels. I cannot deny that I am a Slayer, but I do not think that he is from the Council of Watchers, for he described their purpose as being very noble. He has not helped me patrol since August and will never set a time to learn the use of a sword, which would be very helpful. I do not believe he cares for me or the people who live in this city, but only for himself.

⸹

Spike closed his eyes and the folder, placing the latter on the nightstand. The Chicago Slayer had been in a bad situation even without the vampire ambush. He couldn't help but wish he'd found her just a few minutes earlier. He would have come in on her side of the fight to protect his claim on her. They might have talked. Was it possible she might have become a friend, the way Buffy had? He would have listened to her….

Spike shook his head at that. Of course he wouldn't have. He was so young back then, and Drusilla had been waiting on him. Ina had seen through her Watcher, though, seen how venal he was. Maybe she could have seen through him, too.

He snorted a little. Nothing to see through, wanker. I was a killer then, barely free of Angelus. Still a killer, but I have friends now that I can't let down. I won't let down.

⸹

"Angel? Are you awake?"

He came out of the doorway of one of the interior rooms. "Hey, Buffy. On your way to school?"

She nodded and sat her bookbag on the couch. "I just thought I'd stop by to see how you're doing."

"I'm okay. I was about to turn in."

"Oh." Buffy put her hand on the backpack again, not entirely sure she was welcome.

"It's good to see you," he said hastily. Angel walked to the couch and sat on the opposite end.

Buffy sat, too, giving him a small smile. "Spike said you seemed normal to him." He hadn't, but he would have mentioned if anything felt off.

"Not what I would call the best endorsement."

One side of Buffy's mouth quirked upward. "How do you think he seemed?"

Angel considered this. "I'm a little surprised. I figured he'd still be a lot more torn up about Drusilla." He shrugged. "I guess it has been half a year for you." His eyes went to Buffy, and he asked the question that had been troubling him since Spike's visit. "He was far more worried about you."

"He does that," Buffy agreed, "where you're concerned."

"Oh." Angel looked down, partly out of sorrow for what he'd done to the boy, partly because he was relieved. Spike's concern was more about Angelus than Buffy. "I guess I can understand that."

"Do you need anything?" Buffy asked. She was already turning away, reclaiming her bookbag. "I could bring it after school."

"No, I'm good." He stood when she did.

"Well, I'll see you tonight or tomorrow." Buffy gave him an empty smile and left. The hollow feeling that she often got around Angel had been especially strong this morning. All the things they no longer had; all the reasons not to dwell on it.

"Bye." Angel watched her leave with a mix of relief and longing. She was going to school. He closed his eyes, feeling very, very old.

⸹

About three in the afternoon, Spike woke from a dreamless sleep, immediately feeling Buffy's presence. They were in the same town, and the realization put a smile on his face.

 _Afternoon, love._

 _Hey. Just wake up?_

 _Mm-hmm. You?_

 _School's letting out. See you later?_

 _Of course._

And just like that, he was having a good day. Spike drew in a breath and stretched, enjoying the warmth of the room on his bare skin. It was so good not to be alone.

Closing his eyes, he drew the sheet back over his body, above his head. Over the past months, he'd had thoughts that wouldn't go away, thoughts that had everything to do with whether he was alone or not.

At some point, in Uruguay, he thought, he'd realized that Drusilla had finally managed to break the link between them. Or maybe it had been him, once he had the chance to see what it looked like when people truly cared for each other.

It was knowing Xander, really. Xander had been in love with Buffy, but she cared about him and didn't endlessly string him along. She told him up front. Xander had been clear that it hurt, but the break had been clean. Xander was Buffy's friend.

Spike was Drusilla's property.

Since she couldn't have Daddy, Spike had been a good enough substitute. So had other lovers over the years. He still loved her, understood that she really didn't have it in her to move on, but… if he'd managed to get her away from Sunnydale, things would never have been the same between them.

That had been the first realization. He'd had it the morning after crossing into Mexico. His mind kept going back to Buffy, how small she'd looked walking away on the sidewalk. She'd been fleeing him in part, because they obviously couldn't share a bed anymore. Spike wished he'd thought of that when he made the offer to go down on her. Demons weren't built to think of consequences, though. He missed her badly.

So, there he'd been in an upstairs room of a demon pub in Pitiquito, watching the ceiling fan make its lazy rotation, when it occurred to him that he would have gone back to Sunnydale to see the Slayer and his other friends even if Drusilla had lived. He would have to go alone, because Drusilla would likely kill anyone he cared about more than her.

He'd leave Drusilla alone in order to go back to Sunnydale.

This epiphany left him gasping for almost a minute. Leaving Dru just wasn't something he did, not without making sure she had other caretakers.

Then Spike realized what his thought truly meant.

He cared about the people in Sunnydale more than he did Drusilla.

This wasn't something he could deal with. Spike was through Latin America before he really managed to examine it. Once he accepted that, yeah, he preferred the company of people who treated him like his feelings mattered, he didn't stop. He kept going south and kept thinking.

The people who, improbably, had become his friends were the good guys. They should be his enemies. He should want to kill them.

He didn't. What kind of demon was he? Those thoughts had plagued him a whole night.

And then a snarling comeback during a day spent off the side of a road, the DeSoto covered with branches: What was demon dogma to him? He'd be friends with whomever he damned well pleased.

Spike's innate defiance nearly convinced him to turn around, but he was so close to Cape Horn, he pushed on into Chile with the vague idea of heading back north after the road ran out. Then Buffy had used their bloodlink, and suddenly he had a purpose again.

⸹

Spike showered, put on fresh clothes, and drove to the home of Dr. Bill Kenhaber, head of the Sunnydale Department of Citizen Outreach. There's a name that got Ellis Island-ed, he thought, wondering if the man's ancestors had cows or the sight. Just before five-thirty, a short, portly man in an overcoat pulled into the garage. Before he was all the way out of his sedan, Spike had crossed the street and ducked beneath the garage door. He grabbed the doctor's elbow and leaned in close. "Are we alone?" he asked, seizing the man's mind with his gaze.

"Yes." The whispered answer was full of dread. "M-my wife's turn to take Shelley to basketball practice. They're bringing home Chinese takeout."

"When do you expect them?"

"A little after seven."

"Well, that gives us plenty of time. Drop your briefcase." The good doctor clearly did not wish to do this, and Spike figured he had full knowledge of vampires and things that go bump. If there weren't a stake, a silver blade, and a vial or two of holy water inside, he'd be shocked. "Drop it."

"Sit on the hood." The human did so awkwardly, and while he clambered up, Spike opened the briefcase. Stake, holy water, blade, a thin membrane that might be a caul… "Well, well, aren't you loaded for bear?" He closed the attaché, tossed it into the car, and closed the door. "Right, then. What can you tell me about Mayor Richard Wilkins the Third?"

He listened to the psychologist for a long time, periodically asking a new question, then erased the human's memory and let him go without taking even a pint. Spike no longer had any appetite. The sheer organization of Sunnydale astounded him. He knew Sunnydale was demon-friendly, with the sewers and the tourism, but he'd never considered how they kept the pond stocked.

Housing prices were artificially low, but only for people with few inquisitive relatives. Their friendly real estate agent made a report, the police kept standardized files, and the psychologist put together faux sessions with reasons for suicides or murders when citizens turned up dead. Joyce Summers' death would go down to depression after her divorce, and Buffy's a violent death because she was a juvenile delinquent. He wondered what it would be for the others. Giles with a shotgun after Jenny Calendar's death? Xander's whole family in a domestic violence incident? Police would call in the psychologist to help calm any out-of-town relatives who inquired too deeply. They were led to mindbenders who made them no longer care. The city kept clean-up crews to turn over the houses for the next poor saps.

He left the psychologist's garage through the side door and went back to his DeSoto. Partly because he was preoccupied and partly because he never noticed other traffic that much, anyway, he missed the police car sitting in the shadows of an alley as he drove toward the high school parking lot.

⸹

 _Kitten?_

 _Meow, Spike_. Buffy was washing up supper dishes with her mom. Their silences were more comfortable now.

 _So, I did some checking, like you asked._

 _What did you find?_

He let her see the library research, then the psychologist on the hood of his car. _Thought it was interesting that he was photographed with the Mayor so much._

Buffy felt sick. _Good instincts,_ she managed. _Where are you now?_

 _Outside the high school. Don't see Rupert's car._

 _Giles will show up after he finishes supper. I'll be there, quick as I can._

Buffy called everyone after she wiped the counters. Her first two attempts were frustrating failures, but it made sense on her third call, when Giles said that Willow and Xander had been at the library when he left to get dinner and were likely still there. Then she called Cordelia for a ride before finishing up with attempts to get Oz and Faith. Everyone needed to have this information.

Spike was sitting on the back of his car, smoking and looking visibly impatient as he fended off Giles, when Cordelia parked her car a good five spaces away. "What?" she asked, unbuckling her seat belt. "That relic is huge, and I bet it needs that much room to pull out." Buffy shook her head but didn't disagree. She'd ridden with Spike before.

"Hey," she greeted the two men. "I couldn't reach Faith. Oz should be…" she turned to see the source of some oncoming headlights, "I guess Oz is here."

"Hey," he greeted everyone. "What's the sitch?"

"Info dump," Buffy reassured him. She shivered a little in the cool breeze. "Let's go on in."

Spike pivoted the toe of his boot over his cigarette butt and nodded at the taller woman. "Hey. We haven't officially met. Cordelia, right?"

"And you're Spike." She wasn't terribly impressed with his look, which wasn't retro enough to be cool, but he had given away his spare car to Xander. Cordelia gave him a toothpaste-ad smile. "Nice to meet you."

The group headed inside. Giles made another attempt with Spike. "So, did you learn anything about why Sunnydale made the sewer system in the first place?"

"Yes, and I'll tell you all about it just one time, when everyone is present and accounted for." Giles sent him an exasperated look, but he recognized mulishness when he saw it. He moved ahead a little, in case he needed to unlock, but both doors swung freely inward, and he pushed them wide so that everyone could file through. Only then did he look up.

Willow and Xander were in each other's arms, leaning on the closest table and oblivious to everything else.

"Oh, God," Cordelia said, stunned.

At the words, Xander broke the kiss, turning to look at the silent crowd at the door. "Oh, God."

"Oh, God, Oz," Will said.

"Oh, God," Buffy said, and she pushed Giles into the library, turning around. A group of vampires was coming down either hallway, headed for them. She shoved at Oz, who was frozen, even as she did a rapid calculation.

Spike bodily lifted the cheerleader to put her behind him. "Stakes?" he asked, and Giles, giving his head a little shake, put his hands on top of the checkout desk and vaulted over it. Within a few seconds, he handed a box of stakes over to Spike. The vampire took two and shoved the box into Xander's hands.

Buffy took point about ten feet inside the library. She laid her stake along her forearm and readied a quip. The vampire at the head of the group looked right past her.

"Spike! You shouldn't have!" He gestured at the humans

Buffy blinked and glanced over her shoulder at Spike, who was just behind her, to the left. He shrugged. "Yeah, I didn't. Not accepting minions right now… Larry, was it?"

"Lenny. And I wouldn't work for you."

"Well… you did," Spike pointed out. He eased ahead of Buffy. _Going high._

"That was before you went soft."

"Then why are you here? That eager for me to be killing you softly?"

"The Mayor thought you might start acting like the master again, so he sent a… welcoming party." Lenny smiled, showing his fangs. "Nice of you to provide the refreshments," he shifted his weight, "too bad you won't be around –"

"Larry," Spike said loudly, overriding him, "you'll remember my minions only got to fuck up once." He lowered his head. "You've fucked up."

Giles was still behind the counter and had a good view, even if he couldn't quite believe his eyes. Spike ran _up_ the side of the wall and across the lintel, staking three of the vampires from above before landing amid the remaining muscle. Meanwhile, moving almost as fast, Buffy went to the right, systematically driving her stake into every other vampire and a vicious kick into the midsection of the others. She was making space, Giles realized, and that got him moving. Xander was close on his heels.

Buffy ducked beneath a vampire's punch, coming up with her stake aimed unerringly in its chest. "Now!" she called, dropping down again to sweep her leg out to trip two of the Mayor's minions. One she dusted; the other – Larry, er, Lenny – took a sickening amount of damage as Spike stomped a combat boot into its neck. Lenny made a retching noise and left off fighting, clutching at his throat.

Giles got one of the crew through the back, clearing his sightline enough to see his Slayer with her back against the blondest vampire, both kicking out at the same time, creating enough room for each to lunge and stake an attacker. And still a dozen left, Giles thought, amazed. We should have fled.

He heard a sigh of matter collapsing to his left, saw that Xander was moving back from the kill and Oz was moving forward, staking a vampire who tried to dodge a barrage of Buffy's punches. His stake went to dust as well, and Willow was right behind him, putting another in his hand.

Then there was really no chance to do anything else in the fight, just watch as Buffy and Spike moved as mirror images of each other and mopped up the rest. Xander moved toward the fallen ringleader with his stake, but Buffy motioned him back. And Giles got a small smile on his face as he went to fetch the key to the book cage.

"So, you're what, going to torture him for information?" Cordelia demanded. Her color was high, and she looked quite capable of torture.

"Yes, I believe we will." Giles set a chair in the cage.

"Did you have to damage his throat?" Buffy asked Spike dryly. He shrugged. "How long before he can talk?" Another shrug.

"That was…" Giles looked at the amount of dust and grit in the hallway, "quite the most incredible fighting I've ever seen."

"Well, we've patrolled together a bit." He looked past the Watcher and sucked in his cheeks, suddenly very busy dragging the unconscious vampire into the makeshift holding cell.

"Oh." Giles remembered the scene just before the vampires arrived. "Here, let me help."

"What was going on here?" Oz asked. His voice was quiet but not soft as he looked at his girlfriend and her best friend.

"It wasn't her fault," Xander said. He turned away from the other young man. "Cordelia, I'm so sorry."

"No. Not yet, you aren't. I'd walk out that door right now if it wasn't for vampires."

Buffy heard it in her voice, understood. "Spike, you check that corridor, I'll check this way for more."

"Willow?"

She found her voice. "Oz, I can't explain because I don't know why. I love _you_ , and I don't have an excuse…" Willow trailed off, looking miserable and guilty. Oz looked away from her, then turned away, putting his hands on the checkout counter. Everyone studiously did not look at anyone else, and there was a long, awkward silence.

"Four outside. We got them," Buffy said, coming back through the doors. She glanced around at the silent group, and Spike eased by her, heading for the book cage.

"Oh, God, stop, stop! I'll talk, I'll talk!"

They all jumped, except for Giles, who was standing over the cowering vampire, grimacing, his handkerchief over his knuckles, and Spike, who gave a low whistle of appreciation.

"So, Lenny, was it? Why are you here?"

"Him!" He pointed at Spike. "Nothing to do with you! We've been working for the Mayor since last spring. He didn't want any Aurelian Master messing things up."

"Were you following me tonight?" Spike asked.

"No. They radioed us when you got to the high school."

"Who?" Giles demanded.

"The police. They saw the Master's car." Buffy sent a worried look at Spike.

"Bloody hell," Spike said, disgusted, mostly with himself. He should have changed vehicles, especially since the DeSoto was so distinctive.

"All the police officers work for the Mayor?" Giles asked, a bit shocked even after two years in Sunnydale.

"I-I don't know," Lenny said, cringing away because he couldn't answer the question. "At least some of them report to Wilkins." He brightened, eager to talk. "All the vampires do now."

"How many more are outside?" Cordelia demanded.

Sending a look at Giles to make sure it was okay, Lenny replied, "Just those four."

Cordelia picked up a stake from the box that Willow had placed on the table. "In that case, Oz? Walk me to my car?" He nodded and turned away.

"Oz?" Willow asked beseechingly. He closed his eyes for a moment, but otherwise didn't acknowledge her as they left. Xander, watching Cordelia walk away, couldn't find anything to say. Spike looked away from the prisoner at the two teenagers for a moment. They couldn't look at one another.

Buffy broke the silence, going forward to touch Xander's arm and then open her arms for Willow. "How long has this been going on?"

Xander slumped against the table. "Before homecoming." He gave a hollow laugh. "I blame the fancy clothes."

Spike's arm shot out as Lenny made a desperate dash for the cage door. He slammed his former minion to the floor, cracking a couple of his ribs. "Don't make me sic the Watcher on you again." Lenny whimpered and scuttled back against the chair legs, not daring to seat himself in it.

Willow lifted her face from Buffy's shoulder, wiping her face with her hands, sniffling. "I love Oz. What have I done?" she asked.

No one answered.

"Giles, as much fun as this looks, I don't think either of us are up for it." Xander fished for his keys. "Wil, you want me to take you home?"

"I'll go out with you," Buffy said. She turned to Giles. "I'll be back." She put her arm around Willow's waist, then Xander's, shepherding them out of the library.

Spike watched them go, saw the boy lift the hand opposite of Buffy to swipe away tears. "You have any idea about that?" His voice was low.

"Yes. I found them in the stacks last week." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, teenaged drama doesn't care if it's inconvenient." Giles looked down at the captured vampire, who flinched away. "Now, describe the Mayor's operation." The two Brits listened, realizing after a short time that Lenny was only hired muscle. After asking a few more questions, they exchanged glances.

"Finish up before she comes back?" Spike asked, lifting a brow.

"Yes. Tidier that way."

Lenny, looking up from the floor at the two, came to his knees, clutching at Spike. "No! No, I'll submit. Please, I'll submit."

The blond vampire curled his lip in distaste, taking a half step back. "Not interested. Show some dignity."

"Then, then," Lenny thought furiously, "let me go. I'll tell everybody that you're back, all healed, that you're going to be Master for real, that you'll stay this time."

Several emotions crossed Spike's face, and Giles watched him warily. Spike pried Lenny's fingers from his leg and crouched down to look at him. "I've seen you belly-crawl to a human, Larry," he said in a kind tone, "and the only thing I know for sure about craven acts, is that you'll do anything to erase them."

Giles felt the air movement, but did not actually see Spike's hand punch through Lenny's chest or see the heart withdrawn. He did get to watch it go to dust, along with Lenny's body. He slapped at his trousers. "That was…." The words 'cool' and 'terrifying' fought for dominance and came to a draw.

"He'd have found some way to kill you." Spike said, rising.

"He did offer to submit."

The look of disgust and unease returned. "That vampire court stuff, not my scene." He looked around, searching the corners. "You got a broom?"

By the time Buffy returned, the floors were swept and the library returned to normal. Spike and Giles were sitting at a table with three teacups. She sank down in front of the unclaimed cup, her eyes straying to the unoccupied book cage. "Oh," she said, breathing in, pleased, "coffee."

Giles knew where his Slayer's priorities lay. "How are they?"

"Not good. I mean, they're in the wrong, they know that, but… Xander's just broken; he knows what Cordy gave up to be with him, that she'll never take him back. Willow's just dissolved into a little puddle." She picked up the cup and blew on the surface of the coffee to cool it. "They really do love each other," she said softly, "her and Oz, I mean. I don't know what they were thinking." After a moment's silence, she asked, "Willow, sure, but Xander's never been interested. If we didn't know where they got the clothes they wore to homecoming, I'd be worried."

Giles did look worried. "Er, where did…?"

"Xander borrowed his tux from a cousin. Willow got her dress from a store downtown that's been around forever. Since, like, the eighties."

"Ah, good."

Buffy nodded toward the empty cage. "So, what do we know?" Her Watcher and her vampire looked at each other, then back to her, before Spike began. They talked until long after the coffee was gone. "So," Buffy said tiredly, blowing a strand of hair from her face, "what we know is that the Mayor has something big planned for some time in the future."

"Well," Giles added optimistically, "we also know he founded the town, is no longer human, runs the town like a-a Tesco for demons, and will ruthlessly kill anyone who gets in his way." The optimism ran out partway through.

"What do you think he'll do when he realizes his 'welcoming party' was a bust?" Buffy asked.

Giles shrugged. "I rather think what you and Cordelia dealt with at homecoming is the same thing, trying to get Slayers out of the way. Nothing similar has happened so far." He knocked wood on the table. Seeing Spike's confusion, he elaborated, "Attempt on Slayers, but they mistook Cordelia for Faith."

The Watcher leaned back and looked between the other two at the table. "I haven't seen either of you fight like that before, not even when you fought each other."

"We were talking about that," Spike said, "how sometimes you just take a big jump, and you're a better fighter." The Watcher was examining him, so he added defensively, "Maybe new neural pathways get forged or something."

Giles seemed to understand the words he'd borrowed from Willow. "Yes, perhaps." He turned his penetrating gaze on Buffy, who shrugged.

"Don't ask me."

"You fight well together. Really well." Spike gazed back at him blandly, and Buffy toyed with her cup. The silence stretched out.

"Go on, Slayer. Tell him; he already knows." Spike sighed.

Buffy kept her eyes on her empty cup. "When we left… before Spike let me off in L.A., I was worried that he," she shot him an apologetic look, "wouldn't bother coming in out of the sun, so I promised I'd get in touch if I needed him."

"And I was worried she'd need help with a bunch of uglies, being by herself."

"You shared blood." Giles' voice was flat. One of his hands was on the table, and Buffy saw his knuckles whiten.

"Tiny amount," Spike said quickly, "just enough for a mindlink."

"He can read your thoughts," Giles said.

She looked up into his furious face. "Yes, if I let him. And I can read his, if he lets me."

"Where did he bite you?"

When Buffy looked down, Spike leaned across the table, his voice deeper than usual, intending to cut off that line of questioning. "Where it can't be seen. Wasn't branding her like a soddin' cow, Watcher. She's a right lady."

Buffy let out a breath. "When Angel came back… he was insane from being in hell, like, nonverbal. I-I couldn't ask you for help, you know I wouldn't put you in that position, Giles. It was the first time I tried to contact Spike, to get his help with Angel."

"Worked, too. All the way down to Argentina."

"Not well, but enough. It's like we meet at the Sit N Bull, you know, that café out by the freeway –"

"You… meet?" Despite the anger in his voice, there was interest, too.

You bloody brilliant woman, Spike thought, keeping it to himself in these particular circumstances. "Yeah, we'd spend time there after patrols, you know, sort of downtime for us both. This close, we can sit in our usual booth and talk, but that time, I could only see her through the doors, waving at me."

"That's… I've never heard…" Giles reined in his curiosity. "That's entirely inappropriate."

"We've never had the usual vampire-Slayer relationship," Spike noted.

"I've never seen you use Buffy's usual stance before, either." It took a beat before the Watcher's meaning sank in.

"You mean… You think Spike got my moves, and I got his?"

"Do I look pretty when I slay?" The vampire batted his eyelashes.

"Do shut up, Spike." Giles stood up from the table and regarded them. "The both of you are too reckless. Did you even think about the fact that there might be unintended consequences?"

"Yes." Buffy met his eyes frankly, unashamed. "We did. We talked about it a long time."

Spike, remembering that he wasn't a schoolboy, stood up from the table, too. "Bugger this. Doesn't signify, Watcher. Either of you think I'm about to make Buffy my fourth Slayer? She's my friend," and feeling suddenly vulnerable before her, he added softly, meeting her eyes, "after all these years, I don't take that for granted."

"Your… affinity for vampires is going to send me to Bedlam," Giles muttered toward Buffy. He picked up his empty cup and went behind the checkout counter to his office.

 _You feel like doing a lot of axe kicks and beheading beasties with your bare hands?_

 _No. Do you feel like doing one-handed cartwheels leading into a staking?_

 _Heh. No._

Giles came out with a refill of coffee, ignoring the smile the two blondes were sharing. He set his cup on the table. "Right. Spike, I think you should leave the DeSoto in the lot here. Even though none of the minions will report back, that will confuse the Mayor's people. I'll have it towed tomorrow. Do you think you can, uh, procure another car?"

"Yeah," Spike said slowly, thinking. He'd picked up loot from several caches in South and Central America, and there were one or two weapons he'd hate to be without. "I'll need to clean out the boot, but I can leave the car."

"Spike was going up to Seattle for the holidays," Buffy mused. "Maybe you should leave now." Shrugging, she added, "That way we'll have a secret weapon for when the Mayor makes his move."

Giles noticed the vampire's brief expression of hurt. "Yes, she can always get in touch, can't she?" There was still a bit of acid in his voice.

"Uh, sure." He didn't look at either of them for a moment, then reached inside his coat. "Here," he said, handing Giles the folder about the Chicago Slayer. "I added what little I know."

Giles twitched with the need to read it right away. "Thank you." He put his hand back out. After a moment, Spike shook it. He gave an awkward nod and rose from the table.

Buffy stood up and gave him a matter-of-fact hug. "Be careful."

He returned it clumsily. "You, too." He looked up at Rupert. "All of you."

Giles sat back down, and the two of them were quiet until Buffy nodded, sure Spike was gone. "You sent him out of harm's way."

"Yes. Those vampires were out to get him. That many vampires… I haven't seen that many in one place since L.A., when I was at Hemery."

"Will you call on him?"

"For something like Angel reappearing, yes. The rest of it… all this is my mission. I'm the Slayer; he's not."

"You thought he needed a mission, apparently."

"He did try to kill himself, not long after we left town that morning."

Giles could tell that it was an upsetting memory, so he quickly bulled on with what he must say. "Buffy, if I ever see you behaving as though you are being controlled by him, I will report this to the Council."

She didn't react as he thought she would. Buffy put a hand out to cover his, gentle, mindful of his damaged fingers. "I wouldn't expect you to do anything else."

⸹

"Angel?" Spike called down the stairs to the garden doors, not wanting to be on the end of an 'accidental' stake. "You in?"

"Spike." Angel opened the doors. He was awake, barefoot and lacking any noticeable enthusiasm about his visitor.

"Not staying," Spike said, coming down into the garden. "I just wanted to give you a heads-up." He told his grandsire about the 'welcoming party.' "You being another Aurelian, I thought you might get a visit, too."

Angel gave a short laugh, devoid of humor. "Me? Even if they know I'm back, I'm not a player."

"Oh, I'm sure they know you're back. Learned a little about the Mayor's organization tonight. All the fingers, all the pies. I'm sure Buffy will fill you in."

"Did she send you?"

"No. Just thought you should know." He turned to go up the stairs, then paused. "I'm headed out of town, so, you know, happy and merry and all that."

"You, too," Angel replied, his brow furrowed. Buffy hadn't sent him.

With a foot on the first step, Spike paused again. "Don't do anything to make me have to kill you."

That seemed more normal. Angel closed the door and went back to his book.

⸹

Giles stared into middle distance, the piece of hotel stationery with Spike's elegant, old-fashioned handwriting on the desk before him. It told him things he had already known: the sad, long-ago Slayer had died at the hands of the most notorious Slayer-killer, and that killer was never going to brag about it.

It also confirmed a few things he suspected. The prose was grammatically perfect and the vocabulary large, indicating that Spike had received a top-notch education. His empathy for the Slayer he killed was there as well, more anecdotal evidence that Spike was capable of caring about humans.

The narrative told him something he hadn't known. Giles looked down at the line toward the bottom that had kept him here at the library an hour after he should have left for home: _I wish I would have arrived a few minutes earlier._ Buffy wasn't the first Slayer the blond vampire would have worked with.

The Watcher stood up and stretched. He put the letter in the envelope he'd prepared. The librarians and researchers at the Council would be over the moon to have another, rare first-person account of a Slayer's death. Giles didn't put it in his outbox, though. He opened a drawer and slid it into the folder that held the material about Ina Burleigh. He'd send the account once he had an answer from Travers about Buffy's upcoming eighteenth birthday. Surely her death and resuscitation obviated any need for further testing.

⸹

School had been miserable. Both Oz and Cordelia had skipped, Willow might as well have, and Xander was quiet. Buffy had seen Giles twice during the day, and both times he had examined her like she might have cooties crawling on her.

Mom had to work at the gallery, so Buffy reheated spaghetti before she haphazardly did her homework. The only thing that had buoyed her through the day was the thought of seeing Angel before patrol. He had been quiet, though, after she told him about the organization that allowed the supernatural to operate so openly in Sunnydale. After the emotional drama of Willow and Xander's self-inflicted wounds, the dark-haired vampire's broodiness was not exactly welcome.

She left him earlier than usual, begging off so she could start patrol. Buffy found one newly-risen vampire staggering through a cemetery, one shoe left in her grave. Otherwise, it was quiet. Which made sense, she thought, twirling her stake, considering she and Spike had killed well over twenty vampires yesterday.

The Slayer smiled a little, heading back toward home. She'd fought with Kendra and Faith, but nothing was like fighting with Spike. Even a year ago, without a mindlink, their moves had been complementary, almost coordinated. Yesterday, surrounded by two dozen vampires, she hadn't even been worried about her friends, much less herself.

A car went by slowly. She gave it a sideways look before realizing it was a patrol car. She waved at the man inside, as if she really believed he was a normal police officer who was making sure a young lady was having a safe walk home. He went on, still driving slowly, and she saw him lift the radio to his mouth. Buffy gave a little eye roll and picked up her pace.

She was almost to her driveway when her Slayer senses detected a vampire in her back yard.

No, she scolded them, that's just Spike. Buffy went around the side of the house. He was already putting out the cigarette he'd been smoking, adding another butt to the scatter by the back step. _Hullo, love._

 _What are you doing here?_ Buffy didn't mean for her thoughts to seem so harsh, so she put out her hands to him. _I thought you were leaving last night._

 _Not without saying a proper goodbye._

He held her hands and smiled down at her. The humorous glint that she'd missed was in his eyes. Fun Spike was back, and Buffy found herself returning his smile fully.

Both of them looked around as they heard a vehicle stop at the curb on Revello and the squawk of a radio. Buffy moved a step closer. _Police. They were shadowing me on the way home. Come inside?_

He shook his head. _Joyce is asleep._

 _Oh. Plausible deniability. Yeah._ Buffy looked around. _Follow me._ She led him through the hedge into the neighbor's backyard, then over a fence into the yard of a house on the opposite side of the block. Checking over her shoulder, Buffy tugged Spike's hand, guiding him to a shed in that yard. She opened the door, which she knew Mr. Gibbs never locked, and they both slipped inside.

The darkness of the shed posed little problem for them. Spike glanced at the lock mechanism and threw the little bolt into place. There were windows on either wall, so he took her elbow and eased them both into the less crowded left corner. _And you complain I have lousy taste in lodging._

She grinned. Her feet were planted between his, and they were hemmed in by the walls and a couple of sacks of lawn fertilizer. _Well, we do pick good fighting partners, so there's that._

His teeth flashed, too. _Yeah, brilliant fight._ She could see the brightness of his hair, enough to know he'd tilted his head to the side. _How many you reckon can come in at once in a surrounded-on-all-sides fight like that?_

 _No more than five._

 _Most I've ever had is three. Dunno why they hang back, but they always do in a crowd._ Something occurred to him. _How far do you aim past your target?_ When she made a puzzled face at him across the table at the Sit N Bull, he clarified. _I mean, you don't aim at the chin; you aim past it for power._

 _Oh. I guess I do; I'd just never thought about it. Three inches, maybe. What about you?_

His smile flashed again _. I aim for the back of their soddin' skull._

 _It's because of having to punch through ribs and pericardium with a stake. Three inches, I mean. I'll have to try your way._ Her smile faded, and she twisted her head to the side. _Yesterday, that was a lot of vamps. I wouldn't have made a stand if I'd been alone._

 _Me, either. Or, at least tried to pull them into the library._

She could see in his mind the corner he'd choose, away from windows and fragile drywall, and she nodded. _You went up the wall and came down on them. That was cool._

He gave a modest shrug. _Yeah, a vamp gets older, gets the walls and ceiling thing. None of those gits were gonna do that._

 _You can tell how old other vampires are?_

 _Yeah. Not always accur –_

"Unit one, two? Check in."

They froze, listening to the police radio that was less than twenty feet away.

"Unit one. I'm here, behind her house." This also came from the radio, hollow and tinny.

"Unit two. Checking the neighbors' yards." These words were from the policeman wearing the radio. A flashlight beam glinted through the crack of the door. After a moment, the door rattled. Finding it locked, the patrolman started around the shed.

Spike made an impatient mouth and took a step toward the door. Buffy put her hand on his chest _. No. Don't hurt him. He's human._

He looked down into her eyes. Her words had been stern, but her expression was beseeching. Spike nodded and pulled her close. He leaned against the wall and drew shadow to them just as the beam of the flashlight came through one of the windows.

For Buffy, it felt as if the light had gone out and a cold, sound-muffling fog had fallen over them. So that's what Angel does, she thought. And with no light or sound to capture her attention, her other senses took over.

She was leaning against Spike's hard body, breathing in the scent of leather and soap. Her feet had already been between his, and when he pulled her close, her arms had automatically gone around his waist. He still held her, his embrace so natural that she had to think to realize it was there.

Behind them, the beam from the policeman's flashlight probed the shadows to the left and right, then moved on. Neither of them noticed. Buffy's head was tilted back, as if she could see his face. He wasn't so much taller than she was that she couldn't reach his mouth, if she went onto her tiptoes.

Spike lowered his mouth to hers. They had been using the mind link to speak silently; now they were using it to coordinate their movements, only not for battle. She wanted to be kissed, and, oh, he wanted to kiss her.

Buffy's hands were under his coat, and they slid from his waist up his back. She let out a tiny sigh as his lips brushed hers, then moved away. He came back and pressed a butterfly kiss onto the fullness of her mouth. She kissed his lower lip in return, three kisses from corner to center to other corner.

He knew she was on tiptoe, so he slid his hands along her back to her arms, tugging them from around him to place them on his chest so he could scoot further down the wall without pinching her fingers. Then he was at exactly the right height for her to lean fully against him, to cup his lean jaw and plunder his mouth.

Buffy let the tip of her tongue sweep just inside his lip, questing for the elusive tang of salt she'd tasted before. In the mental construct where they spoke, it was also mostly dark, but she recognized it was the dank little motel room instead of the café. It was where a gorgeous, caring man had offered her what she'd been curious about since her sexuality first developed. _I never forgot a second of this. I tried, I mean, but…._

 _Me, either._ She felt his mouth curve. _I never want to forget._

 _Because you're, like, a bad boy._

 _And you're a good girl. They write songs about that, you know._ One of his hands left her hip to splay across her back, his palm and fingertips describing small circles on her skin.

Buffy's fingers clenched for a moment on the fabric of his t-shirt, then she smoothed it into place, feeling the solid muscle of his chest. She slid that hand up to join the other, cupping his face for a moment, then let her fingers drift back down. They settled at his waist, sliding into his beltloops.

Spike moved one hand up her back, his fingers going into her hair, cradling the warm curve of her skull. _I did forget_ , he contradicted himself. _Forgot how… right this feels._

 _That's crazy, isn't it? For this to feel right._

 _Dunno, love. We've never had the expected relationship._ The tip of his tongue touched hers, softly, sliding before pulling away. The kiss ended and both of them drew in a breath.

 _My Slayer._

Buffy's eyes closed as if his words had been a welcome touch to her breast, her inner thigh. _My vampire._

It was his turn to experience a galvanic reaction. Spike let out a harsh breath and pulled her closer before finding her mouth again. _Love, what you do to me._

As he found her mouth again, he opened to her, and Buffy wasn't sure whether to feel scared or delighted by what her words had done to him. So, he must know what she was feeling, too, and this time it wasn't because he'd taken her blood. It was because –

"Unit two, heading in. Nothing over here."

They broke their kiss, then froze, listening to the retreating footsteps. Buffy, realizing that she was plastered against his body, wasn't sure how to disentangle herself.

Spike felt her confusion, so he leaned his forehead against hers and kissed her nose. He let go of her hip and slid his fingers from her hair. His hands settled on her shoulders, moving her a tiny step back as he stood up. _Now that_ , he said, giving her one last, soft kiss, _was a proper goodbye._

⸹

Buffy lay in bed. She had brushed her teeth, washed her face, and checked on her mother after climbing in her window. Spike walked her back to her yard and waited until she pushed back the curtains in her bedroom before giving her a smile and turning away. She watched him go, her fingertips on the glass.

Now she could feel the reality of him moving farther away from her. It was an odd thing, not like losing a radio station or backing away from the heat of a radiator, but akin to both those things. Spike was doing as she'd asked. He was leaving her.

In her mind, she could see the lighted interior of the Sit N Bull Café beckoning her closer. He would be in there the moment she was. Buffy picked up her pillow and put the cool side over her face, forcing the memory of the mass of vampires the mayor sent after him to the front, forcing the temptation of talking to Spike to the back of her mind.

She'd told him the truth, that she still felt something for Angel. Sometimes when she was around the dark-haired vampire, it was as if no time had passed for either of them. Buffy would find herself looking at his mouth, listening to his voice, feeling the familiar tightening of her heart.

But she didn't tell Spike that sometimes she looked at Angel and saw Angelus' glittering smile, heard his hearty voice. It wasn't always memories of what he'd done to her; she'd seen too much in Spike's memories.

She hadn't told him about the first night she'd spent without him in Los Angeles, clutching a cheap motel pillow to her chest because, if it wasn't him, it was something.

She didn't tell the blond vampire that she thought of him at odd times: sitting with her mother, who sometimes asked if she had heard from Spike; laying in a warm bath after patrol, bruised because she had to take the brunt of all attacks; slumping against her desk in English, wondering if he was all right. Buffy had random memories of him that occurred to her sometimes: the rumble of his laugh, his quick smile, the intensity of his gaze.

And she definitely didn't tell him of the loneliness of her bedroom, where she had no one to hold, where she would think of the way his tongue touched her in secret places, melting soft against her before moving with clever strokes. Those were the times she touched herself, remembering him.

Buffy was achingly aware that she never thought of Angel that way. Was it any wonder, after what had happened? Her heart was confused, her thoughts were confused, but her body had apparently made up its mind.

A proper goodbye, he'd said. She wanted to quip: what's a proper good night?

Even more, Buffy wanted to know.

That wasn't fair to him. He was still grieving, trying to come to grips with Drusilla's absence. It wasn't fair to Angel, either. When he looked at her, she saw love in his eyes, despite what she'd done to him. And it wasn't fair to her, either.

Another vampire.

Perfect.

She was insane to think about Spike that way. And even if they did have amazing chemistry, he was her friend, and he didn't need to focus on her while he was on the rebound.

Buffy supposed she was on the rebound, too. Scott Hope hadn't worked out, but she probably would have been distant with Christian Slater if he'd been her first boyfriend after Angel.

Was it after Angel? It had to be, didn't it? Buffy wished it wasn't so late, wanting to talk to Willow. She had too many thoughts to get through them all by herself.

With no conscious decision at all, she found herself sitting in the fourth booth from the door of their diner. _Spike?_

 _Hey, love. Can't sleep?_

 _Where are you?_

 _Heading north on 101._

 _Oh, I should let you –_

 _No worries. Traffic is light. I can drive and talk._

A smile curved her mouth. _What are you driving?_

 _White pickup from the Sunnydale Department of Waste Management. Figured it was fitting, if my car's going to be impounded._

She had to laugh. He smiled back at her. Impulsively, Buffy put her hand across the table, and he took it in his own. The humor faded from his eyes. _You all right, kitten?_

 _I tried to find a boyfriend when I came back from Los Angeles. Guy named Scott. It didn't work out._

 _Rebound boyfriend?_

She wondered if he was picking up on her deeper thoughts _. I guess so. What about you?_

 _Only person_ – He looked down. _Only people I care to be around are your people, love._ Spike lifted a shoulder. _Flirted with a vampire in Quito for a half hour or so. Pretended to be… your average undead joe, pretended my heart wasn't stomped flat._

Buffy saw a pretty woman with short, dark hair and deep red lipstick sitting on a barstool. Behind her were the dim outlines of a bar. In Spike's memory, the vampire smiled and leaned forward to touch his thigh. The moment she did, Buffy felt all his grief and anger over Drusilla surge back up until he couldn't even focus on the other vampire.

Spike lifted a shoulder and looked away. _Finished my drink and drove another hundred miles south. That's the extent of my rebound._

 _I should have done, like, the same thing with Scott._ She glanced down. _And I shouldn't have done that to you._ When he looked puzzled, Buffy made herself say it. _Smoochies tonight._

His fingers tightened on hers, and he shook his head. _Love, whatever… unusual bits get added in, you're always going to be my friend. It's you, you know. The only one I really can bloody well stand to be around, even now. You're never going to be rebound girl to me, and you weren't treating me like that._

 _Oh. Good._

Their eyes met for a moment, and then they both looked down, staring at their hands. Spike ran his thumb over hers. For all that this seemed real, she knew she was in her bed, hugging her pillow to her chest now. She knew he was driving farther away; she could feel it.

They were also in each other's minds, and she could feel the pressure of dozens of his thoughts, things he wasn't saying, feelings he wasn't sharing, but she knew the shape of it: he wanted to be holding her right now, nothing more, just to be at peace for a moment.

Buffy wondered if he had the same sense of her, then realized that of course he would: her silent plea for him to please be good, please don't kill, please come back so I can shelter with you, so we can be safe together.

In her bed, she swallowed. In the café, Buffy gave his fingers a final squeeze _. I-I should get some sleep._

 _Yeah._ He sat upright and tilted his head to a carefree angle. _Got to eat up some more miles, then find a place to shelter for the day._

Her eyes went to his at the use of that word, wide and vulnerable. _Be safe, my vampire._

 _Be safe, my Slayer._

Then she was only in her bed. She was utterly alone, no one yearning back to her across the miles. Buffy rolled over, tears spilling onto the pillow. Bad idea. Majorly bad. It wasn't that she'd forgotten how close they were. She'd just been doing a good job of denying it.

In the end, all that was left was her, alone. That's the way things had to be, the way things were supposed to be. Both of them were just weak right now, that's all, clinging to each other long past the time they should have stepped apart. Buffy wiped her eyes, determined to leave their connection alone. She rolled to her other side, still clutching her pillow to her chest

⸹

Next Chapter: After the _Tento di Cruciamentum_ , Buffy gets an unexpected birthday present.


	24. Birthday Girl

**Birthday Girl**

⸹

[Author's Note: Buffy unwraps her birthday present and finds he's just what she wanted. So… sexual content advisory. The lullaby lyric is from Priscilla Herdman's 'Waltzing with Bears.']

⸹

Sunnydale

January 1999

⸹

"Mom? You need anything?" Buffy knocked on the bedroom door before peeking inside.

"I'm fine, honey. These sleeping pills do the trick. You go on to bed."

The night before last, she'd slept with Joyce after her mother's screams woke her. She hadn't had many nightmares herself, but that was probably because she hadn't been sleeping well. "Okay. Well, good night."

Poor Mom, she thought. Her life didn't get better by finding out I was the Slayer. In the past couple of weeks, she's been duped by a demon into reenacting the Salem witch trials and then kidnapped by an insane vampire who intended for her to be my first meal. Buffy went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. That would give anyone nightmares. Joyce had a prescription for Ambien the next day.

But did she give me a sleeping pill? Buffy tamped down her resentment. It didn't matter if she'd had to cope with another suicidal vampire, or that she was doing a balancing act between all her friends and their inexplicable love rectangle (square?), or that she and Willow and Michael were almost burned alive by our own parents, or that Dad can't be bothered for my eighteenth birthday, or if I ache all over for days from fighting a vampire as a plain, normal girl with my life and my mother's life at stake, or that I can't trust Giles now, or that I don't have a Watcher, anymore. No, I'm the Slayer. I can just deal.

Buffy spat into the sink. She rinsed her toothbrush. At least the injections Giles gave her were wearing off. The pain she'd been in earlier had eased as Slayer healing reemerged. She'd passed it off as cramps, wrapping her body around a hot water bottle at night and crying into her pillow. Tomorrow, she'd try to patrol again. Maybe she could get Faith to come with her. She really wanted to ask the other Slayer about her eighteenth birthday, if the Council's gift to her had been Kakistos.

Turning off the bathroom light, she stopped outside her mother's door. Just even breathing, now. "Sleep tight," she whispered, then went to her own room.

"Happy birthday, love." Lying on her bed was Spike, wearing nothing but a grin and a very large, strategically placed red bow.

"Guh," she choked out, her eyes flying wide open. Squeezing through the door, she shut it quietly as possible and hissed, "My mom is just down the hall!"

"I know." He wasn't whispering, but his voice was pitched low. Spike stretched, arms and legs, and Buffy's eyes went to the bow, which seemed to shift precariously. "You've got a comfortable bed, love. I almost fell asleep waiting. Except I'm getting a draft."

Her mouth worked. "I can't imagine why." And then her brain started up again, and she felt more like herself than she had in weeks. "No Mercedes, then?"

Spike chuckled. "Come out with me, love?"

"Where?"

"To where there's birthday cake."

"I'm in my pajamas."

"I'd say stay in them, but it's too cold."

She shot him a look. _If I put on clothes, you have to put on clothes. I know you're a guy, Spike, but didn't anyone teach you how to wrap presents?_

 _Touché. I did promise you could unwrap me._

 _Where did you even find a bow that big?_

He chuckled again, and she felt his warmth and happiness at her inadvertent praise. _Oh. I didn't mean… Don't move, okay?_ Buffy went to the closet and fished out the clothes she'd worn earlier in the day. "I'll be right back."

She tiptoed back down the hallway to the bathroom. Somewhere where there's birthday cake. Oh, God, Spike was naked in her bed.

She had talked to him once, late on Christmas Day. They'd met at the door of the diner, almost immediately hugging each other. _Happy Christmas._ Even though the words were silent, she'd felt his breath against her ear.

 _Merry Christmas._ His embrace tightened when she whispered a greeting back to him.

She noticed the diner had a little tree in one corner, old-fashioned light bulbs glowing steadily. Potted poinsettias sat on each booth, and fake snow edged the windows. Above them in the doorway was mistletoe. Buffy didn't know whether she was the one who imagined it there. So she hugged him again and pulled away, finding herself back in her mother's kitchen, standing at the counter.

Now he was taking her somewhere public, and she was sure it wasn't the diner. Buffy grabbed her makeup bag as she went back. Spike was dressed and waiting with one of her coats in his hand.

"My birthday's over, you know."

"Yeah, but I figured it would be tough for you to get out for long on a school night."

"How long?" She turned and let him help her with her coat.

He was grinning, but gave her a straight answer. "I figure four or five hours." He grew serious as he straightened her collar. "Buffy, it can be just… birthday cake, yeah? Whatever you want."

"Just birthday cake, up to…?

"Everything I have to give." His voice was deep as the Pacific.

She could feel the connection, the mindlink, trying to spring open between them, but refused to let it. Looking up into his eyes, which were still crinkling at the corners despite the seriousness of his offer, Buffy decided that her life would be fine without her for four or five hours. "Let's start with cake."

When they had shimmied down the tree outside her bedroom window and walked toward the end of the block, Buffy had to laugh.

"Laugh all you want," Spike said. "Nothing more anonymous than a minivan."

"Where on earth did you – No, never mind, I don't want to know."

"'Borrowed' it." He held the door for her. "If I don't get it back before sunrise, it turns into a pumpkin."

"But not a Mercedes."

Spike leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the nose. "We'll talk about Mercedes on our way back."

When he was in the driver's seat, she asked, "Where are we going?"

"Dutton. Buckle up."

Always a good idea when driving with Spike. "What's in Dutton?"

"Birthday –"

"Cake, yes, you said. But, a girl likes to know where she's going, so she's dressed right for it."

"What you're wearing is fine. Your jimjams would have been fine. If you want to dress up, you'll be able to do that, too."

"You're intentionally trying to drive me crazy, now, instead of just the usual incidental way." Buffy took out her makeup bag and folded down the visor, glad to see a light come on around the mirror. She could see a booster seat and a ragged Kermit the Frog in the reflection of the back seat behind her. "Let me know if you're about to hit a bump or a bridge, so I don't smudge."

"Want some music, love?" Spike pushed a button, and a sweet children's lullaby came on: _Wa-wa-wa-waltzing, go waltzing with bears._

"Ye gods," he breathed, jabbing at other random buttons on the sound system. Buffy laughed out loud. It felt wonderful. He found the radio, and an adult contemporary station came on. Spike winced and turned the radio off.

"Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"If I forget to tell you? I had a wonderful time tonight." She could feel him glowing with pleasure and didn't have the heart to tell him she'd stolen the line from the movie _Pretty Woman._

They weren't quite all the way to Dutton when Spike slowed. He turned off the road from Sunnydale onto a ribbon-smooth street that meandered past signs for a couple of upscale subdivisions. Where on earth are we going out here, she wondered.

Spike, surprisingly, put on the turn signal before easing the car into a large parking lot. To the left of the lot was a wide lawn and a huge, old house. Lights were on downstairs, including some spotlights focused on a sign: 'Latimer House.'

"What's Latimer House?"

Spike ducked his head, then looked at her with a smile that was almost shy. "Some old historic house that the city rents out for functions. There was a wedding here earlier today, else I'd have stopped by sooner."

"You rented it for my birthday?"

"Yeah. I hope you like it."

"Wait. This isn't a surprise party, is it?"

"No, just you and me."

"Okay." She purposely waited, knowing that he would come around to open the door.

"My lady." He held out a hand.

"My vampire." She put hers in his, wondering if he was as nervous as she felt. The house loomed above them, still and stately. To the left of the house was a shadowy patio and a wheelchair ramp, but they went up the steps directly to the door, hand in hand. "Wow," Buffy said as he opened the doors. They revealed a grand entranceway of marble, pilasters, curving staircase, and crystal chandelier. "Those Latimers knew how to live."

"Bathroom's that way, pet, not these public ones." Spike gestured to the left. "When you leave, don't come back this way. Take the hallway straight through." He indicated an unseen passage that apparently ran beneath the staircase. "I'll be on that side." He pointed to the right. "Oh, I almost forgot." Spike rummaged in his coat and pulled out a pair of shoes.

"Why did you bring a pair of my shoes?" she asked, perplexed, even as she accepted them. They were pumps, yellow cloth with a daisy print.

He shrugged. "Only if you want to change. Either way."

She opened her mouth to ask, then shook her head. "Birthday girl, here. Down with the surprises." Spike gave her a full, open smile, and she remembered all over again that he was an incredibly good-looking man. She went down the hallway past the bathrooms toward the farther door. There were two, in fact, but it seemed a good guess to go into the one marked 'Ladies Dressing Room.'

She'd been in a few swank restrooms like this, in hotels or restaurants. There was a wide hallway with benches upholstered in white leather and a long row of racks for hanging coats or clothes. The hallway widened into a room featuring a vanity with four sinks and a mirror ringed with the kind of lights you see in a theatre dressing room. Plush ottomans lined the wall opposite the stalls.

Buffy let out a long, wistful sigh. She could imagine getting married here, all right, her and her bridesmaids in this room, long skirts spilled over the sides of the ottomans, giggling and excited, getting dressed for the ceremony.

Hanging on a hook beside the mirror was a clothes bag. Beneath it were three boxes, identical except for a different colored bow. Something for her to change into, apparently.

She unzipped the bag, drawing the tab up, revealing a yellow sheath dress with a square neckline and a fine overlay of white lace. She let out an involuntary "Oooh." Grinning, she picked up the first box, the one with a white bow. Stenciled on the lid was 'Chantelle' with 'Paris' in smaller letters. Inside, beneath layers of tissue, was a white satin bustier with white velvet straps. Buffy's smile faded as she picked up the confection, turning it in her hands. Maybe it was a longline bra; she wasn't sure. Beneath it was a matching pair of panties, a garter belt, and sheer stockings that certainly felt like they were spun of silk. Her eyes went to the other boxes, to the green and black bows. Sure enough, the other two contained similar contents in coordinated colors.

Buffy stood and backed away a few steps, not at all sure about wrapping herself up like a present for Spike. It could be just birthday cake, he'd said so, given her control. She glanced in the mirror, seeing herself reflected back in a dark blue tunic and a dark coat, her makeup haphazard. She firmed her chin. It had been a long, ugly winter, and it wasn't over yet. A pretty yellow dress seemed just the thing for right now.

Ten minutes later, she left the bathroom, heels tapping on the hallway, her hair fluffed, her makeup reapplied and muted. The dress was lined; Spike would never know what she wore underneath. Unless she wanted him to know. There was light and music at the end of the hall, and she heard him say something indistinct before the music changed. She was down the couple of steps into a ballroom before she realized it was the theme to the Miss America pageant.

Spike was standing behind a quintet of musicians, the grin apparently a permanent part of his face now. She laughed a little, embarrassed by the music, and went to give him a hug.

"You look a treat."

"Thank you. You look nice, too." He did. The coat was gone. Though he was wearing the same black jeans, he'd pulled a fine-gauge knit sweater over his t-shirt, covering his arms. Black, of course. His hair looked less sleek than usual, and she wasn't sure if it was the grin or the curls that made him seem younger. She smiled up at him, and he bowed, gesturing her toward the other end of the room.

"Go on. Be right there." Spike turned to say something to the seated musicians.

She walked across the marble floor where she imagined weddings took place. A row of tall, narrow windows interrupted the entire outer wall. Right now, the only thing at the other end of the room was a single table with a white tablecloth and two chairs. It was set with a domed silver serving tray, candles, fresh white and yellow flowers, and two place settings. Beside the table stood an ice bucket with champagne chilling inside. A lady in the white shirt and black trousers of a server came out of a side door, a white towel folded over her arm. Buffy glanced inside before the door swung shut, seeing two other people in a large kitchen area.

Spike hurried and caught up with her in time to pull out a chair, his manners in overdrive. _If Mom could see you now_ , Buffy thought wryly.

He sat down opposite her and nodded to the server, who turned back to the kitchen. Behind them, the musicians began playing something soft and jazzy that was both pretty and didn't demand attention. "I know you've eaten, kitten. Just tapas." Seeing her confusion, he added, "Light dishes, like appetizers."

"Oh." She gestured around. "This is… way, way too much."

"It is not. You only turn eighteen once."

"Thank God." She saw his gaze sharpen and quickly averted any questions. Tonight, she was not going to talk shop. "How long have you been planning this?"

"Uh, booked the place when I was here last fall. The rest came together pretty quick."

"Spike…" He had gone to enormous trouble; she'd been on enough prom and dance committees to know that booking a venue, music, and food could be a nightmare. "What if I hadn't come out?"

"Then," he said leaning over the table to be closer, "I would have wished you a happy birthday and a good night." _Or advised you to open your present very, very quietly_.

Their server came back to remove the cloche from a bread basket and unobtrusively fill one set of the stemware with water. Buffy lifted the glass, grateful to have a reason to look away from the too-handsome, smiling man focused on her like a tiger on a gazelle. She was also grateful to have something besides the champagne to drink. Her mother had given her permission to have a single glass of champagne on New Year's Eve since she turned sixteen, but Buffy didn't really care for it. Another server, an older man with a mustache that he must trim with a ruler, brought out a tray to present a small plate with a single, delicious oyster to each of them.

"Seafood. I hope that's okay."

"I like seafood. This is delicious."

A small bowl of bouillabaisse came next, then lomi lomi for the salad. Spike praised each extravagantly, and she realized the man with the fussy mustache must be the chef, so she added her compliments to his. The next dish was seared scallops, two for each of them, and the food was starting to add up. "I don't want to offend him, but I'm starting to get full."

"Just one more after this."

Spike seemed perfectly at ease, but Buffy hadn't been able to relax enough to even lean back against her chair. The setting was too fancy, and they couldn't really talk for the attentive service.

"Thank you," Spike said, making her notice him again. He nodded at the dress she wore. "I hoped I would get to see you in it. You make it look lovely."

She felt herself melt a little at his words. "It's a gorgeous dress. Any girl would look pretty in it."

"Not every woman can pull off yellow," he disagreed, placing an emphasis on the third word.

"It fits really well. You made good guesses." She watched his eyes stray to her cleavage and knew he was wondering. Buffy smiled and took another sip of water, lowering her lashes demurely. "I forgot to ask, how was Seattle?"

He shrugged, the smile dimming for the first time. "Okay. Not so much Christmas, not that we ever celebrated the season, really, but it can be lonely. New Year's was better." Behind them, the jazz quintet wound down, and Spike's smile came back.

The musicians counted one-two and began playing the birthday song. The female server brought out a tray with two simple cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The one she placed in front of Buffy had a single candle on it. It wasn't the same at all, but Buffy couldn't help thinking of her last birthday. A whole year gone from that, she realized.

Spike was leaning over to light it while the server popped open the champagne and filled the remaining two glasses. He sat back and waited for her to make her wish. As if she had to think about it. Her wish was probably the same one every Slayer had: to get a chance to do this again, to make it to another birthday. Buffy blew out her candle.

Everyone applauded, Spike, the waitress, the chef, even the musicians, who had put down their instruments. "Go on, take a bite." Spike urged.

Buffy took the candle from the cupcake and peeled down the paper wrapper, which was shaped like a tulip. She intended to take one nibble, because she really was full, but it was simply the best chocolate cake she'd ever tasted. "Mmmph." She swallowed a large bite and licked a bit of frosting from her bottom lip. "This is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth."

Her audience laughed with good humor, and the chef came from the doorway of the kitchen to kiss her on both cheeks and murmur something to her in rapid Spanish. Blushing a little to be the focus of attention, she gave him a little hug back. Suddenly, she didn't feel awkward at all.

Buffy kicked her shoes off, and stood up. "Um, _mas_?" She pointed to her cupcake. The chef shook his head, so she cut her cupcake in two on the little plate, leaving her bitten-into part on the wrapper. "Everyone has to taste this," she declared, and the grinning server went back into the kitchen for forks. Spike added his untouched cupcake to the communal dessert, then followed the server into the kitchen. When he followed her back out, eight champagne flutes blossomed from between his fingers. He poured for everyone, topping off the glasses until the bottle was empty, and led the little group in a toast to the birthday girl. Most everyone had a forkful of cupcake as well.

The server's name was Tonia, the chef was Joaquim, and at least two of the quintet were named Jim. Everyone except the chef was working their way through college, and all of them seemed to have amazing good will toward her and Spike. After a few minutes of talking, he took her hand and drew her to his side.

She was still holding her champagne glass, she realized, so she took a second sip and set it on the table. Spike was pulling her away, past the musicians' chairs, and he spun her in a little circle. The cellist, one of the Jims, plucked out a few notes, and Spike grinned at him. The band was packing up, she realized.

"You're getting me out of the way so they can finish." She took his hand and placed her other on his chest, letting him lead her in a simple box step.

"Yeah, it's late for them. You and I, we're night owls, but they want to get home."

"Is it safe here? In Dutton, I mean?"

 _No spillover from the Hellmouth. No more or less safe than anywhere._

 _They all seem really happy to be here, though._

 _They might think I'm going to propose marriage to you._

 _They what?_ Buffy's eyes narrowed. _Why would they think that?_

' _S'what I had to say to the manager to book this place right after a wedding. They just want it clean and closed up until next Saturday._

 _I should stake you on general principle._

 _Probably._ He spun her and finished by dipping her low, grinning down at her.

"Ahem." Tonia stood there, suppressing a smile, holding out two cups of coffee with cardboard sleeves.

Spike brought her up quick, making her feel a little breathless, a little dizzy. Maybe the champagne? "Oh, thanks," Buffy said, taking the cup. Behind Tonia, the table was gone, her shoes were against the wall and out of the way, and the other server, whose name she hadn't got, was folding the last of the chairs and placing them on a rollaway rack.

"Hope you guys have a good night," Tonia said, lifting her brows as she looked at Spike.

"Thank you again."

"I've already had a very good night," Buffy told her, moving in for a hug. She felt very charitable toward her fellow man – well, woman – just now. "You guys were just the best." They trailed after Tonia to the kitchen, which apparently had a back exit. The quintet lugged their instrument cases out to a van that, despite the relatively classier music they played, wasn't significantly nicer than the one Oz drove. Joaquim was already gone, then Tonia and the other server got into the remaining car. And she was alone with Spike.

"Up you go," he said, lifting her onto one of the long counters. He raised his cup until she bumped hers against it.

"Ow, hot," she said, putting her fingers over her mouth, setting the cup beside her.

"Let me," Spike said, a strain in his voice. He put his cup next to hers and moved closer carefully, his eyes on hers. He didn't close them until his lips touched hers. It was a very soft, sweet kiss, nothing more than a caress of her lips. "Better?" He pulled away.

She stared into the dark blue eyes, amazed at the peace and openness in them. "Better."

He nodded, then looked down. "Come with me?" He held his hand out.

She took it, hopping off the counter. Buffy was surprised when he led her to the exit, where he locked the door and shut off the lights. He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and led her through the ballroom, stooping down to retrieve her shoes. This time she palmed down the light switches as they went past. Instead of going through the hallway, he took her to a doorway that led back to the entrance, stopping at the bottom of the staircase. Spike moved away, turning until he was facing her. She saw him swallow.

Buffy hadn't made a decision, and she knew it was time. There was the hallway; she could walk down to the ladies' room and take off the dress and put on her regular clothes, be like Cinderella and return to the ashes of her life. He would be disappointed; she would feel it, just like she was feeling his nervousness now, but he would be just as gentle and sweet.

There was something more waiting up the stairs. He'd planned for all contingencies, for this to be a perfect night for her, no matter what happened. Maybe there was a sublevel to their mindlink, because somehow she knew that he had spent all his waking hours planning this night, taking everything he knew about her, about the horror that stalked her life to make sure that this night would be different, protected, a bubble of magic and romance insulated from the usual grimness.

What he couldn't know is how much she needed this, of what an absolute disaster everything had been since he'd left. Or, maybe he did. Maybe he had the same sense of her life.

She watched his mouth firm, knew that he was about to make an end to this night, to make it easy for her. Buffy stepped forward, placing her hand on his forearm. A single tear fell onto her cheek; she wasn't sure why this was such an emotional decision, not after what they'd already been through together, what they'd already shared. "Thank you. I can't tell you what this means to me. This has been a perfect birthday. Almost."

"Almost?" She could see him thinking frantically, wondering what he'd missed.

Buffy brushed at her cheek. "I thought you said something about a present?"

His lips parted, and he let out his breath. Then the nervousness and hesitancy were gone. "Just a second." Spike went to the doors, locking them, then turned back, eyes drinking her in. He stalked to her, her shoes still in one hand, and scooped her up. Smiling down at her with an unsettling mixture of arrogance and anticipation, Spike mounted the stairs.

At the top, he went to the third door and opened it without setting her down. It was a bedroom.

Of course it was a bedroom. It was a nice bedroom, old-fashioned, with an enormous four-poster bed with a canopy. The sheets were turned down. A couple of candles were burning already on the nightstand. Spike put her down and seemed to force himself to back away from her. "Uh, bathroom's that way." He gestured.

Buffy nodded and went in, closing the door behind her. A toothbrush, still in its box, and toothpaste lay on the vanity. Because he'd thought of everything.

She stayed inside for a couple of minutes after she was done, unsure of what to do next. Should she undress? Did she want to? In the end, Buffy just walked back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Spike had spent the time lighting candles, maybe two dozen in all. He turned to her, a lit taper in his hand. She saw that he'd taken his shoes off, that he was beautiful in candlelight.

"You as nervous as I am?"

"Oh, God, yes." Then, "You're nervous?"

Spike put the taper into its holder and reached for her hands. _I sat there watching you, watching everyone in the house watch you, like moths to light, feeling darker and less worthy by the minute._

 _Worthy?_

 _Yeah. You know, me vampire, you Slayer. I got no right._

My _vampire._

He smiled. _There is that._

 _I thought you looked totally calm and collected. I was the one who felt awkward._

 _I'm so sorry –_

 _No, just… It was all quite fancy._

 _I thought you looked completely at ease._

 _When we're really two baboons?_

He laughed, squeezing her hands. "Ook, ook," he grunted, making really bad primate noises.

 _This is much better._

 _What is, love?_

 _Talking, well, speaking. You aren't the stranger across the table. You're Spike again._

He cleared his throat and spoke. "Yeah, I know. Hard to believe you're just Buffy. First time I've seen you by candlelight. You look… beautiful."

"Always good to hear. You do, too." She nodded toward him. "I like the sweater."

"Glad to know. Would you like to take it off?"

Unwrap him. Unwrap Spike. How did she even start…?

He'd gotten a confused blur of images, her imagining how awkward it would be to wrestle the shirt over his head. Spike eased around her to another of the white leather benches like she'd seen downstairs and pulled it away from the wall. He sat down facing her. _How's this?_

Buffy nodded. She walked behind him, put her hands on his shoulders. His hair was curling more than usual, and she realized he had left it soft and unruly should she want to touch it. Every detail, planned for. She ran her hands across the breadth of his shoulders, then down his arms, leaning so she could put her chin on his collarbone, lay her cheek against his. Breathing in his scent, bay rum on male skin, then moving her hands to his waist, she eased the sweater up. Static brought the t-shirt along with it.

He was naked to the waist, and she could stop the unwrapping here if she wanted. Tentatively, she put her hands back on his shoulders, feeling the texture of his skin once more, seeing what the muscles along his spine looked like long after she had caressed them. No wonder a statue of him is in a museum, she thought. _You have a really nice neck._

 _Yeah, probably my best feature._

His sarcastic comeback grounded her. It's just Spike. Shoulders a mile wide, muscles standing out everywhere on his lean frame, smooth pale skin. Still Spike. But his neck looked… kissable.

He took a sharp breath when her lips touched his nape. Buffy swallowed, getting a bit of what he felt through their connection, even though it wasn't truly open between them. She kissed a little lower, then again, until she reached his shoulder. Spike was breathing now. Buffy walked around the bench until she stood in front of him, took his face in her hands, and brought her mouth down to his.

She knew she was good at kissing. She'd done a lot of it with a lot of boys, learning a little from each of them about what she liked, what she didn't. She'd kissed girls, too, practicing with her friends so they wouldn't be bad at it when it was a boy's turn. I could stop now, Buffy thought, while I feel confident.

"Stand up."

Spike stood immediately, and that was a bit of a turn on, too, to have a creature this powerful at her command. He had his arms held stiffly at his sides.

And then she remembered what she knew about him, wondered if he'd been ordered to not touch in the darkness of his past. Buffy was glad they were holding apart, then, so he wouldn't feel her sadness. _You can touch me, too, you know._ She tried to make the words sound casual and sardonic.

He immediately framed her face in his hands, met her gaze for a couple of seconds, then kissed her long and deep and velvety, not forcing his tongue down her throat, not bruising her lips, not knocking his teeth into hers, not doing anything other boys had done, doing nothing to distract her from how this felt….

"Air," she gasped, breaking away.

"Sorry." He pulled in a gulp of air, too.

 _You didn't kiss me like that in L.A._

 _I was busy kissing other parts of you._

She looked down to hide her grin. _I never forgot._

 _Think of it often, do you?_

 _Don't you?_

In answer, he kissed her again. Apparently, he was learning, too, letting her pull in a gasp of air occasionally. Kissing Spike was sweet and somehow warm, but his hands never stopped smoothing along her arms, sliding down her back. I could do this all night, Buffy thought.

But she couldn't. Like Cinderella, her clock was running. If she wanted to unwrap her present, it would have to be soon. She let her hands drop along his torso, across the smooth skin to his jeans. He didn't have on his belt. Every detail. She unbuttoned the button, held the fabric together with one hand, and unzipped him with the other. Buffy moved her hands to his sides, pushing the black denim down until she felt… his waistband?

 _Since when do you wear underwear?_

 _Since today. This evening, I mean. Thought it might be less awkward._

 _When was the last time you wore underwear?_

 _Uh… 1880?_

Buffy leaned against his chest and laughed. _You are full of surprises._

 _So are you._ He stepped back from her and kicked out of the jeans, then twisted from side to side, mocking himself and modeling for her. He wore boxer briefs, gray instead of the expected black.

His erection strained against the fabric, blatant and unavoidable.

Buffy inclined her head toward him. _That thing is going to rip through like the chestbuster in_ Alien.

He went still. _That was… incredibly disturbing._

 _Hey, I got this seductive thing down._ She grinned at him, then pushed her hair over her shoulder, twisting to undo the zipper set into the side seam of the bodice. _Help me?_

 _Yeah, I guess you do have the seductive thing down._ She raised her arms and, after a moment of drinking her in, Spike lifted the dress over her head. Buffy self-consciously smoothed her hair, then looked at him shyly.

He was staring at her the way a desert traveler gazes at an oasis after seeing too many mirages. "Love, you…"

 _Don't look at me like that._

 _Like what?_

She let him in, gasping as she was flooded with his emotions, letting him see what she saw, the look of adoration on his face that always made her feel undeserving. And she got her own image in return, a petite goddess in black lingerie, all-powerful and blushing.

 _I thought I might as well go all out._

 _Feel like it's my birthday._

 _They were all beautiful, Spike._

 _You make them so._ He swallowed and made his eyes come back to her face. _Do you want to move to the bed?_

She inclined her head toward the nearest post of the bed. _No, just stand there._

He remembered he was holding her dress and laid it on the bench. He moved past her, and she watched him. It felt naughty to openly ogle his body, his cute little butt, to see the amount of muscle on his thighs, almost out of proportion to his narrow waist and hips. Spike pivoted, a warrior's movement, a shifting of feet into a neutral stance, facing her.

 _Do I please you?_ There was a sense of nervousness as he awaited her answer.

Why would he be nervous? He had to know he was gorgeous. _Yes… except you have knobby knees._

 _Don't know that I can do anything to change that._

 _Maybe there's something that can make up for it._

 _Finish unwrapping your present._

 _I've already seen the full monty._

 _This time, you can do more than look._

If she had to say it aloud, Buffy knew she couldn't go any further. But she didn't have to say it aloud, and this was a safe space to satisfy her curiosity and gain some confidence. _This time, I'm going down on you._

 _Then I return the favor._

 _After._

 _Ah, love. Um, only if you want to._

 _I do._

Then, of course, she had no choice except to walk three very long steps to where he waited for her by the bed. Buffy put her hands at his waist again, took a breath, and skimmed the fabric down his thighs, past his only somewhat knobby knees, to his feet. She stayed there as Spike shuffled and stepped free, kicking the underwear away.

 _Happy birthday._

She steeled herself and looked at his… cock. This was very different than looking at a picture of his statue. _Do you mind… can I touch you?_

Her eyes were on the floor now, and he realized that she was nervous. Spike crouched down next to her, raised her chin, and kissed her. _You have touched me_ , he said, putting his hand over his unbeating heart. Then he kissed her more, nude and vulnerable before her, giving her time and space until what they were doing began to feel more natural and less like a list of things to check off. He moved again so that he was on his knees, too, their torsos pressed together, his hands in her hair.

Buffy ran her hands over his arms, over the muscles of his back, across his chest, lower. He felt good, this felt good. Tentatively, she curled her fingers around the erection pressed against her stomach.

Spike stopped kissing her, his teeth clicking together. He leaned his forehead against hers.

 _Harder. I won't break._

She remembered how he'd held himself after pleasuring her in the dark little motel room, and changed how she was holding him. A little harder. She moved her hand, then again, and a third time. At some point, everything opened between them.

 _Oh. That was… intense. So that's what it's like for guys._

 _Would you… again? Please._

She did, this time looking down, watching her hand work magic on him, feeling his entire being focus on that magic and the swift explosion of ecstasy that eclipsed everything. One word was left in his mind: _Buffy_.

Her name.

 _Love._ He put his hand over hers, stilling her fingers, and took a breath. _It's been a while since anyone touched me. Coming up on two years._

 _Two years?_ He nodded, and she remembered that Drusilla had been sick even before they turned up in Sunnydale.

 _Know it's your birthday, but it's a gift to be touched. Thank you._

She let go of him and slid her arms around him. He hadn't said the word 'lonely,' so she wouldn't either. _Thank you for such a… touchable birthday present._

Spike hugged her in return, his hands firm against her back, softer as they slid over her hips to cup her bum. His fingers traced over the black satin of her panties, then came back to her hips and pushed her away a few inches. _Learn my body._

She knew he was inviting her to explore further. _Stand back up._

He did, then leaned against the bedpost, hips jutting out, giving her access For some reason, it made him seem even more naked. He knew she wanted a chance to examine the male body, was only giving her a chance to satisfy that curiosity. Buffy couldn't bring herself to just grab him like he was a handle. She feinted.

 _These?_

 _Cup them, roll them in your hand. Don't squeeze them as hard, please._

 _They aren't as cute as a cat's._

He laughed out loud. _No, I guess not._

 _That's weird, how they… tighten._

 _It's for regulating temperature for sperm. Still do the same thing, even without the sperm. The closer a man is to climax, the tighter they get._

Vampires had no life to give. She knew that, knew they didn't even host bacteria or viruses. _You feel very much alive._

 _You make me feel very much alive._

She trailed her fingers higher, stroking soft brown curls before her fingers dared touch his shaft again. This time she tried a different way, using both hands so she could encircle him completely. As she did, Buffy was looking at him, looking up at his face, watching his bliss. His cock jerked in her hands, as if it had a life of its own, and her eyes dropped to watch. She thought it was sort of ridiculous.

 _Love, you're a dab hand at this._

 _It looks… different._

 _Not circumcised._

 _It's like… a lipstick._ She moved the sheath of skin until the tip appeared. He chuckled, and something inside Buffy loosened. This was still Spike. And this… this could be fun. It had been so far. She could do this.

Then she floundered, too far out of her depth. _I can't, I mean I physically can't…._

 _You don't have to._ He showed her an image of her hand at the base of his erection, reducing the length to something manageable. _Do you want me to lay down?_

 _No._ Buffy took a breath; he didn't expect her to choke herself. Then she grinned, meeting his eyes _. I used to think it was literal, you know, that you just blow._ She blew a stream of air toward him to demonstrate. He jerked in response.

 _Umm… that's one thing you can do. The head, the tip, I mean, it's very sensitive, especially underneath. Air, warm or cool, lips, tongue. Anything you want to do will feel bloody wonderful._

Good to know, Buffy thought, and brought her mouth to him. He made a barely audible sound, almost a hiss. Firm and somewhat cool, no real taste. She turned her head to the side, sliding her tongue one way, then another. He quivered, jerked.

 _Ah, Buffy._ His fingertips were on her shoulders, and he moved one hand to smooth lightly over her hair.

I made him come, she thought. Then her brow furrowed. Again. _How many times can you do this?_

 _As many times as you want me to._

Buffy grasped him in the middle, took him in until her lips met her hand, and tried moving mouth and hand in tandem.

Spike swore, then groaned. _Your mouth, your hands, love, so hot._

She sucked on him. He liked that. She lightly scraped her teeth down the length of him. He liked that, too. She touched his balls while she held him in her mouth. He also liked that.

 _So, I'm thinking that there isn't a wrong way to do this._

 _It's pretty much, you pay attention to the silly thing, it's happy. A bit of a rhythm, it's very happy._

 _So, why have I always been worried? That I would be bad at it, I mean?_

Spike backed away from their connection without breaking it, something in his past swimming up in his answer. Darla, maybe. _Someone tells you that you aren't good, well, that's power, yeah? You'll want to try again to please them. Or maybe you just didn't like the idea of doing it with some manky human. If you're not sure, love, just ask me if I like what you're doing._ He chuckled. _The answer will be yes.  
_

She nodded. _One more time?_

 _If you insist._ He gave her a full, knowing smile.

This time she tried to pay attention to what his body was telling her, to what his involuntary moans told her about timing. She paused, loosening her grip on his shaft, then lowered her mouth to him again, prolonging the time it took to bring him off. She felt… capable.

 _Look at me, love. Want to see you._

She looked up and met his eyes, darkened by passion. As he came, she realized she was incredibly turned on by his response to her. For some reason, it had never occurred to her that pleasuring him would please her, too. Even though he hadn't really touched her, she could feel a slippery warmth between her legs.

As his moan died away, he put his hands over hers, peeled them away, and pulled her to her feet. _My turn._ And Spike kissed her, bending her backwards, his body pressed everywhere against hers, then pulling her to him and arching his own back, lifting her up his body just to let her slide down.

 _You haven't kissed me like this before, either._

 _Wouldn't want you to get bored with me._ He turned them so that she was the one against the bedpost. _Stay right there, my lusty wench. My turn._ He twisted his thumbs into the satin fabric of her panties and pulled them off her in one smooth motion, ending up on his knees before her.

 _I had to try that twice,_ she admitted. _The first time I put them on under the garters before I realized – oh!_

His mouth was on her, his fingers were brushing the mark he'd set on her thigh, she was going… she had.

 _So that's what it's like for women. Maybe not as intense… but deeper?_

 _That's close, I think._

 _Right, then. Spend for me again, love, then I'll slow down._

He set his mouth against her, and Buffy couldn't help moving her thighs apart and tilting her hips. Neither of them doubted she would reach her peak again. His tongue seemed to remember every motion she'd liked in Los Angeles. _Whoa._ He looked up at her, stood up, and now his kisses were nuzzles, his hands sliding over her body.

 _My Slayer._

 _My vampire._

 _My Buffy._

 _My Spike._

She helped with the bra, because there were so many hooks, and then put her hands on his body again. She wasn't sure if she pulled him down or if he eased her down, but they were together on the bed. Before she quite caught her breath from the two rapid orgasms, everything was a blur of kisses and soft caresses and small smiles. Spike was propped up beside her, not looming over her. Pale candlelight reflected down from the white canopy. There were no shadows on them or in this bed.

 _You want me to take these off?_ His fingers were at the fastener of the closest garter.

She shrugged. _Up to you. They aren't in my way._

 _Better things to do._ Spike found her breast near his mouth and kissed her there, nibbled, nipped. Buffy forgot about the stockings. She drew in a sharp gasp, and something that he'd been leashing tight slipped. He lifted his head to meet her eyes, making sure he wasn't misinterpreting the sound, and said in a voice rough with desire, "Gotta love you now." In Los Angeles, he had set a limit for them, but not here. No penetration of any kind, she remembered. It wasn't going to be like that tonight.

She was okay with that.

Spike's fingers brushed over the lace of the garter belt and over her mons, down her thigh and back to her center. As he nibbled the underside of her breast, he started speaking to her. Somewhere, they were nose to nose in the darkness of a rundown Los Angeles motel room. _Love, how velvety you are, so warm, like honey, gonna spread it from here all the way to here, make everything slippery, so I can slide against you like this._ Nothing he hadn't done before, but then he pressed one fingertip into her body. Buffy's hips rose of their own accord. Now his fingers were teasing a response from her inside and out. She ground against him mindlessly, lifting her hips so he could slide another knuckle inside.

Suddenly there was cool air on her nipple instead of his lips. Spike moved off the bed, pulled her to the edge, and his tongue replaced his fingers at her clitoris. _Need to taste you, love. Need you on my mouth, need you through all my senses._

A little disoriented by how quickly he'd moved, she halfway sat up. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he met her gaze, but then his attention went to her body. She started to sink back onto the bed, but he did something that made her gasp and stay upright, propping up with one arm.

 _That's... something different._

 _It is._ She got a mental image/feeling of his mouth completely sealed around her clitoris, drawing it to his curious tongue instead of sending his tongue out to play. _Still good?_

"Uhhh..." She let out most of her breath on the syllable. _Maybe better._ Buffy sank her fingers into his hair, sliding through the soft curls, breathing his name, again and again. She'd told him once she couldn't always reach her peak when she tried, but since their last night in a rundown motel room, Buffy had only to touch herself and think of _this_ to climax. She'd learned from him to use the first orgasm, not as a stopping point, but as a platform to build to stronger sensations. _Oh, Spike._

Just like she had done to him, Spike slowed his movements. Buffy swatted his head, making him chuckle. _It'll be worth the wait, I promise._ He lathed her with long strokes, tongue and clever fingers, then penetration again, this time with his tongue. She fell back on the bed. The mindlink was completely open, and she felt her muscles contact around him, both as herself and as him. "Spike!" The sound of her own voice startled her. _Sorry, that was loud_.

 _Never sorry_. _I'm not sorry, don't you be. Loud as you want, no one to hear out here. Music to me, love, sweeter than your honey. Makes me hot, knowing you like this, makes me so hard for you._ He switched again, tongue working it's magic, long finger inside her, stroking her, now a second finger, making her feel… stretched, in the most wonderful way.

"Spike!" It was a scream and a groan, and Spike broke away from her, breathing harshly, one hand resting over her protectively. She pulled his face to hers, fingers tangling in his hair again, tasting herself on his lips, broken words streaming between them: _love so good more taste more anything yours yes_

Buffy pulled him down to her, their bodies sprawled together. She wanted to touch him, feel him everywhere, this was wonderful, and she rolled them over, straddling him.

They both froze. Spike swallowed, looking up at her, his chest rising and falling. Buffy looked down into his eyes, and all she could see was patience and very human desire.

 _Hard for you. All for you._

 _Wet for you._ She felt like she should blush for those words, but she was still looking into his eyes, and he was so fiercely proud of her.

"Only if you want, love." His spoken words sounded raw. _You, I mean, not your body._

"I want you."

At her words, his body arched upwards, his eyes half-closing. There was a sudden, vivid memory of being on another bed and his voice saying that he wished she did want him, and she wasn't sure if it was his memory or hers.

Buffy swallowed. She sat up, sparing a glance to see how much room she had beneath the canopy, then looked down at him. His lips were parted, and he looked uncertain and almost innocent. She raised herself higher, trying to get clearance, and then Spike's hands were at her thighs, lifting her. Buffy used her hand to guide him… there, all she had to do was… sink down.

She did, then tensed, raising up again. Spike held her, letting her adjust. Buffy lowered her body, then winced a little.

 _Try scooting forward just a bit._

She did, wringing a long moan from the warrior beneath her. Buffy moved again, and it was better. It had been a long time, a year, she supposed, and she was too intent on this moment for that thought to distract her. The position, maybe? _That's okay._

 _Good? In that case, I have to touch you now._

He let go of her legs so his hands could cup her breasts, skim over her tummy, slide between them until his fingers touched the place where they were joined, then back along her swollen lips to find her clitoris. She watched him the whole time, taking ragged little breaths.

He teased the little nub, then stilled as Buffy began to move against him. She let her own movement create the friction, until she forgot that she was riding him and only tried to rub against his hand.

He stared up at her with something close to disbelief, but in her mind, he never fell silent, keeping still so he would not miss a moment of her bliss, and she was going to come, she could feel the first of the wave that was going to buoy her up and cover her over. _Oh, love, look at you, my brave, my fine Slayer. So beautiful, so fierce, my heart -What's wrong?_

"Owww! Oh, crap." Buffy fell away from him, curling into a ball.

 _I hurt you. Oh God, I hurt you._

"No. Cramp."

"Cramp?" Spike cradled her back against his chest, trying to make his passion-addled brain work.

"Muscle cramp. Inner thigh. Ow." She'd been so close, too.

"Uhh…" He put a hand on her hip, feeling useless.

 _It's easing off._ Buffy moved her leg experimentally, then winced.

He could feel her frustration, didn't know what to do, didn't even know the Slayer could have muscle cramps.

 _I know._ Keeping her legs together, Buffy rolled to her side, and then was up on her hands and knees. _Like this._

 _What?_

 _Doggie style. I can keep my legs together so it doesn't stretch, hurt._

Spike broke away from their connection. This could not be real, could not be happening. How could she be innocent of so many things and know about this? She's of another age, he supposed. Somehow, he was on his knees, too, watching her give him an encouraging glance over her shoulder, bright hair tumbled around her face. He moved forward, used his hand to set himself at her entrance.

Buffy made an impatient noise and pushed back against him, taking him in a bit more. Spike looked at this Slayer, this woman before him, still wearing the ridiculous and sexy garter belt, still wearing stockings, demanding that he give her full pleasure. He threw open the mindlink fully; he didn't care if it was real. If this was nothing more than a wet dream, he'd let her see it. She could have as much of him as she wanted. She could have everything. She already did.

 _I think you're more dangerous when you're wounded._ "Okay, kitten?"

"No charley horse." Another impatient movement.

Spike eased closer, still not deep. They both moaned. His lips parted; he'd counted on this night being uncharted emotional territory, but nothing in his long experience had ever felt this incredible physically.

"Again." Buffy eyes were wide open, though she was focusing too hard on what she was feeling to see the pillows, the headboard. When Angel had been on top of her, she hadn't felt anything like this, just watched him, loving him, waiting for him to finish. Spike wasn't touching her anywhere else now, but this… _this_. "Oh, Spike, again."

"Love, you… You're bloody perfect, Buffy."

Another movement that was liquid friction. Spike came for the first time inside of her. She felt it as a bucking, pulsing _increase_ that touched deep nerves, felt her own body clench around him of its own accord, listened to her vampire gasp her name aloud. _Oh! More!_

His hips moved as his Slayer demanded; his hands came to her waist. _This is real, this can't be real, there's never been anything in the entire history of the world as erotic as this._ Spike pushed again, unable to believe his body could fit hers, even as he watched the slow glide, smooth, unimpeded. _If I hurt you, say so, I'm almost completely inside you._

 _More, more now, just like that, again,_ move _, oh, Spike. Yes, yes!_

He gave up control, obeyed her command. Spike wished he could see her face, but settled for watching their bodies join and rejoin. _Love_ , he thought, giving her the image of his cock sliding into her, candlelight glistening on him as he pulled away.

"Spiike!" Buffy moved back to meet him, feeling tiny muscles inside her grip him, as if holding him against nerves that begged for more of this touch.

His fingers sank into her hips, and he finally thrust into her because Buffy's body had tightened, clamping down, almost pushing him from inside her. As he sheathed himself in her fully, the same muscles massaged him, clenched around him, welcoming him back. He realized suddenly that there was a way to see her face, and, on the thought, he was more fully in their mindlink. Her eyes were open and wide in the dark motel room, their bodies pressed together in the saggy middle of the mattress. Buffy met his gaze, her pupils dilated with passion, and she breathed his name. Spike came again and scarcely noticed, too full of wonder to completely process anything that wasn't his Slayer.

Buffy made a long, keening noise, still seeing through his eyes, pleasure crashing over her in wave after wave. She couldn't move now, just bunched the sheets in her fists, feeling/watching as he filled her over and again. Then she arched her back, just a tiny amount, and all of a sudden she wasn't frozen. "Oh, Spike, yes!" She slammed her hips back, pushing against him. There had been more nerves waiting, it seemed, waiting for the sweet caress of him inside her. "Spiiike!"

She felt the same increase as before – Spike gets bigger when he comes? – and his cock pulsed as he thrust one final time, a roar breaking free as his head fell back and his eyes closed. She had no thoughts, white noise in her mind for anything that wasn't sensation as her own orgasm swept over her.

"Buffy…! Oh, love." There was something broken in his voice, but nothing in his technique. He curved around her back, the fingers of one hand unerringly finding her clitoris, bringing her off again. And once again _. Shh._ Another shudder, softer.

Pulling her with him, Spike rolled to his side. _The cramp?_

 _Gone…._

⸹

When she opened her eyes, it was to see the same nightmare she'd already experienced: an unfamiliar bed and an empty pillow beside her.

Buffy closed her eyes, preferring what her other senses told her. Those were more reassuring: the coolness of the hand curved around her ribs, the unyielding solid weight of him against her back, the smell of bay rum soap and the scent of their combined bodies in her nostrils. This time, she hadn't been left alone.

Spike was, in fact, still inside her.

This oddity made her smile with surprise, and then bite her lip to keep from giggling. She couldn't have been asleep for long, because neither of them had moved from where they'd fallen. The candles were still burning, too.

Spike woke, knowing already she was awake, and buried his nose in her warm, soft hair. _Love?_

 _I think we slept._

 _I think we passed out._ Buffy let herself giggle this time. _I spent utterly. I don't do that. I mean, not quick like that. Not for hours._

 _You're welcome._

He laughed and kissed her shoulder. Buffy felt his reluctance, almost painful, as he thought of the time and shifted away from her, their bodies no longer connected. _Back in a mo._

He'd thought of everything. Spike came to her with a basin of cool water, a washcloth, and towels, would have cleaned her and soothed her himself if she wanted, but that she could not do. He moved away, coming back with thick white robes for both of them, then went around the bed to grab a tray of fruit and a couple of bottles of water. They sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other, and he fed her apple slices and grapes.

"Catch."

She tossed the grape to him, he opened his mouth and leaned back, and, "Ow. Right in the eye."

"You aren't very good at this."

"It's all right. I'm good at other things."

They were keeping everything at a surface level now. Buffy decided that was okay. She grinned at him.

"What?"

"Spike the adorable is back." He scowled, but didn't bother trying to press the curls down. On impulse, Buffy leaned forward to give him a quick kiss. She settled back onto the bed gingerly.

"Still cramping?"

"No, it's just a little sore now. I guess I must not use those muscles for slaying." She used all her muscles for slaying; she knew exactly why her body was being human rather than superhuman. And she wasn't going to think about that.

"Dunno, pet. You've slain my mighty beast."

It wasn't true; she'd seen him before he put on the robe. She had no idea of how to respond to that, so she tossed another grape at him. This one he caught, and he grinned, showing her the grape impaled on a fearsome fang, his face otherwise normal. It struck her as funny, and she fell over sideways on the bed, chuckling.

 _Tell me. Whatever it was, I'll do it again, it makes you laugh like that._ His jaw and mouth matched everything else now, and he crunched up the grape.

 _Just… Spike the adorable above, William the Bloody below. You don't have do anything except be yourself to make me laugh. Well, that came out wrong._

His face grew serious. _I can be myself around you. Haven't done that with anyone for… for a very long time. You can't hide yourself from a real friend, I guess._ He held out his hand.

She placed her fingers against his, already knowing he would bring them to his mouth for a kiss. Buffy studied the dark sweep of lashes over his half-closed eyes, wondering what this night meant for him.

And then she knew. He was giving her the romance she'd never had, but this was something he'd never had, either. The music, the food, the special clothes… It was a wedding night.

His grip on her hand tightened, and Spike met her eyes. _It was. Most romantic, most… wholesome thing I could think of. Wanted to give that to you. Do you mind?_

 _No. I wish…._

She wished she could shelter him, that she could put a protective bubble around the kind and gentle man she'd found inside her enemy, give him a life as charmed as the night he'd given her. But, then, he'd be truly dead and long gone by the time it was her turn to arrive on the earth.

 _I wish there was more happiness in the world._

 _Are you happy now?_

 _Yes._

 _It's a start._

⸹

It was after four when Spike saw Buffy to her bedroom, passed the garment bag and boxes through the window, and smiled at her. On impulse, he lightly stepped inside. Once she'd finished stowing things in her closet and turned to him, he moved close and took her in his arms.

Buffy hugged him back, hating that the night was over. She let her head fall back so that her hair hung over his hands and began to dance, the same simple box step.

He grinned because she was leading, but immediately fell into step with her _. Our bodies have bloody well worked out some kind of partnership without telling us about it._

She grinned, too, because it was true. _They seem to be good at about everything together._

 _Not good, pet, not just good. Brilliant, amazing… perfect._ He managed to mold his body closer to hers. _Love, swore to always be honest with you, yeah? Nearly a hundred and twenty years, and what we did tonight was the very best thing I've ever experienced._

They had slowed, but their feet kept moving in the dance. Buffy couldn't think of a single thing to say, because she was in his mind. He was telling the truth.

Spike stared into the dark depths of her eyes in her dim bedroom, feeling himself embraced by the softness in them. Words bloomed inside him in response, but when had he ever read a woman correctly? Buffy just felt close to him right now, is all. And this night was for her.

 _So_ , he said, moving away from her physically and mentally, _you've got Dr. Spike's seal of authenticity that you damn well are good at this._

Buffy covered her mouth, trying to keep in the giggles. _And you have Dr. Buffy's seal of approval right back_. She knew he was preparing to leave, but couldn't stop herself from keeping him a moment longer. She pulled him in close again for a hug, reveling in the ability to bear hug someone without any worries.

Spike returned the embrace, gave her a smile, and let go. He paused outside her window and turned back, holding out a hand for hers. Buffy gave him a gentle smile, and he kissed her hand one last time. _I'll be around_ , he promised, then dropped to the ground and began the journey back to Dutton.

He left the minivan in the driveway where he'd found it, cut through the subdivision to the overflow lot behind the Latimer House. He coaxed the moving van he'd rented into life and backed it up to the rear exit. Unlocking the door, he grabbed a roll of garbage bags on his way through the kitchen. Upstairs, he set about dismantling the bedroom he'd put together just hours before. Anything with the Slayer's scent on it went into the garbage bags, along with the candles and the leftover food. He went over the room with a roll of disinfecting wipes, then sniffed, satisfied that any evidence of their night was drowned beneath ammonia.

He piled everything onto the mattress: bedframe, nightstands, linens, and trash bags, and dragged it down the stairs, leaving the room bare. All of the rooms upstairs were empty, but he'd liked that one best because of the bathroom. On the thought, he went back upstairs to make sure he had all the towels.

He took his set dressing through the back door an armful at a time, then wrestled the big mattress through. Locking the door behind him, he set off to the dumpster he'd settled on earlier. He backed the moving van up to its edge, then unloaded everything, mattress first. Spike jumped into the bin and doused everything with lighter fluid. He took a moment to drive the moving van a few hundred yards away and went over the cargo area with the last of the disinfecting wipes. Satisfied, he took the dirty pile back to the dumpster. Spike lit a cigarette, took one long drag, and tossed the remainder inside.

There. No proof the night had ever happened, not with that flame rising thirty feet into the air. No reason the Slayer shouldn't have some nice lingerie and no reason for anyone to suspect he'd bought anything for her. No demon with sharp senses would smell anything untoward if they happened to attend a wedding at the Latimer House. Buffy's reputation was safe.

Spike dropped off the moving van and walked back to his room at a Dutton hotel. It was just after dawn. He showered, stuffed his own clothes into a bag marked for laundering, and fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. He wouldn't wake up until twenty-eight hours later.

⸹

Buffy woke up when her mother knocked on the door. "I'm up," she said, putting her hand over her eyes. It was very bright in her room. She sat up. "Am I late?"

"No, it's Sunday," her mother reassured her, opening the door. "I let you sleep in. It's about eleven."

"Thanks.

"I'm making a salad for lunch, with slices of the leftover chicken. Come down when you're ready and we'll eat."

"Mmm, sounds good." As soon as the door closed, Buffy flopped back down. She felt like she could sleep another couple of hours, because she'd finally gotten some good sleep, no nightmares, no dreams. She rolled to her side and pulled the pillow beneath her chin, staring at the red bow around the neck of one of her teddy bears.

The red bow that was far too big for the bear and had not been there before last night.

She sat back up, stared at her closet wild-eyed, then was off the bed, closing the open door. Her mom absolutely could not see a new dress in her closet, not when all her allowance was still going to pay for bodywork on the Jeep after the band candy incident. She reopened the door, and after a couple of frantic minutes, she had hidden the yellow dress in the same garment bag as her spring fling dress and consolidated all the lingerie into one box and shoved that behind her suitcase. After a few more seconds of thought, she crushed the other two boxes as small as Slayer strength allowed and jammed the cardboard into a pocket of her bookbag. There.

After this bout of panic, Buffy was wide awake. She showered, slathered on a moisturizer that was supposed to help you gradually tan (almost February now, wouldn't want to blind people with white legs), and bounced down the stairs to the kitchen.

"How are you feeling, dear?"

"Good. Back to normal. Or, you know, Slayer normal." She put on her best Incredible Hulk voice. "Buffy strong, Buffy smash."

"Buffy wash," Joyce said, picking up a laundry basket from the side of the counter, "Buffy fold."

She blinked at the narrow escape; Joyce had been in her closet while she was in the shower. "I take it back, I'm weak as a kitten." Buffy took the laundry from her mom and went downstairs, dashing back up after getting the machine started. "Is lunch ready?"

It was. "You're in good spirits," Joyce noted as they ate.

"I have no idea why," Buffy groused, but without any real bitterness. She knew why she was in a good mood. "How did you sleep last night?"

"I don't think I moved." Joyce toyed with a piece of chicken, dragging it through a dollop of salad dressing. "Buffy, I'd like to ask your opinion about something. Do you think we should tell your father, about you being the Slayer, I mean?"

She had never considered this. "I don't even know how to broach the subject." Buffy looked down. "I-I don't think it matters now, Mom. It's pretty obvious he isn't going to be in my life much anymore."

Joyce looked down, too, her jaw flexing. "What happened last week… I was just thinking, if something happened to me, Hank should probably know." She waited until her daughter looked up. "But there's part of me that wants to just rub his nose in it, too, how wrong he was to make that call." When Buffy looked blank, she added in a small voice, "To the hospital. The night you… the night the gym burned down."

She stared at her mother, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I thought it was, you know, both of you."

"Not that time. Not by then. If I had been the one who wanted to call the mental hospital, he would have been dead set against it. We were… we were already over." She took a breath, tried to change the conversation. "You know how you hate it when I tell you I'm not mad, just disappointed?" Tears stood in her eyes. "I hate that I've ever disappointed you."

Buffy stood up and wrapped her arms around Joyce. "You're the best mom, the only mom I want." She stood there, holding her mother, wishing she could say she'd never been disappointed. "I'll do better from now on," she promised. "If you know more about what's going on, you might be more frightened, and I don't want you to be scared all the time. But I'll tell you, so you'll know."

"You tell me, and I'll believe you."

"Thank you." Then, because they might not get back to this level of honesty for two more years, she asked the 'why' question that haunted her most. "Do you think it's because he's ashamed? That Dad won't be around us, I mean?" Joyce looked up at her and gave her head a little shake, not understanding. "He's ashamed, because he cheated?"

"Who told you that he cheated?" Joyce asked, her voice careful.

Buffy shrugged. "No one. I just, you know, figured that's what it was."

Joyce took a steadying breath, and her arms tightened around her daughter. "I didn't take it lightly, the divorce, I mean. If it had been… one kind of affair, I would have stayed. You know, counseling, the whole thing, tried to make it work. But…" she thought of how to make things vague, not wanting Buffy to think any less of her father, "a relationship can't work if there's a… lack of respect. The way it happened showed me that Hank didn't respect me. It showed me that he no longer deserved my respect."

After a moment, Buffy simply said, "Okay." She didn't want any more details.

"Buffy, sit down." Joyce let go of her, apparently deciding the same thing her daughter had, that it was a good time to ask about something difficult. When she'd sank back into her chair, looking warily at her mom, Joyce held out her hands. She squeezed Buffy's fingers and asked gently, "Since we're talking, I have to ask… why are you still seeing Angel?"

"What?" This was unexpected.

"I know you still see him."

"We're not –"

"I know you're not." Joyce's gaze was gentle and loving.

Buffy nodded and tried to give her mother the same kind of careful honesty. "If you mean, do I respect him, I do. I've never known anyone who tries harder."

"But he doesn't. What he did –"

"That wasn't him, that was Angelus," she said quickly.

"No. Listen, sweetheart," and Joyce fell silent. Buffy waited, watchful, as her mom went through an inner struggle. "You know how Xander has been so down because of Cordelia? Right after Christmas, I made a pan of brownies and invited him over while you and Willow went to the mall with the money your father gave you. I… pinned him down on some things."

"So I come by the sneaky honestly?"

Joyce flashed her a look. "Xander doesn't like Angel very much."

"He's jealous."

"Yes, I'm not blind, I know he's jealous. But he's also the friend that saved your life." She sighed and gripped Buffy's hands tighter. "You just tossed that out when Faith came to Sunnydale, that Slayers only get called when the last one died. I think I polished off the last of the bourbon over that."

"Mom, it was only for –"

"For a couple of minutes, I know. I gave Xander brownies; he told me the story. He couldn't believe you were just marching off to die, because of some stupid prophecy…" Joyce let out a long sigh, gave herself a moment to calm down. "I'm not saying that you should date Xander. I'm saying that I don't understand why you respect Angel, who would have let you die."

"No, Mom, Angel and Xander both –"

Realization dawned on Joyce's face. Her daughter didn't know the whole story. "Xander didn't know where you were and had to shame that man into taking him there. Do you understand what I'm saying, Buffy? He used a cross on him."

Words escaped her for a long time. Buffy swallowed, her voice hoarse. "Angel knew the Master, the vampire that killed me, knew how strong he was. I-I think he just didn't want to see it happen, couldn't face it."

Joyce stared at her, turning her head slightly to the side. "But Xander could, what do you say, 'just deal?' You're going to excuse his cowardice." She felt Buffy flinch and looked down at their hands. "I'll ask again: why are you still seeing him?"

"He's the first man I ever loved."

Joyce stared at her after these simple words. Her sigh was almost imperceptible as she forced her mouth into a smile. "I know. I know you do." She did know; Buffy would never sleep with someone she didn't love. "Thank you. I can't say it's fun or easy, but I'm so glad we can talk like this."

Buffy hugged her mother again, helped her clean up the lunch dishes, and went back downstairs to check on the laundry. The spin cycle was still going, so she sat down on the almost-bottom step and waited. It gave her time to think.

Angel had been weak when they first met, had never helped much in a practical way, just provided information. That had changed gradually, then Angelus showed up. Now Angel did help actively, even though he was weak again; something in him had changed during his time in hell. But she hadn't known that he had been resigned to her death. Somehow, in her mind, Angel had ridden to her rescue, even though Xander had been the one to save her with CPR.

There were no more prophecies about her; Giles was sure, having checked and quadruple-checked. Spike had said that Angelus pestered Drusilla for visions. He believed in predestination, maybe didn't think there was any use in fighting against it.

It still hurt. She absently wiped at her eyes. Well, she thought, at least now I understand why Xander hates Angel. It isn't just jealousy.

The spin cycle ended, and Buffy put the wet laundry in the dryer. She trudged back up the stairs, the bounce gone from her steps.

"Mom?"

Joyce turned away from whatever she was reading in the folded newspaper and looked at her. "Mm?"

Joyce was leaning against the counter, finishing her tea as she read. Buffy moved in close to her, putting an arm around her mother's waist. "Do you think you can love more than one person? At a time, I mean?"

"Of course." She looked down at her daughter's blond head. "Oh. Be in love, you mean." Joyce laid an arm across her shoulders.

"Yeah." Buffy's voice was small.

"No." She moved her head to the side as she vacillated. "Well, I can't. Maybe it's different for other people."

"Oh."

Joyce looked down at the little pout on Buffy's mouth. "Honey?"

It was her turn to say, "Mm?"

"It can be a very confusing time when you're falling out of love with someone." Joyce shrugged, not expecting her to make any comment. "I'm here, whenever you want to talk."

She forced herself to smile. "Okay." As if she would ever talk to her mother about her feelings.

⸹

Next Chapter: Around the craziness of senior year and the Mayor's plans, Buffy and Spike keep carving out moments alone.


	25. Crux of the Matter

**Crux of the Problem**

⸹

Dutton, California

January 1999

⸹

I didn't fuck up.

Spike shoved one of the pillows under his head and let out a sigh of contentment. A couple more hours until dusk. He'd grab someone for a quick bite, then go see Joyce. He wasn't angry with her anymore. In fact, he just about loved the whole damned world right now.

For weeks, he'd planned the birthday night for Buffy, going over every possible thing that could happen – except a cramp; who knew Slayers got charley horses? Details usually bored him; he'd sketch out the broad outline of a plan and go from there. But not this time. He had practiced a positive, empowering reaction to every possible decision she might make. He had put himself in a human's position, even stocking up on aspirin and Immodium. Joaquim's suggestion of seafood had been an agonizing choice. What if she had been allergic?

Nothing went wrong, though. He hadn't fucked up. And Buffy… Buffy had made everything more perfect than he could have believed. The sex alone had been mind-blowing. He didn't want to dwell on that, actually. They had fit together seamlessly, like their bodies were custom-made to be a pair, and he was already feeling bereft. Though he told himself that could be because of the long abstinence, he knew that wasn't true. Spike knew it wasn't going to happen again, but at least it had happened.

Leaving aside the sex, nothing, _nothing_ in his previous experience had been as sweet, had meant as much. Buffy had come to him emotional but clear-eyed. They'd used their friendship as a bridge across the awkward bits, and everything else had fallen into place. He knew she hadn't had much joy in the sexual aspect of her life, and she probably knew he'd had precious little himself. The level of honesty between them would have terrified him, if it was anyone other than Buffy.

And for her… well, she was no longer unsure about whether or not sex was worth it. More than that, he couldn't say. He hoped she treasured what they'd shared even a tenth as much as he did. She had trusted him; she had been so brave, saying yes to the whole evening; she had been so incredibly responsive… Maybe it wasn't too soon to start planning for her nineteenth birthday. He grinned up at the ceiling.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

Five hours later, Spike was standing on Buffy's porch. Joyce answered the door.

"Oh, hello, Spike. Buffy's not here right now, but if you –"

He interrupted her friendliness. "I know. It's you I came to see. Uh, before you invite me in –"

She interrupted him in return. "I know. You're already invited in."

"Yeah, I figured Buffy would tell you, but before I come in, I need to –"

"Tell me you were angry with me. I know; she told me that, too." Joyce looked down for a second. "I didn't know about the threshold part. I was trying to… strong arm her into doing what I wanted, and I did it in the worst way possible. Not my finest moment."

"Oh." His anger, already diminished, faded away. Rusty but still intact, his instinct to protect mothers kicked in. "Well, you'd had a shock."

She stepped back from the door. "I was making some herbal tea. I could make you some hot chocolate…?"

Spike eased himself onto a stool at the kitchen counter, knowing she preferred to make everything but would let him help tidy up afterwards. "I missed this," he admitted.

"Buffy said you were in a wheelchair for a long time?"

"Yeah. Never had a spinal injury before."

Joyce gave him a my-life-has-become-very-weird look and noted politely, "She said vampires usually heal fast."

"Yeah, but I'd just channeled magic for a healing spell. You remember me telling you about my girl, Drusilla? The spell was for her. It worked, for what that was worth, got her back in the pink, but magic eats into your strength, your reserves. The back took a while."

Buffy had broken his back, Joyce knew, but this didn't seem to be a sore point. "I'm sorry about your girlfriend." She lifted a shoulder in askance. "I mean, I'm supposed to be sorry, right? Oh, there's the kettle."

Since she was busy at the stove and not watching him, Spike gave an honest answer. "We were together a long time. I loved her, even if she wasn't the best… girlfriend." That word had nothing to do with his dark beauty.

"How have you been?"

So much sympathy and kindness in her voice. "At a loss, really. At first, I mean, while I was in shock, I didn't know how I would go on. Don't know that I would have, not for Buffy. Now, I figure I will. Just don't quite know what to do with myself. Spend a hundred and twenty years with someone, the first months without them are… difficult."

Joyce measured out the chocolate mix into a cup. "I didn't know what to do after the divorce. I'd always wanted to run a gallery, though, sort of my dream job. I was lucky and found a really good deal on the shop downtown. The house, too."

Spike thought blackly of the files the Mayor had on the Summers family, of why prices in Sunnydale were so low. Apparently, Buffy hadn't shared that.

Joyce went on. "So, not that I necessarily should give advice to someone older than me, but maybe follow your dreams." When she turned around, he was grinning at her little jab about his age. She put the cup down. "Oh, almost forgot. Marshmallows."

"Yeah, dream jobs for geezers like me would be, what, farrier or whale oil merchant."

"Or artist's model? It was you, wasn't it? The Rubenstein statue?"

"Yeah." He ducked his head, a bit embarrassed. "Met her in Cologne in the late thirties. We got out not long before things got bad. I never posed or anything; I didn't know about it for years." He told her the story about seeing exhibit posters in New York in the seventies, how the jaded party people thought he was a publicity stunt.

"So she knew about the vampire thing?"

Yeah, she'd known about his vampire thing. No reason to pass on any real details about that. By now Joyce was seated next to him, her herbal tea finished steeping, so he nodded and changed the subject. "So, how have you been?"

"Oh, you know, other than the kidnapping and being used by a demon to burn my daughter and other children at the stake, fine." Her voice was brittle. "It's been a great year so far."

"What?" Spike's voice was very precise and his expression very hard.

"You haven't talked to Buffy at all?"

"No, we haven't talked." But we're gonna.

Joyce went through the founding of MOO and the unmasking of the two little children into one demon, then told him about the Council of Watchers and their insane test. "So now, Mr. Giles is fired, and Buffy's going to get a new Watcher who will probably be just horrible." She took the last sip of her tea. "We had such a good Christmas, too," Joyce added wistfully, "with the snow. I wish it had lasted."

"I'm so sorry, Joyce. It sounds like an absolute nightmare."

"I'm having nightmares. I've been taking sleeping pills for about a week now, because the dreams were so bad. My goal is to stop taking them over the weekend, so I won't be useless at work if I have a bad night's sleep."

She talked longer than Spike wished before he could politely extricate himself. Buffy was on patrol, apparently, and when he said his last farewell, the pleasant mask dropped from his face. He turned toward downtown, fists clenched. She hadn't told him anything.

⸹

"Kind of dead tonight," Faith said. She and Buffy were on the catwalk, looking down at the sparse crowd in the Bronze. They had been on patrol long enough to get cold, and the dark-haired Slayer suggested it as a good place to warm up.

"Weeknight, I guess." Buffy was watching a pretty girl who had danced with each of the three guys who were willing to be on the dance floor tonight. She gestured toward her. "What do you think? Human?"

Faith studied her for a few moments. "Yeah. She just wiped some sweat off her face."

"Yup, kind of dead tonight." Buffy was about to suggest a quick walk-through of the west side cemeteries when Faith nudged her.

"There's a guy who knows how to lay the pipe," she said, her voice more sultry than usual. "I can always tell. It's the confidence thing. Hot, too. _Nice_ combination." The man, who'd just come through the door, looked around the room, searching for someone, and then stalked off. He never looked up to where the Slayers were.

Buffy considered hurling her fellow Slayer to the dance floor below. It probably wouldn't hurt her, though, much less kill her. "I think I'm going to call it a night," she said grimly. "Period started today."

Faith gave her a sympathetic look and a fist bump. "No problem. Meet here for patrol tomorrow?"

Buffy nodded and loped down the stairs. When she got outside, she lifted her head and looked around the streets and the parking lot. Spike had been looking for her, had sent a single thought to her: _Slayer._

 _Where are you?_

 _Central Avenue. Look for the open door._

She went two blocks before she saw a door that was ajar. Buffy looked up at the dilapidated building, then went up the steps and inside, closing the door behind her. _Spike? You continue to have lousy taste in_ –

He was on her fast, gripping her by the arms and pushing her back against the door. _You didn't tell me the Council had been to town. You didn't tell me any of it._

He was faster than her, true, but she was stronger. Buffy shoved him away, hard as she could, and he staggered backwards until he bumped against the spindles of a staircase railing. Immediately, she was in his space, Faith's voice in her head, her hands on his lapels. _Why are you in town? You aren't supposed to be in Sunnydale. Faith noticed you._

He broke free, lifting his hands to either side of her for a moment, wanting to grab her again, but walked away a few steps instead. _You didn't call me. You were in danger, Joyce was in danger, and you didn't call me._

 _Don't turn your back on me._ Buffy put her hand on his arm to spin him, but he dodged away. _It's not safe for you here._

 _Safe for_ me _? Bloody hell, woman._ He had her by the arms again, shaking her.

Oh, too much. Buffy swept her forearm up between them, then extended it outward, breaking his hold, shoving him away. He crashed into a fireplace behind him, skull meeting brick.

Spike was back on his feet, one hand on the back of his head. He started stalking her automatically. _What the actual fuck is wrong with you? You could have been killed!_

Buffy's hands curled into fists. This was Spike, but he was a vampire, and he was acting like an ass. _The Mayor wants to kill you! Any vampire or other baddie sees you in town, you know they'll tell him._

 _You think I'm scared of someone who sends minions after me?_ He slashed a hand in the air. _Those Council wankers took your powers. They diminished you! Those minions, yeah, those minions I'll deal with._

She could barely listen to him. _And you just show up at the Bronze! It's like the most public place in Sunnydale. Here I am! Kill me!_ The whole time, they circled around each other in silence.

 _Any time, at any moment, all you had to do was send one word to me._

 _Faith doesn't know you. What if she went after you?_

 _Oh, fuck Faith! The only thing that matters_

That name and that verb should never be in the same sentence, not from her vampire. Buffy's fist hit him across the jaw. Spike went down.

 _is you._

Buffy looked down at where he sprawled, grimacing and holding his cheek, and she burst into tears. She sat down herself, cross-legged, and put her face in her hands.

"Why are you so angry?" His voice sounded wounded, and he kept very still.

She let him see: Faith _noticing_ him, her immediate, towering jealousy and fury. _You shouldn't be here. I'm trying to protect you._ Neither of them noticed that the reason she gave had nothing to do with the source of her anger. _  
_

 _Why do you think I am here? To protect you._

 _I'm the Slayer. I don't need protecting._

 _Yeah? You weren't the Slayer last week._ He pulled his knees up toward his chest and rested his arms on them, peered at her. _You didn't call on me. You didn't even tell me, Buffy. You closed me out._

 _I didn't tell you because I was having the best night of my life. Like, ever. Why would I want to drag all the bad into our night?_

 _Oh, love._ He scooted forward and wrapped her in his arms. Buffy leaned between his knees to place her face against his shoulder, and his embrace tightened. She felt him drop a kiss onto her hair.

The house around them gave an ominous creak, and the floor they sat on fell into the basement.

Wood. Oh God, wood splintered all around them. _Spike!_

 _Bit in my calf, that's all._ His face tightened as he let go of her to yank it out. _You okay?_

 _My butt's gonna be one enormous bruise._

 _Want me to kiss it and make – No. Never mind. Talk to me, Buffy._

 _I didn't know if you were around._

 _Try again._

She sighed. _I don't want to call on you for Slayer stuff. I already have people who put themselves in too much danger, just by being my friends._

 _Or your family._

 _Yes._

 _Buffy, I don't have much going on in my life right now. Such as it is. Don't you think I would have been here in a shot if I could help you save your mum?_

 _I know you would._ She closed her eyes and told him the real reason. _The Council, some of the Mayor's people… they're human, Spike. I… can't involve you._

Because he was a killer. Spike let out a long stream of air. He stood up, shook dust from his coat and swiped at his torn jeans. Then he put a hand down to pull her up. Craning his neck, he checked for a way out. There was a mostly intact staircase. _You're hard on buildings, Slayer. This place, factories, old churches, gyms…._

She didn't even smile. _Spike._ He turned back to her, didn't meet her eyes. _I am so sorry I hit you._

 _Then don't hit me._

She nodded.

 _I'm sorry I shook you. I won't, not ever again._ He looked up. _You ready?_

 _No, not yet._ He did meet her gaze this time, raising an eyebrow. _Having you around makes everything so easy, you know? I laugh more, I don't worry because I know you have my back. It scares me. It shouldn't be easy._ She gestured between them.

 _You think it's easy?_ She jerked a little at the vehemence in his words, so he turned away, not wanting to upend the fragile peace between them. _I don't know how your world works, Slayer, not anymore. I have to think through every little thing._ He turned back to her. _I spent months planning for your birthday, love, so I wouldn't bollix it by doing something stupid and wrong._ Spike put his fingers on her chin and lifted her face, needing to see her after all. _I see it in your eyes. The wariness. I'm a demon. B'lieve I've told you we're unthinking, uncaring… But I care about you. I'm never going to hurt you on purpose, but I know I could, without ever meaning to._

Buffy hadn't been sure, after the awful scene upstairs, if things between them could get better. She let out a sigh and pulled him against her, holding him close. _It's not just you. I know I'm too wrapped up in my own problems to really be there for people. I know I've hurt everyone, including you, by being thoughtless._

 _Love, the only way you can hurt me is by not being here. You understand why I want to be here, why I want to have your back?_

She nodded, her head pressed tightly against his chest, feeling the fear he carried inside. _Then you have to understand why I worry every time you're in Sunnydale. It's the same thing._

He cradled her head loosely with one hand, the other on her back, feeling the worry she carried for him. _I love you._ His fingers tightened against her scalp. _Oh, bugger._

 _I love you, too._ She looked up at him. _Why were you afraid to say that? I know you love me. We've been friends forever. Weird friends, but, you know. Of course I love you._

His expression was soft and uncertain, what she could see of it in the dim light. But what he felt was clear as the dawn: happy, the emotion glowing inside him, illuminating every corner. Buffy had to smile.

Spike kissed her upturned face, then broke off, laughing. _I'll let you hit me every day of the week and twice on Sundays for that._

Her smile faded. _No. If I ever hit you again, and I won't, you hit back._

He picked her up at the waist and lifted her high, then spun around, unerringly finding his footing amid the rubble. Buffy braced herself, hands atop his shoulders.

 _What was that for?_

 _For being my Slayer._

 _Put me down, silly._

He did, hands still light against her waist. _You want to go patrol?_

 _No, I'm headed home._ She hesitated, but she had no reason to be shy with him _. I got my period. I'm kind of wiped._

She felt his focus on her tighten to a laser-like intensity. _Well, don't I have bad timing?_

 _What?_ A rush of images, of him kneeling before her, loving her very slowly and gently. _Oh. Eww._ Buffy's face flushed.

 _I'm willing to give it a bash._

 _Uh-huh. Of course you are, evil vampire._ "Let's book." She turned away from the temptation of him and went to the staircase, going up the steps cautiously, listening for any imminent structural failure. Strange that she'd never thought about vampires and menstrual cycles before. Slaying wasn't any more or less difficult when she had her period, and it wasn't like vampires swarmed her four days a month.

The staircase held, and it opened to a door beneath the stairs on the first floor. They skirted around the edge of the collapsed floor. Spike was right; she was hard on buildings.

He took point at the door, holding up a hand as he extended his extra senses to make sure that the street was empty. It was, and she felt his hand at the small of her back as he fell into step.

"Want a ride?"

"What are you driving today?"

"Panel van. Innocuous, anonymous white panel van."

"Buffy approves. And yes, I'd like a ride."

He drove her home and let her off curbside with a kiss on the nose and a private _Sleep well, love._ Then Spike drove back to Dutton, singing along to whatever was on the radio, unable to stop smiling.

⸹

Giles sighed as his parked his Citroen by the curb. If there was one thing he would change about his flat, it would be to have assigned parking. On nights he patrolled with Buffy, there was never anything available near his door. He tucked his stakes into his satchel and got out of the car with a soft groan at complaining joints. It would be good to knock back a finger or two of –

"Oof!" Giles found himself bent backwards over the roof of his car. He saw bright hair, prominent brow ridges, and a swirl of black coat before shadows gathered around them.

"You're a very lucky man, Watcher." Spike's voice was cold. "She doesn't want me to kill humans."

Giles grasped the hand around his neck with both hands, trying to break the hold. It was instinctual and a mistake. Within the two seconds he wasted, Spike had slammed the door into his shoulders and shins and leaned on it, trapping his legs. Giles was off-balance, but he reached towards Spike's face, fingers stiff.

The vampire had only to lean back to evade him. Spike allowed a bit of streetlight back into the screen of shadow, enough so they could observe each other. A day alone in his hotel room thinking of the harm done to the Slayer who loved him had narrowed his anger to the one member of the Council at hand. Reaching into his coat with his other hand, he withdrew a hypodermic needle with a fairly large bore attached to a syringe full of a clear liquid. They both considered it.

"Wondering what's inside, then?" The vampire's voice was unpleasant. "Something to take your strength, maybe. Not that you ever had enough to safely hurt my friends and get away with it."

"... friend as well," Giles managed.

"What's that?" Spike leaned a bit closer and tilted his head, exaggerating a pose of listening into sarcasm. "Are you trying to say you're my friend, too? Because if you say you're her friend, well," he sucked in his cheeks, "I know that's a lie." With a finger, he flicked the safety cap off the needle. "You betrayed her, Watcher. I thought she was like a daughter to you, and you served her up to the whoresons that sign your paycheck."

"You're right." The words were clear despite the cold, implacable fingers on his windpipe.

Spike considered that, looking at Giles for several long moments. The Watcher wasn't struggling any longer, had let his hands fall onto the lip of the car door. He brandished the syringe. "I shoot this into you and leave you on the street, you're done for. You know that, don't you? It isn't anything special, no concoction designed to suppress super strength. It's animal tranquilizer from a veterinary clinic. Dose I used when I took Angel for Drusilla's cure was for a rhinoceros." Even with the mouthful of fangs, the disdainful sneer that followed was pure punk rock. "This is a dose for a sheep."

Giles let his eyes fall shut, shamed all over again. He had been exactly that, a sheep following the orders of hidebound paper-pushers instead of his own instincts, obeying the dictates of a foul tradition instead of his own conscience.

Spike felt resistance go out of the man. Even with his eyes closed, shame and regret were easy to read. "Happens that I've followed orders, too, done things I never wanted to do. Minute I got clear of Angelus and Darla, I stopped doing them. Now that you're clear of the Council, what are you going to do?" On the words, his grip on Giles eased.

Giles twisted his head to one side, then the other, trying to ease the ache as he warily watched the blond man. "Stay here. Try to be of use to her. Still have library job," he rasped.

"Never occurred to me, but I mostly saw little girls back when I hunted Slayers." His eyes were dark. "Nikki was probably the oldest Slayer I ever saw. You lot like to kill them before they get old enough to question the party line?"

"What?" Even with his bruised neck, the word was sharp.

Spike lifted a shoulder. "Just wondered. The younger someone is, the easy they are to control."

Giles stared at him in horror and dawning comprehension. "That's insane," he managed, rejecting the thought of the Council putting Slayers in harm's way for... convenience. "It's a... rite of passage, a... graduation ceremony."

"Not what it looks like from here."

Giles stared at Spike's serious face for a long moment, then shoved the door toward him. The vampire sidestepped the arc of the car door easily, just kept observing him. Giles' eyes dropped. Shoulders slumping, he turned to retrieve his satchel from the car seat, then shut the door. The hinges groaned a little.

Spike, meantime, had found the cap to the hypodermic. With no noticeable movement, he released the shadows drawn around them. Leaving a good four feet between them, he moved to keep pace as the Watcher made his way to his flat. "You hurt her badly."

Giles acknowledged this obliquely. "I tried for months before to convince them that the test wasn't necessary, not in her case. I've withheld my Watcher Diaries, Buffy's diaries," he shot Spike a glance, "even your account of Ina Burleigh's death."

"Yet you still put her in harm's way."

"Something went wrong," Giles said fiercely. "The vampire got loose, Watchers died–"

"You were the one who gave her the drugs." Spike didn't look at him. "She's already lost her father. Last week, she nearly lost Joyce. Now, she may have lost her second father."

Giles stopped walking. Spike turned to see his face working. After a moment, Giles turned to the side, unwilling to either look at the flat accusation in Spike's face or have the other man see his anguish.

The vampire nodded slowly. "You understand, then."

"Quite."

Spike nodded at the tight acknowledgement. "Let's never have this talk again."

The feeling of another's presence was gone the second after the vampire finished speaking. Giles took a strangled breath and faced forward again. After a moment to compose himself, he started toward his door, the tears on his face not cooling in the mild California night.

⸹

"Buffy?"

She was coming from her lunch break, he knew, heading to senior English. Her grip tightened on her armload of books, and she looked at a point somewhere around his lapel. "Giles."

"May I speak with you a moment?"

She thought about walking away. The memory of his face when he lost his job because he failed his part of the test wouldn't let her. "Two minutes. Then I have to get to class."

Even though it ate up fifteen seconds of his time, Giles walked back to the library. Buffy followed, stopping just inside the door, her books still clutched protectively against her, a symbol of the barrier between them. The Watcher closed his eyes. "I'm going to apologize again."

"Don't."

"Do you know what I'm apologizing for?" She looked at him, her brows furrowing, and shook her head. "I apologized for what the Council did, especially since Joyce was involved, but I need you to know I'm sorry for what I did to you. You trusted me, and I betrayed that trust. I'm sorry. I treated you like a child, when I should have been discussing strategies on how to handle the test with you. I'm sorry for that." He closed his eyes for a moment. "And I'm sorry for lots more things, for which I will grovel for in detail in the future, but," he gave her a ghost of his boyish smile, "I daresay my time is up."

Buffy nodded in agreement, turning away. As the door closed, Giles closed his eyes again, then scrubbed his face. At least she had listened.

He looked up when the door opened. Buffy stood there, her expression still giving nothing to him. "I need time," she said simply.

Giles nodded. "You have it. All the time I have left on this planet."

Her expression softened, then she quickly made a face. "God, Giles. Even I can't carry a grudge that long."

Giles watched the door swing shut, suddenly able to breathe again. He still had his Slayer.

⸹

 _Spike?_

He sat up in bed. Sunset in an hour. _Yeah, love?_ Groggy, he grabbed a pillow and rolled over, covering his face.

 _I just… wanted to say goodbye._

He twisted and sat straight up in bed.

 _What?_

 _It looks bad. I just wanted to tell you –_

 _What looks bad?_ Boots, where were his bloody boots? There, by the door. Why did Buffy sound so… flat?

 _They're going to open the Hellmouth._

 _Who is, love?_

 _Demons, these she-demons._

 _Show me._ She did. _What, diablas de los dolores?_

 _What?_ Finally, some color in her voice.

 _Are you at the library?_

 _Yes._

 _Tell Giles they're diablas de los dolores. Tell him to crack a book, find out habits, vulnerabilities_. He threw open an ancient valise, warping the hinges, digging for gloves, scarves, anything to protect his skin from the sun.

 _Buffy._ There, that would be enough. Spike already had a weapon in mind and snatched it from the closet. He thought the door to his room shut as he flew down the hall to the stairs.

 _Buffy._

And of course, I flood the engine. He took a breath and jammed the deerslayer onto his head, pulling down the flaps. Spike wrapped a muffler around his exposed neck up to his eyes, found his sunglasses and put them on.

 _Buffy?_

Where was the other glove? There. Spike tried again to start the van, successfully this time.

 _I'm on my way… Buffy...? SLAYER!_

 _Ow! That hurt, Spike._

 _Stay with me, love. What did Giles say?_

 _It's no use. Some rare herb. We don't have any._

 _What herb? Buffy, what herb?_

 _Damiana._

Spike laughed, jumping the curb to get around a car that was in his way. _Get the book from your Watcher. Look at it. Let's see if I can see it, too. Yeah, damiana. That's just neat, love. We'll use that; open book for every test from now on. Your mum will love your school marks._

 _I don't think I'll have to worry about English quizzes anymore. Not after tonight._

 _Buffy, get your cute, Chosen arse up off the ground. You keep them out, keep them from whatever ritual they want to do. Okay? I'm on my way._

There was no reply from his Slayer. Spike was on the highway now, the van shaking all around him as it hit an unaccustomed ninety miles an hour. One quick stop at the next exit: there was a package store there.

⸹

Buffy looked at Giles in despair. He shouldn't be the one drawing its attention. It was so much bigger than last time. She swung at a tentacle, trying to make his sacrifice mean something. Angel lay crumpled in the corner, and she couldn't even go to him. It was down to her and Faith.

Her head swiveled as the doors to the library blasted inward and another of the she-demons flew in. She tried to understand why it would be dead. Had the Hellmouth beast turned on the lesser demons already?

Spike strode in, a box under one arm, a dripping ax hefted casually over the opposite shoulder. He winked at her.

 _Hey, cutie. Behind you._

Buffy whipped around, raising her own ax. Then she was hauled up in the air by one of the demon's sentient tentacles.

Spike stopped at the book cage and stepped inside where Willow was chanting, tears streaming down her face. "Red? Open up." He pulled a bottle of something from the box and made her drink.

Willow sputtered. "Ew, Spike, that's alcohol."

"It's the herb," he corrected her, grinning. He brought the bottle to his own mouth and drank, obviously not the first time.

Willow looked at the bottle. Damiana liqueur. She looked at Spike. He placed an unopened bottle in her hands. "Put it on your weapon against the she-devils. Drink more, get your chant on." He kissed her bright hair and stood up.

Spike splashed the last of his bottle on the metal of his double-headed ax and brought it up in a clean motion into the gut of an incoming _diabla_ rearguard. It folded over, so Spike broke the empty bottle on its shoulder and jammed the jagged neck into its ear. Putting a foot on its corpse, he pulled the ax free. Then he loaded his coat with more bottles, rolled out his neck.

"Oi!" His bellow rivaled the voice of the big demon trying to pull itself from a hole in the library floor. Eyes aglow with the clear light of battle, he waded in. "Ye gods, you're an ugly – oof!" A tentacle smacked him into the dark-haired Slayer. "Here! Herb! Drink! Then fight!" He shoved a container of liqueur into her free hand and waded back in, hacking and slashing with the ax. One of the slashes dropped Buffy somewhat neatly into his arms. It wasn't a soft landing, but she wasn't dropped into the Hellmouth, either.

 _Love, the herb is in the bottle in my coat pocket. Drink, come back in on the left._

 _Get Giles!_ She spared a glance up at him, full of despair and grief.

 _Drink!_ He pushed her behind him. Spike glimpsed a dark-haired figure – Xander? Angel? – on the floor as he pushed through a mass of tentacles to climb closer to its head. Behind the demon, trapped in the stacks and away from the door, Giles was trying to reload a rifle with one good arm and one injured.

He expected to have to reclaim the same terrain several times, but was not snatched away by tentacles even once. The dark-haired Slayer, Faith, was behind him with a broadsword.

The demon's attention came to him. Even buzzed, Spike felt his demon quail before it. Fortunately, his inner anarchist had no compunction about hacking at the watery sacs that might be some of its many eyes. "Chop you into messes," he snarled, bringing the ax overhand as if cutting firewood.

A second ax came into view on his left, then Buffy was past him, leaping into the air, her ax over her head, coming down on it with all of her supernatural Slayer strength. It was one of the most beautiful things he'd seen in his long life.

 _Get Giles!_

Spike grabbed a dagger from an inner pocket and stabbed at the face as he stomped over the demon and leaped down to land beside the Watcher. If Buffy was that worried about him, they must have patched things up. Tugging another bottle from his coat, he thrust it toward Giles. "Damiana," he yelled, trying to be heard over the enraged demon.

Giles shoved the rifle at him and grabbed the bottle. Spike checked the clip and started methodically pumping rounds into the demon, low enough to avoid the Slayers or misses that might ricochet. Beside him, Giles waved his uninjured arm, trying to get Willow's attention. He mouthed words soundlessly until he was sure they were at the same point in the chant. With a grimace, he reached into his jacket for a vial and lifted it to throw –

Buffy and Faith were still astride the demon, attacking the face, Buffy looking grim, Faith with a look of mixed terror and joy. Giles froze, his arm raised high. Spike understood; the Watcher needed a clear shot.

 _Buffy! Get Faith! Jump! Get clear!_

The Slayer turned and put a shoulder into Faith's midsection, bulling her toward the library doors in the distance. The demon's roars of pain diminished enough for Spike to hear the Watcher and Willow chanting. Then Giles threw the vial, not at the demon, but into the Hellmouth.

Whatever the binding was, Spike felt it coming. He launched himself at Giles, trying to shield him –

The sudden quiet seemed to actually hurt his ears.

"Do get off me," Giles said, muffled beneath Spike's shoulder. The vampire pulled away and Giles sat up. "Hand me that bottle."

Spike fetched the liqueur, splashed some on his ax, and briefly touched the human's shoulder. "Mop up," he explained before sprinting at vampire speed out the doors. He was already in the hallway before he realized that Giles' spell had repaired the library floor.

When he came back in a couple of minutes, Buffy was on her knees beside Angel. Willow was helping Giles out of his coat. Faith stood a little apart from them, taking a slug from the bottle of Damiana in her hand.

Spike came to an abrupt halt. "Where's Xander?"

"He wasn't here. Neither was Oz."

"Spike?" Buffy's voice was beseeching. He went to her, leaning his ax against the wall and squatting opposite her.

"Oi, Peaches." Angel didn't respond. Spike had no sense of the other vampire, and he frowned, leaning closer, unable to spot any injuries.

"He tried to take point when it came out. It pulled him into the Hellmouth for a moment."

"Here, make room." Spike bit his wrist and sucked some of his own blood into his mouth. He put his hand under Angel's neck so his head would fall back, then lowered his mouth to the other vampire's, squirting the blood past his lips. "Drink, Aurelian. The Master commands and all that."

Angel swallowed, and his eyelids fluttered. "Boy?" He put up a hand to twine into honey blond locks, but touched only Spike's bare nape. Angel woke up completely. Spike's merry eyes looked back at him, and Buffy's worried ones were there, too.

"That's Master to you. Welcome back." He stood, stretching his torso. "Buffy, make him stay still for a minute or two." He went to the box he'd brought in, still upright inside the book cage, to retrieve the last three bottles. He left one with Buffy and, not keen to watch her care for his grandsire, went to stand by Faith."

"Nice fighting. Spike." He bumped the bottle against his chest by way of introduction. "Faith, right?"

"Yeah. I saw you at the Bronze once."

"Yeah, had to go and get yelled at by Buffy." He took another long drink of the liqueur.

"She was yelling at you because…?"

"She doesn't want me in Sunnydale."

"Assassination attempt," Buffy explained, helping Angel sit up halfway so he could get some Damiana into him.

"Pfft." Spike waved a dismissive hand.

Faith was eying him warily. "You called yourself the Master."

"Hence the assassination attempt," Buffy said, her voice brittle.

"Yeah, after Buffy killed the old, old Master, I dusted his heir apparent." He shrugged.

"You and Angel know each other?" There was something sly in her voice.

"My grandsire."

"You want to kiss him again, I'll watch." Faith shot him a grin, and Spike got his first hint of how this also-ran got under Buffy's skin. Brash went a long way toward charming people, until it didn't.

He lifted the bottle to eye level to change that subject. "Damiana liqueur, made from the herb damiana. Grows in Mexico, poisonous to _diablas de los dolores_ , that's our she-demons that opened the Hellmouth. They create sorrow and despair in humans, feed off it for all I know. The herb combats that, too. Rumored to be an aphrodisiac." He grinned at Faith. "Apparently it is."

Buffy was now talking quietly to Angel, so Spike went to Giles and Willow. "And why were _diablas de los dolores_ opening the Hellmouth? They're not usually apocalyptic, are they?"

"Sisterhood of Jhe, an apocalyptic cult." Giles gave him a chary look.

"Everyone's just gotta have a hobby."

Over Buffy's protests, Angel stood up. She put a supportive arm around his waist. Buffy bent over and picked up the bottle of Damiana she'd forced on Angel and took another good, long drink for herself.

Spike saw the sick look on Willow's face and patted her shoulder awkwardly. She put her hands on her arms, as if she was cold. "I've had nightmares about that thing," she nodded toward where the Hellmouth had been, "for years. And it's always just on the other side. And it's bigger."

Giles elaborated at the blond vampire's puzzled look. "The night Buffy killed the Master. He'd gotten trapped in a failed attempt to open the Hellmouth. When he got free, it opened."

"You've faced that twice?"

"We hadn't seen its true face." The horror in Willow's voice made Spike pat her again.

"What was that vial you threw in?" he asked.

Giles tried to shrug, but his injured arm protested. "Something I concocted in case the Hellmouth opened." He finished the last of the liqueur. "I have eleven more, and I was so despondent, I didn't believe it or Willow's binding would work."

Faith watched in silence as the Scoobies reminisced over their exploits, things they'd survived long before she was even a Slayer. This new guy, Spike, wasn't a new guy to them, and they let him into their tightknit group in a way they'd never accepted her. And he was a vampire. Did he even have a soul? They'd always been vague about him.

Buffy had walked away from her rather than introduce her to her other pet vampire. All the good feeling she'd had from fighting alongside the Scoobies faded. None of them trusted her.

"Faith?" She looked up, her eyes finding the blond vampire. It was at least the second time he'd said her name. "You want a ride?"

"To where?"

"Your place."

"Uh, sure." It was going to be a very long trudge back to the motel. She raised the empty bottle sardonically. "This must be stronger than I thought."

Giles narrowed his eyes at Spike. "How much did you have before you got here?"

"Opened two bottles, but most of that went on the ax. Had to fight my way in. I'm safe to drive"

Giles decided to go to the emergency room for his arm, and Angel volunteered to accompany him. Buffy and Willow were having a conversation about whether it was too dangerous to check on Oz. Faith followed Spike into the library office, where he was in search of paper towels to clean the axe.

"You need a place to crash tonight?" She let her eyes wander over his body and gave him an appreciative grin.

He looked up from the messy task, not bothering to misunderstand. "Thanks, but I'm still in mourning. Lost my lady not long back. Almost a hundred and twenty years together."

Faith took his refusal in stride and raised her eyebrows. "Wow. And Angel was her sire, right?"

"Angelus."

"Do you have a soul?"

"No." He felt her watching him and inclined his head toward the group outside. "But I have friends."

"And they trust you?" There was an edge to her voice.

Spike misunderstood this. "I haven't had a true friend the whole time I've been a vampire. I came to Sunnydale, signed a treaty, got to know them as something besides enemies. Now I do what I can to keep them alive. 'Cause after they're gone," he finished wiping the ax, "I won't have any friends." Spike wadded up the gory paper towels and tossed them in the bin under Giles' desk. He straightened and walked to her. "Decades I've had, and the only thing that makes the time bearable is love."

Faith had nothing to say to this. She hated to do it, but she backed off so he could walk past her.

Giles was polishing off his bottle, his manner now rather freer. "Spike, how did you know about this stuff?"

"Main ingredient in Baja margaritas, after tequila." He shrugged, as though everyone should know this.

Something that looked suspiciously like a smirk passed over Angel's mouth. "You drink margaritas?" Spike shot him the v's.

After Giles locked up, the group trudged down the hallway to the staff parking lot. Insisting that he was well enough to drive, Rupert waited until Angel crammed himself into the Citroen, and they pulled away. The rest of them piled into the panel van that Spike was driving. Faith noticed that Buffy hopped in quickly so that she sat beside the vampire, so close that the gearstick jutting up from the floor was between her feet. She didn't scoot away more than a couple of inches after the stop to let Willow off.

When they pulled into the Sundowner parking lot, Spike leaned around Buffy and asked, "You like living here? You've been in Sunnydale a while, right?"

Faith shrugged. "It's cheap here, and I don't have much money." Obviously.

"What, the Council doesn't pay you a salary or stipend or something?" The two Slayers looked at each other, then both shook their heads. Spike scoffed in disbelief. "I've seen the London headquarters. They've got pots of money. Paying two Slayers isn't going to break them." He got a gleam in his eye. "Yeah, I know where the headquarters are."

"Spike."

He heard the warning in Buffy's voice. "Which I would totally not burn down should a Council toff be inside," he mocked.

"He found out about the _Tento di Cruciamentum_ ," Buffy explained to Faith.

"Yeah, let me know if you need to borrow a match," Faith muttered. She opened the door and got out of the van. "Later." She waved at them from her door, then went inside and locked it. When she didn't hear them pull away, Faith pushed the curtain just enough so she could see out.

Buffy was still sitting pretty close to her punk vampire. The lights around the motel weren't great, but she could tell they were talking, Spike gesturing between them. Buffy's head turned toward him sharply. One to moon over, one to bicker with, both of them devoted to her. Faith let the curtain fall back into place. A lot of the time, she felt like there was still a single Chosen One.

Outside, as soon as Faith closed the door to her motel room, Buffy turned to Spike and asked, "What were you talking about in Giles' office?"

"She asked if I wanted to crash in there tonight."

He felt her jealousy. _That girl won't be happy until she's taken everything in my life._

Spike's brows drew together. _Slayer, she saw you over by the wall with your… boyfriend. She doesn't have any clue about us._ He gestured between them. _No one knows about my Slayer, your vampire. I've worked bloody hard to make sure no one ever knows._

Buffy turned to look at him, a frown marring her mouth. _Spike, you don't know her._

 _No. All I see is a girl who's on the outside, someone you don't know either._ He raised a hand. _I do get it; I saw her face when she was fighting. But you've got friends, a mum who takes care of you. Who does she have, that she has to stay at this dump?_

 _You feel sorry for her?_

 _No. Don't really feel anything for her. I wouldn't bother fighting her. But I did promise to be honest, and I don't think you're completely rational about her._

Buffy looked down. _You're not the first person to notice that. She came to Sunnydale before I finished working through a summer's worth of not being here with everybody. She's… something, and I didn't feel like much of anything back then._

Spike wanted to reach out for her, give her a demonstration of exactly where his interests lay, but it was too public. "Come on, love. You're tired. Let's get you home."

She was asleep before he pulled up at the curb outside her house, leaning against his chest. "Shh," he soothed, picking her up and carrying her to the door.

Joyce was there before the doorbell chime died away. "She's just asleep," he said quickly, before she could jump to scary conclusions.

Joyce nodded and smoothed her daughter's hair. "Up the stairs, first room."

Spike laid Buffy on her bed and brushed a kiss on her cheek. He slid her boots off her feet, listened to her sigh softly, and then turned off the light.

"Your daughter saved the world tonight," he told Joyce as he took the last steps down.

"Again?" Joyce sounded surprised. "How often can things like that happen?"

"Dunno. On the Hellmouth, apparently quite often." He filled in the broad strokes: crisis averted and everyone was okay, except Giles hurt his arm. "Make sure she goes easy tomorrow; she's pretty knackered."

"I will. Thanks for looking out for her." She stepped in and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

He ducked his head, surprised and pleased. "No worries. I'm going to go check on things. Night, Joyce."

It had occurred to him that any remaining diablas, if there were any, might go back to the library and try the ritual again, if it wasn't tied to a particular time. Before he'd walked out of the staff parking lot at the school, he already knew he wasn't the only one to have that worry. He considered just leaving, but figured Peaches had sensed him as well.

Instead of going through the building, he went to the windows outside Giles' office. Angel curled a hand around the sash and raised it, putting out the other hand to help him inside. "No sign of the she-demons," he said. "Giles said to call him if he isn't here by six to let Willow's boyfriend out."

Spike leaned back against the windowsill and nodded. "That was a hell of a potion the Watcher made." He nodded to the spot where the Hellmouth had opened. "I mean, I think the floor is waxed."

"Yeah, there's more to Giles than there is most Watchers," Angel agreed. He put his hands in his trouser pockets, looking awkward, and shuffled half a step farther away. "Um, thank you. You know, for the blood." When Spike only shrugged, he asked, "Why did you?"

"She was worried about you."

Angel nodded, understanding this perfectly. "It was stupid, rushing the demon like that. I just wanted to protect them, got snatched by one of the tentacles right away."

"Bash your head?"

"No." Angel looked remote. "It dragged me underneath, not for long, I guess. But I was in hell again." The big vampire shrugged. "I passed out, maybe."

Part of Spike wanted to tease him for fainting like a delicate lass, but he heard the hopelessness in Angel's voice. "Yeah, don't imagine you're big on hell."

"Did Buffy tell you that I found out… well, she found out why I was sent back?" When Spike shook his head, Angel went on. "I was sent back to take her out. A very old power called the First Evil tossed me back into the mansion, insane with torture, figuring I'd kill her."

"Or that she'd have to kill you again," Spike said grimly, "which would have killed her." Angel looked up at that. "Why'd the First Evil want to kill Buffy?"

Angel shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't know anything about it, until it tried to drive me crazy again, showing me all my victims." His eyes flickered to Spike for a second, then away. "But it's gone. It was called here by a cult called the Harbingers or the Bringers. Eyes gouged out and sewn shut, if you ever see them."

Spike nodded, marking this. This was by far the most and best conversation he'd had with Angel in a century. Wonder what – Then he remembered that the big vampire had taken some of his blood tonight and was probably feeling the aftereffects. His eyes dropped to the floor, noting that Angel still had his hands in his pockets. Yeah, he'd be talking about anything except the fact that blood was an aphrodisiac.

"Well, I'll shove off." Though he thought about needling him, Spike figured his presence was torture enough; the dark-haired vampire's desire would be an unwanted thing. A remaining bottle of liqueur in his coat thumped against his leg. He frowned for a moment, then remembered. "Hey, do you know if Xander tangled with the _diablas_?"

"Yeah, I think he was there the first night Buffy fought them."

"Good, then. I'll take this bottle of Damiana to him."

Spike almost passed Xander before he realized there was a human in the Charger parked behind the Harrises' house. He leaned over and peered inside. "Xander. Xander, wake up. Why's your car smell like something dead?"

Groggy, Xander looked around at him. "Spike! Uh, I had some dead guys in it. I just meant to let it air out. Must have fallen asleep."

When Xander started rolling up the window, Spike went around to the passenger side to get the other window. Once Xander got out, he asked the obvious question. "Why did you have dead guys in your car?"

"Had a weird night."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Like, junior year weird, if you spent your junior year on the Hellmouth."

"Apocalypse averted tonight."

"Yeah, my weird night was apocalypse-adjacent. It looked bad in the library." Xander rolled his neck, trying to get it to pop. "I was going to finish up with the weirdness and come help, but all was quiet by then."

"Did you fight any of the she-demons?"

"If by fight you mean, did I get my ass handed to me? Yes."

"Got something for you, then." Spike held out the bottle and explained the whole herb thing. Xander leaned against his car and took a drink. Spike joined him, and they stared at the Harris' back yard.

"That doesn't taste half-bad," Xander remarked. "Not saying it's worth the ass-handing, but…." He took another drink. "Man, I've had a whole week of feeling useless, and then, tonight."

"I've had whole decades of feeling useless," Spike offered.

"It's good to see you," Xander said, lifting the bottle, "booze or not." He gave Spike a sidelong look. "I finally saw your other wheels."

Spike looked puzzled, then his brow cleared. "Oh. Outside the library last fall."

Xander nodded. "They didn't tow it for a couple of days. Some guys I know from shop were all over it after school. What kind is it?"

"'59 DeSoto Fireflite Sportsman."

"Yeah. I've never even heard of that brand."

"No?" Spike thumped the Charger. "This probably has some of its DNA."

"I finally got laid."

He raised a brow. "You and Cordelia?"

"No! No, I got laid tonight. She, uh, you probably don't know her."

"Well, congratulations on your heteronormative encounter. Someone should make that a greeting card."

"Sure, send flowers, too." Xander took another drink. "It wasn't what I thought. I mean, it was great! But it wasn't…."

"First time for anything is hardly ever perfect," Spike mused. "Bet you don't remember the first time you played Monopoly or rode a tricycle. You just did it once, kept doing it, got better."

"You haven't seen me ride a tricycle," Xander said.

Spike smiled faintly. "Well, you sound normal. The rest of the Scoobies were a miserable lot tonight." He nodded at the bottle of liqueur. "Don't have to drink all of it, at least not for medicinal purposes." He stood up. "Night's wasting. I think I'll head back to my lair." No need for the lad to know it was a hotel room. "Good to see you, mate."

"You, too."

Spike watched him until his legs disappeared into his bedroom window, then walked back to the van. Usually after a fight, he felt light and clean, but something about tonight had left him obscurely sad. Should have kept some Damiana for myself, he thought.

⸹

 _Spike?_

 _Love?_

 _You up for coffee?_

 _Pick you up in a half hour._

Buffy puttered around in the bathroom, quietly so her mother wouldn't hear. She looked down at her wrists. No marks from having cuffs on them. She looked up at her reflection. I don't look like someone who's been arrested twice, she thought.

Too amped to sleep, she'd sent the invitation to Spike. Maybe they could just talk.

Want. Take. Have.

Maybe she didn't want to talk.

She'd told him that their night together had been the best night of her life. It was true: more romantic than any prom or school dance or date; more care put into making sure she got what she wanted than any other birthday or Christmas morning.

But it was also the best night of her life because sex with Spike was amazing. Why should she only get that release once a year? Want. Take. Have.

Buffy went out her bedroom window and started walking. She had a stake in her pocket, just in case, but it was after two. Once prey were abed, most demons went to ground.

 _Almost there._

She sent him her location. Within a minute, a pickup truck rumbled to a stop beside her. Spike leaned over and opened the door, giving her a smile.

"While I appreciate you changing it up," she said, getting in and buckling her seatbelt, "why can't you ever steal a Lexus for a little while?"

"Too new, a car has electronic systems I can't get around. Older ones, I can hotwire." He turned east, toward the mountains.

"You had keys for the minivan."

"Got lucky with that one." When she just looked at him, he grudging added, "Used the mesmer to get the keys. Had it back in the driveway before morning."

Buffy suppressed a smile. "Where did you learn how to hotwire cars?"

"Back in the sixties, I had a mate who ran an automotive garage. I used to mess around there. Engines haven't changed much, but the wiring's gotten a lot more complicated."

"How did you come to know a mechanic?"

"Uh, played in a band together," he mumbled.

"A band?" She was grinning at him. "You really were in a band?"

"Yeah, like every other bloke in London in the sixties," he said defensively.

"What did you play?"

"Guitar. Only reason I was in the band was to play. It wasn't one that was ever going to go anywhere."

"You play guitar? You should totally talk to Oz sometime."

"I haven't played in decades."

"Why'd you quit?"

He sighed. _Drusilla got me a guitar as a gift. It was made for the standard right-handed person, but I couldn't just say, 'Oh, Dru, you got it wrong.' No big, I just learned to play it anyway. Then I saw another leftie who played a standard guitar, a bloke named Jimi Hendrix. Put my guitar away. Just didn't… didn't want to play after that._

Buffy reached over and put her hand on his thigh for a moment. _I totally get it. Same thing happened to me when I went to San Jose for an ice skating competition. I saw some girls doing these incredible jumps, triple loops and Salchows. Then I realized that they were the same age as me. I got a participation trophy, though._

 _How old were you?_

 _Ten. It's a young girl's sport. Not as much as in gymnastics. I did some of that, too, but for cheerleading._ Buffy looked ahead _. Spike? Pull over here, just down toward the irrigation canal. Near the fence._

He did as she asked, killing the lights but leaving the engine running, his eyes searching the area for whatever threat had prompted her order. When he saw nothing, he turned to see that she was looking at him.

The radio was on, tuned to a rock station playing Temple of the Dog. Buffy unbuckled her seatbelt and patted the part of the seat in the middle, inviting him closer. Spike gave her a questioning look, even as he scooted out of the driver's seat.

 _I thought we might make out a little._ He didn't react like she thought he would. _Why do you look so surprised?_

 _Just never… Figured your birthday was a one-off._

She didn't really know what that phrase meant. It didn't matter. Want. _I'd be a shame to, you know, never. We're really good at it._ He was still staring at her, stunned, so she took the first step, twisting to put her knees on the seat, then straddling him. Buffy took a moment to stare at his fey beauty. She felt something possessive surge through her and wound her arms around his neck, and then lowered her mouth to his. Just before she kissed him, she let him see an image of himself waking up in a cheap motel room in L.A., hair curly and entirely adorable. She'd had a recurring fantasy that started with him in that bed.

His stunned feeling lasted two or three seconds longer, then he had his hands in her hair, kissing her back, giving her a fantasy of his own: her on the same bed, him prowling toward her on hands and knees.

In the motel shower, soap suds running down his chest.

Against the motel door, her head thrown back in bliss.

In a maple tree, getting more than just one kiss.

In the bedroom at the Latimer House, astride him just like this, no cramping.

They traded snippets of fantasies, remembered images, dozens of solo thoughts of the other, all while wrapped in each other's arms, mouths touching with mingled breath and soft cries. Buffy pulled away with a gasp, and they regarded each other in the dim light.

Spike had an ache low in his groin, the kind he remembered from nights overworked in the family bed, as if they had actually been with each other through all those fantasies. He froze, unable to move, to speak.

She had fantasies about him.

"Wow." Buffy smiled at him. "I think we just made out a lot."

 _Buffy._ His gaze was unnerving in its intensity. _What don't you want to do?_

 _What?_

 _You got to set a line for me._ His fingers were at her waist, and she felt them flex. _Right now, I want to make every one of those fantasies come true for you. And more._ "I want to make you come." His deep voice wrapped around her like velvet.

She felt stunned and slow. That's what she'd been doing, in her mind. Buffy felt young and inexperienced again, thinking of how effortlessly they had joined, again and again, in their mental landscape and of how awkward that would be in reality. But he'd given her power again, and, despite what she'd come here to do, she shied away from it. _Oh. Third base._

He got her mental images. Hands, everywhere. _Here, lift up._ She did, and he helped her out of her pants, then lifted his own hips to shove his jeans to his knees. Buffy found his lips with hers, a thrill of desire warring with her feeling of absolute safety, and her hands raked down his sides. Her mind was open and full of wanton thoughts. His thoughts went beyond wanton to wicked.

They plundered each other for half an hour, until the windows fogged up. _Steal home._ Buffy was panting. _Go for the run._

Spike looked up at her and gave her a slow, rich smile. _No._

 _Then let me go down on you._

 _No. Third base, no more._

 _Yes, more._

 _It'll be more than enough._ He took her hand and twined his fingers in hers so that her palm faced outward. Their shirts were in the floorboards now, and he started sliding her own hand over the taut nipple of her left breast. _Feel your heartbeat?_

 _No. Spike, please._

 _I can, love._ He brought her hand to his cheek as he leaned in to take the nipple in his mouth. _Your heart is pounding._

 _Because I'm about to explode._

He chuckled aloud. _Not yet._ Spike moved his mouth to her other breast.

 _Please._

 _No, I'm not going to. You can, though._

 _What?_

 _You've seen me toss off. It only seems fair._

 _Pig._

Five minutes later, it didn't seem like a bad idea.

Ten minutes later, his clever fingers were helping.

Twenty minutes later, Buffy had turned the tables.

 _Please, kitten._

 _No._

 _Whatever you want, I'll do it._

 _You had your chance. I got mine._ She grinned down at him.

 _You'd be so cruel? Look at the poor thing._

 _That 'poor thing' has had plenty._

 _Three more._

 _No._

 _Two._

 _No._

 _One. Please._

 _Okay. One more._

 _Two._

⸹

Buffy lay against Spike, who was sprawled across the seat. His coat was wadded up beneath his head, cushioning it from the door handle. Their clothes were mostly back on and buttoned correctly. Spike stroked her hair. They'd rolled down the windows to let the steam clear from the glass, and through the windshield they could see stars sparkling in a band across the night sky.

"Didn't know you could see the Milky Way out here. Didn't think we were far enough outside civilization."

"Maybe it's just a clear night."

"Mmm." He lifted her hand and fit it to his, trailing the fingers of his other hand across her palm, down her wrist. _Sleepy, love?_

 _A little._

 _Guess I should get you back, never mind the coffee._

 _I didn't really want coffee. I just wanted to see you._ Buffy pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles _. I noticed this pull-off for the irrigation pump when we used to drive out. I always thought it would be a good place to go parking._ He felt her lift a shoulder in a shrug. _Good thing you didn't bring a little import with bucket seats._

 _We'd have found a way._

 _Improvisation, one vaunted skill of the Slayer._ Buffy rolled over so she was staring down at him, without gouging him overmuch with her elbows. _You are so beautiful._

 _Light's not that bad, love._

 _You are._

 _No. You are. Beautiful inside and out._ He felt her negating thought, beat her with his counter. _I can see it, love, demon and human senses both._ He rubbed his nose against hers.

 _I wish I could see myself the way you do._

So, of course, he showed her: the way she looked leaping down onto a Hellmouth guardian, ax held high; walking away with her arms around Willow and Xander, comforting them the night they got caught kissing; glancing up at her mom to smile, arms wet to the elbows doing the dishes.

 _See? Beautiful._

She had no reply, so she kissed him, soft and light. _Really? Again?_ He could see her teeth gleam as she smiled at him.

 _Stamina, the one vaunted skill of Spike._ He shrugged. _Ignore him; he'll go away._

 _Spike? On my birthday, when I had the cramp… Why did you think you hurt me? I mean, how did you think you hurt me?_

He pulled away from the connection partway. Even though he couldn't blush, she could feel his embarrassment. _When I was human, got it in my mind that I was… misshapen. Too… large._

She stared at him, then a little burst of giggles escaped. He wasn't smiling, and she tried to keep it together, but the laughter would cooperate. After a couple of attempts, she put a placating hand on his cheek. _So, you're that one guy who thinks he's_ too _big._

He knew she wasn't being malicious, and he loved when he could make her belly laugh, but his fear had caused real consequences for him. _Yeah, well, I got turned, got the intrinsic understanding of human anatomy, so that was one blessing, anyway. And I know your body was ready for mine, just… what else could it have been? I didn't know Slayers could even get charley horses._

 _I don't, usually. Still had some of the drugs from the Council's test in my system._

His fingers tightened on her waist for a second, and he pulled completely away from their mindlink, not wanting her to know his lingering resentment that she hadn't called on him, or his need to kill Council members in gruesome ways for ever daring to touch what was his. Spike let that go, focusing on where he was now. "Night's moving on."

"Why does it do that? Time should just stop when we're together."

He stilled beneath her. "I've had the same thought."

She sighed. "You're right, though. We should get going. I am sleepy, and you need to get back before dawn."

Neither of them moved.

"Your turn to be the responsible one."

"Then we're out of luck."

⸹

Spike squirted half the can of lighter fluid onto the seat of the truck, and then tossed the rest of the container into the floorboards. He lit a cigarette, took a couple of quick drags, and tossed it inside. Once the truck was ablaze, obliterating the telltale scent of them, he sat on a bench at a bus stop across from the otherwise empty car park, waiting.

When the firemen arrived, he drank from each of them, then went back to his hotel. There was a thread of thought in his head, stuck almost like an earworm, repeating even though he had tried to put it out of his head.

Buffy fantasized about him. He'd seen the fantasies, been right there, a willing participant.

Buffy wanted him.

 _I thought we might make out a little._

 _We're really good at it._

 _I just wanted to see you._

Something had changed. They were in a tighter orbit around each other, circling something... fundamental.

Spike stared up at the ceiling tiles above his head, not seeing them at all, thinking about his Slayer.

⸹

Giles opened the door to his apartment without compunction. "Spike."

"Wotcher, Watcher."

They stared at each other across the threshold.

"How's the arm?"

"No broken bones or torn ligaments, thank goodness. Strained elbow." He nodded toward the sling. "I can take it off at night."

"Good." He sighed. "Just stopped by to see if there's any fallout from the… Sisterhood of Jhe, was it? I'll just catch you at the library, then."

"Spike," Giles said. After another moment, he got it out. "Please come in."

The vampire did so gingerly, looking around at the open layout. "Did you choose it because of the Spanish influence?"

"I did. Why stay in California in a boxy flat that could be anywhere?"

"Were you excited about coming to the West coast?"

"I would have gone anywhere. I was just ecstatic to be assigned to the Slayer. It's a rare opportunity, obviously."

Spike finished his survey of the room and leaned against the arm of the sofa. "You knew you were her second Watcher?"

"Yes. It's about a thirty percent mortality rate, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm guessing most of those deaths come while trying to avenge the Slayer's death?" Giles nodded, and Spike could tell that he regretted letting a vampire inside. He changed the subject. "How are you getting on with the Slayer?"

Still not a comfortable topic. "She has an amazing capacity for forgiveness."

Spike nodded and pivoted again. "Any idea what portent or alignment set off the Sisterhood?"

"No, but I have heard that they wanted an apocalypse favorable to them."

The vampire frowned. "Favorable compared to what?"

The Watcher sighed and leaned against the door. "I don't know. I'm assuming it has something to do with the Mayor of Sunnydale and hoping not to be hit out of the blue by something we know nothing about."

"So, we know this Mayor is trying to clear other players from the field," he indicated himself, "after years of not really caring. He's gone after both Slayers, too, but not ruthlessly. I mean, all these attempts have failed. He's made alliances with all segments of the demon world in Sunnydale, at least that I'm aware of. The human part has been sewn up for generations, as it's hard to fight a threat you don't know exists."

"I had the Council do an analysis of the tap water last fall," Giles offered. "It's treated with chlorine, fluoride, and a psychoactive cocktail somewhat like Valium. It explains a lot, actually. I have been amazed at the capacity for denial in this town."

"You don't seem terrifically worried."

Giles shrugged with his unhindered shoulder. "We have two Slayers, will soon have two Watchers, because I'm certainly not out of the fight, and quite a few allies. I do worry that there are humans on the Mayor's side. The Council has relationships with the United States government, but we can't rely on law enforcement in town, maybe not even at the state level." When Spike looked puzzled, he elaborated. "It's quite difficult to stop an apocalypse whilst in prison, I'd imagine."

"Ah."

"The fact that attempts have been made on Buffy and Faith's lives, rather than their freedom, makes me think that demons are in charge. So, I'm hopeful."

"Good, then." Giles hadn't offered him food or drink, nor had he sat down or asked Spike to do so. Not wanting to impose on the Watcher's hospitality further, he unpropped from the couch and took a few steps toward the door. "Well, I suppose I'll shove off."

"Spike…" The corners of Giles' mouth tightened. "Thank you for saving us the other night."

The blond man looked confused. "I didn't save you. I was late to the party."

"You came in when there was no hope."

"There was no hope because the _diablas_ took that from you." He shrugged. "You still woulda finished up with it just fine without me. Willow bound the demon, you closed the Hellmouth, the Slayers kept it at the bottleneck so nothing else got through. I just brought the keg to the party. Not even the first time you faced it, yeah?" Watching Rupert's face, he saw a lot of calculation going on, so his next words were a surprise.

"Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink? I have Scotch, I think."

They sat down at the little kitchen table and clinked glasses. "Spike, I know you've said no in the past –"

"So that's why you're plying me with liquor." Spike batted his eyelashes.

Giles ignored him. "But I do hope you'll consider answering a few questions, not about the Slayer Nikki, but about her Watcher. Bernard Crowley."

"Bernard," Spike snorted. "Never knew his first name. Cold fish, that one."

"Er, yes. After… afterwards, did he try to kill you?"

Spike shrugged. "Probably would have, but I wasn't around."

"Perhaps a jot more detail…?"

Spike took a drink. "Right, then. Drusilla was waiting for me in London, so I went to the docks to find passage. Well, one detour, I guess. A group of vampires in New York at the time had taken a swing at Nikki. Knew I'd claimed her, so they had it coming. Riis clan, that was their name. Before I shipped out, I went by their mansion and burned it down. Set the fire so there was only one exit, and I killed any who came out." He shrugged. "They surely had underground access, so some of them probably escaped, but I've never heard from any vengeance-minded vampires when I've been in New York since. That line's extinct, as far as I know." Giles was watching him closely, and Spike could still see calculation, but couldn't read his expression.

"So you didn't see Crowley or Nikki's family that night?"

Spike shook his head. "No. He didn't patrol with her the way you do with Buffy. I did run into Nikki when she had her toddler with her, a little before. Dunno where they were going, out that late." He shot Giles a look. "Not like the happy family we have here in Sunnydale. No pax, no invitations to cross the threshold."

"Do you know what became of her family?"

"No. Why would I?" Giles glared at him, but Spike met the look squarely. "Had no interest in her family. Just Nikki." He looked down at the drink. "I imagine her mum raised the boy. The father was out of the picture. Dunno what happened to Crowley." Spike looked at Giles and tilted his head. "There's a reason you're asking this."

"Perhaps." Rupert took a drink and completely changed the subject. "Buffy said you got to see Jimi Hendrix play?"

⸹

 _Spike?_

' _Lo, love._

 _Were you still asleep?_

 _Yeah._

 _I just wanted to tell you that Dingoes Ate My Baby are playing in Dutton tonight at the Pour House. Willow's going to be there to support Oz and wondered if you'd come keep her company while he's onstage._

 _Oh. Sure. Selfish git, here. I'd rather keep you company._

 _Selfish git, right back, trying to keep you un-assassinated. I gotta be in Sunnydale for patrol tonight or I'd come along. Um, can a girl be a git?_ She felt him chuckle.

 _Not you, surely._

 _I'll see you soon, okay?_

Spike had changed hotels three times since settling in Dutton as his base of operations. It was probably about time to change again, maybe go to a different town. He'd looked at boats online, but without being able to dock in Sunnydale, it would slow him down in getting to the Slayer. Should she ever call on him.

The new hotel was not far from the Pour House. He'd hunted there a couple of times, but it wasn't as dimly lit and badly managed as the Bronze. Spike went to the local cinema and fed on several blokes who needed to use the gents.' One man actually brought his popcorn into the bathroom, and Spike wished he'd just let him go about his business, to see how he managed.

He paid the cover charge at the Pour House, like a good patron, and found a table. The bar offered several craft brews, and he ordered a flight to see what was good. While he waited, a young man hauled an amplifier onto the small stage. He figured this meant the Dingoes had arrived. Within a couple of minutes, Willow joined him with a quick hug.

"Hey, Spike. I feel like a real groupie!"

He smiled. "So, you don't mind listening to them play?"

"No. Devon's kind of hilarious, that's the lead singer, because I've known him since middle school. It's hard to think of him as suave when I remember him in braces."

"How are – oh, thanks." He leaned away from the table as the barmaid brought his four small glasses. Spike paid, and asked, "You want anything, Red?" She asked for water. "You narrowed down your college options? Buffy said you were accepted everywhere."

"My parents made me apply everywhere."

"Did you apply internationally?"

"I did! Just in the UK. I got accepted at both of them, Cambridge and Oxford." She grinned suddenly and waved toward the stage. "There's Oz!" Spike turned and waved, too, and Oz nodded at them. "Giles went to Cambridge, you know."

"Oh? How disappointing."

"What do you mean?"

He waved away her question. "What are you leaning toward?"

She looked down, her usual bubbliness gone. "My parents are going to kill me, but UC-Sunnydale. It's one of the full rides," she added swiftly, "so it'd be painless for them."

"Why stay here, love?"

Willow gave him an earnest look. "I'm doing so much good here. I mean, I know I'm not a Slayer, but I can help. I have helped. I'm helpful girl." She looked down. "I can't explain that to my parents – they don't want to hear about magic and witches and apocalypses – but it seems right to me. And I probably won't graduate from there. I just want to be around while Buffy needs me."

Spike looked at her until she met his eyes. He knew exactly why Buffy's best friend planned to be in Sunnydale. "'S'why I'm staying around, too," he said softly, holding out his beer to clink against her water glass.

"I hate it," Willow said vehemently. "Did you know that no Slayer has lived past twenty-five? Why can't the Chosen One be some sixty-year-old who's had a life already?"

"Dunno, love. I reckon life expectancies weren't all that long when they first made Slayers."

"Made them? Who made them?"

He shook his head and lifted a hand to ward off her questions. "Dunno. Just, it had to be a spell to make a weapon against vamps, something that makes the Slayerness go from girl to girl, seek them out down through all the centuries. A hell of a spell, in fact. I'd say not human. A god, maybe."

"I'd bet it was a goddess rather than a god," Willow said pertly.

He lifted his glass, the third of the beers, to her. "I'd say you're right."

"Are there really gods? I mean, like mythological?"

"Never met any. Dunno if they're destroyed, or imprisoned, or what. I have met one of the Fallen, selkies, dryads, not really deities, but they have power."

"Fallen… like an angel?" Willow blinked. "What was he like?"

"She. Well, I doubt there really is a gender, but that was the form. Lovely, polite, and scary as hell. Felt lucky that my bladder doesn't function anymore. You know me; I seek out Slayers. That night, I was on my best behavior and out the door quick as I could." He shivered.

"Where did you meet it?"

"Tavern outside of Rome. Don't even want to know why it was there; just got Dru and headed for a train station." His eyes narrowed, remembering. "That was back in the thirties. May have had something to do with the coming war."

"Oh, hey!" Willow turned, wriggling like an excited puppy, to give Oz an exuberant greeting. "Oz, you know Spike. We were just talking about an angel he met. Well, a fallen angel."

Spike put out a hand for a perfunctory shake with the young man. "You live long enough, yada yada."

"There's benefits," Oz agreed. He didn't sit, just stood by Willow with an arm around her. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and leaned over the table toward Spike, his eyes searching and intent. "Giles said you got to see Jimi Hendrix play?"

⸹

[Author's Note: The hymn Spike misquotes is 'At Cavalry' by William R. Newell.]

⸹

 _Spike?_

He sat up in bed, going to game face. That wasn't Buffy. He took in a sharp breath. The query wasn't intrusive, didn't repeat.

 _Angel._

 _I'm sorry. I didn't know how else to get in touch._

 _What is it?_

 _No emergency. I need to talk to you. Tonight, if you can._

 _I'll be there._

 _Thank you. I won't bother you again._

Didn't even know you could, Spike thought sourly. Death broke a mindlink. Guess being pulled into hell doesn't count as death.

Then, of course, he thought of Drusilla and closed his eyes, falling back to the bed. Poor Dru, pulled into hell.

Threw herself in, another part of him added sourly. Worrying about her was an ingrained habit, and he'd imagined her bewildered and lashing out, being beaten down. But Angel said that the part of her that was Drusilla and not demon was stripped away, so that the human remnants did not suffer.

It was the end of March, close to a year now. Was he over her? Was the mourning period over? Spike suspected that he'd never be at peace with how she died. He'd been miserable and grief-stricken since then; he'd been truly and incandescently happy since then as well, thanks to Buffy. Mostly he was just at an ordinary level of day-to-dayness. Things went on; no reason for the world to stop because Dru had.

He sighed and threw off the sheets. Less than an hour until sunset. He might as well see what Peaches wanted, get it out of the way.

Angel was waiting for him, if pacing about the room off the garden was waiting. It was a rare rainy night, and Spike shook his head a couple of times to fling off water, then shook out his coat before going in.

"Thanks for coming." When the younger vampire only nodded, he gestured to the couch. "Have a seat."

Spike raised an eyebrow and sat, resting one boot on his knee. Angel started to pace away, but caught himself and sat down.

"This is about Buffy?"

Angel gave a short laugh, but it was aimed at himself. "Isn't everything?"

"No," and Spike unfolded himself so he could turn toward the other man, "I don't think it is."

Angel clasped his hands together, for once grateful for the other man's perception. "I told you that I was staying."

"You did," Spike threw in after the dark-haired man fell silent.

"I'm leaving." His voice was soft. "I… think I have to."

"You don't need my permission."

"I'm not seeking your permission."

"Easy, there. As long as you don't hurt even one of her feelings, I don't care."

Angel looked away, then looked down at his hands. "You've known me a long time."

Spike raised an expectant eyebrow. This was like waiting for grass to grow. "I have."

"Do you think it's … Do you think I can change?"

"You have changed."

"I mean…" Angel stood up and paced away. "Do you think I can do good in the world, instead of evil?"

"Not sure I understand, mate. You have been doing good; you've been helping the Slayer."

"That's her mission. I-I want my own."

"Aurelian." Spike never stood up, just let his voice assert his authority. "Sit down, take a breath, stop dancing around whatever's on your mind." He didn't truly know if Angel would obey, but the big vampire didn't offer more than token resistance, staring at him for a couple of beats before sitting.

"Did Buffy tell you what happened at Christmas?"

He shrugged. "Joyce said it snowed."

A gentle smile curved Angel's mouth. It looked decidedly odd. "Yeah, it did." He cleared his throat. "I was going to kill myself that morning, just meet the sun."

"Obviously, you didn't."

"Clouds came in, the snow filtered the sunlight. Buffy got me back indoors." He looked over at Spike. "Remember I told you about the First Evil? It was that, seeing all my victims, all the wrong I've done, but it was more than that. If I wasn't allowed to commit suicide, doesn't that mean there's something I can do? That I'm supposed to do? I need to do something." He dropped his gaze. "I was in hell."

"I remember." He tried to keep the edge from his voice, was almost successful. Angel had never talked to him this way, not even in India.

"I never want to go back there." His voice was thin but adamant.

"Not exactly a choice. We're demons, mate."

"Not my demon. My soul. I can't go back."

Spike's lips parted. Of course. He hadn't looked past what Angel said to what he'd left unsaid. Drusilla's soul was in heaven, and the residual humanity had been stripped away from the demon. Angel's soul had been taken to where it belonged. "Well, 'mercy is great and grace is free,' I remember correctly." He gestured toward the other man. "Not sure of the connection between this and leaving Sunnydale."

Angel frowned. "That isn't how I understand it." He put an involuntary hand to his heart. "I feel like I need to do more. I feel like I was spared for a reason." He took a breath. "I need to atone."

"If you're asking me if you can do enough good to balance what Angelus did, then, no. No, you can't." Spike leaned toward him. "If you're asking if me if you can redeem your soul," the blond man grinned, "you should probably ask someone else. I don't know why not, for whatever my opinion is worth. Human souls are special, right? They can go either way, right up to the last moment. From what I've seen, they mostly go for the good."

"I remember in Technicolor the things Angelus did," Angel said softly. "I feel responsible for them."

"That's the way the curse is set up, mate."

"Maybe it was cast that way for a reason."

"Yeah, to punish you for killing that gypsy girl."

"Maybe there was a greater reason."

Spike waved this away. "Look, I get it. You want to do good, but you're not the Chosen One. You aren't used to being on the second-string. If you want to go off and do good on your own, fine by me. You'll never be out of her shadow, if it's a competitive thing," he added.

"It's not that."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know."

Spike sighed. "Well, what exactly do you plan to do?"

"Help humans."

"And how do you plan to help humans?"

"I don't know."

"If you don't have a better plan, Peaches, don't know how successful you'll be."

The big man looked down. "I haven't been able to get past telling her goodbye." Neither of them had to say her name aloud.

"Do you still love her?"

Angel quickly looked up. "Of course I still love her."

Spike met his eyes frankly. "Of course. Are you in love with her?"

When Angel couldn't answer immediately, he dropped his eyes again. "What good would it do if I was? I can't be with her, not that way."

"You probably could," Spike pointed out. Angel had no idea how much it cost him. "Doubt you'd be completely happy again."

Angel wasn't willing to even entertain the idea. "No. I could never risk it."

Spike suddenly seemed to be more at ease. He slid across the couch toward Angel, younger to elder, which was wrong, but he was the Master. The dark-haired vampire eyed him warily, but didn't resist when he pulled him close until their foreheads touched. The brown eyes closed, brows knitting together at the unlooked for gesture. "You really want to do this, just tell her what you've told me when you say goodbye. You love her but aren't in love anymore; you're not able to be happy but want her to be; you don't ever want to be in hell again."

"I can't tell her that," Angel whispered. "I don't want her to think less of me."

"She doesn't know?"

"I don't think she does."

"Well, don't tell her that part." He shrugged. "From what I've seen on Oprah and such, use 'I' statements. 'I want to do good,' 'I want to make a difference.'"

Angel didn't pull away, but he opened his eyes for the first time. "You watch Oprah?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"She trusts you."

"I trust her." It seemed like an odd change of topic.

"Knowing you're here… It makes it easier to leave."

Spike pulled away, eyes narrowed. The need to leave became clear. "You don't want to see her die."

Angel looked away. "No one wants that to happen. But it will. Again." He stood up and strode to the door, looking out into the rainy night.

If he hadn't believed that Angel wasn't still in love before, he did now. Love is being there. "You be gentle with her. You're the first man she loved." He watched the dark head bow. Spike stood up, needing to be away from Angel. What he called love, Spike couldn't understand.

He wanted to see Buffy, but knew he wouldn't be able to keep Angel's confidence. Instead, he drove his stolen sedan to the library. Right now, he needed some good British reserve. And maybe a cuppa.

"Xander." Spike took off his wet coat and hung it over a hook near the door.

"Hey, Spike." Xander looked up from a book on the table.

"Giles gone for the night?"

"No. He went to get a book from his place." Xander stretched. "He moved his personal collection out of the library when," here he put on a plummy English accent, "Wesley Wyndham-Pryce showed up, pip pip."

Spike had moved behind the counter, figuring he'd start the kettle. He stopped abruptly. "That old git? He's Buffy's Watcher?"

"No, this guy's younger than Giles." Xander lifted both brows. "You know his father?"

"Uh, no. Just, he shot a few bolts at me once." Spike shrugged. "Or maybe it was his grandfather."

"Giles had a grandmother who was a Watcher," Xander mused. "I guess because it's such a secretive thing, the Council tends to recruit within the family." He looked down at his book, then closed it. "Explains why they seem so inbred."

Spike let out a bark of laughter as he carried the kettle to the water fountain outside the library doors. He came back in a minute later. "This new Watcher, he any good?"

"Um," Xander pretended to consider the matter, "no." He went to the checkout desk and propped up on it, watching Spike putter with cups and tea canisters. "Cordelia thinks he's cute. Or, she wants me to think he's cute."

"Still torturing you?"

"Still deserve torture." He shrugged. "With any luck, I'll look back when I'm eighty and it will be my biggest feat of self-sabotage."

"What about your new bird? Heteronormative encounter girl?"

"Yeah, she had an itch that was specific to one time and one place."

"Oh. Sorry, X-man."

"Oh, God, if you'll just call me that in public, I'll be your friend for life."

Spike had to laugh. "I don't believe any nickname I've ever used has made anyone happy before."

"I already know my mutant power: beams of sunlight channeled through my hands." Xander demonstrated, with sound effects, incinerating imaginary vampires in three corners of the library.

"Won't work on other demons," Spike pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. But if I can also bend the light into laser beams… Ba-bam!"

"Just learn judo or aikido, one of the martial arts that uses your opponent's momentum against them," Spike advised. "That way, you won't have to irradiate your goolies or something."

"Yes, I will not be asking for context regarding that advice," Giles said. His tone was the only dry thing about him. He propped up his umbrella and pulled a leather-bound book from beneath his raincoat. "I wasn't thinking and came through the wind tunnel by the quad." Xander went over to take the book. "Thank you. Ready for me to quiz you?"

"Sure," came the glum response. He answered Spike's unspoken question. "Senior English."

By the time Giles was unencumbered, Spike had brought three cups of tea to the table where Xander was sitting. He stared at the vampire in surprise. "That looks like heaven."

"English heaven," Xander offered.

Giles, still drying his glasses, narrowed his eyes. "We'll start with grammar." Spike watched the other two lob queries and answers for a few minutes before Xander lifted his arms in triumph.

"I'm sensing a solid C," he declared, "and that's good enough."

"You shouldn't be satisfied with 'good enough.'" Still, Giles pushed the book back to Xander, who loaded it into his bookbag. "Ahh." He took a sip of his tea, which had cooled to just the right temperature.

Xander gave his a perfunctory sip, then his eyes widened and he took an actual drink. "Why does this taste good?"

"Herbal tea," Spike explained to them both. "The box had dust on it, so I figured you weren't going to use it."

"Willow gave it to me at Christmas last year." Giles took another sip, then nodded at the blond man. "What brings you to Sunnydale?"

Spike was at a loss for a moment, then remembered the rules for effective lying and deflecting: give part of the truth. "Angel wanted to talk." When the other two lifted eyebrows in almost identical expressions, he let himself be coaxed onto the sidetrack. It wouldn't be fair if they knew before Angel had a chance to talk to Buffy. "He wanted to talk about mortality." Xander made an exaggerated 'continue' gesture. "The Slayer's mortality, specifically. He worried; I listened."

"Yes, well, he isn't the only one." Giles expression was grim.

"Angel confided in you?" Xander, always perceptive, was giving him a gimlet eye.

"First time for everything." Spike shrugged and tested his own tea. A bit too cool.

"Was it because you're the Master?"

He shrugged again. "Who else is he going to talk to? Can't talk to Buffy about that, obviously. You?" He looked pointedly at Giles' hands, wrapped around the warm cup. Then he glanced at Xander. "Or you?"

"Good point." The dark-haired young man looked into the distance and mused, "Willow would probably talk to him."

"And Willow keeps how many secrets from Buffy?" Giles pointed out.

Xander made a touché gesture. The three of them finished their tea in silence.

⸹

A knock on his door woke him three hours before sunset. Spike sat up, immediately awake, knowing who was there, but unable to quite believe it. He pulled the sheet around his waist and went to open it.

"Surprise!" Buffy's eyes took in the sheet, bare skin, and rumpled hair, and her cheeks flushed.

"Best kind of surprise." Spike stood back so she could come inside. "Now I know why you asked where I was staying."

"The Razorbacks softball team is playing the Dutton Seahawks," Buffy explained as she came inside. Spike shut the door behind her and leaned against it. "I rode over on the booster bus, sort of didn't stay for the game. I hope you can give me a ride back?"

"I can give you a ride," he affirmed, his voice resonant and wicked. Then, sudden, he demanded, "Pinch me."

Buffy tossed her purse into the chair by the window. "You'll have to drop the sheet if you want me to do that."

 _Bold minx._ He grinned down at her.

 _I remember something from last time, when we shared, you know, fantasies… You called it a 'knee-trembler?'_

Spike dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist, laying his head against her tummy for a second before looking up at her, worship in his eyes. She was wearing sandals, a green skirt, and a strappy white top, showing tanned skin and strong limbs, her blonde hair loose over her shoulders. She was a goddess of the sunlit world. _Never mind. I know for sure this is a dream._

 _Not a dream._ Buffy lifted one foot to let a sandal slide off, then the other, both landing on his fallen sheet. _A fantasy._ She kicked the shoes and the sheet out of the way.

 _You're here to make my fantasies come true?_

 _Only if you do the same for me_.

Two hours later, Spike came back from the vending machines with bottled water and cokes and chips and a bucket of ice. _Now maybe it will stop growling at me._

She smirked at him. _I don't know how you could hear my stomach over the noises you were making._ Her expression turned into a simple smile. _We rule at vertical._

 _And perpendicular. And horizontal._

 _Every orientation._ She opened a bottle of water first and drank a third of it. _And it's not my fault the people next door banged on the wall._

Spike skinned off his t-shirt and undid his jeans so they could drop on the floor. He slid into bed carefully, not wanting to make her spill the water, and waited until she recapped it before sliding his arms around her. _Have I told you how big a fan I am of Sunnydale girl's baseball?_

 _Some fan you are. It's called softball._

 _Then have I told you how big a fan I am of Buffy Summers?_

 _I saw the signup sheet for the bus to Dutton, started thinking about seeing you…_ Buffy had boarded the bus before the chaperone started checking names off the list, then pretended to read a thin paperback of _The Old Man and the Sea_ so she wouldn't have to make conversation with anyone. No one would look for her after the game. Her stomach gave another growl.

 _Here._ Spike was off the bed, setting up the Dutton phone book as a makeshift tray and opening the crisps.

 _I only had a yogurt at lunch._ Buffy sat up and put her back against the headboard, tucking the sheet around her to block crumbs.

 _You want, I'll take you out to dinner after sunset._

 _Like, a date?_

 _Why not?_

 _It sounds nice, but I have to get back._ She held the coke he'd opened high as he climbed back into bed. _Patrol. You know how it is._

 _How are things going?_

 _Faith has switched sides._

 _She likes girls now?_

 _No. Pig. She's not on my side._

 _The Mayor's?_

 _That's the side._ She gave him a severe look. _I heard that._ _No Slayer of Slayers stuff._

 _You can't fault me for what I think in the semi-privacy of my own head._

 _I know. I'm capable of some amazingly uncharitable thoughts of my own._ She fed him a chip.

 _And here I was, believing you only thought of unicorns and fuzzy kittens._

 _And knee-tremblers?_ Buffy put the phone book with the half-eaten bag of chips on the nightstand, set her coke can next to it. She leaned over him, smiling. _And bottle-blond vampires?_ She touched him where he was not quite so blond.

 _Ah, love. I won't be thinking anything. Won't let you do any thinking, either._

Buffy shook her head when he began to roll toward her and pushed him down on the mattress with a murmured, "Let me take care of you." She proceeded to do just that. Spike tried and failed to recall any time he'd heard those words before.

⸹

So not going in there, Xander decided. He'd seen a flier for a judo class at the rec center. If it hadn't been for Spike's offhand comment, he would never have thought of it as something he might do. The poster said it was for adults, so he called to sign up, but after watching the tenth eight-year-old wearing a white uniform run inside, he gave up. He was about to get in his car when a man getting out of a pickup waved at him. "Xander Harris?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"I'm late, I'm sorry, got stuck on site with a blown-out generator." He had walked the distance between them and stuck out his hand. Xander had time to see the side of the pickup was lettered 'N & C Contractors.' "Alvin Nunez. I teach the class. It's just us today."

"Nice to meetcha."

"Say, this your car?"

"Yeah. 1973."

"Oh, nice."

Xander ended up popping the hood for a minute before heading inside the rec center with the judo instructor after all.

⸹

"So," Buffy said, drawing out the syllable, her eyes on the square couch cushion that was always between them now. "You want to go somewhere else and try to make a difference?"

Angel didn't sigh. "I think I need to. It's been on my mind since... Christmas."

"The snow." She nodded, then looked at him. It was his turn to stare at the cushion, she supposed. "You don't think you've been helping me here in Sunnydale?" There. That was... polite.

"The world's a big place, and there's only one of you." He met her eyes, something pleading in the brown depths of his. "I might be able to make a difference in someone's life." More consideration of the square cushion. "Maybe make my life different, too."

"Angel, if you leave..." Buffy couldn't go on, just firmed her jaw and turned her face toward the unlit fireplace.

"I love you, Buffy," Angel said softly. He moved toward her an inch or so, then stopped. "I... I don't think I'm still in love, not after all that time in hell. But I will always love you. More than I can say."

But not enough. Buffy nodded jerkily and swallowed.

"I... Some of it is selfish, because it hurts to see you and never... I can't ever let myself fall back in love with you. I could. I could, so easily. But the stakes are too high."

"They are," she agreed, her voice desolate. It was over; she'd known it was over. But, God, this hurt.

"If I'm not here, maybe you could be happy. I can't be, and you deserve all the happiness you can grab."

"I have to –" She stood up, gathering the jacket that was still in her lap. They didn't sink into each other anymore, didn't really look at each other. Buffy took a breath and did the most selfless thing she'd ever done, including all the world save-age. "Wherever you go, you'll make a difference, Angel. I know you will."

"Uh..." Angel looked down. "Thank you. It means a lot, coming from you."

She made a gesture toward the door. "I'll, uh, see you in a couple of days." It was afternoon, still plenty of sunlight. Buffy wondered if he'd planned that so he didn't feel like he had to follow her.

Spike, she thought, the moment her feet crossed the doorway, then made that line of thought end. She could see him in their booth, see his head lift as he sensed her. No.

Buffy blew out a stream of air and brushed the tears from her face with an angry gesture. Not Spike. Willow. She could talk to Wil about this.

⸹

 _Buffy?_

 _Spike? You're in Sunnydale._

He wasn't sure how she'd known that. _Yeah. Meet me at the Valle del Sol Avenue park, straight in from the entrance._ Spike shut down the mindlink and waited. He'd known she would be on patrol; it's what she did every night.

He felt jumpy and anxious as well as excited. What he had planned… it wasn't well planned. He knew he should be more careful, but he couldn't wait. When she'd shown up two days ago at his door, talking about fantasies coming true, the demon in him had taken the idea into its mouth like a horse with a bit and pulled him along on a wild ride. Oh, he had fantasies. And she wanted him. He hadn't been able to kick free of that thought for weeks.

He needed a private place where they could be loud. There was little traffic in this easternmost corner of the Sunnydale sewers, and he'd found a cave to one side. The Magic Box provided a spell that acted as a privacy veil, if any demons did pass through. Instead of burning his mattress from the motel room, he'd brought it to the cave and replaced it with one from an unoccupied room. And then he'd broken into a hardware store. And then a sex shop in Elmwood. He'd left money at both places to cover what he took.

"Spike. What's going on?"

"Hey, love. Down here." He kicked the manhole cover free of the entrance. "The ladder ends a couple of feet above the ground."

"What are we looking at?"

"Nothing we can't handle." He watched her smile up at him as she passed, breathed in her scent. _Mine._ Spike waited until she was at the bottom, then clambered in and pulled the cover into the recess, shutting them in.

 _Do you have a flashlight?_

 _Here._

She turned it on, waved it in his direction, blinding him for a moment. _Sorry._ Buffy slid her free hand into his. _Which way?_

Feeling a bit odd, he pointed. Holding hands hadn't been part of his fantasy. He could feel her simple happiness to be next to him. It made him feel like swallowing, somehow. They started down the tunnel.

 _I missed you. I know we just saw each other, but still._

 _Uh, you, too._ Couldn't she be quiet?

Buffy slowed. _Spike, what's wrong?_

 _Nothing._ He looked behind her. _What's that?_

When she turned her head, Spike slid his fingers to her neck and found the pressure points to knock her out. After a moment, she slumped, and he caught her. Letting out a sigh, he grabbed up the fallen flashlight and hefted her into a fireman's carry. The cave was only a few steps away.

Spike put her on the mattress and went to the entrance to launch the veil. It was supposed to be good for six hours, but he marked the time, determined to be clear of here in four. No way was he taking chances.

Four hours of Slayer fantasies. He stood up, his stomach in knots. Why wasn't he happier? Spike turned back to Buffy. His fancy always began with her in handcuffs, arms above her head, her standing as he circled her, completely at his mercy. Oh, he'd make her beg.

But here she was, and if he threw the chain of the handcuffs over the hook he'd set in the ceiling, the dead weight of her unconscious body would wrench her shoulders. Spike set his teeth. Just for a minute. It wouldn't be long before she woke up.

She was awake already. "Spike?"

He was across the stone floor to her, settling on the mattress, pulling her into his arms. "Shh. I got you."

"Mmm." Content with this, she closed her eyes again. Spike gritted his teeth.

An old, old memory came to him. He was in church one Sunday with his mum, listening to the minister give an unusually pointed sermon. "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is above rubies." It was a verse from Proverbs, if he recalled correctly, and it had been aimed at Edgerton's oldest daughter, who was wearing a very expensive ruby necklace and a very inappropriate neckline that morning. But the part of the sermon he remembered most clearly was a later verse, "She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."

Elsa Edgerton had never been evil to him, but she had never done him any good, either. William had admired her beauty from a respectful distance. She had married into a family far more well-to-do than his and died giving birth to a child widely believed to belong to someone other her husband. Her grave had been destroyed when the church cemetery took a direct hit during a bombing raid during World War II. He was possibly the only person on earth who knew that the lovely Elsa Edgerton ever existed and certainly that she was not worth the ruby necklace she had once worn to church.

Now he held tight against his still heart a woman from much different circumstances. She had been born humbly in the Americas instead of a manor house. For all that she was the Slayer, Buffy would have been beneath him, just a merchant's daughter, he realized, back in the days when that mattered. But she had never done him an evil. He thought back to all the money that had passed through his hands in life, of all the wealth he had taken from his victims after death, of all the caches of treasure he knew of buried in the earth. Amassed, it would not equal the value of this woman.

She was his, because she had freely given herself.

He couldn't do this. He just wasn't quite sure why.

Buffy woke again when he left her. She sat up, one hand on her temple, the other bracing herself. The flashlight rolled against her wrist as it sank into… a mattress? "Spike? Where are we?" She could make out his outline against what looked like an arch. "What happened?" He only shook his head, didn't answer.

She stood up, swaying a moment. She'd been out, obviously. Buffy pointed the flashlight behind her, then up. They were in a small cave. With a convenient mattress. The light caught a regular shape near her feet, a flat, rectangular box that reminded her of the one her mom used for the good silverware. She leaned over and opened it.

Buffy closed the box, then her eyes. She had names for about half the objects inside: a curling peacock feather, handcuffs, vibrators. The other half seemed ugly to her. A gleam above her caught her attention, and she pointed the beam of light at it.

There were hooks set in the ceiling.

A ripple of unease went through her. Not fear; she was the Slayer. But… did she even know him?

"Spike." Her voice was even. "Explain."

He shook his head again. "I'll walk you home." His voice was tired, and he still did not turn around.

Buffy walked the few steps to where he was. He was standing just in front of a candle. Though it gave off no light, it seemed to her as though it was lit. "What is that?"

"A veil." He shrugged. "No one can see us, hear us. Sense us at all. Dampening field."

"Are we trapped?"

"What?" He realized and moved aside, face averted. "'Course not. You can leave."

She sighed. "Spike, did you knock me out?" He didn't say anything, but his body language was answer enough."

 _Spike. Get your ass over there and sit down._ She pointed toward the mattress. At least there was one vampire she could fight with. _Now. I want answers._ After a moment, he sat where she indicated, head still bowed.

 _Open up. Spike._

 _You came by and, you know, we fulfilled a fantasy. Wanted to do the same._

 _This is your fantasy?_

He flinched. _One of them._

 _Show me. Now, Spike._

She was standing before him, arms bound above her head. He cut away her clothes in a mock-menacing manner, kissing every inch of skin as it was exposed. He touched her, caressed her everywhere on her increasingly uncovered body until she was afire, but she couldn't touch him. Eventually he knelt before her, loving her with fingers and lips and tongue, and her head fell back. Only then did she notice the ribbon tied to the handcuffs, the key dangling at its end. She loosed herself, and he didn't realize until she manhandled him onto the mattress, no longer helpless.

 _Oh._ Buffy bowed her head. She'd seen the handcuffs and the ribbon with the key. The flashlight was pointed toward the doorway, but Spike knew his Slayer flushed. _Why didn't you just ask me?_

She felt the self-loathing and recrimination inside him, the agony of fear that he'd lost her love and friendship, the stream of abuse he was heaping on himself for fucking up, for not letting her take the lead, for just not getting it. He didn't have to answer that question; she already knew the answer.

Spike was a demon. He'd told her that he didn't understand how her world worked. He assumed she'd wake up, kidnapped and restrained, and immediately be into it. She thought of the times he'd asked her for guidance, for permission, for her to set a limit.

He was trying. He knew that he had failed.

Buffy laid the flashlight on the floor of the cave and sat down next to him. "Come here." She put her arms around him as much as she could, since he wouldn't turn toward her.

 _I'm so sorry, love._

 _Spike… the rest of it?_

He lifted a shoulder. _Veil works for at least four hours._

 _All those hooks?_ She didn't hide the fact that those disturbed her.

 _Uh… just for the sex swing._

If she had been blushing before, now her face flamed. Then she grew still. _Do we really need all that?_

He felt her uncertainty, her lack of confidence, and if he'd been kicking himself before, now he was stomping. For the first time, he turned to her, meeting her eyes. _Oh, no, Buffy. Just your touch, your breath, love, even just the scent of you._

 _Then… why bring all that?_

 _One thing I can't do is make love to you and go down on you at the same time. I went in for a vibrator_ – she got a mental image of a little, round, purple vibrator that was unthreatening and not shaped like a penis – _and saw… things I thought might feel good for you. Another thing I didn't think through._ He looked back down, remembering how much of an innocent she was. Why had he ever thought to darken her eyes with knowledge?

 _You make me… feel good, all by yourself._

Spike took a breath, but didn't speak. He turned so he could put his arms around her and hid his face in against her neck. _Buffy, love… all these years… Experience I've got, but not here. Making love… only with you. Everything else was sex. It felt good, yeah, but… None of that was making love. Know I'm bent; don't want to do anything to hurt you, not you, not your feelings… but I want to do everything with you. 'M on fire for you, love. Could spend the rest of my days loving your body._ She caught an earthier sub-thought _, 'buried up to my balls in your warm cunny.'_ He sighed. _Only, I can't, not really. How do I not take what I want? I'm more unsure with you than you are with me, love._

Oh, she understood want, take, have. He was vulnerable before her and not trying to hide. Buffy smelled the copper of vampire tears. Her eyes widened then; he expected punishment. She felt the power he'd placed in her hands, then spread her fingers wide and let it slide away.

 _This is my fault. We've never talked about any of this, and we should have._

 _Different for me now, Buffy. I remember enough to know that this… possessiveness, it isn't human. You're_ mine _, mine to love, mine to dominate, mine to… And I'm yours, yours to love, to do with as you wish. I belong to you._ His fingers clenched against her back. _Your vampire. My Slayer._

 _I… I don't understand it that way. You're my friend, and I love you. You're, like, my shadow in battle._ She smiled a little. _Not my equal or anything, but… I respect you. I need that from you, in return._

 _Respect? Oh, love, you are the person I've known best in life and unlife. Seen you, yeah? And, still, you're the_ best _person I've ever known in my life or unlife. Love, respect, adoration – all those you have, but… you're mine. And I'm a demon. You're_ mine.

She heard the vehement change in tone. _Maybe I get that, a little. When Faith… noticed you, my first reaction was to kill her for daring to think about you that way. You're mine, too._

They held each other in the shadows, having come up to the border of an admission that would change their odd friendship, would change everything. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, but it demanded something neither of them could admit yet.

 _I know I'm… wrong, but everything between us has always felt right._

 _It has to me, too._ She felt Spike swallow. _If we talk about it, does it go away?_

 _Kind of feel the same way. Like a mirage. If you look at it directly, it might cease to exist._

Her strong arms tightened around him. _I don't want this to end. I hate that it's secret, but the time I spend with you is the only time I get to be free._

 _I don't want this to end, because…_ Spike let go and pulled away, moving off the mattress to kneel before her. Words he knew, an endless supply in dozens of languages, and still action had always served him better. But not here. He pulled her face to his, kissed her, and touched his forehead to hers. The words that came were awkward, but they were from his very core. _Because doing for you feeds a hunger in me that all the blood in the world could never touch. Been starving for years, kitten, and loving you is a banquet._

Buffy stared at him, her lips parting. She had known he loved her, but _this_ ….

 _Spike… no fantasies, okay? We'll play some other time. Just… I want to make love with you right now._

Buffy felt his relief, and his gratitude, which she didn't want, but mostly she felt his love, blooming out from him and rushing across her like a tide into a sheltered bay, soft and inexorable. She _knew_ he loved her, and she wanted him to feel the same from her, a wash of warmth and acceptance and unquestioning love. She pulled him onto the mattress and began uncovering him. They stayed open to each other, experiencing sensations and emotions together, unlocking new parts of themselves for the other to discover.

The box beside the mattress stayed unopened, forgotten.

⸹

Buffy sat on the edge of her bed, arms wrapped around her middle, listening to the sound of her mother's Jeep recede down Revello Drive. She had been looking at things directly.

A lot of those things, she couldn't really do anything about. She couldn't change who Faith was. She couldn't keep Angel in Sunnydale. She couldn't stop whatever the Mayor had planned until she knew what it was. She couldn't make the Council support her, make her mother happy by going away to college, or even tell her best friend about her vampire.

Tears streamed down her face. She could do something about one other thing. When she looked directly at that part of her life, she had no choice. She was the Slayer.

If she waited any longer, she wouldn't be able to do it.

 _Spike? Could you come to my house tonight?_

' _Course, love. Anything going on?_

 _No. Mom just went to L.A. on a buying trip. We'll have some privacy. I guess it's time we talked._

 _Right. Well, then. See you tonight._

The hours passed. She moved her mouth in an automatic smile when she talked to her friends; she paid attention in class. Once she was back home, she did her schoolwork and the chores her mother had left for her. Then it was dusk. All that remained was for Spike to show up.

He knocked on the back door, surprising her. Buffy went through the kitchen. "Hey. Come on in."

"What's going on, Slayer?"

He must have some inkling if he was calling her that. She gestured him inside, standing back to make room. "The serious talk, I guess." He looked at her uncertainly; Buffy felt her heart break a little bit.

She moved away from him, tears in her eyes. As much as she wanted to simply slide into his mind, to share this, it was better to resist, to get used to loneliness again. "So, I have this friend, right? Named Spike. And I know he would never hurt me, not ever, not really." Buffy could feel his emotions, his happiness at her words, and now she turned away, not wanting to see him. "But I also know he hurts other people. And if I were just Buffy, I could almost be okay with that, because I don't see it. But I'm the Slayer. And every time I see him, the Slayer part of me calculates how many people he must have killed while he was away, how many people died because the Buffy part couldn't do her duty. Couldn't," she took a breath, "kill him."

Spike watched a spasm of grief wrack her small form, but she made no noise, and pain lanced through him because Buffy had learned to cry silently. Feeling curiously light, he covered the distance between them with soundless footsteps and reached for her.

The Slayer felt gentle hands settle on her shoulders, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She knew what he would do now, because he loved her. She'd felt it. He would leave so she no longer had to make that decision. This was goodbye.

"Love," he said, his voice soft as his touch and so warm, so deep, "my turn to tell you a story. I have a friend, too. The Slayer, and no one asked her if she wanted the job, just threw it at her. 'Cause they knew she was the very best. But it's a harsh and lonely thing that she does, and I know this. And because she's my friend, I would never add to her burden. I know what she's been through. I would never put her in a position where she had to kill someone she cares about." He didn't say 'again,' didn't have to. Spike felt another sob, but even this close, he couldn't hear even the tiniest noise. He thought for a moment, making sure what he was about to say was true, and decided that the thing that wore Ethan Rayne's form hadn't possessed enough humanity to count. "Since I met this Slayer, because I know what it means in her eyes, I haven't killed a single human. Not one, Buffy."

She froze for a moment, then turned, her eyes wide above her wet cheeks. "Wh-what?"

"Not one. I feed, but that's all."

"L-like you did in L.A.?"

"Just like that. And when I'm around, kitten," he added gravely, "you don't have to cry alone."

Dazed, she let him pull her against his chest. Not goodbye. He wasn't killing, so he didn't have to go into exile. Buffy drew in a ragged breath, color flooding her cheeks. She slammed a small fist against his shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

Spike grunted, staggering a few inches away. "I didn't think I had to. And, honestly, I'm sort of ashamed by it." He rubbed at his shoulder. That one was going to bruise. "Promised, yeah?"

"You didn't – Spike, you broke the treaty!"

He rolled his eyes. "You know that was because of Angelus. I already knew I'd need his blood to heal Drusilla, so I couldn't exactly agree to the same terms again." Spike took a step closer. "But the promises I made to you, just to you, those I've kept. Haven't I always been honest with you?"

She stared at him. "But the part about not killing humans, that was–"

"I considered it a promise made to you." He looked sheepish. "Know your heart, kitten. Don't want to do anything to hurt it."

Buffy's voice was small. "I thought this would end with you… that you were going to leave."

The starkness of her expression struck at his heart the same way her silent sobs had. "No, love." It was his turn to look away. "Don't find… friends like you, not in several lifetimes." A sigh escaped him. "Have to admit, if someone hadn't dropped a church on me, I would've gone back to my usual hunt. But the first time I started to kill by feeding, that first night I was back on my feet, it just felt… wrong. Kept seeing your face, your disappointment. Let that one go, and I… never…" He trailed off, because Buffy had stepped closer.

She took him in a careful hug, her arms tight around his neck. "Thank you. For, you know, not being a killer."

"I am," he disagreed, but his hands had settled on her hips, and for a moment, he lost himself in her eyes. She wasn't crying now, and what he saw in her eyes as she looked up at him made his heart swell. "I am a killer, but… knowing you moved me closer to… dunno. Pro'ly won't last," he added in warning. "Not like I've changed, not forever, just as long as..." He trailed off, not wanting to think about a time when she wouldn't be in his world.

"I don't want you to change." He looked startled by this, so Buffy added, "My vampire." She meant that he was unique and wanted him to understand.

"Well, s'pose it doesn't hurt to change once in a while. Wouldn't want to get stuck in a rut." He pulled away, because her words had lit a fire in more than his heart. It was too soon after the cock-up in the cave for him to make a first move. Spike ducked his head and found his coat pockets. "You know – mayhem, day in, day out. Routine, innit? Saving the world mixes things up a bit."

"Sure, you're mayhem guy."

"I have been." He sounded defensive.

He even looked defensive. "Spike, what's wrong?"

The look he gave her was almost defeated. "Feel like I'm walking through a minefield."

"You don't need to feel that way with me."

Anger flashed across his face. "I especially need to feel that with you." He turned to look through the window over the sink. "I never even thought to tell you how I've been feeding, love. Could have spared you at least one worry."

She came up behind him silently and put a hand on his shoulder. He turned, and she opened her arms. He leaned against the sink, and she leaned against him. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Buffy wanted to, wanted to tell him how it felt like his admission of how he was feeding had cut through iron bands around her chest, to tell him that she felt she could breathe again. She wanted to tell him that she hadn't seen a way where he could stay in her life. Now that he could, she didn't know what that might mean, and her uncertainty took all her words.

 _Angel's outside. Back door._

 _Oh, great._ Buffy let out a sigh, the sound of a woman about to take up a burden.

Spike kissed her bright hair. _Go on, let him in before he skulks off._

Buffy opened the door. "Angel?"

He emerged from the darkness. "Hi, Buffy. I didn't mean to interrupt."

She forced a smile. "You aren't." She gestured inside. "Just having a good cry."

His brown eyes sharpened. "Did something happen?"

"No." A bug flew past her, drawn by the lights inside the kitchen. "Come in so I can close the door."

Spike was waiting behind her, the encroaching beetle buzzing inside his closed hand. After Angel went past him, he tossed it into the night, and Buffy closed the door. They stood at three points of an awkward triangle. The Slayer figured it was her house, so she had the responsibility. "Did Angel tell you he was leaving?"

Spike looked up from the floor. At least he had plausible-sounding questions. "Where are you going?"

"Los Angeles. I figured it's a large city, not that far from the Hellmouth. I might be able to do some good." The blond vampire nodded, and that was the end of that attempt.

Buffy found herself irritated with them both. They stood there, silent and passive, and she let the lapse in conversation stretch. Then she rolled her eyes; she was probably the only one who felt the social discomfort. "I need to go on patrol."

"That's why I came by," Angel said. "I thought you might like some company."

"S'long, Peaches. See you later, love."

Angel watched the last flutter of leather coat go through the front door, then cleared his throat. "Everything okay?"

He thinks I was crying over him, Buffy realized, the one time I wasn't. "Yes. Everything's okay. Let me grab a stake."

Spike watched the two of them leave from his perch atop Buffy's house. They still weren't talking, just walking in tandem but alone with their own thoughts. Is that how we're going to end up?

He slid down the shingles so he wouldn't show a telltale silhouette against the line of the roof and dropped his head back. Some clouds were coming in off the ocean. It didn't feel like rain, but not many stars were visible.

Buffy hadn't talked about what he expected, what he needed to talk about: them. Was there even such a thing as 'them?' They'd both been using the word 'friend,' though it no longer fit. They were somewhere beyond that, and it had become precarious. He'd tried to get to the pivot point, the fulcrum, to whatever there was that was threatening to become unbalanced and dump them to the ground. Something wasn't right, and he had to find it so he could fix it.

So much of what they had together was good. No, not good, bloody brilliant. He liked all her people, was pretty sure they liked him. Enough, anyway. Everything they did together was in harmony, talking, fighting, loving. He loved the quiet times they had. He even enjoyed bickering with her.

Okay, the secrecy. Was he ashamed of her? It would be tough, but he was notorious enough to weather criticism from the demon world. Ninety percent of that disapproval would be envy, anyway. He hated the idea that they would gossip about Buffy – demons were worse to chinwag than any group of humans, in his opinion. It was why he'd burned all the evidence of their affair.

Was she ashamed of him? He hoped not, but even though he was friends with her friends, why would they ever approve of her seeing another vampire? Spike supposed she could be ashamed of the sex, but he rather thought she just wanted privacy, to give herself time to grow into this new part of her persona.

Spike made himself think of himself as her boyfriend and immediately put a hand over his face. He was insanely too old to be her boyfriend, for one, whatever his appearance – he could remember when iodized salt was controversial, for pity's sake.

I could never take her out for a sunny day at the beach or admire a sunrise with her, he thought. He firmly believed he could make her happy, but just by being with him, she would be limited. No sun, no barbecues, no afternoons spent combing through mall shops.

Could he fit into her world? Spike thought he could, but the proposition was exhausting. He had to work so hard to do the right thing with her; add more people into the bargain and it was more likely that he'd make a hash of it.

Buffy could not fit into his world. It wasn't just because the first time he introduced her to, say, Elizabeth and James, she'd stake them for propositioning her. He didn't want her in that world. There was no permanence and precious little beauty. It debased everyone and everything in it. He didn't want to be there himself, not anymore.

Spike thumped his head against the shingles, trying to jar loose at least one helpful idea. They were so good together, but he could feel it all teetering, ready to crumble. The song said that love is all you need, but he was afraid that it wasn't enough.

"Hey."

He turned his head toward Buffy's window and sat up, his sense of sunrise telling him that hours had passed.. "Think I might have fallen asleep. Patrol go okay?"

 _Yes._ She held out a hand. _Come inside?_

She had opened the mindlink again, thank the gods. _Thanks, I'd like that._

When he was in her bedroom, Buffy took his hand and led him to the hallway. _I need to take a shower. Would you mind getting my back?_

 _Always got your back, Slayer._ The electricity sparked between them, and Spike's worries and fears were forgotten for the next couple of hours. They'd already proven an aptitude for vertical, and soapiness and slipperiness didn't impede them at all. The water heater finally failed, and they left the cool water for the comfort of Buffy's bed. Spike fell asleep beside her, setting a mental alarm so he could leave before dawn. It wasn't until he was in the hotel bed that he fell into the dream.

⸹

Spike saw that he had a paper packet of sugar between his fingers. He was folding down the corners, and then straightening them out.

"Figured you always come here to talk to her, so we could, too."

He looked up, across the worn surface of the table to the opposite side of the booth. Spike got a sense of where he was, the Sit N Bull, and he was talking to himself.

Himself was still, not fidgeting or looking away, fingers laced. It was the version of himself that Buffy thought looked more careworn, the part that had kept him from shattering. His inner anarchist.

"What do we have to talk about?"

"We're losing her."

He felt that fear, a real thing, racing along neural pathways.

"Settle down. I know you've been trying to suss it out, but I think you're too close to the situation."

"And you aren't?"

"When was the last time you really needed me?"

Spike was silent for a moment. "Always assumed that you are me."

The other's serious expression lightened for a moment. "Yeah, maybe. But I see the situation more clearly."

His chin lifted to an arrogant cant. "What is it you see?"

"That you don't see the why. And until you do, you won't understand the how."

Spike lifted his upper lip in disgust at this word salad. He stood up. "Bugger this for a game of soldiers," he muttered, walking away.

He was sitting at the table again, watching his fingers fold the sugar packet. He looked up, startled, into somber dark blue eyes. "Then you want to lose her?"

"No." His voice was sullen.

"Why do you need to be with the Slayer?"

"Because I love her."

He didn't sigh at the defensive tone. "You'll love her either beside her or from the other side of the bloody planet. Why do you need to be in her life?"

And he knew. All of the people in her orbit knew, didn't they? And all of them, including himself, danced around it, worried over it, steeled themselves against it.

"You don't get to do that." The anarchist narrowed his eyes. "You have to face it. You have to name it."

His jaw locked, he gritted it out. "I need to be with the Slayer to keep her alive. Keep her in this world."

"Keep her in the world with you." The anarchist nodded. "Why aren't you doing that?"

"What? I am!"

"You're forty minutes away. She calls on you for help, you'll get to her thirty-nine minutes old corpse." And there was an image of him holding her lifeless body, raging and wracked with guilt and grief.

Spike vamped out, lunging across the table so he was almost nose-to-nose with himself. "Don't say that," he growled.

Blue eyes considered the golden. "You know the why, now." He leaned slowly away from the demon's face, a small smile curving his mouth. "And you remember the how. Good, then."

Spike sank back into his own seat, confused. The anarchist scooted to the edge of the booth, started to stand up. "Oh. Almost forgot. You do know you're in love with her, don't you?"

He sat up, owl-eyed and staring in bed, then put an arm over his eyes. The hotel's dark curtains were drawn, but bright sunlight pried at the edges. Wincing against the light, he rolled over and pilfered through the pockets of his coat. He found what he wanted and let it drop back onto the floor.

Spike lit a cigarette. He didn't smoke much these days, but he was glad to have a hit of nicotine just now. It wasn't as if he was going to get back to sleep.

He was in love with her. In love with Buffy Summers.

A smile of simple happiness curved his mouth.

In love with the Slayer.

The smile faded.

No Slayer had ever lived past twenty-five. Hell, he'd managed to make it to twenty-eight. Barely, but still.

She'd already died once.

Why the fuck was he here, then? Why wasn't he with her right now, armed and watchful?

What, with her now, in the sunlight?

He recognized the sardonic thought. Shut it, you. He tilted back his head and sucked in smoke, turning half the cigarette into ash, and ground it out in the ashtray. Spike started for the shower, remembered that he'd showered before bed.

They'd showered, actually. He stopped halfway to the bathroom, remembering the feel of her soapy hair beneath his fingers, the way the suds slid down her back to the sweet curve of her bum. Spike propped his arms against the wall and laid his head on his wrists. He relived the shower, the slippery goodness of it.

Buffy, her head at an impossible angle, dead in his arms.

Spike snarled and flung himself away from the wall. He needed to kill something just now, to bury his anguish beneath some fine, clear violence.

And he was trapped here for the rest of the afternoon, until sunset.

He dropped onto the foot of the bed. The sheet slid and dumped his bare ass onto the floor. Spike let his head fall back and slowly shook it.

Demons were not wired for careful thought or deep analysis. He was more than just a bundle of instincts, true, but not by much. Okay, his purpose was no longer to fill his belly; it was to keep Buffy alive. He could kill a lot of things that aimed themselves at her, and she could kill the rest.

But she had to want to stay alive. Week after week, month after month, year after year, she had to drive in the stake, swing the blade. She had to live in the dark a lot of the time, had to face the darkness that lurked there. Spike had seen himself what that existence led to, the despair and relief in three pairs of eyes.

He'd make her retire; he'd take over. He wasn't as strong as her – not quite – but he was faster. Fighting was one of the three F's, after all. He'd fight evil, make her give it up.

Yeah, like he could make her do anything.

Even if he did, how would he know what was evil? She did intrinsically, but he'd have to constantly ask if it was something more complicated than demons killing humans. He thought of how she'd tried to stop the pieces of the Judge from getting to Sunnydale. He'd been there at the heart of it and just thought the reassembly should make things interesting. How could evil fight evil?

You don't have to be evil.

Spike scoffed at this. Reborn to it, mate.

You've been giving it up for years.

He grew still. The rejection of torture, passed off as impatience. Never using sex as part of the hunt, once Angelus was gone. Passing up injured or subpar Slayers because it wasn't honorable combat. Protecting humans.

Feeding without the kill.

Did he even miss it?

Oh, bugger. What kind of crap demon was he?

One who doesn't play by stupid rules. One who rewrites them, makes his own game, and makes the rest play by his rules. You're the Master, aren't you? It isn't about good or evil in our world. It's about power.

Anyone questions your decisions, you shut their gob.

He countered this declaration. What if the questioner is human?

You can live in her world. You need to know how to navigate her world. You used to know.

You remember.

You know what you have to do.

⸹

"Oh, hullo, Spike."

"Giles." He held up a placating hand. "No, keep working. Just… do you mind if I borrow some paper?"

Giles looked at the vampire leaning on the doorframe of his library office. "Not at all." He inclined his head. "In the filing cabinet, top drawer."

Spike nodded and pilfered through the supplies. He withdrew to one of the study tables. The library fell quiet.

Giles pulled another book from the pile on his desk and opened it atop the other, cross-referencing. A light prickle of energy touched his cheeks. He turned another page, eyes scanning the text.

The Watcher froze. Energy, dancing against his cheeks. He'd called on enough demons in his time to know that feeling. Ripper had even theorized with his friends that the feeling came not from the being called, but from the sorcerer's own basal ganglia, the obvious place where the animal brainstem helped the higher functions understand what it was sensing.

The feeling had been light, transitory, a power so deft it had hardly any signature. If he hadn't called on demons for information recently, he might not have noted it. Giles let his eyes wander around his office, to the dark windows, then into the library, seeking the source. He slowly turned his head, afraid to move otherwise.

Spike was laboring over whatever he was writing, so absorbed that he was unaware of the being who stood just behind him, looking over his shoulder. Giles stared at Spike's blond head, unable to focus directly on the being. The figure was female, sometimes a busty redhead, sometimes a mousy, bespectacled woman in dark Victorian clothes. It was neither, of course.

Spike bit his lip, wrote one last thing, then leaned back in the chair. He tossed the pen onto the table and let out a breath. Behind him, a redhead smiled; a thin, mousy woman clasped her hands together. She turned to him, light glittering off her glasses –

No, not her glasses. Her eyes, like diamonds, like starlight. The figure grew, expanding toward the ceiling and outward, engulfing Spike, hands lifting upwards, the head thrown back in joy, in worship… in triumph? The last thing Giles saw before his eyelids involuntarily slammed shut was the weapon at its side, a fiery sword, ablaze

"Giles? Giles?"

"Hmm?"

"Dunno if the books are that interesting, or if you're just sleepy."

"Bit of both, I expect."

"I, uh," Spike seemed preoccupied. "Got a bit of business to attend to, out of town. Wondered if you would give this to Buffy?" He handed over an envelope. It bore the imprint of Sunnydale High School; the vampire had obviously taken it along with the paper.

Giles gave him an acerbic look but accepted the letter. "I'll give it to her when I see her."

"No!" Spike shook his head and put out a warding hand. "Uh, not that soon."

"When, then?"

"Uh… September? Yeah, that'll be plenty enough time."

"You're leaving?" The Watcher's voice was sharp. "Have you told Buffy?"

"Heading out to find her now."

"You know, you could be of use here, with whatever the Mayor has planned."

Spike half-turned back toward him. "Yeah, because Buffy will call me in to Sunnydale."

Giles glared at his retreating back, unable to deny that statement. He looked down at the envelope, somewhat surprised to see the blond vampire had addressed it 'Miss Buffy Summers.' How Victorian of him.

Something about that niggled at him… Victorian? Giles tried to track down the thought, then shrugged. He tucked the envelope in his desk, made a mental note to give it to his Slayer in September, and went back to the cross-referencing.

⸹

 _Love? Where're you patrolling?_

 _Spike?_

 _I'm being careful and unseen, kitten._ He was now, but not earlier. He had reclaimed the DeSoto, as a matter of fact.

 _The Restfield._

 _Are you alone?_

 _Yes. Willow and Oz were with me, but he has a test tomorrow._

 _Yeah, those do come up. Be there in a mo._

Spike spotted her hair first, brightest thing in the dark cemetery. He looked about and spied a likely place, a mausoleum with windows, of all things. Spike went to it, shoved open the door, and gave a perfunctory look around. Unoccupied for weeks, from the scent.

 _Love? Here._ He waved at her.

 _Spike._ A smile lit her face, and she waved back.

How am I ever going to do this? Just the thought of saying goodbye was bad, but to take happiness from her….

The dead weight of her corpse in his arms.

You complete bastard.

"Hey. Come on in," he bowed toward the door.

Buffy gave him a curious look, but went inside.

"Need just a little privacy," he explained.

Buffy sneezed. "It's, uh, dusty."

"Yeah, didn't think of that." Spike closed his eyes and held out his hands. _Love you. Love you, Buffy. I don't want to_ –

Spike pulled his hands away, half-turned from her. He gave a shaky laugh. "Yeah, guess that's not going to work tonight."

"What's wrong?"

"Buffy…" _beloved_ , "there's something I have to take care of. Not here. If I could," he stole her jargon, "you know, not, I'd stay here. I choose you; I choose being here with you, but..."

"Spike, you're scaring me."

"I'm an arse." He gathered himself: right now, his goal was to protect her. Even if he wasn't going to open the mindlink, he could take her hands. "Buffy, I have some… business I have to take care of, away from Sunnydale. I don't want to go, obviously, because it means time apart from you." He squeezed her hands, tried to make the look on his face one of annoyance. "But it's something I have to do. Believe me, I've tried to think of some way around it."

"This is something dangerous?" Her eyes narrowed.

"It's always dangerous, traveling. Can't rely on schedules, on finding shelter. But not overly, no."

"It's so cute how you say 'schedules.'"

He grinned at her; how could he not? "You think I'm cute?" He went to game face, knowing she could see him even with the limited amount of light that filtered through the window.

She considered him for a moment, then went up on tiptoes, raising her face to his. He met her lips very carefully. Even as she touched the ridges above his eye, they smoothed into regular human bone structure.

"I've never kissed you while you're vamped out." She shrugged.

His voice was husky. "Love… Do you know how… incredible you are?"

She rolled her eyes. "Like I'm going to be scared of a little vamp face."

"I'm going to miss you. When I get back, there's nothing else, Buffy. Nothing will ever make me leave your side again."

"How long will you be gone?"

"I'm sorry, love. Months." He felt her dismay, closed his eyes in shared pain.

"Where are you going?"

"Other side of the world."

"What's on the other side of the world?"

He squeezed her fingertips, hearing the wariness, the hint of accusation. "I need to make good on a debt, love. Then the only person I'll owe anything is you." He let go of her hands to cup her face. "And I owe everything to you."

She met his kiss, her arms going beneath his coat and around his waist, strong and warm. He let himself drown in the sensation, the softness and heat of her. A minute. A minute more. He knew she wouldn't ask him to stay, not in Sunnydale. If he was ever going to leave, it had to be –

"Ah, love. What you do to me." Breathing hard, he put his forehead against hers, then kissed her nose, her cheeks, her lips again. He made himself take the first step away from her.

"You be safe," she ordered. Buffy couldn't help thinking that he was going to be out of the Mayor's reach for a while.

"I will. You, too. You be careful." Spike took a breath, then turned toward the door so he could get the words out. "I love you."

"I love you, too." She heard him sigh. "Spike…?" She studied the set of his shoulders as he paused. "Do you want me to come with?"

He turned, and there was so much emotion on his face. "No. But thank you for offering." Spike set his teeth for a moment, then forced his expression to gentle as he came back and took her hands. "Buffy… you would never have been my fourth Slayer," he said, his voice low and hoarse, and he let go of her hands to cradle her face. "You're my only Slayer."

He was gone, a flutter of black leather at the door, a length of shadow among the tombstones, then nothing. Buffy stared into the darkness of the quiet night, tears on her cheeks, not sure why her arms were covered with goosebumps.

⸹

Sunnydale

May 1999

⸹

"Thanks for the lift, Giles," Willow said as she crammed in next to Buffy in the tiny back seat of the Citroen. Xander had shotgun and a bit more legroom. They were on their way to Buffy's house for a graduation party.

"I called Mom and let her know we're on our way," Buffy said. Joyce had actually come by the high school about five. She'd caught Giles' attention, and he directed Buffy to her. Her mom's hug had been nearly Slayer-strength. Buffy looked over her shoulder as they pulled away. The sullen glow of fire was gone from the building, but everything was still bathed in strobing emergency lights.

There were shadows, but no vampires anymore.

Oz gave stranded students a ride home an hour earlier, and he was already waiting, helping Joyce set the dining room table. Willow was the first out of the car, and by the time Buffy got out, she could see the two redheads holding each other tightly through the sheer curtains.

Xander lengthened his stride. "It'll be good to eat something," he said.

Giving him a rueful smile, Buffy fell in next to Giles. "How are you doing?"

"Exhausted, inside and out."

"Mom made cake."

This got a wheezy chuckle from her Watcher. "Well, that's okay, then."

Thirty minutes later, the teenagers had devoured the burgers and fries Joyce had made. They sat in tired shock around the table.

"You survived high school," Joyce mused. She wanted to hug her daughter, but she was at the other end of the table. Instead, she put a hand on Xander's shoulder.

"Anybody want more to drink?" Buffy asked.

"I would," Oz said.

She nodded and took a stack of plates to the kitchen before coming back with another round of sodas. As she came in, she caught her mother apologizing, "… know it's not much of a party."

Buffy put down the cans in the middle of the table and walked to her mother, hugging her. "No, Mom. I really appreciate this. And that you trusted me enough to stay away."

Joyce gave her a hug, blinking back tears. "I'm so sorry. It shouldn't be this way."

"Our group seems too small," Oz said unexpectedly.

"I invited Cordelia," Xander admitted. "She already had her car packed, though. She's off to Los Angeles tonight. She's gonna be a big star."

"I'm sorry Faith isn't here," Joyce said. She gave a defensive look around the table. "She could have been."

Buffy patted her shoulder and went back to her seat. "I wish Spike was here." The Mayor was gone. It was safe for him to come back to her – to Sunnydale.

Giles nodded absently. "Spike would have been a nice surprise weapon when the eclipse began."

"Angel is gone." Buffy knew she sounded abrupt, so she shrugged. "He should have gotten a lift from Cordy."

Xander looked at her. "I was afraid you'd leave, too, like last summer."

Buffy stared at him, surprised. Willow, her mother… all of them were looking at her. "Different situation entirely," she finally said.

"This one involves Angel not being here, too." Xander's look was steady.

Buffy didn't know where her anger came from. She shouldn't have anything left, not after the battle and the aftermath. "Last year... Do you know why I left?"

He took his elbows from the table. "I'm just glad you're here now," he said softly.

Buffy gave him a thin smile. "But, you see, that's why I left. I figured, why would you want me here? I couldn't kill Angelus. Because of that, Ms. Calendar is dead. Because of that, Giles got tortured. All that, and I couldn't kill him."

But I could murder Angel. Buffy couldn't bring herself to say that, so she repeated, "Why would you even want me around? I figured you guys were better off with me out of your lives." They were all still looking at her, stunned now. She dropped her eyes and looked at her hands where they rested in her lap. Most of her fingernails were broken. She had a disjointed memory of needing emery boards last May, after another battle.

Joyce, listening to her daughter, remembering that she had all but told Buffy that she wasn't wanted, stood from the table. She turned to face the wall, her hands on either elbow, thinking of how changed her daughter was from a year ago, how much quieter. "I've hated your father more than I've ever hated anyone. I loved him more than I loved anyone except you, too. As much as I hated him, I could never have physically hurt him. It was a monstrous thing to ask of you, Buff –" Her voice broke on her daughter's name.

Giles stared at his charge. Even with her head bowed, he could see tears roll down her face. He examined Xander and Willow, neither of whom seemed upset to see their friend so defeated at the end of this long day. There was a look of... righteousness on Willow's face. Xander looked like he was in a jurors' box, examining a defendant's face for signs of remorse as he stared at Buffy. Giles felt a surge of his own anger. He and Buffy had protected her friends too well from the emotional fallout of defending the Hellmouth.

"If either of you had been bitten by a vampire and sired," he said coldly, staring between Buffy's two best friends, "I would have to stake you. Buffy couldn't kill either of you. That would be asking too much of her, as well."

This hadn't occurred to them; their expressions plainly revealed this. He stood from the table, habit making him lay his napkin carefully beside his plate. Walking around the table, he took Buffy in an awkward hug. "If I was capable of staking a master vampire, Buffy, I would have done so." He put a hand beneath her elbow and helped her stand.

She looked up at him, confused, and he inclined his head toward Joyce. Buffy nodded and went to hug her mother. Giles took a breath and did something entirely out of character. "Xander?"

The boy looked up at him. Giles stood with his arms out, waiting. Xander stood slowly, his own napkin falling to the floor, and went into one of too few embraces he'd had in recent years. Giles looked sternly over his shoulder. "Group hug, I think."

Willow's hazel eyes were immediately awash in tears. Oz helped her to her feet. Giles guided Xander to where the Summers women were standing, and Willow and Oz joined them on the other side.

After a moment, the awkwardness of it made Buffy giggle, despite her tears, and she clutched a handful of Giles' sleeve in lieu of a hug. They were all alive. They'd survived high school.

⸹

Next Chapter: As Buffy starts college, Spike returns to Sunnydale.


	26. Now Thou Art Flesh

**Now Thou Art Flesh**

⸹

[Author's Note: The title of the chapter is a partial quote from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ , about the sculptor Pygmalion and the statue he wished to life.]

⸹

Uganda

June 1999

⸹

 _Friend?_

 _Was_ a legendary dark warrior? Sod off. Dark, light, always gonna be a legendary warrior.

 _Er, friend?_

Spike wavered toward consciousness again. And I _will_ walk out of this cave. Show you….

A polite, if somewhat exasperated sigh. _It has grown dark. If you don't leave now, I do not believe you will walk out._

 _Who're you?_ The voice was familiar, someone he used to know, maybe.

 _He's us._

That voice, he did recognize.

 _What's going on?_ He tried to raise up on one arm.

 _You won._

 _You should see the other guy._ Spike slumped back down. Whatever he was on was cold and harder than regular ground.

 _We're in a cave, friend. We need to leave._

He felt an arm around his back, lifting him up, then another presence on his other side, doing the same. Spike struggled, managed to sit up, and collapsed backward. Fortunately, there was a rough wall behind him.

He was in a cave; he was looking out of it toward a dark hillside. Somewhere out of view, he saw firelight flickering. The past week came back to him in a rush.

 _I won? That was it?_

Someone gave an impatient sigh. Then he was at their booth at the Sit N Bull.

 _Buffy?_ But it was just his inner anarchist… and with him was William Withhorn-Allgood, who was looking around, mouth open, at the fluorescent lights and chrome-rimmed booths.

 _Balls._ The anarchist glanced to either side and the lights dimmed down to just their booth, pulling William's attention back to them. _You did it._

 _Course I did._ He looked across the table owlishly. _What did I do?_ The other two exchanged a helpless look.

Spike's head fell forward, and he managed to focus on his hands. They were a mess. He had dried blood on his knuckles and beneath his nails, but it was the skin that caught his attention. Where it wasn't rippled with burn scars, it was grey and drawn tight over his tendons and bones.

 _Bollocks. I'm dying._

 _You haven't had any blood in… ten days? Eleven? I'm not sure anymore. The trials lasted… just over a week, maybe. So you understand, you have to get up._

 _You do it._

 _Maybe I could… but I don't think I ought to, not alone. Not this time._ He nodded at William _. He's strong, but he isn't used to pain._

 _I'm tired. Just… I'm really tired._

William reached across the table and took the scarred ruin of his hand into a clean, healthy one.

 _I want to be here, friend. I want to help._ He nodded at the anarchist. _From what he told me, either we can cooperate or we'll be stuck here together in misery._

 _Are you my friend?_

 _I believe I am. We haven't been properly introduced._

The anarchist snorted. _William Withhorn-Allgood, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Spike._

The most human of them smiled, much of the humor self-directed. _It is a pleasure. You must know, I don't blame you._

For his death, Spike knew. _Pleased to meetcha._

The anarchist looked out the windows. _Night is wasting._

 _I believe he means we're dithering about in here, where we will certainly die._

 _Exactly._

 _What do you need me to do?_ All he wanted to do was close his eyes.

 _No, what do you want?_

 _Buffy._

 _Oh, she's quite lovely._

 _Shut your gob. She's a right lady._

 _Of course she is._

 _Why do you want to see Buffy again?_ The words were measured. _I'm tired, too, Spike. I'd like to see this done._

 _I want… I want to make sure she survives. She has so much to do, such a burden to carry. If I can do good, understand how to do good, I can shoulder some of that. I can be there when Death comes._

 _Death?_

 _He takes a swing at her, I tackle him, take him down. Curb stomp the wanker. Take his scythe_

[Hers alone to wield]

 _and snap it in two. My Slayer is going to live to be fucking ninety. Longer._

The anarchist let out a sigh of relief and turned to William. _Will you help him? Understand how to be good?_

William looked uncertainly between the two leather-clad beings. Then he firmed his mouth and said simply. _I'm a good man. I can help him with that._

 _Then there's nothing stopping us._

⸹

Spike swallowed, feeling like every inch of his gastrointestinal tract was made of sandpaper, from his cracked lips all the way through. He forced his eyes open again and looked around. There was still firelight glowing outside, so it hadn't been too long since he last passed out. He looked into the blackness of the cave. There was no sign of the demon bound to it.

Using the cave wall, he inched upward until he was on his feet, then braced himself against it until the various angles of the world stopped spinning. With slow, shuffling steps, he walked to the rough doorway, one hand trailing the walls.

The outside world seemed bright as dawn after the pitch dark of the cave. Stars arched overhead, and there were torches as well as the flames from the fire pit. And there was a line of humans on either side of the path leading away from the cave.

He was tired and couldn't make sense of the words he heard. It had been more than half a century since he'd spoken Luganda. The humans were wearing shorts and t-shirts, carrying machetes. They formed a more precise line. Gauntlet? Between the rows of humans, a shorter figure started walking toward him. A girl?

His first thought was they'd brought a Slayer to finish him off. He almost snorted. All they needed was a stiff breeze.

But she wasn't a Slayer. Her eyes were wide and stoned, lacking any expression. The men to either side of her were giving him hostile, resigned looks.

She was a sacrifice.

Bloody hell. He couldn't manage a sound from his dry vocal cords, but he mouthed the words, gave a rusty laugh. Spike stumbled a few steps closer to the group. It would be useless to talk to the girl; they'd done her up good. He looked at the young man on her left, dredged up some words.

" _Sagala_." His voice sounded dreadful. No, thanks. He beckoned to the man. " _Jangu wano._ " Yeah, not gonna get any closer. Spike could barely hear his own words and resigned himself to sign language.

He pointed at the sacrifice and slashed his hand, tried to say 'no.' It came out in a croak. " _Nedda._ " Then he pointed at each man in the left row. " _Butono. Butono_." Just a little, from each of them. " _Nyamba. Butono_." He pointed at each man on the right.

He was going to black out in a moment. Grimacing, he limped to the girl and brought her hand to his face. Good Lord, she wasn't even a teenager. He went halfway to game face, just fangs, and bit into her wrist.

Oh, that felt lovely. If he hadn't been feeding like this for some time, Spike didn't believe he'd manage to stop. He let go, took a breath, and placed his tongue against the holes he'd made, healing them. " _Butono_." His voice was stronger as he pointed to the closest young man.

Throwing a look toward the fire, he held his arm out mistrustfully. When Spike did the same thing he'd done to the girl, it seemed to sink in. The next man in line put out his arm. " _Butono._ "

" _Weebale._ " Spike drank from him. There were eleven in all, including the girl, and it amounted to more blood than from even the largest human. Even the burns were gone by the time he finished his walk down the line. He turned before he went on and nodded a farewell to them. " _Mweraba_."

Spike headed to the fire, knowing what he would find there. He wondered if the old man had been alive the last time he was here. Probably not that old, but old enough to deserve the honorific. " _Ssebo._ " He nodded and cleared his throat again. "I need no sacrifice, but I thank you for your courtesy."

"This is… unexpected." The old man was more wary than Spike expected.

"I earned the right to walk this land long ago. I wish only to cross it now."

"Go. There is a boat. You know the way." He nodded toward the lake. "The lights of the city will guide you."

" _Weeraba_." Spike turned his back on the humans and the firelight and set his face toward the scent of the lake. The walk took a shorter time than he remembered. He walked a few hundred paces along the shoreline and was about to circle back when he saw the craft. He laughed. Why had he been expecting the same dinky boat he'd used the first time?

Three hours until sunrise. He took off his boots and waded to the boat. He tossed them in, then submerged in the water, swiping at his torso and limbs to get some of the grime off. Spike clambered into the boat, hauled anchor, and patted the Evinrude engine. "Come on, baby. Let's get to Kenya."

⸹

Sunnydale

July 1999

⸹

Buffy rolled out her neck and rotated her shoulders. She'd stiffened up since leaving work. She'd eaten dinner with her mom, spoke to Giles on the phone, and figured she might as well patrol before showering. The company Xander worked for, N & C Construction, had started a new job, and he'd gotten her hired to do cleanup on site. It was barely entry-level work for construction, since she wasn't going to learn any skills, but it paid more than minimum wage. Even better, the subcontract would only last three weeks or so, ending before college classes began.

She was trying to stay busy. Spring had been an emotional rollercoaster, with Faith's betrayal and first Spike, then Angel leaving. Buffy, her friends, and her classmates had defeated Mayor Wilkins, but at a great cost. When the dust cleared, eleven members of the Class of 1999 died during graduation, despite being armed, and so had twenty people who came to watch. She'd thanked her mother twice more for staying away.

Her dad had stayed away, too. He lived in Spain now, she thought with his girlfriend. But Angel now lived in Los Angeles, so she still had reservations about going to the nearest big city. Cordelia lived there, too, trying to break into acting. Giles had gone to the UK for a couple of weeks. And Spike –

Buffy started walking faster, still as quiet, her fingers clenched around a stake. Angel left the minute the fire at the school was under control, but, emotionally, he'd been leaving for months. Faith was in a quiet corner of the hospital, as gone as a person could be without being dead. Buffy went to see her on Saturdays, almost entirely out of guilt. She'd brush Faith's hair and hope the dark eyes would stay closed.

Xander, Willow, and even Oz were still here, and of course she had her mother. Giles would be back soon. She was good; she wasn't alone in any sense of the word.

And she should still be feeling triumphant from stopping the Mayor's Ascension. Owen Thurman had given her a tiny wave and a long look as he stood by the second wave of ambulances, the ones that were there for the bodies. He'd been helping load them onto the stretchers. She still felt a little ache when she thought of Owen and sometimes when she read a poem. Owen had been majorly boyfriendable. But he'd lived through his high school years, and Buffy had heard he was going to USC.

The Slayer went up onto the north wall of the Restfield, crouching in shadow and listening. She had to put down six of her classmates after graduation and their funerals, but Willow hadn't found anyone likely to rise tonight, so she was focusing on crypts where the already risen might be dwelling. Sensing nothing, she dropped lightly onto the ground inside the wall and resumed her patrol.

After four minutes, she reached the largest crypt in the cemetery. It was pretty in daylight, as was the cemetery itself, but now the lead glass windows merely looked like liabilities. Some creature inside might see her first. Once again, she listened, then shoved open the door.

Nothing lurked inside. She looked around the last place she'd seen Spike, then closed the door and walked away. Less than ten seconds later, she gave up her struggle and jumped into the nearest tree. Hidden, she lay her cheek against the bark and began to cry. She cried silently and alone, because he wasn't around.

A couple of weeks after graduation, Buffy had tried to get in touch with Spike. She hadn't made an attempt until after the battle, not wanting to make him feel guilty for not being there. He'd sent her one quick message four days after he left, nothing more than his fingertips across her cheek and "I found a ship. On the first leg, love." Her attempt came after the third straight night she had 'tossed off' to memories of their private encounters. She'd been laying out in the backyard after taking lunch to her mother, a glass of ice water next to the lounge chair and the radio on. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and she was alone. She reached for him in her mind.

The place where the Sit N Bull should exist was emptiness, a black wall of nothing.

She tried again, looking for any hint of light from the windows or of neon from the sign. Then she closed her 'eyes' and just used her Slayer senses, trying to locate her vampire.

She felt no vampire in that place.

Buffy turned off the radio and tossed her ice water onto the ground. She gathered up her towel and the radio and left the sunshine. She went to the shower to get off the suntan lotion. She leaned against the cool tile wall, more frightened than she had been on graduation day.

A week later, Buffy tried again. She had been on the couch, having a post-patrol snack, a slice of roast beef rolled into a leaf of lettuce and a glass of milk. Joyce had waited up for her that night, had just gone upstairs to bed.

Emptiness, in the place her vampire should be.

Appetite gone, she'd emptied the rest of the milk down the kitchen sink and thrown away her sandwich. She went outside and sat on the back steps, her arms clutched around her stomach, refusing to cry.

Now, sitting in the tree, Buffy's stifled sobs began to ease. On Sunday, she'd gone to the public library to pick up a couple of books for her mom. While she was there, she spotted a globe atop one of the shelves in the reference room. Using her fingers to measure distance, she checked to see how far away California was from Patagonia. Then she checked to see what was on the other side of the world from Sunnydale. India, it looked like, maybe Africa. It was farther away than Patagonia, but not by even a whole finger. When he was in Patagonia, she had been right at the door of the café, looking at Spike as he stood by the jukebox. Less than the distance of one finger. She should at least be able to see the building.

She wiped tears from her face. She couldn't tell anyone about her worries. Not her mom, because she didn't want to worry Joyce, who considered Spike to be one of her handful of friends. Not Willow or Xander, because she'd never told them.

If Giles was here, she would tell him. Probably.

Buffy closed her eyes tightly, squeezing more tears across her cheeks. She was afraid of what he would tell her it meant. And she couldn't bring herself to try again, to face that blankness.

After a couple more minutes, she took a steadying breath and dropped from the tree. The moon was just beginning to wax again. It was dark; no one would notice her tearstained face. Buffy sniffled and drew herself to her full height, positioned her stake at the ready, and went into the darkness.

⸹

Los Angeles

August 1999

⸹

 _Aurelian._

Angel sat up. It was an hour before dusk. He'd overslept. He yawned and ran a hand over his hair.

 _Angel._

He jerked in surprise.

 _Spike!?_

 _What's your address? I'll be in town soon; thought I'd drop by._

He was too surprised to make excuses. Then the boy's presence receded. Angel blinked a couple of times in the darkness of his basement apartment. Buffy had told him that Spike had left the country. She hadn't known where, only that he said he'd be gone for months.

Well, that had nothing to do with him. Angel got out of bed, straightened the covers, and showered. Then he went out into the night to try to help anyone who might become a victim.

By the time he got back, Angel had found one predator to dust and forgotten about the impending family visit. His footsteps slowed as he saw a figure slumped against his doorway. Was that… "Spike?"

The dark blue eyes opened and looked up at him. "'Lo, Angel."

"You look awful." He hadn't really meant to say it aloud. Spike struggled to get up and he put out an automatic hand.

"Thanks." He took the proffered hand, stood, and sighed. "That bad, huh?"

"I've seen you look worse."

"I guess you have, at that."

Angel let the silence grow after that comment, then put his reluctance aside. "You want to come in?"

"Yeah." Angel unlocked the door and went inside, but Spike didn't follow. He was frowning. "Before I come in, I need to tell you. I have my soul."

"You… what?" His face went tight. "That's not funny."

"Not meant to be."

Angel stared at him. There was no bravado, no smirk, none of the 'Master' boastfulness. He was telling the truth. No wonder the boy looked so wrecked. What kind of bad business had he been involved in? "Come on in, Will."

Spike nodded and stumbled inside. "Don't have my land legs back yet." He took off the black leather coat and folded it across his arm as he looked around. "Unfurnished?"

Angel, watching him closely, shook his head. "My stuff's downstairs."

"Of course." Spike made a self-mocking face and nodded to the walls. "Windows." He followed Angel down to the basement.

"Do you need some food?" He wasn't offering to be a good host, but because Spike looked so bad.

"No, I'm good."

He laughed a little, for no apparent reason. Angel's unease deepened. "You have to feed, even if you feel like you can't."

"I'm just tired." He looked around at the space, at the art on the walls. "It's nice down here. You have the whole building?"

"Yeah. Not quite sure what to do with it." He turned on a lamp and examined the younger vampire. Spike blinked owlishly against the light. His hair was grown out and two-toned, and it was lank with grease. He didn't look injured or unduly thin, but… didn't look himself. "You want to clean up?"

Spike looked more alert. "Do you have a shower? I've been on a ship, I don't even know how long. Mombasa to Hong Kong, hopped a freighter to L.A. right away, and of course I pick one where the electrical was down for days, on and off."

He's babbling, Angel thought. "It's through there." Spike nodded and headed that way. After a moment, Angel heard the sound of water spraying. Not sure what to do with himself, he took off his coat and hung it carefully, then wandered to the kitchen. The boy always had liked human food, but all he had was bagged blood in the refrigerator.

Angel sat down on the couch to wait. What kind of craziness could happen that two Aurelians would be cursed with souls? He'd never heard of it happening to any vampire before or since his own curse.

Then he pulled in a breath. Spike must have gone back to Prague. Drusilla had rambled on about someone in the mob that injured her having gypsy magic. And Buffy had said that Spike mentioned something about a debt.

He wavered between several emotions: derision for such bad decision-making; anger that a family member had been harmed; irritation just because it was Spike; and relief, because the boy would no longer be the killer he'd molded him to be. At least he has me to guide him. He'll be in pieces for a while.

Angel realized that he hadn't heard running water for a long time. "Spike?" No answer. He went in to find the semi-blond man sitting on the floor on a towel, naked and asleep, propped against the tile. He'd washed his clothes in the shower and hung them to drip dry. His coat was folded neatly and rested atop his boots.

Something about the scene touched him. Almost the entire time he'd known the boy, he had hidden himself in defense against Angelus. Now he was open and exposed, and that meant trust. He'd come to him for shelter. Angel cleared his throat. "Spike."

Blue eyes opened wide and immediately began to close again. "I'm awake," he said, though clearly he wasn't.

Angel held out a hand. "Here. Up, off the floor. You can't sleep there."

Spike accepted his help, swaying when he stood up. "Family bed?"

"Yeah." His voice sounded husky, so he cleared his throat again. Spike fell onto the bed, and Angel made him get up so he could pull down the covers. He fell over again in almost the same motion and did not move. Angel smiled and covered him, then sat beside the still form, considering him.

Family. Darla and Drusilla were gone. So were the older members of the family. Angel closed his eyes. He'd sired so many during those mad months in Sunnydale. Not a one had been family, though. It really was just the two of them. Both souled. Maybe it meant something.

Did this make him happy? He always had to check now. It did, a little, but his soul was safe. Like Spike could ever make him perfectly happy.

⸹

"Afternoon."

"Mmm."

"Angel."

"Mmm?"

"Geroff."

Angel lifted his head, feeling as though he'd gotten his first real sleep in years, and dropped it back down. His head was resting on Spike's abdomen. This realization had him out of bed before he was awake.

"Aren't you the proverbial scalded cat?" Spike sat up and yawned, rubbing his eyes. He nodded toward the black boxers Angel wore. "Since when do you sleep in anything?"

Angel gawped at him, then the events of the previous night rushed back. "For about a century," he said sourly, though mostly he'd slept fully clothed because he seldom had anywhere safe to sleep. He rubbed the back of his neck. "How are you?"

"Better rested, thanks to you. Nothing like the family bed."

"True."

"You wouldn't happen to have a camera, would you? Instant or digital?"

"Uh, no." If the boy was worried about how he looked, he must be feeling better.

Spike ruffled his curls. "I know I look a fright." He stood up and stretched. "Is there a demon barber in town?"

Angel averted his eyes from the obliviously nude body. "Big city. I'm sure there is." This was way too much intrusion on his solitude. "I, um," and he waved vaguely to the bathroom.

"Let me grab my clothes from there, and I'll get out of your way."

"You do that."

Spike shot him a look as he went past, but Angel averted his gaze again. When he came back a few seconds later, he was wearing his mostly dry clothes and carrying his coat and boots. When Angel half-turned away, he stopped. "Am I intruding?" he asked bluntly.

Angel sighed. "No. I'm used to being alone. You're like having a crowd of people around."

Spike grinned at that. "All yours," he said, gesturing back toward the shower.

By the time Angel was ready to go out for the evening, Spike was gone. He'd left a note on the third tread of the stairs with the vague promise 'I'll be back.' Angel checked several bars to the north of his building, but nothing was stalking the patrons. He never wanted to be predictable, so he went into a different area, with the same results. The city was baked after the hot summer day. Maybe everyone was staying in their air-conditioned lairs.

By one o'clock, Angel was ready to call it a night. He spotted Spike's old DeSoto beneath a streetlight, so he wasn't surprised to find the boy was back. He was sitting on the couch, a pad of paper and pen on his knee and a cup of coffee near to hand on the floor.

"Hey. I just wanted to ask if you mind if I stay a couple more days. I'll head back to Sunnydale then, get out of your hair."

"Are you ready for that?" Angel asked, hanging up his coat.

"Yeah." Spike gave him a thin smile. "I called Giles to make sure everyone's okay. He said the Mayor's sorted out?"

Since the boy was giving him an expectant look, he sat down gingerly on the other end of the couch and told him about the botched Ascension. By the time the story was done, Spike was smiling. "She got everyone involved. Bet they didn't see that coming. Stopping an Ascension… that was a big deal."

"It was. People died."

Spike nodded. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"Where were you?"

He leaned over and picked up the coffee. "You sure you want to hear this? First time I've told the story, so it'll probably be rubbish."

The cup in Spike's hands reminded Angel that he hadn't had any blood yet. "I'm sure I want to hear. Just let me get something to drink." As he got a packet of blood from the refrigerator, he saw that Spike hadn't raided it. "You want some?" He held up the blood.

Spike shook his head. "I've fed."

Angel frowned. He'd smelled a burrito or enchilada, some kind of Mexican food, when he came back tonight. Well, he'd bring up the topic of feeding after Spike got the story out. After he heated up the blood, he settled back on his end of the couch and nodded toward the blond man.

"Guess you won't be surprised to know this all started because I bollixed up things," he began, shooting his grandsire a wry look. "And you won't be surprised when I tell you that I've fallen in love with the Slayer." Angel showed no reaction to this news. Spike wondered how obvious a mooncalf he'd been. "I did something wrong – doesn't matter what; it's fairly embarrassing – because I just didn't remember how to be decent. I thought about everything really carefully – well, as much as I could, you know – and decided that I had a mission, like what you were looking for.

"My mission is to keep the Slayer alive. She's going to be the first Slayer the Council has to pension off."

"That's… quite a switch for you."

"Yeah. Funny old world, innit? Anyway, not like Buffy would let me darken her doorstep if I didn't get myself housebroken. That's when I decided I needed my soul. I said my goodbyes and – "

"You got cursed on purpose?" The words erupted from Angel like a shotgun spray.

"Not cursed, mate. I fought for it. Knew about a demon bound to a cave in Africa. He sets you trials, and if you survive, he'll grant you a boon."

Angel's face was a mask. "You _fought_ for your soul?"

"Yeah." Spike spread his hands, not sure why this was a sticking point.

The big vampire was across the couch, fingers digging into the boy's shoulders. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Spike's surprise did not turn to wariness or carefully hidden fear, as it might have in the past. Instead, he grabbed Angel's wrists and forced them away. "I could ask the same question."

"You don't just… go get your soul." Angel jerked free and sat up straight, staring at him. "Like it's been at the dry cleaners or something."

"I needed it," Spike said flatly. "It doesn't matter that I love Buffy; it certainly doesn't matter that I'm in love with her. What matters is that I'm in her life. She won't let me be there to block the blade or bolt or spell or whatever gets aimed at her if I can't understand the difference between good and evil.

"I knocked her out, Angel. You know how knocking someone out leads to them being happy with you? Of course it doesn't, and you know better than that." He splayed his fingers across his chest. "I didn't. I –" Spike grimaced. "For a long time, yeah, I can fake it. But the second I stop thinking about every move, every decision, it's pretty obvious I'm nothing but a demon.

"I have to be more than that."

Angel looked down. "You did this for Buffy."

"Maybe there was another way. All I knew was that when I had a soul, I knew the difference between right and wrong. This is how I can be there the next time something comes for her." He leaned over and picked up the paper cup and had the last of the coffee. "She was afraid to call on me for help with the Mayor, because she was afraid that I'd kill humans."

"Like Faith," Angel said grimly.

"Faith?" Spike lifted his brows. "Buffy said she came down on the Mayor's side. That how it happened?"

Angel nodded. "She killed two humans, at least. She poisoned me, she… Faith is in a coma." He looked down, ashamed. "Because of her, I fed on Buffy."

It was his turn to be manhandled. "Explain yourself, Aurelian," Spike said in a soft and dangerous tone, his forearm an iron bar across Angel's throat, not quite pushed into his windpipe.

The big vampire looked up at Spike from where he was pressed into the seat of the couch, then looked away. "The only cure for the poison was the blood of a Slayer. Buffy… saved my life."

Spike's hold eased up. "But she tried to feed you Faith first?" When the big vampire nodded, he hauled him back to a seated position. "Sorry. I should have just listened, but I'm a bit tetchy about her."

"Oh, I understand." The two vampires regarded each other warily. Something occurred to Angel. "You're feeding off humans. Don't deny it; you're too strong for it to be from anything else."

Spike blinked at this accusation. "Well, yeah."

"How does that set with your soul?

"My soul," Spike said, "is not a curse. You don't talk to me much, Angel, but I know some of what you struggle with. It never would have occurred to me to get cursed on purpose. My soul and my demon want the same thing. I mean, the soul hasn't met her yet, but it knows the crap deal that Slayers get. It's on board with my mission.

"The feeding… I have thought about it. I know the people I feed on are affected." He looked away. "I worry that I've caused pregnancies, or unsafe sex, or affairs."

"Or rape."

Spike narrowed his eyes. "Gagging for it usually leads to bad decisions, not power games in the form of sexual assault."

It was Angel's turn to look away.

"I use the mesmer to pull them in, feed, and suggest they toss off. I'm not proud of it, but I have to stay strong. That means human blood."

"Why didn't you just ask to be human?"

"Why would I want that? How would that help Buffy?"

"That's what I'd have wished for."

Spike leaned back and stared at him. "I thought about you, you know." He wanted to look away, because this was too much honesty with this man, but he made his gaze steady. "I don't like that you're in pain. You want it, I'll take you there, sit in your corner, hold your towel. Ask the demon for your soul when you win, and then it won't be a curse."

"I'd ask to be human."

The blond man shook his head in irritation. "Angel… there you'd be, laying on the floor of the cave, body beaten to a pulp, human and mortal. You'd have time to cough up blood maybe twice before you die."

Angel looked at him shrewdly. "What were the trials?"

Spike shrugged. "Fights, mostly." He leaned over and propped his forearms on his knees. "Why would you want to be human?"

It took a full minute for the answer to emerge. "Then I'd only have a soul and not a demon. Part of it is what I told you before, trying to stay out of hell. The other…" He let out a long breath and leaned forward, too, holding out his hand so that it was in Spike's field of vision. "Feel my fingertips."

Frowning, he did so, then shrugged, not understanding.

"I'm almost twice as old as you. My fingertips are just a bit more tapered than they were five years ago. If I keep going as a demon, I won't be able to wear my human face. Like the Master, old Batface. I don't fit in the demon world. If I can't be in the human world, either… where does that leave me?"

Spike turned to look at him, then leaned toward the older vampire until shoulders and knees touched. "Never occurred to me, mate."

"Well, you're young. Why would it?"

They sat side by side for a couple of minutes, not uncomfortable in the silence. Then Spike broke it, speaking in a rush.

"I hate it, you know, I'm not doing this, trying to emulate you. I hate that I'm following after you, that you get to the women I love first. I didn't get my soul because you had one, not trying to one-up you –"

"I hate," Angel dammed the torrent of words with a precise handful of his own, "that you do everything better."

"Yeah, well, you do it first. That's what the history books remember." Spike snatched up the empty coffee cup and strode to the kitchen, not looking at him.

Angel sat there, staring down at his hands, waiting for the boy to leave, thinking of how empty the family bed would seem for weeks. He didn't glance up when the combat boots came into his view, but he did when Spike's hands covered his own.

The blond man knelt down. "I fuckin' hate the idea that things are preordained. Like to think I make my own decisions. I know what it looks like to anyone on the outside, but I'm not in competition with you, mate."

Angel turned his hands so he could grip the younger vampire's and pulled him closer, until their foreheads touched. He didn't have any more words. On the face of it, what the boy said was ridiculous. They were vampires; of course they were in competition. But they had souls, too. The only other being on the face of the planet who could really understand his motivations and struggles was, of all people –

The two Aurelians both turned their heads in the direction of the street. Then both looked toward two other points to the side and rear of the building above them.

"You expecting company?"

Angel shook his head. They stood as one, and Angel headed to the tunnel, beckoning Spike to follow. The boy grabbed his coat and got Angel's from the closet, and was on his heels.

"I'll flank them on the front," he said after they dropped down. "You go high." They moved silently until they got to the ladder that led to the nearest manhole. "I guess that explains why I only found humans out tonight."

"Takes them that long to spring an ambush?" Spike scoffed. He went up first, lifting the cover quietly after an initial small scraping noise. Checking their perimeter, he started up the side of the closest building.

Angel set the cover back over the entrance and drew shadow to him. He sensed eight figures hidden around his building, all vampires, and wondered what they were waiting on. Then he checked his watch: a couple minutes until three a.m. Smiling, he went at speed to the figure oriented toward the front door. "You in charge of this shitshow?" he asked conversationally. The vampire made a strangled yelp as he lifted him from the ground by his neck.

"He's on the street!" someone called from his left. Within ten seconds, all seven of the other vampires were facing him. Angel fancied that he could hear Spike's eyes roll from somewhere above.

"Put down my minion, Angelus." The command came from a female vampire on his right.

"Whatever you say." He tossed the vampire fifteen feet so that it landed at her feet.

"You should have stayed in Sunnydale."

He shrugged. "Small towns aren't really my style."

She grinned at him, fangs prominent. "You don't fit in the big city, either. You killed two of my minions this week." The discarded vampire got painfully to its feet and went to guard duty on her right.

Angel glanced around pointedly at the small crew. "And you can't afford to lose even one."

"We're more than enough to take care of you."

"And yet," Angel showed her his palms, "you haven't."

On the rooftop above, Spike saw the gesture and recognized it from hunts carried out long ago. He marked the female who was speaking and crouched, waiting for the first head movement that would give away the attack.

"I wanted to know why you're invading our territory."

"Because you're weak, doddering pissants who can't hold it." He smiled broadly.

She broke for Angel, as did five more. The other two vampires were unfortunate enough to be where Spike dropped down. Their disintegrating particles swirled in the breeze he stirred up as he sprinted to the right, following the rest.

Angel grabbed the first vampire that came toward him and slammed it onto the pavement. He pulled a stake from his coat and dusted the next two with a smooth right-to-left motion. Then it was back to plunge the wood into the first one, who was just getting up from the ground. His stake dusted and he wished with a pang for his wrist-mounted models.

By the time he stood up, the remaining two minions were gone and Spike had the leader in a half nelson. She tried to twist out of it, so he leaned back, taking her feet from the ground. Good, he'd hoped the boy would remember the signal for 'take alive.' He felt a pang; it had always been to identify a human that promised an interesting round of torture.

He forced himself to smile at the female vampire again, playing a role. "So, who does hold this territory?" She growled and struggled again to get away. "I know it isn't you. I'd say you're…" Angel's eyes roamed over her body. She was fit but not a bruiser. From the ease with which Spike held her, he got a sense of her age. "Third in command?"

The yellow eyes widened for a moment. Then she swore and tried again to break free. Spike chuckled.

"You could join up," Angel suggested. "Right now, it's just the two of us. You wouldn't be any worse off." He leaned in and brought his aura to bear, felt her fall still beneath the weight of the regard of an old, old Aurelian. Then he drew back. "Unless you've… submitted?"

She spoke for the first time since being captured. "Never!"

"Well, that's better than most, at least," Spike drawled.

Their captive shook off Angel's supernatural allure. "You're not normal. You don't even feed. Why would I work for a freak like you?"

Angel laughed. "Did you ever wonder why I don't feed from humans in this part of town?" He nodded toward the empty street for emphasis. "Did you see how easy it was for us to take down your boys who do?"

Paranoia was a universal trait of vampires. Angel saw her hesitate, thinking, and plowed on with the recruiting ploy. "I know you're smart; whoever it is you work for trusted you enough to send you out alone." He leaned in again. "While they sat on their ass." He smiled, knowing the resentment; he'd felt the same way whenever the Master ordered Darla around. "Whereas we," he indicated the vampire holding her, "never like to miss a fight. It's all about the three F's for us," he put his mouth close to her ear, "fighting, feeding," he pulled back to look into her yellow eyes, "fucking."

The female vampire grew quiet and still for a long moment, then a sneer wrinkled her face further. "Yeah, you talk big."

Angel shrugged and looked past her to Spike. "Your turn." He grabbed the vamp's free arm and locked the elbow in a painful position behind her back as Spike let go.

The blond man grabbed her fist lazily as she tried to punch at him. He lowered his head to hers. "Hullo, then." He had the talent for mesmer from Drusilla, but had never used it much until the Pax Aurelius forced him to feed using stealth. "Where's your boss' lair?"

Two seconds later, they had a destination. Two minutes later, they had their plan. Spike siphoned gas from the DeSoto's tank into empty whiskey bottles from the floorboards. Angel went back to his basement apartment, slapping at the grit on his trousers, to pick up a few more weapons.

Ten minutes after dawn, it was done. They used the same game plan that Spike used in New York so long ago, firebombing the lair, an old bowling alley. The older vampire waited in the sewers to pick off any stragglers while Spike covered the only functional exit to slaughter the rest.

When they pulled up outside Angel's building in the DeSoto, the shadows were giving way to a golden pink glow. "Now, that was fun," Spike said, turning off the car and pocketing the key.

"Good night's work," Angel agreed.

"I got in at a place to get my hair done tonight," Spike said, gesturing at the offensive curls. "You be all right alone?"

Angel just stared at him for a moment. "I've been all right the tens of thousands of other times you haven't been with me." Then he relented. "But it was a lot easier tonight. Thanks."

"No problem. Come on, let's get this petrol off us. Makes me nervous."

⸹

Spike checked the address he'd scribbled down, then looked at the strip mall doubtfully. He shrugged and went in, setting off a little bell above the door. A young black woman with four-inch fuchsia nails glanced up. "Hey. Welcome to Sheree's." He glanced around. There were no barber chairs or hair dryers.

"I, uh, have a ten o'clock appointment."

"Sure, Spike, isn't it?" She put down her Beverly Jenkins paperback and marked his name off the appointment book with a deftly held pen. "Right this way." She led him toward a hallway behind the counter and pointed down a well-lit stairwell papered with a gold-and-blue design. "Second level. Look for Melba's station." He nodded, more at ease as he picked up the scent of various chemicals and the faint sound of voices and hair dryers.

The first level looked like somewhat like an old-fashioned peep show to him, but the clear booths were being used for spraying clients with the skin color of their choice rather than dancing. The second level was simply an upscale salon, minus any windows. He looked around at the names written in neon above each chair: Michel, Annette, Antoine, Melba.

She came forward to meet him, a short, round Lesser chyrsabeau demon. "And you must be my ten o'clock." She tutted, reaching up to touch his two-toned hair. "You're on time, but, honey, I have to tell you that you're late."

"Yeah," he agreed, "but I understand I'm in good hands."

She blinked at him with both sets of eyelids. "Good hands, honey? The best." Melba got him into her chair and threw a protective nylon cape across him. "I hope you're not attached to it, sugar, 'cause it's got to go." She ran her fingers appraisingly through the curls.

"Yeah, it's fried, I know." He watched Melba fuss about for clippers, then she did something that he hadn't seen before. She tapped on a keyboard on the left side of her station and clicked her mouse a couple of times. A video screen in front of Spike came on, and Melba moved a ceiling-mounted digital camera behind him until he had a front and back view of his head. "Well, that's just neat."

"Mm-hmm, you think our vampire clients ever do their own hair again? Not after coming to Sheree's, honey." He watched, fascinated by the view, as she sheared off the platinum-tipped curls.

"There we go," she crooned as he ran his hand over the velvety stubble left. "Blank canvas." She put her hand on one ample hip. "You thinking about anything in particular?"

"Yeah. Reckon I'm due for a change."

"I'd advise more length to balance out those cheekbones and that jaw," Melba offered, looking at him critically. "You want it bleached again?"

"No." He tucked his chin to see more of his scalp. "I don't remember it being this dark, though." Spike turned his head side-to-side. "I used to wear it long and clubbed back," at Melba's blank look, he elaborated, "in a tail at my nape, I mean."

"You don't like the curl?" She caught his look. "I don't meet many men who do."

"My lady likes it," he admitted.

Melba turned to her computer, moved the mouse, and clicked on something else. The camera feed disappeared and a blank human head appeared, gridlines creeping over it. "How about this for the length? Let me add in your natural curl…."

"A bit longer." He was grinning again at the cool imaging.

"What if I take just a cut here?"

"I know I don't want a fringe."

"No, but just a few strands to break it up, soften things."

"Well, that's okay, I guess. Maybe more of a blond color?"

Melba clicked on her palette and then used her mouse to putter with different hair lengths. They discussed it a bit more, then she clicked on 'print.' "Let me go get this recipe brewed for you. I'll still want to put in highlights after you drink it."

"Yeah, okay."

"You want anything while you wait?" She nodded to the service board by the doorway.

Spike squinted. "Uh, sure, how about the hot towel shave?"

Melba gave him a critical look. "How about a mani-pedi, too? It'll take that long."

He let her twist his arm. Melba called over a short young man with a folding razor and a rolling steam cart for the towels. She came back with the potion that would make his hair grow to the right length in the agreed upon color. Spike drank it in one motion and was surprised by the taste. "Last time I had one of these potions, it tasted like tar."

"We brew ours with an organic honeysuckle base," Melba sniffed, then admitted, "but you'll still get a tar aftertaste over the next couple of hours."

By the time his nails were buffed – he chose to forego the polish – his hair had grown past his shoulders and the maddening, prickling sensation across his scalp had ceased. Melba reclaimed him and turned on the camera feed again so he could watch her work her magic with scissors and bits of foil.

"So, tell me about your lady that likes your curls. Is she cute?"

"She's all the words," he grinned. "Cute, lovely, beautiful, gorgeous. Just depends on her mood."

"Sounds like you've got it bad."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Haven't seen her in a while. Heading back to Sunnydale tomorrow night."

"Sunnydale?"

"Yeah?" Spike peered at the hairdresser, surprised by her sharp tone.

"Well, be careful. There was a mess after what the Sunnydale Mayor did. I've heard of demons leaving the town. It's dangerous up there."

"I'll be careful," he agreed. Sunnydale was a dangerous place for demons and would be more dangerous once the Slayer had him at her side.

When Melba was done, he looked at the video feed in admiration. "Love, that's the most natural-looking my hair's been in about forty years. I like it."

"It's your own texture. It'll still curl when it's wet, even with the length weighing it down," she warned. "You'll want to blow dry."

"That's okay. You wouldn't happen to have a thong, would you?" He raised a quick hand when she drew away from him with an affronted look. "A scrap of leather, I mean. To tie it back." Melba gave him an elastic band, and he gave her an extravagant tip to make up for his faux pas. Mollified, she sent him upstairs to pay.

Feeling better now that he could blend in, Spike went out to look for a Target or something similar open around the clock. He needed more clothes, toiletries, and, apparently, a hair dryer.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Thanks for coming along, Xander," Buffy said, smiling as she stood up from a tombstone.

"No problem. I miss seeing you every day." He fell into step next to her and held up a hand so she could see he already had a stake.

"I miss that, too." Her time at the job site had ended a couple of weeks ago. Buffy gave him an impish look. "And the money, which is mostly gone."

"College stuff?"

She nodded. "Mom doesn't talk about it, but I think she's swinging tuition by herself." Buffy shrugged. "I didn't want to ask for help with clothes, and the rest I've set aside to buy books."

"Do you know what classes you're taking?" When she shook her head, Xander examined her a long moment. "Buffy, if you want to talk about it, I'll listen."

"Wh-what?" She glanced up at him. "It's nothing. I mean, I've known for a while Dad's out of the parenting game."

Xander didn't say anything for a while. They left the graveyard and walked onto the sidewalk. It was a perfect, breezy California night, shirtsleeves weather, and it would be romantic if they weren't looking for demons to kill. A bittersweet smile drifted across his mouth before he spoke again. "Is it Angel?"

"What? No," Buffy said quickly. She held up a hand. They were outside a park, and something was lurking in the picnic shelter. Xander marveled as the Slayer marched up to it, looking like the world's tiniest Amazon, and a vampire still sprang out of the shadows at her. He shook his head; Sunnydale vampires were idiots.

"Yaa!" he cried almost immediately as another grabbed his arm. He slipped the hold, using what he'd learned so far in judo, and managed to trip it. While the vampire was down, he shoved the stake at it with all his strength, piercing its chest cavity. His stake dusted, too, and he quickly retrieved another from his back pocket.

While he'd been busy, Buffy had finished with her first attacker and was fighting two others. She jammed her stake at one, dusting it, and kicked the other at once. It staggered away a few feet, away from her and towards Xander. It turned on him with a snarl, and as he stumbled away, Buffy leapt toward its back and rode it into the ground. She stayed there on her knees for longer than Xander expected, looking at the ash as it began to skitter across the concrete, pushed by the breeze coming off the ocean.

After checking around them, he went to her and held out a hand. "Buf? You okay?"

The Slayer started a little, as though he'd surprised her, then took his hand. She gave him a sad smile as she stood up. "Thanks. It's always easier when I have someone to patrol with."

After saying that, she fell silent. Xander knew from growing up in his parents' house that there were some silences better left alone. They walked through a couple more cemeteries, then came to the hillside park near Xander's home. He put a hand on Buffy's sleeve and motioned toward the fortress. Her eyebrows rose, and she followed him.

They sat down facing each other, mostly for surveillance. After a moment, Buffy turned her face into the wind. "Nice view," she noted.

"It is," he agreed. Then he went on, because she was his friend, and she was unhappy. "If it isn't starting college or Angel, what is it? Are you okay?"

The breeze lifted her hair twice before she spoke, her words a monotone. "I think Spike's dead."

This was not what Xander expected. "Like, really dead? Dust dead?" When she nodded, he shook his head. "Why would you think that?"

She let out a sigh and looked down. "When he drove me to Los Angeles last year… You know how he tried to walk out into daylight?" Xander nodded; it was one of the few things she'd told him and Willow about her missing summer. "When I left him… I was afraid he'd try it again, so I…" A spasm went across her face; this was so hard to say. "I took a mouthful of his blood, and he took some of mine. It's called a 'mindlink,' and we can sort of talk to each other no matter where we are."

Xander was still focused on the blood exchange. "That's… not of the good."

Buffy closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "I know. But I was really worried for him, and he was," she chose her words carefully, "I thought he was the only friend I had who could understand."

"Understand…?"

"I felt like a killer, Xander. I killed Angel, not Angelus. He literally had no idea of what had happened, his soul, I mean. The last thing he knew, we were… the night of my birthday." She fell silent and turned her face back to the darkness on the horizon that marked the Pacific.

"I should have told you Willow was going to try." He closed his eyes a moment and shook his head. "I didn't think it would work, but mostly I just wanted him dead."

"You were right, to not tell me. If I hadn't fought with everything I had, he would have killed me. Don't swordfight Angelus," she advised, smiling for no reason Xander could see. She looked back at him. "Anyway, I can't talk to him anymore. Spike, I mean. The first time I did, he knew I needed him back in Sunnydale, and he was all the way down in Argentina." She shrugged.

"He can read your mind, too?"

She shook her head. "It isn't really like that. It's kind of like a video conference. We always meet at the truck stop, you know that diner outside of Sunnydale as you're heading to L.A.? We used to go there for coffee after patrol, and I sit on one side of the booth, he sits on the other, and we talk."

"No other effects from drinking his blood?" Xander asked warily.

"No. It was just a taste. He said rival vampire clans will do that when they negotiate, so they can trust each other." She shrugged. "I called him for help when Angel came back, but it took him so long to travel back to California, that was kind of over."

"So… he didn't just happen to show up."

Buffy shook her head. "No. He… He's as much my friend as you are, or Willow, and –" She looked down, but the sob that choked off her words had already given her away.

"Oh, Buffy," Xander said. He scooted closer to her, still keeping an eye on the side of the park she couldn't see, and put an awkward arm on her shoulders. "Don't cry. You can't be sure he's really gone. I mean, the other side of the world and all." He didn't want Spike to be dead, either. "That's a lot farther than Argentina." He gave her a lopsided smile. "Even I know that."

"I know," she sniffled. She couldn't explain the _absence_ in her mind adequately.

"And you should definitely tell Willow what's on your mind. She's afraid you aren't going to start college at all."

Buffy pulled away from him. "What?" Then she had to smile. "Of course that would be what Willow worries about."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Angel gave up on Spike about five in the morning and went to bed. The boy came in five minutes later, being ostentatiously quiet after he saw the dark basement. He smiled because Spike couldn't see him from the foot of the stairs and called out, "I'm awake."

"Do you mind if I turn on a light?"

"Go ahead."

Angel put his arms behind his head and waited. He'd glanced at Spike's list. The pad of paper was tossed onto the couch, so it hadn't felt like snooping. The blond man had drawn a pyramid shape with words around it. After a moment of puzzling, Angel recognized it as Maslow's hierarchy, with 'house? apartment?' written by the widest part and the boxed word 'mission' over the top. He supposed it wasn't a bad attempt to figure out how to put together a life. There were some things on the list he'd never considered, like 'mobile' and 'Internet.' Maybe he should –

"How do you think it looks?" Spike asked, interrupting his reverie.

Angel sighed and stood up so he could see the haircut and say admiring things, and then maybe get some sleep. "It looks…."

One hundred years fell away. Spike the platinum-haired punk was gone. This was his boy standing in front of him, saying something about his shirt being itchy from bits of hair, but Angel scarcely heard it. He reached out to the bare-chested vampire and sank his fingers into the honey-blond locks at the back of Will's neck. He pulled him close in, his lips parting….

And he turned away, stumbling back until he felt the bed against his legs, rolling over so he wouldn't have to face Spike. "It looks fine," he said gruffly. "Like you used to look."

There was no response, and Angel closed his eyes tightly. Then he heard a clink and the slide of a zipper, the whisper of fabric against skin. Spike took his shoulder in a firm grip and rolled him onto his back. If he didn't open his eyes, did it make it more or less likely that the boy would just leave?

Spike looked at the old man, concern and exasperation on his face. He hadn't seen a look of such naked longing directed at him in his entire existence. Angel was rigid on the bed, in all senses. He was set to go another hundred years without touching another person, it seemed.

He had no real plan or direction, just a need to provide some comfort and an erection of his own, sparked by that look. Spike straddled Angel's legs and drew down the black boxers he wore to bed. The brown eyes remained shut, his jaw locked. Spike leaned over the big body, drawing a sound like pain from Angel.

"Shh," he said, nonsensically, and pried Angel's hand away from his side and brought it to where their cocks were rubbing together. Spike scooted up a bit. "Slow," he said, a request. Angel took a gasping breath and wrapped his fingers around the both of them.

Spike sat up straighter, knowing the lamplight on his body might be enough temptation. Angel had always liked to watch. He took his grandsire's other hand in his, but otherwise didn't move.

Angel gritted his teeth. How many times had they done this, had he done this? Had Will ever come to him voluntarily? Maybe the first weeks. That one strange night on a train. The whole family at play in a big feather bed, or to break up long hours of daylight while their ladies were gone, or as a performance for Darla, to tempt her to bed. So many memories, so much lust.

Slow.

He slid his hand down their hard flesh, and his lips parted. Angel opened his eyes. Instead of flickering candlelight, Spike's body was lit by the steady glow of the lamp near the couch. The boy had laid his head back. His beautiful boy.

Another stroke.

Angel looked at his hand, at what it was doing, at the erotic splendor of their two bodies. Not so slow now. How had this happened? Why was he doing this? It was wrong, surely.

Why did it have to feel right? Why did it have to feel so good?

"Mmm." One deep, hoarse syllable. Spike's free hand trailed over Angel's thigh, up to his balls, cupped them.

He cried out, eyes closing again, and felt his entire body melt.

Then Angel went rigid once more. He let go of them and turned the other way, jerking his boxers over his traitorous cock, forcing Spike to the side. But the boy kept holding his other hand. He returned the favor, a punishing grip.

Spike ended up half-crouched against Angel's shoulder and back, making sure the old man didn't let go of his hand. "Shh," he said again.

"… reckless."

"Are you –?"

"What were you thinking?!"

Spike wasn't sure who Angel was talking to. "Peaches?"

This time the words were clear. "You know what could happen."

"Yeah, I'm not going to ever be the one to give you the big happy," Spike drawled. Angel tried to wrench away from him, but he kept the big vampire in bed by main force.

"Why?" he demanded angrily.

"So you don't have an excuse to be so lonely, maybe." Spike rested his chin on Angel's shoulder. "You looked at me like a kid looks at Christmas presents. I mean, you looked at _me_ like that. Don't build intimacy up into the Great Forbidden, mate. I'll just make you want it that much more."

"Are you insane?" Angel managed to pull his hand free, but didn't move out of bed. He felt too vulnerable to risk it.

"No. And I'm not going to let you drive yourself crazy, either." Spike sighed. "Yeah, souls or not, we're still vampires. You're mine. Dunno if we can ever safely share a bed. What's a little frottage between friends? But if you're going to make a life here in L.A., make it a full life."

"I don't want your pity."

"Not giving you pity. I'm giving you an object lesson, Aurelian." Spike was beginning to be irritated.

"Don't play the Master with me."

He bit down on several BDSM jokes. "You can be the Master next year. We'll take turns. Whoever is Master has to buy the booze for the family reunion." Spike let go of his grandsire, threw himself to the mattress, and stared at the ceiling. "If you want me to apologize, Angel, you have to tell me what I did to offend you."

Angel scowled. He couldn't use Angelus as an excuse; he'd had the same thought as Spike, that with their history, the blond man would never make him completely happy. He couldn't claim coercion, since he'd been a willing participant. "You caught me at a weak point."

"Better I catch you at a weak point than some petite, innocent blond. Try again."

"I planned to live like a monk."

"Well, then, I'm sorry. I don't think it's a particularly healthy lifestyle, though, as you don't have a monastery to support you."

"I meant, I planned to be celibate."

Exactly what Spike had figured. "For another hundred years? You don't have to be, mate." He lifted a hand high so that Angel could see it, forestalling any protest. "Just… something to consider." He sighed. "I am sorry, truly. I've made you uncomfortable, when I was trying to be comforting. This has been nice, the past couple of days. I didn't mean to bollix it up." Spike stared up at the ceiling some more. "When I go back to Sunnydale, I won't have this. Have to be careful not to hurt Xander or Willow if I hug them. I'll have to watch my words around Joyce. I'm a vampire, and so are you. You understand. I can be myself."

Angel listened to this confession. His anger softened; he did understand. He'd never felt free to be himself around Buffy. He never wanted to disappoint her. Spike was right; what happened between them was absolutely natural between two of their kind.

The other thing that was bothering him he could never bring up: Spike had unmanned him. He had spent completely and the blond man hadn't, not even once.

Finally, some words came. They were oblique, but they would have to do. "I know the trigger is happiness, but… intimacy is how I got to happiness. It's going to be scary for a long time. Forever, I guess. I'm not angry anymore. Just," he turned enough to spot Spike's hand and took it in his, careful to touch nothing else, "don't do that again."

"Even if you look at me like it's a hot day and I'm an ice cream cone you want to lick?"

"Shut up, Spike."

⸹

Angel walked out to the DeSoto with Spike after sunset, his hands in his coat pockets. After another restful night in the family bed and entirely normal conversation after the night's debacle, he figured he'd be glad to have the blond risk factor out of his house. Instead, he felt strangely melancholy.

Spike opened his trunk and put in the bundle of clothes and toiletries that had migrated indoors during his stay. He slammed it shut and turned to prop against a tailfin. "You keep a weather eye out, yeah? Doubt there'll be any fallout from that ambush, but you never know."

"You be careful, too. The Hellmouth's never calm for long." Angel looked down. "Thank you for taking care of her."

"As much as she'll let me – or as much as I can get away with, more likely."

"Well, you look nicer. That should help."

Spike snorted. "Was that a compliment?"

"No."

The shorter man laughed, then grew serious. "Do you know the difference between Buffy and most every other Slayer I've ever seen?" When Angel shook his head, Spike said softly, "She has friends, family. Makes her strong, Angel." He gripped his grandsire's forearm. "I'm glad I was here to help the other night. Don't turn down help when it comes."

Angel nodded, and they touched foreheads. "Drive safe."

"I will. I'll be in touch soon. And don't forget to go see Melba. She's a miracle worker."

Then his boy was gone, taking his soul and his hopes to Sunnydale. She'd be kind to him; Angel knew that much. She'd let him down the same way she'd let down Xander. Buffy would find some nice human, someone worthy of her, and Spike would make sure she got another year or two to enjoy him.

He walked to the end of the block and turned down the alley, headed to the clubs to the west, looking for trouble.

⸹

"Oh, good. Right on time, Spike."

"Wouldn't want to keep you waiting,"

Giles stared at him as he came through the apartment door. "Quite a transformation."

Spike touched his queue self-consciously. "Yeah, figured it was time to change my look."

"It'll take a bit of getting used to."

"Still don't know what to wear besides black t-shirts."

"I suppose button-downs are off the table." Giles noted that he wasn't wearing his leather duster, but it was August, after all.

Spike sat on the couch and gave the Watcher an expectant look. "Yeah, I'd rather not look all charter accountant."

Giles sat down on the other end of the couch. "Understandable. So, what's this news?"

"First, I'd like to ask you to still not tell Buffy or anyone I'm back, not just yet." He held up a hand to forestall the rejection of his request. "Wait until you hear me out before you turn me down." Spike sighed. "The reason I had to be away, and I am very sorry I wasn't here to help with the Ascension, is that I had to go and get my soul."

Giles didn't react other than to frown. "You're saying you've been cursed?"

"No," Spike said patiently. "I went to see a demon bound to a cave in Africa. If you win a series of trials, he grants you a boon. I won. He granted."

"Spike… You know I can check to see if you're telling the truth."

It wasn't the reaction he'd expected. "Fine, Watcher. Go brew up eye ointment or get your crystals to read my aura. Whatever."

"You can understand that I'm skeptical of this… claim. Why would a demon seek a soul?" He lifted an eyebrow.

Spike looked down. "I got an object lesson in why I needed to understand what is good and what is… not." When he looked up, Giles was watching him narrowly.

"You're in love with Buffy." There was jeering in his tone.

"Yeah." Good Lord, he had been obvious about it.

"And Angel had a soul, so you figured –"

"Nothing to do with Angel," Spike said precisely. "I knocked your Slayer out because… I wanted to show her something. It was an incredibly stupid and… demonic way to get her to where I wanted her." He looked down at the sofa cushion. "Only after I did that did it occur to me that it was wrong."

The outer façade of scholarly librarian was just… gone. "What did you do to her?" The words were soft and dangerous.

Spike leaned away from the human, eyebrows raised. "As I'm not a pile of dust, I obviously just sat there with her for the minute it took her to come to. I apologized." He came up off the couch, semi-crouched, and slowly moved so he was inches from the Watcher's deadly eyes. "Then I got off my arse and went to do something about that colossal stupidity. I knew right from wrong when I had my soul. I needed it again, because I know why I'm here instead of being worm food.

"I'm here to keep your Slayer alive. I don't want her calling; I don't want to fight the Big Bads for her. My purpose is to have her back so she can slay your demons. I couldn't fit into her life before. You know why she kept me away from the Mayor's boys."

Spike sank back onto the couch. "I can fit in now. And my soul is my own, not a curse."

The dangerous man inside the scholar was almost hidden again. "Stay right there."

For the next fifteen minutes, while Giles arranged his crystals and burned his candles, Spike fumed at the injustice of it, while his soul soothed him, reminding him that he should be glad she had a Watcher that didn't take chances. When the candles guttered and blew out, seemingly by themselves, he glared at Giles. "Happy?"

"I won't apologize. I won't take chances, not where Buffy is concerned." The human sat down abruptly in an easy chair. "You said you faced trials? What trials?"

Spike shrugged angrily. "Fights, mostly. Went on for about a week."

"You could have asked for anything."

"It's a demon, not a god or and Old One. I couldn't ask for England to win another World Cup or anything. But, within reason, yeah."

Giles was at a loss. He put his face in his hands for a moment. "I can't tell you what a shit year this has been. _Annus horribilis_. I had to – I chose to betray Buffy, I lost my job, my access to Council assistance and knowledge. I couldn't do anything for Faith. I had to watch a wet-behind-the-ears git dither about, could do nothing when the Council sent in its wetworks team. I blew up the school where I worked, Spike. I used explosives to blow up a school, with humans around everywhere. I feel utterly useless since Buffy's starting college.

"And you waltz in, bloody casual, and have your soul. A demon, who went and got his soul on purpose, so he could help the Slayer. Huh."

"Sorry to add to your troubles, Watcher."

"Add to – Spike, you just salvaged this rubbish year. A demon chose good." He sat straight up, staring at the vampire. "I saw an angel."

"Uh," Spike said, beginning to be concerned, "still a vampire. Not an angel. Or do you mean Angel?" He waved his hand around his head to indicate hair product.

"No, you berk. The day you wrote that letter to Buffy, there was an angel behind you."

Dark blue eyes narrowed. "No one made me do anything."

"No! That's the point." Giles stood up and paced away. "You chose good. Demons don't have free will. No wonder there was an angel there; I'm surprised there weren't more. Or-or maybe there were, and I just couldn't see –"

Spike was across the room to Giles, clawed fingers digging into his arms, yellow eyes glaring at him. "I am not some cosmic toss of the die for the Powers That Be," he snarled. "I made a decision; I paid a price. It worked out. There is no greater meaning, no destiny, no fulfilled prophecies."

"You can deny it all you want, Spike," Giles said evenly. "It means something."

He lost the fangs and let go of the Watcher, turning away. "It means she can trust me," he said tiredly, "that's all." Spike let out a sigh. "You wouldn't happen to have any more of that Scotch?"

They didn't speak again until they were seated at the little kitchen table, drinks in hand. Spike stared morosely into his glass as Giles studied him.

"You said you needed my help with some books?"

"Yeah, that and one other thing." Spike took a sip and swirled the Scotch. "Figured the Council would have come crawling to get you back by now, so it may not be something you can help with. I need ID. The Council probably could have pulled strings. I was hoping for a nice, red passport, even."

Giles' eyes narrowed for a minute, then he leaned back to grab a pen and magnetized pad of paper from the refrigerator. "I know the people who do paperwork for the Council. I think I can get you set up. What name do you want?"

Spike thought quietly for about half a minute. "William Henry Allgood," he said finally, a hoarseness to his voice.

Giles jotted it down beneath the printed logo 'Shopping List.' "Did I get the spelling right?" When Spike nodded, he asked kindly, "Is it your real name?"

"Close enough. Henry was my father's name." He shrugged.

"Birth date?"

"April… the twentieth." He sounded surprised to be able to remember it.

"How old are you? What do you want for the year, I mean?"

"Twenty-seven. Well, I'd just turned twenty-eight when Drusilla bagged me." He watched Giles write, then added, "Uh, I'm wadded up. Just let me know how much."

"Twenty thousand American." He looked up at Spike and gave a sheepish grin, but didn't explain his familiarity with the price.

"Worth it," Spike said shortly. He changed the subject to his ostensible reason for stopping by, the books in the Master's private chamber. "Uh, you up for a trip underground?"

"The books are underground?" The librarian was understandably worried.

"In a cave. Protected." Spike tilted back his glass and let the last of the Scotch burn its way down his throat. "It's the Master's collection. I thought you'd be the safest person to have them."

"The Master's… Books about the Old Ones?"

Spike nodded. "A lot of them. Keep them, destroy them, dispose of them, whatever you think best. You think Xander would want to come along?" He wouldn't mind seeing the boy.

"He's working these days. His judo instructor runs a construction company. Xander just wanted to get money for a new set of tires for his car, but it's turned into a fulltime job. He really impressed his boss."

"'Course he did. Well, as long as you're up for some manual labor yourself."

Giles found a bookbag for himself and a duffel for Spike to carry, and they took off toward the remnants of the high school in the DeSoto. Giles made comments on two separate occasions that a soul apparently had no effect on driving skill.

Several earthquakes and the explosion in the school had made the way to the old underground church more treacherous, but they made it through the rubble in a little more than an hour. Giles marveled at the tar-black magicks that still roiled the surface over the opening of the Master's long-time home.

Spike hesitated. He'd braved the wards once before, coming back with the notes that revealed the location of the Judge's various parts, but that had been before he had the soul. Still, he was fairly sure what the Master had been seeking all those years, and it couldn't be coincidence that his attention kept returning to the New World. With a small sigh, he sat on the lip of the abyss and dropped his legs into the icy blackness. At the very least, he and Giles could get some dangerous books to a safe place.

Going through was easier with his soul, Spike was glad to find. The dark images fled from its light. He'd brought a lantern down with him and was pleased to see that nothing had changed. Spike loaded the bookbag four times and tugged on the chain so that Giles could haul them up. One more load should do it.

While he waited for the bookbag to drop down again, he ran his fingers underneath the shelves, then looked beneath the desk. He almost missed it, surely would have if not for the bright, steady light of the lantern.

The Master had nailed a thin veneer onto the bottom back of the desk. Spike pried at it, and a single page of notes slid onto the stone floor. "Hullo," he said. It was a column of letters and numbers. The blond vampire smiled. He had a feeling that he wouldn't have to read entire books, just the specific pages noted for these abbreviated titles.

Giles dropped the bookbag down, and Spike pocketed the handwritten notes and finished packing the collection. He looked around at the barren little cell as he waited for the chain to descend a final time, feeling sympathy for the emptiness of the Master's life. He knew which part of him that came from.

The Watcher was breathing hard by the time Spike was high enough to pull himself the rest of the way from the hole. They squeezed their way through the narrow passages into the main tunnel and were back at Giles' apartment before two o'clock.

"As much as I'd like to tackle these, I'm just too tired." Giles took off his glasses and squinted at Spike. "Do you have a place to stay?"

"Thought I'd check into a hotel." Spike looked down at the open duffel bag. "I, uh, I'm not sleepy. If the light won't bother you, I'll sort these books before I go. You want them by language or topic?"

"Oh. That's kind of you. Language, if you please, unless they're mostly just Latin or something. The light doesn't bother me, but noise does."

"I'll keep a lid on it. And thank you for going to get these."

Giles shrugged. He'd managed to keep his interest in this new Spike under control, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. "Good night… William."

The vampire glared at him. "It's Spike."

"Of course," the Watcher replied in a maddeningly condescending tone. He turned to the stairs and lifted a hand in farewell so quickly that Spike almost missed his grin.

Spike took out the Master's parchment from his pocket and sat down on the floor next to the duffel bag of books. He put the list of notes on the coffee table and pulled out the first one, a greasy-feeling leather-bound tome that sent a prickle of magic chasing across his knuckles. The next few hours of study were rewarding beyond anything he expected.

'Valley of the sun' and other flowery language aside, he was pretty sure he knew the location of the crypt. It wasn't far from where he'd knocked out Buffy, in fact. There was no cemetery there, just the park. He itched to be out, but he was trapped until the sun went down.

Spike paced the downstairs of the apartment, barely noting Giles' soft snores from upstairs, automatically skirting the areas where morning light fell through the windows. If the Gem of Amara did what the legends said, if it was really here… Maybe he could take his lady to the beach on a sunny Saturday.

They could do everything together, night or day. She wanted to travel; he could tell from the wistful way she asked about the places he'd been. I could fly in an airplane, he thought, coming to a standstill in the hallway, a smile of wonder on his face. Paris, Rome, and Tokyo, she'd said, and Buffy would love London, too, he knew she would.

We can't afford that, a polite, regretful voice said. And, gruff and weary, another voice added, Don't count your chickens. Have to find it first, see if it works.

Right. No different than buying a lottery ticket; all you really have is a piece of paper unless the numbers fall your way.

If he was guessing, the park at the end of Valle del Sol Avenue was twenty-five to thirty acres, not terrifically large, but he couldn't just go poking around with a shovel and not attract attention. Spike wandered into the kitchen and got the pad of paper from Giles' refrigerator. He leaned against the counter and tapped the top sheet a couple of times with the pen, jotted down a couple of thoughts. Then Spike paced some more.

When Giles woke up at nine-thirty, he found his guest asleep on the couch. He took a throw from the linen closet and drew it over his fellow Brit, then went around drawing curtains and shutting blinds. When he came back, he checked the neat stacks of books, even started to take one, but the way his skin crawled when his fingers hovered over it made Giles change his mind. Last night he'd worn gloves and hadn't noticed so much. Maybe after breakfast.

He popped a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and put on the kettle before he saw he'd left his grocery list on the table. Then he realized it wasn't his writing on the top sheet. Giles put on his glasses and read over Spike's notes: Metal detector? Ground penetrating radar? Shovel, pick, wheelbarrow, work gloves. 3-4 veil spells, Magic Box.

Giles lifted an eyebrow. Obviously, Spike planned to dig something up, once he found it. Another cache of books? And if he was going to set up a veil, he didn't want to be seen – though he hadn't bothered to hide it here. Something dangerous, then.

He looked through the open area to the couch. All he could see of Spike was a covered shoulder. Behind him, his toast popped up from the little appliance. Giles puttered around the little kitchen, finishing with breakfast, then cleaning up. By the time everything was back in order, he'd decided what to do.

⸹

The sound of a door opening woke Spike, and he sat up, groggy, not sure where he was. He immediately regretted the motion, wincing against the brightness.

"Hey! Look at you," Xander boomed, grinning at him and quickly shutting out the sunlight. "No more Captain Peroxide."

"X-man," Spike said, blinking, grateful for the absence of afternoon sunlight.

Xander came around the couch and took him in a tight hug. "Good to see you, man. Giles says you've been all the way to Africa."

Spike returned the hug. "Giles says you're gainfully employed these days."

"Giles says, have a coffee," Giles said, leaning past Xander to offer a large, lidded cup.

"Giles says the nicest things," Spike murmured. He held up a finger and took a sip, found the coffee to be cool enough, and drank half of it down. "Ah, that's better." He pulled the throw off his legs – where had that come from? – and patted the cushion. "Have a seat."

"Better not. Just got off work." He indicated his dusty clothes and sat on the coffee table. Xander was immediately off the coffee table, shivering. "Yeesh," he said, looking at the piles of books he'd brushed against, "that was creepy. Those the books you guys got last night?"

"Supper's on," Giles called from kitchen, effectively distracting Xander, who turned to the kitchen.

"We stopped for Chinese," he explained over his shoulder. Spike trailed after him, finishing the rest of the coffee. He wondered if this is how Angel had felt when he disrupted his quiet solitude.

Giles directed the conversation Xander's way, and the young man did most of the talking between forkfuls of General Tso's chicken, telling Spike about prom, graduation, and the Ascension, then about how patrols had been intense over the summer. He finished up explaining how a temporary job to pay for new tires for the Charger ended up becoming permanent. "Alvin – that's my boss – said that if he gets another bid, he'll make me site manager. That's like, terrifying, but I'd be making forty large."

Awake now and genuinely happy for the boy, Spike lifted a carton of shrimp fried rice in salute. "Good on you, mate." He nodded toward the Watcher. "He said you met your boss at a judo class?"

"Yeah, I test for my orange belt a couple of Saturdays from now. Alvin's instructor gives the test, over in Dutton."

"That's just neat."

"Giles said you had some news, too." Xander had finished his food. He picked up a fortune cookie and looked at Spike expectantly.

After Giles' reaction, he felt shy about telling the story, but the Watcher helped him along. At the end, Xander was nodding.

"You remember that conversation we had in the library? I think it was the last time I saw you before you left. I'm not surprised. I saw the look on your face when you talked about Buffy and mortality." Any cosmic meaning connected to a demon choosing a soul wasn't a consideration for him.

"I'm in love with her." Spike's words were soft, and he grimaced after saying them.

Xander put a hand across the table. "Welcome to the club. Membership: anyone who's ever met Buffy. We don't have meetings, but we don't ask for dues, either."

The vampire grinned and gave the boy's fingers a perfunctory shake. "I guess it only seems embarrassing to me because she's supposed to be my moral enemy."

"Well, when you see her, don't be surprised by a few tears. She's been afraid you wouldn't come back. As in, dust."

Spike looked startled, then guilty. "Should have talked to her once I started back," he said, voice gruff.

Giles moved aside some napkins and grabbed the notes he'd found to hand to Spike. He swallowed hastily and said, "I hope you don't mind, but I saw your list. I got the supplies this afternoon while you slept, and you did want Xander with us last night, so…."

Spike gawped at him. "You…" He looked down and bit his lip, then tried for impressed rather than touched. Buffy had worried for him; Xander was glad to see him; Giles was helping him. He deserved none of this. He cleared his throat. "How on earth did you find ground-penetrating radar?"

Xander shrugged. "Alvin uses it to inspect buildings for damage after earthquakes. It's, like, a thirty thousand dollar piece of equipment, so we have to be careful. I've got a company truck, too, and I'm more worried about that, to be honest."

"Xander borrowed it for the weekend, to help Buffy and Willow move into their dorm rooms."

"Rooms? They're not rooming together?"

"Didn't work out," Xander said. "Maybe next semester." Then he turned to Giles and grinned. "I'll be moving this weekend, too. I just signed the lease."

"You got the apartment? That's wonderful, Xander."

"It's time. I'm ready. My mom taught me how to order takeout and not take care of the house, so I'm good."

"Congratulations," Spike echoed. He wondered if Giles had changed the topic to give him a chance to regain his composure. Both of his companions were looking at him, so he thought he might as well give them a chance to opt out.

"Dunno if you really want to help with this." He explained that the Master had been seeking a legendary relic as far back as he could remember, and why he hoped to find it now.

Giles got it right away. "You'd be invulnerable." He didn't look happy.

Spike nodded, but before he could say anything, Xander said, "He could have asked for that after the trials."

The vampire sent him a grateful look. "I don't need it, but I won't lie. Every vampire fantasizes about being able to walk in sunlight again."

"Daywalker," Xander intoned.

"When are you going to tell Buffy, about any of this?" Giles let out a sigh. "I'd feel much better if she knew."

Xander gave Spike a sympathetic look and turned to the Watcher. "Spike didn't get a new 'do for the Slayer, Giles. He got it for Buffy."

"You're feeling shy?"

"A little," Spike replied defensively.

"Oh, good Lord," Giles said. He stood up and began clearing the table. "It's almost dark. Let's go and see what we find."

The park closed at ten, but the lot was already empty by the time Xander drove the crew cab pickup over the curb and onto the grass. Spike pointed toward the manhole cover he'd found. "Let's start there." Giles started the first veiling candle, and they got a hit the first area they tried.

"And it's supposed to be a crypt?" Giles asked as they huddled around the black-and-white-screen, looking at a rectangular shape that fit the description.

"In Sunnydale, what else would it be?" Xander offered. Then he grimaced. "We'd have to bring in an excavator to get to it."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Let's try another way." He paced off the distance and opened the sewer access while the humans gathered equipment from the back of the truck. Thirty disappointing minutes later, Xander laid the metal detector over his shoulder like an axe. "I don't think this is going to find anything," he said, dejected, and started to walk toward the ladder that led back to the surface.

The metal detector let out a long beep, then went silent.

Xander stopped and turned around, and they all looked up at the ceiling.

"Walk back just a bit," Giles directed.

 _Beeeep._

Giles glanced down the length of the tunnel toward the entrance, estimating how many yards underground they were. "It couldn't be more than a couple of feet above us."

They grinned at each other. "What now?" Xander asked.

After another trip to the truck, Spike went up a ladder with a pickaxe. All of them were wearing safety glasses, at Xander's insistence. The humans, also wearing hardhats and handkerchiefs over their faces, braced the ladder, a veiling candle burning on either side on the tunnel floor. Even with vampire strength, it took twenty minutes before the ax hit something other than rock or dirt, and the lantern light was dim from all of the dust in the air.

"That's metal," Xander said, sounding muffled beneath the cloth. Spike chipped some more rock away, trying to clear a width equal to his shoulders. He went up another step and rapped on it.

Xander bent over to examine some of the rock. "I'd say this was poor quality cement, except it's probably just really old adobe or something."

"I'd say it's a crypt," Giles said softly. He took off his glasses and wiped the dust from them.

Spike pulled his t-shirt up to cover his face so he could get some air to talk. "You wouldn't happen to have any welding equipment to go with those tanks I saw in the back of the truck, would you?"

Xander shrugged. "Let's go find out."

"And get some fresh air," Giles added gratefully.

As they came out of the access hatch, Spike leaned down and asked Giles quietly, "Got a stake?" He took the wooden weapon and was gone, fast and soundless. "Three vampires at the shelter by the car park," he reported.

It was almost one o'clock now, and the incursion of demons into this out-of-the-way park sobered the company. Spike went back up the ladder and used the torch to heat the metal and begin making a hatch. The humans stood back from the dangerous process, Xander musing on the happenstance of oxy-fuel cutting supplies being in the truck just when they needed it.

The torch guttered about five minutes before Spike figured he would be through. He made an impatient sound and dropped down the ladder.

"Dry," Xander confirmed, checking the tanks. "Spike, your arm!" There was a nasty burn on his forearm.

"Drip." He tilted the welding helmet. "What time is it?"

"Twenty till three," Giles said, checking his watch.

Spike grimaced. "We can't leave it like this. Tell your boss I'll owe him a pair of welding gloves." He dropped the helmet back in place, groped around for the ladder, and went back up. Bracing himself, he grabbed the sides of the metal piece that had sagged downward and began wrenching at the hot material. Spike made a guttural sound, took another breath, and twisted, pulling himself up to add the weight of his body to the metal. It gave, reluctantly, and he forced it to one side of the opening.

Spike dropped down to ground and cradled his hands for a moment. Xander helped him out of the welding helmet, and Giles helped him peel away the gloves. "Give me a minute or two," he gritted out.

Giles nodded and took a flashlight from the pile of equipment on the floor. He nodded to Xander, who braced the ladder, and the Watcher climbed up, craning to see what was above them. After a moment, he came down. "I can't see anything, I'm afraid." Xander tried, too, with no more success.

"Right," Spike said. He pulled the gloves back on and went up. He put his hands on the edge of the opening he'd made and pulled himself up, promptly bashing his head. "Ow."

Xander grabbed the ladder as it swayed. "Easy, there."

"Something's blocking the opening," Spike explained. "Let me see if I can," he pushed on it, "shove it," another push, and Giles added his strength to holding the ladder, "out of the way." This final push did it. Spike grabbed the edges again and pulled himself up.

The two humans watched his combat boots disappear into the darkness. He thrust an arm back down. "Lantern? Torch?" Giles gave him his flashlight.

Xander managed to wait ten seconds. "Well?"

"Right place, I think."

"Some details?" Giles asked, exasperated.

"Uh, you guys'll have to come up. Wait a moment." There was a scraping noise, then Spike began stomping the still-warm metal, pummeling the edges to widen the opening. After a minute or so, he was satisfied, and dropped back into the tunnel.

"Gentlemen," he said, grinning at them, apparently feeling no pain from his burns, "when I was Xander's age, I wanted to be an archaeologist. Admittedly, there was no such profession back then, but historians did dig up ruins from time to time. I wanted to be the one who found Troy.

"This isn't Troy, and it might not be more than grave robbing, really. But I want to suggest a business proposition before we all go up. I'm in need of a profession, and while I have an idea for one, I'm in need of your expertise.

"I find the treasure and provide security." He turned to Xander. "You provide logistics, get us inside." Spike faced Giles. "You provide the assessment, so we don't let something dangerous onto the market. Outside of the gem, we split everything three ways. Deal?"

Xander had gone back to one word. "Treasure?"

Spike grinned and nodded. "Deal?"

"Deal!" Xander shook his hand.

"I find my life as a gentleman of leisure has become rather wearing," Giles announced. "Deal." He shook, too.

Grin still on his face, Spike went back up the ladder and into the opening. "Hand me that lantern… and come on up. Mind the metal; it's still warm."

The three of them crowded into the crypt, open-mouthed at the splendor. Giles saw that it was a bier that Spike had bumped his head on and subsequently shoved out of the way.

"Wow," Xander breathed.

"Is that the gem, do you think?" Giles asked, gesturing at a large, gaudy jewel worn on a chain around the neck of the demon corpse.

"I hope not," Spike said, revolted.

"We need to get this out of here," Giles said, gesturing around. "We don't have much time before sunrise."

The fear of being caught, of losing treasure to authorities or someone else, got them moving faster than anything else could. They set up a firemen's brigade, passing things golden and bejeweled down the ladder. Spike found an ornate cross, rolled his eyes, and snatched the necklace from the corpse. The bones collapsed as it pulled free and he grimaced. He put the heavy chain over his head and reached for the cross. Oww. Good then. He dropped the chain down to Giles.

A few things tingled under his hand as he took them up, and these he put in a pile near the hatch. Each time he found a likely piece of jewelry, he tried it on and brushed against the cross. Spike had at least a dozen more burn marks when he took up a fairly simple ring, popped it on up to the second knuckle, touched the crucifix, and… did not burn.

He let out a breath and a smile flitted across his face. He picked up the cross and hefted it in his palm. It was no more harmful to him than it would be to a human. Spike lowered the cross down to Giles, who looked up in surprise when he realized what the object was. Spike held out his hand so the Watcher could see the ring. The neutral expression didn't change, but Giles nodded.

Spike put the ring in the front pocket of his jeans. Without having to stop periodically to experiment, the process went faster. Twenty minutes later, Xander traded places with Spike to double-check that the crypt was cleared of all valuables while Spike put the magically-questionable items in a five-gallon bucket. By the time he and Xander clambered back into the tunnel, he'd checked his pocket five times, so he just found a finger where the ring fit and wore it. Grunting, Spike pushed the weakened metal flap back over the hatch and used the shovel to distribute the rubble along the tunnel floor. There was no hiding the opening, but there were already broken tiles throughout the sewer system.

After five trips to the ladder and ten trips to the truck, the three had fallen silent. Xander made sure everything that belonged to his company was stowed back in the truck, while Spike and Giles piled buckets, backpacks, the duffel, and a knotted-up tarp into the back part of the crew cab. Before Spike took up the veiling candle, he checked carefully around the park with all his senses. He snuffed it out, then thumped on the bonnet of the pickup to signal 'go' for no other reason than he had always wanted to.

Even though Xander went through the drive-through of a donut shop, it was still before dawn when the three treasure hunters stood around a pile of loot that took up most of Giles' living room floor. Spike had moved the coffee table, Xander scooted the couch back, and Giles laid a sheet on the floor. Everything they'd taken was spilled over the sheet, except the bucket of suspect items and the Gem of Amara.

"How much do you think this is worth?" Xander asked. He took a sip of coffee.

"I'm no expert," Giles said. "As far as we know, this has been sealed up for at least four hundred years, so there's historical value…" He trailed off. "A lot. It's worth a lot."

Spike tied his hair back. It had been full of dust, so he'd washed it quickly beneath the faucet in Giles' tub. Now he finished off the last of a powdered donut, brushed the sugar from his black shirt, and took a sip of his own coffee. "Gentlemen," he said, raising his cup toward them, "I had the Master's roadmap to this, but I know of two other small stashes in Sunnydale, a half-dozen treasures at least this large in North America, and in Europe… I can't really remember. Thirty? More?" He smiled. "Here's to the beginning of a successful business."

They toasted. Three minutes later, Xander was wearing several pieces of gaudy jewelry, including the heavy necklace from the demon's corpse. Spike was letting gold coins drip through his fingers. Giles was examining the Gem of Amara, trying to determine if the green gem was an enchanted emerald or something else entirely. They were all smiling and giddy, as Spike explained why treasure caches were just a backdrop for demons, who needed caves rather than money.

Xander gestured for the ring and put it on his finger. He pulled out a pocketknife and poked his thumb. "Ouch," he said, as a ruby drop of blood bloomed on his skin. "Doesn't work for humans, apparently." He took it off and gave it to Giles.

When the Watcher handed the ring back to Spike, he murmured, "Do be careful with that." Spike nodded and squeezed the human's fingers, grateful for his trust.

He put the ring on his hand and picked up the cross again, marveling at the lack of harm. It was so small, though. How many pieces of jewelry had he lost over the course of his existence? None as important as this, granted, but… If some demon saw it and knew what it was, well, not likely they could just take it from him… but what if they did? Did the gem protect against possession or mind-altering spells? The happiness he'd had the previous night, when it was just an unlikely dream, was gone, replaced by anxiety.

Spike stood up from the couch, doffed his shirt, and strode to the chest where Giles kept his good weapons. He found the round-headed mace he was looking for and took a breath. The other two had fallen silent, puzzled looks on their faces. Spike lifted the mace and slammed it into his torso. Their puzzlement turned to shock. The vampire staggered and dropped.

Xander was beside him. "Jeez, Spike, if you're going to test it, at least remember to put it on."

Spike dropped the mace back into the chest and grabbed a dagger. Xander leaned away from him warily, and Spike stabbed himself in the chest, beneath his sternum. He let out a hiss of pain, then jerked the blade sideways. Xander stumbled away from him.

"Oh, man. Spike, just… stop."

"It's all right, Xander." Giles had figured it out.

His face a mask of pain, Spike pushed aside flesh and muscle until he felt the ribs he'd broken with the mace. With an agonized cry, he pried the pieces of his first true rib apart and, with his other hand, slid the ring onto the bone. Then he lay on the floor beside the chest, pulling in hitching breaths and trying to master the pain.

Giles stepped to the kitchen and came back with a quart of butcher's blood he'd bought during the day, along with a roll of paper towels. Spike nodded his thanks and choked down the cold, revolting stuff. The Watcher took the dagger from him and cleaned the blade, then pressed more of the paper towels onto the wound.

"Okay," Xander said, "I get why you did what you did, but I would love to have had the opportunity to not see that."

"That was actually a very good idea," the Watcher said, his voice calm. "No one will ever see you wearing the gem. Drink some more."

Spike wrinkled his nose. "Pig's blood, my favorite, how did you know?" He swallowed the rest. The wound meshed together and some of the burns retreated, but the ribs would take a while, at least until he could get out to feed. He beckoned to the lad. Xander took off the jewels he was wearing and sat down cross-legged.

"Right, then. Both of you mark where this is –"

"Like I could ever forget."

"If anything gets to me, gets in my head or possesses me, you know where it is so you can get it out, stop me, yeah?"

"You'll tell Buffy, of course?"

"'Course."

"Do you think anything can possess you, while you're wearing it?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if it'll work like this." Spike gestured to the elaborate cross on the pile of loot, and Xander handed it to him. Nothing happened. "Well, that's good."

Giles gave him a gentle look. "Are you ready for the real test?" The vampire couldn't manage to reply to that question, so he just nodded. Giles stood and helped him to his feet, Xander scrambling up on his own, and supported him to the door.

The younger man opened it, then went to the pickup and swung the tailgate down. He helped Giles get Spike seated, then went back for their coffee, and to close the door. Wouldn't want any nosy neighbors to get an eyeful. "Here you go," Xander said, handing the throw he'd scooped up from the couch to Spike. "Figured you might want a security blanket." The vampire snorted, but he took the throw.

The sun was still behind the low mountains of the Transverse Ranges, but its light was clearly visible. As the red edge of the sun topped the horizon, Spike started breathing. The first golden rays of the day spilled over Southern California. Spike held up his hand to shield his eyes. No smoke rose from his fingers. He stared at it, at the light, looked around so he could see his friends' faces in sunlight.

Giles still had a clean paper towel in his hand, so he handed it to Spike. The vampire realized for the first time that tears were running ceaselessly down his face.

"It's beautiful," he whispered.

Xander dashed at his own eyes, and put his arm around Spike. "Welcome to the human race."

"Good to be here."

After five minutes, Giles hopped off the tailgate, wincing when he landed. "Come on, both of you." Xander and Spike followed, the latter reluctantly. "Xander, I know you're supposed to help Willow and Buffy move this afternoon. You need to get some sleep if you want to be worth anything. You too, Spike. If you don't mind sharing the bed, go on upstairs and sleep." He looked at the vampire severely. "Clean that blood off your chest first."

"What about you, Giles?" Xander asked.

"I'm not sleepy. I'll abscond with the treasure, er, I mean, catalog it."

Xander grinned. "Ha ha." He grew serious. "Really, you aren't sleepy?"

"I want about fifty books I don't have, just to get some sense of what all this is," he gestured at the pile of treasure on his living room floor, "and on top of that, I have some extremely dangerous books in my home that I haven't even evaluated. I'm going to make some tea and have a look at some of it, at least."

"I don't think I can sleep," Xander said, but he went upstairs anyway. Spike, returning from the bathroom with a clean torso, trudged after him. Both were asleep in minutes.

Left to his own devices, Giles dropped onto the couch with his teacup and stared at the gleam of gold and glint of jewels in front of him. Then he got a pair of white cotton gloves and took the top tome from the leftmost pile of the Master's books. He began to examine it.

⸹

When Spike woke, Xander was gone. He looked downstairs and saw Giles on the phone. Must have been what woke me, he thought. He made for the kitchen and found everything he needed for tea on the counter. There was a mug in the cupboard with the imprint 'Kiss the Librarian.' "Heh."

The librarian in question came into the kitchen a few minutes later. "Well," he said, leaning against the counter and grinning happily, "something altogether nice and inconvenient just happened. I have a friend coming to visit."

"A 'friend?'" Spike asked, raising a brow.

"Yes. Olivia."

"Olivia," Spike repeated, drawing out all the syllables.

"Yes… William."

"Good on you… Rupert."

"Come into the living room and tell me what you think of my plan." While his partners slept, Giles had researched a few of the larger pieces, sorted out the coins, and separated the loose jewels from the mounted pieces. He suggested that they try to sell the monstrosity of a necklace and the ornate cross first, as well as the coins and loose gems, which would be easier to liquidate. When Spike asked where they would sell them, Giles looked away and muttered, "EBay."

He didn't have a better plan and thought it all sounded reasonable. Spike was halfway through his tea when he noticed the books on the coffee table were in a different configuration. When he asked about those, Giles became grim.

"I haven't found one yet that I'm comfortable selling or passing along to the Council. Not that I'm certain any of the summonings would work, but why take chances? I have some ritual fires that will destroy them, I think." He gestured to the smallest stack. "Those I have seen or heard of, so they're probably the least dangerous."

"I have no problem with your destroying all of them. The last thing Sunnydale needs is a couple of Old Ones setting up shop."

"I think it's interesting that the gem you're hiding is mentioned in books about the Old Ones," Giles commented. "There's one legend that says it's a teardrop from an Old One."

"Yeah, I saw that. I can't imagine what would make an Old One cry."

"Allergies?"

"Onions?"

"Oh, I have an errand list for you." Giles found it on the floor beside the couch.

The blond man looked at the list, which was mostly books. "I'll break into the library tonight."

"Or you could just take my card and go now," Giles suggested.

He drew his brows together at this suggestion, then his expression changed to a grin. Spike snorted. "Oh. Yeah, I guess I could." He finished his tea and nodded to the Watcher. "You ready to hot rack?" At the blank look, he elaborated. "Your turn in the berth, which I did not actually leave warm for you."

"Ah. I am tired."

"Got to rest up for Olivia."

Giles smirked. "I suppose I should." He left Spike laughing in the living room.

⸹

"So, how do you like –" Buffy said heartily, opening the door to her dorm room and looking around. She went on in a normal tone. "Oh, good, she isn't here." The Slayer pulled her door wide so Willow could come in. "I don't know if I like my roommate."

Willow's eyes had fixed on the Backstreet Boys poster Kathy had put up. "Uh, yeah. Maybe I could donate a Dingoes flyer? You could put it up on your side of the room."

"I'll take it," Buffy agreed. She closed the door. "Thanks for coming by. I know tomorrow is going to be just as busy, but Xander said I needed to talk to you."

"He did?" Willow said, clearly feeling guilty.

"He said you've been worried I wouldn't actually attend the joy that is college."

"I was, a little," Willow admitted. She sat on Buffy's bed. "But you're here now. And once you have classes, I know you'll be all stimulated intellectually, and then after a couple of weeks, it'll all be familiar and better. You'll see."

Buffy grinned a little at the Willow-babble and sat beside her. "I know I will. But I was always coming to college. There's been something else on my mind." Impulsively, she gave Willow a little hug. "Sleepover? Not for the whole night, but for a little while? I should have told you what's been making me blue before now."

In a minute, they had the overhead light out and a lamp on, their shoes off, and were lying face to face, like a hundred other times when they'd slept over at each other's houses. The setting did make it seem odd, though.

When Buffy didn't say anything, Willow started. "You've been really quiet."

"I think… thought Spike was dead."

"Oh, no!" Willow's brows drew together. "Why do you think that?"

"I… This is kind of a long story. You know most of it, but I left out some things." Buffy closed her eyes for a moment. "You know how Spike drove us to L.A. after I killed Angel? He lost Drusilla, too, and he was suicidal for a while. I didn't want to see my Dad, neither of us wanted to be alone. We stayed at this sad little motel for a few days before splitting up."

Willow put a reassuring hand on her arm. "You could have told me this. I'm not judgey."

"There's one kind of weird thing that happened there, and one kind of personal thing." Buffy took a breath and told Willow how she'd told Spike that he might be a vampire, but he was also a good man, of the kiss they shared, how it was like a mental bond snapped in place between them.

"Like telepathy?"

"Sort of? I don't know. So, we stayed a few days, then I told him that I was going to my Dad's, which I didn't, but before we left, he told me to call on him if I needed him. Remember, I was still worried that he would walk out in the sun, so I thought maybe that would give him a reason not to. We established what he called a mindlink. We shared blood, just a tiny amount."

Willow looked worried and horrified, but only said, "What does that do?"

"Telepathy on steroids. You remember how I told you we'd go get coffee? We meet at, like, a mental version of the diner; it's neutral ground, I guess. It's like we're sitting in a booth across from each other." She dropped her eyes. "When Angel came back, that's the first time I called on him. I just couldn't tell you guys. Angelus, torture, Miss Calendar… Spike was at the bottom of South America, like Argentina, and he heard me and came back."

"Wow. Argentina."

"I tried to get in touch with him this summer, a few weeks after graduation. There was… nothing. No connection."

Willow had a slight frown. "So if you could talk telepathically all the way to Argentina, but then you couldn't reach him this summer… That's why you're afraid he's dead." She processed this a moment, then met Buffy's eyes, tears glistening in her own. "Oh." After a moment, her natural optimism came to the fore. "But he's all the way on the other side of the planet, right? That's a lot more mass between you, magnetic fields, other things that might block," her surety wavered, "a magical connection."

"That's kind of what Xander said. I shouldn't give up."

"Is that the only time you tried?" When Buffy shook her head, Willow reached out and put her hand on the Slayer's shoulder. "He's really strong, Buffy. Remember how he went up the side of the wall that awful night in the library?"

She nodded. "I know. He's the strongest vampire I've ever met. I mean, the Master killed me and everything, but he couldn't beat me in a fair fight. Spike might. I mean, if we ever fought again."

Willow had seen the misery just under the surface. "He'll be back," she said staunchly. "I mean, he has to. He's too special to just be dust." She thought carefully about her next words, knowing that any mention of Angel was taking steps into a minefield. "He got to be our friend without a soul, you know? He's… definitely the nicest vampire I've ever met."

"I wish I'd met him before I met Angel," Buffy said. Her voice was low and fierce.

Willow wasn't quite sure she'd heard right, but she knew Buffy wouldn't repeat those words. Was she saying she wished she'd fallen in love with Spike instead? Willow started to say something about Drusilla, but stopped herself when Buffy wiped at her eyes. She reached out again and stroked her friend's blond hair, intuitively knowing that there was more to the story than Buffy had shared. "Buf…" she began hesitantly, just as the door opened.

Kathy turned on the light. "Oh! Hey, roomie. And hey, Buffy's friend."

⸹

For the next few days, Spike felt like a kite with a stiff wind behind it. He got a computer over the weekend and set up the bones of their e-commerce business, which he unilaterally named Colinvaux Sales Agents. Willow had already forced Giles to pay for Internet access. On Monday, Giles drove to Dutton and set up a company bank account at a national chain, not trusting any bank in Sunnydale. By Monday night, they had their first sale. Spike translated their listings into Spanish, French, and nine other languages.

Every item that hadn't been boxed up and hidden in preparation for Olivia's visit sold, most of it on the international market. Giles suspected that the Catholic Church was the buyer for both the ornate cross and the gaudy necklace.

Spike and Xander raided both of the minor troves in Sunnydale that the vampire knew about the next night. The lad reminded him again that Buffy needed to know he was back. Spike replied that she should at least get her first day of classes in before he showed up.

By the next afternoon, Spike was able to walk in sunlight without flinching and had scrubbed the lampblack off the DeSoto's windows. When Giles handed him an envelope without comment, and he opened it to find a British passport, a green card, and a California drivers' license, Spike knew he was out of excuses.

He drove his car to Los Angeles and left a note on the dashboard explaining where it had been stolen. He walked into a Bentley dealership and bought an Azure convertible. Spike drove back in daylight, the top down, his hair tied back with a strip of black leather and sunglasses perched on his nose. He passed signs for Elmwood and Dutton, and spotted the single sign for the Sunnydale turnoff. For miles, he'd had a quote stuck in his head: 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'

It was time.

It was past time.

⸹

[Author's Note: Buffy finds out her vampire is still among the undead. Sexual content ensues.]

⸹

Buffy's arm still hurt. The vampires she'd faced last night had scared her. The Slayer had turned and ran, but here she was, walking on campus the next day as if there was nothing she couldn't face.

She felt like she'd faced everything since last spring. Angel was gone to Los Angeles. Spike was completely gone, just face it; when she'd tried to contact him in June and hadn't even been able to get to the Sit N Bull, she'd known he was dead. Her high school was gone. Her group of friends from high school was scattered. Giles and her mother were too busy for her. Her father was in Spain. College was overwhelming. Even her mojo was gone. She'd failed Eddie, the one friend she'd almost made, unable to protect him from vampires.

"Buffy!"

"Parker?" She turned to see him sitting on a bench, an open bookbag at his feet. He waved her over. "Hey."

"You on your way to class?"

She shrugged. What was the point of classes? Buffy sat down on the bench and gave him a smile. Parker was a bright spot. That was something. He'd been so nice in the cafeteria yesterday when she met him. He was majorly cute. She always liked having a boyfriend, and he was a prime candidate. Even when she'd been falling in love with Angel, Buffy had dated other guys who were boyfriend material.

"So, how are you adjusting to college life?"

"Great, if great is sinking to the bottom of a chasm."

"It'll get easier," he promised, giving her a warm smile.

"Everyone keeps telling me that."

"When my dad died – Ah, I shouldn't be getting all deep like that." He shook his head. "You tell me your problems."

Buffy's head came up. A feeling like homecoming bloomed in her. And in her mind, a single word.

 _Love._

Parker was staring at her, but Buffy scarcely saw him. Vampire, her Slayer sense insisted, but that was silly. It was broad daylight. Buffy turned.

The man walking toward her made no sense. He moved like Spike, but in daylight. He looked like… Spike's brother or something, with dark blond hair instead of platinum, soft and pulled back instead of gelled. He wasn't wearing a leather coat… but he was wearing black, from t-shirt to jeans to combat boots.

In bright sunlight, the man came still closer, dark blue eyes on hers in the intent way only Spike looked at her, her name on his lips and in her head.

 _Buffy._

He started to reach for her, but she already had him, arms around his waist and shoulder, pulling him down.

 _You're alive, you're alive._

 _Love you, oh, Buffy, my fine, fierce, beautiful Buffy, missed you so much._

 _You're alive, oh Spike, how are you here?_

The whole time, she was kissing him, and he was kissing her in return, bowing her back, holding her close, and she molded her body to his. Somewhere in the rest of the world, she heard a catcall.

 _Air._

Spike broke the kiss, did not let go of her, but let her regain her footing. "I missed you, kitten," he said.

Oh, that deep voice. "I missed you." Buffy wrapped both arms around his waist and simply held on.

Because he was facing him, Spike saw the pique on the boy's face. "Buffy, where are my manners? Who's your friend?"

"Friend?" Buffy asked blankly. "Oh." She turned, both arms still wrapped around her vampire. "This is Parker Abrams. I met him yesterday in the cafeteria."

"Charmed." He couldn't bring himself to look at the boy again, not wanting to know if he was really as attractive as his first impression. "I have to steal Buffy from you." The git didn't matter; only the Slayer mattered. The nice thing about being a vampire is that manners are optional. He swung her around, catching her up in his arms, grinning at her and dismissing anyone else.

"You should probably put me down," Buffy said, even as she wound her arm around his neck.

"Give me a good reason."

She shrugged. Smiling, she leaned her face against his shoulder. "People are staring?" Who cared? If he was here, she was through keeping secrets.

"Just jealousy." He smiled back at her and let her legs slide down until she had only a tiny drop to the ground. "We're here, anyway." Buffy looked behind her to a large, expensive-looking convertible parked illegally at the curb. Spike opened the passenger door and took her bookbag. "My lady."

Buffy gave him a look that plainly said she was spun, but seated herself daintily. He shut the door, dropped her bag into the back seat floorboards, and vaulted into the driver's seat.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere private." He gave her a sincere look. "Lots to tell you."

"You need to be big with the explanations," she agreed, twisting her hair into a loose bun. Buffy half-expected Spike to head toward the Sit N Bull, but he turned down the ocean road. He stopped at a little market so she could get sunglasses and water, and he added a white cotton sundress from the rack of beachwear to their pile on the counter. While he drove, Buffy pulled the dress over her head and wriggled out of her clothes beneath its cover. She took his right hand from the wheel when she was finished and just stared at him. The sundress was easy to explain: if he could be in sunlight after so long, he'd want to stay in it with her. The ability to be in sunlight was impossible for her to explain. Buffy put it out of her mind and gazed at him some more.

Spike pulled over onto a narrow road, maybe someone's driveway, and parked halfway up a hill. He went around to the trunk and produced a picnic basket, then came back and held out a hand for her to take. Linked, they walked to the top of the hill. There were hardy little trees all around, bent from the wind, and an open area like a meadow in the middle. He set down the basket and drew her to the far trees.

Spread out far below was a narrow strip of beach, and beyond that, the dark blue of the Pacific Ocean and the lighter blue of the sky. His eyes were the color of the ocean, she realized, still a little stunned to see him in daylight. Spike pulled her back against his chest, and Buffy couldn't see a single cloud in the sky above them. She heard him sigh, felt his contentment. The bloodlink wasn't open, but she got it: he was with someone he loved in sunlight.

He leaned a bit to the side and lifted her face, examining her in the full light of day, his eyes lingering on her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, and finally on her eyes. Spike let out a huff of breath as he smiled, full and open, and he put a kiss on her temple. Without saying a word aloud or in her mind, Buffy knew he was taking in colors and textures even the best indoor lighting could never show him. In a way, Spike was seeing her for the first time. He swayed them both side to side as he looked back out at the ocean, his arms tightening around her waist.

After a few minutes, they went back to the picnic basket. Spike opened it and spread a blanket, but before he could turn back to whatever else was in the basket, Buffy put her hands on his, her patience for the strangeness and the quiet gone. She kicked off her shoes and sat down, drawing him down with her.

"Buffy, I need to tell –"

She kissed him. She kissed him softly. It didn't last. She kissed him with hunger. Buffy pushed him to the ground, gently but insistently, keeping the mindlink closed, keeping her lips on his. When her fingers found the strip of leather holding back his hair, she carefully pulled it loose. "You look like a pirate," she murmured.

"You look like my goddess."

Buffy put a finger over his lips, then replaced it with her own. She was mostly laying atop him, then she slid her leg over his and sat up, breaking the kiss, straddling him.

"Ah, love."

Buffy considered him, then shook her own hair loose from the knot she'd made. She undid the tie of the halter top of the sundress and pulled it down. She slid up his body and whispered, "Kiss me."

He did, kissing and nibbling the softness of her breasts and the hardness of her nipples. She drew in a sharp breath, then sighed. Buffy supported herself with one hand. With the other, she undid his belt and slid down his zipper.

"Raise up." She meant his hips, he knew, and he helped her push down his jeans. His cock sprang free, and she captured him in her hand. She did nothing more than hold him, and he came, jerking against her fingers, a growl escaping his throat.

Spike swallowed and opened his eyes. Buffy was watching him, her lips parted. "Ah, love, what you do to me."

She kissed him once more, then raised up so that she could guide him into her warm body. She moved slowly, finding a position where she could sit comfortably astride him. Each shift she made brought him off, until his fingers were sunk into her hips to persuade her to be still. Buffy opened the mindlink.

 _How is this possible?_

 _I… Give me a moment, love. I can't think._

Spike drew in a couple of deep breaths. Her hands were on his chest to help her balance. He'd imagined how this conversation would happen many times. This had not been one of them.

 _Feel just here, on my ribs. There. That's a ring set with the Gem of Amara. It makes me invulnerable to most things, including sunlight. You don't have to worry –_

 _Shh._ Buffy stopped feeling the small spot and took his hands. She moved over him, once, twice, brought his fingertips to her breasts. This time, they both came. Her eyes on his, Buffy felt that something was erased with each press of her hips against his: her silent pain during the summer, the humiliating memory of the vampires last night, the restless emptiness she had noted but could not explain to her own satisfaction.

There was a small, intent frown between her brows as she forced her body to still. _Go on._

 _Uh… I got it so you don't ever worry about me, about assassins or rot like that. I got it so I can be with you anywhere, any time of day._

 _You're still a vampire?_

He didn't answer, simply shifted to vampire face. Buffy drew in a hissing breath as his fingertips became claws and pushed against her skin. Spike bucked beneath her and traced her breasts with the sharp tips. _Spend for me, love._

 _Oh. Oh. Stop, stop._

Spike's human features came to the fore. _Did I hurt you?_

 _Oh, no. Don't worry. There's something else, isn't there?_

 _Yes. If anything ever happens that I'm doing bad, you know where the gem is, know where to take it from me. Will you do that?_

 _Yes._

 _Love, I hope to never do anything bad or stupid, at least not worse than anyone else. The reason I left wasn't the gem. It was because I needed to get my soul._

 _Your soul?_

He gripped her waist tightly, feeling her panic rise and trying to reassure her, thinking he might truly die if she pulled away from him. _Yes. Not a curse, love. I earned it, fought for it. It's mine; safe as houses, won't go anywhere. After I knocked you out, I knew I needed to understand better. I needed to understand your world, to know right from wrong before it was too late. I had to have my soul again._

There were tears in her eyes, and blue sky above her blond hair, and the white of her skirt billowed around their bodies in the ocean breeze.

 _Oh, love, so beautiful, but don't cry._

The debt he had to pay had been one owed to her. To them _. You went to get your soul. For me._

 _Yes._ Because that was the real reason. _Don't cry._

 _Do you still love me? With the soul, too, I mean?_

 _Of course. I will always love you, demon, soul, all of me. Would you like to meet the soul?_

She was in the Sit N Bull, leaning against the door. Another pain slid away. Spike, her own punk Spike, was at the jukebox. She ran to him.

It was the careworn Spike, the one he called the anarchist. _Hullo, love._

She hugged him hard enough to make him say ' _oof_.'

 _I know you want to meet the soul, but I wanted to see you first. To say goodbye._

Buffy looked up at him. His leather coat nearly enveloped her. _Goodbye?_

 _Yeah, I won't be separate much longer. I've stayed around just to keep them apart, the soul and the demon. They're like two magnets. They want to snap together._

 _I'll still see you, in his strength._

 _Ah, Slayer. You are quite a woman._

He kissed her once, then he was gone, and she felt someone new behind her.

 _Hello, Miss Buffy._

 _Hello._ Then, _I always thought he might need glasses._

The soul returned her smile. _The other one is right about you. Spike, the demon, I mean, he's shared his memories of you, and you're…._

 _I'm just Buffy._

 _You're everything._

She gave him a helpless look, this awkward young man so unlike her Spike but so kind and open, too, which was like her Spike. She stepped forward. _May I?_

Buffy touched the unscarred brow and ran her fingers through his mass of curls. He looked down, blushing. She smiled again, delighted with this shy aspect of Spike.

 _May I?_ He echoed her words and put his hands very lightly at her waist. He bent stiffly and placed a tentative kiss on her mouth.

In another place, Buffy let her head fall back and moved over Spike's body.

His eyes opened wide behind his glasses, and he pulled away. Buffy grabbed his hands and didn't let him leave.

 _It should feel… improper, but it doesn't._

 _Improper was the very start of our relationship. We got past it._

 _It was very good to meet you… Buffy._

 _And you. I like you very much. I'm glad you're here._

 _I already love you._

He was gone after that admission. Buffy was alone for only a moment before Spike, bleached blond, leather-clad, and badass, slid into their booth.

She laughed and went to join him, grabbing his hands and sliding in next to him. _I missed you so much. I was afraid you were dead. I tried to find you, but I couldn't even find our place._

 _That must have been during the trials. I don't think that cave is exactly in our dimension._

She got a sense of the trials. _Oh, Spike._

 _No worries, love. A soul was the only thing I could think of to solve the problem, because I knew I would lose you._

 _No. We're friends, through it all._

 _Demons are the very essence of destruction, love. I'd have managed to destroy our friendship somehow._

 _No. However long I have, I'll be your friend._

 _Slayer, about that. I know you have your mission. I know mine now, too. My mission is to keep you alive. You're going to live to be at least ninety. I swear it._

She smiled at him _. That sounds awful._

 _It won't be. I can find ninety years of fun for you._

 _You've done it before, haven't you?_

 _I've never done this before, Buffy. I've never loved so recklessly, so… utterly. I've never dared._

Spike pulled away from the mindlink this time. He wanted to say this aloud, to speak his vow. "Buffy, I trust you with all of me. My demon, my soul, my heart, all my sad, broken bits. I love you, and I'm in love with you, with all your parts." He put a hand up to her face. "I want to share your life. If that's what you want. If you can only see me as your friend, it's more than I ever dared hope. But… I think there's something special here. I'd like to see where it takes us."

Tears spilled down her cheeks. There. That's what had been wrong during the summer when she thought he was truly dead. Why admit to herself she was in love with a dead man?

The echoing emptiness inside her was gone, filled by what flowed between them. "I… I've been in love with you for a while now." She could never explain the emotion on his face then, other than the inadequate word 'love,' but the expression burned into her memory. His eyes were wide and stunned, his lips parted in wonder. She touched his face.

Spike sat up, pushing her body to a different angle, surging within her. Tears stood in his own eyes now. This time, they moved together, open to each other beneath the wide sky, everything visible within and without, loving each other in the bright sunlight.

An hour later, they'd finally broken into the picnic basket. Spike lay with his head in her lap, feeling happy to an extent that was almost painful. The beauty of this woman, of a shared love, of the late summer day overwhelmed him.

 _Spike?_ _I didn't know. I mean, I should have – I'm not the kind of person who sleeps with someone I don't love._

 _I knew that. I mean, the same kind of way._

 _You knew?_

 _I know you, yeah? I think we were both afraid to admit it._

 _I thought you were dead. Really dead, I mean. When I couldn't reach you this summer, I was too scared to try again. It hurt too much._

He rolled from her lap and sat up, resting his forehead against hers.

 _I'm sorry that I caused you pain. I… was afraid you wouldn't like the change, was too nervous to reach for you with the bloodlink. I'm sorry. I should have contacted you._

 _I should have tried harder. I should have told you before you left, because I think I realized that night in the crypt. It might have been the last time I saw you, and I never said anything._ Her hands clenched on his painfully. _I'm an idiot._

 _No, you are most definitely not an idiot. I should have told you, but I didn't want to saddle you with that declaration when I wasn't sure I'd be able to come back._

 _You could have stayed._

 _No. I want to make you happy, love. I would have done something... wrong._

 _No._

 _Yes. Eventually._

 _Spike... you've always been different than... than anyone, I guess. The whole time I've known you, you've been changing. It's kind of amazing. I just meant... we could have missed this. We have missed a few months that we could have..._ She looked down. _I'm not going to judge you for what you didn't say, if you aren't going to judge me._

 _I have no right to judge anything you do, love. None. And I don't want to bind you – Well, I do. I want to possess every one of your molecules, but I won't be that person. You've got to have a chance to live. That's my job, to give you time to go out, live, try things. I want you to choose me, you know I do, but I also know you're eighteen. Once I met you, I was done for, but I got decades of mistakes and living behind me. You deserve that opportunity, too._

 _So, no judging?_

Spike grimaced. _Yeah, there might be some judging… I have something to confess. I came in through Los Angeles, stopped to see him, and sorta messed around with Angel._

 _You did what!?_

He let her see the whole thing.

 _You're totally freaking me out. You totally freaked him out._

 _Didn't mean to. Just… meant to… ease him, you know?_

Buffy was still looking at him, horrified. _But... Angelus. Spike, you can't..._

He gave her a smile with a sour edge to it. _No worries on that account. I'm never going to make him very happy._

Buffy shook her head, her frown gradually fading. _No. Nope, I still don't get it. I think that definitely falls under the category 'vampire thing.'_

 _Forgive me?_

 _What? Nothing to forgive. I mean, he forgave you._ Buffy pulled away so he could see her face. The whole thing was so far outside her experience, she couldn't really absorb it. She hid behind a joke. _It was kind of hot, though. Maybe if there was body oil involved…._

She laughed, and he was amazed. She was teasing him. "Do you want any more?" He nodded to the picnic basket.

"No. You have something else you want to show me, don't you?" He nodded, looking shy and uncertain. Buffy loved his swagger, but she also liked this shyness. There were major possibilities for teasing here. The two of them went back to the car, holding hands once again. Instead of turning the car, Spike went on up the little road, passing the place where they'd picnicked and around the curve of another hill, and pulled into the driveway of the only house.

Spike got out and held the car door for her. It was a modern house, all glass and angles, with more windows than walls to take advantage of the spectacular ocean view. "Who lives here?" Buffy asked in a low voice as they walked toward the door.

Spike still had car keys in his hand, and he found another key on the ring to put into the door. He pushed it open and scooped her up. "We do. If you like it." He strode inside.

It was cool and dark after the brightness of the afternoon. Spike put her down and touched a panel on the wall, and floor-to-ceiling blinds folded obediently to show the vista. The house had almost no furniture, and their footsteps echoed as Spike led her through, from the balconies with their glass panel railings, to the bathroom with a huge glass-enclosed shower, to a bedroom with a California king mattress on a bare frame and an enormous walk-in closet. "I hope you like it." Spike shrugged, nervous. "It's not the most structurally sound house, I know, earthquakes and all, but we might as well enjoy it while it's standing."

Buffy didn't say anything, just turned to open another door. It was a much smaller closet, and he grinned and offered to take it. Finally, she turned to him and asked, "It's wonderful, but… how can you afford this?"

He touched his chest. "The Gem of Amara was in a crypt with a lot of other jewels, treasure. We – Giles, Xander, and I – are selling them."

"Giles? Xander? You told them you were back before you told me?"

Spike dropped his gaze from hers. "I got back Friday –"

 _but I was afraid to come to you, love._ He let her see this, too, his fear of a world where his love wasn't enough. _I didn't need it, but I wanted the gem, so that I could be with you at all times, day or night. Then I had that, but I also wanted to give you nice things, because I'm an old-fashioned, Victorian git. But, mostly, I was afraid that I'd imagined that you love me, that I'd misunderstood._

She imagined meeting the vampire named Sunday with the knowledge that her vampire was alive and closed her eyes. "I needed you the moment you got back, Spike. I don't need things."

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm weak, and I'm selfish, and I'm sorry."

She nodded, fighting back tears. The second he told her why he'd gone, her resentment that he'd left had vanished. Spike wasn't looking at her, just stared at the floor, an expression of misery and self-loathing on his face.

"Spike?" She waited until he met her eyes. "I love you. Don't ever doubt it." She held out her hands, and he came across the distance to take them. "But understand this: I need you with me more than I need anything." Buffy shook a hand free and dashed tears from her face. "Abandonment issues; child of divorce. All that. I just… need you to be here."

"I will never be apart from you again." He said it simply, but there was the resonance of a vow in the words.

"Okay." Buffy gave him a wavering smile and reached up to brush tears from his face. "Show me the rest."

There wasn't much left. He showed her another bedroom, a windowless room that he thought might make a good training space once the floors and walls were padded, and the kitchen, which was sterile. When Buffy opened a cabinet door to reveal an empty space, Spike said shyly, "I hope you'll help me pick out china and stuff." He moved around the island and picked her up so she was seated on it, then moved between her thighs, holding her loosely. "I want us to fix it so it feels like our home. Even here outside city limits, prices are cheap. I put down a deposit on it." Spike turned away to rummage in a drawer, then held out something to her. "Your keys."

Buffy looked at them. "We haven't bought the house yet."

"They're car keys."

"You're going to let me drive your convertible?"

He shook his head. "Those are for your car."

"My car?"

He shrugged. "I hope you don't mind your old-fashioned, Victorian git giving you presents here and there. I mean, you'll need a way to get back and forth."

"My car?" she repeated.

"Yeah, if you don't like it, we'll take it back." He looked down. "I would have preferred getting you a nice, safe Volvo – or a Sherman tank, but… I couldn't feature you in a family sedan."

"Show me," she demanded, giving him a sidelong look. The weirdness of this day just went on and on. The kitchen led into the garage. Spike turned on the lights, and Buffy gaped at the smaller convertible meant for her, a white Mercedes SLK with the top already down.

"Don't forget, I'm still the better ride."

She squealed, hugged him, then got in the car. She didn't start it, just ran her hands over the steering wheel and the tan leather seats. Buffy turned, then, her smile gone and said simply, "I can't accept this."

"You can." He walked around and propped up on the car door. "Giles and Xander had a good idea. We were originally going to split everything three ways, but they suggested that you should be in on the partnership. But that left Willow out in the cold, so Giles is going to modify the company structure so we all have money."

"But we didn't do anything."

"None of this would have happened without you. All of us hate that the Council doesn't pay you. And when we get Willow on board, with what she knows about computers, we'll do even better."

Buffy ran her fingers across the steering wheel again. "How much money are we talking about?"

He explained his human dream of being an archaeologist, and of seeing unheeded treasures while living in the dark, forgotten areas of the world in his years as a demon. "It's not like we're spoiling pristine sites. These are hoards gathered from distant places, stolen so long ago that it's not like you could even find the heirs of the original owners. We can't show provenance, so we'll never get a hundred percent of the value… but we've taken in over three million so far."

"Three million dollars?"

"Net. Xander isn't happy that Giles is a stickler about taxes."

She shook her head. "We don't have to worry about money anymore?"

"'One less thing.'"

She rolled her eyes at the reference. " _Forrest Gump_? Really?"

Buffy touched the door handle and lifted her eyebrows until Spike moved away so she could get out. The sun was on its slow, downward glide toward the horizon now, and the evening was lit with gold. They walked through to the balcony and leaned on the rail. The breeze blew Buffy's thin dress against her body and lifted her hair. Spike turned away from the ocean view to watch her. "You're beautiful in sunlight. Forgot how many colors there are." He touched her hair, marveling at the light in the golden strands.

 _I'm overwhelmed._

 _Feel the same way, like everything's moving too fast._

 _At least you know how this all started. I feel like I've come in after the intermission._

 _Ah, love. I guess a soul doesn't prevent me from being boneheaded._

She gave him a small smile.

 _Before I forget, love,_

"Are you busy Friday night?"

"Friday? No, just patrol."

"Think you might let me take you out on a proper date?" He lifted a shoulder. "We never got to do that."

"Yes. I'd like that."

"Six o'clock?"

"Okay."

She reached to push a tendril of hair from his brow. "I can't believe your hair grew out this quick."

 _It didn't. Demon barber, well, demon salon and a stylist named Melba._ He let her see, even taste the potion that grew out his hair.

 _That's so cool! Would it work on humans?_

 _Dunno._

 _Why'd you change, Spike?_

 _You said I was 'dated.' 'S'true. I was overdue for a change. Melba showed me how to blow dry my hair to keep the curl down. I feel like a complete ponce._

 _Well, you look like a hottie._

 _I don't look as dangerous, but on the upside, pro'ly get into more fights._

She turned back to the slow sunset and let out a small sigh. Spike moved behind her, bracing his hands on the rail beside hers. He kissed her shoulders, her hair.

 _Love, down on the other hill, on the picnic blanket… I'm not complaining, but I never expected you to be loving me while I told you all those things._

 _If you're asking why… I was afraid to believe it was real. I mean, if some demon was trying to fool me, it would have come after dark, looking like my punk vampire. But if there was one way to be sure… Our bodies have always known, have always been a step ahead of our brains, our hearts._

She felt him exhale against her neck, felt him harden against her bottom. _Too soon?_

Buffy turned in the space between his arms, ran her hands along his sides and back, and lifted her face for a kiss. _Too soon for what?_

 _No, too soon since…?_

 _You think I'm a delicate flower?_

 _Yes. Well, no. You're the silk covering the sword, the – bloody hell._ Spike bumped his nose against hers before resuming the kissing. _I may be a tad more poetic now._

 _I'm quite recovered from your ungentlemanly attention. Pig._ She felt him grin against her mouth. _In fact, I'm underwhelmed._

 _What?_ He pulled away, staring down at her with something like shock.

Buffy gave him a challenging smile and taunted him. _You got no game. Our first time together, you went down on me for, like, an hour._ She lifted a shoulder. _From my perspective, I've been the one bringing it today._

The shy, hesitant part of him was gone. _I 'got no game,' is it?_ He dropped low and came up with her, his arms wrapped around her legs, his face between her breasts. _You think I'm playing, Summers?_ Spike carried her indoors and leaped atop one of the empty counters. She looked up worriedly at the ceiling, but his eyes never left her face. Then he dropped them both so that he was crouched above her supine body, one large hand cradling her skull protectively. _If you like this dress, Slayer, I advise you to wiggle and squirm and get out of it. If you're still wearing it in two minutes, I'll bite if off of you with my fangs._

He started nipping at her breasts through the thin cotton. His fingers were everywhere, beneath the dress, stroking over it, grabbing her hair to hold her in place to lick her neck, giving her no chance to think.

Buffy gave him a wicked smile and brought her knees toward her chest, dropping his hips down to hers. Then she gripped his belt loops with her toes and forced his jeans downward, until her legs were straight and his pants were puddled on his calves. Buffy gripped his shirt, pulled him down for a kiss, and ripped the black cotton into two unequal pieces.

 _It takes you two minutes?_ She smirked at him. If this provoked his arrogance… well, she did love his swagger.

He shifted to game face and studied her with golden eyes. _If I hurt you, tell me._

 _If you actually do anything, should I tell you about that?_

He growled and made good on his promise, shredding the halter. He came up with a piece of the skirt caught between his teeth and tore it asunder with one shake of his head. Then he swept the remnants of his shirt from his body and slid her along the counter until her shoulders were off the edge.

 _Not tasted you like this before._ And then he did, pulling one of her thighs over his shoulder, cupping her bum with one hand, feasting on her.

Buffy felt the hardness of his eyebrow ridges against her, his claws digging into her ass, his tongue against her clit, but most of all, she felt the fangs and the danger. She arched her hips toward him, wanting _another and more oh just like that_. And then she felt the change, the more precise stroke of his tongue, and then his fingers sliding into her body, claws safely sheathed.

"Please," she whispered.

He pulled her back from the edge a few inches. She lifted her head to look at him. He moved his face from the very center of her to the scar he'd left at the junction of her thigh. Very deliberately, keeping his eyes locked with hers, he flicked at the scar with his tongue. Buffy convulsed, moaning.

Spike gave her an arrogant smile, drawing away from her, dropping from the counter and struggling out of his boots so he could lose the jeans. She sat up, panting, marking his progress around the counter. He stopped his stalk when he was behind her and started kissing her shoulders as sweetly as he had outside. His hands were another matter. They cupped her breasts, rubbed down her thighs, lightly touched her mons. She scooted back to be closer to him, covered his hands with hers as they roamed over her body.

 _Are you wet, Slayer?_

 _Yes._

His hand went lower and stroked along her flesh.

 _Not wet enough._

She knew what he was going to do, because she wanted him to do it. Buffy spun around until she was facing him, her legs wide. Spike raised a brow, and she shrugged. _Whelmed_ , she allowed.

He almost hid his smile as he knelt before her.

 _Do you know why I wanted this house, love? No one around, no one within earshot. Hated it at the hotel, having to be quiet._

Buffy put her feet against the sides of the counter, put her arms above her head, and held her hair away from her hot face. She moaned, let one hand drift down to tangle in his hair.

 _Love your noises, love to hear you, just encourages me to be more wicked, to bring you once more… and again…._

Buffy fell back on the counter and used her legs to move closer to him, until her ass was past the edge. She raised her hips, giving him all the access. _Please, inside._

He obliged, his tongue moving lower. _Love your cries, your screams. No one to hear, no neighbors to bother. Best feature of the place._

Spike stopped, breathing hard, and stood up. He held out his hands for hers _. Forty more minutes. I don't want you to cramp or anything. Let's go to the bed._

 _Is it our bed?_ His answer was a slow, lecherous smile. She let him help her to her feet, swayed a moment, and dropped to a crouch before him. Buffy had her hands and mouth on his cock before he could do more than draw in a breath. Then he was the one bracing himself against the counter.

 _No neighbors, Spike._

He groaned, shuddered.

 _Don't you want to encourage me?_

He panted. _Yes, love, that thing with your tongue._ He cried out.

 _More?_

 _Please, please. Oh, love. Again, just like that._

He roared, bellowed her name, named her his love.

Buffy stood up and smiled at him. _Okay. Let's go to bed._

⸹

Buffy pulled on her bra and looked at the remnants of the bed. Spike had held her to the full hour, and the bedframe had lasted about twenty minutes beyond that. They had lasted thirty additional minutes, though the box springs hadn't. He thought the mattress would be okay.

"Found them," he announced, coming back into the wreckage, holding up her panties. "They were all the way under the passenger seat."

"Thanks." She took them from him and stepped into the underwear, drawing them up. Spike watched the whole operation with great interest.

 _Will it always be like this?_

 _If you claim to be underwhelmed, it will._

 _Spike. Seriously. Can we keep this up?_

 _Yes._ He came over and took her in his arms. _Some nights will be gentle and sweet, but I think we'll always play this way._

 _Why do you worry you'll hurt me? I think we've established that you aren't 'misshapen.'_

He shrugged. _I worry. Vampires are wired to have sex nonstop, almost. I want to treat you as a human being._

 _Nonstop sex?_ She quirked a brow at him.

 _The way it was explained to me was the three F's: feeding, fighting…._

 _Fucking._ She finished the sentence for him. _Was that what it was like for you and Drusilla?_

He shook his head. _No. Drusilla was… atypical. So was I, for that matter._

 _Was that what it was like when you were with Darla and… Angelus?_

 _Yes._

 _Is that why you, uh, messed around with Angel?_

 _Partly. Habit, instinct, family. Something like that. Also, I just… wanted him to not be in pain._

 _You're, uh, bigger than him. Noticeably._

 _Yeah. You knew that._

 _Not really. I might have been waaay more intimidated on my eighteenth birthday if I had._

 _I… am really glad you weren't intimidated._

 _You didn't come, did you? With Angel?_

 _No._

 _I think that made him feel bad._

 _There's a difference between him and Angelus, then._

 _Is that the kind of thing that you two did?_

He considered her closely for a moment before answering. _We did everything, love._

 _Did he hurt you?_

Spike pulled away from the mindlink, but not before she saw a rapid sequence of memories. "Buffy, no, shh." He shook his head. "Didn't know where you were going with that. I just thought you wondered if we had anal sex."

She wiped her face and chose the most supportive thing that came to mind. "I'm so proud of you. You went through all that, and you seem pretty healthy."

"I'm more than a little bent, but nothing can make me bring any ugliness between us. Well, not now. All souled up."

"I can't tell you how weird it is that we've slept with the same guy." Buffy frowned then. "It feels like we've had this conversation before."

"I have more déjà vu feelings around you and your people than I had in the previous twelve decades."

"What do you think that's about?"

"No clue."

Buffy looked down. _Angel fed off me._

 _I know. He told me what happened._

 _I've seen you not looking at the scar._

 _Yeah. It's the possessive thing._

 _I only did it because I couldn't get Faith's blood._

 _Buffy… you don't have to justify anything. It felt good, yeah?_

 _At first. Not so much when I was being drained._

His fingers clenched on her arms, then eased. _Sorry._

 _No, I want to talk about this. He bit me the same place the Master bit me. That wasn't an accident, was it?_

 _No. He wanted to claim you._

 _Do you?_

 _No._ Spike traced part of the scar and closed his eyes for a moment. _I just don't want to see on you what I saw on Drusilla for a hundred and twenty years._ He trailed his fingers over the same area again. _Just here, I see Angelus' mark._

Buffy brushed her hair behind her shoulder. _Change it, then._

He met her steady gaze, amazed by her declaration of who she loved, one that no vampire or man could miss. Spike stroked his hands down her arms. _Ah, love, thank you. I would hate to bring it up myself. I will soon, but not tonight._ He nodded toward the collapsed bed. _It'll be another epic episode of lovemaking, after._ Spike traced the scar a final time. _And I'll make sure it doesn't look like any vampire's mark. I won't have you branded. And I'm sorry that I can't abide this. It's a stupid vampire thing._

 _I'm used to stupid vampires._

 _Buffy? I always want to be honest with you, yeah? I have claimed you, not by feeding off you or anything, but still. And I want to be claimed by you._

She lifted a golden brow. _You want me to bite you?_

 _Depends on where you're thinking of._

She smiled at him, but said nothing for a moment. Right now, she only wanted to be Buffy, but even with the craziness and happiness, she was more. "It's dark, Spike. I should patrol."

He sighed, pulling her against him. "I don't want to leave our house."

"Not the first time I've felt this way; won't be the last." She sounded grim and sad.

"And that's one of the things I love about you. Even when it's hard, even when it sucks, you do the right thing. Most people wouldn't." He kissed her hair. "Let me take patrol tonight, love. You've had a lot to take in today. Rest."

The grimness changed, then, becoming something resolute. She tucked her chin just a little, and a gleam of anticipation showed in her eyes. "No, I'm good. I have a nest I need to clean out."

"I'll come with."

"No. This one… I want to do this one alone."

"You sure?" When she nodded, he kissed her forehead. "What do you think of the house?"

"I think we're going to wreck a lot of furniture here."

Spike laughed. "I'll take care of the paperwork, but there'll be stuff for you to sign, too. And I'll get a new bed for us. Maybe you'll spend the night sometime."

"I like waking up with you." When he looked puzzled, she added, "On my birthday."

"Oh. I thought we agreed that we passed out."

⸹

Next Chapter: Someone on campus tries to abduct Spike, and Buffy confronts Riley Finn about it just as Willow attempts a spell.

⸹

[Author's Note: Below is an alternate version of two scenes where Buffy did sleep with Parker Abrams. There's a partial preview of next week's chapter, as well. You don't have to read any further for the story to flow.

This is the only major revision I made to the story, other than lopping off the original first chapters. I liked the idea that Buffy did sleep with Parker, a human, and knew what she was foregoing in choosing a vampire. I included this pre-revision version because I really like the way Buffy and Spike acknowledge that they come to each other with history.

Here, Buffy and Willow are already roommates, and Spike couldn't get up the nerve to go see Buffy for two weeks after returning to Sunnydale. This allowed some room for canon: the Parker experience, Buffy's demon roommate Kathy, beating Sunday the vampire with sheer Buffyness.

But there were too many things that felt out of character. I never was comfortable with Spike buying a house without Buffy's input. Then I realized that this version of Spike could never hold himself away from Buffy for that long. Also, I think this version of Buffy needs to be in love before she will sleep with someone. Finally, I can't imagine someone as savvy as Buffy not insisting on a condom for oral sex. The final version is not as sex-positive, but, hey, Parker was a bad lay, anyway.]

⸹

For the next two weeks, Spike felt like a kite with a stiff wind behind it. He got a computer over the weekend and set up the bones of their e-commerce business, which he unilaterally named Colinvaux Sales Agents. Willow had already forced Giles to pay for Internet access. On Monday, Giles drove to Dutton and set up a company bank account at a national chain, not trusting any bank in Sunnydale. By Monday night, they had their first sale. Spike translated their listings into Spanish, French, and nine other languages….

Housing prices outside the city limits of Sunnydale weren't significantly worse than housing in the town. He bought a house on the outskirts. He got a mobile phone, and his first call was an international one to the Savile Row shop that served him in life to get a recommendation for a Los Angeles tailor who might not be too shabby.

He rented a car at the Sunnydale airport, drove to Los Angeles to shop and to see Angel, and came back in a Bentley Azure convertible. Spike drove back in daylight, the top down, his hair tied back with a strip of black leather and sunglasses perched on his nose. He passed signs for Elmwood and Dutton, and spotted the single sign for the Sunnydale turnoff. For miles, he'd had a quote stuck in his head: 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'

It was time.

It was past time.

⸹

Parker was talking to another girl. A pretty girl.

Buffy's stomach sank. She had Slayer hearing, useful sometimes, but not now, not when Parker was saying things to the pretty girl that he'd said to her. They didn't sound rehearsed the second time, either. She told her legs to stop, but they kept going toward the dark-haired man and the pretty girl, walking her straight to them as if there was nothing she couldn't face.

She felt like she'd faced everything since last spring. Angel was gone to Los Angeles. Spike was completely gone, just face it; when she'd tried to contact him in June and hadn't even been able to get to the Sit N Bull, she'd known he was dead. Her high school was gone. Her group of friends from high school was scattered. Giles and her mother were too busy for her. Her father was in Spain. College was overwhelming. Even her mojo was gone some of the time.

Parker had been the sole bright spot. She always liked having a boyfriend. Even when she'd been falling in love with Angel, Buffy had dated other guys who were boyfriend material. Some of them hadn't been very nice, but they hadn't been very serious, either.

She'd slept with Parker.

That meant serious, at least to her.

It was looking like Parker wasn't very nice.

"Parker?" She said his name.

He was so smooth, so quick. He introduced her to the pretty girl –

Buffy's head came up. A feeling like homecoming bloomed in her. And in her mind, a single word.

 _Love._

Parker and pretty girl were staring at her, but Buffy scarcely saw them. _Vampire_ , her Slayer sense insisted, but it was broad daylight. Buffy turned.

The man walking toward her made no sense. He moved like Spike, but in daylight. He looked like… Spike's brother or something, with dark blond hair instead of platinum, soft and pulled back instead of gelled. He wasn't wearing a leather coat… but he was wearing black, from t-shirt to jeans to combat boots.

In bright sunlight, the man came still closer, dark blue eyes on hers in the intent way only Spike looked at her, her name on his lips and in her head.

 _Buffy._

He started to reach for her, but she already had him, arms around his waist and shoulder, pulling him down.

 _You're alive, you're alive._

 _Love you, oh, Buffy, my fine, fierce, beautiful Buffy, missed you so much._

 _You're alive, oh Spike, how are you here?_

The whole time, she was kissing him, and he was kissing her in return, bowing her back, holding her close, and she molded her body to his. Somewhere in the rest of the world, she heard a catcall.

 _Air._

Spike broke the kiss, did not let go of her, let her regain her footing. "I missed you, kitten," he said.

Oh, that deep voice. "I missed you." Buffy wrapped both arms around his waist and simply held on.

Because he was facing them, Spike saw the approval and amusement on the girl's face and the relief and pique on the boy's. He'd gotten enough from the mindlink to know why. "Buffy, where are my manners? Who are your friends?"

"Friends?" Buffy asked. "Oh." She turned, both arms still wrapped around her vampire. "This is Parker Abrams, and… and I'm so sorry, I didn't –"

"Katie Loomis," the pretty girl said.

"Charmed." Spike nodded at her and hit her with his best vampire come-hither. He hoped it was hard enough that she'd never look at another non-blond man in her life, certainly not the wanker next to her. He couldn't bring himself to look at the boy. "I have to steal Buffy from you." The git didn't matter; only the Slayer mattered.

The nice thing about being a vampire is that manners are optional. He swung her around, catching her up in his arms, grinning at her and dismissing anyone else….

⸹

 _Feel just here, on my ribs. There. That's a ring set with the Gem of Amara. It makes me invulnerable to most things, including sunlight. You don't have to worry –_

 _Shh._ Buffy stopped feeling the small spot and took his hands. She moved over him, once, twice, brought his fingertips to her breasts. This time, they both came. Her eyes on his, Buffy felt that something was erased with each press of her hips against his: her silent pain during the summer, the memory of Parker's body, the restless emptiness she had noted but could not explain to her own satisfaction.

There was a small, intent frown between her brows as she forced her body to still. _Go on…_

⸹

An hour later, they'd finally broken into the picnic basket. Spike lay with his head in her lap, feeling happy to an extent that was almost painful. The beauty of this woman, of a shared love, of the late summer day overwhelmed him.

 _Spike?_ She lifted her head and turned toward the ocean. The breeze blew her hair back. _I have to tell you something._

 _I know. Parker._

 _You knew?_

 _Yeah. See, the soul's already on the job. I didn't rip his arm off and beat him with it._

 _I'm sorry._

 _Oh, no, love._ He put his hand to her face. _Don't be sorry._

 _I thought you were dead. Really dead, I mean. When I couldn't reach you, I was too scared to try again. It hurt too much._

He rolled from her lap and sat up, resting his forehead against hers.

 _I'm sorry that I caused you pain. I… was afraid you wouldn't like the change, was too nervous to reach for you with the bloodlink. I'm sorry. And, as strange as it sounds, I'm glad you slept with a human. I'd be afraid you'd always wonder._

 _It wasn't anything to write home about. Not that I would because, you know, Mom would maxi-wig. Just an expression. But… I had to be careful not to hurt him. And humans are… messier. And there's a definite, uh, refractory period._

Spike got glimpses through the mindlink: the git didn't ask if Buffy preferred to spit; he didn't use the physiologically enforced pause to pleasure her; he was asleep beside her while she was squeezed onto the edge of the mattress, unfulfilled. One-johnny Parker, his demon scoffed.

 _I have no right to judge anything you do, love. None. And I don't want to bind you – Well, I do. I want to possess every one of your molecules, but I won't be that person. You've got to have a chance to live. That's my job, to give you time to go out, live, try things. I want you to choose me, you know I do, but I also know you're eighteen. Once I met you, I was done for, but I got decades of mistakes and living behind me. You deserve that opportunity, too. So, no judging._

Spike grimaced. _Having said that, I have something to tell you, too. I came in through Los Angeles and stopped to see him and sorta messed around with Angel._

 _You did what!?_

He let her see the whole thing….

⸹

He touched his chest. "The Gem of Amara was in a crypt with a lot of other jewels, treasure. We – Giles, Xander, and I – sold them, split the money."

"Giles? Xander? You told them you were back before you told me?"

Spike dropped his gaze from hers. "I got back about two weeks ago. I got my soul in Africa –"

 _but I was afraid to come to you, love._ He let her see this, too, his fear of a world where his love wasn't enough. _I didn't need it, but I wanted the gem, so that I could be with you at all times, day or night. Then I had that, but I also wanted to give you a home and nice things, because I'm an old-fashioned, Victorian git. But, mostly, I was afraid that I'd imagined that you love me, that I'd misunderstood._

"I needed you two weeks ago, Spike. I really, really would have liked to have you back."

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm weak, and I'm selfish, and I'm sorry."

She nodded, fighting back tears. The second he told her why he'd gone, her resentment that he'd left had vanished. But the last two weeks… If he'd been there, she would have handed Sunday her ass first thing; he would have believed her about her roommate; Parker would have been a second of eye candy walking past. Spike wasn't looking at her, just stared at the floor, an expression of misery and self-loathing on his face.

"Spike?" She waited until he met her eyes. "I love you. Don't ever doubt it." She held out her hands, and he came across the distance to take them. "But understand this: I need you with me more than I need things." Buffy shook a hand free and dashed tears from her face. "Abandonment issues; child of divorce. All that. I just… need you to be here."

"I will never be apart from you again." He said it simply, but there was the resonance of a vow in the words….

⸹

"Wil? You asleep?" The lamp was on, but Willow wasn't in her bed. Buffy started to shut the door, then Willow came in right behind her, toothbrush and toothpaste in her hand.

"Hey, Buf. Parker hasn't called."

"Yeah, he isn't gonna." Buffy shrugged. "I saw him on campus today, feeding some other girl the same line that hooked me."

"Oh, Buffy." Willow gave her a hug and pulled her away from the door to close it. "I'm sorry. What a jerk!"

"Yeah." She put her backpack down and slid out of her shoes. Buffy sat on the foot of her bed and fell over. "I feel like an idiot. Really nice guys won't sleep with you first thing. Like Oz."

"He's the best," Willow agreed. She sat cross-legged on her bed and examined Buffy. "You seem very chill about this, after the past few days of Parkeritis."

"I have a date on Friday."

"Oh?" Willow grinned, started to ask for details, then stopped. "Wait. Buffy, maybe you shouldn't. Too much with the rebound, or something."

The Slayer was quiet for a moment. "You super sleepy?" When Willow shook her head, she said. "Give me just a moment to brush my teeth, scrub up the oil slick. Scoot over, and I'll tell you all about it." By the time she got back, Willow was holding a textbook and highlighting something, but she put it down as soon as Buffy was in pajamas. Buffy got in under the covers with her, like a hundred other times when they'd slept over at each other's houses.

"I don't know which end to start from," she admitted. "I guess I'll start with the now. Spike's back."

Willow's face lit up. "Oh, that's great. I've been worried, too…"

⸹

Willow had a slight frown. "So if you could talk telepathically all the way to Argentina, but then you couldn't reach him this summer… That's why you thought he was dead."

She nodded. "I knew he'd cross half the world for me."

"Because he already had…."

⸹

"Yeah. Oh! I almost forgot. Giles and Xander helped him find the gem, and there was a lot of other treasure, and apparently we're all rich now."

"What?"

"My reaction exactly," Buffy said, shrugging. "But my handsome vampire took me to his really nice beach house in his fancy convertible, so there's money coming from somewhere." She looked at Willow's expression and nodded. "Exactly. I thought I was crazy, too, when Spike walked up behind me in daylight just as I found out Parker is an ass."

"Parker? Oh!" Willow made an 'eep!' face. "Does Spike know?"

Buffy nodded. "He does. No blame. He said he didn't want me always wondering what it might be like with a regular guy."

"Is there a difference?"

The Slayer nodded again. "I had to be careful all the time not to hurt him, squeeze too hard… It's the same for you, and Xander and Giles. And Mom. You know I hug too hard…."


	27. Best

[Author's Note: I'm dedicating this chapter to readers who have waited a long time for Buffy and Spike to have this moment: rfsalinasjr, momnesia, Temari's Angel, SoapOpreaEmpress, and RiverQueen15. For twenty-six long chapters, they've been very vocally pulling for Buffy to be brave enough to be vulnerable. Thank you, guys, and thanks to all my readers for staying with the story.]

⸹

 **Best**

⸹

Sunnydale

September 1999

⸹

Buffy knocked on the door. "Wil? You awake?" Buffy had checked the windows and noted that Willow's lamp was on when she was outside the dorm.

"Buffy?"

She heard her friend's voice and some rustling noises. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"If you're asking if Oz is here," Willow said, opening her door, "he isn't. Neither is my roommate, actually. Come on in."

"Thanks." After destroying Sunday and her crew of vampires, Buffy was too keyed up to sleep. She felt wonderful.

"You're kind of perky."

"I did my first good thing on campus," Buffy said. She told Willow about the way Sunday's nest of vampires preyed on freshmen. Her friend frowned and gasped in all the right places, and everything in Buffy's life began to seem… right, for the first time in months.

"I have a date on Friday."

"Oh?" Willow grinned, started to ask for details, then stopped. "Wait. Buffy, maybe you shouldn't. It's not too soon?"

The Slayer was quiet for a moment. "You super sleepy?" When Willow shook her head, she said. "Sleepover for, like half an hour?"

"Sure." A few moments later, Willow had cleared her bed of notes and textbooks, and they were under the covers.

"I don't know which end to start from," the Slayer admitted. "I guess I'll start with the now. Spike's back."

Willow's face lit up. "Oh, that's great. I've been worried, too." She gave Buffy a one-armed hug. "Told you not to give up." Then her eyes rounded. "That's your date on Friday?"

Buffy shrugged. "There's more. Uh, he's not platinum blond anymore. It's a darker blond, natural, and longer. He wears it pulled back in a little ponytail."

Willow imagined this. "I bet he looks like a pirate."

"He does! I told him that." Buffy's eyes crinkled. "He's a hottie."

"He always was. That's part of what was so disturbing about him."

"And he can be in sunlight now."

"How… is that possible?"

"One of the reasons the Master was on the Hellmouth was to find this thing called the Gem of… Amara, I think. Spike found it. He showed me where he has it," Buffy touched Willow's ribs, "made me promise to take it from him if he gets evil."

Willow nodded. "Yeah, Spike walking around in the daytime is way less terrifying than the Master walking around, well, anywhere."

"And he got his soul."

Willow drew back. "He what?"

"That's why he went away. He went to Africa, to this place, a cave where he faced trials for, like a week. He earned his soul, Wil. It isn't a curse."

"That's… profound. A demon wanting a soul?" Her quick mind added everything together. "No curse, no happiness clause. He got it for you. That's… kind of creepy, Buf."

"There's a lot more to the story. You know most of it, but I left out some things."

Willow shrugged. "I kind of figured there was more to the story."

"Well, of course you did. Between the two of us, we both know who has the brains." She beamed at her best friend. "So, the motel. We did the mindlink thing, and then, it was just easier. We talked, just regular talk, about Angel and he talked about Drusilla, and I wasn't so worried he might kill himself. He asked how Angel lost his soul."

"Angelus didn't tell them?"

Buffy shook her head. "So I told him, and then he got mad because," Buffy put her face in her hands, "I didn't come. My first time."

"Neither did I," Willow said, then colored. "Well, I did before, Oz made sure."

"So, Spike said it was a stain on the family name or something." Buffy peeked at Willow through her fingers. "He offered to go down on me." She took a breath and put her hands down. "He promised there would be no penetration of any kind, and said it would be a chance not to think.

"I really wanted to not be thinking."

Willow had a small smile on her face. "How was it?"

Buffy squinched her eyes shut. "Really good. Really, really good." She looked at Willow. "I didn't think about how much my life sucked for like an hour."

"An hour?!"

"O-or so. And he did exactly as he said he would do, and when I offered to, you know, not think some more, he turned me down."

Willow raised her fine eyebrows, thinking of how Oz had turned her down once. "The really nice ones won't sleep with you first thing."

Buffy nodded. "So, the next day I told him that I was going to my Dad's, because I knew I couldn't spend another night alone with him." She saw the concerned look in Willow's eyes. "Not because I didn't trust him, because… I kind of wanted more."

"And you didn't see him until he came back to Sunnydale?"

"Right. And you know everything about that… except that I had to remind myself not to kiss him every time I saw him. And at the same time, I was reminding myself not to kiss Angel.

"When I came over and cried all over you, your bathrobe, your pillows when Angel said he wasn't in love with me anymore and was going to leave Sunnydale… I think I'd known he wasn't in love with me for a while. And as much as I did love Angel… I don't think I was in love with him. Not anymore. And I didn't want admit that to myself." Buffy wiped her eyes and shrugged. "Failure, right? He was the first man I loved. It didn't work out."

"Come here," Willow said, putting an arm around her.

Buffy embraced her in return, sniffled. "At that motel, when Spike turned me down, he said when I turned eighteen, if I was still interested, he'd be my birthday present. You know how hard my eighteenth birthday sucked."

Willow hugged her harder and nodded. "Maybe there's a happy birthday spell so you can have, you know, an actual happy one."

"Spike showed up the weekend after the Council left. I'd just brushed my teeth for the night, I went back to my room, and there was Spike, laying on my bed wearing nothing but a red bow. A really big bow."

"Oh, my God." Willow looked pleasantly shocked.

"Mom was taking sleeping pills to deal with the nightmares, so I knew she wouldn't wake up. He said he planned for weeks so he could get everything right, and he did. It was perfect. It was like being Cinderella, Wil, and I needed that, especially after the _Tento di Cruciamentum_." She told Willow the details, how she made all the decisions about what happened throughout the night, how she was definitely still interested, that she felt beautiful, strong, and confident at the end. "It was kind of like a wedding night."

Willow took a little breath. "That was before Angel told you… And that's…."

"It never once felt like cheating. Angelus said some things to me that kind of warped how I saw myself… that way. With Spike… it's just fun. I feel… It's okay if I'm not experienced; it's okay if it's like, oh, I want more of that."

She was watching Willow carefully and saw the wounded look. "I wanted to tell you about it, Wil. But here I am, Buffy, who never learns, who already had a disastrous relationship with a vampire… I know what it looks like."

"But it's Spike."

"Who didn't have a soul."

"Who loved you without one."

Buffy shook her head. "That didn't help. I mean, we all saw how he was with Drusilla, even though she was… just a skank and a slut." When Willow raised an eyebrow, Buffy said defensively, "Well, she cheated on him. But vampires can't really love, right?"

"Giles is pretty convinced that Spike is not a typical vampire."

Buffy nodded. "And he so would want me to have another vampire boyfriend. So I didn't tell my friends that something good was going on in my life, for a change."

"So, you think that maybe Friday you might…?"

"You remember that day you went for a college visit to UC-Berkeley? I snuck onto the booster bus that went to Dutton for a softball game so I could visit Spike." She squinched her eyes again. "I already went back for seconds."

"Buffy! You're, like, a brazen woman." Willow giggled.

"It's… pretty amazing between us," Buffy allowed. Then she sighed. "And Spike came to Sunnydale a few days after that, but he hadn't planned everything out and thought everything through for weeks. He ended up knocking me unconscious, because I guess I wasn't going along with whatever he had in mind."

"Oh, no!"

"I was out just for a couple of minutes, and he was sitting there beside me, ashamed, not looking at me. That's when he said he decided that he needed to get his soul, so he would understand right from wrong before it was too late."

"So… it wasn't because Buffy loves ensouled vampires?"

"No. He said, if he had time to think everything through, he might have been able to do it. But life moves fast in Sunnydale."

"Yeah, we don't usually get a chance to think things through." Willow's brows furrowed. "Are you in love, Buffy?"

She shrugged helplessly. "Yes. But I've kept this a secret, and I didn't admit it to myself, and for the last couple of months, I was sure he was dead. The mindlink, you know, I tried it, but… there was nothing. I thought that meant he was dead, so… no reason to admit it to myself or anyone else. Spike thinks it was probably while he was facing the trials."

"What were the trials?" Willow asked, wondering what could possibly be worth the prize of a soul.

"He tried to brush it off as just 'fights,'" Buffy answered, her voice soft, "but I've seen glimpses of fire and swarms of bugs, too, around the clock for a week, and I know he was almost dead, really dead, even after he had the soul."

Watching her face, Willow changed the subject. "He's back now."

"Yeah. Oh! I almost forgot. Giles and Xander helped him find the gem, and there was a lot of other treasure, and apparently we're all rich now."

"What?"

"My reaction exactly," Buffy said, shrugging. "But my handsome vampire drove us in a fancy convertible to a really nice beach house he plans to buy, so there's money coming from somewhere." She looked at Willow's expression and nodded. "Exactly."

Willow frowned, then shrugged all that aside. "Why do you think you've fallen for two vampires, Buffy? Do you think it's a Slayer thing?"

Buffy's lips parted at this unexpected question, and she stared at Willow for a few seconds. "I-I have thought about it. Mostly, I think it's just them, you know? Two really hot guys. But some of it is that… I don't have to worry about how hard I hug them, like I do with regular guys. Like I do with you or Mom."

"That'd take some of the romance out of it." She gave Buffy a shy smile. "Sometimes Oz bites me on, like, the scruff of the neck. Not hard," she clarified, "but it's kind of hot."

Buffy covered her face. "I wondered, but I've been afraid to ask… Does that mean you've done it, you know, doggie style?"

"No, but sometimes he starts behind me, so he can touch me but I can't touch him." She grinned. "But I'd like to, sometime."

"Spike doesn't care if I touch him. He… has multiple orgasms." Buffy spread her fingers to peep at her best friend again. "Sometimes I just touch him… or something… and he just goes on, asks for more. Vampire physiology."

"So it was the same with Angel," Willow mused. When Buffy shook her head, her eyes widened. "When you said it was 'nice,' you weren't being vague."

"Angel was careful and gentle, and I think it had been a long time since he'd, you know, done anything. I used to think he hadn't had sex since he got his soul," Buffy's voice became a bit brittle, "but he stayed with Darla for two years after he got cursed."

"He did?" Willow shook her head a little. "Why would he do that?"

"He was lonely, and she was family." Buffy shrugged. "He stayed until she kicked him out."

"Huh." Willow pulled the covers up a little higher. "Did Spike and Darla…?"

Buffy looked down and nodded her head. "They all did, with each other. Normal stuff, too, but there was a lot of abuse."

"Abuse?"

"Darla against everyone else, Darla and Angelus against… the younger ones."

"He told you this?"

"No! You know how he promised to be honest with me? He'll tell me some things, but most of what I know I've seen in, like, flashes from being in his mind."

"Like seeing his memories," Willow mused. "Can he see yours?"

"If I don't want him in my head, I just shut down the link. Same with him." Buffy shrugged. "Not the weirdest thing in my life." She gave Willow a direct look. "That would be the fact that we've both slept with the same man. That, or high school graduation."

"The same man – Angel?" Willow's jaw dropped. When Buffy nodded, she closed her mouth and swallowed. "Ohh. They all did, with each other." She shook her head slowly. "How come Giles never told us any of this about vampires?"

"I don't know if it's common. I mean, I've never come across any vampires doing it. Spike's talked about being 'in family.' Maybe there's just enough trust there, but not between non-related vamps?" She shook her head.

"I'm just imagining – no, I'm not." Willow rolled her eyes. "And now I can't imagine anything else."

"Think of a puppy. A cute, fuzzy puppy. With spotted paws."

"Got it." She took a breath. "Wow. Your life is a little too interesting sometimes."

"Tell me about it."

"So," Willow said, "snugglebunnies with Spike?"

"I hope so." Buffy let out a little laugh. "I think I fell in love with him… sitting across from him at the imaginary Sit N Bull." She lifted a shoulder. "He says that he's sure I'm the one he wants, but he just wants to date, which is such a weird word for whatever it is we have. He wants me to live a little, and he hopes I choose him eventually, too."

Willow looked at her steadily. "You live all you want, Buffy."

"Oh, that's the funny thing. Spike said that his mission is to keep me alive until I'm ninety. How's that for – Wil? What's wrong?"

"I want you to live to be ninety, too." Willow, tears spilling across her cheeks and a hitch in her voice, reached for her, clumsy and full of love. "It's not fair, Buffy! The whole Slayer thing isn't… fair."

"Oh, hey. Shh." Buffy rubbed her back.

"We all think about it, you know? I hate it."

"I try not to think about it."

Willow wiped her eyes. "Well, Spike's got my vote." She sniffled. "Not that your love life is up for a vote or anything."

Buffy kissed her forehead. "Thanks. Buffy and the blond vampire probably isn't going to be any more popular than Buffy and the brunette vampire. I need all the support I can get."

Both girls froze in surprise when they heard ringtones in the room. "Oh, big duh," Buffy said, throwing off the covers. "I forgot: we've got cell phones now." She grabbed her bookbag and rummaged in a pocket for two mobiles, one in a purple case, the other in pink. "It's Giles. Hey, he texted! How about that?" She handed Willow the purple phone.

Willow looked at the phone, then the message. "Scooby meeting tomorrow." Then she looked at the phone some more.

"I don't know who picked out the cases, but that's some serious stereotyping." Buffy sat down cross-legged on her own bed.

"Yeah, but I like purple," Willow admitted.

⸹

Two left, Spike thought, and I'm more nervous about this one than the rest combined. I don't have to win her over today. I just have to not bollix it up. After that, Willow will be a breeze. He lowered his head and pushed open the door to Summers Fine Arts.

Even though he was mostly used to the sun, going from bright light to dim interiors still threw him. It took his vision time to adjust, just like a human. Spike took off his sunglasses and saw Joyce behind the counter. She met his eyes and smiled. "Are you looking for anything particular today?"

"A kind and beautiful lady?"

Joyce froze, then said, "Spike?"

He went toward her, holding out his hands, and Joyce came to take them. She gave him a hug before pulling away to look at him. "How are you…? It's sunny outside!"

"Yeah, got some things to tell you. I hope you are free for lunch?"

"Uh… sure. I can't be gone long. Maggie isn't coming in until four today. She got her art degree at Crestwood, so she can't really do better because of their accreditation problem. She's a little Goth, but she knows her stuff and is trustworthy. And I'm babbling."

"I didn't mean for it to be such a shock."

"No. It's just, you look… different."

"Nice, I hope?"

She found her equilibrium. "Are you fishing for a compliment?"

Spike grinned back at her. "Only for your smile."

He waited for her to get her handbag and turn her sign to 'closed.' She locked the door and nodded across the street. "They have a pretty good lunch, and they're quick."

"And if we get that table at the window, you can watch the shop?"

She grimaced. "Am I that obvious?"

"Well, then, to salve your conscience, let me start with one of the two reasons I came to see you at the gallery. I got a house, just outside Sunnydale. I have empty walls and need something to put on them." He took her elbow without thinking as they crossed the street. "I have empty everything, as a matter of fact. That's what I was doing downtown this morning, buying, uh, some furniture."

"Oh? What are you looking for?"

"Not a big focal point piece, not yet. Prints, I think. I know I'm being bougie, but I want an O'Keefe, something colorful, maybe _Petunias_. I like L.S. Lowry's urban landscapes. And I always liked Derain's _Charing Cross Bridge_."

They spoke about other twentieth century artists while they ordered. Joyce got the table she wanted, and she asked more generally about the house. "I didn't think you were interested in settling in a small town."

"No, but everyone I am interested in, is in this small town." He lifted his bottle of water in salute.

Joyce beamed at him. "Have you seen Buffy? She'll be thrilled you're back."

"I saw her just yesterday. Haven't seen Willow yet, but I have spent some time with Xander and Giles."

"How is Rupert?" Joyce took a hasty bite of her salad.

"He seems fine. Bit at sixes and sevens."

"I hate that he lost his job."

Spike wasn't sure if she meant as Watcher or librarian, or both. "Yeah, we've sort of started a business."

"Oh? What kind?"

This gave him an excellent chance to tell her about the 'charm,' which he figured would be a safe thing to call it publicly, that let him be in sunlight. She marveled over a treasure trove being in Sunnydale, and they talked for a while about the ethics of treasure hunting. Joyce was touched that he'd wanted to be an archaeologist and approved of his stance on leaving any untouched sites to the experts.

They finished lunch and were heading back to the gallery before Joyce remembered. "You said there were two reasons you stopped by?"

"Yeah, let's go on across, though. I think you have customers."

"Oh, good."

Spike left Joyce with an older, retired couple and went down the street for a couple of lattes. By the time he brought them back, Joyce was ringing up a sale.

"Cyndie, that's a local artist, she'll be glad that sold." She came back from holding the door for the couple. "It's a beachscape, so of course that sells around here, but it had been taking that space all summer. Oh, thank you. You're a dear." She took the coffee. "I always get sleepy in the afternoons." Joyce had a sip. "Now, what was the other thing?"

"Before I start, how much has Buffy told you about the difference between Angel and Angelus?"

"Angelus was cursed to have a soul so he would feel remorse, he went by Angel for a hundred years, then Buffy fell in love with him and… broke the curse."

Spike nodded. "That's about it. Without his soul, he didn't love her."

"No, he didn't. That was clear." Joyce's tone was grim.

Spike stared at her, horrified. "You met Angelus?"

She nodded. "He came to the house. He couldn't come inside… but he had a lot to say."

Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. "Whatever… spin he put on things, it wasn't like that."

"I know my daughter." Joyce looked down. "And I know she's… She has to live now, because tomorrow isn't promised. I hate that, but I understand."

"I promised her tomorrow," Spike said softly. "That's why I came back to Sunnydale, Joyce. My mission is to keep her alive. She'll never give up her mission," and he gave her a little smile, "you know your daughter. So I'm going to be right there, watching her back.

"I left Sunnydale so I could get my own soul. It wasn't because I thought, oh, she'll love me because I'm a vampire with a soul or anything. It was so I could understand the difference between right and wrong. I can be by her side night or day, with the charm. I can be by her side if there are humans involved with the soul, be trusted to not just kill them. She never called on me for help because of that." He put his elbows on the counter, leaning toward her. "I'm not as strong as Buffy, not quite, but I'm faster, and I have decades of experience fighting demons. While she's working to defeat them, I'll be making sure that another one's not sneaking up or flanking her." He lifted a shoulder. "I promised her she'd live to be ninety."

Joyce was quiet for a moment, realizing what was really happening here. She pressed her lips together and ran a fingertip underneath each eye. "Because you love her?"

His smile was wintry. "I do. For a long time, I would happily admit that I loved her, because she treated me like a friend, like… a man instead of monster. Because how can you not love Buffy?" The smile was gone, and his tone softened. "Last spring, I realized I was in love with her, my mortal enemy. Only, she's never been my enemy, and I've never been hers."

"And what if she doesn't love you?"

Spike didn't look away. "I've told her these things. I've also told her that, now that she's got all this time ahead of her, to go on and live, regardless of me. Make mistakes and try new things. Date other people. I hope she chooses me when she's ready, Joyce.

"If she doesn't, I'll still be right by her side, every patrol, every ambush, every apocalypse." He took a breath. "I'm not going to begrudge her. I'd just turned twenty-eight when I died, but almost a hundred and twenty years I've had since. I've made my mistakes. I know my own heart. I loved one woman for almost twelve decades. But Buffy is going to be the woman I'll remember as my true love.

"She's special, even among Slayers. She shines with good, like a white power is about to just radiate out of her. I love that, but I love your daughter, who's smarter than she thinks she is, who cuts through all the crap to get right to the point, who loves to dance and shop, who puts other people first."

Joyce blinked back tears at this description. She didn't smile, just took a breath and said her piece. If he was asking court her daughter, he deserved to know her objections. "Even with a soul, you're still a vampire."

He nodded and looked down for just a moment. "I am. I am a corpse animated by a demon. I drink blood; it is as necessary for me as air is for you. Every moment that I'm around any of you, not just Buffy, I understand how unworthy I am. I am death; I am despair.

"I could tell you stories about humans like Silvia Rubenstein, people I've known, even protected over the years. Artists and musicians, a lot of them. None of that makes up for even one of the people who've died under my fangs.

"I don't even remember all their faces, Joyce. No more than a lion remembers the gazelles."

There was a long and heavy silence after this. Joyce stared at Spike, who stared at the countertop.

"Are you sorry?"

He closed his eyes. "Do I regret… yes, I am sorry. But if I hadn't been made into a vampire, if I hadn't been… successful at it, I would never have met your daughter." Spike straightened up and looked at Joyce. "When I was alive, I was the kind of man I think you would have wanted for her. Gentle, gentlemanly… I never got the chance to marry, but I always thought I'd make a good husband, a good father. My soul… it's a good one, Joyce. It saw what I am, wicked and wretched but struggling to be better, and held out a hand to help.

"By nature, I'm not a morose and mopey person. It's not in me to sit around and brood and wallow over what I did. There are dark hours, I won't deny it. But I won't be what I was, with or without your daughter. I'm trying, and I've taken steps to make it more likely that I'll succeed at being good. I'll never be good enough for Buffy. I know that. I don't know that anybody's good enough for her."

He tilted his head, his voice rough and the timbre deeper. "But I'm bad enough for her. I'll jump into the maw of any beast that growls at her, and I'll do it with relish. Anything that threatens her, will deal with me. She's the warrior who'll save us all; I'm the monster who'll save her. Every night, I'll save her. I swear it.

"Every day, too. I already had some money; I've made more. Someday, I'm going to ask her to marry me. I know, I'm an old-fashioned fossil, but I'll keep her in comfort, I'll keep her reputation spotless, I'll… mow our grass, or whatever husbands do in America. She has such a hard path, Joyce. I want to make everything I can easy for her. Whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, I'll be there to give it to her."

"And what if she wants children?"

Spike turned away and looked out of the windows at the brightness of the sunlit world. "I have no life to give, but I did think of that. If she wants children, whether they're adopted or hers from a sperm bank, I'll love them."

He looked back at her and sighed. "I'm sorry, Joyce. This got a lot deeper than I intended." Spike took a breath. "I'm not asking for your blessing today. But I am asking you to consider giving it, if and when Buffy does choose me. We… so far, we've helped each other through some rough patches. We make each other happy." He held out his hands, amazed and humbled when she took them. "I think I've handled this badly. I know I'm asking you to consider letting me be part of your family. I know I'm on probation. Just… consider it."

Joyce squeezed his hands, then let go, walking further behind the counter. "It's – oh! Welcome," she told the two women who came in, jingling the bell above the door. "Let me know if I can help in any way." She turned back to Spike and gave him an apologetic look. "It's a lot to think about. I want to talk to Buffy."

"Of course." He forced a smile. "I'll get out of your way."

Joyce bit her lip. He was almost to the door. "Spike? I'll let you know about those prints." His relieved grin was almost as blinding as the light that came through the door before it closed behind him.

⸹

Spike had offered to pick up Willow and Buffy for the meeting at Giles' apartment. Since he had time to kill, he stopped by a pizza place to arrange for delivery to the meeting and fed off the clerk and three customers who came in. He was about to drive to campus when his phone rang. Spike jumped; he'd had texts before, but no one had ever called him. The first call he'd made was an international one to the Savile Row shop that served him in life to get a recommendation for a Los Angeles tailor who might not be too shabby. They were confirming his fitting. He snapped the phone shut, bemused.

When he got to the UC-Sunnydale campus, Willow and Buffy were already waiting on a bench outside their dorm. Buffy waved at him and ran over, grinning and excited. Something in his chest seemed to tighten, watching her happiness to have him in her world.

"Thought you might like to drive your own car, now that it's not night and the road isn't narrow and winding around hills."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss. _Hi, you. Missed you._ "I hoped you'd bring it."

 _Hi, love. Another for being a good valet?_ He got his second kiss. "All fueled up, ready to go for hours."

She narrowed her eyes. _We are talking about the car?_

He shook his head, giving her a look that was likely illegal in public. Aloud, he said, "You'll want to adjust the mirrors," and got out so he could greet Willow. He picked her up and spun her around, and they stepped on each other's compliments about hair.

"How've you been, then? Liking university?"

"I love it," Willow said, watching a couple passing by on the sidewalk. When they were clear, she marveled, "I can't believe I'm seeing you in daylight."

He held out an arm. "I've sunburned myself three times, but I think I can fool my melanin into not believing it's injured if I go for shorter periods."

"I think you are darker."

"Wouldn't take much."

In a low voice, she asked, "Have you driven with Buffy before?"

Spike grinned at her. "She can't be worse than me."

He was wrong, as it turned out, but manning something smaller than her mother's Jeep improved Buffy's driving appreciably. Spike rode in the back seat and distracted Willow from counting how many stop signs Buffy missed by asking about her classes.

The Slayer did a credible job of parking, and Xander pulled in beside them. He and Buffy shared a hug and fell into a round of car talk that was entirely new and incredibly fun for them. Willow tugged on Spike's sleeve and pulled him toward Giles' door.

"Buffy told me last night," she said in a low voice. "I'm rooting for you guys."

Spike looked down at her with a sappy expression. "Thank you, Red."

She examined him. "I can see a difference. With the soul, I mean. You never could handle kindness before." He was taken aback, but before he could speak, she said softly, "Last night, she was so bubbly and so… Buffy. She hasn't been like that in more than a year. Thank you."

Spike couldn't answer, just put a hand over his heart. Willow patted him and knocked on the door. Giles opened the door, and the smell of pizza wafted from within. He welcomed Willow and greeted Spike with a dry, "I should thank you for not sticking me with the bill for the pizza, I suppose."

"Before I forget," Buffy said after they were all inside, "Spike and I are going out on a date Friday." She turned to him. "Will you patrol with me, too, afterwards?"

Willow sent Buffy a quick look, and they busied themselves with pizza while the men in the room froze. Spike was looking at Buffy with happy disbelief as he nodded agreement to the patrol. They were going to do this openly, it seemed. Giles was looking at Buffy with resignation, and Xander was looking at Spike in surprise.

Xander recovered first. "Well, you guys have a good time." He met Spike's wide eyes with a wry shrug.

After the group tucked into the pizza, Giles leaned down and took up a book that he'd tucked partway beneath the couch, then settled back. "Right. Now that you two are settled into classes, I thought we'd talk about how patrols have been, and then this business about our, uh, business."

Giles held out the book he'd retrieved to Spike. "While we get up to speed, I want you read this from where it's bookmarked."

"How come Evil Dead gets homework and we don't?" Xander asked. Spike looked up from the book and shot him a two-fingered salute, and Giles glared at him. "Ooh, withering looks from British chaps, in stereo. I shan't survive."

Buffy frowned at what looked like a Watcher's Diary, but turned back to Giles, who was possibly suppressing a smile. "So, patrol last night. I took out a nest of vamps on campus who were targeting freshmen. I think they'd been working that angle for years. It was a nice change, finding action where there are actually people to prey upon."

"It isn't as much of a demonpalooza as it was this summer." Xander leaned forward from the easy chair and clasped his hands together. "Speaking of, Anya is back in town. She's impressed that we aren't dead," he said, "and wants to pick up things with me where we left off, as if we even have a thing to pick up."

"Is she crazy-stalker girl?" Willow asked.

Xander shrugged. "I kind of like her, mostly because she likes me, but, hey! Not exactly drowning in cute girls here." He realized what he'd said. "Except you two! Very cute! Just… not drowning."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Giles adjusted his spectacles. "If we might continue…? Does anyone have a thought about why the pattern has changed? New clubs, or a coffeehouse, or something?"

"There's a road detour a couple blocks over from Wilkins," Xander offered, "but most vampires aren't doing drive-by suckings, sooo that's probably not a factor."

"If they aren't attracted by something, is there something that's repelling them?" The Slayer tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Buffy has moved to campus," Willow offered.

"Perhaps," Giles muttered, clearly not satisfied. "I'd like to do a sweep of the tunnels beneath downtown this week," he ignored the chorus of groans, "and see if there's anything down there."

"Maybe we could put cameras in the tunnels instead," Willow mused, "and just count how many vampires and demons go by."

"That isn't a bad idea." Giles jotted this down in his notes. "Now, I'll tell Willow and Buffy about the business. Xander, if you'll take the pizza boxes to the kitchen…?"

"Ooh, first, another veggie slice," Buffy said.

"Me, too," Willow added.

"There's only one slice left in this box," Xander noted, and stuffed most of it into his mouth. Giles broke down and took another slice of pepperoni for himself. He told the two young women about the business, answered their questions, explained how they were being brought in, and got their signatures on some paperwork.

"Okay," Willow said, frowning. "I agree that I can help with the computer end. And of course none of this would even be without Buffy."

"Who can lift heavy things and do whatever Xander tells me to do with lumber and stuff," Buffy added.

"But isn't Oz part of our group?"

Giles nodded to show Willow had a valid point, but he was also frowning. "And wasn't Cordelia part of the group? And Angel? Where do we draw that line?"

"I understand," Willow said, looking troubled, "but it doesn't seem right."

"I have thought of this." Giles wiped his fingers with a napkin. "It was the four of us at the beginning. And Spike, of course, is the one who knows where these troves are. When we first realized that there was treasure buried in that crypt, we just figured a three-way split, but in hindsight that didn't seem right. I propose that, if Oz comes along on a future treasure hunt, we offer him an equal share of what we realize."

"Okay, I guess that's fair," Willow agreed, but she was still frowning.

"Any other questions?" When they shook their heads, Giles said, "Then, meeting adjourned. I'll check about cameras for the tunnels. And I'll file these papers." When Buffy stood up, Giles held out a hand. "Buffy, if you and Spike could stay for a few minutes…?"

Willow looked at Buffy and nodded. "I'll get a ride back from Xander."

"You're just trying to avoid riding with me again," Buffy said wryly.

"Only a little," Willow replied, grinning.

Spike had apparently finished his reading assignment. He stopped tapping the book against his thigh and stood to see them to the door with Buffy. Giles studied the vampire and waited expectantly until he slouched onto the arm of Buffy's chair.

"Well? What do you make of it?"

"It's a great load of tripe. And his handwriting is atrocious."

"What part is tripe?"

"From my perspective? All of it."

Buffy felt the anger radiating off him and took the book from his hand. It was a Watcher Diary from the 1970s. Her mouth tightened. "This is about the last Slayer Spike killed?"

"No, actually." Giles gave the vampire a piercing look. "It's about the murder of her remaining family."

Buffy looked up at her vampire, eyes wide. He was shaking his head at Giles. "It's… utter fiction. I told you what I did that night."

"Yes. I believe you."

Spike gave him a look of askance. "Then why make me read this?"

"I think there may have been a great injustice."

"Too right."

"Not to you," Giles said, annoyed.

Buffy lifted her hand. "Would someone like to clue in the Slayer?"

Spike looked down at her. _After Nikki and I… fought, I went to the lair of a group of vampires that had tried to poach her. I torched their building and killed the ones who tried to escape. Then I went to the docks to get a ship to London. Dru was there, and there was nothing keeping me in New York._

 _Nikki's Watcher wrote that, after we fought, I lured her son out of their apartment, used that to get her mother outside, too, and killed them both. Then he supposedly burned down the Riis lair in revenge against all vampires._

She absorbed this, getting even more of the story from the images provided by his memories. Buffy turned back to Giles. "Why would Nikki's Watcher lie like that?"

Giles was staring at them, looking both disturbed and fascinated. "Er, I actually have a theory." He stood up and sighed. "The Watcher, Bernard Crowley, resigned from the Council and stayed in America after Nikki's death. So, what with him being older, single, and foreign, I always wondered how it was that he was allowed to adopt a child. It never occurred to me to do anything other than idly wonder. Then I found this image of his son after his college graduation."

He held out a photocopy of a newspaper announcement. The photograph was of a young African-American man. Buffy, who had just seen Nikki through the mindlink, felt Spike's heart sink, and she put a hand on his leg.

"Did… do you think Crowley killed Nikki's mum? Bloody hell, Giles, she was a nurse! She helped people!"

"I don't actually think Mrs. Wood is dead, though I believe Robin – that's the son's name – has been told his whole family was killed by a vampire."

Spike, looking sick, leaned over and put his head in his hands. "It's my fault."

Giles had no sympathy. "Yes, at base. You made an orphan of the boy, left him vulnerable." He relented slightly. "I'm not saying his life has been miserable. Crowley obviously loves him. He's rich; they live in Beverly Hills."

"They're here in California?" Buffy asked.

"Yes, Robin's in graduate school now." He sighed. "I cannot pretend there isn't good basis for my suspicion that the child was kidnapped from his grandmother. I've contacted a private investigator in New York to track down Mrs. Wood. If she's passed, I'm inclined to leave it there. If she's still alive… We have to show her the picture of the young man, see if she believes it's her grandson."

"And he's the right age?"

"Yes." Giles sat back down, looking tired.

Buffy patted Spike's knee and went to sit beside Giles. She was imagining if she had a child and a Watcher took it from her mother after her death, had taken the only source of comfort remaining. "If she's alive, I'll go. You can't hear something like this over the phone. She won't want to hear this from someone associated with the Council, obviously. I think it should come from a Slayer."

A range of emotions crossed his face, and Giles gave her a one-armed hug. "You're right, of course. You're a very fine person, Buffy."

She ducked her head, flushing with pleasure. "Well, thank you. You're biased, but I'll take it."

Spike was quiet during the rest of the visit, and the two left when Buffy said she wanted to change clothes before starting patrol. Giles went out to admire her car, and then watched from an apartment window as the two stood holding hands, talking silently. Spike heaved a sigh and nodded, and they left. Maybe all that will come of it is friendship, he thought. Then he thought of the friendship he had with Olivia and sighed himself.

Buffy invited Spike up to her room, but she could tell his heart wasn't in his mock-disapproval of it being a coed dorm. Her roommate Kathy wasn't there, thank goodness. Spike lay back on her bed with his arms above his head, not even noticing that she was half-dressed while changing. Buffy came to the bed and straddled him, then rolled him over so that he was wrapped in her arms.

"It's not just what Giles told us about Nikki's son," he said.

He'd chosen to talk aloud, so Buffy just waited, smoothing his shirt across the muscles of his shoulder.

"I talked to your mum today." He shrugged. "I hadn't seen her, wanted to get her caught up…" his tone became self-mocking, "wanted to ask her permission to date her daughter."

"If she did, I think that's just about a first. Well, since before the divorce. She became a much stricter mom."

"The same thing came up, that I'm a vampire." He closed his eyes and finally let her in. _Right now, this is one of those times that I see too clearly that I'm not fit to be in your lives._

 _The entire time I've known you, Spike, you've been changing. For the better. I never knew you as that person, so it's easy for me. Not so easy for you, I know._ She kissed his nose. _Did you know that Willow checks the obituaries so I know which graveyards to go to?_ He shook his head. _So every time she tells me there's a new grave, I think back a few nights. Was that when I had a test to study for and only did half a patrol? Was that the night I just needed a break and went to the Bronze for a while? Is the person in that grave because of me?_

 _There_ are _people in graves because of me. A lot of people._

She closed her eyes. _I know that. I killed a few people early on, in self-defense, people who'd sold themselves to demonic spirits to the point that they weren't truly human…_ Buffy bit her lip. _It was still a human body, though. I still remember what it feels like beneath my hands. I've found that I can leave humans to the authorities, even here in Sunnydale. Until I had to kill Angel, I'd never done that to someone innocent._

 _No._ She put her hand between them to stop his words. _Let me finish. I only know what it's like for me. I don't understand what it's like for you; I know that. But I can be sympathetic, because I have similar recree… recreim…._

 _Recriminations?_

 _Yes. Recriminations._ Her hand moved into his hair, beneath the strip of leather that tied it back. _It doesn't do any good to keep reliving everything in here_ – her hand gripped the curve of his skull – _but it does good to keep living out here._

 _Are you saying… get my lazy arse off your bed and go on patrol with you?_

 _Pretty much. And that I love you. I can't wait to see the person you become._

His eyes closed in pain, forcing tears from between his lids. _Ah, love. Whoever I am, I won't ever deserve to be in your presence. But I love you, more than I can say._

 _I love you right back._ Buffy let go of him and sat up. _Come on. Slayage won't take care of itself_.

⸹

"How about here?" Giles suggested. He and Xander were at an intersection of two sewer tunnels beneath Wilkins Avenue.

"Sure. Major traffic, you'd think, this close to not one, but two downtown manholes." Xander set up the ladder and shifted his toolbelt back into place.

Giles rummaged through the messenger bag he carried for a camcorder, one of three he'd bought for surveillance. He came up with one and held it out for Xander, who didn't reach for it. He jiggled it to get the boy's attention.

"Uh, Giles?" Xander stepped off the ladder and moved aside. "Someone already has a camera here."

"What?" Giles peered up, then climbed the ladder to see better. "I didn't see any cameras like this in the store."

"I don't think Circuit City carries those," Xander said. "I think those are government cameras."

Giles looked down at him. "Government? Sunnydale has… traffic cameras in the tunnels?"

"Nope. I'm thinking U.S. government."

Giles turned back and peered at the camera again. "You recognize it from your, uh, nonexistent time in the military?"

"That one's smaller, but, yeah."

"Well, that's… confusing." Giles shrugged. "We'll just mount ours underneath, then. Saves us from drilling."

⸹

"Giles! I'm here." He'd left the door unlocked for her. "Giles?"

"Here," he called from upstairs. "I'll be right down."

Buffy drifted to the kitchen, checking the refrigerator for something to snack on. Something crunchy sounds good, she thought, maybe an apple. "How come you never have anything I want in your fridge, Giles?" she called.

She closed the door, and he was there. Buffy jumped. "Oh. Hey."

"Possibly because I have things in my fridge that I want?" He took a step back so she could look in the cabinet behind him. "I'll take you to lunch in a minute, if I can have your attention."

She closed the cabinet door and turned back to him. "For lunch, I'll give you all my attention."

"Here," he said, holding out an envelope.

"Sunnydale High School," she said, reading the address on the envelope. She looked up, her eyes wide with horror. "It's a bill for blowing up the school, isn't it?"

"It's actually a letter that Spike told me to give to you in September." When she quirked her brow, he added, "He wrote it just before he left last spring."

"Oh." She looked down at the letter, then smoothed a strand of hair back. "I'll just take this," she gestured vaguely and walked to the living room. Sinking down into the easy chair, she touched her name, 'Miss Buffy Summers,' then opened the envelope.

⸹

 _Hullo, love._

 _First, if you're reading this, I'm sorry that I won't be coming back to you. As I write this, I'm leaving to go to Africa. There's a demon bound to a cave there. If you face a series of trials and win through, he grants you a boon. Since I'm not with you, I didn't succeed._

 _I didn't leave because I no longer want to be at your side. I left so that I can get my soul. For the past few weeks, I've felt the foundation of the friendship that we've forged starting to tilt, or that I'm teetering on the edge of it, or something that's hard to put into words. Insofar as I demon can think deeply about things, I've thought and worried over this. I think I know what the problem is, and there's nothing I can do to fix it without my soul._

 _I do things to get what I want, and then I turn around and find I've hurt you without ever realizing there would be consequences to my actions. I know a proper demon would not care that you were hurt. I do care._

 _I've waited outside of Sunnydale, not being there to help you with dangers large and small. Not being there when you need me. I don't doubt that you want me to be safe, but I finally realized that you can't trust me not to hurt others. While I would never hurt our friends, I would kill anyone who threatened you without a thought. You know this._

 _If I can't understand what is evil and why it's evil, I will never be able to be in your life, love. That's why I need my soul, to recognize evil. To recognize myself, perhaps._

 _I love you without a soul. I am nothing more than a demon, and there are plenty who would think I'm a failure at it. But I can love, for better or worse, and I love you. My soul was very kind and loving, and while I can't brag about much from my time as a human, I can absolutely say I was a good man. My soul would have loved you as much as I do._

 _I understand what my purpose is, now. I'll love you wherever I'm at on the planet, but my purpose, my mission is to keep you alive. To do that, to be able to fight at your back, I have to understand your mission. You're the Warrior, love, the archetype. My role is to be at your side, to deflect the rush or the ambush, to throw myself between you and whatever is skulking just outside your peripheral vision. If I can win back my soul, you can finally trust me be at your side._

 _I've never been able to abide by all the rules that dictate life as a vampire. I followed all the rules when I was a human; why should there be any for a demon? That's the excuse I've used for swerving from evil – who says I can't spare a victim, fight fairly, or honor an agreement? But it isn't a good enough excuse this time, not for what I'm going to try to do._

 _If the worst happens, if I fail, if you're reading this… We won't meet again. But know that I chose good, Buffy. Because of you, because you love me, I can at least be honest, wretched demon though I am. I choose good._

 _Know that I have loved you as no other demon has ever loved. You're the one, Buffy. Rules are not meant for you, either. You are strong and good and there's nothing you cannot do. – Your Vampire_

⸹

Buffy put her fingers to her lips, stifling a sob that was silent, anyway. She wiped her eyes and sat still for a few minutes, then wiped her face again. While Spike glossed over the trials, she had seen his hands in one of the memories. They were skeletal and drawn and grey, where they weren't raw and rippled with burns. Associated with that image was his own dismayed realization that he was dying. As much as he tried to downplay it, he had been on a knife's edge.

Sniffling, she rubbed carefully beneath her eyes, trying to erase any smudges, and went back to the kitchen. Giles was waiting for her. "Ready for lunch?" he asked casually, but his eyes were intent.

She held up the letter. "I don't think Spike meant for me to read this, since he came back."

"Oh?"

"It's about why he went to get his soul."

"Ah."

"He wasn't sure that he would succeed."

"But he did and is back safely."

She nodded. "He is. It was a lot harder than he lets on, Giles. A lot worse."

"Would you allow me to put a copy of the letter into my Watcher's Diary? If there's nothing too personal, I mean?"

"No, I don't mind." She frowned at him. There was something… calculated behind how casual he was being. "Why do you want to?"

"Buffy, you've inspired one vampire to get his soul. You've inspired another who lived under a curse for a hundred years to… do some good, for the first time in in a hundred years." He shrugged. "I may be a little proud of you for that."

The Slayer rolled her eyes. "That wasn't me. They're both pretty special."

⸹

Sunnydale

November 1999

⸹

Buffy swung her arms a little, picking up her pace. She had started patrol at Oceanside Park, then come back through campus. Spike had called and was going to meet her near her dorm for the rest of it. She hadn't seen him except on patrol for a few days. Giles had him working through the translation of the rest of the Master's books.

She smiled a little. Giles hadn't been happy that they were officially dating. Her mom had come around, and she thought that had a lot to do with Spike's goal of keeping her alive. On their first date, Spike had taken her dancing. They had finished the evening at the beach house. Then she brought her mother to their house the next afternoon to measure the walls for frames for the art Spike ordered. Her face had been red every time her mother touched a wall or leaned against a surface. The house was pretty well christened.

He hadn't smothered her. She'd gone to a Halloween party alone, though that had ended with Spike, Giles, and Anya ripping through the frat house wall to get to them. Buffy smiled; Gachnar had to be her best Slayer story yet. She'd also managed to discover that even beer can be evil on the Hellmouth without benefit of boyfriend. But he was there when she wanted him; they spoke on the phone or through the mindlink throughout the day. They patrolled. They made out when they patrolled. Once or twice a week, she'd get him all to herself for three or four glorious hours.

The biggest change had been Scooby meetings. Buffy had never consciously realized how often her instincts were questioned, but she recognized the familiar feeling of frustration when she insisted that something was off about her roommate just to see it shrugged aside. Spike had been late for that meeting; he strolled in and casually announced he'd checked Kathy and that she was a demon from an outside dimension. Then he sat down next to Buffy and put his arm around her. Only then had he noticed everyone was quiet and staring at her. Buffy knew it wasn't fair, but she felt her support team didn't outnumber her anymore.

She had known Spike for two years now, knew how intense he could be. She could feel him holding back, even pulling away sometimes. He knew she knew this; he wanted her to have room to live her life. But Buffy wasn't sure she was content with the distance between them.

She felt him then, the warmth and ease of her heart before her conscious awareness. He was somewhere behind her. _Hullo, kitten. Fledge ahead of you, to the left._

Buffy's Slayer senses had already pinpointed the threat, and she'd palmed her stake. _Got it. Hey, finally a vampire near a food source._

Spike grinned and leaned on a railing above some steps that led down to the woodsy area where she was quipping and fighting. The wind was blowing toward him from her position, and he breathed in the fine smell of her hair and perspiration. She was in good form tonight.

The wind died, and he wasn't sure if it was scent or sound, but he was turning toward it when a massive punch struck him in the neck.

 _Buf—_

 _Spike?_ Buffy was spinning away before the unlucky vampire's form dissolved into indistinct grit behind her.

There was no answer.

She heard a snarl up the hill, toward the library, and sped up the steps. The streetlamps that usually lit up campus were out. _Spike!_

 _Buffy help some kind of_

She heard a pop close by just as the mindlink shut down again, then saw several dark shapes hunkered low to the ground, dragging… something that looked like a person. Buffy's upper lip lifted in a silent snarl. She pelted flat out at Slayer speed toward the closest form, slamming into it and sending it flying. Using the ricochet from the impact, she knocked down the next closest shape.

The rest of them dropped Spike onto the ground and began to raise something straight toward her. Buffy lashed out with a kick that disarmed two of the figures. She distinctly heard a tinny male voice say, "Fall back. Crew two, converge." The dark shapes promptly backed away, and she swayed, torn between following and kicking the asses of whoever dared to touch –

"Spike?" She dropped to her knees next to him. _Spike, Spike._

She heard him take in a tiny breath, enough to say "Bugger."

 _Come on, up. Oh my God, Spike, what did they do to you? Poison?_

 _Give me a hand. Let's get away from here._ She did, and after a about half a minute, he didn't need her support. Buffy kept her arm around him anyway. _Car's behind your dorm._

 _You okay to drive?_

 _No._

Spike was upright by now. She got the keys from him and headed to the driver's side. _Giles?_

 _Sounds good._

Buffy drove with less attention on the road than usual, but after rolling a curb as she left campus, she did fine. _First time driving the Bentley._

 _Had to happen._

 _It wouldn't have, if I hadn't been panicked._

 _Love, you're as calm as ever._

 _Only on the outside._

Spike sat up entirely and put a hand on her shoulder in reassurance. _I'm almost back to normal._

 _What did they do to you? The Gem of Amara is supposed to make you impervious._

Spike let his head drop back against the headrest. _We'll talk about it when we get to Giles.' The road, love._

She looked away from him reluctantly, got back into her lane, and gripped the wheel grimly. Spike pulled out his phone and speed-dialed the Watcher. Buffy half-listened to the short conversation. When she parked on Giles' street, she was out of the car and around to his side immediately, opening the door, helping him out.

 _Buffy, you're shaking._ Spike wrapped his arm around her.

 _Someone hurt you. I'll rip them apart with my bare hands._ Buffy realized for the first time that he was wearing his black leather coat. She hadn't seen him in it for months.

He kissed her head. _We'll do it together. Come on, best not keep him waiting._

Buffy knocked on the door. Giles, waiting for them, opened it right away. She told him what happened as she got Spike onto the sofa. Not caring what Giles might think, she settled beside Spike on her knees, arms around him.

"Can you talk, Spike?" Giles leaned over him to examine his eyes.

"Yes, I can bloody well talk." He sighed. "Buffy and I were meeting on campus. She was putting a fledge out of its misery when I got there. I was watching her instead of taking care of business." He lifted his arm and held out something long and skinny. "Wind shifted just before someone triggered one of these against my neck. Should have been minding my perimeter."

Giles took the weapon gingerly as Buffy started examining the vampire's neck. "A… cattle prod?" he asked, seeing the electrodes on the tip.

"Yeah, if the cattle in question are minotaurs. That thing packs way more of a wallop than a cattle prod."

"How do you know – oh, Drusilla. Never mind." Giles looked at it again. "How long did it put you down?"

"Maybe thirty seconds?" He shook his head. "I went down, and these blokes started dragging me."

"Blokes?"

"Heartbeats, respiration."

"Humans?" Buffy was stunned. "No, they were too strong."

"They… smelled, dunno, like the inside of a chemist's and also like they bunk together. They were dressed in some kind of military kit. I couldn't see their faces, but I'll know them if I smell them again."

"Spike, it was longer than thirty seconds."

He looked down. "Yeah. First jolt wore off, then I grabbed someone's legs, and at least two of them shocked me again. In the, uh, groin."

"Ohhhh." Giles winced a little in sympathy.

"Not pleasant." Spike turned to Buffy. "Good to know, yeah?" He nodded at the stun gun. "The Gem of Amara apparently doesn't protect against electricity."

"I'll bet it does against lightning," Giles said, half to himself. "But," he turned the weapon in his hand, "this would be lower amperage and for a longer period of time than a lightning strike…" He shook his head. "Never mind. Whatever enchantment lies on the gem, it was cast long before humans controlled electricity."

"Why do you say it's good to know?" Buffy demanded.

"In case you ever need to get the gem away from me." Spike unconsciously touched his ribs.

Buffy rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch. She could feel her anger looking for a target, but that was the Slayer part of her. Taking a breath, she told Giles about seeing some guys dressed as commandos at Halloween, how they'd come out of the bushes along a campus path.

"So that's twice on campus. And we've noticed that demons have been thin on the ground in the center of town. And the camcorders we placed are gone, along with the government cameras." Giles lifted the weapon. "Is some unknown group patrolling as well?"

Buffy's fury boiled over. "When we patrol, do we stun demons and drag them off?" she snarled. "Where were they taking him, Giles?"

Her Watcher set the stun gun on the coffee table and leaned away from it. He unconsciously wiped his hands on his jeans. "That is… a profoundly disturbing question."

Spike was frowning. "Uh, didn't think anything of it then, but in L.A., Melba said she'd heard Sunnydale was dangerous after the Mayor failed so spectacularly."

"Melba?" Giles asked.

"Lesser chrysabeau demon who did my hair. She said she knew of demons who were moving out."

"Ah."

Buffy was shaking her head. "Summer was busy."

"We assumed that so many in the Mayor's organization were gone that there were no controls on demon influx. Perhaps it was an exit, instead." Giles stood up and paced away. "Buffy, do you mind terribly if Spike accompanies you around campus for the next few days, just to see if he can sniff anyone out? Or with Willow or Oz?"

"He'll be with me." Her arms were crossed.

Spike had to smile. "I'll be perfectly safe, then."

"Do you want me to see what Willy knows?"

Giles nodded. "I'll get in touch with the Watcher in Cleveland, see if there's anything like this going on at that Hellmouth. I think she'll talk to me." He sighed. "It would be good to have Council resources right about now."

"Council of Wankers ever been much help?"

"No." Giles paced back to them. "Spike, I'm glad you're all right. I'm at a loss to know why anyone would want to capture vampires."

"Thanks." He stood up, too. "We still on for patrol, Slayer?"

Buffy didn't unbend from her tense stance, but she nodded. "We'll let you know if we find anything." She pulled Spike's keys from her coat pocket. "You okay to drive now?"

He nodded and gave her a smile. She didn't return it. They said their goodbyes and left.

⸹

Within a few days, Spike following Buffy around campus had shifted into Spike making sure Willow went to classes. The blond vampire was sympathetic to Oz and understood why he left; he'd done much the same to put controls on his beast so he wouldn't hurt the woman he loved. But Oz's noble reasons didn't make the pain any easier for Willow.

He looked at her through the window. She was standing on the balcony at the beach house. Willow hadn't shown much interest in seeing it, but that was still more interest than she'd shown in most things. They'd need to leave soon to get to her psychology class.

"Hey, love. You ready to go?"

"I'm surprised you left me alone in a high place."

Spike leaned against the rail, facing her instead of the view. "You're too smart to do anything like that."

"You did, after Drusilla. Buffy told me."

"Yeah, and I can't tell you how grateful I am that Buffy was there to stop me. Life got better than I could have imagined."

Willow had her own inner narrative. "I keep thinking back to how Oz looked when he found me and Xander kissing. But I didn't run away from it. I-I gave him space, but let him know I was ready to beg for forgiveness, whenever he wanted. If he was here, I would forgive him so hard, Spike."

"He does love you, Red. You know he does. He just can't trust himself."

"I feel like I'm sleepwalking. Any minute now, I'm going to wake up."

She had said this and several variations on it since Oz had driven away in his van. Spike put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him, letting her lean against him. Physical contact was important in soothing vampires; it couldn't hurt with her.

"You aren't alone, love. None of us are Oz, but we're all here for you."

"Do you really think he'll come back?"

"I do." He dropped a kiss on her bright hair. "You ready to head out?"

"I guess." She moved away from him, back to the house."

Spike watched her go. She wasn't crying all the time, but he didn't know if it was an improvement. They were in Buffy's car, since she had a student-parking permit. Privately, Spike thought they'd do just as well parking off-campus than in the car park meant for students. It was a hike to the psychology building.

Buffy was already seated up in the tiers of desks. Spike sent her a private word and pointed out her position to Willow. He gave the wan redhead a kiss on the cheek and began to walk away. Class was about to start.

A tall man, taller than Angel, passed him as he went through the doorway, going in as he was going out. He didn't turn, but opened the mindlink. _Buffy. Tall bloke who just walked in. He's one of them. The scent matches._

 _Riley?!_ She gaped a little at the T.A., who had turned to look out the classroom door.

 _You know him?_

 _Yeah, Riley Finn. He's the teaching assistant in this class._

Spike made himself not barge back into the classroom. _Be careful._

 _I can't believe it. I've talked to him. He seems… nice._

 _Yeah, well. You want me to stay? I was going to work on the Master's books, but I can stay nearby._

 _No. But now we have a starting point. Can you find a campus directory?_

 _Sure._ Spike jogged down to the main entrance and looked around for a public phone. Not seeing one, he headed for the next building, a dormitory. There was a phone in the lobby, with a battered campus directory next to it. _Here he is. Lives in Lowell House._

 _Now we just need to find out who else lives there._

 _Be careful._

 _You already said that, but I will._

 _Love you, Slayer._

 _Love you right back._

Buffy found it hard to focus through the rest of the class and let out a breath when it was over. She took Willow's hand, gave it a squeeze, and sent a pointed look at the hallway. There were times when a mindlink with all her friends would be useful.

They walked down the steps and toward the door, waiting for the students ahead of them to exit. Riley walked toward them, and Buffy's hands tightened on her textbook. It weighed a good five pounds; it would make an adequate blunt force weapon.

"Willow?"

She looked up at Riley dully. "Um?"

"That guy with you when you came in… Is he your boyfriend or something?"

Willow teared up at the word 'boyfriend.' Buffy had frozen for just a second, but she covered as quickly as she could, giving Riley a hard look and shaking her head, putting her arm around her friend as she ushered her out of the room.

Inside, Buffy was ice cold. Riley had recognized Spike, had asked about him.

Giles let them in and offered Chinese takeout as payment for the new information. Willow got out her laptop and booted it up while she ate.

"Never mind who they are," Spike argued. "We know where they live. I'll just go in –"

"No." Buffy's tone was flat and final.

"They won't even see me."

"He knows you, Spike. He asked Willow who you were."

"He did," Willow agreed. She got to the campus website and started typing.

Spike gave Giles a silent appeal, but his fellow Brit just shrugged. Spike rolled his eyes, grabbed a carton of spicy beef, and threw himself into the easy chair.

"Got it," Willow said. She frowned. "Not as many guys live in Lowell as you would think, as big as it is." She counted by tens. "Just forty."

Giles' eyes narrowed. "Platoon size."

"There is the army base nearby." Willow looked at Buffy, who nodded.

"Me and Xander, then." She glanced at Spike, who glared back. "We'll do reconnaissance. All we need is an excuse to get into Lowell House."

⸹

"A party?"

"Tomorrow, yes." Buffy leaned against Spike, who was leaning against his car. She had forbidden him to be on campus after dark, which led to their first fight and some truly amazing makeup sex. They'd be shopping for yet another bed this weekend. Now he was dropping her off after patrol at the end of the street that led to her dorm. "We'll be fine. It will be a good chance to snoop."

He let out an impatient breath. They'd argued about this, but he hadn't been able to change her mind. He tried one more time. "Next to you, love, I'm the biggest gun in the arsenal. One of those cattle prods could drop you, too."

"But who would use a cattle prod on a little human co-ed like me?"

"Maybe I should let them catch me, find out –"

Buffy turned in his arms, facing away. _No._

 _Then promise me you'll call me in, if anything goes south._

 _I will._

 _How far south would that have to be?_

 _Patagonia?_

Spike stood up and took a step so he could face her again, framed her face in his hands and kissed her.

 _I miss you. I'd go home with you tonight if she were better._

Spike broke the kiss with a sigh and took her hands _. How is she today?_

 _Oz has dropped his classes. He's not coming back this semester, it looks like._

 _Ouch._ He touched her face. _When I went to Africa, I made sure we parted on good terms. I wish Dogboy had done the same with Red._

 _When you went to Africa, at least you had a goal and a time frame._

 _Give her a hug from her Uncle Spike, who must now go home to his cold and lonely bed._

 _Tired?_

 _A bit. Dunno how you go all day and most of the night, love._

 _Years of practice, unfortunately._ Then she grinned. _You can go all day and most of the night._

 _Saucy minx. That's only in one aspect._

 _It's an important aspect._ She stepped in close so that his coat folded about both of them. _A… big aspect._

 _Woman, you are treading a fine line between a good night kiss and a citation for public indecency._

 _It's worth it._ A few moments later, he moaned against her mouth, and Buffy smiled.

 _Let me take care of you, love._

He did so. "Mmm." She let her head fall back. _We're pathetic._

 _Everyone should be so lucky, to be pathetic as us._

Buffy pulled away a little to look at him. _Déjà vu._ She shook her head, unable to track down what couldn't actually be a memory. Standing on tiptoes, she gave Spike a chaste kiss on the cheek. _Sleep tight._

He sent her an x-rated image. _I'll not be sleeping for a while._

Buffy shook her head at the tragedy of it, grinning. _Good night. Love you._

 _Good night, love. You and Xander be careful._

⸹

"Anything?"

"No. You?"

Xander shook his head and offered her the glass of punch. "Go easy on that. It's been spiked with something so cheap, Uncle Rory wouldn't drink it. Well, he would, but he'd complain about it."

Buffy inclined her head. "Maybe Willow is getting somewhere."

"That's what, the fourth time he's been over to talk to her."

"Maybe he just likes her."

"Well, I don't like it." Xander glared at where Riley Finn's head and shoulders towered above Willow as they sat on a couch.

"No more than Anya likes you being here with us?"

"Yeah, she wasn't sure we had any valid reasons for keeping her away." He took a sip of his punch and grimaced. "I mean, she isn't who she was, but it still makes me nervous to think of her on campus."

Buffy put a reassuring hand on his arm. "Dance with me, then we'll pretend we got lost trying to find a bathroom. You go upstairs; I'll see if there's a downstairs. But, first, dancing. I love this song."

"My life is so rough," Xander said, smiling.

Two hours later, the three friends were knocking on the door of Giles' apartment. "Good, you're back. How did it go?"

Xander shook his head. "The guys at Lowell House kept people in the main areas, polite and everything, but it was like they were stationed at the bottom of stairs and in doorways, holding Solo cups, rotating out every thirty minutes or so, keeping anyone from wandering. No one who lives in that house is a couch potato." He made his biceps pop as example, then looked around. "Where's Anya?"

"She was bored and asked to go with Spike on patrol. He said he'd look out for her."

Buffy and Willow claimed the couch while he was explaining this. "I got to dance a lot, but that's about it," the Slayer said. "Willow, though, got some undivided Riley Finn attention."

Willow looked tired. "Yeah, he really did talk to me about psychology, then he asked about my boyfriend, and I thought, oh, that's so kind of him, but it wasn't Oz he was interested in. He wanted to know about the guy who walked me to class the other day. So, not actually so kind."

"What did you tell him?" Giles asked, settling into the easy chair.

"That no one walked me to class." She gave the Watcher a small smile. "He was frustrated, I could tell."

"So am I, frankly." Giles leaned back. "We still don't know anything. We've quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete." He sighed. "Thank you for trying."

"Xander did notice one thing," Buffy said. "About half an hour before we left, he counted. Forty guys officially live in Lowell House, but he counted at least twice that number coming in and out."

Giles frowned. "Could the dorm sleep that many?"

Xander nodded, having counted the windows. "Once I noticed the 'guards,'" he made air quotes around the words, "I started adding them up, but that wasn't from the time we got there."

"So, you're saying that forty students live there, but there are more people than can be accounted for who are also moving around as though they live there."

"Forty people with cover stories; more people who aren't living the college life."

"I couldn't find a downstairs," Buffy said, "but it has to have an underground area."

"I checked the campus plans already," Willow put in. "The blueprints show a crawlspace." Before Giles could formulate another question, someone knocked on the door.

"I got it," Xander said, rising from his perch on the arm of the couch. "Hey, An. How was patrol?"

"Marginally less boring than being here. How was the party?"

"Uninformative." He put his arm around her.

Spike, coming in behind her, gave Xander a thumbs-up to let him know he'd looked out for the ex-demon. He met Buffy's gaze, took his coat off, and went to the kitchen.

"Are you making tea?" Buffy called to him, getting up to go help. Helping consisted of sliding her arms around him after he filled the kettle and set it on the stove.

 _How was patrol?_

 _Deader than me. The party?_

 _Not a lot. Riley macked on Willow, but he was really just fishing for info about you. Xander says there are more guys living there than are registered as students._ She gave him an impish grin. _How was patrolling with Anya?_

 _She knows her onions about demons, but she doesn't know how to be quiet. Never had to be, I guess, not as powerful as she was._

 _Someone played a Dingoes song._

He grimaced. _How'd she take it?_

 _Like a dagger through the heart._

Spike sighed. _Wish we could go home together tonight._

 _Me, too. But, actually, I promised Mom I'd stay with her. She's excited for the trip. Now that she doesn't have to cover tuition, she can afford to fly._

 _If you want to go with her to Illinois, you know I'll cover things here._

 _No, I have two papers due after Thanksgiving. Plus, Aunt Arlene's isn't the most happening place._

 _And Sunnydale is?_

 _Maybe we can go to L.A. after Thanksgiving. Since Dad isn't there anymore, I don't have to feel guilty about not visiting him._

Spike showed a great many teeth when he smiled. _I'd like to meet your father someday. Possibly in a dark alley._

She gave him a little shove. _Oh, there's the kettle._ "I'll get the cups."

⸹

"I still don't understand why we couldn't have done this at your house." Giles took a stack of plates from his cabinet.

"Because Mom was afraid of what I'd do to her kitchen." Buffy was determined to be in a good mood. "At least she let me borrow her big pans."

Giles went to the table. "I don't even celebrate the bloody holiday." Spike sent him an amused look, but no one else seemed to notice. Xander had procured Giles' small television for a football game, but seemed to be unable to pay actual attention to it.

"It's like background music for the feast day?" Anya's brow was furrowed, trying to understand.

"What else do I need to chop up?" Spike scraped onion into a bowl with the back of a chef's knife, then considered the blade. He made a couple of experimental passes in the air with it, eviscerating imaginary opponents. "I like this knife," he said, under his breath.

"Those potatoes," Buffy said, nodding toward a bag. "And that's my mother's knife. She'll want it back."

"It's starting to boil," Willow announced from the stovetop, where she was stirring something that smelled of sage.

Buffy consulted one of a dozen pages stuck onto Giles' refrigerator. "Uh, turn it down to a simmer."

"Where's 'simmer?'"

"I don't know. Turn the knob halfway, maybe?"

Willow did. "Oh, did I tell you I talked to Cordelia? You'll _never_ guess who she's working for."

An hour later, they were all seated at the table. The football game was off. Giles had a Pink Floyd album on at low volume, and Buffy was sitting next to him in triumph, albeit with flour spotting her shirt. "All right. Before we start, we have to say what we're thankful for this year." She shrugged and gave a half smile. "I'm thankful to be here another year. Giles?"

"Oh. I'm thankful to be British and having an elaborate American Thanksgiving feast with," his voice became warmer, "all those with whom I'm closest."

"I'm grateful for a bountiful harvest," Anya said fervently. She dimly remembered years when the harvest had not been bountiful. "Based on the food here, I'm assuming it was a very good season for crops."

"I'm thankful for the food, the people, and," Xander said, lifting a glass of milk in salute, "that N&C did not get the bid for the Cultural Center at UC-Sunnydale." Willow had been talking about a messy fight between the Catholic Church and three bands of the Chumash tribe over possible remains of a mission found a few days before groundbreaking. The construction company that got the bid was going to be out-of-pocket for at least a year.

Willow lifted her glass of water in answer. "I'm grateful that people are more enlightened now than in the days of the Pilgrims. And also for my friends."

"I'm grateful to be allowed at the table," Spike said simply. "May we eat now?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yes. And please tell me it's good, even if it isn't."

After dinner, Xander and Anya left to go see his parents, Xander sporting a fixed smile. Willow helped clean up for a few minutes, then went to meet her own parents, who were hosting international students for a meal while school was in recess. Buffy loaded dishes into the washer, Spike cleaned what wouldn't fit, and Giles crammed leftovers into his refrigerator.

"What am I supposed to do with all this?" he moaned, stowing foil-wrapped dinner rolls in his microwave.

"Do what we do," Buffy advised, "invite Xander over the next couple of days." After the table was clean, she set up papers and books from her backpack next to the laptop she'd borrowed from Willow. "Food coma is known to be the best mental state in which to write papers."

Giles settled in front of his album collection, and Spike sat on the floor, his back against the couch, and grabbed _Thlewis' Dictionary of the Black Tongues_ to consult as he doggedly worked his way through another of the Master's tomes.

Giles yawned, decided on _The Velvet Underground & Nico_, and claimed the couch to listen, stretching out his legs. When the needle got to the center of the album, he was asleep. Spike got up from the floor, stretched, and went to shut off the turntable. He drifted to the table and leaned over to drop a kiss on Buffy's shoulder. "How's it going, love?"

"Two more pages, and I'm done with this one."

Spike got a slice of apple pie and took it back to his spot beside the couch. There was a large part of him that was bored and wanted to go out and maybe start a bar fight. He reminded it of what it was like to live in splendid solitude in a manky hotel room instead of enjoying a peaceful, post-feast stupor with loving people around.

Some time later, Giles sat up, one arm on the back of the couch. "Good Lord," he said faintly, "it must be true, what they say about turkey."

"Giles," Spike said, "have you ever heard of 'Guardians?'"

"Um," he said, swinging his legs off the couch, careful not to hit Spike's shoulder, so he could sit up, "no. Canadian band?"

"They're mention in this book," Spike said, nodding toward the open pages on the floor.

"Oh. Perhaps Plato's Philosopher Kings?"

The blond man shook his head. "Feminine gender. Best I can figure, this is a legend about the Hellmouth here in Sunnydale."

"Really?" Giles tried to look interested and failed. "Let me get some caffeine. I'll look at it then."

"Right." Spike handed him a plate and fork. "Mind taking that to the kitchen?"

"Ooh, pie." He stretched and wandered into the other room. "That coffee up for grabs?" he asked.

Buffy nodded. "I made a pot when I started the second paper. It won't be the hottest."

"How is it going?"

"Almost done," she said, sounding surprised.

Giles got a piece of pie and topped it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. "Do you mind if I eat this in here?"

"Huh-uh," Buffy said absently.

When he finished the dessert, Giles took the rest of his coffee to the living room. "All right, the turkey has worn off. What do you have?"

"Look at this." Spike pulled the coffee table closer, laid the Master's book on it, and sat down next to Giles with the dictionary in his hand. He handed a scrap of paper to the Watcher. It was covered with his old-fashioned handwriting. "See if you think the translation is right. It's the passage… just here."

"The Guardians (fem.) brought forth the weapon for the warrior (fem.) on the coast of the backwater (Americas?). With guile and trickery, the warrior felled Grishalk. Thus passed the last true demon. Where Grishalk fell, there opened a doorway to Hell to welcome him. His army destroyed the warrior, but not before the weapon only the warrior wields slew multitudes. Ere it could be destroyed, the Guardians hid it away in the bones of the earth."

Giles peered between the translation, the main text, and the dictionary. "You're right about the gender. Odd… I can't agree with your interpretation that backwater refers to the Americas, though."

"But the Hendershot translation of "A Demon's Cartography" makes the argument…."

In the kitchen, Buffy crafted a sentence to wrap up her psychology paper. She found it hard to really get into the class anymore. She saved the file, ejected the floppy disk, and put away Willow's laptop before stuffing the rest of her study material into her bookbag. She'd print the papers out at the library on Sunday, she decided, after picking up her mother at the airport.

Buffy's eye fell on the two plates in the sink. Since everyone else has had seconds on dessert, she thought, and I did just grind out two papers… She opted for pumpkin pie with whipped cream and took it out to the living room. "Well," she said, after watching the two men argue over the meaning of the term 'warrior' for a couple of minutes, "you two look like you're having fun."

Giles looked at the blond man, annoyed. "Your vampire here has just made up, out of whole cloth, a legendary Slayer here in the Americas."

"It is a gendered noun," Spike shot back, "you can't deny that."

"Yes, but demons are known misogynists. They use the life-giving half of humanity as an insult. This is just an attempt to belittle whatever warrior killed Grishalk."

"Yes, but you know how rare female warriors are –"

"Because the Watchers made a concerted effort to keep Slayers out of the canon." Giles shook his head. "I've never heard of any group called the Guardians. If anyone would know about them, the Watchers would." He leaned back. "I'll grant you, because of Hendershot, that 'coastal backwater' refers to California. This is the Master's collection, after all, and we know too well he was interested in the Hellmouth here for centuries. But the rest… it's the worst kind of speculation."

Seeing Buffy's raised eyebrows, Giles leaned over the coffee table to hand her Spike's translation. She read it and waited for a gap in the argument to ask a question. "Did the Watcher's Council always know where the Slayer was? I mean, let's say the Slayer was a member of the Chumash tribe before the 1500s. There couldn't have been any Watchers in the Americas."

"We always knew where she was," Giles said, "but we couldn't always get to her to offer support, even in Europe. Because of war, mostly."

"Was there ever a Slayer in the pre-contact New World? Or Australia?" Spike asked.

"Yes, of course. She's been needed the world over."

"Then I could be right: a female warrior who defeated the last demon."

Giles rolled his eyes. "Do you really think I'll allow the possibility that you're right, based on this?" He waved a hand at the book.

"Who would take care of the Slayer, if the Council wasn't there?" Buffy's question was soft, only half-aloud.

"Her tribal or village elders, I expect," Giles offered. "Her family."

"I wonder how often they thought she was a demon."

Giles didn't look up to meet her eyes, but when the weight of her gaze became too much to bear, he sighed. "It did happen that way." He put a cheerful spin on history. "But more often, she was the answer to a prayer for deliverance."

"Who was the first Slayer?"

Giles looked at her. Next to him, Spike twisted so he could see the Watcher better, too. "We don't know. The Slayer goes into prehistory, before there was written word. Our best guess is sub-Saharan Later Stone Age, after we were winnowed down to just Homo sapiens."

"Neolithic?" Spike asked.

"Earlier."

Buffy took a hasty last bite of pie. "And before anyone mentions Black Frost or other beers, lithic age Buffy will go patrol."

Giles grimaced. "'Lithic' means stone."

"Well, then, practically twenty-first century Buffy." By the time she gathered her things, Spike had put away the books and set the living room back to its usual formation. "Giles, don't forget that I'll be in L.A. tomorrow, so you and Xander get patrol." She shot him a wide-eyed look. "I can't wait to see Angel Investigations."

"Be careful with the holiday traffic, dear." He accepted her hug, nodded at Spike, and locked the door behind them. Giles went to the kitchen, got another slice of pie, and turned on the television. There was a repeat of _WKRP in Cincinnati'_ s turkey drop episode on one of the independent stations, and he'd been looking forward to it all week.

⸹

"I miss the DeSoto," Buffy said, looking at Spike across the console. "Bench seat," she elaborated.

"Ah." He shot her a look. "We'll go by Angel's, then check in. As soon as we're at the hotel, I promise to not stop touching you."

"You can touch me at Angel's," Buffy said. "I mean, in a publicly acceptable way. We're not a secret."

"I know." Spike made a face. "I wouldn't want to, you know…"

"Rub his face in it?" Buffy made a face, too. "He broke up with me, remember."

"Yes, but we do all love each other."

The Slayer tilted her head to the side. "I've never heard you say that before."

"He's okay. He's the only family I have left." Spike sighed and tried again. "He did right by me when I came back with the soul, love. That couldn't have been easy for him, but he welcomed me right in." He powered past an SUV, didn't bother to get out of the fast lane. "I never really understood what you saw in him until then. He always just seemed dull to me."

"He is quiet," Buffy agreed. "I think he lives in fear a lot. It takes its toll."

He glanced away from the road to look at her for a second. "Is there something you fear, love?"

Buffy was quiet for a moment. "I fear not being normal. Well, not getting to be normal, have a normal life. You know, miss out on things normal people get to do. Travel, get a job, have kids, that stuff."

"You can have any of that. You have time."

She smiled and shook her head. "I always assumed I would. I know we haven't talked about it, but the first time Angel and I talked about kids, that was the first time I'd ever thought that I wouldn't have any."

"Kitten, you want kids, you want to have them or adopt them, we'll get kids and raise them to be holy terrors, just like us. I'll love them the same as they were mine." He didn't turn, but smiled at the road. "Pippa had children, two little girls and then a boy. I was a pretty good uncle. Well, cousin, but she was like my sister."

She studied him, smiling. "You like kids?"

He shrugged. "When they get older. I remember playing with Lily, Pippa's oldest, but I'm rubbish with babies."

"Me, too. I don't know anything about them. I wish I'd had brothers or sisters."

"Used to be, families were so large, there were always babies around. Not the case anymore, I s'pose."

"No. Now we have birth control and make our own decisions."

"Feminist," he scoffed.

"Pig," she rejoined.

⸹

Cordelia lowered her voice and put on a smile as the doorknob rattled. She shot Doyle a fraught look. "Hi! Welcome to Angel Investigations."

"Hey, Cordelia." Buffy came over and leaned in for a hug. "You look amazing."

"Thank you." Cordelia smiled down at her. "And you!"

"So you're the Slayer?" Doyle said, holding out his hand.

While Buffy made her own introductions, Spike gave the dark-haired woman the best possible greeting. "Cordelia, have you lost weight?'

"I have," she beamed. "Thank you for noticing. I've found this amazing new gym…"

Doyle put his hand out toward Spike. "So, you're his… grandson?"

Spike shook his head, grinning. "How much will it cost me for you to say that from now on?"

"I… didn't mean any offense."

"None taken. We're… family. Best leave it at that. Though," he nodded at Doyle, "you sound much more like family than I do." At Doyle's confused look, he added, "I knew him when he had an Irish accent."

"Oh." Doyle glanced toward the office behind them. "I wonder when he lost it?"

"He's waiting for you," Cordelia said, hunching her shoulders a bit.

"What, is he in a mood?" When she only shrugged, Spike turned to Buffy. "In that case, after you."

She shook her head at this, but went and knocked on the door, opening it. "Hey, Angel."

He was sitting at his desk, wearing a poker face. "Hi, Buffy. Spike." Spike closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

"So… Angel, Private Eye," Buffy said, teasing him just a little.

"Yeah. Who would have guessed. We 'help the helpless.'"

"Always a good goal."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"How was the drive down?"

"Not bad. Most of the cars were at malls for the Black Friday sales."

"Black Friday?"

"Just a retail expression," Buffy reassured him. "Nothing –"

At that moment, a demon with a sword crashed through one of Angel's office windows. He stood from the desk, spun and ducked its blows, and smashed a clock into the jewel that decorated its forehead. The demon fractured into a mass of glowing pieces and was gone.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Uh, that happen a lot?" Spike asked.

"You okay?" Buffy asked, stepping to him.

"I'm fine. It was a Mohra demon. I've, uh, had time to catch up on my reading lately. About demons."

Buffy put her hand on his sleeve. "It's definitely paid off." Her expression was concerned. "You look… are you okay?"

Angel forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just seeing you. The two of you."

Spike looked down. "I know that I'm a very lucky man."

"You are."

"Do you want us to leave?"

"No!" Angel grabbed her hand as it fell away from his sleeve. "No, just, uh, ignore me. Tell you what, why don't you take Cordelia and Doyle and go get lunch. I'll clean up this mess," he waved toward the glass on the floor, "and we'll visit when you come back."

 _Angel?_

 _I'm fine._ He shut the mindlink, closed his eyes for a moment against the unbidden memory of Spike brought to his knees by the severed mindlink as Angelus ended.

"Okay. We'll get takeout somewhere. We won't be long."

Another forced smile. "Sounds good."

They filed out of the office, Buffy's troubled eyes lingering on him. Angel waited until he heard the main door shut and the voices die away.

"That's it." The words were quiet in the empty room. He went to get a broom.

They were back too soon. He listened to Buffy's college stories, to Cordelia's audition stories again, to the news of a strange paramilitary presence in Sunnydale. Angel never spoke a lot, anyway, but all four of them gave him examining looks during the meal. He snagged a pepperoni from Spike's sub sandwich. It tasted like ash. Another unbidden memory: chocolate melting on his tongue, covering his taste buds with sweet flavor.

The two blond warriors left after the long lunch, with hugs and promises to stay in touch and invitations to come to Sunnydale. Angel didn't watch them leave, just headed downstairs with the all-purpose excuse of sleep. He didn't undress, just laid down on the bed that did not smell like them.

They had been right there when it happened, Spike driven to his knees from the broken bond, staring at him with wide eyes as he listened to the beat of a heart that had not worked for centuries. Buffy was supporting him, tears in her eyes as she laid a hand against his warm cheek. They walked in the sunlight with him. Spike gave him tips on handling the suddenly expanded horizon.

They'd held him, fed him, held him again when his stomach hurt, listened to him, cried and laughed with him. They found answers with him. When Cordelia and Doyle begged off late in the day, they refused to leave him alone.

They hadn't left his side through the whole experience, not until he'd left them to seek the Oracles a second time. They'd stayed in his bed, laughing with him half the night, marveling at his happiness.

Spike had fitted their hands together, touched fingertips that would no longer change, beamed at him with simple joy that his wish came true.

They'd asked him to come into business with them.

Buffy had asked him to father a child with her, someday. "I'd rather family," Spike had said, shrugging and giving him a shy smile.

They'd raged at him when he returned from the Oracles with the boon they'd given. Spike had called him foul names, had despaired, and then gone to coerce the Oracles to rescind the gift. Buffy stayed with him, held him in her arms, kissed him, wept. They wanted happiness for him far more than he did.

Better to be alone right now.

Else they'd be dead, sooner.

⸹

"Did you have a good time in Los Angeles?"

"Pretty good." Buffy sat down on the side of Willow's bed. "How was the rest of your weekend?"

"Not much to it. I patrolled with Giles and Xander. Quiet," she added, answering the unasked question. Willow's eyes sharpened. "What happened?"

Buffy shook her head. "Nothing. Angel just seemed… I don't know. What did I expect him to be like, now that Spike and I are officially a thing?"

"Does it still hurt to see him?"

Buffy nodded. "There's always that 'what if.' He'll always have a piece of my heart." She gave her best friend a how-weird-is-my-life look. "I guess it helps that Spike loves him, too."

"Loves him?"

"No, just loves him." Buffy's eyes went distant for a moment. "He thought something was up, too, beyond adjusting to the two of us as a couple." She focused on Willow again. "I have to tell you, after finding out Oz left, Cordelia asked for the first time what was up with Xander."

"Oh." Willow colored. "Nope with the two of us as a thing. When Oz gets back, he won't find my lips on another guy again."

"Speaking of lips on another guy… I wanted to ask your opinion about something."

⸹

"Hello, Buffster."

"Hi, Xander. I know you're at work; I won't keep you. I just wanted you to know that Oz had his bandmates pack up his room over the weekend."

"Oh." There was silence on the line. "He's not coming back soon. Poor Wil."

"I know. Tell Anya the latest for me? If you can, make plans to see Willow tonight or tomorrow."

"Will do."

"Thanks. See you soon."

"You, too."

Buffy hung up and let out a long breath, thinking. "Giles, we need to get Anya a company cell phone, too. She doesn't have one."

"I was wondering about her the other day. The spell on the family she was living with as her cover is wearing off. She'll need identification, a place to stay." He came in from the kitchen and offered her a cup of peppermint tea. No one else got away with fake tea from his kitchen. Giles settled on the other side of the couch with his Oolong. "We'll take care of her."

"So, what I wanted to talk to you about… I talked to Willow – before she found out about Oz and slid all the way back to square one – about a plan I have to infiltrate Lowell House."

"You're going to flirt with Riley Finn," Giles said sagely, "and see what you can find out."

"Uh, yeah. I plan to Debbie Harry him so hard."

"Mata Hari, the spy. Debbie Harry sang for Blondie," Giles corrected her, after a moment to figure it out. "And Spike is not to know?"

"Absolutely not."

"When will you put this plan in effect?"

"As soon as I see him again. Even if I'm not his type, I am Willow's roommate."

"More alluring than perfume or miniskirts, I'm sure."

"One other thing, Giles. Do you know anything about Mohra demons?"

"They're assassins for their side. You kill them by–"

"Smashing their head jewel, yeah."

"Any reason for your curiosity?"

"One of them came after Angel when we were there."

"He has chosen to be a warrior for the good. That would be enough to attract them."

"But they aren't like the Sisterhood last winter, the ones that made us all depresso?"

"Not that I recall. I'll check."

"Thanks, Giles." She finished her cool tea in a gulp and stood up. "Well, back to campus for a miniskirt and some Mata Hari-ing."

"Good luck. And be careful."

⸹

"So, how long have you been Willow's roommate?"

Buffy let out a mental sigh. "Almost this whole semester." As if Riley Finn, teaching assistant, didn't know they were both freshmen. "We've been best friends since I came to Sunnydale." They were walking on one of the streets that paralleled campus, heading for coffee. She took an extra step to catch up with his stride. "Do you have a roommate?"

"Buffy, I know this is crazy and… abrupt, but…" Riley Finn fell to one knee in front of her, "will you marry me?"

"Yes! Oh, Riley, of course I will." She rushed into his arms, finding that she barely had to duck her head to kiss him.

"I feel so bad, I didn't get a ring or anything."

"Oooh, we can pick it out together," she squealed, pointing behind him to a jewelry store.

He wrapped his arm around her. "Whatever you want. I don't get paid much, but I know we can find something."

 _[Buffy?]_

"I have money, darling."

"You spend that money on yourself. You'll need a dress, after all."

 _[…patrol… where are…]_

"Riley, there's a dress store on this street. They sell wedding dresses. There, see? It's too bad they're closed."

"I shouldn't see you in the dress before the wedding day."

Buffy scoffed. "There couldn't be any bad luck at our wedding. When we get married, it will be perfect."

He leaned way, way down and smooched her. "You are going to be such a beautiful bride."

"Aww, you are so sweet!" They had reached the dress shop. "Oh, Willow would be so pretty in that bridesmaid dress." She looked up at him. "How many groomsmen will you have?"

 _[Buffy?!]_

"Forrest, Graham… three or four?"

"Perfect." She laid her head back and gave him a dreamy look. "You'll look so good in a tuxedo."

"I'll wear my uniform."

"You have a uniform?"

"I don't see any reason not to tell you, now that we're getting married. I'm in the military. So are my groomsmen."

"Oh, even better." She stopped, her mouth dropping. "Oh, do you have those swords they use to make an arch for the happy couple to walk under?"

Riley grinned down at her. "I think we could arrange that."

She squealed. "Oh, Riley, that will be perfect!" Buffy tugged at his arm and pulled him down into a kiss.

"Slayer!"

The voice was harsh and cold and raw and definitely not a part of her and Riley. She pulled away from her fiancé and ducked under his arm. Spike was standing just outside of an unnatural patch of shadow, hands clenched.

"Not a good time," she said, and then beamed at him. "I'm getting married!"

 _[BUFFY!]_

"Ow." She gave him a mistrustful look and turned back to Riley. "Come on, sweetheart. We need to make a list to balance the bridesmaids, if we're going to have that many soldiers."

Riley looked over his shoulder as they started to stroll away. "Why did Hostile Seventeen call you Slayer?"

"Who?" She shrugged, smiling. "I'm the Slayer, but more important is who I'm going to be: Mrs. Riley Finn."

Spike watched her walk away with the gormless bastard, too stunned to move. Rage warred with pain for a full minute, but cold common sense finally won out. He unclenched his fists and sped through the town at full vampire speed, airborne for stretches, and nearly took Giles' door off the hinges pounding on it.

"Just a minute."

"Giles! Buffy's been hit with a spell!"

The door opened, but Giles didn't move out of his way. "What kind of spell?"

"I don't know! The kind that makes her marry fuckin' Riley Finn!"

Giles still didn't move, and Spike finally focused on him. "Perhaps it's the same spell that made me completely blind, then."

"Oh, fuck me." He took Giles' arm. "Had my phone off for patrol. You tried to call, yeah? How long?"

"It's been getting worse all day. I went to check on Willow – she was supposed to come by and do a spell to help track the doings at Lowell House – and got home safely, but it's been downhill since."

"Any clue who has us under attack?"

"None." Giles felt the couch at the back of his calves and sat, Spike's strong hands beneath his arms as he did. "I can't get Willow. Xander should be on his way. Should have been here by now, as a matter of fact."

Spike turned in a half-circle, putting his hands to his head for a moment, with no idea what to do next. Pure, giddy happiness had bloomed from the connection he had with the Slayer; he'd left patrol to see what had caused it, to share it with her. Riley Finn made her happy, and that made him nearly insane with fury. Spike couldn't leave Giles alone in his darkness, but every cell in his body screamed that he needed to get to Buffy.

They heard a thump against the door. "Giles, let us in!"

"Anya!" Hearing terror in her voice, Spike leapt the couch and opened the door.

She staggered in, holding her hand to her face. "Help Xander!"

Spike snarled and put on his game face even as he threw himself out the door to where he sensed a lone human and a lot of demons. A moment later, Xander sailed into the entryway and fell against the couch.

"An! Get the door!"

She did, then crouched next to him. "Are you okay?"

"What is it?" Giles asked, sounding equally annoyed and terrified.

"Demons." Xander patted Anya's hand. "I'm fine. Oh, baby, you're bleeding." He touched her brow.

"What demons?"

"Uh, all of them, I think," Anya said. Outside, Spike bellowed and something that sounded wet bounced against a window.

At that moment, Buffy materialized in thin air beside the door and dropped on her ass. "Ow!"

"Buffy?" Giles said. "Was that Buffy?"

Spike appeared by the coffee table, the long knife in his hand spattering gore in a line along the wall as he drew it back for another swing. Something huge thudded against the outside of the door. They all froze as the room was flooded with light and Willow and chanting.

"…let this harmful spell be broken."

"Oh, thank God." Giles said, staring around him wildly.

"Hi, guys." Willow gave them a sheepish little wave in the sudden quiet. Then, "Oh, no, Anya." She started for the other woman, then stopped. "I'll, uh, get the bandages."

It took a few minutes to get Anya and Xander bandaged and Spike cleaned up. Willow tried to help and to explain. Buffy finally unfolded her arms and led her to the easy chair. They crammed in side-by-side. Willow put her head against Buffy's. "I'm so sorry."

"Watch that she doesn't go to sleep for a couple of hours," Giles advised Xander. "That's what they always tell me, at any rate." Anya had been knocked across the room by one of the demons that broke into Xander's apartment. The young human had a multitude of scratches himself, plus a line of blisters on his neck where one demon licked him. Spike stood by the door, staring stonily at the back of Xander's head, refusing to look at Buffy or Willow.

"I don't see," Giles said, his voice very precise, standing over the two, "Buffy should just marry Riley Finn, and Xander is a demon magnet. Because you were doing a spell that was barely ethical, when your energies are scattered, and –" He turned away from Willow, and when he spoke again, it was in a lower volume. "We are very lucky no one was hurt worse."

"If D'Hoffryn was impressed," Anya said, unexpectedly speaking up, "that should tell you that you aren't acting like one of the good guys."

"I couldn't have said it better." Giles glared down at the young witch.

"I didn't mean it to affect anybody else," Willow wailed. "I just wanted to make my pain go away."

"Let's…" Buffy trailed off. Her eyes went to Spike, then skittered away from the cold mask he wore. "I got some information tonight. It wasn't a total loss." She felt Willow pull away to look at her, but couldn't meet her friend's hopeful look, not yet.

Taking a breath, she went on. "Riley is one of a group of soldiers assigned to a task force he called 'the Initiative.' They… think of themselves as demon hunters, that demons are basically animals that haven't been seen before, that come from somewhere under Sunnydale.

"After I saw Spike, he asked me how I knew 'Hostile Seventeen.' Apparently, they have cameras with facial recognition and a bunch of other things, and since Spike's the only vampire they've seen both in the daytime and at night, they really want him. I don't know for what purpose. I don't think Riley knows, either. Also, he's the only demon to ever get away. They want him because of that, too.

"We went up to Riley's room. I know there's an elevator that goes beneath Lowell, but we'll never get in. It uses eye scans and voice recognition to activate. So, I don't know what's down there. Riley knows I'm the Slayer now, so I imagine there'll be questions tomorrow." At the door, Spike closed his eyes and turned his head away, his jaw tightening.

"He'll probably have questions about why I disappeared, too." She'd been sitting in his lap, talking about bouquets. "And, last," Buffy went on, "I know that Dr. Maggie Walsh is in charge of the Initiative."

"Your psychology professor?" Giles asked.

"Maggie Walsh?" Willow echoed, her eyes wide.

And hopeful, Giles noted, a very Ripper-like feeling going through him. He stood up. "That's a lot to absorb after tonight." Cool night air washed through the room. Spike had gone without closing the door behind him. Giles sighed. "Xander, why don't you take Anya and Buffy to get some food? I'm sure they're both hungry." He turned angry eyes on the young witch. "Not you, Willow. You're staying here tonight. We," he leaned against the wall and stared down at her, "are going to talk."

The other three filed out. Xander and Buffy gave Willow sympathetic looks as they left. "Anything sound good to you, Anya?"

"Soup sounds good."

"It does sound good," Buffy agreed, "but Spike saw me with Riley while I was in full bridezilla mode."

"Well, that isn't of the good."

"No. It isn't. Could you guys drop me near the dorm?" Buffy gave Anya a kiss on the uninjured cheek, then another to Xander as she left them, heading for her car.

⸹

[Author's Note: Earning the 'M' rating with explicit sexual content in this section. The verses are from Christina Rossetti's poem "I loved you first: but afterwards your love."]

⸹

Where Spike should be, there was nothing but blackness. She could see a very dim outline of the Sit N Bull diner, as if it were in fog during an eclipse, at the moment all the neon died.

Buffy hated driving at night. She put her key in and started the car. She tried to be angry about his withdrawal, but it ran up against the certainty that he'd closed himself off to spare her his anger. She tried to be put out that he hadn't come to her to make sure she was all right. She hadn't gone to him, though. He might be impervious to damage from Xander's demons, but she knew he wasn't all right.

A red light caught her, and she rummaged in her purse until she found gum. She chewed two pieces, one after the other. She didn't want to go to him tasting of another man.

Buffy drove slowly until she found the cutoff to his house, then crept up the hill. The Mercedes motor made an unhappy noise, so she dropped it down to second gear, then first. She tried high beams, but they weren't any better on the twisty road. Finally, the road leveled out into the driveway.

The beach house was dark. Even if his car had been in the garage, she would know he was there. Buffy let out a little sigh of relief. She got out of the car and started toward the door.

A black shape dropped in front of her and she jerked in surprise. "Spike." He'd been on the roof.

"Slayer."

"Your Slayer."

"Are you?"

"You know I am." She kept her tone even. "It was a spell, Spike."

"The spell made you dress like that?" His cold gaze flicked over her short skirt and braless torso.

"No. I hunted Riley on purpose. I figured he'd talk to me about Willow, at least. If he thought I was flirting –"

He turned on his heel and left her standing there.

Yeah, the plan about not getting mad? Not working. Buffy stalked after him. "Spike? Enough of this. Don't shut me out." She could feel him in the bedroom, so she went there. He'd taken off his coat and hung it in his small closet. Now he just stood there, not looking at her. "Talk to me."

His eyes glowed yellow in the dark room. "Talk to you," he said, his voice deep as a grave. "You want to talk about how it felt to have my chest ripped in two when you told me it wasn't a good time and turned your back on me?"

"Or we can talk about how I felt, being used like someone's sock puppet." She took another couple of steps closer to him. "It was a spell, Spike. It wasn't me."

"No? Well, it was me seeing it," he snarled. "Three months, Slayer. For three months, I've kept it, here at first, then in my coat, and every night I didn't pull it out, well, huzzah, good on me, another chance for you."

"What are you talking about?"

Spike ripped the long leather coat from the hanger and plunged his hand into one of the pockets. He came out with a small black box. The coat fell on the floor as he held it up before her.

"I'm never first with you, but I figured here, well," his anger was just gone, as was the block he'd kept between them, and she could feel so much pain _, at least I'll be the first man to ask for your hand in marriage._ With a snarl, the rage came back. He hurled the little box past her, and she heard it crack against the window frame. "But, of course not. What was I thinking?"

 _Yes._

"I can't do it. If I saw you with someone else, I'd kill them. I said I could, but I can't. You're _mine_. I. Want. You." Every word was a growl. He was in her face, but didn't touch her.

 _Yes._

"Every time we have to say good night, it bloody well isn't one. Every time I wake up and you aren't here, I remind myself that letting you have your own life is noble. Well, I'm not noble."

"Yes. Spike, yes."

He really looked at her then, the haze of fear and frustration ebbing away.

 _Yes._

With a muttered oath, he went past her to where the black velvet box had fallen. He was back inside a second. She watched him try to open it, first with just one hand, then with two. Spike closed his eyes, let out a long sigh, and handed the box to her, defeated.

It took her a little effort to separate the two halves, but she did – and managed to keep the hinge on the little velvet-covered box intact and a lid on her smile, too. With another swear word, he turned on a lamp so she could see.

"When I was in kindergarten, Bodie Jacobs asked me to marry him on the playground one day," Buffy said. She was trying to look at the emerald and diamonds set in the platinum band, but her eyes were full of tears. "You aren't the first." She knelt and put the box on the floor, then stood back up to embrace him, "but you're the best." _You're the only._

Spike kissed her fiercely. _Oh, my love, my very own._ Then his mouth softened and the kiss slowed and the next time she was aware of a world outside the circle of their arms, she was gasping for air.

"Wait." She put a hand on his chest. "I've been waiting to tell you this. I don't even know why I've been waiting." Buffy looked down, blinking, then took a deep breath and looked up at him. _Probably because it scares me to be this… vulnerable. You could hurt me so much._ "Spike, I don't just love you. I love you the best."

He stared at her. When he came back from South America, she'd told him that someday he'd find someone who loved him best.

Buffy saw his memory. "I-I didn't know then. But I'm so glad it's me."

Spike didn't have a prominent Adam's apple, but she saw his throat bob. "If I'm on this planet a thousand years, Buffy Summers, you'll be the love of my life." His hands clenched on her for a moment. _I feel like…_ Even his thoughts failed for a moment, and Spike looked down. Tears tracked down his cheeks as he looked into her eyes again. _I feel like I've already lived a thousand years, and it was all worth it, just to be here with you, right now._

 _Oh, my love. My man._ She gave him a wavering smile. _Still my vampire, too._

" _For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine.'"_

 _I know that one! "For one is both and both are one in love."_

" _Both of us, of the love which makes us one." I can't tell you how full my heart is, love. Words have never been enough. Not mine, not any poet's. But I can show you._

Her hand was still on his chest, and she pressed him away once more. "I'll be back."

"Let me undress you." _I want to go so slow, love._

Buffy looked down, kind of amazed that she could feel shy with him after all they'd been through, and gave him her reason. "I got my period today."

His head rocked back as if she'd hit him and his lips parted. For a long moment, he just stared at her, and she got a somewhat inappropriate stray thought from him, like static: _so bloody gorgeous_. Spike didn't say anything, just gave her a nod.

When she came back into the bedroom, he'd changed the sheets on the bed. Buffy hadn't seen these before; they were black satin, and he'd obviously been saving them. She felt a warm little thrill inside that Spike had so much faith in her; she hadn't been sure she'd ever be brave enough. He'd switched on the air conditioning, and she saw a basin of water and a small stack of black towels on the nightstand. He was undressed, too.

Spike knelt on the floor on one knee beside the bed. As she came to him, he held out his hand for hers. She messed up and gave him her right hand, then remembered and switched. Spike looked down, and she caught the flash of white teeth.

 _I made a hash of our engagement story, love. Sorry about that._

 _We'll make up something._

He took a breath. "Miss Buffy Summers, sunlight of my eternal night, will you do me the great honor of joining your life with mine?"

"Yes."

She saw his jaw clench, felt his internal struggle with emotion. "Please accept this as a token of my love and my fidelity."

Spike slid the ring onto her finger. This time, she could see it. She turned it side to side, admiring the large, oval emerald, the sparkly diamonds. "It's beautiful," she whispered.

"It's bezel set, so it won't catch on anything. It won't snag or break off if you have to punch something." He traced his fingers up her arm from the ring to her shoulder, standing as he did so. "People used to believe there was a direct vein from your ring finger to your heart," his hand moved over her breast and covered her heart, "and that's why we still wear them that way." Spike slid both arms around her. "Emeralds are the rarest gem. In my day, they meant success in love." He closed his eyes. "I've never given emeralds to anyone else."

"You put a lot of thought into this." She smiled at him.

He shrugged. "I designed it for you. You're Buffy," Spike said simply. "It had to be unique." He opened his eyes, letting her see everything within him. _I am possessive, demon and soul. I cannot wait for us, love. I'm sorry I told you that I could._

 _I've felt you pulling away from me, all these weeks._ Buffy touched his cheek. _We get a few hours together and things start feeling right again… and then it's time to leave. I hate it. I know it's selfish, but all I want is to be alone with you. The rest of the world doesn't seem to understand that._

 _I think I'm obsessed with you. You're all I think about._

 _It's okay, because I'm obsessed with you right back._ She rested her left hand against his heart. _Must be what people call being in love._

 _Buffy, most worthy, I don't think I can hold myself back from you tonight._

She felt a thrill at the words, not of fear, but of anticipation. He'd held back before? _I am your fiancé, sir. I'm sure whatever we do will be quite proper._

 _No, love. The things we do will be quite improper._

Spike let go of his aura, let it play about her unrestrained.

"Oh." He'd done this before, demonstrating its effect for a moment in a motel room in L.A. Buffy's breath came faster.

 _Let go of yours, love._

 _I don't…._

 _I'm a demon who isn't looking at you. Get my attention._

She knew how to do that.

Spike gasped in a desperate breath of air. "My Slayer." The two words were so deep, Buffy felt her sternum vibrate.

"My vampire." Her own voice was a purr; when had she ever sounded like that? His primal force surged toward her, though Spike himself never moved. Buffy's mouth curved in a knowing smile, and she tackled him, pinning his arms above his head as she straddled him on the bed. "Mine."

"Yours." He arched his body to hers. "Make me yours all over again."

She plundered his mouth, had to release his hands because she wanted to run her fingers over his body, wanted to pull him closer. Buffy ground against him, only knowing that she wanted more. Spike's hand moved between their bodies, and she gasped.

 _That's the first of many tonight, love._

 _Put your hand out._ She formed a mental image to go with the command.

He did as she asked, brows meeting in confusion, and Buffy set her abdomen against his palm and began to lean.

 _Oh._ She'd been a cheerleader.

 _Can you do… this?_

He chuckled. _I can._

 _You be my base, I'll be your flyer._ Buffy put her arms straight out, as if she was flying like Superman, and Spike tossed her into the air. They couldn't get much height inside, but it was enough for Buffy to do what she wanted to do.

She spun in midair.

He caught her high and eased her down. She moved into a x-form, felt where his shoulders were in relation to her knees, and –

 _Aaah… that wasn't fair._ He'd moved beneath her, bringing his mouth up to taste her before she could do the same to him.

 _Never said I would play fair._

 _Neither… oh God… Neither did I._ She grabbed him with her thighs and tumbled him to the side. _Got you._

 _You do. Oh, yes, please, Buffy, just like that._

He sent her an image of what she looked like, golden of hair and limb against the black satin backdrop. He used the slickness of the sheets to twist away from her and find his way between her thighs again. _Ah, love, so sweet, so glad you shared this with me, too. Want to share everything with you, want to hold your hands and see the whole world through your eyes._

 _It isn't… gross?_

 _Oh, no, love. Tastes like you. Tastes like life_.

The slippery satin worked for her, too, and they played for a long time, long enough for Buffy to realize that the black towels were for him more than for her. He finished scrubbing his wet face and threw the towel and washcloth toward the bathroom. Spike was sitting on the edge of the bed. _Come here, love._

She saw what he wanted and faced him, perched on his lap, her arms around his shoulders. There was something commanding about him that she didn't often see. _Bring me inside of you, Buffy._ She raised up to join their bodies for the first time of the night, letting out a wanton hiss as she did. If her beautiful vampire was going to give this kind of command, she was happy to follow orders.

 _Tonight, I claim you proper, love. Show me your neck._ After a moment, he added, _Please._ When she only looked at him, eyes wide, he went on. _Already claimed you, Buffy, and I won't brand you, but tonight, this has to go. I belong to you, and you're mine, for me alone._ He touched the scar where two other Aurelians had marked her. _Are you ready for this?_

 _I've been ready for this since the motel._ She brought his hand to the scar at the top of her thigh, then shivered. _Since this._

He held her eyes until his face was too close to her jaw to allow his gaze. Spike kissed the scar, traced it with his tongue. She held his face in her hands and felt the change in his brow beneath her fingers. _Slayer's blood is supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but you're my only drug now._ There was pain for a second as his fangs sank into her flesh, upper and lower this time. She felt his tongue push against her skin, heard his intake of breath. _Nectar of a god._

Then he drew her blood into him and she cried out, felt her body convulse around him, felt everything, lust and completion, over and again as she rode him to the bed. His fangs were gone, but he still licked and nibbled at the mark he'd remade into his own.

 _Be still, be still._ He pulled free from her body, panting, and went up on his knees on the bed. _God, what you do to me. How can I ever give you the best of me?_

 _You have._

 _Ah, Buffy. Put your feet on my chest, love, like that._ He leaned into her, sliding into her body slowly. _Spend for me again, kitten._

 _Faster._

 _No._ His fingers stroked the little scar at her thigh.

 _Please._

 _No._

His other hand moved to her right nipple.

"Spike."

 _Let it build._

 _Please._ She flooded his open mind with what she wanted.

 _Here?_ One hand still stroked her thigh, but the other had moved to her slick flesh.

 _There. Yes. More._

 _So beautiful love, like a flower in bloom, like a storm over the sea._

Buffy broke, no longer caring about how she looked or what he might think, only about the bliss that was eluding her. She dropped her feet from his chest and wound her legs around his hips, gaining leverage, finally able to move and grind against him at the pace she wanted.

"Yes," he snarled. His head fell back and he roared in joy.

She felt him, then, in the same mindless state of desire. _Mine._

 _Yours. More. More of you._

 _Mine._

 _Take. All of me. Yours._

 _Mine._

There was no end to this, their bodies moving together, minds joined more tightly than their entwined fingers, both of them wracked with pleasure.

And then there was an end, a crescendo, color and darkness bursting through them, and Buffy thought Spike screamed and knew that she had.

 _Love you. I love you._ He'd collapsed atop her.

 _I love you. Husband._ She opened her eyes to look at him. _Really?_

 _Just a twitch. I think._ Spike smiled at her. _You let go. Been waiting for that._

 _I didn't know. I didn't think I could ever be that… open. Only with you. I know you accept all of me._

Tears sparkled in the dark depths of his eyes. _So this is what it's like to love recklessly._

 _How can it be reckless when I'm going to keep you safe?_

The tears spilled across his cheeks. _My love, my heart. My bride._ He smiled. _I like the way that sounds._

She closed her eyes and hugged him a little tighter. _I can't say you didn't warn me. You did say that you wouldn't hold back._

 _Love… I said I didn't think I could, but I did._

 _Did what?_

 _Hold back._

 _There's more?_ She opened her eyes. _There is not._

He nodded, grinning at her and putting his tongue against his teeth. _There's more. It was you who didn't hold back tonight._ Spike rolled over, pulling her with him until she sprawled atop his body. "Buffy, the day I make you my wife, the day you make me the happiest man or demon to ever walk this earth… I'm going to ruin even the thought of any other man for you. Utterly ruin."

There was a certainty in his voice that was partly maddening, partly scary, and entirely intriguing. "I'm already yours. Why wait?"

 _You called that night in L.A. our first time, and you're right. I'm sure I was in love with you then, but I was in denial. Didn't think there would ever be anything else between us, just that night. I decided then to hold back._

She touched his jaw, traced the sharp angle of his cheek. _I still don't know how I left you._

 _You were right about another thing: our bodies have always known._ He brushed her hair back. _So, now, I have one last thing, and I'll save it as a wedding gift._

 _I don't need to wait._ She gave him an impish grin.

 _I think I do. Until tonight, love, I never let myself dare believe we'd ever get more than stolen moments. Not really._

 _It's all I've ever known. Moments stolen from my life or moments stolen from my mission. With you, it's all… integrated._ She kissed his brow where it was scarred. _This is our life. Together, we have a whole life._

 _I was created to love, and it's never been enough. Love hurt, or was punished, or was betrayed… And then I met you. I finally believe that love can conquer all, Buffy._ Tears ran unheeded across his cheeks. _Love is enough._

Next Chapter: Amid fallout from the end of the Initiative, a new friend and an old one come into the Scoobies' lives.


	28. Life on the Hellmouth

**Life on the Hellmouth**

⸹

Sunnydale, California

November 1999

⸹

"Mom!"

"Buffy?" Joyce came out from the back of the gallery, rubbing lotion into her hands.

Her daughter bounced to her beside the counter and gave her a hug. "Look!"

She looked down at the hand Buffy was holding out, then up to the dark figure who'd just come inside the door. "Hullo, Joyce."

Making herself smile, she hugged her daughter. "When did this happen?"

"Last night." Buffy beamed at her mother. "You're the first person we've told."

"Oh! Sweetie."

This gained her another hug. It had been Spike's idea to come here first, and he had been right. "I said yes until he listened to me," Buffy said, grinning.

"Come on over, Spike," Joyce said, beckoning to him.

"I'm sorry, mum," Spike mumbled. "I waited as long as I could."

"Why should you, if you're both happy?" Joyce gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Welcome to the family – oh!" She blinked and said a little breathlessly, "You both hug too hard. Come on in the back, where the light is better. I want to see the ring."

They didn't stay long, but long enough for Joyce to pose a practical question. "When are we going to set a date?" Buffy wondered aloud, once they were out on the street.

Spike took her in his arms and gave her a look that made her toes curl inside her boots. "I might have booked Latimer House on your birthday weekend and the first weekend in June for the next three years."

"Three years?" She laughed.

"They don't book any further ahead."

"How did you get the first weekend this coming June?"

"Someone cancelled, and I had laid out a bribe to be first on the list."

She laughed again and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. "Well, we have a venue. Maybe we could throw an engagement party on my birthday?" Then she pulled away. "Let me ask Mom something real quick."

He watched her go, a tiny dynamo of a woman who held his whole existence in her grip – Ugh, that was some bad word choice. Then she was back, sunshine in her very eyes. [ _Better, poet._ ] "Mom says, if we get the gown and book the photographer now, we could do it by June."

Spike let out a breath and gave her another toe-curling look. "Let me know what needs to be done. You have classes, but I'm mostly free."

"I'll take care of the dress; you take care of the photographer."

"Deadline?"

"End of December?"

"Deal." He sealed it with a kiss. "And now on to Giles."

"I-I should probably get to class."

"I faced your mother," he pointed out. "You face your Watcher. And then the only hard one left is –"

"Angel." They said the word together. Buffy sighed. "All right."

⸹

"Oh, hullo." Giles was wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. He stood back from the door and let them in.

"Late night with Willow?" Buffy asked.

"Yes. I'm worried about her. Of all the spells she might have chosen to ease the pain of a broken heart, why would it be a will-be-done spell?" He half-turned on his way to the kitchen. "Tea?"

"I'll have a cuppa." Spike looked at Buffy, who shook her head in the negative.

Giles brought back two cups of tea, handed one to Spike, seated himself on the sofa, and picked up where he left off. "I asked her directly if she planned to will Oz to come back to Sunnydale. She said she didn't, but I still wonder."

"This is Willow we're talking about," Buffy said. "She can barely manage assertive, much less bullying people."

"The fact that it's Willow makes it more difficult," he agreed. "I can't stay angry with her." Giles started to say something else, but his telephone rang. Buffy was closest and passed the handset to him. "Olivia! It's lovely to hear your voice."

Buffy pulled a face at Spike, and they went into the kitchen to give the Watcher some privacy. _So, how often do you think they talk?_

 _Dunno. He never really talks about his personal life._

 _I always kind of hoped that he and Mom might start seeing each other. I don't know if that thing with the band candy ruined it, or if it was the only way it could happen._

 _How could it ruin it? They just spent time together._

 _Nope. You remember I told you about that demon that gave me the ability to read minds? Twice, Spike. On a police car._

"Ow!" He choked on the hot liquid. _You had to tell me that when I was drinking the tea?_ He put his hand over his mouth and laughed silently as possible.

 _And, somehow, I don't find it quite as funny._

 _Sorry, love._ He pulled a straight face and drank some more tea.

 _That's the same day I found out why they divorced._ She let him hear her mother's thought. _She always tried to shield me._

Spike moved to her and drew her close, putting a kiss on her head. Joyce had found Hank in their own bed with his girlfriend. _Mothers do that._

 _They do. So do daughters._ She leaned into him. _But I think that sex at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons can spin a relationship the wrong way. What if you hadn't told me no in L.A.? So, I figure it's never going to happen for them._

 _Maybe there's someone really good out there for her._

 _Or maybe she'll never be able to trust anyone enough._

 _Is that what you think?_

 _I hate to think of her being alone as she gets older._

 _She won't be._

Buffy looked up at Spike and gave him a small smile. In the living room, they heard Giles stand up, ending his call. When he came into the kitchen, they didn't step apart. Buffy held out her left hand.

"Ah." Some of the happiness on his face dimmed, but he held out his arms. "Congratulations, Buffy."

"Thank you, Giles." She stepped back, keeping her hands on his sides. "When I get married, would you give me away?"

"I should think your father –"

"Won't be there."

"Of course I will, dear."

When Buffy turned away and looked at Spike, the vampire moved closer. "Don't disappoint me, Watcher. I'm expecting impressive threats from you about what will happen if I ever hurt her."

"Very well." The morning light glittered off his glasses, obscuring his expression. "If you ever hurt her, I won't allow you to die. You'll live with it for as long as I can arrange it."

Spike froze, then nodded very slowly. "I'm duly impressed." Nonetheless, he held out his hand.

Giles shook it. "I assume the engagement came about so suddenly because of Willow's spell?"

Buffy answered. "Not really. Spike had the ring for a long time. It's just been getting harder to lead separate lives."

Something sad crossed the Watcher's face. "Speaking of separate lives, Olivia is going to be in the States next month. She's going to come by for a long weekend before she heads back."

"Good on you, mate."

"We'll try to keep out of your way." She looked at clock on the microwave. "I really need to get to class."

"Well, then, very quickly: the private investigator located Nikki Wood's mother. She'd remarried to a man named Jones, of course, but he did finally locate her in Weehawken, New Jersey. Are you still willing to meet her?"

"New Jersey?"

"It's on the Hudson River, love, just a ferry away from New York City."

"Ooh. I would have gone anyway, but do you mind if I see if Mom wants to go with me? After Christmas?"

"No, of course not." Giles saw her eyes stray to the clock again and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Congratulations again, Buffy. I am happy for you both." He followed them to the door. "Oh, I almost forgot. You asked me about Mohra demons. Their blood has regenerative powers, which is why I suspect the jewel is their weak point rather than bodily injury. Nothing about causing despondency or anything else."

"Okay. Thanks for checking, though."

Once they were in the car, Buffy asked, "If I see Willow, do you mind if I tell her alone?"

"No, love." He glanced at her, then back to the road. Spike drove much more carefully when she was in the car. "I'll go by the wireless store and pick up a phone for Anya. That'll give us an excuse to go by there later tonight."

"Is it wrong that I kind of hate having to share this with everyone? Maybe half of them will simply be happy for us; the rest have… an agenda or reservations."

"Well, it isn't wrong," he said, "but you can't dictate other people's emotions."

 _What is so easy here,_ she gestured between them, _is complicated out there._

 _We can take it. I mean, Angel's my family, right? Even if he resents you moving on and has jealous feelings toward me, he still loves both of us. He can't actually be completely happy for us, thank God, but he'll wish us well. If we didn't tell him, stopped having him as part of our lives, wouldn't that be worse than some momentary awkwardness?_

 _I'm being special Buffy again. Oh, my life is hard, so you have to treat me special instead of like an actual person._

 _You are special, and they might treat you that way, but then you wouldn't be grounded. I saw this from the moment I met you, love. It's your friends and family that make you so strong. That's why I love them, too._

 _Ignore me. I just realized that I'm going to have to keep living in the dorm. I can't abandon Willow._ She threw up her hands. _But there's a tiny part of me that just wants to slay a few vampires, spend the rest of the time having amazing sex with you, and maybe eat some ice cream._

 _Buffy, that's –_

 _No, go on._

 _It's an empty life, love._

She saw his memory of Angelus explaining the three F's and paled. _Oh._

 _Not that there's anything wrong with that for a day or a weekend or a vacation. Just, it isn't a life._

 _I… I guess I just feel like nothing has changed._

 _What? Being engaged?_

 _Yeah._

 _Things have changed. Trust me._ Spike spotted a parking space open up on the street ahead and used her little Mercedes to bully a delivery truck into blocking for them. He pulled in and turned to take her hands. _It might not seem like it today, but the next time we're stuck doing research at Giles', you'll be sitting on my lap while we do it._ He pulled her hand into the air, flashing the ring. _We can because we're engaged._

 _And I can openly spend nights at your house._

 _See? Things have already gotten better._

⸹

December 1999

⸹

Well, that could have gone worse, Buffy thought, watching Dr. Walsh walk out of the classroom. She saw that Willow had waited for her in the hallway, looking anxious, and caught up.

"What's the sitch?" the redhead asked, low.

"Apparently Riley did some asking around about Slayers and told Dr. Walsh about me. They want to bring me in."

"In, how?"

"Uh, see if I can help them, I think. She didn't seem too impressed by me, just willing to do a favor for Riley."

"Only one more week, and your grade will be posted. Maybe you can foist her off until then."

"Yeah. You're right; I'd hate to get a failing grade just for being the Slayer."

"Buffy?"

She turned to see who was calling her name. "Oh, hey, Parker."

He smiled down at her and Willow, showing his dimples equally to both girls. "Haven't seen you for a while," he said. "Want to catch up over lunch?"

Buffy gave him a rueful smile. "Sorry, but we have an off-campus meeting."

"Maybe another time?"

"Sure." Before Buffy could be sure he was far enough away to tease Willow about the cute guy who smiled at her, another student moved up to them.

"Hey. I'm Katy Loomis, from Dr. Walsh's class. Do you know Parker?"

"Not really," Buffy said, and Willow shook her head as well.

"Don't bother," Katy advised. "I went with him for a hot minute at the start of the semester. He was on to the next girl before I could decide if he was even worth it. Plus," she went on in a lower voice, "he's a bad lay."

Willow was speechless, but Buffy grinned. "Good to know," she laughed. "Life is too short for that." She leaned closer. "You, I want to have lunch with."

Katy laughed, and they made plans to go to lunch together after the next psychology class. Willow watched her walk away and shook her head a little. "Where were girls like that when we were in high school?"

"Not in Sunnydale," Buffy agreed, feeling pleased. She hadn't made a new friend in a while.

⸹

"Willow and I have an addition for your visit to the Initiative," Giles told Buffy. The three of them were in his flat while Xander, Anya, and Spike patrolled. He held out something for her.

"Thank you," Buffy said, looking at what lay on her palm, "for giving me my own earrings."

"I've set a kind of monitoring spell on them," Willow said. "It's sort of a computer and a magic thing. The cubic zirconia in each earring will act as foci for the spell. Anything they 'see' will come back here." She pointed at two external drives attached to her laptop. "Instead of showing up in, like, a scrying bowl, it will record."

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Willow, that's really cool. I'm impressed."

"As am I. It's an innovative use of your skills, Willow."

She flushed beneath their praise. "I just hope it works. Riley's people have so much technology, they would probably be all over a wire, even if we knew how to do that."

Giles looked at his watch. "From eight o'clock on, Spike won't be more than a minute from campus. If he can't sense you, he will go in."

"Oh, I know he will."

"You don't have to do this, Buffy."

"I know. I'll be fine."

"Here, Buffy." Willow handed her a floppy disk. "If you can manage it, just drop this somewhere."

"Drop it?"

Willow shrugged. "If someone picks it up and puts it in an Initiative computer, all they'll find is a paper about drunk driving." She gave Buffy a grin. "But it'll call home to mama and let me know where it is."

"Ah. Clever," Giles said, approving.

"Passive," Willow said, "but you never know."

"Okay, guys." Buffy finished putting in her earrings. "I'm off to Lowell House."

⸹

Riley met her at the door. "Hey. I think you know Forrest. This is Graham."

"Hi, guys." Both of them nodded at her, not looking happy.

"Well, let's get started." Riley led her to a wood panel that hid an elevator.

"That's pretty futuristic," Buffy said, getting into the elevator. "Cool. Has the Initiative been in Lowell long?"

The three of them exchanged a look. "We came to Sunnydale after the Mayor turned into a, uh, something at –"

"At the high school graduation, yeah. I was there. He was trying to Ascend. We stopped him."

"A gas line explosion stopped it." Forrest was frowning.

"We set explosives. The gas did go, too." She shrugged. "We would have done it sooner, but he had a hundred days of invulnerability beforehand."

"Who's 'we?'" Graham asked.

"The class of ninety-nine." There was no posturing now. "Not everyone survived."

The elevator door dinged and Riley stepped out first. "Dr. Walsh would like us to test your strength and reflexes before you meet with her, if that's all right."

"No problem."

"Do you want to change? We have gear that will fit you."

"No, that's okay. I patrol in street clothes."

"All right. In here." Riley gestured at a door.

Buffy looked inside before she went in. The room was somewhat like a gym, with bulky shapes that looked like weightlifting equipment. The Slayer shrugged off her coat and took her stake from its place at the small of her back.

"What's that?" Graham asked.

"A stake." Buffy gave him a surprised look. "You guys don't know much about Slayers, do you?"

"No, ma'am," Graham agreed. "That's your only weapon?"

"Usually," Buffy said shortly. She put it in her coat pocket. "So, what's first?"

 _Love?_

 _So far, so good. Strength testing._

"Uh, grip?" Riley led her over to a machine.

Buffy broke that and four other expensive-looking things with digital displays in the next fifteen minutes. When they wanted to put her on a treadmill, she shook her head and lied. "Over thirty at short distances. I'd rather not get sweaty before I see Dr. Walsh."

Forrest was looking grim, but Graham was delighted. "Thirty miles an hour? That is so cool." Riley said nothing.

Dr. Walsh already had her data when Buffy was finally ushered into her office. "This is amazing," she said, lifting the file. "Some of it even seems to defy physics. Someone of your mass shouldn't be able to lift what you do." The professor nodded to the men who stood at ease behind her. "You're stronger than they are."

"No use fighting demons if you aren't at least as strong as they are."

"And you use… a pointy stick?"

Buffy thought of the stake that Kendra had gifted her, Mr. Pointy. Kendra had died in the fight to keep the world from becoming a hellscape. She didn't like this incredulous, condescending tone very much, and tilted her head to an arrogant cant, a gesture lifted from her fiancé. "It's all I need."

Dr. Walsh leaned back in her chair. "So, what can you tell me about these creatures you call vampires?"

Buffy raised a fine brow. "That they are vampires. Victims of vampires who've taken blood from their sire before dying of blood loss. They rise again after one to three days, come out of the grave hungry."

"I would say things like bloodborne pathogens, cessation of decay, and reanimation."

"It isn't like a virus or something. There's an actual demonic spirit inside of a dead body. The soul is gone. Memories remain, some of the personality, usually to a lesser degree."

"And you… slay them."

"Vampires and other demons. Anything that's evil."

"Besides a stake, how else do you kill vampires?" Graham asked.

She twisted to glance back at him. "Beheading. Fire, but that's risky. They can't survive exposure to sunlight, which is why they don't come out in daytime. Wood through the heart works best; strength is good, but the technique can be learned."

"What about garlic and crosses?" Forrest asked.

"Crosses will repel them, but those that have actually been touched by a cross and only been burned, not so much." Buffy turned back to face Dr. Walsh. "Same with holy water. Garlic… the bloom of a garlic plant is supposed to be lethal somehow, but I honestly have never found any use for it."

"Why do you wear a cross?" Riley asked.

"A friend gave it to me. Kind of a last line of defense."

"Do you know where vampires go during the day?"

"Individual vampires are hard to find. A group or a nest, usually you find in a mausoleum or an abandoned building, somewhere without windows. They don't have to sleep in coffins, and they'll wake up just like anybody if you track them down during the day."

"If you did see a vampire during the day, what would you think?"

She raised puzzled eyebrows. _They're asking about you now._ "I'd know it because it would be wrapped up, no flesh showing. I have seen that. A vampire sent one of his minions to give me a message during the day. It was burning up while it passed along the message. He did it just to make a point."

"So, there couldn't be a vampire out in daylight."

The Slayer shook her head. "If it's out in daylight, it isn't a vampire." She pretended to think. "There are demons who can disguise themselves, appear to us as anyone, but I can't think why they would want to imitate a vampire. Vamps are considered half-breeds by other demons, because they were once human. Of course, there are no true demons on earth anymore, thank God. But they can be summoned."

"Buffy, you just got a B+ in my class. I know you understand how unscientific, how… medieval that sounds. You can't empirically prove this stuff, what you call demons or souls. What I know is, we've classified a lot of new animals in Sunnydale. We have hard data. And what you call vampires, we think is a disease."

She looked down for a moment from this willful denial. "Until I was fifteen, the hardest thing in my life was learning new cheerleading routines. I'd made it through puberty and freshman year; what could go wrong? Then one day, I was stronger than the biggest linebacker on the football team, could outrun most of the traffic in L.A. Some mystical old dude showed up and told me I was the newest Chosen One, gave me a stake, and told me to go kill vampires.

"I know that's all anecdotal and can't be proven to have happened empirically. Nevertheless, it did. It wasn't like I got bit by a radioactive spider. Somewhere in the world, the Slayer died. A switch or something got thrown inside of me, and I was Chosen."

Dr. Walsh gave her a shrewd look. There really wasn't any way to respond to that statement, so she changed the subject. "Would you be interested in going on patrol with Riley's team?"

"I can do that."

"Riley? Are you ready to go?" Dr. Walsh turned back to Buffy. "He'll report back to me on how you do."

 _Getting ready to leave Lowell and go on patrol._

 _Good. Can't wait until you're out of there._

Buffy stood up. "That'll be fine." If Giles hadn't warned her to stay away from details about the Council and the resources she'd had access to over the years, she might have been more confrontational. Which was probably what the psychology professor was trying to get her to do: get angry and talk too much. She looked up at Riley. "I'm ready."

She wasn't, as it turned out. Instead of going back up the elevator, Riley led her down a hallway to an armory, where four young men she hadn't met were waiting. The introductions were a blur, and, once Riley had his dark clothing and weapons, they started toward an exit hidden beneath a grate on campus.

Buffy could never forget what she saw on the short trip through the corridors that led to that exit: demons strapped to gurneys, hopelessness and fear in their eyes; a window that showed an operating theatre where a thrashing demon was being injected with something; demons slumped bonelessly in sterile cells; humans in lab coats walking past their captives as oblivious as if the miserable creatures were Erlenmeyer flasks.

The whole time, Riley was talking about studying demons' healing abilities, learning from their physiology, possibilities for regrowing or grafting limbs, the purpose of spines or horns. Buffy firmed her chin, did not argue, did not scream, did not turn on her fellow humans.

Once they were topside and in the dark, she ditched them as soon as she could, staking a newly-emerged vampire with ruthless efficiency and feeling more than ever that it was a mercy killing. She picked a fight with Riley and went off in a huff.

 _Meet me on Euclid._

 _Driving there now._

Buffy saw the Bentley and ran through traffic to the door. "Drive."

At the first stoplight, Spike leaned over and took her in his arms. "Love, you're shaking."

"Just get me to Giles."

He gave her a concerned look, but backed off, left her to her thoughts. Traffic was light, and they were there in five minutes. Giles opened the door as soon as they knocked, and the whole gang was there already, waiting for details.

"Hey, Buffy," Willow said happily. "The spell seemed to… What's wrong?"

Buffy sat on the couch, her arms wrapped around her middle. "You guys know about my cousin Celia, right?"

Giles sank down next to her, putting an un-Watcher-like hand on her shoulders. "Yes?"

"Well, I've never had a problem with lab testing on rats, not if cures can be found for little kids, not if their suffering is minimized." Tears spilled across her cheeks. "Giles… how can they treat something that speaks, that is sentient… treat _somebody_ like a lab rat?"

Giles went very still. "We haven't seen any of the footage, Buffy. I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about." His jaw clenched. "Though I have a sick feeling I can guess."

"The Initiative captures demons and experiments on them." Buffy closed her eyes and told Giles what she had seen and what medical advances Riley told her they hoped to realize.

"I can see how they would think…" Giles voice faded. "Regeneration of limbs for soldiers…."

Buffy wiped her eyes. "Sure. And when they transfuse some poor, wounded GI Joe with vampire blood? Or you know they'd love to get some of the slime from that mouthless demon that infected me with telepathy, send some spy to get enemy secrets."

"Oh, God." Willow sat, half-turned from her laptop. "They think demons are, like, just physiological specimens. They don't have a clue that it's supernatural."

"Or they actually do know, but think they can control it anyway," Spike said grimly.

"There's a government program for invisible kids to become spies," Anya said. When everyone except Spike looked at her sharply, she shrugged. "I granted a wish to a girl in the program when I was a vengeance demon. I made everyone else visible. Not really my specialty, but Halfrek was on vacation."

"How long do you think the government has been watching Sunnydale?" Xander asked in a stunned voice.

"I wonder if they had an arrangement with Mayor Wilkins." Buffy saw Spike and Anya exchange a puzzled glance. "We all knew – sort of knew a girl who became invisible."

"Oh." Anya's eyebrows rose.

Willow turned to the Watcher. "What do we do, Giles?"

"I don't think we can do anything," he said, shrugging, "but I'll light some fires under some people who might be able to."

"We need to get those demons out of there." Buffy shook her head. "I know that I'm their mortal enemy… but, God, I don't torture them, Giles."

"They have to have a power supply," Spike suggested. "We cut their electricity, that'll throw them. We go in…."

"No." Giles' voice was both loud and final. He stood up from the couch and paced away. "Buffy, you are never to step foot in Lowell House again. Nor you, Spike." His Cambridge-educated voice gave way to a tougher accent. "I'll burn the place down myself before I let some boffin poke and prod either of you. Buffy and Willow, you'll not take any more classes taught by that cu–"

He realized that the others were staring at him and abruptly leashed Ripper. "I still have contacts within the Council. The Vatican will want to know about this, too; abominations are in their bailiwick."

"What about PETA or other animal rights groups?" Willow asked, a little subdued by his previous ferocity.

"No, let's keep civilians out of this. We wouldn't want an ill-advised rescue operation." Giles got a gleam in his eye. "But we do need to send out what's on your," he nodded at the computer and took a moment to dredge up the word, "peripheral drives."

⸹

"…which is why I think nineteen-fifties fashions are better than nineteen-sixties."

Buffy considered this as she walked beside Anya, her hands in the pockets of her coat. They were patrolling on the east side of Sunnydale, one of the few places where the peril of being female seemed almost equal to the danger of being edible. "I don't know. I know the hairstyles were way big and ugly in the sixties, but… miniskirts."

"Oh, I'd take societal norms in the sixties over the fifties, but I still think the clothes were much more flattering to women." Anya frowned. "The foundation garments are another matter."

"Hard to wear those little blouses and wide skirts without a girdle to cinch you in," Buffy agreed. "Not if you wanted the classic silhouette."

"Oh, look," Anya said, pointing at two long, dark shapes moving low to the ground. "Wu's striped demon-foxes."

Buffy's feet moved into a neutral stance as the two shapes twined around each other, their eyes glowing red even without any light shining at them. "Are they dangerous?"

"Only to weasels and small dogs," Anya said. "They're probably getting ready to hibernate."

Buffy watched for a few seconds more. "They're actually kind of cute."

"Many furry mammals are. Most demons in our dimension are reptilian in nature, fortunately."

"Wonder why that is?" Next to Giles, Anya knew the most about demonkind.

"I don't know," Anya said after a moment's thought. "But it does make me wonder what your thoughts are on fur collars on jackets."

They turned north and headed across the street to an older neighborhood. As a rule, it was quiet here, but it made a good shortcut to the Sunny Rest. "Buffy? I'm not being shallow or insinuating that you're shallow, just talking about clothes. Xander often doesn't have any clue about clothes. This is my chance to have this conversation."

"Fashion is never shallow," Buffy reassured her, "not in my book."

"Good. I like having my opinions challenged or validated by you. You're considered to be very stylish."

"Well, thank you. I consider you to be stylish, too." Buffy put out a hand and slowed. "Shadow ahead. Stop after we walk another ten yards." They didn't patrol together often, but Buffy worried less about Anya than her other human friends. She never tried to be brave.

The vampire jumped out from behind a hedge and lunged at Buffy. She dodged and staked it, growing still as solid matter sighed into dust. Not hearing or otherwise sensing anything, she nodded to Anya and waited for the other woman to catch up. "So, Xander doesn't like to talk about clothes? Why am I not surprised?"

"He cleans up nice," Anya said defensively.

"Hey," Buffy raised her hands in a placating gesture, somewhat lessened by the stake she still held, "my fiancé cannot break out of basic black."

Anya reached her side, and they began walking again. "Are you excited about getting married?"

"I don't know," Buffy said after some honest thought. "I know I want to spend all my time with Spike and that I don't want to, like, date anyone else. The whole marriage part of it… Honestly, it means more to him than to me. He's kind of old-fashioned." She gave Anya a sidelong look and grinned. "But, I am way excited about the dress."

"Nice," Anya approved, "back to fashion." But she didn't take the opening. "Do you think Xander will ask me to marry him?"

"I think," Buffy said diplomatically, "that Xander is way, way younger than Spike and not ready to be settled. I don't see why he wouldn't ask you someday, because you both seem very happy together, but I don't think it will be soon." After about fifteen seconds of silence, she added, "He hasn't talked to me about it."

"What I don't understand," Anya said, "is why I want him to ask me. Why I would even want to be married."

"Because you love him?" Buffy teased.

"No, it isn't that." Anya realized what she said. "I mean, I do love him. I never intended to, but here I am. He isn't like any other man I've ever met – I mean, he did hurt Cordelia, that's what I've seen men do, hurt women, for hundreds of years. But to me, he's… kind. He listens to what I have to say. He makes sure I have orgasms. Xander is… different."

"Giles told me once that this may be the best time ever to be female. A lot of that is probably because it's the best time ever to be male, too."

Anya shook her head. "It's always been a good time to be male. But, I have to admit, men are willing to be more vulnerable now."

"I think it's because so many of them had moms who worked, moms who were strong role models."

"Women have always worked," Anya disagreed. "Women are the pack mules of society."

"Yes, but now women get paid."

"Oh. Outside the home." Anya was quiet for a few hundred feet. "If I want Xander to continue to respect me, I should find a career."

"Well," Buffy said slowly, "I think you need to find something to do so that you respect yourself. Like, even if you just volunteer somewhere, do something to help kids or improve the community. That gives you a chance to be your own person, to be confident. Confidence is the most attractive quality, according to the experts," she finished, "and, personally, I have to agree with them." She gave the other woman a quick grin. "I love Spike's swagger."

"Xander doesn't have swagger," Anya mused.

"He is way more confident now than he was in high school. I think you have a lot to do with that."

A little smile settled on Anya's face at that. Then it was gone, replaced by annoyance. "Oh, great. Just when the conversation gets good, here come more vampires."

⸹

"You be careful," Buffy said, hugging him hard.

"You have fun," Spike replied, giving Joyce a long-suffering look _. I promise to not get captured by the Initiative and destroy them from the inside before you return._

 _Not funny._ "I will." She went up on tiptoes and gave him a kiss.

Thirty seconds later, Spike cleared his throat and let go of her. "Um, hope it's a good flight. Joyce, you have fun, too."

Joyce shook her head. "We will, dear." She gave him a smile. "I haven't been to New York in years!"

Once they were seated, Joyce squeezed Buffy's hand. "I know Christmas was a couple days ago, but the decorations will still be up. It's going to be so festive. I wish we could stay for the ball drop on New Year's Eve."

"We're lucky to get hotel reservations for the next three days. Though I bet all this Y2K stuff made some people cancel."

"Are you nervous?"

"Nah. Of course, I am kind of glad we'll be back home before it hits."

"The bankers at the last Chamber of Commerce meeting said they'd been getting ready for this for five years." Joyce shrugged. "I'm not worried about a little computer glitch causing the apocalypse. I live in Sunnydale."

Buffy laughed out loud and twisted to give Joyce a little hug. "You know, I am nervous. I haven't flown since I was a little kid." She gave her mother a smile. "It's good to be nervous."

"Oh, you'll love New York," Joyce said. "So many galleries!"

As it turned out, Buffy did love New York, but for the shopping. After just three boutiques, Buffy found her wedding dress. She put in her order, arranged to pick it up the weekend after spring semester let out, and then went with Joyce to more stores and a couple of museums. They ate Hungarian food because her mother wanted to, then went back to their hotel to collapse. The next day, while her mother went to visit what seemed like an impossible list of galleries, Buffy took a ferry to Weehawken to visit Nikki Wood's mother.

It was a small house, and Mrs. Jones was already waiting at the door for her. She was a tall, quiet woman in her sixties, and she offered Buffy something to drink as she showed her into a formal little parlor with a floral sofa. Buffy smiled and shook her head, setting a shopping bag down next to her.

"My husband isn't here," Mrs. Jones started. "He has two boys of his own, grown of course, and he knew I lost a daughter, but he doesn't know who she was."

"It is hard to explain," Buffy agreed. "I couldn't really tell my mother for two years. She and Dad had just divorced, and I didn't want to put anything else on her."

"Nikki tried to protect me, too. She wouldn't stop doing it, but she did try to shield me and her boy."

"I tried to stop for a few months," Buffy admitted, "but I couldn't let people…."

"What caused you to stop?"

"Someone I loved became evil. I had to kill him." She closed her eyes.

"It isn't fair, what they ask of you."

"No. It isn't."

"Why are you here?"

Buffy looked down. "My Watcher, he's one of the good ones. He lost his job over the _Tento di Cruciamentum_. I know Nikki must have gone through that, too."

"She did. She was pregnant at the time."

Buffy stared at the woman, shocked into speechlessness for a moment. "Oh, my God."

"God has nothing to do with the Council."

"Uh… anyway, your daughter's Watcher lives in California now. My Watcher reached out to him from time to time. Since Crowley was older and British, Giles always thought that it was odd that he was able to adopt in this country." Buffy reached into her shopping bag and pulled out the picture of Robin. "Crowley's Watcher's diary said that the same vampire that killed Nikki also killed her son and her mother. Obviously, one of those isn't true, since I'm sitting here with you. We're afraid the other part was also a lie." Buffy handed the printout to Mrs. Jones. "This is Crowley's adopted son."

Nikki's mother didn't move to take it for a long moment, then she accepted the image. She laid it on her lap, smoothing the page. Without looking up, she spoke. "At first, Nikki said she didn't know who the father of her son was, that she was on the Pill and it was her own business. But I think she always knew. She'd known him her whole life. He was a good-looking boy, a bad boy, bad news. He's dead now, too. Died in a crackhouse in the eighties. I never would have thought he'd live that long.

"By the time Robin was two, I knew who his daddy was. Robin looked just like him." She smoothed the sheet of paper again, and Buffy saw a splotch appear on the edge. Mrs. Jones moved it to safety. "He still does."

She looked up at Buffy. "That bastard told me he was dead. There's an empty grave next to my Nikki's." Mrs. Jones' voice broke.

Buffy swallowed and rushed in, wanting to reassure her of her grandson's safety. "Um, that picture is from his college graduation. He's in graduate school now, in education. Crowley lives in Beverly Hills." She took another bundle of papers from the bag. "I don't have any clue or advice or anything, but," she handed these over to Mrs. Jones, "here's when his school starts and his address and phone number on campus. There's a voucher in there for two round-trip airline tickets." She looked around the room, then spotted a box of tissue on a table in the hallway.

"Thank you," Nikki's mother said, accepting the tissue when she returned. Despite her tears, when she looked up, her face was hard. "Did the Council pay for these?"

"No." Buffy shook her head. "We both know they wouldn't do anything like that. They don't know I'm here. We… came into some money recently."

"The Council will know you came to New York."

Buffy shrugged. "Probably. I'm here with my mother. We're shopping and going to museums."

"There's something else in that bag of yours."

The Slayer bit her lip. "If you want it, I have Nikki's coat." At Mrs. Jones' blank look, she elaborated. "The, uh, long, black leather coat she was wearing on her last night."

Mrs. Jones pulled away a bit. "How did you come by that?"

"The vampire who killed your daughter doesn't exist anymore."

"Good." Mrs. Jones shook her head. "I try to think of Nikki the way she was with Robin, or before she became the Slayer. She was a different girl then. I don't know if it was that, or because she knew she would die young…" Mrs. Jones looked away. "Some man bought that coat for Nikki about a month before she died. He didn't mean anything to her; she didn't mean anything to him. I don't want it."

"Oh." Buffy took a breath. "I appreciate your time, and I hope… I hope this brings something more to you than bad memories."

"I'll be honest: I don't know what I'll do. I grieved then. It's all so long ago. Maurice and I have grandkids…" She trailed off, then stood up. "I'll take a little time to think." Mrs. Jones walked her to the door and, as she opened it, something occurred to her. "Did you get in touch with Robin, too?"

Buffy shook her head. "He was so little when it happened, we weren't sure he'd even remember."

"Plus, it's untelling what Crowley's been filling his head with."

"Watchers do tend to have their own view of things, even without covering up a kidnapping." Buffy shifted the bag to her other side and shook Mrs. Jones' hand in farewell. "You have my number. If you need anything, please give me a call."

"I will." Buffy knew she wouldn't and was surprised when Mrs. Jones called out to her just before she got to the street. "Miss Summers? Give your mother a big hug tonight. And as often as you can."

⸹

"What do you want to do with it?" Buffy was back where she belonged, her arms wrapped around Spike. She nodded at the boxes that came from UPS that day, sitting in the living room unopened. Most were full of the purchases she made in New York and shipped home, but he knew the other boxed item she meant.

"Dunno. I don't need it now." She knew he meant more than the fact he'd bought a new long wool coat and a new leather jacket to replace it. "It… has sentimental value to me, even if it doesn't to her mum. I wouldn't feel right just tossing it in a bin."

Buffy touched the scar at his brow. "I know." She frowned then. _There's something else._

 _I went to L.A._

 _Angel didn't take the news well._

Spike gave her a halfhearted smile. _He said to give you a kiss in congratulations, with tongue._

 _Eew?_

 _Doyle's dead, Buffy._

 _Oh, no! What happened?_

He told the story and explained how Cordelia now had his visions. _Wyndham-Price landed in Los Angeles. Angel's taking care of him now._

 _At this rate, Oz will be working for him soon, too._

 _Will you go with me to see him next week, after New Year's?_

 _I will._ She gave him a smile. _He's family._

⸹

Sunnydale

January 2000

⸹

"Any idea what it's about?"

"None." Spike shifted the mobile to his other ear. "Just that he wanted to see us right away. I don't think he's alone, the way he spoke. There you are." He waved.

Buffy was standing on the street with a shopping bag in one hand, wearing the white leather coat she'd bought in New York. When she spotted him, she smiled and jogged to the corner to meet the car.

"How do you run in those heels, love?"

"Vertically-challenged women develop all kinds of skills." She leaned over to kiss him, and they didn't pull apart until someone behind them honked.

"Mmm," she smiled, breathing in his scent. "How's my fiancé?"

"Unwilling to go to see Rupert and mystery guest when I could be kissing you."

"Maybe after?"

"You might be able to persuade me."

There was a large black sedan parked near Giles' flat, a driver leaning against the hood and talking into his mobile. The Watcher ushered them in and introduced them to Bishop Paulo Rossi of the Catholic Church. "He's been in town, meeting with the folks at the army base."

Spike and Buffy exchanged looks. "And… was it a productive meeting?"

"No, not particularly. Quite unfortunate." The Bishop gave them a bland smile. "Please, sit."

Giles knew several priests, but the protocol of dealing with a Bishop made him nervous. "Your Excellency, might I offer you more tea?"

The Bishop waved off the offer genially. He was a fit man in his fifties, and for this visit, he had eschewed his cassock. "Since I was in Sunnydale, I wanted to take the opportunity to meet each of you."

Spike listened to the accent, tilted his head, and replied in Portuguese. "To what do we own such an honor?"

He smiled and held his arms wide. "Ah! So good to hear my own language. Is there something you wish to say to me, as your friends do not understand?"

"I am a bit nervous that the Church is paying attention to the Slayer."

"Remarkable," the Monsignor said in English. He turned to Giles. "You were absolutely correct." Buffy looked between all of them and her lips parted to speak, but before she could, the Monsignor lifted a hand. "Please. I came for only a short, unofficial visit, and I'm grateful for your time." He turned to Buffy. "There is always a Slayer, but you came to our attention because you have unusual compassion for your mortal enemies. Your enemies are also our enemies, and it is difficult to find it in our fallible hearts to fight evil without hating evil." The Monsignor next looked at Spike. "You are no longer our enemy. We…" He seemed at a loss for words. "None of us can say what it means, that you have chosen to do good. But it has never happened before." He stood, and since Giles also stood, Buffy and Spike did as well. "I came to bless each of you, if you will allow."

"Of course," Giles said, a fixed smile on his face as he looked at the other two.

"Thank you?" Buffy said, looking nervously at her Watcher.

"It is given to me to bless soldiers," the Bishop said, "and you fight for the good." He went on in Latin, finishing in a very short time by making the sign of the cross over each of them.

Giles said 'Amen,' and kissed the Bishop's right hand, and while his head was bowed, he mouthed the word 'respect' to Buffy, so she did the same. The blessing had been very unchurchlike in its brevity, and she had felt a brush of something like… comfort. Spike did the same, and was surprised when the Bishop clasped both of his hands on the cooler one.

"When you are in Rome next, come to the Vatican. You will be given audience."

"I, uh, don't have any plans to be in Rome."

"It is the Eternal City. There is no hurry." The Bishop's eyes strayed to Buffy, then back to him in sympathy.

 _Why does everyone assume you'll die young? Wankers._ "May I ask for something in addition to your blessing, Your Excellency?" On Buffy's opposite side, Giles winced.

Clearly taken aback, Bishop Rossi replied, "If it is in my power."

And best interest, Spike thought. "Just information. If the Church has any record of a weapon meant for Slayers, one that is 'for her alone to wield.' Or a group called the Guardians. Could be nuns."

His eyebrows were raised high after this, and he nodded again, letting go of Spike's hand. "You are indeed single-minded." He didn't say yes or no, but his eyes lingered on the vampire. "Mr. Giles, thank you for your kind hospitality. My schedule in the States is unfortunately tight." In less than a minute, he'd taken his leave, the black town car pulling away quietly.

"Well, that was nerve-wracking," Giles said. "Is it late enough to have a drink?"

Spike had his arms crossed. "What was all that 'remarkable' tripe?"

Still rattled, Giles said more than he intended. "I know a couple of priests who are decent sorts. I asked questions about what you did, about the angel; I never expected it would go past them."

Buffy gave Giles a bewildered look. "Angel? Our Angel?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "It's five o'clock somewhere." He stalked to the kitchen to where Rupert kept his stash.

"Remember the letter Spike wanted me to give you if he didn't return from Africa? There was… an angelic presence when he wrote it."

They heard a loud scoff from the kitchen. "'Angelic presence', five feet from the Hellmouth."

"I know what I saw," Giles said softly.

"Is that why you wanted a copy of the letter?"

Spike's head appeared around the doorframe. "You let him read it?!"

"He's my Watcher, Spike." Buffy's tone was clipped. "Now I have to worry that the Catholic Church is going to kidnap him, too?"

Spike came out with two glasses in his hands. He gave the less-full one to Giles. "The Church isn't going to kidnap me. They play the long game. They think I'll come to them."

"Spike, I saw something I didn't understand." He was looking at Buffy, though. "I asked the priests because I thought they might help me get a better handle on it. I don't think this is a bad thing. It seems as though we may have allies there."

"What did you see that you didn't understand?" Buffy asked. Her hands were on her hips, elbows akimbo.

"It's very difficult to remember," Giles said, "because I don't think I'm equipped to, you see." He took a breath, concentrating. "I was in my office; Spike was writing the letter to you at one of the study tables. I wasn't paying attention to him. Then I barely registered… power. I couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"When I looked at Spike… I knew that the power was behind him, watching over his shoulder. It seemed female to me, and I swear I remember both a red-haired woman and a brown-haired woman. That one had short hair and was dressed in dark, Victorian clothes. Spike wrote something, and then… I can't describe it, just… the presence and the power of it increased, expanded, and it wasn't something I could see, just feel… It was joyous… and triumphant. Spike just kept writing, through all of it. The next thing I knew, he was handing me the letter, telling me to give it to you in September." He seemed to remember he was holding a glass with liquor and took a solid drink. "And I didn't recall any of that, nothing, until the night Spike told me he had a soul."

Buffy's elbows were still jutting out, but she didn't seem angry anymore. "Could Spike have a guardian angel or something?"

Both men scoffed at this, in their own ways. "Not for a demon." "Bollocks."

Buffy shrugged. "So, something witnessed what Spike did. You don't think it was evil?"

"No. I think it was powerful. That's just as scary as evil."

She turned to Spike. "Red-haired woman?"

He shook his head. "Only ginger I can think of important in any way to me is Willow."

"Short, brown hair in dark Victorian dress?"

Spike thought harder about this, then shook his head. "None of the women in my life ever had short hair. There were no other women besides Drusilla and Darla after that." He lowered his eyes, thinking of victims, of flower girls and prostitutes and….

"She wore glasses," Giles said suddenly. "She wasn't pretty, just… plain."

"Emma," Spike said immediately. Then, not as sure, "Emily? Thackeray, at any rate."

"Who was she?"

"Uh, one of Pippa's friends," he saw Giles furrow his brows and added, "that was my first cousin Philippa, my best friend. The Thackerays were rich; she was rich in her own right. The family went to my church. She was always sickly; I remember her with short hair because they used to cut it when women had fevers, to help bring down their temperature." Spike rubbed his forehead. "She was… kind. Quiet. Gave a lot of money to charity, always asking me for donations to charities, kind of on the edges of Pippa's group of friends. I probably ever said a hundred words to her alone." He shrugged. "That's all I have. I… haven't thought of her once since my death."

Buffy saw Giles' disappointed look. "What about you, Giles? Could these be people from your past?"

She could tell he was startled by the thought. "No. I think I'd remember the redhead."

Buffy swatted him. "I'm not even religious, and that sounded gross."

"I didn't mean it like that!"

Spike, who was also a man, studiously said nothing, just took a sip of whisky. When he realized the humans were looking at him, he said, "Well, let's just call this a path that doesn't lead anywhere and forget about it."

"Why do you always do that?" Giles sounded angry and at his limit. "Always… deflect everything?"

Spike leaned over and put down his glass. "This… I bloody well hate the idea that I'm dancing to someone else's tune. The idea of something that I chose to do being predestined or even influenced by something outside of me… it makes me want to kill things. Slowly. If nothing else, the bloody soul lets me claim free will. I like to think I had it before that. Maybe I didn't. But it felt like it.

"As to the rest… I try to keep things casual because I have to remind myself all the time that you're human." He moved into Giles' personal space, his eyes growing yellow. "Do you know I've claimed you, Rupert? It means I've bound myself to you now and beyond this world. I love you. I will kill anyone who harms you. You're mine, by right. My demon could feed from you, take your body freely. But I choose to… deflect that." He stepped back, fell into place beside Buffy, who looked up at him calmly.

The Watcher stared at him, stunned. "I…" He swallowed. "I have underestimated you, Spike. I'm sorry." His wide eyes went to Buffy, who had surely seen this intensity directed toward her and was taking the display in stride.

"It's not for nothing that Bishop Rossi didn't show up in his cassock," Spike said. "I'm still very much a demon."

Buffy's slender arm went around his waist. "You've always been more than that."

He smiled down at her. _Thank you, love._

 _Would you really sleep with Giles?_

 _Probably not._

 _Only probably?_

"Who else have you, ah, claimed?" Giles asked, breaking into the silent conversation.

"All of you except Anya." Spike slid from the Slayer's grasp and took up his drink again. "I'll get around to her soon, I'm sure."

"How does that work?"

"Are you freaking out, Giles?" Buffy asked, trying not to grin.

"A bit." His voice was defensive.

"I breathe in your scent, sort of… imprint." He finished the last of the liquor. "It isn't something that's done with humans. We don't end up in the same place after death. There will always be… an emptiness, where you aren't."

Giles had an objection based on lack of consent racked and ready to fire, but it died away in the face of this. He was deeply touched. "You don't know that I won't end up in the same place." When Buffy gave him an unhappy look, he added, "I'm trying to deflect, you see."

"Oh, Giles." She gave him a hug.

Spike came over as well, put a hand at the back of the Watcher's neck and pulled him in until their foreheads touched.

Buffy smiled to see them getting along. Giles had always been prickly around Spike, maybe because it was a habit that dated from the beginning. She hoped to see him more at ease now. So, of course, in the manner of men, Giles pulled away from them and began berating Spike for mentioning the nonsense about the Guardians to the Bishop. She shook her head, took the empty glasses from them, and escaped to the kitchen.

⸹

For January, the afternoon was perfect, clear and warm with only a little breeze. Buffy dropped their suitcase into the back of the Bentley and got in, lowering the top while she waited for Spike. It would be too cold to leave it down on the freeway as they drove to L.A., but for now, she felt like California girl incarnate.

Spike came out, was almost to the car before he remembered that, as a responsible homeowner, he should lock the door. He did so, tossed a duffel half-full of weapons in next to the suitcase, and closed the trunk.

"Sure you don't want to drive?"

"Absolutely positive. Drive, James."

" _Oui, mademoiselle_."

"Or is it Jeeves?"

"Quite any of those will do. Used to be 'John Groomsman' so the toffs never had to bother learning a servant's name."

"That's dreadful."

"Yes, it was."

"Did you have servants?"

"My family did. Nearly everyone did, even if it was only a Saturday maid or a washerwoman."

"Who was your favorite?"

He told her about Angus, the sailor turned groomsman who ruled the stables by sheer force of personality, who never wore livery or even smelled very good, but who was gentle and a miracle worker with horses. "He was by far the most interesting person I knew. I loved horses because he loved them, I think. He died just days before my father did. Never got to mourn him properly."

Buffy put her hand out to rest on his shoulder. "It all seems very exotic to me."

"Seems that way to me, now." Then, abruptly, _I took his accent._

 _Whose?_

 _Angus' North London accent. When my anarchist showed up, his accent suited Spike. I've never told anyone that. It's such a part of me, that it's really hard to admit._

 _Sometimes you sound… not like Giles, but…._

 _Toplofty?_

Masterpiece Theatre _, I'd say._

 _I can't speak like I did when I was William anymore. Well, I can for a while, then the North London creeps in._

She squeezed his shoulder. _They say that everyone you love becomes a part of you._

They stopped for gas, and Buffy came back with a bag of junk food for the road trip. She went ahead and put up the top.

"How come you told me to pack pajamas?" she asked, remembering that she'd meant to ask.

"Okay, here's another vampire thing: family bed." He felt her exclamation point through the mindlink. "No, no panicking. It's for comfort. We spend the day in a bed, it takes our scents, and it's very calming to the members of the family. It means safety. So, if you can, I'd like us to give that to Angel."

She was speechless for about half a minute. "You want us to sleep with Angel."

"Just sleep. You'll fall asleep first, probably, then we'll fall asleep sometime after dawn, then you wake up first, and then we'll go."

Buffy put her hot face in her hands. "And that's why I'm bringing my sushi pajamas." She peeked at him through her fingers. "What are you wearing?"

If his face could grow hot, it would. "T-shirt and pajama bottoms, like Giles wears." _I promise nothing will happen that will make you uncomfortable._

 _Other than us, sleeping with Angel._

 _I'm the Master, love. I have to look out for him._

She had another thought and put her face back in her hands. _And what does he wear to bed?_

 _I brought jimjams for him, too. We'll giggle and have pillow fights. It'll be fun._

She punched his arm lightly. _This is me, here._ She waved at the horizon to his left. _That's my comfort zone, over behind those mountains._

He nodded. _We don't have to; I just thought it might help him, after losing Doyle._

 _Are you guilting me?_

 _Is it working?_

She groaned. _Yes._

 _He'll say no, I'll insist, then, and that'll be it. Over by this time tomorrow._

 _No one can ever know this._

 _Just look at them like they're lunatics and perverts for thinking such thoughts._

 _Would you ask me to do this if it was some other Aurelian?_

 _There are no other Aurelians, not claimed, anyway. And if he didn't love you, it wouldn't do any good for you to be there._

Buffy thought about this for a mile or so, looking out the window. _Okay, so me being honest. I can't imagine any scenario where I would sleep with Angel again. Can you say the same thing?_

 _No. But I promise you that I won't. If he laid a finger on you that way, I would kill him. Not only would I want to, I would have to, as Master._

She narrowed her eyes, trying to understand this. _But on the other hand, you could order him into our bed._

 _And he would refuse, because he's afraid that intimacy leads to Angelus, and I'd have to kill him for refusing._

Buffy felt herself relax a little at the thought of being in bed with two vampires. _So, what you're saying is, there can't be any sex._

 _Only light petting._

She punched his shoulder again, a little harder. _See, that's the kind of thing you shouldn't say._

He was still grinning. _This all goes back to me telling Giles I consider him fair game._ Spike chuckled and said aloud in his best sin-soaked voice, "Oh, I could make him polish those glasses… harder." _You're adorable when you blush._

Buffy turned her flaming face toward the passenger window, struggling between giggles and mortification.

 _My demon sees absolutely nothing wrong. I've claimed him; he's mine._

 _But you wouldn't._

He stopped teasing her. _I won't ever make love with anyone else, not now that I know what I missed for all those years. I'm yours. There is no one else. I would certainly never sleep with your friends._

She started teasing him. _But who would you sleep with, hypothetically?_

 _If I answer, you have to answer._

 _Okay. Top two. Xander and Willow._

He shot her a look. _Willow and Xander._

She laughed, then she held her stomach and belly-laughed. _At least we have the same tastes._

Spike shrugged. _I like them the most._ He sent her a smile. _God, you laughing like that... My favorite sound in the whole world, love.  
_

 _I figured you'd say Wil and Anya._

 _I figured you'd say Xander and Giles._

 _Eew. He's like my father._

 _You never thought he was cute, in a stiff, tweedy sort of way? Him being young for a Watcher and all?_

 _No. Willow had a crush on him, though._

 _So… you and Willow, all alone in your dorm room_ ….

 _She smells nice._

He laughed. _All right, you root around in my head and find a fantasy about you two coeds, blame yourself._

 _You literally put one about you and Angel in my head. Literally!_

 _But there was no oil involved._

 _What celebrity would you sleep with, if you could?_

 _Dunno. I'll probably name someone who's been dead for years._ He shrugged. _Audrey Hepburn._

Breakfast at Tiffany's?

 _Yeah, but for_ Roman Holiday.

 _She's still alive. She still looks amazing, too._

 _What about you?_

 _George Clooney._ At his blank look, she said, "Dr. Ross on _ER_? _Out of Sight_?"

 _Wait, he played one of the brothers in_ From Dusk to Dawn _._

 _Oh, yeah, the vampire movie._

 _Those are always hilarious. Except_ Near Dark _. Someone_ knew _vampires on that one._

 _Who else?_

He tried to think of recent movies so she'd know his picks. _Winona Rider._

 _Oh, I can see that. Christian Slater for me. Serious crushage there when I was younger._

 _Helen Mirren._ It was Buffy's turn to look puzzled. 2010 _?_ _Morgana in_ Excalibur?

 _Oh, okay. You like classy women._

 _I like you, don't I?_

 _You say the nicest things. Oh. I forgot. How could I forget? Johnny Depp._

 _Good lord, woman. How can anyone compete with that?_

 _Well, he'll get old and you won't, so there you go._

"What's in the bag, love? I could use something in my tum."

They fell silent as they filled up on sweet and salty junk food, and by the time they finished, traffic had picked up. Buffy found some alternative rock that neither of them objected to and zoned out a little. They were only a couple of streets away from Angel Investigations when she asked, "So, the plan is to go in, take him on patrol, barge into his bed, and scamper away tomorrow?"

"I couldn't have said it better." Spike looked ahead to the building. Nearby parking was never hard to find in this part of town. "Angel in the middle. He likes to use me as a pillow."

"Oh, God, my life is so _weird_."

Spike leaned over and gave her a soft kiss. "You're doing a sweet thing for a friend. Sweet girls get a thorough seeing-to tomorrow night."

"That's then. This is now, during the weird." But she kissed him back, and he continued on down the street to park behind Angel's car. Spike pointed it out to her.

"Angel has a convertible, too?" Buffy shook her head at this incomprehensible news.

"Yeah, '67 GTX."

"Of course." She supposed this was a good thing; all she knew was that it was old.

Spike was slapping at the seat, then at his pants. "I've got orange everywhere."

"Don't eat Cheetos when you're wearing black," Buffy advised. She waited for him by the trunk.

He gave her an evil grin and held out his hands, mummy-style. "Come here, little morsel. Let me touch you with my… cheesy fingers!" His bad Vincent Price voice gave way to chuckles as she squealed and leapt onto the car to avoid him.

Inside, Angel heard them at play. The building was quiet, as Cordelia and Wesley were already gone for the day _. 'Let me see them.' 'I can't get our bags unless you get down.' 'Show me the fingers first – all of them.'_

He'd never made her laugh like that. He smiled, just a little. They were good together. And he was ready for this visit. He was determined that it would be a nice one.

Angel hit all the beats. Her ring was lovely. How were the holidays? Anything going on with the commandos? How were all her friends? Where are you staying tonight?

"We thought we'd stay here with you." They were sitting in the outer office, Angel and Buffy in office chairs, Spike propped against Cordelia's desk. The dark-haired vampire started to protest that he really didn't have anywhere for them to stay, when Spike added two words. "Family bed."

He was on his feet, staring at the blond man, the office chair ten feet away and still rolling. " _What?_ "

The boy didn't move. "You need comfort. We need a place to sleep. We all have souls."

The chair Buffy was in creaked as she planted her feet, ready to spring between them if necessary. Angel noted this and took a step toward Spike. "She doesn't have a clue what this is."

"I do." Buffy stood up, feeling mildly affronted. "I know what it usually is, but it isn't going to be like that." She walked to him, laid a hand on his arm. "How much are you sleeping, Angel?"

His fists were still clenched, and he was glaring at Spike. "This is insanity."

Spike shook his head and stood up from the desk. He stalked in closer, quiet and steady. "Rejecting people who love you and worry about you is insanity. You let me in when I needed help." He was close enough now to put his hand on a broad shoulder. Angel trembled like a panicked horse. "Let us be here for you."

 _You know what could happen!_

 _No. There won't be any happiness._ "You're in mourning."

"Angel," Buffy said. She caught the hopeless look he gave her, knew he wasn't going to make it until after patrol. If there was one thing she knew about Angel, it was the shading of his misery. "Let's go downstairs."

They got him to his bed, sat him on the edge. Spike helped him off with his coat. The big man was still, numb. He saw Buffy give Spike a questioning look, then she stepped in front of him and embraced him, pulling his head against her shoulder. Something thudded on the floor, and he realized it was Spike's boots a second before the boy put a knee on the bed and circled his waist with strong arms.

"I've been so proud of you for letting people in," the deep voice was soft in his ear, "and I'm so sorry one of them is gone. It's always worth letting them in, though. Always."

Tears leaked from his eyes, and Angel let out a harsh breath so he wouldn't have air to sob. His abdomen hitched anyway.

"It's all right," Buffy soothed him. She took a half-step closer. "We're here. You're safe with us."

He could smell her tears as she grieved with him, for him, this softhearted Slayer. Angel's arms tightened around her. His control broke, then, and he clutched her, crying, and if all of his tears weren't for Doyle, who would ever know?

Angel wished he didn't know how long he cried, but he was a vampire, and he knew the moment the sun sank beyond the sea. Simple math did the rest. He was somehow on the bed between them, Buffy holding his hand, her neck and hair damp from his tears, Spike's arm over his waist, the other hand absently stroking his dark hair. He felt light, clear, and utterly embarrassed.

"We didn't really get a chance to know Doyle," Buffy said abruptly. "Tell us something about him we didn't know."

"He," Angel cleared his throat, "was in love with Cordelia."

"Well, I actually did know that." There was a smile in her voice.

"She was falling for him, at the end."

"I like that about Cordelia. She might not look for them, but she'll fall for a good guy every time."

"Doyle had been married. He was still friendly with his ex."

"That sounds like a story." Spike's tone was inviting, and his hand still stroked Angel's hair.

Of all the women he'd ever noted with his artist's eye, Buffy possessed the most expressive eyes. He wondered if that's why he mostly sketched her when she was sleeping, because otherwise her expressions changed too fast to capture. Now she was looking at him expectantly, patiently, lovingly, waiting to carry part of his burden.

"They married young," he began, and by the time he finished, he was in mind of a wake, where you share stories and keep the one who passed alive in everyone's memory. "Thank you," he said simply, embarrassment gone.

"I'm glad I could be here for you," Buffy said. Her eyes went to Spike and held a tick longer than what was normal. "Where, uh, do you have a bathroom?"

"Oh! Of course." He struggled to a sitting position, and Spike moved off the bed so he'd have room. When Buffy was gone, he said in a low voice, "You're insane."

Spike didn't laugh or joke, just stepped in close and embraced him, dropping a kiss on his forehead. "We're unprecedented, yeah? Means we make our own rules. I'm proud of you." He pulled away. "Brought you sleep clothes for tonight. You'll wear them."

Why should he fight this, when it was already a family bed? "They aren't a silly pattern, are they?"

"Didn't think of that. You'd look cute in Poohs."

"You don't have to stay." Angel shrugged and glanced at the bed. "Not anymore."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Buffy needs to eat. You up for patrol, or do you want to wait for us here?"

"I'll go with you." He stood up and retrieved his coat. "I see you obscured the mark." Angel kept his voice casual.

"Yeah, doesn't look like anyone's mark now."

But it was Spike's, nonetheless. "Any particular reason?"

"She agreed to marry me." He tilted his head. "We done posturing?"

"I don't know how to do it, Spike." When the boy gave him a 'go on' look, he added, "Be partly a vampire. Keep the family bed; ditch the bite and the possessiveness. For me, one thing leads to more things."

The dark blue eyes were a bit darker. "Then don't try to puzzle it out. Just do as the Master says."

Angel examined him, seeing the strain for the first time. "Why are you doing this?"

"For you." He put out a hand and caressed Angel's cheek, then dropped his hand. "Because I love you, and I know you're alone and in pain."

Angel looked away for a moment to control his emotions. "Who are you, and what have you done with Spike?"

The blond man lifted a shoulder. "Giles said I deflect a lot of the time."

"You do. You need to go back to that. Seriously."

⸹

Buffy looked over her shoulder as they pulled away from Angel Investigations. He'd asked them to leave before Wesley or Cordelia arrived, and she could certainly understand how it would be easier to avoid those explanations. But… "He already looks better," she marveled, "more rested."

"Yeah. We did a good thing." He tried to sound smug, but only managed contentment.

"That was hardest on you," Buffy said.

"What?"

"You promised me honesty, as I recall."

He was quiet long enough to merge onto the freeway. "How did you know?"

"Microexpressions."

"What?"

"Fleeting expressions tied to thought. Like, how your enemy's eyes might start to move toward where there's a weapon it wants. Or like how you look at someone and it's all love and sweetness and then there's just a little clench of the jaw that says I'd like to tear off that hand you have on my girl."

 _Microexpressions, my lily white arse. Mindlink, more like._

 _Either way._ She grinned at him. _And it isn't so lily white anymore._

 _You think?_

 _I'll check to be sure when we get home._

⸹

"Back to the grind," Willow said, putting another stack of underwear in her bureau. She sounded cheerful about it.

Something to keep her busy, Buffy thought. "Yeah, but on the bright side, next year we'll be sophomores. Oh, you're already a sophomore." Willow had taken all the AP classes. Buffy had finished unpacking and flopped over onto her bed, staring at the ceiling of their dorm room. "Want to patrol with me tonight?"

"Sure! I haven't been out at all this year."

"Is your mom still trying to get you to transfer?"

"Of course. 'Now that the musician is no longer in the picture.'"

"That was a pretty good imitation. I can't do my mom at all."

They went to the Commons for food and said hey to some people they knew. "This is way better than last semester," Willow enthused. "We know people. We're confident."

"Damn straight," Buffy said staunchly.

"I bought another push-up bra over break."

"You vixen." She nudged Willow's shoulder. "Wear it on patrol tonight. I'll stake 'em while they're transfixed by your lust-inspiring mounded flesh."

Willow burst into giggles. "How did you come up with that phrase?"

"It's real, I swear. There was this eighties romance novel that was passed around in junior high. I mean, there were some hot passages, but there were some phrases… Like, above a bodice, 'mounded flesh.' My favorite was 'throbbing purple manhood.'"

Willow was laughing so hard she had to stop walking. "Now I know you're making it up."

"I couldn't make that up! I mean, someone did, but it wasn't me."

"If I read that as an impressionable young girl, I think I would have been terrified of men."

"If I saw something throbbing and purple on patrol, I'd kill it with fire." That set Willow off again.

They were still talking and laughing that night on patrol. Willow tried to tease details of her love life out of Buffy, but didn't manage to glean much. "Come on," she pleaded. "Right now, all I have is vicarious."

"I swear to you he has nothing purple." Willow snorted, and Buffy took the chance to move the conversation to something less risqué. "He's going to take my name. You know, when we get married."

"He is?" She mused on this. "Spike Summers."

"Well, William Henry Summers, legally."

"Any particular reason?"

The Slayer shrugged. "He said a lot of things about how identity changes, him not having a family to care about carrying on the name, the fact that 'Allgood' is kind of a weird name for a vampire. But I think a lot of it is just, he had to live in the dark for so long."

"Well, I think it's kind of sweet. And progressive, considering his background."

"Yeah, he still has a lot of 'shelter the little missus' tendencies."

"Does it bug you when he's over-protective?"

Buffy gave her a lopsided smile. "No. Sometimes it's kind of nice." Then her eyes focused on something in the shadows ahead. "Incoming."

After Buffy slew the vampire, Willow shook her head. "I'm amazed that they just come right up to you."

She shrugged. "It's the hunger. Spike says it's worse when they're young."

"I wonder why that would be?" Willow mused. "It isn't like they have to grow or anything."

Before she could puzzle over it further, there was a _boom_! and the ground shook, then another _boom_! They looked at each other, recognizing the sound of explosions. "That was from campus," Buffy said.

"I'll catch up," Willow assured her.

Buffy put on speed, listening to the cries of 'earthquake!' and 'what is that?' from the students she passed. There was a ragged line of people gathered around Lowell House, which, along with the street lights, was dark.

"Get back!" a man ordered, holding out his arms to shoo away the students. He was older and wore something like a workman's uniform and a helmet with a light affixed to it, making it impossible to really see his face. "Gas leak!"

Everyone began moving back. "Was anyone hurt?" Buffy shouted at him.

He shook his head. "The people inside were taken to the army base for the oxygen tents they have. It was leaking for a while." He raised his voice again. "Move back! Please, for your own safety."

Buffy loped around to the back side of Lowell. There were more men there in similar dress, army trucks pulling away, and several small trucks with 'Sunnydale Gas Company' on the side. Buffy went to one of the small trucks and noted that the gas company logo was crooked. She lifted one corner and realized it was a temporary cling sticker.

It looked like the evacuation was over and whatever going on now was under control. Her phone rang. "Wil, I'm behind Lowell. I'll meet you by the fountain." She talked as she went, so that Willow was up to speed by the time they met up.

"So far," Willow said in a low voice, "I've heard rumors of everything from freebasing to bathtub gin. No one seems to know anything."

"Have you seen Riley or Forrest or anyone who lives there?" When Willow shook her head, Buffy asked, "Let Giles know what's going on? I'll check around again."

⸹

Giles hung up his phone, frowning thoughtfully. An apparent gas leak at Lowell House, and none of the young men who lived there in evidence. He was about to head upstairs to change into warmer clothes for a trip to campus when someone knocked on his door.

He didn't recognize the man outside, but the stranger met his eyes frankly through the glass. Giles opened the door. "Yes?"

"Rossi sent me. He said you wouldn't invite me in." The man came inside. He smelled of smoke and blood and worse. He smelled of death.

Giles closed the door. "Lowell House?" As the man nodded, Giles examined him in the light. He was shorter than Xander, with dark, curly hair and olive skin. Something in the way he moved and the way his eyes assessed the apartment for exits and weapons made Giles think of practitioners of Krav Maga. Mossad, perhaps?

"Rossi said to give you this, tell you, 'the Initiative is done.'" The man handed over a small manila envelope, folded in half.

"Do you have a name? Any name will do."

The intensity of the man ebbed somewhat and a gleam of humor came to his eyes. "Anderson."

Giles nodded. Son of man. "Anderson, if you can spare one or two minutes, I'll give you Scotch or bourbon for information."

Anderson let out a short bark of laughter. "I'll take the bourbon."

"Come." Giles led him into the kitchen. "Did you go into the underground area?"

"We glitched their power before we took it all the way down. I went in through the tunnel entrance identified by your operative."

Giles had watched and rewatched the footage. That was where captives were brought in, where the cells were. "Did you kill the… prisoners?" He poured a generous splash of bourbon in each glass.

"Yeah. They told us it had to be beheadings." Anderson gave a hollow laugh as he took the glass and drained it. "After the first two, they just stepped up, man. They wanted a clean death. Some of them just… exploded into dust."

Giles lifted the bottle in query. When the other man nodded, he poured more, asking as he did so, "The scientists? The soldiers?"

"We got control of their armory, then gassed the facility before we killed the power. Poor design on ventilation; we covered the whole installation with just two canisters. Knocked them out. Without their tech or weapons, the kids upstairs went easy, I heard." He took a slower sip and shrugged. "They're young. They get detoxed, they might be okay."

"Detoxed?"

"They've all been pumped full of… 'enhancing' substances."

Giles could hear a trace of accent now. "And the scientists?"

He shook his head, his expression hard. "With prejudice. If you'd seen what was in Room 314, you'd…" Anderson finished the drink. "They were going to nuclear power that… thing." He gave another humorless laugh. "Give it life and a half-life."

Giles knew a fellow professional when he saw one. Anderson wouldn't have another drink, but he suspected the man would be off his face in the near future. "Thank you for having a drink with me." He realized he hadn't actually had a drink yet, so he tossed back half his shot. "No cleanup for my team to do?"

"Nothing escaped from the subterranean facility. It's filled with hardening foam. The nuclear reactor is on its way to Y-12 in Tennessee. We destroyed the research, on site, at least." He shook his head. "You'd think that supersoldier shit would have died with the Nazis."

"The Nazis aren't dead," Giles said grimly, walking with him toward the door. "They just took new names."

Anderson gave him a slow nod. "That's why we're here."

"Who is 'we,' this time?"

A shrug. "A… loose coalition."

Giles opened the door. He'd been given more than a couple of minutes. "Thank you… Anderson. You'll always be welcome here." Watchers worldwide extended this kind of invitation to their allies. He always checked for the closest safe house when he traveled.

Anderson showed his teeth. "I'm never coming back to this fucking place again."

⸹

"I don't think we should tell her."

Spike was looking over the older man's shoulder at the screen. He put his hand on Giles' arm and squeezed. "I agree."

He glanced up at the line of Spike's jaw. "Shame there's no one left for you to kill."

"It is a pity," Spike agreed softly. He stared at the grainy image of his future wife, framed by the information the Initiative had on her. Whatever groups in the 'loose coalition' that had taken down the Initiative, at least one had gained access to the computer system first. Spike wasn't surprised that vivisection would have been his fate; didn't much care. He'd cut his teeth for that beneath Darla's knives. But this one word in Buffy's file….

Breeding.

Giles ejected the floppy disk and handed it to Spike. The vampire snapped it in two, feeling as though this was entirely inadequate.

⸹

"Wow." Buffy lay bonelessly against Spike's chest. He'd pulled the comforter down to the floor after them. "I mean, how can this still be 'wow?'"

"We haven't even got to the honeymoon stage. Wow is still appropriate."

"Yes, but you were… intense tonight."

"I'm fine, love. There are just days that I realize all over again that I'm a very, very," he kissed her forehead, "very lucky man."

"I like these days. I get to be a very, very, very lucky woman." Buffy sighed. "I do feel like we're lucky, not having to fight the Initiative. You know it would have come to that."

"It would have. I have… regrets that we didn't."

"They would never have got 'Hostile Seventeen,'" Buffy assured him. "It's just been a nice, quiet week. I hope it can last. I get nervous whenever it gets near my birthday."

⸹

Buffy handed the Word of Valois to Spike, who slapped it against Giles' chest. "Well," she said, "at least those guys didn't want to rule the world."

"No," her Watcher said tiredly, pocketing the talisman, "just destroy it."

Spike slung his axe over his shoulder. "Probably should send that away from the Hellmouth."

"You think?"

Sarcasm could not puncture the vampire's good mood. Between the Gentlemen and the Vahrall demons, he'd got a fine supply of violence the last couple of weeks. "Anya, you all right?" He put out a hand to help her steady herself.

"Yes. I'll have to invest in some sturdier shoes."

"We'll go shoe shopping together," Xander said. He lifted his boot. "Still with the extra-crispy Mayor, here."

"Shoe shopping? I'm in." Buffy came up next to Xander as they began picking their way out of the unstable ruin of Sunnydale High School.

"Why hasn't this place been demolished?" Willow asked.

"No money. Sunnydale is having a fiscal crisis," Xander said, turning to look at her. "I'm surprised you didn't know about it."

"I did hear that Mayor Wilkins," Willow skirted a piece of said Mayor, wrinkling her nose, "embezzled a bunch of money."

"I've heard that a lot of revenue streams have dried up," Anya said. "Without the Mayor as go-between, the demon tourism business has tanked."

"Good," Buffy muttered.

"Alvin isn't even bidding for any city business," Xander said. "He said he likes to be paid for jobs during his lifetime."

Willow was the first to an outside wall. She took a deep breath of clean, salt-tinted air. "Oh, thank goodness."

Spike put on a burst of speed so he could get to his car first. He unfolded a tarp and lined the trunk with it, then tossed his axe inside. "Weapons in here, everybody. I'll hose them off and leave them for you to pick up at Giles' flat." He leaned against the Bentley and found himself wishing for a cigarette. It was the first time he'd thought of a nicotine fix for… months, he supposed.

The top of the convertible was down for easy exit, but it was a nice night for a drive, too. Spike got in, started the car, and fiddled with the radio. The first strong signal he found was just beginning a Tears for Fears song. He laughed.

Xander was sitting in the passenger seat with Anya on his lap. She brightened, always happy to find something in common. "Oh, I know this song."

"Even I know this song," Giles agreed.

Pulling out, Spike started singing, "Welcome to your life…" By the time the chorus came on, they were all singing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." Instead of driving them home, he took them to Hotdog on a Stick and claimed an outside table. They were all hungry and a little slaphappy after the craziness of the night. Spike and Xander tried to persuade Giles to put in a billiards table at his flat, his excuse of lack of space easily overlooked. The ladies went to the restroom and came back in giggles, announcing that they were going to form a book club.

When the other men looked at him, Spike shrugged. "All I got was the word 'purple.'" That set off more giggles. By the time they finished eating, Giles was in a good mood, Xander had promised to teach Spike what he knew about surfing, and Willow and Anya were talking about magic.

Giles glanced down at Buffy. "What are you smiling about?"

"It's not so bad, is it?" she asked softly.

He thought of the deaths and betrayals and defections, but forced himself to look around at his companions, brave and loyal to a fault. He leaned over and placed a kiss on her temple. "No. It isn't bad at all."

⸹

The pizza had been eaten and details of recent patrols hashed over. Buffy was getting ready to pick up the empty boxes and head to Giles' kitchen when Anya spoke up for the first time of the evening.

"I don't think it's generally known around town that the Initiative is gone. In the demon population, I mean."

"I didn't think anyone knew about the Initiative," Willow said, her brows drawing together.

"No, but they knew there was a threat. I was at the Magic Box, and the proprietor said he was trying to sell the business so he could move to Santa Fe."

"I didn't know Mr. Bogarty was a demon," Giles said, arrested by this. He actually quite trusted the balding man.

"Half-demon. I don't know what kind; I don't think he got an aspect of a demon from his mother." Anya liked to eat her pizza to the edge, then dunk the bits of crust in marina sauce. She did so now and said around a small bite, one hand in front of her mouth, "Just spawned and went back to the sea, leaving him with a very confused father."

Xander shook his head. "And that's a Jerry Springer episode if I ever heard one."

"You mean," Spike said, going back to Anya's original point, "people haven't noticed that no one is disappearing anymore?"

She swallowed and shrugged. "It's only been a couple of weeks." Before dragging the next bit of crust through the sauce, she looked at Spike, "I think you should make the announcement. You're the Master."

"What, me?" Spike scoffed. "Yeah, I'll call 'em all to my lair and make 'em pay their respects after I take credit for solving their problem."

"No invitation of mass numbers of demons into my home, thank you," Buffy said.

Giles spoke up on the heels of Buffy's last words, his voice soft and thoughtful. "That's not a bad idea."

"What?" Willow, Buffy, and Spike said simultaneously.

"No, think about it." The rest could see the wheels turning as he stared at his hands, frowning. "We actually can take credit for it. Buffy's the one that got behind enemy lines and came back with the intel needed to expose them and shut them down." He put down his can of beer, his motions slow as he concentrated on thinking it through. "We might not have run the operation, but we did actually call it in. If the demons in town, not the tourists and the ones who come just for Hellmouth havoc –"

"And there's the name of my band," Xander interjected, pointing a finger at Giles and nodding emphatically.

"—if those who live and work here had reason to trust us, perhaps we would hear about apocalypse attempts like the one last week before they happen."

"I don't think you can get demons to trust the Slayer," Buffy said gently.

"Why not? Local populations of demons have trusted individual Slayers before. Even vampires," he said, pointing at Spike, "Like the other treaties with Slayers we researched a couple of years ago."

"I bet the vampires came to the Slayer, not the other way around." Buffy lifted a shoulder. "I know Slayers. We don't ask for help."

"But those Slayers weren't already involved with a demon," Giles pointed out. "Your relationship with the Master certainly shows that you can work with a demon."

All eyes fell on Spike, who looked harried. He sucked in his cheeks and didn't meet anyone's gaze. "The only reason I'm Master is because I couldn't stand the whole vampire court scene, people. I took the title so I could have my way in Sunnydale, some peace and quiet while I did research."

"Yet you're still in Sunnydale," Giles pointed out. "I have wondered what you would do if someone challenged you for the title."

"No Aurelians left to challenge me."

"As many as Angelus sired while he was free?"

Spike gave Giles a wintry smile. "No Aurelians who can challenge me."

Buffy was looking at him shrewdly. "You know, Giles has a point. The only time townie demons ever see me, I'm popping by Willy's to rough him up for information. I know there are law-abiding, non-murdery demons living in town. It's not like I barge into their homes to kill them, but I don't bake them cookies or anything."

Willow, veteran cookie baker, suppressed a smile. "So, if the Master presents you as warrior of the people and of the demons…."

"I never bothered getting to know any locals," Spike said, standing up and gathering up the empty pizza boxes. "No reason to even think any of the minions survived Angelus' purges, the Slayer, and then the Initiative. I'm not a known quantity."

"That's not true," Anya said. "They gossip about you all the time."

"What do they say?" Buffy asked, grinning.

"Basically that you upgraded."

Spike's head fell back and he stared at Giles' ceiling for a moment. "True," he gritted out, "though that's rather dismissive of a woman I bloody well loved for over a hundred years."

"Um… sorry?" Anya guessed. Across from her, Buffy quickly hid her smug look.

"If the locals gossip about you, Spike, you must be of some, er, notoriety still." Giles began gathering the soda and beer cans from the coffee table, but his expression was still thoughtful.

"An, how do you know who the demons are in Sunnydale?" Xander asked. He leaned over to help Giles, grabbing plates.

"I try to get out of the apartment every day. I've learned most of the businesses owned by demons." She stood up and took the plates from Xander. "It gives me someone to talk to."

"How many businesses are there?" Willow asked. She tucked her feet onto the chair to let Spike pass.

"Maybe half of them?" Anya said after a moment's consideration.

"Wow," Buffy said. "I wonder how many in Mom's businesswomen's club are demons, then."

"Half?" offered Giles. The Slayer rolled her eyes, then went to the kitchen and brought an empty garbage bag for the cans. "No, thank you. The city's begun to collect recycling."

Willow's face lit. "That's great!"

"I think they're piggybacking on the university's program, actually. Mayor Wilkins' administration bought the bins for it a couple years back, but never bothered to distribute them."

"No reason to save the environment if you're going to Ascend." Xander tipped some napkins into Buffy's trash bag.

Since the bag was mostly empty, Buffy took it back to the kitchen, where Spike was still mashing pizza boxes into the garbage can. When he lifted the full liner out, she dropped her bag in. _We should tell the demons that Sunnydale is safe again._ When Spike gave her a look, she added, _Safe from kidnappings, at least._

 _Yeah, I agree they'd be happier if they knew. Doesn't have to be me or you playing town crier, though. Let Anya do it._

By now, they were all in the kitchen, Giles at the sink rinsing cans, Anya and Xander loading the dishwasher, and Willow holding shakers and a pack of napkins, waiting to get to the cabinets. "Anya," Buffy said, "why don't you pass along word?"

"I could do that," Anya agreed, "but I think it would be beneficial to have the Master do it."

"I agree," Giles said.

"I don't," Spike said.

"How would it be beneficial?" Buffy asked. Her fiancé sighed.

"If they trust us not to kill them out of hand, maybe we'll get more time to fight demons who want to kill everyone out of hand. They'd be more likely to come to you than come to Buffy. You could be our… public face."

"It is a cute face," Buffy threw in.

Giles pretended he had not heard that interjection. "Beyond that, if something other than an Aurelian wants to take over, you'll be known as the one to defeat. Same result: we'll know about it."

"The Master is a role that's already seen as being protective. He looks after vampires," Anya pointed out.

"Which I've never done."

"How many minions did you have?" Giles asked.

"Less the ones I dusted?" Spike countered.

"When you were Master," Buffy said thoughtfully, "you gave the order to not sire. It was the easiest few weeks I've ever had."

Spike closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he spoke only to her. "You're asking me to permanently take on a job that I pretended to do for a few weeks, a job I never wanted. That, I might add, was even before I had a soul. I start making noises about being Master, I get roped into that… scene, into being judge for every petty disagreement that crops up."

"Judge, jury, and executioner?" Giles asked, interested.

Sending him a sideways look, Spike answered, "Yes." He turned his focus back to his fiancée. "Love… you know what I did to avoid gossip last year." Everyone except Willow exchanged puzzled looks. "I start mingling with the demon population, I have to hear what all the dirty little minds are thinking." He sighed and leaned back against the refrigerator, folding his arms. "Some demons will be able to tell that I have a soul. That alone would disqualify me from being Master."

Buffy gave him a lopsided smile. "If someone says something bad about me in your presence, Spike, I want to be there to see what happens to them."

"No," he said quietly, "you don't."

An uneasy silence followed these words. It was Willow who broke it. "If Spike has a public meeting to announce the Initiative is gone, someone's going to challenge him over dating Buffy anyway. I mean, I don't know that much about demons, but I've been to Willy's enough to know that they're usually looking to start a fight."

"And once that fight is over, who would ever say anything to Spike's face?" Giles pointed out.

Xander put out a hand to touch his shoulder. "Spike, old buddy… if you shake a bunch of demon hands or leave a bunch of demon bodies on the floor, either way, no one here is going to think less of you." The vampire gave him a swift look after this astute observation. "We've all noticed that you go out of your way not to feed in front of us, but we all know pizza isn't your food group. You're a vampire. That's okay."

"Too bad the school's gone," Giles said. "There were a lot of good places to host an announcement."

"What about the pavilion at the end of Ocean Drive? We could book it," Willow offered.

Buffy shook her head. "Too vulnerable to ambush, no way to bottleneck an attack."

Spike had been watching each of them as they spoke, his eyebrows lifted. "Is this a good place to remind you that I do not agree to any of this?"

There was an awkward silence. Buffy smiled at him and patted his hand. "Let me take this out," she said as she lifted the garbage bag, "and I'll go with you on patrol tonight."

"I'm scheduled," Giles protested. He had harbored a notion to wear down Spike's resistance to the idea as they went through town.

She turned her smile on him. "I don't have class until ten tomorrow morning, and I'm not even a little tired."

As they left Giles' apartment, Spike brushed against her. _Thank you, love. I think you saved me from a list of bullet points why I should do whatever he bloody well wants me to do._ Both of them had their hands in their coat pockets against the cool air.

 _You're probably right_ , Buffy agreed. Sunnydale was quiet tonight, with only a lone, newly-risen vampire they found just a few yards from her grave. When they finished the alleys around downtown, Buffy inclined her head toward the front of one business.

"Willy's Place?" Spike asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Might as well make the 'announcement.' Not like Willy keeps secrets," she added dryly.

It wasn't much after midnight, so the bar wasn't crowded. The noise level dropped each time someone spotted them at the door, and by the time they reached the bartender, it was completely silent.

"What can I get you?" he asked casually enough, though he had carefully put both hands on top of the bar.

"Where's Willy?" Buffy asked.

"Doing inventory in the back."

Before she could ask the bartender to fetch his boss, Spike laid back his head and called loudly, "Oi! Willy! Me and the Slayer need to talk to you." When he didn't hear anything, he added, "Don't make us chase you down. Just piss us off."

Willy came from the hallway opposite the bar, smiling nervously and holding a clipboard. "Slayer! Spike! Haven't seen you guys in –"

"That's Master to you," Spike corrected him.

Buffy looked at up him, but she kept her face free of the surprise she felt. Around them, she saw the demons and humans shift at this statement.

"Sure!" Willy agreed. "Master. Right. You killed the Anointed One." He came within four feet of them. "What can I do for you? Drinks are on the house."

Buffy shook her head "No. Um, thanks, anyway." She took a step closer to him. "Willy, you know how there have been disappearances in Sunnydale for a while? Demons, I mean?"

Before she could go on, Willy lifted his hands. "I don't know nothing about that –"

"I know you don't," she broke in.

"Oh." He gave them another wary look. "What about it?"

"It's over. We found out who was doing it," she lifted a shoulder, "took care of it."

"Took them out," Spike clarified. "'Fraid no one is coming back, but no other demons will go missing."

Willy's brow was scrunched in concentration. "Why…?" He shook his head and looked at Buffy. " _You_ took them out?"

Spike's hand shot out and he pulled Willy a bit closer by the shirtfront. "Watch what you're insinuating about my lady," he growled. "Does the Slayer come in here and snatch up demons at random? No. She watches out for the human population. Some git tries to eat a housewife, she'll stake his undead arse in less time than you can water down a drink. But she doesn't bother with demons who can act halfway civilized." He let go of Willy with a shove that staggered him a step. Spike's eyes narrowed. "You'll apologize to the lady."

"Sorry, Slayer," Willy stammered immediately.

A plain-faced demon with saggy skin spoke up from a table to their left. "You mean those soldiers in black? They're gone?"

Buffy turned to meet his intense gaze. "They're gone. The people in charge are…."

"Dead," Spike finished.

"And if disappearances ever start happening again, let me know," Buffy told the demon. "After I found out about the commandos, it still took me a few weeks to infiltrate their operation. If I'd known, I might have saved some… people."

Unlike the rest of their actions, the hand Spike put on her shoulder was one of genuine support. When their eyes met for a moment, Buffy's were enormous and haunted. After a moment, she gave him a small nod.

"Uh, thanks for letting us know," the demon said.

"Yeah, thanks, Slayer," Willy put in hastily. "Sure I can't offer you a drink? It's on the house."

"No. We just came by to –" As if it was a sudden thought, Buffy's attitude changed in mid-sentence. "Actually, there is something you can do. If you hear of a good poker game, let Spike know. He hasn't played since he came back to town."

"Poker? Yeah, sure, if anyone asks about poker games." Willy gave them an ingratiating smile.

Spike wasn't as good at hiding his surprise, but he covered quickly. "All done?" he asked Buffy.

She nodded, then a gleam of mischief sparked in her eyes. "Unless you have anything to tell me, Willy…?"

He started shaking his head, several things that he did know obviously crossing his mind as he did. "No. No, nothing going on that I've heard, Slayer."

Lowering his head, Spike dropped his voice an octave. "But you will tell her." It was not a request.

"Of course!"

They didn't wait to hear any more from Willy. Outside, Buffy held Spike's arm for a moment, keeping him near the door. After another five seconds, loud, excited conversations broke out in the bar. Smiling, Buffy started walking toward the Shady Rest. "Well played, I thought."

"You're a bloody brilliant woman," Spike agreed.

"Same to you." Buffy gave him a quick, apologetic look. "Brilliant, I mean. I know you aren't, you know, a woman."

"I know that you know," he agreed in a rich, seductive voice.

"Thank you," she said softly. _I know why you reminded Willy that you're the Master._

 _If I can make things easier for you, love, I will. But I'll only do it on my terms._ For a moment, he looked up at the stars, clear in the cold night. _Never wanted you in my world, kitten. Not a good place. Now that I'm in your world, I don't want to go back._ He shrugged. _I know it's selfish, but there you are_.

Buffy took her hand from her coat pocket and tucked it in his, finding his hand and squeezing it. _I don't want you anywhere except beside me._

⸹

"So, it's really just going to be us?" Anya asked, looking around at the huge ballroom of Latimer House. Her voice didn't echo like their footfalls, but it was a near thing. Right now, it didn't look like a great place for a small engagement/birthday party.

"Yes." Buffy lifted a shoulder. "Spike had it booked, anyway." Anya had gone with her to the party store to pick up decorations. Buffy had bought the premium things she'd never had the budget to get before. And lots of tulle.

"Oh. It's just… big."

"It'll give us a chance to get to know the layout before the wedding." Buffy knew this house already; it was one of her dreamscapes. Part of her would always live in this house. She smiled a little and began searching on the keyring in her hand. "There's a ladder in the supply closet. We can do swags first."

An hour later, Anya brushed her hair from her eyes. "It looks nice."

Buffy smiled. "You were lucky that you missed out on all the dance committees, which is just a nice name for free labor to make gyms look good. This place is a lot easier than a box that smells like varnish and teenaged boy sweat."

"Only cure for a gym is a good burning down."

Buffy turned to look at her fiancé as he strode in. "Oh, shut up," she said without rancor. She put down her box of pushpins and went to give him a kiss.

"Place looks a treat. You two have been working hard and deserve…" he put down the box he was carrying, "… better than hamburgers, but that's what I have."

"No! Do not denigrate In-N-Out Burger," Buffy said, narrowing her eyes as she realized what was in the box. "I would kill to have one in Sunnydale."

"Denigrate?" Spike asked. "Where's my blond fiancée?"

"I will hear no bad words about In-N-Out." She gave him another kiss. "You did good."

Mystified, he turned to Anya, who was smirking. "Is it wrong that I always feel happy when I know something that everybody knows, but it turns out someone besides me doesn't?" She smiled at him. "In-N-Out has the best burgers. Everyone knows that."

"Well, I didn't," he groused, going toward the kitchen for folding chairs. "If I had, I wouldn't have to eat half of Buffy's now."

"Ha!" She scooped up the box. "Not bloody likely."

"Barking," he muttered.

After the two ate (and he did persuade Buffy to give him one bite of her sandwich), he shooed them off to his favorite hotel to clean up before the party. Spike listened to detailed orders of how he was to finish decorating and had most of it done before the catering van showed up.

"Tonia, isn't it?" he asked, holding open the back door for the first of Joaquim's employees, who was laden down with boxes.

"How did you remember that?" she marveled.

"How did you remember me?" he returned, grinning.

"Well, it was about the most romantic proposal I've ever seen." She sat the box down and smiled. "I guess this means she said yes."

"No, totally different girl." Spike saw what Buffy meant by microexpressions – a quick 'oh, crap,' look, then a tightening for disgust at what a dick he was to use the same venue, then a smoothing into a neutral expression. "I'm kidding. It's Buffy. She did say yes, and we're getting married here first weekend in June."

Tonia gave him an exasperated look. "Well, you had me going there, for a moment."

"Sorry. I usually can't get a believable one off."

"Well, to be honest, I don't remember your name, just that it was something unusual, like Buffy."

"Spike."

She held out her hand, which he shook, bemused. "Joaquim has me in charge tonight, so I get to see the progress."

"We'll happily pay you to be at our wedding, too," he grinned.

"If I wasn't graduating in May and moving to Seattle, I would totally be there."

"And I will now get out of your way so you can work."

"This is why we like working with you, Spike."

"Well, after my quest to get married ends in June, I'm afraid I won't be as good of a customer."

"All we ask is that you tell your friends."

After that, he just had time to finish with the decorations and to change clothes before the first people showed up.

"Hey!" Cordelia called. She was smiling, looking at the decorations and the posh house.

"Cordy," he said, quickly getting back to the ballroom, still tugging a black Aran sweater into place. Spike had been delighted to find the classic design made in a cotton-linen blend. "You look lovely."

She did, wearing a green jacket over a short black dress. "So do you," she returned, surprised. "Still all in black, but not a t-shirt."

Spike took her hand and bent over it. "I have been known to wear red as an accent color," he reminded her.

"So, are you excited?"

"I am, actually. It'll be good to see everyone together."

"It'll be awkward as Angel in church," she disagreed, "but I wouldn't miss it."

"Well, as a bridesmaid, you are obligated."

They both turned as they heard Wesley's light voice say, "In here, I think."

Spike sensed Angel with the ex-Watcher, so he quickly asked, "How are you guys doing?"

Cordelia knew he was referring to their loss. "I guess the more time goes by, the easier it is. Except when it hurts just as much."

He recaptured her hand and squeezed it for a moment, but said nothing. By now, he had met Wesley, though not enough to really get a sense of the human, but enough to go forward and shake hands. Then he turned to Angel.

The big vampire looked better, he was glad to see. They walked to each other, both thinking the other was probably violating vampire etiquette on purpose, but neither of them really caring. I'm glad to see him, Spike marveled, as they hugged and then touched foreheads.

"How's Sunnydale?"

"No worse than usual. L.A.?"

A shrug. "About the same."

Buffy came in as they pulled apart, both of them smiling. Their friendship still seemed strange to her, but she was grateful for it. She and Angel had hurt each other, but there was still love there. Falling in love with Spike might have been enough awkward to end their friendship, if the blond man didn't love him, too.

Spike turned to her, and his lips parted. She suppressed a smile of her own; he hadn't seen her in this dress, a low-cut royal blue number. He came to her side, offering her both silent and public greetings and compliments. Then he forced himself to turn from her and greet Anya and Xander.

He did this throughout the night. Buffy thought of the first dinner party she'd seen him at, where he had charmed her mother over homemade lasagna. His manners were no less on display here, playing host and keeping everyone involved in the conversation. Spike's eyes kept coming back to hers, and Buffy knew she was too focused on him.

She made herself make the rounds too, then discovered that Tonia, the server who'd worked during her birthday party last year, was there. Buffy caught up with her privately, not wanting to explain how they'd met. Willow was the only one who knew about that. Tonia and the rest of the catering staff kept about half them well supplied with liquor and all ten of them well fed.

The engagement part of the party was a simple toast proposed by Joyce, and then, shockingly, the night was over. The caterers cleaned up and cleared out. She hugged everyone goodbye, thanked Giles and Willow for taking patrol tonight, and urged Angel to drive carefully back to Los Angeles. Then it was just her and Spike.

He locked up everything, and they headed for the back door. Buffy was walking with him, and she glanced up the grand staircase. Last year, there had been a room upstairs that had seen a nearly magical couple of hours. Tonight, as everyone had toured the house, it was just another empty, echoing room.

"You're quiet tonight," Spike observed as he pulled into a parking space near her car at the hotel.

Buffy shrugged. "I know." She waited until he came around to open her door. It was something that he liked to do, so she let him. She kept the hand he'd used to help her from the seat and pulled him close for a kiss. "I had a really good time tonight. But I think," she kissed him again and gave him a rueful smile, "anything would be a letdown after my last birthday."

"It isn't the same," he agreed.

He led her past the room where she and Anya had changed. "Spike? It's 207."

"It was 207," he agreed, going to the last door on the hallway.

Buffy gave him a narrow look. "What's in 201?"

He shrugged. "Let's find out."

It turned out to be a small suite. The only feature it could really boast was a large garden tub, but Spike had been inside already. Several of the candles he'd lit had guttered in their glass containers, but enough remained to illuminate rose petals on the bed, vases of white flowers on every surface, and….

"Is that a… massage table?"

He nodded, closing the door behind them. "You say I do a good job on your shoulders. Thought we'd see how well I do with a," his voice turned wicked, "full body massage." Spike slid behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck. "Then I'm going to run you a warm bath, drop in a couple of Lush bath bombs, and we'll find out how relaxed a Slayer can get."

"Relaxed?"

She felt him lift a shoulder. "Or how long I can hold my breath in a bubble bath."

"Why would you hold – oh." Not needing to breathe, that would be a very long time in that large, roomy bathtub. She turned in his arms and smiled up at him. "You're full of surprises. Thank you."

"It's easy now," Spike said, leaning down to brush his lips against hers. "We get up to the forty-second birthday surprise, I'll probably start repeating myself."

⸹

Sunnydale

February 2000

⸹

"I'm freezing. Let's go to the Bronze, warm up, play some pool." Xander kicked a rock out of the way.

"It'll be warmer as we work our way toward downtown." Spike was bored, but resigned. Patrols in Sunnydale rarely amounted to much anymore.

"Look, I really don't mind patrol. Giles has me transcribing our meetings; patrol is a way better use of my talents. But I can't feel my toes. I'm a California man; I'll need my toes for Cobians this summer." He gave Spike a sidelong look. "Might be able to find a couple of college boys to rook. I'll pay for the table."

Two games and four beers later, Spike stopped paying attention for a moment as Xander lined up a shot. "Ladies are done with the fittings. They're coming by."

"That mindlink thing is creepy." Xander watched as one of his solids ricocheted close to a side pocket, but it didn't fall. "So, how are the wedding plans?"

"So far, so good. Buffy's got a month-by-month system that seems to be working. I try to take most of the to-dos, but apparently I have questionable taste in things, so Joyce holds my hand at lot of the time." Spike made a bank shot and walked around the table to consider the next one.

Xander moved out of the way. "I liked that place in Dutton, where you had Buffy's birthday-slash-engagement party. It'll be nice for the wedding."

Spike had rather a sappy smile on his face. "It is a nice place." Then, "Bugger."

"Ah," Xander said, limbering up, "my turn." He put down two solid balls, but the next one didn't fall. "I've been thinking about getting a truck."

"Trading up?" Spike leaned over the table.

"What? No, I wouldn't trade the Charger. That's a classic. Just, a pickup is more useful to me day-to-day."

"I liked driving a pickup," Spike mused. He sank his shot. "What about Anya?"

"She doesn't drive." He moved out of Spike's way again. "I mean, thanks to Giles, she has a license, but she hasn't been interested in learning yet."

"I like your bird," Spike said. He sank this shot, too, but the cue ball went into the opposite pocket.

"Thank you," Xander said, "and thank you." He retrieved the white ball and positioned it at one end of the table. "She's… different."

"She makes you happy, you make her happy. What else is there?"

"Well, I wish she fit in better."

"What if she never does?"

"What?"

"What if she always overshares about your sex life, you Viking you, or never does learn to pretend to be interested in boring things? Is that a deal breaker?"

"I… I just always figured she would."

"She missed out on, what, eleven centuries of human culture and etiquette? That's a big learning curve."

Xander's eyes narrowed. "You're trying to distract me."

Spike leaned his cue against the table. "No, mate. If you don't see yourself spending the rest of your life with her, get out now, for your sake and hers. Especially yours."

"Don't say that," Xander said, annoyed. "Just because she was a vengeance demon, doesn't mean she'd seek vengeance against me. She has a good heart."

"Tell her that; it's something she needs to hear." He let out an impatient sigh. "I've overstepped." Spike picked up the pool cue and stepped over to give Xander a squeeze on his shoulder. "Sorry, mate."

"There they are!" Willow was pointing at them from several yards away.

Spike nudged him. "Go on, get in a good shot while your girl's watching."

⸹

"Good morning!" Buffy caroled. She was holding a tray and smiling brighter than the sunshine coming from behind the curtains.

Spike blinked at her, still sleepy. "You cooked."

She put the tray on the bed. "Sure. Eggs, boiled. Bread, toasted. Apples, sliced. I'm Emeril."

"It looks delicious, love. What did I do to deserve this?"

She grinned. "Who said you deserve it?"

"Not worth engaging in witty repartee with a man who is eighty percent asleep." He put the tray on the floor and pulled her to him for a kiss. She was wearing the robe she kept at the beach house, which always seemed to fall open when her vampire was around. Buffy considered this a plus.

"Mmm," he said a couple of minutes later, "would I be in trouble if I let my delicious breakfast get cold?"

Her voice was husky. "Which is worse, a breakfast or a fiancée getting cold?"

"My heart is breaking at the thought of you cooling off. The toast? Meh."

Two hours later, Buffy snuggled into the crook of his arm. "I love Saturdays."

He lifted her hand and kissed each fingertip. "I love any day that I wake up to you."

"Usually Saturdays," Buffy said wryly.

 _Three days this week, not that I'm counting._

 _Willow's been away a lot. She didn't have it in her last semester, but now she's really trying. She went to a Wicca group meeting in January and made a friend there who does magic, too._

 _Just one?_

 _Wil called them a bunch of 'wanna-Blessed-bes.'_

He chuckled. _What other campus groups are there? You should join one._

 _Hmm… collegians for legal pot? Ocean kayakers? Students for academic excellence?_

 _Ye gods, what do they do?_

 _Call alumni for donations, I think. Free labor for administration._

 _Ah._

 _So, just as well that I'm not a joiner._

 _What about legal pot?_

 _I think they're less about smoking and more about letter writing campaigns._

 _Your generation is very earnest._

She laughed and leaned over him, looking at the breakfast tray languishing on the floor. "I'm hungry, but maybe not for brown apples and rubbery toast."

"Eggs will still be good." He considered his view of her backside and quickly said, "No, you're right, it'll all be rubbish. Best just go out and have lunch." Spike shaped his hands to the line of her back and curve of her bottom.

"Nothing's open for lunch yet."

"We'll find some way to kill the time."

⸹

"Angel left for Sunnydale half an hour ago," Giles said, hanging up the phone, "and Cordelia says hi." He looked at the people in his living room: Spike, pacing and yellow-eyed; Xander leaning against a wall and glaring; Willow and her new friend huddling on the couch. They were all oriented toward the Slayer who currently looked like Buffy.

Faith was tied to a kitchen chair and was using Buffy's face to create an unaccustomed smirk. "Ooh, I'm scared. 'Just wait till your Daddy gets home.'"

Spike's pacing got a hitch in it for a moment. "You got no idea," he muttered.

"Anything?" Giles asked, studying the blond man.

He shook his head. "Not since she faded out an hour ago."

The door opened and Anya came in, pizza boxes in her arms. Xander hurried to help her. "How was the drive?"

"Uneventful." The pizza place closest to Giles' flat was only two blocks away. "I didn't try to park, just went to the delivery window." She smiled up at Xander. "It was very empowering. Next time, I'm going to use reverse."

Tara trailed after Willow to the little kitchen to get pizza and something to drink. She was somewhat overwhelmed. Since meeting 'Buffy' and reading her damaged aura, she'd met all of Willow's friends for the first time. She'd performed the most complex magic of her life to create a cure to put Faith and Buffy where they belonged, once Faith's body and Buffy were found. She'd been pulled into exactly the life-or-death drama Willow had warned her about. She'd met a vampire.

Following Willow back to the couch, she set down her soda and shot another look at Spike. His aura was whole but tattering at the edges, as if his very life's energy was reaching out for Buffy. She'd never seen anything like that, much less the intermingled energies around him. Willow said that he had fought to regain his soul, but that he had been her friend just as a vampire.

Willow turned to her and gave her a small smile. Tara took a bite of pizza. Her eyes strayed to the blond woman bound to the chair, who gave her a sardonic smile. She looked away quickly. Seeing that aura hurt.

Spike paced by again. His aura was mostly black with unexpressed anger. She could almost hear his psyche shouting for his lost mate. Tara looked down from the primal force of it, had another bite of the pizza.

Xander brought in a slice for Spike. "Eat something," he cajoled.

Faith gave a laugh that was nothing like Buffy's. "You'd do better to offer him your neck."

Spike spared her a glance, then turned to Xander. He shook his head and gave the young man a quick touch on his arm. He resumed pacing.

Looking at Buffy's body seemed to hurt him the same way it hurt her, Tara thought. She glanced at Willow, who was staring at Faith with more hardness than she'd ever seen from the redhead.

"It'd be a shame if you let Buffy die of starvation," Faith said sarcastically. Xander, holding the pizza that Spike had turned down, gave her a humorless smile and shoved the pizza into her mouth. She took as big of a bite as she could and let the rest fall on Giles' rug. Xander sighed and picked it up.

Spike suddenly stopped pacing and dropped into a crouch, his hands over his ears, eyes closed.

"What –" Giles made himself stop.

They all stared at the vampire for a silent minute, even Faith. Tara watched the tattering at the edges of his aura slow, then stop, saw blue and yellow braids of energy regain more hue as the black retreated slightly.

He stood up, let his head fall back, took a shaky breath. "She's on her way here. She'd been drugged, sure enough, locked in an armored car. She's driving that."

"The Council team?"

Spike sent Giles an angry glare. "Disarmed and mostly unharmed."

"They'll not take Faith," Giles stated. She looked at him, uncertain what he meant by that.

Willow leaned over the couch and grabbed her laptop. "I'll set up the motion detectors so we don't have to send anyone out for guard duty, in case they come here."

"Thank you, dear."

Faith nodded Buffy's head. "I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids." She looked around at the stony faces. "Really? You're Scoobies, after all." She gave a short laugh. "Actually, I would have gotten away with it if Buffy hadn't fucked another vam–"

Spike's hand closed around her throat and gave her head a single jerk. No one in the room even saw the motion that carried him across the room to her. Tara shrank back against the couch.

"Mind what you say about the woman I love. You'll be out of that body shortly." He let go of her, clenching his fists.

"Ooh, what are you going to do? Giles isn't going to let you beat me up. Even Buffy will tell you that it's wrong."

Anya, watching from the kitchen door, spoke up. "What are you going to do with her?"

Giles rubbed his forehead. "Angel nearly broke through with her last year."

"Yeah, sure. Right after that kumbaya moment, I almost killed him," Faith said.

As Spike paced by, Tara clearly heard him growl at those words.

"How come Buffy gets to be the vampire layer?" Faith complained. This line of conversation seemed to make the maximum number of people in the room uncomfortable. Too bad Joyce wasn't here. "I can't imagine that she's very good at it, uptight as Blondie is."

"Ignore her," Xander advised the pacing blond.

"You picked the wrong Slayer," Faith jeered. She watched Spike stalk by. He'd been cute as a punk rocker, but without the coat to hide his body, he was a straight-up hottie. "Oh, I could ride you. I'd do things to you that Buffy would nev–"

Tara gasped. She'd never seen anything like this, or even known it was possible. Some line of red, crackling power shot away from Spike, a solid, sizzling light, spilled over the bound Slayer and tightened around her as much as the ropes. Then, even with it directed away from her, Tara felt lust pool inside her body. She could not look away from the vampire; she could not move. She had never felt this for a man, for anyone.

Spike simply walked to Faith and leaned over. "Anything you could think of and worse, was done to me before I'd been a vampire three months. All of those things are empty. Like you." His control seemed to slip. Tara saw the red power of him twist tight around the bound woman. "And you'll never know the things that I could do to you, for hour after hour after hour…." He stopped taunting her and made himself stand and step away.

The vampire gave his head a half shake and leashed himself. The red color of the energy grew sullen and dull, then it faded. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, not to Faith. Willow slid her hand into Tara's now that she could move again, seeking comfort, wanting to provide it.

Xander cleared his throat and lifted his hand. "Rethinking heteronormative."

Spike shot him a grateful look and almost smiled. "He's really not, Anya," he told her hastily, as she started to say something. "Old joke."

"That's some sick vampire shit." Faith tried to sound angry instead of unnerved, almost managed it.

"It is," Spike agreed. He turned his head toward something only he heard. "Two blocks."

"Thank God." Giles gave himself a little shake. "I'll get another chair."

Tara gave Willow a questioning look. "To tie up Buffy, so that she'll be tied when she's Faith."

"Watch her," Spike told Xander, because he couldn't keep his attention on anything other than the door.

Buffy opened the door and looked around. "Where's Mom?"

"She didn't want to come," Willow said. "She just asked if you'd come by, after."

Buffy went to Spike, who held up his hands to ward her away instead of hugging her. He put his hands carefully on her shoulders and leaned down until their foreheads touched.

"Sorry, love. So sorry."

"We'll talk later." Buffy pulled free and went to Willow to hug her. "Thank you." She hugged Tara. "I know we haven't met, you must be Tara. Thank you so much. Spike said you knew right away it wasn't me." Tara couldn't find any words, just nodded and looked away. The aura for this body was just as mangled. "And thank you for the spell."

They tied Faith's body and worked the spell, quickly and perfectly. Spike, staring intently at the blond Slayer, closed his eyes and began undoing the ropes. "You'll want to loosen those," she said, nodding at Faith and rubbing her forearms. "They're too tight." Buffy went around and gave everyone a round of hugs, ending with Spike, who was looking miserable.

Tara chanced a look up, vowing to herself that she would work on shutting off her ability to read auras. Faith was black and muddy, muted colors. Spike's demon and soul, dark blue and light yellow, banded and twined together, actually curved protectively around Buffy. Buffy herself was bright pink, with a band of dark blue and hints of silver and white. Tara was surprised to see that she had no anger.

The second chair was facing the wall, putting Faith's back to the room. Buffy nodded and let go of Spike to sink back down into the chair where her body had been bound. "The Council was going to take you to England, Faith. Now they just plan to kill you." Her voice was tired. "We aren't going to let them get hold of you, okay?"

"What do you care?"

Buffy's mouth firmed. "Because… they're wrong. Because you won't become the Slayer you're meant to be if you're dead." Any other reason she could give would come down to the fact that she pitied Faith, and that was the worst thing for the other Slayer to hear.

"You tried to kill me. Did you forget?"

"No." She wished that they were alone; it would be easier for both of them. "I dream about it."

"I have nightmares about it," Faith spat.

Time for a change in topic. "Are you hungry?" Buffy knew she was; she'd been living in that body. When Faith didn't answer, she sighed and stood up. "Be right back."

Buffy got pizza for herself and hand-fed Faith a piece, even held a soda with a straw for her. She tried to talk to Faith, but ended up just telling her what happened while she was in a coma. The other Slayer wasn't giving her an inch.

Spike started his apologies with Anya and Xander, then went to Giles. When he'd finished there, he squatted down in front of Willow and Tara. "I am very sorry, ladies. My behavior was unforgivable. Tara, I'm especially sorry because this is the first time we've met. Please don't take my faults as any reflection on Willow."

"I-it's okay." Tara nodded at this pretty apology and gave him a smile that wasn't much more than a twitch in her cheeks.

"It isn't."

Giles came to sit down on Tara's other side. "No, it isn't." He was giving Spike an intent look. "You'll talk to me. I want to know more about… whatever that was."

He looked down and shook his head, shamed. "Giles… I have never done that before. I don't know what it was."

"Guess."

Spike lifted a shoulder. "It felt… akin to the come-hither a vampire can use to entice a victim."

"But it wasn't that." When Spike shook his head, Giles probed further. "What's the difference?"

"Degree… effect, intent."

Tara saw Buffy peer at them over Faith's shoulder, her worried eyes going to Spike before turning her attention to the other Slayer. Spike was still kneeling before them, his head lowered. "I see auras," she said, immediately regretting it. Giles' intense gaze was on her now.

"Did you see his aura when that happened?" She nodded. "Well?"

Tara met his eyes. "Not here," she said firmly.

Giles looked frustrated, and he turned his gaze to Spike's bowed head. After a moment, his expression softened. "You're quite right. Would you meet with me, or with us both? We can come to your dorm."

"I'll be there, too, if you want me," Willow offered, putting her hand over Tara's.

"Okay. Monday afternoon?"

"Spike?" Anya called. "Would you come and get something in the kitchen for me?" Tara watched the blond man go to where Anya stood next to Xander, saw that Xander was a couple of inches taller than the vampire, and felt herself relax a tiny bit more. Willow's friends did look out for each other.

Giles was doing the same thing, taking Buffy's place in the chair facing Faith. He started talking to her about the Council of Watchers. The blond Slayer went to the bathroom and then into the kitchen. Xander and Anya were talking to Spike, but quickly made an excuse to leave them alone.

Buffy went to him and sighed, putting her hands at his waist. "I'm sorry."

 _Where did they hurt you?_ When she shook her head, he added, _The injections._

She showed him the puncture marks so he could kiss them. _Spike, I'm sorry._

 _Why are you sorry, love? It's my fault. I'm s'posed to protect you. Failed miserably –_

 _You didn't fail. I didn't call you when I figured out that Faith was at Mom's._

He pulled away from her. _Why?_

 _For the same reason I got mad when she noticed you at the Bronze last year._

 _When you said she wouldn't be happy until she had your life, you were right. I'm sorry I didn't believe you._

 _I didn't know that was a literal thing. But let me say this, okay? I'm sorry, Spike. I have kept you from doing what you consider to be your mission. Maybe it's habit from when the Mayor tried to kill you, and I asked you to stay out of Sunnydale. Maybe it's because the thought of losing you… makes me feel like the world has dropped from under me. Like an earthquake._

She looked down, knew he would smell her tears anyway, and wiped her eyes. She met his gaze and brought a hand to his face. _I'm sorry, because you don't keep me from my mission. I owe you the same. If you'd been there when Faith triggered that amulet, even if you couldn't have stopped it, you would have seen it happen, would have known about the switch and stopped her. A lot less pain for a lot of people, if I'd just… In the future, Spike, I want you by my side. Not just for the routine patrols. I'll support you, the same way you support me._

The worry and misery of not having her safe, the shame of failure and what he had shown in the living room fell away. He looked into her green eyes, solemn and watching him with steady regard, and drew a ragged breath. _I should have insisted, when you didn't want me on campus because of the Initiative._

Buffy expression closed. _No, they were after you._

 _They would have come after you eventually, love. You weren't safe from them, either._

 _There's a difference between the mission and foolhardiness._

He leaned away from her again. _We may have to negotiate this in the future, but we're on the same page now, yeah?_

She nodded. _Your mission, my mission. Hand-in-hand._

There was more of the Slayer than Buffy in her pronouncement. Recognizing this, Spike didn't kiss her, only ran his hands down her arms and laced his fingers with hers. _Hand-in-hand._

⸹

Tara chose to meet Mr. Giles in Willow's dorm room. It was the first time she'd seen Buffy there. The Slayer was sitting on her bed, reading over class notes. "First of the midterms," she said, making a face when best friend and her newest friend came in. The Slayer stuffed her notes back into her backpack and shoved it under the bed. "Okay, I'm thinking that Giles gets the chair," she rolled off the bed and moved the chair closer, "I'll sit with Spike, and you two sit on Wil's bed." She looked around. "Why aren't dorm rooms bigger? We do not have enough room."

Tara skirted the chair and sat cross-legged on Willow's bed. "We're talking about getting an apartment. More room and everything."

Willow sat down next to Tara and gave her roommate an apologetic look. "I know we haven't talked, but I'm assuming you'll be rooming with your husband after the wedding."

"That's great news!" Buffy enthused. "I worried you would end up playing roommate roulette. Oh, they're here." She left to vouch for the non-students at the downstairs desk."

"See?" Tara told her. "You w-worried for no reason."

"I know." She laced her fingers with Tara's. "But you know how it is with roommates. You don't want to hurt their feelings. Like, you're so replaceable."

"I can't imagine that anyone who knows you thinks you're heartless."

"I can be thoughtless. I should probably apologize in advance."

Tara squeezed her fingers. "Don't borrow trouble, sweetie."

The door opened and Buffy, Spike, and Giles spilled into the room. The Watcher nodded at them, and Willow noted his quick flash of surprise at seeing her holding hands with Tara. Neither of the blondes seemed to notice anything unusual in the gesture. While Giles said his hellos, they perched on Buffy's bed.

 _I'm glad you told me about Willow and Tara. Otherwise, I would have spazzed and been awkward._

 _I'm sure Willow had something else in mind for the first time you met._

 _Yes, she did. A nice night at the Bronze._ She took his hand as she settled on the bed, crossing her legs.

Spike kept his booted feet on the floor. "Glad to see you again, Tara. Kind of surprised you would see me again."

She shook her head, but said nothing, hoping he would just accept her waving off the weirdness of the weekend.

"Well," Giles said, "if anyone is up for lunch after this, I haven't eaten and I'd be glad for company."

"Off campus?" Buffy asked.

"Yes, and my treat."

"In that case, I'm starved." So was everyone else, and they settled on a restaurant quickly.

Too quickly for Giles, it seemed. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "First, let me say that I know you've been dreading this, Spike. Can't say that I've been looking forward to it, either. It's just, when something… undocumented arises concerning vampires, even though I don't work for the Council, it's still my duty to make sure others know about it."

"So no one gets blindsided and killed," Spike said heavily, nodding.

"From your perspective, what did you do?"

He closed his eyes. "Someone had hurt Buffy, then rendered herself untouchable by crawling inside her physical form."

"I understand," Buffy said. She added with a grim little smile, "Angelus in Angel's body."

Spike squeezed her hand. "So, I was worried sick, angry, frustrated… I wanted to shut her mouth. I… lashed out at her." He stared at the floor. "Never done that before, dunno I could do it on purpose."

"Giles said it spilled over on everyone else," Buffy said. "What did it feel like?" She looked around at the other humans in the room, but none met her eyes.

Rupert spoke up first. "I couldn't move. It felt…" he took a couple of seconds to think, wanting to get it right, "not like paralysis or being pinned under a weight, but like autonomous motion was beyond me. I was just there, until Spike told me what he wanted."

Buffy shook her head, confused. "That's just thrall. It's what the Master did to me the night he killed me." She missed Tara's shocked look, as well as Willow's reassuring glance and silent promise to tell that story. "It's nothing new and unknown." She lifted Spike's hand slightly. "You said you couldn't do that. I guess you can?"

Embarrassed, Giles looked down at a different patch of floor than the one Spike had fixated on. "Buffy… It wasn't at all what you and others have described as thrall. I was waiting for Spike to tell me what he _wanted_."

The vampire in question heaved a sigh after half a minute of painful silence in the room. "The other Slayer was… You know she'd invited me to her room after the Sisterhood of Jhe came to town; you said she'd flirted with Angel. She's got it in her head to shag a vampire."

"She hit on you?" Buffy asked, her voice hard and incredulous. "While she was in my body, she hit on you?"

"Buffy, she was saying mean things about you. That's what set him off."

Spike met Willow's eyes briefly in gratitude. "She knew we were engaged, somehow, and she used Buffy's phone to text me to pick her up. I knew right away it wasn't Buffy, but I couldn't hurt–"

"So you knocked her out, put her in the trunk, and brought her to my flat," Giles said impatiently. "We know what she did. We're trying to figure out what you did."

"It's just thrall, Giles." Buffy shrugged. "From Spike, that's what it would feel like." Her vampire rolled his eyes.

"It wasn't Spike," Tara said, speaking up for the first time. When everyone looked at her, she lowered her face so that her hair swung down and concealed her. "I mean, it w-wasn't his aura."

She had already told Willow, had taken the chance to rehearse the telling. Tara explained the raw, red, sexual energy that had literally wrapped itself around the Slayer's body, even while paralyzing everyone else in the room.

"If that's what… the weapon looked like, what does his aura look like?" Giles asked, since she had differentiated between them.

"I-if i-it's okay with you?" Tara waited for the blond man to meet her eyes. He shrugged. She described the way the dark blue of the demon was twined with the yellow of the soul. "It was d-different for the other vampire," she added. "The soul was c-closer to his body, the demon on the outside." She looked down. "The c-colors were darker."

"Makes sense," Spike said. "Angel is not big on happiness."

"Tara, what colors do I have?" Buffy asked. "If I'm not imposing?"

She told them what else she saw: Buffy's bright pink with silver and Giles' orange.

"I'm mostly green," Willow declared. "Tara helped me see in the mirror. Hers is the prettiest turquoise."

"They're always changing," Tara said. "Those are the main colors I see without focusing."

Buffy smiled at her, touched by how her speech had smoothed out. She hoped it meant the brown-haired woman wasn't going to hold the first meeting against them. "What do the colors mean?"

"Orange is intelligence," Willow said, smiling at Giles. "I remember that because at first I was disappointed I wasn't orangey. But green is good, too. It's growth and change."

Tara sensed how uncomfortable Spike was. "Yellow indicates optimism, playfulness, curiosity. The deep blue, kind of indigo… it's associated with very deep emotion and… intuition." She looked down. "I w-wouldn't have thought a d-demon would…."

He cleared his throat. "And pink?"

"That shade of p-pink indicates love and compassion." Tara watched the blond man send a proud look at Buffy. "And the silver may mean someone is watching over you."

"What about turquoise?" Buffy nodded at Tara.

Willow answered, just as proud as Spike. "Healing and sensitivity."

"That definitely makes sense." Buffy scooted to the edge of the bed, ready to stand up. "So, time for some Tex-Mex?"

"I suppose," Giles sighed. He gave Spike a gimlet eye. "No thrall in the future." He glanced around. "Anything else?"

"I-I had a question." Tara looked at Spike for a moment, then dropped her head again, her hair falling over her face and hiding her large eyes. "W-w-why sexual?"

"Oh, uh, it's how the majority of vamps hunt. Not like the thrall, just a… vibe, a come-hither. Gets a human interested enough in us to step outside, get them alone. Then, the feeding itself is… pleasurable. Who's going to fight against pleasure?"

"Also, you're just sex on a stick," Willow said, grinning. Spike gave her a startled look, and Buffy shot her a wide-eyed one. The redhead laughed. "I plead residual thrall. Come on, I'm starved, too. Let's go eat."

They walked to a car park off a nearby street, the closest parking they had found. Spike, still holding onto Buffy, looked around, then raised an eyebrow at Giles. "Where's your Citroen?"

"I traded," he said, trying to hide his smile.

"Let me guess: red sports car, looks like a penis."

Giles narrowed his eyes. "Berk. You smelled it out, didn't you?"

"Ooh, is that it?" Buffy enthused. "Can I ride with you? Spike, you don't mind, do you?"

He couldn't say no, of course, and opened the door for Tara while Willow got in the back of the Bentley.

"See you there!" Willow called.

Buffy suffered through a view of the engine of Giles' little red sports car. Once they were inside, she put her hand on his sleeve before he could shift gears. "Let this go."

"Buffy, do you know how… upsetting it was to… feel that abject lust for Spike? For anyone?"

"He wanted to strangle Faith, but he couldn't touch her. He lashed out. Spike didn't know what he did, exactly, and I saw him apologize to everyone, including you."

"Doesn't it disturb you that he himself doesn't know what he's capable of?"

"No. I wouldn't love him if he was the kind of vampire who tried to hone those skills." When her Watcher looked like he wanted to protest, Buffy repeated her request. "Let this go. He's mortified."

"All right." Giles shook his head. "I still plan to put this in my Watcher's Diary. This… variant on the thrall still needs to be documented."

"Fine," Buffy said. She got a distant look on her face for a moment, then it tightened. "Shit. Spike heard from Angel. Faith escaped. She tortured Wesley, Giles."

"Bugger. Do they need us to come down?"

"Spike didn't say."

"I don't believe she'll come back to Sunnydale."

"I don't, either." Buffy sighed and changed the subject. "I do like your car, Giles. I wish mine was small as yours."

"You don't like your car?"

"I didn't pick it. Spike would rather I drive a Volvo or a tank. That's a quote. He likes big cars and I cannot lie."

Giles knew she was referencing something, but had no idea what. "I assume he learned to drive early in the twentieth century. Cars were bigger then." He shrugged. "I also assume he chose a Bentley because it's British."

She grinned. "There's just a little bit of anglophile showing up. Royal Brierley crystal, Carr's silverware, and Wedgwood china." Buffy shrugged. "I'll get us everyday stuff." She looked at her Watcher. "Are you homesick, Giles? I think Spike is."

"Yes," he admitted. "I've been thinking about taking a vacation this summer, heading back to Blighty."

"You should! You need a good vacation."

They reached the restaurant. Willow was standing outside the door, laughing, and Buffy smiled just to see her happy again. When they met up with the other three, she put her arm through Tara's. "I can't tell you how wonderful it is to see Willow so happy," she said in a low voice. "I'm so glad you two met."

Tara looked almost as surprised as she did pleased. "M-meeting her is the best thing that's happened at college."

They had missed the lunch rush, as it was almost two, so they had a chance to sit on the patio for their meal. Once the orders were placed, Giles asked, just to be polite, "How are the wedding plans going?"

"Good."

"Fine."

"Well, that's not a ringing declaration," Willow said, holding up her left hand. "'Ringing,' get it?"

Buffy gave her a smile and took a sip of her diet cola. "So, we've got the basics: venue, food, music, clothes, photographer, flowers and decorations."

"Music…" Spike made a mouth. "The quintet for the ceremony is fine, but I still say the DJ for the reception is sketchy."

Buffy mostly ignored this. "This month is supposed to be invitations, announcement, and minister."

"We don't have a bead on the minister," Spike admitted, sending his fiancée a regretful look.

"I know – or, I suppose not," Giles said, grimacing. "Neither of you are Catholic."

"There are tons of listings," Spike said, "but I was brought up C of E. Can't feature us going with Aurora the hippie enchantress conjoining our essences or 'Gus the Man' blowing ceremonial marijuana smoke over us."

Tara snorted, and Willow pleaded, "Please tell me you made those up."

Buffy shook her head. "No, sadly." She raised her brows as Spike stood up. "Where…?"

"Just to the car. Won't be a mo.'"

"Buffy?" Tara almost seemed to regret speaking, but rallied. "I know a m-minister who might b-be willing. I go to his church sometimes. He w-would be traditional. I'll ask."

"Thanks," Buffy said, meaning it. She leaned across the table. "I actually thought Aurora would be cool, but I had to fall for a literal Victorian."

"I'm so sad for you, marrying stuffy old Spike." Willow stretched out for another tortilla chip.

"W-well, your children are going to be gorgeous." Tara saw the glances. "Oh, I'm s-s-sorry. I d-didn't m-mean to put m-my foot in it."

"It's okay." Buffy waved it aside. "Vampires can't make children, give life. They can't even host germs. A-and I don't know that I want to risk children, anyway, not being the Slayer."

Tara looked at Willow, perplexed. The redhead loaded her chip with salsa. "It's a dangerous job."

"Oh." Tara's brows drew together, and she put a hand behind Willow to touch Buffy's shoulder.

"There you are," Giles said to Spike. "And here's the food."

Spike sat down and waited until the server left. He passed a folder to Buffy. "Check one more time. If it's okay, I'll take it to the Sunnydale paper." At Giles' inquiring look, he added, "The announcement. Time to post the banns."

"Looks good to me," Buffy said, "but I've read this umpteen times."

"Can I see?" Willow asked. Buffy handed her the folder. Inside was a 5x7 black- and-white photograph of the happy couple. "Oh, you both look so good!" She held the photo up so Giles and Tara could see the two posed looking at each other, Buffy accepting a daisy from Spike.

"It's the first flower he gave me," Buffy said fondly. Giles turned his empty margarita glass up high, hoping there was a tiny bit more tequila hiding amid the ice.

Willow read the paragraph of typed text quickly, looking for typos:

⸹

 _Mrs. Joyce Summers is pleased to announce the engagement of her daughter, Ms. Buffy Anne Summers, to Mr. William Allgood. Ms. Summers is a 1999 graduate of Sunnydale High School and is currently studying at the University of California at Sunnydale. Mr. Allgood is the son of the late Henry and Anne Allgood of London, England, and is a co-founder of Colinvaux Sales Agents. The bride is also the daughter of Hank Summers of Valencia, Spain._

 _The happy couple will wed at Latimer House in Dutton, CA, on June 3, 2000, at 7:00pm. The bride extends a special invitation to all surviving graduates of the Sunnydale High School class of 1999. In lieu of gifts, well-wishers are asked to donate to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital._

⸹

"Aw, is the donation thing because of your cousin?"

The Slayer nodded at Willow. "Yeah. Celia would be in the wedding party if she had lived. You would have liked her, Wil."

Smiling, Willow handed the folder over to Spike. "I didn't see any typos or grammar problems."

"Not much that could go wrong. There's a template they give you to follow." He tucked it between his hip and the side of the chair, away from the food.

"Mom has a copy. She can't decide whether or not to send it to the L.A. newspaper." Buffy shrugged. "I don't feel like I have any friends there, and I'm kind of surprised she does."

"Not even childhood friends?" Tara asked.

Buffy shrugged. "I became Slayer when I was fifteen. I found out that none of my," she put air quotes around the next word, "friends were really friends. Mom kind of found out the same after the divorce."

"I think you have more friends than you realize," Tara said.

Spike thought of Billy Fordham and his offer to betray Buffy in exchange for immortality. Nothing he'd seen so far had changed his opinion of Los Angeles. He forced a smile. "Joyce can make that decision, but I have to agree with Buffy." He raised his glass in salute. "Nothing like Sunnydale for finding true friends."

⸹

At two in the morning, Buffy and Spike were sitting outside Willy's on the hood of the Bentley, nodding at some of the demons they recognized. When the human bars closed, Willy's got busy.

Patrol was over. Spike was smoking a rare cigarette as they waited to see whether they were needed in Los Angeles. Throughout the night, Spike had been in touch with Angel, learning that the Council wetworks team had tried to recruit Wesley by offering him reinstatement for Faith's recapture, after learning that it was Angel who caught her again.

He hopped off the bonnet and ground the butt of the cigarette against the pavement. "That's it; we're going. Angel just got arrested for aiding a fugitive."

"Oh, good Lord," Buffy said, disgusted. She slid off, too, and they got in the car and headed to L.A.

"You should get some sleep."

"Maybe in a little while." She looked out the window. _I feel like this is never going to be over._

 _If the Council_ _ _–__

Buffy knew why he cut the thought short. _If we see anyone from the Council, let it go._

He slowed for a light. _She's been in a coma for months. She's weak. I swear I won't slowly kill the bastards who put you in that armored car. But if they get her, and they might, since she isn't at her best,_ the light changed, and he pulled out, "would it be the worst thing?"

"Yes," Buffy said, then, _I don't know_.

They kept the quiet as Spike worked his way through the streets and out of Sunnydale. They drove past the Sit N Bull. Spike slowed the Bentley, waited for a wide place in the road, then turned. He drove back and parked in the diner's lot. Buffy stared at him, concerned, but he just got out of the car and opened her door. Spike took her hand to help her out.

"Faith just turned herself in to the police, confessed to murder, assault, everything. She told them that all Angel did, was try to get her to surrender. They let him go."

The first sob hiccuped out of her, and she covered her mouth. Then he was holding her. _Never have to cry alone, my sweet, shh, I'm right here, pet, it's over_. How had he known she would cry? It was a quick storm of tears, over in a few minutes.

"Come on, kitten. Might as well get some coffee. Carlene and Bart are inside, and they haven't seen your ring."

⸹

Next Chapter: Unsure of his place in the Slayer's world after a visitor leaves him shaken, Spike plunges into research – and discovers something that convinces him he belongs, after all.


	29. Echoes from the Past

**Echoes from the Past**

⸹

Sunnydale

April 2000

⸹

"Mom?" Buffy came in the back door, figuring her mother would be in the kitchen.

"In here!" Joyce called from the dining room.

Buffy went in and gave her a kiss. "What's all this?" The table was covered.

Joyce shrugged. "Just going through some of the last boxes from L.A. The organizer people say that if you move and haven't needed something for a year, you should just throw it away." She held up a white matchbook imprinted with gold bells and letters: _Hank and Joyce 1979_. "Maybe it should be three years and burn it."

Buffy looked at her. "You're just a sentimental softie."

Her mother laughed. "I know it wouldn't be fair to Spike, but I wish I could frame a few of these from when you were a child and put them up at the wedding." She put out an arm and squeezed Buffy around the waist. "You were such a cute little girl."

"Especially when I lacked teeth," Buffy said, holding up a picture of herself from second grade.

"Awww," Joyce said. "Look at you."

"Go ahead and pick a couple of favorites," Buffy said. "We'll get a couple framed from the engagement shoot. It won't look weird."

"But we won't have any of Spike as a child. It will look weird."

She pulled out a chair and sat down next to her mom. "I can't believe you let me go outside the house in this shirt," Buffy said, touching a photo from fourth grade. "Spike should be glad they didn't have cameras when he was a child."

Joyce tilted her head. "Has he ever talked about his family?"

"You know, you can ask him yourself. He'd walk through fire for you; I'm sure he wouldn't mind talking about," Buffy put on a generic European accent, "the old country." She looked through a pile of snapshots, and when her mother didn't say anything, she told her. "I think they were rich. He said they had servants, that his favorite was the guy who took care of the stables, Angus. His father died while he was in college, so he had to quit and take care of his mother, because women didn't have rights and stuff back then." She pointed to a picture of her and her mother in front of a boat. "I remember this! I loved sailing. And you rocked that bikini, Mom."

Buffy moved on to the next picture. "He took care of his mom the rest of his life, was starting to look for a wife when Drusilla found him. He, uh, had a cousin his age named Pippa who was his best friend. She already had three kids, and they were close enough that he felt like an uncle to them. Pippa's little brother George was one of his friends, too."

"It's strange that he was an only child, back in those days."

"His mother couldn't have more. When he was really small, he said there was a stillborn sister."

"Oh, that's so sad." Joyce picked up another stack of pictures and handed them to her. "After Celia, I never could bring myself to have another child. I felt like I'd hit the jackpot with healthy, happy you."

Buffy looked at her. "You haven't asked, and I appreciate it, but I don't plan to have children." Joyce's expression was a little sad, but accepting. "I worry that if I had a child, it would be a target, just because of who I am. And it wouldn't be fair to bring a baby into the world, when I can't reasonably guarantee I'd be here to raise it."

Joyce touched her face. "I know, honey. If I were in your shoes, I'd think exactly the same thing."

"Now, though… Willow's new friend Tara said Spike and I would have beautiful children. She's right. If we could have kids, they'd be…."

"Beautiful, mischievous, blond angels," Joyce said, touching her daughter's hair, memories flashing behind her eyes of her own angel.

"Spike said that, if I ever wanted to adopt or use a sperm donor, he'd love them like they were his own."

"I think he would," Joyce said. "At your age, it's hard to say what you might decide in a few years. You have time." She looked off to the side. "And, at my age, it's hard to say that I want grandchildren. I can't promise I won't pester you, but I'll say right now I'm appalled by myself if I do."

Buffy laughed. "Spike said he was very blond when he was a child, but his hair got darker, just like mine did."

"You mean he isn't a natural blond?" Joyce asked with patently false shock.

"None of us are," Buffy said pointedly, grabbing one of her mother's curls. As she smoothed it down, she asked, "How have you been sleeping?"

"Being captured by Faith was less horrifying that being captured by Kralik." Joyce shrugged. "I'm fine. I can't believe you're going to visit her."

Her daughter shrugged. "I can't really explain it." She tried, though. "She felt like my friend, some of the time. If I'd tried harder…."

"You tried. You can't save everyone."

Buffy shook her head and made a frustrated sound. "I could have tried harder. I know I wasn't in the best place, but Faith… had a hard life, even before she was a Slayer. And she did surrender." Her voice was soft. "I think there's something there to salvage."

Joyce shook her head. "You're a saint," she patted Buffy's arm, "and I know you didn't get it from me."

"Well, I definitely didn't get it from Dad."

"That's true." Her mother's tone was dry. "Let's just call it a miracle."

They repacked about half of the mementos, and Buffy stayed for dinner. As she was leaving, Joyce remembered something.

"Honey, you got a package with your other mail." Joyce went to the mantel and got the two-foot square box, as well as some cards and letters that had arrived since Buffy's last visit.

"Who do we know in Beverly Hills?" Buffy asked, looking at the postmark. There was no return address.

"Some of our friends might have moved there," Joyce said. She was plainly curious about the box.

Buffy was, too. She put it on the coffee table and slid a fingernail under the tape. When she opened the cardboard flaps, both of them looked inside. There was a letter, looking very white against an old leather pouch.

The Slayer took the letter and opened it. "It's from Robin Wood." She and her mother exchanged a glance.

⸹

 _I don't really know how to do a greeting to someone I never met. 'Dear Slayer' sounds pretty stupid, especially said out loud. So, pretend I started this letter right._

 _My grandmother got in touch with me in January, and I met her in February. I honestly don't know if I should thank you for that or not. The man who has always been 'Dad' to me gave me the best of everything, taught me that not everyone is so lucky, and loved me. I loved him. I still love him, even though it turns out he kidnapped me when I was a child._

 _I don't know if you'd been trained as a Slayer or if it came as a surprise to you. Dad trained me as a Slayer. I can't ever be as strong or fast, but believe me, I've drilled on technique. I probably kill five or six vampires a year. I hate them. I always will. Dad, who loves me very much, trained me up to kill the vampire who murdered my mother and grandmother._

 _Only now, my grandmother is alive. She tells me that no vampire ever stalked my mother's whole family, that it's just the excuse my Dad used to steal a child. She told me that my mother turned down the chance to get away from her mission. She said that she mourned the loss of both of us for two years before she could move on. She told me that the vampire who killed my mother is gone. Dad broke down and cried over that, but not over the lies and the kidnapping. I had never seen him cry._

 _So, most of my life has been a lie. Was it the important parts? I don't know yet. I still see my father; I'm going to spend this summer in New York getting to know my grandmother._

 _Dad said you died for a few minutes, were resuscitated, and that there are two Slayers now. That's a good thing, I think. My grandmother told me you've broken with the Council. Good for you; I will always root for Slayers and against the Council. I know from Dad that Sunnydale is a Hellmouth, so be careful._

 _I am still sorting through all of this, trying to figure out who I am, how to trust people. I'm trying not to cut ties, trying not to go out hunting the way my mother did just to drown the anger, trying to see if I belong anywhere. Dad is paying for a therapist, but I'm seeing a counselor the college provides, too. The crazy thing is, leaving out the supernatural part, it isn't the first time they've seen messy custody cases like mine._

 _There is one tie that I'm going to cut: the pouch in this box is an emergency kit, supposed to be passed down, Slayer to Slayer. Dad kept it because he was angry with the Council. I thought it was my mother's, just a book and a weird old toy. I don't want it around anymore._

 _I mentioned the anger. I'm angry with my mother for putting her mission above me, with her Watcher for the crime and worse lies, with my grandmother for not looking more closely at the story. So of course I'm angry with you and your Watcher, because my life would be so much easier if you'd never learned about this and told._

 _I see where Dad was pointing me, though, and I know that I would die young – hopefully, die – hunting down vampires, looking for one in particular. I'll live longer now, which is good, because I'll need the time to figure all this out._

 _My grandmother said you had my mother's leather coat. I remember it, actually. She'd wrap it around me while she was wearing it and say, "where did Robin go?" and open it back up, "there he is." We were standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom. It's a true memory, one of the few I have of her. If you still have it, I'd appreciate if you could send it to me._

 _I don't think I'm in a good place to meet you, and I know how risky it is to delay things with Slayers. So, we probably won't meet. Please tell your Watcher to be careful. Dad blames him for finding the truth, not himself for telling the lie. I don't think he would do anything, but I guess I really don't know him._

 _Journaling is one of the things my therapist assigns. She says, just write honestly. Things just come out, no real logic or form, and this letter has been like that, too. So, pretend I ended the letter right, too._

⸹

Joyce and Buffy were both tearful when they finished the letter. "I should never have gone to Weehawken."

"Of course you should," Joyce corrected her. "What that Watcher did was wrong."

"But he's in such pain." Buffy leaned against her mother.

"I know he is. But think of the pain his grandmother was in. Just because it was a long time ago, doesn't mean it wasn't just as sharp as this."

Because she was the Slayer, Buffy went back to the threat. "Do you think Giles is in any real danger? I mean, Crowley has to be in his seventies."

"Rupert can decide for himself how worried he wants to be."

"You're right." Buffy sighed, putting the letter back into the box. She wrapped her arms around her mother for a long moment. "I'm glad you didn't remember until we'd already had a good visit."

"Me, too."

"See you tomorrow at lunch, okay?" Buffy and Spike were going to be downtown to get the marriage license anyway; lunch with Joyce was a bonus.

⸹

Buffy dropped the box off with Giles before heading back to campus. Willow was laying on her bed and reading a textbook. Probably rereading, Buffy thought wryly, thinking of two classes where she was a bit behind.

"Hey, Buf." Willow rolled over and sat on the edge of her bed. "How's your mom?"

"Good. Remember that Watcher that kidnapped the child of the last Slayer Spike killed?"

"Yes?" A frown appeared between her brows.

"Yeah, I know. Weird to think of that happening. Anyway, apparently the Watcher took something that was supposed to go to each Slayer."

"What is it?"

Buffy shook her head. "I don't really know. He called it an 'emergency kit,' but it's just a book and sort of a shadow puppet theater." She lifted a shoulder. "I dropped it off with Giles."

"Well, he'll figure it out."

"Or we'll be doing research for a week."

Willow smiled. "There is that." Buffy had been kicking off her shoes and putting away her jacket. Before she could open her bookbag, Willow went on. "Buffy? Can we talk?"

"Sure." The Slayer sat down on her bed, facing her best friend.

"Thank you for not being weird about Tara."

"Who would be weird about Tara?" Buffy asked, puzzled. "She seems like the nicest person, ever."

"I mean, you know. About us."

"Oh."

"I would have told you, but I didn't know how." Willow gestured between them. "We've been, like, mooning over cute guys the whole time we've known each other. I-I didn't expect this, you know? But the first time we really talked, we just had this connection. At first, I brushed it off as just having so much in common, but…."

Buffy left her bed and sat next to Willow on hers. "Hey," she said, putting an arm around the redhead, "I didn't tell you about Spike. Same reason: I didn't know how. Falling for _another_ vampire?"

"It's not really the same. Not the, you know, not knowing how to tell it. The… relationship."

"I think the two of you are adorable together. And I think you're both very brave. Not that you should have to be, but it's kind of the way things are." She smoothed a strand of red hair from Willow's cheek. "She makes you happy, and I haven't seen you happy for months."

Willow teared up. "I'm still me, you know? W-we can still talk about cute guys."

"And you can tell me about cute girls."

She shook her head. "I don't look at other girls." Then Willow blushed. "Well, I have always noticed, you know, cleavage."

Buffy laughed. "Sometimes you can't miss it."

⸹

"Hey, Giles. I thought I'd be late," she said, noticing that she was the first to arrive for the Scooby meeting.

"I asked you here early, actually," he said, not looking at her.

"What's wrong?"

Her Watcher gave her a tired smile. They knew each other so well. "Have a seat." He sat next to her on the couch. On the coffee table before him were the contents of the leather pouch Robin Wood had sent: an ancient book, a lantern, and a handful of puppets. "I cannot read the book."

"You'll translate it, Giles. You always do."

"No, I wasn't clear. I will not be allowed to read this book, until it's ready to be read." He sighed. "So, I opened it, and it looked like Sumerian. When I came back with a Sumerian dictionary, it had switched to a variant of cuneiform. Then the pages would not separate."

"So…" Buffy considered this, "if it isn't ready to be read, isn't that a good thing? If it's a Slayer book, maybe it's for some other Slayer."

Giles gave her a wry look. "Yes, I do actually think it's a good thing, since this was an 'emergency kit.' But, Buffy… It's the puppets that worry me."

She stared at him for a couple of beats and considered making fun of him for being worried about wee puppet figures, but simply leaned forward to pick them up. Hills, a monster, men with staffs, a girl, and chains. "I'm guessing that this is the Slayer," she held up the girl puppet, "and this beast is the slayee. What are the rest?"

"Jumble them up," Giles encouraged her, "then drop them on the table."

Frowning, Buffy did as he asked. When she dropped them, they tumbled and fell into a pile with the hills atop the monster, the monster atop the men… She tried to randomize the order twice more, but they always fell into place.

"They tell a story, I think," Giles said, and his voice was weary and so kind.

Her frown intensified. "So, there was a place," Buffy held up the hills, "with a demon," she used her fingertips to slide the monster puppet next to the first puppet. "The people got the Slayer to…" she slid the last puppet into place on the far right, "chain it up, and capture it? That doesn't make sense."

"I'm afraid that it's the first story," Giles said. He touched the first two shadow puppets. "There was a place where a monster roamed." His eyes closed for a moment as he touched the middle part, the men with their staffs. "The wise men, the magicians found a girl." His hand moved over the last puppet, but did not touch it. "They chained the girl."

"Andromeda? The sacrificial virgin?"

"This is an emergency kit for Slayers." He touched the girl puppet again. "I think this represents the first Slayer."

"Why would they chain the Slayer, if they had a demon problem?" Buffy shook her head at the illogic of this.

"I think they had a demon problem, but no champion." Giles scooted back from the coffee table, unconsciously wiping his fingers on his trousers. "I think they chained up the girl and… made the first Slayer."

"How?" Her questioned seemed to echo; even the hum of the refrigerator fell quiet.

Giles' brow drew together as though in pain. "I don't know, but if it required chaining her… I don't see how it could be willingly."

Buffy shook her head, rejecting this. "If it's supposed to be an emergency kit for Slayers, how on earth would a warped origin story be helpful?" She looked away from her Watcher to stare at the puppets, frowning. Then she looked at the lamp. "It doesn't look like any of the shadow puppets are missing… Maybe the book can summon those chains for a demon that's impossible to kill."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that." He leaned over the coffee table once again. "I like that story much better than mine, my dear."

"Why would you even come up with your version?" Buffy asked. "It's kind of… grim."

His eyes were on the puppet of the men and their staffs. "Perhaps because I've come to dislike the Council so much." He didn't look up at her as he went on. "You've been born at a very good time for women, Buffy, maybe the best time ever. It seems so… archaic to me that an organization of mostly men, mostly old men controls a line of very young female warriors. I can't imagine how strange it must seem to you."

"It is creepy," Buffy agreed heavily. Giles had expressed these sentiments before.

"And up until forty or so years ago, most Slayers didn't even question it. Not at first, at least." He shrugged at her look. "I've read a lot of Watcher Diaries."

"Whereas I questioned you from the beginning."

"You questioned me, you challenged me, you defied me," he smiled at her, "and you have always, always prevailed." The smile turned wintry. "Even when you've had to die to do it."

Buffy turned so she could give him a proper hug. "If I've never told you before how much I appreciate you having my back, then I'm a big old ingrate." She flinched in surprise, then relaxed. "Sorry. Spike says to come outside and help carry in… ooh, sub sandwiches?"

"I am rather tired of pizza," her Watcher replied. They rose from the couch and helped Spike bring in two large cardboard boxes of food.

"That smells delicious," Buffy said. _You look delicious_.

He gave her a private smile. _I have it on good authority that you are delicious._

 _Whose authority?_

 _Mine._ Spike leaned across the box he'd set down on the table and kissed her. "How was your day?"

"Weird." When he raised an eyebrow, she shook her head. "Wait till everyone gets here."

Tara, Willow, and Xander arrived a few minutes later, hopping out of Xander's new truck. "Where's Anya?" Giles asked, lifting the sandwich that was meant for her.

"I'll fill her in when I get home," Xander assured him. There was something final in his answer, and the rest of them saw the look that passed between him and the Watcher. No explanation was forthcoming, so they spilled into the living room.

Giles talked as they ate, first explaining the odd toys and the old book on the coffee table, as well as the possible stories the puppets might be used to tell. He wiped off his fingers and packed them away in the old leather pouch. "I'll keep them here, if that's okay with you?"

Buffy nodded. "The letter now?" She passed it to Xander, who was next to her on the couch. "Each of you read it, then pass it along." By the time the letter made it back to her, they had finished sandwiches, chips, and salads and were munching on chocolate chip cookies. "So, what do you guys think?"

"I feel really sorry for him," Willow said.

"I w-worry that he's dangerous," Tara said.

"Or the old Watcher is," Spike added, eyeing Giles possessively.

Once the information and opinions were exchanged, there was nothing else to do. "We're already pretty vigilant," Xander noted wryly, "and we don't have to research this." He scooted to the edge of the couch. "So, to sort of change the subject… I just wanted to ask for you guys to be extra-nice to An the next few days. The Emersons don't remember her at all now. The spell finally wore off."

"Oh, that has to sting." Willow looked thoughtful. "Still, the spell lasted a looong time. How did she find out?"

"She was there to pick up the last couple of boxes she'd packed. Her 'mom' thought she was there to pick up for charity."

"Ouch," Buffy said.

"Yeah."

"What's her name again?" Spike asked. Giles had procured identification for the ex-demon from the same source as his own.

"Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, born on the fourth of July." Xander smiled. "She doesn't do things by half."

"No 'Aud,'" Willow approved.

"At least she remembers her actual human name," Buffy teased, biting down on a smile.

"Oh, leave off," Spike grumbled. "She only had the one name. I swear I can remember my mother using them both ways." At Tara's puzzled look, he rolled his eyes. "You know, when your parents use all your names when they're mad. Both 'William Arthur Albert' and 'William Albert Arthur' sound right."

"It's amazing how far back that goes," Willow mused, a suspicious amount of innocence in her tone.

"Practically to the Renaissance, I guess," Buffy added. Spike must have replied silently, because she stuck out her tongue before blushing a bright red.

Xander kept his peace, unwilling to join any conversation about middle names. After the meeting, he hung back and helped Giles clean up, until he was the last one. "I'll be right there," he called, tossing the keys to his truck to Willow.

Turning to Giles, he held out a floppy disk. "Transcriptions of the last three meetings."

"Thank you."

Xander held on to the disk for a moment as Giles tried to take it. The Watcher's eyes went to him, questioning. "I should thank you."

"Oh?"

The dark-haired young man nodded. "I never realized. I heard that… tone or word choice, whatever, all my life. I guess it's hard to break a pattern."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Giles said, taking the disk from him. His regard was warm. "Though I'd say it's easy to break a pattern once it's recognized."

"Am I out of the transcription business?"

"Yes. It was a worthwhile experiment, to see if we could find ways to communicate better. But no one reads over these, so…."

Xander put his hands in his pockets and nodded before heading out the door, closing it behind him. Smiling a little, Giles watched him, then tossed the floppy disk toward the computer on the small desk in the corner. He'd noticed how Xander had started correcting Anya and being curt over her social shortcomings, and he'd been right that Xander had not noticed what he was doing. Truth be told, he found Anya annoying, too, but if she made Xander happy… he could put up with her bluntness and crudity.

⸹

Buffy strolled through campus on patrol, alone. For the past four out of five nights, she and Spike had been stalked during this part of patrol. Tonight, that surveillance would end, one way or another.

 _Same place as before._

 _Got it._ Buffy strolled on, nodding to a couple who were walking hand-in-hand. _Where are you?_

 _Top of the science building. Good sightlines._

 _I'm perfectly safe._

 _And still I don't like it._

"Hi, Buffy."

She feigned surprise, touching a hand to her chest and taking in a breath as Riley Finn stepped from behind a tree. Buffy peered at him. "Riley?" She stepped forward and put out a hand toward him before letting it fall. "I haven't seen you since before the gas leak at Lowell House. Where have you been?"

He didn't smile, just shook his head. "You know it wasn't a gas leak."

"They said they took you guys to the army base, because there were oxygen tents there." She was determined to play this straight, or what passed as straight on the Hellmouth.

"And I've been there since. Restricted to the base while…" Riley sighed and looked away. "Dr. Walsh wasn't just experimenting on the sub– on the demons. She was giving all of us injections of… like, performance-enhancing drugs. It's taken this long for our bloodwork to show clean." He didn't tell her about the computer hardware that had to be removed from the brain of every soldier in his platoon; that was too strange for any civilian to understand, and classified, besides.

Buffy's voice was low and concerned. "Are you all okay now?"

 _Going for the Oscar, love?_

Riley shook his head. "No. It's going to take a long time before we get anywhere near normal. You wouldn't understand, but it's hard to give up superpowers."

"Oh, I would." Buffy's voice was hard. "Mine have been taken, by people I trust." She looked down at the sidewalk for a moment. "My mother almost died because of it." Riley was obviously taken aback. Buffy had a feeling that he'd spent the past few months feeling sorry for himself in a company of guys who felt the same. She shrugged. "You get over it. It isn't the worst thing."

"The Initiative is shut down." Riley nodded toward campus. "You're still here."

She wasn't sure how to take that. "Here for life."

There was accusation in his eyes, but also uncertainty. "Dr. Walsh is dead. So are the other scientists."

"Did the demons down there get loose?" Her eyes were hard. Giles had told them about the visit he got, post 'gas leak,' from one of the people who had gone into the hidden facility. Buffy let out a breath, looked away, and made her voice even. "I'm sorry for your loss. I know she was a mentor to you."

Something flickered across his face. "Maybe I'm glad that I wasn't her favorite." She was honestly confused by what he meant by that, and Riley could read it in her face. He relaxed a degree. "Look, my… um, the guys from Lowell have an offer to do what you do, no capture, I mean, in a couple of allied countries in South America. I don't know if I'll go, but… I won't be in Sunnydale." Riley looked around the campus for a moment, a lost expression in his eyes. "So, I just wanted to stop by and say… congratulations. On your wedding."

Buffy lifted her chin and made a split-second decision. "To Hostile Seventeen?"

He nodded. "What is he?"

"My fiancé."

"I know his face, his average body temperature, his approximate weight and height, and that he isn't… He's not what you call a vampire."

"Whatever happened to the Initiative, he didn't have any role in that."

"The night we almost got him…" The tall man searched her face. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes." No reason to deny it.

"Is… What is he?" Riley stuffed his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. "I'm just… I'll always wonder."

 _Is it okay?_

 _Tell him a bedtime story so he can sleep._

"He is a vampire, but he's more. He's old, made by old vampires, so he's not like what we usually see in Sunnydale." Buffy looked away from the tall man for a moment. The breeze picked up a few strands of her hair, and she smoothed them away from her face. "A lot of who he was before he was killed by a vampire remained. I mean, a lot. Someone like that usually gets killed by their sire or other vampires. He wasn't, and a very long time later, he decided that he wasn't going to play by the usual rules. He underwent trials that went on for days and won back his soul.

"No vampire has ever done that. None. I'm so proud of him, proud to call him my friend, to have him in my life. He can walk in sunlight now, but he doesn't have a reflection or body heat."

"That… Dr. Walsh would have said that's a lot of unscientific bullshit."

Buffy shrugged. "I stopped caring what she thought that day you tested me."

"I go to church every Sunday," Riley said, then added, "well, before I was confined to base. The chaplain's services aren't the same. I believe a soul makes a difference."

"Do… Do you want to meet him?"

 _Bugger._

"No." There was no quaver in his voice, but Buffy could feel him shy away.

"There aren't any other vampires that can function in daylight. There is one other vampire with a soul, but he was cursed to have it. It… torments him, for what the vampire did." She saw the tension in his shoulders ease.

"So… will he age now?"

"No."

"What are you going to do when, I mean, in twenty, thirty years?"

Buffy gave him a wintry smile. "No Slayer has ever lived past twenty-five."

Riley looked down at the young woman facing him, her gaze steady and accepting. His lips parted. "That's not… I-I had no idea."

She shrugged. "Why would you?"

"It isn't something that you can… rotate out of."

"No. Even if I left Sunnydale, I'm still the Slayer." She took a step forward and touched his forearm. "You aren't. If you have a choice in where you're assigned…." Buffy moved away a few feet.

Riley recognized the end of their conversation. "Thank you for telling me. Hostile Seventeen always bothered me. You know, if it isn't safe in sunlight…."

"Good luck. Tell Forrest and Graham… Tell them I'm sorry they got stationed here."

"Yeah, me too." Riley lifted a hand. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Buffy watched him walk away and let out a sigh. She took her own path, which angled away from him, and made a mental bet that Spike would join her at the stairway down to the western parking lots.

She was wrong. Strong hands wrapped around her waist from behind, and her vampire leapt upward, carrying them both into an ash tree. Spike grabbed a limb with one hand, let her turn, then wrapped it around her again one they both had good footing on the branch.

She put her own hands at his waist. _Well, that was an awkward conversation._

 _You handled it beautifully, love. You ever think about being a counselor?_

She snorted. _Who, me?_ Buffy lifted a shoulder. _I just know what he needed to hear._

 _Love… You're going to –_

 _Live to be ninety. I know._

 _That isn't a bedtime story I tell you so you can sleep well._ He put his fingers beneath her chin. _I have yet to find something impossible._ The corners of his eyes crinkled. _Got you to wear that ring, yeah?_

Though her face was lifted, Buffy's eyes were downcast. _What happens when you start to look… inappropriately younger than I do?_

 _I'll happily play cabana boy to your sugar mama._

She poked him in the side, making him jerk. Buffy had his ticklish spots down. _Seriously._

 _You humans have retinol, lasers, who knows what all. You'll look young for a lot longer than previous generations. Maybe Slayer healing will keep you young. If it doesn't, it won't bother me_. Spike tilted his head. _It would bother me if you got horrible plastic surgery_ – he put his hands on either side of his cheeks and pulled the skin too taut – _but I could live with that, if it made you feel better. But if you don't mind my wrinkles,_ he asked, going to vamp face for a moment, _why should I mind yours?_

Tonight, their inner landscape was a warm, breezy Sunnydale, holding hands as they patrolled. Sometimes it was still the Sit N Bull, but other constructs were displacing it: their bedroom or the balcony of the beach house, Latimer House, the roof of her mother's house, even their first motel room.

She looked at him as they stood, shrouded in spring leaves, as well as searching his face in the better light of the mental construct. He looked back at her in both places, realistic and loving and sure.

 _I love you._ Buffy broke the connection and leaned against the trunk of the ash tree, pulling him down to her for a kiss. "Sometimes," she murmured against his lips, "you fill my heart so full that I think it might burst."

⸹

The next evening, Spike was thumbing through the keys on his ring, wondering how it had happened that he could have accumulated so many in such a short time. He was stopping by Joyce's on his way to the usual meeting at Giles' apartment to pick up a bundle of Buffy's clothes. On the lowest step of the stairs, Joyce had said, when he called.

The key to his own house, to the truck, to Giles' and Xander's apartments, to Buffy's car… and back two keys for the one to Joyce's door. He opened it, already stooping to pick up the stack of… towels?

"Surprise!"

He jumped back toward the threshold, his eyes gone to yellow before he realized. Then the lights came on, and the Scoobies, sneakiest bunch of people he'd ever met in any lifetime, were standing in the dining room beneath a banner that read 'Happy Birthday.'

Spike smiled, his eyes back to blue and suspiciously bright, putting one hand over his non-beating heart. "Scared me out of my skin, you lot did."

Buffy came forward, her hands out for his. "You were really surprised?"

"Didn't suspect a thing," he confirmed. _Haven't celebrated a birthday in a century, have I?_

She kissed him. _I thought about… I'll tell you later._ "Well, come on, before Anya puts your cake in the freezer."

He gave the ex-demon a puzzled look. "You'll always be twenty-eight," she explained. "We could just keep this decorated cake, eat a plain one, and reuse it every year."

"Financially sound," he agreed, leaning to kiss her cheek. He hugged Xander, then stood before Joyce, who pulled a face.

"I hated lying to you," she said, giving him a hug. "Happy birthday."

He held her a moment longer. "A lie in good service," he replied. "Thank you." There were hugs for Tara and Willow, a manly handshake with Giles, and then it was back to Buffy. "Unbelievably sneaky," he said, sliding his arm around her waist.

It made Buffy grin. "That's us."

Willow and Tara used a bit of magic that passed by Buffy and Spike as a puff of hot air to light the candles. They continued to hold hands. Spike pretended not to know about making a wish, but Xander called him on it when he said that there were no candles back in his day. When he blew out the little flames, he did not wish, only sent a message of thanks to whomever might hear it.

Then there was chocolate cake – homemade from a box, Buffy said proudly – ice cream and, later, beers. There were no gifts or silly hats, just a relaxed evening around the table with his favorite people, talking about random, everyday things instead of patrol-related topics. It was the nicest birthday he'd had, though it felt odd to be the sole honoree.

 _To Pippa._ Buffy raised her glass of lemonade and gave him a small smile.

He raised his beer and touched the neck to the rim of her glass. _Thank you._

Everyone except Joyce had divvied up Sunnydale for patrol that night, leaving him free to escort his fiancée home. As he sorted through his keys at his own front door, Buffy leaned into his side.

 _I originally wanted to do something big, like fly us to Vegas or something, but I thought you might like something just with family._

He found the key and left it in the lock to take her in his arms. _It was perfect. And you were right. Haven't had anything like that… It was perfect._

 _I actually did want to get you a present, but I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I found a consolation prize._

 _Oh?_

 _On the bed._

His lips curled into a devilish smile. _Oh?_ He swept her up, fumbled with the key until the lock opened, and carried her through the house. There was nothing on the bed. Spike gave her a curious look, then switched on the lamp before he spotted it.

He sat her down on the mattress and picked up the translucent square of white nylon that had blended in with his pillow. "Lady's scarf?"

Buffy kicked off her shoes. _Are you familiar with 'an extra pinch for an extra inch' or a 'one to grow on' spank?_

 _Like birthday bumps?_

She laughed at the mental image of bumping a child's bottom on the floor for each year. _Yeah, something like that._ He started to send some image of pulling earlobes, but she reached across the tabletop at the Sit N Bull and put a finger over his lips. _Well, I plan to tie your hands with that scarf and give you,_ Buffy pulled him closer to the bed by a belt loop, _one mind-blowing orgasm for each year._

Spike's lips parted, and he lost the mental connection. "You do realize I'm a hund–"

"You're twenty-eight," Buffy said firmly. "I have class tomorrow."

⸹

"What is this?" Giles asked, frowning at the papers Buffy handed to him. He patted around on the table for his glasses.

"Application to visit a prisoner in a California prison," Buffy replied. She put a cup of coffee down next to him. "I already filled out mine."

Spike came in with a box of doughnuts. "Top o' the morning," he lilted.

Giles eyed the pastries and began the slow process of shedding his grumpiness. "What couldn't wait until a reasonable hour?"

Buffy told him about Riley Finn. The Watcher's only comment was that she should have told him the first day Spike scented the human. "I hope it puts the whole Initiative mess behind us," she said, finding a custard-filled doughnut with chocolate icing. "At this rate, I won't fit into my wedding dress."

"No complaints from me if you can't," Spike leered.

"Do shut up."

"You're kind of grouchy this morning," Buffy noted.

"Blame him," Giles said, jerking his chin toward Spike, who was leaning against the sink as he sipped his latte.

"It must be something I didn't do," Spike decided.

"Indeed. I knocked one of the Master's books off the pile and picked it up without gloves. Bad dreams."

"Oh. I am sorry. In my defense, there are only three of them left."

Giles made a noncommittal 'hmm' at that and looked at the application, flipping through page after page. "Good Lord."

"Yeah, it's thorough. I think we'll get approval sometime this summer." Buffy took the lid off her coffee so it would cool faster. "I wrote to Faith last week," she said glumly.

"She'll appreciate it," Spike said, approval in his voice.

"Even if she'll never admit it."

"Well, I believe she's changed," Giles said, now full of enough caffeine and sugar to be optimistic.

"I hope so." Buffy sighed. "I wanted to make sure I got the application out now, because all these little details for the wedding are popping up, like reburn." At Giles' puzzled look, she added, "I'm running around, stamping out fires I thought were out months ago."

"Speaking of the wedding…"

"Yes, I know." Giles' annoyed glance at Spike was rote. "Xander and I have our fitting this Friday. I hear any more from you about it, I'll wear white tie."

"The scandal!" Spike laid a palm on his cheek in mock horror.

The Watcher turned to Buffy. "I'm sure you've got your firebreaks in order. Is that right? I'm sorry, my dear. I know I've lived through three wildfire seasons, but I can't speak like a native Californian."

"You did fine." Her smile faded. "We'll be clothed, fed, boozed, serenaded, and, hey, legal. Tara's minister is going to perform the ceremony, and we got the license earlier this week." Buffy threw an irritated look at Spike that was half-serious. "If only I knew what to pack for the honeymoon…."

Spike touched his tongue to his teeth, and Buffy's face went hot for no public reason. "One suitcase for boots and shoes, one suitcase for clothes, and one suitcase for whatever else you ladies need."

Buffy turned to Giles. "You see what I have to put up with?"

"Er, no, actually."

"How about we drop the subject, or there'll be a one suitcase limit?" Spike suggested silkily.

"See, if we're going to a beach, I could do one suitcase," she declared, "i-if it's a large suitcase."

"Why would you go to a beach when you live in Sunnydale?" Giles asked, curious.

Buffy turned on him. "You aren't helping."

"On the subject of things that haven't been told, what are you doing at your bachelorette party?" Spike's eyes were narrow.

"Oh, gotta go to the bathroom," Buffy said, hastily drinking the last of her coffee and giving her fiancé an overly sweet smile.

"Are you having a stag party?" Giles asked as she left the room, the thought occurring to him for the first time.

"Yes."

"That sounded fraught."

"Angel is throwing it."

"Not Xander, as your best man?"

"No." Spike's voice was fraught again. "Want to come?"

"No, indeed."

"Xander isn't twenty-one, so Angel is arranging something in Los Angeles. I'm sure it will be…."

"Limp?"

"Fine, I was going to say." He poured the last of his coffee down the sink. "At least there will be liquor."

"My Aunt Lolly called," Buffy said, coming back to the table. "She's going to come. I haven't seen her for years."

Giles was used to Buffy breaking out unrelated bits of wedding conversation by now. "That was your cousin Celia's mother?"

Buffy nodded. "She really appreciated the St. Jude donations. She cried. Aunt Arlene and Uncle Bert will be there, too. They'll help Mom with her. I guess it'll be an emotional day for her. I mean, she cried over the wedding announcement."

Spike put a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be fine." He rolled out his neck. "I'll stay here and work on those last three books while you're in class. If that's okay with you, Rupes?"

"Oh, absolutely. I can't wait to see the last of those."

⸹

"Again, love." His words rumbled against her neck. "Come for me again."

Buffy pushed back against him. "What if I refuse?" she breathed.

"Break my heart," he let out a long sigh, "you not getting every last drop of pleasure." It was the end of the night, after patrol. Now that Willow was seeing Tara, Buffy stayed at the beach house more often. They had spent the last couple of hours plundering each other, finishing with Spike curved around her back, his leg caught between hers, surging slowly into her.

"I could," she insisted, the smile obvious in her tone, "just on general principles."

Spike's hand drifted away from her nipple, over her stomach, down to the small patch of damp curls. She jerked as his fingers slid over her sensitive lips, then inside. "You are a pillar of strength, love, able to resist –"

Her cry cut him off. Buffy laid her head back further, offering up her neck, then twisting so she could find his mouth. _Love kissing you._

He felt her love for him, felt her warm body mold closer, and cried out himself. _Buffy, love, what you do to me._ Their mental landscape had them together in the darkness against a mausoleum – he wasn't sure which cemetery – and he dropped to his knees, worshiping at the feet of his gorgeous goddess.

She sat immediately, by his side instead of above him. _I think it's what we do to each other._ Buffy took his face in her hands and kissed him again.

In their bed, Buffy let out a long sigh and pulled the corner of a pillow beneath her head. "God, that felt wonderful." Her voice was a slow purr of contentment.

Spike moved his hand to her hip. "That begins to describe it," he agreed. He held her as she fell asleep and stayed by her side until she curled into a fetal position, moving away from him. Spike pulled the sheets up, tucking her in, and slid soundlessly from the bed.

Moving like a shadow, he picked up his jeans and stepped into the living room. Half-dressed, Spike grabbed a bottle of Maker's Mark from a cabinet in the kitchen and went onto the balcony. He leapt onto the roof and sat facing the ocean.

I don't deserve this.

It wasn't the first time he'd been left sleepless by the depth of the realization.

Buffy was… Buffy was everything. If he'd been lucky enough to find her as human William, he would still have understood how lucky he was. But now, after all he'd done, after the years, the decades of bloodshed… I don't deserve this.

Nothing new, mate.

The voice wasn't quite the same. His inner anarchist was part of him now, as was his soul. He was more of a whole than he'd been in life or death. But he recognized it nonetheless.

Something's going to happen. I can't have this much happiness.

When he thought of that happiness, it was all images of Buffy: her precise, practiced yet organic moves as she fought; her smile whenever she saw her mother or her friends; the way she looked when she walked backwards so she could talk to him; the beauty of her body as he gazed from her lovely quim toward her lovely face, the round, tempting peaks of her breasts part of a landscape only he ever got to see.

I don't deserve any of this life.

You aren't who you were. Nothing's going to happen.

Spike's mouth twitched on one side. His soul was so kind. He broke the seal and drained a third of the bourbon. Looking out over the ocean, he wiped the wetness from his cheeks.

If I lose her… There's nothing without her. I can't exist without her.

You won't have to. She loves us. Loves you.

I know. But I don't see how I can ever be good enough.

He tilted the bourbon again. Usually half a bottle would dull his fear and regrets, would let him go back inside and fall asleep next to her. Spike hated to be like this, but every so often, his own astute nature turned its gaze on him.

I don't deserve her.

And she knows that, mate. She loves you anyway.

He never doubted Buffy's love, but he had so many doubts about himself. Spike swiped at his eyes again and took another drink.

⸹

"Come in, come in," Reverend Tim Greenblatt said. It was Thursday afternoon, and Spike and Buffy were standing outside the office door in the basement of his church. He waved them into a small room stuffed with books and dimly lit with a couple of fluorescent lights. Spike looked up at them as the pastor ushered them to two chairs.

"You must be Buffy," he said, shaking her hand. "Oh, quite a grip you have."

"Yes. Uh, sorry." She sat down and smoothed her yellow dress. She'd insisted that Spike wear a button-up shirt and slacks for this meeting. The pastor was a chubby man in his forties with black hair liberally sprinkled with gray. He seemed pleasant rather than dour, and she relaxed a bit.

"And you must be William."

"Yeah. Uh," Spike looked up at the lights again, "sorry, do you mind if I fix the lights?"

"Oh! The humming." The pastor looked up, too. "I almost don't notice it, unless I get stuck while I'm trying to write a sermon."

Spike took this as agreement. He saw that the windows at the top of the little room would let in enough light, so he turned off the switch. The reverend watched as he dragged his chair closer to the desk and stepped into it, then handed the cover down to the bemused man. The bulbs were hot, so he took his handkerchief out, tugged one long bulb from its seat, made sure the prongs were straight, dusted them off, and reset it in the socket. He did the same with the other one, replaced the cover, and dropped down to turn the lights back on.

"Oh, that is better! Thank you, William."

"Uh, you're welcome. I'm sorry about that; it's like a mosquito's whine, you know?" Spike moved his chair back beside Buffy and gave her an apologetic grimace.

"Well, thank you for coming by. I like to meet with couples who aren't part of the congregation before the ceremony, get comfortable with each other." He sat down in his office chair across the desk, and Buffy had flashbacks to a number of school principal offices. "Call me Tim. I'm from Oregon originally. I know you're not from around here," he said, smiling at Spike, "but how about you, Buffy? Are you from Sunnydale?"

"Los Angeles, originally. Not that far away."

"London, me."

"So," he gave them a genial smile, "how did you meet?"

The two exchanged a glance. _Help._ Spike reached over and took her hand, surprised at this timid side to his Slayer.

"At the library. I was doing research; she hung out there. Had to get to know her." _Not going to say we met at the sinful Bronze._

 _Or that I was in high school?_ "He started walking me home, we started getting coffee together." Buffy smoothed her dress again.

"I met her friends and family, kind of made them mine, too. Bit lonely here," he said, shrugging.

"How long have you known each other?"

"It'll be three years this fall," Buffy said, looking surprised.

"So, was it love at first sight?"

"Oh, uh, no. We were both seeing other people at the time."

Spike squeezed her hand. "Turns out, neither one was the right one. We were friends for a long while."

"That's a wonderful basis for marriage." Tim propped his elbows on the desk. "When did you realize it was more than friendship, William?"

Spike looked down. "When she stayed with me… We, uh, had a mutual friend die. It was rough on both of us." The timbre of his voice changed. "I never looked at her the same after that."

Buffy met his eyes at that echo of their time in a cheap Los Angeles motel. "We knew we loved each other after going through that."

"I knew I was in love with her about a year ago," Spike said, "but I didn't say anything. Had to leave Sunnydale for a few months, and I didn't want to spring that on her along with a goodbye."

"What about you?" Tim turned his smile to Buffy, as if this vanilla, heavily edited version of their story was fascinating.

"He looked me up on campus when he came back. Last fall." She met her fiancé's eyes. "He was just… walking toward me, said my name. I knew." Spike brought her hand to his mouth. "I think I'd been in love for a long time."

"Me, too. We just…" Spike cleared his throat and sat up a bit. "I mean, I'm a bit older than her."

"Not by much, surely?"

"He just turned twenty-eight this month," Buffy said. "I'm nineteen."

"Are you both still in college? That's how you met Tara Maclay, isn't it?"

"Tara met my roommate, and we all got to be friends," Buffy said.

"Buffy's still in college, but I don't know that I'll ever get my degree," Spike said, shrugging. "Started a business since then, and it's doing well."

Tim nodded. "Okay. This all sounds good to me, friendship before romance." He sat back in his chair. "I'm happy to marry people who aren't part of my congregation. When couples who are part of my flock get engaged, we do four or five counseling sessions. I won't ask you to do that, but I would like to ask a few questions. These may be things you've already talked about. I'm more than willing to help you talk through anything that seems surprising, though." He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a notepad. "Do you mind if I ask why you want a minister especially, instead of a legal officiant?"

"That was my call. I grew up C of E, er, Church of England. Like Episcopalian here. Else, it wouldn't feel real."

"Ah. Well, first, the thing that harms most marriages is money problems. Have you two talked about finances?"

The two glanced at each other. Spike, feeling grateful for his soul, fielded that question. "Uh, I have family money. It won't be an issue."

"I mean, what if you like to spend money, but Buffy doesn't? How compatible are your attitudes toward money?"

"Oh." Buffy gave him a relieved smile. "We're good. We both probably spend too much, but we've both lived with limited means as well."

"This isn't my area of expertise, but is there a prenuptial agreement?"

"No."

Buffy took her hand from Spike's so she could cover his. It had only been one word, but it had been a cold one. "What he means, is that this is it for both of us. We don't take this lightly. My parents divorced, and I'm never going to do that. Until death do us part."

"Not until you're at least ninety, love." Spike took a breath and forced a smile. "My parents loved each other madly. My father died when I was nineteen, and my mother never looked at another man."

"They've both passed?" Buffy didn't understand the phrase at first, but she saw Spike nod. "Do you plan to live here in the United States?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, we already have a house." Spike's eyes widened. "Oh. I have my green card and everything. I'll live wherever Buffy is. My company is an online business."

Tim nodded and checked a couple of items off his list. "Have you discussed children?"

"We have. We're on the same page." Buffy's tone put an end to the discussion.

"Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

Spike felt Buffy panic. She never looked very far ahead. He scooted his chair closer and put his arm around her. "She's never had the chance to travel. Once she's finished her degree, I hope we'll have the opportunity."

"I've always wanted to live in Europe," Buffy said. "I speak bad French, but I hope to get better at it." She nudged Spike. "He speaks, like, dozens of languages."

"That's one of the things I find sad," Tim said, "but understandable. We Americans can go from one coast to another and never need anything but English, so we don't put much value on learning a second language. You can barely go a hundred miles in Europe without crossing a border." The pastor looked down at his list. "How about your values about sex?"

The change in topic made Buffy go bright red, but she fielded this question. "We have similar values."

"Monogamous values," Spike added.

"And, last of the difficult ones, what about religion?" He held up a hand, as if they were going to object. "Is it something you've discussed?"

"I haven't been to church since my mother died." True, in its way.

"I went to Sunday School when I was little. My parents stopped going to church when my cousin Celia died. She was eight."

Tim winced. "The loss of a child… That's one of the hardest things to endure. It will make you question the nature of His love like nothing else." He turned to a new page in the notepad, then firmed his mouth. "I'm sorry that you lost your cousin, Buffy. I'm sorry that drove a wedge between your family and your church. The same for you, William, with your mother." He looked at them candidly. "I like to believe that here, we're a family that can help you through those hard times. I hope you'll consider finding a church home again, and if you do, think of us.

"Now," he took a breath, "I have another set of practical questions. First, do you plan to do your own vows?" They shook their heads in unison. "All right. Buffy, tell me about your parents. You said they were divorced?" When she nodded, he gave her an apologetic look. "Do they get along?"

"My father won't be at the ceremony. He lives in Spain and… doesn't have much to do with us anymore."

"Never met the g – er, never met him."

The pastor nodded his understanding. "So, tell me about the wedding party. Is someone giving you away?"

"Giles. Uh, Rupert Giles. He's been like a father to me. I've known him since high school."

"He's British, too, but we're not related. I don't have any family of my own."

Tim went through the rest of the questions, drawing out of them the tone they wanted for the ceremony, whether there would be a candle lighting, when the rehearsal would be, and other practical matters. He went over his fee, which he apologized for, explaining that it would be free for congregants, and asked some other questions about the vendors and reception. He closed the notepad, and Buffy relaxed a bit, thinking that it was over.

"There's one other thing…" Tim unfolded their wedding announcement, clipped from the newspaper. "This open invitation to last year's Sunnydale High class… I officiated at four funerals after the graduation last year. One of them was in your senior class. The other was the younger brother of a graduate. One parent, the other a grandparent.

"I officiate at a lot of funerals in Sunnydale." He examined Buffy and said softly, "No one talks about it."

"I know." She met his gaze. "I invited the survivors because we fought together."

Tim took a moment going forward. "I talk with the leaders of the other churches in Sunnydale. People think we must be rivals, but that isn't the case. More like laborers in the same field. All of us belong to church associations in the region. Outside of Sunnydale, they treat us like… we're invisible, or like we might be contagious."

"Like bad luck might be catching," Spike said, keeping his voice neutral.

Tim pointed a finger at him. "Exactly. So, the local ministers and priests and pastors… we support each other." His eyes went back to Buffy.

 _He won't ask. No one ever does._

 _I agree, love._

"I know of Rupert Giles, the man who's giving you away. He gets Father Ruiz to bless jugs of water. Jugs." Tim swallowed. "I've been here for eight years. It used to be worse. Funerals every week, faces that I just stop seeing in the pews, empty houses… but for the last, say, three-four years, it hasn't been as bad."

"I'm glad." Beside her, Spike smelled her incipient tears and tightened the arm he had around her shoulders.

"I'm grateful." Tim firmed his mouth again, but just before he spoke, he dropped his eyes. The pastor stood up. "I'm looking forward to performing the ceremony. You seem like a very happy, well-adjusted couple."

Spike let go of Buffy and stood up, too. "Happy, at any rate."

"Thank you for fixing the light."

"I didn't do anything, just adjusted the bulbs." They exchanged a quick handshake.

"Thank you." Tim took Buffy's hand.

"I definitely didn't do anything," she protested.

"No?" But he backed away again, showing out of his office.

Once they were in Buffy's car, she let out of long breath. "Well, that wasn't as weird as I thought it would be."

"Weird in a different way," Spike said. "He all but asked about you."

"Yeah. Kind of creepy to think the ministers in the town gossip about who's getting industrial quantities of holy water."

"He feels like a coward," Spike said, his eyes narrow.

Buffy's mouth curved a bit; Spike was so good at reading other people. "He shouldn't. People just generally aren't equipped, mentally or physically."

"There's that loving, generous heart." Spike gave her a sappy smile. "You made me dress up," he changed the subject, because he knew she wanted him to, "so why don't you take me out to dinner?"

⸹

Saturday before dawn, Spike was outside Xander's apartment, knocking on the door. The human opened at once, speaking quietly. "Hey. An's still asleep. You want coffee?"

"Got some for us in the truck."

"Truck?"

"Yeah. Drove a pickup last year and liked it."

"When did you get it?"

"Ordered it last week. It was in the driveway when I got home last night."

Xander locked up and came out behind him. "Oh, good. Just a 150. I thought you'd have a dualie or a 350 or something, and I'd have to have truck envy."

Spike smiled a little. "Pickup's dead useful. Boards are in the back." He was holding Xander to his promise to teach him to surf, and they'd rented the boards the previous evening.

"Already have your wetsuit on, I see." Xander shook his head. Spike had absolutely balked at renting a wetsuit, which made no sense to him. Spike stuck his _teeth_ into strangers. The vampire replied that he didn't bite them on a pruned-up, communal ass and bought a new one.

"I see you don't."

"Easier to put on wet."

"The water is going to be cold this early," Spike pointed out.

The human shrugged. "Pop the hood," Xander said, "and I'll pretend to know what I'm looking at."

"Let's not and say we did. It's the big engine, 5.4 liter."

"Fine by me. You said that there's coffee in the truck?"

Ten minutes later, Xander motioned Spike to the side of the road near a low beach. "This is where we learned. Not a lot of rocks near the shore."

"You and your friend Jesse?"

"Yeah." Xander gave a small sigh. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

After Xander struggled into his wetsuit, the two men paddled out on the rented shortboards. Xander taught Spike how to duck-dive and get through the waves closest to shore. By the time they were past the white water, the sun was peeking over the mountains to the east. He'd shown the blond man where to stand and how to pop up the night before. Xander gripped the rails and eased into a seated position.

"We might get two, three rides in before other people show up. When you see a wave coming, paddle fast and time yourself to it. You can wait for the whitewater before popping up; that's fine for a beginner. Remember, side to side to balance, not forward and back. Find a focus on the beach, so you know if the current is carrying you too far toward the rocks."

"You go first."

"Yeah, do you know how long it's been since I was out?" But Xander went first and had a credible ride.

Spike watched how he bailed toward the ocean instead of the beach, then let out all of his breath. He watched behind him for a swell, then started paddling. When he felt the nose of his board start to rise, he jumped up… too close to the front. On his second try, he made it, and supernatural reflexes kept him upright on the board almost all the way to the beach.

Grinning, he paddled back out to where Xander was waiting. "That was awesome!"

"Dude," Xander intoned. He smiled back. "Figured you'd be goofy foot." A couple of rides later, he realized the vampire was now trying with his left foot forward. Xander rolled his eyes. By now, a group of three other surfers was paddling out, and he ran through the etiquette rules for catching a wave.

By eight o'clock, Xander was done for the day and pulled a reluctant Spike from the waves. The dark-haired man yawned. "I'm ready to shower and go back to bed."

"Let me buy you breakfast," Spike said, "the least I can do. Thank you, mate."

"No worries. Somehow, I still want to be home with a soft, warm woman than with a cold, pruned-up vampire. And I'm sleepy."

Spike went by the beach rental shack and dropped off the boards, then took Xander home. Buffy had stayed at her mother's house, and he didn't expect to see her until early afternoon. He felt a little at loose ends until he remembered a project he could work on.

They were on their third bed, and it had become obvious that wood just was not able to stand up to the wear and tear. It wasn't that they jackhammered away at each other, but when you can shove or kick or grip as hard as they did, furniture paid a price. So, he had a plan to reinforce an iron bedstead.

After a quick shower to rinse off the salt, Spike went to the garage and dragged out his welding equipment, iron bars, and the bedstead. He put a can of white paint and the brushes in the shade of the house, contemplated whether or not he should build a shed, then reminded himself that he was a fit, shaggable vampire and therefore immune to the practical, homey charms of a shed.

A couple of hours later, Spike was reinforcing the weld on the last corner when he heard, muffled beneath the helmet, the sound of a car behind him. It wasn't Buffy, so he leaned over and shut off the torch. He turned to see who it was, taking off the helmet and running a hand through his flattened hair.

⸹

Robin Wood parked the rental car in the driveway of the house that records showed was recently bought by William Allgood. He was glad to see that there were no nearby neighbors. A man was welding an iron bedframe in front of the garage. He was dressed in jeans, no shirt or shoes. Robin wondered if the vampire kept a herd of humans to feed upon or if this was a Renfield. Or if his father was just crazy.

He got out of his car and closed the door, watching as the muscular young man set aside the welding torch. There was a Bentley in the open garage, a convertible, of all things. The house had lots of glass to take advantage of the views. Robin wondered again if this was the right place. The young man took off the helmet and ran his fingers through his dark blond hair. Robin stared down at him, unsettled.

Last week, his father had called him, ranting about the little bitch being engaged to marry that little punk. While he knew who both of those characters were in his father's obsessive mind, it made no sense. Robin looked up the _L.A Times_ online engagement announcements. Sure enough, the Slayer was marrying _someone_. Two days ago, he got another call from Ashok Mehta, one of his father's golf buddies. Crowley had a mild stroke in the locker room and was in the hospital.

It wasn't Crowley's first stroke; that had been five years ago. This one was worse because he had knocked into a heavy bench that crashed over and broke a couple of his father's toes. When Robin showed up, Crowley was in a wheelchair, livid that he couldn't go to Sunnydale and kill the Slayer's fiancé.

Which is why Robin was here now, taking on this task for his father, staring at a tanned man who drove a convertible and was doing chores outside on a Saturday morning. He felt like a fool.

Then the shorter man spoke, deep-voiced and British. "I think that coat fits you better than it did your mum." He set the welding helmet down on the bedframe. "Been expecting you. Robin, is it? I'm Spike."

Robin didn't think he'd ever moved as fast. He raised his fist and brought it down into the vampire's face. The creature went back a step from the force of the blow, did not cry out or turn or fight back, just waited calmly for the next blow that came. Robin hit him again, and again, then he stopped. His fingers curled around the stake in his pocket.

The vampire didn't say anything, just nodded. None of this was right; this didn't feel right. Sick to his stomach and unable to think, Robin lifted the stake and drove it into the vampire's chest, the sunshine painting his shadow across the human face as his arm came down.

Nothing happened. The man stared up at him, impassive after an initial grimace of pain. He didn't dissolve into ash. He just stood there.

Robin withdrew the stake and shoved it into the unmarred chest again, unaware that he was sobbing. He didn't miss; he never missed. He pulled the stake back, watched the flesh underneath heal, the skin knit whole without even a red mark left behind. Robin raised his arm once more, but couldn't bring himself to strike again. He turned away, covering his face with his forearm, hiding his wet cheeks against the leather of Nikki Wood's coat. He blindly bumped into the rental car and put his hands on the hood, drawing in gasping breaths.

Spike watched him, then turned and walked around the bed into the garage. He rummaged in the Bentley's glove compartment and came back with a pack of cigarettes. Stepping carefully into Robin Wood's field of view, he shook out a cigarette as an offering. The tall young man took it, his fingers shaking and his knuckles bleeding from the one-sided fight.

Taking out his lighter, Spike lit one for himself, then passed the lighter to Robin. "I'll answer any questions, tell you whatever I know. I owe you that."

Robin shook his head. "How?" He felt drained.

Spike understood. "A little less than a year ago, I got my soul back. I fought for it. First demon to ever choose good, if you believe the Catholic Church."

This barely penetrated. "I staked you. Right in the heart. Twice. I know I did."

"You did. I don't understand exactly why it doesn't work." Everyone had agreed that the phrase 'Gem of Amara' should remain unspoken.

"You have a soul?" Robin lit the cigarette, drew in a lungful of smoke, and promptly had a coughing fit.

"Yeah."

"The Slayer is marrying you. A vampire. A murderous, filthy…."

"I got the soul so I could be by her side, protect her, watch her back. Never thought she'd love me back. Not really." Spike looked at the cigarette in his hand. Had they always tasted this bad?

Robin dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the pavement. He looked at the sky above the garage. "I've gone insane," he said softly.

"No more than anyone else," Spike told him. He squatted down and snuffed out his own cigarette. Standing up, he asked, "Come inside? There's beer." When the young man didn't move, he added, "Blind Pig IPA."

Robin shook his head, but replied, "Okay."

The next half hour was surreal for the young man. Spike talked about his mother as if she was an old friend, telling him stories of how she could walk into any club in New York City, how stylish she was, of how they had even fought together once.

"Why?" He was sitting on the other end of the vampire's couch, holding his third beer between his knees. "If you liked her, why…?"

"Because I had been looking decades for a Slayer worth fighting." Spike's face was solemn. "I'd fought five Slayers before her. The first one, she had a sword." He touched the scar on his brow. "All I had were fangs. By the time I finally tracked down a Slayer, I was… bored with fighting mobs of humans and groups of demons. She was… It was a true battle to the death. It made me feel alive." He lifted a shoulder. "Horrible and selfish as that sounds to my soul."

"How did you get away from the other Slayers?"

"I killed one in Chicago in 1911, Ina Burleigh. She was already hurt, but I didn't know. The rest…" Spike looked down, brow furrowed as if in pain. "I let them go," he said softly. "One of them was injured; the others… weren't as good as the first one I faced. Your mum was the first Slayer I'd found since who could offer me a challenge."

"Dad… Crowley said that you waited for two years."

"I did. I wanted it to be as… even a fight as possible." He grimaced. "No reason to fight if you know the outcome."

"So… she might have killed you that night."

"She nearly did. Had me down…."

There was a long silence. "And now you're protecting a Slayer."

Spike looked at Robin until the tall man met his gaze. "I don't want to tell you this story. Why I was sired, why… an honorable fight is the only one that matters. I could have killed those other Slayers, and it would have made me, well, more infamous in the demon world. But it would have felt… false to me." He gave an angry shrug. "If why matters to you, I'll tell."

"It doesn't matter. Tell me anyway."

Spike closed his eyes for a few seconds, then began with Drusilla's story, the reason he was sired, how that was an excuse for Darla and Angelus to make his unlife hell, and how that led to his anger. He told of throwing out the unwritten rules that vampires lived by after winning the fight with the Chinese Slayer, of a hundred years of Dru's insanity and the final mob in Prague. Spike's expression softened as he recounted the stark contrast between the life he lived and what it was like in the Slayer's world as he researched a cure for Drusilla, the double loss that drove both him and the Slayer from Sunnydale a couple of years ago, the bond of trust they had, and the realization that he could have a place in her world, if he was strong and stubborn enough to reach for it.

Robin was quiet after he finished. He studied the bottle in his hand, his fifth beer. "You couldn't have fallen in love with my mother?"

The blue eyes widened, startled by the thought. "I could, actually. Until Buffy, Nikki was my favorite. But your mum, she wasn't ever going to fall for me. Proper Slayer, that one." He gave the young man a humorless smile. "I introduced myself the wrong way. Besides, I think she was in love with your father."

He turned to him sharply. "My father?"

"Yeah. They weren't together, but he was still in the neighborhood."

"Dad – Crowley said she didn't know who my father was."

"Maybe that's what she told him. They'd known each other since they were kids." He frowned, trying to remember. "Mrs. Wood basically thought he was good-looking but worthless, but Nikki always looked sad when his name came up."

"I was always told that my mother was… liberated."

"Yeah, New York in the seventies. Who wasn't? You're told you aren't going to live past twenty-five, if you're lucky, you'd want to cram all the living you could into the time you got."

"Crowley moved us out of New York for a while after I was born." Robin saw the vampire's eyebrows lift. "I don't remember any of that, but she couldn't stay away. It was all about the mission."

"Buffy tried to quit after that thing with Acathla," Spike said, "but she still ended up fighting demons. Dunno that they can get away from it." He put his empty bottle on the coffee table. "I didn't understand how much they sacrifice until I met Buffy. She really does not like being the Slayer. When a new vampire rises, she thinks back to what she missed the day it was turned. Was she studying? Did she take a minute for herself to go dancing or get an extra hour of sleep? It's a terrible burden, the guilt. Slayers end up… grim."

"I know it's a child's emotion, but I wanted her to put me first." Robin drained his bottle. "Before the mission."

"Parents should put their children first," Spike agreed, "but they're fallible and human. And when your mum is the Slayer, she has to go out and save the world so you'll have a place to grow up."

Robin's expression softened. "She did save the world, once. Dad's favorite story about her."

He didn't notice that Spike's expression had hardened. Nikki saved the world. Once. This might be one of those nights that he didn't feel like he could live up to his own mission.

"You should be dust, twice over." When this got no reply, Robin glanced over. "I came here to kill you. I didn't believe it really could be you, but I would do the same thing again." The vampire closed his eyes and didn't respond. "You didn't fight back."

"No."

"Because it didn't matter what I did."

"No, because you deserved your shot. And I won't fight against the good guys. My choice." He met Robin's glare, and there was a clear light in his eyes.

The human looked down. "I don't know what I'm going to do about Dad." Robin's voice was low and even.

"It isn't my place to give you advice."

"If I tell him the truth, he'll come here as soon as he's on crutches."

"Me, I could care less. But I won't let him harass Buffy."

Robin nodded at the hard tone. "He blames her for getting in touch with my grandmother."

"Instead of himself from stealing her only remaining link to her daughter?"

Brown eyes flashed to the vampire at these harsh words. "It is… indefensible." He looked down. "But… I had a really good childhood. He loves me."

"And you love him." Spike's tone gentled. "Again, it isn't my place to give advice, but I can tell you that the only thing that's important as the years go by is love. You've got two people who love you and want to be in your life. You don't have to choose between them. Neither he nor Mrs. Wood – er, Jones is young. She'll never forgive him, but only you can decide if you can."

"You haven't asked me to forgive you."

For a long moment, Spike couldn't find words. "I won't. I wouldn't expect you to." He looked down at his bare feet. "Any apology I offer would be inadequate… offensive. I am sorry, and my conscience…." He stood abruptly and went to the window, not seeing the beautiful ocean view. "I never looked for Slayers to fight after Nikki. Knowing your mother changed me."

 _Good morning, sweetie. How did your surfing lesson go?_

Spike closed his eyes. _In a bit, love. Got company._

He wanted to get the human out of their house before she came, because Buffy would know his turmoil. Right now, he was trying to keep this encounter about Robin Wood.

"Nikki was principled and badass, everything a Slayer could be. I saw that," he turned and put a hand to his chest, "a monster saw that, marked it. It took a hundred and twenty years for a demon, sired for reasons that were… mistaken to begin with, to figure out that it – " Spike broke off, let out his breath. He went to Robin's end of the couch and knelt down in front of him, hands loose on his thighs, making himself as vulnerable as he could. "I am sorry I didn't figure it out sooner. Nothing that I can do will make it right."

Robin looked directly at the vampire kneeling in front of him. The monster who killed his mother.

And when he did, Spike ruthlessly unleashed his mesmer. "Forgiveness is not for me, it's for you. Forgive me, forgive Crowley, forgive Buffy for telling your grandmother. Forgive your mother for putting her mission first. Feel light inside. Feel compassionate toward Crowley. Tell him that Buffy staked the monster who killed your mother, that she's engaged to a boring, normal man. Let yourself be free to love both your grandmother and Crowley. Don't think about me or the Slayer often." He rose up from his knees, keeping his eyes and will on the human. "Turn right when you leave my driveway. Go to the beach and walk off the beers. All that I've told you to do, turn it over in your mind, decide that these things are the best things for you. Rise; tell me that I'm not worth another moment of your time. Leave." As Robin stood up, eyes locked on his, he added, "Don't come back to Sunnydale." He dropped his gaze, broke the mesmer.

"I don't need your apologies." Robin sneered down at him. "In a couple of weeks, I graduate with my doctorate. I've got a lot of good things going on in my life. You aren't worth my time."

"Too right," Spike whispered, not watching as the tall man strode away. He wanted to sink onto the floor. Instead, he waited until he heard the rental car pull away from the house and went outside to put up the bedstead and other bits of the project.

Buffy found him sitting on the floor of the garage, leaning against the door frame, when she drove up ten minutes later. "What's wrong?" she asked, going to him. She sank down and pulled him into her arms.

"Dunno if I did right," he said roughly, wiping his face. He had cried for a few minutes after opening up to her about the visit. "Mesmer's a violation, too, but I couldn't have him or the old Watcher coming after you."

 _He wasn't into the revenge. I could see it in his face. I think… you just nudged him toward where he was going._ Buffy's expression grew troubled. _I can't condone what you did, but I know why you did it._

 _To make it easier on myself._

 _To keep an impossible situation from coming about. If Crowley did come here, there's no way it could end well._ She thought for a moment. _The best outcome would be that an old man gets hauled off for a psychiatric evaluation._

He saw what she meant, an old man claiming that a man of his apparent age had murdered a grown woman with his bare hands in 1977, when he maybe would have been in preschool. The set of his shoulders didn't ease.

 _What's really wrong?_

 _I've never been confronted like that for what I did._

 _Spike, you scourge yourself over what you did. Every four days, almost like clockwork._

His eyes flew to her, wide. "What?"

She touched his nose with her finger, a sorrowful look on her face. "You don't brood, and I appreciate that. But I feel it afterwards, like a bruise. I know when you leave the bedroom and go to the roof." _I know that you go a few rounds with your guilt and remorse on a regular basis._

He turned his head. _How can you even bear to touch me?_

"Because I love you." _What's really bothering you?_

 _I'm not sorry. I couldn't make myself say it._ He stood up and walked away from her into the sunshine. _Buffy… Every step I took after I dug my way out of my grave, that was a step toward you._ He turned to face her now, his gaze intense. _Including what happened with Nikki._

He came back to her and took her hands, kneeling before her before placing his forehead on her hands. _Our life is so good; I'm so happy, it fucking scares me. If I did even one thing different…_ His thoughts failed him; he showed her an image of Giles waving off a stupid git of a vampire who got lucky in a fight with a Slayer once, a world where there had never been a Pax Aurelius, where one or the other of them died when he came to Sunnydale. _What kind of monster am I that I can't tell a boy I'm sorry I killed his mum?_

 _An honest one._ Tears ran down her face. Buffy hauled him to his feet and leaned into him. _You really need to learn how to lie. Humans do that kind of thing all the time._

He pulled away from her, staring. "What?" She had surprised him twice in five minutes.

 _You swore to be honest with me. Not with everyone. I think it would be better to lie to Robin Wood than to whammy him into getting to a place of forgiveness. Or, then again, maybe you saved him years of therapy._ He was still looking at her, shocked. _Spike, I know what you are, what you were, who you had to be to survive long enough to… become something better. And I know I'm really good at denial. I don't want to know details; I didn't want to know with Angel, either. The sins, crimes… they matter. They matter to you. If they didn't, I wouldn't love you._

 _I don't see how you can._

 _Your soul does. It forgave you. You remember, the soul that helps you choose good every day, after you chose it once, the choice that no other demon has ever made?_

 _It doesn't mean I deserve forgiveness._

 _No one deserves forgiveness. You don't earn it._ When he didn't reply, she nodded behind them. "Why is there a bed frame in here?"

"I, uh, was reinforcing the joints."

"So it's strong, but ugly?"

"Well, I was going to paint it."

She looked at it. "White?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, let's paint it."

"So, we're officially changing the subject."

She raised a brow at his neutral tone. "You had a visitor who upset you. We talked." Buffy took his hand. "Do you want to talk more?"

After a moment of searching her face and seeing no shadows there, he squeezed her fingers. "No."

⸹

May 2000

⸹

"Joyce made lasagna last night," Spike said, coming in the unlocked door. Giles looked up, puzzled by this announcement. The blond man lifted a container. "There's enough leftovers for lunch for us both."

"Ah."

"Last pages of the penultimate book, then we're down to the dregs of the Master's collection."

"Since I've destroyed all the rest, do you want to skip the last one?"

"What, and miss more purple prose about the mighty Old Ones?"

"Mmm." Whatever Giles was working on, it had his full attention. Calendars, from the look of it.

Spike put the lasagna in the refrigerator and settled on the floor with a couple of dictionaries and the book. They were quiet for the next hour, and, truthfully, Spike needed the routine. Robin Wood's visit over the weekend had thrown him badly.

"Bollocks," he swore some time later, moving books around. "Where's the Phoenician dictionary gotten to?"

"Shelf behind you," Giles offered, never looking up.

"Tea?"

"That would be lovely."

Spike stood up, stretched, and put on the water to heat. He found the dictionary he needed and went back to the book.

"Spike? The kettle?"

He looked up. "What? Oh." He wasn't sure how long it had been whistling. Quickly throwing together two cups to steep, he went back to the floor by the couch, scribbling on a pad of paper.

At one o'clock, Giles sighed and closed one of his books. Spike was still working on the last pages of the same book, his forgotten tea black and cold beside him. The Watcher leaned over and picked it up. The blond man never noticed.

A few minutes later, Giles lightly kicked Spike's thigh to get his attention, then handed him a plate of reheated lasagna. "Take a break, even if you found something good." He saw that Spike had a California atlas spread out alongside the books.

"Oh. Thank you." He took the plate and rolled out his neck, then joined Giles on the couch. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, and I don't envy anyone living in 2319."

"So, what do I need to do in 2319?"

"Put together a coven of really strong white witches, would be my advice."

"I'll put it on the to-do list."

"What about you?"

"I found another reference to those Guardians. They're supposed to have hidden something in the Diablo Range. I've got it narrowed down to one town, Gilroy."

Giles raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty narrow."

Spike scowled. "Around Gilroy. Not so narrow." He flapped a hand at the book. "The author is writing what he heard, not what he knew. Still, at least that's two references to these Guardians being in the backwater that is California."

"If your interpretation is correct."

Spike shot him a look. "Indulge me." He nodded at the book against the far corner of the computer desk. "I've been dreading having to handle that one. Maybe I'm just putting it off."

"Latex gloves under cotton gloves works wonders."

"You double-bag?"

"Your ability to make anything sound dirty is only rivaled by Xander's ability to set himself up for things that sound dirty."

"And thus is comedy born." Spike stood up. "Don't tell Joyce I only had a few bites. I'm not that hungry."

"And you want to get back to your dubious scholarship."

"I'd like to knock out that last book this afternoon. It's Latin; how hard can it be? Thanks for the tip about the gloves," he added.

Giles went out to run errands, and by the time he got back, Spike had finished and was perusing the Watcher's vinyl collection. Genesis' _Selling England by the Pound_ was on the turntable. Instead of lobbing a loaded comment at his countryman, Giles went over and put a hand on his shoulder. "All done, then?"

"Yeah." Spike nodded toward the record player. "Needed something to cleanse my palette."

"Anything worth saving in the book?"

"No. Burn it with ritual flames. The other one, too."

Giles raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I have everything I can get out of it."

He almost said something about Spike getting more out of it than was actually in it, when he noticed that all of the lights were on. Giles squeezed his shoulder instead and went over to the couch.

Spike put away the liner notes of a Joni Mitchell album and joined him. 'Firth of Fifth' came on, and he smiled. "You want to know something odd? This is the first time I've heard this song."

His soul, Giles realized. "Oh? Do you like it?"

"I do, Rupes." The smile became a full on grin. "If I'd have been a wanker that didn't like, say, punk rock, I'd be disappointed in myself."

The scholar in him came to the fore. "With a background in classical music, I'm rather surprised by that."

"Classical? Try _Hymns Ancient and Modern_." Spike snorted. "The first time I heard a Spanish guitar, I was hooked. And when I was in America and heard the blues…" He shook his head. "I love about any sound that can be wrung out of a guitar."

"Do you ever think of taking your instrument again?"

Spike shook his head. "Not interested. I don't care to play alone."

Giles narrowed his eyes. Spike had just passed up the chance to make a double entendre about masturbation. That last book from the Master's collection must have been brutal. He took a breath and made an offering. "I've been playing again."

The blond man turned to him. "You play?"

Giles nodded, a little embarrassed. "Not having a full time job… It's not the worst hobby, I guess." He lifted his hands. "It's frustrating how often I choke the strings, just because I can't feel them."

"Acoustic or electric?"

"Acoustic. Don't want to bother the neighbors."

"Well, you know you have to drag it out now."

He let himself be persuaded without too much effort. Giles had been working on "Behind Blue Eyes" and wanted to test it out on an audience. Just as he was about to finish, someone knocked on the door.

"That'll be the irate neighbors," he sighed.

Spike went over the couch like a big cat and came up beside the door, opening it to reveal a red-haired young man with a guitar case. "Oz," he said, surprised.

"Hey." He lifted his case. "I heard music."

Giles put down the instrument. "Come in, come in." He still felt uncomfortable hugging former students, but surely this was an appropriate occasion. "I'm so glad to see you."

Oz came in, shook Spike's hand, and settled down in the easy chair. "I didn't know," he said, then gestured to the wall, "but I should have guessed from the vinyl."

Spike put his hands in the air. "And he sings well, too. Watcher Boy is full of surprises."

"How have you been, Oz?"

He put his guitar case down carefully, thinking about his answer. "Better."

"…That's good." Giles replied, fishing for more.

"I went by the dorm to see Willow. No one was there."

"Next week is finals," Spike said. "It seems like the schedule gets weird during 'dead week.'"

Oz nodded. "How is she?"

"Well, I think. Her ability with magic is coming along at a tremendous clip."

Spike sent an incredulous look at Giles. "She was shattered last fall, mate." He glared at Oz. "We weren't afraid to leave her alone, exactly, but we didn't leave her alone."

Oz closed his eyes. "I felt the same. I almost killed her."

Giles gave Spike a reproachful look. "The werewolf did. You mustn't blame yourself for –"

"Magically speaking, why would it be… permissible for the werewolf to influence me, but not for me to influence it? If it could make human me pay attention to," he said the next word as though it hurt, "Veruca and hurt Willow's feelings, why can't I influence it?"

Spike tilted his head and examined Oz. "So now you can?" When the young man nodded, he grinned. "Fuck all these rules about what can and can't be done."

Giles was gaping. "How, exactly, do you influence it? Do you remain aware when you turn?"

"I don't." He saw that Giles didn't understand. "Turn, I mean."

"You don't turn?" Oz nodded again. "How is this possible?"

"An order of Tibetan monks here in the States taught me some chants and meditation techniques, but there are a couple of charms. Herbs, too."

Giles was shaking his head at this gloss over what had to be a tremendous amount hard work. "The full moon is tomorrow…."

"I won't change." Oz leaned over, opened his guitar case, and brought out his instrument. Both of them watched him carefully, because he was obviously troubled and unwilling to go on. "I would have been back sooner, but I waited an extra lunar cycle to make sure." He laid it on his lap like it was a steel guitar and stared at it. "Will she even want to see me?"

"Yes."

"Of course she will."

"Don't build it up as something melodramatic, mate. Willow didn't stop loving you. She did, however –"

"Spike, now's not –"

"– start loving someone else."

Oz clenched his jaw and turned away. "Who is he?"

"No, mate. She." Giles shook his head, but Spike shrugged. He had to be told.

Oz forgot about control and werewolf management and even his guitar. The body of it slid from his lap to the floor. "What?!"

Spike leaned forward, earnest. "Willow mourned you like you were dead. Do not think that she doesn't love you still. Red wasn't looking for someone else. She met a new friend at a Wicca group, February, I think. It took her a while to realize it was more than friendship."

Oz picked up his guitar numbly, cradled it. "She… a girl."

"Daniel Osbourne," Spike said, his voice deep as a grave, pulling Oz's blue eyes to him. "Are you listening to me?"

Those eyes narrowed. "Yes."

Spike nodded once, feeling Giles studying him intently. "Willow still loves you. Think about that. Think about how it would feel if you did something colossally stupid and ruined that."

Oz furrowed his brow. "You think I can win her back?"

"I never said that. I think there are easily a dozen ways you can kill any chance of ever being in her life again. Do not hurt her."

Once he was sure that no mesmer was afoot, Giles let out a breath and added his own advice. "She was devastated when you left, and she'll be delighted that you're back."

"Buffy and I are getting married next month," Spike said, still willing Oz to hear what he was saying.

"Uh… congratulations."

"No, you nit," Spike groaned, exasperated. "The reason I'm even in her life is because I put her happiness before my own. Because it's about her. And I have to think, since you went off to find a way to break out of the supernatural box you were in, just like I did, that for you, it's about Willow. Not you."

"It is."

Giles pulled out his phone. "Here's her cell number. Call her." He tossed a look at Spike. "He dithered around almost a week after coming back to Sunnydale before he got in touch with Buffy. She was angrier about that than anything."

"True."

Oz glanced at the number and memorized it. He let out a breath. "Do you mind if we run through 'Behind Blue Eyes' a couple of times? I'm not dithering, just…."

Giles nodded, understanding. Spike had been listening to music to clear his mind of the miasma of evil from the Master's book. Music would help Oz center himself again.

The third time the other two went through the song, Spike found his fingers twitching. Oz noticed, and when he stood up, he handed his guitar to Spike, then nodded toward the landline. "Giles, may I use your phone?"

Giles plucked at strings and tuned his already in-tune instrument, and Spike placed his hands along the frets of the electric guitar, seeing how much muscle memory he had after thirty-odd years. They did a credible job of ignoring Oz until Willow's breathy voice said, "Hey, Giles."

"It's Oz," the young man said. "Hi."

"Oz? Oh, God, Oz! Where are you? Are you all right?" She took a breath. "You're at Giles'?"

"Yeah. I'd like to see you, if that's okay."

"Of course! I'm heading to my dorm room. If Buffy's there, maybe she can give me a ride to –"

"I'll come there. My campus parking sticker's still good."

"I-I'll be there. Oz, it's so good to hear your voice."

"See you quick as I can." He hung up the phone and leaned against the door frame for a moment. His eyes were bright when he turned around. "Okay."

Giles stood up as Spike packed the electric guitar back into its case. "Good luck. As much as it pains me to say so, Spike gave you some solid advice."

Oz nodded. "Once I see her… I hope I don't need advice."

Spike stood and handed him the guitar case. He gave him an encouraging smile, too, and nodded his farewell. The two Brits waited until they heard the van pull away before Spike spoke. "Well, this is painful. Wish I didn't like all Red's people so much. She can pick them."

Giles nodded and ran a hand over his hair. "I'd just labelled Tara 'nice' until last week. She isn't just a strong witch, she's a strong person. She's been so good with Jonathan after that spell. You know, that might be a start of a coven."

"I still think he must have magnified something in Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik venom. Helluva spell." Spike shook his head, coming back to the moment. "Red won't dump Tara."

"No, of course not. Tara will probably try to bow out, though."

"Yeah, not real confident yet. We'll get her up to our unrealistic levels of self-esteem in about a decade."

Giles chuckled. "Speak for yourself. I'm far above such petty concerns." Spike had pulled out his cell phone and was pressing buttons. "What are you up to now?"

"Letting everyone else know that Oz is back and to give Red some space."

"We should get Tara a cell phone, too." By the time Spike was finished, he was standing by the computer and frowning. "Where did you learn to type?"

"Got a typing program a few years back, when it became obvious we weren't going to be talking to computers anytime soon."

"Those work?"

"Like anything, you put time into it. Learning the keyboard layout was the biggest hurdle." He nodded at Giles' hands. "Would it hurt or help your fingers?"

"I don't know." He absently massaged the last fingers on his right hand. "Part of the reason I've taken up the guitar again is to keep them limber," he admitted.

"I wish I could have thought of some better way in that house on Crawford, Rupert. It had to be after dawn. Angelus never was one for a standup fight. He'd have scarpered if it had been at night."

"I'm alive," Giles said, shrugging. "How many can say that after Angelus captured them."

Spike thought about this seriously, of people that Angelus had let live so they would be blamed for crimes done to their families or so he could hunt them down later, then realized that would not be a useful conversation. "You're quite the singular human, Rupert."

⸹

"So, after they talk all night, Willow has to go turn in a paper." Buffy was leaning on Spike's chest, propping up just enough to look at him in the dim light of the single candle she'd lit.

"I can't believe that Oz has enough words to talk all night. 'Talk,' maybe."

"No, she swears it was just talking, laying on the bed fully clothed and talking."

"And maybe some hand-holding?"

"I think there was. So, anyway, right after Willow leaves, Tara shows up and there's Oz, answering the door."

"Ouch."

"So, she's trying to beg off, and he's all, oh, you must be Tara."

"Wait, how do you know this?"

"Tara told Willow, who told her bestie everything."

"Go on. My breath is all bated."

"So Tara didn't flee, but she's thinking of course she's history because someone with more self-esteem is back in the picture. She just sort of stood there, shocked that no secrets are being kept and there's, like, maturity going on. And then Oz gets this odd look on his face and tells her she smells like his pack."

"After he smelled her on Willow all night, that'd be about right."

Buffy made the little nose-crinkle she always made when she remembered how much vampires learn from their sense of smell. "So, he gets her to come inside, and she's sitting all awkward on my bed while he thanks her for making Willow happy."

"Good on him."

"So, then Willow comes back, and they all go get breakfast. Tara asks Oz about his music, then he finds out she knows something called shape note singing, and then Willow sits there and eats all the muffins while they talk because she's easy prey for carbs when she's been up all night."

"Mmm."

"Oz is enrolling for the fall semester. And, just to be sure, Willow is going to that crypt with the bars with him tonight. He asked."

"Is it clear?" Spike lifted his head, concerned. "I mean, I've seen some, uh, use of that cage."

"I don't know," she admitted. "How have we not thought of that?"

He grinned. "Too public for my taste."

Buffy pulled herself higher and kissed him. "I'm going to miss you." Her wedding dress was finished.

"Not much, what with all those Bergdorfs and Saks and Nordstroms and Bloomingdales."

She grinned. "Okay, okay, I'll have a ton of fun. But it'll be just us girls. I'll miss your," her hands wandered, "testosterone."

"B'lieve it will miss you right back."

⸹

Spike leaned against the Bentley and watched the prop plane rise into the air. He lifted a hand, though he knew it was unlikely anyone saw him. Buffy was off to New York to pick up her wedding dress, taking all the interesting females in Sunnydale with her. Even Tara had been persuaded to go. Like Spike, she hadn't flown before, and he grinned a little as he thought of how excited she had been.

He got in the convertible and went to the exit. No one was behind him, not at this sleepy little airport, and he sat at the intersection for a moment, thinking. It was early in the morning, long hours until patrol tonight. He didn't particularly feel like surfing, and he was already dressed nicely. Spike opened the console and got out the GPS he'd bought as a birthday present for himself. He put it on the dash mount and stared at it for a moment. Impulsively, he turned north.

This was a fool's errand, and he knew it. Four hours of a straight drive north up 101, for no real reason. Giles had been clear about his opinion. The Master had made no notes on the pages that mentioned the Guardians.

Still, Slayers had never been the Master's interest, and he might not have made anything of the information. Why seek a weapon you can't use, anyway? Sighing, afraid to get his hopes up, Spike decided Gilroy was as good a place as any to stop for petrol and junk food. He drove onto the ramp.

He bought a city map at the convenient store and asked for directions to the local public library. The disinterested clerk just shrugged, but his manager was female. She smiled at Spike and offered to let him see her phonebook. He flirted with her and was at the library ten minutes later.

He loved libraries. Librarians, too, for that matter. This one was pushing sixty and got his information needs out of him faster than Darla could get a john out of his trousers. She sat him down at a table and had material on the oldest buildings in Gilroy spread out in front of him before he'd been in the library more than three minutes. His eyes kept straying to the address for the mission.

Sometimes, it was like this, like a strong wind was at his back. He half expected to hear the flap of wings, for a kestrel to land on the globe that stood at one end of the reference desk. There was no sense of déjà vu, no feeling that this had all been rehearsed. Instead, he felt like he was hearing a tone, and if he tilted his head just so, the frequency grew stronger.

Spike stacked the materials and took them back to the desk. He thanked the librarian. As he walked out to his car, he sent a text to Giles, asking for a bit of information. Then Spike went to the Gilroy mission.

The mission was active, staffed by a benevolent order. They welcomed him. A middle-aged monk in a clerical collar gave him a tour. "The mission was built before our order took over," he said, showing Spike a typical monk's cell. "We –"

"I'm so sorry," Spike interrupted, tilting his head, as if listening. "What's down that hallway?"

The priest looked at him curiously. "You haven't been here before?"

"No."

"We have a small collection of old tapestries down here." He obligingly led the way. "Nothing like you have in Europe," he added, having noted Spike's accent, "but we're quite proud of them. Brother Salvatore went to Vatican City for a workshop on how to clean and preserve them a few years ago."

Spike nodded, not listening to the monk but to the tone in his head. No, his blood, blood that had changed when he had drained a Slayer a hundred years before. He went to a small tapestry, tilted his head, and gently lifted it from the hanger.

"Oh, they're fragile, you shouldn't…" The brother took a couple of steps closer. The little room was dimly lit, and he peered at the bas-relief that had been behind the tapestry, at the pattern and the foreign words. "I didn't know that was there." He peered at Spike. "How did you know?"

"It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield." Gooseflesh broke out over his arms, a sensation almost unprecedented in his long unlife.

"That's what those words say?"

Spike nodded. Just as gently, he hung the tapestry back on its hook. "Thank you, father. Might I ask…?" His cell phone beeped. He had to smile; of course it did. Pulling it from his pocket, he knew the text message from Giles would contain a telephone number. "I have to ask if I could arrange a phone call between Bishop Rossi in the Vatican and the head of your order. Something that's been lost a very long time," he laid his hand on the wall that lay between him and the ringing tone, "has just turned up."

The tone stilled.

⸹

"Your dress is beautiful," Cordelia said. She had joined them at LAX for the direct flight to New York City. Now she was on her hotel bed, along with Buffy and Anya, who had left Joyce in the adjoining room to sleep. Tara and Willow sat on the other double bed. The long gown hung in a place of honor on the closet door.

"It is," Anya agreed.

"Your dresses are beautiful, too," Buffy said. Then, anxious, "Aren't they?"

"It's gorgeous," Willow assured her.

"It is," Cordelia said absently. "I mean, it is a bridesmaid's dress. I won't wear it again unless it's a super-formal party, but it's pretty."

Buffy pretended to flick sweat from her brow. Truthfully, if Cordelia said the dress was okay, she believed her.

"Just about another month," Anya mused. "Then Spike will be Mr. Buffy Summers."

She laughed. "Mr. Spike Summers." She laughed again. "Which does kind of sound silly. Mr. William Summers."

"I've said it before," Cordelia mused, "you're insanely brave."

"To be getting m-married?" Tara asked, wanting clarification.

Cordelia nodded. "It scares me to death. I figured my parents didn't care enough to get divorced, but one little bankruptcy and, bam!"

"My mom and dad are together," Willow said, "but I don't know if they're happy."

"I don't know if m-my parents were happy, either," Tara admitted. Willow patted her shoulder.

"And my parents…" Buffy stood up abruptly and walked to the window. They had a partial view of the New York skyline. She crossed her arms, hugging herself. "Maybe I'm not all that brave."

Willow's brows drew together at the quiet admission. She sat up. "Buffy?"

"I'm just nineteen," Buffy said, turning back to her friends. "I haven't seen anybody get this right."

"I shouldn't have said anything. It's cold feet, Buffy. That's all." Cordelia gave her a reassuring look.

The Slayer shook her head. She'd washed off her makeup and brushed her hair back as she got ready for bed. She barely looked fifteen. "I'm too young to get married."

"The women's magazines say you shouldn't get married until after twenty-five or –six," Anya supplied. "That way, your personality has settled and you've had a chance to be on your own before pledging yourself to another for the rest of your life."

Buffy's eyes widened. "Oh, God. What if I'm actually somebody else? Somebody Spike can't stand?"

Willow covered a smile. "I don't think Spike will ever not love you."

"But what if I hurt him? I'm nineteen; I have no idea how to handle forever. I can barely grasp a year."

Cordelia stood up and went to hug her. "So, you're getting married young. You're not just anybody. You're the Slayer. It's okay."

Buffy looked up at her. That was always in the back of her own mind, no matter what Spike said about his mission.

"Buffy?" Tara swallowed a little of the word, struggling to get out her thought. She sat up beside her girlfriend. "Y-you d-don't have to m-marry. Love is enough. J-just love."

Buffy watched her fingers slide into Willow's, saw the look they exchanged. They couldn't get married, even if they felt ready. She felt silly, suddenly, and gave them a cheerful smile. Turning to give Cordelia a hug, she said, "You're right. It's cold feet. Maybe I am too young, but I'm going to be a gorgeous, unwrinkled bride."

"You're really okay?" Willow asked carefully. Best friend subtext was that they could talk more in private.

"I'm really okay," Buffy said, her tone certain. "I am. I'm getting married to my other best friend, the one I'm crazy in love with. I'm totally okay."

⸹

"Spike?"

"Hmm?"

"Wanna go get that vampire pretending to be just another shadow?"

"Uh… yeah. Let's."

Xander ended up staking it, since it ran from Spike straight into him. "Well, that's one technique," he said, slapping at his Hawaiian shirt. He pointed at Spike with his chin. "What's up tonight, with the elsewhere?"

The blond man waved a vague hand in the air. "Got stuff on my mind."

"Wedding stuff?"

"Yeah." He followed up the lie with a truth. "Miss her."

"Figured you guys talk all the time."

"No, usually try to give each other privacy through the day."

"Oh. Well, I understand. Sometimes I wish Anya gave me more privacy."

"You should get in the habit of stopping by a pub on your way home, have a moment for yourself."

"Yeah, not so much with the pub-stopping. I'm trying to not be my dad."

Spike nodded, having nothing to add to that. "Well, maybe go by a gym or take a run. Do something for yourself before you get home."

"Judo is pretty much all I can squeeze in right now, and that's just because my boss is also my instructor."

"It's how I managed all those years with Dru, finding my own interests." He smiled fondly. "She never cared much for the same music as me, especially not in the later years."

They crossed the street and headed toward the Restfield. Spike put his hand on Xander's chest as they came to the gate. "To the left," he murmured. Xander nodded, raising his arm so his stake was at the right angle. The vampires expected to jump out from the open gates and grab the people walking past. Instead, the people jumped through the entrance and staked them.

"Better," Xander said approvingly.

"Yeah, well, let's talk about something interesting."

"Not wedding talk?"

"That would do it."

"How about gossip? Oz kissed Willow."

Spike raised a hand to his mouth and gave a passable squeal. "Omigod? On the mouth?"

"Yes! Yeah, actually, he did."

"How'd she take it?"

"Reciprocally, for about a second. Then she ran home and confessed to Tara. Said she was surprised into it."

"Have you been to their new apartment?"

"Yes, and it already looks more like a home than the house I lived in all my life. If you like color, anyway."

"So, how long until Oz moves in?"

"Tara: lesbian. Willow: bisexual, just based on her relationships. Oz: het. No way that could work."

"No, I just meant, he's a homeless musician. They usually live with girlfriends."

"Oh. His family lives in Sunnydale. Devon is putting together a Dingoes tour for next month, into July if he can get the bookings. Oz is accepting a small drop in cool and living at his parents' until then."

"What if Tara is bisexual, too?" Spike mused.

"Just, no, because that's disrespectful to Tara. Also because not even Oz deserves to play in a rock band and have two hot girlfriends." Both men slowed as they reached the far corner of the graveyard. The shadows were deeper here. After they were clear, Xander went on. "But I will tell you that Oz told me that he likes the way Tara smells. He said she smells, and I quote, 'fertile.'"

Spike looked over at him, chuckling. "She'll pan his head in, he ever says that in front of her."

"Yeah." He started to say something, then stopped.

"No, go on."

"Anya's ideal threesome now includes Tara."

He chuckled again. "I do not have the stones to ask Buffy that question." He lifted a shoulder and, just to see if he could get Xander to do a full body shudder, added, "It's probably Giles."

"Urrk," Xander said, shuddering. He was silent until they were back on the street, heading to campus. "I think it's that she's so nice and is more, er," he made circular movements over his chest, "blessed than the other ladies we know."

"So, what's Anya doing to keep busy?"

"I'm not sure. She says she has something in mind, but isn't going to share until she's sure she can do it."

"Well, that sounds reasonable."

"Yeah," Xander said, "reasonable, that's my girl." He frowned suddenly. "What are those lights? Something finally being done to demolish the high school?"

Spike looked west. "Glow looks like fire. Sodium lights would be steadier."

They exchanged a glance and changed direction. Before they were halfway there, the ground rumbled beneath them.

Xander, a California native, automatically checked around them for power lines, trees, or other things that might topple over. He pulled Spike to the center of the empty street. "Glad Buffy isn't here. She hates earthquakes."

Spike frowned. "Isn't May prime apocalypse time?"

Xander lifted a shoulder. "Ahh, it's the Hellmouth. Any month…" He trailed off and blinked once. They stared at each other.

 _Hellmouth._

They pelted as fast as they could toward the fiery nimbus over the skeletal remains of Sunnydale High School. Spike, who didn't need air for aerobic activity, pulled out his mobile. "Pick up, pick up… Giles! Xander and I on our way to the Hellmouth. Earthquake, what looks like fire, smell of sulfur in the air."

"I'll be right there with the potion to close it. Be careful."

"Rupert's on his way." Another tremor pushed its way beneath and past them.

Xander grabbed Spike's arm to steady himself, then pushed him toward the school. "Go on. See who's doing this. I'll catch up."

He nodded once and put his head down, putting on a burst of vampire speed. "Déjà vu," he muttered to himself, "probably Vahralls again." Instead of going through the damp, nasty hallways to the library, he went to the side and leapt onto the remnants of the library's outside wall. His jump coincided with another rumble and one of his handholds fell away. A large chunk of masonry crashed into his left hip, making him wince. On the plus side, it masked any noise that might have been overheard by the lone figure he'd glimpsed inside.

Spike shook himself clear of the debris and went to the shadows of the trees that still stood at the edge of the schoolyard. He speed-dialed again. When Giles answered, he gave out details as fast as he could. "One hooded figure, white robe, three candles: black, red, and white. Largish book, looks old, reciting from it. Outside the library windows; easiest way in now."

"Just turned off Wilkins. Three minutes."

Spike closed his phone, ending the terse conversation. He was about to start back to the library wall when Xander ran past him fifteen yards away. Before the blond man could lift a foot in pursuit, the largest quake yet hit. _Idiot_ , he berated himself, _stand right under a tree._

The tree and most of its branches held, but the earth did not. In the schoolyard, Xander's arms were out to help him balance, but the next time his foot came down, there was no longer any ground to meet it. A jagged crack opened up, and Xander tumbled inside. He didn't even have time to cry out.

For decades, Spike had carried emergency weapons and other oddments in his long leather coat. Now that he no longer wore it, now that he had a mission, he had to change things up. It started with ripping out the lining of his new leather jacket. Buffy had been chained up in the past, so he rigged a pocket for a sheathed bayonet that served as a wire cutter as well as a weapon. She had been slimed by a variety of demons, so he kept a packet of wet wipes in another pocket. Sometimes she needed to tie up the less lethal types, so he had a handful of zip ties.

And then there were times when the Hellmouth opened up. Spike ripped open the Velcro opening that gave him access to a carabiner. It was knotted to a seventy-meter length of climbing rope looped around the inside of his jacket dozens of times. He'd thought of it as a bit of body armor as well. He hadn't needed any of these tools before tonight.

As he grabbed it, the rope unspooled perfectly. "Hold, hold," he told the nearest tree. Spike wrapped the rope around it three times, clipped it back through the carabiner, and set off for the rent in the ground. A sullen red glow came from the crack, and he could smell sulfur. Spike shrugged out of his jacket and stomped down on it to anchor it against the tug as he finished pulling out the rest of the rope.

"Xander!" The heat and the foul air stung his eyes. Spike looked around, but did not see the human. The crack was narrow, but deep. He was sure this was where Xander had disappeared. Thirty seconds ago? Taking a breath, gripping the rope tightly, Spike jumped into the rift, aiming for the nearest outcropping of rock.

"Xander!" he called again. Nothing. Maybe ten feet down now. The air was so close and thick with sulfur, he didn't think Xander would be able to reply. There, another jut of rock. He went down another six or seven feet. If he could only get a scent….

Spike scrambled down another area, then slid another twelve or so feet as the loosened soil gave way. How much rope was left? He found his attention caught by a dark smudge on the rock. Blood. It was blood; he was made to spot blood. Spike swung over the few feet to this new, gruesome target, and found he could no longer fall. The soil from above had fallen into this even narrower section, filling it.

Fear gave way to a sense of dread. He took the rope in his teeth and began scrabbling at the dirt and pebbles with both hands. He cleared away the soil in a wide path, filled with a sick surety that Xander would be just six inches to one side and he'd miss the lad. Something different… In the dim light, he couldn't see, and he grabbed it hard, thinking it was a branch. Then it moved beneath his fingers.

Xander's forearm. Thank God! Spike had never used vampire speed to dig before, not even when clawing his way out of his grave, but he did so now, fingernails breaking, skin peeling from his knuckles, then his fingertips. A shoulder appeared, then Xander's matted dark hair. Spike smoothed dirt away a bit more carefully.

Xander looked up, his dark eyes unfocused. He wasn't coughing, and Spike realized that his body was under too much pressure for him to breath. He mimed closing his eyes, and Xander did so with a barely perceptible nod. Spike started digging furiously again.

When he could get his hands beneath Xander's armpits, he braced himself against the opposite wall with his legs and heaved the boy upwards as hard as he could. The soil was still loose, and Xander came up a few inches. Heartened, Spike heaved again, then reset his legs for another pull.

The moment his chest came free from the weight of the soil, Xander's eyes and mouth opened. Spike had been expecting this. He pinched his fingers over Xander's nostrils, then grabbed the rope with his other hand instead of his teeth. He sealed his mouth to the lad's as best he could, and gave him the last of his air. If anything, Xander's eyes widened even further. Then Spike put his other hand over his own mouth, willing the human to understand, to hold it in.

He let go and began looping the rope around Xander, under his arms. Spike tied two quick half hitches and resettled himself once more to give a last pull to get Xander's legs free. They came reluctantly, and Xander scrabbled at the dirt and rock behind Spike to help.

That seemed to exhaust the last of his strength, but it was enough. Feeling a sense of urgency, Spike leapt to a spar above, though it was less of a jump and more of a scramble. He pulled Xander up, then did the same thing twice more. Looking up, he could see two or three stars. Close, then.

Just at that moment, the sound/feel of a tremor came again, and pieces of rock and more loose soil slid past them. Spike grabbed Xander close and began hauling them up a foot at a time. Then the rope went slack, dropping them back down into the choking rift. The knot gave, Spike thought tiredly, but something else must have happened, because the rope caught with a jerk after they lost about ten feet of progress.

The quake rolled past them. Spike blinked his eyes to try to clear the grit, then began the slow ascent again. He didn't know when Xander lapsed into unconsciousness or when the blisters on his hands broke; he only knew the hand over hand motion until his fingers couldn't slide up any further. Something with the rope had gone funny.

No, he realized. The rope was bent because they were at the lip of the crack. Almost there. Get out; get Xander out. Then, rest. In a slow-motion mockery of the way he could run up a wall, Spike walked his legs up the opposite side of the rift until he could get one leg over. He snorted at the phrase, scaring himself a little with how scattered his thoughts were. Focus, you git. He rolled up over the edge, lying still for a moment, looking at the dark sky and the handful of stars. He saw that the tree where he'd tied off had toppled over, explaining the slack that had dropped them back into the rift.

The rift. Pushing away the exhaustion, he leaned over and hauled Xander up by the rope until he could get his arms around the human's chest. Spike staggered to his feet and dragged Xander ten yards from the crack, away from the sulfurous fumes, then collapsed, his head on the lad's chest. He wasn't breathing – no, he was, and then Xander was coughing, spraying out bits of earth. Spike helped him sit up and took a breath of his own. The smell of blood was overwhelming, and he put his dirty, but healed, fingertips against Harris' scalp, finding a gash and a sizable lump. Far away, Spike heard a loud crack. Hellmouth's open, he thought, though he couldn't attach much meaning to that just now.

An instant later, the rift in the ground healed up. The night grew darker as the flames disappeared, then a stray breeze blew away the last of the vapor. 'Wha's goin' on?" Xander asked groggily.

"Dunno."

A figure began walking away from the ruins of the library. No robe, but Spike began to struggle to his feet. Then the figure waved and began walking toward them briskly. It was Giles, carrying a crossbow pointed toward the ground. "Xander?" It was more of a question for Spike than a greeting for the dark-haired man.

"Squished, but okay." Xander got that out, then began coughing again.

"His head," Spike said, "needs stitches, I think." Giles seemed to move oddly to Spike, who examined him as closely as he examined Xander's injury. "You okay, man?"

The ex-Watcher nodded as he pressed his handkerchief against the gash. Xander winced. "Can you walk, Xander? We need to get this looked at. You're bleeding quite a lot."

Spike made a disgusted noise, aimed at himself. "Here," he said, moving Giles improvised compress aside.

"Ewww. You just licked my head, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Smelled your blood, but forgot all about getting you healed up." The vampire shrugged. "You aren't food."

Giles, sounding more like himself, said dryly, "If you're up for it, Spike, could you go into the library and get the book that's laying there?"

He nodded and forced himself upright. Before going to the shell of the school, he reclaimed his jacket. When he came back, the large book was bundled inside of the leather. Spike felt too tired to deal with the touch of something evil.

Xander was sitting up on his own now. "What happened?" he asked Giles, nodding toward the Hellmouth.

"I got here just as Spike went into the crack. Almost ran into the rope, actually." He gave them an apologetic look. "I didn't know what I could do to help, so I chose to go on to the Hellmouth. I could hear the ritual." He stopped and looked away. "Whoever that was, they were summoning something, on their feet and approaching each candle, chanting… I could feel the magic increasing; the spell was close to being cast… I shot them in the back," he lifted the crossbow, then stood up from where he'd been kneeling on the ground. "They tumbled into the Hellmouth, and I threw the potion to close it."

Xander was frowning up at the older man, and Spike said softly, "You okay?"

"I think it was a human. I saw the blood spread, you see, soaking the robe." His listeners got the sense that he was seeing this over again in his mind's eye, and not for the first time.

Xander struggled to get to his feet, and Spike put out a hand. He leaned against the blond man and turned to Giles, gripping his shoulder. "It was someone opening the Hellmouth. They were evil. Don't blame yourself."

Spike tacked on a question, wanting to help Rupert get past this moment. "Any idea about the ritual?"

"Just that it was a summoning. I was surprised the guard dog," which was what they had taken to calling the tentacular beast on the other side of the opening, "wasn't there."

"It had stepped back to let something else through, maybe."

Giles shrugged. "Maybe." He nodded to the book Spike still carried. "Perhaps that will tell us something." He forced a smile that looked too much like a grimace. "Here. Let's get you to A & E, Xander, get that head looked at."

"Is it still bleeding?"

Giles checked. "No."

"I just want to go home, get cleaned up, and let Anya fuss over me."

Giles exchanged a look with Spike, who shrugged. "A-as long as you follow head injury protocol."

"Wake me up periodically. Got it." He looked down and noticed that he was only wearing one boot. "Well, that's just great. The Hellmouth ate one of my boots. I like this pair, too. They were comfortable."

"On the other hand," Giles said dryly, "you're not buried alive and demons haven't issued forth from the Hellmouth."

"But… my boot."

"Take the jacket. I dog-eared the page where it was open." Spike held out the large volume to Giles to end the performance, flashing a grateful look at Xander. If Giles was scolding, he was on solid ground. "I'll finish up patrol."

"I can come back out."

"No, but thanks," he reassured the Watcher. "We only had campus and the east side graveyards left." He was also going to have to hunt; while the others knew he still drank from humans, he was careful that they never saw him. "I'll call Buffy in the morning and let her know."

As it turned out, Buffy contacted him. Spike woke up a little after seven, halfway across their bed. He'd collapsed on top of the covers after a quick shower.

 _Spike?_

' _Lo, love._

 _Good morning, sleepyhead._

 _You already talked to Giles?_

 _He called this morning. I missed the excitement, I guess._

 _Yeah. Not sorry. There was an earthquake._

 _Me, either. Giles said Xander went on in to work this morning._

 _Oh. That's good._

 _Giles said that whoever it was, they were an amateur. They were trying to raise Angal… Anglaw… Well, they were supposed to wait for the new moon to summon that demon._

 _It would have eaten them for messing up the ritual._

 _Yeah, but it might have eaten a lot of other people, too. Good thing you guys were there._

 _Doing our job._

 _Giles is bitching about conjuring up more ritual fire for the big book o' summoning they used._

 _Yeah, he just finished up with the Master's books._

They were sitting side by side in their booth at the Sit N Bull. She put out a hand and caressed his cheek. _Go on back to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow._

Spike perked up. _Can't wait, love._

 _Me either. Sleep well._

⸹

Buffy blinked. "It's a rock." She'd barely had a chance to drop her dress at the seamstress shop where she'd have her final fitting before Spike captured her and drove her for four hours to a town in the Diablo Range. He'd been maddeningly closemouthed. At least she'd had a chance to sleep on the way. He'd taken her to a little mission, where Giles was waiting for them. The brothers seemed to be doing some remodeling, knocking out a wall or something. They had led them down a little hallway, then left them alone.

Spike was grinning. "Yeah."

"It's, uh, a really big rock." She gave her fiancé a narrow look. He was looking entirely too pleased with himself for this to be a joke. Still, she held up her left hand, fingers turned so he could see the ring. "You've already given me a really big rock." When he didn't react, she nodded toward the inscription. "What's that say?"

"'It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield.'" Giles shook his head, still bemused that such slight information had led here.

Frowning now, Buffy walked into the alcove and, with a slight hesitation, she laid her palm against the side of the tall, roughhewn rectangle of stone. "It's warm," she said, surprised.

Giles touched it cursorily. "Not to me."

"Me, either," Spike said.

"There's something in it," Buffy murmured, placing her other hand against the rock and pressing, "inside the rock, I mean."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, watching her avidly, "something for you alone to wield."

"Do you know?" Buffy didn't look away from the featureless surface of the stone.

"Not a clue." He moved closer, putting a hand at her waist, and continued in a low voice. "There are legends about things like this." Giles watched them, feeling almost sick with a strong emotion he couldn't identify.

Buffy didn't turn around to look at the men, instead pushing harder against the rock. It didn't seem solid to her, though it didn't budge despite the Slayer strength she was bringing to bear on the surface. "If I just had a crack," she mumbled, digging her fingers against the surface.

"Try this."

Buffy looked at the sharp, gnarled stake Spike had produced. Mr. Pointy. "Kendra's?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Seemed… fitting." Even though Buffy never used it, the stake had been the first thing to catch his eye when he examined her weapon cache for something chisel-like. He exchanged a brief glance with Giles, who gave him a nod.

She took the stake, never looking away from the enormous stone. This feels like a dream, she decided, a Slayer dream. Carefully placing the stake at a point that wasn't obviously different from anywhere else, she held it there a moment. Then Buffy drew back her arm and slammed the stake against the rock.

It didn't so much splinter as crumble, the top third of the rock shearing away to reveal a brightly shining weapon, red and steel and deadliness glinting in the light.

Buffy reached up and ran a hand along the handle of it. "It… I can _feel_ it. It's… strong." When she started to grasp it, Spike put a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait." He was still grinning helplessly. "Do you mind if we try?" She frowned, but shook her head. Spike put his hand around the handle. It did feel warmer than it should, for having been encased in what looked like solid rock. He tugged, then really put an effort into it, pulling at the weapon and grunting. When it didn't budge, he sighed in contentment. "Thank you." He let go of the weapon, wrapped his arms around her for a hug, then stepped out of the way for Giles.

The Watcher stepped forward, tears in his eyes. This was Excalibur, or so close it might as well be. He grabbed the handle and pulled as hard as he could. Nothing happened. Before he stepped away, he closed his eyes a moment. What was the world going to ask of his Slayer in exchange for taking up this weapon?

Buffy hadn't taken her eyes from the red handle. Her brows drew together in concentration as she put her hand on it again. She withdrew it as easily as if it had been sitting in a sheath. Distantly, she heard Spike laugh in pure joy. The Slayer turned her weapon over in her hands, touching the point of the stake at one end, wondering at the sharpness of the blade.

She turned to the man at her side. He went to his knees, staring up at her with tears in his eyes. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

Buffy rolled hers. "You are such a drama queen." She put out her hand for his and hauled him to his feet. "But… This was definitely worth the four hour drive."

"It was." Giles didn't kneel, but stepped forward to give her a tight hug.

Spike gave her a duffel bag he'd brought, thinking that they might need something to put a sword in. This was better than Excalibur, Spike thought. It was the Slayer's weapon, crafted for her, made for dispatching vampires and demons alike.

They walked out, hand-in-hand, Buffy holding the bag as Giles thanked the brothers for their patience and forbearance. He knew they were insanely curious. He had no idea what Bishop Rossi had told them, but it didn't matter. The Watcher turned down their offer of hospitality and drove to the hotel he had booked, Buffy and Spike following him up to his room.

"Well, what do you think?"

Giles looked at Spike as he considered the question. The blond man wanted a pat on the head, but fear was roiling inside of him. "I'm afraid."

Buffy stopped examined the wood on the end of the weapon. "Why are you afraid?"

"Arthur pulling the sword from the stone was part of a known prophecy. He was tasked with leading Britain through the worst of the Dark Ages. Or… or several leaders with that title or in that family, because really, we don't know the facts behind the legend. I'm afraid because he was given that mighty sword for a fell task."

"There are no prophecies here." Spike's tone was adamant.

"Yes, even if there are no prophecies," Giles said, sitting down on the bed, "there still may be a fell task."

Buffy sat down next to him, handing the weapon to Spike. "Giles, with or without this axe thing, I'll face whatever comes. I've died. I've stopped apocalypses, plural." She put her hand over his. "I know you worry, but…" she gave him a beseeching look, "how can there be more worry?"

"You're right." He let out a sigh. "It's just… I love you and don't want your path to be a hard one. It already is, of course." Giles looked up at Spike. "Perhaps I am also a bit jealous that it wasn't me who found it."

Spike shook his head, handed the weapon to Buffy, and took Giles in a quick embrace, kissing his cheek. There were tears in his eyes. "I can't tell you how good it is to have you looking out for her, mate. For all of us, really. I would never have read through those books if you hadn't insisted. I wouldn't be here, in this life where I'm sometimes afraid I'll wake up and find it's a dream, if you hadn't agreed to the Pax Aurelius. Don't think for a moment you weren't instrumental in this."

Giles felt the sting of tears in his own eyes. He took off his glasses to polish, giving himself a reason to look down. "Yes, well, you were the one who took the intuitive leap, made the connection."

Buffy wasn't fooled. "I'm the Slayer. You're the brains. Spike is my shield. Willow is, like, the soul of our group. Xander is our good heart. Apart, we function. Together… what can't we do?"

"A gestalt."

Giles put his glasses back on and took a breath. "Right. Let me see it again, then."

⸹

Twilight had fallen by the time they ate dinner and left Giles, who was waiting for a call from the Bishop. They set off for Sunnydale. Buffy asked Spike to pull over before they got on the 101. The top was down, and she went into the back, sitting on the frame with her feet on the seat so she had room to maneuver the blade. She wanted to look at it as a weapon, not an object of scholarly study or a source of worrisome meaning. Cars passed them regularly, but they were off a bank at the mouth of a canyon, hidden from view.

"This… It has power."

"I imagine. It was used to defeat the last true demon on earth."

She rolled the weapon in her grasp, so that the axe was toward her imaginary enemy instead of the stake. "It feels like it was made for me, like it's mine. That's crazy, isn't it?"

"As crazy as saddling a teenager with the fate of the world." Spike nodded to the gleaming weapon. "That might even the odds a bit."

"I can't help but think of what I might have done against the Master with this. Against Lothos."

Spike unbuttoned the cuff of the black denim shirt he was wearing and rolled up the sleeve. "Slice my arm with it."

Buffy recoiled. "No."

"Hold it out, then," he said impatiently. She did so, reluctantly, and he slid his arm along the edge, then turned it to show the wound. "It does heal," he said, sounding disappointed as the Gem of Amara worked its magic on the cut. "That is _sharp_ ," he added.

"Feel the balance." She tossed the weapon to him.

He'd been using weapons for decades and knew his own skill. Nonetheless, he was shaking his head. "It feels okay to me, but the way you move with it, even sitting there…" He passed it back to her. "It's for you alone."

"And Faith, too, I guess."

"They aren't going to let you take that in on visiting day."

"She needs to know, though."

He nodded, then just watched her, happiness radiating off him. She put her weapon in the duffel bag, her hand briefly touching Mr. Pointy, which was also inside, then stepped across the seat to the other side of the car. Buffy held out her arms.

 _Glad to have you back._

He returned her embrace, looking up at her. _What do you mean?_

 _You've been quiet since Robin Wood visited. Withdrawn._

He didn't offer anything through the link for a long moment. Buffy didn't push, just held him. _I haven't felt… worthy. Now… Maybe I'm not deluding myself. Maybe I really am meant to be at your side, watching your back, whatever. Now, I've done something._

 _Spike… If you became human right now, had no special powers, if you couldn't keep that vow of ninety years, you're still exactly where I want you._ She squeezed him. Something cracked in his shoulder. _Right here in my arms._

Before he could protest, she went on. _But I am so glad you're back._ She touched her hand to the skin above his unbeating heart. _I've missed you. The past couple of weeks, you haven't had your usual… surety? Is that a word?_ When he nodded, she smiled. _You aren't usually tentative. It doesn't sit well on you. I'm glad you're feeling,_ she shrugged, unable to think of a better word, _untroubled._

He smiled at her, open and full of love _. I've been having doubts about the wedding. Not cold feet, just… I don't deserve this life. Never will, but I'll take it. I'll fight for it. Next time I feel like I should just slink away into the dark, well, I have something solid,_ he nodded toward the bag in the back seat, _to anchor me where I belong._

 _I had cold feet this weekend. Last night, before we flew back, all of us were together, and I started talking about panic before I realized I was panicking._ She gave him a wry look. _I worked through it, obviously._

 _Any particular reason?_

 _I'm young. With you, I know this is forever. Daunting much?_

 _We could wait._

 _No! I'm going to be a stunning bride next month, thank you very much._ She stroked her fingers down his neck. _I love you beyond the telling. Married or not, I'll always want you in my life._

He put his hand to her heart. _No one's ever loved me like you. I've never loved anyone the way I love you. No reservations. It's terrifying, love. If this ended, I'd be destroyed. I'll never be in love again; I've given you all of me. I may love – new friends, children if you want them – but not romantically, not like this. No one like you, Buffy._

Tears stood in her eyes, too. _You're like a key that unlocked places in my heart I didn't even know existed. I feel like I have so much love in me, more than I ever realized._

His fingers flexed against her breast and ribcage. _I see the love in you, love for a whole world. They'll never know you're there, studying the shadows for danger, keeping them safe._

She shook her head and glanced away. _How I look through your eyes, like a hero or something... I'm just me, just Buffy._

 _You're everything. You're the one._

All that love, around her like warm, calm water, buoying her up, giving her the confidence to do anything. He was so beautiful in the last light of day. _Xander and Oz are patrolling tonight. You want to get a hotel room after all, go back tomorrow?_

Spike's fingers trailed from her ribs to her breast exclusively. _Let me put up the top and give me half an hour here. Well, an hour. Then we'll find a hotel._

 _This. This is what I missed. Your swagger._ She ran her hands down his back and over denim, used her fingers to trace the rigid cock surging toward her. _  
_

 _Ahhh… Sure that's the name you want to give the silly thing?_

 _How about arrogant prick?_

He chuckled. _Probably not far off._ He moved quickly, lifting her from inside the car to slide down his body, then turned them, legs tangling together, and pressed her against the car. _It isn't bragging if you can back it up._

Buffy spun him in turn, pinning him to the car door with her body _. Brag. I'll be the judge of whether you back it up._

Clear light shown in his eyes, disconcertingly bright in the early darkness. He only shook his head. _Not making any promises tonight. Probably be in a room next to a family with three squalling babies._ He shifted to the left suddenly, got behind her and ground his hips against her ass. _But… have I told you how I love how you back it up, Slayer?_

Since he couldn't see her, she grinned as she shimmied against him. He made a smoky sound, and he stopped pinning her between his arms in favor of lightly stroking his hands across the lace of her bra. She saw that the keys were still in the ignition, so she leaned over from the waist, glancing at him over her shoulder with her best flirty look, and tried to put the top up on the convertible. Buffy ended up laughing as she stretched as far as she could. "No way I can reach that."

"Top marks for effort, though." He scooped her up, making her squeal a little, and opened the door one-handed. Spike put a knee in the driver's seat and handed her across the console to the seat. She let the back of the seat down as far as it would go, watching the roof as it blocked the clear sky, only a few stars showing.

Just before the roof slid into place, Spike's silhouette broke up the clean lines. He looked down at her for a moment, then murmured, "I love you, Buffy," his deep voice almost a purr.

"Show me," she demanded. She opened her arms for him.

⸹

Buffy woke, staying still, listening to see what pulled her from sleep. She heard a car go past, not slowing, and crickets. Spike was asleep beneath her in the passenger seat, his leg crooked at an uncomfortable-looking angle over the console to shield her from the hard edge. Lifting her head just enough to peek out of the windows, she listened again. Even though she knew she was awake, everything around her felt like a Slayer dream.

Something was in the canyon. She felt it waiting. Carefully, not wanting to wake Spike, she found her clothes and moved to the driver's seat to dress. Leaning over the back of the seat, she felt inside the open bag until her hand touched Mr. Pointy. Leaving it in Spike's hand, Buffy took her new weapon from the bag and went out the open window, pausing to lean against the car and put on her shoes. Running her fingers through her hair, she shook it away from her face and walked silently between the slopes on either side.

The shadows deepened immediately. The waning moon wouldn't rise high enough to illuminate the canyon floor for several more hours. Using her senses more than her eyesight, Buffy walked on, surefooted.

The outline of a small, white triangle loomed from the dimness. She glanced back, not seeing the car or any lights from traffic past the hills, then moved forward another couple of steps. It was like a miniature pyramid in outline, and it came to her at once what it was. She had plenty of experience, after all.

A flickering light showed through a tiny crack in the tomb. Buffy paused to listen, hearing nothing. The wall of the façade was smooth, plastered over, no obvious entrance. Taking a breath, Buffy lifted her foot and kicked down the center of the wall.

Dust swirled for a moment. The Slayer went inside before it settled, not willing to be outlined against the doorway. Everything inside was covered with a white dust, and it took a moment for her to realize the one distinguishable shape was an old woman, white of skin, hair, and dress. The woman coughed once, and color came into the room. The light came from a brazier that cast a ruddy glow over them, the woman's skin color deepened, and her dress became the light brown of old linen.

There were steps, and Buffy went down them to the old woman. She had strong features. It was a face you might find on a statue recovered from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Just now, a smile had settled on her face.

"Hello. I've waited a long time for one like you. I see you have your weapon." Her voice was strong for one so aged.

"Yes." If this woman spoke English, well, that wasn't the weirdest thing about this place.

"We made it for the first of you, long ago. So long ago… I say we, but I'm the last."

"You're a Guardian?" When the woman smiled again and nodded, Buffy asked, "Who do you guard?"

"You, of course. You and your sisters." She lifted a shoulder. "Well, we had intended to do that, guard you from the shadow men. But we made the weapon for Sineya, and became little more than guardians for it. That was not our plan. The shadow men became Watchers. We became shadows."

Buffy shook her head. "The First Slayer was thousands of years ago."

"I am a bit older than I seem." She nodded to the weapon in Buffy's hand. "We put it in the rock. It's good to see it in your hands." She sighed. "I forgot how young you all are."

Impulsively, Buffy held it out to her. The woman took it, handling it with ease, turning it and gazing at it with sadness. "We forged this Scythe, found the First, gave it to her. Such a sad creature. So strong, so broken. When she died and the line of Slayers began, we gave it to several of your sisters. When men sought to use Slayers in their wars of conquest, we hid it in the rock." She hefted it experimentally, then smiled and held it out to Buffy. "It's been waiting for you."

"Why was she broken?" She took the weapon, the Scythe, back gingerly.

"The same reason she was so strong. She was the one the shadow men bound to the Shadow Demon, gave her its spirit, its energy, its heart. She was the first, the strongest of you… and the least human." The woman looked profoundly sad. "So little humanity left, yet she protected humanity. Do you know how few of us there were at the end of the Stone Age? Without her, we might have gone extinct. Instead, Sineya drove last of the Old Ones from our world."

Buffy felt nauseated. Giles had been right. "So I'm not… we're not human?" she whispered.

"Of course you are!" The old woman put out a comforting hand and rested it on Buffy's forearm. She was surprisingly strong. "The Shadow Demon changed Sineya, but she changed its power. You're as human as I am. We just have… gifts. Yours is to be a Slayer, mine is to… live a long time."

"Most of the time, I'd like to return my gift."

The ancient nodded and smiled. "I have felt the same."

Buffy lifted a shoulder. "Are you here to tell me this story?"

"No. I am here because the Scythe is in your hands, where it belongs. And because it has been found, the end is near."

"What end?"

"I do not know. That is, I think, up to you. You'll be tested. Your strength will be tested."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "I have been tested to death. Literally. There are two of us now, because I've already died. Tell me if I passed or failed." The old woman took a step back, either away from Buffy's vehemence or because of the news about Slayers, plural. "This," she lifted the Scythe, "is nice. But I bet the First Slayer would rather have had someone hold her hand than put a weapon in it."

"We tried. We followed her from continent to continent. We died, too, trying to help her."

The Slayer looked away. "Thank you for that," she said stiffly. "This is… what they did to her, I didn't know."

"Two Slayers? Truly?" When Buffy nodded, she let out a breath. Then she inclined her head deeply. "Sineya will come to you in your dreams, now that you hold the Scythe."

"I already have Slayer dreams. I even share dreams with the other Slayer."

"She never spoke again, but she will speak with you."

Buffy let out an impatient breath and nodded around at the inside of the tomb. "And you'll appear to me in your pyramid? Because I know it wasn't here before."

"Me? No. This was my only task, to see the weapon in your hands." The old woman looked thoughtful. "I think I'll take an ocean voyage."

"A cruise?" Buffy was incredulous.

"Yes. Doesn't that sound enchanting?" She closed her eyes and smiled for a moment, obviously imagining salt wind against her face. "But should you need to ask me a question, use that." She nodded at the weapon. "It contains magic, of itself, like the other objects we made." She inclined her head deeply again. "I bid you farewell… uh, sorry, what is your name?"

"Buffy."

Her eyebrows lifted in a way Buffy had seen after dozens of other introductions, and she gave a single nod. "I bid you farewell, Buffy, and wish you good fortune. Remember: an end is also a beginning."

She was gone. Buffy looked around. The brazier was guttering, so she went up the steps before the light failed. Stepping outside the opening she had made, she saw that the moon was above the canyon now. By the time she glanced away from the moon, the tomb was gone.

 _uffy. Come on, love. Buffy._

"Slayer!" He was trying aloud, too.

 _Here. Coming out of the canyon._

Except he was coming to her, hurtling down the left side of the canyon recklessly. Spike's face was still bleeding from whipping branches as he got to her, concerned eyes flicking over her before he pulled her into a rib-crushing hug. She held the sharp Scythe away from them, returning his embrace with one arm.

 _Where did you go?_

She let him see. _It didn't seem like it took very long to me._ Buffy glanced up at the moon.

 _Almost three in the morning._

 _When did you wake up?_

 _An hour and a half ago._

 _I'm sorry you worried._

 _I saw that the axe was gone, that you had time to make sure I was armed. Wasn't worried, love, just… didn't know how to follow._

She smiled at the lie. He had been worried. _Let's find that hotel._

Less than an hour later, they were showered and abed in a hotel near an off-ramp, traffic noises interrupting the silence. "Giles knew," Buffy said in a weary voice. "Well, guessed. Why else would he have come up with that story for the shadow puppets?"

 _Most power or magic we see is either evil or neutral – well, capricious. No power is ever neutral. But how often do we see active good?_ Spike brushed a tendril of hair from her face. "Rupert's lived long enough to think around the corners of things. He can summon demons, not angels. The first Watchers probably could do the same."

"I keep thinking of the First Slayer. The Guardian said she was broken."

He kept stroking her hair. _Buffy… can I show you something upsetting?_ When she nodded warily, he let her see a horse that Drusilla turned, the eye-rolling panic of the dumb beast saddled with an incompatible intelligence. Spike let her see him find a shotgun and an old wooden board in the barn, perch on the rail of the stall it was trying to kick and stomp its way free of before he could put it down.

He pulled free of the connection. "I can't imagine the desperation or the callousness of those sorcerers to do that to another human. I really can't imagine the power it must have taken."

"She didn't, like, volunteer, not if they needed chains."

"No. But, listen, love." He propped up on his elbow. "The Guardian said she was broken, but she traveled from Africa to North America. In the Stone Age. Even if she did so magically, that means she successfully left those bastards behind. She must have been an incredible warrior to defeat an Old One. Broken doesn't mean useless _." I think it means she wasn't ever able to trust another human again, not after what those shadow men did to her._

 _According to Giles, the last Old One was the one who sired the first vampire._ Buffy looked thoughtful. _I'm not saying they weren't sadistic assholes, but I can see how they might have thought mixing a demon with a human of their own would be… one strategy._

 _The First Vampire Slayer must have got some satisfaction out of defeating that one, then._ He stroked her face. _Look at me, love._ Spike went to vampire face. _When I was first sired, it took some getting used to. I knew I was me, my essential self. I knew something was missing. I figured it was the soul, and I was right, as it turns out. But I was also something new. That new thing was something very old, and it was in Drusilla, Angelus, and Darla, too. I knew that we were the same, or part of the same creature. I thought of it like the way a sunbeam splits after it goes through a prism. The demon blood is the same, undiluted, almost as if we're clones._

He sat up and folded into a cross-legged position, pulling on her hand until she did the same. _You didn't change on the inside even a bit when the previous Slayer died and you got Chosen, did you?_

Buffy shook her head. _Still just me._ She took the other hand he was offering, and they sat knee-to-knee, holding hands. His demon visage melted back into his human features.

 _You got power, love. You did not get a demon. That's what Sineya gave you and all the ones before you. She might have been broken, but you can bet she broke that demon first. She took its…._

Buffy felt his question in her mind. _Its spirit, energy, and heart._

 _Right, and she made it hers. That's what she did for you, for the rest of the line of Slayers. It broke her, but no one else was going to go through what she had to face._

 _The Guardian said she would come to me in Slayer dreams now._ Buffy looked at her lover in the dim light that came from the security lights in the parking lot below. _If she does, I'm going to give her a hug._

 _There's that heart full of love._

Even in the dim light, she could see how sappy his smile was. _Thank you._

For putting to rest her fears about being a demon, he knew. _You're welcome, love._ He squeezed her fingers. _We should get some sleep._

 _But we won't._

 _We won't?_

She shook her head. _Not yet. Something about you in a hotel room makes me think naughty thoughts._

⸹

"Blindfold in place?" Giles asked.

Tara nodded. She was sitting on the couch in his apartment, looking nervous even with the black sleep mask she'd borrowed from Willow covering half her face.

Giles put the tray he had brought from the kitchen onto the coffee table. "Hold out your hand, my dear." She did so, and he sat down next to her. "All right, I'm going to take your hand now and hold it over each object. Tell me when you feel anything." The Watcher was trying to see how useful Tara would be in determining powerful objects before they began the next round of treasure hunting. He could feel her trying to pull her hand away from the second object, an enchanted coin Spike had missed from the crypt where they'd found the Gem of Amara.

"That's… something bad."

"We'll move on," he said smoothly, pushing her palm to hover above the next item, a teacup. He'd replaced objects on the tray three times before Xander and Anya came in.

"I feel like we're interrupting something," the young man said, humor in his tone, "even though I know we're not."

Tara pulled the sleep mask up over one eye. "Hey."

"Hey, Tara." Anya plunked down next to her. "How did it go?"

Tara lifted a shoulder and turned to the Watcher. "How did it go?"

"You were almost perfect. Or possibly perfect. In either case, I'm throwing out the neutral object you, er, objected to. An apple," he added, seeing her eyebrows go up.

"So this means that next time, you'll be able to load treasure and go?" Anya asked. "Not linger in areas where Xander might be in danger?"

Xander leaned over the couch and put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm fine, An. We live in Sunnydale. Hunting for treasure, going for coffee: equally dangerous."

She put her hand over his and looked up. "But the Sunnydale caches are cleared, so you'll be going to other places."

Giles nodded and sat down on Tara's other side. "Yes. Spike said he knows of a couple of others in California. It's on the agenda, after the meeting today."

"Hey," Oz said, opening the door and coming in. His eyes swept over the four of them, and he gave Tara a smile.

She looked flustered, pulled the sleep mask all the way off, and smoothed her hair. "Where's W-willow?"

"Buffy and Spike are picking her up. Food, too."

"Pizza, most likely," Giles sighed.

"I like pizza," Anya said.

Xander's phone rang. He unfolded it. "Hi," he said, and after a moment, "sure." Closing the phone, he nodded at Oz. "They're outside and requesting strong people to help bring in boxes."

The boxes turned out to be samples from the wedding caterer. Buffy brought in the smallest box, which she carried carefully in two hands, but she did have a large duffel over her shoulder.

"It's not a real meal. We met Joaquim in Dutton," Spike explained. "He made all this food for us to sample. There was so much left, it would be a shame to waste it." He hefted a box onto Giles counter. "No one will go hungry."

Buffy put her small box well back from the edge of the counter and turned to hug Xander. "How are you?"

"Recovered. Now I get to say I've been to hell and back, literally." She looked up at the burst capillaries around his eyes and just shook her head, giving him another hug. Xander changed the subject, getting enough of this from Anya. "So, this is the stuff you're going to feed us in exchange for wearing fancy clothes?"

Buffy let go and began helping Tara and Anya unfold extra chairs, the duffel still over her back. "We're going with appetizer stations, so people won't have to go through a buffet line. Two bars instead of one, for the same reason."

"This smells wonderful," Giles said, unpacking tin foil dishes with paper lids.

"It will be." Buffy nodded toward the box she'd carried so carefully. "Save some room for the sample cake. Remember the cupcakes at the engagement party? Joaquim makes the world's best chocolate cupcakes. I don't see how white cake with white icing can compare, but it'll still be good."

"Even better, Joaquim promised to put together a snack box for us for after the wedding. He said that the bride and groom never get to really eat." Spike smiled at Buffy from the other side of the kitchen.

Xander counted plates and brought the stack to an empty spot next to the food. The group went through the foil pans, taking a tablespoon or two from each until their plates were laden. They were mostly silent for a few minutes, except for "What is this?" and "Is there more?"

Xander let out a sigh. "Okay that this isn't pizza?" he asked Anya.

"Yes. You know, someone here should learn to cook. We do takeout too much."

"Tara can cook," Willow said proudly.

"Not like this," she said emphatically.

"Buffy does a mean Thanksgiving dinner," Giles said loyally.

She grinned. "I don't think it counts if you only cook once a year."

"So," Xander said, getting up for seconds, "what's the big news?"

"You want to start?" Buffy asked Spike.

"Sure. So, you remember how Giles and I went through the books in the Master's collection? Well, I ran across a couple of references to a group called the Guardians…." He explained how he was afraid it would be nothing but a wild goose chase, apologized for not including the whole group, and again emphasized that he wasn't sure there would be anything at the end of it. That part was a lie; it was amazing how much better he was at lying now that he had a soul. It had been selfish for even him to be there; he should have waited down the hallway with the brothers of the mission.

Buffy reached behind her for the Scythe. "So, this is what I King Arthur'd out of the stone." She started to pass it to Oz, who was on her right. "Do you guys mind if I ask you to use a napkin before you touch it?"

"So, three ways to kill," Oz said. He'd leaned back from the table a bit.

"I haven't used it yet," Buffy said. "It's a lot bigger than a stake. I might not carry it on patrol, but when the heavy hitters come to town…."

Oz passed it to Willow. She didn't try to go through martial movements with it, just frowned down at it. "I don't feel anything. It must be a Slayer thing."

She passed it gingerly to Tara, and Buffy resumed the story, of how they'd stopped, glossing over how late it was, exactly, and why they'd fallen asleep. Giles, trying to concentrate on her story, gave it a perfunctory look and passed the Scythe to Spike, who immediately gave it to Anya. She was trying to pass it to Xander when Buffy got to the part about the origin of the First Slayer.

Xander just stared at the Slayer, then firmed his mouth and put his hand over hers. "Oh, Buffy." He took the Scythe from Anya, giving her a belated small smile.

Giles put his face in his hands. "It's as I feared." Spike unobtrusively squeezed his knee.

"You got it right. I know you didn't want it to be that way," Buffy said kindly.

Willow took in a sudden breath. "It's like finding out your great-great-grandparents were slave-owners, something horrible in your past that you hate and can't change."

"The first Slayer was named Sineya," Giles said in a soft voice. "I wonder if there is a record, somewhere at the highest levels of the Council." Giles looked like he regretted saying this aloud. He let out a sigh. "It would explain the… assumption that they're entitled to control the Slayer."

Buffy went on, finishing up with the conversation she and Spike had about Sineya's effect on the demon's powers. "It feels right," she said.

"Spike, you never told me about feeling as if you were all part of the same demon," Giles said accusingly.

"'M sorry," he mumbled. "Never occurred to me, honestly. We'll interview with a vampire some more."

Xander handed the weapon to Buffy, who got up and went to get the white cake from its little box. On the way, she handed the Scythe back to Giles, because she knew he hadn't really examined it to his satisfaction, and then found enough clean saucers so that they could share the cake.

"I had to reassure the brothers at the mission that it wasn't the Holy Grail," Giles admitted, holding the Scythe above his head.

Buffy passed out the first piece of sample cake. "Oh, this is really good," Anya approved.

"Make sure you nab a chocolate cupcake at the reception." Buffy took another box from the far side of the counter and began opening the containers inside. "Here are the other desserts Joaquim made."

"Are you going to have all of this at the w-wedding?" Tara asked.

"Not the thing with the tomato sauce," Buffy allowed, "because that seems dangerous with dress clothes."

"This is delicious," Xander said, eating a bite-sized fruit tart directly from the box.

"And that's the vegan, celiac-safe, allergen-free dessert."

"You're kidding."

She shook her head. "Anya's right. Somebody here needs to learn to cook."

"Mmm," Oz said, having found miniature apple crisps. He took two more and handfed those to both Willow and Tara.

"Oh, that's really good."

"T-thank you." Tara turned away, her hair swinging over her flaming face.

Spike glanced at Xander. Since no one else was facing him, the dark-haired human pulled a shocked and delighted face that any twelve-year-old girl would admire. Spike choked on a laugh and sprayed Giles' refrigerator with brownie crumbs.

"Went down wrong," he gasped, threading his way to the paper towels.

"I didn't know that could happen to vampires," Giles said, peering at Spike the way an entomologist might examine an unfamiliar beetle. When the blond man shrugged, he raised his voice to include the whole group. "Research after dessert." There was a chorus of groans.

Oz and Spike got out of researching the Scythe by being the first to volunteer to patrol. Sunnydale was quiet, and the worst thing they came across was a couple of drunk taurene demons trying to corner a feral cat. Spike told them off, but spoiled the effect by offering his handkerchief to the one with the worst scratches.

"Pretty sad," Oz commented, as the two of them caromed off down the street, accidentally locking horns twice. "That was a full grown cat."

Spike nodded. "Yeah, just when you think you've seen it all." They finished downtown and headed toward campus in silence. "Know it isn't my business," he said, knowing it was abrupt, "but I think you're making Tara nervous."

"I know, but I can't seem to be chill," Oz said, as if he'd been waiting for someone to ask. "She smells like part of our pack, and I can't untangle her into someone who's mostly a stranger."

"Try," Spike said dryly. "I like her, and you're pursuing her like a rabbit. Only this rabbit could turn you to stone or, worse, break your alpha female's heart by leaving."

"I know," Oz said quietly. "I've been trying to become Tara's friend, of herself. She's quiet, though." He caught the look Spike sent him. "Yeah, I know I don't speak much, but she… erases herself, fades into the background. I don't think her family life was great, not after her mother died."

Spike felt bad then. He hadn't known that. "I could do a better job myself. Same with Anya, comes down to it. You, too."

"It's hard to find downtime when you're Slayer-adjacent."

"Yeah, most one-on-one I get with people is on patrol."

"Sometimes easier to talk in the dark like this."

"True." He saw a couple making out at a picnic table and carefully checked the shadows for any potential predators. There were a couple of guys in a nearby dorm watching from their window, grinning and elbowing each other, but that was the worst threat. "I'll try to patrol alone with Tara more after the honeymoon."

"I'm almost looking forward to the Dingoes tour. A chance to step back," he elaborated. "Wil's my best friend. I'll miss her, but it'll be easier for her if I'm not here."

Spike gave him a sidelong look. "She still wants you?"

"She wants both of us."

"She told you that?" Oz shook his head and held his silence, but Spike understood what he meant by 'want' was what his keen nose told him. "So, as the doddering old person here, I can tell you that, uh, nontraditional relationships can work, but everyone has to be on board. Don't pressure Tara, either of you."

Oz nodded, but gave him a look. They crossed from campus and headed toward the east side cemeteries. "What was your nontraditional relationship?"

"Two vampire couples, one big bed. It was brilliant, the three or so weeks it lasted." He saw Oz's inquiring look. "Until Angelus showed his true colors."

After a moment to absorb this, Oz asked, "But you're good with monogamy now?"

"Buffy and I have something completely different than anything I've ever experienced before," Spike said. "Love."

Oz smiled. "That's what it was like with Willow, for me."

They finished up in companionable silence and were in the parking lot outside of Giles' flat before Spike broke it. "Looks like Xander and Anya have gone on. You coming in?"

"Willow and Tara must have gone with them, but I'll come in."

The door was locked, but Giles came after Oz's quick knock. "Buffy's asleep," he said in a low voice.

"Did you find out anything?" Oz asked, as Spike went to the couch to sink down next to his sleeping fiancée.

"Yes. I would have looked for axes if the Guardian hadn't called it a scythe. That's what led us to it. Mɂ."

"'Mmmbop?'" Oz made it sound somewhat accusatory.

Giles glared at him. "Yes, I haven't heard that a dozen times tonight."

Spike stood up and came around the couch. "Glottal stop?"

The Watcher gave him a sharp look. "Yes. How – oh, never mind, I always forget you know so many languages."

"I grew up near Cockneys, guv'nor."

Oz nodded. "I know what a glottal stop is."

"Yes, well, we've decided to just call it the Slayer's Scythe. Not that much information on it, anyway, just that it's a famous and nebulous weapon symbolizing death."

"I have to say, the part that intrigues me most is that the Guardians made other objects." Spike grinned. "Excalibur was given by a Lady, remember."

Oz raised his brows, suitably impressed. "We do have the same 'in the stone' situation." He nodded toward the clock. "Well, I'm out." Before he turned away, he asked Giles, "Have you asked him yet?"

"No. I will." As Oz nodded and left, closing the door carefully behind him, Giles turned to Spike. "Oz wants you to get a guitar so we can play together."

Spike narrowed his eyes. "We were together half the night. Why didn't he ask me himself?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps he felt it was too personal."

Spike shook his head at this, considering the drawn-out conversation they had about polygamy, but put out his hand to stop Giles from turning away. "Rupert… I meant to apologize. I wanted to give something to Buffy. The prophecy, the 'with great power comes great responsibility,' the end of something is nigh… I never meant to treat this cavalierly."

"I should have been more open to the possibility." He looked directly at Spike. "Next time you find something like that, I won't make you feel you have to sneak around."

"You'll come along and rub it in when it turns out to be nothing?"

"Oh, absolutely." Giles ran a hand across the back of his neck. "Do you mind if I go on to bed?"

"Not if you don't mind me poking through what you found tonight. I'll keep things quiet. Good night." He nodded to the couch. "Or, if she wakes up, goodbye."

"Jet lag is supposed to be worse when you travel east, but I've never found much difference for short trips." He gave Spike a sharp look. "Where will you be flying for the honeymoon?"

The vampire had kept it a secret from everyone, but he gave Giles the truth as a peace offering. "South. All the way down to Patagonia."

"Ah. Where you were the first time Buffy called on you."

"It's beautiful, in a stark way, and she says she liked snow the one time she saw it. Please don't let anyone else in on it."

Giles' eyes sharpened as he wondered if Spike knew the story behind the snow, that it was meant for Angel. He just nodded and waved a hand as he went to brush his teeth.

Spike scrounged in the kitchen for what remained of Joaquim's samples, then settled in the little office chair in front of the computer desk. He spun it so he was facing the easy chair, propped up his legs, and grabbed one of the open books, reading as he ate.

About an hour later, he stood up and stretched. Giles had been right; there wasn't anything about the Scythe, just that it existed. Spike was taking his plate to the kitchen when his cell phone rang. He answered quickly so the sound wouldn't bother Giles; Buffy could sleep through about anything.

"Hey, Anya."

"Spike, I need you and Giles to come over right away. Something's wrong with Xander."

"I'm on my way." He glanced upstairs. "What's wrong with him?" Let Giles sleep, at least until he had a chance to see what was going on.

"He won't wake up."

Spike pulled up short at the door, prickles of unease along his spine. "Is he breathing?"

"Yes."

Letting out a breath of his own in relief, Spike locked the door. "This time of night, I should be there in three or four minutes. Hang on, An." He took the Bentley through three red lights, seeing no other cars on the road, and was knocking on the door almost three minutes later. He heard Anya's quick footsteps coming from the bedroom.

She hurled herself into him for a fast hug. "Thank you for coming. This is friendship; I really get it now." She kept his arm as she pulled away, dragging him inside. "I stayed up to watch _My Fair Lady_ ; that's my favorite movie. Xander said it was okay to wake him and I did. But he didn't. Wake I mean. He woke up fine after his head injury."

Anya was babbling, but by now they were in the bedroom. The lights were on, and Xander was motionless on the sheets, naked. Spike blinked at this, then just went to the lamp nearest the lad's head. He held it over Xander's face, noting the steady breathing and rapid eye movement. "X-man. Wake up." Spike shook him by the shoulder, then lightly slapped his jaw. Xander didn't respond.

"Where's Giles?" Anya had just realized he was alone.

"Faster by myself," he said. "Giles was asleep." Spike put a knee on the bed, slid Xander toward him, and lifted the human in a fireman's carry. "Does he have any jimjams or sweatpants? We should get him to Giles, and I know he wouldn't fancy going there starkers."

"Oh. Sure." Anya rummaged in a drawer and pulled black sweatpants over Xander's legs and up until he was covered.

"Don't tell him I saw him in all his glory," Spike said, just to make her smile, "or if you do, tell him I was suitably impressed."

"Should I change?" Anya was wearing satin, peach-colored shorty pajamas.

"Only if you want to." Spike was already heading to the door. "I think you look very fine, myself."

"Oh. Thank you." He heard her mumble as she made a detour for her purse. "Maybe I should rethink Tara."

He put the roof up to make it easier to get Xander in the car. By the time it was halfway up, Anya had shoved her feet into a pair of sneakers and locked the apartment. Spike helped her into the back seat and handed her his phone. "Call Giles and let him know we're on our way."

They were halfway back when Anya gave up. "I tried twice. No answer."

The prickles of unease Spike had felt earlier turned into knives. _Buffy. Buffy. Wake up. Buffy!_ "Bollocks. Anya, call Willow. Tell her not to go to sleep."

"Hello?"

"Tara, it's Anya. Is Willow there?"

"Mm-hmm. I think she's asleep though."

"Can you wake her up?"

Something about the way Anya asked the question drove the sleepy sound from Tara's voice. "Hang on." Spike could hear her faintly repeating Willow's name. Then, louder and worried, "She w-won't wake up."

"Neither will Xander. Spike's taking us to Giles' house. He's worried, too."

"Tell her to bring Willow there."

Tara overheard. "I d-d-don't have a c-car."

"Tell her to call Oz," Spike said, ignoring the parking lot and pulling up as close as he could to Giles' door.

"Call Oz. If he isn't asleep, have him bring you and Willow. We're here now."

Spike unlocked the door and rushed inside. "Buffy." He shook her shoulder, then vaulted over the couch. "Buffy." He knelt down next to her. He was no prince, but what the hell. One sound kiss later, she was still asleep. Spike saw that Anya was already heading upstairs to see if she could wake Giles, so he lifted Buffy into a seated position to make room for Xander. "Oh, love." He kissed her forehead.

By the time he had Xander on the other end of the couch from Buffy, Anya was coming down the stairs, shaking her head. "I couldn't wake him. I tried the fairy tale kiss, too, but it didn't work." She immediately went to Xander and tried with him. "Dammit."

"I second that dammit." He rubbed at his jaw. "Okay, I'll vouch for the food. I've used Joaquim before. It wasn't that. Did you guys go out for coffee or anything while Oz and I patrolled?" Anya quickly shook her head. "What about –" His phone rang. Anya jumped, then handed it over to him.

"Oz?"

"On my way to get Willow. Tara said she and Xander can't be woken up?"

"Giles and Buffy, too. Anya and I are working on possible causes."

Spike heard a click; typical that Oz wouldn't waste words on goodbyes.

"I think it's the Scythe." Anya lifted a shoulder. "We all handled it. If we were asleep, I bet we couldn't be woken, either."

Spike nodded. "Sound logic." He sighed. "Let me go get Giles down here. Maybe Tara will have an idea when she gets here."

⸹

"I have no idea what to do." Tara was staring intently at Willow, who was on the couch between Buffy and Xander. Giles was asleep in the easy chair.

Oz was sitting on the coffee table facing the couch, examining them. "All of them are in REM sleep. It usually doesn't last this long."

"The Guardian said that the First Slayer would visit Buffy in her dreams, now that she had the Scythe," Spike said. "Do you think the First Slayer is keeping them asleep?"

"Why?" Anya lifted a shoulder. "What would she want with Xander? Wouldn't it be Buffy she would want to meet in a dream?"

"Maybe the reason they're still dreaming is because the First Slayer wants to meet all of us at the same time," Oz mused. "We all handled it. She's waiting until we fall asleep, too."

"You c-can't talk to Buffy? In your mind, I m-mean?"

Spike looked over at Tara and shook his head. "I tried."

Tara looked at Willow, then squared her shoulders. "Let me ch-ch-check Giles' herbs. I-if it's a m-magical sleep, w-we can w-wake them." She went to the kitchen.

"What wakes you from a dream?" Oz mused.

"Knowing it's a dream," Anya said after a moment. "It always wakes me, usually from a good dream."

"Shit." They all glanced toward the kitchen. It was the first time any of them had heard Tara curse. She came out, her shoulders slumped. "No moringa. I d-don't have any, either. M-magic Box opens at eight."

Oz stood suddenly from the table and grabbed a tissue from a nearby box. He came back and held it under Buffy's nose. Spike smelled the blood before he pulled his hand away. Growling, the vampire went around the couch and tilted her head back. Yellow flickered in his eyes. Around them, the rest checked their other sleepers for injury, but no one else seemed to be harmed.

When the nosebleed subsided, Spike went to Tara. "Can you put me to sleep?" he asked urgently.

"No." Anya was firm. "We are all going to stay awake."

He half-turned to her. "I can't wait. Something's happening in her dream. If I'm asleep, maybe I can talk to her."

"Have you ever done that?" Oz asked the question kindly.

"No. Never tried."

"Why w-would it be any different for you?"

Tara had a point, which he quickly refuted. "I'm a supernatural creature –"

"W-willow is a w-witch. Buffy's the Slayer."

"– and I know what's going on. None of them did."

"Oh, no." They all turned to Oz, who was getting another tissue for Willow.

Tara turned back to Spike, eyes hard. "Okay. Lay down. G-go find the First Slayer. Make her let them go."

Spike glanced at the floor and got down so his legs were to the wall and most of him was out of the way. "What do you need?"

"Nothing." Tara knelt down next to him. "One of the first spells my mother t-taught me." She put a hand over his eyes. "Relax. Think of going to Buffy and telling her." Tara held her breath for a second, then let it out slowly.

"Wow," Anya said. "That was fast."

Tara nodded, her eyes on the sleeping vampire. "Great for babysitting." She raised her eyebrows and looked at the other two. "I-I think he's already d-dreaming."

⸹

Spike blinked and looked through the bars and then around. He was in a raised cage, just big enough to sleep against the bars with his legs stretched out. Outside his prison, demons moved past. One or two glanced his way, then their eyes passed on to the cage next to his.

He stood up, grabbing the bars and pulling. They didn't give, not even a little. Even though he was outdoors, the sky was overcast. He knew he should be worried about sunshine, but none of the other creatures he could see were exactly daylight dwellers. They were all dressed in old-fashioned, Victorian clothing. It seemed like a market day.

He was up for sale. Not sure how he knew his cage was a display case, he looked in the adjacent cage. A blond, female shape was sprawled on the floor, one too-thin leg sticking out from a rough hemp cloth dress. He realized her cage was build atop a wagon, could see one of its wheels. On his other side was a type of demon he'd never seen before. It glanced at him, but did not speak. A human male stood outside the bars, offering it slices of cheese.

Two splotchy demons with whiskers came up to his cage, half of their faces hidden by the fans they wielded. He assumed they were female because they wore dresses with bustles. "Slayer of Slayers," one of them read, apparently from a placard on his cage. "Too bad he's for the forum. He's cute."

"Ladies," Spike said, his voice a purr. That's right, buy me and get me out of this cage. Then I'll show you.

"You're so bad, Mathilda," the other one said. "You know he's a half-breed."

"Still cute," Mathilda insisted.

"And a complete demon in the sheets." His words had no effect, as if they couldn't hear him. The two demons went to the next cage.

"Ugh, it's a Slayer."

Mathilda leaned forward. "She's for the forum, too. Of course they'd put her cage next to his."

"She won't last two seconds."

The demons moved off, still talking and gossiping behind their fans. Spike moved to the bars closest to the blond human. "Slayer."

She roused, turning to look at him with a blank stare. Her nose was bloody and her eyes swollen.

"Hello? _Bon jour?_ Well, it isn't, but. _Hej? Ciao? Hola?_ "

"What do you want?"

He didn't let the listless tone deter him. "You really a Slayer?"

"Last thing I knew, I was in a mental institution. I'm not really anything." She turned away from him.

"I've killed two Slayers." It worked; she turned back to him.

"You're a vampire," she shrugged. "You do you."

Outside his cage, a dark shape prowled by. He couldn't turn to focus on it.

"Slayer." He crouched down. She looked at him. Beneath her tumbled hair, her eyes were the nicest hazel green, the most colorful things he could see. "You and me together, we could get out of here."

"Why would I ever trust you? You're a vampire."

Spike tried to move back to human face and couldn't. He frowned. That didn't seem right. "Yeah, you're a Slayer. Why would I trust you?" He kept staring into her eyes. She turned away, and he almost snatched at her through the bars. He'd been looking for someone. He wanted to keep talking to her. Talking to –

 _Buffy?_

 _Spike?_ The word was out of her before thought could form. She stilled and turned back to him.

 _Something I need to tell you._

All around them, light was fading. It was getting darker.

 _Spike? My vampire._ Her words had a tone of realization in them.

 _It's a dream. You're dreaming. None of you can wake up._ He let her see.

The Slayer stood up. Spike gawked at her. The dark marketplace drifted away like smoke, as did their cages. _I'm dreaming._ She seemed taller, her limbs rounded with muscle now. The roughly sewn dress was gone, replaced with a long, stylish coat, a sweater, pants, and boots. She shook her clean, shiny hair from her unmarred face. _My dream._

He was looking around. _You dream in color? I am so jealous, love._ Spike stood up, too, the comfortable weight of a black leather coat settling on his shoulders, his eyes now blue instead of yellow.

"Sineya."

The dark shape he'd seen in his peripheral vision was solid now, a human woman in a half-crouch before Buffy. She was dressed in scraps of cloth and had painted a skull from white earth over her own features. They were in a desert, the most realistic dreamscape Spike had ever experienced.

"It's my dream. I want you to speak to me." The power in Buffy's words buzzed through Spike like a mild electrical current.

Betrayal.

"Maybe not the first word I expected. Sineya, I'm so glad to meet you."

We are alone. She moved her head to one side, snake-like, and considered Buffy with no emotion. We are death.

"You made it so we don't have to be alone. Because of you, none of the rest of us has to be alone."

Sineya stabbed a finger in Spike's direction. We are death.

"Not anymore. Not alone, Sineya. There are even two Slayers now. I'm sure you know that." Buffy took a couple of careful steps closer. "I'm so sorry. I hate what was done to you. But you changed that power, made it ours. I have that power now, and I'm the Slayer. Let my friends go."

No friends. Alone. Just the kill. She rushed toward Buffy, but jerked back with unnatural reflexes when something with even more unnatural speed leapt between them. Spike, his human features firmly in place, shook his head.

"That power changed even me. The only reason any of us are here, is because of you. Thank you." Sineya looked at him.

Then he was flying twenty, thirty feet though the air, feeling as though an express train had hit him. Spike landed hard and struggled to get up. Buffy and the First Slayer were fighting, his Slayer countering the First's raw power with controlled moves, trying not to hurt Sineya, using her momentum against her.

Alone. Absolute.

"You're not the source of me." Buffy feinted and grabbed the other woman in a bear hug. "I said I'd hug you when I met you." She stared into the First Slayer's eyes. They burned with fury. "Sister. I name you sister."

Sineya broke her hold and leapt away, immediately going into a crouched stance. Unbroken. Scorn dripped from the word.

"No. I've been broken plenty. My friends help me to heal. I can't heal you, Sineya. I would, if I could. But I won't let you hurt them."

The oldest Slayer drew in a couple of ragged breaths. Then, with a snarl, she drew a stone knife from her rags and came at Buffy.

"I'm waking up now."

The knife came down. Nothing happened. Sineya stabbed her again.

"Seriously, that's just rude."

Buffy woke up. Next to her, Willow sat up, too. Xander jerked and looked around wildly, finding Anya next to him.

"Oh, thank God," Tara said, leaning over the couch to hug Willow. Oz enveloped them both, pressing a kiss into rumpled red hair.

Giles looked at the group huddled around the couch, then down at the hand resting on his forearm. "Spike," he breathed. "Well, that was… intense."

"How long?" The vampire directed his question at Tara.

"N-not long. Five minutes?" She glanced at Oz for confirmation.

"If that. Tara said you started REM sleep right away."

"Seemed longer." Spike waved away Giles' offered hand. "Give me a minute. Broken shoulder."

"It was gruesome to watch. I think she was choking you in your dreams." Anya rubbed Xander's shoulders from her perch on the arm of the couch.

"She threw Spike into a boulder," Buffy said, standing up. She wobbled a second, then came to crouch beside him, helping him up, an arm around his waist.

"And she tried to stab you."

Buffy looked at Giles. "I didn't hurt her. I even got that hug in."

"But mostly you broke the claim she had on us through the dream. Thank you, my dear."

"Spike went in to tell you it was just a dream."

"You would have figured that out for yourself." He nodded toward the couch. "It was Anya who realized what was going on."

"So that's how I got here." Xander smiled up at her.

"I knew something was wrong. You always wake up when I start touching your penis."

Giles closed his eyes. "Coffee, anyone?" He asked hurriedly.

Oz jumped in, wanting to get past this moment as well. "It's after five. We might as well go for breakfast."

"Yes! That may be the best plan I've ever heard," Xander said heartily. "Pancakes. Bacon. Other distracting breakfast foods."

"You guys haven't slept at all." Buffy realized this, looking around at her friends.

"Some of us slept waaay too long," Willow said grimly.

"What w-was your dream, sweetie?"

Willow looked away from Tara. "I'll tell you later."

"I dreamed I was the sheriff in an old West town," Xander said.

"I dreamed that I was a professor, and all of you were my students." Giles shrugged. "Not very imaginative of me." He gestured upstairs, where his clothes and glasses were. "I'll be back."

"If it hadn't worked with Spike, Tara was going to brew up a potion to wake you." Oz held out a pair of shoes for Willow.

The redhead squeezed Tara's fingers and shivered. "It might have been too late."

Xander borrowed a shirt from Giles, who took pains to point out how good the simple, subtly striped shirt looked on the dark-haired man. By the time the horizon lightened, they were at the Sit N Bull.

Carlene was off, but Bart came out for a quick hug from Buffy and to joke that he hadn't believed Spike had friends who weren't imaginary. He then headed back to the grill as the breakfast rush began in earnest.

"So, this is where you come with your…" Xander flapped a hand by his temple.

Buffy nodded. "Other places, too, but this was the first and still number one."

"Good coffee," Oz said.

Spike pointed a finger at the redhead in agreement, but didn't say anything. Xander and Giles were eager to talk about their dreams, but neither Buffy nor Willow wanted to go into theirs. Spike told his in general terms, and Giles pointed out similarities and wrangled promises from Willow and Buffy for a private telling. The food arrived, and conversation ceased for a while.

"I th-think the r-r-rest of us sh-shouldn't touch the Scythe anymore." Tara's exhaustion showed on her face as well as in her speech.

"Agreed," Giles said.

"Do you think she'll show up again?"

The Watcher considered Buffy's question seriously. "I think," he said softly, "that her spirit would have exhausted a great deal of energy, capturing all of us and fighting Buffy." He looked around the table. "Willow, would you be willing to have Anya and Oz over, so you can watch their sleep, as well as Tara's? If there's no excessive REM stage sleep, I should think we're safe. And, Buffy, if you'll watch Spike?"

"Of course."

Xander sighed. "I'd better get back home so I can go to work." He lifted the placket of the shirt he was wearing. "I'll get this washed and back to you. Thanks for the shirt off your back."

Giles smiled faintly. "Anytime. In fact, I should probably give you a ride." Spike pounced on the bill, and by the time he was finished paying, Giles and Xander were gone and everyone else except Buffy had piled into Oz's van.

They waved as it pulled out. "Ready to go home?"

He nodded. "Your carriage awaits."

They were at home and ready for bed before Buffy was willing to tell her dream. Spike opened his arms, making it clear there was no need to put it in words.

 _My dream was set in the mental hospital, obviously._ When her fiancé nodded, she let out a sigh. _The rest of you were patients there, too, except Giles. He was a doctor, and he would never wait for me. I'd chase him down hallways. All I could do with the rest of you is look through the windows._ She closed her eyes. _What am I going to tell Giles?_

 _Tell him the truth about the dream. You don't have to tell him it was based in a real place. Xander's never lived in a ghost town, just seen all the Westerns. You've seen creepy movies set in insane asylums, yeah?  
_

 _True._ She lifted her face until he looked down at her. _This dark shape, before I knew it was Sineya, kept sneaking up and hitting me. Then I went back into my own hospital room and 'slept,' and woke up in a cage in your dream._

 _Dunno how it happened. Tara put me to sleep with getting to you on my mind._

 _I'm glad it worked._ She laid her head back down on his chest. _Where were we, in your dream?_

 _No clue. Kind of a cross between an English town on market day and, dunno, Sunnydale._ He shifted, pulling the pillow to the side so he could sprawl out more. _Weirdest thing to me was being stuck in vampire face._

 _She probably wanted you to be an obvious monster._

 _Mm. You're pro'ly right._

Buffy smiled and sat up, kissing his nose. His words always started to slur a bit when he was tired. "Get some sleep. I'll check on you in fifteen minutes or so."

"Love you, Buffy."

"Love you back, sleepyhead."

"It was the pancakes," he complained, "made me all full." Spike was asleep in less than a minute. If he had dreams, he didn't remember them when he woke.

⸹

Next Chapter: Angel throws a bachelor party for Spike.


	30. Friends in the City

[Author's Note: If you're just here for the bachelor party, search for the word 'yacht' and you'll be at the launch of it. Enjoy!]

⸹

 **Friends in the City**

⸹

Sunnydale

May 2000

⸹

 _Spike._

He sat up, hands going up at the surprise in his head, knocking his plastic cup of ice cubes onto the balcony.

 _Angel. Yeah, mate, what's up?_

 _I need you in Los Angeles._

 _On my way._ He stood from the chaise lounge where he'd been watching the sunset and headed for his closet. The ice cubes would melt and evaporate, but he did scoop up the cup. _Your offices?_

 _No. Hospital. St. Matthews. Cordelia is there. I need someone I trust guarding her. She's been marked by a demon._

 _I'll be there as soon as traffic will allow._ Spike found clothes and did a quick check of the house. As he passed by the door of the future training room, he reached in for a bag he kept for just such emergencies. As he hefted it to his shoulder, it gave a comforting clank.

 _Love? Angel needs me in L.A._ Spike ran through the details quickly.

 _He didn't say how she is?_

 _She's obviously not able to fend for herself._

 _Do you want me to come with?_

 _Can you really leave Joyce alone?_ She was having an exhibit opening at the gallery tonight. Buffy had been pressed into service as the only server of hors d'oeurves and cheap wine.

 _No. Especially not afterwards. Any event downtown after dark, you know I'll be out there making sure everyone gets home okay._

 _Especially Joyce. Call Giles, get him off his arse. He can help patrol._

 _Be careful._

 _You, too, love._

Spike made good time, though he was stopped once by a motorcycle officer. He used the mesmer and got a bite to eat while he was at it, telling the officer to wait ten minutes before getting back on the bike. Feeling a bit nostalgic because it reminded him of old hunting methods with Drusilla, he pulled out, his speed soon creeping back up to ninety.

Cordelia looked drawn and weary and was scarily still. Tear tracks ran from her open, staring eyes down to the neck of her hospital gown. Spike sat next to her on the bed and held her hand, examining the mark left by the demon. He felt useless. _Angel? I'm here._

"Thank you."

He jerked a little, then stood and took his grandsire in an embrace. Then he pulled away, his nostrils flaring. "What the hell?"

"They blew up my building."

Blue eyes narrowed. "Who did?"

"It's this same demon." Angel ran a hand through his hair, neither improving nor worsening the shape it was in.

"Demons don't use explosives."

"Wes just came into the ER. He was inside when it happened."

Spike looked suitably horrified. "Don't worry about things here. Go to him."

"Can't. I'll send someone else to watch over Wes. Tall kid named Gunn. Human, part of a group that fights vamps in the Badlands."

"Where are you going?"

"I need a spell for Cordelia. The word of Anatole. The demon who gave her that," he nodded toward the mark on her hand, "has the scroll it's in." He gave Spike a smile that the younger vampire knew too well. "I have one of his weapons."

"You stay. Tell me where he is."

Angel shook his head. His eyes strayed to Cordelia again, and the look he gave Spike was one of sheer desperation. "Stay with her. I can't lose another one."

The blond vampire gritted his teeth. "You are forbidden to die, Aurelian. Go."

The big man gave him an attempt at a smile and left. Spike let out all his air, let his head fall back, and got in touch with Buffy, letting her know the latest setback for Angel Investigations.

 _How's Cordelia?_

Spike looked at the dark-haired woman, let Buffy see what he saw: the vacant stare with eyes too full of pain, tears again streaming unceasingly down her face. He felt his fiancée flinch away, briefly saw her memories of other girls who had looked like this.

She was back. _Stay with her._

 _I will._

 _I'll plan on coming down tomorrow, unless things get better. Angel will need someone who can function in daylight, with Wesley there, too._

⸹

As it turned out, Giles was too concerned by what was happening in Los Angeles to wait until the morning. He drove them down as soon as they wrapped up patrol.

"Hey," Buffy said, "are you Mr. Gunn?"

The very tall young man seated in the chair beside Wesley's hospital bed stood, staring at her suspiciously. "No one gets in here, miss."

"I'm a friend of Angel's." She held out the little cardboard tray of Starbucks cups. "I come bearing lattes. Buffy Summers." She nodded over her shoulder. "This is Giles. Rupert Giles. He's a Watcher, like Wesley." Giles stepped into the room, moving his own coffee to his left hand to shake.

Gunn left him hanging. "No one gets in here," he repeated, even less friendly.

"It's all right, Gunn. They're allies."

Buffy glared at Angel, who was standing behind Giles in the hallway. "A better word is 'friends.'" He gave her a tired smile.

"In that case," Gunn said, relaxing, "I will have that coffee." He looked at Angel. "Docs say he's stable. I told them he was my brother. They were too scared to call me on it."

Giles had gone to Wesley's side, examining the burns and cuts on his face. "I feared it would be much worse." He turned to Angel. "Your building is gone?"

The big vampire nodded. "I found him on the stairs. He was trying to run out, I think, or it would be worse." He turned to Gunn. "Thank you. I owe you, again."

"You do. I take cash." He sipped the coffee, found it cool enough, and took a longer drink. He gave Buffy a genuine smile. "Thank you. Hospital coffee is nasty."

"It is," she agreed.

"Gunn." He offered his hand. "Me and my crew fight vampires."

"Buffy Summers. Me and my crew do, too. Although Slayers aren't supposed to have crews."

He pulled away from her, giving her a sharp look. "Slayer? You wouldn't be the Slayer who burned down a gym full of vampires at Hemery High School a few years ago?"

She reddened a bit, but nodded. "That would be me."

Gunn gave a genuine laugh, not something often heard in a hospital. "Listen, I got a couple of guys at the nighttime entrances. Let me round them up. I know they want to meet you."

Buffy shrugged. "I'll try not to be too much of a disappointment." She took one of the coffees from the tray and gave the rest to Gunn. "Take these to your crew."

"Meet us in the cafeteria when you're done." Gunn nodded at the men and left.

Buffy offered Angel the remaining cup. He shook his head, so she put it down and gave him a hug. "If you're here, I'm guessing the demon is toast?"

He nodded. "I have the spell. As soon as Wes wakes up, we'll go upstairs."

"No need to wait," Giles said. "I'll be happy to at least attempt the spell."

Angel looked at the Watcher, abashed and grateful. "Thank you. For Cordelia. I know I don't deserve anything from you."

"I won't say it isn't more difficult to… differentiate you from Angelus when in person," Giles said, "but I do try, Angel. We were… allies."

The big vampire forced a smile. "I'll take you upstairs."

"Take this to Spike?" Buffy handed him the last latte. "I'll stay here with Wesley, in case he wakes up."

The blond vampire was already at the door of Cordelia's room, waiting for them. "Buffy said you were on your way. Rupes, you need anything?"

"No." Angel had handed him the scroll while they were in the elevator, and the Watcher went to Cordelia's bedside.

Spike took the coffee from Angel and used his other hand to pull his forehead down against his. _Show me what happened._ He absorbed the fight, then made an impatient noise and pushed the big man into the only chair. He had to be pretty battered. _Who were the humans?_

Angel closed his eyes and leaned his head into Spike's hip, glad for the arm around his shoulders. _The ones who raised Vocah._

 _And the ones who gave him explosives?_

 _No doubt._

 _What was the raising ritual they were performing?_

Angel shrugged. _I don't know. It was successful, though._

 _A raising ritual using vampires?_

 _I know._ He sighed. Spike shifted and sat down on the arm of the chair, still balancing the latte in his other hand, and pulled Angel against his chest. The big vampire leaned in, grateful. _The humans are from a law firm that serves demons. They needed that scroll, apparently._ He nodded toward where Giles was re-reading, checking his translation before beginning the recitation. _Maybe someone paid them to resurrect a dusted vamp._

 _Oh, you mean they weren't raising a hellbeast to end the world?_

 _You're thinking of Sunnydale. Here, most everything is done for profit, not chaos._

Spike was quiet for a moment, then sent Angel a blackly humorous thought. _Style points for taking off that brief's hand, though._

Giles began speaking the words aloud. Spike pulled away, let Angel get up, and the big vampire was there when Cordelia came out of the stream of visions. He enfolded her in his arms.

"Oh, Angel. There's so much pain," she said, her voice hoarse, "so much suffering. We have to do something. I have to do something. I have to help." She pulled away from him and saw Giles. He had been a father figure, and she reached for him in turn.

"My dear," he said, "how is that you have been through so much and still manage to look so lovely?"

Angel got a mental image from Spike of the blond vampire miming an epic chunder. He came up to the bedside with something more practical. "Good to see you, Cordy." He held out the pitcher of ice water from her tableside, straw at the ready.

"Thank you." Cordelia took the water gratefully.

"Hey!" Buffy chirped from the doorway. She was pushing a wheelchair with Wesley in the seat and an IV swinging from the attached pole.

"Wes! What happened to you?" Cordelia demanded, horrified by how he looked.

Buffy, Spike, and Giles excused themselves to meet Gunn, leaving them alone. The three who made up Angel Investigations sat in gloomy silence for a moment after Angel caught them up on what had happened. Giles had handed Wesley the scroll, and he held it loosely in his hands. "Well, then. They succeeded."

Cordelia rallied. "This time. But they won't be bringing back any other vampires, or whatever. Vocah the chiefest of calamities or whoever he was that put the mark on my hand, he's history. And as long as we're all okay," she put her hands out, leaning over so Wesley could reach her, "we're still going to help the helpless."

Downstairs, Spike was surreptitiously watching Buffy charm Gunn and his two co-workers. "She just shines, doesn't she?" he murmured.

"She does," Giles agreed. They were sitting at a different small table, nursing their quality coffee in the hopes of not having to taste any the hospital provided.

"So, of course," Buffy was saying, "the police arrest _me_."

"LAPD," one of Gunn's friends, Leon, said heavily.

"But they arrested her, too." Buffy leaned in. "So all the way there, she's talking smack about what she's going to do to me once we're processed. I'm fifteen; I've never been to jail. This skanky vampire thinks I'm scared of her, though, her and her cage match."

Spike turned back to Giles. "This is a good story."

"I've only ever read about it. Police reports," he added.

Spike gave him a narrow look. "Those should have been sealed. She was a minor. Arrested, not convicted."

Giles shrugged. "The Council has ways."

At the other table, the men were leaning away in their chairs, laughing. "Then," Buffy gave a graphic demonstration of an elbow drop. "It was the grossest slay ever. I never went back to Hemery."

"Did you know Andre Granville? Left tackle?" Leon asked.

Buffy brightened. "Andre! Yeah! I got to cheer for him on varsity squad when Shae broke her ankle and I filled in. He was so good."

"My cousin."

The Slayer took in the young man's muscles. "I can see a family resemblance," she smiled. "He signed with USC, didn't he? Division I. How is he?"

"He tore his ACL his sophomore year. Lost his scholarship. He has a little girl now, works out at the airport."

"Oh, I'm so sorry about his knee. How old is his little girl?"

"She is so good at that," Spike said, sighing.

"Yes, she's wonderful." Giles closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry I'm such a grump. Her social skills are off the chart, actually."

Spike looked incredulous. "The Council tested that?"

"Yes, Lord knows why." Giles finished his coffee. "How is it going upstairs?"

Spike looked distant for a moment. "Doctors have been in. They're discharging Cordelia. Paperwork right now. Peaches is trying to keep Wes from checking himself out."

He failed, as it turned out. Angel was pushing Wesley in the wheelchair meant for Cordelia when they came into the cafeteria. Buffy noticed when Giles and Spike stood, then rose herself to greet the dark-haired woman. Spike excused himself and took her place next to Gunn.

"Hey. Leon and Shawn, right? I'm Spike. Any trouble at the doors?"

Shawn matched his low voice. "One vamp in ER. Dusted him just outside the waiting room." He turned an apologetic look to Gunn. "Tweaker saw, but I doubt it really registered." Gunn shrugged.

"I ain't seen nothing," Leon said, "but it's cool." He nodded toward Buffy. "Got to meet a Slayer."

"Yeah." Spike's tone was little better than a sigh, and he turned to watch her. "She's something."

"You've had your eye on her since you got here." Shawn noted this with a teasing tone.

He grinned. "Yeah, I got it bad for her."

"You better," Buffy said, coming back over, "if you want me to marry you." She put her left hand on his shoulder, not obviously displaying the ring, but it was unmistakably there, nonetheless. She gave him a light kiss. "Less than two weeks until the wedding now." The Slayer wandered back to the other group.

"Uh, congratulations."

"Congrats."

"Thanks." He pulled his attention from Buffy and looked between the other men. "Bachelor party's this weekend, you guys want to come."

"No, man, I ain't never going to Sunnydale. I've heard stories." Gunn shook his head.

"It's here in L.A.," Spike clarified. He jerked his head toward his grandsire. "Angel's planning it. All I know is that there's a boat and that there'll be liquor." He leaned in, lowering his voice again. "Help. Need young, happy people. Rumor is, the bachelorette party is going to be in Vegas. She could very, very easily out-party me."

Gunn chuckled. "You're doomed, man, if Angel's the host."

He sighed. "Can't blame me for trying. Invite's real, though, you want to come."

"Strippers?" Shawn raised an interested eyebrow.

The blond man lifted a shoulder. "Vague promise of female performers. I can't get anything else out of him."

Buffy came back. "Anyone interested in breakfast? Giles is paying, but then he wants to get back to Sunnydale."

Spike stood, falling into place at her left. "Where are the Angel Investigations folks going to go?"

"Cordelia's apartment."

Gunn started. "Oh, shit, that's right. Someone blew up the office building."

Leon was watching Cordelia. "I could use some hash browns."

"Man, you trippin.' She's into Angel."

He flapped a hand at Shawn, missing Buffy's amused look. "Just means she likes 'em tall, dark, and muscular."

Buffy put a hand on Leon's forearm. "Go for it. She'll fall for a good guy every time."

⸹

After breakfast, Angel wanted to detour to the office to see if anything could be salvaged. Spike convinced Giles to swap cars with him. The fire trucks were long gone, and it was easy enough to get past the yellow crime scene tape. The ruins were soaked. Spike went down first, checking for spots where fire might be smoldering. There was little enough to salvage, but they did find the safe, the hard drive from Cordelia's computer, a few books, and even one or two knives in decent shape. Angel put a few personal items in his pockets, removed the contents from the safe, including his portfolio, and sighed.

"Aurelian, who is responsible for this?"

"No."

Spike sighed impatiently, then jerked his head toward the little red sports car. "Don't tell me on the way."

After a couple of streetlights, Angel sighed. "They don't play fair, Spike. It's the law firm, a front for demons. I don't want you involved. They probably already have a dossier on Buffy. I worry they might make real life hard for her."

"Doubt they know anything much about me."

"Everyone knows about you. Sunnydale Master. Slayer of Slayers." The last was said with a faint bitterness.

"No one knows about me now."

Angel turned to him slowly. "No, they don't. I'd like to keep it that way."

"Over-protective doesn't sit well on you."

"No, but keeping my big weapon in reserve…?"

Obviously touched, Spike struggled for a moment, then came up with, "You never called it that before." He sighed. "They hurt you, put you and your people in danger. As Master, I will pay them back."

"At a time of my choosing."

They were almost to Cordelia's before Spike finally nodded stiffly. "Your town. We'll take your approach."

⸹

Giles had been staying near Cordelia's door, listening for their footfalls. He held the door for the big vampire. From somewhere deeper in the apartment, Cordelia called, "Come in, Spike."

"Thanks." Spike came in diffidently. "Hullo, Dennis." He looked at Giles flatly. "Peaches was just having me on, right?"

"No. Dennis is quite real."

"Huh." He gave the Watcher his keys. "I left the windows cracked. We smell a bit of smoke."

Giles nodded grimly. He wandered to the coffee table where Wesley was getting the salvaged items from the plastic bag. When he saw the hard drive, he offered to take it to Willow.

"Thank you, Giles. You're sweet." Cordelia leaned forward and squeezed his hand. "We have a friend, David, who can help with it."

"I think we can certainly work in one cache before the wedding," Giles said, continuing the conversation interrupted by the vampires' arrival. "That will certainly help things." He nodded toward the meager contents on the table.

"Cache?" Angel echoed.

"Oh, brill." Spike smiled.

"Buffy's idea." Wesley, looking pale, sat down on the sofa.

"I knew there was a way to make a profit out of all this supernatural stuff," Cordelia said, beaming at him.

Before they had finished explaining the whole Colinvaux Sales Agents operation, Angel had already thought of two hoards he knew of in Los Angeles. Giles offered Angel Investigations an 90-10 percent split, with the agency getting the bulk of the money and the Watcher's business taking the remainder for commission and managing the sales. The big vampire sank down onto the couch next to Wesley, feeling weak. Things might actually turn out all right. No one had died this time.

⸹

 _Don't have too much fun._ Buffy's last words to him as she, Willow, Tara, Anya, Joyce, and Cordelia piled into their rented minivan. Not much chance of that, it seemed.

Spike looked at Wesley and gave him an empty smile. He'd come up early for the bachelor party to run some errands and get in his pre-matrimonial appointment with Melba. His stylist had been quite taken with how surfing had lightened his hair. After that, he killed time looking at prehistoric fossils pulled from the La Brea Tar Pits in the museum on Wiltshire. Now he was waiting with Wes for darkness, Angel, and the rest of the stag party to show up.

"Do you mind?" the ex-Watcher said abruptly, gesturing toward the scroll on the table. Spike had brought a bundle of dictionaries from Giles, and Wesley had been casting longing glances at the Proto-Ugaric tome in particular.

"Go ahead. Don't mind me."

It seemed something else was on Wesley's mind. He turned back to Spike. "You really have no interest in this Shanshu prophecy?"

"I have no interest in any prophecy," Spike replied easily to the abrupt question. "Destiny and fate and all that rot stick in my craw. This one," he nodded at the scroll, "I have even less interest in. If I wanted to be human, I would be. Angel is welcome to it."

Wesley lowered himself into a chair, still a bit stiff from his narrow escape earlier in the week. "That isn't how proph–" He made himself stop. "Fine. It's just that I don't understand your… relationship. This would seem to put you in competition."

"For that prize?" Spike snorted. "And Angel and I… we're family."

"Not necessarily a good thing, in my experience."

The blond man narrowed his eyes at that, examining the shadows in Wesley's expression. "Mine, either. My human family was lovely. My vampire family was as much a nightmare for me as for any of our victims. But Angel and I aren't who we were. Trying to see if familiarity can breed something other than contempt, I guess."

"You were, uh, lovers?"

Spike snorted. "Not the word I'd use for it, mate. But, yeah. Not part of what we have now." Shifting to lean forward, he missed Wesley's intent look. Spike put his hands on his knees. "It's not just that he's family. You know I dusted the last of the Master's get, the Anointed One in Sunnydale? From that, I'm the Master now. Not Master of much, but Angel is… my concern."

"And Buffy knows this?"

"She knows everything." Spike leaned back. "Well, I do try to shield her from some of the worst of it."

"It's still hard for me to accept that Slayers can be… friends with vampires, even ones with souls."

He heard the disapproval in the man's voice. Wesley seemed so young to him just then. "Word of advice, mate. Ditch the prejudices of the dried-up old men of the Council. Slayers are not links in a chain of eternal soldiers. They're people with their own personalities and problems. If the Watchers want them to stare into the darkness, why should they be surprised when they stop flinching at what they see there?" He remembered too late what one Slayer had done to Wesley. "Then, what do I know? I'm prejudiced against the Council right back."

Wesley circled back to his original thought. "Angel is obviously seeking redemption."

Spike raised a brow. "And I'm not?" He leaned forward a bit. "Angel is looking for a way to put down the burden of vampirism. For me, it's a tool, not a burden."

"Huh."

"Can I ask you a personal question in return?"

"What question?" Wes replied warily.

"Never occurred to me as a human that I might be attractive, much less that I could use that as a tool. You strike me as someone who doesn't realize it, either."

"What? Me?"

"You're quite the oil painting. How do you not know it?"

After an uncomfortable moment, the ex-Watcher said, "Looks don't mean anything."

"Uh, on some other planet, maybe." It was obvious that Wesley hadn't worked out an answer for himself, much less for anyone else. "Never mind. I told Willow once that she should make it about herself sometime. That she didn't have to be anyone's sidekick. You don't, either."

"Trying to steal my Watcher?"

"Angel," Wesley breathed in relief.

Angel clapped the human on the shoulder and sat down next to Spike, closer than convention dictated. "How were the tar pits?" He leaned away a little. "You've had a shave."

"Got my hair trimmed. Shape of a heart." He grinned wickedly. "Got the hair on my head trimmed, too."

Angel's face worked comically for a moment, then he fell back on the couch laughing. Wesley joined in, late and weakly. "All right, you got me with that one."

"The ladies do it," Spike said, shrugging. "Maybe I just wanted to be pretty for the honeymoon." He batted his eyelashes, then, "No, not really. Itches too much growing in."

Angel looked at him. "Drusilla?" At the other vampire's nod, he shook his head. "I wouldn't let her near me like that with a razor."

"You wouldn't… Peaches."

Angel punched his shoulder. "Shut up, Spike." He stood up from the couch. "Those will be my last words, Wes. Mark it." He stretched. "Wonder where the rest of them are?"

"Got a text from Xander a while back. Traffic into L.A. is heavy because of the holiday weekend."

"Oh, yeah."

"I still don't have the American holidays down." Wesley made the comment without looking up from the scroll.

"Major holidays are the same, except for Thanksgiving. If there are mattress sales, it's a lesser holiday. Used to be white sales, but I don't see those anymore." Angel looked up at the ceiling. "Dennis, do you keep track of holidays?" There was no answer. Having so many people in and out of the apartment seemed to sap his store of energy, but he still liked to be asked.

"Angel?" Wesley looked up from the books and waited for the big vampire to come to the table. "These dictionaries from Giles confirm what I thought. Shanshu isn't just a contranym as used here; it's a tense. Future perfect progressive, I think."

"Uh…?"

"Will live until death occurs."

Angel smiled. "That's heartening." Then he gave a guilty glance toward the couch. "If it refers to me."

"Oh, it doesn't refer to me." Spike stood up. "You missed that part of our conversation." He nodded at Wesley. "Already made myself clear about that."

"He doesn't believe in fate."

Angel raised an eyebrow. "Prophecies do come true. Buffy with the Master?"

Spike shook his head. "What it foretold was only technically what happened. Who went on from that encounter? Not the Master. I won't say destiny doesn't exist, but I do say bugger it. I'll make my own way, thanks all the same."

"What if Buffy has a destiny?" Angel pushed.

"As long as she's okay with it. If not, it gets changed." He watched the other two exchange a skeptical look. "Giles says that there are no other prophecies about Buffy. None. For _Buffy_. Now you… The Powers That Be sent you a guide, Doyle, and he was able to pass that to Cordelia. Me? Nothing like that. I wouldn't want it." He thought of his totem animal and immediately decided not to mention it. That was something so private, he'd barely managed to admit its existence to Buffy. His voice softened. "No jealousy, no protesting too much. I'm free. So is she."

"Until next Saturday," Wesley said, a slight smile on his face.

The blond vampire grinned. "Here's hoping she doesn't come to her senses before then."

Wesley got up to answer a knock on the door. "It's Charles Gunn," he called.

"Hey!" Spike went to greet him, looking past him. "Just you?"

The tall young man nodded. "Yeah. The others got dates." He shrugged. "Always wanted to go out on the ocean."

"You've never been?" Spike leaned back toward Angel. "You get Dramamine for the humans?"

"Uh… I didn't think of it." He gave Gunn a pained look as the ex-Watcher went past him. "We aren't going out very far. It'll be okay, right?"

"Dennis," Wesley's light voice came from the bathroom, "do you mind if I check Cordelia's cabinet for Dramamine?"

"Dennis?" Gunn looked at Angel. "She got a roommate?"

"Yeah. He's a ghost. Say hello, if you don't mind."

"Uh… hi, Dennis the ghost." The door behind Gunn opened, not to usher him out, but to reveal Xander standing on the doorstep, knuckles raised to rap.

"Hey! They sent me to the door to say we've already had a bathroom break and are ready to go to the wharf or pier or whatever."

"They?" Spike echoed.

"Giles decided to come along."

"Excellent! What changed his mind?"

"Angel told him something about the entertainment."

Spike looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Angel gave him a bland look in return. The blond vampire just shook his head. "Gunn, you've got a jacket. Wes?"

"Yes, and the Dramamine." The ex-Watcher got out the keys Cordelia had entrusted to him. "Back in a while, Dennis."

"Wait." Spike looked into the air. "Dennis, you're welcome to come along, if you like."

In answer, the door swung back and forth.

"Ready for some time away from the madding crowd. Got it." After they were in Angel's car, he leaned over to Wesley. "Can Dennis leave the apartment?"

"I don't think he can," Wesley replied. "Or, if he can, I don't know if he would be able to go back."

Angel had rented the boat for the entire weekend. He'd stocked it and taken it out for a trial run the previous night. If it hadn't been for the raid they planned to make on the treasure hoards, he would have resented every cent that went toward the party instead of finding a new home for Angel Investigations. With that change in fortune imminent, though, he found he didn't mind so much. He was doing something nice for someone he… cared about, and all he felt was warmth and contentment.

The two carloads of men parked and began the walk to the slip. When they had gone far enough down that Angel could point it out, Gunn gave him a look. "That ain't a boat. That's a yacht."

"It's a small yacht," Angel allowed. He went onboard and turned on the lights.

"It has a hot tub," Gunn noted.

"Yeah. Kind of necessary."

"Hot tubs are necessary?"

"For our entertainment."

"Well, this sounds more and more promising." Gunn went to the rail to look at the other boats, and Wesley moved up beside Angel.

"What is this entertainment?"

Angel thought about his answer. "Female."

"You're enjoying this."

Angel gave him one of his rare smiles. "Yeah. I am."

Giles, Xander, and Oz were on board now. Spike, who had fallen back to speak with them, was the last on board. He looked around, impressed, and gave Angel a squeeze on the shoulder as he passed, going into the interior of the yacht to satisfy his inner predator of the safety of his surroundings. A plush lounge with a bar, the head, a small galley, and a couple of bunks hid no threats. When he emerged from the cabin, he was barefoot and wearing nothing but jeans.

"I'll cast off when you're ready, cap'n."

"Really, Spike?" Giles said repressively.

"Willow said he looks like a pirate."

Spike beamed at Oz. "So does Buffy."

"More like a cabin boy," Angel muttered, to general snorts of laughter. He headed to the bridge, pleased as always to get off a joke at the boy's expense.

Xander had out his phone. "I have to call An before we get out of cell range. She was sure this would be a bust." It took a few moments for his girlfriend to pick up. As it turned out, the music wherever Anya was at was too loud for them to have a conversation. Xander managed to get her to acknowledge 'I love you' and 'Bye.' "Must be dancing," he said with a shrug.

"Male revue," Spike said, his eyes narrow and dark. "'It's Raining Men?'"

"Jealous?" Xander teased.

"No. Worried they're gonna insist we learn to pole dance, X-man?"

"Oh, shit. I hope not." Then, struck by the thought, "Male strippers pole dance?" Then his brow cleared. "No available poles, anyway."

"Anya could have one installed," Spike suggested with a leer.

"I don't know if I'd pay money to see that, or if I'd pay money to not see that," Giles mused. Predictably, Spike gyrated for a moment and held the waistband of his pants away from his flat stomach for the tip that was not forthcoming. "There's no excuse for that, William. You haven't even had a beer."

The motor started up, and Spike went to the side to begin untying the boat from its berth. Wesley found the refrigerator and passed out bottled water and the Dramamine for anyone who wanted it.

The moon was waxing, a week away from full, and once they were past the dock and out of the no wake area, open sea began. All of the men had come up to the bridge for the view, but Gunn stayed there with Angel. "This is really beautiful."

He gave the young human a smile. "It is. You want to pilot for a while?"

"Of course. What am I gonna hit out here?"

While Gunn took the wheel, Angel went down to refresh his whiskey. When he came back, he checked the heading. "You did really well."

"Hard to mess up with the moon and GPS and all these dials," Gunn said. "It's the people who sailed in the days before all this that have me in awe." He nodded straight ahead. "We're going to the Channel Islands?"

Angel nodded. "Off Santa Barbara."

"That the island with the sea lions?"

He nodded again, but said, "A rock off the coast, actually." A smile played about his mouth.

"Aaand why are we going there?"

"That's where our female entertainment is meeting us."

"Okay. Wes was right; you are enjoying this."

After a while, Gunn made his way downstairs. The rest of the men had congregated out of the wind in the lounge, where they'd found the meager supply of snacks and the excellent array of liquor that Angel had laid in earlier. He gave his order to Spike, who was playing bartender, and sat down next to Wesley.

Spike brought the drink over and sat next to him, trying to make him feel less outnumbered. It was a strange experience to have so many friends that some of them did not know each other. Well, Wes and Charlie might not be friends yet, but they were Angel's, and he therefore had a claim to them.

"Before I forget," Gunn said to Spike, "Leon said that Andre said to say hey to Buffy. He said she's the only person he's ever met named Buffy, so, yeah, he remembers." He gave the blond man a somewhat puzzled look. "Andre said you were her boyfriend when, uh, things got weird?"

It took Spike a moment, then his brow cleared. "Oh! He must have me mixed up with Pike."

"Pike?" Xander echoed.

"Yeah. He was one of the few people on her side when things went bad, when she burned down the gym."

"What happened to him?" Giles asked. He lifted a shoulder. "Her first Watcher was dead; we don't have a full report."

Shaking his head, Spike said, "She never saw him after that night. She hopes he took off – bad home life, I think – but I fear the worst. Not turned, I mean, just… food."

"Ah." Giles sighed and looked down into his highball glass. He could see how Buffy would not want to look too hard at her friend's disappearance.

"That's good," Gunn said. "I mean, that you haven't been lurking around her since she was fifteen." A motion caught his eye, and he glanced at Giles, who was swirling the contents of his glass, a sour look on his face.

"She's too young for me at nineteen," Spike agreed. "Meant to wait until she was at least out of college to ask, but…"

"I heard," Xander said, grinning, "that she had to say yes until you agreed to ask her. And that she had to pry open the smashed box the engagement ring was in for herself."

Spike put his head between his hands. "We were supposed to make up a better engagement story," he muttered. He lifted his head. "Is there anything birds won't share with each other?"

"Buffy does not talk about your love life, no matter how much Anya asks." Xander went to the bar. "An thinks that's rather rude, since everyone knows about ours."

Oz snorted. "I may never be able to eat popsicles again."

Xander went red to the tips of his ears. "Oh God. I didn't know she told that one."

"So," Wesley said to Spike, desperate to change the topic, "tell us that engagement story."

"If it's okay with the demon magnet and the blind man?" He told the story of the will-be-done spell, glossing over why Willow had cast it for Oz's sake, and ended it with him on his knees popping the question, the mangled box in his hand.

"Is it weird that your girl is stronger than you?" Gunn asked, still smiling a little at the mental image.

"One of the sexiest things about her," Spike said.

"He's a Slayer groupie," Xander teased. Oz turned to look at him, raising a brow, not having to say Faith's name. "Oh. We'll form a club."

"I thought you already did that," Giles said.

"That was just a Buffy fan club," Xander clarified. "I love Buffy. He loves Buffy. Everybody loves Buffy." He was already drunk, but he was a happy drunk.

"Why would Willow say you were a demon magnet?" Wesley asked.

"Every woman who ever looked at me twice has been a demon." Xander lifted his refreshed glass. "Hundred percent, now that Cordelia has an aspect of a demon."

"She doesn't – oh, the visions." Now that he couldn't argue the point about Cordelia, Wesley frowned. "That does seem odd."

"I did grow up on a Hellmouth," Xander pointed out.

"Willow wasn't a witch and I wasn't a werewolf when we started dating," Oz added.

"You don't get bored in Sunnydale," Giles said, downing the last of his scotch.

"But didn't you know? Don't they look like demons?"

"They look like beautiful women," Xander said. "Should know that's the only way they'd be interested in me."

Spike couldn't pass up the opportunity. He went to the bar and put his hand on Xander's shoulder. "Don't say that. You're quite attractive. You have broad shoulders, and your hair is much better than Angel's." He paused. Xander might be drunker than he thought, to miss the opening. "And you have nice eyes."

"Spike, not helping."

"Why not?"

"You're a demon."

In the general laughter that greeted his remark, Giles came to the bar for more scotch and gave Spike an approving look for the setup.

The engine sounds, already muffled, quieted further as Angel let off the throttle. The boat slowed, and then he cut the motor. The sound of a chain rattling told them that he had dropped anchor, and they left the lounge. It didn't take long before the big vampire came down from the wheelhouse, a chart in one hand and his empty glass in the other. Off port was the darker shape of an island against the dark sea and sky.

"We're here."

"Near that rock?" Gunn asked, pointing toward a shape looming up closer than the island.

"Shag Rock."

"What?" Wesley asked, chuckling.

Angel lifted the chart. "I brought this because I knew no one would believe me. I swear, that's the name."

"A stag party on Shag Rock." Giles shook his head.

"Well, off Shag Rock."

"Get your rocks off," Xander snickered. Oz nudged him with his elbow.

"Our guests should be here any minute." Angel saw that Spike was examining him closely. "Really." He went into the lounge to put down the chart and his glass, then came back to take the cover off the hot tub. "If you guys want to go ahead and get into your swim trunks," he said, turning to get the water hose from its housing, "I'll top this off."

The murmur of their voices was quiet enough for him to listen as he worked, noting the gentle slap of waves against the boat. He set the hose to run with enough length inside the hot tub so that it didn't dislodge and skinned off his shirt and pants. Angel was wearing brown swim trunks that would have been fashionable in the 1950s. He felt the temperature, then took his clothes to stow in the lounge before fidgeting with the settings.

 _Spike?_

 _Hmm?_

 _Check that storage bin behind you, under the bench with the cushion._

The blond vampire, like him already down to black trunks, raised the hinged lid and looked inside. He shot a look at Angel, his eyebrows climbing in consternation.

 _For when our guests leave._ The waves slapping against the hull had a different sound to them now. Angel turned off the water, retracted and stored the hose, and went to the port bow. He waved and gestured toward the stern, then went there to wait. The rest of the men noticed and came to stand behind him.

A pale face swam into view, then another, until four young women were looking up at Angel just a foot from the flat part of the stern. "Ladies," Angel said mildly.

"You did not come to the coordinates." The pouty voice was sweeter than syrup.

"Of course he bloody well didn't," Giles said in a low voice. Spike glanced at him, then realization dawned.

"Of course I didn't," Angel said.

"This will put paid to our… disagreement?" another of the swimmers asked. If anything, her voice was even more beautiful.

"To your debt. Come aboard, entertain my guests, do them no harm, and depart in four hours," Angel said. "If you agree to that, I will consider all debt between us cancelled and gladly extend to you the duties of host."

"We agree."

"All of you?" He sent a quick message to Spike.

"Don't be tedious, Angelus."

"It's Angel, and I must have this from each of you."

The four young women exchanged a glance. While they did so, Wesley leaned toward Giles. "Mermaids?" The older Watcher shook his head.

"I, Molpe, do so agree." The one with the sweetest voice swam closer and put up a pale arm. Angel clasped her hand and hauled her aboard. The humans behind him either let out a breath or drew in one. None of them had ever seen a woman as beautiful as this.

As soon as her feet touched the wooden deck of the boat, the sodden, transparent fabric that clung to her every curve, highlighting breast and stomach and thigh, dried. Her dark hair did as well, springing into waves that framed her heart-shaped face. A golden cord appeared around her waist, tucking the thin white linen close to her body again.

"Thank you, Molpe." Angel, seemingly unaffected by her unearthly beauty, turned to the water.

"I, Aglaope, do so agree." She held out her hand to Angel. He lifted her up, and she stood a moment, demurely looking down as she ran her hands over her dripping body before she, too, instantly dried. She shook back her ringlets, exposing her throat. Gunn let out a low moan.

"I, Thelxiope, do so agree." She didn't wait for Angel, putting both hands on the swim platform and lifting herself from the water. As she did so, her dress peeled down, revealing her full breasts. She blushed prettily, then rose, modestly raising her hands to cover herself. Thelxiope turned away from her audience, toward the sea, but threw a look at them over her shoulder as she began fixing her now dry garment.

"I, Peisinoe, do so agree." The last swimmer held up her hand for Angel, and he drew her forth. She stumbled a bit, falling into him, placing one hand on his bare chest to balance herself. "Oh!" she cried in pretty alarm. "It will take me a moment to get my land legs."

Angel removed her hand politely and turned to the men behind them. "Gentlemen, may I present our guests: Molpe, Thelxiope, Peisinoe, and Aglaope. You may know them as Sirens."

"Sirens?" Wesley repeated, sounding alarmed.

"Ladies, may I present my other guests?" Angel went through the introductions, ending with Spike, who handed him the tray from the galley that he had silently requested.

"Oh, you must be the prospective groom," Aglaope said, running her hands down her body again.

"Indeed." There was laughter in Spike's voice.

"I offer you bread and salt and wine," Angel said, presenting the tray to them, "and the safety of my house. Or boat, as the case may be."

Each of them came up to tear a piece of bread from the boule and dip it in salt, as did Angel. There were five shot glasses of wine on the tray, which they used to wash down the token food. The ritual out of the way, Peisinoe looked at the hot tub. "Oh, Angelus – er, Angel, how thoughtful. A hot spring!"

"All the better to… entertain your guests." Thelxiope moved away from Angel to browse amongst the dumbstruck humans.

"Their choice," Angel warned.

"I must, of course, choose music," Spike said, putting a hand over his chest. "It would rend my heart from my breast to pass up the chance to hear such legendary musicians play and sing."

"Is that wise?" Giles said quickly, tearing his eyes away from Aglaope.

"Aboard, it's fine," Angel said soothingly. "Come, ladies. There is food and more wine and other choice spirits."

"Who are you," Wesley said in a low voice at his shoulder, "and what have you done with Angel?"

"They like politeness," the big vampire replied, shrugging.

"Are they safe?"

"No. But they're beautiful, and they are legendary entertainers."

Ten minutes later, Molpe was perched on the edge of the hot tub with a lyre, which had appeared from thin air, playing and singing to the rest in the bubbling water. She only played short songs, and in the interludes, her sisters laughed and flirted with the humans and verbally sparred with the two vampires. Thelxiope cajoled Gunn from the hot tub to help her reach the nonexistent high shelves in the galley. She helped him dry off with a towel from the stack Angel had provided, her hands playing around his board shorts.

 _Is it okay, mate?_

 _It's fine, until they leave, anyway. I didn't ask them to, you know, entertain my guests that way. Anything that happens will be consensual._

 _How did you book bloody Sirens?_

 _They took prey from Angelus once. I thought this would be a… unique bachelor party._

 _Too right._ He looked up at Molpe, who smiled at him as she struck the strings. _Thank you._

He took a bottle of red from beside the hot tub and filled his glass. Spike raised it. "A toast! To Buffy, my love and my future wife! And a libation for Anteros!" He poured out the offering to the god of requited love and drank the rest down.

More wine and liquor flowed, and the Sirens persuaded the humans to take short trips with them to the wheelhouse, to the bow, down to the galley. As the third hour got underway, the sirens became less coy, stealing kisses and straddling the humans in the hot tub. Thelxiope, the boldest of them, began pursuing Angel, dropping to her knees to place the olive between her lips into his navel, her hair floating about them in the hot water. The big vampire gave in reluctantly, grinning at the minx.

Molpe found the onboard sound system and the signal from a hiphop station in Los Angeles, and the humans were persuaded to dance, looking very awkward next to the demigods' gracefulness. When everyone was out of the tub, she came to Spike and held out a hand.

"Dance with me. You have not taken vows yet," Molpe pointed out, molding her body against his despite the driving beat of the song. She took the towel from his hand and put it around his waist, grabbing the ends so he was effectively trapped.

"She doesn't need my vows. She has me already." But he grinned down at her, taking no offense from her flirtation.

"Come with me, then. I will give you a boon freely, because of all these here, you have offered me tears."

"At another time, I would gladly have taken your boon." He spun her a bit and dipped her low, their steps still too slow for the song. "And how could I not cry, when your music so touched my heart?"

"Pretty words from a pretty man," she sighed, dropping the towel. "Knowledge, then. Come with me to the bow, look at the Rock." Molpe ran her hands across his wide shoulders, then let go of him regretfully. "I will tell you something you do not know. One musician to another."

Frowning a bit, Spike let her entwine her fingers with his and followed her to the bow. He looked in the windows of the lounge as they passed and saw Giles locked in a passionate kiss with either Aglaope or Peisione. Off the bow, Shag Rock was noticeably closer. "Anchor is dragging," he noted.

The Siren nodded. "You shouldn't have to move the boat for the time we have left." She leaned against the rail, and Spike did the same. "It's quite lovely here." Molpe sighed. "I envy my cousins," she gave him a sidelong look, "whom you met in Atlantis, when you were free. They found your visit to be quite sweet, quite … fulfilling."

He looked down at the water, grinning. Vampires were not unaffected by the Sirens; it was a matter of degree. The naiads and dryads had been worse, but he had also been younger. "I remember being quite… sore."

Molpe's laugh was warm and seductive. "They gave you a boon, as well."

Spike's grin faded, and he looked at the Siren sharply. "Her eyes."

Molpe nodded. "The eyes of your beloved." She put her arm on the rail so she could turn him to face her. "Before you ever beheld them."

"I never realized, until now."

She shrugged. "You gave them more. We all do quite well in your world, Spike."

"My world?"

"The world you've shaped. Better than in many others."

"I… don't know what to say to that." He didn't understand it, in fact.

Molpe lifted a shoulder. "It will be good to be free of our debt to Angelus." She examined him for a moment. "You love him."

"I do. He is mine."

"Then here is my boon: he has relived one day. It preys on his mind."

Spike inclined his head. "Thank you for this knowledge." He was thinking rapidly the whole time. "I did not know this." She had mentioned Angelus just before, and he wondered if there was a warning in that. "He used that day to undo some horror that Angelus committed?"

"No." Molpe frowned. "I no longer have the power to pierce the veil that covers the machinations of The Powers That Be. But in November, something was… denied." She gave a pretty shrug. "I don't wish to be a vague oracle. But this is your world; you should have as much knowledge as you can."

He shook his head. "You keep saying 'my world.'"

Molpe touched his face. "Your world, designed so that love can overcome any obstacle. And you love him."

"Thank you," he said again. Spike thought of a kiss he once gave to James in thanks for taking care of Drusilla. "Molpe, may an unworthy half-breed demon offer you a kiss as token of thanks?"

She lifted her face instantly, as hungry as the youngest vampire. It made him pause, but he was remade reckless. A full minute later, he pulled away from her mouth, then slowly untangled her arms and legs from his body. They were leaning far over the rail. Molpe saw him realize this, and she gave a pretty shrug. "We are what we are made to be."

"And if we're very lucky, we're better." Spike smiled at her and offered her his arm, and he escorted her back to the hot tub. "Is Koz well, then?"

"Who?"

"Kozwalopolus…" He knew the pronunciation was wrong, and probably the name, but he hadn't thought of the demon who lured him and Drusilla to Atlantis for a long time and had mostly forgotten the name. "Big red demon, scales, showed us the way to Atlantis."

Molpe shrugged. "A servant, perhaps. No one of importance."

Spike nodded and handed her off to Oz, who had formed an actual question about the lyre. He cursed himself for a fool. Molpe's attitude toward Koz was more revealing than she could know, and he regretted the kiss.

When the party ended, it ended quick. Angel gave Spike the head's up bare seconds before the Sirens dove over the sides of the yacht. It was long enough for him to get to the bench where Angel had stowed the handcuffs. He tossed a handful to his grandsire and had Oz and Giles secured to the chairs mounted to the deck before the first Siren splashed into the water. The singing started as he had Xander's hand in the cuff but before he had the other end attached to anything. Fortunately, Angel had finished securing Wesley and Gunn and was there to help him wrestle the lad away from the rail.

The singing that rose from the waves was nothing like the tunes Molpe and Peisinoe had sung while aboard. This song was a pull at something in the gut, bypassing the mind and heart both, calling to the body. Picking up the struggling human, they took Xander into the cabin and secured the other cuff to the beam that supported the beds. They listened to the haunting melody for a moment, then looked at the human who silently strained toward the sound, struggling against his bonds. Xander gritted his teeth and began panting, pulling against the cuff. Angel brought out a packet of foam earplugs from beneath one of the pillows, and they tucked them in Xander's ears. It helped, and they went back to the deck to start bringing the humans down to the bunks.

"No use talking to them," Angel said, sounding shaky, once Oz was handcuffed beside Giles, earplugs in place. The werewolf had worked loose one of the three bolts holding the seat to the deck in his determined madness.

Spike nodded his head. "Anchors bloody away, mate."

"Agreed." Angel headed to the bridge. He was surprised how close they had drifted to Shag Rock and unsurprised that something had fouled the anchor line. He started the boat's engine before the anchor was all the way up. He pulled the lever to reverse and headed away from the looming Shag Rock. It wasn't fast, but it was steady, and when he could no longer hear the haunting melody, he let up and sent Spike into the water to clear whatever had snagged the anchor chain. He felt reverberations through the boat as the boy worked, and it wasn't long before the blond vampire was back aboard. Spike climbed halfway onto the cabin so he could give a thumb's up, and Angel finished bringing up the anchor. He powered up the boat, swung the wheel wide, and headed back to port.

Spike took a few minutes to rinse off with the hose, replace the lid over the hot tub, and otherwise tidy up. He brewed some coffee and put another pot of hot water on the burner, then got out of the wet trunks and into dry clothes. He checked on his friends. All of them had fallen asleep. When the coffee was done, he went up to the bridge with two cups and Angel's clothes.

"Thanks," Angel said, more grateful for the warmth than the caffeine.

Spike narrowed his eyes and found the HVAC controls to start warm air blowing through the vents. "That'll help, too." He took the wheel while Angel changed.

"What was keeping the anchor from pulling up?"

"A femur bone through one of the links, about three meters up from the anchor." It had been fresh, and Spike had to shoo away several fish who were feeding from the scraps still attached.

"Huh." Angel shook his head.

"They weren't pretending to be anything but Sirens." Spike took a sip from the cup and looked thoughtful. "Until I saw that bone, I never knew if they ate flesh or just delighted in death."

"Oh, they eat people," Angel said grimly. "But it was more merciful than what Angelus had planned. At least one of them kept singing while the others fed."

"Well, now I'm glad they lost their feathers and can't fly."

"Oh. I forgot about that."

"And you thought, Sirens, perfect thing for my stag party?"

"Classier than strippers." He took the controls again. "And I know you like the classics."

"How many of them you think got laid?" Spike nodded down to where their friends slept.

"I don't know for sure," Angel said, though his nostrils flared, searching for that information, "but I did."

"Did you now?" Spike said, delighted and more than a little impressed. "Which one?"

"Thelxiope –"

"Ah, success with the old olive in the belly button trick." He took a drink of coffee.

"– and Peisinoe."

Spike choked a little. "Not at the same time?"

"No! I don't trust them as guests that much. One at a manageable time."

"You know I have to ask."

"Fine. Not as good as you would think. Quick, even." He sent Spike a sidelong look. "They did… things to make it quick."

The blond vampire looked thoughtful, wondering about their physiology. "Do they enjoy it, then?"

"Oh, yes, they do." Angel's words were emphatic.

His cheeks rounded a bit as he fought a grin. "You're sure they weren't faking?"

"Yes," Angel said, "asshole. They're greedy. They wanted as much as they could get, I'm thinking. Seriously, how often do they get a chance to socialize like this?"

"Probably not often," Spike agreed, thinking of Atlantis. "Interesting that they don't know about vampire sexuality, that they could be as greedy as they wanted with one of us," he elaborated.

"I think they might feed off a human's energy."

"What did they get from you, then?" Spike teased.

"You know exactly what they got."

He leaned against the instrument panel, facing the big vampire. "Oh, I know," he leered. Angel gave him a flirty look, then hid the humor behind a poker face. "Shame you're the only one who had to be on his best behavior. So many potential tattlers."

"I kissed Molpe," Spike admitted. "She had us half leaned over the railing by the end. I regret it," he added softly.

Angel glanced at the front of Spike's jeans. "You don't seem too regretful."

"Didn't really do anything for me."

"Huh. What about the singing?"

"At the end? Felt it here," Spike said, putting a hand over his abdomen.

"Yeah, me too. Like a harpoon through the belly." He checked his instruments, the chart, and slowed the engine, his brown eyes scanning the lighted shore ahead. "You don't think they'll have any ill effects?" he asked, thinking of their friends downstairs.

Spike shook his head. "Nothing other than hangovers. I don't think you have an unopened bottle of anything to take back."

"Just as well. Cordelia doesn't like to have it in her apartment." At Spike's inquiring look, he added, "Too many calories."

"Ah." He furrowed his brow. "She goes to the gym all the time. Wonder if her mum or dad is chubby?"

Angel shook his head. Seeing that he was going to be a distraction while the old man found the correct berth, Spike left the wheelhouse and went down to uncuff the other men. He made Giles flinch violently in his sleep when he tried to take out one of the earplugs, so he just left them in place. Spike stole a pillow from Xander, found an extra blanket, and fiddled with one of the upholstered benches in the cabin. It wasn't a foldout bed as he thought, but it did recline. He made up the makeshift bed and went astern to wait for Angel to maneuver the craft to the dock.

The big vampire shut off the engine and watched from the bridge as Spike unwound rope from the cleats and tied off. He wondered when and where the boy became so comfortable on a boat, if it was before or after he was turned. His mouth tightened a little as the blond man stepped onto the wooden boards of the dock and pulled his mobile out. Angel supposed he could do the same, call Cordelia to tell her they were back in port safely, but it wasn't the same as what Spike was doing.

In the lounge, he found a bottle of Jameson that was mostly empty, so he tilted it up until that problem was solved, then put it in the trash. Spike came in silently and sprawled onto the bench. He tossed the covers aside and patted the open area. Angel didn't put up even a token protest. The family bed had been blown up, burned, and soaked with water black from trickling down the sooty ribs of his building. Spike scooted to the side, and he laid down, his head on his boy's abdomen.

"Texted Buffy. She'll know we're back whenever she wakes up. I'm sure she'll tell the rest."

"Are they sleeping well downstairs?"

"Yeah. Reckon we can wake them about five, go get some breakfast, and still get you back to Cordelia's apartment before sunrise." One of Spike's hands went to his dark hair and began stroking it along his temple. "Can you nap until then?"

Angel nodded. "Hope you enjoyed it."

"I did. Never, ever would have guessed what you had planned. The singing was incredible, I can blackmail Giles for years, and," Angel could hear the smile in his voice, "it wouldn't have been as fun without an element of danger." He leaned down and touched his forehead briefly to Angel's. "Thank you."

"Glad to do it." He sighed and closed his eyes, letting all his muscles relax, safe with family, as the boat rocked them to sleep.

⸹

Outside of Cordelia's apartment, Spike waved at Oz, who beeped as he drove off to whatever hotel they had booked. Gunn had declined his offer of a ride and gone toward a subway stop after breakfast. Morning traffic on a holiday Sunday was light, and he got to the hotel faster than he expected. He'd checked in the previous day. Buffy was flying in from Las Vegas that afternoon, and he took advantage of the downtime to sleep. Even the trip to the airport wasn't too awful, at least not once he caught sight of her coming down the escalator to baggage claim.

"How was your flight?" he asked, after she reluctantly let go of him. _Ah, love, missed you so much._

 _Missed you, too._ "Quick. Even so, I slept some." She linked her arm with his as they walked out to terminal parking. "How was the bachelor party?"

"Rather wild, actually. How was the bachelorette party?"

"Rather… indulgent." She shrugged. "I wish I had invited Katy Loomis," Buffy caught his blank look, "you know, from school? She would have loved how... lavish it was."

"Mm, sounds interesting. Go on, you first. I believe I have more to tell."

"So, we had spa appointments first. Did you know caviar facials are a thing?"

"I did not," he said with mock delight.

She grinned and nudged him with her hip. "Did I say I missed you?" In the dimness of the parking garage, she maneuvered him against the car and gave him a proper kiss. "Okay," Buffy said, a little breathless, "I did miss you."

Too many people were moving around for him to respond to her kiss the way he wanted. He settled for a series of soft kisses along her jaw to her ear, where he whispered details of his planned response.

Buffy pulled away from him. "Hotel. Now."

He chuckled. "As my lady wishes." He tossed her bag into the back seat and began navigating away from the airport.

Buffy told him the rest as they drove: the massage by massive young men in Speedos, the manicure by thin young men who had the best gossip, the party bus staffed by shirtless young men ushering them to the male revue, which featured buff young men.

"I'm sensing a theme," Spike mused. "And Willow arranged this?"

"I know! I feel stereotyped."

"I feel for you."

"Oh, it was horrible." They were on the freeway now, so she leaned over and put her hand on his thigh. "It was okay, but it was all just to look at. Except for my mom. She touched."

"Oh, this I want to hear."

"So this guy danced over to the table, and Willow gave the tip to Mom. She goes to put it in his waistband, and he just stands up so her fingers are halfway down his briefs. Mom turns eleven shades of red, even Anya is laughing, and Willow fell out of her chair." Buffy was describing a lot of this with her hands. "The dancer helps her up, practically standing on top of her, so Willow kind of slides up his leg – you know how short she is – and she's twelve shades of red. Tara teased her all night."

"What about Cordelia?"

"She was all about the spa. The male dancers were okay, apparently, but you know how on the surface she's all about guys who have too much in their trust funds to ever stoop to dancing for twenties."

"And Anya?"

"Surprisingly, she was not into the male revue. She said it was demeaning." Buffy shrugged. "She's right, I guess, but it's well-compensated demeanment. Is that a word?""

"Don't think so, pet." He gave her a sidelong look. "And what about Buffy? Did she enjoy herself?"

"I did. We laughed like loons all night. I would have been just as happy with masseuses and female drivers, but I'm not sorry I went to the show." She leaned over again to squeeze his thigh. "Though it was kind of like looking at a display case of frozen entrees when you have a personal chef at home." She sat back. "And I haven't noticed at all that you haven't said the first word about your party."

"Angel did well," he said. "Got a great boat, lots of booze, Gunn and Giles showed up in addition to the usual suspects, and," his voice got a bit louder, "his idea of entertainment is the bleeding Sirens."

Buffy wasn't sure about this. "Bleeding Sirens? Is that like a band?"

"No, that's like the legendary Greek Sirens."

She frowned. "The ones who lured sailors to the rocks?"

"Something like that. They were so lovely and their voices so sweet, sailors would jump overboard to get to them."

"What was that like?"

"They were lovely and their voices were sweet, and at the end of the night, Angel and I had to handcuff the humans to keep them from jumping overboard to get to them."

"You aren't kidding."

"Noooo." He began the story with Angel anchoring off Shag Rock and was at the earplugs part by the time he handed the keys to the valet. Buffy looked around for the first time as they got out, and she stopped by the car.

"The Four Seasons?"

He gave her a rich smile. "I remember some small complaint about previous accomodations."

Buffy took his hand and began to walk to the doors, giving him a sidelong look. "Is there a bed?"

"There is."

"And a shower?"

"Yeah." His voice became smoky as he answered that question.

"It'll do."

A couple of hours later, mostly dry, they drowsed together on the bed. Buffy traced circles around Spike's navel. "Tell me again about Atlantis."

She felt him shrug. "They needed to be needed, as it turned out." He went through the story again.

"But the tree goddesses –"

"Dryads."

"– had my eyes."

"Yeah. All of them did"

"How could they have known?"

"Powerful, even trapped like that, I guess." He took her fingers from his chest and kissed them, looking more worried than thoughtful. "Or they took it from my mind."

"Which seems odd, as we wouldn't meet for decades."

"Mm," he agreed. "But this is my world, according to Molpe."

"Where love can conquer any obstacle." They looked at each other in silence for a time. "Have we gone through all this before?" She was thinking of all the times she or Spike or one of the Scoobies would mention a feeling of déjà vu.

He took a long time to answer and rolled over so he could meet her eyes when he finally did. "I don't see how we could have had this already," he put his hand over her heart, "if a world made to overcome obstacles is necessary."

"I can't imagine ever meeting you and not loving you."

"I am actually not all that loveable."

"True," she said, smiling, "but I'm remarkably generous."

"True," he agreed, leaning in close to kiss her brow. When he pulled away, his expression was serious. "Love… not that I think she's the most trustworthy source, but… I'm less scared."

"Scared?"

"Scared because I don't deserve this happiness. I know that. I don't deserve your love. But… if this world is… recompense for being cheated of love in another, maybe it balances. Maybe it's okay to just be happy, not always waiting for the other shoe to drop."

She put her hand on his face, let him feel the flow of her thoughts that told him he was worthy. "I think one of us must have died too early." Sadness made the smile on her face small, and her fingers touched him fleetingly on the bottommost true rib. "You don't know how reassuring it is to know the gem is there."

He gazed into her solemn eyes. "Don't waste any worry on me, love."

"And you don't worry about me?" she teased.

"No. There's nothing you can't do, nothing you can't accomplish." His blue eyes became darker. "But I worry about… randomness. Something coming at you from the sides. That's why I have to be there, to pick off stray bullets."

"Funny that you think I was the one who died, and that I think you were, in this hypothetical previous life."

Spike closed his eyes and put his forehead against hers. "Maybe we both have, one time or another. Maybe it wasn't one cycle, but several, for us to deserve this kind of happiness, this kind of love."

Buffy's words were soft, as were her lips on his. _Whatever we might have gone through, it was worth it. For this, it was worth it._

⸹

After another few hours of sleep, they had just enough time to grab some food and head out to meet Angel and the rest of the treasure hunting crew. As Spike drove, Buffy was quiet and looked out the window. She pulled out her phone and texted Giles that they were on their way. "Honey? Could you pull over for a minute?"

"Uh, sure." He sent her a sidelong look and found a parking lot, empty on a Sunday night.

"Okay," she said, twisting in the seat so she could face him. "I guess I slept on this, got perspective or something. Let me run it by you, see what you think." Buffy held out her hands and waited until he took them to go on. _I'm positive that the day the Siren said Angel relived in November, the day something was 'denied,' was the day after Thanksgiving, when we visited him._

Spike nodded. _Something was off with him that day, for sure._

 _We both felt it._ She looked down for a moment. _What would it take for Angel to relive a day, to undo something?_

 _Our deaths._

 _No._ Buffy shook her head emphatically. _At least, I don't think so._

 _My death, no. Your death? Probably not. But both of us? Especially if he thought it was his fault? I think that would do it._

She shook her head again _. I agree it sounds reasonable, but… that's you._ "You would remake the entire world," she said aloud in a soft voice. _He's too… fatalistic._

 _What do you think it was, then?_

Buffy grimaced and shook her head. _I don't know. I know the Mohra demon was part of it – it was obvious he had fought it before, from the crash through the window to bashing it in the jewel with that clock – but what, exactly… I don't know. I keep coming back to the demon._ She gave him a steady look. _It feels like Slayer intuition._ Buffy squeezed his fingers _. Do you know I asked Giles to research it?_

Spike shook his head. _What did he find out?_

 _Nothing helpful. They're assassins. Its blood has regenerative powers, isn't known to make people depressed like the diablas did last year._

They gazed at each other for a few seconds longer. _Well, the Mohra showed up when we were all together before. Maybe another one will track us down again, make another attempt. We'll see if we can figure out anything further._

 _Unless he tells us, I don't see how we can figure out anything._

 _No._ He rubbed his thumbs across the backs of her hands. _If whatever was denied leads to Angelus getting loose… Love, I promise you that I'll personally pan in his head until Willow can stuff his soul back in. You won't have to deal with him._

 _He is happier, isn't he? I mean, not perfect moment happy, but… better than then?_

Spike nodded. _He is. This law firm that's picked a fight with him gives him a clear enemy. That's good for him, gives him a legitimate target for his… darker urges, leaves him clear to help innocent people._

 _So, even though he's lost Doyle and now his office space, you think he's in a better place?_

 _I think so._ He sighed _. I don't want to be that person, love, but, again, it comes down to it, we think this is a threat to him, I'll go into his head and dig until I find it. For his own safety, I could be that ruthless._

Buffy shook her head, remembering his memories of having his mind violated by Angelus. _I won't ask you to do that. He would never trust you again. At some point, to be the good guys, you have to say no to some methods, even if they would work._

The blond man closed his eyes. _You're right. And thank you._

 _I've walked away from power before._ Buffy was thinking of Faith's rejection of rules for Slayers. She shrugged. _I'm no less powerful because of it._

"Humbled to be part of your team, love."

"Well, let's get our team on the road." Buffy gave his fingers a final squeeze. "People to meet, treasure to plunder."

"Buffy?" He leaned across the console and kissed her once, slow and warm as a vampire could make it. "Not just saying that. I am honored to be part of your team."

⸹

Two hours later, Angel stood in an empty cellar dug out of a corner of the sewers that served downtown. He had rushed everyone to get here, and he felt as if his face should be burning. "I'm sure this is the right place."

Giles pointed at a horizontal line on the wall. "There's been a flood, I believe, some time ago." His voice was kind. Angel turned again, as if the lantern he carried might pick up the gleam of _something_.

"Come on, mate," Spike said, a hand on his arm. "You said you knew another cache?"

Angel followed him back to the group at the cellar entrance numbly. The first one had been the best by far, the one that would have helped not only get Angel Investigations back on its feet, but might even have yielded enough to shield Cordelia and Wesley from his fight with Wolfram and Hart. He couldn't bring himself to meet the ex-Watcher's worried eyes.

Giles was examining the walls outside, seeing the same natural high water mark. "I daresay someone who knew more about fluid mechanics than I do could suss out which direction the flood water would go."

"The path of least resistance," Oz supplied. He lifted his face to the air around him, as if a decades-old flood could be tracked.

"Which way?" Spike asked briskly, trying to get the old man moving again. Buffy glanced at him and took a few steps until she was close enough to touch the sleeve of Angel's coat.

"Uh, out of the sewers. That's one thing, anyway."

"That's of the good," Xander said. "I mean, not that it don't stink in Sunnydale, but it is a smaller town."

"Wait." Oz's voice was quiet, and the rest of the group fell silent, gripping their digging tools as weapons. "I got a different smell." The rest stepped out of his way, and he went further down the sewer line. Then he stopped and walked back a couple of steps and shone his flashlight to a point about four feet above his head. "Here. Newer construction, a different kind of concrete. And metal."

Giles was there first. "A kind of hatch?"

Spike stooped down beside Buffy. "I'll be your base, love."

 _I'll be your flyer._ Buffy kicked out of her boots and sat on Spike's shoulders. He moved to the spot above them where the flashlights were trained. "Ready?" Spike set his feet and nodded, and Buffy went smoothly to standing on his shoulders, his hands at her calves to steady her. She couldn't resist glancing down at Giles. "Cheerleading and slayage, Giles."

 _You can combine cheerleading with anything, love._

Buffy swatted the top of Spike's head for no reason anyone could see, then turned her attention to the metal hatch. "It's not locked, just rusty. I don't think it's been opened in a long time." She tugged. The hinges gave with a loud groan of stressed metal, and rust flaked down onto Spike, who closed his eyes and stopped breathing. "Hand me a flashlight?"

Angel was by their side with his lantern, and he held it up to her. "Can you see anything?"

"Metal stairs." She looked to her other side. "Oz, do you smell anything?"

"Nothing recent."

"I'm going up."

"Wait." Giles scooped up her boots and held them up to her, trying to avoid dripping anything on Spike. "I would want you to cut yourself on rusty metal."

"Not with the heels I'll be wearing Saturday," she agreed. Buffy sat the lantern on the steps and turned to sit on them herself. "The stairs seem sturdy." She zipped up her boots and avoided the bottom couple of steps as she stood, figuring that if anyone needed to follow her, they wouldn't want to put their hands where her nasty footprints were.

She had heard stories of the crypt where the Gem of Amara was found, how it all sparkled and glinted, no matter where you turned your eyes. This was… different. She went back to the metal stairs and called "Come on up."

"Buffy?" Angel's voice was strained.

She leaned down to give him a smile, getting a face full of flashlight beams. "Bring the bags."

The group broke into relieved laughter. Spike knelt down again and set his shoulder against Angel's thighs, grabbed his legs, and lifted him so he could get his hands on the diamond plate metal stairs. The big vampire hoped the pattern was an omen.

"Giles?" Spike held out a hand to him, then similarly boosted him up. This time, he wasn't lucky enough to avoid sewage-splattered footgear. "Bollocks," he murmured, then, louder, "Keep 'em out of the booby traps, then, Watcher."

Oz was next, then Wesley. Spike asked Xander for a boost, then turned and hauled the human up. "I'll take a quick look, then come back and take first watch. Don't fancy getting trapped in here."

"Think it will look like the crypt?"

"Can't be as crowded. The rest of them aren't still on the stairs." The steps led into an open area about fifteen by twenty feet, with a comfortable eight-foot ceiling.

"I think this is an old bomb shelter," Xander said.

"I think you're right," Giles said.

Someone had brought in furniture from 1960s America but decorated the vault with treasure from all over the world. Coins were placed neatly in chests; gems were poured into glass vases. Necklaces were on display against black velvet, pearl and emerald and diamond. Everywhere he looked, Spike saw the gleam of gold and the black of tarnished silver. "Oz," Spike said, clapping the young man, black-haired today, on the shoulder, "I am immensely impressed. I didn't smell a thing."

Angel turned to Oz, started to say something, and just drew the startled musician into a hearty hug. "Ha," he said, more of an exhalation than a laugh.

Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. "We could buy the property and rebuild."

"We could maybe just move off Skid Row." Angel did laugh weakly then, and started toward the chest of coins.

Spike put a hand on his arm. "Wait. Let Giles check first." He turned to the other Watcher. "You any good at sensing magic?"

"Not really." Wesley nodded at the older Watcher. "Mr. Giles is a much better sorcerer than I."

"I'm not much," Giles said, "but enough to keep us from touching something malevolent." He started prowling though the treasures along the closest wall.

"I've got first watch." Spike smiled and gave Angel a one-armed hug, then headed down the stairs.

"Who do you suppose put this here?" Buffy looked around, somewhat awestruck by all the pretty, sparkly things.

Oz pointed at the boxy, low-slung chair and couch, upholstered in a nubby gold fabric. "That had to be magicked inside."

"Maybe someone magicked the whole bomb shelter to this level." Xander tried to think of retroactively burying a monstrosity like this so deep, but the engineering was too impractical.

"It must have been a demon," Angel said, "to want a fallout shelter with a treasure background."

"Or perhaps a human who found the treasure and thought to keep it against a post-nuclear future where barter was the rule."

Giles stopped his survey of the gems at Wesley's words. "As someone who lived through the Cold War, I can assure you that none of us expected to survive – or wanted to. Do you know, when the wall came down in Berlin, I felt a burden lift from my shoulders that I never even knew was there? The fear of nuclear annihilation was all I had ever known and so was… constantly in the background, like static."

Buffy stepped over and put her arm around his waist. "I never knew that," she said, her voice husky.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am that your generation lives free of fear." He put a kiss on her temple, then let her go. "Check that door over there, if you don't mind," he directed, turning back to work.

Buffy hid her smile and let him get to it. The door led to a bathroom with odd, compact fixtures for the toilet and sink. She looked around carefully. Other than the treasure and a stack of yellowed paperback Westerns, the vault had never been stocked.

"All right," Giles said. "Anything along this wall is safe to pack."

Xander, the veteran treasure hunter, stepped up with his duffel bag and went to his knees to begin moving coins. "Pass by the silver objects. Gold is heavier, but it's worth more. Coins and gems or jewelry get the best return." Oz and Wesley moved more gingerly and began to pack up the gemstones.

Angel waited until Giles declared the next section clear, and Wesley moved to join him. Buffy kept prowling around, checking beneath the sofa and chair, even lifting the cushions. When Giles called the all clear, she moved to the rows of jewelry boxes and began dumping the contents into the bags she brought.

Giles finished, standing up with an accompanying popping noise from one of his knees. "There's nothing dangerous that I can find. Angel?" When the big vampire glanced up, he asked, "Is this the same trove you remember?"

"I don't remember anything specific about it," Angel said slowly, "and there's nothing that especially stands out today, either. It has to be the same, though. What are the odds of two separate treasures twenty feet from each other?"

"Yes, I'm sure you're right." Giles sighed and leaned over for a duffel bag. He went back to where he finished his check and began to pack up coins.

They had filled all their bags before anyone thought to trade guard post with Spike. Buffy called him back, and they divvyed up the burden, Buffy getting two full shorter duffels and Angel and Spike getting the longest.

Spike was the first to drop down. He'd brought along supplies in his backpack, mainly flashlights and the dampening candles, but he also had a tarpuelin. He spread it out beneath the hatch and anchored the fire brigade as the group passed the heavy bags down the stairway.

Once everyone was down the stairs, Angel looked around. All of the treasure was in the duffels except for the largest silver pieces. "Are we coming back?"

Giles shook his head. "I wouldn't recommend returning to a place twice. We haven't so far."

The big vampire looked at the piled bags. "I don't want to seem greedy," he mumbled.

"Too bad," Oz said. "I liked that 1959 Santa Clarita championship bowling trophy."

Everyone laughed except Angel, who was too keyed up. "I guess we better leave?"

"Yes," Giles agreed. "Buffy? If you would go first. Spike, you got our six."

The trip to the cars was slower, since the group was so weighed down, but uneventful. Xander called Anya to let her know that he and Oz were on their way. She, Cordelia, Tara, and Willow were waiting at Giles' apartment to begin inventory and a more careful check for magical objects.

"Remember," Giles said sternly, leaning into the passenger window of Oz's van. "Don't speed."

"Holiday weekend," Oz agreed. "Got it."

"Oh. Er, yes. I just meant, don't give highway patrol any reason to see a van full of stuffed duffel bags."

"There's some questions I'd hate to answer," Xander agreed. He put his fist out and, after a moment, Giles awkwardly bumped it. Oz put on the lights, then headed away with a cheerful beep of the horn.

Rupert checked his watch. "Quarter to one. Angel, do you want to check the other location?"

"We can," he said, clearly taken aback.

"Will the five of us suffice to carry everything?"

He nodded. "It isn't as big as the one we just left. Do we have more bags?"

Spike nodded. "Ten more in the boot."

While they were talking, Buffy had opened the trunk and taken out a gallon jug of water, which she was using to rinse off her boots. She passed it to Angel as a matter of course. "What about a tarp?" She reached back into the trunk for a case of bottled water.

"Shouldn't need one, if it isn't in the sewers." Spike held his stained shirt away from his chest. "We need one, I'll volunteer my tee."

Without waiting for Spike to ask, Buffy got out a roll of plastic garbage bags. He lined the driver's seat with one bag and popped another over the back. When he handed the roll back to her, she wrinkled her nose. "I'll sit in back with Giles and Wesley so Angel can navigate."

The blond vampire got a gleam in his eye. "Give us a hug, then."

The Slayer darted behind Giles, who promptly handed Spike the water jug. "Wash your feet, William."

"Water?" Buffy offered the bottled water and Giles accepted one.

Wesley and Angel exchanged a glance. Their companions' nonchalance seemed very odd to them. "Any reason why you want to try our luck again tonight?" he asked his fellow ex-Watcher.

Giles made a sideways motion of his head. "Paranoia," he said, "or superstition. Nothing concrete. I don't think we're being watched, but I'd hate to head out to caches with any kind of regularity.

He tilted his head back and drank half of the bottle of water.

"How safe is your apartment?" Angel asked, having just realized that millions of his hopes and dreams were en route to a studio apartment in a faux stucco building. In Sunnydale.

"Safer than it appears."

When Giles said nothing further, Angel got the sense that whatever Giles had done to make his apartment safer came immediately after Angelus had paid a visit. He turned away and opened the passenger door to cover his shame.

"Okay. Everyone clean except for Spike?" Buffy asked.

"Still waiting for that hug," he said, chasing her around the car until he got to the driver's door. He opened it for her as though a perfect gentleman and tilted the seat. Giles went into the back seat first, giving the blond man a withering look, and Buffy quickly followed. Wesley got in last, gingerly, and they headed southwest.

Angel immediately had Spike change direction, which led to a constant bicker between the two of them until Spike's refusal to leave the Imperial Highway eventually led to El Segundo and Angel had to navigate more finely. Spike found a dark street on which to park about three blocks from the oil refinery the older vampire pointed out.

"Sewers, oil refineries… interesting tastes you have."

Angel got out of the convertible. "Oh, crypts are better?"

"I'd never been to that crypt before," Spike protested.

"Thank God they don't live any closer to each other," Buffy muttered to Wesley.

They were beneath a flight path from the nearby airport, and even the two vampires couldn't manage to maintain an argument when cargo and commercial jets rumbled overhead every two or three minutes. When Angel went to a manhole cover, Spike rolled his eyes, but this one led to a tiled access tunnel with flickering fluorescent lighting. For this hunt, they all wore backpacks and could move easily, relatively unencumbered.

Angel led off, and no one spoke as they went through several hundred feet of tunnel. Angel occasionally had to turn sideways when the pipes and conduit elbowed out into the upper area, but it was otherwise a comfortable walk, single file.

"Stop. Camera." Giles nodded ahead of Angel.

The camera was pointing at the door he was approaching. The dark-haired vampire reached up and pulled a connection loose, leaving the wire dangling. He twisted the wheel to open the door partway and looked up to the ceiling of the other side. "No camera," he reported. In another twenty yards, he reached a ladder and started up. Instead of a manhole cover, there was another hatch wheel. It would not turn. After a full minute of effort, he climbed back down the ladder. "It won't open."

They all looked at Buffy, who went up the ladder quickly and gave it a try. She tried both shoving it upwards and turning the wheel. The Slayer slid neatly down the ladder, a move perfected through years of patrol in Sunnydale tunnels, and turned to shake her head. "If I was guessing, the other side has been cemented over."

Angel nodded. "I haven't been there in a long time. The treasure was in kind of a safety bunker meant for workers in case of fire. Someone figured out that gas vapor is heavier than air, so when it fell into disuse, transient demons moved in." Wesley shifted, looking around, as though the explanation was irritating.

"What's a long time?" Giles asked.

Angel shrugged. "Nineteen-fifties?"

"I haven't seen any other way up," Spike said. "Go on into the tunnel, look for another route?"

"No," Wesley said, looking back down the tunnel to the door. "We have enough."

Angel frowned. "This is as far in as I've ever been. If the hatch is covered over, I don't know if the bunker is still there."

"Excuse me," Wesley said, glancing again over his shoulder. His light voice had an urgent note in it. "We need to go. I believe we're being watched."

All of them immediately checked for cameras, and Buffy and Spike moved so that they were on the humans' far side, with Angel at the rear. "From where?"

Wesley shook his head. "I don't know."

"How do you know?" Giles peered at him through the bottom of his glasses.

The dark-haired Brit compressed his lips. "I am not the sorcerer you are, but I have concentrated on developing this… skill, if you will."

Giles and the rest of them absorbed this without comment, and the older man focused on the important thing. "We're being monitored magically?"

"I think it likely."

"The law firm?" Buffy asked.

Angel's look was dark. "I agree with Wes. Let's get out of this tunnel."

"Move." Buffy turned and went back toward the doorway. She stepped through cautiously and looked around before nodding once to the rest of the team.

Spike passed her, went to the side, and found a support beam that would serve his purpose. He ripped it from beneath the pipe and bent it once so it would go through the hatch wheel, then again so that the length of it would catch the doorframe if someone tried to open it from the other side. "Dog the hatches," he said, satisfied. Angel gave him a puzzled look, then gestured him to go ahead, behind Wesley. "What?" he asked. "You don't remember your tour as Captain America?"

"Pretty sure the Germans didn't use the phrase 'dog the hatches," he shot back.

"Quiet, both of you," Wesley said. This was the most assertive thing Spike had ever heard him say, so he took the rebuke seriously and held his peace.

The ambush came at the entrance to the tunnel. A cloaked demon dropped down from the shadows of the upper rungs from the manhole access. The hood fell away as he did, revealing a green, reptilian demon holding a sword. Buffy smiled, seeing the jewel on its forehead, picking up her pace to meet it. Her fingers tightened on the simple hand axe she'd taken from her backpack.

The Slayer let it have the first strike, ducked away from the cut and waded in. She'd seen Angel fight a Mohra demon and wanted to end it even quicker. She did. The axe handle gave her the extra length she needed to splinter the jewel in its forehead, but the stroke she used also shattered the skull beneath it.

What Buffy didn't see was the second Mohra demon hidden at the top of the pipes. It vaulted over them and into the space between the Slayer and the two ex-Watchers. Giles had pulled out a weapon of his own as soon as he saw Buffy's movements. It was an army surplus folding shovel. Slamming the blade in place, he batted aside the sword swipe and shoved the sharp edge into the demon's neck. It staggered, and Giles drew the shovel back to take another angle, its blood spattering against the pipes. The Mohra demon was tough, though. Bleeding and cluthching one hand to its neck, it still managed to drive its sword at Giles. He danced backward, out of range.

Wesley stepped forward, using the pickaxe he had carried like a pool cue, driving it into the biceps of the arm that held the sword.

"Smash the jewel in its forehead!" Buffy called.

Spike started forward, but Angel threw both arms around Spike's chest, grabbing him back. "Don't!"

Now that it didn't have the sword, Giles waded in again with another thrust of the shovel blade. Then he shifted his grip on the shovel and brought the blade down flat against the jewel on the demon's forehead.

"Check," Buffy called.

"Geroff," Spike growled, struggling to get free of Angel's hold.

"Don't touch it."

"Clear." Giles turned from scanning the pipes. "Wesley, go the ladder. Buffy, be careful." The other human did so, and Buffy nodded at him before starting up the ladder.

"Would you stop," Spike snarled, finally wrenching free and turning to face Angel.

The big vampire grabbed his wrist. "Don't touch the blood."

Spike saw the fear on his grandsire's face. "What?"

"What?" Giles repeated. He looked down at the demon at his feet. Blood was pooling out of its neck, gravity pulling on the fluid instead of a pulse driving it. The blood had an odd iridescence.

"I'm going to catch up to Buffy," Spike said, irritated. He broke Angel's grip on his arm.

"Don't touch it!" Angel roared, and he grabbed Spike's filthy t-shirt in both hands.

Giles twigged before Spike did. He looked away from the drama and back down at the demon. The blood had regenerative powers. The Watcher went to his knees. Under the guise of wiping his shovel on the demon's clothes, he took his half-empty bottle of water from his coat pocket, emptied it, and gathered up a good-sized sample of its blood.

"What's wrong with you?" Spike shot back.

"Clear," Buffy called back down to Wesley.

"Clear. Let's move," he relayed.

"Spike… don't. It isn't safe for us."

The blond vampire glanced over his shoulder once more, then turned to really look at Angel. The old man was… terrified. "All right." He let go of Angel's hands. "I'll be careful. I won't touch its blood."

Angel swallowed, looking between the pool of blood and Spike. He nodded and let go of Spike's shirt.

Giles slid the bottle into his pocket and made a show of wiping his hands on the demon's cloak before standing up.

"Leave the shovel," Angel demanded. "Wesley, leave your pickaxe."

"I barely –"

"It's contaminated."

"All right." Wesley gave Angel a placating look and used the tone of voice one might take with an angry toddler, but he put the pickaxe down next to the stairs.

Giles threw the axe beneath the pipes and favored Angel with one of his penetrating looks. The big vampire looked away. The Watcher shook his head and started to the stairs.

"Wait. Careful of Giles' footprints." Angel ushered Spike in front of him. The blond man gave him another sharp look and took an exaggerated step over the bloody corpse. Angel followed just as gingerly, and the two vampires went up after Wesley, leaving Giles to follow.

Narrowing his eyes, Giles went back and filled his makeshift vial with more of the blood. Then he hurried up the steps. As he glanced down, he could see that he did have some of the blood on the soles of his shoes. It left glowing stains on the metal rungs.

He found more drama up top. Angel was holding Spike's arm again, keeping him away from Buffy. "Oh, good Lord," Giles muttered. He searched through his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. "Will this suffice?" Flicking the switch a couple of times, it went from white to red to blue. "It's UV light, meant for lighting blood at night." He aimed it at Buffy's body. "Close your eyes, my dear. Don't look into the beam."

"Cor," Spike said, distracted by the gadget. "Where'd you get that?"

"Sporting goods store. Hunters use it for tracking wounded prey," Giles replied.

Buffy turned all the way around. "Satisfied?" she asked.

"Now Wesley."

Giles gave Angel another penetrating look, but aimed the beam at his fellow Watcher with the same warning to close his eyes. Without waiting for the big vampire to ask, he handed the flashlight to Wesley and took off his coat, turning it inside out. "I know it's on my shoes." The blood had spattered onto one leg of his pants as well, but he was both fascinated and dismayed to see the traces underneath his fingernails disappear even as he watched, absorbed into his skin.

"What does this blood do to us, anyway?" Spike turned back to Angel.

"Great harm."

"Well, that's specific."

Angel wouldn't meet his gaze. "We should get out of here."

"We should," Buffy agreed. She got everyone moving, promising Angel that she would put down more plastic trash bags for Giles. Wesley turned off the flashlight and handed it back to the older Watcher. The Slayer dropped back to where Giles brought up the rear. He was flexing his fingers. "Are you okay?" she asked sympathetically. The damage to his hands must be acting up; he'd had to carry a lot of weight tonight. On the thought of where that damage came from, she glanced at Angel, who was walking stiffly next to Spike.

"Fine." He flexed his fingers again and forced himself to smile. "Just fine." He, too, glanced at Angel. There was speculation in his eyes.

"I'm sorry that didn't work out," Angel said when they reached the car. "I'm sorry I put you in danger."

"You didn't," Buffy said crisply. "But whoever was watching us probably called in those demons."

"It's likely," Wesley agreed.

"Definition of insanity," Spike said, his voice casual. The look he sent to Buffy was not.

"Yes," Giles agreed. "Even though there were two Mohra demons this time, it didn't work the first time."

Angel closed his eyes. It had worked, though no one knew it. One champion had been taken from the board.

As they spoke, Spike opened the boot and Buffy brought the roll of plastic bags with her as she got into the car. She put one on the floor and two more in the seat, then held them in place as Giles got in. They didn't say much to each other. Buffy noticed Angel turning to look at a sign for the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant. She hoped he hadn't just remembered another cache of treasure.

"Well, I'm ready for bed." Wesley stretched after he got out of Spike's car. "I know I should feel let down after what happened in the tunnel, but I can't."

"Because of what happened in the sewer?" Spike asked. He got out, too, and came around the car. Wesley nodded, smiling at the thought of the full bags.

Giles and Buffy were speaking in low tones in the back seat. Giles got out, and Buffy used another trash bag for the ones he'd sat on. When she leaned back, Giles shone the blue light into the car's interior. It was clear of blood. She peered out at him from the back seat. "You aren't going to try to drive back tonight, are you?"

"No." He sent her a reassuring smile. "I think I'll put in an order for room service breakfast and leave after rush hour tomorrow."

"Good idea. Night, Giles."

"Good night, my dear." He turned to Wesley. "Would you mind terribly to drop me at my hotel?"

"Not at all."

"Angel," Spike said, "give Wesley the keys."

The big vampire abruptly noticed that Spike had positioned himself between him and his convertible. "I'm good to drive," he protested.

"Sure you are," Spike said, his words carefully enunciated, "but Buffy and I want to talk to you about… wedding plans."

"Some other time."

"Angel?" Buffy's voice was pleasant. "Get in the car."

"I should go along and protect them." Giles and Wesley exchanged a look at this excuse.

"The Mohra demons have come after you, not them."

Angel looked between Buffy and Spike. He could make a big production of this, flee and draw shadow, or he could give in. His mouth tightened, and he shook his head, but he drew the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Wesley. "See you tomorrow night. Bye, Giles."

They said their good nights and parted. Spike tuned the radio to the alternative rock channel he and Buffy agreed upon, but the interior of the car was otherwise silent. When Spike pulled up at the valet stand at the Four Seasons, the big vampire tugged at his coat with one hand and sent a look of askance at Spike's t-shirt.

The two blond warriors flanked him, as if he might bolt. It was a near thing, but by the time they got to the elevator and gave the operator their floor, he was resigned. He was also thinking of how good it might be to sleep in a family bed again, even for a couple of hours.

The two blonds worked like delicate, intricate gears, their movements complementary. As soon as they were inside the room, Buffy announced she wanted a shower. She'd brought the roll of garbage bags up from the car. Even if she was clear of blood, her clothes had been through a sewer. Angel sat on the edge of a chair, trying not to feel awkward as Spike fetched her one of his clean t-shirts and her underwear. He saw her bare arm reach from behind the bathroom door, take the clothes, and give him two bags in return, one with her clothes, the other with her boots. The whole operation had taken less than a minute.

They heard the hiss of the shower, and Spike gave Angel a considering look. Then he peeled off the stained t-shirt and dropped it in the same bag as Buffy's clothes. The Four Seasons staff had changed the bedding when they came in to turn down for the night, thank goodness. He leaned against the door and took off his boots, then nodded at Angel.

The big vampire took off his shoes and placed them by the wall, then took off his jacket. It was the first, symbolic shedding of layers, he knew. He closed his eyes. They remained in silence as Buffy took a very quick shower. She was carrying a hairdryer as she came out. Spike's t-shirt fell to mid-thigh on her, and she looked adorable with a towel wrapped around her hair. Her expressive eyes met his with embarrassment and a banked anger. Angel wasn't sure if it was aimed at him.

"Come on," Spike said, jerking his head. He went to the bathroom.

Angel's lips parted. He had not expected this, but he was in truth eager for a shower. He gave Buffy a miserable smile and followed Spike. The blond vampire handed him a hanger for his clothes, knowing his habits, then wadded up his own jeans and leaned out the door to put them in the bag.

His boy was tanned, not overly so, but noticeably darker. Angel watched him fiddle with the water faucet in the shower. No tan lines. The sight caused him to take a small breath, and the scent of their earlier lovemaking assaulted him. Being in Spike and Buffy's bedroom had been something he dreaded, but the sheets were fresh. The bathroom was unexpected. He closed his eyes, feeling dizzy for a moment. Everything. The brat had everything.

Spike ducked under the spray and began soaping his arms. The scent of expensive hotel soap, not bay rum, came to Angel and got him moving. He hung his clothes, checking for stains and wishing he had something clean to change into, then followed Spike into the shower.

"You're tan." He made the comment as they switched places, Angel going into the spray.

Spike's face lit up. "You think so? The skin doesn't want to tan, I don't think. If I'm out in the sun almost every day, it'll keep, but in a week I get pale again."

"Well, a tan is a response to sun damage." Angel shrugged and reached for the shampoo. "We heal up quick."

The other vampire nodded and propped a foot on the edge of the tub to soap up his leg. After a minute, they traded places once again. Spike rinsed off, saw that Angel had just put down the conditioner, and ducked his head to hide a smile. He got out and dried off, then left the bathroom.

Angel vacillated between taking longer just to be spiteful or hurrying so he could get the conversation over with. He came down on the side of hurrying. After he dried off with the last towel, he saw that Spike had taken his clothes and left a thick robe for him. As grateful as he was not to have to get back in those clothes, he also felt silly in the robe.

When he opened the door, it was to a sweet domestic scene. Spike, wearing a clean pair of black jeans, was kneeling behind Buffy, brushing her newly dried hair. The blond tresses were longer than Angel had ever seen them. It was something he'd seen the boy do before, brushing dark strands instead of blond. "I feel silly," he said, covering his discomfort.

"You'd look sillier trying to wear our clothes," Buffy said drily.

"True."

"Though he would look cute in pink panties," Spike said.

"Shut up, Spike."

Buffy looked around and took the brush from him. "I second that shut up."

"I'll behave."

He was putting on a performance, Angel knew, deflecting. He appreciated it. Walking the few feet to the bed was difficult, but he did it. The big vampire sat down, making sure the robe stayed closed, and waited for the questions.

Buffy did not start where he expected. "Tell us what you know about the lawyers. Why are they so interested in you?"

He told them what he knew, the services they provided to crooked or evil clients, human and demon alike. Angel explained how he had thwarted them several times, and how even one of the lawyers had balked at killing children and helped, for a short while, at least. "I know you don't care for prophecy, but apparently a," he glanced at Spike, "vampire with a soul has a role to play in a coming apocalypse. That's why they're interested in me." He looked down at his hands. "It doesn't specify which side I'll be on."

Buffy looked at Spike. _Angelus._

Spike only turned to look at Angel. "And the reward for that is this 'live until you die' thing?" At the old man's nod, he smiled. "Well, there you go. You know which of you will be in control. Angelus would never want to be human. He'd walk away from a contest with a prize like that."

Angel looked up at Spike sharply, his lips parting. He'd been so blinded by his longing for the reward, he'd overlooked that it was a reward only he would want. And unlike the people at Angel Investigations or Wolfram and Hart, Spike actually knew Angelus. "You're right." He let out a shaky laugh. "You're right."

They were sitting in a rough triangle, Buffy and Angel facing each other as they sat on the side of the bed, Spike sitting cross-legged on the bed. The two blonds exchanged a look and silent words, then Buffy leaned forward and took one of Angel's hands. "I need to know, the Slayer needs to know: does Mohra blood release Angelus?"

It felt like a punch after the relief of knowing the prophecy actually did specify that he would be fighting for the side of good. Angel was caught off guard, couldn't formulate a lie as he'd planned. "No." His voice was harsh.

Spike scooted closer His damp hair was pulled back in a severe queue. Angel knew it was a measure against curls. The boy's eyes were warm. "Then why were you so scared? Why does the law firm keep sending those particular demons after you?"

"I don't know if the law firm did," Angel hedged. "They're assassins. That's what they do; they take out champions."

"Okay," Buffy said patiently. "Even if the Mohra demons weren't hired killers, you still acted… majorly weird."

"Liam," Spike said, his deep voice warm, "I didn't see it, too intent on getting to Buffy, but you were just trying to keep me safe." He put a hand on Angel's broad shoulder. "Safe from what, mate?"

"You don't want it," Angel whispered.

"What don't I want?"

"The blood… it would make you human."

The other two sat in stunned silence for a moment, staring at him. "Just touching the blood could make Spike human?" Buffy asked

Spike didn't wait for Angel's nod of confirmation. "You know, because it made you human."

Her eyes were on Spike as he made the astute guess, but they quickly moved to Angel. Buffy's hand fell away from his. "You were human." Her emphasis changed. "You _were_ human."

She stood up and walked away, cupping her elbows. Buffy knew how much he wanted that prize, no one better. Sure, she was in love and getting married in days, but it hadn't been that long ago when she was a girl with stars in her eyes, dreaming of an impossible future with Angel. When she turned, she was shaking her head. "You gave that up?"

Angel didn't look at her. "It was… an accident. I…" Words failed him, and he let out a sigh.

Spike's words were slow as he tried to understand this. "So, you fought with a Mohra demon, wounded it, and got some of its blood on you."

He lifted a shoulder. "I thought I killed it."

"When did you realize?"

"My heart started beating." Buffy's hand on his chest, feeling the regular thud-thud.

Spike let out a small sound. "And your demon?"

"Gone." Driving Spike to his knees as the old mindlink was severed.

"How long before you decided that you didn't like it?" Buffy's tone was almost neutral.

Angel still couldn't look at her. "Not long. When I realized I wasn't a champion any longer." He chanced a look at Spike, though he already knew from experience what their reactions would be. "I still have work to do." Shaking her head, her arms still crossed, Buffy turned away from him. Angel saw this in his peripheral vision.

"Why does it have to be your work?" The question was soft, the blue eyes probing.

"Else you die sooner," he said, turning to Buffy, "both of you."

"You could be happy," she said, not looking around, "and I – you could be free of Angelus."

"How could I be happy without you in the world?" He turned back to Spike. "Or you?"

Spike hung his head for a moment, searching for words. "We all know that there are risks."

"Angel," Buffy said, finally turning around, "when will you be ready to be human? What happens after this apocalypse and the Shanshu? Will you have the prophecy undone, too? Because, trust me, there's always going to be another apocalypse to avert."

"Oh, love," Spike said in a low, sorrowful voice.

Angel found he'd made fists, forced his hands to relax. "I'll have earned it. I'll… be worthy."

She waited until he met her eyes. "Aren't you worthy now?" Buffy asked softly.

He flinched away from the emotion in her eyes, looking instead at the wall. "No." The word was harsh.

Buffy let her head fall back. So much pain between them all, so much damage, and so much love. She let out a breath, let her arms drop to her sides. "Thank you for telling us."

Angel looked back at her in surprise. She was handling this with grace instead of a cutting remark and a swift exit so she could cry alone. She was an adult now. The girl he'd fallen in love with was gone.

Her tone had been one of resignation, but he chose to hear dismissal. "I didn't really want to. Tell you, I mean. I know how… wrong it seems." They were taking it so much better than before. Seeing was different than hearing about it, he supposed. Angel stood up. "I should go, let you sleep."

Spike leaned to take his hand. "Stay. Family bed."

Angel squeezed his fingers and quickly disengaged. "No. I'll get a taxi. Dennis will let me in." He went toward the bathroom, skirting around Buffy, took the hanger with his clothes from the knob, then went in.

 _That… coward._

 _I guess I should say, be generous or something._

 _He's choosing to be a victim._

Spike stood from the bed and went to her, taking her in his arms. _His life. We can't make him do what we want him to do._

She shook her head. Tears spilled from her closed eyes. _What if I had waited for him?_

Spike touched her face. There was nothing he could say to that.

 _He's choosing to be unhappy. He's choosing to keep Angelus in this world._

 _I know, love._

Buffy put her head against his chest and took a deep breath. She had felt the question in his mind, one that had hammered at his vocal cords, insisting that he ask it. He had not. _'He relived one day.' 'Something was denied.' You think we were there that day._

 _Of course we were. Otherwise, he would have just told us about the Mohra's blood. Or had a good lie in mind._

They leaned against each other for a moment, both imagining what that day might have been like. Spike thought of sunshine and Angel's fingertips; Buffy thought of Angel's infrequent smile and of how many tears she had shed over him.

Angel opened the bathroom door to another domestic scene. He smelled Buffy's tears, watched Spike move automatically between them, shielding her. The boy came to him, put a hand on his arm. "Aurelian," and Angel realized that it was not his boy, but the Master, "you will not forget that we are your family. You can – and should – tell us anything that troubles you." Spike gave him a small, tired smile. "See you on Friday, okay?"

He realized for the first time that Spike's deep voice had a different timbre to it when he spoke as head of the family. Not for the first time, he hoped they never had to have it out over who was Master. "Uh, my shoes." He nodded to the wall behind Spike.

"Oh!" He moved out of the way.

Angel slipped into his shoes, not being careful with them. When he turned around, Buffy was holding his coat out. "Thanks."

She nodded, did not move to hug him. "See you Friday."

He nodded in return, realizing that he had once again managed to hurt her. Angel felt a little shame and a lot of resentment. "Have a safe trip back to Sunnydale."

"I'll call when things start selling. Cordelia and Giles are going to set up the account for Angel Investigations Tuesday."

"After the holiday. I know." He didn't move to hug Spike, just gave another awkward nod, and left the room.

Spike waited until the elevator gave a soft ding and the doors opened and closed again. He turned back to Buffy.

"I don't think he ever loved me."

"He did. But what he calls love…" Spike turned away for a moment. "It isn't the same for me."

Startled, she thought about that for a moment. "It isn't something all-consuming?"

Spike frowned and went to sit heavily on the bed. "He… protects. Even from himself." Looking up at her, he opened his arms. Buffy came to him, and they laid down on the bed. _Part of the reason he left Sunnydale is because he was afraid he'd have to watch you die._

Her first thought was that Spike had left Sunnydale for the same reason. The difference was, he came back, sure he'd found a way to prevent that death. Buffy didn't share this, but she felt lighter. _I think I might have known that, subconsciously._

Spike drew in a deep breath. "'What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?'"

"That's… cold." She could see the imagery in his mind. "The sea, old and gray?"

He nodded. _Kipling,_ Song of the Dane Women _. No,_ Harp Song of the Dane Women _._

 _Kipling? That's_ Jungle Book _, right?_

Spike nodded again. _Better words than I have, yeah? I don't understand that either, leaving everything you say you love to go out on your own. If I go off adventuring, I won't be doing it alone._ He squeezed her tightly, because he could, as hard as he wanted.

 _Maybe it isn't all consuming for other people._ She shook her head.

 _Maybe love only works when two people with the same definition find each other._

 _I wish I'd met you first._

He looked into her eyes. _I wish we could have fallen in love in London in 1880 and that you never had to be the Slayer._ The part of him that was just William showed her an image of her wearing a lovely green evening gown, him kneeling before her, holding her hands.

The Victorian Buffy used one hand to bury her fingers in his curling hair. She smiled at him, then pulled away from the image. _But not really._

 _No. I wish your life had been smooth and easy… but your strength is one of the things I love best about you. I know how you got strong, love._ In his mind, she heard an echo of her words to Angel, 'another apocalypse to avert.' _You have more than earned the right to it._

Another echo, this from the very first conversation they'd had without words. Buffy touched his mouth with her fingers, meeting his gaze, every corner of her being open to this man, as he was open to her. She gave him a tiny smile. _And you and your mighty heart, wanting to go after him, because he's hurting._

 _Self-inflicted, I know._ Spike sighed. _Part of me wants to go back to El Segundo and get some of that blood. Use it on him when he gets too insufferable._

 _Don't bother._ She showed him what Giles had shared in the back of the car, an image of a coat pocket opened just enough for her to see a plastic bottle half-full of iridescent goo.

Spike grinned, then chuckled. _You Scoobies are the sneakiest bunch ever._ He leaned in and kissed her, hard at first, then softening into sweetness.

"Mmmph." Buffy pulled away, reluctantly. "Hold onto that thought. I need to call Giles."

⸹

Giles was staying at an Embassy Suites, less posh than the Four Seasons, but plenty nice enough for a bachelor like him. He liked having a suite, with a separate room to have a drink or watch a bit of telly before going to a dark bedroom.

His non-bedroom room also had a microwave, miniature sink, and a refrigerator. Right now, the refrigerator was the most important thing. He'd brought a couple of boxes enchanted with a stasis spell from Sunnydale, just in case they found something unusually evil in the treasure. The larger box just fit the crumpled water bottle, and it just fit in the little refrigerator. Giles tucked it inside, not a centimeter to spare, and sat back a little to look at it, shaking his head.

He closed the door and stood up. His knee did not pop. Giles curled his hand around the glass on the counter, which still had a good finger of scotch in it. He took a solid drink.

Behind him, on the coffee table, his phone rang. He wasn't surprised to see it was Buffy. "Hullo."

"Hey, Giles. Angel just left. Tonight wasn't the first encounter he's had with Mohra blood, obviously. The first time, it turned him into a human."

"It what?!"

"Kind of our reaction, too. He had it undone, relived a whole day so he could avoid the blood."

"How did he – Why on earth would he do that?"

"Basically, his answer was that he still had champion stuff to do and isn't worthy yet."

"My God," Giles said, appalled.

"Spike says to tell you that he loves you very much and is impressed by how sneaky you are."

Her Watcher grinned at that. "Yes, well, I am rather impressive." Giles flexed his fingers. "And would you tell him that I have full feeling in all of my fingers? He's always felt rather guilty about what happened in the mansion."

"Oh, Giles, that's… The blood did that?"

"Yes. I watched it absorb into my skin. If it can turn a vampire back into a human, I must say I feel better about the process. It seems benign – well, beneficial. And if he had to have it undone, its effect must be permanent." He heard a short series of thuds as Buffy lost her phone, cutting off the rest of his story. He'd put it on his knee as well.

"Rupert? Your hands are okay? Really?"

"Really, Spike."

"Bloody brilliant!" He heard a loud smacking sound, another couple of thumps, and a whoop at mid-distance.

Buffy had her cell phone back. "He's just a little happy about that."

"He isn't the only one." Giles felt almost giddy, himself. He had worried that it would wear off, or that he'd get an aspect of a demon in exchange for regenerated nerves, but it looked like a legitimate, well, miracle.

"So, if we can keep it on ice or something, I'll bet you someday Angel is going to regret this decision."

"I was actually thinking of apocalypse-related injuries, but, yes. I do have it on ice. In a stasis field, actually. When I get back, I'll make a better one for biological material."

"That second trip wasn't a waste, after all."

"No, it wasn't."

"Giles, I'm so happy for you."

"My only regret is that I don't have my guitar with me right now." Then his tone became sharp. "Don't tell me you're crying? You shouldn't waste a tear over me, my dear."

Buffy sniffled. "I'll cry if I want to. I love you, Giles."

"I love you, too. Good night."

She looked at the dead phone in her hand. Behind her, Spike was getting off the room phone. "Crudites, tuna roll, bread basket, champagne, and chocolate-covered strawberries. Twenty minutes."

Groaning, she tossed her phone onto the dresser. "Mmm, room service. I'm starved."

Her sound of delight prompted him to give her a predatory grin. "You will be."

"Twnety minutes?" she scoffed.

"Five minutes here," he glanced toward the bed, "five minutes there…" his look went to the wall."

"Oh." She put on her best stuffy British accent. "Your idea has merit."

"Or," Spike put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling them low on his hipbones, and gave her a lopsided grin, "I can just hold you."

Buffy gave him a considering look, then walked past him to the bed, pulling down the comforter and sheets. She turned back to him. "Take those off." Spike was still for a moment, then shoved his jeans past his hips and thighs and stepped out of them on the way to the bed. "Lay down."

When he did, Buffy left him to go to her suitcase. She came back a moment later with what looked like a tube of lotion in her hand. Skinning her panties down to her ankles, she stepped out of them and straddled one of his thighs.

"What's that, love?"

She looked from his jutting erection to his face and asked sardonically, "Does it matter?"

Spike laughed. "No. Not if it's you holding it."

"It's oil that heats up."

"Ah." He lifted the hem of the t-shirt she wore. "Might I persuade you to take that off?"

"No. Twenty minutes. Less, now." Buffy popped open the lid and gave him a smile that promised little mercy. "Let's see how hot I can make you."

⸹

"Oh! H-hi, Spike."

"'Lo, love." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Might I come in?"

"Oh! Of course. Please, c-come in." Tara stood away from the threshold.

"Thank you." He came in, compliments prepared. "Harris told me it looked great, but I wasn't expecting this. Your home is a treat." Xander had said that Tara and Willow decorated with color, but it wasn't overwhelming. About all he and Buffy had managed was art on the white walls of their house, but the two witches had painted almost every wall a different color.

"You d-don't think it's t-too much?"

"No, pet. I like it. It's cozy." He turned back to her and raised a brow. "I spoke with Willow a few minutes ago, but she isn't back?"

"N-not yet."

"Don't let me keep you from what you're doing."

Tara motioned for him to follow. "I w-was w-w-working on something for Giles." The kitchen couldn't be made as colorful as the rest of the apartment, and he saw right away that she was working with several bananas, all cut into sections. They were in various states of becoming brown.

"Oh, Rupes' stasis fields," he realized. "How's it going then?"

"I started with l-lemon and pineapple because of the acids, but f-food is too basic to hold magic. So far, t-tansy is working best." Tara nodded at the sample on the far end of the counter. Both the banana and the peel looked as if it had just been cut. "Three hours," she reported. "W-willow w-went to the library for medical articles on preserving blood."

"You are taking this seriously." He gave her a half-smile. "My method would be to take the first magic spell that looked halfway right and then stuff it in the freezer."

"W-we thought about that, too."

Spike grinned at her, pleased that she felt comfortable bantering with him.

"Hey, Spike!" Willow came in and dropped her bookbag into a straight-backed chair at the head of the table. She came over to put her arm around Tara and examine the specimens. "Oooh, the tansy looks promising."

"Tara was just showing me."

"So," Willow said, "how are your feet?"

Everything was about the wedding at this late date. "Cold, as ever. Just worried that my bride is going to come to her senses."

"How did she ever talk you into a big, fancy wedding?"

He blinked. "No discussion, really. I booked Latimer House last spring." Spike snorted. "S'pose it's just what happens when a Victorian romantic proposes to a homecoming princess."

A little surprised by this admission, Willow got the conversation back to business. "You said your visit is about Buffy?"

"It is, matter of fact. I need your computer expertise and some discretion, if you don't mind."

Tara pulled away from Willow and gestured toward the hallway. "I-I could…"

"No, stay. I just mean, Buffy doesn't need to know this week. Not a secret, just… she's like the Tasmanian Devil in the cartoons right now."

"What is it?" Willow examined him closely.

Spike knew she would turn him down or go to Buffy if she thought it necessary. That loyalty was more than fine with him. He took a breath and leaned against the stove. "So, there's a shady law firm in L.A. Angel said he was afraid they have a dossier on the Slayer. If they don't already, I'd like you to do some hacking."

Willow's quick mind was already thinking. "Her arrest when she burned down the gym at Hemery."

"Yes. It should be sealed since she was a minor, but I don't think that would stop those briefs, er, lawyers," he added, seeing her blank look. "Don't delete the record, but if there's anything online, change the name and identifying info."

"Okay," Willow said slowly. "I can do that." Then her brow cleared. "So the file numbers won't show that something's missing."

"Right. Same thing for health and school records, though I doubt those will be online." Spike reached into this wallet and pulled out a folded paper. "The other thing is that I need to know where the police, L.A. schools, and these companies store their paper records."

Willow glanced over the list, which showed the names of doctors and insurance companies. Her brows drew together, and she asked him, concerned, "She doesn't have any blood or tissue samples anywhere, does she?"

"No. I got these names from Joyce, and she said Buffy was a healthy child." He shrugged. "I'm probably being paranoid, but where she's concerned…"

"You're paranoid," Tara finished.

"East Side Psychiatry and Psychology?

Spike shrugged. "Counseling after her cousin died, I figured." His lie was smooth, and he silently thanked his soul.

Willow nodded. "So," she asked casually, "what's the name of this law firm?"

Spike shook his head. "Don't try to hack them. Or, if you do, don't do it from any computer you usually use."

"I can get in and out without anyone knowing," Willow said.

"I believe you," Spike said, holding up a hand, "but I don't think they rely solely on digital firewalls."

If anything, Willow looked more intrigued. "I could go on campus, to a part of the library I don't usually use, set up a couple of magical wards, load my favorite code into a new computer, see what happens."

"Don't do it until I get back from L.A. with those records."

"You're going to steal them?"

"Hopefully I can just charm them out of some nice records clerk."

"M-mesmer, you mean."

Spike looked askance at Tara. "If necessary. I can be charming."

"Mesmer," Willow agreed, grinning at her girlfriend.

"I planned to wear sexy librarian glasses and act befuddled and maybe show cleavage."

Willow laughed. "I made lemonade earlier. Let's sit down, have a glass, and see if I can't get those addresses for you."

⸹

Spike parked in a lot to the side of the Crawford Mental Rehabilitation Center. It was the last address Willow had found, since it had been renamed. Either something toxic had happened and led to bad publicity or a rich donor had dropped a pretty penny for naming rights. It was the same building and the same line of business, though, and he found he was dreading going inside. Buffy had been kept here against her will.

But it was the last stop, and then he could head back home. The mesmer had been necessary everywhere, and at first this gave him a little hope that the petty bureaucracy that he'd had to circumvent also kept hostile interest away from his Slayer.

Since he was driving around Los Angeles, anyway, he drove by the Wolfram and Hart building. It was huge, insanely expensive, and almost pyramid-shaped, reminding him of the Mayan pyramid hidden beneath the lowlife bar in _From Dusk Till Dawn_. If they could afford a whole building like that, bribery would be no problem.

Taking an unnecessary breath, he walked into the mental hospital, gladly turned away from the patient areas, and went down the steps to the administrative offices in the basement. He came out ten minutes later with a full belly and the file he needed. There were no cameras in the office area, and all the clerks had been young and tasty-looking.

Heading the car north, he struggled against L.A. traffic manfully until a standstill only a mile from the 101 caused a storm of curses in twenty different languages. When he finished, he was still stuck. The box he'd been tossing the files into was in the passenger seat, so he picked up the file from the mental hospital.

The doctors had seen nothing pathological in Buffy at all, though the word 'reportedly claimed' recurred several times. They had plenty to say in their notes about her parents, and the two therapists assigned to her case wrote a good deal about coping with parental divorce. That seemed astute to Spike, because Buffy hadn't heard the d-word from said parents until they took her home.

The main psychiatrist, one Bradley Chess, had the final entry in the file. He hadn't seen Buffy, just signed off on her release. There was a forgotten Post-It note on the page, however, that made him feel cold. 'Mentioned killing vampires on admission. Holland Manners at WRH?'

He glared at the little yellow square. No indication if the good Dr. Chess had brought this file to the attention of Holland Manners. No real reason to assume WRH was Wolfram and Hart. Nonetheless, Spike stared at it long enough that traffic began to move and the people behind him honked their horns.

Instead of going home, he went to Giles' flat. He knew Willow and Tara were there and hoped to catch Cordelia before she returned to LA. She'd be more forthcoming than Angel about the law firm.

"No, sorry, she left over an hour ago. You must have passed her somewhere along the way," Willow told him, giving him an absent hug.

"I'll ask her later." He stepped around the edge of the sheet where gems laid, separated into piles according to type and size, and leaned over Tara to give her a brief hug, getting one of her shy smiles in return. "You did great, Red. Files were exactly where you said they would be."

"How d-did the cleavage work for you?" Tara asked, a wicked little grin on her face.

Spike laughed out loud. It was the first time she'd teased him. He felt warm; another friendship under construction. "Yeah, overestimated my charm. Mesmer every time."

"Spike?" Willow hunched her shoulders in a gesture of apology. "I asked Cordelia about that law firm. She had plenty to say."

That's what he'd hoped to do. "Enough to make you cautious?"

"No." She pointed at her face. "Determined. They shouldn't be able to get away with the stuff they do."

Spike closed his eyes. "I agree, pet. Just… I know you aren't a lightweight," though in his mind, he was terrified at how vulnerable she was, "but let us go off for a couple of weeks worry-free, okay? It was hard enough to convince Buffy to have everyone gone last weekend."

"Are you asking me to wait until you get back?"

Spike heard the wounded pride. "I'm not asking you to not gather information, but I am asking you to be cautious. Leave no footprints, save your biggest hacks until you have supernatural bodyguards back in place." As a peace offering, he added, "Got another bit of information I'd like you to run down." Spike found a piece of paper and wrote down the name Holland Manners, giving it to the red-haired witch. "Whenever you go poking around Wolfram and Hart, see if this bint works for them."

Willow glanced at the name. "Will do."

Tara was looking between the two of them concerned. "W-we have enough to do while you guys are gone." She nodded to the treasure.

Willow and Tara gazed at each other for a moment or two, and Willow made a little mouth. "I know you're right." She beckoned him over to the computer. "I think I've found a jeweler who'll help us with the gems. Quicker than eBay, better prices, too, I hope."

"Local?" Spike asked, surprised.

"Based out of Beverly Hills, but there is a branch here in town." She shrugged. "I took a few rubies to all the jewelry stores in town to get them appraised, asked a few questions."

"Checking to see who asked the fewest questions?"

Willow shrugged. "I mean, we aren't shady, but treasure hunters aren't exactly chamber of commerce, either." She moved the mouse and brought up a list of bookmarks. "These are all the sites I can find on art and artifacts that have been stolen. If we do run across something on these lists, we'll contact the authorities. Giles said it was okay."

Spike tilted his head, examining her. "Any Holocaust survivors in your family?"

"No." Willow looked away from him, putting the screen back to order. "But I did have great-aunts and –uncles who were lucky enough to get out of Europe before World War Two."

Even so, Spike put a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "Where is Rupes, anyway?"

"He went to pick up his tuxedos."

"Are you n-nervous, Spike?" Tara asked.

He shook his head. "No, just ready for it to be over, you know? Feel like we've been planning this party for bloody ever." Then he heard his words. "Well, that sounded grim. I'm looking forward to being married, and I'll be glad when Saturday gets here. But not nervous, no."

"I don't think Buffy's nervous, either."

"We probably will be, they start playing the Bridal Chorus."

"B-better than being nervous when the Wedding M-march begins."

The blond man laughed. "Standing up before a bunch of people is scary; having Buffy as my bride is not."

"Oh! I meant to tell you, I decided."

"Decided what, pet?"

"What to turn you into if you ever hurt her."

Spike eyed the redhead for a moment, but he had to ask. "What?"

"An armadillo." Willow gave Tara a conspiratorial look. "With Tara's help, I'm pretty sure I could do it."

He thought about what little he knew of the homely creature: it was classic roadkill and carried leprosy. "Not a frog, huh?"

"Even as a frog, you might get kissed. But as an armadillo? Smooch-free."

"I voted chipmunk," Tara said, shrugging, "so m-many predators."

He tried to think of a comeback, gave up, and bowed deeply to the two. "I thank you both for your great loyalty to my lady."

⸹

Next Chapter: What else? It's a nice day for a white wedding.


	31. Nice Day for a

**Nice Day for a…**

⸹

Sunnydale

June 2000

⸹

"Let's be naughty and defy tradition," Spike cajoled in a tone like melted chocolate.

"Nope. I want to get sleep tonight and tomorrow, so I don't have bags under my eyes on my wedding day." Buffy was examining her pedicure critically, sitting on her mom's couch. She had two different colors on the nails of either foot, and she still hadn't settled on one for the wedding.

"You're cruel and practical. Don't know that I fancy you, after all." He shifted the mobile to the other shoulder and unzipped the suitcase he was taking on the honeymoon.

"Oh, I know you fancy me." Buffy's voice was a purr. "I have two more flavors of that oil that heats up."

He chuckled, a hot, wicked sound. "We need to try phone sex, love."

"Maybe when I'm like in bed and you're just in the kitchen or something."

"Sounds like an experiment doomed to failure."

"What are you doing?"

"Packing. For our honeymoon, my little sex kitten."

"Pack light."

"I overheard Anya say something 'bout you having a whole suitcase for just your lingerie. I'm packing scissors and a sharpener."

"Oh, how disappointing. I always hoped the man I married would be able to work his way past a scrap of satin… here and an inch of lace… there."

"That's it. Get your cute little arse over here right now, temptress."

She laughed. "When are you heading to Dutton?"

"As soon as Peaches gets here. Oh, did you leave the gate open?" For security, now that Buffy would be living here, Spike had a sliding gate put in at the curve where the lower hill ended. He'd hire Jonathan to put in video security, but that would have to wait until they returned.

"I did." She paused. "You two going to be okay?"

"Yeah. He'll be remote, I'll hustle him directly into the car, and he won't have to really talk to me."

"Weird to think he's mad at us."

"I don't think he's mad, he just didn't want to get caught."

"Caught at what?"

"Caught showing how important it is to him to be a Champion."

"A good case of you-didn't-ask-but-you're-a-Slayer-now would put an end to that."

"Which is why you're so much better at it." Spike put in the last stack of t-shirts and zipped the suitcase. "You never wanted it. Had greatness thrust on you."

"Oh, the thrusting is great."

"Don't use that honey tone of voice, wench. I haven't had you since patrol yesterday."

"And won't until sometime Sunday."

"Let's elope."

"Let's not and say we did. Mess with everyone."

"Who is this for, again?"

"'For our family and friends.'" It had become a mantra for them over the past few days as the reality of it loomed. "The honeymoon is just for us." Her tone became a bit sharper. "Wherever it is."

"If curiosity hasn't killed you yet, you'll be fine a couple more days."

"That's not the only thing I'm curious about."

He grinned. "Now, that," he said as his motions stilled, "you can speculate about all you like." His voice, impossibly, became warmer, deeper. "I've been hard all week for you, wanting to give you every last bit of me, wanting to ruin for you for any other lover, man, woman, or demon."

"See… anyone else said something like that to me, I'd just laugh." Her voice had a slightly breathless quality to it. "You have a habit of… having cattle to go with the big hat."

He laughed, low and rich, at that memory. "Not kidding, love. Gagging for it, me. Cannot wait for our honeymoon."

"Almost one more day… Mr. Summers."

"Then almost no more days, Mrs. Summers."

"Ugh, no, please. That's my mom."

"What about Ms. Summers?"

"I can answer to that, barely. Like I'm an adult or something."

"You fake it well. 'S'what I've been doing all these years."

"You're tired."

She could always tell. "A bit."

"Get some sleep. I don't want you with bags under your eyes in my wedding album."

"Bugger. I'd almost forgotten about the photos."

"Suuure you have. You mapped out where sunlight falls throughout the place." Buffy sat up from where she was slumped on the couch and peered out of the window. "Mom's back from the airport. I'm ready with the time chunks." One of the bridal magazine recommended making sure each friend and member of the family who felt 'ownership' got a chunk of time with the happy couple.

"Time chunks for Aunt Arlene, Uncle Matt, and – I can't believe I'm marrying into a family with a Buffy and a Lolly – Aunt Lolly."

"You got it, William Albert Arthur Arthur Albert Withhorn-Allgood."

"That isn't naming, just the memory of a doddering old man."

"Cradle-robber."

"With a babe like you in the cradle, who could blame me?" He let out a sigh. "Miss you, love."

"Miss you, too. I love you, Spike."

"I love you right back."

"Bye."

He heard voices in the background. "Bye." For a ritual to bind two lives together, the process of a wedding certainly tended to separate them.

Outside, he heard a motor on the long, twisting driveway. Spike turned off the lights and headed out. No need for Angel and his sense of smell to come inside. Just before he shut the door, he looked around. The next time he opened this door, it would be as a married man. He would carry Buffy across the threshold – or possibly she would carry him, if she felt impish – and they would live here. He would fall asleep with her in his arms and wake up with her at his side. Spike stared into the darkness of the house, the smile on his face having nothing to do with what his eyes showed him. His wife. He snorted a little at his sentimentality, locked the door, and raised both garage doors.

Angel saw the blond man moving to the garage, a suitcase in hand, as the headlights swept over him. The house was just as the boy had described, built to take advantage of the view. Darla would have liked it. He snorted a little at his sentimentality. She had been on his mind lately. He supposed it was because she was the closest thing he'd ever have to a wife.

As Angel parked, Spike opened the door to his truck, got in, and pulled it out of the garage. "I thought you'd drive the convertible," Angel said conversationally, getting out of his own drop-top.

"Ah, there's where I need your help," Spike said. He dropped from the truck and came over to give the other Aurelian a hug. "How was the trip?"

"Fine." He nodded to the pavement behind him. "Steep drive."

"Buffy hates it. Or she did, the first hundred times she drove it."

"She isn't much of a driver." Angel amended his statement hastily as Spike's eyes narrowed at the slight. "I mean, she hadn't driven much."

"She drives more, so she's far better now. But she's right; it's steep and curvy."

"I guess the view makes up for it?" In answer, Spike beckoned him to the pathway that led around the house, and they leaned against the balcony, looking out at the Pacific, listening to the tide. "Is there a way down?"

"Straight." Spike shrugged. "I wanted the sun and a view and no close neighbors. If I'd had tens of millions, I could have had beach access, too."

"You keep going, you might get tens of millions."

"Dunno that we need to." He shrugged again. "I've invested, and unless the world economy collapses entirely, shouldn't have to worry about money again." Angel saw him smile out of the corner of his eye. "I mean, we can take the long view about investing money."

"After I find a place for the agency, I'll invest the rest. But," Angel mused, "I'll probably get another car. I've always liked cars."

"I've thought about a boat, 'specially after the bachelor party. They're pretty posh, now."

"It's good to have options."

"It is," Spike agreed.

After a moment of companionable quiet, Angel asked, "You said you need my help?"

"Help? Oh! Yes. Would you be willing to drive my convertible instead of yours?"

"Why?"

"Because I know the Scoobies are going to decorate it with silly things. I plan to hide the truck in a back lot and drive off in that, instead. Plus, I don't want to leave the Bentley in airport parking."

"Makes sense." He was smiling, though. "Maybe Buffy wants to leave her wedding in a car with silly things on it."

"Of course she does. Which is why I'll drive it from the front of Latimer House to the back lot, where my truck will be waiting, all unadorned."

"Of course I'll help." He turned away from the view. "What if I want to drive the truck instead?"

Spike shrugged. "You can if you want. Just figured you'd want to go from one convertible to another. Let me move it out of the way, and you call pull in, keep your car out of the elements. Garage opener is in the console."

Angel actually did not pass up the chance to drive the Bentley to the hotel in Dutton where they were staying. Cordelia and Wesley were coming up the next day for the rehearsal, so Spike planned to use tonight to give Angel his chunk of time.

The big vampire prowled his room, making sure he knew where the exits were or where he could make one, pausing at a door with a deadbolt set opposite his bed. He shook his head, smiling faintly. Connecting rooms. Spike already had his door standing open. The blond man was on the phone.

"Sure… That sounds lovely." He saw Angel and waved a hand. "Thanks, Anya. You're quite sweet." Spike folded the phone and sighed. "I swear I'll still be making arrangements ten seconds before the Wagner kicks in." When Angel's brow furrowed, Spike hummed the first notes of the Bridal Chorus.

"Oh." Here comes the bride, who shouldn't really wear white, now, should she? His face tightened for a moment. Angelus was such an asshole.

Spike gave him a concerned look. "You okay?"

"Um, not sleepy. Is the bar still open, you think?"

"If it isn't, I know the location of the nearest package store. Got to know Dutton too well when the Slayer was trying to save me from the Mayor's minions." He rolled his eyes.

The bar was open, and they went over plans for the next couple of days. Spike had set up a bedroom in Latimer House for Angel. They'd smuggle him in early tomorrow so he could be on site for the rehearsal dinner without having to worry about sunshine. The kitchen refrigerator was all his until about four in the afternoon on Saturday. Angel had brought a couple of books and a small cooler of blood along with his dress clothes.

The bartender slid two glasses and a bottle of Jameson onto the counter in front of them. Spike was faster and paid the tab, and they took themselves to a table away from the mirrored bar. "So, how's L.A.? Quiet, I hope?"

"Quiet," he affirmed. "We haven't had any cases – people must think we're out of business, for some reason – but even patrols have been slow. Three to five vampires a night."

"Yeah, that's about what we're seeing in Sunnydale."

"That's all?"

"Yeah. The commandos I told you about spooked a lot of tourists. Of course, we did have another attempt to open the Hellmouth few weeks back."

"That's twice this year, isn't it?"

Spike nodded. "Owe you an apology, matter of fact. When you got pulled into the Hellmouth during the Sisterhood of Jeh attempt, I had serious difficulty not making fun of you for fainting."

"Well, you were a soulless demon at the time," Angel said charitably.

Spike poured another shot. "Lot of quakes with this last one. Xander went into a vent in the earth. I went after him, and I was exhausted after I crawled out." He shook his head. "That was just a vent."

Angel shrugged off the apology. "What was behind the attempt?"

"Some luckless git trying to raise Amglashuk. Giles got him or her with a crossbow. Fairly sure it was a human, so he had a tough time with that."

"Mmm," Angel said, his tone neutral. Things on the Hellmouth seemed so much more black and white than what he'd become accustomed to in L.A. He picked up the bottle to replenish his drink and changed the subject. "So, what was the bachelorette party like? Cordelia has only mentioned manicures and massages."

"Willow planned it." Spike smiled fondly. "So, you know she checked the 'zines and the websites and did a search on the most popular bridal party activities. Buffy said the masseurs, manicurists, drivers, and dancers were all very attractive young men."

Angel's eyebrows went up. "Cordelia did not mention that."

Spike thought about teasing him, but he wasn't actually sure Angel had a thing for the brunette beyond her being an attractive person he saw most days. "Buffy said that Cordelia still doesn't look at working lads much, but that she'll fall for a good guy every time." He touched his glass to Angel's. "Here's to the good guys."

He wasn't sure quite how to take it, but he downed the shot.

"And Joyce touched a stranger's penis."

Angel choked on the whiskey. "Dammit, boy," he wheezed.

Spike struggled not to grin and gave a shrug. "Dancer, probably does that on purpose to the mums to get better tips from the rest." He refilled Angel's glass. "Haven't had the stones to tease Joyce about it yet. Maybe after the eight anniversary."

The big vampire shook his head. "Any fallout for Xander with his girlfriend?"

Spike made his face studiously neutral. "I made a point of not noticing who did what with whom where or how often. Xander was pretty drunk before they came on board, and that's the story I'm going with." He tilted back his glass. "Though, Anya is rather progressive. For a Siren, she might give him a pass. She's already told him the other point in their potential threesome is Red's new squeeze."

"Tara?" Angel asked, thinking he had Cordelia's gossip down.

"Yeah. She's lush."

"Oh?"

"And the nicest human that's had to deal with me, ever. Figure if I can make a friend of her, there might be hope for me."

"Nicer than Buffy?"

"Buffy is good. Tara is nice. She doesn't have any defenses, despite the fact that her mother died and her home life is apparently not great." He stared at his glass. "It's weird, the soul. I'm carrying all these little burdens, like Tara's family isn't nice like she is. Never would have bothered to know those kind of things before." He started to tell Angel that he could lie better now than he had as a simple demon, but stopped himself. He didn't want the old man to be wary of his words.

"It is a burden. The conscience, the caring…" he forced a small smile, "but better than the alternative." Spike touched his glass to Angel's again, who changed the topic once more. "So, explain the photography thing to me again."

Spike raised both hands, unable to explain. "Buffy wants all her friends in the pictures, so we" he air quoted, "'play dress-up' Saturday morning with all of them, then have just a few of the wedding party right after the ceremony."

"So, she bought two wedding dresses?"

The blond man nodded, again raising his hands defensively. "Yeah, she called the dress-up gown a soufflé – no, a meringue. Cheap, she said, but it's her money." His brow knit. "What is that fluffy stuff for dresses? Chiffon?"

"Organza. I do not know how I remember that." He frowned. "Or maybe I don't. Tulle?"

"Whichever. Lots of fluffy stuff. Anyway, I get the sense that it's tacky on purpose."

"Morning coats aren't tacky," Angel protested. That's what he'd been told to wear.

"They aren't seen as much in the States." Spike shook his head. "I could give a f– I couldn't care less. It makes her happy, and I actually get to spend time in her presence. Anyway, I've got the safest places for you mapped out, away from the windows. I'll show you after the rehearsal."

"So… rehearsal and dinner tomorrow night, 'dress up' Saturday morning, then the ceremony Saturday night."

"Yeah."

"You owe me."

"I do. We owe all of you, actually." Spike gave him a genuine smile.

"What about security?" He tried to make the question casual.

"Giles is in charge. He'll set up a really big pentagram around the perimeter. It won't stop any heavy-hitters, but we'd be forewarned. Weapons and stakes stashed around the place.

"I'm not worried, though. One, it isn't in Sunnydale. Two, we've taken care of any outstanding threats," he thought of the old Watcher in Beverly Hills, "and bribed and threatened Willy the Snitch to the point he'll stay bought for at least a week. We should know if anything is coming. Three, I couldn't take seriously anyone who made a conscious decision to tangle with this particular group of people."

"Cordy says she's going to meditate so she'll be receptive to any visions."

Spike winced. "I 'preciate it, but call her and tell her not to do that."

Angel's eyes went to the blue ones. "I will." He finally understood why Spike had never liked the way Angelus and Darla pestered Drusilla for visions. He sloshed the remaining whiskey around the bottle, then shared out the last of it.

It hadn't been enough for either of them to get intoxicated, but Angel felt like he could sleep now. He didn't broach the subject of the family bed, hoping that Spike would bring it up, as they went back up to their rooms, unlocking their respective doors. The blond man leaned through the open connecting door at once, asking whether he wanted to sleep in Spike's bed or his own. "Yours," he said. He undressed down to his boxers and went through the door. Spike was brushing his teeth, standing naked in front of the television. It was on a sports channel showing French Open results.

"I didn't know you follow tennis."

" I don'" Spike said around his toothbrush. "Jush wanna wash shports an' feel all manly 'fore gettin' in bed wish you." The flirty grin was ruined by the frothy mess. He went to the bathroom to spit.

Angel shook his head, wondering what the boy had eaten to make him brush his teeth. He laid down and claimed the remote when the recap of the hockey game came on. Dallas had beat New Jersey. Spike was already in bed by the time he was willing to turn off the television. "I think the Devils will win the Stanley Cup in the end," he said. The room fell into darkness as the television died away.

"When did you start following hockey?"

"In the fifties, when it started being televised." He shrugged. "I mostly lived in the northern cities."

"Where there are hockey teams." Spike spread out an arm to make room. Angel tossed the remote onto the nightstand and put his head on his favorite pillow. "You ever skate? When you were a lad?"

Angel shook his head. "Only time I ever was at a rink was when I took Buffy." He closed his eyes.

Spike nodded, apparently not feeling any awkwardness. "I skated when I was young. Trying to think what hockey would be like, other people slamming into you. Stick would help you stay upright, I guess." He put his arms over his head.

Angel's mouth curved in the darkness at this sure sign that Spike was sleepy. He doubted they would ever share a family bed again, not after the wedding Saturday. So, while he had the chance, he turned his cheek to rest against the boy's abdomen, closed his eyes, and was asleep in minutes.

⸹

Buffy sat up and fumbled with the jumble of things on her bedside table until she found her buzzing phone. "Wil?"

"Hey, Buffy. Come downstairs? I'm at the curb."

"Be right there."

Before she could hang up, Willow quickly added, "Buffy? It's not an emergency or anything."

"Oh. Good." She shut her cell phone and looked at the clock. Eleven-forty. Buffy was wearing pajamas, figured it was too warm for a robe and everything was covered anyway, so she grabbed some flip-flops and went down to meet her friend.

Willow had done her research and then bought a white Toyota Camry. Buffy tapped on the window, and Willow unlocked the door. "Hey, Buf." She made an apologetic face and held up two paper cups and a miniature bottle of liquor.

"What's that for?" Buffy asked, getting in and closing the door as quietly as she could.

"For getting you out of bed. At first, I was going to bring a latte or something, but I figured you wouldn't want coffee this late."

"I may not want that."

"Um, it's peach schnapps. I have no idea what it tastes like."

"What's up?"

Willow sat the cups and the booze on the dashboard. "I couldn't sleep. I was thinking, you know, big life events. You're getting married, I've moved in with my girlfriend. We-we might not ever get a chance to really talk again. We could drift apart!"

Buffy put her hand out to grab Willow's gesturing one. "We'll be fine. I mean, did you drift apart from Xander when Anya moved into his apartment?"

"Yeah, we kinda did." She squeezed Buffy's hand.

Buffy didn't say anything, just gave Willow a rueful look. "Oh."

The red-haired woman looked down. "Maybe we're supposed to."

"Willow…" Buffy looked down, took a breath, then met her friend's own hazel green eyes, "I think we can go for weeks and months and then, when we do talk, it's gonna be like it's always been." Her cheeks curved. "Being around you is always going to make me happy." She stole from Willow and pointed to her face. "Serious face, okay? If you transfer somewhere besides UC-Sunnydale, I will be insanely happy for you. I know Tara is here, Oz is here," she waved away these objections, "but I want what's best for you. Even if it means you aren't just a few minutes away. Even if we drift apart, we'll drift back together again on things like birthdays and holidays, get close again."

Willow nodded, accepting the truth in this. Then she said, fast, "Sometimes I'm jealous of Spike."

"Sometimes I'm jealous of Tara, especially the last few weeks of school. I hardly saw you."

"And, still, we're both happy."

"Yeah. How'd that happen? God, high school was miserable!"

"And Xander's happy."

"All that leaves is Giles." Buffy sighed. "I'm afraid he's homesick."

"Me, too. You think he'll, you know, come back after his vacation?"

"I think so. I hope so."

Willow pushed her hair back from her face. "I feel less panicked."

Buffy smiled and leaned over the console to give her a hug. "Good." She nodded at the schnapps on the dashboard. "Save that for me in case I panic. I'll knock one back just before I walk out on Saturday."

Willow giggled, but she examined Buffy's face as she pulled away. "You aren't nervous about this at all now," she marveled.

"No. I think my freakout in New York was it."

"Well, it was a solid freakout. Not, oh, who is this person I'm marrying, but am I too young to do this."

"I probably am." Buffy looked down. "But… he's my other best friend." She met Willow's eyes again. "I hope Tara is the same for you."

"She is. I mean, I know it's only been a few months, but… Like you and Spike are both fighters, we're both witches. There's an extra connection there because of that, things that only other witches get."

Buffy nodded. "She appreciates you in ways that I just don't even think of."

"Yeah." Willow nodded vigorously. "She thinks I'm special."

"I'm not that thick," Buffy said, reaching for her friend's hand again. "I know you're plenty special, too."

⸹

"You look like someone I used to know," Spike said, opening Buffy's car door. "Nice lady. I miss her."

Buffy put her keys in her handbag and looked up at him. Latimer House loomed behind him. "No sympathy points from me. I haven't seen you in just as long." She held out her hand.

"You look a treat, love. I like your dress." _Come over to those bushes with me._

"It's called cornflower blue, according to my childhood crayons," she said, standing up, smoothing the skirt. _No way. Oz and Angel have those sharp senses of smell._

 _Fine, then. I don't feel so bad about waking up with wood with Angel in my bed._ "Shall we rehearse?"

"Yes, let's." _You'd wake up with wood no matter who was in the bed with you._ She looked around the parking lot to see whose cars were there.

"So, how did you sleep?" _But I'd much rather wake up with you than anyone else._ They had met in the Shady Rest, and he leaned against a tree, pulling her against him.

"Okay, except Willow came by last night for a few minutes, wanting to touch base." She held his hand more firmly as they went up the shallow steps to the door. The heels she wore were four inches of sexy but precarious.

"She all right, then?"

Buffy nodded. "And after we talked, I mentally checked off that time chunk. This wedding is turning me into a sociopath."

"Guess I had a head start on being a groom, then." Spike opened the door and looked around. No one was there. They could hear voices from the main room. "Uh, come with me. Need the restroom."

She gave him a sharp look. He never needed the restroom. "Spike," she said warningly.

In the Shady Rest, he took her fingers and kissed them, then slid them down his throat, over his chest. _Nothing more than a goodnight kiss,_ he promised.

Buffy let out a breath and stopped her fingers at his waistband. She knew exactly which good night kiss he was referring to, from last fall as he dropped her off at her dorm. In the physical world, she followed him down the hallway to the left of the staircase. _I am not getting my dress wrinkled, sir_ , she said, but his urgency had flooded her own banked fires with oxygen.

 _I would never be so ungentlemanly._ He opened the door to the men's and got them both inside before he cupped her jaw and neck to better plunder her mouth with a long, velvety kiss.

She reached for him greedily. Instead of thick denim, he wore slacks in a summer weight fabric and, surprisingly, another pair of the boxer briefs he'd worn their first night together. Buffy scratched her nails lightly over the ridge his erection made against the cloth, and he growled into her mouth.

 _Missed you, love. Hurry, please._

Most of what she did was physical, and most of what he did was mental, with his mouth at the mark he'd refashioned on her neck. "Oh, Spike," she breathed. Her breath hitched when her soft words brought him off again.

 _Thank you, love. Otherwise, I would have snapped and ravished you on the dinner table_.

She pulled away from him. _You aren't joking. That's why you wore underwear. To…._

 _To mitigate the worst of it, yeah. Thought about using duct tape to strap him down._

Buffy chuckled at this image, quietly as she could, her belly shaking. Spike grinned back at her, love and joy shining from his eyes in equal measure. If there was one thing better than giving Buffy orgasms, it was giving her laughter like this.

 _Here, let's look at you. Not one wrinkle._ Now that he could focus, he gave her a slow look that was almost stunned. _Have you always looked this beautiful, or did I forget?_

Since the semester ended, she had lifted weights, tanned, drank almost nothing but water, eaten nothing greasy, had weekly facials, moisturized head to toe daily, and gotten her hair done just a shade lighter. There would be no trace of bloat, acne, or hangnail on her wedding day. _You must have forgotten._

"I wish they all could be California girls," he sang softly. _No, sod all the rest. Only care about my California girl, my goddess of the sunlit hours._ He slid his hands down her arms.

 _I don't have any duct tape._

Spike ducked his head, laughing at himself, and let go of her. _Right. Okay. I can be with civilized people now._

Buffy adjusted his collar and smoothed the dark gray dress shirt he wore. _I heard Aunt Lolly's laugh. Mom must have been just a minute behind me. Come and meet my extended family. Uncle Matt isn't sure about this foreigner I'm marrying._

Spike paused at the door, making sure no one was outside, then took Buffy's hand and tucked it into his elbow. As they walked toward the people waiting in the main room, he said, "Reverend Tim brought his wife, Pam. She's got a little keyboard she'll play for the musical cues." When Buffy gave him an alarmed look, he patted her hand. "No worries. We have extra dinners. Joaquim isn't here tonight, but the kitchen staff seems competent. I'll take you over to meet her, then you take me to your aunts, and then I'll see you tomorrow."

"You might sound a little bitter."

He leaned down, not very much because of her heels, and kissed her temple. "'For our friends and family.'"

A couple minutes later, Buffy left Spike with Aunt Arlene and Uncle Matt and went to where the staff of Angel Investigations huddled in a tight clump. She talked to them until Willow and Oz brought Tara over for introductions. Spike was on to Aunt Lolly now, who seemed to be quite taken with him, so she went to shore up her mother, who had been making small talk with the pastor's wife.

Then, thankfully, it was time for the rehearsal to begin. They ran through the motions slowly, with the minister making sure everyone understood what their cues were. "Okay," he said, as the wedding party pretended to march back down the aisle, "are you doing a receiving line?"

"No," Buffy said. "We're doing pictures right after. If you ask everyone to go out the front doors, there will be light snacks for fifteen minutes on the patio, then we'll throw open the doors and get everyone back inside for the reception." She shrugged. "That way, if they want to shake hands, they can, and if anyone wants to leave after the ceremony, they can."

"Good thinking, sweetheart."

Buffy swiveled at the words, and Joyce drew in a breath. Everyone else looked around, too.

"Hank!" Buffy's Uncle Matt said, striding forward to shake his hand.

Spike looked from Buffy to Joyce to Giles, who was looking down. His eyes went back to Buffy. "Love?"

She was looking at Hank, who had quickly shaken hands with his ex-brother-in-law and was walking toward her. "Daddy?" Her voice was faint with shock.

"Hey, honey." He enveloped her in a hug.

After a second, Buffy hugged him back. "You're… here."

"Jet-lagged, but here." He let go of her. "You look beautiful."

"Uh, thanks."

"I came straight from LAX. I know you always wanted me to give you away."

"Hank." Joyce's voice was mostly greeting, but also held a warning.

He turned to his ex-wife and gave her a more reserved hug. "Hi, Joyce."

Spike turned to catch the pastor's eye. Tim Greenblatt gave a slight nod and used his trained voice to get everyone's attention. "All right. Let's come back in five minutes and do another run through.

While he was talking, Spike turned his attention to Buffy. She looked dazed. _Love?_

Her eyes seemed enormous when they came to him. _I never thought he would show up._

 _Do you want him to give you away?_ He felt her confusion evaporate into mortification.

 _Oh, no. Giles._ She turned to look at him, but Willow had moved up next to him, and Xander was on his other side. The part of her that wasn't in shock loved her friends so much just then.

 _Take a moment, love._ Spike turned and went to Joyce, forcing his mouth into a smile. He moved a little closer, because she was too busy whispering in fierce tones with Hank to notice him at first.

"Oh!" Joyce put on a smile a little less genuine than his. "Hank, this is Buffy's fiancé."

The two men sized each other up, then shook hands. "Mr. Summers."

"William, isn't it?"

"Yes." He nodded toward the man who was coming up behind Hank. "And this is the Reverend Tim Greenblatt." The minister put out a genial hand for Buffy's father to shake. "He'll be officiating. I think he needs to talk to us outside for a moment." He turned to his bride. "Love? If you would?"

Buffy, clearly unhappy, came over to join the other three as they walked through the kitchen to the back parking lot. She could feel Joyce's eyes on them the whole way. _Buffy, however you want this to play out, that's the way it will be. I'll make sure._

 _He never talked about walking me down the aisle. I mean, it wasn't a thing._

"So, Mr. Summers," Reverend Greenblatt was saying, "I take it this is an unexpected pleasure?"

"It is." Hank had the grace to look embarrassed. "I haven't been around much the last couple of years, you know, working overseas and everything," he looked at Buffy, "but I wouldn't miss my little girl's wedding."

"How did you know?"

"Your Aunt Lolly. She sent me the newspaper clipping."

"She had your address?" Spike put his hand at the small of Buffy's back, hearing her stress on the word 'she.'

"Through the office."

The pastor was following this exchange and chose a spot to cut in. "It's wonderful that you're here. Buffy has been planning for tomorrow for months now, and I'm sure she would have gladly included you, had you been in touch." Spike gave the pastor a swift, fierce, and surprised look of approval.

Hank turned to his daughter. "You could just add that part to the ceremony."

"Dad, someone is already…" Buffy trailed off at his stunned look.

"Someone else is giving you away?"

"Giles." At his blank look, she added, "Rupert Giles. The school librarian?"

" _He's_ giving you away?"

It was surprise that made him blurt it out, but Buffy began to feel a cold anger. "He's been like a father to me for years now."

"But I am your father."

"Oh, I see a lot of blended families wrestle with these sorts of things," Tim said soothingly, as if this was so minor it was hardly anything. "One person might give away the bride, another might make a toast or be in the father-daughter dance."

 _Buffy?_

 _No toast. And Giles is giving me away._

 _Dance?_

 _Okay._ It was grudging.

He let her see a cartoon image of his soul wrestling his demon to the ground with an elbow lock. The soul looked up, glasses askew, and said, _He did fly from Spain to be here. He isn't much of a dad, but his is your father._

It wasn't enough to get her to smile, but some of the tension left her face. "Dad? Giles has the tuxedos and everything. We've already rehearsed."

"Buffy, I came all this way."

"Tim?" Spike gave the minister a squeeze on the forearm. "I don't want to keep everyone waiting. Would you and Buffy ask Tara to sub for me? All I do is stand there, anyway. I want to talk to Hank, and then we'll be right in."

Neither the pastor nor Buffy looked particularly happy about this, but they left. The two men eyed each other for a moment, then looked out at the soft summer night. "Give her a few more minutes to absorb it. She's going to be glad you came."

"I wish she would have told me."

Spike didn't have a desire to spare his feelings. "If she thought you would come, she would have."

"Of course I would."

"But you hadn't given her your address or phone number?" Hank wasn't looking at him already, but he physically turned away a couple of inches at the words. "Hank?" He waited until the other man sighed and turned to meet his eyes. After at least weekly use of the mesmer for over two years, it was the rare human who didn't fall under his practiced spell immediately. Hank was not that human.

"Yes?"

"Why did you come?"

"People at my office were asking about the wedding."

Spike drew in a deep breath. Because his social standing might take a hit if he skipped her wedding along with the rest of her life. He let out most of the breath before he spoke. "The reverend made an excellent suggestion. Since you don't have the right tuxedo, Giles should be in the ceremony. You've always looked forward to the father-daughter dance."

The older man nodded slowly. "I've always looked forward to the father-daughter dance. Ever since she was little and used to stand on my feet and I'd dance her around."

Spike's heart broke a little at that image, but he stayed on topic. "Do you have a black suit with you?"

"Yes. It's in the car with Francesca."

"You brought your girlfriend?" His voice went from loud back to low as he went through the words, and he stared at the man, incredulous.

"Yes."

Spike focused on the human with a terrifying intensity. "You're going to be grateful that Buffy still wants you in her wedding. Your role is to dance with her during the father-daughter dance. You're looking forward to it and won't have any other interest in being in the ceremony. You will not get drunk or otherwise embarrass her. You will be kind and polite to Joyce and everyone else. You will not bring Francesca into this house. Go to your hotel, make sure your suit is pressed, get some rest. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes."

He let up on the man's mind. "Go on inside." Hank moved slowly away, picking up momentum as he conformed his actions to the directives in his head. Spike looked out into the empty darkness, his jaw tight, fists clenched. Where was a ravening demon when you really needed to get your violence on? That… _human_.

Divorce, he could understand. He had loved Drusilla until… he still loved Drusilla. It wasn't the same as the open, vulnerable love he was lucky enough to share with Buffy, but nonetheless. Living with her had been miserable for months on end, sometimes. Divorce, sure. He wouldn't fault Hank for that.

Abandonment, though… His soul was snarling and howling worse than his demon, because it had assumed that Hank had found out, dropped everything, and flown to be with his daughter.

 _Right. That's enough._

Spike had not heard from his inner anarchist since the day he'd told Buffy he had a soul. He rather thought he never would, that he was whole now. But he was glad to have someone to vent to, even if it was himself. _Know why he came?_ Spike didn't wait for an answer. _Because people he knew at work were asking about his daughter's wedding. So he wouldn't look bad._

 _Control yourself._ The inner voice was cold. _Didn't you ask Joyce permission to join her family? This is part of her family, this… disappointment. She probably suspects his reasons, but does Buffy know?_

Spike grew still, both demon and soul letting their agitation give way to thought. _It would… wound her. Badly._

 _Do you want her to know? They're beginning to wonder where you are._

He took two more deep breaths. Rage was a tool in a lot of conflicts, but not in family matters. He let it go, focusing on the important thing: Buffy's happiness. The yellow of his eyes moved back to a dark blue with each step he took toward his love's side. This amazing woman, who had just let him coax her into making out twenty feet from her wedding party, was his priority. Everything else was secondary, including his own anger.

"Hey, pet," Spike said, sliding into place next to Tara. "Thank you for standing in."

Tara gave him a rare direct look, searching his eyes. "E-everything okay?"

"Yeah," he said, giving her a reassuring smile. "Just the surprise of it, right? But it's a good surprise."

In the short time he'd been gone, the kitchen staff had started setup for the rehearsal dinner. Hank was talking to Buffy's Uncle Matt again, but he was edging toward the exit. Buffy's concerned eyes were on her mother, who was sitting stiffly next to Lolly and Arlene, when she wasn't paying attention to the minister.

As soon as the 'husband and wife' line let them head away from the podium, Buffy joined her mother and aunts. Spike went to Giles, Oz, and Tara, waiting for the rest of the Scoobies to join them. Spike told them in low tones what the pastor suggested and how it would play out. He decided not to tell them about the rest.

Oz turned toward the entrance just before Spike heard the doorknob rattle. He didn't seem unduly interested, sensing no threat, but the vampire had more information than the werewolf. "Excuse me," he said, moving at a very fast walk, cutting past Matt to take Hank by the elbow and steer him toward the foyer.

A pretty, dark-haired woman of about thirty stood there, looking around. Her mouth had a firm set to it; she had sat in the car waiting longer than she'd expected. "Francesca," Hank said, knowing that she wasn't supposed to be here. She turned to him, which also meant she turned to Spike. He captured her with the mesmer straight away.

"Hank," Spike said, getting his attention long enough to capture the man again. He'd never done this with two people at once, and he wracked his brain, trying not to give conflicting orders. "Time to go to your hotel. Hank, we'll see you tomorrow night." He turned to the other human. "Francesca, book a massage or manicure or some spa treatment tomorrow at the same time as the wedding. Enjoy it thoroughly, be relaxed and happy afterwards. Don't come back into this house." Spike let go of Hank's elbow.

"I'm sorry that took so long," Hank said, going forward to put a hand on his girlfriend's arm. "I know you're ready to go."

Spike let out a sigh as he watched them leave, touching a hand to his temple, feeling the beginnings of a headache. It wouldn't last, thanks to vampire healing, but he assumed he'd just strained his skill at –

"Mesmer?" Buffy's question was quiet.

He turned to her, too tired to be truly guilty. _I know. I swear I've never done it to any of your – to any of our family or friends. Well, Joyce. I suggested she not invite Angel in, right before the healing spell for Drusilla. It was just the easy thing today, pet._

 _You sent them away._ Buffy shrugged. _You sent my dad's girlfriend off to get a massage so she doesn't crash our wedding. I know I should be furious that you manipulated them, but if I had that ability, I would have…_ She didn't finish, but Spike got a fleeting view of Francesca hacking at her hair with a pair of scissors. _It wouldn't have been a spa treatment._

 _Did Joyce hear…?_ When Buffy shook her head, he asked, _Was that the woman…._

… _who broke up their marriage?_ She shrugged again. _I don't know. I think it was. Dad's first secretary was a middle-aged lady, Miss April. She always gave me peppermints when I visited his office. I never met the new one._

Spike was across the marble floor to her side, his handkerchief out of his pocket. "Shh, love."

 _Everything was going so smoothly, too._

 _I know, love._

 _It was going to be, like, a perfect wedding._

 _It still will be. Just think of what it was: you have someone show up unexpectedly, but it's someone who should be here. Then think of what it could be: a herd of Flarkthen demons._

She gave a short laugh. _When you put it that way…._

"Everything okay?"

He moved so Buffy was facing his shoulder and met Reverend Greenblatt's eyes over her head. "Someone outside got tired of waiting for her father. Figured it was time to leave."

"They're asking if we're ready for the first course."

Buffy took a breath and turned to give him a reassuring smile. "If you think we've rehearsed enough?"

"Oh, I'm sure we're ready for a wonderful ceremony."

Buffy gave the handkerchief back to Spike and gave him a questioning look. "You look just lovely," he reassured her. He dropped back to the pastor's side. "Thank you for your help. Outside, particularly."

Tim nodded. "About every fifth or sixth wedding, there's someone who thinks the day is about them rather than the couple." He gave Spike a wry smile. "And about every third wedding, the happy couple thinks it's only about them."

"Oh, we've decided that it's for our family and friends," Spike admitted, "but up until tonight, we were glad of it. They're good people."

"Mr. Summers no doubt thinks of himself as good people," the pastor said, in his mild way. "We're all the hero of our own story."

Spike didn't comment on this, just led the way over to Mrs. Greenblatt. "Your husband has been such a help to us, even before the unexpected arrival. Thank you, both of you." He escorted them to the long table, seated them near Tara, then found a seat across from Buffy so each of them could play host for the various people at the dinner party. Cordelia sat down next to him, and he gave her the fresh gossip in a low voice, leaving out the fact that Hank had brought his girlfriend.

It took about ten minutes before the conversations around the table grew comfortable and loud. Buffy met Spike's eyes across the table for a moment, giving him a small smile of relief that the social crisis had blown over. _Help me corral Mom and Giles before they leave?_

' _Course, love._

When Joyce excused herself to go to the restroom, Buffy followed her, and after a couple of minutes, Spike went to lean over the ex-Watcher and asked him to come, too. Buffy was hanging out in the hallway, and when she saw them, she went to get her mom. They met in the men's bathroom, Spike giving Buffy a mock-fraught look as he held the door for her.

"Well, I think this counts as awkward, dear," Joyce said.

"I'll be quick," Buffy promised. She turned to Giles. "I just want you to know, you're not a substitute. If I did want my dad giving me away, I could have had that. You are not a backup."

"I know, Buffy. But I will stand aside, if you –"

"I knew you'd say that. I don't want you to stand aside." She gave him a hug, then turned to her mother. "Are you okay?"

Joyce nodded. "Mostly, I'm kicking myself."

"Why?" Spike asked, truly puzzled.

"If he wanted to be here this badly, I should have tried harder to get in touch with him."

"No, Mom. If he wanted to be here, he should have _been_ here. He's the one who didn't give you his address or new phone number."

They looked at each other. If they had talked about his disappearance from their lives after Buffy turned eighteen and his child support obligations ended, neither of the men were privy to those conversations.

"As long as you aren't mad at me."

"Mom…" Buffy hugged her, too. "You're feeling bad because you always want to protect me from things. And I'm worried because I know that seeing him stirs up a lot of unresolved feelings for you."

"You shouldn't be thinking of me," Joyce said, giving her daughter a quick kiss on the cheek. She didn't have to lean down. "Goodness! How tall are those heels?"

Buffy laughed. "Enough to make me almost acrophobic." She squeezed Joyce's waist again and let go. "All right. We'd better get back out there before everyone clumps into their little groups again." She paused at the door. "You're both okay?" Giles and Joyce both nodded, and Buffy made her face firm. "Good."

Giles ushered Spike on out. "Might as well, while I'm here."

Anya was coming down the hallway and put a hand on Spike's sleeve. "Can I talk to you, just for a moment?"

"Uh, sure, pet." He lifted his eyebrows at Buffy to show he had no clue and followed her past the ladies' room and around the bend to the foyer. Anya looked around, then sat a couple of steps up on the staircase. Spike joined her. "What's up?"

"Xander said I should ask you, not Buffy." She frowned. "Why is it that no one said anything to Buffy's father? They all knew he was being unreasonable. I know there's a lot of protocol that I don't understand, but I know that you don't show up a day before a wedding and expect to be in the wedding party."

"And you wonder why no one just told Hank to sod off?"

"Yes. Xander said, maybe if her father had been deployed or just got out of prison, you know, where he literally could not have been here at another time, it would be okay. But Mr. Summers could have called her. He knew Buffy hadn't asked him to be in the wedding, but showed up anyway."

Spike thought about his answer for a moment. "It could be that it never occurred to him that Buffy would replace him. Maybe he thought she would just skip that part." Hank had said exactly that.

"It is old-fashioned. I mean, the part about 'who gives this woman' isn't in your ceremony, but it does come from the tradition of a daughter being exchanged for a dowry."

He smiled and nodded in agreement. "I think the other part is that some of those people knew him before he," Spike thought of a way of expressing this that would not trigger any vengeance demons who might be checking in on their former colleague, "broke the social contract that says he should stay with his offspring until adulthood." Stilted words, but Anya was nodding. "They liked him. Joyce and Buffy loved him. They didn't want to hurt his feelings. The rest of us took our cues from them."

"He didn't care that he hurt our feelings."

"No. Not much, he didn't. But we do care about Buffy and Joyce, so we didn't do anything to cause an ugly scene." He picked up her hand for a second, squeezing it. "Xander didn't want you to ask Buffy because she has so many feelings about his appearance, not just the one that we have."

"Mine was disgust. What's yours?"

"Fury."

"And we can't express those feelings because it isn't polite." She sighed. "Not in public, anyway. But in private, it's still polite. Because we're friends."

"Right. We can talk, I can tell you I was angry, even though I didn't show it in public. It's a mask, pet. Thought I was through with wearing these masks when I got turned, but even after that, I had to hide my feelings in public sometimes."

"I miss being powerful."

He nodded. "I miss the not caring. But I didn't have friends before."

Anya lit up. "Oh! I know what you mean. I had co-workers, and I was friendly with them, but it was always competitive between us. I still feel competitive about how much time Xander spends with you guys, mostly Buffy, but you are all my friends as well."

"Yes," Spike said, "we are." He picked up her hand again and kissed her knuckles. "Thank you for feeling disgust on Buffy's behalf, and thank you for not showing that publicly."

"While we're feeling close and friendly," Anya said, turning to him and going on in a confidential voice, "where are you honeymooning?"

He started to tell her, then narrowed his eyes. "There's a betting pool, isn't there?"

She nodded vigorously. "I would love to win it. It's up to sixty dollars now."

⸹

Dinner was over and everyone had migrated to the parking lot to wish safe journeys and give hugs to everybody else. Joyce was driving her sister and in-laws back to Sunnydale. Everyone else in the wedding party was staying in Dutton. Spike hung out with them, one hand on Buffy's waist and one eye on the catering crew, waiting to lock up behind them.

They felt freer to talk without Joyce present. Buffy left Spike to apologize to Giles again, and Xander took her place. "So," he said in a low voice, "want to go back to Sunnydale and patrol?" When Spike gave him a sharp look, he shrugged. "I saw your face when you came back inside. Thought you might want to hit something."

"Thought I hid it better than that. A bit angry, yeah," he admitted, "but I'm okay now."

"So, I think I have the best man's toast down," Xander said casually, changing the topic.

"You give the toast, we cut the cake, and that's the DJ's cue to start the music."

"No, I mean, I think I know what I'm going to say." Xander gave him a lopsided grin. "Hard to thread that needle, you know? To say things that make sense to everyone. People who are clueless, people who are from Sunnydale and live in denial of all clues, and those who know all about it… and are still pretty clueless," he admitted with another grin.

"As long as you don't say something like, 'I give it a week,'" Spike said, shrugging, "I'm pretty sure I'll love it."

Xander looked stunned. "How did you know? Did Anya tell you?"

Spike had his arms crossed, so he leaned over and bumped Xander with his shoulder. "Ha bloody ha."

Xander was looking at Anya now, who was standing with Buffy and Giles. "She's really excited about this. They're all leaving at insane o'clock tomorrow morning to have their hair and makeup 'professionally' done and mani-pedis and I don't know what all."

He put his head closer to Spike's. "I saw Buffy's hotel room, and it defies description. The femaleness of it all… She's got a connecting room, but it's like all of them, Buffy, Cordy, Tara, and Willow, have to be in the same space. Anya's only been in our room maybe one minute. It looks like… like a dress shop exploded all over a Claire's. I've seen things in the sewers that are less terrifying." Xander waited until the blond man looked at him. "That one glimpse… and I think I've grown an ovary."

By now, Spike was smiling. "That's, what, seven gowns?"

"Nine. Anya's are in there, too. Plus what they wore earlier, what they'll wear tomorrow to get here, what they'll wear after the pictures…" He shook his head. "If I had to make that many decisions just to get ready to leave the house, I'd curl up in a ball and cry."

"I own four pairs of shoes now," Spike admitted. "I'm not sure how I got here."

Xander shrugged. "I have, like, twelve pairs. Sneaks and flip-flops, mostly."

"So, that's the upper limit?"

"I am a construction worker," Xander reminded him, "meaning that I get extra manly points, exceeded only by firemen and astronauts. Since your job is selling stuff on eBay, you probably shouldn't have more than six pairs."

"I could turn you over my knee and spank you, whelp."

"Don't give An any ideas, Evil Dead."

⸹

Angel was surprised when Spike asked him if he would mind staying at the hotel again, but after some thought, he supposed it made sense. The boy had been furious after Mr. Summers waltzed in. He probably wanted the calm and security of the family bed. Angel could give him that. Anyway, he wouldn't mind a shower in the morning before going back to Latimer House before dawn. Spike had put a bed in one of the upstairs rooms for him, but there wasn't a full bath anywhere. His hotel room was still open to Spike's, though he'd cleared it out. Angel thought a moment, then just tossed his valise into a chair in the boy's room.

"Had an ulterior motive, inviting you back," Spike admitted.

"Oh?" He had a confusing rush of desire and fear before his common sense beat back those thoughts.

"Wondered if you'd mind shaving me? I'll be happy to return the favor," he added quickly.

"Oh. Sure." It was a practical service they'd often performed for each other, reflection-challenged as they were. Next to babysitting Drusilla and the family bed, it was the thing Angelus had liked best about having another man at hand. Darla, for all her skill with knives, had very little with a razor, and Drusilla was too easily distracted.

"Had it done when I got my hair trimmed in L.A.," Spike went on, feeling of his jaw, but it's already getting scratchy again."

"You ever think about a beard or a moustache?"

"Never seriously. You?"

"No. It's hard enough making sure my hair is combed without worrying if my moustache is lopsided."

Spike turned away, hiding his grin, and managed not to say anything. They were in bed before too long, and it was even less time before he sighed and powered off the television.

"You're quiet tonight."

"Yeah." He started to say something, stopped, and then finally said, "Soul isn't what I expected."

"Mmm?"

"I figured it would be a leash, but both my hounds were baying for Hank Summers' blood this afternoon."

Angel was on an actual pillow for now, and he turned his head to look at Spike in the dim light. "You thought your soul would be a leash?"

"Yeah. I mean, it does what I hoped, lets me know right from wrong. But I thought it would keep me from doing wrong."

"Didn't keep us from doing wrong as humans."

"No. No, it didn't." He sighed. "First time for me. First time both demon and soul have wanted to do the wrong thing, I mean."

Angel was silent. His initial thought was to tease Spike about what the boy had done to him last summer in the family bed. His second was that he had his soul for almost a year before this crisis. Things were far more black and white in Sunnydale. "But you didn't do anything wrong. So, it's all right."

"I know." He turned his head toward Angel. "But I hate having to use self-control. I'm a demon, you know?"

Five-thirty came too soon. Angel went through the connecting door and showered in his own bathroom, then came back for the promised shave. Spike sat on the narrow bit of counter next to the sink, where the light was good, and was mostly still.

Angel stood between his thighs and began at his neck, working his way up to the lean cheeks with the safety razor. "You just sleepy, or are you really not nervous?"

Spike put a hand on his wrist to stop the blade as he spoke. "Only that she'll come to her senses before the 'I do' part."

Angel smiled faintly. "There is that possibility." He pushed his fingers against Spike's jaw to get him to turn his head. The boy was all angles.

"Mm," he replied indeterminately.

"Lean your head back." Angel rinsed the blade and began on Spike's upper lip. He shook his head, surprised at how well it was going. "This must be one of those things, like riding a bicycle."

The blond vampire didn't reply until Angel took the razor from his skin to rinse once more. "Good. Hate to nick you when it's my turn."

"Just your chin, now." When he was done, Angel slid his wet fingers along Spike's neck and jaw, searching for any stubble he'd missed. "Tilt your head back again." He finished up with the scratchy patch he'd found, then began lathering his own face.

"Thanks, mate." Spike wiped the remaining traces of lather from his cheeks with a damp washcloth, then took up the razor, waiting for his turn. "And thanks for coming back last night, for the good night's sleep."

Angel rinsed his hands and dried them. "Trade places?"

"No, light's good, if you're okay. Half step closer? Show me your throat." He gave a mock-threatening look.

Angel moved in and tilted his head back. The boy went on about how he liked safety razors but missed straight razors, and he watched Spike's face as he spoke, not really paying attention. He'd slept well, too, if not long enough. Last family bed.

He only just kept himself from rolling his eyes at the maudlin thought. But things would change after this; they always did between friends after a marriage. Spike twisted to rinse the razor, then started on his jaw. He went on to make a point about some new razor that for some reason had three blades. Angel made his own noncommittal 'Mm' noise, not wanting to move, and watched his boy's expressive face.

Angelus had always wanted this, not the guarded, closed look Spike had worn most of the time. When he was drunk, maybe, or more often when he was left alone with Drusilla, Spike would let the mask drop; it was how Angelus knew he kept one in place. The younger vampire had hit and spat and turned away to keep his grandsire away from his true self. It reminded him of the Aesop fable about the wind and the sun betting which could get a man to take off his coat. A little warmth, and the boy opened like a flower.

Spike was done, checking for any spots he'd missed, just as Angel had, when the big vampire leaned in and gave him a long and thorough kiss. He didn't necessarily return it, but he didn't flinch away. "And what was that for?"

Angel shrugged. "Goodbye, maybe."

"What? You going somewhere?"

Angel turned away, reaching for a towel to wipe his face, wanting to hide his own expression now. "No, but it'll be different after you're married."

Spike didn't have to stand up to reach out for his arm to stop him leaving the bathroom. "Yeah, but I'm not going anywhere. You're mine, Aurelian. I will be there at need. Probably an annoying amount more often."

Angel started to protest, but he thought of what Spike had said when he asked if Angel would be his groomsman, that he would be the best man if the bride were anyone else. So he smiled and lied. "I'm just feeling melancholy, I guess. I've slept so well the past two nights… I don't think the family bed will be in our near future." He tossed his damp towel at Spike. "You'll have someone much better to sleep with."

Spike didn't come back with the expected sexual braggadocio. Still giving Angel a penetrating look, he hopped off the counter and pulled him into a hug. "We're family, Liam. Only thing that happens today is that the family gets bigger."

⸹

Elaine, the photographer, had wanted to start at ten, but it was at least five minutes after when Spike volunteered the gentlemen to go ahead and get started. From the amount of giggling coming from the ladies' dressing room, the distaff side of the wedding party wouldn't be out anytime soon.

"That sounds great," Elaine said, checking her watch. She had a two o'clock wedding sandwiched between her two appointments with Summers-Allgood. Her lighting equipment had been set up for fifteen minutes, aimed at the grand staircase.

Spike, Xander, Angel, Giles, and Oz, all wearing black morning suits with dark grey waistcoats and pearl grey silk ties, posed on the stairs in various arrangements for another five minutes before a dazzling rainbow of poufy dresses emerged from the short hallway by the stairs. Willow came first, wearing a purple dress with wide skirts and juggling a matching lace umbrella and hat and carrying both a floral crown and a tiara gripped in one hand. Buffy, wearing a white dress whose skirts touched both walls, carried two folded umbrellas, one white and one yellow, over her shoulder much as she would an axe. Joyce was behind her, carrying a cardboard box. Her yellow dress had a more conservative skirt, but the puffy sleeves made up for it.

Tara, like Willow, seemed to be having trouble wrangling the green hat and umbrella that matched her dress. Anya followed serenely in pink, having decided that her hat could withstand being treated as a rucksack for everything except the umbrella.

Trailing after, walking like a beauty pageant contestant, came Cordelia in a blue confection. She looked for Angel and found him halfway up the stairs, then sent him a pretend horrified look that was at odds with the smile that crept back over her face.

"Ow," Xander said, bending over a bit, clutching his middle. "That was my other ovary dropping."

After that, the men were accessories, much as the parasols and hats, and stood where posed as needed. When they were kicked off the steps for a few minutes, the better to get a picture where all the skirts were spread out, Oz leaned over to Spike. "I did not suspect this about Willow."

He gestured the rest of the men closer before replying. "Buffy wanted me to get top hats and canes to go along with the morning coats. You can thank me with bourbon."

"Oh, good Lord." Giles dug at his collar. "No spats?"

"I don't think she knows about spats."

"Well, I shan't tell her."

Joyce came over, beaming. "This is so much fun!"

"It is," Spike agreed diplomatically, leaning past the yellow sleeves to kiss her cheek.

"It's like little girls playing dress-up." She reached out to make a minute correction in his wayward boutonniere.

"Ooh," Xander said. "I get it now."

Oz twisted his head to the side. "That makes us the Ken dolls."

Eventually, the interior of the house ran out of photographic possibilities, and Angel excused himself as the rest of the group went outside to the grounds. Grateful though he was to get out of the stiff formal clothes, he did feel a little pang at not being in the happy, joking throng any longer. He went to one of the windows on the front of the house to watch before the sunlight drove him back to his room for more sleep.

Elaine packed away her equipment a few minutes after noon, and Spike finally had the chance to fall in next to Buffy without holding still and smiling. "So, this is professionally done makeup?" he asked, examining her face.

"That, or spackle," Buffy quipped. She shrugged, causing the tulle to quiver in an interesting cascading effect, and added, "But it's like stage makeup. It should photograph well." She moved closer, covering his legs with her skirts. "My family likes you."

"Do they, now?" He forced himself to look away from the tangle of fabric around his thighs; back when he was human, he'd always wanted a woman close enough to him for her skirts to envelop his legs.

"Uncle Matt said you have your head on straight, and Aunt Lolly thinks you're a hottie."

"Well, your family is discerning." He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. "Did you have fun, kitten?"

"Yes. Didn't you?"

"I was with you, wasn't I?"

⸹

Every time Buffy checked a clock on her wedding day, it was an hour later. She decided that time had decided to fly on a military jet capable of at least Mach three. There was lunch after a quick change and a scrub of her face, then could it be three already? It was back to Latimer House for the flower delivery and ballroom setup and, as it turned out, sound check for the DJ. When he played nothing but Sugar Ray songs, Buffy began to see why her fiancé suspected sketchiness. At four, after the caterers arrived, Spike shooed her away so she could go to the hotel. Then it was five, and in two hours, she was going to be married.

Of all people, it was Cordelia who asked, "Are you okay?"

She put her hands out wide, bracing against the doorframe between the connecting rooms. "I just need everything to slow down for a moment."

"Buffy?" Willow popped up next to her. "Why don't you go sit on our bed and meditate for five minutes? I'll come and get you."

Twenty seconds later, Willow came and got her, swearing that it had been a full five minutes. Buffy shook her head. "I think I'm just along for the ride," she said ruefully.

By six, they were heading back to Latimer House. It was an absolutely beautiful day in late spring in Southern California, no clouds in the sky, little humidity in the air, and she felt awful that she kept the top up on her convertible. But her hair was perfect and remained so. Her gown was already waiting for her inside. She looked up at the upper story, remembering her eighteenth birthday.

I'm marrying Spike in less than an hour.

"Are you okay?" Willow asked, putting a gentle hand on her arm.

Buffy nodded and gave her a tremulous smile. "I'm just fine."

After she finished dressing, Joyce came to where Buffy sat in front of the mirror and gave her a kiss. "Fifteen more minutes, baby."

Buffy handed her a tissue. "Oh, Mom. Don't cry."

She leaned over her daughter and pulled another two or three tissues from the box. "I'm taking these with me."

"You look beautiful." And Joyce did, in a black cocktail dress with three-quarter length sleeves. "I like the revenge cleavage."

Her mother laughed. "I swear I didn't mean to be so… impressive. I forgot to try it on with the foundation garments. It just turned out this way."

"No. You rock that look."

"No one is going to look at me, anyway."

Cordelia turned away from the mirror. "She's right. You're a beautiful bride, Buffy."

It was Buffy's turn to tear up at the sincere compliment. Fortunately, the tissues were handy. "Aw, Cordelia, thank you. And you're even more gorgeous than usual."

It was her practiced smile for a moment, then it warmed. "Thank you." She turned back to the mirror and expertly smudged her eyeliner, then leaned back to judge the effect. The dresses she, Willow, and Anya wore were black velvet and strapless, echoing the shape of Buffy's gown. Buffy had given each of them diamond earrings as bridesmaid gifts, and those now dangled from their earlobes. Cordelia had added a cubic zirconia necklace and a thin black belt studded with the same material. Her hair was up, too, with baby's breath and three tiny, mostly white lilies entwined in the dark tresses.

Willow was still trying to get her shorter hair to cooperate and stay upright. Cordelia looked at her for a moment, then bit her lip. "Here, let me help."

One bobby pin and two quick spritzes of hairspray later, the errant strands were anchored in place. Willow met her eyes in the mirror. She had made sure she stayed in touch with Cordelia, mostly out of guilt, but there was a lot to admire about the ex-cheerleader. Willow was glad that she'd had the chance to get to know the woman beneath the beautiful, brittle exterior. "Thank you."

Cordelia leaned down and pressed her cheek against Willow's. "You're welcome."

"Guys," Buffy protested, going for the tissue box again, "you're killing me here."

"Someone needs a hug," Cordelia said in a singsong voice, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"No," Buffy protested, but it was too late. Willow and Cordelia crowded in from her left.

On the right, Anya said, "Oh. Group hug," and came in on that side.

Buffy laughed, not tearing up after all. "I'm so glad you're all here with me." Then she nodded toward their reflection. "Look at us." The four of them were framed by the light from the bulbs surrounding the mirror and made a striking image.

"We're gorgeous," Anya said frankly.

"We are," Willow agreed, sounding stunned.

"You are," Joyce agreed, standing at the door. "Five minutes, Buffy."

"Oh, God." She checked her teeth for lipstick. "Okay. Shoes, I need shoes."

⸹

When Reverend Tim Greenblatt knocked, the groom came straight out. Spike looked over his shoulder at the ladies' dressing room. That door remained shut. He held open the gent's door for Angel, Xander and Giles. "I guess this is it," he said. "See you in a few, Rupert."

They followed the pastor down the short hallway to the ballroom. Almost every chair was taken, he realized. The class of 1999 loved Buffy as much as she loved them. The St. Crispin's Day speech crept into his thoughts: "For he today who sheds blood with me shall be my brother…" He did think himself accursed for not being at the graduation, for any time that he had not been there as her backup.

They lined up in front of the altar – well, lectern. Tim nodded at the quintet of Jims, which Buffy had him calling them now, and they began to wrap up the Schubert they'd been playing. Xander reached out unobtrusively and squeezed his fingers. He turned and grinned at the lad.

The quintet began Pachelbel's Canon in D. After a moment, Joyce appeared at the end of the long ballroom and began her dignified walk between the seated guests. She looked lovely, and Spike raised his eyebrows at the amount of skin on display. He narrowed his eyes and searched for Hank Summers for the first time. Both of Buffy's aunts and her Uncle Matt were between him and the seat reserved for Joyce.

Xander murmured something he didn't catch as Anya began her walk. Spike turned to look at his best man, but his eyes were all for his girlfriend. She did look particularly pretty, and she kept her eyes mostly on Xander as she came toward them. Spike wondered if she was imagining a wedding of her own.

Cordelia began her own walk, and there was an appreciative masculine rumble here and there in the congregation. Once again, Spike looked over his shoulder, this time at Angel. His expression was neutral, but his eyes were predatory.

Willow came through the door and made her turn, drawing in a breath. She didn't like being on display; the dream the First Slayer had forced on her had included some instance of stage fright, he remembered, not that he'd ever heard the whole thing. Spike kept his eyes on hers until she met his so he could give her an encouraging smile. She barely dared glance at Tara and Oz as she came down the aisle. As she turned and made it to her spot, she let out a little sigh of relief.

The Bridal Chorus began. Spike felt his chest tighten, as if anything in there worked. He spotted Giles' head for a moment, then the congregation stood. It seemed to take forever before the Watcher and Slayer turned the corner and were framed at the back of the room.

Her hair was up and had flowers in it. Her white gown was close-fitting and had a single overskirt of some floaty material. She looked side to side as she walked, as surprised as he had been at the full ballroom. Once or twice, he saw her mouth greetings at people.

As Buffy came closer, he saw that the strapless bodice had seed pearls sewn to it, that there was a narrow band of velvet just above the skirt. The bouquet she held was mostly white lilies that matched the tiny lilies in her hair, but there were also a few daisies in it. Spike felt the first prick of tears in his eyes.

She turned her head to smile at Oz and Tara, sitting with Devon and a couple of bandmates, as well as Jonathan Levinson and Michael Czajak, members of Willow and Tara's nascent coven. Spike saw that she had a short veil, only long enough to cover her neck, at the back of her hair.

Her makeup was no longer 'professional,' and she looked more natural to his eye than she did when they went clubbing. Each piercing in her ear was adorned, from the large diamonds that dangled from her lobes to smaller diamonds, pearls, and sapphires. Something blue, he realized. She had bought those a couple of months ago, saying that the color reminded her of his eyes. He looked down for a moment, brushing away tears.

Buffy paused for just long enough to take her mother's hand and give it a quick squeeze. Spike had to keep himself from moving toward her. He must have swayed, because Xander put an unobtrusive hand on his shoulder. Spike reached up and patted it.

She had on a necklace he'd never seen, a thin gold chain with a single, small pearl dangling from it. Something borrowed, he supposed. And then she was right in front of him, smiling, blurred to his vision because he was tearing up again. He held out his hand, and Giles let go of hers. She went up on tiptoe and kissed her Watcher's cheek before he slid into his place behind Angel, then turned to her groom and took his hand.

He kissed it, gave her an uncertain smile, and they turned to the Reverend Greenblatt. Spike took the opportunity to wipe his eyes again. He had stayed away from their mindlink all day, as they had agreed, but the distance the wedding had forced on them ended now.

 _I'm the luckiest man in the world._

 _You like it?_

 _I've seen you this beautiful before, but now the rest of the world gets the same grace._

 _Oh, Spike. You better not make me cry._

"Dearly beloved…."

He could not stop the tears, nor could he stop smiling. They listened to the minister. They lit a unity candle. Each time he thought he'd managed to wrestle his emotions under control, a glance at his bride undid those efforts. His voice, though, was resonant and deep as he recited the words. _Thank God we didn't write our own vows. I couldn't have managed to get my own words out._

"I, Buffy Anne Summers…." Tears were on her own face now, too much emotion to keep inside.

As he gave her the ring, Spike also surreptitiously gave her his handkerchief. She laughed a little and kissed him then and there. Behind them, the congregation chuckled, and she put her hand to her face, mortified.

"We're not at that part yet," Tim said genially, eliciting more approving chuckles. Buffy laughed shakily and turned back to him to wipe her face and pat beneath her eyes.

Then it was time, and Spike framed her face between his cool palms to give her a new kiss in his repertoire, a short velvety kiss. He showed her an image of her face, as good as a mirror, and then let go so she could use the damp handkerchief to fix the errant mascara. _Perfect, love. Ready to face them?_

Buffy nodded, and they looked up at Tim expectantly. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present to you our happy couple."

They turned, holding hands, looking out at the people applauding them, unable to focus on anything as the Wedding March began. Laughing, still holding hands, they went down the aisle together at an undignified clip.

 _We made it!_

 _All that's left is hosting a party. And some more pictures._

Just before they reached the last row, Spike gave in and picked her up at the waist, spinning them both around, laughing. "I love you, Mrs. Summers," he said. And he kissed her again.

Xander and Willow had caught up with them. "No PDAs," Xander said in his best Principal Snyder voice.

 _I'll see you later._ Buffy pulled away from her husband regretfully. _Time chunks._

Behind them, Reverend Greenblatt was directing the crowd to exit to the patio outside, where there were refreshments, with the reception to begin in fifteen minutes. They knew the string quintet was hustling to get to their chairs outside. The catering crew was already bringing out tables as the crowd began to move.

Their own role was to circle beneath the stairs and come back in for photographs. Along with a videographer, Elaine had an assistant with her this evening so that setup for lighting would go quickly. She put them through the standard photographs in front of the bridal arch and candles quickly. When she called Joyce and Hank forward to pose with Buffy, Spike sidled over to Angel. "Buffy wants a few more on that staircase. After that, you and Xander and the rest go get comfortable. Someone might as well be."

He raised an eyebrow. Spike looked perfectly at ease in black tie. He suspected that the tuxedo was bespoke. "I'm just glad there won't be a receiving line."

"Well, there kind of will be. Buffy and I are going to stand at the door as people come back in, but we wouldn't make anyone else go through that."

"Spike?" Buffy's question brought him back to her side. "Time to sign the legal stuff."

"There we go," Tim said a few moments later. "I'll get this filed."

Spike shook his hand. "Are you staying for the reception?"

"No, if you'll forgive me. Tomorrow is my busy day."

The blond man laughed. "Ah. Well, here, then." He handed the pastor an envelope.

Tim shook his head. "The fee? You've already –"

Spike pressed it back into his hand, shaking his head. "A donation to your church. Your help was invaluable yesterday. Tara was a right guardian angel, introducing you to us."

"Well, then, thank you. It's been a pleasure to meet you," he turned to Buffy, "and especially you."

"Thank you for such a perfect ceremony."

"You're welcome." He leaned in confidentially, smiling. "I think it's a good sign when the bride or the groom cries during the vows. You're the first couple where both have cried."

Her cheeks heated before they curved. "Well, it's just… emotional."

Spike slid an arm around her. "My fault. She told me I better not cry, but I did." He leaned toward her as Buffy lifted her face, and with the kiss, their mindlink opened a bit. Her color became even higher, though the kiss lasted barely a second.

"Well, congratulations again." The Reverend turned away, grinning a little. Those two were very much in love.

"Joyce, you look amazing," Hank said.

"Oh! Um, thanks," Joyce said, flustered. She gave her ex-husband a smile that was almost genuine.

He gave a pointed nod at her cleavage. "I think more people were looking at you than at Buffy."

Spike closed his eyes and turned his head away as he felt Buffy tense. This was what Hank considered polite and kind?

Giles, his head tilted so that he was looking at Hank through the bottommost edge of his glasses, moved to Joyce and slung his arm around her neck in a very Ripper-like motion. His fingertips brushed her right breast. He gave her a thorough look. "Yes, she does look stunning tonight. But Joyce would never do anything to upstage a bride, much less her own daughter." He squeezed her, fingertips tracing the line where her flesh met her dress. "She's far too classy to do such a thing."

Elaine finished loading the last extension cord on her assistant and interrupted the masculine posturing with exquisite timing. "Ready to move to the staircase?" Hank continued to look at Giles with narrowed eyes.

"Yes, let's." Buffy led the way. _Sure you want to be in this family?_

 _Of course, love. There's one in every family – just one, if you're lucky. Never was very fond of Pippa's husband._ He glanced over his shoulder and caught Rupert's eye and tipped him a wink. _You do realize your Watcher still has his hands on your mother's bosom?_

Buffy looked up at him. _Bosom?_

 _What? That's not an archaic word._

 _Oh, no. Of course it isn't._ She looked over her shoulder, too. _Oh, God. He is still touching her._

Elaine arranged the wedding party on the staircase and again ran them through various configurations of just groomsmen or just bridesmaids and now just the happy couple. Then it was time to open the doors and start the reception.

Buffy and Spike stood well back from the doorway, but very few people went directly inside without stopping to shake hands and give their congratulations. A couple of them commented on his cool hands, to which Spike replied it was better than cold feet. After fifteen minutes, he felt as if his jaws would cramp from smiling. But he could take it, because this was all for Buffy.

Most guests had been in Sunnydale's Class of 1999, and all of them had been empowered by this tiny, fierce Slayer. They were there to hug her or shake her hand, to wish her well and congratulate her and themselves on surviving. None of them knew the groom, but he seemed to understand, clasping their hand with a sincere, "So glad you're here." Too many weren't.

A handful of people had come from Los Angeles. No one from Hemery, but two people Buffy had known in elementary school were there, Brandon Heller and Danielle Singer. They got hugs once she realized who they were. "Oh my God, guys." She leaned toward her husband. "Spike, we used to play together when we were kids. We all lived in the same neighborhood."

"Do you mind?" Brandon asked, reaching out to lift the necklace that Buffy wore, the thin chain with its single pearl pendant. "Is this Celia's?"

"It is." She tilted her chin so he could see better and marveled, "How did you remember that?"

"We were looking at old pictures this afternoon before we came up," Danielle said. "She was only supposed to wear it to Sunday School. You remember how much trouble she was in for wearing it to school one Monday?"

"No, I don't, but her mom is here, my Aunt Lolly," Buffy said. "She'll be somewhere around my mom, and it would mean so much if you talked to her." The Slayer's eyes grew suspiciously bright. "She always loves it when other people remember Celia."

"We will."

"Talk to you later," Brandon added.

"Katy!" Buffy squealed, holding out her arms to her new friend. She noted the brown-haired man behind her wearing a tie in a similar blue to Katy's dress. "Who is this?" she whispered with wicked innuendo.

Katy flashed her a reproving look. "Richard, this is my friend Buffy," she gave the Slayer a last squeeze, "who looks amazing, by the way."

"Thanks," Buffy beamed. Her smile disappeared as Katy gave Spike a quick kiss on the lips.

"Congratulations," Katy said breathily, her eyes flashing back to Buffy's in mischief, leaving Spike in rather Williamish befuddlement.

"Richard," he said, recovering and giving Katy's date a firm handshake. "Keep your eyes on that one."

A few people later, Buffy introduced her father's former secretary to Spike. "Oh, you shouldn't have driven all this way. I'm so touched. This is Miss April."

"You used to give her peppermints," Spike said, and the older woman beamed at them both.

 _So, there's at least one person who'll talk to Dad._

 _Makes things easier for your Uncle Matt._

The line finally did end, and Spike closed the doors to keep any more moths from investigating the chandelier. He held out his arm to his bride. "Ready to hear what Xander has in store for us?"

"And for a drink. I'm parched."

"All those tears," he said reproachfully, getting an elbow in the ribs for that remark.

 _It makes me feel kind of sad that there's no one here just for you._

He got the mental image of an endless line of people focused on her. _I'm fine, darling. Everyone I love was already inside._

 _You've never called me 'darling' before._

 _I haven't?_

 _I don't think so._

 _Seems like something you ought to say to your wife._

 _Of course… dear._

They grinned at each other and took the empty hallway beneath the stairs to circumvent the crowd. The catering staff had moved the chairs to the tables they'd set up around the edges of the ballroom, and the appetizer stations were doing a tremendous business, as were the two bars. Xander spotted the newlyweds and caught the attention of one of the servers. After a minute or so, almost all the staff were circulating among the guests with trays of filled champagne glasses.

A polite 'ping!' on a champagne flute wasn't going to cut through the din, not that the sturdy rented glassware was going to ping, anyway. Xander went to the DJ to borrow a microphone.

"Hi, folks. I'm Xander. I'll be your best man for the evening, unless you're my girlfriend Anya, in which case I'll be your best man most days." Mild laughter rippled through the crowd, and Xander relaxed a bit. "We're about to propose a toast. If you don't have a glass already, please look for one of our hardworking servers somewhere close to you. Those of you who aren't partaking tonight, look for the glasses with a yellow ribbon on the stem. Those have sparkling water.

"First, thank you to our happy couple for throwing this shindig," he sent a grin Oz's way at the word. "They could have eloped and spared us the neckties and high heels, but free food and booze makes up for it." He waited for the laughter to die away and began the meat of his toast. "I feel safe saying that everyone here knows Buffy, but not many of you know her groom. In fact, I've known Buffy longer than I've known William." He had decided to leave the name 'Spike' out of the toast, both to avoid confusion and to muddy the waters for any Watcher-affiliated people who might be lurking.

"I was there when they met, actually. Now, I don't know if any of you have spoken with a British person before." There were a few isolated chuckles from people who had. "They open their mouth, and the words that come out are in English, but there's an accent that… turns Americans into helpless kittens. It's… _charming_. It's possible that William is dumb as a post and has worse manners than I do, but since everything he says _sounds_ witty and debonair…."

Buffy and Spike were standing together near the kitchen door, and the people who were near them had drawn away so they were visible to most of the crowd. There was twenty feet of empty marble between them and Xander. He smiled at them as the laughter tapered off.

"So I was there when this began, and we all met as friends. Those of us who survived Sunnydale know that there's a nervousness in making new friends. I certainly didn't think of him as a candidate for a groom for Buffy. I mean, she's brave and kind and generous and loving and certainly too smart to fall for a British accent.

"But as we got to be better friends, I realized that William is also very kind, once you get around words like 'bollocks' and 'spiffing.'" Spike covered his eyes at that, laughing silently because only Xander could get away with mentioning testicles during a formal occasion. "He's generous to a fault and insanely brave – maybe just insane. He's the kind of friend that will go to hell and back with you. Those he loves, he loves fiercely.

"Of course, he still isn't good enough for Buffy." Amid the laughter, both the bride and groom nodded in silent, exaggerated agreement with this. "But there is hope for him, as I've noticed that Buffy has him saying things," and his voice took on a rounder Valley accent, "that, like, totally do not sound British."

He began the last before the chuckles ended. "So, please raise your glass and join me in a toast to two friends, both of whom I love very much, falling in love with each other. I wish them joy and happiness and a very, very long life together. To the adorable couple." Xander tilted back his glass and handed the microphone to the DJ. When he turned around, Buffy was there, waiting to hug him.

"That was wonderful, Xander." Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"Jolly good toast," Spike said in an English accent that was not his own. But the hug he gave Xander was, causing the dark-haired man to creak.

Behind them, two of the catering staff rolled out the cart that held their wedding cake. Buffy eyed it and squeezed Xander's hand. "This day just will not slow down enough for me to, like, hang with anyone. I have to go do more things. Save a dance for me?"

"And for me?" Spike asked.

Xander grinned and blew him a kiss. "Only if you let me lead."

Joaquim had done his usual amazing job with cake, with the three tiers of the dessert twined with edible ivy that cascaded into two sheet cakes at the bottom. They had been advised that the smallest, topmost cake was supposed to be frozen and eaten on their first anniversary; otherwise, that would have been the one they went for. Forewarned, they cut into the second layer and fed each other a forkful. Buffy had threatened dire retaliation if Spike smeared her with frosting. He had been surprised that people did that.

The DJ queued up the Ramones 'Baby I Love You' for their first dance. It wasn't Spike's favorite, but it was the Ramones, and Buffy had been thoughtful enough to choose it. They'd practiced their moves a few times and pulled off a credible lift and dip. As the applause died away and the DJ invited everyone to eat, Buffy pulled Spike in for a quick kiss.

 _I'll go find Dad, then I'll circulate._

 _See you in a couple of hours, then._

 _Wish me luck with my father._

 _Good luck._

 _After you and mom have your turn, make sure you go by and ask my aunts to dance and talk to the Angel Investigations folks._

 _Yes, ma'am._

Spike decided to start with their friends from Los Angeles, as he hadn't had a chance to speak to Wesley yet. He kept his eye on Buffy as he wended his way through the crowd toward Angel's distinctive bulk, shaking the occasional congratulatory hand. His bride had taken her father to the DJ's booth. Song selection, he supposed. Both Buffy and Hank were smiling, for what it was worth.

"Hey, Wes. Where'd Cordelia get to?"

"Speaking with old friends, I believe."

Angel snorted. "Speaking with people she despises while looking exquisite."

"There is something to be said for that," Wesley agreed.

Spike stopped giving Angel a narrow look and clapped Wesley on the shoulder. "Thank you for coming up."

"I'm always amazed that Buffy ever wants to see me again."

"The Council put you in an impossible situation, from what I heard," Spike said, not wanting the ex-Watcher to brood. Before he could think of anything else to say, the DJ announced the father-daughter dance. "It'll be interesting to hear which –"

The first notes of Bette Midler's 'Wind Beneath My Wings' began as the floor began to clear for Buffy and her father. Spike pressed his lips together, going quite still. The singer was wonderful, the lyrics lovely in their sentiment… but it was rather clichéd.

"I assume Mr. Summers chose that?"

He looked at Wesley. "Or… maybe the DJ. I'm scared to ask, honestly."

Angel frowned at the two Brits. He liked the song. "Spike…" When he had pulled the other man's attention away from the small blond in the white dress, he asked, "What do you want me to do with the camera you left on the nightstand?"

"What? Oh. Did you use it?"

"Yeah. The little video screen on the back is a good substitute for a mirror."

"Neat, innit? I got one, too. Dead useful."

"It is," Angel admitted. "Let me pay you back for it."

Spike shook his head and put his hand on the big vampire's shoulder. "Groomsman gift or something. Only, don't tell Harris or Giles. They got bugger all. Their mirrors work." He sighed, already looking around. "I've got to take Joyce for a spin. After that, my assignment, which I chose to accept, is to find Buffy's aunts and dance with them." He paused long enough to give each of them a sincere look. "I swear to you that I will not behave like a distracted idiot once this is over." He pointed a warning finger toward Angel. "Shut it, you."

"How are you holding up?" he asked, sliding in next to Joyce.

"I should ask you that." When he looked blank, she gave him a teasing smile. "You did cry."

"I'm a sensitive modern man," he leaned closer and added, "or a doddering old git. You pick."

"You're part of my family," Joyce replied. They shared a long look, and he took her fingers and kissed them. As the applause died away for Buffy and Hank, Spike led her onto the floor. They'd chosen a song they'd already danced to, Bobby Day's 'Rockin Robin.' They got applause throughout, performing several recognizable dances from the fifties. Spike kissed Joyce's hand again, then the DJ invited everyone onto the floor. He spun up Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin.'

Ten minutes later, he had persuaded Aunt Arlene to dance with him. Spike very politely asked Uncle Matt if it was okay with him, though he couldn't actually imagine the human dancing to Kool and the Gang's 'Celebration.' Matt seemed to have calcified culturally in the 1950s, though he was surely too young to have any memories of the decade.

He smiled as Arlene did handclaps during her dancing. It took him back to the fifties, though it probably didn't seem older than the seventies to her. He noticed Xander and Anya dancing together, just holding each other and swaying, talking in low voices. The lad smiled down at her, making Spike smile himself. Tara and Willow were dancing, too, rather more energetically, and Cordelia was on the floor with a young man her own age whom Spike didn't recognize.

As he escorted Arlene back to the table Joyce's family had claimed, the DJ put on 'Unchained Melody.' Buffy gave her groom a smile in passing and let Jonathan lead her onto the floor. Wesley claimed Cordelia for a dance. As he seated Arlene, Giles and Joyce got up. Spike raised a brow at him, but the ex-Watcher's attention was fixed on Joyce, intent on something she was saying. Spike sat down close to Lolly, ready to work on her once she finished talking to Buffy's childhood friends. If his bride wanted her aunts to dance at her wedding, well, he could certainly make that happen. Hank came up behind him.

"Hi, Mr. Summers," Danielle said. "

"Nice dance," Brandon said. Hank peered at them, trying to place them. "Brandon and Danielle, from Greenwood Court."

"Oh! Of course." He gestured at them. "Well, you two have grown a little. How are your parents?"

Glad for a ready excuse to escape, Spike engaged Lolly for the next turn on the floor. The song ended up being 'My Lovin' by En Vogue, an odd choice for a wedding, he thought. Aunt Lolly was a better dancer than her sister-in-law, but not as good as Joyce.

"Those are sweet kids," she said, nodding at Brandon and Danielle.

"I would expect nothing less of your niece's friends," he replied gallantly, feeling like he was back in the seventies again. The eighteen-seventies. After the dance, he saw her back to the table, where Hank's former secretary had joined this L.A. contingent. Joyce and Rupert were still on the floor, he saw. Of course, she might stay out there until Hank left.

The next time chunk was dedicated to making sure the people who had been nice enough to drive to the wedding had a good time at the reception. As the groom, he was recognizable and used this to work his way around the tables to where people sat alone or in small, quiet groups. He brought his smile, often glasses of champagne, and used the word 'spiffing' as often as he could.

Spike did not ask about these survivors about the high school graduation, but more than half of them brought it up. Buffy had told them what was going to happen; Buffy had put weapons beneath their seat or in their hand; Buffy had got the mayor monster's attention and led it away. He listened with real interest and warmth; these people were her brethren.

One blond girl teared up, gesturing at the man beside her whom Spike had taken for her father. He'd saved her life, she said, giving him a kiss. He very humbly said that it was only because he watched how Xander did it.

Cordelia swooped in just then with a dazzling smile. "You promised me a dance."

"I did," he agreed, though he had not, holding out a hand and nodding his farewell to the couple.

She glanced at the blond woman. "Oh. Hi, Harmony." Then she led Spike away at a quick pace. "She actually was the one we joked would be the trophy wife," Cordelia said, her voice low, knowing he would hear her. "That's Tim Broughton's father. She never paid any attention to him in high school."

"She seems nice." He might have been trying to goad her.

Cordelia snorted and put her forearms on his shoulders. Her five-inch heels let her look over his head. Buffy would later tell him she'd worn them to be taller than Xander in the wedding pictures. "'Seems' is the right word."

Spike grinned. "I'm sensing that you don't like her."

"Harmony was the handjob queen of Sunnydale High as a _freshman_ ," she said viciously, then her voice became colored with sadness, "and not a very loyal friend."

"Two of Buffy's school friends came up from L.A.," he told her. "Elementary school. No one from Hemery at all."

"People suck."

Spike shook his head. "Vampires suck," he corrected her in a gentle tone. "People are just… weak. Caught in their own private hells."

Cordelia scoffed. "You don't get to be all wise just because you signed a marriage license like an hour ago."

He laughed, and when the song was over, he figured he might get in a dance with the witches, but couldn't spot them. Oz caught his eye, so he went over and shook hands with the guitarist's bandmates and one of the coven members, Michael Czajak. Oz slid a highball glass across the table. He drank it before he realized.

"Peach schnapps?"

Oz shrugged. "Willow had a little airplane bottle, for some reason. It's all gone now that you're here."

"Thought Xander was the human garbage disposal."

"Just for leftovers."

"Ah. Good to know my role."

Devon leaned closer to him, still having to talk loudly. "You should have hired the Dingoes. This DJ blows." Haddaway's 'What Is Love' pulsed from the speakers.

"Didn't want to ask our friends to work our wedding… but you're right." Spike held out a hand automatically as Buffy came behind him. She slid her fingers into his, and he kissed them, smiling up at her. He stood so she could have his seat. "How are you holding up?"

"Not gonna wear heels again until October, I think."

"Need something to drink, pet?"

"Water would be good."

"Be right back."

He brought as many bottles as he could carry, figuring she wouldn't be the only one who was thirsty for something that wasn't peach schnapps. While Spike was away, a sandy-haired young man had approached Buffy and was standing by her chair. He seemed nervous and unsure until she put out a hand to take his and gave him a sweet smile.

"Here you go, love," Spike murmured, setting down the bottles. He handed her one.

The young man simply stared up at him, struck dumb. Buffy saw this, microexpressions of realization and amusement playing over her face before she smoothed it back into a polite smile. "Spike, this is Andrew. He –"

"My brother Tucker unleashed hellhounds on the prom. Buffy stayed with me until my parents got home."

Spike blinked at this introduction, and Buffy stepped in with an explanation. _The hellhounds turned on Tucker. I didn't want his kid brother to see that._

 _Kind of you, love._ "Nice to meet you, Andrew." He held out his hand, and Andrew took it, only letting go belatedly.

"I wondered what happened to Tucker," Michael said. When the other people at the table looked at him, he shrugged. "Sunnydale crazy, you know. We don't ask about things. You into magic, too, Andrew?"

Andrew turned reluctantly from Spike. "Not really. I've looked at some of Tucker's books and things."

"Ready for that dance?" Buffy asked Spike.

He covered his surprise smoothly. "If your feet are up for it."

The song was Wham!'s 'Careless Whisper.' Buffy put her arms around his neck. "No real steps, please."

The reception was well into its second hour. Spike glanced at the closest bar. They were still serving alcohol, but they would cut off the flow at ten and start serving coffee. "Really, how are you holding up?" he asked as they swayed side to side.

"I, Buffy the vampire Slayer, am tired," she admitted.

"It's been a long day. A long week."

She nodded. "I may sleep on the way to L.A." He had told her that much about the honeymoon, that their flight left from LAX.

"Of course, love. You can sleep on my shoulder."

"He's comfortable to sleep on." Angel appeared silently next to them, causing Buffy to jerk a bit in surprise. "May I cut in?"

Spike's eyes narrowed. How much had Angel had to drink that he wanted to dance? "If it's all right with the lady."

"Don't take it personally if I fall asleep." _Honestly, I'm fine. I'd rather dance with Angel than someone I have to make small talk with._

Spike squeezed her hand and let go of her. It was a slow song, a good one for dancing with Angel. While they'd danced, all the Scoobies had converged on Oz's table. He shot them a longing glance, then went to the table where his new in-laws sat.

Buffy put on a smile and looked up at the first man she'd loved as she went into his arms to dance. "Thank you again for being here."

"I'm glad you're okay with me being here."

She put aside her fatigue and really looked at him. "I hope it hasn't been too bad."

Angel had already had far too much to drink just to get through the reception. It hadn't occurred to him how many people would talk to him because he was visibly a member of the wedding party. He'd turned down more offers to dance than he could count. He had escaped from three horny young women, two horny older women, and one horny young man. That last encounter had spoiled his idea to just hide in the men's room.

He shook his head. "It's been fine. I'm really glad for him, I'm really happy for you. I kind of feel bad for myself." Angel shrugged.

"You fell in love with me a hundred years ago," Buffy said, "before I inexplicably sent you to hell. If it hadn't been just a few months for me, I would have understood that sooner." They stared at each other steadily.

"The only thing I could ever have done was break your heart," Angel said. He nodded toward the left, where he sensed Spike. "He'll never do that. That makes me very happy. Not too happy," he added hastily. Angel squeezed her fingers. "I want you to be happy."

"I wish you could be," Buffy said, stressing the fourth word. "I love you, you know."

"I know. And I love you."

They smiled at each other. The song changed, the DJ immediately going into 98 Degrees' 'Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche).' Buffy didn't roll her eyes at the unintentional summary of everything Angel and Buffy, figuring that he didn't know the song. "So," she said, changing the subject, "you have your eye on a new building?"

"Not so far." He gave himself a mental scolding for missing the opportunity to end the dance. "You looking forward to…" Angel realized he didn't know where the couple was going. "Uh, where are you going on the honeymoon?"

"I don't know," she replied in a too-bright voice. "Spike hasn't said."

"Oh." He frowned, trying to deduce a destination before giving up. He didn't know Spike well enough. "I guess it doesn't matter."

"It does, but I know what you mean. As long as we're together."

"You'll have a good time," he said reassuringly. Then, because he'd drank a lot and because Buffy was still the person he felt most comfortable with on the entire planet, "I mean, you know, honeymoon. That thing he does with his tongue."

She looked up at him, her face immobile. She would have expected him to mention their night together before he would bring up the years he'd spent with Spike, and she hadn't expected either at her wedding. Buffy slowly shook her head. "My life is so weird."

Angel stared down at her, frozen by surprise. He'd expected her to agree with him and maybe blush a little. She did not know about the thing Spike did with his tongue.

Buffy gave him a bemused look. They weren't actually dancing anymore, and she had no idea how he expected her to reply to that statement. So she slid her arms down to circle his waist, giving him a hug. She pulled away and beamed up at him. "I really am glad you're here." Then she realized she'd already said that.

"Me, too," the big vampire replied, covering his confusion. He knew they hadn't waited for marriage. Had Spike lost that ability? "Congratulations, Buffy."

"Thank you."

"Buffy?" Joyce was behind her.

"Hey, Mom."

"Oh, honey, you're wiped. It's after ten. Time for the bouquet toss."

"Buffy," Angel said, nodding as he backed away, "Joyce."

Joyce returned his nod, watching him for a couple of seconds before turning back to her daughter. "You all right?"

"Just tired." She got what her mother meant a second too late. "Oh, it's fine. Just… weird. I'm fine, Mom."

"I'm happier when he's in a different town than you."

"I'm happier when he's in a different town than _you_ ," she rejoined dryly. They began walking to the DJ's booth. "Should I go get the flowers?" When Buffy realized that her heavy bouquet was not the one that was supposed to be tossed, she let her distaste for the tradition lead her to do something different.

"Tara and Willow are getting them. Oh, there they are now." Joyce waved at them as they stood at the hallway entrance, each holding a box of white roses in their arms.

"Good timing," Buffy approved. She leaned over the table and spoke loudly to the DJ, asking for his microphone after the song, Right Said Fred's 'I'm Too Sexy,' ended. "Hey," she said, then moved the microphone further away because she could hear her breath hissing, "I just want to say thank you for coming to our party. This is the point where the bride is supposed to throw the bouquet and all the single ladies are supposed to slug it out for the flowers." A ripple of laughter went through the room. Even now, when the bartenders were closing up and urns of coffee were being brought out, the ballroom was more than two-thirds full. Willow and Tara crossed the floor to her and set the boxes on the floor beside the booth.

"I thought that was, like, undignified. I know I didn't expect to get married at nineteen. I'm guessing a lot of you aren't that interested, either. So, I decided to do something a little different." She watched Spike bring over two folding serving tray stands from the kitchen. He set them up and lifted the boxes onto the stands, and she smiled at him. That would make it easier. Buffy grabbed some of the long-stemmed white roses from the box. Each ended in a little vial of water with a rubber stopper at the base, keeping them fresh.

"Anyone who wants to say they caught the flowers at our wedding, hey, come on up. I'd love to give one to everybody, ladies and guys. Thank you all again for being here." She handed the microphone back to the DJ. "Thanks," she told him. "Maybe something quiet for the next song?" He complied, spinning up The Police's 'Every Breath You Take.'

A trickle of humans came up, then more people. They all seemed to like Buffy's idea. When the boxes were half-empty, Joyce moved in again, stealing her daughter away with a smile and a murmured apology. "Ready to change, dear?"

Buffy looked up at her mother, her eyes enormous. It was almost over. "Yes." Then she hugged her, realizing that this exhausting day had changed everything. She no longer lived in her mother's house, even. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too." She kissed her cheek. "You'd better go say goodbye to your father."

She did, a much less emotional farewell, and said her goodbyes to her aunts and uncle as well. Her bridesmaids, Tara, and her mom went with her to the dressing room, where she changed.

"Oh, I like that dress," Cordelia said.

"Thanks." Buffy smoothed the lace overlay over the yellow dress. "Spike picked it out." She knew the DJ was taking a short break while they left the ceremony, then would resume the music until eleven. Without all the loud songs throbbing from the speakers, it seemed very quiet. The sob that wrenched from her seemed very loud.

"Oh, Buffy."

"Oh, honey."

"Aww."

She laughed a little as she was surrounded by hugs. "I'm just tired and all emotional." She pressed her hand to her chest. "I know things have changed, but I swear I'm still going to love you all just the same."

"Probably even better," Anya said, "after being away from us for a while."

She laughed again and gave the ex-demon another hug. "I think you're probably right. Thank you again. I love you guys. You're the very best friends I've ever had."

Then it was time to leave. Spike was waiting for her in the hallway. _Oh, love. I haven't seen that dress in a while. I hoped you'd wear it._ He was wearing a black, long-sleeved sweater that she was sure was the one he'd worn the same night. Aloud, he asked, "Ready to run the gauntlet?"

"Let's." She put her hand in his. Buffy looked over her shoulder once, at her mother and her attendants, at the men who'd stood with Spike. Then she turned, put her head down, and they began to run down the hallway.

By the time they were at the doors, they were laughing. Birdseed pelted them, and once or twice they were hit by little mesh bags of seed that hadn't unraveled. Before the ceremony, Spike had parked the Bentley at the front of the parking lot, nose pointed toward the exit. The single 'Just Married' sign they'd taped on the boot had been nearly covered over with ribbons, streamers, bows, and balloons. Clear plastic water bottles were tied to the bumper with lit glow sticks in them.

Spike scooped her up on the run and lifted her into the open convertible. He gave her a smooch to much appreciation from their audience, then slid over the hood to the driver's side. _I nearly forgot the keys_ , he admitted, bending to slap birdseed from his hair before vaulting into the car.

 _That would not be of the good._ She didn't buckle up as he started the engine, instead turning in the seat to wave at everyone. Buffy managed to make eye contact with Willow and blew her a kiss, saw that her mother had her face against Giles' shoulder, couldn't find anyone else in the crowd until she saw Angel's hulking silhouette against the spill of light at the open doors. Then they turned the corner and were gone, cool night air washing over them.

"Ms. Summers." He said the words in a calm, happy tone.

"Mr. Summers." She wiped her eyes.

"I promise I'll bring you back to them."

Buffy laughed, shaking her head. "I know. I just didn't expect… mixed emotions. I thought I'd just be happy that it was over."

He found her hand as he made the second right turn since leaving. "It's a transition, yeah? Bound to be emotional."

"Where are we going?"

"Angel helped me bring the truck to Dutton, too. Don't want to leave the Bentley at the airport."

"Oh. That makes sense." She gave him a narrow look. _And you don't want to drive in a car that looks like a wedding cake?_

 _Too right_. He made the final right turn and pulled into the service entrance at the back of Latimer House. As the lights of the convertible splashed across the truck, Buffy started laughing.

Spike shook his head, getting out quickly so he could open the door for her. "As Master, it's within my rights to kill Angel. You know that, don't you?" The black truck was now mostly white and pink with tulle, ribbons, streamers, and bows. The entire bed was filled with white balloons. Even the wheels had streamers.

"I don't think he did this," Buffy said, still giggling. "This looks like sneaky Scoobies to me." 'Just Married' and 'Newlyweds On Board' were printed on the back windows in liquid chalk.

"He told them – Oh, God." Spike was staring at the driver's side panel.

"What?" Buffy had been admiring the huge bow on the grill, so she came around to see. "Oh, God. I'll kill them." 'Honk If You're Horny' was chalked onto the side. Unfurled condoms were taped beneath it to underline the sentiment.

The roof was up on the convertible by now. "Here, love, I'll take care of this," he waved a hand at the condoms, "if you'll gather up those balloons. We'll stuff them into the Bentley, leave them for Peaches." He froze for a moment, getting an absolutely wicked look on his face. "I've never told you how he got that nickname, have I? I'd say it's past time."

Buffy popped four of the balloons when she collapsed into the bed of the truck from belly laughter as he showed her the origin of the nickname. She couldn't say anything, she was laughing so hard, just swayed her hand in the air like the branch of a peach tree. Spike was laughing, too, a hysterical edge to it after the long, long day, watching Buffy imitate one of Drusilla's gestures.

Drusilla. All those months and years and decades of pain and disappointment and futile love, and now he had _this_. He gritted his teeth, tears coming to his eyes once more on this long day, and leapt into the bed with her, popping more balloons as he took Buffy in his arms. _I love you, I love you, best of anyone, with everything, with my all, oh, love, my happiness, my bride, my wife._

She took a hitching breath. _I love you. My vampire. My husband. My Spike._ Then she giggled again and rolled them to the side, balloons popping beneath their bodies with a sound like firecrackers. _There. Handled it._ She kissed him, then reached over his back and grabbed the final balloon. Buffy bopped him on the nose with it, then kissed him again. "Come on. Let's get some of this cleaned off and get out of here."

⸹

Angel stood alone on the patio beside Latimer House, listening to balloons pop, a bittersweet smile on his face. Someone came out, and he automatically pulled shadow close, not wanting to socialize.

"Thank you, Rupert." Joyce sat in one of the chairs that had been reserved for the quintet earlier in the evening. "I didn't expect to start bawling."

"I hardly think a few tears count as bawling," he disagreed, sitting down next to her.

"You're very kind." She ran her fingers beneath her eyes. "I knew I'd be emotional, but tonight was different than I thought. Different emotions than I expected. I thought I would be… happier."

"I must say, I'd be happier if she was marrying someone else."

Joyce nodded. "Someone human. But they do love each other."

"They do."

"I've always liked Spike. When he said he wasn't good enough for her, but he was bad enough to keep her alive… Well, when someone promises you that your little girl is going to live to be ninety, it's hard to argue with that."

Giles shook his head, grimacing. "He shouldn't have promised something like that."

"Maybe not. However long it is, I know she'll be happy. But… they can't have children of their own. Eventually, she'll look older than he does. It just seems there are so many more obstacles in their path, and making a marriage work even when –" Joyce pulled in a sharp breath. "Maybe a few issues here, huh?" She shook her head and waved her hands, wanting to dispel the heavy mood. "Thank you, Rupert. You did such a kind thing tonight." At his confused look, Joyce gave him a smile. "You know what you did, stepping in like that when Hank was so rude. I can't say that I've ever appreciated being groped in public quite as much."

He looked down, embarrassed. "Well, he was being an ass."

"He does that quite well." She shrugged. "But he was a good father, up until the end, a good provider. I have to admit that I dreaded the wedding, after he showed up yesterday. I'll say it again: you're very kind, spending all your time with me."

"Well, I didn't expect to have fun tonight, you know? But I did." Giles gave her an intense look. "And the past couple of weeks, too, with all the wedding arrangements and the rehearsal. We hardly ever spend time together."

She looked down. "I think we both probably feel we spent too much time together."

Giles could see her cheeks curve. "I had fun that night, too."

"So did I." She met his eyes very briefly, then looked up at the tree branches and night sky. "Hank and I weren't all that compatible in… in some ways. That might have been the best night I'd had since _I_ got married." Joyce drew a sudden breath. "Aaand, how many glasses of champagne did I have?" She looked at Giles. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said hastily. "Maybe it is the champagne, maybe," he leaned forward and took one of her hands from her lap, "maybe as you get older you have less patience with… niceties. Joyce, I honestly thought it was all the candy. You're always so… reserved, so, well, classy."

She laughed. "You thought I was the reserved one?" She leaned closer, too, and for a moment his gaze involuntarily went to her cleavage. "And then, you ate candy and were just effortlessly cool and dangerous, whereas I reverted to a bland suburban teenager."

"Joyce?"

"Damn." She said the word quietly, then waved to someone behind Giles. "Be right there, Arlene," she called. "I'm fine. Just lost my composure for a minute."

"Well," Giles said, standing up as Joyce did, "maybe we'll get a chance to spend more time together at the next wedding."

"They'll start happening one after the other now, won't they?" She sighed and swayed toward him. It might have been the champagne.

Giles bent his head to kiss her, a soft kiss, almost chaste. "Yes," he agreed, "we'll be busy every weekend in June for the next few years." He kissed her again.

Joyce pulled away from him. "It was you, and of course the candy, but it was the danger I liked, too, the chance of being caught." Her voice was low and rushed. "Right now, I want take you over in the corner where the shadows are deep and do naughty things to you." She sighed again. "But it isn't a chance of being caught tonight, it's a certainty. It's already past bedtime for two of my houseguests." Letting go of his hand, she took a couple of steps away. "Hank never saw me like that after I became a mother."

"So the berk looked elsewhere." Giles' voice was flat.

She shrugged. "Maybe I could have fought harder for it." Joyce started walking and he fell into step beside her. "Arlene and Matt leave tomorrow, and Lolly's leaving Tuesday. You know, if you want to stop by."

They went back into the house before Giles formulated a reply. In the corner where the shadows were deep, Angel stood cringing with his hand over his eyes, mortified by the conversation he'd witnessed. He supposed he might deserve it for coming out to gloat about the decorations on Spike's truck, but, really, that was an unfair amount of retribution.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

[Author's Note: If a honeymoon isn't the right occasion for an 'explicit' warning, what is?]

⸹

Spike was surprised that Buffy didn't wake even when he parked the truck at the motel. She'd been asleep since they started down the 101. He eased her head from his thigh onto the seat and went in to register. By the time he came out, she was sitting up.

"Our motel," she said, smiling wanly when he climbed back in. "I should have known."

"Just for the night," he promised. "First class after this."

"I don't mind. Same room?" Her smile deepened when he nodded.

"How was your nap?"

"Good." When he parked in front of room nine, she got both their smaller overnight bags out of the back of the cab, as well as her little purse. Spike went to open the door, and she glanced over her shoulder as she joined him, trying to find the spot where they'd climbed to in the Moreton Bay fig tree.

Nothing much had changed in the room, though several things desperately needed it. The bedspread was a different pattern. Just as he had before, Spike stripped it off the bed and tossed it in the corner. Buffy got the luggage rack from the closet and unfolded it so they didn't have to set the bags on the floor. Then she kicked off her sandals. Before she turned around, Spike was behind her.

"'Lo, love." He put his hands on her hips and kissed the skin of her shoulder at the edge of the dress. "Missed you."

"Hold that thought." She wished she wasn't human so he wouldn't have to wait, but she was also glad to escape to the bathroom. She had serious morning breath, even though it wasn't one a.m. yet.

He'd taken off his sweater and shoes when she came back out and was in the process of undoing his belt. "Love? You just want to sleep, say so. Know you're tired."

"I know you're tired, too." Buffy's updo still had flowers in it, though the veil was gone. She still wore the yellow sheath dress. "But I don't want to sleep yet."

"No?" He smiled and pulled his belt through the loops so fast it cracked in the air. "Glad to hear it."

"You never asked." She took a step toward him.

"Asked what?"

"About something old, new, borrowed, and blue."

"I sussed out the borrowed. Celia's necklace." She nodded, taking another step closer. "New was the wedding dress and blue was the sapphire earrings."

"The color of your eyes," she agreed.

"Common gems," he said dismissively. "There are no jewels like to my lady's eyes."

"There's my poet," she purred, close enough to touch his bare chest now, so she did. "Have you figured out the old?"

"If it isn't me…."

"Take off my dress?"

"You are too kind to me, kitten." She didn't help, just moved her arm so he could unzip the bodice, then raised both into the air so he could lift the dress over her head.

Beneath it, she wore white lingerie, a longline bra of satin and velvet, satin panties, and a lacy garter belt holding up sheer silk stockings. He sucked in a breath and fell back half a step to see her better. She looked both virginal and sexy, and her expression was pure seduction.

"You are too kind," he said again, his voice hoarse. "Thank you for wearing my gift."

 _I'm saving the green set for our anniversary._

 _May not live that long. Looking at you right now is killing me._

 _So, don't just look_.

He needed no further invitation. Making up the half step with a full one, he pressed his body against hers roughly and his mouth against hers gently. _Now I find I want to look again. Come to the bed, love?_

He followed her, and when she began to lay down, he stopped her. _No. Like this._ Buffy knelt on the bed, facing him as he stood before her. _Love, if I'm struck blind now, I would not mourn. I have seen you tonight._ His eyes went over her and he took one of her hands. Spike began to walk around the bed, still feasting on the sight of her, taking her in from all angles. _I have seen my bride. I have seen my wife._

When he put a knee on the mattress, it rocked Buffy. She put out her other hand to touch the headboard for balance. He was all the way on the bed now, straddling one of her calves, his chest against her back. Once again, he kissed her shoulder. She leaned against him, turned her head to graze his mouth. Buffy lifted her arms over her head and ran her fingers over his hair until she found the strip of leather that bound it.

 _You've seen your wife. Touch your wife._

He did. Spike's hands settled on her hips for a moment, then traced over her ribs and breasts to follow the length of her arms. Buffy had twisted toward him and he had bent far enough that their lips could meet in a kiss now. His hands covered hers for a moment, then he trailed his fingers back down her arms to cradle her breasts. He made slow circles over the fabric of the cups, teasing her nipples until they hardened against his palms.

She wondered where the urgency had gone. Yesterday, she would have sworn they'd have shredded each other's clothing by this point. Now, though, Buffy felt she could simply be touched like this for an hour.

 _Used to ride horses, love. Dumb beast with a bit in its mouth, but I still felt such wonder when we'd both lean into a turn._ His mouth moved along her shoulder to her neck as he spoke, leaving small kisses in its wake. _I've danced with someone once or twice where it felt like we had already practiced our steps. Then I met you. Fighting alongside you, love, is like fighting with my shadow, my other half._ He kissed her nape, ran his tongue along the length of her neck until he could take the curve of her ear between his teeth. _But nothing is like this, like the way our bodies know the other. My body responds to yours before my mind can think the first thought._

The tiny nips along the edge of her ear were enough for Buffy to decide an hour was too long. She wanted to touch Spike, and she would, just… maybe a minute or two more of this. What she could do in this position was push back against his hips. She moved slowly until she felt him, hard and straining, then began to rock against him with a languid, unhurried rhythm. Spike moaned, a small sound, but his mouth was against her ear, and the growl raised goosebumps along her arms.

 _I wish my words were like yours._ He had her rhythm now, so Buffy changed her movements, swiveling her hips. Spike's hands clenched for a moment on her breasts, then he began rubbing his fingertips around the hardness of her nipples. She let out a small gasp. _But I can't seduce you with words the way you do me. You know all the words, mastered all the languages, but all I've mastered is my body. Everything I've ever wanted it to do, it has. Flips and layouts and stunts and dances… But it does something I didn't know about. It recognizes you._

She turned then, drawing her leg from between his and spinning so they were belly to belly. She did not bobble or throw him off balance. Buffy's arms went around him and her perfectly manicured fingernails scratched lightly over the skin of Spike's back. He arched toward her. _It wants you. The first time we met, it wanted your mouth, your kissable lower lip._ She kissed the lip in question, going from corner to corner.

 _And you think you can't seduce me with your words?_ His hands slid down her back to cup her bum and pull her against him. _Bring me off, love. What was the second thing you wanted?_

 _No._ Buffy pulled away so she could meet his eyes. _The first time you come as my husband, I want you inside me._

He tilted his head to one side. _That might have to be soon._

Buffy lifted a shoulder at the warning. _Now._

 _Are you ready, love?_

She loved him for the concern on his face. _For you, I'm always ready._ She wasn't sure that was true, but it didn't matter. Her desire was an urgent thing again. She found the button of his slacks.

"Aaah," he breathed, taking her hands. "Better let me do that." Buffy reached for her panties, but he was already unencumbered. "No need." Spike's clever fingers slid down her tummy and between her legs, pulling the elastic to one side. "Lay down?" She did, and a moment later, he was easing into her, his teeth clenched together. "Still, love, stay so still." _Want to do what you wish, but it's a close thing._

Buffy was still. _The second thing I noticed about you was how expressive your face is. You were always in a good mood, looking for the fun in things, so you smiled a lot. But I could tell your feelings were hurt when I called you a monster, or when you were surprised by something I said. The night I wanted to get you to kiss me, I knew you were surprised. That's the first night I saw desire on your face._

 _Same for me. It was only for a moment, before you remembered all the reasons we shouldn't._ "Can you keep still for just a little longer, love?" He watched her nod, saw the curiosity on her face. _First time as your husband, it want it to be your orgasm that brings me off._

Her breath came faster. _Can I change my mind? About staying still?_

 _Too late._ Instead of doing what she thought he would, bring his mouth to his mark on her neck, Spike braced himself on one arm and traced the fingers of his free hand along her body until he found her very sensitive center. _Don't watch you enough, love. Let me see you, your face, your eyes, when you come._

A small sound escaped her, and despite her promise to keep still, Buffy pressed her shoulders into the mattress and lifted her hips. "Now," she demanded. He complied, pushing deeper into her, her name a prayer on his lips.

She wrapped her legs over his, opening for him, feeling the pulse of him inside her even as she cried out. "Perfect," she breathed. When he opened his eyes, she was smiling at him. "Now we can just relax. You be Spike, and I'll be Buffy. Our bodies will take care of the rest."

For forty more minutes, their joined bodies did just that. Spike pulled away from her reluctantly and finished kicking off his pants. He went to the dresser for the Styrofoam cooler he'd carried in earlier. "You must be starved, the way your tum's complaining." He turned on the lamp as he came back to bed.

"I am. That forkful of cake was good, but not nearly enough." She sat up cross-legged on the bed, then uncrossed them and began taking off the garter belt and stockings. "Wonder what Joaquim put in there?"

The chef had packed a picnic of finger foods, or at least foods that could be eaten with fingers, as well as a bottle of champagne and two plastic flutes. Spike opened up a small container of cut vegetables and crunched up a carrot. Buffy avoided the piece of broccoli he brought to her lips.

"Nope, not getting anything stuck in my teeth. I didn't pack floss, apparently."

He ate it instead. "I did. You can borrow mine."

"California law says that it's half mine now, anyway." She gave him a smug grin, then asked, "Why do you have floss?"

"Bits of food still get stuck, a mechanical thing, yeah? That's why I don't eat popcorn very often."

"Could we be more married?" Buffy asked. "I mean, oral hygiene as a topic?"

He leered at her. "Did you say oral?"

Buffy got a surprised look on her face. "There was no oral. Oh God, we are married."

Spike chuckled. "Not that I do I lot of inner negotiating, but I kind of figured the soul might want to be in charge at first."

 _That's why you didn't touch the scars._ When he nodded, she put out a hand to cup his jaw. _No complaints here, William. I just now realized._

There was a large dollop of shyness overlaying his pleased smile. "Here, pet. Got something for you. We've got the honeymoon suite at the Four Seasons after one o'clock tomorrow, so room service until we check out and go to the airport." Spike rolled off the bed and rummaged in his small suitcase. As he got back in, he handed her a sheet of paper. "Our itinerary. End of the big secret."

Buffy saw that they weren't flying out until, technically, Monday. "An overnight flight to Santiago, Chile?"

"First time you spoke to me," he touched his temple, "I was in Patagonia." He shrugged. "It's a bit above Patagonia, but I thought we could do some skiing first. You said you really liked it the one time you saw snow."

"Skiing?"

She seemed dubious, and his heart sank a little. "We're fit. We can do it. Or not. We could just stay in our room." He leaned over and touched a few more lines down. "After Portillo, we'll drive through a bit of the countryside in Patagonia, then work our way up. Do the tourist things in Peru, the Nazca Lines, Machu Picchu."

Buffy looked at the bottom of the list. "Cozumel?"

"Like I'm going to miss a chance to see you in a bikini for a few days."

"I… I don't know what to say. I don't have the clothes for this."

"Neither do I. Well, clothes for airplane rides. We'll buy what we need along the way. Extra suitcases, if we have to." His mouth tightened as she continued to stare at the itinerary. "Sorry, love. Not what you had in mind, I take it."

"Honestly? No." She put the paper on the bed and took his hand. "I thought London."

"We'll go there. I want to travel everywhere with you, love. I know these don't seem like very glamorous places, but when I told you that everything is first class after tonight, I wasn't joking." He pointed at the name of the ski resort. "I didn't even think we'd get –"

Buffy put her finger to his mouth. "Spike. I'm not going to fake-spaz and pretend excitement or anything. But I'm fine with it. More than fine." She dropped her hand and gave him a sweet smile. "The first thing you ever planned for us turned into the best night of my life. I trust you."

He closed his eyes and touched his chest, then moved his hand to her heart. After a moment, he took the paper back to the luggage, then climbed into bed. He immediately rolled over, brushing his elbow. "What… Oh. Birdseed."

"Birdseed?" Buffy looked at where he'd found it, thought back to where she'd been, and immediately swatted at her hair. Two round seeds dropped onto the sheet and rolled against her foot. "Oh, yuck. My hair is full of birdseed." She grabbed the last piece of her delicious vegan, gluten-free fruit tart and popped it into her mouth. "I'm going to grab a quick shower, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind, but I do have a favor to ask."

"What?" she asked absently, pulling pins and wilted flowers from her hair.

He went back to his overnight bag and brought out one of his black t-shirts. "Put this on when you're done."

Buffy looked at it, at the splash of pink in the folds of the black shirt, then took it in her hands. "Is this the same shirt…?"

"It is." He tilted his head to the side. "Kept it with me until the night I left for Africa. It's been washed since then," he added hastily. "And I can't swear those are the same knickers, but I did get them from your drawer."

"Fantasies?" At his nod, she gave him a grin. "That's why you booked this room."

"It is." Though he hadn't moved, he seemed much closer than before. Someday, she was going to figure out how he managed that. "Call me in when you're done with the shampoo, if you like."

"One of mine first?"

"As my lady wishes." He leaned closer to her, grinning. "Though I still think there are too many ants and other bugs up in the fig tree for it to be any fun."

"That's not the fantasy I was thinking of."

"Oh?"

"Hey, I waited for months to find out deets for our honeymoon. You can wait a few minutes for this." They played out her fantasy of discovering each other's bodies in the cramped shower, but Buffy decided it was her honeymoon and she could be greedy if she wanted. She had the lights off, the air conditioning on high, and his t-shirt on when he came out of the bathroom.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, love?"

"What if I want to stay with you?"

"What?" His confusion cleared as he realized they were still replaying another night in this room. "Stay with me? Not go to your father's?"

"I'd rather stay with you. We… understand each other."

He gave her a considering look and tossed the damp towel in his hand toward the bathroom. Naked and thoughtful, he came to sit on her side of the bed. "My world's no place for you, love." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "No beauty in it. Don't want to see you… diminished."

"We could make our own place in the world. Somewhere we don't have to be what other people expect of us."

For a couple of moments, he considered her idea, but then he shook his head. "Love, you don't know how good that sounds. But I'm seriously needy right now. I'd be in your bed within a week."

"We're in a bed now." His lips parted. Buffy almost smiled for a moment at this proof of his desire before she remembered she was supposed to be a younger Buffy and should look nervous instead.

"Wouldn't be fair to you, love. Can't do that to you, knowing you'll get tired of me and want to go back to your family and friends someday."

"Unfair, how?" She bit the inside of her cheek.

He leaned closer to her and brushed a damp strand of hair back from her face. "I'll ruin you for any other lover, Summers. I'm that good." He was trying not to smile himself now.

"Suuure you are, Spike." She rolled her eyes and drew the covers up, flopping down onto the pillow.

"You don't believe me?"

"Well, I don't have a lot of experience or anything, but even I know a boast when I hear one."

He did grin now and stood up, hands on his hips, fingers pointing toward his package in a pose she'd seen him in a hundred times while clothed. Spike took a couple of steps away from her without turning around. "It isn't boasting if you can back it up." It seemed as if he came to a decision. "Tell you what: if I'm all hat and no cattle, you tell me."

"What?" she laughed.

"American expression. Thought you'd know it. Means more than just talk." He leaned over and put his hands on the mattress. "But I think we'd better see if we get on in here before we go off together into the wide world."

She pulled the covers over her nose and peeped at him. "Okay," she agreed shyly.

He put his knee on the bed and began to prowl toward her on the mattress, no longer hiding his smile. They had shared this in the cab of a pickup truck once, so she thought she knew what was coming next.

"I didn't think there'd be kissing," Buffy said when he drew close.

"We've kissed before."

"Not like this."

"These kisses will be better," he promised in a dark voice. Spike tried not to rush, loving her mouth and breasts, tasting her, but he could not lose himself in the wonder of her body, not with such anticipation in his mind. Buffy was herself having trouble remaining passive, clenching her hands on the sheets when he brought her off without removing the pink nylon panties.

"Gotta taste you now," he said roughly, peeling the shirt away from her. He'd taken it with him through his travels over that lost summer, bringing it out to breathe in the scent of her every couple of weeks or so, just to reassure himself that their connection was real. The week after she'd accepted the engagement ring, he finally washed the shirt. Now, he tossed it over his shoulder.

Buffy watched him slide her panties down her legs. There was something urgent in his movements. _This is the last thing?_

 _It is, love._

And he lowered his mouth to her center, his eyes on hers, just as he had two summers before. It was the only thing that was the same.

"Oh! Oh, Spike!" She twisted away from him, out of breath, her eyes wide, and sat up.

He sat up, too, not expecting this. "Love? You okay?"

Buffy glanced at his hands, looking for a vibrator. "You don't have… That was just your _tongue_?"

He nodded.

"Can all vampires do that?"

He shook his head.

"Just you?"

"As far as I know."

She stared at him for a moment, then licked her lips and asked, "How are you not locked up as someone's sex slave?"

He chuckled. "Probably because my tongue is also used for talking." Looking down, he peeked at her through his lashes. "Is it… okay?"

She nodded, didn't say anything.

"Would you… like the night we got engaged?"

She knew before he showed her an image. Spike put his feet on the floor and she straddled him, bringing him into her body. Buffy let out a long breath as she did, then swallowed, facing him. _Because you've figured out how to go down on me while we're making love._

 _This is fun, and I love to play with you, but I don't need fantasy, love. Our reality is my fantasy._ She held his gaze for a moment, and then turned her head to show him the scar on her neck. His mark, now.

Spike closed his eyes for a second or two, throwing out a prayer of thanks to whatever god of light that might deign to hear a creature like him. "I love you," he whispered against her neck. Then he gave his goddess the last of the gifts he had to offer.

 _I'm sorry_ , she managed a minute later. _Can't move… just… want you._

Spike understood her barely coherent request. Buffy had no coordination left, just wanted more. He scooped her close and rolled them over, standard missionary position seeming quite extraordinary as Buffy groaned with relief when he took over movement duties. His wife spent in his arms for long minutes, and he was back in the no-time they'd found in this room once before.

Buffy shuddered and turned her shoulder to break away. She brought her hands to cradle his sculpted jawline. _Kiss me like that._

No one had ever asked him to do that before. Easy tears in his eyes, he brought his mouth to her lifted face. The moment it stopped being physical and became about emotion, he realized he was nearly done.

"Come for me," Buffy whispered, pulling away from the kiss. "Oh, Spike, come for me."

"Oh, love," he managed, his voice thin, "Buffy."

She held him, smiling. "So. Big hat," she breathed, "plenty of cattle."

"Thank you, darlin,'" he drawled in his best cowboy voice, pleased to be clever enough to think of even that.

"Let's nap," Buffy said. "Then, we'll climb our tree."

"Mmm." His tone was sleepy and noncommittal. _Ants. I'm just saying._

⸹

"Hey, Wil."

"Buffy! Tara, it's Buffy." There was a muffled sound, then Willow's voice came back, sounding tinny. "I've got you on speaker. I didn't expect to hear from you so soon."

"Well, I finally know where we're honeymooning, so I thought I'd let you know."

"Oh? Where is it?"

"Patagonia. So, Chile, Argentina, then up to Peru for Machu Picchu and we have a few days in Cozumel before heading home."

"Oh."

"Well, I have to admit, I wasn't super-excited, either."

"No. I mean, no one is going to win."

"Wait… You guys were betting on where the honeymoon would be?"

"Yes," Tara admitted. "I had Hawaii."

"You aren't excited? That's like a trip of a lifetime. I mean, how often does anyone get to vacation in South America?"

"I'm excited, just not squealing and jumping up and down excited."

"I take it Spike i-isn't there?"

"No. He's out for a bite or so to eat," Buffy said.

"Oh." Willow met Tara's eyes briefly. "Funny how we never really like to think about that."

"I hear you."

"Wh-where are you?"

"Four Seasons. Our flight is a redeye out of LAX just after midnight."

"Is Spike excited?"

"To fly? Very." Buffy closed her eyes. "So, Sunnydale still standing when you got back last night?"

"It's all pretty calm. I checked police reports and the hospital for Friday, too. No deaths."

Buffy let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "That's great."

"How is married life treating you so far?"

"Very well." They could hear the smile in Buffy's voice. "Very, very well."

"Well," Tara said, grinning, "good."

"Guys," Buffy said, "it got better."

The two witches looked at each other again. Unlike Anya, Buffy didn't overshare about her sex life, but she often hid a smug expression when the topic came up. "Well, I guess m-maybe I should rethink marriage."

Buffy giggled. "I definitely recommend it so far." She pulled the curtain away from the window, looking out at the city. "So, anything happen at the reception after we left?"

"Um," Willow said, "Giles kissed your mom goodnight. Otherwise, no."

"Was Dad still there?"

"No, he left after you did."

"Oh. I don't know how to feel about that. Good, I guess? They're both way single."

"Was Spike mad about the tr– about the decorations?" Tara finished, revising the sentence after a moment stuck on the word 'truck.'

"Yup. Neither of us was real thrilled about the condoms."

"Anya and Cordelia."

"Really? I figured Xander." Buffy felt Spike's signature zing on her 'slaydar.' He was no more than four or five doors away. "I thought everything else looked really sweet, though."

"Aww, thanks." Willow changed the subject. "Were you really wiped after the wedding?"

"I slept all the way to L.A. Both of us overslept this morning." She waved as Her husband opened the door. "Spike's back. I'll put you on speaker. Willow and Tara," she added, for his benefit.

"Ladies," he said gravely.

"Hey, Spike."

"Buffy said you two were really tired," Tara said.

"Yesterday was a long day," he agreed.

"Yeah, I'm never doing that again." Buffy sounded vehement.

"Well… good." Spike grinned at her. Then he grew concerned. "Buffy… what happened?"

Her eyes widened, and she looked around for encroaching demonic forms. "What?"

"Is everything okay?" Willow asked anxiously.

"No. It's Buffy. Somehow my bride has become clothed." Spike grabbed the phone from his wife. "Bye, my favorite witches. I must see to this crisis right away."

"Give my phone back." Willow and Tara heard sounds of a scuffle. "Pig," Buffy said, obviously not to them, and then said, "Love you guys. Talk to you later."

⸹

"Does it always take this long?" Spike asked, turning to her, looking anxious.

"It does when you're the first to board the plane," she replied, not bothering to hide her smile.

"It's just… neat." He gestured with the folded airsickness bag he'd been examining.

They were sitting in two first class seats aboard the airplane that would fly them to Santiago. The entrance was behind them, and they'd heard the flight attendants murmur 'Welcome aboard' at least two hundred times. It was the first time she'd flown first class, and Buffy had been impressed with the attentive service, but she was operating on very little sleep and found the prospect of flying less interesting than that of several solid hours of shuteye. Her main reason for being awake was just to witness her husband's wonder. That, and they wouldn't let her do the neat seat-into-bed change until after takeoff.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"A diet coke?" Buffy replied to the steward.

"For you, sir?"

"Nothing." Spike put his head close to hers. "Have to say, I'm disappointed. Always imagined it would be one of those 'coffee, tea, or me' bints with a short skirt."

Buffy lifted an eyebrow. "Which you are no longer allowed to notice, Mr. Summers."

He grinned, unrepentant. "Neither of us are blind, love. You can look all you like at your George Clooneys or Christian Slaters, s'long as that's it." He leaned closer and kissed her. "You have no need to worry about my fidelity, I promise." Spike's mouth was almost against her ear now. "Been thinking about that mile high club."

She pulled back and shook her head. "Let me have three or four hours of sleep, then I promise to be more enthusiastic about that idea."

He leaned away, examining her face. "Sorry, love. Should have let you sleep some today – er, yesterday."

"Don't apologize," Buffy replied, grinning. "I didn't let you sleep, either."

It was hard to keep the grin off her face over the next several minutes. Spike listened raptly to the safety briefing given by the other first class flight attendant, who was female. He practically had his nose plastered to the window, watching the ground crew guide the plane from the gate. He grabbed the attention of the male flight attendant, learning that the lighted batons were called marshalling wands and the woman he could see in her reflective vest a wing walker.

When the taxi to the runway was over and the pilot got the go ahead from the tower, Buffy grabbed Spike's hand and entwined her fingers with his. He beamed at her once as the takeoff speed pushed them back against the seats, then his focus turned back to the disappearing ground, then the darkness of the ocean, and finally the lights of the city to their left as they veered south.

Five hours later, Buffy woke and looked around. The lights were dim and the only sound she heard was a light snoring. She grabbed a stick of gum from her purse and popped it into her mouth, then leaned over her husband. _Spike?_ He woke immediately, staring up at her. Buffy had her finger over his mouth. _Two minutes, then follow me._

He watched her disappear into the lavatory. Spike blinked for a moment, then realization woke him further, and his eyes narrowed in consideration. Yeah, they were two fairly slender people. And they did have an aptitude for vertical. After another minute, he stood, drew shadow to himself, and walked toward the entrance to the mile high club.

⸹

Next Chapter: Ever wonder what happens during a Sunnydale summer? Or what if Wolfram and Hart messed with the Scoobies? Or what Anya might do to regain power?

⸹

[Author's Note: Did the DJ miss any of your least favorite/most played out/inappropriate for a wedding songs? :-) And, of course, I'm just as bad for the Billy Idol 'White Wedding' reference in the title.

So, it's fair at this point for readers to wonder what's left. In fairy tales, this is where the 'and they lived happily ever after' goes. This story will end with some of the events that took place in season seven, so there's perhaps ten or so chapters left, plus an epilogue. Right now, Buffy and Spike are happy, but the rest of our Sunnydale/Los Angeles friends aren't quite so settled, and Dawn isn't even here yet. This will still be a Spuffy story, but with more space for their friends and family. If this is your stopping point, please let me know if you liked the story… but I hope you come back next week!]


	32. Summer in Sunnydale

**Summer in Sunnydale**

⸹

Los Angeles

June 2000

⸹

"Good morning, Ms. Reyes."

"Good morning, April. You're here early."

"Yes. I forgot to water my African violet on Friday."

"Did you have a good weekend? You went to a wedding, right?"

"I did! It was a bit of a drive, but very nice weather for it." April straightened the keyboard on her desk. "I hope you had a good weekend?"

Karalyn Reyes shifted her briefcase to her other hand as she unlocked her door. "No, unfortunately. Prep for the Welner case."

April nodded. "I already called the clerk's office to verify that Wednesday at eight is still the start time for the trial. No phone calls from Evans, Pittman regarding the case."

"No emails, either," Reyes sighed, tucking her keys into her purse. "I thought for sure they'd want to settle." A few minutes later, she came out with her coffee cup in hand. "You want some?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Ms. Reyes." It still seemed odd to April, who had been a secretary long before she'd been an administrative assistant, that her boss would get her own coffee, much less a cup for her. But she was grateful to get this job at Wolfram and Hart, and she was determined to keep it. When she'd first gotten her certification as a legal secretary, the plum job she'd imagined hadn't been forthcoming. She'd left her old job for work with an attorney whose practice had almost immediately failed. It had been a rough six months before this one turned up.

Wolfram and Hart had a state-of-the-art building in a nice part of downtown, with good benefits and a decent salary. Plus, she'd been paired with a really nice lawyer. There was no way Karalyn Reyes wouldn't be a partner, not as talented as she was. Besides, the girl was a knockout; that couldn't hurt.

The only downside to the job was the caseload. The firm seemed to give Ms. Reyes the worst cases to defend, clients who were just scum. Everybody deserved representation, of course, and Reyes had a good track record. Still, it would be nice to be on the same side as an orphanage or a whistleblower for once.

"April?" Ms. Reyes was back with her coffee in one hand, holding up her Blackberry with the other as she walked in. "I know it's Monday morning and we're swamped, but one of the partners needs some transcription in the meeting room on nineteen. Could you run up there? The meeting is only supposed to last for half an hour."

"Of course." April locked her computer and reached for her jacket. "Which partner?" Some of them were… well, creepy.

"Mr. Manners."

She relaxed. "Oh, he's so nice."

"He is," April agreed. "Thanks. Anything to make them happy with me, you know. I appreciate it."

Five minutes after her secretary left, Holland Manners strolled into Reyes' office, closing first the outer, then the inner door. He stood regarding the lawyer.

Karalyn pushed away from her desk and smiled up at him. "You aren't staying for the… transcription?"

He shrugged. "The mindbender will mine her memories just fine without me there."

"She'll be all right? She's old and not much to look at, but she's competent. I'd hate to lose her." Reyes stood and walked around the desk, coming to stand within a few inches of him. She was a short woman and tilted her head to meet his eyes.

"She'll be fine, probably. They rarely mess up anymore." His gaze went past her face to the very modest shadow of décolleté at the second button of her shirt. "I missed you last week."

"I'm glad you're back." She knew better than to ask where he'd been.

"Come to the couch with me."

"I thought you'd never ask."

⸹

The six o'clock meeting at the end of an already long Monday found Holland Manners, Lilah Morgan, and Lindsey McDonald looking quite as fresh as they had when they stepped into the building that morning. Lindsey had changed shirts in his office; Holland had done the same in his private bathroom. Lilah had made an investment last year and paid a sorcerer $5,000 for a neatness spell for her wardrobe. She had to redo her makeup, though.

They felt comfortable enough with each other to put their feet up when Holland turned down the lights and began running the edited video of the memory of one of Wolfram and Hart's legal secretaries. Lindsey considered making a crack about wanting popcorn, but thought better of it. Things weren't that comfortable, though he was somewhat hero of the hour after losing his hand to Angel.

The first memory was of the groomsmen at a wedding. All of their eyes focused on the largest groomsman. "He cleans up better than I would have guessed," Lindsey offered.

" _That's_ the Slayer?" Lilah asked a few moments later. "She's tiny."

Holland's eyes flicked over the faces that were visible. "That isn't the Slayer's father. It's her Watcher."

"And he served as a groomsman, too," Lilah noted.

"Interesting," was Lindsey's contribution.

The wedding was over, and they were watching, from April's perspective, the receiving line. It was the best view yet of the bride and her groom. "Do we know any more about him?" Lindsey asked.

"I have a theory," Holland said, something smug in his voice.

There were snippets of Angel in passing at the reception, mostly with his known associates, once of him dancing with the female, Cordelia Chase, who had been in the wedding party as well. Holland paused the clip with a remote on the polished table next to his feet. "This audio is as good as it's going to get, I'm afraid." Beneath the strains of 'Wind Beneath My Wings' and a jumble of more than a hundred voices, there was some exchange between Angel and the groom about a camera.

"He's British?" Lilah asked, her head turned slightly and her brow furrowed in concentration.

More snippets, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce dancing with Cordelia, Angel talking to the maid of honor and a couple of other people. There was a more coherent stretch where Angel cut in while the bride and groom were dancing, then a tall woman interrupted them in turn. He backed away, and none of the lawyers had ever seen him look chastened before. "Whoa," Lindsey said, "let's hire her."

"The Slayer's mother."

"Smart lady."

The last shot was a dim one of Angel watching the bride and groom leave. "He looks… kind of sad."

Holland looked at Lindsey. "He was in love with her." He sighed as he took his feet from the table and used the remote to increase the lighting. The other two, who'd only been bold enough to prop their feet on chairs, straightened and swiveled in their seats, waiting for him to continue. Holland steepled his fingers. "Our sources on the Council of Watchers haven't been able to give us much Sunnydale information, other than that they were appalled that she was working with a demon, even one with a soul. Her Watcher, Rupert Giles, hasn't shared his Watcher's diary with the Council since 1997."

"Can we steal it?" Lilah asked.

"Not without him knowing. His apartment is a fortress." He let out an impatient breath. "We haven't kept up with anything about this Slayer." Holland made a face. "Lothos came to town right after she was called. She should have died," he shrugged, "Then she went to Sunnydale. We figured the Master would kill her, then that Angelus would."

He let out a sigh. "Our prophecy people knew when Angelus was coming back, but, as we all know, they didn't know he'd be suffocated beneath the soul again. Or how. So, now that it seems she'll actually live and that he's staying in touch with her, we're scrambling for information. And someone got to everything before we did."

"What do you mean?" Lindsey asked.

"No records. Police, school, hell, even dental records, all missing here in L.A. And in Sunnydale, of course, any records are purposely minimal."

"Nothing online?"

"Altered."

"Angel didn't do that," Lilah said, a surety in her voice.

"And we don't know who did, except that it wasn't the Council. Further," he said, his tone wintry, "our seers cannot get a bead on her."

"What?"

"One of them died in a trance while trying. We have no idea what happened. One moment, his eyes were rolled back in his head, the next… a trickle of blood from his nose, and he keels over."

"Her Watcher?"

Holland raised his eyebrows at Lilah. "Doubtful. Entertaining early period of rebellion when he was college-aged and trafficked with demons. By-the-book Watcher since that time. But no indication from our Council sources that his ability comes anywhere close to what we're seeing."

"Is it just the Hellmouth? Blocking magical energies, assuming the seers are antagonists?" Lilah asked.

"It never did anything like this before."

Lindsey shrugged. "What about the Slayer's associates?"

"A bunch of nobodies, seemingly. Her name is Buffy Summers, in case you've forgotten."

"Buffy the vampire Slayer," Lindsey snickered.

"Still alive after, what, three or so years?" Lilah said, something cool in her voice aimed at Lindsey.

Holland nodded. "Her father used to employ one of our secretaries, but there's no current connection we can use there, unfortunately. The best man: a construction worker and friend of hers from high school. Knows she's the Slayer and helps out. Maid of honor, same kind of high school friend and now her roommate in college. Too bright to be attending UC-Sunnydale, probably won't stay after the Slayer dies.

"Her mother moved them there for a fresh start after the Slayer killed Lothos and the divorce. Runs a modest art gallery." He gave them a smile. "Here's where the wedding party gets interesting. The third bridesmaid is the best man's girlfriend… whose identity is spotless and begins less than a year ago. And the groom: same thing. Spotless identity, shows up about a year ago."

"How are they related?" Lindsey asked, frowning. They hadn't looked alike.

"No idea. They may not be, other than the fake identities are flawless." He leaned back in his chair and reached for his briefcase, looking smug again. "On the bridesmaid, I have nothing, but for the groom…" Holland found the thin folder he wanted and laid it on the table, "I have a theory. A good one, I think."

He opened the folder and pushed a still from the secretary's memory onto the table. It was crisp and in color, showing the groom in his impeccably tailored tuxedo. "William Henry Allgood, a Londoner who doesn't actually exist and whose dead parents never existed. Runs a privately held business that only recently started. They sell gold coins and gems."

"Treasure," Lindsey said, frowning.

"The only other thing we know about him is that he just married the Slayer and knows her well enough that he's familiar with her father's old employees." Smiling now, Holland slid another photograph from the folder and placed it beside the first. It was in color, too, but it was grainy, the subject in motion, perhaps captured from a security camera. The man it showed had short platinum-blond hair and a snarl on his face. He wore a long coat and dark clothes, the only color from what looked to be the red lining of the coat. One of his hands was on the arm of an imperious-looking woman, thin and dark-haired.

"This is a photograph of Spike, spawn of Drusilla, spawn of Angelus." Holland put his elbows on the table and leaned forward expectantly. "Also known as William the Bloody."

Lindsey let out a whistle, and Lilah gave a disbelieving chuckle. "The Slayer married a vampire?"

Holland spread his fingers and leaned back in the chair. "Looks that way to me." He turned to Lindsey. "How is Darla?" Holland asked, projecting concern as he remembered the other Aurelian.

"Calmer," Lindsey replied after a moment.

"Well, let her know if she can't get Angel to turn her, we won't consider it an abject failure."

"We have another Aurelian at hand." Lilah smiled.

Lindsey was still looking between the two photographs. "I don't know. Did you read the thesis one of the Watchers did on William the Bloody in the last couple, three years?" When the other two looked at him, surprised, he shrugged. "I don't know how much she got right, but I don't think Darla cares for him."

"It doesn't matter if she does or doesn't. All that matters is that we have a nearby Aurelian who can sire her."

"If that is him," Lindsey said, just to be difficult.

Holland stared at him a moment, then conceded his own doubts. "We'll put a surveillance team on their house. The Slayer is on her honeymoon, so it's a good time."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

Anya had been driving Buffy's convertible while the Slayer was on her honeymoon. She found she liked it; she might spend some of the money she'd earned cataloging and selling treasure to buy something similar. People made assumptions about you, mostly positive, when you drove a Mercedes.

Today, she was driving to check on Buffy's house, since she was the one who had been trusted with the keys. When the happy couple first left, she'd checked every day until the package Buffy was expecting arrived. Now she was going because Willow was afraid a raccoon had been caught by a trap spell the coven had placed on the house. Then she had a final trip on the morning they returned from the honeymoon, to sprinkle rose petals on path to the bed at Spike's request. She'd shaken her head in bemusement at that romantic gesture. Anya couldn't imagine any scenario where Buffy would ever need the services of a vengeance demon.

She didn't mind the housesitting. Though she had been busy making plans, seeing to it gave her something concrete she could accomplish. Plus, the house was very nice. If she and Xander ever married, she would want a house in a good neighborhood rather than somewhere isolated, but there was a lot to be said for the view.

Anya had driven past the house and gone to the beach for the morning. It was time for lunch now, so she headed back toward Sunnydale, proud of herself for remembering to turn on her left turn signal at the driveway. She was past the curve at the top of the first hill when she realized that the gate was open. Must have forgotten to close it, she thought, but it wasn't until she had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car parked just beneath the last rise of the hill that she slipped and cursed. "Shit!" She had been trying to stop swearing after realizing it made Xander's mother uncomfortable.

She turned off the ignition and put on the parking brake, again feeling a little tingle of pride that she knew to do this. Then she walked around the car that blocked the driveway.

"Shit," she whispered. After staring a moment longer, she reached in her purse for her cellphone, her first impulse to call her boyfriend. Xander was at an excavation today, and he probably wasn't the best person to handle this, anyway. She chose a different number. "Giles? Hi, it's Anya. I need you to come to Buffy and Spike's house as quickly as you can… No, no emergency, but you might want to bring sand and candles for a scour spell. Oh, and could you bring us lunch from Hot Dog on a Stick…? Oh, whatever you're getting. And Giles? Be careful at the top of the driveway."

Anya went back to the convertible, put up the top for shade from the sun, and waited. Xander had said he would get the oil changed and fill up the tank before the Summers' return, that it was the polite thing to do when you had been using someone else's car. She tried to remember if she'd ever curried the draft horse she'd borrowed to till her field in the spring, back when she was human. No, she hadn't borrowed, had she? It had been barter. But she had fed the poor thing withered apples from the cellar. And here she was again, trying to figure out how to be human from her first, less than successful go-round. It was a habit she couldn't seem to break.

She didn't realize that she'd gone still sitting in the car, her thoughts far away. Life had been difficult after her parents died and left her alone on the farm. If she'd been savvier, she would have married right away. Gudmund or Gustaf would have been serviceable; their farms neighbored hers and both had been nice enough. She could even have lied and told Olaf he'd proposed while drunk. But, no. Aud hadn't been savvy, had just gone on trying to keep the family farm running, believing the best about people even though she was a single woman living on the edge of a dark forest and possessed of a small magical talent.

She could forgive her human self for being naïve all those centuries ago, but she was determined not to make the same mistakes. Anya hadn't been able to generate even the smallest bit of magic since getting stuck in Sunnydale, so she was resolved to gather power other ways. One of those ways was sociability. If you were nice, people didn't think about your former career so much. They were very forgiving, these humans.

Could she forgive herself for all that she had done as a vengeance demon? Did she even want to? On one hand, it was easy: she hadn't had a soul. But that led to all sorts of scary thoughts about her current form.

A movement in her rear view mirror brought her back to the present. Giles had made very good time, zipping up behind her in his sporty little car. He lifted the bag of fast food in front of his face so she could see, then sat it down in the floorboard and got out. "Anya," he nodded. "Whose car is that?"

"I don't know," she said, getting out of the convertible, "but they're still here." Then she hedged. "Well… their bodies are."

His brows drew together and he went past her, up the drive until he could see the bodies standing beyond the strange car, upright, halfway through the steps they'd been taking when the trap spell caught them. Three young white men, dressed in dark clothing. Upper lip lifted in unconscious disgust, Giles stood close to the nearest body and cautiously put out a hand. Then he walked a careful perimeter, looking between the men and the driveway. "Anya, do you know the linchpin of the spell?"

"Time," she replied promptly. Since she knew what he wanted to know, she added, "I'm excepted from it, the only one that I know of."

"I know Willow and Tara wouldn't do killing magic," he mused, "so what killed these men?"

"Vampires," Anya said, as though that should be obvious.

"Other than the absence of the killers' bodies, why do you say that?" Giles asked, giving her a sharp look.

Anya peered at the air as though she could see it. She crouched down a bit, then said, "Huh. Must be the angle of the sun. When I first got here, you could see the shadow of the ash caught in the field." She pointed at the three bodies and to two other places. "Five vampires caught in all. I think they attacked without realizing they could get stuck, too. I guess three of them must have figured they might as well get a meal."

The wounds were gruesome, if fairly bloodless. The men had struggled against their attackers, perhaps hours before the sun rose. "Who are they?"

"I don't know. Neither Spike nor Buffy mentioned expecting anyone."

Giles' thoughts had turned to the problem to be solved, leaving the shock of the standing corpses. "Call Willow, would you, my dear, and have her drop the spell?"

"Do you want me to tell her it was a raccoon?"

He paused, thinking of how Willow would feel to know her trap spell had caused three humans to become prey for demons. "Yes, that sounds about right." He squatted down, trying to get a sense of the dead men's movements and purpose before they died. All were approximately facing the doorway of the house. "Tell her to just cover the three crystals they used with that scrimshaw bone I loaned to her two months ago, that she hasn't returned. That should interrupt the magic without destroying the spell."

Giles went back to his car and opened the small boot as Anya made the phone call. He came back with a small valise similar to an old-fashioned doctor's bag, long rubber gloves, and a roll of garbage bags. While he waited for Willow to find the scrimshaw bone, an expensive and bloody useful magical artifact, he put on latex gloves from his bag and went through the strangers' car, a nondescript sedan. He didn't find much, just the paperwork showing that it had been rented in Los Angeles late yesterday to the obvious alias James White.

"It's down, Giles. I told her I'd call to let her know when I leave."

He stood up from the car and gave a grunt of acknowledgement just as the three bodies toppled over onto the driveway. Giles took a few steps and held out his fingers, making sure he couldn't sense the trap spell. Then he began examining the dead men for identification. None of the three had any, but what he did find was unsettling.

Anya, not the squeamish type, came over to kneel down next to him. "What is that cord thing?"

"Fiber-optic cable." He held up a small black dot that looked like a button without holes. "That could serve as a camera, and this is a microphone."

"They were here to bug Buffy's house?"

"It appears so." He went back to the first man and rolled the body onto its back, then rolled the other two onto their bellies. Giles patted over the clothing again, this time coming away with a bag of salt, matches, car keys, and a couple of chess pieces.

Anya squinted at the white plastic figures. "Why are the tops painted yellow?"

"It's blond, I should guess," Giles said.

"Foci," she said on an indrawn breath. "Magical monitoring."

According to young Wyndam-Pryce, someone had been tracking them – well, probably just Angel – this way before the Mohra demons attacked them in Los Angeles. He stood up from the body, feeling much less sorrow for the deaths than he had a moment ago. "Would you be so kind as to help me with the scour spell, my dear?"

It took about fifteen minutes to set up and considerably less time to cast. Giles was focused on chanting and rubbing the sand between his palms, but Anya watched the bodies desiccate and begin to erode as she stood to block wind from the candles. They turned to dust in a process slower than but similar to a vampire dusting. Then she snuffed out the candles and helped the ex-Watcher to his feet.

He swayed a little. "I know it's in poor taste, but would you mind terribly to get the bag of food from my car while I wash up? I'm famished."

Anya nodded and unlocked the door for him. A few minutes later, they were eating the last of their French fries and looking out over the Pacific as they ate on the balcony. Neither of them spoke, just listened to the ceaseless music of the tide and the occasional cry of a seagull.

"Thank you for being so… steady, Anya," Giles said at length. He sucked in the last bit of soda through the straw.

She shrugged. "I've seen worse. I'm glad you're feeling better. Magic takes it out of you." Then, because it had been on her mind and because there was no one else to ask, "Giles? Why do you think I can't do magic? I mean, I could before when I was human."

He looked startled by the question and peered at her for a few moments. "I-I don't know why. I'm not a very sensitive reader. Perhaps Tara –"

"I'm afraid to ask her."

Anya was looking out at the ocean after saying that, and Giles examined her as he got the implications. "My dear," he said gently, "I checked Spike when he came back from Africa. I'll be happy to do the same for you." She nodded jerkily, still not looking at him. "You said that in the other reality, I smashed the gem that held your power center. I doubt I was so very different there, and I can reassure you that I don't have the magic to unmake a soul."

Giles stood up briskly and began cleaning up wrappers and napkins. "Now, if I can ask you to compromise yourself morally and legally once again, would you help me ditch that rental car? Then we'll call Willow and tell her to put the trap spell back into play."

⸹

"Sorry we're late," Buffy called as she opened the door to Giles' apartment. "Chullos for everyone!"

"Churros?" Xander asked, surprised but not displeased.

"Chullo," Buffy said slowly, holding the door wide for Spike, who was carrying a box of presents, "you know, those knit hats with the tassels from the Andes?"

"Oh! Still, churros are good, too." He stood up and gave her a hug. "Welcome back."

"How was the trip home?" Willow asked, standing close so she could get the next hug.

"Fine. After going down to Chile, the trip from Mexico was nothing." She gave Willow a hug that made something in her ribs creak. "We got in at LAX about seven yesterday and made it home about ten."

Spike had sat the box of gifts on the couch and snagged Anya for a hug of his own. "And thank you for the flower petals, petal," he said in a low voice.

She beamed at him. "You're welcome."

Giles watched the young people greet each other from the kitchen doorway. Buffy looked tanned and relaxed, and her new husband had an easy grin and could not keep his eyes away from his bride for very long. The vampire could not keep his eyes off his Slayer. He felt a mix of emotion and decided that happiness for them was the dominant one.

Buffy came over to him. "Hi, Giles. How have you been?"

"Well enough." He patted her back as she embraced him.

Her eyes were narrow when she pulled away. "What's up?"

"Nothing critical," he reassured her. Spike was behind her, holding the box once more, so he was saved from having engage in a hug. "William," he said gravely.

"Rupert," Spike replied in kind.

"Here," Buffy said, grabbing a box and shoving it into his hands. "Try it on!" She turned to the room as a whole. "And we got blankets for everyone, but they probably won't arrive for another couple of weeks. Made from alpacas, too!"

"From alpaca wool?" Willow suggested.

"Oh! Yes. Eww."

Spike broke down the cardboard box and came over to stand by the Watcher again. "Everything been all right?" he asked, searching Giles' face.

"We'll talk about it once everyone is settled," he replied.

"And it snowed!" Buffy was telling Tara. She sat on the couch and engaged everyone in her story. "I mean, there was already snow, but we got more. It's, like, so cool. Well, cold, I guess, but it was nighttime, and everything was so quiet and still, like the snow was cotton and muffled sound. Everything was so pretty and clean-looking covered with snow, and the shadows were sort of gray because it diffuses light as it falls. I mean, I'd never made snow angels or been skiing or any of it. I'd only seen it snow once in my whole life, and I got six inches the first night I was there!" Buffy enthused.

Willow looked away, and Xander covered his mouth, coughing a little. "More than that, love," Spike put in, keeping a poker face.

"Well, I didn't measure it or anything," she agreed, oblivious to the byplay, "but it was a lot of fun."

"Yes, pet, it was."

"So, skiing. I think Spike broke his ankle."

"I did not. I just ran into a tree, rather gently."

Buffy mouthed, 'broken' to the room at large. "But that was the only problem. We'll all have to go to Salt Lake or Park City this winter and try it." She put her hand to her face in exaggerated dismay. "Duh! I've got pictures." She opened her handbag, fished out a digital camera, and passed it to Tara.

The Slayer showed no sign of getting down to business, so Giles jerked his head at Spike. "Recycling bin is this way. Help me get the beers from the refrigerator?"

He also helped bring in some extra chairs. To Buffy's credit, she asked questions of her friends, but this was the first time she had travelled and was eager to share her stories. When she finally got to Cozumel and was describing how clearing her snorkel of seawater made her feel like a whale spouting, Giles figured it was time to break in. That, or start his fourth beer.

He hadn't anticipated his Slayer's reaction to his first order of business. "You want to what?"

"Joyce needs to know what's going on," he said firmly. "You won't be living at home, and she still needs to know. She won't be able to come to all these meetings – she's at the gallery right now – but she should come to one or two each month."

"Giles… she's my mom. I don't want her to know everything that's going on." Buffy gave him a severe look. "Why can't you just tell her yourself?"

Xander snaked an arm around Anya. "Everyone else gets to bring their boyfriend or girlfriend to these meetings," he pointed out.

"Boyfriend?" The word was toneless, but the look she gave her Watcher was sharp.

"Hardly the word," Giles scoffed. "We've spent some time together since the wedding, that's all."

"Speaking of boyfriend," Spike tossed into the awkward silence, "Dog Boy off on tour yet?"

Buffy smacked his knee. "Insensitive much?"

"What? I noticed he wasn't here." Across from them, Willow picked up Tara's hand and rolled her eyes. Tara's cheeks reddened for no apparent reason.

Giles glared at him and pointedly changed topics. "Patrols have been normal, I'd say. There's really only been one thing out of the ordinary." He took a handful of items from a box next to his chair and put them on the coffee table. As the gang stared at the chess pieces, cable, and button microphones, he told them the whole story. "I waited until Buffy and Spike were back before sharing this," he said by way of apology, "and asked Anya to wait as well."

The way Xander was rubbing her back, it was obvious that she had told him, at least. Anya posed a question. "One thing I wondered, is why there were five vampires all the way out of town at your house. Did you ask them to check on it, Spike?"

He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "I don't even know five vampires."

"But you are the Master. If you mentioned it to anyone, they might have been trying to curry favor."

He thought seriously about the question. "No. I've played poker with a few of the demons in town, but no vampires." He lifted a shoulder in another shrug. "It wasn't a secret that we were getting married the first of June."

"Wil, why did you put a, what," Buffy looked at Giles to make sure she got the name right, "trap spell on the house?"

It was the redhead's turn to shrug. "Because you were gone. We had a coven meeting a couple days after you left. Tucker's brother Andrew came. We did a blessing for your marriage, but that wasn't very difficult. The trap spell was sort of an exercise, to see if we could do it. And it did have an alarm." She looked down miserably.

"Well, it was quite effective, catching both humans and vampires."

Tara put her hand on Willow's thigh after Anya's words and spoke up. "I kn-know I should f-feel bad, but… not so much. Who would b-bug the Slayer?"

"I can only think of one entity, the same one who has Angel under surveillance."

"Wolfram and Hart." Spike's voice was hard. He picked up one of the chess pieces, then tossed it onto the table. Both pieces were pawns, and he'd make them eat that dismissiveness.

"Wolf, Ram, and Hart," Giles said very precisely. "The founders of that firm are demons who are powerful enough to wield control in several dimensions. The law firm is their way into ours, even though they cannot manifest here. They try to destabilize things, encourage apocalypses, and so forth." He realized that everyone was staring at him with an unusual amount of attention. "The Council has known about them for decades. I still have contacts."

"I bought a laptop just powerful enough to run my code," Willow said, her voice resolute. "If anything happens to it, it can't lead back to us. Even if it's just so we know that those men were sent by that firm, I'm going in tomorrow."

"I'll go with you," Spike said.

"You know how to hack?" Willow said, raising a brow.

"No. But I do know how to pull you away from magical blowback."

Tara's worried gaze went between the two of them. "Why do you think this will be so dangerous?"

He nodded toward the coffee table. "There are no batteries there, nothing to connect to a phone line or the Internet. Magical surveillance marrying foci and fiber optics? These arseholes know their onions, unfortunately. All they needed was a hair from each of us to get the spying underway."

The Slayer stood up, thinking more of the personal things the cameras would have caught rather than any intelligence, and folded her arms over her stomach. "Do it," she said, nodding at Willow. "Be careful." She turned to Giles. "Check my logic? They saw us with Angel, then probably saw him at our wedding. The reason they're interested in us is because of him. The reason they're interested in him is because of the prophecy. But there's no other prophecy about me."

"No prophecy about you, I'm positive of that," Giles said. "I'm not an expert in the field – I'd never heard of the Shanshu prophecy, for instance – but I'm not aware of any that has implications for any of the rest of us."

"The Hellmouth? Souled vampires? Ex-vengeance demons?"

"The Hellmouth, I've checked." He gave a fake smile to the Scoobies. "As to the rest… time for research."

"Wait," Anya said, sitting up as the chorus of groans died away. "There's one last agenda item."

"I'd forgotten, my dear," Giles said graciously. He waved a hand at her. "The floor is yours."

Anya sent Xander a glance, and he gave her a reassuring smile. She scooted to the edge of the couch and looked nervously around the room. "First, I want to thank everyone for being so supportive since I came back last fall. I know I wasn't interested in being friends at first, but I don't think I ever really had any before. It's been… just really nice.

"So, I've been thinking about what to do with my life, since I'm human and likely to remain so. I've decided," she drew in a breath, "to run for mayor of Sunnydale. I plan to win, obviously."

No one spoke. After Anya looked around at each of them hopefully, Buffy managed, "Are you old enough to do that? I mean, according to your birth certificate?"

"Yes. You only have to be eighteen. I guess Mayor Wilkins made sure there was no upper age limit."

"Why do you want to be Mayor?" Willow asked. A portion of her wondered if Anya thought Ascension might be part of the job.

"To save Sunnydale." Anya leaned forward, her nervousness dissipating. "Demons are just not coming here anymore. The Slayer relocating here, the old Master dying, the botched Ascension, and then the Initiative was the final straw. I mean, the Hellmouth will draw the less evolved ones here, but they don't have money to pump into our economy. It's just not a demon tourist destination anymore."

"How do you plan to save the town?" Giles asked, curious despite himself.

"Well, if there isn't so much risk of being eaten, there's no reason Sunnydale can't attract human tourists. The problem is, how do we mesh the demon residents with human tourists? Humans on vacation don't want weird.

"They do want beaches, sunshine, good food, things to take photographs of, nice hotels, and a hook. We have beaches and sunshine. I think I've got a hook, and the rest will follow."

"The hook?" Xander prompted. He was smiling, mostly out of pride.

"Oh! Sex. Everybody likes sex."

"Come to Sunnydale, get laid?" Buffy asked, keeping a straight face.

"Yes! Exactly. Sunnydale is for lovers, but Xander said that some other state or other already has that slogan."

"Virginia, I think," Giles put in.

"But they didn't actually do anything to make the state sexy. I think we can really do things." She stood up and moved toward the back wall, then turned to face everyone. "So, I want to put hammocks along the edge of all the beaches, tucked out of sight. Perfect for one, two, or more people who want some alone time." She furrowed her brow. "After dark. Before dark, the Sunnydale police would arrest people for lewd behavior. We have to think of the children."

"We have to think of the horny people, too," Buffy pointed out. "Distracted means easy prey for vampires."

Anya beamed at her for this excellent point. "Thank you. So, I think we can break demon traffic in Sunnydale into three groups: demons who are residents or are otherwise capable of coexisting with humans; demons who are hungry, like vampires; and demons who come to the Hellmouth to end all of civilization, human and demon alike."

Giles opened his mouth, considered what she had said, and nodded in reluctant agreement.

"So, the first group is no problem. They're probably half of our tax base, actually. The second group, Spike can take care of. The third group, Buffy mops up."

The blond man lifted his hand. "Don't you mean, Buffy and Spike take care of the last two groups?"

"No, actually." Anya gave the group at large a nervous smile. "My plan relies a lot on your help, all of you. I think we have a lot to offer, not just to help me or us Scoobies, but also to help this town. It's not an ordinary town. I'm not an ordinary nineteen-year-old. As Mayor, I'll be in a position to make their lives better," she gestured toward the wider world on the other side of the door, "and our lives easier."

Anya stood up from the couch so she could see both warriors better. "Until I met you, Buffy, you were just the enemy. And I really didn't know much about vampires, Spike, because they're…."

He lifted his eyebrows at her uncharacteristic tactfulness. "Half-human embarrassments, hardly worthy of the name demon, yet too strong and dangerous to approach often?"

"Yes," she beamed, settling down on the coffee table. "Thank you. But I now know a lot more about how vampirism works. Like, if you feed off someone, they get horny."

"Come to Sunnydale, get bit, get horny?!" Willow asked.

"Yes."

"I can maybe feed off one person a day," Spike said, shaking his head, amused by where this seemed to be heading. "I'm an old vamp, love. I don't need to feed as often. And I prefer to do it every three days or so, feed from three to five people and be done."

"So, you're the Master. What if you made every other vampire feed that way?"

"I can't," Spike said flatly. "We're killers to a man. Or woman. I can feed without the kill because I'm old. Younger vamps don't have the self-control."

"Also, soul," Tara put in.

"Right. I have a reason to want to feed this way."

"Think about it. If you had heard there was a town where you would not be killed, but could feed safely, wouldn't you have been interested?"

"No," Spike scoffed.

Behind Anya, Giles had taken off his glasses and was slowly polishing them. "But if the Master sets up a place for vampires to feed, he wouldn't let the pool of food be driven to extinction. There would be limits."

"True" Spike agreed, "but no Master puts that sort of law down. Vampires can't hold to it."

"Anya, it's too risky," Buffy agreed. "They'd start with feeding and go right to draining."

She looked at the Slayer, then back to Spike. "If a Master made that kind of decree, what would happen?"

"Any vampire worth his fangs would challenge the git."

"And what happens if a vampire challenges you?"

When Spike didn't answer, Buffy did, smiling. "They die." When Spike threw her a look, she shook her head. "Even before the Gem of Amara, you'd killed the oldest vampire in Europe when you were trying to cure Drusilla."

"You did?" Giles asked, peering around Anya's shoulder. "Who?"

"Some German version of Old Batface," Spike said, flapping his hand.

"We'll talk," the Watcher said shortly, leaning back.

"Just… think about it," Anya said. She stood up and faced the room at large again. "So, that's the hook. I think I can get business owners to vote for me."

"Wh-who are you running against?" Tara asked.

"Some guy who was head of some department in the Wilkins administration," Anya shrugged. "I'm much more photogenic and telegenic than he is."

"What is he running on?"

"Fiscal responsibility. The plan is to blame Wilkins for embezzling money rather than to grow the town." She closed her eyes a moment, thinking of what she hadn't said yet. "I'll need the store owners to change businesses, you know, decent restaurants and stuff. Massages, those go along with the sexy Sunnydale theme. If I can assure business owners of safety, it would be a big help." She shot a look at the newlyweds, then went on. "I plan to reach out to the town at large by running against rebuilding the high school on the Hellmouth."

"You have my vote," Buffy said. "I mean, you did anyway," she added.

"Where would you put it?" Willow asked curiously.

Anya swiveled on the coffee table to face her. "It isn't as nice, since it's so far from the ocean, but there's an industrial park out on Valle del Sol that has just one active business, an assembly plant. But it is away from the Hellmouth."

Buffy's mouth thinned. "Something else inappropriate will get built there. An orphanage, probably."

"Part of my plan is that we buy it ourselves. We can concrete over the library, keep it under watch."

Giles shook his head. "A noble thought, but that's more treasure than we'll see in another twenty caches. Even in Sunnydale, that much property will go for tens of millions of dollars."

Anya sat back down next to Xander, who put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze and a smile, his pride palpable. "Oh, we'll have more than enough money. I forgot to mention that I know where to find a dragon hoard."

Giles stared at Anya for almost thirty seconds before he stood up. "Right." He ran a hand through his hair. "Anya, I thought you'd announce that you were going to college or something. A dragon's hoard." He let out a breath. "We need an intermission. Buffy, Spike, go ahead and patrol. The rest of you, the books of prophecy are against the wall on the bottom two shelves. Get one and see if there's anything about, well, us." He looked at Buffy. "When you're done, call here. I'm going to need food. I'll call in a whole flock of buffalo wings for you to pick up." He turned to Anya. "Then we'll pick back up once we have sustenance. And caffeine."

⸹

Buffy watched the dust unfold in a long streak that stretched halfway down the block. "You'd already staked it, Spike. You didn't have to kick it."

"Yeah, I did," he snarled. "Need more than just that bit of violence, actually." He unleashed his aura, sending out a call to anything nearby that might accommodate him.

There was a note of reproof in her voice. "Because we're targets? When haven't we been?"

"This," he said, nodding toward the now empty air above the street, "is fine. Having someone invade our privacy is another thing altogether." _They might have done more than surveil us._ His hands clenched. _Someone wanted to tape me with Dru, I'd play to the camera. But someone put a vid of you up on the Internet for grotbags to wank to…_ Spike's eyes were black. _There was a spell in one of the Master's books to cause a brain to explode through the eye sockets. I think I could modify it –_

"Spike." Buffy was in front of him, taking his hands, showing absolutely no fear and a little exasperation. _I hate the thought of those lawyers – or anyone – seeing us, too. But nothing happened. Don't borrow trouble._

 _My mission is to keep you alive, forever if I can. But we're married now. It's also my role to keep your reputation unsullied._

 _I'm not happy that someone tried to invade our privacy. But it's a stretch to go from someone trying to find leverage over Angel to making us online porn material._

He pulled free of her and walked a few steps away, then let his head fall back. Spike looked at the night sky, the scudding clouds for almost a minute. When he let out a sigh, Buffy moved behind him and put her arms around his waist, laying her head against his right shoulderblade.

"Why are you so easy to anger lately?" she asked, her voice soft.

He turned in her arms to regard her. "I am?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes." She slid her fingers into his belt loops. "I mean, not on our honeymoon, but you go from fine to supernova, nothing in between." Buffy looked down, grimacing, her blond hair falling forward, partly obscuring the expression. "That night I hit you, when we gutted that abandoned house… You were angry, but not like this."

"I was angry with you, love," he said gently. "It's an entirely different emotion, what I feel toward this… law firm."

She felt his fingers clench on her waist. "If they threatened you, you'd just laugh. But they hurt Angel, and now they've tried to mess with me."

He nodded. _Yes, you're exactly right. No one messes with what belongs to me._

She raised an eyebrow. _Belongs?_

Spike barely bothered to shrug. _Vampire thing._

"You were nearly as angry at my father."

He looked over her head, then closed his eyes. _Just… why can't things be easy for you? ''Specially_ –

Buffy raised both eyebrows. It was hard to hide a thought from someone who was hearing them at the same time. _If it's your personal reality?_

"Yes." The word was emphatic and also a shade sullen.

 _A world where love can conquer anything, right? That still means we have things to face and conquer._

Spike met her eyes and examined her for a silent few moments. Then he bent to give her a deep kiss. "Wish you could have met my mum, love. She'd have been so happy that I found someone wise as well as smart and beautiful." He gave her a small smile tinged with loss. "Pippa told me to marry someone sweet and kind. You're so much more, Buffy."

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, turning them a sparkling green, at the mental image of Anne Withhorn-Allgood and Philippa Carrington putting their arms around her and sending William proud looks. _Remember the morning after we got engaged, when I felt like nothing had changed? You told me a life without challenge was empty._

 _And now I'm thinking that things should have magically changed because we got married._ Spike let his head fall back and sent all of his air out in a long stream. _So,_ he sent, lowering his head to look at her again, _you always going to set me on my arse when I get unreasonable?_

 _Only of you do the same for me._

Spike brushed a stray blond tendril from her cheek. _I'm used to people running for the hills when I get this mad. Even Dru._

 _They ran because they didn't know you like I do. Or love you like I do._

 _So, will I be similarly safe if I ask about your mum's new boyfriend?_

Buffy opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. Her brow furrowed, and she looked down. _Just, what if they hurt each other instead?_

 _Oh. That would be painful._

 _I'm in the middle. I mean, they'd both probably act like adults and everything, but… No more comfort zone._

 _Maybe it won't come to anything._

 _Yeah, but on the other hand, Mom has got to be lonely with me out of the house. And it would give Giles another reason to stay here._ Buffy pulled away from him, sighing. "Spike, might want to dowse that aura."

He looked over his shoulder to see what his beacon had attracted. "Oh, bollocks."

⸹

"Hey." Xander blinked at Spike, standing in the doorway, waiting for Buffy to balance a second box of hot wings on the one he carried. "How come you're literally all wet?"

"Chased a slime demon into the sewers," Spike said sourly. "Had to go to a car wash to rinse off our boots, after." He jerked his head toward the parking lot. "You want to help Buffy with the rest?"

"Sure. Beats mistranslating Middle French."

Five minutes later, the fragile books were put safely away from greasy chicken wings and at least a dozen kinds of sauce, and the Scoobies were silent except for chewing sounds. Buffy pushed her knee against Spike, who was sitting on the floor next to where she sat on the couch, to get his attention. _I bet Giles wasn't really hungry, just wanted time to get his arguments together._

 _Heh._

"So, Anya," Giles said, less than a minute later, "the floor is yours, whenever you want to start. But first," he licked the last smear of smoky, sweet barbeque sauce from his thumb, "please tell me the dragon is not still alive."

"Mmph," Anya said, swallowing hurriedly, "no, of course not."

"How did you find out about its hoard?"

"It's where we go – vengeance demons, I mean – to find a gem for our power centers." She shrugged. "One of the places."

"Ah."

"D'Hoffryn won't mind it we take stuff?" Willow asked.

Anya shrugged. "If he does, that would be a bonus." When Giles started to say something, she added, "It would be unseemly to care about treasure, so it isn't like he can say anything. And he did strand me alone in a strange place with absolutely no support, not far from that hoard."

She went on to answer questions for half an hour, mostly from Giles. Willow posed most of the rest, though Spike and Buffy tended to offer questions about her plans for handling demons. When the Scoobies were left looking at each other, she turned and beamed at Xander. "You were right. I thought you were just being negative and unsupportive, but you made me come up with answers to so many of these questions!"

"One of the many services a boyfriend provides," he replied with a good-natured smile.

"So," she said, turning back to the group. "I think that I've been pretty clear that I won't impact your lives overmuch, though I would ask you to not schedule anything during the first week of November. Oh!" she said, after a moment's thought, "there are two skills that we need to develop before we can raid the dragon's lair. Spike, how did you like flying?"

"It was fine," he said, mystified by this.

"Good. I've decided that you're the best one to learn to fly a helicopter. You don't really do anything, so you have time."

"I do things," he shot back, affronted. Then he pointed at Giles. "As much as he does."

Anya shook her head. "No, he researches all the time."

"I think she means during the days," Xander suggested, giving Spike a wide-eyed look of you-did-say-she-missed-out-on-centuries-of-decorum.

"Yes. Everyone else works or is a student." Her brow knit in concern. "Unless you're afraid of heights?"

"No," he ground out, "I'll bloody well learn to fly a helicopter." Spike was actually not put out by this novel idea.

"Why does he need to learn to fly a helicopter?" Giles asked.

"The dragon chose a cave about thirty feet beneath the top of a canyon. I don't think it would be possible to climb down to it from the top; I'm sure it can't be scaled from the bottom." Anya turned to where Tara and Willow sat on the couch next to Buffy. "And you two need to learn to teleport. Or, at least one of you." She charitably did not say which, though her eyes were on Willow.

"Teleport?" Willow's eyes widened. "That's crazy, insane-level magic."

"I learned to do it," Anya said, shrugging.

While Willow stewed in her competitive juices, Giles asked, "Why does she need to do that, if we'll have the use of a helicopter?"

"You need to explain teleportation the way you did to me," Xander put in.

"Okay. If you know two places well, it's easy to teleport between them. You know where your feet will land, what furniture or plants to expect around you so you don't end up inside something. While a vengeance demon is in training, a master demon will visit a surge of pain and leave a marker, usually a crystal, in a safe place. The apprentice focuses on the crystal to teleport from Arashmaharr to wherever. There's been a crystal in that cave since the dragon died, I guess. My plan is to locate the cave –"

"Wait," Giles said, holding up a hand. "I thought you knew where it was."

"I knew how to teleport there," Anya said, "but I can't do that anymore." Then she gave Giles a stunning smile for no reason that anyone besides Xander understood. "We've talked about that, how I would have to find ways to access magic all over again. But since I'm not a demon anymore, I don't think I have a chance of homing in on that crystal."

"There's a lot of coastal California," Xander prompted.

"Oh! Pretty sure it's Monterey County," she said reassuringly. "It'll be difficult to find, because dragons are picky about the location of their lairs, but we won't have to search the whole coastline. I know the view from the cave opening. You can see the ocean, so it isn't inland."

"So," Spike said, trying to get to a plan because he was ready to go home, "we find the entrance by helicopter and toss a crystal of our own inside?"

Anya beamed. "Exactly!"

"How long does it take to get a pilot's license?" Buffy asked.

"It takes between six months and a year to learn to fly a helicopter."

Spike looked up at her from his place by her feet and shrugged. "I got time."

Buffy nudged him with her knee for the lame humor. "And you don't think they'll start rebuilding on the Hellmouth before then?"

"No," Xander answered, his voice sure. "The only bid scheduled for Sunnydale's next fiscal year is for demolition of the old school."

"Finally," Willow said, shuddering.

"Wh-where have students been going?" Tara asked.

"Trailers on an empty lot near an elementary school," Willow supplied. "I understand UC-Sunnydale is going to let the Razorbacks use their gym for some basketball games this year." This led off on a tangent for the Sunnydale High alumni and former faculty member. Spike caught Tara yawning and grinned at her. She smiled back, then yawned again.

Xander noted this and pushed up from the couch to see the clock in the kitchen. "It's after two, guys. Time to go home. I'm sure we'll be discussing all this for a while."

Giles got Spike into a discussion of the mathematics of flight, wanting to make sure the Victorian had some idea of what was involved. After Anya excused herself to go to the bathroom, in line after Tara, Buffy found herself alone in the kitchen with her two oldest friends. "So," she said in a low voice, loading silverware into the dishwasher basket, "what do you guys think?"

Xander started to say something, then stopped himself. "Wil, you go first."

Willow looked worried. "Run this town ourselves? What if Sunnydale is just inherently the kind of place that corrupts people?"

"If some demon comes to Anya to offer her something for influence – if she wins, I mean – could she be tempted?"

"What if the demon was D'Hoffryn?" Willow was more direct.

"I'm not saying I'm the guy of her dreams, but she has love and friends – friends who supported her when she had nothing to offer. She knows those things are fragile and have a lot of value." He leaned against the sink. "I like the plan. It's proactive, and we had to play catch-up too many times when the Mayor was in charge."

"I like it, too," Willow said softly. "I'm kind of bummed I didn't think of this."

"We have different priorities," Buffy said. "She came at it from a different point of view." She brushed her hair from her eyes; it had been a long day and even her favorite styling mousse was giving up. "You know, Anya and Tara help just by being Sunnydale outsiders, seeing things differently than we do."

"So do Giles and Spike," Willow added.

"And, oddly, so does Oz, even though he's from Sunnydale," Xander mused.

"We've got a good group." Buffy smiled a little.

"What do you think your mom will add to it?" Willow teased.

"Cookies, I hope." The Slayer groaned a little. "Do you think there's really anything between Mom and Giles? Without band candy, I mean?"

"I think it'd be sort of sweet," Willow said.

"I think I'd be outnumbered," Buffy said glumly.

"You're an adult now," Willow pointed out.

"And," Xander put in, "you are the Slayer. We all get a vote, but you get the final say."

"Don't give her ideas about who wears the pants in the family," Spike said, coming into the kitchen, causing his wife to roll her eyes. He took Buffy's hand and pulled her so she could lean back against his chest. "Tired, love?" Spike put a light kiss on her temple.

She nodded. "I think we all are." She pulled away from her husband and gave her two best friends hugs. "It's good to be home again. I did miss you guys. Sunnydale, not so much, but it's good to be back because of you."

"Willow, I was thinking, if you learn to teleport, it would be easier for you to go somewhere good for university."

The redhead sent Spike an annoyed look, but then nodded. "I've kind of wished I could do that. Go to, say, Harvard or Yale, commute home." It was late, a time for truth telling. "I couldn't leave you guys. I'd worry too much."

Xander put an arm around her. "Well, it would be hard to do without you. Plus, your girlfriend's here."

"I remember someone coming by my house the night before my wedding, worried we'd all drift apart…" Buffy teased.

"Anya wants to build a huge hacienda-style house – apartment building, really – on the west side of the Sunnydale High campus for all of us, if we get the land."

The others looked at Xander after this bombshell. "Live together?" Willow asked.

He grinned sheepishly. "I sort of designed it already. We'd each have our own entrances, plus a central library, meeting room, kitchen area, maybe a pool toward the south, another wing with a courtyard…."

"Tennis court over the Hellmouth?" Spike asked.

"Reflecting pool, actually," Xander answered seriously. "Enchanted to help keep it sealed."

"Would it be, like, the mayor's official residence?" Buffy asked cautiously.

"No. It would be ours. Better than code against earthquakes, really good soundproofing, even a garage. A training room. A fire pit for winter nights and spellcasting."

Anya came into the kitchen and was immediately engulfed in a Willow hug. "What was that for?" she asked.

"Xander was just telling us about the house you want to build. For us."

"Oh! The hacienda." Anya beamed. "I think it's a good idea. Sometimes I get tired of having to drag myself to this little place for another meeting."

"It's a nice place," Giles said defensively as he came to the door.

"Oh, our ex-demon has a much nicer Spanish-influence dwelling in mind for you," Spike said.

Anya watched while Xander explained it again, then she added, "And we can put a cell in it, too. I've heard you miss the book cage."

Giles could find nothing to say. "It's very late," he managed. "I daresay I will see most of you tomorrow. And every day for the rest of our lives, I suppose."

"Hear, hear," Xander said.

"Good night, guys," Buffy said. She slipped her hand into Spike's cool one. "Let's go home."

⸹

Sunnydale

July 2000

⸹

[Author's note: The song lyrics are from Nine Days' 'Absolutely (Story of a Girl).']

⸹

"So," Spike said after Willow let him them in, "you need me to help carry anything to the library?"

Looking entirely self-satisfied, Willow shook her head. "Nope. We're all set here."

"How's that?" Buffy asked, her eyes sharpening.

"Remember how I tried to see if someone from Lowell House would pick up my floppy disk? While you two were gone, Tara and I went to L.A. to visit Cordelia and dropped by the Wolfram and Hart building. Tara accidentally-on-purpose spilled her purse on the steps."

"And someone picked up a lost disk," Buffy said, smiling.

"Mm-hmm," Willow agreed smugly. "It took a couple of weeks before it got used on a computer on the law firm's network, but it called home last night. I used those credentials to set up my own. We're in." A couple of thumps at the door interrupted her. "Oh, Tara's back."

The newlyweds greeted the other witch and helped bring in boxed lunches from the little tearoom across from Summers Fine Arts. When Spike declined his, the three women split the extra turkey sandwich, soup, and poppy seed muffins between them.

"Right," he said after they'd had a minute or so to subdue their appetites, "so, Red, explain in small words."

She shrugged and finished swallowing a bit of sandwich. "Okay, so I waited until gullible Wolfram and Hart employee was logged in, then I made his computer act up. He called in IT – the tech people, I mean – and then I had the login for a network administrator. After that, I just made myself an administrator with similar-looking credentials, made a way to get in from here unnoticed, sort of a back door. I purged my files from the computer that belonged to the cheapo who picked up the disk, and…."

Buffy gave her an approving look, "And now we know what they know."

"Well, now we know what their computers know. I've got the credentials, but I also used two exploits to back-door my way in if those get cut off. That's all the access I could find; they keep their system up-to-date."

"You impress the hell out of me, Red."

Willow nodded at Spike. "And I'm being way cautious. I don't know much so far, but… enough. That name you gave me, Holland Manners, he doesn't use his computer to add anything, but he has access to a lot."

"Holland Manners is a man?" Spike pulled a surprised face.

"Mm-hmm. He's pretty high up. Let's finish lunch, and I'll show you." After they finished cleaning off the little table, Willow hooked her laptop to a large display and brought up a presentation. The first slide was an organizational chart.

"This is…" Buffy trailed off. "Are we connected to their system right now?"

"Oh, no," Willow reassured her. "We're offline. I don't do any hacking on this computer."

"And she d-doesn't do it here," Tara added. She looked between Spike and Willow, having taken his warning about magical blowback to heart.

"Good," said Buffy. She was at the limits of what she understood about computer networking, but she approved of the caution.

"So, here's Holland Manners," the red-haired witch went on, pulling up a photo of a white man in his fifties wearing a grey suit and smiling with only his mouth, "not at the top of the chart, but on the first line of named people. I've seen the charts for the branches in some other cities; there's never any names above this. He's never worked anywhere else that I can find. Whatever it is he does, it seems at minimum he supervises a bunch of the divisions, like civil litigation, criminal litigation, real estate law, and so on. You know how I told you he doesn't store any documents on the network, but he accesses files? The files he gets most often are from the Special Projects division."

"And what's that?"

"There's no definition or, like, mission statement or anything, but from the content of what I've seen, it's stuff from the weirder side of the street."

"What kind of stuff?" Buffy asked.

Willow shook her head. "Folder and file names. I really am being careful, guys. There's a counter on the documents for each time they're accessed. At first I thought it was paranoia, but it's probably to make sure no one gets access to privileged, lawyer-client material. If they were my lawyers, I'd appreciate that. As a hacker, not so much. So, right now, I can see which documents each employee sees, from what folders, and how often, but that's all."

Spike sent her a borderline evil grin. "Right now?"

She sent a satisfied smile back. "At four a.m. this Sunday, they have a full system backup scheduled. When that happens, all non-system files get backed up for us. Then we can look at everything offline. I've got storage drives set up at the library under a veil already."

Tara was giving her a proud look, and Buffy shook her head and chuckled. "Did you know she substitute taught the computer class at Sunnydale High when she was a junior?" she asked Tara.

"No. You did?" If possible, Tara looked even more proud.

Willow's smile faded at the memory of Jenny Calendar's class and the need for a substitute teacher. She didn't sigh, just went to the next slide. "So, these are the files that made me think Special Projects is our area of interest, too. There's a folder for Angelus. The earliest files say 1-1-2000, which makes me think they're older, just changed by a millennium bug batch file fix or something." She looked at Buffy. "I-I think they've been interested in Angel for a while, which probably means they connected him to the Shanshu prophecy as soon as they knew about a souled vampire. The firm goes back at least to the 1930s."

The Slayer gave her vampire a considering look. "No reason to think they know there's another souled vampire?"

"No folders or files with Spike or William the Bloody's name." Willow clicked a few slides ahead. "A folder for Drusilla with only two files, a larger one for Darla. Another about the same size for Aurelians. A folder for the Master, but no new files in it. There is a folder for 'Slayer,' which is huge. I figure it isn't just about you." She gave Buffy an apologetic grimace. "And another for the Council of Watchers."

"Once w-we get the database, we can search for keywords in the files, right?" Tara asked.

Willow nodded vigorously. "Our names, words like Sunnydale and Hellmouth. Anything in the Angelus folder." She exited out of the presentation. "It ought to be interesting."

"When are you picking up the drives?" Spike asked.

"The library doesn't open until noon on Sunday during the summer. I don't have to go in super early."

"You go after around ten or eleven, I'll be happy to come with and help you carry things back here."

"Okay."

"Great," Buffy said, "now I feel guilty about wanting to sleep in."

"Go ahead, sleep in," Willow said. "I'm feeling generous." The conversation moved from business to the dinner Buffy was fixing for her mother and Giles later. Tara had agreed to be available for cooking consultation by phone.

By three-thirty, Buffy had called four times. By four o'clock, the witches were repaying the visit, Tara explaining why it was probably best to sauté the onion before putting it into the rest of the casserole. By five, realizing the recipe fed eight, they had called Anya to invite her and Xander, too. The worst of the mountain of dishes and pans was already in the dishwasher, dinner was in the oven, and Spike had opened a second bottle of wine. The two couples were dancing to songs on the radio between snatches of conversation.

"Oh, I like this one," Tara enthused, singing along, "'This is the story of a girl.'"

"You have such a lovely voice," Buffy said. "I wish I could sing like that."

"You sing fine," Spike said, swinging her so that her hair belled out. "I've heard you."

"No, you're the one with the good voice."

"Giles has the best voice of any of us," Willow declared. Buffy sent her a swooning look around Spike's arm. After the chorus finished, Willow shook her head. "I just realized that's one of those stealth songs. I've been hearing it, and suddenly I somehow know all the lyrics and can sing along."

"Because pop music is evil," Spike told her solemnly. "'S why I prefer speed metal."

"If the lyrics are unintelligible, you can't be ench-chanted by a song?" Tara asked innocently.

He waited until a few more notes of the song passed, then snatched her from Willow's side, danced her a few steps, and dipped Tara until her hair trailed on the floor. Spike met Willow's startled gaze. "'I absolutely love her / when she smiles,'" he sang. Then he swirled Tara upright and left her, breathless, in almost the same spot. Spike bopped the tip of her nose with his finger, so happy that she had accepted him after the awful introduction. Before either of the witches could manage to say anything, he used an excuse to escape. "Anya and Xander are here."

Pouring another glass of wine, he handed it to Anya at the door and took Xander's hand, pulling him into a roughly cheek-to-cheek stance, their arms straight ahead, and led him in a rather stumbling foxtrot through the living room in the kitchen.

"One of those nights, huh?" Xander said, grinning. He moved so he could dance with Tara and Willow for a second, then pulled Buffy from where she had settled on a barstool to dance as well.

"Can I trade this for beer?" Anya asked, coming into the kitchen and handing her glass back to Spike.

"Only if you dance with me." Anya held her hand high, Spike lifted his own to take hers, and they took very deliberate, side-by-side steps to the refrigerator.

The song ended and an ad for a car dealership came on, so the rest of them stopped to watch. "They seem very old," Buffy said.

"Minuet," Anya answered, accepting a bottle of Anchor Steam. "It isn't hard to learn."

"Used to be my favorite," Spike said.

"Daphne?" Buffy asked, her lips quirking in a smile. Her husband didn't answer, just nodded.

"Is that the girlfriend you said you still have bruises on your feet from dancing with?" Xander asked.

"Not my girlfriend," Spike corrected, leaning against the sink, "but, yeah." At Tara and Willow's puzzled looks, he went on, "I was obliged to help my cousin and her friends learn to dance. 'S where I got good at it."

"No one said you were good," Buffy pointed out. He narrowed his eyes, but before he could reply, she scooted out of the kitchen. "That's Mom's Jeep."

Giles was with Joyce. A glass of wine later, they were all trying to learn the minuet. More wine was poured, and then all four couples were dancing freeform to Destiny Child's "Jumpin', Jumpin'." The music was so loud and the dancing went on for so long, in fact, that Buffy's Tex-Mex chicken casserole came out of the oven a few minutes late and a bit scorched around the edges.

"I like burned cheese," Xander reassured her, taking the worst corner. "I'm not just saying that."

"Thanks, Xander."

"Oh, he's not just saying that," Anya assured her. "He always looks for the darkest edge of the pizzas."

"Goes back to Mom's cooking," he said fondly.

"It tastes fine, dear," Joyce reassured Buffy, taking a bite as soon as she served herself.

Spike nudged Tara with his elbow. "Told you pop music was evil," he said. "Made us miss the oven timer."

Dinner was a light-hearted affair, with dance being the main topic of conversation. Willow argued that the necessity of dance masters in Victorian times reinforced class divisions, but Spike already agreed with her, so there was no actual argument. Joyce recounted the story of a burlesque dance routine that a coach thought was appropriate to teach an eight-year-old Buffy and the rest of her squad. Xander, with assistance from Willow, told of the ill-fated plan of a phys ed teacher to introduce square dance to their seventh-grade class. "It involved touching the opposite sex," he said, laughing, "and half of us were still disgusted by the thought."

Smiling as he followed the conversation around the table, Spike found himself feeling as if something was lacking. It wasn't Angel; he missed the big vampire in a different way, and all of his humans were present. He found himself wondering if it was because Joyce was here for the first time, if in some other world Giles' girlfriend Jenny Calendar would have been in her place. That didn't seem to quite fit, but he couldn't follow the feeling of longing to any particular absence. Buffy was giving him a laser-focus look, so he sent her a quick, _We'll talk later_.

It was another two hours before they got the chance, leaning against the balcony rail and looking out over the ocean. The house was quiet after the dinner party.

"I think that went well," he commented. Their fingers were intertwined, and he gave them a reassuring squeeze. "You passed the young adult test and successfully fed your parent. And it tasted good."

"At least the salad wasn't burned," she replied in a dry tone. _What was up at the dinner table, when you got quiet?_

 _Dunno, really. All my favorite people are here, except for the L.A. contingent. Every once in a while, not often, I… feel like someone is missing._

Buffy got the unexpressed part of the thought that someone from their alternate past was missing from the group. _Oh. Ms. Calendar._

 _Can't think who else it would be._

 _Jesse?_

 _Xander's friend?_ He shook his head in frustration. _I don't know how we could ever know for sure._

 _It's like those feelings of déjà vu. Just enough to make you wonder, but no real information._ She slid her hand from his and turned so she could wrap her arms around his waist. _Small enough price to pay…_

… _for a world where love can conquer all? Can't disagree._ Spike took her face carefully between his hands and leaned down for a sweet caress of her lips. _Thank you for asking, love._

 _Like I could ignore it._ Buffy moved one hand so it was over his heart _. Sometimes your feelings are like a song that comes into my mind. I just know._

Spike's lips parted. _That should scare the hell out of me_ , he admitted. _I know it doesn't sound sexy, kitten, but do you know how safe I feel being yours?_

The Slayer looked down. _I want you safe. I never want to hurt you._

He felt the fears corralled in an out-of-the-way segment of her mind: not living past twenty-five, an apocalypse she couldn't stop, something she simply missed killing before it killed her.

 _Oh, love. Shh, shh._ He pulled her close, put his chin atop her blond hair and squeezed his eyes shut. _Don't worry. We got that covered, yeah?_

⸹

Sunday morning came like most summer days in coastal California, the fog burning off quickly as the sun rose over the Transverse Mountains. Spike looked longingly at the door of the bedroom where Buffy still slept, then at the lounge chair outside where he wanted to be sunning himself. With a sigh, he went out to the driveway for his truck and started toward Sunnydale.

Willow was already waiting for him in the student parking lot closest to the library. "Morning!" She leaned back into her Camry before locking it, coming out with two cardboard cups of coffee.

"Mmm, thanks, Red." He sipped cautiously and followed her to a side entrance. "So, how do you get in?"

Willow patted the pocket of her shorts. "Crystal. Acts like a pass for the swipe thingy on the door and glitches the security camera into a loop from a minute ago. I cast the spell during orientation week freshman year."

"Breaking into the library? Can't bring myself to worry about your priorities," he said, shaking his head and hiding a smile behind the coffee cup. After another half minute, he gave her a surprised look. "Second floor?"

Willow shrugged. "I didn't want to mess up my favorite study place if something went wrong." She opened the stairwell door for him and led him through the stacks to a nondescript lounge chair. Willow pushed a rolling stepstool in front of it and sat down, then reached out and pulled, from apparent thin air, a library cart loaded with external hard drives. All had cords reaching back into empty space to, Spike assumed, a power strip.

The redhead took her bookbag from her shoulders and brought out a laptop he didn't recognize and a cable. She attached it to the closest drive as the computer powered up. "I don't feel anything magic buzzing around them," Willow said, her voice somewhat absent as she prepared to work.

"I don't, either." Realizing he wasn't needed just now, he excused himself. "I'll just grab something to read." Spike squinted toward the closest shelves. Looked like they were in the philosophy section. Ten minutes later, he was partway into chapter one of Joseph Campbell's _The Mythic Image_ when Willow began frantically hitting keys.

"Shit. Shit."

"What happened?" Spike moved nearer, reaching out his senses for magical danger, ready to snatch her clear.

"An overwrite program." She typed for another tense minute, then slumped, letting her hands fall in her lap.

Spike grimaced. "Not magical security."

"Nope, garden variety programming. It got the drive and my computer." She sighed and dug into her pocket for the crystal. "Could I get you to run out and buy a couple basic laptops? Use this get back in. Now that I know what might happen, I can save the rest. I have my code with me on disk."

"Sure. Okay if I call with any questions once I get to the store?"

"Yeah, no problem. I might veil the area if any library staff come in early."

"I've got you by scent." She looked dejected, so he squeezed her shoulder. "It's okay, love. Plenty more drives to try."

By four o'clock, Willow had used the roughly two minutes of access she had on each drive to attempt to circumvent the self-destruct sequences. All but two of the external drives were useless, as were four laptops. Spike had read most of his book, feeling heartened that the hero, once she returned from the dead, could build her kingdom into a shining city. Buffy already had the hard part checked off.

Willow was now seated on the floor, her back against the upholstered chair. She sighed, picked up the cola Spike had fetched as part of lunch, and loudly slurped the last liquid from the bottom. "Well, that's it for this round."

He put down the book. "What did you get?"

"Their financials, civil litigation, and real estate."

"No Special Projects," he said, wincing as he stated the obvious.

"Nope."

"We'll try again."

She shook her head. "I think we might want to hold off on that."

"Why?" Spike was leaning on one arm, and he moved so he was on his knees, closer to her. She looked wan, he realized.

"Magical tracking. I think it traced the digital shape of some of the files, you know, looking for instances of them outside their servers."

"You've been knocking those back all afternoon?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I'm a bit tired."

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Will they know?"

Willow lifted a shoulder. "I don't know. I never let them get all the way to the drives I saved, but… If it were my spell, yeah, I'd have set an alarm for that many attempts."

"Can we disguise the digital shape of them, or whatever?"

"I have. Plus, those files will never be online again. That should help."

He sat back onto the floor as the meaning of their conversation sank in. "The next time you go in, it'll be a lot harder. They'll be watching."

"Well, they should always be watching," Willow said reasonably. Her face fell a little, and she looked away, tried to hide her misery behind another loud attempt to get more liquid from her cup.

"You don't think you'll get in again." Willow detached the last drive and started closing down the computer.

"I think I can get in again once they let their guard down. I-I just don't know how long that will take."

"Love, there's one of you here and a whole magical IT department there. I think you've done great." He reached out to touch her knee.

"Thanks, but I really wanted to see those files about Angel."

"Dunno that they'd show anything but interest in him. I 'preciate it, love. I know he does, too." The mention of the other Aurelian made Spike remember exactly why they were after Wolfram and Hart. "What about the data we did get?"

She shrugged. "Case files, which I don't feel completely comfortable looking at. Lists of financial holdings."

"Accounts?" Spike asked. "Like bank accounts?" When she nodded, he got a wicked look on his face. The blond man stood up, stretched, then reached down to take the computer from Willow's hands. "Here, I'll finish packing up. You give Glinda the good witch a call, tell her you'll be home a bit later."

She looked up, her brows drawing together. "Why will I be home a bit later?"

"Need your hacking skills," he smirked.

By the time Willow finished reassuring Tara, Spike had the two salvaged drives and her laptop in her backpack and the useless computers and peripherals on the library cart. "Where are we going?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look.

"Switzerland, by way of an Internet café and a whole bunch of eastern European and south Asian countries."

"Oookay. Cryptic much?"

Spike's phone buzzed. "Ah, there it is." He pulled out the mobile and showed Willow the text Buffy had just sent. It was a long string of numbers.

Willow studied it, looking for patterns, then shook her head. She shouldered her bookbag and followed Spike, who was rolling the cart toward the elevators. "So, what is that?"

"My Swiss bank account," he said smugly. "Had Buffy check a box of my old stuff in the garage. It isn't in my name, obviously, I've never used it, and I don't need what's in it. I propose we send all of the Wolfram and Hart money we can to it, then distribute it to worthy charities around the world." He pressed the down button and turned back to his friend.

Watching Willow's face was as good as an entire conversation. She silently worked through the ethics, the difficulty of the hacking that would be necessary, and the implications. "I don't think we can bankrupt them."

"No, but I bet we can cripple them for a while." A shark's grin took his mouth. "And get them in all kinds of trouble with their real CEOs."

"And it's Sunday, so banks here are closed. It'll be a long time before they can close us out of their accounts." She gave him a sudden, oddly soft look. "You think I can pull this off?"

He put a big hand on her shoulder. "I have complete confidence that you can do anything you put your mind to."

⸹

Los Angeles

August 2000

⸹

Buffy spotted Tara coming out of the hotel and put her hand in the air to wave. The other woman spotted her and waved back. They had come down to Hollywood for the last performance of Dingoes Ate My Baby's tour. Spike was asleep. Willow had gone with Anya and Xander to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Tara, who had twisted her ankle on patrol a couple of days past, begged off, but she did feel up to driving to a few shops with Buffy.

An hour later, both of them had found a new top for the coming school year. Buffy had compelled Tara to buy a bathing suit that the witch privately believed she'd never be bold enough to wear in public. In turn, Tara had pushed the Slayer into buying a pair of boots that she'd fallen in love with.

"I have too many boots," Buffy groaned. "Those are my weakness." As they left the store, she grabbed Tara's hand. "I'm so glad we're bad influences on each other." She lifted the shopping bag of boots as evidence.

"I-it's so strange, having money."

"Yeah, it was pretty tight my senior year. I think Mom's savings account was nonexistent."

"Working for Colinvaux means I w-won't have any student debt," Tara said, shaking her head at that unbelievable fact.

"I know," Buffy said in fervent agreement. "I keep hoping we find some statues or some kind of art in the next cache so Mom can get some consultant money."

"She won't just take –" Tara interrupted herself, shaking her head. "Of course she won't. Sh-she's a mom." Then she realized she'd taken two steps past Buffy, who had stopped to stare at a shop.

The storefront was discreetly lettered in gold: Intimate Moments. To reinforce the point, an outline of a woman with her finger to her lips was also drawn on the glass. Buffy gave Tara an almost fraught look. "Are you up for this store? Your ankle, I mean."

Tara suppressed a smile to see that there was something besides a formal wedding that could make the Slayer nervous. "Sure." Once they stepped through the door, the shorter woman stopped so abruptly that she nearly bumped into her. "You've never been in a store like this?"

"No." Buffy turned to Tara, eyes wide. "You have?"

"Well, lesbian." Tara shrugged.

"Oh." Then her eyes rounded. "Oh!" Tara forced a smile from her lips, but she couldn't hide the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. By now, Buffy was blushing. "Well, this is so not of the mature. I feel like an idiot."

"Come on, I'll walk with you." She patted Buffy's arm.

"Can I help you find something?"

"No!"

Tara bit her lip at the high-pitched denial and gave the clerk a smile. "We'll look around for a minute. Do you need us to leave our bags?"

"If you don't mind," the sales clerk said. "We get a lot of shoplifters. Not you guys, I mean, but, you know."

Tara had worked retail jobs. "Sure." She held out her bags, and the Slayer did likewise.

"I'll have them behind the counter. Just let me know if you need anything."

Once the clerk was out of earshot, Tara took pity on the clearly uncomfortable Slayer, who was simultaneously trying to both look around and not see anything. "So, what are you looking for?"

"A vibrator," Buffy said, her voice almost a whisper. "Not for me," she added quickly. "I don't need one or anything. For Spike."

"Spike needs one?" Tara almost felt bad for teasing her.

Buffy, who was currently looking at a display of vibrators that rivaled and even surpassed her husband in size, actually twitched. "No! I don't mean…" She trailed off and put her hot face in her hands. When she looked back up, Tara could see the humor of the situation had finally sunk in. "I'm looking for something little, maybe, that I could use in my mouth when I, you know…."

"Go down on him?"

Buffy lifted a hand into the air. "Feeling like an idiot, again. Yes, for that."

Tara had on a serious face now. "That's not the safest thing to have in your mouth. You wouldn't want to accidentally swallow something that has batteries."

"Oh, God," she said, appalled at the thought of having to go to the emergency room for that. "I didn't even think about that happening."

"Well, let's see what they have," Tara said. "Maybe something will work." They browsed the displays for a few minutes before heading to the counter. Buffy had regained her equilibrium and could have stayed longer, but she saw that Tara was limping. Both of them had found something to purchase, and Tara was amused that Buffy paid in cash.

The Slayer was quiet until they got to the car. She left the top up and turned the air conditioning on blast. After it cooled off, and they were in stop-and-go traffic, Buffy managed to ask the question that had been bothering her. She turned down the fan to just audible. "Tara? Tell me if I'm asking something too personal, but can I ask something about your sex life?"

"Uh, maybe?"

Buffy pulled through the green light and asked before the next light could turn red and she might be expected to meet Tara's eyes. "If you're a lesbian, why would you want a vibrator like that one? A, uh, phallic one, I mean?"

"It still feels good inside." She shrugged. "I didn't buy, you know, a _long_ one."

"Oh. Sure." The light turned red. Buffy put on the brakes and gave Tara an apologetic smile. "It… seems weird to me. Because I haven't really thought about it, I guess."

"The majority of the world is het, so you've never really had to think about it."

"But you've had to think about the het… point of view," Buffy said shrewdly.

"Yeah. The culture is what it is. It doesn't squick me out or anything. I'm just attracted to girls. We get to buy our own equipment, for when we want it. Sometimes we don't." It was Tara's turn to wait until the light changed so she wouldn't have to meet Buffy's eyes when she asked her own niggling question. "So, c-can I ask, s-s-same way… Isn't it w-weird with the," she changed from the word dead at the last moment, "undead?"

"I… don't know. I mean, I've never, uh, slept with a human. It seems like it would be… messy. Vampires have orgasms, but they don't ejaculate." She was blushing deeply. "When we were at the ski resort and spent all day outside… I ended up making him take a hot shower." _It's an icicle, Summers, but it won't melt inside you._ She shivered at the memory of those words in that deep voice.

"I don't mean any offense, but… liking it with a vampire seems weird to me."

"It might be different if we lived somewhere cold or with real seasons," Buffy admitted. Her cheeks curved in a private smile. "But… he makes up for body temperature in other ways."

"He b-better," Tara said. She didn't pry, just nodded at the bags in the back seat. "What you want to do is incredibly generous."

Buffy shrugged and bit down on the first couple of replies that came to mind. She still didn't care to talk about her sex life. There was no shame, but how would it not sound like bragging? "I go see Faith on Thursday. I want something special to look forward to for Friday."

"Also generous," Tara said, shaking her head.

"She's a Slayer, too." Buffy sighed, putting on her turn signal for the hotel. "There but for the grace of God and everything." She waited for pedestrians to cross the street. "Faith didn't have any family or friends. Maybe I would have screwed up just as bad if I didn't have Mom and Giles and you guys, if I hadn't fallen in love with Spike."

"Buffy," Tara corrected her in a soft voice, "every v-vampire you spend time with t-turns into one of the good guys. I th-think you'll have the same effect on Faith."

⸹

"Hey, B."

"Hey." Buffy stared through the glass at the dark-haired Slayer and tried not to sigh into the phone. "I hadn't planned on saying anything, but… you look good."

"Clean living." Faith shrugged. "Not much choice." She chanced a direct look at Buffy. "I'm sleeping better."

"Me, too. You didn't get any visits from the First Slayer?"

"No." Buffy's letters had included a vague description of the incident as well as a cryptic warning. "So, what was it you found?"

"Well, Spike found it. Giles made arrangements with the Catholic church. It's…" She looked around. There wasn't a guard directly behind either of them, but there was no privacy either. "They found something made, like, thousands of years ago to help us do our job. Stake, halberd with no handle, called a scythe"

"Hmm."

Buffy hadn't been allowed any pens, so she traced the design in the air.

"No gang signs, miss."

She looked up at the guard who'd moved closer. "Oh. Um, no, it isn't…" Buffy gave up, just lifting her hands, palms out, in a placating manner. Giving Faith an apologetic look, she finished, "Giles is keeping it. You'll see it when you get out."

Faith snorted. "I'll need a walker more than a weap – than anything else, by then." She saw that Buffy had no idea of how to respond, so she changed the subject. "Thanks for the care package. Especially the conditioner. I got offered sexual services for that."

Buffy scoffed. "Like you need to offer anything extra for that."

Faith gave her head a little twist, grinning. "Hot girls with superpowers."

"Ain't life hard." She drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh. "So, heard back about your GED?"

"Yeah, I passed. I'm going to take a college course next. English."

"Hey, good for you."

"Something to help pass the time," Faith said with a shrug.

"If you get the chance, take a poetry class."

"Me, poetry?"

"Hey," she pointed to her hair, "if a dumb blond can appreciate it…."

Another awkward pause. "How's the slayage?"

"Not much to it right now. Haven't had an attempted apocalypse in months. More people on patrol helps, but apparently Sunnydale isn't the draw it used to be." She knew better than to mention Mayor Wilkins' botched Ascension.

"Enjoying the married life?"

"Yeah." Buffy heard the note of surprise in her voice and expanded on the answer. "I mean, after seeing my parents, I never really thought it would be for me, but… I guess I found the right person."

"Always figured that would be Angel." There was only a trace of bitterness in her voice.

"Yeah, back in the day, so would I." Buffy shrugged. It wasn't an uncomfortable topic anymore. "He had a hundred years away from me after that last… fight, and he sort of got over me. Other than attraction, we don't really have all that much in common. We love each other, but… not in love."

"And he was a groomsman at your wedding?"

The blond Slayer nodded. "He and Spike are like brothers. It's good between us. In fact," she leaned forward and lowered her voice, "I'm going to see him after they kick me out here. He wants to know the layout of the visitor areas to see if he can visit. I think he can manage it."

Faith tried to hide her pleased expression. "Good. It breaks up the monotony, I mean, visitors." She gave Buffy another fleeting, direct look. "He writes to me, too."

"I know." Looking down, she wiped a hand over the leg of her pants. It was hot in the room. "I was always jealous of the connection you two have."

"He's like a brother to me, too," Faith said, maybe a little too hastily.

She wanted to smile at this, but didn't. "So, anyone from the Council been in touch?"

"Of course not. I count that as a good thing."

"Yeah. Giles hasn't had any contact, either."

"So, he okay? And the Scoobies, your mom?" This time, Faith looked off to the side instead of down.

"They're fine. Giles and my mom have been out on a few dates, actually." She suspected there hadn't been all that much 'out' to the dates, but wasn't going to dwell on that.

"Huh. I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Me either, not really. Anyway, he's gone back to England for a couple of months, so I can breathe easy." She thought of another topic. "You remember Oz's band, right? Well, they had a tour this summer. We went to see the last show this weekend. Oz wrote a song, one that's really good, and they're going to go into a real studio to record next month."

Faith asked a couple of questions about the Dingoes, finishing up that subject. The silences grew longer after that, and both of them were relieved when the guard called, "Two minutes."

Faith jerked her head behind her. "Next group of prisoners must be ready." She looked away. "I really didn't expect you to come."

"I don't know how I feel about you most of the time," Buffy said, answering honestly and trying not to overthink it, "but we're sisters in all the ways that count. We both got the raw deal. We get each other in ways no one else can."

Their eyes met for a couple of seconds. Faith's gaze faltered, then came back. "You have any Slayer dreams lately?"

Buffy shook her head. The question seemed to be perfectly normal in the flow of conversation. "You?"

"No. Don't miss them."

"Me, either." She saw the guard leaning over the man to her left, figured she would be shooed out next. "Listen, you need anything, let me know."

"Same here. You need any… help, I'll be there for you." At Buffy's startled look, she gave her sister Slayer a wry grin. "I choose to be here. To stay. The… structure suits me right now."

Buffy's wide-eyed look slowly changed to a true smile. "Take care." She put her fingers against the glass.

"You, too, B." She touched hers to the spot opposite, fleetingly.

Buffy's thoughts were complicated as she drove into Los Angeles. I like Faith, she realized. I'm glad she got another chance. She deserved it. Feeling good about the visit, she was unprepared for her reception at Cordelia's.

"He's in a mood," the dark-haired beauty said, opening the door, welcoming her inside. Cordelia pulled an apologetic look. "Something Spike did, apparently."

"What did Spike do?" Buffy asked, genuinely confused.

Vampire hearing took care of her curiosity. Angel came out of the windowless back room in order to give her a frown. "You didn't know that Willow was going to hack Wolfram and Hart?"

Buffy stepped in so Cordy could close the door. Neither Wesley nor Gunn was in evidence. "Sure. I don't see why that's a problem, though."

"Spike was supposed to leave the Wolfram and Hart problem to me."

Buffy kept her tone mild. "I'm sure he would have if they hadn't tried to bug our house while we were on our honeymoon."

"They did?" Cordelia frowned. "So they could track you like they do Angel?"

Buffy shook her head. "We both figured they just wanted to listen in to learn more about Angel, since he was in the wedding." She turned back to the dark-haired man, who was keeping his distance even though the curtains were drawn. "But Spike wasn't very happy about a video feed in our house."

"Which is why he should have stayed out of it."

"I think they might notice the team they sent never came back, Angel."

"What happened to them?" Cordelia demanded.

"They ran into a trap spell Willow laid. Then some vampires happened on them. Suckage ensured."

"Eww."

Buffy nodded in agreement, then again turned to the dark-haired vampire. "Willow just went in for information, which we planned to share with you guys. There was some kind of security spell that started overwriting her computer and the storage disks. She didn't manage to save the stuff we were really interested in."

"What was that?" Cordelia asked quickly, seeing Angel start to say something.

"Files about Angelus," the Slayer said slowly. She looked between the two of them. "What set you off?"

Again, Cordelia didn't give Angel a chance to answer. "Spike sent a text today saying that, thanks to Willow's hack, Wolfram and Hart gave $91 million to charity this quarter."

Buffy's eyes widened. "Ninety-one million dollars?"

"Why are you surprised? You said you knew about this."

Her brows drew together at Angel's corrosive tone. "I knew Willow cloned a scheduled backup Sunday, but most of the data sort of self-destructed. I knew they were going to try to move money from a bunch of accounts to European charities, because it was Sunday and banks are closed here. They thought it might be the only shot they had."

"It wasn't his call."

"They tried to bug our home," Buffy repeated. "You know his temper."

"And he knows mine."

That sounded somewhat like a threat. The Slayer walked a couple steps closer. "Angel, he took a swing at the bad guys. Seems like he connected."

"And now you'll be targets."

"We already are."

"Buffy…" Angel gritted his teeth. "You were sheltered from this up in Sunnydale."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Sheltered… on the Hellmouth?"

"Wolfram and Hart are the big leagues. I didn't want either of you on their radar." Angel looked away. "He knew that."

Buffy took a breath. She had regularly scheduled apocalypses, but a law firm was the big leagues? "Let's agree that, since they apparently always keep track of Slayers, based on the file size, I was already on their radar. Let's also agree that, since big league Wolfram and Hart in Los Angeles is just one branch, your local enemies will be busy for a while trying to explain the loss of almost a hundred million dollars. Maybe too busy to give you problems while you regroup." She walked the rest of the way to him and put a hand on his arm. "Let's agree to talk about Faith, since that's why I came."

Angel turned his dark gaze on her, but his nostrils flared and his hands unclenched. "You got in to see her?"

"Yes." Her hand fell away from him. Buffy's feet had planted into an unconscious fighting stance, but one heel trailed back as she saw the tension in the set of his shoulders ease. "I think you can visit. I'll map the layout for you, if you promise not to make fun of my drawing."

⸹

Buffy woke up alone the next morning. She looked at the clock. It was a few minutes past noon. She groaned and sat up in bed, her hair tumbling over her face. Then she remembered where she'd been yesterday and that today was Friday. She had her husband to herself until patrol tonight. And after yesterday, she totally deserved the worship she would get after blowing her husband's mind.

Making no noise, Buffy got up and went to the bathroom. After she'd tamed her hair, she fished around in the cabinet under the sink for her Intimate Moments bag. She'd found something that she thought would work and also be safe, though she cringed when she read again what it was called. I need to grow up, she thought, stuffing the plastic shell and the 'Vibrating Cock Ring!' packaging back in the bag. Buffy washed everything, checked that the batteries worked, then went to find something sexy and nearly nonexistent to slip into.

Spike was oblivious on the chaise lounge on the southern end of the balcony, nude except for earbuds. His big toe was keeping time to the beat of something fast as he sunbathed; Buffy could hear it, tinny and faint, even five feet away. She smiled at him, amazed again by the chiseled angles of his face and the chiseled muscles of his body. Mine, she thought, he's all mine. She put a knee onto the lounge chair and watched him orient himself to her.

Opening his eyes, Spike saw Buffy over him, her hair a blond halo in the noon sun. She was wearing a mostly sheer shorty nightgown from her trousseau, the pink ribbon edging it the most substantial thing about it. She also wore a wicked grin.

"Love?" he asked, dazed by the heat and the sun and the appearance of his goddess. Her skin was tan at the end of summer, making her a confection of blond and pink and gold. By the time she finished the graceful movement of bending to taste him, he was already hard for her. "You've… ah… gotten reaaaally good at… mmm… at this." Somehow, her mouth was hotter than the sun had been.

Buffy's mouth curled in a smile. She grabbed him with both hands, flicked the little vibrator in the silicon ring to the on position, hooked the band with her tongue, and touched the tip of the Arrogant Prick.

"Oh my bloody hell Buffy," he breathed, all one string of syllables.

He tried three times to raise himself from the chaise lounge, but she was stronger, holding him down and pausing only long enough to meet his eyes and murmur, "No mercy." She did take mercy on him eventually, flicking off the little gadget and nibbling her way up his abdomen and chest.

Spike laid there gasping, then made himself stop and took her arms, drawing her higher so that he could kiss her. "You trying to find some new way to kill a vampire?" he asked.

"I thought I'd give you what you give me," she shrugged. Somehow she only managed to get that husky, sexy tone of voice when she wasn't trying. Buffy met his gaze. "Haven't got those sounds from you before."

"'Cause I haven't ever made those sounds," he countered, reaching for her hand to see what she had. "Well, aren't you a sneaky little minx?" He looked at the tiny vibrator, then at her, and he didn't have to open the mindlink for her to know his emotions. _Love, what you do for me… No one ever… I mean, you're just so… giving._

She lifted a shoulder and let her eyes drift shut, kissing him again. _I just like things to be equal, that's all._ She thought he would scoff at her for being a feminist, deflect the sentiment with humor, but he just twined his fingers with hers and shifted his hips so she would be more comfortable.

When she broke the kiss, needing air, Spike was still serious. _No one else would ever have done this for me._

 _No one else cared if you were happy. I do._

 _Oh, love. I am terrified to be this happy._

 _Don't be. We earned it, somewhere._

Spike kissed her fiercely, then levered them both away from the lounge chair. "Come on. Need to get you out of this sun before you burn." She found her footing, but in a moment he had scooped her up. "Have you eaten?" When she shook her head, he detoured through the kitchen and found a peach on the counter to place on her stomach.

"I'll get this everywhere," she warned, taking a hand from his neck to grab the peach.

"And I'll lick it off everywhere." He put her on the unmade bed and pushed the covers to the floor. "No, don't take it off. It looks really good on you. Eat your peach." Spike's blue eyes were sparkling. "I've something else in mind."

It was the most decadent thing Buffy had ever experienced, the feel of Spike's lips and fingers and tongue against her center, the fuzz and firm flesh of the peach against her mouth. He was as good as his word, coming back onto the bed to lick the peach juice from her neck and breasts (she'd made sure there was some there). She fed him a bite, then followed his direction to straddle him. Only when he reached between them, lower than he usually would, did she get an inkling of what he had done.

"You knew what it was, didn't you?" he asked, flicking on the tiny switch.

"Um… yeah. Just, it feels odd. Kind of ticklish. I didn't plan for you to use it."

He gave her a considering look. "Why'd you get it?"

"Because of the strap. I didn't want to accidentally swallow anything."

"Oh." He grinned. "That's my Girl Guide, all safety first. Now, tell me what it is."

"You know what it is."

"I want to hear my virgin bride say it."

"I was not your virgin bride."

"My innocent bride, then. Say it," he wheedled, "and I'll give you lots of orgasms and then ice cream."

She let go of his shoulders and covered her face with her hands. "Cock ring."

He laughed when she peeked at him. "Thank you." His voice grew more serious. "Thank you."

"Orgasms?" she prompted.

"As my bride commands."

They didn't leave their bedroom until it was dark, freshly showered and grabbing dinner from a taco stand as they started patrol. "I haven't had a single nutritious thing today," Buffy complained around a mouthful of quesadilla.

"That peach," he pointed out.

"Oh, yeah." She grinned at the memory.

Spike, who was breathing, moved into her in full predator mode. "I love the way you smell," he growled, low and heated.

"Pause in honeymoon time," she noted, warding him off with a forearm. The quesadilla was too good to set down and lose to ants or flies.

"Life isn't fair."

"What did you, ah, smell?"

"Your… desire."

"Ew." She took another triangular piece of quesadilla and started on it.

"'Ew' that you smell or 'ew' that I can smell you?"

"I do not smell. I am possibly delicately scented. Of soap or something." She reached for the cup of soda he had in his hand and pulled it close so she could get a sip through the straw.

"Doesn't matter what any other vampire or demon might smell," he said, meaning to be reassuring.

"Oh, yuck," she wailed good-naturedly.

He began singing an En Vogue song. "'Never gonna get it, never gonna get it.'"

"What happened to the hardass punk rocker I fell in love with?"

"You ruined me, is what, you and your friends. Now I must depend on a meager trickle of Papa Roach and P.O.D. to survive in your arid pit of boy bands." Spike came in close for a kiss, then stole a bite of her quesadilla.

They finished their meal and found a garbage can. Spike got Buffy to hitch a piggyback ride through the closest park to the monkey bars. He deposited her on the edge, then swung up to join her. "What a night," he commented, throwing his hands up to the stars already visible in the early night sky. "Nothing can ruin it."

"What about Angel?"

"How's Angel going to ruin it?"

She told him about the big vampire's anger. Spike's reaction was a shrug. "I kinda thought you'd be a little concerned."

"Nothing we can do about it now."

"There isn't?"

"Not with us in England."

"What?"

He scooted closer and pulled her against him. "Made the arrangements yesterday, while you were gone. You, me, and Joyce. I'm taking you to London and thereabouts. Might leave Joyce and Rupes to themselves for a couple of days and scoot over to Paris."

"Paris!" she squealed.

"I take it my lady is pleased?"

"Pleased?" She let out a little huff of air. "London _and_ Paris?"

"Now I really regret Patagonia for our honeymoon."

"Don't." Buffy shook her head. "I really enjoyed it. We had –" Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted by what her Slayer senses told her. She dropped almost soundlessly to the rubber mulch beneath the monkey bars and reached for her stake. The vampire in the shadow of the shelter was new and hungry. It came at the Slayer in a rush.

It was over in a matter of seconds. "Thanks for the help," Buffy said dryly.

Spike dropped down from the bars and caught up with her. "Good form," was his only comment.

"Thanks, junior Watcher boy." She tucked her hand into his. "So, London. I can't wait to tell Mom."

"She already knows," Spike said apologetically. "Had to make sure her passport was valid."

"This is the first time you'll use your new one, Mr. Summers," Buffy said in happy realization. He'd received it in the mail earlier in the week.

"Mr. William and Mrs. Buffy Summers." The way he spoke the words made them sound like an incantation of happiness. "I like it."

"Me, too." She squeezed his fingers, but her mind was already on practical matters. "How long will we be gone?"

"Back the Thursday before classes start. I didn't want to dump more patrols on our friends, not after they were so good about our long honeymoon."

"I want to see everything." She skipped ahead enough to turn and walk in front of him. "Will you show me where you grew up?"

He smiled, but it wasn't his usual happy one. "I would, but it was torn down sometime in the twenties. Aunt Charlotte's house went during the Blitz – fire, not a direct hit." Not wanting to see her disappointed, he quickly added, "There are plenty of other landmarks I can show you."

"When you talk about it, it seems so real." Buffy moved back to his side, her thumb stroking the back of his hand in a small gesture of comfort. "I should have thought that it's really been a long time, that a lot of things have changed."

"No worries, love. In Paris, now, there I can give you a tourist experience like no other."

She gave him a severe look. "If I have to pack clothes for slaying, they're going in your suitcase, mister."

⸹

"Hey, Tara."

"Oz." She stepped away from the door of her apartment. "C-come in."

"Just got in. Mom wanted me home for a minute before classes start."

She nodded, ducking her head. The last time she'd seen him, he'd just unslung his guitar after coming off stage. Oz's eyes had lit up as he saw Willow and Tara waiting for him backstage, feeling important with their all-access badges around their necks. He'd given each of them a sound kiss, hot and happy, his body wet from the heat of the spotlights and the exertion of performing. The hard planes of his chest and the wiry muscles of his arm felt so different than anything she knew, almost alien.

"W-Willow will be home soon." Tara took a couple of steps away. "I'm m-making dinner."

"Need me to chop anything? I can do that."

"Uh, bell pepper."

"Lead on, lovely lady."

She turned her back on him and went to the kitchen, shoving the vegetable and a knife to the side of the counter opposite of hers. They worked on dinner in near silence, except for Oz's humming, until Willow came home ten minutes later.

⸹

"I'm exhausted." Joyce put her suitcase next to the stairs and began sorting through the pile of mail Xander had left on the coffee table, deftly pulling out the bills.

"Me, too," Buffy yawned. It was after two a.m. Spike nudged her further into the house so he could come inside, too, hauling Joyce's other suitcase and a couple of packages beneath one arm. His wife gave him a sympathetic look. Their flight from New York had been delayed, then cancelled. They managed to get seats on a different flight, but not the first class seats he'd planned on. While she and Joyce sat together, he'd been scrunched in a middle seat between strangers for hours. By the time they got into LAX, the last flight to Sunnydale had been long gone. The only rental car they could get was a compact, so more scrunching.

"Buffy, Spike," Joyce said, covering a yawn of her own, "stay here the rest of the night. You've driven enough for one day. We'll go out and get breakfast," she yawned again, "unpack tomorrow, take the rental car to the airport. And stuff." She gave a wry smile and began tugging off her long cardigan. "I'm tired, but doesn't that make sense?"

"It does," Buffy agreed. She looked at Spike and lifted a brow. "Okay with you?"

"Sure." He gestured behind him. "I'll get the small bag…." He trailed off and wandered back outside.

Confident that she'd shortly have a toothbrush, Buffy gave her mother a quick hug. "I'll go make up my bed."

"You do that." Joyce stood in the foyer long enough for Spike to return, then locked the door. She gave him a peck on the cheek. "Good night, dear. Stop blaming yourself. These things happen all the time."

"Not once I get my pilot's license, they won't," he said darkly.

Joyce woke up enough to give him an arch look. "I don't think cross-country air travel by helicopter is the usual thing."

He shook his head. "I've already decided to go on and learn to fly a jet, too."

"Oh. That's wonderful."

"Joyce, you're swaying. Go on upstairs. See you in the morning."

Within five minutes, Joyce was sound asleep, grateful to be in her own bed. Ten minutes of muffled sounds later, Buffy and Spike slept, spooned together in the Slayer's old bed. Across the street, a shadow in the detached garage of one of Joyce's neighbors shifted, then squatted down. Hunkered against the door, the man pulled a cell phone from his simple robe and made a call to the Czech Republic. "God is good. They're back." After a moment of listening, he took a sharp breath. "Be careful. The ritual… I wish I could be there to help. Good luck, brother."

⸹

Next Chapter: Dracula comes to Sunnydale. This time, Buffy has a couple of new weapons to use.


	33. Call Me Vlad

**Call Me Vlad**

⸹

Los Angeles

September 2000

⸹

"Hey, Cordelia."

"Spike! Wow. Kinda surprised here. Come on in." She gave him a perfunctory hug and stood aside.

"Hey, Dennis. So," he looked around, already feeling the absence, "where's Angel, then? Patrol?"

"No. Looking for a new space for A.I."

"Still?"

"Yes." Cordelia sounded exasperated.

Spike figured it was a good time to hand her what he'd been semi-hiding behind his back. "The small one's for Angel. The other is for you. Present from Buffy," he said, handing over two packages. "She saw it in Paris and really liked it, but it was too long for her. It's the same size as your bridesmaid dress, she said." The other gift was a French language first edition Jean-Paul Sartre.

"Paris?" Cordelia said as she ripped into her box. "You guys went to Paris?"

"Rupert's been in England for a while. Took the Concorde over to see him, spent a few days in Paris, too."

"Oh, my God." Cordelia held up the green dress, then simply left him in the living room so she could go check her reflection. "Tell Buffy I love it!" she caroled.

"Of course." The dress had hit Buffy above the knee. He thought it looked fine, but she'd just patted his arm. He couldn't see how it would do much more than cover Cordelia's bum. "The fit's all right, then?"

"Just about perfect. French women must not have boobs, I guess. Maybe with another bra?" The last was a muttered comment to herself.

Spike moved away from any possible sightline into her room. "How have the headaches been?"

"No more terrible than usual," she replied. A moment later, she came out of her room. "What do you think?" She was barefoot, her hair was mussed, and of course she looked gorgeous.

"You look a treat in it. Here, wait a mo." Spike got out his phone and snapped a picture. "I'll send that to Buffy."

"Really? I've got to buy a newer phone."

"Go for it. I assume Angel has been paying you at least a fraction of what you're worth."

She gave him one of her most brilliant smiles. "He has. Like, I can afford to take this to a seamstress to let out the bodice," Cordelia dug at the armhole of the dress. "Tell Buffy thanks. I really like it." She started back to change clothes.

"So, when did Angel leave?"

"As soon as it got dark. He drove somewhere."

"Wes with him?"

"No. Angel's been… distant with all of us lately. Sleeping a lot."

Spike's eyes sharpened. He'd been about to sit on the couch, just leaned on the arm instead. "Depressed, you think?"

"I don't know." She rolled her eyes. "I may have had a little bit of a dramatic scene a few days back about wanting my privacy. He's really been looking for offices since then."

"Oh. How's that going? The drama – er, the acting, I mean?"

"I got a commercial. Just local, but it's something."

"For what?"

"Teeth whitening."

"Well, you're a poster child for beautiful smiles, love."

She gave him another one as she came back into the living room. "Thank you." She sat down on the couch and patted the cushion. "Can I get you blood? I'm sure Angel wouldn't mind."

"No." He managed not to shudder as he sat down on the other end of the couch. Angel said drinking butcher's blood helped him function better with humans. Spike was content with his own level of goodwill toward them. "Thanks, though."

"He's still angry, you know." When her guest raised his eyebrows, she added, "About the hacking."

"Has there been any retaliation?"

"No. It's been really quiet this summer. I mean, beasts and bad guys, sure, but nothing we've ran across that screams 'evil law firm.' No visions, either."

"That's good."

"So, what did you do besides visit Giles?"

"The tourist thing. And, in Paris, shopping." He told her about how proper Joyce and Rupert acted in front of them, of Buffy slaying a vampire against one of the iconic lampposts on the Champs de Elysees, of the maddening slog of the final leg of the trip. Then Spike listened to her complaints about her agent, the strange people in her acting class, her visions, and how much she wanted her apartment back. Partway through a story about Wesley taking her to a gun range, Spike's phone rang. He excused himself as far as the apartment door to take it.

Cordelia smiled as he ended the phone call with admonishments to be careful on patrol and an unselfconscious 'I love you right back, kitten.' "That was Buffy, I take it?"

"No. Xander."

She laughed. "How is Xander? And everyone?"

"Fine, far as I know. I actually haven't seen anyone to talk since we got back. Wanted to see Angel, so I thought I'd pop down here."

"Well, go on. I know you can find him." She made a shooing gesture at him.

He froze, grimacing. "Not that I haven't enjoyed visiting with you."

"Hey, I'm fine not being at the center of a vampire's attention. Anyway, it'll do him good to see family."

Spike said his goodbyes to Cordelia and Dennis, then tried calling Angel. When there was no answer, he sighed and went with other methods. Los Angeles is a large city, so it took most of an hour to track the big vampire to a nightclub on Wiltshire.

"Hey." He slid between a twitchy guy who still had white powder coating one nostril and the barstool that held his grandsire.

"You."

Spike caught the bartender's eye. "I won't have what he's having," he told her. When she just cupped her ear, puzzled, he mouthed, "Bourbon."

"I'm keeping an eye on a couple of vamps in the left corner," Angel informed him.

"And nursing some kind of grudge against me, too, I've heard."

Angel grew still, then turned to face him directly. "You agreed that it would be at a time of my choosing. I took you at your word."

Spike pushed a twenty across to the bartender and waved away change before answering, his hand now curled around a glass he figured he'd need in a moment. "I agreed that payback would be your call. What Willow and I did, that was just reconnaissance."

"But you didn't tell me."

"They tried to bug my home, Liam. Surveil Buffy."

"Yeah? Welcome to my world." Angel turned away. "Where I specifically did not want you." He stood up from the barstool and left.

For just a second, Spike had a notion to grab him, but he realized the pair that Angel had been shadowing had left with two human women. Closing his eyes, he tossed back the shot of bourbon and wove his way through the crowd to the exit.

The two humans were huddled against a fence that blocked the latter part of an alley. Angel was in a fistfight with the two vampires, getting in all of his punches but taking too many for Spike's liking. He watched clinically for a moment, knowing that his grandsire was faster than this. Even on a restricted diet, he had to be stronger than these two.

When the oldest one, maybe ten, made a move to flank and grab Angel, Spike darted in. He didn't have a stake with him, so he punched through the vampire's ribcage and yanked out the unbeating heart, crushing it in his hands. Leaving the remaining predator to Angel, he went to where the two women were clutching each other.

"Hey, you're safe now. The big guy with the forehead is taking care of that jerk, yeah? Shame you had too much to drink," he told the taller woman, then nodded at her companion, "you take her on home, get her safe inside."

Angel dusted the remaining vampire, then watched as Spike easily laid the mesmer on two humans he'd never met before. His jaw tightened as he tucked the stake back in his pocket, looking away from the two women as they stumbled past him. "You always did coddle the herd," he said coldly.

"You sound like Darla," Spike noted.

He didn't flinch, though his eyes flew to the boy's face. Angel locked away any possible opening to their mindlink; it wouldn't do to forget how perceptive the blond man was. He didn't want anyone to know about his recurrent dreams of Darla. "Maybe she had the right of it."

"You don't have to let those lightweights whale on you to atone, Aurelian."

Angel paused in the motion of turning away. He turned burning eyes to the other man. "Not all of us get to train with a Slayer. Or drink Slayer blood."

"You think I treat my wife like a milk cow?" The words were delayed, shocked and cold.

Angel dropped his eyes and lifted a hand as if he could erase the words. "No." Nothing else came to mind. He didn't want to be here; he wanted to be asleep and dreaming. He'd wake unrefreshed and unfocused, but with more memories of simple happiness with Darla.

"If you had some objection, the time to mention it would have been before you were part of the wedding party."

Angel turned fully away. "I don't have any objections. I just… don't want you here." He closed his eyes. That had also come out badly.

Spike did not use any vampire stealth or speed to move in front of the big man. "Angel. Don't push me."

After another moment, Angel met the simple, human gaze. "I don't want to hear any of that crap about being 'Master.' You know what I want to you to be?"

He knew the tone well enough from the first twenty years of his unlife, and it prompted a rude response. "Your _irrumator_?"

"Gone." He took his own advice, gathering shadow and leaping to cling to the rough brick of the building to the left. Looking back long enough to see the blond man clench his fists, Angel gathered himself for another leap and did not look back again.

⸹

"Dracula?!"

"No way!"

"Here? In Sunnydale?"

"Wow. How does he look?"

"I've barely been back a day, and Dracula is here?!"

Buffy waited until the questions died away. Xander didn't seem to want to take the floor, so she began the explanation of how an ordinary patrol turned into a brush with fame. "And then I found Xander, and we called the meeting and came here." She pulled a face. "He said I'm known worldwide."

"That's kind of awesome," Willow allowed.

Tara was looking around at the others, surprised by this excitement. "Wh-why is he in Sunnydale?"

Xander gestured toward the Slayer. "For Buffy."

"He said that?" Giles asked.

"He told me to call him Vlad."

"Well, that is disturbing."

"Yeah, said my darkness attracted him, that my power came from darkness." She frowned. "How would he know that? I mean, that was such a big secret you didn't even know it."

Giles was frowning, too. "The Slayer 'emergency kit' was passed down from Slayer to Slayer until Crowley just kept it. Perhaps Slayer origins were more widely known in the past." He shrugged. "He is a very old vampire."

"Ponce is younger than I am." Spike came in, made the refutation, and then glared around at everyone equally. "Giles, lock your damn door. Renfield wouldn't need an invitation. Joyce isn't here. Has anyone called her?"

"She got the same message you did," Giles said defensively.

"Call her, tell her if anyone knocks on the door, ignore it." He didn't sit, just started pacing the room.

"How was Angel?" Buffy's voice was sympathetic.

"Angel is an arse," he said shortly, ignoring Xander's emphatic nod, "but he remains among the undead." Spike stopped pacing. "Love, I'm sorry I haven't talked to you about it, but I need to go ahead and tell you all. I've made a decision. On the way back from L.A., actually.

"Anya, you were right. The count will have been in Sunnydale for a day or two, always a big production when he travels, and no one told us. No demon, no vampire, no human snitches. So, I'm going to step up and be Master."

"Because Dracula came to town?" Anya asked.

"No. Because… it's necessary."

The Slayer was entirely focused now, the utter cool of her encounter with Dracula forgotten. This had something to do with Angel. "What are you about to do?"

Spike lifted a shoulder, not looking at any of them. "Go to Willy's, for lack of better. Call for any other claimants, kill them. Explain that I'm seriously dischuffed that no one bothered to tell me Dracula is in town. Set up a public showdown with the git."

Buffy lifted a brow. "Just pointing out that I'm the Slayer."

He lifted both shoulders. "You kill him, then."

She deflated a little. "Yeah, not as easy as it sounds. He turned into mist and into a bat, and I think he's faster than you."

Spike lowered his head and walked to square off with her, confronting her as if they were alone. "He is nothing 'more' than I am. And quite a bit less."

Buffy swallowed, shoving down an urge to drag him and his swagger outside for a knee-trembler. Mind on business, girl. "Spike, he's the Count Dracula. I've never met a vampire like him before." She saw the swiftly hidden hurt on his face and added gently, "He's older than the Master I killed."

"He is," Anya agreed solemnly. "I met him centuries ago."

Spike took a step back from Buffy and glanced at Anya. "You met his sire. I fuckin' drank this one under a table one night in Germany when the Master was holding court, neither of us master vamps. He offed the old bugger and took the title not two years later, I remember right." He focused on Buffy. "Ponce still owes me eleven pounds. Angelus was there that night, too, in a bar full of humans. You want to hear that whole story? Who got fucked, who got killed?"

She shook her head jerkily, only now realizing that he was furious. Buffy had no idea what had happened with Angel, but she was suddenly glad that Dracula was available as a target. Anya started to put up a hand to show she was interested in hearing the story, but Xander put his hand over her forearm and shook his head once.

"Giles, call Joyce, if you don't mind. The rest of you, be careful. He can use mesmer. And, love, why don't you get your Scythe from Giles' chest of best Sunday-go-to-church weapons? Daresay the Count hasn't faced anything like that before."

Spike simply turned and walked out of the apartment, with no showy speed. Xander spoke first. "I don't think he likes that guy."

"I-I'll call you tomorrow," Buffy said, starting after her husband.

"Buffy. The Scythe." Giles went to the chest.

 _Wait._ "Sorry. I forgot."

Spike was waiting, leaning against the trunk of the Bentley, one booted foot on the bumper. "What is it, love?"

She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard his impatience. "Come home with me before you go to Willy's."

His nostrils flared, and he raised an eyebrow. "Don't have to go home for that."

Her mouth tightened. "Don't be a jerk." Buffy didn't wait, just went to her car, laid the Slayer's weapon in the passenger side floorboard, and started driving to their house. She didn't know how long it took for him to follow, but she had enough time to get the package she wanted from its hiding place.

There was nothing else in their attic, just a couple of wide planks thrown over the joists so boxes could sit on them. She always thought it would make a good place to store their Christmas decorations, once they bought some.

Spike came in before she had a chance to fold away the ladder. "Love?"

Buffy closed her eyes, holding the box to her chest. His voice was so cautious, so deep. "It was supposed to be your wedding gift. I-I found what I wanted, but it had to be custom made. Since it wasn't ready in time, I was going to save it for Christmas."

She turned to look at him. "But if you're going to declare yourself Master tonight, I wanted you to have it now. I mean, it isn't armor… but it really is, I guess. It's what you should look like in that world." The Slayer held it out to him. Spike took it slowly. She couldn't read his expression.

He knew what was inside; even a human could have guessed from the weight and size of the box, the smell of leather. Spike took off the lid and pulled it from the paper, letting the packaging fall to the floor. Another coat from a different Slayer.

The duster was maybe an inch shorter than the one he'd had for years, richly black, buttery, expensive. When he didn't say anything, Buffy went on nervously. "It's deerskin. The tailor said it was the best compromise between durability and softness. A-and there's lots of pockets and a couple of loops. Custom made, right? So they added –"

And then she was smothered in his embrace. _Buffy. You get it. You understand._ A fierce kiss. _You believe in me._ _You won't ever make me leave, send me back into that world._

 _You're mine. I_ – Buffy pulled away from him for a moment, dropping her head, hiding her face. _I like all of you, but…_ She pulled in a deep breath and lifted her head, her cheeks flaming. _I don't get to see the Big Bad often. I like him, too._

 _The Big Bad._ Spike tilted his head. _Does he make you hot?_

 _The poet makes me hot. The considerate husband makes me hot. The businessman makes me hot._ She stopped kissing him and pulled slowly away, his bitable lower lip caught between her teeth. _The Big Bad… makes me._

At some point since he got home, his eyes had stopped being black. Now yellow flickered across blue. Since his ruinous implementation of a fantasy, neither of them had brought up that sort of play.

Buffy swallowed, adding, _Well, the Big Bad could try._

After a long moment, Spike moved away from her, mentally and physically. "Love, can't do that justice right now."

"Why not?" Her voice was husky.

"Won't go into a taproom full of demons with the scent of your… of our lovemaking all over me. Won't do that to you." He swallowed.

"I'm going with you."

"No. Can't have you there."

"Because they don't already know I have your back?" she asked sarcastically.

"No. Because I don't want you to hear how I'll have to describe… us."

After a moment, she nodded. "They'll know you have a soul."

"Won't matter." He gave her a chance to say something more. When she didn't, he pulled on the new coat, swinging his arms for range of motion, looking down at the length. "Fits perfectly, love. Thank you." His voice was hoarse.

Buffy held out her hand, and he took it, drawing her close for a hug. She breathed in appreciatively. "You smell like you. Well, the leather's a little strong, but…" She breathed in again.

Spike gritted his teeth, grinding against her for a moment. "You bloody well smell fantastic, yourself."

In the living room, Buffy pulled free and went to the entertainment center. She came back with a camcorder. "Get Willy or someone to record this. I want to see." When he started to protest, she shook her head, adamant. "You can turn the sound off, but… I want to see."

⸹

No one really noticed Spike when he came into Willy's. It was two-thirty on a Friday, so the bar was full, and the Aurelian did come in occasionally. One or two demons with sensitive noses observed he wore a new coat. None of them noticed he was in game face.

The showman in him examined the room. The bar would be good to stand on, but the ceiling was too close. Wouldn't do to have to keep ducking the light fixtures. He didn't figure the tables were sturdy enough to support his weight. Well, chair it was, then. A little smile flitted across his face. Not the first bar fight he'd started.

There. That center-left table had the best lighting. He went to the three vampires sitting there and simply threw two of them across the room into the wall. The third one stared at him, then picked up his mug of blood and backed away.

"Wait." The vampire froze, eyes widening. Spike pulled the camcorder from a pocket. "You know how to work one of these?"

"Uh… yeah."

"Here. Make sure the lens cap is off. You'll want to record what's about to happen."

"Uh…."

"I'll let you live."

"Okay. Sure." The vampire took the camcorder and backed away to the wall.

Spike spun the closest chair and leapt onto it. No one was watching, really; he hadn't been overly violent. Some more patrons noticed him, and the sound level dipped slightly. It was enough.

"I want you to know," he said, projecting with lungs that had never atrophied, "how disappointed I am in you people." He looked around and shot Willy a quelling look. The bar owner moved away from the telephone he'd been heading toward.

"Have I been overly harsh? Demanded tribute? Held court? _Jus primae noctis_ with the newly risen? No. I've shown more forbearance with Sunnydale than any Master has ever shown anywhere. And how do you repay me?" He shared a disappointed look around the room. "By not showing proper respect. That fucking famewhore Dracula is in town. My town. No one told me. I am not happy, people."

It was inevitable; the only question was who would say it. "You're not Mast–"

Spike kicked one of the abandoned mugs of blood at the Nori demon, a rubbery sea creature. The glass shattered against its head, and the force of the blow killed it. Its body slithered from the barstool it was sitting on and puddled onto the floor.

"No?" he asked softly into the dead silence that followed. "Then who is?" No one spoke, surprising him, so he prompted the crowd. "Come on. Out with it. I killed the Anointed One; no one has challenged me. Go on. Explain to me how I'm not the Master?"

"You're Slayer-whipped."

Instead of turning to face his accuser, he dropped from his makeshift stage and walked to him. It was a vampire in a plaid shirt, sitting with two others. Spike grinned and ran a hand down his abdomen in a sensuous motion, stopping just past his belt buckle. "You mean I spend my days in the Slayer's bed, yeah, I do." He put his tongue against his teeth. "'Course, sometimes we don't make it that far."

Plaid Shirt put on a disgusted face. Spike gestured at him and chuckled. "Oh, look at the sour grapes on you. 'I'm too proper a vampire to ever stoop to shagging a Slayer.'" He leaned over the vampire, sneering. "She wouldn't want the likes of you."

He turned away without bothering to look back. "Yeah, I sleep with the Slayer. You've all seen this Slayer. Blond, long legs for a girl that small, used to be a cheerleader. I've killed three Slayers, and I have to say…" his soul gave a twitch, "it's better to shag one. And she wants a monster for her man. An equal, one who can keep pace. That's me, mate."

"Excuses," Plaid Shirt said. He stood up. "She's got you whipped. On a leash."

Spike held up his left hand. "Not a leash. I am such a good lay that she put a ring on me. Hers, exclusively. Long as she lives." He looked around the room, still not deigning to pay attention to his accuser. "What other vampire has ever had that? Slayers, called and killed. Done three myself. But no other vampire has ever had the balls to bed one."

Either the story wasn't widely known or no one else felt particularly suicidal. The name 'Angel' remained unmentioned in the quiet room. Spike's planned sneering reply, 'He isn't a vampire,' went unspoken.

He was at the bar now and finally turned to face the plaid vampire. His two companions were also standing, staring nervously between Spike and their friend. Spike rested his arms on the bar, wanting to look supremely relaxed. "Yeah, she wants me. I got eyes; I want her right back. I'll be what she wants me to be, long as she lives. Next Slayer gets called might be ugly and have chronic b.o. I'm going to ride this, long as it lasts."

He pulled a stake from his coat, which he'd loaded with gear from his weapons duffel in the parking lot, and tossed it underhand to the vampire in the plaid shirt. "You got a problem with a Master who has a Slayer at his beck and call, well, I just gave you the tool to deal with it."

The vampire fumbled the stake for a moment, then looked at the blond man. He didn't particularly want to fight the Aurelian, but his only other option would be to slink away. There were three of them, though, and only one of him. Checking to make sure the Slayer really wasn't around, he gave a look over his shoulder and nodded. The three vampires rushed Spike. He stayed still and let the wingmen grab his arms, leaving his chest exposed. Plaid Shirt struck true with the stake he'd been given.

Spike waited with the stake jutting from his heart, wanting every demon in the room to mark it. He shook free from the two who had him pinned, pulled it out, then grinned. "Love-taps won't work, mate. You're just not my type." Then he moved with strength and at speed, wanting the audience to also mark that he could have broken free at any time, could have slaughtered both vampires as he was doing now. Then he spun Plaid Shirt and pinned him against the bar with the stake.

"You've made a bargain with the devil," the hapless vampire guessed, his eyes wide with disbelief and superstitious fear.

"I'm a demon," Spike said loudly, though it wasn't necessary in the tomb-silent bar. "Devil doesn't need anything of me he doesn't already have." He leaned in close. "But maybe I made a pact with an angel." He shoved the stake home, leaving it to go to dust as well. Pausing, getting another feel for the room, he turned when the showman in him judged the time was right and let his glittering eyes scan over the crowd. Few would meet his gaze.

"Right. So, I won't hear any more about who I sleep with, I take it?" He turned, again for the appearance of being unconcerned, and tapped a finger on the bar. Willy came forward hesitantly, found a glass and poured from a bottle he took from beneath the bar. It wasn't bourbon, but that wasn't important to the performance. He downed the whisky. "Anyone else have a problem?"

"Thou hast a soul."

The voice was improbably deep and heavily accented. It came from a mushy-looking type of demon Spike had seen two or three places in the world. He didn't think it had any ulterior motive, just felt that it might be important to point out to less sensitive members of the audience.

"I do. Slayer likes the, uh, cut of my jib, but she isn't stupid. It was a condition I met before she'd allow me around her family."

"Like Angelus?" someone scoffed.

"That wanker?" he asked. "Him, cursed by gypsies. I fought for a solid week for my soul." Spike shrugged, meeting the gaze of any who dared to look him in the eye. "Soul didn't keep me from slaughter and tax evasion when I was human; not worried about it now."

"You haven't," and this time his accuser stood up to face him right away, "done a damn thing as Master."

He recognized the skinny vampire in the seventies clothes, what hair he had slicked back with some sort of oil. His name was Vinnie. Spike thought he worked for a loan shark in town. "Fair cop," he said after a moment's thought. "First came here, I just wanted to get my sire healed up, fresh air of the Hellmouth and all that, then leave. Slayer put me in a wheelchair before I could get around to the leaving part – 'though she be but little, she is fierce.'" Spike threw out the Shakespeare quote with another leer as he walked to stand near Vinnie. Let them mark that Buffy was the Bigger Bad.

"Why bother killing the Anointed One, then?"

"Because he was a total bore, is why! Who wants to scourge yourself?" He wrinkled his nose.

"I don't think we need a Master."

There was a rumble of assent after this statement. Spike kept focus on Vinnie, a disbelieving smile on his mouth. "You think you don't need a Master. On the Hellmouth. Huh."

He moved away again, wanting attention to be solely on himself. "My sire is dead because she couldn't be faithful to me." This time, his demon twitched. "Spent nearly a dozen decades letting her parade me around the world. Fine by me; let me hunt down Slayers, yeah? But it took me a while to figure what I wanted to do after she was gone.

"I came back to Sunnydale. Stopped eight – no, nine apocalypses since then, some alone, some with the Slayer's help. Didn't know about that, did you? I shut down the Initiative group that nabbed demons – another time when it would have been nice to have a head's up. You remember any trouble like that when the old Master was trapped here? No? Because he handled it. Like I'm handling it now.

"Just because you don't have to come and kiss my ring, don't think I'm not doing anything. Just don't brag about it. I'm busy keeping the candy store open for you ungrateful lot."

Spike whirled around to face Vinnie. "You want to submit?"

"Wh-what?"

Once he named it, he could feel it, the animal desire rolling off the young vampire. Spike gave him a leer and a contradictory statement. "'Course you don't. Want to lead your own life, I reckon. You got your own shit to deal with. I'm not fussed; I got plenty of my own problems and don't want yours. The Slayer doesn't see you stupidly snacking on her humans, not her problem either." Yeah, he was definitely keeping the sound turned off.

"All I ask," he gave Vinnie a grave look, then turned it on the rest of the audience, "is that you let me know when trouble comes to town." His lips peeled back from his fangs. "I asked first after we ended the Initiative; I'm reminding you now. I won't come with words next time."

Spike nodded to either side, letting his eyes hit Willy on his right, then went for the exit. He timed it like the old _Columbo_ television show, turning at the door. "One more thing…."

The room was his, with every eye or equivalent sense organ still focused on him. "Tomorrow, I'll be busy killing Dracula. The ponce couldn't keep his mouth shut and made life harder for the rest of us. Anyone not here tonight wants to challenge me, tell them the Master will accept their challenge… dunno, Tuesday, maybe. I'm not busy then." He strolled out, unable to keep a little grin from his face. It was four seconds before the babble of excited voices in the bar drowned out the sound of cell phone buttons. He waited in the shadows for two minutes before the confused young vampire came out of the bar, holding the camcorder.

Spike nodded toward him. "Thanks for that."

Keeping his distance, the vampire held it out gingerly. "What do you want it for?"

"Recruiting video," Spike said promptly. "You going back inside?"

"Yeah."

"Just occurred to me, we fanged types all have a stake," he grinned at the pun, "in putting down that sorry excuse for a vampire. I run Dracula to ground, I'll send up a flare, anyone wants to watch." He started away.

"I-I'll join you."

Spike turned back. "What?"

"You're recruiting, right?"

Giving him a considering look to cover his surprise, he said, "It'll be a few more weeks yet. Look for me at Willy's."

⸹

The Slayer was waiting for him at home, her arms crossed. Spike watched the set of her shoulders ease. "All done, love," he said. It was sweet how she worried.

"Good. I headed towards my car six times after you left."

He fished the camcorder out of his coat. "Not too violent. One demon, three vampires. Lots of lies and exaggerations"

"Things will change after this."

"Yeah. Patrol will be different, for sure. I don't see how our days will change much, but I'll have to hang out with the unwashed undead more."

Buffy nodded. She thumbed the on button for the little payback screen and watched. It surprised him how little time he'd actually been at Willy's Place. Spike kept his eyes on her face, knew from her wince when he'd been staked. He put his hand on her waist.

"The most important thing," she said, unable to keep a corner of her mouth from turning upward, "is that you look hot in my coat."

" _My_ coat," he corrected. "Gift's all given, now."

"How can you know how you look," Buffy marveled, "with no reflection? The way you moved... you knew exactly what you looked like."

"Had minions who knew how to hold a video camera before," he admitted. He moved a few inches closer to her. "You know I can perform."

Buffy ignored his husky growl. "So, is it all settled?" she asked, turning off the camcorder.

"I think so. I'll be available on Tuesday for anyone who wants to challenge me."

Buffy looked away. "How long will that sort of thing go on?"

"It never ends, love. I'm sorry. Me not living in that world will probably help, but… We get challenged every time the sun sets, yeah? I don't think it'll be much different."

She put down the video recorder and slid her arms around his waist, the Slayer moving aside for now. "What happened in Los Angeles?"

Spike closed his eyes as his arms slid around her in turn. "He… Angel isn't in a good place. I don't know why; it isn't us. I could feel him wanting to talk to me, but he… If I stayed, I would have had to hurt him badly for denying me."

Her eyes narrowed. "So that's why you felt you needed to solidify your claim as Master here."

He shrugged. "He's using the hack of Wolfram and Hart to push me away, and I don't know why."

"Let me guess," Buffy gave him a sad smile, "it's to keep us safe."

"Yeah," he agreed in a husky voice. "Am I wrong, love? Is it asking too much of him, having to see us so happy, I mean?"

"He isn't in love with me." She gave him a wry look. "I don't think he's in love with you, either. But he knows we both love him. Unless there's something else going on, I don't understand why he'd push us away."

"Probably doesn't understand it himself, the wanker." He sighed. "If he isn't... compliant the next time I see him, I'm going to have to hurt him, love."

"I know that," Buffy agreed, meeting his gaze calmly. "So does he."

"This Master business… A snap decision I made years ago, just to spare myself having to pretend to toady to a midget vampire, that's all."

"Unintended consequences."

He gave his wife a warm look. "I might have spent one or two minutes in thought before I decided to make a treaty with a Slayer. Lots of unintended consequences there." Then Spike winced. "Oh. Wasn't thinking much, either, when I invited the local demons to watch us kill Dracula tomorrow."

"What!"

"Has to be done, love."

"Well, yeah. Vampire," she agreed, stating the obvious about their opponent. Something troubled was in her tone. "Dracula is going after our people. He tried to put the mesmer on Xander outside his apartment after the meeting. Anya was there with a cross. She seemed pretty pissed off." Buffy raised her brows. "I think she may have dated him. The old Court, I guess. She called this one an 'upstart.' Anyway… How do we kill him?"

Spike shrugged. "Let's not overthink it. You have the Slayer's weapon; I'll take care of pinning him down in physical form."

"How?"

"Dunno yet. We'll figure it out; we always do."

"You're tired."

"Not too tired, love."

She smiled up at him and pushed him toward the closest wall. "Not too tired for what, Mr Summers?"

"Not too tired for Mrs. Summers." He drew in a sharp breath when she lightly scratched her nails over his back. "Wanna get some of the new off this fine leather coat?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

⸹

"That… isn't much of a plan," Giles pointed out.

"No need to plan for the wanker."

"No? Transformation?" The Watcher raised a brow. "Flight?" He looked at Buffy. "Seems like there should be some plan against those."

"Hey, don't look at me. I just poke them with the pointy end."

Giles sighed and pinched his nose. "I don't think either of you are treating this with the seriousness it warrants."

Spike slumped down at the kitchen table with the cup of tea Giles had made for him. The Watcher leaned against the sink, balancing his own cup and saucer. Buffy slouched against the doorway. They waited to see who would break the silence.

"Right," Spike said. Giles and Buffy exchanged smiles. "So, I met this useless git when the family had to go dance attendance on the Master. He was supposed to be all special with his gypsy magic, so I invited him out drinking, just to see for myself."

"I take it was an eventful night." Buffy's tone was neutral.

"After Angelus showed up, yeah, went about the way any visit to a taproom would go. Before that… dunno that we'd ever be friends, but I felt sorry for him. In a way, he had it worse with his sire than I did. He was… kept."

Giles took a cautious sip of his tea and ignored anything that might make him feel sympathy for the Count. "What did you learn about his abilities?"

"Well, he was from the Rom. He had some talent for magic before he was turned. That's where the bat and the smoky bit comes from."

"How do we stop him from eluding Buffy?" When Spike shrugged and looked uncomfortable, Giles rolled his eyes. "You have something in mind, but won't tell me."

"Or me," Buffy added pointedly.

"Dunno what I can do." Spike looked at both of them, trying to be reassuring. "But you know that no nasty gets at my Slayer."

It was as much as Giles could get from him. He looked at Buffy, who gave him a look he'd seen ahead of crises for years.

"And you know me," she grinned as she unleashed her pun, "I'm down for the Count."

"Please don't," he said wearily.

It was only four when they left, so Giles folded the laundry he'd done earlier in the day, put away his suitcase, and ran out to the grocery to restock his refrigerator. Dusk had fallen by the time he returned, and he had a pang for the longer summer evenings of Bath.

He was getting the last bags from his little BMW when someone behind him said, "Excuse me." Giles had time to register that it wasn't a Californian accent and to get out, "Oh sh– " before his world went black.

⸹

"Wil's not happy, but she'll stay," Buffy said, closing her phone. "Let's go get Giles."

Spike nodded, relieved that the rest of the Scoobies had agreed to stay inside until they got the all clear. They hadn't been able to contact the Watcher. Buffy had been furious and wild with worry when they pulled into the parking lot for Giles' apartment building and saw the trunk raised and an abandoned bag of groceries on the ground beside it. Willow and Tara had been working on a location spell for Giles, so they waited there for the word.

"Oleander Avenue."

"That's past Crawford, right? Drive or by foot?"

"I could do with a warmup." The Slayer pulled him down for a quick kiss and shifted her grip on the Scythe, already turning to the west. Spike fell into place on her left, one muffled, comforting _clank_ sounding from his leather coat.

Spike glanced over at his wife, dressed with her usual disregard of battle armor. She had on leather pants, of which he heartily approved from both a protective and an aesthetic view, boots with a modest three-inch heel, and a loose-knit white sweater that showed plenty of sparkle from the silver camisole she wore beneath. Buffy wore large, silver hoop earrings and her hair was loose down her back. The only thing about her that didn't look carefree was the set of her mouth.

 _We'll get him back, love._

 _I still feel bad about not telling Mom._

 _It'd just cause her more worry. At least she's safe inside. If she knew her honey was missing, she'd probably go try to find him. You know how you Summers ladies are._

They continued on at a fast trot, cutting across lawns, jumping a fence into the lot where the city's school buses were parked, cleaned and fueled for the start of school of Tuesday. On the other side, they loped down the streets until they got to the low stone wall of the Shady Rest. Oleander Avenue was less than a mile away.

⸹

Giles woke to the sound of hissing. He knew immediately what it was and fumbled in his pocket for a stake.

Nothing. No stake, cross, or vial of holy water. No jacket, even.

The first vampire touched him, making him flinch. It wasn't a bruising touch. Fingernails lightly traced down the fabric of his shirt, making a whispering noise.

"He wakes," a throaty voice murmured approvingly. There was a pronounced Eastern European accent to the feminine voice.

"Oh, dear," Giles managed. His head ached and his mouth was cottony, but he opened his eyes. Several female vampires were clustered around him. He reached up and fixed his glasses where they were askew on his nose. The horde of vampires resolved into three indescribably lovely demons. Their tiny fangs somehow made their lush, wet mouths even more enticing. The Three Sisters.

Another set of long, white fingers ran along his thigh. "Yes, he's... woken." This voice was rich with wicked amusement.

Giles firmly removed the fingers. "No," he said firmly.

The third vampire simply reached down and cupped his genitals. "So _warm_ ," she breathed, her cool breath on his neck.

" _Szuenet_ ," the blond vampiress said with delight.

"Playtime," another agreed, and they pulled Rupert down until he was quite trapped by soft bodies and strong hands.

⸹

Buffy leapt to the top of the wall and paused for a moment, plotting a course through the mausoleums and tombstones. She was twenty yards into the cemetery before she realized Spike wasn't at her side.

"Good evening, Buffy," Dracula said, somehow directly in front of her.

"I'm here for my Watcher," she said, not bantering. Her voice was wintry cold.

Downwind, crouched against the wall, Spike watched, his eyes checking everything. They had been shadowed almost since the moment they left the Watcher's apartment, but he thought it was only onlookers. Giles wasn't here, but this would do as a battlefield. He found the chunky weight of the flare gun in his pocket and fired it off. By the time the flare lit up, he was gone from one hidden position to another.

"He is in… good hands," the Count replied silkily, his eyes roaming over her. "As are you." He moved closer, looking down at her intently. "My dark darling," he put out a hand to her face. Buffy didn't move away, but she turned her head slightly to avoid his fingers. Both of them glanced at the red light that had just flared in the sky above them, but their attention immediately came back to each other. "You've been tasted before," he noted, his eyes now on the scar at the base of her neck.

 _Now, love._

Buffy's body telegraphed nothing, completely still except for the motion necessary to spin the Slayer's Scythe and drive the wooden point of it into the Count's chest cavity. Before it could strike the target, the vampire dissolved into smoke. The force of her momentum pulled her forward for a single stumbling step.

Still slightly downwind, Spike was in the shadow of a tombstone. You can do this, he told himself. You transform every time you go to game face. The rest… just physics, yeah? We're mostly empty space. Molecules always in motion anyway. Oz an' me, we talked this through. Got this transformation bit sorted.

Yeah. No more time for bandying theory; Buffy had let fly with a jab of her Scythe. Letting out his breath, Spike sprang toward the left of where the Count had been.

In Buffy's peripheral vision, she saw smoke, curving like a swarm of insects, begin to resolve on her left. She pivoted to bring her center of mass into readiness, facing off against her moving opponent, noting the tombstone that would be behind him.

She heard her husband grunt like a tennis player behind her, felt his presence as he launched himself through the air and over her shoulder. Buffy did not actually see Spike, though, just a shadow.

That shadow flew into the column of smoke and began twisting. A dark cloud dispersed from the central column, and a moment later Dracula was corporeal again, laying stunned on a grave, his hip against the tombstone.

The second cloud of smoke hovered above the tombstone for a moment, then coalesced into Spike. He perched atop the grave marker, his fingers clamped on the rock and his fangs clenched tightly together.

 _Ow._

 _Wow._ Buffy took a step back. _I didn't know you could –_

 _I didn't, either, 'til just now._

"Aurelian?"

Spike stood up, the sway of exhaustion hidden by the movement of his coat. He sneered down at the other vampire. "As if you couldn't smell me before."

Dracula pushed away from the stone and rose to his feet. He positioned himself where he could see both the Slayer and the interloper. "She is the Slayer. She smells of vampires." He shrugged. Buffy's lips parted in protest at this assessment, but she didn't get the chance to hurl an insult back.

"She's _my_ Slayer," Spike growled.

"That remains to be seen."

Spike raised his left hand. "Already seen to. Holy matrimony, even."

The Count took in the ring, then his gaze went to Buffy, who had raised her own left hand. She'd worn her engagement ring tonight, as well. " _You_ married a vampire?" he asked, incredulous.

"I married a man," she corrected. Buffy shifted into a stance that would let her take one hidden, shuffling step forward and be within range of him.

"A real man," Spike added with a smirk.

"I suppose I must get rid of the interloper before we can continue our business," Dracula said with a sigh. He instantly sprang toward Spike, his form blurring into a wolf in midair.

Spike only had enough time to bring up his forearm in a defensive gesture. The wolf had been going for his neck, maybe not a fatal blow, but enough to weaken him and put him down, enough to make it easy for the recorporealized Count to decapitate him.

As it was, the wolf's jaws closed on his arm, the weight of it driving him from the tombstone and onto the ground. It twisted its head, wrenching on his forearm, then let go and sprang away. Dracula, in the form of one of the most successful predators in the world, was faster, stronger, and deadlier than he was in his human form. He bunched his feet and leapt at Spike's face, aiming for his eyes.

Instead, the wolf found its muzzle deep in the mouth of a huge cat. Powerful jaws clamped over his face. The enormous feline rolled, getting to its feet. Even as large as the wolf was, its hind legs dangled in the air once the cat stood. Its paws scrabbled at the cat's chest, but its claws couldn't find purchase in the fur. Turning golden eyes on Buffy, the huge, tawny beast lifted its head and walked to her, the wolf clutched in its teeth like a cub.

She watched with wide eyes as Spike came to her, his beast's back as high as her shoulder. Powerful neck muscles stood out for a moment as it shook its prey once, then again. With the second shake, something in the wolf snapped. Lowering its head, it laid the wolf at her feet. Then the big cat put one enormous paw on the downed animal and extended a single long talon to pin the loose canine fur to the ground. The cat leaned closer to the Slayer and lifted its head to give her cheek a lick with a raspy tongue.

At her feet, the limp wolf changed back into human shape, its neck at an unnatural angle. Buffy looked down at Count Dracula, then put her hand against the solid mass of the golden beast to push it away. It retracted its claw from the Count's neck and sat down on its haunches, blinking at her. Buffy raised the Scythe.

The big cat whirled and snarled. Buffy was turning, too, even before she heard the hissing. Three female vampires were behind them, the Three Sisters called by Dracula to defend him. They were lovely and ethereal and already springing toward her. With a roar that hurt Buffy's ears, Spike met one of them in a flurry of gauzy fabric, red blood, then dust. Buffy's axe took the head from another, the skull disintegrating at an odd, 110-degree angle from the body.

The third of Dracula's brides fell back, her eyes wide. Then she flashed away. Neither of her opponents pursued, just turned back to the fallen Count. Once again, Buffy lifted the Scythe. Before she could bring it down, the remaining of the Three Sisters returned. She was carrying Giles.

The Slayer's jaw tensed as she turned to the vampire, but then her lips parted in surprise. The vampire laid the Watcher on the ground and backed away, her hands lifted in a placating manner. Like Aurelians, she seemed to have more control over her facial transformation. Only her fangs were showing, but now those faded away. Rupert kept his eyes on his captor, scrambling away and getting to his feet.

"Giles, are you okay?"

"Um, dazed, perhaps is the best…" He trailed off, looking at the limp body on the ground and then the beast beside Dracula. "What the hell is that?"

"Uh… California's state fossil, maybe?" Her eyes were still on the vampire behind Giles, and she caught other motion in the area. Buffy scanned her field of vision, about two hundred degrees. Spectators were everywhere. "We're being watched."

It was an understatement. Vampires and demons were all around them, watching avidly. One group was even passing a tin of popcorn between them. Buffy's gaze fell on one knot of vampires, then another who were filming the event. A vampire who'd been turned in her forties gave the Slayer a tentative wave.

"Hnuh." Buffy felt the sound vibrate in her sternum, and she turned to Spike. She realized she couldn't communicate with him, but the mindlink wasn't necessary. With a final look at Dracula's bride, who was watching with glittering eyes, she got to business and walked back to the Count. She avoided his eyes, hating that it was an execution instead of a fight.

It took a quick, a blurred downstroke of the stake end of the Slayer's weapon. Buffy almost felt that it was a mercy killing. She heard a satisfied sigh that could only be from the Count's remaining bride, then Spike stepped forward, silent on huge paws. He lifted his head, and just before he roared, foot-long fangs descended from his upper jaw.

Giles put his hands to his ears. He was taking his cue from Buffy, who didn't seem to be afraid of the beast, but he also prudently stayed behind her. Then he saw the big cat's eyes. "Spike?"

There was humor in the vertically slit golden eyes. He sat down on his haunches again, rolling to one hip and showing his obviously male underbelly, and stared at the Slayer. It took her a moment. She struggled to keep a straight face and finally admitted, "They're cute." The big cat huffed again.

"He's big as a horse, and he doesn't have a mane," Giles noted clinically, then movement at the edge of his vision caught his eyes. He flinched, then turned in a slow circle, regarding their audience, who were now rather nearer.

Spike seemed to understand the Watcher's words. He stood and came close to Buffy, bumping her with his head, then lowering it, pushing his shoulder against his mate.

 _You want to give me a horseback ride?_ There was no answer, but he squatted down, as though he was preparing to pounce. Buffy reached out to touch his face. The fur there was soft, and she stroked until she could rub behind his ear. The big cat began to purr. It sounded as loud as a lawnmower.

Exhaling with trepidation, she hoisted herself onto its back. The big cat immediately stood up, causing her to grip the loose fur at its scruff. Spike went into a fluid run, doing a circuit in front of their audience. A smattering of applause started, then rose in volume.

Don't fall, don't fall, Buffy chanted to herself, holding on with one hand, wind blowing her long blond hair back. At the end of the loop, Spike bunched his legs and sprang onto a mausoleum. She knew he wanted to end the show with style, so as soon as he lifted his head, she lifted the Scythe above her own. Spike gave a final roar, by far the loudest, then looked around from his perch.

Satisfied, he stalked to the edge of the mausoleum and gathered his paws for a leap. Waiting until his rider had a good grip, he soared almost thirty feet through the air and came down next to Giles.

The gathered crowd was dispersing. Buffy slid off of Spike's back, He turned so that he was facing only her, his eyes again full of humor, sat, and lifted a leg to perform personal hygiene. Buffy grabbed his face. "Absolutely not."

And he changed back into his own form, laughing. Buffy went down to the ground with him, kissing him.

 _My only chance to do that, love. Every guy's dream._

 _You need better dreams._

 _Well, all the rest have come true._ He was still chuckling. _Help me up? Don't have much left, pet._

Now that the transformation was over, Giles turned his focus on the other dangerous predator in his proximity. Dracula's bride was watching the two on the ground, much as Giles was looking at her.

Buffy saw where Giles was focused and sobered. Putting her free arm around Spike's waist, she set her feet solidly and looked at the dark-haired, scantily clad female vampire.

The vampire had been turned because she was lovely and had survived because she was capable. Neither of these things had ever seemed particularly fair to her. Now, watching the playfulness of the two who had spectacularly ended her all-powerful sire, she had no idea what to do. So she waited, almost wanting to slit her eyes against the white power that rolled off the Slayer.

"You brought him to me," Buffy said, inclining her head toward Giles.

The female vampire looked at Giles and nodded, understanding this. She looked at the slightly darker spot on the ground where Buffy had dusted the count. "Thank you."

Spike frowned, trying to place her accent. " _De onde você é_?" he ventured, trying Portuguese.

"Girona," she said after a moment, obviously surprised by the question.

Spike nodded but made a face. " _No parlo català_."

" _Español?_ "

"Right." He tilted his head and asked in Spanish, "Not that I'm ungrateful, but why did you bring him to us?"

"I have no quarrel with you."

"But you had one with Dracula?"

She shrugged, a very European gesture. "I did not choose to be a Sister."

"You were the youngest."

Again, she seemed surprised. "Yes."

Spike turned to Giles. "Are you all right, mate? You your own man?"

Giles' blush would have gone unnoticed if he hadn't turned his head. "I'm fine. I gather that I was given as a… plaything, at least for a while."

"Plaything?" Buffy repeated, not about to let a chance to tease him go to waste.

"I wasn't willing," Giles protested, though it wasn't particularly fervid.

"He'll be all right," Spike said, taking pity on him. He focused on the remaining Sister again. "What's your name, love?" he asked in Spanish.

"Luisa."

He put his hand over his chest. "Spike." He nodded toward Buffy, who was still holding him up. "My wife, Buffy Summers, the Slayer." Spike hid a smile. "And you've met her Watcher, Rupert Giles."

Luisa had relaxed as she realized that she wasn't going to be killed. Now she turned a bit of a smile on Giles. "Yeesss," she said in sultry English. A red-faced Giles took off his glasses and began to polish them.

"So, Luisa, do you have somewhere you'd like to be besides Sunnydale?"

She jerked, then made herself be still. "I'm free to go?"

"Of course." He gestured around at the few remaining people and demons. "We have no quarrel with you, either."

The vampire nodded and began simply walking away. The three of them watched her. At the edge of the cemetery, just before the wall, they saw her stretch her arms wide. Her gauzy dress simply hung from her instead of floating in enticing enchantment.

"Spike, that was just fun to watch." A small group of demons stepped forward. They had been waiting to speak to him.

"Thanks, Clem."

Buffy recognized the group as his poker buddies. She sent him a questioning look, and at his nod, she let go of him and went to Giles. "How are you, really?" she asked in a low voice, giving him a hug.

"Rather ashamed," he admitted. "I know what mesmer and thrall feel like. This was something different, or at a different frequency, maybe."

"What did the Three Sisters do to you, exactly?"

"Made me… unwilling to fight them or try to leave." He made a face. "I've only been awake for a few minutes. I don't think I was... molested whilst unconscious."

She gave him a shrewd look but didn't press the issue. "You look tired."

"I am." He nodded toward Spike. "Not as tired as he is. He's barely staying upright."

She looked over at her husband and had to agree. "Apparently turning into smoke and Mufasa takes it out of you."

Giles looked puzzled over the reference, then his eyebrows rose. "He transformed twice?"

She nodded. "He told me just now that he wasn't sure he could do it."

"Which is why he wouldn't say what he had planned." The Slayer nodded her agreement. "Buffy…" Giles trailed off, staring at the blond vampire. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. "He's my friend, too. I try very hard not to be wary of him. But he's by far the most powerful vampire we've ever met."

"And I'm stronger than he is."

"Not when he was transformed."

"Do you really think he'll ever do that again?"

"Do you think he won't?" When Buffy just met his gaze steadily, he shook his head. "Every time I think I have a bead on him, there's something else. What if there's something bad on the horizon?"

"Giles, I've been in his head. There's nothing there."

"Well," Spike drawled, "that's fairly insulting." He'd set up a date for the next round of poker and was walking slowly to his wife.

"Nothing bad," Buffy corrected herself. She put a supporting arm around Spike's waist again. "I don't know why you have to be so suspicious," she said, shifting her gaze back to her Watcher.

"I do." Both of them looked at Spike. "Honestly, it's okay, love. Rupert is your Watcher. He has to keep a distance from me so he'll be there to protect you." He shrugged and met Rupert's startled eyes. "At least, I hope it's nothing more than that."

"I think that expresses it quite well," Giles said faintly.

"Reckon we could call Xander and have him give us a lift? He's not too far from here."

All of them ended up getting out their phones, calling the Scoobies to pass along the news that the Count Dracula threat was finished. The three of them made their slow way to the wall to wait for Xander. Buffy sat cross-legged atop the wall so she could respond to an attack from any direction, her eyes alert despite the relaxed set of her shoulders.

 _You liked my kitty bollocks, then?_

 _Yes, they were very cute… pig._

"So," Giles said, in full Watcher mode, "you had a pint with Dracula once and figured you could do anything he could do."

Spike leaned against Buffy's shoulder. "You know it's more complicated than that." He paused for a moment, trying to get his tired thoughts in order. "Okay. Did I ever tell you the story of when I was in Paris and a human almost killed the Scourge of Europe?"

"Yes," Rupert said. "You thought she was a Slayer at first."

"Right. Well, you remember I made her my thrall? Only time I've done that," he added sternly.

"Yes."

"So, 1918, 1919, not long after the end of the War to End All, she died. The influenza pandemic. I was asleep, and I woke up when it happened." He went on to recount the following dream, of how he had hunted with his thrall in the form of a cougar. "So, I figured I'd already done it in a dream, right?" He waved his hand around his brow. "And I sort of transform anyway. "So does Oz. We've been talking about it here and there, about what else we might do, make the ability more useful.

I've kept up with physics, so I could get my head around dispersing bonds, and atoms are mostly empty space, anyway. I could intellectually grasp becoming mist. And I'm a supernatural creature to begin with, just like Vlad. I've channeled magic, performed spells. So, I figured a little extra performance pressure might help. It worked."

"What did it feel like?" Buffy asked.

"It was… weird, like experiencing what it would be like to be dusted, except without the death part. Becoming a cougar was easier, actually, because I'd experienced it before, even if it was a dream."

"Cougar?" Giles echoed. He shook his head. "You were supposed to be a cougar?"

"Yeah?" He looked between the two of them warily.

"Cave lion on steroids," Buffy said, patting his knee.

"Well, a big cat." He looked pained. "Anyway, if he'd turned into a bat… I had nothing. Couldn't convince myself of the physics of it. Largest flying birds ever were, what, four or five stone? No way I could turn myself into a bat. My strategy was to try to leap in the air and catch him in my paws."

"I suppose we should be grateful he became a wolf, instead."

"Giles…" Buffy was looking at her vampire, though. After a moment, he nodded. "Have you noticed a lot of déjà vu moments since you came to Sunnydale?"

He blinked at the sudden change in topic. "Er, I suppose I have noticed them. I don't know if it's a lot."

"We have, too. It's part of something that may… help you feel less worried."

"Remember the Sirens at the bachelor party?"

He gave Spike a narrow look, expecting more teasing. "I could hardly forget."

"Molpe offered me a gift of knowledge in exchange for my tears when she played." He looked away for a moment, then brought his gaze back to Giles. Spike's eyes were bright with tears once more. "She said this world was made so love can conquer all."

Buffy put her free hand on Spike's knee. "She said that this is Spike's world, where love can conquer all," the Slayer corrected him gently.

Giles stared between the two of them, his brows knit. "What are you saying?"

Spike shrugged. "That's all I know. Just… A lot of times, things seem familiar, as if we'd heard them or experienced them before."

"Everyone experiences déjà vu."

"This often?" Spike looked down. "Maybe 1905, as a favor, some, uh, demons made their eyes look like Buffy's. Her grandparents weren't even born then. I didn't put it together until Molpe spoke with me."

The Watcher considered this prescient proof. "You believe this world was made for you?" Giles' question was flat, and the vampire didn't answer.

Buffy wasn't looking at either of them. As she spoke, the night breeze lifted her hair. "Slayers don't live that long. Vampires get dusted. Somewhere, sometime, there's going to be an apocalypse that isn't averted." She closed her eyes, then turned to face her Watcher. "So, you see, we figure we've already paid the price. Both of us. All of us. Maybe more than once."

Spike covered her fingers with his own. "Otherwise, why would this world be necessary?"

Giles absorbed this, his brows still knit together. _This_ was supposed to be a perfect world? Where Faith had become a killer, where poor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had to be tortured by a Slayer? Where the Council of Watchers had been laid bare as assassins? Where Jenny had to die?

Where Buffy had to die?

He turned away from them, tears coming to his own eyes as he realized the corollary: They had been through _worse_?

Spike put a hand on his shoulder. They sat that way in silence until Xander pulled up with a cheery honk of his truck's horn.

⸹

Next Chapter: The Scooby Gang grows by two, and Wolfram and Hart make a play for Spike.

[Author's Note: It isn't important to the story, but what Spike turned into was a supernatural version of the extinct American lion. In a previous chapter, he went to the La Brea Tar Pits museum one afternoon to kill time before his bachelor party. There, he would have seen skeletons of the American lion and the sabre-toothed cat _Smilodon_ , California's state fossil. Though he was going for 'cougar,' the idea that he's the Big Bad factored into his idea of a big cat. Spike's mental image of himself caused him to transform into a much bigger version of the American lion, a sleeker feline than _Smilodon_ (he knows he's pretty), and then he gave himself retractable fangs (he's a vampire). The American lion wasn't sabre-toothed; I was going for a fun take on Spike's ego rather than scientific accuracy.

On a different note, this story hit 20,000 views this week, and I'm feeling very humbled and very happy. Thank you all so much – I know this is an enormous investment of your time. I truly appreciate each of you!]


	34. Big Family

[Content Warning: There's a situation in this chapter that includes non-consensual touching and implies worse, but it's clear that the character will soon be free of the unwanted attention. It's more of an only-on-the-Hellmouth scene rather than realistic. Please PM me if you feel the warning needs to be more specific.]

 **Big Family**

⸹

Sunnydale

August 2000

⸹

"There's Mom," Buffy said, standing up. She was still wearing shorts over her yellow-and-blue bikini, but it had grown warm enough to take off her shirt. She and Spike had been holding a spot on the beach for a Labor Day picnic and bonfire since early in the morning. "And I see Xander's truck."

"Good Lord, Joyce," Spike was saying a few minutes later, "you moving out here, then?"

She loaded another box on the pile in his arms, so that he had to peer around the side to see. "Very funny. Next volunteer?" She looked at Buffy, who was staring into the back seat of the Jeep.

"Oh." She shook her head as if to clear it. "Load me up." She waited patiently as Joyce and Xander yelled greetings across the rows of cars between them.

Buffy passed Spike on her way down to the beach. Since her hands were full of bags and a beach umbrella, he took the free chance to give her a light smack on the bottom. Still grinning at the threat she'd thrown over her shoulder, he started back up to the parking lot.

A girl was coming down the path, long brown hair blowing back from her face, revealing a sullen look. She was looking down, messing with her portable CD player, elbows pushing back the beach bags she carried under each arm. Something inside Spike shifted and settled into place.

"Dawn!" He was up the sandy path, taking her into his arms. "I didn't see you there. Bloody well missed you, Little Bit."

"Urf," she said, giving him the barest squeeze in return, shifting one of the beach bags higher onto her shoulder. "You hug too hard."

Why am I over-reacting? She's only been gone a week. Spike gave his head a little shake, trying to put into practice what he knew of young teenagers, most of which he'd learned in the last couple of years. "Sorry, Bit. How was camp?"

"Okay, I guess." She went on down to the pile of supplies on the beach.

Spike shook his head and loped back to the Jeep. "What's up with Dawn?"

"Adolescence," Buffy said, rolling her eyes. She'd caught back up.

"She's upset that she missed Dracula," Joyce said, coming out from the depths of the SUV. She sighed. "Just like she was upset that we went to England when she was at art camp."

"It wasn't like we planned it," Buffy protested.

Spike raised his hand. "I did. My fault."

"Well, she had to go to dance camp, if she wants to stay on the dance squad. She can't blame you for that."

"She'll find a way to blame somebody," Joyce said dryly. She closed the Jeep and clicked the key fob to lock it, then bopped Buffy on the nose. "You were just a sunbeam at her age, like a week of drama, maybe. I guess I couldn't get two like you."

"I'll go see if Xander and Anya need any help," Spike mumbled.

"Coward."

Spike reached to swat her behind again, but Buffy twisted away. After a few minutes of cheerful banter and beach chair arrangement, Spike was again on his blanket in the sun, not super happy that the dark blue trunks he was wearing would give him tan lines. He had fed off ten people since the transformations and still hadn't recovered entirely. Sleep would help.

Just before noon, Giles showed up in his sporty red car with Willow and Tara, who had wanted to do the end of summer right, convertible and all. Anya gave up her spot next to Buffy, moving over so she could keep her cooler facing outwards, displaying its 'Jenkins for Mayor' sticker. Joyce began blowing up an inflatable kiddie pool. Giles settled himself gingerly next to her and offered to take over, giving her a peck on the lips behind the transparent plastic.

Dawn sat up and took out her earbuds, then propped her sunglasses on her head. Blinking a little against the sun, bright even beneath the umbrella, she leaned over to give him a hug. "How was the trip back to Sunnydale?" Trying to blow up the pool, he couldn't answer, so he tried to communicate with his eyebrows and a quick seesawing gesture of his hand. "Here," she said, "gimme. I'm good at this."

"Why do we need a kiddie pool?" Xander asked Joyce. "Unless you and Giles have some news…?"

Joyce glared at him. "Perish the thought." She turned to one of the coolers behind her and began to empty it. "Get Buffy, would you sweetie?"

Dawn leaned over to look at Buffy, whose back was to them as she talked to Anya. "Buf! Mom wants you."

"I could have shouted myself, Dawn," Joyce pointed out.

"You need something?" Buffy asked.

"Could you dump this ice into the pool?"

"Sure." Buffy hefted the cooler and poured the ice into it as soon as Dawn closed the valve on the pool. Then she started moving the food Joyce had unpacked into the shallow pool.

"Oh, I see," Xander said. "It's like a salad bar – everything on ice."

"Right." Joyce twisted around. "Now, where did I put the plates?"

"Here," Dawn said, twisting and leaning the other way.

"I rather feel like I'm at a yoga retreat," Giles noted wryly.

Buffy left the shade of the umbrella and went to lean over Spike. "Lunch is ready."

"'M awake." He sat up and blinked owlishly.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better." When she gave him a skeptical look, he shook his head. "No, really. Everything seems normal, now." Five minutes later, he had bowed before Joyce's feet, extravagantly proclaiming that he had never truly experienced guacamole until this moment. Buffy guessed that he was feeling himself again.

"I roast the garlic," Joyce said, rolling her eyes. "Nothing else special about it."

"It is good," Anya said, trying the dip, too. "Please tell me that the marshmallow fluff salad is good, even if it isn't. I need encouragement."

Dawn grabbed a clean spoon and tried the violently purple concoction. "It is good."

"Thank you," she beamed.

"I'm so proud of us for cooking," Willow said. Their contribution had been potato salad. Fortunately, Tara had known to precook the potatoes.

"Me, too," Joyce agreed. "It's a good skill for anyone to have, male or female."

"That, and sewing," Giles added. "I don't know how much money I've saved, knowing how to sew on my own buttons or catch up a hem."

"D-did your mother teach you?" Tara asked.

"She did."

"My m-mother, too. Taught me, I mean."

"Can I have another water?" Buffy asked.

Silence fell after that as they ate and listened to the cries of gulls and young children and watched what seemed like half of the population of Sunnydale walk on the beach or frolic in the water.

Xander tucked his folded paper plate into a garbage bag and sighed. "Man, I love three day weekends."

"School starts tomorrow, though," Dawn said glumly.

"You'll get to see your friends," Joyce pointed out.

"I guess."

"Not like she wasn't with them all week," Spike said.

"Yeah, while you guys had all the fun, I was in Lompoc."

Joyce sighed. "You only say it that way because it makes it sound like you were in prison." She looked around, then spotted what she wanted. "Dawn, would you get that green beach bag behind you?" Dawn did so and handed it to her mother. "No. There's something in there for you."

The girl's fine brows drew together, and she reached in for a black cardboard gift box, about five inches square. When she lifted the lid and saw what was inside, she let out a high-pitched squeal that made everyone else wince. "Omigod, is it really for me?" She dropped the green beach bag and launched herself at Joyce for a hug.

"It's about time you had one," Joyce said between the kisses that were raining on her face. "I know most of your friends already have cell phones."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." She pulled away, looking down at the silver flip phone. "Oh, and it's already charged!"

"It means you have no excuses not to call me when you're running late," her mother said sternly.

"I will, I promise." She stood up. "I'm going to take this to the parking lot. There's, like, no signal down here." Dawn swooped in with a final kiss, then she was gone.

"I vaguely remember having that much energy," Xander mused.

"Save your energy," Anya directed. Then she dug in her beach bag for the notebook with which everyone had grown intimately familiar. "No cell signal… on beach," she said as she wrote. It was her list of things to fix in Sunnydale. Anya looked around, her eyes narrowed in thought. "What do you guys think of having concrete fire pits instead of digging them?"

Buffy finished her water and collapsed the plastic bottle, putting it in the smaller bag her mother brought for recycling, and decided to avoid the debate. "I'm going to the ocean. Anyone else want to come with?"

"I'll go," Spike said, giving her a private look. She tried to hide her smile and shucked off her shorts to toss them toward the stack of firewood behind Giles.

"Maybe later," Xander said.

"Me, too." Tara looked at Willow. "U-unless you want to go, sweetie?"

"No. Too full."

Thirty minutes later, Dawn came back to ask her mother if she could join some of her friends whose families were also at the beach. Joyce sighed and gave her permission. She shaded her eyes and looked for her other daughter. "There's Buffy," she said, spotting the yellow and blue of her bikini in the ocean. "Wonder where Spike went?"

"Probably under the water," Willow told Tara in a whisper. When she looked puzzled, the redhead added, "He doesn't have to hold his breath."

Tara giggled and swatted her leg, though Willow gave her a smug look when Buffy dove beneath the waves a few minutes later and two blond heads reemerged.

Joyce and Giles went for a walk a bit after that, holding hands. The remaining female Scoobies had so much to say about how sweet they were together that Xander sighed and went down to the water to get away from the treacle. He swam out to where Spike and Buffy were.

"Hey." He shook water from his dark hair, then nodded toward the north end of the beach where four or five surfers were looking for waves. "Sorry you didn't bring your board?"

"No, this is fine." He gave Buffy a lazy grin.

"I haven't surfed – or tried to surf – in years," Buffy said in a tone of realization.

"That's it," Xander said. "I'm revoking your California girl license."

"Where's everyone else?"

"Still under the umbrella, except the Dawnster, who found some friends. Giles and Joyce went for a walk on the beach."

"Did Mom wear her hat?" Buffy asked with a grin.

"Uh, yeah?" Xander asked cautiously.

"She knows she looks good in a hat," Buffy said with satisfaction.

"This means you approve?"

Buffy lifted a shoulder. "As long as they're making each other happy? Why wouldn't I?"

"And Dawn's happy with it," Spike noted.

"Yeah." Xander grimaced. "No offense, Buf, but your dad was a real dick this summer. Father figure-wise, Giles is an upgrade."

"He is," Buffy agreed softly. The day after the wedding, Hank had taken Dawn out to lunch for special father-daughter time. With his girlfriend.

After going back to their spot, Xander and Spike agreed to drive the remaining food back to Joyce's house. They came back in a couple of hours with their surfboards and, on Xander's advice, bags of Hot Dog on a Stick. "I'm always starved at the beach," the dark-haired man explained.

It was a good call. With unerring teenaged instincts, Dawn and her friends, Melinda and Kristi, popped up at the same time as the food. Afterwards, Spike and Xander got roped into showing Tara and the three girls how to surf, but the teenagers' interest waned about the time a group of fifteen-year-old boys sat down near Joyce's umbrella.

Buffy went out on Xander's board and became the only person to ride a swell all the way to the sand that day. Spike followed her in, bailing close to shore and sending her entirely inappropriate mental messages the whole time. She laughed and refused to go out again, knowing she couldn't top that ride. "Maybe in another couple years."

Dawn, Kristi, Melinda, Willow, and Tara had begun braiding friendship bracelets as the sun started to sink, too tired from the food and the heat to leave the shade. Buffy got one tied around her ankle while Spike put on music. He almost immediately regretted it, popping out 'Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death' from the CD player and leaving it on a Top 40 station.

"Sorry, mum," he mumbled to Joyce. "Forgot about the cursing."

"Really, Spike?" Giles said reprovingly, barely suppressing a smile, "Dead Kennedys? In front of impressionable teenagers?" The blond Brit gave him the v's.

Jonathan, Andrew, and Michael showed up as the sun began to set. Buffy, Xander, and Spike began to carry the umbrellas and other beach paraphernalia to Joyce's Jeep while the rest began digging a fire pit. Partway through, Tara and Willow stopped digging as their phones beeped. Oz had sent a message from campus, wondering where they were, and he promised to come out.

Buffy went to where Spike was talking to Michael and Jonathan about armor. She slid her arm around him and he leaned over to give her a quick kiss. "Mick here is going to put an armor spell on my new coat, love. Keep it pristine."

"Not really armor," Michael corrected him. "More like a wholeness spell. I did one on the clothes I used to wear when I was learning to skateboard."

The fire was too big at first, but quickly burned down. All along the beach, other families had started their own bonfires, and the night never quite got dark. Oz showed up, along with his guitar and Devon, who was excited about the album the Dingoes Ate My Baby had cut with their studio time. He persuaded Oz to break out his guitar. They went through a couple of covers from their usual set, and by the time they played their original music, at least two dozen Dingoes fans had also gathered around.

Anya was writing 'Fireworks?' and 'Free concerts?' in her notebook when Oz began the opening to a new song that caused survivors of Spike's bachelor party to swivel their heads in surprise. The tune was based on what the Sirens had sung to lure the humans from Angel's boat. The whole audience was completely silent as he played, and at the end, the applause was overwhelming.

After the impromptu concert, Buffy sat next to Spike, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her as they roasted marshmallows. The radio was now playing Beach Boys music. She bumped his marshmallow with hers, gently so she didn't knock it off. "It's been a good day," she said softly.

"Never had a picnic at the beach," he said, his voice just as low. "Always suspected that I was missing something."

⸹

Willy's was both quieter and busier than usual. The crowd was keeping an eye on the door and on the blond vampire seated alone at a table.

Spike chose a table against the wall so he could watch the door. He had his arms spread across the backs of two other chairs, his leather coat spread wide and one boot resting on his knee. While he wasn't actually as unconcerned as he appeared, he was also bored. Four a.m. was the deadline for anyone who wanted to challenge him, and he still had forty-five minutes to go.

Vampires and other demons had come up to greet him throughout the night, but none had stayed longer than a few minutes. No one wanted to be his mate, it seemed. Fine by him; he already had the best possible friends.

"Spike?"

He nodded gravely. The vampire approaching was the one he'd pressed into service as videographer the night he'd reminded everyone just who was Master. "I didn't get your name the other night."

"Cory. Hey."

"Hey, Cory."

"So, I, uh," Cory held out his hand. He was holding a camcorder, a different model. "I filmed you on Saturday. The… when you killed Dracula."

"The Slayer killed Dracula. I just held him down."

"O-of course." Cory took half a step back. "I-I just wondered if you wanted to see."

"Sure." Spike took his arm from the other chairs and pushed one toward the lad. "Have a seat."

Cory opened the little screen and pressed a few buttons to get it ready before he handed over the camcorder. "Just push there to start."

Spike watched the whole thing. When he saw what kind of feline he'd turned into, he chuckled. Then he handed it back.

"No, it's yours. You keep it."

"This has multiple angles. You had help filming?"

"Yeah, a couple of vampires I know. I edited it together."

"You did a good job."

"It wasn't hard or anything." Cory shrugged. "There were no bad shots, not in that short span of time. It was all action, I mean."

"Well, it shows initiative, planning, that you have skills."

Cory shrugged. "Not useful skills."

"All skills are useful." Spike leaned forward and regarded the younger vampire thoughtfully. "Can you lose your vamp face?"

He looked surprised, but he made the effort. Cory's human face was plain, open, and honest, light blue eyes beneath sandy brown hair. He'd been about eighteen when he was turned.

"I'll recognize you by sight either way, now."

"Oh."

"How'd you end up in Sunnydale?"

"I grew up here."

"You stayed?"

Cory studied him cautiously before continuing. "I just wanted to hang around until my brothers and sisters are grown."

"You stay with them?"

Cory looked away. "No. But I look out for them." He set the conversation toward a tangent. "I don't know what I'll do after that. My youngest brother just started high school."

"Who sired you, you don't mind me asking?"

"I never knew. Some guy in a suit, looked like a businessman."

Spike shook his head. "I went to Sunnydale and all I left was an unclaimed baby vamp."

"Seems to be that way, except with you Aurelians."

"Yeah, well, not many Aurelians left. Maybe we've been too picky over the years." He shifted and pulled out his mobile to check the time. "So, Cory. You think anyone's gonna step up?"

Cory shook his head emphatically. "No. Not after you killed Count Snitch. Not after the way you killed him."

"The Slayer killed Dracula," he stated again.

"Of course, Master."

⸹

"Giles, do you have a minute?"

"Of course." He folded the chair he was holding. They'd just finished a Scooby meeting. "And I should say once again, congratulations."

"Uh, thanks." The Dingoes' 'I Shouldn't Want You,' the song Oz had written based on the Siren song, had cracked the Hot 100 that week. Right now, Oz looked more uncomfortable than when everyone had congratulated him during the meeting. "Giles, I think you're the right person to tell. I noticed just tonight, and I don't want to tell Buffy, and I really don't want to have to tell you, either, but… Joyce smells sick." For Oz, this counted as babbling.

Giles slowed in the process of folding the last chair, then his motions stopped altogether. "What?" he asked, but his mind was already going back over the fact that she wasn't sleeping well, that she'd lost a bit of weight, and the day after the beach trip she'd stayed at home because of a headache.

She was having headaches quite often.

"Sick, how?" he pressed. He'd seen Oz sniff out an undisturbed, forty-year-old bomb shelter.

Oz shook his head. "I don't really know much about diseases, just that… she smells wrong." He wouldn't eat her, would choose someone else from the herd, but there was no way to say that aloud to another human.

"I'll get her to a doctor tomorrow." He finished folding the chair. "Thank you for telling me."

Oz shrugged and nodded. "I'm gonna go ask Spike about his transformation."

"He said it was something you two have worked on?"

"We discussed theory."

⸹

"So, what are you wearing tomorrow?"

"What about our dance camp shirts? We haven't worn those."

"Not with a skirt."

"Hang on, guys," Dawn said, holding up her phone and pausing as she and her friends left the rows of temporary trailers that passed for a high school. "Text." She scanned it quickly. "Oh. Spike's here."

Kristi grinned. "He is?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Be chill." Kristi had a crush on Spike, which was so lame. "Listen, call me when you decide, okay?"

Spike was parked illegally in the showy Bentley convertible, so he was easy to spot. He lifted a hand in greeting.

She tried to see his eyes behind the sunglasses as she got in. "What's up?"

"Nothing, just need you to run an errand with me."

"What errand?" Since the world wasn't about to end or anything, she twisted away to buckle her seatbelt.

"We're getting your picture made."

Dawn had a moment of panic, touching her hair with one hand. "Why? School pictures were, like, three days ago."

"Passport photos have to be black-and-white," he explained.

"Passport photos?" she echoed. Her eyes narrowed. "Why do I need a passport photo?"

"Well, if you want to go to London next June, you sort of need a passport." His voice was sardonic, but he was grinning as he stared straight ahead.

"London? We're going to London!?" The last syllable was so high-pitched that the vampire winced. "Oh my God, really?" She lunged at him and hugged him as best she could with her seatbelt still on.

"Really. Figured you won't have any conflicts at the first of summer vacation."

"Oh my God, you're the best!"

"Well, it was Buffy's idea, so, really, she's the best," he admitted. "But I'm not bad."

"Well, no, not today," Dawn agreed, grinning at him. "Does Mom know?"

"Of course. You, me, Buffy, your mum, Giles. Joyce got the signed papers back from your father today – both parents have to sign, since you're a minor – so she asked if I'd take you to get the photo."

"Oh, poo," Dawn said. "Maybe we can ditch mom and Giles somewhere."

⸹

"Hey!" Buffy called, holding her hand high. She put the other up and waved both, just to be obvious.

Katy Loomis spotted her at the table in the far corner of the dining hall and waved back. A few minutes later, she slid a tray with a taco salad onto the table and leaned over to hug her. "How are you, Mrs. Summers?"

"Great! You look wonderful. Did you have a good summer?"

"Pretty good," Katy said, sitting down. "I went back home to Louisville for a while and had, like, half an internship in at the zoo."

"So, you're sure about being a veterinarian?"

"I think so." Katy made a face. "More years of school, more student debt."

"But if that's what you want…"

"It's worth it," she agreed. "How are classes looking?"

"Not too awful. I can still put off declaring a major for a while. Yours?"

"Anatomy is going to be a bitch, but I'll live." She waved off the topic. "So, deets, girlfriend. Your honeymoon."

"South America," Buffy began.

"What part of 'details' did you not understand?"

Buffy couldn't keep the grin off her face, so she picked up her soda and drew a lot into her mouth through the straw.

Katy leaned back and pretended to frame Buffy with a camera. "I'm getting satisfaction," she teased, "I'm seeing happiness."

"My husband is a sex god," Buffy said. "Now, shut up. Tell me about Richard."

Katy put her elbows back on the table. "Alas, fair Richard is no more with the satisfaction. Tony, however, is very much with the satisfaction."

Buffy picked up her egg salad sandwich. "Regale me, for I am old and boring and married now."

"Boring?" Katy shot back. "That's not what the hickey on the side of your neck is telling me." As Buffy gasped and slapped her hand over the spot Katy was staring at, she sighed. "I'm single-ish and have no love bites, unfortunately."

The Slayer had dropped her sandwich and was scrambling for a mirror from her purse. "I'll be single, too, after I kill his ass."

"What, he isn't supposed to leave visible marks?" Katy teased. She saw the look on Buffy's face. "Oh. I guess that's a thing, huh?" Then she brightened. "Well, look at it this way. Now he has to wiggle his way back into your good graces."

⸹

"That's beautiful," Willow said. There was something wistful in her voice. There was nothing on TV, so Oz had taken out his guitar. He'd started singing and Tara joined in.

Tara knew her girl. "You have a good voice, you know. You should s-sing along."

Willow shook her head. "You two know music, though."

Oz looked up from his guitar. He was sitting on the coffee table so he'd have plenty of room for his instrument, facing the two witches on the couch. There was a twinkle in his eye. "You'll sing," he said confidently and began playing one of her favorite songs, Third Eye Blind's 'Jumper.'

Willow held out for most of the first lyric, then began singing, "'I would understand, I would understand.'"

Oz shot Tara a triumphant look, and they both smiled when Willow smacked their knees. "Like I'm easy or something," she said grumpily. Their eyes met again, and Tara looked away shyly. Oz dropped his gaze back to his guitar, hiding his guilt.

Willow didn't miss the exchange. Color flooded her cheeks, and she stopped singing and stood. "I'll, uh, g-go start supper. Since that's why you came by. For supper."

Oz's fingers lost the melody as he watched her all but jog toward the kitchen. He chanced another look toward Tara. She was already looking at him.

"I'll h-help," she said, rocketing to her feet.

He closed his eyes and forced his fingers to start another song, Deep Purple's 'Smoke On the Water,' one of the first things he'd learned to play on the guitar. He didn't sing, not wanting to take in any more air than necessary. This apartment smelled of his pack, and he had to stop thinking like that. Willow was happy with Tara, and he was happy for them both. Full stop.

⸹

Los Angeles

October 2000

⸹

"I can't quite believe it."

Angel heard Wes' light voice behind the reception desk. "Believe what?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Er, just something Cordelia found online."

The dark-haired woman leaned back in her office chair and said sardonically, "Look who's awake."

"Vampire," Angel pointed out. It was barely past four. That meant, if his employees left on time, he'd be alone again in an hour or so.

She considered him. "So, there was this video file uploaded to an occult message board that shows where –"

He raised a hand to ward off the explanation. "Don't care."

"Spike and Buffy."

Angel looked up sharply. "What?"

"Not that kind of file. Ew," she said decisively. "It's called "Snitches Get Staked," and it's really them. I'm pretty sure, anyway. They're supposed to be killing Count Dracula."

"Dracula is in Sunnydale?"

Cordelia blinked at him. "He's real?"

"Yeah. Well, it would be the, what, third Count?" Angel came over to look at the computer screen. "Show me."

Cordelia looked up at Wesley, who gave her a shrug. She clicked on the file. Windows Media Player came up and a short video played. Someone had added a soundtrack of videogame bam! and crunch! sounds to heighten the drama. Angel watched expressionlessly until some kind of prehistoric lion rose from the ground with a wolf in its jaws, but even then he only raised an eyebrow. The video ended with the big cat roaring from atop a mausoleum, Buffy astride it and brandishing some oddly-shaped axe above her head.

"You see how it looks like them?" Wesley asked. "Cordelia says that's the Shady Rest Cemetery, but the effects are… well, rather shoddy."

"It's real." Angel walked away, heading toward the kitchen. "Over the top kill for an over the top vampire." It was unclear if he meant Dracula or Spike. "I'm going to get some blood."

Behind him, he heard Wesley whisper, "They still haven't spoken?" Angel opened the refrigerator door, then closed his eyes and stood in the cool air. Transformation. How had Spike managed it? Willow, maybe.

He thought of the Master's court where the current Count Dracula had been presented, of the drinking hall where Spike and Vlad had carelessly enthralled humans, of the night he'd spent with the boy and Drusilla afterwards. He opened his eyes and grabbed a bag of expired blood, shaking his head at his sentimentality. At least it was a memory free of Darla.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Eeep!" Dawn put a hand over her heart, dropping her bookbag by the door. "Spike! You scared the begibblets out of me."

He stopped, an odd look passing over his face. Then he simply laid down on the couch and started laughing, clutching his stomach. After almost a minute, he sat up, wiping at his eyes. "I think you mean bejabbers, love."

"I was just trying not to say beJesus," Dawn said, annoyed. Her frown deepened. "I smell blood. Are you okay?"

"'M fine, pet. Just the way these tears of laughter smell."

Any talk of vampire lore always caught her attention. She dropped down on the couch next to him. "Why do your tears smell like blood?"

"It's the only fluid vampires take in."

"Huh-uh, not you. Your tears should smell like blooming onions or something."

"Those aren't fluid, Bit. I have great fear for your science grades."

"Bet they smelled like bourbon when you first came to Sunnydale."

His eyes narrowed. "They smelled of little girls who like boy bands too much." Then he turned to the door. "Joyce is coming."

"Good." Dawn stood up and moved her bookbag to a chair in the dining room. "I hope they found out what's wrong." She turned to give Spike an uncertain look.

"It'll be fine, Bit."

The two of them waited on the porch for Joyce and Giles, who had driven her to the appointment. Neither looked happy, and Giles' mouth was set in a grim line.

"What'd they say?" Dawn asked, searching her mother's face.

"Let's go inside," Giles suggested, "have a seat."

Spike put his hand on Dawn's shoulder, and she shrank back against him a little bit before starting into the house.

"So," Joyce said on an indrawn breath. She took Dawn's hands in hers, then looked across to where Spike sat in the wingback chair. "It was a lot of technical stuff I don't understand about the shadow the CAT scan saw in my brain. The upshot is that I'll have to have surgery."

Tears welled up in Dawn's eyes, and she laid her head against Joyce's chest. "Surgery?"

"Yes. They need to remove it." She looked over at Giles, as if for strength. He put his hand on her arm.

"Yes," he took over, his voice light, "and we're quite lucky. They said that they wouldn't have been able to do a surgery like this even a few years ago."

Spike was quiet as they told the details of the appointment, and he helped get Joyce upstairs and Dawn settled with homework before he left. He drove down two blocks on Revello, then pulled to the curb, resting his head on the steering wheel of his truck.

 _Love?_

 _How did it go? Did they find out what's wrong?_

 _They did. She needs surgery to remove a growth on her brain._

 _Surgery?_

He felt her fear. _Ah, kitten. I'll be there just as soon as I go by the Wiccas'. Need to see Red. Joyce is going to call you as soon as Rupes goes to pick up dinner._

 _Come home soon._

 _I will._

"Okay," Willow said, reading over the doctor's notes he'd taken from Giles. She opened her laptop and looked at Spike while she waited for it to boot. "How did everyone take it?"

"Joyce is a trooper. You have kids, I guess you have to be. So was Giles. Little Bit cried. So did Buffy." He grimaced. He hadn't been there for her.

Willow licked her lips, clearly worried. She turned back to the screen. "All right. So, first, I'm going to search PubMed. It's a database of journal articles the National Library of Medicine hosts. Let's see who's doing research on this kind of tumor."

"Then we find out where they practice?"

"Exactly."

"Good. I don't want Sunnydale doctors, not for Joyce."

⸹

 _Spike!_

 _Be right there._

 _No! Get the Scythe._

 _What's wrong? Buffy?!_

 _Busy. Getting my ass kicked._

 _On my way_.

Buffy shook her hair back and blinked dust from her eyes. She'd felt everything shake when the curly-haired woman threw her into the concrete column, not just her and her internal organs, but the building as well. She spun and gave the column a savage kick. Using the momentum, she rolled across the floor toward the monk. There he was. She scooped him up and gritted her teeth. "Sorry," she whispered and dove through the window, trying to take most of the shattering glass on her shoulder.

Buffy rolled again to break her fall, trying to cushion the old man. Behind her, she heard rebar groaning, and the abandoned factory fell in upon itself. She sheltered his body until the debris stopped raining down. Despite the monk's protests, Buffy was about to take him to the hospital when Spike showed up. He crouched down beside them, looked the man over, and gave Buffy a short shake of his head. She gave him a despairing, helpless look.

He had something to tell her, apparently. Spike listened to the monk, translating for Buffy, relaying her questions in Czech.

"Dawn." The Slayer managed the word through numb lips. "He's talking about Dawn."

The monk had only enough time to tell them a little more before his life faded. Spike sat frozen for a moment, hearing his last heartbeat, then leaned in to close the holy man's empty eyes. Then he looked at his wife, both of them managing only to echo what they'd learned.

 _Innocent._

 _Human._

 _She doesn't know._

 _Memories… we built them._

There was a creak and something in the collapsed building gave way. Buffy spun, her hand already reaching for the Scythe that Spike was holding out to her. She waited another minute, but there was no other noise.

"Come on, love," Spike said. His voice sounded a little shaky. "We'll call it in, make sure he gets taken to the morgue."

"Mom doesn't know. Oh, God, Spike, I can't tell Mom, not right now."

"I agree. But we do have to tell Giles."

She nodded slowly, her face still slack with shock. "Maybe he found out something about that glow ball. This was where that security guard gave it to me. It might have something to do with…."

Buffy sat down abruptly on the curb and put her face in her hands. "This… This can't be real. How could this even happen?"

He sank down next to her. "Bunch of old warlocks entrusted with a power that can unlock dimensions… Yeah, I can see where they would have whipped up spells to protect it, especially if they had years and years to work on it." He shook his head.

Then Spike sat up, remembering. _Love, I told you this summer it felt like someone was missing?_ His voice was slow with realization. "I don't feel that way now."

 _You mean… She's supposed to be here._

 _Yes. I think she is._

 _Because we love her._

He felt the bitterness. _She's a child. Of course we love her. They made her that way on purpose, I expect_.

Buffy reached out to brush a tear from his cheek. _Well, she's a pain in the butt, but she's our pain in the butt._

Giles took it hard. He'd had a glass in his hand when they got to the apartment. Whatever he'd already had, two more shots of scotch went down after he heard the news. He tried to pull the mantle of Watcher over himself, though.

"Do you think she's dead, the woman who killed the monk?"

Buffy looked down. "I don't think we're that lucky. She has to be what I'm supposed to protect 'the Key' from. Little women who aren't me are not usually super-strong. And I'm going with 'evil' based on the tortured monk." She let out a stream of air from her nostrils and pushed her dusty hair back. "Anything on the glowy rave ball?"

"Dagon's Sphere," Giles said with a sigh. "Meant to keep away primal evil, which of course must not be named."

Spike shifted restlessly. "I'm going back to that factory, see if anything is moving around."

"No. I had to run for it, Spike."

He raised a hand, palm outward. "I'll lurk. Just reconnaissance, love. That's all. And you didn't run. Looked like a rescue to me."

"Not much of one."

He gave her a sympathetic look. The ones she couldn't save would always weigh on her. "I have my mobile. Back in twenty." Spike kissed her cheek, nodded at Giles, and left, locking the door behind him.

Buffy sat down next to her Watcher on the couch. "How are you doing, Giles?"

"Honestly? I don't know." His glass was empty again, so he leaned over and poured another two fingers into it. "I'm worried sick about Joyce, and I can't even wrap my head around this news about Dawn."

"Me, either." She sighed. "Spike said he had been missing someone, but that feeling is gone now. He thinks it was her."

"So, she hasn't been here very long?"

"I wouldn't think the monks would keep hanging around Sunnydale, do you?" Buffy shook her head. "I mean, there are pictures, her memory book, report cards. There's this little plaster Christmas ornament of her baby footprint." Buffy closed her eyes. "I can't believe this… but I also," she put her hand over her heart, "know it's true."

"Perhaps the monk was sneaking in and planting physical evidence." He swirled the scotch. "Tell your vampire his world is a piss-poor excuse for happily-ever-after, with this… cuckoo's nest and Joyce… and your mother being sick." Giles tossed back the rest of the scotch and stared into his empty glass angrily.

"Sometimes, I've thought the same thing."

Her voice was quiet, and Giles turned to look at her, surprised into focusing on her instead of his own misery. "You seem happy, Buffy. Is everything okay?"

"Between us, yes." She shifted to look at him, turning her body and tucking her leg beneath her. "He told me once that vampire life is empty, that there's nothing to it except," she couldn't bring herself to say 'fucking' in front of her Watcher, so she substituted, "sex, violence, and rock-and-roll. He said partying like that is a good vacation, but not what we're meant for."

"So it has to be either party hearty or a black abyss?"

"And I pointed out to him this other time that for love to conquer all, there has to be something to conquer." She sighed. "I'm worn out, Giles. I don't usually lose a fight. I never find out my sister is a… construct. And I'm so scared for Mom right now." Tears spilled from her eyes, even though she'd tried the trick of holding them open. "This seems like nothing could be worse, so I have to think of the world Anya told us about, where the Master was draining humans on an assembly line like a bottling plant." She sniffled.

Giles put out a hand to cover hers for a moment, then took off his glasses and wiped under his own eyes. "So, we should be grateful for the fear and the pain, because it could always be worse."

"I think it just means we should treasure the good times all that much more."

He shook his head, a smile easing the set of his jaw for a moment. "You're becoming rather wise, you know."

"Ack, we're all doomed."

Later, after Spike returned and reported that the collapsed building was quiet, they went home. Buffy showered, feeling better to have the dust and grime off her, then brushed her teeth before joining her husband in bed. Spike wrapped his body around her battered one, his fingers tracing absent circles on her abdomen. He gave her a soft kiss on the neck. "Night, love."

"No."

"Mm? No, what, kitten?"

She turned to the mindlink. _Half my family isn't real. My Mom could die._

 _Oh, shh, love. That's –_

 _I got my ass kicked tonight._ She broke free from his embrace and pushed the covers down. _This has been just a… shitty day._

 _I know._

 _But this isn't going to be the night._ She sat up on the bed.

He shook his head, not understanding.

 _It has to happen, a night where we don't make love. The first night after our wedding. I won't let this be the night._

Spike regarded her for a moment, beginning to understand her need for normalcy, for something separate from the rest of it. _It has to happen?_ He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

 _Time for you to put out, Mr. Summers._

He chuckled. _As you wish._

Later, after Spike had fallen asleep, she lay in his embrace again, arms strong around her, her head on his chest, no heartbeat or respiration to disturb the silence. Buffy pondered the words, 'as you wish,' a quote from _The Princess Bride_ , Dawn's all-time favorite movie. Was this the first time Spike had used that quote, the only reason he would know of it because it had been implanted in his memories?

She loved Dawn.

Dawn wasn't real.

Dawn, who had turned overnight into a sullen teen back in spring, after being a little force of nature all her life, smart and sunny and demanding and annoying and sweet.

Dawn, who got to go to art camp and be on the dance squad because Buffy paid for it, because she didn't want her sister to feel excluded for being poor like she had. Dawn, who got to have friends and sleepovers and crushes on teen heartthrobs and to be normal. She had resented it.

None of it was real.

It must have been so lonely, if it was just me and Mom.

I don't have a sister.

Do I have a sister?

How can she have that normal life if none of this is real?

She carefully wiped the tears from her face, mourning the loss of simple love all over again.

⸹

"So." Giles rolled his neck, fighting some stiffness. "Anything else?" He glanced at Buffy. There was a lot that hadn't been mentioned at this meeting.

"I-I have something," Tara said, raising her hand.

"Yes, Tara?"

"I'm going to b-buy the Magic Box."

"You are?" Anya beamed at her. "That's wonderful. Woman and minority-owned small businesses look great for a town."

Xander shook his head. "Congratulations."

"I'm so proud," Willow said, squeezing Tara's hand. "Mr. Bogerty said he'd decided to close the shop before he talked to Tara."

Tara had almost gotten out of the habit of hiding behind her hair. She looked around at everyone and took a breath. "The m-money I made from the Los Angeles c-cache was just sitting there. I l-like Mr. Bogerty, but I think I c-can run it more like the one my m-mom used to go to. A little m-more inviting, I mean."

"That sounds wonderful," Anya beamed. "Have you thought of having coffee kiosk inside?"

"I-I don't th-think the smell of magical herbs goes well with coffee."

"Oh. Yes, you're right there."

"Grand opening a week before Halloween," Willow said.

"That doesn't give you much time," Buffy pointed out.

"M-mr. Bogerty has everything basic in stock," Tara said, "and I have painters coming in this weekend. The new c-counters and display cases are due in r-right after that."

"And she has all the strong people she needs to move things," Oz pointed out.

Tara gave him a smile. The rest of the people in the room, except for Willow, exchanged glances. The song Oz had written, 'I Shouldn't Want You,' seemed to so obviously be about either Tara or Willow or both, it was practically a confession. They were still not used to hearing it on the radio. None of them had the cheek to simply ask.

"Of course," Buffy said. "Whatever you need us to do."

"Will it interfere with your schoolwork?" Giles asked. "Running a business, I mean?"

She shook her head. "I've b-budgeted for clerks."

"Who are you hiring?" Xander asked, concern showing on his face.

"Michael fulltime and Jonathan part-time."

"Oh. Not Andrew?"

"He's thinking of going to UC-Santa Cruz next semester," Willow explained.

Xander nodded. "It'll do him good to be away from his family."

Willow gave Tara a private look before turning to the rest. "Same for Michael. He'll have money to move out now."

"How is Joyce doing?" Oz asked. He was looking at Giles rather than Buffy.

The Watcher sighed. "She goes to Houston for her initial consult at M.D. Anderson on Thursday. There's a visiting Danish surgeon who does cutting-edge – no pun intended – work on growths in that region of the brain. Apparently there'll be a drug regimen to take to prepare her for the surgery, so if all goes well, they say maybe a week before Thanksgiving."

"And Spike's going down with her?" Xander asked.

"Yes," Buffy answered. "Mom doesn't want us to miss class. Dawn will stay with me. I'll take her to school, but I'll need babysitting help the nights I patrol."

"Isn't she old enough to stay by herself?" Xander asked.

Buffy shot a look at Giles. "I promised Mom," she said simply. It wasn't a lie. She stood up. She had patrol tonight, too.

"Remind Spike that the mayoral debate is next Tuesday," Anya said. She wanted the Master seated prominently and his support for her obvious.

"He's circled the date," Buffy assured her. Spike was currently with his flying instructor, piloting the helicopter at night for the first time. For a vampire, the darkness wasn't going to be a problem.

"The poll numbers look good," Oz said, standing up, too.

"They do," Anya beamed.

As her friends started heading home, Buffy found herself next to Giles. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

"Better. Those first couple of days were rough."

The Slayer gave him a small smile. "Yeah. They were."

⸹

Spike settled into the south corner of the balcony and squinted up at the sky. They were well past the equinox, and the sun wasn't as strong now. It was still one of his favorite times of the day, a way of resting or napping during sunlit hours like a proper vampire, though there was nothing proper about a vampire sunbathing. Tomorrow morning, he and Joyce were flying down to Houston and after that, things would get hectic, so he was going to enjoy the sun while he could. He put in his earphones and began listening to Orff's _Carmina Burana_.

The fifth movement had barely began when he felt the presence of a human. He started to sit up, eyes flying open, just in time to see a short, dark-haired woman blow a fine spray of powder over his naked body.

"Stand up," she told him, and for some reason, he did. "Turn around. Spin. All the way."

Spike did as she ordered, struggling against it. His eyes went to her face as he finished his twirl. Was she really looking for weapons? She was in her early thirties, he judged, shorter than Buffy, beautiful in a polished way. He'd never seen her before, and he had no idea what substance she'd coated him with.

"Did you pose for the Not David?"

What? "No." Dammit, stop following her orders.

"You didn't model for Rubenstein?" His answer hadn't pleased her.

"She did it from sketches." A little more leeway now. _Buffy._

"You are him." The dark-haired woman let out a little breath. She stepped closer and looked up at him, then began running her hands over his body.

 _What's up?_

 _Need you here. I'm hexed, and there's a woman here checking out my muscles like I'm a horse put out for stud._

 _What!?_

"I was an art major for a while," the woman was murmuring. She walked behind him, now trailing her fingers along his spine, then cupping his ass. "You were always my favorite."

Buffy stood at the door of the diner, their usual meeting place, staring in fury at the woman touching her vampire, then turned. As she pushed the doors open, both flew off their hinges.

 _Leaving class now._

 _Thanks, love._

"Do you smoke?"

"Not now."

She reached into her purse and brought out a new package of cigarettes. She tore open the cellophane and foil and tapped out a cigarette. "Hold it, like the statue holds it."

He did so, still unable to refuse. Spike was getting angry with her instead of himself now.

"Perfect," she breathed. She backed up a step and bumped into a glass panel of the balcony railing. "Go inside," she directed.

By now, he could make his feet slow a bit, even though they still complied. Spike walked past the table into the living room area.

"That's good. Stop there. Pose like the statue again."

If his face could flush, it would. Spike nudged his wife through the mindlink, didn't say anything, just left it open.

The dark-haired woman circled around him. At least she wasn't fondling him this time. "Well, Rubenstein did a magnificent job, I have to say." She squatted down and examined his lower half critically. "Your thighs are bigger."

"You saying I have fat legs?" Ah, a little more autonomy.

She looked up at him, surprised. "You'll speak only to answer my questions." Then she looked down again, a little smile on her face. "No, I don't think you have an ounce of fat anywhere."

He knew it was inevitable, but he hated it just as strongly when it happened. "She didn't exaggerate at all, did she?" The woman looked up at him, cupping his balls, stroking a finger along the ridge of his penis. She seemed a little surprised that he had no reaction, involuntary or otherwise.

She backed away and did another slow circuit around him. "Better than I ever dreamed," she said, a little sigh in her voice.

Spike tested the bonds of her spell, flexing against them a little more. Ah. "What's your name?"

Giving him another sharp look, she cautiously replied, "Kara. I'll want you to say that." She inclined her head to the right. "Is there a bedroom?"

"Yes."

She waved a hand. "Go on."

"Kara." He made his voice as smooth and deep as he could, willing her to look at his face instead of his body.

She didn't. "On the bed."

Spike found that he could resist enough to stay still.

"I'm married."

"I don't care." She cocked her head to the side. "Neither should you." She shrugged. "The shaman said that you might be resistant to the powder, but he didn't say it would happen this soon."

Spike felt his worry ratchet up a notch. She wasn't concerned about this.

"How are you able to be in the sun?"

He could lie to her face, now. "Bargain with an angel."

"Fallen?"

"No."

She nodded, taking this in. Then she looked down, again frustrating his efforts to use the mesmer on her, and brought out a jar and a paintbrush from her purse. "It's a shame to mar your color," Kara told him, "but it seems I have to."

She squatted down next to him, took the lid from the jar, and began to draw a circle of some green substance around his wrist. His clenched fist relaxed as she completed the circle. It was a manacle, he realized.

 _Buffy._

 _Almost there._

And then she was, coming through the open doors from the balcony, having left her car and run the last bit on silent feet. She grabbed the woman kneeling before her husband by the hair and hauled her to her feet. The paintbrush flew into the kitchen.

She cried out in surprise and fear. Buffy jerked Kara around to face her, then nailed her with a right cross to the jaw that put the older woman on the floor, unconscious. Fists still clenched, breathing hard, she turned to Spike.

 _Don't touch me. Don't want this powder on you._

Buffy swayed, her momentum already aimed toward him. God, she wanted to take him in her arms. She drew a breath. "Okay. What do you think, shower? Can you move?"

He tried, dragging one foot, stumbling a little. "Yes."

Buffy thought hard. "Wait." She turned to the kitchen and came back with a strip of aluminum foil and a butter knife. She saw the fingermarks trailing through the golden powder on his torso and closed her eyes. Buffy scraped a sample of the powder onto the foil and folded it. Giles or Willow needed to study this. She looked up at Spike, sorrow in her own gaze for the shame in his. "Go on," she said gently. "I'll take care of this bitch."

A few zip ties later, she had dragged the bound woman onto the balcony, leaving her face pressed against a pane of glass so she would wake up to the realization that she was up very high and vulnerable. Then she got some vinyl gloves from under the kitchen sink and went to the bathroom. Spike had managed to get the shower started and was letting the water spray down on his right wrist, his back to her. Buffy could clearly see where the powder on Kara's hand had left a mark on his left buttock.

"That complete bitch," she said, stripping off her shirt. She undid her bra.

 _No disagreement here._

 _How are you feeling?_

 _Like a… puppet, maybe._

She finished disrobing and found a band to tie her hair up high in a knot. Buffy pulled on the bright yellow gloves and opened the glass door. "I'm covered," she said, showing him the gloves. She reached for a mesh bath sponge and squirted a bunch of body wash on it.

 _Oh, good. Now I'll smell of vanilla and brown sugar._

 _Whiner._ She detached the showerhead and sprayed him off. The powder went down the drain in a golden spiral. Buffy started scrubbing. She could feel movement come back into him almost immediately, and he began to help, working on the green mark around his wrist. Buffy moved to his back. Once it was clean, she moved close and put her arms around him, pulling him back to her. _Any idea who she is?_

 _A fan of Silvia Rubenstein's work._

She heard the savage anger behind the mild words, but was too surprised to worry about it. _There are, like, groupies for statues?_

 _I'd say she has a disturbed mind._

Buffy realized he was still working on his wrist and let go of him to grab a bar of Lush exfoliating scrub. "Here, try this."

"That… works great. Thanks… love."

She looked up at him. Even his blinking was slow. She'd been with him through most of it as she ran with Slayer speed through campus to student parking, driving as fast as she could and running two red lights. It usually took about ten minutes to get from school; Buffy thought she had halved that time. _I'm sorry I couldn't get here faster._

 _I'm just glad I could wriggle free enough to contact you._ Something in the band of magic around his wrist seemed to give. Spike had been straining so hard against it that, suddenly free, he smacked backwards into the tile.

"There we go." He scrubbed harder, and when he couldn't see a speck of green, he turned to his wife and pulled her into a soggy embrace. "Thank you. Always riding to my rescue, you are."

"'No matter how far, I will find you,'" she quoted. They'd seen _Last of the Mohicans_ on television over the weekend. Buffy squeezed him tightly. "You rescue me right back, you know."

"Partners," he agreed solemnly.

They finished showering, leaving the contaminated sponge and gloves in the garbage. Buffy's mouth tightened when she saw that Spike had dressed in a long-sleeved shirt instead of his usual tee, a mark of how vulnerable he still felt. She shook her hair loose and waited for him to tie his back. "Ready?"

He nodded. "She's human, I think. No magic of her own."

"Just my luck."

The woman was awake and in pain. "You broke my jaw."

Buffy squatted down next to her. "If I'd broken your jaw, you wouldn't be able to talk this good." She leaned in. "And you're going to talk." The Slayer stood up and brought over a chair. Spike had stayed behind her, practically in the doorway. It wasn't residual fear that kept him there. She sat down and surveyed her prisoner. "Why are you here?"

The supposedly broken jaw moved to a mutinous angle. Buffy sighed. "All right. Your turn."

In less than a second, the vampire was over her shoulder and had the bound woman pulled as far away from the rail of the balcony as the zip ties would allow. Spike stared into her wide, frightened eyes. "You'll speak only to answer my wife's questions," he snarled, dragging her under his control, giving her words back to her, "and you'll speak truth." With a final hard shake, he let go of her and stepped away.

Buffy watched him unconsciously wipe his hands on his jeans before clenching them. He was facing away from them toward the north end of the house. She looked back at the woman. "Why are you here?" she repeated.

"I came to bring Not David to L.A."

Buffy shook her head. After a moment, she managed, "His name is Spike. He is not an object." The hypnosis effect that had taken her will and opened her mind did not seem powerful enough to make her agree with this. "Why L.A.?"

"They need him to sire a vampire."

At this, Spike turned around to exchange a look with Buffy. She shrugged. "Who are 'they?'"

"Wolfram and Hart."

It took about fifteen minutes of questioning, but they pieced together the backstory. Karalyn Reyes worked for the law firm. She'd seen pictures of the new Master, had recognized him as the model for Rubenstein's statue, and volunteered to be the one to bring him to Los Angeles. It was clear that the law firm didn't realize she had her own agenda, but equally clear that she would get credit for bringing him in as their creature to control.

"Who do they want him to sire?"

"I don't know. Some Special Project thing. I don't have clearance."

"How did you know about Spike, then?"

"I'm sleeping with my boss. I thought it would help me make junior partner. I saw the file in his office."

Spike tilted his head. "Holland Manners?" Neither of them was surprised when she nodded.

The blond man took a careful step closer. "How is his hold on power these days?"

She shrugged. "He was in trouble for a while last summer, but that's smoothed over."

Buffy asked a few more questions, then stood up and walked back into the house. Spike followed. "So, what do we do with her?" She held up a hand. "Don't say Hellions. You always say Hellions."

"Make her walk through freshman men's housing, then."

Buffy gave him a look. "That wouldn't be anything she hasn't had to deal every single day of her life." He looked taken aback. "We get groped, leered at, commented on all the time, Spike. You almost get used to it."

He looked away, closing his eyes. He knew that, but since that kind of harassment wasn't usually aimed at him, he never really thought about it.

Buffy put a hand out to rest on his shoulder. "Let's think of it this way: what can we do to her to make you feel powerful again?"

He thought about it. The lawyer had her own plans for him, but she had come to Sunnydale as an agent for Wolfram and Hart. No question that he was going to have to use the mesmer on her, so he could cover her memories of ever seeing any art by Silvia Rubenstein. As for the rest… "Your car at the gate?" When she nodded, he said. "Be back in a bit. I've got to go find that Gurforg demon we killed on patrol."

"Oh, yuck, Spike. That was two days ago."

"Maybe thirty-six hours," he allowed. "You mind roughing her up a bit while I'm gone? Snag her hose, make her look like she's been good and sorted?"

Buffy thought of how the lawyer had asked for the nearest bed. Their bed. "No. I don't mind that a bit."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Karalyn Reyes tottered into the lobby of Wolfram and Hart, holding a box. She stopped at security and took off her Gucci pumps, one of which was missing a heel. She chucked them into a trash bin.

"Ms. Reyes? Are you okay?" one of the guards asked, staring at her face.

She didn't answer, just nodded, and scanned her ID. Once she'd gone through the metal detector, she turned to wait for them to give her the box. The guard looked inside, turned his head away from the smell, then shoved it across to her.

Kara took the box and went to the elevator banks. She went to Holland Manners' office on the thirtieth floor. His secretary started to intercept her, then leaned away. He was in his office with a lawyer who was on the fast track, Linley or Lindsey, something like that.

"Ms. Reyes?" Holland asked. The only thing that gave away that he cared about her at all was his assessing eyes, going over her for injury.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Manners. I'm afraid I failed you. I have a message from the Master of the Order of Aurelius." She put the box on the table in front of him. Holland eyed it with a marked lack of enthusiasm for the gift.

"I'm to tell you that the Master is not granting favors at this time, that there are already too many vampires in the world, and that we aren't welcome in Sunnydale. This," she nodded at the box, "is what our emissaries can expect next time. If there is another attempt to contact him, he'll bring the Lightning of Myhnegon down on this building."

Holland listened to this without expression. The entire right side of Kara's face was a massive, puffy bruise. Her suit was ripped, her shirt torn. It hadn't occurred to her that she could comb her hair, apparently. "Lindsey, open the box."

He did so awkwardly, then let out a low whistle. "Gurforg." He tilted the box so his boss could see the severed head. "I know people who worship these guys."

Manners sighed. "Well, we'll get the other one, then. No need to stir up trouble." He nodded. "Thank you, Lindsey. Take that with you, would you?"

Once the other lawyer was gone, he went to Kara. "Did they hurt you? I thought you said you had a zombie spell."

"I… I was scared."

He looked down at her, then patted her back. "Go down to your office, get a change of clothes. I'll see you tonight, all right?" After she turned and walked out of the office, he picked up his phone. "Hakim? Check the security feed to see which elevator Karalyn Reyes gets into. Take it down to the basement and ask the mindbenders to check her recent memories, would you? Have Gibbs report back right away."

It only took fifteen minutes to get the report. Reyes had her memory wiped by a vampire's mesmer, it seemed, and the underlying memories were of being caught on her knees servicing the Master by a vampiress who had knocked her unconscious. She'd never had the chance to use her spell, apparently.

"Shall we continue?"

Holland didn't answer for a moment. He hadn't wanted to send Kara to Sunnydale, but she asked for the opportunity to deliver the vampire ahead of the seventy-five year review. If the mindbenders dug deeper, they would undoubtedly learn of his affair.

"No. Seal her up, send her back to her office. And Hakim? Thanks for making this a priority."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

Spike collapsed against the pillows, pulling Buffy down with him. He let out the rest of his breath and kissed her along her damp hairline. She had worked up a sweat, moving over him with unusual intensity, even for her. The words 'mine' and 'my love' had been an almost constant loop in her thoughts. "I love you, Buffy."

She listened to the words, the best in all worlds when spoken in that quiet rumble, and tucked her legs around him, wanting to hug him everywhere, wanting to reassure him that she was there. And no one would ever take him from her.

They'd gone to have dinner with Joyce and Dawn earlier to hash out last minute details for her mother's trip to see the specialists at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. As horrible as it was to contemplate that, it was something of the real world, and they were dealing with her mother's illness as proactively as possible. It wasn't until they got home that Buffy broke down.

Spike, of course, thought she was worried over Joyce. Buffy had held onto him, in their bedroom both in reality and in their mindscape, going over all the what-ifs. Her vampire, the one who had actually been threatened, reassured her that nothing could have happened and that the coven could track him within minutes if he had been taken, that Angel would have helped her infiltrate Wolfram and Hart.

 _You shouldn't have –_

 _What, love?_ he asked in the darkness.

 _Should never have had to get used to people touching you without your consent._ Though unuttered, her words were low and fierce.

' _M fine, love._

Buffy closed her eyes. "I love you, Spike.

 _I know you do. I feel it. Don't deserve –_

 _You do. Don't argue with the Slayer._

⸹

Houston, Texas

⸹

"Hey, love." Spike was surprised that she'd used her cell phone to call.

"Hey, sweetie. Dawn's here, and we were wondering if there's any word?"

"Put me on speaker. I'll tell you both what I know." It wasn't much. Joyce was in imaging once again. The surgeon was going to speak with both of them afterwards.

"Oh." Dawn sounded disappointed. "I have to be back at school at five-thirty for practice."

"Homecoming's tomorrow," Buffy said.

"You think Mom will come to see the game?" Dawn asked. The junior varsity dance squad was going to perform, but she was also up for homecoming princess.

"Well, that's why we're not turning around and flying back, so she doesn't get worn out. We'll grab a bite to eat and hit Neiman Marcus, apparently, if she's up for it. Then back to the hotel to rest before flying to Sunnydale in the morning, just like she planned. She won't miss it if she can make it at all."

"How is Houston?"

"Night to day difference from Sunnydale. The docs are great, know their onions, so they don't feel the need to hide behind jargon. They're being very kind to your mum –"

"Mr. Summers?"

"Oh. They're here for me; Joyce must be done. Talk to you soon as we can."

It took less time than expected. Spike and Joyce found an empty waiting room and called Buffy's cell phone.

"Got you on speaker, love. Joyce is with me. Lil' Bit there?"

"Don't call me that."

"Hey, Dawnie. Hey, Buffy." Joyce sounded tired. "So, surgery will be the second Tuesday in November. I have a crazy amount of pills to take until then, and… that's about it. The surgeon was very reassuring. Dr. Grønholt told me just to call her Astrid. Her English is probably better than mine, but I think I got extra points when Spike talked to her in Danish."

"You speak Danish, too?" Dawn said, disgusted.

" _Jeg taler dansk_ ," he agreed. "Only thing I don't speak is middle school Valley girl."

"Freshman. And I am so not a Valley girl," she protested. Then, realizing from the look her sister was giving her that she'd said the wrong thing, she added, "You guys are, like, totally mean."

"How long will you be in Houston for the surgery?" Buffy asked.

"It depends on how it goes," Joyce said, again sounding tired. "At least three days, maybe as long as a week."

Spike, watching her carefully, picked up the phone from the magazine-strewn table. "We'll call you guys from the hotel later, okay?"

"Call after seven," Dawn said, "I'll be through with practice by then."

"I will, honey," Joyce said. "I love you both. Buffy, could you let Rupert know about the scheduling?"

"I will, Mom. I love you."

"Love you, Mom! Bye!"

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Well," Xander said, giving the wide broom another push so he could get a better look at the floor, "I can use a belt sander to get rid of most of it, then mineral spirits, but we'll have to put down polyurethane afterwards to make it kind of match. It will take a day to dry and be cured in a week."

"I d-don't have time to refinish the whole floor," Tara said. She looked exhausted. They had been working at the Magic Box nonstop for nearly four hours.

"It will still look better than a line of old wax on the floors," Xander reassured her.

"Okay." The Scooby gang was helping her put in the new display cases. Moving the old cases had revealed some ugly marks on the floor.

"You know," Anya said, "this whole thing about growing businesses is a lot easier to talk about than it is to do." She put a box of bottled herbs carefully on top of their new home.

The bell over the front door chimed and a young man came in. Anya was nearest. "We're closed right now."

"D-Donny?"

They all looked at Tara, then back at the man at the door. He came inside, his eyes on Tara, then looked around at all of them. "I guess Tara didn't tell you she had a brother."

"W-Willow, this is my brother Donny."

Willow didn't have any of her usual bubbly enthusiasm in evidence. "Hi." It was plenty obvious that Tara had indeed told her about having a brother. Oz moved from where he was breaking down crates with Buffy and Spike so that he was behind Willow. He didn't seem surprised, either.

"A-and these are my fr-friends."

Donny surveyed the Scoobies. "Well, you've got a lot of friends, now."

"How did you find – I-I mean, why are you here?"

"Just wanted to see you, sis."

There was something hard in Tara's eyes. "I-It's not m-my b-birthday yet."

"It will be."

None of them could ignore the menace in those words. Buffy stepped forward, but before she could say anything, Oz spoke. "It wouldn't matter."

His head was lowered, but only those who knew him would understand that it signaled danger. Donnie just saw a short, slight man. He looked at Oz, then at Tara, a disbelieving grin coming across his face. "You got a boyfriend, Tara? And he don't know, does he?" His tone was now triumphant.

Tara's actual significant other spoke up. "He knows. I do, too. We both think it's bullshit." Willow's head lowered, too, her fingers straight instead of loose.

Tara looked down, humiliated by this public confrontation. There was no chance of having a private conversation, with so many of her friends having supernatural hearing. "Donny, there's n-no more money. I sent all that I had, except for what I used to b-buy the shop."

"A magic store," he sneered.

"I w-won't go back."

"I think you will," Donny said softly.

"I think you better leave," Oz said, "now."

Donny looked around at the roomful of people, from the little girl with brown hair and crossed arms to the dark-haired man with the broom, the only one he wouldn't care to fight. "You ain't her family."

"Yes, we are," Buffy said, setting her feet.

Donny ignored her. "Tara, my truck's outside. Go get in it." When she didn't move, he gestured brusquely. "Go on. Don't make me raise my hand."

A snarl burst from Oz, and he was between Willow and Tara and upon Donny before the man could move. "You want to see a real demon?" he asked through a mouth that was suddenly too prominent and teeth that were too sharp. "I'll show you. Gladly."

"Dawn!" Buffy flung herself toward her sister.

"Tranquilizer?" Xander yelled at Giles, putting the broom in his hands into a braced position, checking that Anya was behind him.

"Let him work!" Spike roared. He hadn't moved.

"What the hell!" Donny yelped.

"Get out," Oz growled, something guttural about the syllables. "Don't ever come back."

Donny didn't move, just stared in horror as the white of Oz's eyes became completely dark. "Demons aren't real," he whispered.

Willow turned to catch Tara as she sagged, exhausted and terrified, both of them going to the floor on their knees. Willow's right palm was aimed at Oz. "Don't hurt him," Tara whispered. It was unclear if she was talking to Oz or to Willow.

"Of course we're real," Anya said with absolute calm.

Donny fumbled with the door behind him and stumbled backwards when it opened, catching himself just before he fell. He turned and ran. After a moment, they heard a truck engine start and tires squeal as he peeled out. The whole time, everyone was focused on the young man gripping the doorframe.

"Wait." Spike's voice still held a note of command, even as he went to where Buffy stood with her arms wide in front of Dawn.

At the door, Oz was taking in harsh, painful breaths of air, letting them out in a hiss that sounded nothing like panting. His back, arms, and legs were still human, though his hair was shaggy and his ears were pointed. They all waited, quiet and tense, for the three full minutes it took for him to raise his head and turn around. His human features were again dominant.

"I'm never trying that near the full moon," he said simply. Then he went to where Willow and Tara were sitting on the floor, dropped to his knees, and put his arms around both of them.

"That was… unprecedented," Giles managed. He took off his glasses and fished for his handkerchief.

Oz looked over Willow's head and gave a slow blink. "That talk I had with Spike about transformation… It was useful."

"What was that all about?" Xander asked, going to sit next to Willow.

"Tara's family told her that she'd turn into a demon when she was twenty," the red-haired witch replied, sounding bitter.

"Twenty?" Anya echoed. "Not at puberty?"

"All the w-women in m-my family…" Tara began, then just shrugged. Her hair was over her face. Oz looked helplessly at Willow, then brushed the hair back behind Tara's ear.

"Were told they were demons," Buffy finished, her lip curling in disgust.

"Gotta keep the patriarchy in power," Oz agreed.

"Your brother's face is the patriarchy," Dawn spat. Buffy patted her arm at the attempted insult and successful solidarity.

"Tara," Xander said, "you could have told us, you know."

"I already kn-knew you guys were okay w-with d-demons."

Xander shook his head. "I meant you could have told us about Donny. You've, you know, met my family."

She gave him a tear-filled smile, then bowed her head again.

"I daresay we've earned a break." Giles put his glasses back on. "I don't care where we go, as long as there's alcohol."

"Hear, hear," Xander said, getting back up.

"Thanks, you guys," Tara said, looking around at them without standing up just yet. "I-I mean… thank you."

⸹

Next Chapter: After the election and Joyce's surgery, it's time for a quiet family vacation, though not everyone can or will come along.


	35. Vigil

**Vigil**

⸹

Sunnydale

October 2000

⸹

"Anything you need before going on?" Xander asked. "Tissue? More water?"

"No, I'm good." Before he could turn away, Anya grabbed his arm. "Is my lipstick okay?"

"Your everything is okay," he reassured her, giving her a light kiss on the cheek, "better than okay. Knock 'em dead, sweetheart."

She looked at him blankly. "I don't do that anym – Oh, the colloquial expression. Right. Thanks."

Xander left the wings and went to the seat that Willow was saving for him. The mayoral debate between Anya and her opponent, Lewis Parr, was about to kick off. Xander nodded at Spike, who took this as his cue to pick up the bulky sample case and take it to Anya. His role was to carry it onstage when she was introduced, thus appearing on camera with her. The ex-demon didn't miss a trick, he'd give her that.

Spike had asked Xander what was in the case. The dark-haired man's reply, "About twenty thousand dollars," had concerned him enough that he'd opened it. Inside was just a bunch of bound reports, white papers, and grant proposals instead of bundles of cash to exchange for votes.

"And our other candidate, Miss Anya Jenkins," the moderator, an older white man who anchored local news, announced.

"Bastard," Anya said in an undertone, "using 'miss' like I'm too young or can't land a husband." She plastered on a smile and headed onstage, Spike behind her with the rectangular case. He placed it by her podium, glared directly into the camera as she'd directed, and stalked off the stage.

Once he was back in his seat, Dawn leaned over to whisper, "You looked all Masterful, William." She rolled her eyes.

"I liked it better when you had a crush on me, Bit," he whispered back.

"Hush." She dug a sharp elbow into his ribs. "They're starting."

The first fifteen minutes were boring. Spike was beginning to think Anya had over-prepared for this. Then Parr dinged her with the fact she'd never officially held a job.

Anya nodded to him with a friendly smile and turned back to the camera. "Yes, I thought my _second_ career should be in politics." She gave it a sarcastic edge that would let the statement pass as a lame joke, but half the population of Sunnydale would understand that she was, after all, Anyanka of Arashmaharr. She pivoted into her talking points.

He tried again a few minutes later, ending his answer about his accomplishments in Sunnydale with the rather brutal, "What have you ever done?"

She graced him with another smile. "Sunnydale is in the midst of a financial crisis and has been for two years. I could ask you the same."

Xander leaned over and whispered to Spike, "I have such a hardon right now."

Spike touched his temple to Xander's and whispered back, "I take it you mean you have pride in her as a poised and intelligent woman?"

"Sure, that too."

Anya had come to her show-and-tell and opened the case. "Unlike Mr. Parr, I have a plan to revive the city and enhance our ability to generate revenue at the same time. The day after I take office, I'll submit this grant to the Urban Renewal Office, 'Environmental Stability and Green Space in Sunnydale, California.' The money will go to update water and sewage and to plant flowering shrubs that need less water. This is another grant proposal to the state tourism council, 'Sunnydale: Remedying tourism underachievement of a beachside small city.' This will help put in places throughout the town where tourists can sit after we set up walking trails on existing sidewalks. This one," she brought out another grant proposal, "goes to the telecommunications board. We don't have very good cell service in Sunnydale, which makes no sense with all the hills available for towers."

She pulled out other studies that she'd commissioned, paying for them with her own money: how a city could best change its reputation, what kinds of tourists were most likely to come to a quaint beach town, what was needed to draw new businesses to the area. The last thing she pulled out had a black cover.

"And this one," she said, her voice cracking, "is an emergency plan for earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, tsunamis, and terrorist attacks. We currently have plans for none of these." She brandished the report, making the bright lights flare off the gold lettering, then laid it on the lectern and gripped the sides. "Not a single emergency plan for anything that could strike Sunnydale. None of the people in the Wilkins' administration, including Lew Parr, ever had a plan to save the children and parents and grandparents we lost at Sunnydale High School in 1999. Now they want to rebuild the school in the same damn spot." She'd message-tested this and found that it was her strongest campaign plank, and also found that the single profanity would be forgiven by the voters and make her seem more genuine.

"If I'm elected, nothing goes there except a memorial marker. The children of our town will be educated somewhere safe."

Around them, applause rose up for the first time from the audience. The moderator shushed them. Xander leaned over to Spike once more. "And Anya just won her first election."

⸹

"Oh, look at you all!" Joyce gushed. She held up her camera. "Giles, just look at them!"

"You look, er, very authentic," he offered as Joyce took pictures of Dawn, Buffy, and Spike in their Halloween costumes.

Dawn had chosen the theme of her all-time favorite movie, _The Princess Bride_. Spike was, of course, the man in black, a given with his blond hair clubbed back in a queue and his fencer's build. He wore a mask and a black silk shirt, as well as a sword buckled at his hip. Buffy was gowned as Buttercup, though she secretly had on Supergirl underwear, just in case of magic spells.

Dawn was wearing a dark wig in a pageboy shape and a fake moustache, costumed as Inigo Montoya. She awkwardly withdrew her own rapier from her swordbelt. "Cross blades with me, Spike. Ready, Mom?"

Buffy unsuccessfully hid a smile from her husband. They were going with Dawn, who had been roped into the same babysitting role for trick-or-treaters that Principal Snyder had once foisted on her. "You have to say it, you know," she prompted.

"'You killed my father,'" Dawn began, and her sister sent a glance to Giles. He managed to smile at her. "Prepare to die!"

 _At least she isn't going as a sexy fire hydrant or something._

Buffy sighed. _Probably her last year as a kid instead of a co-ed._

⸹

November 2000

⸹

Buffy sighed and shifted. The group was meeting tonight at the Magic Box for the first time. Tara had left the back room for spare inventory, and Giles had negotiated a lease for shelving so that his library didn't have to be in storage anymore. Tara also put in secondhand sofas and easy chairs and added a refrigerator. She had a flair for using light to create moods, and the floor lamps made it seem cozy.

Even with the soft cushions beneath her, Buffy's body ached. The battle with the woman who wanted the Key had left her in a lot of pain for a lot longer than normal. "So, on the upside, I got to go to the zoo for the first time since I was a sophomore" – Xander cringed a little at the hyena memories – "and the Scythe lops her head right off."

The Slayer shifted to another position that was, for the moment, less painful. "On the downside, I've already dropped a house on her, and she came back. And her creepy little minions got away with both pieces of her."

"Well, you got to the reptile house before she transformed any of the snakes," Anya said. "That was good. Those are expensive to replace."

"We have her image from Tara's security feed, too," Willow added.

"If she comes back again," Giles mused, "that will be a good indication that she's a true demon, not a hybrid. I've read those can heal after being beheaded."

"At least she gave me a name."

"Right, Glory," Xander said, "and from your description, her minions shouldn't be hard to spot."

"And n-now I kn-know n-not to s-sell her m-magic items," Tara added in a small voice.

Willow rubbed her back. "You didn't know, sweetie." Tara had privately admitted she was a little overwhelmed by the glamorous, gorgeous façade. "Why does this Glory keep showing up in Sunnydale, anyway? Is this another Hellmouth thing?"

Buffy and Giles regarded each other for a long moment. The Watcher lifted a shoulder, leaving it up to her. She sighed and shifted again. "We know why she's here. She's looking for an ancient energy that can be used as a Key to open portals to other dimensions, including the one where she's from. And we already have the Key." She took a breath and told the story, apologizing for not telling sooner, then fell quiet.

"You don't need to apologize," Willow said, her brows drawn together. She exchanged a look with Xander, who was too stunned to speak. "I mean… how did you even process that? Dawn's not real?"

"She's real." Buffy gave up on sitting and stood up, stretching her back. "She's just a normal teenager, as far as she knows."

"Your Mom doesn't know?" Oz asked. He was seated next to Willow on the end of that couch and had been quiet through the meeting.

"We didn't know how to tell her," Giles said wearily, "not right now." He stood up, too. "Dawn actually is her daughter. We gathered DNA samples from Joyce, Dawn and Buffy and sent them off for analysis. Dawn's blood and Buffy's blood are identical; the lab sent the results back and told us we'd sent them duplicates from the same person by accident. I did the same test on Dawn as I did on Spike when he returned from Africa. She has a soul."

Tara sat up suddenly. On Willow's other side, so did Oz, as if a packmate had set up an alarm. "Oh."

"Oh, what, sweetie?" Willow asked.

"B-B-Buffy's aura and Sp-Sp-" She gave up and took a breath, grimacing in frustration. Willow took her hands. "August, m-m-maybe S-september, your auras were sm-smaller." Tara gritted her teeth. "I-I d-didn't see Joyce's, s-s-so I d-don't kn-know…."

"They vary naturally, though," Willow said, rejecting this line of thought.

Tara nodded vigorously. "Gr-grief, loss diminishes you, b-but you recover over time. I d-didn't mention it, didn't w-want to intrude."

Xander leaned forward and clasped his hands. "What you're getting at… These monks took part of Buffy and Spike's souls, and maybe Joyce's, and gave it to this Key?"

The Slayer closed her eyes for a moment. She had never managed to stop loving her sister, not even the moment she'd found out it was all a massive hoax. "I don't know how souls and auras work, but I'm not worried. I feel the same as I always have." She pushed her hair back and tried sitting on the couch again. She needed to sit because what had just occurred to her nearly knocked her off her feet. Both she and Spike were more than human, but her Mom….

"The monks' goal was to give the Key to the most powerful protector on the planet," Giles was saying, "and make her… motivated to provide that protection. Of itself, the Key isn't good or evil."

"Giles, Tara," she made herself ask, "if the monks took part of Mom's soul, could that be why she's sick now?"

There was a long silence. Tara broke it.

"No. Magic can only do so much to heal a human; it doesn't make sense to me that anything but a spell cast intentionally could harm one." Her words held no trace of a stutter.

Willow gazed at Tara, wishing she had that kind of bone-deep surety in her own ability. Tara had her own gentle magic since she was born. Sometimes she knew basic things that Willow had never learned, since no witch bothered writing them in books.

Anya was staring into middle space, thinking. "I've hexed plenty of men with diseases," she mused, "but I've never run across a spell that works by taking part of their soul."

"Tara? Would you mind telling me how I look now?"

The blond witch shook her head and concentrated on Buffy's aura. "Wh-hole, maybe a little smaller than the first time I met you. I-I can tell you're worried." The Slayer gave her a smile and let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"So that's why Spike is at your Mom's house tonight. Even if it wasn't the Dawnster," Xander said, "we can't let this Glory have a key that will open a door to a hell dimension – it has to be a hell dimension, right? – into ours." He took a breath. "So, we have to protect it anyway."

"Giles? I was going to tell you this after the meeting, but I might as well tell you now. While we were at the hospital here in Sunnydale with Mom, waiting for them to do her bloodwork, there was a crazy person that seemed to recognize that Dawn isn't your average girl. She blew it off, but one of the interns said there are a lot of crazy people showing up."

"In Sunnydale?" He raised an eloquent eyebrow.

"Not the usual kind, some kind of crazy the doctors can't fix."

"I'll look into it, as well as what I can find out about 'Glory.'"

⸹

"… Your source for local news," the announcer said.

"Hush!" Andrew said, frantically pressing the volume button on the television.

Anya Jenkins campaign headquarters, an empty storefront she leased for three months, was full of desks, with people crammed into the narrow spaces between. She looked around; several of her volunteers were still chattering, unable to hear Andrew. So she put her fingers to her mouth and gave a piercing whistle. "Returns are in!"

"…what looks like a higher than normal turnout at polling places. With seventy percent of the votes counted in the mayoral race, Anya Jenkins has 54% of the vote, with Lew Parr having 45%."

Cheers rang out throughout the room. Xander picked her up and spun her around before giving her a loud kiss. "First time I've ever kissed a mayor!" he crowed.

"Though we've all been screwed by one," Giles said _sotto voce_ to Joyce. Although she had legitimate reason to smile, she covered her mouth anyway and elbowed him.

One of the phones on the desk behind Anya rang, and she shushed everyone before answering. "Hey." She listened for a moment, nodding, then asked, "And that's it?" "Thanks! And thank you for all your hard work."

When she hung up, she turned to the room at large. Xander grabbed her once again and lifted her onto the desktop so everyone could see her. "That was Greg at City Hall. They've finished the count." She beamed around at everyone. "Five thousand, one hundred and seventeen votes for Jenkins, 4396 for Parr. All votes are in!" The new mayor put her arms in the air in a victory pose.

"You think he'll call to concede?" a volunteer in the back asked, one of several graduates of the 1999 class of Sunnydale High who served on her campaign.

"It's a norm of the American political system," Anya said, nodding. "If he doesn't, I'll make sure everyone knows."

"Reporters are here," Xander warned, low, as he helped her down. She was wearing a smart suit that wasn't meant for squatting or leaping.

"Let's give them something to photograph," she grinned, giving him another big kiss. Then she called for her volunteers to come forward. Dawn was the first in line.

Willow was shaking her head in admiration. "She really did it."

Buffy, tucked against Spike, grinned at her. "The rest of us had better get on it."

⸹

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Mom? You won't get too tired out?"

"I think it is. Sit down, Buffy." Joyce joined her on a barstool at the kitchen's island. "I just want to go ahead and have Thanksgiving dinner now. It will work great with Anya's victory party.

"I'm perfectly happy with you doing most of the cooking – I heard you did a great job while Dawn and I were in Illinois last year. And I'm not just trying to get out of cooking." She drew a breath. "The doctors say that it can take a whole year after brain surgery before you start to feel like yourself again. I want this holiday now, while I feel myself. Okay?"

Buffy nodded, blinking back tears, and leaned forward to hug her mother. "Whatever you want," she managed.

"Well, I want you to not worry," Joyce replied, smoothing hair from her daughter's face, "but I know I can't stop you. Just help me keep things as normal as possible for Dawn."

"I will." She wiped her eyes. "Mom, I just wanted you to know that I'm glad for you and Giles. I really haven't said anything about it."

"No, you just accepted it. I thought that was nice." Joyce sighed. "Not that there is much 'kissage' going on right now."

"Speaking as a daughter, I'm down with that." Buffy gave her a wry smile. "Speaking as a fellow woman of the world, I'm very sorry."

Joyce giggled, a sound Buffy hadn't heard in a while. "There's something to be said for Englishmen."

"Agreed."

"I love this," Joyce said abruptly, her tone fierce. "Lucid days like this. I cannot wait to be back to myself all the time."

She had to turn her face away to hide the anguish and renewed tears. "I can't either."

 _Love?_ A small caress in her mind.

 _Thanks. It's just, I'm with Mom._

 _Ah._ Another small caress, and he was gone.

"Oh, Buffy." Joyce took her by the shoulders. "Speaking of lucid, I have asked you to cover the gallery on Thursday afternoons, right? Maggie's day off?"

"Yes, you did." Buffy cleared her throat and accepted the change in topic.

⸹

"Maybe I should take judo," Dawn said thoughtfully. She and Spike had gone to Dutton with Xander to watch him test for his brown belt. Now they were on their way to In-and-Out Burger.

"In your spare time?" Xander asked, teasing her a little.

"I'm not that busy," she said, skipping a little. "I mean, there's probably a couple hours each day where nothing's scheduled."

The vampire snorted. "Except texting and conditioning your hair and doing your nails and mooning over boys named Jesse and Josh and Ryan and Freddie and… did I already say Justin?"

"I think you did," Xander said. He was watching Dawn, something painful in his eyes.

"Well, they're cute," Dawn said practically. "Mom says they're unobtainable and therefore perfect training-wheels crushes. Besides, I know for a fact that you used to crush so hard on Alicia Silverstone. And Buffy."

"Let's see," Spike mused. They were almost to his truck, and he hit the key fob. "Who else did you use to have a crush on? Started with X, I remember right."

"You probably don't," Dawn sassed, "since you're so old." She put on a burst of speed and ran to the truck, her brown hair swinging.

Xander smiled, glancing over at the chuckling vampire before looking at the teenager. He was glad this was his first time with the Dawnster since Buffy had dropped the news about the Key. He wasn't sure he could have acted normal if he'd had to spend time alone with her.

Spike saw him staring at her shape through the rear window. "You did really well on your test," he said, changing the unspoken topic. "I think you'll pass. I know you'd pass if they could have seen you on Wednesday with those two vampires outside the sushi place."

⸹

Buffy walked around the bedroom, checking for anything she'd overlooked before heading back into Sunnydale to stay with Dawn. Her mom and Spike were on a plane to Houston. The surgery was tomorrow, and she, Dawn, and Giles had tickets to fly down on Friday afternoon for the weekend. She and Dawn were supposed to not miss school. Giles, she supposed, was just supposed to not miss Joyce. Buffy stopped her circuit and found herself beside Spike's closet.

The night she'd been postponing had passed, the first night they hadn't made love. Her mother had said – well, the growth in her brain had made her say mean things as they were all gathered around the Thanksgiving table. The worst of it was when she'd told Dawn that she didn't belong and screamed at her to get out. Buffy had taken Joyce upstairs, almost by main force, and gotten a couple of pills into her. There had been more verbal abuse before they took effect. She'd gone back downstairs and found everyone silently cleaning up the kitchen. Xander had made a lame joke about a Harris kind of Thanksgiving, and she'd comforted her frightened sister as best she could. She'd stayed in her old bedroom that night, huddled against Spike, crying in her best silent manner, before falling into exhausted sleep.

He was gone now, where he needed to be, but, oh, she needed him here with her, too. Buffy opened his closet door and stepped inside, breathing in his scent. When they first moved in, everything in his closet consisted of black fabric in various stages of weathering: jeans faded to charcoal, t-shirts brownish from ill-advised laundering, most of it shrunken and a bit too small. Now there were garment bags with his suits and tuxedo, crisp dress shirts in white and blue, even a single pair of khakis she'd persuaded him to buy by telling him they made his ass look amazing.

Buffy took the leather coat she'd bought him from its hanger and hugged it to her. The past couple of months had been like the time they'd tried just dating and living separate lives. Both of them were miserable. She slipped into the coat on impulse, finding one side heavier than the other. She slid her hand into the left pocket and came out with a dagger. As she drew it out, a slip of paper fell to the floor. Picking up the rumpled sheet, she recognized Spike's elegant handwriting.

⸹

As the wave rises to meet me

Slapping against my skin, I rise.

Emerging from foam and darkness

I stand and become Poseidon's eyes.

⸹

Slicing the polished glass of sea,

As the wave rises to meet me,

Listening for Triton to wind the conch

Weight shifting across wood agilely.

⸹

Compensating again against

The cold and implacable

As the wave rises to meet me,

Alone, aware it is unmerciful.

⸹

Salt stings my slices and my eyes.

Chasing the chance to be a deity,

I turn from safety on land

As the wave rises to meet me.

⸹

"Oh." She put her fingers to her mouth, smiling a little at this proof of her poet's soul. It was in quatern form; she remembered that from her spring semester poetry class. The word 'agilely' was boxed and other words had been crossed out and replaced. Some of it was clunky, but it was a working draft for a solid, evocative poem about surfing.

 _Spike?_

 _Hey, love. Over New Mexico, I think. Your mum's asleep._

 _I miss you. I'm wearing your coat._

He got enough sense of her emotions that he didn't ask if it was all she was wearing. _Bet you look cute._

 _I found your poem about surfing. It was an accident. I hope you're not mad._

' _Course not. It isn't very good, I'm afraid._

 _It is pretty good, actually. I mean, I couldn't write anything like this. You've impressed your wife._

 _Well, then, that covers it. You're the only one I want to impress._

 _You told me you're a bad poet._

There was a pause. _I can't write love poetry, so of course that's what I had to do. But… I've written one or two that weren't awful, maybe._

She felt the dreamscape around her change from their balcony to a Victorian room that looked to her eyes like it was in a palace. Spike – no, William was standing beside an old woman with a cane and terrifyingly correct posture, reciting a poem. She couldn't hear the words, but somehow she knew it was about a horse race. The faces of the rest of the people seated around the room were intense or rapt or some word that connoted concentration. They were imagining scenes to go with his words, she realized.

 _That was the highlight of my career as poet._ They were together on the balcony, the sun setting orange before them.

 _I love it when you share memories like that._

 _Me, too. Wish I could ice skate like you – it felt like flying, love._

They stayed quiet for a few moments, just holding each other and watching the sunset, Spike in an airplane seat with his eyes closed, Buffy leaning against the doorframe of his closet, her leather-clad arms hugging herself.

⸹

"Mr. Giles?"

He looked up, blinking, at Tara's soft voice, the book in his lap forgotten. "Just 'Giles' will do, Tara. It's what everyone else calls me." Except Joyce.

"Um, thanks. I-I will." She was poking her head through the door to the back room of the Magic Box, where he had been most of the day, sorting through boxes of his books. "Do you want some lunch?"

Giles checked his watch. Incredibly, it was eight minutes since he'd last checked it. Joyce's doctors believed her surgery would end in the early afternoon – and thank goodness they hadn't just had to close up and admit defeat right away – and Houston was two hours behind. Any time now.

"Giles?" Tara repeated his name, her voice soft and sympathetic.

He forced a smile. "Of course."

"Willow just got here with Chinese food."

He ended up gathered around the counter with the two witches and Michael Czajak, who was taking the afternoon shift so Tara could go to class. Giles listened absently to the three coven members talk for a while before the conversation got his attention.

"What was the question, Michael?" he asked, chopsticks with a chunk of green curry chicken halfway to his mouth.

The dark-haired young man frowned. "I asked Willow if she thought it was Ms. Calendar?"

Willow put a hand out and laid it gently on Giles' shoulder. "No. It didn't feel like her at all. When I cast that first spell, nothing happened. The second time, when I was," she made a mouth, clearly not happy with the word, "possessed, it was by an older woman. I've always thought it was the spirit of the same witch who first cursed Angelus."

Tara, watching Giles with sharp eyes, made a show of noticing a passerby. "And… no, another potential customer walks on." She gave meaningful looks to the other two coven members. "I'm kind of glad it's slowed down after Halloween. This w-way I have a chance to restock before W-winter Solstice and Christmas."

"I'm just glad to get in the hours," Michael said, "busy or not. I can't tell you have wonderful it is to have my own place."

Giles tuned out their voices again. He was a fool. After mourning Jenny, he'd been an idiot to ever risk his heart again. Jenny, so fun and provoking and full of life… And now Joyce, who was so serene, except he knew how to look for her saltiness and passion, who could always make him laugh with her sly, unexpected humor… Cancer was more of a bastard than Angelus could ever hope to be, eating away at her identity. At least it had been quick for Jenny.

But not for me. Mourning Joyce, too… I should never have dared for anything beyond a wistful moment or two with Olivia, at the end of her visits. This is too –

His cell phone rang. Giles froze. He let the chopsticks fall as he fumbled in his pocket. For two more rings, he could only look at it. Spike was calling.

"Yes?"

"They got it all, Rupes. No metastases, minimal damage." His voice sounded both raw and jubilant.

"Let me put you on speaker," he said in a shaky voice. "Willow, Tara, and Michael are…" Oh, say it again.

"The doctors say they got all of it. Because she didn't have any weakness in her limbs and it wasn't growing that fast, she doesn't have to have chemo or radiation therapy. Lots of MRIs in her future, but just for monitoring."

"Spike?" Willow said quickly, before he could go on. "This is all good news, right?"

"All of it." He laughed, a shaky sound. "I have to call Xander and the folks at the gallery, so I need to –"

"Have you seen her?" Rupert asked quickly. "Talked to her?"

"Not yet. She's in recovery. I just spoke to the docs, called you lot right after I spoke to Buffy and the Bit."

He stood holding the phone after Spike rang off. Willow touched his arm again.

"Giles? You all right?"

Nodding, he gave her a real grin. "I am. Er, I'll be back in just a moment." He touched his abdomen and gave them a vaguely apologetic look, then went to the bathroom. Inside, he leaned over the sink and sobbed as quietly as he could.

⸹

 _Spike._

He jerked as he woke, the echo of the word in his mind.

 _Angel?_

 _Are you alone?_

He rubbed his face. _I'm with Joyce. She's asleep._

There was a pause. _You're at the hospital?_

 _In Houston, yeah._

 _I thought the surgery was last week._

 _Almost two weeks ago. She's had bleeding on the brain. They're keeping her until she's clear, so I'm staying. Better that any complications crop up while she's still here._

 _Oh. I hadn't heard._

 _Willow must not have been in touch with Cordelia. Holidays, finals, I guess._ He sat up in the dimness of Joyce's hospital room. The chair reclined; he'd slept on worse over the years. Spike started to say that it was good to hear from him, but since it had been months, there had to be a reason for Angel to contact him. _What's wrong?_

Angel put a hand over his eyes. What could he say? He'd driven off his friends? Darla had been alive and human, and he'd lost the woman who might well be the love of his life? Maybe he could start with, 'Remember that submarine?' Sam Lawson blamed him for siring him wrong, somehow, and had jumped at the chance to sire Darla. Or, he could skip that part and ask Spike to come help him track down two dangerous vampires. He could simply tell Spike that he needed him, needed him to hold him or kick him or both.

The most efficient thing would be to ignore the man who was closest to being his brother and simply ask the Master two kill two Aurelians who would not kneel. The Master would surely have to leave Houston for that.

 _Angel, what's wrong?_

 _Nothing. Hope Joyce gets better soon._

⸹

December 2000

⸹

"Mom is home, Mom is home," Dawn said, galloping down the stairs.

Giles twisted around on the couch and pushed the curtain back. "Did they call?"

"Nope. I saw the car turn onto Revello." She dashed out the door, leaving it open. Giles followed her nearly as fast, though he did shut the door behind him. It was one of those California winter days where the sun was bright and intense, but the temperature had not quite hit sixty. More people had put up wreaths and other Christmas decorations than he ever remembered seeing, as if they were all celebrating Joyce's return.

Spike passed the driveway, then backed in so that Joyce would have a clear walk to the door. Buffy was already out of the back and waiting to lend her mother a hand by the time Joyce opened her door.

She stood up and looked at her house and around the neighborhood, then focused on Giles and Dawn. With Buffy's hand at her back, she held out her arms. Dawn was already crying when she went into them.

"I missed you so much, and I'm so glad you're back. I love you, Mommy." She, Buffy, and Giles had flown down to Houston each weekend, but until the last trip, Joyce hadn't been well enough for the visits to amount to anything but more promixal misery.

"I love you, too, my little punkin belly."

"You look good! I like the hairstyle"

"Spike says it's very new wave." Her surgical team had decided the best approach was from low on her skull; they'd left her hair above her ears. Part of the recovery time had included a hairdresser who worked regularly with cancer patients. Except for the bandage covering the stitches, Joyce looked like she was rocking a buzz cut with long strands left to fall over her forehead.

"You'll need some new clothes. No way that will work with your business suits."

"Yes it will, with the right pair of earrings."

Dawn turned away, a big smile on her face, and Giles moved up to take Joyce in a more careful embrace. "How are you after the flight?" He hoped his hug told her how much he'd missed her and how glad he was to have her back.

"Same as I was before," she said wanly, "tired." She looked around at the brown winter grass of the neat lawns of the neighborhood and sighed. "But really, really glad to be back home. I feel like I've been gone forever."

"We feel the same." Buffy smiled at her mother and turned to help her husband with the luggage.

⸹

"Hey, B."

"You look festive."

"Some missionaries or something brought us these Santa hats. We got little tubes of shampoo and lotion and, like, oranges for a Christmas present." Faith shrugged. "Breaks up the monotony."

"Did the package I sent make it through?"

"Yeah. Yay, chocolate. And a book of poems, thank you so much."

"Emily Dickinson is awesome. And the thing is, you only have to read one little poem, then you can stop and ponder it all day and be deep."

"Yeah, deep don't mean much in here."

Buffy grew serious. "How are you doing?"

"Honestly? I'm getting a little stir-crazy being in stir."

The blond Slayer considered her. "If you were… up for parole, how do you think you would handle it?"

Faith seemed to be in a serious mood today, because her answer was brutally honest. "That scares the shit out of me."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

Faith shrugged. "Maybe." Something occurred to her and she almost winced. "How's your mom?"

"She's better, thanks for asking. She goes back for a checkup in January, then one every three months for a year. Annual screenings after that."

Faith nodded. "I never, you know… got a chance to tell her I'm sorry." Joyce had always been kind, something she had a hard time accepting at face value.

"Well, fortunately, you still have that chance."

"Not anytime soon. But you could, you know, pass it along."

"I will." They regarded each other through the glass with, if not warmth, cordiality.

A little concern showed around Faith's eyes. "Anything big going on in the real world?"

"I got some kind of demon who won't stay dead and who's after a way to open a hell dimension. She's stronger than I am and dresses like she works a corner on South Wilkins Avenue."

Faith snorted, but she still looked concerned. "What about in L.A.?"

Buffy shook her head. "I couldn't say. Willow hacked Wol – um, that law firm that was interested in you," the blond Slayer looked over her shoulder at the guard who walked by, "and Angel got his panties in a twist. You know how he is, not wanting anyone else to be a target."

"He hasn't been to see me in a couple of months," Faith admitted.

"That's weird." Buffy was frowning, too.

Faith shrugged it off. "So, you still riding the big kitty?"

"I… I'll take the fifth, 'cause I'm not sure what you mean."

"I saw the video. There's a few half-demons in here who were talking about the Count getting dusted. I get Internet privileges in the library for my classes, so I hunted it down."

Buffy wrestled with her smile and tucked it away. "No. Either Spike can be a kitty, or he can keep his wife happy. He doesn't have enough energy to do both." Particularly not when he's also trying to heal because part of his soul was given to my sister.

"Yeah, he looked wiped when he was on top of that gravestone, after the smoke." Faith leaned forward. "What was that cat thing?"

"Like a cave lion. He'd been to the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. There was this fossil of an extinct thing called an American lion that apparently made a big impression." Buffy shrugged. "He was going for a cougar. Dracula doesn't – didn't do a stand-up fight, so he wanted to be able to pin him for me."

"Was that our Scythe?"

"It was. Good in a fight."

There was a gleam in Faith's eyes. "God, I miss it. I don't even know, B. When I get out, I am going to be so rusty."

Buffy gave her a narrow look. "I thought prison was all lifting weights and beating up other people in the yard."

"Yeah, they really don't like it when you fight," Faith said. "It's like half a percent of adrenalin, one percent eating, and the rest is trying to chop up all this time into manageable chunks. It's a lot of time listening to women crying at night because they miss their kids. It's a lot of time alone in your own head." She took a breath. "At least in women's prison. They won't let me go to the men's." She made herself give Buffy a lascivious smile.

Buffy glanced over her shoulder at the guard again so Faith wouldn't see her expression. When she looked back, she had a smile on her own face. "You, in a men's prison? You'd be running the place inside a day."

⸹

Spike took a breath and made his grip on his phone relax. He knew he was standing on a thin ledge, ignoring Angel's insubordination. The great poof was likely going to push him off the edge. Slow as the git was on the uptake, he probably wouldn't take into account that Spike could get to L.A. in a helicopter far faster than in a car, too fast for his temper to cool.

Still, Angel had called when he was in Houston. And Spike wanted all his family for Christmas. He hit speed dial for Angel's mobile.

No answer.

Spike tried the office number and got a recording. Instead of leaving a message, he texted Angel: 'Call ASAP, Aurelian.'

He sighed, looking down at the phone in his hand that made no sound.

⸹

Oz closed the door to his dorm room. He'd never lived in a dorm before this semester, and he wasn't going to miss it. The Dingoes were touring through April. Their independent record label didn't have deep pockets, and if the merchandise didn't sell, the band would end up owing money. But the video they'd done for 'I Shouldn't Want You' was popular and the song was at twenty on the charts and still climbing. It would probably be their biggest success.

He hadn't enrolled for spring. Whenever he came back to college, he'd be a junior and would need to declare a major. The Dingoes tour was one last chance to be free of responsibility before facing adulthood. There was no way around making choices, and with every choice you made, doors slammed shut and alternate paths disappeared. You couldn't be a working musician and also get a doctorate in theoretical physics; one of those lifestyles required too much structure. But he could always go to college.

In a way, it was easy. Oz knew he didn't have another song like 'I Shouldn't Want You' in him. The tune was based on what he remembered of the song that had nearly pulled him from Angel's boat. He could write music, but not music like that. So, the Dingoes would have a big hit, maybe a couple of minor hits, and their sophomore album would tank because it would a lackluster, unimaginative record. This didn't make him sad or bitter; it was the story of most bands that managed to break onto the charts. Few bands had the longevity of the Who. Devon dreamed of rock stardom, but Oz mostly just wanted other musicians to respect him, to think his music was cool.

Oz was proud of the song. He had translated the sounds for humans, something few other beings could have done. It wasn't a note-by-note reprise, rather a recreation of the feeling of longing. And maybe the real reason he could write it was because he longed for something he couldn't have. On the thought, he pressed the elevator button. Time to leave Sunnydale.

Oz put the two boxes he was carrying in his van and got into the driver's seat. He put on his sunglasses and took a moment to see where he'd been: staid brick building, third floor up, second window over, nice campus, third-rate school.

The whole semester had been a roller coaster. When he was with Willow, he was just simply happy, basking in her presence. When he was with Tara, he was fascinated by everything about her, how she was like a flower that shyly closed one petal every time another one opened, never fully revealing herself. Beneath her subdued beauty was pain and steel, and that had redoubled his fascination.

When he was with both Tara and Willow, when they happily let him into their charmed circle, he felt like a jerk. They were so good together. In Willow, Tara had someone who just got her on a cellular level. Willow never had to pry to get Tara to open for her. And Willow had someone who grounded her, who would never hurt her.

When he was alone, he ached.

It was clear what he had to do. There would be pretty girls at the shows who'd want to meet him. There would be bungee jumps and great barbeque places and interesting musicians to meet. There would be plenty of distractions. And after the tour, Oz figured that MIT was probably far enough away.

He reached for the gear stick just as his cell phone rang. Because it was the Hellmouth, he answered. "Spike. What up?"

"Nothing, for a change. I saw the tour schedule has a few empty days at the end of December. Just wanted to let you know I have a room for you at Squaw Valley at Christmas. I didn't want to mention it before, what with things with Joyce being unsettled, but Buffy's been wanting to take everyone skiing."

"Thanks. I'll probably see my family."

"Right. Still, room's there any day you want to see your other family, if you can manage it."

Oz closed his eyes. "Text me the deets."

"Will do. Break a leg and all that."

"I won't say the same, since you'll be skiing."

⸹

"Spike, are you doing anything for the next hour or so?"

Spike was laying in the lounge chair on the balcony, pretending the winter sun was as warm as spring, summer, or autumn sun. He was not wearing earphones and never slept out here anymore. "Nothing," he told Xander.

"Meet me at the mall food court?"

"Yeah, that's not much incentive for me to get dressed."

"So, come naked. It's a slow news day. I'd love to see mall security try to arrest you."

By the time he finished glaring at the phone, the whelp had rung off. It was a workday, so he figured Xander wanted him for something that would fit into a lunch hour.

He spotted Xander's dun pants and plaid shirt standing out amid the red and green that most of the matronly mallgoers were wearing. "Here for a Panda Express fix?"

"No, though I wish I'd thought of that before I had a slice." There was an empty, triangular pizza box on his knee. He gestured at the tiny stool affixed to the equally tiny table. "Have a seat."

"I think my arse is too big," he scoffed, even as he sat.

"So. You're, you know, old and stuff. You know anything about gemstones?"

"Uh… we sell them occasionally?"

Xander sighed. "I need you to help me pick out a ring for Anya."

Spike leaned back, grinning. "Well, well, well. The X-man is gonna pop the question. Good on you, mate. Congratulations."

Xander stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Déjà vu."

Spike met his gaze and raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, me, too."

"So not helpful," Xander groused. "I need a vision of Anya saying, "Oh, Xander, I love it!"

Spike chuckled at his impression of a woman's happy voice. "Yeah, other than kind of giving you collywobbles, pretty useless." He put an elbow on the table, nearly crowding Xander's drink cup off of it. "You really ready for this, mate?"

"I think so." He tapped the empty box against his knee for a moment. "No, I know so." He met Spike's gaze. "See, I'm an average Joe, right? I was super unlucky with the ladies, until I suddenly was super lucky. Cordelia and Faith, right? Two gorgeous women. Terrifying, but gorgeous. Then that weird little blip with Willow. Again, gorgeous and way out of my league.

"And then Anya came along, and for whatever teenaged hormonal reason, she liked me. Gorgeous and terrifying at a whole 'nother level. But she's just not good with people. She's an excellent politician, it turns out, but with her, I actually have something to offer. I mean love, of course, but… I get her. I think it's kind of sweet, how awkward she is. I mean, I'm awkward all the time, too. She's amazing, but she doesn't seem out of my league." He said this last in a soft voice. Spike was grinning at him. "What?"

"I'm so glad I made it to the twenty-first century and the age of the sensitive man," he said. He was still smiling, but his words were sincere. "You just flat out said you were in love and don't expect to get teased for it. It's a new era."

"Well, it's just me," Xander said depreciatingly. "Probably doesn't count for much."

Spike scoffed and changed the subject. "I can tell a quality gem from a crap one. How much do you want to spend?"

⸹

"Again?" Buffy asked.

"Looks like."

They were patrolling near the docks. For the past three weeks, they'd been shadowed. Spike had noticed the surveillance outside Giles' apartment, and Buffy had noted it just outside the boundary of the spells on their house.

 _Well, I'm getting tired of it. Capture?_

 _Let's play it another way. Why don't you head home after patrol? I'll go by Willy's or somewhere. If she doesn't approach me there, we'll do capture._

 _Well, if it's an ambush, don't do anything to make me worry._

 _I never give you any reason to worry, love._ His wife scoffed.

After an unremarkable patrol, Spike did a quick hunt. He found two humans, sent them on their way, and made his own way to Willy's. It was a quiet night at the bar.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"Hibernation," Willy said glumly. "You'd think in California it wouldn't have to be this way. December is always slow."

"Well," Spike said, reaching into a coat pocket for money, "here's my contribution. A bottle of cava and two glasses."

"A bottle of what?"

"Chianti?"

"Ain't got none of that. Too messy, with all the people trying to get liver to go with it."

Spike closed his eyes. "Right, then. Any sparkling wine?"

Willy shook his head.

"No one's ever ordered champagne?"

"Oh! Yeah, I got a case of it in the back."

Spike was already walking away. "Bring a bottle to the table." He found one by the wall and took the seat facing the door. Ten minutes, he thought. Without poker to distract him, that's all the patience he had for being at Willy's.

She came in eight minutes later, looking around warily. Her hair was pulled back in a sensible knot and instead of a floating, vaguely bridal dress, she was dressed in motorcycle leathers. Spike tapped a finger on the table and she looked directly at him.

Dracula's remaining bride – widow? – came to the table and gave a little bow before sitting. She nodded at the two glasses. "How long have you known?" she asked in Spanish.

"Three weeks." She was there the first night he and Joyce had been back from Houston.

"Oh."

He nodded at the warm champagne. "Closest thing Willy has to anything from Catalonia. Or anything good."

She gave him that very European shrug. He uncorked the bottle, the celebratory sound out of place at the Alibi Room. While he poured them each a glass, he gave Buffy a mental nudge.

 _Love, you want to listen in?_

 _Only if it's different from what you think._

 _Right. See you soon._

 _I'm showering._

 _Very soon_ , he corrected himself.

"Smells like paint thinner with bubbles."

"Heh." Spike raised his glass in salute at this joke and took a shallow sip. "So, you've been looking for the opportunity to speak with me?"

"No. Not at first. Just observing." Luisa took a sip from her own glass. She grimaced and set it down.

"Observing for what purpose?"

"I wanted to see what you do, how you," she struggled for a word, "operate."

"And now you have."

"You don't kill humans."

He held up his left hand and stayed silent, letting the presence of the wedding ring speak for itself.

"I have heard you have a soul?"

"I do. Goes along with walking in daylight and laughing at wooden," he blanked on a Spanish word himself and substituted, "sticks."

"You faced a judge for it?"

He nodded. That was close enough. "Other questions?"

"You don't hold court."

"Never will. No interest."

"You have no lieutenant."

Ah. "No. I will need one in time."

"You have no minions?"

"No." Spike tilted his head and settled a little further down in the chair.

"I don't understand you."

He nodded. "I won't explain myself yet. Will you answer questions?"

She nodded, touching her fingers to the glass so she could look down.

"You were turned," he waggled his fingers in the air, "forty years ago?"

"Twenty-two."

His eyebrows went up, impressed. "Witch?"

She shrugged.

"Dracula your sire?"

Another nod.

"Did you ever live outside of family?"

"No."

"Did you go back to Girona?" His voice was kind.

Luisa looked away and blinked a couple of times. "I did. I'm back here, now."

Spike smelled her tears. He wondered if it had been family or a lover she'd sought. "Why here?"

"I am a vampire. It's something I cannot change. I would rather be a Spike vampire than a Dracula vampire."

He put on his best poker face at her blunt answer. "What is a Spike vampire?"

She touched her heart, then her temple. "One who has love, who is not unthinking."

Something occurred to him. He leaned forward, feeling uncomfortable. "Are you a seer?"

Luisa shook her head jerkily. He'd struck some kind of nerve, though.

"You're a," he didn't have the word, so he switched, "you have empathy. Even after the change."

Her jaw came out to a mutinous angle. "Yes," she said defiantly.

"And I thought I was buggered," he chuckled. A vampire who felt other people's feelings. Her victims' feelings.

Luisa's dark eyes flashed angrily, but she didn't leave the table. Spike refreshed both glasses and pushed hers a bit closer.

"Three more questions," he said, raising his fingers. "Can you feed but not kill?"

"Yes."

"Can you be safe around humans?"

"Yes."

Their gazes were locked. This was always the question. "Can you submit?"

"No," she said flatly.

Spike smiled, leaned back, and raised his glass. "Welcome to Sunnydale, Lieutenant."

After a still moment of surprise, she lifted her glass and clanked it against his.

⸹

Giles rubbed his forehead. They were meeting at the Magic Box, and Spike was introducing his new lieutenant. Outside the door to the back room, it sounded like Tara and Michael were doing a brisk business with last-minute holiday shoppers. "Yes, well…."

"You are, um, uncomfortable," Luisa said.

He got a pained look on his face and nodded.

"I did as ordered," Luisa said. "It did not mean anything. I can work with you."

"I'm sure the fact that she and the other Sisters were forced to seduce you won't come up often," Buffy said.

"No," Xander agreed. "Why would it, uh, come up?"

Anya looked puzzled. "What? There's no reason a man of Giles' age can't get an –"

"Uncomfortable reaction," Xander said loudly, putting his hand on Anya's shoulder, "to being captured."

Since her mother wasn't here, Buffy was thoroughly enjoying this. "You were probably too… dazed… to really remember details of being a plaything. I would imagine."

"That does seem to be my best option." He gave her a narrow look.

Luisa, standing behind Spike and Buffy, turned away and went to the door that led to the alley behind the Magic Box. The rest of the gang, who had also enjoyed Giles' uncommon awkwardness, watched her in surprise. After a moment, she took her hand from her face and came back, looking stoic once more despite her wet face.

"Luisa," Spike said, "explain."

"I have not been around a family for a long time." After this bald statement, Willow shot her the kind of look she might give a puppy with an injured paw. No one else could think of what to say.

Spike sent a look at Giles. _Help_ , he mouthed silently.

"Well, I think that it would also make, uh, Luisa uncomfortable – oh, just stop teasing me."

This broke the tension and everyone laughed. Even Luisa managed a tentative smile. Spike turned to her. "Thank you for coming, Lu. Would you like to look in the shop or wait outside?"

The dark-haired vampire was surprised at having options. "The… shop."

After she walked out, Buffy lifted an eyebrow. "She'll hear us, either way."

"I don't care," Spike said. "Go ahead." He made an encouraging gesture.

"Do you think she can really feed without killing?"

Spike met Giles' flat gaze. "I've seen her do it. She, um, gets distracted by what her victims are feeling, but she stops at the same time every time. I think she does a count of five or something."

"And she's an empath?" Xander asked.

Spike nodded. "Helpful when your placating your sire and his other brides, not so useful when you're killing someone."

"Buffy, how do you feel about this?" Giles gave her a probing look.

She closed her eyes for a moment. "In Spike's world, no one will believe he hasn't taken her as, like, spoils of war. I'm not happy about the assumptions that will be made." She glanced at Spike. "It took almost a year for my Slayer instincts to back off when it came to Spike, so I kind of want to stake her at first every time I see her. That's disconcerting. But, if we're going to make Sunnydale into what we want, we'll need more vampires like her, and they aren't common." Buffy gestured at Anya. "I mean, Anya's going to be inaugurated in January, Tara's building a not-grim business, Spike will have his license by March… If we're really doing this, she'll be a part of it."

"Do you trust her, Spike?" Xander recrossed his legs and put his arm around Anya.

He thought about his answer. "Not yet. Maybe in a few years. But I'm hopeful enough to bring her to meet my family."

After the meeting, Spike gave his wife a quick kiss and left her in a discussion about the upcoming trip to Squaw Valley. He went through the door into the store proper. Luisa was talking to Tara, the two of them absently folding a display of 'Magical Sunnydale!' t-shirts that Anya was test marketing.

"Lu," he said, with a jerk of his head. He gave Tara a quick smile. "See you later, petal."

"She's very restful," Luisa said, gestured back at the Magic Box. "Tara, I mean."

Neither of the vampires said anything after that as they walked at a normal pace through the downtown streets. Spike noted that the Christmas decorations that the city put on the lampposts were rather threadbare. He gave himself a mental smack; he was turning into Anya, apparently. A few blocks away from the Magic Box, he stopped.

Luisa looked up at him, waiting. Spike sighed; she was going to have to be more assertive or she'd end up trying his patience. "Where would you rather live, a flat or a house?" He felt her relax at the news that she'd been accepted.

"A house, I think."

"What about this one?" He nodded at the one-story house in front of them. It was surrounded by mature trees, so well-shaded that some moss was growing on the shingles. "It has a finished basement." She turned her face away. Spike touched her arm. "Look at me."

Luisa faced him, but her wet eyes were focused on his chest. "It will be fine."

"You wanted to be a Spike vampire? Own those tears. Those are yours. There's no shame in your emotions."

She took a little breath to speak, but didn't. She did look up to meet his eyes.

"Right. I'll go to the realtor tomorrow before I leave, take care of it." Spike seemed to be making a mental list. "Broadband, cable, utilities… You can pick out your own furniture; easy to shop in the winter." He fished a brown paper bag from a coat pocket and gave it to her. "Here you go. Money, a mobile. All our numbers are in there. You remember your homework?"

"Improve my English. Walk the town, learn the streets."

"Right. We'll be back before the new year." Keeping a distance between their bodies, wanting to keep the line clear, he leaned down and touched his forehead briefly to hers.

⸹

Squaw Valley, California

⸹

Dawn woke up and immediately sat up in bed. The light was funny, white somehow, rather than its normal yellow.

Snow! She leapt out of bed and went to her window. There it was, all over the ground. It wasn't snowing now, but, oh, man. They had arrived at the cabin – or was it called a chalet? –after dark last night and she couldn't wait to get outside.

She dashed across the hall to her mother's door. Just before she pounded on it, she realized that the house was quiet. So Dawn tapped quietly. "Mom?" When there was no answer, she opened the door.

The cabin had wooden floors, walls, ceilings, and furniture, so the white of the sheets stood out in the soft light. She could see her mom's bare shoulder and tousled curls.

She could also see Giles' bare shoulder.

Dawn carefully closed the door, a thin little sound escaping her from the squeal she was trying to keep inside. She went back across the hall to the room next to hers. "Buffy?" she whispered, tapping on that door, too. She heard her sister's footfalls, a pause, then the door opened. "Dawn? What is it?"

She beckoned her sister. "Come see!"

Buffy, still tying her robe, blinked at her and followed. Dawn was practically jumping up and down with excitement. She carefully opened the door and moved so Buffy could look inside.

Her mother and her Watcher had fallen asleep facing each other. Buffy realized that she had no sharp memories of her father and mother in bed this way. She felt tears prick at her eyes and fiercely wished the two of them happiness. As she closed the door, Dawn grabbed her arms, spinning her around in a little dance. How could she not smile?

A couple minutes later, her bladder blessedly empty and her teeth brushed, she started to go down to the kitchen when she had a thought. Carefully covering her sleeping husband, she went to Dawn's door. "You in here?" she asked.

Her sister leaned around the bathroom door, a toothbrush in her mouth. "Whad ish id?"

"Come here. You'll have to wait for it."

Dawn spat and rinsed, then followed Buffy into her bedroom, her sister's mischievous smile contagious. Buffy put her fingers to her lips and drew her to Spike's side of the bed. After twenty seconds or so, he drew in a breath, then let it out. At the very end of the exhale, he made a snoring sound for just a second. After another long wait, he breathed in again and eventually exhaled with a punctuating snore. Dawn covered her mouth, silently giggling. They escaped back into the hallway.

"He never believes he snores," Buffy confided. "I mean, you can barely hear it, but it's there."

A few minutes later, they were in the kitchen. Buffy was pretty sure that she'd put on water, filter, and ground coffee and pressed buttons in a sequence that would produce coffee from the shiny, fancy machine. She was taking a sip of orange juice when Dawn, reading the back of a box of pancake mix, asked, "What does it feel like to sleep naked?"

She spat out her juice, turning with Slayer speed so that it went into the sink. Buffy sputtered and coughed. "Oh, God, Dawn, I haven't even had caffeine."

"Well, you and Spike do because you two are known sex bunnies, but Mom and Giles were, too. I never have. I mean, I just wondered."

"You feel vulnerable," Buffy said severely, "because you never know when you'll have to get up unexpectedly. And you have to wash your sheets more."

"Oh, by that, you mean it feels good."

Buffy looked at her sister and made a face. "Only if the sheets aren't scratchy."

This seemed to satisfy Dawn, who turned back to the pancake mix. By the time Tara came down, they had made two dozen. Buffy ran back up the stairs and knocked on her mother's door. "You decent? I'm bringing up breakfast in bed in a minute." As she went down the stairs, she heard Giles' feet hit the floor.

Back in the kitchen, Tara was manning the stove. "I n-never get bacon anymore," she said, turning one crisp slice.

"Why not?" Dawn answered her own question. "Oh. Willow."

"What about Willow?" asked the witch in question, yawning as she came in. She looked around, as if nothing had sunk in the previous evening. "This house is amazing. Why don't we live like this all the time?"

"I can give you eleven million reasons," Buffy said.

"No! Is that how much this house cost?" Dawn gaped at her.

"It's how much it costs if you want to buy it. I looked it up online."

"Wow," Tara said, using all the 'o' sounds.

"There has to be a tray around here," Buffy muttered, opening her fourth cabinet.

"And the X-Man comes through again," Xander said. He was wearing pajamas with a – for Xander – conservative oak leaf and acorn design. He reached up above the cabinet next to the refrigerator and brought down the tray that was resting there.

"Thank you," Buffy said. "No short comments, either."

"Me? Huh-uh. I'm a good boy, because good boys get bacon and pancakes.

"Where's Anya?" Willow asked.

"Still asleep."

"Well, go wake her up," Dawn demanded. "We have to be at the bunny slope for our lesson at eleven."

"It's not even eight," Tara put in.

"Yeah, but it takes you guys forever to get ready."

Buffy snatched a couple slices of bacon from the paper towels where Tara was draining them, set a glass of juice on the tray next to the pancakes, and carried it carefully up to her mother's room. She wasn't surprised to see that her mother was alone now. "Hey," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired, but not super tired." Joyce sat up and put a pillow against the headboard. "I slept really well."

"You slept?" Buffy asked in a teasing voice.

Joyce looked at her warily. "How do you… What do you mean?"

Buffy brought the tray over and set it down on the nightstand. "Dawn came and got me this morning. There may have been squealing."

Joyce put her face in her hands. "I'm setting a bad example."

"No. You are not setting a bad example. You're showing Dawn how to be resilient and open to new possibilities." She sat down on the bed, too. "Also, you have to be feeling better."

Joyce gave her a shrewd look. "Why are you so benefit?"

Buffy looked at her for a puzzled moment. "Beneficent?

"Benevolent." Her brows drew together. "What did I say?"

"Benefit."

"Oh." Joyce patted her knee. "Don't worry. It's from the surgery, some kind of aphasia. I'll say the wrong word or not be able to think of the right word. It'll get better over time."

"Should I point it out or just ignore it?"

She pondered this. "Help me out if we're around strangers, but it's okay to ignore it if you understand from the context." She gave Buffy a full-on Mom look. "I will never accidentally say it's okay to strangle your…."

Joyce's grip on Buffy's knee tightened for a moment, and she looked down. When she lifted her head, her eyes were full of tears. "Dawn isn't mine, is she?"

Buffy didn't have to ask how her mother knew. How could a mother not know? She leaned in and gave her a fierce hug, giving her reply in a low voice. "She came to us not too long ago, but she's ours now." Even as tears spilled down her own cheeks, she continued to whisper. "Your DNA and mine, my blood, maybe some of our souls, Spike's, too. She's ours. She's mine to protect." Buffy pulled away and wiped her eyes. "Ask Giles when you're alone. We found out last month, couldn't tell you then."

Their gazes were locked. "Does she know?" Buffy shook her head. "Oh, my poor little girl."

After leaving her mother, the Slayer went to Spike. She woke him and gave him a small smile that had loss in it. _Mom knows. She just knew._ Buffy let him see her memories.

 _Women are like that. Mums 'specially, I guess._

 _We are. Just like I know the extra rooms here were for Angel Investigations people._

He lifted a bare shoulder. _I booked it some time back, when we were still talking._ His brows drew together as he pushed the covers from his body. _Why do I have all these sheets and quilts over me?_

"I don't know," Buffy said innocently, pulling free from the mindlink.

By the end of the day, the large family had skied without injury, fought a snowball battle, and cooked a simple, filling chili. Various Scoobies had spotted shoes to buy, pretty pictures to take, good municipal ideas, wine, additions to the library, and cute boys. By the end of the next day, Christmas Eve, much the same thing had happened, except Joyce had baked an enormous turkey for dinner. Now they were in the cavernous living room in front of a crackling fire, Giles breaking out a bottle of the wine.

"Can I have a glass, Mom? Please?"

"Okay – a small one."

"Unh." Buffy's sound of protest was very loud. "I didn't get to try wine until I was sixteen!"

Xander put an arm around her for a moment. "Everyone knows the youngest kid gets it the easiest."

Giles was nearest, and he poured a very small amount into a wine glass for her. "You may not like it," he warned, handing it to her.

Dawn leaned away from Spike to accept it. He was back to being her favorite, thanks to his purchase of shearling boots for her. She was still wearing them. Dawn took a sip and immediately started coughing. "I think I'm ready to become a Mormon," she declared. Spike started telling them that he'd almost rented a cabin in Park City, Utah, a state that had 'Zion curtains' to hide the alcohol and the bartender in restaurants so that diners wouldn't be tempted.

Tara slipped away from the group in the family room, from the narrow, predecorated Christmas tree in one corner, from their conversation and laughter. She hadn't explored all the house – it was opulent and huge, with more rooms than even their group needed – and started on the lowest level. There was a sauna, which she'd never tried, a dining room table big enough for everyone, all of the bedrooms with private baths, and at the top an outdoor hot tub with an incredible view. She and Willow had tried it last night. Sitting in the steaming water with cold air on her face while looking up at the constellations was one of the most decadent experiences of her life.

She paused at a nook in the staircase. Inside was a tall, narrow window with a window seat, noticeably cooler than the rest of the house. Moving into it, she let the curtains fall behind her and put a knee on the cushions. Tara leaned her forehead against the wood frame and looked out over the light and shadow on the snow. A fine snowfall was adding to the unearthly beauty.

It still didn't feel like Christmas to her. The Scoobies were spiritual, but they weren't religious. They had gone through thin patches, but none of them had been poor, or at least experienced it the way she had, and they seemed to adjust to this amazing house without her awe. This was her first Christmas without her family, and along with the relief, there was loss. Everything here felt very alien. She wiped a tear away.

"Tara?"

She looked around, surprised, her mouth open so she could breathe since her stupid nose was stuffy from unshed tears. "Oz?"

He was still wearing his coat and had a small duffel bag hanging from one shoulder. There was a smattering of snowflakes on his shoulders and hair. He always looked at her intently, and he was doing so now, reaching out to gently wipe away the wetness from her cheek.

She moved into him, wrapping him in a fierce hug. She felt a little huff of air escape him at the unexpected press of her against his chest. There was a distant clunk as he dropped the bag so he could put both arms around her.

"I-I missed you." Her voice was small. "I'm glad you c-could come."

"I am, too."

She kissed him in the bluish light reflecting from the snow. It was brief. They looked at each other. A slow smile of pure happiness spread across his face. Oz had the most amazing smile.

"Thank you," he said. "Even if there's never anything else, thank you for this."

"We have to tell Willow."

"Of course. We'll both tell her."

"It doesn't mean…" Words failed her. She had no idea why she'd done it, much less what meaning it might have.

"It's now," Oz said. "That's all."

A few minutes later, they were downstairs, one on either side of Willow. Spike was reading Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' his deep voice resonant. He did a good job, giving the characters different accents. It was apparently something people used to do in his time, read books aloud for entertainment. He said he'd heard Mr. Dickens give a reading when he was very young, though it was hard to tell if this was just another story.

Before he finished, Joyce fell asleep leaning against Giles, who scooped her up manfully to carry upstairs before rather shamefacedly handing her over to Buffy for safer transport. The fire died down, and the low rumble of Spike's voice finished with a solemn, "God bless us, every one." Oz brought out his guitar and played 'The First Noel.'

"This is, like, the best Christmas," Willow sighed. She sat up a little and added guiltily, "I mean, you know."

"It is," Tara agreed, squeezing her hand.

⸹

"So, after eight tonight, the hot tub is off limits so Xander can propose." Willow turned to grin.

"Got it."

"No problem." In the staircase window seat, Oz was leaning against the wall. Tara sat leaning against his chest, and Willow was laying against her. There really wasn't enough room for three people, but Oz considered it the most pleasant of squishes. It was their last day at the cabin. The big news that Tara had kissed Oz was met with hugs for them both. He wasn't sure how he felt about that; he'd assumed Willow would think it was no big deal, because friends sometimes kiss. Friends could be affectionate. If Willow realized it was a big deal… Well, he wasn't sure what that meant. But he was with them, and whatever was going on, they were all in it together.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, Oz noted, "They have too much energy, really."

Outside, Buffy and Spike were having a snowball fight. Everyone else had been in for at least half an hour, but they were still going at each other with every skill at their disposal. There was a thin line of trees between their rental house and the next one, enough privacy for a supernatural battle. Just now, Spike was drilling a snowball down onto his wife from the apex of a twenty-foot leap. Buffy twisted her body clear and launched herself at him in a flat line, intercepting him as he came down and plowing them both several feet through the snow, until everything except a tangle of legs was buried.

Their laughter welled up against the house and through the double panes of glass. "That much energy, they can make dinner," Willow said. She was watching their snowman. Overnight, his carrot nose had disappeared. She had seen the tracks leading to him, then away, and figured it out even before Oz had confirmed the thief was a deer. She was hoping it would make a return appearance. She really wanted to see a deer in the wild.

A few minutes later, Buffy and Spike came inside. The three of them could hear everyone in the kitchen and living room talking, but were too happy with their own private place to join them. The newlyweds came up the stairs. "…really care if it's sauna, hot tub, or hot shower," Buffy said, "but it's going to be something, mister. I'm not getting… coldcocked again." Spike's answer was a wicked chuckle, then they were past the nook and the three heard a bedroom door close.

"I could have lived without ever thinking about that," Oz said softly. Tara snorted and Willow nodded vigorously.

⸹

Next Chapter: Anya takes office as the Scoobies come to terms with what Dawn is… and who is after her.


	36. Break of Dawn

**Break of Dawn**

⸹

Sunnydale

January 2001

⸹

Winter solstice wasn't long past, so it was nearly dark at five in the afternoon when Buffy knocked on the door of the house were Luisa lived. After a moment of stillness that the Slayer read as surprise, she heard footsteps, and then the door opened. "Hi, Luisa," she chirped. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"Of course," Luisa said, nodding so deeply that it was almost a bow. Buffy came inside for the first time and looked around. The house was still mostly bare, but Luisa had hung two Dali prints on the walls Buffy could see.

"I have something for your computer," Buffy said, "and I thought I'd bring it by, give us a chance to start getting to know each other."

Luisa nodded. "It's in here." She led her to the kitchen. Instead of a dining room table, Luisa had put in a desk. The room was spotless and quiet. Apparently, she wasn't one of the vampires that still ate human food.

Buffy went to the desk and set her messenger bag on it long enough to find the little box inside. "It's a video camera," she said. Willow had walked her through the setup, so the Slayer looked confident as she plugged in the cable and popped the installation disk into the floppy drive. Luisa looked on in silence throughout the operation. "Here, you sit down," Buffy said, and she changed places so that the camera was pointing at Luisa and the vampire's image was on the screen.

As was true for most vampires, her image was novel to her. She turned her head side to side and lifted a hand to smooth her hair. "Oh." It was all she said, but there was surprise and some sadness in the word.

Buffy brought out the rest of her gift. "I thought this palette would suit you," she said. "I hope you like them." It was a blue mesh drawstring bag with a box of eyeshadows, a mascara, and a Clinique lipstick in Black Honey. "The lipstick will look too dark, but it won't be. It flatters everyone; all the best magazines say so."

Luisa was looking at her warily. "Why did you give me this?"

"I-I thought it might be nice to see yourself," Buffy said warily.

The vampire nodded at the makeup. "I am Spike's lieutenant," she said, shaking her head, "your husband's lieutenant."

"Oh." Buffy grinned. "Why would I want you to look good?'

Luisa nodded, then she raised a finger to indicate that she would be back in a moment. When she returned, she had a wingback chair for Buffy.

The Slayer sat down, too, and leaned forward. "Do you know why Spike is the Master – I mean, why he bothers to be the Master?" When the dark-haired woman shook her head, Buffy went on. "He's trying to help change Sunnydale into something other than the Hellmouth. Part of that is…" Buffy paused, trying to find words at the right level of English. "You know how magicians keep your focus here," she waved a hand frantically, "while they do their trick here?" She waggled the fingers of her other hand low and almost behind her knee. When Luisa nodded, she went on. "That's what Spike is doing. While he's making a lot of noise as Master, we're quietly trying to get the worst of the demons out of town."

"Vampires who kill rather than drink."

"Yes." Buffy squinched up her face. "Though Anya has a plan for that as well."

"Was the Count… just noise?"

Buffy didn't try to sugarcoat this. "All the decibels. But he chose to come here."

"I don't know if he wanted you as a Sister," Luisa said.

Buffy shrugged, not concerned by this. "Never happen. And even if it did, draining a Slayer is fatal to a vampire."

Luisa's eyes rounded. "I did not know this."

"Yeah, apparently our blood is supposed to be an aphrodisiac." She rolled her eyes. After a moment, she leaned forward. "Only one vampire ever lived through it," she said in a confidential voice.

She stared into Buffy's expectant face. "Spike." It wasn't a question.

"He says it changed him." Her demeanor was serious as she stared at the vampire. "Every other vampire either met the sun the next morning or was easy prey for her Watcher."

After a moment, a smile curved Luisa's lips. "So he came to Sunnydale to die."

Spike hadn't pried into the relationship his lieutenant had with the dusted Count, so Buffy didn't either. "That's the only reason to come to this town. We just have to get that message out to the rest of the evil population."

Luisa glanced at the makeup. "I still don't understand this."

"Almost all of what Spike does is to create an image. Mysterious and all-powerful. Alluring, so other vampires want to submit."

Luisa got it. "So, his lieutenant should also be alluring."

"A-as much as you want to be. I think he expects you to stand behind him, be both sexy and threatening, and not say much when he has to deal with demons."

"And then you don't have to," she said astutely.

"True. Although that threat is always going to be there, unstated." Buffy gave her a searching look. "Are you ready for this?"

"Yes. It is somewhat of my life with Dracula, more of the sexy than the threatening."

"You have patrol with Spike tonight. Are you ready for that?"

Luisa stared at the Slayer, finally understanding. What she really wanted to know, was whether she was up to the job of guarding the Master. The vampire stared past the other woman's shoulder for a moment, then held out one finger and waited. After a moment, Buffy touched her fingertip to Luisa's.

"I am only twenty-two," she said, almost apologetically. "I am not strong for a vampire. I am not especially fast. What I can do… I can understand other's emotions, which lets me know that they might be more likely to attack." She met Buffy's eyes frankly. "If I touch another, I can give them my emotions. Usually sadness." Tears welled up in Buffy's eyes. "Much stronger than that. I have left humans and demons on the ground, unable to move for many minutes." She drew her hand back to her, cradling it against her abdomen."

Buffy dashed her tears away with her own hand. "A touch. Through clothing or scales or armor?" At Luisa's nod, she went on. "Good. Have you staked another vampire before?"

Luisa nodded, her eyes shadowed. "The Sister I replaced."

"Well, make sure Spike lets you stake any vampires tonight," Buffy said. "Around here, you'll have to do that nightly."

The vampire shook her head. "I can't say I didn't choose this."

"I can." Buffy lifted her hand in the air.

Luisa seemed to jerk, as if someone had touched her shoulder and she realized she wasn't alone. "How old were you when you became the Slayer?"

"Fifteen."

So young. "I was nineteen when Dracula saw me."

"I'll turn twenty this month." Buffy had promised herself she wouldn't pry, but if Luisa had been a vampire for just twenty-two years… "Spike said you went to Girona after I slayed the Count?" Her voice was kind. "For your family?"

"Yes." Luisa looked away and fell silent. Just as Buffy was about to change the topic, she went on. "Both my parents died on the same day. I had no one to ask, so I went to the library to check old magazines," she shook her head once and corrected the word, "newspapers. Car accident in the early nineties. But I was really looking for Arnau."

Buffy reached over and touched her knee. "Your boyfriend?"

Luisa nodded. "I met him at university. He was the first… He was blind, so he never saw this," she waved at her lovely face with distaste. "All my life, I feel what others felt when they saw me. Arnau got to know _me_. He really loved me, and I loved him."

Buffy's eyes closed for a moment, thinking of Hemery. "I have had friends that I did not realize weren't true friends until they hurt me. I can understand how special that must have been." Luisa nodded, pressing her lips together. "Did you find him?" she asked gently.

"I did. He is married to a very nice woman. They seem happy. They have children."

Children that might have been hers. Buffy touched Luisa's knee again. "Are you glad that you found him?"

She nodded, then shrugged. "It was like I never dared to feel anything since I rose. Now, it is so… sharp." Luisa's voice had petered out. She took a fresh breath. "I am glad that he is happy. I am sad for myself."

"The best thing to do is keep busy. That's how I've made it through these last few months."

"How is your mother?"

"She doesn't get as tired now. And she hasn't had any… odd behavior since the surgery." Buffy gave a shrug, too. "We're hopeful. She goes back to Houston later this month."

"I hope to meet her eventually."

"She'll be at the meetings when she feels like it." The Slayer stood, and so did Luisa. "Speaking of Mom, I need to go see her." Now that her mother was doing better, she had fewer excuses to hang around the house. Joyce was asking her to run errands so guard duty over Dawn didn't seem so obvious.

"I am glad you came by."

"I am, too." Buffy gave her a smile. For a second, Luisa swayed toward her as if leaning in for a hug, but then stilled. "I hope everything goes well tonight."

"Buffy? A question."

"Okay."

"When the Master says, 'Lu,' does he mean my name or lieutenant?"

"Oh. Lu for Luisa. He had a little cousin named Lucinda that he called 'Lu,' too. But he is British. They do like their puns." They shared a smile.

The Slayer left the house and went out to her car. She liked Luisa, another soulless vampire. Giles had told her that he gave Luisa three years before she went off to get her soul, now that she was under Buffy's influence. Buffy teased him in return that it would probably be his time as a reward for the Three Sisters that would inspire Luisa to get her soul, because what evil was left after seducing a Watcher?

⸹

"The Council of Watchers is coming for a visit."

Spike froze and looked over the back of the couch at his wife. He had rented _Withnail and I_ , since she had never seen the movie. He and Giles tended to quote from it. "When?"

"Just after you and Mom get back from Houston." Buffy was in the kitchen packing peanut butter into a stalk of celery.

"Well. S'pose we'll all get along."

"No 'suppose' about it. Giles asked them what they know about Glory."

"Oh." He waited until she came back to the couch and was safely cuddled against him. "That means I don't get to terrorize any of them." He stole a bit of peanut butter from her snack.

"No. I assume their assassins aren't going to be along for this trip."

"We haven't seen anything of Glory."

"No, but Giles says that the crazy people are still showing up at the hospital."

"We don't know that they're connected to Glory," he pointed out.

"Only that they started showing up about the same time she did. I don't believe in coincidence."

"You think she's fed off them, only not their blood."

Buffy nodded. "Slayer's intuition."

He gave her a squeeze in reassurance. "Well, I'm sure the Council will tell us what we need to know, and then you can kill her one final time."

⸹

Glory was a god.

Buffy kicked a forgotten coffee cup from the ground toward a trash barrel. It didn't go in. She was crossing campus to meet Willow for patrol. Hmm, coffee didn't sound like a bad idea. The temperature was in the forties, and she wished she'd worn gloves.

The visit from Council of Watchers had gone great until Quentin Travers had said those words. They had tried to make her friends seem like a liability. Xander had mentioned he'd be testing for his black belt in judo later in the year, and Willow had kindled a momentary flame in her hand without saying a word. Giles cleared his throat and notified Travers that they had the encyclopedic knowledge of a thousand-year-old demon on hand. Buffy's retort had been that her husband had recently taken Dracula's remaining bride into his service. Travers had never once acknowledged the black-clad blond at her side. Scoobies, all the points; Watchers, zero.

Glory was a god.

The Council rehired Giles as her Watcher, with back pay, since he'd never stopped doing that job. They had access to so many more resources now. Another Watcher, a very old, very portly man named Aubrey Willingham, was going to stay in Sunnydale to help with research. Giles both liked him and was impressed with him.

A little smile crossed her face at the memory of one of the female Watchers. She had done her thesis on William the Bloody, and she could never manage to keep her fascinated gaze away from Spike for more than ten seconds. Buffy thought it was cute and also a little irritating. But she'd never said a word to him, either.

"Buffy!" Willow raised a hand from where she was standing in front of the library.

"Hey, Wil." They hugged and fell into step beside each other. "What do you think about getting coffee?"

"Um, as long as it's decaf. I have an early class tomorrow."

"How does it look this semester?"

"Not too bad. I'm carrying nineteen hours, so I can't get behind, but it should be manageable. How about you?"

"Okay. I finished my math requirement last semester, so it's all good from now on. I've got a French class that will take care of the language requirement. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to declare a major."

"Oh, I know. I still don't know what I want to do."

"Whatever it is, you don't have to do it here at UC-Sunnydale."

Willow gave her a look. "If I didn't know you loved me, I'd think you were trying to get rid of me."

"Instead of just wanting the best for you?" Buffy gave her a look right back.

"You sound like my mother."

"I know for a fact that I don't sound like your mother." So, of course, she had to try. "I just know what's best for you."

"You did a pretty good imitation," Willow said, sounding impressed. They walked through the first of the cemeteries, falling silent as they went, but saw and heard nothing. At the gate, they turned right toward the Expresso Pump. "So, you know what you're wearing to Anya's inauguration?"

"Yes. A suit. It's like a bridesmaid dress; I will never wear it anywhere else. It's kind of… staid."

"You'll make it look good," Willow assured her.

Buffy shook her head in absolute negation. "What are you wearing?"

"Just a dress with a long coat over it."

"Oh. I wish I'd thought of that."

"How's Dawn doing?"

"Ecstatic that she has a friend elected mayor because of civics. She's done all her reports on the campaign."

"I mean… about the, you know?"

"Oh. Still safely in the dark. Mom is the best. She hasn't changed even a little toward her."

"Xander had a hard time with it, at first."

"You and Tara have been great. And I think Anya just doesn't care, as long as Xander isn't in any extra danger."

"Yeah, all of her family is found, I guess."

They waited in line at the Expresso Pump, and then took their coffees back into the cold streets. "Shady View next?"

"Sure."

"Speaking of family, how is Tara doing? She seemed kind of down at Christmas."

"She was, at first. Oz helped." Willow took a cautious sip. "She misses her family."

"I thought so. In the good way, like missing the flu or ringworm?"

"It's harder than that."

"I know." Buffy looked ahead to the gates of the Shady View. "I still miss Dad."

Willow recognized the signs. "Here," she said, holding out her hand for Buffy's coffee. In a couple of minutes, the Slayer was back, tucking her stake up her sleeve. She took her coffee back as they both went into the graveyard. "Two of them?" When Buffy nodded, she shook her head. "I remember when that would have taken a while. You've gotten so good."

"Practice makes perfect," she said dryly. "So, to change the subject, how are the Dingoes doing on tour?"

"Oz says the crowds are good. He texts us every day. I think he's lonely, though."

"Aren't you guys going to go see them next month?"

"Mm," Willow said, touching her hand to her mouth. She'd tripped on a root while taking a drink. "We are. They're playing the Hollywood Bowl, the biggest venue so far. It's on a Friday, so we're going down for the weekend."

"It's your first road trip, isn't it?"

Willow nodded. "There's so much Tara has never done, just because she's never had money before, but there's a ton of stuff I've never done that she has. And, there's all this stuff that we haven't done together."

"You guys are coming up on your first anniversary," Buffy mused.

Willow grinned. "I know." She started to say something else, but instead put her coffee on a flat tombstone. "Incoming." She got a stake from her coat pocket and fell into her place behind the Slayer.

"Girl's night at Mom's house this weekend." Buffy gave the invitation with a sigh. "We're never getting caught up otherwise."

⸹

"Hey, Mom," Buffy said. She went behind the gallery counter and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. "How are you?"

"It's a good day," Joyce said, but there was something cool in her voice.

"I invited Willow and probably Tara to your place this weekend," she began, but Joyce cut her off.

"Come with me." Joyce turned on her heel and went through the door to her office.

Buffy followed, her brow drawn. "What's wrong?"

"You paid my bills."

"You asked me to."

"Buffy, don't give me that." Joyce had asked Buffy to write checks to keep her accounts current while she was ill. "Yesterday, I got notice that my mortgage was paid off. I was too mad to even talk to you."

"Mom –"

"I never asked you to do that."

Buffy held up her hand. "Listen to me." She waited a moment to see what Joyce would do. When her mother put her jaw out to a stubborn angle but didn't say anything, she went on. "I have money enough to do this for you, for Dawn. You let me pay for camp for her last summer."

"That's different."

Buffy's voice got louder. "This summer, you can pay for it, because all your money won't be going to cover bills. Mom, I don't know how you've done it these past few years." She moved closer and put her hand on her mother's arm. "I saw your check register… I mean, I knew I couldn't just go buy whatever shoes I wanted, but… It's like we've been eating this amazing toast, but I never knew how thin you had to spread the butter."

Tears came to Joyce's eyes. "I never wanted you to know how… close it was, sometimes."

"Now it doesn't have to be. You know those athletes who go pro and buy their mom a new house? All I did was pay off yours. I'll admit it; this is something I've wanted to do for months. I-I just didn't know how to bring it up."

"I never wanted you to do it." Joyce put both hands to her sternum. "It's my job to take care of you."

Buffy took her hands. "You always do. You always have. But I hate that no one takes care of you." Both of the Summers women teared up. "So I did. And, anyway, you can't get the mortgage back."

"I can pay you back."

"No." There was command in her voice. "You put that money in Dawn's college fund or something."

"Buffy…" Joyce looked down.

"Mom, you're going to have doctor bills and trips to M.D. Anderson and other expenses for," Buffy closed her eyes, "at least a year." The imaging had been clear when Joyce had her checkup, but there would be many more visits before they would pronounce her cured. "Dawn's gonna need all kinds of money for extra things, just like I did – prom dresses, dance squad uniforms. It isn't like you're going to have all this extra money to, I don't know, hire a hot pool boy to ogle."

"We don't have a pool."

"I know that. Hence the unnecessary expense for a pool boy." She saw the humor in Joyce's eye and relaxed. The argument might not be over, but she'd won.

"What does your husband think about –"

Buffy shook her head. "Spike would gladly have all of us installed in a mansion with a hundred servants at our beck and call. Two pool boys, probably."

Joyce gave Buffy a considering look. "He tries to… cosset you?"

"Huh-uh," Buffy said. "You will not get me to complain, then say, 'oh, that's how I feel.' I know all your tricks, Mom."

"I doubt it," Joyce said dryly. Then she pulled Buffy into a fierce hug. "I love you. I just wish you weren't too old for a spanking."

"You don't believe in spanking."

"Maybe I was wrong about that."

⸹

"Oh!" Willow yelped in surprise and let go of Tara's hands.

Tara did the same. The both stumbled and sat ungracefully. She put out a hand to Willow. "Oh, sweetie. Your nose is bleeding." Then she looked around, realizing where they were. "We did it."

Beneath the blood, a slow smile spread over Willow's face. "We did, didn't we? We totally teleported."

The two of them had been working on teleporting in the back room of the Magic Box. Now they were on the small balcony at the top wall of the store, which was really just a railed catwalk in front of shelves. Tara had put up a couple of vases of dried flowers for color, but the shelves mostly held books of dark magic that Giles had asked them to keep. The two witches looked at each other and grinned.

"We did it!"

"We're awesome!"

"We're… stuck."

"What?" Willow said sharply.

"No ladder."

"We'll just teleport back," Willow said. She held out her hands for Tara again. Two minutes later, she pulled away, swaying a bit to the right. "Okay," she sighed. "Refractory period."

Tara snorted and fished her phone from her pocket. "So, who do you want to call to bring us the ladder?"

"Gotta be Anya, right? She's been not so patiently waiting for this."

"Plus she isn't far away. I'd hate for a customer to come in right now." Tara leaned forward and gave her a hug and a kiss. "I'm so proud of you, sweetie."

"Proud of us," Willow corrected.

⸹

"Hey, Alvin," Xander said. It was only in the fifties today, and a cold breeze was coming off the ocean. He was glad to get inside the heated trailer, even if it was to talk to his boss.

"Xander!" Alvin pushed away from the little desk and turned to the counter behind him. "Coffee?"

"Sure."

"Great. Cup for you," he said, handing over the Styrofoam cup, "and one for me. Now, what did you want to talk about?"

Xander took off his hard hat and sat down, resting it on his knee. "Something difficult," he admitted, grimacing. "I'm going to have to quit." He saw the surprise on Alvin's face. "You've been really good to me," he said quickly, "and I really love my job. But I can't stay."

"Xander," Alvin said slowly, "I was ready to offer you a raise. Ten thousand. I think I can swing fifteen. I'd really like you to stay."

"Oh." Xander looked down. "Oh, man. Alvin, I'm sorry. I asked Anya to marry me. She said yes. That means I'm going to cause you lots of conflicts of interest."

"Mayor Harris, huh?" Alvin gave him a happy smile. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks."

"Doesn't mean you have to quit. We don't have to bid –"

The younger man held up a hand. "I do. There's going to be a conflict of interest when I ask you to be the builder on the old school site."

"Builder? For what?"

"Luxury apartments." When Alvin looked at him blankly, he shrugged. "A couple of friends of mine have money. They want to buy the old high school so a new one can't be built there. It should never be rebuilt."

Alvin looked at him for a long moment. "Like it's cursed ground or something."

"Yeah." Their eyes met for a moment of truth, though nothing was spoken.

"Then why would these friends of yours want to put up housing there?"

"Part of the plan is to build a memorial to the class of '99," Xander said, avoiding the actual answer. The coven was going to do a lot of work. "If they win the bid for the site."

"Lot of ifs," Alvin pointed out. "You don't have to quit now."

"I didn't plan on leaving until we're done here," Xander said, tilting his head toward the door to indicate the bank branch they were constructing. "Or maybe not until we finish the Olsen duplex."

Alvin bit his lip. "I've had a lot of young men working for me, but there hasn't been any other that I thought might become my '& c.'"

"You…" Xander felt rather numb. "You want me to be a partner?"

Alvin lifted a shoulder. "Once you started being project manager, I've been able to take on twice as much work. You're smart, capable, and don't pretend you know something when you don't. The men respect you." He looked past Xander into middle distance, in the manner of men. "I've thought about it. Hoped."

"Thanks. I mean, really. Thank you. I don't know what to say."

"You are right about Anya being mayor, though." Alvin grimaced.

"She's not Wilkins," he offered. "I mean, she won't be mayor forever." Going into business with Alvin wasn't something he'd thought about, but he was already in business with Giles and his friends. "After she moves on to her next job, maybe you'd consider letting me buy into N & C?"

"I would at that," Alvin agreed, reaching across the desk to shake his hand.

⸹

Joyce felt the airplane finish a long bank and leaned against Spike's shoulder, relaxing. All of her tests and images had been fine, and she was delighted to be leaving Houston and headed home. Exhausted, but delighted.

"Want anything to drink, Joyce?" Spike asked.

She jerked a little. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Just a little nap."

Joyce focused on the steward leaning over their seats. "Tomato juice, please, and a cup of ice." She checked her watch. Just twenty minutes of nap, it seemed. Her hands went automatically to fluff her curls, then stilled. It still felt odd to have such short hair.

"What are you smiling about, then?"

"Oh." Joyce looked down for a moment, a little flustered. "I think my new style must make me look younger. When you went to get water for me, one of the nurses asked if you were my husband. I think she was disappointed that you were my son-in-law. She thought I was a cougar."

"Yeah, might not want to try to be one of those."

She laughed. The pleasant sound felt natural, though emotions sometimes didn't. Joyce felt like she was always monitoring herself, checking if everything felt like it used to.

"It suits you. The hair, I mean. And if you don't like it, it's growing right quick."

"I don't feel old," she said, knowing the conversation wasn't quite on track. "I mean, I'll be going back to work full time next week, and I've got a foxy British boyfriend."

It was Spike's turn to laugh. "Please call Rupes 'foxy' in front of Dawn. I'm begging you."

She poked him with her elbow. "I think I want him to come with me in March." That was her next appointment with the specialists.

He turned to examine her, pleased to find the reason seemed to be confidence. "Yeah? Won't stand in the way of you having your fox in your hen – er, to yourself."

This time, she swatted his arm, blushing.

⸹

"I, Anya Jenkins, affirm that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of this office to the best of my abilities." She waited, her right hand upraised, for the camera flashes to die away. Then she lowered her arm and turned to smile at the crowd and the cameras.

Behind her were her friends, her fiancé, and several local business owners, including Joyce. Anya pulled Xander forward, making sure to rest her left hand on his arm so that her diamond engagement ring would be in the photograph. She changed her orientation, trying not to favor any news organization, also to have the Master in the frame behind her. Xander gave her a light kiss and propelled her forward for interviews.

"That hardly took any time," Dawn was complaining when he rejoined his friends. "But, hey, I got out of my last two classes."

Buffy, wearing the business suit bought for the occasion, had been hiding behind Spike, her mother, or basically anyone taller than her. The navy suit was boxy, hid all her curves, and somehow was a shade of blue that made her look washed out. She hoped no one had really seen her in it. Now she looked around at the other people in the room. Most everyone was eyeing Anya speculatively, which made sense. Sunnydale elected a mayor every four years; the council members were elected every two. Anya had more power and was an unknown factor for these people. She didn't like – the Slayer didn't like some of the looks given to the new mayor.

"Nice suit," Dawn said, suddenly at her elbow.

Her sister wasn't taller than she was, but Buffy could still use her as a shield. She moved so the wall was behind her. "I hated it in the store. Why did I buy it?"

"Because you're a dork," Dawn said, only half of her attention on the insult. "How do you know who is a demon, anyway?" she asked in a low voice.

"What?"

"Anya said about half the chamber of commerce are demons. I don't see horns or anything."

"Let's change topics," Buffy said through gritted teeth. "Anya will probably have enough problems without you insulting someone by asking where their tail is."

Dawn ignored this. She leaned closer. "Do you think any of these people might make trouble for Anya? Because she isn't a bad guy like the last mayor?"

Buffy stared at her. It was obvious Dawn got the brains in the family. "No," she lied, "I'm sure she's going to be fine."

After the celebratory dinner at Jake's, the nicest restaurant in Sunnydale, Buffy and Spike had a moment alone in the Bentley. She peeled out of the jacket. "Yeah, this is going straight to Goodwill."

Spike gave her a wolfish smile. "Or you could buy a pair of reading glasses, and we'll play Watcher captured by evil vampire." He moved halfway across the console, eyes roaming over her. "I never have had the chance to cut clothing off your hot, lush, little body."

"Oh, Mr. the Bloody," she said with a breathy British accent, "I've written a whole thesis on you without ever truly understanding the… lengths you'll go to for your dashed evil."

He laughed and leaned in for a kiss. "Mmm. Yeah, that woke up the Arrogant Prick. You think Anya's in any real danger?"

Buffy put a hand against his shoulder, holding him away from her. "Yes. Even Dawn thought of it, asked me if Anya would be all right."

He sighed and slid back into the driver's seat. "Well, let's go off and be bodyguards, then." He watched her slide a sweater over her head, waiting until she was looking back at him. "Keep that suit, though."

Four hours later, Anya yawned. "I'm sleepy. I shouldn't have had fettucine Alfredo."

"I think it's the office, too," Buffy said, finding her yawn contagious. "It's seriously boring."

"And I only get $500 to redecorate," Anya groused. "I mean, could this be any more mid-century American businessman?"

Spike was frowning. "Someone coming up from hidden entrance number two," he said quietly.

They took their positions. Anya sat in the big chair, slid into a pair of Louboutin heels, put her feet on the desk, and opened up a humidor for a cigar. Spike slouched in the chair in front of the desk. Buffy, pausing only long enough to plump her cleavage perched on his thigh. After a number of footfalls on the other side of the panel made it obvious they had company, the polite knock almost made Buffy giggle.

"Come in," Anya said.

Three demons in business suits came in, accompanied by five Fyarl demons. The security detail took up positions around the room, everywhere but behind Anya's desk. One of the demons, a slim, tallish man with feline features, stepped forward. "Anyanka of Arashmaharr," he began.

"It's just Anya Jenkins now," she interrupted.

He paused, then went on. "I am unworthy to be the representative for the great Girash. This good sir represents –"

Anya's voice was loud. "The great Girash sends his congratulations on my election?"

Her interruptions were beginning to upset him. "I'm here to ask when tribute from Sunnydale will resume."

"What about you two?" Anya asked. "Same question from your lords?" They looked at each other, then nodded in assent. "Well, I'm sorry you made the trip for nothing."

"What?" the cat-faced demon asked.

"Sunnydale is ours now," Spike said.

"Who are you?"

"Master of the Order of Aurelius. Sunnydale is Anya's. She's already made her pact. This is hunting ground for vampires under my protection. That's all."

The representative for the great Girash gave him a muddy look. "You're nothing. Nothing. Vampires aren't worthy to –"

"Here, pet," Spike said, giving Buffy's thigh a squeeze until she stood up. _Bagsy on the Fyarl. I brought a silver knife anyway._

 _Cat dude has to go. You care which of the others plays messenger boy?_

 _Lady's choice._

Once Buffy was standing to his left, Spike squared off against the three suited demons. "Yeah, Girash would be, what, half-Girash on his mother's side? Don't go spouting about being a true demon. That's rot, and I can smell it."

All three stood speechless for a moment. The talkative one growled. Buffy realized it must have been a command in Fyarl, because Spike broke to the right, a flash of silver catching her eye for a moment. She brought up the gladius from behind their chair and beheaded Girash's agent and one of the other two with a single stroke of the short sword. She stopped the blade just short of the last demon's neck. The drops of blood on the blade did not stop, spattering across his face.

"Thank you, Sp– uh, the Master. Thank you, Slayer," Anya said coolly, as if her office walls and floors weren't splashed with blood and other fluids. She took her feet from the desk and stood up, glad to lean against her desk. The heels were pretty but uncomfortable. "You take both those heads back to whoever sent them. Tell their lords and yours that Sunnydale doesn't pay any tribute to anyone. Those deals died with Wilkins."

The remaining demon did a double-blink and swallowed. He bent to pick up the heads and bowed his way back to the entrance to the sewers. After about forty seconds of listening, Anya sat down.

"Ow. I can feel my tendons getting shorter."

Spike knocked on the door. Luisa, their security in case someone came through the building, opened the door. "Ready for the first bin," he told her. After a moment, she trundled in an enormous plastic garbage can on wheels. She and the Master made four of the bodies fit in it, then she went for the next trashcan.

Buffy opened a drop cloth like the kind painters use and gingerly put the Fyarl heads on it. Spike had plans to decorate the other end of the sewer entrance to the mayor's office much as barbarian kings once had. "So," she said, wiping her hands on the sides of her pants, "how many more do you think will come tonight?"

Anya had found a ledger in a hidden compartment in the office that showed when tribute was due to various supernatural entities. There were over one hundred entries, but less than twenty seemed to be ongoing. "Maybe five more tonight. Once word gets out, I'd say three more will show up. After that… It should be safe to start redecorating without having to worry about stains."

Buffy heard the elevator bell ding, then the sound of trash bins rolled into the car. "An? You're a size seven, right? Can I try on the Louboutins?"

"Sure. Sit on my desk and look all vapid and sexy, though, in case someone teleports in. I can't wait until Xander can collapse that passage and nail the door shut." Anya gestured at the other secret passageway, which led out to the street. "That one, too." She leaned down and brought up the shoes in one hand. "How did Wilkins ever get any work done with this kind of open-door policy?"

⸹

"So… how is number eight suiting you, love?"

"Mmm…" Buffy's noncommittal reply was throaty. "Not sure yet."

"Well, you're the birthday girl. Take as much time as – oh, sweet fuck!"

"I think… eight is okay."

They were in Los Angeles in cabin nine of their usual, sad motel, the weekend after Buffy's birthday. It was their first weekend away since learning Dawn was the Key. Spike's gift to Buffy was her choice of new positions, one for every year, and a selection of books with detailed illustrations to help her choose.

Right now, they were facing each other, belly to belly, her thighs over his, so close that they could hardly move. Buffy smiled. Well, he couldn't. He stared at her, his eyes wide, looking shocked and fey and so damned beautiful.

Spike took in a couple of ragged breaths. "Didn't know you could do anything like that."

Buffy let her head fall back, her eyes half-closed. "I can, in number eight, apparently." Late last fall, she'd had a cold and sneezed once while they were making love, simply… expelling Spike. It had been funny, but hadn't really made the idea of deliberately squeezing down on him appealing. This position, though… he wasn't going anywhere. "Now, hush. I'm concentrating. Need reps to get… muscle memory."

He gazed at her, at the sleepy, self-satisfied, confident smile curving her mouth. Somehow, his wife was more gorgeous now than he'd ever seen her before. "Sweet goddess of light, my body is yours, my instrument of worship – oh, fuck, Buffy!"

Number eight put a pause in the list. Spike lay on his back, one leg off the bed. "Remember when I said you could play with your birthday present as much as you liked, that you wouldn't break me?"

"Mm-hmm?" Her voice sounded like a purr as she sprawled across his chest.

"I think you broke me."

"Better not be broken. You know what number nine is."

He groaned. "The fig tree."

"You're smarter than you look."

"You know we're never going to make it to twenty."

"Yes, we will." She lifted her head to give him a challenging look. "And one to grow on."

⸹

February 2001

⸹

Xander kicked off his work boots and left them on the boot tray by the door. He shed his coat and hung it on the hooks above his boots. Wiggling his sock-covered toes, he breathed deeply. Their apartment smelled of warmth and baking food. It was nothing like his parents' house.

"Hun?" He didn't hear anything. Anya's little Mercedes coupe was in its place, and she usually didn't go anywhere by herself this close to dark. "An? You here?"

"In the kitchen."

His brows were drawn together as he leaned over where she sat at the table. Xander wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair. "What's wrong?"

She jabbed at the papers on the table in front of her. "I had to do a bunch of training today."

He put out a hand and fanned through the stapled booklets. There was a lot of clip art of people shaking hands, and the word 'ethics' popped up continually. "Just something you have to do, right? It's good, Anya. You only have to do this because you won."

"No! It isn't good." She put her hand out and pulled one of the pamphlets closer.

"You, uh, didn't pass or something?" The title was 'Sexual Harassment in the Municipal Setting.'

"Oh, I passed. It's just, Xander," she twisted to look up at him, "apparently it isn't just boastful to talk about sex. It can be criminal!"

"Yes, to strangers and other people in the workplace, it can be. But you've gotten so good about knowing when you can and can't say things about your orgasms."

"I won't have a thing to talk about." She pulled free and stood up to pace. "Everyone knows best way to break the ice is to ask how someone is doing, orgasm-wise."

"That is true," he agreed, even as his tone hedged on it. "Ice can be completely shattered."

"I mean, I've kind of been out of the habit of making small talk, since asking for votes has been of greater importance, but now –"

"Anya," he said loudly. "Three things."

"What three things?" she asked, puzzled.

"Ask people if they have children. Ask if they play golf. Ask about their car."

She frowned. "I'm not interested in the first two at all."

Xander smiled and pulled her into his arms. "All right, it doesn't have to be those three. Here's two more. Ask about the last time they went to Sunnydale's lovely beaches." He took her hand and raised it, his eyes on her large, shiny engagement ring. "Ask about their wedding."

Anya nodded reluctantly. "Okay. But cars and beaches are nowhere near as good as sex."

He smiled down at her. "But weddings are?"

"If it leads to discussion of our wedding," she admitted grudgingly.

"There you go. You will once again be master of small talk."

"Mistress," she corrected. A private smile slid into place. "Speaking of… Dinner won't come out of the oven for another half hour. Want an appointment with Mistress Anya?"

"If she can fit me in," he agreed.

"Ooh," she breathed. "Excellent use of suggestive language."

⸹

"What about a spell?"

"I don't know, Wil." Buffy ran a hand through her hair. "How can that be ethical?"

"J-just a tracking spell," she said quickly. "Like a location spell. We've done those."

"But active all the time?" They were sitting on a couch in the back room of the Magic Box. Behind them, Tara was gathering herbs, books, and other things that needed restocking. She pushed her cart from between two shelves and leaned out so she could see them.

"Active all the t-time, b-but not m-monitored all the time."

"Oh." Buffy considered this as she picked at the remnants of her fast food. "I don't know. We don't know what kind of effect it might have on her – I mean, with something supernatural."

Tara looked thoughtful. "She's n-not." Making a check on her list, she rolled the cart into the open floor, pointing it toward the door.

Buffy stopped tracing the stub of a French fry through a blob of ketchup and looked over the couch to stare directly at her. "You can see?"

Tara looked down. "S-sometimes I can't not see. Green, mostly," she supplied.

Buffy nodded, remembering that the presence of green in an aura meant growth. That made sense for a teenager. "Still, I think in-person monitoring is safest."

"But hard to explain than magical tracking," Willow pointed out.

"I know," Buffy said glumly.

"Dawn!" Michael called from the counter at the front of the door. "Ask Tara if a special order for Teresa Quinn is in."

After a beat, the door opened. Dawn had a determined smile on her face. "Hey, guys. Tara, Michael…."

"I heard," Tara said dryly. She went back between the shelves and came out with a box. As she walked past Dawn with the special order, she gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder.

"Dawn Michelle Summers, were you eavesdropping?" Buffy asked. Then she frowned. "Why aren't you at dance practice?"

"I just got here," Dawn said defensively. "We waited around for, like, ten minutes, then Ms. Paul texted us that she was at the vet with her cat." She came in and snagged a French fry. "These are cold," she complained.

Buffy went still, realizing the time. "Crap." She grabbed her purse and checked her phone. "I gotta book. Class." She grabbed her bookbag, gathered up her wrappers, gave Willow a quick hug, then turned on Dawn. "You should have called."

"Uh." Dawn spread her arms and sounded put out. "It's all of two blocks from school, if you cut through the alleys. I could be here before I could finish calling. It's broad daylight. And I did text Mom that I was coming here."

Her sister gave her a hard look. "We'll talk."

"You'll talk," Dawn said sullenly. She met Willow's eyes. "Like she ever lets me talk."

"She'll listen," Willow said.

"Who are you going to track?" Dawn asked.

"Not eavesdropping, huh?" Willow looked nervous.

"It's Luisa, isn't it? Buffy doesn't trust that skank around her husband."

"Luisa isn't a skank," Willow said, grateful for the tangent.

"Huh," Dawn said with a good measure of disbelief. "She used to boink Dracula."

"Dawnie, how much choice do you think she had?"

The girl went still. "Oh."

"The first thing she did when Buffy killed him, was go back to Spain and see what had happened to her family and her boyfriend."

Dawn scooted closer. "Did she find them?"

"No."

"Or she wouldn't have come back here. Duh." Dawn added the self-directed insult.

"Come on," Willow said, standing up. "You must be starved. I know I always was after school. We'll walk over to the Expresso Pump and get a muffin or something."

"I can't," Dawn said glumly. "Mom made me promise to stay here until she closes the gallery."

"That's at six?" When Dawn nodded, she reached out and stroked her hair. "I'll go. You want anything to drink?"

Thirty minutes later, full of chocolate chip muffin, Dawn had turned one of the easy chairs to the wall so she could prop her feet on the wainscoting, read more of _The Catcher in the Rye_ for English, and reach the cappuccino on the floor beside her. Willow, Tara, and Michael were in the front of the store. The door to the alley rattled, but Dawn could already hear British accents. She didn't bother moving, just threw an annoyed look at the door and scrunched down.

"…identify the Key, then we could remove it from Sunnydale." Aubrey Willingham was huffing a little as he followed Giles inside.

The younger Brit turned to check that the door had locked behind him. "Yes, well, it would be in just as much danger from Glory anywhere else."

"But, I'm telling you, man, there is a time constraint to this. We just identify it and keep it on the move until the time passes, Bob's your uncle. And if we don't, the Knights of Byzantium will show up, sooner or later."

The two men paused by the door into the shop. "And it's this May?"

"Yes, sometime in May. The calendars are terrifically confusing, but solidly in May. Early June, if my initial calculations are off, but I don't think they are."

"Perhaps if Buffy 'kills' her twice more…" Giles frowned, thinking of the amount of time it had taken Glory to show up between encounters with the Slayer.

"But wouldn't it be easier to deal with whatever the Key was transformed into, rather than with a mad god?"

"I'm not a betting man," Giles said acerbically.

There was a moment of silence. "If you know, Giles…."

"I've told you everything I can."

The careful wording didn't fool the other Watcher. "I can keep a secret," he said with dignity. "Even from the Council."

Giles rubbed at his forehead. "I trust you, Willingham. I respect you. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have you here. If and when I have anything I can tell you, please believe that I will."

Willingham sniffed, a noise that somehow sounded both hurt and annoyed. "Does it have anything to do with that vampire?"

Giles sighed. "Nothing to do with Spike. Honestly, if you'd spend even a half hour with him –"

"And risk coming under his influence? I should say not."

From her unobserved spot, Dawn heard the door into the shop open, then close. She smiled a little; Mr. Willingham was skittish around Spike, which was just silly. She hadn't been afraid of Spike even when she was a little girl.

All of them were worried about Glory. She had really hurt Buffy at the reptile house; it had taken her sister almost four days to heal. And why would anyone need to steal a snake, anyway? Dawn checked her phone, frowned because no one had texted her for a couple of hours, and then started packing away her stuff. It was almost six; Mom would be here soon. She wondered what they would do for dinner. They didn't eat at the table as much as when Buffy lived at home.

Sometimes she missed her sister. Well, raiding her closet, mostly, but it was different now that she was married. Spike was different, too. Her mom said it was because they had a circle of shared experience or something, and told Dawn that it was like her friendship with Janice. No one else understood why the two of them were so tight.

She kind of got that. Her friends from the dance squad thought Janice was sort of a ho-bag; her art class friends never thought of Janice at all. Joyce thought she was a bad influence. But she and Janice had exactly the same sense of humor and spent most of their time cackling. When they were together, everything was funny. She felt more comfortable with Janice than anyone.

Or she had. Lately, Janice was not just talking about boys; she was spending time with boys. Kissing them, letting them touch her. Dawn hadn't been an equal the past couple of times she'd stayed all night with Janice. In a way, it was like being the little sister again.

Dawn's mouth tightened, and she hefted her bookbag and went into the shop. "Mom here yet?" she asked.

Giles froze, staring at her. "Dawn? Have you been here all along?"

"Uh, yeah." Why was he acting so weird?

"Hullo, dear," Mr. Willingham said. "And how was school today."

She gave him a little curtsy. "Very good, kind sir." She didn't try an English accent, just leaned on the politeness.

The old man beamed at her. "Would you like a butterscotch?"

"Sure." It killed her; he was an old man offering candy to kids. He had not one clue.

"Hey." Joyce came through the door, setting off the chime, and blinked a couple of times. "So this is where everyone is."

"No c-customers, either?" Tara asked.

Joyce grimaced and shook her head. "I'm putting romantic art in the windows for Valentine's Day tomorrow."

"I have t-too m-many classes tomorrow," Tara said, "but the day after, it's all red hearts."

Joyce took another step inside so she could put her arm around Dawn. "You hungry, sweetie?"

"A little." No way was she going to mention the muffin. She shot a reassuring look at Willow.

Giles came forward to give Joyce a light kiss goodbye, with a guilty glance toward Willingham. Joyce had a bake-at-home pizza in the Jeep already, so they headed to Revello Drive. Dawn told her mother what she knew about the veterinarian emergency that caused dance practice to be cancelled.

"I hope her cat is okay," Joyce said.

"Me, too."

"Giles is really worried about this Glory and Key stuff," Dawn said. She had gone from thinking of a cat in bandages to thinking of how badly Buffy had been hurt in her last fight with Glory.

"What?" Joyce turned to stare at her so sharply that she swerved the Jeep. She corrected smoothly, glanced at Dawn again, and said, "I mean, Rupert talked to you about that?"

Dawn's brows drew together. "No. I just overheard him talking to Mr. Willingham."

"What were they saying?"

"Nothing. They're just worried, is all."

Another troubled glance. "They shouldn't talk about… Slayer stuff in front of you."

"I knew she was the Slayer way before you did."

"I know, and I'm still not happy about that. I just want to spare you from the sort of things she's seen. That's all."

"Jeez, Mom, I wish you'd never found out Buffy is the Slayer. You know that the parent is supposed to let up on the youngest kid, right? You guys practically have me locked in a tower."

"We just worry, Dawn." She shot another look at her daughter. "I know what's out there now."

Half an hour later, Dawn was standing in front of the oven, watching the timer count off the last twenty seconds. "Pizza's done!" she called.

"Is your homework done?" Joyce winced, coming into the kitchen.

"Oh. Sorry. I thought you were upstairs." Dawn pushed the 'off' button, slid the pizza onto a large plate, and deftly got it to the counter. "Yup, all done. I read more Salinger this afternoon, so I'm ahead there."

"Your report isn't due until the end of the month?"

Dawn nodded, then turned to get a dinner plate for each of them. "Giles eating with Mr. Willingham again?" When her mother nodded, she scoffed. "Jake's, then. Must be nice, having an expense account."

"Rupert says that Aubrey is a creature of habit, that if there was a pub in Sunnydale, he would eat there every night."

"If we had an In-And-Out here in Sunnydale, I'd be a creature of habit, too."

After dinner, she and Joyce watched _Gilmore Girls_ together on the couch. All the really good shows came on tomorrow; maybe she'd go over to Melinda's house to watch _Boy Meets World_.

It was after midnight when Dawn woke up and went to the bathroom. She was stumbling back to her room when she saw her mother's bedroom door was open. A chill of fear traced up her spine. "Mom?" she whispered, pushing the door all the way open. Joyce wasn't there.

She went downstairs. Joyce hadn't slept well before surgery, but she'd been almost normal since coming home. Maybe she was raiding the fridge. Dawn pushed open the kitchen door. As she was reaching for the light switch, she heard a murmur of voices. Her mom was on the back porch with… Giles?

Dawn left the light off and went forward on bare, silent feet. She leaned against the side of the door, listening. She didn't know why she wanted to eavesdrop, or why she so often did. Maybe it went back to those loud, frightening days before the divorce, checking to see what kind of mood her parents were in.

"…over by May or early June at the latest."

"You don't mean… she'll just disappear?" Dawn frowned; Glory just disappearing would be about the best thing that could happen. Why would Joyce be upset about that?

"No, of course not. I never even thought – She's real."

"Yes, she is," Joyce said fiercely.

"I wouldn't have mentioned this if I'd thought it through," Giles said. "I never want to upset you."

Joyce sniffled. "But there won't be a threat, after June?"

"I-I worry that there will always be a threat. Especially if Buffy can't defeat her, once and for all."

"My little girl can't fight a god, Rupert."

"She shouldn't be able to – she shouldn't have to – but she has, Joyce. Twice. Buffy's extraordinary. I haven't read all the Watcher Diaries, but I've yet to find any Slayer who has done even a fraction of what she's managed to accomplish. No wonder they sent her to us."

Joyce's voice was small. "But look at the cost. Something inside me just broke when Xander told me about the Master." She sniffled again. "I can't lose either of them."

"We'll find a way. We always do. And Buffy isn't alone. She couldn't have a more powerful, more dedicated team of bodyguards."

"She hates it, you know."

Giles sighed. "And I guess this is my cue to ask permission to put a tracking spell on her. Willow's idea. N-not to monitor all the time, but… just in case."

After a long time, Joyce sighed. "Okay."

Rupert pulled her close and kissed her brow. "You aren't a bad mum, Joyce. I know what you're thinking, but you most certainly are not."

Cold and afraid, Dawn turned and left the kitchen. Back in her bed, she curled into a ball under the covers. Dread had congealed like stone in her chest, much as it had when her mom was so sick. Words you could never say – is my mom going to die? – in case saying them gave them power.

The question was a different one now: were you talking about _me_?

Friday passed in a haze. The Razorbacks were already out of the basketball playoffs, and the dance squad didn't have another performance until opening day of baseball. She turned down her friends' offers to hang. Dawn told them she wasn't feeling very good, and they believed her.

Back in her room, she stared at herself in the mirror of her little vanity. Mom thought she looked a little ill, had felt her forehead. Maybe that was it, maybe this was all a fever dream. Because it was crazy.

 _She'll just disappear? She's real. No wonder they sent her to us. Permission to put a tracking spell on her._ The way her Mom had nearly driven off the road when she mentioned Glory and the Key.

It was crazy to think that it had anything to do with her.

Unless your sister was the Slayer and vampires were real and you lived on a Hellmouth.

Dawn stared into her blue eyes, not blinking, for a long time.

On Saturday, she was good as gold, sunny and sweet. Mom made waffles, getting out the waffle iron that flipped over, squeezing fresh orange juice for them both. Her mother loved her. She went to the Magic Box and helped Tara decorate the store. She pinned hearts to the window and her helper both. Tara loved her. Willow was there as well. Every time the door chimed, the fingers of her right hand stiffened, and the person who came in got a careful examination. Willow loved her.

Anya and Xander came by with lunch. Xander, who had been acting sort of strange last month, was his usual self, goofing around with her, imitating Dracula by tucking two French fries into his upper lip and speaking in a bad Transylvanian accent. Xander loved her. Anya spent most of the visit talking with Tara and referring to her notebook. Anya might not love her, but she was fond of her.

The afternoon belonged to Spike. He rolled in, gliding like a predator, lifted her with casual vampire strength and spun them both around in a circle until she felt she would throw up from either laughter or centrifugal force. He'd insisted that she learn how to defend herself, and had been giving her personal lessons for three months now. Today he taught her how to step, to never lunge and get off balance. Then he pulled her onto one of the couches, pulled her against his chest, and asked how her week had been. She'd nearly lost the mask then. Spike loved her.

But she kept calm and asked how his week had been, how many hours of flight time he lacked, where the Scooby meeting would be tonight, what Buffy was up to this afternoon. A little later, Spike looked up and said that Buffy was there. She watched him go, hearing the chime of the door as her sister arrived, but not seeing it. Dawn was too busy hiding a tape recorder under the couch. The Scooby meeting was going to be right here.

Buffy was with Giles, but she wanted to go to get coffee and doughnuts. Dawn asked to go with her. They walked by the gallery and knocked on one of the big front windows, making Joyce jump and laugh at them. On the way back, Buffy carrying the coffees and Dawn carrying the doughnuts, her sister asked why Dawn hadn't been hanging with Janice much. Dawn told her. Buffy explained that sometimes friends didn't stay as close, that it was natural and normal to drift away from some friends and grow closer to different people. She also said that both Dawn and Janice were too young for anything but kissing. Buffy used the Voice of Experience, much the same way she had went she told Dawn it was okay not to win homecoming princess as a freshman, that it was better to win as a sophomore.

Her sister loved her.

Giles took the doughnuts from her and gave her a distracted smile. He pilfered through the cups until he found the simple black coffee he'd ordered, then went back to the book he was reading. A few minutes later, when Dawn looked over at him, he was staring at her with a haunted expression on his face. He quickly made it into a reassuring one. She could tell he was worried. Giles loved her.

So she moaned about missing out on everything because she was trapped with her stupid family, took both of the chocolate-covered, cream-filled doughnuts, and made a disparaging remark about Willow's sweater. She didn't want to overdo the sunny Dawn act.

Joyce was there just a few minutes past six, the gallery closed for the night. She pulled Dawn close and suggested Chinese food tonight. Dawn told her mother that sounded fine, she just needed to get her purse. She went into the back room to get it, turning on the old-fashioned tape recorder as she bent over. The tape would hold 120 minutes, but without her being there to flip it over, it would only get an hour. She hoped it was enough.

Thirty seconds after Joyce's Jeep pulled away from the curb, the group of people slumped. Spike went to the couch and came back with the tape recorder. He clicked it off. "Does she know or just suspect?"

Buffy closed her eyes, near tears. "I've always said she got the brains in the family." She took his hand gratefully when Spike came to her.

"We have to tell her," Giles said.

"H-how c-could anyone wr-wrap their head around that?" Tara asked helplessly.

"We'll just have to be there for her." Xander was hunched in on himself, though. He hated emotional scenes.

"With any luck," Anya said, putting a hand on Xander's sleeve, "she'll have a good dose of demon practicality."

"She isn't a demon," Giles snapped. "She's just a little girl."

"Anya didn't mean it that way," Spike said.

"Let's give them time to eat," Buffy said, picking up the burden of command. "We'll go over and tell her after. Anybody want to patrol instead?"

"No." Willow looked around at everyone else. "She'll need all of us, needs to know we all love her, no matter what."

"I agree." The Slayer wiped her palms down the side of her pants. "Giles, would you get the results of the DNA and blood tests? I-it might help."

It did not help, and the end of the secrecy could hardly have gone worse. Dawn went up the stairs at a gallop, the slamming of her bedroom door punctuating her parting, "I don't care if you love me! It's not real! I don't love any of you!"

The group of stunned Scoobies stayed where she left them. Xander slumped back against the couch cushions, his hand covering his eyes. Anya moved close to him, nearly wrapping herself around him. Giles crouched down next to Joyce's chair, both of them with wet faces.

"Sh-she n-needs time alone." Tara wiped her face.

Willow, who had held her more than once last fall as she worked through who she was without her family, leaned in and gave her a kiss. "Tara's right."

Joyce stood up. "I'll go check on her in a few minutes." She sniffed and daubed at her eyes. When she tried to hand the handkerchief back to Giles, he gave her a watery smile and shook his head.

Buffy and Spike were both on the floor, sitting near the spot Dawn had been. Now the Slayer stood up. "Thanks for coming, guys. I know we all hoped it would end with a big group hug…" She trailed off.

Anya, her arm still around Xander, stood up, pulling him with her. "I think we'll head home. See you guys tomorrow."

Willow's eyes were on her best friend. Xander wasn't even trying to hide behind a joke. Buffy's family was the most functional one they knew, much warmer than her own family. She tugged on Tara's hand, and they followed them to the porch.

Buffy went to her mother, holding out her arms. Giles took a couple of steps away, realized where he was, and propped an elbow on the mantelpiece. Spike joined him.

"I have a cousin who was adopted," Giles said. His voice was rough. "His parents never told him, and he found out when he was eighteen." He shook his head at the memory. "It took him four or five years before he wanted to see them again. All those lost years, and there never was a reason for secrecy." He shook his head. "The monks should have built in… this knowledge."

Spike shook his head. "They were going for secrecy."

Giles' clenched his teeth. "This has hurt her so much."

Spike watched his eyes bounce upward, toward Dawn's room. If he hadn't already loved the man, this would have done it. "This will be the last time," he rasped, putting his hand behind Giles' neck and bringing their foreheads together, "anything ever hurts our girl."

"Damn right," the Watcher managed, pulling away and wiping his face.

Spike's phone went off. "Bugger," he muttered. He pulled it from his jeans pocket and checked the number. "Go."

"I'm following Buffy's sister."

Spike's eyes went to the same place on the ceiling Giles had focused on. "How long?"

"A minute ago."

"You couldn't stop her?"

"Not without using force, sir." There was the noise of movement as Luisa jumped from one building to another. "She is feeling a lot of pain."

"Yeah, bad night here at her mum's."

"I'll let you know where she goes."

"Keep her safe. Stay on the line, keep me updated on location."

"Yes, sir."

Spike lowered his phone, shaking his head. "Joyce? Buffy?" Once he had their attention, he turned back to Giles. "Dawn went out the window. Luisa is tailing her."

"Oh, no," Joyce breathed.

Several emotions crossed the Slayer's face, then smoothed into businesslike calm. "Let's go." She met her husband's eyes. It had been long enough since Buffy beheaded the god for her to regenerate, based on the absence after the factory collapsed on her.

Anya and Xander were already gone, but Willow and Tara were just getting into Willow's Camry. Buffy told them the news. Giles didn't waste time, just went to Joyce's Jeep and maneuvered around the other cars in the driveway, waiting for the Summers at the curb.

"Bit know anyone who lives on Memorial?" Spike asked, lowering the phone a couple of minutes later.

Joyce shook her head. "There's no stores out that way." She turned to look at the two warriors in the back seat. "There's the hospital. Do you think she's hurt?"

Spike shook his head, reassuringly. "Lu would have said."

"She's going to the hospital," Buffy stated.

Spike watched his wife close her eyes. "Why would she go there?"

"The crazy people. Remember, they saw that she isn't…" She couldn't finish the sentence. Giles goosed the accelerator. Joyce called Tara's number; the witches were following in Willow's car.

"Basement," Buffy said, opening her door before Giles finished parking.

Spike followed her, leaving the humans to keep up as well as they could. Buffy hurdled a shape on the floor on the central basement corridor. Spike realized it was Luisa; did not stop.

"What's wrong with you?" They heard Dawn's sharp question in a room at the end of the hall.

"Let go of my sister!" Buffy never stopped, just plowed into Glory. At her heels, Spike grabbed Dawn and shoved her gently as he could toward the door. "Run!" he urged, meeting her eyes for a half-second. He turned to snatch the god from the floor, holding her up by an arm and slamming her head into a locker.

Buffy was back on her feet and took the opportunity to get several solid hits in. Spike took a glancing kick from Glory to his shin. "Thought you were supposed to be tough," he sneered.

Glory got one foot on the floor and pushed away from him, righting herself against the dented lockers. Her fist shot out, and Spike went flying into the opposite wall headfirst. Glory brushed her dress into place and shifted to face the Slayer. "Tell your boyfriend to watch his mouth."

"Stay," Buffy jabbed her left fist into Glory's eye, "away," followed by her right, "from my," an uppercut that had ended fights with Thanoss demons, "family!"

Glory caught the last punch in the combination, a left cross. She twisted her hand, and Buffy went down to keep her wrist from snapping. Before Glory could say or do anything else, Tara darted forward and blew a powder toward Glory, coating her side in it.

"Uhh," Glory said, disgusted, letting go of the Slayer to swat at her dress.

Tara turned, her hands meeting Willow's, and a burst of magic blew outward from them. The god disappeared. For a moment, the locker room was so quiet, they could hear a drip from the nearby showers.

Buffy got to her feet, going to her husband without taking her eyes from the place Glory had been. "What did you do?"

Tara was supporting Willow, whose nose was bleeding profusely. "We teleported her," the redhead said weakly.

"Where?" Giles asked, going to squat next to Buffy. In the doorway, Joyce took Dawn into her arms.

"Uh…" Tara shrugged.

"Somewhere that's else." Willow tilted her head backwards.

"Good," Giles said. He spared a look over his shoulder at Dawn and Joyce, then turned his attention back to the witches. "Excellent work, both of you."

Buffy was staring fixedly at her husband. After a moment, his eyelashes fluttered. She let out a breath. "There you are."

"Hey." The word was heavy and slurred. Then Spike's eyes flew open. "Dawn." He began pushing his body upright.

"She's fine," Giles said. "Joyce has her."

"I was so worried," Joyce whispered. Her cheek was pressed against Dawn's head, but her shocked eyes roamed the locker room. She heard stories, but never really saw the aftermath of her daughter's fights.

"I'm sorry," Dawn said, muffled by Joyce's blouse and her own sobs.

Buffy helped Spike to his feet. There was a smudge of blood on the circle of crushed cinderblock behind him. The Slayer said a silent prayer of thanks for the Gem of Amara as she slid an arm around his waist.

"Why did you run off like that? You know you're in danger, honey."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I just wanted... The crazy people, they… They saw what I am, Mom."

Joyce shook her head. "I see what you are. You're my baby." They were both crying now.

"How can you say that?" Dawn pulled away, her eyes red and her face splotchy. "I mean, I'm not real."

"Yes, you are." Joyce smoothed hair from her brow.

"You and Dad never had any other kids besides Buffy. She's all you wanted." Behind them, Buffy turned her face away.

"I did want more children," Joyce said firmly. "After Celia died, we were too afraid." Dawn stared up at her mother. "I always wanted… you," Joyce finished, her voice breaking.

Spike slipped free from his wife and pushed her toward her family. Giles saw and offered his support in the Slayer's stead.

"Dawnie?" Buffy said, her voice thick with tears. "I think about how lonely it must have been for us, without you, just the two of us at holidays, or for Mom once I went to college. I'm glad you're here. I love you."

With another sob, Dawn went into her sister's arms, willing to accept this now in a way she hadn't at the house. Spike put a hand on Giles' chest, then walked away. He hugged Joyce as he went by, then knelt by Luisa. His lieutenant was still out cold. Tara and Willow had slipped out, too, wanting to give the Summers ladies some privacy.

"Tara? Reckon you can find where the blood bags are stored? If you could get three or four, I'd appreciate it."

"I'll just wait here," Willow said wanly. She'd found some napkins in the break room. Now she slid down the wall, pressing the makeshift compress to her nose.

Spike shifted his body between hers and Luisa's, in case she woke hungry. He had no link of family blood to rouse her and didn't want to move her without knowing how she'd been hit. While he waited, he looked over his shoulder. Giles had joined Joyce, taking her in a loose embrace, both of them watching over the two sisters. His Little Bit was going to be all right.

⸹

"Would you care for a butterscotch?" Aubrey asked, drawing a handful from his jacket pocket.

Dawn blinked back tears. For the past couple of days, almost any kindness or even a normal reaction to her presence had set her off. "Thank you, kind sir."

The portly man gave her a smile that wasn't at all absent. "How was your first day back at school?" Giles had told him everything on Sunday. Dawn had stayed at home on Monday, but gone to classes this morning.

"It was okay." She was subdued. "I didn't get behind or anything." She looked over at Buffy. "Ms. Paul's cat died."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Was it old?"

"Yeah, she said she'd had it since she was ten."

"Wow."

"We never had any pets, did we?" Dawn had started to double-check her memories.

"No," Buffy assured her.

"Because Dad has allergies."

Her sister nodded, then went to the door to check on where Tara and Willow were. The meeting was in the back room of the Magic Box, all hands on deck, everyone except the other members of the coven. While Willow and Tara trusted Michael and Jonathan, Andrew couldn't be trusted to be discreet, so they decided to keep out all the rest.

Spike and Luisa were the last to show up, coming in through the alley door. Preoccupied, Spike held the door for his lieutenant. Buffy's eyes sharpened. He was usually pretty good about performing his role as Master in public. She met his eyes as he came to sit next to her, and her shoulders slumped a little as he gave her the latest news.

Giles started the meeting. "Do we have enough chairs? Good, then." He let out a breath. "Thank you all for being here. Aubrey, Luisa, and, especially, Dawn, I know you've had a lot to absorb since the last meeting. As there truly is no one else who needs to know what we know about the Key, I ask that you keep this confidence." He turned to the female vampire. "First, Luisa, if you would tell what you saw at the hospital…?"

She had chosen the folding chair closest to the back door and was obviously uncomfortable. "I followed Dawn into the hospital, saw her go into a ward for the insane. She came out with a doctor she seemed to know. He mentioned calling her mother or sister, so I didn't intervene, just watched from the hallway. He made her hot chocolate in the break room, then he became a woman. I recognized her from the Slayer's description." Luisa's eyes went to the floor. "I failed to… separate her from Dawn." She sent a look toward the girl, sitting beside her mother and Giles. "I'm sorry."

Dawn shook her head. "It was my own fault for being there." She frowned. "Ben – that's the doctor – Ben became Glory?"

Luisa frowned for a moment – this had happened while Dawn watched – but she nodded. "It was, um…" she searched for an English word, "it was not hard for her to do. Very quick. She didn't like the clothes he wore and found a dress in one of the lockers. I do not know what happened to his body."

"I called the hospital to ask for Ben," Giles said, breaking the silence. "They said he wasn't there."

"No body," Willow said. "I checked the morgue records."

"Anything else?" Giles asked, ready to move on.

"Yes," she said, surprising him. "In the park on the south side, there is an encampment of eight knights."

"Legion Street Park," Spike supplied.

Aubrey let out a sigh. "The Knights of Byzantium."

"I take it that we're not having a Renaissance fair," Xander said.

"No," Giles said. He took a moment to reach behind Dawn's shoulders to touch Joyce. "The Knights of Byzantium are the opposite number, if you will, of the monks in the Order of Dagon. Instead of protecting the Key, they've sworn to destroy it."

Buffy went to the heart of the matter. "Humans?"

Giles nodded. "Humans. They wouldn't want anything supernatural to, er, pollute their crusade."

"Hard to take them seriously," Spike said. "We're talking state of the art armor and weaponry from the sixteenth century."

"Knights were incredible warriors," Aubrey warned, "but I have to agree that I would be warier of an enemy who kept up with the technology in their field."

Giles gave him a piercing look. "Enemy?"

Aubrey nodded. "Obviously."

The younger Watcher didn't smile at his declaration of loyalty, but the tension around his eyes eased. "Good, then." He turned to Buffy and Spike. "How would you like to deal with this?"

Buffy let out a breath. "They're human. Basically, I'd like to get them out of town somehow."

Luisa spoke up. "I listened enough to know that they are tracking the insane people." She nodded toward Dawn. "We should not have any contact with them, the ones in the hospital, I mean."

"I won't," the teenager promised. "They were kind of scary."

"Good." Spike caught his lieutenant's eye. "Keep an eye on the knights, four or five times a night." She nodded in reply.

Giles leaned forward and let out a sigh. "Anyone want more coffee? A break? Aubrey has the floor next."

"I could use one," Anya said.

Dawn took the opportunity to go to Luisa, thank her, and ask how she was feeling. She didn't stay long, because the lieutenant was just too beautiful and too vampiric for her to feel comfortable around her. She hadn't warmed up to Cordelia for a long time, either. Dawn supposed the monks had made her insecure.

"Hey, Bit. How are you doing?"

"All right. It's all weird, I guess." She snuggled against him, feeling safe with the familiar smell of bay rum soap and leather nearby. "I was just looking at myself in the mirror this weekend. I think I have your eyes."

"Do you, now?" Spike studied her. After a moment, he gave her a small, happy smile.

"Yuh-huh. No one else in the family has blue eyes. Dad's are brown."

"Okay, then." He gave her a one-armed hug, then propelled her toward her space by Joyce. "Looks like we're ready to start again."

It had taken remarkably little time for restroom stops and coffee refills before the group gathered on the chairs and couches again. "Right, then," Aubrey said, clearing his throat.

"Do all British people say that?" Xander asked Willow in a quiet voice.

She gave him a quick grin. "All of ours do."

"I've spent all my time since I've been in Sunnydale studying what little is known about Glorificus and the Key she's searching for. The last couple of days, I've turned my study to what is known of magical transformation or transmutation. I'll try to bring this together in as ordered a fashion as I can, but I fear there are too many unknowns. I have what I believe to be the correct narrative, given my extensive reading now and, really, throughout my career. I will, of course, be clear as to what is known and what is conjecture."

He harrumphed and took breath. "From the wreckage of the monastery after Glorificus, er, left, the Council obtained some remaining written records. The Order of Dagon was founded in the twelfth century with the purpose of protecting the Key. It isn't clear if the Key existed before then. I expect that it did, but I don't believe it existed on earth. This is conjecture, but… I don't believe the Key was made by humans, if it was in fact made at all. If humans had a way of going to another world using a Key, that would be in our fables. Finally, and this is complete conjecture… I think that some outsider used the Key to come here. That's how it came to earth." He looked around. "Questions? Suggestions?"

"What was going on in the eleven hundreds?" Giles asked.

"The Crusades began," Willow said immediately.

"Calculus was developed in India," Buffy said. "Do not ask me how I remember that."

"Oxford began, roughly," Spike said.

"How did you know that?" Aubrey asked, his voice sharp.

"Christ Church for history," Giles answered. Spike glared at him.

"S-southern Song dynasty in China and the first Shogun in Japan," Tara mused.

Willingham pulled his stunned gaze from the blond vampire. "Uh, yes, I actually did look to see if any 'great man' made his imprint, but nothing truly stands out." He nodded at the Slayer. "Unless it was Bhaskara, I don't really see anyone of genius."

"Saladin?" Luisa noted.

"Possible," he said grudgingly.

"What if I – I mean, what if the Key came here by itself?" Dawn asked. "I mean, this world is pretty cool."

Everyone fell silent. After a moment, Aubrey said, "Hmm. If you are all ready to move on…?" Where the old Watcher had addressed the group in general before, now he spoke to Dawn. "From the remnants of the Dagon records, the energy can be seen by people in altered states as green and glowing. No physical form, no indication of sentience. However, it was not stored in any kind of battery or glass case or ever transformed, though the monks worked through the centuries to perfect their spells. It seemed… content to remain at the monastery.

"From Bohemia to the Czech Republic, those lands saw a great deal of upheaval. Even for a Catholic institution, the monastery seems to have been remarkably immune to power struggles. There was a poem composed by a seventeenth century monk about the 'shield of green' that dwelled in the apple orchard."

"Are you saying that the Key… protected the monks?"

"I am not saying that," Aubrey said firmly, "because if it did happen, the Key was also protecting itself. The fact that it is here is testament that it needs protection."

"It may not have protected the monastery from a direct attack," Spike said, his words slow as he thought them out, "but it may have made the monastery… less of a target for accidental attack."

Aubrey looked uncomfortable. "Perhaps. It's possible that the Key may have opened a portal and displaced the monastery when armies threatened… but we don't have any indication of sentience."

"It wasn't restrained," Willow pointed out, "yet it stayed there, as if it understood that it was safe."

"Also possible." Willingham had a sip from his teacup. "The Key, of itself, is neither good nor evil."

"That's what Glory said." Everyone turned to Dawn when she spoke, making her press into her mother's side. "I asked."

"Oh, sweetie," Joyce said sorrowfully, kissing her brow.

"This is what is known," Aubrey said. "I'm going to move into conjecture again. While the Key isn't good or bad, I believe that it does not want to be used."

"Which implies sentience," Giles said.

Willingham lifted a hand. "Or resilience. 'The Key' is a dimensional key, not a unique... well, not an object, but an entity, perhaps, referenced in a few demon texts. They open portals between dimensions. Some openings they fit. Others, they do not fit… but they will open a portal… destroying the key in the process."

"Shit." No one added anything to Xander's short statement.

Sighing, Aubrey spoke directly to Dawn again. "What I'm about to say is not provable, but it's my sense of what seems most likely to be correct. I believe the Key came to earth and was content to remain hidden. I believe that Glorificus was banished here much more recently. The Key is not hers, was never hers, but she became aware of it. I don't think that she sensed the Key; there may be other players of whom we are unaware. And, there is a deadline for her to use the Key.

"Just a couple more things before I address that. The first is a quick introduction to dimensions, as I understand them. Dimensions should perhaps be called realities, because this has less to do with physics than metaphysics. So, philosophers and mathematicians believe there are untold numbers of realities." Buffy met Spike's eyes, and Giles was watching them. "Some would be very similar to our own – the classic example these days would be, what if the Axis won World War II?"

"The example I always use is the world without shrimp," Anya said. "Otherwise, it's just like this one."

Aubrey blinked, then went on. "Others would be close to earth but have different physical laws, allowing for gods and creatures that are mythical here. Others are hell dimensions, still understandable to us.

"Other realities are not connected to earth. I believe Glorificus comes from one that is not… nearby, not in distance, but perhaps in the physical sense, the laws of the universe. In May, our world and hers will be somehow close, I think."

"Will they be close again?" Willow asked.

The old man looked down, creating a double chin. "Yes. In several hundred years."

"So we need to take care of her now," Buffy said, "because I'm not getting any younger."

"Indeed." Giles shifted on the couch, easing his neck.

"T-trying to f-f-fit this K-key into Gl-gl-gl…" Tara grimaced and looked down, clearly upset.

Aubrey interrupted gently. "It would not be a good fit, I don't believe." He took a breath. "So, last thing, Miss Dawn, and the part I think you'll be most interested in." Aubrey shifted his bulk to reach for his teacup again.

"Transmutation using magic is permanent. It cannot be undone."

The statement had less of an impact than he expected. "I transform to and from vampire face," Luisa said, frowning.

"Yes, but that is different from transmutation. You remain you; your molecules are the same." He turned back to Dawn. "What the monks did in creating you is permanent. You will never be in the form of energy again."

"Th-that's good," Dawn said. Her tone almost made it a question.

"I do not know what it means," he said, shrugging and giving her a smile. "I do know that alchemists could transform material into gold, but it always reverted. That's where the myth of leprechaun gold comes from. Alchemists could transform but never transmute lead into gold. The monks worked, I believe, under the aegis of prophecy. They knew the Key would have to be transmuted into matter someday in order to keep it safe."

"Why not into a chair or something?" Anya asked.

Aubrey pointed a finger at her. "Excellent question. A pebble, for instance, would be indistinguishable from billions of other pebbles. But the monks did not do that."

Spike looked at Dawn. "They wanted to give the Key agency."

"I believe they did."

"What was the prophecy?" Giles voice was full of dread.

"There was nothing written down. There were no missing records. I think it was entirely an oral tradition, and now lost." Willingham shrugged. "Much as you have no more prophecies about your Slayer, Rupert."

"That's… overwhelming." He scrubbed his hands over his face.

Spike, however, was smiling, looking at Dawn. "They gave us another brilliant, stubborn Summers lady." Something in him had loosened when the old Watcher said the change was permanent.

Dawn shook her head. "I don't want to be prophecy girl."

"I don't want Dawn to be prophecy girl," Buffy said flatly, "known or unknown."

Willingham shook his head. "Don't you see? The monks probably could not have done this until the last few decades. They must have had biology and medical degrees as well as a solid understanding of magic and metaphysics. You are exactly who you think you are; only the fact that the monks wanted to do their very best by you kept you from being sent to your family before."

Giles looked away from the hopeful look on Dawn's face. She could never have been sent to the Summers before Buffy became the Slayer. Even the Council couldn't pinpoint which girl would be Chosen. And the Key went to the Slayer, not to Joyce.

Xander was smiling now. "The fact that they made Dawn instead of an anonymous pebble points toward Dawn having something to do after we end Glory. So… Dawn survives."

"I do tend to think her form is… reassuring," Aubrey agreed. "And, unstable though Glorificus is, she must surely understand that killing a living Key would destroy the Key. It's another layer of safety." He gave Dawn a kindly smile. "She wouldn't kill her chance to open a portal."

"It will never come to that." Buffy made the statement in a flat tone.

"Quite," the old Watcher said. He focused on her little sister. "There are all sorts of additional things – fables about gods changing mortals permanently into animals, Vilenkin's theory, Murgbad's journals – which I've referenced. If you ever want to know more, I will be happy to share what I've found."

Dawn nodded. She looked very young and made no move to get up.

"Are you exhausted, too?" Joyce asked.

She looked up at her mother. "I am. Can we go home now?"

"Let's." Joyce gave her a little smile and stood up.

Giles and Willow had patrol, and Anya and Xander were going to Los Angeles early the next day to try to lure businesses to Sunnydale at a restauranteur's convention. The group said their good nights. Spike asked Luisa to show him the knights, and Buffy promised Tara she would lock the back door so that, in the end, only she and Willingham were left.

"You have questions?" he guessed.

"I do. What happens to the Key if," she took a breath, "if Dawn dies?"

"It ceases to exist." He shrugged. "I am not an expert on belief about the afterlife. Possibly the power of the Key is entwined with her soul, so it could survive that way. But it won't leave her body like a-a parasite, because that's not how she was constructed. Again, transmutation is permanent."

Buffy nodded, finding this comforting. "What if Glory does… use the Key?"

He looked at her until he began speaking, then looked at the door behind her. "To use the Key now, in this form, for this purpose, I think that it would have to be a bloodletting. Even with a Key, to bridge the distance between our reality and her very alien world, the portal would have to be… ripped or slashed. I am not sure if it could be closed, or of how much of our world would be contaminated by the contact. Or perhaps a lot of worlds would have doorways opened, like shoving a pencil through a ream of paper."

"A bloodletting?" Buffy echoed, her voice a whisper, focusing on one word. It was always about blood.

"If it opened with the first drop," he said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, "it could only close with the last drop. Jamming a Key into the wrong door would break it, and until the last pieces of the Key were cleared from the lock, it couldn't shut again."

⸹

Willow waited until Tara finished rinsing her hair and pivoted in the shower to get the suds off her face. She slid her arms around her girlfriend's waist and buried her nose in the wet strands. Tara groped blindly for a towel to dry her eyes, then turned in Willow's arms, giving her a kiss.

It was late. They'd spent a languid hour in bed, talking and making love, before showering. Willow had an early class. She was sleepy and let Tara help shampoo her hair, feeling so relaxed that she wasn't sure she'd have enough energy to towel off.

She did, of course, was even awake enough to realize that Tara wasn't quiet because she was sleepy, too. "What's going on in there?" she murmured after they were back in bed. She stroked Tara's forehead.

"I k-keep thinking about those poor people in the basement at the hospital," she said, lifting a shoulder and giving a smile that was almost apologetic. "I wish there was s-something I could do for them, make them whole again."

"Buffy is pretty sure that Glory fed from them, somehow."

"Then whatever she took from them, mind or spirit, it's consumed."

"Maybe not." Willow hated to see Tara sad. "Maybe there's something still there. Or maybe it's something that can be… regrown." She smoothed Tara's damp hair. "I can see why you changed your major from nursing."

"I hate to see anything in pain," Tara acknowledged.

"I wish I was half the mensch you are."

"Well… mensch-ette, maybe." Before Willow could explain, she put a fingertip to her lips. "I know what you meant. But you're one, too." She replaced her finger with her lips for a kiss. "You're amazing, sweetheart."

"Yeah, but you just get people."

"I am so bad with other people," Tara disagreed.

"No. I mean, I know you're on my wavelength, and not everybody has that wavelength, but I mean… You just have so much love for other people."

"It's not so much me," Tara said, "as it is having magic."

Willow studied her, her brows drawing together. "I-I'm not sure what you mean."

"You know, how magic is life, springs from life. I'm part of the same… m-matrix or web or whatever, so I can have kindness for others, because they're part of me."

She could see that, see Tara bound by light to everyone and every living thing in the world, and Willow's lips parted. "You are incredibly beautiful," she breathed.

It was Tara's turn to have a drawn brow. "You don't feel that?"

Willow shook her head, a sad look on her face. "I wish I'd been born with magic, like you. Mine came – well, you know, late, from the spirit of a long-ago gypsy, as best I can tell. All the rest has been… study."

"What does your magic feel like to you?"

"Power," Willow said immediately. "Literally, like energy." She looked a little worried. "What about you?"

"Warmth," Tara said after a moment's thought. "Wh-which is also energy, just," she shrugged, "not as much as you." The light was out, and she could barely see her girlfriend. "Wil, if I research something for those people at the hospital, if I find something… Would you help me help them? I don't think I'd have enough magic."

"Of course I would," Willow said. "You and me, together… What can't we do?"

⸹

Next Chapter: Glory can take the Slayer's people at will, but the big problem is Ben.


	37. Hellgod on the Hellmouth

**Hellgod on the Hellmouth**

⸹

Sunnydale

February 2001

⸹

"That sounds like that was some party," Xander said, leaning over to look into the robot's open, staring eyes. They were in Willow's apartment, going over the latest only-in-Sunnydale craziness.

"Well, we were going for the full college experience," Willow said wryly. She was looking between her laptop and the open panel on the girl-shaped robot's torso.

"Making an automaton for sex is creepy." Anya wrinkled her nose. "On the other hand, she isn't going to attract any justice demons –"

"Vengeance demons?" Willow put in.

"– since she isn't real. Even if he did dump her."

"Her pain seemed real enough to me," Buffy said, shaking her head. "Well, maybe not pain. Confusion, because she did everything he expected of her. Definitely a sense of loss and… self-blame, since it couldn't be her perfect creator's fault."

"Keep telling me this stuff," Willow muttered, "and I think I might be able to call up a justice demon on her behalf."

"Would you have sex with a robot?" Anya asked Xander suddenly.

He gave her a panicked look. "No. Definitely not." Gesturing at the robot, he added, "I mean, come on, something this crude?"

Willow's cheeks turned pink. "I have to admit, when she was charged, I thought she was cute at first glance."

"I thought she looked like she could be on any random cheerleading squad," Buffy agreed, "until she spoke."

"I think we'll be having sex with robots in the future," Anya opined. "It's still creepy, but it's just a matter of time."

Willow typed in a line of code, then turned her attention to her friends. "You're probably right. It just seems unethical, though." She waved at the robot. "You don't have to apologize to a vibrator for putting it in a drawer until you need it again."

"I met Warren," Buffy said, "and he isn't scuzzy or anything. Well, he is. But he did find a real girlfriend. I just don't understand why anyone would build something this elaborate."

"He wanted a fantasy instead of a real person," Anya said, shrugging.

"Hey!" Tara called from the door. "We're back."

"Oh, good," Xander said. "Food." He went to help Tara and Spike unload a box of deli sandwiches.

"It's on the table," Tara said, coming into the living room. She leaned over and kissed Willow, then examined the robot. "April looks like a ventriloquist's dummy. She looked real when she was charged."

Willow chased her lips for another kiss. "She did," she agreed. The red-haired witch stood and stretched. "So, poll question: would you have sex with a robot?"

"What? Ew, no."

She smiled at Tara, then turned her attention to Spike, knowing that he must have overheard. "What about you?"

"Yeah, probably." He bent to get a kiss from his wife, who backed away.

"Ick. I will not kiss lips that would kiss a robot."

"Didn't say I'd kiss it," he grinned, following her until he could get her cheek. He gave her a wet smack. "They had the potato salad with dill," he informed her, holding out a hand to help Buffy to her feet.

"S-speaking of f-food," Tara said, changing what she considered a very weird subject, "how did the trip to the restaurant convention go?"

Anya shrugged. "No one I spoke with was interested in coming to Sunnydale, no matter how cheap the rent or how good the tax incentive."

"How come you're smiling, then?" Willow asked.

"Because my fiancé is a genius."

"I am definitely not a genius," Xander demurred. "However, I am a hungry construction worker. I was outside getting free samples and realized, hey, if a restauranteur wanted to make money in Sunnydale but not actually, you know, be here after the sun went down… food trucks."

"Oh, those can be, like, legendary," Buffy said, pulling out a chair. "There are huge lines for some of the taco trucks in Los Angeles."

"Those really go with the b-beach town image," Tara noted.

"Four of the owners who turned me down flat were interested in the idea of sending out a truck," Anya said. "We could add to the beach parking easily enough, but I think we'll have to block off traffic for downtown and make a square, add benches and tables."

"Are you still planning to put out chess tables?" Spike asked.

"Yes. And hammocks," she added pointedly.

"Got Lu on it. She's found two local vamps who want to be on our team, just, she doesn't think they have control yet. I have another, older vamp in mind to talk to."

"Because I have the ad campaign ready to go. The grant money came through last week."

"When does it have to be spent?" Willow asked.

"By October. That shouldn't be a problem. I'll advertise in the smaller, inland cities and over in Nevada. Vegas and Reno don't have beaches."

Buffy was looking through the door toward the robot. "I feel rude, like we should offer her some food."

"What are you going to do with it," Xander asked Willow, "since you aren't into sex with robots?"

Willow wadded up her napkin and tossed it at him. "Well, she's strong, right? I'm going to wipe her yucky programming. I think I can get rid of the 'please my creator' fixation, make her think 'go to Willow for safety' instead. Then I'll add more self-defense and combat programming. If I can do that, maybe she could be another bodyguard for Dawn."

⸹

April 2001

⸹

Buffy felt her phone buzz against her side and pulled it out of her jacket pocket, surprised. People tended to not call her during patrol. She looked at the text.

 _Incursion at City Hall_.

Oh, great, she thought. Anya had been sure there would be at least one major attack by demons who wanted to assert their control over Sunnydale or force the new mayor into paying tribute again. It wasn't reasonable, but she always kind of hated when Anya was right about things like this. Probably because Anya wasn't obviously an optimist.

The text had gone out to everyone, part of a magical monitoring spell Anya had paid the coven to put in place. The expense was in the public record as 'Additional Security Lights.' Buffy was on the other side of downtown from the municipal buildings, so she started jogging as she checked her weapons. Three stakes and a Bowie knife. Spike had planned to check in with the minions when he dropped her off at Sunnydale Memorial Gardens earlier. If he was still there, she could pick up an axe or sword from the trunk of his car.

He had probably gone on to spend the evening with Dawn and her mom. Buffy sighed. And she'd be sleeping there tonight. She broke into a run at the thought.

Maybe she really would sleep tonight, if this mess at City Hall turned into a battle. She didn't sleep well without Spike beside her anymore, but a good fight might wear her out. The Bentley wasn't near the minions' apartment building that she could see, so she ran on toward the breach.

 _There you are, love._ The convertible was driving slowly down a cross street. _Hop in._

Buffy lifted a hand and put on a burst of speed. Any idea what we're facing?

"Not a clue," Spike said aloud, leaning over to open the door for her. "Should be a party, though." He waited until she was buckled in before accelerating. "Lu and the boys are already be there."

"There'd better be some bad guys left for us," the Slayer said darkly. "Fashionably late, okay, but too late to put the smackdown on demons…"

Spike drove faster. They were at City Hall within the minute. No one was outside, so the two blonds ran up the steps to the doors. The lights were on fully, and they could hear sounds of a fight coming from the second floor. Before the pair had taken more than a couple of treads, Brian came tumbling down to the landing. Spike sped forward and had an arm beneath his minion before he could hit the wall.

"Anything broken?"

"No, sir." Brian spat some blood out of his mouth, looking much the worse for wear after getting to know the marble steps with the metal treads a little too well.

"Let's go." Spike kept an arm around the younger vampire until he got his footing. Buffy had already outpaced them both, the sword she'd taken from the car at the ready.

She got to use it almost at once. The demon that had thrown Brian down the stairs was waiting as she charged up. Buffy hadn't seen this kind before, a mottled green-brown, lizard-like beast, upright with wideset hind legs. Its smooth body went down into a thick tail that it used for balance. The Slayer moved much faster and was past the demon before its head hit the floor.

Spike came after her, splitting from Brian so that they went to either side of the body. He noted that it was reptilian, like many demons, and that there was plenty for all of them. He also saw that his minions were only armed with stakes. "Brian!" He tossed his car keys. "Weapons in the trunk."

He didn't wait to see the minion's nod, just threw himself into battle, conscious of Buffy's every movement. Within a couple of minutes, the two of them had taken point, pressing the enemy up the stairwell to the offices on the top floor.

Buffy ducked beneath the sweep of Spike's axe and saw that reinforcements had arrived. _Down!_ A green splat of magical plasma sizzled over their heads and into the two closest demons. The substance buzzed, then disappeared, taking the upper third of the demons' bodies with it.

"Nice!" Spike called over his shoulder to Michael. He swarmed up the stairs, driving an uppercut into the jaw of his next opponent, then leapt over the sweep on another's tail.

Buffy pivoted so that she was even with the closest demon and sliced her blade at it, carving away an arm. She drew back and braced her sword arm with her right hand for the killing thrust, already moving up the steps to rejoin Spike. Wishing she had time just to watch the grace of him, all slashing axe and swirling leather, she returned his fierce grin with a calm smile of her own.

 _Wish I could just watch you, pet. Deadly… graceful…._

 _Mutual._

Then she was past him, hooking one of the lizard-like demon's sturdy legs with her foot, sending it crashing into the steps. Knowing where her partner was, she left the fallen demon for his axe and continued up to the third floor.

The door to Anya's office was open, and Buffy figured that the demons must have opened a portal there, thank goodness at night rather than during the business day. She began to work her way toward the dark room, keeping the overhead 'Mayor's Office' sign in her sights as she fought. These demons were more skilled and, for the first time, armed. Inner guard. Her smile deepened. She must be getting close.

Having figured out the best way to kill the demons was simple beheading, Spike began to feint, trying to get more out of the fight. He pulled two opponents into a frenzied dance, never quite letting them maneuver him between them. Another yard… to the left… come on, one more foot… Spike let his momentum take him to the side and spun, coming back around with his axe at neck level, taking off the heads of both demons with one strike. Without going to game face, he let his head fall back in a roar of challenge, ready for more.

Both Buffy and Spike heard the elevator ding as it arrived on the third floor. Spike heard human heartbeats, but Buffy took a moment to glance around as it opened. Xander stood there with a sword, a step in front of Anya, who was putting on another pair of power heels.

The Slayer focused again on the door and the two demon guards who stood there. They watched her warily, weapons poised to strike, but it wasn't until Michael and Jonathan stepped onto the third floor with Luisa, Brian, and Cory that they broke position. The last line of defense lasted three seconds against the Slayer, and then their bodies were slumped on either side of the door to the mayor's office. The halberd one had brought to bear against her skittered across the marble floor, the only noise left in City Hall.

Then Anya stepped from the carpeted elevator onto the floor and began walking steadily toward her office, the tip-tap of her heels an ominous sound. The uniform rhythm broke as she stepped across the last guard's body, giving Buffy a nod as she entered her office. The Master and the Slayer were half a step behind her.

"Mighn Trox," she said evenly, nodding her head at the demon who stood beside a portal that had been opened on the floor in front of her assistant's desk.

Trox hissed at her. "Anyanka." The second the last syllable passed his teeth, he flung a potion toward her from a tiny vial he had hidden in his huge, clawed hand.

Beads and rivulets clung to the invisible shield in front of her, then began to fall onto the carpet and sizzle. Anya took a breath, grateful all over again for the body armor spell that Michael had been refining for defense against magical attacks. She kept her hand away from the simple crystal pendant and her voice even. "I told you when I took office, and I told you again last month. Thrice I say, and done: Sunnydale will pay you no tribute nor allow your presence or the presence of your vassals."

"I will not treat," he hissed.

Spike took a step forward. "Then you've disrespected my claim on the Hellmouth, mate." His teeth gleamed in the dim glow of the portal, white and malicious.

Trox leapt for the magical doorway. As his tail and hind feet went through, it began to close. There was just enough space left for his severed head to follow his lifeless body before it closed. Spike shook the dripping axe over the singed circle of carpet.

"Did you have to kill him?" Anya complained. "I wanted gold from him for my ruined floor. Mai could use a new desk, too." Buffy went through Anya's office door to check for any remaining demons as Xander came in. Anya turned to him. "Did you see, honey?"

"I did." Xander leaned down and pecked her on the lips. "You were awesome. 'Thrice I say, and done?' That's some cool dialog, right there."

Spike watched them, then his eyes went to his wife as she emerged from Anya's office with a quick, negative shake of her head. He seldom envied anyone, but right now he wished so much he had Xander and Anya's options. They were going back home together. He leaned close as Buffy came to his side. _Want me to come by tonight?_

She briefly closed her eyes but shook her head. _No. Dawn and Mom want to watch_ Sweet November _. We'll be up late._

His jaw tensed and a muscle in his cheek twitched. After a moment, he put his hand on her shoulder, as if she was only a comrade in arms. "Watch over them, love. See you tomorrow."

⸹

Spike squatted down in the darkness of the cemetery, not wanting his dark shape to be obvious. Now that his hair wasn't bleached, it was easier to blend into shadows. Soul or not, he still didn't have much patience, so he would only wait another couple of minutes. Buffy was staying at Joyce's house tonight, guarding Dawn, but he rather thought she wouldn't mind if he popped through the window and visited for an hour or so. She didn't have class until ten. God, he missed her.

There. Not bothering to hide but looking around warily, a second vampire entered the cemetery. Spike launched himself from stillness into supernatural speed, so that when the other man turned around, he jerked to find the Master standing there.

"Vinnie," he said pleasantly. "Thank you for meeting me."

"Of course." He'd had a choice?

Spike waved vaguely at the graveyard. "You live somewhere like this?"

"I have," Vinnie replied cautiously. He wasn't about to give up the location of his lair.

"Do you like it?"

"What?"

Spike sighed. "It's called conversation, Vinnie. It's what civilized people do to learn about each other, instead of going through pockets after a fight."

With a wary shrug, Vinnie said, "It's okay."

"How long since you were sired?"

Vinnie gave a humorless snort of laughter. "March 1974. I went into the city for a party. On my way back to the ferry…" He trailed off.

"You from Jersey?"

Vinnie nodded. "At least my sire didn't drain me and chuck me into the water."

"Know who it was?"

"One of the Riis clan. I saw him a couple times before you burned their headquarters."

Spike met the other vampire's eyes, his surprise hidden. "You sore about that?"

Vinnie lifted a shoulder. "He never claimed me."

Spike walked a few steps away and leaned on a tombstone. "Dunno if it's better to be claimed or not," he mused. "Unclaimed, you have to learn survival quick. Claimed… Well, Angelus brought me along. Had to learn survival quick."

"That pansy-ass."

"Not Angel," Spike corrected mildly. "Angelus, Scourge of Europe." He wished he had a cigarette just for the image of carefree and cool. "You like living in Sunnydale?"

"I never liked cities except for the clubs and the herd. I wish Los Angeles was closer, though."

"City boy, born and reborn," Spike replied. "First time I've ever lived in such a small place." He lowered his chin, regarding Vinnie from beneath his brows. "I worry that there's too many vampires here."

"Not as many as there used to be."

"No."

Vinnie didn't show any outward sign of nervousness, but his question laid it bare. "Are you going to try to stake me?"

"If I wanted you dead," the Master said, lifting his head, "you would be." He rose from the tombstone and headed to the gate. "Come with me. I have a… business proposition. See if you're interested."

Spike led Vinnie to a small, nondescript apartment building across the street and a block down from the cemetery. There were eight apartments in the two-story structure, two on each corner. Spike unlocked the main door. The lobby was a tall, rectangular space with mailboxes, a bike rack, and empty vending machines, all unused.

Instead of being dark and musty, though, the space was clean and full of light and noise. Two young male vampires were sitting on a couch in front of an enormous television screen, holding game controllers and ragging on each other. They were playing _Final Doom_ on a Playstation. Both were dressed in modern clothes, had trim haircuts, and had recently bathed. Behind them, a billiards table and a couple of pinball machines squatted in darkness. Both looked around to see who was there, then dropped their controllers and stood at attention. "Master."

"Cory, Brian, this is Vinnie. Say hi."

"Hi, Vinnie," they chorused.

Spike was already waving a hand. "Grab 'em quick so you can get back to the game." This was an order they were glad to follow. Once their attention was back on electronic combat, Spike jerked his head. He led Vinnie to a door. "Washer and dryer," he said, leaving it open and going to another door. "Sewer access down the stairs." A final door that he had to unlock. "All of the apartments look like this."

Vinnie followed him inside. A narrow, defensible foyer opened into a kitchen and living room on one side and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the other. The windows were covered with heavy drapes.

"Outside walls are cinderblock faced with brick," Spike said. "Inside walls are just drywall, though."

"You want me to work for you, is that it?"

The Master leaned against the kitchen counter. "What I'm doing is herd management, nothing different than what others with my title have done over the years. The old Master, he let Mayor Wilkins provide the banquet, didn't have to worry too much about the herd." He gave Vinnie a pointed look. "They had a good run, but it's the information age now. They couldn't change, and both are dead."

"Change?" Vinnie asked warily.

"That government group, the Initiative – you know it had to be all the human deaths and disappearances that brought their attention to Sunnydale. There's cameras everywhere now," Spike lifted his eyes to the ceiling, "satellites that can read license plates, computers that track where people were seen last. You travel much?" he asked.

The abrupt change of topic threw Vinnie. "What? No. It's too risky."

Spike smiled. He liked a risk-averse vampire. "My sire and I, that's about all we did for a hundred years, travel the world. It was grand. Gives you a different perspective." He leaned toward the other vampire, his voice confidential. "Every decade or so, we'd head back to Blighty, go through Europe. CCTV cameras everywhere now. There's almost nothing left of the old vampire clans. Few years back, I killed the oldest vampire in Europe. He was living alone in a miserable dungeon, just gave up holding court. Too risky."

"So you're saying that vampires have to change or die?"

Spike shook his head. "At base, we don't change. We have one need, really."

"Blood."

"Blood," Spike agreed. He touched his temple. "But we can be smart about how we get it."

"I ain't drinking cow's blood."

"I wouldn't ask that of any vampire." Spike tilted his head. "You know how I feed?"

Vinnie nodded, his look guarded. "You drink some from several humans."

"I can do that because I'm old, I have control. My lieutenant can do it. She's a bit younger than you." He jerked his head toward the lobby. "Those two fledges, they can do it." He let out a sigh. "Well, with supervision."

"You wanna know if I can."

"Sip instead of drain, yeah."

Vinnie didn't respond for a long time. "I've never tried."

"Let's go, then." Spike didn't wait, knowing Vinnie would follow.

In Sunnydale, it took almost no time to find a target. Spike counted seven seconds before Vinnie pulled free from the middle-aged man who was leaving his car for his house. He let go of the stake in his pocket; at ten seconds, he would have dusted the other vampire. "Close it up," he said.

Vinnie did so, his eyes fixed on the scabs. "That was… different," he said, his voice husky.

"You have any skill with mesmer?"

"Uh… some."

"Tell him to go inside and make his partner happy."

Vinnie looked up at him. "You think he has enough blood left?"

"Well, I usually try to keep it about a pint, pint-and-a-half. Not bad for your first go."

Spike watched. The mesmer looked like a deep gaze from the outside, lasting less time than he expected. The man toddled to his door, both vampires surveying him until he was safely inside.

"Why?"

The Master lifted a shoulder and shrugged. He started walking back to the sidewalk as he spoke, forcing the other vampire follow in his wake. "Because we can't leave trails of bodies anymore. As to the other part, health of the herd. Don't want him doing anything risky, getting the clap or something. Also, because of the soul. Don't want to ruin his life, leave him horny and prone to bone the wrong person."

"Why not just… oh. Your soul."

Spike grimaced with distaste. "Here's a rule I'll insist on: don't fuck your food." He glanced over. "Lose the face. It'll help."

It didn't. "You're not food." His voice was still husky.

Spike stopped. "Not gonna happen. I told the same to my lieutenant, same to those two playing video games. I belong to the Slayer. I have nothing left for anyone or anything outside of her." He grinned and lowered his voice. "She totally dominates."

"This doesn't seem like much of a deal, not that I can see. I'm still hungry. You're not gonna sleep with me."

Spike smiled. Even though Vinnie was complaining, he wasn't leaving. "Two or three more people, you won't be hungry. Deal with your hormones however you like, but don't mess with humans. Too fragile." He started walking again. "Let's find more food."

It took half an hour to find four more blood donors. Vinnie was already better at it, faster, neater, able to take less. Spike figured the age of the vampire helped; he knew he was having a better experience than Lu had with Cory and Brian. "You passed the tests so far."

"I don't care. I don't know if I want anything to do with this."

"Your belly full?"

Vinnie glared at him. "You know it is."

Spike shrugged. "Well, as I'm offering you a job, you might as well hear the benefits." He pulled shadow to them. Trees that grew along the street were beginning to leaf out again, but not enough to hide them from observers. "Here it is: as much blood as you want, so long as it doesn't harm the herd, free of the threat of the Slayer and her patrols. The rest of the demons are going to have respect, or else. There's your violence, right there. Money, housing, toys to help pass the daytime, full cable package, broadband, cars with necrotempered windows, my –"

"What kind of windows?"

"Necrotempered, some coating that goes on the windows of a car and makes it safe for vampires to drive in daylight. Place in Simi Valley does it; just heard about it a couple months ago." He lifted a scarred brow pointedly, asking sarcastic permission to continue. He went on. "You'll be under my protection, but I better not have to save your arse more'n once a year."

"What do I have to do?"

"I'm working with the new mayor. She used to be a vengeance demon. Nice lady. She wants to make Sunnydale a destination for human tourism, give them a reason to come here every weekend. Free concerts out of doors, street festivals, meteor shower viewings. Basically, a buffet.

"I want this, too. Had too many wankers come round wanting to start apocalypses, bring hell on earth, selfishly disrupt my food supply." Spike tucked his thumbs into his belt. "So I need vamps like you, who have control, to manage the herd."

"Sounds boring."

"Yeah? I figure there can't be more than fifteen of us for a town this size, maybe twenty if the festivals get a lot of visitors. That means we'll have poachers. There'll be plenty of violence, I promise you."

This hadn't occurred to him. "Oh. So, the town will be ours."

"Sunnydale belongs to the Slayer," Spike said flatly. "You'll never have to deal with her, I promise. The herd, now… The herd is mine." He touched his tongue to his teeth. "My ranch. You can join my crew, if you're ready to… cowboy up." His seduction was effortless.

"Cowboy up," Vinnie echoed, his eyes on the Master's mouth.

Spike turned away, dispelling shadow, making the other vampire follow again. "I have an image to maintain. Boring, but necessary. If you're one of mine, you will pass for human. You will bathe regularly. You will be well-groomed, your clothes will be clean."

"I'm clean," Vinnie protested, looking down at his polyester leisure suit.

"You're dated," Spike said. "Me, I like vintage, but with all the surveillance around us, it's better to blend. You join us, my lieutenant will fix you up. May take you to L.A. for a trip to a stylist so you fit our image."

"What image?" Vinnie said warily.

"Dangerous and fuckable." Spike shrugged. "Don't assume anything based on Cory and Brian. They don't look like teens in mum's basement when they're out on the street." The Master had led them back to the same cemetery. "Any questions?"

"Can I have time to think about it?"

"No."

"I'm sort of working for Teeth. You know, the loan shark?"

"So? Quit."

"It may not be that easy."

"You want to work for him or me?"

Vinnie looked at the sidewalk for a moment. "You," he said finally.

"If he gives you any trouble… You still eat human food?"

Vinnie wrinkled his nose. "No."

"Too bad. I've seen Teeth. He gives you any guff, there'll be more than enough shark steaks for us both."

"I'll go tonight," Vinnie said after a moment.

"Last question."

This time, Vinnie did not pause. "I don't want to submit."

Not won't, exactly. Spike's eyes narrowed. "You've submitted before?"

"To the Master. The old one."

"Yeah, well, I'm not him. You don't have to."

Vinnie's voice was hoarse again, not from desire. "What?"

"I don't have any use for vamps who like to belly-crawl. That's the reason I asked you, because you stood up to me at Willy's."

"Oh."

The younger vampire was obviously at a loss. Spike became brisk. "Here," he said, handing over a cell phone. "Company phone, so to speak. Call me if you have any trouble resigning. There are six open apartments; go pick the one you want. You move in tomorrow."

Vinnie was frowning. "Is it just going to be male vampires?"

"My lieutenant is female. She has her own place." Spike gave him another piercing look. "You have someone in mind?"

"Female vamp I know, Sandy. We fuck sometimes."

"How nice. Why did you think of her?"

"She gives suck jobs to humans, so she already knows how to drink –"

"No. She has to do that, she isn't bringing any other skills to the table."

"Well, it's just, she's really young."

Spike made an impatient mouth. "You are not to try to recruit anyone. Luisa will be by the apartment building tomorrow. Tell her where to find this vamp. She'll make the decision."

"Okay." He turned to walk away, then turned back. "Thank you. For the job. Still seems weird, though."

"We're vampires, mate. Part of the job description is 'weird.'"

"Yeah, guess that's true."

Spike didn't return the wave, just turned away. Well, he thought, that was exhausting. He rolled out his neck and began to run about quarter speed, heading for the Bentley, which was parked on the other side of downtown. Still, one more vampire to add to the drink-not-drain column. Anya would be happy.

He didn't sense the first of the demons that waited near his car, just felt it drive at full speed into his lower back. Spike went down flat on the pavement, barely getting a shoulder to the side to break his fall. Before he could get up, more of the demons piled on. He hadn't seen them before, but he knew them from Buffy's description: dark, lank hair; pointy ears; pale and pimply; wearing robes. He rolled, throwing several off his back.

Spike kicked away the ones laying across his right leg, then used it to scrape his left leg clear. He sat up, using one arm to brace himself and almost got his other arm up in time to prevent the demon behind him from bashing his head with a cantaloupe-sized rock.

The Gem of Amara absorbed the damage the rock should have inflicted. Spike sneered at the wielder through the momentary pain. The demon lifted the rock with both hands and brought it down again. At the same moment, two of the demons he'd flung aside slammed into him again. Inside his skull, his brain pushed past its cushion of cerebrospinal fluid and knocked against the curve of bone. Convulsive electrical activity bounced between its hemispheres and immediately shut him down. Spike slumped onto the concrete and knew no more.

⸹

[Author's Note: This is one theory of the mechanism that leads to unconsciousness after brain injury, but it is not established medical fact. It fits with the Gem of Amara's history with electricity, though.]

⸹

Spike woke up in a heap on the floor of an apartment much nicer than the ones in the building he'd bought for his minions. His wrists were in manacles and fastened behind his back. He'd been out for less than ten minutes.

"You brought me a vampire." Someone sounded displeased. Someone female.

Shit.

 _Love? I'm so sorry. Just got captured by Glory._

 _Spike?!_ Buffy sat up in her bedroom at her mother's house.

 _Last place I remember was outside the municipal building. Car's parked there. Can't be too far away._

 _Are you okay?_

 _Yeah, just a headache._ He let her see his memory of the rock as it descended.

 _On my way._

 _Aura's set to kill; you'll sense me. I'm in a nice apartment, at least one floor up._

 _I'll find you._

"…can't even brain-suck a vampire. He's completely useless."

"The Slayer did marry him, your Unholiness. He's precious to her."

"Precious," Glory said in a considering tone. She came closer. "I know you're awake, vampire."

Using the wall behind him as a brace, Spike passed his bound hands beneath his hips, then his legs, so that they were in front of him. The moment he got to his feet, Glory was on him. She backhanded him across the face, driving him yards across the room. Another wall stopped him.

Faster than me, Spike thought, his heart sinking, and stronger than Buffy. He spat a scrim of blood from his already healed mouth onto the floor between them. "Sod off," he said with a sneer.

"Doesn't much look like husband material to me."

Spike struggled to his feet again, a little faster now. She caught one of his raised arms and threw him again. This time, at least, he landed on a soft mattress. Glory was on him immediately, straddling him, holding the chain of his manacles with one hand. With her other hand, she pushed up his t-shirt.

"But, if the Slayer married him, maybe appearances are deceiving." Glory grinned at him, positioning her hand above him for a spear strike. "Maybe there's something on the inside." She drove her fingers into his chest. Ignoring Spike's scream of pain, she shifted her eyes to the side and wiggled her fingers, searching his chest cavity. "What can I dig out of you, vampire?"

Several of Spike's ribs broke. Glory pulled her hand free. Instead of snapping immediately into place, the bones remained in pieces, his muscles loose and torn.

Glory looked at the ring in her bloody palm and wrinkled her nose. "A teardrop? That's what you had inside?" She tossed the ring over her shoulder. Wiping her hand absently on his jeans, she looked at him. "I sensed something, but I forget sometimes that those nasty monkies transformed my key. It isn't you, vampire." She hauled him closer by the manacles. "But maybe you know something. Maybe you're not a complete waste." Something else flashed and caught her eye.

Glory peered at his hand and scoffed. "What is it with you and rings, precious?" she asked. She snatched it from him, breaking two fingers and eliciting a loud snarl of fury, then tossed his wedding ring over her shoulder, too. Glory got off the bed, dragging Spike behind her the way Drusilla used to dangle a doll thoughtlessly by its arm. "String up the bloodsucker, you scabby morons. Let's see what else he's hiding."

⸹

Buffy chewed her bottom lip, second-guessing her decision to drive. She could have run here faster, but she wasn't exactly on the down-low tonight. There, his car. She made a right turn, away from the government buildings and back toward town. Nothing. Buffy circled the block, then made a right turn a block down. Sunnydale wasn't laid out in a grid, but the streets here were fairly –

There. She parked halfway onto the curb and turned to grab her duffel of weapons. The door to the apartment building was locked, but judicious application of her booted foot took care of that. Buffy used the duffel bag to knock more of the glass out of the frame, then stepped through. No doorman or night guard came to see the cause of the noise. The two elevators were on upper floors, so she went directly to the stairwell, following her Slayer's sense of her husband.

Here. Buffy opened the door to the third floor. There, at the end of the hall. _Spike? I'm here. Get clear of her._ Buffy crouched down, opened the duffel bag, and looked inside. She had two left, kept in the basement for major emergencies, but only brought one. One shot was all she would get.

"Shut up! I command you, shut up!"

A smile curved Buffy's mouth. She could hear the rumble of Spike's voice, hear his tone of derision. She hugged the wall, making her way closer to the door. She loved her husband, but even she had to admit he had a mouth on him.

"…wife will kick your skanky, lopsided ass back to whatever place would take the god of bad perms, the god of fashion victims –"

Then the door crashed toward her, flying past her. She saw her vampire's form go past as well, and she moved with Slayer speed, bringing the rocket launcher up to her shoulder and leaving the bag at the warped doorframe for Spike. There was a window behind Glory; good, she didn't have to waste time worrying about collateral damage.

"You again," Glory said, glaring at her.

"I told you not to mess with my family," Buffy said calmly. She dropped to her knee and fired.

The minions stared after the receding form of their god, blasted out of the window, carried with the momentum of the rocket. At a shallow angle over the rooftops of the sleeping town, it exploded. Her minions did nothing, just stared into the darkness with shock

"Buffy!" Spike's voice was harsh. She dropped the spent launcher, rising and turning to catch the sword he'd thrown to her.

"Hold the door!" she called back. The short demons turned from the window and began to advance on her. After the closest three fell beneath her blade, the advance stopped. Buffy slew three more of them, then froze, watching and listening. Her Slayer senses told her that there were no more.

She turned back to the door, expecting to see Spike lounging against the doorframe, that look of absolute belief and adoration in his eyes, all for her. Instead, he was laying on the floor, a dagger loose in one hand. The bodies of two minions lay near him, one inside the apartment, one behind him in the hallway. He did not get up.

"Spike!" Buffy was by his side in less than a second, thought to get the look of horror off her face a couple of seconds later.

"Sorry," he said.

"What?" His hip seemed a safe place to lay a hand; there was no place on his bare torso that didn't look like… meat. "Oh, Spike. How?"

"Ambush." He rolled the one eye that was open. "Stupid."

He meant himself, she knew. "Let's get you home." Oh, God. Where could she touch him?

"Um," he raised a hand, as if to ward her away, "get my ring? On the floor, near the window."

Her eyes left his battered face and went to the ragged hole in his abdomen. "Oh." That's all she could manage with the air she had left, because she wasn't able to breathe. That's why he was so trashed. Buffy leapt over the bodies littering the floor, her eyes sweeping the floor. There. She scooped up the Gem of Amara and was by his side in a flash. "Got it. Put it on."

Spike managed to focus on it after a moment. "No, love," he raised his hand again. "Wedding ring."

His broken, mangled fingers were bare. Buffy nodded, turning away again to search the floor, wiping tears from her face while she was away from him. She found the plain gold band, scooped it up and wiped the blood from it. "I've got it," she assured him, dropping down next to him again. Buffy put it in her pocket with the other ring. "Spike. No arguments. You will drink."

If his jaw wasn't broken, he would have moved it out to a stubborn angle. "No."

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, it was the Slayer gazing at him. "Do you want my mother and little sister to see what she did to you?"

He met her gaze for a couple of seconds, and then shut his one working eye in defeat. Buffy put her wrist against his mouth. Without completely transforming, he bit into her flesh a bit above the joint. There was only bright pain and then cold in her fingers, no feeling of numbness or desire. The skin that was missing from his torso began to regenerate immediately. Buffy knew he wouldn't take much; she judged it was less than a pint. He knew she had to have her strength, too.

Spike turned his head. He lifted a hand to grasp hers, then licked her wrist clean. "I can get up now," he said, his voice dull and defeated.

Buffy rose to her feet. She put her sword and his dagger into the duffel bag, then held out her hands for his, hauling him to his feet. She was there when he swayed into her, and they made their slow way to the elevators.

"What happened to your chest and back?" she asked.

"The leprosy hobbits," he said, staring at the elevator. "She wanted to see which would could peel the longest strip of hide from the vampire."

"I will kill her," she said, her voice shaking, "for good. I don't know how, but I will."

⸹

Angel lay on his back on his bed, his arms above his head. Today, he'd ordered Vietnamese takeout for his people for lunch, kept his mouth shut, and just basked in their presence. Letting other people take the lead was difficult, but no doubt better for him – for everyone. Being with his friends was better for him.

Just now, though, he was alone. He sighed. Angel uncrossed his ankles. Darla was dead again and gone from his life. He couldn't save her; not even winning a life for her in magical trials had mattered. That had broken him, and he'd slept with her after the last remaining Aurelian, Sam Lawson, sired her again.

He hadn't lost his soul. He'd wanted it gone, wanted to stop trying. He'd failed. After that, he'd painfully pulled himself out of the gutter once again.

For almost three weeks, he'd put off the phone call he needed to make. He'd made up with his friends; now it was time to make up with family. Leaning over to reach the charger cord, he tugged his cell phone close enough to grab. Maybe it wouldn't work while it was on charge. No, the phone call went through. No excuses, then.

"Hello?"

"Buffy." He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.

"Angel." She sounded tired, subdued. "You changed your number."

"Cordy found a better cell phone plan," he said. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know. The usual."

"Same here," he said. There was a moment of silence while he tried to think of what to say. "I thought I called Spike's number."

"You did. He's asleep, finally."

Angel's brows drew together. It was six in the afternoon. "Asleep?"

"Yeah."

"Buffy… what's going on up there?"

"A god." There was a rustle of sound. "He's waking up. Look, Angel, I'll have him call you when he can, okay?"

"Sure." She was already saying goodbye. Angel stared at the phone in his hand. He must have misunderstood. She'd said 'god,' which was her usual interjection, but he had thought for a moment that her answer to his question was 'a god.' Frowning, he pushed the off button and laid the phone back on the nightstand. It was good to hear her voice, even if she had sounded tired. Angel wished Spike had answered, though. It would have been better to hear his boy's voice.

⸹

"Good morning," Dawn said softly.

Spike lifted his head from the pillow. "Uh, hey, Bit." He frowned. "Where's Buffy?"

"Showering. Mom's making coffee." She came into the room and closed the door behind him. Dawn's eyes were on his face, and she abruptly closed her mouth and swallowed. "When Buffy fought her at the zoo, she was better after four days." She didn't sit on the mattress, just stood by the bed. "You still don't…."

"Yeah, still a fright, I know." He ruffled his fingers in his curling hair and made a face.

"Spike… Would you do something for me?"

"If I can."

Dawn had one of Buffy's throwing daggers held closely against her wrist. She let it drop into her right hand and brought the blade to her left wrist.

"No." Slower than usual was still quick enough to snatch her forearm.

"You let everyone else." Joyce, Willow, Xander, and Giles had all donated blood to supplement the supply from the butcher. He couldn't hunt yet.

"'Let' had nothing to do with it," he said bitterly. "General Buffy didn't give me much choice." He let go of her arm and dropped back onto the pillow. "'Sides, don't think you're allowed to donate blood. Too young."

"This happened because of me." Dawn's voice was like steel. "And my blood is the same as Buffy's. That's what the lab said."

"Love," Spike said, closing his eyes, "you aren't food."

"Am I family?"

He turned his face away. "Of course you are. You know you are."

Dawn looked at the dark bruises that still bloomed on his jaw, neck, and along his arm, at the white bandages wrapped around his torso to protect the still-open wound where Glory had found the Gem of Amara. Apparently, the ring didn't do anything for preexisting wounds.

"Why don't you want our blood?" she asked gently, finally sitting on the bed. "Is it a vampire thing?"

"Some." Just when Dawn was sure he wouldn't say anything more, he went on. "You'd smell like prey to me for a week or so, love. Don't want that for you, didn't want it for any of you."

"There's something else."

He turned his head and met her eyes, "Bit… Had my arse handed to me."

She raised a brow. "Your ego is bruised, too?"

It wasn't that. Glory kept coming back from blows that would have destroyed any other Big Bad. Spike was afraid, and it had been so long since he'd lived in fear that he didn't quite know how to handle it. Not that he wanted her to know; she was probably afraid any time she had a spare second to think. So he shaded his answer with a sulk. "Maybe."

Dawn shook her head. "Spike, you dumbass, she tortured you, and you didn't say anything. You're kind of a hero, right?"

"A heroic kind of dumbass?" he asked. "Er, mind your language, Bit."

"Shut up, Spike. I just… Thank you." She gave up, because she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry, and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

He waited until the shadow of her hair left his face and held out his right hand. The fingers of his left were still swollen, though the bones had knit. Dawn took it.

Buffy came in, hair dry and dressed for class, zipping her makeup bag. "Hey, Dawn," she said in surprise.

"Little sis wants to be a blood donor," Spike said dryly.

"No," Buffy said immediately.

"Told her she was too young."

Dawn's voice was steely again. "And I told him that everyone else in the family has." She gave Buffy a challenging look. "Aren't I part of the family?"

"Of course you are. But Anya hasn't given him any blood," Buffy said. She tossed her bag into the open suitcase on the floor. "Neither has Tara."

"Yet." The Slayer closed her eyes, beginning to get annoyed. Seeing this, Dawn rushed on. "We need to get him healed up." She didn't have to say why.

"Dawnie," Buffy sighed, sitting down on the other side of the bed, reaching across Spike to cover their joined hands with hers, "this might be enough to keep her away past the window of opportunity. We have time."

"You don't know that." Dawn looked away. "I want to do _something_ ," she whispered. "Both of you have been hurt because of me," and she hastily changed words when she saw both of them begin to protest, "been hurt protecting me from her. I need to do something to help," and here Dawn looked away, "to do something to feel real."

 _Spike?_

His eyes closed again. _All right._

Buffy shook her head. "Do not tell Mom."

"I won't," she promised, almost a squeal of delight. She slid her hand from beneath theirs, and her expression changed. Dawn gripped the throwing knife tightly, then laid it across her wrist.

"Knife," Buffy demanded, holding out her hand. "And stay out of the weapons chest."

"Don't ever cut yourself like that," Spike added. "Might cut ligaments or tendons, keep your digits from being useful ever again."

"Oh." Dawn wiggled her fingers and studied the movement beneath the skin of her wrist. "That's how people do it on television."

"People who are trying to commit suicide," Buffy said. She froze and gave her little sister an intent look.

Spike, who had been about to add that lengthwise cuts were better for bloodletting, swiveled his head so he was looking directly at Dawn. She wasn't looking at either of them, just studying the sheet by her leg.

"Dawnie," Buffy said, her voice soft, "you haven't thought –"

"Of course I have," she whispered, meeting her sister's horrified gaze. Tears stood in her eyes. "Aubrey said the Key would just be gone when I die. Of course I've thought about it."

"Oh, sweetie," Buffy said, her heart breaking. Before she could move, Spike was between the two sisters.

"You are to never hurt yourself," he snarled, his hands on Dawn's biceps. Power pulsed out from him, battering against Buffy, as he glared into the teenager's eyes.

"I'm not going to," Dawn said, annoyed. She didn't roll her eyes, but it was a near thing. "But I had to think about it, you know? It's something I could do, and most of the time, I feel so helpless. I wouldn't really – Oh, God," she blurted, "Spike, you're bleeding."

Buffy gently pushed him back onto the bed. _Mesmer?_

 _Yeah. No effect at all._ He looked up at her. "Sorry."

She knew he meant for trying to control her sister as well as for reopening his wound. _We'll talk._ "Dawn? If you ever feel like suicide is a good idea, I want you to promise you'll talk to me first, okay?"

"Okay." She wasn't looking at Buffy.

"No, not just okay. Promise." When her sister didn't immediately respond, Buffy's voice took on the commanding tone of the Slayer. "Promise."

"I promise." Dawn's voice was small.

Buffy went around the bed and took her baby sister in her arms. "You remember just before the divorce, when they sent me to the institution?" Dawn nodded against her shoulder. "There were girls in there who tried, okay? Bad scars, months of hospitalization, years of therapy. What I remember most is how often the girls who hadn't tried said they were so glad they didn't, because a day or a week later, something got better. Things looked really bleak for one moment in time, but it passed. You understand?"

Dawn nodded, tears on her cheeks. "I understand. I'm not suicidal, I just… It's, like, one strategy to defeat Glory."

Buffy pulled her even closer. "No. It is absolutely not. Leave her to me."

"And me," Spike added, putting his hand on her back.

Dawn sniffled. "Yeah, like you're going to be of any help right now." She leaned away from Buffy and wiped at her face. "So, you gonna bite me or not?"

"Good Lord," Spike said sullenly. "Hold out your arm, then."

Buffy kept her sister close for the few seconds it took for Spike to take a mouthful of Dawn's blood and close the wound. Spike didn't look at either of them.

"Was that it?" Dawn peeped over Buffy's shoulder.

"That's it," he agreed heavily.

"I think your eye looks better."

Buffy was examining his torso. "The wound closed."

He knew what she was prompting him to do. "Thank you, Dawnie. You were right. It helped."

She wiped her cheeks again, her expression easing closer to her usual cheerful one. "I told you."

"Go shower," Buffy said, giving her one last squeeze. "Don't want to be late."

Dawn kissed her cheek, then kissed Spike again. "Actually, I wouldn't mind being late, but Mom would flip." She left them alone.

Buffy looked at Spike and shook her head, baffled. _How do I stop my sister from doing something heroic and idiotic?_

 _Yeah, not like she lacks bravery._ Spike met his wife's eyes. _I've been using mesmer too long. Just automatic. I shouldn't have done that, but… love, I don't think she even knew I tried._

 _I would have done the same thing if I had the ability._

 _You did something better than trying to take your sister's free will._

 _Stop kicking yourself._ Buffy stroked his hand absently.

He gave her a half-smile. _You're so good at that. Talking to her, I mean._

Buffy shrugged. _It wasn't so long ago that I was a stressed-out teenager._

He turned his hand and slid his fingers through hers. _You thought about… suicide?_

She'd felt his reluctance to use that word in connection with her. _Of course. Idly thought about it, but… Of course I did, during the rough times._

Spike closed his eyes and lifted her hand to his lips, getting brief glimpses of the time after she'd been called, the weeks Angelus had been in Sunnydale. _I hate that you've ever had a single rough moment._

 _Same._ She brought his hand to her mouth for a kiss. "Here," she said, letting go, "let's get that bandage changed."

⸹

May 2001

⸹

Willow hated to be at the hospital, but she especially hated the basement where the insane people were housed. Warehoused, really. But Tara had volunteered to help down here twice a week. She hadn't had a chance to get lunch today, so Willow was bringing her dinner.

"'…Jo seated on the old sofa, writing busily, with her papers spread out upon a trunk before her…'"

Willow smiled. Tara had been reading _Little Women_ to the crazy people. She thought it had more to do with Tara's gentle voice than the book, but the adventures of the March family seemed to calm them. She moved to the door soundlessly and just watched her girlfriend seated in the middle of a pack of mindless people, keeping them still with her quiet voice, enchanting them the same way she enchanted Willow.

Tara thought she had found a way of pulling their minds back from Glory. She'd listened to Buffy's belief that Glory fed from them, but theorized that the god sucked the vitality from their minds, that their mental abilities and memories were condensed or dehydrated, and could be reconstituted by pulling that vitality back out of Glory. Willow wasn't sure, herself, but Tara had thought about becoming both a nurse and a psychologist and had taken classes in those areas. She didn't feel too confident in her own psychology background, considering that Maggie Walsh had been her professor.

Tara glanced up and saw her in the doorway, giving her a quick smile. Willow gave one back to her, wholeheartedly. She raised the bag high and mouthed the word 'salad.' The dark blond head nodded, then bent back to the book. Willow realized that Tara didn't stutter as she read. That meant that she was comfortable down here in this basement ward. She shivered a little at that thought.

⸹

Anya looked around the wharf. Even though it was dark, the place was full of lights and activity as the first catch of the day came into Los Angeles.

She had been getting to know more of her constituents, and one of them, a nice Pemidorn demon with lovely lilac hair, told her about another potential restauranteur. Xander hadn't protested very much when she suggested a trip to Los Angeles for the weekend. They enjoyed trying to figure out exactly what made hotel sex so good.

He had still been asleep when she left the room and took a taxi to the fish market. Now she stood beside a utility pole and kept scanning the crowd until she saw the vampire the Pemidorn had mentioned. Pasting on her best vote-for-me smile, she approached him.

The vampire was speaking with a crewman on a trawler, politely waiting for permission to go aboard. He was a tall, thin black man, just as Candy had described, wearing a cap with the logo NOLA. When he came off the boat, calling a farewell over his shoulder, she was waiting for him.

"Remy Valcour?"

He wasn't expecting anyone to seek him out in a place he felt comfortable. "Who you, then?" he asked warily, a Creole accent strong in his surprised words.

"I'm Anya Jenkins. I'm mayor of Sunnydale. One of our residents, Candy Evans, told me I could find you here in the mornings, getting ingredients for the special of the day."

"Candy?" He relaxed marginally. Without turning around, he moved away from the gangway so he wouldn't block the crewmen. "What she tell you about me for?"

"She told me it was a shame you couldn't open your own restaurant because you're a vampire," Anya said cheerfully, not really noticing how his eyes went wide at her bluntness. "She said the chef you work for takes credit for your talent and doesn't give you much more than what you need for blood and rent."

"Candy talks too much. She a friend, but she talks too much."

Anya shrugged. "I get that a lot myself. Anyway, I wanted to ask you to listen to a business proposition."

Remy sent a considering look at the lightening sky. "Talk fast."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of conducting business here." Anya dug in her sleek Marc Jacobs leather tote and drew out a proposal. "Here's what I'd like you to consider. We'll take care of necrotempering the windows on your choice of these retail spaces. Two restaurants, one fancy with French cuisine and the other of your choice. Sunnydale has excellent tunnel access downtown for moving between them. There's a municipal airport for flying in any fresh ingredients –"

The vampire held up a hand. "Wait. You want me to open restaurants. In Sunnydale."

"Yes." Anya went back over the conversation, thinking this had been evident. "Your own restaurants."

"And you know I'm a vampire."

"Yes. Candy said you drink butcher's blood, that you have for years."

He twisted his head to the side and looked down at her. "And you believe what I say?"

"Did you lie to Candy Evans?" she asked, one hand going to her hip and the attitude of a vengeance demon settling over her.

"No. Course I didn't lie. Candy's a friend." Friends were a rare commodity for vampires.

"Oh. Well, then, I believe you." They stared at each other for a moment. When he didn't say anything, Anya went on. "My business card is in there. If it's something you're interested in, give me a call. I'll send a car down to bring you to Sunnydale for a visit." She planned to send Luisa, an attractive vampire. It was an underhanded thing to do, but it wasn't like Luisa couldn't hold her own if he got handsy.

"And you the mayor of Sunnydale?"

"Just took office in January," she agreed cheerfully. "My plan is to turn the town into a tourist destination and channel all of our demon citizens' energies into businesses that cater to human tourists. It's much more sustainable than Hellmouth tourism." Anya held out her hand until the bemused vampire gave it a perfunctory shake. "I hope to hear from you soon, Remy. Now, I'm heading back to my fiancé for org – um, to get more sleep. Have a good day!"

⸹

Buffy rubbed her eyes and rolled out her neck. Four pages in French, and she would be done with her final paper for the final required language class. She slid off the stool and went to the refrigerator. Mom's fridge was far better stocked than hers; bottles of sauces and other flavorings used in various recipes lined the edges. She got out the can of cola she'd half-finished at breakfast and closed the door, looking around.

Spike had taken her mom and Dawn to the World Cultural Fair on campus, meeting Tara and Willow there. He'd wanted to give her time alone. She'd thought about driving home to do her paper, but she'd just have to drive right back here.

Buffy put the cold can against her forehead, then lifted her hair from her neck and rested the can there. Since Glory had taken Spike, things had changed. That ambush showed the god was watching her circle of people. Everyone checked in every three hours, except at night. No one went anywhere alone. And she'd basically moved back to her mom's house.

Willow, Xander, Giles, and even Spike had all had to put up with at least one bitter outburst about that. The weeks of worrying about Glory had become months. She couldn't image how stressed her mother was, considering that this was on top of worries about her own health. After another visit to Houston, her doctors were cautiously optimistic, but she still had months to go before they cleared her. And Buffy was amazed by how well Dawn was handling everything – being hunted by a murderous god, being recently created out of ancient energy, being fourteen. She'd be a quivering heap of jelly if she were in her little sister's shoes.

It didn't mean she was handling her own stress very well. Buffy found herself being sarcastic to her mom and sister, hearing her own words, hating them, but not able to stop herself. It wasn't all the time, but she felt it was way too often. Part of it was the critical date Aubrey had pinpointed for them. The threat to Dawn was imminent, and they had all been living under the threat for so long.

And part of it was her marriage.

There had been no fights, nothing overt. But Spike was separate from her in a way that was painful. She knew she hadn't been there for him in the aftermath of his defeat. He'd tried to be casual about living alone; one of them would patrol while the other stayed with Dawn and Joyce, but Buffy was always the one who stayed overnight. Sometimes he joined her, holding her while she slept or touching each other cautiously and quietly in her childhood bed, so much less than what either of them wanted. She knew exactly what it was; the same thing had happened before, when they had tried dating. Being disconnected from Spike was like being cut off from herself.

The Slayer shook her head. Focus, she scolded herself. Sit, open laptop, open French dictionary, begin typing. She hadn't learned enough to think in French, but she hadn't absolutely embarrassed herself in Paris last summer.

Halfway through the third page, her cellphone rang. Buffy checked the number. "Hey, Anya."

"Buffy?" Anya's voice was urgent. "Glory is here."

"Glory? Glory is – Where are you? I'm on my way." The Slayer found the closest pair of shoes, not hard toes, unfortunately, just sneakers, and grabbed her purse. "Where are you, Anya? Talk to me."

"Uh… We came to the fair on campus, and she showed up. Her fingers went into his _head_ , Buffy! I saw it."

Her heart sank. "Whose head?"

"Some guy's."

"Where's Dawn?"

"Spike took her and Joyce somewhere."

She vaulted into the open convertible and tossed her bag into the floorboards of the passenger side. The Scythe was in the trunk; Buffy never went anywhere without it now. "On my way. Are you with Wil or Tara?"

"Yes. Oz is following her."

"Ask Wil the name of the nearest building."

After a muffled exchange, Anya came back. "Clyburn Hall."

"Almost to campus," Buffy said. "Text Spike, tell him I'm going after Glory. Tell him… keep them safe." She ended the call before Anya could answer, heading around campus rather than through so she could use streets with higher speed limits. Clyburn was away from the dorms, thank goodness. It was almost six now, so the fair should be winding down. Fewer people, if Glory was feeding. She hoped the god had been attracted to the crowd, like vampires to a herd, rather than to her sister.

She left her Mercedes in staff parking, running with the duffel bag containing the Scythe over her shoulder, looking for Willow's bright hair. Xander spotted her first, raising both hands in the air to get the Slayer's attention. "Which way?"

Xander didn't bother to reply, just held up his phone and began sprinting to the left of Clyburn Hall, heading off campus. All four women followed him, Buffy assuming that Oz had been texting his position.

Before she got too out of breath, Willow touched her friend's arm. "The guy she… put her hand into, he followed her. Five other people did, too."

Buffy jogged along, puzzling over this. The god had never bothered with the people she made crazy before. Then she thought of the night Glory's minions had ambushed her vampire. She and Spike had taken down all of them. Did she need more minions? She lengthened her stride and fell in next to Xander. "How far?"

He lifted a hand. "See that crane?"

Buffy looked above the rooftops. The construction crane was maybe two blocks over, the jib and part of the mast showing clearly in the mellow evening light. "Got it." She took the lead, knowing these streets best, and went down an alley. She stopped at the fence, looking through the chain link surrounding a construction site.

"Oz texted last from the corner," Xander said, winded. "He should be around here… somewhere."

His voice faded as he saw where Buffy was staring. Humans were milling around the construction site, but they weren't wearing construction helmets. People in hospital gowns, pajamas, or street clothes were passing planks hand-to-hand in a bizarre brigade. Others were hammering the boards together, making a broad base that would never pass a safety inspection. "What the hell? I know Greene Construction isn't the best in town, but… What are they building?"

"I know them," Tara said. She was out of breath, but managed to add, "From the hospital."

"The crazy people?" Buffy asked. Tara nodded, and she looked back at the strange scene.

Tara moved from the fence, and Anya slipped in next to Xander, staring at the work going on. "Willow, if sh-she's here, with them, I mean, c-could we try the spell?"

"Of course," Willow said. She leaned to the side so she could see around Buffy. "I mean, as long as it's safe, we can – Oh, no." She pushed past Xander, her lips parted, staring intently at the people passing wood. Her fingers curled around the chain link fence. "That's Oz."

Buffy looked at her best friend, then her head whipped back around, searching the crowd. The last time she'd seen Oz, he had dyed his hair black. Then she saw the afternoon light glinting from auburn hair and focused.

It was Oz, muttering something under his breath. The intent gaze that was as much a part of him as his sweet smile was simply gone. He handed a two-by-four to a man in a hospital gown, both of them equally vacant. "Oh, God," the Slayer whispered.

Tara was beside her suddenly. "What? No." All her air left in a sharp exhalation, as if someone had hit her.

"Shit." Xander stared down at the phone he was gripping, unable to believe his eyes. He'd just talked to Oz.

"Tara?" Willow asked, turning to look at the blond witch, her voice like a child's.

They stared at each other. For a moment, Tara looked terrified. Then she swallowed and nodded. "I-it'll work." She looked past Willow to Oz and added, "It has to."

Buffy watched this warily. "What will work?"

"Tara's been working on a way to help the crazy people." The Slayer nodded, remembering this, encouraging her. "We have to do it while Glory's with them."

"And now she is." Buffy's brow furrowed. "She just fed off a bunch of people, so she's going to be strong right now." Shit. She took a breath and forced herself to turn into the Slayer. "Let's get away from here before anyone notices. You two," she gestured at Tara and Willow, "go get what you need. Anya, Xander, can you two find a high place to keep an eye on Oz and the rest? Keep in touch. I'll call Giles."

They left with nods and quick touches to each other's shoulders and hands. Buffy pulled in a breath, then sprinted in a different direction until she was a couple of blocks away. Before she got out her cell phone to call her Watcher, she had to speak with her husband.

 _Spike? Where are you?_

 _At the house. Uh, our house. They're safe, love._

 _I'm going to need you here. She got Oz._

 _Fuck._ She waited for him to process this. _How are the Wiccas handling it?_

 _Tara's been working on that cure. Glory has to be there for it to work. They're getting what they need. Once they're back… I think it's up to us to hold her down._

 _Last battle?_

 _I think so. Nothing goes together like finals and apocalypses._

 _Yeah, soddin' Sunnydale. Let me think, love. If I get Lu and the boys to watch them here, if something goes pear-shaped, neither of them could invite the vamps inside._

 _I'm sure Glory knows where both houses are._

They stayed quietly in each other's minds, trying to see if a more secure plan would present itself. After nothing occurred to either, Buffy made the call. _I have to have you here, Spike._

 _I know._

 _Do you think Lu's empath mojo would work on her?_

 _I think if Lu touched Glory, Lu would be insane in a second._

Buffy closed her eyes. _Still no word from Los Angeles?_

This made Spike close his own eyes in both hurt and worry. None of Angel's people were answering their phones. _Nothing. Woulda been bloody useful, to have him at hand._

 _I need to call Giles._

 _Right. I love you, wife. We'll take her down._

 _I know. I love you right back._

⸹

Tara read over the spell once again, committing it to memory. She planned to keep it as an ongoing chant, ready to release the moment Glory was vulnerable. She didn't think the god would give her time to recite the spell.

Gooseflesh broke out over her arms, and she turned to the back of the Magic Box. Something dangerous was back there, where Willow was gathering herbs and thread. Then she saw that Willow already knew about the danger.

She was levitating in front of the bookshelves that were set high in the wall, and her red hair was black as inky, oily symbols flowed from the books into her skin, magic absorbed into her in a relentless tide.

"W-w-w-willow," she managed, moving forward a couple of steps, too shocked to do more.

Then the drawing ended, some last letters creeping over her wrists and sinking into her bare arms. Willow floated to the floor and turned to look at her with black eyes.

"Wh-what d-did you d-do?"

Willow didn't seem to hear the dismay behind the words. "I have to have power. This isn't the time for me to pass out or have nosebleeds. I have to save Oz." Her eyes remained black, but they flickered. "We have to save Oz," she added.

Tara physically couldn't say more, words piling up uselessly in her throat, blocked inside. She wanted to scream at her girlfriend to undo it, to soothe her and tell her it wasn't necessary. She wanted to erase the memory of those eyes, eyes that should be hazel.

"I have candles and the binding," Willow said, gesturing. A string of herbs floated next to her right hand for a moment, then disappeared. "Let's go." Tara gave her an anguished look, then nodded. Right now, the only hope Oz had was them. She turned to the door, heading for Willow's Camry. "No, we'll teleport."

"Sh-shouldn't you s-save –"

"No. I have plenty of power." She held out her hands.

'Save your strength,' Tara would have finished. She reluctantly held out both hands and took Willow's cold ones into her own.

⸹

"Joyce and Dawn are at Revello," Spike said without preamble. His voice was low as he sped into the space between Giles and Buffy. He gave her a quick kiss, then looked around. Xander and Anya nodded at him, and Aubrey moved away a couple of steps.

"And the vampires?" Giles asked, his voice harsh.

"Each corner of the house," Spike affirmed. "It's dark enough, barely." He met the Watcher's worried eyes. "They won't invite them in unless Glory shows up." He and Buffy whirled around to the street corner behind them. Willow and Tara materialized there. Tara pulled her hands away first, unconsciously wiping them on her skirt.

"Wil?" Buffy asked. "Your hair."

"Your eyes," Spike added.

"I used the books at the Magic Box," she said calmly.

"I-in the upper shelf," Tara clarified.

"Those books?" Giles asked, his voice a good deal higher.

"Is Oz still there?" Willow walked past them. They weren't at the fence, but someone had turned on electric lights, and they could see the crazy people moving around the structure. Her eyes found Oz, and her fists clenched.

"Yeah," Xander answered belatedly, pulling his gaze away from his best friend to give Anya a concerned look. He took a step closer to Tara. "Do you think you guys can muffle sound so Glory doesn't hear? I think I can do something to help."

Tara's full lips compressed. "Ask her."

"I can do that." Willow's voice was soft. Her eyes were still on Oz.

"Now?" Xander asked. He reached into his jeans pocket for his keys when she nodded. Since construction companies couldn't afford downtime because someone had lost a key, the same one would start many big machines from the same manufacturer.

Buffy looked between them. "Spike and I will get her into the open so you guys can do your thing."

Giles pulled a machete from inside his jacket. "Aubrey and I will make sure there are no minions to interfere."

"D-don't hurt the people," Tara said quickly.

"We won't," he assured her. As long as they don't start fighting Buffy, he added silently. "Anya, get Oz away if things go badly."

Anya put her hand by her thigh so the blade she held wouldn't endanger Xander. She gave him a quick kiss. "Be careful."

"You too." He touched her cheek, then sprinted to the left, toward a gate where several hulking pieces of construction equipment were parked.

"Let's go." Buffy moved forward to the fence. She leaned over and lifted the chain link, pulling it free of the posts and folding it so that the Scoobies could duck underneath. The building that was actually meant for the site was partially constructed, with bare concrete blocks and openings for windows draped with sheets of scratched, clear plastic. There was light inside and occasional shadows moved across the rippling sheets.

Buffy glanced at Spike. _If you get the chance, toss her outside to Willow and Tara. I'll do the same. Aim for the area where they're working._

He nodded, his eyes on the shadows between their small group and the rickety structure. _Simple physics it is. Don't think the humans will notice when we go in. Second floor?_

 _Sounds good._

Willow and Tara both had their attention on Oz. He was now nailing planks together. Behind them, Giles nodded to Aubrey, and they split to flank the two witches. Giles readjusted his grip on his machete. The older Watcher had a gladius that had to be at least seventeen hundred years old, its edge still holding a wicked sharpness. He held it low, mostly hidden behind the brown suit, itself cut to hide his considerable girth.

Spike and Buffy moved apart, the vampire going around the side of the incomplete building. The rest saw Buffy crouch, then leap to the second floor. Her feet landed on a windowsill, and she immediately folded, making her silhouette small, her head tilted to listen for the sound of any enemies.

Tara glanced to the left and saw Xander standing on the tread of a bulldozer, one hand on the door to the cab. She started to reach out to touch Willow's shoulder, but changed her mind. "Xander's ready," she murmured instead.

Willow glanced away from Oz. She lowered her head, and a moment later, something that looked like a black vein crept from her hairline halfway down her forehead. Tara felt the magic sweep past her. She gave Xander a thumb's-up. He ducked inside, and a moment later, the huge piece of equipment began to roll silently toward them. A dark cloud of diesel exhaust billowed from its pipe, then dissipated.

Meanwhile, Buffy had slipped behind the plastic and inside the building. She could hear Glory's voice and headed toward the sound. _Ears on Glory_ , she informed Spike. _On the move._

 _Eyes._ Then Buffy heard his voice. "Well, if it isn't the Queen Bitch of Skank. Or should I say, deposed Queen Bitch?" Buffy picked up her pace. Twice, there was a sound of his Gurkha _Kukri_ slicing through the air and something else. "You ever gonna run out of these pint-sized minions? They must breed like bunnies, once you put blindfolds on them," another swing of his blade, "and they can't see how ugly they are."

"Well, look who's here, rings on his fingers," Glory said, saccharine sweet.

"Always up for a fight," Spike said. "Reckon you might do, now that I don't have my hands bound." He gave her a rattlesnake grin. "Almost a fair fight."

"Fight you? You're a vampire," she spat. "I don't have time for this."

"No," he said, silky. "You don't. You're almost out of time, aren't you? All dressed up in a cross-dressing larper's dream of a medieval harlot's dress, clock's about to chime midnight… and no Key."

"I'll be ready, set, go," Glory said, her voice deadly, "the second I find the Key."

"Don't you feel it?" Spike asked, soft, moving to the left, wanting to get her lined up with a window and away from a grate in the floor. "That's ignominy, creeping up your spine. The fingers of obscurity wrapping about your neck. You're never going home, never getting power. You're over, nowheresville."

"Shut up. You're the insignificant one, vampire."

"Yeah," he said with another grin, nodding in agreement with himself, "you feel it. Failure, wrapping around you so tightly." Then he shrugged. "Or, could be the Slayer."

Buffy launched herself from the shadows and picked Glory up at the waist, spinning so she could throw the god out of the window behind them. Spike was already at a run, so he and Buffy hit the ledge together, leaping down from the building, one on either side of the god as they landed.

Glory was already pulling herself to her feet. "You two are just so _annoying_ ," she snarled. "I guess if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." She broke for the Slayer, who already had the Scythe in hand.

Spike lifted his upper lip in a snarl of fury. He had tried everything he could to get Glory to focus on him, but she wasn't fooled about which of them posed the most danger. He was behind her, bringing the butt of his large knife down on the base of her skull as Buffy drove the stake deep into her body. They both disengaged, then immediately came back at her, both of them driving down blows onto her arms, wanting to leave her limbs numb. Behind them, the bulldozer came closer.

Four of her minions came out of the building at a run. Two of them met Rupert's machete, one very unfortunate one went down beneath his fists before he used the machete, and the last was skewered by Aubrey's gladius. The old man immediately fell back into position, using no more energy than was necessary. Giles wiped his blade on the last minion, noticing that its robes looked ceremonial.

Glory looked at the hole in her dress, annoyed, and her fists shot out. Buffy was clear, but Spike took a glancing blow to his shoulder and went down several yards away. The Slayer came in with a whirling blow from the blunt side of her weapon to Glory's temple.

The god staggered. She belatedly snatched at the Scythe, but Buffy was out of range again, her weapon by her thigh, ready for an upstroke with the ax. Then Spike was back in the fray, in game face now, leaping onto her back. Her hands went up to grab him, and Buffy took the opening, bringing her blade up into Glory's throat.

It healed instantly. Spike let go of her, pausing only long enough to trip her up before jumping clear to stand a few feet apart from his wife.

Glory was glaring at them with pure hatred. "Trying to mess up things," she spat, "make me late for my party. Not going to work, my pretties. I'm going to mess things up for you, mess your world up, and it won't be my problem. I'll be long –"

Before she could get out the word 'gone,' the huge bulldozer was behind her. As Xander brought it in, he'd raised the blade. Now nearly seven tons of metal crashed down on top of her. He used the levers to tamp down, again and again, a motion designed to break rock, pack earth. Off the side of the bulldozer, Xander could see Giles giving the thumbs-up. He cut the power.

Willow stopped masking the sound, and they all heard the engine wind down. She turned, and Tara was beside her. They linked hands, and the candles and herbs they brought from the Magic Box appeared in midair. Tara had held the spell in her mind since leaving the store. She released the magic, a soft, white light that was drowned beneath the bright flare of Willow's power. The spell shot toward Glory, then glowing material rebounded from the shape trapped beneath the bulldozer blade. All of it came to the point in the air where the herbs were dissolving. Both witches were chanting in a low monotone. The herbs disappeared in another, smaller flash. The glowing energy soared from there into the heads of nine of the humans: Oz, the five students Glory had taken from the festival, and three others.

"Not all of them," Tara said softly, her voice full of sorrow. Then she broke from Willow and went to Oz. He'd fallen to the ground when the spell touched him, but now he was sitting up.

"Tara?" he asked, obviously confused. He looked around at everyone, his shocked eyes returning to the figure with black hair. " _Willow_?"

"Yeah," Tara confirmed in a subdued tone.

Willow had looked around with her black eyes at the crazy people who were still working on the makeshift structure. Now she moved to where Glory was trapped. Her feet were not touching the ground. With a gesture, she lifted the heavy bulldozer blade from Glory. The bulldozer rocked as the blade bounced against the upper bar. Buffy and Spike, still flanking Glory's position, immediately brought their weapons to bear. The god lay on the cracked ground, stunned but whole.

"Return." Willow put out her right hand to Glory and aimed her left hand toward the remaining workers.

Giles exchanged a troubled look with Aubrey. She wasn't using a spell, just raw power. Willow thrust her hand further toward the downed god, and gobs of plasma slowly pulled away from Glory's head. It took over a minute, and the last bits to come away from the blond curls were faint. Willow turned from the god to watch their progress, the energy gliding through the air toward the people still working on the structure. When the last, dim blob of energy zoomed into a hospital patient, Willow's feet touched the ground. Then she crumpled. Giles dashed forward and gathered her in his arms, pulling her away from Glory. The black hair that spilled over his arm became red again. Oz tried to rise and go to her, and Tara put her arm around his waist to help.

Glory lay on the ground, breathing harshly, unable to speak. Buffy firmed her mouth and lifted the ax blade of the Scythe. Before she could bring it down, Glory changed, her hair darkening, shoulders growing wider, her features more blunt. "Ben?" the Slayer asked, incredulous. She dropped to her knees next to the doctor, putting out a hand. Spike was beside her before she finished the movement, moving her back, out of reach. "We thought she killed you."

Ben sat up, looking around warily. "Did she find the Key?"

"No," Giles said. He came back from Willow's side, leaving her with Tara and Oz. The Watcher examined the supine figure carefully. "Was… was Glorificus inhabiting your body?"

"No, not like that," Ben said, sitting up. He groaned a little, holding his head.

Giles squashed the urge to help the man to his feet, just waited until he struggled upright. "Where is she?"

Ben put a hand out to lean against the blade of the bulldozer for support. He had taken in the number of weapons aimed at him. They already knew so much, anyway. "I was made as a vessel for Glory. The other gods grew tired of Glorificus, so they overthrew her, banished her here. Over the years, as she's grown back some power, it's got to be like… she has a timeshare in my body."

"Vessel?" Buffy repeated the word. "But… aren't you, you know, you?"

"I'm my own person," Ben said, nodding tiredly. "I… I went to med school to, you know, help people, try to make up for…" His words trailed off. "About a year ago, she hooked up with some demons who studied dimensional movement and knew about the existence of a Key. She wants to go back to her home."

None of the listeners missed the present tense he applied to the god. "And you want her to go, to be rid of her." Spike's words were cold.

Ben shrugged. "Or she would take her vessel, and there would be nothing left of me. Or she would leave, and my body would drop dead. It wasn't real clear." He stood on his own, swaying, and gestured around. "Even if I lived, it wouldn't matter much. Our two dimensions are so far apart, and the only Key wasn't a good fit, so the ritual would rip a portal into every reality that lies between. Realities would spill over into each other, some of them hell dimensions, disrupting… everything."

The worried, sympathetic look faded from Buffy's face. "Do you know who I am?"

Ben nodded. "You're the Slayer. The monks hid the Key somewhere here in Sunnydale, so you would protect it."

"And you didn't come to me to try to let me know?"

Spike's examination was suddenly sharp. "And how did you come to be working in Sunnydale?"

He looked away, ignoring Spike's question to answer Buffy's. "Glory shows up unexpectedly all the time. She might have shown up when I was telling you," he said tiredly. "She isn't going to show up for… months, maybe. Whatever you did, she's laid low for a while."

Behind Giles, a voice spoke up. "Willow took back the mental energy. You knew about the hospital patients." There was no trace of stutter in Tara's cold words.

Ben leaned past Giles to peer at the familiar-looking woman, then closed his eyes. "I knew she'd fed on them. The more she manifested, the more she… emerged in this dimension, the more energy she needed. It's almost like she needs to eat someone's sanity to keep her own." He lifted a shoulder. "I called a Queller demon to… clean up last fall. There was nothing I could do for them."

Behind his glasses, Giles' eyes grew narrow. Buffy had killed the strange little demon on patrol outside of a halfway house. It was the only instance of a Queller manifesting in a century. He'd thought it was just the usual Hellmouth luck.

Ben looked around at the group. Their disapproval and disgust were palpable. "I was made to be a vessel, not a hero. I hate Glory, but she's been there all my life. Every girlfriend I've ever had thought I was a cross-dressing thief because she stole their clothes. I can't tell you how she's messed up my –"

Giles' tone left no doubt that it was Ripper's voice. "You dare to complain about your love life when untold dimensions would have been destroyed, you bastard?"

"Leave." Buffy spoke the command, then turned her face away.

"Please," Ben said, then he fell silent when no one would meet his gaze. His shoulders slumped. He looked around to find the gate, then trudged past the bulldozer.

Buffy shook her head once and went to Willow. Tara stood up and glanced around for Anya. They went to the college students, who looked confused but mostly aware.

Once the women had moved away, Giles and Spike stared at each other, their eyes steady. Aubrey watched the vampire, saw the hastily suppressed look of anguish, saw his hand clench convulsively on the handle of the _Kukri_. The blond head nodded at Giles. Averting his gaze in case Buffy looked around, he swallowed and turned away from the humans.

Before Spike could take more than a stride to follow Ben, Aubrey stepped up, holding out a hand. "Wait," he said, low. "There's a better way."

⸹

Next chapter: Even though Glorificus is gone, other dangerous demons are still interested in Dawn. Buffy and Spike also deal with damaged friendships in Los Angeles and the biggest treasure hunt of all.


	38. What Passes For Normal

**What Passes for Normal**

⸹

Sunnydale

May 2001

⸹

Luisa passed the outer perimeter of guards at the park and paused in the trees. One of the tents the Knights of Byzantium had set up still had lights, as well as a guard at the entrance. With a finger, she smeared her mascara into raccoon marks beneath her eyes and tore off her shirt so that she only wore a bra beneath her jacket. Then she stepped into the clearing.

As soon as the alarm sounded, she lifted her hands. "I only want money! I know where the Key is!" A sword came to bear on her, then another. She snarled at the guards, letting her eyes go to yellow and her fangs descend, otherworldly but still beautiful.

"She's a vampire," one of the guards said in disgust. He spoke in Romanian, so she did, too.

"So? Doesn't mean I don't know where the Key is."

An older man came out of the tent. The guard on duty moved aside so he could pass. He was still buckling on his chest plate. "What's going on, Dante?" he asked in English.

"She says she knows where the Key can be found."

"I want gold," Luisa put in.

"Gold?" the older knight said. "What would a vampire want with gold?"

"I wouldn't turn down blood, if you're offering," she simpered.

"Get rid of her." He started to turn away.

Luisa dodged closer. "I overhead the Slayer talking to the Master. Then I saw the Key, all alone, right now."

The knight turned back to her. "Go on."

"I want gold first."

"Why do you need gold?"

"I want to get out of this town." Luisa looked away, her vampire features fading. "Unless you're all cozy with the Master, it ain't easy on the Hellmouth." She gave him a defiant look. "There's a ship going up to Vancouver in a few days that will… meet my needs, but I need gold."

The older knight sighed and jerked his head. One of the younger knights went into his tent, then came out with a small sack. "Thank you, my brother."

"Yes, General Gregor."

Gregor opened the drawstring and spilled gold coins onto his palm. He shoveled them back into the bag, closed it, and bounced it on his palm. "Information first."

Luisa gave him a sullen look. "Everyone knows you're looking for the Key, so when I heard the Slayer tell the Master that he's a doctor a few weeks ago, I started keeping watch. He hasn't been at the hospital since then, but I saw him walking on Wilkins Avenue, heading south just a few minutes ago. So, I came here."

"The Key is a physician?" Gregor exchanged a surprised look with Dante.

She nodded. "His name is Ben Wilkinson. He's dark-haired, maybe 80 kilos, 180 centimeters. Late twenties. Currently wearing a dress." The General's eyebrows rose, but he made no comment. "I'll take you to him."

"And he's alone."

She shrugged. "He was when I left him."

The general made his decision. "Lead us to him, then, and the gold is yours. Dante, bring your men; Orlando, you have command of the camp." He turned back to the vampire. "Do you ride?"

"No," Luisa shook her head and gave him a snide look, "but I'll go slow so your horses can keep up with me."

Within five minutes, the Knights of Byzantium had followed Luisa through the empty nighttime streets and had surrounded Ben. He stood in the loose circle of horses, trying to look everywhere at once.

"Do you know who we are?" Gregor asked.

"You're the Knights of Byzantium," Ben answered, swerving away from a nervously pawing horse.

This was enough confirmation for the general. He tossed the bag of gold to the vampire, who immediately flashed away from them. Gregor pulled his sword, as did twenty-one other knights. "Then you know this is the end."

"It isn't me! I'm innocent!" the doctor cried.

"Not as innocent as billions of others, not with what you contain inside," Gregor replied. "Dismount!"

In the shadows of the corner of a building down the street, Aubrey held up a hand. With the first downstroke of a sword, he pushed magic toward the skirmish. As Ben's cry was cut short, a swirl of green sparks rose up, then dissipated.

"Good illusion." The old sorcerer jerked in surprise, finding Luisa standing next to him. "Back to the car?"

Giles was waiting, leaning on his BMW, hands in his pockets. He looked up as Aubrey and Luisa approached. He couldn't help noticing that she only wore a lacy black bra beneath her jacket.

Spike, who had been hiding Aubrey with shadow, came off the roof of the building, grabbed a lamppost to swing closer, and landed lightly on his haunches. He stood up. "All right, then?"

Aubrey nodded. "Well, let's go by my apartment to pick up that bottle of medicine. I find that I'm feeling much better and insist on joining you at Mrs. Summers' house."

Giles snorted. "You won't have much of a career treading the boards."

Aubrey gave him a smile. "Don't need much acting talent, Rupert, my lad. When you're old, everyone expects you to be frail."

Spike turned away to hide his smile. 'Rupert, my lad.' "Lu, go home and get yourself fixed up. Check to see what the Knights are up to, then come and report." She nodded and left, heading to her house for another shirt.

Once the three of them were in Giles' tiny car, Spike practically sideways in the small rear seat, Rupert said what was on all their minds. "Did we do the right thing?"

"It was the right thing," Spike finally said, "but I don't know if it was the moral thing."

"It had to be done," Aubrey said, his tone final. "What was done to create a vessel was wrong; what the lad failed to do was wrong; what we did was wrong. But the Knights of Byzantium destroyed the Key they sought, and without a vessel, Glorificus cannot hold form or gather power. We don't have to kill human knights. I can live with this on my conscience. It is well."

The ride to Joyce's was silent after that. Giles was already on the porch by the time Aubrey got out of the car. He tilted the seat forward for Spike, then stepped back. Once he was out, Spike stood by the open door. "Willingham?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. You made yourself complicit – we're all complicit, I know – to save me having to take a human life."

Aubrey regarded him, eyebrows raised. "I thought of using another group of humans to do the same deed. It isn't something for which I wish to be thanked."

"Nonetheless." Spike went slowly, not wanting to worry the old man, and gave him a hug. "It's a far better solution. Thank you for what you did for me, but mostly," he started to mention Dawn, then realized they were in the open, "for fulfilling their quest. The Knights have no further reason to be in Sunnydale." He clapped the Watcher's back, then stood away.

Aubrey had tensed when the vampire embraced him, but now he was simply standing tall. "They have no reason to _be_ at all," he corrected.

Spike smiled. "No. Guess not." He ducked his head and turned away, trying to remember what British reserve was supposed to look like. "Uh, let's go in. Joyce is an excellent hostess."

The Scoobies were gathered in the dining room, having beer and other beverages. While Spike and Giles had taken the 'ailing' Aubrey to get medicine from his apartment, Anya had called the hospital. The students that Glory had recently attacked left on their own, unsettled by the missing hours but otherwise okay. Ambulances had shown up to take the hospital patients back, but most of them seemed to know who they were, though they were confused about where they were. Only four of Glory's victims had been readmitted, Tara later learned. They had been patients the longest, but even those four were able to function well enough to go home with their families.

Willow was pale and very thirsty, on her third bottle of water. She sat between Tara and Oz, with Joyce and Dawn listening to the story of Tara's spell and Willow's ploy to gain more power. Joyce, especially, seemed relieved that it had worked. Buffy, who was standing behind Dawn, put a hand on her mother's shoulder before crossing to the Brits.

"How are you?" she asked Aubrey.

"All right, dear," he said, forcing a smile. "I should have done my field work as a Watcher rather earlier."

"I'm glad you're here now," she said emphatically, twining her arm around Spike's waist.

He looked down at her. _You know._

 _Slayer hearing._ In the privacy of their booth at the Sit N Bull Café, she shrugged. _I couldn't do it, but it needed to be done. Whatever Mr. Willingham did, it meant you didn't have to do it, either_. She glanced over at her Watcher. _Or Giles._

 _Tell you everything later, love._ "Aubrey, what would you like to have to drink?" he said aloud. Willingham probably knew he and Buffy had a bloodlink; the old Watcher was very sharp.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Pizza's here," Xander said, standing up from his seat closest to the foyer.

It was Spike's lieutenant. "May I speak with the Master?"

Before he could stand, Joyce put a hand on Spike's arm. "Is it all right?" she asked meaningfully, shooting a look toward the door.

He only hesitated a moment before nodding. "Just her."

It wasn't the first time Joyce had been comfortable inviting a soulless vampire into her home. She scooted past the chairs ringing the table and walked with Spike to the door. "Luisa, please come in."

Xander had stood aside for Mrs. Summers, so everyone at the table saw the dark-haired vampire take unimpeded steps inside, her wide eyes on Joyce the whole time. Luisa started to grab her in a hug, then stopped herself before very carefully putting her arms on Joyce's waist. Her face was wet when she pulled away. " _Gràcies_ … um, thank you, Mrs. Summers."

Joyce pulled her into a hug, not concerned about hurting the vampire with her human strength. "You're welcome." Buffy had told her the whole story, and Giles had told her most of his experience with the Three Sisters. Luisa was the one who had brought him safely to the Slayer. She let go of the vampire, who looked young enough to be one of Buffy's friends. "Do you need to speak with Spike alone? You can go to the kitchen."

"No." Luisa took a breath and focused on the Master, hiding behind a businesslike façade. "I did as you asked, got our crew on patrol. I went to check on the Knights of Byzantium, as I do every night. When I got to the park, they were celebrating."

"Celebrating?" he echoed. Spike was a bad liar, but a good listener.

She nodded. "They had broken into a cask of whisky and tossed their swords and axes into a pile. The general was dividing up money and gold. Some of them were already drunk and singing." She glanced at the humans at the table. "There was a body near the main campfire, a dark-haired man, maybe thirty, wearing a… dress." She paused in feigned confusion for a moment before continuing. "They were celebrating the destruction of the Key."

Spike sent a startled look toward the table. "What…?" He looked back at his lieutenant. "There was a body?"

Luisa nodded again. "They had not set a guard, so I was able to get close. They learned that the Key was a doctor named," she thought for a moment, "Wilkins." Unlike him, Luisa was a smooth liar.

"Wilkinson?" Tara asked.

Nodding, the vampire replied, "Yes, that was it."

"They killed Ben?" Dawn asked, her eyes wide.

"They are celebrating the end of their quest," Luisa went on. "The group is disbanding, the knights going back to their homes."

"What does it mean for Glory, if Ben is dead?" Buffy asked, turning to Giles. He, in turn, deferred to Aubrey.

The elderly gentleman took a sip of tea. He would rather have had a bottle of the stout that Joyce served to Giles, but he remembered he was supposed to be feeling poorly. "If she couldn't survive in our reality without a vessel, then this means she is permanently gone."

Everyone looked at Dawn. She let out a breath, tears spilling across her cheeks. "I don't want to be happy because someone is dead." She blinked and more tears fell. "But if she's gone and the Knights of Byzantium think they got the Key but instead got Glorificus… Does that mean it's over?"

Spike reached out and grasped Joyce around the waist and by the elbow as her knees buckled. Joyce had one hand over her mouth. Like Dawn, her face was wet. He got her to the seat that Xander had vacated. "It's over," she repeated in a faint voice.

Just then, the doorbell rang, the pizza finally showing up. In the confusion of it all, the atmosphere changed from one where they'd won a battle and helped Glory's victims to one where they'd won the war. Joyce was sitting between Dawn and Giles, mostly laughing, but occasionally still wiping away tears. Spike sat on Dawn's other side, Buffy on his lap, his lieutenant in a chair behind him, away from the table. Across from her, Aubrey had managed to get hold of a bottle of stout, after all. Willow had her elbows propped on the table, tired, but a small smile on her face. Oz and Tara were still on either side of her, looking relaxed even though their serious eyes kept meeting over the red head. Xander and Anya had assumed host duty, passing out plates of pizza and various beverages.

The party didn't break up until well over an hour later. Willow was the first to beg off, having almost fallen asleep at the table. Tara and Oz both took her back to the apartment. Dawn was next to leave, then Joyce, and with the two of them upstairs, the noise level dropped out of consideration. As they cleaned up the table and tidied up the kitchen, Giles offered to stay and gave Aubrey his car keys. Buffy hugged Xander and Anya and shooed them away from the rest of the cleanup. Spike gave Luisa orders to pull in the boys to check through the weapons the knights had discarded for anything useful. He bent to touch her forehead, then gave her a real hug. If Joyce trusted her, then he wasn't going to second-guess his own judgement anymore.

Buffy did the same. Luisa held onto her hand, only letting go so Buffy could close the door behind her. "Vampires and touch," she said wryly.

"Yes," Spike agreed. His voice was smoky, his look smoldering.

She swallowed. "I'll check on Mom and Dawn, then… You want to go home?"

"I do." He didn't smile, only regarded her with a predatory intensity. Spike watched his wife go up the stairs, then got out his cell phone. "Lu? Check those weapons later. Get the crew, shadow me an' the Slayer. Keep any demons off us until we get to our cars, yeah? And Lu? Keep your distance."

⸹

[Author's Note: Explicit-ish Buffy and Spike reunion in the next section.]

⸹

Buffy tucked her fingers into her husband's hand, feeling shy. Both of their cars were on campus, Aubrey had taken Giles' BMW, and she didn't feel right leaving her mom without wheels. Spike checked that the door was locked, and they walked past the Jeep and onto Revello. "It really isn't that late, is it? I-I feel like I should patrol."

"We'll patrol together tomorrow," Spike said. "Missed it. No fun without you."

They were between streetlights as she looked up at him, the dimness no problem for her Slayer's vision. "No. It isn't. I've missed it, too." He squeezed her fingers, and she returned the gesture. They were two blocks away before she spoke again. "I don't remember what normal feels like," Buffy said softly.

"Well, let's try this," Spike said, pointing toward the gates of the Restfield. "A midnight walk through a Sunnydale graveyard; what could be more normal than that?"

The Slayer laughed. "That does evoke a certain familiarity," she agreed.

Once they were off the street, Spike's steps slowed. _Missed patrolling with you. Missed doing everything with you._ He moved in front of her, forcing her to stop, his thighs against hers. _Missed you._

Buffy looked up at him, her heartrate climbing. _We'll be home soon._

 _Not soon enough._ Tugging her hand, Spike coaxed her toward the shadow of a mausoleum. When they were there, he shrugged out of his coat.

"What do you think you're doing?" she whispered, her eyes darting around the tombstones. In her experience, cemeteries were not isolated places.

"This." Spike grabbed her shirt by the shoulder seams and ripped it off her. Then he carefully draped his coat over her bared flesh.

Buffy was breathing hard. _What if –_

 _Anything comes through, I'll kill it._ Spike put his forehead against hers and both hands slid across her back, making short work of the fastening on her bra. He brushed it from her shoulders. _Right now, I have to love your body._ He sank to his knees and began working on her pants with clever fingers.

The heavy coat covered her naked skin, but when her husband skinned her pants past her knees enough for her to part her thighs for him, Buffy put her arms against the wall of the tomb, spreading the coat and exposing her bare breasts to the moonlight and cool night air. "Yesss," she hissed, tilting her hips, and the word became a moan as Spike's mouth found her sensitive center.

 _Oh love, missed you, missed this._ Spike cupped her ass with both hands, pulling her closer. _Missed us._

Buffy pushed him away, toed one shoe off and bent to push her trousers off. The other shoe came off inside a pants leg. She grabbed the sleeve of her husband's t-shirt, tearing it, pulling him up. Then she shoved him against the wall, her attention already on his belt.

Spike's deep chuckle played on her nerves like fingers. He helped her shove the denim past his thighs, then the Slayer was on him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. It was his turn to lean against the wall and tilt his hips toward her. _Wife._ He came before she finished sinking down upon him, her warm flesh partly engulfing him.

Buffy watched the bliss on his face and used the last of her control to slow the pace. His hands were clasped beneath her bum, in a bad position to stop her from swiveling her hips, dipping her body against his in a shallow rhythm.

"You wanton tease," he ground out, trying to thrust into her.

"Spend for me again," Buffy demanded, grinning now, using his words. She leaned back, changing the angle.

He glared at her. "Not without you." And he spun around, putting her back against the mausoleum, now having all the leverage he needed. One stroke was all it took, both of them giving voice to bright pleasure.

Buffy's fingers bunched into the fabric of his black t-shirt. When she realized this, she finished tearing it apart. "I want your skin," she told him, as soon as she could speak.

He shrugged the remnants from his arms. "Whatever my love desires."

"You. I desire you." Buffy pulled his face to hers, kissed him hard. "I want to hear your voice. Speak to me. And I want you on the ground."

"Now?" When she nodded, he put a hand out to brace a fall and simply tumbled backward.

Buffy moved her legs from around his waist as they fell, pleased that their bodies remained joined. As she sat up, he readjusted the coat so it stayed on her shoulders. "My vampire."

"My Slayer." His hands drifted to brush her nipples, stiff in the cool air. "Mmm. Ride me, love. Set us a gallop. Work your stallion to a lather, put your spurs to me, drive me over the finish line."

She smiled down at him. "Okay, but only because that's the hottest thing that's ever come out of that wicked mouth of yours."

"Tally fucking ho, love."

Buffy leaned so she could kiss him again, then began moving over him. _Then we'll go home and do this proper._

As it turned out, it took four more stops to get through the Restfield to campus, including the bother of righting a tombstone they inadvertently knocked over. After another detour atop the bonnet of the Bentley, they managed to part long enough to drive back to their house. Four vampires watched them leave from the roof of the biology building.

"That was the hottest thing I've ever seen." Brian's mouth was hanging open.

Luisa, who had confiscated his camcorder, studiously did not roll her eyes at the inexperienced young vampire. She did share an amused glance with Vinnie – no, Vince; he'd decided he wanted to be called something different in his strange new workplace.

"The Master is hung like a porn star," Cory said, more hero worship than usual in his tone.

"Figures," Vince said dryly. When the Lieutenant gave him an inquiring glance, he went on. "Had to be what interested the Slayer, right?"

"Sure," Luisa replied, shaking her head at the clueless vampire.

⸹

"Good morning," Willow yawned. She'd slept until almost ten.

Oz was sitting on one end of the couch, tuning his unplugged guitar. Tara was on the other end, studying notes ahead of finals week. Oz put down his instrument. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Still tired," Willow admitted, "but not exhausted anymore."

"I made pancakes," Tara said, her voice soft.

Willow was turning away to the kitchen, but she didn't miss the look the two exchanged. She tensed, but the thought of food overwhelmed any nerves or irritation about what happened at the Magic Box and their reactions. Two pancakes and a cup of coffee later, she detoured around the couch to go to the bathroom. Teeth brushed and wearing comfortable clothes, she came back and sat between the two. "I get the feeling that you guys want to talk to me."

Tara nodded and put down her notes. She sat cross-legged and looked at her bare feet for a moment. Then she took a breath. "I called someone I kn-know at the hospital. Only one patient is still there. The family is coming to pick them up tomorrow." She put out a hand. "N-not all of them are cured, but they are so much better."

"It was the ones she got to the earliest?" Willow asked. Tara nodded, and Oz picked up the thread.

"I've been going over things I should know," he said, "and I can't find any empty spots, other than yesterday afternoon, when Glory ran back around the corner and found me." His face tightened. "I say 'ran,' but it was faster than that. Faster than I've seen Buffy or Spike move."

Willow put her hand over his. He turned so his palm touched hers and interlaced their fingers. "Tara's spell worked for me and the other people she'd… brain-sucked recently, but not for the others."

"Willow?" Tara's soft voice was firm. "What you did at the Magic Box, it saved the crazy people. I want you to know that, to kn-know that I know that."

A cynical little smile touched the other witch's mouth. "But?"

"Wh-why did you drain the magic in those books?"

She closed her eyes. "Because of the nosebleeds."

"But… those books?"

"They were the most powerful."

"Nosebleeds?" Oz echoed.

"When I… push the limits of my magic, I get nosebleeds."

Oz's brows were drawn together. He glanced at Tara, who nodded in agreement. "So, you were afraid you wouldn't be strong enough?"

"I had to save you." Her words were stark.

"We had to save you." Tara's voice was adamant.

Oz looked between the two of them. "You did," he said softly. Willow turned to look at Tara, then slid her free hand into hers.

They sat there, joined, for a moment. Willow broke the silence. "There's still a but."

"There is," Tara agreed. "My magic comes from… life, Willow. When we do spells, there's a reason it so often leads to," she looked down so she wouldn't have to see Oz, "r-romance. Your magic is similar, but m-maybe the pattern the spirit left in you was from someone older, a protector or w-warrior."

She took a breath and looked back up, wanting to meet Willow's eyes. "The m-magic you t-took from those spell books… It was dark, Willow. I could f-feel it. I," Tara licked her lips, "I didn't want to touch you. You… felt wrong."

"Tara, I only…" Willow's fine brows were drawn together. She glanced at Oz, then back to her girlfriend. "I was afraid I wasn't enough. I mean, I know I have more power, but I was afraid I'd let you down. You were able to create that spell. You…" She looked down, feeling doubly vulnerable. "You've been doing this longer than I have, you have this background in magic, and just _know_ things… I don't want to let you down, not be able to support the spell."

Oz looked between them, aware there was subtext he didn't understand. He still had to say his piece. "We get that. Really, we do. But, when my… mind came back, I… I didn't recognize you, Wil. It wasn't the dark hair. You didn't smell like… you."

"That's fundamental, Willow," Tara said softly.

"I ran into Joe Cooper after graduation," Oz went on, his eyes falling to his open guitar case. The memory wasn't a good one. "He got turned, and I ended up staking him. I mean, he lived three houses down, and we used to play with Star Wars action figures in his treehouse." His blue eyes met Willow's. "Even after he was turned, he still smelled recognizable."

"Now?" the redhead squeaked.

He gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. "You smell like you again."

She let out a little huff of breath and tears spilled over her cheeks. "Oh. That's definitely of the good."

Tara was shaking her head. "D-don't seek power like that again."

"You could end up a vessel for power the way Ben was a vessel for Glory." Oz's tone was grave.

"I think you had a narrow escape," Tara said, and she had tears on her face too. "And I-I d-didn't even kn-know you were going to t-try that. T-talk to me." She leaned into Willow's shoulder. "And I'll tell you that you are p-perfect the way you are."

"I love you," Oz said, squeezing her fingers again. His eyes went to Tara. "And Tara loves you, and I love Tara. Losing you would hurt her. If anything happened to you, it would kill both of us."

"And I l-love Oz, and I d-don't want him to be in pain over m-m-missing you." Tara was sobbing now.

"I love you," Willow said, "both of you."

Oz moved off the couch and crouched between them, taking them both in a hug. "Tara and I were scared." He wiped his cheek on his shoulder. "We worried about you. We can't lose you. You get that, right?"

"I do," she managed. Willow's nose was stuffy, so she gave Oz an open-mouthed kiss, not in the sexy way, then turned to Tara and did the same.

"D-don't l-leave us, Wil," she pleaded.

"I won't," Willow promised, shaken and very scared by their worry over things she hadn't even seen.

Oz rose a little on his haunches and gave Tara a watery smile and a kiss, then leaned his forehead against Willow's. The kiss made him feel like he'd finished the chord, played the note that completed the song. "That's good." He sniffled.

Willow looked at Tara, who was resting her chin on her shoulder, and at Oz, who was almost nose-to-nose with her. In the small space between the two people she loved most, there was just enough room to ask. "Does this mean… I'm enough? You know, just… me?"

"Oh, sweetie," Tara said, scooting closer. She uncrossed her legs and wiggled one into the couch cushions behind Willow, out of the way, so she could move even closer.

Oz closed his eyes. "You're Willow," he said, "of course you are." After a moment, he opened them.

She was looking right into his slightly bloodshot blue eyes. "I couldn't lose you." Willow kissed him, a proper kiss. She turned to Tara. "I can't lose you." She gave her a proper kiss, too. Then Willow bit her lip and looked down. Maybe it was because she was frightened, but she was overwhelmed by how close they all were.

None of the three moved, all of them thinking that their breathing sounded horribly loud. Willow looked at Tara, who was staring at her mouth. She leaned to the side and kissed her again, feeling Oz's fingers flex against her back.

He let himself watch for a moment, then stole one final impropriety. Oz's hand slid up Tara's shoulder and into the warmth of her dark blond hair. She tilted her head slightly, either nuzzling into the caress or changing the angle of the kiss she was sharing with Willow.

Oz made his mouth curve into a smile and let go, turning away toward his guitar case. "I'll just –"

Tara broke the kiss and reached out to grab his hand. "Oz?" She studied Willow's eyes for a long moment, then looked at him. "Stay."

⸹

[Author's Note: I have mixed emotions about taking the emotional affair between Oz, Tara, and Willow all the way to a physical relationship. In canon, though she had a previous heterosexual relationship, Willow identified as a lesbian, and there is no indication that Tara was ever attracted to anyone but females. I want to acknowledge the canon, because the Willow/Tara love story means so much to so many people. In this fic, Willow's two great loves keep her anchored so she never spirals out of control with dark magic, and that's the sole purpose for the change from a couple to a triad.]

⸹

Dawn stood somewhere windy. She was alone, wearing a long dress that might have been fashionable five hundred years ago. The wind ripped at the dress, pulled at her hair.

 _Shallow cuts. Shallow cuts._

Something ugly ripped into existence behind her, a maw that would swallow Dawn whole. Blood pooled at her feet, dripping down her little form behind the stiff dress. She looked right at him, would have flung herself at him if she weren't bound. Spike went to vampire face at the realization.

He could smell her blood, flowing freely from wounds sliced all along her trunk and arms. She staggered a little, growing weaker, and gave him a beseeching look, but he couldn't move, couldn't –

"Spike." Buffy shook his arm.

He sat up; yellow eyes wide, the smell of Dawn's blood still in his nostrils.

"Bad one?" his wife asked, sitting up, too. She slid her arm around his waist.

"Yeah," he said on an exhaled breath. "Bad."

"Glory?"

"No." He made himself shake off game face. Almost three in the morning, Glory defeated, Dawn safely moaning her way through the last week of school, him and Buffy in their own bed together. Just a dream. "Dawn," he finally said.

"Oh." She leaned her head against his arm, still sleepy and feeling soft and boneless against him. _I dreamed she was crucified on that… structure they were building._ He got an image from that dream and drew in a sharp breath, turning to take her in his arms. Dawn's arms had been outstretched in his dream, too. _Wasn't a dream from tonight. Yesterday._ Buffy snuggled against him. _We need to tear that thing down. Maybe Xander has a wrecking ball or something._

 _Love?_ He kissed her brow. _I need to go out for just a bit._

 _You want me to come with?_

 _No. Sleep. I'll be back within an hour. I just need to check off some boxes, so I can sleep myself._

"Mm-kay."

It was only fifty minutes before he slid back into bed and cuddled up next to a warm Buffy. He'd gone to every demon bar in town and then met with his minions. If anyone asked about the Key, there were enough threats and bribes around town that he'd soon hear of it.

⸹

Oz almost knocked instead of opening the apartment with his key. Everything had been fine between the three of them, waking up in a tangle of covers and silky limbs in Willow's bed. There had been coffee and quiet conversation, lots of small smiles between the three of them.

Today was a completely different day. Tomorrow, he would be leaving to join Devon and the rest of his bandmates to travel to a music festival, just a twenty-minute set but an honor to be asked. Today, though… Today was the day that would answer the question, what now?

Neither of his pack was there, so he went to the kitchen and began dinner. Wherever Oz was, there was music, so Tara came home to Miles Davis' 'All Blues.' She put down her messenger bag and came closer to him. He could smell her nervousness.

"What's for dinner?" she asked, her voice soft. Still, there was no trace of her stutter.

Oz took that as a good sign. "Risotto," he said, leaving the spoon in the pan. Oz turned to her, slid his arm around her waist, and pulled her in for a kiss, hoping he was threading a needle between affection and passion.

Tara kissed him back, then pulled away. Her tongue came out and touched her lips, as if tasting him. Oz couldn't help himself. He moved closer and took her in his arms again, wanting her to feel that, oh, yes, it was her he wanted, too.

A minute later, he pulled away and swallowed. Turning back to the stove, he managed, "You're a very distracting woman."

"Um," Tara managed. She blushed and turned away. Without looking at him, she acknowledged the last time she had seen him. "You know, I've never heard you say that many words. Before yesterday, I mean."

He didn't look at her either, but the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. "Well, we all had a lot to negotiate."

"N-negotiations went well." His soft snort of laughter put a sudden grin on her face. "Let me get out of my school clothes. I'll be back in a minute to help. Willow will be so happy to have dinner already done when she gets home to us."

Oz clenched his jaw as tears pricked his eyes. _Home. Us._ "She will," he agreed, his voice hoarse. Then, before he could lose his nerve, "Tara?"

"Y-yes?"

He stirred the risotto, not daring to look at her. "You said Willow felt wrong after the Magic Box. What do I feel like?"

"Your wolf?" Tara watched his shoulders lift, a defensive gesture. It was the first time she had ever thought of him as vulnerable, so she answered as quickly and truthfully as she could. "Wild."

"Is that okay?"

"It's different," she rushed on as he tensed more, "but it's okay."

"Not dark?"

"No."

"Good." After a moment, he added, "I worried."

Tara considered this, then moved back to the stove. She touched his arm and waited until he turned to face her. "You never pretended to be anything other than who you are, and you've been a friend from the day I met you." She cupped his cheek. "I know who you are."

He closed his eyes. "I'm incredibly lucky that you're in my life."

Tara looked down. "I j-just realized how much we all need r-reassurance, not j-just me."

Oz grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "I'll always reassure you, because you'll always amaze me."

"D-deal."

⸹

"Hi, Mr. Willingham."

"Hullo, Miss Dawn. I didn't expect to see you, what with the start of the school holiday."

She closed the door to the back room of the Magic Box. Michael was at the counter with Jonathan and Andrew, bemoaning the fact that he was the only one currently without a significant other. Jonathan had been dating another UC-Sunnydale student, Kelly Chen, since spring break, and Dawn had listened long enough to satisfy her curiosity about the gender of Andrew's squeeze, a boyfriend. Now she stood fidgeting in front of the short, portly Watcher.

"You're here to learn what you can about the Key?" he said kindly. She took a breath, but just nodded before turning to sit on the couch. He joined her a moment later.

"I think I need to learn how to use whatever power I have," she said.

Aubrey blinked a little at the bald statement. "Why do you think that?"

She lifted a shoulder. "They sent me to the Slayer who lives on a Hellmouth. That's something that ought to be closed, don't you think?"

The old Watcher didn't say anything for half a minute. Then he gave her a smile that wouldn't have been out of place on Spike's face. "I think that would be of tremendous benefit. I take it that this would be more of a, shall we say, private research project?"

"I think it probably should be, yeah." She returned the cold smile. "Thank you, kind sir."

⸹

June 2001

⸹

"You sure you're rested enough, Mom?" Buffy asked anxiously.

"I'm sure." They had returned from the family trip to London with barely a day's turnaround before Joyce had to fly out again to Houston. Her doctors were pleased with her progress, but Buffy wasn't sure if she felt comfortable leaving her mother for a weekend trip to Los Angeles.

"I mean, I can stay if you need me." Giles had remained in the UK and wouldn't be back until mid-July. She was afraid to leave her mother without an adult to call upon.

Joyce gave her a hug and an exasperated, "Buffy…" She hugged her daughter again. "I'm regular-tired after a long trip and another short trip, not patient-tired. Besides, now that Dawn doesn't have to have bodyguards, she's going to be at her friends' houses constantly. I may actually get a chance to have some time for myself."

"A mom? With time for herself?" Buffy gave Joyce a disbelieving look. "What does that even look like?"

"Porch swing, glass of wine, Nora Roberts or Sue Grafton paperback." Joyce put one hand over her heart.

"All right. But you can call us, you know that, right?"

"I know. Now, go. Have fun. You and Spike enjoy yourselves."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Buffy held Spike's hand firmly as they left the rock music festival, not wanting to get separated in the throng. It was the first one she'd ever been to – only the second concert she'd ever been to. When she was nine, she'd seen New Kids on the Block with Danielle and three or four other friends. This was outdoors, and Buffy liked it better because there were a lot of bands playing short sets of their most popular songs. Dingoes Ate My Baby was one of the first groups to perform, and the two blondes had a pass to go backstage. It had been a very brief visit, since the roadies, electricians, and band members were all insanely busy. Oz gave them both grave handshakes, but Devon had been so excited he'd hugged and kissed both Buffy and Spike on the cheeks.

That left the rest of the day. She'd been nervous, because she thought the festival would be more Spike's thing. Instead, she found that she knew almost all the songs, apparently through osmosis while riding in cars and trucks with her husband. He always had music playing. The crowd was unbelievably mellow, considering most were wearing more black than Spike and going through beer at an incredible rate. Buffy had relaxed after the second mad dash to the active stage, dancing with her husband, singing along to the choruses, and enjoying people-watching. Some of the costumes worn by the crowd made her laugh, and a few made her blush.

Then, while watching the fourth band play, Spike lifted her up and launched her down the tightly-packed middle of the crowd, grinning as she was passed from one person to the next, crowd-surfing until she was dumped just behind the fence into the narrow strip of grass between security and the stage. The tolerant event staff waved her toward the exit back into the crowd.

"That was awesome!" she'd announced, flinging herself into his arms with a grin.

"Just wait until a mosh pit springs up," he'd replied.

Only Spike had plunged into a knot of shirtless guys bouncing against other shirtless guys, but Buffy kind of felt she was in a mosh pit as they tried to exit the concert. The radio station sponsoring the show had a mobile broadcasting unit outside the gate. They skirted the van and its loudspeakers, then ran directly into a news crew from a local television station.

"How was the concert?" a reporter asked.

Buffy squinted against the bright light aimed in her direction and flinched back from the microphone shoved into her face. "It was great?" she replied lamely.

"Bloody brilliant," Spike said, leaning in to press his cheek against hers. "Good bands, great crowd." Then he was leading her away, heading toward the lot where his truck was parked acres away.

"My television debut," Buffy lamented, "and that was the best I could do?"

Spike chuckled. "At least you have the excuse of being caught completely off-guard."

"Think we'll see ourselves on the news tonight?"

"No." He pulled her hip close against his with the arm he had around her waist. "I don't think we'll be watching television."

An hour later, they had finally made it to their hotel bed. Buffy kissed the inside of Spike's wrist as she moved over his body. He was willful, though, and kept trying to escape her kiss and slide his fingers into her hair, still damp from the shower they'd taken. She smiled down at him, and –

Her cell phone rang. Her eyes shot to where it lay charging on the farthest nightstand, then came back to his.

 _No apologies, love._ It would be a long time before she would be able to let her phone go to voice mail; Joyce's illness and Glory's pursuit of Dawn had marked her deeply.

With a quick kiss, she moved off him and leaned across the hotel bed to answer. It was only fifteen after eleven, not late for the Slayer. Buffy didn't immediately recognize the phone number. "Hello?"

"Hey, Buffy! You didn't tell me you were going to be in L.A." Cordelia's voice was happy and energetic.

"Cordy!" Buffy sat up. "We were going to try to get in touch tomorrow. You guys have been scarce lately. How did you even know we were here?"

"I just saw you on local news," Cordelia said. "I was out on a date, the kind you cut short because you have something to do early, you know the kind," something rattled in the background, "so I turned on the television for some background noise, and there you were." Her voice changed. "Nice t-shirts."

That sounded like the Cordelia she knew. Spike had worn a black t-shirt with the logo for the band Slayer; she had worn a girls' volleyball jersey that said 'Love at First Spike,' with a little cartoon athlete with pigtails dominating a cartoon net. Buffy laughed a little. "We were trying to be anonymous."

"So, you want to meet up tomorrow?" Spike moved to her side of the bed, planting his legs on either side of her, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist.

"If you don't have anything planned."

"No, I'm unscheduled, since Mr. Friday Night didn't turn into a big deal."

"Sorry?" Buffy ventured.

"Semi-sorry," Cordelia said. "He's an actor, too, so way into himself."

They set up a time to meet and said their goodbyes. Buffy leaned against her husband. "She's in a good mood." If they were going to see Cordelia tomorrow, that answered the question of whether they'd go see Angel.

Spike avoided the topic. "Mmm," he said, brushing his lips against her nape. "I've got you until one o'clock tomorrow, then?"

"I'm all yours," she agreed.

A couple of hours later, Buffy nestled back against Spike's body, her fingers clasped loosely around his wrist, both of them spent for the moment. She knew he was awake, but since they were facing the same direction, he couldn't see her face. It was as good a time as any to bring up a topic that had been on her mind. "Okay if I ask you a question?"

"'Course."

Spoken words weren't going to work for this. _What you did in the shower…._

At the end, he'd been behind her, his hands gliding along her sudsy body. He'd slid one soap-slick knuckle into her bum as she came. _That?_

Buffy felt him tense, and her grip on his wrist tightened. _No, it didn't hurt or anything._

 _I've done that before._

She could feel his caution. _And that's okay. I just… wanted to talk about anal sex. We don't do that._

 _You want to do that?_ He sensed the blood flooding into capillaries on her cheeks.

It was a moment before she answered. _I don't know. I mostly want to know if you want to do that._

Spike's body relaxed against her. _Oh. Dunno, love. Back when I, uh, when I was planning your birthday surprise… Wanted to make sure I got everything right, so I read up on things a Victorian era git like me wouldn't know, things I wouldn't know about sex with twenty-first century humans. Not that I planned on that, but I read everything I could._

 _So you've never… with a human?_

 _Never with anyone but vampires. That, I mean._

 _Oh. Just Angelus?_

 _No. Uh, Dru, Darla, Elizabeth._

 _Ah._ She knew about James and Elizabeth, but she didn't think of them the way she automatically thought of the Aurelians. But that meant he'd done it with most of his lovers.

When she didn't continue the conversation, he kissed her hair. _Know that it's a different thing with humans. If we ever do, I'll make sure I don't do anything that might cause infection elsewhere._

 _Does it feel good?_ Buffy felt the word 'flummoxed' bob up in his stream of consciousness, and she smiled.

 _Um. Yeah. It can be a prostate massage, quick-like, or it can make a normal orgasm… dunno, deeper? And, no. There's an… ache to it, every time. A burn._

 _You mean, even after… penetration?_

 _Yeah._

 _Oh._ Buffy absently caressed the little bump of bone at the base of his ulna. One of her physical education classes had a section on anatomy. Spike had been her medical practice dummy, though he'd teased that he was better suited for teaching musculature than skeletal anatomy. _You never answered my question._

He didn't sigh, but he did shift his head higher on the pillow they were sharing. _Not sure that I do. I know what Angel feels like, yeah? I don't know what I feel like. Mite bigger, yeah?_

Feeling that the part of the conversation that made her want to hide her face was finished, Buffy rolled over, putting a hand on his cheek and tracing his zygomatic bone _. I'm not a delicate flower._

 _Do I treat you like one?_

Her fingers stilled on his cheekbone. _No._ Then _, Do you?_

Spike sighed and took her fingers in his hand, kissing her fingertips. _This isn't leftover worry about being 'misshapen,' love. If we do try anal, it isn't going to be spur of the moment. I'm going to take the time to make sure you're prepared as possible. I want you to enjoy my touch, not… survive it._

There was nothing yielding in his words. He felt her formulate a couple of teasing remarks, which she didn't offer to him. After a moment, Spike leaned in and touched his nose to hers. _It isn't something I'm missing. I'm willing if and when you are. If you like it, fine. If not, that's fine, too. Thank you for being so open to exploring what our bodies can do._

Buffy pulled away from their mindlink, because she could see him slamming the lid on memories of when he had survived the unwelcome touch of others. She knew the contents of those boxes, enough, anyway. "Thank you for always being open and honest with me. I love you, Spike."

"I love you, too, Buffy. With all of me, I love you."

⸹

"Let me get this straight," Buffy said, sitting up in her chair. She, Spike, and Cordelia were beneath an umbrella at an outdoor café. The ladies were picking at enormous salads, while Spike was dragging a tortilla chip through his guacamole ("Not as good as what Joyce makes," had been his judgement). "You guys went to a whole other dimension called Pylea, where you were a slave-slash-princess, met a super-strong demon who is a champion and happens to look like a hot human guy, and you 'comstocked' and lost your visions?"

"Com-shucked, and we also rescued a grad student named Fred. Angel could walk in their sun. And Lorne got to see his family."

"And it's another dimension Wolfram and Hart have an interest in?" Spike asked. Cordelia nodded.

"Just… Wow." Buffy said. She took a sip of water. "Describe your slave-princess costume again."

The dark-haired beauty swatted a hand at her. "It was kind of like a vacation," Cordelia said. "I mean, dangerous and dirty, sure, but considering what L.A. is like, it seemed like a vacation. I mean, I got to have sex."

Buffy put her hand over Cordy's. "I'm glad you don't have the visions anymore. I worried about you."

"I worried about me, too," she agreed. "I mean, I've missed classes and even auditions. Those were not little, baby headaches." Cordelia glanced around, then held out her wrist. She wore a wire bracelet with a black stone held in the center. "Groo gave me this. When he has a vision about what's going on in L.A., it changes, looks kind of like a red crystal instead of a black rock. I touch it and see the images, like a timeshare. It still hurts, but it's way more manageable."

"Has he sent you any visions?" Spike asked.

"Three since coming back." Cordelia pulled her wrist back and cradled it. "Nothing like the rate I'd have them, but I guess he has visions of other things. We've been patrolling more to make up for it," she said with a shrug.

The blond vampire gave her a sharp look. "Angel been giving you a hard time about it?"

"No." Cordelia looked down. "I know that Doyle gave them to me, but I'm just human. Eventually, they were going to kill me." She looked up at Buffy. "I don't want to die for a good cause; I want to live for one."

Buffy put her hand out. "Totally on board with wanting to live." She leaned a little closer, her voice quiet. "Do you miss him?"

 _Doyle?_

 _Not Doyle. Typical clueless man._

Cordelia looked away from her, eyes on the top floor of a distant building for a moment. "Yes, but also no."

 _Exhibit A in why no bloke understands women._

 _Hush._

"Because you two and Pylean demon-boy were prophesied, and you'd like to make up your own mind?"

"Exactly. Plus, you know, here we have showers and sunscreen." Cordelia shifted restlessly in the cushioned chair. "Groo and I had a lot of chemistry, I mean, a _lot_. I know I wasn't in love with him, because I'd just met him. I might have been able to fall in love – c'mon, hot and sweet? Who gets that? But I would also have been a tool for his enemies to use against him. It's better for both of us that I'm here and safe. Or, you know, L.A. safe."

"How is everyone else doing?" Buffy asked, because Spike wouldn't.

"Good. Like I said, it was sort of a vacation." She speared a chunk of cucumber. "Well, I don't know how Fred's doing, just that she's glad to be back in the land of tacos."

"Fred?" Buffy frowned. "That's the grad student?"

"Mm-hmm." Cordelia swallowed. "She's staying at the hotel until she can get re-oriented. She's sweet but sort of cuckoo-for-Coco-Puffs. I mean, she was there for years. Of course, you have to be crazy already to study physics at the graduate level."

Spike had lasted eight minutes longer than Buffy expected. "How's Captain Forehead?"

Cordelia snorted. "Better than this winter, when Darla was around." When both Spike and Buffy flinched in surprise, she looked between the two of them. "He was supposed to tell you."

"Well," Buffy said brightly, "you know Angel." She leaned in and lowered her voice. "I was there when he killed her, Cordy. She's dust."

Spike made a frustrated noise and looked unhappy. "That's who the resurrection spell was for, when you and Wes were in the hospital last spring."

Cordelia nodded. "We didn't know until late last year, but they'd been sending Angel dreams of her for months."

"They?"

"Wolfram and Hart, that law firm." She took a sip of water. "All he wanted to do was sleep. And, weirdly, all Wolfram and Hart wanted was for him to sire her." Cordelia frowned. "Revamp her? Whatever."

"Darla came back human?" Buffy asked, shocked.

"Well, Angel wouldn't sire her," Cordelia said loyally. Then she looked down. "She came back as human as Darla gets, anyway. She was dying of syphilis or something, so the pressure was on. Angel faced trials to win her a life, but being resurrected already kind of blocked that."

Buffy had turned to look at Spike. "So that's what they wanted you for last fall."

Cordelia looked between them. "Oh, that makes sense. They wanted an Aurelian, and since Angel wouldn't do it, either, they found someone else he sired." She frowned a moment. "Sam Lawson? I think that was it."

"Bloody hell," Spike said, his eyes widening as he remembered the German submarine from the last big war. "That git survived this long?"

Cordelia searched her salad, but all the cucumber was gone. "He and Darla are still out there. Last we heard, they slaughtered a bunch of people in a Wolfram and Hart conference room." She put down her fork and leaned back. "Angel locked them all in there together."

"He what?" Buffy said faintly.

Spike raised a brow. "Angel," the name was precise, "did that?"

The dark-haired woman nodded, an unhappy expression on her face. "It was when he left us. I mean, on our part, we just took Angel Investigations and started back up without him. Without me, Wesley, and Gunn, he was just lost." She leaned forward and gave Buffy a sympathetic look. "He sort of let it slip that he tried to lose his soul about then. With Darla."

Buffy looked less like she needed sympathy than three minutes in a ring with the souled vampire. "He did what? _Why?_ "

Cordelia was surprised by her reaction and leaned away to examine the shorter woman. "Well, it isn't easy on him."

"Let him try fighting a fucking god," Buffy said. She stood up, snatching her napkin before it could fall, and stomped away, tossing the colorful cloth into her seat as she left.

Cordelia stared after her for a moment, her brows drawn together. She turned in her seat to look at Spike.

"It would have been nice to have help from you guys this spring," Spike said, his tone neutral. "A god from another dimension was trying to find something in Sunnydale. She did… unpleasant things to Oz, the Slayer, and," the muscles around his eyes tightened for a second, "me, threatened to kill Dawn." He let out a sigh. "You know Buffy is never going to be calm about him trying to lose his soul, especially not since he keeps turning down chances to –" He closed his mouth.

"Chances to what?" Cordelia demanded. When Spike looked away and picked up another tortilla chip, she tossed her own napkin on the table. "Here," she said, pushing the check toward him, "take care of this. We'll settle up later. You go over to the Hyperion. I'll take Buffy shopping and meet you there when there's less chance she'll stake his ass."

Spike held the bill in his hand, having taken it automatically. He watched the tall brunette walk away, distantly noting the other eyes that followed her retreating figure. Cordy was going to the bathroom to calm down her friend, then treat her to a couple of hours of her favorite activity and quality girl time. She was sending him to knock Angel back in line.

He'd never truly warmed to Cordelia in Sunnydale, appreciating the lovely face but not the person inside. This Cordelia, though… She could have been one of Pippa's friends. Smiling a little, he lifted a hand for their waiter.

⸹

"Sorry about that," Buffy said. They were pulling away from the restaurant in the little Audi that Cordelia had leased. "I just… I didn't know any of that."

"I don't know everything," Cordelia admitted. She took a cross street for a couple of blocks without speaking, then turned into an upscale shopping area. They were seventh in line for valet parking, and it gave Cordelia a chance to talk without looking at the blond woman. "Buffy, I always thought it was going to be you and Angel."

"I thought so, too," she agreed. "Then I killed him." When Cordy didn't say anything after the stark words, she took a breath and went on. "He was in hell for, like, a hundred years before he came back, and it had just been a few months for me. He was… different, and I first I thought, well, the last thing he remembers is me shoving a sword into him. It wasn't that, though." There were still five cars between them and the valet stand. She chanced a glance at Cordelia, who had been her bridesmaid. "He was the first man I loved, and I stupidly thought I was his first love, too – you know, vampires can't love unless they have a soul." Her voice was sarcastic.

"Yeah, that always confused me, too."

"Right, Spike obviously loved Drusilla." Buffy took a breath. "Then I thought, well, that's just Angelus, he wasn't capable of it. Except now… I think he loved Darla." Her mouth twisted. "He wouldn't sleep with me, because it would endanger his soul, but he'd take that chance with her."

"And he fought through those trials to win her a life instead of siring her," Cordelia agreed. "I think you're right."

"So, so glad I met Spike," Buffy said. Her voice was dark. "Sometimes I think, what if I was still hung up on him?"

Four cars left now. "I sometimes think I'm hung up on him."

She turned to look at Cordelia after those soft words. _Hello, salty goodness._ Cordy had always found Angel attractive, hadn't she? "Is that why you didn't stay in Pylea?"

"I think it is." She said the words as if she'd never expressed the idea before. "Part of it is just the novelty of having to try to get a guy, you know? They're usually… well, low-hanging fruit." She moved up another car length. "I don't want to feel anything for him. Maybe he isn't hung up on you, but I think he's hung up on Darla. And he's a vampire." She sighed and chanced a look at Buffy. "I don't know. He's good-looking, and now he's rich; that's what I always wanted, right?"

Buffy met her eyes, saw the twisted, almost bitter smile on her face. "Cordelia, you always fall for the good guy."

"He's trying to be the good guy." Her tone was a little wistful. "He tries so hard."

"He does," Buffy agreed. He tried, yet somehow his successes never seemed to move him firmly into the ranks of the good guys. Spike had barely needed to get clear of Drusilla to do that.

 _Hey. Love you right back._ His eyes were concerned, looking directly at her. _What's wrong?_

Buffy leaned across the table at the Sit N Bull and touched Spike's cheek _. Just want you to know how much I appreciate you._

Cordelia moved up again. There were only two cars left, and two valets were at work. "Well, can you tell me if it's even worth it? Groo was wonderful and sweet, but was sort of clueless in bed."

Buffy turned and looked straight at her, her eyebrows climbing high. "I actually can't." She shrugged. "My first time, right? And Angel hadn't done anything in, like, decades. He was sort of," she searched for non-specific words, "inexperienced, too."

"Oh." Cordelia looked disappointed. "I figured, with all that time, he would be, you know, pretty good."

"He probably is," Buffy said, cringing a little. "Just not that night. Like you said, years of experience."

Cordelia turned to look at her, grinning a little. "So, Spike is good in bed?"

"No. Spike is _amazing_ in bed." Buffy, her cheeks pink, gave Cordelia a helpless shrug. "Angel is probably pretty good, too."

"Oh. Okay." Cordelia sounded significantly more cheerful as she greeted the valet. When she met Buffy at the curb, she said, "That's hopeful, anyway." Then she changed the subject to shoes.

⸹

"Hello?" Spike opened the unlocked door of the Hyperion and stepped inside. "Anybody awake?"

"Is that a fellow Brit I hear?" Wesley's light voice called back.

"'Lo, Watcher Boy. Hear you lot have been on a field trip." He leapt lightly onto the registration desk, then dropped down on the other side. Wesley was just standing from behind a desk in the office, and Spike hauled him into a hug. When Wes looked confused, he added, "Lunch with Cordelia."

"Ah. Yes, it was… different." His expression eased.

Spike grinned at him. "Cordelia said she ran around all Princess Leia most of the time."

Several things crossed Wesley's mind before he said, "She wore it well."

"Gunn around?"

"No. There is someone I'd like to introduce you to, though." He nodded behind Spike, who turned, surprised to see a frail-looking, dark-haired woman standing behind the stairs. He hadn't felt her at all; she was a prey animal who had survived by learning how to be well under anything's radar. "Fred? This is Spike. He's Angel's… grandson."

"Hullo." Spike nodded and smiled, did not make any sudden movements.

"Hi." Curiosity won over nerves. "You don't look young enough to be his grandson. I mean, he doesn't look old enough to be a grandpa, either." She realized what she'd said. "Not that you look old or anything."

Spike smiled and shrugged. "We vampires look the same age as when we were turned. I'm actually a year older… well, some months older than Angel." Then he added, pretty sure he wasn't the main topic of conversation around Angel Investigations. "I have my soul, as well. Just so you don't worry."

Fred nodded at Wesley. "He told me about you. Plus, he hugged you. That was a pretty big clue you ain't evil."

Wesley walked around the registration desk, and Spike followed. "Fred is staying here at the hotel while she gets her bearings."

"I was in Pylea a long time."

Spike tilted his head to the side. "You wouldn't be from Texas, would you?"

She smiled for the first time, looking bashful. "How could you tell?" she asked, her accent purposely thicker.

"Best dance I ever went to," Spike said, doing a two-step closer to her, "was in Texas. It was during the Great Depression, and the local dance hall had closed." He moved back to Wesley and took him by the hand and shoulder and led him in a box step. Wesley was a good dancer; Spike figured a lad with his background would have had dancing lessons. "So, the people who still wanted to dance drove to a crossroads on Friday night, turned on their headlights and radios," he let go of Wesley when they were near Fred, "and made their own dance hall." Spike held out a hand to her. With a glance at Wesley to make sure it was all right, Fred took his hand. Spike didn't pull her close, just did another two-step. Then he bent over her fingers and said, "One of the best parties I've ever been to. Very nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Fred from Texas."

"Yours, too," she said, letting go and hiding her hand behind her back.

Spike turned back to Wesley. Buffy and Giles had both told him his attention could be disconcertingly intense. "So, Cordelia wasn't clear. Did Fred rescue you guys, or did you rescue her?"

"Bit of both, actually," Wesley said. He gave Fred a grin.

"You here to visit Angel?" Fred asked.

He hesitated for just a second. "I am. Is he in?"

"Asleep, I think," Wesley confirmed.

"I'll go on up, then." Spike didn't want to stay if he was making Fred uncomfortable.

"He's in room –"

The blond vampire waved this away. "I can find him." Spike went up the stairs two at a time. Now that he was about to see the big vampire again, he was eager to do so, both hot fury and cold anger forgotten. He opened the door to Angel's dark room.

Angel sat up as Spike came into the room. He'd been awake since the boy came into the building, unsure if he should run or not. The expression on the lean face was unreadable for a moment, then Spike smiled. Angel closed his eyes, and scooted toward the edge. He sat up on his knees. Spike came to him, Master moving first, and took Angel's head in his hands so he could bring their foreheads together.

Angel let out a breath, his hands closing on Spike's wrists, holding him there. It couldn't be kneeling, not if their heads were on the same plane. With the only air that he had left, he said the words that were necessary, the words he'd been avoiding for weeks. "I'm sorry."

 _I know._ Spike gave him a light kiss on the mouth, then let go. He sat down on the bed beside his grandsire and began taking off his boots.

Sinking back down, Angel watched him hungrily. When had Spike become more family to him than Darla? He started to tell the boy he'd missed him, but it was his own damn fault.

Once his feet were bare, Spike turned to look at him, then raised an eyebrow. Angel scooted toward the other edge, giving him room. Spike laid down next to him. "You want to tell me, or…?"

 _Mindlink._ Angel took an unnecessary breath and moved until their foreheads were touching again. He could never have told any other way: the emptiness inside him last year, his irrational belief that if he could save Darla, he could count his whole unlife as a success, the terrible things his soul was capable of doing.

When the story was told, down to his chastened return to his friends, Spike took him into his cool embrace. _Angel, I've seen you at a far lower point. Did it help to keep me away? Did it make any part of that easier?_

 _No._

 _Don't shut me out, Aurelian. Never again._

Angelus surged against the framework of those words, the implied command. Angel ignored the protest. _I won't._

 _I didn't do right by you, either. At first, I ignored it so I wouldn't have to hurt you. But I don't have to punish you. We don't have to be just vampires. I wasn't there for you, and I'm sorry, mate._

 _You don't have anything to apologize for._

Spike let go of him so they could see each other, laying his head on Angel's pillow. _I do. New to this whole Master thing; forgot I'm the one who makes the rules instead of following them. And, then, Sunnydale got… busy. Let things with you slide._

 _Busy?_

It was Spike's turn to close his eyes and let out a breath. _Right, then. Cliff Notes version._ He let Angel see Glory, all her strength and madness, how both he and Buffy had been thoroughly and repeatedly thrashed by the god, the end that resulted in a human's death.

Throughout the telling, Spike never said anything explicit about Dawn, but it was the first thing that Angel asked about. _The god was after Buffy's little sister?_

Spike's aura surged outward, fierce love and protectiveness. He might as well have transformed into his prehistoric lion form, crouching down between Angel and the idea of Dawn, tail lashing, fangs extended. The blond vampire relaxed by degrees. _Yeah. She's safe, now._

 _I don't really remember her much. I never was around Buffy's family._

 _Angelus tried to lure her outside once_ , Spike pointed out.

 _Yeah. But that never really happened?_

Spike shook his head. _It seems real. She is real._

 _You love her._

 _We all do… Angelus._

 _It was…_ Angel closed his eyes. _It was beyond stupid, what I did. Trying to lose my soul because I was just so tired of fighting. There's nothing else. Only the fight._

 _There's the fight and also those you fight with._

 _But I'm a danger to them._

 _Then never try to be that danger again._ Spike's eyes were yellow for just a moment. Then he shook it off. _Darla didn't manage it, then the wanker won't ever be loose again, I know, but…._

Angel put his hand on Spike's nape, fingers closing on a hank of hair. _Never again._

Spike smiled at the promise, then the expression faded. _We need to do something about Wolfram and Hart. What they did to you, to the Duchess, to us…._

 _And to you._ Angel's own eyes had gone yellow after he got the story of the lawyer who tried to turn Spike into her personal sex zombie before bringing him in to sire Darla. He forced down his demon and settled his hand on Spike's forearm. _And to a lot of other people._

 _How are you with what happened with Darla and Sam Lawson?_

 _With what happened to those lawyers? I'm actually fine with that. None of them were innocent, and all of them posed a danger to the innocent._

A ghost of a smile touched Spike's mouth. _I sorta got that. I meant, how do you feel about Darla being turned, her out there with sailor boy._

 _I should have killed Sam the same day he rose. And I've killed Darla before._

 _Doubt she'd come back to Sunnydale. In normal times, I'd be mad you didn't give us a head's up, but the past few months, a visit from the Duchess would have been a romp._

Angel's lips parted. Darla would have a grudge against Buffy, but she'd always avoided Slayers. _I never thought of that._

 _Neither of us are the best thinkers. That's why we keep smart people close by._

 _Yeah._ The corners of his eyes crinkled. _Watchers, of all things._

 _Got another one, old gentleman named Aubrey. He wants to stay on the Hellmouth, even though Glory is gone._

 _Fred's smart. She's a physicist._

 _You think she'll stay? Or want to stay?_

Angel lifted a shoulder. _It's easy for some humans to ignore the larger world, but she was touched deeply by the years she was in a demon dimension._

 _Cordy told us some of it_ , Spike invited.

Angel told the whole story, and knots inside him began to unravel as Spike caught bits of the story that no one else ever would: the joy of being in the sun, of being nothing more than a mindless beast, the jealousy he felt toward the Groosalugg. When the tale was told, he felt clear inside, more at ease than he had in over a year.

 _Need to meet this Lorne._

 _You going to sing for him?_

Spike snorted. _You know my feelings about destiny, mate._

Angel grinned. _I saw the video of Buffy and Dracula._ When Spike gave him a wary look, he said aloud, "You'd look cute in a collar with a little bell on it."

The blond vampire snorted. "Would have sworn you'd say something with the word 'pussy' in it."

He chuckled. "Made me think about what I'd transform into. I settled on a bear."

Spike mock shuddered. "Chuffer. You know I hate bears."

"Where was that? Bulgaria?"

"It just lunged at me. I knew it was there – the smell, I mean – but I thought a dancing bear with a tutu. The claws on that thing were huge. Didn't go near a circus again for decades."

The humorous sparkled faded from Angel's brown eyes. "You guys in town for long?"

"Back to Sunnydale tomorrow. Still working on making it a livable place for humans." He answered the unasked question. "Cordelia took Buffy shopping. They'll be by here when they're done." _She wasn't happy to learn that you tried to lose your soul._

 _Well, she's sane._ Angel sighed after he stated the obvious. _That's part of it, you know._ When Spike just shook his head, Angel closed his eyes. _The two of you are so much better at being champions._

Spike took Angel's hand in his and gave it a fierce squeeze. _Because we don't try to do it alone. Apart, we make crap plans, get our arses kicked. When we work together, we cannot be defeated. Not asking you to move back to Sunnydale – I'm proud that you're making a life here, that you're letting people in – but you shouldn't feel like you have to do things alone. You aren't alone._

 _I was for decades. It's a hard habit to change._

 _Try harder, Aurelian._

Angel closed his eyes again as he heard the echo of command in the voice, almost felt it in his blood. _I will remember._

 _Good. In that case, have an order for you._ He felt Angel tense. _You and yours are coming with me and mine to Squaw Valley for Christmas this year._

"What?" Angel blurted, never having expected this.

Spike showed him last year's vacation, including the empty rooms that had been intended for Angel Investigations. "Family should be together at the holidays, yeah?"

"Yeah," Angel agreed. He swallowed thickly and averted his face. "Reckon we have time to nap before they get back from shopping?"

"Sure. Especially if Buffy found shoes to try on."

⸹

"How did the visit go?" Buffy asked. They hadn't stayed long at the Hyperion, leaving for their own hotel room at the Four Seasons.

Spike stroked her bare shoulder. "We're fine. He's promised to be a good boy."

She snorted. "He doesn't keep promises like you do."

"He'll keep this one." Spike rolled over onto his back. "You still want to go out tonight?"

"I could dance."

"Ready for a shower?"

"You go on." Buffy grinned. "It'll be faster that way."

She waited until she heard the sound of spraying water, then reached under the bed and grabbed one of the shopping bags. After seeing how some of the girls at the music festival dressed, she'd been inspired with an idea for an outfit. Buffy knew she'd never have the audacity to wear it out, but she thought Spike would appreciate it just fine in private.

As she dressed, a smile played on her face. After yet another object lesson in the difference between her first love and her true love, she'd wanted to do something special for him. And after what Fred said not long before they left, he might appreciate it even more.

She'd only meant for Wesley to hear, but all the rest of them had super senses. "Does he come by to sleep with Angel a lot?" The awkward young Texan had volunteered to get the vampires when Buffy and Cordelia arrived. Apparently, the sight of the two half-dressed vampires in Angel's bed had made an impression.

Buffy grinned a little as she turned to look in the mirror, then twisted to check the view from behind. Angel had actually flinched, and both of them looked a smidge guilty. Wesley had looked between the two Aurelians, appalled. That was one reason they hadn't stayed very long.

The shower cut off, so Buffy hurried to the mirror with her makeup bag. She had just long enough to apply more eyeliner and a darker lipstick and get to the bed. She pulled the sheets up and kicked the pillows off just as Spike came out of the shower, naked and rubbing his damp hair with a towel.

"Your turn, my lady." He froze, the last syllable a lot of 'eee' sound.

"I'm ready to dance." She stood in front of the headboard on her makeshift stage.

Spike opened his mouth, letting out his breath, letting a smile take hold. "I'm ready to watch."

She pouted extravagantly, nodding toward a cheap little boombox made mostly of red plastic. "I need music to dance."

"If my heart beat, you'd have all the drum you could want." He tore his eyes away from her and studied the buttons for a second, then started the CD.

Buffy started moving to Def Leppard's 'Pour Some Sugar On Me.' The bed was springy, keeping her a little off balance, and the sex-kitten dance moves felt silly, but the look on her husband's face was worth it. Of course, he'd looked at her the same way when she was dressed in a long, red velvet gown when he took her to a play in London for their anniversary.

Spike watched her hips swivel and leaned against the edge of the bed, bending his knees so he could lean back a bit. Buffy had on a little peaked cap like a police officer's, and that was the only legal thing about her outfit. She wore cutoff blue jean shorts so abbreviated that the pockets hung below the denim. Underneath that were fishnet stockings. On her feet were what surely was the smallest pair of combat boots in the world. The only other thing adorning her body were strips of electrical tape crossed over her nipples. Grateful he was starkers, he gripped his erection and tossed off in two quick strokes.

"Why did you do that?"

"You want to dance. Only way I can manage to let you."

"You can dance, too." She turned so she was looking at him over her bare shoulder, still swaying her lower body. "Do you want to dance, Spike?"

He crawled onto the makeshift stage and ran one large hand up her leg and between her thighs to cup her sex. "Buffy, you know I want to dance." _I am the luckiest man in the world._

She gave him a sultry smile. _That's true._

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

Spike rolled over with a groan. He'd planned to doze until the afternoon, but it was clear he wasn't going to get back to sleep. Buffy had already gone to meet Giles for a training session, and since he had no flying lesson, it would have been nice to sleep a few more hours.

Yawning, he stood by the bed and stretched. He snagged the jeans he'd worn yesterday and slid into them, grabbing his mobile from the front pocket to see if it needed charged. It didn't, but he had a message from Cory. Spike read the text, then swore.

 _Someone asked about the Key at Tooth & Nail last night._

He dialed the young vampire's number. After they spoke, he sank back down onto the mattress. If his heart could beat, it would be banging against his chest right now.

Spike thought a moment, then sent a terse description to everyone in the group. Well, he thought, maybe I'll sunbathe a bit, then go into town to –

His mobile chimed. Spike froze in surprise and fear, then cautiously looked at the display. Just Aubrey, probably wanting more details.

 _He's here at Magic Box._ A second wave of cold went over Spike.

 _Shallow cuts._

He hadn't seen anyone in his nightmare about Dawn, but his instincts were screaming at him. Grabbing up a t-shirt and his boots, he headed for the garage, texting a reply as he went.

 _On my way._

Spike abandoned the car as traffic began piling up around the red lights into town, leaving it in the lot of an auto parts store. He ran at full vampire speed, knowing that he wouldn't be seen even in daylight, going airborne for stretches. When he came to an abrupt stop at the door to the Magic Box, he was suddenly visible as if he'd stepped from behind a glamour. Spike opened the door.

Aubrey was behind the counter. The elderly man didn't move, just cut his eyes toward the back. Spike twitched his head to the side: _Get out_. Aubrey closed the book that lay on the counter, put it in a cubby underneath, and headed to the door as Spike walked toward the small, grey-haired man in the back of the store. He wore an overcoat despite the warmth outside.

He had his hand on the back of a chair. Strong morning light came through the windows of the store, illuminating the single long, brown hair he lifted from the cushion. The man grew still, tilting his head as if the vampire behind him had said something.

Spike knew he had no element of surprise. "Drop that." Behind him, he heard the key turn in the lock. Good; Aubrey had closed up shop.

The little demon held up the hair. It shone in the bright sunlight. "Good, strong DNA." He turned to Spike, blinking a little against the light. "I'm Doc. I think I know you."

"Do you, now." He took another step forward.

"You're Rocko, right? Big into dominoes."

"'Fraid not." He stepped down onto the main floor of the shop. "I said, drop that."

Doc carefully draped the strand of Dawn's hair over the back of the chair. "There. I can find it afterwards."

Spike shook his head. "No afterwards."

Aubrey unlocked the back door and eased it open. Spike was unarmed, as far as he could tell, without even his leather coat as armor. The old Watcher went to the weapons chest in the far corner and opened the lid. Something on the top layer, so the rattling wouldn't be a giveaway. He made his selection and almost tiptoed to the door leading back into the store.

"Glorificus was defeated," Doc said, "but the Key is still here. So many possibilities for her blood."

"Only one." Spike was one shuffling step away from the demon now. "It's staying in the arteries and veins where it belongs."

"Not if it belongs to me." Doc smiled, then he struck toward Spike's face with an amazingly long tongue.

The vampire sidestepped, and the strike went wide by several inches. He pivoted on the ball of one foot, coming back around to face the demon ninety degrees to right of where he had been. In his peripheral vision, he saw the door to the back room open and the glint of a sword. "Her blood belongs to her. No one else."

"Not even you?" Doc shifted, keeping his shoulders squared to Spike's. "I thought you vampires were possessive."

"Well," Spike drawled, "I am gonna own you."

Quicker than Aubrey could see, the demon flung himself at Spike. The vampire responded faster than Aubrey could follow; the fight was an indistinct scuffle near the little table and chairs.

Then it was over. Spike had at least five feet of tongue looped around his forearm, one foot stomped down on a reptilian-looking tail, and an evil look of satisfaction on his face as he stared into the little demon's eyes. "Willingham? If you could get the door to the alley for me? Hate for Tara to find any… spatters on her merchandise."

They killed the demon together.

The Magic Box didn't reopen for forty-five minutes, but it was midweek, with few tourists and other shoppers downtown. School was out, so no students cut through the alley on their way to lunch off-campus. The ritual flames Aubrey produced created no smoke. The old sorcerer and the vampire finished up with their grisly work unnoticed.

Spike offered to get lunch. While he was gone, Aubrey went to the back room to return the cleaned sword to the chest and to examine the setup for the security cameras. He turned on the black and white monitor and watched the fight several times, then shook his head. He put in a new tape for the system and pocketed the one that captured the brawl.

When Spike came back with open-faced roast beef sandwiches and mashed potatoes, they sat at the little table. Spike also produced a bottle of scotch. Early as it was, Aubrey found a couple of small glasses.

"What kind of demon was that?"

"Dunno, mate. Never seen any like him."

"Beheading didn't kill him"

"Yeah. True demon, maybe."

"Other than the fact he had been asking about the Key, how did you know he was dangerous?"

Spike cut a section from his sandwich and popped the fork into his mouth to gain a few seconds of time while chewing and swallowing. "I don't know." Looking uncomfortable, he shrugged. "Dream, maybe."

"You have precognitive dreams, like Slayers?"

"Me? Oh, no." He went with the tangent. "Hate when Buffy has them. She's spacey for two or three days afterwards."

"Spike." Aubrey looked at him from beneath bushy brows. "I looked at the security feed. I had to slow it down considerably, and the quality is rubbish, but you anticipated every move he made. He was faster than you, man. You just… knew what he was going to do next."

The blond man grimaced, took a sip of Scotch, then grimaced again as it burned its way toward his stomach. Partway there, his vampiric nature burned back, taking the alcohol directly into his bloodstream, just as it would life-giving blood. He let out a sigh. "Not sure how to put this, exactly, but I don't think this is the first time I've killed… Doc."

Aubrey shook his head. "How's that?"

"Dunno, mate. Not reincarnation or anything. Just… I don't think this is the first time we've lived through all this." Spike grimaced. "Or parts of it. Or a version of it." He sighed and met Willingham's eyes for a brief moment. "When I got to Sunnydale, I started getting all these moments of déjà vu, strong feelings of familiarity. Not in all the decades before. And it's not just me. The Slayer, her friends, Rupert, too. Had no reason to keep looking for threats after the Knights Who Say Key left… but I did. The second I saw him, I knew it was a fight to the death. Same for Doc, I think."

Still giving him a narrow look, Aubrey shook his head. "I haven't had any feelings of… familiarity like that."

Spike smiled at the bottom of his glass. It was a wintry smile. "You will."

They finished the meal in silence, then cleared the table. As Aubrey turned to reopen the store, he saw the vampire carefully, reverently pluck Dawn's hair from the back of the chair and tuck it into the pocket of his jeans.

⸹

July 2001

⸹

Anya looked toward the coast, then glanced at Spike. She saw he was watching and shook her head. He nodded and put the helicopter into a shallow bank, heading for the next stretch of hills.

Spike had his pilot's license to fly helicopters now, though he was still working through the qualifications for jets. Anya had leased a helicopter for a week. For the past two days, they'd spent the afternoon checking hills with an ocean view in Monterey County, starting at the northern end and heading south. It was Wednesday now, and Anya had scheduled the next two afternoons for the search for the dragon's lair as well.

It was a pleasant duty. The weather was fair, Spike was an excellent pilot, and the scenery was stunning. Anya glanced at the vampire next to her. Like her, he wore sunglasses and a headset, though she doubted that she looked nearly as good with her best feature – in her opinion, her eyes – covered up. Neither of them were talking much; most of the oohing and aahing over the beautiful coastline had happened on Monday. She turned back to the west and grew still.

Twice before she'd seen a view that looked similar to her memory from the entrance to the cliffside cave. She'd made sure to focus on physical features rather than lighting, but the rugged coastline had scenic views that varied in similar ways.

"Spike, try here." The microphone let her hear the words in her own headset, and she hoped she didn't sound like that all the time, tinny and distant.

"Copy that," he said.

The first few times she'd heard those words in Spike's accented voice, it made her smile. Now she was too tense to really notice as he moved inland. He moved down the south side of the hills, effortlessly keeping the helicopter far enough away from the cliffs in case of wind gusts but close enough for Anya to see. She studied the terrain avidly, hill after hill, then shook her head.

Spike brought the chopper up, out of the little canyons, and soared back toward the ocean. He set a southerly course again, but Anya almost immediately said, "Try here."

He raised a brow, which she couldn't see behind the aviators perched on his nose, then went up a higher hill and began the drop again, turning so she could see the southern and western faces.

"There!" Anya pointed. "There it is!"

Spike spun the cockpit so it faced the cliff. There was so much vegetation that he didn't see anything for a moment before spotting the shadow of a rift in the wall. Anya had been correct; it would be a bitch to rappel down to the cave, and the climb up from the canyon floor would be nearly impossible. He looked at her, then moved again so that she was facing the ocean.

A grin of recognition broke across Anya's face, and she nodded vigorously. Reaching down to the handbag between her feet, she lifted out a pouch. Opening it, she took out two crystals. She tried to open the door, but she was immediately buffeted by wind from the blades.

Spike brought the craft up and moved it again so that he faced the cliff. He set the controls and opened his door, then adjusted the yaw with the pedals. When the craft was hovering steadily, he pitched the crystal into the entrance of the cave. Anya held her breath until she saw it tumble inside.

Taking the helicopter up, Spike examined the top of the hill. "What do you think?" he asked Anya, hovering over a fairly flat, rocky patch.

She motioned him back just a bit. The wind picked up, so Spike took them up higher, went into the wind coming off the ocean, and brought them in once more. Anya opened her door a crack and dropped the crystal into some vegetation near the flat spot, not wanting the clear crystal to wink in the sunlight. She wanted it to be a beacon only for them.

"Let's go!" she cried, probably too loud, but she was happy and excited. Spike put his fist out for a bump, but she grabbed it and shook it, laughing. He started laughing, too.

Anya sent Xander a quick text message. He was waiting when they landed, waving at them from atop his truck. Xander had parked behind the hangar, and Anya met him at the gate while Spike took care of post-flight procedures. She threw herself into his arms. "We found it!"

"That is awesome!" he said, giving her a hug. "You are awesome." Xander, grinning now just to see how happy she was, gave her a kiss. "I knew you'd find it."

"Scooby meeting tonight, I guess," she said, showing much more anticipation than usual.

"I guess so." He gave her another kiss. "I'll talk to Alvin."

She nodded, a sympathetic look on her face. Xander really liked his job and his boss, but he couldn't be part of a company that would work on the old Sunnydale High site as her fiancé. All the ethics pamphlets were clear on that. Giles and Spike had already set up another company to make the bid to avoid conflicts of interest. Xander had lobbied for N&C to build the planned memorial and apartment complex. "Maybe he'll sell the business to you when he's ready to retire."

"Maybe." Xander had been surprised to find the '& C' part of N & C meant 'et cetera,' as Alvin was the sole owner, and was so touched his boss wanted him as a partner. "Or, maybe I'll do something else." He'd been thinking of building custom furniture. Xander figured that would give him an excuse to buy all the power tools he wanted.

"You can do anything," Anya said with absolute confidence.

"So can you, Madam Mayor," Xander said. "Even turn the Sunnydale into a real tourist destination." This time, the kiss lasted longer.

⸹

In the end, Tara and Willow brought everyone to the top of the cliff that night. It was easy for the two of them to do, but it was nerve-wracking for everyone else. Even though the humans wore jackets, it was windy and cold, and the terrain was uneven, so everyone staggered as they landed atop the bluff. Logic dictated that Spike should be the one to transport down to the crystal inside the cave. If there was a dragon, he had little scent and no respiration or heartbeat. Also, he had quick enough reflexes that he could possibly survive long enough to get out. The Gem of Amara was supposed to make him flameproof, but he didn't really want to test that with a dragon.

"Be careful," Buffy whispered, squeezing his fingers before letting go.

He nodded. "If you see firelight, get back to Sunnydale."

Anya rolled her eyes. She'd mentioned several times that justice demons had been getting their jewels here for a few centuries, but say the word 'dragon' and everyone gets skittish. Even so, she allowed that there was no harm in caution, not where dragons were concerned.

Spike accepted two crystals from Tara. The clear one was paired to the clifftop crystal; the green one to the crystal inside the cave. He hunkered down, not sure how much room he would have, and held the green crystal in his hand. " _Pentium_ ," he murmured, and he was immediately in the dark, no wind pushing against him.

He listened. There was no rustle of wings, large or small, no scurry of rodent feet. Spike sensed neither breath moving the air nor stir of mass. The cave had a faded scent of something almost like woodsmoke, but no recent organic smells at all. Nothing tripped any of his other senses. After a full two minutes, he took a flashlight from his hip pocket and thumbed the switch.

Spike stood up in silence, aiming the beam around the cave. He didn't move from his spot, but he absently kicked the matching green crystal a little further away from the entrance behind him. He took a couple of steps forward to stand over it, then turned off the flashlight and got the clear crystal. " _Pentium_ ," he whispered, because he couldn't bring his normal tone of voice to bear.

Wind immediately pushed his shirt and trousers against his body. He looked around at the loose group of people, no expression on his face.

"Well?" Anya finally said, an agony of impatience in her tone.

Spike didn't answer her, just turned to the witches and handed over the crystals. "You can take us all down. It's okay to stand upright."

In a few moments, they were all inside the cave. Spike, Buffy, and Giles set up lanterns, and everyone else was gawking at the soft glow of gold and the glitter of gemstones.

"It's the Cave of Wonders," Dawn breathed, looking around in awe.

Joyce was holding onto her daughter's arm. Tonight she'd witnessed more magic than in her whole life, and she was already overwhelmed. "This… doesn't seem real."

Xander gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "It is." By now, he had seen several treasures, but even he had to stare. "This is a big one, though."

"How far back does the cave go?" Tara asked.

"Um, pretty far," Anya said.

"Are there booby traps?" Dawn asked hopefully, thinking of old Indiana Jones movies.

"None that I've ever heard of."

Giles turned to Anya, too. "Do you know if there are many magical artifacts?"

"I'm sure there are. D'Hoffryn was fairly specific about looking only for a suitable gemstone."

"M-maybe we should only touch those, too."

"Tara's right. Tonight, we should be hands-off." Buffy turned on the last of the lanterns and turned back to the group.

Joyce let go of Dawn to squat down next to a small, gold statue of a woman wearing many intricate necklaces. "That's… from Aksum, maybe," she breathed. "It has to be at least twelve hundred years old."

Oz hunkered down next to her, looking at the little idol. "That's modern Ethiopia, isn't it?" When Joyce nodded, he asked, "Would it be safe to return it to them?"

"Their national museum is where they keep the skeleton of Lucy," she said a little starchily. Then she deflated. "But would this little statue go missing again? I don't know," she said in a troubled tone.

Aubrey and Spike moved behind them, blocking some of the light. "Ten years ago, I would have said that it should go to the British Museum, but I've gotten to know Uwali – that's our head Watcher in Cairo – and he's given me a great deal to think about."

"How's that?" Spike brought out his flashlight again, the bright beam making the little statue's face look nearly alive.

"He asked how we would feel if the Belgians had Excalibur in their national museum and refused to give it back."

Spike's upper lip lifted in a snarl. "Blighty has nuclear weapons."

"So does Belgium," Willingham pointed out, "through NATO."

"Ethiopia doesn't." Oz stood up after saying this and went to join Tara, who was shining her flashlight at an urn overflowing with gold coins.

While Spike and Willingham both put out hands to help Joyce to her feet, Buffy went to Anya. "Well? Do you think this will be enough?"

"To buy back a Hellmouth?" Anya supplied. She gave the Slayer a radiant smile. "Yes. I think so."

⸹

Next Chapter: Cordelia calls Joyce in a panic for help with taking care of a baby.


	39. New to This World

**New to this World**

⸹

November 2001

⸹

"Hey, Cordelia," Buffy said, tucking her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder. She was using both hands to chop celery.

"Buffy, can you meet me at my apartment right away?"

She stopped chopping. "Now? Like, day before Thanksgiving, now?"

"And I think I need your mom, too."

Buffy's lips parted. "Okay. An emergency, but not that kind of emergency?"

"Exactly," Cordelia said.

"We'll be there as quick as traffic allows."

Cordelia took a breath. "Thanks. I love you."

Buffy felt as if she'd just been poked hard in the stomach with a soft pillow. A smile curved her cheeks. "I love you, too."

⸹

"And you have no idea why?" Joyce asked again. In another couple of miles, she could get off the 101. She'd called Giles in a panic, but he assured her that he could cook the turkey and buy everything else for a Thanksgiving dinner.

"No," Buffy said for the eighth time, "just that she's never told me she loves me before."

"Your friends are so uptight," Dawn said from the backseat. "I tell my friends that all the time. Even, like, my guy friends say that to their guy friends."

"As long as they aren't saying it to you," Joyce said acerbically, craning her neck to see if she could merge. Holiday traffic was bad, and it took almost forty minutes longer than they'd expected.

Joyce stood outside Cordelia's apartment and glared down at her oldest daughter, talking rapidly in a low tone. "You could have mentioned that she lives with a ghost at any time during the drive, not while we're standing – Oh, hello, Cordelia."

"Hi, Mrs. Summers. I'm liking the hair!" Joyce's locks had grown out, and she was wearing it in an edgy, feathered cut. Her eyes went past Joyce. "Hi, Buffy. Oh, hi, Dawn."

"Hey, Cordy," Dawn said, giving a little wave.

Cordelia stood back. Even though it was still sunny outside, no one in their circle actually invited anyone inside. Joyce moved past her and looked around. "Uh, hello, Dennis."

"Hey, Dennis," Buffy said. She took Cordy in a hug. "Hi, girlfriend."

Bringing up the rear, Dawn looked around expectantly. "Hi, Dennis." When nothing otherworldly happened, her face fell a little.

"You're a lot taller," Cordelia said, giving the girl a hug. She pulled away and looked at her critically. "Hair gloss?"

"Yes!" Dawn swung her hair out so it fell over her shoulder, thrilled that the brunette beauty had noticed.

"Well, have a seat." Cordelia sat on the couch. "First, tell me what's going on in Sunnyhell, because once I start, I don't think I can stop."

"We had the high bid on the old high school," Joyce said, "so now we own the Hellmouth."

"Tara and Willow plan to cover it with an enchanted reflecting pool as part of the memorial," Dawn said. "There'll be a fountain, too, since running water helps break up and weaken magic."

"I declared physical education as my major," Buffy said. She looked up, thinking. "Anya and Xander set the date for next June. Oz likes MIT, Willow isn't so sure about Harvard, and Spike just got his pilot's license."

"Oh! I won homecoming princess," Dawn added. She looked at her mother and sister. "And Mom got the stamp of approval from her doctors in Houston last week."

"There was another attempt to open the Hellmouth last month," Buffy said, waving a hand dismissively, "but that's, like, not even news."

Cordelia waited to see if there was anything else. "Okay! My turn," she said brightly. "Angel had a baby."

The three Summers ladies were silent. After a moment of reflection about how strange Buffy's world was, Joyce asked hesitantly, "Is he okay?"

"I guess I could have put that more clearly," Cordelia said, making a face. "Let me start again. Stop me when I get to the part where you aren't up to date. Last winter, Angel tried to save human-but-dying Darla by earning a life for her. Only, she couldn't have it because she'd already been magically resurrected. Then she got turned into a vampire again. Angel slept with her because he wanted to lose his soul, but didn't get the big happy."

"I didn't know that part," Dawn said, her eyes wide.

Cordelia ignored this. "Darla waddled back a few weeks ago, great with child."

Buffy held up her hand. "That would be the part."

"Vampires can't make babies," Dawn said authoritatively.

"How can a vampire be pregnant?" Joyce asked at the same time.

"It was that life that Angel won. Since she couldn't have the life, it became a baby." Cordelia's voice was brittle. "There's prophecies and everything, apparently."

Buffy let out a little breath. "Where is Darla now?"

"Dust." Cordelia looked down. "She staked herself yesterday because her undead body would never begin delivering a baby, and it was time."

"She staked herself?" Buffy looked shocked. Darla was the last vampire she'd ever expect to exhibit self-sacrifice.

"She did," Cordelia said quietly, "for the baby. I think its soul had infected her with humanity or something." She shook her head. "You know how it is in L.A. That law firm and some other players were after her," she didn't even want to bring up Holtz, "so it's been crazy. Now she's gone, and –"

Cordelia stopped abruptly. She looked away from the other three and wrapped her arms around her middle, uncharacteristically vulnerable. "And now Angel expects me to be its mommy. And he never really asked, just assumes I'm going to be there, because I'm always there. I always thought you were my rival," she looked at Buffy with a fierce expression, "then I realized it was Darla. And now she's… just won. I mean, I'll never be able to do that for him. So, why would he ever have to look at me, now that he's got Connor?

"And the absolute worst thing is… I want to be his mom." Tears spilled over her cheeks. "He's beautiful."

In an instant, Joyce and Buffy had her enveloped in a hug, and Dawn slid off her chair to sit at Cordy's feet, one gentle hand on her knee. Joyce gave Buffy a questioning look over the dark head, and Buffy nodded once. She'd known about Cordelia's feelings for Angel.

A box of tissues floated from the other side of the room. "Thanks, Dennis," Cordelia said gratefully, taking one.

"So now I know why you wanted me to come," Mrs. Summers said.

Cordelia nodded and said in a snuffling voice, "Because you're the best mom I know."

Joyce's heart broke a little at that. She'd met Cordelia's mother once when she came into the gallery; she was a beautiful, somewhat dim woman whose only interest seemed to be herself. "Well, I'm here."

"So are we," Dawn said. "I mean, I don't know anything about babies, but I've babysat school-aged kids."

"And I've babysat vampires," Buffy said. "I'll straighten him out for you."

"He's probably feeling just as overwhelmed as you are, sweetie," Joyce said, "but he doesn't have anyone he can call on."

He does, Buffy thought, but he won't. It seemed like half the time, she was exasperated with Angel. She wondered if it would be this way if they'd stayed together.

"I'm supposed to be grabbing some clothes and then buying diapers and food and… baby things," Cordelia said. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. Buffy and Joyce gave her a little room. "I just… I needed females."

"You've got us," Buffy reassured her. "Why don't you go put some cold water on your face, get your clothes, and stuff? We'll figure out the next step, and you can tell us the whole story."

Once Cordelia left the room, Buffy and her mother exchanged a long look. Dawn's eyes went between the two of them. "We're relocating Thanksgiving dinner, aren't we?" She stood up from the floor. "In that case, since we'll be in L.A., we're definitely hitting the Black Friday sales. I mean, a baby. We'll be up early anyway."

⸹

"Have you slept?"

Angel jerked a little and tore his gaze away from his sleeping son to look at Spike. The Sunnydale folks had converged on the Hyperion yesterday and produced a Thanksgiving feast. Joyce, the experienced mother, had taken over the day before. Connor was now asleep in a real crib in his well-stocked nursery. He had tiny mittens over his hands so his small but sharp nails wouldn't put new scratches on his face and a tiny cotton cap on his head to help keep him warm. Angel hadn't known about either of those things.

"Uh… what?"

Spike smiled. "The sprog knows to sleep. Already smarter than his old man."

"I can't leave him." The words were barely a whisper.

"You can, actually." Spike came close enough to touch Angel's arm. "Joyce is bringing up a bottle, soon as it's warm enough. Tara and Willow cast four – or was it five? – protection spells over the place. After he's fed, the Wiccas are going to put him in a bassinet in their room until he wakes up for his next feeding." The tenor of his voice changed, gained an edge of command. "You won't do him any good without rest."

Joyce came in, a cloth diaper over her shoulder and a small baby bottle in her hand. "He's right, you know. Part of being a good parent is learning how to not be completely exhausted." She came up next to them and lifted Connor, then carried him to the newly purchased rocking chair. He woke up a bit, fussed, and blinked. "Would you turn off the light as you leave? The lamp will be enough."

Spike put a hand at Angel's waist and guided him to the door. "You're right across the hall, mate," he said. "It'll be fine." He trailed a light hand over Joyce's curls. "'Night, love. 'Night, littlest bit."

Angel stumbled a little crossing the hall. Spike guided him into his room, and the big vampire sat down on the bed to toe off his shoes. He stared owlishly at the door even after Spike turned off the light. The mattress moved as the Master settled onto the other side of the bed. Angel sighed and stripped his shirt off, then laid down. He rolled over and, as the first sob forced its way past his throat, found himself caught by strong arms.

"Shh," Spike soothed.

 _I killed Elizabeth a couple months ago, then had to kill James, too._

 _What?!_

 _She was killing victims, draining them. I didn't know it was her until the stake was in her heart._

 _I… I really don't know what to say._ Spike blinked a few times, looking over the top of Angel's head, thinking of the last time their paths had crossed, sometime in the eighties, maybe. He hadn't missed them, but it was a change to his world. They'd always been out there, extended family somewhere in the wide world. _Have to pour one out for them. Closest things to friends we had._

 _She always liked their visits._

 _Darla?_

Angel drew in a hitching breath, and his sobs were audible for almost half a minute, until the air was gone.

 _She gave her life for our baby._

 _I know._

 _I loved her. I think she loved me._

"Shh." _I believe she did._

 _And now she's just gone. I'll never see her again._

Spike thought of Drusilla and how strange it had been to think she was not off being immortal _somewhere_. "Let it out."

Angel fell into an exhausted sleep a couple of minutes later. Spike held him for a while longer, giving him a chance to move into a deeper stage of sleep before calling Buffy. A few minutes later, she opened the door softly and moved into the room. Before she closed it, Spike saw she was already wearing pajamas.

 _How is he?_

 _Grieving._

 _Darla. Of course he is._ She came around to his side of the bed first, taking his free hand.

 _He's terrified that someone's going to kidnap the baby._

 _He might have good reason to fear that._ She shrugged. _At least, before Willow and Tara put their spells on the hotel._

Spike lifted his face for her kiss. _Thank you, love._

 _I'm still ticked at him on Cordelia's behalf, but I'm glad to do this._ Buffy smiled _. Vampire sleep therapy._

He squeezed her fingers before she let go. _You've a soft heart, love._

 _Says the vampire holding his grandsire._

Buffy woke up about three hours later as Angel crushed her on his way out of bed. "Ow," she complained.

He froze at the doorway. "Connor."

She stood up and listened, glancing back at her oblivious husband. "I don't hear him."

Angel went out the door, across the hall, and into Connor's nursery. Buffy was behind him, a hand on his back. "He's with Willow and Tara, remember?"

The big vampire relaxed in stages, his hands unclenching as he stared at the empty crib. Buffy let her hand fall and stood there, getting her bearings from being asleep just thirty seconds before.

She'd seen Angel shirtless before, but he looked different now. He wasn't fat, but he was definitely beefier than he had been in Sunnydale, an adult body rather than a young adult body. Buffy wondered if dad bod could take effect in less than a week. Then she gave her head a little shake; she was just used to her diamond-cut vampire, that's all.

"If you're awake," Buffy said, "get a shirt and come out with me. Short patrol. Take the edge off, then we'll try to get more sleep."

He finally turned and looked down at her. "Okay."

They met in the lobby a couple of minutes later. She let Angel choose the route. It was different in Los Angeles, with all the tall buildings. Because of sightlines, she felt like they covered twice as much territory. When one or the other spotted something, they went down the side of the building to investigate. This let them stop two vampires and one garden-variety mugging. Just before the final ninety-degree turn that would send them back toward the Hyperion, Buffy put a hand on Angel's forearm. When he glanced back at her, she nodded toward the corner of the building.

They sat facing each other on the V-shape of the ledge, giving them a view of anything that could try to sneak up. "You want to talk?" Buffy tried to begin with a neutral question.

He gave her a tiny smile, but it was genuine. "There's so much I want to say that I don't think I can get any of it out."

"Never saw fatherhood in your future, huh?" Something dark crossed his features. Buffy had seen it happen before; it meant an Angelus memory.

In the red haze of his first couple of nights as a vampire in the Galwegian countryside, Darla had thought it would be entertaining to visit the two women upon whom he'd sired bastards. Angel's mouth thinned; he knew he was distancing himself from the responsibility of the deaths that ensued. Darla hadn't known he'd fathered children until he told her. "So," he blurted, "how is married life?"

"Good." She looked at his shadowed features. She didn't want to be sour with him, but it was so easy. "I know about the tongue thing now."

Angel closed his eyes. "I shouldn't have..."

"He saved it as a wedding present."

After a moment of silence, He cleared his throat. "He always did play fair."

"Because I only wanted sex. Not a partner at my side or anything."

Even in the low light, she saw his jaw tighten. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know you didn't." She sighed and tried again. "Did Spike talk to you about Darla?"

He nodded, then cleared his throat. "He did." Angel took a breath and looked at Buffy. "I know I killed her to save you back in Sunnydale. It was… different after knowing her as a human. She didn't want to be a vampire again." He let out the rest of his air and looked up at the sky. "It feels like I've mourned her a hundred times." Buffy put her hand on his knee, and he covered it loosely with his own. "I'd already accepted that she was lost to me."

Buffy withdrew her hand and clasped it with her other, choosing her words. "Angel… speaking as someone who used to be in love with you," she licked her lips, "you're about to lose someone else."

His eyes came back to hers. "Cordy?"

She noticed he didn't say 'who?' Buffy forced down a grim look and just nodded. "Cordy."

Angel's brows drew together. He started to say something, but just shook his head. He felt a numb, buzzing sensation across his chest, his muscles wanting to be away to her, wrapping tightly around her so she couldn't escape.

"Will you listen to why?" Buffy went on.

"You're giving me advice on my love life?" he managed, trying to keep his tone light.

"No. No advice." She looked down. "You're taking Cordelia Chase for granted. She isn't used to being treated that way. She's used to being pursued, actually, to having men fall at her feet. But she loves you, so you get some leeway." Buffy gave a wry smile. She bet all women gave Angel leeway.

"Cordelia is really smart, Angel. She's just good at hiding it. She knows what Spike did to fit into my world." Buffy made herself meet his dark eyes. "If you don't stop taking for granted that she's going to be there, that she's going to go along with whatever second banana role you give her, she'll be gone. I… I don't know her as well as I used to, but I'd say four months. If she stayed longer than that, I think she'd be too in love with Connor to leave."

"She told you this?" he whispered.

"Not a deadline or anything. I'm just saying, think about how you'd like to be treated in her place. She's… pretty amazing. This is me saying it, you know? And you need to think about how you might," she thought of a delicate way of saying it, "stop being unobtainable."

Angel stared at Buffy's face, lovely even in the dim light, without really seeing it. The thought of a day where his world stopped having Cordelia in it made everything about that world seem empty. "You mean…."

"Sex," she agreed with a nod. "Have you really looked at Cordelia, I mean, lately? She can find a partner who can give her everything. If he's a good guy, she'll fall in love with him. I…" It was hard to admit this. "I think, if you hadn't straight up told me you weren't in love with me anymore, I would have kept hoping, even after you left Sunnydale. Cordelia is smarter than I am. She isn't going to wait much longer."

He wanted to be angry with Buffy for intruding, because then his anger wouldn't be directed at himself. Angel looked down. "She told you this?" he asked again.

"Not in so many words. She needed Mom Wednesday, but she needed a friend to vent to, as well. You barely glanced at her, just assumed she'd be there to raise another woman's baby."

He flinched. Buffy was gazing at him with kindness and understanding, but he looked away. He hadn't talked to Cordelia, had just placed her in the role of wife in his new little nuclear family. Angel had a non-specific memory of Spike complaining about him being high-handed. Shame flooded him, and he hated his first instinct, which was to kill things until the emotion was drowned beneath violence.

"Buffy," he said after a moment, "thank you. Cordelia couldn't have a better friend than you."

She put her hand on his knee again. "I'm your friend, too, Angel." Buffy only had to take a tiny, extra breath to get her next words out, "I think you two will be good together." She leaned in and gave him a hug. "So, you'll talk to her? And listen to her?"

"I will. I'll always love you, you know?"

Buffy pulled away and smiled up at him. "And I'll always love you." She pulled away, relieved that the talk had gone as well as it had, and nodded toward the west. "Let's get back to the hotel. I know I could sleep more."

⸹

December 2001

⸹

"They're here," Dawn called. The Scooby gang had been at their Squaw Valley rental house for two days, and their friends from Los Angeles had just arrived.

"Oh, the baby!" Tara said, going toward the window that overlooked the driveway.

Spike joined Dawn at the door, shoving his feet into his boots but leaving them unfastened. "I'll help get everything inside."

Cordelia came in with Connor in his baby seat, covered with several fleece blankets, and Lorne followed with the diaper bag and folded bassinet. Angel, Gunn, Wesley, Fred, and Spike followed with luggage and the rest of the baby supplies. In short order, everyone was settled in, with Cordelia, once Joyce had appropriated the baby, slugging Angel's shoulder for making them miss out last year.

"Sorry," he said, grinning down at her. Then he gave Spike a more sincere look. "I am sorry."

"Do we have lift tickets?" Cordelia demanded. "I haven't been skiing in, like, three years."

"In your rooms," Spike said. He was thoroughly enjoying his role as host.

"I'll show you," Buffy volunteered. She had noticed the look Angel gave Cordelia.

"I'll help." Willow got up from the couch where she was playing Trivial Pursuit with Oz and Dawn. "Dawnie, take my turn."

"Okay," the teenager groused, "but you'll probably lose if I have to play MIT genius boy by myself."

Once Cordelia had unzipped her suitcase, Buffy pounced. "So, has there been kissage?"

"Honestly, are we fifteen?" the dark-haired woman scoffed. She was smiling as she turned away, clutching a nest of socks to her stomach until she could dump them in a dresser drawer.

"Mentally," Buffy agreed.

"Probably emotionally," Willow added. They were sitting side-by-side on Cordy's bed.

"Yes, kissage," Cordelia allowed, "and some snugglebunnies."

"Oh?" Willow teased. She reached into the open suitcase for a lacy black bra.

Cordelia snatched it away from her. "Don't read anything into the underwear." She glared at Willow. "So? Do I have a chance of having sex before I'm thirty?"

"We're working on it," the witch replied. The coven actually had a new version of the soul restoration spell, but she wasn't going to mention it until they got back to Sunnydale. She and Tara wanted to look at it one last time before making the call. The stakes were too high.

Cordelia glared at Buffy in turn. "'Cause you never mentioned he was packing."

"He is?" Buffy asked.

Willow's eyes rounded. "That's way past snugglebunnies."

Cordelia looked up from the suitcase. "What do you mean, with the questioning tone of voice?"

Buffy's face began to redden. "I… just, it was… dark. It was dark. Very dark." She met Cordelia's narrow look and would have got away with it, except for Willow.

"She's just used to Spike." When Buffy glared at her, the redhead shrugged. "I've seen the Rubenstein statue. And that's just… resting state."

Buffy put her face into her hands. "Oh, God." She looked up and let out a breath, blowing her hair from her eyes. "We're here to talk about your love life, not mine."

Willow shook her head. "None of us can get anything out of her except smiles and giggles."

Cordelia went to the closet and came back with a bunch of mismatched hangers. She kept unpacking as she spoke. "Anyway, Angel admitted he has feelings, so it's way better. I mean, we're all tired, but Connor will sleep through about five hours at night now, so it's not as bad as it was at Thanksgiving. Angel has taken me out a couple of times, and it's been really nice." She put away the first full hangers, and she was smiling when she turned back. "He's an awesome kisser."

Buffy nodded, then hoped it was a nod that looked more like 'go on' than 'that's true.' "So, are you happy with him?"

"I think I am. It's different now, you know? Because of the baby, it's more real. At least no one has been able to make an attempt to snatch Connor since you were there." Her eyes went to Willow. "Thank you for that."

The Slayer came to the fore. "You've all been safe, then?"

Cordelia nodded. "We have. Of course, the only time we take Connor from the building is when he sees the pediatrician. That's fine now, but once it gets warmer…" She trailed off, then closed her suitcase. "We'll have to do something about the potential kidnappers soon."

"You know who they are?" Willow asked.

"We do."

Buffy's smile was cold. "Then all I need is a location."

⸹

Spike stood in the kitchen, staring at the blank light on the front of the little appliance that warmed baby bottles. He vaguely knew that people used to put the bottles in pans of water on the stovetop to warm up formula, and that you squirted some drops on your forearm to make sure it wasn't too hot. This device seemed high tech to him.

He'd volunteered to stay in with Angel, who couldn't go out in the sunlight. They'd napped in Angel's bed for a few hours, until Connor woke. Angel was holding him, bouncing him a bit, and talking to him in a silly voice.

Spike suppressed a smile, glancing over at them. He didn't remember ever talking to his little cousins like that, but he supposed it was possible. "Ah," he said, as the light shone green, "soup's on." Once Angel had Connor plugged in, he raised a brow. "You hungry?"

Angel smiled down at Connor. "Yeah, I could feed." He leaned his head close, and his son focused on his face. "Are you hungry? Me, too. I could just eat you right up." Connor sucked in another mouthful and watched his father shift to vampire face. "Yes, I could."

"You want it in a bottle?" Spike asked, still trying not to grin. The Scourge of Europe, cooing over an infant. He nodded at the bottle warmer. "That could probably warm up blood just as fast as milk. And you know you like nipples."

"No. Asshole."

"Ooh, pet names? Bet the cheerleader doesn't care for your usual terms of endearment." He went to the refrigerator. Spike had to lift out tomorrow's turkey to reach a jar of pig's blood.

"She gets her own pet names," Angel allowed. He shifted back to his human face.

"Oh?" Spike lifted a brow. When the older vampire kept his silence, he turned to the cabinet with the cups. "Red, Glinda, and the rest of their coven have been working hard on modifying the curse since classes ended." He sent a grin Angel's way as he unscrewed the lid. "Had to veto Andrew's idea to make it hinge on your participation in a particular sex act. Told him you'd –" Spike stopped and stared down at the mug where he'd poured a splash of blood. "When did you start drinking human blood again?"

"What?" Angel resettled Connor before he glanced up at the other Aurelian.

Spike shrugged and resumed pouring. "Thought you said you did better in civilized company without human blood."

His attention finally left Connor. "I do. I mean, I don't drink human blood."

"Well, this has some in it."

"No, that's not possible. I got it from the same butcher I've been using since I moved to L.A."

Spike's brows drew together. He lifted the jar to his nose, then set it down and sniffed the mug. He carried it to Angel. "There."

The big vampire bent to sniff, then shook his head. "Smells all right to me."

Spike frowned, but he warmed up the blood and took Connor while Angel drank. "Well, butcher, right? All those sharp knives. Maybe he cut himself."

"Can I ask you something? What's going on with Oz and Willow?"

"And Tara? None of my business. Yours, either."

"No, I guess not."

"Didn't mean to snap. They haven't shared, so I haven't pried."

⸹

"You're really good with him," Joyce murmured. She leaned over and took Connor from Aubrey, who had been holding the baby while Joyce prepared a bottle. Smiling at the infant as she stood up, she asked, "Grandchildren?"

"No." Willingham scooted to the edge of the couch and heaved himself upright. "We had a little girl, once."

"Oh." Joyce's eyes went back to him, searching his face. "I'm sorry."

He gave her a reassuring smile. "It's been a long time."

Joyce regarded him a second, then got Connor started on the bottle. When he had latched on, she looked back up. "I can't believe I've never asked before, Aubrey. Are you widowed?"

"No. My Gemma had childhood leukemia. The marriage didn't survive after she died." He forced another smile. "It happens quite often upon the loss of a child." Willingham lifted a shoulder. "After the divorce, I threw myself into my work, never remarried."

"It happened like that in our family, too. We lost Buffy's cousin Celia." She tucked the blanket lower, away from Connor's chin, and wiped the corner of his mouth with a cloth. "Well, you haven't lost your touch with babies. You must have been an amazing father."

"Er, excuse me, Joyce. Willingham, could I have a moment of your time?" They both turned to see Wesley standing by the foot of the stairs.

"Of course, of course," Aubrey said. He gave Joyce another forced smile and followed Wesley into the game room. The ex-Watcher put the book he was carrying on a card table and spread out some notes.

"Since I came across the Shanshu prophecy, I've tried to find all I can that might reference Angel," he began, "and what I've found here is… Well, it's rather worrisome." He moved aside, and Willingham moved his bulk more directly in front of the book. After a moment, he took his reading glasses from his pocket and leaned over the items on the green felt surface.

"Where did you get this book?"

"A specialty bookstore in Los Angeles."

"Recently?" He turned to the first pages and examined the front matter.

"Yes, just last week."

"Hmm." Willingham looked at the notes, drawing a couple of pages closer. Then he stood up straight, taking off his spectacles.

"I don't see what other interpretation this could have," Wesley said, though he plainly hoped the old Watcher would have one.

Aubrey looked from the translation to the lines of worry on the ex-Watcher's face. "No," he agreed. "It's remarkably clear for a prophecy. 'The father will kill the son.' So, that's the second reason I'm going to tell you that you have a hoax."

"I… I don't understand."

"The first reason is that the original scroll actually had only eleven prophecies. This is not one of them."

"What!?" Wesley sat down on the edge of the table.

Willingham sighed. "I know all these other prophecies have been mixed in over the centuries, some of them from true seers, but I have seen the original scroll."

"The original."

"Yes. I won't soon forget the stench. Whoever wrote them was a hermit, didn't bathe, and kept it on a sheepskin at his waist for over thirty years." Aubrey cringed a little. "The preservation spell laid on it made it smell… quite ripe."

"And this prophecy isn't…?"

Willingham looked down, his brow furrowed. "It's been over twenty years since I saw it in a private collection. I think I recall what was changed. The champion was prophesied to kill some demon or other, not that he would be killed by his father."

Wesley looked furious for a moment. "I won't disrespect you by asking if you're sure –"

"It's no disrespect." Aubrey sighed. "Those of us who do research in this field… We want to know the future, be useful, I suppose. But it's… an inexact field."

"Quite."

"I'm going to go a step further." Aubrey also leaned against the card table, facing the same direction as Wesley. He tried to find words that would not sound like accusation. Willingham wasn't part of the committee that chose which Watchers were assigned to Slayers, but he'd heard rumors of how the elder Wyndham-Pryce had browbeat voting members to put his son into the field over Watchers with decades more experience. That had not worked out well for father, son, or Slayer. He nodded at the book. "I don't think this is a prophecy about Angel at all."

"Who, then? Not Spike?"

"No, there are no prophecies about that scally," he said fondly. "I only meant, as far as I can recall, the original seer who wrote that section referred to a champion born of two vampires. Nothing about his parents, just him. A fairly positive prophecy about his feats, rather than the usual death and gloom."

"And the rest?"

"Oh, the collection of other prophecies?" Aubrey waved a hand. "Let's not worry about those. This edition is over two hundred years old. My question is, when did the published prophecies begin to change from the champion will kill a demon to the father will kill the child?"

"So that it would be read at the time the child is born." Wesley's voice held a dawning realization.

"And did that change show up in copies about the time that Holtz disappeared back in the eighteenth century?"

"I disagree with your conclusions," Wesley said after a moment. At Aubrey's encouraging nod, he went on. "I think it is about Angel, the change, I mean. After reading this, my first concern was for the baby, to keep it safe from the vampire."

Willingham looked thoughtful, then slowly nodded his agreement. "The kidnappers. It gives them a 'noble' reason. You're Angel's friend, and if you felt that way…."

⸹

Two days after Christmas, the men found themselves left alone in the living room after dinner was over and the kitchen put to rights. Aubrey had the honor of holding Connor, with Angel next to him on a couch. Spike filled up the last space, though his attention was on the feminine giggles he could hear from the hot tub upstairs. Cordelia had taken several bottles of wine and bullied all the women into joining her. Confidences, he feared, would be shared.

Across the coffee table, Gunn, sitting with Giles and Wesley on the other couch, caught his eye and grinned. Xander and Oz were laying in front of the fireplace, playing checkers. Lorne, in the chair facing the fireplace, had a cheerful, yellow mixed drink in his hand, though his face was solemn.

"He's asleep," Willingham said. He looked up from the peaceful infant and waited until Angel did the same. "I cannot tell you how willing I am to kill those who wish to hurt this child."

"Hear, hear," said Giles. After a few moments passed in silence, he added, "I think of the old legends, of how snakes were sent to kill Hercules in his cradle and the like. I must say, it never occurred to me how vulnerable babies are to prophecy or to those seeking revenge."

A sneer took Spike's upper lip. "Like we need soddin' prophecies to know he's going to be better at being a champion than any of us. First generation, yeah? We've messed up plenty. The next ones, they'll get it right."

"They?" Giles said warily.

"Connor, Dawnie," Spike answered; he shot a glance upwards, "any others the ladies up there grace us with."

Giles relaxed visibly. "Oh. Just afraid for a moment that you had news."

Spike chuckled. "Yeah, I magically knock up Buffy before she's twenty-one, kindly hoover me off the floor." He stood up. "I need bourbon after that. Anyone else?"

"Beer me," Xander said from the floor, moving checkers over several squares. Then, to Oz, "Sorry."

"Beer," Gunn agreed.

"I could use some blood," Angel said. He'd held Connor through dinner.

"Are the beers cold?" At Spike's nod, Giles mock-shuddered. "I'll take bourbon."

"I'll help," Oz offered. He shook his head as he stood up. "Where did you get so good at checkers?"

"Some little, off-brand, handheld game my parents got me for Christmas one year," Xander said, shrugging.

"I'll play you," Wesley offered. He took Oz's place on the rug in front of the fireplace with a sigh.

"Do we have champagne for New Year's Eve?" Lorne asked.

Gunn nodded. "Whole box in the mud room."

In the kitchen, Spike jumped up and grabbed the tray from atop the cabinets. He counted out glasses while Oz got the beers. "Oi, get the blood, too, would you, mate?"

Oz got out the jar of blood as Spike found a mug for Angel. As he unscrewed the lid, his eyebrows rose, and he leaned forward to sniff it. Oz looked at Spike, who caught the movement and turned to him. "There's human blood in this."

"Yeah?" Spike jerked his head toward Angel. "That's what I told him. Butcher must have –"

Oz took another sniff. "It's Connor's." The blond vampire went still, and in the living room, Wesley's attention left the checkerboard.

"How could it be Connor's?" Spike asked, confused more than anything. He started paying attention, realizing that the jar had not been unsealed until just now. "You mind checking the others?" He nodded at the refrigerator.

"What do you mean, it's Connor's blood?" Angel said, suddenly in the kitchen. His hands were clenched.

Oz did not find the speed of the big vampire looming over him intimidating. He merely turned to the refrigerator and brought out the two remaining jars. "Nothing in this one," he said, returning it to the shelf. After he opened the second one, he shook his head. "Connor. Not a lot, but it's definite."

"What the hell?" Spike asked. Behind him, Wesley and Aubrey were exchanging a long look. He turned to Angel. "Someone's spiking your blood?"

"How did someone get his blood?" Giles asked, his voice cold. The thought of someone cutting into Connor's tiny limbs made his own hands clench.

"The pediatrician?" Angel asked, sounded bewildered. "Cordy says they take blood every week."

"Every week?" Aubrey echoed. "That doesn't sound right."

"Spike, go get Cordelia," Giles ordered. "And Joyce."

"No," the blond man disagreed, his eyes on his grandsire. "Let 'em have the hen party. We'll ask later. Angel and I are going out to work off the rest of the," he searched for a better word than 'contaminated,' "altered blood."

 _We're taking your anger outside_ , he told Angel through the bloodlink as he took him by the arm. _Better for them, that they not see this. Better for my security deposit, too._ Spike scooped up his boots and Angel's as they went outside.

 _Wolfram and Hart, the fuckers._ Angel's words were bright in his mind.

 _Get your boots on_ , Spike ordered. _We're going hunting, full speed._ He'd seen the slight difference in Angel, but the speed at which he'd switched from papa mode to furious killer mode had been astounding.

 _No._ Angel stood perfectly still, a snarl on his face.

 _You want them to see you lose control, then?_

Reason flickered behind the yellow eyes. _No_ , he managed to reply.

The second he'd finished with his boots, Spike was on him, had him bent backwards over the railing of the small porch. _Never tell me no, Aurelian._ Then he hurled the big vampire halfway across the back yard, narrowly missing the snowman Willow, Dawn, Tara, and Fred had built. Spike was on him before he could shake snow from his face. _Breathe. That deer, get its scent, go silent. We hunt._

Spike flashed away, barely leaving footprints in the snow. He hit the thin line of trees between their rented house and the next and put on another burst of speed to cross a road, heading toward thicker woods. Then he slowed, waiting. Angel took him down with a shoulder-level tackle, unable to hold in a snarl. Spike caught the punch that was falling toward his face with the force of a boulder, twisting Angel's hand.

Unable to strike the irresistible target of Spike's nose, the big vampire settled for driving his other fist into Spike's side several times. The blond did some kind of twisting motion with his hips to escape, pushing Angel away from him with one booted foot even before he was upright.

 _Is that the best you can do, old man?_ Spike went into the closest tree, leaping from limb to limb through the patchy woods until he found a clearing. He dropped into it, checking for deadfall or other broken branches.

Angel slammed into him from above. The snow softened the fall for them both. Spike tucked and nearly rolled free, but Angel caught one leg between his ankles. He scrambled, but the big vampire was on him in game face, raking at him with his claws.

Spike's mouth thinned as he tried to grab Angel's hands. The Gem of Amara would take care of any damage his grandsire inflicted, but that didn't mean he enjoyed receiving it. He gave up and drove an uppercut into Angel's chin. It didn't lift him away as he'd hoped, but it gave Spike enough room to twist free once more. _Have you forgotten how to hunt, granddad? You'll scare off our prey._

Angel chased Spike down again. He tried twice more to take down the younger vampire, covering them with clumps of snow when he crashed into the trunk of a pine tree on his second attempt.

 _Silence_ , Spike demanded, in his face again. _Get the scent._ He was gone.

Angel bellowed in anger. In the past, he'd have incapacitated the annoying little shit by now, be carrying him back to the lair to properly –

He froze. A pile of snow fell from his hair onto his shoulder.

I am not Angelus.

Spike was waiting for him again, half a mile away. He didn't trudge there, because he knew what the boy was doing. Angel used vampire speed, pushing himself, burning off the stolen blood inside his body. When he got to the clearing, the younger vampire examined his face, then nodded. He brushed snow off a rock and sat. After a moment, Angel joined him.

 _The Scoobies are just now willing to forget Angelus_ , Spike said by way of explanation, _and your people have never seen him._

 _They've seen glimpses_. He leaned over, feeling as nauseated as was possible for a vampire. _I drank my son's blood._

Spike put a hand on his back. He very carefully brought the memory of the torture Glory inflicted on him to the surface of his mind; even though he loved Angel, he was never going to fully open the bloodlink to him again. _I couldn't hunt for a while, so they made me feed from them._

Angel recognized the shame and self-disgust Spike had felt from taking in his family's blood. He took a deep breath and sat up, nodding. _He's barely a month old, and I've failed him._

 _No. You haven't failed him. He's alive, and he's safe. They couldn't get in, so they tried to make you into a weapon._

 _Do you think they're after him, or still trying to get Angelus?_

 _Bit of both, I s'pose. First, ask Joyce who Buffy's pediatrician was. She should be able to give you a recommendation for a new L.A. doctor, anyway. Start with the butcher. Send Fred, maybe, to the current doctor's office. Find out which of your enemies did this._ Spike stood and cupped Angel's neck, pulling him close so their foreheads were pressed together. _We need to finish them. All of them._

 _Damn right._

We _need to_ , Spike repeated. _You aren't alone in this._ His fingers tightened for a second. _You're mine. You're never alone._

 _I'm trying. I don't know how to do this._

 _Rely on someone?_

 _Or open up. Or ask for help._ Angel's hands gripped his waist, sudden and hard. _Or even admit I need someone._

Then Spike felt more human emotion from Angel than he had the entire time he'd known the souled vampire: self-loathing, fear, despair, contempt, misery. As Angel opened completely to him, words slammed into him: _failure, killer, unloved, wastrel, hollow, irredeemable, abomination_. Angel's cheek slid past Spike's until his face was against his shoulder, and the big vampire wept.

Though he'd closed himself against Angel not a minute before, Spike impulsively opened the mindlink. _Love_ , he insisted. _You are loved. You are mine._ He brought in images of Buffy, of Cordelia and Wesley. _They love you._ Gunn and Lorne's faces. _You have friends._ Fred's sweet smile. Spike gave him a memory of Angel holding his son days after his birth, love and wonder making his brown eyes clear and soft.

 _I don't deserve – [anything]_

 _Do I? Do any of us, mate? Nonetheless, you have all of us. You have love. You are mine, always._

A couple of minutes later, Angel realized he was wrapped in an embrace that should feel like steel bands. They weren't. Spike was stroking his snow-wet hair, soothing him in a way that should take him back over a hundred years. It didn't. He had taken comfort from a younger vampire, diminishing himself. Yet he wasn't.

 _I love you, too._ He let out a breath. _Boy._

 _Better than your other pet name for me._

Angel wiped his wet face and pulled away, giving the shorter vampire a questioning look.

 _Arsehole?_

He gave a little snort of laughter and stood up straight. _Doesn't mean I accept you as Master or anything._

Spike had rarely shown forbearance, but now he shrugged _. Doesn't make it less of a fact._ He took a few steps away. _Ready to continue the hunt?_

 _I can go back._

 _Yeah, but you have one jar of blood that's safe. You'll have to set up a new supplier when you get back to L.A. That deer will make a full meal._ Spike tilted his head to one side. _Haven't hunted with you for more'n a century._

 _Different prey._

 _Should be harder than our old prey._

Angel cleared his throat and drew in a sharp breath. _To the north, then._

⸹

The two vampires returned less than an hour after the abrupt departure. The sound of feminine laughter no longer floated down from the rooftop hot tub. The women were back, most dressed in pajamas. Spike nodded at the people seated around the living room, obviously waiting for them, and sent Buffy a reassuring look. She, Anya, and Joyce were making hot chocolate for everyone. "Worked off the spiked blood," he said simply. Everyone noted that the front of Spike's t-shirt was shredded and that Angel's chin sported a bruise. No one said anything.

Angel followed him to the rug in front of the fireplace. Both of them sat down cross-legged, and Cordelia came to join him on his other side. Gunn, who was holding Connor, lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken question. "No. I'm too cold right now." He turned to Oz. "Thank you. I already owe you so much for finding that bomb shelter, but…" Words failed him, and he looked down. "Thank you," he finished simply.

"You don't drink human blood like Spike does," Oz observed. Beside him Tara's brows rose; she hadn't known that.

"No." After a handful of seconds, Angel offered an oblique explanation. "It isn't safe for me."

Spike put a hand on Angel's back. "We need to –"

"Wait." Angel gave Spike an apologetic look, then turned to face the others in the room. "I need to say this to all of you. I, uh, I'm not good with people." Xander, sitting next to Oz, gave him a smile and a small shrug. Angel gave a little snort of laughter. "Yeah, not news, I know. So, last month, I got smacked right in the self-centeredness. What Darla did… the second most vicious vampire I ever met, after me… showing such grace. It isn't about me. I know that, now. And I also know that," he drew in a breath, "it never was about me.

"I didn't read very much until after I got the soul. I mean, I was incredibly privileged to even learn to read back when I was born, and I never appreciated it." He licked his lips. "So, I'd read about Achilles, and I thought, oh, what an arrogant ass. He thinks it's all about him because he's a champion." Angel raised his hand. "If never listening to advice or asking someone else's point of view isn't bad enough, I actually did what Achilles did, got tetchy and refused to fight for a while. So, I know I can be an arrogant ass."

"Man," Gunn said, shaking his head and smiling, "you ain't always like that."

"Too often," Angel insisted. "I still want to be a champion, and now I understand that I can't do it by myself." He let out another breath and looked around at the others, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "I'm glad I'm here with you. Thank you."

Wesley's eyes were suspiciously bright, too. Fred had crowded into a chair with him, since Gunn was holding Connor, and she squeezed his hand. Dawn, who wanted to be baby-adjacent and was propping against the couch at Gunn's feet, leaned around his knees to send a grin Cordelia's way.

"I don't even need Manilow to see the change," Lorne marveled.

Cordelia waited until Angel turned to her. "I'm proud of you," she said, low. He had spoken to her about some of this, just in the last couple of weeks.

Angel met her eyes for just a moment, then turned back to Spike. "Anyway. Sorry about interrupting."

Spike slid his hand up to squeeze the big vampire's shoulder. "No worries. I was just going to say, we need to share information. What do we know about Holtz, but first, what do we know about Wolfram and Hart?" His eyes were on Willow.

She was resting her elbows on the back of the couch, leaning so she was between Oz and Tara. "Well," she began, but interrupted herself. "Wait. Let's get some more chairs in here. And I think the hot chocolate is done."

"All right," she said, once chairs were scavenged from other rooms and the mugs of hot chocolate distributed, "here's what I know." She went through her online research about Wolfram and Hart and details of her hacking experience. By then her cocoa was cool enough to sip, so she had a drink and went on to tell about the trap spell the coven had laid on Buffy and Spike's house. "There's one more thing. I-I didn't mention it because I was kind of ashamed."

"Of what, sweetie?" Tara asked, already touching her knee in encouragement.

"Um, most of you know that we've seen some amazingly advanced robotics in Sunnydale." She sent an apologetic look at Joyce, who gave Giles a wry look. "So, last spring, there was this really strong girl who sort of broke up a party on campus, only she wasn't a girl." Willow told the story of April, then looked down. "She seemed so human, which is why I feel kind of ashamed. When you guys were in the UK last June, when Oz was visiting MIT, the guy who built her, Warren, got in touch with me. He wanted her back."

"His girlfriend dump him?" Xander said, disgust in his tone.

"No, I would never have…" Willow's voice trailed off. "He wanted her because he'd just graduated and gotten to the second round of a job interview at a research facility in Los Angeles. She was like his portfolio. I didn't want to meet him at the apartment, so when he called, I set up a time the next day to bring her to him. I mean, he did build her, and that was impressive engineering. I could understand that.

"But April is also… I mean, I know she isn't really sentient, but…."

"She all but had emotion," Buffy finished for her. She was in a wingback chair, her feet drawn up and both hands wrapped around a mug. Spike had moved to sit at her feet. He was chasing the one remaining marshmallow on the surface of his cocoa.

"Right," Willow agreed. "So I did some programming that night so that April couldn't be used to hurt anyone," she drew a breath, "and also so she could choose to return to Sunnydale if… she didn't like how she was being used."

Wesley's brows drew together behind his glasses. "You gave a… sexbot the ability to say no."

Willow nodded. "I'd done a lot of work with her – I mean, I couldn't build her, but my programming skills are way better than Warren's. And then, we never used her for patrol or anything. But what I did… It's machine-level coding. Warren will probably never find it, because he won't know it's there."

"You weren't wrong to give her back, Wil." Tara touched her knee again.

"But, somehow, I still feel guilty. Anyway," Willow pushed some hair behind her ear, "I checked on her every so often – I'd added GPS capability, which Warren may not realize. She's been in the same place in Los Angeles since the first time I checked.

"I finally cross-referenced the coordinates with street names," Willow said softly. "She's in the Wolfram and Hart building. And I know from when I hacked their systems, they have a 'research and intelligence' division. I just thought it was legal research."

Angel, who had been a bit impatient with April's story, sat in stunned silence. "Can you communicate with her?"

"I'd rather not," Willow said, "but I can hack into her visual feed."

"We have a spy," Gunn said.

"In one division," Cordelia pointed out.

Oz looked up at Willow from the floor by the couch, shaking his head in admiration. "If April is hooked into their network, we have a lot more."

She smiled at him. "We do." Willow turned her attention to the room at large. "So, we have inside access to their computers. And, depending on what April can see, a spy. And that's all I have. Anyone else?"

Wesley, Cordelia, and Angel spoke about what they knew of Wolfram and Hart. Most of the questions were about how widespread the firm was. Willow noted there was another branch in San Francisco, and Lorne reminded them that the overdemons were in other dimensions, too. Dawn, who had been thoughtfully clinking the edge of her mug against her teeth, asked how demons who couldn't manifest on earth communicated with their minions.

Joyce began a line of questions about why Wolfram and Hart employees were friendly even as they acted against Angel Investigations. Wesley expanded on the Shanshu prophecy, and Cordelia explained their ideas about anyone being corruptible.

As the conversation lapsed, Angel sighed and began telling the story of Holtz, the demon hunter who fixated on Angelus after the Scourge destroyed his family. He ceded the point that Holtz had no magic of his own, and the magic practitioners in the living room went through a long debate about how the human could be centuries out of his timeline. Tara's opinion was that he'd been held in stasis for all the years, though Aubrey argued that the power to actually bring him forward was not impossible to gather. Fred explained the theoretical physics behind that possibility.

That line of debate died away, too, until no sound was left except for the crackling of the last logs in the fire. Gunn, who had handed off Connor and his seat on the couch to Cordelia during Angel's explanation of Holtz, came back from the kitchen with a paper towel filled with Christmas cookies. He wordlessly handed one to Fred and another to Xander and propped on the corner of the couch by Giles.

"Any way you look at it," he said, "next year, we're gonna be kicking some ass in L.A."

⸹

New Year's Day 2002

⸹

"Do we have to stop?" Cordelia asked plaintively. She didn't like even visiting Sunnydale anymore.

"Spike asked especially," Angel said. They hadn't left early, so it was already dark by the time they reached the little town.

Wesley leaned over to peer around Gunn's shoulder. The big man was riding shotgun in the necrotempered SUV. "Where is he heading?"

"Beats me," Angel muttered. He just wanted to plow on through to Los Angeles, too.

Spike's truck pulled up streetside next to a park. He and Buffy got out, moving as though three solid hours of driving cramped no part of their bodies. Two figures met them and offered them bundles.

Spike held up what they had handed over while the Angel Investigations folks piled out, Fred holding Connor's car seat as Cordelia got out last. "Are those garment bags?" she asked.

"Yeah," Buffy said. She came over and put her hand on Cordelia's waist, not quite a hug. "Angel told Spike that you haven't wanted to leave the hotel at all. So he arranged some nice clothes, and Giles called in a favor from the priest." She nodded at the Catholic church across the street from the park.

Wesley got it first. "A christening?" He was distracted by a beautiful, dark-haired woman approaching the Slayer.

Buffy smiled. "Hi, Luisa. Guys, this is Spike's Lieutenant. Lu, this is Cordelia, Wesley, and Fred."

Luisa nodded at them, then held out a paper-wrapped bundle. "I hope this will do."

Buffy took it and immediately passed it over to Cordelia. She frowned, but opened it. "It's a little dress."

"A christening gown, for Connor." Wesley tore his gaze away from Luisa, who seemed similarly fascinated with Lorne.

Cordelia sighed. "I'm going to have to learn about Catholicism, aren't I? Let's go see what we're supposed to wear."

"Now I know why Spike asked if I was a 44 long," Wesley said.

"He said that the priest will call you a 'witness,' not godfather, since you aren't Roman Catholic, but you'll be in the position of godfather, anyway." Buffy smiled at him and glanced over her shoulder, where Angel had engulfed Spike in a bear hug, his long, dark coat covering the younger vampire in a way she'd seen Spike's leather coat cloak other people. She wondered if Angel had been inspired by Spike, but figured it had more to do with carrying weapons and disguising hip movement.

"Giles vouches for the priest," Spike said.

"Thank you," Angel whispered, letting go. His eyes were damp again. Through the mindlink, he said, _I would have asked you to be godfather instead of Wes, but…._

 _But a godfather is supposed to see to a child's spiritual development. Not really in a vampire's wheelhouse. Come on, let's get off the street._

As soon as Angel Investigations changed clothes, the priest was ready to start. The christening was short, and the attendees were silent and tired, but some of the tension in Angel seemed to be gone after Connor fussed from the unexpected holy water. The big vampire, dressed in the suit Vince handed him outside the church, kissed the priest's hand and hugged his grandchild again. A young vampire he hadn't even seen came up as they were leaving and unobtrusively handed him a digital camera and a camcorder before fading into the shadows.

Outside the church, Joyce was embracing Cordelia and stealing one more kiss from the disgruntled Connor as the younger woman checked to make sure the holy water was no longer a danger to his father. "I wish we could have a party now, but I know you're anxious to get back to L.A."

Cordelia kissed her cheek. "I know you're ready to get home, too." She squeezed Joyce's fingers before releasing her hands. "I hope you don't mind, but I'm trying to model my momming on you."

Joyce closed her eyes a moment. "I've made many, many mistakes," she said simply, opening them again. "The best advice I can give is, you can't love them too much." Luisa was serving as the closest bodyguard, and Joyce reached out to put a hand on her shoulder without thought, knowing the empathetic vampire would tear up just listening to their exchange.

A few minutes later, Buffy, Spike, and his minions watched taillights pull away from the street, all but one heading further into Sunnydale. Spike's eyes were on the SUV that turned east, though.

Buffy squeezed his hand. "They'll be fine."

"I know." He squeezed back, then turned to his Lieutenant and briskly asked for a report of the past week's activity on the Hellmouth.

⸹

"What's this?" Buffy asked, quirking an eyebrow at her husband. There was a box on the kitchen counter.

"Dunno," he said, all innocence. "You should probably open it and find out."

Trying not to smile, she lifted the lid. Her brows drew together, then she pulled out a plastic shopping bag instead of the expected tissue paper. Next was a crumpled paper bag from Ralph's. She kept pulling out bags – shopping bags, gift bags, paper bags with handles, a clean bag from the local donut shop – until the counter was covered with them. Standing on tiptoe, she peeked at the bottom of the box. Nothing was left.

"Oh, almost forgot," Spike said. From somewhere, he brought out an oversized pair of women's sunglasses. "Here you go."

Smiling openly now, Buffy took them and put them on, then propped them up on top of her head. "I didn't count. Twenty bags?"

Spike nodded. "Shopping in Paris for your birthday." She gave him a kiss, long and deep and appreciative.

⸹

February 2002

⸹

"Hey, B. Happy birthday, a little late."

"Thanks, Faith. How have you been?"

Faith rolled a shoulder in a shrug. "Five by five."

Buffy smiled appreciatively at the phrase she'd only ever heard used by her sister Slayer. "Good."

"Things quieter for you?"

She leaned forward. "You heard that Angel's a baby daddy?"

Faith made a comical face. "I did hear that. I bet that's a trip."

"Yeah…" A guard walked past. Buffy leaned a bit closer, cupping her mouth against the phone receiver. "There's some other… players who are… contesting his custody."

"It's his baby," Faith protested.

"It is," Buffy agreed. "But these other players," her voice dropped, "might take everything we've got." She stared pointedly at Faith. "And everyone."

Faith was pale; the yard didn't get many hours of sunlight in winter. Her face became a little whiter. "I'll help, much as I can, long as I can."

Buffy's eyes traced the rectangle of frame surrounding the glass between them. "We've got some new lawyers, out of London. If they show up, wanting to talk to you about your case… cooperate with them. You changing custody would definitely help with the Angel's custody matter."

Faith stared at her, then slowly shook her head. "You're asking a lot from me."

"I know." Buffy didn't smile, but there was something soft in her eyes. "But I believe you can handle things now."

"Oh!" Faith was flustered. "I meant… 'lawyers' from London."

"Oh. Those guys," Buffy said flatly. "Not this time. This time… they're working for us."

⸹

April 2002

⸹

Buffy sat frozen at the dinner table, staring at her husband. Spike had glanced at his phone a minute ago and apologized for answering a call during his birthday dinner. As he listened, his face grew grim. Giles, Joyce, and Dawn, who did not have Slayer hearing, stared between the two of them.

With a final, "Keep us in the loop," Spike closed the phone. His eyes went to Buffy's. "You heard?"

"We didn't," Giles said pointedly.

"Right." Spike drew in a breath that managed to sound like a sigh. "Someone in L.A. t-boned Cordelia and Wesley while they were driving Connor to get his last," Spike hesitated over the term, "dip-tet. Hit the driver-side wheel well. They're in the hospital for observation, should be released soon." He stood, taking the napkin from his lap and placing it on the table. "Connor is missing."

"Shit," Dawn said.

"Language," Joyce and Spike said in absent unison. Joyce continued. "Oh, they must be worried sick."

"Holtz or Wolfram and Hart?" Buffy asked.

"They don't know." He tapped the phone in his pocket. "That was Fred. She said a young woman with reddish hair got out of another car and took Connor."

Giles forced a smile. "Well, let's get dinner cleaned up. We already have a plan for this."

Buffy stood up. There was very little of the college student about her just now; the Slayer had stepped up to execute that plan. "Mom, if you don't mind making the calls? Giles, I'll go with you to your apartment, and we'll call London." She leaned across the table and gave her husband a smooch. "Pick me up there when you're done at the house?"

"Will do."

Joyce leaned close to Giles. "Rupert, did the coven ever do the revised curse with Angel?"

"No," he said with a frown. "Willow told him any time after New Year's, but he never set a date."

"You'd think he'd be eager to have it settled."

"I don't think he's any more willing to deal with the Great Git than the rest of us," Spike muttered as he passed them, keys in hand.

Dawn carried two bowls from the table into the kitchen, then stood glumly in front of the counter where Spike's birthday cake sat, ready for candles. "Anya was right; we should have just frozen last year's."

⸹

Fred with a cell phone was, as it turned out, an excellent reporter. By the time the caravan of Sunnydale vehicles parked in the parking garage, Spike asked Buffy to get everyone up to speed while he got them all armed. "It got worse while we were on our way," Buffy began. "Holtz has people with him. They're the ones that took Connor. Wolfram and Hart mobilized to take the baby from them, and Angel was close enough to commandeer one of their cars. Somewhere near the Sixth Street Bridge, they cornered Holtz. Then a demon showed up, apparently the one responsible for bringing him forward in time, pissed off because Holtz was supposed to kill Connor, not kidnap him." She lifted a hand to forestall questions. "No idea why the demon wanted to kill a baby. So, the demon opened some kind of doorway to a hell dimension, threatened to pull a Glory, but Holtz leapt through it. The demon closed it, said that Holtz and," she closed her eyes for a moment, "and Connor were good as dead."

"Shit," Dawn said. Joyce nudged her, and Spike glared at her across the bed of his truck, but didn't say anything.

"Angel went to bag a Wolfram and Hart lawyer to see what she could tell him. He thinks she might talk, since they lost their chance at Connor, too. He just got back. So, gear up. We'll take the sewer access into the Hyperion so it's not totally obvious that we're here. I don't expect any trouble, since Connor isn't there anymore, but…" Buffy's mouth made smile movements. "Then again, this is Angel we're talking about."

She moved to her mother and sister, making sure they had crosses and blades. "You guys get any sleep on the way?"

"A little, until we got into L.A. traffic."

"Good. I know we're heading to a hotel, but I don't know if we're going to get much sleep for a while."

Willow came up to them. "Xander called. Anya rearranged some of her schedule. They'll be here by two tomorrow afternoon."

"Good." Buffy nodded to her mother. "Spike and I will lead off. You guys behind us, then the coven. Giles and Luisa will have our six."

Spike led the way to the sewer entrance into the Hyperion. Once there, he and Buffy ranged further down the tunnel for a quick recon. When they were back, Willow nodded and sent the text message she had typed to Fred: 'Cut the power.'

A moment later, the buzz of electricity from the building above them shut down. The coven, plus Giles and Aubrey, joined hands around one of many carefully labelled crystals they'd brought, each containing a captured spell. Tara sang a C-natural, holding it, and the rest joined in. The crystal began to glow, then light swarmed outward and upward from it. Above them came sharp popping noises as the electronic and magical surveillance measures in place in the hotel died.

Spike went up the ladder to the door, his ability to see in very low light in play. He knocked on the door and said in a clear voice, "It's me, Lorne." The green demon opened the sewer entrance and gave the blond vampire a quick hug.

"Go, go," Buffy urged the coven. They went up, Michael last, and Buffy handed him their boxes of gear in a brigade to Spike, then Lorne. The Slayer was last to go in, and she gave the sewer a final, mistrustful look.

The coven was already unlocking other spells, surrounding the Hyperion in layer after layer of additional protection. The rest of the group waited with them, rearranging boxes and luggage so that the tired magic-slingers wouldn't have to carry much to the lobby.

When the final crystal blazed as the power of the contained spell was cast, Spike flipped open his phone. "Fred? You can throw the breakers, love." He fell back next to his wife, taking someone's duffel bag and slinging it over his shoulder so he could lace his fingers in hers. _Need the lads here to videotape us walking in, all heroic and whatnot, riding to the rescue. Put a montage of eighties music over it._

Buffy's expression was as grim as her words. _If Connor was still in L.A., sure. How are we going to rescue him from another dimension?_

 _Fred and Aubrey,_ Spike said promptly. _Fred knows the physics, has already been to another dimension, and Willingham is the smartest bloke I know. Feel free to tell Rupert I said that. There it is,_ he added, leaning over to kiss her hair, as close as he could manage with the bags each of them carried, _the smile I was looking for._

⸹

Spike was wrong, as it turned out. After Angel told them about the white room in the Wolfram and Hart building and that he'd learned a prophecy said Connor was slated to kill the time-shifting demon, he fell silent. Aubrey surprised Spike by deferring an explanation of dimensions to Dawn.

Spike, Buffy, Joyce, and Giles exchanged sharp looks, making the teenager roll her eyes. "I'm a Key, guys. I asked Aubrey to tell me everything he knows about dimensions, and I've been reading every book he could find. I mean, what else would I do?"

"I get that, honey," Joyce said, "but I really wish you wouldn't."

"Because it makes you uncomfortable," Dawn said, resigned.

"No, because it scares me," Joyce replied forcefully. She ducked her head to the side. " _Both_ my daughters…."

Buffy came up and put her hand around her mother's waist. "It's okay, Mom. She'll be safe."

Joyce gave her a skeptical look. "Oh, and I suppose you'll be safe, too?"

Giles walked to Joyce and took her hands. "I'm so sorry you have daughters who are willing to throw themselves in front of threats to innocents, darling. They take after their mother, you see."

"Don't –" Hearing her sharp tone, she stopped. "Don't try to take that away from me. What else can I do but worry?"

"There are other," he looked around at all the eyes on them, "concerns right now. Please, don't let yourself be stressed. We are always safe as we can manage. Think of… think of the baby."

She looked at him for a long time, then nodded, her gaze falling to the floor so no one would see her tears. Rupert put an arm around her and nodded to Dawn to continue. When attention left them, he kissed Joyce's temple.

It took remarkably little time before they had an initial plan. Dawn wanted to visit the site where the demon had broken into the hell dimension to get a feel for whatever magical vibrations remained.

"Quor'Toth, that was the name of the place," Angel supplied.

"Right," Dawn said and repeated the name of the dimension, "Quor'Toth."

"Which we can't get to, because it doesn't have portals," Fred said miserably.

Dawn scoffed. "Just because no one wants to go there, doesn't mean there aren't doors." When Fred gave her a look, she added, "That demon lied. Or," her voice was coated with Spike-style insufferability, "he's an ignorant asshole."

"Language," her vampire-in-law rumbled from where he sat on the floor, his side mashed against Angel's calf, making sure his grandsire had soothing contact.

"I want to make a side trip to Wolfram and Hart, too." For the first time, Dawn looked nervous.

"What!" Angel exclaimed.

"What? Why?" Spike demanded.

"No." Buffy's contribution was adamant.

"I just want to touch the outside of the building," she added.

"No means no," Buffy said.

"I need to." For a moment, her voice was shrill. Dawn looked away from the Slayer, clearly tamping down her temper. "Look," she said, trying for reasonable, "that white room must be some kind of doorway or window –"

"If Wolfram and Hart wanted Connor, don't you think they'd want you, Dawnie?" Willow said beseechingly.

"Spike and Angel can draw shadow –"

"No." This time, the denial came from Angel. He stood up. "I'll take you to the bridge, then I want to get Cordy and Wes back here, behind lines. That's enough for the hours before daylight." He walked away from the group, unable to think of anything except what would get Connor back, safe and unharmed.

⸹

Next Chapter: Before undertaking the mission to rescue Connor from Quor'Toth, the Scoobies deal with the Angelus problem.


	40. Renewed to This World

**Renewed to this World**

⸹

Los Angeles

April 2002

⸹

The next morning came with very little noise, with everyone keeping it down so Cordelia and Wesley could rest. Tara and Andrew puttered around the industrial kitchen, trying to find some semblance of breakfast for the platoon of good guys, but were reduced to making a list of needed groceries. Dawn came downstairs in her pajamas and slouched beside Willow on the huge pouf in the lobby.

"How are Xander and Anya going to get in? The spells, I mean."

"Oh." Willow wasn't one hundred percent awake yet. "Um, anyone that Angel, Wesley, or Cordelia knows and trusts can come in unimpeded."

"Well, that still leaves Xander," Dawn joked lamely.

Willow smiled. "You know, I don't think Xander has called him 'Dead Boy' in, like, a year."

Behind them, at the registration desk, Fred was talking with Aubrey, her brow furrowed as she mentally translated the magic he knew into the science she understood. Joyce and Giles, who had given up almost all attempts at subtlety, came down from the room they'd shared and began to explore the old hotel. None of them noticed the man with long, dark hair as he came in through the front entrance. He looked around at the strangers from Sunnydale, his smile fading.

Cordelia came down the stairs moving stiffly, Angel holding her arm. Fred smiled up at them, then her gaze went to a movement near the door. "Groosalugg," she said blankly.

"What?" Cordelia said, her voice sharp.

Groo stepped further into the lobby, his eyes going to where he'd heard her voice. "Cordelia?"

Dawn and Willow turned to peer around the center of the circular couch. "I guess he's someone they trust," Willow said.

"Wow," Dawn managed.

By now, Groo was at the bottom of the stairs, holding out his arms. "Careful," Angel warned. The demon champion flashed him a look, but his eyes went back to Cordelia. "She's been hurt," the big vampire added.

Cordelia came down one more step, and Groo lifted her into a much gentler embrace than he wanted. "What happened?"

"Oh, Groo," Cordelia managed, her arms wrapped around him. She was crying. "How are you here?"

He pulled away and gave her a brave smile. "I've been deposed. The people of Pylea are going to try to govern a different way. A republic, I think. I'm not needed there."

"You are most definitely needed here," Angel said, holding out his own arms.

At the door, another figure with long, dark hair came in. Again, no one noticed.

"We're having a crisis," Lorne said from the top of the landing, still pulling on his jacket. The presence of the other Pylean had brought him awake, and he was beyond relieved that it was the Groosalugg instead of any other citizen of his world.

Groo let go of Angel and put a considerate arm around Cordelia. "Then tell me how I can help."

"Wow," Dawn said again. Her mouth was hanging open. Willow nudged her.

Angel was actually smiling. "I'll go wake up Wes," he said, turning to go upstairs.

"Wait," a husky voice said from just inside the hotel door. All eyes turned to Faith. "You'd better tell Wes I'm here, too."

"Faith," Angel said, barely any breath behind the word. He was across the lobby at vampire speed, taking her into a hug that would crack the spine of most beings.

An uncertain smile touched her mouth. "Hey, big guy." She pulled away. "I'm so sorry."

He closed his eyes. "Thanks." He hugged her again, and the brown eyes were wet when he pulled away. "I'm so glad you're here."

Faith pulled away once more, taking a step back. His greeting was overwhelming. "Uh," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "got a couple of Watcher Council guys outside who want an explanation for why they can't come in."

A portly old man who had to be a Watcher stood from where he leaned against the registration desk. "I'll go talk to them." Bingo, Faith thought, British accent and everything.

"And I'll go get Wes." Angel squeezed Faith's arm and headed upstairs.

As he passed them, Cordelia turned back to the Groosalugg. "I need to talk to you. Will you come with me?"

"Of course," he beamed.

Not a clue, Cordelia thought in dismay. "So," she said brightly, turning to walk toward the office, her movements stiff, "I haven't had any visions for a while."

"No, everything I saw was about the revolt," he said. "At first, I thought I was meant to stop it…."

Fred moved away from the registration desk to give them privacy, following Willow and Dawn to where the dark-haired Slayer stood. "Hey, Faith," Willow said, with much less enthusiasm than Angel had shown.

"Hey." She turned to Dawn. "Hi. Weird that I know you, but I guess this is the first time we've met."

"Yeah." Dawn gave her a piercing look. "Buffy said you shared a Slayer dream with her, where you two were getting my room ready."

"Yeah. You know Slayer dreams, useful and stuff."

She snorted a little. "Yeah, not so much."

Fred glanced between the three of them, then put out her hand. "I'm Fred Burkle."

"I'm Faith Lehane. You're from Texas, right?"

She nodded. "And you're from Boston."

Faith grinned reluctantly. "Yeah."

Dawn made a gesture with her head. "We were trying to figure out breakfast, but then, since you're here, I guess we'll have a meeting, get everyone up to speed. Come on in the kitchen, and I'll go wake up the sex bunnies."

"No need," Joyce said dryly, coming to the edge of the lobby. "They just got back with McMuffins and such for everyone."

Dawn grinned. "I take back the sex bunnies comment. They rock."

"I don't want to hear it again," Joyce said sternly. Her eyes fell on Faith. "Oh."

"Hi, Mrs. S.," Faith said, forcing a polite smile to her face as she walked toward Joyce. "I have a lot of apologies to make today –"

"You do," Willow agreed, staying by her side.

"– and I'm glad to start with you."

⸹

Breakfast rolled into the meeting, wrappers and coffee cups pushed from the dining room tables in favor of notepads and laptops. Introductions were made, and Willow set up a conference call with Xander so that they would be up to speed when he and Anya arrived later that afternoon.

Once the questions began to die away, Buffy stood up. Lorne, who was sympathizing with Luisa – at least someone had to choose to sing to engage his empathic gifts – noticed and came back to the table, leaving her to guard duty. After a couple more seconds, every eye was on Buffy, and the group fell silent. "There's something we need to do before we rescue Connor."

"Nothing is more important than –"

She held up a hand to cut off Angel's words. "Not more important, but something critical to the success of our mission." She drew in a breath. Beside her, Spike tucked his fingers into hers and gave them a reassuring squeeze. "The coven needs to bind your soul."

"Oh," Cordelia said, looking at the dark-haired vampire next to her. "Because you're going to be happy when we get him back."

Angel closed his eyes and slumped back against the chair in defeat. "You're right." He didn't want to think about Angelus near his child. He felt like banging his head on a wall. Why hadn't he made binding his soul a priority?

Buffy turned to Tara and Willow, then across the table at Jonathan, Michael, and Andrew. "Is the spell ready?"

"It is," Willow said, almost reluctantly.

Angel gave her a sharp look. "You think we should wait?"

"No, it isn't that." Willow looked down, her red hair falling over her face. "It's just, it's extremely important that the spell work."

"It will," Jonathan said firmly. "We've done our research."

"You weren't there," she said softly.

"For Angelus," Buffy elaborated, glancing at Jonathan and compressing her mouth. "I was," she said. She walked around the table to her friend. "And I was there when you took back all the minds that Glory ate, with barely any spell at all." She put her hands on Willow's slender shoulders. "I have faith in you."

Tara put a hand on her arm. "The spell will work."

Willow looked up and drew in a breath. "It will. Everyone in the coven has done amazing work on this."

Buffy's gaze went to Angel. "It's best if we do it in the daytime." He nodded in agreement.

"Why in the daytime?" Groo asked.

"Oh!" Cordelia turned to where he sat on her opposite side. "It's different for Angel here than in Pylea. Sunshine will destroy him. Fire, it's a whole big thing. If Angelus can't leave the hotel, it'll be easier for us."

"You're going to break the curse that fastens his soul to him," Groo said, "and the soul is what makes him a champion. Then, the mages," he nodded at the five coven members, "are going to bind the soul instead of attaching it with a curse."

"That's right." Cordelia gave him a smile. On her other side, Angel shifted irritably.

"Happiness breaks the curse?" Groo asked.

Cordelia took Groo's hand. "It does."

"You're his happiness?"

"I am." Cordelia looked over her shoulder. "I better be."

Groo squeezed her fingers, then looked at Angel. "You are very lucky, and you do not deserve to be cursed."

Angel stood up and leaned past Cordelia to embrace Groo. "And you are a true champion." If he'd been the one Cordy had let down gently, he doubted he would have stayed to help.

"You spared my life. You are my friend," Groo said simply.

"There's hugging right now, isn't there?" Xander's disembodied voice asked from the speaker of the phone.

"Yup," Spike said. He figured his jealous feelings about the stranger embracing his grandsire were mild compared to what was going on between the three points of the latest love triangle.

"So, so glad to not be there," Xander said.

Buffy smiled. "Yeah, you'll be here soon enough." The meeting ended shortly afterwards. She sent a wan smile toward her husband, who gave her a wink as he walked out with Wesley. They were going to look at a vault in the basement to see if it would hold Angelus.

"It will work," Willow said, sliding her arm around her friend's waist. "It's just, I get the wiggins when Angelus is involved."

"Tell me about it," Buffy said. She leaned closer, almost whispering. "I can't tell you how weird it is to be pimping out my old boyfriend like this."

"I doubt Cordy will mind," Willow snarked.

⸹

"Mom?"

"Mmm?" Joyce replied, looking up at her youngest. She was going over the shopping list Tara and Andrew had made.

"Do you mind if I go out shopping? I really don't want to be here for the deAngelusing."

"I don't plan to be here, either," Joyce said, holding up the list. "You want to come with me?"

"I was thinking more clothes than Ralph's," Dawn said. "But, mostly, I want to go to one particular store, since Xander said he'd bring Spike's birthday cake." She told her mother her plans and the public transit route that would take her there. "I'll have my phone with me the whole time. It's fully charged."

"Okay," Joyce said reluctantly. "Just be careful." She gathered Dawn in for a brief hug, told her where to find a credit card, and wished that she hadn't let Buffy roam around Los Angeles when she was even younger so she'd have that as an excuse to keep her children close.

⸹

Faith felt like one of those magnets that repelled things. She'd apologized to everyone, but the only person who really seemed to accept her apology was Red's girlfriend. After the meeting, she found herself alone in the lobby. A gleam caught her eye, and she went toward the weapons on display in a cabinet. Someone else was evaluating them, too.

"Hey," she said to the other newcomer. "I'm Faith."

"I am the Groosalugg." He gave a little shrug. "Just Groo, I guess." He turned away from the weapons display. "You're one of the chosen champions, aren't you?"

"A Slayer. Yeah, that's me." She nodded at the swords. "I've been, uh, out of commission for a while. If you want to see which one works best for you, I'd be glad to take another blade. Fence with you, or something." Ooh, smooth, she mocked herself, just how you imagined it going with the first available man after you got out. This hotel was too full of gorgeous men, most of whom were potential disasters waiting to happen. At least she didn't have a history with this one.

For his part, Groo was giving her an appraising look. "I am quite strong," he warned.

Faith nodded, appreciating his concern. "I haven't touched a weapon for a while. Have you fought with Angel?" At his nod, she went on. "Treat me like I'm about three-quarters as good as he is." She gave him a grin that left him a little stunned. "Hopefully, I'm better, but practice will definitely help."

"Of course," Groo agreed automatically. He stood back a little; she was not his princess. His body should not react like this to a fellow warrior. Groo breathed in, appreciating the womanly scent of her. Then again, it was good to think of things other than the princess.

⸹

Dawn made her first stop, then skipped the mall doors and went directly to the outside entrance to Nordstrom. She didn't have time to do the whole galleria justice today. After browsing the juniors and the makeup counter, she texted her mother that she was going to grab lunch, then head back. Spotting a noodle shop, she got a container of yaki udon and set out for her final stop.

Sitting on the steps of the plaza in front of the Wolfram and Hart building, Dawn ate her lunch and enjoyed the mild spring day. There really wasn't any place like Los Angeles, she thought. A breeze blew back her hair and made goosebumps rise on her legs, making her wish she hadn't worn a short skirt. Dawn grabbed her Nordstrom bag and pulled it closer, not wanting it to fall over.

Finishing her lunch, she put the plastic fork – no way was she going to try chopsticks while wearing a white shirt – into the empty container and put it all in the bag. She looked around for a garbage can and spotted one near the side of the building. Dawn pulled out her phone. Quickly typing out a text that she didn't send, she set an alarm for one minute. Dawn got up, grabbed her bags and her garbage, and headed for the trash bin.

She walked slowly, and just as she chucked her lunch bag, the alarm buzzed on her phone. Pulling it out, as if she'd received a call while her phone was on vibrate, she looked around for a place to be out of the way of other people hurrying to finish their lunches. Dawn walked over and leaned on the side of the Wolfram and Hart building, pretending to listen.

She was listening, not to her phone, but to the vibrations against her back. There, maybe twenty stories up. It didn't feel like the portal slashed into the Quor'Toth dimension. This felt smooth and narrow, a thin beam of light trapped and then magnified in a large container.

Dawn looked down at her nails, moved her mouth, smiled. She brushed back her hair, knowing the breeze would blow it across her face immediately. Turning away from the wind, she put her finger to her mouth, as if biting off a hangnail. With her wet finger, she quickly etched a rune on the side of the building, hiding it with her body on one side, the Nordstrom bag on the other, and from observers above with her bowed head.

Setting the bag on the ground, she pulled her hair into a loose ponytail with her hand, then snapped the phone shut. Brushing the bright, brown strands out of the way a final time, she picked up the Nordstrom's bag and strolled off, keeping her phone in her hand instead of putting it back in her little purse. Dawn's heart was hammering in her chest until she sat down on the hard seat in subway, her finger hovering over send the whole way. It was a text to Spike, telling him where she was, because she knew he would always save her. Her sister would, too, but there would be a lot less scolding with Spike.

Dawn had never used her power, but she felt it… surge occasionally, like when passages in Mr. Willingham books about dimensions were particularly evocative. Until they brought home baby Connor, she wasn't going to do anything about the invisible mark on the building. It wasn't anything special, just the proto-Norse rune for the letter M, her middle initial. But it stood for 'man,' or more broadly, 'human.' That seemed fitting, a defiant little gesture to declare that this world belonged to humans, not overdemons from outside. As soon as she got back, she'd talk to Aubrey.

There was no rain in the forecast for the next ten days, nothing to wash away her mark. She had time.

⸹

"Hey." Angel stood outside Cordelia's door.

"Hey." She didn't invite him in.

He came in anyway, knelt down beside where she sat on the bed. "I'm so sorry. This isn't how I imagined our first time."

"Me, either."

"I should have done this earlier."

Cordelia took the hand that he held out. "I always knew this was coming. I mean," she gave him a bit of a glare, "I wasn't going to let Buffy be my stunt double or anything."

Angel laughed at that. "I can understand that. I nearly decked Groo when he put his arm around you."

She shook her head. "He's… he's really incredible. He sincerely wishes us the best."

"He is," Angel agreed. He searched Cordelia's face. "He's a better man than I'll ever be."

"Yet I never loved him."

Angel's lips parted. Then he firmed them, swallowing. "Does that mean," he looked down, "you love me?"

She caught his chin in her hand and forced him to look back up. "If I tell you, you have to tell me, because this is too scary."

"I love you."

"Oh." Her smile was beautiful. "I love you, Angel. I tried really hard not to."

"We're not the same people we were when we came to Los Angeles."

"No." She looked uncertain. "Better people, I hope."

"I think so." He licked his lips and turned to kick the door so that it swung shut. "While I'm down here, I wanted to," Angel reached into his pocket, "ask you something."

"Yes."

He let out a little laugh. "You don't know what I was going to ask. Could be I was going to ask for anal."

She laughed, full and rich, then clutched her bruised side. "You're an ass, Angel. I will be the best-looking bride of the year, you're going to take my last name, since you're always chasing after something, anyway, and," she kissed him, "we're going to be very happy. You, me, and Connor." Her eyes grew bright with tears. "A family."

He drew her into his arms. "You really think we'll be able to get there? That he's okay?"

She nodded. "We aren't alone in this. I mean, they killed a god last year. Not just beat one, destroyed one. And he has to be okay. Holtz can keep him alive for a couple of days. I mean, he fought you for years and lived."

Angel nodded against her shoulder. "You're right." He took a breath and pulled away. "You want to see it? It's really big." He put his hand in his pocket again.

"You're talking about the diamond?" she teased. "Either one. Of course I want to see it."

⸹

The actual moment of happiness came to pass in the cage in the basement of the hotel. Cordelia took the elevator down so that Groo wouldn't have to see her in her 'big happy' Pylean clothes and no one else would see the bruises the car crash left along her side. Angel appreciated her choice of clothing very much, but not as much as the fact that at the end all she wore was his engagement ring.

Cordelia came into the lobby, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that hid her injuries, and went directly to the coven. "Angelus is locked in the cage," she announced.

Spike and Wes exchanged a glance and went downstairs, having taken guard duty upon themselves. Buffy came over and rubbed Cordelia's back, her lips pressed together. She remembered too well how humiliating it had been to have something so private become public knowledge.

Willow unpacked one of the three Orbs of Thesulah she'd brought along, and the members of the coven all sat cross-legged in a loose circle. Tara gave her a reassuring smile. Willow returned it, but she couldn't help but wish Oz could be here. He'd offered to come from Massachusetts, but she didn't want to use any more power until they rescued the baby. It would be over before he could get out of classes and on a plane.

Oz had been with her the first time she'd cast the gypsy spell. He knew how it ran through her, ran over her. She had her own magic now, ability both developed and taken, but the root of her nervousness went back to the spell at Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. Oz had been there for her, been her strength.

Willow took a breath and let it out. She was the leader of the coven; she was the strongest. They were waiting for her. "I'm so proud of all of you," she began. "This spell we're about to cast is incredibly complex and powerful, but it has a very light touch rather than the battleship chains the curse used. Is everyone ready? It'll take us a while, the first part, capturing the soul, then the second, binding it to Angel."

"I'm ready," Tara said. Her voice was firm.

"I'm ready," Andrew agreed.

"Let's do this," Jonathan said.

Michael nodded. "I'm ready."

"Okay." Willow took a breath, and the coven began.

Downstairs, Wesley put his body between Spike and the bars of the cage. "Don't," he said shortly.

"But I want to," Spike said, silkily as his fangs allowed. "Never get another chance."

"Yeah, Wes, let him come," Angelus said. He had finally put on pants, at least, and stopped discussing Cordelia's sexual prowess in terms that made the ex-Watcher wince.

"Want to make him submit," Spike growled. "Had to hear enough from the git when I was young. Now that I'm Master…" he sidestepped Wesley, "I want you on your knees."

Angel laughed and leaned against the bars, perfectly at ease. "That was just too… open, Willy. You're trying too hard."

"Huh." Spike let out his breath and shook off his game face. "What gave it away?"

"I know you," his voice dropped an octave, "boy."

Spike shrugged this off. "Wes isn't blind. Might not want to dwell on it, but he knows we've fucked."

"He doesn't know the details, how it feels to tear into that tight little ass." He turned to Wesley. "Angel thinks about you the same way, Watcher Boy. Did you know that?"

The big vampire spun, incredible speed blurring his form, and lashed out at the bars along the other wall with a powerful kick. Just as fast, Spike was on the other side. They stared at each other through the intact bars.

"Well, Wes is an attractive man," Spike said, turning his head to blow a kiss at the ex-Watcher. His eyes never left Angelus. "Angel's primarily het; nothing to worry about. You sure you want to stay?"

"Angel is my friend," Wesley said, his light voice tight, as were his fists. "I'll stay. Angelus isn't going to poison the well." He took a half-step forward, still well out of the vampire's long reach. "And this is your last hurrah."

Angelus launched himself at the door, the weakest point of his cage, driving at the latch with all his weight behind the kick. They all heard the groaning noise of metal under stress. Again, Spike was outside the door with blurring speed.

"Please," he said, soft, his eyes yellow. "Keep trying."

"Oh, like you'd hurt Angel's body." The taller demon ran his hands across his chest, then looked down in consternation. "That ensouled idiot hasn't been very active, has he?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "That's the best you can do? You're really off your game, granddad." He jerked his neck to one side, loosening up. "You gonna stay in that cage, where it's all safe, run your mouth?"

"No. I'm going to get out and kill all of you."

A bolt went past Spike's biceps, cleanly between the bars and into Angelus' abdomen. The dark-haired vampire looked down at the wood that protruded from him in a line beneath his heart, then up at where Wesley was calmly reloading his crossbow. "Yes, please keep talking." Spike chuckled, rich and pleased.

"You have good aim, Wesley," Angelus admitted. "Hey, one thing you haven't failed at." He kept his eyes on the ex-Watcher. "I recognize the darkness in you. Anytime you want to indulge, let me know."

Spike moved deliberately into his line of sight, disrupting the attempted mesmer. "Yeah, we've all rolled around in the darkness, you old sod. The rest of us got up, shook off the fleas and the straw, and got on with life. You're the one who's stuck, the way I see it." He leaned in closer, grinning. "Stuck in so many ways."

Angelus swiped at him, but the bars between them made his lunge too slow to be successful. "I can think of so many better uses for your mouth than talking."

Spike chuckled again. "Yeah, you never would cut out this tongue."

"The whole time he was plowing Cordelia, Angel was thinking of your wife."

The humor abruptly left Spike's face. "Shut your gob."

Angelus grinned. "He was thinking of her tight cunt, of pumping into it. Shame I got there first, boy. Won't ever be the same again. Broke her maidenhead, licked up the blood." He touched his upper lip with his tongue. "It was delicious, and you never got that. All you ever get is my leftovers."

Spike couldn't hold his grim look and laughed again. "You are pathetic. Think we never talked about that? There was no blood. She was an active girl; like she even had a hymen to break. Like you dared even look lower than her collarbone that night." He shook his head. "We came to each other with history; what of it? I slept with you before she ever did, and she doesn't blame me for it."

Angelus took a half-step back from the door, not to prepare for another rush. He studied Spike as if he had never met him before.

"You're looking at the Master, Aurelian," Spike stated. "Your words can't touch me any more than your blows can." His feet moved into a neutral stance. "You think I want you locked away in there, safe?" He jerked his head back toward Wesley. "They made me stay out here, so Angel wouldn't have to heal up a lot of damage." Spike tilted his head. "Love. That's what's saving your sorry hide from being stripped off right now. The fact that there are people who love Angel."

Angelus' lip lifted in a sneer. "You're one of them."

Spike gave him a beatific smile. "Angel would understand a few broken bones. We'd get him healed before the mission."

Angelus took a breath, but whatever he was going to stay ended in a strangled, "Aargh!" The big vampire dropped to the floor.

Wes stepped up close to Spike. "That didn't take as long as I thought it would."

"Yeah? Felt like forever to me." He reached for the crossbow. "You want to go get Lorne?"

The ex-Watcher and the Pylean were back within a minute. "They really did finish the ritual," Wesley confirmed. "Except for Willow, the whole coven had to be helped off the floor."

"Powerful magic," Spike agreed absently. His eyes never left his grandsire's prone body.

Three long minutes passed before Angel grasped one of the bars and pulled himself upright. He looked down at the bolt that the demon never bothered to pull free. "Asshole," he muttered, taking hold of it and yanking it out of his abdomen. "He give you any trouble, Wes?"

"Sing for me, Angelcakes," Lorne directed. "Wesley probably won't talk to you until you do."

"Uh…" Angel hadn't thought of this part. "Um. 'You look hot in all that plaster/Drink some Fanta faster, faster/Want a Fanta/Dontcha want a/Fanta, Fanta." The commercial seemed to be on the television every time he turned it on. He shrugged, but at least Spike was too gobsmacked to laugh at him.

Lorne wasn't. "That'll do," he chuckled. "And I get that jingle stuck in my head sometimes, too. It's catchy." He turned to Wesley. "We've got our souled vampire back."

The human let out a breath and went to unlock the cage. Angel had to shove the warped door out of the frame. Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. "Good to have you back."

Angel looked at him a moment, then took him in a bear hug. Wesley let out a little huff of air as his ribs were squeezed. "Good to be back."

"Now we're ready to go get your son."

Angel smiled at him for a moment. "We are."

⸹

"We're not ready."

Angel turned away from Willow to hide his frustration. Her eyes stayed on him. "Tara and Andrew are in bed with headaches, Michael had to be helped upstairs, and Jonathan said all he wanted to do was lay down and talk to Kelly for a couple of hours straight. It took it out of them."

"Kelly?" Fred asked.

"Jonathan's girlfriend, Kelly Chen. He met her at college. If Xander and Anya hadn't already left, I'd ask them to stop by her dorm and bring her, too."

"How are you doing, Wil?" Buffy asked. She was standing behind the registration desk with Spike and Faith.

Willow took a breath and pushed back some hair from her face. "A little tired, honestly. I-I think I must have an affinity for soul magic or something. Even that very first spell didn't hit me as hard as it did the rest of the coven."

"How long before they recover?" Gunn asked. His eyes were on Angel.

Willow looked down. "Tomorrow morning," she said finally. "Some good sleep tonight, and we'll need a big breakfast."

"I'll help with the spell," Giles said.

"So will young Wyndham-Pryce if we ask," Aubrey rumbled. "And perhaps Faith's Watcher, when she gets here."

Buffy darted a look at Faith, who answered the question with a shrug. She had no idea about her new Watcher, only that the Council would probably send another who would fail her.

Willow was nodding. "That will help."

"And," Aubrey added, "it will give us time to go over the, er, directions to Quor'Toth again."

Most people turned to Dawn, who deflected. The closer the time came for her to be the Key, the more nervous she was. "Willow, the coven needs to do things that, basically, feed their souls, right?"

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "That's a good way to put it."

"I asked Xander to go by the house and get Spike's cake," Dawn said, "and Mom's out at the store right now getting another cake to celebrate the engagement."

"We're having a party?" Fred asked.

Dawn shot a look at Angel. "N-no, I wouldn't say 'party.' But didn't the Greeks have banquets before a battle? I don't see any reason we shouldn't celebrate how many people are willing to go the mat to save a baby, to spend time together before we go do something difficult."

"That's quite wise, Dawn." Giles looked down as his phone beeped. "That's Joyce. She's almost at the parking garage and is ready for an escort through the sewers." They assumed the hotel was still being watched.

Cordelia came over to the registration desk. "What was Spike's cake for?"

Buffy took her left hand to admire the diamond ring again. "We were having a birthday dinner before we got the call."

"Oh." Cordelia looked at him for a moment, her brows drawn. "You remember the date?"

Spike got it right away. "Yeah. Younger than Liam, pet. Make him pick a date, use it. In fact, he should anyway. He asks Giles nice, Rupes can get Angel hooked up with proper ID."

"I'll do that," Cordelia said. She glanced at Angel. "I guess I better go over there and listen to him."

"None of us are happy about the delay," Buffy said.

"That's not what's bothering him," Spike contended. "He's angry he didn't take care of Angelus a long time ago."

Cordelia's face got an 'aha' expression. "Oh, so he's blaming himself."

"Yes," Buffy agreed. She made a tiny sound, then stopped. "You should go to him." Once Cordy walked away, she leaned into Spike. "Why did you step on my toes?"

"So you wouldn't kick him when he's down," Spike said.

Her expression softened. Spike had dealt with Angelus today. "Really bad downstairs?"

He lifted a shoulder. "About what I expected."

Buffy leaned in and gave him a kiss. Next to her, Faith rolled her eyes. "I'm trying to sublimate, here. Guess I'll go see if Groo wants to fight some more."

"What do you think of him?" Buffy asked, putting a hand on Spike's chest and pushing away from him.

"He seems… genuinely nice," Faith said. She sounded surprised.

"I thought so, too," Buffy said.

"Groo a good fighter, then?"

Faith gave Spike a serious look. "All I could handle, but I don't have a sense of what that means until I get a chance to fight with Buffy or Angel. I really don't know how rusty I am."

"We can spar tonight on patrol," Buffy offered. She turned back to Spike with a half-smile. "I figure you'll be here for Angel tonight."

He looked to where Cordelia stood with her hand on Angel's shoulder. "I think the cheerleader wants to be there for him."

⸹

Xander pulled another table into a rough horseshoe shape around the two tables that already had cakes and would soon have dishes full of dinner. Dawn had made jokes about the Knights of the Round Table, but a configuration where everyone could see and talk to everyone else made sense to him.

"Room for one more?" a quiet voice asked from the doorway.

"Oz!" Xander stepped free of the tables and took him in a hug. "Were we expecting you?"

"No. I skipped class today and caught a flight in. Have I missed the rescue?"

"It's tomorrow. The coven nailed Angel's soul on good and tight today, so they're too tired to try now."

"That's definitely of the good. The soul, I mean, not the tired."

"Willow is upstairs with Tara… somewhere." He shrugged. "I'm in room 212, and that's about all I know."

"I can find them."

They found him. The two witches were coming down the staircase with Michael. "Oz?" Tara breathed. She and Willow were in the lobby in seconds, pulling the auburn-haired young man into a group hug. Both witches gave him a kiss, too.

Faith, who was sitting cross-legged on the registration desk painting her fingernails, shook her head. "Now they're just rubbing my nose it in," she muttered.

Groo was also at loose ends. Willow and Tara introduced him to another cow, er, person, and then left him alone at the base of the stairs. He stared with interest at what Faith was doing and came over to watch.

"Is there a meaning to this?" he asked politely.

She shook her head. "I just want to make my fingers look pretty."

Groo held out his unadorned hands in front of him. "Can I try?"

"Um," Faith seesawed one wet-nailed hand in the air, "maybe not in this color." It was a deep red called 'Scarlet Tease.'

"The color has meaning?"

"Mostly females wear color. Men wear black polish, sometimes."

Dawn, who had just dropped off a birthday present in the dining room, overheard. Still a bit overwhelmed by the gorgeous Pylean, she managed to get out, "Um, upstairs, Spike. Has black nail polish, I bet. Probably." She swallowed and made a vague upwards gesture, then took the stairs two treads at a time.

Faith hid a smile. When she brought her gaze back to Groo, he was watching her frankly. "She's nervous around you because you're cute."

"Cute?"

"You know, you look hot." The puzzled look didn't change. "Pleasing to women?" she tried.

"Oh." Groo looked over his shoulder. "She's not yet grown."

"No," Faith agreed.

He heard the approval in her voice and, heartened by this, added, "You look pleasing."

"To you?" Faith asked, wanting to clarify this.

"Yes." When Groo just kept looking at her in his direct way, Faith's cheeks began to redden. Man, I used to be so good at flirting.

⸹

"How are you doing with so many people around?"

Fred looked up at Gunn and gave him a dazzling smile for his concern. "I'm fine. It's been so nice, talking to Mr. Willingham and Willow, and now Oz. I'm totally going to rewrite that paper before I submit it."

"Smart women are so hot," Gunn confided in a low voice.

"You better mean me."

"Who else?" He took her elbow to slow her down before they entered the dining room and leaned down to kiss her.

"Sit with me?"

"Where else?" He followed her into the room and they found seats. Gunn counted the chairs. "Twenty-two people… We're really outnumbered," he said.

"Outnumbered isn't the right word."

"You have a better one?" he challenged.

Fred thought about it. "Maybe… inundated."

"That's better?"

She shrugged and grinned. "No, I guess not."

Joyce, Buffy, Tara, Cordelia, and Giles came out of the kitchen with the last of the dishes. Giles let out a piercing whistle. "Err, 'come and get it.'"

Dinner was eaten mostly in silence until people began getting up for second helpings. It wasn't until Lorne proposed a toast to Cordelia and Angel's engagement that it truly became a group conversation. Most of it was good-natured teasing.

Giving the green Pylean advance warning, Dawn made everyone sing 'Happy Birthday' to Spike. Lorne met Angel's fearful gaze after Xander's last 'and many moooore' tapered off and gave him a reassuring smile.

After the cakes were cut and plates shared out, Dawn walked over and gave Spike the gift bag. "This is why I wanted to go out shopping today," she said. "They didn't have it in black," she added apologetically.

Spike pulled out a white t-shirt, turning it so he could see the front. He laughed and pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, Bit. I might let Lu wear it once in a while."

The female vampire poked her head past the doorframe to see from her station guarding the lobby. Spike held up the t-shirt from the La Brea site shop with an artist's rendering of what the extinct American lion might look like. Luisa laughed. "I want one for myself."

With so many willing hands and the industrial dishwasher, clean up didn't take very long. Joyce started making breakfast casseroles for the following morning and again had more than enough helpers to get them in the ovens in a short time.

"All right," Angel said. "Meeting time. Back in the dining room?" The mood was different now as the large group took their seats. When he realized that everyone was looking at him, Angel deferred to Buffy.

"Okay, then. Let's make sure we all understand what we're doing and when. Mom, I'll start with you."

"Right." Joyce made a face. "Breakfast will be available at six. Coffee, the casseroles, and fruit."

Giles slid his arm around her. "I'll help Joyce, but at seven, I'll join the coven."

Wesley looked grim and unhappy. "Security for the coven."

Fred looked down and mumbled, "I'm helping Mr. Willingham with the scrolls and books."

"I'm in charge of making sure everyone is armed. At seven, I'll be ready to go through." Gunn looked over his shoulder at the vampire standing guard behind him.

"Security at the sewer entrance," Luisa said glumly.

"Ready, set, chant, seven sharp," Andrew said.

"Go, go, wonder coven, away," Jonathan offered.

Michael shook his head. "Seven o'clock, get my chant on."

Aubrey nodded. "Channel the chant and find Quor'Toth at seven o'clock."

The Groosalugg looked around. "Go to the other dimension, rescue the baby."

"What he said," Faith mumbled.

"Security at the front door," Cordelia said. She was unhappy, but recognized that she couldn't contribute the way the warriors could.

"Like Groo said, rescue Connor." Despite the recently anchored soul, the muddy expression on Angel's face made the Scoobies think of Angelus.

Oz glanced around the table, making sure no one would take issue with his words. "I'll have Willow's back in Quor'Toth."

Tara nodded her agreement with this. "Coven."

"Spell-slinging in Quor'Toth," Willow said. "Save Connor."

"Security at the stairwell," Lorne said.

"Books and scrolls," Anya said brightly.

"Security for the back entrance," Xander said.

"Go in, get the sprog," Spike offered.

"I'll have Angel's back while he carries Connor," Buffy said. Then, some tension in her shoulders, she turned to the Dawn on her other side.

"Open a way into Quor'Toth," Dawn said, her voice small, "and close it when we're done."

Buffy nodded. "All right. Break into your group for a quick meeting: security, coven and support, and," she sent a smile at Andrew, "away team." He beamed at her.

"Where do you want me?" Gunn asked.

"Security first," Buffy said, "then join us."

Gunn led the security group to the weapons cabinet. "Aight, what weapon – oh, hey, Mrs. Summers."

Joyce smiled at him. "I plan to be right beside Dawn near the opening. Rupert says I'm a natural with an ax." Her smile turned a bit brittle. "Kitchen cleanup is a lower priority than my baby girl."

"Uh, of course." He turned and picked up a spiked battleax with a four-foot handle. "Try this one."

Willingham had decided to open the portal beside the registration desk, "because the marble floor can be cleaned up easily if it's muddy," he explained. The coven went over the spell, designed to 'dial into' demon dimensions. "I have some texts that should help narrow the, er, selection," he said, "and I'll channel the magic from the base chant into those enchantments."

"You'll be carrying a lot of magic," Anya pointed out.

"Just channeling it," he reassured her. "Oh, before I forget, I called the Council. Miss Lehane's new Watcher won't be here until late tomorrow. So, this is it. That's all I have." He turned expectantly to Dawn.

She drew in a breath. "I know what the portal that the demon opened felt like. When what we 'dial up' gets to Quor'Toth, I'll tell Aubrey, and he'll hold it there. I'll try to open it with will alone. If that doesn't work, my blood will."

Anya put an arm around the girl's waist and gave her an awkward hug. "You can do it, Dawn. Just a drop should be enough."

"I'm scared," she admitted. "N-not for me, but for Connor. I'm scared it won't work."

"It will work," Aubrey soothed her. "If you can't open it, we have other spells."

Which would require Willow to step in, leaving her depleted during the trip into Quor'Toth. Dawn nodded, though, and gave him a wavering smile.

The 'away team' had just decided on swords for their main weapon. "Spike on my left, Angel on my right," Buffy said. "We'll take point. Then Willow and Oz. Groo and Faith, you decide with Gunn how you want to cover our six.

"On the way back, Oz, you switch places with Angel. Willow, do you feel comfortable holding the baby if Angel has to fight?"

Willow gave Buffy a look. "I think I'd trust a vampire to safely carry a baby over uneven terrain at speed more than I'd trust me. Plus, I'll be contributing to any fight."

Buffy put out a hand to cover Willow's. "Sorry. You're right. I was thinking step-by-step, not after you cast the location spell. Why do conventional warfare when we have magical weapons, too?" No one answered her rhetorical question, and she noticed that the other two groups had already broken up. Most of the members of the coven were already headed upstairs to get more sleep.

"Hey, what did I miss?" Gunn asked.

"You get rear guard with Faith and Groo. Everyone else is taking a sword."

"I can do a sword," he agreed. Nodding toward Angel, Spike, and Oz, he went on. "You guys talk about what your demon might be like there?"

"I was a bit more primitive in Pylea," Angel explained dryly. "I won't vamp, and I'm taking some ninja-type gear in case of sunlight – a balaclava and gloves."

"I won't transform, either," Oz said, his brows drawn together.

"So, now I want to vamp out just to see what would happen," Spike chuckled. "I won't," he added, when he saw Groo's alarmed look. "The mission is too important."

⸹

Everyone's counting on me, Dawn thought, rinsing her toothbrush. Angel is depending on me. A baby's life is in my hands. Her stomach lurched again, but this time she didn't throw up. She took a few long breaths, then turned out the light and went to her bed. Before she could turn off the bedside lamp, someone knocked on her door.

"Dawnie?"

"Hey, Mom. Come on in."

"You still haven't –" Joyce's brows knit together as she smelled the lingering odor of vomit. "Oh, sweetie." She went to sit beside Dawn on the bed, pulling her daughter into her embrace.

"I'm scared I w-won't be able to do what I'm s'posed to," Dawn whispered.

With a speed and silence that were a little scary, Spike appeared on the other side of her bed. Joyce hadn't shut the door. "Oh, love, you'll be fine."

"You will," Buffy said. She came into the room more sedately, closing the door behind her. "Glory was after you for a reason. You've got this." The Slayer sat down by her mother. She looked across to her husband, and they both sat on the bed, too, surrounding the teenager.

"You've been learning everything you can about this Key business, right?" Spike smoothed her hair with one hand. "And you aren't alone. You've just got one part of the plan."

"It's the most important part," Dawn said miserably.

"It isn't, actually," Buffy said. "I think that's Willow. We don't know where Holtz and Connor are in Quor'Toth. Without Wil, we might search for years without finding them."

"I-I never thought about that," Dawn admitted. "So, you think Willow is feeling the same thing?"

"We all feel the same way you do," Buffy admitted. "It's because the stakes are so high. All you have to do is try. Try your very best; that's all Angel is asking. He knows success isn't guaranteed."

Dawn lifted her head from Joyce's shoulder and looked at her sister, then at Spike, a bit shocked. "So, you aren't as confident as…."

"No," Joyce sighed, "but it would be cruel to voice any of those doubts aloud."

In a very quiet voice, Dawn asked, "Do you think he's still alive?"

"I have to believe he is," Buffy said, "otherwise I'm making a very foolish decision, leading people I care about into a hell dimension."

Dawn let go of Joyce and put her arms around Buffy. "We're going to save him," she said defiantly, "and no one is going to die."

"Right you are," Spike agreed. He covered Joyce's hand. She was staring at her daughters with love and pride and a terrible fear.

⸹

"Hey, B."

"Hey. Ready?"

"Sure. Think we can break up patrol at someplace Bronze-like?"

Buffy grinned at her. "Looking for guys?"

Faith waited until they were outside the hotel before answering. "I have been surrounded all day by exceptionally good-looking men who I got too much history with. But I'm rusty. I can't even talk to Groo, and he's sweet as a puppy."

"Did you notice his eyes?" Buffy asked, half-turning as she walked.

"I know! His pupils and irises are the same color. Like an electric blue."

"No history," Buffy pointed out.

"Did I mention that he's sweet as a puppy?" Faith said. "I kinda want to keep him that way." They slowed, examining an alley, then sped back up. "I plan to follow that old advice and not mess around where I work."

"Probably a good policy."

"I mean it, B. This time, I want to do things differently."

"I get that." She glanced at Faith. "I wish I could go back and do things differently." Buffy lifted a shoulder. "I saw you as a rival, because it was a bad time for me when we met. I wasn't who you needed me to be."

"Don't blame yourself. I'm the one who messed up." Faith's voice was vehement. "If I'd broke right after getting to Sunnydale, after Kakistos, maybe, but it wasn't then. It was months later and all me." She, too, shot a glance at her sister Slayer. "Years of group therapy, here. I'm pretty clear about what I did. I'm to the point where I don't blame anyone but myself. That way, I have control over what I do in the future." She slowed, so Buffy would look over at her. "Well, I do blame you for dying."

For making her a Slayer, for making a world where two Slayers could exist, Buffy realized. Then she saw the clarity in Faith's eyes, the small smile on her face. "Blame Xander. He gave me CPR."

Shadows moved back over Faith. "Nope. Xander gets a pass." She didn't elaborate, just sped back up and asked briskly, "So, you think we've got a chance tomorrow?"

Buffy was relieved by the change in topic, too. The past was never going to be safe for them. "I do. I wouldn't take you guys on a suicide mission." She lifted the corner of a chain-link fence, and they began taking a shortcut across an empty lot.

"Hey, girlies," someone said from the darkness just behind them. Several pairs of yellow eyes were focused on them as the two Slayers turned around.

"Here, Faith," Buffy said conversationally, taking something from beneath the back of her jacket. "Though you might want a chance to use your weapon."

"Oh, B," Faith breathed, turning it in the dim light. "I love it!"

The vampires broke for them, and Buffy produced a stake for the fastest. Faith's eyes were half-focused on the Scythe instead of her attacker as she took off its head.

"Hey, it hums!"

Buffy ducked beneath a blow and plowed her shoulder into the vampire's midsection to get a little room to work. "I'd say 'thrum,'" she shrugged.

Faith changed hand position and brought the stake to bear. "Oh, wow. It's like it's made for me." She did a half-step back and staked the vampire who tried to flank her.

Buffy staked her attacker and looked around, checking with her Slayer senses that it really was the last one. "It felt that way for me, too."

A frown touched Faith's brow. "We shouldn't take it tomorrow," she said slowly. "I mean, it would be great to use, but… I don't think it should leave our world."

Buffy nodded in agreement. "I feel the same way. So does Giles, because he started to lecture me when he saw I'd brought it."

"Oh. Good." Faith offered the Scythe to Buffy.

"You keep it. That way I don't have to try to talk my way into a club while armed."

⸹

"Everyone ready?" Aubrey asked. He looked around. Though no one spoke, there was a general round of nods. The group charged with security took up their positions, and Jonathan sat down next to Tara, careful not to smudge the thrice-drawn chalk circle. He took her hand and held his other out to Giles.

Buffy, dressed in sturdy boots, jeans, and a UC-Sunnydale hoodie, hoped it wouldn't be scorching hot or bitterly cold in the hell dimension. She caught movement on her other side and saw Angel reach up to grip the hand Spike had rested on his shoulder. She gave the big vampire a reassuring smile of her own.

Tara sang a note. On the cue, the coven began chanting. They were all focused on a green crystal in the middle of the floor. After about twenty seconds, the spell repeated.

Dawn stood nervously beside Aubrey. He gave her a reassuring pat on the arm. With a nod at Fred and Anya, he picked up a matching crystal in his right hand. On the third repetition of the chant, it began to glow.

Willingham closed his eyes, accepted the power from the coven, and began a separate spell. Instead of a chant, it was an invocation. He held the green crystal out toward the empty air beside the registration desk. After a moment, it began to shimmer. The ripple in the air grew until it was about seven or eight feet across, a rough square about a foot off the ground.

Anya checked with Fred, then switched books. Aubrey glanced at the new text in front of him, peering through his bifocals at the small tome, and added a counterpoint to the invocation. Inside the rippling air, light began to pulse.

At least, that's what everyone else saw. Dawn took a step closer to the magical construct, one hand held out as if to feel for heat. Behind the shimmer, she saw worlds spinning past. All of them were demon dimensions. Some were in daylight; some were cold and rocky with barely any light falling on their surfaces. Many were the interior parts of more complex worlds, areas close to the volcanic guts of planets given over to demons. Some looked as verdant as earth, a deception that hid poison and predators. She saw dimensions with crashing seas, with floating crystals of ice, with –

"Hold." Dawn thrust her hand into the shimmer. Then her eyes widened and she put out her other hand. "Quor'Toth."

Buffy let out a breath. The moment her sister touched the ripple, it was as if a window had opened. She could see a desolate area, rocky and dimly lit, beyond Dawn's outstretched hands. Taking a last breath of familiar air, she stepped forward. Her group followed without hesitation.

"Buffy?" She stopped beside Dawn at the word. "I can't go with you. This door wants to… I don't know how to explain it. It's like a door on a subway, except I'm holding it open and keeping it from pulling out of the station."

"How long can you hold it?"

"I-I don't know."

Willow stepped up. "I'll do the drawing spell right away, after we step across." She gave Dawn a little smile. "You can watch us, I guess, like we're on stage."

"Give us as long as you can. If we can't talk to you or see you, we'll come right back after Willow's spell." Buffy put a hand on Dawn's back. "Thank God you didn't have to use any blood," she said in a low voice. "Mom would have wigged."

Dawn grinned at her. "Go on. Go get Connor."

With a firm nod, Buffy leapt through the shimmering window and into Quor'Toth. The first thing she noticed was the smell of rotting meat. She looked around cautiously as she took a few more steps into the demon dimension, then turned. She could see her sister, looking lower than the twelve inches she'd jumped, and a few inches past her into the Hyperion. Buffy could also see through that shimmer to more rocky terrain. A thin wind blew sand away from the doorway to the Hyperion and whistled across small depressions. Whatever smelled dead, she couldn't spot it, but a frisson of fear played across her neck.

Oz stepped in with Willow. A frown flickered across his brow; it felt like stepping out of water. "Gravity's heavier here."

"Gather around Willow for the perimeter," Spike directed the rest. He moved to the other side of the shimmer, careful not to touch it, and began scanning the terrain.

Willow wasted no time. She had on a photographer's vest with spells and simple power boosts stored in the individual pockets. She took out a crystal that held the drawing spell and caught up to the incantation stored within, then finished with a directive. "Bring Connor to those most concerned about him." She held the crystal high and cast the spell.

The lonely sound of the wind was immediately drowned by snarls. Willow's spell had caught up a couple of humans doing battle with a group of demons that seemed to be made of greyish, wet clay. The whole fight plopped down amidst the away team. Most of the demons immediately shifted focus to the newcomers.

"Shit!" Faith said, slashing her sword outward and cutting one of the creatures into two halves. The humanoid shape separated but did not stop moving.

The humans, an older man and a boy, stabbed into the clay demons, dropping them. Angel took a second to see the pattern and did the same. "Jab into the torsos!" he called.

One of the clay demons materialized inches away from Buffy. It threw its arms around her and began to squeeze. Spike took three steps back, then vaulted over the doorway to the Hyperion, his weapon coming down through the demon's skull, sinking his sword almost to the hilt. He used a booted foot to pull it free, already ducking away from the next one.

Free now, Buffy began to move in a weaving pattern through the grey demons, her sword stabbing with almost every step. She left a path of dead bodies on the ground behind her.

Groo stepped between two of the lumpy creatures and made a curving strike through the air that caught one high in the chest and the other low in the torso. He seemed to have hit something critical both times, as they fell away from him.

"Nice!" Faith approved, outpacing him to the next one.

By the time Gunn caught up to Angel and Buffy, he only had the chance at two of the demons. The two strangers who had been fighting the herd of them took down one more each. The older man was using a wooden spear, leaving a battered sword for the boy to wield.

Oz and Spike struck down the three remaining, shielding Willow. On her part, she was confused, looking at the crystal in her hand. "I-I don't know what happened," she stammered.

At the front edge, Angel stopped looking around for demons and began scanning for a cradle. His eyes swept past the humans, then locked on the old man. He had time to think, _Holtz_? before another demon appeared next to the man.

This demon was tall, humanoid, and clothed in robes, with runes inscribed on his flesh. Sahjhan. The spell had called him, too, because he was very concerned about Connor and his destiny. He looked at Holtz and said, "You!" with utter loathing. Before anyone could more than half-raise their swords, the time-shifter was in front of Holtz and had his hands on either side of the old man's head. The snap was a small sound in the thin atmosphere.

"Father!" the boy cried. He sprang forward, covering the ten yards between them in a single leap. As he came, his sword began a deadly motion that ended with half its length inside Sahjhan's chest.

Angel was closest, and his own sword was a half-second behind, cleaving Sahjhan's head from his dead body. The boy gave him a tight nod of acknowledgement, then turned to Holtz. He fell to his knees beside the old man. It was obvious to everyone that it was too late.

Angel staggered to one side, his eyes on the grieving lad. Then he swallowed and pulled the boy's sword from Sahjhan's body. Angel closed his eyes for a long moment, then he walked to the other side of Holtz's remains.

"Who are those guys?" Faith asked in a low voice.

Spike exchanged a glance with Oz, the only other person besides Angel who had an enhanced ability with scent. "That was Holtz," he said quietly.

"And the fourteen-year-old is Connor," Oz finished.

Only Buffy overheard. Her eyes went to Angel and came back to Oz, wide with shock. He pressed his lips together and gave her a helpless look. The Slayer looked back toward her sister, noticing how pale she looked. "We need to go," she said, realizing why Dawn had to hold the door.

"Connor?" Angel said.

"No. His name is… was Daniel Holtz. I'm Steven, his son."

Angel closed his eyes again. "We came to take you back where you belong."

"Earth?" the young man asked. For the first time, he looked up from Holtz's face. He looked around at the group of people staring at him, then back at Angel. Something flickered in his eyes.

"Yes," Angel agreed. He cleared his throat. "Here," he handed the boy the sword he'd retrieved, as well as his own sword to carry. "I'll bring him along. Go with her."

"Hey," Buffy said. "Is there anything here you need before we go?"

"No. I guess not." He stared at her outstretched hand for a moment, then took it, letting her help him to his feet.

Angel stared at Holtz' corpse for a second, then set his mouth in a grim line and picked up the body of the man who had hurt him more than he could ever have dreamed. The bastard had cost him fourteen years of his son's life. Him and Sahjhan. It might only have been chance that his foot kicked Sahjhan's head fifty yards as he passed.

Buffy led Connor to the door, murmuring to him about how to step through. As she jumped back into the lobby of the Hyperion, she saw that Joyce was holding up Dawn. It seemed dark in the big room, even after the dim light of Quor'Toth. Buffy turned and helped Willow step down. Spike leapt down lightly to join her, putting his hand on her back in a brief caress.

"Go to Cordelia," he said in a low voice. "I'll get them back inside."

Emotions flashed across her face, ending in sorrow. She nodded. As Buffy left, Spike gave Connor an encouraging look as Angel awkwardly brought Holtz' body through.

Gunn and Groo came through last, and Joyce squeezed Dawn's shoulders. "That's everyone, honey."

Clearly tired, Dawn looked around the room, her eyes hitting Willow and Oz, and Faith standing awkwardly by Spike. "That's everyone?"

"Yes, sweetie."

Dawn let go of the shimmering in the air, her arms falling heavily to her sides. The pulse of light resumed. Fred switched out the book in front of Aubrey for a larger one. He cleared his throat and rasped out a short spell. The window closed. The coven wound down one final repetition of the spell that powered the 'stage,' and Tara reached behind her to smudge the chalk circle. They all let out sighs of relief and began moving stiffly to get up.

"Come with me," Angel said, his voice kind, and he led Connor toward the Hyperion's little garden. He still carried Holtz' body.

Dawn, like everyone, had noted that none of the team had carried Connor back with them. "We were too late," she said, her voice thick with tears.

Joyce gathered her in an embrace. "Shh."

"No," Oz protested, but he could not find words to go on.

Spike drew in a breath. "Fred, An, go get Xander and everyone." He wasn't sure if anyone besides Buffy and those who could read Connor's scent realized what happened. He went to stand by Joyce, putting an arm around Dawn as well, and waited until his sense of Angel told him they had reached the garden. By that time, all of the security team were in the lobby, too.

"Right," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. "What time is it?"

Wesley checked his watch. "Half six." He hesitated. "It's been… odd. The day seemed to fly."

"It never felt like we were sitting here that long," Michael said. "I don't feel stiff or anything."

"We were there maybe five or six minutes." Spike leaned down and put a kiss atop Dawn's shiny hair. "'S'why it felt like you were holding the door, keeping it from moving away. Time moves differently there."

Willow stumbled a little, her eyes going wide as she realized why her spell called forth the two humans. Tara was there with a bracing arm.

Spike told everyone what had happened in Quor'Toth. Wesley rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms when he heard about how Connor killed Sahjhan, just as foretold.

"He didn't show up until after the battle?" Giles asked. "As if he was called from farther away?"

"I think that's about right," Spike agreed with a nod.

"But the time shift doesn't match up," Fred said, only half aloud. When she realized people were looking at her, she lifted her hands helplessly. "Unless we're talking waves, time wants to behave smoothly. You were gone most of the day, but it seemed like five minutes to you. Sahjhan opened that portal on Thursday. How could Connor be as old as that boy?"

This time, Oz found words. "Maybe because the door was open? And it was the difference between the door that time-shifter slashed into the dimension and Dawn opening a real doorway. They literally had to jump for a longer time."

"It's because Dawn held the door open," Aubrey said. "We had… bleed-over into our time. And perhaps of our slower time into Quor'Toth." He gave Oz a gracious nod. "I like your theory about proper portals."

"So, anyway," Spike said, willing to leave the theory to others, "Buffy went to break it to Cordelia. Angel is, I imagine, helping the lad bury Holtz."

"Why?" Anya asked, sounding revolted.

Of all people, Faith answered. "He kept Connor alive all those years. Holtz must have been like a father to him."

"Son of a bitch." No one felt the need to expound on Xander's sentiment.

"Lieutenant?" Spike asked. When she hesitated, he shook his head. "Never mind the ethics. We're all friends here."

The vampire moved from the shadows of the doorway to the kitchen, just enough to be seen by everyone. "Angel is furious and grieving. There's a… resolute focus on Connor. The boy with him is… numb, right now. The death is something he's been expecting and dreading."

Groo had torn a strip of cloth from his shirt and was cleaning the mud from his blade. His eyes rested on Luisa for a long time, his gaze heavy enough that she moved back into the shadows. When she did, he gave his head a little shake. "So, we succeeded in our mission."

Gunn gave him a look. "I guess you could say that."

"No, w-we did," Tara said forcefully. "If he was already worried about Holtz dying… Can you imagine being left all alone in a hell dimension?"

Jonathan's head rocked back, and he exchanged a look with Michael. "We did rescue him."

"We did," Joyce said. She let go of Dawn and took a breath. "I know everyone is tired, and I'm certainly not going to cook. I'll order pizza, and subs and salads, too. We need food." It's what you did, after a funeral: you offered the survivors food. She got everyone moving.

Before Spike could go, Dawn put her head against his chest and said so low that no one else could hear, "Come with me a minute." In the confusion, they went to a room past the kitchen where stacks of chairs were stored.

"What is it, Bit?"

She told him quickly how she marked the outside of the Wolfram and Hart building and then went on to tell him what she wanted to do next. Spike stared at her, then shook his head. He leaned closer to her; they were still whispering.

"You Summers women are the sneakiest lot I've ever met."

She knew already from his answer that he was pleased with her. "I just want to make a difference, like you and Buffy," she demurred.

"If this works, love, that'll be a bigger blow to evil than I've ever dealt."

⸹

Angel leaned against the spade and looked down at Connor's bent head. The boy had asked for rocks to cover the grave, but those had been his only words.

He looked so much like Darla that it literally hurt his heart, feeling the pain of her loss squeezing around his chest like hoops around a barrel. Connor was beautiful, awkward and gawky though he was. Oz, with his exquisite sense of smell, had pegged his age at fourteen, and that was probably right. His voice had already changed, but there was still more of a boy about him than a man.

Part of Angel fretted over how his son probably hadn't had proper nutrition growing up and worried about how woefully inadequate his education must be. Growing up in heavier gravity would have made his bones dense, but he wasn't as tall as he should be. The rest was wrestling down his own emotions. It was his fault that all the years had passed. If he'd done the right thing for him and for Cordelia, if he had made the call to Willow about anchoring his soul, Connor might only be six or seven. But, no, he hadn't done anything proactive, had just drifted along like he had for the first hundred years after getting cursed. Worthless, foolish layabout, just like his father –

Angel stopped that line of thought. It isn't about you, he reminded himself.

After a while – too long, probably – he realized that Connor was all but frozen. He lost his whole world, Angel realized. Closing his eyes at his own stupidity, he sat down cross-legged next to the boy.

"If I were you," he said, after a few seconds of thought, "I would be terrified. You know you were born here, but that's probably all you know about Earth." Angel swallowed. "I'm kind of in awe of how brave you were, agreeing to come with us."

Connor didn't say anything for a while, either. "Father told me about Earth. He said we humans have dominion over it."

"We do. There are far more humans than anything else."

"It's… What I imagined, that's pale beside what I've seen. That… dwelling, this," he paused before repeating the word, "garden."

"We only saw that little area of Quor'Toth. Is it all rocky like that?" Talk about the small things, Angel decided.

"No. There are rivers and some trees, arable land."

The boy had an English accent, Angel realized. The lingering Irishman in him resented that. "What do you call those demons you were fighting?"

"Lumpkins. They're tough to kill." For the first time, Connor looked up at him. Angel's heart tightened again. He had his mother's eyes. "You, those people," he nodded toward the door back into the Hyperion, "you fight well."

"All those people, they fight evil in one way or another. Some of them are champions."

"Are you?"

Angel had two hundred and fifty years of reading humans. He saw the flicker in Connor's eyes, and he went cold. His voice, though, remained just as mild. "I fight evil, though I haven't always."

Connor moved, shifting his weight so that he was on his haunches and at the foot of the grave instead of sitting next to Angel. "I know who you are."

"You know what Holtz told you," Angel said, giving his son a small smile. "I imagine that you hate me. You may even have sworn to kill me." He leaned closer, purposefully making himself vulnerable. "You have time, if you think you need to do that. I'm not going to run from you. All I ask, is don't do it right now. Just… make up your own mind."

"You deserve to pay for your evil."

"I do. That's what I try to do now. Atone."

Connor stared into the calm brown eyes, his own hard. "You couldn't be out here if the sun wasn't so low."

"I'm a vampire," he agreed. "I have a demon inside. For the past hundred or so years, I've also had a soul. It's why I fight for humans now."

"You were cursed with the soul."

"Originally," Angel agreed. "It's bound to me, now. I asked for that, so the vampire will never be free. Curses can be broken. The new spell can't be." He felt a pang that he didn't tell his son when that had happened.

"Holtz said the soul doesn't make any difference."

"It doesn't make me human, but it does make a difference." Angel brought out his hole card. "Your mother was a vampire, and it was your soul that made a difference for her." Connor blinked, and Angel knew he had the boy. Holtz would have no stories to explain how a vampire could bear a son. And all sons loved their mothers.

"Angel?"

Both of them turned. Joyce was standing in the doorway. Connor winced and raised his hand against the light that shone from behind her. He'd never seen anything but sunlight that bright.

"Dinnertime. I don't want to intrude, just let you know. Whenever you're done, come have something to eat."

"Thank you, Joyce." She nodded and closed the door, and Angel turned back to Connor. "The food will probably be different than what you're used to, but this world is… prosperous. If you don't like it, we'll find something you do like."

"You have a choice of food?" Connor asked.

Angel gritted his teeth. His son had gone hungry; he knew he had.

"Does human food make you sick?" Connor asked in an accusing tone. Like Angel, he was good at reading faces.

"No," Angel said, his voice rough as he mastered himself. "I was just thinking that you've gone hungry. It made me… sad." It was already apparent to him that he wasn't going to get away with anything but honesty with his son.

Clearly surprised, Connor blinked. He looked back down at the stone-covered earth. "You're sure nothing will… dig at the grave?"

"I'm sure," Angel answered seriously. "The garden is walled in, and we made sure it was deep. There are no predators that big here in the city. I'll ask the coven to do a preservation spell, too." He leaned back, away from Connor, and stood up slowly, not wanting to make the boy feel threatened. "The door to the garden is always open. I hope you'll sleep inside with the rest of us, but you can sleep out here, if you like."

"Sleep outside?"

Connor's shocked words let more puzzle pieces fall into place, and fresh wounds opened in his father's heart. He kept the mild tone of voice in place. "Humans and human laws keep cities like these safe." Angel half turned. "Let's go inside. I'll ask everyone to let you eat in peace. I know you aren't used to crowds."

⸹

As it turned out, Connor liked pizza just fine. He also liked breadsticks, salad, sub sandwiches, and potato chips. He did not care for soda or tea, preferring L.A. tap water. Angel drank his blood in the kitchen, then nibbled on a slice of pizza in the dining room.

The tables were still arranged in a semi-circle, but the group was quieter than they had been the previous day and tended to cluster in familiar groups rather than mingling. Spike saw that even Connor was slowing down, so he stood up, giving Angel a reassuring nod.

"All right, people. Good work today. We need a 'debriefing,' I think. And I know our new young man probably has lots of questions."

"He's grieving, Spike." Angel's voice was flat and held a note of warning. They had a private conversation through the mindlink while he was in the kitchen.

"Humans are made to carry on, Liam," he reasoned. "And he isn't the only one with questions. But I think it's fair to start with you," he added, turning to face Connor fully.

It didn't take long for his foremost question to come out. Holtz had said Angelus was miserable and alone. "Who are you?" he asked. Connor looked around at the tables. "Who are any of you? I mean, I know most of you are human."

Spike caught the underlying question. "We're all people who care about you, actually. We're all friends of your father. Well, except me. I'm family. And, technically, his boss."

Connor glanced at Angel, who was rolling his eyes. "Who is she?" he asked, his eyes cutting to Luisa, who was standing guard at the door closest to the lobby.

"She's my lieutenant," Spike said. "You can sense vampires?"

"I guess so," Connor said, shrugging. "You both have souls?"

"No," Spike said. "I do. I found it necessary in order to live in the human world again. Luisa has empathy; she does very well as she is." His lieutenant flashed him a brief smile.

Connor looked around at the unconcerned humans. He focused on Xander. "And you trust them?"

Xander answered the question after a moment of consideration. "Even though I first met Angel when he was souled, I didn't really trust him for a long time. I met Spike before he had his soul, but I trusted him almost right away. I don't know Luisa as well, but I trust that she isn't going to have me for dinner." He smiled. "I have staked a lot of vampires, but I've come to believe that there are a few out there who aren't irredeemably evil. They're usually not the ones you ever meet, because they aren't hunting you."

Connor's brows were drawn together. "I've never met a demon who wasn't trying to kill me."

Lorne gave him a dazzling smile. "You have now."

When Connor only stared at him, Spike broke the silence again. "Right. Let's go around the table, introduce ourselves. We're too many to remember, but you'll get a sense of who we are and why we're here." He sat down and turned to his wife. "Love? You want to start?"

"I will, but I think there's something you should know, Connor."

"Steven. My name is Steven."

Buffy took a breath and nodded. "Okay. I get that. We all know you as Connor, though. For us, it's been two days – well, three now – since Holtz kidnapped you." She looked around the table. "Cordelia and Wesley still have bruises from that attack." He should know the attack had been against mere humans, not a powerful vampire. Buffy considered her words. "Not all of us live here; we came from all over to help Angel recover a baby. We came to rescue a six-month-old baby from a hell dimension. For you, obviously, it's been a lot longer. So, we're all kind of in shock."

"You thought I was a baby."

"You were a baby. Time moves differently in Quor'Toth."

"That's… I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," she reassured him. "I just wanted you to know why we're sort of spun." Buffy cleared her throat. "I'm Buffy, the Slayer. I was called when I was about your age to kill vampires and other demons. I've been friends with your father almost as long. He helps me with my mission." She stopped talking and turned to Spike, leaving out a great deal of history.

"Name's Spike. I'm Buffy's husband, and Angel is my grandsire. I knew him as Angelus for about twenty years before he was cursed with a soul. I probably hate Angelus almost as much as Daniel Holtz did, for many of the same reasons." Connor's eyes were wide. "But I love Angel. He's my brother, and also in my care." He said this with no drama, just gave Angel a slight smile.

"I'm Dawn, Buffy's sister. I can, uh, open doors to other dimensions."

Connor frowned. "You're just a human."

"That, too," she agreed, and fell silent.

"I'm Joyce, Dawn and Buffy's mother." She gave Connor a Summers smile. "When you were born, Cordelia called on me to help."

He had no idea who Cordelia was, and the sheer number of people began to overwhelm him. He realized the blond vampire was right: he got a sense of the loyalty the people had to his biological father and a mind-expanding introduction into a world where humans wielded magic or weapons against evil alongside demons and champions.

Connor's eyes were still on the small woman who was an ex-demon when a dark-haired man began talking in the same familiar accent as the blond vampire and a couple of the other humans. "I'm Wesley, your godfather. Angel is my best friend. I'm… good at finding things in books, and I found a prophecy about you. One of the things it foretold was that you would kill the time-shifter demon Sahjhan. That's the demon who brought Daniel Holtz from his time to ours, the demon who killed him. You know why Holtz hated Angel; you should also know Sahjhan brought him to this place to kill you the way Angelus killed his son."

Connor shook his head. "No. Father was trying to protect me from him." He pointed at Angel.

"Daniel Holtz," Wesley said precisely, "was trying to hurt Angel the same way Angelus hurt him, by taking his family away. I don't doubt that he grew to love you as a son, or even that he believed he was keeping you safe from Angel and even Sahjhan. But his first motivation was to hurt Angel.

"He did. He robbed Angel and all of us of the joy of watching you grow up." It was only after he said those words that the rest of the group realized how furious he was; the Angel Investigations team had known the moment he began speaking. "He robbed us of the chance to keep you safe, to –" Wesley broke off and turned his head, highlighting the bandage on his brow. His head had hit the car window during Connor's kidnapping. Next to him, Cordelia covered her face for a moment.

"These are your," Buffy made a course correction, "are Angel's very best friends. They're grieving a loss, too. They're hurt and angry, but not at you."

Cordelia nodded and sniffled. "I'm Cordelia," she managed. "I knew your mother, and that's what I expected to be to you. You didn't have one, and babies need a mother."

Connor had no idea what to say to that. Several more humans gave their names and allegiances, and then Spike spoke again.

"If you feel up to it, I think all of us would like to hear about you. What your typical day is like, things like that."

"Or, if you're tired, I can find a room for you," Angel offered.

"I am tired." His head was spinning, his heart hurt, and his stomach was uncomfortable from all of the food. Of all the many people, he found he was most comfortable with the vampire his father hated. Connor gratefully followed Angel upstairs.

"This was your room," the big vampire said softly, opening a door. Connor looked inside at the crib, the furniture scaled for an infant. Not enough time had passed since the kidnapping for dust to settle on the surfaces. Angel picked up a book from the rocking chair, then led his son a few doors past the nursery. "There's a bed in here already made up." He showed Connor how to use the shower and toilet, showed him on the sink how to make the water warm or cool. Then he handed over the book.

"This is a, uh, memory book. We didn't get to put much in it, but there are pictures of your christening, things like that." He opened it to the third page. "I don't have any photographs, but this is a sketch I did of Darla. Your mother."

Connor's fingers clenched on the book. Angel had drawn a scene from his imagination. In it, Darla was holding her baby close, gentle love on her face.

"It's yours," Angel said. "It, uh, might also help you get a sense of who we are, these strangers who love you." With that, he stepped out of the room. "I'm just down the hall, if you need me, across from your old room. If you get hungry, I'm sure there'll be food left over in the kitchen."

⸹

Next Chapter: An unexpected member of the Scoobies takes down a Big Bad.


	41. Clearing the Board

**Clearing the Board**

⸹

Los Angeles

April 2002

⸹

"Red?"

"Hey," she said wanly, wandering over to where Spike stood with the Summers ladies. "That wasn't traumatic or anything." After Angel took Connor up to find a bedroom, dinner had broken up.

Buffy made a soft, snorting noise. "Oh, no. Piece of cake."

"We saved him, pet."

Her tone softened. "I know. It's just… He's a teenager now."

Dawn gave her sister a perfunctory glare, then put out her hand for Willow's. "I wanted to ask your help with something. To see if it can be done, I mean."

"Sure, Dawnie." She realized Dawn's hand was the same size as her own now.

Dawn didn't ask right away, instead turning to her mother. "Would you go get Mr. Willingham, Mom?"

When Joyce turned away, Spike put his hand on Buffy's shoulder. "And I'll go tell Peaches what we're up to. Last thing I want is for him to find another reason to be distant with us." He wandered up to the third floor landing and waited at the top of the stairs. Spike already knew Angel needed a few minutes alone.

Once everyone else gathered in the office behind the registration desk, Dawn confessed that she had visited the Wolfram and Hart building. She told them what she sensed inside and how she'd marked the wall. Dawn looked around at the two magic-wielders, at her sister, then finally at her mother. "I want to close that link. It isn't even a door; it's like a chink in the wall. There's no metaphysical reason we can't plug it."

"She's right," Aubrey said slowly. "They've taken advantage of a naturally occurring opening. Closing that wouldn't draw the attention of any Powers."

Joyce asked her question directly to her younger daughter. "What would it take for you to close it? You were exhausted after holding that door so long."

"I'm better, now that I can, like, lower my arms. Plus, I had four slices of pizza."

"You want to use blood," Willow said, giving Dawn a narrow look.

Dawn looked down, her brown hair obscuring her face. "I do." She took a first aid kit from beneath the desk. Opening it, she took out a curved needle with suture thread already pulled through the eye. Buffy made a sound of protest. "Oh! Not to sew me up. I just need to prick my finger. So, this needle and alcohol swabs. That's all, just a drop."

"I've been listening to," Willow hesitated, then decided not to use April's name, "to our spy. There's a lot of coordination with the Wolfram and Hart offices worldwide. If we weaken them here in Los Angeles, there's an office just up in San Francisco."

Willingham looked at Dawn. "How likely is it that each office has their own opening?"

"I don't know. How common are natural openings?"

He shook his head, looking troubled. "I don't know. That may be a question for Ms. Burkle. All I know is that magic is one of the few things we know of that can flow between dimensions. Our dimension neutralizes a lot of magic – grounds it out, if you will, like electrical current."

"It's just used for communication?" Willow asked. At Dawn's nod, she looked thoughtful. "There would be at least two, wouldn't there? One for each side of the earth, to account for the curvature?"

"Metaphysically, that might not matter." Willingham shrugged. "I'm making educated guesses."

"We need to visualize this," Willow said. She looked around the office for shelves that might hold an atlas, but she spotted something even better. She brought the globe over to the desk. "Hold my hand, Dawnie, and concentrate on the vibe you got from the building." Almost immediately, a little orange light flared above the surface of the globe on the coast of California. A moment later, another orange light flickered into existence a bit further north.

"There's Los Angeles and San Francisco," Buffy said.

More lights began to show up across North and South America, then in Europe and Asia. Africa and Australia trailed, and the last orange speck lit up over the Philippines. "There have to be over forty of them," Joyce breathed in dismay.

"Give me a moment," Dawn said. She handed the needle to Buffy, then closed her eyes to concentrate better.

Joyce immediately took the needle from Buffy and began opening several alcohol swabs. The moment Willow and Dawn lit up the globe, she knew the two of them were going to attempt to snuff out those lights right now. The least she could do was make sure Dawn's finger didn't get infected.

Four sullen red lights appeared, roughly centered over the four biggest continents. "There they are," Dawn said, her voice sounding low and strained.

Joyce sighed. "Hold out your finger."

Dawn still held Willow's hand with her left, so she held out her right hand. On instinct, Buffy took Willow's left hand in her own. Grimacing, Joyce jabbed the pad of Dawn's middle finger as quickly and precisely as she could.

A single drop of blood welled up, starkly red against her skin. Dawn opened her eyes. There was no circle, but they all felt magic spring up around them. The hairs on Dawn's arms stirred as gooseflesh broke out all over her body. She stared at the welling blood, then her eyes went to each of the four red lights hovering above the globe.

Keeping her hand level, she reached out and tapped one side of the globe, setting it to spin counterclockwise. The lights spun, too, orange and red, keeping their original position above the marked areas. Dawn help her hand above the geosynchronous lights, then narrowed her eyes. She didn't say anything, but the feeling of magic double, tripled around them, pressing against their skin. Buffy's eyes widened as Willow drew on her Slayer strength, too. Only Aubrey breathed, drawing in air through his nostrils in a long, shallow pull. Dawn dipped her hand lower, into the path of the lights. As they passed through her hand, each red light suffused with green, then snuffed out. The spinning globe slowed, then stopped.

Dawn let out a breath, then put her bloody finger into her mouth. All of the orange lights winked out of existence.

"Get that out of your mouth," Joyce said, exasperated. "I'll bandage it."

"Don't," Aubrey blurted.

"Wait," Willow said, half a second later. "It's better if none of it spills."

"Eew," Buffy said.

Dawn glared at her sister, then looked uncertainly at the globe. "How will we know if it worked?" she mumbled around her finger.

Willow let go of the Summers sisters' hands. "Let me go get my laptop," she smirked.

She passed Spike at the door. "Angel says give the bastards – Oh. You already did it," he said, feeling the dregs of the magic in the room.

Joyce watched Dawn as she took the finger from her mouth and squeezed the tip. Satisfied, she held it out to her mother. "I don't know what I'm going to do with any of you," Joyce sighed, and began to disinfect the little wound.

Buffy met Spike's eyes and silently filled him in on what happened. He lifted his brows, then bent to kiss her cheek. He gave Dawn and Joyce similar kisses. Aubrey put on a piqued look and craned his neck, presenting one jowly cheek. Spike laughed and kissed him, too.

"Things got weird while I was gone," Willow noted, coming in with the laptop. She'd already fired it up.

"You think they only now got weird?" Joyce asked. She began rooting through the bandages for a small one.

"Huh," Willow said. "She's on the move." She turned the laptop so everyone could see April's point of view. "Hang on," she added, and turned on the sound.

The first thing they heard was a fire alarm. Lights were strobing on and off, so it took them all a moment to see that the robot was in a stairwell. _Angel_ , Spike sent, c _ome to the office right away_. The big vampire was at the door within three seconds. "Live from Wolfram and Hart," the Master drawled.

"Stay with me, Roger," April said. She turned her head, and they could see a middle-aged man in a security uniform right beside her. The robot seemed to be holding him upright. She pushed open a door that led into a large open space. Even though April was no longer going down stairs, her point of view still seemed shaky. Other people streamed past them through what looked like a lobby.

"It looks like footage from an earthquake," Buffy said. Spike pulled her close into a reassuring embrace.

"Are you recording that?" Angel asked. When Willow nodded, he ducked back out the door, calling for the Angel Investigations people.

Willow did something that caused a new window to open on the screen, and she started typing. It wasn't only Gunn, Fred, Wesley, and Cordelia who came to see what was going on. Most everyone who wasn't a member of the coven also converged on the office, wondering what was wrong. "They just closed the communications link to the Wolfram and Hart senior partners," Angel explained tersely, waiting for Willow to turn the computer around again.

"The white room?" Wesley asked, getting a nod of confirmation from the big vampire.

"I sent April the command to go back to Sunnydale," Willow explained. "I feel bad that she'll have to go that far alone, but I don't want anyone tracking her here. If her batteries start to run down, she'll call home." Willow drew the cursor along the bar at the bottom of the video screen to start over, then turned it and let it play.

April got the security guard to the plaza. First responders were already rushing toward the building, and they claimed the human right away. The robot looked up at the top floors, which were halfway caved in.

Spike smelled Dawn's tears, so he was the first to take her in a reassuring embrace. "It's Saturday or Sunday across the planet," he said. "There won't be many people at work."

"Even if they were," Angel said, his voice hard, "they were evil."

April went very still, then turned away from the plaza. "She got the call home," Willow said.

"Go back about ten seconds," Buffy said, her eyes narrow as she focused on a dark-haired woman limping past. "That's the bitch that tried to rape my husband."

"What?" Joyce asked sharply. She wasn't the only one who looked outraged at this news.

Spike's mouth tightened. _Sorry_ , Buffy said, small in his mind. For everyone else, he flapped a dismissive hand. "Her spell didn't work very well, and Buffy saved me right away."

Joyce wasn't dissuaded. "That's the Wolfram and Hart lawyer who tried to kidnap you?" When he gave her a reluctant nod, she stared at him in dismay. "You didn't say anything about… the other."

"Not relevant, love." His eyes were fixed on the screen, watching April's point of view as she walked past fire engines and police cars. At his side, his sister-in-law was no longer shedding tears. Dawn's jaw was set, and her bloodthirsty expression was one any vampire would envy.

Wesley gave his head a shake and looked away from Spike. "Uh, news will be on in a few minutes. I'll bring a television into the lobby."

As people began to trickle out of the office, Groo moved in to stand next to Willow. "What magic is this?" he asked, nodding at the laptop.

"Uh, not magic," she said. "It's something humans developed. It's based on a lot of other breakthroughs." Willow thought for a few seconds. "In this dimension, we first mastered fire, then the lever, then invented the wheel. Every so often, we would make breakthroughs, but travel took so long, we couldn't share new stuff with people in other cities. Once we built roads and ships, every time someone invented something, another person could improve it or try it for another purpose. Sharing made the inventions happen more often." She nodded at the laptop. "This kind of thing has only been around a few years. There are people from this dimension who don't know how it works." She had to smile at Groo's pleased look. "I'll tell you more about it later, if you'd like."

"I would. Thank you."

Behind Groo, Oz came back into the room, his head lowered slightly. Willow's smile deepened, and she shook her head at him. Groo turned carefully, not wanting to trigger any territorial behaviors in the other partial-demon. "Associated Press is reporting the same kind of thing happened in San Francisco, Washington, and Miami." He nodded toward the lobby. "Local news is live here in L.A."

"Let's go see," Willow said. She was subdued. It was one thing to shut down a communications link to outsider demons; it was another to worry that there had been casualties among the people contracted to vacuum the hallways. She took Oz's hand.

He squeezed it. "Tara's sound asleep," he said.

"Good. This would make her really anxious."

Oz gave her a solemn look and squeezed her fingers again. He knew she was anxious, as well.

Giles made an annoyed face and reached into the pocket of his trousers, bringing out his silenced phone. With an apologetic look at Joyce, he went back into the office to take the call. A few moments later, he came back out and headed to the door. Spike sent a swift thought to Buffy, and they followed. Giles and Buffy returned shortly with a handsome woman wearing a sari and holding a suitcase. Spike was behind her with two more pieces of luggage.

"Faith?" Giles said.

She turned away from the television, distracted. "What up, G?"

He sent an amused look to the woman he was escorting. "Alpana Vishnaswamy, this is Faith Lehane. Faith, Alpana is here as your new Watcher."

"Hullo," she said in a cheerful British accent, putting down her suitcase.

"Oh! Hey." Faith was flustered. "It's been a busy day, and I know I shouldn't have forgotten you were coming, but… hi," she finished lamely.

Alpana took her hand. "Delighted to meet you, Faith." Closer up, she looked tired despite her chipper tone. "I know Rupert a bit, and he's been very complimentary of your work the last couple of days." The older woman let go and gave Faith another smile. "I hope we'll suit, but I have to admit I'm not at my best right now. The last leg of the flight was brutal."

"I'm glad you made it in," Faith managed.

Alpana looked up at Giles, then back at Faith. "Rupert said the hotel is somewhat functional?"

"We're quite the hotel at the moment," Wesley said. He had forced himself to come to greet her, and he held out his hand.

"Mr. Wyndham-Price?" she asked, raising an eyebrow in query. When he nodded, she smiled again. "I've heard very good things about your freelance work here in Los Angeles."

"Just Wesley, please. And, if you'll allow me, I'll show you to a vacant room."

"Alpana! Hullo, love," Aubrey said. He'd also left the television screen to greet his fellow Watcher.

"Aubrey, you're a sight for these old eyes!" Alpana bypassed the handshake and gave him a hug.

"We'll talk about old eyes when you have another forty years on you," he said reproachfully. "Bit shattered, are you?"

"A bit," she agreed. The Watcher turned back to Faith. "We'll get to know each other better tomorrow, Faith, talk about how we'll handle things. I was Watcher to a young lady who was never called to be a Slayer, so I have some experience, but it's very different to work with an adult instead of a schoolgirl." She picked up her suitcase. "Just tell me if I'm treating you like a teenager." A wide yawn interrupted her. "Yes, please, Mr. – er, Wesley. I'd be grateful for that room."

"This way." He gestured to the stairs, then lifted an inquiring brow at Spike, who handed over the rest of her luggage.

The vampire watched them until they turned at the landing. "She seems nice," he said to Aubrey and Faith.

"She is," he harrumphed. "You rather deserve a good one. You're due."

Faith raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. She'd reserve judgement, and she fully expected quite a bit of judgement directed her way, as well.

⸹

Connor waited until the feeling of the big vampire faded before he picked up the book and took it to the bathroom. He closed the door, then turned on the light. Squinting a bit, he turned it off and on a few times. Shaking his head a little at the wonder of it, he sat down on the edge of the tub and opened his memory book.

His mother was beautiful. He recognized the look on her face, the softness the same as in his father's eyes when he'd killed his first demon at age six. Connor closed the book partway and shut his eyes, tears falling down his cheeks.

His father was dead. It had been so sudden, so brutal. And he couldn't help being thankful. The cough had been bad the past few weeks, and he'd become so scrawny. During the day, he was stoic, but at night, he moaned in his sleep from the pain. Father had been dying slowly. Quick seemed better; at least he had his revenge on his father's killer this way.

Revenge.

He was supposed to get revenge on Angelus, too, was supposed to honor his father by killing his father. But the big vampire had promised to stay, had told him that he could take his time before taking Holtz's vengeance. Before deciding whether to take vengeance.

Connor looked at the picture of his mother again. She was looking down at the baby with all the softness he'd never known. Quickly, he turned to another page. There was an incredibly detailed portrait of the tall, dark-haired woman – Cordelia, if he remembered her name right – holding a baby wearing a long gown. Behind her was Angel, the dark-haired human Wesley, and someone he had not seen, wearing what he recognized from his father's description as a clerical collar.

Holtz had instructed him in Christianity; the Bible was the single book they had in Quor'Toth. It had been in his father's coat when he jumped into the portal. Holtz had lamented the fact that he couldn't truly baptize Connor. Holtz had told stories around their hearth at night, drawing pictures with words of the grandeur of cathedrals, of the rituals.

The vampire had me christened.

It was the only possibility, the only ritual he knew involving an infant. Connor closed his eyes, hoping his father knew now, hoping it might be a comfort. He sat up a little, closing the book, and left the bathroom, turning out the light. Confused, grief-stricken, and bone tired, he had a moment to marvel at the softness of the bed, then simply fell into an exhausted sleep.

⸹

By the next morning, the destruction of the Wolfram and Hart law firm worldwide was the top story on the news. The words 'terrorism' and 'extremists' were tossed around, but journalists who had done their background work were already talking about the high profile casework of the law firm that harmed pensioners, the environment, and poor landowners. Wolfram and Hart no longer had any paid publicists smoothing over their usual operating model, and it seemed none of their employees were willing to appear on television.

"They're scrambling," Anya said. She'd been watching since six o'clock, and she tilted back her third cup of coffee. "It's fairly easy for reporters to check court records and find out that they always took the sleaziest side in any case."

"How many dead?" Xander asked. He sat down next to her and had a sip of her coffee.

"The estimates were very high, because no one can locate any of the lawyers. Five bodies have been recovered, though."

He grimaced. "How many worldwide?"

"Five," she repeated with a frown.

"Oh! That's great! I thought you meant just here in Los Angeles." Cheered by anything less than the body count from his own high school graduation, Xander gave her a smile. "Ready to get on the road?"

"I am." She beamed at him. "Do you know what today is?"

"Two months until we get married?" he asked. Then he gave her an abject look. "Or, were you looking for 'Sunday?' Because it is Sunday." Beaming, Anya leaned in and gave him a kiss.

They weren't the only ones ready to get back to Sunnydale. As soon as Cordelia brought a disheveled Angel downstairs, Anya and Xander said their goodbyes and left, giving Michael, Jonathan, and Andrew a ride. Tara and Willow stood in the garden with Connor, Angel, and Cordelia for a silent moment, preparing to place a barrier spell on the grave, but Connor asked if Holtz could be buried on consecrated ground instead. Looking relieved to have a chance to move an incriminating body from their premises, Wesley promised he could arrange that. Fifteen minutes later, Willow and Tara headed back to Sunnydale with Oz and Dawn, with Joyce driving them in her SUV.

Faith was having an uncomfortable breakfast meeting with her new Watcher and many of her old ones. Giles and Wesley produced tea and some fried sausages, and a few moments later Aubrey appeared with a pan of beans and a package of scones. Spike peeked into the dining room, then went up the stairs to knock on Luisa's door.

"Lu? You feel okay driving Rupes and Willingham back to – Oh."

Luisa opened the door, holding a sheet around her body and giving Spike a glimpse of a wide shoulder and long, black hair as Groo slept in her bed. "I don't mind," she said. "You'll be staying longer?"

"Until tonight. Buffy has to get back for class tomorrow." He raised his eyebrows and gave her a thumb's up and an inquiring look, then a thumb's down, and waited.

She gave a very European shrug. "He's willing to learn," she allowed, speaking in a low tone.

"Why him, pet?" Spike knew she'd turned down Vince and probably Brian and Cory.

"First impression. He felt bad that I have to feel… everything."

"Cordy and Angel say he's a good guy."

She nodded. "He is. He's a little lost right now." Another shrug. "A lot of the people here are."

"I'll bet." Spike gave her a grin. "Good on you, Lu."

She gave him a smile he'd never seen before, full and impish, then closed the door. A bit stunned by the scene, Spike went back to his wife, who was packing. He showed her the newest development, giving Buffy her first real smile since they'd come to Los Angeles. _That's wonderful. Good for Lu. You know she isn't going to choose anyone bad._

 _No, she wouldn't._ Spike went to put his arms around her. _Ready to get back home?_

 _Oh, yeah. Everything around Angel seems… muddy. I mean, we did what we came for, but I can't really be happy, you know?_

 _I know. How are you with Wolfram and Hart?_

 _I'm okay. I hope Dawn is._

 _Already spoken with the Wiccas. They'll bring it up on the ride, where she's trapped._

 _And you say we're the sneaky ones._

 _Have you talked to Joyce yet?_

Buffy put the boots she wore on patrol in their bag and then into the suitcase before she answered. "Kinda putting it off?" she answered, her voice small.

He brushed her hair from her shoulder and put his cool fingers at the base of her neck. "We'll ask Wesley to give Giles some more stories about the law firm. They needed to be shut down."

"People died."

"They did," Spike agreed. He met her gaze, then kissed her forehead, nose, and mouth.

Buffy wrapped her arms around him. It was easy to justify, easy to say the people saved from Wolfram and Hart outweighed the people lost… but she had never been able to believe that was her call to make. She hoped her sister would be okay.

Connor made it down the stairs and into the kitchen without anyone noticing him. There was food left over from breakfast and the previous night's dinner. He shook his head a little at the refrigerator; what an ingenious way to store food. In the back of the top shelf stood several jars of a dark red liquid. He wondered where the blood came from, who it had belonged to.

"Hey, Steven."

"Hello. Cordelia?"

She nodded, giving him a smile that left him dazzled. "Are you getting enough to eat?"

"Yes. There's plenty," he added, waving toward the refrigerator.

"Thanks. I didn't eat breakfast, but I have to say cold pizza sounds really good right now." She got a slice and leaned against the counter where he was demolishing a plateful of food.

"I saw you in the book. My book, I guess." She had been holding the baby each time she appeared.

Cordelia wasn't sure how to react. Connor's face gave nothing away. She started with the words she'd always planned to tell him. "I know I'm not your mother. But I love – loved Connor like he was my own." She took a breath, seeing something flicker in his eyes. "That was my role. I realize that you probably don't need a mother, not now. But I'd like to get to know you, get to be your friend."

He had stopped eating and just studied her. "Why are you here? You're a human."

"I knew Angel from Sunnydale. He saved me from a vampire when I first came to the city, and he gave me a job. A friend of ours, Doyle – and I have to tell you his story, someday, because he was wonderful – gave me his visions when he died. The visions are meant to guide Angel, to get him to where he's needed, so he can rescue people.

"I don't have the visions anymore – like you said, I'm only human, and they were going to kill me. Groo – buff guy with long hair? – has them now. The reason I'm still here…" She gave him a smile with a sad edge to it. "Over the years, I changed. Grew up, maybe, and wanted to help other people more than I wanted to help myself. And, I fell in love with Angel. He isn't the most open guy, so when you came into our lives, it probably saved us a year or two waiting for him to admit he loved me, too."

"You… married him?"

She held up her hand. "We're engaged." At the boy's blank look, she added, "He's promised to marry me."

"Oh."

Cordelia put her hand down, almost behind her back. "Not that it's going to happen anytime soon. Right now," she moved closer to him, "we're focused on you, getting you comfortable being back in the world."

She gave him an anxious look, and Connor cleared his throat and looked down. "I think you must be insane to want to marry a vampire."

He missed the stricken look on her face. "Ha ha," she laughed, a false sound. "You're probably right." Cordelia took a couple of steps back. "I'll, uh, let you finish eating."

Connor saw tears in her eyes as she turned away. He'd hurt her feelings and was surprised to realize he felt bad for doing so. But he had told her the truth. There was nothing wrong with that. A troubled frown on his face, he turned back to his plate.

⸹

"Steven, is it?"

"Yes," he answered warily. He had been on his way upstairs, stomach too full and needing to be alone, when the blond vampire appeared next to him. Connor was pleased he hadn't flinched.

"Sit with me a moment." Spike sat down on the stairs, clearly expecting Connor to do so as well.

He waited a few seconds, wanting to establish that he wasn't obeying a command. The vampire had an expressive face, and he saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

"Holtz teach you to read?"

The boy blinked, surprised by this. "I can read."

"Good. I have something for you," Spike said, handing over a small black object that had been in his hand. "It's called a mobile phone. Most kids your age have these. You can use it to contact me – to contact most anyone, really, over long distances. If your father gets to be too much, use that to call me. It isn't magic, though it will seem like it is. We'll be able to talk. And if the old man needs it, I'll come down from Sunnydale and set him straight for you."

Connor stared at what looked like a little, hinged box, but left that part alone for the moment. "You said that you're his master?"

"Yes. I give him orders, then I beat him until he follows them."

Connor didn't smile back at him, though he almost wanted to. "What kind of orders?"

Spike leaned back against the tread and considered the boy. "I've never had to tell him to do good, because he already tries to do that. Mostly, I've told him to keep me and the rest in his life. His soul was given as a curse to make him suffer for what Angelus did. He tends to close himself away and brood."

"How is it that you have a soul?"

"Down to my wife, innit? I always was a bit more human than most vamps, but I couldn't live in her world without my soul. I didn't know right from wrong. I went to the other side of the world, won a series of trials to earn it. Then I came back and told her it was safe if she could bring herself to love me."

"I already loved him," Buffy said, coming down the stairs. She gave them a smile and sat on the step above.

Connor found that he had turned to face her, had scooted away a little so she'd have room in the conversation. There was something about the Slayer, a gravity, that seemed somewhat like his father – like Holtz. "How could you?"

"Spike made a treaty," she waited to see if Connor knew the word, "with me when he first came to Sunnydale. He hasn't killed a human since that time." Buffy's eyes went to her husband. "I overhead him say that Angel suffers for what he did. He isn't the only one."

Spike looked away and lifted a shoulder. "Doesn't signify. I am a vampire and a killer, son. I've chosen to be better than that. So has your father."

Connor looked at Buffy. "How can you love him?" This had been on his mind since his encounter with Cordelia.

Buffy's eyes, still on Spike, softened. "How could I not? The only evil demon to ever choose good, if you believe the Roman Catholic Church." Spike scoffed, but Buffy went on. "I assume Mr. Holtz taught you about the Bible?" When the boy nodded, frowning, she went on. "When someone is trying to do right, should you tell them they can't, because they didn't in the past? Or should you hold them up and help them take the next step toward the good?"

Connor frowned. The Bible did say things like that… but it also called for vengeance, an eye for an eye.

Buffy saw his confusion and switched topics. "You can call me with that, too," she said, nodding at the cell phone in the boy's hand. "Both Spike and I will tell you the truth, no matter what you ask us, and we'll come here if you need us." Buffy gave him a little smile. "It seems to me that you're handling this really well, but I know it's harder on you than we can know. The other thing we can do, is just listen."

Connor nodded and stood up. He made it to his room without encountering anyone else. Buffy and Spike watched him until he made it to the next landing.

 _You're a dab hand with kids, love. You really should change your major to counselling._

 _No, no more psychology for me. I've settled on physical education, and if I stick with it, I can graduate on time._

⸹

"Steven?"

Connor knew it was his father knocking softly on his door. He'd had a horrible stomachache for a while, then had thought it best to stay near the bathroom for a couple of hours. He didn't think it was the food, so much as how much food. "Yes?" The door opened. He sat up because there was a vampire in the room.

"How are you feeling? Your stomach?"

How had he known? Oh. Smell. "Better. I'm not used to so much food."

A spasm of pain went across Angel's face; his child had gone hungry. "I understand. You'll learn how much to eat at one time."

"Whose blood is that in the kitchen?"

"Blood?" Angel asked, worried for a moment that someone had been injured. Then he realized. "Oh. Uh, it's cow's blood." When Connor looked blank, he went on. "A cow is a herd animal. Humans here use it for food, but not the blood, not very often." Moving carefully, not wanting to set his son's nerves on edge, he crossed the small space and sat on the end of the bed. "Other times, I drink from another kind of animal, a pig. I don't, uh, drink from humans." He shrugged, resolutely not thinking of what had been done with Connor's blood.

"Why?"

"I don't hurt humans. Not anymore." Angel was glad he was a good liar, thinking of how he sometimes still did. "Humans aren't food."

"All because you have a soul?"

"Yes." Connor's eyes were studying him, and Angel remembered again that the boy was very sharp. "That's why I asked the coven, the one that helped me go to Pylea, to modify the curse, so I can never be Angelus again."

"You know what Angelus did? You remember, I mean?"

Angel closed his eyes. "I do. If you're asking specifically if I remember what I did to Daniel Holtz, to his family… I do." Before he could go on, he overhead sharp voices near the lobby. Not giving Connor a chance to say anything, he plowed on, knowing he needed to end the conversation. "Taking my son from me because I took his son from him, all those years ago… Let's just say, that was a revenge Angelus himself would have been proud of. Nothing could have hurt me more." He stood, keeping his expression stony, and walked toward the door, but not before he caught Connor's look of surprise. The boy had never thought of it from that angle. "I came to see if you had any questions about your mother, but something's going on downstairs." He paused in the open doorway. "Come with me? We may need you." He missed the second time his son's eyes widened in surprise.

Groo was sitting on the red couch near the garden door, Cordelia beside him. She was holding her head, and the black stone on her bracelet was glowing red. Lorne met Angel and Connor at the foot of the stairs. "Grooberry muffin had a vision, but no idea where it was going down, so Cord is looking for directions. Something about humans in a cage and two kinds of demons fighting for possession of them."

Angel looked around. Buffy and Spike were standing well apart from their luggage, ready for battle. Faith and her new Watcher were staring at the two seers on the couch. Wes and Gunn were already at the weapons cabinet. He closed his eyes and half-turned to his son before focusing on him. A new champion for the family business. "This is what we do. Someone in the city needs help. If you want to come with us, go get a weapon." Connor glanced again at Groo and Cordelia, then headed across the lobby. Angel turned to Lorne. "Where's Fred?"

"Gassing up your convertible. She noticed it was low last time you guys were out."

The big vampire put a hand on the sleeve of Lorne's violet suit jacket. "Do you mind holding down the fort while we're out?" At the demon's nod of assent, he went to Faith.

"First big one," she said, anticipation in her tone.

"I'm ready to get back into things," Alpana said. She nodded toward Cordelia. "Does it usually take long?"

"No. But it's foretelling. We'll have time to get there."

"You're… not coming, are you?" Faith asked, staring at her new Watcher.

"Of course. We're saving lives, aren't we?" Alpana leaned down and opened the flap of her business bag, retrieving a stake and a .32 caliber revolver. "Before I was Andrea's Watcher, I was on a response team in Tokyo. We covered down to the Philippines and always fought with the Sydney office over who had responsibility for Borneo." She turned to Angel. "I'll need to borrow a blade, if it's all right with you, er, Angel?"

"Sure." He nodded toward the cabinet, then met Faith's impressed gaze. "Not what you expected?" Angel asked quietly, after the older woman walked briskly away.

"No. Even Giles wasn't that involved."

Gunn looked up from inspecting the dagger he was taking as a secondary weapon to find Connor staring at him. He was irritated, and then decided it could be a learning moment. He went over to the boy. "Are you wondering about my skin color?"

Connor flushed, then shook his head. "You… don't, uh, have hair."

Gunn blinked in surprise, not expecting this. "Oh. I shave it off."

"Every day?"

"Yeah." Gunn had to smile. "I find it easier to deal with. One time, I killed some demon with yellow goo for blood. It got in my hair, and I had to shave it off. I just never grew it back."

"Why is your skin brown?"

"My ancestors came from a part of the world where our sun shines hot every day." He pointed at Connor's forearm. "Yours came from a part of the world where it's cooler and has less sun. Over the generations, our bodies adapted to those climates, including adaptations for sun exposure." Gunn shrugged. "My ancestors needed darker skin against the sun. Yours needed lighter skin to absorb more vitamin D from sunlight."

"Vitamindee?" Connor repeated, stumbling over the words.

"Vitamin D," Gunn repeated, forming the syllables carefully. "It's one of the things our bodies need to stay healthy. Like food or sleep."

Angel, though his gaze was on Groo and Cordelia, had been listening to the conversation. "Gunn's ancestors are from a huge continent – land – called Africa. Darla's came from England and mine from Ireland, two islands in the northern part of the world."

"Father was from England, too." Connor grasped at the familiar word. Angel turned his attention back to the seers, not wanting his son to see the hatred in his eyes for the man who had stolen the name 'father' from him.

The glow faded from Cordelia's bracelet at the same time Fred came into the lobby from the sewer entrance. Cordelia stood, Groo quickly reaching to brace her when she swayed. "Got it. Port warehouses, near those big cranes."

For Connor, the trip to the battle was magical. Night had just fallen, and light glowed everywhere he looked, on stationary streetlamps or moving with other vehicles. People were everywhere, in other cars, on the streets, visible through lighted windows. The speed of the car was incredible, and since his father had carefully explained the convertible was a 1967 Plymouth GTX, perhaps magical, too. Swiveling in his seat, he could see Buffy and Spike's blond heads in the truck behind them, going just as fast. He could smell the ocean before he ever saw it, salt and life and decay. Even though it was dark, he could see the overwhelming vastness of it as it stretched to the lighter horizon, the largest amount of water he'd ever seen, all the city lights sparkling off its rippled surface. Enormous, skeletal structures loomed over the edges of it, lifting crates the size of houses from ships whose scale he could barely comprehend.

As they paused at a traffic light before turning onto the streets near the docks, Angel put the top down, and Connor began to grin. The feel of the night air against his face made him feel more alive than he ever had, overcoming the nervousness of being outside safe shelter after dark. The little black car Cordelia drove passed them, and he could see both her and Groo scanning the buildings, looking for places that matched what they'd already seen. When she stopped the car, Angel pulled alongside, and the pickup behind them drove past, headed to the far side of the warehouse.

He could sense demons inside. Connor fell in behind his father and Groo, and Faith came in on his right. She was holding an odd weapon with a red handle, nervous anticipation crackling off her. By now, they could all hear cries and the clank of blades, the sounds of battle.

Gunn moved ahead and threw open the door, pivoting to the side. Angel went in first, immediately calling, "Clear!" The fight was toward the back of the building, not yet visible because of the large containers stacked in the cavernous interior. They broke into two loose groups: Groo, Faith, Alpana, Cordelia, and Gunn; Connor followed his father, Wes, and Fred. Just as they came to the back of the building, Connor caught a motion above them: Buffy and Spike were poised to drop down on the conflict. For a moment, he darted around his father's broad back to see the fight: a group of short, bulky greenish-grey demons were fighting another group of taller red demons.

He never saw or heard a signal, but Angel charged forward just as Buffy and Spike leapt down on the opposite side of the battle. The demons immediately stopped fighting each other and turned on the Angel Investigations team. It didn't do them much good until someone hit a release button for a garage door. Several six-legged attack animals sprang out, some kind of lesser demon, and began harrying at their legs.

Connor was trying to slash into one of the smaller beasts when a red demon flanked him. He turned to take it down, immediately pivoting back to the four-legged beast. Spike had it by the muzzle and, with a wink, lifted it into the air so Connor would have access to its soft underbelly. He tossed the corpse into one of the green demons and charged after it. Connor met the eyes of another green demon. It snarled and charged him.

Three skirmishes later, there were no more demons in his area. Connor moved next to Wesley, who was watching the blond Slayer, Buffy. She was fighting two red demons and one of their attack beasts, her sword flashing. He realized that everyone else was watching, too.

"B!" Faith called, holding up her red-handled weapon.

Buffy didn't respond, but when she had an opening, she left her sword in one of the red demons. She spun on one foot, opening her body toward Faith, and caught the red handle in her right hand, coming down to face the four-legged beast even as she dropped to extend a leg and topple her remaining opponent. As she rose, she slashed the axe across the throat of the attack animal, bringing the weapon up in an arc, using her body to make a graceful curve that continued the slash into the neck of the last demon.

Behind her, Spike took a step forward to plant one combat boot on the hand of a green demon. Though mortally wounded, it had been reaching for a weapon, its eyes on Buffy's back. Spike drove his blade into its face, ending the last-gasp attack.

"Thanks, Faith," Buffy said, a small smile on her face.

Connor looked up at Wesley, who was shaking his head in admiration. "Wow." The former Watcher shrugged. "I work with Angel and even Gunn nearly every week, but I forget how amazing Slayers are."

Gunn put a hand on Connor's shoulder. "Good fight, man. I like that kick you used to knock two of them together."

"Uh… thank you."

Cordelia and Angel had gone forward to the bars of the cage, trying to talk to the humans inside. After a moment, Angel shook his head. "Anyone have a clue?"

"Hokkien, I think," Spike said.

"I speak a little," Alpana said, her eyes on one of the women behind the bars.

Meanwhile, Buffy, Faith, and Fred were rolling over bodies, searching for keys. Spike went off by himself, prowling among the shipping containers. Seeing this, Groo followed him.

"How's your hearing?" Spike asked.

"I can follow a trikken through the trees at night."

Spike assumed this was a good thing. "I thought there might be people still in some of these containers," he said, putting a hand on one of them. "I was listening for heartbeats."

Groo's expression changed to one of concern. "I'll check the ones on this side."

By the time they finished their circuit, the cage was open and the humans were free. Some of them were gathered around a woman who was calling her brother; others were thanking their rescuers. Connor found himself patted and hugged more than he had been in his entire life. Angel saw him withdraw and went to join him.

"What's going to happen to them?"

"I think that woman's family is coming to get them."

"All of them?"

Angel shrugged. "Probably. We can't really call in the authorities, because they don't know demons exist."

"What were they going to do with the humans?"

Angel's mouth thinned. "Slaves of one kind or another." He assumed a lot of them would be used for blood. There was always blood available for vampires in demon bars. He shook it off. "We did a good thing here."

Wesley came up to him. "I gathered that the red demons were the ones who took possession of these people when they left the cargo containers, then the gray-green demons showed up and tried to steal them."

"Kind of weird," Angel mused. "Wes, do you mind if we take the scenic route home? I bet C – Steven would like to see Venice Beach."

⸹

Cordelia walked into her apartment with a sigh of relief. "Hey, Dennis. So, Connor hasn't killed Angel yet." She went on from there, trading out the clothes she'd already washed at the Hyperion for a different part of her wardrobe, then falling on the sofa. "… and he hasn't been to my room since! I mean, like that's going to offend Connor somehow."

She frowned. "Though probably that Holtz guy did raise him with strict religious ideas." Cordelia turned sideways and put her feet on the sofa. "Anyway, it's good to be here. I missed you."

Her answering machine floated up into the air.

"Oh! I forget I have a landline half the time." She got up and checked the message, which came in just before she opened the door. "It's my agent. Surprised I even remember the number," she mumbled.

"Cordelia, honey, I've got an audition you should go to. The part is a grieving widow who's suspected of murdering her husband. Come by and pick up the part; the casting director has already seen your headshot." There was a pause and a deep breath. "I hardly know what to do with myself; I haven't had a network contact me with a part for months. Anyway, I need you to come by today, all right? _Ciao_ , sweetheart."

"Wow." Cordelia stared at the answering machine, then played the message again. "I heard that right, didn't I, Dennis? I've got an audition."

⸹

"Wesley?"

He froze, then took the key from his apartment door. Wesley had decided to spend the night in his own place for the first time since they'd got Connor back. He was desperate for solitude and sleep. Now this. "Lilah. Why are you here?"

"Maybe I'm looking for safe haven."

He studied her. She looked… disheveled. It didn't make her any less lovely. "You have definitely come to the wrong place."

"I believe you help the helpless."

"You're mistaking me for Angel. Also, you are far from helpless."

She came closer, shaking her head. "Haven't you noticed? It's practically a war zone out there. Every human and demon fighting for every little scrap of power." Lilah gave him a grin that had no humor in it. "I am in a very precarious position."

Wesley put his keys back in his pocket. "What happened?"

"You tell me."

She was fishing; he was sure of it. So he shrugged and leaned casually against the wall next to his door. "I saw what was on the news. The first reports said terrorism, but later on they were saying revenge. Worldwide. That's a bit beyond our capabilities to plan and execute." He gave her a humorless smile of his own. "Though we certainly have the capability of appreciating it."

Lilah licked her lips. "I've been on the run for a few days. Someone knew my safehouse. It's… it's like the wild west out there. You know it is. There are no new shipments of anything coming in now, so there's fighting at the ports. Anyone who thinks they've been second-banana long enough is taking down their senior management –"

Wesley noticed her emphasis on the word 'their.' He tilted his head and interrupted. "Their senior management?" He could angle for more information, too.

Lilah closed her mouth and turned away for a moment. "I signed a contract, Wesley. There are bounty hunters out there."

"Who owns your contract?"

"Right now, this minute? I have no idea."

"You're a lawyer, Lilah. Surely you can break a contract."

She met his eyes. They were steely. "I'll beg." Lilah fell to her knees, looking up at him frankly. "You can own me. All I'm asking for, is safety."

Wesley put his hand back in his pocket and retrieved his key. He kept his eyes on her as he opened his door. "The reason you want to belong to me," he managed, his voice strangled, "is because I could never want to own anyone." He moved inside and closed his eyes. She was desperate, he could tell she was, but if he did anything for her, she would manage to turn him into a monster. A few moments later, he knew she was gone, though he hadn't heard anything. "Thank you," Wesley breathed. He wasn't sure what he would have done if she'd knocked on the door.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Thanks again for this," Willow said.

" _De nada_ ," Xander shrugged. "I'm the man with the truck." He'd just been leaving the excavation site where the apartment building would go when she called. "Besides, anything that doesn't have to do with the wedding right now is always welcome."

Willow was looking at her laptop. "Slow down."

They were six miles past the Sit N Bull diner, still on the road that dead-ended in Sunnydale. Xander checked his mirrors; there was no traffic in sight in either lane. He slowed to ten miles an hour.

"Pull over here." After he did, Willow undid her seatbelt and got out. She left her laptop inside and used the seat as a desk. "There," she muttered, after a few moments of typing, "she should…."

A low, klaxon-like sound came from the opposite side of the road. "Is that her?" Xander asked.

Willow nodded, looking both ways down the empty road before she crossed. "Duh. I should have realized she'd be on that side." She paused, then picked her way down into the ditch before climbing back up the easy slope she'd found. Something pastel blue caught her eye from behind a clump of chaparral, and she picked her way to the low bushes toward it. "Hey, April." She dropped onto her knees next to the robot.

"Hello, Willow."

"Hi." She put her hand out to take April's hand from the dust. "I'm glad you made it. Ready to go home with me?" April nodded jerkily.

"Can you walk," Willow quickly calculated, "about thirty meters?"

Another jerky nod. "Low batteries."

"I know. We'll get you charged." Willow helped the robot stay steady, though April was too heavy for her to lift. "I saw how you saved the security guard," she said. "I'm so proud of you."

"Roger was always nice to me. He treats me like I'm real."

"Y-you are," Willow said, keeping the dismay from her voice. April had lost a shoe at some point, and she could see exposed circuitry. "April, wait." She left the still robot and went to the near side of the ditch. "Xander!" she called. "Bring the truck!"

The road was still empty, so he did a big U-turn and pulled opposite of where his friend stood. Her bright hair disappeared for half a minute, and when she reappeared, she was using magic to float a shut-down April into the bed of the truck. By the time Willow scrambled up the bank to rejoin him, he had covered the bed with a tarp and was busy strapping it down with bungee cords.

"Is she going to be okay?" He shook his head, bemused. "I mean, I know she's not human, but she just looks so trashed."

"She'll be fine," Willow reassured him. "She's safe now."

A couple of hours later, Anya had brought dinner to Tara and Willow's apartment, and Buffy and Spike had joined them. They ate Indian takeout quickly, then gathered in the living room where April had been recharging.

Willow checked the bot's power levels on her laptop, then send the wake up command. "Hello, Willow," she said, her voice echoing oddly since her stomach panel was open. April looked around. "Hello, Tara. Hello, Xander." Her brows drew together as she looked around at the rest of them. "Hello."

"That's odd," Willow said, frowning. "She's met you guys. April," she went on, talking to the robot as she typed, "I've restored your programming to what it was before Warren came by to get you. I've isolated the new version, so it isn't gone, okay?"

"That's okay."

"I've saved it offline," Willow said, pointing to a bank of auxiliary drives, "and I'll look at it later. In the meantime, we've been a little worried recently about how you've been doing. Do you still have access to your memories for the past year?"

"I have access to forty-nine weeks of the past year. My memories for three of those weeks were damaged."

"How was it damaged?"

"Warren was looking at my memories of when I was here."

"Are there memories of, uh, the previous year that are missing?"

"Two weeks, but I have partial access to the rest."

"That explains why she doesn't remember us," Anya said.

"Sorry, April," Willow said, frowning now as her fingers continued to fly across the keyboard. "The blond man is Spike, the woman with him is Buffy, and the lady who just spoke is Anya." They all exchanged greetings with April.

"It is very nice to meet you again," she said amiably.

Xander gave the bot a kind smile. "How have you been, April?"

"Confined to one lab and two offices of the Research and Intelligence Division of Wolfram and Hart. I have been well-managed during the examinations."

Now everyone was frowning. "Who examined you?" Tara asked.

"Knox. He took me from Warren as a project."

"Is Warren still there?"

"I do not know. He was not at the lab the night the building collapsed."

"Good," Willow said, "I guess. We're so glad no one died there."

"At least seventeen people died."

The redhead stopped typing. "What?" she said faintly. "But… the news reports said there were no bodies."

"The bodies were likely eaten," April mused. "The demons that killed them appeared carnivorous. I deduced they were the security failsafe."

"Is there video?" Willow said faintly.

April looked down at the back of the laptop and got a rather blank look on her face. After a moment, video of her walk from the lab began to play. A tall, dark-haired man in a lab coat was already on the floor, two gaunt, insectoid but somehow wolf-shaped creatures hunched over him, worrying at the softer parts. One lifted its head and snarled toward April, but let her pass.

"That was Knox," she said helpfully.

No one counted, but felt safe assuming that the other bodies she saw in bloody heaps on the ground were the remaining sixteen deaths. Several more of the beasts flashed past April. When she reached the security guard who was alive, they saw her pick him up and go to the stairwell, disabling the door with a powerful twist of her hand.

"That's enough, April," Willow said in a small voice.

"Does anyone know what those are?" Anya asked.

"They aren't hellhounds," Buffy offered.

"Definitely not werewolves, either."

Spike shook his head. "If Anya doesn't know, it's probably something we'll have to research."

"Let's not mention this to Dawn, okay? The five people she knows about are enough of a burden."

"I agree," Willow said softly.

Tara hadn't watched any of the video past the two beasts who were eating the body in the lab. "When did Warren give you to," she made a face, "Knox?"

"After his interview. Knox thought I was suitable. I still got to see Warren."

Willow, after taking a deep breath, killed the window with the paused video, began typing again. "Did Warren work on this project, too?"

"No. He stayed late a couple of times early on. We had sex."

"Oh. Were you… okay with that?"

"Yes."

Xander's face darkened. "Did Knox want to have sex with you, too?" He grimaced and gave his friends an apologetic shrug, unable to explain why he felt protective of a robot.

"No. But if the project succeeded, I believed he hoped to have sex with." She stopped.

Willow made a few more keystrokes, then looked up at April, who gave her a pleasant smile. She drew in a breath through her nostrils and held down a series of keys. "Override on my authority."

"Illyria."

"What is Illyria?" Buffy asked.

"Illyria the Battle-God is an Old One. Knox is her high priest. He was going to bring her back. I was to be her vessel. Since I am strong and incorruptible, unlike flesh, he thought she would be well pleased."

Buffy's eyebrows were sky-high. "What would happen to you?"

"I do not know. He didn't say."

"Can you postulate?" Willow said.

"No."

"Shit," the redhead muttered. "April, I'm going to shut you down for a while, let you charge. While you're immobile, I'll mix up a batch of the skin resin and repair your feet and leg, okay? It shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to harden."

"All right. Good night, everyone." April folded her hands on her lap and waited. After Willow hit a few more keys, she closed her eyes and slumped forward a few inches.

Willow turned back to her friends. "Sorry. If she can't understand that being filled with a god would be a threat, that it would erase her essential programs, either Warren or Knox has rewritten some of her basic programming. I figured it would be safer to shut her down and look at the code offline."

"Oz will be back before those repairs are done," Tara pointed out. "We'll be pretty cramped."

Willow made a face. "And we've got coven meetings, too." She looked around at them, and her eyes settled on Buffy. "Could we keep her on charge at your house?"

"What about Mom's basement?" Buffy suggested. "It's closer."

Willow shrugged. "That would be fine, too. If she doesn't mind."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Angel opened his cell phone, already knowing it was Willow. "Hello."

"Hi, Angel. How are things going?"

"Good as can be expected."

"So, you're still grieving and furious?"

He had to smile a little at her bright tone. "That's about the size of it."

"I've been thinking about Connor. I mean, I can't help but, you know? I'm so sorry, Angel. If I'd pushed things, made sure we did the new curse earlier, we could have got him back when he was six, or maybe even five. But, no, I was all –"

"Willow," he interrupted, dumbfounded. "It isn't your fault. It's mine. My curse, my responsibility. I just… I didn't want to face Angelus again, or make anyone else deal with him."

She was silent a few moments. "It isn't your fault, either. It was Holtz."

"It was Angelus' fault." Like most things in his life. Couldn't he have been a normal, garden-variety evil like most vampires? Angel sighed. "Please don't feel guilty, Willow. Without you, I'd never have gotten him back.

"There's something I'd like to do, though. To make myself feel less guilty."

"What's that?"

"I've been thinking about Connor. Mostly, this hasn't been fair to him."

Angel listened to her idea. For the first time in days, he began to feel like there was a chance for his son to live a full life in this world.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Hey, Rupert." Spike sat up in bed. Buffy had gone to class, but it was early for the Watcher to call him.

"I'll say 'good morning,'" the Watcher said, "since I know I likely woke you."

"Which means something must be going on."

"Not so much," Giles reassured him. "I got an email from the Council this morning, something I thought you should know."

"What's that?" His eyes went to where yesterday's jeans were in a pile on the floor, already thinking of how quickest to be out the door and on the way to where he was needed.

"Bernard Crowley died last week."

"He did?" It was a dumb thing to ask, but Spike was at a loss.

"Massive stroke, it said."

"Oh."

"He was seventy-eight. A good, long life, especially for a Watcher."

"Can't say I'm sorry, Rupert. Means Buffy won't every be on the receiving end of his hatred."

"Her son must have lied about you," Giles mused. Spike knew that Buffy told him nearly everything.

"Guess so. Protecting the old man." He leaned against the headboard. "Thank you for calling, letting me know."

"Er, yes. Right, then. I'll let you get on with it."

Spike stared at the opposite wall. He and Buffy weren't much for decorating; there was no art on the bedroom wall and the only piece of furniture there was a low dresser. Both of them liked clean lines and always assumed there would be a fight inside the house that would break their things. It was easier to not have a lot of things.

He put his hands up and scrubbed his face. Who was he kidding? He had everything, and the death of Bernard Crowley made it more likely he could keep his everything. The bitter old man was gone.

Nothing he hadn't done before, but he sent a prayer of thanks out to the cosmos, not aiming it to any deity in particular. Any god of light could have it. _Just protect my Slayer. From all of it. Especially all that's aimed at me._

⸹

"Angel knows you're calling," Spike said. "He'll make sure the kid knows how to answer."

"Okay." Buffy settled against him on the couch, hoping this would be a good conversation. For some reason, everyone thought it would be best if she approached Angel's son with Willow's idea. She held out her cell phone and dialed Connor's number.

"Hello?" He sounded wary.

"Hi, Steven. This is Buffy. How are you?"

She could hear the awestruck note in his voice and figured he had a big smile on his face. "This is quite wondrous! I am fine, Buffy." After a moment, he added, "And how are you today?"

"Very good, thank you for asking." She tilted her head and smiled up at her husband. "I was calling about an idea Willow had. She's the redhead, if you remember, one of the coven?"

"I remember her."

"Great. She wants to give you something to help you understand Earth, kind of like a book, only one that will be in your head, so you'll always have it when you need it."

"A book?"

"Uh-huh. She and the coven can make a copy of someone's memories and understanding. There's a young man about your age who might be willing to share his 'book.'"

The cool factor of the phone call was forgotten. "I don't think I want anyone else's memories."

"I'm sorry, Steven. I'm not expressing myself well. You won't have his memories of his birthdays or his family, only his memories of what it's like to go to school or of old television shows. The kind of cultural things guys your age would know."

"Oh." Angel had already talked to him about going to school, but the only time he felt comfortable leaving the Hyperion was to go out on patrol. What the Slayer was talking about would be useful to have. "May I think about it?"

"Of course! No one would ever make you do anything you don't want. You know that, right?"

"No one can make me do anything I don't wish." His reply was cold.

"I had something else I wanted to ask," she went on quickly, feeling as though she'd lost ground. "It's about Quor'Toth."

"What about it?" He sounded puzzled.

"I noticed there was a smell in the air when we were there."

"Oh. I nearly forgot about that. It was just part of things." Connor had lifted his head once during a patrol, smelling something that turned out to be a dead squirrel on the edge of a park. It reminded him of home. "Quor'Toth itself has that smell. The demon, you know."

Buffy looked up in confusion and saw Spike shrug. "I'm sorry, Steven. I don't know what you mean."

"It isn't just a world. The whole dimension is a demon. It smells of corruption."

"The demon manifested itself as an entire dimension?"

"I guess so? I'm not sure that I understand the word 'manifest.'"

"That's okay. You answered my question." Buffy wrinkled her nose. The humans would never have had a fresh breath of air.

"Are you coming to Los Angeles soon?"

She thought he sounded lonesome. "We can come this weekend, if it's okay with your f– with Angel. I'll give him a call and ask if you guys have plans."

"All right. I enjoyed this."

The phone call, she knew. "Me, too. See you soon, okay, Steven?"

"See you soon, Buffy. Goodbye."

After she closed her phone, Spike took her in a strong embrace. She leaned her head against his chest. "How do you think he sounds?"

"Better than I would be, in his shoes," Spike admitted.

"Me, too," she agreed.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"How did your audition go?" Lorne asked. He crossed the lobby of the Hyperion and sat, patting the cushion next to him.

Cordelia looked a bit dazed. "Great! I got the part." She plopped onto the red couch. "I mean, they told me right there that I had the part." She leaned out and grabbed Lorne's hand. "The most I've ever done is commercials, and now, a guest star part on a network show." She shook her head.

"Send a thank-you card to Dawnie," Lorne said. "I've heard the same thing from some backup singers I know. Now that Wolfram and Hart are out of business, the biz is free to hire who they want instead of who they're told."

"Really?" Cordelia sat up straight, staring at him. "I was… blacklisted, and I never even knew it?!"

He nodded. "As an employee of Angel Investigations, I imagine you never had much chance at most auditions."

"Those… bastards."

Lorne lifted a hand. "Tell me about it." He leaned in, smiling. "I'm re-re-reopening Caritas. Willow and Tara will lay down protection spells after the Furies do theirs. I'll be safe from fights, explosions, projectiles…" He frowned a little. "Seriously, we're going to have a meeting and make a list. Anything bad that could happen, I'm getting a protection spell against it."

"Slips and falls," Cordelia said.

He pointed a finger at her. "Good one! And choking!"

"Oh! And damaged hearing!"

"Yes. I almost forgot how low some of the slime species can go."

"Cordelia!"

"Hey!" She got up and waited for Angel at the bottom of the stairs.

"You got a part?"

She beamed. "I did."

He pulled her into his arms for a kiss. "That's wonderful."

Cordelia raised her face, waiting for a kiss, but instead Angel turned. She turned, too. "Hey, Steven."

"Hey."

She gave Angel a squeeze and let go. "You ready to go get clothes?"

"These are fine," he said, pulling the cotton ring-neck tee away from his waist. Cordelia had bought a few basic things for him already.

"Yes," she said patiently, "but here we wear clothes until they're dirty, shower, and put on other clothes."

"It seems… wasteful."

"It might be," she agreed, "but someone makes those clothes and other people sell them. All that keeps the world we know ticking along."

"Buying and selling. Father told me about it, but it seems… odd."

Angel nodded. "I can understand that. But even the very first societies bartered or sold things. And I want you to feel comfortable around other people. Blend in, I mean."

The boy lifted a shoulder. "I have nothing to sell."

"Until you're grown, out on your own," Angel said, taking a few steps toward Connor, "your family provides for you. We have money; you can buy anything you like."

"You can buy things that look good on you," Cordelia corrected. She moved closer, too, and put her hand on Angel's arm. "Call us when it gets dark, if you want to join us." He totally wanted to join them, she knew.

He smiled down at her, then at Connor. "I'll do that."

⸹

Sunnydale

May 2002

⸹

Spike leaned over and kissed Buffy's cheek. She was sitting at the dining room table, rooting around in her backpack. "How's it going? You need anything?"

"Just to find my favorite pen," she grumped. "I thought it was in here." She twisted in the chair, bringing up a hand to cup his jaw and get a real kiss. "Ignore me. I'll be better by the end of the week." Buffy had a final exam in each of her classes, plus a paper due in two of them.

Spike's hands had traveled down her arms to her chest. "I'll leave you alone, then, but I have to say I like how your cups runneth over." He traced his fingers over the warm flesh pushing over the edge of her bra.

"I know. I need to get my B-cups back out." She pouted. "I think I gained a couple more pounds."

"Well, you got pretty scrawny last year," he noted. Worry over Joyce's health and Dawn's safety had taken her appetite for a long time. Then he noticed her pouty lip and nabbed it.

"'Scrawny.' That didn't sound like a compliment," she complained half a minute later, a little breathless.

"Maybe not the best word. Just an observation." He moved so he was squatting next to her right side. "Love? No agenda, no hidden meanings, but can I ask why you worry about gaining weight? You never slow down or stop training; you're a very buff Buffy."

"Because I'm five-two" – here Spike covered a cough that sounded like 'almost!' – "and five pounds on me looks like fifteen pounds on a taller woman."

He nodded. "Okay. I just wondered." Spike leered at her. "But I have to say those two pounds you're talking about seem to have gone right to a couple of my favorite places." Buffy watched his finger trace the voluptuous evidence again.

"None of this is helping me study." She knew he'd pick up on her increased heartbeat.

Spike met her eyes frankly. "I'm a very bad man."

"How bad?" she purred.

A couple of hours later, Buffy blew some hair away from her face. They were on the rug in front of the sofa, and she was sprawled across Spike's chest. "I'm hungry. Anything in the fridge?"

"Leftover Chinese." His brain began to work again. "Couple plums, some grapes."

"Any milk?"

"I think so. You want some cereal?"

"Mmm. Sounds good."

Neither of them got up. "Spoke to Red this morning."

"Really? I figured we wouldn't hear from her until after classes let out."

"She had one paper left, then she'll be done. She just wanted to know if we'd set a time for the trip to Los Angeles."

Buffy nodded. Fred had borrowed all the textbooks the state used for public education, and Willow certainly knew how to get that information into Connor. One of Spike's minions, Cory, had a little brother the same age as Connor. He'd volunteered to let Willow use his knowledge as a template for what Connor should know as an ostensible child of California. She would do the spell after the school year let out.

In the meantime, Angel planned to spend the days teaching Connor to swim and taking him to every nighttime activity he could think of. "Faith says Connor and Angel spend a lot of time in the garden playing catch."

"Groo still there?"

Buffy nodded. "So is Cordy, but I don't know if that engagement ring is going to be enough."

Spike turned his head in surprise. "What?"

The Slayer let out a stream of air through her nose. "Angel is doing an excellent job of being patient with Connor and never seems to have any time for her. I don't know if it's an out-of-practice thing, or if he really can't juggle all the things that make up a full life."

"Aaaand, I'm not touching that statement."

"Sorry. Girlfriend solidarity." She lifted her head and looked down at him. His hair was rumpled and curlier than he liked it, a counterpoint to the hard wall of muscle across his chest. Buffy traced his collarbone. _You can handle me, our family, our friends, a business, your minions, flight time, and patrol. It isn't that hard, apparently. I mean, if you can do it…._

 _Sorry, all I heard was 'lust, lust, God my husband is gorgeous, must shag him immediately.'_

Buffy laughed. "Sure. I'm pretty sure you heard, 'I have to pee, then cereal, then study for kinesiology.'"

"Go on, then," he grumbled, giving her bottom a smack. "I've taken up too much of your study time."

⸹

Angel picked up Cordelia's left hand from his chest and brought it to his lips, kissing her fingertips. They were in his bed, and he again had the urge to ask her to give up her room at the Hyperion. They could stay here together, or maybe they could pick out another room, one farther away from Connor's. She'd already refused to give up her apartment. Cordelia wasn't ready to leave Dennis.

"I wish you didn't have to go," he said, placing her palm against his, admiring the sparkle of his ring against her tanned fingers.

"Me, too," she agreed. "I could stay here for a little more time with my man." Still, she rose from the bed.

Her man. Angel smiled. "I'd like that –"

The door opened, and Connor came in. "I don't know where–"

Angel froze, as did his son. Cordy looked at him from across the bed, over Angel's bare torso. "What do you need, sweetie?" Her eyebrows were drawn together in concern, her focus on him, though she was trying to remember whether she had a robe.

Connor stared at the two of them, mostly at what he could see of Cordelia. Angel, feeling a surge of possessiveness, swooped the sheet from the bed, rolled across the mattress, and stood next to Cordelia as he drew the sheet over them at half-vampiric speed. He had no idea if Connor's night vision was human, demon, or at some point in between.

Connor flushed and looked away. He'd been staring, and he knew that was rude. Cordelia was beautiful; he hadn't missed that. She was even more so as God had made her, and the unvoiced resentment that she wanted to be joined with a vampire came back to him even stronger. He darted a glance at Angel, who was frowning.

"Steven?" Cordelia put her hand on Angel's arm, feeling the fabric of the sheet against her fingers. "What did you need?"

"I… I forgot that I am supposed to knock. I'm sorry." His eyes flicked to her face once before he turned and left the room.

Angel didn't say anything until he heard Connor's door close. "That was awful."

Cordelia turned to face him in the dim room. "Why?" she asked, perplexed.

"What if he'd come in a few minutes earlier?"

"Well, it would have been awkward," she agreed, stepping away from him to scoop up her panties, "but this is a natural part of life. We don't want to give him a complex or anything."

Angel stared at her. "This is a _private_ part of life."

She grew still, frowning. "It's a _natural_ part of life."

"Which children shouldn't see."

"You never saw your parents cuddle."

"No," he replied truthfully.

"Well, I did. I mean, when I was little. Not so much the last few years. I don't specifically remember seeing my parents naked, but I was always welcome in their room. We'd sometimes eat breakfast in bed together on Saturday mornings." By now, she had on her panties and a top and was looking for her shorts.

"I'll bet that was when you were little."

"Yeah, but we're the first couple Steven has ever seen. We should –"

"Connor."

She ignored the thunder in his tone. "We should be good role models. Body positive."

"Do you know how ridiculous you sound? 'Body positive?' He interrupted our privacy. That's the real issue here."

Cordelia didn't back down, just gave him a sarcastic voice in return. "We live in a _hotel_ , Angel. We don't have privacy. Everyone knows when we have a night together, or when Gunn and Fred do."

He realized he was still holding the sheet and threw it onto the bed. "I've been meaning to ask you to pick out a room for us together," Angel turned back to her. "At the end of one of the hallways."

"So we can hide, like you're ashamed to be with me?" She stepped into her shorts with jerky movements.

"No!" He made a mouth and forced his temper down. "So we can be together without everyone knowing."

"Is this a soul thing?" she demanded. "Something you feel guilty about, even though there's no real reason to?" Cordelia snatched up her bra and clutched it in a fist.

"I'm not guilty!" Angel ran a hand through his hair. "It's just… What we have is separate from the rest of it." He waved a vague hand toward the door.

"We're part of 'that,'" she pointed out, "and I still don't understand why you panicked and sprang out of bed like Connor had caught us murdering puppies."

"Oh, it's better to flaunt everything like– " He stopped himself from saying anything about street corner girls.

"No, it's better to act like rational people. He knows we sleep together, Angel."

"He shouldn't. We're not married." He knew it would sound lame to her twenty-first century sensibilities. How could he explain so she would understand? He came from a different time and was trying to make a real family instead of a sick, demonic copy of one.

"No, we aren't." There was a threat in her words. Cordelia stomped out of the room, barely keeping herself from slamming the door.

Down the hall, Connor listened to their raised voices. He couldn't hear the words, but he assumed they were fighting about his visit. He felt a surge of satisfaction; good, they shouldn't be together anyway. Then he felt bad for his first feeling. He didn't want Cordelia to be upset. He didn't really want Angel to be upset. After a few minutes of silence, he heard the quiet click of the vampire's door and felt his sense of Angel recede as he went downstairs. Connor's brows drew together; he was surprised he hadn't gone after Cordelia.

Cordelia. His thoughts drifted to the way she'd looked in the dim light of the room. His vision in the dark had always been more acute than his father's, part of his vampiric heritage, he supposed. She had been achingly lovely.

Angel had been possessive of that loveliness.

Connor resented that.

He closed his eyes. He didn't know how to feel about most things in this strange world, but he did know he shouldn't be attracted to the woman who was going to marry his biological father, the woman who had been nothing but kind and warm to him.

He just didn't know how to stop.

⸹

"I'm so jealous," Dawn said, accepting a package of plastic spoons on top of the package of paper plates she already held. "Two more weeks before I'm done."

"I'm just glad it's over," Buffy said, loading her sister with napkins as well. "This was, like, the worst finals week. Mom's the best mom ever." She was throwing a party for Buffy's friends to celebrate the end of the semester; she'd throw another in June for Dawn's friends to celebrate the end of her school.

Joyce, coming upstairs with a red-checked, vinyl tablecloth for the picnic table, nodded. "I am," she agreed, closing the basement door behind her, "especially considering I agreed to keep a corpse in the basement."

"April just looks all still that way when she's shut down," Dawn argued. "But she doesn't look like a corpse."

"Someone called?" Spike said, opening the kitchen door. "Ah. Here, Bit, let me take that." He slid his hands beneath Dawn's, taking the negligible burden.

Joyce took a few steps so she could top the stack with the tablecloth. "Well, as soon as everyone shows up, we'll be ready to eat."

"Just waiting for Xanya," Dawn said.

"Don't call them that," Joyce said automatically. She blew her hair from her eyes. It had grown out long enough for her to go back to her old style, but, now that she had someone who liked to run his fingers through it, she had yet to find a hairspray that was both touchable and strong enough to hold her willful waves.

"Why not? They're joined at the hip already. They'll be even worse when they're married."

"We weren't," Buffy said, watching through the window as her husband walked away.

"Oh, of course not," Dawn said mockingly. "You're totally not looking at his ass right now."

"Language," Joyce warned.

Buffy grabbed her sister in a headlock that turned into a kiss on her ear. "Tell me again why it isn't fair to beat her up?"

"You're the Slayer," Dawn said. "That's why it isn't fair."

"Well, it isn't fair that you got all the height in the family," Buffy shot back. "I think it's okay to beat you up, 'cause you're bigger than me."

"Girls," Joyce said in a long-suffering tone, "take the rest of the stuff on the counter outside and at least act nice. We do have company."

"It's just Giles and Wil and Tara and Oz," Dawn said. "They're not company. They're, like, family."

"Still, act like a young lady instead of a baboon."

Buffy snorted at this. "But that's what Aaaal-beeee likes best about her."

Dawn shoved her. "I don't say Alby's name like that."

"Oh, of course not." Buffy thought Dawn's first real boyfriend was adorable, though Spike had actually shadowed them on their first date to see a movie. After Buffy yelled at him, he'd sent Luisa to watch the pair at prom in his stead. She'd complained bitterly to Buffy afterwards of lingering feelings of teenaged lust, despair, and broken-heartedness that lasted for days.

"Don't shove your sister," Joyce said in a monotone. Lifting a tray of mustard, relish, and other condiments, Buffy made her escape before her mother found fault with her.

"You take these," Joyce directed, handing Dawn several bags of buns to juggle. "You know, you should have invited Alby."

"Huh. As if I want him around those guys." Dawn flounced out of the kitchen.

Joyce shook her head. A few seconds later, she got a tray of salads from the refrigerator and went to join them. She set the bowls in the center of the picnic table and started back to the kitchen with her empty tray and Buffy's. "Oh, hey, Xand–" she began, the realized the dark-haired man walking toward her wasn't Xander. Then she saw he had a pistol in his hand.

"Get back," he ordered, motioning with the gun. As one, Buffy and Spike moved in front of Dawn. He stared at the people around the picnic table, his eyes settling on Willow.

"Warren," she said faintly.

"I'm here for April." He turned his attention to Joyce for a second. "I said get back!" Giles strode forward and pulled her against him, then turned them both away from the gun-wielding man. His attention was on the red-haired witch again. "You think I didn't see the GPS you put in her? How do you think I found you?"

"She's… April is in the basement. Recharging." Willow's eyes were wide. She was thinking that Warren had passed April along already, but she wasn't going to say that. If he wanted the robot, fine. "I'm fixing her foot," she added faintly.

"Don't point that thing toward these people," Spike growled, something subsonic to his voice.

"Shut up," Warren snapped, dismissing the Brit, his focus still on Willow. It wasn't the first mistake he made. "I know it was you. You and your coven. You destroyed Wolfram and Hart."

Willow forced her eyes to stay on Warren, because they wanted to flash toward Dawn. "My coven didn't cause whatever happened there."

"You destroyed it, that's what happened. You destroyed my future. I belong to a snecken demon now!" He cocked the gun.

Behind her, Willow heard Tara's soft gasp of dismay. She didn't know what to do; this was a _human_ threatening her. "Your first job," Willow said, taking a step to the side, pulling his aim away from the people she loved, because she could at least do that, "can seem like –"

"Shut up, bitch." Warren still held the gun with one hand, having no training with the pistol or any firearm. "It's your fault. I signed a _contract_ ," he snarled, "and this snecken bought it. They promised me –"

None of them ever found out what Wolfram and Hart had promised Warren. Spike sprang twenty feet toward the human, his shape blurring in midair into the form of an enormous feline. He came down on him, jaws clamped on his skull, claws sinking into the hand that held the gun. It went off once, a sharp, blunt noise.

"An, you okay?" Xander called over his shoulder as he hurtled from around the house. Having seen the figure point the gun toward Willow, he had enough sense of what was going on before the loud bang sent adrenaline surging through him. He stomped onto Warren's hand, then used his other foot to kick the pistol into a flowerbed. Spike's golden eyes tracked him. Xander gave his friend a queasy sort of smile, and he reached out to scratch the huge, prehistoric lion behind the ear.

"I'm fine," Anya said, her cell phone in her hand. "Police are on their way." She nodded toward the upper part of the house. "I think he broke one of your windows, Joyce."

The stunned group at the picnic table began to breathe again. Oz had Willow in an inescapable grip, his eyes too dark. Tara's gaze, though, was fixed on Warren. She strode to where Spike stood over him. "Get off," she said, shoving the big cat with her hip, fearless in her anger.

With a huff, Spike did. Warren's bladder had let go, and his terrified eyes were on the lion, unaware of the true source of danger.

Tara held out her right hand, palm flat toward the supine man. "Bind," she snarled.

A roughly Warren-shaped section of earth sank down all around him, as though gravity had increased there. From the depression, roots poked from the ground, rising, waving like tentacles. They began to creep over him, limbs, torso, face. Some burrowed _into_ him. Warren's attention left the enormous lion to look down at himself. His eyes widened in horror. He probably wanted to scream, but by now moss was frothing from his mouth.

Tara jerked her hand away from him, shaking out her numb fingers. Her mouth set in disgust, she leaned over and cleared the moss that was protruding from his nostrils. It came out of him in tendrils nearly a foot long.

"Don't mess with an earth witch," Dawn said from behind Buffy, low and impressed.

Buffy looked over at Giles, who had similarly been shielding Joyce, and gave her head a small shake. She'd seen the 'protect my mate' look that her Watcher wore on her own husband's face often enough. "My god, Giles," she managed. She hadn't seen anything like this coming.

Dawn, who had once been cornered by a mad god, was unimpressed by Warren and had other things on her mind. She went to her brother-in-law and began to scratch the soft fur around his chin, her eyes wide with wonder.

"That's your window," Giles whispered into Joyce's ear, furious, his arms tight around her now. She looked up to see the round hole in the glass and shook her head in disbelief.

Willow and Oz walked uncertainly to Tara, who was staring down at Warren, her hands in tight fists. They put their arms around her. She looked at each of them, startled, then let out a breath. "I'm sorry, baby," Tara said, her voice shaky. "I froze. I couldn't think of anything to do. I mean, he's _human_."

"Don't apologize," Willow soothed her. "I didn't know what to do, either."

"We're all okay," Oz added, a growl still lingering in his voice.

In the distance, sirens began to wail. Dawn looked up, then grabbed Spike's huge, shaggy head. "Real quick, before the police get here?"

In this form, he couldn't roll his eyes, but he gave the impression of having done so. He crouched down anyway. She squealed and climbed onto his back, hooking her fingers into his mane.

Buffy came to stand with Xander and Anya. Xander was looking between Warren and Tara. He gave a low whistle. Buffy put an arm around him.

"Buffy?" Anya waited until the Slayer looked at her. "If it's okay with you, can I have a ride, too?" She nodded toward where Spike was bounding back toward them from the far end of the yard, Dawn grinning on his back. "It looks like fun."

"Uh, sure." Buffy shook her head, keeping her eyes averted from the man half-consumed by the earth. "You know our lives are really strange, don't you?"

⸹

"Connor?" The boy looked up at the sound of Angel's voice. He winced and corrected himself. "I mean, Steven?" He hadn't meant to mess up the name, particularly not for this conversation.

"Yes?" He had been working with _sais_ , a weapon unfamiliar to him, practicing with one in either hand.

"Do you need any help?" To his eye, his son already looked proficient.

"No. Wesley showed me the basics." He moved toward the weapons cabinet. "I am done, anyway."

"Good. I, uh," Angel lifted his hand, drawing attention to the paper he held, "have something for you." He held it out, forcing Connor to draw close so he could take it.

Angel never took his eyes from his son's face, watching the wariness dissolve into surprise, then fondness. There was grief in his blue eyes, too.

"Father," the boy said, putting his fingers carefully on the sketch of Daniel Holtz's face.

Angel's heart contracted at that word. He made his face still; this was part of his plan to win his son back, after all. "I have a little skill as an artist. I know you don't have anything to remember him by, so I wanted you to have this."

Connor looked up at the big vampire in confusion. "Why?"

"For you, son," he said, daring to use the word. Angel's voice made it a caress. "Because there's nothing I won't do to ensure you're happy. Even if it hurts me."

⸹

Warren's arraignment was on Monday. Tara was physically ill at the thought of seeing him again, so Joyce stayed with her at the apartment. Everyone else except Dawn, who was at school, sat in the courthouse waiting for him to appear. Andrew, Jonathan, and Michael all showed up as well. Andrew said that, if his brother Tucker had a friend, it would have been Warren. Jonathan and Michael knew him from a short-lived Dungeons & Dragons group that had dissolved after dissention over a campaign.

As Mayor, Anya knew who to speak with. She'd made sure that his hearing didn't happen until after the weekend, so he'd have time to sit alone in jail. She'd heavily suggested that he raved about assassinating the mayor. The prosecutor, a longtime Sunnydale resident she'd backed after an 'animal attack' killed the one who had worked with Wilkins, had given her a flat look and added on all possible charges.

The only other people in the little public section were Warren's parents, looking worried, and a young brunette woman who currently wore a hard look on her face. She had greeted Mr. and Mrs. Mears, but sat apart from them, her arms crossed over her chest.

Warren shuffled in, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Both his feet and hands were shackled, and he still wore bandages over the sores Tara's binding had left. Mrs. Mears let out a loud sob, then stifled the rest against her husband's shoulder. Warren looked at his parents with no emotion, though his eyes widened when he saw the woman sitting behind them. By the time his gaze swept over the Scoobies, he was expressionless again.

A man carrying a briefcase came in and settled at the defendant's table. He shook Warren's hand and put a hand on his shoulder, practiced moves to humanize his client. After a brief silence, the judge opened her file. Her dark hair was shot through with grey, though her strong brows were still black. After a moment, she looked over her reading glasses at Warren. She sent a look toward her bailiff, then took a sip of water before beginning.

"Mr. Mears, you have been charged with carrying a concealed firearm, unlawful discharge of a firearm, ten accounts of terroristic threatening, ten accounts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and two counts of aggravated assault of a police officer. How do you plead?

The lawyer stood up, pulling Warren up as well. "Not guilty, your honor," he mumbled sullenly. He sat down without looking around.

The rest of it went swiftly. Bail was denied over the lawyer's fevered objections, and the preliminary hearing was set for June. Warren was escorted from the room without making eye contact with anyone. The group left the courthouse and milled about on the steps, waiting for Anya to finish chatting with several people who delayed her along the way.

"That was anticlimactic," Xander said to no one in particular.

"I dread having to testify," Willow said.

Giles nodded in agreement, though Willow would be the main witness, since Warren had threatened her in particular. They had all agreed that the word 'coven' didn't need to be mentioned and that Willow only knew him through their shared interest in robotics. "There's Anya," he said, grateful.

The mayor was walking out with the brunette girl from the hearing. She was staring up at her, listening intently. Anya nodded and continued the conversation as she opened her purse. She withdrew a monogrammed card case and gave the girl her card. She nodded friendly greetings toward a couple of people walking past, but headed to her fiancé. "Are we going to the diner? I'm up for a late breakfast."

"That sounds wonderful," Buffy said fervently.

"Anya, who was that young lady?" Giles asked.

The Mayor of Sunnydale beamed at him. "Katrina Silber, Warren's ex-girlfriend. She wants to testify against him."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"Willow? Can I talk to you before we start?" Angel spoke in a low tone.

"Sure." She followed him into the kitchen, then downstairs to the storerooms. They stopped just shy of the sewer entrance. "What is it?" Willow asked, her voice quiet.

"Could you… Would it be wrong to have him answer to Connor?" His expression was pleading. "I mean, that's what we all still call him. It is his name, the one he would have had if Holtz hadn't kidnapped him." Angel looked down. "Every time I call him 'Steven,' it makes me think of what happened, of all those lost years."

Willow stared at him, nonplussed. "I-I get it, but… I can't cast a spell that takes free will from him like that." She gave a little shrug and moved closer, trying to soften her reply. "Give it time, Angel. I think he'll start being Connor on his own."

The big vampire forced a smile and nodded. "All right. I thought you would say that, but… I had to ask. It hurts, you know? The reminder." He gestured back the way they came and changed the subject, asking her about graduate school. She was going to study at Oxford in the fall, partly because there was a coven over in Devon that Giles had recommended for further magical training.

Once they were in the lobby, Angel sent a look and a short nod at Wesley. The human gave a barely perceptible nod in reply and went to the stack of textbooks on the registration counter. Angel began teasing Connor about talking like a surfer. While the rest were distracted by the novelty of Angel joking, Wesley tucked a spell he'd written into an algebra book. He moved from behind the counter, plastering a smile on his face.

The spell was for such a small thing, just so the boy would recognize 'Connor' as his name. He hated 'Steven' as much as Angel did. It wasn't ethical, strictly speaking, to make him be Connor again, but it was a sin Wesley could live with. He moved unobtrusively into place next to Spike.

"Are you okay with that, Steven?" Willow was asking. "I mean, if you feel strongly about it, you can keep your accent."

He shook his head. "No. I pronounce all the new words I've learned like a native Californian, anyway."

Willow shot a look at Angel. "Is there anything else you'd like to change? I-I mean, that we could give you?"

Connor shook his head. "I am just glad I can watch Groo go through it first." Groo had been adamant that his cultural background come from Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, and Wesley. Only Wesley had demurred, ostensibly because he was British. He didn't want his own issues with his parents to pollute anyone else.

"Are we ready?" Willow asked Tara. It was just the two of them. Though she was strong enough to do it alone, Willow wanted Tara's ability with delicate spells, since they were working with other people's minds.

"I-I think so." Tara took a breath and gave Groo a reassuring smile. She was standing next to a folding table of books. Larger than Connor's, this pile included college textbooks. In addition to getting identification for Angel and Connor, Giles had come through with ID for Groo that included a bachelor's degree in land management.

He looked at Tara, happy as always to be around the serene witch. "Are you sure I shouldn't have you make my eyes look like yours?"

"No." She said this firmly. "You have beautiful eyes. They're unusual, t-true, but not enough to keep you from looking human. I wouldn't ch-change them for anything."

Groo gave her a smile. "All right. I'll do as you say."

Willow put a slightly proprietary hand on Tara's waist. "Always a good policy. Ready?" Behind them, Cordelia and Buffy came through the main entrance. They had gone out to take a walk before the heat of the day. Alpana went to them and quietly asked Buffy how Giles and Aubrey were doing.

Tara nodded at Willow and picked up three crystals. The whole coven had worked on turning them into something like magical memory sticks that worked like sponges to replicate cultural knowledge. Willow and Tara had to step in to modify the spell to be more than pop culture and to remove Andrew's donation of his encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe. Kyle, Cory the vampire's little brother, had been bribed to be their test subject with a hundred dollars and a forthcoming trip to Los Angeles in a necrotempered car with his brother to meet Connor and hang out 'someplace cool.'

Before Tara could hand them out, Fred piped up. "Before we start, I just want to say Gunn got his certificate in the mail this morning." She looked up at him and gave him a big, proud smile.

"That's wonderful news," Wesley beamed. Gunn had tested for his GED earlier in the month. Fred had insisted he stop talking about getting his high school equivalency degree and start studying.

Gunn shrugged off the applause. "Fred made me do it."

Buffy came up and gave Gunn a hug. "Good for you," she said, easing off when he grunted. "What are you thinking about next?"

Looking a little embarrassed, he looked at Fred for support. "I was thinking about social work, something where I might make a difference. Someday, you know," he shrugged again, "when I get too old to swing an axe."

Faith came up to hug him, too. "I'm still taking classes online," she admitted. "I don't have any idea about a major, but I can help you get enrolled, if you want."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Angel came forward, too, and hugged his friend. "I'm proud of you," he said, then added in a lower tone, "because you always were more than just muscle."

Gunn, suspiciously bright-eyed, turned toward Tara. "We should probably begin."

When Cordelia, Gunn, and Fred picked up the crystals, they began to glow immediately, then faded about a minute later.

"Set them on the t-table," Tara directed. She turned to Willow and made a face. "R-ready?"

Willow nodded. "Groo? Just stand near the table." She took Tara's hands, leaned in, and gave her a kiss by way of encouragement. They started a chant in a lilting language that sounded vaguely Polynesian. Groo's eyes widened; he seemed to be unable to move. After another verse of the chant, his feet rose from the marble of the lobby floor. Black letters from the books on the table began to flow through the air toward him, then climb up his body toward his head. Groo's eyes began to look a bit glazed.

After the last words scrolled across Groo's face, the pitch of the chant sharpened. The crystals on the table began to emit a soft light. Pulses of the light streamed toward his forehead in the tempo of a heartbeat. After a couple of minutes, the glow faded from the crystals and Groo's feet settled back onto the floor.

He looked shaky, so both Angel and Spike stepped forward to provide support.

"Whoa," he said. Groo looked up at Angel. "I've never said the word 'whoa' before."

"How are you, mate?" They settled him on the round couch.

"I'm worried about soil erosion and mudslides," he admitted. "And I totally get NWA."

Gunn forced a smile from his face. "Word," he intoned.

Groo looked at Fred next, looking through her worldview. "Oh, wow. I really wish I could have played high school football in Texas."

"I wanted to be a field goal kicker myself," she admitted.

"Nothing from me?" Cordelia teased, putting her hands on her hips in mock outrage.

He smiled up at her. "Now I understand why you wouldn't let me buy those fugly faux leather shoes and insisted on Ferragamo."

"What did it feel like?" Connor asked in a small voice. He'd watched the whole thing from halfway behind the staircase.

Groo took a breath and focused on him, his protective nature coming to the fore. He thought about his answer so it would be honest as well as reassuring. "It didn't hurt, but I didn't like that I couldn't move. Right now, it's as if… If you swirled a cup of water, the water is settling back into place. I know a lot more, but… not in the front of my mind, you know?" Groo grimaced, wanting to do better by the boy. "It didn't hurt, but it did feel odd. I still feel like myself, but… there's more there, waiting for when I need it."

"And that's good?" Willow asked, a little anxiously.

"Yes." He turned to her and gave her a solemn look. "I don't feel like I have to stay here to be safe anymore."

"Please stay here," Cordelia said immediately. "You're part of our family. You know that, right?"

Groo put out his hand, and she took it. "You have a big heart."

 _I guess it grew three sizes._ Buffy met Spike's gaze after her not-very-charitable thought and saw him suck in his cheeks to keep a grin off his face.

Connor swallowed and nodded jerkily. "All right. I am ready."

"We are, too," Tara replied, giving the boy one of her lovely smiles. The second time through the spell took less time simply because there was less material.

Angel was there to catch him as the chant ended. "How do you feel?"

"Um," the boy said, gripping his father's forearm, "all right." His mouth tightened. "I sound different."

Angel led him to the couch to sit beside Groo, as Buffy and Spike crossed to where Tara and Willow were leaning on the folding table.

Groo clapped Connor's shoulder. "You didn't say 'whoa.'"

He gave a weak laugh. Neither of them would have joked about this half an hour earlier. "I missed an opportunity, I guess." He looked up at Angel. "Still not any less nervous about starting school this fall."

Cordelia smoothed his hair from his face. "Everyone is nervous about that, even if they grew up here. It's entirely normal."

Wesley crossed the lobby to the office, returning with several boxes. "I'll start packing these, get them back to the depository." He deftly removed the renaming spell from the algebra book and tucked it in his pocket before placing the textbook inside the box.

"I'll help," Fred volunteered.

Spike picked a swaying Tara up and carried her to the circular couch. Not to be outdone, Buffy did the same to Willow, who rolled her eyes, then giggled.

"If you guys feel weird or anything," she said to Groo and Connor, her voice wispy, "let us know. But if you aren't dizzy or don't have headaches in the next hour, I think we're set."

"Are you hungry?" Buffy asked them. "It's nearly lunchtime."

"Well, I could eat." Cordelia turned her head to the desk. "Fred, is that taco truck Tuesday-Thursday or Thursday-Saturday?"

Fred brightened. "Thursday through Saturday. You want me to make a run?"

"Sounds wonderful," Tara said.

Groo leaned across Connor. "Thank you both. I don't know how long it would have taken me to be comfortable in your world."

"Yeah. Thank you," Connor echoed.

"Fred, I'll do it. I need the practice. Con– er, Steven?" Faith asked. "You feel up for the trip? Two unlicensed drivers equal legal or something."

Just to get away from Angel's intense regard, he nodded. "Sure." He glanced at his father and then turned back to Faith, lifting a shoulder. "I guess you can call me Connor, if you want to. Either one."

The dark-haired Slayer looked surprised and met Cordelia's widened gaze for a second. "Uh, sure." Behind her, Wesley continued packing away textbooks and studiously did not look at Angel.

He was staring between Connor and Willow. "Will he be okay? Outside, I mean?"

"If he gets dizzy or anything, I'll bring him back," Faith said cheerfully.

Once they were in the nondescript little Chevrolet sedan Angel had bought for stakeouts, Faith gave Connor a sidelong look. "You okay?"

"I guess. I mean, everything's different now. Even how I think about you all." He gave her his own sidelong look. After a moment, he got the uncomfortable words out. "I mostly just thought of you guys as humans, but now… That dude has some strange ideas about women. And now I'm alone with one."

She gave a low chuckle. "I think society has strange ideas about women, not just teenaged boys. It's good to know those ideas, I guess, but feel free to ignore them and take us at face value. Any minority, I guess."

He looked puzzled. "I thought there were slightly more women than men."

"That's true, actually. I don't think of myself as oppressed, either, but historically, men have been in charge. White men, even. So, women aren't a minority, but had fewer rights until recently."

"I, uh…" The new knowledge in his head told him to shut up, but that wasn't the tentative relationship he'd built with Faith and the rest of his father's family. "I think about women in, uh, sexist ways."

"No. You live with a Slayer. You do not think about women in sexist ways," Faith said, pulling out into traffic. "You're fourteen. You think about women in sexual ways." She grinned, but didn't take her eyes off the other cars on the road. "And it's perfectly normal."

"It is?"

"Totally. I went through kind of the same thing at your age. You're getting that last, dramatic growth spurt before adulthood, lots of hormones. It's not all just lustful thoughts, either. There's a lot of sadness and anger, too. Being a teenager sucks."

"So it's not wrong that I think about sex with… you or Fred?" He didn't say Cordelia's name.

"No, but it is kinda awkward. Hey, I understand, though. I've been lusting after every man I've seen the last few weeks. That's my problem, not theirs." She thought about Wesley, of what she had done to him, of the fact that she would still love to tie him up for other kinds of games. She would never give him any indication she had those kinds of thoughts, and she certainly wasn't going to admit any such thing to a kid. Faith took a breath and went on.

"Look for a girl your own age. That's one thing society isn't wrong about, frowning on relationships between people who are grown and people who are still going through puberty."

Something in her voice tipped him off. "Who was he?"

"A senior at my high school. He was nineteen, I was fourteen. He took my virginity and trashed my reputation." Faith's jaw was tight for a moment, then sadness replaced the anger. "I never stood a chance, really." In hindsight, though she had felt like a worldly woman, she had been a damaged, neglected girl and an easy target.

"Sounds like a bastard."

"Damn straight. So, honesty, right?" She glanced at him, then went back to looking for a parking space near the taco truck. "I figured the first thing I would do when I got out of prison was get laid." Faith spotted a space she could pull into; she was super-relieved not to have to parallel park. "Then, I didn't find anyone right away. Now, I'm looking for something, I don't know. Something real, maybe. I've had sex before, but I look at what Fred and Gunn have, what Buffy has… Maybe I want to try that." She shut off the engine and turned to look at him. "Maybe I deserve that. I know you deserve better than just a physical relationship. Those are great for a moment, in the moment, then you feel just… empty, afterwards." She got out of the car and waited until he did, too.

"So, you're saying, I should find someone to fall in love with."

"Exactly. Hence, going to school. That's where you'll find girls." She nudged his shoulder. "Cute as you are, some of them are going to be girlfriends. But definitely make some female friends, too."

He looked at the sidewalk as they walked to the end of the line to order the food. "I couldn't have had this conversation with you yesterday," he mused. Connor stopped short. "I do have a question, though. Oz, you know, the werewolf? What's up with that? He wasn't with them today, but –"

"Nope," Faith declared. "Nothing about Oz, Willow, and Tara. You might have just found the limits of what I'll explain to you."

⸹

After Faith and Connor walked out of the Hyperion, Spike figured he could get the big vampire to focus on something other than his son. He started with that topic, though. "Junior seems to be doing well."

Angel smiled, but his expression was grim. "He hasn't killed me yet."

"Have you given any more thought to that guy I told you about?"

The big vampire nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, call him. Not like we can send Connor to a therapist."

Buffy's eyes sharpened. "Something going on?"

Cordelia snorted. "It wouldn't be if Angel would give Connor a little space."

"I will," the big vampire promised, something in his tone indicating that he'd heard her suggest it several times. "Now that he's got a little more knowledge about this world, I will."

Buffy looked between them, her brows going up slightly. Good time to change the subject. "Anything Wolfram and Hart related going on?"

"Wesley had one of the lawyers come to him for sanctuary," Gunn reported with a disbelieving shake of his head.

"I heard from a reliable source that a really powerful sorcerer who worked for them was murdered by his blood slaves," Wesley added, "and that several other… subcontractors met gruesome, if fitting, ends. It will be a long time before anything really fills the power vacuum."

"How is Dawn doing?" Fred asked, her sympathetic gaze on Buffy.

"She has a boyfriend," Buffy grinned, "who came along at the perfect time to distract her. "He's a junior who asked her to the prom, and they've gone out a few times now."

"Aww," Cordelia said. "That's so cool."

His jaw set in a not-wanting-to-talk-about-the-git line, Spike tried to put the conversation back on topic. "Any movement that looks like they're trying to regroup?"

"Not here in L.A." Wesley shrugged. "I have no idea about any other city."

"The Council is monitoring most of those places," Alpana offered.

"If anyone is leaving L.A.," Spike mused, "they aren't going through Sunnydale. I'd say the power-players are consolidating into smaller groups."

"Good." Cordelia hunched her shoulders. "Wolfram and Hart seemed too big to fight, sometimes."

⸹

Connor stepped out of the Hyperion and squinted against the sun. He had twenty dollars in his wallet, and he knew this was enough for lunch and bus fare to and from the mall. The Vans on his feet were cool enough that no one would notice he was totally out of place. It was his first time on his own in the city.

His fingers curled around his phone for a second. Faith would join him in minutes if he needed help in a confrontation; Angel would be there first if it wasn't daytime. If he needed a ride, Cordelia would swing by to get him. He thought about how she looked getting out of her little Audi in a short dress, the way her dark hair swung over her shoulder, how she would take off her sunglasses. Her eyes always lit up when she saw him.

Then he made himself think of the times Angel didn't think he was looking and would pull Cordelia into his arms and kiss her. Faith just laughed at his crush and told he that he had the same taste in women as his old man. He never could bring himself to laugh, though. It just hurt. Cordelia had wanted to be his mother; she was never going to see him romantically, and he was kind of in love with her.

Connor wished he could have fallen for Faith, who was safe and would have flirted with him, bolstered his ego. Or Fred, who really was pretty but whose head was always somewhere else. Buffy was pretty but too scary to think of that way, even if she hadn't been married to Uncle Spike. He'd tried to talk to Dawn once, since she was close to his own age, but hadn't been able to do much more than ask if she wanted some of his nachos. Somehow, she was more intimidating than any other female he knew.

No, it had to be Cordy, who was stunning, sweet, and interested in him as a son and interested in his father as a… partner.

He turned glumly toward the nearest bus stop, not noticing the unkempt red-haired woman who came out of a nearby alley, except to classify her as human.

"Boy."

He looked over his shoulder. Don't talk to strangers, especially not when they seem a little crazy. It was good information to know.

"You live there? That hotel?"

"I don't have any change." Connor's conscience played on his thoughts. "Do you know Father Gabriel? He can help you. Just go down three blocks –"

"Vampires live there. It isn't safe."

Some strange feeling rose up in him. Maybe it was from Kyle, whose brother was a vampire and had stayed in Sunnydale to watch over his family. Maybe it was from hanging out and playing video games with Uncle Spike. Maybe it was from observing his father these past few weeks and finding nothing of the hated Angelus in his behavior.

Connor swallowed his anger and shook his head. "Right," he said in a soothing, dismissive voice, "vampires. They'd be dangerous, sure. You know where you'd be safe from vampires? At the cathedral. Father Gabriel is there; he'll take you in and get you help."

"Kid," she snarled in frustration, and reached for his arm.

Connor had stepped to the side and captured her wrist in a smooth motion before she finished the syllable. "Lady, there's nothing here for you, okay? Leave me alone."

"Yes, Justine. Leave him alone."

They both turned to see Wesley standing less than two yards away, the early morning sun behind him. His cultured voice was colder than Connor had ever heard. He let go of the woman and backed away to stand near Wes.

"What did you do to him?" she spat.

"I told you already. He abandoned you, took the baby you kidnapped, and went to another dimension."

Connor's head whipped back to the woman. He'd heard the story, how she had rammed the car Wesley was driving, then stole him from the back while Wes and Cordelia were stunned and injured in the front. "You're the kidnapper?" His voice was high and cracked with emotion.

"Vampires?" she spat sarcastically. Justine took another step closer to them, her fists clenched. "What are you, anyway? You're too strong to be human."

Connor swallowed and moved to meet her. "I'm the baby, you idiot."

She fell back a few inches. "What?"

"Time moves different there. How did you know Holtz?"

"He showed me how to fight vampires." Her eyes were going over his features, looking for evidence of his father. "He was our leader."

"He was the man who took me to a hell dimension," Connor corrected. "He said he was my father and kept me alive in a world that stank of carrion. Some days we had no food. We always had to boil our water. I killed my first demon when I was six." He jerked his head toward Wesley. "My real family rescued me as soon as they could, but he was sick by then, coughing his lungs up. The demon who brought him here from his time – you ever meet him, the demon Holtz partnered with? – killed him, just broke his neck over nothing.

"And the vampire you're so worried about? He brought Holtz' body back here, paid to bury him in Saint Andrew's."

"Holtz left you without a thought, Justine, without a backward glance," Wesley added. "The only thing he wanted to do was get revenge on Angelus, a vampire who doesn't exist anymore."

"You're lying."

"I spent fourteen years alone with him. He never mentioned anyone named Justine."

She flinched at the boy's flat statement but kept glaring at them. After a moment, her eyes dropped to the pavement. "He's dead?"

Connor nodded and found he couldn't add anything. Maybe he wasn't the only one who mourned the old man. Seeing this, Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. "He was bitter. With reason, I know. Don't hold onto your own bitterness."

"His grave is in the new section," Connor said suddenly. "I try to go by on Sundays. I don't want to see you there, but… You should probably visit."

Justine couldn't meet his gaze, just turned away, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her short jacket.

"I'm sorry, Connor." Wes squeezed his shoulder.

After another moment of watching the woman as she walked away, Connor turned to look up at Wesley. "What did you mean about bitterness?"

"I might have recognized something in her," Wesley said lightly. When he met the bright blue eyes, he realized that Steven, who demanded honesty, was still very much a part of Connor's character. "I've been bitter myself."

"Why?"

"I'm a former Watcher who works with a vampire," he said acerbically, before thinking better of it. "Part of the reason is because Angel was kind to me, but a large part was to spite my family. Unlike your father, mine wasn't very loving. It's something I still struggle with."

"Oh."

"Do you still want to go out?"

"Not so much." They started back toward the Hyperion. Before they got to the entrance, Connor frowned. "How did you happen to be on the street?"

Wesley didn't glance at him, but there was a slight emphasis on the first word of his answer. "Your father was watching out for you from a window."

⸹

Next Chapter: Xander and Anya and a wedding. Should be interesting


	42. A Very Sunnydale Wedding

**A Very Sunnydale Wedding**

⸹

Sunnydale

May 2002

⸹

"So, are you excited about Rome?"

Spike shrugged. "Excited to see it with Buffy. And in the daytime," he added. He was patrolling with Xander the night before they left on their trip.

"Second anniversary," Xander mused. "It doesn't seem like it's been that long."

Spike thought of Glorificus and of Joyce's illness. "In some ways, it seems like forever. Mostly, it seems like it will never be enough time."

"I wonder what this seems like to Anya," the human said, absently twirling his stake. "I mean, she's over a thousand. I have to be, like, a blip on her radar."

Spike reached out and cupped his friend's nape for a second. "If she's like me, it feels like… the first rainbow of spring. You know, cold and grey forever, then soft, warm color."

"Oh." Xander looked over at him. "That's pretty. I feel all special now."

A smile touched his face. "Yeah, not going to go that far. So, anything I need to do for the wedding before we fly?"

Xander shook his head. "No, we're – incoming, ten o'clock."

Spike looked to his left, where a reptilian form appeared out of the gloom. It was wearing a loincloth and carrying a mace. Two more appeared behind it, then three more. They were moving in a wedge formation. "Okay," he said mildly, fishing in his pocket for a spare blade. "Disarm them first?"

Xander accepted the big hunting knife. "I take it you mean 'disarm' literally?"

Spike set off on an intercept course, speed-dialing Vince as he strode toward them. "Situation, Memorial Park," he said shortly. He dropped the mobile back into his coat and tried hailing the lead demon with a snarled greeting in a common demon language. Maybe they were just out for some benign ritual. The demon scowled and lashed out with the bar mace.

"Yeah, worth a shot," Spike muttered, going to game face. He brought his favorite blade, an arched Gurkha _Kukri,_ up into its gullet. The middle row of the wedge came around on either side to attack him. Xander was there to pull away the one on the right, moving into it with a sidestepping motion and leaving it on the ground in his wake. The blond vampire crashed into the one on the left, knocking it into the last row.

One of the trailing demons was holding an oddly shaped… candelabra. The only way he could tell its purpose was because candles were poking out from it. Xander, kicking at the lower leg joint on another one, noticed it at the same time. "Heading toward the Hellmouth in May?" he intoned. "Who would have thought?"

Vince came in at that moment with two new recruits, Tamara, who had been a librarian in her thirties when she was turned in the 1980s, and DeShawn, who had been turned in his early twenties just a few years ago. Tamara immediately took a blow to her forearm. As it broke, she cried out in pain, then went to game face.

"Don't bother with defensive moves!" Vince bellowed. "Drive! Drive!"

By this point, Spike and Xander had possession of the candelabra, a collection of such extreme angles that it almost hurt their eyes to look at it. Spike knocked it to the ground, putting out the few candles that were lit. Xander made an unhappy noise and pulled off his jacket, covering it, while Spike offered encouragement to the fledges. "Good, DeShawn. Rip its throat out. Don't take any of the blood, though. Bloody right, Tam – use its own weapon on that thick skull!"

Five minutes later, praise was given, form was corrected, bones were set, and the artifact was on its way to Giles. Xander and Spike had resumed patrol. "Easier than usual," Xander remarked.

"The way I like it," Spike said. "Must be getting old."

"Vince looks like he's getting younger."

Spike heard the question. "He went with me to L.A. Melba got him to let go of the barely-covered bald spot look."

"Oh! I noticed the slicked-back look was gone, but I didn't realize he has a full head of hair now." Xander gave him a sideways glance. "You've changed a little, too."

Spike shot him a glare and gritted out, "It isn't that big of a change. I was platinum blond when you first met me." That wasn't what Xander meant, and he knew it. Buffy and the Nibblet had persuaded him to go bleached blond again, but also nearly full poodle, with short curls on top and only the sides combed into any semblance of control. He still sort of hated it, but he couldn't argue with them. The first day he'd been out after seeing Melba, walking to visit Joyce at the gallery, a woman had stared at him open-mouthed from the driver's seat of her convertible. She only stopped when she rear-ended the car in front of her.

"You look very nice," Xander said, overly sincere.

"Shut it, you." He cast about for a different topic. "Anyway, you need me to do anything for the wedding?"

"Nope. Everything is nailed down. We have our last counseling session day after tomorrow."

"You think it was worth it? Ten sessions, wasn't it?"

"It was worth it," Xander said and didn't elaborate. When he'd first told Spike that his sole condition before marrying Anya was premarital counseling, he'd mentioned his parents' marriage as the reason.

"Good, then."

⸹

"It's a very old summoning device," Giles said.

"Summoning what?" Buffy asked, dread in her voice.

"A rather unsavory and powerful demon named He-Who-Bleeds."

"I assume he's the one who causes the bleeding?"

"You would be correct. Aubrey's researching the best way to destroy it."

"Sounds good," Buffy said. She picked up her small bag and moved forward in the airport screening line. "And that's all there was?"

"Yes."

"Seems kind of lame. There wasn't even an earthquake."

"Maybe we're getting better at Hellmouth management," her Watcher said dryly. "I haven't been coshed over the head for at least two years now."

Buffy snorted. "Gotta go. I'm at the metal detector, Giles. Love you."

"Love you, too, Buffy."

"You heard?" Buffy asked, folding her phone and turning to her husband.

He was glaring at the slow line ahead of them at the airport security checkpoint as if it had insulted his mother. "Last time we fly commercial," he muttered. Then, louder, "Yeah. I heard." He shrugged. "Glory wasn't fun, but the time before that wasn't too bad, except for Xander getting pulled into a vent in the earth."

"I kind of feel better, you know?" Buffy said, hoisting her carryon onto the belt that led to the x-ray machine. "At least something happened in May, before we left."

Spike gave her a kiss on the temple. "Which means we're all good, and you can officially relax for a couple of weeks."

⸹

Rome

June 2002

⸹

"I thought you said we were going to relax," Buffy mumbled, hiding her hot face against his cool side.

Spike chuckled. "We have. I thought my strategy of pulling you behind every façade and clump of bushes in Rome would keep you from walking holes in your shoes and, therefore, be very relaxing."

They were illicitly inside the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, listening to the water now. Even hidden inside the building that housed the fountain's waterworks, they had removed the minimal amount of clothes. Buffy's face still flamed when she thought of the German tourists who had spied them in a similar situation with fewer clothes on the grounds of the Villa Borghese.

"I said I love Rome," she teased, drawing up her underpants and adjusting her skirt, "not that I wanted to be loved up all over Rome."

"You say tomato," he shrugged, grinning, staring up at her. Behind his somewhat disheveled wife was a view of shadowed white stone and an arc of intensely blue sky. "You're beautiful, love."

She gave him a lopsided smile and nudged him with her foot. "Ditto. Get up before we get caught."

Once they were dressed and had retraced their way to the hidden door to exit the fountain, they strolled to look out over the stunning afternoon view of Rome from Janiculum Hill. "You want some gelato while we walk back to the hotel, love?"

"Mmm," Buffy groaned. "You know you're walking temptation, don't you?"

He was staring at her lip, which had gone pouty. Buffy put a hand out as he swayed toward her. "Oh, love, just a kiss."

"You know I can read your mind, literally, right?" But she lifted her face anyway. They strolled along side-by-side, holding hands. Spike wore a white linen shirt with a flat hem and linen trousers that screamed 'European guy' to Buffy, but it was a good look on him. Sometimes, when the streets were crowded, he fell behind her, blocking anyone who might want to pinch her bottom.

They found a _gelateria_ and made their selections. Buffy had been studying phrase books and practicing with her husband. Now, almost at the end of their two weeks in the Eternal City, she proudly ordered for herself. Out on the street, they continued down toward their hotel.

Once inside, Buffy insisted the splatter of strawberry gelato on Spike's linen shirt was so offensive that he had to remove all his clothes. An hour later, she was getting her breathing under control, running her fingers through his curls as his head rested on her tummy.

Spike was just as wonderful a guide to Rome as he had been for London and Paris. They saw all the touristy things, like the Coliseum and the Torre Argentina temple where Caesar was killed on the Portico of Pompey, now a haven for feral cats. But the first thing he'd shown her was the Ostia Antica seaport outside Rome. It wasn't as well known, so by the time they had to fight through crowds of other tourists, she had already seen arenas and busts of old gods. They even visited Vatican City as part of a Canadian tourist group, Buffy narrowing her eyes at any priests who passed too closely. She still hadn't forgotten Rossi making a play to bring her husband into the Church's fold.

As much as she had fallen in love with the city, there was something about it that unsettled her, too. She had fought the French language in high school and college, but Buffy felt she knew Italian better after a couple of weeks than the language she had studied for years. There were streets where she knew she could find good deals on shoes and purses, and when she needed tampons, she'd taken two left turns and found a store that sold them. When she brought it up to Spike, he'd shrugged. The only place he'd felt the same unwarranted sense of familiarity was Sunnydale.

I think I lived in Rome once. She didn't share the thought with Spike, just acknowledged it and filed it away. She moved on to better parts of her life.

 _Say 'strawberry.' Out loud._

"Um… strawberry?"

 _I love how you say that._

 _What, like 'schedules?'_

She giggled. _Yes. I love your accent. Your voice, too._

 _Yeah? Good, then._ After a moment, he lifted his head. _There's a word I love to hear you say. In your accent, your voice… just makes me happy._

 _What word?_

' _More.'_

"More." She shifted down the bed so her eyes and lips were level with his. "More."

 _That sounds perfect, kitten. Just perfect._

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Oh, how darling!" "It's beautiful!" "That's perfect for you!"

Buffy, who felt like her jaws were about to spasm from smiling so much, took another sip of punch. She was trapped on the couch between two vengeance demons at Anya's bridal shower. She was hosting, but Willow and Tara had offered their apartment for the party, since it would be easier for them to bar the guests afterwards. Right now, they were close to the refreshments on the other side of the room, leaving Buffy feeling somewhat stranded.

Anya's guest list was an unlikely mix of humans, demons, and other. Only Anya and Dawn seemed truly at ease. Buffy eyed her glass and wondered if she could get up for another round of punch and sort of not come back, just hang out with the witches.

"One gift left," Dawn said, handing it over to Anya. Nope, she was too late. "That's from your matron of honor."

"Oh, Buffy," Anya said. She leaned forward, forcing Buffy to rise and give her a hug. "If I haven't said it, thank you for the bridal shower."

Buffy smiled, mumbled something appropriate that foisted the praise onto Willow and Tara, and sank back onto the couch. One of the vengeance demons, the dark-haired one, patted her knee.

"Oh!" Anya tilted her head in approval. "A Tiffany's box." She lifted the lid. "And two gifts inside."

"I picked the tall one, and the wide one is from Spike." Buffy had chosen a lead crystal vase with the iconic wheat leaf design. Spike had picked a heavy silver picture frame. She hadn't had a bridal shower herself so she could avoid collecting just such things. They'd look good in Anya and Xander's apartment, though.

Now that the unwrapping was over, the guests began to focus on each other. Just as Buffy was about to say something to the demon on her left, she got up and headed toward the refreshments. Buffy forced a pleasant smile to her face and turned to her right.

"Halfrek," the dark-haired demon said, smiling and putting a hand to her chest. "And you're Buffy, right?"

"You have a good memory."

The demon waved this away. "Well, maid and matron of honor should know each other's names."

Buffy was momentarily distracted by her sister helping up a woman from a chair near Anya's. The woman had a greenish cast to her face. It was Anya's secretary, Buffy realized, a human who had been handling most things from the unorthodox group with aplomb. "Wonder what happened to Mai?" she whispered.

"Oh, it was Fawna's description of her last wish. She's always a bit… graphic with her stories." Halfrek focused on Buffy again. "So, you're the Slayer."

"That's me," Buffy agreed.

"And you married a vampire!"

"I did."

"Was there… something special about him?"

Buffy began to get an odd vibe from the vengeance demon. She lifted a shoulder. "I suppose he's special to me."

"Oh! Of course." Halfrek gave a little giggle and patted her curls. "It's just… a bit unusual. I only wondered, since William was with a vampiress for a long time. I mean, notoriously _with_."

She's met him, Buffy realized. She didn't let her eyes narrow or otherwise change her pleasant expression. "Yes, Drusilla. She was gone before we got involved." While she hadn't offered any additional information before, she felt it necessary to add, "I didn't kill her, and neither did he." She was speaking to a vengeance demon, after all.

"But… whatever drew you to him?"

Buffy didn't know what the underlying tone was. Pique? Disdain? Prurient curiosity? Then Buffy recalled that her husband was also the inspiration for the notorious Not-David statue. "He's a good man," she said coolly. She lifted her glass to empty it so she'd have a reason to excuse herself from this interrogation, but before she could, Halfrek's head rocked back as if she'd been slapped. "Are you all right?" Buffy asked, her voice sweet. "Stay here; I'll bring you some punch." As she walked away, she rolled her eyes.

Tara caught the gesture. "Are you okay?" she whispered, dipping into the punch bowl to refill the glass Buffy held out to her.

"Rubenstein groupie," Buffy said sourly.

Tara gave a slight wince. "Did I tell you about the girl who knocked on our door at three in the morning, looking for Oz?" When Buffy shook her head, Tara sighed. "Dingoes fan. A naked, drunk Dingoes fan."

Buffy got a wicked gleam in her eye. "I don't suppose there's a plan if anyone attempts a kidnapping?"

"Like turn her into a mind-wiped trophy fish and release her into the Pacific? I w-would never do anything so unethical," Tara managed in a prim tone before her grin got away from her.

"Right. I will never show up at your door, naked and unannounced, looking for Oz." Buffy noticed that it was Tara's hypothetical payback, not Willow's. She started to ask, but decided not to be nosy. Instead, she picked up a second glass and plastered a smile on her face, and then headed back to the couch and the nosy vengeance demon.

⸹

"Hey, Xander," Buffy said, brushing her hair out of the way so she could squeeze the phone's handset between her ear and shoulder. She was working on dinner, which meant she'd just put vegetables in the microwave to steam. It was the latest recipe she'd conquered.

"Hey, Buffster."

"What's the sitch?"

"Warren changed his plea."

"Oh. To guilty?"

"Yeah. A plea deal. Ten years before there's any chance of parole."

Her arms were crossed. Buffy turned to look out over the ocean, leaning her hip against the counter. "That seems like so long but also not long enough."

"I know." He sighed. "Apparently it was his ex-girlfriend's decision to testify that made him change the plea."

"Wonder what he did to her?"

"We probably don't want to know."

Buffy shivered a little. She could slay a dozen demons every night for years and never touch some kinds of evil. "You and An want to come over for dinner? I mean, I've seen her, but I've missed you the last couple of weeks."

Xander sighed. He looked down at the curl of blueprints on the table in front of him. "Have to take a raincheck. We're supposed to have dinner with my folks tonight."

"That's nice of you. And I'm sorry."

He gave a chuckle that didn't have much humor in it. "All I want is to be there the first time they harass my girl for grandbabies."

⸹

"Anya, truly, you look beautiful. I absolutely love your gown."

"The fit is good?" she asked, turning side to side, trying to see her back in the mirror.

"Perfect," Buffy reassured her, "as far as I can tell."

"I agree," the seamstress said, looking critically at a dart. "Usually brides either lose or gain five pounds by the last week, but you must be the same as last month."

"Well, I think Xander's been stress eating enough for us both," Anya said.

"Cummerbunds hide all flaws," Buffy reassured her. "Anyway, he looks fine to me."

Halfrek, who had been listening to two sisters in another part of the shop, drifted back to Anya's side. "And it's okay to wear white?"

The bride took no offense at this. "Even women on their fourth or fifth wedding wear white."

Buffy shuddered. "I can't imagine ever doing this again. I'd just go to the courthouse. Or shack up."

Anya was still staring intently at her reflection. "You aren't a romantic, though." Buffy caught the surprised look Halfrek threw at her in the mirror, but the maid of honor didn't say anything.

"Do you see any loose threads?" the seamstress asked. She was an old pro at being patient with brides.

"It's… flawless," Anya said, pivoting to the left one last time. "I'll take it off." A radiant smile lit her face. "Then, two days from now, I'll put it back on and have a wedding."

"But first, you'll have a bachelorette party," Halfrek said gleefully. "Male strippers!"

Anya frowned. "What about Vanti?"

"Vanti isn't available for the party," the vengeance demon said smugly, "but does hope to get away for the ceremony."

"I take it Vanti doesn't approve?" Buffy said.

"Well, neither do I," Anya said, heading toward the dressing room, "not really. But I did say I wanted a traditional party."

After the seamstress followed her, Halfrek leaned toward Buffy. "You know, it's surprising how often we meet a romantic partner when granting wishes."

Buffy blinked. "You'd think that would make v – uh, justice demons cynical." Halfrek hadn't mentioned Spike since the shower, and Anya's attendants had met several times. If Buffy hadn't been wary of her power and mindful of her interest in Spike, the curly-haired demon was almost fun to be around.

"I think it's using our power," Halfrek said. "I usually work with children, so I don't meet anyone, but after granting a really good wish," she turned her head to the side with a twist that sent her curls bouncing, "I have been known to go to a singles bar."

"So, do you have someone special?" Buffy asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, no. About the best we justice demons can manage is serial monogamy." She leaned toward Buffy and confessed, "I rarely get a second date." When the Slayer put on a surprised face, she added, "It's the power thing."

"Oh." Buffy nodded her understanding. "I haven't seen much of that, fortunately, but the other Slayer says she's not having much luck finding anyone." Faith had texted just today that her last date had gone well, but he'd called two days later complaining that she'd left bruises on his shoulders. "I did have a boyfriend who decided he wanted to be a hero, too," she added with a shrug.

"Oh?"

"He's doing pretty well with it," Buffy allowed.

"For a human?"

"Oh, no, he's a vampire."

"Another vampire doing good?" Halfrek's eyes widened. "Angelus?"

"Just 'Angel,' now," Buffy agreed, nodding, wondering again where and when Halfrek met Spike.

"When did you date him?" Halfrek asked cautiously.

"High school," Buffy said shortly. Fortunately, Anya came out of the dressing room just then, so she didn't have to elaborate.

"Are you two ready for lunch?" Anya was still smiling.

"Sure." Buffy gave her an impulsive hug. "Even without the dress, you look radiantly happy."

"You know what? I am." Anya seemed a bit surprised by her realization.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Someone knocked on the door. Gunn raised an eyebrow at that novelty. Usually people just came in; the Hyperion still looked like a public building. He was alone downstairs. Fred was working on her paper, Angel was asleep, and Wes and Cordy were out doing their own thing. He'd been playing Halo with Connor for a while; the boy could get anything out of his father, including a sweet video setup in his room and M-rated games.

Gunn opened the door and looked straight into a pair of wary brown eyes. As in, straight. It wasn't often he met someone on eye level. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Connor," the man said, somewhat stiffly.

"Oh, hey." Gunn opened the door wider and stood back so the other man could come in. "You must be Robin."

"Right. Robin Wood." He held out a hand. "And you are…?"

Gunn took the hand and accepted a standard American shake, a little bemused. Other than a couple of pastors, he couldn't remember shaking hands with another brother. "Charles Gunn. Just call me Gunn."

"Yeah, can't really have people calling me by my last name like that. I envy you your options."

Gunn snorted and grinned. Maybe the dude wasn't as uptight as he seemed. "You want to wait in the office?" He waved vaguely toward the area behind the reception desk. "I'll get Connor." Gunn called up to the boy's room, watching the other man assess his surroundings. He really wanted to ask what it was like to be the child of a Slayer, but he knew he wouldn't like it if a stranger asked him about his own late mother.

"He'll be right down." Gunn hung up the phone. "So, you, uh, have a doctorate?"

Robin nodded. "Educational administration." He lifted a shoulder. "I've taught a little, but I think I can be a better advocate as a principal."

Gunn couldn't hide his grin. "Advocate? Like Edward James Olmos? Or Lou Gossett, Jr.?" He couldn't think of any other inspirational teacher films.

"No. Like Michelle Pfeiffer." After a second, Robin's bland expression revealed a hint of humor.

Gunn laughed. "You got good taste."

"Hey." Connor's voice was quiet, but both men turned. The boy stood not far from the stairs, his hands in his pockets.

Robin stepped past Gunn to shake his hand. "Hi. I'm Robin. I understand we have some things in common."

"And you're here to talk to me."

"Something like that."

Connor firmed his mouth, then looked at Gunn. "Not here. Angel… you know."

It took Gunn only a second to understand. Vampire hearing. He glanced at Robin, who was wearing jeans and a white Henley shirt, but it was his shoes that caught Gunn's interest. He wore Asics. They'd do. "Hang on. Let me get some things, then we'll go where you can talk."

Forty minutes later, Connor and Robin sat in the only shady corner of a basketball court, watching Gunn work the radius, sinking more shots from downtown than not. The court was old and seldom used, mostly because the neighborhood had ceased to be residential a couple of decades ago. Robin watched another shot drop through the hoop, barely moving the chains of the net. "So. Want to hear my story?"

Connor lifted at shoulder. He'd wiped his sweat-plastered hair from his brow and now sat with his eyes closed, leaning against the chain link fence rising twelve feet around the court. He liked the fence; only Thricers and malor cats could scale them, and the rattle of the metal would give him warning.

Not that those things were here.

After examining the alert, wary boy another moment, Robin told his story. "I loved him," he said at the end. "Dad… Crowley gave me everything."

"And took everything."

Robin nodded. "He did. And he loved me." He sighed. It was a long story, and Gunn had given him time to tell it. The heat of summertime Los Angeles was wearing on the tall young man. He was stationary now, standing at the free throw line and practicing that shot.

After a couple of minutes of watching Gunn, Connor finally spoke. "I wonder how he kept me alive. I was just about six months old when he took me." He didn't say Holtz's name. "There's no milk in Quor'Toth, so I guess he had to chew up food and feed me." His full lips thinned, and he didn't say anything else.

"I'll never be able to understand how he looked right in my grandmother's eye and lied to her, told her I was dead."

"I don't know if I'll ever understand whether my father was lying to me," Connor admitted. Neither of them looked away from Gunn, who scrambled after the ball after a missed shot sent it rebounding wide of the lane. "Can vampires be anything but evil, or was it his own hatred that kept him from ever seeing the possibility?"

"I'm not really here to answer questions," Robin said kindly, though his face had tightened. "Just let you know, other than the dimensional stuff, it isn't unknown for people to steal kids."

"People," Connor said, emphasizing the word.

"Yeah." Robin let out a breath and stood up, taking pity on Gunn. "You know which school you're going to in the fall?"

Connor squinted his eyes against the bright, washed-out blue behind the tall man. "No."

"Come down to the Sheffield Academy," Robin offered impulsively. He'd be starting his second year as an assistant principal there. After seeing Connor hold his own against two grown men nearly a foot taller than him on the basketball court, he had a selfish urge to recruit him for their athletic program. He held out a hand to pull the boy to his feet and salved his conscience. "We have an excellent academic program, particularly in the sciences."

"Are there girls there?" Connor asked, his eyes narrow. He knew enough from Kyle Pederson's knowledge that he didn't want to go to an all-boys school.

Robin couldn't keep from grinning, but his voice was grave. "We have girls there."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

[Author's Note: I just learned that Hot Dog on a Stick is a fast-food chain in real life. Because of the name, I had always assumed it was made up for the television show, like Doublemeat Palace. I'm very sorry if I've disparaged your favorite franchise!]

⸹

"You wanna break?" Xander asked. Spike shook his head. For his bachelor party, Xander had only asked for a pool table and good beer. Spike enlisted Oz, the other groomsman, and rented one of the empty storefronts in Sunnydale. They brought in twenty tables for various kinds of billiards and, with Anya's aid in getting a speedy liquor license, became the first place in Sunnydale to have California's top twenty craft beers on tap.

By the time they finished, they found they had organically decided to start a bar together. Oz's condition was that there would be no video games and only one television, and Spike's was that the lighting couldn't be fluorescent. The name of the bar obviously had to be Fangs, and, between them, the music selection on the jukebox was exquisite.

"No, you go ahead," Spike told the groom, who didn't seem nervous at all. They had hired a bartender and some servers and were calling this their soft open. Vince was serving as bouncer at the door, only letting in the invited guests. Xander's father, uncles, and a couple of cousins were there, as were his construction buddies and their friends from Los Angeles.

Spike glanced at the snooker table where Wesley was giving a clinic to Gunn, Giles, Groo, and Xander's former boss, Alvin Nunez. Several of his old co-workers were watching, too. Angel and Connor had a table to themselves, though the boy was throwing longing glances at Wes' table. He was going to spend the night with Kyle, Cory's little brother and Connor's pop culture donor.

Aubrey was behind the bar, his bulk gently squeezing the bartender out of her preferred spot as he rummaged through the bottled beverages. Spike shot a grin at Oz, who was too busy examining the collection of music they'd curated for the jukebox to notice.

"Don't let me hear you complain when I run the table," Xander said.

"Like I would. You're the easiest-to-please groom, X-man. I was afraid I'd have to top the bloody Sirens."

"Yeah, vengeance demons in my wedding party are enough scary dames for this groom."

Spike chuckled. Buffy had asked him if he'd ever met any vengeance demons other than Anya, which he had not, and then warned him that Anya's matron of honor seemed to be another Rubenstein fan. "I'd be afraid to put a toe out of line, I were in your shoes."

"I like naked boobies popping out of cakes – or anywhere, really," Xander shrugged, "but I like my future wife a whole lot better." In a softer voice, he asked, "Speaking of boobs, is Dad still hitting on that black-haired waitress?" Grimacing, Spike gave a short nod. "Is it too late to take you up on your offer for a wedding present?"

Spike lifted his brows in surprise. "'Course not." He'd offered to use the mesmer to coerce the older Harris into polite behavior.

"He didn't say anything in front of anyone yet," Xander said, lining up behind the nine-ball, "but Mom told me he's been saying… inflammatory things about Anya's friends. Things," he gave the ball a solid _twack_ , "no non-suicidal person should say to a vengeance demon."

Alarmed, Spike stayed only long enough to watch the ball drop. "I'll go do it right now." He did it quickly, giving Mr. Harris more precise direction than he'd given Buffy's father: do not feel a need to express his opinions, mind his manners, and, for once, lay off the booze.

Xander had started on the solids by the time he'd finished. Spike shot the smug groom an impolite gesture, then his attention went to Vince, who was standing at the door and staring at him with a grim expression. He walked over to the vampire.

"Call from the Alibi Room," his minion said in a low tone. "Some lowlife just came in and said he wanted a front row seat for the chaos. Willy asked what he meant, then called around and confirmed that there's a gang of Hellions coming to the Hellmouth on motorcycles."

Hellions. Spike cursed, and his head swiveled sharply to survey the bar. Buffy had no idea where Halfrek was taking them for the hen party, so she and the Wiccas were off the table. Xander couldn't leave his own party. He turned back to Vince and gave his orders in a low, rapid voice. "Get Lu and Tam here to take your place. Have the lads join us. We're heading up the road to catch them before they get to town."

 _Angel._ He had already turned away from Vince, who was opening his phone, headed to the bar. _Hellions on the way. Need you and Groo for a 'food run.'_ "Aubrey?"

"Mm?" He turned away from the shelves and looked at Spike through the glass refrigerator door, a bottle of Guinness in his hand.

"Can you and Giles work the spells to protect neighborhoods by yourselves?"

"Of course." He shut the door and stepped closer. "The spells are stored in crystals and ready to go, like most things the coven does."

"Hellions coming into Sunnydale," Spike said briefly. "I'm taking a couple of our big guns out to see if we can intercept them. One road in, yeah? Concentrate on the neighborhoods to the east first."

"We'll do the fire-repelling spells first. Good luck."

Spike turned away from him, absently clapping him on his shoulder, meeting Angel's gaze for a bare moment. "Xander! You win. Making a trip to Hot Dog on a Stick. You want anything?"

"Chili cheese fries."

"Right."

Spike waved and headed for the door. Groo, noticing the tension, caught Angel's look and fell in behind the big vampire.

"We're gone the moment the lads are here," Spike said when they were a few paces down the sidewalk. "Aubrey's setting up supernatural barriers to the residential neighborhoods. If we can keep – Connor."

"I'm coming." He'd followed them out the door and double-timed it to catch up.

"No." Angel's voice was adamant. "Stay with Gunn."

"I overheard, and I fight demons." His attention was drawn away from them by three figures who moved to flank them.

"They're mine," Spike warned him, knowing the lad could sense vampires. He nodded toward his minions in greeting. "Angel, down to you." _I have to have you, though._

"Connor… Steven." The hated name was a plea for the boy to listen. "Go back to the party."

"Not if there's danger out here."

Spike closed his eyes and whirled around. "No time for this. Might get ugly, son. If you fight a Hellion and it knocks you down, it will try to rape you. They didn't evolve for consensual sex like humans, yeah? Barbed hooks, the wrong shape for humanoids, everything. They're famous for it. Go back inside."

Connor lifted an unconscious lip in horror and disgust. Then his face hardened. "Those guys sound like assholes. Let's go kill them." He didn't look at his father, just at Spike.

Spike turned away. Groo, Angel, and him plus Connor equaled four champions to save the town instead of three. They were at his truck, and he'd given the most compelling argument he could. Like that would deter the lad. He dug out his keys. "Cory, take the wheel. DeShawn, hand over that duffel from the back of the cab." He vaulted into the bed and began sorting through the weapons in the duffel. Connor followed him and settled in by the gate before meeting his father's black gaze. With a muttered oath, Angel leapt into the bed, too. Once everyone was inside the truck, Spike stood briefly to thump the top, giving the order to go.

"Got a winch on the front," he said, his head turned slightly toward Angel. The dark-haired vampire nodded his understanding, though his expression was furious. "Got to figure they know Aurelians have claimed the Hellmouth."

"They will have wooden weapons," Groo said. He lifted an axe. "Ours will be better."

"Hellions like to fight with chains. They will definitely have blades on them. Keep your distance."

Connor glanced around as the truck blew through a red light. Traffic in Sunnydale wasn't like Los Angeles, though. He saw one pair of headlights a few streets over. His mind went back to the coming battle. Two Aurelians, four of their minions, Groo, and him. "Do we know how many?"

Spike's lean face tightened. "More'n fifty." He wore a dark red button down shirt and black jeans, and with no other place to hide an extra weapon, he tucked a Bowie knife into his combat boot. "Right. I take point. They should send a scout or two ahead." The blond vampire swung around the side of the bed so that he could stick his head inside the cab. "'Bout half a mile up, park on the opposite side of the pass."

As Spike sat back down in the bed, he took a moment to do what his heart had been screaming for him to do. _Love? How're things going?_

 _Hey. The strippers aren't local boys. In that they aren't human. The pink fur – What's going on?_

He grimaced. He'd intended to hide the emergency from her. _Nothing we can't handle. Just wanted to make sure you're okay. Seemed odd that something would hit just now._

 _You need me? Need us?_

 _Always, but not for this_.

Buffy was slow to reply, obviously thinking hard about things. _I'll ask Anya if she has any thoughts on the timing._

 _Oh. I was thinking you were out of town, not that someone is trying to bust up her wedding. Smart and sexy, you are._

 _Be careful._

 _I will._

The truck shook as Cory went across the line and to the left shoulder to park. "Angel?" There was a thundercloud to the big vampire's aspect, but he was listening. "Take the wheel, get the truck ready. Groo? Get the boys armed and arranged on either side of the hill." The Pylean scanned the terrain and nodded his approval at the spot Spike had chosen. The engineers who built the road had blasted through a hillock, leaving banks as high as twenty yards on either side of the asphalt.

"What about me?" Connor asked. He'd already chosen his weapon, a sword, and had it out of the way by the tailgate.

Spike put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen to Groo." And don't get killed. He heard the staccato sound of a lone motorcycle engine. Yamaha, maybe 500cc. Vaulting over the side of the truck, he started walking back toward Sunnydale, looking for a good spot to make his stand. He found it, turned toward the sound of the oncoming scout, and rolled out his neck.

By that time, Angel had turned the truck and pointed the nose toward the road. Now, he leaned against the front bumper, his eyes on the spot across the road where his son was concealed. How had it come to this? All they'd set out to do was attend a bachelor party. His big dilemma was supposed to be whether he let Connor have a beer. God damn Sunnydale, anyway.

Spike shifted his feet into an open stance and lowered his head as the single headlight of the bike swept toward him. He knew the moment the scout saw him: the Hellion accelerated. Trying to mitigate the physics of it, he began to jog backwards, knowing the stretch of road behind him was straight and free of potholes. He reached twenty miles an hour when the Hellion bore down on him. Spike's arm came out at the same time as the demon's, and he caught hold of the Hellion's arm.

The collision knocked the demon from his perch atop the motorcycle. Spike let go of its arm and snatched with unnatural reflexes toward the center of the bike's handlebars, gritting his teeth against the wrench that tried to tug his arm from the socket. A second later, he was seated on the wobbling motorcycle, trying to get his feet and hands situated before the engine died. Five seconds later, he had turned the bike and was bearing down on the stunned demon. Spike leaned over and grabbed it by a leg, dragging it off the road and out of sight. The headlight went off.

The second the Hellion passed his position, Angel bent to grab the cable attached to the winch on Spike's truck. He darted across the road and leapt the guardrail, waiting until Spike commandeered the bike. When he saw the boy drag his opponent off the road short of his own position, he began wrapping the cable around the guardrail until it raised from the surface of the road, hovering about a foot above the pavement. Then he drew shadow to the area. This was a strategy they had used over a century ago in St. Petersberg, on a much smaller scale.

 _He said sixty on the way._ The report from the brief interrogation was grim, but the hand Spike put on Angel's shoulder was a comforting familial touch. The blond vampire was gone immediately, heading to the other side of the road. _Meet you in the middle._

The Hellions weren't observing safe distance recommendations as they rode. The hidden barrier took down eight motorcycles before the mount broke and the winch came free of Spike's truck. At least twenty-five other bikes plowed into the pileup. Angel and Spike began to stalk toward each other through the heap of injured and stunned Hellions, blades and fangs flashing. Behind them, the whole motorcade came to a stop in the valley between the two sides of the hill. Death fell on the Hellions from above.

Connor killed his first demon before his feet touched pavement. He appropriated a chain from the third Hellion he killed. Watching out for others was second nature to him, had been since he was nine and outpaced Holtz. By the time he slayed his sixth demon, he'd saved both Cory and Vince from stakes and had mastered the basics of fighting with his new weapon. The incredible din of the motorcycle engines waned. When he withdrew his sword from his tenth opponent, Connor had wrapped the chain around his forearm as a makeshift shield. A twelfth Hellion fell before him, and he had to search for the thirteenth. Brian came up next to him, grinning. Then Connor realized he could see him clearly, that Brian's shadow had changed.

"Shit."

"Not good," Groo commented calmly, coming to watch a second wave of motorcycles approaching. An especially agonized death cry came from a Hellion behind them.

"You guys get to the sides," Brian said. "They might have guns."

"I got," Angel's yellow eyes darted along the line of headlights, "another score or more." He looked down at Connor and gave him a piercing look before shoving him to the left, toward the shelter of the hill.

Spike moved past them and took point again, leaving Deshawn and Cory to mop up the five or so remaining Hellions. He stopped just inside the point where the banks of the hill began to slope away and tilted his head to the side as if to ask, 'what kept you?' Then he flicked the _Kukri_ , sending a thin line of blood and other fluids flying, the challenge obvious. The bank of headlights began to fill out as the Hellions came to a stop about thirty meters short of the pass.

One rider gunned his engine, but the Hellions didn't advance. Angel's nostrils flared, smelling something new. "Perimeter," he said shortly.

Before he could turn to the right, one of the headlights aimed their way went upwards, pointing toward the dark sky for a moment before falling away. Another went wide, light spilling across the shoulder.

Peering into the bright glare, Spike couldn't see anything, but he sensed his Slayer. A cry of fury and anguish tore from him. The cool strategist was gone. He flew toward the ranks of the Hellions, feet touching pavement no more than twice, his arm raised for a killing stroke in midair. Buffy. He had to get to his wife. The solid wall of light wavered and fell into individual headlights.

From the litter of corpses around them, the rest of his crew had no time to engage, could only watch Spike and another figure move in silhouette among the Hellions, two blades flashing as they drew closer to one another. Inhuman throats roared in dismay as the blades danced, cries ending with abrupt finality. The moment the two blade-wielders were side by side, they fell into a coordinated attack, balancing atop motorcycle handlebars and seats and, occasionally, Hellions.

Connor saw that they both had blond hair, and he realized the Slayer had arrived. He turned toward Sunnydale, sensing movement, and casually drove his sword into the single Hellion still alive after the initial battle. By the time he checked for additional survivors and turned back, it was nearly over. He got to see Buffy kill the last Hellion, then Spike grab her in a fierce embrace. A sound on the hill above him made him jerk and look up, bringing his weapon into guard position. A line of women in fancy dresses were standing there, applauding and laughing. Some were holding cocktails.

"How?" Spike managed, pulling away from his wife's perfect waves of wheaten hair.

Buffy shrugged at the hoarse question. "When a roomful of vengeance demons wants to see a fight, they come and see a fight." She pulled free enough to lift her face for a kiss. _I asked Willow to get the Scythe for me. I couldn't just watch._

 _So, you figured you were going to be here anyway…_ He pulled away and leaned so he could put his forehead against hers. _God, I never wanted you near a Hellion, much less dozens._

 _Like I ever want you to have to fight alone._

 _Not alone, love._

She gave him a smile so full of confidence that he was immediately, painfully sprung. _Well, you didn't have a Slayer._ Buffy laughed and pushed him away, but not before nudging her abdomen against him. _Later._

 _Oh, kitten. Your dress._ It was ripped from the hem of the short skirt up to the waist. Spike unbuttoned his cuffs and doffed his dress shirt like it was a t-shirt. _Here, put this on._ From atop the hill, someone hooted and started a drunken 'Take it off!' chant.

Buffy glanced up at the group of bachelorette party attendees with a smile and waved, though she shook her head. After she pulled on her vampire's shirt, she looked around for the first time at the litter of bodies and bikes at their feet, at the larger pile in the cut-through. "Uh… Better ask Anya about the best way to clear the road. I mean, this is a definite traffic hazard." Several of the motorcycle engines were still running. The drivers were nowhere near as lucky.

While Anya called Sunnydale's impound yard, demon practicality asserted itself on the ground. Spike had the minions pick through the battlefield for weapons and, if they wanted one, a motorcycle. One of the vengeance demons hollered a request down to Vince. Shrugging, he hauled the corpse of a Hellion into better light and slit the front of its trousers.

"Looks like a desiccated cactus!" the vengeance demon shouted, laughing raucously.

Spike led Buffy through the carnage, explaining the ambush, bragging on everyone. The Slayer greeted his minions, none of whom did more than nod respectfully, and her friends from Los Angeles. She put an arm around Connor and listened while he told her about his part in the fight.

Watching, Angel had to smile as his son became more animated under Buffy's suitably impressed attention. Spike came up next to him, trundling the motorcycle he'd taken from the scout. "She's good with teenagers," the blond vampire said fondly.

"Well, she's got Dawn," Angel agreed. He glanced at Spike, who was staring at his wife in a manner that could only be described as besotted. "That was a good plan, boy. No one got injured."

Spike turned his head sharply, eyes wide with surprise. Then he let out a little puff of breath as his expression broke into a full, open smile. "Thanks."

I never praised him, Angel thought, the mindlink between them buffeted by pride, embarrassment, and simple joy. Now, the realization didn't lead to black memories of the past. Instead, he made a mental note that he needed to praise Connor more. He realized he was in one of Spike's iron-grip hugs. "Uh, you're welcome."

Buffy came to join them. "I take it that we're meeting you at Hot Dog on a Stick? It looks like Anya's party is going to merge with Xander's."

"Oh. I forgot all about the food we're supposed to get," Angel said.

"I haven't forgotten," the Groosalugg said, touching Buffy's shoulder in greeting as he passed.

"Me, either," Connor said. "I'm starved."

"You're always starved," Angel grumbled. It wasn't a real grumble; Connor had put on ten pounds and grown three inches since he returned to earth.

"Ready to ride, love?" Spike threw a leg over the motorcycle.

"This is going to make my hair look awful," Buffy said, even as she perched on the back of the bike.

"Nothing could ever make you look less than beautiful," her husband replied.

She didn't say anything, just slid her arms around his waist as he started the bike. Once they were a hundred yards or so down the road, Buffy's hands fell to his thighs.

The motorcycle wobbled a little. _Best not do that, love._

 _But I've been looking at strange demon strippers all night. I'm all worked up._ Her hands went back around his waist, though.

"Took you long enough," Xander said twenty minutes later when Tamara held the door open for Angel. "You guys were gone an hour."

"They stopped to pick up hitchhikers," Anya said cheerfully, coming in behind the big vampire. She went to Xander and, because she was a little drunk, French kissed him in front of everyone. Anya pulled away a good ten seconds later to catcalls and applause. "Mind if I crash your party?"

"Not at all," he said emphatically, pulling her in for another kiss.

"None of that until tomorrow," his father complained. It was possibly the most appropriate complaint he'd voiced in years. Everyone laughed good-naturedly.

Angel set his box of hot dogs and corndogs on the bar. Oz came over to greet him and look inside. "Man, we really need to work on getting an In-and-Out in Sunnydale." Then his eyebrows rose as he got a nose full of new information from Angel's scent. "What's the what?' he asked quietly.

"Let everyone get their food," Angel said, forcing a smile as people came forward, "and I'll tell you."

A few minutes later, a couple of attractive vengeance demons were showing Xander's construction buddies how to play snooker, as if Wesley hadn't already shown them. Groo was explaining why the food run took so long to Xander, with Giles and Aubrey describing the protective spells that now lay over much of eastern Sunnydale. Angel finished talking to Oz, accepted a pint of beer from the bartender and went to where Connor was eating at a small table.

He sat and bent his head close to Connor's. "Don't even use the word 'wish,' much less make one," he advised, his voice low, "and stay away from them entirely if you can." Connor nodded, and his heart contracted. Praise, he remembered. Still using the low voice, he added, "You fought really well out there, son. I spent more time than I should have watching. The way you used that chain was just… awesome. I shouldn't have been worried, but I was."

"Hellions aren't so tough, Dad," he said, shrugging. "I've fought –" He stopped abruptly, his eyes locking onto shocked, brown ones. 'Father' was his word for Daniel Holtz; he'd never called either man 'Dad.' It was a word borrowed from Kyle.

Then he was being squeezed in a hug that took the breath from him. "Thank you," Angel managed. "I never thought I'd hear –" Then he couldn't say anything, words blocked by a sob that he absolutely could not let anyone, particularly his son, hear.

⸹

Saturday evening brought clear skies with a beautiful sunset, a perfect backdrop for Anya and Xander's beach wedding. Buffy stood behind Halfrek in her iridescent silver dress, holding a huge bouquet, waiting for Anya to make her appearance. She had seen the dress, so she was watching Xander, wanting to see his face when he first saw his bride in her finery. He looked stunned, proud, and somewhat misty-eyed, and she shot a grin at her husband. Spike stood ahead of Oz in his position as best man, and he beamed back at her.

The sun dropped below the ocean as the officiant administered the vows, and darkness brought even more guests to the rows of folding chairs. Xander gave his bride an enthusiastic kiss, and they took their first walk as man and wife to cheers from human and non-human throats.

Spike offered his arm to the matron of honor and gave her an impersonal smile. There was something familiar about her, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on it. What Buffy had said about her showing interest in him made him too skittish to simply ask. Once he'd delivered her safely to the brand new city-owned gazebo where the reception was set up, he said, "Lovely, wasn't it?" Then he turned to Buffy, behind him on Oz's arm, and grabbed her by her shoulders. "LaVelle? Xander's middle name is LaVelle, and you lot never told me?"

Buffy slugged his shoulder and rolled her eyes, but she smiled as she did so. "See? Aurora would have been just fine officiating at our wedding and conjoining our essences."

"We could renew our vows."

"I thought you said you never wanted to do that again," Giles noted, already doffing his suit jacket as he joined them.

"She'll be great for Mom's second wedding," Buffy suggested with a grin. Then she gave him a narrow look. "Where are your glasses?"

"I'm wearing contacts, actually."

Buffy just stared at him, looking almost suspicious. "Why?"

"Why shouldn't I?" he shot back.

"But what will you do when you're shocked?"

"What?"

"You polish your glasses."

"I do not."

"Oh, yes, you do." Then she remembered something and sobered almost immediately. "Excuse us, Giles. Anya said we need to pay our respects to D'Hoffryn."

"I'll just join Joyce," he said, grateful to not have that obligation.

"That's prudent," Halfrek agreed, patting her dark curls.

Something about the gesture captured Spike's attention, but he just nodded and smiled again, letting his wife lead him away to make introductions. After the ordeal was over, Buffy sent him off to give his speech and looked around for a waiter so she could get something to drink for the toast.

"Hey, B."

"And Faith comes through with the booze," Buffy said, taking what she thought was a glass of white wine from her fellow Slayer.

"I shouldn't, not when I missed the party last night."

"It wasn't that great," Buffy said, her voice low. "Oiled-up, fake-bake gym rats in black pants and bow ties it was not. Think pink Whos from Whoville with retractable dicks." She tilted her glass and took a drink. It wasn't wine. Buffy's face went red and she coughed. "What is this?" she wheezed.

"Vodka and lemon-lime soda." Faith was grinning. "I've seen Knaus demons knock the breath from you, but I've never seen your face that color." She handed her sister Slayer a napkin so she could wipe her mouth. "Anyway, I meant the Hellions. _That_ sounded like a party."

"Not one we planned."

Faith shrugged. "Someone planned it. Anya's ex-boss just gave her a box with a severed head inside as a wedding present."

Buffy looked uneasy. "Do we know who it was?"

Faith shook her head, unconcerned. "No, just someone who had a grudge against her. He got the Hellions to attack Sunnydale. Apparently, ex-boss turned Arashmaharr upside-down all day, making sure no vengeance demon granted a wish against her. Then he came to this plane to play detective."

"Well, it sounds like he isn't angry with her anymore," Buffy said. She took a more cautious sip of her mixed drink. "This isn't bad, if you don't chug it."

"Anyway, Cordy sent me over to bring you back. We're all here except Groo. He's got patrol tonight." Faith slid her arm around Buffy's waist and gave her a wicked grin. "I looove your dress."

"Oh, shut up," Buffy said without rancor. "You know you've got bridesmaid duty ahead of you, too, don't you?"

"Well, don't tell her I said it, but Cordy has good taste. And she'll bully Fred into something classy, too, if she gets hitched to Gunn."

Buffy looked around the gazebo, letting Faith guide her to the table where the L.A. contingent was beginning to collect stray Scoobies. It was basically an enormous, white, freestanding porch, rectangular and topped with a cupola. Set on the far end of the main beach, it was already booked for weddings the rest of the year. It was amazing how much Sunnydale had grown since high school.

Cordelia was sitting next to Angel, who was wearing a button-up shirt with a tie that coordinated with her green dress. Buffy gave her a hug and asked, "Is that…?"

"Your present from France?" The brunette beauty nodded. "First chance I've had to wear it."

"I think she means you should take her out more often, boss," Faith said, dropping into a chair.

Angel gave Buffy a nod, then lifted his glass and pointed toward the middle of the gazebo, where Spike stood with a microphone. "Toast," he stated, neatly avoiding the subject.

"Hullo, guests of the happy couple. I'm Xander's best man, and I'll need your attention for a moment. If you haven't already, now is the time to grab a glass to raise." Spike lifted the champagne flute in his right hand by way of example. "I've known Xander for a while now. The X-man and I bonded over our mutual love of classic cars, general mayhem, and women who are far out of our league."

He waited until the chuckles subsided. That was the only humorous part, since Anya's guests were, by any definition, volatile. "The woman who was out of my league, I now call wife. Every day, I wake up and spend a few minutes in awe that she ever noticed my existence, much less fell in love with me.

"I know that Xander feels the same way about Anya. He's a small-town boy, and I'm sure he'd be the first to say there's nothing special about him to attract the attention of a fierce beauty like her. But there is, and Anya saw that. She's said that the first thing she noticed about him was that he didn't put on a macho front. She would have seen through anything false.

"What's truly special about Xander is that Anya is his sunlight. She shone on him, and he turned to her light and grew into someone who could be smart enough to see and brave enough to fight for that fine woman. And the fruit of that growth was their love." Spike gave the crowd a smile and raised his glass again. "So please join me in a toast to the happy and loving future ahead of Anya and Xander. To the adorable couple!"

Afterwards, the groom came up and gave Spike an exuberant hug. "Thank you. My toast was better, though."

"It was, but you only had yourself to satisfy. I was negotiating a ceasefire."

"Calling me 'X-man,' check. Making sure I sound non-threatening to the new in-laws, check. Mentioning that Anya is out of my league, check."

"Just God's own truth, monkey boy."

"You're in a tux, too, fangface."

"Oh, just kiss each other already," Anya grumbled as she came up to them. She gave Spike a hug, too. "Thank you. And please don't actually kiss each other, not with most of Arashmaharr's population watching."

Twenty minutes later, Cordelia gave Angel a pat on his shoulder and excused herself with a tight smile. At his concerned look, she just lifted a shoulder. Truthfully, she did need to go to the bathroom, but she'd also spotted Harmony with her sugar daddy husband ("Tim's dad," she thought resentfully) and didn't want to have to exchange fake smiles with her. Plus, she'd been feeling a little jealous watching Buffy dance with her hot, tuxedo-clad vampire when her own vampire should never be allowed on a dance floor. Five minutes would do it, she guessed, but she was still looking around warily for too-blond extensions when she started back.

"Oh! Sorry," she said, reaching out to steady the person she'd bumped into. Then she got a look at his face. "Cory? Cory Pedersen?"

"Oh. Uh, hi," he said lamely.

"Oh. It's Cordelia," she said, abashed. "You were a junior when I was a freshman." He was one of the boyfriend candidates she'd circled in her yearbook. He played varsity basketball and had a cute smile, and Cory-and-Cordy made a cute couple's name. Not long after that, Cordelia discovered she was out of his league and never noticed when he disappeared.

"I know." He looked embarrassed. "Your boss knows my boss."

Cordelia was rarely speechless, but she was left with her mouth agape as she connected the names. "Cory… Kyle Pedersen is your little brother?"

He nodded and shrugged. A woman came down the path toward the restrooms, and Cory took her arm as they stepped out of the way. "Yeah. I'm here for the wedding. Well, the second hour. Right now, I'm sort of security."

"After yesterday?" Cordelia said vehemently. "I'll bet."

He smiled at her, and she felt his otherness for the first time, the inhuman enchantment. He was more plain than anything else, but he'd always had a sweet smile, and now it left her a bit breathless. "It was fun, though." Cory looked behind her and lifted a hand in an odd waving gesture, his fingers tucked against his palm. A shadow detached from a palm tree and headed their way. "Deshawn, this is Cordelia. She works with Angel."

"Hey, pretty lady," he said with an appreciative grin.

"You mind covering this end by yourself for a few minutes? I wanted to ask how Connor's doing."

"No problem."

Cordelia had a moment of worry, but Cory led her toward the crowd near the gazebo, stopping at an overflow table and handing her into a folding chair. "So, what's up with you? I do remember you, just to be clear. You were on the cheer squad. What are you doing these days?"

"Well, I went to Los Angeles to be an actress after the horror that was graduation." She was radiant with happiness at her next words. "I just got offered the lead in a network series."

"Wow. That's a big deal," he said, suitably impressed.

"Yes! I know!" She dialed it down a little. "I mean, it's going to be a midseason replacement, if it gets on at all, but…" Cordelia gave a little shrug, "the network really liked the pilot. We start shooting in August."

"How are you doing that and patrolling, too – and helping raise a kid?"

"Super-Cordelia, that's me." She sighed. "Not that Connor needs much raising."

"Kyle said he was staying over last night."

She nodded. "I haven't really talked to him today, but I think they had a good time." She lifted a shoulder. "Mostly, I think they stayed up late, because he seems really sleepy. Also, bored."

"Yeah, awkward teenaged boys at a dressy event," Cory smiled.

"But, now that he's got Kyle's sense of life here on earth, he's really settling in. He's a good kid," she said, smiling fondly. "Moody like a PMS queen sometimes, but a good kid."

"Oh, that'll get worse before it gets better," Cory warned. "My next oldest brother, Kevin? Just before he turned fifteen, he went nonverbal. We didn't get actual words out of him for, like, five months. Just grunts. Then, one day the hormones got back into balance, and my dorky kid brother was back."

"You stayed," Cordelia said, giving him a piercing look. "I mean, I knew that, but… It can't be common."

Cory turned his face away, looking toward the dark ocean. "I still loved them. My whole family, I mean. I called them at first, told them I was okay, just couldn't be there. I never left town or anything, because whoever turned me hid my body. I woke up in a machine room in the sewers, so my family never had to bury me.

"Mom and Dad eventually understood. When they really understood, I mean, that's when I went back. It was on the condition that they never invite me inside. The hunger, you know."

"You're still not invited inside?" Cordelia said, her brows drawing together.

He shook his head. "No. Maybe this fall."

She knew vampires, knew what it meant for them to be in skin contact with a warm, living human, hot scent and pulsing blood pounding through veins just beneath thin skin. She knew _old_ vampires, and he couldn't be five. She realized that there had to be something dark behind his careful refusal to be allowed back in his family home, something involving blood and broken human bodies. He was one of Spike's 'safe' minions, but still. Cordelia put her hand out and cautiously covered his, two seconds, no more. "You take as much time as you need. I'm very proud of you." She sat up, withdrawing from the intimate conversation with a change of posture, and beamed at him. "And I adore your little brother."

Cory smiled again, causing another shiver to chase across her arms. "You have good taste."

"There you are."

Cordelia looked up at her unsmiling fiancé. "Hey, Angel." She stood up. "You remember Cory, right? Kyle's older brother?"

Angel didn't hold out a hand, just gave a curt nod. "I do."

Cory stood up, too. "I better get back if I want Deshawn to do any more favors." He nodded to Cordelia. "Good to see you."

"You, too." She moved closer to Angel, a satisfied smile on her face. "Were you looking for me?"

"You were gone for a while."

"And we're in Sunnydale."

"I don't like you talking to him."

"Well," she said, putting her hand on his back, letting it slide down his shirt to cup his ass, "I'm glad you don't like it."

Angel blinked at her. "You, uh, are?"

"Did you know Anya put up hammocks all along the beach, back in what she calls the 'green space?' Hidden from view?"

"Wha – hammocks?"

"Mm-hmm. Let's go find one." There were other ways to dance.

⸹

[Author's Note: The song in this section is made up.]

⸹

"Never take drinks from Faith," Buffy said. She was walking with her fellow Slayer along the edge of the water, trying to sober up after two more of the vodka cocktails. "'S'what I learned today."

Faith giggled. "And I learned you can't handle your liquor."

"Everybody knows that," Buffy scoffed.

"Then why did you have a third?"

Buffy purposely slewed into her, making Faith laugh. The surf was loud, but she could hear the bass thump of a song coming across the speakers. Xander and Anya had not hired the same DJ she had at her own wedding, thank goodness. She looked behind her at the lights of the pavilion, at the short line of bare footprints the tide hadn't erased. "We should dance when we get back."

"Sure, change-the-subject girl." Faith cocked her head, listening. "We used to dance to that song at the Bronze, didn't we?"

"'Rock, rock,'" Buffy sang, a little off-key.

Faith took her hand and lifted it over their heads. They stumbled a little closer to the water's edge. "'Rock right,'" she chanted, going left-ish, "'burn it down, girl!'"

"'Rock it to the left!'" She stopped, both arms over her head, dancing.

"'Burn it down!'"

The surf snuck back in and splashed them up to the knee. They both giggled. Faith leaned against Buffy for support, and the Slayers hugged each other. Faith pulled away, then came back in, kissing Buffy.

The blond Slayer blinked, then kissed her back. Faith's strong body was in her arms, her soft breasts pressed against Buffy's. Faith's full lips felt just as pillowy as she imagined.

I imagined… I imagined this?

Buffy sat down abruptly. The wet sand immediately soaked the back of her skirt.

Faith stood over her, looking inland until her eyes closed. "Shit. I'm sorry, B."

Buffy was frowning. She grabbed Faith's wrist and pulled her down to the wet sand, too. "We kissed."

Faith put her head in her hands. "I know. I never meant to kiss another woman again." She shrugged. "Well, not for a long time." She shook her head. "I still haven't got laid," she mumbled. Then her eyes went very wide. "Oh, God. You're married!"

Buffy ignored all this, thinking – though not too clearly – of the times she and Faith had gone dancing. They said they were looking for boys, but somehow they always ended up just dancing together, having fun. 'We're too hot for any of these guys, anyway.' She couldn't remember if she'd said that or if Faith had. Something occurred to her conscious mind for the first time. She tugged Faith's hand until the dark-haired woman unwillingly looked at her. "I think that's why."

"Why…?"

"Why we never got along." Buffy started to grin, pleased to finally have an answer. "I think we're kinda attracted to each other!"

Faith's mouth worked. "It was just a kiss," she mumbled. "We're drunk."

Buffy snorted. "Not that drunk." Then she beamed. "Oh! This explains so much."

"Well, you're happy about it."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I always thought, bad Buffy, unfriendly Buffy, 'cause I never treated you like I should have when you first showed up."

"We were rivals."

"No! Teammates," Buffy corrected her. "Like on a squad, right? But I never did a good job getting to know you. I think I was afraid!" She beamed again.

"Not getting you, B," Faith said, shaking her head.

"I'd never been attracted to a girl," Buffy said, grinning again. "Totally wigged," she said, in a tone of dawning understanding. She leaned over and gave Faith an awkward hug, laughing. "I always thought I was jealous. This is so much better!"

"Jealous." Faith stared at her. "Of me?"

"Pfft." It was a fairly wet sound, and Buffy wiped a hand across her mouth. "You were so fun and hot, and I was having, like, the worst year of my life. Everything I did was wrong."

Faith stared at her. "You… You were little miss perfect," she protested.

"Not what it felt like where I was standing." She felt a bit more sober. "I'm sorry, Faith. I was way wrapped up in my own problems. I knew you were running away from stuff. I should have asked, should have been there for you."

"We were kids," Faith shrugged. "What the hell did we know?" The surf was loud. If they didn't have Slayer hearing, they probably couldn't have this conversation. No one was around to overhear, anyway. "I was jealous of you."

"I figured that out with the body-stealing," Buffy said dryly.

They sat in silence for a minute or so. "Was it like this with the other Slayer?" Faith asked abruptly. "Kendra?"

"Kendra?" Sorrow flitted across Buffy's face. "No. I kinda teased her, thought she was dorky. I liked her, once she stopped trying to kill Angel." She thought of Dawn. "I guess it was sort of like a sister relationship."

"Huh." Faith gave her fellow Slayer a sidelong look. "So, I'm the one who does it for you?"

Buffy blinked at her, at the flirting. She snorted again. "No. I'm totally married." She leaned over and bumped Faith's arm with hers. "But you kinda do, a little, I guess."

"I know what you mean. I get girl-crushes, but I like dick."

"Me, too," Buffy declared stoutly.

"One particular dick," Faith said wickedly.

"I do like Spike's…" Buffy covered her face with one hand. "I can't say it. Wood. Woody. Love lumber."

Faith burst into laughter. The surf snuck in once more, but only covered their feet. "You're the dork. I can't believe I kissed a dork." She got to her feet. "Come on. I'm getting soaked sitting here." They started back toward the gazebo. After a minute, Faith smiled faintly. "I used to fantasize that we would make out to give some random guy a stiffy, you know, just to tease him? I only ever got as far as us making out."

"Apparently, I imagined what it would be like to kiss you, only I never even realized that until tonight."

"You might be a little repressed."

"Just a little."

⸹

The reception was winding down. The bar was closed, the DJ was playing slow songs, and most of the guests had dispersed. Xander and Anya weren't throwing bouquets or garters and had planned to stay for the whole party. Buffy didn't understand how they did it.

Then she saw Xander take his Uncle Rory by one arm and, smiling at the eccentric old guy the whole time, walk him to the parking lot and into a waiting taxi. She got it, then. Who else was going to keep his family from getting into trouble?

She met him as he came back toward the gazebo. "Xan? You should have asked us to watch out for your family."

"Hey, Buffster," he said, holding up an arm so she could duck into his embrace. "You guys totally did. I saw Spike pickpocket my dad's flask and dump it in the sand before the ceremony."

"Yeah, but you and Anya should already be halfway to Hawaii."

"We'll get there." He looked down at her troubled face. "What's wrong?"

"I'm a bad friend," she said, frowning. "I should have –"

"Buf, one of our wedding gifts was the severed head of a guy who wanted to hurt Anya."

"I heard."

"We have our team of world-class, bad guy butt-kickers at the same wedding as most of the current roster of D'Hoffryn's vengeance team. We were never going to leave until the last guest was safely off to whatever dimension they call home."

"Oh."

"Exactly. I love you, but you are the Slayer. Maybe not the best person to leave in charge of unrepentantly evil wedding guests." He gave his usual carefree grin. "And that's just my side of the family."

"I love you, too, Xander." They were just shy of the ramp up to the gazebo. Buffy stopped and gave him a hug. "I know you and Anya are going to be amazingly happy together."

"We already were." Xander wheezed a little. "Um, ribs?"

⸹

Buffy looked at the heap of silver fabric on the bathroom floor and sighed. She dragged herself over to the shower and turned it on. While she waited for the warm water to kick in, she pinned her hair up.

Spike joined her in the shower. "Hey, love. Sleepy?" He molded his cool body to her heated back.

"Mmm." _I have to tell you something. Join me?_ She let him see everything that happened on the beach with Faith as she began to shower. _So here's the making mistakes and living you told me about._

Buffy's eyes were closed. Spike considered his wife, still a little drunk and half-asleep, not looking at him because she was contrite and worried. He drew her close and ran his hands along her soapy arms. _Thank you for telling me. You feel better about yourself, knowing why Faith rubbed you the wrong way?_

 _A little better, yeah._ She leaned her head back to look at him, swayed, and thought better of it. _Did you know? That I kind of thought she was hot?_

 _I knew you felt… passionate about her._

 _Are you mad?_ Buffy knew she wasn't communicating at the highest level. She knew he wasn't bothered if she found other people attractive, men or women. Acting on it was a different matter, and she felt guilty.

 _No. Why would I be? Oh, the kiss._ He thought about it. If it had been nearly anyone else, he knew he wouldn't be calm. But she had learned something about herself tonight and forgiven herself for some of the things that happened years ago. _No judging._ Spike hugged her. _No more kissing anyone who isn't me, though._

Buffy moved under the spray, then came out and nudged him into the water. _Dry me off and take me to bed?_

 _Not too sleepy for 'love lumber,' then?_

"Oh, shut up."

⸹

Next Chapter: Several relationships develop in unexpected ways.


	43. Unexpected Developments

**Unexpected Developments**

⸹

Sunnydale

July 2002

⸹

"Anya looked beautiful," Tara said, taking an earring from one lobe.

Oz moved to her side, standing in front of the bureau so he could remove the other earring. "She really did."

"Xander cleaned up nicely, too," Willow said. She was hanging up her dress, having determined by sniff test that it didn't need to go to the cleaners. Maybe after Alaina Rabinowitz's wedding at the end of the month. "As did his groomsmen," she added, tossing a playful leer over her shoulder.

"Did you mind, Oz?" Tara asked, her eyes both soft with sympathy and sharp with perception.

"Bygones," he said, after a moment's hesitation. He met Willow's eyes in the mirror. "Just surprised he didn't ask you."

"Me?" Willow stopped moving, her arms akimbo as she stood in the act of unfastening her bra. "Be his best man?"

"You are his best friend."

A sad look crossed her face. "We'll always be friends, but I don't think the BFF part is really forever." She waited until Oz turned to meet her gaze. "Another casualty of that night in the library."

There were a few minutes of silence as the three of them moved around the bedroom, taking off throw pillows from the enormous bed and putting away their fancy clothes. Tara, wearing a cotton nightshirt and nothing else, sat cross-legged and waited until her lovers joined her before she asked. She'd been curious about what she considered aberrant behavior for her lovers.

"Were you really attracted to Xander?"

Willow's eyes flickered to Oz, then fell to the peach-colored sheets. She sat up cross-legged, too. "Yes. N-not so much physically, but he's kind, you know he is. I was so self-conscious and unsure of myself, it was hard to see past the security he offered."

"And he already loved you?" Tara prompted.

Willow nodded. "I still can't really explain it, except maybe it was territorial. I'd known he was wonderful all along, so why did evil Cordelia get to have him? And it was a rush that he'd choose me, even for a few naughty minutes, over her."

Oz held out his hand, palm up, so Willow could take it. "For me, it was greed. I wanted something for my human part and something for the wolf. Stupid, because I know those things don't stay secret."

"It wasn't payback?" Tara's voice was almost timid. The topic of Veruca had never come up before.

"No. Never that."

She examined his face for a moment before relaxing, reassured by his honest eyes. Tara held her own hands out to them as Oz shifted from laying on his side to sitting with crossed legs.

They sat joined for a silent minute or so. This was part of the nightly ritual, a little magic to take off the hard edges of the day. Oz focused on transforming each of his ears in turn, then turning each of his nails into a claw. Tara chose to send ripples along the surface of the carpet, making the short beige strands move as if brushed by a breeze.

Willow did something a little bolder. She'd had three glasses of champagne at the reception, and she focused on the warmth and loss of inhibitions she felt, trying to recapture the feeling and see if she could recreate it.

The nap of the carpet stilled, and Tara swayed toward Willow. "That feels… nice."

Oz ceased his pinpoint transformations, his eyes growing darker. "That does feel nice."

Willow turned a little pink. "Oh. I think I missed 'two drinks' and got 'turned on' instead."

"I'm not going to complain," Tara said, leaning closer to Willow for a kiss as she pulled Oz's hand in toward her body.

"Yeah," Willow breathed as Tara's lips feathered against hers. "I'll work on it… later."

⸹

"What do you think is going on?" Buffy asked Dawn.

"Nothing good," her little sister groused. She had been in a bad mood since a fight with Alby, over him talking to a freshman girl, had escalated into a breakup. The lines of tension around her eyes, though, had nothing to do with that. Giles and Joyce had called Buffy to come to the house. They needed to 'have a talk' with them, and in her experience, a talk was never a good thing.

"And it's not the tumor?" Buffy asked anxiously. They were sitting on the porch swing, waiting for Joyce and Giles to return.

Her sister had already asked the question, but Dawn wasn't going to tease her about it. "No. I asked specifically." She met Buffy's eyes.

"They're going to break up."

Dawn nodded and lifted a shoulder. "What else could it be?"

Buffy felt as miserable as Dawn looked, but she put on a brave face. She was the big sister. "It'll be okay," she reassured her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "It won't be like the divorce."

"It'll be awful," Dawn said dully, "no matter how mature they are about it."

Buffy gave her a squeeze and started to ask if she wanted to come to Seattle on a trip she and Spike were taking in a couple of days. Spike was buying a jet. He was excited to have a private plane to fly, having never forgotten the miserable trip back from England a couple of years ago. He planned to start a charter business with it, since they wouldn't need it that often. Buffy figured it was a way for him to justify the expense.

She kind of didn't want to ask Dawn to come along, though. Spike had arranged everything, and Buffy thought he might have something special in mind for the trip. She planned to take a matching bra-and-panties set, newly purchased from a lingerie store. It wasn't a fancy kind of store, and she'd paid in cash, which was getting to be a hallmark each time she pushed her boundaries. The scarlet balconette bra was practically cupless and the panties were entirely crotchless. Before she had to decide whether to be a better bride or sister, Rupert's car came up Revello, slowed, and turned into the driveway. He went around to the passenger seat to help Joyce out. Both of them were smiling.

"They're in a good mood," Dawn said sourly.

"Oh, hi, honey," Joyce said, greeting her oldest daughter with a hug and kiss. She put an arm around Dawn and beamed at her. "Let's go inside. It's too hot to sit out here."

Giles held the door for them and followed all of the Summers ladies to the kitchen. "Something to drink, dear?"

"Yes, please," Joyce said. "Water, if you don't mind. Let's sit in the dining room." Buffy and Dawn exchanged looks; the older couple seemed to be interacting normally. "Bring it to the table?"

"Of course." He leaned over as she passed the refrigerator to peck her on the cheek.

"Bewildered," Dawn admitted to her sister in a low voice, "but glad to be bewildered."

Joyce sat down across from them. She was still carrying her purse, so she put it absently on the corner of the table. Before she could say anything, Giles came in with the promised glass of ice water and a coaster. He sat next to her and put a casual arm across the back of her chair.

Joyce took a breath and forced a smile as she looked across the table at her two beautiful girls. "First, I want to say, we were being careful. You know." She gave an embarrassed shrug. "But my doctors don't want me taking any artificial hormones, so we used other things that weren't as effective. Because you have to take responsibility for that yourselves." She gave them a severe look.

"Okay," Buffy said.

"What?" Dawn blurted.

Giles hid a smile. "I think you buried the lede, darling."

Joyce colored. "I'm – I mean, we're going to have a baby."

"What!" Dawn looked at Buffy, who burst out laughing.

"Oh, God, that's wonderful." She hugged Dawn, then leaned over the table to hug her mother. She put out her hand to take Rupert's as Dawn leaned over to hug Joyce, too.

"We thought you guys were breaking up," she admitted.

"You did?" Joyce asked. "Oh. 'The talk.' I'm sorry you worried.; I should have thought."

"When are you due?" Buffy asked, once they all sat down.

"I'm twenty weeks along," Joyce admitted.

"Twenty… that's five months," Dawn said, stunned.

"We wanted to be sure everything was okay," Joyce said. Her smile dimmed a little. "I'll be forty-three when the baby comes –"

"I'll be forty-eight," Giles cut in.

"– and sometimes things go wrong with older mothers." Her mouth tightened. "Higher risk of miscarriages. Of a lot of things."

"And with older fathers, too."

Joyce gave him a grateful smile. "We want this baby, but we weren't sure if everything was okay. Fortunately, everything seems fine. We didn't want to say anything to anyone until the risk of miscarriage went down. Today we got the results of the amniocentesis, and he's healthy, as far as the doctors can see."

"He?" Dawn squealed.

Joyce reached for her purse and withdrew two small, curling squares of paper. She gave her daughters a radiant smile. "A little brother. Here's the ultrasound."

"He has Joyce's cheekbones," Giles said proudly.

"Oh my God," Buffy said, tears coming to her eyes, blurring the blobs of grey that, if she squinted, looked humanoid. "A little brother." She looked vague for a moment, then grinned. "Spike caught some of that. Giles, he says he's probably going to punch you for 'knocking up Mum,' but then he'll shake your hand."

Dawn took a breath and looked at Giles accusingly. "You got my mom pregnant."

He winced. "And that's another reason we asked you to come by. Joyce has agreed to let me make an honest woman of her." Giles grinned as she elbowed him in the ribs. "We just need to find a good date to go down to the courthouse." His grin faded and, for the first time, he looked nervous. "While we're there… I'd like to start adoption proceedings for you both. Make that official, too."

The tears in Buffy's eyes spilled over. She thought of how lonely Joyce had been in Sunnydale, and she knew it was worse than she could remember, because Dawn hadn't really been here. She knew how Giles felt about his Slayer, but she was overwhelmed that he thought of Dawn as a daughter, too. Now they were going to be "…a whole family," she whispered, like an incantation.

"You're such a softy," Dawn criticized, bumping her sister with her shoulder. She got up quickly and went around to hug Giles before Buffy could examine her own face for tears.

Joyce asked her oldest daughter to stay for dinner, so Spike came by, too. He did, in fact, punch Giles lightly on the arm, but then took his future father-in-law in a spine-popping hug. After dinner, which Joyce insisted on cooking, Buffy helped her clean up. "Are you up for this, Mom?"

"You know," Joyce said, throwing the dishtowel over her shoulder and leaning against the sink, "I am. After the surgery, I feel…" She shook her head. "I don't know. As if I have a new chance at life. I would never have planned to have a baby this late, but I'm glad it's happening." Her hand went unconsciously to her abdomen, and her expression softened. "I know Rupert has been more of a father to you since you met him than your own father, but he never thought he'd have a child of his own to raise. He's so enthusiastic, Buffy, that he makes me feel almost like a new mother myself."

Buffy grinned. "I'm going to tease 'da-da' so hard."

Her mother shrugged. "I probably will, too." Her expression went back to the tighter one she'd been wearing lately. "I'm not going to relax until your baby brother hits all his milestones, though. I'm so _old_ , Buffy."

She took her mother in a careful hug. "You are totally not old. You're going to do an even better job with Giles Junior than you did with Dawn and me. Practice makes perfect. And besides, we'll be here to help with this one." Buffy beamed up at her. "We'll teach him everything we know."

"Oh, God," Joyce blurted in alarm.

⸹

"Well, this is quite a contrast," Buffy said as the sedan pulled up to a scrolled gate. All afternoon, they had been in huge hangars, looking at airplanes, talking about cabin configurations and contracts for mechanics. After the high tech engines and sleek lines, the house they were staying at seemed especially old world. Buffy peered out through the fog. It was misty, which she guessed wasn't unusual in Washington. Instead of a hotel, Spike had rented a house – a mansion, she corrected herself. He'd made all the arrangements in a secretive fashion. She assumed he was up to something and felt a tingle settle low in her abdomen.

After the gates opened, the driver of the hired car pulled onto a circular drive, giving Buffy a good look at the sheer gothic mass of it. It was made of brown stones and darker brown beams, with just a little whitewashing to set off the many arched windows. The front door opened and a tall man in a suit came out, unfurling an umbrella.

The car service was a perk provided by the airplane manufacturer for high-roller customers, but Spike tipped the driver anyway. The man with the umbrella was beside Buffy before he finished, taking her suitcase and warding the mist off her with the umbrella. "Good evening, madam. I'm Rodgers, and I'll be taking care of you this evening." He sounded far more British than Giles.

"Good evening, Mr. Rodgers."

He didn't wince, but stiffened slightly. "Just Rodgers, madam. Please, come inside."

She turned and made a face at Spike, who just gave her a maddening grin. "Thank you." She managed to make it a statement instead of a question.

"This is Mrs. Givens," Rodgers said, nodding toward a woman who waited inside a foyer that made the one at Latimer House seem unassuming and shabby. "Along with the kitchen staff, we'll be taking care of you this evening."

"A pleasure, Mrs. Givens," Spike said, catching up. "Thank you, Rodgers."

"I'll take your luggage," the butler said, doing just that, "and prepare your room while Mrs. Givens shows you around."

"Very good." Spike winked at Buffy, who was giving him a narrow look. North London had given way to a posher accent.

"I trust you had a pleasant journey?" Mrs. Givens began. She led them through several grandiose, marble-floored, wood-paneled rooms to the stainless-steel kitchen and back to another dark room. This one had an enormous fireplace with a couple of logs burning, despite the fact that it was July. "Enjoy your cocktails," she murmured. "Rodgers will be by for you when dinner is served."

As she closed the door behind her, Buffy turned on her heel to look at Spike, who was biting his lip. "What is this?" she asked.

"Bad imitation of manor house living," Spike said. "Servants mostly tried to not be seen in my day. But it's fun, isn't it?"

"Fun? I just want some privacy and to get off my feet."

He took a couple steps closer and gathered her in his arms. "I'll deal with them, kitten. Get some food in you, then I'll kick them out."

"Why did you rent this place? I mean, we're only going to be here for a day." Her gaze sharpened. "Right?"

"Just tonight," he reassured her. "But I have reasons. Big, dark, spooky house, isolated with my sexy wife…" He gave her a kiss. "But I know it's been a long day. Care for a vodka and Sprite?"

"Oh, God. Faith isn't here, is she?" Buffy said, only halfway pretending her horror. Was it that kind of set-up?

Spike's expression was somber. "No. Just us, once the staff leaves." His gaze stayed with hers. _One thing I can't give you, love. No threesomes. No one else. Ever._ His hands were on her waist, and his fingers tightened for a moment. _Won't ever share you. Even the soul is on board with violence for that._

Buffy looked up at him, enjoying the play of firelight over his beautiful face, the banked yellow embers in his eyes. She mostly just tolerated his possessiveness, but she understood it on a visceral level. Something about him just now seemed older, underlining the fact that he did come from a different age. She thought of Faith standing between them, kissing her. Then she thought of Faith turning from her to touch Spike. The jealous fury that came with that thought surprised her, but didn't scare her. _I'm good with the not sharing._ Mine.

He relaxed in segments, his mouth the last to soften. "I only meant, would you like something to drink before dinner?"

"I still think you're up to something."

"Love," he said, his voice so low and resonant it sent goosebumps trailing up her arms, "you know me so well."

⸹

[Author's Note: Explicit activity ahead.]

⸹

After dinner – where she and Spike literally sat at opposite ends of a long table – Buffy took a shower while Spike shooed the staff away. The bedroom itself was comfortable and carpeted, and she was looking forward to having Spike to herself on the canopied bed. It reminded her of the one in Latimer House on her eighteenth birthday.

She half-heartedly dried her hair and went to slip into bed naked to wait for her husband. She was too sleepy for lingerie. The hangars were huge, and she truthfully could have done without most of the customization talk concerning the jet. The big 'spanner in the works,' as he said, was hiring a mechanic who –

Buffy's steps slowed. On the bed lay a garment bag and a sheet of paper. Spike was nowhere to be seen. A corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. He was up to something, all right. Picking up the note, she read:

⸹

 _Little Miss Watcher:_

 _Think your training is enough to challenge a master vampire like me? Find me, and find out._

 _William the Bloody_

⸹

Both corners of her mouth were turned up now. Buffy unzipped the garment bag. Sure enough, it was the unflattering blue suit she'd worn to Anya's inauguration. She pressed her lips together to keep from giggling, fully awake now, the hours of trudging through hangars forgotten.

Five minutes later, Buffy was prowling through the mansion. She was wearing the suit and a pair of clear, black-framed glasses she'd found stuffed into one of the pockets, but she'd taken hidden liberties with the suggested costume. Her hair was up in a sloppy bun. The only shoes she had that worked were a pair of black satin slippers, and her feet were too tired for heels, anyway.

"Here, vampire," she sang. "Come get me." The big house, she had to admit, was perfect for this game. Buffy eliminated the top floor right away, and gave only a cursory look to the foyer. When she didn't find him on the first floor, either, she went into the kitchen, stumped. She'd thought for sure he'd let her corner him in the room with the fireplace, or maybe the dining room with the long table.

She opened a door near the industrial refrigerator and found a broom closet. Then she saw a heavy wooden door and felt the first blip on her Slayer senses. Hadn't Mrs. Givens said something about a wine cellar? Working hard to control her smile, Buffy tucked the stake close to her body and opened the door.

It creaked obligingly as it opened, revealing rough stone steps. She was beginning to see why the whole thing amused her husband; they really were trying too hard to get the Euro-vibe for a house that couldn't be ten years old. Buffy tiptoed down the steps. Spike had thoughtfully left portable lanterns lit at the turn and at the bottom of the stairs. But she wasn't here for Spike.

"Mr. the Bloody?" she whispered. There was only shadow past the last stone of the stairway. "You'll not escape," she added in a credible _Masterpiece Theatre_ accent.

"You certainly won't," he snarled, suddenly behind her, arms wrapping around her like a vice. He lifted her off her feet. "Dozy bint. Think you could take me?" he scoffed.

"I say, Mr. the Bloody," Buffy said stoutly, "unhand me."

He laughed in her ear, low and wicked in the darkness. "Why would I do that? Got a trembling little rabbit here, talking like she's a lioness." He molded his body against her back. "Got a name, do you?"

She hadn't thought of one. What was a good name for a female Watcher? "Hortense."

He chuckled. "Hortense. Bet school was fun, name like that."

"Don't take liberties with my name, fiend."

"I'll take any liberties I bloody well please. And I'll be taking that stake, too."

Her grip tightened instinctually on her weapon before she remembered that she was a Watcher with normal strength. Buffy still felt a pang as he slid it from her hand. "The other Watchers are right behind me," she bluffed.

The low chuckle tickled the loose strands by her ear. "Sing me a new one," he jeered. "Know you're all alone."

His body was pushing against her so forcefully now that she had to stumble forward to keep her footing. Buffy found herself driven away from the only way out, and hell if she wasn't feeling… nervous. She was also feeling more than a little turned on.

"Nothing to say, little Watcher girl?" he murmured, still pressing her ahead. There was a sudden light as he pushed her through a door that had been left slightly ajar.

She squinted against the light of dozens of candles. One of them had to be a veiling spell, like he'd used in the cave in Sunnydale. Her eyes went to the ceiling, searching for and finding a hook set into the ceiling. Just like that, in fact. Her heartrate sped up.

Spike had already clicked handcuffs onto her left wrist. "All alone, and at the mercy of Big Bad William the Bloody." The second cuff locked onto her right wrist. "Oh. Wait." He moved in front of her. "I have no mercy."

Even after all their time together, seeing his gleeful game face grin sent a shiver of unease through her. He was wearing a white silk shirt with a laced placket instead of buttons. It bloused a bit over black leather pants, and his feet were bare. Buffy had a pang that he didn't still have his hair long and tied back. He'd be every inch the pirate, dressed like this. Well, a pirate with fangs.

Spike moved fast, lifting her bound hands above her head and setting the chain of the handcuffs over the hook. Buffy found she was slightly on tiptoe as the vampire surveyed her, a satisfied smirk on his face.

In the bloodlink, however, Spike was worried. _Thought you'd wear heels, love. Too uncomfortable?_

 _I'm fine. God, you're kind of scary._

 _Why, thanks. That's what I'm going for._

"You'll pay for this evil," Buffy sniffed.

"Not before you pay for your foolishness," he countered. "Hunting me, by your lonesome. Little slip of a Watcher like you." William the Bloody moved into her space, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. "Sweet you are, all hot blood and fear."

"I assure you, Mr. the Bloody, I am not in the least afraid," she rejoined primly.

"Not what your body's telling me. Your body's telling me," he breathed in again, "that you're a hot, scrummy little morsel." Spike moved back and surveyed her. "Young for a Watcher, aren't you? Why, you aren't nearly dried up enough to be from the Council."

Her eyes flashed, and she tossed her head. "I'm juicy enough to defeat you, evil fiend!"

His cheeks curved, and he nearly lost his menacing façade. Spike walked around her, taking the opportunity to get his Big Bad in place. While he wasn't standing in front of her looking like an hour-long orgasm on legs, Buffy took in the rest of the room, meant more for storage than for a wine cellar. There was a stack of mattresses to the left, the top one made up with red satin sheets. A cheval mirror stood against the wall, near a stack of boxes. On the right side of the room was a modest-sized bar with a marble top and a brass foot rail. Two padded, backless stools stood before it, flanked by a couple more cardboard boxes.

When he moved back into view, he was tapping her stake against his palm. "Keep this with you at all times, do you?"

"Of course."

"Long, hard, shaped like a penis… What's a bloke supposed to read into that?"

"Death, Mr. the Bloody."

"Or sexual repression… Miss Hortense." He made the phrase sound incredibly dirty.

Her righteous act faltered for a second as Buffy remembered what Faith had said about her. She put it out of her mind and rallied. "I am entirely unpressed, not that it's any of your business."

Spike chuckled and tossed the stake over his shoulder. "Young and full of spirit. I like it!" He leaned into her face, tongue lolling out over his fangs. "And let's not forget… juicy." She had no idea where he had hidden it, but suddenly he produced a wickedly sharp, eight-inch Bowie knife. Buffy remembered the fantasy he'd given her, cutting away her clothes and kissing every inch as it was exposed. After that thought, she was too distracted to say anything, so she settled for swallowing hard.

Spike considered the knife before he put it beside her cheek, laying the cool length of it against her cheek. She couldn't help jerking away from the steely touch. "Wonder what a Watcher is like, underneath it all? More tweed?" He growled menacingly. "Another stake?"

He moved behind her, a fast and unpredictable predator. With one motion, he'd sliced through the back of the boxy jacket. No kissing. Buffy's lower lip moved out in a pout.

"You are tiny," he said after a moment of silence. His hand moved into the warm area between the slack fabric of the jacket and her spine, then brushed across the silk shell she wore. Spike pressed up against her again, so close that her body bowed outward, and rested his chin on her shoulder. His arms came around in a loose embrace, and Spike pointed the knife right at her sternum. The blade flashed, and buttons flew in three different directions.

 _I didn't know you were so good with a knife._

 _Lots of things you don't know. Yet._

Spike let her go and moved to stare down at her face again. "Might just be possible to have the horn for you, Watcher girl. Let's find out." The knife moved again, the flat edge sliding along the flesh of her arms as the sharp edge ran through the fabric with barely a hitch. Golden eyes watched the rise of her breasts as Buffy drew in a sharp breath, and he grinned at her. "Or maybe not so tiny everywhere."

She saw that the tip of the knife was blunted just before he sliced down from the left arm of the shredded jacket to the hem. He did the same on the right side, then lifted the remnants from her body, tossing it onto the boxes. The air was cooler in this part of the mansion, and Buffy shivered in the thin, sleeveless shell.

Spike, of course, was still watching her breasts, waiting for her nipples to tighten. She wore some kind of light bra, the fabric too thin to hide much from his gaze. "For me, kitten? How… unexpected."

"Surely even you aren't so…" she tried to think of a different word for evil, "wicked."

"But I am," he disagreed, making the knife disappear again. "All wicked, little Watcher girl. Wicked hands," he cupped her breasts, then dropped his left hand to similarly cup her sex, "wicked mouth," he kissed her right biceps, "wicked tongue." Spike ran said tongue along the long line of her neck. For a moment, he let his fangs prick against her skin. Buffy swayed away from him.

The knife was back, and the silk of her blouse parted like butter along the side seam. Another pass of the blade let him lift it from her, too. "Oh, now. Hortense has a hidden bad girl. I like it, Watcher." He openly leered at the tiny, lacy confection. It was little more than a shelf for her breasts to rest upon, the straps pushing them together. The highest edge of deep red lace was below her pink nipples, taut now. Her breasts were on display for his pleasure.

Buffy felt her cheeks color. She'd figured Spike would have a few words of approval before ripping it off her. This was… more than she bargained for. His golden gaze faded to a heated blue.

"You came hunting for William the Bloody," he purred, amusement in his tone, "wearing this?" He bent closer to her, blowing a stream of cool air over the already tight tip of her left breast. "I'm flattered."

She turned her torso, then her head. "It wasn't for you to see," she sniffed. "I do not enjoy your foul gaze." By this point, any pretense at a British accent was gone.

"Don't you?" His voice had gone down an octave. Buffy was pretty sure it wasn't the chill of the basement room that made her nipples tighten even more. She met his eyes and pouted.

 _Isn't there supposed to be kissing of every square inch of exposed flesh?_

Spike didn't answer. He twisted the knife in his skilled hand and moved behind her. _That was what Spike was going to do with Buffy. William the Bloody has other plans for a Watcher careless enough to fall into his grasp._

Other plans? Buffy's eyebrows went up. She shifted, feeling how slick and plump her sex was already. She wasn't sure how much more patience she had with this game. Buffy looked up at her hands and saw that the key wasn't tied to the cuffs.

William the Bloody trailed his fingertips down her spine. "Will you squirm away from my foul gaze on your," his hands slid along her backside, "squeezable little arse?" Spike grabbed her, jiggled her cheeks, then went for his knife again. With one smooth stroke of the blade, the boxy skirt fell from her hips. Thank God for the demise of the horrible suit.

Buffy stood there, waiting. There was only silence. She waited as long as she could, then turned, her wrists twisting just below the cuffs to find her husband staring at her with a peculiar expression. Then he shook his head and picked her up just enough for the chain between the cuffs to clear the hook. Buffy put her arms down, grateful to do so.

 _Gonna have to take a break, love._ He grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one motion. His fingers flew over the front of the leather jeans, and he peeled them away, pushing them partway down his thighs, hissing with relief as his erection sprang free. Spike lifted her by the waist and deposited her on the topmost mattress, vaulting up after her. _Playtime's over until we get this cockstand under control._

Maybe it was because her hands were still bound, but something about his focus on her body still caused butterflies. _We're having recess from 'playtime?'_

Spike grabbed her foot and brought it to his mouth, kissing the inside of her ankle before putting it against his shoulder. Then he hauled her closer and slid partway into her body. He gritted his teeth as her shoulders went into the mattress so she could arch her body, push toward the thickness of him. Spike rode out her climax, teeth gritted. "Had to see my cock buried inside you, framed by those bad-girl crotchless panties, wife. You've outdone any fantasy I could come up with, and you weren't even trying." His voice was thin.

"You, uh," she managed, thinking it was possible her eyes were crossed, "said something about 'buried?'"

 _Bloody well love you, woman._

 _Shut up and move, husband._

⸹

"Spike?"

"Mmm?"

They were upstairs in the master bedroom of the mansion, spilled against each other after a quick shower. The rainclouds had moved away, and moonlight lit the floor and one corner of the canopied bed. It was nearly five in the morning, and the hired car would show up at eleven to take them back to the hangars. Hopefully they'd get a chance to sleep more on the trip home.

Spike – well, William the Bloody – had kept her chained for twenty minutes or so each interval, effortlessly finding excuses to let her lower her bound arms. He had positioned the standing mirror so she could watch as he knelt before her, invisible, her thighs over his shoulders. He had taken her down from the hook and draped her over a barstool to have his way with her. She'd had absolutely no leverage on her precarious perch, but she did have all the orgasms. That time she had screamed until her throat was raw. At one point, his condition for letting her rest her arms had been that she pick the position. Hortense had managed to whisper, "Anything you want." The evil fiend had chosen a knee-trembler, again directly in front of the mirror.

William the Bloody also had enormous quantities of lube, a series of graduated (Buffy's cheeks went warm just naming them) butt plugs, and a great deal of patience with Hortense the juicy Watcher. By the time she'd rolled the condom over the Arrogant Prick, she'd been ready as she'd ever be. She'd lost another kind of virginity tonight.

Buffy had enjoyed it.

Sure, anal sex had been… achy, just like he'd warned her, but it had also been stimulating. Spike had brought her to orgasm that way, too. Then, after the condom came off, Buffy took control, took what she wanted, took what her primed body cried for. She had perched astride him and ridden him until she literally passed out from pleasure. She woke as he picked her up to carry her from the basement. Buffy put an arm around his neck, the handcuffs long since gone, and bit his pectoral muscle. He stopped in the dining room and spread her across the long table. "I want you to fuck me," she'd demanded, though she was too languid to do much more than let her fingers run across his body. With a low chuckle, he had done just that.

She'd never asked him to fuck her before.

She'd never watched herself come, splayed open, rosy and slick.

She'd never known anal sex was possible while facing your partner.

Buffy had always, always thought of herself as a good girl.

"I kind of envy Faith."

Spike opened one eye. It slid shut almost immediately. He had enjoyed an obscene number of orgasms over the long night. Buffy had let go before, but she'd never given herself over to passion so entirely. The vampire/Watcher playacting had lasted a long while, and Buffy had never once hesitated. The more aroused she was, the more fuel he had. She had begged for his touch, and she wasn't the begging kind. Spoken words weren't quite in his repertoire just now. _Any particular reason?_

 _I sometimes think that it would be nice to live in a big city and go out dancing, meet new people. I mean, I sometimes envy Faith because she's still… young._ She caught the edges of his deeper thoughts – too soon; should have waited; rushed her, you bloody wanker. _Not that I don't love our life. But… she has all this ahead of her. I forget how lonely and sad it is, living that life, just think about… I don't know. Feeling free, young._

 _Humans always want what we don't have, I guess._ Their mindlink resolved into their couch at home. Spike was cradling her as she talked to him, and now he brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek.

 _I just wanted to say_ – _I'm never bored with us, Spike. It's me. I know I'm the Slayer, but inside, I just feel like Buffy. Plain, vanilla Buffy._

 _Speaking as someone who is endlessly fascinated with 'just Buffy,' not getting the boring part at all, kitten._

Buffy knew she was taking a long time to get around to what was really bothering her. _So, what we did tonight isn't… boring._

He struggled for a moment until he got an elbow beneath him and propped his jaw on his hand, determined to be awake. She was struggling to express something important. _Nothing we do is boring._

Buffy closed her eyes. _Do you still –_

 _Do I still, what?_ He was awake now, a tension in his body. On the couch, he sat up, moving her away so she was sitting next to him and he could see her.

 _Respect me?_

 _What?_ His mouth curved into a disbelieving smile. In the bloodlink, he left the couch and knelt before her. _I honor you above all others, Buffy. You will always have my respect._

 _Even if I'm not a good girl?_

"Love… If you didn't want to –"

"I did. Want to."

"Oh."

Spike leaned down and kissed each of her eyelids softly, tasting the unshed tears on them. Pillock, he thought, castigating himself. Buffy felt as though she'd crossed a threshold and was uncertain in this new territory. He snaked an arm under her, pulling her close against his chest, and thought for a moment about what he wanted to say.

 _Read an article online,_ Slate _or something, about what happens after teens who do the chastity ring, abstinence thing grow up and get married. Girls hang on to their virginity all that time, but then feel like they're soiled goods after giving it up to their husbands. The fact that they hadn't had sex was the most central part of their self-image. I mean, women who were physicians, teachers, feeling that they no longer had value._

He hugged her closer. _You have value, love. When you were baby Buffy Summers, cheerleader for the Hemery Horndogs or whatever, you were worthy. Nothing to do with what you had or hadn't done, yeah? And now, you're so much in addition to who you were._

Buffy swallowed. _I know I'm being silly._

 _No, love. Whatever you feel, that's honest. Doesn't have to be logical._ He kissed her brow. _You live inside me, Buffy. You know I've always respected you, know that my respect has only grown. I don't think of you as a 'good girl;' I think of you as a good woman. An incredibly sensual, loving woman who chose to share herself with – well, with someone who isn't worthy of her._

She rolled over enough to glare at him. "You are too worthy."

He looked into her eyes, dark in the dim light, amazed all over again by her. "Haven't always been." _Strength and beauty and sweetness, and such an amazing capacity for love, for forgiveness. Power and bravery that has nothing to do with being the Slayer. That's what I see when I look at you. Nothing can diminish you. Nothing ever will._

Tears were in her eyes again, and she lifted a hand to cup his jaw. _I'm still me?_

From very deep inside of her, Spike glimpsed/felt a stray thought quaver toward him, a childish thought, wondering if Mommy and Daddy would still be together if she had stayed a good girl, had been a better girl. His undead heart constricted. No wonder this was stirred up, with her mum getting remarried. _You are absolutely, one hundred percent the same wonderful, innocent, strong, loyal girl I met at the Bronze. Only better, by a few years._

 _Well, now I feel really silly._

 _Tonight, you showed me a side of yourself that no one else has seen – not even you had, fully._ Spike shook his head before the name 'Angel' could cross her mind. _No, he didn't see you like I have, not even a glimpse. I treasure every aspect of you, Buffy, every part of you._

She lifted her face to her husband blindly, blinking away tears as she kissed him. Then she laughed, slapping his arm lightly. _You cannot possibly have anything left._ She felt him grin against her temple.

' _Course I'm going to get hard when you kiss me, naked in my arms and all._

 _Well, come here, then. Sleep is way overrated. And I do like you in a bed with a canopy._

She wrestled Spike to the corner of the bed so that moonlight shone over them, lighting his skin so it shone like alabaster. Buffy kissed him tenderly, and her eyes stayed with his as she moved over him. Their lovemaking ended in sighs instead of screams, and they both smiled.

Buffy fell asleep almost immediately. Spike pulled a pillow to where they'd fallen and folded the sheet over their bodies. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her shoulder, feeling cold inside.

There were times, vanishingly rare these days, when a demon took a swipe at his wife and came too close, claws shredding her clothes instead of skin, a dagger blocked at the last moment beside her hip or shoulder. Right now, Spike had the same heart-in-throat feeling. He hadn't even realized how close he'd come to losing her when he'd tried to carry out his fantasy of Slayer-in-handcuffs in Sunnydale. Even after he had his soul, it hadn't registered. Spike slid an arm over her waist and clutched a fistful of mattress on her far side, trying not to wake her with his panic.

Buffy was the most honestly passionate lover he'd ever known. She would have played along with his fancy in that cave – oh, God, he'd taken the virginal love of his life to a _cave_ for bondage games – and they would have had an amazing three or four hours. And it would have been the end of everything.

Back then, she could count on one hand the number of times she'd made love. She was barely able to see herself as worldly now. Buffy was always going to have an innocence about her.

If he were human, he'd be shaking. His world, where love could conquer all. Had he made her feel used, cheap in another world? Spike had always thought that the catalyst must have been untimely death, his or hers. Was it something even worse?

Had he ever left her diminished?

Had he ever hurt her?

Never, he thought fiercely. I'm the one who doesn't hurt her.

But he had been utterly clueless, too arrested by the notion that Buffy had fantasies about him to remember how young she was. Even tonight had been too much. He wanted her bound and pretending to be helpless; he wanted her to see the wonder of her passion in a mirror. So of course he'd thought it would be… efficient to do all that while waiting for her untried little arse to adjust.

Any one of those things would be enough for a single night.

Spike wanted to be gone, out in the night, hunting down whatever game lived in among the fir trees of this land, visiting violence on demons who would visit the same on his worthless hide. Instead, he stroked Buffy's hair until he finally fell asleep after dawn.

⸹

"Wake up, sleepyhead." Buffy sat up on one elbow and shook Spike's shoulder. "Car's going to be here in about forty minutes." She leaned over and kissed him.

Spike opened bleary eyes, then jerked. "Slayer?"

Buffy frowned down at him. For a moment… well, he had almost flinched away from her. "I'm not Hortense," she said dryly.

He ran a hand through his untamed curls. "Heh. You aren't, at that." Spike's brow drew together. "Bad dream."

"What was it about?" she asked, her voice soft and sympathetic.

"Dunno." It had already faded. Something about an alley… A Drusilla dream, he supposed.

"We really need to get ready to leave," Buffy said, "but I wanted to ask you something."

"Mm?"

"How do you feel about being the one handcuffed?"

His eyes widened with surprise, interest, and… relief? "Uh… I'm positive I would like that, kitten."

Buffy gave him a sinful smile that curled his toes. "Just checking." Her lashes covered her eyes. "No more mirror. I hate that you weren't there, too. And the… other," Buffy couldn't make herself say 'anal,' "takes too much work. But I liked the handcuffs. They'll look really good on you." She bent to kiss his nose, and then rolled out of bed.

"Oi!" he exclaimed, stumbling after her. "You can't just ask that and then wander off."

"Forty min – no, not even forty minutes now," she called over her shoulder.

"In the shower, then," he muttered, so grateful for the bloodlink. She'd wanted to handcuff him to their bed for a long time, but, knowing what had been done to him, hadn't known how to bring up the subject. Spike caught up with her by the shower stall. He took in the grin she threw over her shoulder. "Planned this all along, did you?"

"Sudsy Spike," she agreed, turning on the water.

His beautiful, wicked, resilient wife. "Bathing Buffy," he shot back.

"Soapy Spike," was her rejoinder. "I've got better words for alliteration."

"Ooh, big word for blondie."

Buffy stepped into the shower. "Tick tock," she reminded him and pulled him into the spray with her.

⸹

"I'll get it!" Willow called. Sometimes she felt odd having the landline, since she never used it, but it was part of the package that gave her optical fiber access. She picked up the portable phone. "Hello?"

"Hi, Willow. It's Anya."

"You guys are back!" She squealed a little. "How was Hawaii?"

"It's paradise," Anya replied frankly, "the prettiest place I've ever seen. I mean, the acid pits of Xaxarxark are more colorful, but Hawaii smells much nicer."

Used to this kind of blunt analysis, Willow only asked, "Did you have a good time?"

"On a vacation dedicated to orgasms? Of course we did."

Willow heard another phone ring in the background. "Are you in your office?"

"I stopped by to check and see what's been going on since we left. That's why I called you. I need your help – well, your permission."

"Permission for what?"

"Mai quit. Apparently, the bachelorette party was a little too much for her."

"Mai's your assistant?"

"Was my assistant. She resigned. I think it was the pink fur the stripper left on her black skirt when he did that lap dance."

Willow thought it more likely that it was navigating the thicket of Anya's prickly vengeance demon friends for the past month, but she just made a sympathetic noise. "How can I help?"

"Do you think April could be my new assistant?"

"April? The 'bot April?" The most sophisticated, near artificial-intelligent learning system she'd ever seen or even read about, reduced to filing and answering phones?

"Yes. I thought, as mayor of Sunnydale, it would be good to have an unnaturally strong, incorruptible person knowing our business."

Well, when she put it like that… "Of course, Anya. And thank you for calling her a person." They talked for a couple more minutes, the ex-demon even remembering to ask about how she, Tara, and Oz were doing. As Willow hung up, she realized that she truly had no other plans for April and felt guilty that she hadn't even put in the batteries long after the synthetic skin had cured. She shivered a little. April was a part of what had happened with Warren, and the whole incident still gave her a wiggins.

⸹

"Mom, you look stunning."

Dawn, standing next to Buffy, beamed. "I told you the lace suit would be perfect."

Joyce was marveling over the red carpet that led to the office of the justice of the peace. "I can't believe Anya did all this in such a short time." Potted ferns on airily wrought gold pedestals dotted the route to the frosted glass office door, swags of white tulle hanging between them.

"It's good to know the mayor," Buffy agreed.

Dawn was fussing with Joyce's collar. "There." She stepped back. "And no one can tell you're pregnant yet."

"I can," Joyce said wryly. "This suit is two sizes up." She walked a few steps closer to the office.

Anya came out, holding a simple bouquet of yellow flowers to contrast with Joyce's pale blue suit. Smiling, she looked over her shoulder and said something, then beckoned them. "You look lovely, Joyce!" For a moment, she started to say something, then closed her mouth. Buffy was willing to bet cash money that she'd been about to comment on the fact that there was no obvious baby bump. Three years into her second go as a human, Anya was finally learning the basics of tact.

The little room was crowded, but Joyce's eyes went to Giles first. "Rupert," she mouthed, no voice available to her. He gave her the sweet, happy smile that had become his customary expression the past few weeks. Giles wore a dark business suit instead of tweed and jeans, and he left his glasses at home in favor of contacts. He was so urbane and handsome. And he was hers. Joyce held her eyes wide; she'd hadn't cried at the ceremony with Hank and hadn't expected to feel the prick of tears today. Then she looked around. "Lolly? Matt?" She pivoted on her heels to look for her sister. "Arlene! How…?"

"Anya arranged this, too," Buffy said, grinning as Aunt Arlene let go of Joyce and turned to give her a hug.

The Mayor leaned into Xander's chest. "I never really understood how good it feels to do something nice for someone," she whispered. "I mean, I'm never going to get anything out of this, but just look how happy she is!"

"An, you do nice things for people more often than you realize," Xander replied, looking down at his wife. Both of them still had peeling skin on their noses from their Hawaiian honeymoon.

She basked in his warm regard. "Oh. Thank you."

The ceremony took very little time. While Giles and Joyce were finishing with the signatures, Buffy went to Dawn and gave her a hug. "How are you doing?"

"I was fine," Dawn said, trying to look ticked off, "until I realized that this makes me the middle child."

Her sister snorted and looked up at Dawn. "Try being both the oldest and the smallest."

"Middle is worse." She sobered. "You think Dad will contest the adoption?" The two Summers girls had gone with Giles to begin the paperwork earlier. With Buffy already a legal adult, it had been straightforward, but Dawn was still a minor.

Buffy shook her head and gave Dawn a reassuring squeeze. "No. I think he might not sign, or not without a lot of pressure. On the other hand, our new stepfather is a bit of a warlock."

She'd meant for Giles to hear it, as he was coming toward them. Joyce was speaking with Lolly, and Uncle Matt had Spike engaged in a discussion of surf music. Her Watcher figured it was his turn to be the focus of her fun. "That's hardly a charitable or an accurate description."

"Sure, Giles," Buffy said, giving him a hug.

"Yeah, right, Daddy-o," Dawn seconded, giving a hug of her own.

He sighed. "Too late to teach either of you to respect your elders." Then Giles beamed at them. "But there is hope for your younger brother." Leaning closer, he whispered, "I may have considered working magic on your mother so we don't end up with another odd name in the family."

Buffy and Dawn crossed their arms simultaneously and gave him stern looks. "What's wrong with Buffy?" "What's wrong with Dawn?"

"So, so many things?" he hazarded the guess.

Dawn slugged his shoulder. "Anyway, it was Dad's side of the family that did the diminutive thing." Seeing the Watcher's puzzled look, she went on. "I mean, Dad is Hank instead of Henry, Lolly instead of Louise, Buffy instead of Elizabeth. I mean, on Mom's side, it's Joyce and Arlene."

"How did you luck out?"

She shrugged. "I could have been Donna. Either that, or it was the monks."

"Do you guys have any names in mind?"

"What do you think of Colin?"

Buffy shook her head. "Too close to 'colon.'"

"Harold?"

"He'll be Harry and will probably have to wear glasses," Dawn pointed out. "If he gets your magical ability…"

"Oh. Er, I hadn't considered that. I definitely don't need to tempt fate with another Chosen One." Giles shrugged, distracted as Anya came toward him, her arms held out for a hug. "We have time."

⸹

"What is this?" Joyce asked in bewilderment.

The reception was at home, a couple of hours after the marriage. Rupert helped her from his car, and they stood side by side watching a forklift move stacks of fencing into her yard. Two pickup trucks with the logo of a landscaping company had disgorged half a dozen men with mallets and posthole diggers. "I have no idea," Giles said faintly, worrying about street parking for the guests.

Dawn bounded out of the house, having quickly changed into black trousers and flats so she could help serve. Just as Joyce was about to call out to the workers, to let them know they'd made a mistake, she called loudly, "Hey, Mom, Dad! You get it, right?"

"Get what, dear?" Joyce placed an absent kiss on her shining hair as she returned Dawn's embrace.

"It was my idea, but Buffy and Spike paid for it, and it's really mostly the back yard, but… A house with a white picket fence and two-point-five kids!" She put a gentle hand over Joyce's abdomen and grinned at Giles. "Just for this month, it's perfect!"

⸹

San Diego, California

August 2002

⸹

Spike looked at a pair of Pikachus go past him and shook his head. Before he could turn to make a snarky comment to Xander, a young man wearing an ill-fitting pointy brown hat and a grey wig bumped into him. After a mumbled apology, he wandered to the left and knocked someone's arm with his staff. Spike shook his head again.

"Can't take much more of this," he grumbled, fruitlessly touching his pockets for the cigarettes he hadn't smoked in more than a year.

Xander sent him a sidelong look. He'd gone into the San Diego Comic-Con that morning with Andrew and Jonathan. They'd separated after the Hellboy panel, going off toward their own interests. He'd met Spike at the appointed time, but neither of the two coven members arrived. Despite several phone calls, the two had yet to show up.

They were outside the convention center, waiting for Jonathan and Andrew and trying to stay out of the way. The city streets had baked all day in the summer sun and were only now willing to give up that heat. Nightfall had brought the hint of a cool breeze. The crowds of people had brought something else.

"To our left," Spike murmured, "green shirt." He and Xander began to move immediately, stalking the predator. They were within five feet before the green-shirted vampire sensed Spike. It never noticed Xander at all.

He put his stake back into a pocket of his cargo shorts as he moved away from the smattering of dust. "That was kind of easy," he marveled.

"How long have you been doing this, X-man?"

"Too long," Xander sighed. "Man, I wish there was some scientist working on releasing sterile vampires the way they release sterile mosquitos." At Spike's puzzled look, he sighed again. "Yeah, I know that it doesn't work like that. But you have to admit, you guys sire way too much."

"You just took out a vamp who was into his third decade. Not a fledge, mate."

"Oh." Xander looked suitably impressed. Then he lifted an arm to point. "There they are."

"Finally." The blond vampire surged forward and corralled the two young humans. "We should have been at the hangar already."

"Ray Harryhausen!" was all Andrew could manage.

"Six feet away!" Jonathan confirmed.

"Well, that's all right, then," Spike grudgingly admitted.

"And we saw Lucy Liu's back!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Xander said. "Walk fast, or the Master will let me use you two for practice dummies." The two shorter men came down a bit from the high of breathing the same air as legends. Xander winked at Spike; he was working on his second-degree black belt now, and he took vindictive pleasure in making people wear the puffy suit when he sparred them.

Tonight they were going after a treasure hoard in a state park south of Tijuana. Since it was across an international border, Jonathan and Andrew were going along to provide a glamour for the noise and movement of the helicopter. They were the only members of the coven who hadn't been on a raid; Tara, Willow, and Michael had magicked a team into Quebec earlier in the summer. For Jonathan and Andrew, who already had tickets for Comic-Con, San Diego had just made sense as a jumping-off point.

Once they got to the airport, the raid itself went smoothly. Spike, who pretended that there was something wonky with his headset, simply switched off the other three, trusting that Xander would get his attention if there was anything he needed to know. They sat down in the park, found the trove, including a sealed jar that had been dipped repeatedly in silver which had piqued Giles' concern, and took off within twenty minutes. When the four of them returned, it was within two minutes of the bogus flight plan he'd filed.

Once they were back in San Diego, Jonathan and Xander realized they were hungry and drove to get some takeout. Spike went to the top of the nearest Quonset hut-style hangar to talk to Buffy while he waited, then watched the refueling. After a while, he just sat back and enjoyed the clear night.

"Hey, Spike." The young man was approaching him cautiously, more because of the angle of the roof than anything else.

"Hi, Andrew." Spike kept his voice neutral; if the boy was determined enough to climb forty feet of ladder, he wasn't going to snap at him. The callow young man with the obvious crush wasn't his favorite company, but he'd earned his perch.

"I've wanted to talk to you for a while," Andrew said, after sitting next to him and keeping his peace for almost two minutes, maybe a record for the talkative boy.

"Yeah?"

"Something I heard about," Andrew said. He fell silent again, and Spike looked over at him. What he'd been about to say died on his lips. He'd never seen the lad so serious. This wasn't going to be a cringe-worthy attempt to get to know the object of a crush. "Buffy said one of the Wolfram and Hart lawyers tried to rape you."

Spike blinked. "Never a real chance of –"

"I figured she had to use magic on you."

"Yeah."

Andrew stared out over the bright lights of the terminal a mile or so away. "You've heard about my brother, Tucker, right?"

"Hellhounds," Spike confirmed gravely.

"He was always good with magic." Andrew's face tightened in pain for a moment. "He was three years older than me, so I always thought he was the greatest. Little brother hero worship. And he really did love me. He'd help me put together models, and we'd play with them. Maybe it was because he didn't have friends at school, but he never minded me hanging around him.

"He got his magic when he was eleven. Everything changed after that. He used to tickle me until I got hiccups. It was really the only thing he did that was truly mean. But then he found a spell that would tickle me for him, invisible fingers, and he'd let it go until I threw up. And he just… he just kept casting it."

Spike found he was staring at the young man with horror and pity in his eyes, so he cut them away quickly. "Sudden power is like that for most."

Andrew nodded. "Mom and Dad never felt comfortable around him. They'd leave, sometimes for days, leave him in charge. Tucker never complained. He always made sure I got to school, that there was something microwaved for breakfast and dinner. But he started using other… control spells on me.

"I tried to tell them, but they didn't want to hear. My parents were just happy it wasn't aimed at them, I think." Andrew's voice was soft. "So they'd leave, and Tucker would summon something… and I'd be the payment. And he'd watch. He never tried to stop it, none of it."

"Andrew…" Spike was at a loss.

The young man drew a breath. "So, I choose to believe that he did love me, but that he kept reaching for more magic until he paid for it with his heart. After that… those last three years weren't all that fun." Andrew turned to meet Spike's eyes, his own gaze frank, open. "It took a long time and, once I was at college, some counseling, but I can name it, now. It was rape, even if he never laid a finger on me himself." He shrugged. "I know you're a powerful Master Vampyre and everything," his words finally became hesitant, "but if you ever need to talk…"

Spike put out a hand to the boy and squeezed his fingers carefully before letting go. "If I go labelling one thing, it leads to other things that might have to be labelled," he said carefully. "Not just things that were done to me. Things I did, yeah? Things from a long time ago." Blue eyes tracked the path of an incoming prop plane. "I'm finally the man I always wanted to be. Nothing and nobody's going to change that."

"I'm not a big believer in closure," Andrew said eventually. "I don't have any need to confront my parents. I just… don't plan on ever seeing them again." He stood up. "But this kind of thing seems to happen far too often, probably because we're around people – and non-people – who are way too into power. I just, I don't know. Wanted to let you know you have a friend who can listen if you ever need to talk."

Spike stood, too, and took the smaller man in a quick embrace. "You're good people, Andrew." This had not been what he'd expected at all, and he felt humbled in the face of such generosity.

The boy nodded but shrugged. "I might not have been. I thought about it, but I decided I don't want to make anyone else pay for my pain." He looked out over the acres of tarmac. "I think the next time I look for someone, I might try to find a nice girl." He shrugged again. "Just because I think I need to choose my identity for myself."

"Bi works for a lot of people," Spike said, his voice again neutral. He turned toward the ladder.

Andrew looked up at him. "Speaking of bi… Do you have any idea what's the deal with Tara and Willow and Oz?"

Spike chuckled. "Dunno. Don't have the stones to ask. They seem happy, though." He touched Andrew's arm, then swung out over the rungs of the ladder, wanting to be there in case the boy – in case his friend slipped.

⸹

Next Chapter: Buffy and Faith are having Slayer dreams about the deaths of young girls.


	44. A Thread of Unease

**A Thread of Unease**

⸹

Sunnydale

September 2002

⸹

"Hey, B."

"Faith!" Buffy put the portable phone into the crook of her neck and carried a basket of laundry to the washing machine. "How are things, girlfriend?"

"Uh, okay, I guess."

"Oh. So, no guy, huh?"

Faith let loose with one of her rich chuckles. "Yeah, not so much. I had a thing with Robin Wood over the summer, but I haven't seen him since school started back."

"I thought he was out – oh, right. He's a principal. And how come all the principals I had to deal with were cranky old guys?"

"I never could get him to play principal and naughty girl who needs some strict discipline."

Buffy grinned. "And thus ends the thing with Robin Wood." She stuffed a handful of t-shirts into the tub. "Speaking of school, how's Connor handling it?"

"Well, B, there's a story or two."

"Oh? You're at the Hyperion right now, aren't you?"

"Connor is a handsome young man who just became starting quarterback." Buffy heard movement in the background.

Buffy put down the basket and made sure the setting was on cold. Almost all the clothes were dark; it was too hard to get blood and slime out of light colors. "Girls?" Obviously, her sister Slayer couldn't speak freely.

"Angel's given him the talk. Twice."

"If what I've heard is even partly true, he comes by that naturally."

"I'm taking a walk around the block," Faith informed her. "So, he's had at least two encounters. Different girls."

Buffy's eyebrows went up. "That seems… quick."

"Yeah, that's what we all thought. I had the 'should mean something' talk with him myself, but he's new, a star athlete, and cute to boot, so there are chicks throwing themselves at his dick."

"So, so do not want to ever think of that. I changed his diapers, Faith."

"Yeah, I lucked out there."

"He isn't turning into a jerk, is he?"

"The thing is, he never dated either of those girls. He just didn't turn them down. If they thought he'd start dating them after they knocked boots, well, they were wrong."

"How is Angel with this?"

"Half proud and half appalled. I kinda overheard part of one of those talks, and apparently he's afraid Connor gets the horndog from him."

"Or from his actual whore of a mother," Buffy mumbled.

Faith chuckled in appreciation. "Yeah, Cordy said the same thing. To me, obvs; for Angel, Darla's all the sainted Madonna now that she's dust again."

"Well, I kind of do feel bad. Her last act was a good one; that's what's supposed to matter, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I kind of hope so."

"Shutting up now." Buffy switched the phone to the opposite ear. "Any other gossip?"

"Um… Angel was stunned that none of the other football parents thought he was too young to be Connor's dad, but assumed Cordelia had to be a stepmom. Cordy hasn't been around much because of her show."

"Trying not be envious, here."

"You wanted to be an actress?"

"Not really, but any girl who grew up in Los Angeles sort of expected to be discovered. Instead, I got Chosen, and now I get to kick demon ass for an ungrateful world. You probably know where I'm coming from."

"Yeah, but I do it without a blond hottie."

"There's Groo. Hottie, if not blond."

"Still has a scab from Cordy dumping him."

"Ah. How is everyone else?"

"Fred's around almost as often as Cordy. She's been holed up in her room working on a physics paper for some big conference. After she presents it, she's hoping to be asked to go to some school or other. Right now, she only comes up for Gunn and tacos."

"Figured he'd come up for her."

"Wait, was that naughtiness that just crossed Buffy Summers' lips?"

"Of course not!" Their friendship had been so much easier since they'd talked at Xander's wedding.

Faith chuckled. "Anyway, girl talk isn't why I called. Well, not entirely. Alpana thought I should ask you if you've had any Slayer dreams lately."

Buffy frowned, thinking. "Maybe? It was sort of unfocused. I was running away from a dark shape, only it wasn't really me. You know how it is in dreams. I couldn't see what was chasing me, only knew I was terrified."

"I've had pretty much the same dream. Twice."

"Huh." She finished stuffing the clothes inside the washer and reached for the jug of detergent. "There's only the small fact that neither of us runs from anything."

"There is that."

"I'll tell Giles, but I'm not sure he can focus on anything but the baby right now."

"Yeah?" Faith imagined this, then her voice became more confidential. "I think Alpana is kinda blue that he's taken."

"Really? Because he's a Brit and a fellow Watcher? Or did they know each other before?"

"I think she kinda knew him and wanted to get to know him better, you know, hoped something would happen."

"Well, if you're free and she's free, I think you should take her with you on patrols to lots of clubs."

"We do." Faith's tone had a satisfied note in it. "She's not like any of the other ones, B. I think I finally lucked out."

"My first Watcher was sort of creepy, but in the end, he was okay." Buffy closed her eyes for a moment and leaned her hip against the washing machine. "I probably don't think of him enough. I try not to think of those last weeks I lived down there."

"And now your Watcher literally is your daddy."

"Thank God I'm too old to get grounded."

⸹

"Giles?"

"Mm-hmm?" he said absently, raising his head from the book he was reading to look at Buffy.

"Can I steal you away from Madonna-Mommy for a moment?"

Joyce lifted her head from Giles' shoulder. "Hey! Do you see a cone bra?"

Her daughter rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean that kind of Madonna," she clarified. "And I don't think she's worn that for, like, decades."

Joyce put her hands on her stomach and shook her head. "Do you know how old that makes me feel?"

Rupert gently pushed her upright on the couch, then kissed her cheek. "Our children keep us young. Isn't that what I've heard you say?" He followed Buffy into the kitchen, where Spike was putting away the last leftovers from dinner, including a plate for Dawn, who was at dance practice. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Both of you, actually." She made a face. "I learned something today in PEXS 420 today –"

"That's a physical education class you're taking?" Giles inquired.

"Yes. Well, we got back the results in lab today of these tests we learned to administer on each other."

"You play guinea pigs with your classmates?" Spike asked, amused.

"Pretty much. So, last week, we did hydrostatic weighing, where you kind of do the Archimedes bath thing –"

Her husband swooped in and left a wet smooch on her neck. "Smart chicks are so hot."

"Shut up, Spike," she said, and Giles echoed the sentiment exactly. Spike only smirked. "Anyway, it tells body fat percentage. We also all had dual energy X-ray absorptiometry done, which tells bone density." Buffy looked down. "The two of you are right. I'm scrawny."

Giles' brows drew together. "I never said you were scrawny, I just said you weren't at fighting weight."

"I _am_ ," Buffy argued, "only, I've been going by what my scale tells me. "I have barely enough body fat to have a menstrual cycle, and my bones are, like, freaky dense." She looked upset with herself, her eyes on the floor.

Spike had leaned against the counter to watch her as she spoke. "Like manual laborers. You carry a lot of weight, it makes for stronger bones. Hitting, kicking, tossing bad guys…."

She nodded, still not looking at either of them. "Or if you have a break, your bone gets stronger. I figure Slayer healing has taken care of a lot of breaks."

Giles, having a better angle to see her expression, moved closer. "Why has this upset you, dear?"

Buffy gave a miserable shrug. "My fortyish mother had a better chance of getting pregnant than I do." She shot an apologetic look at Spike. "I mean, you know, if we could."

He slid an arm around her waist. Spike knew how hard it hit her when she was made to feel less than normal. "You are absolutely, one hundred percent all woman, love."

"Thanks." Buffy managed a smile. "I always railed at how the Council only saw me as a tool, a honed weapon, and now I've turned myself into just that." She let out a breath. "So, I'm not going to look at the scale to see if I still weigh what I did when I was a junior in high school, when I didn't have nearly the muscle mass or thick bones."

Spike and Giles looked at each other. Spike shrugged. "Okay, pet."

"I approve," her Watcher said with all possible pomposity. "Joyce has an amazing array of ice cream in the freezer right now. Shall we have dessert?"

Buffy gave a little laugh. "Sounds good. Check if Mom wants any?"

Spike waited until Giles left the kitchen to consult with his wife, then pulled her in with both arms. _This has you shaken up, love._

Buffy let out a shaky breath. _I spent a month in a hospital with a lot of girls who had anorexia, remember? And here I am, not really seeing my body, the same way they couldn't._

He kissed her temple. _You're not any kind of crazy, love. I'd know, yeah? Plenty of experience with that._

In the mindlink, they were in their dark bedroom. She turned to him and hid her face against his chest. _That's my big fear, you know? That I end up back there, or that I was never allowed to leave and this happy life we have is all just a delusion. More even than being turned._

 _Losing you._ He gave voice to his own biggest fear.

She squeezed him tight in the bloodlink and in her mother's kitchen. _That's a real thing, though. That fear. It isn't paranoia or free-floating, nightmarish stuff. I don't think I could take another breath if you were gone._

Spike put his forehead against hers. _Good thing we're both going to be around forever._

Buffy held his gaze for several long seconds, then lifted her mouth for a kiss. _Good thing._

"Joyce says," Giles' words died away for a moment as he saw the usually confident pair wrapped against each other with desperate passion, "er, chocolate cherry."

Buffy pulled away from her husband, pushing the fall of hair from her face. "Yum. Sounds good to me, too."

⸹

Buffy stormed into her house, slamming the door. "Spike! You better be naked in the next five seconds, or you won't have any clothes –" She jerked to a halt as four heads swiveled to look at her.

Spike rose to his feet from the hearth, an automatic courtesy in the presence of a lady. The three other men got to their feet, too, turning to stare at her in a row before the couch. "'Lo, love. You, uh, remember the Reverend Tim Greenblatt."

She felt every hot ounce of blood in her body flood into her face. "Hi?" she managed weakly.

The minister was trying not to grin. Still on their honeymoon, it seemed. "Hello, Buffy. Lovely to see you."

"You, too." On the couch where Spike had been spread out like a smorgasbord just yesterday, all of his yumminess easy to reach with her fingers and lips … oh God.

"I'm Father Hernandez."

"And I'm Reverend Joe Cahill, from Southside Christian."

Buffy made herself nod. "How do you do?" She went toward Spike.

He met her halfway, pulling her into the shelter of one arm. "Tim called me today, needing to speak privately. I told him that our house is the safest place to do that. I picked them up an hour ago." He gave her an apologetic look.

Because there were now spells that kept unauthorized cars from driving past their gate, as well as dampening enchantments, she'd had no idea anyone else was there. Other than the Scoobies, no one ever was. "Of course."

"I thought you'd already be back." _Though bossy Mistress Buffy can keep any hours she pleases._

She got a mental image of him wearing a dog collar and her holding his leash, naked as she had commanded. _Shut up, Spike._

 _Woof._

"Anya caught me before I left downtown." So, so not looking at the holy men. "What's the sitch?"

For having three professional speakers and one enthusiastic amateur, it took almost five minutes before Buffy pieced together why the churchmen needed immediate and private consultation with the Slayer.

"Let me get this straight," she said slowly, her embarrassment forgotten. "There's a man, wearing a cleric's collar, going around to all the churches in Sunnydale, asking about the people in town who are repeat customers for holy water and blessed objects?"

"And he's a fraud," Father Hernandez said vehemently. "No man of God would ever say the things he did to Mrs. Lautner."

"He didn't feel… right, Buffy," Tim said. Their gazes met for a moment. "That man, wearing a collar… it's obscene. Wrong. Between us," he gestured to the others on the couch, "we've spoken to at least ten other ministers. This man has been to see us all. Beth Ulrich at Unitarian said she locked herself in her office and shook for five minutes after he left."

"Did he hurt her?" Buffy asked, her fists clenching.

Tim shook his head. "No. She said he was… her words were 'evil and crazy.'"

"And this was during the daytime?" Spike asked. He had been quiet until now.

Reverend Cahill answered that question. "Mostly. He came to several services at different churches."

"Did he ever introduce himself?"

"Caleb. Father Caleb. I asked," Tim said. He gave a self-effacing shrug. "He came into our Wednesday night service – still daylight outside – and shook my hand afterwards."

"Did his grip seem unusually strong?

"No, just… firm. That's when I asked his name, and it wasn't until he began speaking that I felt that…" he thought about his words, "sense of _wrongness_ about him." He lifted his hands, unable to explain better.

The priest's mouth thinned a moment, then he made himself say it. "I believe he's dangerous. I believe he's a particular danger to women." Then he became apologetic. "I know it's silly; we don't have any proof of this."

Buffy's mind flashed to the Slayer dreams she and Faith had recently. She'd had a third, of running through a wet city choked with neon signs, Tokyo or maybe Hong Kong, looking over her shoulder at pursuing shapes. There was no reason to connect this nutjob to things that might be occurring on the other side of the world, but her instincts were usually good.

During the conversation, they had all resumed their seats. Now Buffy stood up and asked, "Do you guys have cell phones?" When they all nodded, she gave them her number. "Share it with other pastors. If this guy shows up, call me. I'll come right away." The rest of it was nothing more than polite thank yous and reassurances. Buffy gave her husband's hand a squeeze as he ushered the holy men back to his car, but didn't say anything to him aloud or otherwise.

Once she saw the taillights of the Bentley, she called Faith to give her the head's up on this Caleb character. She could tell Faith had nothing on her radar from the tone of her voice.

"Yeah, that should be easy. Light brown hair, square jaw, tallish. Yet, I haven't seen him. Not to be sarcastic rather than helpful, B, but, can you vague that up?"

"Don't forget the clerical collar," Buffy reminded her. They rang off, each reminding the other to be careful. She called Giles to let him know the latest. Buffy drank a glass of water, then decided to shower before patrol tonight. Spike found her drying her hair when he returned.

"Why were you so angry when you came in?" he asked. He pulled her onto the bed and took the hairbrush from her so he could work the tangles from her fine strands.

"Maybe angry isn't the word. I just needed… a really good distraction." She sighed. "You know how Anya is getting April to scan every historical Sunnydale document? She found a file with a tourism campaign from the fifties. 'Sunnydale: the best place to sire.' It was a slogan. That's why every time I turn around, there's another noob erupting from a grave."

The hairbrush stilled. "You're kidding."

"Nope. The reason we have so many to dust every night is because it's apparently a long-standing tradition. Come to Sunnydale, feel the evil Hellmouth vibe, sire a minion. Like kissing the Blarney Stone or something. There was even a 'Sired in Sunnydale' t-shirt."

Spike shook his head and resumed the brushing. "I never heard that, but it sure does explain a lot about the volume we get in a town of 40,000."

"I was pretty ticked off." She leaned against him, and Spike lowered his arms to wrap around her. "Think of all the energy we put into keeping people safe, because Wilkinson encouraged tourists to sire, like, fifty years ago." Buffy glanced around her shoulder to see him. "I mean, where would he even advertise?"

"Demon bars," Spike offered, his voice rumbling against her back, "maybe bus and airport terminals, places like that." When he saw her eyebrow quirk, he went on. "It would be in runes, usually invisible to human eyes and usually on the ceiling."

"So…" Buffy said slowly, "if I'm in an airport and someone is scanning the ceiling, I should keep an eye on them?"

"Can't hurt." He placed a soft kiss on her brow. "So, my bride, do you still need a really good distraction?"

Buffy turned so she could look up at him. "After my abject humiliation in front of the nice ministers this afternoon? I could definitely –" Her cell phone rang, and Buffy grimaced. "Answer the phone."

It was Giles. They both listened as he relayed what he'd learned from his contact at the Vatican. Caleb was a defrocked priest wanted for the murder of two girls and for questioning in the deaths of several others. He had been off everyone's radar for at least two years. "I've been promised a photograph before tomorrow morning, and I'll send the attachment to everyone." Email was one of the few instances where the Council had taken to modern technology, and Giles had eventually mastered its use.

"Sounds good," Buffy told him. "Thanks. We'll patrol around the churches as well as the cemeteries tonight."

⸹

"Hey, Buf. Come on in." Willow stood away from the door so her best friend could come into the apartment.

Buffy went in, giving Willow a brief hug as she passed by. She waved at Oz, who was sitting on the couch, tuning his unplugged guitar, and Tara, who sat next to him. "Thanks for meeting me, guys." She sat in a plushly padded rocking chair near Tara.

"What's the sitch?" Oz asked.

"It's, uh… news about Warren." She looked down at her hands. "He's dead."

"Dead?" Willow echoed. Oz put down his guitar and drew her onto the cushion between him and Tara. They exchanged a look behind her back that Buffy understood to mean neither was sorry to hear the news.

The Slayer nodded. "Yeah. Um, sometime early this morning, the guards found his body against the back wall of his cell. Everything was scorched. They think he was trying to make a bomb."

Tara's expression was uncharacteristically hard. "Only, they won't find accelerants or anything like that, because what he was doing was calling up a demon."

"And lost control of it," Willow breathed, finally finding words. Her eyes got wide. "Oh my God. If it had gotten loose… All those prisoners in their cells… They would have been sitting ducks."

"Or someone collected on that law firm contract he signed," Oz offered.

Buffy nodded grimly. "That's what Anya figured when she phoned me." She shrugged. "She's on some kind of call list in his file, since she's a public official that he threatened."

"I had all these plans for his release," Oz said. "One less worry." When the three women stared at him, he elaborated. "Defensive plans."

Willow nodded. "I worried about what to do when he got out, too."

"I just thought I should tell you in person," Buffy said, leaning across the coffee table to take Willow's hand.

"Y-you could stay for dinner," Tara suggested as Buffy stood.

The Slayer shook her head. "No, I need to go back home before patrol." She tilted her head toward the hallway. "But if I could make a pit stop…?"

"S-sure," Willow said, her mind obviously still on the news. "You know where it is."

After Buffy finished washing her hands, she noted Oz's razor laying on the counter. She smiled a little. The apartment had three bedrooms, one for each of the roommates, but Tara's was the largest and had the biggest bed. It was also the one whose floor was draped with discarded clothing in three different sizes.

None of the three had ever said anything. Everyone speculated without offering a definitive opinion, but they all knew that Willow, Tara, and Oz were together. Buffy wondered what it would be like to be in a relationship that no one acknowledged. She felt awful, all of a sudden.

The three roommates were standing in a group hug when she got back to the living room, Oz and Tara encircling Willow in a protective huddle. They only parted a few inches when Buffy cleared her throat. "Hey… I know we're all in each other's back pockets, so we try to give each other space, but I kind of feel bad that I never said anything. I just want you all to know that I'm glad you're happy, okay?"

Willow's eyes grew bright with tears, and she lunged for Buffy to pull her into a clumsy hug all her own.

"We are happy," Tara said. Her voice was soft again, and her cheeks were pink. "Thank you."

Buffy patted Willow's back. The redhead's words were barely a whisper, so low that only the Slayer could hear. "Tara really needed time to deal. She felt boxed in by labels."

Squeezing Willow, Buffy just nodded in understanding. She went for hugs with the other two. "I love you, Tara," she said, and moved to Oz. "Love you, too, Oz."

"You, too, Buff. Enjoying the polyfidelity," he said amiably.

What seemed very right to her for her friends wasn't something that larger society could easily label or accept. She pulled away enough to give Willow a last hug. "So," she said, "how are classes?"

"Wonderful! I love Oxford, and I love the training with the coven in Devon." She grinned. "How about yours?"

The four of them talked about their respective universities for a couple of minutes, then Tara changed the topic. "Now that the new s-semester is here, I got permission to put up new flyers about that ex-priest. I made sure the late-night escort service knows about him, too."

"Good work," Buffy said. Her voice was grim. They had never tracked down Caleb, but she suspected that the body of a college sophomore found with her neck broken last month was due to him, not vampires. He hadn't seemed the type to lay low, so she hoped the absence of bodies meant he had left the Hellmouth.

⸹

Spike was helping Buffy unload the dishwasher. It was a perfectly normal thing that people did; it was a perfectly normal thing for them to do, even. He took the dishes and glasses from her after she finished drying them and put them on the shelves, a relay from dishwasher to cupboard.

Buffy was talking about how she and Dawn had cornered Joyce and rubbed her enormous baby bump with cocoa butter that afternoon, how they'd teased her and fussed over her. He stopped listening at some point as he watched her stoop and twist to grab clean cups, studying her quick, efficient movements with the dishtowel to get water from every rim or crevice. His Slayer was smiling at something her mother had said, and it was too bloody much.

"Wife," Spike growled, his eyes suddenly amber. He grabbed the edge of the dishtowel and used her resistance to having anything taken from her hand to reel her in. His cool lips went to his mark on her neck, nibbling and suckling.

"Wha– " Buffy set the cup she was drying back into the rack on top of a cereal bowl and let go of the towel. It fluttered to the floor, and she used her newly free hands to grab his ass as she arched into him. All but breathless, she managed to gasp his name.

Spike ran his hands roughly over her body, hard shoulders to soft breasts, hard nipples to soft hips. He took her in a clumsy grasp and half-carried, half-dragged her to the dining room table. Unbuttoning his jeans with one hand, he pushed her down on the surface and held her there.

Buffy gazed up at him, her eyes dark with pleasure. She was wearing one of his t-shirts and plain white underwear and wasn't sure what had prompted his sudden passion. They had plans for tomorrow to go to the soft opening of the first really fancy French restaurant in town, run by a vampire Anya had recruited, but it wasn't to celebrate anything. It took Spike a handful of seconds to free his straining erection and to pull the elastic band of her panties to one side. "Spike," she hissed as he eased into her.

He bared his teeth, blunt and gritted tightly, then pulled her to the edge of the table, fitting their bodies closer.

"Oh, my sweet love," she managed, feeling him tremble. When he didn't move, Buffy slid her fingers into the waistband of her underpants until her fingers found her clit. Her other wrapped around the base of his cock, fingers stroking and squeezing.

Spike willed his body into immobility until Buffy clenched her own teeth and wrapped her legs around his waist so she could raise her hips. With this implicit permission, he began to move, throwing open the bloodlink at the same time. _So bloody hot, love, like the sun every single time. Molten sheath, made for me. Love your body. Love your passion. Love you._

 _Love how you wrap your general horniness into romantic… words and stuff._ Buffy lost her train of thought for a moment, until an ominous creak brought her back to reality. "Stop!" She held up a warning hand.

"Fucking substandard furniture," he growled, scooping her from the table to move toward the couch.

"Guh." _Nope. No couch. Vertical surface, Mr. Summers._

Five minutes later, he did carry her from the wall by the fireplace to the couch. Spike dropped onto the cushions so she could sprawl on top of him. He pushed her hair back and rubbed his nose against hers.

"Well, that was…"

"Ardent? Impassioned?"

"I was going to say 'fast,' but let's agree on 'unexpected.'"

He looked affronted. "How about 'appetizer?'"

"What came over you?"

Spike's voice was both rough and soft. "You. You did, love."

"Honeymoon's supposed to be over," she teased.

"Just… Don't deserve you, Buffy. Just grateful to be yours, and sometimes I realize all over again how amazing you are."

"You're pretty amazing, too." She kissed him, capturing his lower lip in her teeth and holding on. I'm not complaining here. It's just, you know… you're usually Mr. Foreplay.

 _My world an' all, I should have thought to lose an inch or so. Could be more spontaneous without worrying about hurting you._

Buffy let go of his lip. "Spike," she began, exasperated. _I'm not a delicate maiden or anything. Sometimes we get a little… athletic, and it does hurt a little. I think it's just part of it._ His eyes were wide with surprise after this admission, and she went on. _Hurts in a good way, like… being very aware that you're inside me, not knowing where you end and I begin._

 _I get lost in you, kitten._ The awe in his eyes faded. _Don't want to forget myself and –_

 _I want you to forget yourself._ Buffy put her hand on his cheek. _I want you to let go, too, you know._

 _I do. Just… not at the first._

 _You don't have to_ –Buffy's eyes widened, and she hid her face against his chest, letting her hair spill over them, further covering her blush. _Not, you know, 'balls-deep' at first._ She felt his abdomen shake with silent laughter.

 _Sure, you're not a delicate maiden._

 _Don't tease the Slayer._

 _No one ever said I was a smart vampire._

⸹

"Hey, Spike," Tara said, surprise in her voice. She sent a private smile at Oz, who was sitting beside the vampire on their sofa. "Hey, honey."

"How was the shop?"

"Busy." She put down her messenger bag and came to sink down on the cushion next to Oz. They gave each other a hug and brief kiss; Spike leered at them. Tara reached over and swatted his knee.

Oz's hand made unwitting circles on Tara's back. "Spike's staying for dinner."

"Good; it's hard to cook for just two." Willow rarely came back from Oxford during the week, but Oz had Tuesdays and Thursdays free this semester. "So, what brought you here?"

"Talking about transformation again."

"Our resident vamp has a new idea in mind."

"Oh?"

Spike shrugged. "Because prehistoric, shape-shifting kitties aren't enough."

A smile tugged on the corners of Tara's mouth. "What do you have in mind this time?"

"Learned to fly a helicopter and a jet," Spike mumbled, looking down. "Might like to have my own wings."

"He couldn't convince himself of the physics of it when Dracula was here."

"Too much mass," Spike added.

"Oh," Tara said in realization. "Well, I'm off to find more comfortable clothes. If I haven't told you," she addressed Oz, "I'm glad you've got just the one thing." She unleashed her smile on Spike. "You take things to the point of way too complicated."

He lifted a hand in acknowledgement and watched as she left the living room. "So, you said bumblebee wings might give me a clue?"

⸹

"Why do we have to meet here?" Buffy complained. "I mean, I'm a senior in college. Why am I at Hot Dog On a Stick for supper?"

Joyce sighed. "Because that's where your sister wanted to be, and since I need you to talk to her, here we are." She swiveled a little to the side on the fixed stool, looking for more room. She was wearing a pale green maternity top. "Also because I have a craving for one of their malted milkshakes."

"Why do I have to talk to her?"

Next to her, Spike dipped a French fry in ketchup and glared at a frazzled family with three children under the age of five in the opposite booth. There was a table at the sodding playground where they could bloody well sit.

"I told you," Joyce said patiently. She'd never been heavily pregnant through summer before and was so relieved that cooler weather had finally arrived. "You've had crushes on boys much more recently than I have."

"Oh, it can't be worse than Alby," Buffy grumbled.

"Well, it is. Spike, may I please have one of your French fries? Without ketchup?"

"'Course, mum." He passed it over.

"Has Dawn finished moving?" Buffy was a little envious; because of the baby, Dawn was redecorating the basement as her bedroom. She often thought of how easy it would have been if she could move her bedroom to the basement and just slip out the kitchen door instead of snagging all her sweaters on the shingles and the bark of the tree outside her window.

"Sort of. She actually just threw away a lot of stuff and isn't going to unpack part of what's left." Joyce sounded sad. "She reminded me that she'll be going off to college."

"You were almost free, Mom." Buffy put her hand on Joyce's tummy, grinning at her unrepentantly. "Oh, there's her bug." Dawn picked a used pink VW Beetle for her first car. She'd added large black eyelashes over the round headlights and floral decals on either side. Right now, Dawn was saving for daisy-shaped hubcaps. Xander and Spike refused to ride in the 'girlymobile,' though Giles had gritted his teeth and braved the passenger seat.

Buffy kept her eye on the door, wanting to catch her sister's eye as she came in. "So, Todd, right?"

Joyce sighed. "I thought it was Todd, but yesterday and this morning it was all about somebody named R.J."

"What happened to Todd, then?" Spike offered his mother-in-law another French fry.

"Who knows?" Joyce replied wearily, accepting the food.

Buffy waved at her sister. Dawn headed toward them, but was caught by a couple of girls her age. "R.J.? What kind of name is that?"

"Probably a junior, dear." Joyce's reply was absent; she was watching the door. "Robert Junior or something."

Spike was running another chip through the dregs of the dollop of ketchup when Joyce stood up. He looked up at her. She was facing Dawn. Probably off to be maternal to the Nibblet's friends, he figured. Then Buffy stood up, too, slipping away from the table much more gracefully than Joyce.

He looked after her, his brows drawn together, but before he could say anything, Buffy's phone rang. Spike looked at her mobile, abandoned on the tabletop, and saw that it was Willow. "'Lo, love. Buffy's across the room."

"Hey, Spike. I've got an alarm spell going off."

He sat up straight. "Alarm? What alarm?"

"Give me a sec, okay? Yellow, yellow… All right. Yellow crystal means there's an enchanted object somewhere around Buffy."

"Can you vague it up?"

"Hey! This is left over from Glory, okay? Practically pre-coven."

Spike tensed, looking around the restaurant with yellow eyes. "So, could be any demon?" Buffy was in a knot of people, along with her mother and sister, near the entrance.

"No, not a demon." Willow made a noise that caused Spike to think she was biting her lip. "It's an object. Something bewitched."

"So, the alarm spell just went off?" Maybe someone who just came in.

"Yeah. You need me there?"

"If I don't call back in a couple of minutes, we're at Hot Dog on a Stick."

"Why?"

"Good question."

Spike hung up. Too many people, including the Summers ladies, were clustered around the door for him to see.

Too many females.

Something in his memory shook loose. Spike stood up on the seat. It swiveled, and he corrected his balance absently. He lifted Buffy's cell phone and called Willow back. "Red, could it be a love spell? Something here only affecting birds."

"Birds? Oh, you mean women. You're a chauvinistic relic, you know that?"

"Yeah…" Spike glanced around. The other men in the place were either mildly curious or oblivious to the traffic jam near the door. The voices of the women had gained a shrill edge.

"You want me to pop in?"

"No. Better not, love. You're a bird, after all. Call you back in a few."

He stood up and tried to make his way to the center of the throng. There was a ring of women around the edge of the restaurant that didn't seem to be interested in joining the crowd; whatever was causing this had a limited range, apparently.

Spike gave up and leapt on top of a table. In the center of the ruck was a sandy-blond boy in a Sunnydale High letter jacket. He was smiling good-naturedly, his arm around a girl in a cheerleading outfit.

"R.J.!" Dawn called out to him, frantically waving her hands in the air.

So that was R.J., the Nibblet's crush. The lad seemed a little overwhelmed. He didn't notice Dawn, anyway. Spike's eyes narrowed as another lady on the edge of the group shoved her way past Joyce, causing her to stumble and do a balance check.

"What is it?"

Spike jerked, turning to look wide-eyed at Xander. "Wha– How?"

"Willow," Oz answered. He was behind Xander and already climbing onto another abandoned table, careful not to put his shoes in the food.

"Smell anything?" Spike asked hopefully.

Oz nodded. "That boy in the middle has magic around him."

"Figured that much," Spike said dryly.

"Jacket," Oz said, drawing in another lungful. He shrugged. "Mothballs as well as magic."

"Xander, could you go make sure Joyce isn't knocked down?" Spike stepped to another table. He'd just noticed his wife's blond head heading through the crowd like a shark fin cutting through water toward chum. "Oz, meet me by the door?"

Spike put a burst of vampire speed into the spinning leap he did off the table, hearing a sharp crack beneath him as he shoved away. As his feet went up and his head was down, he snatched R.J. by the shoulders and lifted him from the middle of the crowd. They both ended up on top of the order counter, Spike rather more neatly than the human.

The letterman jacket wasn't fastened, so he simply stripped it from the kid's shoulders and blurred along the wall toward the door. Oz was already there, holding it open. Before the glass door swung shut behind them, they could hear the mob voice break into confused murmurs.

Oz held the jacket that Spike had shoved at him. "Definitely something magic about it," he confirmed in a mild tone.

"Reckon we can just burn it?"

"Better let Wil and Tara decide."

Spike smirked at him. "You gonna wear it for them?"

Oz shook his head. "Little too rapey."

"I'd wear it," Xander said, coming out of the restaurant, "but I don't think it'd fit me. Also, love monkey spell still a very painful memory."

"Don't look at me," Spike said. "You lot know I like my coats a lot longer. Besides, that thing's magic just makes me itch."

Xander touched his shoulder as he drew out his phone. "I got Joyce into the quieter part of the place, so she's safe. I'll call Wil. We better book before Big Man on Trailer Lot comes looking for us." Construction wasn't going to start on the new Sunnydale High School until the next year.

"Thank you," Spike said sincerely. "And thank the Wiccas. Didn't want to see my wife and my in-laws slug it out over jailbait."

He went back in to find that all three Summers were at the little table. Dawn had appropriated his fries and was moaning into her phone.

"What's the gen?" he asked Buffy, sliding an arm around her.

"That was majorly weird," she said. "Love spell?"

He shook his head. "Enchanted jacket."

Buffy leaned into her husband. "Sorry, baby. I hate that you had to see that again." _Willow's spell with Riley Finn._

Joyce closed her eyes and shook her head. "I kind of hate Sunnydale."

Dawn put down her phone and stole Buffy's diet cola. "Melinda thinks Todd will forgive me for blowing him off yesterday."

"For what?" Spike asked sharply.

"Blowing – eww!" Dawn swatted at him. "Ignoring him, you fossil." She saw him trying to hide a smile.

"William," Joyce said, her voice holding a hint of warning.

"Sorry, Mum."

⸹

October 2002

⸹

Macsen David Giles was born the first Tuesday in October. His two older sisters were in the delivery room much of the time, along with the father. His mother, a very wise woman, correctly assumed the experience would be the best form of birth control for both her daughters and her husband.

While Joyce rested and Buffy went with the nurse to see the weighing and washing, Dawn ducked out to the waiting room. "Hey," she mumbled, subdued as she went into Spike's arms.

"Everything okay, pet? You look green."

"Kinda intense." She took a shaky breath. "Max is fine, all fingers and toes where they're supposed to be. Mom's, like, the bravest person I've ever seen. Giles didn't faint."

"And my Bit?"

"Never. Having. Sex."

"'M good with that."

Dawn let out a breath and stood up straight, stepping away from him with only an absent smack aimed at his shoulder. "It was the afterbirth," she said with a shudder. "I told Mom I'd be right back. Will you make the calls?"

"'Course. What was the weight?"

"Seven pounds, three ounces."

Spike gave her another hug and dug out his mobile. He already had a group text racked and ready to send, once he had the particulars. His phone vibrated almost as soon as he'd sent it; Willow wanted to know when they could come by. It was three in the afternoon; labor had started at nine that morning. Joyce's doctors had decided to induce because her blood pressure was borderline high during her last doctor's appointment. Spike figured seven o'clock would give Joyce a chance to nap and maybe eat dinner. By the time he'd answered Willow, Lolly, Arlene, and Cordelia had sent messages.

Giles found Spike still on the phone ten minutes later. The younger Brit looked up as Giles took out his own phone, and he couldn't help overhearing the conversation. He wandered closer and was waiting as Rupert hung up.

"Appointment for a vasectomy?" the blond man asked, his eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"The waiting and worrying through this has been terrible, and I'm not doing it again," Rupert admitted. "But he's fine. He's…" He bit his lip. "He's beautiful."

"'Course he is," Spike said, throwing an arm around him. The Watcher looked like he needed a hug.

"I can't ask Joyce to go through that again, either. I mean, because of all the worry, since we aren't young, but… I'd rather have a sucking gut wound than see her in pain like that again."

Spike reached into his hip pocket and drew out a flask. "Don't have cigars, but I did bring something that might help. Scotch," he added, so Giles would know it was a gift, "not bourbon."

"I knew there must be something Buffy sees in you," he said, taking the liquor gratefully.

Spike chuckled. "Hit the spot?"

The second time Giles lifted the flask seemed to do the trick. "Quite." He shuddered and handed it back.

"Keep it. It's a new one. Wouldn't be able to get the peat smoke taste out of it, anyway."

The door behind them opened. "There you are," Buffy said, wearing the same smile on her face that had been there most of the afternoon. "The rooms cleared out, and they gave Max to Mom." She saw the flask. "I've got Tic-Tacs in my purse," she told Giles.

An hour later, Joyce and Giles were asleep, pressed against each other on the bed, and Dawn was napping in the recliner. Buffy and Spike hovered over the glass-sided crib against the wall. He'd turned the lights off, so they couldn't see much more than Max's red face over the tightly wrapped blanket.

"That's the smallest cap I've ever seen," Spike marveled.

"This is the smallest baby I've ever seen," Buffy murmured, looking down where her baby brother's tiny fingers were wrapped around her pinky finger.

Spike took his eyes from the infant and looked at his wife. She was so amazingly beautiful. He didn't often get to see her look this soft. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You want me to go get some food? They'll be bringing Joyce and Rupes that celebratory steak dinner in another hour."

Buffy let out a needy groan that went directly to her husband's groin. "Oh, would you? I'm starved."

They settled on deli sandwiches and he set off. On the way out of the hospital, still seeing the soft look on Buffy's face as she looked at the baby, Spike got out his cell phone again. "Hi… Yeah, I was wondering if I could hire you for a special research project?... Yes, I'm bloody well going to pay you. Your time is valuable, same as anyone's… Wondering what you can find about vampires having children… No, not siring, you nit. Fathering babies."

⸹

"Hey, Uncle Aubrey," Dawn said. She put down her bookbag and sat next to him on the couch, putting her finger out to stroke the light brown hair on her little brother's head. "How's the babysitting going?"

"We're doing fine," he said, his voice low. "Little Macsen just fell asleep about ten minutes ago. If he'll stay asleep when Joyce and young Giles return, they'll think I'm a magician and ask me to babysit again."

"You are a wizard," she pointed out.

"Spellcaster," he said, though his severe tone was still very quiet because of the sleeping infant, "or possibly sorcerer."

"You don't like 'wizard?'"

Willingham sniffed. "Can you imagine a Watcher in some kind of star-spangled robe?" He sobered, looking at her as she smiled softly at her baby brother. "Did you finish the reading?"

"Yes," she sighed. "And have I mentioned how much I hate Latin?"

"Several times."

Dawn tore her eye away from the baby and grinned at him. "I have? I can't recall." She sighed. "But you're right. The account was pretty grim." Shaking her head, she added, "It's amazing to me that you have two thousand year old Watcher Diaries."

"Albinius was lucky to have survived."

Her face was sober now as she nodded. "I checked out a couple of books on Pompeii and watched a documentary." Dawn shivered a little. "You weren't joking."

"The consequences of closing the Pompeii Hellmouth were…"

"Apocalyptic."

Aubrey nodded, shifting and resettling the baby in his arms. Max's rosebud mouth opened and made a suckling motion. Without pause, the old man brought up a cloth for the bit of drool he'd anticipated.

"You're so good with him," Dawn said enviously.

"You'll be just as good," he promised. "It doesn't really take long to become an expert. How do you think humans managed to survive all these millennia?"

"Lots of Slayers," Dawn said glumly. She met his eyes again. "I really wanted to give her this, you know? Key, here. Shouldn't I be able to close at least this Hellmouth?"

"I know, Dawnie." He gave her a sympathetic look. This had been her pet project for months now, because she wanted to free her sister from the duty that bound her to the small town. They had researched the project steadily, though Aubrey hadn't been very confident of success since looking at a geological map of Sunnydale and seeing how many caverns there were. The coven that tried to close the Hellmouth at Pompeii had hoped Mt. Vesuvius would go dormant if their spell succeeded. That had not been the case.

"There is a clue, though," she said. Dawn could hear the stubbornness in her voice. When he raised his eyebrows, she went on. "If the Pompeii Hellmouth energy just migrated to Matka Canyon, that means it's probably a constant, right?"

"Most Watchers who study Hellmouths came to that conclusion," Aubrey offered cautiously.

"You don't agree?"

He lifted his brows in a shrug instead of his shoulders. "I know the energies faded from Matka Canyon after a few hundred years. Rome had a Hellmouth in the late Dark Ages, and that waned, too. Sunnydale hasn't always had an active Hellmouth. We have no data on what causes the energies to shift, nor any real way to measure them. So I hesitate to give credence to a theory that has only anecdotal evidence."

"Wonder if there's a way to measure it now?" She shifted so she was looking directly at him. "Do you know if anyone is doing that research?"

He shook his head. "The only thing recent is monitoring. Sunnydale has the most active Hellmouth right now. I think that's why the Council hasn't been more forceful about deploying Miss Lehane to another country."

Dawn bit down on a smile. "I'd like to see them be forceful with Faith." Then she caught herself. "Oh. No, I probably wouldn't. Well, maybe I'll think of something I can do for her and Buffy both."

"We'll both keep thinking," the old Watcher promised.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"They haven't said what happened," Wesley told Spike, his voice low. "They came back from the conference where Fred presented her paper on dimensional rifts and moved into separate rooms."

"Lots of arguing?"

"None." He shook his head. "I mean, they're still friendly, but… bruised."

"Sounds like it's really over." Spike made a mouth; he liked both Fred and Gunn.

"I think it is." Wesley's hands flexed involuntarily, betraying him even if his voice hadn't. "I hate to see them hurting."

Spike noticed the gesture and assumed he hated to see Fred hurt more than Gunn. He sent the ex-Watcher a speculative look. "So, where's everyone else?"

"Groo is fueling the car, and Cordelia is going to meet us there."

"She at her apartment?"

"No. On the lot. The hours they film are ridiculous. We've barely seen her. Angel has been trying to get her to give up her apartment and move back here."

"She'd have to leave Dennis," Spike mused, "plus a lot of closet space." Before he could say anything else, Groo came in the back door.

"Hey!" he called, lifting a hand.

"Hey, yourself," Spike replied, pushing off the reception desk to meet him. It was still odd to hear the Pylean speak colloquial English. His greeting was the expected warrior's clasp of Spike's forearm, though.

"You ready for some football?" Groo asked, his gaze settling on something behind Spike. "Angel is."

Spike looked up to see Angel bounding down the stairs. He was wearing an extremely ugly red-and-white t-shirt emblazoned with 'Sheffield Lions' and carrying pom-poms in the same colors. The younger vampire blinked as Angel shoved another t-shirt against his chest.

"Put it on. Go Lions!" he said.

Spike shook out the team shirt and turned to look over his shoulder at Wesley. "I didn't suspect this about him."

"Shut up, Spike." Angel checked with Groo. "Is the tank full?" At the affirmative nod, he grinned and turned to bellow up the stairs for the rest of Angel Investigations. "Let's go!"

Two hours later, every throat in Connor's personal cheering section was sore. The game had been close, one of those that was ground out, down by down. In the last twenty seconds, Connor had thrown downfield to the team's star receiver. He caught the pass ten yards short of the goal line, juked his way past two defenders, and dove into the end zone. The Lions won 27-21.

After the crowd began to thin, Fred leaned next to Spike against the low fence surrounding the field as they waited for Connor to finish showering. "I love football," she said, her normal bubbly personality at the fore. "I can't tell you how much I've missed Friday night games."

"You wanted to be the field goal kicker, didn't you?" Spike asked.

"I did! Only, no matter how well I knew the physics of it, I just didn't have the foot. One of the guys on the soccer team was the kicker. He did a good job, but I was always kind of jealous of him." Her voice trailed away as Gunn and Wesley approached.

"You doing okay, pet?" Spike pitched his voice low.

"I'm fine," Fred said, plastering a smile on her face. "We're both fine. He's a really good guy, you know, just…" She trailed off, subdued.

Faith bounded up, bubbly enough for both of them. "You won't even believe it," she laughed. "Angel is over there – that knot of parents near the concession stand? – out-posturing this other father over who is going to spring for the next pre-game meal."

"Well," Fred said, her eyes narrowing, "we have the space for it at the Hyperion. I'll bet that other parent doesn't have a hotel on the historic register."

"Or fangs," Gunn added.

"You never know," Faith said darkly. When she saw everyone looking at her, she hedged. "Um, probably not."

Spike put his head close to hers and whispered, "I didn't see the football parent thing coming. It's almost scarier than the way he was around a flock of nuns."

Faith, like Buffy, wasn't a well-studied Slayer, but she gave him a flat look. "Not even remotely."

A couple of minutes later, Cordelia broke away from the group, her hand firmly tucked into Angel's, and led him to their friends. "Hey! We won!"

Gunn spoke for the first time. "I was almost ready to ask if you wanted to go down to the sidelines. All you needed was a uniform."

Cordelia scoffed. "Please. I can still do splits better than any of the girls on that squad."

Angel missed what Spike considered a perfect opportunity for a whispered dirty remark for his fiancé. Instead, he was craning his head toward the field house. "Any players out yet?"

"I haven't seen any," Cordelia said. She went up on her tiptoes to look, too. When she didn't spot Connor, she turned to Spike. "It's a shame Buffy couldn't make it."

"Patrol and babysitting Max," he said with a shrug. "She'll be here for the game against Hemery. She says you guys better stomp them."

"I think they will," Wesley said. He'd attended enough of Connor's practices to gain a solid understanding of the American sport. Though he followed the reporting on high school teams online and in the papers, he still found it odd that it was taken so seriously. "Hemery doesn't have any depth on the defensive line, and their starting left tackle has been trying to play with a broken wrist."

"Somewhere, Becks just started crying, mate," Spike told him.

"Sod off," Wesley said, grinning at him. He shrugged. "It's a more interesting sport than I initially thought."

"There he is!" Fred pointed across the fence to the field house. Connor was coming out of the doorway, talking animatedly with two other guys. Halfway toward the parking lot, he waved at them, then veered toward his group of fans.

Cordelia got to him first, greeting him with a hug. "That was a great throw," she told him, giving him a second squeeze. "It took guts to go for that."

He shrugged, ducking his head. Still a bit shy with her, Spike saw. "You have a hell of an arm on you, sprog," he said, thumping the boy on his back.

Groo came up behind Connor, grabbed him around the legs, and lifted him in the air. "In Pylea, we'd carry you through the village and roast much poultry in your honor, dude."

"Not in Pylea," Connor said dryly, "so you can put me down." Once he was back on his feet, he added, "Though I wouldn't say no to that poultry."

"KFC?" Fred asked hopefully.

"Greasy much?" Cordelia protested.

It took a while for everyone to settle on Popeye's Chicken. Spike had been hoping for a chance to speak with Angel, but he ended up ferrying Gunn, Groo, and Wesley to the restaurant instead. He texted Buffy to let her know he planned to patrol with his grandsire and wouldn't be back until late.

That plan was scuppered, too, when Connor volunteered to come as well. "I'm too keyed up after a game to fall asleep," he explained. The three of them ended up doing a circuit of downtown, Spike listening as Angel explained how their work was lighter even as demon activity increased.

With the abrupt end of Wolfram and Hart, all of the control the law firm exerted throughout the city was gone. Much of their interest in the coastal city had been import and export, so there had been fierce turf battles on docks and in the huge warehouses around airports. Angel Investigations had swooped in several times to mop up the winners of those skirmishes.

"We got to six more groups trying to control human trafficking," Connor said. His voice was somber, the post-victory high gone. They were atop a building, checking alleyways. Connor could leap as well as the vampires.

"Without the visions, we wouldn't have had that many," Angel continued. His attention was divided between his son and their surroundings. "Groo has had as many as three visions in one day. It would have killed Cordy." His voice was gruff as he said those words.

"How is she handling it?" Spike asked. "Loss of power, I mean?"

Connor answered, surprising the blond vampire. "Is it really power if it'll kill you one day?" His mouth tightened. "Anyway, she's constantly busy, so I don't think she dwells on it much." He shrugged, then pushed his hair from his face where the night wind had tossed the light strands. "I know her career has really taken off, but she seems like the kind of person who wouldn't dwell, anyway."

"She still patrol and stuff?"

Angel nodded. "And when it's all hands on deck. She's pretty good with a crossbow and a short sword."

Spike shot him a look. "You train her?" He smiled when his grandsire nodded.

"Cordy's gone from dawn to after midnight most days. It's incredible to me how much work goes into entertainment," Connor mused. He leaped across the gap to a lower building and waited for the older men before continuing. "I mean, I have both sets of memories. Television shows, movies, video games… they all seem so frivolous compared to day-to-day survival. Yet, I can't imagine living in this soft world without them to help pass the time."

Spike used quarter-speed to ruffle the boy's hair and be out of reach. "You'll be writing your dad's favorite kind of books, you keep thinking deep thoughts like that." He was closest to the edge, and suddenly he held up a closed fist. Father and son were at his side immediately, silent and intent, following his gaze down to the street. There was a delivery truck in the alley six stories below, the gate open and a brigade of beefy green demons carrying long crates from the truck into a basement entrance.

"Coffin-sized," Angel noted. "You recognize them?"

Spike nodded. "Seen them in Japan and the Philippines. They traffic other demons." He nodded at the crates. "If they have to be sedated for the journey, the contents probably aren't friendly types."

"Point," he put his hand on his chest, then nodded at Spike, "flank." He looked at his son. "Your choice."

Connor nodded. He couldn't hold to brick the same way master vampires could, but there was a fire escape. "Rear guard."

Spike jumped to a ledge on the opposite building at the second story level, landing silently and pulling shadow to him. Angel didn't bother with shadow, just bounced off the side of the same building and used his trajectory to plow into one of the demons. The crate fell to the ground, the demon dead next to it, and cracked open. A human body rolled halfway out, and they all heard a muffled groan.

While Angel took out the one who had been carrying the other end, Spike came down into the back of the delivery truck. Two more demons were just starting to rush toward Angel. They met his blade instead. More crates waited to be offloaded; he could hear heartbeats in every one. Above him, Spike noted the clanks as Connor bounded down the fire escape. More enemies were pouring out of the basement door. Looked like a fight. Clear light flared in his blue eyes.

Angel scooped up the fallen human and dumped him back into the crate, shoving it across the asphalt several yards out of the way. Then he drew out a second knife and waded into the mass of green bodies rushing out of the door. "Human trafficking? Really?" he asked, disgust in his tone.

Connor dropped to his left, a blade in his own hand. They began slicing and stabbing, cutting a swath through the throng. As room opened up around them, the father and son sidestepped the bodies and began raining blows on their opponents, using their blades more deliberately.

Meanwhile, Spike leapt to the brick over the basement door, clinging to the surface for just a moment before dropping down behind the mass of demons. Keeping part of his attention on the doorway, in case any more came out, he began the grisly business of mowing down their opponents.

After a couple of minutes, the three met in the center of a mound of dead bodies. Connor grinned at his father, then at Spike. "Guess we better see how many of those crates are –"

Spike was already shoving the boy to the ground as he jumped to shield him. One of the green demons had remained in the building and opened a window to throw a spear, sighting on the youngest warrior for his target. Connor was ducking even as Spike pushed him down, throwing the blond vampire's expected trajectory off. Instead of going under his forearm, the spear went into the top of his shoulder and out his ribs beneath his arm.

"Fuck," Spike muttered, falling to his knees and gritting his teeth. He jerked his head at Angel. "Better get him."

Eyes wide, Angel went to game face for the first time. He leapt to the window, and the two below heard a loud snarl, quickly cut off, as the big vampire took care of the threat. Angel glanced around the empty room and went through the doorway, listening and sniffing for any further threats.

Connor, his face a mask of worry, rose from a crouch and put his hand out to help Spike to his feet. The blond vampire grimaced as he half-stood. "Pull it on through," he gasped.

Connor grasped the spear just above the point as his father came out. "Clear," he grunted. Wrinkling his muzzle in dread, he grabbed Spike's waist and braced him.

"Ready?" Connor asked. He didn't wait, just began pulling the wooden shaft of the spear on through. At six feet in length, it took two good yanks to get it free of Spike's body. He let the bloody weapon clatter onto the floor of the alley. The Gem of Amara had already sealed the wound and repaired the inner damage, but Spike still leaned against his grandsire, panting from the pain. "Thanks, man. I mean… You saved my life."

"No worries, sprog." Letting out one final breath, he stood up.

Angel stared down at Spike. His gaze went to Connor, then back to the blond man. Without a sound, he fell to his knees before Spike and pressed his forehead to the Master's hand. _You saved Connor._

 _Of course I did. I love him, too. You don't have to_ –

 _I do. I should have from the beginning._

"Liam," he whispered. "Stand up."

Angel did, tears tracking down his now-human cheeks. "I can never thank you enough."

Spike shook his head. "You did." Then he cleared his throat. "But you didn't have to. Next battle, Connor will just save my life, and then you'll feel silly."

Angel lunged and grabbed his boy into a rib-crushing embrace. "Shut up, Spike. That went through your heart."

"Yeah, and I'm a heartless bastard, so where's the harm?" But he gave the hug back just as fiercely. In his mind, he touched his wife's reaching hand, answering Buffy's question. _Angel. It's a good thing, pet_ , he reassured her.

Connor eyed the two vampires. There was a lot more going on here than he really understood, but he knew his father had just given his fealty to the Master. To Uncle Spike. "Any room in that manly clinch for me?" he asked.

His attempt worked. Angel laughed shakily and let go with one arm so he could draw his son into the group hug. He pressed a kiss on both fair heads and let out a breath, feeling shaky with relief. The pressure of holding out against the pull of the Master's power was gone, and that was another layer of release. Angel realized that he was still crying and drew away, wiping his face. He was glad to see Spike's cheeks were wet, too.

Feeling like it was his job to be the voice of reason, Connor cleared his throat. "We'd better see if the people in those crates are all right."

It took another hour to get everyone out of the truck, the basement, and the upper floors of the building. Most of the humans spoke Spanish and seemed to be from Latin America. Angel called a priest he knew to bring a bus so they could get to a shelter. While he spoke to the father, Spike and Connor faded into shadow.

Once they were concealed on a nearby rooftop, Spike figured it was a good time to do something he wished someone had done for William. "Been meaning to talk to you about the birds."

Connor gave him a nervy look. "And the bees?"

"No. Just the birds." He drew a book out of a pocket in his duster – fortunately, a lower pocket; Michael's integrity spell took care of his coat, but not the contents – and tossed it to the lad. "Faith let out that you've discovered girls."

Connor took the book without really looking at it. "I know all this stuff."

"Do you? Did those girls enjoy what you did?"

"What?" His voice was faint. "O-of course. It wasn't… I mean, I didn't _make_ them –"

"That book," Spike nodded his head, "is like an auto manual. Tells you what part does what, but it'll also tell you how to make your car purr. Understand?" When the boy didn't say anything, he sighed. "Not putting this well." He listened and sent out his vamp senses, wanting to make sure Angel wasn't approaching.

"You get one chance to make your reputation with ladies," Spike said, trying again. "Right now, if those girls talk, they won't say anything favorable to other girls, yeah? Women come first. Literally. Don't want you ever going past the pearly gates without your partner getting her pleasure first."

"Oh, God."

"Yeah, I know. I'm luckier than you; don't have the ability to blush. But you're an Aurelian, so you damned well better learn how to pleasure a woman. This Master insists. And you do that, you'll never lack for companionship, yeah?"

Connor curled the paperback and shoved it into his back pocket, yanking the tail of his shirt over the lump. "I'll read it," he mumbled.

"See that you do. Don't have to do everything you read all at once. Poor girl would be in a coma."

A grin crossed the boy's face, but he turned his head so Spike couldn't see. When the silence grew and his father still didn't show, he asked in a low voice, "How do you know when she… you know."

"At your age, with no real privacy, I imagine she'll try to be quiet. If her muscles go from tense to relaxed and she can all of a sudden breathe again, those are pretty good clues. Or she might just tell you." Spike wished desperately for a cigarette, for something to do with his hands. "Don't be afraid to ask if something feels good."

After another awkward silence, Connor said, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Literally. "Pops is on his way up." He stepped away from Connor and squinted toward the opposite direction. He had a stray thought and a ghost of a smile touched his mouth as he stared over the city. That was for you, Darla. You would have made sure he knew the how of things, if you'd been here.

"That was weird," Angel said as he joined them.

"What was weird?" Connor asked, a little too quickly.

"Father Gabriel down there. He just asked me if I was the vampire with a soul."

Spike rejoined them. "Angel Investigations getting a reputation?"

The big vampire shook his head. "No. Apparently, he was part of a multi-agency task force when he was in seminary in Costa Rica. He was trained by the Watcher's Council to take down vampires."

"They told him about you?" Connor asked, frowning.

"No. Some other priest told him when he was assigned to Los Angeles."

"Huh." Spike thought that summed it up nicely; not like the Church didn't already know how to fight demons. "Ready to head back?"

Connor and Angel couldn't talk him into staying. They stood in the courtyard and watched his Bentley pull away. Turning to his father, Connor asked the question he'd been holding. "What was that?"

"The kneeling?" Angel shrugged. "He's the Master. I finally acknowledged it." He gave a rueful laugh. "I might be a little too proud. I should have done it a long time ago and put it to rest."

"What does it mean, though?"

"Nothing." He shrugged again and put his arm around his son's shoulder, steering them back to the hotel. "It's not like the Order of Aurelius is active."

"You're vampires. What does it mean to vampires?"

Angel gave Connor a sidelong look. It was an astute question. He knew his son was smart; he'd bragged to everyone that Connor's quarterly report card was all A's. It really wasn't surprising he would deduce that his kneeling was more than a gesture. Angel had his son back, but there were still vestiges of Steven in him. "I guess it means I agree that he has the final word when it comes to things in our world. Not that we've ever talked about it, but… I guess I hold Los Angeles in his name."

"And he holds Sunnydale in the Slayer's name." Connor was frowning, thinking through the implications.

"If you're wondering if Buffy is the boss of us… Well, would that be so bad?"

"No. I trust her more than either of your demons." They were at the foot of the stairs. "Do you mind that?"

Angel thought about the fact that he no longer had autonomy in the supernatural parts of his life. In the great scheme of things, it was such a small matter. "No. I don't mind. I would have knelt earlier if I wasn't so stiff-necked. He might be able to beat me now, but he wouldn't. And I did train him when he was a fledge," he added.

Connor lifted a brow, a gesture that was all Darla. "The student surpassing the master?"

Angel let out a low laugh. "That makes me a hell of a teacher, doesn't it? Anyway, it's good training for me. You're going to surpass me, too."

His son blinked up at him. "You think so? Really?"

He nodded. "I do. I won't be able to take all the credit – you've picked up a lot from Groo and Faith. I've seen her in the way you kick. And you've got Gunn's flair with an axe."

"Huh." Connor gestured toward the kitchen. "I'm going to get a sandwich before I go to bed. You want to come with?"

Angel smiled, his whole heart in his eyes. "I do."

⸹

Next Chapter: Buffy and Faith discover the deaths they've been dreaming about are of girls who could also be Slayers… and the Council of Watchers has done nothing for months.


	45. War Council

**War Council**

⸹

Sunnydale

October 2002

⸹

It was a long drive back to Sunnydale. Spike let himself into the house and went straight to the shower. Five minutes later, he was clean and mostly dry as he spooned up against his Slayer. She smelled of herself and her siblings, Dawn's hair and Max's baby lotion.

"Mmm," she breathed, grabbing his hand and pulling his arm over her waist. After a moment or two, she asked, _I felt you happy. What happened in Los Angeles?_

 _Peaches finally bent the knee._

She smiled at the love and satisfaction on his face as they leaned closer across their table at the Sit N Bull diner. _What does that mean?_

 _Nothing. And everything._

 _Nothing's going to change, but the two of you aren't going to be so prickly?_

 _About the size of it, yeah._

She put a hand to his face, and their mindlink faded. "Sleepy, baby?"

"Mm-hmm," he agreed. He was slumbering before the smile faded from his lips.

Buffy slept, too. She got up at five to go to the bathroom, then came back and cuddled against her husband, who had stolen most of her warm spot. When she fell back asleep, it was into a Slayer dream.

She'd been in London before, possibly even on this street. She was running, dressed in a tracksuit and sneakers (trainers), and she was fast. Which was of the good, because she was being chased. In her sleep, the Slayer frowned, thinking how similar this was to the other dreams.

Every time she outran one pursuer on the foggy streets, another one popped out of the shadows. For the first time, in the citrus yellow of London's streetlamps, she got a good look at what was chasing her.

The Slayer knew its face. She'd seen this before.

The girl she dreamed about moaned in horror, putting on more speed, her long legs burning. She'd gone out for a run, but this was more than she had bargained for. She started looking for a car with its headlights on, an open business, anything.

Then the pavement was coming up to meet her; something was on her back –

The dream changed.

Three men stood in shadows in an alley. The streetlights and fog looked the same. Same city, same night. Two of the men were no longer technically men; they had given themselves to the First Evil inside and mutilated themselves outside. Large X's and rune-shapes were sewn over the place where their eyes had been.

In her dream, the Slayer realized that the third shape was no longer a man, either, for all that he still had an unmarked face above his cleric's collar. She knew him, too, knew what he had done to girls and women.

Then fire bloomed somewhere behind her, painting the faces of all three a garish red. She couldn't hear the explosion, but she felt the pressure of it, pushing her, crushing her –

"Buffy!" Spike let go of her as she thrashed and yanked away the sheet that had snarled around her. Then, "Slayer!"

She came awake, her eyes wide and staring in the thin light before true sunrise. Buffy took a shuddering breath.

"Bad one?"

Shaking her head, she rolled across him to grab her phone from the nightstand. "Illuminating, for a change."

"You need anything?"

She curled her body around his, closing her eyes as Spike's strong arms enfolded her. "Just this. And to call Giles."

"Think he'll be awake this early?"

"One way to find out."

⸹

Xander waved at Buffy out of the open window of his truck, then rolled it up and got out.

They were patrolling together tonight, the first time it had been the two of them for a while. Spike's minions did the majority of the nightly beats. He greeted her with a hug. "How's my favorite Slayer?"

"Good, except for the Slayer dreams." They fell naturally into step together, heading toward the big Sunnydale Memorial Gardens without discussion. "Big ball of waking up in a cold sweat, screaming."

"Something on the horizon?" he asked, brows drawn in concern.

"I don't think so. At least, not here." She told him about the dream.

Xander listened, then was quiet for a while, processing it. "I don't really remember the Harbingers," he said finally. "That was more of a you-and-Angel thing."

"If they're working with Caleb," Buffy said, "there has to be a chant going on to power them with," her tone had a faint sardonic tinge, "the will of the First Evil."

"And chants can be traced."

Buffy nodded, then held up a hand. Both of their right hands reached for stakes. Two vampires were skulking across the street, half-carrying a human between them. The man's head lolled to one side, but he was still able to move his feet. The Slayer went silently into the shadows and began to hurry toward them.

Xander provided the distraction. He lifted his left hand and waved. "Gary! Is that you? You drunk again, man?"

The two vampires, both men who'd been sired in their twenties, glanced at each other. Xander saw streetlight flash off their fangs as they grinned at their good fortune. One of them got a firm grip on their victim, and the other began to walk toward Xander at normal speed, raising his own hand in a friendly wave.

Xander's feet fell into a stance that let him take two shuffling steps and plunge the stake into the vampire's heart. By the time the dust cleared, Buffy had staked the other one and was trying to keep the half-conscious human on his feet.

Sunnydale had no taxi service after dark, so almost an hour had passed by the time they got the man into Xander's truck and admitted into the hospital. As they drove back to another graveyard to continue patrol, Xander frowned and tried to recall Buffy's story. "So you called Giles about the dream at an ungodly hour, but he was up?"

"Well, Max was up, so Giles was semi-conscious and warming up some milk."

The dark-haired man smiled. "He's just adorable. He'll be glaring at me, then immediately turn to Max and start with the baby talk."

"He's pretty good at it," Buffy agreed. "I like to think that training me all those years helped develop his patience with tiny, unreasonable people."

"So, he passed it on to the Council and a whole lot of nothing happened?"

"Pretty much. I mean, I called Faith, too. We try to keep each other in the loop on dreams, but there isn't much either of us can do about something happening in London." She frowned. "Alpana was more worried about it than Giles. She got Aubrey to call the bigwigs he knows to make sure they take the warning seriously."

"That is where the great mass of Watchers lives." He craned his neck, looking for a likely parking space. "Maybe they'll get off their asses and do something, for a change."

"I just don't get why the Bringers are killing girls," Buffy said, clearly unhappy with this mystery. "I mean, what if they've graduated from chanting for power to human sacrifice?"

Xander made a face. "It does kinda look that way, but in a more murdertastic and less ritualistic kind of way. At least it makes sense why that creepy Caleb guy would be right there with them." He got out of the truck and waited for her to come around to the driver's side. They crossed the street to the Shady Rest. "Anyone due to rise?"

"Not that Willow noticed," Buffy said. Their friend had never fallen out of the habit of checking the morgue reports.

"She's really happy," Xander said. "With Oz and Tara, I mean." He was clearly bemused. "I remember telling Spike that not even Oz deserved two hot girlfriends, but I think Willow might deserve the two people she loves most."

Buffy nodded. "I just wish I could have been more… I don't know, mature? open? about it. I mean, they were so careful and," she tried to think of a word she'd run across in her modern literature class, "circumspect, and we were so careful, but mostly we just wanted them to be happy. And they were. Are, I mean."

"Anya has been having baby cravings."

Buffy thought that came out of the blue. "Because of Max?"

Xander nodded. "Ya-huh. So she's been talking to me about getting a wife."

" _She_ wants a wife?"

"Right in one. Since she's busy being mayor, she doesn't actually want to have a baby herself. But if we get a wife, you know, at Costco or something… we can be like Willow, Tara, and Oz."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "I take it you are less down with this."

"So not down. Or up for it, even." He shrugged. "I can manage a single, healthy relationship with one woman. Who is Anya. Any more, and someone will end up in a shallow grave somewhere down the road in the desert. Probably me."

Buffy chuckled. "So you told her no."

"And mentioned that I'm pretty busy right now, too, with the apartment building and the furniture-making business. Then I suggested that, when we're ready, we make a baby the old-fashioned, binary way."

"If you ever get tired of working with your hands, I think you're qualified to be a diplomat by now."

⸹

Cordelia closed her eyes and slumped down in the back of the sedan. Sometimes the car service actually sent a limo; she wished this had been one of those times. She knew the driver, though. That was something.

"About ten more minutes, Miss Chase," Rodrigo said.

"Thanks. And just call me Cordy."

"Sure thing. Cordy."

Neon signs and streetlights were too bright and the traffic noise too loud to allow her to nap. She sat up and dug out her Blackberry with a sigh. Three new messages from Gareth, the production assistant, her stylist Marilyn, and her agent. She ran back through the recent history of her texts. Her actual family was sprinkled in among all her business contacts. She'd been going back and forth with Connor the past few days in a long exchange that started with a question about shoes – there was a big dance at Sheffield Academy every December, and he wanted her opinion on wingtips – and continued with who he would ask, whether coffee or cola stained your teeth more, and other wonderfully mundane things. Gunn sent her a short text to touch base on Tuesday. Buffy had done the same.

Angel didn't text.

Frowning, Cordelia looked at her phone log. He hadn't called her in the last three weeks, either. She'd called him several times, including yesterday, when she promised to come by after work. He didn't like to meet at her apartment; it made him uncomfortable to get busy without ever quite knowing where Dennis was. She looked down at the diamond ring on her finger, then turned off the phone and slipped it back into her handbag.

Every two or three days, she'd go to the Hyperion after a long day's work, just as she was doing now. It didn't feel like her home away from home anymore. Cordelia knew that part of it was just her exhaustion, but part of it was how the energy of the place had changed. Faith and Groo lived there now, both of them on the Angel Investigations payroll. Wesley had Faith's Watcher, Alpana, to geek out with over research. Gunn and Fred were being so careful with each other's feelings. Connor brought a different vibe to the place, youthful enthusiasm instead of the old, slow, melancholy memories of the place. It really didn't feel like the office and refuge it had been before Connor was taken.

Before Angel stopped seeing her.

Cordelia brushed impatiently at her eyes. She was tired, that's all. Maybe a little hormonal. She wasn't going to cry.

She wasn't going to think of how Fred very carefully put a hand on Gunn's shoulder when he got an A on his first college paper, so proud of him but not sure if she still had the right to touch him after their breakup. She wasn't going to think of how Faith had looked the one time Robin Wood had loosened up, her grin over his shoulder and her arms around his neck as he gave her a piggyback ride around the registration desk. And she definitely wasn't going to think of how Buffy and Spike were constantly in eye contact, communicating in their silent way, because that wasn't fair. Other couples didn't get that.

But they did get touches, and they did get piggyback rides.

Angel never looked at her anymore.

She sat up against the comfortable seat cushions, mastering her emotions. She wasn't going to be weepy; she had control over her instrument, after all. She was a professional, an actress with a SAG card and everything. They had to be close to the Hyperion by now.

Cordelia had known from the moment Angel had scooped Connor from the cold alley floor that his son came first. She'd known where that put her. Connor had to come first; he was a newborn. He had been foremost in her heart, too.

Of course, now he was fifteen and already a better warrior than his father.

And Angel was so proud of him. She could tell by the way he was always looking at his son.

She was proud of Connor, too. His integration into his birth world was seamless; he was popular at school, smart, and easy-going. And his crush on her had seemed to wane of late, so that Connor was just comfortable with her now. She never was going to be his mother, but maybe something like a friend.

Of course, if she wasn't his mother, what did that make her to his father?

"Here we are, Ms. – Cordy."

"Thanks, Rodrigo. I think you must have ETP."

"ETP?"

"Extra-traffic perception. I couldn't have made it here this fast." He chuckled; she couldn't tell if it was a professional, thank-you-for-making-my-job-pleasant laugh or an I'm-noticing-you're-an-attractive-lady laugh. She really was tired.

He waited until she opened the car door – even now, she loved how the door hinged from the back, not the middle – and hauled herself and her two handbags out of the car.

"See you in a couple of days."

"Take care, Rodrigo." She gave him a distracted smile, her eyes already on the front entrance. Cordelia's heart lifted; it was still good to see the distinctive edifice. Angel said everyone was going to be home tonight. Groo didn't make her uncomfortable anymore, though Faith still did. Still, it would still be good to see everyone.

"Hey," she said brightly, turning to lock the door behind her.

No answer.

The lights were on. She listened. No dull thuds of footsteps muffled by carpet. No sound of Connor in the kitchen, getting something to fuel his teenaged body. Cordelia went straight to the weapons cabinet. It was closed, which was a good sign; they hadn't been in a complete rush if… Sure enough, Gunn's favorite axe and Connor's usual sword were gone.

She looked on the counter. No note. And she'd just looked at her phone.

There were no mirrors in the lobby, but Cordelia knew her expressions. The one on her face wasn't blank, though it was close. It felt like what she'd use if the script called for 'frozen.'

Angel had known she was coming, and he hadn't called her to let her know there was a crisis. He probably hadn't mentioned her visit to anyone else, so they hadn't called her, either.

He'd forgotten she was coming by.

She took out her phone and called a taxi company, giving them the Hyperion's address. For a few moments, she gazed around the lobby and ignored the urge to wander around the rest of the place.

Cordelia Chase did not wallow.

She put away her cell phone and took out the stack of t-shirts in her second bag. Test audiences had liked _It's Cordy_! best of all the proposed titles for the show. Cordelia had paid for extra t-shirts for her family from the batch made for the cast and crew. She set the stack on the end of the registration desk and neatened them, an automatic gesture left over from her short stint in retail.

With motions just a bit too slow, she took the bracelet from her wrist. The black stone hadn't glowed red for weeks; it definitely hadn't in the last few hours. Groo didn't need her to interpret the visions for him any longer. Cordelia laid the bracelet on the counter a couple of feet from the stack of shirts. Then she slid the large diamond ring from her finger and laid it next to the bracelet.

She shook back her waves of thick, dark hair and lifted her chin. She slung the empty handbag over her arm and walked out of the Hyperion, locking the door behind her.

⸹

"Reckon it's worth adding?" Spike asked.

Oz shrugged and took another sip of the beer. It was an India pale ale; they already had at least eight good ones available at Fangs, five of those on tap.

The blond vampire knew his business partner well enough to know this silence meant no. He turned to his other drinking companion. "Aubrey?"

The Watcher quaffed his glass, considered, then shook his head. "It's no less swill than any of the others." He sat it down next to a dish of candy corn.

Oz noted the seasonal snack bowl was untouched and looked over his shoulder at the mostly empty tables. "Slow."

"Halloween," Vince said shortly. He was leaning on the far end of the bar, so that Oz was between him and the Watcher. Old Willingham liked Spike and tolerated Luisa, but he was mistrustful of the rest of the Master's minions.

Vince wasn't super happy about being out on Halloween himself, but the Mayor had a 'Grownup Trick or Treat' event downtown, and it was his turn to supervise the buffet. Sandy had talked him into a white suit like the one from _Saturday Night Fever_ , and his hair was slicked back like Tony Manero's. Tonight would be Sandy's first time for a controlled feed on her own. Vince wasn't worried about it; she'd never had any trouble regulating how much blood she took at the suck house. She'd recently finished her tenth Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and Luisa had supervised her for several weeks. Spike hadn't agreed to accept her as a minion yet, but when he found out her sire was an alternate-universe Willow, he no longer flatly refused to consider it. If Sandy could stay off the booze for a year, he told Vince to ask him again. Sandy had dressed as Marilyn Monroe, and Vince hoped she'd come back to his apartment after they'd fed.

"It seems still seems odd to me that demons don't go out on Halloween," Aubrey mused. He settled his bulk on the barstool and reached for the stout he'd pushed aside in order to try the IPA. Fangs had become his usual stop after work; Spike had added pub food to the menu just for the Watcher (though he made sure the Scotch eggs made by a British ex-pat in Los Angeles were available only once a week; he didn't want to add additional dietary risk to the portly gent's diet).

Vince snorted. "No proper demon wants to be out with the humans."

"Seems it would be a good night to go incognito, though. Blend in."

Before Vince could think of a reply, Spike's mobile sounded. He made a mouth; he enjoyed being here with the boys, though Xander was with his wife tonight. Seeing who was calling, he frowned. "Back in a mo.'"

"Hey, Bit," he said, once he was out the door. Spike lounged under the wooden sign she'd designed for them and Xander had carved. The name 'Fangs' stood out in raised white letters beneath a front view of his vampire teeth and above a side view of Oz's werewolf teeth. He adored that sign.

"Spike, could you come and get me?"

"Where are you?" he asked immediately.

"Crossroads at Bennett and State Route 285."

"What! Why are you that far out of town?" Hadn't she been on a date with that Todd bloke?

"Spike, please just come get me?"

He wasn't sure what all was in her voice, but he did pick up on the vulnerability. "Be right there." He closed his phone with a snap and went back into the bar, his jaw tight. "Vince, call Cory and Brian. Have them meet me at Bennett and 285."

"That's outside town," Vince said after a moment of puzzlement.

Spike stopped long enough to meet Oz's eyes. "Got your keys? I likely won't be back."

His gaze sharpened even as he nodded and tapped a lump in his front pocket. "Need help?"

"Don't think so, but thanks." He nodded at Aubrey and headed for his motorcycle. Worry helped Spike's progress, though he knew he shouldn't be taking the hillside road at quite such speeds. He was rounding the curve less than eight minutes later where the road crossed Bennett. He couldn't see Dawn, but the moment he began walking the bike toward the street signs, he smelled her.

She came out of the brush after he turned off the engine and called her name. "Hey." She sounded a bit sheepish.

Spike examined her in the beam of the headlight and sniffed for good measure. The only thing he could find amiss was dried tears, but that was enough to make him scowl. "What happened, that you ended up out here alone?"

Dawn sighed and waited by the edge of the road, obviously wanting him to park next to her, out of the nonexistent traffic. "I thought it was safer to get out of the car."

"The car driven by…?" He walked the bike over.

She gave him a narrow look. "Todd, of course. He wanted to go to a party up at the Eight Mile Outlook." Raising one shoulder, she added. "Halloween, right? Safe to be out."

"What did he do?"

Dawn knew what his soft voice meant. She put a hand on his arm to reassure him. "If he'd tried anything I didn't like, I know how to handle that." As she looked away, a faint ocean breeze lifted her hair. "He was… I don't know, on something? He wasn't drunk – I mean, I've never seen Todd even drink. He did have a bunch of bottles in brown bags clinking in the back. But tonight he was acting weird. Even his laugh was weird."

Spike's brows were lowered as he pushed out the kickstand and swung his leg over the saddle. He leaned against the bike and grabbed her arm to pull her into a loose embrace. "What did he do that scared you?"

"How long can you smell fear?" Dawn asked, genuinely curious.

"What is it with you and vampires?" he shot back, exasperated.

"I've got this brother-in-law…"

"Dawnie…"

"All right! He just… Todd was taking the curves too fast, and when I asked him to slow down, he just laughed at me. Like he enjoyed frightening me. And then he got even faster. I yelled at him, and he mostly stopped, and I got out."

Spike thought of his family and his own past, full of frightened girls who had been laughed at. He closed his eyes against the guilt, but when he opened them, they were yellow and furious. "Thinks it's funny to be scared, does he?"

She shook her head. "No. Whatever you're thinking, no." She firmed her mouth and leaned closer so her forehead was against his. "I mean, that's it. I'm not going to go out with him again. Todd isn't who I thought he was. Mostly, I just don't want him to hurt anyone."

"Can smell anger, too, Nibblet."

"Don't call me that," she said automatically. Then she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I was plenty mad, and scared while I was waiting. It's still Sunnydale, even if it is Halloween."

"Why'd you call me? Not your sis, I mean."

Dawn leaned away and looked straight at him, a hint of a smile on her face. "Because both you guys will always come to save me, but you'll yell at me less."

Spike let go of her, hiding a smile of his own, and tilted his head in challenge. "So, what do you want to do about it?"

"Me?"

He nodded. "Yeah, you. We need to put the power back in your hands. And, if he's a danger to himself and others, seems like he might need some help."

Dawn gave him a narrow look, but the corners of her mouth twitched. "You have something in mind." Then she went back to severe. "Something that doesn't involve rending limbs, right?"

"You're no fun."

"Yes, I am. I'm listening, after all." She pulled away so she could see him by the light of the lemon wedge moon. "Something… semi-demonic?"

"Quite." Spike turned his head and waited as the sedan approaching the intersections slowed. "That will be the lads."

Dawn leaned down to peer into the nondescript sedan that was part of the minion fleet. "Hey, DeShawn. Hey, Brian."

"Hi, Miss Summers," they replied, appropriately subdued in the face of the Master's frown.

"Brian, you know how to ride a bike?"

He shook his head, looking genuinely sorrowful. "No, sir. I'll start learning tomorrow."

"I used to ride dirt bikes," DeShawn said quickly.

Spike nodded. "Good, then. Don't have a helmet for Summers, here. I'll need the car. And a word." The minions got obediently from the car and followed him several yards away. They listened intently, once throwing a look at Dawn before going to game face.

She leaned against the side panel and had to smile. It was so much nicer when the fact that she had been threatened made Sunnydale vampires go full bumpies, rather than the old days when they went full bumpies in order to threaten her. Not that Buffy had ever let her see many vampires, but Angelus and his minions had been freaksome. Of course, this did mean the minions saw her as their Master's property.

"Bit, Andrew leave any of those International Male catalogs at the Magic Box?"

"No," she said firmly, immediately envisioning Todd being left unconscious somewhere public with his dick in one hand and the catalog open to a spread of nubile male models in onion skin shorts and fishnet tank tops. "Whatever you're thinking, skip that part." Could guys be nubile?

"Like I said," Spike glowered, "no fun."

"Can I come along?" She thought it might be safer for Todd if she did.

Spike held up a finger, silently asking for a moment. He took out his mobile and made a quick call. Dawn couldn't hear the conversation, but she thought it was a woman's voice. After he folded his phone, he clapped his minions on the shoulders and came back.

"Buckle up," he said shortly as he got into the car. Dawn watched as Brian waited until DeShawn started the bike and got it upright before straddling the back of the seat. The motorcycle carried them up the road toward the overlook.

"They won't let him drive back, will they?"

"Provided he got there in one piece, Brian will bring him back in one piece." Spike adjusted his mirrors and took advantage of every inch of turn radius the car had. He slanted a look toward her. "Gave them permission to feed on whoever is with him."

"Probably some of my friends," she said, her voice not quite neutral.

"Not feeling the friendship just now," he said shortly.

"We're teenagers," she ground out. "Sometimes there's drinking and other stuff."

"Catch and release, same as always. They'll have to use mesmer, anyway." When Dawn didn't say anything else, he tried changing the topic. "How's living in the basement?"

"A lot quieter," she said at length. "At least Max is sleeping almost six hours at night now."

"That's pretty good, isn't it?" He had a vague idea that things like colic and feedings every two hours made infants miserable company at first.

"Mom says she would have had all boys if she'd known it was going to be this easy." Dawn scoffed a little. "I told her she should have just had Giles around the first two times."

He nodded but didn't say anything. Hank hadn't struck him as much of a hands-on father. "Things quieter since Arlene left?"

"Yeah. I know she was just there to help, but Mom felt like she had a houseguest, so… pressure."

"You taking a lot of photos of Giles with his fingers in sodden nappies?"

"No. Gross." She grinned. "I do have several of him holding Max when they're both asleep." She waited until they hit a straight stretch so Spike could look over and demonstrated an open-mouth, drooling face. "Glasses askew and everything." When he chuckled, she went on. "Whereas when Mom falls asleep, she just looks like a tired angel."

After a half mile of silence, Spike switched subjects again. "Willingham says you've hit a dead end in your research."

"Yeah," she agreed glumly. "Looks like closing a Hellmouth is a bit harder than plugging interdimensional holes. I'd trigger a tsunami or something and kill everyone in Sunnydale. There's a load of guilt I don't need."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, there's some advice your friendly neighborhood bloodsucker can get behind: avoid things that'll make you guilty."

She glanced at him. "Like doing something emasculating to my boyfriend?" Dawn's mouth firmed. "Ex-boyfriend."

Spike's upper lip rose into a sneer. "Only doing what's best for the misguided lamb," he said, no sincerity in his tone.

Dawn frowned as he steered the car to the left, away from home. "Where are we going?"

"To find somewhere to lurk." When she kept looking at him, her brows lifted in an expression very like one of his own, he added in an innocent tone, "You did ask if you could come along."

He parked in a toney neighborhood and made her walk a block or so from where he parked the car. Spike pulled shadow to them, which Dawn had only experienced once before and thought was utterly cool, and they sat on a hay bale that was part of a harvest display in the front yard of a fussily neat house.

"What are we waiting for?"

"Just admire the view, pet."

The view was basically three houses across the street, four if Dawn leaned to the side. After five minutes, she complained she was cold. Spike snarkily told her to wear clothes that covered more of her bits, but he did doff his coat and give it to her. After another five minutes, with the heavily laden coat bearing down on her shoulders and the straw making her ankles itch, her brother-in-law told her she squirmed too much to make a good vampire. Before she could ask why that was a bad thing, they heard a car coming, and he lifted a hand.

Dawn recognized Todd's car, or rather his father's car. It was moving at a steady fifteen miles an hour when it suddenly veered left and plowed into a brick pillar at the front of the driveway across the street. The sound of the crash was incredibly loud, and something fell out of the bottom of the car. The pillar collapsed into rubble. Because it was Sunnydale and nighttime, no one immediately came out to investigate.

Brian got out from the driver's side and examined the damage. Satisfied, he opened the passenger side door and helped Todd out. Instead of being manic, the boy was now dazed and unsteady, stumbling and almost falling on his ass in the street. Brian led him around to the driver's side and sat him in the seat, where he collapsed sideways.

Dawn saw Spike watching her, so she kept her face hard. Todd had been nice up until he wasn't, and she remembered how Angel had changed so abruptly. Maybe it was a curse on Summers women; if it was, she was getting off easier than her sister. She'd never even considered sleeping with Todd.

Brian rummaged in the back seat and drew a bottle of vodka from the floorboards. He opened it, took a drink, poured some of the liquor on Todd's chin, and propped it against the boy's crotch. As he used his sleeve to wipe his prints from the bottle and the steering wheel, Spike stood up.

Dawn followed him down the street. They moved slowly until Brian caught up with them, and the shadows around them dispersed. The brown-haired vampire took a cheap-looking phone from his jacket and called 911. Then he twisted the mobile into two pieces, breaking it. She knew the minions used a lot of burner phones to report bodies or injuries, but this was the first time she'd seen it happen.

"Got him sorted, then," Spike said with satisfaction. "Good work, Brian."

"Thank you, sir. DeShawn is taking the motorcycle back to Fangs."

"Whose house was that?" Dawn asked suddenly.

"Belongs to J. Peter Emig, attorney-at-law," Spike said smugly.

Her jaw dropped. She'd seen his advertisements on every bench in town. "The personal injury lawyer?"

"Yeah. Anya gave me his home address."

After a moment, she said softly, "He'll never drop charges, no matter what Todd's parents do."

"And the git will get sent to rehab, yeah?"

They were back to where they had left the car now. Brian got into the back seat without comment, but Dawn put a hand on Spike's arm to stay him. A slow smile spread over her face, part relief and part satisfaction. "Very well done," she approved.

"What's Halloween without a trick or two?"

⸹

November 2002

⸹

Buffy checked her phone beneath her desk, hoping she was being unobtrusive. It was Faith. Only a few more minutes until sociology class was over. It was the last core class she had to take; she needed something to fill her social science requirement, and she refused to take another psychology class.

She speed-dialed her sister Slayer as soon as the professor dismissed class. "Hey. Sorry I couldn't –"

"B. Finally. Alpana just heard from a Watcher in London. Those girls we've been dreaming about? They were girls who might become Slayers if, you know, something happened to us."

"To you," Buffy corrected numbly. "Giles doesn't think anyone would be called…" Her voice trailed off. "All those girls we saw being attacked were… could be Slayers?"

"All those girls we saw being chased down and killed?" Faith corrected bitterly.

Buffy stopped in the hallway. Someone jostled her, so she moved to the wall, one hand covering her mouth. "Oh God. How many?"

"That coven in Devon said over three hundred worldwide."

"Three hundred!" Buffy had been leaning against the wall, but now she stood, furious. "And no one noticed?"

"No." Faith's voice was bright with anger, too. "Fucking Council never noticed. Not until a couple who had been identified early for training got killed last week. They never did give a fuck about us 'wild-caught' Slayers."

Buffy could hear someone speak up in the background at the Hyperion, Alpana, she supposed. Faith's new Watcher seemed really nice, and Wesley was as steadfast now as Giles had been when she met him. Buffy had gained a literal father with Giles. Even Merrick, though strange, had died trying to help her, and Aubrey Willingham was like a grandfather to her and Dawn both.

But the Watchers who stayed at headquarters… Just look at how well Wesley had done once he was shut of those –

"… not sorry," Faith said, her voice louder as she came back to the telephone call. "Anyway, I just wanted to pass that along."

"You want us to come down? Me and Giles, I mean?" This definitely warranted a meeting.

Faith snorted. "No, not with Giles having a new baby. Alpana and I will come up tomorrow. Will that be okay?"

"Sure. We'll get you guys a hotel room set up."

"Don't worry about it." Faith let out a sigh. "Sorry to give you bad news, B."

"No, don't worry. I'm glad you told me." Buffy gritted her teeth; three hundred girls murdered. They'd been having Slayer dreams about this since _summer_.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Cordelia leaned against her apartment door. "Dennis?" she said, her voice tired. The door swung open. "Thanks. I didn't feel like digging for my keys."

It was only eight at night, but the building was quiet. If she really concentrated, she could hear a television in the next apartment. Letting out her breath, she went to the bathroom and began running hot water for a bath. A few minutes later, she called out, "Dennis? Would you be a sweetheart and put on some music?" Cordelia laid back in the tub and listened to the radio come on and Dennis turning the dial until he found something soft and jazzy. "Perfect."

Three songs later, she sat up and popped the plug with her toes, so the water began to drain. After a quick shower, she put on shorts and a threadbare Sunnydale High t-shirt and began to tell Dennis about her day.

Thirty minutes later, she realized she had gone from dishing to complaining and slumped back against the couch cushions. "Since everyone wants to be my friend now," she grumbled, "how come I always end up alone?" Realizing what she said, she quickly added, "I mean, all I want to do is come home and be with you. I don't trust any of these new people." And my old people suck, she thought, but didn't voice any of those thoughts.

Dennis nudged her empty wine glass across the coffee table, closer to her hand. "No. Thanks, though. I'd better not. Another early day tomorrow." This was the last week of filming. _It's Cordy!_ was already on the schedule for January after a couple of fall comedies had been cancelled. When she realized the wrap party on her calendar meant shooting was over, Cordelia had a few minutes of fantasizing about a vacation in Europe. Then her assistant came in with the publicity schedule the production company wanted her to keep. She started telling Dennis about that; she knew he lived vicariously through her, and he really was a good listener.

Cordelia jumped when she heard the knock on her door. Sitting up, she stared at it. Dennis did not open the door. Shaking her head – why couldn't this have happened when she first got home and still had on makeup? – she went to stand in the entranceway. "Who is it?" she asked, though she already knew.

"It's me, Cordy," Angel said quietly.

He'd called the night she left the ring. She told him she needed space and that he didn't need her. Angel had not made an appearance to reassure her that he did.

After that, they all called. Fred and Groo came by, but she'd missed both of those visits. Even Faith had called, but it had been more of an impersonal girl-power talk rather than something to deepen their tentative friendship.

Connor had called. She'd sent Rodrigo to pick him up after school and given him a tour of the set. It was the first time she'd brought in a visitor, and the crew had been taken with him. Cordelia already knew that he was blaming himself for the breakup, though his reasoning mostly seemed to be that it had to be all about him. Remembering her own self-centered teen years, she reassured him that it wasn't anything anyone had done, especially not him.

Now, with Angel on the other side of her door, she was honest about that. It was what someone hadn't done, actually. For another moment, she didn't move, but of course he knew she was two feet inside the door, slightly to the left. Cordelia opened the door.

He gave her a small, sad smile when he saw her. "Hey." His voice was husky.

"Come in." There wasn't any real welcome in her voice, but he'd been polite. He had a key to her place. He had an invitation.

Cordelia turned and walked to the couch. Angel followed her, his gaze on her long legs and still-damp hair. He took a breath. There was no scent of new people in her apartment, and it was a little dusty. She didn't spend much time here.

"Have a seat," she said, gesturing to the couch before joining him. Cordelia examined him. He looked grave, like he had so much of the time she'd known him.

"How are you?" he asked, for once looking like he was interested in the answer.

"Too busy." She drew a leg underneath her and turned a little toward him. "I have an open bottle of white wine, if you want some."

"No, that's okay. Thanks, though," he added belatedly.

"How have you been?"

Angel opened his mouth, thought better of the first thing that came to mind, and closed it. "I thought I was surprised, then I realized I wasn't." He shrugged. "So, I'm guilty."

She nodded. "You should be. But, just in the interest of not being a bitch, is there anything I did or didn't do?"

He shook his head and looked away. "Uh, Dennis? Could you leave us for a few minutes?"

When nothing happened, Cordelia said softly, "It's okay, Dennis." She felt a brush of air on her arm; he'd been standing right next to her. Even if he went into her closet, as far away as possible, he was still going to hear this.

"Cordy," Angel said, turning fully toward her on the couch, "will you give me another chance?"

She closed her eyes. "Would anything be any different?"

"Please tell me what you want me to do."

That was her answer, then. All the pieces of her heart shivered where they lay. It was going to be a while before they were whole. Cordelia reached out and took his hand, smiling. At least she knew what to do. "Angel," she said softly, "if I have to tell you what to do, I already know things won't be different." And because she was selfish, she crawled over the short space of sofa between them and straddled his leg.

"Cordy?" he asked, confused. This was good, wasn't it? And then it was good, hot kisses and warm Cordelia, and she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Shut up and make love to me," she demanded, then lowered her mouth to his again.

Three hours later, she sprawled on his chest, sighing in contentment. Holding her with one hand, Angel used the other to pat around on the floor until he found his trousers. Reaching into his pocket, he found what he was looking for. "Cordelia?"

Eyes still closed, she smiled. "Hmm?"

"Will you please put this back on?" When she opened her eyes, he deftly flipped the lid of the small velvet box.

Cordelia focused on the ring for a moment. It was big, a diamond that she would never be ashamed to wear in any company, though a small part of her realized 'ostentatious' was a fitting description for it. It fit her perfectly.

She looked away from the engagement ring to Angel. His beautiful brown eyes were soft. "Oh, you sweet, clueless man," she said, kissing him. "Don't you know this was breakup sex?"

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Where's the baby?" Alpana said as Buffy opened the door of her mother's house. It wasn't the only time those had been a visitor's first words.

"Here's the little man," Aubrey rumbled from behind her, holding Max against his shoulder.

"But where's the baby?" Alpana repeated, giving her fellow Watcher a cheeky smile.

Buffy stepped back so the female Watcher could give Willingham a hug, though her eyes never left the infant. After she came inside, she realized Faith was standing next to Angel. No wonder they'd wanted to meet late. There had to be a good reason to come to Sunnydale after dark. "Hey," she told her sister Slayer, giving her a hug. She held out her arms to Angel, too. Buffy was siding with Cordelia in the split, but the big vampire was probably feeling pretty raw.

Wesley brought up the rear, a little uncomfortable with the hug Buffy gave him. "Willingham," he said, nodding. Walking around the knot of people in the foyer, he searched until he found the final Watcher. "Giles." He held out his hand.

"Hullo, Wesley." He sounded grave.

Wesley sighed. "Ill chance that brings us together."

"Incompetence, I would say."

The ex-Watcher shook his head. "Is it just Travers' tenure, or was the Council always like this?"

"I don't know," Giles said wearily. "I didn't really want to join the family business, and that was when Jeffers was in charge. But this… Keeping track of the Slayer line, that's _basic_."

"Do we have any reason to think the Devon coven is compromised?"

Fear settled onto Rupert's face for just a second. "None. As far as I know, that part of the method is still… functional."

Aubrey came up behind them. "Shall we get started?" He turned to Joyce, who was standing in the background. She'd been back to the gallery a couple of hours each day this week and looked the very picture of a gracious hostess now.

"If you'll come to the dining room…?" She led the way. "I'll bring out tea for you in just a moment."

Spike came in from the kitchen, where he'd been helping Joyce with biscuits and fresh fruit, to take Max. He inclined his head toward Angel, indicating the other vampire should follow him upstairs.

Angel looked around the nursery. "Buffy's old room."

"Yeah." He settled Max on the changing table and moved in for a hug. "How are you?"

Angel closed his eyes and held on. "Not great."

"I know what will help." Spike pulled free, pushed Angel into the rocking chair, and reclaimed the baby, just to settle him into Angel's arms.

An involuntary smile curved his mouth as he looked down at a sleepy Max. Giving a little hiccup, the infant promptly fell back asleep. "I didn't think I'd get a chance to hold him. Joyce never really liked me, and Giles definitely has reasons to hate me."

"Water under the bridge," Spike said. He looked distracted for a moment, listening to Joyce downstairs, then sat on the floor. With the crib, bureau, chest, changing table, and rocking chair, there wasn't room in the little space for another seat. "Have you talked to her?"

"I tried." He kept his eyes on Max's innocent little face. "Have you ever heard of 'breakup sex?'"

Spike snorted. "Spent twelve decades with Dru. What do you think? She'd shag me six ways from Sunday sometimes before she went off with the flavor-of-the-month."

"Well, it was new to me," Angel muttered. "I mean, Cordelia wasn't worried about Angelus." There was silence for a few moments. "I just realized this week that I've never had a good relationship. Human or vampire."

"You and Darla got on okay."

"We'd leave each other in the lurch every time," Angel corrected him.

Spike switched tactics. "How is Cordelia doing?"

"She seems… sad. Resigned. She isn't going to fight for me."

"Is there a reason for her to? I mean, you don't love her, mate."

"What?" Angel looked down at the baby, making sure he hadn't been too loud. "Of course I love her."

"In love, then."

He gave the younger vampire a stony look. "Why would you think that?"

Spike shrugged, looking up at his grandsire frankly. "You're obsessive. You've never been obsessed with Cordy, least not that I've seen."

"That's not –" He actually couldn't deny it. "That's what made her different. Better. It was… mature, you know? We got to know each other, had a real relationship. Obsession wasn't at the core of it."

"All of that is of the good," Spike agreed, unaware that he'd used his wife's phrasing. "But – and this is according to what she told Buffy, so don't go spreading it around – she might be fine not having you obsessed with her, but she couldn't compete with your latest."

"Latest?" There was no one besides Cordelia.

"Obsession," Spike said, as if it was obvious.

Angel wracked his brain. "I don't have… You mean Connor?" When the boy nodded, he scoffed. "I'm not obsessed with Connor. I mean, yes, he's the most important thing in my life, but that's normal. That's the way it's supposed to be."

"That is the way it's supposed to be," Spike agreed. He nodded to the little bundle slumbering against Angel's chest. "I'm sure Macsen right there is the most important thing in the world to Rupes and Joyce. Yet, right now they're downstairs, focused on saving a bunch of girls they'll never know."

There was a little yellow in Angel's look. "And every night, I'm out patrolling in Los Angeles, saving strangers." Max's arms jerked, his eyes half-opening. Angel automatically rocked him, hoping to soothe him back to sleep.

"Patrolling with Connor?" Spike asked pointedly. He bore the glare in stride. "Rupes and Joyce also focus on making their new marriage work, supporting her two daughters, running their businesses, keeping up with friends and family… You get what I'm saying? When was the last time you dropped by to see Wesley? Or took Fred out for tacos? Or called me, just to talk? Ahh, poop." This last was accompanied by a rush to open the window. "Hand over the sprog."

Angel did so willingly, halting his breathing when he realized that Max now had a full diaper. He watched Spike change Max's diaper – and the whole scene was surreal, considering how the boy had tried to keep his sire far away from babies – his mind reeling from what he'd said.

Angel loved Cordelia; he knew he did. Was he in love with her? He'd be crazy not to be. She was smart, strong, gorgeous, and classy. He was happy when he was with her, and he thought she was happy, too.

"Here." Spike handed the freshly diapered baby back to him, then turned to stuff the dirty one into the specially designed pail.

Max was regarding Angel gravely, aware that a new person had popped up in his visual field. Angel focused on him as well. It was easy to do.

It was easier.

Spike sighed. "Don't try to win her back, mate. Just be her friend." He put a hand on Angel's shoulder. "If she wanted breakup sex, you must have been doing at least one thing right. Might still be something there."

"How long should I wait?"

His scarred eyebrow rose in surprise; he hadn't actually expected Angel to pursue Cordelia. "Dunno if you want my advice."

"Your wife hasn't staked you yet." His tone was mild.

"Give it until spring."

"Before she stakes you?"

Spike raised a disapproving eyebrow. "For her to forget how much fun your company isn't."

⸹

"Yes, we know that," Giles said, exasperated, his brows also rather disapproving. He put his hands on the edge of the dining room table. "Each of us has attempted to inform the Council about the Slayer dreams, going through three different contacts. What we don't know is if the messages ever reached Travers or anyone else in upper level administration."

"Sure they did," Faith said. "The bastards just didn't care. We're disposable, right?"

Alpana put a hand on her shoulder. "We also don't know why the coven didn't say anything."

Wesley ran a hand through his hair. "Do we really think the Harbingers or the First Evil have infiltrated either?"

Buffy stood up. They had been going around the table since the tea was poured, with everyone having a point of view but no one directing the conversation. "Mom?" she asked, gesturing to the wall on the other side of the table.

Joyce smiled and unfolded an easel on loan from the gallery. She placed an outsized pad of paper, big enough to hide her head and torso, on the easel and smiled at everyone again. "Buf – er, the senior Slayer (here, Faith looked up at Buffy and smirked) has asked me to facilitate our meeting. This is a timeline of events, as we understand them." She peeled back the cover and showed the first sheet of paper, already filled out with a list of events, beginning with 'July: Slayer dreams begin' and ending with 'October: Victims were potential Slayers.'

She waited a moment, then asked, "Anyone have corrections? No? We'll move on." Joyce turned the page to a blank sheet and picked up a black marker as Buffy sat down. "Let's call this one," and she wrote at the top 'concerns' in all capital letters.

"I worry that someone at the Council is suppressing this information," Aubrey harrumphed.

"I worry that none of the coven members mentioned the drop in the number of potentials." Alpana crossed her arms.

"And I worry that girls are dying without ever knowing they're in danger," Buffy said. Though her voice was soft, no one else spoke for a moment.

"I worry," Giles said, "that this is an unprecedented attack on the very existence of Slayers by a powerful foe."

They all froze, even Joyce. After a moment of looking between her husband and her daughter, she put down the black marker and picked up a red one. The group stared at what she'd written: Attack on All Slayers.

Aubrey's jowls quivered. He picked up his tea and took a careful sip before he spoke. "The channel of information to Quentin can only be blocked at two points. I have a couple of friends looking into Rosamund Edwards and Craig Warwick."

"Or he could just be lying about not knowing," Wesley pointed out. Aubrey tilted an eyebrow at him over the rim of his cup as Joyce wrote the three names near the first concern.

"Why is this coven such a big deal?" Faith asked, ready to move on. The sooner they addressed these things, the sooner the meeting would be over.

"They're the ones who identify the new Chosen One," Alpana explained. "Er, when that's necessary."

"The spell itself is very old," Aubrey said. "The coven has been doing it for nearly four hundred years now. They took over after the Roman Inquisition decimated the Council's original coven."

"They call the next Slayer?" Buffy asked, surprised.

"No. They identify the newest Slayer. The Powers call the Slayer."

"Oh." That sounded more… right to her. "And they have the names of the potential slayers?"

Wesley shook his head. "Every time a new Slayer is called, they get a number of how many girls have the potential to be the Slayer. As the population has grown, the number of potential slayers has grown as well. It was in the thousands, the last I saw."

Alpana took up the story. "After a girl has shown up in the spell a couple of times as being one of the strongest," she shrugged, not sure of the terminology, "signals, the Council asks for her name. We do recon, and if her family seems approachable, begin training her. There are usually about a hundred, and the Slayer is chosen from that pool about half the time. We say our goodbyes if she isn't chosen by eighteen. No Slayer on record has been called after her seventeenth birthday."

Faith crossed her arms. "Well, since there hasn't been a new Slayer called for a while, maybe that's why the coven didn't know someone was targeting potential slayers." Her tone was grudging.

"That makes sense," Wesley agreed. He nodded to the next point. "However, girls are dying. It seems that those deaths would have triggered a ripple somewhere."

"Vishnaswamy, was there something other than the link to the Slayer line that concerned you about the coven?" Giles asked, wanting to be thorough.

Alpana shook her head reluctantly. "Perhaps I don't want any blame to be inside the Council."

"Perhaps no one is to blame," Aubrey said. "I believe we can safely say there's complacency in London headquarters if no one investigated these ongoing dreams. The coven would have no reason to investigate unless asked by the Council. I think we need to concentrate on the last point. Joyce, if you would set us a blank slate?" As she turned the page, he settled back. "Let's call this one 'enemies.' What do we know about these Harbingers?"

Buffy waited until Giles finished show and tell with the texts that he had found. It seemed odd to her that there was more on the First Evil in his books than on Glory, though she supposed the First Evil had always been in their dimension. When he finished reading from the last one, she spoke up. "Don't forget that defrocked priest. Caleb."

"You think he killed a girl here in Sunnydale, don't you?" Faith asked.

She nodded, crossing her arms as though cold. "I mean, we didn't examine the body or anything, but it wasn't your typical 'animal attack.' There's no physical evidence that Caleb was the one who broke her neck… but I'm sure that's what's happened."

"B says it's Slayer intuition," Faith noted. "An asshole like him with a hate-on for women would definitely not be down with giving power to little girls like us."

From her place by the easel, Joyce shivered. "These attacks aren't on the actual Slayers. Those Bringers are cowards, targeting children like that. If there are thousands of potential slayers, that means there are thousands of potential victims. How can we protect them? I mean, there isn't a newsletter or anything. Our family didn't even know supernatural stuff was real before Buffy was called. Or after," she added pointedly.

"I think we're at the point of developing our own plan of attack." Wesley leaned forward, his eyes bright.

"Before we do," Aubrey said, raising his hand in a soothing manner, "are we missing any aspect of our enemy? Could there be additional players?"

"We can't know," Giles said heavily, "not with the information we have now."

"We've been going for an hour and a half," Buffy said. "Let's break, meet again tomorrow. It's Saturday; I want everyone here for this. Maybe we'll get more ideas with more people. At least we'll have a chance to sleep on this." She turned to her mother. "Thank you, Mom. We stayed on track so much better with you here."

The rest of the group echoed her sentiments. After they set a time for the next day's meeting, Buffy asked Faith if she wanted to patrol.

"Like old times?" the dark-haired Slayer replied, forcing a smile.

"I've got a Scythe with your name on it," Buffy offered.

A slow smile took her mouth. Patrolling Sunnydale suddenly sounded like much more fun. "You twisted my arm."

⸹

Spike let Angel drive off with his people to their hotel not long after Faith and Buffy left for patrol. He'd been scheduled to go out with her, so he was at loose ends. He wasn't terribly happy with Angel right now. Almost any other time, he would have suggested getting rest in the family bed, but the way the big vampire had lost Cordelia just rubbed him wrong.

He'd talked with Buffy about how they were obsessed with each other, how, for them, that seemed a natural part of being in love. Even after all the time they'd been together, she was still the absolute center of his existence. For all that he'd been devoted to Drusilla, it wasn't the same as how his world revolved around Buffy. And there was more to his world with her.

Without making a conscious decision, he ended up shadowing the two Slayers, watching their backs absently as he thought about how Angel had ended up alone, again. After a while, something about their conversation caught his attention.

"… ever talk about it?" Faith was asking.

"Not really," Buffy said. "He wasn't anything like Angel – well, Liam. I think Giles called Liam a 'rogue,' which is a word I've never heard outside of a romance novel."

"Except not so much with the romance," Faith said dryly, "and more with the drunken deadbeat dad."

"As much of a Big Bad he is on the outside," Buffy said, "William the human seems like he was," she lifted a shoulder, "just really sweet. Spike says he was a loser, but I just can't see it."

"Whereas Liam wasn't a loser?"

"Whereas?" Buffy grinned. "College girl," she accused.

"Senior college girl," Faith shot back. "Anyway, he screwed up with Cordelia, but he's doing a good job as a dad. I just think he's trying not to be his own dad."

"That's how a lot of people do their parenting, I think." The two Slayers left Sunnydale Memorial and headed toward the industrial side of town. "So, how's your love life?"

"Not much to it," Faith admitted. "I meet guys, and they look cute, and then they open their mouths. Or they try to dance. Then I meet more guys."

"I kind of miss that," Buffy admitted. "My life is… It's so settled, you know?"

"I think you mean 'full,'" Faith countered. "You've really got it all. You know that, don't you?"

"I do," she agreed. "I want you to have it all, too."

"Yeah, you find any super-strong hotties who want to be my backup and my bitch, send them my way." She sighed. "Incoming."

The vampire lunged at them from an alley. He was slow, awkward, and still in his funeral clothes. Buffy let Faith take him, and she looked disgusted afterwards.

"Couldn't be risen more than a night or two," the dark-haired Slayer complained. "What happened to Sunnydale?" Then she looked at the building in front of her. "What _did_ happen to Sunnydale? Chez Valcour?"

"Yeah, new French restaurant. It's really good. The chef is a vampire. He's got a creole place, too, Remy's."

"A vampire?"

"Anya recruited him. He doesn't kill, obviously."

Faith shook her head and started walking again, giving the Scythe an unnecessary shake to rid it of dust. "Sunnydale with good restaurants and good vampires."

"Hey, Sunnydale isn't the only thing that's changed," Buffy said, grinning at her. It caused Faith to glower at her.

"I'm off the one-night stands."

Buffy started. They'd walked in silence for a while, long enough that they were halfway through the Shady Rest. "That's good."

"Not that I'm trying to be a parent or anything, but I've been trying to hook up for better reasons because of Connor."

"Um… splainy?"

"He, you know, talks to me. Feels free to talk to me, I mean."

"Is that weird?"

"Oh, hell, yeah. But he needs that, right? I'm not that much older, so I can kind of be big sis." She looked straight ahead because she couldn't hide her pleased expression.

"Dawn does not ask me those kinds of things."

"She probably tells Spike."

"Oh, shut up. She does not."

"Yeah, you're right. All of her boyfriends would disappear."

"You don't disappear Connor's girlfriends?"

"No. Anyway, right now he's just trying to find one. A real one, I mean, not a booty call."

"Gross, Faith. He's fourteen."

"Fifteen." Suddenly she laughed, and her tone grew more confidential. "You know that book Spike gave him?"

"No. What book?"

"One of those 'how to please your woman' books." Faith emphasized her words with a couple of thrusts of her hips.

"Spike gave Connor…?" Her mouth fell open, just a little.

"Well, it was after those two girls jumped him. Spike pointed out they probably didn't get anything from the, uh, jumping."

"No, probably not. You remember the first guy you made out with?"

"I try not to." Faith bumped her shoulder into Buffy's. "I think I had my first orgasm with someone about three years after I first had sex."

"The first guy I made out with cut my lip with his braces."

"Ow." Faith grinned. "Can you imagine if he'd gone –"

"No." She winced. "I not only can't imagine that, I'm not going to even try to imagine that."

"Anyway, back to Connor. Angel doesn't know this, okay?"

"Okay." There was trepidation in Buffy's voice. "Do I want to know this?"

"Hey, it's your husband's fault. So, Connor read the book, thought about it, then called one of those girls to see if she'd invite him over for a study date."

"Oh, God. So he could, uh, have a study partner for that book?"

"Oh, nothing that simple. He asked her if they could invite the other girl, too."

Buffy stopped dead. "Well, that's… efficient." She made a pained face. "Did anything happen?"

"Uh-huh." She fell silent.

"Faith! You can't just stop the story there."

"No sex, but… they all got off."

After a moment, Buffy started walking again. Eventually she found something to say, her voice low. "If Angel ever finds out, he'll set Spike on fire."

⸹

Because so many people would be at the meeting, Anya offered the use of a meeting room in City Hall. She encouraged everyone to bring their lunch, because she was positive the meeting would run long. Noticing that everyone was clumping into coven, Los Angeles, and Summers groups, she rolled her eyes and leaned over to whisper to Xander, "You humans are so tribal."

He whispered back, " _Us_ humans, sugarlumps."

"Don't call me that," Anya said, frowning. "Pet names make me want to have sex. We're not getting out of here for hours."

"Your office has a lock." Xander grinned at her, unrepentant.

A few minutes later, Anya, Xander, and Dawn had volunteered to take Max out if he woke. Dawn smirked at them, knowing she'd spoiled some kind of orgasm plans. After that, nothing was left but to sit down with the others.

Speaking first, Joyce explained what conclusions they'd reached yesterday and where they were. "Does anyone have any ideas of what else it could be, other than an attack on the line of Slayers?" When no one could think of any other logical explanation, they began talking about the First Evil.

"We could track the chanting, maybe?" Willow offered.

Buffy visibly brightened. "That's a great idea." She told the story of how the Christmas trees above the Bringers' cave had withered in her first encounter with the entity.

"It doesn't have a physical manifestation," Angel said, his hands folded on the table in front of him. "But it can appear as dead people or," his eyes went to Buffy, "as people who have died. It seems very realistic."

"But you can't touch them?" Jonathan asked, frowning.

Angel nodded agreement. "But the First Evil is a pro at psychological warfare."

"And yet," Giles pointed out, "we haven't had any reports of that."

"It probably takes enormous energy to provide a conduit to control those Harbingers who are killing girls." Michael furrowed his brow. "That has to be a whole lot of chanters."

"Or they're magnifying the chant somehow." Tara lifted a shoulder.

"Are there spells that do that?" Oz wondered. No one had an answer.

"Chanting is old magic," Spike said, spinning his chair back and forth, already fidgety. "Order of Aurelius did a lot of that, trying to pave the way for Old Ones."

"Which they never did," Willow said, "because it isn't terribly effective magic."

"If you have the warm bodies, it is." Willingham furrowed his brow. "Even if most of them don't have much magical talent."

Through all of this, Joyce didn't find anything more to add to what she'd written, 'Track chanters.' "Let's move on."

"Wait," Wesley said. "If you don't mind, Mrs. Giles, please write down what Angel said about possible psychological attacks."

"I agree." Rupert waited until she'd made the note, then said, "There's the matter of this Caleb fellow. Why would he be involved? He hasn't given up his eyes, according to Buffy's dream." When Faith pointed out the similar goals, Giles rephrased. "What use would he be to the First Evil?" Unfortunately, no one had an answer for this.

"It's like if the Master had teamed up with the Zodiac Killer," Buffy said, wanting to put an end to the discussion. Caleb gave her a major case of the creeps. "I don't know if we can understand their motivations, even if they both work toward the same ends."

"It's always about power," Angel insisted. "The First Evil is offering him some kind of power." Again, no one had any real idea of what form that could take, other than the opportunity to kill more women.

"This is depressing," Willow said. With a sigh, she unzipped her lunchbox.

"No," Wesley reassured her. "We've made progress. Just naming a problem and knowing the cause is progress."

Willingham cleared his throat, then made more noise as he unfolded the paper bag with his lunch. Spike noticed it was two Scotch eggs and frowned. "I do have some news. Quentin informed the government that Caleb was in the UK and poses a terrorism threat. That had to be based on Buffy's dream about the explosion."

"So that means the Council can't be implicated," Alpana said, letting out a little breath.

Faith wasn't so quick to forgive the failure to act on their earlier Slayer dreams. "I still say there's something fishy in the way they ignored us since summer." She pulled a bag from beneath the table and brought out a thermos of soup.

"There's something wrong in the way the Council responds to data from the field," Wesley said. "I'll be the first to admit that they don't want to dirty their hands with what actually happens in the fight against evil."

Xander lifted his hands, gesturing in exasperation. "There. That's what we need to be talking about. Girls are dying. What can we do about it? I mean, we can't be everywhere. Buffy's keeping a lid on the most active Hellmouth, and Faith is covering a city of three and a half million."

Joyce turned to a fresh sheet. "And this is where we were yesterday," she announced, writing 'strategy' on the top. "I take it that it's time for lunch?" With her prompt, the rest of the group unpacked their lunches.

"Okay, strategy," Willow said, after the volume of crinkling paper died away. "Track the chanting." She looked around at the rest of the coven. "Can we do that?"

"The coven in Devon is perhaps the most powerful on earth," Giles said gently.

"I know what their chant sounds like, though," Buffy pointed out. "Willow could get that from me and use it in the tracking. That might be more important than raw magical power."

"True," her Watcher admitted.

"We're pretty powerful, too," Willow muttered, her pride a little wounded. She saw Spike raise an eyebrow in lieu of asking permission, and pushed her container of hummus closer in response. He took one of her celery sticks and most of the chopped jalapenos on top of her hummus.

"What else?" Joyce prompted, when the room fell silent.

"What do we do when we pinpoint where the chant is taking place?" Angel shrugged when everyone looked at him.

"'Say hello to my little friend,'" Xander intoned, mimicking Tony Montana from the movie _Scarface_. Then he shrugged. "Though we're not so much with the machine guns."

"The Council should be able to do a mop up operation," Giles said in a dry tone.

Faith snorted. "Right up their alley." None of the Watchers, active or otherwise, had any response to that.

Andrew spoke for the first time. "Could the British coven activate all the potential slayers?"

Buffy shook her head. "They don't activate the Slayer. They just identify where she is when it happens."

"Oh." He slumped back into his seat, visions of hot girls defending themselves with snappy martial arts moves evaporating. Then he sat back up. "Anyone else having nightmares lately?"

Anya's eyes sharpened. "Really vivid ones? Unnaturally clear? About really upsetting things?"

"Like Slayer dreams?" Andrew said hopefully, a little breathless.

"Wait," Buffy said slowly, putting down the last quarter of her sandwich and looking around at everyone. The group was exchanging careful looks. "I've been having both, I think." Her hazel eyes studied Andrew. "What did you dream about?"

He shot Jonathan an apologetic look. "Killing you. Sorry," he added, a little late. The shiver that went across Andrew's shoulders made up for the casual apology.

"I dreamed you died and haunted the house," Dawn told Joyce. "All with the poltergeisty flying objects that nearly took off my head."

"Xander and I both dreamed that we broke up during our wedding." After a moment's consideration, she added. "I got to be a justice demon again because of it, so I'm not sure it counted as a complete nightmare."

Willow was looking down at her hands. "I dreamed Warren killed Tara," her voice fell to a whisper, "and then I killed him."

Oz was seated next to her, and he put his hand over hers. "She's been afraid to fall asleep for a few days."

Tara, seated on his other side, leaned around his back to touch Willow's shoulder. "It was a bad one."

"Anyone else?" Joyce asked, a little shakily. She wasn't writing down any of this.

Giles, his tone carefully neutral, spoke up. "The cost of defeating Glorificus was Buffy's death."

Buffy and Spike exchanged an uneasy glance. They each knew the other had woken with horrible dreams recently. Buffy went first. "I dreamed I hurt Spike. Physically."

"Same," he said shortly, his eyes on the table. "Reckon this is the psychological attacks?"

"Yes," Giles breathed. "A way of undermining our resolve and friendships, of playing on our fears. Anyone else?" His eyes fell on Faith, who was looking determinedly at her clasped hands. When no one spoke up, he said crisply, "Well, knowledge of this tactic does a great deal to dispel its effectiveness. Let's move on."

Even after another twenty minutes of discussion, they hadn't come up with anything else concrete. They decided, as a group, to inform the Council and the coven in Devon of their plans to pinpoint the location of the chanting that powered the Bringer attacks. If they found anything, the Council had the resources to act. Aubrey would send a separate report presenting the total evidence as an attack on the line of Slayers itself. Joyce nodded and ripped the pages from the chart, then dismissed everyone.

Buffy went directly to Willow. "When do you want me?"

"Can you come over later this afternoon? I'll get everything ready. It shouldn't take long to access your memory and get a sample of the chant."

The Slayer nodded. "When do you think you guys can start the tracking spell?"

"I-I'm not sure," she admitted, "but we'll do something in the next couple of days, okay? I don't want to put any more girls at risk by waiting around."

Buffy enfolded her in a hug. "You're the best, you know that?"

"Maybe not the best," Willow admitted, "but I'm pretty good. As long as I have backup."

"That's always been my secret weapon."

Anya looked over at Xander. "Told you it would run into lunch."

He shook his head. "That was boredom hunger. It's just twelve-thirty. Meetings never run this smoothly. It must be Joyce."

⸹

Next Chapter: With the Council in disarray after an attack by the First Evil, Buffy calls on the Guardian to help protect the Slayer line.


	46. Council of

**Council of**

⸹

Sunnydale

November 2002

⸹

Buffy usually stayed on campus all day on Mondays. It wasn't worth the hassle of leaving after her morning classes and trying to find parking in the afternoon. She'd made a habit of studying in the library until lunch, then going to one of the dining halls. She was just queuing up for hamburgers when the girl in front of her dropped her notebook. Buffy squatted down and helped her pick up the scattered papers, then chatted with her until they paid for their lunches and parted ways.

Picking her way to an empty table, she looked around for Katy Loomis, but didn't see her or anyone else she knew. Buffy settled at a table along the wall and put down her tray so she could shuck her backpack. She was just opening her little packet of ketchup when her Slayer senses began tripping.

"Uh, hi. Sorry to disturb." A man of medium height stood by her table, looking at her shyly from behind a pair of glasses. "I, er, noticed you helping that young lady in the lunch queue. It was very kind of you."

"Um, thanks?" Buffy stared up at her husband, confused about why he was wearing glasses and wondering where he'd found baggy clothes in his closet.

"May I?" he asked, his accent more refined that normal, as he pointed at the other chair.

"Sure."

He sat down across from her. "Did we have anthropology together?"

What was he playing at? And then it hit her. Playing. "I don't think so." He was a stranger, a shy guy who was awkwardly trying to chat her up.

He looked down. "No, we didn't." He laughed shortly, then ran a hand through his curls. "I've never taken anthropology. I just… You're terribly pretty, and I ran out of things to say."

She laughed a little and smiled at him. "I'm Buffy."

"I'm William." He held out his hand. "English major."

She gave it a perfunctory shake. "Physical education."

"We've never had a single class together, then."

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, anyway, I just thought I'd tell you that you made an impression. Not everyone takes the time to be kind like that." He stood up, grabbing a notebook from the table. "Good to meet you, Buffy."

"You, too, William." She was confused. He was leaving? "I'll see you around?"

He stopped turning away and gave her a sweet smile that made her toes curl. "I do hope so." Then he was gone, leaving Buffy feeling flustered, her cheeks warm.

At dinner that night, Buffy put her bare foot against Spike's thigh. They were having sesame chicken, another easy recipe that she had mastered. It was one of her husband's favorites, since he could spice it up with hot sauce. "I think I've decided what to do after graduation."

"Yeah? What's that, love?"

"I want to open a fitness center." Buffy took a bite and went on after she chewed it into submission. "Here in Sunnydale. Teach self-defense." She shrugged. "Seems like everyone else has a business."

"You'll make Anya happy. Another female-owned business. And I know you'll do great, love." He was watching her carefully. "Sure that's what you want to do, though? Something that'll tie you to Sunnydale?"

Buffy lifted a shoulder, her eyes on the plate in front of her. "Already have ties." No reason to mention the Hellmouth.

"The coven has been working with Dawn to make those portal crystals…"

"A commute doesn't mean I'm not needed here," she overrode him, "just adds a commute." Neither of them said anything for a minute or so. The silence wasn't comfortable. She decided to change the topic.

"I made a new friend today." Buffy took a sip of water and watched him over the rim of her glass, her expression demure.

"Did you, now? One of your classmates?"

"No. A guy in the dining hall."

"A guy, huh?" He leaned closer, lowering his brows.

She nodded. "He seemed nice. Shy, you know."

"Have to watch out for the quiet ones."

"I'll watch him."

He leaned even closer at this studiously neutral statement. "Trying to make me jealous, love?"

"Using the idea of another man's interest to make you prove your love by carrying me into the bedroom and ravishing me? Never crossed my mind."

He laughed. "Should have mentioned that before I ate the hot sauce, love." Spike let his tongue lay against his teeth for a moment. "Might be a bit hazardous, that ravishing."

"Aaaand I just remembered I have a ton of reading."

Spike left the table and came back with a roll of cling wrap. "C'mon, Slayer. Let's find out how this safe sex stuff works."

Buffy giggled. "Or we wait a few minutes for vampire physiology to do its thing on the capesin."

Spike wanted to give in to carnal urges more than the urge to correct the word to 'capsaicin.' He scooped her out of the chair, careful not to bang her knees on the table. "Want you now," he growled.

"I'm good with that."

Buffy's phone rang.

"Dammit." She struggled out of his arms. "That's Willow." Buffy went to the kitchen where her phone was on its charger. "Hey."

"Hi, Buf." Her voice was excited. "We pinpointed the chant. It's in four locations, one in Canada, one in France, one in Australia, and a less powerful one in Tunisia."

"Four places?"

"Yeah, I know. It seemed odd to me. I'm not sure how many Bringers there are, but it has to be a lot, right? Giles is going to call the Council as soon as it's decent there – he said he'll be up, anyway."

"What happens next?"

"Um, I know you're not a real fan of Watcher response teams, but Giles thinks they'll scramble those guys to take out the chanters."

"No," Buffy agreed, "I'm not a fan. But I already feel better. They need to be stopped before any more of those girls get killed."

No news came back from London until late the next day. The Council had sent out two UK-based teams, one to the site in France, the other to Tunisia. Watchers based in Ottawa and Toronto were dispatched to the province of Alberta. It took longer for the Sydney response team to get to the Western Territory. Once all four groups were in place, they launched a coordinated attack on the chanters. The weapons specialists, warlocks, witches, and other Watchers couldn't guarantee that all of the Harbingers had been eliminated, but it had been a slaughter. Only two Council employees had been lost.

Buffy stared into space as Giles told her the news over the phone. "It seems weird that other people went into battle, and I didn't," she said eventually.

"I know, dear," he said, reassurance in his voice. "But this is what the Council does."

"Giles… Wouldn't one of those teams have been useful backup here on the Hellmouth?"

"Yes. I suppose… I see what you're saying, but it's designed that way so we can be a stopgap in all the places that there isn't a Slayer."

"Right." She injected some happiness into her voice. "This should keep all those would-be baby Slayers safe."

"And saving lives, potential Slayers or not, is always the most important thing."

⸹

On Wednesday, Buffy was looking forward to lunch. She had a little smirk on her face as she left the library and headed to the dining hall. Maybe she would see William. Then her eyes widened. Ahead of her, across the atrium part of the library lobby, she saw a flash of platinum curls. Grinning, she put on a bit of Slayer speed and caught up to him as they passed the checkout desk.

"William? I thought that was you," she added, as he turned around.

His eyes lit up. "Hullo, Miss Buffy. You look very fine today."

"Thank you, kind sir," she responded in the same formal vein. They walked out of the library and fell into step together. "It's good to see you again."

"You, too." He wasn't looking at her, a shy gesture rather than a dismissive one. "I rather hoped you might be getting lunch today."

"That's where I'm headed." She looked ahead too, then caught him stealing a look at her. "I meant to ask, what part of England are you from?"

"London. What part of America are you from?"

"Oh, I'm from Sunnydale. Los Angeles, originally."

"A California girl," he said approvingly.

"How did someone from London end up at UC-Sunnydale?"

He lifted a shoulder. "Affordable international tuition."

Buffy nodded; the university offered the cheapest tuition of any public school in California in order to attract out-of-state and international students. For some reason, natives didn't often attend school in Sunnydale. "Solid reason. This is also a school my mom can afford."

He turned to her, and Buffy assumed he was about to ask about her family, but he never got the chance. Their cell phones went off at the same time. They exchanged worried glances and stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass as they dug for their phones. By the time they hung up a minute later, playtime was over.

Buffy stared up at her husband, her face pale. "Giles said a bomb went off at the Watcher headquarters in London. Lots of casualties."

He had a pained look on his face; he'd seen too much of London destroyed by bombs over the course of his long life. "Willow said she's linking with the Devon coven to transport Giles and Aubrey there directly." Spike absently removed his glasses, folding them and tucking them into his shirt pocket.

After they put their phones away, she took his hand. _I dreamed of an explosion._

 _And they never found that preacher._

Buffy gnawed on her lip. _Slayer instinct says it was him._

 _Big Bad instinct says the coven needs to check for new hotspots for chanting._ "Willow and Tara's, then?"

She nodded. "And we need to make sure the plane isn't chartered. I'll bet Mom will want to be there for Giles."

"They may want you there, too. Maybe Faith and Vishnaswamy."

Buffy shook her head. "The Watcher's Council doesn't actually have much use for the Slayer."

⸹

More news trickled in over the course of the day. The bomb had gone off during the afternoon, traditionally the time meetings were held. The heads of the security teams who'd led the raids on the chanting Bringers had been in the building to make their report. So had Quentin Travers. The rooms containing dangerous artifacts had magically sealed when the door was breached, but the library had not been similarly shielded.

Wesley joined Joyce, Max, Faith, and Alpana on the trip to London. His mother had called late that long night to let him know his father's body had been found. The elder Wyndham-Pryce had been at Council headquarters to conduct some research. Faith would later tell Buffy that the ex-Watcher tried to comfort his mother at the funeral, but she'd interrupted her son. Once she finished speaking, too low for Faith to hear, all Wesley had said was, "No, we wouldn't want to have any sort of display, would we?"

Buffy had insisted to Aubrey, now the senior member of the Council, that the remaining Watchers would not be safe at the funerals. She worried that these gatherings would be too tempting a target for the Bringers. He'd called in favors from the government for security. The coven was doing almost nothing but work to protect the remnants of the Council, so there were magical measures, as well.

The confusion and formal mourning lasted over a week. Buffy and Dawn decided they could skip classes ahead of the long Thanksgiving holiday, and Spike booked the jet for the trip for the family still in Sunnydale. It was the first time he'd piloted internationally, and seeing him in the uniform he'd chosen for the charter's flight crew was the high point of the long week for Buffy.

He'd had the ground crew configure the jet with seats that became beds for the trip. Buffy fell asleep as they passed over the Atlantic Ocean, hoping to catch a few hours and land refreshed so she could be a support to Giles and her mother. Not long after her eyes closed, she began to dream. Even unconscious, she was dismayed. In her dream, she was being chased by a Bringer.

"Buf?"

She woke with a start to see Xander leaning over the s-shaped divider between the sleeper seats, shaking her arm. "Sorry," she breathed. "Was I loud?"

He shook his head. "No, I wasn't asleep yet."

"Slayer dream."

His expression was grim. "They're still killing those girls, aren't they?"

It had been a long, emotional week. There were tears in her eyes as she nodded, confirming his fears. Xander patted her arm before he laid back down. She could hear his sigh on the other side of the barrier.

⸹

"I had a Slayer dream last night." Faith grabbed Buffy's arm as soon as she went through the door of the London hotel suite that was the Council's temporary headquarters.

"I did, too," Buffy whispered. "Same kind as before." She nodded toward a seating area by a window. "Let me go say hello, then we'll talk." Giles, Aubrey, and Wesley were in conversation with a group of mostly old, tweed-clad men. The hug her Watcher gave her was distracted, the one from Aubrey was accompanied by a kiss on the cheek and a butterscotch brusquely placed in her hand, and the one from Wesley was unexpected. Buffy didn't pull away, just murmured, "I'm so sorry, Wes," as she gave him a final squeeze. The look he gave, startled at the kindness, reminded her so much of Spike's expression when he first met Joyce.

Faith reclaimed her right away and drew her out the door and down the hall to her room, talking in an undertone the whole time. "They're barely coherent. I don't know how much sleep G is getting. Wes is freaking out because Aubrey is trying to rehire him. And he's trying to get out of being head of the Council, says he's too old, but until there is a new head, nothing's going to get done." She stopped to find the key to her room.

"Have you told anyone about your dream?"

"Alpana. She told Giles, who ran his hand through his hair." Faith opened the door and stepped through, holding it wide for Buffy. "But she got me the number for someone at the coven. They're going to have enough members recovered to search down the chanters again tomorrow night."

"Recovered?"

"The Council is working them pretty hard," Faith said. "I mean, they're not slaves or anything, but it's an emergency. Even when they find where the Bringers are hiding now, the Council doesn't have the manpower to handle it like last time."

"And, meanwhile, girls are dying." Buffy sighed. "Tara and Willow would smack me, but I can't help wishing we had a warlock or black witch on our side right now."

"Locate the Bringers and zap them at the same time?" Faith made a mouth. "It can never be that easy."

"Four locations last time," Buffy griped.

 _Love? Where've you gotten yourself?_

 _Talking to Faith, down the hall from Giles._

 _Ah. I'm there now. See you soon._

She ran a hand across her hair, feeling that it should be mussed, and tried cover the unintended interruption. "So, four locations. Too bad there are only two of us."

"Well, I could kill you again," Faith joked.

For a moment, Buffy went still, having lost the thread of their conversation. Then she got it. "Nuh-uh. Slayer line runs through you now. You'll have to do the resuscitation thing on your own."

"We don't know that conclusively," Faith wheedled.

"I like your room," Buffy said, changing the subject and going over to the window to see the view of London.

"Yeah, it's nice." She sounded surprised. "I figured they'd put me in some crappy room with a shared water closet, but they've treated me decent."

Buffy put her hand out to run a finger across the Slayer's Scythe laying on Faith's desk. "I'm glad you haven't actually needed it."

"No. I've patrolled the streets and cemeteries, but nothing bad. Not even super-old vampires." Her eyes stayed on their weapon, watching Buffy touch it. She forced her gaze away. "Hey, look at this." Faith opened her closet, showing Buffy the only item hanging there, a fitted black suit jacket with a skirt. "I bought it here. Alpana said I needed something nice to wear to the funerals. I look real classy in it."

Forgetting the Scythe, Buffy glanced at the bottom of the closet and gave her a grin. "Faith? Did you wear those sensible black pumps with it?"

"Oh, shut up."

⸹

Buffy and Faith went back to the Watcher's suite a few minutes later. The blond Slayer found her husband kneeling beside a woman in a wheelchair. Several other Watchers with obvious injuries had joined the throng, and Buffy saw people on crutches and with slings and casts.

"'Lo, love," Spike said as she joined him. "You remember Lydia? She came to Sunnydale a year or so ago?"

"Of course." As Buffy took her hand, she realized that Lydia was missing her right leg below the knee. "You did your thesis on Spike."

"I did." The Watcher wasn't quite focused on her surroundings. Buffy assumed she was still on serious painkillers and cynically wondered if that's why she had the courage to speak to Spike now. "I was too much of a goose to talk to you then," she seemed to pick up on Buffy's thought and gave the vampire an apologetic look, "but that seems so silly in light of everything that's happened."

"How are you holding up?" he asked, his gaze warm.

Lydia's jaw went out to a stubborn angle. "I'm still alive. Therefore, still fighting."

"Good on you." He stood up. "You need me, love?"

Buffy recognized that he wanted a graceful exit without needing the mindlink. "I do. It's good to see you again, Lydia, though I am very sorry about the circumstances." As they walked toward Faith, she leaned against him _. Faith had the same kind of dream._

 _Bollocks._ He looked down at her. _We need to talk Aubrey into taking the job._

 _Do you think he'd do it for six months or something? Even that might be long enough to get them back to some kind of order._

 _That's a good idea, pet. I don't think anyone has approached him with the temporary angle._

 _If it isn't him, I think it would have to be Giles._

He felt her subconscious thought: she wouldn't trust anyone else.

"So," Faith greeted them, "any ideas of what we can do tomorrow?"

"No," Buffy said with a sigh. "Can we meet in your room tonight? The usual gang, I mean? Maybe we'll think of something by then."

Buffy stayed with her husband until she felt comfortable with the level of goodwill in the room. There wasn't much of it; while it was common knowledge among the Watchers that he had earned his soul, he was still very much the Slayer of Slayers to them. As a rule, the younger the Watcher, the friendlier they were.

After a couple of hours, Buffy had a headache. She asked Spike to mingle for a while longer, but excused herself to take a nap. Their hotel was just down the street, and as she walked, she considered how aimless the group of very bright, very British people had been. For the first time, she thought it was possible that the Council wouldn't recover from the tragedy and the loss. They had been so set in their ways, they no longer had the flexibility to bounce back from this blow.

As Buffy took off her shoes and crawled onto the big bed, she sighed. In a couple of days, they'd have a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner while their extended family was all together. Then they'd leave Mom, Giles, and little Max behind once more. She could see them staying here for a year or more. Aubrey would probably never come back to Sunnydale. Key people were dead, and the survivors would never be the same. She thought of Lydia, who had months of rehabilitation before she would be able to start walking with a prosthetic.

And girls were still dying.

Buffy wiped a couple of tears from her cheeks and closed her eyes. She was tired. Maybe it would be better after a nap.

In another five minutes, she was asleep. The Slayer began to dream almost immediately.

In this dream, another girl died.

And one didn't.

⸹

 _I don't know how well this is going to go over._

 _You'll convince them, love. It's the first plan I've heard that has a prayer of being helpful. And you're the Slayer._

 _I'm probably insane_. Buffy sighed and took his hand. They were riding the elevator to Faith's room later that evening. "Tell me what you found out while I was dreaming this up."

"Only thing I've found out," Spike said, "is that the lot of them are bloody impressed with Joyce. One of the wankers said she was 'the perfect politician's wife.'"

"Just what she'd like to be known for," Buffy said dryly. _She had plenty of practice at that sort of thing when she was married to Dad. They entertained a lot. She's a great hostess._

 _Considering she's doing that whilst carrying an infant on her shoulder, she's quite amazing._

 _Speaking of, who has Max tonight?_

 _Joyce and Rupes. They're not coming. Dawn promised to get up with Max if he wakes._

 _I'd say Giles needs the down time. Both of them do._

Faith opened the door before Buffy had raised her hand to knock. "Hey." At her fellow Slayer's confusion, she nodded toward Spike. "Sensed a vampire."

"Oh."

"Come on in, Spike," Faith said. He gave her a polite nod and went in, ushering Buffy ahead of him. It looked like they were the last to arrive. Aubrey was sitting in one of the two chairs in the room, looking sour. Faith's Watcher, Alpana Vishnaswamy, sat in the other. Willow and Tara were cross-legged on the bed against the headboard. The remains of a cream tea sat on a couple of trays on the desk. Flopping down on the end of the bed, Faith smirked at the newcomers. "Guess you get the floor."

"Tea, love?" Spike asked Buffy. When she shook her head, he got a cup for himself and eased down against the wall.

Buffy stayed on her feet. "From the look on your face, I'm guessing you're the head of the Council." She examined Aubrey.

"I accepted. The lot of them were… grateful. They just want things back to normal. People are already talking about rebuilding."

"You'll have to," Alpana agreed. She looked ten years older than she had when Buffy met her in Los Angeles. "Something has to go on that site."

"I know," he said wearily. "Picking up the pieces when I'm as shattered as everyone else… Mostly, I'm being selfish. I waited too long and thought I'd never get out into the field, and now that's over."

"It doesn't have to be," Buffy said stoutly. "You took the job on a temporary basis, right?"

Aubrey nodded. "Six months."

The sound of a toilet flushing made the Slayer turn her head. After another flurry of sink sounds, Xander came out of the bathroom. "Oh, hey," he greeted the newcomers. "You took my spot."

"Where's Anya?" Buffy asked.

"She's arranging the turkey for Joyce. Do you need her? She didn't plan to come."

"No, that's okay." She looked around and realized that everyone was watching her, including the other Slayer and the new head of the Council of Watchers. They were waiting for her, ready to follow her lead.

As they should.

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, then shouldered the responsibility. When her eyes opened, the Slayer considered all of them in turn. "I had a dream while I napped," she announced. "Another girl died. Finland, I think."

There was a distressed murmur. Buffy noted it in passing, but her focus was elsewhere. There, in the closet. She stepped over Spike's legs and brushed by Xander to open the door. The Slayer's Scythe was leaned against the wall of the closet near Faith's sensible black pumps. She picked it up and brought it with her as she stood just on the other side of the bed, where she could see everyone.

"Willow, Tara, could you make a sphere of silence around us?" she asked.

The two witches exchanged a look, then nodded. They held hands for a moment before breaking apart. "Done," Tara said.

"That was quick," Buffy told her, impressed.

Willow blushed. "We do that one pretty often," she admitted.

Buffy saw Xander cover a smile with his hand. "Okay," she said, changing the topic. "The dream changed, after I saw that girl chased down and…" She didn't finish, just swallowed. "I saw another girl being chased. It wasn't hyper-realistic, like Slayer Dreams often are. This girl turned around and laid out the Harbinger with one solid punch to the jaw."

"Good for her," Alpana said.

"I don't think it was prophecy," Buffy said. "I think it was… well, I don't know what it was. But, thanks to something Faith said, I think I have a plan. I wish Giles was here, but I feel like we need to move on this as soon as possible." She looked at Spike for courage, then lifted the Scythe in her hands and took a breath. "We need to talk to the Guardian."

There was a knock on the door. Everyone flinched. Faith shook her head and chuckled at her nerves.

"I'll get it," Spike offered, already standing up. "Human, not one of our people." He looked out the peephole, then turned and gave his wife an odd look. As he opened the door, he moved away so everyone could see the visitor.

An older lady with grey hair stood in the hallway. She wore a linen suit, too light for the late fall weather of London. She looked around the room with lively, dark eyes. "May I come in?"

Buffy stared at her for a moment, then closed her mouth. The Guardian was better groomed this time, with her smart suit and the long, grey hair cut short, but her dark eyes were the same. "Possibly," she mumbled, too wary to invite anyone, even if it had been her room. "I thought we'd have to come to you in a graveyard or something."

The woman came in without invitation. "No, not necessary this time." Spike quietly closed the door behind her.

"Everyone, this is the Guardian," Buffy said, then went around the room with introductions.

The Guardian nodded politely, but her focus was on Faith. After a moment of looking uncomfortable, she rolled off the bed so she could look down at the old woman. The Guardian immediately took her into a hug. "Faith," she beamed. Turning back to Buffy, she said, "And Buffy. How wonderful."

Aubrey had risen to his feet as soon as she entered the room. "Am I correct that you forged the Mɂ?"

"Not alone," she demurred. Her focus once again went to the two Slayers. "Buffy, I must apologize. I asked for your name the day you took up your weapon, but I did not give you mine. Please forgive my lack of manners, forgotten after too long alone. I am Theia."

"Of the sun," Aubrey murmured.

She turned to him, surprised. "Yes. Oh. The Latin. It's roughly the same in my native language." The Guardian lifted a shoulder. "No grand meaning; just the name my mother gave me."

"Thank you for coming," Buffy said, floundering for a way to get the meeting back on topic. "We believe there's a threat against the line of Slayers."

"You are correct." Theia looked at Faith, then at Alpana. Her eyes went around the room again, her dark, intelligent eyes assessing. She turned to Buffy. "You're missing someone."

"My Watcher," she agreed, even as her brows drew together. The Guardian hadn't been psychic before.

"Call him, please. We need to act soon, but he's necessary, I think. Please, call anyone you feel is necessary. We won't have time to repeat things."

Frowning, Buffy handed the Scythe to Faith and took out the mobile phone the Council had provided. Her own didn't work in the UK.

"Buffy? Is it okay if we call Oz?" Willow asked.

"Sure." The more super-smart people, the better. After a couple of rings, her Watcher answered, sounding tired. "Hi, Giles."

"Ask if we can go to him," the Guardian directed.

"Giles, I'm sorry. I know you're in for the night, but can we come by? It's important." She watched Xander take out his phone. Anya, of course. It was far more surprising to see Alpana take out her mobile and make a call.

"Wha– Of course, I mean. Come by. You can tell me when you get here."

"Thanks, Giles." As she hung up, the Guardian placed her hand on the Slayer's weapon, her fingers near Faith's as they wrapped around the handle.

The next second, the entire group was in the brighter light of the living room of the duplex Giles had rented. Alpana was still seated in the hotel chair, though Willow and Tara were sitting on the floor in front of the divan. Joyce jerked her legs out of the way, cradled Max, and covered his head and her bare breast with a corner of the baby's blanket in the same motion.

Giles was still standing with his mobile in his hand. "Er, I guess you should tell me?" His eyes went to the only stranger.

The Guardian inclined her head, but her gaze was already going to the places in the living room that were empty. "Is everyone who is needed prepared to arrive?"

"I'll go wake up Dawn," Spike murmured to Buffy. He headed up the stairs.

"Anya is ready," Xander said.

Willow closed her cell phone. "So is Oz."

Vishnaswamy's eyes were wide. Teleporting just one person took tremendous power. "So is Mara."

For the first time, Theia looked at Joyce. A silly smile broke across her face. "Oh, a baby!"

"Buffy?" Joyce asked warily.

"She's all right, Mom. This is the Guardian I told you about, from after we went to the mission in Gilroy."

"Oh." At her feet, Tara scooted closer to Willow, making room for the aged woman. She leaned over and gazed softly at Max's wispy curls.

"I'm Joyce, Buffy's mother."

"I'm Theia. He?" she asked, raising her brows. When his mother nodded, she went on. "He's beautiful."

"He's Macsen." Joyce rarely breastfed in public, but she felt no twinge of discomfort for this woman watching. She took a soft cloth from her shoulder and wiped the corner of Max's mouth where he was still latched on.

Theia forced her eyes away from the peaceful infant. "Faith?" she asked. The dark-haired Slayer walked to her, already holding out the Scythe.

Giles moved closer to Aubrey and Alpana. "What's going on?"

Alpana stood up. As she did, the hotel chair vanished, she presumed back to the room where it belonged. She swallowed, trying to deal calmly with the unaccustomed magic. She practically lived with a green-skinned, red-eyed demon, after all. "Buffy said she had a plan, but wished she could talk to the Guardian. She showed up, and you know everything we do."

Anya and Oz appeared in front of Theia, along with a stranger, a tall woman with dark hair and darker lipstick. "Wow," Anya said, impressed. "That was very smooth."

Oz took in the old woman, his nostrils flaring before he nodded. "Meetcha," he said, then went to sit beside Tara.

Buffy moved to stand beside Joyce's end of the couch. Xander went to Anya and nodded his thanks to the Guardian. Spike came down the stairs, taking in the new arrivals, and joined his wife. "Dawn will be right down."

"Uh, Alpana," the tall woman said, "this is…" Her attention went to the Guardian, and she sucked in a breath. After a moment of gawping, she moved to the older woman and held out a trembling hand. "Oh, goddess."

"No, certainly not," Theia reassured her cheerfully.

"Mara of Devon," the tall woman managed, letting her hand drop. She took a couple of steps away, putting both hands behind her back in the attitude of a schoolgirl. After a moment, she managed to look around the room, acknowledging Aubrey as well as Tara and Willow.

"Hey, so what's the…" Dawn tromped down the stairs, her question dying as she looked around at the roomful of people. She lifted a hand instead and waved. "Dawn. Buffy's sister." She moved to stand beside Aubrey.

"Another round of introductions, perhaps?" The head of the Council ran his hand over his bald pate. "I'm Aubrey Willingham."

The tall woman went last in the quick round of names. "Mara Culpepper." After realizing the Guardian was in the room, she had a sense of why Alpana had wanted her present. "I'm the coven member who specializes in tracking potential slayers."

Now that introductions were over, Theia took that as her cue, moving to the doorway that led to the kitchen so she could see everyone. "Willow and Tara, I've taken the liberty of bringing your deafening spell with us. We will be able to speak freely."

Every so often, Buffy had a forceful reminder of how strange her life really was. This was one of them. She slid her hand into her husband's cool one and cleared her throat. "You were about to tell us about the threat to Slayers?"

"Yes. The First Evil wishes to become corporeal. I trust everyone knows what that is?" Only Mara raised her hand in confession. "It's the original idea of evil and is present in any being capable of understanding the difference between good and evil. Most choose not to embrace it fully, but we are all capable of falling under its influence. I am not saying that it corrupts us, but that it feeds on every instance we fail."

"Does it grow weaker when we choose good?" Joyce asked.

Theia gave her a piercing look. "It must." She returned her attention to the group at large. "In order to become corporeal, the First Evil believes it must clear the board of a great good, the line of Slayers. And, of course, without Slayers to oppose it, I'm sure it would feel safer about being corporeal."

"If it manifests," Faith said, a nasty grin on her face, "we can kill it."

"I believe you are correct," the Guardian agreed, "about the manifestation. I don't believe it's possible to kill our propensity to do evil."

"Well, shit. So much for that."

Alpana looked scandalized at this outburst in front of a semi-deity, but the Guardian herself only smiled. "Let's keep it from achieving that goal, anyway. I don't believe you have proof of this, but the First Evil's cult is also responsible for the bombing of your headquarters." She was looking at Aubrey with sympathy, but her voice cooled noticeably with the last words.

"We suspected as much. There's a man with them who is not a Harbinger. Could he be the vessel for the manifestation?"

Theia blinked. "Oh, dear."

"We'll take that as a yes," Giles said, running a hand through his hair. Watching him, Buffy realized the gesture had replaced polishing his glasses now that he wore contact lenses.

"He's here in London?" the Guardian asked.

"The last we knew," Aubrey agreed, throwing a look at Buffy.

"If he levels up to overlord," Buffy said, not thinking about vernacular just now, "what does that mean?"

"The First Evil will be able to bring forth true demons."

Their gazes were locked for a long moment. "I fought one during an Ascension."

"And won," Anya pointed out.

"And she's also defeated a Hellgod." Spike added this as he put his hand at the small of her back.

The Guardian was still looking at Buffy. She blinked and forced her eyes away, turning to Faith. "Well, let's work under the assumption that the First Evil is still not corporeal. But I must warn you, even without manifesting, the First Evil knows how to release its servants from hell dimensions. The Harbingers were once human, at least."

She took the Scythe from Faith and looked at it for a moment. The others in the room, except for Max, grew tense, but she only walked over to give it to Buffy. "Tell us about your plan."

She took the weapon, but wondered how much the Guardian already knew. She had been holding the Scythe when Theia showed up. "Again, I wouldn't call it a plan. But there's nothing I can do to stop the Bringers from killing those girls who have the possibility of becoming slayers. Faith and I can't be everywhere, especially when there are thousands, and we don't know who's the next target.

"So," she said, drawing a breath and standing as tall as she could, "I want to give those girls the ability to fight back.

The witch from the Devon coven was the first to speak. "You want to make forty-two hundred slayers?" Her tone was shocked.

"I want to give them a fighting chance against those murdering assholes." Buffy's voice was cold and adamant.

Aubrey and Giles exchanged a look; Rupert always said his Slayer was not one for rules. "Guardian, if you please… Might we take a moment to hear from Ms. Culpepper about the potentials? I think it would be useful to those not on the Council." The tall witch seemed a little panicked to be the center of attention.

"It would be useful to me," Giles pointed out. "Travers never spread that kind of knowledge widely."

"I only knew because I Watched a potential," Alpana put in.

"Uh…" Mara lifted her hands, clearly uncomfortable with speaking. "There's a couple of spells. Ancient, both of them, just a chant and a bloodletting from the focus. I seem to channel it best of the witches in the coven, so I've been the focus for," she thought about it, her eyes going wide, "eleven years now. How time does fly." Behind her, Dawn left the room, heading toward the kitchen.

"Every six months, we perform the spell that identifies potentials. During the chant, I… see the potentials. What I look for are any new girls whose… essence seems particularly strong. If we identify one like that, I inform the Council. As I understand it, if her situation allows, the Council sends a Watcher to begin training her. Some years, there are several; other times, none."

"There are roughly a hundred Watchers working with those girls at any one time," Aubrey clarified. He looked over as Dawn came back.

She had a bottle of water and went to Mara, holding it out to her. "You looked like you might want something to drink."

"Thank you." The witch gave her a grateful smile and took it. She gasped as her fingers touched Dawn's, and her mouth dropped a little.

"Maybe a second bottle?" the teenager quipped.

Mara firmed her mouth. "Not a bottler," she replied. The slang meant nothing to Dawn, who went back to her place by Aubrey.

"She isn't going to let the company throw her," he explained in a stage whisper.

The dark-haired witch forced her eyes away from Dawn, shot a quick look at the Guardian, and took a breath. Dawn's kindness seemed to settle her. "Quite. The other spell we only do when we have to identify the new Slayer."

When the previous Slayer died. No one said this, but they were all acutely aware of the reason. Xander cleared his throat and raised his hand. "You don't call the new Slayer," he said, wanting this clarified.

"No. Only identify."

"Could you modify those spells?" Willow said. Since Buffy had proposed activating all potentials as slayers, her mind had been in overdrive.

"Modif– Goddess! Do you know how sacred those –"

"I know," Faith interrupted. "I know how the first Slayer came to be. Do you?" Mara stared at her, but said nothing. "Let's just say 'non-consensual.' Not what I would call sacred."

Buffy gave her head a little shake, once again re-focusing. "Guardian. Can it be done?"

The room fell into silence. Theia understood the power of silence, knew how to hold a crowd's attention. She had performed ritual sacrifices in great temples of earth and stone in her time. She had held the ceremonial knife and spilled lamb's blood down the sides of the altar, a sea of human faces raised to watch her every motion.

Heart breaking over what had been done to a join a human sacrifice to a demon sacrifice, she had called forth ritual fires to power a forge, had hammered a mighty weapon in turn with other Guardians. It had been her honor to quench the Scythe this young warrior held in blessed water. Others had brought sanctified wood for the stake, and they had all bound it with magic in a chant that had lasted for months, until the metal took on the burnished sheen of blood. She had been there when the oldest of them had given it into Sineya's hand under the moon of a vernal equinox. The lone warrior had taken the Scythe, turned on her heel, and walked away from them all.

She was still alone.

Theia had also slumbered for centuries before awakening, a person out of time. She knew now what it meant to be alone.

"It can be done." She looked at Buffy and then turned to stare at Faith. "Should it be done? Force that responsibility onto all those sets of shoulders?"

"No." Faith's lips thinned, her chin lifting.

Buffy spoke only to Faith. "Is death better?"

Several seconds ticked past as the two Slayers gazed at each other. Joyce broke the silence, her own eyes closed in sorrow. "Oh, honey."

"I couldn't do it anyway," Mara mumbled.

"We could." Tara turned her head to stare at Willow after she said those words. Her lover wore her resolve face.

Mara drew back. "You dare greatly, Tara."

Buffy was looking at Willow now. "That's what we do." She got a surge of fierce pride from Spike through their mindlink.

Tara closed her eyes a moment, shoving down her Sight. There was too much power in this room; she didn't want to see any auras. "M-maybe we could give them strength until the F-first Evil is gone."

Mara threw up her hands. "You can't undo that sort of thing!"

Willow turned to Tara. "She's right. Power like that…" Willow's hazel eyes were sorrowful; she still had all the dark power she'd taken, and Tara felt it every time they did magic together.

"Could the power even be spread that thin?" Aubrey mused, half to himself. "I mean, there are thousands of slayers-in-waiting."

"Well, the Council couldn't support them," Giles said dryly.

"The Council doesn't support us, anyway." Faith folded her arms. "All we need is the location of the chants to end this. Me and B, we'll go. Our crew, too. We can take them out, just as easy as the Council's assassins. Easier."

"Everything changes." The Guardian's voice was loud, designed to roll across acres of holy space long before microphones were invented. "The line of Slayers has changed. I have held both Buffy and Faith in my embrace tonight." She turned, addressing particular people as she did, her eyes alighting on face after face. "The world has changed. A Chosen One to fight the forces of darkness, but that was in a world where the largest populations were towns of thousands, a world where travel meant forging your own path through jungles and across the narrows. Should a world of six billion souls have only two warriors?"

Her eyes were glittering as they touched Alpana, then Giles and Aubrey, pinning the Watchers to immobility. "Human rights change. Should a spell cast by desperate men on an unsuspecting girl in a dark time be our guide in this modern world?" Theia's gaze reached Dawn, then dropped to where Tara and Willow sat. "Resources change. Think you there has ever been a gathering like this?"

She looked at Joyce, at the infant in her arms. "Only hope does not change. It's why we fight." Theia's gaze softened more as she looked at Oz, at Anya and Xander. "We fight for the good with whatever weapons we have. Hope abides." Her dark eyes settled on Spike. "And everything else changes."

It was the end of her speech. She had a private smile on her face; it would be her last speech, and she thought it was a good one. "There are two issues here. The first is the necessity of stopping the Harbingers from eliminating a counterbalance to the First Evil." Her voice was brisk now. "I understand the location of the chanters can be identified?"

"Tomorrow," Mara said. "We're doing the tracking spell tomorrow."

Theia nodded. "I do not think we lack warriors to stop the Harbingers. This will protect the girls who have the capacity to become slayers. The other issue is, how many slayers are needed?"

The room froze at the bald question. Abashed, the group exchanged glances. _They_ were to make this decision? Only two figures stayed focused: Buffy watched her sister Slayer, and Spike watched her.

"No," Faith said, feeling like she must be speaking a different language, because no one freaking understood what she was saying. "You guys don't get it. I wouldn't wish being Chosen on my worst enemy."

"What we want matters less than what the world needs." Buffy, her eyes still on Faith, spoke the words softly, adamantly.

"Maybe there's another way." Spike flinched as all eyes fell on him, and he realized he had spoken aloud. He knew his Slayer's burden: all the ones she could not save. And he battled against the weight of it, too, something she never asked him to carry, but he could not do otherwise. "I, uh, don't know the spell that's used, but surely out of the thousands it can identify, some would volunteer. Be savior types, I mean."

"Choosing instead of Chosen," Buffy breathed. Her grip on the Scythe tightened. She knew she would not have chosen this life. Her jaw went out. She'd earned it, though.

Theia was smiling at the vampire, and she turned her smile on the rest of the room. "I believe we have a plan."

"We do?" Aubrey asked, pained. His head was spinning; he was used to being the smartest person in most rooms, and very little was making sense to him just now.

The Guardian blinked. "Of course. Mara, you will take Willow, Tara, and their young man to your coven tonight. Give them access to the Shadow Men's spells. They know what can be brought to bear; you know how to cast your net." She turned to the Watchers. "I have seen how Buffy and Faith created their own armies, from warriors and support to supply and magic. The Council itself has done an appalling job of helping them. Since everything is in flux now, it's a good time to rethink that. Consider how many Slayers you can support in a similar manner and be ready to report tomorrow."

Turning to look at Buffy and Faith, her tone gentled. "Tomorrow, use whatever Council resources you can to stop the Harbingers' chant. That's how you'll save your little sisters from the Bringers. After you finish," she nodded at the Scythe, "I'll need that." She turned to the room at large and nodded. "I'll see you all tomorrow in Devon. We're going to bring more Slayers into this world."

Then she simply disappeared.

"Mite bossy, isn't she?" Mara asked. She tilted the bottle of water up and drained it, looking like she wished it were something a lot stronger.

The group looked around at each other for a few seconds, then Oz stood up. "I better call Mom. She's expecting me for Thanksgiving dinner. And for me to be in my room."

⸹

"We don't have to do all that teleporting," Giles said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The Council has the manpower."

Faith shook her head. "We don't need the manpower. We have champions."

"Many of whom are currently on the Pacific coast," he pointed out.

"Hence the teleporting," Faith shot back.

Buffy blew a strand of hair from her face. Thanksgiving dinner had been fine until the results of the spell came in from Devon. The Harbingers were conducting their chant in six different places this time. Spike, Xander, and Anya were helping her mother clean up the kitchen while she watched Max. Faith wanted to bring over Groo, Angel, and Connor. Counting herself, Buffy, and Spike, that was one champion per location. It seemed a little too perfect and neat to Buffy.

"That coven has the power to teleport them, if the Guardian won't." Faith had crossed her arms.

Theia appeared suddenly in the seat next to Aubrey. They all jumped, but a little less than before. "The Guardian won't," she said cheerfully. "You and Buffy should save your strength for what we'll do tonight. Let the Council do something, for a change." Turning to Aubrey, she gave him an excited little poke on the arm, a childlike gesture. "So? How many Slayers?"

He harrumphed before answering. "Knowing what I do about Buffy's team and Faith's, there are certain similarities. They both have Watchers, researchers, warriors, magical or prophetic assistance, and demon or ex-demon resources. While the Council can't provide champions or seers, we can provide a similar framework for about thirty Slayers." Willingham gave her a severe look. "We intend to maintain our work with the potentials at around the hundred mark. This will mean fewer rapid response teams, since those positions will have to be reapportioned to –"

"Thirty," Theia mused, cutting off the logistics. "And their family and friends must be included in that framework. I understand that Buffy's family didn't know at first, that it caused her grief."

It wasn't a question, but Aubrey didn't squirm under her cool gaze. "Not a policy we'll keep." He considered himself part of Buffy's family now.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself." She smiled up at Faith. "Although I know you're eager to go fight the Bringers, we need you to protect your little sisters in another way." She looked between Giles and Aubrey. "You have your soldiers in some central location?"

"Yes. Massed at Fort Monckton. The, er, government has been very understanding of our loss of facilities."

Buffy stood up from the table and handed Max to a very surprised Faith. He looked up at her face, gave her a gassy smile, and latched onto a strand of her dark hair.

"Uh, B," she began, uneasy. She'd never held a baby before.

Buffy didn't let her chicken out of holding Max. "That's the problem, right? Whether it's us or the Council's," she paused, rethinking the word 'wetworks,' "men, we aren't in Vladivostok or Roskilde or Port Elizabeth or those other places." She didn't have enough height to loom over the Guardian, but she had enough presence. Buffy crossed her arms. "I think you have a plan for that?"

"I do. Your sister. Dawn."

The teenager leaned out of the doorway to the kitchen, where she'd been shamelessly eavesdropping. "Someone say my name?"

Aubrey harrumphed again. "Miss Dawn doesn't have –"

"She has everything she needs except a small spell." Theia smiled at the Key. "I can give you that. It will help you locate where you want a portal to open."

"Yeah, but," she moved to the table, "six at once?"

The Guardian stood up. "You can open hundreds at once. More, if the monks had not given you human form." She smiled impishly, in high spirits. "Less if they'd given you mongoose form."

Dawn giggled at the strange humor. "That sounds cool. Especially if I don't have to watch my sister and my friends march into battle with axes because we have the option of sending soldiers with Glocks and Walthers and stuff." She gave Faith and Buffy a pointed look.

"It did work rather well with the last cells we took out," Giles noted, his voice neutral.

"How soon can your men be ready?" Buffy asked.

"Within the hour," Aubrey replied, sighing.

"Anya?" Dawn called, moving back into the kitchen. "Can I borrow your crystal pendant?"

Buffy didn't take her little brother back from Faith until Giles, Willingham, Dawn, and the Guardian had disappeared from the room. The dark-haired Slayer glared at her as the absence of the warm bundle left her arms and torso feeling cold and empty. "You did that on purpose."

"I did," Buffy agreed, smiling at her. "I think we're going to need all our strength for tonight."

Faith was silent for a long moment, then closed her eyes. "I had one of those dreams."

It took Buffy a moment to understand. "An attack of the First Evil dreams?" Psychological warfare, Angel called it.

"Yeah. Big part of the reason I don't want to do this. Make more Slayers." She finally met Buffy's eyes, finding nothing but warmth and concern. "I dreamed I led a bunch of girls to battle." She swallowed. "They… they died, B."

Buffy hesitated, then gave herself a mental slap. If they could talk about prophetic dreams, they could talk about these, too. "I dreamed I beat Spike. He never fought back, and I just… kept hitting him. He dreamed that we weren't a couple, and he tried to rape me. Oz said Willow was afraid to sleep for days after dreaming that Warren – the guy who tried to shoot her? – killed Tara. Not real, but plenty painful."

Faith averted her face. "Not real, but it sure seemed that way." She pushed back her dark hair and punted. "If anyone else at AI is having nightmares, they haven't mentioned it."

Buffy nodded, accepting the change in topic. No excruciating detail was fine with her, too. "Good." She put her hand on her sister-Slayer's shoulder. "Just bad dreams, Faith. That's all."

"Yeah, but just ahead of making a bunch of girls I might lead into battle? Seems a little too on the nose."

⸹

"This is it?" Dawn asked, looking at the five words the Guardian had written on the back of the ATM slip she provided. "This is the spell?"

"Yes. The best ones are short ones."

The two of them were speaking alone in the corner of a cavernous, hangar-like room, full of armed men. Dawn had been impressed by the fact that the older part of the grounds actually looked like a fort, with stone walls and everything, but of course they hadn't ended up in the cool, historical part. She'd also been impressed with the number of good-looking, twenty-something honeys in black tactical gear.

"Dawn?"

"Um," she said guiltily, turning her attention away from a red-haired guy. No offense to Oz, but she'd never seen any redheads she considered cute before today, and he was the fourth one. "Sorry. Hormones. Easily distracted."

"Why did you borrow the ex-vengeance demon's necklace?"

"Her name is Anya," Dawn said pointedly, "and the reason I borrowed it is because it shields against magic. I thought…" She tried to think of words she could use with a priestess from prehistory. "If I could lay this kind of magic," she raised the pendant, "over the portal, so that it covers each member as they go through, like a mist or something…"

"I see!" Theia's face brightened. "Oh, very good! You have a mind for this."

"I guess," Dawn said, almost sounding glum. She was still disappointed that she and Aubrey hadn't found a way to close the Hellmouth. "So, can we do it?"

"You can," Theia reassured her.

"…How?"

"Hold the crystal in your left hand as you cast the spell."

Dawn gave the Guardian a suspicious look. "That's all?"

The old woman threw back her head and laughed. "'You've always had the power, my dear,'" she trilled, her voice a higher pitched tremolo that was spot-on for Glinda the Good Witch in _The Wizard of Oz_.

Before Dawn could ask just how she learned standard American pop culture references, Giles called her name and motioned them to his side. "Will this map do, dear?"

She leaned over the table map, her long hair swinging out and brushing the features. The six locations on four continents were marked exactly with pins, and six monitors along the wall showed satellite images of the areas. "Yes. It's more precise than in," she stopped herself from naming Los Angeles, "than a globe."

Aubrey had moved to her other side. Hearing this, he nodded to a mild-looking Watcher behind him, who gave a couple of hand signals. All of the armed men fell into groups of twenty, lined up in pairs.

"Wait," Dawn said, watching them. "What if I make multiple doors at each site? Then they could surround the Harbinger guys and shoot them."

Giles closed his eyes for perhaps a second, hiding his cringe. "In a firefight, it isn't good to shoot with your comrade at 180 degrees across from you," he pointed out, gently as possible.

"Oh! Oh, yeah, not of the good." Dawn thought hard. "Okay, what about two portals per location at, say, thirty degrees?"

The mild-looking Watcher gave her a fierce, approving look that wouldn't be out of place on Spike's face. "Place them ten paces apart, and we're ruddy well talking."

"You can do that?" Aubrey asked. At Dawn's nod, he gave the order. "Break down the squads into two half units." He turned back to the teenager. "What's got you feeling so confident, then?"

She looked at the paper in her hand. "Five little words."

⸹

"Buffy, you should have seen it! I mean, I could only see a little, through some of the doors, but it worked great! Michael's charm, too, you know, Anya's necklace? The guys went through, and there was a little shimmer, and the magic the Bringers threw just… slussed off of them."

"Sluiced," Aubrey corrected, beaming at her proudly. None of the Watcher teams had suffered any losses. Much of that was due to Dawn's impromptu shielding, because the Harbingers had been ready with killing magic.

"You did great," Buffy said, giving Dawn a little hug. Her little sister was so happy, and wasn't it fitting that a younger sister would save the potential slayers? And she had more evidence for her Slayer's intuition that the killing magic was meant for six neatly separated champions.

Across the room, Joyce didn't look quite as happy. The Watchers had taken out approximately seven hundred Bringers. She hadn't seen any of it, and though she'd seen pictures of the miserable creatures who'd given themselves, body and soul, to the First Evil, the thought of hundreds of dead beings could never make her glad. They'd been human, once.

Spike, another former human, bounded down the stairs. "This the one, Joyce?" he asked, holding up a thick fleece baby blanket.

"Yes, thank you." Max was at her feet in a car seat. She squatted down and tucked the blanket around him, bunched it, then laid it over his face, creating a careful air pocket. "There. That should be warm enough."

"I don't think we'll be outside for long, darling," Giles said, coming up beside her.

"Good."

While Joyce was distracted, Spike leaned in close to Rupert. "The magic the Harbingers had… It was meant to disable us, wasn't it?"

"We believe so," he answered in a low voice. "They seemed to be expecting a small group of us usual suspects instead of armed military squads."

"Six sites for six champions, just like the Slayer thought."

"Yes, there'll be no living with her now."

"I heard that, Giles." Buffy smirked at him as she snagged her coat from the tree by the door. "Are we ready?"

"Yes. Whenever the," and Giles found he was abruptly out-of-doors, "Guardian arrives."

Willow was waving at him awkwardly from a few feet away. "Hey, everyone. Theia said to bring you to the greenhouse. Everyone else is here."

Buffy glanced around at her equally startled family and pulled on her coat. The glow of the gaslight lampposts revealed a collection of buildings, pathways, trees, and landscaping reminiscent of a college campus. Instead of imposing brick classroom buildings, though, most of the structures looked like houses. Willow was leading them toward one of the larger structures, a grand glass greenhouse with ornate cupolas, softly lit from within.

"Hey, Buf." Willow seemed unusually calm as she fell into step with her best friend. "I've been meditating the past couple of hours, me and Tara, and I'm so glad you're here. Otherwise, I was going to start getting twitchy."

"This whole thing is wigsome," the Slayer whispered back. "You know that, don't you?"

"It is, but I think it's the right thing to do."

Mara Culpepper, the witch that Alpana brought from the coven, was waiting at the entrance. Another woman was with her, older and more grandmotherly. "Be welcome, Slayer and guests," Mara said. "This is Althenea, one of our coven. She is a seer and knew some years ago we would host you tonight." There was a trace of ice in Mara's voice; plainly, she had not known of this.

"Be welcome, all of you," Althenea said in a soft, West Country accent. Buffy nodded back at her, trying for polite while feeling the hairs on her arms stir. Althenea was the most powerful practitioner she'd ever felt. The older woman stepped aside so that Joyce could maneuver the baby carrier inside.

"Oh, good. It's warm," Joyce sighed.

"This way," Mara said, and led them past actual, full-sized trees toward the center of the building. The rest of the gang was already there, all seated on a circle of curved stone benches, except for Faith. The dark-haired Slayer was pacing behind Aubrey and Alpana.

Several strangers were also in the greenhouse, all women in a range of ages. Buffy presumed they were coven members. She staked out a couple of benches with room for her family, especially Mom and Max. Leaving on her coat, she pulled Spike down next to her.

The Guardian, who was speaking to Anya and Xander, looked toward her and made her excuses. "Buffy? Faith? May I speak with you both?" She led them to stand next to an orange tree. Buffy would have recognized the ubiquitous California staple even without the fruit. The Guardian was still as bubbly as she'd been earlier, but her voice was serious. "I know you had objections, Faith, but if the girls choose to become active Slayers, are you reconciled?"

Her jaw was at a mutinous angle, but she dropped her eyes. "If it's their choice, I guess I'm okay with it."

"Will they be like Faith?" Buffy asked. "I mean, if one of them dies, will that call another?"

"No, dear. I think, once we do this, the naturally selected Slayers who come after Faith will be remarkable in comparison." Seeing their blank looks, she gave them a gentle smile. "Neither of you would have chosen this life, but the Slayer energy that chooses its own host does a wonderful job of finding the person who is needed."

"People who have greatness thrust upon them," Buffy said unexpectedly.

"Exactly so!" Theia beamed at her. "Slayers always bring their own gifts. I think this batch of girls will be remarkably similar in nature, girls who might have been nurses or otherwise caregivers."

"Slayers need to be warriors." Faith's voice was adamant.

"They will become what is necessary." The Guardian looked over her shoulder. "Faith, would you take the Scythe to Willow?"

The two Slayers exchanged a look, but Buffy passed their weapon to Faith without comment. "Was there something else?" She kept her tone neutral.

"One thing, my dear. You met Sineya?"

"I did. So did almost all of my friends. She tried to kill them."

The Guardian's brows drew together. "In their dreams? Whose?"

"Giles, Willow, and Xander, the night after they touched the Scythe for the first time. Tara and Anya didn't fall asleep, or she would have gone after them, too. Spike went into my dream to let me know what was happening. She didn't manifest or anything." Buffy saw the old woman visibly relax. "I tried to embrace her, but she wasn't having it."

"No. No, she wouldn't." Theia's face was weary and sad now.

"You love her." Buffy's voice was slow with discovery.

"I love all of you," the Guardian said, managing a smile, "but I have known Sineya… It seems I have always known her." The smile faded. "Not well, of course."

"How will she take this?" Buffy was intent, ready to head off danger.

"I do not know. She's made no move to hurt Faith. She's never bothered with any of the potentials. For her, 'alone' seems to mean each Slayer. I would be very surprised if she attacked the new Slayers."

"But their teams?" the Slayer asked pointedly.

Theia looked troubled. "There is precedent, is there not?" She took a breath. "I will try to intervene, dear. It's possible that I may recruit your friends who have met her in the effort." She told the lie smoothly.

"Now? During the spell?"

"Yes. I would certainly not invade their dreams."

Buffy herself relaxed at this promise. "Thank you. Sineya that night… Not of the good."

"Er, no." She gave Buffy a reassuring touch on the back. "Let's get back. Willingham has something to say before we begin."

As it turned out, he was the fourth person to have something to say. Another witch, apparently the head of the Devon coven, said a few words that Buffy didn't catch, then Althenea spoke of the gathering she had foreseen decades ago. As she spoke, the Guardian retrieved the Scythe from Willow and Tara. Mara Culpepper stood then, explaining what modifications had been made to the spells before joining Willow and Tara in the clear area between the benches.

Aubrey took that as his cue. "This is the last night the Council of Watchers will exist." Buffy and Faith shared a surprised look at his words.

"What do you mean?" "What?!" Giles' and Alpana's outbursts were the only distinct questions in the loud, confused aftermath of those words.

"Henceforth, we will be known as the Council of Slayers." Willingham gave a crooked smile. "Well, legally, we'll be CoS, Ltd. Neither name is exactly innocuous, but Slayers is rather more," he shot a look at Dawn's delighted grin, "in one's face."

"What does this mean, exactly?" Rupert asked, his expression tense.

"I think it's necessary to underline the change in our mission." Aubrey shrugged. "There are still dozens of the old guard, but I'm not sure you realized that we have, for the first time, more female employees than male. It's a change that came at the terrible price of those who died at headquarters…" He looked down and took a breath. "But I think it's significant. Many of those women were potential Slayers when they were young. The Council has long been due for a change."

"I didn't foresee this," Althenea could be heard whispering to the head of the coven.

Aubrey still looked like an elderly researcher too fond of ale and pub food, but he exuded a certain moral certainty that none of his colleagues had noted before. "We have been given a weapon into our hand through the ages, and we have not considered that weapon as a precious gift. We repeatedly tossed it against a wall, barely bothered to hone its edge, and," here his analogy and voice faltered a bit, "patched it with cellotape each time it inevitably broke. No more! We are going to take care of our gift, and I expect we'll do amazing things when we care for the weapon the Powers gave to us.

"The Council of Slayers will be able to support one hundred to one hundred and twenty potential slayers and up to thirty-five active Slayers. Each Slayer will have a Watcher in the traditional role, plus a team for magical and tactical support. Initial contact teams are waiting right now to speak with each girl who decides to become active tonight. We'll train her, mediate with her family, facilitate schooling, provide financial support if necessary, and make sure that medical and psychological help is available.

"If the Slayer survives to the age of twenty-five," he took a breath, "which we fully expect many will, due to the more intensive support they'll receive, she'll be given the option to retire. Mandatory retirement at age thirty." Aubrey shrugged. "We hope they'll then consider employment with us, become trainers or Watchers themselves."

Dawn got up and crossed to where he was standing so she could throw her arms around him. "Perfect, Uncle Aubrey," she whispered. She didn't care if it was a historical gathering. He'd listened to her worries for her sister.

"Yes, it was all you, Miss Dawnie," he whispered back, but his smile undercut the sardonic words. He waited until she took her seat and made his face grave once again. "I expect the Council of Slayers is going to save untold numbers of people – and the world, occasionally."

Mara rose from where she had sat on the ground near Willow and Tara so she could stand in front of Aubrey. "I cannot tell you how light my heart is, but will you understand if I say that this is the first time I have ever done this spell with happiness instead of bitterness?"

He took both her hands in a courtly fashion. "It is still a fell task we ask of them."

"But, for the first time, they have a chance to live beyond that task."

The head of the Council gave her a nod of understanding as he dropped her hands and returned to his seat. Mara took a breath and looked around at those gathered. She blinked away her tears and gave them a watery smile. "I'm ready to complete the first spell. I've going to return to the trance where I've been intermittently the last day, identifying sleeping potentials and asking the question. Awake or asleep, they're ready with their answers. If I may have your silence for ten minutes or so?"

Without another word, she returned to her place across from Tara and Willow. Both of the other witches were inordinately quiet and calm, their concentration already on their part in this night. Mara closed her eyes and pressed her palms together in an attitude that had nothing of prayer in it.

Joyce lifted the blanket to check on Max, who was sleeping peacefully. She curled into the arm Giles put out for her, thinking of how much easier it would be for the families of the new Slayers than it had ever been for hers. And Buffy had changed it. Even if no one else remembered or if it was left unrecorded, she knew her daughter was the catalyst for this change.

She was so lost in her thoughts, she started when Mara rose gracefully from the ground. Joyce realized for the first time that there was a thin ring of metal in the center of the benches, that the three witches were inside a permanent magical circle. She supposed it wouldn't be the only one on the grounds, and Giles later told her that the glass panes of the greenhouse formed numerous sigils and other magical symbols.

"Slayers? Guardian? If you'll join us." Mara asked. Her eyes weren't focused on anything, and she immediately returned to her position.

The Guardian stepped forward and gestured for Buffy and Faith to sit on either side of Tara and Willow. Once they were seated, she gave the Scythe to them. Faith scooted forward a few inches, so that each of them could comfortably hold the handle. Instead of joining them, Theia backed away, standing in front of the bench where Buffy had been, making sure she wasn't blocking Spike's view.

As was common with their own coven, Tara sang a note to begin. It was taken up by the members of the Devon group. A moment later, she and Willow began to repeat a short chant of choppy syllables, both of their voices sounding lower than usual. Oz shifted from the stone bench where he sat until he was balancing on his haunches in front of it, his eyes focused intently on his pack.

Willow took Tara's hand as they continued the chant. After about a minute, their joined fingers reached for the Scythe. The moment they did, the air around Tara lit with a soft glow. Not even a second later, that was drowned by the flare of light that came from Willow's power.

The members of the Devon coven had kept humming the note that Tara sang, a low hum that began to have a tension in it. One by one, their bright auras became visible, Althenea's power joining the glow last, blazing outward even hotter than Willow's. The light of their combined magic flooded from the glass greenhouse, throwing strange shadows across the grounds. A few days later, Willow would check publicly available satellite images; the flare of power was visible from space, though it was classified as a rendering anomaly.

Spike watched as Mara, her face fixed in concentration as she held the names and essences of the volunteers, brought her hand forward to touch the surface of the Scythe's blade. The bright evidence of power immediately disappeared, as if sucked into the weapon. Buffy and Faith jerked, and Spike came to his feet, ready to intercept anything that might endanger his Slayer. The coven members continued to hum Tara's note, the sound of it on the edge of irritating his sensitive ears.

The Guardian looked over her shoulder, giving him a smile that he took as sympathetic until she reached out to touch his shoulder. The moment she did, both of them shifted to a new reality.

⸹

[Translation Note: I've jumbled up some nouns from modern African languages to stand in for parts of a language that predates writing in the next section. 'Na' is a made up sound for 'my;' all other words in this key are real. Here are the words with definition and language of origin. Oule: Heart, Berber. Kyauta: Gift, Hausa. Irwale: Escape, Berber. Idder: Alive, Berber. Emeka: Joy has returned, Igbo. Ime: Patience, Ibibio. Okoro: Man, Urhobo. Atal: Hero, Urdu.]

⸹

Or semi-shifted. Spike was still standing next to the Guardian, both of them watching the witches cast the spell, but he was also standing elsewhere, a new reality overlaying his own. The sound of the hum muted, as did his sense of nearby human heartbeats. Instead of the glass panes surrounding them, he was in a desert at night. Standing on the uneven sand, Spike thought the rock-strewn landscape would be the Technicolor of Buffy's dreams if it were daytime.

Theia didn't give him the opportunity to ask. "I brought you here to meet with Sineya."

"What?" he managed, his voice hoarse. He was already on alert for attack. "She'll try to stop this?"

"Oh, child," the Guardian said, "think you she has power?" She turned to face him, cupping his jaw with one hand. "I need your help to release her. If it is ever to happen, it will be tonight."

"Release her?" That could have several meanings.

"From this place."

"She's trapped?"

"And has been since her death, unwilling and unable to move on." Her gaze was steady, though her eyes were full of pain. "Did you guess that she lived for hundreds of years after the ritual that changed her to the Slayer? She got the demon's immortal nature, too. She lived far longer than you, vampire, and has been here even longer. Alone. Will you not help end that?"

Spike knew that someday his impulsive nature would be his end. But Sineya was a Slayer; something in him had already belonged to her and her sisters for decades. And if he felt the weight of those years, what must it be like for the First Slayer? "You have my help."

Please with his swift reply, the Guardian took his cool hand in her own and lifted her face. "Sineya." Her voice was not loud, but it was powerful, and it called forth the First Slayer.

Sineya dropped lightly onto the floor in front of Joyce and Max. In the greenhouse, there wasn't room for this to be possible, but the floor of the desert in the dreamscape was much larger. Sineya stared balefully at the vampire, keeping her body between him and the innocent infant, though she did spare a glance toward the shadowy figure of Oz.

"She'll try to kill you now," the Guardian said. "Before she does, I need you to declare your love for the Slayer."

"What!?"

"Aloud. Declare that you love Buffy."

The word 'declare' underlined something for the supernatural part of Spike. His face flowed into the shape of his demon even as he began to speak. "I love Buffy. I love my wife." Thrice and done. "I love the Slayer."

The moment he uttered the last syllable, he felt something pull from his chest, part of his power, he supposed. He felt frozen, able to do nothing but watch as a portal opened to his left. And Sineya launched herself over the center of the circle at him.

As soon as she used the power of his incantation to open it, the Guardian tugged him to the side, away from the portal. She wasn't fast enough to prevent Sineya's nails from scoring Spike's chest. He could move again, but before he had the chance to square off against the First Slayer, a voice came from the portal.

"Sineya?"

Something in the primal concentration on her prey broke. Sineya jerked, then shook her head to clear it. She refocused, did not turn away from Spike.

"Sineya!"

The word could have been anything when spoken with such joy, but joy had no place in her existence. It was her name that caught her attention. With one last, mistrustful look at the vampire, Sineya glanced to the portal.

It was her turn to freeze.

"Sineya, na oule."

A male figure stepped out of the brightness. He was tall and slender, a young man. He wore a loincloth around his hips and the hide of a spotted animal over one shoulder. In his hand was a tall spear, and a stone knife rode at his hip. Four pale scars ran in parallel across his chest, marring the dark skin. Right now, his face was transformed with happiness, a wide grin on his face.

The First Slayer changed stance abruptly, upright instead of low and stalking, her attention on the man. Spike could only see half of her face, but he recognized shock and disbelief. In a hoarse, low voice utterly unlike what she'd used in the dreamscape he'd shared with Buffy, Sineya asked, "Atal?"

Atal laughed as he stepped to her, even as he blinked back tears. Spike saw that he had familiar scars on his neck, though from a larger set of teeth than any vampire should have. The parallel scars that marked his chest continued onto the arm that reached out to tenderly, reverently touch Sineya's face.

"Na kyauta," he murmured and began brushing away the clay painted over her features, destroying the skull design. Atal grinned again as his tears fell anyway, and he touched one finger to her full lower lip.

Sineya's fingers rose to touch the scars at his neck, the gesture uncertain. It was the first time in millennia she had touched anyone without violence.

"What's going on?" Spike asked as quietly as possible for human ears.

"Your love spell called forth her love," the Guardian answered. Like him, her focus was on Sineya. "I had to use a little mind magic on her. She remembers him, but after all this time, not his name, not his face. Just the idea of him."

"What are they saying?"

Something on the surface of Theia's face stilled, tightened. "I don't know. Their language was never recorded. I might get bits and pieces, where Neolithic words survived."

"'Irwale,'" Spike murmured. "That's 'escape' in Berber. And 'idder' means alive." That astonished the Guardian enough to glance at him, her surprise evident. Spike gave her a crooked grin and shrugged. "Do you know the story?"

"He died." She gave the answer starkly. "They loved each other and were to marry once she'd undergone the ritual to acknowledge her womanhood. A demon killed him a fortnight before the ceremony."

"Did she volunteer for this?" he asked sharply, thinking of the ritual that was ongoing past the thin membrane covering Sineya's plane.

"Yes. She had no idea of what it would do to her," the Guardian replied. There was more than a trace of bitterness in her voice. "The Shadow Men told her they could give her a weapon against the beast who had killed him."

By now, Atal had brushed the skull markings from her face. "She's… Bloody hell, she's young."

"Your Slayer was fifteen when she was Called."

He had no reply to that. They watched Sineya's curiosity as she touched the spotted hide across Atal's shoulder and his animated reply.

"The afterlife is different for everyone," the Guardian said. Spike could hear the wistfulness in her voice. "In their tribe, to become a man, he had to kill a leopard. Only, the demons had already devastated both the natural predators and herds. There were no longer any around for him to hunt. It seems he chose to spend his afterlife fighting demons. That must be his trophy."

"Then he's worthy of her." The suddenness of his words made Theia look at him. "Or, as much as any of us could be worthy of a Slayer."

"If you want them to have more than this moment of reunion, I need your help, William the Bloody." After a long moment of searching her eyes, he looked away. She knew his gaze was seeking Buffy, still visible through the thin veneer of this reality. "You won't have to leave her. Not in the course of her life."

A bittersweet smile touched his lips for a moment. "Ninety years."

Theia nodded absently. "I have to be with Sineya so that she can make the transition. She created this plane, but its borders are too… rigid for her to cross alone. You felt what it took from you to open that portal?" At his nod, her lips pressed together. "It will take most of what I have to finish this."

"Will she go?"

The Guardian turned to face him fully. "Wouldn't you? For your love?"

He flinched back, as if she'd slapped him. "Stupid question," he muttered in agreement.

"I must have a successor."

Spike stared at her dumbly for a moment, then shook his head. "You mean…? The Slayer of Slayers, becoming the Guardian of the Line of Slayers?" He laughed; he couldn't help it.

"You changed when you drank Xin Rong's blood." Theia's mouth curved in a cold smile. "I felt the change."

Spike's lips parted. "You…" His voice was gone; he couldn't manage more.

"You belong with the Slayers now."

Something flashed in his mind; another person saying those words in the same voice, someone standing between him and danger the same way Sineya had interposed her body between him and Max. It was gone a second later, leaving tears in his eyes.

He belonged to the Slayers. There was no denying it.

Spike knelt before the Guardian. He would pay the price. "What wouldst thou have me do?"

"Take up my burden, knight, and become the Guardian of the Line of Slayers." Tears began to track down her face. "I will take her through. I can make my own way home after that."

His jaw clenched. "Yet I do not know what to do."

The Guardian drew herself upright. The clothes she wore, another crisp business suit, flowed and lightened, becoming a light linen tunic. She touched Spike's face in a motherly caress, tracing over his cheek to his temple. Leaving two of her fingers on the scar where a Slayer first marked him, she murmured three short words. He rocked back on his knees. "There. You'll know, when it's needed."

She left him kneeling in the sand and turned to the young couple. "Emeka!" she cried, throwing her arms wide, capturing their attention. Spike saw that they had entwined their fingers, that Sineya's other hand was resting on Atal's chest, just beneath the scars of a fatal attack. "Ime," Theia teased, smiling at them. Then she gestured toward the portal and began shepherding them toward it.

Sineya's eyes widened, and she turned her focus on the vampire once again. Whatever she saw when she looked at him made her relax from her ready stance. Atal leaned down and said something to her in a reassuring tone.

She looked up at her lost love, tipping back her head. "Na okoro," she whispered, just before he kissed her.

Atal drew away, his eyes shining. "Na oule. Na Sineya."

"Na Atal." Still holding his hand, Sineya stepped through the portal, leaving her self-made plane of existence for the first time since her death over nine thousand years before.

Spike watched, aware of a bundle of knowledge resting in his mind. There was a knot keeping the knowledge inside the bundle, but he knew how to open it at need. The Guardian did not turn to look back, but he could see the curve of her mouth and recognized the motherly pride because he'd seen Joyce look at Buffy the same way.

He'd seen it on his own mother's face.

Then he was fully in the greenhouse again, just in time for the hum from the magic practitioners to come to an abrupt end. Willow turned to Tara, giving her a helpless smile.

"Twenty-seven," Mara croaked. Then she pitched sideways in a faint. Buffy was there before she could hit the ground.

Dawn leaned forward and touched Spike's wrist. "Where'd the Guardian go?"

⸹

Next Chapter: The remnants of the First Evil's army regroup. In Sunnydale.


	47. Last Gasp

**Last Gasp**

⸹

Los Angeles

November 2002

⸹

[In the first half of the story, potentials called by Willow's spell were 'slayers,' to differentiate them from those Chosen. Here, the potentials who chose to become Slayers get the capital letter.]

⸹

"Hi, Father Gabriel."l

The priest flinched, one hand going to his chest.

"I'm sorry," Angel said quickly. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's all right, my child." Father Gabriel gave him a crooked grin, realizing what he'd called the vampire. "Not that the ages work."

"No. I guess they don't." Angel sat on a hard, wooden pew, looking up at the holy man. "How is the last batch doing?" Angel Investigations had rescued four more groups of human cargo from smugglers in the past few weeks, calling on the priest for assistance each time.

Sighing, he leaned against the side of the pew. "Well as can be expected. We're covered for Spanish and Portuguese, but we only have a Filipino translator a few hours a week." He frowned suddenly. "Before I forget, are there more vampires on the streets?"

Angel frowned in turn. "No, not that we've seen. Why?"

The priest lifted a shoulder. "Nothing concrete, just… Faces I don't see in the shelter at night. People who are usually in the soup kitchen. I might not have thought anything of it, but Brother Francis from San Dimas mentioned the same thing. Then I had a call from Sister Martha from Saint Luke's in Emerson, about a homeless man who's been a fixture there. His family was asking about him, and she wondered if he'd turned up in our shelter."

"You think someone is taking them?"

"I haven't heard anything like that." The priest shook his head, his worried eyes on the doors of the church, as if the missing people might step inside.

"We'll check on it," Angel assured him. "About the human cargo… Can the Church continue to take more?"

"There's more?"

The big vampire nodded. "Unfortunately. We're lucky enough to have someone with visions to guide us. He's aware of a freighter coming into port next week."

Father Gabriel murmured a quick, sincere prayer for the safety of the humans still too far away for rescue. "Do you know where they're coming from?"

"Latin America."

"Well, that's good news for us, translation-wise. We'll see to them. Just call and let me know when you find them."

He stood and nodded. "Thank you, Father. You're a good man."

"As are you, my friend."

Angel froze. "I'm neither, actually."

Father Gabriel gave him a piercing look. "Are you trying to atone for the evil you did as a soulless vampire?"

"I am."

"Don't bother."

"What?" he asked sharply.

With no fear, the priest took one of Angel's hands in his warm ones. "Or are you trying to save your soul?"

He wanted to shift uncomfortably, but made his body stay still. "I am. I… I'm not using hyperbole when I say I've been to hell, Father. I can't go back."

"Listen, my son, truly listen. You cannot atone for things you did not do, unless it was a sin of omission. You can only take responsibility for your own actions, repent, and turn from those sins." He looked into the widened brown eyes. "Does your vampire feel sorrow for the pain he's inflicted on this world?"

Giving a short, humorless laugh, Angel shook his head. "Definitely not."

"There. You see? Think of the wrong you have done to others while you've had your soul. Think of the patterns that lead to sin. Break those patterns. Atone for those sins. Love others and do unto them as you would have them do to you." Giving the cold hand a final squeeze, he said emphatically, "That's all you can do. That's all that is asked."

Angel was ten feet away, his voice floating behind him. "I'll call when we've made the rescue." Then he was out in the soft, early night of Los Angeles, running at half-vampiric speed for the shelter of his car.

It couldn't be easy as the Father said.

Forget what Angelus did? Focus on what he did?

He sat there a long time, thinking of the priest's words, pondering the patterns of his human life. The face he saw most wasn't anyone centuries dead. It was Cordelia's. After a while, he turned the key in the ignition and began the drive home.

Angel slipped into the Hyperion, feeling like the most useful thing he could do was get drunk. His head hurt, as though he could have a vision.

"Angel!" Wesley called. "You missed Faith's call. She rang a bit ago with news."

"News?"

"Twenty-seven new Slayers just came into the world."

He almost sighed with relief. "I think I need a drink."

⸹

London

⸹

"This scares me."

"You did the right thing. Those girls made a decision. You never had a choice."

Buffy held Spike tightly in the confines of the hotel bed and focused on her breathing. Two hours ago, during the spell, she had sensed inhuman eyes falling on her, watching what she and Faith did. Watching Willow and Tara channel that hurricane-force magic, too. The Powers That Be witnessed what they did, and the scrutiny and the ensuing silence terrified her. She eased up her grip after clinging to him for several minutes of silence. "It was big."

"Profound."

That was the right word. She shivered. It had been her idea to make new Slayers on purpose. Maybe because her death at the hands of the Master had accidentally created two Slayers, she was the only person to whom the idea could have occurred. She might live to regret both the idea and pushing for it to come into reality, but she had done something, had a solution that might make the world a safer place. She could live with profound.

Then Buffy let out a breath and turned to the other change the night had brought. "What the Guardian did scares me, too." She traced her fingertips over the nearly healed marks the First Slayer had left across her husband's torso.

"I don't think it's going to matter for a long time," Spike said finally, his deep voice wrapping reassuringly around her with a warmth his body could not provide. "But… I had to, love."

"I understand," she whispered. She didn't try to hide the tears on her face. "And I know the Guardian didn't resurface for centuries. It's just… You belong to _me_ , you know?"

"I do," he affirmed.

" _I'm_ your Slayer." Her voice was steely with possessiveness and jealousy.

"No other," he affirmed, his voice now raw with an unvoiced sob. _Oh, love, never think otherwise. I am yours, body, mind, demon, and soul. And you are mine. But don't you get it? You_ are _the Slayer. The epitome, the… pinnacle. The other Slayers are the shadow you cast._

She sniffled, pushing down her jealousy. Oh, the way he saw her! She would die trying to be who he thought she was. _I'm just me._

 _You are the mold-breaker, the rule-breaker, the bringer of fire._

 _Don't look at me like that._

 _I've been in awe of you since I first saw you, love. I must have been in awe of you in every lifetime before this. How else could an evil creature like me_ –

 _You are no creature. You were never wholly evil._ She sat up on an elbow, giving him a fierce look. _You're the most amazing demon ever, to go against your own nature._

His look was impatient, the face of a man who would never accept her argument, though he accepted that she was stubborn enough never to cede the point. _Then a right match we are._ Spike drew Buffy back down and pressed his forehead against hers. _Love, I don't think I'll have any duties for a long time, from what the Guardian said._

 _Until I'm gone._

He closed his eyes. _Always figured I'd walk into the sun right after._

Buffy's fingers clenched convulsively, digging into his shoulder and side. "Don't," she whispered. They never really talked about this.

 _With a mission…_

… _maybe you won't._ She finished the thought for him. There was another silence, not a comfortable one. "I thought I was the only one who thought about what will happen… after." Her voice was small and strangled. "Don't, Spike. Don't do that. When I'm gone, I want you to go on, to find someone else to lo–"

"There will never be anyone else," he said harshly. "Know my heart, kitten. Everything that I have, the totality of me, belongs to you."

She was crying now. "I know." Her nose was blocked, so 'know' sounded like 'doe.' "Same," Buffy managed.

Tears flowed down his cheeks, even as he brushed the wetness from hers. "Love you, Slayer." _Words are never enough._ Her years, long though he was determined they would be, were not enough.

 _I love you, too. Forever. Love you forever._ Forever would not be enough. She couldn't manage spoken words, so she leaned closer and kissed him until their faces were dry, soft and undemanding. Then she asked, _Was Sineya happy, though?_

Spike's smile was wide enough for Buffy to see clearly in the dimly lit room. _She was. Oh, Buffy, she was in love._

⸹

"This is like a mail-order bride catalog," Faith muttered. She was staring at the dossier the Council of Watc– ahem, the Council of Slayers had put together on the newly called girls. "Oh, hey, I'm in here. Think there's a rich sugar daddy that will see me and make a bid?"

Buffy bumped her shoulder into her sister Slayer's. "Gross." Then she leaned over and found her photo, too. "God, did they have to use that picture? I have bags under my eyes like I've packed for an arctic expedition." They were in Faith's room for a final visit; Buffy and her family were heading back to Sunnydale in a few hours.

"So, how did old Willingham talk the rest of them into this Council of Slayers thing?"

"I think they just respect him or something. Also, like he said, a majority of female Watchers. They have a different perspective on things than a group of stuffy old guys."

Faith flipped through the pages. "Geneva… Rona… Chao-Ahn… Kayla, omigod she's cute." The dark-haired Slayer put her finger on the picture of a girl from Minnesota. "Her. I'll take her."

Buffy sent her a sly grin. "Thought you were through with the ladies now that you've paid your debt to society."

"But she's adorable," Faith whined.

"Mara talked to Willow and Tara," Buffy said, her voice falling into a low, confidential tone. "She told them a couple of interesting things." She took the dossier from Faith and flipped back a few pages to a picture of a red-haired girl. "This one, Vivian, was the first to say yes. Mara also said she didn't accept some of the volunteers."

"More than twenty-seven volunteered?" Faith asked, a frown on her face.

Buffy nodded. "Two of the volunteers were under fifteen, and Mara thinks that's too young. She said she's known the potentials for a few years, has a sense of each of them. Some of the girls volunteered so they could say 'I'm the Slayer' instead of to save lives."

"Oh." Faith's eyes widened in comprehension. "Ohhh," she said again. "I can see where you wouldn't want to give superpowers to those bitches."

Buffy snorted. "We're probably going to be the only bitchy Slayers."

"Well, we're old school. We can be however we like."

"One more thing to tell you."

Faith turned to face Buffy, moving closer in response to the tone of warning. "Yeah?"

"The Guardian is gone for good. The last thing that she did was guide Sineya to her heaven."

The dark-haired Slayer looked nonplussed. "That's good, isn't it?"

"I think it is. She could use the rest. Sineya was the first, and our line started over nine thousand years ago."

"Nine thousand." Faith parroted the words, then shook her head in incomprehension. "She's been, what? Watching over us for nine thousand years?"

"Just watching, I guess. Theia said she didn't have the power to really do anything."

"When did she tell you all this?" Faith tried to keep the jealousy from her tone.

"She didn't. She named a replacement before she left." Buffy gave her an apologetic smile.

Faith started to ask who, but the answer came to her. Her jaw dropped. "William the Bloody? The Slayer of Slayers is the new Guardian?" She considered this. "It's a secret, isn't it?"

Buffy nodded. "We told Giles, Mom, and Dawn. And now you. Just family."

Faith started to say something at being included in that group, but her emotions were too close to the surface. Instead, she asked, "Not the Council?"

"No." Something difficult lurked behind Buffy's eyes. "Theia told him the job starts after my death."

Faith looked mulish once more. "Ain't that nice of her."

Lifting a shoulder in a shrug that didn't hint at the bitterness inside, Buffy made herself smile again. "Yeah. But he'll do a good job. He might not have her kind of magic, but I think we can use a Guardian who's willing to rip the Council a new one when they need it. And he won't hibernate in a tomb for centuries at a time when we could really use backup."

Faith watched her sister-Slayer's face and firmed her full lips. "Sounds like we've traded up," she declared stoutly. Inside, she felt the same bitterness that Buffy's voice hinted at and realized with dismay that someone had a sacred duty foisted on them, after all.

⸹

Sunnydale

December 2002

⸹

"Hullo, Buffy. How were your hol– Oof!"

She flung herself against William, knocking him into the wall of the student union cafeteria. "I missed you."

It took everything in him not to gather her in a husbandly embrace. "I wish I could be sorry, but I can't. Not if it leads to this." William smiled down at her, awkwardly patting her back.

Buffy wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "Thanksgiving was a little intense."

"Ah. Family?"

"Family business, mostly." She sniffled and drew away from him, not sure why she was acting this way. Playtime, she reminded herself. "Sit with me for lunch?"

"I will for a moment. I can't stay, but I wanted to ask you something."

"What?"

"Let's get you some food first." He waited with her until she had a salad and a bag of chips and they'd found a table. "I just wondered if you'd meet me for lunch on Thursday."

"I'd love to." Buffy stabbed a hunk of lettuce and gave him a narrow look. "Not here?"

"No. I'd like to take you on a picnic."

"Oh?"

"I-I know it doesn't sound exciting," he began, then deflated. "Well, actually, it won't be exciting. But the weather forecast is for warm and sunny, and there will be food." William pouted at her a tiny bit. "Lots of food, possibly even tasty food."

Buffy hid her smile. "You had me at 'not exciting.' The past few days, I've had a little too much of that."

⸹

Spike left Buffy to eat after another few minutes and set off to find another UC-Sunnydale student. "Michael!" he called, lifting an arm as the dark-haired young man came out of a classroom. He remembered just before the coven member turned around that he was still wearing spectacles and whipped them off his face with near vampiric speed.

"Hey… Spike." There was a question in the way Michael said his name. "You look… collegiate."

"Blending in with the natives," he sneered, waving aside his khakis and button-down as he fell in step next to the sorcerer. "So, Red and Glinda catch you up on all the craziness in Blighty?"

"If you mean, did Willow and Tara tell me that there are another twenty-seven Slayers in the world, yes they did. More targets for you, huh?"

Spike gave him an annoyed look. "Mick, not here to take the piss." He took a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it over. Michael was getting his degree in art, specializing in jewelry. He'd often make settings for the crystals that the coven used and described his armor spell in terms of the interlinking loops of chain mail. Of all the members in the coven, Michael had immediately come to Spike's mind for this project.

"Blacksmithing workshop?" he asked, reading over the description of a seminar.

"Found it on the Internet," Spike explained. "Chattanooga, Tennessee, falls on the same week as spring break."

"I sort of have plans for South Padre Island," Michael hedged.

"Or you could get some training to make Slayer Scythes for all the new birds. And Faith; she doesn't have her own."

Michael nearly dropped the printout as he looked at Spike with wide eyes. Though he'd made various kinds of magical armor for the Scoobies, this was a level of magic he'd never considered. "Make more Slayer weapons?" His eyes went into middle distance as he imagined the process. By the time he came back to the moment, he was flushed with excitement. "Do they all have to be the same?"

"So long as there's something stake-like to them," Spike said with satisfaction, "I think we can go crazy."

Michael sobered. "I… Can we even do it, I mean?"

"Sort of have the original recipe," Spike admitted. "We might not have the magic yet, but I daresay your coven is only going to get bigger."

⸹

"Dawn? You here?" Buffy called, opening the door to the house on Revello.

"Down here!" Dawn shouted. "Looks like my jailer's here," she continued in an undertone. It was what she'd been privately calling her sister. Joyce and Giles made sure someone was checking on her, which seemed unfair, as their mother used to leave high school-aged Buffy alone and unattended when she went on buying trips for the gallery. "Hey," she went on in a normal tone once Buffy came down the stairs. "Did you see the news about the bus crash?"

"The lacrosse team from Emerson University? Yeah, I did. Have they found it?" The team had been on their way to UC-Sunnydale for a preseason match when the bus they rode in went missing.

"No." Dawn made a face. "There's a lot of desert to search."

Buffy sat down on the foot of the bed where Dawn lay leafing through a magazine. "No reason for the bus to have been on an ocean road, is there?"

Her sister shook her head. "Not unless they made it to Sunnydale and drove past the college."

"That's good. Some of the coastal roads, you know… I get horrible nightmares of going over the cliffs."

Dawn shuddered. "Me, too. I'm always ten miles under the speed limit when I drive those." She tossed her magazine partially beneath the bed and sat up, scooting closer to her sister. "Heard from Mom or Giles?"

"Briefly. Mom sounds fine; she was General Mom, giving me orders about decorating for Christmas. I didn't talk to Giles, but apparently the Watchers aren't as shattered as they were when we were there. He says the word 'resilient' a lot."

"I got an email from Aubrey. He didn't use that word, but he did type 'ruddy' to describe his job."

Buffy smiled and rubbed her sister's shoulder. "You miss him?"

"I do. I wish we'd always had a grandfather, you know?"

"You would have been even more spoiled," she teased.

"Me? Huh. You, maybe."

"You're his favorite." She leaned into Dawn's shoulder. "You know you are."

"Well, just because I've spent more time with him."

"We'll get him back." Buffy stood up, sighing. "Who can resist the lure of the Hellmouth?" She started for the stairs. "So, pizza for dinner?"

"Sure. Alby is coming by for a while."

Buffy turned, raising an eyebrow at the casual announcement. "Alby?"

Dawn didn't look at her, just focused on brushing her hair back over both shoulders. "Yeah. I'm helping him with a poster he's doing for American History."

"I kinda thought Alby was history."

"He is. I mean, it's not a thing." Dawn shrugged, still not looking at her sister.

"Okay. He's outie by nine, though."

"Fine," Dawn said, long-suffering, "warden."

⸹

[Author's Note: The first partially quoted poem is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 14" and the second is Pablo Neruda's "If You Forget Me."]

⸹

"'If thou must love me, let it be for nought/Except for love's sake only…'"

Buffy lay with her head on William's leg, feeling drunk. He'd found a shady spot for their picnic beneath an old oak tree on the edge of campus near the woods. She'd slain vampires on the walkway twenty feet away, the pavement uneven because of the tree's roots. She'd seen Initiative commandos prowling through the woods behind them. Far across the grassy lawn, students hurried to and from classes.

None of that mattered, not with William's voice wrapping her in the beauty of some of the world's greatest love poems. She was light-headed with the sensuality of the afternoon. He'd fed her finger foods, plied her with wine that, strictly speaking, shouldn't be on campus, and coaxed her to lay her head on his thigh. Then he began to recite poetry, sometimes reading from an anthology, sometimes speaking from memory.

The leaves above them were brown now, though the oak wouldn't shed them until new leaves pushed them aside in the spring. Sunlight fell through them, dappling the darkness of the trunk and speckling the still-green expanse of lawn. The way his rich voice and posh accent spoke the words didn't always mean the poems made sense to Buffy, but all the imagery became real and beautiful.

Sometimes she looked up at the blue sky, sometimes at William, his hands or his beautiful face. Sometimes Buffy just let her eyes fall shut so she could focus only on what she heard. Once, he softly stroked a strand of her hair.

After a while, he fell silent. She felt movement as he lay down the book, and so she offered the only criticism she could. "I loved them all, except the one about the roots seeking another land."

"'…if little by little you stop loving me/I shall stop loving you little by little?'"

She moved her head in a slight nod. "I don't think that's how it really works."

Something old and worn came through in his voice. "Wouldn't that make things easy and neat, if it really worked like that?" His tone stated clearly that he agreed with her assessment.

Buffy tried to hide her smile. "So, I'm not the first girl you've read poetry to beneath a tree?"

William didn't answer. "I am a very selfish man, sweetheart. This is an old fancy of mine, that I could share words of beauty like these on a lovely day like this," he leaned closer, and once again, she felt a light touch on her blond tresses, "with a woman who is as beautiful on the outside as she is in her heart." He waited until she opened her eyes to look at him. "Thank you, Buffy Summers. You are the first. The only."

She let out a little sigh of contentment and rolled to sit on one hip, propped up with a hand. Buffy looked at him in the melancholy light of a short, winter afternoon, warm though it was, and gazed into the amazing blue eyes behind his reading glasses. For a moment, she wanted to tease him, ask him if he'd read to the other girls on a park bench instead of beneath a tree. But this was William, so she didn't.

"And you are the only man who ever read poetry to me." She did feint a little then, trying to make the mood a bit lighter. "And, in an incredible voice with a bonus British accent that is much with the cuteness. Thank you."

She saw his dimples as he cast his eyes to the ground beside them, an unwilling smile taking his mouth. Her heart gave an almost painful lurch, and she was beyond disappointed that they were taking Dawn to see _The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers_ tonight. God, she was so sad, lusting after her own husband like this, too shy to ask him to maybe recite poetry to his wife while he moved inside her.

"You just broke the grammar portion of my brain, Miss Buffy." He looked back into her eyes, making her toes curl. "And you're welcome."

⸹

"You cooked?"

"Hey, I can cook," Dawn shot back, glaring at her brother-in-law across the island in her mother's kitchen. "I have two signature dishes, lemon pepper chicken–"

"Heavy on the pepper," her sister interjected.

"– and meatloaf."

"Into which you put Skittles," Spike added.

"Only the purple ones!" Dawn huffed. She tossed the potholder onto the counter and crossed her arms. "I'm tired of takeout. Come on, does it smell bad?"

"No," Buffy said grudgingly. "What is it? Pork chops?"

Dawn frowned at her. "Pot roast."

Spike was peering into the oven. "She used one of those plastic bag things." He stood back up, brows furrowed. "Those orange bits aren't Cheetos, are they?"

"I didn't think of that," Dawn said, half to herself. Then she tossed her hair over her shoulder and said with great dignity, "They're carrots. I used a recipe."

"It doesn't smell bad," Buffy admitted. "I'll eat some. How much longer?"

Dawn deflated. "Two hours."

"Uh." Buffy looked at the kitchen clock as she made the little sound of protest. "But I'm hungry now."

"Well, I didn't notice how long it takes to make a roast this big," Dawn said, matching her whine for whine. "It's my first time trying anything this complicated."

Spike shook his head to the side, forcing his attention from Buffy's cute, pouting lip. "Got any Doritos, Bit? We'll snack on those and watch a video or something while we wait."

"Or we could go see _Two Towers_ again."

"That's way longer than two hours."

"We could just take a look at your homework," Buffy said sweetly.

" _George of the Jungle_ ," Dawn said quickly.

He pointed a finger at her. "No. That is not a kid's movie. Should have been X-rated for Fraser's chest alone."

Buffy smirked a little. "Spike has a boy crush," she singsonged.

"Yeah, well, so does Dawn and her married sister Buffy," he shot back.

"And X-rated? God, you're old," Buffy complained. "NC-17, now."

"Gotta love a man in a loincloth," Dawn sighed dreamily.

"We're watching _Shrek_. You," Spike pointed at Dawn again after making the pronouncement, "get the crisps."

"Chips. You're in America, dumbass."

"Language," Buffy sighed, going up on tiptoes to reach the upper cabinet where her mom kept snacks. She frowned. "Has Xander been by? 'Cause I'm not seeing the Doritos."

"I think they're already in the living room," Dawn said, trying to remember if there were any left after Alby's visit. The three of them had barely settled on the couch and were still bickering through the FBI piracy warning when two people appeared abruptly in the foyer.

"Oof!" Dawn grunted as her sister and brother-in-law both flung themselves atop her. She faintly heard the crunch of bones as Spike involuntarily went to vamp face.

"No time," Willow gasped, steadying herself against Groo's big arm. "Get your weapons. We've got to be on the Hellmouth, like, now."

Both blond warriors moved off Dawn and to the weapons chest, snapping into business mode with scary speed.

"Just had the vision," Groo offered.

"Opening?" Buffy asked.

"Summoning," Willow replied.

"True demons." Groo nodded a greeting at Dawn as Spike blurred behind him to get his already heavily laden coat from the tree.

"Shit." Buffy came up with an elegant sword as well as the Slayer's Scythe.

"Need me?" Dawn asked.

"No." Her sister and brother-in-law spoke in unison, both adamant.

Spike grabbed his phone from a pocket and sent a preprogrammed text. "Crew is ready, if you want them, Red."

"I-I think we need them. Numbers are of the good." Willow sent a quick, worried look at Groo; everything had been moving very fast since he'd called her just minutes ago. "Sorry, Dawn. Call Giles; ask if the Devon coven can lock down an area around the Hellmouth as a failsafe." Willow grimaced as her words made the teenager go pale, but there was no time for reassurance. She held out her hand, and Buffy and Spike touched her fingers. They were gone.

⸹

"B." Faith breathed out the letter with some relief.

"Hey." Buffy looked around as she handed the Scythe to Faith, who sheathed her long knife at her hip. They were in a cavern, lit by a tiny sun she recognized from Willow's previous spells. It was hovering above Faith, Angel, Connor, and Oz. No Gunn or Wesley, which meant there was something too powerful for mere humans to deal with awaiting them.

After another moment, most of Sunnydale's 'safe' vampires appeared behind them. All of them immediately went to game face and hunkered down, some hissing and most reaching for weapons. Luisa crouched on the floor of the cavern, looking almost panicked, even in game face.

Spike's eyes widened, and he turned to meet Angel's gaze. The big vampire looked frightened, matching the feeling that curled through him. "What the hell?"

His grandsire had no answer. The same sense of other vampires was on him as well, but he'd never felt this kind of primal fear playing along his spine before.

"You, too?" Oz asked. "Interesting." He reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and handed Spike a sealed plastic bag of yellow powder.

Their eyes met in a sober understanding before the blond vampire took it. "Thanks," Spike said belatedly. "Hellmouth's not far," he commented, his eyes gone yellow.

Buffy could sense it, too. "That's where we need to go?"

"It is." Groo unslung the axe on his back. "I think we'll have to fight our way through the demons to get to where we need to be."

"Where's that?" Buffy asked, her voice composed.

"That way," Angel said, nodding toward a group of openings on the other side of the cavern.

Groo began heading that way. "Something like a lid on the Hellmouth. That's where the sacrifices are happening."

"Sacrifices? Who?"

Faith answered Buffy's question. "Humans. By Caleb the defrocked asshole. Groo recognized him from the picture."

The tension on Buffy's pinched face eased a fraction. "If he needs sacrifices, then maybe he isn't the First Evil manifest."

"Yeah, let's hope. In Groo's vision, each time a human's lifeblood spilled, a new demon came out."

Connor shook his head. "Demons? I sense vampires, that's all." He watched Faith and Buffy exchange a look as they walked in front of him, Faith giving a nod of agreement.

"May not be your garden variety vamps, these," Spike said unhappily. He reached down and pulled his lieutenant to her feet, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. Then his eyes narrowed and he put on a burst of speed.

Everyone else saw where his eyes were focused a half-second later. Two creatures emerged from one of the openings on the edge of the underground space. They weren't imposing, well under six feet, but the malevolence that rolled toward the champions was palpable. The creatures had white skin, prominent brow ridges, and reddened, razor-sharp fangs, strongly reminding Buffy of the old Master. She was on Spike's heels before she fully registered his charge.

With a snarl, Spike leapt high and brought the crook of his _Kukri_ down on the point where the leftmost humanoid's neck met its shoulder. It sank in a couple of inches, then the blade snapped in two.

Before Spike could roll toward the one on the right, the demon he'd attacked roared in pain and fury. It swept a defensive arm at the blond man, its talons shredding through his coat and shirt to score his chest and ribs and throw him twenty feet back.

A battle cry burst from Buffy's mouth, and she was in front of the demon who had dared lay a hand on her husband. Even as she ran, she'd been preparing a sweep of her sword, getting in range with precise timing so that the twist of her torso put extra strength into the slice that took off its head. As it dusted, she pivoted toward the other demon, but someone else was already there.

Groo was at her back, using her rush to hide his intent. He brought up his axe into the chin of the second demon. It went backwards, the flesh of its face a bloody ruin. Then it shook its head once and rose to its feet, renewed malice in its eyes.

"What the fuck?" Faith breathed, moving past Groo to have her turn with it. That was a blow that would put down trolls, and her senses told her that this was just a vampire.

The demon didn't care that its target had changed. It charged Faith, claws slashing at her. Instinctively, she half-twirled the Scythe so that the wooden stake was forward and shoved into its chest with as much force as she could muster. It had time to look down, something like surprise in the vertically slit eyes, before it burst into dust.

Buffy was already to where Spike was getting to his feet, checking his wounds. They were already healing. "'M fine, love." He gave her a bewildered look. "Broke my blade." The confusion turned to a scowl. "My favorite blade." He immediately took two more blades, double-sided combat knives, from his coat.

"That was like punching through rock," Faith said, a little shock in her voice.

"Blunted part of my axe," Groo noted calmly, turning the weapon in his hands so the still-honed side was forward. "There'll be more ahead."

"Damn." Oz shook his head. Angel took an extra step so that he was in front of Connor.

Steady and calm as always, Groo nodded toward the tunnel entrance, closer now. "We need to hurry."

Buffy and Spike brought up the rear. "Do you have anything longer?" she asked worriedly, unhappy with how close he would have to get to the demons' claws to use his knives.

He smirked, tongue lolling over his teeth for a second. "I do, love, but not much use in this –"

"Incoming," Angel called, stepping forward with his sword in plow guard position. This time, there were six of the demons. By the time the skirmish was over, everyone except Faith and Spike had a wound, and that only because the Gem had healed his. She and Buffy had killed five of them; the last had gone down when Connor looped the neck of a demon with the chain he'd taken from the Hellion last summer. Oz grabbed the other end, and as they strained to keep it down, Spike enthusiastically and gruesomely curb-stomped its head until it went to dust.

Buffy fought for her breath, pressing a hand to her arm to help stop the wound from bleeding. "I'm thinking it isn't because we're Slayers."

"Yeah, magical weapons," Faith agreed.

"More ubervamps," Connor informed everyone. Another six demons came from the tunnel entrance."

Luisa was shaking. "I-I can't touch one of those again." She didn't realize she'd lapsed into Catalan. The injuries she'd taken when one of them snatched her throat affected her less than its touch.

Buffy's heart sank as she tallied numbers. Another six meant fourteen sacrifices. Surely there couldn't be any more…? Even as she did the math, her body was moving forward. She connected with a demon's neck with the most efficient strike possible, then kicked the next into a third. Moving back, she tossed her sword to Connor.

He'd just wound his chain into the snapped loop at his belt, but his hand was up and grabbing the weapon the second he caught movement. Using the blond Slayer's strategy as a guide, he beheaded the closest target and snapped out with his left foot, driving through the disintegrating demon into the next in line.

With none of her allies in the way and a clear line of sight, Willow stepped forward for the first time. She thrust out her hand, eyes darkening, and snarled a single word. " _Sol_!" Savage and brilliant light burst outward. Like normal vampires, these demons also began to smoke and burst into flames.

"Good work," Groo approved.

"Thank you." Her breath was a little shallow after the killing magic, but her eyes were back to hazel.

"Nice sword," Connor told Buffy, saluting her with the tip. He saw she already had a stake in her hand as a replacement.

"She used it to kill your old man once." Spike threw out the comment as an aside; he was manic with the violence and the unfamiliar fear.

Connor's eyes widened as he turned to his father, who gave a shrug of assent. "I deserved it."

His son looked at the weapon once more, then passed it on to Spike. "Here." Connor didn't wipe his hand on his clothes, but he did brush his fingers across his thumb.

"Next round!" Faith cried out. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. She took out the first demon to come through the tunnel, then had to fall back as more and more emerged. Within seconds, all of them were engaged, battling the super-strong demons with whatever weapons they had left.

Vince was the first fatality. One of the demons got its taloned, sickly white hands on his neck and simply separated his head from his body. As he fell to dust, Luisa roared in rage and darted in with a slash of her knife that cost it one of its vertically-slit eyes. Fear forgotten, she pressed the attack. It snatched her close, but she shoved it away with strength borne of panic. She dashed out again and collapsed, rocking back and forth in grief and dismay at the full-body contact with the inhuman creature.

Nothing they did seem to matter unless done with one of the two magical weapons. Wounds inflicted on the ubervamps healed faster than for regular vampires, and they were so hard to hurt to begin with. Spike, trying to stay within a few paces of his incapacitated lieutenant, was beyond frustrated. Buffy kept tossing the Scythe and the sword to other people, relying on her fast reflexes to avoid being eviscerated while essentially weaponless. He snarled each time she did, even though her decisions and timing were impeccable.

Groo used his axe as a battering ram to push one of the demons away from Willow. Connor unleashed the heavy chain and snagged another around the neck again. This time, the creature got hold of it and, with a brutal jerk, snatched the other end from the teenager. He stumbled and nearly went down on a knee. Snarling, Angel leapt at it before it could take a step closer. It dodged, raking its claw along his leg as his dive carried him wide.

Brian intervened, pulling a Desert Eagle pistol from his coat and unloading a clip of .45 ammunition into its chest. Even missing a chunk of its ribcage, the beast only snarled and punched into Brian, shredding his torso. It clawed at him until it found his heart, then snatched it clear, crushing the organ before popping it into its maw with a malicious grin. Faith moved into position and swung the sword to behead it. The dust it left joined Brian's on the stone floor.

Unable to use her sunlight spell, Willow sent patches of a tarry substance to hinder the ubervamps. Their strong legs pulled free of it, and two of them began stalking her, understanding her to be a major threat. Faith and Buffy were there immediately, Faith killing one outright with the sword, Buffy driving the other to the ground with a mighty kick.

"Connor!" Oz called, using the Scythe's wooden end to finish off an ubervamp who had tried to flank them. The thrust through its dense bones had left his arms numb, and it had taken all his werewolf's strength. He tossed the weapon to the young man. Connor snatched it from midair, already turning to dispatch the second demon that had targeted Willow.

Oz looked at the group ranged against them, still at least a dozen, and shook his head. "Think you'll have to try," he said in a quiet voice, looking at Spike, who was still shielding the shell-shocked Luisa.

The blond man gave him a desperate look, checked their surroundings, then did a rolling dive toward the closest ubervamp. "Sword!" he called to Faith. She tossed it as he was mid-dive. He slashed off one of its arms and continued his roll until he was between four of them. Spike put down his right hand and used it as a pivot to sweep his body away again, leaving two hamstrung and one more with its guts falling from the leather tunic it wore. As he went clear of them, he tossed the sword to Groo.

He saw that a handful of demon reinforcements had emerged from the tunnel in the time it took to make that move, and his heart fell. There was no other choice; like Oz said, he had to try what they'd been theorizing about for the past few months. He dared not look at his wife. "Fall back!" Spike glanced at his surroundings and crouched, preparing for a leap. As he did, he took the baggie of yellow powder from his duster and threw it above his head, aiming for a stalactite near the tunnel entrance.

As he jumped, he vamped out, and then his body truly began to twist and warp. Instead of the warm, tawny fur of a prehistoric lion, his hide became scaly. Spike pushed himself _outward_ , his arms already outstretched. He felt decidedly odd, much stranger than he ever had during any transformation, but there was a rightness to his new form. Leathery scales covered his long, sinuous body, black along his back and limbs and red on his neck and throat. His demon eyes grew huge and sharp, his muzzle elongating, and he could feel the bones of his skull sweep backward.

Unlike his transformation into a big cat, this change left his intelligence sharper. His wide jaws opened as he caught the bag of sulfur powder in mid-air, gulping it down. A long, slender, forked tongue flicked out in pride at the exquisite timing of the catch. The last part of the change sent his arms far from his body, bones long and jointed, with membranous black wings attached.

The dragon Spike sank his talons into the stalactite and jerked his head around to the tunnel entrance. Good; the minions had disengaged, following his order without question. As they should. Inside his belly, muscles worked to push the sulfur back toward his throat, the only ingredient not readily available for what was coming next.

Groo gaped up at the twenty-five-foot long dragon clinging to the ceiling of the chamber. Oz pulled him back until he was moving on his own, then the slight young man picked up Luisa and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He made it fifteen feet before the dragon unleashed a new kind of hellfire on the army of ubervamps.

Spike preened as he spewed yellow and blue liquid fire over the puny demons, his claws scoring the stalactite deeply as he maneuvered around to get every one of them. Golden eyes raked over his enemies as they fell to dust. Unable to spread his wings fully in the cramped space, he half-fluttered and half-hopped to the ground to send another gout of flame down the entrance of the tunnel. Preternatural senses told him that another six were now dying.

He arched his neck and looked over his shoulder, then swept around, knowing he looked magnificent before the puny humans and demons that were left. He was fell and mighty; how should they look upon him except with awe? There was no desire in him to return to their form, only to finish this petty chore and find a way to the open skies. Then he would spread his wings and soar. A wide, avaricious smile peeled cold flesh from his long, razor-sharp teeth; he knew where there was the beginning of a hoard of his own, a place for him to make a lair.

Then the dragon stumbled, listing to the side as the last of Spike's supernatural ability spent. The huge beast roared its displeasure at this weakness, rattling the stones beneath its crouched legs and sending its previous perch crashing onto the cavern floor.

Above it, a face formed in the nothingness, something with glowing eyes and forward-facing horns. Its expression began to edge from furious worry to satisfaction. The dragon narrowed its eyes with displeasure at the insufficiently respectful spirit and unleashed fire hot as the surface of the sun on the apparition.

The dragon dwindled, and it fought its return to a lesser state, writhing, its wings smacking against the walls as it looked upward. The face was gone, and a thin layer of ash coated the ceiling. My enemies should mark me, it thought with satisfaction, lest I r– One of its knees gave way. Lest I rend them –

Then it was only Spike, falling supine at the entrance to the tunnel, his limbs sprawled loosely on the rock. His eyes were wide and staring as he drew in harsh, unnecessary breaths.

"Holy shit," Connor breathed. Angel spared him a glance but said nothing; it was the first time he'd heard his son curse.

Buffy was at her husband's side. "You idiot," she said, her voice thin.

"Go," he directed, grimacing as he tried to sit up and failed. "No more in the tunnel." The intervening stone of the cavern was no match for the dragon's ability to sense prey. His eyes rolled up to the stone above them. "Think I sent the First Evil off. Red card an' all." Even though his last gout of flames had been less cherry and more yellow-white. When she only looked confused, Spike refocused. "Humans, forty yards ahead. Tunnel's clear right now. Hurry."

Buffy looked into the darkness, and he watched as her worry was shunted aside by the Slayer. Humans were dying; she was made to stop this. "Cory, Tamara, Connor, stay here. Groo, give the sword to Faith. We'll take point."

"Tam's gone," Cory said in a thin voice. She had dusted under a demon's fangs while trying to follow Spike's order to retreat.

"DeShawn, then." Buffy lifted the Scythe and faced forward. Angel fell into the empty slot at her left, and the Slayers began walking into the dark tunnel. She dared not look back at her husband.

"I'm not staying behind!" Connor protested.

Following behind Angel, Groo paused. "Dude," he intoned, "not a dis. She trusts you to guard her heart." He put a hand on the boy's shoulder before entering the tunnel.

Oz deposited Luisa next to Spike as he passed. "Don't let any of those things get out."

"We won't," Cory said stoutly. He was pale, even for a vampire.

"Willow?" Buffy set her voice to carry, not sure how far behind the witch was. She didn't figure their approach was a secret. "Could we have light, please?"

Willow lifted her hand and flexed her fingers in a spell that was almost second nature after all these years. A moment later, a ball of light settled over Buffy and kept pace. She and Faith took advantage and lengthened their stride through the rock-strewn path. They met two ubervamps in the tunnel, Faith beheading one and Buffy staking the other. Then they saw light ahead and spilled into another, smaller cavern.

Harbingers immediately attacked them. Buffy swatted down the three in her range; using the Scythe on their previously human forms was like lighting a candle with the sun. As the pieces fell to the floor, she got a good look at the room.

The walls of the cavern seemed almost shaped by masons, though it was hard to tell through the coating of blood whether it was dressed stone. Rows of shirtless humans, all male, were chained along the edges. They seemed dazed and unfocused. Most of them were young, around her age, and she had a flash of realization that she'd just located the missing lacrosse team. Against the far wall was a heap of bodies, mostly of older men who had been in poor physical condition in life.

In the center of the room was a tall, sandy-haired man in a short-sleeved black shirt and a cleric's collar. Currently, he was swiping a cruelly sharp, fixed-blade hunting knife across the throat of a pitifully thin older man. The blood he spilled fell on a heavy circle of metal on the ground. It reminded Buffy of an oversized manhole cover. A brief glimpse of the design showed a pentagram with a worn goat's head before the lid was displaced. The clawed hand and wiry, pale arm of a demon reached through the opening and scrabbled for purchase on the ground. Another ubervamp had been released into the world.

Then more Bringers surged into her space. She wasn't sure how many of the First Evil's servants were there, or could even fit into the space, but there seemed to be no end to them. She and Faith had no problem bringing them down, but she saw Willow struggling with one until Angel snatched it away from her.

Free for a moment, Willow checked around, running frantically through the spells she could use. Years of working with the Slayer lay behind her decision: protect innocent life. "Slayers! Get Caleb!" she cried, turning sideways. Willow splayed her fingers and white light shot out in two directions.

Her right hand sent a wash of magical force racing around the edges of the room, protecting the chained men from being taken or harmed by the Bringers. The magic from her other hand left the Slayers and a handful of Harbingers in a bubble in the center of the room. Where she stood, there was a circular corridor of open space for fighting.

Oz was behind her, brushing against Willow's outstretched arm for a moment as he slipped into guard position. His jaw was distended, and he used it to rip through the throat of a Harbinger, tossing the robed figure away with a very human sound of disgust.

The rest of the gang quickly realized the new layout of their surroundings, using the invisible walls to force the First Evil's servants into standing battle. Groo, mindful of the room available, shortened his grip on the axe and began swinging as he walked the perimeter, leaving dead Bringers in his wake. Angel and Oz were less methodical, but just as deadly. Connor and Cory came out of the tunnel entrance moments later, each armed with some of Spike's weapons. They took in the new situation and began working in the opposite direction of Groo, trapping the remaining Bringers between them and the deadly sweep of the Pylean's axe.

In the circle of magic at the center of the room, no Bringers remained. Buffy and Faith separated, stepping clear of the robed corpses and advanced on Caleb and the demon he'd called last.

Caleb's eyes went from one to the other, malice marring his generic good looks. "Little girls have come out to play." The comment didn't seem to find its mark with either woman. He smiled at them. "So, who's the bitch and who's the slut?" His grip on the knife shifted. "I can't tell just by looking."

Buffy didn't take her eyes off him, reading the priest's shoulders and hips, but directed her comment to Faith. "And you said you've been having problems finding a nice guy!"

"I know," Faith agreed, overly sweet. "Just looking in the wrong places, I guess." Then she spun, extending the sword as she grasped it with both hands. Her strike was true as it was elegant; the last eight inches of the blade struck cleanly through the ubervamp's neck before it could even snarl. The patter of grit falling on stone was the only sound marking its death.

The cavern was quiet now except for their words and the occasional clank of chains. Caleb spared a glance behind Buffy and saw that none of the Harbingers lived. He sneered at Faith. "You shouldn't have come here, little girl."

Faith shrugged. "Take it up with her. It's her Hellmouth."

Buffy maneuvered behind Caleb, forcing him to step over the opening so he could see both of them. "Not my personal Hellmouth or anything," she said. "I just make sure it stays closed." She noticed blood trickling toward the seal from one of the dead Bringers, and she kicked the body with her heel, pressing the robe over the crimson fluid.

"Never send a woman to do an important job," Caleb taunted. "It's opened plenty tonight."

"Because you opened it, moron." Faith jabbed at him, but he didn't fall for the feint.

"To get you here," he said softly. "I knew you would come. Your blood is exactly what I need to throw this gate wide open." He lunged at Faith, then threw himself sideways to close with Buffy.

Faith leapt over the seal, driving her sword into Caleb's chest, through his lung and just above his heart. At the same time, Buffy pivoted to the side and came down with the Scythe, meaning to defend herself from the knife in his hand. Caleb's severed arm fell free, and he found just enough air to scream.

Faith moved on instinct, shoving him and his blood away from the seal, toward the wall. Willow saw her intent and dropped the magical force. The defrocked priest stumbled, falling just short of the line of lacrosse players. His voice had gone high and reedy as he screamed, clutching his bleeding stump to his chest.

"Slayers?" Groo asked, lifting his axe as he sought permission.

Faith's eyes were hard. "Seems fitting to me that a fucking misogynist who likes to kill girls weaker than him…" She trailed off, turning to Buffy.

"Be put down by whoever is closest," her sister Slayer finished with a shrug. "Just don't get blood over here."

Caleb tried to scuttle away, but one of the chained college students stopped him. It wasn't graceful, but considering that he was still chained, the lock he put on the defrocked priest's legs with his own was quick and effective. "Son of a bitch killed Coach Ross," he said. Dehydrated, his throat raw from sobbing, the lacrosse player didn't have much strength behind the words, only hatred.

Buffy and Faith looked at each other again, then she turned her eyes on the Groosalugg. He nodded in understanding and changed the trajectory of his axe. His first sweep cut through the chains holding four of the young men.

"Let's get these guys loose," Faith ordered. Her words got Oz and Angel moving, and the rest of the rescuers followed.

Groo looked at the young man, who was painfully lifting one arm to rub his other, both stiff from lack of circulation. "Don't get any blood near that metal circle, okay?"

He looked up at the warrior, his dirty, tearstained face empty of any expression. His eyes followed Groo's movement closely, marking where he leaned the battleax. Then something did flare in his eyes, and he nodded.

"Lot of rocks here," Groo said casually. Noting the young man's interest in his axe, he hefted it onto his shoulder. "Blunt trauma's probably best. We'll be waiting at the end of this tunnel when you're done."

Willow faltered after magicking away two sets of chains, and she turned to her friend, afraid of what she overheard. "Buffy?"

The Slayer didn't meet her eyes for more than a second. She looked away, but she answered. "Giving back power, Wil. Seems to be the recurring theme in all of this." For a moment, she closed her eyes against tears. She never had any idea how to handle a human enemy. Then she shook back her hair and strode out of the tunnel toward her husband and the light at the other end.

"Is it over?" Spike asked.

"Almost," Buffy said, dropping down next to him. "You sent Cory and Connor." She glared at him.

"I did. Figured they were needed in battle instead of as rear guard. I had Lu and DeShawn."

"If this was a real army, I'd court-martial you."

"If this was a real army, I'd have been booted out the first day."

"That's true." Her forgiveness was grudging but quick. "How are you?"

"Never doing that again."

She knew he meant transforming into a dragon. "You saved…" Something in his voice clued her in, and her fingers tightened their grasp on his body. "Why? What's wrong?"

He shook his head. _No love, Buffy. Only pride and… coldness. It didn't want to let me come back to this… form. To all this feeling._ Spike's eyes met hers, a simple, tired blue. _To you._

 _It could… do that? Prevent you…?_

 _No. If I had more juice, I guess maybe. But I don't have any magical talent, just whatever supernatural bits that go along with being a vampire._ He gave her a grin that had no humor behind it. _It was smarter than I was. Stronger._

Buffy stared down at him, stunned, feeling the fear that simmered in him. _No more transformations, okay?_

 _Think I'm good with that._

She took his hand, forcing him to take his elbow from the stone floor and lay back again. _You saved us. Without magical weapons, we couldn't have done it. But… don't do that again._

He lifted his face to meet her kiss. _Can't ever not love you, Buffy. Most scared I've been since we met, not… not wanting that._

They held each other for a few seconds, not long enough, but Buffy made herself let him go. She stood and looked over her shoulder. Everyone on her team was in the cavern, not looking at each other, unable to keep from listening for anything that might be happening in the smaller cave at the other end of the tunnel. Willow made a mouth and took her mind off it by drawing a first aid kit to her hand. All of them had injuries.

 _Angel?_

 _There are over twenty humans still alive._ He met Spike's eyes briefly. _Harbingers are all dead. We left the priest with them._

Spike got enough of the mental image to understand that frontier justice would be served. He was too tired to have an opinion on this. _Last dragon fire was for a ghostie minotaur-looking thing. First Evil, I think._

 _And I thought you were just showing off. It took that form when it showed itself to me._

 _You didn't see it?_

Angel shook his head and looked up at the ash above the entrance to the tunnel. _Seems you got something, though._

 _Doubt I got anything permanent._

 _Still, nothing was opening portals to bring more Harbingers to the fight._ He smiled. _Permanent or not, I think you landed a hit._

Spike's eyes went past Angel to Cory, who was turned away. He didn't need to smell blood to know the boy was crying. Brian and Cory had been his first, the backbone of the Sunnydale operation, even if Luisa and Vince were the senior vamps.

Vince had been senior.

He closed his eyes for a second, then took a breath and forced himself to sit upright. "Gather 'round, kiddies," he called, louder than he meant to. "Come to me. Kneel."

It wasn't grand or even grandiose, but the minions came to him in a ragged semi-circle. Next to him, Luisa forced herself from her cross-legged position to her knees. She was still shaking.

Then, unlooked for, Angel put his hand on her back and knelt next to her.

Spike stared for a moment, then jerked his eyes away. He was weak and shaken, but right now, he desperately needed to be strong for his team. He went to game face. "First big battle, yeah? Hellions came to town, sure, but we had time to plan. This time it was just brute force against brute force. Tomorrow, we'll grieve. Have a proper wake for Tamara, Vince, and Brian.

"Right now, on the battlefield, I want to acknowledge each of you. Not family, 'cept me an' Angel. Never made any of you submit, an' proud that you wouldn't. But right now," he shoved himself up a little higher with his right hand and lifted his left so he could bite into his wrist, "drink from me. We band of brothers. And sisters," he added, holding out his wrist to Luisa first.

"No," she demurred, though her eyes were golden. "I did not fight well."

"Plenty well enough, pet," the Master corrected her. "Drink."

She did, one sip, then averted her face as fresh tears fell. Angel put his lips to the wound on Spike's wrist, though he did not drink, just nodded in acknowledgement. Cory was last. He clasped Spike's hand in both his. After he drank, he pressed a kiss onto the palm. The Master cupped his tear-stained cheek for a moment.

"Right," Spike said, then cleared his throat. "We'll leave, soon as the humans finish their work. Miss Willow will get us back to the surface. You lot go home. Stay in tonight. Emotional right now, yeah? Lu, go with them to the apartments. I'll be by to talk to Sandy quick as I can."

Angel stayed as the minions rose, Luisa herding them to the side, checking their injuries. He took Spike's arm and licked over the rips in the thin skin, healing them. Then he brought out his fangs and tore into his own wrist. "Drink."

Spike considered rolling his eyes at the gesture. Instead, he clasped Angel's hand and brought the offering to his mouth. Like his minions, he only took a small amount before he sealed the injury. His eyes widened.

"Bloody hell," he murmured. "Forgot how potent family blood is."

"Plus I'm over a hundred years older than you," Angel pointed out helpfully. His smile was warm. "Never seen anything like that," he added, shaking his head before nodding toward where the stalactite used to be.

"Yeah? Won't see it again, either." Spike sat up all the way, no longer needing to prop his body up with his arm. "Word of advice: never shapeshift into a creature that's more intelligent than you. Not keen on leaving."

"Good advice," Angel agreed dryly, "though not applicable. Why a dragon?"

"Always wanted to fly."

"You do. You have a pilot's license."

"Two, actually." Spike gave him a faint smile. "But _I_ wanted to fly, yeah? Time-honored, classical desire. Nothing wrong with it."

"Oh, I can think of a few things wrong with it." He rose to his haunches and held out his arm, helping his grandchild to his feet. As they stood, the first of the captive humans came out of the tunnel.

Connor was the first to move toward them. "All done?" he asked, his voice low and even. One of the young men in front met his eyes with a nod and a flexed jaw. "Well, let's get you all to the hospital."

"Where did the monsters go?"

It wasn't much more than a whisper, but Connor was close enough to hear. "That was our job. They're dead, all of them. Now, we're going to get you some help."

Another of the captive lacrosse players let out a short laugh. "What are we going to tell them? The people at the emergency room? The police?"

"The truth," Connor said, putting his hand on the student's shoulder. "Enough of it. Figure that guy forced your bus off the road, something like that, right? Bunch of crazy guys took you hostage, but you got loose and fought your way free."

"What about the bod–" He looked down, tears squeezing past his shut lids. "Coach Ross, and all those poor homeless guys?"

"We'll bring them out," Buffy assured him, stepping up. Like Connor, she kept her voice low and soothing. She was thinking of the Initiative blueprints, of the natural caves that butted against one edge of the shuttered facility. If the coven would be willing to move the bodies there, no other civilians would have to be at the Hellmouth entrance. "Right now, though," she gave him a reassuring smile, knowing that human nature would erase the stranger edges of their harrowing experience, "we need to get you guys somewhere safe."

⸹

"How was it?"

"Pretty bad." Spike lowered himself to their bed. "You should be asleep. It's almost three."

Buffy ignored this; like she could fall asleep with his emotions battering the bloodlink. "How did Sandy take it?"

"Hard." Spike leaned against her, then scooted a bit away so he could lay down. He knew he should shower, but he didn't have the energy just now. "I worry about her sobriety."

"Did she love Vince?"

Spike sighed. "I don't know. I don't know if Vince loved her. But they cared about each other. They'd been exclusive for a few months."

Buffy traced her fingers across his brow, the scar over his eye, the planes of his face. "Do the girl vamps in the," she wrinkled her nose, "'suck houses' sleep with their customers?"

"Some of them do. Usually it's a first visit thing. After that, it's the allure of the bite."

She thought about that, how Spike could make being bitten an orgasmic experience. Yet she didn't find it addictive, and it wasn't something they did every time they made love. She had the sense that he – or any vampire – might be able to cause that addiction, and had a vision of a crowd of humans gathered around a vampire the way a small herd of cows might gather around a farmer at feeding time. Only, it would be the vampire's feeding time. The Slayer shivered. "Do you think she'll stay with us?"

Spike hesitated for a moment. He could still smell Sandy's tears on his skin, all of their tears. Only Luisa had been composed, now that she was away from the beasts that the First Evil had unleashed. His lieutenant had touched all the minions, her hands on their fingers or their napes, soothing them with her compassion and plying them with bags of expired human blood. When he left, Sandy was huddled against her on the couch in Vince's apartment. "I think she will."

Buffy kissed his brow and pressed closer, wanting to warm him. "Those were true demons, weren't they? I mean, they weren't mega-sized like the Mayor, but, still, straight from hell."

"Dunno that they were all that sentient," Spike said, "but true demons for sure. They felt like vampires."

"They did." She moved her hand and stroked his shoulder, feeling the tension ease out of him. "You'll need more minions."

Spike sighed. "Yeah. Lorne has some ideas, some vamps that have gone onstage at Caritas. I hate to do it right away. Don't want them to feel like they're disposable."

"Red shirts, Xander would say."

He felt her cheek curve against his chest as she made the small attempt at humor. "I love you, Buffy. Thank you."

She knew he was grateful for her comfort and her acceptance. "What else would I do, except love you?" _My amazing man._

 _And you are the core of me, love._ A minute later, he was asleep. Buffy watched over him, holding him against her warmth, until sleep claimed her, too.

⸹

The debriefing, as the Council called it, didn't take place until the next afternoon. Buffy would have called it an extended Scooby meeting, except for the presence of the seer from the Devon coven, Althenea, and three London-based Watchers who came with Aubrey.

The witch spoke first. She'd had a vision that, once stripped of symbolism and mined for meaning, went a long way in reassuring everyone that the immediate threat had past. "The First Evil isn't going anywhere, since it's everywhere, but nothing was growing in that field" – her vision had been of nettles and other thorns bursting through earth, then immediately withering to leave the ground charred and lifeless – "and won't again for longer than the centuries I can foresee."

"Does that mean it won't try killing baby Slayers again?" Faith asked, her eyes narrowed.

"Or trying to manifest in our world?" Giles added.

"It won't be able to accrue enough power to attempt anything for several lifetimes." The white-haired seer gave an impish grin. "Rather shot its load."

"Er, quite," Aubrey agreed faintly. "Thank you, madam." The fact that Spike had reported shooting a gout of dragon fire at an apparition of the First Evil made him feel better, too. Most ritual fires were based on dragon fire. He cleared his throat and fussed with a stack of papers before splitting the pile in two and passing the stacks to either side of him. "Take one, please."

Spike frowned at the image in the upper right corner, a pencil sketch of a creature that looked roughly like the demons they had fought. "Turok-Han," he said, rolling out the syllables experimentally.

No one said anything for a few moments as they read, then Faith broke the silence. "Neander-vamps," she scoffed.

"'Vampires that other vampires fear,'" Angel read. He put down his sheet of paper. "For what it's worth, that's true. They set my nerves on edge."

"Mine, too." Spike kept looking at the sketch. "Buffy didn't sense them as anything but vampires," he added absently. He leaned around Buffy and added in an undertone, "Reckon you might knock out something more accurate with your charcoals, Angel?"

"Any chance we'll see more of them?" Faith didn't care if they had a mugshot of the species; she just didn't want to have to fight any more of them.

"Quite unlikely," Aubrey said. "They seem to have been created by an Old One as mindless ground troops, a different race than the human hybrids we're familiar with. I suppose that the First Evil found it fitting, or perhaps ironic, to use them in its plot to destroy Slayers."

Buffy lifted her arm and pushed back her sleeve to show a green-and-yellow discoloration. "Hence my ironic bruises."

"We haven't found any spellbooks or other written material at any of the Harbinger locations," Aubrey went on, "so let's hope the bloodletting ritual to summon them is now lost."

One of the Watchers who had arrived with Willingham, a thin man in his mid-sixties, raised a hand. "One question. Why were none of the new Slayers brought in for this?"

Faith sent him a glare that should have dropped him like a punch to the solar plexus. "Because they aren't trained."

Buffy's voice was wintry. "The Hellmouth is my responsibility, not theirs." She inclined her head toward Faith. "I did call in another Slayer." After a moment, the Watcher dropped his gaze, and the room fell into an uneasy silence.

Aubrey harrumphed. "Shall we move to the next item? Munford?"

The Council representative stood and began speaking in a monotone that lost Buffy in the first thirty seconds. He was there to help smooth over the hijacking of the Emerson University team bus. The Devon Coven had relocated the chains and bodies, including Caleb's, to caverns near the old Initiative facilities and away from the Hellmouth. Then they had done some sort of 'thickening' spell to ward against physical movement, making it harder for any being trying to get to it as well as latching down the 'Seal of Danzalthar.'

"Who put a lid on the Hellmouth, anyway?" No one had an answer for Xander's question. Aubrey hazarded a guess that it had been capped by people in another dimension, but bespelled to exist across several realities. No one had a better theory, so they moved onto the last order of business, which was information control.

The story had everything needed to be sensational: kidnapped athletes, ritual killings, a daring escape. The Council kept the press away from the story as much as possible by working on the memories of the survivors. Unfortunately, no matter how much they spun the news toward heroism and bravery against a crazy cult or how well they managed to pare down the number of Harbingers involved to the few whose bodies were found with Caleb, the fact that people had died limited their ability to spin the narrative.

Emerson University had a memorial service for the late Coach Ross on the night before their winter graduation ceremony and a moment of silence during the event. Police officers from cities within a two hundred mile radius came to help identify missing street people. It took three weeks before the last body in the Sunnydale morgue was identified.

The Council could spin Caleb's motivations, though, and they 'leaked' information that Caleb headed up a garden-variety doomsday cult. Photographs of the mutilated Bringers mysteriously went missing. They also quashed the most flattering photographs of the defrocked priest, and the Catholic Church conspicuously noted that this was one priest whose bad behavior had been spotted and dealt with swiftly. Without a photogenic cult leader, grotesque mutilation of cult members, or hints of scandal, the news lost much of its spice.

Once any angle that might intrigue the press was dealt with, the Council went to work on, if not exactly helping the survivors, making the return to regular life a little easier. Buffy was reminded of how Spike had used the mesmer on Robin Wood when the Watchers reported altering the survivor's memories so they were less traumatic. The Catholic Church and the Council pooled resources to pay for medical and counseling expenses, as well as set up a fund to care for the families of the victims.

"Does that include the families of all those girls?" The coldness in Faith's eyes indicated she wasn't going to forgive the lack of help from the old Council anytime soon.

"It does. We're doing grief counseling," Aubrey said, shamefaced. "But there's nothing that will ever bring back their daughters."

He looked around at them. The people from Sunnydale were as grim as the rest; this was nothing like the celebration after defeating Glory. "We won the war, but lost all the rest of the battles because we could not," he shot a look at Faith, "or did not fight. It's over; the first known assault on the line of Slayers came to naught." He looked around at the rest of them. "Not one of us is the same. We aren't the same people we were when this began. We are not the same organizations we were when this began. Let us care for one another and our new Slayers as an honor to those who lost their lives, those young women, those homeless men, all the," his voice hitched, "women and men lost in the attack in London."

"Hear, hear," Althenea said.

"Hear, hear," the rest murmured, even Faith.

⸹

Next Chapter: After the Christmas holidays, William continues his courtship of Buffy.


	48. In the Details

**In the Details**

⸹

Sunnydale, California

December 2002

⸹

"It's so good to be home," Joyce whispered. She gathered Dawn into another hug. It was Christmas morning, and she was sitting on her own couch with her daughters on either side. The floor was littered with discarded boxes and colorful Christmas wrapping paper and bows. "I missed sunshine."

Giles was wearing a Santa hat, his first time as patriarch and distributor of gifts. "And I almost had a real Christmas. Forecast is for snow this afternoon east of London." He was sitting on the floor by the tree, Max in a baby carrier beside him. Both of them looked sleepy.

"One more day," Dawn reassured him. "Squaw Valley has a foot of fresh snow." They were going to the cabin tomorrow and staying through the turn of the year.

Spike came into the living room with a tray of coffee and slices of a poppy seed loaf. He lifted a foot to push a hickory-handled mace (a gift from Giles to Buffy) to the side of the low table and set down his burden.

They tucked into the light breakfast, all of them still a bit sleepy. Buffy felt both silly and entirely content, wearing her pajamas, Dawn's gift of red high heels, and Spike's Christmas present of matching ruby earrings and necklace. The last had been from a hoard he, Xander, and Jonathan had taken from Chicago. Spike was positive they had belonged to French royalty in the seventeenth century.

"That's it," Giles said into the companionable silence, putting down his cup with half the coffee remaining. "Let no one say that my infant son is wiser than me." He stood up, lifting Max's carrier. "I'm going back to sleep, too."

Dawn, stroking the vintage wool jacket with a mink collar that was Buffy's present, yawned. "I think I will, too."

"Don't forget to wash it," Buffy advised, watching Dawn pet the coat, taking it with her.

"Like I'd fall for that," her sister scoffed. "I know it's wool. You'd never given this to me if it could have been altered to fit you."

Buffy stuck her tongue out, caught her mother's look of reproof, and grinned unrepentantly. She looked down at her husband. "Why don't you go back to bed, too, sweetie?" Even with her blood and Angel's, he still hadn't bounced back from the transformation.

"Good idea," he said, not even arguing. He unfolded from the floor, leaned over to kiss both her and Joyce on the cheek, then went back upstairs to Dawn's old room.

"What about you, Mom?"

"I'm good. Dinner's prepped; all I have to do is put in the roast. And the house looks wonderful, sweetie. Thank you." They were having a British-style holiday meal instead of turkey.

Buffy turned to her. "So… Why did you want to have Christmas here?" The rest of the Scooby gang, including Aubrey, the coven, and Angel Investigations were already at the cabin.

"Because this will be our last Christmas here."

Hazel eyes widened. "What do you mean? Xander says the apartments won't be done for another fourteen or fifteen months."

Joyce turned to her on the couch, ducking her head a little. "You know Aubrey is going to recommend Rupert for permanent head of the new Council." She lifted a shoulder. "We'll be in England, at least three years, probably longer."

"I…" She searched her mother's face, having had her suspicions but not sure how she felt about this. "I didn't _know_."

"Who else can we trust to make sure the Council of Slayers doesn't revert back to the old Council of Watchers?"

Buffy looked down. "I had thought of that." She met her mother's eyes again. "You don't want to join him?"

"I've always wanted to live overseas." Joyce looked at her hands for a moment. "That's the only thing that appeals to me. Everything else…"

"What is 'everything?'" Buffy prompted.

Joyce focused on the tree, done with winking multicolored lights and old decorations with a lot of the glitter fallen from them over the years. She could see paper decorations Buffy had colored and glued when she was in kindergarten, another that poor, lost little Celia had made for her Aunt Joyce, and the white plaster imprint of Dawn's baby footprint, a cheerful red bow holding up the false memento.

"Moving is difficult on a new marriage. A baby is difficult on a new marriage. A change in job is difficult, too. I worry about how much stress Rupert will be under." She firmed her mouth and looked at her daughter. "But those are things I know, things I can guard against. Wanting to have Christmas here… I just needed to do something for me. Something selfish."

Buffy gave her a faint smile. "You're the least selfish person I know."

Joyce looked around at the fireplace, then toward the dining room. "This is the first place that was ever my own. It's where I grew up."

"Where you grew up?"

She heard Buffy's puzzlement. "Oh, honey. You don't turn eighteen, and you're grown up. It's a long process, sometimes not even milestones. Just the day-to-day routine that does it." Joyce could tell Buffy didn't understand, so she took her hands. "I left home for a college dorm room, right? And I married your father right after graduation. We moved into that terrible little apartment in Studio City. Remember, we took you by there? Then we got a house…."

"And then a bigger house, and then a bigger house."

"Right. But I was never on my own before coming here to Sunnydale. I grew up here, because I made the decisions, chose this house, found a place to start my own business. I was the adult," she finished, "for the first time."

"You and Dad weren't… partners?"

"Not really. Especially after I quit work. It isn't true in every marriage, but once I wasn't bringing in money, I think Hank didn't see me as an equal anymore. And, of course, I never made as much as he did."

Buffy was frowning, never having considered this. Spike had bought their house, or at least put the purchase in motion, before she'd seen it. It hadn't mattered; neither of them had needs much beyond privacy, security, and a comfortable bed. Their house, other than the art Spike bought from Joyce, was undecorated and functional. But at the time, it was really Spike's house. He'd been living on Giles' couch and found a place to live. Was her mother trying to tell her something?

She forced her attention away from her insecurities and back to her mother. "So, what does this house mean to you?"

"It's a symbol, I guess. I was able to provide you and Dawn with a home again, able to put food on the table all by myself. We were never rich, but at least we were solidly middle class. I did that. My business was never in danger of going under, not after the first couple of months. I felt… capable. Confident."

"Because you're awesome."

Joyce patted her knee. "I'm glad you think so. I did my best, and I failed so hard sometimes. But I came out of it a better mother. A better person. It wasn't easy, being alone. I was so lonely here."

"But you found a really good guy."

"Eventually. I never thought I would, Buffy. I never thought I could open myself up like that again." Joyce smiled, a sad, small expression. "It terrified me." She looked up at the ceiling, and Buffy knew she was picturing her bedroom, where her new husband and child were sleeping. "Almost dying changed a lot of things, but I'd already decided Rupert was worth feeling vulnerable."

"Maybe you could just close up the house for a while," Buffy said slowly, wanting to solve the problem, "or rent it out."

"We may do that instead of selling it," she agreed, "but I'll never live here again. Max won't grow up here. He won't remember my house at all."

She sounded so sad that Buffy pulled her into an embrace. "Maybe not, but wherever he grows up, he'll have a strong, wonderful mother who will fight for his happiness above her own. He's going to know you're amazing, and he'll love and respect the hell out of you, just like Dawn and I do."

"Oh, honey." Joyce hugged her back and kissed her cheek. She focused on her daughter. "You know I'm always going to love you and worry about you, don't you? I'm always going to be your mother."

"I know that. And I'm always going to love you. I think you did an amazing job with me and Dawn." She pulled away and reclaimed her coffee. "But I'll take all that back if you and Giles let Max have that pony you never got for either of us."

⸹

Squaw Valley, California

⸹

"It's strange without Cordelia here."

Spike spread his arms across the back of the hot tub and regarded Angel across the bubbling surface of the water. "We did invite her. I think she might have come, but she's on that publicity tour on the East Coast."

"I know." It was four in the morning; the house beneath them was quiet. Angel leaned his head back and looked at the stars, cold and nearly eternal. "I think I've been a fool, Spike."

"Won't argue with you."

He flashed him an irritated look. "I'm not talking about Cordy. Something else."

Spike kept his peace. It always took Angel a while to get around to sharing anything that had to do with his emotions.

"I think I've been on the wrong path for a long time."

"How's that?"

Another pause. "I don't think I can atone."

Spike was staring at him, clearly startled. "No?"

He shook his head. "Something a priest told me… I've been thinking about it a lot, especially since I've had so much time alone." The hot water felt good, and he slid off the bench so that everything but his face was submerged. "Angelus isn't sorry."

"He wouldn't be."

"No." Angel closed his eyes. He wasn't going to ask if Spike's demon felt sorry for all its sins; even if it was just a single death, that was still more than his. "But I'm sorry for my sins, and –" He stopped speaking for a moment. "Pride has given me so much to atone for."

Spike thought that he'd changed the topic somehow, though the words were the same. "'Go in peace, and sin no more.'" He wasn't sure if he had the phrase right. "What would that take?"

"Not sinning any more." Angel grasped the bench and sat back up, falling into silence once more. The two immortal creatures watched the stars wheel overhead for another twenty minutes. The timer on the hot tub clicked, and the bubbles died. "Thanks, Spike. It's always good to talk to you."

Spike watched the big vampire stand, water sluicing down his body, and grab a towel. "Glad to listen," he told him, mystified.

⸹

Connor and Dawn walked around the streets of the resort town, holding cups of cider in their mittened hands. They'd taken an Angel Investigations SUV down to the shops just to get away from the cabin. Neither of the teens was up for another round of board games.

"I'm glad we have lift tickets tomorrow," Connor said. He knew the adults threw them together because they were close in age, but he didn't know Dawn well enough to be comfortable with her. Plus, she _was_ older, too confident and pretty. "I can't wait to get back up there."

"You like it?" Dawn gave him half a smile. "My first time skiing alone was scary. I fell, then had to crawl to a tree to get myself upright, then someone bumped into me and I fell down again." She shrugged. "The second time was better."

"You don't like it?"

"No. I do now, I mean. Just, not the first time."

"You want one of those candy apple things?"

"No, I'm still full from lunch." She looked in the shop window. A store that sold nothing but candy apples? "You get one if you want."

"No. Wonder what it is about cold places and apples?"

"I don't know." Dawn frowned. "I think this cider is the only thing apple I've ever had that's warm."

"Sheffield serves an apple brown betty on Mondays that's really good. It's warm."

"Do you like it? The school, I mean?"

"I guess. I mean, I don't have anything to compare it to."

"So, do you have a girlfriend yet?"

"Um… maybe? I took a girl named Tracy to the winter formal. She's still speaking to me, or she was when I left."

"I'm kind of seeing an old boyfriend. He's a senior this year, so I don't know what will happen when he goes off to college."

"Our families are rich, aren't they?"

The topic change seemed abrupt to her, but she thought over their conversation and the fact that it took place in Squaw Valley. "Yeah. It hasn't always been like this." Dawn took a sip of her cider. Last year, Connor had been in diapers. Her family's post-divorce clawing to stay at least lower middle class was nothing compared to the privation he'd known in Quor'Toth.

"Most of the kids I go to school with are rich, too. But I play city league basketball with kids who don't have much money."

"You play on two basketball teams?"

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Gunn said there aren't any players or teams in our league good enough to really challenge me."

"You mean, prep school leagues aren't as good as street ballers?"

He gave her a twisted smile for her sarcastic words. "He strongly hinted."

"You should go to public school," Dawn advised. "I mean, I know your school is great in academics and everything, but I think you get a better understanding of how society works when you get to know a mix of people, not just people like you."

"There's no one like me." His voice was dark, but his expression was surprised. He hadn't meant to say that.

"And there's no one like me." Dawn made the statement simply. "And isn't it great that our families can give us all these advantages? It would suck to be this weird and be poor, too."

He laughed at that. "I can't say that I've thought of it quite that way."

Dawn pointed to a clothing store. "Let's go in there." She followed him to a display of high-tech ski jackets. "For me, it all comes down to gratitude."

"Gratitude?" Connor found he was watching her as she took another sip of her cider. Her eyes were large and blue, her cheeks pink from the cold, and he felt very young and inexperienced just now.

Dawn nodded. "I could be dead. Or I could have been made into a rock instead of a person. Or Mom and Buffy could have just flat rejected me when they found out what the monks did. Instead, I have a family that loves me, a rich family. So, I'm grateful. I know I take a lot of it for granted – I mean, I have my own car, and I buy the clothes I want – but when I think about it, I'm grateful."

"You guys came for me."

She gave him a little smile for this gratitude, then tucked the sweetness away. "Nah. It wasn't you. We just get cranky if we can't rescue babies every few months or so."

He shook his head, suddenly serious. "Don't even joke. We've been rescuing some kids lately."

"Yeesh." She put her hand on his shoulder.

Connor wished he could feel it better, but his jacket blocked any warmth from her fingers. He looked away and snatched at another topic. "You interested in learning to snowboard?"

She turned and looked at the display of boards behind her. "Yeah. It couldn't be as hard as two skis, could it?"

"How could it be?" he agreed, his eyes fixed on the smooth, shining fall of chestnut hair across her back.

Later that night, Fred leaned over so she could look down the dinner table. "How was town this afternoon?"

"Good," Connor said. His eyes flicked to Dawn, who was holding her baby brother. By all rights, Max should be the one with whom he was paired. He felt Dawn was much further away from him than two place settings.

"We had fun," she replied absently, disengaging Max's fingers from a hank of her hair. "I mean, I'm not sorry we rescued him or anything."

"Dawn," Giles said sternly.

Spike was laughing, though. "I wouldn't start keeping count, Bit. He'll probably rescue you a few times before it's all said and done."

Buffy couldn't resist. "Who needed rescued last…? Something about a hellgod?"

He took her hand and kissed it, sending Connor a wink. It was too obvious the lad had a crush on Dawn, who was completely oblivious. If he could save another fellow from being teased by a pretty girl who was out of his league, he'd gladly take his lumps.

⸹

"How are we on diapers…?" Joyce trailed off, staring at her son-in-law. "William? Are you okay?"

"Fine, Mum." Spike swiped his face on his shoulder, leaving the t-shirt damp. "Ammonia. What did you add to his diet, anyway?"

"Just baby cereal so far." She came into the bathroom as he folded the soiled diaper over, used wipes inside. Joyce met her son's eyes, her expression turning into a comical happy face at his smile of recognition.

"What have you been eating, then?" Good; she'd bought his excuse for his tears. Spike didn't really wait for an answer, just fastened the new diaper and swooped Max into the air, blew a raspberry on his bare tummy, and handed him to his mother. "Buffy and the rest back yet?"

"Not yet."

He slid out of her room and went across the hall to his, closing the door before she could focus on him again. Spike didn't want her to realize that he'd been crying, not watering. Andrew had given him the results of the research project after his semester finished, wanting to deliver the news in person. The young sorcerer had found exactly three instances of a vampire fathering a child with a human. Two of those accounts were detailed enough to recreate the spell. In none of the cases had the vampire survived the experience. Spending time with Max just drove home the realization that he wasn't going to be a father.

Spike laid down across the bed. He could give Buffy children, but only at the expense of his own existence. She hadn't spoken of it in a long time, but he'd seen her face when she first held her little brother. Max brought home to him just how much the Slayer did want parts of a normal life. She was so full of love; how could she not want children?

Andrew had asked if Spike wanted him to keep looking. He'd said no, just taken the folder with the research, notations, and recreated spells and given the boy his thanks for a job well done. Spike wasn't sure if the check or the hug he'd given Andrew was more appreciated.

Max had affected Spike, too. Dreams of a family, long dead, had stirred to life at the sight of the tiny fingers and sleepy eyes. He imagined his palm around the swell of Buffy's pregnancy, feeling the movement of a new life they had made together. He imagined a baby with cloudy blue eyes that would resolve into hazel, of a toddler with blond hair that would darken like both his and Buffy's had, of chasing a giggling child with sturdy little legs.

Spike rolled over on his stomach, face against the mattress on his side of the bed. She'd never really noticed that he always took the edge closest to the door, needing to be between her and any incoming danger. She never had to think of some things, because he quietly smoothed out the sharp edges before she was aware of their existence. Buffy would never notice if the pillow was damp.

He would keep reassuring her, every time it came up. Spike knew it would come up more in the next few years, as her friends started having children. And then, when she asked, he would give her children.

There was sperm donation; her tummy would still grow round. Even if it wasn't his child, he would love it.

There was adoption. Even if it wasn't their biological child, they would love it.

They already had one, in a way. Dawn was made of all the Summers.

And still, the tears fell. He was tired, that's all, still trying to get over the dragon.

Sometimes he was so fiercely jealous of Angel that it bordered on hatred. How had the miserable wanker rated a child of his own?

Less than a minute later, he sat up, eyes red-rimmed but luminous with an inner white light. Bugger this wallowing. His world, his rules. He had to believe that. Giving up on dreams wasn't what got him this far. He wanted the chance at children, too. After a moment's thought and a few seconds of checking to see which human signatures were in the chalet, he took the stairs to the kitchen at something less than quarter speed.

"Fred?"

"Hey, Spike." She took her head from the refrigerator. "You hungry, too?"

"No, just had a physics question."

"Oh?" She leaned back in and brought out a container of leftover chili. Her parents had come to Squaw Valley with them this year, and she loved her father's chili. "What's the question?"

"Used to follow physics, but kind of got out of the habit last three or four decades. Is –"

"I'll never be used to that," she interrupted. "Thirty or forty years, like that's nothing."

"Is all energy equal? I mean, is energy just energy, no matter the source?"

She saw that he wanted a firm answer, but she was a physicist. "In classical –"

"No, love. I need to know if I store kinetic energy, that I could use it to power a spell."

Fred frowned. "No problem moving kinetic energy back to potential for storage…" She turned to get a bowl and spoon, moving slowly as she thought through it. "Like, if you stored energy in a battery, could you use it for magic?"

"I know Willow and Tara do that sort of thing with the coven, saving spells in crystals so they can be released in an instant. But could you use any kind of energy to power a spell?"

She stood still for a moment, thinking so hard she almost vibrated. "Conservation of energy says that it can't be destroyed, so the energy used in magic must follow the same laws…" Fred shrugged. "I might get kicked out of the academy, but I'm going to say yes."

"Just… yes?"

Fred nodded, then her eyes widened as Spike pulled her into a hug. He was gone the next second, and she heard his feet pounding up the stairs. She shook her head, not understanding any of it. "More chili for me, then," she decided, and went back to making her snack.

⸹

Sunnydale

January 2003

⸹

"Hey, love."

Buffy looked up, startled, a sack of groceries in either arm and her keychain in her teeth, as Spike opened the door. He took one of the bags and tugged the keys from her mouth. Her lips now unobstructed, she gave him a kiss. "Hey. I didn't know if you'd be awake." Their refrigerator had been pretty bare when they got back from the ski trip. Buffy figured it would be a good time to restock.

"Yeah." He gave her a gentle look. "Come sit down."

Buffy was immediately wary. What was wrong now? She managed to get to the kitchen without asking, but turned to him as soon as the bags were on the counter. "What happened?"

He lifted a shoulder and managed a small smile. "Getting things set for your birthday, yeah?" Spike took her hands. "I'm sorry, love. Our motel is gone."

"Gone?" she echoed, staring at him. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Torn down. Some bank branch is getting built on the site."

"But that's the first place we…" Her words trailed off, and when she looked up in the mindlink, they were there. _This is where we first knew each other. It's horrible and rundown, but it's ours._

 _I know. Feel the same way myself._ Spike looked down at the worn linoleum and sighed. _Never occurred to me that this might happen._ He took her in his arms.

 _Me, either. It was kind of timeless._ Buffy's eyes went wide. _Did they cut down the Moreton Bay fig tree?_

 _Dunno. Doubt it._ He lifted a shoulder _. I tried to make reservations and couldn't get through on the phone. Called AI and had Wes go by there. He never mentioned the tree, just that there's no motel there anymore._

Buffy s eyes went over his shoulder into the empty closet with its sad collection of mismatched hangers. _We had some amazing sex here._

He smiled at the nostalgia in her tone. _We'll have more amazing sex_ , he reassured her. _And we'll always have this place, yeah? We can come here any time we like._

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

Father Gabriel wandered through the gym containing the male refugees rescued from the slave trade. It was almost time for lights out, and he liked to be here. Well, he preferred to be in the housing they had for families, but he was needed here. Men were more prone to fight, and nighttime was the worst for territorial skirmishes. No one wanted the cots nearest the bathroom.

The priest found his attention drawn to a dark-haired man much bulkier than most of the refugees. After a moment, he realized it was the souled vampire. Pausing only to give one wakeful man a reassuring smile, he angled his way down a different row, listening.

Angel was kneeling between the cots and speaking to three men in very halting Filipino. One of them asked a question, which Angel asked him to repeat. Then he gave an answer that seemed to reassure them. It wasn't until the three humans looked at Father Gabriel that he turned around to greet him.

"Evening," Angel said briefly. He had another stilted exchange with one of the refugees, then stood and accompanied the priest to the edge of the room.

"Good evening, yourself." He gave the vampire a curious look. "You speak Filipino?"

"Uh, no. Not really." Angel seemed to squirm under his regard. "Part of the demon package for me was a photographic memory. I looked at a bunch of vocabulary words and the grammar rules, but it's going to take a lot of time before I can actually speak Filipino."

Arrested by this, the priest asked several questions about eidetic memory until he was satisfied with Angel's explanation that it only gave him the ability to look up words more quickly than in a physical dictionary. "That doesn't explain why you did it."

Angel met the father's sharp eyes and looked away. "You said you needed it. I spoke with your people, volunteered for a block of nighttime hours."

"Thank you, my son."

Angel looked down at where the priest had placed both his hands around the vampire's larger one. "No need to thank me," he mumbled. "I..." Taking a breath, he rushed on, "I'm just trying to be useful."

Father Gabriel gave his hand one final pat. "There is always a need for people who want to help."

Feeling a little emboldened, Angel mumbled, "I know it isn't much."

"Isn't it? To communicate and reassure those men, who were brought to a strange country against their will, is no small thing. A kindness is never wasted."

Shrugging his wide shoulders, Angel looked away again. "Really, it's a pebble. I need a mountain of kind deeds in order to atone."

Father Gabriel gave him a stern look. "Would you have your act of kindness be done for a selfish reason, my son, or would you rather do it with no expectation of reward?"

He didn't answer, just closed his eyes for a moment. Then he turned and headed back down the rows of cots. " _May kailangan ka ba?_ " The father watched him a moment before checking to see if the other men needed anything for the night, a satisfied smile on his lips.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"You get the wanker on the left."

Cory turned obediently toward the leftmost of the three vampires he and Spike came across during their sweep of Sunnydale Memorial. Spike dispatched one of his but toyed with the other until he saw that Cory wasn't interested in letting off steam. Like his minion, he staked the remaining vampire with an economy of motion.

He stayed silent until they turned toward the gates, heading into downtown Sunnydale, wondering what would get the kid to open up. "How do you think Sandy's doing?"

The young vampire shrugged. "Better, I guess. Other than getting drunk on New Year's Eve, she's been okay. Just quiet, you know."

Spike gave him a sidelong glance. "What about you, Cory?"

He didn't answer until they'd crossed a brightly lit intersection and fell back into shadows. "I guess I feel like I did before you started recruiting. Aimless, you know?"

"Even though we still have a mission to keep this town for ourselves?"

Once again, Cory was silent for a while. "I like that Sunnydale is turning into a real town," he finally said, "and I'm proud that I'm part of that. But I see the new restaurants and all the tourists showing up, and it feels like…" He trailed off and turned his head, embarrassed. "Everything changes, but I don't. I'm stuck."

Spike took his own time formulating an answer. "I know it isn't what you mean, but you're free. After your sibs are grown, you aren't bound to me, not the old-fashioned way. If you want to go somewhere else, you're free to do that."

"I know that." He lifted a shoulder. "I don't have anywhere else to be."

Spike didn't have anything to say to that, so he waited until they were close to Willy's. He jerked his head, confident that Cory would follow him, and entered with a nod to the owner. Indicating 'two' with a wave of his hand toward the bartender, Spike slouched into a booth, angling his body so he could see the door. Neither of them said anything until a server brought over a bottle of bourbon with two glasses.

"Immortality has its drawbacks," Spike said, pouring both shot glasses full. "Every so often, you get overtaken by ennui or _mal du pays_ or rot like that. Find yourself thinking too much, feeling melancholy. 'V'done it myself."

"Brooding?" Cory's face was completely innocent.

Spike gave him a probing look, scowl in place, but inside he felt nothing but relief. If Cory could joke about him acting like Angel, it couldn't be too bad. "In a black study, let's say. Best remedy is something new to occupy yourself." He lifted the glass. "Brian. Vince. Tam."

"Brian. Vinnie. Tamara." Cory echoed the names and downed the liquor. They had two more shots in silence before Cory said, "I've been thinking about getting my GED."

Too much time spent playing poker was all that saved Spike's eyebrows from shooting up to his hairline. Vampires might change cities or hunting methods or even study new forms of martial arts, but Cory was the first he'd ever heard who wanted education. He gestured with the bourbon. "There you go. Sign up online. Gunn took the test not long ago; he may have the study materials left."

"He's why I thought of it," Cory confessed. "He isn't much younger than me."

Spike studied him as he drank. Cory had been a vampire maybe seven years now. It was his commitment to and involvement with his family, the older demon decided, that kept him so human. He liked to think he might have been much like Cory if he'd been left to his own devices instead of reared as an Aurelian prince.

Not likely, he decided after a moment's thought and a snort. Too much pent up rage. Or, I'd have dusted the next day.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"Shh!" Gunn shushed everyone, spreading his arms wide. They were all in the lobby, gathered around a television set. "This is it!"

Cordelia was on television for an interview with an entertainment news program. She was actually back in town at work, but had pretaped several of these segments during her publicity tour in December. "Shh!" Wesley shushed everyone unnecessarily again.

"Hi, Cordelia." The interviewer beamed at her professionally.

"Hi, Jackie," she murmured, returning the same smile.

"So, tell me about your overnight success story."

Cordelia hit her beats, mentioning the years where her biggest success was a commercial for a local dentist, then her celebrated guest role as a young widow on a crime procedural. The interview paused as they showed her in that role, crying on the stand in a courtroom with dramatic music swelling in the background.

"I'm so thankful for that opportunity," Cordelia said with sincerity. "It opened all the doors for me. I feel very lucky and very blessed."

"Tell me about your new show."

"It's a one hour family show, either a comedy with a lot of drama or a drama with a lot of laughs. I play Cordy, and the wonderful Justine Caerleigh plays my sister. My character is focused on her career, and hers is focused on her young family. Each of us sort of wants what the other has."

The show cut to a scene where Cordelia is wearing a fancy dress and her sister shoves a baby into her arms. At the end, she melts as she looks at the baby. In the next scene, she is chasing another child actor through a toy store.

"So, you look like you do really well with kids."

Cordelia laughed her warmest laugh. "It's easy with Benji and Bart, the twins who play Austin. They're so funny and sweet."

"Tell me a little about your personal life," the interviewer said. Doleful, tinkling piano music began to play.

"I'm single," Cordelia confessed ruefully, her smile fading. "I was engaged a while ago, but we lost a baby. That's hard on a relationship. We're still friends, though, and he has a wonderful older son that I adore."

The sad music ended, and the interviewer had a voiceover. "Cordelia Chase and Jared Calvin, her love interest on the show, attended the premier party for _It's Cordy!_ , but their publicists deny that they are romantically involved."

Cordelia got to say something quick about giving her show a chance because she was sure everyone would like it, then the interview was over. " _It's Cordy!_ airs at nine o'clock –"

"I think she handled that really well," Fred said stoutly as Gunn hit the mute button on the remote.

"She did a wonderful job," Wesley agreed.

"I can't believe she mentioned us," Angel muttered. He looked over at Connor, who was sitting on the circular couch.

"Because you're special," Gunn said, teasing them.

Angel's phone buzzed, and he read Lorne's text message aloud. "Lorne says Cordelia couldn't have done a better job of making herself likable if she tried, which she did." He frowned. "Was that a compliment?"

"I think it's texting while bartending," Groo said with a shrug. "Or maybe he means that she's acting, only acting like a version of herself."

"How do you act like yourself?" Gunn wondered.

"Sometimes it isn't easy," Fred said, something in her voice making her sound very young. Both Gunn and Wesley looked like they wanted to hug her, but neither made a move, feeling as though they didn't have the right. Connor leaned over and put a hand on Fred's shoulder, giving her an awkward smile.

"Well," Groo said, "let's all text her now, so we don't forget. Things like that matter to her."

Things like that did matter to Cordy. Angel looked down at the phone in his hands. It looked tiny, and it was so hard to use. He decided to just call and wasn't surprised to get her answering machine. He left a message that made him feel stupid and gauche, but at the very least he didn't think his voice was overly loud. As he hung up, Angel noticed that Connor had slipped away from the group.

"Hey," he said, joining his son in the kitchen.

"Hey." Connor was half inside the refrigerator. "Is that why she left? Because of me? Because of losing baby-me?"

"No. Um, she was a really good mother, the few months we had you, so I think she grieved for losing that… opportunity. I did, too." Angel shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and watched Connor emerge from the refrigerator. "But she was ecstatic that we got you back, in any form."

He kicked the door shut with his foot and made himself very busy making a sandwich, not looking at his father. "Why, then?"

"It was me," he said simply. "I wasn't there for her."

"How?"

"I…" He hesitated, then fell back on the honesty that had served him so well with Connor. "I'm not completely sure, but what she needed from me, I didn't give her. Time, attention, those sorts of things. I never made her a priority."

"But you loved her."

"I did. I'm not good at loving people. I've been practicing, though. I'm getting better."

Connor's movements slowed, but he didn't chance a look at Angel. "Do you think she'll ever come back?"

Cordelia had been back to the Hyperion to visit, but Angel knew what his son meant. "I don't know. I think I'll have to change quite a bit before I deserve a second chance with her." He lifted a shoulder. "By then, she may not be at the right place in her life to give me that chance."

"So," Connor said, finally looking at him, "you're giving up."

"No. Just being realistic." He felt like squirming under the careful regard.

"Good." Connor looked down so he could slather every inch of his ham sandwich with mustard. "Don't give up. Cordelia is good for you."

Something inside Angel warmed and loosened at this. Connor didn't think he was bad for Cordelia, at least.

⸹

London

⸹

"Here, honey," Giles told Joyce, taking the baby. "Buffy's on the phone."

She tucked the bulky handset against her ear. "How are you, honey?"

"Okay. Dawn's fine. How's Max?"

"Heavy! He's gained two more pounds. Well, he's almost seven kilograms, but I converted it to fifteen pounds, four ounces."

"You're going to get great definition in your shoulders. How's London?"

"Wet and cold," Joyce sighed. "How's Sunnydale?"

"Sunny and… dale-y?" She frowned. "What exactly is a dale?"

"You know," Joyce replied, surprise in her voice, "I'm not sure. There's the expression 'hill and dale,' so I guess a dale is a valley?" She could hear typing in the background.

"I'm on my laptop," Buffy muttered, typing the word into the Google search field. Willow had recommended the new search engine. "Okay… not the cartoon chipmunk. You were right. Dale means 'wide valley.'"

"So, we live in a sunny, wide valley. And yet…" Joyce's voice held more than a hint of irony.

"And yet." Buffy grew serious. "How are things with the Council?"

"Aubrey is wearing them all down. I think that it helps that he's older than all of them."

"He got Hopson to come around." Buffy could hear Giles' voice faintly.

"One more vote to secure before he brings the changes to the board. That's all he needs. And one of the young Watchers, a woman named, oh, something Mansfield, she's working on her uncle, one of the holdouts. We'll get there."

"Sounds like things are going better at headquarters."

"Rupert says it would have been a done deal if we could have pushed through a vote before Christmas, but that all the stuffy old men dug themselves in during the cooling off period."

"Is the name change still the sticking point?"

"It is." Joyce sighed. "I would be fine with every other change, but Aubrey is determined for it to be a vote on the total package."

"He's right," Buffy said, her intuition sure of this. "If the name doesn't change, the attitude won't, either. It's more than just symbolic." A Council of Slayers was always going to take care of her and her sisters better than a Council of Watchers. "I took part in an online chat with the rest of the Slayers yesterday. They seem like a fun bunch, just, you know, young. Younger than Dawn, even."

"They're keeping the Council scrambling," her mother agreed. "So, how is Spike doing?" Joyce asked, changing the subject. She hadn't liked how tired he was when they parted after the new year.

"Still recovering," Buffy admitted. Regaining his usual energy after becoming a dragon was a maddeningly slow process. The second time he'd become his feline alter ego, it had taken less than a week.

Joyce's voice became lower; Buffy assumed Giles wasn't too far from the phone. "Has he had any more of your blood?"

She wasn't sure if the concern was for her or her husband. Maybe both. "No. Flatly refused. I got a little mad."

Her mother sighed. "How's Dawn?"

"Didn't you talk to her, like, last night?"

"I did. I just wanted your opinion."

"Like I said, she's fine. She's gone half the time with the dance squad. We bought her canvases and oils for her painting class yesterday. And I think Alby's back in the picture."

"In hindsight, Alby wasn't too bad."

"Spike volunteered to stop by every night about ten or so, just to make sure no one's violating curfew."

"I hope you told him not to do that."

"Of course." Buffy grinned, imagining the look on her mother's face. "I'll be dropping by after patrol randomly and much more tactfully."

"Perfect, sweetheart. Just perfect." Joyce looked down at Max's sleepy blue eyes and gave him the kiss she couldn't give her daughter. "I love you so much."

"Love you, too, Mom."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"Hey, girlfriend," Katy said, dropping into the seat across from Buffy in the dining hall.

"Hi!" Buffy stood so she could lean over and give her friend a hug. No, not disappointed that Katy found her at lunch instead of William finding her. Not at all. "How were your holidays?"

"Fine." Katy held out her left hand with a sly grin. "Maybe better than fine."

"Ooh," Buffy breathed, grasping her fingertips to examine the diamond engagement ring. "It's gorgeous."

"Thank you! I think it is, too."

"So," Buffy grinned, "gumball machine or did somebody give that to you?"

"His name is Walter."

Buffy frowned. "I don't remember him."

"Well, you wouldn't. I've known him since high school. I ran into him over Christmas break. Things moved fast."

"You do tend to do that."

"I haven't slept with him."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to on Valentine's Day," Katy said dreamily. "I've got it all planned out. He wants to wait until our wedding, but the boy won't know what hit him."

"He wants to wait?"

"He's a good, Christian boy," Katy said with a shrug, "but I'm not going to marry anyone if I don't know what they're like in bed."

"You're going to deflower him?" It didn't sound like that would be very fair to Walter.

"If I can. I mean, he may not actually be a virgin. I don't know; I just need to make sure he has potential." At Buffy's troubled look, she slanted her a look. "Did you wait until your wedding night?"

Buffy chuckled. "No, but Spike is not the churchy type."

"I bet he isn't." Katy waved a hand. "If Walter is useless, he can repent and blame me for being a Jezebel. But I don't think he will be."

"Oh, I get it. You're putting on all this attitude, but he's the one who landed you."

Katy gave her a lopsided grin. "Yeah, all right. You got me. So, keep the weekend after graduation free, okay?"

"Engagement party?"

"No. Wedding in Louisville. I want you to be one of my bridesmaids."

"You do move fast."

Buffy found herself smiling throughout the rest of the day, the idea that a guy had seen through Katy's love-them-and-leave-them façade and tied her down quickly making her very happy for her friend. Maybe Faith could find someone like that, too.

She checked her phone after her last class, remembering that Faith and Alpana would be heading home sometime soon, after the Council's board meeting. She had nothing from Faith, but her mother had sent a short text: "The whole resolution passed unanimously!"

"Wowie wow wow," Buffy breathed, a grin taking her mouth and making her cheeks feel tight. Inside, some tension she hadn't realized was there loosened. She'd made her gambit, and not only were the potentials safe, all her future sisters were going to have a much easier time of it. She texted something celebratory back to her mom.

The smile faded from her face. Being a Slayer was never going to be easy or safe. A volunteer from India, Shree, was hospitalized with compound fractures in both legs after an encounter with a gang of huge, four-armed, bipedal demons. Like her and Faith, Shree was 'wild-caught' and had very little training. Fortunately, she had two Council-provided ex-special forces soldiers as backup.

Just as she got to her car, her phone buzzed, alerting her to Joyce's reply. Buffy started to type out 'love you, Mom,' then paused. Looking pensive, she instead sent, "Can you come back one weekend and help me find a location for my gym?"

Those girls needed training. Who better than the old-school Slayer? What better place than her own gym?

Buffy was going over plans and still waiting for her mother's reply when she got home. She could sense Spike asleep in the bedroom, and thoughts of joining him there distracted her. He wasn't as weary, but their love life had been curtailed since his transformation into a dragon. Well, if a single entire hour instead of several hours counted as curtailed.

Still waiting for her mother's response, she went to the dining room table to sort through the mail. Spike must have gone out at some point during the day and stopped by the post office. Buffy was just about to grab a cream-colored envelope when her phone rang.

"Hey," she said, expecting her mother.

"Hey, Buf." Willow sounded very bubbly. "Did I catch you first?"

"Um… maybe? First for what?"

"Oh, good. I just wanted to warn you, so you didn't wig. Tara and Oz said I moved way too quick, but the paper was so pretty and it was on sale, and it didn't take any time to get the template laid out, so I went ahead and did it."

By now, the Slayer was smiling at Willow's babble. "Wil, you bad girl, what did you do?"

"Um, sent you an invitation to our commitment ceremony before I told you about it?"

"Commitment… Willow, is that like a marriage?"

"Yes?"

"You're getting married!" Buffy bounced on her toes. "Oh my God, you – and Tara, too! And, well, Oz, of course. When is it?" She picked up the cream envelope and tore it open. Sure enough, an invitation printed on stiff paper fell out.

"A-after classes are out in May."

Buffy's eyes widened and she lunged for the little calendar hanging on the side of the refrigerator. "Oh, that was close. I just agreed to be in Katy Loomis' wedding. Like, today. It's two weekends before yours, though."

"Well, that's good. But you better have been willing to ditch Katy, missy. We have priority."

"I'd ditch her in a heartbeat," Buffy promised, though she was glad there was no conflict. She turned to lean against the sink. "So, what brought this on?"

"Tara and Oz are graduating. I'm about to start my thesis. It just seemed like a good time." Her voice got smaller. "It's not legal or anything."

"Bollocks," Buffy replied, making Willow giggle at the Spike-ism. "You guys make promises, those are like vows. It's totally real."

"Can you come over? I'd like to talk dresses and stuff."

Buffy squealed. "Of course! I'll be there quick as I can."

Just as she put down her phone, Joyce texted her back. "How about the first weekend in February?"

"Sounds great! Thanks, mom," she replied. Then she grabbed up the invitation and sprinted to the bedroom, throwing herself on the mattress and bouncing her husband awake.

"They're having a wedding! Well, a 'commitment ceremony,' but really, it's a wedding."

"That's great?" Spike ran a hand over his forehead, his eyes still shut.

"Willow and Tara and Oz, silly," she chided him. "I'm going over there, so you need to wake up."

"I do?"

"Quickie." She sat up and peeled off her blouse. "I told Wil I'd be right over."

His eyes fixed on her bouncing breasts, Spike looked much more awake. "Quickie? Not sure what that is, exactly."

"Oh, hush. Yes, you do. I'm going to have my wicked way with you, because a happy Buffy is a horny Buffy."

⸹

[Author's Note: The idea of storing energy in magic rings, like enchanted batteries, is such a good one that I stole it from Jim Butcher's series of books, _The Dresden Files_. The audiobooks for the series are beautifully read by James Marsters.]

⸹

"Anya was the most beautiful bride," Buffy said, turning another page of the wedding album.

The rest of them nodded. They were all clustered around the pictures on the couch at Tara's apartment. "She was," Willow agreed.

"You were glowing," Tara confirmed. She raised up her hip and removed the thick bridal magazine that had slid across the cushion. Buffy arrived with at least ten pounds of glossy wedding material in her arms after a quick stop at a drugstore.

Anya looked at the other girls, seeming almost exasperated. "Aww." She wiped at her bottom eyelids. "I never expected it to be like this. Friendship, I mean," she went on, when the other women looked puzzled. "I thought we would always be rivals, and that we would be jealous of each other."

"Well, I am a little jealous," Buffy said, grinning. "But it doesn't mean I can't admit you were the most gorgeous bride. That's just the truth."

"You were very pretty at your wedding, too," Anya told her. "I was jealous of you and all the attention." She nodded at the thick book on Buffy's lap. "You should have brought your wedding album."

"Mine is an empty book and a shoebox full of pictures," Buffy admitted ruefully.

"I'll let you borrow April," Anya declared. "She put mine together. She really has a good eye for layout."

"April does?" Buffy pondered this.

"You were just supposed to use her for government stuff," Willow said, exasperated.

"Hey, she gets bored. She has everything at the office down cold."

"Do you think she'd like to help me design my gym?"

Anya sat up a little straighter. "You're going to have a gym?"

"Well, a fitness studio. I thought you knew that."

"No. But it makes sense, since your degree is in physical education." Anya beamed at her and clapped her hands. "Hurrah, another female-owned small business."

"I think April would like to do the design," Tara said. "She's really had an interesting journey, hasn't she?"

"Starting as a sexbot and ending up working with the most powerful women in this slice of California," Anya agreed with a decisive nod.

"There's a screenplay for Andrew," Willow said.

"He's still majoring in film?" Buffy asked.

"For now." The redhead grabbed a slick bridal magazine that was threatening to slip from her lap. "Jonathan is leaving the coven." It didn't seem to be a change of topic for her; Willow considered the coven, members and all, to be hers and Tara's.

"Really?" Buffy pulled a sad face. "Where's he going?"

"He's going up to Portland with Kelly after graduation." Willow turned to Tara. "How long have they been dating?"

"Two years now, I think?" She shook dark blond hair back from her face. "But there are two girls from that Wicca group on campus who are joining us. They're twins, actually."

"Identical?" Anya asked with interest. "I got to do several vengeance wishes for twins back in the day. Usually on the other twin."

"I-I don't think they look identical." Tara frowned. "I never really asked. I think it's easy to tell Paula from Rachel. Anyway, they're coming along. They've mastered the kinetic energy spell." At Buffy's blank look, she added, "You know, the one Spike wanted placed on those rings? It was such a good idea, we're all going to wear them."

Buffy shook her head. "Still clueless."

"Oh." Willow exchanged a look with Tara. "He asked Michael to fashion rings that absorb energy each time there's movement – you know, like when you swing your arms while walking? Then, once the ring is full, you can use it to power other spells."

"What other spells?" Buffy wondered.

"I-I don't know," Willow admitted. "I just assumed it has to do with their ideas to make Slayer Scythes for the rest of the Slayers."

Her brow cleared. "I bet you're right. He doesn't think they can ever make anything as powerful as the Scythe, but at least as good as the sword."

"Xander's going to go to that blacksmithing workshop, too," Anya said dreamily. Something in her tone of voice made the other three turn to look at her. "What? He'll be all sweaty, wearing a leather apron, with all the muscles standing out in his arms, firelight playing off the planes of his body…."

"You didn't use to date a blacksmith, did you, An?" Buffy asked, fully expecting the answer to be yes. Anyanka had dated everyone and everything.

"No," she said sadly. "The blacksmith in my village was a woman named Ingvild." Anya sighed and shrugged. "Doesn't mean I didn't notice how strong and fine other blacksmiths looked over the centuries." She turned to Buffy. "You know, I think you have the only vampire who ever dared work over a forge."

"Yay for the fireproofing," Buffy said. She leaned closer to Anya. "We have to make sure they get pictures." She sighed a little. This had been, like, the best day, and now there was the possibility of seeing pictures of Spike shirtless with sooty smudges to accent all his yummy muscles.

"You know," Tara said, "we need to find someone to introduce to Michael. He hasn't had a date in a while, has he?"

"Not that I've heard," Willow agreed. "But he seems happy." She lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe he'll hit it off with one of the twins. When's our next full coven meeting?"

⸹

"Buffy!"

She had to turn back from the left turn she'd taken out of her PEXS 5100 class, but she swam against the small tide of students to stand in front of William. Buffy smiled up at him. "Hey."

He beamed back. "Hey." After a moment of just gazing into her eyes, he ducked his head. "Um, thought I might walk you to your next class."

She looked up at him, wondering if there was some way to keep this particular white pullover in her husband's closet. He looked delicious . "I'd like that."

He touched the strap of her backpack and gave her a questioning look. "May I?"

"Oh. Um, sure." He was going to carry her books for her? Yes, yes he was. Buffy bit back a grin, then looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. "How are you today?"

"Now that I've seen you, I find that I am having a very good day."

As compliments went, it was vague and convoluted. Buffy wondered if a young lady from William's time would have slapped his cheek for being so forward. "My next class is upstairs. Not too far."

"Oh." His face fell, but William rallied and turned toward the staircase. "I meant to ask if you might have lunch with me next Monday."

"I'd love to. Dining hall burgers it is."

"We could eat off campus." His words were a rush, and he looked away afterwards.

"I'd like that even better."

"Excellent." He let out a breath. "I'll, um, meet you at the parking lot on Euclid? Eleven-thirty okay?"

"That sounds great."

They stood at the door of her classroom. William forced the smile from his face and solemnly handed her the straps of her bookbag. "I'll, uh, see you Monday."

"Monday," Buffy agreed. She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, quick and chaste, before scurrying into the classroom, grinning like a loon.

⸹

Los Angeles

February 2003

⸹

"Hey, Dad."

The word always put a smile on Angel's face. He put down the pen – he'd been going over invoices – and looked up to see Connor leaning against the office door and holding a sheaf of papers. "Hi. How was school?"

"Good. Got a 96 on the biology test."

"That's great!" He beamed at Connor. "Uh, enchiladas verdes okay for dinner?"

"Sounds wonderful," Connor moaned in anticipation.

"Good. Fred put on the last pan that Mrs. Burkle froze before they left."

"We need to visit them," his son said suddenly. "I mean, I haven't really been anywhere outside of California. And, you know, Quor'Toth."

"You're right," Angel breathed in realization. "I'm sorry, Connor. I didn't even think about that. I'll ask Fred. Or," he spoke faster as another thought occurred to him, "there's spring break. Do you want to go somewhere for spring break? We have those new necrotempered windows in everything but the GTX. We could do a road trip –"

Connor raised his hand and flourished the papers. "Sorry," he winced. "No spring break this year, not if I want to try baseball. That's what these are for, waivers, practices, schedule, stuff like that." He walked closer and handed them to his father.

"Oh." Then Angel perked up. "That means you made the team?"

Connor winced. "I kind of knocked the ball out of the park. Didn't mean to do that, but you know how it is sometimes when you do something new."

"Did you try pitching?"

He grimaced and shook his head. "The technique looks like it would be really rough on the elbows and shoulders. I mean, it's interesting how the guys who are really good can make it break and curve at the last minute, but I think I'll stick with batting." He gave Angel a cheeky grin. "Hitting things and running away, that I know I can do."

"Well, go get cleaned up." He remembered just before Connor passed the registration desk. "Any homework?"

"Only that same book report. Still reading."

"It's a good book," Angel called after him. He'd read _Fahrenheit 451_ when it first came out. He picked up his pen again, but ignored the invoices for the papers Connor had given to him. "Same damn forms every time," he muttered, reaching for his wallet for a medical insurance card. It took a good ten minutes to fill out all the forms. He hesitated on the list of people who were allowed to pick up Connor after practice, but added Cordelia's name as usual. It was a gesture toward hope. Angel added Faith's Watcher, too, then turned to the schedule.

Connor was right; there were three games during spring break. Angel couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Once the idea of traveling with Connor occurred to him, he wanted to take his son everywhere. Well, except Ireland.

He began looking through the list of games and went still. Every one of them fell during daylight hours. Angel read over the practice times, then let the sheet slip from his fingers. Sheffield Academy and the other private schools in the league all had very nice facilities and didn't have to share practice or playing time like public schools.

He wasn't going to get to see his son play baseball.

Football hadn't been that hard. He hadn't seen any of the practices, and for the first few games he had to wait until the sun was low, missing the first half. But the lengthening nights of autumn had given him cover of darkness for the season. Basketball and wrestling were indoor sports, so those were no problem. But baseball was played in the open, in the sunlight.

Angel closed his eyes. For a moment, he held a fierce hatred of Spike, but that was just the demon. He'd never believed the Gem of Amara existed, not after all those years of the old Master seeking it in vain. He'd never sought it himself, and if he'd known Spike was going to try to find it, he would have made fun of him.

No, he had no one but himself to blame for his weakness to sunlight. He'd walked in sunlight and been human, and he'd thrown it away.

Angel closed his eyes. What had the Oracles said? _What happens to all mortal beings. Albeit sooner in their case._ He thought he understood love back then, had been willing to give up humanity so that Buffy and Spike might have longer in this world. But that love was nothing, _nothing_ compared to what he felt for Connor.

Then he shook his head. Didn't matter. If he wasn't still a vampire, he could never have earned that life for Darla, the life that became their son. The prophecy that foretold Connor's existence would have forced the boy to be born to some other vampire at some other point in time, again depriving him of his son. No, it had to be this way.

He stacked the signed forms carefully and tucked them together with a paper clip. Then Angel stood up and tacked Connor's baseball schedule on the corkboard at the back of the office, taking down the old one that listed basketball games. The rest of the family could go. They would cheer him on and take videos, so he could see the games that way.

He had a son, even if he didn't have normal. What more could he possibly want?

⸹

Tara rummaged through her purse for the key, but Willow had been driving and held out hers. "Here you go, sweetie."

"Is Oz still in Massatoosus?" Buffy asked. Then she frowned and said deliberately, "Massachusetts, I mean."

"He is. This way, he won't see the dresses."

The three of them had been out looking through the small selection of dress shops and boutiques in Sunnydale, looking for wedding dresses. To celebrate their success, they'd stopped at Fangs and had a couple of margaritas. Except Willow, who had cheerfully agreed to be the designated driver. She thought her two best female friends were adorable when they were tipsy.

"There we go!" Tara let out a little whoop for successfully unlocking the door. "And now, you have to have a drink with us."

"Just one," Willow agreed, "but then I have to pop back to the UK."

"Aww. Do you have to, honey?" Tara pouted.

"I do." Willow leaned in and gave her a kiss. "I wish I didn't."

"You may kiss the bride!" Buffy giggled and went inside, stumbling a bit as she held the garment bags high off the ground.

"Good idea," Willow agreed huskily, giving Tara another kiss.

"Stay?"

The redhead groaned. "How am I supposed to say no to you?"

Buffy, tipsy or not, busied herself turning on lights and opening cabinet doors in search of liquor. She could be tactful girl sometimes. She'd have a nightcap with them, then make herself scarce, wait for Spike to pick her up somewhere that was else.

"All we have is wine," Tara said apologetically, following her into the kitchen while Willow hung up their purchases. "I hope that's okay."

"It'll be great," Buffy promised. She went on tiptoe and brought down three wine glasses she'd found when opening the last cabinet.

They took their wine into the living room and made a toast to Oz, then another to happiness. "This is good," Buffy said, wishing she'd noticed the label.

"Thanks. A friend of Tara's gave it to us at our Winter Solstice party."

"Introduce us. I need classy friends who bring hostess gifts."

Willow pretended to pout. "We're plenty classy!"

"You're more family than friend," Buffy said, giving her a sappy smile. She leaned over and clasped Willow's hand, then reached for Tara's. "Both of you. Oz, too. All of you."

"Y-you're not mad that we aren't having attendants?" Tara asked, never wanting to cause hurt feelings.

"No! I will be at the peak of happiness in my folding chair instead of standing in high heels, thank you very much." She made a face. "Dawn and Anya might be a little less okay with it."

Willow flapped a hand. "A couple years ago, but both of them have really grown up a lot."

"She is over eleven hundred years old," Tara reproved mildly.

Buffy snorted. "And Dawn's even older than that."

"Our lives are… complicated." Willow chose the most diplomatic word she could think of.

"They are." Buffy sighed. "I'd really like to stay, guys, but I should get back. I'm down to zero tampons." She didn't stand up, though, just tilted her glass back for the last sip.

It wasn't often that Buffy was alone with Tara and Willow and even less often that they got to a point where the conversation was candid. The two witches exchanged a glace after her admission. "I-is it, um, Spike's favorite time of the month?"

Buffy looked up from her nails to stare at Tara's flaming face. "Not as much as you might think. He says it's so rich, it's almost like syrup." Her face pinkened, too, so she went with more general information. "But he knows by smell when things start happening, so he'll get a pint of ice cream or just start massaging my feet to make me feel better. That's really nice." She shifted in the comfortable recliner, drawing her feet up, forgetting that she was supposed to leave and give them privacy. "I figured you guys wondered about that. Spike gets, like, really angry over the idea that I'm food – or any of us, really. Remember how he was after Glory? But, just between us, he'll… nip me, you know, tiny little bites. Not often, hardly any blood. During," she squinched her eyes shut, "um, sex, near the end. Can I just say, wow."

Willow, feeling like a woman of the world, pointed at the scar on the Slayer's neck and turned to Tara. "Buffy had a scar on her neck before, from when she fought the Master and the time she saved Angel from poison. Spike changed the scar the night they got engaged."

"It doesn't look like any vampire's bite now," Buffy said quickly, seeing how uncomfortable Tara looked. "He didn't want to brand me, but," she rolled her eyes, "vampires are possessive, and he didn't want the old scars to be seen."

"Possessive?" Tara echoed, still on the scent of something that seemed wrong to her.

The Slayer shrugged. "Spike thinks vampires used to stay in family groups more. I mean, in the way distant past. Less killing and more… keeping a herd." She lifted her shoulders again. "Doesn't make sense to me – from what I know of vamps, scent would be more of marker." Buffy's voice grew smug. "But Spike's claimed all of us, anyway."

"Claimed?" Tara echoed faintly.

It was Willow's turn to have narrowed eyes. "How – when did he…?"

Buffy couldn't hide her grin any longer. "He just breathes in your scent. It doesn't have anything to do with food, just… family, I guess. He told Giles it meant he belongs with us, even after death." She looked ruefully at her empty glass and set it down. She really should be going.

"I'll bet it's more than scent between vampires," Willow mused.

Tara nodded. "Always about the blood."

"Since we're sharing," Buffy said, changing the subject, "can I ask you about Oz? I mean, is that time of the month the best for him, too?" Polyfidelitous triad, she thought, remembering what the three had decided to call their relationship.

Tara dropped her head so that hair hung over her face, much as she had done the first weeks after she met Buffy. Willow, a slightly panicked expression on her face, saw that she had no help from that quarter. "Uh. No. Not really."

"A-about a w-week and half before," Tara admitted from her hiding place.

"Oh. Ovulation," Buffy said. She hid a smile. "Fertility."

"I-it's kind of funny how it works out," Tara said, emerging from behind her hair. She pushed it back from her flaming cheeks. "W-we have m-more sex because of Oz."

Willow giggled a little, scooting a couple of inches closer to Tara. "It's a lesbian thing. We – the two of us, I mean – would start kissing and talking, then someone would mention, like, the dishes should be soaking, and then it's three hours later. All the chores are done, but no sex. With Oz, the kissing doesn't get sidetracked."

Tara lifted her hand stiffly and waved it back and forth. "He has a b-built in reminder that there's been kissing."

Buffy started laughing and eventually slid out of the chair, her butt bumping onto the rug. "Oh, that's perfect." She put her hand up, too, waving it frantically, then collapsed into giggles again.

Tara leaned closer to Willow and said, _sotto voce_ , "I think she has one, too."

"Shi- hic! Shit, I mean," Buffy said, hoisting herself back into the recliner. "Now I've got hiccups."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"Hail, warrior," Groo said amiably from where he sat propped against the weapons cabinet.

"Hey, yourself," Faith said. "We're patrol buddies this evening?"

"Indeed." He stood up and tucked his axe into the sling on his back before brushing back his dark hair. "I've missed patrolling with you."

"I've missed having someone to patrol with," she admitted. It only took a moment to choose her favorite short sword and grab a couple of stakes before she was ready to go, ready to shake her the Council of Slayers dust from her heels and dive back into the glitter of L.A. "Molly is the London Slayer, which meant I had to be, like, her mentor. It's good to be back with you guys. Hail, fellow warrior, I mean. No teaching."

"I always learn something when I patrol with you," Groo said, holding the door open for her.

"Aww," Faith said. Then she grinned at him. "I'll bet it's usually stuff like the best nail polish remover or why men need pedicures, too."

"Or why I should really do stretches and become more limber, so I can kick like you."

"Uh," do not think of shirtless Groo on your bed flexing each of his muscle groups in turn, "sure. Stretching is good." Faith felt her face grow hot and was grateful that one of the streetlights was burned out. "So! Any particular place tonight?"

She let his answer roll over her, just followed him when he turned right at the corner. Faith had been in London over a week. As the active Slayer, she was on the board and had to be there for meetings. There wasn't another until April, at least. She'd missed Connor's baseball debut; Faith followed the Boston Red Sox and adored going to games. She'd also missed Cordelia's latest visit, though she'd gathered from Fred that the actress had barely spoken to Angel, just given him air kisses.

Faith sent Groo a sidelong look. Fred had not said anything about how Cordelia had interacted with Groo. He was so steady and low-drama, it was easy to forget that he'd given up a fight for a throne to follow her to another world. If he was still in love with Cordy, he didn't let it show.

Groo took Faith's silence as possible evidence of nearby demons. He wasn't as alert as he should be. Faith had changed shampoo, and he liked the coconut scent of the new one. It never felt right, noticing her as a woman. He was a half-breed, and she was wholly human. Plus, she was a warrior, just like him, and he would treat her like one. No matter how good she smelled.

His thoughts drifted to one of the passages he'd read in the book from Connor's room. For some reason, the book was on the floor, just beneath his bed instead of on the bookshelf. Groo came across it as he sat on the floor playing _Halo 2_. By the time he'd realized Connor was home from school, and he could hear the boy thundering up the stairs, the console had tellingly shut off. Groo had read most of the book in under two hours.

The passage he was thinking of had to do with scalp massage and delicate kisses to your mate's ears and neck. Groo really wished he had read the book before taking Cordelia to his bed, or even Spike's elegant minion Luisa. He was no fit consort, not in that way. His whole life had been about combat.

He really should not think about stroking his fingers through the strands of Faith's dark, coconut-scented hair.

"Nah, I got nothing," Faith said, shrugging as she turned back to him. "You wanna hit up the clubs along the strip?"

"Sounds like a most excellent plan."

Faith grinned. She liked his mellow surfer-dude persona. "Do you surf, Groo?" she asked, knowing it was abrupt.

"No. Xander offered to teach me, but he doesn't make it down here much, and the only time I've been in Sunnydale –"

"World-endage, yeah." She frowned. "He taught Connor, didn't he?"

"I think so. He'd probably teach me, if Xander doesn't."

"In his spare time?"

"I've read that teenagers are over-scheduled."

"Connor likes to be over-scheduled, I think."

Groo gave her a thoughtful look. "I think you're right."

Faith lifted a shoulder. "Less time to think. I can relate."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

Buffy pulled to a stop in front of the low building. It didn't have enough windows, in her opinion, but it did have a second floor. This was the fourth one on a list of eight. "What do you think?" she asked her mother.

"It looks more promising than the first three."

"That real estate agent either ignored your criteria for a building for your fitness center when she selected the ones to show, or she did not have any matches." April crooked her head to the side. "Was it a waste of time?"

"You aren't wrong," Joyce sighed. "And her company was so good when I was looking for gallery space, too." She didn't mind spending time with Buffy while they looked for space for her daughter's new business, but she hadn't expected quite so much disappointment.

"Willow said that failure is part of experimentation, and that one shouldn't get discouraged." April turned her head, her sensors having picked up an incoming car. "I think the next realtor has arrived.

"Look at it this way," Buffy said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Fewer possible buildings? Easier to decide."

Five hours later, she and Joyce dropped April off in front of city hall. With a perky wave, the robot went up the steps, looking every bit the smart businesswoman in her pantsuit and low heels.

"She's amazing," Joyce said. "I mean, not that she looks and acts so real, but she knows so much about zoning."

"Plus where the load-bearing walls are at," Buffy added. Xander had given April a crash course in what to look for in the way of possible renovation. She glanced at her mother. "Want to get dinner with me before you head back?" The coven had finished creating more linked crystals like the ones used for the dragon hoard. Three of them were at 1630 Revello; the matching crystals were at the beach house, the Hyperion Hotel, and at the Giles' townhouse in London. Joyce could get back quickly enough, but it would be past midnight.

She hesitated just for a moment. "It sounds lovely. Should we pick up Dawn?" Joyce had spent a couple of hours with her earlier and made breakfast for the two of them.

"She went with Alby to a ballgame."

"Oh." Joyce pondered this news. "Is it serious?"

"I think they really care for each other," Buffy said, after a moment's consideration, "but I don't really see a spark."

"Does he know about," Joyce's tone put quote marks around her next works, "the family business?"

"No. They aren't that close."

They went to the creole restaurant, a cuisine Joyce couldn't easily find in London. Remy came out of the kitchen to pay his respects to the Slayer and her mother. He wasn't one of Spike's minions, though he did hunt, but he was savvy enough to understand the true source of power in Sunnydale.

"He's so suave," Joyce marveled.

"Southern gentleman," Buffy said.

"I meant… Is it a vampire thing?"

She gave her mother a look. "You've met Angel, right? Like, anti-suave."

"Speaking of, how is he doing with Connor?"

Buffy thought of Faith's candid confidences. "Um. They're doing okay. Connor is doing great in school. Angel's pretty sure he's great in all ways."

"Is he over Cordelia yet?"

"I don't really know," she admitted. "I text Cordy more than I talk to Angel, and that's not much. She's trying to squeeze in a supporting role in a movie before she has to start filming on her show again. The ratings are good enough that it's already been renewed for the fall."

"That's great." Joyce took a sip of the wine the chef had sent to their table. "Oh, this is so nice. When we first came here, I think there was one restaurant that served wine in the whole town."

"Anya's been working really hard."

"You all have."

The waiter came to take their order, and Buffy watched her mother speak with him about the specials. When he left, she reached across the table and took her hands. The diamond ring and wedding band on her mother's fingers felt unfamiliar in her grasp. "Before I say anything else, Mom, I just wanted to say thank you for being so great about everything."

Joyce leaned her head to one side, puzzled. "You're welcome, but I'm not sure why."

"It's just…" Buffy looked down and squeezed her mother's hands carefully. "I don't have a normal life, and because of me, now you don't either. I'm a Slayer. I married Spike. You married into the Council. My best friends are witches, sorcerers, an ex-demon, a werewolf, and, well, a robot. You're just so calm about everything, so… Thank you."

"What brought this on?"

Buffy pressed her full lips together. "Willow's parents. Mrs. Rosenberg, especially."

Joyce got it right away. "The commitment ceremony."

She nodded. "Wil isn't sure she'll come. If she doesn't, her father won't, either."

Patting her daughter's hand, she thought about the way Sheila had been during the whole Mothers Opposed to the Occult debacle. Joyce had hoped to talk to her afterwards about all the scary underlying issues, but the brittle woman had immediately retreated into other causes. She was one of those people it was impossible to debate, since she slid to another argument whenever she sensed she was about to be pinned down. If there was a way to change her opinion, Joyce didn't know it. She didn't think Ira Rosenberg knew, either, based on the few times she'd spoken with the mild man.

"Honey, I know I've hurt you, too. So has your father. Parents aren't perfect."

"I know. The difference is, you've actually apologized when you realized you were wrong." She let go of her mother's hands and dashed the pad of her finger beneath her eyeliner. "I just feel bad for Willow. And Tara, too. There was never a chance her family would be there."

"Well, I'm sure Nancy and George will be there." She knew the Osbournes from school functions. "And his aunt and uncle."

"Maureen and Ken are going to bring Jordy, too." She thought about Oz's cousin. "He's ten, I think. God! Where does the time go? Pretty soon, he'll be all 'I was a teenaged werewolf.'"

"And I thought a Slayer and a Key were hard," Joyce said dryly. She looked up with a smile as their server brought out salads. When he left, she got serious. "Buffy, this isn't the life I expected, for any of us. It isn't even anything I could have imagined. We don't have normal, but we have extraordinary. It has so much more meaning than just making a quarterly profit or getting on the Dean's List, right?"

"Right." The Slayer bit her lip. "I wouldn't have chosen this life, but I'm good at my calling. I'm proud of what I do. Of what we do."

Her mother leaned across the table and cupped her cheek for a second. "And I'm proud of you." Joyce cleared her throat and picked up her fork with determination. She gave Buffy a smile and changed the subject. "So! You liked the building on Seventh Street?"

⸹

Off-campus dining was always preferable to on-campus dining. Buffy looked around the parking lot again, hoping she hadn't remembered the wrong place. William had said Euclid, hadn't he?

An old Jaguar sedan, brown and practically tweedy, pulled up at the curb. William leaned over and cranked down the window. "Buffy!"

She threw up a hand in greeting, giving him a dazzling smile. Where on earth had he found that monstrosity? Must have an instinct for it, she figured, based on the DeSoto Fireflite. "Hi!" She got in and buckled up. Buffy figured she must be hungry; she could practically smell food. "How was your weekend, William?"

"Oh, mostly spent it reading. How about you?"

"I went shopping with my mother."

William gave her a very Spike-like side-eye – _Shopping for a building, were you?_ – but only asked politely, "I'm sure any frock you found could only be improved if it graced your, er, frame."

Buffy put on her best poker face, hearing his faint wince. Mentioning clothing that might be put on or taken off her body? Definitely a Victorian jaw-smacking comment. She looked ahead and pretended not to have heard. Otherwise, she'd have to swoon or have vapors.

"Have you eaten at the Main Street Square before?" he asked, a bit of desperation in his tone.

"I have. Just once. There's supposed to be a great selection of food trucks there."

"Not on Mondays, unfortunately." Sunnydale was small; they were already circling the square, looking for parking. "But that means we'll have our pick of tables."

Before she found a delicate way of asking "But what about the food?!" Spike snagged a parking space and was around to open her door for her. "Thank you," Buffy said, smiling up at him. She left her backpack in the floorboards and took a deep breath. Anya had changed traffic patterns so that the square was a pedestrian area. "Let's sit over there, near the palm trees."

"Brilliant." William went to the trunk and opened it, bringing out a large insulated bag like those used in pizza delivery and a small cooler. Buffy's stomach approved, although whatever he had didn't smell like pizza. He held out a hand, and she put her fingers against his. William gave them a squeeze and her a delighted smile.

"Will this be satisfactory?" he asked, indicating a table that had – if you stood and squinted past the landscaping – a view of the ocean.

Right now, she really wanted lots of petticoats to swirl as she seated herself. How could just his manners and wording have her feeling so Austenian? "This is lovely."

And then he opened the goodies. A Double-double. Fries. Napkins and ketchup packets. And, from the cooler, a chocolate shake.

"You got me In-N-Out Burger?" She might have whimpered a little.

"I did." He sat down in the other seat and gave a little shrug. "It isn't that far to Dutton, and I thought –"

Forget Victorian manners. Buffy was around the table and in his lap, giving him a very thorough kiss. "This is the Best. Lunch. Ever."

William looked dazed, though his strong arms had locked around her. He opened his eyes. "I am delighted – You really like it?"

"I do. It's my favorite. How did you guess?"

There was a tiny sliver of smirk on his lean face, but William quickly mastered the giveaway expression and gave her a modest shrug. "You're a California girl. What else would be your favorite?" Then, surprising her to no end, he circled her waist with one arm, anchoring her in place, and snatched a still warm French fry. He held it to her mouth, fed it to her, and watched her eyes close in bliss. "Good?" His voice was a little strangled.

"Mmm, so good." Buffy twisted and grabbed the burger, folding the wrapper down so she could take a big, sloppy bite. She only exaggerated a little, rolling her eyes and moaning her approval.

William took a paper napkin from the pile on the table and carefully wiped the corner of her mouth. Both of them studiously ignored the fact that the Arrogant Prick was taking full advantage of William's generously pleated khakis to make his presence felt. "It's such a poor token of my feeling for you, Miss Buffy. You only encourage me by being so easily pleased."

She shook her head vehemently. "Huh-uh, no. You've given me In-N-Out, which is like, I don't know, a second anniversary present. Not a poor token."

"I think that traditionally it's paper on the second."

After a second's thought, Buffy snatched up a clean napkin. She held it up to show him. After a moment, her smile faded. She wanted this man, this version of her man. "Are you trying to ask me something, William?"

His mouth firmed with regret. "Ah, Miss Buffy." He lifted her up, stood, and settled her on her own chair. "I would never deny either of us the chance to enjoy every moment of courtship."

You better be naked when I get home. Buffy barely managed not to send it through the bloodlink. "I'm afraid you are more of a gentleman than I am a lady."

"Nonsense. You're the finest woman I know."

"And you, William, are the very best at off-campus lunches."

⸹

Next Chapter: Angel calls on Spike for help with Whistler.


	49. Free Will

**Free Will**

⸹

San Francisco

February 2003

⸹

"Happy Valentines' Day, Mrs. Summers."

Buffy smiled up at her husband. "Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. Summers." They were on the balcony of a hotel room in San Francisco, and the day was almost done. Spike had set up their trip with his usual attention to detail, so everything about the celebration had been smooth and romantic. It was cold, but the view of city lights over the bay was gorgeous, as was the room itself.

Spike spun her for a half turn, then pulled her close. They had been out dancing and just got in. Buffy was wearing the rubies he'd gotten for her, set off by the strapless burgundy velvet dress she wore. He ran his hands over the decadent fabric, outlining the curves of her breasts, waist, and hips. "You are so lovely."

"You look very fine yourself in that tuxedo," Buffy purred, lifting an arm to place a lingering caress along the line of his neck. He breathed in her scent and fell silent, but she felt his arms tighten around her.

"Is this real, love?"

 _Of course it is._ Buffy turned in his embrace, holding him tightly. It had been months – years, now, she realized – since she'd felt such an ache of neediness from him. "It's real," she added aloud. "You're my Spike, my very own, and I'm your Buffy. And I love you."

He stared down into her eyes for a long moment, his own human and dark. "You're too fine for me to ever dare to hold," he said gruffly, "but I did, and I'm never going to let you go."

"Just try," she said, narrowing her eyes in mock warning. "I can hunt you down and tie you to my bed."

Spike breathed in her scent again in an entirely different way. "Sounds like a challenge."

"I love it when you get that growl in your voice." Then she used her lips to stifle any possible response.

Three hours and one polite phone call from the front desk to relay a noise complaint later, Buffy slid her arms around Spike's narrow waist and laid her head on his chest with a contented sigh. "Babe? Earlier… why did you ask if this was real?"

"Can't quite believe it sometimes." He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Being loved the way you love me. Knowing you see me for what I am, good and bad, and still love me. I know it seems like everything – it is everything – but I'm still dragging the memories of nearly twelve decades of not being loved. Or having a… strangled kind of love, like a dandelion struggling to grow in a crack of concrete on a city sidewalk, and now I have whole gardens of love blooming all around me."

A smile tugged her lips. That sounded like a poem in the making to her. "I love you best. You're wonderful, William. You are. You have to know that."

"You're wonderful," he countered.

"I'm just me, with a side of Slayer."

He found her wrist and pressed a kiss just beneath her palm. "I love all your sides."

 _Can I tell you something?_

 _Of course, kitten._

 _When you went to Africa and earned your soul… It made me feel better._ Buffy felt the jerk of emotion inside his still body and quickly plowed on. _Not because it made you more human or anything like that. It made_ me _feel like a better person._

He had a quizzical expression on his face when she peeked up at him. _Not sure what you mean, love._

 _When Angelus happened… I felt, I don't know, toxic. Virulent. I'm supposed to be a white power, Champion of the Powers, and I'd just slayed a soul, right?_ She lifted hand to forestall his objection. _I know it doesn't make sense, but that's how I felt. I cost someone their soul._ Buffy looked up at him once more, wanting him to see her eyes. _I know you got the soul for me. That I could inspire good in you… Maybe I wasn't an agent of evil, after all._

 _Oh, love._ Spike was stunned; he knew how much Angelus had hurt her, but he didn't know this particular wound. She had doubted her very identity.

 _I mean, happiness or not, a real agent of good would have bound the soul, not allowed the curse to break, and kept evil from coming into the world, right? But then, even though you really didn't need it, you got your soul. On purpose. For me. It was like being recertified as one of the good guys._

 _I needed it. I hurt you._

 _You never hurt me._

 _I hurt your feelings. I went way beyond the boundaries of a new, er, boyfriend._

She smirked at him. _Oh, you were my booooyfriend?_

 _Oh, hush._

 _You really are a wonderful man, you know. The most loving man I've ever met._

"Buffy Summers," he said matter-of-factly, "is the most extraordinary woman in the universe, and her Slayer eclipses all the rest."

"You might be a little biased."

Spike harrumphed in his best Willingham impersonation. "You're not wrong. At least the Council is beginning to take care of you lot." He was a little desperate to change the topic.

"I did enjoy that direct deposit from the Council of Slayers," she said smugly. "Plus, dental insurance!"

This time his snort was genuine. "Wankers still don't know how to take care of their only bloody resource."

"Oh?" She looked up the length of his muscled torso with a little grin. "You could do better?"

"They have no idea how magnificent and unique you are. Let's say I ruled a kingdom back in the days of the pharaohs. I got lucky enough to have a Slayer as my champion, half of my palace would be put aside for your pleasure. You'd walk on flower petals over marble floors, wearing admittedly skimpy robes of silk. A hundred servants would be at your disposal to feed you the most delicate and tempting morsels, to bathe and clothe you, to massage your muscles. I'd send out riders to find the finest musicians and entertainers to delight you during the nights. During the day, all my armies would be at your disposal so you could train however you like, with stake or spear or bow. I'd tame tigers to stalk at your side and break proud stallions for you to ride. Whenever you left the palace, all the citizens would bow and throw flowers out of respect and love. And when you went out to meet my enemies, they would either fall prostrate before you, offering their necks in despair, or they would flee at the mention of your name."

"Wow." She blinked at him. "You've thought about this way too much."

"Active fantasy life is a healthy thing."

Buffy looked down to hide her smile. "And where would you be, my king, when I went out to face your enemies?"

"Sitting in the shade of a litter, watching you and wanking off. Probably." When she finished laughing, he rolled over and moved down the bed so they were nose to nose. "So, you see, Watchers or Slayers, the Council is still slacking as far as I'm concerned."

Buffy trailed her fingers blindly over the sheets until she found one of the orchid blossoms that had been strewn across the smooth linens, another of his romantic gestures. "Good King William," she murmured, stroking the soft, fragrant flower across his brow. "I hope I make you feel half as cherished as you do me."

His arms tightened around her, and he closed his eyes. "You make me feel whole, love, and happy. You make this old, cold vamp feel warm. You make me feel loved."

"That's because I love you best." She watched gold flicker in his eyes, and then Buffy didn't have the chance to say anything else as his mouth found hers again.

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"What, exactly, would you like us to do for you, Ms. Raiden?" Wesley asked. They were in a small conference room at the Hyperion. "We've been here for a quarter of an hour, and you persist in speaking in vague terms."

"Gwen." She looked around the table, at the silent CEO of Angel Investigations, the equally silent dark-haired beauty sitting sullenly next to him, the beefcake with intensely blue eyes, the tall black man who kept sending her appreciative looks, and the Texan physicist that she'd been speaking with in the main. "Just call me Gwen." She sent another look to Fred, who didn't seem like she was about to step into the breach. "Okay," she sighed. "Here's my story."

"I'm electric girl, okay? Since I was little, I've had electrical current running on the outside of my body. If I touch you, you're going to be electrocuted. You noticed that I don't shake hands? I don't kiss. I don't hold babies. I don't pat someone on the back when they need a friend. I don't get to touch anyone." She looked down. "I have accidentally killed people, too, so I've got that to deal with as well."

"And, of course, you're a successful and accomplished thief, able to get around the most sophisticated electronic security systems." Wesley opened a file on the table in front of him, revealing a copy of her last mug shot. It was an old picture; she was very skilled at what she did.

Gwen made a mouth. "Okay. You know. That's good, I guess." She met Wesley's eyes frankly, no longer trying to hide anything. "Just because my… abilities don't allow me to have a normal, nine-to-five job doesn't mean I'm a monster. I may be a thief, but I'd like to be," the next words sounded wobbly, "a human." Her gaze dropped to the table. "And I think I might finally have found a way to make that happen, but I can't pull this off alone."

Wesley took the opportunity to glance around at his colleagues. All of them gave a nod, except for Gunn, who nodded emphatically. He sighed. "Tell us how we fit into your plan."

Gwen launched into an explanation of a prototype device called a localized ionic sensory activator, LISA, and explained how it was meant to help special ops people regulate their heartrates, temperatures, and other biometric markers. The most important thing to her, of course, was the electrical component, but she was also giddy with the fact that it was palm-sized, something she could wear unobtrusively. The prototype was made by Takeshi Morimoto, a titan of industry familiar to nearly everyone in the room. Gwen went on to tell them that Morimoto was not the nice guy his PR people worked so hard to present, but a smuggler and money launderer.

"So you want us to help you steal this prototype? Because he's a bad guy, it's okay to steal from him. Is that the bottom line?" Wesley asked.

Something else had occurred to Faith. "You've never been with a guy, have you?"

Gwen glared at her. "I've never even held hands."

"Well, shit, Wes," Faith said, pivoting in the office chair, "of course we're going to help her." Fred started to giggle, then covered her mouth.

"What kind of help do you need?" Angel sat up taller as he spoke for the first time.

"It's a two person job," she explained, then added, "plus a wheelman."

"Are you taking the plans for LISA as well?"

Gwen looked down. "That's how I found out it existed. Corporate espionage. Another defense contractor wanted me to steal it, device and blueprints."

"And you plan to stiff them? Or only give them part of the package?" Wesley shook his head. "That's a good way to get killed."

"I refused the job."

"And went into competition with them."

"I'm not the one wanting to make stealth soldiers," she pointed out.

"We'll help." Angel's tone was an end to the discussion.

Wesley sighed and closed the folder. "We get the plans and destroy them. Twenty thousand retainer. Ten thousand every day we're on the case. Option to bill you for things like… drained car batteries."

"Wes," Gunn said reprovingly.

"We help the helpless," he shot back. "She isn't and will be billed accordingly."

"Your fee sounds reasonable."

"If the device works," Gunn said, speaking to her for the first time, "what then?"

"Then…" Gwen shook her head at the dizzying thought. "Then I join the real world."

"And when it stops working?" When the thief turned wide eyes on him, Gunn's voice gentled. "Ain't gonna be a repair shop that can fix that."

Gwen gritted her teeth. "If I can get one normal year out of it, that's more than I ever expected. It's worth having, even for a moment."

"Angel, Wes," Gunn's eyes went to Fred and Groo as well, "I have a counter-proposal for Ms. Raiden."

⸹

"That went smoother than I expected," Gwen said, shutting the car door behind her. She and Gunn had posed as servers at a party given by Morimoto. The LISA plans and prototype were tucked into the pouch at her waistband.

"Where to, sir?" Groo shot a grin at Gunn through the rear-view mirror, his voice a passable British accent.

"Home, Jeeves." Gunn was smiling, too. A little adrenalin, a chance to pull one over on snooty rich people, and a gorgeous girl at his side… Yeah, he was enjoying the hell out of this case.

"Do you really think your friend can help?" Gwen asked suddenly. She had sought a magical answer for years without success.

"Red?" Gunn drawled. "Oh, yeah. There's more to that witch than crystals and a circle of salt poured on the ground."

An hour and one nerve-wracking portal later, Gwen and Gunn stood in front of a normal door in a normal apartment building in Sunnydale. She watched over her shoulder as it disappeared. "You get used to stuff like that?"

"Gwen, a couple hours up the coast ain't nearly as bad as taking one step from Cali daylight into British darkness."

"Wow."

"Willow's coven did those portals. We got this," he said reassuringly, then turned to knock on the door.

"Hey!" Willow opened the door, her eyes already lit up with excitement over this new puzzle to work on. She stood back so they could walk in; at this point in her life, she didn't think it was possible for her to speak the words 'come in.'

Gunn leaned down to give her a hug. "How are the wedding plans?" he asked.

"Oh, just look around," she said, gesturing at the neat apartment. "We're covered with ribbons, and we have all these herbs bundled and drying in the kitchen. Everything is coming into bloom now that spring is almost here, and we're trying to get everything fresh so we can hang swags instead of flowers. Well, some herbs have little flowers, because the leaves and flowers and sometimes even the roots all have different magical properties…" Willow stopped and looked at Gwen, who seemed somewhat overwhelmed. "Oh, I'm sorry! You must be Gwen. I'm Willow." She reached for the other woman.

Gwen took a step back across the threshold. "I don't shake hands."

Willow froze. "Oh, goddess. It's so easy to forget, isn't it?" She settled for a beam. "Come on into the kitchen and meet everyone else." She started walking, leading the way. "I didn't expect you to be so young."

"Everyone else?" Gwen hissed at Gunn. "I only agreed to meet her."

He lifted a shoulder. "You know how smart Fred is? Red is just as smart, and she's not the only genius in this town. Trust me, Gwen."

She stared up into his warm hazel eyes and realized that she did trust him. And she liked the way her name sounded on his lips. It didn't mean she wasn't a fraction of a second from bolting from the apartment, but she'd seen what the witch could do.

"Everyone, this is Gwen." Gunn turned his attention to the other occupants in the kitchen. "Oz, my man." They gave each other a manly clinch, then he turned his attention to the woman who stood by the stove. "Tara." He leaned down to give her a warm hug. "And I don't think I've met you."

Gwen tensed, staring at the last woman, who sat at the table. She looked a couple of years younger than the rest, but she had a pleasant smile on her face that seemed genuine.

"Hi. I'm April. I'm Anya's administrative assistant."

"Hey, April." Gunn sounded a little confused. "Uh, something smells good."

"Willow made cookies," Tara said, taking a plate of chocolate chip goodness from the counter behind her. "Forget the calories; you have to try them. Her cookies are legendary. And I've made… hot water." She lifted a kettle from the burner and settled it on a trivet. "All kinds of teas. This will probably be thirsty work."

"Can we see the device?" Oz asked.

"He's a student at MIT," Gunn explained.

Gwen slowly unfolded the plans. MIT sounded good. "What's your major?"

"Theoretical physics, but I dabble."

"I'm doing my doctorate in synthetic biology at Oxford," Willow murmured, her eyes already on the schematics Gunn had handed over.

Gwen took out the shielded pouch that held the LISA device and laid it on the table. "Impressive."

Tara came closer, but stopped short of Gwen's personal space. She held out a wooden tray with a selection of teas. "I'm graduating in May with a business degree from UC-Sunnydale. Living with these guys hardly damages my ego at all."

The dry humor startled Gwen into a real smile. She looked at the teas and chose peppermint. "Thank you."

While Oz examined the device, Willow put a distracted hand out to April. "Can you scan these?"

April stood up and leaned closer, her eyes running over the schematics in a methodical pattern. "Scanned."

"Call up that imaging program and upload? And open another window for coding?"

Gwen pulled a chair further away from the table where no one was likely to accidentally bump into her and watched Willow pull a large monitor on a wheeled cart closer. April calmly lifted her shirt and opened a panel on her stomach.

Gwen's chair scraped against the floor as she shoved away from the table and the… "Robot?"

"Oh!" Gunn turned interested eyes on April. "I heard about you, but I didn't make the connection."

April was calmly untucking a USB cable from her inner workings and plugging it into the laptop on the cart. "I had heard about you, too, but no one managed to convey how tall and good-looking you are in person."

Gunn gave her a pleased laugh, but Willow shook her head. "I can't keep the flirtation subroutines from running."

"I don't want you to. Anya says I make a very charming addition to the office, because I always compliment her choice of clothes."

"You could teach her charm," Oz suggested.

Tara gave him a nudge and a reproving look. "Anya has her own charm."

Gwen looked around at the strange group, then at Gunn, who was completely relaxed, a cookie in his hand. She slowly settled back down into the chair.

"Have you tried the device, Gwen?" Tara asked.

"I did," she confessed. "We turned it on, then sort of slowly put it against my skin. Angel volunteered to be the guinea pig." She had been terrified of how cavalier he'd been, just mildly reassuring her that he'd been electrocuted before and survived just fine.

"It worked like you wanted?" Willow asked. She was still looking at the schematics, a frown on her face. Right now, she looked nothing like the friendly, spacey woman who had given them a babbling welcome.

Gwen couldn't help the little breath that escaped her or the smile that lit her face. "It did."

"Too much going on here," Willow muttered. "April, could you strip away the temperature control unit from the plans?"

Although April didn't touch anything, the scanned image on the monitor suddenly became less cluttered. Wow, Gwen thought. Before she could think better of it, she asked Willow, "Did you build her?"

"No. Warren built me," April answered. "He's dead now. He considered giving me a defensive mechanism much like yours so I could electrocute people. You're welcome to ask questions of me directly, Gwen." She gave the thief another pretty smile.

That broke Willow's reverie. "Uh, Warren wasn't the nicest guy," she said, giving the sketchiest explanation she could. "He died in prison. April is cool, though. She's been our friend for a couple of years."

"So, she's a robot," Gwen said slowly. She looked at Gunn. "You're a demon hunter." She looked at the other three. "Are you all witches?"

"We are," Tara said, indicating herself and Willow.

"I'm a guitarist."

When Gwen blinked at the low-key answer, Gunn added, "He's with Dingoes Ate My Baby."

"Oh, hey, I've heard of you guys." Gwen felt, if anything, even stupider after blurting out those words. "I like that one song," she added lamely.

"Oz wrote it," Tara said proudly. Then she winced. "You did mean 'I Shouldn't Want You?'"

"Yeah, that's the one."

She sent Oz and Willow a private look. "It's our favorite, too."

Willow pointed at something on the screen. "Oz, does that look necessary for suppressing electrical output to you?"

Three hours, five cookies, and two cups of tea later, Gwen jumped a little when Willow thumped a box onto the table. Inside were crystals in all shapes, colors, and sizes. "I think that would do," she said anxiously, pulling one randomly from the jumble. "Tara?"

The other witch shook her head. Her fingers went into the box, but her eyes stayed on Willow. Whatever her fingers sought, she found, because she pulled a clear red stone from the box that looked like a slightly flattened cylinder. "This one."

"Ooh," Willow breathed. "And it will go with her coloring, too." She took her eyes from the stone and focused on Tara. "Can we do the etching now?"

"Do we have enough gold?"

"Michael took most of it to mold those rings for Spike, but this won't take much. Circuits are very delicate."

"Circuits?" Gwen asked. "I thought this was magic?"

"Willow is aces at combining both." Oz put a hand on her back. "I'll go get the gold."

By this point, Gwen had given up on figuring out the dynamics between the three. They were like longtime roommates, maybe with benefits. Gunn seemed to take all the affectionate touching for granted.

Gwen never had.

The spell that created the circuit by moving the gold into the crystal was pretty, with light glowing around the path the gold specks took between the partial gold ingot and the crystal. After the light dissipated, both witches let out a little sigh.

"That was very nice," Tara said, something of a purr in her voice. Oz leaned into her, an automatic gesture.

"It was." Willow put a hand on Oz's shoulder. Then she cleared her throat and turned to Gwen. "Our coven meets in three nights. We'll get this powered up and send it to Angel Investigations."

"Okaay…"

Gunn hid a smile. "What did you manage to do, guys?"

The blond witch gave a little laugh. "I think we need to speak 'normal people' for a minute."

Willow smacked playfully at her before turning to Gwen. "The crystal is simpler than LISA, but you won't have to worry about batteries. It will work as long as you live. After we get it magicked to charge from your electrical field, it will absorb and neutralize it, and that's all. It won't regulate your temperature or disperse your odor – not that you have odor or anything – but you also won't have to worry about batteries or components wearing down. Or, you know, submerging it."

Gwen realized her hands were shaking, so she put them against her thighs. "And all I have to do is wear it?"

Willow gave her a sympathetic look. "The crystal or the setting should be against your skin. One of our coven, Michael, is something of a jeweler. He'll fix up a setting for the crystal. Do you have a preference? Ring? Necklace?"

"Bracelet?" she asked after a moment's thought. "Maybe a cuff?"

"Oh, that will be pretty!"

"Are you done with LISA?" Gwen couldn't keep the edge from her voice.

"Do you want to put it back on?" Gunn asked, his voice kind.

She couldn't speak, just nodded and stared at the godsend. Gunn leaned over and took it up, the device looking small in his large hands, though it was bulky against her skin. He powered it up, then strapped it to her arm.

Gwen swallowed, then let out her breath. She put out a hand and hesitantly touched Gunn's bare forearm. He had nice arms, and he didn't flinch away.

Willow began folding the schematic, and Tara stepped forward. "I'll need one of your hairs now. We'll need it to bond the crystal to you."

The witches could also use it to hunt her down, Gwen knew. But she planned to keep to the deal. Angel Investigations would get the LISA device and plans; she would get a talisman and a life. Best thirty thousand dollars she'd ever spent.

Less than three minutes later, she and Gunn stepped through the portal and were standing in front of the Hyperion. She stopped him by placing a hand on his chest as he started inside. "What's your name? Your whole name, I mean."

"It really is Gunn. Charles Gunn."

"Okay. Would you come back to my hotel tonight?"

He looked down at her and for a long moment didn't reply, thinking of what Faith had deduced. "That's a pretty special invitation."

"You're a pretty special guy."

"You don't really know me."

"I've seen enough."

"Just for tonight?"

She looked up at him, his handsome face, the kindness in his eyes now joined by something wary. "No. I hope not."

He nodded gravely. "You know I have to report in."

"And take the blueprints to your boss." When he didn't respond, she said. "It's okay. I get it. I might abscond with the plans." She'd done nothing, really, to prove she was trustworthy.

"Do you want to come with me?"

"I'll wait here."

Gunn's long legs ate up the distance between the door and the office. Wesley was still there, and Fred was sitting on the edge of the desk, talking to him. Gunn handed over the papers. "Mission accomplished. Willow and Tara will bring the crystal in three days, when the coven meets."

"And Gwen?"

He looked at Wesley, then made himself look at Fred. His voice was soft, apologetic. "She's outside. She wants to," he lowered his voice, "take me to dinner."

"Oh." Fred pressed her lips together. Then she reached out and touched his face. "I can't blame her. I'd say she's been lonesome. You have a good time."

He covered her fingers with his palm just for a second. _I'll always love you. I'm so sorry I've caused you pain. I'd still do anything to let you stay yourself._ All of the words had been true; none of them were still completely true. He couldn't say them aloud, not in front of Wesley. Instead, Gunn just smiled and let her fingers fall away from his face. Fred had always been able to read him, anyway. She knew. "Night, guys."

Wesley watched Gunn leave and watched Fred watch him leave. He hoped the way the tall man hurried didn't hurt her too much. "Cordelia would have loved this," he said, wanting to break the poignant mood. "An actual paying client."

"Yes, she would have." Fred made herself laugh, a short laugh. "We'll text her and let her know."

⸹

Dawn frowned, her concentration breaking. She was in Max's nursery – not like he was using it, what with being in the UK – because it had good light. She held her paintbrush away from the canvas, listening. Yup, definitely a knock at the door.

She bounded down the stairs, wondering who was coming to see her midmorning on a Saturday. She checked through the window above the couch, then ran to open the door, grinning madly.

"Uncle Aubrey!" She pulled him into a big hug.

"Good Lord, girl, you've grown again," he complained, but he was smiling broadly as he returned her embrace. He stepped into the foyer. "Well, don't make me wait. I haven't seen your fabulous new room."

Dawn began to draw him along after her, heading for the basement door. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, it's Saturday evening for me. Thought I might come to Sunnydale and see you, perhaps drop by Fangs for a pint."

"They have excellent pints in London," she pointed out, turning on the light so he could see the steps.

"Yes, well, there's always someone who wants to accompany me and talk shop."

"I see why you would want to skip that." Dawn chattered at him cheerfully, showing him bookshelves built by Xander and the three-panel canvas room divider that she'd painted herself with colorful butterflies. He approved of everything, showing interest as if he didn't have decisions with global impact to make every day.

She gave him a few moments in the kitchen to search the refrigerator for ale or other drink (there was none) before dragging him up to see her paintings. Two flights of stairs in a row was nothing for her, but she didn't want him puffing for five minutes before he regained his breath.

"So, this is a part of your grade for art class?"

"They are my grade," she said fretfully. "We only have two tests and a final project. Ms. Ralston said she wanted the class to be preparation for college."

Willingham studied each canvas in turn. It was a series depicting doorways. One was an ornate front door, freestanding in a grove of oaks, with light edging the tiny gaps between door and frame. The next painting was realistic instead of surreal, showing the outside of a modest house with a soldier standing in front of the door, a duffel over her shoulder and one hand raised to knock.

The one she was currently working on was from the perspective of someone standing in a darkened house looking through a screen door into a bright summer's day. She had the suggestion of a porch with flowering bushes planted on either side of the steps, but the middle of the canvas was still plain.

"I can't figure out how to do the screen," she complained. "It works okay with pencil, but I can't paint a screen."

"Can you put paint on an actual screen and press it against the canvas?"

"That doesn't work, either. The paint smears when I take it off."

"You'll figure it out, my dear." He gave her a penetrating look. "You chose doors for your thesis."

She shrugged. "It seemed fitting." It was her turn to give him a pointed look. "Speaking of portals, why did you use the crystals to come to Sunnydale? I know it wasn't for whatever Fangs has on tap."

"No." Aubrey reached into his jacket and pulled out a couple of pages of notes. "This is a draft of the last thing I intend to do as head of the Council. I wondered if you could proofread it for me. Suggest any changes."

"You want me to help with Council stuff?"

"Of course I do. Surely you realize how much I learned from you. Your sister is wonderful, but she has other people to whom she can… vent. You've always been unguarded in your opinions."

"If by vent, you mean rant, I guess I have done some of that." She stopped looking at him and read the first line: "Be it resolved…."

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

This was… displeasing.

Nineteen-fifty-three hadn't been planned. When he spotted Angel in a bus station in Seattle, it had only been chance. But seeing the big vampire scurrying along the edges of the place, trying to escape anyone's notice, had been so… gratifying, that he'd made it a habit to look him up every ten years.

Minneapolis in 1963 hadn't been as much fun. Angel had rented the basement of a boardinghouse and was living alone. He spent much of his time sitting in the dark, staring into space. The next couple of times, the vampire had been dwelling in sewers. The best of all had been 1993 in Philadelphia. He'd seen Angel chase down rats for food.

Now Angel was no longer filthy and dressed in rags. He was walking tall with his shoulders thrown back, living in a renovated hotel and keeping company with several people who seemed human and one obvious demon. Two pretty dark-haired girls, two tall men, one black, one white, a musclebound guy with long hair, an Indian woman of mature years, and a tow-headed kid, all of them with heartbeats.

Sometimes Angel smiled.

He couldn't get close to the building Angel was in, an old hotel, but it was easy enough to buy good binoculars and get access to other buildings nearby. Sometimes people came in off the streets to hire the group. They were supposed to help the helpless. A humorless smile curved his mouth. He knew Angel's brand of help.

In none of the decade-long check-ins had he thought of making contact. Just seeing that the vampire had no joy in his life was enough. Now, though, Angel had people, a place to live, and even good hygiene.

And sometimes, he smiled.

Sam Lawson figured there were ways to fix this break in the pattern.

⸹

Gerta. No, Greta. Her name was Greta. Connor had an official girlfriend for the first time. She was the smartest girl in school, Connor said. Angel didn't know if that was true, but he agreed with his son that she was pretty. He'd had several guilty memories of stalking similar-looking girls.

Greta was upstairs with Connor in his room now, the two of them working on a presentation for English class. Angel had given his son strict instructions on leaving the door open. Her father was picking her up in a few minutes. Connor had already met both her parents, so Angel was the one who needed to be on his best behavior.

He liked Greta, who had displayed almost no interest in him beyond polite greetings, but also found himself hating her. Would she break Connor's heart? Did she really like him, or did she just want to date a star athlete?

Would she take up all of Connor's time?

Angel sighed, frustrated with himself. The other parents in the Sheffield booster club laughingly warned him that Connor would disappear the second he got his driver's license, only popping in for money, food, and laundry. He even remembered that himself, that he'd spent as little time at home as possible once Liam discovered alcohol and women.

He spent a minute or so pondering all the ways he might have tortured Daniel Holtz in this new age of power tools and electricity. He had so little time left with Connor…

Angel jerked as the front door opened and Greta's father came in, a tall, thin man in a pastel polo with his daughter's chestnut hair. He pasted on a pleasant smile and answered all the questions about the hotel and his business. Connor escorted his girlfriend down the stairs right on time. She was carrying a posterboard and didn't have a single wrinkle in her skirt or hair out of place as she looked over her shoulder to smile at Connor. The two of them really had worked on the English project. Greta nodded to Angel and asked if she'd see him at Connor's baseball game tomorrow. He shook his head and told her he couldn't make it.

Later that night, without any real thought at all, Angel went into his bedroom and closed the door. He didn't bother to turn on the lights, just sat on the bed. Even without going to game face, he could clearly see his clenched hands resting on his knees.

 _Spike?_

A moment later, _Yeah, Peaches?_

 _Come down to L.A. I want to go hunting for a Mohra demon._

There was a long silence. Then, with so much warmth, _No need._ _Rupes saved the blood._

⸹

Spike sat on his motorbike for almost five minutes, staring across the empty parking lot and thinking of what Angel was asking. He wasn't sure how he felt, just that the emotions were rich, too heavy and slow to process. He would wait until Buffy came home from the Seventh Street building where she was touring the partially gutted beginnings of her new business. As he made his way, Spike spent a lot of time thinking about how to approach the news.

Buffy stilled as she came through the balcony door, giving him a wary look before joining him on the couch. Spike handed her a glass of white wine with club soda.

"Okay," she said, turning so that her knee touched her thigh, "what's the bad news?"

"Dunno that it's bad." _Angel wants the Mohra blood_.

Buffy blinked at him, the glass in her hand forgotten. _Why? I mean, why now?_

 _He said he wants to see Connor play baseball._

 _He wants to become human so he can go to high school baseball games?_

Spike smiled faintly at her incredulous tone. They were on the back porch of the house on Revello for some reason, sitting side-by-side on the second step in the bloodlink. _He's been working toward this for a while, I think. It isn't just baseball, being in sunshine. I think he's rethinking his whole approach to… to life, I guess._

 _Rethinking?_

He leaned closer, so that their arms touched, shoulder to elbow. _He set out on a very solitary quest when he left Sunnydale, yeah?_

 _A selfish quest._

Spike shrugged, not denying that _. Is it so wrong that he wants to make a mid-course direction, then? Where is this path of atonement taking him? Especially when so many people are going with him now. Almost by definition, he has to make a big statement, make a stand. Those are dangerous. I mean, it isn't as if we seek out battles with Turok-Han. We're on the Hellmouth; evil comes to us. He'll find the biggest monster in L.A. and pick a fight, he keeps this up. But giving up the idea of Shanshu and taking his fate into his own hands? You know I like the sound of that. And he told me Angelus is never going to repent, but he has enough of his own sins to worry about._

 _Without Connor, he wouldn't be thinking like this._

 _No._

Buffy considered all of this. Watching his son play baseball was more important to Angel than she had ever been. Angel had never sought a way to close the loophole in his curse for her, for them, but he was trying to find a way to be in Connor's life. Angel had refused humanity that, once upon a time, might have led him to her, but sought it for his son. Buffy felt petty for thinking that, but when she was sixteen, she'd been all about Angel. She also thought about Cordy's belief that Angel only knew how to love obsessively. Buffy remembered Spike once saying that, what Angel called love, he didn't understand.

 _I think_ , she managed after nearly a minute's thought, _that going to watch a baseball game is probably an excellent reason._

 _Told him to take a week, like a cooling off period. If he feels the same way when I'm back from that blacksmithing workshop, we'll do it then._

She turned to Spike and took his hands. _He's not doing this for selfish reasons, is he? He wants to be there with Connor in the daylight._

Her husband looked up at the faint stars visible through the haze of streetlight cast along Revello Drive. _Dunno. You can see how it could be selfish. Does he want to be there in Connor's life every moment, or does he want to be there for Connor every moment? Can't read his heart, not really, but, yeah. I think it's for the right reasons._

 _The Powers That Be won't give him a do-over again. It would be permanent._ Buffy watched Spike's face until he turned from the sky and back to her. She knew she wasn't anywhere old enough to be wise, but something in her hurt so much to think that she knew more about how to love at twenty-one than Angel did at two hundred and fifty. _It really isn't our call._

 _No. It's his._ Spike sighed and squeezed her hands. Then they were only on the couch. "Need to call Red. There's someone else to consider in this, I think."

After a moment of confusion, her eyes widened. "Cory?"

Spike nodded. "Sandy, too, maybe. I'll offer. Don't think any of the others would be interested."

"What about Lu?" Buffy winced after saying Luisa's name. She didn't want to give up Spike's best employee and felt very selfish for that. She finally took a sip of her wine spritzer.

Spike's jaw clenched. "I did plan – I'll ask her. I'd be surprised if she were interested."

It was Buffy's turn for a small smile. "Feeling bad and selfish about that, too?"

"Yeah. Couldn't rightly replace her."

"Make sure Cory understands that the soul is a curse."

"Dunno if that could make him feel any worse about whatever he did."

⸹

Buffy pulled out her phone. She was walking across campus on her way to her first morning class, and she was surprised anyone else was up this early. Then she saw the number and understood. It was well into the afternoon in London. "Hey, Daddy-O."

Giles sighed. "I'd prefer 'boss,' if you must call me something other than my name."

"What's up?"

"I have a favor to ask of you. Two, actually."

"Shoot."

"The Council is bringing all the non-English speaking Slayers here for a seminar in April. Faith is going to be the leader, but I wanted to borrow Spike, too. He speaks most of the languages, and," Giles voice dropped in volume, as though he might be overheard, "I thought he might wish to meet them in his role as Guardian."

"Have you asked him?"

"Well, er, I rather thought I'd ask you first."

"He's my husband, Giles, not my rent-a-vamp. Of course I don't have a problem with him being at the seminar. But you should ask him before he gets booked or something."

"I-I'll do that. And then I have to ask you if your fitness center will be completed by the second week of June."

Buffy's footsteps slowed as she approached her classroom, and her eyes narrowed. "Because you want me to host a seminar for the English-speaking Slayers."

"Er, yes. The Council will pay you for use of your facility, of course, and cover any expenses for the Slayers."

She sighed. "Why not? I'd already planned on a soft opening in mid-June to start the membership drive. If something is going to break, I can count on Slayers to find it."

"Whatever wrinkles crop up in the first seminar, we'll iron out before the second. It will go smoothly on our end, I promise."

"I suppose you'll want me to play Faith's role?"

"Of course. A-and take the young ladies to the construction site so they get a chance to feel the miasma of a Hellmouth."

"Miasm– Wow. You need to wash out your mouth. That's a ten-dollar Council of Watchers word, Daddy-mine."

"You aren't too old to put over my knee, you know."

Buffy laughed. "Class is starting. I'll talk to you later. Love you, Giles."

"I love you, too."

"Oh! Wait, don't hang up. I can't believe I forgot this. Angel wants to be human."

"Yes?" Her Watcher sounded impatient. "Hence that prophecy."

"No, he's chucking all that for Connor. Spike got him to wait a week, like a cooling off period, then we're getting the Mohra blood out of Mom's freezer and taking it to L.A."

Giles was silent for a long moment. Just before Buffy started to say his name, to make sure they hadn't been cut off, he spoke in a remote voice. "That seems… abrupt."

"I thought so, too, but Spike says Angel's been hinting about this for a few months." When her Watcher said nothing, Buffy plowed on uneasily. "I can't blame him for wanting to focus on his son instead of a destiny. They lost so many years."

"Er, yes. I'll ring off, Buffy, and let you get to class. Your mother sends her love."

Buffy looked at the phone in her hand, her brows drawn together. That seemed odd. Then she tucked her mobile into a pocket of her backpack and headed toward a desk.

⸹

London

⸹

"Is he asleep?"

Joyce started. "Oh! I didn't realize you were awake." She slid into bed and scooted close to him. "He's down. I changed his diaper, and he took half a bottle."

Giles pulled her close to him. "You're cold."

"You aren't," she breathed, drawing closer. She made a sleepy sound as she cuddled against him.

"Joyce? Before you fall back asleep, can I talk about something?"

Her head drew back, though she couldn't see him in the darkness. "Of course."

"This isn't something that makes me look good, I'm afraid."

"Nothing you say is going to scare me off."

Giles leaned in and put a kiss on her forehead. "Too late now."

"Hey, divorcee, here. Never say never," she teased.

"I am furious that Angel is going to be human."

Joyce's eyebrows rose. Of anything he might say, something about the big vampire was the last she'd expected. Propping up on one elbow, she put her other arm around him. "Why?"

"Because of Jenny Calendar."

"You haven't talked about her very much. I know Willow and Buffy were devastated when she died."

"She didn't die," he said bluntly. "She was killed."

"I know she was, Rupert." Joyce thought of how scared and confused Dawn had been. Even though she didn't know the teacher, Buffy and Willow's grief had made an impression.

"We weren't lovers, in case you wondered. That made the… staging worse. What might have been, you know?" When his wife said nothing, just rubbed her fingers along his shoulder, he sighed. "When Angel came back, it was… difficult. Buffy wasn't wrong to keep the secret. If I'd known, if I'd had the opportunity when he was weak, I would have killed him." His accent grew less polished. "Thought about doing it a few times anyway."

"I understand." Joyce leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I hate that you've ever been hurt, dearest."

"At first, our best guess was that the Powers That Be brought him back. He hadn't fulfilled his destiny as champion yet."

Ah. Joyce didn't say anything, but she knew where this was going. By the time they knew the First Evil had dumped Angel into the mansion, he had no longer been feral and was saving lives again. "And now that he's decided he isn't going to be that champion, you're left wondering what possible reason there was for Ms. Calendar to die."

"Yes," he breathed, closing his eyes, so grateful that she'd been the one to put it into words. "Don't think that I'm not grateful that we got a chance to know each other, and never think that I don't love you more than I've ever loved anyone," Giles rolled over and pulled her close. "But if Angelus' existence only mattered for a few more years, why couldn't she have…" His throat closed up. "She was so… vital, Joyce. She can't have died just because the high school had faster Internet than the dialup she had at her apartment." But Jenny had stayed to work late in a public building instead of her private residence for just that mundane reason. And she had died.

She held her husband close, not saying anything as he cried. He had done the same for her a few times as she unpacked all the damage Hank had done to her. "I can give you an easy answer," she murmured, waiting until he'd pulled away a couple of inches to wipe his eyes. "Connor."

"But even that could have happened earlier," he said thickly. "Darla was on the Hellmouth then."

Joyce put another kiss on his forehead and gathered him close. "I don't know the answer, sweetheart. I haven't had one since Celia died." She rocked him for a moment. "But I'm glad you told me. I want to know all of you, where you hurt, what ugly emotions you have, all of it. You've listened to all my fears about marriage and never made me feel like an idiot. Even if I don't have an answer for you, I always want to hear your questions."

Giles took a breath. "I love you," he whispered fiercely. "You're a hell of a woman, and I'm lucky to have you."

"We're lucky to have each other, and Max, and the girls." His head was held high again, so she brought her mouth to his. "Get some sleep, okay, honey? And next time we're in town, we'll go together and take flowers to Ms. Calendar's grave."

⸹

Sunnydale

March 2003

⸹

"No."

Spike nodded at Luisa, having expected this answer. He was sitting on the couch at her house, loosely holding a mug of cow's blood in his hand. "Because it's been too long?" All of her people were gone since her death, one way or another. They were speaking mostly in Catalan. He'd been trying to learn.

She shook her head. "The soul. I don't want it."

He gave her a thin smile. "I understand. Comes with a conscience."

"Do you think anyone besides Cory will want to do this?"

"I don't know. It's a hell of a thing to consider."

"Are you going to ask him while you're on patrol tonight?" When Spike nodded, she went on. "He's young, so he still has most of his old life in place."

"I don't think he has much to regret." Spike made a face. "Well, not compared to me. A handful of deaths, at most."

"One death is all it would take."

He looked away from Luisa's haunted face. "Yeah, so, I thought I would make the offer to you first."

"Chain of command?"

"Something like that. Though I might call it 'respect.'" He placed his mug on her coffee table and stood up.

"Thank you for asking." She switched to English as she stood and took a step back to make more room between them. "May I ask why you aren't doing this?"

"Like being a vampire, is all. Not much use to the Slayer as a human."

"Xander is."

"He is, but he isn't me."

"I was thinking about children."

Spike stilled and looked at his perceptive lieutenant. "We've talked about kids. Dunno that she wants them. If she does, we have options."

Luisa took this at face value, nodding her understanding. "Ah. Well, let me know if Cory says no. Otherwise, I'll assume he's going to do it."

"I will."

"Are you going to make the offer to the rest?"

"Have to, don't I? Think Brian might have done it, but I doubt anyone else wants to be human again."

"Sandy may wish to be human."

He shrugged. "She may not want that conscience." When Luisa made a commiserating face, he drew her close and touched foreheads with her. "See you tomorrow, Lu."

Cory was livelier now, but the losses they'd suffered on the Hellmouth in December still marked him. He looked older, Spike thought, as they moved from shadow into the light of streetlamps. "Got something I want you to consider," he began.

"I don't want to replace Vince," Cory interrupted.

"Didn't ask, did I?"

"I'm sorry, Master." Cory moved a few inches farther away and looked down, chastened.

"It isn't that I don't think you'd do a good job," Spike said, after a second of wrestling with his own conscience, "it's that you aren't old enough." He fell silent, wondering if Cory would dare to press him. It took over three minutes.

"What did you want to ask?"

Proud, Spike drew him from the sidewalk and into the street. It was after one a.m. in residential Sunnydale; they were unlikely to be interrupted by a car. He pulled shadow to cover them and spoke in a low tone. "Peaches has found a way to become human. It will work for any vampire with a soul. Wondered if you might be interested."

Cory blinked and shook his head in confusion. "I don't have a soul."

"Coven could fix that for you."

"I could be human again?"

"You have to have the soul first for it to work. You've met Angel. It's truly a curse. Everything that you did, it'll put the screws –"

"Yes."

It was Spike's turn to blink. Cory was staring at him, a terrible hope burning in his eyes. "Right, then. 'Bout a week from now okay?"

⸹

"Dawn, don't make me come all the way home."

"But, Mooo-ooom…"

"No 'buts,' young lady. You're sixteen; you aren't going to Cancun on your own."

"I won't be on my own. Janice –"

"Janice is not a trustworthy chaperone." Joyce's voice brooked no disobedience. "Your father is going to be in Los Angeles during spring break, and he wants to see you. You know that."

"Francesca will be there." Dawn's voice infused the name with loathing.

"Yes, well, life is full of people we don't particularly want to be around. You might as well practice while you're young."

"Wait. Aren't you supposed to say that I should give her a chance?"

"Dawn Michelle Summers, I am so beyond exhausted, it isn't funny. Max is teething, Rupert is running interference with a bloc of Council of Watcher relics who want to undo half of what Aubrey has done, my feet hurt, and," Joyce burst into tears, "I have cramps. You'll go visit your father in Los Angeles as planned, and that's final. You can spend twenty-three hours a day at the Hyperion for all I care, but don't you embarrass me in front of your father's girlfriend, young lady."

"Jeez, Mom," Dawn said, very much subdued, "I'll go. I'm sorry," she added in a mumble. "Are you getting any sleep?"

"No. I'd think that obvious."

Dawn started to remark that, like Madonna, Joyce was developing a British accent, but she enjoyed having her head attached to her body too much. "Maybe I could come to London?" she ventured.

"Where did Rupert put that crystal…?"

"Fine. I'll go to L.A. Go to bed, Mom." Dawn snapped her cell phone shut and glowered at it, feeling like a jerk for getting the last word and throwing all her teenaged snottiness at her mother, who was clearly somewhere past the end of her rope. She figured, since she was still sulking, she might as well call Janice to let her know that Cancun for spring break was a no-go. Dawn hadn't really thought Joyce would let her, anyway – five percent chance, at best.

Buffy showed up just as she was finishing the phone call, a bag of deli sandwiches and mustard potato salad indicating that tonight was a no-cooking night. Dawn moaned for a while about how unfair it all was.

"You knew she'd never let you go alone to a foreign country at your age," Buffy said, wiping a blob of tomato pulp from her lower lip.

"Yeah. But it would have been awesome."

"Who is going with Janice, anyway?"

"Her mom. I think she's divorcing her dad."

"Oh. That sucks for Janice."

"Doesn't it just?" Dawn looked at her sister, who had fallen silent. "You were fifteen when Mom and Dad divorced, right?"

"Yup. Plus I got all Chosen about the same time. Yay, big fun."

"Alby asked me to the prom."

It seemed a sudden change of topic. "Did you say yes?"

"Of course. I mean, it's my junior prom, so I could go anyway, but I want a date." Dawn picked at the little container of potato salad with her fork. "He wants to get a room afterwards."

Buffy froze. A dozen ways of responding to that flashed through her mind, before she settled on, "What do you want to do?"

"I love Alby, but I don't think I'm in love."

Buffy kept her tone mild. "Then you already know what you want."

"I don't, not really."

"Um… 'splainy?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm a teenager. I was made from you, Mom, and Spike. What do you think I mean?" Before Buffy could protest, Dawn gave her A Look. "Remember how I told you I caught Mom going out the door in a trench coat and nothing else when she and Giles were dating? And everybody knows how you and Spike are. If I've got hormones, I come by them honestly."

"Being horny isn't a good reason." Buffy put down her sandwich. "You're too young, Dawnie."

"You were, like, one day past sixteen when you –"

"And look how that turned out." Buffy pushed back from the table irritably. "God, I'm so sick of everyone knowing that. It should have been private, you know?" Then she shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment, mastering herself. "Sorry. Not about me." She gave her sister a searching look. "Is he pressuring you?"

Dawn looked startled. "Alby? No." She sent Buffy a look from beneath her lashes. "Did Angel pressure you?"

"God, no. We hadn't even really done anything much past kissing."

"So, how did you go from," Dawn wrapped her arms around herself and mimed closed-eyes, open-mouthed kissing, "to the horizontal bop?"

Buffy looked down. "I kind of planned it." She shrugged. "I know what it's like to be sixteen and horny, plus Angel was about to go away for a few months. I was all 'seize the day,' but I was so clueless." She made herself meet Dawn's eyes. "There's a whoooole range of things between kissing and sex. There should have been… pit stops." Her eyes narrowed. "And if you aren't in love, there shouldn't really be any of those."

"He's a virgin, too."

"Alby?"

Dawn picked up on Buffy's surprise. "Yeah, I know, right? So, neither of us would have high expectations. He's going off to college, so if it totally sucks, I won't have to see him at school next year." She shrugged. "And we do care for each other."

"Oh, so he is pressuring you."

"Well, he isn't wrong. Wouldn't it be better with someone I know instead of some rando I meet the first week of college?"

"Not without love."

Dawn gave Buffy a sulky look. It felt like her default setting tonight. "Oh, because love so made everything okay for you."

Buffy closed her fists, then her eyes. She forced both open. "Okay. I have a multitude of reasons to regret my first time, almost none of them having to do with the actual experience. Angel was the adult; he should have stopped me from flinging myself at him. But it wasn't awful or anything. He was as gentle as any girl could have wanted. We were both nervous, and things moved too fast, and," she shot Dawn a pointed look, "it hurt. I regret every bit of the aftermath, but the only reason I regret the actual decision was because a year later, I found the real thing." Buffy pushed the saltshaker and napkins aside and leaned over the table to take Dawn's hands. "Just a year."

"Getting a room was all his idea," Dawn admitted in a low voice.

"Well," Buffy said, "I'm not just 'voice of experience,' I'm 'Mormon Tabernacle Choir of experience.' What if you wait until August?"

"August?" Dawn echoed, puzzled.

"Just before he goes off to college. If you feel the same way, at least you'll be seventeen. And, hey, you'll hold out longer than your slutty sister."

Dawn glared at her. "You are not slutty. And you're saying wait because there won't be any prom magic in August."

"And you'll be able think clearly? Yuh-huh, pretty much."

Dawn leaned over the table and tugged Buffy closer. "What pit stops?"

The Slayer narrowed her eyes. "Handjobs. That's it. But if there is anything else, condoms."

Dawn wrinkled her nose. "Eww. Those taste terrible." At Buffy' expression, she hastily added. "Melinda! We bought a pack. She kept one, I kept one, and we opened the other one."

Realizing she was about to squeeze way too hard, Buffy let go of her sister's hands, shaking her head. "I'm glad we can talk about stuff like this, but I wouldn't be your age again for all the money in the world."

Dawn wheedled until Buffy agreed to help her clean up the kitchen and living room. She complained some more about missing Cancun, then asked Buffy about her plans. Apparently, her friend Katy was having an engagement party that Buffy had to go to at the beginning of UC-Sunnydale's spring break. Spike was going with her, then heading to Chattanooga for a workshop on blacksmithing.

"Will learning how to work iron really help make more Scythes? Isn't it made from steel or something?"

"Aubrey thinks it was forged from metal from a meteor. Spike says half the reason they're going to the workshop is to get a list of names of experts to hire as consultants."

"I'm surprised Xander is so excited about it," Dawn noted, culling through a stack of magazines on the coffee table.

"He's always liked working with his hands." Buffy paused, standing up from where she was dusting the hearth. "April is going to run the furniture shop while he's gone."

"Who's running the construction site?"

"His old boss Alvin." Buffy moved to dust the desk where Mom used to sit to do paperwork for the gallery and pay bills. "Anya says the memorial will be ready in time." The monument and fountain memorializing the lives lost during the Mayor's attempt at Ascension was already built. Anya had a sculptor coming in to work on the inscription in April.

"I sort of dread school next year," Dawn admitted. "I mean, it will be great to get out of those trailers and onto a real campus, but it's so far to drive." The new high school, built on the east side and away from the Hellmouth, was going to be unveiled the same week as the memorial. Seniors would get to walk across the stage in the new auditorium.

"Pfft. Think about how long it takes to get anywhere in Los Angeles. A Sunnydale commute is, like, no commute at all."

"Do you have your dress for Katy's wedding yet?"

"I'll have a fitting while I'm in Louisville for her engagement party." Buffy put her hands on her hips and considered the neat living room. "This looks pretty good. Don't have wild parties or anything, and all you'll have to do when you get back from visiting Dad is dust again."

"Thanks, little sister." Dawn went over and exaggerated how far she had to lean down to hug Buffy.

"It'll be okay," Buffy said, giving her a pass on the height humor. "Get Faith to come over. She'll keep Francesca in line."

"Mom said I could spend most of my time at the Hyperion."

"I'll warn them so they can stock up on mops." When Dawn gave her a quizzical look, Buffy smirked. "Because you'll drool so much over Groo."

Dawn shoved her. "He should get himself a better name."

"I think he's, like, Nathaniel Groosalugg West on his driver's license."

"Nate," Dawn giggled.

"Obviously, no one calls him that. Groo works for him."

Dawn's grin faded. "Are you okay with what Angel's doing?"

Buffy gave her a reassuring pat. "I am. I think it's the best thing for him. For Connor, too."

"I know you loved him, but… Do you think he really loved you?"

"He did. I know he did. But…" Buffy bit her lip. "This is where I would usually say, well, I sent him to hell, and after a hundred years there, he didn't feel the same. But I don't really know if he was in love with me."

Dawn gave her a shrewd look. "Because you know what true love is now."

She shook her head. "Because I don't know if he was really capable back then. I think Angel can love now," she added hastily, "and if I was, I don't know, a stepping stone for him to learn how to love," Buffy lifted a shoulder, "I'm okay with that."

"That's… kind of sad, Buf."

"No, not really. I just mean, I'm not sure Angel ever saw me. The real me, I mean, with the leg stubble and blowing off school for fear of being labelled 'smart.' He sort of saw shiny warrior woman for good and got knocked sideways because I was hot for him."

Dawn narrowed her eyes. "That was not your fault. You said yourself, he was the adult."

"No, I mean… If I had just been his friend, I think he would have been okay with that."

Her little sister gave her a pitying look. "He climbed the tree outside your window. That isn't all platonic ideal. That's stalker boy."

Buffy sighed. "It's this whole Mohra demon blood thing. It's got all the old memories stirred up. I want everything to have been my idea, so I have the illusion of control." She put her hand over her eyes for a moment. "I guess… If there's anything to take away from this, I just want you to know that you have more power than you think, okay? I don't want you to sleep with someone for the wrong reasons. I don't think I did, but the circumstances were wrong. There's always going to be another time for it to happen, okay?"

"Okay." This time, Buffy initiated the hug. "I miss having you here."

"You miss having anybody here."

Dawn snorted. "That, too. Oh, it's official. I don't know if you've talked to Mom or Giles, but he's been put forward as Aubrey's permanent replacement."

Buffy pulled away, her eyes wide. "No, I didn't know. But I guess I could see it coming."

"He's the best choice."

"Do you want to come and live with us, Dawnie? I mean, if you're lonely here…"

"Live with you and Spike? Eww, not hardly."

Buffy smacked her shoulder. "Poophead." She looked at the clock on the mantel. "I better book. Rising vampires won't wait around."

"Be careful."

"I will. And the offer stands." Buffy lifted a shoulder. "We could move back here."

"Mom says she'll probably come back with me for senior year. Giles will teleport on the weekends."

"You're going to London this summer?" Buffy threw the question over her shoulder.

Dawn nodded. "Who are you patrolling with tonight?"

"Luisa."

"You two doing okay?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't we?"

"Well, Spike hugs her now."

"He wouldn't if I had a problem with it. She's starved for touch. She'd patrol with her arm around me if I'd let her."

"Maybe she should get a dog."

"Um, you know why vampires don't get pets, don't you?"

Dawn was horrorstruck. "Eww. Really?"

"Not so much cats, but puppies, yeah."

"Oh, God, our lives are so _weird_!"

⸹

Buffy looked around, still stunned three hours into the party. She was on a farm. She was wearing the yellow dress Spike got for her for her eighteenth birthday, her hair was swept up in a chignon, and she still felt underdressed. "So, a horse farm is not exactly where Old MacDonald hangs out," she whispered to Spike. They were at Katy Loomis' engagement party, held in the early evening on a thoroughbred horse farm east of Louisville for three hundred of the couple's closest friends. The grass wasn't blue, but it was as perfect as a golf green. Black rail fences rolled flawlessly over the acres of pasture, and the barns were nicer than her house. Buffy was so glad Spike was with her; she didn't know anyone else, and apparently Katy was marrying into money.

Spike drew in a deep breath of the fresh air and stepped off the paved path to prop his arms on the fence rail. He was staring out at a knot of horses who were grazing near a copse of trees. "Old MacDonald had plow horses. Thoroughbreds cost money to buy and maintain, pet."

Buffy watched him for a moment. "This is something you missed," she decided after a moment.

"I suppose." He lifted one shoulder; he was wearing a black shirt and a loosened dark grey tie. His black suit jacket was hung on a chair back at the reception. Spike pointed to a black horse. "That one reminds me of Loki. Last horse my father bought for me."

Buffy's brows rose. "That horse that ran in the Kentucky Derby reminds you of your childhood pony?"

He chuckled and pulled her into a one-armed embrace. "Loki was a racehorse, love. Gelding. He looked like he was galloping when he was standing still."

She thought of the poem about horseracing William wrote all those decades ago. "So," she teased, "you weren't exactly the gentleman poet you claimed to be?"

"No, I was a right prat." He gave her a self-conscious smile. "But Spike didn't exactly come out of thin air. I've always liked speed."

"You should buy a horse, then."

"Oh, good Lord, no. You know how much work those are? Plus, animals don't much like the undead. Give me seven hundred horsepower that drinks petrol any day."

She looked across the pasture at the black and brown animals, all grace and dark, liquid eyes. "But horses are prettier." Buffy glanced at him sidelong. "You should have transformed into one of those."

"Horses aren't exactly predators, love. Not much use fighting evil."

She gave him a mental picture of a Pegasus. "Sorry. I left out some vital information. I meant a winged horse. For flying and stuff."

Spike looked at her, stunned. "Uh, never thought of it," he admitted.

"And," she said, looking a bit smug, "unlike dragons, horses aren't smarter than vampires. Though it's probably a close thing."

He was thinking too hard for her barb to land. "Might have to talk to Dog Boy about it," he admitted. "Mass couldn't be too far from the feline form."

Buffy gave her husband an indulgent smile. "Come on. We'd better get back to the Fancy People." He offered his arm, and she took it, resting her head against his shoulder. "Is this how you used to live?"

"No. London was nothing like this." His honesty wouldn't let him leave it there. "But I did spend summers as a boy at a country estate. Friend of my father owned it."

"No wonder you're comfortable no matter where you're at. You've lived all over the socioeconomic spectrum."

"Ooh, big words. Keep talking dirty like that, and I'll have to find a nice, dark hayloft."

Buffy looked over his shoulder at a temperature-controlled barn with spires on it. "I don't think they have those here," she said wryly.

Spike pulled her closer. "Bet they have saddles." His voice was sin-soaked as he sent her a mental image of them perched on one, facing each other.

Buffy groaned. "You are a bad man." _I hate that we're going to be apart his week._

 _Me, too. I'll learn a little about blacksmithing, though, and be right back. An's already working through zoning laws to see about setting up a forge._

 _Pictures. Anya and I want pictures._ It was her turn to send him an image.

He chuckled. _I don't think they'll let us hammer hot metal bare-chested, kitten._

Buffy only got the words hammer, hot, and bare-chested, because she was thoroughly distracted now. Wasn't marriage supposed to cool her lust for her husband? _Use that nose of yours. Find us hay. Or a saddle._

⸹

Los Angeles

⸹

"What do you think about Angel becoming human?" Faith asked Groo the question as they scaled a rusty fire escape. It was the best avenue to get to rooftops on this block.

Groo pushed away from patrol alertness as he considered the question. "Well, we'll be down one champion, but I think we'll be okay."

"Yeah." Faith jogged to the other side of the building to check the alley below. "I guess you get past two-fifty, you're kind of ready to retire."

"We aren't that long-lived on Pylea," Groo said, coming to stand next to her and guard her rear.

"Try being a Slayer," she said dryly. "We have a life expectancy of about three years after we're called."

"That's… terrible." Groo's brows drew together. "Why such a short time? I've been the Groosalugg for years."

"Maybe our demons are better than your demons."

Groo made a wet noise as he scoffed. "Your demons are smaller than ours." After a second, he admitted, "But more numerous."

Faith stuck out her tongue and grinned up at him. "My demon is better than your demon."

She started to turn away, but Groo took her by the elbow. He was frowning. "What do you mean, your demon?"

The Slayer shrugged. "You don't know about Slayers?"

He shook his head. "I know you are called and given power. Not like what happened in November, but when the Chosen One dies. Her power goes to a new Slayer."

It was her turn to scoff. "Well, it all had to start with one girl, right? She was chained down and had the essence of a demon forced into her. When she died, the whole 'Chosen One' thing got started when another _chica_ got that power."

"You're part demon?" He still had her arm.

"No, I'm all Faith. But I've got a demon's powers."

"I'm part cow – human, I mean."

Why was he staring at her so oddly? "Yeah? I never would have guessed." Faith's voice was a little sarcastic; even in the light reflecting up from the streets, his eyes were gorgeous and strange.

"You aren't pure bred?"

She knew she looked bewildered, but couldn't hide her confusion. "Not anymore."

Groo gave the Slayer an intense look. He was part human. She was part demon. "That is awesome." And he pulled her close and kissed her.

Faith's surprise lasted about a half-second. She grabbed him by his arms – ooh, biceps! – and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Thirty seconds later, she had Groo pressed against some metal boxy thing on the roof, her legs wrapped around his waist. A minute later, she pulled away. "No complaining here, but what brought this on?"

And, just like that, he realized that he was an idiot. "Um," he managed, then got the rest out in a mumble, "in Pylea, I'm not allowed to touch anyone pure bred." He had been presumptuous.

Faith looked at his downcast eyes. "Hey," she said softly, waiting until he looked up. "You're in my world now. I kinda like you touching me."

"You do? I've wanted to for so long." The hint of a smile touched his mouth, and huff of air escaped him. "I mean, this is okay?"

"This is okay," she agreed, closing the distance between their lips again. "When we get back from patrol, we'll work on fantastic. Wonderful. Whatever is better than okay."

"I'm going to nibble your ears," he murmured against her mouth.

"That's not all you're going to nibble," Faith corrected him. "I've wanted this for a long, long time, too."

Groo pulled away an inch or so, his eyes wide. He'd read that passage in Connor's book, too. "I can do that," he informed her proudly.

⸹

"Hey, Papaw."

Angel drew his hand from his ear to stare at the phone he held for a moment. Then he put it back. "Uh, what?"

"Papaw. It's 'grandfather' in the American South." Spike shifted and made himself more comfortable on his sofa. "Well, got it screwed to the sticking place?"

Angel put his elbows on his desk and shook his head. "If by that you mean, am I still determined to do it? Yeah. I am."

He couldn't help smiling. "Good, then. Day after tomorrow okay?"

Angel swiveled in his seat. That would be Sunday. Connor had a baseball game at five on Monday. "Works for me. How was the blacksmithing?"

"Fun, what little we actually got to do. Lot of lectures before they turned us loose at the anvil. But I got what I needed. Already have someone coming in to help us set up shop."

"Where will it be?"

"North side of Kingsman Bluff. Anya said it's the only place the fire marshal would allow a mini-foundry."

"I'll have to come up and see it. After baseball season."

"You don't seem too nervous." Spike thought he seemed preternaturally calm about changing his fundamental state of existence, actually.

"I'm not. I've been thinking about this for a while."

"So has one of my minions. Cory. You remember him?"

Angel tensed. "I do."

"If it works for you, if the blood is still good, he wants to do the same thing."

"Willow is going to curse him with a soul?"

"Yeah, if everything goes okay Sunday." After a moment of quiet that his grandsire didn't fill, Spike added, "He's the only one, Angel. All those vampires out there, and fewer than a dozen interested in being part of the Sunnydale experiment. And, of those, only Cory wanted this."

Angel knew the boy was trying to make him feel better. "He's a better man than either of us, staying with his family and not killing."

"But a worse vamp. Means he doesn't have as much to fear from having the soul." _Know what you wrestle with, Peaches. What you're doing… it's profound._

"It's still going to be the same soul."

"For what it's worth, Liam, I think you're doing the right thing." Spike sat up, hearing Buffy's car coming up the driveway. "Well, then, I'll see you Sunday. You need anything?"

"No. I'm good. See you around ten in the morning?"

⸹

 _Spike. I need you now._

 _Where?_

 _Hyperion. My room. Now._

"…so, you see, you can't do this."

"Why now, Whistler? I haven't seen you for years." Angel gave him a mild look as he leaned against his bedroom door. It was one in the morning, and the little demon had popped in just a couple of minutes ago.

The shorter man waved his arms dramatically. "Because you haven't been this insane before?" He shook his head. "You can't do this. You're a champion."

"You ask too much of champions," the big vampire growled. "Not just me, either."

"That's what being a champion _is_." Whistler rolled his eyes. "It's making sacrifices. It's doing what other beings can't bring themselves to even contem– " He flinched and fell silent as two more people were suddenly in Angel's small bedroom.

They were back to back. Spike whirled immediately to face Whistler, game face already on. Next to him, Willow was holding her head with one hand and an Orb of Thesulah in the other.

"Really?" Angel asked, wincing as he realized Willow's first thought would always be Angelus. While he focused on her, Spike dropped the coat he carried and was on Whistler with a snarl. He grabbed the little demon by one vinyl-jacketed arm and twisted until he was bent with his nose shoved into the carpet.

Willow gave Angel a helpless shrug. "Sorry." Giving her head a little shake, she looked around without quite standing up. "What's going on?"

"Good question," Whistler ground out, his voice sounding muffled as it floated up from the floor.

"Who's this berk?" Spike was wearing a pair of buttoned but unzipped jeans and an inside-out t-shirt, his hair a mess of curls. Angel stole another look at Willow, who was wearing a t-shirt that was not quite long enough. Both of them smelled of sex, though not with each other.

"Agent of the Powers that Be." Angel went to his bureau and found a white t-shirt, one of his own, for Willow. He walked over and offered it to – he was ashamed that he'd checked – the natural redhead. "Here. Longer than Oz's. Thank you for coming."

Then he deliberately went to Spike and knelt before the Master of the Aurelians, offering his allegiance there with a cool look toward Whistler. After he made sure the message had been received, he went to game face.

Spike raised an eyebrow, spared a glance down at the agent, and stood up straighter to put on a bit of a show. He put his free hand on Angel's brow, a possessive gesture that marked him with the Master's scent. "Rise, Aurelian. What can I do for you, favored brother?"

 _You could zip up_ , Angel suggested. _Helps the image._

 _Bollocks._

 _No, those aren't what I'm seeing._

The blond vampire gave him a quick grin but raised an eyebrow. _Why am I here?_

"You can educate Whistler on what a vampire can owe to someone outside the clan."

"Nothing, not without the Master's express permission."

Angel displayed his fangs in Whistler's direction. "There you go. I owe you nothing."

"That it? You don't wish for me to just kill him?" Spike sounded quite disappointed.

"You can't kill me." Whistler could also not break free.

"You want to test that?" Spike asked silkily.

Whistler rolled his eyes. "I'll just come back later, shall I?"

Nothing happened. The little demon twitched, then he struggled against Spike's hold. "What the hell?"

Angel's eyes went from Whistler to Spike, his eyebrows shooting up. Then he looked at Willow, who shrugged. She laid the orb in the center of Angel's bed. "Could you guys turn around a couple of seconds?"

The two Aurelians did so, after Spike made sure the only view Whistler might have was of her ankles. Giving Spike a sidelong look, Angel snagged the button of the boy's jeans and carefully pulled the zipper tab upward. He faced the wall again, his expression smug at the telltale twitch he'd felt.

 _Thanks_. The word was a bit sour.

 _Any time… Master._ He felt unaccountably light. No one ever fought his battles for him. And all he'd had to do was ask.

"All covered," Willow announced. They turned around to find her wrapping the orb in the t-shirt she'd doffed. Now covered to her knees, she examined the captive as he gave another lurch against the iron grasp that held him in place. "That's an agent of the Powers?"

Spike turned his attention to Whistler, exerting a little more pressure. "And he's bothering you?"

Angel shrugged. "He's the one who sent me to Sunnydale and Buffy. First time I've seen him in years was tonight, when he showed up to tell me I can't give up being a vampire."

Spike's eyebrows rose. "He implied that you don't have free will?"

"He has a destiny!" Whistler ground out.

"That doesn't sound very much like higher powers to me," Willow put in.

Spike glanced at the other two, then let out a small sigh. "Right. Gonna let go of you now, let you have your say."

Whistler picked up his hat from the floor and moved away from both Spike and Angel before placing it back on his head. "It's all about balance, kids. Angel can't just give up being a champion."

"Why not?" Willow's fine brows drew together. "Twenty-seven new warriors of the people came into play in November. If that didn't throw things out of balance, how could this?"

Whistler opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He snapped it close. "That's different," he managed after another moment.

"How?" Spike asked.

"Look, it just is!" This argument didn't sway any of them, and the blond vampire audibly scoffed. "There are prophecies," Whistler added.

"The prophecies will still be there," Angel said mildly. "They just aren't about me."

"You can't just say that and make it so!"

"Yes, he can." Spike was on Whistler again, grabbing the lapels of his cheap jacket and pulling him close. For the first time, his skin touched Whistler's, his knuckles against the demon's neck.

It was a revelation. The little messenger felt like some of the true demons he'd fought, a low hum of _wrongness_ that made his skin crawl. At the same time, every sound dropped out of existence as the world around them froze.

"You don't belong here," Spike whispered. His grip tightened.

"Let go of me!"

"I think not." He glanced around at Willow and Angel, both still, caught in mid-motion. Somehow, Spike knew the frozen moment was his, not Whistler's. "Why are you here?"

His wary gaze never left Spike, even as he nodded toward Angel. "For him. He has a destiny in several realities."

A lot was happening inside Spike, connections made, realizations solidifying. There had been hints early; there had been echoes since the Siren told him that this was his world, created so that love could conquer all. After knowing that, he'd followed his instincts to the Scythe, to incredible transformations far beyond his physical ability. And his mate had defeated a Hellgod.

This was an agent of Powers that had no place in this reality. For the first time, someone had explicitly crossed the rules of his world. And he wasn't going to tolerate it.

"You don't belong in this reality. My world, my rules. There is no 'balance.' Evil may be persistent, but it isn't as strong. Good wins more often than not in my world. And prophecies mean nothing."

"It may be your world," Whistler said, his words calm, "but I come from the Powers That Be."

Spike's eyes blazed with a clear light and sound and motion came back into the room. "Angel has free will." Spike dropped his voice so low that Willow couldn't hear him and even Angel had trouble making out his words. He was so close to Whistler now that their noses were practically touching. "They don't own him."

"Neither do you."

Spike kept one hand on Whistler, but moved away, drawing up to his full height. "I don't own him. I love him." He glanced away. "Liam? What was the name of that friend of yours, the one who took you in just before you came to the States for good? Drogo or something?"

"Drogyn?" Angel was thrown by the abrupt question.

"That's the one." Spike gave Whistler a cruel smile. "What was that he was in charge of, like a prison warden? The well of something?"

"Drogyn is the Keeper of the Deeper Well."

Spike felt Whistler go completely still. The agent didn't even breathe. Spike's smile grew colder. "And it was a prison for the Old Ones? For gods that had outlived their usefulness?"

Angel's eyes widened. Spike was threatening the Powers That Be? The boy was insane. He'd back his play, anyway. "That's right."

"No mortal knows where it's at," Whistler said, something desperate in his tone.

Angel shrugged. "Still a vampire. Drogyn was kind enough to take me in when I stopped a demon who was sneaking up on him. As I remember, the Cotswolds are lovely this time of year."

Willow, quick and perceptive, threw in her contribution. "I can take us there now, if you like."

"It wouldn't do you any good." Whistler's eyes were rolling between the three of them now. Spike and Angel could smell the fear on the little demon. "You might hold me, but that's all."

"Angelus is still in the room," Spike pointed out. "What I see from where I'm standing, you can't leave, Willow can take us to the prison, and Angelus is a master of torture. If we need your employers' secret names or whatever, I believe he can get that information out of you. Once we have those, we can summon them." He leaned a little closer, the blue of his eyes nearly colorless and blazing. "I'd say being imprisoned in this world would put a crimp in the Powers' plans in all the worlds."

"You're bluffing."

Angel gave a humorless laugh. "Unless it's poker, William the Bloody doesn't bluff." He lifted a shoulder. "Though he does cheat."

The "Oi!" Spike threw over his shoulder was perfunctory. His eyes came back to the agent. "Do you understand who has the power here?"

Whistler stared at him a long moment. Spike rather thought the Powers' messenger could hear his thought: if he held Willow's hand, she could read the plans for sarcophagi wrought to hold gods that his inner Guardian knew... and she had the magic to create them.

Whistler licked his lips and swallowed. "I understand."

"Don't ever come near Angel or any of mine again, outsider."

Whistler made a jerking motion, but stayed where he was, pinned by Spike's grasp on his jacket. "Let me go." It was a plea.

The blond vampire gave him the cold, mocking smile again and let go, holding up his hand so his palm faced outward. Whistler didn't bother resettling his lapels, just gave Spike a wide-eyed look and vanished.

"What was all that?" Angel asked suspiciously.

"Attitude, mostly." Spike turned to him, upper lip curled. "Like we don't know how all this works. Berk shows up here, telling you what you can and can't do. Slavery's illegal. That's been settled law for two hundred years; everybody knows that."

"Uh, a bit less here," Willow mumbled.

"How does that work with vampire hierarchy, exactly, Master?" Angel's tone was dry.

"How come I have to make sense, when he didn't?" Spike complained. "'It just is,' my arse. Free will is older than the Old Ones."

"Yeah, he didn't have much aptitude for the law," Willow agreed. She walked around the bed and put a hand on Angel's arm. "Are you okay?"

"I am." He covered her hand. "Thank you for showing up. Both of you."

"So, tell me about this Deeper Well thing," Willow said. "There's a prison for Old Ones?"

Spike's eyes were narrow with thought. "Actually, Peaches, can you show Red the entrance? I don't trust that little rat pack git. I think it's something we should all know. Just in case he comes back."

⸹

 _Spike? Where are you?_

 _Sorry, love. Hope you'd sleep through. Angel had a visit from a messenger of the bloody Powers._

Buffy sounded much more awake. _They don't want him to be human?_

 _Not their call._

Her sleepy eyes widened at his vehemence. _Are you coming home soon?_ She felt him hesitate before he came back with a question.

 _Would you mind if I stay with him? We've been poncing about half the globe tonight, it seems. He isn't all that settled._

Something about Spike sharing a bed with Angel on his last night as a vampire scraped against her senses, not as a Slayer but as a wife. _Do you really think that's a good idea?_

 _No_ , he answered after a moment's thought.

She smiled, glad he was aware of the danger. _But you should stay, anyway._

 _Thanks, love. Do you want to be here, too?_

 _No. But thanks for asking. See you in the morning._

 _I love you, Buffy._

 _I love you, too. Try to get some sleep, both of you._

Buffy lay back against her pillow, aware of how big the bed seemed without her husband in it. He'd given her no grief about kissing Faith. Even if she didn't trust Angel as far as her little brother could throw him, she trusted Spike. With a sigh, she reached for his pillow, breathed in his scent, and hugged it against her chest. Within a few minutes, she was asleep again.

⸹

 _I'm fuckin' furious._

Spike let his eyes go yellow as he listened, wanting to see Angel's expressions. Willow had given them both a hug before heading back to Sunnydale ten minutes ago, but her sweetness hadn't touched Angel's mood. He was flat on his back, mashing his pillow between his big hands. They'd been in bed with the lights out since Red left, but these were the first words he'd gotten, and there was a definite Irish lilt to the words.

 _Anything specific? Or just generally furious?_

Angel flashed him a look. _I keep thinkin' of how he showed up, threw me into Sunnydale._

 _And got you halfway on your feet after what sounds like a bad run of years._

 _I don't think I knew what pain was until he interfered._

Spike thought of how much pain Buffy had suffered because Whistler put forth the idea that her love was Angel's reward for turning white hat. He made sympathetic noise, and wished he could take it back as soon as he had Angel's next thought.

 _A hundred years in hell. A hundred fuckin' years._

Even though his jaw flexed in irritation, he put a hand out and laid it on Angel's shoulder. _Pretty sure the git didn't know what he was about, just interfered with you here because he'd done it before elsewhere._

 _That fact that he's an ignorant whoreson doesn't excuse his meddling._

 _No. No, it doesn't_.

Angel seethed silently for a moment. _I nearly lost it there, you know._ His tone was quieter.

 _Lost what?_

 _The ability to love. Being in hell took nearly everything of me. I've been running from it ever since._

Spike propped up on his elbow. _This, what we're doing in the morning… Is that part of it?_

Angel nodded, then put the pillow over his face. _We should have killed the little bastard._

 _Yeah, well, being a messenger works both ways. If we'd killed him, those gits might have sent another, one we wouldn't recognize right away._

Angel let out his breath and put the pillow against the headboard. _Why did you call him 'outsider?'_

 _He felt sorta like a true demon._ Spike thought of how Doc's tongue had felt, the sense of wrongness against his hand. _They don't belong here; neither did that little wankstain._

Angel nodded in the darkness. After a moment, he sent a calmer thought. _Thank you for staying._ He rolled to his side. Spike didn't move away, and their faces were only inches apart. _Thank you for having my back._ When the other man only shrugged, he admitted, _I'm going to miss talking like this._

 _It's going to be strange._

 _It's not like I'm leaving you without family._

Spike nodded. _It'll be harder for you than for me. Buffy and I talk like this. I have a sense of Connor as family._

Angel's mouth tensed. _I'll miss that, too._

 _But you'll have so much more._

 _Something's been on the edge of that sense of family for a while._

Spike's eyebrows rose. Angel had been sensing another Aurelian? _Someone you sired in Sunnydale?_

Angel shook his head, a little frustrated. _I don't know. That doesn't seem quite right, but there really isn't anyone else left._ He sighed and put his hand out to cup Spike's jaw. _I'm sorry, boy._

Spike felt a long list of violent, sadistic incidents scrolling through his grandsire's mind. _Long journey that brought us here, mate. Don't know that we really could have missed any of the steps on the way._

 _Maybe not._ The sense of his anger, which had dimmed, came back. It was nearly as hot as it had been. _But Whistler didn't help._

 _No. But do you regret meeting Buffy?_

Angel took his hand away from Spike's face, and his eyes fell. _No_ , he admitted. _But I regret… how I thought of her._

Spike got a weird visual of Buffy licking a lollipop and looking like the dictionary definition of jailbait. _The git couldn't have shown you a plain-faced Slayer, I guess. The fact that your savior looked like your natural prey probably added that little extra something to what he was dangling._

Angel closed his eyes, and Spike could sense him struggling with something. _Angelus wasn't obsessed with her, not until after she released him. It was all me. The soul, I mean._

Spike wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with this information, so he just put out a hand to rest on Angel's shoulder.

 _I don't know how to love._

He tightened his grip for a second. _You're learning. You've been learning._

 _I'm going to mess this up._

Spike felt Angel's rising panic and pulled him into a tight embrace, his chin on Angel's shoulder. _You won't. Think of it, Liam. Holtz brought up Connor to hate you, but he wasn't able to, not even from the first. He knew you loved him. You're going to be fine. Think of all the people you love, yeah? We think you're doing fine. You're only going to get better._

Angel stayed with his wet face pressed against Spike's neck for a long minute. He could sense Drusilla's mark on the boy's flesh, faded now that she was dust. _You really think so?_

 _I do. I know so._

He drew away a moment later, taking a shaky breath. "Thank you for staying."

"'Course I stayed." Spike had an idea of why Angel pulled away from the bloodlink, from the intimacy, so he was surprised when Angel leaned closer and kissed him. He gave the big vampire a half-smile when he pulled away after a couple of seconds. "What was that for?"

"I don't know how else –" Angel drew in another breath, still unsteady. "Sorry."

"No worries, mate. You think you can sleep now?"

"I – Yeah, I can sleep."

"Here." Spike settled his shoulders against the mattress and drew Angel to him.

The big man resisted for a moment, then let his head fall against Spike's abdomen, his all-time favorite pillow. Their friendship wouldn't end tomorrow, but this was the last family bed. Even if they shared a bed again, even if his head rested against Spike's torso, the sense of safety, of rightness would be gone.

And he could be in the daylight with both his sons.

"Good night, Angel."

"Good night, boy."

⸹

Next Chapter: Sam Lawson crashes into Angel's plans to become human.


	50. Human Nature

**Human Nature**

⸹

Los Angeles

March 2003

⸹

Fred leaned closer to Wesley as Buffy flung open the door of the Hyperion and Spike's lieutenant threw herself inside, smoking a bit. "I thought they were driving?"

Wesley shrugged. "Apparently there was some excitement last night, and Willow wanted to sleep in." Fred was so close he could smell her shampoo. He shifted an inch or so away to compensate. It had been months, but he couldn't help but think of her as Gunn's girlfriend. He shouldn't be thinking of his friend's girlfriend this way. Even though she wasn't. Even though he'd crushed on her first in Pylea.

Buffy smiled at everyone as she looked around the lobby. Connor, Faith standing next to Groo, Wes and Fred, Faith's Watcher, Lorne, Angel in his office with Gunn, and – Spike.

 _Mornin,' love._ He stood from the bottom of the stairs and came to her, his eyes taking her in. _You look a treat._

She got a sense of his appreciation – _Oh, good, a skirt. Such long legs for a tiny woman. God, her hair is like spun gold in the sunlight_ – that made her lips curve into a smile. _You look good yourself. And I'm not tiny._

 _Why did Lu come along?_

 _You left your cell. She called last night after patrol to report, so I told her what was going on. She feels like you need a bodyguard._

He snorted. _Overprotective bint._

She put out her hand to take his. _You inspire it in us. How did it go last night?_

 _He spazzed for a while, then got some sleep._ Spike leaned down and kissed her as he let her see enough to satisfy her curiosity. _He kissed me, but way less tongue than Faith used on you._

 _I'm sorry?_

Spike grinned. _I think he's going to be okay._ "Everything ready?"

While they'd been nuzzling each other, the rest of the Sunnydale contingent came in: Oz, Willow, and Tara, who carried a small cooler in one hand. Xander, who had never liked Angel, hadn't come, and Anya never really knew him. "Yeah." Buffy frowned. "Dawn isn't here yet?"

"She texted me when she switched buses. She should be here any minute."

⸹

Dawn stepped off the bus. The stop was just two blocks from the Hyperion; she could see the art deco façade from here. She'd dutifully taken public transportation to the hotel twice this week. Mom wouldn't let her drive to Los Angeles, so she didn't have her car. The other three times she'd visited, she had opened a portal. The temptation to open one this morning had been strong, but her father and Francesca were up before breakfast to be with her on her last morning with them. Dad had a brunch meeting with someone, then he'd be driving her back to Sunnydale. She really wished she could just tell –

Too-strong arms snatched her as she passed an alley, and she was dragged into the shadows with unnatural speed. "You. You've been to the hotel before. Who are you?"

Dawn struggled against the vampire arms holding her more effectively than chains. She could tell what he was because of the smoke still rolling from his hand. His mouth was inches from her neck. Instead of wasting time, she flexed her free right hand and thought five little words.

The portal opened in the middle of the Hyperion's lobby, just shy of the circular couch. The first person to see her standing just on the other side, held prisoner in a stranger's arms, was Connor. He bounded fifteen feet across the lobby, through the portal, and into the alley, his snarl no different from one his father might make. Connor drove his fist against the vampire's temple, his momentum knocking both Dawn and her captor to the ground.

Then he scooped her up in his arms and passed her through the portal to Buffy as he turned back to the task at hand: dismembering the bastard who dared to touch Dawn. He got in three kicks and two punches before the vampire had time to recover from the first blow, then his forearm was caught in a vice.

"Get off me!" he snarled, rounding on Spike.

The blond man stared down at the vampire on the alley floor, his brows drawn together. He didn't remember the git's name, but now he knew why Angel had felt the sense of family hovering on the edges of his awareness. "Bring him to the portal," he told Connor. Turning back to the open door, he saw Angel standing just on the other side, keeping out of the daylight. "It's submarine boy, innit?"

"Lawson," Angel confirmed, his face thunderous. "Please come in."

⸹

Oz and Faith came back into the Hyperion after a few minutes of reconnaissance and joined the group in the basement. Both of them focused hard eyes on the vampire locked in the cage. "He's been staying in an abandoned building about three blocks from here," Oz reported, a troubled look marring his brow.

"He had a roll of this thin, flexible wire on a worktable," Faith reported, her voice bright with fury. "And a vat of acid."

Everyone turned to stare at the vampire standing unnaturally still in the middle of the cell. Luisa, at guard nearest to the cell door, went to game face. Lawson continued his unshakable focus on Angel. "You don't deserve to be here with these people."

"What did you have planned?" Wesley asked, his voice faint.

The prisoner gave Angel a little smile. "So, I was going to take them away from you. Just like you took me away from everything."

Angel shook his head. "That's insane."

"No," Lawson corrected him. "It's evil. Just like you made me."

"Why? After all this time?"

"Because you made me wrong. All this time, all the people I've killed, all the evil I've done, I've felt nothing. You left me nothing. No connection. No passion. What else did I have besides my sire? I've been watching you, checking up on you every ten years or so. You never knew, but I saw what I needed to see. You had no connections, either. No passions. But now… This is the first time you've had anything I could take from you."

Angel felt Connor's horrified eyes fall on him. In his peripheral vision, he saw Dawn slip her hand into his son's, seeking to comfort him after that bleak assessment of his father. It could wait. "Why didn't you just come to me?"

He smiled at Angel with detached malice, such an odd look on his all-American face. "You told me you'd kill me if you ever saw me again. So, you never saw me. But I saw you, saw everything I needed to see."

"You sired Darla."

The smile didn't waver. "I did. I took her from you. Wolfram and Hart paid me, but I would have done it for free."

The growl that rose after this admission came not from Angel, but Connor. Dawn's other hand came up and braced against his chest, Angel saw, keeping him in place. Connor was as tall as she was now, lanky and stretched from the speed at which his bones were growing.

"I knew you really would dust family. Darla told me about how you killed her, how you killed Penn. Pillow talk, you know?" Lawson's smile didn't change, but his eyes were assessing, making sure his revelation hit home. Angel didn't react; it was no surprise when two vampires copulated. "I had no reason to check on you. She said you'd alienated your new friends, but I guess she was wrong about that." For the first time, he looked around at the other people in the dim room.

Spike remembered when he left Lawson, telling him that he already had an Aurelian obsessed with Angelus waiting for him in France. He was standing near Connor and Dawn, ready to intercede if necessary. "You've been obsessed with him for, what, sixty years?" he scoffed. "Nothing better to do?"

Lawson focused on him, something in his eyes flickering. "Nothing I wanted to do. You knew that. Making sure my sire was miserable, though… That was something."

Willow shivered, and Tara put her arm around her waist. "Looks like there was a backup to that no-happiness clause," she whispered to the blond witch.

"It was an easy job," Lawson continued. "Because you are miserable, aren't you? A miserable son of a bitch."

"Can't deny it," Angel said. He felt old and so tired. Sam Lawson hadn't deserved to be turned – not that anyone deserved such a fate, but he'd admired the boy. Angel still didn't know if it was a selfish decision, even if the remaining humans on the submarine had been saved.

Buffy had heard enough. She shook her hair back. "You want me to take care of this for you?" Her voice was kind.

Angel shook his head at the offer. "My problem." He reached out to accept what Buffy was holding out for him, though, and stepped closer to the cell. He rolled the stake in his big hand, then took a deep breath. "Step up, ensign."

"Gonna give me a mission, chief?" He gave Angel a humorless smile. He was at the cell door suddenly.

Luisa, standing guard by the door, involuntarily put out her hand, deploying her usual weapon of sorrow. The second her fingers touched his where they curled around the bars, Sam Lawson went to his knees with a cry of grief. After a moment, he lifted his face, his eyes blind with tears. "I… feel. Oh, _lord_ , I feel." He drew in a gasp of air. "Are you an angel?" He reached through the bars for her.

The dark-haired vampiress turned uncertain eyes to the Master. Spike was frowning, but he gave her a nod of encouragement. Luisa closed the distance between her hands and Lawson's slowly, jerking slightly at the contact. "He… He has no joy in the hunt. In anything," the empathetic vampire reported. "No color, no emotion, nothing since he woke."

Lawson was staring up at Luisa, his face transformed by the joy of feeling _something_. "You're a vampire," he marveled. "How is this possible?"

She spoke to him for the first time. "You aren't the only one made wrong, or for the wrong reasons."

Angel stared at the kneeling form for a moment, then turned, holding the stake out. Buffy took it with a nod. He drew himself up to his full height before turning to Willow. To him, she was more powerful than any tribe of the Rom. "I sired him during World War Two. It's a long story, but we were eight hundred feet down in a submarine, and he was the only one who could fix it. And he was mortally wounded." Angel's eyes dropped to the tile floor. "It's the only time I ever… With a soul, I mean…" he trailed off.

Willow waited to see if he would say anything else, not sure of where he was going. Then she got it. "Okay. If he wants it."

Angel turned to Spike. "Master?"

He studied the way Luisa's eyes were fixed on Lawson's upraised face for a moment, then answered. "Into my hand, then?" When Angel nodded, he gave him a brief smile before turning to address Luisa.

"All right, Lu?"

"Uh?" She jerked her gaze away from the man who worshipped at her feet. "Oh, yes. I think it's worth a try. I'll, um, stay here."

Regardless of what Angel wanted, it was Faith that Spike turned to for a final answer. "Are you good with him staying solid?"

Faith thought of the plans the vampire had for Angel's friends. She was one of those friends. "Can you contain him?"

Spike leaned close to the Slayer responsible for Los Angeles. They were on the staircase now, leaving Lawson to Luisa. "If he doesn't accept a soul," he said, his voice low in case the vampire in question was listening, "I'll dust him myself. If he does, he'll be on probation for a year. We'll put him to work."

The rest of it was almost anticlimactic. Tara had thawed the entire store of Mohra blood and separated it into enchanted vials. All but one was back in storage in Joyce's freezer. She took it from the cooler and placed it on the reception desk. Angel walked around the loose circle of his friends and family, giving out hugs or handshakes.

Gunn held onto his hand. "You sure this is a good time to do this?" His eyes went toward the basement cell.

"I'm always going to have enemies," he replied with a shrug.

Then he'd finished the circuit. He looked at Spike and sent one last message through the bloodlink, one that Angelus would never have imagined: _I love you, boy_. Then he unstoppered the vial and winked at Connor, smiling. "Here goes."

Angel turned it upside down and watched the opalescent liquid drain from the glass and pour across his palm. A moment later, he had fallen to his knees and was drawing in painful gasps of air, the oxygen burning his lungs. Tears stung his eyes.

Connor was on his knees next to his father, holding him upright with a strength far beyond what Angel now had. "Are you okay?"

The big vampire drew another painful breath. "I will be." He gave Connor an open grin. "Help me outside? Supposed to be another warm, sunny day in SoCal. I think I'd like to see that."

⸹

Lunch at Angel Investigations was something of a party. Faith cornered Buffy at the end of the reception desk, both of them quiet while they watched Angel taste the homemade green curry Alpana made for the occasion. Spike threw his head back to laugh when the dark-haired man lunged for a bottle of water. "We brought buffalo wings. What food did you get for him to try?"

Faith grinned. "Mocha cherry ice cream."

"Oh, yum. I want some of that."

Faith leaned her elbows against the counter, thrusting out her chest. "Yeah, I'd want some, too, if I wasn't getting something better."

Buffy started grinning. "You finally found someone?"

Faith stopped posturing and leaned close to her sister Slayer. "Me an' Groo. Just a few days."

"Groo?" Buffy's eyebrows went up, and she looked around for the Pylean. He was engaged in an animated conversation with Gunn and Lorne. "That's awesome." Something wicked worked its way into her tone. "He's a good match for you."

"Oh, God," Faith moaned a little. "I don't have to hold back. Do you know hard it is to – Oh, of course you don't." She flapped a hand at Buffy.

"So… everything in FaithWorld is good, then?" When all she got was a grin, her eyebrows rose. "Very good? Extremely good?"

"This is the first time I've worn panties in days."

Buffy's laugh came out as a snort. "TMI," she managed.

"My only complaint is that he's way into foreplay," her voice dropped, "but I've convinced him to put it off until the third or fourth time."

"Third or fourth?"

"Way better refractory period than a human," Faith confided, "though not as good as a vampire's, from what Dawn says."

Looking outraged, Buffy looked around until she spotted her sister. "Dawn!" She waved her over and then smacked her elbow. "You knew? And you didn't tell me?"

"Ow!" Dawn rubbed her elbow, though it hadn't really hurt. "Why should I tell you, when you brutalize me?" She smiled at Faith. "Sharing the good news?"

"You share too much," Buffy said, before Faith could answer.

"What?"

"Refractory periods," Faith supplied.

"Oh." Caught, Dawn managed to shrug. "Like I really know anything. I just overheard you two whispering about the eighth time once, and I knew you'd been gone for four hours. I did the math."

Buffy pushed her away. "Go. Try one of those tacos Fred brought out." She waved her sister away and turned to Faith, putting her mouth close to her ear. "No refractory period."

"And this is where I wish Cordelia was here, because she so would say no wonder you look slagged."

"Has anyone told Cordelia?" Buffy asked, her smile fading as she nodded toward Angel. His cheeks were still reddened from the hot food. He looked content and at ease, and Buffy realized she was really happy for him.

Faith shook her head. "No. Angel asked that we let him tell her."

⸹

"I don't think we have to do the ritual twice," Willow said thoughtfully. "I can change the words to work with two Orbs of Thesulah."

"We can put off enchanting Michael's latest batch of rings," Tara replied.

"No, we'll have a regular coven meeting. The rest of us will be rested up. They can manage that much magic if we're too tired."

Oz glanced at Willow in the rearview mirror. He was driving her Camry to Cory Pedersen's family home, where they'd do the ritual to restore his soul. "Last time was easier, but soul magic still took it out of you."

She pouted a little. "I'm not going to miss the vernal equinox meeting."

"Has she always been this stubborn?" Tara asked Oz, sighing.

"Pretty much."

Tara shook her head. "Two souls, Wil."

Willow was looking down the street. "There's Buffy's car. They're here." Even as she watched, the doors opened and Buffy stepped out, closely followed by Spike and Cory. "Looks like we're all here."

A few minutes later, they were all crowded into the living room with Cory's parents and most of his siblings. Kyle, who knew Spike from time spent with Connor, was smirking because he'd gotten a fist bump from the Master.

"Is this okay?" Mrs. Pedersen asked. Her hands were tightly clenched, and she looked like she had been crying at some point during the day.

Willow looked at where the rug had been rolled away from the middle of the living room. "It will be perfect," she reassured the woman with a warm smile. "Just let us get set up."

"The second ball is for the other vampire, the new one," Cory explained, pointing at the Orbs.

"But he doesn't want to be human?"

Cory shook his head at his father's question. "No. He was turned during the Second World War, so all of his people are gone. He just wants his soul."

"He doesn't have to be here?"

"No, Mom," Cory said. There was something steely in his voice. "No invitation for any vampire, okay?"

"Are you going to see any of your vampire friends after this?" Kyle asked.

"Probably not very much," Cory said. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Things will be different."

"You'll be potential prey." Cory couldn't refute his father's harsh words.

Oz, watching his ladies carefully, raised a hand. "Quiet, please." The chant was almost familiar to him now. Their voices were their own; no spirits would ever dare try to possess either of these witches now. A soft, white glow began to light the room as his mates began to incandesce.

"They're so pretty," one of Cory's sisters whispered. Cory gave her a quick pat on the arm.

Both Orbs of Thesulah lit with a swirl of light. Tara and Willow's chant changed, became harsher somehow, though the light emanating from them did not. Power began to build in the room, almost a physical pressure on the skin. It crested, and the light that glowed around one of the Orbs suddenly lit Cory's face. He let out a cry, sliding from the couch to fall on his side on the floor.

"Help him up," his mother said sharply, waving her hand at his brothers. Spike was already there, supporting his minion.

"All right, then, Cory?"

The boy looked up at him, tears in his eyes. "No. Oh, God."

"Just breathe." Spike lifted him back onto the sofa. His voice sank to a volume so quiet only Cory could hear. "You've already dealt with this. Just takes your soul some time to get used to the part it missed." He stayed where he was, his arms around his minion, blocking the weeping vampire from anyone's view.

"Cory?" his mother asked hesitantly. "Are you all right? Does it – Did it hurt?"

"No," he said shakily. "I'm okay."

Spike smiled as he moved away. No male ever wanted to worry his mum. Buffy, he saw, had joined Oz with the two witches, all of them on the bare wood of the floor.

"How are you?" Buffy asked Tara quietly, realizing that the witch wasn't leaning on her completely anymore.

"O-okay. Not as wiped as I thought I would be." She drew in a breath. "Could you get the cooler?"

Buffy retrieved it from the safe haven beneath the coffee table and handed it to Tara. "Here you go."

"Cory? If you're r-ready?"

He wiped his face and swallowed. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. With the fluid grace of a predator, he moved so that he was sitting between Tara and his family. She fished the vial from the small cooler and handed it over. Cory stared at it for a moment, then uncapped it and poured it onto his chest, holding the cloth away from his skin. Spike wondered if it hurt there from the return of his soul.

His transformation was as quick as Angel's. Spike got a chance to see Cory's face flush with blood, then his family descended on him. He helped Oz and Buffy move the witches out of the way of the Pedersens as they welcomed home their own.

Half an hour later, Buffy and Spike were walking up the short footpath to Luisa's cottage. She'd sensed them coming and opened the door. "He has his soul," she reported. "Not quite an hour ago." Stepping aside, she let the Master and Mistress of Sunnydale into her home.

Sam Lawson was sitting on the floor of her living room. It was the only similarity to Cory's experience. He was smiling even as tears poured down his face. Both of his hands were gripping his hair, his elbows akimbo. "The whole family," he whispered. "I killed them all." He smiled at the newcomers beatifically, then it slid into a grimace.

Spike turned to his lieutenant. "I'll take him somewhere." He turned to Buffy. "What do you think? The crypt Oz used to use?"

"It's okay," Luisa reassured him. "Leave him. He said he was grateful that he could mourn them, mourn what he did."

"Lu, if he's a danger to you…" Buffy's hand drifted toward the stake at the small of her back.

The dark-haired woman shook her head. "I don't think he's even a danger to himself. He's enjoying feeling that sorrow, if it makes any sense."

Buffy lifted a shoulder, trying to imagine feeling only emptiness for six decades. Sure, she had her low moments, but the closest thing she could think of was the drugged vacancy she'd felt the first week in the institution, before she'd learned to ditch the medication. "If you're sure?"

Luisa looked down at Lawson, and one of her hands settled on his dark hair. "I am."

Once she and Spike were back in the car, she shook her head. _What's up with Lu?_

 _Think she likes the cut of sailor-boy's jib._

 _Really?_

 _She likes a bloke that doesn't notice she's got looks. Lawson wasn't noticing anything but Angel._

 _Kind of funny that he, of all people, got a stalker._

 _As an Aurelian, I am deeply embarrassed that he didn't even realize it._

Buffy put her hand over his when he slowed for a red light. _How are you? You lost two of your people today._

 _Just one. Liam will always be mine. And I'll see Cory around._ As the light turned green again, he shrugged. _May even have gained one._

Buffy fell quiet. Cory had knelt at Spike's feet one last time, before he'd been hauled to his feet and into an awkward hug. Sam Lawson had moved clumsily to his knees in front of Spike, too, holding the hem of his shirt as he spoke broken words of thanks. Vampires were strange mixes of human and demon. She was just grateful neither of them had bowed to her. "I wish I could be there tomorrow when Cory gets his package."

"Just tradition when a good and faithful servant retires," he murmured, dismissing it as a gesture. On Friday, he'd set up a bank account for Cory with enough money for college tuition and an automobile. There was a cache in Rochester that he planned to hit once winter in New York broke. He figured he could get both Cory and Jonathan to come with him, since both were leaving in their own ways.

"We'll call Angel when we get home," Buffy said. It seemed an appropriate way to close the topic.

Spike wasn't quite through with it, though. _Do you ever want me to be human?_

 _No!_ Then, much smaller, _Do you want to be human?_

 _No. Not with the Gem. I don't think I could only be with you half of the time, though. For sunshine, I'd become human._

 _Do you ever think about babies?_

 _Sometimes._ He put out a hand. _Whenever you want them, love, I'll be right there with you._

Buffy lifted his hand to press against her cheek. _I like you the way you are._ He had a brief list of her thoughts: cool flesh when she was heated, amazing stamina, her left hand in battle. _No. I love you, just the way you are._

⸹

"William!" Buffy put up her hand and waved frantically. "Over here!"

His head swiveled, and he smiled as he spotted the table where she was sitting. She watched him pick his way through the crowded dining hall and sighed a little. He was so cute with those glasses.

"Hullo, love." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable at this lapse. It wasn't a very William greeting. "And how was your spring break?"

"I need another break to recover from my break," she complained cheerfully. "How about you?"

"I think that's an excellent idea. Who should we talk to about it?"

"The Dean? The Chancellor?"

"Dean's on campus. We'll visit his office after lunch." Spike tilted his head to consider her food. "What are you eating?"

"Hummus and pita bread. Want some?"

"I think I'll pass this time."

"You aren't hungry?"

His eyes lingered on her mouth. "Er, no." William ducked his head. "I, uh, have something I'd like to ask you, though."

"Oh?"

"Would you, uh, do me the honor of accompanying me to the Spring Formal?"

Buffy blinked at him. UC-Sunnydale had two official dances, one in autumn for homecoming and one in April. Other than fraternity and sorority members, not many students attended. She might be the only non-Greek senior there. There was something in William's face, though. He looked as if he was bracing for rejection.

Which was nonsense. "I hadn't really thought about going, but I'd love to go with you."

William broke into a smile that put his dimples on display. "Oh. Good. Good, then." Impulsively, he reached across the table and took her hand. He lifted it to his mouth and gave her a brief kiss on her knuckles, then the inside of her wrist. "That's… that's wonderful, Buffy. You've made me a very happy man."

"I'll warn you right now, I'm not the best at dances with formal steps."

"You can step on my feet all you like."

"I didn't say I'm, like, an ox!" she protested, swatting at him. He evaded her easily, grinning. "I just meant, I'm not Grace Kelly."

"Though Princess Grace was nearly as lovely as you, I think you mean Gene Kelly," he said, after a moment's confusion. "But I only want to go dancing with you, Buffy."

She realized she was giving him a sappy look and had been for several long seconds. "What about you, mister? You never said if you're a good dancer."

"A gentleman never boasts," he said, but there was an immodest glint in his eyes.

All of the retorts she would have shot at Spike died away, and Buffy reached across the table to take his hand. "A gentleman doesn't have to. You know how to dance, don't you? You know the right kind of flowers to give a girl's mother, which fork or spoon to use, all of that."

"I do," he admitted.

Buffy squeezed his fingers in reassurance. "All that stuff? It's way cool."

⸹

"Are you sure we're on the list?"

"We are," Connor reassured his father. "Just relax." They were only one car back now in the line to get onto the studio lot where Cordelia's television show was taping. Angel was wearing sunglasses, and Connor thought his father looked kind of dorky. He was happy, though, and this was the first time they'd driven anywhere with the top of the GTX down.

They moved up in the queue and the uniformed man in the guard shack looked down at them. "What's your business today, my man?"

"Uh, visitors for _It's Cordy_." Angel sounded unsure.

The guard flipped through pages on a clipboard. "Okay, I need some ID." Connor already had his student identification out, and Angel dug for his driver's license. The guard checked their names against the list. He examined their faces, then handed back the cards. When he turned away, Angel half-expected him to pick up the phone to call for backup, but he just handed him a map.

"Park here," he instructed them. "You know the protocol when filming is in progress?"

"We do," Connor assured him. He'd been to the studio twice before.

"Right you are. Nice wheels," he added. Then the gate was going up, and they were through.

After they parked, Angel spent almost a minute fussing with his hair in the rearview mirror. It was amazing how quickly he'd stopped flinching at the way his reflection followed him past glass and shiny surfaces.

"Relax, Dad," Connor told him, sounding amused. "You don't look any worse than you usually do."

He flicked Connor's ear. Angel found he was both stronger and faster than he expected to be. Fred assured him it wasn't anything vampiric left over, just due to things like 'twitch muscle' and 'muscle memory.' "All right," he sighed, putting his sunglasses back on before taking them off and tossing them on the seat. "Let's get this over with."

"Ever the optimist." Connor bounded out of the car and handed one of the visitor badges to Angel.

Following his son's lead, he attached it to the pocket of his shirt. Angel looked up at the huge, blocky building. Every building here looked like a four-story warehouse. Other than the smell and cleanliness, they could have been at a wharf.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust as they stepped through the door that lead to Cordelia's soundstage. Before he could really see anything clearly, a nervous young woman had approached them. "Connor!" She gave him a quick hug.

"Hi, Penny." He indicated his father. "This is Angel."

"Nice to meet you," he mumbled, accepting her hand. It was as limp and cold as a fish. The whole building was icy cold. It wasn't anything he would have really noticed a couple of days ago.

Penny stared up at him. "So, you're salty goodness?" she asked, giggling a little. Then she sobered. "I'm Cordy's assistant. Just follow me."

He fell into step behind her, only half listening to her chatter with Connor about this being a nice surprise. Angel pushed at his hair once more. Penny led them through another door back into sunlight and to a couple of steps situated in front of the door of a trailer.

"Here we are!" She beamed at them and pounded on the bottom of the door with surprising force, not bothering to mount the steps.

"Hey!" Cordelia's cheerful voice came through the thin door. "Be right there." And then she was, her eyes lighting on Connor. She stepped down from the trailer to take him in a careful hug. "You've grown again," she complained. "And you're too skinny. We need to get you to craft –" Her voice died as she realized there was another man standing behind her, and she grew tense as though she already knew who it would be. She turned with wide eyes to see him standing sheepishly in the sunshine.

"Hi, Cordy."

"Angel." There was barely any breath supporting the word. "How…?"

He dimly realized that Connor was tugging on Penny's arm, pulling her toward the studio door, leaving the two of them standing an awkward couple of feet apart.

"I'm, uh, not Angelus anymore."

Cordelia blinked. She was wearing heavy makeup, and it aged her a bit. Her dark hair fell in perfect waves, and he could see the hairspray that made it stiff. "How?" she managed again.

"Willow." It was the quickest explanation. "I asked her to." Angel swallowed and looked down for a moment. "I've missed you. A lot. I knew if you were ever going to give me another chance, I needed to change. Now I can be with you any time of the day. Wherever you want. If you want me, I mean." He trailed off and took a breath, daring to look into her eyes.

She let out a soft huff of breath and threw herself into his arms. "I've missed you." A little laugh escaped her. "You're a little sweaty."

"I'm sorry."

"No! No, it's just… new." Cordy pulled back a couple of inches. "H-human?"

"I gave up the champion thing. I, uh, run Angel Investigations, that's all. I'm a single dad. I'm focusing on what's here in front of me, not on what happened in my past or what reward I might get in the future." He shrugged, realizing that his hands were already at her waist. She felt amazing against him. How had he lived without this? "I don't know if there's any way a big TV star like you would –"

She cut him off with a kiss. Her lipstick was thick and tacky against his mouth. "There's a chance," she whispered. "There are all kinds of chances." Cordelia kissed him again, then drew away. Tears were tracking down her cheeks. "I'll have to get back in the makeup chair anyway," she said, after a moment's thought. "Quick, come on in."

She was dragging him through the door, and he was painfully hard, making the two steps a challenge. "Cordy… are you sure?"

Cordelia gave him her familiar, thousand-watt smile. "Don't blow your chance, mister."

⸹

"Any idea what this is about?" Dawn asked.

"Not a clue," Willow replied. "I just got a message from Giles with a link to the site so I can stream the meeting." She had been fiddling with her laptop in the modular building that served as the Sunnydale High student lounge for a few minutes. It was ten in the morning, and she'd pulled Dawn out of class.

"There's Buffy," Dawn informed the redhead, lifting a hand to wave at her sister.

"How do you get around?" Buffy asked. "This place is a maze."

"If you don't like it, you shouldn't have blown up the high school," Dawn snarked.

"Next time I graduate, you can sit up front and be snake chow." Buffy hugged her anyway.

"Well, I'm getting the nosebleed seat when you walk this time," Dawn declared. Their mother was adamant that Buffy walk during UC-Sunnydale's graduation ceremony.

"Got it," Willow said, though she was still typing. She tilted her laptop so they could see a jerky video of Aubrey speaking from a lectern at the front of a room with rows of chairs. Her fingers flew over the laptop as she wrung every bit of speed from the network. The video now had fewer glitches, and she turned up the volume.

"… final order of business," Aubrey was saying, peering at the group in front of him over the top of his reading glasses, "is this." He lifted a paper to position in front of him and began to read. "Whereas the Council of Slayers holds as its highest mission the safety of Slayers, be it resolved," he began.

"Oh," Dawn breathed, a smile breaking across her face. She knew what this was, after all.

"… that the Council of Slayers condemns the ritual known as the 'Tento di Cruciamentum' in any and all forms as barbaric and criminal treatment of Slayers, as a misuse and mistreatment of our most precious resource, and as a means of forcing Watchers into criminal activity ranging from false imprisonment to premeditated murder. Be it further resolved that the Council of Slayers will countenance no ritual which endangers Slayers or Watchers." He looked out over the audience, his eyes resting on a man older than him. "Discussion?"

The elderly man stood without waiting for anyone else to speak. "Move for a vote."

The woman next to him stood. The video resolution wasn't great, but she seemed to be missing part of her nose. "I second the motion."

Willingham's expression was chilly as he glared at the rest of audience. "All in favor?" He let the wave of 'ayes' roll over him. "Any opposed?" His tone forbade the utter stupidity of any opposition, and the room was quiet. He lifted a little gavel and banged it on the lectern. "The resolution passes unanimously. Any new business?"

Willow and Dawn looked up at Buffy, whose eyes were sparkling with unshed tears. "You guys knew?"

"I didn't." Willow glanced at Dawn.

She shrugged. "He showed me an early draft of it. I didn't know that's what this was about, but I do know who those two people were."

"They were Watchers whose Slayers died during the test," Buffy said. Her voice was soft.

Dawn nodded. She should have known her sister would get it. Putting out a hand to cover Buffy's, she said softly, "Uncle Aubrey wants that to be his last order of business, his legacy. Giles takes over at the beginning of the next meeting."

Buffy stood so she could hug both of them, then wiped her eyes carefully with the pad of her thumb. "Okay," she sniffled. "Thanks for showing me this, guys. I guess I better get back to campus."

"And I should get to class," Dawn sighed.

Willow looked smug. "Happy me, out until next term."

⸹

"Oh, hey, B."

"You don't call, you don't text…" Buffy teased. She'd put a load of laundry in and figured it wasn't too early to call Faith. "Must be that new guy of yours."

"That, and Alpana has been driving me crazy planning for the Slayer seminar. Just a couple more weeks until we teleport to London."

"Ugh, boring Council stuff is boring. How's Groo?"

"Groo is fine." Faith sighed a little. "This is not at all familiar, B. He treats me nice, takes me out, compliments my hair…"

"And do you compliment his hair?" Buffy teased.

"It makes a great pair of reins when I ride him."

Buffy could hear the smirk in her voice. "And there's a visual I don't need. How's your newly human boss?"

"Truthfully, I've barely seen Angel. He's either out with Connor or going out with Cordelia."

"Oh? That was quick."

"He went to see her a couple of days after the rehumanizing. She seemed to think that showed he was willing to change. Cordy's dragged him out to all these parties and premiers. He's bought, like, a dozen new suits to keep up."

"Angel always could pull off Armani." Buffy wandered to the kitchen, heading for a glass of orange juice. "How's Connor taking it?"

"Brat's kind of smug, like it was his plan all along or something."

"He, uh, having a less dramatic love life?"

"Oh, yeah. He's dating Miss Pure Virgin, this chick named Greta. She's never gonna give it up."

"She is his age, right? Sixteen? Nothing wrong with that."

"Oh. Yeah, you're right. He's just my kid brother, you know?"

"Had this talk with Dawn recently. Hopefully I convinced her to keep her v-card until she's twenty-five."

"Oh, that's likely."

"Leave me my delusions," Buffy sighed. "Anything else going on?"

"Groo hasn't had any more visions about human trafficking, thank goodness. We've had a demon turf war and some kind of summoning ritual that we busted up. Other than that, just stuff on patrol. How about Sunnyhell?"

"Strangely quiet. After the December apocalypse interruptus, our calendar's shot to hell. No idea when to expect the next weirdness."

"Hey!" Faith called, obviously not speaking to Buffy for a second. "Gunn's girl is here."

"Oh?"

"Did Wil or Tara tell you about the electric girl?"

"Yeah. So she's not shocking people she touches anymore?"

"Well, Gunn isn't walking funny, so I guess they fixed her right up."

Buffy nearly spat juice over the counter. She snorted. "Okay, now that's the visual I didn't need."

"Hey, you wanted gossip."

"Did not. I only called to give you my full support as senior Slayer." Buffy's tone was plummy.

"Sure you did. How's the gym coming?"

"Not too far behind schedule. I'll be ready for the other seminar, for which my bestie Slayer buddy will come up from L.A. to help with, please please please?"

"Will you come to London?" Faith challenged.

"Yes, but only because you've already coopted my multilingual better half. I already gave Giles the times I can be there."

"You still call him Giles? Not Pops or something?"

"I'll be a hundred, and he'll be… um, older than that, and I'll still call him Giles. I'm an old dog now. No new tricks."

"Don't tell your honey that."

"You're older than me. I'll bet you fall asleep on Groo all the time."

"B! Just by a few months. And I do actually fall asleep on Groo. He's the first guy I don't mind seeing still around in the morning."

"Always of the good when they're still there. Basis of a healthy relationship." Buffy believed that firmly.

"Ack, take it back. I can't be in healthy relationship. There's the sign of the apocalypse you were looking for."

"I take it back," Buffy said hastily.

⸹

London

April 2003

⸹

Giles smiled again as he shook hands. After he'd taken over from Aubrey on Wednesday, things had been quiet. Today was Friday, and his staff had insisted on taking him out. Lord knew why; Willingham was much better drinking companion than he was these days. But he'd rang up Joyce to let her know and been spirited away to a pub on a corner near where Watcher headquarters once stood. It had been packed with nearly every CoS employee in London, and every one had wanted to have a drink with him.

Three ales in, Giles had gotten the knack of never letting his mug out of his hand and never drinking from it. Otherwise, he'd have been smashed. He'd loosened his tie, cheered a match of darts, slid into every booth in the place, and otherwise spread around a layer of approachable boss. All he really wanted was to be at the duplex with Max asleep on his lap and Joyce snugged up against him.

But that wasn't what the Council needed. By the end of the six months, there had been a palpable urge for Aubrey to just be gone already, so that the last of the temporary nature of things would be in the past. The Watchers needed to move on, to solidify around their real leader. It wasn't fair to Aubrey, but Giles understood. Everything, from mission to headquarters, had been set on its ear, and the people who worked for the Council were only human.

Now, he rather felt as though he'd put in enough of an appearance. The crowd had thinned, the owner was standing cheerfully near his till, counting receipts, and the noise level had fallen from 'party' to 'closing time.' Giles smiled – his jaws ached – and shook another hand even as he shot a glance to see whether that was his coat hanging by the door.

"Ripper!"

The voice was quiet, but the appellation startled him. "Oh! Er, hullo…" A name wouldn't come, though there was something familiar about the face. For just a second, it resolved into something that was not human. "Ami-beq?"

The Egyptian deity smiled. "You remember!"

"Of course I do." They shook hands, as two civilized beings in Savile Row suits ought, while Giles frantically tried to remember if he might have messed up the ritual to call forth the minor god all those years ago.

"I was in London and just wanted to stop by to say congratulations."

"Oh. Thank you doesn't quite seem to be in order, considering I would never have been head –"

"– Without all those deaths?" Ami-beq smiled, showing many white and excellent teeth. He held a hand toward an empty booth, and Giles found himself sitting down. He lifted a hand toward the bar, two fingers raised. "I heard about Ethan. Eyghon always was a braggart."

Giles grew still. "I… I didn't know, not for sure."

"Well, you can't be surprised. He never played it safe."

Finding that he needed a drink, Rupert lifted the flat ale and quaffed the remainder. "No. No, he didn't."

"You, though…" Ami-beq's eyes gleamed as his eyes noted the ring on the wizard's left hand. "I never took you for the marrying kind."

"I've been most fortunate." Giles fished in his pockets for a tenner and laid it on the table. He was not going to owe his companion for anything, ever again.

"You truly have. A doting wife, a new son, two daughters about to grow into Powers," his dark eyes narrowed as if searching Giles' face, "and even a son-in-law who's been jumped up to Guardian of the Slayer line." A young man wearing an apron brought two full mugs to the table and made the ten-pound note disappear.

Ripper stared back at the demi-god, his face a mask of disinterest and magical blankness. "You are very well informed." What the hell did he mean with that remark about his daughters?

Ami-beq laughed, a rich, rolling sound. "And isn't that why you twice summoned me?"

"Yes, that, and the arrogance of a rank amateur."

"But earnest and amusing, all the same," he smiled. He lifted his pint and drained most of it. "Ah, that's nice and dark." Ami-beq gave him a wry look. "I am not here to play games, Ripper. Your daughter is a Key. Once made flesh, what else can she do but ascend? And the Slayer has not only conquered death and defeated a god – and I do note, not one from our dimension – but she channels elemental magic to rebalance the force of good."

"What will happen to her?" He immediately tensed; he did not want to incur any obligation.

Ami-beq only shrugged. "I do not know." At Giles' skeptical look, he leaned forward. "Truly, I do not. Her rebirth has ever been shielded from seers."

Shielded… Giles breathed a little easier. There should have been prophecies about Buffy, who was so much more than the usual Slayer, but there was nothing other than the foretelling of her death at the hands of the Master. "I should not have asked."

"No. But we are all weak where family is concerned, are we not? I have sisters and a brother who remain on this plane."

"Are you in London on holiday?" Giles believed he managed unconcern as he glanced down to replace his empty pint with the full one.

"No. Business." Another flash of sharp teeth. "A death. Nothing to concern you, unless your new Council has gone into the business of betting parlors."

Giles wasn't sure of how literally to take the explanation, so he just settled for an, "Ah," and another lift of his mug.

The deity looked unfocused for a moment, then met his eyes again. "It has been very nice to catch up, Ripper, but I must meet a summons." Ami-beq drained the last of his ale and gave Rupert a nod before rising. He was at the door and gone, without seeming to use any haste at all.

Giles sat in the booth, still and completely sober, wondering why he should be surprised by his lack of surprise. Once the god said it aloud, it seemed obvious that Dawn and Buffy were no longer just human. It was Spike's world. He turned the realization over in his mind until it hurt, until he was grateful to be interrupted once again by a well-wisher who wanted to shake his hand.

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"I'll miss you," Buffy said, embracing Spike from behind.

He turned and rested his arms on her shoulders. "I'll miss you. It's just three days, though."

"I know." She sighed. He was piloting a flight to London, the Council having chartered Colinvaux Air to ferry the Latin and South American Slayers from Los Angeles. Spike was a logical choice to be their chaperone, since he spoke both Spanish and Portuguese fluently. "Three days too long."

"With school and the fitness center, you have enough to keep you busy until Wednesday. Once you're in London, we'll go out, paint the old town red."

Even as she nodded, her lower lip eased into a pout. As always, Spike took it as an invitation. "Ah, love," he breathed a couple of minutes later, pulling away from the kiss. "What you do to me."

Her hands were already moving over proof of what she did to him. "How much time do we have?"

Spike groaned. "Sod it. Let me call Harriet and have her do preflight check." A minute later, he snapped the phone closed, ending the conversation with the pilot. "It's good to be the boss." He groped blindly behind him until his questing fingers found the open suitcase on the bed. Pushing it out of the way, he sat and drew her down onto his lap.

An hour later, Buffy put her forehead against his. "We better stop."

"Come for me, then, my love."

"Ahh… same. Come with me." She rolled so they were no longer laying side by side and she was astride his narrow hips.

"As you wish," he managed, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

Buffy kissed the smile away, but she was wearing one of her own a couple of loud minutes later. "You made a funny face."

"Wonder it hasn't got stuck in some tragic O-face," he quipped, making his eyes cross.

"Not tragic," Buffy breathed, kissing his neck. "No O-face. You're beautiful when you come."

"Wait. Which is it, funny or beautiful?"

"Why can't it be both?" She bit down gently on his right sternocleidomastoid muscle. "Your neck is gorgeous."

"Tragic story of how I came to be a vampire in two words: pretty neck." He pulled away enough to see her. "Not complaining, but you're full of compliments today."

"Just cataloging all that I'm going to miss about you." Her fingernails raked the sides of his hips as she caught the rise of his collarbone in her teeth.

What escaped his throat was nearly a whimper. "You couldn't have started this several hours ago? I'd love to have those little teeth nip me on a whole host of other body parts."

"Mmm." Buffy closed her eyes and snuggled close. "I'm going to let you go. Any minute now."

She did eventually, of course, and she lay on the bed listening to Spike power through a shower in under two minutes. He leaned over the bed in another two, giving her a kiss, mumbling something about being thankful the Slayers were Brazilian instead of German. When she raised her eyebrows, he grinned.

"Brazilians take it as a given that start times are approximate." When Buffy shook her head, still not understanding, he added, "They're laid back, love. Germans, not so much."

"What about Americans? What's our reputation?" she asked, curious.

"Usually on time and driven by the almighty dollar. And loud."

"Huh." She sat up, cuddling his pillow to her chest. "And Brits?"

"Obsessed with the weather." He shrugged. "Tea snobs."

"And all about the pint?"

Spike snorted and bent down to lace his boots. "Every country is stereotypically about booze. French and Italian people drink all the wine. Irish people chug Guinness and Scots chug whiskey. Canadians and Australians drink all the beer." He frowned. "Also Poles, Belgians, Germans, Austrians – well, Austrians do drink a lot."

"And Englishmen don't? I've met Aubrey."

He put on a Viennese accent. "'Water and milk are for animals. Beer is for humans.' An Austrian actually told me that once."

"Stereotyping is wrong."

He was suddenly to his feet and lunging over the bed, pressing her flat. "Leaving you is wrong," Spike growled, and kissed her silly. Then he let out a breath. "But I have to do it. Let me go, now."

Buffy looked at her arms as if seeing them for the first time. They were locked around his neck. "Okay. I'm going to roll over and pretend to be asleep." She pulled him in for another kiss. "I love you. Text me before you take off."

"I love you, too." Buffy let go of him and rolled to face the wall, so he leaned in to kiss her nape, then left before he lost his willpower again.

The Slayer sniffled for a few minutes after he left, knowing that she was being maudlin. She was going to transport to her parents' townhouse on Wednesday and, like Spike, be part of the day's panels for the new Slayers. They'd been apart longer, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

Nothing at home appealed to her, so she texted Dawn to see if she was up for shopping. Her sister's reply – "Duh." – gave Buffy enough motivation to shower and head to the mall. Dawn met her at the food court a few minutes later.

"What are we shopping for?" she asked, taking the other seat and immediately stealing a couple of the French fries left from Buffy's lunch.

"I need a dress for the Spring Formal," Buffy said. She still sounded glum.

Dawn gave her a puzzled look. "And you're shopping for it here in Sunnydale?"

"Yeah?"

"I mean, you usually use something like this as an excuse for a trip to L.A."

"It's not that kind of dance," Buffy said, knowing she sounded lame. How could she explain that she was going with William? She and William didn't have a fortune from raiding moldy demon treasure hoards; they were going to UC-Sunnydale because it was the cheapest public school in the state. Attending the dance was a splurge for them.

"We'd probably do better at the dress shops downtown," Dawn pointed out.

Buffy put a hand to her ear. "Listen! Is that size nine sandals I hear calling your name?"

"Fine," Dawn huffed, grabbing one last fry. "Mall shopping it is."

Four stores later, Buffy got around to asking about her sister's spring break. "So, how bad was it?"

"It wasn't awful." Dawn pouted a little as she admitted this. "Francesca took me shopping, too, and she's kind of fun away from Dad." She slowed down in front of a Gap store, then took a step to catch up. "I spend most days at the Hyperion, anyway. I got to research horned demons; it was such a change of pace." Sarcasm dripped off her words.

"How were things there? I mean, I know this was before Angel's big change."

"They were fine. Faith and Groo were disappearing every chance they got, so it wasn't as much fun as it could have been."

"Did you spend much time with Connor?"

She gave her sister an accusing glare. "This is about him grabbing me away from that Lawson guy, isn't it?"

"I just wondered…" Buffy's tone was innocent.

"He's younger than me. I have a boyfriend; he has a girlfriend." Dawn's eyes rolled as she thought of perfect Greta. "It's not a thing, okay?"

"Dawn, you know he has a crush on you."

"Oh, he so does not. It's just, we get stuck together because we're close in age. He's like my cousin or something."

"All right," Buffy said mildly. "I was just asking. How about the rest of them? I didn't really get a chance to talk the last time I was there."

"Gunn's got a new girlfriend. She's kind of nice. Sad life."

"I heard about that. I also heard she's like an international jewel thief or something."

"Hey, make do with what you've got. Gunn's going to look for clients that need security evaluation. If he finds enough, AI is going to start focusing on that and hire her."

"Well, that makes sense, like how software companies hire hackers to test their code." Buffy gestured at a shoe store. "Want to go in?"

"Pfft," Dawn said, making the turn. "As if I would pass it by." She made a beeline for a display of sandals. "So, I spent most of my time with Angel, Wes, and Fred. It was quiet, but it was loads better than staying with Francesca." She checked the price on a pair of light blue, strappy sandals. "I wonder how long Wes is going to wait to ask her out."

"Ask who out?" Half of Buffy's attention was on a pair of gladiator sandals she knew she was too short to pull off.

"Duh, Fred." Dawn grinned suddenly. "I caught him singing 'Jessie's Girl' one day."

"Oh," Buffy said, getting it. "He won't make a play because Fred used to date Gunn…"

"… And Gunn's his bestie." Dawn put down the shoes.

"I didn't even know that Wesley Wyndham-Pryce knew any pop songs."

When Buffy didn't find a dress to her liking, they went downtown, where she found a pink dress on clearance that she thought would do. She could tell that Dawn wasn't impressed with it, so she played the dance off as just something she wanted to check off her list of college experiences. They talked about college for a while; like her, Dawn had scored high on her entrance exams. The Slayer ended up following her home to share Chinese takeout for dinner.

"I should go ahead and patrol," Buffy sighed, looking out the dining room window as the streetlights came on.

"Can I come with you?" Dawn asked, her eyes all puppy-like and pleading.

"Okay," Buffy sighed, "but only because I enjoy being around you." Her voice grew hard. "You'd better be careful and do everything I tell you to do."

"I will!" Dawn grabbed her in a hug, then bounded toward the stairs. She hardly ever got to go on patrol.

As they limped back in four hours later, Buffy remembered why her little sister didn't come on patrol. "It's bleeding again, isn't it?"

"Just a little." Dawn disengaged her arm from her sister's. She had staked a vampire, her fourth ever, then turned to check if there were others around. She'd walked right into the sharp edge of a low tombstone and cut her shin.

"Let's get up to the bathroom." Buffy got Dawn out of her dark pants and seated on the closed commode. "I don't think you need stitches," she muttered, rolling a band of gauze over the wound.

"Use a bandage," Dawn directed. "It isn't that big."

"Do they even make bandages that big?"

"It isn't that big," Dawn repeated, huffing. She leaned over and rummaged around in the first aid bag. "Here. No, wait. Just fold some gauze into a square and tape it down. I'll disinfect it again and use the bandage after it stops bleeding."

"Or I could just let you do it yourself," Buffy said, "bossy-boots."

Dawn stood up after Buffy finished. "Thanks," she said. "I'm sorry I ruined patrol."

"You didn't ruin patrol," Buffy said. "We got three vampires. That's hopping for Sunnydale these days." She started collecting the bits of trash.

"Wait," Dawn said, her hand closing over Buffy's wrist as she reached for the first length of gauze she'd used.

"Why?" Buffy frowned at Dawn, who was transfixed by the stain on the edge of the sink. "What is it?"

"That's it!" She gave Buffy a hug. "You solved it! I've been looking for a way to make a realistic-looking screen for one of my paintings, and you found it."

Buffy looked at the crisscross pattern of Dawn's blood on the sink, left after she moved the strip of airy cloth. "Oh. That's good?"

"It's great! You're a genius!" Dawn had snatched the roll back out of the first aid bag. "If it wasn't so late, I'd get out my paints and try it now."

"It is late," Buffy said. "Here, take these to the fireplace and burn them." She handed Dawn the little wad of bloodstained material. Burning anything with spilled blood had been routine for the family since Willow had read her first dark spellbook and, white-faced, written out detailed instructions for disposal. "I'll clean up the rest."

"Stay here tonight?" Dawn asked. "Sleep with me, and we won't even have to fix up the other room."

"Okay, you twisted my arm." She gave Dawn's leg a critical look. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah. I think it'll bruise, though."

"Good work with that vamp, by the way."

Dawn preened. "Thank you. I don't even know why they bother coming to Sunnydale, you know?"

"It's the pull of the Hellmouth," Buffy said with a sigh. Most of the slays these days were from demons who came to Sunnydale as tourists or agents of chaos. It was rare to have a fledge rise; the death rate for the town was almost normal now.

Anya had the non-violent demons on board with her plans for the city, so any plots to wreck Sunnydale were brought to her attention. Spike's minions kept interlopers out. Even the police and ambulance crews were clued in to the supernatural world now. Anya had made sure city job openings were posted where humanoid demon species would see them.

Still, with all that, the Hellmouth seethed beneath the town, drawing evil demons to its streets. Buffy sighed. She shouldn't be ungrateful; the patrol tonight was so different from what she'd handled during high school, so much easier.

Spike broke into her reverie. _Just got cleared to land at Heathrow, love. We'll be on the ground in a few minutes. You going to be awake in an hour or so?_

 _No. I'm staying with Dawn tonight. Just finished patrol._

 _Everything go okay?_

 _Dawn banged her shin on a grave marker. Fine other than that. Go pilot your plane. I'll talk to you tomorrow._

 _Then, just a couple of days._

 _Not long. Love you, wife._

 _Love you, too._

⸹

Next Chapter: Buffy gets a new Watcher, as her old one confronts Spike.


	51. Voices of Experience

**Voices of Experience**

⸹

Sunnydale

April 2003

⸹

Buffy figured she could make some frozen waffles hot and call it breakfast, since she was up before Dawn the next morning. She'd just put on a pot of coffee when the doorbell rang. Wrinkling her nose at the fact she looked a mess in last night's clothes, she went to answer. At least she was decent.

"Aubrey?" She blinked at him.

"Oh! Good morning, my dear. I must say, I expected your sister."

She leaned forward and took one of the suitcases in his hand. It was obvious to her that he'd teleported from London. "I stayed over last night. Late patrol."

"I'm glad to see you, in any case. I did need to speak with you." He stepped in, well used to the lack of invitation.

"You're already moving back?" She moved to give him a hug.

"I am and delighted to do so. I find London weather has not improved after living in southern California."

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No, but if you'll fetch me the kettle, I'll put it on for tea."

They puttered about the kitchen trading gossip about the Council for a few minutes, until Willingham had a cup of Earl Grey and Buffy had half of a cup of coffee in her. "So, what did you want to speak to me about?" she asked, wrapping her hands around the warm mug that held her remaining coffee.

"How would you feel having me as your official Watcher?"

She blinked at him across the table. "Isn't that a bit of a comedown from Head of the Council?"

"Oh, no. Watcher to a Slayer? I don't consider it a comedown at all," he assured her with utter sincerity. "I just thought I might do. I know you don't need a Watcher, not really, but they're insisting you have one. You wouldn't have to break in anyone new, and I'll mostly serve as a liaison with the Council."

"And as my main research guy?" Buffy teased.

"And that, of course."

She put her hand over his. "I would be honored. I wondered how Giles was going to handle that. I don't want another Watcher, truthfully, but I figured either it would be a conflict of interest since I'm his stepdaughter now, or just that he'd be too busy with his new duties."

"Well, it was his idea. He asked me, since I was moving back, and I told him I'd ask you. I'm so pleased you said yes." He patted her hand.

"Like I'm going to turn down my favorite Council head ever. Especially after your resolution ending the eighteenth-birthday torture." Buffy nodded toward the suitcases in the other room. "That's all you've brought?"

"It's enough for a few days. I should have kept my flat, but everything was such chaos after the explosion last fall, I let the lease lapse. I thought I would settle in at that bed-and-breakfast near the Magic Box while I look for a new one. I came early so I can check the classifieds in the Sunday paper."

"Are you hungry? I was going to toast up waffles for breakfast."

"Er, no, that's quite all right."

"Let me go see if my sister's up." Buffy was deep in thought as she clumped down the basement stairs.

"Hey, Buf," Dawn said around a yawn.

"Hey, Dawnie." She sat down on the bed. "Did you sleep okay?"

"I did. Even though you snore."

"I do not. Aubrey's up in the kitchen."

"He is? Why?"

"He's really moving back. Listen, I have an idea…"

Dawn, after a quick pit stop in the bathroom, kept Aubrey busy talking while Buffy made a couple of phone calls. She looked up as Buffy came back into the kitchen.

"It's okay with Mom."

Dawn squealed. "Cool! Uncle Aubrey, will you move in with me? You can have my old room upstairs."

He looked between the two sisters. "What? Stay here?"

"Yes! It'll be perfect. Mom's been worried about me being alone."

Buffy nodded. "Spike and I stop by most days, but you know it has to be lonely for her."

He didn't quite sputter as he turned to Dawn. "I'm sure you wouldn't want a relic like me –"

"I do." She put her hand over his. "I absolutely do. No other relic will do."

Willingham looked between them, helpless before the power of Summers women. "I need extra space, though, a place to research…"

Buffy walked a few feet away and peered into the back of the living room. "What about Mom's desk? It gets just a little morning light, but I don't think it would fade your books if we put them on the back wall…" She considered the space a moment more, then walked back to the table. "Xander could probably put in bookshelves."

"I'll be gone during the days," Dawn added, "so I won't interrupt you while you're working."

"You, interrupt me?" he asked, incredulous. "I'm sure I would be the one, er, cramping your style."

Dawn giggled at his old-fashioned phrase. "No. My style is completely uncrampable."

He looked between them once more, torn. "It's just, I have this new line of research, an old prophecy no one considered before, since there was only one Slayer. I know how I get when I'm involved in research. I won't be much company."

"Like we aren't used to that from Giles."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right? Come on, Uncle Aubrey. Please? I've missed you."

"Please, Watcher?" Buffy added.

He caved, as he'd known he would from the moment they'd asked. "I'd be honored, my dears."

⸹

Oz checked over the state of beverages for the circle of coven members gathered in his living room. No one looked like they needed refills. For a few moments, he just watched the faces as they chanted: Willow and Tara, a faint white glow surrounding them, Michael, the twins, and a young man he thought was named Thom. Jonathan was beside Tara; it would his last time with the coven before moving to Portland with his girlfriend, Kelly.

He didn't often get a chance to attend a coven meeting. Next semester, he'd be at Cal Tech; he supposed he'd see more. Oz heard a warning beep from the timer on the oven and went to check on the sheet of cookies.

Sliding Willow's little circles of yum onto a wire rack to cool, Oz put the sheet back in the oven and made sure it was off. He propped himself against the counter again, watching the chant, though mostly he was watching his pack.

A few weeks from now, he'd be a married man. Well, not in a legal sense, but they were going to stand up before Gaia and everyone and declare that their love was lasting and true. Oz thought about how odd it was that the three of them came from intact families (Tara's had been, before her mother died). So many of his friends were children of divorce. Tara's family was beyond dysfunctional, as was Willow's in a different way. While his parents were loving, they didn't have the kind of grand passion he felt for his mates. Maybe that came with the beast. If that was the case, he was grateful for the wolf. There was so much _life_ in their little circle.

The chant reached the crescendo. The focus was a tray of gold and silver rings in various sizes. Over half of them were for Spike. Now that they weren't working on transformation, Oz had taken to training with the vampire on weekends just to keep up their friendship. Spike was doing incredible amounts of upper body work in the gym, pounding on both the speed bag and heavy punching bag to charge the rings, and he'd followed suit. Both of them had added inches to their upper arms and shoulders, to the point where Oz's tuxedo no longer fit. He was pretty sure he could get out of wearing one altogether.

The thought of his wedding clothes brought his attention sharply back to his mates. They were listening to Michael tell everyone about the forge set up near Kingsman Bluff. The dark-haired sorcerer had put on muscle, too, as he learned to create weapons. He reported that he felt they were at least a year away from attempting their first Slayer weapon.

Willow and Tara had already accepted that the new weapons wouldn't have the same powerful magic as the Scythe. Even though their coven was one of the top three or four most powerful on earth, magic itself wasn't as available now as it had been at the dawn of civilization. It was spread across billions of people instead of thousands. They could infuse a sword or ax with magic, and Spike, as the Guardian, could tie the energy to the Slayer line, but nothing they could create would be as elemental as the Scythe.

And that would be fine. The enchanted sword that Kendra brought to Sunnydale to kill Angelus had worked beautifully to kill Turok-Han, too. His packmates were going to do amazing things.

The witches and sorcerers were starting to rise from the floor now, most of them gathering around Jonathan. Oz privately wondered if Jonathan would continue to do magic. His girlfriend Kelly didn't seem to want to have much to do with the supernatural. Still, they were moving to Portland. From what Oz had seen on concert tours, it was a funky, quirky town. Jonathan might find another coven up there.

Then it was time for him to play host. Oz moved the still-warm cookies onto a plate and put them on the counter with plates of fruit and veggies from the refrigerator. He opened two bottles of wine, one red and one white, and made sure the various little beaded charms for the glass stems were laid prominently to the side. They made him feel funny; for so long, it had been a Sharpie to mark a red Solo cup. Having stemware was part of becoming an adult, he supposed.

Willow moved close, bumping into his side like a puppy. He put his arm around her and gave her a slow smile. She was always so happy after a good spellcasting. Tara joined them in the kitchen, giving him her own slow smile. They were both happy, afterwards. Happy and amorous.

He felt like singing, like smashing a guitar on a stage. He felt like shooing the rest of the coven out of the house, or just disappearing with his pack into a back room, leaving the guests to figure it out on their own. Mostly, he just felt happy and, though he wasn't proud of it, a little smug. The three of them had something so few people seemed to have. They had love. They had passion.

They had each other.

Oz just smiled at one of the twins, Rachel, and offered her a cookie. His pack had him domesticated, after all. He'd tried the wild side, and this was worlds better.

⸹

London

⸹

"Just speak clearly," the Watcher told Buffy, clipping the microphone to the collar of her blouse. Standing, the woman checked something off on her clipboard and headed for the exit.

Faith leaned over from the chair next to her. "The translation spell works pretty good." The two of them were at the front of a conference room for a panel called 'Voices of Experience.' Buffy had already decided that she was going to rename it 'I'm a Slayer, Ask Me How' when the English-speaking Slayers came to Sunnydale for their seminar.

"Thanks," she told Faith. "I'm already nervous. I'd hate to tell them to 'stake first, quip later,' but have them hear they should pat the hippo or something." She looked at the door. "When will they be here?"

Faith twisted to check the digital clock behind them. "At, um, eighteen o'clock. England's so weird." She shot Buffy a grin. "They've been doing weapons check out. Then this, then they'll get dinner, and I'll get to collapse."

"How are you holding up?"

"I never got one, but this must be what a parole hearing is like." She shrugged. "I'm constantly on my best behavior, trying to think through everything I say." Faith shuddered. "The Watchers keep telling me I'm a role model."

They stopped speaking as a hotel employee brought a metal pitcher of water and two glasses to the narrow table in front of them. The Council had decided to ward a single London location, so the Slayers, their families and teams, and the meeting facilities were all housed inside an anonymous chain hotel. The grand ballroom substituted as a training room, full of mats and racks of weapons instead of the usual balloons and streamers.

Buffy took her hand as soon as the employee left. "You're a great Slayer, Faith. That's all you have to be."

She grimaced. "They're all younger than us, B. I actually do want them do what I say, not what I did."

"All I can tell you is what I learned from having a kid sister: be honest, but hit some of those points harder than others and vague it up on lots of other stuff."

"And that's honest?"

Buffy shrugged. "My most recent thing with Dawn was underlining that sex really hurts the first time and saying nothing about it feeling good at all."

"Got it." Then Faith leaned forward and asked in a much lower voice. "It really hurt for you?"

"No," Buffy admitted. "Stung for a couple of minutes. And doesn't that feel like a lifetime ago? It's all good now, not that I'm going to mention that to my baby sister."

Faith put her face in her hands. "God, I miss Groo."

Buffy's eyes were on the door. Her Slayer senses were warning her that an old, powerful vampire was approaching. "And I've missed Spike."

From the hallway, she heard her husband's voice speaking words in a language she couldn't identify. Even above the babble of voices, she heard a schoolgirl laugh that seemed to be in response to whatever he said. "So, do they all have crushes on him?"

"No, actually," Faith said. "One of the Chinese Slayers, Chao-Ahn, can't seem to get past the fact that one of the Slayers he killed back in the day was from her province." She shot Buffy a grin. "And two of them are lesbians."

"Doesn't stop Willow," Buffy grumbled. Then she perked up; she could see him through the doorway now. Spike spotted her, too, and she was so glad Alpana hurried up to talk to Faith so she could drink him in. He was wearing a name badge clipped to a belt loop of his dark jeans. She could tell he had gelled his hair earlier in the day, but it was unruly now. Instead of a button-down shirt, he wore an unexpected white tee.

 _Slayer from Brazil sliced through it when she swung an ax,_ he told her in response to her silent query. His eyes were as warm as his smile as he came toward her.

 _Are you okay?_ She asked the question even though she could see that he was, even though she knew the Gem kept him whole.

 _Fine, love, now that I've seen you._ He leaned over her, bracing his weight on the armrests of her chair, and lowered his mouth to hers in a slow kiss.

Faith turned from Alpana long enough to whack his shoulder. "Not in front of the kids."

Her Watcher cleared her throat. "I have to agree with Faith. Let's maintain a business-like decorum, shall we?" Unlike Faith, she wasn't teasing them.

Buffy reluctantly withdrew her arms from her husband's neck, pouting at him so that he would chase her lips for another kiss, though it was a brief one. "Decorum it is," she sighed.

 _Want to go out clubbing tonight? Nothing at the Astoria, but we could go to the Marquee or Hammersmith –_

 _Dinner with Mom and Giles._

It was his turn to pout. _Oh, fun for your night in London._

Buffy gave him one more light kiss. _I got a silencing charm from Willow that's just right for your hotel room for after dinner._

Spike's pout turned into a leer, complete with curled tongue. Faith made a disgusted noise. "I don't even have to hear it to know what you two are talking about." She shoved at Spike's hand, still on Buffy's armrest. "Get. We have wisdom to impart, none of which they'll notice with your cute ass aimed toward them."

He shot a quick grin at the dark-haired Slayer. "I'll head on to your mum's, then, unless you want me to wait…?" When Buffy shook her head, Spike put his forehead against hers and then headed for the exit.

Alpana glanced over the room of girls and saw all of them had settled into seats. She headed to one of the two standing microphones already set up in the room. "Thank you, ladies, we're ready to begin. My name is Alpana Vishnaswamy. I'm Watcher to one of the original Slayers. I've met most of you, but greetings from the Council and welcome to London to those I haven't. This is your chance to ask our two experienced Slayers anything you'd like to know." She briefly explained how there came to be two Slayers, introduced Buffy and Faith, and left them to their opening statements.

Buffy lifted her brows at Faith, surprised the other Slayer was letting her go first. She cleared her throat. "First," she said, scooting forward so she could rest her clasped hands on the table, "I'd like to say that the most important thing you can do as a Slayer is to keep your bonds with your family and friends. Forge new ones. Use the team the Council sends to you. I wouldn't be here at all if my friend Xander hadn't saved my life with CPR after I was killed by the Master of the Order of Aurelius, a 500-year-old vampire."

She looked around the room. "A vampire that volunteered to work with us led my human friend Xander to his lair. I died," she turned to gesture at Faith, "and another Slayer was called. CPR is fairly new, but more importantly, because Slayers were traditionally kept as secret weapons in solitude against the darkness, it was the first time a Slayer had backup after CPR started being taught."

Buffy looked around the room. "My death at the Master's hands was prophesied in the _Pergamum Codex_ ," she thought she remembered the name right, "but my friends came for me anyway. After I revived, I killed the Master. I mean, he did ruin the really nice dress I wore that night. It was payback." She waited until the laughter died away. "From that night on, my Watcher and I never really believed we faced impossible odds. I'm still here because of my team. Rely on yours." She pushed back in her chair and turned her eyes to Faith.

Taking a hasty sip of water to wet her suddenly dry mouth, the other Slayer looked around the room at the girls. She knew most of them by name now, three days into the seminar. She did not know how much they knew about her.

"A few years ago, I killed a man, a human. It was an accident, but I kept it a secret. I didn't have a team like you have, and I'd known my new Watcher less than a week." She cleared her throat. "It was a mistake to keep it a secret, and… it festered. I never dealt with the guilt and shame, and I spiraled until I felt like I might as well be one of the bad guys. It wasn't until months later – some of that in a coma, granted – that I confessed and turned myself in to the police. If I'd just told my Watcher, the Council would have stepped in. There would have been an accounting, counseling, and I probably wouldn't have ever served time. The man I killed – his name was Allan Finch – wasn't the only person I killed, or tried to kill. I hurt everyone I knew during that time period."

Faith looked down. "So, voice of experience: do not keep secrets. Tell your Watcher, or someone on your team, or your mom. If you have a secret admirer, if you notice the same demon twice, if you have a dream that seems significant," her voice dropped half an octave, "if you accidentally kill a person, tell someone. Anyone."

Alpana, who had sat in a chair against the wall, paused to put her hand on Faith's shoulder as she came back to the microphone. "Thank you. These two things – rely on your team and do not keep secrets – are the most important things these two young ladies wanted to pass on. Not a type of kick or anything. Years of experience, and it doesn't come down to a single punch or a weapon. Slayers are more than a tool, yes?

"Now, if you have a question you'd like to ask either of the senior Slayers, please come up to the microphone. We have fifty minutes until our evening meal. Both have agreed to stay a few minutes after this session if you have personal questions to ask, as well."

There were four questions before the one Buffy figured was guaranteed came up. A Slayer from India came to the microphone and gripped it with both hands, clearly nervous. "My name is Aditi. My question is for Buffy." She licked her lips and rushed the words. "Are you really married to a vampire?"

Buffy, who had been watching each girl's lips in fascination as a real world version of audio dubbing took place, gave her a tight smile. "I think you've already met Spike, the blond man who was in here earlier." He had been one of the trainers in the ballroom the past couple of days. "He's a vampire, and he is my husband."

Aditi had a half-smile on her face. "How did that happen?"

"We fell in love." She lifted a shoulder. "The reason we ever got a chance to know each other is because he –"

"Has a soul?"

She looked at the Indian Slayer and shook her head. "No. Because he had so much humanity in him already, he sought me out and asked to work with me. True, Spike had his own agenda: he was trying to find a cure for a sick vampire."

Buffy looked around the room. "Think of that," she said softly. "Almost every vampire, every demon would take advantage of another demon's illness. They'd kill them for their weakness or leave them because who wants the trouble? We got to know each other when he tried to save the vampire he'd loved for almost a hundred and twenty years. That is not normal behavior for a vampire, to begin with. After we started developing feelings, he got his soul so that he could function in the human world again. He fought through a week of trials to regain his soul for me." Buffy looked around the room. The expression on most of their faces was either sappy or speculative.

"Don't look for that in any other vampire." Her words were flat; she'd been a romantic teenager once. "As far as we know, there are two vampires with souls in the entire world. The other got his soul by being cursed." No need to mention that vampire was no longer Angel, but Sam Lawson. "You will not find a vampire old enough and strong enough to go against their nature."

Faith leaned forward so that their elbows touched. "Trust me on this. That is one singular vampire. But let me tell you about my boyfriend." She grinned, a salacious and satisfied curving of her mouth. "My hottie's part demon. That means that he's stronger and has more stamina than a human. And there are plenty of human-demon mixes out there. If you're looking for a boyfriend, there's nothing wrong with humans. You just have to remember your own strength." She flashed a smile at Alpana, who had been looking alarmed until she spoke those last words. "If you want to know more, ask me at dinner." Faith winked at the girls so her Watcher couldn't see.

The Slayers tittered, and Aditi surrendered her place at the microphone. Buffy gave Faith a grateful smile, then focused her attention on the Slayer from Singapore, who wanted to know the best hairstyle for patrol.

"Well, the Watchers certainly never covered that," Faith drawled, getting another laugh from the girls.

Buffy watched her, feeling warm with pride. Faith was doing a great job, and she was beyond grateful that it didn't fall to her.

⸹

Dawn hung her coat in the guestroom closet and kicked her shoes in after. Then she plopped her small suitcase onto the bed and unfolded the sweater inside. The townhouse was modern, but the heating still wasn't enough to compensate for the April London chill on her Californian skin.

Mom had invited her for a family meal, since Buffy and Spike were coming for dinner. It was really more lunch for her, but it meant she got to skip her last two classes. Dawn had invited Aubrey to come along with her, but he gave her an absent "Hmm?" before turning down the offer. She used the crystals the coven set up, because overseas portals still gave her the wiggins. Dimensional portals seemed somehow less risky.

She heard the door open downstairs and gave herself a mental smack for leaving it unlocked. Fortunately, Spike's voice called out. He'd lock it behind him. As Dawn shrugged into her sweater, she heard raised voices from the kitchen. She quietly went downstairs.

⸹

"'Lo?" Spike opened the door to the townhouse when no one answered. He had a moment of concern because it was unlocked.

"In the kitchen."

"Ah, Rupes," he began, striding down the short hallway. "Joyce and the nipper in here with you?"

"No. She's out to Marks for pick-up. I forgot to thaw the chops." Giles was sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of Scotch in front of him and a glass in his hand.

"You're in the doghouse, then?" Spike turned a chair backwards and straddled it, eyeing the level of Scotch. The bottle was a third down.

"No. You are." Giles gave him a cold look. "You have a great deal to answer for."

Spike gave Giles a puzzled look. "Yeah?" he asked slowly. "What am I answering for now?"

Giles tossed back the last of the drink in his hand. "I ran into someone the other day."

The blond man closed his eyes. Another person he'd killed; another name and face he'd never bothered to remember. "Was it a brother? Sister? Spouse?"

"What?" Giles didn't have a clue about what he meant.

"Relly of someone I killed, was it?"

"No." There was a sneer in the Watcher's voice. "Though I see why you would think that; I probably run into mourners unawares thanks to you all the time. No, this was a demon I used to summon when I was young and foolish."

"What's brought this on, then?" His voice was uninflected.

"Your sheer arrogance," Giles ground out. His jaw worked for a moment, then he took up the bottle to pour another generous splash into his glass.

"Gotta have a bit more to go on."

"He knows things, right? Otherwise, why would I have summoned him? Never told me a false bloody thing." Giles' eyes blazed in fury over the hand holding the shot glass. "You and your world. A bloody pathetic excuse for a world, I'd say." He tossed back half of the Scotch.

"Spit it out."

"He told me that you've doomed Buffy and Dawn, that's what."

"I – What do you mean?" Doomed them? Spike felt an improbable cold chill touch his spine.

Giles uncurled one finger holding the glass to point at Spike. "Your world. Your fault. They never had a chance at any kind of real life, did they?"

Spike could only stare at him, stunned and hurt. "You know I'd never do anything to hurt my girls." He leaned closer. At least the Watcher didn't pull away from him. "Whatever is wrong, you know I'll fix it, do anything to fix it to save them from harm. What did this demon tell you?"

"They're going to be Powers." Ripper glared at him over the rim of the glass before a quick motion emptied it again. "They'll never have rest, you wanker. You've torn away every shred of humanity from them."

His gaze was fixed on his countryman, the human who had been alongside him the morning he saw his first sunrise in twelve decades. Because this was Giles, his anger had been slow to appear, but it was on its way. "Bollocks. Have you looked at your new daughters, mate? They're utterly and wonderfully human."

Rupert sneered at him. "They might have been, if you and your massive ego hadn't needed them to be special."

Spike put his hand out with blurring speed to keep Giles' hand from taking up the bottle again. "I think you've had enough."

"You best believe I've had enough." He leaned forward so that he was almost crouched, hardly touching the chair. "You had to be a singular vampire, dooming them to be what they are. You couldn't have loved her as a normal girl?"

It had never occurred to Spike before. Could this have been a world where Buffy didn't have to shoulder the burden of being a Slayer? Wouldn't he have wanted that for her? His anger quailed, and his voice had a lost quality. "I'd never do anything to hurt her or Dawn."

"Yet here we are," Giles sneered, "in a world where both of them are in danger, where they've both been hurt." By this point, he knew he was out of control, but this had been weighing on him for days. "Did you have an especially good time planning her introduction to Angelus?"

Spike's eyes went yellow. "You think I ever wanted that tosser to touch _my_ mate?" he snarled. "I suppose you think it was my idea to let you drug her on her eighteenth birthday?" He missed the sound of a gasp from behind him. "I'm not the one who's betrayed her, you –"

"Shut up!" The scream was shrill and cut through the thick atmosphere of fury in the kitchen. Both men started, their attention jerked to where Dawn stood in the doorway. Her fists were clenched, but the tears on her cheeks were what caused them to fall silent. "Spike, do not go there." Dawn turned her attention to Giles. "And you. Way to go, Dad 2.0. If I wanted nasty family fights, I'd just as soon have Hank Summers here."

Giles' mouth worked for a moment, then his eyes slowly closed. "I'm sorry, Dawn. I… I got some distressing news the other day, and –"

"And somehow it's Spike's fault that I'm the Key? Or that Buffy's the Slayer?" She scoffed. "I'm not surprised that our futures might not be typical, especially mine. Why would it? My past wasn't. I'm going to enjoy every moment of my life," she took a steadying breath as fresh tears splashed across her cheeks, "because I doubt being the Key is going to allow me death."

The shame gave way to renewed resentment. "It needn't have been that way," Giles told her bitterly.

"H-how?"

Spike stood from the table and faced the door in the kitchen that led to a little enclosed garden, staring into the darkness. Dawn studied his tense shoulders and waited for him to say something. When he kept silent, she looked at her stepfather. He wouldn't meet her eye.

"Reckon he's right," Spike mumbled after a long, uncomfortable moment. "My fault."

"How could it be?"

"Watcher's right. My world, innit?" His tone was bleak.

"Your world?"

He lifted a shoulder, still facing into darkness. "Reality, dimension, whatever. It's what the Siren told me. My world, made where 'love can conquer all.'"

Dawn stared at him for a long second, her lips parted. Then she spared another glance at Giles. Her lips parted to speak, but she was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

"A little help?" Joyce called.

Giving each of the males another scathing look, Dawn called, "Be right there, Mom!" Then she told the two in a lower voice, "We'll talk about this in a minute. Giles? Put the booze away." Dawn spun on her heel and went to help Joyce juggle Max's carrier and her bags. Just as they were getting everything inside, Buffy joined them at the door.

"Oh, hi, sweetie," Joyce greeted her oldest daughter, giving her a hug and peck on the cheek. "How did the panel go?"

"It went okay." She frowned up at Dawn. "Can you teach me to French braid my own hair? 'Cause this one Slayer had a good point about patrol hair." Only then did Buffy give her sister a hug.

"Later." Dawn rolled her eyes widely enough to include both of them. "We've got two idiots in the kitchen to deal with right now."

'Right now' turned out to be almost twenty minutes later, after a sleeping Max was transferred to his crib and dinner was heated. Dawn nixed wine with dinner, glaring at Giles as she opined that there was no need for more alcohol. After the family sat down at the table, she crossed her arms and tapped her foot until Spike heaved a sigh and told the story of how he'd learned it was his world.

Buffy lowered her eyes to her plate. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you before."

Dawn gave her sister a sharp look before shaking her head. "Okay, G-man. Your turn. Tell everyone why you picked a fight with Spike."

There was a good measure of Ripper in the glare that he sent Dawn's way, but she wasn't in the least intimidated. He finally sighed and told about his encounter with Ami-beq. A heavy silence fell over the table.

Dawn broke it. "And that's it? Based on this, you three think that this is Spike's custom-designed reality?"

"Lot of things make sense about it, Bit." He poked with his fork at a lardon in the slice of steak and ale pie on his plate. He thought of Whistler and Doc, of how they felt like they didn't belong in this world.

"Sure. The fact that you've been on the planet for, what, a hundred and fifty years, and the planet itself is four billion years old, yet it's your world… That makes the kind of sense that's not." Dawn took an angry bite of crust.

"Don't think it works like that." He shrugged, uncomfortable. "More like a parallel universe, maybe, everything the same until something awful _didn't_ happen, and things split into a new time stream."

Buffy spoke up loyally. "Mom, some of these feelings… They're like Slayer dreams."

One of Joyce's eyebrows rose. "The feelings of déjà vu?" When the polite disbelief in her voice made Spike look up at her, she went on. "And, honestly, dear, that Molpe person doesn't sound all that reliable."

Dawn was less polite. "You guys do know that people manage to fall in love all the time without it being a big world-changing thing, don't you?" She put on a melodramatic voice. "Oh, I love you in such a _special_ way that it has to have its own world." Scoffing, she went back to belittling the idea in her own voice. "Sounds like something Angel would come up with. As if love conquers all. I mean, Britney and Justin, anybody?"

Joyce noted Giles' puzzled look. "Or Prince Charles and Princess Diana."

A little color was coming back into Buffy's cheeks. "I guess it was kind of an egotistical idea." She shot a look at her husband. He hadn't been sharing any thoughts.

"Maybe I'm as much of a control freak as my grandsire," he mumbled. Mixed in with the embarrassment, he felt a good deal of relief.

"You know," Dawn said cheerfully, "your first clue should have been the fact that Manchester United doesn't have more titles."

Spike waved a finger at her. "They'll have another next month," he promised.

"Oh. That's right; they're having a good season. Bad example," Dawn shrugged. It was enough to get everyone to laugh. The tension around the table eased after that, though the conversation stayed serious.

"Rupert, what do you think that demon meant by 'higher powers?'" Joyce asked. She rather wished they were having wine for this topic; she was almost done with breastfeeding, though she'd hoped to go a full year.

"I think it means exactly what he said," Giles told her, a sigh in his voice. He felt a little absurd for ever believing that their reality was made just for Spike, and he wasn't looking forward to apologizing for his attack. He knew he was out of line, but being in the wrong was never fun. "Both of you are extraordinary," Giles said, his voice warm as he looked between his stepdaughters. "I expect that it means that, after what I fervently hope is a very long time, you'll be agents of the Powers That Be."

"Nuh-uh," Dawn grinned. "That Becks dude said 'power,' not agent. I'll bet I'm going to be the boss of you," she told her sister. "Payback for little sisters everywhere."

"You are so not going to be the boss of me," Buffy corrected her, "not ever."

Dawn turned to Spike. "But we'll both be the boss of you."

"Differs from right now how, exactly?" he shot back.

The doorbell rang, cutting off Dawn's reply. Instead, she dabbed her mouth with her napkin, tossed it on the table, and told them over her shoulder, "I'll get it." She wasn't disappointed when she got to the door. "Aubrey! You came after all. Steak and ale pie," she told him as she stood aside from the door. "Big yum for you British people."

"You had two slices yourself," Joyce pointed out as the two of them came into the dining room. "Hello, Aubrey. Have a seat. I'll get another plate."

"Thank you, Joyce. It looks wonderful." He settled his bulk in the remaining empty chair. In a couple of minutes, he had a generous chunk of pie and a serving of Giles' favorite ale. "Ah, thank you. I hope I'm not disturbing a family meal?"

"You are family," Joyce said, putting her hand on his sleeve.

"And you are far too kind to an old man." He took a heroic bite to start catching up to the rest of them, and before he'd quite finished chewing, he waved his fork toward Spike. "Finally had one of those déjà vu moments you warned me about." Swallowing a quick sip of ale to clear his throat, Aubrey turned to Dawn. "That bit of parchment I've been working on? I finally got it translated. It's about that old prophecy of Slayers, plural, on the Hellmouth, the one everyone dismissed? Well, we have a djinn on the horizon. And blast if I don't feel like I've been here before."

⸹

Sunnydale

⸹

"No."

Luisa opened her eyes. It was mid-afternoon, and Sam Lawson was having another nightmare. She sat up from her bed, still dressed. He had nightmares every time he slept; there was no need to keep finding a robe before going to him.

"Sam?" She put her hand on the knob of the door to the other bedroom in her little house. She'd brought him here from Los Angeles, and here he'd stayed. Whenever he felt ready, he could choose an apartment in the minion's building. Luisa wasn't in any hurry for him to leave, though.

"No!"

She opened the door and went to the bed to grab him by one flailing arm. Her touch was cool, but the feelings she sent to him were warm and reassuring. After just a moment, his brow cleared and his arms fell back to the mattress. Luisa let go, and Sam rolled to the side without waking.

Her little house was usually in shade, and the heavy curtains kept out the rest of the light. She could still see him almost perfectly, her vampire's gaze taking in the slight frown that remained on his mouth. Lawson wasn't that much older than she was, not as vampires reckon age, but she was awed by his bravery. She'd turned down a soul.

Luisa waited a minute more, watching over him. His features were fine and almost too regular to be handsome. Almost. He had what casting directors for motion pictures would call an all-American face. It wasn't just his pleasing outside. Even before the soul, his thirst to _feel_ had overwhelmed her. When Sam stayed quiet, she smoothed one hand over his hair before turning to leave.

The Master backed her decision to keep him in her house. Spike would back nearly any decision she made, and Luisa was grateful for that. She had the kind of autonomy she'd barely tasted as a human and never known as a vampire. When she wanted her kind, she had the minions. When she wanted friends, she could go to Fangs for a pint or to the Magic Box and see Tara. Luisa missed Joyce badly, now that Giles had taken the job in London.

It wasn't friendship that she missed most. Luisa had never loved Dracula, though she had been abjectly worshipful of her sire. She'd never felt any real connection to the other brides, though they were her lovers, too. Luisa had been in love once, though, and that had been the finest feeling she'd ever known.

Sam had one of the finest hearts she'd ever known. He hadn't been strong enough to rule his demon, but he'd been strong enough to take away any pleasure in evil. With his soul, now… Well, he had more than enough promise.

Before she left Sam's room, she turned once more to make sure he was sleeping calmly. Angel had warned them that Sam might be catatonic with guilt for years. Luisa didn't think that was the case, though. She'd asked Spike about his soul, and he told her that his demon and soul got on, that he hadn't had an extended period of madness. Of course, his hadn't come to him because of a curse.

Both Cory and Sam had wanted the curse performed. Cory's path was different; the human had stopped by a couple of evenings to see her and to give Sam encouragement. Sam had only been lucid during one of those visits. The older vampire had many more sins to plague him than Cory did.

But his need for the soul was different. Cory needed it so his body could transform into living human flesh. Sam needed his soul to give his existence purpose, color. His soul gave him access to grief and horror right now. She would have worried if he'd become gleeful over the things he'd done as a vampire. A small smile touched Luisa's mouth, turning her beauty into something unearthly. No, she didn't think Sam would be insane for years. She thought he might start coming back to himself in just a few weeks.

Stepping out of the bedroom, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment. Once Sam could tear himself away from the past, she thought there was a good chance that she could help him and his soul explore other, more positive emotions. The little smile on her face deepened, and she headed back to her own room in the small, quiet house.

⸹

London

⸹

They hadn't gone clubbing. The two of them had gone back to Spike's hotel room and spent a couple of hours making silent, intense love. Now Spike was standing beside the bed, Buffy's feet resting against his chest. They were both still naked, and he was painting her toenails.

"Think the Bit's right? That I've just got an overdeveloped sense of self-importance?"

Buffy watched him through her knees. He was focused on her toes so that he didn't have to meet her eyes. "Well, you're not wrong. You do have a pretty healthy ego."

"So Rupes is wrong? All the shite you have to deal with isn't my fault?"

She was quiet long enough for him to apply cherry polish to three nails. "Slayer intuition says we aren't wrong."

Spike absorbed her words as he blew a stream of air across her cute little piggies. He started on her right foot. "Guess I owe you an apology, then. You and the Bit. And five billion other people."

"The only apology that needs to be made is the one Giles is going to give to you." Buffy's voice was hard. "He was way out of line tonight."

"What about what that Egyptian guy said?" Though he had a good excuse, Spike still wasn't looking at her. "That doesn't worry you?"

"I married an immortal." Buffy's voice was soft. "If something happens that lets me transcend mortality, do you think I might not welcome that?"

"Might come to hate me, Slayer. Immortality isn't all that great a gift."

Buffy watched him finish her last toe. As soon as he did, she took her feet from his sternum and sat up on the edge of the bed so she could slide her arms around his waist. "I'm going to live my life with the expectation that I will love you as long as I have life." Her words were soft. She waited until she he capped the polish and leaned over to place it on the bedside table, then she gripped him fiercely. "I'm going to live my life loving my friends and family. If I change from Slayer to something else, I'm still going to be Buffy." She pushed her forehead against the firm muscles of his torso. "You became a vampire and still managed to remain one of the most human people I've ever met. And since I can do anything you can do –"

"Better and in high heels," he put in.

"No, I'm not worried."

"What about Dawn?"

"She's mine." Buffy's voice was only a whisper. "Mine, and yours and Mom's. But she's always been something older and… deeper than us. I love her, but I never once believed that I'd get to hold her back. I think her destiny is going to be up to her, truthfully."

"Not up to me?"

She lifted her head. He was willing to look at her now, vulnerable before her with fear and love. "We're the ones that save the world, you know? If this is your reality, then I think we're as happy as any group of champions can possibly be."

 _You have faith in me._ He was nearly dizzy with relief. Trust could be broken more easily than a heart.

 _I do. I always have. I always will._

⸹

Giles clenched his teeth as he spotted his quarry. Drawing himself up straighter, he strode down the hotel hallway to catch Spike. It was the last day of the seminar, and his last chance to speak with Spike without one or the other of them traveling.

Just now, the vampire was speaking Afrikaans and in conversation with the Slayer from South Africa. He raised one hand high, the other a little lower, apparently miming making a blow with an ax. When he felt the head of the Council behind him, he stiffened for a moment, then said goodbye to the girl before turning around.

"Rupes."

"Spike, do you have a moment?"

"Need to get over to Heathrow for precheck."

"This won't take long." Giles indicated the empty meeting room to the side. Once they were inside, he drew a breath. "I owe you an apology for the other day. I'm sorry, Spike. I was out of line."

The silence drew out as Spike waited for the 'but.' When there was none, he gave a grudging nod. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

Giles rubbed his forehead. "I spoke with Aubrey. He told me about the demon you killed in the Magic Box."

"Doc, yeah."

"He showed me the surveillance tape, told me that you had no real idea of who Doc was, just that he was a threat to Dawn." Giles closed his eyes and looked away. "I still think there's merit to the notion that Molpe introduced, that our dimension is, in fact, yours, based on a parallel dimension where things did not go well. But I don't think you're some kind of… puppet master, controlling every last part of our lives."

Spike averted his eyes, too. "You're a cautious bloke. It's in your nature. Figure you might get over your suspicions of me in another ten or twenty years."

Giles' brows rose at the hurt evident in the vampire's tone. "I don't believe it was caution. I heard news that scared me, and I lashed out. I do trust you."

Their eyes met for a brief moment. Spike deflected the softer emotions. "Well, the Scotch probably had a lot to do with it, too."

Running a hand through his hair, Giles turned toward the door. "Joyce tells me I drink too much. She's right. It isn't a good way to manage stress." Spike's next words stopped him from going into the hallway.

"It scares me, too, Rupert. If I was important enough to warrant a do-over, then I know we're going to be in danger, be asked to do," his words ended on a sigh, "very difficult things. It's a hard life." Spike moved past Giles, heading for the door.

The Watcher put a hand on his shoulder as he passed. "We'll do whatever is necessary." There was a slight emphasis on the first word.

Spike gave him a tight nod and they parted.

That night, Giles went to the home of one of the Watchers who had a gift for summoning demons. He'd already told Joyce he had to work late. It wasn't the first time. Rupert knew it bothered her; late nights had been the main thing that ended her first marriage.

Of course, her first husband had been trysting with secretaries. He was meeting with demons.

And Watchers. He was sitting in the dark-paneled study of what had to be an ancestral family home, having a drink with said Watcher. "Thank you, Nigel. I especially appreciate you doing this for me, since it isn't, strictly speaking, Council business."

"I'm happy to do it." Nigel Hetherington was young, barely in his thirties, but by all accounts a solid Watcher. "I've only summoned this demon once before, over that Incursion attempt a few years in Tasmania. You're ready to face it? Feeling centered? You know your questions?"

"Yes. Five questions, if I remember right?"

"That's correct." Nigel finished his drink and set down the glass. "If you're ready…?"

Giles followed him down a flight of wooden stairs. The basement, originally pantry and laundry space, was well lit and almost empty. A thin ring of metal lay embedded in the middle of the concrete floor. "Here we are, sir. If you'll step inside, I'll begin the ritual."

Giles nodded and took off his jacket, laying it on the floor. He began rolling up his sleeves. "And I address him as Steve?"

Nigel nodded. "He goes by several names, all starting with a sibilant." Giving a shrug, he pulled a short, flute-like instrument from his jacket pocket. It looked to be very old and made of bone. "Ready?"

Giles nodded and stepped into the circle. "Yes. And thank you again."

The notes Nigel made were not musical. Giles appreciated the concentration that went into casting a silent spell, even with the help of a sacred instrument. He focused on his questions and waited.

He didn't have time to grow impatient. The magic snapped into place around the ring in less than three minutes. He felt the surge of power inside the circle before the demon manifested, causing the hairs on his arms to stir. Then a shape coalesced before him.

The demon took a humanoid form, limbs and torso covered with poison-green scales that gave way to pale green scales over his face. In place of hair, a Medusa-like mass of snakes writhed around his head. "Ssssuplicant," he said, addressing Giles, even as his vertically slit eyes fell on his summoner, safe outside the circle.

"Steve," Giles said, giving him a polite nod. "I am called Rupert. I have questions. Would you hear them?"

"There isss a toll."

Giles was already holding out his hand, palm up. The demon leaned closer. One of the snakes on his brow drew closer, its tongue tasting the air. Then it struck at his hand, in and back almost too swiftly to be seen. Its bite left five punctures on his hand, three spots of blood on his palm and two on the lower knuckles of his fingers. He felt no venom, only the sting of rent flesh.

Steve drew closer, his eyes closing as he breathed in the scent of the offering. His mouth opened and he bent over Giles' hand to lap up the blood. The demon didn't hurry, lingering over the oozing pinpricks. Finally drawing back up, he gave him a predatory smile. "It isss well. Asssk your questionsss."

Outside the ring, Nigel would not be able to hear them. Giles drew a breath. "Was this dimension created for one person?"

Steve's smile was cold and knowing. "By one perssson. A Champion. I may not tell you how, or when, or why."

Giles thought furiously as his next question – why – was denied. "Is there a reality more likely than this one?"

"Yesss."

"What happens to me in that reality?"

"You are a Watcher ssstill and only that. You never marry, never have children, never have happinesss. When you die, only two mournersss at your gravessside feel sssorrow. None feel grief."

Chills broke across his chest and back. It was a horrible thing to hear. "What happens to my daughters in that reality?'

Steve shook his head. "That isss two questionssss."

"Right. What happens to my Slayer?"

"Ssshe diesss an orphan at age twenty-five beneath the fangsss of the Aurelian Drusssilla. The Immortal reclaimsss their bassstard daughter."

The Immortal? Giles had a vague notion that he was a shadowy, powerful being based in Rome. Reclaims… that sounded as though Buffy had tried to keep a child from him. And, orphan? Was it Joyce's tumor? His attention went back to Steve as the demon spoke.

"Lassst question."

Dammit! He could ask about Dawn in the other reality. Or, no. He should ask about their fates here. Was it better? It had to be better. Giles took a deep, calming breath, remembering what had brought on all his turmoil. The question was obvious.

"Do my daughters have a choice whether they become higher beings?"

"Yesss."

He nodded and said with dignity, "Thank you for your time and, er, expertise, Steve."

The demon inclined his head and began to dissipate. As the feel of Steve's power waned, he began to hear the atonal sounds of Nigel's flute once again. The younger Watcher had the magical containment circle down within a minute.

"Did you get the answers you needed?" he asked, swaying a little. He was obviously exhausted.

"Yes, I did. Thank you. It's a great deal to think about." He leaned over to retrieve his coat. "I won't linger; I can tell you're ready for your sleep."

"I am, rather. But I'm glad to do it for you."

"I am amazed that five questions are not enough," Giles admitted as he followed his host up the stairs.

"When you have a reliable source of information, it never is."

He thanked Nigel again and took his leave. Giles chose to walk. Three of the Slayers were in London right now, so the streets were safer than ever. The Watcher did not fear a mere human assailant after all his years of fighting vampires and worse.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, he was going to die alone and unloved after a life of service to the Council. Buffy would be long dead, falling to Drusilla. His shoulders rose in his coat, remembering what it was like to look in her mad eyes, to realize suddenly that they weren't Jenny's lovely brown ones. All it would take was an unexpected chance meeting around a corner or across the threshold of an open door for Drusilla to win. And why would his Slayer be hiding her daughter from the father? Buffy didn't run from anything.

He gave himself a mental shake. Enough. He had his answers. This was his world, and from this report, it was far better than the most likely alternative. True, his Slayer had fallen in love with two vampires, but she was alive and happy. He was himself happy, in love with a magnificent woman and father of the most beautiful baby in the UK, and two wonderful daughters, besides.

Maybe it was time to give up this quest to give name to his suspicions. Giles had quite liked Spike until Buffy started to love him. He knew he would have reservations about any man she settled on; after Angel, how could he not? But he was tired of expecting the worst from Spike, or rather from the decisions the blond made. Like him, Spike would die or kill to keep the Summers women safe. The vampire wasn't a terribly complicated creature.

Giles thought of the sorrow on Buffy's face the night Dracula had died, when they told him this reality was to repay all the times they had lost each other in other dimensions. Apparently, the two of them were not the only ones who had lost. Maybe he should just enjoy the happiness he had in this world, a world made where love could conquer all obstacles.

Squaring his shoulders, Giles picked up the pace. Too many late nights, too much borrowed worry. Right now, he just wanted to get home to Max and his Joy.

⸹

Dawn looked out of the front window, then turned to call over her shoulder, "Spike's here!"

"Already?" From the bathroom, Buffy's voice was indistinct. "Shit. Tell him I'll be there in five minutes."

Dawn grinned at Aubrey. "Give him a disapproving look when he comes to the door holding a corsage like a dork." She thought it was sweet and very silly what the two of them were doing. Buffy had kept her dress for the dance in Dawn's closet so that Spike wouldn't see it. In thanks, she'd promised to be there for Dawn before the prom. She'd already made appointments at the salon for Dawn to have her hair and nails done. Dawn was surprised she hadn't done that herself, but she guessed the UC-Sunnydale Spring Formal wasn't as much of a thing as junior prom.

"Hey, Spike," she said, opening the door. She frowned, seeing the wire-rimmed glasses he wore. Her frown deepened at his black suit, which was nice but not perfectly tailored. At least he was wearing a pink boutonniere to match Buffy's dress. When she noticed what was parked at the curb, it was too much. "Is that brown daddy car yours?"

"For the minions' car pool," he said defensively. "Just driving it to make sure it's reliable. Your sis ready?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, she said five minutes. Come on in. What's with the glasses?"

"Going for the collegiate look." Spike had the excuse ready; he figured Dawn couldn't bypass a comment. He nodded at Aubrey, who was giving him a curious look.

"If it's supposed to make you look smart…" She trailed off, shaking her head at the tragic failure.

"Hi." Buffy came carefully down the stairs, fingers of one hand on the rail. In her other hand she was juggling a camera and her clutch. "You look nice."

"And you look…" For all the oddity of his attire, the admiration in his eyes was honest and obvious. "You look smashing, Miss Buffy."

"Quite," Aubrey agreed.

Dawn snorted, but before she could say anything, her sister charged in. "Dawn? Could you take our picture?" Buffy thrust the camera at her.

They posed on the stairs for a few shots, then Spike remembered he was holding a corsage. After that, Dawn took more pictures with the flowers pinned to Buffy's dress. She started to make another smart comment about how lame they were, but remembered in time that Buffy was going to be in this position when she left for prom. Instead, she just waved them out the door. "You kids have fun storming the castle!" she called.

Buffy leaned close to William. "I'm sorry my sister is such a doofus."

"She's sweet. You're very lucky to have her."

"You really don't know her," Buffy countered. He opened the car door for her.

Once he was in the driver's seat, William turned to her. "I don't want to embarrass you, but you do look truly amazing, Miss Buffy. I feel very fortunate that you're accompanying me tonight."

"I'd rather be going to a funeral with you than to a dance with anyone else."

He blinked at her a moment, parsing her words to find the compliment. "Er, yes, thank you. I hope we'll have more cheer."

"Oh." She looked down, biting her lip. "I meant, being with you makes even boring things fun. So, you and me at a dance? Guaranteed fun."

It wasn't, not at first. It was still daylight when the co-ed at the table took their tickets and let them into the ballroom. It was on the third floor of the student union building. Utilized for any campus meeting of over two hundred people, racks for the folding chairs were still along the far walls of the ballroom. The chairs themselves had sagging streamers taped along the tops and were tucked against folding tables covered with sage green paper tablecloths. The arrangement left a good chunk of the tile floor open for dancing. The overhead fluorescent lights still lit the whole area in a too-bright glare.

Buffy could feel Spike wanting to make snarky comments about the less than romantic venue, but William merely gave her a small, sweet smile and guided her to the queue for an official photograph. She smiled and waved at a couple of acquaintances but didn't see anyone she knew well. By the time the college photographer got their picture, the lights were down and the DJ had started up the music.

"Note to self," Buffy said, leaning close to Spike so she didn't have to yell, "be fashionably late to school dances."

"Good to know." William nodded at the tables. "Do you want to have a seat?"

"Not yet. Do you want to dance?"

His face lit. "I would love to dance with you." William held out a hand.

The song was a mid-tempo ballad that Buffy vaguely recalled hearing on the radio a couple years back. "Do you know this song?" she asked as she took his hand and placed her other on his shoulder.

"No, I'm very sorry, but I don't."

"I should know the first song we dance to," she said with a shrug.

"All we've ever done is dance." The words brought her eyes to his, a moment of electric contact. Those words _meant_ something.

Buffy's lips parted as she looked up into Spike's deep blue eyes. Just now, there was no room for pretense. "With the right partner, the dance is everything."

"Oh," he breathed, a smile taking his mouth. "My sweet poetess."

She moved her fingers from his shoulder to brush against his lips. "Dance me to the end of love."

Recognizing the title of a Leonard Cohen poem, William kissed her fingertips and smiled at her fully. "There is no end," he promised.

They danced for over an hour without speaking further. The DJ played some fast songs, but most of the playlist was made for slow dancing. After the last notes of Norah Jones' 'Don't Know Why' faded, they drew apart and, without having to say the words, left the dance floor.

William pulled out a chair at an empty table, making sure the streamers weren't in her way. Then he sat next to her and very boldly took her hand. "You're an amazing lady. I can't tell you how happy I am in your presence."

"I'm so glad I met you, William."

"And I am glad I met you. I'm going to miss you."

Her eyebrows drew together. "Miss me?"

"I'm so very proud that you're graduating," he said hastily, then looked down, "but it does mean we won't see each other on campus."

These months of getting to know William had been wonderful. She wasn't going to let go of him. Buffy turned fully to him so she could touch his cheeks. "I can see a place for you in my life." Carefully, she took off his glasses and set them on the table. She pretended to be shocked. "But – I know you!"

He grinned and looked at his feet, at once bashful and cheeky. "Do you, now?"

"The love of my life has unveiled his hidden depths."

Spike met her eyes. "Have you enjoyed it?"

"Getting to know William? I have." She brushed a kiss across his jaw. "But I've always known you're a warrior-poet."

He pulled away a couple of inches, looking confused. "What do you – This hasn't been about me, love." He didn't squirm away, but he did lower his head so he could look up at her through his lashes. "Overheard you complaining about how settled you felt. Just thought you might enjoy being wooed again."

Buffy sat up straighter, looking confused. Then she remembered complaining to Faith about missing being single, about how she wished she still had some major life decisions ahead of her. Her eyes flew to Spike's. His visits as William had never been about introducing her to the shy, awkward poet. They had been his way of letting her date another man.

"Everyone complains about the grass being greener, yada yada," she said finally. "I'm no different. I love my life, Spike, and I have no complaints. I haven't felt 'settled' for a long time." Her tone softened. "That was very sweet of you to do, but you could have just asked me. I'd have told you I felt loved."

"I'd rather show you, every day of our lives."

Buffy felt the prick of tears in the corners of her eyes. Everything he did was for her. "You will," she said unsteadily, so she took a breath to steady herself. Picking up his glasses, she carefully placed them on the bridge of his nose and settled the earpieces. She needed William to come back. "Now, would you mind taking us for a drive before you take me home?"

She could tell he was confused, but he stood immediately, putting out a hand to help her to her feet. Buffy smiled up at him. The full moon was a week away. It was a great night to go parking. Whatever the reason for William and Buffy to go to a dance, it was going to end the way she'd planned. Buffy moved a little quicker through the people around the edges of the ballroom, heading for the exit. She had a Victorian gentleman to deflower.

⸹

"Ohh… Ahh… Miss Buffy, I'm not quite sure we should – Oh, Buffy!"

She grinned. She had him in the roomy back seat of the Jaguar sedan, his earlobe caught in her lips and her hands down his pants – and underwear! He really had gone all out to be in character. "It isn't proper, is it, William?"

"N-no," he agreed regretfully. He gripped the edge of the seat to keep from grabbing her.

She squeezed the hard length of him. "You need inspiration for poetry, right?"

"I-I suppose." His voice was a hiss.

"Well, you're my inspiration. You inspire me to passion, William." Buffy kissed his jaw, then his mouth. "Sweet, sweet William."

"Oh, Buffy," he sighed.

"I want to make you mine," she admitted, kissing his neck. "But I need you to tell me how it feels. What if it doesn't feel nice?"

"Oh, so much better than nice, kit– Miss Buffy."

"What do you feel when I do this?" She scooted a bit farther along the back seat so she could bow her head and take his cock into her mouth.

William groaned. "H-heat. So much warmth. The glow of the hearth fire after eons banished from home. Oh, Buffy, my Aphrodite, my goddess of love."

'Deflowering' a poet had its rewards. She had seldom felt this powerful and vowed to be more vocal when they were making love. Well, vowed to use actual words. "Too hot?" she asked, pulling away.

"Please, if you stop, I may die," he whispered. "I need you, crave your touch, your passion."

"Then you shall have it." She let him have it, until his belief he would 'expire before the bonfire of your beauty' came to fruition. Hiding a grin, she hoisted the skirt of her dress up and trapped his thighs between hers. "Do you care for me still, William? Even if I'm no longer a proper lady?"

"What could ever strip from my love the title of 'lady?'" He protested. "She was so crowned by Nature, her refinement imbued – Oh, fuck, Buffy."

She settled herself on him, taking his length inside slowly, bracing herself against the passenger seat headrest. Part of her wanted to giggle at the contrast between the flowery language and the setting. Most of her, though, was focused on the stupid amount of Spike she was wrangling. Hot though his words were, she usually had his mouth and hands to make her hot, too.

"Oh, my bright one," he said, grasping her waist and pulling her further along his body, "allow your subject to touch your hidden places." William's hand disappeared beneath her skirt. "I want to know all your gardens, to touch each petal of your blossoming love."

"Oooh, blossoming," Buffy agreed, swallowing. "William, my sweet poet, welcome to my garden. Be welcome to every vase in my house. Be welcome to my – oooh – every window box." She started moving, pushing back against him. The more she did it, the easier it got.

It suddenly occurred to Spike that his old human worry about being 'misshapen' had just been resolved without a hitch. God, he loved this woman. "I have no use for proper ladies," he told her, raising his hips to meet her. "They move to the side of me, circle past me. I need only the lady who sees me, who comes to me, who moves me. Lady of the sweetest kiss, lady of the quivering touch, ruler of my heart."

She could sit up now, her body adjusted to his girth. "I don't need – I mean, I have no need to rule you. Take my hand, my love, walk by my side…" Words failed her, and her head fell back.

"I'll be by your side," William vowed. He put his hands on her breasts, squeezing them as if it was the first time he'd ever felt their singular, contradictory firm softness. "We'll walk, nay, run toward passion, we'll find it – Oh, bloody – You've given – Aaargh!"

"William," Buffy told him, giggling at how quickly she'd brought him, "I don't think you're quite the proper gentleman, either." Then she smirked down at him. "Not any more."

⸹

Next (Penultimate) Chapter: The month of May is always busy in Sunnydale, but this year it's for different reasons.


	52. Tied with a Bow

**Tied with a Bow**

⸹

Sunnydale

May 2003

⸹

Aubrey opened the door and peered at the sight before him, lowering his head so he could observe the young man squirm from over the top of his glasses instead of through them. "May I help you?"

Dawn's prom date withered. Alby had met her Uncle Aubrey before, but now he was standing there with a very disapproving look on his face.

"Get Dawn and hurry up!" Dawn's friend Kristi was standing up on the seat of the rented limo so she could look out of the sunroof. She waved at Aubrey.

He gave her a cheerful nod, but his face fell back into disapproving lines as he turned back to Alby, who was fiddling with his bowtie. "You're Dawn's date?"

"Uh… yeah?" Alby wasn't sure what he'd done to upset her uncle.

Aubrey moved away from the door reluctantly. "She'll be ready in a few minutes." Though he was several inches shorter than the reedy young man, he still managed to look down his nose. "'Alby.' What's your full name, young man?"

"Uh… Alberto Martín."

"Harrumph. And you go by 'Alby.'"

Alby heard giggles from the kitchen, but he didn't think of what they meant other than an end to this unexpected encounter with the old man. Aubrey heard them, too, and bit down on his smile.

"Okay," Buffy said loudly, giving her sister a hug before propelling her into the living room, "I've got the camera, Mom. Let's get some pics." She gave the two teenagers a chance to exchange awkward greetings and leaned close to Willingham. "You were terrifying," she whispered.

"Well, you asked. What else could I do?" His eyes twinkled in mischief. "Think he's scared enough?"

"I think you did fine. If we really wanted scared, Spike would be here." She had Luisa call Spike over ostensibly to give Lawson a pep talk.

Joyce came down the stairs. "Oh, Dawnie. You look wonderful."

Dawn grinned up at her mother and gave a little spin. Her midnight blue, sparkly dress had a full, if short, skirt. "You really think so?"

By now, she was in hugging range and took her youngest into a careful embrace, not wanting to mess up her hair or makeup. "You're gorgeous. And so grown-up!"

Buffy took ten minutes to get all the pictures, including one of the young couple on the stairs. She made Kristi and her date pile out of the limo the teens had pooled their money to rent, got a few more photos, then waved with both arms as the big car pulled away. When she turned back to the house, she couldn't help but laugh. Aubrey was standing there with his arms crossed and the disapproving stare firmly in place.

"Did you teach Quentin Travers that expression?" she asked, belated remembering that the former Council head had died tragically and might not be the best object of fun.

Aubrey wasn't of the opinion that death pardoned all sins. "Quentin? No, indeed. I think he was born with a sour expression stuck on his face."

⸹

Spike opened the door to Xander's Custom Furniture. The shop, two blocks away from the Magic Box, was on the quiet end of the street, close to one of the squares Anya had closed off and restricted to pedestrian traffic. "X-man?" he called. No one was in the front, which consisted of one large table with a computer and sketchpads for consultation, one of Xander's exquisite hope chests, and airy displays of photographs of other custom furniture, arranged to perfection by Joyce's critical eye.

The door to the back opened, and Xander came out. "Hey. Thanks for stopping by. Come on in," he beckoned. "I have a question for you."

The much larger space behind the door was Xander's workroom. He only had office hours on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and really had more commissions than he could handle right now. Spike followed him past benches with various power tools and stacks of wood to the end of the long space to the open back doors. Long lengths of curved wood rested on sawhorses just outside of a bright patch of sunlight.

"What are these for?" Spike asked, stumped.

"Banisters," Xander said. He had them sanded down, finished, and was working on hand rubbing the pale wood in the afternoon light. "Here," he said, handing Spike a steel wool pad. "See how lightly I'm pressing?"

After watching for a moment, Spike went to the other length and began working on changing the texture of the finish. This was one of the best things about catching Xander at his business, the chance to do something with his hands. At Fangs, that usually meant nothing more than lifting a mug. "So, what was the question?"

"It's about the Council of Slayers, the way they're doing things now." Xander's brown eyes stayed on the wood beneath his hands. "They're doing things our way, letting in the Slayer's family and friends."

"Better way," Spike agreed, just to fill the silence when Xander stopped speaking. The lad was working up to something.

"Much better. I still get the wiggins thinking about Joyce inviting in Darla because she just didn't know." A humorless smile touched his mouth. "But the way she believed she'd had an accident with a barbeque fork was almost worth – No. No, it wasn't."

Spike had stopped and was gripping the steel wool tightly. "Darla got her fangs into Joyce?" He felt numb.

Xander's face was tight; he loathed Darla, who had killed Jesse. "Before you came to town. She tried to set Angel up, let Buffy find her mother bleeding in his arms. Joyce had to go to the hospital."

Bits of wire snapped and tore the skin of Spike's palm. "Blistering bloody fuck," he snarled.

"I know she's sainted-mom-of-Connor now," Xander said, turning his gaze back to the wood, "but I hated that smirking bitch."

"Hated the poxy slapper myself." Spike paused to pick bits of steel wool from his hand, then bent over to take a fresh ball of it from the open package on the floor. "Sorry to interrupt you. Just, I've never heard that story."

Xander sighed. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh. I'm glad the need for secrecy was blown up, too." He moved a step toward the center of the sawhorse to start on a new area of wood. "I wanted to run an idea by you."

He looked up, but Xander was concentrating on the hand-rubbed finish. "Hit me, Harris."

The dark-haired man's mouth curved in appreciation of the invitation. "As if you'd hold still." He took a breath. "I, Alexander LaVelle Harris, white trash boy, want to endow an award for Jesse McNally." Xander took a moment, lifting his palm away from the wood because he wasn't sure of his emotions. "The Council of Slayers will award it to a friend of a Slayer who helps her out." He finally met Spike's eyes. "Jesse never got the chance to even get to know Buffy, much less help her out. But I think he would have been there with me and Willow, if he'd lived." Xander sighed. "Do you think this is something he would even want?"

Spike put his clean hand across the sawhorse and squeezed his friend's shoulder. His words, though, were studiously neutral. "Well, yeah. Way of being remembered, right? And you've got the dosh to do it." The blond started working on his own bannister again. "Probably helps to put up more barriers against the Council backslidin' into secrecy again. Hard to give an award to someone who doesn't exist."

"I'll bet the whole 'secret identity' thing started after the Superman comics came out."

Spike, who had read as much as he could find about Slayers before he fought his first one, shook his head. "Never used to be secret at all. You can blame the Enlightenment, Deists, and the waning of belief in the supernatural."

Xander stopped the smooth motions over his bannister to give Spike an incredulous look. "I'm sorry? Manchester United spotted dick brolly, wot wot?" He pretended to clean out his ear with a fingertip. "Did you just channel Giles?"

Spike sent him a rude gesture. "Dallas Cowboys freedom fries brewski, yeehaw," he shot back, hitting his r's hard.

"Have I ever told you your American accent is atrocious?" The bickering went on from there, though Xander had to admit that Spike won with the fact that the tune for 'My Country Tis of Thee' was actually based on the British national anthem (his only viable response was, "Huh. Well, shit."). Spike helped him close up shop an hour later, the banisters finished and left to dry with a final coat of wax. Xander waved at his friend as he climbed into his truck; he'd see him again later that night. When the Bentley rounded the corner, he flipped open his phone and sent a text to Giles: 'It's a go.'

⸹

Xander opened the door to his apartment as soon as the doorbell rang and pretended to be overcome with emotion. "Spike!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms around the vampire. "It's been so long! I'd forgotten the extreme neon of your hair!"

Spike pretended to be physically repelled. "Xander, me long lost mate! I'd hug you, but the surge of tackiness and explosion of color from your shirt prevents it!"

Formalities over, Xander slung an arm over the shoulder of the small woman behind Spike. "Hey, sweetheart," he said in his best Humphrey Bogart accent.

"Hey, yourself." Buffy felt it was necessary for one of them to represent normal people. "Everyone here?" Anya had called the Scooby meeting to talk about Aubrey's new prophecy.

"They are," Xander replied with mock surprise. "Somehow, you two are always the last to arrive."

"Well, technically, we do live out of town," Buffy replied, her cheeks going a little pink at the leer Spike sent her way.

When he reclaimed her from Xander, he leaned over to whisper, "Your shirt's on backwards."

Buffy dug her elbow into her husband's ribs. "It is not."

"Ow! You use Xander's belt grinder to sharpen those things?" he complained. Spike was grinning though; Buffy had surreptitiously checked to make sure her shirt was on the right way.

"We're ready to begin," Anya informed them, pleasantly if pointedly, from the dining room table.

"Please have a handout," April said in a tone eerily like Anya's as she held papers toward them. The two of them sat in the remaining chairs, between Willow and Aubrey.

"So," Anya said, heading into the meeting with the head-on attack that characterized her approach as mayor, "here's what we know: in June, Sunnydale will be attacked by demons. Because of the concentration of Slayers, we all agree that it's reasonable to assume they will assault either the hotel where they're staying or Buffy's fitness center."

"Welcome to my life," the Slayer said glumly. She was paying for storage space to house most of the fitness equipment so she didn't have to pay for replacements. With any luck, the building would be all right. It would mean a scramble to get everything into place before the official opening in July, of course.

She really hated prophecies. This new one especially sucked. Slayers, plural, gathered on a Hellmouth would attract a power source, apparently a djinn, which in turn would attract demons hoping to use that power. The djinn could appear repeatedly until either the Slayers or the demons captured it. The Slayers would have twelve opportunities to stop the demons; if they failed all twelve times, the disturbance would allow Old Ones to reappear in their reality. Opportunities, my sweet ass, she thought. Battles. Inexperienced Slayers fighting demons on her watch.

Buffy realized she'd missed a chunk of what Anya had to say and refocused.

"… think we have some idea of the demons that are going to attack."

"Which demons?" Buffy asked.

Anya gave her an aggrieved look. "All of them. Item three on your sheet? Well, all of them will want to, but April has an idea."

"Three different species of demon have informed the Mayor that a power is coming to Sunnydale. All of them are sensitive to portents, and all agreed that it's attractive."

"The power is good-looking?" Oz asked.

April tilted her head for a moment, puzzled. "They are attracted to it. They want to find it. The final clue was when Clement told me he'd seen Venn demons migrating in."

"Clem?" Spike asked. "Kitten breeder?"

"You are acquainted with him as well?" April asked politely.

"Play poker with him sometimes."

Anya was frowning. "Are the Venn demons flocking in the trees? Because I think animal control still has a couple of boxes of noisemakers to scare them away."

Willow leaned close to Tara and said only loud enough for her and Oz to hear, "And do the Venn demons overlap?"

"There are flocks of flying demons?" Buffy asked, much louder and in horror.

April nodded. "They feed on proximity to power. Fortunately, they don't seem to care for Hellmouth power. They haven't been reported here before."

Spike answered Buffy's real question. "Small, don't attack humans, invisible to most things, but they can set up a bloody racket during mating season."

"Which is in winter," April supplied helpfully.

"So all demons are going to want to get at this power source?" Willow asked, feeling as if she was done with the Venn. "Even harmless demons?" She was starting to get a bad feeling.

"Clement did say he was starting to feel restless," April admitted.

"It's going to be a free-for-all demonpalooza," Xander said, a little stunned. Clem was the most civilized demon he knew, and if Clem was feeling this….

"Hence item four," Anya said. "We'll open shelters to house demons. I mean, we have a pretty good idea when this will happen, right? If the coven will put dampening spells on the elementary school auditoriums, we can put out the word that there are safe places to go. Demons can go there to get away from the pull of the power. If they're safe in the shelters, we won't have to slaughter part of our tax base in a melee. We'll just call it an emergency drill so the human population won't become concerned."

"Or we could just relocate the whole thing to Los Angeles and away from the Hellmouth," Buffy said. "I'm sure we could get meeting rooms there; it's a big city. And the Hyperion's a hotel."

Aubrey shook his head. "I think it's better to find the power source as soon as possible. The prophecy foretells twelve possible battles, but it doesn't say over how long a period or that it has to be the same Hellmouth. Imagine if we have to send Slayers to stop an attempt to open an unguarded Hellmouth and a horde descends on them in addition to the preexisting threat."

Fear touched Buffy's eyes, and the emotion was echoed in everyone else's expression. "I didn't think of that." Her jaw edged out and she said with determination. "There _could_ be twelve battles; we'll make sure there's only one."

Anya nodded. "Item five, and the last order of business. Buffy, can you arrange for our friends from Los Angeles to be here? Make sure they bring their favorite weapons. And Mr. Willingham, can you arrange for Watcher response teams to be available?"

"Council of _Slayers_ response teams," he corrected gently, "and I can certainly do that."

The mayor pretended to smack her head with the heel of her hand. "Sorry. Centuries of habit."

"I do the same thing occasionally," Aubrey said, leaning across Xander to pat her shoulder.

"Okay! Any additional business?" When no one spoke up, she brightened. "Meeting adjourned. Now, these people from a winery in Yountville came down yesterday to talk about reopening that abandoned vineyard on the south side. They left a case of their wine, and, as concerned Sunnydale citizens, I'd like your opinion on it."

⸹

Buffy put on an extra burst of speed. She'd finished patrolling through the cemeteries she wanted to cover tonight, given the docks a brush, and was on her way toward the beach. Luisa and Spike were taking Sam Lawson out for the first time. This was the real test of whether he could fit in with the minions.

Lu had confided to Buffy that she had kissed her ensign twice now, real kisses, and become affectionate to him as a matter of course. He was lucid most hours of the day and complaining about being housebound. Buffy thought it was strange to fall in love with someone while they were crazy, but then she didn't have Luisa's gift of understanding emotions.

Buffy wasn't even sure she understood her own emotions these days. Too much was happening. Truthfully, most of it was of the good. She was a college graduate. She'd walked across the stage and received her diploma, along with Tara, Jonathan, and Michael. Her best memory of the ceremony was of their big extended family walked them out of the auditorium to the parking lot… where Oz and Willow presented Tara with a white Lexus GX 470 with a huge red bow on the hood. Overwhelmed with the gift, Tara had dissolved into tears of happiness, the only kind the sweet witch should ever know.

As they watched the happy triad, Spike slid his arm around her and whispered into her ear, "Only ever seen one red bow bigger than that, have you, pet?" Buffy shoved at him, grinning as she thought of her eighteenth birthday present, but had shivered nonetheless. That night had been one where she took William's spectacles from their place in his bureau (it somehow didn't seem right to keep them in the nightstand with their toys). He wore them and recited lines of poetry as his hands roamed her body –

– And there was a vampire skulking in a downtown alleyway. Buffy didn't bother with a fight, just ran up to the gangly male and staked him. Just as well; that line of thought wasn't helpful just now. Changing direction back toward the ocean, she tried again to make the last couple of weeks make sense her mind.

She and Spike had flown to Louisville where she'd stood as one of Katy Loomis' attendants at her wedding. A day later, they'd been in London. The next day, she was overseeing the painters as they came in to start on the fitness center. Buffy felt as though she hadn't had any downtime in May, and that was without the usual apocalypse.

Her steps didn't slow, but her expression tightened as she thought of that. For a while, she thought the fight against the First Evil in December might have been the yearly attempt to end the world, but then Aubrey's Kanai prophecy appeared. And of course the seminar for the English-speaking Slayers was scheduled in June, still in time for the annual spring apocalypse.

Giles refused to cancel it. This was Sunnydale, where they had home field advantage. Like Aubrey, if the djinn was going to show up, he wanted it here. A good chunk of the Watchers in London had their duties reassigned to Sunnydale for the seminar. Along with the painters and carpenters working on the interior of her gym, Council tacticians were already there working on the best placement of snipers on the roof and poring over the tunnel schematics Anya supplied.

Buffy had sighed and called up her insurance agents, grimly happy that they allowed her to triple her coverage for the fitness center. The rates were astronomical, but she could drop the extra insurance in a few months. She hoped.

At least Giles seemed to be back at his usual level of ease with Spike. She didn't know what happened, exactly, but her mother confided that Giles had given up late nights at the office and was treating her like he planned to propose all over again. Buffy was delighted for Joyce and a little envious of Max. She didn't recall her own father spending so much time at home with her or Dawn.

She slowed into a jog as she got to the line of palm trees, Artemisia, and ornamental grasses separating the city from the beach, extending her senses to find vampires. There, toward the south end. Lots of humans were out tonight for walks on the beach or interludes in the hammocks. That's where Buffy found her quarry, Sam Lawson sitting on the sidewalk with Luisa crouched next to him. Spike was several feet away, leaning against one of the low concrete posts that housed the lighting for the footpath into the screening trees.

"Hey," she said softly, coming up to take her husband's hand. "How did it go?"

He pulled her sweaty, post-run body against his, arms and torso cool in the night air, making her sigh in contentment. "Good in execution, not so much now."

"He wigged?" Taking blood from tourists would be the first time Sam had fed from a human since getting back his soul.

"Just a bit. Lu's talking him down."

"Do you think he'll be a good fit?"

Spike lifted a shoulder and put his mouth closer to her ear. "He fed on a couple, just a mouthful each, and put the right post-dinner spin on things for them. Dunno that he'll be able to handle human blood, though."

Buffy considered that. Spike was actually the only souled vampire who did. None of the minions had souls, and Angel always said he did better on animal blood. "Can he stay here if he isn't a minion?"

Her husband shrugged again. "Wouldn't be the only one. Remy mostly imports his blood from some cattle ranch in Kansas, but he's been open with me that he does occasionally feed from humans, if it's consensual."

She thought about the restauranteur. "He's about the same age as Lawson, isn't he?" When she felt Spike nod, Buffy frowned. "I don't want young vampires in town who aren't under your control, but, no, I don't have a problem if he doesn't become a minion." As Buffy watched Luisa soothing Sam, some of the tension eased away from Spike's lieutenant. She'd overheard the Slayer's opinion, always the final one. "Besides," Buffy said, knowing she'd be heard, "he's already someone's bitch."

Sam turned his head sharply toward the couple. Spike chuckled, the sound rumbling against Buffy in a way that made her sorry patrol wasn't over. "Strong woman is the best thing that can happen to an Aurelian," he said, his voice low, before tracing his tongue along the salty line of her throat.

Buffy turned in his embrace and grabbed him, knowing that he didn't care if she was sweaty. "Well, I'm your bitch right back."

"In oh so many ways."

"Watch it, William," she said, her eyes narrowing.

"Smiling when I say it," he said, though he was actually kissing her.

"Sorry, Master," Luisa said, clearing her throat. "Sam would like to speak with you."

Both Spike and the Slayer sighed as they let go of each other. "You want to patrol with me?" Buffy asked Luisa.

"I'll get your boy home," Spike offered, leaning in for one more kiss from his wife. "I parked by city hall," he added for her benefit.

"See you there. Come on, Lu. Let's see what we can find to stake." Buffy hoped there wasn't much moving around; she wanted the scoop on what was going on between her and the newly ensouled vampire.

Spike watched his wife and lieutenant leave, then went to squat down next to Lawson. "Ready to head back home?"

The other Aurelian took a steadying breath and stood up, nodding. He knew Spike could smell his tears, but it wasn't as if he had any pride left. They walked in silence the whole way back to Luisa's house.

The corner of Spike's mouth quirked when Lawson withdrew a small ring of keys from his pocket. Lu had given him keys to her house and her car as well as her heart. He went inside and sat down without turning on the lights, Sam on one end of Luisa's mostly unused sofa and Spike on the other.

"Can you do it?" Spike asked. No reason to dance around things.

"I never thought I'd feed off a human again," the dark-haired man admitted. "Sort of thought the soul wouldn't let me."

"All right if you can't. Angel bagged it."

Sam looked at him in the near dark, no problem with his demon's vision. "And it's really part of a plan to help the town?"

He chuckled. "It is. 'Sunny days and hot nights in Sunnydale.' May be a couple of ad campaigns behind, but that's what Madam Mayor is shooting for. The town is going to be the romantic setting for aging tourists, and us feeding from them is the cure for erectile dysfunction." Spike stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. This wasn't the kind of casual position one usually took with a new, untried minion. The crossed limbs would inhibit his ability to defend himself, so the message was that he still had nothing to fear. "Arrangement is, she owns the town, and we own the herd."

"Bullshit." Sam shook his head in irritation. "You can tell that to the minions, but the fact is we're the bouncers who keep out the wrong element. The blood is just their salary."

Spike gave him a nod of acknowledgement. "So, you're all offended? Or just feeling superior that you figured it out."

Lawson slumped. "No. It's what they can understand."

"Lu understands it." Spike's eyes narrowed.

"She's different."

"She is. Different kind of vamp than the usual. So was I. So were you."

For a long time, Lawson didn't say anything. When he did, it seemed to come from deep inside him, words so awkward that it was obvious he hadn't said them aloud before. "I thought I already had a soul."

His voice was low enough that Spike barely heard him. He got it right away; soulful Angel sired him wrong. Eyebrows raised, he asked, "You never checked?"

The expression on his open face was bitter. "Would you?"

"No. You're right; not exactly a safe move." Spike had never once thought, for all his quirks and ability to rebel against the unspoken rules, that his soul remained. He tilted his head, examining Lawson. "Disappointed?"

"Just… confused." Sam felt bruised, inside and out, though the human blood made him feel physically better than he had for weeks. "I wasn't around you for long after I was turned, but you were different, too. You told me not to play with my food."

Spike vaguely remembered chasing off a couple of birds when he dumped Lawson in New York. "Dunno why. My sire was insane. Yours had a soul." He shifted. "Cory doesn't know who sired him. Dracula sired Lu," he pointed out, "totally different clan, but something with the demon didn't take with her, either. Only about twenty of us so far that can handle this life."

"I just want a reason for the last sixty years."

"Expect people who were born with a congenital defect want a reason, too." Spike shrugged. "Sometimes they know. Thalidomide, yeah? Mostly, they don't. They just get on with it."

Sam was quiet again. He stirred, then faced away from the Master. "I wouldn't have done what you did. Fought for my soul, I mean. Luisa told me about it. She idolizes you. I wouldn't have done that, not even to feel." He dropped his eyes to the floor. "Kind of feel like I cheated using the curse to get my soul. Took the easy way."

Spike's brows drew together. "'Course you wouldn't have done it. Thought you had one already, yeah?" He moved so he was turned toward the younger vampire, his wrists resting on his knees and feet planted on the floor. "Old vamp, here. See things differently because of that. If you had to live as you were another few decades, maybe you would have checked on your soul. You accepted the offer in a hot second."

"Will you have me?" Lawson whispered. He'd never lived in a clan before, had barely even nested with other vampires.

"Will you submit?" Spike didn't want to ask this question now, when the younger Aurelian was still in so much pain from guilt, but here they were.

Sam didn't move even as his eyes went to yellow. "I won't." His voice was steady, even though his fingers clenched convulsively on the couch cushions, sure he was about to be staked or at least exiled.

Spike stood up. "Good answer, mate. Welcome to the Hellmouth." Startled, Lawson looked up at him. The Master gave him an easy grin. "Final test, that. No use for kneelers."

Maybe it was the soul, or maybe just ingrained good manners. Lawson stood up and held out his hand. Spike shook it.

"I just keep doing what Luisa tells me to do?"

He nodded. "You might want to do some things without her having to tell you, too."

"What?"

Spike smirked. "And tell her you died a virgin."

"I can't tell her that!"

Spike smirked again, delighted that he'd managed to shock the vampire. "She'll want to know that about you, mate, that you were waiting to be in love. Trust me." He turned to leave, then stopped, pointing a warning finger at the younger Aurelian. "Don't hurt Lu, or I'll rip out your lungs, give you watered-down pig's blood till you heal, then do it again fifty times or so before I stake you." Nodding in satisfaction with the threat, he went out into the mild spring night, heading toward his car and his wife.

⸹

"Here you go, Mom."

"Why are you giving me your phone?" Joyce frowned at it. "Is this your phone?"

"It's yours," Dawn said, zipping her purse back. They were walking along the walkway toward the new Sunnydale High School. Tonight was the ribbon cutting. Not only were they here as Mayor Jenkins' guests, the annual art exhibit was inside.

"Why is this my phone?"

"Spike is in love with this new model, the Nokia 1100, I think, so he got us all new phones. We're all still on the Colinvaux plan, remember."

Joyce was frowning down at it. "It does look really nice. So modern. But I don't think Giles will give up his Blackberry." She tucked the phone in her own purse and walked a little faster. Dawn's strides were longer than hers now. "I can't wait to see your paintings."

Her daughter shrugged. "They're okay."

Joyce saw right through her nonchalance. Dawn was nervous about her mom seeing the work; in all the ways that counted, Joyce was a professional art critic. "I'm sure I'll love them." She put her hand on Dawn's shoulder and brushed her hair so it was hanging down her back. "It's strange not to have seen the paintings during the process."

"It's strange not to have been there when you saw Max's first tooth," Dawn replied. Their eyes met for a moment, both of them regretting the separation, though both of them knew Joyce had made the right decision to move with Giles to London. "I'm glad you'll be back soon."

Her mother shook her head. "I don't know how Aubrey will handle living with an infant."

"He lives with me," Dawn pointed out.

Joyce grinned at her self-depreciating humor. "Oh, there's the dais." They started across the barren dirt of the lawn. "Thank you again for warning me not to wear heels." Not only was the landscaping not finished, the new high school was still undergoing interior work. Anya wanted the symmetry of reopening the school in May, though.

The Summers women found their seats in the small reserved section. Joyce slid in next to Buffy and gave her a hug. "Hey, sweetheart."

"Hi, Mom. You look good."

"Thank you! You do, too, dear." She looked down the row, seeing Xander, Willow, and Oz. "Where are Spike and Tara?"

Buffy inclined her head behind them. "Back in general seating. Since they weren't students here, they didn't feel comfortable."

Joyce nodded, understanding that. "Before I forget, Giles wants you and Spike at the next board meeting."

"That's next Wednesday, isn't it?" When her mother nodded, Buffy gave her a troubled look. "I don't know; it's right before Wil's commitment ceremony."

"It's just the one afternoon." Joyce stood up and leaned over the Slayer to hug Xander and put out her hand to take Willow's, and then Oz's. "Do you need Buffy or Spike on Wednesday?" When they shook their heads, she nodded in satisfaction. "I'll make sure we have something good for dinner afterwards." Joyce sat back down and scanned the people she could see on the dais. The Sunnydale High Chorus began to sing the school alma mater song, so she spoke a little louder. "There's Coach Herrold. Isn't he old enough to retire?" She found him to be an odious man.

"I know, right? That woman next to him? That's Mrs. Beakman."

"Oh, my. She's lost weight. Good for her. And that's your history teacher, isn't it? Mrs. Johnson?"

"Jackson. She was always so nice."

"I thought so, too."

Buffy named off Mr. DeJean and Coach Wheeler. Otherwise, she didn't recognize any of the current faculty. Sunnydale High had a high turnover rate; less than half of the surviving faculty returned after the Ascension. Not that she blamed them.

When the choir finished, a stocky fireplug of a man in a tailored suit stood up and introduced himself as the current principal. He had the faculty stand for a polite round of applause, spoke a few words about the mission to educate, and turned the podium over to the Mayor.

Anya was wearing a light beige linen suit. She'd recently dyed her hair auburn, and she looked lovely and professional. "Thank you, Principal Kwon. I'll keep my remarks brief, because I know you're all anxious to go inside and see the new facility. I will ask that you keep outside of areas that are taped off; be safe and use common sense in unfinished places."

Buffy's attention wandered. She applauded when her family and friends did, but mostly she thought about the former high school, of friends lost, of the books-and-dust smell of Giles' old library. We went to high school on the Hellmouth, she thought with wonder, and survived.

Anya was wrapping up her speech, and her words dovetailed with Buffy's memories. "Lastly, I would like to invite you to another ceremony later this month to dedicate the memorial and fountain to the students and faculty who lost their lives at the old Sunnydale High School. That will be a time for solemn reflection and memory. Right now is a time for celebration. I'd like to introduce the county school superintendent, who will bring up the really large pair of scissors. Dr. Presser?" The Mayor moved aside for another smartly dressed woman.

"She does that so well," Buffy said to Xander.

"That's my girl," he said proudly.

It still took almost ten more minutes for the dignitaries to cut the ribbon. Buffy and Willow waited with Xander until Anya was through with the photographers and reporters. Dawn was too impatient to wait and dragged her mother into the building with the auditorium for the art exhibit. Joyce tried to look at the artwork of other students, but didn't have much chance. Then she saw why Dawn was so anxious: the large, purple ribbon pinned to one of Dawn's paintings with gilt letters reading 'Best of Show' on the button of the rosette.

"Oh, Dawnie," Joyce gushed, taking her daughter into her arms, "I'm so proud."

Grinning, Dawn told her about the painting, about how Buffy had helped her find a solution for the screen door, that it had worked best to soak a thin gauze bandage in paint and leave it to adhere to the canvas. Her words dried up as her mother said nothing, just looked at the paintings, walking from one to another with a critical eye.

"And you named the series 'Doors to the Natural'?" Joyce wondered, the first thing she'd asked for several minutes.

"Yeah. Pretentious, I know."

Joyce put her hands on her hips. By now, she'd come back around to the first one. "I could sell these at the gallery."

"What?" Dawn shrieked. "No way!"

"They're good." Joyce turned to take one of her daughter's hands. "You really have a talent. I'm not just saying that." She met Dawn's eyes, nearly level with her own now. "And I'm so jealous. I wish I could do this," Joyce nodded at the canvas, "but I can only identify it. And you have 'it.'"

She squealed. "You really like them?"

"They're… melodic. And beautiful. There's meaning in them beyond just a very fine rendering of a landscape."

"Wow." Dawn grinned and gestured. "Keep going."

Her mother laughed. "I can't believe you didn't tell me you won."

"I just found out today. Ribbon plus two hundred bucks."

"Come spend it in London with me this weekend, then. I'll bet Giles will match it."

She squealed again. "Cool London clothes!" Dawn squeezed her mother's hands, sobering. "I want to ask you something, and I figure this is the absolute best time. Will you still pay for college if I major in art?"

Joyce's head dropped to the side, wounded that Dawn would even ask. "Of course." Her mothering instincts almost immediately fell to her realistic streak. "You know it's very difficult to earn a living –"

Dawn laughed. "I know, Mom. What I really want to do is join the Council, but I can be practical the rest of my life. Right now, I just want to get better with my brush."

⸹

 _It's okay, love. They all expect us to be late, anyway._

Spike ushered Buffy into one of the back rows of chairs in the hotel conference room where the Council of Slayers board meeting was ongoing. Buffy, aware that their blond heads were magnets for attention, gave Giles an apologetic look as his eyes settled on them from his place at the front of the room.

They had just sat when Spike stiffened in surprise. _Old home week, love. Xander and An are here. So are Angel and Cordy._

 _Really?_ she said, almost blurting the word aloud in her surprise. _Where?_

 _Can't see them. Front of the room, from the smell. Wes is here with Faith, but that isn't all that surprising._

Buffy leaned to the side and caught a glimpse of Alpana's sari, bright in the room of sober suits, but couldn't see anyone else. _Wonder why they're here?_

Giles paused in his words to turn over a page. "Our last order of business today is the establishment of awards. We have three new endowments to approve. I'd like to invite Mr. Alexander Harris of Sunnydale, California, to the podium."

Xander stood up, a sheet held in his hand. He was wearing an unaccustomed suit and, though he looked good in the tailored dark wool, it was obvious that he was uncomfortable. As Giles shook his hand, he leaned close enough to say, "Too bad they aren't getting Anya. She's much better at giving speeches." Unfortunately, the microphone picked up the words.

Since he'd already messed up, Xander relaxed a little as he faced a sea of smiling faces. He cleared his throat and looked down at the paper in his hand. "I'm here today to propose the Jesse McNally Award, with an endowment to fund an annual disbursement of one hundred thousand pounds. The award, if given, should go to a human who goes above and beyond in giving aid to a Slayer in the course of her duties."

He looked around the room for a moment, his eyes falling on Anya, then on Buffy. The door at the back opened, and he smiled. Buffy and Spike turned to see who it was, and Willow waved at them. She came inside, followed by Oz, Tara, Dawn, and Aubrey.

Xander cleared his throat once again and plowed on. "Jesse was one of the first three people to befriend senior Slayer Buffy Summers when she moved to Sunnydale, the town over the active Hellmouth. Willow Rosenberg and I were the other two. Jesse wasn't quite seventeen; none of us was, including the Slayer. For the next several years, Willow and I became part of Buffy's support team, the basis for the new model the Council is now following. We did research, helped with patrol, learned to stake vampires and hit demons.

"Jesse didn't. He died and was sired almost before he learned that vampires exist. He was the first vampire I staked." Xander was still looking down at his speech. The white page blurred for a moment. He cleared his throat once more. "He was also funny and sweet. We like to remember the best parts of our dead, but he wasn't the best student and didn't always handle his parents' divorce well. Jesse wasn't perfect, but he was loving and loyal, and I miss him to this day. Jesse was exactly the kind of person any Slayer would be lucky to have on her team, which is why I hope the board approves this award." Xander nodded at the audience, accepted a hug from Giles, and picked his way back to his seat. Anya gave him a hug and a kiss with minimal tongue.

Giles led the board through the mechanics of voting on establishing the award. When it was approved unanimously, Xander relaxed enough to grin. He turned and held an upraised fist to Willow in victory. She blew him a kiss, her face shining with tear tracks.

"I'd like to invite our guests from Los Angeles, Mr. Liam Gallagher and Ms. Cordelia Chase, to the podium."

Once Giles moved away, Cordelia took his place and gifted the board members with one of her dazzling smiles. She was wearing a dark grey suit with a pencil skirt and black heels, and even the oldest male in the room sat up a bit straighter. "Mr. Giles, if I could call one more person up? Harriet? Would you join us?" A young woman with curly brown hair pulled back into a ponytail joined them. Angel gave her a hug.

"Mr. Gallagher and I are endowing the Allen Francis Doyle Award, to be given annually in the amount of one hundred thousand pounds. The worthy recipient will be a half-demon or partial demon who goes above and beyond to help a Slayer with her given duties." She waited a few beats, letting the murmur that started with the words 'half-demon' die down. "I've had the pleasure and the danger of working with both Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane, which means I've also had the pleasure of working with several people who are more," her eyes blazed, "not less, than human. In many instances, their help was crucial. Doyle was given visions by the Powers That Be in order to help people in danger. Think about that. Half human, half Brachen, Doyle was entrusted by the higher powers to wield a power of his own. He was my friend, but I'd like to introduce someone who was lucky enough to know Doyle for longer." She held out a hand to the curly-haired woman. "Please welcome Harriet Doyle, his former wife."

She gave Cordelia a nervous smile before aiming it over the room. The faces looking at her were less pleasant than those Xander had faced. It was nothing to Harriet. "I married Francis because he was the most loving, giving person I'd ever met. He worked hard, he volunteered at a soup kitchen, and I caught him when we were both really too young to marry.

"His demon aspect didn't manifest until he was twenty-one. He never knew his father was Brachen, so it was a complete surprise. It didn't matter to me, but Francis had a hard time dealing with such a change in his image of himself. We separated during that difficult time, and while I wasn't with him when the Powers That Be gifted him with precognitive visions, I could see the change in him, the purpose they gave back to him. Francis wasn't the kind of person who could be alone, so he sought out a warrior the Powers had sent to Los Angeles, one who was hoping to carry on with the Slayer's mission to the best of his abilities. Angel?"

He gave Harry another hug and leaned over the microphone. "Doyle," he backed away as the speakers gave a soft whine, "Doyle kept me on my path. I may have been a champion for the Powers, but mostly I was a vampire cursed with a soul. He was my conscience, the light for my path, and my brother." Angel looked down for a moment. "He was also the first soldier down, sacrificing himself to save others. Not only that, he managed to pass his gift of visions to another so they weren't lost.

"Doyle and his gift saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives, human and demon alike. As hard as it is for humans to get help from the police or other authorities against supernatural threats, it's doubly hard for demons to find help when other demons are the threat. That was our mission, to help the hopeless. Those words aren't part of the mission statement for the new Council of Slayers, but I think the spirit of the words is included, which is why I hope you approve this award. Thank you."

Giles shook Harriet's hand and gave Cordelia a hug as the three of them left the podium. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Doyle, Ms. Chase, and Mr. Gallagher."

"Now I know why Giles wanted us here," Buffy whispered to Spike.

He leaned closer. "Moral support, I think."

The vote to establish the Allen Francis Doyle Award was not unanimous. Giles was more Ripper than head of the Council by the time he announced the measure had passed. He glared around the room for a moment before continuing. "For the final order of business, I would like you to please stand and welcome His Most Reverend Excellency, Paulo Rossi, Bishop of Vatican City."

The audience rose, craning their heads to spot the Bishop. Spike rose, too, but the words crossing his lips weren't reverent. "Bollocks." A shiver of worry went up his spine.

Bishop Rossi smiled genially as he moved from the spot he'd taken near the side door where he'd been waiting. He was wearing his cassock as he took the podium. Giles bowed and kissed his ring, received a blessing, and then moved aside.

The Bishop greeted his audience, offered blessings, ordered them to sit, and congratulated them on their survival and the revision of their mission. His smooth voice had the Council soothed until he got to the purpose of his presence. "Today, I would like you to approve an annual award of one hundred thousand pounds to be given to a demon who assists a Slayer in the fulfilment of her duties."

He smiled out at the audience even as he took in their disbelief and, in some cases, outright balking. "I know there are many of you who, just a few short years ago, would have never believed it was possible for a demon to work for the cause of good. Why establish an award that will never be given?" He gestured toward Harriet Doyle. "Yet now we know of species of demons who are primarily peaceful, who have the capacity to be brave, to be good, to work for the causes of justice and peace. Many in the old Council would not have accepted the reality of this, and yet things change.

"Things have changed for me, as well. The Church is an institution built on hope, yet why keep hoping for something that never happens? The answer to that is simple: two-thirds."

He waited for the puzzled members of the audience to mull this over. "I offer you a secondhand conversation between a Watcher and a demon, one confided in me and that I hope I am not out of line to share with you. Obviously, the conversation happened after the Watcher was convinced the demon was indeed good and could be trusted."

Bishop Rossi slid smoothly into his anecdote as though it were a sermon. "The Watcher asked the demon his philosophy on good and evil. The demon answered that he was merely rejoining the majority by turning his back on his own nature, turning his back on evil. He reminded the Watcher that when Lucifer fell from the heavens, he took with him a full third of the heavenly host. The demon never believed evil and good joust against each other on an even field, strength against equal strength, eternally balanced. After all, good has two-thirds of the power. Surely, the forces of good will win. Why shouldn't he rejoin the light? Why couldn't good triumph in his own heart?

"This demon had been touched by the light in the form of a Warrior of Light, touched so deeply that he repented of evil. To make sure that he did not backslide into his old ways, he took the extraordinary step of seeking and fighting for his soul. And he won it, after days of hard and dangerous trials. Think of it, my friends and colleagues, a demon that fought not only alongside a Slayer but also against his own nature. The Church acknowledges this profound act as a first, and we rejoice.

"That demon continues to fight for our side. Such a decision may not happen again at this dramatic level. Yet there are demons out there who are peaceable, who are productive members of society. One of these demons may rise above their lot to help a Slayer with her mission, to become part of her team. And when that happens, should we not encourage and reward such behavior? The William Summers Award may not be given every year, but it should be available when and if a being rejoins the two-thirds of us who strive for the good. When that being reaches out to us, we will respond with our own goodness, clasp their hand, and help draw them into the light. I therefore ask you to approve this award. Thank you."

By this point, Spike had slunk down in his seat so that his head was even with Buffy's and his tailbone was pressed into the edge of the chair. He was trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Buffy had a death grip on his hand as the discussion grew heated before Giles called for a vote. It passed, though without much of a margin.

Buffy gave a shaky laugh. "What do you think? Two-thirds majority?"

"Not even that," he growled back, voice low. "Bloody hell, I need a drink or three."

He didn't get it until after dinner. Joyce invited everyone, but Angel, Cordelia, and Harriet Doyle begged off and went through the portal back to Los Angeles. Willow, Oz, and Tara left right after dinner, taking Dawn and Aubrey with them. While Buffy and Joyce put Max down for the night, Spike joined Giles in his cramped little office for Scotch.

"In a mind to thump you for that little stunt, Rupes," Spike growled. He held out his empty glass for more. He remembered the conversation he'd had with Giles about the nature of good and evil during the week he'd lived with the Watcher after returning to Sunnydale with his soul. "Not sure I like you telling all my secrets to the Church."

Giles smiled genially. "The Bishop got the story out of me when he came to Sunnydale about the Initiative. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," he said, "though I'm not going to do that, either." He put the bottle back down and held his high for a toast. "To new beginnings."

Spike reluctantly clinked his glass against Rupert's and drank without comment. "Xander did really well, and Peaches didn't embarrass himself."

"Did you know Doyle?"

"Met him once, but I can't say I knew him. Did you know Jesse?"

Giles shook his head. "I wish I could say I remember him, but I don't, not really. He wasn't among the rare students who visited the library." He twisted to get the bottle once more and poured Spike a third shot of Scotch.

The blond man stared morosely into the glass, breathing in the smoky fumes. "Rossi did good not mentioning that some demons are close enough to breed with humans, or that some demons have souls. And he might have implied it, but he never said that the Church endowed that award."

"It didn't." Giles waited until Spike looked up at him, then he held out his arms. "Like I said," he murmured, embracing the stiff form of his son-in-law, "new beginnings."

"You complete berk," Spike whispered, tears in his eyes as he hugged Rupert in return.

"Air," Giles croaked.

Spike stepped away. "You shouldn't have done that."

The Council head shrugged. "I thought a gesture of apology was in order."

He shook his head in exasperation. "Unnecessary and also not an apology."

"No. Like Xander honoring Jesse or Angel honoring Doyle, it was a gesture of love."

"Oh, Giles," Buffy said from the doorway, tears in her eyes. She came in and gave him a hug, further abusing his ribs. "I love you. You know that, don't you?"

"I do," he wheezed, "as my cracked ribs can attest."

"There," Spike pointed out, "that's how you do it. Not with bloody showy gestures that put a bloke on the spot."

⸹

"I've never seen a wedding set up like this before," Joyce commented, settling into her chair behind Buffy and Dawn. She put a hand on her daughters' shoulders.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hi, Mom," Dawn echoed her sister as she twisted around in her seat, too. "Don't worry; you'll get a good view of their dresses."

Joyce gave the empty little stage in the middle of a sea of white chairs a doubtful look, fairly sure she'd have a view of the officiant and one of Oz's shoulders. "I don't see how; it's like theatre in the round." Memorial Park, though well shaded and with a healthy green lawn, was flat, with no slope to give it the qualities of a natural amphitheater.

"It's a surprise," Dawn told her happily. "We'll have to sneak out for a few minutes before the ceremony, but we'll be back. Save our seats?"

"Sure. Buffy, are you okay?" Joyce asked.

The commitment ceremony was set for eleven in the morning; Buffy was quiet beneath the warm sun and wore large sunglasses. "I might be a bit hung over," she admitted.

"Five cosmopolitans," Dawn tattled.

"Only a nosy little sister would count my drinks," Buffy hissed.

"So I take it the bachelorette party was fun?" Joyce asked dryly.

"Not like Anya's," Buffy told her. "More talking and laughing, and no strippers."

"Or Hellions, on the upside," Dawn added.

"And how many cosmopolitans did you have, young lady?"

"Mo-oom!" When Joyce only continued to give her a steady look, she caved. "One glass of white wine."

"You would never have let me get away with that," Buffy complained. "Max will be chugging pints and getting tattoos by the time he's twelve, at this rate."

"Max will what?" Giles asked, appalled, as he joined his wife, carefully maneuvering to keep the baby carrier facing the aisle. He'd been delayed by three complete strangers, all of whom wanted to see the baby.

"Nothing, dear," Joyce said, kissing his cheek. "You want me to take him?"

"No, I'm good. Good lord, it's early." He looked around. "Where's Spike?"

"He'll be here. He and Xander are helping get everyone seated."

At that moment, Xander was in fact approaching Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and Fred Burkle to do just that. "Hey, Wes. You look nice." Like Buffy, he was wearing sunglasses. Oz's bachelor party, held at Fangs, consisted of lots of beer and members of Dingoes Ate My Baby leading singalongs into the wee hours of the morning.

"Hi, Xander." He nodded proudly at Fred. "You know my date, Fred Burkle."

"I do," Xander agreed, smiling at this new development. "Hi, Fred." It was nice to see them holding hands. "You want to sit with Angel and Cordy?"

As he went back to his spot, Xander saw something that made him break stride. Then he hurried forward. "Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg," he breathed, knowing he had a goofy grin on his face. Willow's parents were overdressed for the outdoor ceremony, but that was probably the least reason for their discomfort. "Willow will be so glad you're here." He gave them both a loose hug. "I'm so glad you're here. Let me show you to your seats."

At eleven, the soft, silvery sound of a bell cut through the soft buzz of conversation. The bell chimed again, and the crowd turned to see a woman standing at the start of one of the aisles between the seating. Aurora the enchantress, who had also officiated at Xander and Anya's wedding, struck the bell a third and final time. Then she began the walk to the hexagonal wooden stage.

Other people joined her, filing into the aisles. All of them carried slender wooden arches hung with garlands of flowers or bundles of herbs. Joyce spotted her daughters carrying one arch and Xander and Spike bringing another. She also spotted members of the coven and Oz's band. Though it seemed a confusing influx of people, all of them slid past their fellows to slot the ends of the white-painted arches into openings on the floor of the stage. The taller people turned to cross to their opposite number, joining garlands and strings of fairy lights over the bare floor. In less than a minute, it was transformed into bower of flowers. As they returned to their seats and the complex pattern of people thinned, the audience could see a delicate metal podium, tall candelabra, and a pedestal with silver cups in the center. Aurora stepped to the center of the stage and lowered her eyes.

Another murmur of voices drew the audience's attention to the ends of the aisles once more. Willow, Tara, and Oz stood at rough thirds on the large circle of chairs, facing the stage. Enya's 'Only Time' began to play, clear to all in the crowd but coming from no visible speakers. The happy triad began the trip down the aisle, joining hands once they reached the stage. As the bridge began, the song died away and the stage slowly began to rotate.

"Told you that you'd be able to see their dresses," Dawn whispered smugly to Joyce.

"It's beautiful," she whispered back, awed. Willow was wearing a light purple sheath dress with darker purple gauzy material at the sleeves and hips. Tara's dress was rose-colored with a handkerchief hem. Oz wore white slacks and a pale green shirt with a darker green tie. All of them were barefoot and all wore a crown of flowers. Just as the stage made its first full rotation, butterflies began to converge on the garlands, fluttering around the threesome to the delight of the spectators.

Aurora led the three through their vows, helped them light a unity candle with three tapers, and exchange rings. She poured a goblet of pure water for each of them and spilled some from the pitcher onto the stage as they drank. The officiant had a single hitch in her smooth delivery, almost citing the authority vested in her by the state of California before calling on Gaia instead. There was no license for this ceremony.

At the end, she raised her voice so everyone could hear. "I present to you Daniel, Tara, and Willow, united by their mutual love. They thank you for coming to be with them on this happy day and invite you to the pavilion for lunch."

"That was beautiful," Buffy sighed, leaning against Spike's shoulder.

"That was magical," Joyce said emphatically.

"Are they going somewhere for a honeymoon?" Giles asked. He was just relieved that Max hadn't fussed once during the ceremony.

"Vancouver, I believe." Joyce was looking around for Oz's parents when she drew in a breath. "Sheila? Ira?" Covering her surprise, she put on a smile to greet them as Buffy and Dawn exchanged glances.

"That's so awesome." Dawn bounced a little with happiness.

"They won't regret supporting their daughter," Giles said, his voice low. Putting a smile on his face, he nodded at the Rosenbergs when Joyce indicated her new husband. He smiled down into Max's alert little face, so glad he'd already learned so much about how to be a good parent from his Slayer.

Joyce came back to his side a moment later. She put her head near his and made a noise of disgust. "Sheila asked about how exhausting it must be to have an infant at my age. Then she called them a 'thrupple.'"

Giles winced. Oz didn't care, but Willow and Tara hated that term. "And what did Mr. Rosenberg say?"

"Ira managed to say 'Hi, Joyce,' then Sheila was at it again." She shivered. "Never let me treat you like that."

"If I thought you ever could," he said, bending to give her a peck on the lips, "I would never have married you." The crowd had thinned, so they began to follow them to the reception tent.

"Still, I'm glad they came."

Ten minutes later, Willow gave Joyce a hug. "Did you see my parents? I'm so glad they came."

"I'm glad you're glad, dear," Joyce said. "And I'm delighted to be here. It was a magical ceremony."

Willow was glowing. "Literally!" she agreed. "I think it was subtle enough for the uninitiated, but the coven was so generous to us."

Not wanting to overstay in the receiving line, Joyce hugged her again and turned to Oz. Then they were through. "Let me have Max," she directed Giles. "You can get a break and take off that hot carrier."

He found them an empty table to the side, handed over the baby, and went in search of something cold to drink. "Ah," Rupert breathed when he returned, settling down next to her. He put a cup of punch on the table in front of her, out of Max's reach, and put his arm over the back of Joyce's chair. "And that was the last."

Joyce nodded, knowing what he meant. "Until Dawn and her friends start getting married and start the cycle all over again."

Giles moaned a little at the reminder but gave her a grin. "I'm so glad I have someone to share this with," he told his wife, "so glad that my someone is you."

⸹

"Only four more applicants in the waiting area," April reported. She handed Buffy a couple of sheets of paper. She was away from City Hall and helping the Slayer today as she interviewed potential employees for the fitness center.

Buffy scooted to the edge of her folding chair in the cavernous emptiness of the main area. Until the Slayer seminar ended next month, she wasn't going to move expensive treadmills and stair climbers into the building. Stretching, she gave April a tired smile. "Well, bring in the next one."

She stood up to stretch the rest of her body, then settled into the seat once more. Looking down at the three piles of applications (pending, maybe, and no way), Buffy absently opened her bottle of water and took a drink.

"Hi, Buffy."

She looked up at the timid words and swallowed some of the water wrong in her surprise.

"Are you okay?" Harmony said anxiously as the other woman kept coughing. She came around the table to pound ineffectively on Buffy's back.

"I'm – ahem – I'm fine, Harmony. You can stop hitting me now."

The smile on Harmony's face flickered and fell away. "Oh. Not a good thing to do to your potential employer, is it?"

"No, but that's okay. Uh, have a seat." She waved at the chair on the other side of the table. Why was Harmony looking for a job? The blond woman was wearing hot pink Lycra, and Buffy had to admit she looked very fit.

The two blonds stared at each other for a moment. "So, how have you been?" Harmony asked.

"Oh, fine."

"How is married life treating you?"

"Great. How about you?" Buffy's mind went directly from Harmony seeking work to Harmony being dumped by Tim's dad and needing work.

"Oh, great."

"How is Mr. Broughton?"

"He's good." She shrugged. "He works a lot."

Buffy gave up on conversation and found Harmony's application. "So… You're interested in… Um, it doesn't actually say which job you're interested in."

"I don't really want a job," Harmony said, waving a hand. "I want to lead a spin class." Her eyes widened. "I mean, I want to get paid to do that, yeah."

Buffy's brows drew together. "You want to teach one class?"

Harmony nodded vigorously. "In Los Angeles, the really good gyms have spin classes led by women who are almost celebrities. People wait for weeks just to get into the classes. That's what I want to do."

"So… You want to lead the popular spin class."

Harmony gave her a brilliant smile. "That's it exactly!"

Buffy thought about the Broughton family, the most prominent in town now that the Chases were in disgrace from the tax evasion scandal. She thought about putting Harmony's face on promotional material. She thought about Harmony berating a class of people into working harder over their stationary bikes for forty minutes and shrugged. That was certainly something the bitchy blond could manage. "Okay."

"Really?" Harmony squealed. "Oh, thank you, thank you! You won't be sorry, Buffy, you'll see." She leaned forward, serious suddenly. "Now, about my fee…"

"Half of class receipts," Buffy said flatly. "We'll have a soft opening at the end of June. April will give you a call."

"Okay!" Harmony stood up and gave Buffy a little wave before wiggling her way toward the door. As she passed April, Buffy shook her head, wondering if a bystander would pick Harmony over April as being a sexbot. Giving a snort, she took another quick sip of water. "Send in the next one."

⸹

Buffy held her candle and the little tin catch-cup that skirted the bottom of it. Anya's idea was that at the end of the dedication of the memorial to the people who died during the Ascension, the audience would light up for a candlelight vigil during a minute of silence. The Mayor rarely missed an opportunity to get her constituents involved.

Buffy's attention went to the statue of an oversized book with several torches around it. She wondered what kids would think of the book in years to come, as everything migrated to the digital world.

Looking around, she spotted Willow's bright hair and began to wave vigorously. "Wil! Over here!" Oz and Tara trailed behind her, and Buffy gave her best friend a careful hug. "Did you guys just get back?"

She nodded. "I loved Vancouver; it's wonderful. We went on a sightseeing boat tour, and I saw a humpback whale with its baby!"

"Oh, that's awesome!"

"I've got pictures, only they're a little blurry, and –" Realizing she was mid-babble, Willow made herself hush and turned to the rest of her family.

"Hey, guys," Buffy greeted them with controlled hugs, too. "Willow was telling me you had a good time?"

"I didn't want to come back," Tara admitted.

"But we didn't want to miss this, either." Oz looked around the throng. By now, most people had read the names on the plaque at the base of the statue and moved to ring the rectangular reflecting pool. One end had a fountain that endlessly trickled water – no one wanted to install a spraying mechanism in parched southern California – that led into the calmer waters of the other end forty feet away.

"No, wouldn't want to miss it." Buffy's voice was quiet. The names on the plaque weren't just from the class of 1999. April had gone back through yearbooks and other records to record the names of every dead student and staff and faculty member to the 1940s. She didn't want to read any of them, not the names of the people who died before she was born or the names of the people she'd failed to save.

She knew too many of them by heart, anyway. Jesse McNally. Debbie Foley and Pete Clarner. Larry Blaisdell. Jenny Calendar.

Anya was up on the stage now, giving an emotional speech about the last graduation held on this site. Though she hadn't stayed, the fact that they had fought and won had made an enormous impact on the freshly human Anya. Buffy didn't listen to it, though. She was busy tracking a vampire moving through the crowd.

She finally spotted DeShawn and, relaxing, gave him a nod. He had a new minion in tow, one that Lorne pointed their way, Lonnie or Ronnie, something like that. Buffy looked away from the crowd toward the sea. The silhouette of the big apartment building broke up the horizon, marking the place she was going to live with her family and friends. It didn't look skeletal any longer. Xander thought they could move in by Christmas.

Then it was time to light their candles. The Sunnydale High School choral group, who were working overtime this month, began to sing Boyz II Men 'It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.' Before the song was over, Buffy had extinguished her candle, put her hand on Willow's shoulder by way of farewell, and walked away.

She turned around to look over the fountain whose waters now helped bind the Hellmouth. Instead of a sullen glow over the gateway, the candles sent a soft, pale light over the area. Buffy looked at it for a moment and hoped fiercely that she and her friends could save the little town. Then she turned away from the people below and headed into the familiar darkness.

⸹

Next (final) chapter: Buffy hosts a seminar in Sunnydale for the new Slayers, and those are just the conditions needed for the Kanai prophecy to come to pass.


	53. Kanai, Redux

**Kanai, Redux**

⸹

Sunnydale

June 2003

⸹

Buffy stood next to Giles, just within the shade of the hangar, and watched the two planes taxi toward them, a careful distance between the two. Spike had recently bought another jet for Colinvaux Air, ironically a supersonic plane that had once belonged to Wolfram and Hart. The windows were necrotempered, and they had plans to treat the minions to a trip to Fairbanks this winter to take advantage of the long hours of darkness and see the Northern lights. She spotted her husband at the controls through the cockpit windows, dashing in his crisp white shirt. The roar of the big engines began to quiet.

Buffy realized that Giles had said something to her while she ogled Spike. "Huh?"

"Did they all get on board? No late connecting flights in L.A.?"

"All Slayers present and accounted for," she confirmed. The ground crew began the process of rolling out the jetway stairs, while others drove out luggage carriers toward the rear of the two planes. Buffy was amazed at how much support it took to carry off this seminar. The Council had rented buses to shuttle the Slayers, their families, and the beginnings of their teams to the nearby hotel. Right now, Watchers were setting up tables where the Slayers would check in and get nametags and packets with schedules and other information. For every Slayer, there were at least five support people.

Including her. Today was going to be light. Instead of the afternoon welcome reception the Council threw for the non-English speaking Slayers, Buffy had talked them into a beach party. Southern California was cooperating in splendid style, with plenty of sunshine and breezes. Hosting that was her first official duty, but she wanted to be here when they all touched down. For the past several weeks, she'd been fielding questions in the chatroom Willow set up for the seminar, so she felt like she already knew the group of young warriors.

Her eyes kept straying to the cockpit, though. She was worried about Spike. Two nights ago, he'd bolted upright from a deep sleep, breathing hard with the sudden knowledge that one of the volunteer Slayers, Sandrine from Nantes, France, was dead. Confirmation came half a day later from the Council. She had died patrolling a cemetery; both she and her Watcher were dead after a confrontation with a nest of vampires.

It was the first time Spike had an inkling of what the Guardianship he'd been given would entail. Though he was sure he'd spoken to Sandrine in London, he didn't have a specific memory of her. Nonetheless, he felt true grief for her death. One of his was dead. With the work to pull together the seminar upon them, he hadn't had time to adjust to the knowledge that the Slayer of Slayers was fated to mourn the passing of every Slayer. The only thing she'd gotten from him so far was a seemingly offhand, "Karma, innit?"

Buffy greeted the excited girls as they filed past the tables. A couple of them even gave her hugs. Their exuberant mood was contagious. By the time Spike was through with his post-flight duties, she was all smiles, worries about the possible battle and the Guardianship pushed aside. "Hey, you." She pulled him into a rib-cracking hug.

"Hey, right back," he murmured, leaning over to give her a distracted kiss. Then he stopped, truly looked at her, and came back for a much longer kiss. "Hi, love."

"How was the flight?"

"Too short." It was barely a hop from Los Angeles to Sunnydale.

"We'll fly somewhere after it's over," she promised. "Or, you could take the chopper out right now, fly up the coast."

He shook his head. "Promised Xander I'd help him with surfing lessons." It was one of the features of the beach party.

"Oh. Well, I can help, too. Only, it's not much with the waves off the beach." The party was near the new gazebo where Anya and Xander held their wedding, and the surf there was family-friendly.

"Pro'ly a good thing."

She noted his slurred speech; Spike hadn't slept well since Sandrine's death. "True." Buffy gave him a last squeeze and turned toward the parking lot, keeping an arm around his waist. "I don't think any of them live on the ocean."

"The Australian Slayer is from Perth. That's on the coast."

She frowned. "And maybe Vi. She's from Florida."

"She was the first to volunteer, right?"

Buffy nodded, wondering if Mara Culpepper from the coven told him that or if he just knew. "I have to say, it's easier without the language barrier." She looked over at the line of Slayers and their team members waiting to board the buses and realized they were being observed. A brown-haired Slayer nudged a shorter girl and pointed toward them. "It's really weird," she said softly.

"What's that?" Tired, Spike was distracted as he searched for his keys.

"They tell stories about us," she said, shrugging and dismissing her notoriety. "Don't worry, sweetie. You relax. I'll drive." Buffy let go of him and got out her own keys to her car.

"They should tell stories," Spike assured her, his gaze on her penetrating. "You're the greatest Slayer since Sineya."

Buffy started to tell him that he was biased, but her smile faded. Right now, she wasn't sure if it was her vampire speaking or the Guardian. His words made her uncomfortable, but she also found them reassuring in the face of possible battle.

⸹

"Hi!" Dawn smiled at the short girl in front of her and placed a lei over her head. "I'm Dawn Summers, Buffy's sister."

"Hi!" the Slayer replied, beaming up at her. She had short brown hair and enormous eyes. "I'm Kayla." She touched the fabric flower garland. "Things are looking up. I haven't been here twenty-four hours, and I've already been lei'd."

The woman behind her, obviously her mother, let out a long-suffering sigh. "Kayla!"

Dawn groaned, then laughed reluctantly, already liking this girl. "Congrats; you're the first to tell me that." She gestured vaguely to her left. "Food's set up in the gazebo, surfing lessons down by the water, towels are over there, and you can put the beach chairs wherever you want them. Music starts at seven; bonfire's at eight." She put another lei over Kayla's mother's neck, and realized she had a gap in the stream of Slayers. Lifting her hair off her neck, she leaned down and grabbed her water bottle. Where she was stationed, the gazebo blocked the ocean breeze.

A solidly built Slayer, taller than her, looked around tentatively and came up next. "Do you know if there are nametags or anything?"

Dawn shook her head. "No, not tonight. My name is Dawn," she put a lei over the Slayer's neck, "and I'm Buffy Summers' sister."

"Geneva."

"You're from Arizona, right?" Dawn asked. "So, not a long flight."

"Not too bad."

Dawn finished her spiel about the layout of the party, then repeated it for Rona from Philadelphia, Natalie from Indiana, Vi from Florida, Alison from Toronto, Lily from Perth, and Ute from Bonn. She had to ask why the German, though she did speak excellent English, had ended up at this seminar. It turned out Ute was older, already in university, and hadn't been able to miss exams that fell during the London meeting. Like Kayla, Ute seemed to be fun. Along with Geneva, she was the only Slayer who came without a family member.

The final bus closed its doors and turned to head back to the hotel for Watchers and other latecomers. Relieved, Dawn pulled her hair back into a ponytail and stripped off her hostess costume of a cotton shirt and skirt to reveal a modest one-piece bathing suit underneath. She retrieved the backpack she had stashed behind a tablecloth and grabbed a towel, heading for the beach. Her job was to make sure that all of the Slayers had a good time. Seeing that Rona was by herself, she headed that way, glad that she wasn't stuck at the hotel.

⸹

Giles kept a blank face, hiding his boredom. Part of the seminar was a presentation by department heads. He'd much rather be working in the quiet of his London office or even helping to host the beach party.

This presentation, boring though it was, made him uncomfortable. With so many Slayers available, one of the research departments had gathered their blood for genetic information. It made his hackles rise; after the Initiative reminded him that some of the worst of the twentieth century mistakes lived on, anything that hinted of eugenics was worrisome. The only thing the young ladies had in common, though, seemed to be a higher than statistically expected occurrence of haplogroup L3, which was widespread enough anyway.

He stifled a sigh and tried to refocus, but the sound of the door at the back of the room was more interesting than the speaker. Turning, Giles saw Willingham look around the chairs until he spotted him.

Aubrey came over as unobtrusively as a man of his girth could and leaned down. "Coven started to pick up a spike in energy," he said quietly. "It looks like there's a power building somewhere downtown."

⸹

Joyce smiled and gave a sympathetic nod. She was helping host a panel for Slayer parents; she felt as qualified as anyone, but far from expert. The best she could do was admit to her fears and her mistakes. Right now, a mother from Indiana was saying the same thing every other parent had said: this was terrifying.

Everything she'd gone through was happening for the volunteers' families: the inability to protect their child, the fear that ground you down each night your daughter went out the door, and the terrible pride in the mantle she'd taken up. Joyce was more than a little bitter. She was sitting at the front of the room with a psychologist seated on either side of her. These parents had resources her family had never dreamed of having.

Her brows drew together as Giles came into the room. The smile he gave her wasn't all that reassuring. He waited until the panel was over before stepping to the front to keep anyone from dismissing the families. After introducing himself, Giles cleared his throat. "Prophecy," he began, "is rarely straightforward enough to be reliable. However, one of those that came down through the centuries fairly unchanged is now upon us."

He was brief, and two minutes later, he stood in the stunned silence, Slayer parents staring at him in shock.

One of the fathers stood up and asked in a wavering voice with an Australian accent, "You mean my little girl is going to fight in a battle, like some kind of soldier?"

"No." Giles tilted his head back and regarded him for a moment. "Your daughter is going to fight against demons like a Slayer, alongside her sisters, with trained Watchers and our ex-military units standing alongside as well. Another experienced Slayer and two more champions are on their way, in addition to the Slayer and her team that always keeps the Hell– er, Sunnydale safe. We were aware this could happen, and we are prepared."

"Why didn't you tell us?" hissed a mother from Belize.

"We truly did not know for sure it would happen," Giles replied with sincerity, "and didn't want to alarm you needlessly."

Joyce watched as the group asked the same question in several different ways over the next ten minutes: will my daughter be safe? Finally, she stood, putting her hand on Giles' shoulder. "Slayers defeat evil," she said simply. "It's what they do. Last Christmas, just two Slayers and their teams defeated original evil when it tried to manifest in our world. Think of that. The basis of all evil in the world." Her voice was soft. "There's nothing my daughter can't defeat. That's what they're made for. Their safety isn't guaranteed, but they do guarantee our safety.

"I try to think of myself as the parent of a firefighter. Her job is dangerous, but it's necessary. Firefighters have never been as well equipped, as well prepared as they are today," her voice hitched, "but the job is still dangerous."

The room was still for a long moment. The focus gradually went from her to Giles. "We're telling you first," he said quietly, "so the Slayers can enjoy a carefree night. At the first meeting in the morning, I'll make the announcement. My own Slayer doesn't know yet, either." He winced internally; Buffy would always be his, but he didn't want to slight Aubrey. Still, he didn't correct himself.

The panel broke up after that, with the parents leaving in somber silence. Joyce gave Giles a sympathetic look as she put her arm around him.

"So much for a lighthearted first day," he said grimly.

She lifted a shoulder. "I can't think of a better introduction to what it's like to be the parent of a Slayer."

⸹

Buffy still had sand sugaring her legs as she ducked into her mother's house. It was the natural place for a Scooby meeting, but the gang was so big that several of them had to sit on the floor now.

Giles sighed. "Did the young ladies enjoy the beach party?" There were general nods all around. "Good, then. We can't expect their parents will keep this news quiet, so I can begin to gauge their mood tomorrow morning." He looked at the seminar schedule. "I'll take an extra fifteen minutes in the introduction. Where's the best place to cut the time?"

"Take it from the 'ask a Slayer' panel," Buffy suggested. She didn't mind fewer questions. Her big change to the week's agenda was to have the lectures in a block during the morning, with weapons practice in the afternoon. She knew she wouldn't want to alternate training and afterwards sit in a meeting room, sweaty and stinky.

Giles nodded. "Thank you." He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if that would ease his headache. "I think we're prepared as we'll ever be. I'm trying to think of the new Slayers. We need to reassure them as much as we can, so I want to hear everyone's thoughts on that. The other thing we need to discuss is whether or not to let them fight."

"They're Slayers," Spike pointed out. "Just try to stop them."

Xander, who thought the Slayers as a group were adorable, shook his head. "They might not be ready. It wouldn't be fair to throw them in the deep end."

"Or safe," Oz pointed out.

"When do we think it will be?" Anya asked.

Willow glanced at Tara, and they both shrugged. "The coven said the energy is still building. The battle isn't now, but we don't know how powerful it will get before the djinn manifests."

"Maybe we'll have three or four days," Dawn offered hopefully. "That way, there'll be time to evaluate whether they're ready for battle."

"Tactically and emotionally." Buffy's tone was steely.

"What happens if some are ready and some are clearly not?" Aubrey asked softly. "That might create a rift between them." No one had anything to say to that.

"Anything on the location?" Xander asked, frowning as he looked at Willow.

"Just that it isn't on the actual Hellmouth," Tara said.

When they fell silent, Giles took charge again. "Right. What can we do to make the Slayers feel comfortable?"

Joyce raised her hand. "Let's limit this to fifteen minutes. We all have things to do tomorrow, so we'll need sleep."

"Are we still going to take them on patrol at night?" Aubrey asked. The idea had been to familiarize the girls with how a Hellmouth felt.

"I hope you do," Anya said, her voice firm. "We've had an influx of demons of the non-sentient and just plain evil varieties."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a look, silently agreeing to patrol tonight though they were not scheduled.

⸹

Groaning, Buffy slapped her alarm clock until it stopped. Patrol had been busier last night than it had been for months. Just as she was about to push off the covers, Spike's arm snaked around her waist.

"You need more sleep," he murmured.

"Not getting it," she replied grumpily. Rolling to the side, she gave him a quick kiss, then reversed direction until she sat on the edge of the bed. Still half asleep, she stumbled to the bathroom to shower.

Spike joined her a few minutes later. "Coffee's on."

Leaning back against him in the huge shower, she let out a sigh of contentment. "You're my hero."

"You're the hero."

"Here," she said, pushing him toward the spray and picking up her razor, "you shower while I get my legs."

Somehow, Spike was finished before she was. "Need any help?"

"I know what your help leads to."

"A happy Buffy?"

The need to hurry died an immediate death in the face of a wet, naked Spike. She grabbed a bottle of coconut-scented body wash and squeezed a dollop into her hands. He watched her rub her hands together for a moment, then slipped his fingers through hers and tugged her arms high. Their palms brushed together, then his fingers slid from between hers to loosely cuff her wrists. Spike made his way down her arms to her ribcage, running his thumbs along the sides of her breasts.

Buffy shivered and lowered her arms to his shoulders. She began running her soapy hands across his chest, tracing the planes of his pectoral muscles. "I love the way this all just… glides," she whispered, rubbing her palms over the suddenly tense ridges of his stomach.

His hands had settled for a moment at the flare of her hips. "Here?" Spike asked, bracing one hand on the tile and leaning in to nibble her neck.

"Oh, yeah," Buffy breathed as his other hand wandered lower. She turned to the side to give him better access without taking her fingers from his slick body.

"You're right," he breathed, his words forming against her jaw like kisses, "it just glides." Spike's breath hitched as Buffy's slick fingers wrapped around his erection. "Oh, love. Like that, just like that." He felt her cheek curve in a smile.

"One for you, one for me?" she whispered.

"More for you," he bargained, knowing that didn't have much time to spare. Then it was all friction and pleas and somehow Buffy was asking him to rinse because soap stings before she braced herself against the wall with his hands on her sudsy breasts and Spike was stopping because he wanted her to turn so he could see her face and he was grabbing towels to throw on the bed and promising to change the sheets if they got soaked then –

"Oh, God," Buffy wailed. "It's twenty after seven!"

Afterglow shattered, Spike sat straight up in bed, glaring at the clock. "Right," he said, jaw tense because he knew it was his fault, "you dry your hair and get dressed. I'll have that coffee ready. Grab breakfast at the hotel. I'll drive; you do your makeup then." He stood up.

She swatted his bare ass. "Did I ask you to come in the shower?"

He moved out of range and grinned down at her. "No. But you kind of demanded I come in the shower." Spike kept looking at her with a sappy smile. _Bloody gorgeous, you are, all tumbled like that._

"Gimme coffee," she growled, almost managing to hide her smile, "and I might let you live."

Fifteen minutes later, they were barreling toward town in his truck, which Spike had chosen for its intimidation factor against other traffic. "I figured it out last night," Buffy said, her eyes on the lighted mirror in the sun visor. She had her makeup bag caught between her thighs and was very carefully applying eyeliner.

"What's that, love?"

"How we can take the girls on patrol safely." She finished one eye. "What do you think we need to focus on for easiest distance weapon this afternoon, ax or sword?"

"Double-edged swords." The answer was firm.

"That's what I thought, too." Buffy glanced ahead and waited until they'd gone over a bridge before continuing with the eyeliner. "If we get Faith and either Groo or Connor, plus Angel or Gunn and including us, we'll have enough experienced team leaders to go around."

By 'us,' he knew she meant the whole Sunnydale crew. "How long? They'll need sleep."

"Let's say from nine until midnight?" Buffy searched through her bag for the mascara she wanted. "And I want to pair them up with the minions, too. I know there aren't enough of them to go around, but if they're out there on their own, I'm afraid the Slayers might stake on sight."

After a few seconds of thought, he nodded. "Keeps everyone out on the streets, fighting the incursion. Good thinking, love."

"How do you think that will go over?"

He took more time with this. "Some of their Watchers will balk."

Buffy's shoulders slumped. "It shouldn't be this complicated. We're all on the same side."

"Our reasons are different, though." Spike's tone changed as he warned, "Coming up on the first traffic light."

Buffy put down the mascara wand until they stopped. "Lawson should probably go out with one of us." It wouldn't be his first patrol, but he was still prone to zoning out if something made him especially emotional. If that happened, they could take up the slack and would keep him safe. It wasn't just the new Slayers. Considering what Lawson had planned for Angel's friends, he wasn't the L.A. crew's favorite vampire.

⸹

Buffy led the volunteer Slayers through another set of moves with their sword starting from the plow position. She ended in a circling parry before stopping, examining her charges. Most were watching their own form in the wall-length mirror behind her. "Again," she called.

She saw movement above her along the running track and glanced up, knowing it was Spike. Giles was with him, and they were deep in conversation.

"Okay," she called. "Show me what you remember when you're starting with fool's guard." _Do you have the teams put together?_

Spike met her eyes and gave her a brief smile. _Done. Doesn't look like the energy is going to manifest tonight, though._

 _Tomorrow?_

No smile now. _That's what the coven is saying._

 _Do we know where?_

 _Not yet. Ready for me?_

Buffy nodded and shifted her full attention back to the Slayers. "All right! Pair up with the person next to you."

Spike finished speaking with Giles, gripped his shoulder for a second, then leapt over the railing around the track to land behind Buffy and to her left. Some of the girls flinched, but he ignored them and went to the wall to get his sword.

"All right," Buffy said, pulling everyone's attention back to her. "Most demons you face won't be armed. They don't need to be; they already have their weapons." Spike obligingly went to game face. A murmur went through the Slayers. By now, they had all slain vampires, but seeing the yellow eyes and short muzzle in the calm of daytime was new. "Almost all demons have claws, even vampires. A good number have fangs, some venomous. There are stingers, skewers, suckers, barbs, thorns, mouths where you don't expect them… The list goes on. Spike? How would you get me down?"

He moved at full vampire speed, grabbing her and spinning her so her back was against his chest. His fangs stopped at her throat as gasps tore out of every one except hers. "I'd drain you." Since these girls didn't really know him yet, he stepped away and reclaimed his human features.

Buffy held up her sword. "So, awareness is key. Don't let something creep up on you, and always keep your stake or other weapon at hand."

"How do you stop something that fast?" Rona asked, something shaky in her voice.

Buffy looked at her husband and gave a silent wince. _I didn't mean to scare them._

 _You have time to show them how to stop me?_

The senior Slayer gave a decisive nod. "Good question. You guys keep your swords, but we're going to lay ours down." She handed her weapon to Spike, hilt-first. "First, I didn't move or try to evade Spike just now."

"Ladies, if you would take a couple of steps back?" Spike gave them a smile that turned devastating when he turned it on Buffy. "Give us room to play."

He stood the same distance from her as before, then rushed toward her at full speed. She spun, putting out a foot to trip him. Spike jumped over it and came back at her as soon as momentum allowed. This time, Buffy dropped and put her shoulder in his side. They both froze, swaying.

"From here," Spike said, "she could throw me down or toss me aside." Since their audience couldn't see him in the mirror, he figured they wouldn't see his hand squeeze his wife's backside, either. He practiced rushing her a few more times before they got their first question.

"You wouldn't come at us from the front, would you?" Vi asked. She had been watching intently.

Both of the blonds laughed. "He would, actually," Buffy said, "but he'd punch you first."

"Might kick," he noted.

"Spike likes a fight."

He didn't miss that she used the present tense. "Most vamps are hungry and just want a meal, though. They're far more likely to come from the side or from behind you."

"Show us, please," Ute said.

Buffy glanced at the big clock over the exit. "Okay. Just a few times, all right?" They went through the motions of rear and side attacks, Buffy showing pivots and where to drive an elbow. "Other questions?"

"I haven't seen a vampire that fast before," Geneva noted.

"Been around a long while, pet," Spike said. "Older we get, faster and sneakier we get." He nodded toward the wall behind her. "Four or five decades along, a lot of us can start to cling to walls and even ceilings. Always think three dimensionally."

"How do we know how old a vampire is?"

"Slayer senses," Buffy answered. "It's not my strongest ability, but I can always sense the old ones."

"So that's why I feel all tingly," Kayla said with a grin, something suggestive in her voice. Some of the other Slayers giggled, and she winked at Buffy.

"Okay!" Buffy said brightly. "Back to swords."

⸹

"This is a really nice town," Vi commented, nodding toward the hanging baskets of flowers on the lampposts. She was walking side-by-side with Buffy, her Watcher, a quiet man named Alan Jacobson, and Spike's minion DeShawn trailing behind them. They had drawn the downtown and docks patrol. "I mean, we live in central Florida, and my family does weekend trips to all kinds of little towns on the coasts. Most are kind of… functional."

"Thanks," Buffy said. "It wasn't always nice or functional. Our former mayor ran this town like a feeding trough for vampires. He tried to ascend to some kind of snaky demon during my high school graduation. Our new mayor is much better."

Vi's eyes widened. "Oh. So, pretty on the outside, but not a place you want to live."

Buffy shook her head. "It wasn't even that pretty, other than the location. Anya – the new mayor – writes a lot of grants for landscaping and urban renewal, and she recruited a lot of the nicer businesses you see." Her innate honesty forced the next words out. "But, no, you really wouldn't want to live here. Hellmouth." She shrugged.

"And that's the weird vibe we're getting?"

"I think that's the power building up. The local coven has bound a lot of the energies from the Hellmouth. We'll take you there on Thursday."

"Company," DeShawn warned. He whirled toward the alley at the end of the block, going to game face.

Buffy and Vi pivoted, stakes coming up in near identical moves. Behind them, Jacobson fitted a bolt into his crossbow and half-turned so he could watch their rear. Five vampires lunged out of the darkness toward them. DeShawn staked the first one, and Buffy and Vi staked two each.

Buffy put a hand on Vi's arm. "Do you feel any more?"

The younger Slayer tried, but just bit her lip. "Not with DeShawn here," she said apologetically.

"That's fine," Buffy said. "I've patrolled with Spike for so long, I've learned to only pay attention to vampires who are at least ten yards away."

"You probably won't have to develop that skill," DeShawn said with a smile. Then he realized he was still in game face and that his fangs wouldn't be all that reassuring.

"Probably not," Vi's Watcher agreed dryly.

⸹

"Do we need to be quiet?" Kayla asked.

"No, vampires are stupid and will just attack no matter if we're paying attention or not." Dawn sent a sideways glance at Luisa.

"Very funny," the vampiress sighed.

Kayla looked over her shoulder and grinned at her Watcher, a woman named Carolyn Greene. "I told you I wasn't talking too much," she teased, obviously referring to an ongoing issue in training.

The young Slayer glanced at Luisa but didn't ask any of the dozens of questions she wanted to ask. Dawn had grabbed her hands when the teams were announced and told her in a low voice that being a bride of Dracula was less glamor and more servitude. "A lot of vampires like being vampires," Dawn had continued, "but I only know of one person who wanted to become a monster. All of them were victims once."

It was a new perspective. Right before patrol might not have been the best time to feel sympathy for her usual quarry. Fortunately, so far they hadn't seen vampires as they covered the warehouse district. Instead, they had encountered demons. Kayla was just grateful they hadn't been slimy.

"Another team," Luisa said, pointing toward the intersection.

Connor spotted them at almost the same time. He lifted his sword in salute, and said something in a low tone to his group. They waited at the corner, Tara giving them a wave. "Hey, Dawn," he said. After a moment, his eyes went to the rest of them. "Luisa, ladies."

Dawn wasn't nearly as formal. She put her own sword to the side and moved in for a hug. "Hey, Connor. Enjoying your summer break?"

"I am now. Dad and I have been road tripping along Route 66 for a while." This trip to Sunnydale had been on the schedule. He'd been looking forward to it.

"Sounds like fun."

"It is, but only in a lame way." Connor smiled at her, gaze lingering just a second too long.

"Hey, Ute. How's patrol?" Kayla asked.

"Weird. No vampires, only demons."

"Us, too." As she listened to her Watcher introduce herself, Kayla's head tilted to the side. She was the shortest person there, but when she lifted a hand, everyone fell silent. "So, this is where they all were. Vampires behind us," she said quietly.

"Finally," Ute muttered. She turned to her Watcher, making sure he got that. He didn't speak good English and wore one of the enchanted microphones on his collar to take care of translations.

Connor slid into place to Dawn's right. Looking amused, Luisa took a place to her left. Dawn didn't roll her eyes at the overprotective supernatural beings, but she sheathed her light sword and took out a stake. "How many?"

"Over ten," Connor answered. "They'll try to surround us."

Kayla tucked her chin, something determined coming into her big brown eyes. "It won't do them any good."

The rangy blond Slayer fell into a stance beside her. "It'll do me some good," Ute smirked. She moved forward to meet the first vampire with a deadly sweep of her sword.

Kayla was right behind her, decapitating the next vampire before the dust of the first one finished falling onto the sidewalk. "Wow," she breathed, pivoting to the side to avoid the next attacker. "Buffy was right about beheading. Dust doesn't get on you."

Connor's head went up, his eyes narrowing. He launched himself from a standstill into a leap that took him to the second floor of a florist shop. He landed badly and turned it into a somersault, skinning his knuckles rather than lose his sword. The vampire he'd sensed lunged at him, so he used the sword as a skewer. It wouldn't kill it, but the pain did stop the creature. Pulling itself free from the blade, it backed away and promptly fell over the edge of the building.

"Shit," he hissed, hurtling toward the same spot. The rest of the teams were down there. He saw the starfish shape of the fallen vampire indistinctly; Dawn was leaning over it. She made an abrupt movement, turning the demon to dust, and her anxious eyes searched the top of the building until she spotted him. Connor saluted her with his sword, then dropped onto the back of one of the remaining vampires.

Less than a minute later, they were done. Tara had cast the tar spell, holding them still for stakes. Luisa gave her human friend a warm smile. "Easy as cake."

Tara hid her grin. "Easy as pie," she offered, "or easy as naughts and crosses, if you're Spike."

"As pie," Luisa agreed.

"You didn't change to vampire face," Kayla noted, giving her a curious look.

"No need to," she shrugged.

"I don't know if I've ever seen you with full bumpies," Dawn said, just realizing it. When she saw everyone was looking between them, she quickly added something so Luisa wouldn't feel put on the spot. "I mean, fangs and yellow eyes, sure. You just have great control over your demon."

Ute gave her a considering look. "I didn't know vampires could do that."

The Watchers were observing her with the same sort of fascination, and while he had the chance, Connor moved closer to Dawn. "Thanks for finishing off the roof-vamp for me."

She gave him a little smile and realized she was looking up at him for the first time. He'd had another growth spurt. "Well, I don't mind if you soften them up for me."

"Any time." He bit his lip and looked away, raking a hand through his sandy hair. "We should probably get back to patrol," he suggested, as soon as there was a break in the conversation. The two teams parted with a fist bump between Ute and Kayla. A minute or so later, Kayla nudged Dawn. "So. What's up with you and the hottie?"

Her cheeks went red. "Nothing. Connor's, like, my cousin. He's younger than me."

"Kissing cousins, maybe."

Dawn turned to her, incredulous. "Kayla!" She barely knew this girl.

Kayla was grinning. "What? He's into you. Anyone can see it."

"Kayla!" Carolyn Greene scolded. It earned her an unrepentant grin, too.

"She's right," Luisa said, her voice quiet and her smile hidden.

"I already have a boyfriend," Dawn ground out.

"Ooh, tell me everything," Kayla demanded cheerfully. "Is he hot?"

⸹

"Nervous, pet?"

Rona glanced sidelong at Spike. Part of her didn't want to admit any weakness to the vampire, but he had been perfectly nice during training the last two days. "A little. Not because of the patrol" – they had already taken out three demons and a fledge emerging from its grave – "but because of the two of you." She moved her fingers in a gesture that included Sam Lawson, who was walking silently behind them. Her Watcher, a short Frenchman named Luc Dubois, gave her a look of concern.

"Slayer senses," Spike said, nodding. "Buffy said it took her a few months before she got used to me."

"How long have you two known each other?"

He thought about it. "Since ninety-seven. She'd been called just over a year by then."

"I heard the rumors about you going to the Hellmouth for your fourth," Sam said, giving him a curious look.

"Fourth?" Rona asked.

Her Watcher nodded toward Spike. "Slayer of Slayers." To his credit, the words were mild.

Spike met Rona's eyes frankly. "Always in a fair fight, love. Not interested in any of that now."

"What changed?" Rona had started walking again, but she was another step farther away.

"Met Buffy." Spike wished for a cigarette just to have something to do with his hands. "Never was a proper vampire, according to the olds. Figured I didn't have to be anything but what she needed. Wasn't hard to give up that part of it."

"And that's why you got your soul." Lawson was looking at him like this explained a lot.

It surprised Spike; he figured the whole story was out there. But maybe not. He hadn't wanted to make himself so alien that the minions wouldn't follow him. "We'll talk, mate." Sam seemed satisfied with the promise.

"What are those things?" Rona asked, gesturing toward some figures near a mausoleum. Their patrol route included four cemeteries.

The men focused their attention. "Harnish?" the Watcher asked.

"Carnyss," Spike said. "See the head covering on the bugger in the back?" He didn't wait, just flashed toward the six demons, sword at the ready.

Rona was beside him, no hesitation in this Slayer. She was on his right, swinging her sword at the perfect time to take the head off a foot soldier. After his own sword did the same, Spike had time to call "Nice!" before the next one was on him.

"Master!" Sam was in game face and on the demon before Spike had a chance to change the arc of his swing. He managed to check himself enough to prevent the blade from slicing through the other Aurelian. Since Lawson had the demon down, he turned to see a bolt shoot past him to land in the chest of the Carnyss leader. The Watcher, he assumed, but just now his attention was on Rona. Two of the demons barreled into her, knocking her sword free of her grip.

Slayer! The drive to help her rang through every cell of Spike's being. "Rona!" He threw his sword the moment her face turned in his direction. Spike knew she would catch it, so he launched himself at the chief Carnyss.

They were a match in strength, but the demon had nothing on him in fighting prowess. Spike knew where to hit, knew dozens of ways to shape his hands to create maximum damage. He had the beast on its belly with four moves, then simply tore its head from its body. Spike loved horned demons; the horns made such lovely handholds.

From the quiet, he knew the fight was over, so he brushed his coat and jeans as he stood. "All right, then?"

Rona was back on her feet, looking at the two demons near her feet. She drew in a shaky breath, then spun the sword in her hand so the pommel pointed toward Spike. "Thank you."

"No worries, pet. You got three of them. Good job."

Sam bent to scoop up the sword Rona lost and handed it to her wordlessly, but his attention was on Spike. He waited until the young Slayer regained her breath and her equilibrium, then put a hand on Spike's chest. "What was that?"

"Bit more specific, mate?"

"I saw you attacked, and…"

"And you had to rush to my defense."

"But I didn't submit."

"Doesn't matter. I'm the oldest in the line now. It's instinct." It seemed to be instinct for him to go to the aid of Slayers now.

"It… That was weird."

"Not a human thing," Spike agreed. "Used to do the same for my great-grandsire, and I hated the bitch." He shrugged and clapped Lawson on the shoulder. "Good job. Let's go find more beasties, then."

⸹

"Come to bed, love."

Buffy groaned. "Seven dusty vampires, plus six demons. I think. I should shower."

"You should sleep." He considered picking her up bodily, but figured that might backfire. Instead, Spike took her hand and tugged her toward their bed. "You can sleep in, yeah? Don't have to be at the gym until noon or so."

"What about you?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'll be right here with you. Didn't sleep much yesterday, either."

"All right," Buffy agreed, giving in reluctantly. Her tired eyes looked overlarge in the dim light of their bedroom. "It all went okay, didn't it?"

"No one staked anyone important, and Sam didn't freeze up. I'd call it a win. Bodes well for tomorrow."

"Today," she whispered. By now, she had stripped out of her clothes. Spike helped her finish by unhooking her bra. "I don't think I can sleep."

"Lay down with me for twenty minutes. Try. If you can't, I'll get up with you, keep you company." _You take too much on yourself, kitten._

They woke to the ring of the telephone. Buffy was out of bed and heading to the kitchen to answer it. Spike rolled over and looked at the clock, already knowing that the sun was rising. Guess we were both sleepy, he thought, stumbling after his wife.

She hung up the phone and looked at him. "Giles. They have the location."

"It's the gym, isn't it? Where the Slayers are gathered."

Buffy shook her head. "A warehouse on tenth."

"What? Why?"

"No idea; just relieved." She realized it was morning. "Would you do coffee again? I really have to pee."

Spike grabbed her for just a second as she went past, giving her a quick kiss and a smile. "Glad it isn't your gym."

"Me, too."

Spike put on coffee to brew and poached some eggs in the microwave, throwing together English muffins and Canadian bacon for the rest of the sandwich. He was going to have to feed today to be at his best; last night had been too hectic. "Where are we s'posed to be?"

"Meeting at the hotel. There are already a bunch of Watchers at the warehouse."

He met her eyes. "And they didn't find anything?"

"Nothing. Anya says the local demons all pinpointed the same place, though. They've already gone to the shelters to get away from the pull." Buffy leaned against the counter and put her hand on his arm. "And you don't feel anything?"

Spike thought before answering. "Dunno. A restlessness, maybe." He twined his fingers through hers. "Glad it's finally here. We'll deal with this, love. We always do."

She smiled at him, already feeling easier because the wait was over. "Yes, we do."

⸹

Giles clicked the button to end the call and looked at Buffy. "Anya says the shelters are getting full."

"Already?" Buffy glanced at the windows of the warehouse, as though she could see masses of demons heading for the enchanted safety of several of Sunnydale's elementary schools. Anya had posted announcements at every point of entry into the town, hoping that the more civilized demons would turn away from the maddening pursuit of the energy and go to the shelters instead.

"Mm. I'm very glad it's here."

"Me, too." The warehouse was one of the many abandoned buildings in Sunnydale's industrial district. Xander said that someone had bought the whole block, hoping to convert the warehouses into housing, but they hadn't been able to track down the owner. For everyone's safety, they'd knocked out the rest of the glass in the windows early in the day. "For some reason, I thought things wouldn't get started until dark."

"It does seem odd to fight in daylight," Giles agreed, "but it will keep vampires away and make things easier for us." Spike's minions would teleport in after nightfall. He propped against a support beam. They were on the second floor, really just a loft over half the main floor. "The volunteer Slayers all did really well on patrol last night. All of them – as they do – volunteered to be here. Whenever you want them."

She was touched that he waited for her opinion, but both of them felt the rightness of her leadership. Buffy was signing off on all battle plans, and she and Spike would take point. "Send for the bus," she said, again feeling the decision was the right one, even as she quailed at the thought of leading the teenagers into battle.

Giles knew. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a tender smile. "We're all here for you."

She covered his hand. "I know." Buffy blew a stray strand of hair from her brow. "I just wish we could pinpoint this energy."

⸹

"This isn't fair," Dawn sulked. She couldn't sit still, so she threw herself on the floor next to Max. He smiled at her and made a grab for her hair.

"Save some of your disgust for the other possible eleven battles that you won't be part of," Joyce said, coming into the living room and settling herself into the wingback chair. She leaned over and rummaged around in a basket of yarn. Tara was teaching her to knit.

"I can fight," Dawn informed her sullenly. "I staked two vampires last night."

"A battle is different than patrol," Joyce said. "It could go on for hours, not minutes. You're just human."

"So is Xander. So are Angel and Gunn."

"And all three of them have more experience than you."

Dawn rolled over, watching Max transfer the strands of her hair from one chubby fist to another. "You want to crawl?" she asked him, getting to her hands and knees. Max let go of her hair and fell forward, his arms braced, and grinned at her when he found himself in the same position. "Let's do laps around Mom, okay?"

Joyce scooped up the yarn basket with its dangerous needles and tucked it behind her. She concentrated on the purl stitch, getting almost fifteen minutes of practice in before Max grew cross and crawled away from his sister.

"He's hungry," Dawn told her.

"And you aren't?" She put her knitting in the basket and lifted Max into her lap.

Dawn shook her head, though it was suppertime. "I can't eat."

Joyce sighed. "Me, either."

"Well, we can feed him, anyway. You can eat, can't you, Max? You can always eat."

⸹

Willow looked around at Tara and Michael, the only other coven members at the battle. They had set up Spike's minions with a portal crystal for the moment it would be dark enough for them to be in the warehouse. They had set a force field in a dome over the warehouse to keep out flying demons. She had a supply of the rings with stored energy waiting nearby. "I'm forgetting something," she moaned. "I know I am."

"Honey, you haven't forgotten anything," Tara said soothingly. "We've done everything we talked about."

"What about the –"

"The wall strengthening?" Michael finished. "I did that." They didn't want demons making their own entrances into the building.

Willow's eyes were on Oz, who was on the main floor, grinning at something Xander said. She realized she was wringing her hands the moment before Tara stilled them with her own hand.

"It's going to be all right," she promised.

"How do you know?"

"I don't." Tara gave her a serene smile. "But whatever happens, it will be okay. We're doing the right thing, sugar, keeping power away from evil. This is where we make our stand."

"She's right." Michael enveloped them both in an awkward hug. The ax slung across his back, one he'd forged himself, shifted and bumped Tara's shoulder. "Sorry."

Spike was perched above them in an empty window. He swung away from the frame like a sailor in rigging and called, "Incoming!"

Willow took a breath and gave each coven member a nod, but leaned in and gave Tara a quick kiss. She set her feet and looked down at the two doors that had been left open for the influx of demons. A long shadow spilled across the rectangle of sunlight, heralding the first arrival.

"Keep your eyes open for the djinn!" Aubrey called. They had eyes on all angles of the warehouse, but it would be easy to get tunnel vision during battle.

"Looks like you get first blood," Buffy called to Faith. She and Spike had point at one door; Faith and Groo at the other. The younger Slayers were ranged behind them, interspersed with their ex-military support, the Scoobies, and the rest of the L.A. crew.

Faith threw a look over her shoulder, spotting Connor and Angel, both standing with their swords over their shoulders, and Gunn standing nearly a head taller than everyone else with Wesley. Then she stepped forward and buried a dagger in the throat of the hulking, bluish demon that snarled and took a swipe at her.

"It's on," Willow whispered.

⸹

Joyce looked at the cell phone ringing on the counter as if it might bite. She took a breath and picked it up. "Hi, Anya."

"Hey, Joyce." Her voice was tight. "I just got a text from Xander. The first demon just showed up."

"Thank you for letting us know, dear. How are things at the shelters?"

"Good. The spells are keeping everyone calm." She paused for a moment. "Is this driving you crazy? Being useless?"

"You are certainly not useless, Madam Mayor," Joyce scolded. "You're playing a huge role. They don't have to worry about striking out at townsfolk who can't control themselves."

"Thanks." The ex-demon took a breath. "It could be me, you know?"

"It would never be you," Joyce reassured her. "You're too smart to hang around for this sort of thing."

"I was, once." Anya's voice came back stronger. "Thank you, Joyce. You always know just what to say."

"Uh, you're welcome." She wasn't quite sure what had reassured her. "Let us know if you need anything."

"I will. Bye, Joyce."

She laid the mobile back down. "You heard?"

"I did." Dawn nodded at Max, who sat in his high chair with a smear of sweet potato puree on his chin. "You want me to clean him up?"

"Please. And if you can get him down for the night, it isn't too early."

"I'll try." Dawn unhooked the safety harness and hoisted her baby brother into the air. "Come on, bug. You want to get clean?"

⸹

Tara watched Spike and Buffy strike with perfect synchronicity along either flank of a six-armed demon. Only their supernatural reflexes kept them upright as it fell at their feet, forcing them back into a pile of demon bodies. "We have to get rid of those," she fretted. "They're already using the bodies to skirt to the sides."

The blond witch was right; several demons were coming around the sides of the short wall of corpses. While they seemed more interested in looking for the energy than attacking, it spread the focus of the force on the ground. And the angle was getting steep for the Watchers in the loft who were picking off stray demons with crossbow bolts.

Willow's eyes narrowed. She'd been shooting lightning bolts from her fingertips and felt she could continue for hours. She wasn't sure the zaps killed demons, but it sure put them down. But Tara was right about the number of bodies. She thought hard as she shot another demon, a small, furry one with long claws. "How about a scour spell?"

Tara's nose wrinkled, an adorable gesture that had to go unappreciated just now. "Wouldn't that be ooky?"

"Not if we go to the molecular level." She thought hard. "What's the focus? Dead bodies?"

"Sure – no! Spike."

"Oh. I forgot." Willow went to the jewelry roll behind them and took out two battery rings. She gave one to Michael and the other to Tara. "I've got the focus," she told them. "Inanimate flesh."

"You aren't tired?" Tara asked, looking pointedly at the lack of ring on Willow's slender fingers.

"No. I feel like I could go all night." The look they shared lasted a beat too long, and they turned as one to look down at the floor to the spot where Oz fought alongside Xander and the German Slayer. Then they moved back and clasped hands with Michael.

Buffy felt the wave of raw power move past her. The waist-high pile of demon corpses disappeared, replaced with a layer of a powdery substance she didn't want to consider too closely. Glancing up, she threw up her left hand in a gesture of gratitude, but immediately turned her attention to the door. Another pair of demons was coming through.

⸹

Instead of going back downstairs after Max fell asleep, Dawn sat down in the rocker. She could tell from the light in the house that the sun was setting. She could hear the television where Joyce hadn't been able to take the silence any longer. The battle had been going on for over two hours now. Dawn knew her mother was right – she could go about three minutes when Buffy or Spike let her spar with them – but sitting on the sidelines was torture.

Sitting upright in the rocker, Dawn's eyes narrowed. Something had happened. Something at the battle.

Someone had opened a portal.

Inside, she went very still.

Pocket dimension, one doorway. The djinn's… prison?

She stood and went to the door. Giles and Joyce had a little message board on the door, left over from the days they slept in shifts with Max. Dawn grabbed the pen and scrawled 'Checking out the djinn's portal' on the white surface. Then she made a twisting gesture with her right hand and disappeared from her home.

⸹

Spike felt the sun sink beyond the horizon, one of his most basic senses. It came with a little rush of energy, which he could honestly use. It also came with vampires. He could feel them skittering out of the sewers, opening manhole covers so they could converge on the warehouse. He could also feel them behind him. The minions were here.

Spike's sword took a demon through the throat. Buffy darted to his left for a moment, leaving two more bodies in her wake before returning to his right. God, his girl was bloody beautiful in battle. She had a smear of something on her cheek, and he longed to paint her naked breasts with blood, to mark her as befitted a warrior.

Shaking his head, trying to break the bloodlust, he saw that Sam Lawson had ranged up next to Angel and Connor, giving them a determined nod. After a moment, they accepted his help. Spike sank his fangs into a tentacle that wandered too close to his face, and he jerked his head back, powerful jaw and neck muscles ripping the appendage free. He spat the foul mouthful of flesh out, following up with a thrust of his sword that impaled the demon. Ocean-dweller, outside its comfort zone this far inland.

He spun, getting his back beneath a demon that hurled itself at Buffy. Once it flipped onto the ground, she beheaded it with a casual swipe of the Scythe. She met his eyes for a second, battle lust shining back at him. When I get you somewhere halfway private… Spike wanted to send the thought but didn't, not wanting to distract her.

Behind him, he noted a flare of light, but didn't attach any meaning to it. No time, anyway, because something with tusks was bellowing and charging in his direction.

⸹

Dawn found herself facing the back wall of the warehouse, looking at a simple metal door. She turned to see the fight behind her, and her eyes were immediately drawn to her sister and her brother-in-law's bright heads. They moved in a deadly dance among the advancing demons. She spotted her friends and the new Slayers among the black-clad figures of the Council's paramilitary units.

Then she turned back to the wall and the door that shouldn't be there. No time to watch the battle. There was a portal, and that fell to her to investigate. She turned the handle.

When Dawn went through, she was clutching a stake in her right hand. Lesson the first, Spike had said, but he said that about a lot of things. She never had to reach for her weapon. Buffy and Spike drilled that into her.

So when a vampire charged down a hallway toward her, she was ready for it. In fact, all she really had to do was raise the stake to the right angle; the vampire's momentum took care of the rest. "Easy as cake," she whispered.

The second vampire wasn't as easy. She had been a tall woman, over six feet, and Dawn came away from the short fight with a shredded sleeve and bloody scratches on her arm. Scowling, she examined her arm and wished that she had thought of grabbing a jacket at the very least.

The hallway crooked around a corner, which wasn't what hallways usually did. Giving it a narrow look, she readjusted her grip on her stake and started forward. Dawn didn't hear anything but her footsteps.

The hallway crooked again.

The third time the passageway angled, it also came to an abrupt end, opening into a cavern. Glancing behind her, Dawn edged forward and saw the path continued on a rickety series of platforms and ramps that angled down toward the bottom of the cavern. Which she could not see.

"I'm not doing this," she muttered. She made the same gesture with her right hand, transporting herself to the bottom of the cavern. "No way those walkway thingies would have held."

Dawn found herself in a huge space larger than she could really comprehend. As far as she could see in any direction, long, wide strips of white cloth hung nearly to the floor. The ceiling was so high above her, she couldn't see from where they were suspended. The fabric swayed slightly with the air movement, rippling, producing the occasional snap, reminding her of sails. The whole area was bathed in a soft white light.

Dawn took another few steps in the direction the light shone brightest, lowering the stake. She pushed aside one of the curtains and found herself face to face with a stern-faced man. The black eyebrows threw her, she decided. They were scary, but his dark eyes were actually kind. "Hi. Are you the djinn?"

⸹

"B?" Faith called, her dagger held halfway along her chest. "Are they… leaving?"

Buffy finished breaking the neck of some squat demon with strands of seaweed caught on its spines and looked around. "They are." She had a moment of relief, then her eyes widened. "Oh, crap. They're heading out into the town."

Spike turned immediately. "To me!" he cried, putting a little of his power into the call. His minions' attention snapped to him right away – as did Connor's, he noticed with detached interest. "Blighters headed into our town." He sliced his sword to the side, slinging gore from the blade. "Let's go give 'em a good killing!"

Even as the vampires swarmed past the other fighters, heading to the Master, Willow's voice rang out. "Wait!" She stepped to the edge of the loft and raised one hand. A pulse of power burst from her, leaving her hair and eyes momentarily black. As color came back into her, she swayed with fatigue. Seeing this, Oz bounded onto the staircase, immediately turning at an angle to propel himself up to her, his momentum carrying her away from danger.

"What was that?" he asked, lowering her to the torn linoleum.

"Making fewer demons," she whispered.

Even though Faith couldn't hear Willow's words, she figured out what it was. "Cleanup," she announced. "Groo and I will go," she nodded to the door and the diminishing figures of the vampires. "You guys stay here." Buffy was gone, too, not about to leave Spike's side.

Angel went down on one knee, fighting to keep his breath even. He looked up at Connor, who was staring after Faith. "Go on," he managed. Connor touched his shoulder and gave him a quick grin. Then he was gone, too.

Giles stepped forward. He had come down to the main floor of the warehouse earlier to shore up the left corner. He knew it was poor use of his weapon, but he put the tip of his sword on the floor to help keep himself upright. Like Angel, he was exhausted. He looked around. The volunteer Slayers looked upbeat and ready to go another round. Several of their support team members had taken injuries, but none seemed serious. He stood up and projected his voice as best he could; his throat was parched. "Excellent work, ladies. I know you want to go out and help with, er, patrol, but we need to get you back to the hotel. You'll have people who are worried about you."

Rupert saw Xander, his dark hair plastered to his head with sweat, take out his cell phone and move toward the opposite wall. I should do the same, he thought, but duty first. "Did anyone notice anything of the djinn? The power source?" Silence met his question. Forcing a smile, he kept his voice light. "Next time then. I'll call the buses, shall I?"

It was almost fifteen minutes later before he had a chance to make his own phone call. "Joy?" The nickname slipped out without his permission. Dear lord, he was tired.

"Rupert?" Joyce's voice was tight.

"Everyone's fine. The battle went – Well, it was horrible, but we didn't suffer any losses."

"But you didn't find the power source." She could tell from his voice alone.

"No. Not this time."

⸹

The djinn inclined his head. "Mistress of Doorways," he greeted her. "I am Sayeed."

"Hi, Sayeed." She looked at the table in front of him, then at the lamp on a low pedestal just behind him. "So, how does this work?"

"You may do this." He seemed surprised by his own words, as though something about her might have been disqualifying. "Pass by without taking up the lamp and go to your death, or take up the lamp to illuminate the wish of your heart."

No passing by. "One wish, huh? I want to close the Hellmouth." She had wanted to do this since she realized she had some control over the power inside her.

He nodded gravely. "You may do that."

"No, I really can't." Dawn swung her hair back in an irritated gesture. "The town above the Hellmouth gets destroyed. I was hoping that your power could do it safely?"

Sayeed shook his head. "It is not in the nature of doors to remain closed. To close one requires… force."

The corners of Dawn's mouth tightened. "Figures. I can't get to yes." Her eyes went to the lamp, drawn to the power of their own accord. Something occurred to her, and she had the answer before the thought had fully formed. She took a couple of steps closer to the djinn. She had something to bargain with now. "Sayeed, what will you do when you are free from your prison?"

He gave her a long look, then inclined his head again, deeper this time. "I am not as powerful as many there, but I will repair to the Deeper Well. I believe they will give me shelter, small thing though I am in that company. There will I sleep until as such time as the world may hold my kind again." The djinn looked away from her. "Here, I do not sleep. I do not dream."

Dawn examined him for a moment before deciding. "Give me your oath that you will go there directly, doing no harm along the way. If you help me solve my riddle and give me your oath, I can unlock your prison." When his eyes flashed to hers, widening, she gave him a single, sure nod. "I am the Key."

⸹

Buffy and Spike were far away from Faith, Groo, and the minions now, deep in the Shady Rest. They had tracked a last knot of vampires to a crypt where they tried to go to ground. Buffy had a pair of stakes that said otherwise. She let out a breath, sensing around her. No demons. Bending over, she felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her.

But, no. There was one demon. He stood before her, lean and strong, holding her weapon, regarding her with golden eyes. Buffy pulled herself upright, then launched herself at him. It took her a moment to realize the growl she heard was coming from her own throat.

Her vampire caught her tight, answering with a growl of his own. His claws scrabbled at her clothes for a second, then became plain, clever fingers. Her own hands clutched at the dark denim over her vampire's crotch, frantic to get the belt undone. Then her own jeans were down at her ankles, one shoe gone. Buffy was still unbuttoning his fly as Spike gathered her in his arms and soared onto the top of the crypt.

"Yes," he croaked, velvet voice a ruin of exhaustion and lust as she freed him from his jeans. He clutched her close, half-crouched above her.

"Need you." Buffy manhandled him onto his back and drove her body onto his with no ceremony, crying out with both pleasure and pain.

Spike knew they were going too fast, but he couldn't make sense of that knowledge. He gripped his mate by her shoulders and brought her neck to his mouth even as he bucked beneath her. His fangs sliced into her throat as his first orgasm rolled through his body.

Buffy cried out with only pleasure now, despite the pain. She was frozen in place, unable to escape the world of pure sensation that encompassed her entire universe. Her body was shaking as an intense orgasm ricocheted along every nerve; her heart was full of the utter knowledge of Spike's love and completion; her mind was as empty as his demon's, existing on a blank plane of fulfilled desires.

Nothing mattered but this.

Connection, unending.

She didn't know how long she stayed there, only that the sound of their harsh breathing was something from the real world. "Spike?" Buffy whispered, confused. She stared down at him. His eyes were blue again, his mouth was bruised from her kisses, and there was blood on the column of his throat. She touched the injury tentatively. "Are you okay?"

And she realized she could taste blood on her tongue.

 _You look well and truly fucked._

 _So do you._ She returned his lazy grin. Then she tapped his neck. _When did this happen?_ It was recent.

 _When you bit me just now, love._ She felt his cock twitch, still caught deep inside her.

 _I bit…? I did not._

 _You did._ He gave her another languid, pleased smile. _Right over my sire's mark._ His smug words caused a surge of possessive jealousy to roll through her.

 _I bit you?_

 _Well, I bit you, too._

 _You're a vampire._

 _I'm your vampire. And you're my Slayer. The Slayer._ Even without spoken words, it sounded possessive.

 _Why would I do... that?_ Her fingers brushed across the wound, trying to see the damage.

He shivered. _Because I'm yours._

Buffy swallowed. She had attacked him. They had come together like animals. _It's a demon thing._

He lifted a shoulder. _We're coming down after a battle. I think it's just a warrior thing._

 _I'm sorry._

 _Oh, love. Don't apologize for marking me as yours. It's something I want. Let everyone know I belong to you._

She broke eye contact because the emotion was too intense now that her Slayer side was quiescent and leaned in carefully to place a kiss on his neck. Whatever just passed between them, it had little do with the human part of Buffy Summers. _I didn't mean to hurt you._

Even as his hips jerked involuntarily beneath her touch on her bite, Spike's concern was swift. His demon had receded, too. _Are_ you _hurt?_

She shook her head. This, she could handle. "More." Her voice was wrecked, too.

They were too tired to do things properly. Only fifteen minutes later, part of that spent finding her lost shoe, they headed out of the Shady Rest toward Revello Drive. Spike's steps slowed as they passed under a streetlight, and he reached out to angle Buffy's jaw and look at her neck. "Sorry, love. Those are definitely my marks now."

If he felt any regret, Buffy didn't hear it in his voice. His expression was smug. She turned him so she could see his neck. The wound was an impression of a slightly flattened circle of her even teeth. If she'd bitten down harder, she would have torn his neck. "That looks horrible," Buffy whispered.

"No, love," he said, taking her hand from his throat. "'S beautiful. Wish they wouldn't heal."

She gave him a tired smile. "Vampires are weird."

Spike pulled her against his side, and they made their way home. All the lights in the house were on, but that wasn't surprising. Buffy checked both of them to make sure they were decent before they went inside.

Joyce was on them in a flash. "Are you okay?" She took them in. "Oh, God. You're bleeding, both of you."

"We're fine, Mom." When the worried look didn't fade, Buffy's eyes sharpened. "What's wrong?"

"It's Dawn. She went after the genie on her own."

⸹

The only reason Buffy was on her feet was because Spike was holding her up. In the ten minutes since they'd been home, he'd forced a bottle of water and a slice of pizza on her. She vaguely remembered him wiping her face and throat with a wet paper towel. "We'll go back to the warehouse." It wasn't the first time she'd said that.

"The energy isn't there, Buffy," Giles snapped. "It disappeared around the time the demons started to disperse." He paced away, his frustration and helplessness mounting each minute that passed without news of Dawn. "Anyway, Willow and Tara are there."

Across the room, Joyce sat with Anya, holding hands. Aubrey and Xander moved around unobtrusively as possible, trying to get food into their exhausted friends. Xander heard a car outside and checked out the dining room window. Before he really registered that it was Angel's GTX, Connor launched himself from the convertible to the porch.

"Is she still…?"

Xander opened the door wide for the teenager, feeling a pang of sympathy. "Still missing." Even now, he couldn't bring himself to form the words 'Come in.'

Angel made his way more sedately to the door. "Nothing when we left the warehouse," he reported.

"Why would she do that?" Buffy asked.

"It was a portal," Aubrey said. His worry had a slight edge of anger at the crowd in his house. None of them seemed to trust that she knew what she was doing. "That's her business."

"None of this was her business," Ripper growled, forgetting for a moment that he was merely Rupert Giles. He was too involved in pacing to notice that both Spike and Connor were frozen, looking up at the stairs.

"Hey, guys," Dawn said casually, coming down the stairs. "How did it go?"

⸹

The noise level in the Summers house didn't fall for more than half an hour. Dawn got to tell parts of her story, but it wasn't until Oz arrived with Chinese food and three tired coven members that quiet fell. She watched everyone take a seat around the couch where she sat with her mother and stepfather, most of them sprawling on the floor.

Aubrey, giving her a keen look, called for the story. Dawn described how she knew a portal had opened to a pocket dimension, and then she took a lot of grief for going to explore it on her own. Willingham gave her a sympathetic look as Joyce scolded her.

"Anyway," Dawn went on, once the recriminations slowed, "I met the djinn." She glossed over the two vampires just inside the doorway. "His name was Sayeed, and I got one wish." She gave Aubrey a small smile. "For a long time, I've wanted to close the Hellmouth. I mean, Key, right? Only, Hellmouths don't close without a lot of damage. Like, Pompeii-level damage. So, that was my wish. Sayeed helped me figure it out."

"Wait," Giles said. "You closed the Hellmouth?"

Dawn took a quick bite of fried rice and shook her head. "No, not closed." She waited until everyone was looking at her. "We put a screen door on it."

Spike's brow furrowed. "A screen door?"

She nodded. "Buffy, remember when you bandaged my shin after patrol, and I used the gauze for my painting?" When her sister nodded, Dawn went on. "So, I was kind of thinking of that, and then I thought of the day we sent the Council teams through the portals to take out the Harbingers. Anya, remember how I borrowed the charm from you?"

"The one that sloughs off harmful spells? I remember."

Tara and Willow exchanged a glance. "The one we made?" Willow asked.

Anya nodded, then turned her attention back to Dawn. She had a good feeling about this.

"So, Sayeed let me ask him what I could do, even though he couldn't just tell me – some kind of compulsion, I guess. I figured out that, even if it wasn't possible to close the Hellmouth, I could put a filter over it."

"What did you filter out?" Anya asked. She almost wished she had popcorn; this was better than any suspense movie she'd ever seen.

"Well, evil," Dawn said simply. "If something wants to come through, it's going to leave behind most of its evil intentions."

An unwilling grin took Oz's mouth. "Like a squeegee."

Dawn pointed her chopsticks at him. "Exactly!"

Buffy felt a little like she was floating. "So, if something gets summoned…"

"A much less evil thing than expected will show up," Dawn finished.

"What about the energy of the Hellmouth?" Anya asked, waiting anxiously. A little demonic tingle was desirable, but Hellmouth-level energy attracted too much of the wrong element.

"I-I don't know," Dawn admitted. "I'm guessing it won't be as strong."

Giles, tired both from the battle and from the stress of worrying over his daughter, slumped a little. His responsibilities didn't stop with Sunnydale. "I'll call the Watchers in Cleveland, see if they've noticed any uptick –"

"Oh!" Dawn made a face. "Sorry. Did I not say that? I put a screen door on all the Hellmouths. Worldwide." She shrugged. "Kinda tired. I guess I'm not being real clear."

⸹

The party lasted for another two hours and only broke up because the police showed up to investigate a noise complaint from the neighbors. Dawn sat on the back steps with Buffy for a few minutes, holding her weeping sister. "I didn't get rid of all the demons or anything," she finally said, exasperated.

"You don't know, Dawnie." Buffy's voice was thick. "I can't remember the last time I felt free. I mean, no matter how many airplanes or how much money we have, I could never leave Sunnydale. And now I can. I'm _free_."

"I know, you dork. Why do you think I've been trying so hard to close it?"

Tears spilled down Buffy's cheeks and still sparkled in her large eyes. "I love you."

"I love you, too." Dawn hugged her, happy even as she kind of resented how her sister could cry and look adorable. When she cried, she looked like a wet, splotchy Shar-Pei.

"You saved me."

"That's right," Dawn agreed. "You so owe me."

Buffy sniffled and wiped her face on the sleeve of her rather grubby jacket. "Talk to me when you've saved the world multiple times, little sister."

Dawn looked behind her. "Hi, Spike. You better take her home. She stopped making sense about half an hour ago."

"Brat." Buffy sighed and gave her sister another hug. "Shopping spree on me. Los Angeles or wherever you want."

"Really?" Dawn squealed. Then she caught Spike's tolerant gaze again. "You heard that, right?"

"Did, Bit."

Her brows drew together. "Go home. You two are exhausted."

"I could sleep," Buffy admitted.

Dawn suffered through one more hug, this one from Spike, so that wasn't so bad. She looked over the back yard and yawned. It had been a long day. Right now, just going downstairs to bed seemed like a better idea than going into the living room and getting yelled at and hugged some more.

She wasn't expecting anyone to be in her bed. Connor was sprawled crossways, his feet dangling off the side. He sat up, blinking. "I think I fell asleep."

"In my bed." Her voice came out more breathy and less grumpy than she intended.

"I wanted to speak to you alone." He stood up and came close to her, taking a breath to steady his nerves. "Next time, don't go alone. I'll go with you."

"It was spur of the mom– "

Connor put a finger on her full lips. "I won't have to think about it. I won't have to even say yes. I'll just go with you. Always, any time, just hold out your hand." He moved his finger away and replaced it with his mouth. When he pulled away from the kiss, his eyes were dark. "I don't want you stuck somewhere alone."

"O-okay." She swayed toward him and kissed him back.

Connor didn't really smile, but the tension around his eyes went away. "I'd better go." His voice was husky. "Dad really wants to find a hotel room and get some sleep."

"Good idea," Dawn whispered. Alby, she thought. I have a boyfriend. "Sleeping, I mean."

"Good night." He didn't linger, just went up the stairs without a backward look.

Dawn stared after him for a long time. Of all that happened today, somehow Connor's appearance in her bedroom loomed largest.

⸹

The Scooby meeting the next day was really an excuse for a cookout. After finishing up with a day of workshops and training with the young Slayers, none of them were in the mood to be stuck inside. Tara and Dawn lay on a blanket in the backyard with Max, who kept trying to crawl away from them toward Joyce's flowerbeds. The blanket struck Buffy as a good idea, so she brought out all of her mother's beach towels and laid them on the ground.

Xander complained about being stuck with grill duty, so Oz and Spike joined him. As they had raided the storeroom at Fangs, their help mostly consisted of keeping him supplied with beer.

"Let's get started, shall we?" Giles said. He was rubbing the bridge of his nose. "With any luck, the meeting will be done by the time the sausages are."

Joyce saw the signs that he had a headache and brought a beer to him. She perched on the arm of his Adirondack chair and took a sip of her own pale ale. "Do we have an agenda?"

"No. Who wants to go first?"

"I will," Aubrey said. He had a dark bottle of stout in his hand and two empties on the table in front of him. "I declare the Kanai prophecy complete. Thanks to Dawn, our side got to the djinn's energy first." He raised his bottle in salute, so proud of her for her sharp thinking and for freeing the djinn. The Deeper Well would be rest rather than prison.

"I'll go next," Anya said. She was almost giddy. "The Hellmouth energy has dropped and, according to some of our more sensitive citizens, changed. They find it 'titillating,' which, for our sexy Sunnydale campaign, could not be better news."

"My turn," Willow said. "I heard from the coven in Devon. They say the same thing has happened to every Hellmouth. I mean, this was the most active one, but the rest of them also saw a drop in energy levels."

Buffy raised her hand. "I just wanted to say that the volunteer Slayers loved the battle last night. They want us to throw another one for them next year."

Xander groaned and gestured theatrically with his spatula, causing Oz to dodge to the side. "They're all insane."

When no one spoke, Giles looked around. "Anyone else?"

Max, who had been crawling, sat down abruptly on his well-padded butt and squealed, "Dadadadadadada!"

Joyce's mouth opened, then she grinned down at her husband. "I guess he told you."

Giles gave her a foolish grin. "First word? Can we count it, I mean?"

"I'll write down the date, 'Dada.'" She gave him a kiss.

"Meeting adjourned," Giles said, beaming as he scrambled to his feet, heading for Max.

⸹

Spike handed Buffy a plate with potato chips and a burger with lots of tomato and lettuce. Then he sat down behind her on the towel and pulled her back, letting her use him as a chair.

"Mmm, looks good." She peered up at him. "Aren't you going to have anything?"

"Not hungry." He put his mouth against her ear. "Not after what I had last night."

A jolt of lust shot through her, and Buffy turned her face to capture his mouth with hers. She moved away reluctantly. "How are you feeling? Really?"

"All the baby Slayers are fine." He shrugged. "That's what I worried about most."

"After Sandrine." She felt him nod.

"How are you, love?"

"Happy. Just… happy."

"I can't ask for anything else, then." He pulled her a little closer and fed her a crisp, then looked around at this group of good people, their family and their friends, enjoying the mild sunshine of a SoCal summer evening. His gaze met Dawn's for a moment, and they shared a smile. Spike put his face into Buffy's pale hair and breathed in her scent. Happy.

It was the right word.

⸹

Next week: An epilogue to tie up any lingering questions. We're almost there, kind readers!


	54. And I Dreamed Far Into the Future

**Epilogue: And I Dreamed Far Into the Future**

⸹

Sunnydale

August 2003

⸹

Xander looked into the open kitchen cabinet and all he could manage was, "Huh." Somehow, he had turned into an adult who owned an orange juicer.

Which was good. Anya had been in Sacramento for a meeting, and before that, they had been on vacation. Today was her first day back at work, and he wanted to give her a nice sendoff. Fresh orange juice, one of his favorites from Joyce's kitchen, was going to be the centerpiece of her breakfast in bed.

"Hey, Xander," she said, struggling out of the covers and taking off her satin eye mask when she heard the door open. "What time is it?"

"Time for Madam Mayor to have breakfast in bed."

"Aww. For me?" She smiled up at him.

"Absolutely for you, gorgeous." He sat down next to her, balancing the tray on his knee.

"I'm going to cry," she complained, blinking a little.

"Don't do that." He couldn't help smiling at her. "Just be happy, An. I am."

"But I didn't do anything for you."

"You went with me to see _Terminator 3_ ," he pointed out.

"Oh, I guess so." She frowned. "It wasn't as good as the first two." She sat up and plumped her pillow before mashing it against the headboard and settling back.

"See? You do things for me all the time." He shrugged as he placed the tray on her lap. "I woke up before you, and I know you'll have to dig your way out of a whole bunch of stuff that's piled up while you were away, and just thought…"

When he trailed off, Anya smiled. "You're a very thoughtful husband, Xander Harris." She looked at the tray, full of her favorites: cantaloupe, toast with butter on the side, apple slices, herring, Havarti cheese, coffee with cream, and what looked like freshly squeezed orange juice.

"Oh!" Xander leaned toward the nightstand. "Wait for it…" Her alarm clock went off just as he smacked it. "Got it."

Anya giggled. "My mighty killer of spiders and blaring alarms."

"So," he said, "what are you expecting today?"

"Well, I have an appointment with Clem – you know, the loose-skinned demon? – to ask him to be my liaison with Sunnydale's demon population. Then, unless April scheduled something else for me, nothing until the council meeting tonight."

"I'll be out at the apartment site today, and I'm scheduled to patrol with Buffy tonight."

"I want to have a baby."

Xander blinked at her. "You… what?"

"A baby. I want us to have a baby."

"Someday?"

"Well, sooner than that."

"An… how soon?"

It took a moment. "Oh! I'm not pregnant now." She gave Xander a reassuring smile. "I was just thinking as I drove back. I'm going to run for mayor at least once more, and then I think I'll run for the state legislature. I don't think my identification will bear the scrutiny of a statewide or national election, so that's as I as I can go."

Anya pushed the tray farther down her legs so she could reach his hands. She gave him an earnest look. "But while that's all very fulfilling, I want more. Loving you made me realize I have a lot more love to give. That's why I want to make beautiful brown-eyed babies with you."

His expression softened. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"What do you want, Xander?"

"I want to get this building done and never have to go to another job site again. I want to make delightful wooden furniture when I feel like it." He took a steadying breath. "And I want to make beautiful brown-eyed babies with you." Xander took the tray and put it on the nightstand, shoving the clock out of the way.

As soon as he was finished, Anya launched herself at him, pulling him into a tight embrace. "I don't know if I would have dared before Dawn locked down the Hellmouth," she whispered. "But I feel so… optimistic and safe now."

Xander hadn't considered this, either. He knew he wasn't introspective, but something Giles said once about growing up during the Cold War came to mind. Until the Berlin Wall fell, he hadn't even realized he was carrying a weight of worry. But something in him was hesitant about putting down his burden. "After next spring," he said hoarsely. "If everything is still safe… We'll try after next spring."

"Deal." She gave him one of her frankly sexual looks. "Wanna practice?"

⸹

"Hey," Oz repeated. Then he realized that Xander must be wearing earplugs against the noise of the building zone. He moved into view, waving a hand.

"Hey, Oz!" Xander picked up a length of pipe and clanged it against a metal support beam. The workers wielding various power tools looked up at the sharper noise. "Guys, got clients here. Take ten, okay?" The men and one woman filed out, taking off hard hats and their own hearing protection. Xander waited until they were alone before grabbing Oz's hand for a shake. "Where are your better halves?" He frowned. "Thirds?"

"They're going to pop in – now, I guess," he finished, as Tara and Willow peeked around a partially finished wall at them.

"Hi, Xan," Willow said cheerfully, her wide eyes taking in everything with interest. "So, it's getting close."

"It really is," he agreed, accepting a hug from Tara. "I mean, it doesn't look like it here, but I need you guys to come up and finalize your apartment layout. After this week, the walls go up and a lot of the fixtures are, well, fixed." He led them to the outside of the large, Spanish-style building to another door. "This is your private entrance."

"Nice," Oz said, checking out the garage bay that would fit a van. He trailed after Xander and his mates, knowing that this first room was his music room. Xander's crew already had alcoves in the wall to hold his guitars.

Tara and Willow moved to the huge kitchen. The stovetop was in the middle of the floor for spells that required a cauldron, and Xander was explaining the extra ventilation that went above. "Are we still getting a fire pit outdoors?" Tara asked.

Xander nodded. "That's a go. Bricklayers will be in sometime in October." He rolled his eyes. "Or at least that's what they're telling me." Willow wandered to the next room, a large empty space they thought would make a good living room. It had French doors that led to the central courtyard. Across the beginnings of a patio and the hole that would eventually be a swimming pool, she could see the opposite side of the hacienda, which looked even closer to being finished.

"This is amazing," she said, giving Xander a smile. "I mean, it doesn't even seem real, since we didn't pay for it."

Xander gave a modest shrug. "A treasure trove here, a treasure hoard there, and _voila_." He gestured. "Come on. I need you to tell me what orientation you want in the bathrooms."

"Then you'll give us the full tour?" Tara asked. "I want to see the library on the north side."

"As if I can turn you down." He ushered her up the stairs.

Half an hour later, they were in the large communal kitchen in the north wing, placed close to the garage to make bringing in food easy. Willow was grinning. "I can't wait to move in." In addition to the library and the kitchen, the wing had a training room and a 'family room' that consisted of several enormous couches in a circle, still in plastic wrap.

"We don't see as much of each other," Tara said, something in her voice leading Oz to put a hand on her back. "There hasn't been even very much of a Medium Bad since Dawn put in the screen."

"Well, we won't have excuses for not hanging after November." Xander gave her a reassuring smile.

⸹

"Willow!" Buffy waved frantically. "Over here!"

"Hey, Buf." The two young women shared a quick hug. They were shopping ahead of Willow's classes beginning. "How's the gym?"

"Great! Well, except for Harmony."

The redhead got an expectant smile on her face. "What's she done now?"

Buffy grimaced. "She calls my customers 'bitches.' You know, 'go faster, bitches.'"

"If you get enough complaints, you can fire her."

"No, that's the thing. No complaints. Her spin class is always full." Buffy shrugged. "I don't understand it." They wandered into a boutique featuring natural fibers and lightly gossiped about their old classmate and then their friends.

"We went out to the building site. It's looking really good."

Buffy nodded, pulling a hanger from a rack for a closer look at a silk blouse. "Mom and I are going next week. It's exciting," she put the top back, "but I don't know if either of us want to put the houses on the market." Then she shook her head. "And I sound utterly foreign to myself. Since when do we talk about real estate?"

"You should have rented," Willow said smugly. Then her expression became serious. "Defeating ultimate evil and closing Hellmouths before we're thirty… What if our glory days are behind us?"

The Slayer opened her eyes wide and fluttered her eyelashes. "I was Fiesta Queen!" She grinned at Willow and put a hand on her arm for a moment. "Wil, I never really believed I would live to graduate high school. Worse, I was afraid you or Xander wouldn't." She thought of Merrick for a moment, closing her eyes. "I have so much more than I ever dared to dream about, I don't think I really believe it some days."

Willow gave her an impulsive hug. When she pulled back, she kept her hands on Buffy's shoulders. "Do you think we really have friendships without apocalypses?"

Buffy looked into Willow's fearful face and gave her a simple, honest smile. "I think we do. I think that, like most friends, sometimes we'll need a break from each other, but, yeah. You and Xander will always be my besties, and all our significant others are fun to hang with. And Giles… Well, he must put up with us for some reason."

Later that night, Buffy leaned against Spike's shoulder and asked him what he thought about Willow's worry. "Do I think you lot will always be friends? Yeah, I do."

"'You lot,'" she mimicked. "They're your friends, too."

"I know, pet." He was silent for a while. They were standing on their balcony, watching a lemon wedge moon over the dark waters of the Pacific. "I don't think it's a normal thing to build a great big place so we can live together, but we're not a normal bunch."

"Do you think we'll start fighting and hate each other?"

He pulled her closer. "No. I think we'll drift apart, then come back in. Kind of a normal rhythm, I reckon."

Buffy looked up at him, her face as pale as his in the mild light. "Do you think you and Angel will drift back together?" She knew he'd barely talked to his erstwhile grandsire over the summer.

"Dunno." He'd taken a while to answer. "Expect he's spending time with the offspring this summer. Maybe hear from him more in a year or so."

⸹

October 2003

⸹

"Did you know they'd be here, Bit?" Spike asked, frowning at a knot of people following another tour guide. He was taking Dawn for a campus visit to Stanford University.

She lifted her sunglasses to rest on the crown of her head and looked around. Then her hand shot in the air. "Connor! Angel!" Dawn jogged off to join the other group.

Spike sighed and turned to the flustered college student leading their own group. "Sorry, ducks. We'll catch up." Dawn had her hand on Connor's forearm, smiling as she talked to him a mile a minute. Good to see the next generation getting along.

Angel, however, was frowning. "Is Dawn going to go to school here?" he asked.

"Hello to you, too, Peaches." Spike hugged him, half out of spite.

"Oh. Hi." His smile, though belated, was genuine.

"Dunno. She's using every one of her college visits, just to get out of class. She's still got a couple of art schools and UCLA on her list, too."

"Connor's only looking here and at Cal Tech."

"Isn't he a year away from uni?"

Angel shook his head. "He decided over the summer to test out of a bunch of classes so he could graduate early. The football coach nearly cried over him skipping his senior year."

"Gotta have your priorities." Spike wondered why Connor was in such a hurry.

Dawn was asking the same question. "Senior year is, like, a victory lap. Why do you want to skip all the fun?"

He shrugged, just drinking her in as he tried to formulate an answer that would guard his heart. Wow, she looked pretty today, flushed with excitement in the autumn sun. "I think I am actually about seventeen – I mean, fourteen was just a guess after Quor'Toth. High school just doesn't seem like a good fit, and I have everything from the textbooks in memory, thanks to the coven."

"Told you that you should have switched to public school," Dawn teased. "But that's cool. Maybe we'll end up at the same college."

"That would be awesome," he agreed. Connor looked over her shoulder, seeing that his father was coming closer. "So, do you like Stanford so far?"

A couple of minutes later, Dawn and Spike said their goodbyes and headed off to catch up with her tour group. "So, how was Peaches?"

Spike shot her a sidelong look for using the nickname, but gave her a serious answer. "Weird. He talked about getting the cybersecurity business set up with that new bird, Gwen, said he'd set a date with Cordy, and asked about everything but the family business."

"Oh, when is it?"

"Next summer, before filming starts." _It's Cordy_ was a solid top twenty hit television show.

"That's so cool. So, where do you have to go? Los Angeles?"

"I'm not going anywhere." Spike's answer was slow with confusion, not sure what she meant.

"He didn't ask you to be his best man?"

"Why would he?"

Dawn's brows drew together. "You're his family."

"Don't think so, Bit. Not now." Spike shrugged. "Expect Wes will have the honor."

Dawn grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "Connor said he didn't give him any grief about skipping senior year. I bet he's trying to get Connor off to college and away from the champion business, too."

"Makes sense."

Dawn might be his Bit, but she was also his friend. "And he probably isn't asking about family business because he misses it."

"He made the right choice."

"He did. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard to give up superpowers."

⸹

November 2003

⸹

Anya waited outside the garage, waving as Buffy drove up to the hacienda. "Moving in day!" she called, a big smile on her face. Buffy smiled and waved in return before pulling into one of the bays.

"Still having mixed feelings?" Spike asked.

"I know the apartments are awesome," Buffy said, taking off her seatbelt, "but I'm kinda torn about giving up our privacy."

"Best soundproofing money and magic can provide," he said, leering at her.

"And our friends can wander up to our door instead of having to drive out to see us," she noted.

"I see your point," he agreed, "which is why we aren't selling the house." He opened his door. "Come on, Ms. Summers. Let's go see the finished product."

They were, as was often the case, the last to arrive. Joyce handed Max to Giles and stepped forward to hug her daughter. She'd had a last Thanksgiving dinner in the house on Revello on Thursday and listed it with a realtor yesterday. She was determined that this moving-in weekend would be a happy occasion. "Hey, Buffy. Ready for the tour?"

Anya was in her element and, oddly enough, so was Xander. The final cleanup of the construction site went off without a hitch, and Anya hired professional holiday decorators to come in and hang lights and evergreens. Their new home looked stately in the sunlight, and she couldn't wait for everyone to see it lit up at night.

The gang came together in the communal kitchen. "I'm nervous," Willow said, giving Buffy a hug. "Why am I nervous?"

"Because this doesn't seem like a place we could live?" Buffy guessed.

"And I'm always the one saying we should buy the cabin in Squaw Valley."

"I think you're nervous because we're meeting the new neighbors," Tara teased.

"Well, we promise we won't be in your business." Giles passed Max back to his wife.

Xander propped a hand on Spike's shoulder. "No, I'll be in your business all the time."

Anya was looking around at everyone, crestfallen. "No one's saying anything about the granite countertops."

"They're lovely," Oz deadpanned.

The group moved into the library, which already had a surprising amount of books on the shelves. "I like the chairs," Willow said, trailing one hand along the leather back of an office chair on casters. "And the conference table should be big enough for all of us." There were other, smaller tables, too.

Dawn climbed the spiral staircase that went up to the next level of books. "Are these yours, Uncle Aubrey?"

"No, but I did buy them as the start of a permanent collection," he admitted. "These are actually volumes salvaged from the San Francisco offices of Wolfram and Hart."

She leaned over and peered down at him. "You're kidding."

"No. They had a law library as well, but the occult collection had nearly every volume standard in a Watcher's library, plus…" It took Giles' authority as head of the Council to pry the old man away from the library and into his own apartment, the only one in the north wing.

Anya took charge again, leading them to each flat. She'd had professional decorators design the interiors, with the individual Scoobies' tastes in mind. Two middle units in the eastern side, facing the reflecting pool over the Hellmouth, were unoccupied. "I thought it might be a good place for a nanny or day care sometime in the future," she said brightly, ignoring the surprised looks. Honestly, they were mostly young adults in their prime childbearing years, and they all had permanent sexual partners. What did they think would happen?

She checked her watch; photographers from the Sunnydale newspaper were coming to take pictures for a feature about the town's first luxury housing in decades, and she wanted to get the new residents in and out before socks were tossed onto the hardwood floors. "Okay!" she said brightly. "Lunchtime!" While she walked along the covered walkway toward the southern entry to wait for the photographer and reporter, the rest headed back to the communal kitchen.

"I like the boveda ceilings," Tara sighed. She leaned against Willow, happy with the airy, serene beauty of their new home.

"Well, I like the pool," Dawn declared. "If someone will show me how to get the cover off, I want to get in this afternoon."

"I like the central laundry," Joyce said. "Do you know we had to have the plumbing redone at the house before we could put it on the market? I never want to live somewhere with a basement again."

"What are we going to call it?" Xander asked. "I vote Scooby Central."

"Oh, I like that," Willow enthused.

Giles was the first to reach the kitchen. He saw April and started to greet her before he realized what she had brought for their first meal in their new fancy new digs. "Pizza?" he said incredulously. Then he began to chuckle.

April tilted her head. "You like pizza." She sounded puzzled.

"I do," he reassured her, moving to the table so that everyone else could get by. "It's an old favorite."

Xander shot him a grin, elated that everyone was in a good mood. "It's tradition."

Later that night, Buffy went onto the balcony from the master bedroom of their new flat. This high, she had a view of the ocean. It wasn't as spectacular as at the beach house, but she couldn't see the Pacific from her bed there.

"Think you'll like it?" Spike curled his body against her back, his arms sliding around her waist.

"It's going to take a while for it to feel like home."

"Mmm." He nuzzled her jaw. "Want to test that soundproofing, wife?"

"Well… I don't have anything better to do," she hedged, pressing back against him. He'd carried her across the threshold this morning, as though they were still newlyweds. She lingered, looking at the sunset. "First time in our new place."

"Probably have a lot of first times over the years," he murmured lips near her ear. He tugged on her earring with his mouth, making her shiver. "We'll probably live lots of places. Want to show you the world, love."

"You think we really can? Travel, I mean?" Buffy half-turned to face him, her expression serious.

"Really do, pet. You're free, remember?"

⸹

December 2004

⸹

The magical fire had burned now for almost eleven hours. Spike felt tired, so he knew Michael and Xander had to be exhausted. He traded out the empty rings on his fingers for ones will a full magical charge. Taking up his gloves and the hammer again, he approached the forge.

"Spell me?" Michael quipped. Sweat dripped from his brow.

"Funny." Spike stepped up next to him and carefully accepted the tongs that held the red-hot tang of the sword. He lifted the hammer to shoulder level and began to batter the metal, driving the folds together with even blows.

This was probably the last sword they could make with the fire. The ritual flames felt just as hot, but the Guardian could feel the spell beginning to waver. Still, between the three of them, they'd managed to produce thirteen swords. This was the fourteenth.

The temperature outside the forge was only in the fifties now that the sun had set. Spike usually liked heat, but he would be grateful to step into the cool darkness, still fresh from the recent rains. He hoped the magic from the rings, ebbing as it bounced from his hands with each strike of the hammer and flowing into the nascent Slayer weapon, would hold out long enough to finish so Xander wouldn't have to step in.

The three of them had made several trial swords before daring to try to create a weapon good enough for Slayers. Even after they felt reasonably confident, getting together all the necessary ingredients took a couple of months. Thom and Rachel, two newer members of the Sunnydale coven, were bringing in a fresh vat of sanctified rainwater, a scarce commodity in California. There had been a lot of debate about whether to try to find iron from a meteorite, but the Guardian eventually followed his instinct. They were working with modern high tensile steel. Xander had meticulously carved hard ironwood and snakewood into hilts with thin, tapering lengths that would lay along the blade so that a thrust into a vampire's heart would deliver enough wood to dust it.

Once he finished this blade, it would go into its own box, surrounded by crystals the coven had used to trap the chant he provided. That magic, too, would bind with the sword over the next 180 days. At the end, Xander would use his machine shop to finish the metal and wrap the hilts with wire. As an artist, Michael was still thinking about gems and gold fiddly bits; Spike didn't care that much. The final magic spell that bound the weapons to the Slayer line would burnish them deep red as well. It seemed enough decoration to him.

Then they would start the whole process over with a batch of axes. Spike wanted to make sais, kusarigamas, and Thai double swords, too, but figured shuang gou were beyond him – the hooks on those swords were miles past their blacksmithing abilities.

The best of the swords was destined for Faith. He might be Guardian of the whole line, but he had his favorites. Rona would get the second pick.

None of the weapons would be equal to the one his Slayer carried. Like her, it was otherworldly, her perfect match.

"Last sword!" he called, knowing the others would want to watch. He plunged it into the rainwater. As a cloud of steam rose, driving him back, the magical fire died, leaving them in near darkness. After the collective gasp of surprise, everyone began to clap and whistle. "Beer's on me, you lot want to come by."

A couple of hours later, the swords were safely in one of the empty apartments, next to shelves of magical ingredients the witches stored there, and Spike was slumped on a couch in the family room with a bottle of Guinness in one hand. Xander was slumped against his shoulder, asleep from the long day of labor. Rachel had driven Michael home; Spike thought there might be something developing there.

Buffy, back from admiring the swords, came and nestled in to his free side. "I kind of want one."

"You have a weapon," he protested.

"I'm greedy."

He didn't hide his grin. _That you are, kitten._

Across from them, Luisa was curled onto Sam Lawson's lap. He had his arms around her in a loose grip. "You know, making weapons for the Slayers is just unforgiveable."

Spike gave the other Aurelian a two-finger salute. "You're just jealous because you aren't good with a sword." It wasn't the truth any longer, but Sam had never had anyone to teach him until he came to Sunnydale.

Luisa smirked and whispered something in Catalan that made Sam duck his head. He'd insisted on learning her native language once he realized she loved him. "What?" Luisa said innocently, looking up at Spike and Buffy's knowing expressions. "We can't all speak telepathically."

Buffy turned to Spike. "Speaking of annoying lovebirds, where's Anya?" She nodded at Xander's still form on his other side.

"Lighting the city Christmas tree," Luisa answered. "Most of the minions are there to mingle."

"Dawn and the brat are there," Spike said grumpily. "Said she wanted to carol."

Buffy's eyebrows shot up. "Since when does Dawn want to sing?"

The inner big brother immediately woke up. "Bit's got a good voice."

Buffy scoffed. "Both of us have tiny, breathy voices."

"But sweet." He kissed her nose.

Luisa watched them, the smile on her face both indulgent and needy. Her eyes went to Lawson, whose expression was only needy. Knowing his story and comparing it to her own, she would still have chosen to be a Bride, a part of a family, warped though it was. Sam was healing. The loneliness had crippled him almost as much as his walled-off emotions. "Daddy and mommy are at it again," she whispered to him in Catalan.

"Hey!" Dawn called cheerfully from the door that led to the kitchen. "How many did you make?"

Xander, who had slept through everything else, jerked awake. "Big shoes." He blinked before spreading his arms. "Wait. No clowns."

"Only the brat," Spike growled.

Dawn still heard him. "Give it a rest, blondie."

Connor came up behind her and gave her half a sub sandwich. "Hey, guys. Nice to see you. You, too, Uncle Spike."

Xander ran a hand through his hair, blinking owlishly. "How do you like Stanford?"

"It's okay." Connor gave Dawn a sly look that made her blush. "It has its benefits." Spike growled again, and Buffy elbowed him.

 _You shouldn't have given him that book, then._ "Fourteen swords," Buffy answered Dawn's question. "They aren't much to look at yet, but I can show you."

"Let me eat." Dawn raised her sandwich, then used it to gesture at Xander. "Anya gave us a ride. She went up to change out of her heels."

"C'mon, sprog," Spike said. "I'll show you." He gave Buffy a quick peck and accepted her warning look. Once he and Connor were walking across the courtyard, he asked, "How's the old man?"

Connor shook his head. "Traveling a lot with Gwen and Gunn. Taking Cordy out the rest of the time. He stays very, very busy."

Sending the lad a sidelong look of concern, Spike asked, "Not getting distant from you, is he?"

It made him laugh. "No. Dad's always calling or texting. The guys I room with tease me about my 'helicopter parent.'"

"Willow says Oxford is nice. Might be just far enough away." By now, they were in the empty apartment. Spike opened one of the boxes.

"Can I pick it up?" When the vampire nodded, Connor lifted the unfinished sword from the box. "Well balanced," he said, holding it level. "I can feel the magic. Is this the one for Faith?"

"She gets first pick, but if one comes out better than the rest, I'll steer her toward it."

"Man, I'd give anything to have one of these." Connor made a couple of small moves, then carefully placed it in the box between the crystals.

Spike didn't say anything, but he had thought about making one for the boy, Dawn, Groo, and himself and not tying those swords to the Slayer line. It would have to be after all the Slayers had their own weapon, though.

They were quiet as they headed back. Connor took a breath and admitted, "Dawn told me you're the Guardian."

"Not like making the swords wasn't a big clue." Spike shrugged. "Dunno why Theia picked me." There was a shadow in his eyes, though. Natalie had died two months ago, the fifth Slayer to fall since he took up the mantle.

"The way Dawn tells it, the Slayers chose you, not Theia."

His expression was startled, then he covered the emotion with a scoff. "Bit doesn't know as much as she bloody well thinks."

But he thought back to his first encounter with a Slayer over a hundred years ago, and he couldn't disagree.

⸹

August 2005

⸹

"Tara's pregnant!"

Buffy grabbed Willow in a hug. "That's awesome!" They were standing in the courtyard walkway that ran the length of the wing, routinely used for casual visits.

"I can't believe it worked out," Willow said, grinning widely. She hugged Buffy again. "Just a month between us!" She and Tara wanted their babies to be close together, but also wanted to be able to help each other through childbirth and the first weeks of parenthood. With their cycles synced, it was easy to time conception to space the births.

Buffy started to put her hand over Willow's flat stomach, but stopped herself. "How are you feeling?"

"Not even a little sick. Maybe I'll luck out."

"Come on in. Spike's still asleep, but I want all the details. When did you find out?"

"She took the test last night. She cried. Well, we all did. We all kind of wanted to celebrate quietly, but you're the first person I've told."

"Is she still asleep?"

"She and Oz both."

"Well, sit down and tell me about your visit to your parents," Buffy invited. It was Saturday, the date of the weekly cookout, but today was special. They were celebrating Giles' retirement from the Council.

"My mother told me it was very progressive of me to choose to become a single mother."

Buffy's mouth dropped open. "Oh, Wil." She put her hand out to cover the redhead's clenched fingers. "It's unbelievable how wrong she is." If anyone could be more supportive than Tara, it was Oz.

"I know, right?" Her hazel eyes swam with tears. She snuffled before putting on a smile. "Look, crazy hormones make for an emotional mess, huh?"

"No, I think you deserve to get emotional over that."

"I might borrow Joyce for a little while sometime tomorrow."

"She'll mom all over you," Buffy promised. Trying to change the subject, she asked, "What about your dad?"

Willow's face crumpled. "He was disappointed because I'm not married." Her voice was fierce, though. "But he's happy that he's going to have a grandchild."

Buffy shook her head. "They remember Oz and Tara, don't they?"

"They suppress."

Buffy gave her hand another gentle squeeze and asked how Tara took the news. Willow, long used to her parents' willful misunderstanding of her life, quickly cheered up. By the end of the visit, she was already chipper again and on her way to tell Xander.

Buffy followed her out to the walkway and stayed to look out over the patio and the painfully bright sparkles of morning sun off the pool. Anya was due next month. Enormously pregnant, she would suddenly burst into tears because she had never been as happy in eleven hundred years. Max would be three in October. Now both Willow and Tara were pregnant.

She felt left out.

Buffy realized that she was hugging her middle, either consoling herself or engaging in some parody of grief for her empty womb, for what she couldn't have.

But, of course, she could have that someday. Sighing, she forced her hands to the low handrail and back to the present. Giles got in from London late last night. The next Council head, Lydia Chalmers, would be the first female to hold the position. He expected to be back in London on Monday to help the transition, but hoped to taper off to nothing but phone consultations by the holidays –

I want a baby. Right now.

Buffy closed her eyes at the sudden realization. She would be twenty-five in January; she could retire then and figure out all the details. But she wouldn't get to enjoy the experience with her friends, wouldn't have the camaraderie of complaining about morning sickness and squealing over layettes.

She felt a grinding beneath her hands and let go of the concrete rail, forcing her body into good posture. She wouldn't get that anyway.

If she got pregnant, it would be a mechanical deed, done in a sterile room. The baby wouldn't really be a baby to her until after the birth, because she wouldn't be able to picture her child without ocean blue eyes. The idea that Angel would be the sperm donor no longer worked, not with Dawn serious about Connor. Anya would never agree to let Xander donate sperm, and she didn't want to ask Oz, as short as they both were. Giles was out, too, because the thought of both her brother and her son having the same father was way too wigsome.

Sperm bank, it was. Someday.

Her back went straighter; she was the Slayer, and today was going to be a party. Gilesy goodness. And, on the bright side, unlike her female friends, she could drink all the alcohol she wanted.

⸹

Buffy sat in the garage, her Audi convertible nestled between Spike's Bentley and Willow's Prius, and tried to read the literature in her hands. She kept getting distracted by her stupid tears.

During a break from Giles' retirement/homecoming party – as many margaritas as she drank, she had a ready excuse – she'd checked the yellow pages for fertility doctors. Even though she didn't have an appointment, she went this morning to the office, hoping to get her hands on exactly this: brochures explaining the procedures and how sperm banks worked. She had a consultation scheduled for Wednesday.

Now all she had to do was talk to her husband, because he was supposed to be there, too. Buffy put her head against the steering wheel, her tears leaking down the steering column to fall on the carpet.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she jerked up to stare with wide eyes at her husband. Slayer reflexes had his wrist pinned to the door. "You're awake," she said stupidly.

"Felt you, love." Spike must have come straight from bed; he was wearing yesterday's jeans and his white-gold curls were flattened on one side. He squatted next to the drop top. "What's wrong?"

"I want a baby." And she burst into tears again.

Spike rose and pulled her into a clumsy embrace, one hand fumbling to undo her seatbelt. He scooped her out of the open convertible and padded out of the garage and across the warm brick of the lower walkway. Buffy had her arms tight around his neck, her wet face mashed against his chest. "Hold tight," he murmured, crouching slightly before leaping to the second floor balcony. Pushing open the door, he got them into their flat and to their bedroom. Instead of laying her on the mattress, he went to the foot of the bed and sank to the floor.

Buffy curled against his chest and relaxed in stages, grateful that he wasn't pushing for more words. She listened to his deep, reassuring voice soothing her with 'shh's' and 's'alright's.' He would be such a good father, and that thought brought fresh tears.

The air conditioning cycled on; it was going to be one of the rare truly hot days in Sunnydale. Buffy unwound her arms from Spike and realized she still had the brochure about the sperm bank crumpled in one hand. She held it out so he could see and managed, "But I want your baby," before the tears started again.

Spike seemed to pause before cupping her head against his cheek. _There's a way, love._

It took a few seconds for the words to penetrate her grief. "Wh-what?" She pulled away to see him, but he closed his eyes.

 _Figured you might want babies when Max was born_ – she got a visual image of her in the hospital cuddling her newborn brother – _and I'm a jealous git, so I wanted them to be mine._ Spike opened his eyes, the emotion in his them belying his too-casual words. _I want children, too, love. Always did. So I got nerd boy to do some research._

She felt him lift a shoulder, but all Buffy could do was stare at him incredulously. _You can make babies?_

 _Won't be easy_ , he admitted. _Brew a potion, drink it for three days during a waxing moon, come partly back to life,_ and something in his thoughts became almost shy, _and then get to the baby making._

 _That doesn't sound so bad._

 _Worked at least once. Some duke in Bavaria got turned but didn't want his brother to inherit. He got his widow pregnant. Didn't matter in the end; the brother married the widow and sent the kid to a monastery._

Buffy's eyes narrowed. _What aren't you telling me?_

 _The duke dusted._

She closed her eyes to hide the bitter disappointment.

 _Of course, the duke didn't have the Gem of Amara._

 _It isn't worth that risk._ Buffy shook her head.

 _It is to me._ Spike put his hand on her jaw, partly as a caress, partly to keep her from turning away. _I want this, too, love. I see all our friends, same as you, and feel so much on the outside._

 _The Gem doesn't keep you safe from everything._

 _Remember that nest of succubae we took out in Los Angeles? I was the only one unaffected. Figure it was the Gem that helped keep them from depleting my, well, unlife force._

 _That's not a chance I'm willing to take._

 _I am._ He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers, taking them to the mental construct of their rundown motel. Instead of the saggy mattress, they were crunched together on the bathroom floor, the first place their special connection manifested. _I think I might be so tired that I'll think fondly of the aftermath of the dragon, but I won't dust._

 _You don't know that._

 _My reality. I know it._

She extracted her body from his embrace and went to the balcony overlooking the ocean. She didn't close the door behind her and thought fleetingly of the wasted air conditioning. Buffy didn't speak until she felt him just behind her, not touching her. "You can't know that."

"Only have to do it once, love. You'll – We'll conceive if I take the potion. Guaranteed."

She shook her head, another tear trailing down her face. "Too risky."

"It isn't, love." Spike slid his hands around her hips so they laced low across her abdomen. "You've been at a healthy weight for a good while, had your period a couple of weeks ago, and the new moon is in a couple of days. Let's take all that as auspicious signs."

Buffy wavered. "I should wait until my twenty-fifth birthday. I could retire…"

 _Then you won't get to enjoy being in the pregnancy club with your mates._

She turned in his arms. _You promise you'll be okay?_

 _I will._

"Swear it."

He didn't say anything for a long moment, then he gave her a gentle kiss. A feeling of calm came over him. "I swear, kitten. I could never leave you." Spike touched her flat tummy once more, feeling her last resistance float away. "I could never leave our family."

⸹

The whole process was surreal for Spike, but it didn't matter. Buffy had cheerfully shredded the sperm bank brochure and been in a bubbly mood ever since. Andrew had already moved to an apartment near UCLA for his final year of school (he'd changed majors four times and was behind), so Spike asked his favorite Wiccan ladies to give the spell a final check. He turned down their offers of help, wanting to take any consequences on himself, and swore them to secrecy.

Everything moved too fast. He brewed the potion on Thursday, and they planned the conception for Sunday afternoon. Buffy called him from the fitness center at nine on Friday morning so she could listen to him drink it down. "Tastes like dirty socks," was his verdict.

She laughed. "You should have added the spearmint leaf like Tara suggested."

Later that day, he realized he felt hot. Cold wasn't a foreign sensation; he'd felt his vampiric physiology fighting off frostbite in Russia and at high altitudes on several mountains. But he couldn't recall feeling hot, well, ever. Wonderingly, he touched his upper lip, wiping away a thin layer of perspiration. How did humans stand it?

The absolute worst happened around five, just as he began to expect his wife to come home. Spike's stomach began to cramp, and he was doubled over by the unfamiliarity of it more than the pain, leaning against the couch for support. His hands pressing involuntarily over his stomach, he was thinking sourly of the symbolism when he realized what was actually happening. Eyes flying wide open, he flung himself over the couch and to the bathroom.

Five painful and humiliating minutes later, he was staring in horrified fascination at the coprolite in the bowl of the commode. It _clinked_ against the porcelain. Spike spent another couple of minutes fruitlessly trying to recall the last thing he'd eaten as a mortal. Then his hand flashed out for the handle and flushed all evidence of his humiliation away as he vowed to ingest nothing but blood for the duration. By the time Buffy arrived, he had recovered from the strange, jumbled way life was reasserting itself in his body.

"I'm home!" She gave him a hug and pulled out a bottle of champagne from her tote, a handbag so enormous that Spike was convinced she could sit down in it herself.

"Hmm… What are we celebrating?"

She tapped his nose, then cupped the crotch of his black jeans. "Your swimmers."

"Not swimming yet, love."

Buffy's face fell, and she took her hand away as if scalded. "Oh. We probably shouldn't do anything until Sunday."

Spike moved into what little space there was between them. "Oh, no. We should probably practice. Lots." His own hands went to naughty places. "Blow out those rusty pipes."

"Eww. Could you be grosser?" Buffy held up a hand. "Never mind; don't answer that. I'll kiss you anyway."

Kissing led to touching, which led to the bedroom, where they discovered, to Spike's surprise, the potion was already working. "Oh. Brill. Give me a mo,' love," he panted.

Buffy stared at him. "You have an O-face."

He stared up at her, feeling tired in his joints from his first ejaculation in well over a century. "A what?"

"You know." She demonstrated, not bothering to hide her grin. "You never make faces like that."

"Right, make fun of the man risking his bollocks for you."

Buffy immediately adopted a serious expression that made her look scarily similar to Joyce. "There better not be a risk."

"No risk," he reassured her. "Just trying to get a bit of sympathy."

"Aww," she said, overly bright, and leaned over to kiss his nose. "Poor baby." She sat up again, resting her hands on his chest. "The Arrogant Prick seems to be suffering no ill effects."

"'S'weird," he admitted. "Hard or not, not sure I can manage a normal night."

Buffy got a considering look in her eye. "We can't conceive until Sunday?"

"Noooo," he agreed warily.

"So it wouldn't be cannibalism if I…?"

And so he had his second truly horrified moment of the day. "Cannibal– Good lord, woman! Where does your mind go?"

"I always figured I'd be a spit instead of swallow kind of girl," Buffy said primly, as though she wasn't perched naked on said Arrogant Prick. Then she gave him a wicked look and a fair approximation of his own leer. "But I want a taste, love."

"And now she's trying to sound like me," he pouted.

Buffy leaned over him, crossing her arms. "I said I wanted a taste, Spike."

"Oh." He realized what that entailed and struggled against a smile. "All right, then."

It was almost two in the morning before he began whinging again. "Not the bloody fountains at the Bellagio, pet."

Buffy gave him a judicious look. "More like Old Faithful."

"That story about the dog that got put down?" he asked, stumped.

"No. That's Old Yeller. The geezer up in Yellowstone Park."

He chuckled. "Think you mean 'geyser,' kitten." Spike's eyes narrowed. "You better have meant geyser."

"Geyser, geezer, same diff. I just mean, you aren't a whole array. Just one spout."

He covered his eyes. "And now I feel like a whale's blowhole."

"That would work, too," she agreed cheerfully, rubbing his knee. "I just wondered, you know, how high. It's not like I can check after today. No more fountain."

"It's Sunday now, pet."

Buffy sat up, looking at him with wide eyes. "Oh. Should we stop? We should stop. You should rest."

"You should stop," he argued, rolling toward her and wrestling her down so that their feet were toward the headboard. "You should stop treating my body like a source of scientific fascination and," Spike kissed her, "start letting me document," he nipped her neck with blunt teeth, "your fascinating body and its," back to kissing, "reactions to stimuli."

Afterwards, they fell asleep and slept late. Time moved like fire was licking at each retreating second, and it seemed mere minutes had passed before it was dark and they were turning in early, leaving their family and friends around the patio tables.

Holding hands, Buffy and Spike walked sedately to their flat. All day they had been sharing secret glances and little touches, just needing to be in contact. She'd fed him sweet orange slices, and he'd been able to taste them, really taste them for the first time in decades. As he held the door for her, Buffy gave him a smile that stole his breath. _Love you so much, wife._

 _Show me, then._ Another smile. _Let's make a baby._

Spike looked into her eyes and shamelessly used the mesmer. "See me in the bedroom in five minutes." When Buffy only stood, swaying, looking at him for instruction, he closed his eyes in guilt. "Go on, now."

Five minutes later, the last of his preparations and precautions were in place. Buffy turned to him, blinking, noticing him once again. "Hey." Her smile was shy.

"'Lo, cutie."

She kissed him, and Spike let go of his worry. They could have this; he could give this to her. He had one last fear, and that was that he would not be capable of meeting her expectations tonight. So he loved her with lips and fingers and tongue for over an hour, wanting to make sure she didn't suffer for his weakness.

"God, Spike," Buffy said, "do you want me to beg?" They were sitting in the middle of the bed, she was straddling one of his thighs, and his talented hands had worked her beyond caring. Panting, she laid her forehead against his, then pulled away as she realized with wonder that they were both sweaty.

"Think I only have one chance tonight, love. Do you want…?"

"Oh, yes. I want." Buffy pulled away and lay down against the cool sheets, holding her arms out to him. "Come to me."

"My goddess." Spike moved over her; they had settled on missionary position. He braced himself and dipped to find her lips with his, kissing her long and deep. Their bodies joined easily after the protracted foreplay, and Buffy moaned. "Love worshipping you." He put his forehead against hers. "Finally have an offering to lay at your altar."

Buffy looked up at him, her body involuntarily clenching around him with those words. "Love you, my poet, my man. Love you the best." He began to move over her, hips describing a figure eight. Focusing on only one eye because they were so close, she smiled. "You're sweating."

"What is it – oh, love – that you say? Delicately perspiring?"

She laughed with joy at what they were doing, arms holding him closer. "Sweating like a bull."

He snorted his bovine best so she'd keep laughing. "Love you, Buffy, love you so much."

"Our baby is going to be conceived in love and joy." Tears came to Buffy's eyes as she said the words; she was open to him, so she knew he'd see her fear of a cold, bright room, her feet in stirrups, her face turned away.

"Oh, love. Oh, my bride." _Nothing cold and sterile here._

 _No. Moist and heated and…_ "Oh, Spike." His name came on an intaken breath.

"Buffy. Can't hold… Oh, love. My Buffy." He knew he was supposed to be concentrating on the baby, but not with his Slayer right here with him, her eyes locked with his. Healthy, he managed, boy, girl, doesn't matter. Healthy.

"Come with me." There was enough light to see his face now, the way his teeth were gritted and his brow furrowed. The light was so bright that she could see the goosebumps she felt as she gripped his arms. She'd never known him to have goosebumps before. The light was in him, she realized, in them, a pale light that glowed from them and through them. And then she couldn't help but flutter her lashes, crying out as a harsh groan ripped from Spike. Now his face was a study in labor, in work, then he threw his head back in bliss before all but collapsing on her.

Spike swallowed, trying to get his breathing under control. "Heart beat," he managed. "Felt it contract. Bugger." He managed to move his torso to the side so she wouldn't be quite so mashed and found her jawline, kissing along until he found her chin, her mouth.

She was supposed to stay like this for fifteen or twenty minutes, she knew, and it was no hardship. Buffy kissed him in return until she found her mouth curving in another smile. She smiled up at him, then chuckled. "We made a baby." There it was, that husky, sexy voice she could never manage on purpose.

"We made a baby," he agreed. _Did you see the light?_

Buffy nodded. _I did._ After a moment of consideration, she added, _I don't feel different._

 _I do. Bloody exhausted, I am._ He pulled away from her enough to pillow his head on her shoulder.

Buffy slid her arms around him. "You feel cold."

"Kinda am." Between the two of them, they managed to hook the covers and draw them over their bodies. They fell asleep less than a minute later, holding each other.

⸹

Buffy woke up early. It was dark on this side of Scooby Central, but she could see light in the sky. She stretched and looked over at Spike, a motionless lump under the covers. Something seemed off, but she didn't realize what it was until she sat up.

Their bed was pulled away from the wall.

What on earth? Sometimes they did move the bed on more enthusiastic nights, but usually to one side or other. Buffy glanced at Spike again, her brows drawn together, then she swung her legs over the side of the mattress.

Her foot touched something hard and sharp that skittered away on impact. Buffy drew her leg back up, at the same time going up on her knee to see what it was, alert to any danger. Which was ridiculous, with the amount of magical wards on the big house.

The bed was in a circle, a magical circle consisting of small objects every four inches or so. She leaned over to examine them in the faint light. They were rings, the battery rings she'd become used to seeing on Spike's fingers, on the coven members fingers, storing kinetic energy with every movement.

Each ring on the floor had a small crystal resting inside it. All the crystals were black. Something odd prickled along her spine.

"Spike?"

Her voice was soft, and he didn't wake up. Frowning, Buffy put her foot down where she'd broken the circle and got out of bed. She really had to go to the bathroom.

When she came back, she picked up one of the rings. She didn't have much magical ability, but she could always feel the charge of energy in a full ring. Buffy examined the crystal in turn. It wasn't black as she thought. It was clouded. The crystal had channeled energy.

"Spike." Sharper now. "I thought these rings were for the Slayer weapons."

He didn't answer. For the first time, Buffy realized she was afraid. He said the Gem of Amara would protect him. Why would he have to set up a magic power circle? _When_ had he set it up?

"Spike."

Buffy turned on her heel and left the bedroom when he didn't answer, furious with her husband. She put on coffee and paced the kitchen until it was done brewing, fuming at the vampire who must have used mesmer on her. On his wife. So he could lie to her about how dangerous the spell was.

"Asshole," she muttered, stealing Angel's usual insult for the brat prince of the Aurelians. Buffy took an apple from the basket on the counter and bit into it angrily. The whole time, he lied about how dangerous the spell was.

She got cream out and poured herself a cup of coffee. The cream made it just cool enough to sip. She slammed the cup onto the counter, some of the coffee splashing over the rim. The bastard had known it was dangerous since Max was born – well, since sometime not long after Max was born. But did he mention that? No.

The duke dusted.

Buffy realized she was rocking back and forth, holding her elbows.

 _Spike?_

She ran back to the bedroom, skidding as she slowed, scattering rings and crystals from the careful pattern. Buffy stared down at her unmoving husband, and anger replaced fear once again. She grabbed the comforter and tossed it toward the end of the bed. "Spike!"

The comforter landed on the floor, the movement stirring up air, and a fine layer of ash swirled in the dim morning light.

"Nonononono," she chanted. Her hands hit his shoulders, his solid shoulders, and Buffy was sobbing now. _Spike, dammit._ She could feel the greasy slide of ash on her fingertips from the layer that covered his body. _Spike!_

He was asleep in their booth at the Sit N Bull, slumped to the side.

He was supine on the worn motel mattress, just as he was in the real world.

Buffy pulled away from the connection – the mindlink was still there, thank God – and fumbled in the top drawer of the nightstand where they kept their weapons. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of a hunting knife, and she drew it out and across the base of her thumb in one clean motion.

"Drink, you asshole," she whispered fiercely, putting the bleeding cut against his mouth. Years and years of patrol, the dust of hundreds, thousands of vampires on her sleeves, her clothes, in her hair.

Their bedroom should not smell like this.

"Spike!" _Spike! Drink, dammit._

His mouth filled with her blood, with Slayer blood. With –

 _SPIKE!_

His throat moved, Adam's apple bobbing.

Buffy sobbed again, this time in relief, her forehead hitting the mattress.

Spike's eyes flew open in a panic. Buffy's blood! He swallowed convulsively, almost gagging, then he was on his feet, his hands on her shoulders, lifting her up. "Your hand," he said, bringing it to his mouth to slide his tongue across the wound.

She pulled her hand away and cracked her palm against his cheek. Dust and grit flew as his head rocked back. Buffy's hands went to her mouth as her legs gave way, sending her to fall on her butt on the floor.

Spike went with her, crouching down. "Love, what's wrong?"

She pointed past him, her wet eyes anguished and furious. He turned, wondering what was wrong with the bed, and saw the outline on the sheets, as if his shadow had chosen to remain in bed when he got up.

Buffy's coffee was cold by the time they moved to the kitchen. Spike poured it out and made a fresh cup. He watched her, not sure what to say. She'd let him hold her as she cried, at least, then she'd marched him into the shower. He looked as though he had a mild sunburn all over, but he didn't have time right now to deal with the horror of partially _dusting_. His wife needed him.

She took the coffee, but didn't drink it. They were both wearing bathrobes; both had damp hair. Without looking at him, she asked, "Did you know?"

He knew better than to try to touch her. Right now, she didn't want any of his reassurances. "No. I swear, Buffy. I thought the Gem would be enough. I used the crystals so maybe I wouldn't be tired for days."

"Are you?"

"No," he admitted. "Wasn't the same kind of magic as transformation, I guess."

"You guess." Buffy's voice got louder. "You had no idea what you were messing with, did you?"

"Love, it– "

"Don't 'love' me." She folded her arms. "You put yourself in danger –"

"I didn't know."

"–and almost made a widow of me." Something broke in her voice. "You _asshole_!"

"It doesn't matter now," he said desperately, trying a new track.

"Oh, you better believe it matters," she shot back. "Of all the reckless, asinine –"

"It worked."

"What?" Her voice, though it was still sharp, sounded confused.

"Won't ever do that again, I swear, love," he promised, daring to take a step closer. "Don't have to. I know it should be too soon, Buffy, but it wasn't only your blood I tasted."

"What?" she repeated.

"Dunno how it could be this soon, but… Not just your blood. The life you gave me. Not just your life." Spike knew it couldn't really be blood; even if the blastocyst could have implanted, there wouldn't be a blood supply for weeks longer. "Just… hormones, I guess, but I can taste the difference." He took another step closer.

"It worked?"

"Never risk it again, love. I won't. Want to be here, right here with you." _With_ you.

Buffy started to soften, then remembered her fear from his close call and her anger that he'd used tricks on her to place the magic circle. "I can't go back in there."

Spike stiffened. She was talking about their bedroom. He gave a short, jerky nod. "I'll take care of it."

Buffy watched him walk away with her peripheral vision, her arms still folded. This wasn't what she wanted; this withholding person wasn't who she wanted to be. What kind of mother was she going to be, because she knew kids did stupid, dangerous things all the time.

Well, he's not a child, she thought stubbornly. Very faintly, she got a throb of horror through their mindlink.

He was looking down at the sheet, at his silhouette.

Spike had picked up his pillow and slid it out of the pillowcase. Now he was frozen, feeling sick, looking at the precise pattern of ash on the sheet. I would never have known, he thought, unable to bring himself to touch it. Buffy would have woken alone to… that.

He felt his gorge want to rise. He needed to get rid of the evidence, but all he could feel was revulsion. Taking an audible breath, Spike clenched his jaw and grabbed the corner of the mattress. He folded the edge of the sheet toward the center of the bed, watching with horrified eyes as the dust blurred and rolled.

Then, with supernatural speed, he swept the rest of the sheet from the bed, balling it up and tossing it on the floor with the comforter. The spent rings and crystals followed, going into Buffy's pillowcase. Spike pushed the heavy iron bedstead back into place, his breathing harsh and loud in the quiet room. He braced his arms against the foot of the bed for a moment, then gathered the wad of fabric into his arms. Buffy would never want to see these bedclothes again. He turned to leave the bedroom, intending to find a garbage bag. She was standing there, already holding one. For the first time that morning, tears spilled down his cheeks.

Buffy watched, repulsed as the tears tracked dark streaks along his raw skin. Even his tear ducts, she thought. Then, she broke. _Oh, God, Spike._ She grabbed him in a clumsy embrace, knocking the knot of fabric to the floor. _I love you. I love you. I can't lose you._

 _You won't,_ he swore as he grabbed her fiercely. _Sorry, pet. So sorry. Never considered… never let myself consider what it would have been like for you if…._

 _I never want to think about that. Not now, especially not now. I need you, our baby needs you._

They wept in each other's arms for a few very long minutes. _I had this horrible fear that you'd just… melt in the shower,_ she admitted.

He pulled her closer, dismayed. _Didn't really hit me until I came back in here,_ he admitted. _Been a long time since I was in real danger._

Buffy picked up his background thought that the Gem of Amara made him foolhardy, as well as a darker one that it let him cheat his way through danger. _Without it, daytime is dangerous. The Gem is what's going to let you play with our baby in the park._

He sniffled and pulled away a few inches, getting her mental image of a baby laying on a blanket in the shade of a tree, the two of them on either side like parentheses. _Our baby._ He dropped to his knees, not really noticing that he landed on the soiled fabric from their bed, and put his forehead against Buffy's tummy. _Our baby._ Spike kissed a spot below her navel. _Our baby, Buffy._

 _Our baby,_ she agreed.

⸹

September 2005

⸹

Buffy shook her head as she came back into the waiting room. "Not yet." Everyone slumped back down into the hard plastic seats. Tara checked her watch. She'd have to leave to open the Magic Box soon.

"How long can labor last?" Oz asked his mates, genuinely concerned.

"A long time," Willow said, putting a gentle hand over his. "Don't borrow trouble, okay."

"Anya's pretty tired right now," Buffy said. "I mean, all that kept her from killing Xander at first was Mom, but now they're both just sitting by her, holding her hands."

The waiting room door opened. Everyone tensed for a moment, but it was only Giles and Spike with bags of fast food breakfast.

"Dilated any more?" Giles asked.

Buffy shuddered a little at the thought that he might soon be thinking of her cervix, but she answered the question. "Eight centimeters."

"After, what, fifteen hours now?" Giles shook his head. "Have they talked to her about caesarean?"

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I want to see the balls on that doctor. At the nursing station, they're still talking about her threat to flense Xander's penis, starting at his little toe."

"Remind me to never get an ex-vengeance demon in the family way," Aubrey winced, shaking his head.

They dug into breakfast, and Giles volunteered to take food in to Joyce and Xander. The obstetric nurse had offered Anya popsicles, and she'd had a couple over the course of the night.

Tara stood up. "Tell An I'm sorry," she said, bending to kiss Willow and Oz. "I'll be back after work."

"Still haven't found anyone to replace Michael?" Buffy asked. The coven had lost two members when he moved to Los Angeles with Rachel to open a custom jewelry shop.

Tara shook her head, then brushed back her dark blond locks. "Two attempts, two failures. I'd borrow April, but she's covering An's maternity leave."

Buffy made a sympathetic face. She had almost no employees at the gym who stayed longer than two or three years. Except for Harmony, who would be bullying generations of Sunnydale spin classes. Turning in the hard chair to nestle against Spike, she settled in to wait.

Hannah Audrey Harris was born four hours later to an exhausted but triumphant mother. She had a shock of dark hair that set her apart from every bald or blond baby in the nursery. Buffy and Spike stayed long enough to see her and congratulate the parents, but then excused themselves to go home to sleep.

The big house was quiet, one of the few times that no one else was on the grounds. Both of them were more sleepy than hungry, so they decided dinner could wait until after a nap. As they lay down, Spike spooned behind Buffy, his hand protectively over her middle.

He sat up suddenly, his eyes wide.

"Wha– "

"Shh!" Spike was listening hard, leaning his left ear toward Buffy's middle. Then he propped up, staring at her in shock. "Two."

"Two what?"

"Heartbeats, love. Fast little heartbeats."

"Two…" One of which was hers, right? But she knew her heartbeat, usually about 65 beats a minute, would be far slower than… "Two? Twins?" The last word was a squeak.

A goofy, happy smile spread across his mouth. "Twins, love. We're having twins!"

⸹

May 2007

⸹

"Macsen David Giles, you get back here!" Joyce hollered after her son's retreating back. She gave her husband an exasperated look.

"I'll get him." Truthfully, the boy had stopped just at the edge of where he'd be in real trouble, but it was far enough for him.

"Jraffs, Mummy! I can see the jraffs!"

Giles jogged to scoop him up. "You can see the giraffes? Where?" He pretended he couldn't see the enclosure.

Joyce shook her head and turned to her daughter. "You just wait. Yours will be running in two different directions."

Buffy pretended to quake with mock fear and turned to peek into the double carriage Spike was pushing. Both Lia, named after Buffy's cousin Celia, and Lemuel were asleep. Truthfully, this outing to the Sunnydale Wildlife Preserve (Anya had pushed the name change for the Sunnydale Zoo) was more for the parents than the children, except for four-year-old Max.

Oz was pushing a double carriage, too. Willow's Rebekah was asleep as well, but Tara's son Kai was looking at his surroundings with interest. Anya was doing the same, taking in everything with a critical eye. She'd submitted and received several grants to improve the zoo; being able to match funds from the dragon hoard was an edge she had over other municipalities.

Xander was holding Hannah in his arm as she solemnly looked around. She was a serious child with dark curls and her father's liquid brown eyes. Right now, she was wearing a pale green sunbonnet and looked so adorable that three grandmothers had stopped Xander to coo over his daughter. Hannah had mastered running, too, so he had no intention of putting her down.

The group maneuvered their fleet of prams to the giraffes, where bored college students handed out romaine lettuce leaves to brave children who wanted to feed the graceful beasts. After Max had his whole hand slimed by a long grey tongue, most of the group headed to the restrooms and then to lunch.

"We'll meet you there," Buffy called. "I want to see the bird exhibit." Anya, five months along with her second, didn't plan to get near the birds. She didn't envy Anya, who looked puffy and tired even in the mild spring heat.

Buffy felt she'd handled her pregnancy with panache. She'd barely had heartburn, had done nothing worse than grip Spike's hand during birth, and bounced back with her usual Slayer healing. Seeing how much more miserable Anya was in her second pregnancy, she had no desire to have more children. Not that she'd risk it.

Spike glanced down at his sleeping children. "They'll cherish the memory of this outing," he said sardonically.

Buffy lifted a shoulder. "I haven't been here since I was a sophomore in high school," she said, "and not a good trip, either. It's so much nicer now. So, cherishing." She lifted a hand to point. "Ooh, look at that parrot."

They threaded their way between the round cages, admiring the hawks, eagles, and owls. Buffy, who'd assumed command of the stroller, came to a stop. "Spike? Look. A kestrel. Does that look like…?"

"My totem animal?" He went closer to the cage and peered inside. The bird considered him with its sharp little eyes, then turned its attention elsewhere. "Not really. Darker plumage. This is a male, I reckon." It turned to groom its shoulder with its sharp little beak. He shook his head. "Smaller than I remember."

"It's so pretty," Buffy murmured, crouching for a better view. The little predator tilted its head to look at her before again dismissing them.

For the first time in years, Spike felt a pang of nostalgia for those years before he'd reached his aerie. There was something to be said for striving, for the fight. Then he looked at his wife and at the two slumbering babies in the pram. There was a lot more to be found in triumph.

⸹

Los Angeles

December 2013

⸹

"I like it," Angel said, rotating his arm so he could better see the new tattoo above his left biceps. It read _Peccavi,_ Latin for 'I have sinned.'

"Seems a little grim," Spike said, shrugging.

"Always good to have a reminder," Angel said. He drew out his phone. "Turn around, and I'll get a picture of yours."

Spike had never really wanted a tattoo before, but Angel had been in a mood since Cordelia left him and took their two-year-old daughter Regan. He'd agreed to go with Peaches for a boy's night out in Los Angeles, partly at Buffy's urging. She thought Cordelia would come home, if Angel didn't do anything to give her an excuse to stay away.

Spike lifted his t-shirt until it rolled against his neck and waited until the flash went off. Angel held the screen out for him. 'Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better' scrolled in a shallow arch over his back, shoulder to shoulder. He'd always liked the quote from Camus. "Looks good." Spike doubted it would last a week; they were at a human tattoo parlor. The only things marring his body were two pockmarks on his abdomen from a childhood illness, the scar over his eyebrow from the Chinese Slayer, and the silvery scar on his neck where Buffy had overbitten Dru's sire mark.

"It does look good." Angel wasn't looking at him, though. His attention had gone to a display of studs for piercings. He grinned, turning around to see Spike tucking his shirt back in. "We should get Prince Alberts again," he suggested, Angelus' wicked, seductive smile on his face.

And this was why Buffy had sent him down to the city. "Or you could not do anything to your dick to make Cordy think some other bird's been around it," he shot back.

"She isn't coming back," he shrugged.

"She's been gone three days," Spike returned. "She'll remember she likes you any time now, though I can't really see why."

"That's what I love about you, boy," Angel said, throwing an arm over Spike's needle-sore shoulders. "Your kind, supportive nature."

Spike winced. Angel was still a bit drunk, having human physiology now, but his buzz had worn off somewhere around the word 'else.' "Come on, Peaches," he sighed. "Let's get some food in you."

"Saw Connor last weekend," Angel said abruptly. "Dawn needs to make an honest man of him."

"Like I don't hear this from Joyce." Spike's mouth tightened; he'd much rather Dawn and Connor get leg-shackled, too. The two had been together since their sophomore year at Stanford and were obviously committed to each other.

They left the tattoo parlor and began wandering vaguely east. There was a diner in that direction. Angel was silent as they walked, his eyes going down every alley. Spike understood the need to look for a fight, but he hoped they wouldn't find one tonight.

Angel was halfway through a plate of chili cheese fries before he finally began to talk. "We should start going back up to Squaw Valley for the holidays."

"We should. Don't know why we stopped, really."

"We all got too busy," Angel sighed.

"I blame the kids."

"Do you think I'm boring?"

He blinked at the abrupt question. "Have to say, that isn't a word I associate with you."

Angel ignored the heavy undercurrent of irony in Spike's voice. "She said I was boring, that I don't do anything anymore."

"Do you do things with Cordy?"

"Sure," Angel replied, but only after a beat. "I mean, I'm busy with Regan." His expression softened. "I miss my girl."

Buffy had wished for a baby girl for her L.A. friends, figuring Angel would learn a lot from being on the protective end of things. Spike hoped there would be a second daughter, just to see if they named her Goneril. "I know you do," he said. "Just want you to think, mate. Were you spending all your time focused on Regan? You know you can be a wee bit obsessive."

"You can't worry too much about toddlers."

"You can if you're neglecting their mum over it."

Angel glared at him, then chewed another fry into submission. After that, he deflated. "Cordy threw that at me before. When she broke our engagement."

"You ever been obsessed with her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because she wouldn't put up with it, that's why."

Spike chuckled. "Tell her that, mate. She'll definitely want to hear that."

"She won't listen to anything I have to say."

"I will. Tell me about Angel Investigations." He listened for a while, learning that Gunn and Gwen ran nearly every aspect of the business now, while Faith and Groo kept the city safe – Faith had accepted the Council pension that came with mandatory retirement, but, like Buffy, it hadn't changed her nightly patrol at all. Spike also listened to what Angel wasn't saying. "You need to spend more time at the office."

"I did. After Wes went back to England, I did." Fred went to Cambridge to do post-doctoral work, and Wesley followed her, rejoining the Council of Slayers. "Then Regan came along, and I just wanted to spend time with her."

"Don't blame you, but she's not Connor. No one's after her."

Angel closed his eyes. "I know. But that doesn't keep the fear away."

Spike let it rest. If there was one constant about Angel, it was that everything had to be his idea. Maybe he'd realize on his own. "Come on. Let's figure out where I left the car. Got something for you in the boot."

"It's gorgeous, Will." Angel traced a gentle finger over the wooden stake embedded in the blade of the sword. "Are you sure you want to give it to me?"

"Made it for you, didn't I? It's not a Slayer weapon, but it's got magic." He'd forged it along with weapons for Luisa and Sam. Spike was still trying to make a matched set for him and Buffy, but he was going to have to commission Michael's help.

"Thank you." Angel took him into a hug that aggravated the new tattoo, but it wasn't on purpose. "I don't get out as much as I should at night."

"You'll use it," he said firmly. "Fight the good fight, help the helpless, all that. Let's get you back to Beverly Hills," Spike added. "We'll get into your weapons cabinet, find something to test out your new sword." Angel didn't have supernatural speed or strength, but he was still an excellent swordsman.

Spike drove for a few blocks before breaking the companionable silence. "Can I ask a question, mate?"

"Sure."

Spike waited until they were pulling out from a stoplight so he'd have an excuse to keep his eyes averted. "Is Shooter yours?" He and Buffy had long speculated that Faith's son was not Groo's. The dark-haired Slayer and the Pylean part-demon had four long years of fertility problems before Shooter arrived.

Angel kept his eyes focused on the road, too. "We don't talk about that night."

Spike's eyebrows rose. "You and Faith… and Groo and Cordelia don't talk about that night?"

Another touch of Angelus lurked in the clear brown eyes. "We don't talk about that weekend," he allowed.

"Quite." Spike was pretty sure he owed Buffy five dollars.

When they arrived, Angel's eyes fixed on the BMW sitting in the driveway. "Cordelia is here," he said, his voice hoarse.

Spike opened his glovebox. Along with a now-stale pack of cigarettes, it contained a tube of mints. "Have one of these."

"Thanks." He gave Spike a last, desperate look. "You think that's all it is? Me obsessing again?"

"Dunno why, but she loves you." He nodded toward the house. "Go on. I'll bring the sword."

Cordelia greeted Spike with a genuine, if distracted, smile, and he made himself scarce, leaving the two dark-haired humans standing about three feet apart. He wagered it would be much less than that in a few minutes. Humming along to Imagine Dragons 'Radioactive' on the radio, he smiled and headed the Bentley north toward Sunnydale.

⸹

Sunnydale

July 2017

⸹

Buffy watched the Master of Sunnydale come out of the shadows, black leather coat flaring out to reveal the gleam of a sword. She smiled and lifted her hand. "Luisa!" she called, sliding off the hood of her Audi.

"Good evening, Slayer." The vampire embraced the Slayer, giving her a kiss on the cheek. They fell into step together, heading out on patrol.

"Where's Sam tonight?"

"He's settling in a couple of new minions. Lorne sent them our way from Caritas II." She gave her friend a sidelong smile. "Plus tonight is when he practices trumpet, so I'm staying away."

Buffy laughed. "How many minions is that now?"

"Sixteen. I don't think Sunnydale can support many more."

"Any trouble with them?"

"No. Word's out now that I'm Master. It's just, that's about the limit for the herd." Spike had resigned as Master of Sunnydale just under a year ago, about the time Anya had been elected to the state legislature. He hadn't wanted to work with anyone else in city government.

Sunnydale was a weekend destination from Los Angeles now. While the Hellmouth no longer attracted many demons, the peaceable ones who stayed kept the town from being bland. Anya's multiple terms as mayor and her wise use of dragon treasure had turned the town from a dark trap into a quaint, quirky seaside city. They had two Starbucks now and even an In-N-Out Burger.

Luisa had been Spike's second from the beginning, so none of the minions questioned her authority. Two out of town demons had, but Luisa hadn't needed to call on Spike or Buffy to defeat them. His 'resignation' had been something more complicated, with lots of growling and sniffing, but it seemed to work for the minions. If she had mandatory retirement, she didn't see why Spike couldn't retire, too.

"Poacher," Luisa said, low.

"You want?"

The dark-haired vampire smiled her pleasure. "I do." She flashed toward the interloper, already reaching for the sword at her hip, swooping in all dark and dangerous. Buffy shook her head; she had to get a leather duster, too. Both Sam and Luisa had matching coats; she and Spike should, too. They were the original power couple on the Hellmouth, after all.

Buffy was distracted by this train of thought by the feel of another vampire. It was stalking her, she realized. Hiding her incredulous smile, she pretended to be nothing more than a small, blond woman out for a stroll in the cool of the evening.

The second before it lunged for her neck, she spun, a simple, old-fashioned stake in her hand. "Hi, I'm Buffy," she quipped cheerfully, ducking to the side. "You must be… dust!"

From the shadows, she heard clapping. "Well, well. Buffy the vampire Slayer."

She grinned at her husband. "I see my reputation precedes me."

"That it does." Spike pulled her into his embrace, lowering his mouth to give her a thorough snog.

She held up a hand. "Who's watching the kids?"

Spike sighed. "Xander's got the whole barrel of monkeys tonight. They're watching _Zootopia_." He bent closer again.

"Hi, Spike."

He sighed again. "Hi, Lu. Impeccable timing."

"Oh, you were joining us on patrol?"

"Since I can't just order you away these days, I suppose I am." He slid into place on Buffy's left.

His wife smirked at him. _Later_ , she promised. _Maybe one of the hammocks._

 _It's a date, love._

⸹

Sunnydale

March 2077

⸹

The room fell quiet.

Spike gazed down at the pale hair that rested on her forehead, at the slight rise of her body beneath the sheet. He couldn't really see her for the blur of tears in his eyes. Had he told her enough? He could have said the words all day long, every day for their decades together, and it wouldn't be enough.

One last time, then.

"I love you, kitten." He gripped her hand a bit harder, not with full vampire strength – he hadn't been comfortable doing that for years – but it didn't matter now. She didn't feel it. Buffy's heart, her brave, strong heart, was still now.

Ninety-six. When she turned ninety, she laughed and told him he could relax, that she planned to live to be one hundred, that surely no Slayer would ever break that record. His sweet, funny girl.

He was the only one who remembered her as a girl, now. "Ah, love," he whispered, bringing her hand to his lips. Cool, because her circulation hadn't been the same since she entered her late eighties, but not cold. Not yet.

"Dad?" He didn't turn his head. Lia came into the room. "Daddy?" She already knew; tears clouded her voice.

"Didn't wake up, Bit," he managed, his voice hoarse. "She didn't say anything." Buffy had been silent in the mindlink for five days, their long connection broken. She had already been gone, but now she would be at peace. He hadn't been able to take that hope from Lia, though. "Heaven's got its angel back."

His daughter choked back a sob. She took a shuddering breath and came to the bed, putting a hand on her mother's knee. "Just now?

He nodded. Over two hundred years on this ruddy planet, and the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. People died at home in his day, too; now the hospice people made it easy. Buffy had been sent home by the hospital after a short stay; they couldn't do anything for her. It was a sudden yet slow collapse, her Slayer's strength fighting until the end, even as her human body shut down, one system at a time.

Lia put her hand on his shoulder, and he covered it with his other hand. They spent a few last minutes saying goodbye, stroking Buffy's fine hair, kissing her cheek. Spike was distantly grateful for his daughter's presence; he might have pried her lids open just to see her green-hazel eyes one last time. He was a demon, true, but he didn't like to be gruesome. And he didn't want to see the emptiness.

Daybreak was near, his most basic sense making him aware that his time, the vampire's time, was nearly over. Time to hunker down away from the light. Spike hadn't needed to do that for decades, but the instinct was still there. He felt the caregiver from hospice services in the doorway, Emilio or Esteban, something like that. Spike wiped his eyes and turned enough so the man would know he was nodding at him. The caregiver came in unobtrusively, taking the stethoscope from around his neck. The weight of his years hit Spike once again. The stupid medical device was older than he was, though this model had more features and sensitivity.

Lia began gathering her composure. So much like Joyce, his Little Lia Bit. She put her arm around him, leading him from the room, leaving Emilio to begin the machinery of death. Her blue eyes, his own eyes stared at him with dread.

Her father looked young enough to be her grandson, but he was still her Daddy, her rock. Lia knew she was losing both her parents today. "Let's go outside," he murmured, and her fingers dug into his side, not wanting to let go.

They went to the balcony. He and Buffy had lived in several houses over the decades. Most had balconies, even without an ocean to gaze upon. Their first house had slid from the cliff back in the twenties, when they were living in London. Lia made him turn to her, and after a moment, he met her eyes.

Buffy hadn't opened her eyes once. Myocardial infarction, they said, once he had scooped her from the floor of the kitchen and rushed her to the hospital. She couldn't really sleep through a whole night anymore and had been in the kitchen. A blood clot formed somewhere else and made its way to her heart. The mug of tea she'd made was spilled on the floor, though it hadn't broken. The noise woke him. She never made a sound of her own.

"You don't have to go," Lia whispered, tears in her eyes.

"Can't do else." His way with words was gone, too.

"Daddy…"

His heart hurt so much to hear her name him as she had done as a child. "Lia," he reproved. "You don't need me." Seventy-one, with grandchildren and one great-grandchild of her own.

"I love you," she said fiercely. "Need has nothing to do with it."

He pulled her into his arms, watching as her husband Hunter came to the doorway, looking tired. He had been here for the last three days, following Lia as soon as he could get away. Spike loved him for how he loved his Bit, and he held open one arm, inviting him into the embrace.

These two, he would miss. He loved his grandchildren, but had never been around them in their adulthood nearly as much as he would have liked. Maybe he'd withdrawn, knowing this was coming. They would miss him and be fine without him. Everyone else… Well, he had been missing them for years.

Aubrey first, then Giles and Joyce, losing Angel to human death. The Scoobies and the Slayers, always the Slayers. Then their children, even, so many of them gone, too.

Dawn and Connor, lost somewhere after stepping through a portal. They never returned, so the mourning and the hope never ended.

And Lemuel. Only twenty-nine when he was lost, and he knew it was still as sharp for Lia as it had been for him and Buffy. Hunter had been there for the loss of her twin, too. She had another rock.

He was so tired.

"She loved you," he said, pulling Hunter's head down to kiss his cheek before turning to his daughter. "And she loved you so much, Bit."

"Daddy… Please." Lia covered her mouth after saying the word, appalled with her weakness. Summers women weren't the begging type. She firmed her mouth and took a breath before stepping away from him, mastering herself. She knew what the plan was; she'd known for years. "I'll see that it's hidden. And I'll see you again, someday."

Unlikely. But Spike nodded and guided her into Hunter's arms. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice husky. "I love you both. Tell everyone…" He lifted a shoulder, not finishing the thought.

They were – had been living on the West Coast again at Scooby Central, and he looked out over the balcony of the hacienda that had been home for decades, holding generations of Harrises, Osbornes, Giles, and Summers. The sky was brighter than the ocean, but daylight hadn't broken over the Transverse Mountains yet in the signature swift sunrise. Spike moved away from his daughter to leap onto the metal rail of the balcony, balancing there effortlessly.

Without Buffy, he had no reason to go on. This way, no other vampire would ever get hold of the Gem of Amara; Lia would make sure no other Slayer got Buffy's Scythe. Those were the two main points, and this was the plan. "Step back, kids," he said.

Never again, he'd said, but without Buffy, there was no never, no again, no time. She had been gorgeous, vital, and strong well into her seventies, her younger consort only raising a few eyebrows; she had been healthy through her eighties. It wasn't until ninety-three and a bout of pneumonia that she became frail.

She had never been less than beautiful to his eyes.

He glanced down toward the beach below for a moment, feeling the pull of his grief and the weight of his years.

Spike was tired of feeling.

He stretched out his arms and let his demon's features come out. He turned one last time and smiled at his Little Lia Bit, tears finally streaming from golden eyes, the smell of blood in the still morning air.

Then he stretched more, willing the transformation further. He grew harder and colder as his torso lengthened, as membranous wings stretched from his sides to his arms, and the bones of his skull elongated. Then he felt nothing at all.

The enormous dragon spread huge black wings and shoved down with powerful legs. At over forty feet, it was twice as big as it had been the first time, drawing on additional decades of demon strength. The rail of the balcony gave way, crumpling under the pressure. Wind from the first downward stroke of its mighty wings broke branches off small trees nearby, and the dragon rose into the air.

It flew like an arrow, some intractable will upon it, straight into the west, out to sea. The dragon did not roar or release gouts of flame, just angled away from the sunrise with mighty sweeps of its wings. On for miles it went, until the will imposed on it faltered. The dragon banked, wanting to turn, to go back to the safety of the land behind it. Then the supernatural strength at its core faltered, and it plummeted toward the darkness of the ocean thousands of feet below, dwindling from a great red-and-black beast into something smaller.

And then into nothingness.

⸹

The Guardian pulled himself onto the brown sand and lay still.

He didn't know where he was, other than it wouldn't be off the coast of Sunnydale. The current there only took things away, hiding remains and secrets in the dark sea. The cooler temperature suggested he'd been swept toward the north rather than toward Mexico. He doubted he was as far up as Oregon, but he didn't see any lights, so, yeah, maybe. At one point in the long journey back, he'd fought a shark and, later, an orca. His dead flesh was naked now; why wouldn't he look like a good-sized meal? The shark had swam away after two blows, but he feared the obstinate whale would die of its injuries.

Night lay over the beach as he sprawled on the sand. He could see the glow of crabs' eyes occasionally as the creatures scuttled past. Spike couldn't see the point in getting up, but he made himself rise anyway. It was time; he'd made a promise.

Ilona? Theia? Noor? Some name that meant 'light,' anyway. The Guardian. She'd given him the words to say, three of them. He didn't have much voice left, his soft tissues ravaged from days of exposure and dehydration, continual damage even the Gem of Amara couldn't repair. But he croaked out the spell.

A second later, he was in a closed cemetery. He could see the low fence around the acreage and feel the freshly mown grass on the edges of his feet. Somehow, he also had the sense that the last person interred here was in 2052. It wasn't the only new knowledge in his head, and he was standing in front of a pyramid-shaped tomb. The door stood open, so he went inside.

A feeling of disappointment welled up in him; he had a vague idea that a crypt should be posh, somehow. This one had only braziers and torches to break up the stone surfaces, all burning with an oil with whose scent wasn't familiar. The Guardian didn't get plush digs, it seemed.

 _Wait until the Slayer calls you._

He knew what 'wait' meant, though he rather thought the old Guardian should have amended her directions to make 'Slayer' plural. She'd been focused on guiding Sineya to her rest instead of the spell to create more Slayers, he supposed. But it didn't matter. He was ready for the 'wait' part. Until he was called, he could rest.

He could mourn.

With a mind full of newly unlocked spells and the burn of freshly acquired supernatural strength in his chest, it took a mere thought to create the stone door that sealed him inside the tomb. With a wave of his hand, he created a stone sarcophagus and carefully laid his tired body on the surface. As he settled his hands on his chest, Buffy's Scythe shimmered into existence in his grasp. Lia had hidden it; now she could blamelessly say she didn't know where it was. And she would know he had moved on, taken up his new post as promised.

Resting against the blade was a photograph. He'd taken it when Buffy was four or five months along. He'd caught her as she was starting to speak, her mouth open, her eyes dancing with humor. Spike wasn't a photographer; it was a little overexposed, his subject just a little off center. But she was gorgeous and glowing, and he thought it was the only image that truly captured her beautiful eyes. It was his favorite picture of Buffy, and it was such a kind gesture for Lia to make sure he had it.

The fire in the torches and braziers almost immediately began to dim and snap as they guttered from lack of oxygen. The Guardian knew they would blaze to life the moment a Slayer breached the door. He had a sense that it would be many, many years before one did. As the light dimmed, his senses, human and vampire, did as well. Magical sleep overtook him, soft as anything could be in this world without her. He would still dream; he would still mourn; the magic would keep him apprised of any news from the world that might be important. But no one would ask anything of him, leaving the Guardian to his memories of the Slayer.

He let himself cry for the first time since the day Buffy had taken her last breath. Tears still rolled down his cheeks even after the enchanted stasis stilled almost all bodily function. There was nothing left now, except one final promise to a lady.

⸹

Nearly fifty years passed. Damage taken during his final journey healed; magic nourished his body in place of blood. Magic also whispered of events taking place outside his tomb. Wars flared up across the globe. Explorers rose from the earth to colonies on Mars and the moon, never to return. A new kind of music came back from Mars called 'skunk,' a ska-punk hybrid that he rather liked. Borders changed; causes changed; technologies developed and fell beneath newer versions; fashions cycled through short and long hems. At one point, he nearly broke free from the stasis with the realization that his Little Lia Bit was now dead. The only other news he bothered to truly note was that the sea levels stopped rising and temperatures stabilized.

News of the Slayers came to him in Slayer dreams.

He saw everything in vivid detail and color. His charges fought beautifully, lost begrudgingly. He always knew how many they were, and he always knew which of them was the Chosen One of the original line. She always shone just a little brighter in those dreams. The Council of Slayers was a shadow behind the warrior, dim figures putting a weapon in her hand or holding an open book.

They never needed him, so the Guardian mostly looked into his past.

The sharpest grief was in the first three years. He wallowed in all the memories he had of his golden goddess. Images of her burnt into his mind. His Slayer, standing so proud and strong, a dripping weapon in her hand after conquering one of her many foes. His wife, grinning at him as they raced down the aisle, man and wife for the first time. His little mama, holding a baby in each arm on the couch, all of them beautiful and asleep. His lover, magnificent body bowing above his as she played him as though he was her custom-made instrument. His Buffy. Always, his Buffy.

Other memories crept in, eventually, from a heart that had always been too full of love.

Their children at all ages, except for Lem, never older than twenty-nine. Part of Lia's soul had died with her twin on that rain-slick road. He and Buffy had never been the same, either. Parents should never have to see their children go before them, and he mourned for his own mother and the children she never had with new understanding.

He'd lost Buffy for a few weeks then, until she'd broken her dammed emotions with a rant about how stupid, how futile his death had been to a warrior who'd given her own life to save others. The waste of Lem's life had hurt her far more than his death.

She came back to him, just as she had after another breakdown, where she finally admitted that she did not have the power to bring back Dawn and Connor. The Key had been looking for a similar dimension with better medical technology; she and Connor hadn't been able to conceive children. Dawn's ability to open portals was so subtle, creating no ripples in the dimensional walls, that none of Willow's spells could track them. Buffy had taken to leaving an extra spray of flowers on her parents' grave to honor Connor and her sister.

Had they lost a second child when she disappeared? The Guardian wasn't sure, only knew that along with Lia and Lem, Dawn had his eyes and Buffy's scent.

Time rolled by outside of his tomb, taking him further from everything that mattered. He could no longer say if Rupes or Joyce died first, only that Max lived longer than his own children. Other details grew vague. Had Xander died of cancer? Were Oz, Tara, and Willow buried in Sunnydale, too? Did Anya serve as a representative in the state house or in Congress? He remembered she stopped seeking office once the magic that powered April ran out and they buried the loyal robot in a Shady Rest grave.

The love never grew vague, though the details did. The Guardian knew love had always been his true weakness, not sunlight or stakes. He never managed to lose that, not for any of them.

But his love for his Slayer always shone brightest in the long darkness of the tomb.

⸹

Flames in the braziers flared high, licking at the ceiling, and the torches flickered before catching to a steady blaze. Seconds later, the stone over the tomb entrance shattered beneath the force of a kick.

 _Slayer._

The Guardian's eyes came open as his vampiric sense of her woke him. During his wait, the old Guardian's magic had unfurled in his mind and taken up residence inside him. He could appear to this Slayer as anything he chose, but duplicity was never a part of him during life or unlife. He rose from the lid of the sarcophagus. As he moved, black denim and cotton clothed his body. His feet fell neatly into boots and the long leather of his duster, a gift from his Slayer, flared around them. The Guardian placed Buffy's Scythe on the flat surface that served as his bed, giving it a lingering, reverential touch. There was a photograph in his hand; he tucked it neatly into a pocket. He drew in his first breath in decades, knowing he would need air to speak. Then he turned and stepped into reality so this Slayer could see him, unarmed and welcoming.

"Spike."

He couldn't move.

Buffy Anne Summers stood in the broken doorway of the tomb. She looked like his bride, nineteen with long blond hair and golden, unlined skin. She wore a long leather duster, jeans, boots in black leather and an abbreviated red shirt.

Black and red. His signature colors.

Slayer? He wanted to ask, to say that word, but it wouldn't come out. With any of the young women alive on the planet right now who bore the title Chooser or Chosen, he could have spoken, could have managed the conversation, the contact. But looking into her hazel eyes, he couldn't say anything.

She smiled at him, freed him.

"Buffy?"

That was the right word.

Then she was in his arms, solid, and her scent was in his nostrils. She was real.

"Oh, Spike!"

His shoulder creaked beneath the force of her embrace. He didn't care. "Oh, Buffy, my love, my very own."

She pulled away no more than three inches, looking up at him. "Kissing or talking?"

Inside the Guardian's mind, a neon sign began to buzz, then flared into existence, a light that died with his wife so long ago. 'Sit N Bull' blinked into the darkness. The second it did, he was not only in his tomb, but also in another place, belly to belly with his Slayer on the worn mattress of a bed in the room of a motel that hadn't existed in a century.

 _Both._

 _Good choice._ In the tomb, she peppered his wet face with kisses.

 _Oh, my love, how can this be?_ Spike brought his mouth to hers in both places. _Am I dreaming this?_

 _No. I'm here._ She pulled back in the motel room to look at him in the dim light, delight all over her face as she wiped tears from his cheek. _It's real. And I'm not going anywhere._

 _Not going to let you._ In the tomb, his arms squeezed her so hard that he forced air from her lungs.

 _But… not that I'm complaining, love, but how?_ He let go of her body to cup her face and draw her mouth to his once again.

Buffy pulled back and gave him a tremulous smile. _It wasn't heaven without you._

He grew still. _Love… you left heaven for me?_

 _It wasn't heaven,_ she said again, framing his face with her slender fingers.

 _They let you?_

 _It's not prison._

Her tone and eye roll were so Buffy that he gasped out a sob of relief and joy. _But… Oh, kitten, not that I'm not beside myself with joy that you're here –_

– _But you're afraid I'll leave. I know; I get it. I'm never leaving you again, I promise. I don't have to._

Spike's dark brows drew together. _Buffy… was there a price?_

 _No, no,_ she reassured him. _I sort of volunteered._

 _Volunteered for what?_

She lifted a shoulder in a delicate shrug and pulled away from the mindlink. "All these Slayers, and only one Guardian? I convinced them that you needed my help." When Spike only stared at her, dazed, she grinned. "You always need my help."

"Need you," he corrected her. "Need you, Buffy."

Her smile gained an edge of hunger as she pressed her body closer to his. "I, uh, noticed."

Spike gave a dark, wicked chuckle and found her mouth again. She was here, and she wasn't going away. The rest was details.

"Um, bed?" she asked, breaking away to look around the room.

He nodded behind him. "Been on that for a bit." Putting his hands on her waist, he leered at her. "I like your kit."

Buffy laughed. "Yeah, I thought you might."

"I can do better." He grew serious. "For you, I can do better." There were a host of meanings, but for right now, he knew of one good use for his magic.

"Oh, Spike," Buffy breathed, looking around at where a second ago had been nothing but stone walls. They were standing in the bedroom of the Latimer House where they'd celebrated her eighteenth birthday. "It's just like I remember it."

"Think it might be better," he said, lowering his mouth to hers. "We've had more practice."

"We're out of practice," she pointed out, avoiding his kiss so she could shove his coat from his shoulders. "Plus we'll have to get out of all this really tight leather." Then she blinked. "Oh. Guardian magic?"

She stood before him in the same underwear he'd bought her for that birthday. Spike got a predatory glint in his eye as he stood naked before her. "Yeah. Teach you how. But… not just now, Buffy. Have to love you now."

⸹

Much, much later, she began to talk. They'd all been there, she said. Lem and, later, Lia. Joyce. Her Watcher. Their friends, their extended family.

"But not…?"

Buffy shook her head. "Or Connor, either."

He hugged her closer. "Not that I'll ever get to heaven, but I always looked forward to having all the answers."

"It isn't like that," she said, frowning as she tried to put it into words. "It isn't that you don't care if you know, it's just that you're certain everything is all right, that everything is as it's meant to be." Buffy rolled over so she was facing him. "But it wasn't. Not without you." She rubbed his nose. "You get to choose if you want to be active in the afterlife. Not many do; it's really a realm of rest."

"You should have stayed."

 _You know I can't be away from you._

 _Ah, love._ She gave up heaven for _him.  
_

She put a hand on his chest. "I'm not here for a reason," she said quickly, as if she just remembered. "There's no apocalypse to stop or anything."

"Good." He gave her a crooked smile. "I did wonder."

It was her turn to ask a question. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere in Oregon, I think. Just went where the tides took me."

"So you followed the plan? Everyone thinks you're dead and the Gem of Amara is somewhere in the Pacific?"

"Not that anyone really knew I had it, not for sure, but, yeah."

"Do you think we could go to Sunnydale?"

"Of course, love. Whatever you want."

Buffy gave him a slow smile. "Then, I want to go to Sunnydale. But not just yet."

Several more hours later, they stepped out of the tomb. Spike murmured a few words, then turned to Buffy with a furrowed brow. _Did you get the Guardian package?_

 _Nope. I figured you'd teach me what Theia taught you._

' _Course I will. First thing, you need_ –

The thought was cut off by a high-pitched squeal.

"Buffy?" Then someone hurled their body into hers.

Spike stared at the shape that had just attacked his Slayer. "Bit?" he asked, stunned.

Dawn let go of her sister and grabbed Spike. "Oh my God! I came for you," she went back to her sister, "I never expected to find you here." She was laughing and crying both. "Connor!" she called into the darkness of the quiet cemetery.

He moved into view, looking diffident and, though his face was the same, so much older. "Hi, Buffy. Hi, Uncle – oof."

Spike had the boy in a hug. Since Angelus' demise, no other being felt so much like family as Connor, not even Sam Lawson. "Hey, sprog." His voice was shaky. What the bleeding hell was going on here?

"… And then I felt Spike. I knew he had to be around somewhere, being the Guardian, but I couldn't find him. Then, yesterday, for just a moment, there he was." Dawn was explaining to Buffy. "So, as soon as I felt," she peered into the tomb, "this little pocket dimension, we popped over right away."

"But where have you been?" Buffy asked.

"Sunnydale. We stayed with Luisa until I felt the Guardian dimen–"

Connor put a hand on her back. "I think she means all the years we were gone."

"We looked for so long. Oh, Dawnie, we thought you were dead. And when I didn't see you –"

"We were in a dimension where time moved differently," Dawn began.

"Again," Connor said dryly.

"We could come and go, but our children couldn't leave. Nothing native to the dimension can cross."

Buffy grew still. "You had children?"

Connor smiled. "Three. Rabbit, Climbing Bear, and Peregrine."

"It's a place very similar to earth, but North America developed independently."

"They never lost the horse and developed the wheel," Connor said. "Colonists from Asia and Europe didn't have a match for the compound bow."

"And their fertility medicine was top notch, partly herbal and partly magic."

"You had babies," Buffy repeated softly.

"I did." There was a shadow in Dawn's eyes now. "They're gone. So are our grandchildren."

"Ours, too," Buffy said. The sisters were back in each other's arms.

"We – Con and I – weren't aging like we should have. We had to leave. Too many questions."

"I think we're kind of," Connor shrugged, "immortal."

"I died." Buffy gave her a smug smile. "Ninety-six."

"You died again?" Dawn raised an eyebrow.

"She left heaven, Bit."

"It wasn't heaven," she corrected him, "not without you."

"Are you a Guardian, too?" Dawn asked. When Buffy nodded, she finally looked like a little sister again, hopeful and unsure. Looking between Spike and Buffy, she asked, "Do you need any help? Because we don't really know what to do next."

Buffy turned to him. "Well, I'm not a Guardian yet. Kind of a trainee."

"So you could teach all of us," Dawn put in, giving Spike that hopeful, anxious look.

"There's probably a lot of fighting." Connor pulled a sword from the sheath on his back, the one Spike had forged especially for him. "We could help."

"And I'll bet you have to pop up all over the place," Dawn said, moving her right hand to gather Key power.

"And if anybody knows Slayers, it's me." Buffy reached for Spike's hand.

Four Guardians. There hadn't been so many since Sineya still fought on the soil and sand of her native Africa. He stood there, enveloped in the scents and sounds and feel of his family, his Slayer, his Bit, and her Aurelian mate, and felt like crying oceans because his long loneliness was at an end, felt like howling to the moons of Saturn because his heart was so full. Instead, he cleared his throat. Four Guardians of the Slayer line. What couldn't they do? "How do you lot feel about forging some really good weapons this time?"

⸹

Fin

⸹

[Author's Note: Woo-hoo! Fifty-four chapters over a year of posts, and we're finally at the end. If you've enjoyed the long, strange trip, please take a moment to click favorite for 'Life Hard' and make me a happy, happy author. You've already given a lot of time to the story, but if you could take a moment more to leave a comment, I'll be giddy with joy.

Well, I'm actually giddy anyway! Thank you so much for reading, for providing good suggestions, for pointing out errors, for offering encouragement, and mostly for helping a novice create a better story for the next reader. I am humbled by the kindness and the thoughtfulness in the Buffyverse fandom.

Here are four sub-subtext things from Spike's reality you might not have known: 1. In Cleveland, Dawn told him he was losing his accent. He never has to worry about that here. 2. Spike never attempts to make Buffy immortal and keep her from heaven, but he also doesn't have enough bravery to try for heaven himself, too aware of what he did pre-Sunnydale. 3. If you are Spike and you get to create your own reality, you will be even better endowed than the original. He can be a bit of an idiot. 4. The Whirlwind was two vampire couples. At the end of our story, there's a symmetry in that Spike's much kinder, more loving family consisting of two couples as well.

If you're here, I know you aren't afraid of more reading! I cut the original six chapters of this story. That prologue, _Life Harsh_ , is now available here as an _Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ crossover. It tells the story of how Spike's case comes to the attention of the avenging angel who shows up at the very beginning of this tale to give him a nudge out of the crypt toward Africa.

The title of this epilogue, 'And I Dreamed Far Into the Future,' comes from a line of dialogue in the Coen Brothers' movie _Raising Arizona_.

One last time: thank you so much for your time, your attention, and your patience. You, dear reader, have made my life brighter. I hope this story brightened your days, too. – _Soulburnt_ ]


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